She came back in a few moments, tugging a great basket of wood,
which she arranged in an orderly, solid pile across the andirons,
much as she might have placed it, had she been packing it in a
woodshed. Then she added a generous handful of shavings, and
touched it off with a match.

"There!" said she, with a prolonged accent of contentment; "you
see it's easy enough. It will all be going, in a minute."

"Don't you be too sure," returned Molly, doubtfully eyeing the
shavings which flashed into flame and quickly died away, leaving
the wood unscorched.

"What do you suppose is the matter?" said Polly, rather annoyed at
her lack of success.

"Seems to me you've put the wood in too tight," said Molly, arming
herself with the shovel, and trying to pry the sticks apart.

"Perhaps I have," said Polly meekly.

Regardless of soot and ashes, she pulled the wood out on the rug,
and began again. This time she arranged it cris-crossing as
regularly as the walls of a log-house, and, having exhausted her
supply of shavings, she lighted a newspaper and thrust it into the
middle opening. The girls watched it with eager eyes. It blazed up
like the shavings and, like them, burned out, leaving only the
blackened cinders, with here and there a line of red, to show
where an edge had been. This was discouraging; the room was
uncomfortably cool, and they were wasting their entire evening in