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Except for the hard -surfaced road which has replaced the dusty lane of
bygone years, the village o Reynolds Bridge this afternoon presents to the
casual eye the bucolic serenity which must have characterized it half a century
ago on any working day. The little white houses are not all well kept, but
it is not without the bounds of possibility that they were allowed to fall into
decay when occupied by the roistering, happy-go-lucky knifemakers for whom they
were built. Peace and quiet lie over the little hamlet. There isn't even a car
in sight. On a hillside garden patch in the rear of his home a man is plowing
with the aid of a sturdy horse. A housewife is hanging out the wash. Two grubby
little boys about five or six years old are busily digging in the dirt by the
roadside.
nook, Mister," says one of them. "We're buryin' some dead chickies." Be
holds up for inspection a bedraggled carcass. The ehiekies are indisputably dead.
Who killed them? "We did," says the youngster proudly.
Mr. Dunbar, on whim I intend to call, is not at hone. Outside the door he
has left a little white pad and a pencil, the pad ornamented with the figure of an
owl, and the interrogation "Who -o -o?" The owl is palpably homemade, but Mt. Dun-
bar has been painstaking about it and it is a creditable job.
Down the road a short distance from the neat Dunbar dwelling is an abandoned
church, an architectural hodge-podge which it is difficult to associate with any of
the religious denominations currently enjoying the support of the villagers. Much
water has flowed over the dam since the last congregation filed down the steps one
Sunday morning and the building has suffered at the hands of numberbless small boys.
Windows are broken,Aoors ajar, whole sections of planking along the foundation have
been ripped away.
Further down, on the opposite side of the road, is the mustard colored "chapel"
where the villagers on Sunday evening gather for services read by the pastor of
the congregational church in Thomaston. Those of other persuasions must attend
the churches "up town."
Past the chapel the road bends sharply to the left, so that a motorist in
a fast ear would be quite apt to miss entirely, or catch nothing more than a
fleeting glimpse of the old knife factory which once hummed with life and occupation
but which is now only a ghostly reminder of past prosperity. Down well to the
right of the main highway and in a little declivity through which once rushed a
rapid stream of water (since diverted) the building is reached by a dirt road several
yards long.
It is of wood, presumably white in its heyday, with the exception of a small
office brick, now apparently the proud possession of some local club, for it bears
above the door upon a gaudily decorated board the single word "Eagles." As in the
old church, windows of the factory have been shattered by stones, and glass fragments
lie thick inside and out. The door, upon which is the ironic warning "keep out"
swings in the wind with a melancholy creak. The interior, first and second floors,
is empty but for a number of work benches which have been left along the walls pro-
bably because they were not worth moving. The floor sags dangerously in places,
and boards have given away near the elevator shaft. The elevator itself has fallen
through the rotten planking and has come to rest precariously and at a drunken angle
upon a pipe in the basement.
In the rear of the main building are several smaller ones, obviously ware-
houses and storerooms. The big iron chimney has toppled over on the roof, and in
the cellar scores of bricks have been removed or have fallen from the huge smoke
blackened kiln. Wooden beams supporting the largest of the storerooms have buckled,
and the toof is sagging. A dump behind the sheds is piled high with scrap of several
generations of knifemakers; with refuse of the last industry to occupy the factory
(an abortive enterprise for the manufacture of tin cans) with cast offs of the present
inhabitants of the village; topping it all, inexplicably, the skeleton of a school
bus.
The whole place, but for the inconsiderable part taken under the protecting
wing' of the "Eagles" is suggestive of that creeping rot which overtakes and reduces
to essentials in relatively short order, following abandonment, even the proudest
works of man. There are no other visitors at theibctory this afternoon, a fact not
to be wondered at, for the surroundings are hardly conducive to cheerful reflection.
Back on the village road, Igtop once more at Mr. Dunbar's house, but find he
is still out. On the Watertown road, however, I meet him limping along and we ex-
change greetings.
"I'll sit down here with you a while,* says Mt. Dunbar, indicating a grassy
bank. "I just come on the bus from Waterbury, and my feet hurt. Been out to get
my ear registered, and I walked all the way from Exchange Place. Didn't realize
it was so damn far.
"Yes, too bad about the old factory. I don't suppose it will ever be used
again for anything. I s'pose the Catlin family up in Northfield still OWUB it.
They bought it, you know, and bought most of the houses here along with it. Last
thinkg they had in the shop was a metal works. But the machinery wasn't any good, and
it wasn't managed very good, and it didn't last. Men was losin' fingers down there
every day in the week.
"Knife business'll never come back anyway. If that factory over does start
up again, by some miracle, it won't be knives they make.
"It was.. the strikes began to ruin the knife business, the way I look at it.
Like the one down here. They got callin' each other scabs, and there was a lot of
hard feelin' because some went out and some stayed in, and what did it ever get them?
They put in drop forges and machine grinders, and got men from other faetbries, and
kept goin' just the same.
"Then the German knives started comin' into the country and that put
the finishint touches on it. You could get one of those fiterman knives four
bladed, pearl handled, for a quarter. Of course the steel was no damn good,
and it wouldn't out anything, but hell, it looked good. In the old days you
paid seventy.five cents for even a one bladed knife that was made here in the
village. And a dollar and a quarter and up for the better ones. They made
some with silver plated backs.
"Say, there's a story I though of after you'd gone the other day. About
Augustus Morse. He used to carry the stuff from the depot and back, lived in
this big house of Tibbalses. Ha brought down a big molasses keg from the station
one day, one of them hogsheads. They slid it in the office door all right, but
when they filled it up with knives they couldn't get it out again. Had to take
the casings off the door. That went to a fella down in St. Louis, that shipment.
Simmons Hardware Co., I think it was. The same fella that made the Simmons
mattress.
"You were up to see Billy Morehouse, I hear. There isn't an awful lot more
I can tell you. I'm no damn good at all on dates and that kind.of thing, you want
dates, you'll have to get them from domebody else besides me."