CHILDHOOD SCENES
I have seen him unaided throw a refractory horse to the ground when it objected to being shod. But he was always kind to me, letting me fuss around the shop, leaving his own row to do three or four hills for me so that I could more easily keep up with the rest of the men in hoeing time, or favoring me in some way in the hay field as he helped on the farm in busy times.
He always pitched the hay on to the ox cart and I raked after. If I was getting behind he slowed up a little. He was a big-hearted man. I wish I could see that blacksmith again. The iron work for farm wagons and sleds was fashioned and put on in the shop, oxen and horses brought there for shoeing, and metal parts of farm implements often repaired. My father seemed to like to work in the shop, but did not go there much except when a difficult piece of work was required, like welding a broken steel section rod of a mowing machine, which had to be done with great precision or it would break again.
He kept tools for mending shoes and harnesses and repairing water pipes and tinware. He knew how to perform all kinds of delicate operations on
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