New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1880-04-14
Il win take couple Of bushels Of
kindlings to get fire Of green wood

It viii take q couple Of bushels OF
kindlings to get q fire Of green wood
started. The unfortunate woman who
is laboring ct it will have to blow, and
blow, and blow, until her breath is
gone, and scratch match after match,
and watch for the $ first faint fame
with eager and breathless anticip
while her fingers Jingle with the cold,
and her toes feel as if they had been
converted into icicles; and the cat gets
under the stove to catch the first sug-
gestion Of heat, and the dog whines
with disconsolately dropped tail, and
anybody could tell he was a dog whose
master burned green wood.
The woman who is making the fire
has to peep into the stove once I. mir
ute, and put in q handful of shayings.
About once in two minutes some more
kindling- wood will be needed.
Smoke will pour out Of every nook
and Granny in that stove. All the doors,
and some windows, will have to be
opened to create draught through the
house. The smoke has got into the
w0man's eyes and throat to such an ex-
tent that she feels as If it would be
bliss if she could open window some-
where ir the back Of her head and
make q draught through that.
Husband calls from the bedroom, in
no pleasant tone of voice:
"Look here, Sarah Ann! amt q
going to find wood to warm up all out
doors with! Shut them doors! Do you
mean to freeze me to deathp Strange
that q woman will make such q fuss
getting fire!''
And ,the afflicted woman digs the
corners of her eyes with her knuckles,
and slams the pots and kettles about
promiscuously, and delivers All inn
promptu and eloquent lecture on green
wood.
It will take an hour and a half to get
breakfast for probably the fire will 90
out two or three times during the pro-
cess, and have to be rekindled.
When the meal is ready it is all ba-
con. or might as well be-. Everything
is smoked. Everything smells of SCOT.
The woman's face is grimy, and her
hands looks like coal-heaver' s-for no
soap that ever was made will wash of
the smoke of green wood at one trial.
A man who will give his wife green
wood to burn ought to be divorced and
sent to the Sandwich Islands to be fat
tened for cannibal soup and tender
loins. And his remains ought to be
cooked over a green wood fire.
1t is just as easy to have dried wood
as it is to have green. Every farmer
and house provider ought to under
stand this fact.
No place is complete without wood
shed, and good one, too. And it
ought always to be full of wood, or pro-
visions made for filling it.
All good calculating men get up their
years wood on the first snow. If it has
been out in the fall it is partially dried
by the time it is hauled to the door, and
it is in frst-rate condition to put under
cover. 4r..... ....,.
Wood which is allowed to lie out of
doors for months indefinite, soaking in
the rain, and baking in the sun, is
never half SO good as that which is
seasoned" under cover. 1t loses its
life; it burns black and chars, without
throwing out much heat. ~.
After the wood is drawn from the
forest, the good man and his boys, and
his hired man, can find plenty of time
in the winter days, when it is too cold
to undertake any big job, and when
work is little s. slack to fit up the
fuel for the stove. And when it is piled
into the shed to dry, and be asource of
comfort unutterable to the woman who
has got to do the years cooking, and
washing, and ironing, the good man
has right to sit down in his chimney
.:rner and smoke the pipe of idleness,
if he smokes, and we hope he doesn't.
We know of more than one house
where meal of victuals can never be
cooked until the housewife goes to the
door and shouts to her spouse, who is
providing around the fields or. barns:
"Say there! Hello! want some
uood"' .1
We know of families who never have
enough wood on hand, at any time, to
make a fire in the parlor stove, if COM
;r.ny comes unexpectedly, and some
Body has to swing the ak before it can
&c done. =, ......-
We know of families, the head of
Which owns hundred acres of wood
and, yet the women never have stick
i decent wood to burn. Their wood
nile is "down-wood''-trees too rotten
10 stand alone, and so they fall down
Old stumps which will not hold togeth-
II to take up, and brush which needs
!. basket to be carried in, and the pa
icnce of Job to feed it into the stove,
,fter it is in the house.
Now, where is the sense of it?
Why not be comfortable while we
may?
Why should not the nan who has
plenty Of wood think enough of his
wife's comfort to give her as good wooo
as he hauls to marketp Perhaps he
will say he cannot afford it, but that is
no reason at all-only an opinion. All
he wants is enough to make him COM
Portable, and if he is twenty or thirty
dollars out by burning good wood, he
is hundreds of dollars in so far as
time, temper and comfort are con-
cerned.
Use up the wood you need, good
friends; you won't want it hereafter, if
the popular belief be correct; and if
you sell it and hoard up the money it
will only be bone of contention for
your heirs to pick all their several life
times.
: A woman will live ten years longer,
on an average, if she has dry wood to
burn; and as for keeping young
why twenty years burning green
wood would shrivel Venus herself into
a. R,.,An =. "