The moon was shining. Silly Will could see quite plainly. There stood the brick chimneys rising out of a pile of plaster dumped on top of the concrete foundations. There was the slate roof and the broken window of glass. The air was full of a sound like the violent trembling of many leaves. It sounded for all the world as if it said, “I take back my wood!”
“Whatever will I do?” groaned Silly Will as he shivered all naked in the moonlight. Then his eye lighted on the kitchen stove. There it stood with the stove pipe all safely connected with the chimney.
“I’ll build a coal fire,” he thought. There stood the iron coal scuttle. But alas! It was empty! He heard a far-away murmur like a faint wind stirring in giant ferns. And they said, “I take back my buried leaves!”
By this time Silly Will was shaking with cold. “I’ve heard that newspapers are warm,” he thought. But the pile behind the stove was gone. Again came the murmur of trees—“I take back my pulp,” and a queer soft sound which he couldn’t quite make out. Was it “I take back my cotton?”
Silly Will was thoroughly terrified now.
“I’ll go somewhere to think,” he said to himself. So he crept down the cement steps to the cellar and crawled into a sheltered corner. But he couldn’t think of anything pleasant. He could hear a confused noise all around him. Sometimes it sounded like growls, like animal cries, like animal calls. “The animal kingdom has left him,” it seemed to say.
Again it sounded like the wind rustling a thousand leaves. “The vegetable kingdom has left him,” it seemed to say.
“I’ve nothing to wear,” sobbed Silly Will. “And I’m afraid I’ve nothing to eat.” At the thought of food he jumped up and ran over to the cellar pantry. He found just three things. They did not make a tempting meal! They were a crock of salt, a tin of soda and a porcelain pitcher of water.
“What shall I ever do? How shall I live? I’ll never have another glass of milk or cup of cocoa. I’ll never have anything to wear. I’ll freeze and I’ll starve. I might just as well die now!” And poor little Silly Will broke down and cried and cried and cried.
“I can’t live without other living things,” he sobbed. “I can’t eat only minerals and I can’t keep warm in minerals. Everybody has to depend on animals and vegetables. And after all I’m only a little boy! I’ve got to have living things to keep alive myself!”