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three days we could hear the rhythmic whine of the saw’s teeth through the crisp, frosty air as they chewed the logs into firewood blocks.

As early as possible, the blocks were split manually and piled up in the open air to season, or dry, during the spring and summer months. About the beginning of September, we packed the dry wood into a woodshed to await the call to release its stored energy in fall and winter. Our father usually supplemented the wood with a ton or two of coal bought from a dealer, such as Poole & Thompson in Montague. This company would have brought a schooner-load of coal from Nova Scotia. For homesteads that did not have access to a wood supply, their entire heating fuel was coal. Later in the 50s out went most of the