Don't you remember how you were hanging around the kitchen one Saturday morning kind-a waiting for something to come within reach, and grandfather's cane came tap-tapping down the long hall, and he pushed open the kitchen door and stood there, just inside the door, until the kettle started boiling over and making such a noise. And then he announced that he thought he better go out and see if there was any wood in market. (As if there weren't fifty farmers lined up there almost before daylight!) It was about nine o'clock and the sun had had a chance to warm things up a bit--so grandmother wrapped him up in his knitted muffler and away he went beneath his shiny silk hat. And because you stood around and looked wistfully up at him, he finally turned back, just before he reached the big front door and said: "Want to go along, Billie?" Of course you went, because there were all kinds of shops on the way up town to the wood market and grandfather always had an extra nickle for such occasions. Can't you just see that wood-market now, as it used to be in the Long Ago--with its big platform scales--and its wagons of accurately-piled cord-wood marked on the end of some stick with the white chalk-mark of the official "inspector" and measurer--and the farmers all bundled-up and tied-around with various cold-dispelling devices and big mitts and fur caps? So far as you could tell then (or now, either, I'll wager!) every load was exactly like every other load--but not so to grandfather, for he would scrutinize them all, sound them with his stick, barter and dicker and look out for knots--and then make the rounds again and do it all over before finally making his selection--and I distinctly remember feeling that the wood left in market after grandfather had made his selection wasn't worth hauling away! Load after load was driven up to the high backyard fence and its sticks heaved into the yard and piled in perfect order--and it made a goodly and formidable showing when Old Pete, the wood-sawyer, finally arrived on the scene. The time of wood-buying was determined partly by Pete's engagements--he went first to the Perkinses and next to the Williamses and so on in rotation as he had done for years, his entire winter being "engaged" far ahead. It did not seem possible, to boyish mind, that one man could ever get all that wood sawed and split, even if he was a great giant Norseman with the finest buck-saw in the country. But each year Old Pete's prowess seemed to increase--and day after day the ceaseless music of his saw sounded across the crisp air--and the measured strokes of his axe struck a clarion note--until finally the yard showed only chips and saw-dust where that vast wood-pile had been--and the big barn was piled full to the rafters--the kitchen wood and chunks on one side, the big wood on the other.