Smithy

“ So Smithy says to me, 'You take a hold Of that there moke of yours, and round the turn Come up behind Enchantress with the whip And let her have it; that long bloke and me Will wait ahead, and when she comes to us We'll pass her on and belt her down the straight, And Ikey'll flog her home, because his boss Is judge and steward and the Lord knows what, And so he won't be touched — and, as for us, We'll swear we only hit her by mistake!' And all the books was layin' five to one. ”

“ Smithers coughed apologetically.
"I never was a hand at figures, Sigrid."
"Never mind. Take your time."
"I don't know rightly—it looks to me like a thousand."
"That must be about right. Well, that's what we've got. No more. What would you have me do—teach dancing to loutish girls in some stuffy English suburb? No, Smithy. You wouldn't. In my art there is no one greater than I—there never has been—and though I want to live I mustn't burn out like some poor candle. I must be a splendid rocket, lighting up all the country, and most splendid of all at the last. Then darkness." ”

“ Smithy hastened to remark; "because, you see, we just calculated that you would be fairly ravenous, after your exertions. And so this is Aleck Rawson; delighted to meet you; my name is——"
"Cut that out; we call him plain Smithy!" broke in Step Hen; "and I'm Step Hen Bingham. The fat feller is Bumpus Hawtree; this other is Bob White; while the one who gave you that challenge is Davy Jones. He'll shake hands with you by offering one of his feet, because he's standing on his head about as much as the other way." ”

“ In the case of Smith, the name is so poetical that it must be an arduous and heroic matter for the man to live up to it. The name of Smith is the name of the one trade that even kings respected, it could claim half the glory of that arma virumque which all epics acclaimed. The spirit of the smithy is so close to the spirit of song that it has mixed in a million poems, and every blacksmith is a harmonious blacksmith. ”

“ I never interview a student personally until the tenth year—so I quite naturally had his files double-checked. Smithy, he's been giving the same answer ever since he was five years old. Two interviews a year for six years—and three extra ones this week! Imagine! Fifteen times this boy has said he wants to be a Destructor—and no one even knows what a Destructor is."
"Well," Smithy said with a shrug, convinced that Possy was getting all excited over nothing, "I admit it seems strange—and highly single-minded for so young a boy. ”

“ He arrived at a village, wherein lived a smith who was a greedy fellow, who never did a kindness to any one, but wanted everything for himself. The youth went into the smithy to him, and asked if he needed a journeyman. "Yes," said the smith, and looked at him, and thought, "That is a strong fellow who will strike out well, and earn his bread." ”

“ Smithy inquired. "You couldn't find a better word for it if you hunted through the whole dictionary. Scared? Why, say, I'm so damn scared I'm shaking yet, and the only thing that will cure me of it is to look at those devils along the top of a machine gun! We'll go catch us some equipment and a few service men—"
"You're a good guy, Smithy," Rawson reached out and gripped one brown hand. "And we'll do as you say; but first I've got to get a line on things. I'm becoming as irrational as the men. I'm imagining all sort of crazy things." ”

“ Try as he might, the Smith did not know how to give the 10
metal a harder temper.
One day a honeybee strolled that way. It buzzed
around the smithy and then lit on a clover blossom by the
door.
"O bee," cried the busy Smith, "you are a cunning 15
little bird, and you know some things better than I know
them. Come now, and help me temper this soft metal.
Bring me a drop of your honey; bring the sweet liquor
which you suck from the meadow flower; bring the magic
dew of the wildwood. Give me all such things that I may 20
make a mixture to harden Iron." ”

“ I don’t believe you’ve got a father,” said Smithy.{259}
Junior only smiled and glanced at his roommate. Later Blackie told the others that Smithy was jealous. “His father has nothing but money and fat.” Junior was always too much for Smithy. But suppose the promised letter did not follow. It hardly seemed possible. He had received occasional cables, several telegrams, and that one notable wireless, but never in all his life a letter from his father. ”

“ Smithers, with ruffled grey hair and a face of care and perpetual perplexity, sat beneath the marble Venus knitting a pair of mittens which no human being was ever likely to wear.
"Smithy, this lady has come all the way from Calcutta. She's Mrs. Barclay—Jim's wife."
Mrs. Smithers let the mittens drop into her lap, but she gave no other sign of consternation. She was in the state of a person who has been subjected to a vigorous course of electric treatment and has become impervious to shocks. ”

“ Some of the boys are getting anxious to make a try for a big-horn. Why, there's Smithy, a fellow we never expected would ever take the least interest in shooting, because his nature has seemed so mild, and sissy-like—I even heard him declare he wanted to make a try and see what he could do. Owned up that his father used to be a great hunter years ago; but that he guessed he'd inherited his mother's gentle disposition; while his hobble-dehoy sister she wants to play baseball, hockey, tennis, and those kinds of games all the while. And Thad, I think we ought to encourage that idea in Smithy. ”

“ Yes, sir, that's the man. Well him and me was out in the Bend one day, holding a mess of Oregon half-breeds that was to be shipped by train shortly, when old Smithy comes with the mail. 'Letter for you, Shadder,' says Smith, and passes over a big envelope with wads of sealing wax all over it. Shadder reads his letter, and folds it up. Then he takes a look over the county—the kind of a look a man gives when he's thinking hard. Then says he, 'Red, take off your hat.' I done it. 'Smithy, take off your hat.' 'All right,' says Smith ”

“ The smith now took up the massive poker appertaining and belonging to the fire-side of “The Chequers,” and commenced beating upon one of the oaken tables so lustily that the landlord rushed into the room in wild fright and amazement, crying, “The saints preserve us, Master Britton! What does your worship want?”
“Sit down,” roared the smith. “Hurrah! I’m going to treat everybody.” ”

“ The Hindu came forward and said that the smith would accept the gold piece, if he were paid in advance.
"Not a bit of it. If he likes to help he shall have it when the work is done," replied Smith, turning to resume his interrupted work.
The smith, now fearful of losing his customer, began to abuse the Hindu for not completing the bargain. At length, with a show of reluctance, Smith relented, and with the aid of the villagers the aeroplane was wheeled to the smithy. ”

“ Rightly viewed no meanest object is insignificant; all objects are as windows, through which the philosophic eye looks into Infinitude itself.'
Again, leaving that wondrous Schwarzwald Smithy-Altar, what vacant, high-sailing air-ships are these, and whither will they sail with us? ”

“ Long before poor old Warner had clambered out of his cab, the thing we called Smith had dissolved into dew and light on this lawn. Once or twice more, by the mercy of God, we may feel the thing, but the man we shall never see. In a spring garden before breakfast we shall smell the smell called Smith. In the snapping of brisk twigs in tiny fires we shall hear a noise named Smith. ”

“ At last he lifted his eyes, and there he was outside of a smith’s bawn gate that he had often passed before, about a mile away from the palace of his betrothed princess. The clothes he had on him were as ragged as you please, but he had his crowns safe under his old cloak.
So the smith came out, and says he, “It’s a shame for a strong big fellow like you to be on the sthra, and so much work to be done. Are you any good with hammer and tongs? ”

“ By a miracle the smith was not at the races, owing, as he explained, to his having "the toothaches," the two facts combined producing in him a morosity only equalled by that of Leigh Kelway. The smith's sole comment on the situation was to unharness the filly, and drag her into the forge, where he tied her up. He then proceeded to whistle viciously on his fingers in the direction of a cottage, and to command, in tones of thunder, some unseen creature to bring over a couple of baskets of turf. ”

“ The legs were burnt to ashes, and the Smith had to pay for the horse.
Well, he didn't care much about that, but just then an old beggar-woman came along the road, and he thought to himself, "Better luck next time;" so he took the old dame and laid her in the furnace, and though she begged and prayed hard for her life, it was no good.
"You're so old, you don't know what is good for you," said the Smith; "now you shall be a lovely young maiden in half no time, and for all that, I'll not charge you a penny for the job." ”

“ Every old woman in the village was up in arms. Smith, coming upon him near the farm, promised to break his head for him if he found him about again. But he twisted his little black moustache with such a bellicose air and rolled such big, black fierce eyes at Smith that this promise came to nothing. Smith, however, told the girl that she must be mad to take up with a man who was surely wrong in his head. ”

“ Well, the years went on and on, and when the time was up, the Devil came to fetch the Smith, as it was written in their bargain.
"Are you ready?" he said, as he stuck his nose in at the door of the forge.
"Oh," said the Smith, "I must just hammer the head of this tenpenny nail first; meantime you can just climb up into the pear-tree, and pluck yourself a pear to gnaw at; you must be both hungry and thirsty after your journey."
So the Devil thanked him for his kind offer, and climbed up into the pear-tree. ”

“ We cannot omit to say a word or two about another society which bears the arms and the motto of the London Guilds, but is known as the Smiths’ Company of Newcastle-on-Tyne. Like the Blacksmiths, the Smiths are an ancient fraternity, for its earliest ordinance is dated 1436, and among the peculiar enactments was that no Scotchman should be taken as an apprentice, or allowed to work for a member under a penalty of 40s.—a large sum in those days. ”

“ The bargain was soon struck, and no sooner had the smith hidden him than the old woman appeared on the spot and inquired after a youth: she described his figure, the shape of his eyes and mouth, height, colour of his moustache and hair, dress, and general appearance. But the smith [Pg 204] was not such a fool as to betray the lad who had engaged to work at his anvil for him for two years for nothing. So the old witch with the iron nose got to know nothing and left the place growling. ”

“ And behind the dimmest and most gigantic Smith, we may see the more tremendous outlines of the formless and fabulous Smith who was the son of Vulcan and the first conqueror of iron. The shame which many people seem to feel about owning to such a patronymic or tracing its origin, is an extraordinary thing, but it is part of a very deep and general evil which has been going on for some time back. ”

“ Those have found a friend, whose gifts do not end,
Who gave to that stranger a rest!
Henry Smith’s history is literally true. He was a silversmith of immense wealth in London in the latter part of the sixteenth century, but in his later years he chose to perambulate the county of Surrey as a beggar, and was known as ‘Dog Smith.’ He met with various fortune in different parishes, and at Mitcham was flogged at the cart’s tail. ”

“ It was not strange that the name of one of the couple was also Smith, for we know that the name is the most common among civilized 214people. I know a city of my own country in which I read in the directory exactly one hundred and five plain "John Smiths," and I doubt not that there are plenty of them in Great Britain. ”

“ And now Smith began to get really conscious.
"Where am I?" he asked the Baker, whom he found sitting by him.
"We're in a camp with white men," said the Baker loudly, and then he added rapidly, and in a lower tone, "And I'm beat, Smith. They are all like the man wot we saw dead this afternoon."
Smith sat up as if he had been pricked by a spear, and looked at their captors standing in the glare of the fire. ”

“ Sigismund Smith. It sounds well; doesn't it? If a man's evil destiny makes him a Smith, the least he can do is to take it out in his Christian name. No Smith with a grain of spirit would ever consent to be a Samuel. But come in, dear old boy, and put your portmanteau down; knock those papers off that chair—there, by the window. Don't be frightened of making 'em in a muddle; they can't be in a worse muddle than they are now. ”

“ As for her, she went and fetched a great heap of firewood. She brought in the heap of firewood, flung it into the stove, and set it alight. Then she went up to the two men, took one of them—the Tailor—cut his throat, trussed him, and put him in the oven.
Meantime the Smith sat there, thinking, “What’s to be done? how’s one to save one’s life?” When she had finished her supper, the Smith looked at the oven and said:
“Granny, I’m a smith.”
“What can you forge?”
“Anything.”
“Make me an eye.”
“Good,” says he; “but have you got any cord? I must tie you up, or you won’t keep still. ”