e. In the kitchen grandmother did all her cooking with a wood
fire--using the ashes for the lye barrel--and the feasts that came
steaming from her famous oven have never been equalled on any gas-range
ever made. (Gas-range! how grandmother would have sniffed in scorn at
such a suggestion!) Even coal was only fit for the base burner in the
family sitting-room--and that must be anthracite, or "hard" coal, the
kind that comes in sacks nowadays at about the same price as butter and
eggs. And even the wood had to be split just so and be "clear" and
right, or grandmother would scold grandfather for not wearing his
near-seeing specs when he bought it. "Guess they fooled you on that
load, Mr. Van," she'd say. "It isn't like the last we had."

Don't you remember how you were hanging around the kitchen one Saturday
morning kind-a waiting for something to come within reach, and
grandfather's cane came tap-tapping down the long hall, and he pushed
open the kitchen door and stood there, just inside the door, until the
kettle started boiling over and making such a noise. And then he
announced that he thought he better go out and see if there was any
wood in market. (As if there weren't fifty farmers lined up there
almost before daylight!) It was about nine o'clock and the sun had had
a chance to warm things up a bit--so grandmother wrapped him up in his
knitted muffler and away he went beneath his shiny silk hat. And
because you stood around and looked wistfully up at him, he finally
turned back, just before he reached the big front door and said: "Want
to go along, Billie?" Of course you went, because there were all kinds
of shops on the way up town to the wood market and grandfather always
had an extra nickle for such occasions.

Can't you just see that wood-market now, as it used to be in the Long
Ago--with its big platform scales--and its wagons of accurately-piled
cord-wood marked on the end of some stick with the white chalk-mark of
the official "inspector" and measurer--and the farmers all bundled-up
and tied-around with various cold-dispelling devices and big mitts and
fur caps? So far as you could tell then (or now, either, I'll wager!)
every load was exactly like every other load--but not so to
grandfather, for he would scrutinize them all, sound them with his
stick, barter and dicker and look out for knots--and then make the
rounds again and do it all over before finally making his
selection--and I distinctly remember fee