crane brought convenience and simplicity,
and added a new grace to the kitchen hearth.

The andirons added to the fireplace their homely charm. Fire-dogs
appear in the earliest inventories under many names of various spelling,
and were of many metals--copper, steel, iron, and brass. Sometimes a
fireplace had three sets of andirons of different sizes, to hold logs at
different heights. Cob irons had hooks to hold a spit and dripping-pan.
Sometimes the "Handirons" also had brackets. Creepers were low irons
placed between the great fire-dogs. They are mentioned in many early
wills and lists of possessions among items of fireplace furnishings, as,
for instance, the list of Captain Tyng's furniture, made in Boston in
1653. The andirons were sometimes very elaborate, with claw feet, or
cast in the figure of a negro, a soldier, or a dog.

In the Deerfield Memorial Hall there lives in perfection of detail one
of these old fireplaces--a delight to the soul of the antiquary. Every
homely utensil and piece of furniture, every domestic convenience and
inconvenience, every home-made makeshift, every cumbrous and clumsy
contrivance of the old-time kitchen here may be found, and they show to
us, as in a living photograph, the home life of those olden days.

V

TABLE PLENISHINGS

In the early days of the colonies doubtless the old Anglo-Saxon board
laid on trestles was used for a dining-table instead of a table with a
stationary top. "Table bords" appear in early New England wills, and
"trestles" also. "Long tables" and "drawing tables" were next named. A
"long table" was used as a dining-table, and, from the frequent
appearance of two forms with it, was evidently used from both sides, and
not in the ancient fashion of the diners sitting at one side only. A
drawing-table was an extension-table; it could by an arrangement of drop
leaves be doubled in length. A fine one can be seen in the rooms of the
Connecticut Historical Society. Chair tables were the earliest example,
in fact the prototype, of some of our modern extraordinary "combination"
furniture. The tops were usually round, and occasionally large enough to
be used as a dining-table, and when turned over by a hinge arrangement
formed the back of the chair. "Hundred legged" tables had flaps at
either end which turned down or were held up in place by a bracket
composed of a number of turned perpendicular supports which gave to it
the name of "hundred legs." These table