CHAPTER X
FIRES AND LIGHTS
WHEN wood was plentiful and easily gathered, the fireplace was built of generous proportions. At the back, lying in the ashes, was the backlog, sometimes so huge that a chain was attached to it, and it was dragged in by a horse. The forestick rested upon the andirons, and small sticks filled the space between backlog and forestick. In the wall beside the fireplace was built the brick oven, in which the baking was done. Upon baking day a wood fire was made inside this oven, and when the oven was thoroughly heated, the coals were removed, and the bread placed upon the oven bottom to bake leisurely. The tin kitchen was set before the fire, and pies and bread upon its shelves were cooked by the heat reflected and radiated from the tin hood.
Illustration [308] shows a great kitchen fireplace in the Lee mansion in Marblehead, Massachusetts, with the tin kitchens in front of the fire, and the kettles and pots hanging over it, and the various kitchen utensils around it.
Fire-dogs or andirons are mentioned in the earliest inventories.
The name “fire-dogs” came from the heads of animals with which the irons were ornamented. “Andirons” is a word corrupted from “hand irons,” although some inventories speak of end-irons. Kitchen andirons were of iron similar to the ones in Illustration [316], but for the other fireplaces they were made of steel, copper, or brass, and in England even of silver.
