All these forces working against me had, thus far, prevented me from experimenting, and perhaps even now the towering base-burner would have remained our family shrine had not Mary Isabel put in a wordless plea. Less than four hundred days old, she was, nevertheless wise in fireplaces. She had begun to burble in the light of the Severances' hearth in Minnesota, and her eyes had reflected the flame and shadow of a noble open fire in Katharine Herne's homestead on Peconic Bay. Her cheeks had reddened like apples in the glory of that hickory flame, and when she came to our small apartment in New York City she had seemed surprised and sadly disappointed by the gas pipes and asbestos mat, which made up a hollow show under a gimcrack mantel. Now here, in her own home, was she to remain without the witchery of crackling flame? As the cold winds of September began to blow my resolution was taken. "That fireplace must be built. My daughter shall not be cheated of beamed ceilings and the glory of the blazing log." Zulime, in alarm, again cried out as mother used to do: "Consider the expense!" "Hang the expense! Consider the comfort, the beauty of the embers. Think of Mary Isabel with her eyes reflecting their light. Imagine the old soldier sitting on the hearth holding his granddaughter----" She smiled in timorous surrender. "I can see you are bound to do it," she said, "but where can it be built?" Alas! there was only one available space, a narrow wall between the two west windows. "We'll cut the windows down, or move them," I said, with calm resolution. "I hate a _little_ fireplace," protested Zulime. "It can't be huge," I admitted, "but it can be real. It can be as _deep_ as we want it." Having decided upon the enterprise I hurried forth to engage the hands to do the work. I could not endure a day's delay. The first carpenter with whom I spoke knew nothing about such things. The next one had helped to put in one small "hard-coal, wall pocket," and the third man had seen fireplaces in Norway, but remembered little about their construction. After studying Zulime's sketch of what we wanted, he gloomily remarked, "I don't believe I can make that thing _gee_." Zulime was disheartened by all this, but Mary Isabel climbed to my knee as if to say, "Boppa, where is my fireplace?" My courage returned. "It shall be built if I have to import a mason from Chicago," I declared, and returned to the campaign. "Can't you build a thing like this?" I asked a plasterer, showing him a magazine picture of a fireplace. He studied it with care, turning it from side to side. "A rough pile o' brick like that?" "Just like that." "Common red brick?" "Yes, just the kind you use for outside walls." "If you'll get a carpenter to lay it out maybe I can do it," he answered, but would fix no date for beginning the work.