"And chuck you back upon your trouble?"
The argument was more effective than he knew. Jennie became aware that even this little bit of drama had put home conditions and Wray's cruelty a perceptible distance behind her. It was sheer terror at being thrown on them again that induced her to walk on, tacitly permitting him to stay with her.
"You can't be saved from one kind of trouble by getting into another," she argued, ungraciously. "The fire's not much of a relief from the frying pan."
"It is if it doesn't burn you—if it only warms and comforts you and makes it easier to live."
"This fire would burn me—to death."
"Oh no, it wouldn't; because I'd be there. I'd be the stoker, to see that it was kept in the furnace. The furnace in the house, Jennie, is like the heart in the body—something out of sight, but hot and glowing, and cheering everybody up." If she could have listened to such words from Hubert Wray, she thought, how enraptured she would have been. "Did you ever hear the story of the guy who gave us fire in the first place?" Bob continued, as she walked on and said nothing. "You know we didn't have any fire on earth—at least, that's the tune to which the rig is sung. The gods had fire in heaven, but men had to shiver."
"Why didn't they freeze to death?''
"They did—in a parable way. It wasn't life they lived; it was a great big creeping horror on the edge of nothing. Then this old bird—I forget his name—went up to heaven—"
"How did he do that?"
"The story doesn't tell; but up he went, stole the fire, and brought it down. After that, they were able to open the ball we call 'civilization,' which gives every one a good time."