"Charlie," said he, as that urchin made his appearance from the inside of the cart, "you stand by the cattle while I put the things aboard." And bringing out a barrel filled with crockery and other things, which Mrs. Payson had clandestinely packed for the occasion, and the wash-boiler full of eatables, and hanging the chairs over the cart stakes, he took down the bedsteads, and placed them in a manner that was highly satisfactory to the energetic minister's wife, and tying up the bed-clothes in great bundles, deposited them also; and saying to Mrs. Payson, "I shall have to fix an easy place for you to ride, as you've been sick," he laid the hard beds in the empty space which he had left for that purpose in the cart, with the feather beds above, saying,-- "There, you won't feel the motion much now;" and assisting her to mount, she was enthroned on her downy seat on the top of the load, with the children in high glee by her side. The steers, which were notoriously unruly, as if aware that they had a minister's wife aboard, behaved with becoming decorum under Tom's wise supervision. Now, it chanced that some careless hunter, firing into the dry prairie grass on the other side of the town, had started a fire. Mrs. Payson had noticed in the morning that there was a smell of burning in the air, and a hazy appearance, but had attached no particular importance to it; but as they approached the town, a scene of great magnificence burst upon her. The fires, driven with velocity before the wind, had swept over the prairies, and reached the belt of woods, in a portion of which were the eighty acres that her husband was at work upon. The flames were crackling and roaring in the forests, burning up the dry underbrush, shooting to the tops of the old dead pines, so that the scene being constantly on her left, was more or less in view for most of the distance. "What shall we do?" asked Tom, in alarm. "Hadn't we better go back?" "Do you think the fire has reached my husband's claim?" she answered. Tom scanned the appearance of the smoke with a practised eye, and at length replied,-- "No; it's not got as far as there yet." "Do you think it will?" she inquired, anxiously. "If the wind does not change, it must before a great while," he said, "although it will have to cross the road, which will backen it some." "Would it burn up the cabin, then?" she inquired. "I am afraid it would," he answered. "Well," said she, firmly, "I said I would go into that cabin in four weeks, and if it's not burnt down, I shall keep my word. At any rate we shall be in season to see the fire!" Then she added, looking grave, "I do hope, if it is the Lord's will, that the fire will be checked in time, my husband has toiled so hard."