"I can learn much more from the books in your library and from the dogs and horses than I can at school, besides being a thousand times happier; and oh, Dad, if you will let me have a forge and workshop, I will make no end of things."
This was a new idea to me, and I looked into it with some interest. I knew that Jane was deft with her fingers, but I did not know that she had a special wish to cultivate this deftness or to put it to practical use.
"What can you do with a forge?" said I. "You can't shoe the horses or sharpen the ploughs. Can you make nails? They are machine-made now, and you couldn't earn ten cents a week, even at horse-shoe nails."
"I don't want to make nails, Dad; I want to work in copper and brass, and iron, too, but in girl fashion. Mary Town has a forge in Hartford, and I spent lots of Saturdays with her. She says that I am cleverer than she is, but of course she was jollying me, for she makes beautiful things; but I can learn, and it's great fun."
"What kind of things does this young lady make, dear?"
"Lamp-shades, paper-knives, hinges, bag-tops, buckles, and lots of things. She could sell them, too, if she had to. It's like learning a trade, Dad."
"All right, child, you shall have a forge, if you will agree not to burn yourself up. Do you roll up your sleeves and wear a leather apron?"
"Why, of course, just like a blacksmith; only mine will be of soft brown leather and pinked at the edges."
So Jane was to have her forge. We selected a site for it at once in the grove to the east of the house and about 150 yards away, and set the carpenter at work. The shop proved to be a feature of the place, and soon became a favorite resort for old and young for five o'clock teas and small gossiping parties. The house was a shingled cottage, sixteen by thirty-two, divided into two rooms. The first room, sixteen by twenty, was the company room, but it contained a work bench as well as the dainty trappings of a girl's lounging room. In the centre of the wall that separated the rooms was a huge brick chimney, with a fireplace in the front room and a forge bed in the rear room, which was the forge proper.
I suppose I must charge the $460 which this outfit cost to the farm account and pay yearly interest on it, for it is a fixture; but I protest that it is not essential to the construction of a factory farm, and it may be omitted by those who have no daughter Jane.