The Flame-Thrower
Often when I have come from the garden, after a day spent weeding or digging, I have smiled to myself at the recollection of a line of a poem I learnt at school: " You'll find yourself a partner in the glory of the garden." Since I am not over-anxious to labour on my knees, I like to find a gadget that saves my back. The flame-thrower seemed just the thing. I marched out into the quarter-acre where I had lately been digging a potato-patch, determined to burn away the weeds in something like ten minutes. I took with me the flame-throwing appliance, the car-pump, paper, matches and two gallons of paraffin. I lit a little fire, heated the burner, pumped the cylinder and released some air, but I had not followed the instructions carefully enough. A jet of paraffin' shot out, flames rose and smoke enveloped my head. It was a chilly afternoon, but I perspired like a hay-maker in June. After an hour, during which I wasted a gallon of oil, I got the thing going properly and put everything on fire in my enthusiasm. I des- troyed nettles, wilted valerian and set the blackberries crackling. It is strange, the satisfaction to be had in destruction. Where the valerian died we would shortly have something more useful growing, but this was hardly the sort of labour the poet had in mind.
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