CHAPTER VIII.
“I tell you what it is, Renny,” said Yates, a few days after the soap episode, as he swung in his hammock at the camp, “I’m learning something new every day.”
“Not really?” asked the professor in surprise.
“Yes, really. I knew it would astonish you. My chief pleasure in life, professor, is the surprising of you. I sometimes wonder why it delights me; it is so easily done.”
“Never mind about that. What have you been learning?”
“Wisdom, my boy; wisdom in solid chunks. In the first place, I am learning to admire the resourcefulness of these people around us. Practically, they make everything they need. They are the most self-helping people that I was ever thrown among. I look upon theirs as the ideal life.”
“I think you said something like that when we first came here.”
“I said that, you ass, about camping out. I am talking now about farm life. Farmers eliminate the middleman pretty effectually, and that in itself is going a long way toward complete happiness. Take the making of soap, that I told you about; there you have it, cheap and good. When you’ve made it, you know what is in it, and I’ll be hanged if you do when you pay a big price for it in New York. Here they make pretty nearly everything they need, except the wagon and the crockery; and I’m not sure but they made them a few years back. Now, when a man with a good sharp ax and a jack-knife can do anything from building his house to whittling out a chair, he’s the most independent man on earth. Nobody lives better than these people do. Everything is fresh, sweet, and good. Perhaps the country air helps; but it seems to me I never tasted such meals as Mrs. Bartlett, for instance, gets up. They buy nothing at the stores except the tea, and I confess I prefer milk myself. My tastes were always simple.”
“And what is the deduction?”
“Why, that this is the proper way to live. Old Hiram has an anvil and an amateur forge. He can tinker up almost anything, and that eliminates the blacksmith. Howard has a bench, saws, hammers, and other tools, and that eliminates the carpenter. The women eliminate the baker, the soap boiler, and a lot of other parasites. Now, when you have eliminated all the middlemen, then comes independence, and consequently complete happiness. You can’t keep happiness away with a shotgun then.”
“But what is to become of the blacksmith, the carpenter, and all the rest?”
“Let them take up land and be happy too; there’s plenty of land. The land is waiting for them. Then look how the master is eliminated. That’s the most beautiful riddance of all. Even the carpenter and blacksmith usually have to work under a boss; and if not, they have to depend on the men who employ them. The farmer has to please nobody but himself. That adds to his independence. That’s why old Hiram is ready to fight the first comer on the slightest provocation. He doesn’t care whom he offends, so long as it isn’t his wife. These people know how to make what they want, and what they can’t make they do without. That’s the way to form a great nation. You raise, in this way, a self-sustaining, resolute, unconquerable people. The reason the North conquered the South was because we drew our armies mostly from the self-reliant farming class, while we had to fight a people accustomed for generations to having things done for them.”
“Why don’t you buy a farm, Yates?”
“Several reasons. I am spoiled for the life here. I am like the drunkard who admires a temperate life, yet can’t pass a ginshop. The city virus is in my blood. And then, perhaps, after all, I am not quite satisfied with the tendency of farm life; it is unfortunately in a transition state. It is at the frame-house stage, and will soon blossom into the red-brick stage. The log-house era is what I yearn for. Then everything a person needed was made on the farm. When the brick-house era sets in, the middleman will be rampant. I saw the other day at the Howards’ a set of ancient stones that interested me as much as an Assyrian marble would interest you. They were old, home-made millstones, and they have not been used since the frame house was built. The grist mill at the village put them out of date. And just here, notice the subtlety of the crafty middleman. The farmer takes his grist to the mill, and the miller does not charge him cash for grinding it. He takes toll out of the bags, and the farmer has a vague idea that he gets his grinding for almost nothing. The old way was the best, Renny, my boy. The farmer’s son won’t be as happy in the brick house which the mason will build for him as his grandfather was in the log house he built for himself. And fools call this change the advance of civilization.”
“There is something to be said for the old order of things,” admitted Renmark. “If a person could unite the advantages of what we call civilization with the advantages of a pastoral life, he would inaugurate a condition of things that would be truly idyllic.”
“That’s so, Renmark, that’s so!” cried Yates enthusiastically. “A brownstone mansion on Fifth Avenue, and a log hut on the shores of Lake Superior! That would suit me down to the ground. Spend half the year in each place.”
“Yes,” said the professor meditatively; “a log hut on the rocks and under the trees, with the lake in front, would be very nice if the hut had a good library attached.”
“And a daily paper. Don’t forget the press.”
“No. I draw the line there. The daily paper would mean the daily steamer or the daily train. The one would frighten away the fish, and the other would disturb the stillness with its whistle.”
Yates sighed. “I forgot about the drawbacks,” he said. “That’s the trouble with civilization. You can’t have the things you want without bringing in their trail so many things you don’t want. I shall have to give up the daily paper.”
“Then there is another objection, worse than either steamer or train.”
“What’s that?”
“The daily paper itself.”
Yates sat up indignantly.
“Renmark!” he cried, “that’s blasphemy. For Heaven’s sake, man, hold something sacred. If you don’t respect the press, what do you respect? Not my most cherished feelings, at any rate, or you wouldn’t talk in that flippant manner. If you speak kindly of my daily paper, I’ll tolerate your library.”
“And that reminds me: Have you brought any books with you, Yates? I have gone through most of mine already, although many of them will bear going over again; still, I have so much time on my hands that I think I may indulge in a little general reading. When you wrote asking me to meet you in Buffalo, I thought you perhaps intended to tramp through the country, so I did not bring as many books with me as I should have done if I had known you were going to camp out.”
Yates sprang from the hammock.
“Books? Well, I should say so! Perhaps you think I don’t read anything but the daily papers. I’d have you know that I am something of a reader myself. You mustn’t imagine you monopolize all the culture in the township, professor.”
The young man went into the tent, and shortly returned with an armful of yellow-covered, paper-bound small volumes, which he flung in profusion at the feet of the man from Toronto. They were mostly Beadle’s Dime Novels, which had a great sale at the time.
“There,” he said, “you have quantity, quality, and variety, as I have before remarked. ‘The Murderous Sioux of Kalamazoo;’ that’s a good one. A hair-raising Indian story in every sense of the word. The one you are looking at is a pirate story, judging by the burning ship on the cover. But for first-class highwaymen yarns, this other edition is the best. That’s the ‘Sixteen String Jack set.’ They’re immense, if they do cost a quarter each. You must begin at the right volume, or you’ll be sorry. You see, they never really end, although every volume is supposed to be complete in itself. They leave off at the most exciting point, and are continued in the next volume. I call that a pretty good idea, but it’s rather exasperating if you begin at the last book. You’ll enjoy this lot. I’m glad I brought them along.”
“It is a blessing,” said Renmark, with the ghost of a smile about his lips. “I can truthfully say that they are entirely new to me.”
“That’s all right, my boy,” cried Yates loftily, with a wave of his hand. “Use them as if they were your own.”
Renmark arose leisurely and picked up a quantity of the books.
“These will do excellently for lighting our morning camp fire,” he said. “And if you will allow me to treat them as if they were my own, that is the use to which I will put them. You surely do not mean to say that you read such trash as this, Yates?”
“Trash?” exclaimed Yates indignantly. “It serves me right. That’s what a man gets for being decent to you, Renny. Well, you’re not compelled to read them; but if you put one of them in the fire, your stupid treatises will follow, if they are not too solid to burn. You don’t know good literature when you see it.”
The professor, buoyed up, perhaps, by the conceit which comes to a man through the possession of a real sheepskin diploma, granted by a university of good standing, did not think it necessary to defend his literary taste. He busied himself in pruning a stick he had cut in the forest, and finally he got it into the semblance of a walking cane. He was an athletic man, and the indolence of camp life did not suit him as it did Yates. He tested the stick in various ways when he had trimmed it to his satisfaction.
“Are you ready for a ten-mile walk?” he asked of the man in the hammock.
“Good gracious, no. Man wants but little walking here below, and he doesn’t want it ten miles in length either. I’m easily satisfied. You’re off, are you? Well, so long. And I say, Renny, bring back some bread when you return to camp. It’s the one safe thing to do.”
CHAPTER IX.
Renmark walked through the woods and then across the fields, until he came to the road. He avoided the habitations of man as much as he could, for he was neither so sociably inclined nor so frequently hungry as was his companion. He strode along the road, not caring much where it led him. Everyone he met gave him “Good-day,” after the friendly custom of the country. Those with wagons or lighter vehicles going in his direction usually offered him a ride, and went on, wondering that a man should choose to walk when it was not compulsory. The professor, like most silent men, found himself good company, and did not feel the need of companionship in his walks. He had felt relieved rather than disappointed when Yates refused to accompany him. And Yates, swinging drowsily in his hammock, was no less gratified. Even where men are firm and intimate friends, the first few days of camping out together is a severe strain on their regard for each other. If Damon and Pythias had occupied a tent together for a week, the worst enemy of either, or both, might at the end of that time have ventured into the camp in safety, and would have been welcome.
Renmark thought of these things as he walked along. His few days’ intimacy with Yates had shown him how far apart they had managed to get by following paths that diverged more and more widely the farther they were trodden. The friendship of their youth had turned out to be merely ephemeral. Neither would now choose the other as an intimate associate. Another illusion had gone.
“I have surely enough self-control,” said Renmark to himself, as he walked on, “to stand his shallow flippancy for another week, and not let him see what I think of him.”
Yates at the same time was thoroughly enjoying the peaceful silence of the camp. “That man is an exaggerated schoolmaster, with all the faults of the species abnormally developed. If I once open out on him, he will learn more truth about himself in ten minutes than he ever heard in his life before. What an unbearable prig he has grown to be.” Thus ran Yates’ thoughts as he swung in his hammock, looking up at the ceiling of green leaves.
Nevertheless, the case was not so bad as either of them thought. If it had been, then were marriage not only a failure, but a practical impossibility. If two men can get over the first few days in camp without a quarrel, life becomes easier, and the tension relaxes.
Renmark, as he polished off his ten miles, paid little heed to those he met; but one driver drew up his horse and accosted him.
“Good-day,” he said. “How are you getting on in the tent?”
The professor was surprised at the question. Had their tenting-out eccentricity gone all over the country? He was not a quick man at recognizing people, belonging, as he did, to the “I-remember-your-face-but-can’t-recall-your-name” fraternity. It had been said of him that he never, at any one time, knew the names of more than half a dozen students in his class; but this was an undergraduate libel on him. The young man who had accosted him was driving a single horse, attached to what he termed a “democrat”—a four-wheeled light wagon, not so slim and elegant as a buggy, nor so heavy and clumsy as a wagon. Renmark looked up at the driver with confused unrecognition, troubled because he vaguely felt that he had met him somewhere before. But his surprise at being addressed speedily changed into amazement as he looked from the driver to the load. The “democrat” was heaped with books. The larger volumes were stuck along the sides with some regularity, and in this way kept the miscellaneous pile from being shaken out on the road. His eye glittered with a new interest as it rested on the many-colored bindings; and he recognized in the pile the peculiar brown covers of the “Bohn” edition of classic translations, that were scattered like so many turnips over the top of this ridge of literature. He rubbed his eyes to make sure he was not dreaming. How came a farmer’s boy to be driving a wagon load of books in the wilds of the country as nonchalantly as if they were so many bushels of potatoes?
The young driver, who had stopped his horse, for the load was heavy and the sand was deep, saw that the stranger not only did not recognize him, but that from the moment he saw the books he had forgotten everything else. It was evidently necessary to speak again.
“If you are coming back, will you have a ride?” he asked.
“I—I think I will,” said the professor, descending to earth again and climbing up beside the boy.
“I see you don’t remember me,” said the latter, starting his horse again. “My name is Howard. I passed you in my buggy when you were coming in with your tent that day on the Ridge. Your partner—what’s his name—Yates, isn’t it?—had dinner at our house the other day.”
“Ah, yes. I recollect you now. I thought I had seen you before; but it was only for a moment, you know. I have a very poor memory so far as people are concerned. It has always been a failing of mine. Are these your books? And how do you happen to have such a quantity?”
“Oh, this is the library,” said young Howard.
“The library?”
“Yes, the township library, you know.”
“Oh! The township has a library, then? I didn’t know.”
“Well, it’s part of it. This is a fifth part. You know about township libraries, don’t you? Your partner said you were a college man.”
Renmark blushed at his own ignorance, but he was never reluctant to admit it.
“I ought to be ashamed to confess it, but I know nothing of township libraries. Please, tell me about them.”
Young Howard was eager to give information to a college man, especially on the subject of books, which he regarded as belonging to the province of college-bred men. He was pleased also to discover that city people did not know everything. He had long had the idea that they did, and this belief had been annoyingly corroborated by the cocksureness of Yates. The professor evidently was a decent fellow, who did not pretend to universal knowledge. This was encouraging. He liked Renmark better than Yates, and was glad he had offered him a ride, although, of course, that was the custom; still, a person with one horse and a heavy load is exempt on a sandy road.
“Well, you see,” he said in explanation, “it’s like this: The township votes a sum of money, say a hundred dollars, or two hundred, as the case may be. They give notice to the Government of the amount voted, and the Government adds the same amount to the township money. It’s like the old game: you think of a number, and they double it. The Government has a depository of books, in Toronto, I think, and they sell them cheaper than the bookstores do. At any rate, the four hundred dollars’ worth are bought, or whatever the amount is, and the books are the property of the township. Five persons are picked out in the township as librarians, and they have to give security. My father is librarian for this section. The library is divided into five parts, and each librarian gets a share. Once a year I go to the next section and get all their books. They go to the next section, again, and get all the books at that place. A man comes to our house to-day and takes all we have. So we get a complete change every year, and in five years we get back the first batch, which by that time we have forgotten all about. To-day is changing day all around.”
“And the books are lent to any person in each section who wishes to read them?” asked the professor.
“Yes. Margaret keeps a record, and a person can have a book out for two weeks; after that time there is a fine, but Margaret never fines anyone.”
“And do people have to pay to take out the books?”
“Not likely!” said Howard with fine contempt. “You wouldn’t expect people to pay for reading books; would you, now?”
“No, I suppose not. And who selected the volumes?”
“Well, the township can select the books if it likes, or it can send a committee to select them; but they didn’t think it worth the trouble and expense. People grumbled enough at wasting money on books as it was, even if they did buy them at half price. Still, others said it was a pity not to get the money out of the Government when they had the chance. I don’t believe any of them cared very much about the books, except father and a few others. So the Government chose the books. They’ll do that if you leave it to them. And a queer lot of trash they sent, if you take my word for it. I believe they shoved off on us all the things no on else would buy. Even when they did pick out novels, they were just as tough as the history books. ‘Adam Bede’ is one. They say that’s a novel. I tried it, but I would rather read the history of Josephus any day. There’s some fighting in that, if it is a history. Then there’s any amount of biography books. They’re no good. There’s a ‘History of Napoleon.’ Old Bartlett’s got that, and he won’t give it up. He says he was taxed for the library against his will. He dares them to go to law about it, and it aint worth while for one book. The other sections are all asking for that book; not that they want it, but the whole country knows that old Bartlett’s a-holding on to it, so they’d like to see some fun. Bartlett’s read that book fourteen times, and it’s all he knows. I tell Margaret she ought to fine him, and keep on fining, but she won’t do it. I guess Bartlett thinks the book belongs to him by this time. Margaret likes Kitty and Mrs. Bartlett,—so does everybody,—but old Bartlett’s a seed. There he sits now on his veranda, and it’s a wonder he’s not reading the ‘History of Napoleon.’”
They were passing the Bartlett house, and young Howard raised his voice and called out:
“I say, Mr. Bartlett, we want that Napoleon book. This is changing day, you know. Shall I come up for it, or will you bring it down? If you fetch it to the gate, I’ll cart it home now.”
The old man paid no heed to what was said to him; but Mrs. Bartlett, attracted by the outcry, came to the door.
“You go along with your books, you young rascal!” she cried, coming down to the gate when she saw the professor. “That’s a nice way to carry bound books, as if they were a lot of bricks. I’ll warrant you have lost a dozen between Mallory’s and here. But easy come, easy go. It’s plain to be seen they didn’t cost you anything. I don’t know what the world’s a-coming to when the township spends its money in books, as if taxes weren’t heavy enough already. Won’t you come in, Mr. Renmark? Tea’s on the table.”
“Mr. Renmark’s coming with me this trip, Mrs. Bartlett,” young Howard said before the professor had time to reply; “but I’ll come over and take tea, if you’ll invite me, as soon as I have put the horse up.”
“You go along with your nonsense,” she said; “I know you.” Then in a lower voice she asked: “How is your mother, Henry—and Margaret?”
“They’re pretty well, thanks.”
“Tell them I’m going to run over to see them some day soon, but that need not keep them from coming to see me. The old man’s going to town to-morrow,” and with this hint, after again inviting the professor to a meal, she departed up the path to the house.
“I think I’ll get down here,” said Renmark, halfway between the two houses. “I am very much obliged to you for the ride, and also for what you told me about the books. It was very interesting.”
“Nonsense!” cried young Howard; “I’m not going to let you do anything of the sort. You’re coming home with me. You want to see the books, don’t you? Very well, then, come along, Margaret is always impatient on changing day, she’s so anxious to see the books, and father generally comes in early from the fields for the same reason.”
As they approached the Howard homestead they noticed Margaret waiting for them at the gate; but when the girl saw that a stranger was in the wagon, she turned and walked into the house. Renmark, seeing this retreat, regretted he had not accepted Mrs. Bartlett’s invitation. He was a sensitive man, and did not realize that others were sometimes as shy as himself. He felt he was intruding, and that at a sacred moment—the moment of the arrival of the library. He was such a lover of books, and valued so highly the privilege of being alone with them, that he fancied he saw in the abrupt departure of Margaret the same feeling of resentment he would himself have experienced if a visitor had encroached upon him in his favorite nook in the fine room that held the library of the university.
When the wagon stopped in the lane, Renmark said hesitatingly:
“I think I’ll not stay, if you don’t mind. My friend is waiting for me at the camp, and will be wondering what has become of me.”
“Who? Yates? Let him wonder. I guess he never bothers about anybody else as long as he is comfortable himself. That’s how I sized him up, at any rate. Besides, you’re never going back on carrying in the books, are you? I counted on your help. I don’t want to do it, and it don’t seem the square thing to let Margaret do it all alone; does it, now?”
“Oh, if I can be of any assistance, I shall——”
“Of course you can. Besides, I know my father wants to see you, anyhow. Don’t you, father?”
The old man was coming round from the back of the house to meet them.
“Don’t I what?” he asked.
“You said you wanted to see Professor Renmark when Margaret told you what Yates had said to her about him.”
Renmark reddened slightly at finding so many people had made him the subject of conversation, rather suspecting at the same time that the boy was making fun of him. Mr. Howard cordially held out his hand.
“So this is Professor Renmark, is it? I am very pleased to see you. Yes, as Henry was saying, I have been wanting to see you ever since my daughter spoke of you. I suppose Henry told you that his brother is a pupil of yours?”
“Oh! is Arthur Howard your son?” cried Renmark, warming up at once. “I did not know it. There are many young men at the college, and I have but the vaguest idea from what parts of the country they all come. A teacher should have no favorites, but I must confess to a strong liking for your son. He is a good boy, which cannot be said about every member of my class.”
“Arthur was always studious, so we thought we would give him a chance. I am glad to hear he behaves himself in the city. Farming is hard work, and I hope my boys will have an easier time than I had. But come in, come in. The missus and Margaret will be glad to see you, and hear how the boy is coming on with his studies.”
So they went in together.
CHAPTER X.
“Hello! Hello, there! Wake up! Breakfa-a-a-st! I thought that would fetch you. Gosh! I wish I had your job at a dollar a day!”
Yates rubbed his eyes, and sat up in the hammock. At first he thought the forest was tumbling down about his ears, but as he collected his wits he saw that it was only young Bartlett who had come crashing through the woods on the back of one horse, while he led another by a strap attached to a halter. The echo of his hearty yell still resounded in the depths of the woods, and rang in Yates’ ears as he pulled himself together.
“Did you—ah—make any remarks?” asked Yates quietly.
The boy admired his gift of never showing surprise.
“I say, don’t you know that it’s not healthy to go to sleep in the middle of the day?”
“Is it the middle of the day? I thought it was later. I guess I can stand it, if the middle of the day can. I’ve a strong constitution. Now, what do you mean by dashing up on two horses into a man’s bedroom in that reckless fashion?”
The boy laughed.
“I thought perhaps you would like a ride. I knew you were alone, for I saw the professor go mooning up the road a little while ago.”
“Oh! Where was he going?”
“Hanged if I know, and he didn’t look as if he knew himself. He’s a queer fish, aint he?”
“He is. Everybody can’t be as sensible and handsome as we are, you know. Where are you going with those horses, young man?”
“To get them shod. Won’t you come along? You can ride the horse I’m on. It’s got a bridle. I’ll ride the one with the halter.”
“How far away is the blacksmith’s shop?”
“Oh, a couple of miles or so; down at the Cross Roads.”
“Well,” said Yates, “there’s merit in the idea. I take it your generous offer is made in good faith, and not necessarily for publication.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
“There is no concealed joke, is there? No getting me on the back of one of those brutes to make a public exhibition of me? Do they bite or kick or buck, or playfully roll over a person?”
“No,” cried, young Bartlett indignantly. “This is no circus. Why, a baby could ride this horse.”
“Well, that’s about the style of horse I prefer. You see, I’m a trifle out of practice. I never rode anything more spirited than a street car, and I haven’t been on one of them for a week.”
“Oh, you can ride all right. I guess you could do most things you set your mind to.”
Yates was flattered by this evidently sincere tribute to his capacity, so he got out of the hammock. The boy, who had been sitting on the horse with both feet on one side, now straightened his back and slipped to the ground.
“Wait till I throw down the fence,” he said.
Yates mounted with some difficulty, and the two went trotting down the road. He managed to hold his place with some little uncertainty, but the joggling up and down worried him. He never seemed to alight in quite the same place on the horse’s back, and this gave an element of chance to his position which embarrassed him. He expected to come down some time and find the horse wasn’t there. The boy laughed at his riding, but Yates was too much engaged in keeping his position to mind that very much.
“D-d-dirt is s-s-said to b-b-be matter out of place, and that’s what’s the m-m-mat-matter w-w-with me.” His conversation seemed to be shaken out of him by the trotting of the horse. “I say, Bartlett, I can’t stand this any longer. I’d rather walk.”
“You’re all right,” said the boy; “we’ll make him canter.”
He struck the horse over the flank with the loose end of the halter rein.
“Here!” shouted Yates, letting go the bridle and grasping the mane. “Don’t make him go faster, you young fiend. I’ll murder you when I get off—and that will be soon.”
“You’re all right,” repeated young Bartlett, and, much to his astonishment, Yates found it to be so. When the horse broke into a canter, Yates thought the motion as easy as swinging in a hammock, and as soothing as a rocking chair.
“This is an improvement. But we’ve got to keep it up, for if this brute suddenly changes to a trot, I’m done for.”
“We’ll keep it up until we come in sight of the Corners, then we’ll slow down to a walk. There’s sure to be a lot of fellows at the blacksmith’s shop, so we’ll come in on them easy like.”
“You’re a good fellow, Bartlett,” said Yates. “I suspected you of tricks at first. I’m afraid, if I had got another chap in such a fix, I wouldn’t have let him off as easily as you have me. The temptation would have been too great.”
When they reached the blacksmith’s shop at the Corners, they found four horses in the building ahead of them. Bartlett tied his team outside, and then, with his comrade, entered the wide doorway of the smithy. The shop was built of rough boards, and the inside was blackened with soot. It was not well lighted, the two windows being obscured with much smoke, so that they were useless as far as their original purpose was concerned; but the doorway, as wide as that of a barn, allowed all the light to come in that the smith needed for his work. At the far end and darkest corner of the place stood the forge, with the large bellows behind it, concealed, for the most part, by the chimney. The forge was perhaps six feet square and three or four feet high, built of plank and filled in with earth. The top was covered with cinders and coal, while in the center glowed the red core of the fire, with blue flames hovering over it. The man who worked the bellows chewed tobacco, and now and then projected the juice with deadly accuracy right into the center of the fire, where it made a momentary hiss and dark spot. All the frequenters of the smithy admired Sandy’s skill in expectoration, and many tried in vain to emulate it. The envious said it was due to the peculiar formation of his front teeth, the upper row being prominent, and the two middle teeth set far apart, as if one were missing. But this was jealousy; Sandy’s perfection in the art was due to no favoritism of nature, but to constant and long-continued practice. Occasionally with his callous right hand, never removing his left from the lever, Sandy pulled an iron bar out of the fire and examined it critically. The incandescent end of the bar radiated a blinding white light when it was gently withdrawn, and illuminated the man’s head, making his beardless face look, against its dark background, like the smudged countenance of some cynical demon glowing with a fire from within. The end of the bar which he held must have been very hot to an ordinary mortal, as everyone in the shop knew, all of them, at their initiation to the country club, having been handed a black piece of iron from Sandy’s hand, which he held unflinchingly, but which the innocent receiver usually dropped with a yell. This was Sandy’s favorite joke, and made life worth living for him. It was perhaps not so good as the blacksmith’s own bit of humor, but public opinion was divided on that point. Every great man has his own particular set of admirers; and there were some who said,—under their breaths, of course,—that Sandy could turn a horseshoe as well as Macdonald himself. Experts, however, while admitting Sandy’s general genius, did not go so far as this.
About half a dozen members of the club were present, and most of them stood leaning against something with hands deep in their trousers pockets; one was sitting on the blacksmith’s bench, with his legs dangling down. On the bench tools were scattered around so thickly that he had had to clear a place before he could sit down; the taking of this liberty proved the man to be an old and privileged member. He sat there whittling a stick, aimlessly bringing it to a fine point, examining it frequently with a critical air, as if he were engaged in some delicate operation which required great discrimination.
The blacksmith himself stooped with his back to one of the horses, the hind hoof of the animal, between his knees, resting on his leathern apron. The horse was restive, looking over its shoulder at him, not liking what was going on. Macdonald swore at it fluently, and requested it to stand still, holding the foot as firmly as if it were in his own iron vise, which was fixed to the table near the whittler. With his right hand he held a hot horseshoe, attached to an iron punch that had been driven into one of the nail holes, and this he pressed against the upraised hoof, as though sealing a document with a gigantic seal. Smoke and flame rose from the contact of the hot iron with the hoof, and the air was filled with the not unpleasant odor of burning horn. The smith’s tool box, with hammer, pinchers, and nails, lay on the earthern floor within easy reach. The sweat poured from his grimy brow; for it was a hot job, and Macdonald was in the habit of making the most of his work. He was called the hardest working man in that part of the country, and he was proud of the designation. He was a standing reproach to the loafers who frequented his shop, and that fact gave him pleasure in their company. Besides, a man must have an audience when he is an expert in swearing. Macdonald’s profanity was largely automatic,—a natural gift, as it were,—and he meant nothing wrong by it. In fact, when you got him fighting angry, he always forgot to swear; but in his calm moments oaths rolled easily and picturesquely from his lips, and gave fluency to his conversation. Macdonald enjoyed the reputation round about of being a wicked man, which he was not; his language was against him, that was all. This reputation had a misty halo thrown around it by Macdonald’s unknown doings “down East,” from which mystical region he had come. No one knew just what Macdonald had done, but it was admitted on all sides that he must have had some terrible experiences, although he was still a young man and unmarried. He used to say: “When you have come through what I have, you won’t be so ready to pick a quarrel with a man.”
This must have meant something significant, but the blacksmith never took anyone into his confidence; and “down East” is a vague place, a sort of indefinite, unlocalized no-man’s-land, situated anywhere between Toronto and Quebec. Almost anything might have happened in such a space of country. Macdonald’s favorite way of crushing an opponent was to say: “When you’ve had some of my experiences, young man, you’ll know better’n to talk like that.” All this gave a certain fascination to friendship with the blacksmith; and the farmers’ boys felt that they were playing with fire when in his company, getting, as it were, a glimpse of the dangerous side of life. As for work, the blacksmith reveled in it, and made it practically his only vice. He did everything with full steam on, and was, as has been said, a constant reproach to loafers all over the country. When there was no work to do, he made work. When there was work to do, he did it with a rush, sweeping the sweat from his grimy brow with his hooked fore finger, and flecking it to the floor with a flirt of the right hand, loose on the wrist, in a way that made his thumb and fore finger snap together like the crack of a whip. This action was always accompanied with a long-drawn breath, almost a sigh, that seemed to say: “I wish I had the easy times you fellows have.” In fact, since he came to the neighborhood the current phrase, “He works like a steer” had given way to, “He works like Macdonald,” except with the older people, who find it hard to change phrases. Yet everyone liked the blacksmith, and took no special offense at his untiring industry, looking at it rather as an example to others.
He did not look up as the two newcomers entered, but industriously pared down the hoof with a curiously formed knife turned like a hook at the point, burned in the shoe to its place, nailed it on, and rasped the hoof into shape with a long, broad file. Not till he let the foot drop on the earthen floor, and slapped the impatient horse on the flank, did he deign to answer young Bartlett’s inquiry.
“No,” he said, wringing the perspiration from his forehead, “all these horses aint ahead of you, and you won’t need to come next week. That’s the last hoof of the last horse. No man needs to come to my shop and go away again, while the breath of life is left in me. And I don’t do it, either, by sitting on a bench and whittling a stick.”
“That’s so. That’s so,” said Sandy, chuckling, in the admiring tone of one who intimated that, when the boss spoke, wisdom was uttered. “That’s one on you, Sam.”
“I guess I can stand it, if he can,” said the whittler from the bench; which was considered fair repartee.
“Sit it, you mean,” said young Bartlett, laughing with the others at his own joke.
“But,” said the blacksmith severely, “we’re out of shoes, and you’ll have to wait till we turn some, that is, if you don’t want the old ones reset. Are they good enough?”
“I guess so, if you can find ‘em; but they’re out in the fields. Didn’t think I’d bring the horses in while they held on, did you?” Then, suddenly remembering his duties, he said by, way of general introduction: “Gentlemen, this is my friend Mr. Yates from New York.”
The name seemed to fall like a wet blanket on the high spirits of the crowd. They had imagined from the cut of his clothes that he was a storekeeper from some village around, or an auctioneer from a distance, these two occupations being the highest social position to which a man might attain. They were prepared to hear that he was from Welland, or perhaps St. Catherines; but New York! that was a crusher. Macdonald, however, was not a man to be put down in his own shop and before his own admirers. He was not going to let his prestige slip from him merely because a man from New York had happened along. He could not claim to know the city, for the stranger would quickly detect the imposture and probably expose him; but the slightly superior air which Yates wore irritated him, while it abashed the others. Even Sandy was silent.
“I’ve met some people from New York down East,” he said in an offhand manner, as if, after all, a man might meet a New Yorker and still not sink into the ground.
“Really?” said Yates. “I hope you liked them.”
“Oh, so-so,” replied the blacksmith airily. “There’s good and bad among them, like the rest of us.”
“Ah, you noticed that,” said Yates. “Well, I’ve often thought the same myself. It’s a safe remark to make; there is generally no disputing it.”
The condescending air of the New Yorker was maddening, and Macdonald realized that he was losing ground. The quiet insolence of Yates’ tone was so exasperating to the blacksmith that he felt any language at his disposal inadequate to cope with it. The time for the practical joke had arrived. The conceit of this man must be taken down. He would try Sandy’s method, and, if that failed, it would at least draw attention from himself to his helper.
“Being as you’re from New York, maybe you can decide a little bet Sandy here wants to have with somebody.”
Sandy, quick to take the hint, picked up the bar that always lay near enough the fire to be uncomfortably warm.
“How much do you reckon that weighs?” he said, with critical nicety estimating its ounces in his swaying hand. Sandy had never done it better. There was a look of perfect innocence on his bland, unsophisticated countenance, and the crowd looked on in breathless suspense.
Bartlett was about to step forward and save his friend, but a wicked glare from Macdonald restrained him; besides, he felt, somehow, that his sympathies were with his neighbors, and not with the stranger he had brought among them. He thought resentfully that Yates might have been less high and mighty. In fact, when he asked him to come he had imagined his brilliancy would be instantly popular, and would reflect glory on himself. Now he fancied he was included in the general scorn Yates took such little pains to conceal.
Yates glanced at the piece of iron and, without taking his hands from his pockets, said carelessly:
“Oh, I should imagine it weighed a couple of pounds.”
“Heft it,” said Sandy beseechingly, holding it out to him.
“No, thank you,” replied Yates, with a smile. “Do you think I have never picked up a hot horseshoe before? If you are anxious to know its weight, why don’t you take it over to the grocery store and have it weighed?”
“‘Taint hot,” said Sandy, as he feebly smiled and flung the iron back on the forge. “If it was, I couldn’t have held it s’long.”
“Oh, no,” returned Yates, with a grin, “of course not. I don’t know what a blacksmith’s hands are, do I? Try something fresh.”
Macdonald saw there was no triumph over him among his crowd, for they all evidently felt as much involved in the failure of Sandy’s trick as he did himself; but he was sure that in future some man, hard pushed in argument, would fling the New Yorker at him. In the crisis he showed the instinct of a Napoleon.
“Well, boys,” he cried, “fun’s fun, but I’ve got to work. I have to earn my living, anyhow.”
Yates enjoyed his victory; they wouldn’t try “getting at” him again, he said to himself.
Macdonald strode to the forge and took out the bar of white-hot iron. He gave a scarcely perceptible nod to Sandy, who, ever ready with tobacco juice, spat with great directness on the top of the anvil. Macdonald placed the hot iron on the spot, and quickly smote it a stalwart blow with the heavy hammer. The result was appalling. An instantaneous spreading fan of apparently molten iron lit up the place as if it were a flash of lightning. There was a crash like the bursting of a cannon. The shop was filled for a moment with a shower of brilliant sparks, that flew like meteors to every corner of the place. Everyone was prepared for the explosion except Yates. He sprang back with a cry, tripped, and, without having time to get the use of his hands to ease his fall, tumbled and rolled to the horses’ heels. The animals, frightened by the report, stamped around; and Yates had to hustle on his hands and knees to safer quarters, exhibiting more celerity than dignity. The blacksmith never smiled, but everyone else roared. The reputation of the country was safe. Sandy doubled himself up in his boisterous mirth.
“There’s no one like the old man!” he shouted. “Oh, lordy! lordy! He’s all wool, and a yard wide.”
Yates picked himself up and dusted himself off, laughing with the rest of them.
“If I ever knew that trick before, I had forgotten it. That’s one on me, as this youth in spasms said a moment ago. Blacksmith, shake! I’ll treat the crowd, if there’s a place handy.”