304 A Walk from 



pot, and Paternoster Eow a psalm-book, each in the 

 generative case. How we young reapers used to 

 discuss the comparative merits and meanings of those 

 mysterious letters on our sickles, BY and IR ! What 

 were they ? Were they beginnings of words, or whole 

 words themselves ? Did they stand for things, quali- 

 ties, or persons ? " Mine is a By sickle ; mine is an Ir 

 one. Mine is the best," says the last, " for it has the 

 finest teeth and the best curve." That was our boys' 

 talk in walking through the rye, with bent backs and 

 red faces, a little behind our fathers ; who cut a wider 

 work to enable us to keep near them. 



In what blacksmith shop or hardware house in 

 America does not Sheffield show its face and faculties ? 

 Did any American, knowing the difference between 

 cast-iron and cast-steel, ever miss the sight of Naylor 

 and Sanderson's yellow labels in his travels ? How 

 many millions of acres of primeval forest have the 

 axes edged with their fine steel cut through, and given 

 to the plough ! Fashion has its Iron Age as well as 

 its Grolden ; and, what is more remarkable, the first of 

 the two has come last, in the fitful histories of custom. 

 And this last freak of feminine taste has brought a 

 wonderful grist of additional business to the Sheffield 

 mill. The fair Eugenie has done a good thing for this 

 smoky town, well deserving of a monument of bur- 



