Just then a short, thick-set man came hurrying past him into the shop. He was probably the whitest man going into that or any other shop, and he spoke out at once, very fast, but with a voice that sounded as if it came through a bag of meal.
"Ogden," said he, "got him shod? If you have, I'll take him. What do you say about that trade?"
"I don't want any more room than there is here," said the blacksmith, "and I don't care to move my shop."
"There's nigh onto two acres, mebbe more, all along the creek from below the mill to Deacon Hawkins's line, below the bridge," wheezed the mealy, floury, dusty man, rapidly. "I'll get two hundred for it some day, ground or no ground. Best place for a shop."
"This lot suits me," said the smith, hammering away. "'Twouldn't pay me to move—not in these times."
The miller had more to say, while he unhitched his horse, but he led him out without getting any more favorable reply about the trade.
"Come and blow, Jack," said the smith, and the boy in the door turned promptly to take the handle of the bellows.
The little heap of charcoal and coke in the forge brightened and sent up fiery tongues, as the great leathern lungs wheezed and sighed, and Jack himself began to puff.
"I've got to have a bigger man than you are, for a blower and striker," said the smith. "He's coming Monday morning. It's time you were doing something, Jack."
"Why, father," said Jack, as he ceased pulling on the bellows, and the shoe came out of the fire, "I've been doing something ever since I was twelve. Been working here since May, and lots o' times before that. Learned the trade, too."