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 Burner seizes it and blossoms into a roaring blue flower.

You would have thought the Pilot Light would be rather proud of itself, pleased to have such fairylike work to do. Perhaps the trouble was that the other burners had teased it a little too much; perhaps, like many people with magic powers, it was temperamental. It had a fiery nature, which after all was not surprising. You know how in the old stories there is often a fairy who has a habit of imagining that she has been slighted or disregarded or offended in some way or other. It was like that with this clever but rather foolish Pilot Light. It was terribly jealous of the Big Burner. It complained bitterly of having to work all the time while the other burners were resting. It was even ashamed because its own flame was tiny and yellow while the Big Burner was so large and blue and powerful; it was annoyed that the Big Burner got all the fun and glory of cooking the food.

So the Pilot Light sulked in its little hole at the back of the stove. While the Big Burner, too busy to think about such differences, was blazing away, cooking soup or frying eggs or heating cocoa, the Pilot Light grumbled and whined and