The front stick in a log-fire.
1793. He found his companion lying in a large body of live coals, her head on the backlog and knees on the forestick.—Mass. Spy, March 7.
1804. The helpless infant, being fastened in, was held across the forestick, with its face over the blaze.—Id., Feb. 29.
1847. In the morning, a buckeye backlog and hickory forestick resting on stone andirons, with a Johnny-cake on a clean ash board, set before it to bake.—Dr. D. Drake, ‘Pioneer Life in Kentucky,’ p. 106 (Cincinnati, 1870).
1859. It was a cold morning: but the ‘log’ was in the fireplace; crowned with the ‘back-log,’ ‘middle-log,’ and ‘top-stick,’ the apex almost ‘up-chimley:’ the ‘’forestick’ lay just inside of the tall brass-tipped andirons; two ‘middle-sticks,’ with ‘kindling-wood’ and ‘chips’ were beyond; and upon these arose the superstructure, criss-cross and slanting-wise, of split maple, birch, and hickory, with ‘round-wood’ in the interstices: then the brands, plucked from last night’s burning, were raked together under-side; and all at once—— Talk of a prairie on fire!—there is no fire to compare with such a fire as this: and it comes back to us, this ‘cold Monday’ in January on which we write, with flame and fervent heat in the very recollection thereof!—Knick. Mag., liii. 324 (March).
1878. Backlog and forestick were soon piled and kindlings laid, and the fire roared and snapped and crackled up the ample chimney.—H. B. Stowe, ‘Poganuc People,’ ch. ix.
