The house in which Forester lived was the largest in the village. It was a square house of two stories. It stood back a little from the road, in the middle of a large yard, ornamented with rows of trees along the sides, and groups of shrubbery in the corners and near the house. There were gravel walks leading in different directions through this yard, and on one side of the house was a carriage-way, which led from a great gate in front, to a door in one end of the house, and thence to the stable in the rear. On the other side of the house, near the street, was the office,-for Forester's father was a lawyer. The office was a small square building, with the lawyer's name over the door. There was a back door to the office, and a footpath, winding among trees and shrubbery, which led from the office to the house.
The morning after they arrived, Forester took Marco out to see the village. He intended not only to show him the various objects of interest which were to be seen, but also to explain to him why it was that such villages would spring up in a farming country, and what were the occupations of the inhabitants.
"The first thing which causes the commencement of a village in New England," said Forester, "is a water-fall."
"Why is that?" asked Marco.
"There are certain things," replied Forester, "which the farmers can not very well do for themselves, by their own strength, particularly grinding their corn, and sawing logs into boards for their houses. When they first begin to settle in a new country, they make the houses of logs, and they have to take the corn and grain a great many miles on horseback, through paths in the woods, or, in the winter, on hand-sleds, to get it ground. But as soon as any of them are able to do it, they build a dam on some stream in the neighborhood, where there is a fall in the water, and thus get a water power. This water power they employ, to turn a saw-mill and a grist-mill. Then all the farmers, when they want to build houses or barns, haul logs to the mill to get them sawed into boards, and they carry their grain to the grist-mill and get it ground. They pay the owner of the mills for doing this work for them. And thus, if there are a great many farms in the country around, and no other mills very near, so that the mills are kept all the time at work, the owner gets a great deal of pay, and gradually acquires property.
"Now, as soon as the mills are built, perhaps a blacksmith sets up a shop near them. If a blacksmith is going to open a shop anywhere in that town, it will be better for him to have it near the mills, because, as the farmers all have to come to the mills at any rate, they can avail themselves of the opportunity, to get their horses shod, or to get new tires to their wheels, when they are broken."
"Tires?" repeated Marco. "What are tires?"
"They are the iron rims around wheels. Every wheel must have an iron band about it, very tight, to strengthen it and to hold it firmly together. Without a tire, a wheel would very soon come to pieces, in rattling over a stony road.
"Besides," continued Forester, "there is a great deal of other iron work, which the farmers must have done. Farmers can, generally, do most of the wood work which they want themselves. They can make their rakes, and drags, and cart-bodies, and sleds, and tool handles; but when they want iron work, they must go to the blacksmith's. They can make a harrow-frame, but the blacksmith must make the teeth."
"Now I should think," said Marco, "that it would be easier to make the teeth than the frame."
"Perhaps it is as easy, if one has the forge and tools," replied Forester; "but the tools and fixtures, necessary for blacksmith's work, are much more expensive than those required for ordinary wood work. There must be a forge built on purpose, and an anvil, supported on a solid foundation, and various tools. All these are necessary for shoeing a single horse, and when they are all procured, they will answer for all the horses of the neighborhood. Thus it happens, that though farmers do a great deal of their wood work themselves, at their own farms, in cold and stormy weather, they generally have their iron work done at a blacksmith's at some central place, where it is easy and convenient for all of them to go."
The above conversation took place between Marco and Forester, as they were walking along together through the village, toward the part of the town where the mills were situated. Just at this moment, Marco happened to cast his eyes across the street a short distance before them, and he saw a fire on the ground in a little yard. He asked Forester what that fire could be. As soon as Forester saw the fire, he exclaimed,
"Ah! they are putting a tire upon a wheel; that's quite fortunate; we'll go across and see them."
So they left the path under the trees where they had been walking, and went obliquely across the street toward the fire. Marco saw that there was a large blacksmith's shop there. It was a very neat-looking building, painted red. There was a large door in the front, and a very low window, with a shutter hanging over it, by the side of the door. In an open yard, by the side of the shop, was the fire. The fire was in the form of a ring. There were several men standing about it; one of them, whom Marco supposed was the blacksmith, by his leather apron, was putting on small sticks of wood and chips, here and there, around the ring. Marco saw that there was a large iron hoop, as he called it, on the fire. It was not really a hoop, it was a tire. It was made of a much larger and thicker bar of iron, than those which are used for hoops. It was a tire belonging to a wheel. The wheel was lying upon the ground near, ready to receive the tire. It was the hind wheel of a wagon. The wagon itself was standing in front of the shop, with one end of the hind axletree supported by a block.
"What do they heat the tire for?" asked Marco.
"To swell it," replied Forester. "It is necessary to have the tire go on very tight, so as to hold the wheel together with all the force of the iron. Now when iron is heated it swells, and then shrinks again when it cools. So they heat the tire hot, and put it upon the wheel in that state. Then when it cools it shrinks, and binds the whole wheel together with a very strong grip."
"But if they put it on hot, it will burn the wood," said Marco.
"Yes," replied Forester, "it will burn the wood a little. They can not help that entirely; but they stand ready with water, to pour on, as soon as the tire is in its place, and so cool it immediately, so that it does not burn the fellies enough to injure them."
"What are the fellies?" asked Marco.
"They are the parts of the wooden rim of the wheel. The rim is made of several pieces of wood, which are called fellies."
So Forester took Marco to the wheel, and showed him the parts of which the rim was composed. While Marco was looking at the wheel, the blacksmith began to push away the burning brands a little from the tire, as it began to be hot enough. Presently he went into his shop and brought out several pairs of tongs. With these the men lifted the tire out of the fire, but the blacksmith said it was a little too hot, and he must let it cool a minute or two.
"Why, if it's very hot," said Marco, "it will grip the wheel all the harder."
"It will grip it too hard," said Forester. "Sometimes a tire shrinks so much as to spring the spokes out of shape. Didn't you ever see a wheel with the spokes bent out of shape?"
"I don't know," said Marco. "I never noticed wheels much."
"They do get bent, sometimes," said Forester. "It requires great care to put on a tire in such a manner, as to give it just the right degree of force to bind the wheel strongly together, without straining it."
[Illustration: THE TIRE.]
As soon as the tire became of the right temperature, the men took it up again with the pairs of tongs-taking hold with them at different sides of it-and then they put it down carefully over the wheel. The wheel immediately began to smoke on all sides. In one or two places it burst into a flame. The blacksmith, however, paid no attention to this, but with a hammer, which he held in his hand, he knocked it down into its place, all around the rim; then he took up a brown pitcher full of water, which was standing near, and began to pour the water on, walking round and round the wheel as he did it, so as to extinguish the flames in every part and cool the iron. When this process was completed, Forester and Marco walked on.