Read Online The Amish Blacksmith by Mindy Starns Clark - Free Book Online Page B

my way to the food stands. I spotted her near a large cluster of men, most of whom were holding clipboards and chatting among themselves as they waited to go in. I’d expected to find her communing with the horses, so the sight of her standing there with actual people instead was odd, to say the least.
    I was about to approach her when I heard the sound of my name from the other direction. I turned, surprised to see my friend Eric, a fellow student from my Missouri farrier school, weaving his way toward me through the crowd. Despite the fact that Eric was Englisch and I was Amish, he and I had become friends on the first day of class because we’d been the only two there from Eastern Pennsylvania.
    Unlike me, he’d gone to the school not so he could become a farrier himself, but so that he could get a better understanding of what good horseshoeing involved. His family worked with show horses, so for him to learn the shoeing trade was, as he’d explained it, “kind of like a car dealer learning auto mechanics—it never hurts to understand how things happen under the hood.”
    We greeted each other now with a handshake and a quick one-armed hug, and then he asked me what I was doing. I told him I’d come to help my boss pick out a new horse for his niece.
    â€œHow about you?” I asked, trying to remember exactly where he lived. I knew it wasn’t too far away, somewhere in Chester County, where the farms of the Amish gave way to the large estates of the Englisch . His family’s business involved the transporting of show horses—not just on the ground but in the air as well.
    â€œSame sort of thing. One of our clients needs a riding horse for her little girl, so I offered to come here with her to Stone Road. She’s never been to a horse auction before.”
    â€œYeah, neither has the niece.” I glanced over to where Priscilla had been standing and was relieved to see that Amos had joined her. He seemed to be looking around for something, probably me, so I caught his eye with a wave and gestured toward the stands, indicating that they could go on in without me and I’d be along shortly. He gave me a wave and a nod.
    â€œFind anything promising?” I asked, turning back to my friend.
    â€œA couple possibilities. It helps that this woman’s pockets are deep. She doesn’t care what it costs. She just wants something with a good temperament.” He went on to describe the horses they were interested in, but I couldn’t weigh in because I hadn’t paid attention to any of those. Amos and I had been looking solely at workhorses.
    Eric went with me to the coffee stand, where we each bought a cup, and then we continued our conversation over by the baskets of sugar and creamer.
    â€œSo how goes the dream?” he asked, confusing me for a moment before it struck me what he meant.
    Back in school, I had told him all about my hopes of one day combining a horseshoeing business with a horse-gentling business. I had no official training as a gentler. I just knew what I knew. And though I liked shoeing, I enjoyed even more the time I spent working with problem animals.
    â€œIt’s going well,” I said, adding that I was about halfway through my two-year blacksmith apprenticeship.
    â€œAnd then what?” he prodded, so I went on to tell him about the plan, how in one more year Owen would be leaving the family business to take over his father-in-law’s dairy farm, freeing me in turn to step into Owen’s position at Kinsinger Blacksmith and Welding.
    â€œWhat about working for yourself, man? You wanted your own business. That was the dream.”
    I shrugged, wondering how to explain the complexities of the situation to a guy like Eric. I still harbored hope that someday I might have my own blacksmith shop that offered both farrier work and horse gentling, but in the past year of working at Kinsingers, I had begun to realize that it