This program has been going for six months without previous mention of one\u00a0of the most common and most picturesque of the old time things. It is certainly\u00a0right and proper that we devote a few minutes to the blacksmith shop. So far as\u00a0I am concerned, the word smithy belongs solely in poetry. No Maine Yankee\u00a0would ever refer to the place as a smithy, though most Maine blacksmiths had\u00a0just as large and sinewy arms as did Longfellow’s character who pounded his anvil\u00a0under the spreading chestnut tree.<\/p>\n
In my boyhood village I think the location of the blacksmith shops was unusual.<\/p>\n
Of the five shops in that village, three stood almost side by side, on\u00a0one short street called Depot Street, which ran from the post office to the narrowguage railroad station.<\/p>\n
When those forges were all going at once, when the sparks were flying from\u00a0all three anvils, it was a sight to be remembered. There were not only the sight\u00a0of flying sparks and the sound of hammer on ringing iron; there were also the\u00a0unforgettable smells: the choking stench of soft coal smoke, as the bellows fanned\u00a0the mass into flames about the big tongs holding the horse shoe; the acrid\u00a0odor of iron-tinged steam when the hot shoe was cooled in the big tub of water;\u00a0the nauseating whiff of singeing hoof when shoe was applied to uplifted foot\u00a0of old Dobbin. One spectacular bit of rigging the blacksmith shops of my village\u00a0lacked. They had no ox-sling. But I have seen those clever contrivances.<\/p>\n
The last one I saw was at West Kennebunk more than a quarter of a century ago.\u00a0Does anyone know where today an ox-sling still stands, capable of use?\u00a0Where were Waterville’s old blacksmith shops located? I don’t seem to recall\u00a0them in my college days at the end of the first decade of this century\u00a0probably the reason is that the college boys of my time didn’t sport their\u00a0own horses the way today’s college boys sport their own automobiles. We had\u00a0no occasion to visit a blacksmith shop in the college town.<\/p>\n
But when I returned to Waterville in 1923 at least one of the old blacksmith\u00a0shops was still in use. It stood back of Sel Whitcomb’s house on Western\u00a0Avenue, opposite the Western Avenue School. That was my son’s first\u00a0school, and he still thinks his kindergarten teacher, now Mrs. Francis Bartlett,\u00a0and the principal, Mrs. Laura Hall, were the finest teachers he ever\u00a0had. More than once he was late getting home from school because of the fascination\u00a0of that old blacksmith shop. Where were other Waterville blacksmith\u00a0shops located? Who can tell us?<\/p>\n
Among the old-time things now seldom seen is the hard yarn ball. I don’t\u00a0mean the gaudy colored hunks of soft yarn for babies, but what boys in the\u00a0country half a century ago used for baseballs. Few of us ever owned a genuine\u00a0league baseball in those days. In fact, we never called those insecurable\u00a0treasures “big league balls”. We always named them by their price, and spoke of\u00a0them with awe as “dollar and a quarter balls”.<\/p>\n
Of course a fifty cent baseball would last through an average kids’ game,\u00a0but it was almost as easy to get a dollar and a quarter as it was to get fifty\u00a0cents. And if any lad was lucky enough to receive a fifty cent ball as a present,\u00a0he didn’t relish seeing it banged to pieces in nine innings. As for the\u00a05, 10 and 25 cent balls, they were looked upon with contempt by any accomplished\u00a0player ten years old. They would do to play pass with in the back yard, especially\u00a0if Dad would catch a few of your newly acquired curves after supper, but\u00a0the first time a bat connected with one of those cheap balls, it changed from a\u00a0sphere into a wobbly ovoid.<\/p>\n
So we had recourse to the yarn ball. It had its faults. If carelessly made,\u00a0its yarn would begin to unwind, and a fast throw from shortstop to home plate\u00a0would leave a comet’s tail of long unwinding yarn behind the ball. But an expert\u00a0maker of yarn balls could perfect one that would hold together for a long\u00a0time.<\/p>\n
My grandmother was such an expert. In order to give bounce and action to\u00a0her product, she would begin with a small India rubber ball, about the size of\u00a0a bottle top. Those India rubber balls were common five cent articles in the\u00a0variety stores at the turn of the century. Around that hard rubber grandmother\u00a0would slowly and tightly wind good wo~len yarn. But her best trick was the\u00a0sewing. Most home-made yarn balls were sewn only when the winding was finished.<\/p>\n
Threads were drawn back and forth to keep the yarn from unravelling. But grandmother\u00a0would sew her ball at various stages in the winding process. When she\u00a0had finished, there was a ball to be prized. Unless some batter walloped it an\u00a0unexpected clout, so that it was lost among the willows down by the brook, that\u00a0ball would last all summer. Perhaps in some of the rural parts of Maine yarn\u00a0balls are still used, but I, at least, haven’t seen one for a long time.<\/p>\n
I spent Memorial Day at my favorite spot on the Maine coast, the beautiful\u00a0little village of New Harbor. For me there is no coast spot in Maine quite so\u00a0homey and picturesque as New Harbor’s back cove, with its tiny lobsterman’s\u00a0houses, its drying nets, its piled lobster traps, and its scores of little\u00a0boats anchored in the sheltered cove.<\/p>\n
We had dinner, of course, at Gilbert’s Lobster Pound, a mile away at Pemaquid\u00a0Point. There we had the satisfaction of serving a Colby student his\u00a0first lobster boiled fresh from the water and his very first steamed clams.<\/p>\n
He ate them as if he had been used to them all his life — a brave feat, for\u00a0it takes a real man to swallow his first clam.<\/p>\n
Clam eating in America, so we are told, originated at Duxbury, Massachusetts. Legend says that a daughter of John Alden, Ruth Alden Bass, a Duxbury\u00a0housewife, noticed one day that pigs were busy along the shore rooting up clams\u00a0and eating them. Observing that, instead of hurting the pigs, the clams seemed\u00a0to make them happy, she got up her courage and tried them herself. Finding them\u00a0quite tasty, she served them to the family. Thus ultimately came steamed clams,\u00a0clam chowder, and fritters, though clams on the half shell probably led the way.<\/p>\n
By the way, about the best clam chowder one can find in restaurant service\u00a0these days is regularly served on the Boston and Maine dining cars between Portland and Boston. If you would like the recipe for that clam chowder, you will\u00a0find it in the June issue of Yankee magazine.<\/p>\n
Speaking of that magazine, we want to take this occasion to thank Miss Mary\u00a0Woodman for her article in the June Yankee quoting us at length on the subject\u00a0of Maine dialect speech. She has written a better article about our stuff than\u00a0we could have done ourselves. We are especially grateful to Miss Woodman for\u00a0giving further currency to our unique discovery, “the fog has stems”, and to\u00a0our pet dialect word “smudgeon”.<\/p>\n
We can’t leave Yankee magazine without reference to the unique feature of\u00a0every issue, the Yankee Swappers’ column. Swappers’ advertisements are printed\u00a0free of charge, provided they are genuine swaps. No offers for cash are accepted.<\/p>\n
Here are a few samples:<\/p>\n
“Do you have any pottery-making equipment I could use for a practically\u00a0new ladies’ tennis racquet, press and water-proof cover?”<\/p>\n
“Has an ex-GI any ornaments such as earrings or nose plugs from the South\u00a0Pacific? Will swap auto radio, table radio or other things.”<\/p>\n
“Have brand new, light tan, western saddle and would like to swap for\u00a0portable green house.”<\/p>\n
“Will swap a Stewart guitar in good condition for an accordian.”<\/p>\n
“Will swap wood range with attached oil burner for lawn mower, garden hose\u00a0and reel.”<\/p>\n
Did you ever attend a swappers’ party? They are not very common in Maine,\u00a0but are held frequently in rural New Hampshire and western Massachusetts. Such\u00a0parties were held last month in Alton and Andover, New Hampshire; in Franklin,\u00a0Massachusetts; and in Oak Lawn, Rhode Island. If you will send a stamped, selfaddressed\u00a0envelope to Yankee magazine, Dublin, New Hampshire, they will send you\u00a0a “Swapper Party Leaflet”.<\/p>\n
It is hard to let one of these programs go by without mention of railroads.<\/p>\n
Mindful that two of my neighbors are retired railway mail clerks, let’s have a\u00a0few words tonight about the railroad mail.<\/p>\n
The Railway Mail Service was founded by George Armstrong, assistant postmaster\u00a0at Chicago in 1864. He was not, however, the originator of the plan to\u00a0sort mail on a moving train. W. A. Davis of the St. Joseph, Missouri post office,\u00a0thought of that idea, and was given permission to try it out in 1862. It was Armstrong,\u00a0however, who worked out the plan for general adoption. Abraham Lincoln’s\u00a0friend, Montgomery Blair, was Postmaster General. He was a man of vision, eager\u00a0to try new devices to speed up mail service in the fast growing country. The nation\u00a0was at war; the mail load was increasing rapidly, and demands for speedier\u00a0delivery were urgent.<\/p>\n
Using drawings supplied by Armstrong, the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad\u00a0converted half a dozen old cars into the first railway mail cars. The trial on\u00a0the C & NW was so successful that Armstrong was made special agent of the Post\u00a0Office Department for Railway Mail Service, and told to put his plan into general\u00a0operation on all railroads that would accept it \u2022. His second mail-sorting run was\u00a0between New York and Washington. The mid-western roads were quick to follow, but\u00a0in the East, Armstrong met rugged opposition. The postmasters at Boston and Philadelphia thought that sorting mail on the trains would somehow reduce the importance\u00a0of their terminal offices. But by 1868 New England and other parts of\u00a0the cautious East were glad to have the new service until 1869 when Armstrong\u00a0became the first general superintendent of the Railway Mail Service,\u00a0there had been no uniform system. Each division, and often each mail clerk,\u00a0had its own method of sorting and distributing mail. Armstrong divided\u00a0the country into six divisions, put a man in charge of each, and worked out\u00a0an orderly system.<\/p>\n
Long before President Cleveland organized the Civil Service, with its employment\u00a0and promotion on merit, Armstrong and his successor, George Bangs,\u00a0launched the merit system on the railway mail. Believing that no change in the\u00a0national administration should affect these trained and specialized employees,\u00a0they made promotions from the ranks, and could not be bullied into employing political\u00a0job seekers.<\/p>\n
When we receive our daily mail, we may well remember that one reason why\u00a0we get it so promptly and so regularly is not merely because of the loyalty and\u00a0efficiency of our own letter carrier and the men back in the local post office,\u00a0but also because of the expert handling by the men who ride the trains. Even\u00a0airmail has not displaced these men. The magic of the moving train still lures\u00a0plenty of young men to fill the places of those Who, like Charles Crosby and\u00a0Hersey Keene, have gone into well deserved retirement.<\/p>\n
Every good. Irishman knows why there are no snakes in Ireland. Of course\u00a0St. Patrick drove them out some 1,500 years ago. The Irish danders are sure to\u00a0rise at the recent scientific explanation advanced by a Yale biologist, Professor\u00a0Edward S. Deevey. Not only is Deevey himself of Irish descent, but Time\u00a0magazine says he is even red-headed. Here is Deevey’s explanation of why there are no snakes in Ireland.<\/p>\n
Once both Great Britain and Ireland were parts of the European mainland.<\/p>\n
When what geologists call the fourth glacial period buried northern Europe as\u00a0well as North America under billions of tons of ice, animal life either perished\u00a0or escaped southward before the advancing ice sheet.<\/p>\n
When that glacial period drew to an end and the ice gradually melted, the\u00a0sea rose, leaving Great Britain and Ireland as islands now cut off from the\u00a0mainland of Europe. Before the rising sea had entirely severed the land bridge,\u00a0fast moving little animals — mice, rats, squirrels and the like — came galloping\u00a0across from Europe to Ireland. But the snakes were slow movers. Before the\u00a0rising water had cut the land connections, these crawling reptiles had come only\u00a0as far as England; they never got the rest of the way to Ireland. And all good\u00a0Irishmen will doubtless argue that is as far as the snakes deserved to get.<\/p>\n
Year: 1949<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #30, broadcast on June 5, 1949<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[741,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7038"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}