The Wood Fire in No. 3

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

When I entered No. 3 to-day Mac was struggling with a small upright piano. He and Marny had rolled it out of Wharton's room at the end of the corridor, and the two had guided it between the open door and the screen of No. 3 and were now whirling it into the corner occupied by Mac's easel.

This done, the two began to make ready for the evening's entertainment. The big divan where Mac slept was dragged from its shelter, covered with a rug, and placed against the wall facing the fireplace; the table was stripped of its junk (there is no other word for the miscellaneous collection of sketches, books, curios, matches, brushes, tubes of color, half-used bottles of siccative and the like, which always litters the table's surface), wiped clean, and placed at right angles with the divan; all the uncomfortable chairs moved out of sight; a stool backed up under the window to hold a keg of ice-cool beer, to be brought in later and wreathed with green; new and old mugs—those of the regular members, and brand new ones for the invited guests—lined up on the cleared table: all these shiftings, strippings, and refittings being especially designed for the comfort of a chosen few, who on these rare nights (only once a year) were admitted into the charmed half-circle that curved about the wood fire in No. 3.

These complete, Mac turned his attention to the lesser details: the stacking up of a pile of wood so that the rattling old fire would have logs enough with which to warm the latest guests, new or old, no matter how late they stayed; the hearth swept—all its "dear gray hair combed back from its rosy face with a broom" Mac used to call this process; the Chinese screen drawn the closer to keep out the wandering drafts; candles lighted in the old sconces, ancient candlesticks, and grimy Dutch lanterns; and last—and this he attended to himself—every vestige of the work of his own brush tucked out of sight so that not even Boggs could find one. There were strangers coming to-night—one a partner in a big banking house and a suspected buyer—and no canvas of his must be visible.

With the arrival of the keg of "special brew," carried on the shoulders of a big German from the street to the fifth floor without a pause, where it was propped up on the wooden stool and steadied by a stick of kindling wood, Mac opened the window of his studio and took from its sill a paper box filled with smilax—his own touch in remembrance of his Munich days. This he wound around the body of the cool keg with the enthusiasm of a virgin of old twisting garlands about the neck of a sacred bull. Loyalty to just such ideals is part of Mac's religion.

Pitkin arrived first, bringing with him the much-dreaded banker from whom Mac had hidden his pictures. The sculptor was at work on a bust of the rich man's wife, and the paymaster had begged so hard to be admitted into the charmed circle that Pitkin had singled him out as his guest. Not that there was any valid reason why he or anyone else should be debarred its comforts, except upon the ground of uncongeniality. The habitués of this particular half-circle never tolerated (to quote Mac) the mixing of water and oil on their palettes.

Then came Boggs with an Irish journalist by the name of Murphy, a stockily built, round-headed man in gold spectacles; followed by Woods, who brought a friend of his, an inventor; Marny with another friend from the club, and last of all Lonnegan, with his big dog Chief.

Each guest had been welcomed by Mac in his hearty way and duly presented to the stranger, whosoever he might be, and each man had responded according to his type and personality. The banker had returned Mac's grasp with a deference never extended by him, so Pitkin thought, to any financial magnate; the inventor had at once launched out into a description of his more recent experiments; the club man had said the proper thing, and immediately thereafter had busied himself making a mental inventory of the comforts the room afforded, scrutinizing the etchings, the stuffs on the walls, the old brass—dropping finally into one of the easy chairs by the fire with the same complacency with which he would have dropped into his own at the club; and Woods, Marny, Pitkin, Lonnegan, and the others had all responded in a way to make each guest feel at home—guests and hosts conducting themselves after the manner of humans.

Chief's entrance and greeting were along lines peculiarly his own. He walked in with head erect, his big eyes sweeping the room, stood for an instant surveying the field, and then walked straight to Mac, where he returned his host's welcoming hug by snuggling his big head between his knees. His "manners" made to his host, he visited each guest in turn—those he knew—waited an instant to be petted and talked to, and then stretched himself out at full length on the rug before the fire, where he lay without moving during the entire evening.

"Watch him, Lonny!" burst out Mac—he had followed Chief's every movement since the dog entered the room—"see the way he lies down. Got royal blood in him, old man; goes back to the flood; Noah saw one of his ancestors swimming round and saved him first. I feel as if I were entertaining a Prime Minister."

The atmosphere of the place began to tell on the new company. The banker found himself talking to Boggs in whispers, his respect for his host increasing every moment. That men could plod on as Mac was doing, hampered by a poverty which was only too evident in his surroundings, and still maintain a certain contempt for riches, hidden though it might be under a courtesy which found expression in a big broad fellowship, was a revelation to him. A sort of reverence for the man took possession of him, as if he had fallen upon a supposed tramp whom he had afterward discovered to be either a prophet or some world-known philosopher.