Free Native Gold by Glynnis Campbell

with about as much charm as an old geezer’s gap-toothed grin.
    Shelves of varying size and quality were tacked to the walls, crowded with sundry items: a metal plate, a comb, a coffee pot, spools of twine and thread, a half-full flour sack, tins of peaches, a hand mirror, a tiny scale, several blue and brown glass vials with medicinal labels, a slab of salt pork, a frying pan, a sack of beans, a can of coffee, an iron kettle, cream-colored candles crammed into a half-dozen assorted bottles, a set of bone-handled eating utensils propped in a tin cup, and a sticky jar marked MOLASSES that was crawling with tiny black ants.
    A rifle roosted between two wooden hooks, from which hung a ribbed washboard. Twill dishcloths were draped over a thick rope slung across one corner, and below them stood a pair of well-worn boots. A low cot near the stove featured thin ticking and a brown wool blanket, and a weathered black bag at the foot announced the doctor’s profession. Mining tools—a pickaxe, a pan, and a shovel—leaned against the wall, next to a stack of split firewood. A chair with legs made out of whole oak limbs tottered on three of them, and a traveling trunk covered with green oilcloth completed the room’s furnishings.
    The decor looked like the work of a child, and all of it lodged within a space scarcely half the size of her bedroom in Aunt Emily’s house.
    The way Mattie saw it, she had three choices.
    She could laugh. She could cry. Or she could make do.
    Since the first two would offer her little comfort against the encroaching night, she opted to attempt the third.
    First she’d build a fire. The miners had left her plenty of wood, and she found the bottle nearly full of matches. Rolling back her sleeves, she decided to take a peek inside the pot-bellied stove. She lit a stumpy candle and crouched down, creaking open the cast-iron door. Two tiny shining eyes stared out at her. She screamed and scrambled back, tripping and landing with a plop on her skirts. A sooty, striped rodent scampered out and scurried across the floor, just inches from her toes, its furry tail held straight up. Mattie drew her legs back with a gasp and watched as the little beast disappeared out a hollow knothole in the wall.
    She sheepishly got to her feet and braved the stove again. There were no more animals holed up inside, but ash lay at the bottom like a thick blanket. She blew sharply to clear it.
    And was instantly sorry. Ashes shot out of the stove like smoke from a cannon, instantly coating her face, stinging her eyes, and extinguishing the candle. She coughed and blinked rapidly as tears streamed down her cheeks.
    The sudden darkness might have frightened her if she hadn’t been so vexed. But she was furious—with this hovel of a house, with Dr. James Harrison for dying on her, and mostly with her own ignorance. Was she so helpless that she couldn’t even light a stove?
    Mattie refused to believe that. She may have been coddled the better part of her life, but she was the daughter of Lawrence Hardwicke, and she could conquer anything.
    Feeling her way to the matches, she relit the candle and set it atop the stove. By the flickering light, she approached the woodpile, wary of more furry residents. She chose a few chunks of firewood and stuffed them into the belly of the stove. Then she tucked splinters and small odds and ends from the pile around the larger split logs, arranging them as she would flowers. She lit a match from the candle and held it to the biggest log. The match burned, but the wood remained uninspired. The flame bit her, and she dropped the match with a yelp, popping her affronted finger into her mouth.
    Three matches later, the thing still wouldn’t light. Exasperated, she flung open her satchel and dug out a piece of drawing paper she’d purchased in New York. It was foolish, she knew, and wasteful, but she was determined to get the stove lit if it took all night and her entire stack of precious paper.