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CHAPTER XXX.
FIGHTING THE FLAMES.
As from one faint spark arise
The flames, aspiring to the skies,
And all the crackling wood consumes."—Pindar
"'Twas well; he toiled till his task was done,
Constant and calm in his latest throe,
The storm was weathered, the battle was won,
Then he went, my friends, where we all must go."
Australian Poets, A. L. Gordon.
"Are not those flying squirrels peculiar little creatures?" remarked Larry to Hilda as they walked by moonlight in the garden of the White House. "See that fellow, now, climbing by leaps to the topmost branch of that great gum; now he has sped out into space. How gracefully he flies down to the foot of that box, now up that red gum, to dart again down to another tree- trunk! Always up and down—just like our life."
"Can they not fly up?" asked Hilda.
"No," he replied, "nor even horizontally; only down, from one tree-top to another trunk-base. Just the way we make our running, it seems to me. Painfully climbing up—no flying then. When, for a moment, we spread our wings—such as they are—down we come with a jerk, to the level we started from."
"You're in a philosophical mood to-night, Larry," said his wife. "What has, become of your wonted good spirits?"
