Now, the ways of the most insignificant brushfire are beyond the
exact wisdom of man. Especially in droughty weather. When they
knocked off work for the day, the two laborers had gone back to
the blaze beyond the tool-house and conscientiously had scattered
and stamped on its last visible remnants. The Master, too, coming
home from his evening walk, had glanced toward the back garden
and had seen no telltale spark to hint at life in the trampled
fire.
Nevertheless, a scrap of ember, hidden from the men's gaze
beneath a handful of dead leaves had refused to perish with its
comrade-sparks. And, in the course of five hours, an industrious
little flicker had ignited other bits of brush and of dried
leafage and last year's weed stumps. The wind was in the north.
And it had guided the course of the crawling thread of red. The
advancing line had thrown out tendrils of scarlet, as it went.
Most of these had died, in the plowed ground. One had not. It had
crept on, half-extinguished at times and again snapping merrily,
until it had reached the tool-house.
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