Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1873-11-20
Coal or Wood.

lam just 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 tenant farm hand Of gigantic
strength. He knew how to handle man
or backlog, 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 backlog
while we boys stood by rejoicing anew to
witness the feat of gigantic strength
which we had seen so often. II was our
only circus. Then he would lift the great
green log on end. So heavy were these
logs that in Bilps absence two men would
he 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
and the backlog welt into the house to-
gether, nor did the log stop until he had
set ii upon the great wide hearth, and then
gently laid it to rest in its ashy bed, where
for a week its great bulk and incombusti-
bility would resist the attacks of the hot
fire that burned against 1t. 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 kitcben-if / could go back to that
time and feel as felt them should en-
joy wood fire. How delicious the bis
cult looked baking in 'refiector" 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 e-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? l
confess ! never see such fire in friends
house nowadays without thinking Of but
just one thing--the enormous price OF
wood. / find my sentimental friends
burn. their wood gingerly, saving the
brands and calculating the amount of
heat that is barely needful 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 j see this attempt TO produce the
fine effects Of roaring wood fire with
few sticks grow vexed. The thing is a
sham, a delusion, and snare.
AS for these tin fictions 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 pale gaslight and the heat
of register, is, gsthetically considered,
Pharisee. If had one Of these patent
falsehcods in my house l would put it
into the street before night. II is about as
much like real fire as the moonshine Of
a panoroma is like real moonlight, or as
the love of the cheap story writer is like
the love of real men and women. Irather
like successful cheat, but this is too thin
and hollow to deceive. 1t is failure as
well as a swindle.
The poetry of early memories deceiyes
us. We think that there is more in a
wood fire than there really is. If we had
been reared to anthracite, the matter 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 wooded country / should
burn it, and wish for my CRATE of hard
coal. But even the mucb-abused furnace
Is better than wood ire-places. 1t warns
the whole house, or at least moderates the
climate in the whole house. 1t does not
blister your face and leave your back to
shiver.
But, after all, nothing quite equals the
open CRATE Of anthracite. Hard coal Is a
n