Stover

“ They entered the campus, now the campus of the busy day. Across by the chapel, the fence was hidden under continually arriving groups of upper classmen, streaming to it in threes and fours in muscular enthusiasm. There was no division there. Gradually the troubled perceptions of the night before faded from Stover's consciousness. The light he saw was the clear noon of the day, and the air that filled his lungs the atmosphere of life and ambition.
At every step, runners for eating-houses, steam laundries, and tailors thrust cards in their hands, coaxing for orders. ”

“ An urchin pillowed on the knees of a Goliath had shifted so as languidly to command the approach; a baseball, traveling back and forth in lazy flight, had stopped only a moment, and then continued from hand to hand.
Stover had thought of his future associates without much trepidation, as he had thought of the Faculty as Miss Wandell in trousers—being inferior to him in mental agility and resourcefulness who, he confidently intended, should shortly follow his desires. ”

“ Le Baron rose.
"By the way, what are you going out for this spring?"
"This spring?" said Stover, surprised.
"Ever rowed any?"
"Never."
"That doesn't make any difference. You learn the stroke quicker—no bad habits."
"I'm light as mischief."
"Oh, I don't know—not for the freshman. We want to stimulate the interest in rowing up here. It's a good example for a man like you to come out. Ever done anything in baseball or the track?"
"No."
"Rowing's the stunt for you." He went toward the door, and turned. "Have a little chat with Regan. ”

“ From the forty-yard line to the thirty it came in two rushes, from the thirty to the twenty in three; and then suddenly some one was tricked, drawn in from the vital attack, and the runner, guarded by one interferer, swept past the unprotected end and set out for a touchdown.
Stover went forward to meet them like a shot, frantic to save the precious yards. How he did it he never quite knew, but somehow he managed to fling himself just in front of the interferer and go down with a death grip on one leg of the runner. ”

“ One need not venture there, however, to see the wayside cook at his work of roasting a whole sheep on the curb. Even the business streets up-town often show this spectacle. The stove is a mere sheet-iron chest without a cover, and containing a slow fire of charcoal. ”

“ Construction of a Good Stove.—Both cooking-ranges and cooking-stoves are constructed of steel, malleable iron, wrought-iron and cast-iron. Of these, the cast-iron stoves are the least expensive; but they cannot be recommended, because they are liable to crack; they usually waste fuel, owing to imperfect construction, frequently smoke, and are frequently out of order. ”

“ A French cook will prepare an entire dinner with a splinter of wood, a handful of charcoal, and a half-shovelful of coke, while the same fuel would barely suffice to kindle the fire in an American cook-stove. Even more wonderful is the German stove, with its great bulk of brick and mortar and its glazed tile surface, in which, by keeping the heat in the room instead of sending it up the chimney, a few bits of compressed coal do the work of a hodful. ”

“ But open fireplaces, while pleasant to look at, are not efficient for either heating or cooking. The possibilities for the latter are especially limited, and the invention of stoves was a great advance in efficiency, economy, and comfort. A stove is a receptacle for fire, provided with a definite inlet for air and a definite outlet for smoke, and able to radiate into the room most of the heat produced from the fire which burns within. ”

“ As to your favourite, the stove, although I love it not so well as the old familiar fire-place, I can admire and value it as part of the spirit of improvement which is spreading o'er our land—her early troubles are passing away, and she is rising fast to take her place among the nations of the earth—bitter has been her struggle for existence, but the clouds are fading in the brightness of her coming years, and her past woes will be forgotten. ”

“ Her husband remembered the cooking-stove which had been the admiration of his childhood, and resolved, if a change must be made, to have one of that identical pattern in his own house.
"But your mother's stove, though a good one for those days," said Mrs. Wilson, "was one of the first invented, and destitute of most of the conveniences which now accompany them. It consumed, beside, double the amount of fuel required in one of the modern stoves."
"What an absurd idea! A stove is a stove. ”

“ I had some good coals of apple-tree wood in the stove that morning, and I put them into the pan, and closed the stove door, and took the stove in my left hand under my cloak like a basket of eggs. Nobody ever carries a foot-stove now, though there can be found one still in the saddle-rooms and eaves-holes of nearly all the old houses, along with the brass warming-pans, candle-moulds, and shovels and tongs and fenders. ”

“ The stove was close to the door, but of course, no one who lives in a caravan ever uses the stove except when it is raining. You make the fire out of doors at all other times, and swing the pot from three sticks. (Hedgehog stew! Can't you smell it?) There were kitchen utensils on hooks and racks on each side of the stove which was covered in with shining brass, and rows of enameled cups and saucers, and plates, and knives and forks. ”

“ Nor is it sufficient to understand only one particular stove. The practical foreigner prides himself upon having various stoves, adapted to various work. Hitherto I have been speaking only of the stove supposed to be best suited to reception rooms and bedrooms. The hall is provided with another sort of stove altogether: an iron stove this, that turns up its nose at coke and potato-peelings. If you give it anything else but the best coal it explodes. It is like living surrounded by peppery old colonels, trying to pass a peaceful winter among these passionate stoves. ”

“ A cheap form of “German stove” is often made in this country, and used in workshops and small manufactories, where the body of the stove is an upright cylinder, of which the lower part is the ash-pit, closed or opened by a hinged-door, the middle part the fire-place, where the fuel rests on bars, and the upper part a vacant space, which becomes filled with flame, smoke, and heated air, so as to impart great heat to a flat iron plate at the top. There is a door at which the fuel is introduced, and a small flue or funnel of iron pipe, which conveys the smoke into a chimney or into the open air. ”

“ There was no big, clumsy stove to be seen—for in the houses of the rich, in a recess in each room, is a kind of oven, in which a great wood fire is allowed to smoulder all day—but a delicious feeling of warmth prevailed, and a soft, sweet perfume floated on the air. ”

“ The stove is supplied with fuel and with air by the front door. If it is desired to make the fire visible, and impart some of that cheerfulness which belongs to an open grate, the door of the stove maybe thrown open, for there is no danger of the smoke coming out after the current has once warmed the upper part of the stove. When the stove is of such dimensions that the body of it is about two feet and a half high, the fire-place may be furnished with a small grate in the English style. ”

“ The common ten plate stove furnishes an example of the truth of this principle: when the large fire door is open, the stove will smoke, because the large door is an over proportion in size to the size of the pipe—but shut the large door and leave the small one open, the stove immediately draws like a furnace, because its area is smaller than the area of a section of the pipe. ”

“ In the third boiler I made coffee; I kept it a-soak, and as soon as it boiled I put it strong into buckets, one-third full of cold water. I kept vessels in the oven and on the small spaces on top of the stove. My little man fired up like a fire-king, another man laid plenty of wood at hand; and I think that was the only cook-stove that was ever "run" to its full capacity for a week. By so running it, I could give every man a pint of warm soup and one of warm coffee every twenty-four hours. ”

“ Facing the fire-place is a large cast iron stove, heated with coals, twelve feet five inches long, and two feet ten inches wide, divided into five parts, two of them are used for broiling steaks, cotelettes, &c., and the others to boil and fry fish. On a compass brass rod, and moveable, is fixed a fire-screen obliquely at the end, to prevent the heat injuring the eyes, and at the same time acting as a reflector in the interior of saucepans on the stove if required. ”

“ It will soon be forgotten, in these days of stoves, that we used to roast potatoes in the ashes, after the Indian fashion. The stove not only took up room and scented the house, but it concealed the fire, and I felt as if I had lost a companion. You can always see a face in the fire. The laborer, looking into it at evening, purifies his thoughts of the dross and earthiness which they have accumulated during the day. ”

“ One or more servants in large houses have the entire charge of the stoves. They fill them with wood the last thing at night, and light them some hours before the family rise in the morning. In the sleeping-rooms they are kept in all night. In the houses of the poor, one stove of huge proportions serves for every purpose. It serves not only to heat the hut, but to bake their bread, and for all sorts of cookery, and to dry their clothes, articles of which are generally seen hung up round it. ”

“ A stove is a device for holding the fuel and for permitting the heat to pass readily into the room. In the stove there is space below the fire for collecting ashes. There is an opening for fresh air to enter below the fuel, to aid combustion, and a damper above to act as a check draft when open, a chimney to carry off smoke, and one or two dampers in the chimney to regulate the draft. ”

“ I received just as good food as ever, and even better. I had my own cushion, and there was a stove, the finest thing in the world at this season. I went under the stove, and could lie down quite beneath it. Ah! I still dream of that stove. Away! away!"
"Does a stove look so beautiful?" asked the Snow Man. "Is it at all like me?"
"It's just the reverse of you. It's as black as a crow, and has a long neck and a brazen drum. It eats firewood, so that the fire spurts out of its mouth. One must keep at its side, or under it, and there one is very comfortable. ”

“ Oil and Gas Stoves.—In many households, oil, gas, and gasoline stoves have largely taken the place of the kitchen range, especially during the hot weather of summer. They can be used for nearly every purpose for which a wood or a coal range is used; they require much less labor and litter, and can be instantly started into full force and as quickly turned out when no longer required, while the fact that the heat can be regulated with exactness, makes them superior for certain processes of cooking to any other stove. ”

“ In the winter, I am persuaded, I could not exist in rooms thus closed up, with stoves heated in their manner, for they only put wood into them twice a day; and, when the stove is thoroughly heated, they shut the flue, not admitting any air to renew its elasticity, even when the rooms are crowded with company. These stoves are made of earthenware, and often in a form that ornaments an apartment, which is never the case with the heavy iron ones I have seen elsewhere. Stoves may be economical, but I like a fire, a wood one, in preference ”

“ The stove is burning furiously at its sticks this autumn evening, for the air sets in chill as you get clear away from the city and are rising up to the higher ground of the country of the pines and the lakes. ”

“ That which I believe is pronounced the best form of stove, is that of the common plate stove, but level at top and bottom, with two holes over the furnace, draught under and over the oven, and flue in the end. 3 or 4 feet perpendicular draught is necessary. We see none such among the hundreds that are thrown away. A stove should be double where most exposed to heat say half the front end and bottom. ”

“ Nowadays, only peasants sleep on the stove, and they literally sleep on top of the huge, mud-plastered stone oven, close to the ceiling. In dwellings other than peasant huts, what is known as the "German stove" is in use. Each stove is built through the wall to heat two rooms, or a room and corridor. The yard porter brings up ten or twelve birch logs, of moderate girth, peels off a little bark to use as kindling, and in ten minutes there is a roaring fire. ”

“ What should you say to a stove, which, summer or winter, night or day, in rain or sunshine, amid the ice of the pole, or under the sun of the equator, was able to keep itself constantly in the same condition; neither hotter nor colder one minute than another, whether you gave it much or little fuel, at a given moment, and sometimes when you gave it nothing for whole days together? It would be worthy of a fairy tale, would it not? Yet the human body is a stove of this description. ”

“ By a distribution so easy to be established, a single stove may supply the place of all the chimnies of a house. Every where inflammable air is ready to diffuse immediately heat and light of the most glowing or most mild nature, simultaneously or separately, according to your wishes. In the twinkling of an eye, you may conduct the flame from one room to another; an advantage equally convenient and economical, and which can never be obtained with our common stoves and chimnies. No sparks, no charcoal, no soot, to trouble you; no ashes, no wood, to soil your apartments. ”