At one side of the forge you will see the great dusty bellows and you will hear its stertorous breathing.  In front stands the old brown anvil set upon a gnarly maple block.  A long sweep made of peeled hickory wood controls the bellows, and as you look in upon this lively and pleasant scene you will see that the grimy hand of Carlstrom himself is upon the hickory sweep.  As he draws it down and lets it up again with the peculiar rhythmic swing of long experience—­heaping up his fire with a little iron paddle held in the other hand—­he hums to himself in a high curious old voice, no words at all, just a tune of contented employment in consonance with the breathing of the bellows and the mounting flames of the forge.

As I stood for a moment in the doorway the other day before Carlstrom saw me, I wished I could picture my friend as the typical blacksmith with the brawny arms, the big chest, the deep voice and all that.  But as I looked at him newly, the Scotch Preacher’s words still in my ears, he seemed, with his stooping shoulders, his gray beard not very well kept, and his thin gray hair, more than ordinarily small and old.

I remember as distinctly as though it were yesterday the first time Carlstrom really impressed himself upon me.  It was in my early blind days at the farm.  I had gone to him with a part of a horse-rake which I had broken on one of my stony hills’.

“Can you mend it?” I asked.

If I had known him better I should never have asked such a question.  I saw, indeed, at the time that I had not said the right thing; but how could I know then that Carlstrom never let any broken thing escape him?  A watch, or a gun, or a locomotive—­they are all alike to him, if they are broken.  I believe he would agree to patch the wrecked chariot of Phaethon!

A week later I came back to the shop.

“Come in, come in,” he said when he saw me.

He turned from his forge, set his hands on his hips and looked at me a moment with feigned seriousness.

“So!” he said.  “You have come for your job?”

He softened the “j” in job; his whole speech, indeed, had the engaging inflection of the Scandinavian tongue overlaid upon the English words.

“So,” he said, and went to his bench with a quick step and an air of almost childish eagerness.  He handed me the parts of my hay-rake without a word.  I looked them over carefully.

“I can’t see where you mended them,” I said.

You should have seen his face brighten with pleasure!  He allowed me to admire the work in silence for a moment and then he had it out of my hand, as if I couldn’t be trusted with anything so important, and he explained how he had done it.  A special tool for his lathe had been found necessary in order to do my work properly.  This he had made at his forge, and I suppose it had taken him twice as long to make the special tool as it had to mend the parts of my rake; but when I would have paid him for it he would take nothing save for the mending itself.  Nor was this a mere rebuke to a doubter.  It had delighted him to do a difficult thing, to show the really great skill he had.  Indeed, I think our friendship began right there and was based upon the favour I did in bringing him a job that I thought he couldn’t do!