their usefulness. The wrought-iron shoe of a
horse occurs to us, perhaps a ship's anchor, a string-bow or an axe
helve.

Some support is needed to raise the fuel so that the air may find a
clear passage under and through it to the flames, and nothing could well
be devised to serve the purpose better than the pair of horizontal
wrought bars, each with its single rear foot and its steadying front,
the upper continuation of which serves to hold the burning logs in
place.

One is not likely to go wrong in making a choice of andirons for any
given type of fireplace. The simply turned brass patterns belong so
obviously to the Colonial brick opening with its surrounding white
woodwork; the rougher wrought-iron types are so evidently at home in the
craftsman fireplace or the rough opening of stonework, that misfits are
hardly possible.

Fortunately the old brass andirons of Colonial days have proven
themselves fitted to survive, and many of them are still to be found in
old cobwebby attics or in the more accessible shop of the dealer in
antiques. One of these confided to me his way of distinguishing the
really old andirons from artificially aged reproductions: the old ones
have the turned brass of the front post held in place by a wrought-iron
bar that attaches to the horizontal member by a screw thread on the bar
itself; on the modern examples this upright bar is drilled with a
threaded hole into which an ordinary short screw engages through a hole
in the horizontal member.

[Illustration: The good old dependable Colonial type, with its
simple brick facing framed by the delicately detailed white wood
mantel]

Next after the andirons in importance are the tools--the three most
nearly essential ones being the poker, tongs and shovel. There is no
need of saying that these should harmonize with the andirons and
preferably be of brass if they are of brass; wrought iron if the
andirons are of wrought iron. There are two ways of taking care of
them--the ordinary method of using a stand which, if the tools are
bought together, will probably come with them; or in some of the
fireplace types where the whole chimney breast is of brick, concrete or
stone, sometimes a combination of three or more hooks is wrought in the
same metal as the tools and fixed securely in the chimney breast at the
side of the opening.

A brush for the hearth, although not so frequently seen, is exceedingly
useful in sweeping back the ashes a