"And as we talked, the intense and resinous fire
Lit up the towering boles, till nigh and nigher
They gather round, a ghostly company,

Like beasts who seek to know what men may be."

That was quite a fire which Shingebis, the diver, had in his lodge, in Longfellow's "Hiawatha," and I question whether it has ever been equaled:

"Four great logs had he for fire-wood,

One for each moon of the winter."

Dr. W. C. Gray avers that he was able to hear the music of the spheres beside his camp-fire in the Northern woods; and elsewhere in his "Musings by Camp-fire and Wayside" has that stanch old lover of the wild led us into many an attractive train of moralizings by the firelight. Rowland E. Robinson has written pleasantly of his thoughts beside it; Mr. John Burroughs is a warm enthusiast in its mellowing light; Mr. John Muir has told us of his camp-fires in the Sierras; and quite recently, also, Mr. Stewart Edward White, in "The Forest," has delighted many with his camp-fire descriptions.

Mr. Henry van Dyke, however, is its most loyal defender, his sketch on "The Open Fire," in "Fisherman's Luck," being as readable a paper upon the subject as one could wish. Mr. van Dyke (I may remark, in passing) speaks of using his lunch paper to start his camp-fire with, but, in making our fires, in boyhood days, we used to scorn the use of paper, as belonging more to the usages of civilization, and so always started ours with leaves and twigs, in true woodcraft style. We wanted to be more primitive and savage, and to lie at the side of our "dim religious light" with some sort of sense of fatherhood. 'T was the old wild in

stinct cropping out in us, you know; and our greatest regret was that we were always unable to kindle a blaze by twirling one stick against another, which would thus have obviated entirely the obnoxious necessity of matches. But then, anyway, savages did not need a fire so much as we.

But to return to our own hearth. Here centered the life of grandfather's family. Around it they lived, and here the boys and girls were brought up. It was the home fire. Consequently, to one who has lived in such an atmosphere, and especially to one whose whole early life was surrounded with the influences of the wood fire on the hearth, and whose memories are all of that, nothing stands for the real meaning of home and family quite so well as does the old-time open wood fireplace. Nothing can take its place-no coal grate, or stove, or registers, or steam heaters-nothing has the same pioneer-like atmosphere.

Yes, my heart lies back among the old quail traps and rabbit twitch-ups. I love the simple ways of the open wood fire of long ago. All the conventional, modernized life is gone as I sit before it, all gone away into the smoke of the chimney. But it comes back again, and will not leave me; and the glow of the backlog dies away with my thoughts, just as the older life is passing, never to be produced or lived again—nay, has almost vanished now even from our memories.

The backlog topples over. Thut! A spark or two ascend the chimney. There is a last pale flicker. The old fire is out. . . .

Let us bank it
Let us bank it up for the night.

THE OLD MUZZLE-LOADING RIFLE.

"There could be no greater pleasure to me than to wander with a matchlock through one of the great forests or wild tracts that still remain in England. The weapon itself, whether matchlock, wheel-lock, or even a cross-bow, would be a delight.

"An imperfect weapon-yes but the imperfect weapon would accord with the great oaks, the beech trees full of knot-holes, the tall fern, the silence and the solitude. The chase would become a real chase; not, as now, a foregone conclusion. And there would be time for pondering and dreaming."

T

-Richard Jefferies.

HERE used to be (and still is) an old muzzleloading rifle about the farm, hanging generally in the lobby, which is just around the corner from the fireplace, on two forks of saplings that had been nailed against the wall as hooks to support it. It had curious curvatures on the stock, on which to rest the chin and cheek, and the butt was curved so as exactly to fit the shoulder. Its barrel was octagonal in shape, and full-stocked-that is, with wood from the stock extending all the way beneath the barrel up to the muzzle-and was very long, the full length from butt to muzzle being fifty-eight inches; thus making the gun, stock and all, as tall as the tallest boy thereabouts, almost. It had a very long ramrod, too, that slipped down into the stock in a groove under the barrel, and we used to wonder how we could ever replace it, if it got broken. The caliber was about .38. The shoulder plate and trigger guard were of brass, and there was a silver shield-like plate on the small of the stock for the owner's name.