There is a great difference between understanding theoretically how a thing is done, and being able actually to do it; for, in practice, various difficulties are apt to occur, which are not foreseen by one who knows only the theory. Rollo and James found this to be the case, in their efforts to make charcoal. Rollo felt very confident that he understood the whole process perfectly, and that he should find no difficulty whatever in carrying it through successfully. He was not aware how many difficulties occur in the practical execution of what appears beforehand to be attended with no difficulty at all.

“Are you sure you can make charcoal?” said James.

“Yes,” said Rollo, “I know I can. Jonas told me everything which I must do. First, we must get some short sticks of wood.”

He and James went to the shed, and selected some pieces of wood, which Rollo said would be suitable for their charcoal bed. He put them into a small saw-horse, which Jonas had made for him to saw wood in, and without much difficulty he sawed a sufficient quantity. James put the sticks into Rollo’s little wheelbarrow as fast as they were sawed. It was not very long before the wheelbarrow was filled nearly full.

“Come, Rollo,” said James; “here is enough.”

“No,” said Rollo; “let us fill the wheelbarrow full.”

“Why, Rollo,” said James, “you’ve got enough already to make a barrel of gunpowder.”

“O, it won’t all come into gunpowder,” said Rollo; “some of the wood will burn up, I expect. You see we are going to have slow combustion.”

“Slow what?” said James.

“Slow combustion,” replied Rollo; “don’t you know what combustion means?”

“No,” said James.

“It means burning; that is, one kind of burning. You see there are a great many kinds of burning. Combustion is when it burns all up. If you put your finger in the fire and burn it, it doesn’t burn up, does it?”

“I suppose it would, if I held it in long enough,” said James.

“Yes,” said Rollo—“but,——there, I think we’ve got enough now. If you’ll be wheeling it along, I’ll go and get some fire.”

So James wheeled the wheelbarrow along towards the gate, and Rollo went into the house after some fire. He found that the lantern was not there, for Jonas had carried it into the pasture; and as Dorothy said that it would not be safe for him to carry any coals out, on such a windy day, he took some matches of the kind that take fire by being rubbed against any thing hard, and went along after James.

Rollo had intended to ask Jonas to cut him some turf, to cover his charcoal bed with; but he had not done it yet, and so he got a spade to carry along with him, thinking that he and James could cut the turf themselves. The spade was rather heavy to carry, and so he took hold of the handle, and dragged it along, letting the blade trail upon the ground. He overtook James at the great gate.

They passed through the gate, and went on, James trundling the wheelbarrow, and Rollo following him with the spade. At last, they came to the place where Rollo had determined to have his charcoal bed. It was a smooth piece of grass ground, a short distance beyond the garden, and so far from any fence that there was no danger of setting the fences on fire. It was, in fact, a very suitable place. Rollo had selected it with great discretion.

“And now,” said Rollo, “the first thing is to dig up some turf. We want some large pieces of turf.”

“What for?” said James.

“Why, to cover up our charcoal with.”

“What do you want to cover it up for?” said James. “Besides, I should think you would want to make it, before you cover it up.”

“Why, that is the way we make it,” said Rollo; “we have to cover the wood up with turf.”

“O, the wood,” said James, “you said the charcoal.”

“No, the wood,” replied Rollo; “we want to cover up the wood.”

“Then it won’t burn,” said James, “if you cover it all up with turf.”

“Yes,” replied Rollo; “it will burn very slowly. We don’t want it to burn fast. That is the very reason why we cover it up with turf, to keep it from burning fast.”

“I should think it would be best to pour a little water on it,” said James, “if it was burning too fast.”

“No,” said Rollo; “we must cover it up with turf. Jonas said so. And I must cut it.”

So Rollo began to cut turf with his spade. He found it, however, very hard. It is very hard work to cut turf. After he had cut a square place out, it was very difficult to crowd the spade under it, so as to get the piece of turf out. He, however, succeeded in cutting one piece; and then the next was easier. After working patiently for about a quarter of an hour, stopping occasionally to rest, and to wish that Jonas would come and finish cutting the turf for him, he succeeded in laying bare a spot of ground large enough for his coal bed; and, on looking at the pieces of turf which he had got off, he could not but hope that they might possibly be enough to cover his wood with. At any rate, he thought he would try it; for he could cut more, he said, if at last he found that he should want more. He therefore began to pile up his wood in the spot left bare by the removal of the turf.

“We must leave a hole down in the middle,” said he to James, “to put the fire in. I ought to have had some boards for it.”

Rollo wanted James to go up to the house, and get some short boards; but James said that he did not know where he could find any, and finally Rollo concluded to make the hole as well as he could by leaving a space, in piling the wood. He succeeded pretty well in doing this. In fact, he piled his heap very well, making it compact and snug, and rounding it up on the top as Jonas had directed, so that it could be easily covered with the turf.

“Now,” said Rollo, “we will cover it up. You hand me the pieces of turf, James, and I will put them on.”

James handed Rollo one large piece of turf, and Rollo placed it against the side of his heap of wood. He then brought him a second, and Rollo attempted to place it next to the first, but it did not fit very well.

“There now,” said Rollo, “I haven’t got any knife.”

“What do you want a knife for?” asked James.

“To cut off some of this turf, and make it fit into its place.”

“Must you make it fit exactly?” asked James.

“Yes,” said Rollo; “so Jonas said. But I can cut it with the spade.”

So Rollo laid down the piece of turf upon the ground, and attempted to cut away one side of it with the spade. He could not do it very well. He was not strong enough to do it with one blow, and, in striking down the spade upon it repeatedly, he could not always hit the same place; and so he mangled the edge, and bruised it to pieces. However, it fitted better than it did before, though there was still an interstice left, at the lower corner, between the two pieces of turf and the ground.

“It doesn’t fit exactly,” said Rollo; “but no matter. There must some air get in.”

He placed the other pieces of turf in a row around the heap. After he had gone all around, there were some left, but not enough to cover the top over. They, however, covered it as well as they could, and then Rollo said he would kindle the fire and put it in; and then, while it was getting a burning, he would cut some more turf, and finish covering it.

They had some difficulty in getting fire. In the first place, the match would not light. Rollo did not see any thing to rub it upon but the handle of the spade, and that was so smooth and glossy, from long use, that it did not produce friction enough to inflame the match. Finally, James rubbed one of the matches upon the side of the wheelbarrow, and that lighted it; but then they had no kindling ready, and, of course, as the large sticks of wood could not be lighted by a match, James, after holding it until it was just ready to burn his fingers, threw it down. Then Rollo did what he ought to have done before. He collected together some leaves and dried grass, and splinters of wood, which he found lying about, so as to have some combustibles ready when the next match should be lighted. By this means they soon had a little fire at a short distance from the heap of wood which they had prepared for their charcoal bed.

As soon as their fire began to burn, they attempted to move it into the hole in the middle of the heap of wood. They took off the little sticks and chips from the fire, which were blazing at one end, and dropped them one by one into the hole.

“I don’t believe the fire will burn down in that hole,” said James.

“Yes it will,” replied Rollo. “That’s the way they always set the charcoal beds on fire.”

But, notwithstanding Rollo’s confidence, the chips and sticks, though they had burned very freely while in the open air above, did not appear at all inclined to burn in the hole. One reason was, that the boys did not wait long enough for them to get well heated. The ends which were together were on fire, it is true; but the other ends were cold, and the heap of wood was cold, so that every little brand, though it was blazing when the boys took it off the fire, was at once chilled below the point at which combustion continues as soon as it was dropped into the hole. Consequently, after they had dropped all the pieces in, they saw nothing but smoke come out, and even the smoke grew dim.

“It is all going out,” said James.

“We must make a bigger fire,” said Rollo. “I wish I had a pair of tongs here to take out the old sticks, and then we would make a bigger fire.”

But Rollo had no tongs; and so he was obliged to take down his pile in part, in order to get the dead brands out of the middle of it. Then they built another little fire. They waited for this until it was much hotter; and so they succeeded at last in getting a little fire to burn in the middle of their heap of wood.

“As soon as it begins to burn pretty well,” said Rollo, “I must cover it all up with sods.”

“Then that will put it all out,” said James, “I know.”

“No,” said Rollo; “it will only make it burn slow.”

“I think it will put it all out,” replied James.

Rollo himself had some misgivings whether his wood would really burn very well, when all covered up with turf, and he thought that at any rate he would let it get well on fire before he put the turf on. In the mean time, he took the spade, and began to cut the turf, to have it ready.

He found it now very hard to cut the turf,—both because he was tired of cutting it, and also because he had now to begin in a new place, as his woodpile covered the place which he had taken the turf off from before. It is always harder to cut the first turf than it is those that come afterwards.

Rollo succeeded in getting one or two more pieces, and as soon as the heap of wood seemed to be pretty well on fire, he put these pieces on over the top; but they were not enough to cover it, and as the fire increased, the flames came up more and more from the spaces left uncovered.

“O dear me!” said Rollo. “I can’t cut the turf fast enough to cover it.”

“Shovel up some earth, and put on,” said James.

So Rollo began to shovel up the earth from the place which he had made bare by taking off the turf, and to throw it upon the fire. This had an immediate effect in suppressing the flames which were breaking out; and by continuing to throw on earth, he at length got the fire fairly subdued. The earth did not cover the heap. It slid down among the interstices of the wood, and smothered the fire, so that pretty soon Rollo thought that the fire was burning slowly enough to make charcoal.

“If we had some water in a watering-pot, that would be better,” said James.

“So it would,” said Rollo.

“Then we could make the fire burn just as slowly as we pleased,” said James.

“Yes,” said Rollo; “let us go and get a watering-pot. We can get back before it burns up again.”

“Well,” said James; “and we’ll carry up the wheelbarrow and the spade.”

So Rollo took the wheelbarrow, and James the spade, and they walked along towards the house, talking about what they should do with their gunpowder when they had got it made. They came at length to a narrow place in the walk, where James walked on before, Rollo following him with the wheelbarrow. Rollo trundled the wheelbarrow along very close to James’s heels, and so James, to avoid it, ran on. Rollo followed, pursuing him, and so James, to escape, ran off upon the grass, to get out of Rollo’s way. But Rollo still followed him, both boys making the air resound with shouts of laughter, until, at length, James, finding that he was still pursued, turned around, and planted the blade of the spade upon the ground, just before the wheel of the wheelbarrow. The wheel ran up against it, and was stopped, and thus James was protected.

The boys amused themselves in this way for some time, entirely forgetting about their watering-pot. After satisfying themselves, however, with this fun, they began to move along towards the house. They found Rollo’s little watering-pot, and they carried it to the pump to fill it with water. They got into a great frolic at the pump, too. James would hold the watering-pot, while Rollo pumped, and then, when it was full he made believe try to sprinkle Rollo, to pay him, as he said, for running over him with his wheelbarrow. Rollo would run off around the yard, and James after him, holding up the watering-pot, with the spout elevated, ready to discharge a shower of water upon him, if he could only get near. When he got pretty near, he would tip up the watering-pot, and out would pour the water in a great number of curving jets, which spouted out towards Rollo, as he ran. When the water from the watering-pot was exhausted by this operation, they would go back to the pump, and fill it again. In the mean time, the wood of their charcoal bed was all burning away.

It was an hour, in fact, before they got back to the charcoal bed; and when they reached it, it was a mere bed of embers and ashes. The combustion, instead of having been slow, had gone on with great violence and rapidity, and the wood was entirely consumed. Rollo and James looked upon it for a few minutes in silence.

“We’ll put it out now, at any rate,” said Rollo; and he took the watering-pot out of James’s hand, and began to pour the water upon the burning bed before him. It made a great hissing and steaming; and, when he had done, the boys had before them plenty of hot mud, made of ashes and water, but no charcoal.

QUESTIONS.

What preparations did James and Rollo make for their charcoal bed? Did they find it difficult or easy to cut the turf? How did they arrange the wood? Did Rollo begin right to cover the wood with turf? What was the first difficulty which he encountered? What tool would have been best for cutting the turf into the right form? What tool did Rollo attempt to use instead? What was the difficulty in the operation of it? What plan was at length proposed for checking the combustion, instead of putting on a tight covering of turf? Why did they leave their work and go to the house? What detained them on this expedition? In what condition did they find the charcoal bed on their return?