THE YOUNG MATCH MAN

A retelling of "The Little Match Girl"

By Jo

It was terribly dry and nearly dark on the last evening of the Festival of the Dead in Redemption, and the dust was whirling through the unforgiving air. In the dust and the darkness, a slender young man, his clothes torn and battered, sat on the steps of the mansion at the far end of town. He had had nothing to drink for over two days now and his lips were cracked and beginning to bleed. As hard as it was for him to swallow due to his great thirst, it was even harder now that he had so recently been almost hung. He lifted his hands to rub his throat, the sound of his chains clinking in the silent dark. No place had been provided for him to sleep, no food given for his supper. Other than his clothes, all the young man possessed was a pocketful of matches that he used to light the mission candles. Painfully he twisted his wrist enough to reach into the pocket, the manacle rubbing over his raw skin as he moved. Perhaps he might be able to trade a match for a crumb of food if some kind passerby would only take notice of him?

Hours passed, but not a single townsperson stopped on their way. He looked at the match in his hand, his fingers shaking so from fatigue and hunger he could barely hold it. Suddenly from behind him a man came out the mansion's door and in the darkness a hand reached out, snatching the match, striking it on the young man's left cheek. Rude laughter followed and the man walked away, dropping the burnt-out match into the dirt.

The Young Match Man looked at the fallen match, the picture of misery as he sat there alone. Many hours of the night remained but he knew sleep would evade him. He had no where to go, not really, not even if he hadn't been chained. Everything had been taken, burned, ruined. The dust settled on his hair, his shoulders, as another hour passed.

He wanted light. Light might get him through this endless night. Carefully he withdrew a second match, staring at it a long time before striking it on the step beside him. *scratch*  It sputtered as it burnt, but gave a warm, bright light. He thought how wonderful it was, how almost like a little candle, and it seemed to him as though he were in the mission again, lighting the altar candles for evening service. It was truly a wonderful light! He stretched out his other hand as though to touch a candle, but the flame of the match went out, the mission vanished, leaving him with only the remains of the half-burnt match in his hand.

No! The darkness was even more dark now the light had gone! Quickly he rubbed another match on the step and when it burst into flame, where its light fell became transparent as a veil and he could see into a room. The step was no longer a step but the woven-rag hearthrug in his Grandmother's big kitchen. There was a table there, on which stood a huge pitcher of icy-cold water fresh from the spring. Beside it was a pail of milk from Daisy, their old cow. In front of them lay a platter heaped with freshly-baked oatmeal raisin cookies. Then the match went out and there remained nothing but the dust-laden step of the mansion.

He lit another match and found himself sitting on the branch of the cottonwood tree out behind his Grandmother's barn. It was spring and a rain shower was just clearing away as night came on. Through the branches of the cottonwood he could see the evening star, high and bright in
the perfectly still, clean air. The sun had left streamers of peach and gold low in the sky and the star twinkled jewel-like above them. The Young Match Man stretched out his hand toward the star, and the match went out.

The star rose higher and higher until it began to fall, leaving behind it a bright streak across the darkening sky. "Someone is dying," thought the Young Match Man, for his Grandmother, the only one who had ever loved him and who was now dead, had told him that when a star
falls, a soul was going up to God.

He again rubbed a match on the step, and the light shone around him. In the brightness stood his Grandmother, clear and shining. "Grandmother!" he cried, "please take me with you. I know you'll be gone when this match burns out. You will vanish like the mission, like the cold water and the milk, like your cookies."  He made haste to light every match he could pull from his pocket, making a little bundle of them, for he wished to keep the sight of his Grandmother there. The matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the sun at noon, and he thought how he had not seen his Grandmother so real or so beautiful since she had died when he was 14. She took the Young Match Man in her arms. How real the feeling of that was. So real he let himself lean forward into them, sighing with quiet happiness. Then the bundle of matches burnt out.

"Mister," came a gentle voice close to his face. "Are you all right, Mister?"

With some effort he raised his lids, looking into the countenance of a brown-haired young woman in a green dress. "It's morning," she said, "and I've brought you some water."

His hands trembling, he grasped the glass. "Careful there," she smiled, "you burnt your fingers a little on all those matches you were holding."

"M...matches," he stammered, feeling momentarily confused as though some change too vast, too unexpected to be grasped, had just happened.

"Yes, those," she replied, indicating the small, charred sticks on the step beside him. "It was the light from them that let me know you were here."

SEE "ONE DAY AT 14" FOR THE STORY OF CORT'S GRANDMOTHER

SEE "IF IT WERE NOT SO" FOR WHAT HAPPENS NEXT AFTER "MATCH"

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