s of
every penny that we make by taking advantage of the helplessness of
afflicted families. And just calculate what our loss would then be;
for, in the beautiful language of St. Demetrius, the silversmith,
"Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth."

* * * * *

FROM MISS FENIMORE COOPER'S (UNPUBLISHED) "RURAL HOURS."

FIRE IN THE WOODS.

Observing an old branchless trunk of the largest size, in a striking
position, where it looked like a broken column, we walked up to
examine it. The shaft rose, without a curve or a branch, to the height
of perhaps forty feet, where it had been abruptly shivered, probably
in some storm. The tree was a chestnut, and the bark of a clear,
unsullied gray; walking round it, we saw an opening near the ground,
and to our surprise found the trunk hollow, and entirely charred
within, black as a chimney, from the root to the point where it was
broken off. It frequently happens that fire steals into the heart of
an old tree, in this way, by some opening near the roots, and burns
away the inside, leaving merely a gray outer shell. One would not
expect the bark to be left in such cases, but the wood at the heart
seems to be more inflammable than the outer growth. Whatever be the
cause, such shafts are not uncommon about our hills, gray without,
charred within.

There is, indeed, much charred wood in our forests; fires which sweep
over the hills are of frequent occurrence here, and at times they do
much mischief. If the flames are once fairly kindled in dry weather,
they will spread in all directions as the wind varies, burning
sometimes for weeks together, until they have swept over miles of
woodland, withering the verdure, destroying the wood already cut, and
greatly injuring many trees which they do not consume. Several years
since, in the month of June, there was quite an extensive fire on
the eastern range of hills; it lasted for ten days or a fortnight,
spreading several miles in different directions. It was the first
important fire of the kind we had ever seen, and of course we
watched its progress with much interest; but the spectacle was a very
different one from what we had supposed. It was much less terrible
than the conflagration of buildings in a town; there was less of power
and fierce grandeur, and more of treacherous beauty about the flames
as they ran hither and thither along the mountain-side. The first
night after it broke out we lo