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"Layin' up there on the depot platform," somebody said. "This feller flattened him out, done it like he had him on a anvil," the granger's advocate chuckled. "That there freight's goin' to pull out in a little while let's look along till we find a empty car and chuck him in it. By morning he'll be in La Junta.
First side. An old man, with his brow deeply wrinkled, and very expressive features, beating in a kind of mortar with a hammer. Inscribed "LAPICIDA SUM." Second side. I believe, a goldsmith; he is striking a small flat bowl or patera, on a pointed anvil, with a light hammer. The inscription is gone. Third side.
The vermilion deepened into charred umber, and soon the west was a blackened grate; another day vanished in ashes. The filmy golden pallor of twilight now blurred the landscape; the wind increased with a gayer, madder, keener touch; the lake went billowing in shadows of gray and black, and one by one the lamps of the city sprang up, vivid as sparks from an anvil.
One other chief delight the boy had; he knew the magic of sound, which spoke to his heart in a way that it speaks to but few; the sounds of the earth gave up their sweets to him; the musical fluting of owls, the liquid notes of the cuckoo, the thin pipe of dancing flies, the mournful creaking of the cider-press, the horn of the oxherd wound far off on the hill, the tinkling of sheep-bells of all these he knew the notes; and not only these, but the rhythmical swing of the scythes sweeping through the grass, the flails heard through the hot air from the barn, the clinking of the anvil in the village forge, the bubble of the stream through the weir all these had a tale to tell him.
Never on earthly anvil Did such rare armor gleam, And never did such gallant steeds Drink of an earthly stream. "Back comes the chief in triumph Who in the hour of fight Hath seen the great Twin Brethren In harness on his right. Safe comes the ship to haven, Through billows and through gales. If once the great Twin Brethren Sit shining on the sails." Bacchus was the son of Jupiter and Semele.
Near all this Thomas, the eldest son, had installed a little forge, an anvil, a vice bench, in fact everything necessary to a working mechanician, such as he had become since taking his bachelor's degree, from his desire to remain with his father and help him with certain researches and inventions.
"I have been through a time of peril, no doubt; but as you see, I am hale and well better, methinks, than you are, for you look pale and ill; and I doubt not that the wound which I received was a mere scratch to that which bore you down. It sounded indeed like the blow of a smith's hammer upon an anvil."
The pioneers in this movement will conquer the territory not with arms in their hands, but with the gold-rocker, the plough, the loom, and the anvil, the steam-boat, the railway, and the telegraph. Commerce and agriculture, disenthralled by the influences of free institutions, will cause the new empire to spring into life, full armed, like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter.
'HIS bairns? retorted the Amazon, regarding her husband with a grin of ineffable contempt 'HIS bairns! O gin ye were dead, gudeman, And a green turf on your head, gudeman! Then I wad ware my widowhood Upon a ranting Highlandman' This canticle, which excited a suppressed titter among the younger part of the audience, totally overcame the patience of the taunted man of the anvil.
The tents of the workers, some new and white, others soiled and ragged, stretched everywhere; large tents belched smoke and resounded with the ring of hammers on anvil; soldiers stood on guard; men, red-shirted and blue-shirted, swarmed as thick as ants; in a wide hollow a long line of horses, in double row, heads together, pulled hay from a rack as long as the line, and they pulled and snorted and bit at one another; a strong smell of hay and burning wood mingled with the odor of hot coffee and steaming beans; fires blazed on all sides; under another huge tent, or many tents without walls, stretched wooden tables and benches; on the scant sage and rocks and brush, and everywhere upon the tents, lay in a myriad of colors and varieties the lately washed clothes of the toilers; and through the wide street of the camp clattered teams and swearing teamsters, dragging plows with clanking chains and huge scoops turned upside down.
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