ands close--"

these I would multiply, taking them away from June to give to January,
could I supply the fire and the boys and the books and the reader to go
with them.

And I often wonder if more men might not supply these things for
themselves? There are January nights for all, and space enough outside
of city and suburb for simple firesides; books enough also; yes, and
readers-aloud if they are given the chance. But the boys are hard to
get. They might even come girls. Well, what is the difference,
anyway? Suppose mine had been dear things with ribbons in their
hair--not these four, but four more? Then all the glowing circle about
the fireplace had been filled, the chain complete, a link of fine gold
for every link of steel! Ah! the cat hath nine lives, as Phisologus
saith; but a man hath as many lives as he hath sons, with two lives
besides for every daughter. So it must always seem to me when I
remember the precious thing that vanished from me before I could even
lay her in her mother's arms. She would have been, I think, a full
head taller than the oldest boy, and wiser than all four of the boys,
being a girl.

The real needs of life are few, and to be had by most men, even though
they include children and an automobile. Second-hand cars are very
cheap, and the world seems full of orphans--how many orphans now! It
is n't a question of getting the things; the question is, What are the
necessary things?

First, I say, a fireplace. A man does well to build his fireplace
first instead of the garage. Better than a roof over one's head is a
fire at one's feet; for what is there deadlier than the chill of a
fireless house? The fireplace first, unless indeed he have the chance,
as I had when a boy, to get him a pair of tongs.

The first piece of household furniture I ever purchased was a pair of
old tongs. I was a lad in my teens. "Five--five--five--five--v-v-v-ve
_will_ you make it ten?" I heard the auctioneer cry as I passed the
front gate. He held a pair of brass-headed hearth tongs above his
head, waving them wildly at the unresponsive bidders.

"Will _you_ make it ten?" he yelled at me as the last comer.

"Ten," I answered, a need for fire tongs, that blistering July day,
suddenly overcoming me.

"And sold for ten cents to the boy in the gate," shouted the
auctioneer. "Will somebody throw in the fireplace to go with them!"

I took my tongs rather sheepishly, I fear, rather helplessly, and