In the Midst of Alarms Part 17

"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."

CHAPTER XI.

People who have but a superficial knowledge of the life and times here set down may possibly claim that the grocery store, and not the blacksmith's shop, used to be the real country club--the place where the politics of the country were discussed; where the doings of great men were commended or condemned, and the government criticised. It is true that the grocery store was the club of the village, when a place like the Corners grew to be a village; but the blacksmith's shop was usually the first building erected on the spot where a village was ultimately to stand. It was the nucleus. As a place grew, and enervating luxury set in, the grocery store slowly supplanted the blacksmith's shop, because people found a nail keg, or a box of crackers, more comfortable to sit on than the limited seats at their disposal in a smithy; moreover, in winter the store, with its red-hot box stove, was a place of warmth and joy, but the reveling in such an atmosphere of comfort meant that the members of the club had to live close at hand, for no man would brave the storms of a Canadian winter night, and journey a mile or two through the snow, to enjoy even the pleasures of the store. So the grocery was essentially a village club, and not a rural club.

Of course, as civilization advanced, the blacksmith found it impossible to compete with the grocer. He could not offer the same inducements. The grocery approached more nearly than the smithy the grateful epicurism of the Athenaeum, the Reform, or the Carlton. It catered to the appet.i.te of man, besides supplying him with the intellectual stimulus of debate.

A box of soda crackers was generally open, and, although such biscuits were always dry, they were good to munch, if consumed slowly. The barrel of hazel nuts never had a lid on. The raisins, in their square box, with blue-tinted paper, setting forth the word "Malaga" under the colored picture of joyous Spanish grape pickers, stood on the shelves behind the counter, at an angle suited to display the contents to all comers, requiring an exceptionally long reach, and more than an ordinary amount of cheek, before they were got at; but the barrel of Muscavado brown sugar was where everyone could dip his hand in; while the man on the keg of tenpenny nails might extend his arm over into the display window, where the highly colored candies exhibited themselves, although the person who meddled often with them was frowned upon, for it was etiquette in the club not to purloin things which were expensive.

The grocer himself drew the line at the candies, and a second helping usually brought forth the mild reproof:

"Shall I charge that, Sam; or would you rather pay for it now?"

All these delicacies were taken in a somewhat surrept.i.tious way, and the takers generally wore an absent-minded look, as if the purloining was not quite intentional on their part. But they were all good customers of the grocer, and the abstractions were doubtless looked on by him as being in the way of trade; just as the giving of a present with a pound of tea, or a watch with a suit of clothes, became in later days. Be that as it may, he never said anything unless his generosity was taken advantage of, which was rarely the case.

Very often on winter nights there was a hilarious feast, that helped to lighten the shelves and burden the till. This ordinarily took the form of a splurge in cove oysters. Cove oysters came from Baltimore, of course, in round tins; they were introduced into Canada long before the square tin boxes that now come in winter from the same bivalvular city.

Cove oysters were partly cooked before being tinned, so that they would, as the advertis.e.m.e.nts say, keep in any climate. They did not require ice around them, as do the square tins which now contain the raw oysters.

Someone present would say:

"What's the matter with having a feed of cove oysters?"

He then collected a subscription of ten cents or so from each member, and the whole was expended in several cans of oysters and a few pounds of crackers. The cooking was done in a tin basin on the top of the hot stove. The contents of the cans were emptied into this handy dish, milk was added, and broken crackers, to give thickness and consistency to the result. There were always plenty of plates, for the store supplied the crockery of the neighborhood. There were also plenty of spoons, for everything was to be had at the grocery. What more could the most exacting man need? On a particularly reckless night the feast ended with several tins of peaches, which needed no cooking, but only a sprinkling of sugar. The grocer was always an expert at cooking cove oysters and at opening tins of peaches.

There was a general feeling among the members that, by indulging in these banquets, they were going the pace rather; and some of the older heads feebly protested against the indulgence of the times, but it was noticed that they never refrained from doing their share when it came to spoon work.

"A man has but one life to live," the younger and more reckless would say, as if that excused the extravagance; for a member rarely got away without being fifteen cents out of pocket, especially when they had peaches as well as oysters.

The grocery at the Corners had been but recently established and as yet the blacksmith's shop had not looked upon it as a rival. Macdonald was monarch of all he surveyed, and his shop was the favorite gathering place for miles around. The smithy was also the patriotic center of the district, as a blacksmith's shop must be as long as anvils can take the place of cannon for saluting purposes. On the 24th of May, the queen's birthday, celebrated locally as the only day in the year, except Sundays, when Macdonald's face was clean and when he did no work, the firing of the anvils aroused the echoes of the locality. On that great day the grocer supplied the powder, which was worth three York s.h.i.+llings a pound--a York s.h.i.+lling being sixpence halfpenny. It took two men to carry an anvil, with a good deal of grunting; but Macdonald, if the crowd were big enough, made nothing of picking it up, hoisting it on his shoulder, and flinging it down on the green in front of his shop. In the iron ma.s.s there is a square hole, and when the anvil was placed upside down, the hole was uppermost. It was filled with powder, and a wooden plug, with a notch cut in it, was pounded in with a sledge hammer.

Powder was sprinkled from the notch over the surface of the anvil, and then the crowd stood back and held its breath. It was a most exciting moment. Macdonald would come running out of the shop bareheaded, holding a long iron bar, the wavering, red-hot end of which descended on the anvil, while the blacksmith shouted in a terrifying voice: "Look out, there!" The loose powder hissed and spat for a moment, then bang went the cannon, and a great cloud of smoke rolled upward, while the rousing cheers came echoing back from the surrounding forests. The helper, with the powder-horn, would spring to the anvil and pour the black explosive into the hole, while another stood ready with plug and hammer. The delicious scent of burned gunpowder filled the air, and was inhaled by all the youngsters with satisfaction, for now they realized what real war was. Thus the salutes were fired, and thus the royal birthday was fittingly celebrated.

Where two anvils were to be had, the cannonade was much brisker, as then a plug was not needed. The hole in the lower anvil was filled with powder, and the other anvil was placed over it. This was much quicker than pounding in a plug, and had quite as striking and detonating an effect. The upper anvil gave a heave, like Mark Twain's shot-laden frog, and fell over on its side. The smoke rolled up as usual, and the report was equally gratifying.

Yates learned all these things as he sat in the blacksmith's shop, for they were still in the month of May, and the smoke of the echoing anvils had hardly yet cleared away. All present were eager to tell him of the glory of the day. One or two were good enough to express regret that he had not been there to see. After the disaster which had overturned Yates things had gone on very smoothly, and he had become one of the crowd, as it were. The fact that he was originally a Canadian told in his favor, although he had been contaminated by long residence in the States.

Macdonald worked hard at the turning of horseshoes from long rods of iron. Usually an extended line of unfinished shoes bestrode a blackened scantling, like bodiless hors.e.m.e.n, the scantling crossing the shop overhead, just under the roof. These were the work of Macdonald's comparatively leisure days, and they were ready to be fitted to the hoofs of any horse that came to be shod, but on this occasion there had been such a run on his stock that it was exhausted, a depletion the smith seemed to regard as a reproach on himself, for he told Yates several times that he often had as many as three dozen shoes up aloft for a rainy day.

When the sledge hammer work was to be done, one of those present stepped forward and swung the heavy sledge, keeping stroke for stroke with Macdonald's one-handed hammer, all of which required a nice ear for time. This a.s.sistance was supposed to be rendered by Sandy; but, as he remarked, he was no hog, and anyone who wished to show his skill was at liberty to do so. Sandy seemed to spend most of his time at the bellows, and when he was not echoing the sentiments of the boss, as he called him, he was commending the expertness of the _pro tem._ amateur, the wielder of the sledge. It was fun to the amateur, and it was an old thing with Sandy, so he never protested against this interference with his duty, believing in giving everyone a chance, especially when it came to swinging a heavy hammer. The whole scene brought back to Yates the days of his youth, especially when Macdonald, putting the finis.h.i.+ng strokes to his shoe, let his hammer periodically tinkle with musical clangor on the anvil, ringing forth a tintinnabulation that chimed melodiously on the ear--a sort of anvil-chorus accompaniment to his mechanical skill. He was a real sleight-of-hand man, and the anvil was his orchestra.

Yates soon began to enjoy his visit to the rural club. As the members thawed out he found them all first-rate fellows, and, what was more, they were appreciative listeners. His stories were all evidently new to them, and nothing puts a man into a genial frame of mind so quickly as an attentive, sympathetic audience. Few men could tell a story better than Yates, but he needed the responsive touch of interested hearers. He hated to have to explain the points of his anecdotes, as, indeed, what story-teller does not? A cold and critical man like the professor froze the spring of narration at its source. Besides, Renmark had an objectionable habit of tracing the recital to its origin; it annoyed Yates to tell a modern yarn, and then discover that Aristophanes, or some other prehistoric poacher on the good things men were to say, had forestalled him by a thousand years or so. When a man is quick to see the point of your stories, and laughs heartily at them, you are apt to form a high opinion of his good sense, and to value his companions.h.i.+p.

When the horses were shod, and young Bartlett, who was delighted at the impression Yates had made, was preparing to go, the whole company protested against the New Yorker's departure. This was real flattery.

"What's your hurry, Bartlett?" asked the whittler. "You can't do anything this afternoon, if you do go home. It's a poor time this to mend a bad day's work. If you stay, he'll stay; won't you, Mr. Yates?

Macdonald is going to set tires, and he needs us all to look on and see that he does it right; don't you, Mac?"

"Yes; I get a lot of help from you while there's a stick to whittle,"

replied the smith.

"Then there's the protracted meeting to-night at the schoolhouse," put in another, anxious that all the attractions of the place should be brought forward.

"That's so," said the whittler; "I had forgotten about that. It's the first night, so we must all be there to encourage old Benderson. You'll be on hand to-night, won't you, Macdonald?"

The blacksmith made no answer, but turned to Sandy and asked him savagely what in ---- and ---nation he was standing gawking there for.

Why didn't he go outside and get things ready for the tire setting? What in thunder was he paying him for, anyhow? Wasn't there enough loafers round, without him joining the ranks?

Sandy took this rating with equanimity, and, when the smith's back was turned, he shrugged his shoulders, took a fresh bite of tobacco from the plug which he drew from his hip pocket, winking at the others as he did so. He leisurely followed Macdonald out of the shop, saying in a whisper as he pa.s.sed the whittler: