The Story of a Needle

THE STORY OF A NEEDLE
❧ BY A. L. O. E.
LONDON, EDINBURGH,
DUBLIN, AND NEW YORK
THOMAS NELSON
AND SONS
THE STORY OF A NEEDLE :—
THE STORY OF A NEEDLE.
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I REALLY can say nothing of my earliest days except from report. I have heard, but I can hardly believe it, that I was once part of a rough mass of iron ore, that had lain for ages in a dark mine in Cornwall; that I was dug out, and put into a huge furnace, and heated till I became red-hot, and melted; that I was made into part of an iron bar, and when in a fiery glow was suddenly plunged into cold water, which changed my whole constitution and name, for iron was thenceforth called steel. I can just fancy how the water fizzed and hissed, and how my fiery flush faded suddenly away, and I became again quite black in the face! I can fancy all this, as I said, but I really remember nothing about it.
Nor have I any recollection of being drawn out into wire, forced to push myself through little holes, smaller and smaller, till I was long enough and slim enough for the purpose for which the manufacturer designed me. My very earliest remembrance is of finding myself lying on an anvil, along with thousands of others of my species. But you must not fancy me then, gentle reader, in the least like the neat, trim, bright little article that now has the pleasure of addressing you. I fancy that I looked uncommonly like a bit of steel wire, neither useful nor ornamental.
While I lay quietly reflecting in a kind of dull, sleepy doze, for at that time I was not sharp at all, a violent blow on one end of me startled me not a little—I had been hit on that side as flat as a pancake!