On the floor of the closet stood an open Jack-in-the-box, and it was upon poor Jack’s hat that the match had alighted. Jack had bushy white hair, and an equally bushy beard, and he was blazing merrily, grinning like a hero all the while, when Susan opened the door.
Susan’s heart stood still. Oh, if Mrs. Vane were only there!
“Run, Phil!” she called. “Run for your mother!”
And then with a presence of mind that, when he heard the tale, Grandfather considered remarkable, she picked up the pitcher of lemonade and emptied it over the blaze.
Phil ran screaming downstairs.
“The house is on fire and the mouse is burned up! Mamma, Mamma, come quick! The mouse is on fire and the house is burned up!”
When Mrs. Vane reached the nursery, she found the fire out, the closet floor covered with lemonade, Jack-in-the-box burned to a crisp, and Susan, with shining eyes, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, but able after a moment to tell her story.
“But, child,” said Mrs. Vane, when she had made sure that the fire was completely out and that the only article damaged was the unfortunate Jack-in-the-box, “which one of you had matches, and what has become of Phil? Who had the match, Susan?”
Ah, that was the question that Phil dared not face, and that had caused him to hide himself securely behind the big sofa in the parlor where no one went in cold weather except for a special reason.
But at last he was found, and, standing before his mother, listened with drooping head to the truths his own conscience had already told him.