The house was cellarless, but it was raised at the four corners on heavy blocks, leaving a space between the ground and the floor, the sides of which were partly closed by banks of ashes and earth which were thrown up against the weather-boarding.  It was but a few minutes’ work to scrape away a portion of this earth, and push under the pack of shavings into which the mysterious bundle resolved itself.  A match was lighted, sheltered, until it blazed, and then dropped among them.  It took only a short walk and a shorter time to drop a handful of burning shavings into the hay at the barn.  Then the girl turned and sped away, muttering:  “I reckon I’ve fixed you, Seliny Williams, mebbe, next time you meet me out at a dance, you won’t snub me; mebbe next time, you’ll be ez pore ez I am, an’ll be willin’ to dance crost from even ole ’Lias Hunster’s gal.”

The constantly falling drizzle might have dampened the shavings and put out the fire, had not the wind fanned the sparks into too rapid a flame, which caught eagerly at shingle, board and joist until house and barn were wrapped in flames.  The whinnying of the horses first woke Isaac Williams, and he sprang from bed at sight of the furious light which surrounded his house.  He got his family up and out of the house, each seizing what he could of wearing apparel as he fled before the flames.  Nothing else could be saved, for the fire had gained terrible headway, and its fierceness precluded all possibility of fighting it.  The neighbors attracted by the lurid glare came from far and near, but the fire had done its work, and their efforts availed nothing.  House, barn, stock, all, were a mass of ashes and charred cinders.  Isaac Williams, who had a day before, been accounted one of the solidest farmers in the region, went out that night with his family—­homeless.

Kindly neighbors took them in, and by morning the news had spread throughout all the country-side.  Incendiarism was the only cause that could be assigned, and many were the speculations as to who the guilty party could be.  Of course, Isaac Williams had enemies.  But who among them was mean, ay, daring enough to perpetrate such a deed as this?

Conjecture was rife, but futile, until old ’Lias Hunster, who though he hated Williams, was shocked at the deed, voiced the popular sentiment by saying, “Look a here, folks, I tell you that’s the work o’ niggers, I kin see their hand in it.”

“Niggers, o’ course,” exclaimed every one else.  “Why didn’t we think of it before?  It’s jest like ’em.”

Public opinion ran high and fermented until Saturday afternoon when the county paper brought the whole matter to a climax by coming out in a sulphurous account of the affair, under the scarehead: 

A terrible outrage!

Most dastardly deed ever committed in the history of
Barlow county.  A highly respected, UNOFFENDING
and well-beloved family burned out of house
and home.  Negroes!  Undoubtedly the
perpetrators of the deed!