father would take a ladder, set it up in the chimney, take a little water
and go up and put it out. This was seldom necessary, as it never took
fire unless the clay cracked in places, or the weather wore it off.

When there was a small fire in the evening, I could stand on the clay
hearth and look through the chimney at the stars as they twinkled and
shone in their brightness. I could count a number of them as I stood
there. Father drove into a log, back of the fire place, two iron eyes on
which to hang a crane; they extended into the room about one foot.
Around, and at one side of these he built the back of the fireplace of
clear clay a foot thick at the bottom, but thinner when it got up to the
sticks; after the clay dried he hung the crane. It is seen that we had
no jambs to our fireplace. Father sometimes at night would get a backlog
in. I have seen those which he got green, and very large, which were
sometimes twenty inches through and five or six feet long. When he got
the log to the door, he would take a round stick as large as his arm,
lay it on the floor, so that his log would come crossways of it, and
then crowd the log. I have seen him crowd it with a handspike and the
stick would roll in opposite the fireplace. He would tell us children to
stand back and take the chairs out of the way. Then he would roll the
log into the fireplace, and very carefully so as not to break or crack
the clay hearth, for mother had all the care of that, and wished it kept
as nicely as possible. When he had the log on to suit him, he would say,
"There, I guess that will last awhile." Then he would bring in two green
sticks, six or eight inches through and about three feet long, and place
them on the hearth with the ends against the backlog. These he called
his Michigan andirons; said he was proud of them. He said they were wood
instead of iron, to be sure, but he could afford to have a new pair
whenever he wanted them. When he brought in a large fore-stick, and laid
it across his andirons, he had the foundation for a fire, for