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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
14
The
fireplace
was
deep,
and
there
was
a
"settle"
in
the
chimney
corner,
where
three
of
us
youngest
girls
could
sit
together
and
toast
our
toes
on
the
andirons
(two
Continental
soldiers
in
full
uniform,
marching
one
after
the
other),
while
we
looked
up
the
chimney
into
a
square
of
blue
sky,
and
sometimes
caught
a
snowflake
on
our
foreheads;
or
sometimes
smirched
our
clean
aprons
(high-necked
and
long
sleeved
ones,
known
as
"tiers"),
against
the
swinging
crane
with
its
sooty
pot-hooks
and
trammels.
The
coffee-pot
was
set
for
breakfast
over
hot
coals,
on
a
three-legged
bit
of
iron
called
a
"trivet."
Potatoes
were
roasted
in
the
ashes,
and
the
Thanksgiving
turkey
in
a
"tin-kitchen,"
the
business
of
turning
the
spit
being
usually
delegate
to
some
of
us,
small
folk,
who
were
only
too
willing
to
burn
our
faces
in
honor
of
the
annual
festival.
There
were
brick
ovens
in
the
chimney
corner,
where
the
great
bakings
were
done;
but
there
was
also
an
iron
article
called
a
"Dutch
oven,"
in
which
delicious
bread
could
be
baked
over
the
coals
at
short
notice.
And
there
was
never
was
anything
that
tasted
better
than
my
mother's
"firecake,"--a
short-cake
spread
on
a
smooth
piece
of
board,
and
set
up
with
a
flat-iron
before
the
blaze,
browned
on
one
side,
and
then
turned
over
to
be
browned
on
the
other.
(It
required
some
sleight
of
hand
to
do
that.)
If
I
could
only
be
allowed
to
blow
the
bellows--the
very
old
people
called
them
"belluses"--when
the
fire
began
to
get
low,
I
was
a
happy
girl.
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