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forge and stared down at the boys’ feet. “Need to find you each a pair of boots like mine.” He laughed. “You’ll outgrow ’em in no time.” Jacob handed Gabriel a leather apron of his own, and Solomon one, too. “You’ll see your mother again. I promise.”
    I could like a good and kind teacher very much, Gabriel told himself. Especially if Jacob Kent taught Pa. That thought sparked the desire in Gabriel to learn all that he could. He would miss Ma and Dog and Kissey and Old Major, but mostly Gabriel intended to work too hard to pay attention to the lonely twinges of his heart. He also promised himself that he would learn the river city as well as he knew the forest countryside.

FROM JACOB ’ S forge, Gabriel could hear the constant, distant roar of the James River falls, and he could see the reaches of the sycamore on the north bank near the river’s bend west. The autumn oasis of golden leaves and marbled bark collided with a white canvas of muslin sails from the ships that crowded Richmond’s port, bringing in goods or taking away riches. He missed swimming off the river islands on Sundays, as he had all throughout the early autumn, but the cold November river meant one thing less to distract him from the forge.
    Jacob Kent demanded his place be kept orderly and clean. It was Gabriel’s job to straighten the smithy at night and ready the work in the morning. He liked rising in the dark, arranging the charcoal in the heart of the forge, waking the great bellows, and making ready the fire.
    The washerwomen also made their wash fires, over by Shockoe Creek, before the sun made day. Each morning, rain or shine, August heat or November cold, Gabriel would visit the creek to collect water to fill the horse trough outside the smithy door. The youngest laundress, a girl named Nanny, who had been sold away from her family in the mountains, taught him where to find the coolest part of the creek. Every day, Gabriel and Nanny spoke of fire and water and nothing more.
    When his morning chores were complete — the fire built, the floor cleaned, and the anvils ready for the coming day — he would walk back to the Shockoe and there fill three ceramic jugs with drinking water. Once the water jugs were set within easy reach of each anvil so that Jacob, Solomon, and he could refresh themselves throughout the long day, Gabriel would wake Jacob and Solomon with three full strikes to his anvil.
    Ping, ping, ping. Gabriel signaled when the fire was hot and the forge ready. Ping, ping, ping. He wondered if the whole of Richmond waited to hear his anvil beat, for his wake-up bell would often bring in a horse or two to be shod, a rifle or a pistol for repair, or an urgent plea to fix a broken-off key. Nearly all the workings of the capital city could be made or repaired with a fire, an anvil, and a hammer or two.
    At the start of each day and in between jobs, Gabriel and Solomon forged nails. So many new houses and public buildings and shops were going up that Richmond could use every nail the boys would make and more. Between them, the two brothers produced eight thousand nails a week. Fifty thousand would not have satiated the capital city.
    When Jacob was pleased with their work, he let the boys know. “Very nice. Coming along,” he would commend Solomon.
    Once, when Jacob examined a long nail forged by Gabriel, the teacher purposefully pricked his finger on the tip. “You’re scaring me, son,” he said, and sucked the blood the nail drew. Jacob pushed his eyeglasses higher onto his face with the back of his wrist and shook his head at the work Gabriel presented.
    “Beg pardon, sir?” Gabriel said. He thought his own work finer than his brother’s, yet the teacher had complimented only Solomon.
    “Show me how you did this.” Jacob shot up his wild, curly eyebrows and nodded for Gabriel to forge another.
    Gabriel set the plain rolled iron in the fire. He pulled the bellows — what Jacob called the lung of the smithy