52 AROUND AN OLD HOMESTEAD. 



would be rolled over back into the deep fireplace, where 

 it would last for several days. 



I have seen many open fireplaces in cabins in the 

 South, built in irregularly of stones taken from the 

 creek or gathered at the clearing, with their sooty 

 corners jutting out every which way in a picturesque 

 fashion into the flames, and with a great wide open 

 hearth, large enough for a small whole log to enter. 

 The chimneys were made of crossed sticks cemented 

 together with mud stack chimneys, as they are called. 

 I have often sat beside them, and there have heard 

 related stories of the great war between the States, 

 fought so long ago, as it seems to us now, and have 

 listened to the tales of slaves and slave-owners, with 

 mayhap the barrel of an old army musket, or a bayonet, 

 picked up or captured on some battlefield, as our poker 

 and tongs. 



I remember once being also in the study of an emi- 

 nent college professor, whose glory it was that he had 

 a large fireplace and an open wood fire. He had a 

 very comfortable divan arranged in front of it, and 

 a lamp convenient; and I suppose that a good many of 

 the problems of earth and heaven were solved there 

 before the logs. I recollect also the study of another 

 professor, who, as a lover of books, could scarcely 

 have found a more fitting environment in which to 

 interpret the real spirit of literature than the atmos- 

 phere of his large open fireplace, with his setters 

 stretched before it, in his beautiful old house of the 

 Revolutionary days. It was, too, my good fortune to 

 be one of a group of young men who once pursued a 

 course in poetry in the library of another professor, 



