effect other than making the furnace beneath hiss angrily 
for a moment and sand up a cloud of steam instead of smoke 
There was but one attractive feature connected 
with this deplorable fire and that was the smoke, which 
a 
had/rich, resinous, almost fruity aroma more pleasing to 
the nostrils than the choicest incense. It seemed the 
epitome of a century’s growth, the fragrance of the hundred 
or more summers that have passed since these giant trees 
were young, gathered, season after season, from the south 
wind, from the breath of the white azalea and clethra that 
grow in the neighboring swamp, from the white water lilies 
that float on the river, from the myriad wild flowers that 
deck the adjacent fields and woods and stored carefully away 
by provident Nature in the deep mat. of fallen leaves, to be 
at length released by the subtle agency of fire and dis¬ 
seminated to the four quarters of the earth. I could 
smell this smoke distinctly at the Buttricks* after my return 
in the evening, although the wind was apparently unfavorable 
to its progress in that direction. It must have been 
wafted westward by some upper current of air and then have 
descended again. 
The absence of rain for so many weeks is fast 
bringing on a severe drought. The smaller trees and shrubs 
are wilting and the grass turning brown. 
