The Wilful Daughter Read Free

at the large breezy house.
    Most people thought his daughters hated him too.
    Now if you walked into the Blacksmith’s house at any time of the day or night you would find that only two people in the world loved the Blacksmith unconditionally. His wife Bira whose life she felt she owed to him and the one person in the world that the Blacksmith could seldom admit he loved his crippled son. The boy was barely nineteen and had never worked or walked a day in his life. Because of this boy the Blacksmith would never have someone to carry on his work to carry on his name. Sometimes when he looked at his son’s withered limbs he longed for the boy’s death. Not because he didn’t love him but because the boy suffered terribly in the winter from the cold, longed to be able to run with the others in the spring, and in the morning when he dragged himself to the breakfast table to eat with his father and his sisters he wished that he could climb into the wagon and go to the shop with him. He had said once, as a child: “Papa, can I go with you today and watch you work?”
    The Blacksmith, not wanting to hurt the boy’s feelings but wanting him to understand the situation, told him, firmly: “Son, it don’t make any sense for you to take that hard, bumpy ride with me to the shop. Shouldn’t waste your time watching what you can’t do, what you can’t be. Son, you stay here with your mother and paint some more of your pictures for the house. We need you to do that.”
    Despite this reaction, William Brown the Second showed his father no malice. He painted his paintings: house, people, trees, flowers. He cut the wood and made his own frames. His father would always smile at what his son had made but would never say it was wonderful that he was talented. He just wished the boy would understand that he didn’t expect half a man when he was born.
    The blacksmith shop was to be named Brown and Son. On the day the boy came into the world William Brown had the sign made. But the doctors forbade Brother to even go out in the coolest of weather for fear of a chill, and in the warmest of weather in fear of the extreme southern heat. And although the boy painted lovely pictures and read as much as he could, it had never dawned on William Brown that his son was gifted in the art of finance. Having inherited his father’s talent for numbers the son’s talents could get him a job in the office of some local merchant, legs or no legs. It was Brother who kept the record of household expenses -Bira said the numbers hurt her eyes. Once a week he went over all accounts with his father. For this job the Blacksmith overpaid his son. The boy knew better than to ask if he could try to go to school or get some other work because William Brown, the big and powerful blacksmith that white men respected and colored men feared, seldom allowed the boy out of the house. Instead he made sure the boy was happy reading everything that he wanted and painting the most wonderful pictures. For this the boy loved him and sided with him in almost everything. This was his only chance, he saw through his father’s eyes, to be a man.
    On any day save Sunday you could hear the beating against the anvil at least a mile away. If you came near the shop you saw him, this big black hulk of a man, covered with sweat, smelling of metal and dust, muscled arms, and large calloused hands banging out things that most folks had to look at and wonder how. For thirty five years he had remained there in his shop working for white people for a lot, black people sometimes for free. Hammering out on that anvil a tune that nobody else could play. And if it stopped for a long time mid day you knew one of the Blacksmith’s daughters had brought him lunch or he was making a deal with someone about buying some land.
    The Blacksmith had learned from the Indians that nobody was supposed to own the land. That it belonged to all and in a sense he agreed. But he had to live in the white man’s