"I'll help you, father; I'm real strong," said Clem, a boy of twelve, afterwards the father of Radcliffe Rich.
"And I, too," said Robert, who was eighteen months younger. Two girls, still younger, would have doubtless volunteered, but they were abed, and not much could reasonably be expected of the baby in the cradle.
William Richardson, in addition to his mechanical ability, was a resolute, powerful man. The encouragement afforded by the visit of Montague, and the prospect of abundance of work, if he could do it, had effectually roused all his energies. His wife, by no means ignorant of her husband's capacities, dismissed her anxieties, for she knew that he would find some way to accomplish whatever he had determined to do.
After sitting a few moments buried in thought, he took a brand from the fire, and his axe, and, followed by Clem, started for the woods, where he soon found a hornbeam tree, the wood of which is very firm and heavy. The boy held the brand while he cut it down, and took off a cut three feet in length. With axe, saw, and auger, by the light of the kitchen fire, he soon made a beetle, that, during the time it lasted,—for he had no iron to hoop it with,—would enable him to strike a harder blow than even a blacksmith's sledge, for it was much heavier, indeed, too heavy for constant use; but a very strong man could swing it for a while, and upon an emergency. He then went down to a brook about an eighth of a mile from the house, for an old axe, kept to save a better one, and to cut ice, in order that the cattle might drink. The axe, by frequent grinding, had become very thick on the edge, and the bitt was rounded.
The next morning Richardson started the fire on his forge with plenty of coal, and put in the bar, while Clem and Rob plied the kitchen bellows by turns, the two little girls looking on with the greatest interest.
To cut iron, less heat is required than to weld it.
"Clem," said Richardson, "call your mother."
The boy returning, said,—
"Mother says one of the girls must come in to watch the cradle."
It was now, "Nan, you go," and "Sue, you go," when the indulgent father, who knew just how the children felt, compromised the matter by bringing the cradle, with the baby sound asleep in it, and setting the sleeper as far as possible from the forge, in order that the noise of the blows might not awaken him.