offhand way of issuing instructions, began to fumble with the knives and
forks she went on: "Why, you'd start your fire that way, and then you'd
never let it go out. Everybody that amounted to anything knew how to
bank the hearth fire with ashes at night so it would be sure to last.
And the first thing in the morning, you got down on your knees and poked
the ashes away very carefully till you got to the hot coals. Then you'd
blow with the bellows and drop in pieces of dry pine--don't forget the
water-glasses--and you'd blow gently till they flared up and the
shavings caught, and there your fire would be kindled again. The napkins
are in the second drawer."

Betsy went on setting the table, deep in thought, reconstructing the old
life. As she put the napkins around she said, "But SOMETIMES it must
have gone out ..."

"Yes," said Aunt Abigail, "sometimes it went out, and then one of the
children was sent over to the nearest neighbor to borrow some fire. He'd
take a covered iron pan fastened on to a long hickory stick, and go
through the woods--everything was woods then--to the next house and wait
till they had their fire going and could spare him a pan full of coals;
and then--don't forget the salt and pepper--he would leg it home as fast
as he could streak it, to get there before the coals went out. Say,
Betsy, I think that apple sauce is ready to be sweetened. You do it,
will you? I've got my hands in the biscuit dough. The sugar's in the
left-hand drawer in the kitchen cabinet."

"Oh, MY!" cried Betsy, dismayed. "_I_ don't know how to cook!"

Aunt Abigail laughed and put back a strand of curly white hair with the
back of her floury hand. "You know how to stir sugar into your cup of