Standing beside the charred ruins, Marie wanted to run over and start pounding on that stove. It had become her worst enemy. The inanimate object had taken on an evil personality, fighting her every time she had to build a fire in its belly. If it wasn’t filling the cabin with black smoke—open damper or not—it was smothering flames as fast as she could strike matches. This morning, after fighting it for more than an hour, she’d filled it with straw, determined to win. There was no explanation for what happened. An explosion of sorts inside the stove had knocked the door wide open and spewed flaming bits of straw into the air. She’d grabbed the water bucket and thrown it at the stove, and that’s when one entire side of the stove had flown across the room. Screaming, she’d run for help, but it was too late. By the time the men rushed over the bridge, the entire cabin was in flames. The desire to throttle the stove left her, or maybe she was just completely depleted.
