Thus far our smith had by no means realized the benefits anticipated from the possession of steel. He had, indeed, ascertained what degree of heat it would bear, learned to weld it to iron, made some punches that were a little better than iron ones, and yet he was as far removed from a knowledge of tempering that would enable him to forge and finish a reliable tool of any kind as before; since to heat a piece of steel and plunge it in water, making it so hard and brittle as to be useless, or quenching it when nearly cold, thus rendering it about as soft as iron, did not amount to anything practically.

And yet this man aspired to make an axe; yes, even had dim visions of plane-irons, draw-shaves, chisels, and gouges manufactured by William Richardson, edge tool maker. Aspired, did I say? The expression is too feeble. The idea absorbed his thoughts, and, ever present to his mind, assumed the character of a passion.[Pg 79] It was not a mere whim, but based upon solid grounds.

There were but few ploughs in the place, and not many horses, and they were not shod all round except in the winter. But the axe was in universal use, subject to continual wear, and frequently broken. John Drew was celebrated for giving to his axes a high temper, that rendered them liable to break in frosty weather; one cause of which probably was, that he made up a lot of axes, and then tempered the lot. Upon tempering days he was always more or less under the influence of liquor. Indeed, he thought he could not temper an axe properly, unless he was half drunk; and it must be allowed that many of his neighbors were of the same opinion, while others said, he wanted them to break, in order that he might have a job of repairing. It was too early in the season to plough; the ice had broken up in the river, and having first driven the logs, cut and hauled in the winter, to the mill, he gave his undivided attention to the work, and employed John Bradford to help him cut up and draw the large bar of iron purchased at the store, while Clem and Robert mounted on a block—not being tall enough to reach the handle without—and blew the bellows. John had not struck through two heats with the large sledge when the stone anvil broke in two. This mishap, however, was soon repaired, as there was no lack of stones.

[Pg 80]

While they were placing another stone on the stump, David Montague came in.

"Neighbor Richardson," said he, "it is too bad that a man who is possessed of the industry and ingenuity you are, should be so put to it for tools, and be obliged to work iron on a stone. Now I tell you what I'll do with you. I mean to get out timber and boards in the course of next year to build me a frame house the year after; 'twill take two years to make the shingles and clapboards, hew the frame, and put the house up. Now I'll advance you money to buy an anvil beck (beak) horn, stake, tools to head nails with, and you may pay me in work, shoe my horse and oxen, and make all the nails for my house. I shan't want a nail under a year, and not many under fourteen months, so that you can make them next winter, and at odd jobs."

Nails were then made by hand, of wrought iron. The stake was a species of anvil of small size, and used to point horse-nails on. The beak horn was a very necessary thing at that day, used for welding hollow articles, and for work upon plough irons.

"I am sure, neighbor, you couldn't do me a greater favor, for I need an anvil sadly, though I can get along without the stake and the beck horn."

"You can, perhaps, at present, but you will soon[Pg 81] need them both. I don't think you ought to feel under the least obligation to me, for in advancing this money, I am benefiting myself and the whole neighborhood more than you. It will save me and all of us many a hard tramp through the woods. Besides, I don't like to get down on my knees to John Drew, beg him to work for me, and then pay him twice as much as it is worth."

"So I say, neighbor," said Bradford, "though—to give the devil his due—Drew is as good a blacksmith as ever stood behind an anvil, but mighty uncomfortable. But where are you going to get the bricks, neighbor, to build your chimneys?"

"Make them, John; there's sand and clay both in my pasture. So you see there's work enough for two years to hew the frame, make the shingles and clapboards, cut logs for boards, and make and burn the bricks."

Richardson improved the opportunity, while assisted by Bradford, to forge the polls or iron portion of two axes, and split up iron for nail-rods and also for horseshoes. He had never seen any one temper a tool, but he had often struck for Drew to forge axes; had seen him weld the steel to the iron, and knew he could do that. Although he had hired John to help him draw the large iron, because he could not do it, even with the aid of the boys, without great[Pg 82] outlay of both time and labor, he didn't care to expose his awkwardness before him. In short, he preferred to be alone while adventuring upon this portion of the work, in order that he might study out the matter as he went along with no witness to his mistake but the boys, and as for tempering, we have seen how little he knew in respect to that.

The next morning he made his steel in the shape of a wedge, and split a corresponding crevice in the blade of the axe, and not quite so wide as the steel was thick, in order that it might bind on the sides as it entered, to hold it while heating, and put the whole in the fire for a weld. At the first trial the steel fell out on the ground the moment he struck it, and he lost his heat. He now shut the slit together so that the steel did not quite reach to the bottom, closed it up on the steel a little harder, put the axe in the fire, and before striking, struck the edge of the steel against the side of the anvil, to drive it home to the bottom of the slit, and thus succeeded in making a perfect weld.

But now came the crisis—to temper it. All depended upon this. So important a tool was an axe at that day, men wouldn't hesitate to travel twenty miles additional to a smith who had the reputation of excelling in the art, and no excellence of form or finish could compensate an axe-man for its absence.

[Pg 83]

He was well aware the reason the punch broke was on account of its hardness, and also that if he had, after putting it in water, let it cool some, it would have been less brittle; but he also knew the harder a tool is, the keener it cuts, and, forgetful of the fault in Drew's axes, imagined he could not get it too hard to cut wood. He thought there must be a vast difference between wood and iron, and that the harder the better; it would never break in wood.

Therefore, after finishing as well as he could, he made it as hot as he could without burning, and quenched it, put in a handle, and set to work grinding. The axe proved so hard, although he had made the blade very thin by hammering, that it was almost impossible to grind it, though he put a liberal allowance of sand on the stone. Susan and the boys took turns at the stone, the father encouraging them by declaring that it would cut like a ribbon, for it was harder than Pharaoh's heart.

The implement was ground at length. Richardson whet the edge and forthwith proceeded to a large hemlock that grew near, to try it. If unskilled in making, he was very far from being a novice in the use of an axe.

At the first blow he cried to his family, who were all gathered at the foot of the tree, his wife with the babe in her arms,—

"It's going to cut; I know it is."

[Pg 84]

Leaving the keen instrument buried in the wood, he pulled off his outer garments. 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.

Greatly to the surprise of his wife, he manifested no symptoms of discouragement at this disappointment in the moment of victory; he merely said, as with one foot on the butt of the tree, he looked at the shining and crystalline surface of the fracture,—

"Well, I've found out the temper that will shave the wood. I must now find out the highest temper that will stand hemlock knots."

The next thing Richardson did was to try with a file his saw and a draw-shave that cut well. He found they bore no comparison in hardness with the axe he had just broken, yet they were both wood tools, and good ones. He then tried a chopping axe made by Drew. It was softer still, but it cut well and stood hemlock, fir, and spruce knots. He now understood[Pg 85] that tools for wood, especially where blows were given, did not admit of a very high temper.

"I wish," he said, "I did know how it is that blacksmiths tell when steel cools down to a right temper. How I wish I had asked Tom Breslaw!" He sat down on the butt of the tree to reflect. Clem seated himself by his side, while Robert, standing on the tree, wiped the drops of sweat from his father's brow.

"Father," said Clem, at length, clambering into his parent's lap, "what you going to do with the axe now?"

"I'm going," said he, putting his arm fondly around the little questioner, "to try and make it just hard enough to cut, and not break or turn."

"How will you know, father, when you've got just enough out?"

"Guess at it. I can't do any better. If I only had a watch or clock, I'd let it cool two minutes, then four, and see what that would do. Do you understand, my little man?"

"I don't know, father; ain't it just like when mother takes a candle, makes a mark on it with her knitting needle, and says, 'When the candle burns down to that mark, 'twill be half an hour, and then you'll have to go to bed, Clem?'"

"Something like it; but I want something that will tell the minutes."

"Then it would be two minutes hard, father,"[Pg 86] cried Clem, who, with both arms around his parent's neck, had almost got into his mouth. "How funny! Shall I go borrow Mr. Montague's watch?"

"Not now, dear."

Taking the boy by the hand, and the axe in the other hand, he walked thoughtfully towards the shop.

After heating to a cherry red, he laid it on the forge to cool, began to count, and continued counting till the axe was cool. He then chalked down the number on his bellows.

"Father?"

"Don't bother me now, dear;" and he began to think aloud.

"This axe was as hard as glass before I het it; now the temper's all out. It has taken while I could count sixty-four to come out. Now, if sixty-four takes out the whole, thirty-two ought to take out half, sixteen a quarter, eight an eighth. The temper is put into steel when it's put into water; and the hotter the steel, and the quicker the chill, the harder it is. What made that axe so hard was, that I het it so hot, and chilled it quick. If I had made it only half as hot, and then put it in water, the temper wouldn't have begun but half as soon, and then it would have been only half as hard. I guess that axe's about an eighth too hard. I'll heat it just as hot as I did before, and count eight, then put it[Pg 87] in water. I wonder if that'll be the same thing as though I hardened it at full heat, and after that found some rule by which to reduce the temper. I'm afraid it won't. Let me think of it." He sat down on the forge, while Clem, not daring to speak, stood with his great round eyes staring anxiously in his father's face.

"I had an axe of John Drew once that was too hard—kept breaking; but it cut like a razor. I was afraid to touch it to draw the temper; but one day I put the 'poll' of it in the fire to burn the handle out, and the wet cloths I had on the steel to keep it cool got dry while I was talking with a neighbor, and the poll got red hot. I thought I'd drawn all the temper out and spoilt it, but after that it was just hard enough. Now I'll just do the same thing again."

He heated the whole axe, steel, and all, then quenched the whole of the steel in water till it was cold, leaving the rest of the axe red hot.

"Now I'll let that hot iron draw on the steel while I count eight."

He did thus, then quenched the whole; tried it in the knot; it broke, but very little; put it in again, and counted sixteen. It was too soft; the edge turned.

"I don't believe but that red-hot iron draws too savage on the steel; takes the temper out too fast. I'll draw it more gradual and count the same number of times."

[Pg 88]

He now dipped the whole axe in water, edge first, took it out directly, put the poll only on the outside of the fire to keep up a gradual heat, counted sixteen and quenched it. The axe cut much better and neither broke nor turned. He thought he would heat it, count but twelve, and thus see if it wouldn't bear a little higher temper. Just as he was about to take it from the fire little Sue came to call him to dinner.

"Tell your mother I can't come yet; don't know when I can come; to eat dinner, and not wait for me."

"Nor me, nuther," said Clem. "I ain't coming till father comes."

He quenched the axe, put the poll on the fire, and while looking at it and counting, thought he noticed a flaw in the steel. Rubbing it in the sand and coal-dust of the forge till it was bright, he found it was only the edge of a scale raised by the frequent heats. But his attention was instantly arrested by seeing the bright steel change under his eye to a pale yellow, commencing at the point where the steel joined the iron, and gradually extending over it; while he looked, it changed to a darker shade, became brown, almost purple. He had now counted twelve, and quenched it. When he took the axe from the water, the same tinge was on the steel. The axe now cut better and stood well. But he had got hold of an idea he meant to follow out.

[Pg 89]

"I wonder what those colors are," he said. "Who knows but they may be the temper? Just as fast as the temper was let down they changed—grew darker. Wonder what they would have come to, if I hadn't quenched the steel. I'll know." Heating the axe once more, he rubbed it bright, and looked for the colors. For a little time the steel was white; then the pale straw color appeared again, growing darker, till it became brown, with purple spots, then purple, light blue, pigeon blue; then darker, almost black.

"O, father, what handsome colors!"

No reply. Much excited, he quenched the st............