A faint curl of smoke caught her eye and she made for it
through the field.
It was a small cabin, and the woman in it had just gotten her fire
well started for the morning, when a girl bare-headed and bare-footed,
dripping wet to the skin, her damp hair hanging down her back,
her face white and her eyes like coals, rushed in almost without knocking
and asked for a chunk of fire. The woman had no time to refuse
(she told of it afterward when she described the burning of the bridge);
for without waiting for answer and before she really took in
that it was not a ghost, the girl had seized the biggest chunk on the hearth
and was running with it across the field. In fact, the woman rather thought
she was an evil spirit; for she saw her seize a whole panel of fence --
more rails than she could have carried to save her life, she said,
and dashed with them over the hill.
In Vashti's mind, indeed, it was no time to waste words,
she was back on the bridge with the chunk of fire and an armful of rails
before the woman recovered from her astonishment, and was down on her knees
blowing her chunk to rekindle it. The rails, however, like everything else,
were wet and would not light, and she was in despair. At last she got
a little blaze started, but it would not burn fast; it simply smoked.
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