The next day, the
farmer-host, without help, shucked the ears that were left upon his
corn-crib floor.
Alvin with the mountainsides as his playground grew sturdy and resolute.
He had been put to work by his father when first old enough to hold a
hoe, to help about the house, pack water and bring in wood. The sparks
that bounced from the anvil in the shadow of the cave fascinated him and
he hung around the blacksmith's shop and learned to blow the bellows for
his father and keep the fire hot. He soon grew large enough to swing the
sledge, and he turned the shoes and made them ready. All of this wrapped
hard muscles over a body that was unusually large for his age. His
companions began to call him "The Big-un" and the by-name still clings
to him. This, together with a calmness and an unmatched reserve, gave
him the prestige of leader among his boy associates. At the age of
fifteen he swung the sledge with either hand and was a man's match in
wrestling bouts. One of his neighbors gave this view of him:
"Alvin wuz a quiet, straight-going boy. When he started to shoe a mule
he always did hit no matter how troublesome the mule. He wuz so quiet
about what he wuz doing that we never noticed much o' that side of his
character before he went away. But now we see hit."
In a season of prosperity William York moved from the cave and built a
blacksmith's shop beside the road where it forks, where one of the forks
turns down the middle of the spring-branch bed, on its way to the mill
and to Byrdstown.
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