Excerpt from The Argosy, Vol. 47: January to June, 1889 IT was a May-day and the Wind was not in the east. The little wind there was blew softly and gently from the south, and down in the valley the weather was warm and genial. Some people might have found it too warm inside the smithy, at three O'clock in the afternoon, to be pleasant. Nevertheless, Reuben Foreman, as he stood at his anvil wielding mightily his heavy sledge with movement slow and rhythmical, was subject to several interrup tions before the hooter Of a neighbouring cloth mill announced that it was six O'clock and the day's work at an end. And as not everyone in Woodford was either so busy or so industrious as the blacksmith, several of his visitors lingered to gossip as long as he bore with them, in spite of the heat. But Reuben took such contingencies into consideration, and in ar ranging his programme Of work for the day, left a margin wide enough to cover all the horses he would be called upon to shoe, and the fools he would be in duty bound to converse with. For the horses had hoofs to be shod, and the fools had souls to be saved; and Reuben, in his own Opinion and in that of his neighbours, was clever in both these occupations, widely different as they were, though occasionally both were performed at the same moment. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.