TIME TO LIGHT THE FURNACE


The twenty-eighth of October. Coal nine dollars a ton. Mr. and Mrs.
Blackwell had made a resolution not to start the furnace until
Thanksgiving. And in the biting winds of Long Island that requires
courage.

Commuters the world over are a hardy, valorous race. The Arab commutes
by dromedary, the Malay by raft, the Indian rajah by elephant, the
African chief gets a team of his mothers-in-law to tow him to the
office. But wherever you find him, the commuter is a tough and tempered
soul, inured to privation and calamity. At seven-thirty in the morning
he leaves his bungalow, tent, hut, palace, or kraal, and tells his wife
he is going to work.

How the winds whistle and moan over those Long Island flats! Mr. and
Mrs. Blackwell had laid in fifteen tons of black diamonds. And hoping
that would be enough, they were zealous not to start the furnace until
the last touchdown had been made.

But every problem has more than one aspect. Belinda, the new cook, had
begun to work for them on the fifth of October. Belinda came from the
West Indies, a brown maiden still unspoiled by the sophistries of the
employment agencies. She could boil an egg without cracking it, she
could open a tin can without maiming herself. She was neat, guileless,
and cheerful. But, she was accustomed to a warm climate.

The twenty-eighth of October. As Mr. and Mrs. Blackwell sat at dinner,
Mr. Blackwell buttoned his coat, and began a remark about how chilly the