When the pile is overlaid, fire is set at various small
apertures in the sides, and when the whole "pit" is fairly burning, the
chimney is closed, in order to prevent too rapid combustion, and the
whole pile is slowly converted into charcoal. The application of the
term "pit" to these piles is worthy of remark. It is due, of course,
to the fact, that for centuries it was customary to burn charcoal in
excavated pits, until it was discovered that gradual combustion could be
as well secured by another and less tedious method.
The Pine Rat glories in his surreptitious coal-pits. In secluded
portions of the forest, he may continually be discovered pottering over
a "coaling," for which he has stolen the wood. This, indeed, is his only
handicraft,--the single labor to which he condescends or is equal. Two
or three men sometimes band together and build themselves huts after
the curious fashion peculiar to the Rat, namely, by piling sticks or
branches in a slope on each side of some tall pine, so that a wigwam,
with the trunk of the tree in the centre, is constructed. Inside this
triangular shelter--the idea of which was probably borrowed from the
Indians--the Pine Rat ensconces himself with his whiskey-bottle at
night, crouching in dread of the darkness, or of Leeds's devil,
aforesaid.
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