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Seated in the shade of that small niche in the wall, as on a tailor's shop-board, is an adool, or public notary, selling advice to a client; in the alcove next him is a worker in beads and filigree; from a dusty forge beyond comes the clang of anvils, where half-naked smiths are hammering out bits or fashioning horse-shoes.
It could say 'Blockhead, and call my name and a few other words, and it seemed to like the noise, for it always would fly off to where the smiths were hammering and filing their loudest, and whenever it perched close to one of the anvils there were sure to be mirthful faces over the shaping and scraping and polishing.
This was the stroke of anti-climax; and the droll sound of those anvils, so far above all the voices and instruments in its pitch, thoroughly disillusioned you and restored you finally to your proper entity and proportions.
Often in the evening, after his day's work and long hours put in turning the grindstone and keeping up fires in the camp stoves that required four cords of wood apiece to kindle a fire, he could be found with one of Big Ole's small 600-pound anvils in his lap pegging up shoes with railroad spikes. It was a long time before they solved the problem of turning logging sleds around in the road.
I saw into the intrails of dim, damp wood, where the first man among all the common stones found the strange stone. I saw a vague and violent battle, in which stone axes broke and stone knives were splintered against something shining and new in the hand of one desperate man. I heard all the hammers on all the anvils of the earth. I saw all the swords of Feudal and all the weals of Industrial war.
Then there were the firing of two anvils, the strains of a brass band, the hoisting of a new flag on the liberty-pole, and later the ceremony of the Ditch opening, when a distinguished speaker in a most unworkman-like tall hat, black frock coat, and white cravat, which gave him the general air of a festive grave-digger, took a spade from the hands of an apparently hilarious chief mourner and threw out the first sods.
Egwin's visit to the smiths of Alcester, as we are told in the legend, he found then given up to every kind of luxury; and when he proceeded to preach unto them, they beat upon their anvils in contempt of his doctrine so as completely to deafen him; upon which he addressed his prayers to heaven, and the town was immediately destroyed.
"I have arranged with the postmaster to let us all know up here, the instant he gets word," said Sheraton. "If that black abolitionist, Lincoln, wins, they're going to fire one anvil shot in the street, and we can hear it up this valley this far. If the South wins, then two anvils, as fast as they can load. So, Mr. Cowles, if we hear a single shot, it is war war, I tell you!
Their flaming levins threaded the shimmering veils, patterned them, as though they were the flying robes of the very spirit of fire. And the tumult was as ten thousand Thors, smiting with hammers against the enemies of Odin. As a forge upon whose shouting anvils was being shaped a new world. A new world? A metal world!
"When he has chased you round his room, and has blown sparks at you, and has snorted and howled, and cracked his tail, and snapped his jaws like a pair of anvils, your energies will be toned up higher than ever before in your life." "No doubt of it," said the Languid Youth; "but I think I will begin with something a little milder."
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