he 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, unsa