Trammel

The girl stood at the hearth watching the trammel, the long notched bar of iron that hung from the chimney and held the pot above the fire. Nyra had hooked the pot high on the trammel while the flames were strong, and now she lifted it down a notch, and then another, until it sat low and close over the settling coals. The girl asked why they kept such a fussy thing of notches and hooks, when a plain bar set at one height would hold a pot just as well. Nyra moved the pot up one notch and let it rest there. “This is the trammel,” Nyra said. “It does not hold the pot at one height. It holds it at the height the pot needs.”

The girl ran a finger along the cold notches above the smoke. “A fixed bar is simpler, and never slips,” the girl said. “Why climb the pot up and down the iron all through the cooking?”

“Because the fire does not stay the same,” Nyra answered. “A new fire roars, and you hang the pot high so the milk warms and does not catch. The coals settle low and steady, and you drop the pot down to draw the last of the heat. One height would scorch at the start and go cold at the end. The trammel lets you follow the fire, notch by notch, so the pot has always the heat it wants and never more.”

The girl wanted the trammel set down in the book, the notched bar and the hook and the way the pot climbed high for flames and came low for coals. Nyra let her write it, and watched the slow letters fill the line. A book gathers what can be set down in a line and counted, and leaves the rest to the one who was there.

“You can set down the count of the notches and the height of each,” Nyra said, “but not the way your eye reads the fire, nor the moment your hand knows the pot must come down one more.” The girl looked from the page to the low red coals and the pot sitting close above them, and she understood. The book keeps the notches of the trammel, and you keep the heat of it.