was wont to hammer
the tough iron on his anvil; but he did it kindly. He was not a
growly-wowly, cross-grained man, like some fathers we know of--not he.
His broad, hairy face was like a sun, and his eyes darted sunbeams
wherever they turned. The faces of his five sons were just like his
own, except in regard to roughness and hair. Tom, and Dick, and Harry,
and Bob, and Jim, were their names. Jim was the baby. Their ages were
equally separated. If you began with Jim, who was three, you had only
to say--four, five, six, seven--Tom being seven.

These five boys were broad, and sturdy, like their father. Like him,
also, they were fond of noise and hammering. They hammered the
furniture of their father's cottage, until all of it that was weak was
smashed, and all that was strong became dreadfully dinted. They also
hammered each other's noses with their little fat fists, at times, but
they soon grew too old and wise for that; they soon, also, left off
hammering the heads of their sister's dolls, which was a favourite
amusement in their earlier days.

The mention of dolls brings us to the sister. She was like her mother--
little, soft, fair, and sweet-voiced; just as unlike her brothers in
appearance as possible--except that she had their bright blue, blazing
eyes. Her age was eight years.

It was, truly, a sight to behold this family sit down to supper of an
evening. The blacksmith would come in and seize little Jim in his
brawny arms, and toss him up to the very beams of the ceiling, after
which he would take little Molly on his knee, and fondle her, while "Old
Moll," as he sometimes called his wife, spread the cloth and loaded the
table with good things.

A cat, a kitten, and a terrier, lived together in that smith's cottage
on friendly terms. They romped with each other, and with the five boys,
so that the noise used sometimes to be tremendous; but it was not an
unpleasant noise, because there were no sounds of discontent or
quarrelling in it. You see, the blacksmith and his wife trained that
family well. It is wonderful what an amount of noise one can stand when
it is good-humoured noise.

Well, this blacksmith had a favourite maxim, which he was fond of
impressing on his children. It was this--"Whatever your hand finds to
do, do it with all your might, doing it as if to the Lord, and not to
men." We need hardly say that he found something like this maxim in the
Bible--a grand channel through whic