THE OPEN WOOD FIRE. 



"Mankind has never willingly relinquished the camp-fire. It is not 

 preference, but necessity, that has driven him indoors. Even there he car- 

 ried and rekindled its embers, and it became the hearth-fire : a flame, sister 

 to the flame of love. So much he rescued from the loss of Paradise." 



— William Cunningham Gray. 



" Then leave that buzzing hive, the city mart ; 

 Come, while my gnarl'd oaks hold their wreath of Enows, 

 Come to a country hearth, and let your heart— 

 Mellowed by midnight, while the back-log glows — 

 Touch on the themes most dear." 



—Lloyd Mifflin. 



I HERE is nothing like a wood fire. 

 The blaze crackles out good cheer 

 in truly royal fashion. It is one 

 of the real privileges of country 

 life, a rightly venerated luxury. 

 How clean the wood fire is, and 

 how fragrant and suggestive the 

 perfume of the smoke ! There is 

 practically no soot, and the ashes 

 are easily taken away. It 's like 

 having a regular outdoor fire in 

 the house, and gives us a chance 

 to live as we ought to, in an at- 

 mosphere of mingled coziness and native enjoyment. 



The fireplace itself is four feet wide and nearly 

 three deep, and the entrance is three feet high and is 

 slightly arched. That will hold a good-sized log, 

 you see, and many a heavy one have I hoisted and 

 flung into it, in constructing the fire, across the dogs. 



39 



THE OLD SUGAR KETTLE. 



