2018.07.22

It's Sunday.

Ma said to Laura that she was a good girl, to remember she had told her never to leave fire on the floor. She took the water-pail and quickly and quietly poured water on the fire in the fireplace. Clouds of steam came out. Then Ma asked Laura if she had burned her hands. She looked at Laura’s hands, but they were not burned, because she had thrown the burning stick so quickly. Laura was not really crying. She was too big to cry. Only one tear ran out of each eye and her throat choked up, but that was not crying. She hid her face against Ma and hunting on to her tight. She was so glad the fire had not hurt Ma. Ma asked Laura not to cry, stroking her hair, and asked her if she had been afraid. Laura said yes and she had been afraid Mary and Carrie would burn up, and she had been afraid the house would burn up and they wouldn’t have any house, and she was scared now. Mary could talk now. She told Ma how Laura had pulled the chair away from the fire. Laura was so little, and the chair was so big and so heavy with Mary and Carrie in it, that Ma was surprised. She said she didn’t know how Laura had done it. She told Laura that she had been a brave girl. But Laura had really been terribly scared. Ma said that there was no harm and the house hadn’t burned up, and Mary’s skirts hadn’t caught fire and burned her and Carrie, so everything was all right. When Pa came home he found the fire out. The wind was roaring over the low stone top of the chimney and the house was cold. But Pa said he would build up the chimney with green sticks and fresh clay, and plaster it so well that it wouldn’t catch fire again.