THE OPEN WOOD FIRE. 43 



exacting. The big huge wood fire of pioneer days 

 would heat quite a large room, as the living room gen- 

 erally was; and the same is true of the few open fire- 

 places still left remaining in the old-time homesteads. 

 There is no need of a stove, if wood is plentiful. 



How I love to watch the fire! How it curls and 

 laps around the wood, and licks its way in and out 

 among the foresticks ! Sometimes the big backlog itself 

 becomes a mass of red coals, with blue flames playing 

 and hovering above it, or peeping behind the flaky 

 bark that is perhaps still clinging to it. I love to see 

 it, and to dream before it in midnight fancies. As a 

 child I liked nothing better than to watch the endless 

 flocks of pigeons soaring away in the soot on the chim- 

 ney's back. The rosy-and-yellow spirals creep and 

 wrap about the burning brands, and over them, and 

 finally leap into beautiful pointed tongues above lap- 

 ping the chimney, or changing mayhap into sharp fangs, 

 entering and darting up the very funnel, or fleshing 

 their teeth fiercely against the chimney sides. And as 

 the logs hiss and crackle, and send out their heat and 

 steam, I seem to hear in them the music of the woods. 

 It is the orchestra of the oaks and maples and the 

 others together on the hearth there that we hear again 

 now indoors, in the great fire chorus of the trees. 



It is a rare enjoyment to poke and tend the fire. 

 Lots of people put a fire out by fixing it. They do n't 

 know how. It is quite an art to know how to stir up 

 a fire aright, and requires a certain instinct which can 

 not be cultivated. A fire-poker, like a turkey-carver, 

 isjx>rn, not made. 



The evening circle about the fireplace is the occa- 



