The Campfire

"Men bnild fires in various places to cook their coffee by or to make themeelves warm or for company's sake," Baid a civil war veteran, "and any fire s likely to be more or less a gathering point, bnt I suppose that the fire to which the name of campfire properly belongs, the campfire of song and story, is the cook's fire at the end of the company street, built on the ground, tinder a pole supported at the ends by crotched sticks driven in the earth and from which the camp kettles are suspended. This was the gathering point of the company. "Men did not always stand abont the campfire. It depended upon circumstances and on the weather. They met bere, of course, at mealtimes, and there were times when men would stand around the fire and smoke and talk, and then it might be that the men would keep their tents, playing cards or smoking there, or mending their clothes, or polishing np their accouterments, so that there were times when the fire was quite deserted or when perhaps there might be seen there a solitary figure, a man who had come to light his pipe. "But, though it might be deserted, the fire still burned. Sometimes on cold and windy nights the wind would blow it about and scatter it, and sometimes, when it was no longer attended, the rain would put it out black, but there was usually a living fire there by day and a bed of embers by night, and here was the soldier's hearthstone. " -