rt of serenity seemed, indeed, to come upon him: his family lie on
the quiet hill, old things and old times have grown distant, and upon
that anvil of his before the glowing forge he has beaten out for himself
a real place in this community. He has beaten out the respect of a whole
town; and from the crude human nature with which he started he has
fashioned himself wisdom, and peace of mind, and the ripe humour which
sees that God is in his world. There are men I know who read many books,
hoping to learn how to be happy; let me commend them to Carlstrom, the
gunsmith.

I have often reflected upon the incalculable influence of one man upon a
community. The town is better for having stood often looking into the
fire of Carlstrom's forge, and seeing his hammer strike. I don't know
how many times I have heard men repeat observations gathered in
Carlstrom's shop. Only the other day I heard the village school teacher
say, when I asked him why he always seemed so merry and had so little
fault to find with the world.

"Why," he replied, "as Carlstrom, the smith says, 'when I feel like
finding fault I always begin with myself and then I never get any
farther,'"

Another of Carlstrom's sayings is current in the country.

"It's a good thing," he says, "when a man knows what he pretends to
know."

The more I circulated among my friends, the more I heard of Carlstrom.
It is odd that I should have gone all these years knowing Carlstrom, and
yet never consciously until last week setting him in his rightful place
among the men I know. It makes me wonder what other great souls about me
are thus concealing themselves in the guise of familiarity. (This
stooped gray neighbour of mine whom I have seen so often working in his
field that he has almost become a part of the landscape--who can tell
what heroisms may be locked away from my vision under his old brown
hat?)

On Wednesday night Carlstrom was at Dr. McAlway's house--with Charles
Baxter, my neighbour Horace, and several others. And I had still another
view of him.

I think there is always something that surprises one in finding a
familiar figure in a wholly new environment. I was so accustomed to the
Carlstrom of the gunshop that I could not at once reconcile myself to
the Carlstrom of Dr. McAlway's sitting room. And, indeed, there was a
striking change in his appearance. He came dressed in the quaint black
coat which he wears at funerals. His hair was brushed straight back f