Miya the extra ordinary Blacksmith

[Iron Rose]

Going through some old papers the other day I found a copy of a story that my daughter wrote in the forth grade, thought I would share it

Miya the extra ordinary blacksmith

One day a long time ago a blacksmith came to are town. Not the ordinary run of the mill blacksmith, but a lady named Miya. A women can’t be a blacksmith the people said. Everyone knows that a women is just to frail to shoe horse, and besides women don’t like to get dirty. She paid know attention to them. and set about her work. After all she knew she was the best. Her skill at the anvil was soon realized, there was nothing that she couldn’t fix.

Although her skill at the anvil could not be better, what she really loved to do was shoe horses. Why she could shoe a horse so fast that the horse never knew that he had his feet picked up.

When making shoes she never used a forge because the speed of her hammer heated the steel to white hot in seconds. If fact she use a special water cooled anvil because the regular ones would melt from the heat.

When nailing the shoes on she never used a hammer to drive the nails (took to long). She would just throw a handful of nails in her mouth and spit them into the hoof.

The true test of her skill and speed came one cold and rainy day. The rain started early and by noon it turned to ice, by night fall a thick coating of ice covered to land. Now in those days everything moved my draft power, but in order to work they needed to stand up.. Although Miya’s speed could not be matched, this would be a big job.

But Miya had a plan. A special harness was fixed up to hoist the horse into the air. A boom would swing the horse over a water tank. Miya stood by her anvil and started to work. The horse would be hoisted up and four helpers would pick each foot up and face Miya. She would make the shoe and throw it unto each foot and spit the nails into the shoe. Before the shoe scorched the foot, the feet were dropped iinto the water and cooled for a custom fit..

In 12 hours she shod 1000 horses, 500 mules,100 yoke of oxen, and 3 miniature donkeys.

When the sun came up in the morning the townsfolk where surprised to see that were Miya shop had been, there was just a hole in the ground. Now nobody really knows for sure but they all believe that she worked so fast that she created the first “Texas Tornado”

[Author]

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