It's Sandra Temple’s tenth birthday, and her party invitees are gathered on the lawn to watch fireworks. Sandra, however, is underwhelmed by the prospect of fireworks, and wants something more exciting, like a comet, to crash down on her party. She thinks about the hired man who works for her neighbors, the Kelly’s, up the road. She plans a surprise attack on him, and hopes to jump out from the bushes and scare him silly. Suddenly, she sees fire blazing in the sky at the Kelly's and yells. Her father and grandfather gather everyone in cars and go to help. A fire truck is already at the house, but there seems little left to be salvaged. Mr. Kelly walks to Sandra’s father in anguish over the twenty heads of cattle he has lost, among many of the family's belongings. To Sandra’s shock, one of the Kelly boys shouts that the hired man, Joe, was found dead. Joe was often found playing with matches, so the news of his death is evidently not too surprising. Sandra is disturbed, and goes home that evening with dark thoughts. Unable to fall asleep that night, she climbs onto the roof and lets the hired man haunt her, as she knows that she is a part of the “hired man’s evil world.”