Page 19 - The Grotesque Children's Book

Story the First:
The Girl Who Refused to Save Fire

It was cold. Bitter cold. Poor Amelia's feet stung, even from inside her
thick fur-lined boots, and her fingers had grown stiff inside her thick wool-lined
mittens, for the fire in her family hearth had gone out several nights ago, and
had refused to re-light.

Father had piled the hearth high with logs, and nested them on a bed of
crisp dry moss and straw. He had struck flint after flint to charcloth after
charcloth, but each time after an initial ploomph in which the charcloth leapt
into white flame, flickered once or twice with yellow and red optimism, the fire
sunk back, growing lower and lower, without warmth, without brightness, only
to extinguish itself with a strange little whimper, followed by a thin, shivering
wisp of black smoke. And the fire was out, the straw unburnt and even cool to
the touch. “It's as though the fire's afraid,” said Amelia to her father.

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