Half-Hours with Mercury and Vulcan 



from out the flaming forge; fast and 

 hard and true the hammer falls, and 

 the ringing of that anvil beneath his 

 heavy blows is still as music to my 

 ears. The boy who knows not such a 

 picture has missed something. 



Vulcan himself could have meant no 

 more to the ancients than did this 

 wonder-worker of the old-time black- 

 smith shop to the simple-hearted 

 country folk he served so long, so 

 honestly, so faithfully. It wasn't much 

 of a place to look at — this busy little 

 shop of which I speak — just a one- 

 story frame affair with great wide 

 doors, dirt floor; the rafters, walls and 

 corners -stored with the crude shapes of 

 iron from which the dear old smithy 

 wrought metallic marvels! It would 

 cut but a sorry figure, to be sure, along- 

 side a great modern forging plant such 

 as that our good friend Ingalls operates 

 now by day and night. And I have 

 since seen big batteries of Bessemer 

 blast and open-hearth furnaces dis- 



[39l 



