eye into pond ice

Augustus Philbin built the wood stove first. Then he built his barn around it. This just made practical sense to Augustus, seeing as though his stove would, in all likelihood, take a team of draft horses to move when he was done with it. He crafted an ornate iron frame in his forge, then carefully fit the massive panels of beautiful green soapstone. And there it stood for one hundred and fifty seven years, consuming who knows how many acres of wood in its task of keeping who knows how many generations of calves and cows and goats and chickens and farmers warm inside the cavernous building that enveloped it like a body around a pulsing heart. In 2007, Augustus Philbin's great-great-great grandson, Michael Philbin, the architect, had the stove disassembled. He planned to use the slabs of beautiful green stone in a kitchen he had designed. He hired a local welder to accomplish the task, and to transport the slabs to Michael Philbin's house on the coast of Maine. The welder, a pot-bellied, bearded man who wore a black leather vest, cut open the stove and began to lay the panels on the barn floor. He saw quickly that the stove was double-walled, and that the inner surfaces that faced one another were perfectly preserved. When he laid out the slabs that formed the back of the stove, he noticed the lettering roughly carved in the marbled grain of the stone: "Buried under the third tree in the third row, the Macoun, you will find it. Blessings."