"Yes, sir. Me and Wallace drowned it slap out! Say, maybe it's the schoolhouse, and we won't have to go to school no more!" "Son! You oughtn't to say such a thing!" "I didn't mean it, Papa." We wheeled around the last big curve in the road and began climbing the high hill between us and the fire. Just as soon as the mules could pull our wagon to the top, we'd see what was burning up. For a minute I wondered why nobody had said it might be Papa's store. Then I knew. It was his store, and they all knew it. "Papa?" "Yeah, Bandershanks?" "I wish it ain't your store, Papa." "Yeah, sugar, I know. Great Jehoshaphat and gully dirt! Look at that! Nannie, look!" We all saw it. Not the store—it was done swallowed up. The huge blaze shooting up was as high as stores and stores stacked on top of each other and getting higher all the time! Wild flames, roaring and leaping, were trying to climb to the clouds and set them on fire! "Oh, Nannie, our lifetime of work, going up in smoke!" The wind was blowing smoke toward us, and already we could feel the heat. As we got closer, more and more sparks and cinders came flying in the air. "Jodie, yonder's a whole bunch of men!" "Where?" "Backed up there between the fire and the schoolhouse branch." "Yeah, I see them now. They've been trying to put it out for us! Nannie, it won't be safe for y'all to go any closer. I'll stop the wagon here at the gin. Now, you young'uns stay with your mama." "Jodie, it's too late to do a thing! Don't you go up close! All them cartons of shotgun shells could go off." "They've done exploded. That's what Bandershanks heard. Nannie, I've gotta go close enough to see if I can tell how and where that low-down fool set the fire." "What'd you say, Papa?" "Nothing of any consequence, son. You hitch the mules for me. Here, hold the reins." Papa leaped from the wagon and ran up the slope, straight toward the fire. "Take care, Jodie!" "Mama, soon's I hitch the mules, lem'me go find out what it looks like on the other side! I ain't never seen such a fire in my whole life! I'll run way around. I won't get no closer'n we are right now." "Lemme go too, Mama." "If Mierd goes, can I go, Mama?" "Now, now, children, Papa said for y'all to stay with me. I tell you what we'll do. I'll walk with you, and we'll make our way up toward the schoolhouse spring. But now y'all have got to keep close to me and close to the branch." "Hot diggity! Come on!" "Mama?" "What, Mierd?" "How come the fire just keeps on and on burning so terrible?" "For one thing, the timbers in the store are pine, heart pine, full of fat—even the shingles on the roof. Besides, the shelves were stocked full of Christmas goods—things that burn easy. And, there's all that coal oil, and cloth—just everything." "Mama, all our candy's burning up!" "Yeah, Bandershanks. I guess it is. Don't cry, hon!"