EARLY DAY STORIES. 239 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

 Looking Backward. 



No. 2. 



Someone may possibly ask this question : "As you had 

 no matches in those days, what did you do when the fire 

 went out?" That is easy. In the first place the fire did not 

 often go out, in the summer, and never in the winter. In 

 the winter time there was always a good fire in the big, old 

 fire place through the day, and when bed-time came a lot of 

 live coals were piled up against the backlog, a blazing brand 

 of hardwood placed on top of the coals, and the whole cov- 

 ered up with ashes. In the morning the ashes were raked 

 off, the red hot coals opened out, the brand having all burned 

 to a coal by that time, more wood was piled on, the finest 

 and dryest being placed next to the coals, and in ten min- 

 utes there was a roaring big fire in the fire place, warming 

 and lighting up the whole room, and breakfast was under 

 way. Oh ! it makes me homesick even now when I think of 

 and write about these things. What comfort we children 

 used to take sitting around the old fire-place winter eve- 

 nings ! We used to take our spelling books home and study 

 the spelling lesson for the next day, and the probable les- 

 sons for the next spelling school, by the light of the fire; 

 every now and then throwing on a piece of hickory bark 

 which would light up the whole room for a few minutes. 

 Then when there was company of an evening we would get 

 out the hickory nuts, the black walnuts, the beechnuts, the 

 hazel nuts, and the butternuts for a feast, someone telling a 

 story or singing a song while the others were cracking the 

 nuts and getting them ready to be eaten. And then after- 

 ward we would gather in a semicircle around the big fire- 



