The Hills of Hingham | Page 9

really rather have a nice safe old car than
any new one. Thieves don't take old cars, as you know. And you can't
insure them, that's a comfort! And cars don't skid and collide just
because they are old, do they? And you never have to scold the children
about the paint and--and the old thing does go--what do you think
Lamb would say about old cars?"
"Lamb be hanged on old cars!" and I sent the sparks flying with a fresh
stick.
"Well, then let's hear the rest of him on 'Old China.'" And so she read,
while the fire burned, and outside swept the winter storm.
I have a weakness for out-loud reading and Lamb, and a peculiar joy in
wood fires when the nights are dark and snowy. My mind is not, after
all, much set on automobiles then; there is such a difference between a
wild January night on Mullein Hill and an automobile show--or any
other show. If St. Bernard of Cluny had been an American and not a
monk, I think Jerusalem the Golden might very likely have been a quiet

little town like Hingham, all black with a winter night and lighted for
the Saint with a single open fire. Anyhow I cannot imagine the
mansions of the Celestial City without fireplaces. I don't know how the
equatorial people do; I have never lived on the equator, and I have no
desire to--nor in any other place where it is too hot for a fireplace, or
where wood is so scarce that one is obliged to substitute a gas-log. I
wish I could build an open hearth into every lowly home and give
every man who loves out-loud reading a copy of Lamb and sticks
enough for a fire. I wish--is it futile to wish that besides the fireplace
and the sticks I might add a great many more winter evenings to the
round of the year? I would leave the days as they are in their beautiful
and endless variety, but the long, shut-in winter evenings
"When young and old in circle About the firebrands 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