In the beginning I wasn't much troubled by the
human kind. They dug in the mountains and picked up a little ore down
here by the rapids. They had a forge and a furnace, but the hammer
sounded only a few hours each day, and the furnace was not fired more
than two moons at a stretch.
"But these last years, since they have built this noise-shop, there is
racket day and night. I thought I should have to move away, but now I
have discovered a better way."
Father Bear took Nils up again and lumbered down the hill. He walked
fearlessly between the workshops, and climbed to the top of a slag
heap. There he sat up on his haunches and held the boy up high between
his paws.
"Try to look into the shop," he said.
The boy saw a workman take a short, thick bar of iron at white heat
from a furnace opening, and place it under a roller that flattened and
extended it. Immediately another workman seized it and placed it
beneath a heavier roller. Thus it was passed from roller to roller
until, finally, it curled along the floor like a long red thread.
Continuously fresh threads followed it like hissing snakes.
"I call that real man's work!" the boy said to himself.
Father Bear then let him have a peep at the forge, and he became more
and more astonished as he saw how the blacksmiths handled iron and
fire.
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