Tinsmith 1865

by Sara Dahmen

  When I’m halfway across the blade, I sneeze and my eyes tear, which I expect when working with the mix. I don’t dare wipe my hands across my eyes, so I blink hard a few times though the tears keep coming. Shaking my head, I bend back over the sword, fighting another sneeze. The stuff is strong today, but I’d made it so, to make sure it will work.

  As I try to follow the path of the drawing and keep the acid from running, I hear Danny’s voice, low and earnest.

  “Have her clean off her eyes, would you? She can’t see properly.”

  “Got anything clean?” Thaddeus mutters back.

  “Sure. Good thing, too, as you never have anything clean on you.”

  “Still on about that? You know my mother would have noticed I was wearing your shirt.”

  “Still didn’t stop her from taking a switch to both of us. Here.”

  Thaddeus arrives with a handkerchief. I recognize it as one of Danny’s. He taps me on the back.

  “Take a moment and wipe down.”

  “I don’t wish to get acid in my eyes,” I tell him. His face creases slightly, and then, quite kindly, he puts one of his paws on the back of my neck and uses the other to gently brush the tears off my lashes. For a man who hits metal with tremendous zeal, his ministration is soft. I smile at him, and then at Danny, thanking them both with my look before bending down.

  The men are making more racket now that they can see I’m closer to the end of the sword, and I glance up the metal to see how it’s burning. If all goes well, we can cover the other side with more wax and do the rest of the etching tomorrow. I feel restless, as though the idea of tackling the artwork is invigorating, and my chest tightens with excitement. These intense emotions are not like me, especially when it comes to metal work. Perhaps I am overwhelmed by the attention of the townsfolk. I take in deep breaths and try to focus.

  “So the etchin’ is today?” It’s a new voice, but one everyone recognizes, and the crowd shifts. Percival Davies enters the smithy, and my heart lurches like it always does when I see the banker. Everyone clears a way for him as he strolls up, peering at the metal and hitching his fingers in suspenders under the patterned vest.

  “She’s nearly finished,” Thaddeus announces in general, cutting off further inquiries from Mr. Davies.

  “How is she doing?” Mrs. Andersen enters. Her presence is a balm to my ruffled spirit and hushes up a number of the men, who are muttering among themselves of general town gossip, which always includes a few choice cuss words.

  The smell of the acid is making my stomach turn. It’s too close to completion to stop now, but I feel nauseous with worry. I’m still uncertain about how long the acid will need to work, or whether we should go over the steel again with another layer of it. The scent of the mixture burns my throat, and I suppress a hard cough building under the sneezes.

  Once more, Thaddeus carefully wipes my eyes.

  “Thank you,” I tell him breathlessly. My air comes fast and tight, my whole body quivering, as if I’m physically willing the etching to be finished and beautiful.

  Mrs. Andersen makes her way to the counter to get a good view.

  “It’s looking very fine, Marie. All that practice must have helped.”

  I smile briefly up at her, and then bend close to the steel near the end, where the last few inches of the blade escape the wax. I don’t wish to splatter when the raw metal is showing.

  “It will be a very fine piece,” she says, and I want to relax with the arrival of her familiar pattering of congenial chatter, but I must have somehow tied my corsets too tight today, because I truly am struggling to catch my breath.

  “I’m nearly done, I should think,” I say softly, and everyone surges forward, Mrs. Andersen the closest to the counter. I wait for her words of praise, and try to find her face, but a fit of coughing hooks me, and lightheadedness descends.

  The next and last thing I hear is a warning. Danny shouts above the chatter of the other men.

  “Thaddeus! Catch her up!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  16 May 1867

  I wake.

  By the smell of iron and wool and leather, I know I am in the Salomon household. The wavering oval of each face is blurry, but my vision clears quickly and the burning sets in.

  The pain is hard and intense and sharp.

  “What happened?”

  Mrs. Andersen peers over me, her brilliant eyes damp with worry and her forehead lifts in wrinkles. “You fainted, dear one, under the stress of it all.”

  I shake my head and try to sit up, but Danny’s hand is at my shoulder, his long, strong fingers cupping the joint gently so I must lie back down. Thaddeus methodically winds clean rags over my wrist. The other hand is numb.

  “You’ll be needing a new dress,” Mrs. Andersen sighs. “Though your apron caught the brunt of it.” She gestures, and I see the leather across the chair nearby, large holes still eating away at the shape.

  “I fainted?” I repeat, and Danny frames my vision, carefully taking up my free hand and pressing it lightly between his palms. The wrist Thaddeus binds stings fiercely, and I suck in my breath tightly with a hissing whistle.

  “Nearly done,” he mutters.

  “Careful on her,” Danny murmurs.

  “I am!”

  “Like you were with that baby bird you crushed?”

  “We were eight! And Marie’s not fragile.”

  “Boys. Enough.” Walter stands at the foot of the bed, a pipe in his hand and a grim crease in the corners of his mouth where his beard gives way to his lips.

  “It was a close moment, Marya. You could have been blinded. Disfigured at the least of it. The acid was a fool’s idea.”

  He is cross, I realize. Angry he cannot do it himself. Angry at my ineptitude, perhaps. Perhaps even upset with Thaddeus—for the etching idea, and for asking me to do it.

  Blind? I cannot fathom it.

  “It wasn’t the stress of creating the artwork,” I object belatedly, glancing between Mrs. Andersen and Danny and Walter. Danny gives me a small smile. I realize he is quite worried and I try to placate his unspoken fear. “And it was not difficult, really. It was working so well! I can certainly manage the other side.”

  Thaddeus pauses, the hard callouses of his fingers curving into mine. He half turns and gives me a strange, unreadable pierce with his grey eyes.

  “The sword is ruined.”

  The air goes out of me. “How?”

  “When you fainted, you fell forward, Marie,” Danny explains softly. “You knocked the acid over everything. You would have landed directly on the table and burned your face—or worse—had Thaddeus not caught you in time.”

  “Thanks to your warning,” Thaddeus adds, and his voice is heavy. I cannot tell if he is frustrated or shocked, but he finishes the bandages and stands. As he walks toward the fireplace mantel to get a tankard of ale, I see red blisters on the back of his own hand, raw and bright against the old scars.

  Mrs. Andersen stands over me again, offering water anxiously.

  “It’ll be all right,” she soothes, but I’m blasted by guilt. I’ve destroyed the sword! I know how hard and long Thaddeus worked on that blade, and how proud he was of the craftsmanship. Captain Joseph Bush is expecting the finished piece shortly, and now he will be without it for the summer as he’d bragged. He will be outrageously angry.

  Fear spills into me, familiar and sharp. Suppose Thaddeus is disgusted with my ineptitude and tells everyone I’m no good? Will Captain Bush demand a new sword? What of the cost the Salomons must swallow? To make a whole new steel blade will be difficult. I must repay them for their wasted effort. How will I afford it? What if people stop bringing me work because of this failure? I will not be able to afford rent, the loan … My business will die. I will starve …

  How will I face everyone?

  I’ve failed. Publicly, obviously, foolishly so.

  Danny’s hand is still over mine, and he is watching me closely, his eyes soft.
>
  “I want to see it. I want to see what happened,” I tell him.

  “Not now, kjære,” Mrs. Andersen says. “We’ll take a meal, and you get some rest, honning dear.” She heads to the hearth and begins to putter around the cutlery. “You’ll want to sup too, Danny?”

  He hesitates, and I can see he wishes to stay, if only to watch over me. His kindness is sweet and endearing, and I smile wanly at him, understanding his pause. “You must get home?”

  He returns my smile. “Yes. Father is expecting me. But I’ll come and see you soon.”

  With a few quiet words to Thaddeus and Walter, Danny departs, and I feel strangely alone without him, as if he has decidedly become part of my existence. It’s hard to face Thaddeus, and even Walter. Danny would have helped to block their fiery anger.

  “Well, you’ll have to let it be for a while,” I hear Mrs. Andersen say. She is talking to Thaddeus as he finally covers his own acid burns with bandages. “There’s no use in hurrying another one.”

  “Captain Bush will be waiting, and wanting it,” he says, and though he is quiet, the deepness of his voice carries. I feel chastised at once, even if he has not directed any ire in my direction. “I must start immediately again. We all need the money.”

  “Perhaps it will be a better one,” Walter adds, from his seat at the table. “Now you’ve made a sword once, you’ll have a trick for it.”

  “It was the best I’ve done,” Thaddeus says without looking up.

  No one is watching me now, and I slowly stand, testing my feet. I seem sure enough. The door into the forge is open next to the bed, and I slip through.

  I want to see the sword for myself. I have to see the damage.

  I wish my father were here, instead of wasting away, unaware and uncaring. I wish for my brothers and their presence at my humiliation. It would feel less of a humiliation with them, for though I’ve made a mess, I know they’d stand by me. Al would encourage. And though Tom would fuss and huff, he would not be truly angry. He would drive me to try again.

  The table in the forge has been cleared, though I see evidence of the acid in the darkened wood grain of the trestle.

  It is strangely quiet. With no one here and the fire banked, I feel as though I am floating. There is still the slight scent of acid in the air, as if it is burned into the fiber of the place now.

  The sword is wrapped in old leather, cast off to a side bench, the ends of it poking out, a softened, dull, grey against the black soot of the shelf.

  I pick it up. It does not feel alive any more. I’ve somehow killed it. The weight of the metal is familiar, and I am afraid to open the bindings. The dimness of the coming night gives it a ghostly glimmer.

  “It’s irreparable.”

  Thaddeus’s voice makes me start hard, and I nearly drop the blade. He catches the iron as it slips, gripping it hard through the cowhide. It is still sharp steel, and it cuts through the animal skins and slices into his new bandage.

  “I’m—so sorry.” My voice sounds small and still in the quiet of the room. He opens the wrapping and I am aghast. My spill has pitted the metal and while the decoration remains intact within the wax, the ends are destroyed, and the other side, which had not been protected, is eaten in rivers and swirls and pockets wherever the acid touched and sat.

  “It’s awful,” I say into his silence, as we both stare at the long sliver of iron. “I shouldn’t have worked on it.” The sight of his craftsmanship completely unusable, all because of me, makes my chest feel tight and flat.

  He stares at it, perhaps wondering what it would have looked like had we finished. I wish he would say something, but instead he wraps it back up and sets it aside, then goes to push the coals of the forge fire around, the rasping shuffle of them crackling into the gloaming.

  “Will you make another?”

  He takes a moment, then nods as he stares into the fire.

  “I’m sorry. Please. I’ll have to repay you for the steel—you must let me. And …” I reach out in spite of myself and touch the back of his hand, where the bandage covers the burns reflecting my own. “And I don’t know how to thank you for protecting me from blindness. Scarring.”

  He freezes at my touch, and pulls his fingers away. “You’ll have scars enough from this, Marie.”

  I glance down at my own bandages, and wonder how I will work the tin with such cumbersome wraps. Shock and realization hit me intensely.

  How will I manage yet another setback?

  If I were a different sort of woman, perhaps I’d collapse now, in the face of what tomorrow brings, but it is not the way of my family, or my people. Father would say that, as would the boys. They’d say there is no option. I want to rail against those words, even in my own mind. I refuse to be dictated to! I want …

  I want something different than what awaits me in the morning. Not weeks of agony as my blisters heal while I work the metal.

  “Scars are better than blindness. Then I would have no trade to offer,” I finally tell Thaddeus. He grunts.

  “Please. Tell me how to repay you. Tell me what—”

  “Stop.” He turns to me, and emotion plays and pulls across his face. “There is no need to say more, Marie. It is done.”

  “But you’re angry with me,” I reason, finding my voice. “And I don’t know how to fix it. I can’t work the iron for you. I don’t have the skills or tools to do it. I would, if I could. It was the most beautiful sword I’ve ever handled, but I—”

  “You think I’m angry with you?” He looks surprised.

  “Of course.”

  I expect only coldness from him in the future because of my blunder. Frostiness, until he gets over my mistake. I’ll miss his quiet friendship.

  “I’m not angry at you, Marya.” He says this so softly I almost don’t catch the words or his use of my given name. “I’m just dismayed. I’m uncertain I’ll be able to forge another.”

  His lack of confidence is surprising, and I am touched he confesses so intimate a thought.

  “I should not touch any other you make,” I jump in, but he pulls himself up and places a hand on the black anvil in the center of the shop.

  “No. You’ll do the design on the next,” he states firmly, and ignores the shaking of my head, plunging on. “You’re the best soft metal artist in Flats Town, and the one who drew what Captain Bush wants. But we’ll do something else. Engraving, perhaps, as you had hoped for from the first. I’ll not have you fainting again.”

  “It was weak of me,” I interrupt.

  “How would you have known breathing in the acid so long would make you lightheaded? I cannot blame you. It is me who must prove to be as good a blacksmith as my father.”

  “You will create another. Likely better,” I tell him. “I’m certain of it.”

  “It won’t be done in time for the summer, as Captain Bush has hoped.” His voice is mournful.

  “Waiting a bit longer won’t kill him,” I reason, wondering how we have switched roles. Now I am reassuring Thaddeus, when it was me asking for absolution earlier. “He will wait for a superior blade.”

  “I hope so,” he sighs, running a finger along the edge of the cowhide once more, then glancing out at the forge entry. “But anyway, Mrs. Andersen will be ready for us to eat shortly. She and my father took over supper for Stanley.”

  There is simplicity in the end of our discussion, and I’m grateful it went as well as it did. It strikes me that both Thaddeus and I often have no choice in most things.

  We close up the front of the smithy, and the echoing of the doors bangs into the blackness. The dim orange wavering of the forge fire is now the only light.

  “How long was I out of sorts?” I ask, and reach out to feel around the shop toward the door at the back, where yellow lamplight oozes around the cracks.

  “Long enough,” he says roughly, and grasps my elbow hard to steer me around the extra table and the anvil. “Danny was beside himself.”

  “It was good of him to stay
to make sure I was well. And good of you to talk to me now, to put my mind at peace,” I add, tripping over one of the fuel shovels for all Thaddeus’ grip on me. He takes a firmer hold as I stumble, the thick band of his arm circling my shoulders calmly and guiding me the rest of the way. I like to think I would know my own tinshop as well as he knows his forge in the dark.

  “If we are to work together, we should always discuss such things,” he says, surprising me with his candidness.

  As we reach the living quarters, he moves to open the door in the occasional gentleman’s gesture he sometimes offers. He does not release me at once, his palm dropping briefly to my back as we pass through. The gesture is unexpected, but it is not distasteful and I glance up at him for some further connection.

  But Thaddeus’s eyes are on the hearth, where Mrs. Andersen bends over the large pot, and Walter is peering into the stew, his wide hand casually on her shoulder. The scent of venison and carrots and potato fills my nose, and finally chases away the last of the acid in my mouth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  19 June 1867

  Anette Zelenski, Mrs. Andersen’s eldest daughter, walks into the shop and her hair sparkles like spun sugar. She is truly like her mother, with the height, gentleness, and warmth. It spills from her the minute she arrives with three children scattering before her skirts.

  “Good morning! Well, it’s certainly a treat to be here.” She looks around as she enters familiarly, coming around the counter as if she is a long-time friend. “Mother thought you might like some company, and I have a few minutes to spare if I don’t cook anything difficult for Jacob when he comes in from the field.”

  “You’re taking time from your busy day to see me? I told your mother she shouldn’t ask such a thing from you,” I say, feeling both pleased and guilty. I haven’t seen Anette since early spring, when the mud was fat and heavy on our boots and the planting just finished. She is so very busy on the farm she shares with her husband and in-laws.