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Updated: May 21, 2025
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.
"We all know the longing for old places and old times," I said. "No, no, David, it's more than that. It's the wanting and the longing to see the hills of your own land, and the town where you were born, and the street where you played, and the house " He paused, "Ah, well, it's hard for those who have it." "But I haven't heard Carlstrom refer to Sweden for years," I said.
He has beaten out the respect of a whole town; and from the crude human nature with which he started he has fashioned himself wisdom, and peace of mind, and the ripe humour which sees that God is in his world. There are men I know who read many books, hoping to learn how to be happy; let me commend them to Carlstrom, the gunsmith.
Indeed, he radiated a sort of beaming good will; he had a native desire to make everything pleasant. I did not realize before what a fund of humour the old man had. The Scotch Preacher rallied him on the number of houses he now owns, and suggested that he ought to get a wife to keep at least one of them for him. Carlstrom looked around with a twinkle in his eye.
When he first came here forty years ago I suppose Carlstrom was not unlike most of the foreigners who immigrate to our shores, fired with faith in a free country. He was poor as poor as a man could possibly be. For several years he worked on a farm hard work, for which, owing to his frail physique, he was not well fitted.
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.
When he came in to call on us that evening after supper I could see that he had something important on his mind; but I let him get to it in his own way. "David," he said finally, "Carlstrom, the gunsmith, is going home to Sweden." "At last!" I exclaimed. Dr. McAlway paused a moment and then said hesitatingly: "He says he is going." Harriet laughed.
In an hour's time the Scotch Preacher had both Harriet and me much excited, and the upshot of the whole matter was that I promised to call on Carlstrom the next day when I went to town. I scarcely needed the prompting of the Scotch Preacher, for Carlstrom's gunshop has for years been one of the most interesting places in town for me. I went to it now with a new understanding.
He could not sell one of his hand-made guns for half as much as it cost him, nor does he seem to want to sell them, preferring rather to have them stand in the corner of his shop where he can look at them. His is the incorruptible spirit of the artist! What a tremendous power there is in work. Carlstrom worked.
"Then it's all decided," she said; "he isn't going." "No," said the Scotch Preacher, "it's not decided yet." "Dr. McAlway hasn't made up his mind," I said, "whether Carlstrom is to go or not." But the Scotch Preacher was in no mood for joking. "David," he said, "did you ever know anything about the homesickness of the foreigner?"
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