Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1873-11-20
Coal or Wood.

AM Just a little tired of hearing that
wood fires are the only kind that any
white man ought to have | don't believe
it. | appear for the other side.
Wood fires have Their associations. How
| used to rejoice when new backlog was
to be put on! The fire was allowed to
burn low and Bill Mckay was sent for.
Bill was a tenant farm hand of gigantic
strength. He knew how to handle a man
| Or back log, for there was not fighter in
the country that dared touch Bill. The
last time | saw him he was old. but it was
the old age of Hercules. He stood like
an mistaken Doric pillar despite the COM
bined attacks of time, of poverty, and of
whisky. Good-hearted, full of humor
and animal life, he was a favorite with
us all Bill would select his back-lo
| while we boys stood by rejoicing anew to
witness the feat OF gigantic strength
which we had seen SO often. 1t was our
only circus. Then he would lift the great
green log on end. SO heavy were these
logs that in Bills absence two men would
be required to lift one end and walk" it
into the house. But Bill having stood the
monster on end, stopped slowly and en-
braced him round the waist. That was
the moment of our boyish triumph. Bill
w
gether, nor did the log stop until he had
set it upon the great wide hearth, and then
gently laid it to rest in its ashv bed, where
for week its great bulk and incombusti-
bility would resist the attacks of the hot
fire that burned against it. Those were
wood fires indeed. The little limitations
which sentimental people build in town
are not even moons beside the memory of
this sun.
/ think the enjoyment of wood fires is
mostly matter of memory. If | could
go back to the old DAYS before the first
stove was ever brought into the house,
when kettles hung on cranes in the wide
old kitchen-if | could 60 back to that
time and feel as I felt them should en-
JOY wood fire. How delicious the bis
cult looked baking in 'reflectorn And
then when the fire burned low on the
hearth and we children stretched our
selves out with chin on hands and stared
INTO the Goals and built them into pal
aces or tlre mountains, those were mo-
ments OF ecstasy. But do you think you
can produce any such emotions by max
ing little fires in little city fire-places? I
confess never see such fire in a friends
house nowadays without thinking of but
just one thlng-the enormous price of
wood | find my sentimental friends
burn their wood gingerlv, saving the
brands and calculating the amount of
heat that is barely needtul to keep them
IN tolerable comfort. Now nothing spOils
a sentiment like an economy of it. AS
soon as you get Saving" with your
poetry, your poetry evaporates. And
when l see this attempt to produce the
Tine effects OF roaring wood fire with
few sticks | grow veXed. The thing is a
sham, deluslOn, and snare.
As for these tin tictions of painted
Wood, arranged to blaze by means Of gas,
they are the most hypOcritical of hum
bugs. The man who will cheat me into
the belief that | am by an open fire when
there IS only a pale gaslight and the heat
OF register, is, ;esthetically considered,
Pharisee. If | had one of these patent
falsehoods in my house | would put it
into the street before night 1t is about as
much like a real fire as the moonshine of
panoroma is like real moonlight, or as
the love OF the cheap story writer is like
the love OF real men and women. rather
like successful cheat, but this is too thin
and hollow to deceive. 1t is a failure as
we'll as a swindit
The poetry OF early memories deceives
us. We think that there is more in
wood fire than there really is. II we had
been reared to anthracite, thematter would
be different. The next generation will
eXpatiate on the steady glow of a red-hot
anthracite fire, much as we do on the
flicker of the old wood fires
Now the plain truth is that wood is
good enough for people who can not do
any better: Indians and frontiermen, for
instance. But coal is civilization. Wood
burns your face, smokes your eyes, pops
Goals on your carpet, has to be fed nearly
all the time, and'never quite warns you.
If | lived in a wooded country | should
burn il, and wish for my CRATE of hard
coal. But even the much abused furnace
is better than wood replaces. It warns
the whole house, or at least mOderates the
climate in the whole house. 1t does not
blister your tace and leave your back to
shiver
But, after ALL nothing quite equals the
open crate of anthracite. Hard coal is a
type Of all steadiness and constancy. The
red-hot heart of a hard coal fire is "a type
OF friendship that Outlasts the longest and
darkest and coolest night, You may for
get your fire, but when YOU want it the
red heart of fire answers to your call
Talk Of Pickering blazes and dancing
oii'','''9 ''i.t ''h'lIuc aiulioho anu " lSuI
hickory Goals. Give me the rosy twilight
OF an anthracite crate or a mica windowed
base burner.
We'd just as we'll start little sentiment
on this side of the question; for the wood
will soon give out if we should all insist
on burning it. Therefore let's see the
beauty of good, staunch, honest anthracite
that makes less flicker and gives more
Warmtl-slOW to kindIp. but a constant
friend when lighted,-Ed0ard Eggleston,