About eight o'clock in the evening his wife went to bed; but William made up a warm fire in the stone fireplace, fed the cattle, and lay down before it. At twelve o'clock he went out, fed the cattle again, and called his wife, who got his breakfast, and he set out. He carried in a basket doughnuts, baked beans, cold boiled pork, Indian bread, and butter, and a jug of coffee, also hay for the oxen. His plan was to stop for the night at Hanson's, who put up teams, paying fifty cents a night for barn-room for the cattle and a bed for himself, Hanson's wife warming his beans, and making tea or coffee for him, as the coffee he carried was to drink on the road. This expense was paid by the neighbors whose errands he did.
At his arrival, he found John Drew, who before had always received him very cordially, in a most surly humor. He was making axes. Tom Breslaw, an apprentice, nearly out of his time, was striking, and blowing the bellows. Barely nodding, in response to the greeting of Richardson, he took an axe, into which he had stuck the steel, from the fire, flung it savagely on the anvil, crying to Tom, "Strike!" and after the heat put it in the fire again, taking not the least notice of Richardson, but giving all his attention to his iron. Finding he was not noticed, and at a loss to know what this strange conduct of the smith meant, he at length said, "Mr. Drew, can you put a few shoes on my oxen?"
"No, I can't. I've got this axe and another one to make for a man that's waitin' for 'em."
"Perhaps you could do it in the morning. I shall be obliged to stay all night to get my grist ground. It would be a great accommodation to me if you could. I had hard work to get the cattle here, and if I am obliged to drive them home as they are, I shall lame them."
"Can't do it, I tell you, and that's the long and short of it."
"Perhaps you could make some nails, lend me a shoeing-hammer, and I would try and nail them on myself. If you don't, I am sure I don't know what I shall do. I had hard work to get the cattle here with no load of any amount. I must haul more back, and I don't know how I can get home."
"And I don't care how you get home, Bill Richardson; nor whether you get home at all. Here I've slaved myself for years, going up to your place through the woods on snow-shoes once or twice every winter, and hauling my tools and shoes on a hand-sled, leaving work here in the shop just to accommodate you folks up there, and took my pay in white beans and all sorts of trash, when I left cash jobs at home and lost 'em; and here you come smelling round, and palavering, as though butter wouldn't melt in your mouth; watch and sneak round, and steal the trade, and then go back, cut off my custom, and take the bread right out of my mouth. Now I've got you where the hair is short. You may shoe your own cattle, you're such a great smith. I won't make you a shoe, nail, lend you a tool, or obleege you in any way, name, or natur'. Strike, Tom Breslaw—what are you gaping at?"
Waiting patiently till the din of blows had subsided, and the iron was returned to the fire, Richardson replied,—
"As for stealing your trade, Mr. Drew, and coming here for the purpose, it is certainly a mistake of yours. I never thought of trying to work a piece of iron till the last time I was here, when the thought came into my mind. You surely can't think it strange, when you know what great labor and expense it is for myself and neighbors to come here, that we should try to do somewhat for ourselves. You would do the same were you in our place. If you complain so bitterly of coming to our place twice a year, what do you think it must be for us to come to you all the time? You must remember, also, that at those times you charged a corresponding price, that was cheerfully paid. I can't well see how you could lose any work by going, as there is no other smith anywhere round, and you must have found the work waiting when you came back. I have never been reputed a thief among my neighbors, or made a practice of stealing. I did wish to obtain some information of you, before I went home, about working and tempering steel, but expected to pay for it. As for taking bread out of your mouth, you have all the work you can do right here, without doing a stroke of work for us."