“She looked a leetle harder an’ a leetle sterner. Her eyes kind o’ snapped. “‘Well?’ I sais agin. “‘I hevn’t no petickler dislike,’ sais she, ‘but ye ain’t my idee of a man. A man should move sometim’s.’ “‘Pet,’ I sais, ‘I know I ain’t much on leetle things, but wait tell they’s big things to do. Then I’ll startle ye!’ “I turned an’ walked out o’ the gate an’ ’long the road toward home. “She didn’t hev to wait long. That wery night ez I set on the porch, I seen a big snake o’ fire come pokin’ his head over the mo’ntain top to the north’ard of us. Fer a time he laid ’round in the huckleberry shelf there, rollin’ an’ floppin’ about the bushes, like he was takin’ in the walley an’ wonderin’ what was the easiest way down the side to the chestnut flats where they was big piles o’ leaves, laurel bushes dry ez chips, an’ hundreds o’ dead trees, all waitin’ to be devoured. Mighty fine the ole snake looked, an’ a heap o’ pleasure it give me watchin’ him. “The thin line o’ fire begin to spread ez it adwanced, an’ soon the whole side o’ the mo’ntain was ablaze. It was jest a solid bed o’ red. Now an’ then the flames ’ud jump to the top o’ some ole pine, the tree ’ud beat wild like, to an’ fro, tryin’ to shake ’em off, an’ showers o’ sparks ’ud go whirlin’ away inter the sky. “‘Mighty souls!’ I sais to meself. ‘It’s jest like a monstrous big band festival ’hen all the boys is out with torches an’ they hes a bonfire an’ fireworks an’ music.’ “Music? I hear agin the rat-tat-tat o’ the hammer an’ the shingle nails; an’ I thot o’ her. “The fire hed reached the flats. It was movin’ right on the clearin’ where she was all alone, fer Andy was workin’ in the saw-mill in Windy Gap. “You uns otter seen me an’ Major skippin’ up the lane then. They was no loafin’ about it. Never oncet did we stop tell we reached the ridge. There we left the road an’ cut th’oo the fiel’s. Soon we was over them an’ in the woods. We stumbled on an’ on, tumblin’ over lawgs an’ stones, an’ fallin’ inter bushes tell we reached the top o’ the hill an’ looked right down inter the gut. “There we stopped, fer we was spelled like--me an’ Major--an’ jest stood an’ stared. The smoke filled the whole leetle walley. Th’oo it we could see the glare o’ the burnin’ chestnut flats. Big tongues o’ flame was shootin’ up an’ lickin’ ’round in the air. We could hear the snappin’ an’ crashin’ o’ the trees. We could hear the scream o’ the wild cats ez they was tearin’ fer the open country. A coon run right inter Major, an’ scampered away agin, snarlin’, but the hound never oncet lifted his eyes offen the gut. A loud snortin’ startled me, an’ a razor-backed pig come gallopin’ over the hill. Then they was a bellerin’ an’ a crashin’ o’ bushes, below us. The broken-horned cow run pantin’ up the ridge, an’ by us an’ on th’oo the woods. ’Hen me an Major seen her we jumped for’a’d together an’ tore down th’oo the blindin’ smoke to the clearin’.