Prose "The Past of the Furnace"

I believe that every encounter in life is arranged by God. Sitting on the southbound bus, I saw a long-lost stove. The melting pot of darkness flashed before my eyes, but it clearly appeared in my mind.

The stove, which is rare now, has gradually left people's sight, but in the past years, it has been a closely related part of my life.

The bus went all the way south, and the warm afternoon sun shone on me through the window glass. The feeling of being cozy and comfortable makes me sleepy. My body leaned against the car, and gradually, I was in a trance and confused about my body. My thoughts pull me back to the distant past, a past with a raging fire.

It was a winter night, and the electric light was stingy with its light and turned it off. In a farmhouse with me, several children sat around in the flickering candlelight and felt the warmth from the fire.

"Sister, shall we bake potato chips?" Young me, please sister. At this time, my sister has reached the age of marriage. Look at me, my loving eyes are full of acquiescence. I happily took some potatoes to my sister. My sister peeled potatoes and cut them into thin and even slices with a kitchen knife. And eldest brother has hooked the fire with the furnace hook, and the fire exploded in the furnace. These sounds introduced into my ears are undoubtedly beautiful notes and symphonies in my heart.

Sister put the potato chips on the lid of the stove one by one, and with the sound of "sizzling", the potato chips were slowly baked out of fragrance. This fragrance, with the flow of air, lingers in the humble room, arousing my irresistible desire. I'm ready to act, reach out and turn over the potato chips quickly. The burnt side appeared in front of my eyes. The yellow potato chips were baked with bubbles, and some bubbles burst and burned black. I can't wait, endure the heat of the stove cover, quickly pick up a potato chip and put it in my mouth. At this time, the potato chips are still very hot, and the bitten potato chips are still in my mouth. I rolled them with my tongue and chewed them to reduce the heat. The aroma of potato chips lingers between my taste buds and is transmitted to my whole body with the taste nerve. I can't bear to gobble, just like mulberry leaves with silkworm mouths, eating them in small bites. With the increase of baked potato chips, brothers and sisters also joined the ranks of eating. We ate, talked and laughed, who would have thought that at that time, in a poor farmhouse, a group of children could have such a happy thing.

Now that I think about it, that warmth and beauty is my unforgettable past. The stove in winter has become a natural cooker. We can always put some soybeans, some frozen bean bags and some corn kernels on it and cook delicious food for us under its baking.

Thinking about these delicious foods, my mouth is full of saliva, and I swallow them intoxicated, just like swallowing delicious food. I don't know when a pair of little hands came from behind and stroked my hair. This is my daughter. Today's southbound destination is my daughter's grandmother's house. Probably because of the holiday, she is going to grandma's house. She became extremely relaxed and excited. She sat in the car and jumped on the bus without any sign of silence. Children at this time are much heavier academically than when I was a child. How can they be unhappy when they have such leisure time? Think about my childhood, it was a childhood full of freedom, without parents' nagging and heavy studies. Those rogue actions, now that I think about it, have become the wealth of life. In the past years, in the time to the end of life, they have been consumed bit by bit and become beautiful memories.

However, my daughter didn't have my hard childhood. I remember that when I was in primary school, in autumn, I collectively pulled bean paste and sent it to school as firewood for the stove. This is a established rule. It was a helpless existence for the students at that time, because the root system of bean paste was buried in the soil, and the soil should be scraped off with a pickaxe, then shaken off and put in a basket. Sometimes you have to pull it out by hand because you forget to bring a pickaxe. My hand was blistered by repeated pulling. The blisters burst when you rub them repeatedly, and it hurts like hell. But every year, I finish my task in fear.

At that time, there was no need to build a stove at home, and the task of building a stove was contracted by my father. But at school, there is no such treatment. The teacher divided the task of building the stove equally among each student. When I became a student on duty one day, I came to school early, opened the door of the classroom and started the work of making a stove. I clean up the dust in the stove first, then put the beans in the stove, take out a piece of paper, light it with a match and put it under the beans. When the paper burns, the bean sticks are also ignited. Smoke came out, and I quickly put the cooker ring and lid on the stove, and the beans stuck to the stove and began to burn. I waited until the beans were almost burned, so I put the prepared coal in. In the fire, the coal also burned.

Actually, building a stove is a technical job. If the firewood is pulled through the tide, the stove won't light. If too much coal is filled and too much wood is burned, it will be squeezed out by coal. In this way, you need to do it again. I really didn't want to start a new stove at that time! Unexpectedly, now, it has become my warm and beautiful memory. How I want to go back to the past, rekindle the fire and shine on my youthful face.

The stove in the class has two functions: one is to heat and the other is to heat the lunch box. Every student wants to sit by the fire and occupy a warm area. In this case, teachers need to adjust their seats from time to time to balance. Hot lunch boxes should also have students on duty, so as to change the position of lunch boxes at any time to achieve uniform heating. Sometimes the students on duty are not careful, and the lunch box will be overheated and cooled, which will attract students' complaints. But in the end, you still have to eat rice.

Later, the stove in the classroom was upgraded and a firewall was built with bricks. The heating area in the classroom is larger, and there are more places to heat lunch boxes. This change has excited the students for a long time.

As time went on, the stove gradually faded out of my life. Unexpectedly, after graduating from Teachers College, I returned to my alma mater in junior high school. The classroom is still the old red brick tile house, which is used for heating in winter, but it is still a stove. Looking at everything I know, I suddenly feel like a dream. So, with my students, when winter came, I began to worry about the stove again. I remember one time, because the furnace tube leaked smoke, the whole classroom was shrouded in black smoke, so the class could not be held. I asked the students to walk out of the classroom and avoid the smoke. In order to keep out the cold, the students began to run in groups. Seeing them running in the snow, I felt ashamed and miserable. I can't change the situation. I can't let my students have classes in a warm classroom.

Unexpectedly, times have changed so quickly. A year later, the two schools merged to build a teaching building, and finally bid farewell to the furnace era. Don't worry about the stove in winter.

Now, in winter, in the classroom as warm as spring, although my students and I are not cold, I don't feel too happy. In rural areas, stoves are almost extinct. Ask children, many don't even know what a stove is.

At the station, the bus stopped, my daughter and wife and I got off the bus, and with the whistle, my memory was taken away. I really feel that the stove is really far away from my life.

Now, everything is changing, and the stove will finally bid farewell to people's lives. However, I don't know why, but I miss the time when there was a stove more and more.