The stove, the hearth ledge and the oven-bed

Narration text

Listen to how Creangă remembered this corner of the house: "I don't know how others are, but when I think of the place where I was born, of my parents' house in Humulești, of the chimney post where Mother tied a string with tassels at the end, so the cats nearly burst playing with them, of the clay-washed hearth ledge I held on to when I was first learning to walk, of the oven-⁠bed where I hid when we boys played hide-and-seek, and of other games and toys full of childish fun and charm, my heart still leaps with joy!" Look at the stove on the left: it heated the house, meals were cooked on it, and on the oven-⁠bed the children slept on frosty nights. On the hearth the clay pots stand in their places, as if waiting to be used.

The word humuit, clay-washed, comes from humă, the white clay found in abundance here, and which seems to have given the village of Humulești its very name.