This family was not only Thorogood but thorough-going. The father was a blacksmith, with five sons and one daughter, and he used to hammer truth into his children’s heads with as much vigour¹ as he was wont² to hammer the tough iron on his anvil³; but he did it kindly⁴. He was not a growly-wowly, cross-grained man, like some fathers we know of—not he. His broad, hairy face was like a sun, and his eyes darted⁵ sunbeams wherever they turned. The faces of his five sons were just like his own, except in regard to roughness and hair. Tom, and Dick, and Harry⁶, and Bob, and Jim, were their names. Jim was the baby. Their ages were equally separated. If you began with Jim, who was three, you had only to say—four, five, six, seven—Tom being seven.

These five boys were broad, and sturdy, like their father. Like him, also, they were fond of noise and hammering. They hammered the furniture of their father’s cottage, until all of it that was weak was smashed, and all that was strong became dreadfully dinted. They also hammered each other’s noses with their little fat fists, at times, but they soon grew too old and wise for that; they soon, also, left off hammering the heads of their sister’s dolls, which was a favourite amusement in their earlier days.

The mention of dolls brings us to the sister. She was like her mother—little, soft, fair, and sweet-voiced; just as unlike her brothers in appearance as possible—except that she had their bright blue, blazing eyes. Her age was eight years.

It was, truly, a sight to behold⁷ this family sit down to supper of an evening. The blacksmith would come in and seize little Jim in his brawny⁸ arms, and toss him up to the very beams of the ceiling, after which he would take little Molly on his knee, and fondle her, while “Old Moll,” as he sometimes called his wife, spread the cloth and loaded the table with good things.

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