sky blazed. After sultry storm days, many of the nights were
darkened by smooth black apparently structureless cloud-mantles which
at short intervals were illumined with startling suddenness to a fiery
glow by quick, quivering lightning-flashes, revealing the landscape in
almost noonday brightness, to be instantly quenched in solid
blackness.

But those first days and weeks of unmixed enjoyment and freedom,
reveling in the wonderful wildness about us, were soon to be mingled
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, comparing their heat with that of
hell, and the branches with bad boys. "Now, John," he would
say,--"now, John, just think what an awful thing it would be to be
thrown into that fire:--and then think of hellfire, that is so many
times hotter. Into that fire all bad boys, with sinners of every sort
who disobey God, will be cast as we are casting branches into this
brush fire, and although suffering so much, their sufferings will
never never end, because neither the fire nor the sinners can die."
But those terrible fire lessons quickly faded away in the blithe
wilderness air; for no fire can be hotter than the heavenly fire of
faith and hope that burns in every healthy boy's heart.

Soon after our arrival in the woods some one added a cat and puppy to
the animals father had bought. The cat soon had kittens, and it was
interesting to watch her feeding, protecting, and training them. After
they were able to leave their nest and play, she went out hunting and
brought in many kinds of birds and squirrels for them, mostly ground
squirrels (spermophiles), called "gophers" in Wisconsin. When she got
within a dozen yards or so of the shanty, she announced her approach
by a peculiar call, and the sleeping kittens immediately bounced up
and ran to meet her, all racing for the first bite of they knew not
what, and we too ran to see what she brought. She then lay down a few
minutes to rest and enjoy the enjoyment of her feasting family, and
again vanished in the grass and flowers, coming and going every
half-hour or so. Some