“I don’t know. Why?”
“Well, it’s strange. C’mon, let’s go over there and sit down.”
“There!” he exclaimed a moment later as they sat on a bench, with the throngs marching, parade-like, past them, “There! I saw it again!”
“It’s like this,” he said, mopping his brow. “I’ll be walking along here looking at those faces—mostly happy faces, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“They ought to be happy. This is their play time and their play place.”
“Yes, Johnny, but what then?”
“Why, then of a sudden I see the look on those faces change. A look of terror comes upon them. I seem to see them crowding and crushing, trampling upon one another as they try in mad despair to escape from something.” Again he mopped his brow.
“Escape from what, Johnny?” Mazie whispered.
“Fire,” Johnny whispered tensely.