"Tell me, then, why we should hire you? We have a good number of students who want to work this summer. What is it that separates you from the rest I wonder?"
"Well, Mr. Bryant, I can tell you that I always work hard. I do. I take orders well, will give you my best every day, and I love history. Not many guys can say that honestly."
"No, I guess they cant say it honestly. But how do I know you arent just snowing me? This is a job where you do have to love history. You will have to learn your role, learn your lines, do research, and know everything you can about your job as a smithies assistant. You will have to convince our visitors that you are living in the 1870s."
"Just check my grades, Mr. Bryant. I took history all three years so far and aced every class. Last year was elective. And I am taking another American class as an elective this year. In fact, I intend to major in history when I start college next year."
"So what do you know about smithing?"
"Nothing. Yet." Rob answered honestly. "But if I get this job I expect to be an expert by the end of the summer."
"This is living history, Rob. Entertainment with a historical base. You really want to spend the next three months living in the 1870s? You have any idea how hard this job can be?"
"Mr. Bryant, I have been coming to Blackberry Village since I can remember. And wanted to work here about that long. I know about the heat. The flies. The sweat. The hard work."
"You do, do you?" Mr. Bryant smiled a knowing smile. "Well then I suppose there isnt too much we need to do to train you?"
"I didnt mean it that way, sir."
"OK. Lets say you get the job. Let me tell you a bit about living history here this summer. You will be staying right here. Sleeping in the back room of the smithies shed each night. You take orders from him without question. You will sweat. You will work long and hard. You will take on responsibilities. Just like it was for a young apprentice in 1870. And if you shirk your responsibilities or act up you can expect some severe consequences which I doubt have been your experience in life."
"Yes, sir! Ill be the best summer apprentice you have ever seen here at Blackberry Village."
"Whoa! Dont get ahead of me, boy. Lets be sure you know what you are stepping into here. You get room and board for the summer. You will get fifty cents a week spending money: in the Village fifty cents goes a long way. We put fifteen hundred dollars in your account at the end of the summer. We supply your clothes and you wear what we supply. You will be working with our permanent smithy and you do whatever he tells you to do boy. Remember, this is 1870, not 2003. If you dont know the difference you soon will. You understand that?"
"Yes, sir!" Rob replied with his biggest smile yet. This job, his dream job, was about to be his. He could already see himself someday the director of Greenfield Village or Mystic Seaport or Colonial Williamsburg. He saw life as only someone eighteen sees it. Nothing would stop him from rising to the very top.
"All right, then. You report to Mr. McCann, our smithy. Since he has to train you he has final approval of anyone hired as an apprentice. He will show you the ropes and get you started. You will get your clothes, your "costume" if you want to think of it that way, for the summer, and then pack up your street clothes and store them away here in the main building. Well see just how much a smiths apprentice you will become, son."
Mr. Bryant stood up, extended his hand, and Rob shook to complete the deal. Rob could not have been happier. No parents riding him for the summer. No assembly line at the dairy to drive him nuts. Plenty of girls visiting the Village for him to look over. And there was a nice pond for swimming in the evening. His entry to history now wide open. Didnt get any better than that.
Rob walked down the dirt path past the schoolhouse, then the farmstead and the garden. He looked through the window of the cooperage, watched the two men working a bucksaw behind the carpenters shop, and then he saw his home for the summer, the blacksmiths shop just past the general store. A few tourists wandered the grounds but Rob knew this trickle would soon become a flood when school ended and the tourism season began.
"Mr. McCann?" Rob asked as he entered the empty shop.
"Back here!" came a disembodied voice from outside the back door.
Rob walked through the shop and noted the big hearth, the bellows, the huge anvils, and, especially, the heat. Heat. Lots of heat. Even on a cool late May day, heat. As he left the main room he walked through a rough timbered hall past a back room in which was a makeshift bed, if you could call it that. The bed was a timber frame with rope webbing and a straw mattress on the webbing. On the other side of the hall Rob noted all the hammers, tongs, and leather aprons hanging on the wall of what appeared to be a tool shop. His eye swept across his new home with a glint. This was going to be his summer. He went through the back door of the shop and found a burly sweaty Calvin McCann picking through a pile of rusted black iron. And he could not help but notice an outhouse at the far edge of the yard. He had not bargained on that. Next to the outhouse a shed, empty, that appeared to be housing for a couple of horses. Likely they were out enjoying the spring pasture.
"Hello!" Rob said as he extended his hand. "Nice to meet you. Im Rob, your summer apprentice."
Calvin McCann looked him over slowly, head to foot, then took Robs hand and nearly crushed it in his own big paw.
"Nice to meet you, boy!" he said evenly. "You think you want to apprentice here, do ya?"
"Yes, sir!" Rob smiled in return as he fought the urge to massage his mangled hand.
"Hmmmmpphhh! Every year they send me some wuss who thinks he want to learn to be a smith and half dont make it through the interview."
"Well, sir, I have already interviewed and was told to report here."
"Uh huh. You had half the interview son. This is the other half. You look like you might be strong enough for the work. Not sure youre tough enough, though."
Rob wasnt sure what to make of this. McCann seemed to be staying "in period" as they say in the living history business. Kind of like Disney World. Once youre out on the job in public you never, ever break character. Rob didnt know whether to play along with this guy or not. As far as he was concerned he had the job.
"Mr. McCann, Im perfect for this job." Rob looked him straight in the eye, no flinching.
"You are? You really think you can live in the 1870s and like it? OK, maybe you can. But I give the new boy a good test every summer and you think you are up for that?"
"Yes, sir! Test away."
"Rob, back in the 1870s things were a bit different than now. A boy grew up to be a man in a hurry. Learned his place. Worked hard. Took his lumps when he failed. And a blacksmiths shop was a tough place to work. You make mistakes around here and they can be very, very costly. Lose a finger. Or worse." McCann pulled his right pant leg up to reveal an ugly burn scar stretching from his knee down nearly to his ankle. "There is no place for anyone who does not follow orders. When I give you an order you do it quickly and without question. Questions can wait till later when the irons in the fire."
"No problem," Rob assured him.
"Ive heard that one before, too. So I have a test for you, boy. Follow me."
Rob followed along across the yard past the outhouse to the shed. He watched as Mr. McCann took a saddle off its trestle and hung it on the wall, and then pulled the trestle out into the middle of the shed. When the big smithie took a thick leather strap down from a peg by the door Robs eyes widened. This he had not expected. Not at all. And yet, as he watched Mr. McCann set the strap on the trestle and roll up his sleeves he felt an erection begin to swell in his pants. That, more than the possibility of a strapping, panicked him.
McCann, having rolled up his sleeves, took up the strap and looked at his new apprentice with a sly smile.
"Now lets see if you really want to work in 1870, son. Its my word that is law for you, boy. You need to know what will be coming your way when you foul up. Now get over here, take down your pants, and get across that saddle trestle. Lets see if you have what it takes to work for me this summer. I aim to give you a good tanning. Lets see how much you want this job, how tough you are, and how well you follow orders."
For a brief moment Rob wavered. He wondered if maybe even this was just a bluff, a way to test his resolve. He was worried, too, about that raging erection tenting his pants. He locked eyes with McCann, then walked slowly across the shed floor, stood before the saddle trestle, dropped his pants, and bent across.
"Bare, boy. The pants come down is what I said. You have a hearing problem?"
"No, sir," Rob answered. He stood up and peeled his shorts down to his knees, his erection popping up to further embarrass him. Then he once again took his place over the trestle.
"Dont let that woodie bother you, boy. You wont have it for long."
"Yes, sir," Rob answered.
"This is what you can expect if you dont do as your told, son. You understand me? After a couple trips out here to the shed youll learn a lot faster."
"Yes, sir! I sure I will, sir."
McCanns raised the strap and cracked it across Robs backside. The sound registered and then the pain exploded through his thighs. Again the strap cracked down, harder. And a third time. Rob fought for all he was worth to fight the urge to stand up and scream.. The only thing that saved him was the horizontal brace at the bottom of the trestle just above the dirt. He grabbed hold and hung on as though his life depended on keeping his grip.
"Your daddy ever given you a good strappin boy?" McCann asked.
"No sir," Rob answered. "Been paddled a few times." He hoped McCann had not noticed the choke in his voice. It was all he could do to keep the tears squeezing out silent.
"Ah. Well then I guess youre learning something new already today."
A half dozen more licks with the strap and Rob was at the breaking point. One more lash like the last and he would be up, dancing and howling. He didnt care anymore if he did not get the job. All he wanted was for the searing pain in his backside to subside. Then, as all these thoughts were flying through his mind he realized that McCann had stopped. In fact, he was putting the strap back on the peg. Rob continued to lay over the trestle panting from the exertion of grabbing the bar to stay in place. Had someone told him how much just a dozen licks with a leather strap could hurt he would not have believed it. Now he knew.
"You passed, boy. You get the job," he said as he left Rob in that shed. "And you might want to put some bear grease on that behind, boy. Theres some in tool room in the barn."
Rob slowly rose up and looked around to find himself alone. Once again he was hard. Ever so gingerly he pulled his briefs and pants on, then watched as Mr. McCann took a piece of iron into the barn. Rob slipped into the outhouse, a smile on his face. If he had not been mistaken he was not the only one with a woodie from that strapping. It promised, he thought, to be an interesting summer.