At the first blow he cried to his family, who were all gathered at the foot of the tree, his wife with the babe in her arms,—
"It's going to cut; I know it is."
Leaving the keen instrument buried in the wood, he pulled off his outer garments. The blows now fell thick and heavy.
"Cuts like a razor. Throws the chips well. Never saw an axe work easier in the wood," broke from him at intervals, while the children clapped their hands and capered around the tree till it came crashing to the ground.
The hemlock was scrubby, and one of the lower limbs was dead. Richardson struck the axe into it with all his might; but when he pulled it out, there was a piece of steel out of the middle of the bitt as large as a half-dollar.
Greatly to the surprise of his wife, he manifested no symptoms of discouragement at this disappointment in the moment of victory; he merely said, as with one foot on the butt of the tree, he looked at the shining and crystalline surface of the fracture,—
"Well, I've found out the temper that will shave the wood. I must now find out the highest temper that will stand hemlock knots."
The next thing Richardson did was to try with a file his saw and a draw-shave that cut well. He found they bore no comparison in hardness with the axe he had just broken, yet they were both wood tools, and good ones. He then tried a chopping axe made by Drew. It was softer still, but it cut well and stood hemlock, fir, and spruce knots. He now understood that tools for wood, especially where blows were given, did not admit of a very high temper.
"I wish," he said, "I did know how it is that blacksmiths tell when steel cools down to a right temper. How I wish I had asked Tom Breslaw!" He sat down on the butt of the tree to reflect. Clem seated himself by his side, while Robert, standing on the tree, wiped the drops of sweat from his father's brow.