Part 13 (1/2)

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 from his broad, smooth forehead and his mild blue eyes were bright behind an especially s.h.i.+ny pair of steel-bowed spectacles. He looked more like some old-fas.h.i.+oned college professor than he did like a smith.

The old gunsmith had that pride of humility which is about the best pride in this world. He was perfectly at home at the Scotch Preacher's hearth. Indeed, he radiated a sort of beaming good will; he had a native desire to make everything pleasant. I did not realize before what a fund of humour the old man had. The Scotch Preacher rallied him on the number of houses he now owns, and suggested that he ought to get a wife to keep at least one of them for him. Carlstrom looked around with a twinkle in his eye.

”When I was a poor man,” he said, ”and carried boxes from Ketch.e.l.l's store to help build my first shop, I used to wish I had a wheelbarrow.

Now I have four. When I had no house to keep my family in, I used to wish that I had one. Now I have four. I have thought sometimes I would like a wife--but I have not dared to wish for one.”

The old gunsmith laughed noiselessly, and then from habit, I suppose, began to hum as he does in his shop--stopping instantly, however, when he realized what he was doing.

During the evening the Scotch Preacher got me to one side and said:

”David, we can't let the old man go.”

”No, sir,” I said, ”we can't.”

”All he needs, Davy, is cheering up. It's a cold world sometimes to the old.”

I suppose the Scotch Preacher was saying the same thing to all the other men of the company.

When we were preparing to go, Dr. McAlway turned to Carlstrom and said:

”How is it, Carlstrom, that you have come to hold such a place in this community? How is it that you have got ahead so rapidly?”

The old man leaned forward, beaming through his spectacles, and said eagerly:

”It ist America; it ist America.”

”No, Carlstrom, no--it is not all America. It is Carlstrom, too. You work, Carlstrom, and you save.”

Every day since Wednesday there has been a steady pressure on Carlstrom; not so much said in words, but people stopping in at the shop and pa.s.sing a good word. But up to Monday morning the gunsmith went forward steadily with his preparations to leave. On Sunday I saw the Scotch Preacher and found him perplexed as to what to do. I don't know yet positively, that he had a hand in it, though I suspect it, but on Monday afternoon Charles Baxter went by my house on his way to town with a broken saw in his buggy. Such is the perversity of rival artists that I don't think Charles Baxter had ever been to Carlstrom with any work. But this morning when I went to town and stopped at Carlstrom's shop I found the gunsmith humming louder than ever.

”Well, Carlstrom, when are we to say good-by?” I asked.

”I'm not going,” he said, and taking me by the sleeve he led me over to his bench and showed me a saw he had mended. Now, a broken saw is one of the high tests of the genius of the mender. To put the pieces together so that the blade will be perfectly smooth, so that the teeth match accurately, is an art which few workmen of to-day would even attempt.

”Charles Baxter brought it in,” answered the old gunsmith, unable to conceal his delight. ”He thought I couldn't mend it!”

To the true artist there is nothing to equal the approbation of a rival.

It was Charles Baxter, I am convinced, who was the deciding factor.