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. 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. I had gone to him with a part of a horse-rake which I
had broken on one of my stony hills'.
"Can you mend it?" I asked.
If I had known him better I should never have asked such a question. I
saw, indeed, at the time that I had not said the right thing; but how
could I know then that Carlstrom never let any broken thing escape him?
A watch, or a gun, or a locomotive--they are all alike to him, if they
are broken. I believe he would agree to patch the wrecked chariot of
Phaethon!
A week later I came back to the shop.
"Come in, come in," he said when he saw me.
He turned from his forge, set his hands on his hips and looked at me a
moment with feigned seriousness.
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