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Hands Upon The Anvil

By Sara Powter

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Chapter 1 The Blacksmith
“Sonny, quick, under the table!”
Eddie scurried under the workbench, not questioning why.
Lieutenant Simmons stomped in, slamming the door open.
Eddie, in safety under the filthy workbench, shivered and held his breath. He was scared that he might bump a hammer or the set of tongs that he was kneeling on and give away his hiding place. He stayed still, relieved that Mr Tindale had seen the soldier coming.
Lieutenant Simmons loudly asked, “Where’s that little rascal Eddie?”
Mr Tindale said to Lieutenant Simmons, “Eddie hasn’t turned up to work this morning so I don’t know where he is. I’m busy.” He kept beating the horseshoe he was making.
Lieutenant Simmons grew red. His anger was visible.
Mr Tindale’s shoe tapped Eddie on the knee, just motioning that he would keep him safe. He kept belting the red-hot horseshoe. Making a lot more noise than usual. The heat of the building was overpowering.
Lieutenant Simmons turned on his heel and walked out once again, banging the side door.
“Cor blimey, that was a close one,” said Eddie as he slid out from under the workbench, brushing off the soot that covered the room. “He’s on the warpath this morning, Mr Tindale. I don’t like that Lieutenant Simmons. I saw my brover Charlie crying this morning. He does like the young boys he does; at least, he likes them to belt up som’fin. If my dad knew what it was like, I reckon he’d fair thump him, ’n that would be bad ‘cause, me Dar were a convict he were, and even though he runs a local pub and is the keeper of the stores, I reckon he’d still get into big trouble. So I’ll just keep me mummer shut and keep trying to hide.”
Mr Tindale said, “Okay, Eddie, but back onto the bellows, I need this metal hot, and you know what that means, hard, hot work I don’t pay you to sit. I’ll not be telling your father, but son, Charlie should.”
“Yes, sir, sorry, sir.” Ed jumped to grab the top arm of the bellows and started pumping.
Mr Tindale was the blacksmith in the town of Parramatta. He was hard-working and well-liked. He took Eddie on as an apprentice even though the child was aged just six and was very small. Now, he was ten years old, a good worker, and was good at the bits he could do. He took pride in his work. He liked him as soon as he came in looking for work. He could see he had good strength for his age; he’d need that to be a blacksmith. Mr Tindale couldn’t do both the bellows and the smithing, it took a lot of stress off Mr Tindale, so he said yes and gave him a job. He had to tie a rope on the top bellows handle so the lad could work them. He was just able to reach it these days.
Eddie arrived promptly in the mornings as soon as all his chores were done. He had to muck out the stables at the “The Jolly Sailor Inn” that his Mama and Dar ran. It was a good job; he was used to holding and talking to the horses. Even on cold mornings, he had companions. The horses knew him as he’d been doing it for two years; working hard was nothing new in the colony; every child had to pull their weight. Eddie was no exception.
He was the second son. His older brother Charlie was always in trouble with the Lieutenant, but this morning he saw Charlie coming out of Lieutenant Simmons's rooms early, too early – and that wasn’t a good sign. “I don’t think that Dar can help but know now,” Charlie said to Mr Tindale.
“One day, there will be strife to pay,” said Eddie.
Eddie jumped up and started pumping those bellows. The room started getting very hot as the fire flared. Mr Tindale put the callipers in the fire with the new horseshoe on it. It proceeded to go bright red. He left it in for a time until you could see the little sparks coming up off the top of the metal, then pulled it out again and started forming a new horseshoe. He was so skilled he could make them fast.
Eddie couldn’t wait until he was old enough to be able to lift the big hammer. He was keen, and he could work the small hammer in record time; the big hammer, however, was just too heavy for his small hands. With a little hammer, Eddie could make nails; he was doing quite well and with passion. He was able to do these really quickly and get them to an excellent sharp point. This was good because many houses were being built, so the demand for nails was growing, not to mention the horseshoe nails and roof shingle nails. Who knew that there were so many sorts of nails? Each had a different shape. Eddie being able to do this meant that Mr Tindale was able to keep working on the more essential things like coach springs, tools, lamp hooks, and all the bits that go with horse harnesses; they were fiddly, and Eddie couldn’t manage those.
Mr Tindale had realised that Eddie was also a very quick learner and thought about the possibility of sending him to school.
Major Grace had approached him last week and had sown the seed. He was still getting his mind around things. He knew that Eddie could already read, as he’d been going along to the Charity School in Parramatta, run by Rev Marsden’s daughter.
He heard about a new school starting up in Sydney, the Cape Academy, although that meant Eddie would have to live-in during the week. Ed had friends like Timmy Miller and some other Parramatta boys who were also going, and he was sure he could work out a bed for the lad.
Tim was another young lad that lived locally, possibly going as well. He’d won some scholarship. Timmy Miller’s parents ran one of the other local Inns, a better quality one too, and he was a friend of Eddie’s. They could share a room with his nephews, his sister Caroline Evans’ three sons. Eddie, Tim, and Caro’s boys were of much the same age and should get on well together. Education would be good for them; they would need it in their lives far more than their own parents ever would. It would also keep Ed out of Simmons's way. Possibilities would open up for them. He wasn’t sure what Mr Cape would be teaching, but he’d do what he could to get Eddie out of the situation he was in. Life in this new world was very different from England. Possibilities here were open to all, regardless of birth. So unlike the old country, where you were born into one class and had no hope of getting out of it. “Let’s see what time will do to these boys,” mused Mr Tindale.
Pumping the bellows gave Eddie time to think. It was easy to work; it was hot but easy. He wondered if he’d like to be a blacksmith all his life. He kept running through job ideas. “It could be worse jobs, don’t think I’d like to work with dead people, so I was pleased that dad didn’t let me work for the undertaker.” He’d found this job for himself four years before. “No! I think life as a blacksmith would be good. Hard work but good work.”
It was a dark room, other than the fire, and there was a bit of light coming in the window, but the slab-built blacksmiths’ shack with the big stone fireplace and the shingle roof was not what you’d call homely.
Mr Tindale and his wife lived in the house at the back. She was a jolly person that made the best of everything around, and she made the best-ever biscuits.
Eddie and Timmy would often be seen at the door when she’d been cooking them, and Mrs Tindale being a sympathetic person who loved children, always gave them one each and sometimes one for George, another friend in town and of course Charlie too. Eddie was the eldest of the three boys, and he looked out for the two smaller ones.
Mrs Tindale sweetened them with the juice of fruit from a tree in her yard and honey. This tree had lots and lots of pink berries on it; they tasted like apples but with a seed inside, but you had to eat a lot of them to feel full.
She told Eddie they were called Lilli Pillies. She took the seeds out and put the pulp in the biscuits and then she added some honey from one of the local bee hives.
Eddie was also able to watch Mrs Tindale grind the barley and oats to make flour.
Eddie had never seen someone doing that before because Mama always had bags of flour from the stores, but she had more people to feed at the pub with all the coaches and travellers stopping. Being the keeper of the stores meant that Mama and Dar could always get what they needed. Dar and Charlie would help unload the ships coming up from Sydney and put them in the old stone storeroom; there were bags of flour; there was rum; there was salt meat in drums, and sometimes there were even eggs. The outlying farms often sent in more grain; there were live chickens, cows, sheep, and goats, and these often were only kept overnight as they were usually orders for people. Twice a week, there was milk, butter and rum, and this had to be stored in the underground basement of the Stores building so that it wouldn’t go off or the rum stolen. The cold storeroom was built under the inn like a cellar, and only Dar had the key.
Eddie didn’t like rum; he’d seen what it did to people who had too much to drink and then got drunk and started belting each other up. Living in a pub, he’d seen people like this all his life. His short life had been an adventure already. He’d seen the soldiers, most nice, but some cruel; he’d seen the carriages; he’d seen the convicts in the chain gangs; some of them were really scary, but he stayed clear of them. Dar explained that they were mostly the very worst kind.
Eddie was pleased when the day was done. He counted up the nails; he’d made six different sorts and a box of each. He was pleased, as was Mr Tindale.
“Eddie, you’ve done so well you can go home early. Take some of those little nails for your Mama. They are good to put things up on the walls, you know, notices and the like,” said Mr Tindale.
Eddie packed up and was heading out the door when Mr Tindale said, “Hey Eddie, send your Dar in to talk to me some time; I have something I would like to talk to him about.”
Eddie called a cheerful, “Okay, Mr Tindale, and thanks for looking after me this morning.” He headed home. Eddie got to thinking as he walked out the door. “I wonder what Mr Tindale could want with Dar?” And he gave a shrug.
Eddie took a quick detour past Mrs Tindale’s door in case she had any more biscuits. Sure enough, she had. She handed Eddie a couple of biscuits in the cloth and said one was for Timmy and one for Charlie. Timmy was working as a stablehand/groom after school at Dar’s inn and often came to the blacksmith to get new horseshoes made.
Both Charlie and Eddie knew Timmy very well, he was only eight, and it was a funny little character, hanging around Eddie whenever he could. The boys loved each other and were good mates. They often found a quiet corner in the garden, sat down, ate their biscuits, and talked about the day. Ed would wrap it up for Charlie and stuff it in his shirt if they got a spare one.
After they had finished the biscuits, they decided to go for a quick swim in the river, as both were hot and dirty after a long day at work, that would be good to go to bed smelling clean – not that the Parramatta River was very clean anyhow. It was tidal, sometimes you got a bit sticky from the salt, but that was better than being covered in soot and horse poo.
Soon two wet, dripping little ragamuffins scampered up the banks and headed to their homes. Charlie’s packet was still safely stuffed in Ed’s shirt. He knew there were more chores to be done when they got there.
Timmy had three younger brothers and sisters, and Eddie had five, which meant a lot more work, screaming and noise, that was home, safe and secure, and loved their families.
Timmy’s favourite job was when he was called to hold the horses’ heads when the gentleman arrived to collect someone from the Ferry or collect stores. He got to take the beautiful horses around to the stable to Charlie, and together they would take the saddles off and feed them. Timmy loved this job, he loved horses, he loved people too.
By the time Eddie had arrived home, he had finished dripping, and he raced through the kitchen, greeting his Mama and the two girls that worked there with her, pausing briefly to give his Mama a kiss on the cheek. From there, he ran out to the taproom to find his Dar leaning on the counter and talking to a big bearded gentleman. Without saying a word, he walked up to his Dar and just stood next to him. Without pausing the conversation, Dar looked down and pointed to a stack of glasses that needed washing. Eddie went and got some water from the well and started washing them. He could tell from the number of glasses it’d been a busy day and that Mama and Dar were tired.
Ed wondered how many were staying the night tonight and how many hammocks they’d have to put up in the stable. The rich ones would stay at Tim’s dar’s Inn.
The glasses were done, and he went to find Charlie. He was already in the stable hanging the hammocks and asked how many they had to hang. “I brought you something.” He handed him the parcel from his shirt. It was his way of showing he loved him.
Charlie said, “Twelve Ed, twelve tonight, and the lady inside too, that’s gonna be a crush tonight, Ed. That’s nine of us inside and twelve out tonight. Another big meal; it will be stew and bread again tonight. The lady will have our bed, so we will all be on the floor in front of the fire, but I think that I’d rather be there actually, not quite so cramped,” said Charlie.
Charlie and Eddie kept hanging the hammocks on the big hooks in the stable up in the hayloft.
Eddie said to Charlie, “I saw you crying this morning, but don’t worry, I won’t tell Dar about Lieutenant Simmons. What did he belt you for this time? He’s horrible. He came looking for me too, but Mr Tindale hid me under the workbench, and he left angry. I think he must have seen me as you left.”
Charlie looked up, startled.
“I just wanted you to know that now I know what’s going on, so you’se not alone,” said Eddie. “Tell us, if I cun help in any way, Charlie.”
Charlie bent his head and just said, “Thanks mate, that actually helps. He’d er, um, wanted his boots clean to shining, and I didn’t have time to get them to him last night. So I snuck in early this morning, but he still caught me.” He blushed.
Eddie thought he wasn’t telling the full story.
Charlie and Eddie continued to hang the hammocks. They then restocked the firewood for the brazier, drew the water from the well, and got everything ready for the night.
Eddie finally was able to give Dar the message from Mr Tindale. Later they had to help their Dar move one of the drunk men and get him into a downstairs hammock in the stables. This was often very funny as some men become very silly when they drank too much rum.
The taproom was cleaned and ready for use the next day. The boys rolled out the bedding so the children could sleep on the floor in front of the fire. Charlie and Eddie helped the little ones to bed, crawling in themselves, and they fell fast asleep as soon as they put their heads down.
Snores sounded from the stables, and possums grunted in the trees outside. The fire inside crackled as the six little bodies slept soundly on the floor.

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