Old Lamplighter's Last Candle

In the old days, when the street lamps burned with candles instead of electricity, every town had a lamplighter. Our town's lamplighter was Old Lamplighter. He had a long pole and a bag over his shoulder; in the bag were candles.

Every evening, as the sun went down, Old Lamplighter went out into the street. He lit the first lamp in the square; then the one in front of the bakery, then the one on the bridge, then the one at the school gate... There were a hundred lamps in the town; in the bag there were a hundred and one candles.

The children walked along behind him. "Old Lamplighter, what is the hundred and first candle for?" they asked. Old Lamplighter smiled and did not answer.

One night it snowed. The wind was blowing the lamps out. Old Lamplighter lit them all again, and again. The candles were running out. When he reached the last lamp, there was only one candle left in the bag: the hundred and first.

Just then a thin voice came from a window: "Old Lamplighter, our lamp has gone out, I'm scared." A small child; the room dark, snow outside.

Old Lamplighter looked at the last lamp, then at the window. He held the last candle up to the window. "Take it," he said. "This candle is yours. The hundred and first candle is for a child every night. Tonight it is you."

The child lit the candle. The room filled with a yellow light. The fear went away.

The last street lamp did not burn that night. But nobody noticed; because the light from the child's window lit up the street.

Old Lamplighter is gone now; the lamps burn with electricity. But every night, somewhere, a small light burns in a child's room. That is the hundred and first candle. Perhaps the one in your room.