rom
his broad, smooth forehead and his mild blue eyes were bright behind an
especially shiny pair of steel-bowed spectacles. He looked more like
some old-fashioned 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 Ketchell'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
passing 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