Once upon a time, there was a young blacksmith. Like many trades, blacksmiths learn more skills throughout all their lives, and so like all blacksmiths, he was still learning his trade, though he was much more at the beginning of the learning than at the ending.
One day, this young blacksmith, Zach, wanted to give a birthday gift to a friend. The gift he most wanted to give was a special satchel for carrying a camera, as the friend so enjoyed taking pictures.
Sadly though, after searching through many nearby lands and traveling to the Kingdoms of InterNet, Etsy, Amazon, and Ebay, Zach wasn’t able to find just the right kind of satchel made just the right kind of way for just the right number of gold coins, and in despair he was ready to abandon his quest. Then, rising early one morning, Zach spied his mother working at her sewing machine. “Aha!” Zach cried! “I cannot find the perfect satchel, but perhaps my mother can make it!”
And so he enlisted the help of his mother, who dearly loved to sew and even more dearly loved to see her children happy, and she agreed to take on the challenge. Zach and his mother spent time looking for just the right pattern, and the two journeyed to many markets to select the right materials, gathering the things they needed from many different merchants, but they could not find the silver rings they needed. One merchant had rings of silver, but they weren’t the right size. Another merchant had rings almost the right size, but they were not silver. Still another merchant didn’t have rings at all.
Zach and his mother were determined to complete their task and they continued their quest for the silver rings as they worked. They cut and labeled all the many pieces for the satchel, as like all great satchels, this one had several pockets. Zach’s mother tried to pin all the pieces together, but there were so many layers to make this the strongest bag for protecting the most treasured camera, that Mother’s pins bent and folded under the burden of the task. After pondering the situation for a bit, Mother ventured out on a journey of her own to all the hidden drawers and closets in their little home to gather just the right thing to keep all those layers together – binding clips. (And Mother would like to make a note to her husband and children that smallish binding clips would make a very nice gift at Christmas, as well as new pins to replace the bent ones.)
So Mother continued to stitch and soon the satchel was nearly complete. But she couldn’t finish without those silver rings.
Zach looked at the rings they bought that weren’t the right size. He held them and flipped them and measured them. Suddenly he declared, “I can make these!” That very evening, as the sun was setting over the hills behind their home, Zach and his father went to their forge and began to heat and bend steel to their will. After a short time, the hammering ceased, and Zach brought two silver rings to his mother, his beaming face bright under the layer of coal smudge.
His mother looked at the rings and tried them and declared them to be perfect, so Zach went out the workshop to polish them and wax them to a shiny finish and in no time at all, the satchel was complete.
Zach was so pleased to give this gift, and I think, the receiver was just as pleased to have it. And they all continued to live happily ever after.
Love this story!
Thank you so much, Martha!
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