ver touched before. He sped
back to his mother, too full of delight to speak. But she was not
yet well enough to talk to him, and his father coming in, led him
down-stairs again, where he began once more to watch the snow, wondering
now if it had anything to do with baby's arrival.

In the afternoon, it was found that the lock of his mother's room not
only would not catch easily, but made a noise that disturbed her. So his
father got a screwdriver and removed it, making as little noise as he
could. Next he contrived a way, with a piece of string, for keeping the
door shut, and as that would not hold it close enough, hung a shawl over
it to keep the draught out--all which proceeding Willie watched. As soon
as he had finished, and the nurse had closed the door behind them, Mr
Macmichael set out to take the lock to the smithy, and allowed Willie to
go with him. By the time they reached it, the snow was an inch deep on
their shoulders, on Willie's cap, and on his father's hat. How red the
glow of the smith's fire looked! It was a great black cavern with a red
heart to it in the midst of whiteness.

The smith was a great powerful man, with bare arms, and blackened face.
When they entered, he and two other men were making the axle of a wheel.
They had a great lump of red-hot iron on the anvil, and were knocking a
big hole through it--not boring it, but knocking it through with a big
punch. One of the men, with a pair of tongs-like pincers, held the punch
steady in the hole, while the other two struck the head of it with
alternate blows of mighty hammers called sledges, each of which it took
the strength of two brawny arms to heave high above the head with a
great round swing over the shoulder, that it might come down with right
good force, and drive the punch through the glowing iron, which was,
I should judge, four inches thick. All this Willie thought he could
understand, for he knew that fire made the hardest metal soft; but what
he couldn't at all understand was this: every now and then they stopped
heaving their mighty sledges, the third man took the punch out of the
hole, and the smith himself, whose name was Willet (and _will it_ he did
with a vengeance, when he had anything on the anvil before him), caught
up his tongs in his hand, then picked up a little bit of black coal with
the tongs, and dropped it into the hole where the punch had been, where
it took fire immediately and blazed up. Then in went the punch again,