The cedar came off the block in long splits, thin as a lath, too long for the stove door. You break them down to length. There is no saw for this. There is a knee.
You lay the split across the leg, a hand at each end, and pull the ends down while the knee pushes up. The wood argues for a second. Cedar is honest about its grain, and if you have set it right it goes where the grain says, straight, clean. If you have set it wrong it goes sideways and takes a strip of skin off the heel of your thumb for the correction.
The crack is dry. It comes up through the bone before it reaches the ear. A small shock, the same one every time, that the leg never quite learns to expect.
The sting comes through the trouser after. A dull heat where the broken end drove down against the kneecap. The cloth there had gone shiny already, a pale oval worn into the twill that told you which leg did the work.
I broke a dozen. Half again as many as the box needed. The rhythm gets ahead of the arithmetic.
Each length went into the box behind me without a look. A blunt clatter, then a softer one as they settled.
What was left was smaller. Splinters, a few blond curls of bark, and the short useless butts too stubby to break again. I brushed them off my lap onto the floor. One had gone down into the turned cuff of the trouser and rode there, and I did not find it until I stood.