Before this fireplace, Stevenson made plans for his voyage to the South Seas

“It was like Louis to have turned that half hour of waiting by the fire with me into one of the red-letter memories of my life. He made the finding of pictures in the coals a thrilling adventure – pointing out odd and amazing combinations that formed castles and clouds and animals. Then by the falling of the coals and shifting of light a perfect doorway was pictured before us.”

“I remember that doorway as deep and shadowy–overhung by a porch and decorated on the sides by carvings. It grew more and more distinct as I saw it through Louis’ imagination. He grew enthusiastic as he described it minutely. His voice was resonant with a deep rich quality that lent a touch of drama to anything he said.”

“When he told me there was a young man running down the street I actually saw him and thrilled with terror when the men-at-arms chased him into the shadowy doorway shouting drunkenly and flashing their swords. It seemed so real to me that I cried out, ‘He can’t escape! They are killing him!'”

“Then Louis told me how the young man at bay, determined to make a last gallant stand to defend his life had leaned back against the door–to his surprise, it opened, behind him. He slipped inside–and was safe now from his pursuers–but in what a strange predicament! The great door had clanged shut–and our hero in a dark unknown place–was unable to open it. There was no knob or catch–his hands, sliding desperately over the panels found only a smooth surface. The men-at-arms had gone off shouting and singing their drunken songs.”

“The young man, trapped in a strange house in a pitch dark room turned and saw in the distance a streak of light–a long thin line where two heavy curtains failed to meet. Should he stay where he was–cowing in the dark or boldly advance into the unknown? I was so absorbed in the story that it was a real shock to be brought back to reality by my mother who came in dressed and ready. She apologized for keeping Louis waiting and they left me dazed and protesting that I wanted to hear the end of the story.”

“Several times after that when I met Louis I would ask–indeed I would beg to know–what the young man found behind the curtains but he always laughed and turned the conversation. Some weeks later he came in throwing a magazine–The Temple Bar–in my lap and said ‘Here’s your story!’ I turned eagerly to the list of contents and found The Sire de Maletroit’s Door by Robert Louis Stevenson.”

Only forty-one years later, in the winter of 1917, Mrs. Field and her brother, Lloyd, found themselves having tea with Andrew and Mary Baker in the latter’s living room which was in the museum that had become their home–or the “Hunter’s Home” as their former tenant, the new museum’s namesake, Robert Louis Stevenson, had called it. All were sitting in the light from flames in the fireplace–in the same place where, smoking his cigarettes and staring at the embers, Louis had spent a good chunk of the winter of 1887-88. Dr. Trudeau said as much, that he seldom went there without finding his patient “with his feet to the fire and a cigarette in his mouth.” This is where he made his little poem Winter.

The presence of the stepchildren of Robert Louis Stevenson in Saranac Lake made for a three-day public festival, believe it or not. Scheduled events came with reporters and the one who got to report on the tea at Baker’s in the Feb. 8, 1917, edition of the Saranac Lake News was referring to Mrs. Field when he wrote, “The glowing logs reminded her how ‘Louis’ found the plot of The Sire de Maletroit’s Door in the dancing images of a coal fire.”