Making Fire

I visited my friend Maggie Lee more than anyone else. One winter her Dad decided he was going to save money. He would not buy matches that year. They kept a fire going. One cold winter morning she and I woke early and were playing loudly. Her Dad awoke and he called out to her to start kindling up the fire.

I knew very well what she was up to as she got up. She was giggling. She found a very small coal of fire, so she took ashes on a piece of paper and started covering it up to smother it. Then as it died, she said in a long drawn-out manner, "Pappa, the fire is out." Well, he hit that cold floor and started throwing fire logs toward the fireplace. Of course, to no avail. The fire was out.

We were in the bed laughing our head off. He was saying, "Next year I'm gonna buy me a box of matches. Next year I'm gonna buy me a hundred boxes of matches." We were so tickled we laughed out loud. That was a mistake.

He said to us, "Get up - you will walk to Turner's house." This was his brother who lived about a fourth of a mile through the frost. We went about daylight and carried enough fire on a shovel to start a fire in the fireplace and cookstove. Needless to say, we learned a lesson.