The Spokeshave

The spokeshave had waited on the bench all through the long green of summer, and now, with the first cold settling into the grain of the wood, Nyra took it up. It was a small thing, two handles and a blade set low between them, made for the one task of dressing an edge until the edge ran true. The girl watched from the far stool, where the light came in amber and shallow across the floor.

A board came to the bench rough, with a face that caught at the thumb and an edge that no reader would ever love. The work of the spokeshave was not to carve or to cut but to lift the long thin curls away, a little and then a little more, until a hand could run the whole length and find nothing to catch it. Nyra set the blade shallow, for a deep set would tear where a shallow set would smooth.

She drew the tool toward her in a slow and even pull, and a curl of wood rose and fell away to the floor. The girl gathered the curls into a small bright heap, the way a season gathers the days it has finished with. Each pass took almost nothing. The whole of the morning was made of almost nothings, laid end to end until the edge was done.

A book gathers what can be set down in a line and counted, and leaves the rest to the one who was there. The ledger in the cellar could hold the count of the boards and the number of the passes, and still it would hold nothing of the sound the curl made, or the warmth of the two handles, or the quiet in which the work was done.

When the edge at last ran clean under the hand, Nyra set the spokeshave down and let the girl feel the length of it for herself. A book could keep the tally of the morning, the boards dressed and the hours given over to them. The book keeps the count, and you keep the dressing of it.