es were still standing; but his
wife met him with a depressed bearing quite in contrast to her usual
sprightly manner. It so struck to his heart to see how badly she felt,
that--although his glance from the saddle showed that the flames had
not spared his beloved grove, and had consumed the rails, of which he
had been so proud, and spoiled many a promising tree--with a desperate
endeavor, he set about comforting her.

"O, this is nothing," said he--"nothing at all! Consider what it would
have been had the cabin taken fire, and you and the children been in
danger."

"Which would have been the case," she added, "had not our quick-moving
town owner, Mr. Caswell, come to the rescue with his usual energy, at
the head of a force of men and teams, bringing with them hogsheads of
water, and pails, with which to throw it upon the fire. You have
reason to thank them; for they worked as I never saw men work
before."

"But how did the fire commence?" he asked.

"Why, you see," said she, "after you left, I said to the children,
'Father's gone to the Land Office to buy the land; and now we'll stir
around, and see how nice we can make everything look by the time he
gets back.' Well, you know how unsightly the chips looked around the
house, and which you had not had time to remove. So we went to work
raking them up into little heaps. While we were thus employed, we
heard the report of a gun in the bushes near by. The morning, you
recollect, was quite calm; but just as the gun was fired, a gust of
wind swept over the place, carrying with it some burning wadding that
alighted in a dry log some rods away. Before I could get there, the
inflammable wood was afire, and from that other sparks had been borne
on, and at once had kindled flames in a number of different places.
Seeing that it was impossible to arrest the progress of the
conflagration, I sent Helen to the nearest neighbor's to give the
alarm, and, as I have already said, by the help of those that came,
our cabin was barely saved, and the neighbors had to fight hard to
preserve their own dwellings."

Each day after that the missionary would walk about his blackened
domain, pondering the uncertainty of all sublunary things, about which
he had so often preached, his wife scrutinizing his disconsolate face
the while, and he repeating, with an emphasis that showed he was
saying it for his own benefit as much as hers,--

"O, it's nothing at all--nothing at all; and as for those