But Papa Blaire resumes work upon the ring he has begun. He has
threaded the still formless disc of aluminium over a bit of rounded
wood, and rubs it with the file. As he applies himself to the job,
two wrinkles of mighty meditation deepen upon his forehead. Anon he
stops, straightens himself, and looks tenderly at the trifle, as
though she also were looking at it.
"You know," he said to me once, speaking of another ring, "it's not
a question of doing it well or not well. The point is that I've done
it for my wife, d'you see? When I had nothing to do but scratch
myself, I used to have a look at this photo"--he showed me a
photograph of a big, chubby-faced woman--"and then it was quite easy
to set about this damned ring. You might say that we've made it
together, see? The proof of that is that it was company for me, and
that I said Adieu to it when I sent it off to Mother Blaire."
He is making another just now, and this one will have copper in it,
too. He works eagerly. His heart would fain express itself to the
best advantage in this the sort of penmanship upon which he is so
tenaciously bent.
As they stoop reverently, in their naked earth-holes, over the
slender rudimentary trinkets--so tiny that the great hide-bound
hands hold them with difficulty or let them fall--these men seem
still more wild, more primitive, and more human, than at all other
times.
You are set thinking of the first inventor, the father of all
craftsmen, who sought to invest enduring materials with the shapes
of what he saw and the spirit of what he felt.
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