room, lighting up its darkest corners as no candle could, the taverns along the Cumberland Road where the stages stopped for the night, saw merrier scenes than any of their modern counterparts witness. And over all their merry gatherings the flames from the great fires threw a softened light, in which those who remember them best seem to bask as they tell us of them. The taverns near some of the larger villages, Wheeling, Washington, or Uniontown, often entertained for a winter's evening, a sleighing party from town, to whom the great room and its fireplace were surrendered for the nonce, where soon lisping footsteps and the soft swirl of old-fashioned skirts told that the dance was on.
Beside the old fireplace hung two important articles, the flip-iron and the poker. The poker used in the old road taverns was of a size commensurate with the fireplace, often being seven or eight feet long. Each landlord was Keeper-of-the-Poker in his own tavern, and many were particular that none but themselves should touch the great fire, which was one of the main features of their hospitality, after the quality
