The Blacksmith Another “at home” enterprise... was the village blacksmith. His house was partitioned. The front part was used as the blacksmith shop and the rear was the living quarters, complete with all the known inconveniences and the noise of the heavy hammer pounding on the hot steel against the anvil.
A soundproof house it was not. To watch the blacksmith at work was one of the thrills of [our youth]. The pounding on the anvil was music, and the flying red-hot sparks of steel were like falling fiery stars.
The location of the blacksmith shop as shown on the village map is #7 [see p. 19], and, as indicated [there, it] was on high ground close to the river -- ideal for dumping his refuse. With only one horse and wagon in the village, it was obvious that for the blacksmith to earn even a meager income it had to be derived from sources other than in the village. On market days (Thursdays) nearly all the peasants came first class in their horse-drawn wagons. Then, if they did not have money for shoeing their horses or for repairs to their wagons, the barter of many items such as live chickens, eggs, ducks, geese, wool, woven cloth, cordwood, et cetera, was always acceptable. When the Russian Army had their maneuvers around the village during the summer it meant sad days for the poor blacksmith, and poor he was. If any of their horses needed shoeing or just other attentions, such as repairs to their military vehicles, he had to do the work without compensation.
[original page 24] The village blacksmith may not have been a learned man. He sat at the rear of the synagogue with most of us during services. However, he surely was an important and useful person when it came to repairing metal household items, at times for no charge. He also kept our only means of transportation (a horse and wagon) rolling. He was a kind man, made the youths welcome when they visited his shop to admire his strength, and smiled behind his soot-covered face. Despite the fire hazard from the blacksmith's wood-burning open fire and the red hot sparks of steel, the flimsy wooden house and shop were still there when we departed the village in November of 1906 ....
