for a moment or two teddy thought his sister was “pretending,” as she often did, or that she was “fooling” him. but she seemed so much in earnest as he looked at her that he could not but believe what she said was true. still he asked:
“honest, is it burning?”
“cross my heart it is!” answered janet, this being the strongest way she had of letting her brother know it was the truth she was speaking. “the sawdust pile is truly on fire!”
and a moment later ted saw it for himself. the big pile of fine, wooden dust thrown off by the big buzz saw was blazing and smoking, and running around it were many of the lumbermen.
“oh, i go get my fire engine!” cried trouble. he pulled his hand away from janet who was holding him.
[211]“no, you stay right with me!” she ordered, running after him.
trouble had a toy fire engine that sometimes squirted real water out of a tiny hose that was fast to it. i say “sometimes,” for often the fire engine could not be found, and, when found, it might not work because trouble had stuffed sand or something else in the hose. but now his thought was of this toy as he saw the burning sawdust pile.
“i put it out wif my engine,” he said.
“you’d better keep away,” advised ted. “this is going to be a bad fire,” and he took hold of trouble’s other hand to help janet hold the little fellow.
“do you think it will be bad, ted?” asked janet, in a low voice.
“i guess so,” he answered. “look at the smoke!”
there was a great cloud of it now swirling around the sawmill.
“do you think our bungalow will catch?” janet next wanted to know.
“oh, i guess not,” said ted hopefully. “the wind isn’t blowing that way.”
at the time his father’s store was burning he had heard some of the firemen speak of the wind, and teddy remembered this now.
[212]“i wouldn’t want our bungalow to burn,” went on janet. “if i thought it was i’d get out my dolls.”
“an’ i want my fire engine!” wailed trouble. “i don’t want it to burn up! oh, dear!”
“it won’t burn,” janet consoled him. “come, we’ll go home,” she added. “i see mother calling us.”
mrs. martin was in the doorway of the bungalow, beckoning to the children. when the sawdust pile caught fire she had come to see where they were.
“come in out of the way!” she called, and they ran to her.
by this time a gang of the lumbermen were starting to put out the fire. there was a short length of hose from which a small stream of water spurted, and, for a time, ted wondered where it came from, as he knew there were no fire engines in the woods.
“how did it start, mother?” asked janet.
“by sparks from the sawmill engine smoke stack, i think,” was the answer.
“will it burn the store?” asked trouble.
“i think not,” his mother replied. “and see, the men are pulling the sawdust pile[213] apart to get the burning side away from that which hasn’t yet started to burn.”
the lumbermen saw that this was the only way to stop the fire from spreading. as yet only one side of the sawdust pile was on fire. working on the side that was not yet blazing, with shovels and long sticks, the men were pulling the mass of fine, wooden dust into two parts.
it was just as if you had set fire to one side of a big pile of leaves, and then found that you didn’t want to burn them all. if you had no water to throw on the fire you could, with a rake, pull off to one side in the street those leaves that had not already caught fire. then you could let those that had caught burn out.
that is what the lumbermen did. they separated the sawdust pile in two parts, with a space between them. there was a little water to squirt on the blaze, but not much. the small hose came from the water tank with which the boiler of the sawmill engine was filled, and this stream, with no pump behind to force it out, only dribbled a little way.
“don’t waste that water on the fire!” cried tod everett.
[214]“why not?” asked one of the men.
“because we haven’t enough. use the hose to wet the ground between the two piles, and then the fire won’t travel over.”
this was good advice, for the fire in the blazing part of the sawdust was now so strong that it would have taken a large stream of water to put it out. but a little water would answer to wet the space between the two piles of dust, and this the foreman wanted done.
his men heeded what he said, and soon most of the danger was over. the larger pile of clean sawdust had been pulled far to one side so it would not catch, and the remainder was allowed to burn itself out.
“couldn’t i squirt with my engine just a little bit?” begged trouble, when he saw that the excitement was dying out with the fire.
“no, indeed,” his mother told him. “fires are good places to stay away from for little boys.”
“i’m gettin’ to be a big boy. daddy said so,” pouted trouble.
“well, you aren’t big enough, yet, to put out fires,” his mother remarked, with a laugh.
[215]but a little later the fire was so nearly out that she took the curlytops and trouble close to see what damage had been done. aside from a few boards and the sawdust that had been burned, the loss was small. there was no loss in the sawdust, for it was of no use. some farmers living near by used to come to get a load or two to fill their ice houses, but the remainder was allowed to rot in the forest.
after the fire was over mr. martin and tod everett, the foreman, began asking how it had started. no one had really seen the first tiny blaze begin, but it was thought that sparks from the smoke stack of the sawmill must have started it. this seemed most likely.
“then you had better put a spark arrester on that stack,” said mr. martin to the mill foreman.
“i will,” agreed mr. everett. “we don’t want any more blazes. the next time more than sawdust might go up in smoke. i intended to have a spark arrester on that stack all along, but there has been so much to do, starting this new camp, that i haven’t got at it. but i surely will make a spark arrester now.”
[216]“mother, how can they arrest sparks?” trouble asked in a whisper, as he heard this talk. “does they have a policeman to arrest sparks?”
“if they do he’d have to travel in an airship!” laughed ted. “for the sparks are always flying through the air.”
“mr. everett didn’t mean a policeman, dear,” explained mrs. martin to trouble. “he means a spark arrester would stop the sparks from flying from the stacks. arrest means to stop, you know.”
“how do they stop the sparks,” asked ted.
“generally they put a piece of wire netting over the top of the chimney or smokestack,” his mother answered. “the smoke can go through the netting, but the sparks can’t. it is the big, red hot sparks, flying from the stack, that do the damage. in most locomotives there are these spark arresters of iron or wire netting.”
“i never saw any,” janet said.
“that’s because they are set down inside the locomotive smokestack,” was the answer.
the next day the children watched men fasten a heavy piece of wire netting over the top of the sawmill smokestack.
[217]of all the places about the lumber camp where the curlytops best liked to be, the sawmill was their choice. they liked to watch the big trees chopped or sawed down, they were fond of lingering near the log chute, and they delighted to see the men build timber rafts on the river and float on them.
but the sawmill they liked best of all. there was a delightfully clean smell about it—a smell of the woods as the logs were cut into boards, the sawdust flying about in a cloud. the saw, too, made such a funny “zipping” sound. first there would be a low hum, as the sharp teeth bit into the end of the log. then the sound would become higher and shriller as the saw turned faster and faster.
finally there would sound a whine, like that of some animal, and the saw would come to the end of the log with a “zip,” and then there would be only a low, pleasant hum.
the saw was not the only piece of machinery in the mill that moved. another piece was the “carriage,” on which the log was carried toward the saw. this carriage was a frame work on which the log rested[218] as it went forward inch by inch and foot by foot to be cut into board lengths. besides the carriage there was a log chain, winding around a drum.
the logs were brought near the end of the long incline up which they were first hauled by this chain. on the end of the chain was a great hook. this hook would either be driven into the log by one of the men pounding it with his axe, or the chain would be wrapped about the log and the hook caught in the chain.
“pull away!” the lumberman would call to the engineer. the engineer would then shove over a handle, the chain would begin to wind itself up around the drum and the log would be hauled up to the saw carriage.
other men would take off the chain and roll the log in place, fastening it on the carriage so it would not slip.
“all ready!” they would call, and the engineer would pull another handle which would start the carriage, carrying the log, end on, toward the big buzz saw.
at certain times, when she could be with them, the curlytops and trouble were taken by their mother to the sawmill. and when there was a long log on the carriage, just[219] starting to be cut up, she would let them sit down on the far end of the traveling frame and “ride.” this was the greatest fun of all.
it was almost as good as being an engineer of the mill, ted used to think. as for janet, she pretended the slow-moving log and the carriage on which it rested was a chariot drawn by big elephants going through the jungle.
as for trouble, he liked to pretend that the sawmill carriage and log was his “horsie,” and he sat astride the log and cried:
“gid-dap! gid-dap!”
now, without anyone knowing it, trouble had watched the engineer of the mill pull the handles that started the machinery until the little fellow, who was very smart, felt sure he could do it himself. he only wanted the chance, and he knew he must be alone, for he felt sure his mother would not let him go there if she saw him.
so, watching his opportunity, trouble one day stole away to the sawmill. as it happened, the machinery was not running, though the power needed but to be turned on, and none of the men was in the place.[220] it was trouble’s chance. he had the whole mill to himself.
“i get a wide,” he murmured.
he toddled to the handle he had so often seen the engineer pull when he wanted to start the saw to buzzing and the carriage to rolling along. there was a big log already in place.
trouble pulled. at first nothing happened. he pulled again, harder than before. there was a hissing sound, a low rumble, and the saw began slowly to revolve. then the carriage started gently forward.
“i do it!” cried trouble in delight. “now i get a wide!”
he ran to the far end of the log and carriage and sat down, pretending that he was astride his “horse.”
trouble was having a ride! but it was a dangerous ride!
