The following is a story Mr. Higgins wrote and read for the year-end assembly last week.
Note: We’ve had the Mettle Shop meeting for our young men, and the theme for the upcoming TEC youth retreat this summer is “Forged.” So to complement those, and to try to put into story form the point from the first assembly of the year on doing hard things and being more than feather-lifters, here goes.
It was early one June morning as seven potential apprentices stood in the sun waiting for the blacksmith to come outside.
The master blacksmith’s name was Tubal. He was an old man with tanned skin, a bushy beard, and arms that bulged with little mountains of muscles. Men said his family had been at the anvil since the beginning, and he had forgotten more about steel than most men ever learn. When he came out this particular morning he seemed more focused than normal, and maybe a bit more grumpy.
In front of him were seven bars of raw iron. All of them were thick and ugly as if they’d been left outside in tall grass for months. They looked like things you’d step over not pick up on purpose. Tubal gave one to each boy and said the same sentence seven times: “By the first frost, bring me a blade you would stake your life on. For winter is real, and so are the wolves.” Then he turned around and began his own chores.
The boys groaned. They had seen enough of Tubal’s work to know that this was not an easy assignment. It meant feeding a fire until your face baked. It meant hammering the same stupid bar a thousand times. To make a blade from raw iron in particular requires heating and beating and folding, again and again for weeks, then grinding and sharpening before it could be counted on to keep its purpose.
But it was summer. There was a lake only a quarter mile away. And the lake didn’t require a single swing of a hammer.
While they were talking about their options, a traveling salesman rode into the yard, his cart rattling behind him. On the side of the cart hung a sign that read: CINCH BLADES – ALL THE SHARP, NONE OF THE SWEAT.
The peddler hopped off his horse and said, “Young men, my name is Mr. Cinch. I see a look on your faces that I can fix. I happened to overhear the old man talking to you. Why ruin your whole summer for one little sword? I have the materials and mold to pour you a better looking blade and be done in 10 minutes. No hot afternoons required. Just look at this.” He held up his display sword, and the sun’s reflection seemed to gleam straight into their eyes.
Six of the seven made what seemed to be the obvious choice. “The water’s calling my name,” said Jake. “Yeah, us too,” said a couple others. They bought poured blades, each made in about ten minutes as the salesman had said. By lunchtime they were down at the lake with their swords leaning against a nearby tree. Their iron bars were back in a pile behind Tubal’s shed.
Only one boy had hesitated. He turned the ugly bar around in his hands a couple times, then decided not to buy. His name was Cole.
Cole wasn’t the strongest or the smartest of the bunch, but he kept thinking about Tubal’s words, “a blade you would stake your life on.” He had a hard time believing that you could buy a blade like that for cheap. So the next morning while the other boys slept in before spending another day at the lake, Cole knocked on the blacksmith’s door and asked the master to teach him.
Tubal agreed. He showed Cole how to pile the coals and read the color of the fire. He showed him how to hold the tongs in one hand, how to hit the right way with the hammer with the other hand. There was only one thing that Tubal would not do. He would not swing the hammer for his student.
“I can show you how,” Tubal said, “but I cannot give you the arm. That strength only comes one way, and slowly.”
In the early summer the work was as miserable as Cole had imagined. Sparks singed his arms. The hammer seemed to gain weight as the days went by. His hits were often off target, only good for producing blisters. He pounded for hours. He sweat and sweat. The blade mostly just looked the same, and he wondered if he should quit. One day Mr. Cinch rode through town again, saw Cole’s face over the fire, and said, “There’s still time to save a lot of summer, son.”
Tubal stepped between them. “It is supposed to take time,” said the blacksmith. “A good blade is not poured, it is forged. There are stages, they can’t be skipped or rushed any more than you can rush a tree into fruit. Strike while the iron is hot, and when it gets cold, heat it up and strike it again.”
Cole kept after it, week by week. He learned. He heated, he hammered, he heated again, and hammered again. Each time he folded the blade he could remove a little more dirt and dross. The blade was taking shape. Another thing also happened. Cole’s blisters became calluses and his skinny arm took on strength. The work was working on the metal and the smith. Iron sharpened iron.
The other boys at the lake played and joked. Jake made sure to laugh at the soot on Cole’s face. Cole kept thinking, “Strike while the iron is hot.”
A few months later the leaves turned color and the mornings turned cold. Frost regularly covered the field. And one day three wolves came out from the woods, hungry.
The boys ran and got their swords. The first wolf leapt. Steel met fang, and the poured blade snapped in two. Then Jake swung; his sword shattered against the second wolf’s shoulder. Two of the boys started to scream, and run. Cole stepped forward in front of Jake, his hammer-marked sword in his now strong arm. The wolf lunged. Cole was staking his life on his summer. He said to himself, “Strike while the iron is hot.” His blade hit, and held.
Tubal watched the whole thing from his doorway. When the last wolf lay still, the old blacksmith walked toward Cole and gave the smallest nod. “Now,” he said, taking the blade from Cole’s hand, “we sharpen it.” The very next morning, while Mr. Cinch was miles away, six unformed bars were gone from behind the shed, and Tubal was showing six eager boys how to work the fire.
You are not blacksmiths, and you won’t meet wolves in the parking lot. But winter and wolves are real, though yours won’t have fur. Remember, raggants aren’t feather-lifters. The fire is not your enemy, and the hammer is not a punishment. You are being forged. Bring back a blade.
