My wife would have wept to see it. A little iron chest, no bigger than a bread box, and inside it no fire, no coals, no wood I broke my back to split. A bowl of yesterday's pottage goes in cold. A man presses upon it as one presses a wound. It sings a warning note, it turns the bowl slow like a cart wheel with no ox, and light the color of a sick moon falls upon the food. Then it cries out again, and the pottage comes forth steaming, hot as if it sat the whole day over the hearth.
No smoke. No ash. No flame a child might fall into. I looked hard for the fire and found none. Bless me and keep me, for a heat without fire is not a Christian heat.
Think of the winters. Think of the nights I fed twigs to the coals with numb hands, praying the last of the peat would see us to morning, praying the babe would not go blue. Here a man warms his supper in the time it takes to say a Pater Noster, and he does not even watch it. He wanders off. He looks at another glowing box.
That is the thing that turns my stomach, more than the moon-light or the humming. He is not grateful. A man given fire without labor should fall to his knees. This one taps his foot and sighs that it takes too long.
The Lord gives us bread by the sweat of our brow. This one has found a way to steal the sweat and keep the bread. He will answer for it. We all will.