By GEORGE MAKEPEACE TOWLE.

Heroes and Martyrs of Invention.
Vasco da Gama; His Voyages and Adventures.
Pizarro; His Adventures and Conquests.
Magellan; or, The First Voyage Round the World.
Marco Polo; His Travels and Adventures.
Raleigh; His Voyages and Adventures.
Drake; The Sea King of Devon.

By CAPT. CHARLES W. HALL.

Adrift in the Ice Fields.

By DR. ISAAC I. HAYES.

Cast Away in the Cold; An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures.

By W. H. G. KINGSTON.

The Adventures of Dick Onslow among the Redskins.
Ernest Bracebridge; or, School Boy Days.

By JAMES D. McCABE JR.

Planting the Wilderness; or, The Pioneer Boys.

By DR. C. H. PEARSON.

The Cabin on the Prairie.
The Young Pioneers of the Northwest.

By JAMES DE MILLE.

The Lily and the Cross; A Tale of Acadia.

By F. G. ARMSTRONG.

The Young Middy: or, The Perilous Adventures of a Boy Officer.

By R. M. BALLANTYNE.

The Life Boat; A Tale of Our Coast Heroes.

Sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price.

Lee and Shepard, Publishers, Boston

The first Money. [Page 29].

THE WHISPERING PINE SERIES.

THE
TURNING OF THE TIDE;

OR,

RADCLIFFE RICH AND HIS PATIENTS.

BY

ELIJAH KELLOGG,

AUTHOR OF "LION BEN," "CHARLIE BELL," "THE ARK OF ELM ISLAND," "THE BOY
FARMERS," "THE YOUNG SHIP-BUILDERS," "THE HARD-SCRABBLE," "ARTHUR
BROWN," "THE YOUNG DELIVERERS," "THE CRUISE OF THE CASCO,"
"THE CHILD OF THE ISLAND GLEN," "JOHN GODSOE'S LEGACY,"
"THE SPARK OF GENIUS," "THE SOPHOMORES OF
RADCLIFFE," "THE WHISPERING PINE,"
"WINNING HIS SPURS," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED.

BOSTON 1892
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS
10 MILK STREET NEXT "THE OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE"
NEW YORK CHAS. T. DILLINGHAM
718 AND 720 BROADWAY

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873,
By LEE AND SHEPARD,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

PREFACE.

A distinguished professor of Mathematics in a New England college was wont to remark to the Freshman class when meeting them for the first time at recitation, "that every person is as lazy as he can be." However we may demur to this sweeping assertion, it is doubtless true that more persons fail in life through indolence and the absence of appropriate and wholesome stimulus than from lack of capacity to become useful and even distinguished.

Misfortune, undesirable as it may seem, nevertheless furnishes an effective test of character, for, while the effeminate nature of lax fibre crumbles and is disintegrated beneath the pressure, the manlier spirit, like Dannemora iron, defies the fury of the furnace, and even beneath the hammer, gathers both temper and tenacity.

How great the change produced in a Scotch pebble, taken from the banks of a Highland lake, when the wheel of the lapidary has brought out the hues, and it appears what it really is, a gem; thus the thrill of sudden calamity, the sharp anguish that makes the blood spring from the lip have often supplied both object and motive to many a spirit that (capacious of better things) was fast becoming honeycombed by the rust of luxury and indolence, and has developed gifts of which even the possessor was unconscious.

The Turning of the Tide places before our readers this entire process in the person of Radcliffe Rich, from the rude awakening, the moment when the half-benumbed faculties rally for the mastery, to the stern conflict and the hard-won victory.

CONTENTS.

THE TURNING OF THE TIDE.

CHAPTER I. THE SMITH OF THE WILDERNESS.

With Rich, the chum and friend of Morton, and who, animated by the contagion of a noble example, became his rival in rank as a scholar and in all athletic sports, his companion in labor, and between whom, though neck and neck in the pursuit of those college honors that each most highly prized, there was never a shadow of jealousy or distrust, while their sympathies met and mingled like fibres of a kindred root, drawing their nutriment from a common soil,—with Rich, refined in all his tastes, of delicate sensibilities, and a playful humor that never stung, sunny tempered, generous, companionable, yet firm in principle as a granite shaft, and whom all Radcliffe idolized, our constant readers are already well acquainted; but the exigencies of this story, and the necessity of imparting information both to them and others, render it imperative that we should speak more definitely respecting his family and home life, to which we have heretofore barely alluded; indeed, we are not aware that we have ever distinguished him by any other name than that of Richardson, and much more frequently made use of the college term, Rich.

His grandfather, with ten other young married men, first broke ground in our hero's native town, then a wilderness, and built their camps on the borders of a stream heavily timbered, soon after the formation of the federal government with Washington as president. They were, with a single exception, poor, having taken up their abode in the wilderness because they wanted a home, and could buy the wild land for ten cents per acre. Full of enterprise, and strong in limb, this little community felt themselves equal to the struggle. They had as yet neither sawmill nor gristmill, though a noble stream fell over the rocks close to their doors, but pounded the corn they raised on burns in large mortars, or went in canoes eleven miles to mill, to a village farther down the stream, where they likewise procured salt. There were neither roads nor horses in the clearing, and at first everything was brought through the woods, in the winter on men's shoulders, walking on snow-shoes, and in summer in canoes or on rafts up the river.

They were accustomed to put the grain and corn belonging to several neighbors into a large canoe, and thus take it down the river to the mill. At length a road was spotted through the woods to the village—that is, a piece of bark and wood was taken off the side of trees with an axe, for a guide to the traveler. The path was crooked, going through those portions of the forest that were thinnest, and winding around obstacles. Occasionally a tree that stood very much in the way was cut, and a log flung across some gully, brook, or mire.

In the early part of winter, when the brooks and swamps were frozen, and the snow deep enough to cover, in some measure, the windfalls, and fill the ravines, and at other times in the latter part of it, when the crust would bear light cattle, they went through the woods with oxen to mill, improved the occasion to obtain articles of absolute necessity, and whenever their stock of bread-stuff fell short, had recourse to the mortar.

At first it was a bitter struggle for existence; the land was covered with a dense forest, and there was neither pasture for cattle in the summer, nor hay to keep them through the winter. In this condition of things, they managed to keep a few cattle by cutting the wild grass that grew in the swamp and along the banks of the river, and felling yellow birch and maple trees in summer for browse. By dint of patient labor, their circumstances improved from year to year; more land was cleared, their stock of cattle increased with the increase of hay and pasture, and they began to keep sheep and horses, to make staves and shingles, cut logs and drive them down the river in spring, and beech withes to bind loads and rafts were exchanged for chains.

Cattle and horses were now to be shod, and they began to feel greatly the need of a blacksmith. If a chain or axe was broken, a horse or yoke of oxen to be shod, there was no smith nearer than eleven miles, and no road except a bridle-path through spotted trees. Previous to this, they had worked their oxen without shoes, and horses were only shod forward. But now they wanted to haul logs and shingles on the ice of the river, and they must be shod. They were in great need of a smith, and yet there was not work sufficient to afford a blacksmith constant employment, and consequently, a living. But there was money in the logs and shingles, and necessity sharpens invention. They hired John Drew, the smith at the village, to come in the fall, just before the river shut up, bringing horse-shoes, ox-shoes, nails, and his tools. He went round from house to house, the oxen were cast on the barn floors, and the shoes put on. Thus they managed, feeling more and more the want of a smith. Richardson was possessed of remarkable mechanical ability, and was what is termed a handy man—a great thing in the woods. He had a few carpenters' tools, made ox-yokes, and sleds for himself and neighbors. At length a cart road was made through the woods, and Richardson built the first, and for some time the only, pair of wheels in the clearing. Surrounded by a young and rapidly increasing family, necessity led him to improve to the utmost every talent he was conscious of possessing.

On the 10th of January, some two years before the road was made, he went, in behalf of himself and the little community, to the village, through the woods, with an ox-team, carrying corn and grain to be ground. He also carried plough-irons to be new laid, chains to be mended, axes to be new "laid" or "upset," and orders for some to be manufactured. In order to get the large grist ground, and the iron work done, he was obliged to remain three days. While watching the smith at his work, the idea occurred to him that he could work with iron as well as wood. All the way home he brooded over it, till the idea took entire possession of him, and that long wilderness road never seemed so short before. After a while he opened his mind to his wife, who encouraged him to make the attempt. But he had no money to buy either iron or tools, and iron in those days was difficult to obtain, and high in price, being nearly all imported. It seemed a hopeless undertaking; still he could not banish the thought from his mind. It haunted him; lay down with him at night, and rose up with him in the morning. One day he broke a chain in the woods; he had but two. The next day came a snow storm, affording leisure. The smith was eleven miles off. He could not do his work without the chain, and resolved to try to mend it by welding again the broken link he had saved. He made a great fire in the kitchen, and put in the iron. The kitchen tongs served to hold, a nail hammer to work it, and a flat stone for an anvil. To his great mortification, he found that although he could heat it to redness, he could not make it hot enough, with a wood fire, to weld. He put wood in the oven, stopped the draft, and burnt it to coal; but even with charcoal he did not succeed at first in obtaining a welding heat. His wife, who was looking on with the greatest interest, suggested the use of the kitchen bellows, and by their aid he partially succeeded.

His next attempt was to mend the staple of an ox-yoke. This was much more difficult, as the iron was larger, and he had nothing to bend it over. But after several trials, he at length accomplished his purpose. It was supper time when William Richardson struck the last blow upon the staple, and put it into the yoke. When the meal was finished, and Mrs. Richardson had washed the dishes, and put the children to bed, she sat down to her cards, with a basket of wool beside her, while the father of the family, having taken off his shoes, and hung his buskins in the corner to dry, sat with folded arms, looking intently upon the glowing coals. No sound was heard save the crackling of the fire, the rasping of a solitary wood-worm that was boring into a log of the walls, and the sound of the cards as the good wife plied her labor.

"Well, wife," said Richardson, at length, starting from his reverie, and flinging fresh fuel on the fire, "what do you think of it?"

"Think of what, William?"

"Why, of my day's work, and this blacksmithing. Don't you think I'd better fling the stone into the river and give it up? All I have done this blessed day, besides taking care of the cattle, is to mend that staple—a thing John Drew would have done in fifteen minutes."

"No, he wouldn't, for if he had no better tools than you, he wouldn't have thought he could do it at all. I think it is the best day's work you ever did in your life."

"O, Susan, how do you make that out? You just say that because you know I feel a little down in the mouth; not because you really think so."

"Yes, husband, I really think so; and you will, if you look at it right. You must expect to creep before you can walk. You couldn't have got along without that chain, and would have been obliged to travel twenty-two miles through the woods on snow-shoes, with that chain on your back, in order to get it mended, and a half bushel of corn besides on your shoulder to pay John Drew for doing it; for we've got no money. It would have been the same with the staple. You couldn't have worked your oxen without it, and would have been forced to leave your work in fair weather, for you could not have gone in a storm. Now, you have done it yourself, in stormy days, when you couldn't have done much else, saved your corn, yourself all that travel, and, more than that, found out that you can work iron whenever you can get the tools to do it with."

"I don't know but you are right, wife; but how am I to get either the tools or the iron without money? I can't barter corn for iron, and John Drew has so much produce brought to him now that he is loath to take any more; says his house is full of corn, grain, meat, potatoes, and cloth, butter and eggs, and he can't get money enough to pay his taxes."

"I think there will be some way provided. We had nothing when we came here but the clothes on our backs and twenty dollars in money; had to run in debt for our land. Now we've nearly paid for the land, we cut hay, keep quite a stock of cattle and sheep, have but seldom been put to it for bread, and have a warm, comfortable house, if it is a log one, and the children are warm clothed."

"You always look on the bright side, Sue."

"I think that's the best side to look on."

We would inform our readers that the house Sue thought so comfortable was built of rough logs, the crevices stuffed with moss and clay, had but two rooms in it, the partition between them being blankets hung up. The fireplace and oven were built of rough stones, and the chimney of sticks of wood laid in clay (to prevent their taking fire from sparks), that, as it fell off, was renewed from time to time.

"I could buy tools with the money I shall get for logs that I cut this winter, didn't I want every cent of it to turn in towards paying for the land. I'm half a mind to take a little. If I only had a hammer, a punch, something to cut iron with, and a pair of tongs to hold it, I could mend my own chains and other things, save something, be learning all the time, and, after we pay for the land, I could get more tools."

"I never would do that, husband. If we must take that money for anything, let us take it for the school. They are going to have a school at Montague's the latter part of the winter."

This man had three rooms in his house, and it was built of hewn timber, in one of which the school was to be kept. Richardson and his wife had received a good common school education, and were anxious that their children should not grow up in ignorance.

CHAPTER II. THE FIRST MONEY.

From the preceding chapter our readers will perceive the value of iron, and also the importance to the community of the mechanic who is able to work it. We would invite them to reflect upon some facts that may seem incredible to them at first view. A boy who has no disposition to reflect is not much of a boy, and when grown, will only be a servant to those who do.

Iron is far more valuable than gold, and the blacksmith than the jeweler, for the same reason that bread is worth more than diamonds, and water than silver. Gold has a very great representative value in civilized society, where iron is abundant, and it will buy iron, and is an equivalent for the work of the smith; but it is only because men have agreed to make it so. Whereas iron has a value in itself considered. It fells the forest, tills the soil, annihilates time and distance, and underlies the whole economy of domestic life; for our readers will bear in mind that steel is only another form of iron.

The value iron acquires under the hammer is something wonderful. It is said that a bar of iron worth $5 is worth $10.50 when made into horse-shoes, $55 when made into needles, $3,285 made into penknife blades, $29,480 in shirt buttons, and $250,000, in balance springs of watches. Boys may, from this, see what labor is worth, and learn to value and respect it, for it is the labor the mind put into the iron that so increases its value. Consider what would be the result if there were no iron.

A boy might search long to find a better subject for his theme than iron and its uses, or one the treatment of which would be more instructive to himself. The showers of sparks you see pouring out of a blacksmith's chimney, at times, of an evening when he is pressed with work, and forgets the ten-hour system, have a language to a reflecting mind; they mean power, progress, the plough, the telegraph, the mariner's compass, and the sword.

We have taken advantage of a pause in the conversation, during which William Richardson resumed his reverie, and his wife plied her cards, to make this digression. At length the mother laid her cards into the basket of wool, and folding her hands in her lap, remained a few moments wrapped in thought. She then said,—

"Husband, I feel so sure that good will come of this, that it will be, in the end, the best thing for us all (for I know you can do whatever you put your hand to), that I am willing to undergo almost anything to bring it about. There are three articles that will always sell at the store for half cash and half goods—butter, woollen cloth, and linen yarn. I will sell what we have to get your tools, and, perhaps, a little iron."

"Susan, what did you make this cloth for, and what shape is it in?"

"There's a piece of fulled cloth that I meant to make clothes of for you and the boys, some that I wove for a gown for myself and the girls, and some blanket stuff."

"I won't take it; I won't take the clothes from your back and the children's if I never have any tools: the butter, I suppose, you have laid down for winter, and the blankets are needed for the children's beds."

"Yes, you must take it; if you can work iron, we shall have the house as full of butter, meat, and cloth as John Drew's is."

"But we can't get along without these things."

"We can if we only think so. We can put some brush on the children's beds, over the clothes,—hemlock brush over a few clothes is real warm,—then, when it is very cold, we can leave a large fire when we go to bed, and you can get up at twelve o'clock and put on wood. The children can get along with their old clothes, and I with mine; there's nobody to look at us here. We have pork enough, and can do without butter till we can make some. One of the cows calves in March. I meant to have made some towels of the linen yarn, but tow will do just as well."

"Susan, I think a man must be made of poor material who could be discouraged with a wife like you."

"Mother always used to say, 'Think you can do a thing, and it's half done.'"

The sledding was now good, and Richardson, engaged in hauling logs to the river, had no leisure to meddle with iron; he, however, at odd moments, when the cattle were eating, and on stormy days, made preparation in anticipation of the future.

Near to his house stood the stump of a pine tree that had been cut when the snow was deep, and was higher than usual. Around this he built a log camp, in such a manner as to bring the stump on one side of the camp. The water was low in the river, and where it fell over the rocks, and by shovelling away the snow, he found a stone of sufficient size, hardness, and the right shape, for an anvil. Levelling the top of the stump, he made a cavity in it to receive the stone, and secured it firmly in its bed. This was much superior to a stone on the kitchen hearth, and would bear any blows that could be given with a hand-hammer. There was not a board or plank within eleven miles by land, and thirteen by the river. He flattened some pine saplings, and built up a pen, nearly square, for his forge, found a place in the swamp where the soil was not frozen, and obtained earth to fill it. By cutting through the frozen ground at the bank of the river, he obtained clay for mortar, and with stones built up a little abutment at one end of the forge, to lay his coal and build the fire against. There was no chimney, a hole being left in the roof for the escape of the gas and smoke. He then put a trough at the end of the forge, in which to cool his iron. The floor cost no labor, as it was supplied by mother earth. There was no window, but light came in at the smoke-hole in the roof between the logs and through the chinks of the door, made of joist hewed from small trees, treenailed together and hung on wooden hinges. All this was done little by little, as opportunity offered, and his wife and the children made charcoal by charring wood in the oven, as he could not obtain turf to burn a kiln out of doors in the winter. In mending his chain and staple, Richardson had felt very much the need of something to turn his iron around. One end of a smith's anvil terminates in a point, called the horn, and around which, whenever he wishes to make a hoop, ring, or link of a chain, he can bend it. Richardson had brought into the forest with him a large crowbar. At the expense of much labor with his nail-hammer, he rounded the extremity of the largest end, leaving the rest square; then boring a hole in the stump on the right side, he drove the bar into it. This served as a very good substitute for a horn to his stone anvil, as he could turn a chain link on the round part, and bend iron at right angles on the square edge; and he was not a little proud of it when done.

Richardson's ability to work in wood was well known to his neighbors, but he had carefully concealed his attempts in the blacksmith line, as he did not wish to attract attention till he could obtain tools, and had made some progress. But a matter of such general interest could not long be hid. The children told about their father's mending the chain and the staple, and it was soon known, to the great satisfaction of the neighbors.

This little community, secluded from society and embosomed in the forest, most of them having emigrated from the same neighborhood, and enduring like hardships, were extremely social in their habits, much attached to one another, and ready to make sacrifices for the common good. David Montague was especially beloved by his neighbors, being a man of good abilities, and most open and affectionate disposition. In better circumstances than the rest, he was able to hire help to clear his land, and also kept a horse and a large stock of cattle.

A few days after Richardson had made his preparations, he came in of an evening with his wife, and bringing a chain in his hand, that he flung down at the door. After greetings were exchanged, and they had drawn together around the fire, Montague observed,—

"Neighbor, I hear that you have turned blacksmith, and do your own iron work."

"I'm sure," said Mrs. Montague, "it is going to be a great thing for the place if we have got a smith among us."

"They say," replied Richardson, "that stories never lose anything by going, and I think this is a pretty good proof of it, for it all grew out of this: I went to the village, you know, a while since, to mill, for all hands, and to get some iron work done. While I stood watching Jack Drew, and blowing the bellows for him, I said to myself, 'I could do that work, or I could learn to do it, if I only had his tools and fire, just as well as I can make a pair of wheels, or an axletree, or frame a building, or make a cider-press.' I used to do that kind of work sometimes before I came here. I thought it over going home, and the next time I broke a chain, I set to work with a flat stone before the fire, and mended it, and then I mended a staple; that's the way it came about. I made up my mind then I'd mend my own things, if I could, and save the expense and the long tramp. As we've got only these two rooms, and there isn't much room round the fire, I built a hovel to work in."

"I can tell you, Mr. Montague, he made out firstrate. Husband, show Mr. Montague the chain you mended."

Richardson went to the barn and brought in the chain and the staple.

"Well," said his visitor, after examining the work with great interest, "if you can mend my chain as well as that, I'll never carry another one to Drew, and I'll pay you in cash just what I should have to pay him, and be greatly obliged, besides."

"That's just what I've been telling husband," said his wife; "if he would give his mind to it, get a few tools, and begin in a small way, at first, it would give him work in stormy weather, and times when he couldn't do anything else, be a great accommodation to the neighbors, help the place, and be a good thing all around."

"That's it, Mr. Richardson. Your wife's got the right of it, neighbor. The place is settling, people moving in, and taking up land, stumps rotting, and ground getting fit to plough; and work will grow as fast as you can grow to be able to do it."

"I'll mend your chain, neighbor, in the best fashion I can; but I have to work in such a roundabout way, that I must have my time. Have you got the broken link?"

"No; it flew into the snow, and I couldn't find it."

"Then I shall have to cut one of the links, put the next link in, and weld it."

"I hate to have that done, because it will shorten the chain; and it's barely long enough to bind a load of logs and 'fid' now."

"Haven't you any links lying round?"

"Not I, indeed. Iron is as scarce as money with me, as with all the neighbors. Every link of a chain, piece of a horse or ox shoe, old spike, and every scrap of iron, is worked up. There is one thing, though, I remember now, though I don't know as it's of any use to you."

"What is that?"

"I got Drew to make me a plough-colter, more than a year ago, and found the iron. There was a piece left, a bar about a foot long."

"If I could heat it, and contrive any way to cut it, I could make a link of it."

"I will leave the chain, and send Andrew over with the bar, and if you find that you can't do anything with the bar, why, cut a link and make the chain shorter, for I am determined you shall mend that chain."

Mr. Montague and his wife now took their leave, and in the course of an hour Andrew Montague brought over the bar of iron.

It was the wife's turn to be discouraged now.

"William," she said, "you never can cut that great bar of iron. Why, it's almost as thick as my press-board, and you haven't one single tool to do it with. I'm sorry, but you will certainly have to shorten the chain."

"No, I won't shorten the chain, and I'll find some way to split it and forge a link out of it, if it takes from now till' next spring: that is, if you'll help me. Montague hates to have the chain shortened. It's the first job of work, and I'll do it as he wants it."

"I'll do anything I can; anything in the world, to get bread for the children."

"I'll help you, father; I'm real strong," said Clem, a boy of twelve, afterwards the father of Radcliffe Rich.

"And I, too," said Robert, who was eighteen months younger. Two girls, still younger, would have doubtless volunteered, but they were abed, and not much could reasonably be expected of the baby in the cradle.

William Richardson, in addition to his mechanical ability, was a resolute, powerful man. The encouragement afforded by the visit of Montague, and the prospect of abundance of work, if he could do it, had effectually roused all his energies. His wife, by no means ignorant of her husband's capacities, dismissed her anxieties, for she knew that he would find some way to accomplish whatever he had determined to do.

After sitting a few moments buried in thought, he took a brand from the fire, and his axe, and, followed by Clem, started for the woods, where he soon found a hornbeam tree, the wood of which is very firm and heavy. The boy held the brand while he cut it down, and took off a cut three feet in length. With axe, saw, and auger, by the light of the kitchen fire, he soon made a beetle, that, during the time it lasted,—for he had no iron to hoop it with,—would enable him to strike a harder blow than even a blacksmith's sledge, for it was much heavier, indeed, too heavy for constant use; but a very strong man could swing it for a while, and upon an emergency. He then went down to a brook about an eighth of a mile from the house, for an old axe, kept to save a better one, and to cut ice, in order that the cattle might drink. The axe, by frequent grinding, had become very thick on the edge, and the bitt was rounded.

The next morning Richardson started the fire on his forge with plenty of coal, and put in the bar, while Clem and Rob plied the kitchen bellows by turns, the two little girls looking on with the greatest interest.

To cut iron, less heat is required than to weld it.

"Clem," said Richardson, "call your mother."

The boy returning, said,—

"Mother says one of the girls must come in to watch the cradle."

It was now, "Nan, you go," and "Sue, you go," when the indulgent father, who knew just how the children felt, compromised the matter by bringing the cradle, with the baby sound asleep in it, and setting the sleeper as far as possible from the forge, in order that the noise of the blows might not awaken him.

Richardson, now taking the iron from the fire with the kitchen tongs, placed it on the anvil, and gave it in charge to the boys to hold. He then put the axe-edge down on the iron where he wished to split it, and told his wife how to hold it; then with the beetle he struck heavy blows upon the axe, forcing it into the iron at every stroke, while his wife, after every blow, drew the axe to a new place. The old axe, of excellent temper, and thick edge, that would neither turn nor break, being dipped in water when it became heated, answered the purpose of a chisel admirably, and the beetle was superb. Indeed, they would have nearly finished that heat, but the baby waked, screaming, and would not be pacified without his mother. Richardson clapped the iron in the fire, one of the children got a chair, and the mother sitting down, nursed the babe while the iron was heating. After this it became quiet, and the little girls took care of it, while the others cut the iron so nearly through that by bending it back and forth a few times, it fell apart.

He now found that the strip he had cut off was sufficient to make two links by drawing it some. He therefore made two. But it was a deal of work to heat the iron hot enough to weld, because the hand-bellows were single, and only operated by short puffs, the iron cooling in the intervals, whereas a blacksmith's bellows, being double, one part fills while the other is discharging, thus keeping up a steady current of air.

Montague was much pleased when he found that his chain, instead of being made shorter, was lengthened, and now sufficient for all purposes, paid Richardson liberally, and brought another chain that was too short, and had the remainder of his iron put into that.

"There, wife," said Richardson, as he placed the money his neighbor had paid him on the table, "is the first money earned by the hammer. You were just right when you said that mending that staple was the best day's work I ever did, and I'm sure I never earned any money so sweet as this."

CHAPTER III. EXPERIENCE THE BEST TEACHER.

The morning succeeding the events we have related, David Montague sent over the chain, into which, he wished the rest of his bar of iron worked. Richardson kindled his fire, put in the iron, and began to blow with the hand-bellows; but when he recollected how difficult it was to make iron hot enough to weld in that way, he flung down the little affair, and gave up the undertaking. Convinced that he needed a pair of bellows even more than a hammer or anything else,—for if he could only get a good heat, he could manage to hold the iron with the kitchen tongs, and work it with the claw-hammer,—he resolved to have them, especially as he felt that he could obtain them by his own efforts, without paying out money.

He knew that John Bradford, with whom he was on terms of greater intimacy than any other of his neighbors, had a large lot of logs to haul, and that he was the owner of a whip-saw. Leaving the shop, he went over to John's and said to him,—

"John, I suppose by this time you've heard all about my blacksmithing."

"Reckon I have, and everybody else in this place. They say you hammer the iron on a lapstone, same as a shoemaker his leather."

"Not quite so bad as that; but I find I must have a pair of bellows, and I want inch-and-a-half stuff to make the 'woods.' I have got a pine log at the door, and I can't go eleven miles to a sawmill; indeed, I don't think I could get there with cattle, the snow is so deep. Will you take your saw, and help me saw out the stuff? and I'll take my oxen and haul logs for you."

"Won't I? I'll be right glad to do it."

"Then I'll go home, and get my log on the saw-pit and come over in the morning."

Two men accustomed to the work will saw out boards and plank with a whip-saw as well as they can be sawed in a mill, only it takes more time. Richardson had a place fixed near the bank of the river, where the ground fell off abruptly. Here stringers were laid on uprights set in the ground, on which the log to be sawed was rolled, and the descent of the ground afforded room to work the saw, which is nearly as large as a mill-saw, one man standing on top of the log, and the other on the ground below.

With the aid of his neighbor, Richardson not only sawed out plank enough for the woodwork of his bellows, but one to make a bench, and boards enough to make a door to replace the rude one of poles, and to close a window he meant to make over the bench.

Having procured the material for the woods, the next article needed was leather to cover the woods. Putting on his snow-shoes, he tracked and killed a moose, took the hair off with strong lye, then tanned it with salt and alum, and pounded it upon the anvil with a stick, kneaded it in his hands, and greased it with the marrow of the moose till it was as limp as a rag.

He now made the woods of the bellows, and bows, and as he had neither nails nor tacks, fastened the skin to the woods with wooden pegs. All this he accomplished without much difficulty; but without iron how was he to make the nose, which must enter the fire, or at least must approach within a few inches of it? The nose of a smith's bellows is of iron, and enters what is called the tuyere pipe, which is in these days quite a complicated affair, and communicates with the fire.

"It's no sort of use, William," said his wife; "it must be iron, and you'll have to go to John Drew, and get him to make it."

"I'll sleep a night on it," was the reply, "before I give it up."

Whether he received any information in dreams, or not, I am unable to say; but this much is evident—that he rose in a hopeful frame of mind, and, to the great surprise of his wife, whose whole soul was in the matter, set to work without the least hesitation.

Our readers will recollect that swamps in the forest do not freeze to a great depth, and often, when the snow comes before the cold is severe, not at all. Richardson found clay that he could get at in the swamp, and by cutting the ice obtained sand from the bottom of the brook. He now, with a hoe, broke up all the lumps in the clay, put water to it, and worked it with the hoe till it was fine and tough; then he worked in the sand, made a box a foot square, without ends (by nailing four pieces of boards together), and three feet in length. In the middle of this box he set a pine plug, larger at one end than the other, and tapering to the size he thought requisite, and filled the space between it and the sides of the box with the mixture of clay and sand, ramming it hard with his hammer-handle, in order that there should be no hollow places; put it in the kitchen, where it might dry gradually without freezing; made the frame, and hung his bellows on wooden pins, in default of iron; made the pole to blow with, while a strip of moose-hide served instead of a chain to lift the "wood" of the lower bellows; and then went into the woods to haul logs while his clay was drying, which required time, as the box excluded, in a great measure, the air.

In the mean while, work accumulated on his hands. Reuben Hight brought a chain to be mended, John Bradford a kitchen shovel, the handle of which was broken in two. These shovels were very large, the handle as long as a broom-handle, and the blade nearly as wide as that of a barn shovel. James Potter brought the bail of a Dutch oven; John Skillings wanted a hook made to a chain, and brought a harrow tooth to make it of. Richardson promised to do the whole when he got his bellows done, if he could, of which he felt by no means assured.

The clay was now thoroughly dried, being kept near the fire, and Richardson put the box on the kitchen hearth, and built a very moderate fire. This he gradually increased, till the box was burnt, the plug of pine consumed, and the clay brought to the condition of brick. He then permitted the fire gradually to burn out, and, when the operation was over, he had, as the result, a complete cone, thoroughly burnt. He made a square hole in his butment, put the pipe through it, with the smaller end towards the forge, and bedded it in clay mortar.

Into the large end of this brick cone he put the wooden nose of his bellows. It being a great deal smaller than the cone, he filled around it with clay mortar; his object in giving this shape to the passage being to admit filling, in order to prevent burning the wooden nose of the bellows. The length of the cone prevented its heating sufficiently to burn the bellows-nose by reason of its great distance from the fire, being out of the stone butment, in the cool air; and the clay mortar around the nose was, he thought, a poorer conductor of heat than the brick cone itself.

Richardson completed his work about noon, and it was a good deal of self-denial to him to abstain from making a coal fire at once, and going to work; but he thought it best to let his mortar dry. He, however, satisfied himself that there would be no difficulty in raising all the wind he needed, and he made a small wood fire to dry the clay before it should freeze.

The next morning the shop presented much the appearance of a jubilee. The children had obtained a promise from their father that he would not kindle the fire till they were up. They were out of bed before a ray of light streaked the sky, and the moment breakfast was despatched, the whole family, even to the dog and cat, hastened to the shop. It was Saturday, and Richardson, knowing that Bradford's wife would want to bake, and need the shovel, began with that, putting the two parts in the fire, after having made them ready to weld, or, as he termed it, "shut." He resolved to have a heat this time; put on the coal, and plied the bellows; but by and by he noticed that the iron began to send off sparks, and saw little black specks of charcoal sticking to the iron. Pulling it out of the fire, he found it was all burnt to a honeycomb: that the little black specks of charcoal had burnt into the very substance of the iron, and yet they were black, and the iron came to pieces the moment he struck it. The anvil was covered with scales, and he found it would not weld.

He was sadly puzzled, and most of all, that the charcoal that stuck to the iron, and burnt into it, did not get red hot itself: and he found there was such a thing as getting iron too hot. Little Clem had been to John Drew's with his father in the canoe, and now came to the rescue.

"Father," he said, "why don't you do like as Mr. Drew did?"

"How did he do, child?"

"I seed him stick the iron into sand, and once I seed him poke the coal away, and fling the sand right into the fire."

The father now recollected that he had often seen the blacksmith put his iron into sand, but did not know what he did it for. He got some sand, and put the iron into it, then put it into the fire, found the iron did not burn, and he welded it without any more trouble.

He now got along bravely, being able to heat his iron so that it would draw easily. Even the harrow-tooth presented no obstacle; for, after bringing it to a white heat, he got his wife to hold it with the tongs, and using the old axe as a sledge, soon brought the tooth to a size that he could work with his nail-hammer, and finished his job. As to the bellows, they were a great success, afforded a strong blast, and he found the constant current of cold air passing through the cone kept it from becoming hot enough to burn the nose of the bellows.

"William," said his wife, "I'll never say you can't do anything again."

It may seem strange to our readers that Richardson should be able to heat iron sufficiently to be drawn and cut with an axe, and still should have so much difficulty in making it hot enough to weld. They may likewise wish to know what good the sand does.

Iron can be cut and hammered when red hot; but, in order to weld, it must be brought to a white heat—almost melted. When in this state, the two pieces of iron to be united are laid one upon the other, and made to unite by a few smart blows with a hammer. If the operation is rightly performed, the two pieces of iron will become perfectly united, and be as strong at the place where they are welded as elsewhere.

It is, however, quite a nice operation to weld thoroughly. Iron, when highly heated, inclines to oxidize rapidly. This forms a scale similar to that which you perceive on iron when it is rusty. If the two pieces of iron are put together in this condition, these scales that are loose on the iron will prevent the union of the parts. That is the way iron burns up. It oxidizes, and the iron flies off in sparks that are scales red hot. When the smith sees the iron begin to sparkle, he takes it out of the fire, and rolls it in sand, and then puts it in again, or opens the fire, and sprinkles sand upon it. The sand melts, combines with the oxide of iron, and forms silicate of iron, spreads over the surface of the iron, protects it, prevents the formation of scales, and when it is struck with the hammer, leaves the surface clean, and the iron unites perfectly, and forms a solid junction. The smith also leaves the surface of the two pieces to be welded highest in the middle, in order that they may touch there first, and then, when struck with the hammer, the melted sand or oxide will be squeezed out.

The possession of a pair of bellows, with which he was enabled to heat his iron thoroughly, and soften it to such a degree that he could work it with his nail-hammer, proved of the utmost service to our persistent smith, and he was enabled, by the aid of his wife and the children, to mend chains, staples of yokes, domestic utensils, and most of the articles his neighbors brought to him, and, as we have seen in the last chapter, was gaining knowledge even by his mistakes.

But there was a good deal of work that would be more profitable than any he had hitherto done that he was compelled to lose for the want of tools. There were oxen to be shod. Four of the neighbors now kept horses. These they worked before their oxen, and therefore wanted them shod all round, and were obliged to pay John Drew an exorbitant price to leave his shop, and come through the woods on snow-shoes to do it. It was quite as important that he should have iron as tools, in order to learn by practice, as he could not expect his neighbors to find iron for him to spoil in learning. To this end he laid by every cent he earned by his blacksmith work, in order with that, the cloth, butter, and linen yarn, to obtain both.

The tools for the lack of which he was the most crippled in his work were a pair of smiths' tongs, a hammer, and a punch. The kitchen tongs were wretched things to hold iron with. It required all his strength to hold a small piece of iron, and the jaws were so short that it was constantly slipping; whereas, the handles of a smiths' tongs, being crossed like scissor-blades, act as a lever, and the jaws are long, to hold the iron; while a smiths' hammer, being much heavier, and with a larger face, deals a more effective blow, and is, by its form, adapted to the work. In addition to all this, he had but one pair of kitchen tongs, and when he had to weld two pieces of iron, he made a pair of wooden ones, with which his wife took out one of the pieces of iron, and held it till it was "stuck."

He longed—O, how he longed!—for a little iron that he could call his own. It consumed him—this desire—even as does the greed of gold a miser. He reckoned with a piece of charcoal on the top of the bellows the amount of money he had on hand, the cost of getting Drew to make him the tools, and the probable proceeds of the articles he had to sell. To his dismay he found, after purchasing even the few tools he must have, there would remain but a mere trifle with which to buy iron.

"I must," he said to himself, "either go without the iron or the tools. No, I won't; I'll make the tools.—I will do it, and save the money to buy iron."

Just then his wife came in to call him to supper, and overheard the remark, but did not, as before, say, "William, you never can do it."

CHAPTER IV. HAMMER AND TONGS.

Most persons accompany the act of close thought with some physical effort; some whittle, smoke, or chew tobacco furiously. William Richardson was not an exception. When he had fed the cattle for night, brought in the night's wood, a turn of water, and renewed the fire, he placed the long handle of his wife's frying-pan across a tub, and began to shell corn.

His wife, who knew there was corn enough shelled for a long time, made no remark, but noticed, while she sat spinning at her flax-wheel, that he dropped a good many ears of corn into the tub half shelled, and some untouched. He was evidently thinking of anything but shelling corn.

Thus they sat an hour or more; not a word spoken. On the other hand, it was whir, whir, whir; scrape, scrape, scrape. At length his wife saw, as the cobs he had been from time to time flinging into the fire caught and blazed, the muscles of his face relax, and a smile flit across it.

"Sue?"

"Well, William."

"Do you think you could get along without the tongs?"

"I do get along without them; they are out to the shop the greater part of the time; I haven't had 'em in my hands, except out there, this three weeks."

"But could you do without 'em altogether?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Because I can make a pair of blacksmith's tongs of 'em."

"Take 'em, husband."

"Could you get along without the fire-shovel?"

"No; because I couldn't clear out the oven."

Whir, whir, whir; scrape, scrape, scrape, for half an hour more.

"Sue!"

"Well."

"Could we get along without one of the andirons?"

"I don't kno-o-w. What in the world can you want of that?"

"To make a hammer."

"We could get along as well without both as without one."

"I don't want the whole of it, only part of the end that's in the fire; we could put a rock under that, and the rest of it would keep the wood from the hearth, and from rolling out."

"Then I would take it, William. We can get along very well, I dare say. Haven't you got corn enough shelled?"

"Haven't you spun long enough?"

"Yes."

"Then we will go to bed."

The sledding was good, and it was sometime before Richardson put his designs into execution. But the sledding broke up, work came in, and he felt the need of the tongs more than ever, as the children were at school, and it was oftentimes impossible for his wife to leave the baby, that was cutting its teeth, and began to be fretful.

He placed a block beside his anvil, knocked the handle out of the old axe, and mortised it into the block, edge up: upon this he could lay hot iron and cut it without calling his wife to assist him.

It was with great reluctance that our smith proceeded to take the tongs and the andiron, when the time came for doing it. "I feel," said he to his wife, "as though I was sheep-stealing: it seems real mean to strip the fireplace, and take your tongs and andirons, especially as we are so miserably off for household stuff."

"I wouldn't feel so, William. The first two years we got along without them; then we thought we needed the tongs, and got John Drew to make them; and now, if you need the hammer more than the tongs, I don't see why you shouldn't take them."

The kitchen tongs were huge affairs; there was more iron in them than in three pairs of light smith's tongs, such as Richardson needed at present, only it was not in the right place, but just the reverse, as the legs of the house tongs were shaped like the human leg and thigh, largest at the fork, and tapering towards the feet, where they terminated in a large, oval lip, very thick and broad, adapted to seize and hold the great brands in the old-fashioned fireplaces; whereas forge-tongs have the most iron in the jaws, and at the cross, and taper from thence to a small size.

To his great delight, Richardson found that he did not need more than half of the legs of the tongs.

"I'll save the body of them," he said, "and when I get some new iron, put on new legs, and Susan can have her tongs again."

He put them into the fire, and cut off the lips, drew down the small end to half its size, in order to save iron, and that the handles might occupy less room in his hand. A new difficulty now presented itself. Indeed, our smith, who was in want of everything but brains and perseverance, trod a brier-planted path. He had no punch to make a hole for the rivet, and without it all his previous work was useless. Punches are made of steel, or, at least, pointed with it; but he had no steel, except his tools and a file, that he needed to sharpen his saws and augers, and could not do without. He knew that an iron punch would answer the purpose; but where should he get the iron to make it of, for he had now discovered that he needed two pairs of tongs, in order to take two pieces of iron from the fire at the same time, to weld, and could spare none from the legs of the fire-tongs for a punch. He took the two oval buttons that had formed the lips of the house-tongs, welded them together, and made his punch. To be sure, at every three or four blows it bent; but he straightened it again, and, by heating the iron as hot as it would bear, succeeded in punching the holes in both pairs of tongs, and then took part of the punch to make the rivets.

So delighted was he when the whole matter was accomplished, that the big man capered around the shop for joy, and ran in to tell the good news to his wife.

"Now, Sue," he said, "let us have a thanksgiving to-day, for I have two pairs of tongs; let us have pea-soup."

There was not much left of the house-tongs, only the head, and about two inches of each leg, below the fork, just enough to weld to. The great benefit of the tongs was instantly apparent. Returning to the shop, William took up what remained of the punch, and exclaiming, "A blacksmith has the advantage of a carpenter, for he can work up his chips," made a hook. This he fastened to a belt around his waist. Of the remainder he made a clasp that he could slip over the handles of the tongs, thus holding the iron and liberating his hand.

Now, if he wanted to use his left hand to hold a punch or cutter, he could put a clasp over the handles of the tongs, and drop them into the hook at his waist; the iron, also, was not slipping out of the tongs and dropping on the ground, every three or four blows. He could now work alone to very good advantage, as he had no large iron to draw, and his wife was not compelled to take her hands out of the dough to help him.

"Wife," said William, when he came in from his work that night, "I am as tired as a dog. It's hard work trying to make something out of nothing." After resting his brain a while, and doing the new work his neighbors had brought, he began to think about making a hammer; so he cut off sufficient iron from one of the andirons, lapped it over, welded it, and formed the body of the tool. But in this a large hole was to be punched to receive a handle. It was necessary that he should have more than one punch, a small one to make the hole, and another to enlarge it, as he could not, with his nail-hammer, strike with sufficient force to drive a large punch through so thick a piece of iron.

"I am sure, wife," he said, "I don't know what I shall get to make punches of. I have a good mind to take one of the teeth out of your flax-comb—they are steel—to make the small punch, and cut a piece off the crowbar to make the big one."

"I wouldn't cut the crowbar, William. Take part of the other andiron; we might as well have a stone under the ends of both as under one. There's an old wheel spindle will make the small one."

He acted upon his wife's advice, and made the hammer. Hammers are faced with steel, whereas this was all iron; but Richardson knew that, like his iron punches, it would answer a temporary purpose, and that when it was battered up, he could hammer it back again. He now was able to do all the work his neighbors brought, and in half the time required before. While he was congratulating himself upon his success, David Montague came to the shop, bringing the chain he had mended first; the link had straightened when put to a severe test.

"I know the reason," said Richardson. "I couldn't get a proper heat with the house-bellows." He mended it, and this time there was no failure.

William Richardson, during all these struggles and make-shifts, had learned much, and, in a way that insured its being remembered; had learned the value and use of sand, found that it protected the iron, kept the outside from burning, while the inside was heating; that, if he put two pieces of iron in the fire, and one of them became hot before the other, he could take it out, roll it in sand, and put it back, and the sand would keep it from burning up, while the other was getting ready. He likewise perceived that there was a great difference in the effect of heat upon the different kinds of iron brought to him by his neighbors: some was fine-grained, tough, and would bear a great heat; another kind was coarse, brittle, and, if made too hot, would fly under the hammer, and fall to pieces. Every mistake added to his experience, and he was every day acquiring dexterity in the use of the hammer.

His neighbors, who watched his progress with the greatest interest, were as much delighted as himself, since they were no longer obliged to go through the woods to the village for every little job. They now told him he must learn to shoe oxen and horses, work steel, make axes and plough-irons.

You may well think Richardson was as anxious to be able to do this work as they were to have it done; and the way for the gradual attainment of it came about in the natural order of events.

David Montague had, during the winter, got out the timber for a barn, and employed Richardson to frame, board, and shingle it. This increased his stock of money very sensibly, and he felt that he could now, with the money he had saved by making his tools, the proceeds of his butter, and other matters, and that which he had earned by working for Montague, buy some iron and steel. He had also in the distant future, visions of an iron anvil, that he foresaw he must one day have.

CHAPTER V. DREW SORE AND SAVAGE.

It was now past the middle of March. A copious rain was succeeded by a sharp frost, making excellent going on the river, and Richardson resolved to improve it; the only drawback being that the river was one glare of ice, and his oxen had lost many of their shoes. He had saved part of the shoes, borrowed some more of John Bradford, and could have put them on himself, as Moody Matthews had a shoeing-hammer, but there were no nails in the neighborhood.

Richardson, however, knew that by taking time and by careful driving, he could get the cattle to the village, and determined to carry the shoes with him, and hire Drew to sharpen and nail them on. He put on the sled half a cord of hemlock bark, his own grist, the butter, cloth, and yarn, together with some corn and grain for his neighbors.

About eight o'clock in the evening his wife went to bed; but William made up a warm fire in the stone fireplace, fed the cattle, and lay down before it. At twelve o'clock he went out, fed the cattle again, and called his wife, who got his breakfast, and he set out. He carried in a basket doughnuts, baked beans, cold boiled pork, Indian bread, and butter, and a jug of coffee, also hay for the oxen. His plan was to stop for the night at Hanson's, who put up teams, paying fifty cents a night for barn-room for the cattle and a bed for himself, Hanson's wife warming his beans, and making tea or coffee for him, as the coffee he carried was to drink on the road. This expense was paid by the neighbors whose errands he did.

At his arrival, he found John Drew, who before had always received him very cordially, in a most surly humor. He was making axes. Tom Breslaw, an apprentice, nearly out of his time, was striking, and blowing the bellows. Barely nodding, in response to the greeting of Richardson, he took an axe, into which he had stuck the steel, from the fire, flung it savagely on the anvil, crying to Tom, "Strike!" and after the heat put it in the fire again, taking not the least notice of Richardson, but giving all his attention to his iron. Finding he was not noticed, and at a loss to know what this strange conduct of the smith meant, he at length said, "Mr. Drew, can you put a few shoes on my oxen?"

"No, I can't. I've got this axe and another one to make for a man that's waitin' for 'em."

"Perhaps you could do it in the morning. I shall be obliged to stay all night to get my grist ground. It would be a great accommodation to me if you could. I had hard work to get the cattle here, and if I am obliged to drive them home as they are, I shall lame them."

"Can't do it, I tell you, and that's the long and short of it."

"Perhaps you could make some nails, lend me a shoeing-hammer, and I would try and nail them on myself. If you don't, I am sure I don't know what I shall do. I had hard work to get the cattle here with no load of any amount. I must haul more back, and I don't know how I can get home."

"And I don't care how you get home, Bill Richardson; nor whether you get home at all. Here I've slaved myself for years, going up to your place through the woods on snow-shoes once or twice every winter, and hauling my tools and shoes on a hand-sled, leaving work here in the shop just to accommodate you folks up there, and took my pay in white beans and all sorts of trash, when I left cash jobs at home and lost 'em; and here you come smelling round, and palavering, as though butter wouldn't melt in your mouth; watch and sneak round, and steal the trade, and then go back, cut off my custom, and take the bread right out of my mouth. Now I've got you where the hair is short. You may shoe your own cattle, you're such a great smith. I won't make you a shoe, nail, lend you a tool, or obleege you in any way, name, or natur'. Strike, Tom Breslaw—what are you gaping at?"

Waiting patiently till the din of blows had subsided, and the iron was returned to the fire, Richardson replied,—

"As for stealing your trade, Mr. Drew, and coming here for the purpose, it is certainly a mistake of yours. I never thought of trying to work a piece of iron till the last time I was here, when the thought came into my mind. You surely can't think it strange, when you know what great labor and expense it is for myself and neighbors to come here, that we should try to do somewhat for ourselves. You would do the same were you in our place. If you complain so bitterly of coming to our place twice a year, what do you think it must be for us to come to you all the time? You must remember, also, that at those times you charged a corresponding price, that was cheerfully paid. I can't well see how you could lose any work by going, as there is no other smith anywhere round, and you must have found the work waiting when you came back. I have never been reputed a thief among my neighbors, or made a practice of stealing. I did wish to obtain some information of you, before I went home, about working and tempering steel, but expected to pay for it. As for taking bread out of your mouth, you have all the work you can do right here, without doing a stroke of work for us."

"Well, all the knowledge you'll worm out of me you may put in your eye, for you won't get any."

"I don't expect, or even desire to, after what has passed between us; but, as I have given you full opportunity to free your mind, and express your opinion of me, any more talk of that kind before my face or behind my back will be at your own risk. I suppose you understand me."

Drew hung his head, and made no reply; for, though a patient and good-natured man, William Richardson was by no means a safe person to provoke.

It was now the dinner hour, and as Richardson left the shop he was followed by Breslaw, who said,—

"Mr. Richardson, where are you going?"

"First, Tom, to your father's, with this bark. He is tanning a couple of hides for me, and told me he would take part of his pay in bark. I was going to buy some iron and steel at the store; but I shall have to give that up; for, as Drew won't shoe my cattle, I shan't be able to haul one pound more than my grist."

"He's a mean wretch, and I don't see how you kept your hands off him. But he's been drinking; that's part of it. Give me your shoes. I'll run into Aunt Sarah's, and get my dinner; it won't take me so long as to go home; and before Drew gets back I'll fit the shoes and make the nails, and this evening we will put them on. Most of the shoes have been on the cattle before. I'll fit the others by them, and if there's any of them too far gone to sharpen, I'll make new ones."

"But where will you get iron? Shan't I run to the store and get some?"

"I keep a little of my own, and do small jobs out of shop time. Any little scraps will do for that."

Richardson hauled his bark to the tan-yard, and Breslaw's father invited him to stop to dinner. As he was passing Drew's shop on his return, Tom came out.

"I've made the shoes and nails, Mr. Richardson; and I'll tell you what I've been thinking of. I suppose money is none too plenty with you."

"You may well say that, Tom; for I'm paying for my land, and every cent counts."

"Well, now, you can, while you are waiting for your grist, go round the village, and pick up old iron, and perhaps some steel, that won't cost you one quarter what it would to buy new at the store, and be just as good, and better, for your use, as it will be smaller, and save hammering. Only look out that it is not too rusty. Perhaps you remember Bosworth, the stone-mason."

"Very well. He made the stones in the grist-mill, and built the piers of the great bridge."

"He died this last winter, and his widow has his drills and other tools, and wants to sell 'em. The drills are all steel, and the best of steel, too; and I've no doubt you could buy 'em for half what the same amount of steel would cost you at the store, and perhaps for even less."

In accordance with this advice, Richardson went to the place, and bought four hand-drills, a foot or more in length, used for splitting stone, and two dozen steel wedges. The latter, he thought, would, at some future time, serve to make toe-calks for horse-shoes. The purchase that delighted him most of all, however, was a churn-drill. This was four feet in length; but only four inches of each end was steel, being much worn, the remainder iron, shaped like the stalk of a seed onion, with a bulb of iron in the middle, three inches in diameter. He also bought a light stone-hammer. This was likewise a great acquisition, as it would serve the purpose of a sledge. Clem could now strike with it for a short time, and would, in a few months, be able to handle it easily; for he was large of his age, and muscular. He could likewise get one of his neighbors to strike, upon an emergency. Pursuing his search, he found several old axes, beetle-rings, three mill-files, the handle of a kitchen shovel, one leg of a pair of kitchen tongs, and an old crane (the latter was a large piece of iron), and some old ox-shoes. At the mill he obtained some of the mill-stone picks that had become too short for use.

Just as he had finished his supper that night, Tom made his appearance at Hanson's with the shoes, nails, and his tools. A rope was procured, and the oxen were cast on the barn floor. Richardson held a candle, stuck into a potato, while Hanson assisted Tom. The latter put on the new shoes, clinched up all the old ones that were loose, and, with a smith's large file, sharpened the dull calks.

He not only refused to take any pay for his work, avowing that Jack Drew was hog enough for one small place, but, sitting down before the fire with Richardson, gave him a great deal of valuable information respecting working iron.

In the morning Richardson rose early, and prepared to start. After paying his expenses at Hanson's, he was able to buy considerable iron at the store, and still had a little money left. The wind was north-west, a bright sun, the ice smooth and hard, and the cattle, sharpshod, were able to travel. Thoroughly rested, and eager to get home, they seemed to regard the load no more than though it had been feathers. Snorting with eagerness, proud of their new shoes, and perhaps elated with the idea of having been to the village, they could at first scarcely be kept from breaking into a run.

Was not Will Richardson a happy man that bright, sunny morning! The keen air braced his limbs, and his heart throbbed with joy. Things had turned out so much better than he anticipated. He feasted his eyes upon the iron and steel—the great bar, the nail rods—he had bought at the store, or rather the thin bar he had purchased to be split into nail rods; for at that day iron did not come from the forges in shapes to suit the smiths, but in large bars, and there was a vast deal of work to be done with the sledge and hammer.

Never did a boy gloat over a ripe plum as did Will Richardson over the great bunch of iron in the middle of that churn-drill. He couldn't keep his eyes off of it, and had already decided in his own mind what use he would make of it.

Thanks to the noble spirit of Tom Breslaw, the cattle travelled so fast that he arrived home long before his wife expected him. The children had come half starved—as children always do in the country—from school, and were screaming, "Do, mother, give me something to eat."

"I'll give you a luncheon, because you'll want to eat with your father when he comes, and you'll want to tie up the cattle, and get the night's wood in, and a turn of water, so you can have time to see him."

This being assented to by Young America, the mother, taking half of a loaf of rye-and-Indian bread, began to spread butter on the loaf, and then cut off and distribute huge slices to the hungry expectants. She had cut off the last slice when the sound of Richardson's voice, shouting to the oxen, came through the half-open door.

"Father—father's come!" screamed the children; and, followed by their mother, they ran to the river. Down the slope they rushed, pell-mell, and, just as the cattle put their fore feet on the edge of the bank, and taking advantage of a momentary pause occasioned by the steepness of the grade, piled on to the sled, the two girls holding on to their father's legs, who, standing on the hinder end of the sled, and holding by one hand to a stake, with the other waved his hat to his wife, shouting, "O, Sue, the best of luck! 'Lashings' of iron and steel; and I've brought back the fulled cloth, and the stuff for your and the children's clothes, and money—only think of it, wife, brought money home with me! You can have your tongs, and your andirons, and I can have all the tools I want? and won't we go ahead?"

His wife was too full to speak; but happiness beamed from every feature, as standing half-leg deep in the snow, she drank in the words of her husband, who, taking her in his arms, seated her upon a bag of meal, and, while the cattle went on, narrated the incidents of his journey, the surliness of Drew, and how nobly it was offset by the generous conduct of Breslaw.

"Ain't it glorious, wife? I tell you what it is, Sue, it's better to be born lucky than rich."

To which we might add, that it is better to be born with brains and energy than rich; for the riches may be lost; but the former are an enduring possession, and when under the control of virtuous principles, a source of unfailing happiness and self-respect.

William Richardson was by no means a talkative man. On the contrary he was by nature reserved and thoughtful. But now his tongue ran like a mill-clapper, and ceased not till the cattle stopped of their own accord before the door.

In the meanwhile his wife remained, listening to the excited narration of her husband, in a sort of silent rapture; but when, after the oxen stopped, he began to show her the iron, and expatiate, saying, "Only see this churn-drill, wife; both ends steel; and what a great bunch of iron in the middle—Swedish iron, too; and three picks, and drills, and wedges—all steel; and that crane—see what a great junk of iron that is!—didn't cost me much of anything, either; and that big bar, to make axes; and the thin iron for horse and ox shoes, and nail-rods;"—I say, as he thus ran on, showing and explaining the value of one piece of iron after another, tears of joy ran down the cheeks of the faithful wife, and after that she found her tongue.

Now you needn't laugh, boys, and say, "What a fuss over a little old iron!" It was worth a great deal more to that family than though it had been so much gold; and you needn't say, "O, what a whopper!" Just see if it don't come out so before we have done with the Richardsons. That amount of gold might, and probably would, have ruined them; but on every grain of that rusty metal were written encouragement, inspiration, opportunity; and God Almighty had given to William Richardson the ability to read for himself and his neighbors what was written on those iron leaves.

"Father," cried Clem, seizing the stone-hammer, "what is this awful great hammer for?"

"For you, my son, to help me draw these great bars of iron with—at any rate, by and by, if you can't handle it now."

"I can swing it now, father, just like anything. See here"—swinging it over his head, and bringing it down with considerable force on the iron.

CHAPTER VI. PATIENT, BUT DETERMINED.

Perhaps our readers would like to know what were the first words Susan Richardson uttered after she found her tongue.

"The first thing I'll do, when I get up to-morrow morning, shall be to spin some linen yarn as fine as I can spin it, scour and bleach it the best I know how, weave it, and if I don't make Tom Breslaw as handsome a pair of linen shirts as any man in this state ever had to his back, it will be because I can't."

The children all had to take a turn at the stone-hammer. Rob could strike with it, but could not swing it over his head; besides being younger, he was much less muscular than Clem, who was very large of his age. Sue could lift it to the height of her shoulders, Sally but a few inches. They now began to carry the iron to the shop. Clem and Rob took each an end of the churn-drill, but the girls insisted on taking hold in the middle, and entirely monopolized the conveyance of the drills, wedges, and smaller things, notwithstanding the boys told them they should think it would look a great deal better for them to go into the house and help their mother get supper. All the satisfaction they got was, "It's nothing to you; mam said we might."

The first work William Richardson did in the shop was with the remnants of the kitchen shovel and tongs he had bought to repair his wife's tongs, and cutting a piece off the old crane, he repaired the andirons.

Sitting on the anvil, he now looked over the iron and steel spread in imposing array by the children over the shop, as a militia captain makes his company take open order on muster-day for the sake of show, reflecting in what way he should make the most of his treasures, when Clem, who had been examining the drills with great interest, striking one upon the other, and listening to the clear, sharp ring thus produced, so different from the dull sound emitted by the iron, said,—

"Father, what is steel?"

The parent, occupied with his reflections, neither heard nor heeded the question.

"Who don't know that, Clem?" replied Robert. "It's what makes father's axe and draw-shave cut: iron won't cut."

"I guess I know that as well as you do. But what makes steel cut any more'n iron? It looks just like it."

"'Cause it's steel."

"You know a great deal about it—don't you?"

"What is it, boys?" said the father, rousing up.