of iron worked. Richardson kindled his fire, put in the iron, and began to blow with the hand-bellows; but when he recollected

good heat, he could manage to hold the iron with the kitchen tongs, and work it with the claw-hammer,-he resol

any other of his neighbors, had a large lot of logs to haul, and that he was th

g

s time you've heard all

place. They say you hammer the iron on a

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 cat

l be right gl

t my log on the saw-pit an

xed 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, an

ork of his bellows, but one to make a bench, and boards[Pg 33] enough to make a door t

es, he tracked and killed a moose, took the hair off with strong lye, then tanned it with salt and alum, and pounded it upo

d 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 no

wife; "it must be iron, and you'll have t

n it," was the reply,

is evident-that he rose in a hopeful frame of mind,[Pg 34] and, to the great surprise o

ed 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 h

ls 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

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,

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 [Pg 36]sufficiently to burn the bellows-nose by reas

at once, and going to work; but he thought it best to let his mortar dry. He, however, satisfied himself that there would

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 lit

o it, did not get red hot itself: and he found there was such a thing as getting iron too hot.

"why don't you do l

d he do

nd once I seed him poke the coal away,

but did not know what he did it for. He got some sand, and put the iron into it, then put

to hold it with the tongs, and using the old axe as a sledge, soon brought the tooth to a size that he[Pg 38] could work with his nail-hammer, and finished his job. As to the bellows, t

e, "I'll never say you

ciently to be drawn and cut with an axe, and still should have so much difficulty in

he 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

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,

-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,

e 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

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, an

ith 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

he iron or the tools. No, I won't; I'll make the t

and overheard the remark, but did not, as before,