imself beside the glowing forge. His father, a good-natured
Cyclops--hairy and blackened--walked back and forth, turning over the
irons, picking up files, giving orders to his assistants with loud
shouts, in order to be heard in the din of the hammering. Two sturdy
fellows, stripped to the waist, swung their arms, panting over the
anvil, and the iron--now red, now golden--leaped in bright showers,
scattered in crackling sprays, peopling the black atmosphere of the shop
with a swarm of fiery flies that died away in the soot of the corners.

"Take care, little one!" said the father, protecting his delicate
curly-haired head with one of his great hands.

The little fellow felt attracted by the colors of the glowing iron, till
with the thoughtlessness of childhood he sometimes tried to pick up the
fragments that glowed on the ground like fallen stars.

His father would push him out of the shop, and outside the door--black
with soot--Mariano could see stretching out below him in the flood of
sunlight the fields with their red soil cut into geometric figures by
stone walls; at the bottom the valley with groups of poplars bordering
the winding, crystal stream, and before him the mountains, covered to
the very tops with dark pine woods. The shop was in the suburbs of a
town and from it and the villages of the valley came the jobs that
supported the blacksmith--new axles for carts, plowshares, scythes,
shovels, and pitchforks in need of repair.

The incessant pounding of the hammers seemed to stir up the little
fellow, inspiring him with a fever of activity, tearing him from his
childish amusements. When he was eight years old, he used to seize the
rope of the bellows and pull it, delighting in the shower of sparks that
the current of air drove out of the lighted coals. The Cyclops was
gratified at the strength of his son, robust and vigorous like all the
men of his family, with a pair of fists that inspired a wholesome
respect in all the village lads. He was one of his own blood. From his
poor mother, weak and sickly, he inherited only his propensity toward
silence and isolation that sometimes, when the fever of activity died
out in him, kept him for hours at a time watching the fields, the sky or
the brooks that came tumbling down over the pebbles to join the stream
at the bottom of the valley.

The boy hated school, showing a holy horror of letters. His strong hands
shook with uncertainty when he tried to write a word. On