"Haven't you spun long enough?"
"Yes."
"Then we will go to bed."
The sledding was good, and it was sometime before Richardson put his designs into execution. But the sledding broke up, work came in, and he felt the need of the tongs more than ever, as the children were at school, and it was oftentimes impossible for his wife to leave the baby, that was cutting its teeth, and began to be fretful.
He placed a block beside his anvil, knocked the handle out of the old axe, and mortised it into the block, edge up: upon this he could lay hot iron and cut it without calling his wife to assist him.
It was with great reluctance that our smith proceeded to take the tongs and the andiron, when the time came for doing it. "I feel," said he to his wife, "as though I was sheep-stealing: it seems real mean to strip the fireplace, and take your tongs and andirons, especially as we are so miserably off for household stuff."
"I wouldn't feel so, William. The first two years we got along without them; then we thought we needed the tongs, and got John Drew to make them; and now, if you need the hammer more than the tongs, I don't see why you shouldn't take them."
The kitchen tongs were huge affairs; there was more iron in them than in three pairs of light smith's tongs, such as Richardson needed at present, only it was not in the right place, but just the reverse, as the legs of the house tongs were shaped like the human leg and thigh, largest at the fork, and tapering towards the feet, where they terminated in a large, oval lip, very thick and broad, adapted to seize and hold the great brands in the old-fashioned fireplaces; whereas forge-tongs have the most iron in the jaws, and at the cross, and taper from thence to a small size.
To his great delight, Richardson found that he did not need more than half of the legs of the tongs.