THE END OF THE WORLD

Jenny walked around and around in the kitchen. It was growing dark. It seemed that it was taking Mother and Margaret a long time to do the milking and other chores at the barn. If Mother were here, she’d have the lamp lit. The room looked big and foreboding in the deepening dusk. It was not as dark outside, but it looked bleak and barren in mid-winter.

Yesterday morning Daddy had left on the train for Kansas City to take some cattle to market and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. They all missed him. The house was so quiet last night after supper. They heard about a hundred different noises from the outside mingled with the fierce howling of the winter wind. Jenny kept hoping that Daddy would come home early and expected him to come in the door at any minute. But the door had remained closed and there were just the three of them.

Suddenly Jenny saw a flame on the wall by the stove. It was flickering and leaping up and down. She heard the roaring of the fire and her heart beat wildly. Long years ago two children had burned to death in this very house. It didn’t burn the house, but the children died. They were playing with fire and it caught on their clothing. Maybe this was the end of the world and it was starting here. Jenny remembered that it said in the Bible that the world would be destroyed by fire. She wondered if she had been good enough to go to Heaven. She had quarreled with Margaret over the funny paper that very day. and had forgotten to put away her toys, although Mother had reminded her. She had hidden bread crusts around the edge of her plate and had given them to the cat. She had not kept her face and hands clean. Such sins were a heavy burden even to an experienced sinner.

Jenny wished the rest of the family were here, They might know what to do. It was hard to face a thing like this alone when you were five. She tried to get the east door open, but it was stuck. She was afraid to go out the south door, because she would have to go past the dreadful wall of flames. At last she could bear it no longer and dashed past the creeping tongues of flame, out the south door and into the biting cold.


“The house is on fire! The house is on fire!” she screamed so loudly that it made her throat hurt.

Mother and Margaret came running from the barn at top speed.

“Where? Where is it?” Mother asked as soon as she reached the porch.

“In here,” Jenny told her, and pointed to the place on the wall.

Mother said, letting out her breath, “Whew! What a relief! That’s just the reflection from the fire in the stove showing through the grate. The dark wall acted like a looking glass.”

“Oh,” said Jenny.

“You mean you called us all the way over here just for that?” Margaret sniffed in disgust. “We have to go back and finish the chores before it gets too dark.”

Jenny felt very foolish.

“Mother,” she began,

“Yes?”

“Would you light the lamp now?”