By the side of the fireplace, with a flue entering the chimney,
was a great brick oven, big enough to bake all the bread
needed by a large family for a week or ten days. The oven
was heated by a brisk fire made of birch or maple or some
very rapidly burning wood. When the coals were taken out,
the bread was put in, and the oven was shut with two iron
doors. The baking-day was commonly Saturday.
When the bread was taken out Saturday afternoon it was usual
to put in a large pot of beans for the Sunday dinner. They
were left there all night and the oven was opened in the morning
and enough came out for breakfast, when there was put into
the oven a pot of Indian pudding, which was left with the
rest of the beans for the Sunday dinner.
The parlor fire was a very beautiful sight, with the big
logs and the sparkling walnut or oak wood blazing up. Some
of the housekeepers of that time had a good deal of skill
in arranging the wood in a fireplace so as to make of it
a beautiful piece of architecture. Lowell describes these
old fires very well in his ballad, "The Courtin'":
A fireplace filled the room's one side
With half a cord o'wood in--
There warn't no stoves (till comfort died)
To bake ye to a puddin'.
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