Jonathan had improvidently lighted his pipe before he noticed that the
fire needed his attention. This was a mistake, because, at least in
Jonathan's case, neither a fire nor a pipe responds heartily to a
divided mind. As I watched him absently knocking the charred logs
together, I longed to snatch the tongs from his indifferent hands and
"change the sorry scheme of things entire." Big wads of smoke rolled
nonchalantly out of the corners of the fireplace and filled the low
ceiling with bluish mist, yet I held my peace, and I did not snatch the
tongs. I know of no circumstances wherein advice is less welcome than
when offered by a woman to a man on his knees before the fire. When my
friends make fudge or rare-bits, they invite criticism, they court
suggestion, but when one of them takes the tongs in his hand, have a
care what you say to him! In our household a certain convention of
courtesy--fireplace etiquette--has tacitly established itself, in
accordance with which the person who wields the tongs, assuming full
responsibility for results, is free from criticism or suggestion.
Disregard of such etiquette may not have precipitated divorce, but I
have known it to produce distinctly strained relations. And so, while
Jonathan tinkered in a half-hearted way at the fire, I ruled my tongue.
At last, little vanishing blue flickers began to run along the log
edges, growing steadier and yellower until they settled into something
like a blaze.
Jonathan straightened up, but there was a trace of the apologetic in his
tone as he said, "That'll do, won't it?"
"Why, yes," I replied cautiously, "it's a fire."
"Well, what's the matter with it?" he asked tolerantly.
"Since you press me, I should say that it lacks--style."
Jonathan leaned back, puffing comfortably--"Now, what in thunder do you
mean by style?"
But I was not to be enticed into an empty discussion of terms. "Well,
then, say frowsy. Call it a frowsy fire. You know what frowsy means, I
suppose. Of course, though, I don't mean to criticize, only you asked
me." And I added, with perhaps unnecessary blandness, "I'm _warm_
enough."
Jonathan smoked a few moments more, possibly by way of establishing his
independence, then slowly rose, remarking, "Oh, well, if you _want_ a
stylish fire--"
"I didn't say stylish, I said style--"
But he was gone. He must have journeyed out to the woodshed,--however,
there was a moon,--for he returned bearing a huge backlog. He had been
magnanimous, indeed, for it was the sort that above all others delights
my heart--a forked apple log with a big hollow heart. In a moment, I was
on my knees clearing a place for it, and he swung it into position on
the bed of embers, tucked in some white birch in front, and soon the
flames were licking about the flaking gray apple bark and shooting up
through the hollow fork in a fashion to charm the most fastidious.
People whose open fires are machine-fed--who arrange for their wood as
they do for their groceries, by telephone--know little of the real joys
of a fire. It is laid by a servant,--unintelligently laid,--and upon
such masses of newspaper and split kindling that it has no choice but to
burn. The match is struck, the newspapers flare up, and soon there is a
big, meaningless blaze. Handfuls of wood--just wood, any kind of
wood--are thrown on from time to time, and perhaps a log or two--any
log, taken at random from the wood-box. Truly, this is merest savagery,
untrained, undiscriminating; it is the Bushman's meal compared to the
Frenchman's dinner. Not thus are real hearth fires laid. Not thus are
they enjoyed. You should plan a fire as you do a dinner party, and your
wood, like your people, should be selected and arranged with due regard
to age, temperament, and individual eccentricity. A fire thus skillfully
planned, with some good talkers among the logs, may be as well worth
listening to as the conversation about your table--perhaps better.
To get the full flavor of a fire you must know your wood-- I had almost
said, you must remember where the tree stood before it was cut--white
birch in the dry, worn-out slopes, black birches from the edges of the
pasture lots, chestnut from the ledges, maple from the swamps, apple
from the old orchard, oak cut in sorrow when the fullness of time has
come, and burned with the honor due to royalty.
But though this may be a refinement of fancy, it is no fancy that one
kind of wood differs from another in glory. There is the white birch,
gay, light-hearted, volatile, putting all its pretty self into a few
flaring moments--a butterfly existence. There is black birch, reluctant
but steady; there is chestnut, vivacious, full of sudden enthusiasms;
the apple, cheerful and willing; the maple and oak, sober and stanch,
good for the long pull. Every locality has its own sorts of wood, as its
own sorts of people. Mine is a New England wood basket, and as I look at
it I recognize all my old friends. Of them all I love the apple best,
yet each is in its own way good. For a quick blaze, throw on the white
birch; for a long evening of reading, when one does not want
distraction, pile on the oak and maple. They will burn quietly,
unobtrusively, importuning you neither for care nor appreciation. But
for a fire to sit before with friends, bring in the apple wood. Lay the
great backlog, the more gnarled the better, and if there is a hole
through which the flames may shoot up, that is best of all--such logs we
hoard for special occasions. Then with careful touch arrange the wood in
front, your bundles of twigs, your pretty white birch sticks and your
dry chestnut to start the fun, then the big apple forelog, the forestick
and the backstick, not too much crowding or too much space. Ah, there is
a seemly fire! There is a fire for friends!
For the renewal of old friendships, as for the perfecting of new ones,
there is nothing like a fire. I met a friend after years of separation.
We came together in a modern house, just modern enough to be full of
steam pipes and registers and gas-logs, but not so modern as to have
readopted open fireplaces. The room had no centre--there was no hearth
to draw around, there was no reason for sitting in one place rather than
another. We could not draw around the steam pipes or the register. The
gas-log was not turned on, it would have been too hot, and anyhow--a
gas-log! We sat and talked for hours in an aimless, unsatisfactory sort
of way. I felt as if we were, figuratively speaking, sitting on the
edges of our chairs. It was better than nothing, but it was not a real
meeting. The next year we were together again, but this time it was
before our own blazing apple log. We did not talk so much as we had done
before, but we were silent a great deal more, which was better. For in
really intimate communion, silence is the last, best gift, but it cannot
be forced, it cannot be snatched at. You may try it, but you grow
restless, you begin to consider your expression, you wonder how long it
will last, you fancy it may seem to mean too much, and at last you are
hurried over into talk again. But before a fire all things are possible,
even silence. Chance acquaintances and intimate friends fall alike under
its spell, talk is absolutely spontaneous, it flows rapidly or slowly,
or dies away altogether. What need for talk when the fire is saying it
all--now flaring up in a blaze to interpret our rarest enthusiasms, now
popping and snapping with wit or fury, now burning with the even heat
of steady, rational life, now settling into a contemplative glow of
meditation.
In the circle of the hearth everything is good, but reminiscences are
best of all. I sometimes think all life is valuable merely as an
opportunity to accumulate reminiscences, and I am sure that the precious
horde can be seen to best advantage by firelight. Then is the time for
the miser to spread out his treasure and admire it. I remember once
Jonathan and I were on a bicycle trip. My chain had broken and we had
trudged eight long, hot, dusty miles to the river that had to be crossed
that night. It was dark when we reached it, and it had begun to rain, a
warm, dreary drizzle. As we stumbled over the railway track and felt our
way past the little station toward the still smaller ferry-house, a
voice from the darkness drawled, "Guess ye won't git the ferry
to-night--last boat went half an hour ago."
It was the final blow. We leaned forlornly on our wheels and looked out
upon the dark water, whose rain-quenched mirror dully reflected the
lights of the opposite town. Finally I said, "Well, Jonathan, anyhow,
we're making reminiscences."
This remark was, I own, not highly practical, but I intended it to be
comforting, and if it failed--as it clearly did--to cheer Jonathan, that
was not because it lacked wisdom, but because men are so often devoid of
imagination save as an adornment of their easy moments.
Finally the same impersonal voice out of the dark uttered another
sentence: "Might row ye 'cross if ye've _got_ to go to-night."
"How much?" said Jonathan.
"Guess it's wuth a dollar. Mean night to be out there."
We had, between us, forty-seven cents and three street-car tickets, good
in the opposite town. All this we meekly offered him, and in the pause
that followed I added desperately, "And we can each take an oar and
help."
"Wall-- I'll take ye."
It seemed to me that the voice suggested an accompanying grin, but I had
no proof.
And so we got across. We never saw the face of our boatman, but on the
other side we felt for his hand and emptied our pockets into
it--nickels and dimes and pennies, and the three car tickets; but as we
were turning to grope our way up the dock the voice said, "Here--ye'll
need two of them tickets to git home with. I do' want 'um."
Now already it must be evident to any one that my remark to Jonathan,
though perhaps ill-timed, embodied a profound and cheering truth. The
more uncomfortable you are, the more desperate your situation, the
better the reminiscences you are storing up to be enjoyed before the
fire.
Yes, there is nothing like firelight for reminiscences. By the clear
light of morning--say ten o'clock--I might be forced to admit that life
has had its humdrum and unpleasant aspects, but in the evening, with the
candles lighted and the fire glowing and flickering, I will allow no
such thing. The firelight somehow lights up all the lovely bits, and
about the unlovely ones it throws a thick mantle of shadow, like the
shadows in the corners of the room behind us. Nor does the firelight
magic end here. Not only does it play about the fair hours of our past,
making them fairer, it also vaguely multiplies them, so that for one
real occurrence we see many. It is like standing between opposing
mirrors: looking into either, one sees a receding series of reflections,
unending as Banquo's royal line.
Thus, once last winter Jonathan and I spent a long evening reading aloud
a tale of the "Earthly Paradise." Once last summer we sat alone before
the embers and quietly talked. Once and only once. Yet firelit memory is
already laying her touch upon those hours. Already, though my diary
tells me they stood alone, I am persuaded that they were many. I look
back over a retrospect of many long winter evenings, in whose cozy light
I see again the ringed smoke of Jonathan's pipe and hear again the
lingering verse of the idle singer's tales; a retrospect of many long
summer twilights, wherein the warmth of the settling embers mingles with
the sharp coolness of a summer night, and pleasant talk gives place to
pleasant silence.
The apple logs have burned through and rolled apart, the great backlog
has settled deeper and deeper into the ashes. The fire whispers and
murmurs, it whistles soft, low notes, it chuckles and sighs, finally it
sinks into reverie, stirring now and then to whisper "sh-h-h-h" lest we
break the spell. Only the old clock in the hall refuses to yield, and
soberly persists in its "tick-tock," "tick-tock." Jonathan's pipe is
smoked out, but he does not fill it, and we sit there, looking deep into
the rosy glow, and dreaming, dreaming--