Sentence:  famished after a baconless dinner and a snack of cold weak tea and heavy bread, miserably shod, and with nothing to look forward to in the evening but a <WSD>hearthful</WSD> of wet clothes steaming before an inadequate wood fire, source of light as well as heat. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A quantity (of something) sitting on a hearth outside a fireplace.