My Boyhood and Touth 



not share the same fate, for oftentimes the 

 whole sky blazed. After sultry storm days, 

 many of the nights were darkened by smooth 

 black apparently structureless cloud-mantles 

 which at short intervals were illimiined with 

 startling suddenness to a fiery glow by quick, 

 quivering lightning-flashes, revealing the land- 

 scape in almost noonday brightness, to be in- 

 stantly quenched in solid blackness. 



But those first days and weeks of unmixed 

 enjoyment and freedom, reveling in the won- 

 derful wildness about us, were soon to be min- 

 gled with the hard work of making a farm. I 

 was first put to burning brush in clearing land 

 for the plough. Those magnificent brush fires 

 with great white hearts and red flames, the 

 first big, wild outdoor fires I had ever seen, 

 were wonderful sights for young eyes. Again 

 and again, when they were burning fiercest so 

 that we could hardly approach near enough to 

 throw on another branch, father put them to 

 awfully practical use as warning lessons, com- 

 paring their heat with that of hell, and the 

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