Cinder was a young dragon who could not breathe fire. When he tried, he only coughed, and a few sparks the size of peas jumped out of his mouth. The big dragons of the mountain laughed at him. "Cinder, you could not light a candle!" they said.
In the middle of winter he climbed down the mountain at night, in falling snow, and came to a village of forty houses where every window was dark. In front of the bakery sat the baker, Mrs. Marsh, a woman of sixty, wrapped in a blanket beside her cold oven. "The storm blew snow down the chimney and put out the fire," she said. "The matches are wet and the logs are damp. By morning there will be no bread."
She was not afraid of a dragon at her door. "Can you light an oven?"
"I can only cough sparks," said Cinder.
"Then cough," said Mrs. Marsh.
The first sparks died on the wet logs. A big dragon's fire would have burned the bakery down, but tiny sparks could be coaxed along. Mrs. Marsh brought a tin of dry shavings, and Cinder coughed through the night. The fortieth spark took. A flame the size of a thumb became a small fire, then a glowing oven.
At dawn the village crowded into the bakery to eat warm bread. Mrs. Marsh hung a sign on the door: "Cinder, Official Oven Lighter." And Cinder understood that his sparks were exactly the right size.
