Elijah Kellogg

“ I can earn as much at the anvil as I can here, and all the reason I prefer it is, I can study when I have done my day's work here; and after I have been at work in the shop all day I am tired and sleepy. I will most gladly fall in with the offer of your aunt, and do all or anything she wants done."
"Rich, you are no more like a fellow we used to call Rich in Radcliffe, than chalk's like cheese." ”

“ But when it leaked out, probably through Perk, that he had been reared in affluence, was now flung upon his own resources, struggling to obtain a professional education, and that his style of dress was merely the remnant of better days, and not occasioned by mere love of display, the knowledge produced universal sympathy and respect, the whole community vying with each other in the manifestation of it.
Although practising the most rigid economy, husbanding every moment of time, and performing a great deal of labor, the noble nature of Rich manifested itself in a thousand ways ”

“ 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. ”

“ How could I respect a woman who, if she has not a piano to amuse, or some gossip to engage her attention, sits and folds her hands, and resembles a wooden clock, the face the best part of it? You saw how my mother stood [Pg 287] up under the load, and took her share of it, when father's property was swept into the Atlantic; and it will be a long day before a boy who has such a mother marries a doll."
"I rather think, Rich, such a woman as you want is not easily found." ”

“ Weary of dissecting animals, Rich longed to obtain this limb. There it lay, a well-developed leg and part of the thigh of a young man. He took it in his hands after the operation was performed, and gloated over it as an antiquarian over a rare coin. His fingers itched, and he felt an intense desire to possess it.
"Dr. Ryan," he whispered, "won't you ask for this leg, and then give it to me?"
"It would be of no use, Mr. Richardson; they would think the leg must be buried, or the man would not do well. It would cost me my practice. They are that superstitious. ”

“ The English have carried the art to great perfection, nevertheless are obliged to import the iron from which their razor-steel is made from Sweden. This blistered steel is the kind that lay upon the floor of William Richardson's shop, and in the possession of which he so exulted.
Now you have an article that gives to the axe its temper, the fork its point, the mainspring of the watch its elasticity, and to all tools an enduring edge that may be so attempered as to pierce the hardest rocks and crush the hardest stones; that may be welded to iron, and thus economized. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The old matrons cherished a mortal dread of proud flesh. They would put on their spectacles, look carefully at the wound, hold up both hands, and exclaim with alarm, "Proud flesh!" often times when only the proper amount of granulations was present, and they had numerous specifics for its removal—spruce gum, burnt alum, the ashes of oak bark, nutgalls, and red precipitate. But in their zeal to extirpate proud flesh, and, as they termed it, do something, they sometimes used little discrimination, and made war upon healthy material. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is not the way, Mr. Morton, to bring up children. This twenty years past I've been saying to Clem and Lucy that they were doing wrong by their children. Says I, 'Bring them up to work as we were. If they don't need to, it's the easiest thing in the world to leave off; but it's hard to learn.' Then Lucy would say, 'Uncle, I don't want them to have to work as hard as I have.' Says I, 'Perhaps they may be obliged to. What then?' Then Clem would laugh, and say that old maids' and old bachelors' children were always brought up right."
"But I'm sure Rich has come out well." ”

“ This is cast iron; you see pigs of it piled up on the wharves in seaports, the outside incrusted with the sand in which it was run, and looking as rough, some of it, as the cinders of a smith's forge. It is highly charged with carbon, coarse, hard, and brittle; can neither be filed, welded, nor worked, under the hammer; is more or less filled with slag and other impurities, and fit only, when melted again and purified, to be cast into pots, pans, stoves, wheels, and various articles. It is now melted two or three times more, and slightly hammered, to beat off some of the slag. ”

“ As the stern, patient smith of the wilderness, amid the melancholy moan of pine forests, and the roar of the stream, wrought out by sheer pluck and perseverance, a mechanical trade, so his earnest grandson, completely absorbed in his chosen pursuit, strove to verify, by experiment upon the bodies of such animals as he could procure, the theories he studied. ”

“ Clem never wanted to meddle with anything but edge tools, displaying remarkable ability for that kind of work, while Robert proved an excellent shoer, and had but few equals in wheel-tiring and all kinds of carriage work. He could also make a wheel as well as iron it, and manifested his father's ability for working in wood. Learning the use of hammer and file when mere children, and growing up to it, their work had a finish about it that is seldom attained by those who commence work in manhood, and when their habits are formed. ”

“ A playful scuffle followed, in which Morton by no means attained the usual advantage.
"I tell you what it is, Mort," said Rich, "let me work at the anvil and you study law a while longer, and I'll lay you on your back, and mud both shoulders."
"It is always a pleasure to me to see a young man ambitious, for even if he places his standard beyond the measure of his capacity, he is likely to make the most of himself. ”

“ By patient perseverance, and after many ineffectual attempts, he succeeded in learning to weld steel to iron, and made himself several pairs of tongs of different shapes and sizes, also flat punches of files, but of low temper, also chisels. He did not dare to make them hard, as he did the punch; so he let them become almost cold before quenching.
He shod Montague's horse, making all the nails and two new shoes; but he was all day about it, and had nothing better to pare the hoof than a jack-knife. No matter for that—the thing once done, and done right: facility is the result of practice. ”

“ The heart is a hollow muscle. All the valves and division walls we have been talking about are muscular in their texture, and moved by a network of muscles and minute tendons, tough and elastic, like the gizzard of a fowl, and capable of contraction and expansion. We will suppose the right auricle to be full of blood that has been brought by the veins from the fingers, toes, the substance of the heart itself, the lungs, and the liver, and poured into it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There could not be a greater contrast than existed between Rich, earnest, ambitious, still farther stimulated by the pressure of poverty, and the genial old doctor, who loved a good story and a good joke, had an abundance of this world's goods, and cared very little whether his practice increased or decreased, so that it was not intruded upon by the new lights. ”

“ During the labor and excitement of moving, and before the neighbors, we strove to appear as cheerful as possible; but when all was over, and we came out on to this platform where we are sitting, each bearing something that had been forgotten,—I my violin and a pair of andirons, mother her press-board and a coffee-pot, the girls knives, forks, and spoons, father shovel and tongs,—I tell you, the sound of the bolt going into its place when he locked the door gave me a heartache. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This, however, was not in the least objectionable to a band of academy boys (who, in expectation of his arrival, had assembled to have a look at their new teacher, and whom Perk now presented to Rich as a portion of his scholars) , if we may judge from the talk among themselves as they went away, arm-in-arm, a boy every now and then breaking rank, and walking backwards, those at the end of the file keeping about two steps in advance, in order to face the rest, and impress their own sentiments more forcibly upon their companions of less sanguine temperaments. ”

“ That's so, Rich. The corn in the dish on the table don't taste half so good as that you roast out doors, and down with it, all over smut and ashes, and half raw; and the apples they carry round in the evening at home don't begin with the ones you've hid in the haymow, and eat when they are so full of frost it makes your teeth ache. ”

“ Dan Clemens, Frank Merrill, and Horace Williams had natural history, in the form of ornithology, "on the brain." If these youngsters didn't sit on eggs, they dreamed of them. It would be difficult to mention anything they would not do for Rich when the remuneration was a rare bird, shot and stuffed.
To be soaked to the skin, and so tired they could scarcely put one foot before the other, were pastimes when birds were ahead; and to obtain eggs they would venture life and limb. The fatigue of soldiers on a forced march was trifling in comparison with what they cheerfully endured ”

“ It frightens me to see the limb bend so."
Scarcely were the words uttered, when the limb upon which he stood broke as he was holding to the branch above by only one hand. Reaching after the nest with the other, he fell feet foremost into the river, catching by the limbs as he went. There were boys still in the water, who, instantly swam to him, while Dan and Horace, hurrying down the tree, plunged in. Frank kept himself on top of the water, after rising, but when the boys reached him, said,—
"I can't swim; I believe my leg is broke. ”

“ Any person looking at your father as he stands at the anvil, and your uncle, can see where you came from. It is not in accordance with the make-up of persons having such blood in their veins to live without effort or object. It causes them to despise themselves—the meanest of all feelings, because the rugged nature craves hardship. ”

“ It is, however, too soft to form a cutting edge that will stand. Make a pitchfork of it, it is harder work to stick it into the hay than it is to pitch the hay, as we know from experience; an axe, it will take all your strength to cut through the bark, and you must grind it every hour; a razor, you can shave but once, and then with tears of agony. Make a hammer of it, and it batters up forthwith; a punch, it bends; a drill, at the first stroke of the sledge it turns.
What next?
Troughs are made of fire-brick, from eight to sixteen feet in length, and two or three feet in depth. ”

“ CHAPTER XIV. WINNING GOLDEN OPINIONS.
"In the morning, Perk, I want you to help me about finding a boarding-place, or some room that I can hire cheap, and board myself. I should prefer a garret, as that will be the cheapest. There"—laying a two-dollar bill on the table—"is every cent of money I possess in the world; and if I study medicine I must have books, that come very high, instruments by and by, and instruction from an experienced physician. I am, to be sure, well clothed. I have clothing sufficient, with economy, to last for years, but money I have none." ”

“ 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. ”

“ His wife was too full to speak; but happiness beamed from every feature, as standing half-leg [Pg 61] 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 ”

“ The blows now fell thick and heavy.
"Cuts like a razor. Throws the chips well. Never saw an axe work easier in the wood," broke from him at intervals, while the children clapped their hands and capered around the tree till it came crashing to the ground.
The hemlock was scrubby, and one of the lower limbs was dead. Richardson struck the axe into it with all his might; but when he pulled it out, there was a piece of steel out of the middle of the bitt as large as a half-dollar. ”