Well aware that the other steel was burned, he watched it narrowly, put on plenty of sand, and before it was white hot, worked it without difficulty.
All he knew in regard to tempering was, that steel becomes hard by being quenched in water while red hot, and if plunged in water after that period, less so; while if suffered to cool of itself, it is not so much harder than iron. He was ignorant of a fact most important to a smith, and by the knowledge of which he is enabled to produce any degree of temper he pleases, after practice and experience of the different qualities of the various kinds of steel; to wit, that the gradations from extreme hardness to extreme softness are denoted by the different colors it assumes while cooling.
Trying with a file the punch that had now cooled on the forge, he found that it was quite soft, and supposed it needed hardening. Heating it as hot as he dared, he plunged it in water, held it there till cold, and then twisted a withe around it for a handle.
He now took a welding heat on his iron, that it might punch the more easily, and set Robert to hold it, while Clem held the punch. So much time was occupied in placing the iron and punch, and instructing the boys how to hold both, that it had cooled, and become harder to punch; nevertheless, he resolved to try it, and lifting the great beetle, struck with all his might upon the punch. At the second blow it broke in two, as short as a pipe-stem.
Clem, who had followed every motion, seeing the blank look of his father, began to cry; while Rob ran to tell his mother.
"Jackass that I was," he said, "to make that punch so hard. Didn't I know that I could punch hot iron with an iron punch, and have done it?"
Finding that there was still a little steel left, he put it in the fire again, let it cool to a black heat before he quenched it, then punched his hole, and finished the sledge. By patient perseverance, and after many ineffectual attempts, he succeeded in learning to weld steel to iron, and made himself several pairs of tongs of different shapes and sizes, also flat punches of files, but of low temper, also chisels. He did not dare to make them hard, as he did the punch; so he let them become almost cold before quenching.
He shod Montague's horse, making all the nails and two new shoes; but he was all day about it, and had nothing better to pare the hoof than a jack-knife. No matter for that—the thing once done, and done right: facility is the result of practice.