Chapter 16: Fire in the Chimney

"The prairie had changed. Now it was a dark yellow, almost brown, and red streaks of sumac lay across it. The wind wailed in the tall grass, and it whispered sadly across the curly, short buffalo grass. At night the wind sounded like someone crying."

It is fall. The days are growing shorter and cooler. It is time for Pa to go to town. He couldn't go during the heat of summer because it would have been too hard for Pet and Patty. Pa gets the grass-hay cut and stacked by the barn, ready for winter. Now all he has to do is go hunting so Ma and the girls won't run out of meat while he is gone.

The next morning Pa takes his gun and heads down into the creek bottoms. There are lots of geese and wild ducks by the creek, resting on their way south. Laura and Mary hear a shot echo in the woods and they know Pa has got some meat.

That afternoon the wind is cold and fierce. Pa is still not back from hunting, but Ma calls Laura and Mary into the house. Ma builds up the fire and sits rocking Baby Carrie. The wind blows and blows.

Laura hears a crackling noise in the chimney. Ma hears it, too, because she leans forward and looks up the chimney. Then she gets up, puts Baby Carrie in Mary's arms and pushes her into the rocking chair. Ma hurries outside and Laura runs after her.

The whole top of the chimney is on fire! The chimney-top is made of sticks and mud, and all the sticks are burning up. Ma grabs a long pole and starts hitting the burning chimney, trying to knock it away from the house. Laura grabs a pole too, but Ma tells her to stay away. Burning sticks are falling all around them and Ma doesn't want Laura to get hurt.

Laura runs back into the house. Burning sticks are falling down the chimney and the house is full of smoke. One big stick rolls off the hearth and right under Mary's skirts. Mary is too afraid to move, but Laura grabs the great, heavy rocking chair and pulls it backward, moving Mary and Baby Carrie to safety. Then she grabs the burning stick and throws it back into the fireplace just as Ma comes in.

"That's a good girl," says Ma. She pours water all over the fire in the fireplace. Soon there is nothing left but a very smokey house. When Pa comes home, he finds the fire out and the house very cold. He goes to cut green sticks and builds the chimney up again so Ma can roast the four fat ducks he brought home.

Soon the house is snug and warm again. Pa says he will head for town early the next morning. Ma is happy. Now she can mail a letter to the folks back in Wisconsin. They can write back during the winter, and she might even hear from them as early as next spring.

Thoughts:
Well, another challenging chapter. When is Laura going to do something like read a book, do a demure sewing project, or play on the computer? All this death-defying stuff wears a person out!

What a narrow escape they all had! It would be bad enough to have to fight a fire now, with hoses and water, and the fire department on the way because you called them on your cell phone. But Ma and the girls were out in the middle of a (dry) prairie with no resources except what their own efforts and ingenuity could provide.

And then to do all of that in a long dress and heavy petticoat. It's no wonder so many women suffered horrible burns or lost their life after their clothing caught fire. But for Laura's quick actions, Mary and Carrie might well have been buried out there on the windswept Kansas prairie.

So what to do for this chapter? I had no intention of lighting myself on fire, no matter how educational it might be. But there was no reason not to light someone ELSE on fire. Especially someone like Flamin' Fanny.

I started by going to the thrift store to find a dress I wouldn't feel bad about burning. It had to be ugly enough to deserve incineration and made of a cotton-type material, similar to the highly flammable calico that most pioneer dresses were made out of.  I found one that fit both criteria nicely. And a big thank you to the kind-hearted thrift store ladies who tried to find something nice to say about it.

"My. That dress is....interesting, Mabel."

"Yes, it is, Nancy. You don't see something like that every day. It's...........pretty."

Ladies, I'm going to burn it alive. You don't have to try so hard.

The dress wasn't quite long enough, so I added to its splendor by sewing a panel of brightly colored sheet material around the bottom. Lovely.

Then I had to wait several days for the temperature to get out of the minuses and the wind to die down. I had no intention of suffering while I burned Miss Fanny. At last the day dawned with mild enough conditions go conduct my little...experiment.

Because this is a family blog...

Fanny was constructed by Caleb out of a couple of 2x4's with an attractive pumpkin head. She was dressed in a full cotton sheet for a petticoat to give her those extra layers of combustible comfort. Then we fitted her dress over the top and fixed her hair. Voila, Flamin' Fanny, the Fearless Frontier Female.

The idea was to build a small fire at the feet of Fanny, then document her dress catching fire....perhaps smoldering a bit first, then a finger of flame licking up her gown, and finally, the tragic conflagration. That was the idea, anyway.

Didn't quite work out that way....

I built the fire alright, using cardboard and old shingles. I lit it in a couple of places, but the wind was still brisk and the little flames guttered and went out. It's 15 degrees outside, and I don't have much time to lay a pretty fire and coax it to life.

Time for the gasoline.

I am actually a HUGE chicken when it comes to fire, and while a male-type would probably splash some carelessly from the can onto the little firelet, I wasn't about to do any such thing. I poured a little bit on a shingle and laid it on the fire.

Let's just say it "caught".

By the time I could take 3 steps back from the fire, grab my camera, and turn it on......well, Fanny was already fully involved. It wasn't just because of the gas. She was actually starting to go before I even got the shingle over there. It was just that her dress went up SO quickly.

If she were a pioneer woman, she would have had 10 seconds or less to respond and get the fire out before it got critically bad.

So here is the first shot I got off of poor Fanny...

At this stage, I think she could have still been saved. Some quick thinking and some stop-drop-and-roll, and she could have gotten the fire out. The same things that made it so dangerous---her thick petticoat and long dress---would help to protect her in those first few seconds...which I imagine were usually spent running and screaming; perhaps trying to tear the dress away.

"'Don't cry, Laura," Ma said, stroking her hair. "Were you afraid?"

"Yes," Laura said. "I was afraid Mary and Carrie would burn up. I was afraid the house would burn up and we wouldn't have any house. I'm--I'm scared now!"

The next sequence of photos (and the video that follows) were all taken during the same minute---the last minute of Fanny's life.

Her hair went fast.....

VERY fast!

As you can see, she was not only in flames within a minute, but her dress was almost wholly consumed in those 60 seconds.

It was a very thrilling and educational experience, but one that was sobering as well. For too many women, Flamin' Fanny's fate was a terrifying reality; maimed or killed in the line of duty---by the very uniform required of their sex. It was a graphic reminder that nostalgia is a whole lot more romantic than actually living during "the good ol' days".

Poor Fanny!