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Show I firlvo this anvil. (Fourth of July is not so far vanished that stories stor-ies of the day may not be pertinent, if only one his xtin i nousfh of tlum to fix tin thanking m thods of the d i in tin mind of tin leader We didn t hae fire cankers whn 1 was u I l)o tliHu is not in numlicis th it one of mv bos would have consldcnd vvoi tli whih Tluv cost ? money, and bai k in vvai time and for vears there- alter theie was moie interest in getting enough to j eat, and paving off the mortgage on thi farm than in burning up good cash in gunpovvdt r ., .id et I wanted them. One Fourth of July I went to town with my big brother, and saw n boy put a wlMle bunch of fire crackers under a pan, fir-ing fir-ing the millionaire measure of them while he stood by with the appearance of being totally un- inteiested I would have given on eyo for "plenty" of Fourth of July fiiewoiks. And yet the Fouilh was the one biggest day of the year Not evon Clulstmas so stands out in J my memory of childhood. Long before dawn, 1 early as that must be in July, I was awakened by tl the noise of anvil firing You young people never II saw an anvil fired? Well, this way: The coun-W coun-W tiy blacksmith ho has vanished now eariied f onp anvil out of his shop, and stood it secuioly on ' v solid ground. On its face he laid a curved bit of i h'ajf-ineh iron lod curved till It made a letter ''C." In ihat almost completed ring he 'pouted p'owder till the space was filled, tind on it set , m tfrrdthor anvil. Then ltd heated 'one end of a long iron rod -white Iiot in his forgo fire, and thrust i t y."- thaf livid vto;ch 'between the anvils. Some scat-' L'h tP1 grains" of powder alvVays touched it, how- ', ' ever trembling the hand of the venturesome blnek- fmlth, and the detonation of that explosion would tyfake the echoes many miles nwav. The upper ' ,.'nvil would rise sometimes forty leet In the nlr, r 1&cendlngin- a course" determined by -its angle at firing, and the depth of the powder in different portions of the inclosing ring. On mornings when the atmospheric conditions were right the sound of anvil filing could be heard twelve miles, and we could name the firer by the direction of the booming. Dangerous? Oh, yes. That is why they did it. But I never heard an anvil fired after the beginning begin-ning of the Civil Wai That seemed to provide an outlet for the mock spirit w'i eh demanded mock artlllerv, sime there was no noise in a time of peace. Adam Zoller had a furge at Twin Lakes, and the nnise of his patriotic greeting on July Fourth, and the stories of the height to which his anvil flew formed part of the things to be remembered remem-bered "They said" he would stand eight f t et from his anvils when he thiust In the white hot iron, and would watch with amazing unconcern the arc that lising and falling mass of metal. I saw Kim one time, when father went to the forge to get our new spring wagon, and the plctuie of him strong, forceful too strong and forceful for a peaceful occupation comes back to mc todtcy as the "sane Fouith of 1913 dilfts to its place with nearly thrte-rore of Its brothers Ho enlist d in an int mtry regiment when the vvai bioke out and got transferred to i batter While the troops lay befoie Mc ksburg He was mad for the noise, the shock and the smell of the cannon. He could not get enough of that work which shook the voiy souls of other men. Ho revelled In the awful clamor of It. It seemed the tardy expiession of his est, foi force unleashed and measureless roverbeintions. And I saw him after Vlcksbuig fell, foi he came homo when good artillerymen such as he had been were voy much needed. He sat In a chaii in the plain farm wagon with which he had come to town from the Forge snt there alone while the neighbor neigh-bor boys who hi ought him. faivd Indlffeienl up and down tho street. It was stimmeitime, but he had a fadod shawl about his shoulders. The big frame of him was shrunken and thin, and he stooped as he sat so still in tho splint-bottomed chain The eagle eyea wore dim and sunken. Tho countenance counten-ance had lost all vestige of that force which had Impressed my boyish fancy. And ho was deaf quite deaf. " Tho dbelorsr said "his -ftdivos wore shattered; 'tllat he -had served njs" gim UVd Hays' ahd 'nights" without with-out hearing an ordor, and had collapsed at the hour of tho enemy's: surrender. I wonder If ho knew. J wonder If even the memory of his part In that eaily battle, that strange bombaidment. had gone from him forever. ThereMsn't any moral, i ibre as hi' the picture. - But never a l"cui tli of July comes round but T H remember the vanished an 11-fltlnK, and think & , H the blacksmith at the Forge H |