Page:Stories and story-telling (1915).djvu/91



THE FAIRY HORSESHOE

At midnight a long time ago an honest hard-*working blacksmith heard someone in his shop hammering, hammering, hammering, for all the world like another blacksmith making a shoe. But the sound was very quick and light, more like tapping, tapping, tapping. And all the time, whoever it was was whistling the prettiest tune you ever heard, and singing between times:

"I'm a cunning blacksmith, I can make a shoe,  Heat the iron,  Bend the iron,  Hammer it true— Il y ho, il y hoo, Il y ho, il y hoo—  I'm a cunning blacksmith,  I can make a shoe."

The blacksmith listened and thought, and listened and thought, and listened and thought. Then he sprang out of bed on tiptoe, crying softly, "I have it! I have it! It's one of the wee small people. I'll catch him if I can for good luck." The blacksmith needed some good luck. His work was to