The Tinker's Career: Part 1

The Tinker’s Career: Part 1 The adventures of a tinsmith's apprentice. Based on a post by ron de, in 5 parts. Listen to the ►Podcast at Connected. I write this memoir to leave somewhat of a legacy to future generations, for my trade, like many, will no doubt be replaced by the mindless machines already in use for the making of pots, pans, and other tin plate work. Some will no doubt shake their heads at parts of this tale, though I make no excuses for it. Such has been my life so far, and it was a life lived to the fullest extent possible. To have done otherwise would mean I would suffer the regrets common to people who have lived a life of propriety until old age and therefore barren of excitement and adventure. I was born Johnathan Harrison Erickson in the year 1753 on the estates of one Baron Farnsworthy, my father being the manager of the crops and livestock at the estate. My early years are of little consequence save that I grew up, as do most boys, being full of adventure and fearing nothing. At the young age of twelve years I knew nothing of what I wished to do in life other than to chase the frogs in the brook and to roll hoops with my brother. I was happy doing so even though there were the occasional chores to be done around my father's household. It was expected that I would carry water to the sheep that provided a lamb for Easter dinner and wool my mother spun into clothing for us. I was also expected to gather eggs from the hen house every morning and evening. The gathering of eggs would have normally been a chore for young girls, but as I had no female siblings, the task fell to me. I did not mind the sheep. They were calm animals and would always come to my call in hopes of a morsel of the sweet cake of oats and molasses I sometimes brought them. True, were I to turn my back on the ram, he would often give my backside a jolt, but he did so in jest, or at least I believed such. The hens and the rooster I did not like. The hens seemed to be always moody and pecked at my hands when I tried to take the eggs from under them. The rooster was a massive bird with long spurs, and seemed to believe I was after his harem for some reason. If I did not watch carefully, he would fly at me and try to sink his spurs into my leg. Often I wished for a Sunday chicken dinner at which the rooster would be the main course. Upon my thirteenth birthday, my father informed me I was to leave home and learn a trade. He also explained that trade would be as a tinsmith, for he had arranged an apprenticeship for me with a Master Richard Eaton of Honiton in Cornwall. I would be indentured to Master Eaton for six years after which I would have attained the skills of a tinsmith and be able to earn a living for myself. I was somewhat put out by this news. By then, I was aware that while my father was not of the landed gentry, my family did not want as did some, and I had assumed I would follow in his footsteps in a few years for such had been the case with he and his father. To learn that not only was that occupation the one chosen for my younger brother, Edward, but that I was to be banished to a life some hundred miles away was quite a shock. I would suppose the reason to be one of intellect and constitution. Though a year younger than I, my brother stood a head taller and weighed half again as much. He was as strong as the bullocks he wrestled for the purpose of separating them from their knackers that spring. Strong though he was, he had no sense nor inclination toward mathematics or the manual arts. I, on the other hand, was of slight build and greatly enjoyed using my mind to guide my hands in the making of things. Mathematics came easily to me, and I easily learned the basic calculations for the length of iron to form a hoop of a certain size and to construct the various angles used by the blacksmith on the estate. In retrospect, my father's choice was a wise one. I now know I would not have enjoyed the life of a manager of the fields and livestock nearly so much as I have enjoyed the trade of tinker.; I did not understand this at the time of my departure from the estate and was greatly saddened to see the fine house, barns, and fields fade into the distance as my father drove the wagon to Whitchurch. It was just at first light, and I watched the cows walking toward the barn for their morning milking as the wagon went by their pasture. Boys of my age did not shed tears over something so small as leaving home, though it was with great difficulty I did not do so. In Whitchurch, my father purchased me a passage upon a coach to Honiton, the village in Cornwall where Master Eaton's shop was located. The journey was to take three days, and after some conversation and the exchange of some coin, the coach driver agreed to guide me through the trip. I was also to sit beside him in his perch high above the horses. After the first mile, I was happy for that open, but secure seat. Several of the coach passengers rode on the roof, for the fare for those seats was much lower than for the padded seats inside. For the reduction in fare, they had exchanged a soft cushion for the hard, wooden roof of the coach, and the comfort of being inside for holding on with all their might to the railing around the roof lest they fall. It was indeed necessary to hold tight to something, for the roadway was not at all smooth and level, being pocked here and there with shallow holes and depressions. As these often occurred on each wheel at a different time, the coach was jostled about in a fearful manner. The driver seemed to ignore these pits, and kept encouraging his team to the trot. At this breakneck speed, the jostling was enough to loosen one's teeth or so it seemed. Many times I heard the two ladies inside the coach cry out in fear as a coach wheel dropped into a particularly deep hole and then climbed back out. Our first stop was at a way station just outside Andover. At this station, the horses were changed. It was told to me by the coachman this was a new practice. Before, he would have driven his team the ten miles from Whitchurch and then stopped to rest them for an hour. By the changing of the horses, we would be on our way again in only the time required to lead the tired team from the coach and then hook up the traces of the new team. Indeed, this was the case, and I had time only for a drink of water before climbing to the coachman's box again. He spoke to the new team and cracked his whip, and we were again off. The rest of the journey is not worth relating save that the ride continued to be harsh, the food bad and the sleeping accommodations worse. After paying my three pence for the first night's lodging and seeing the scurrying insects when I pulled back the blanket, I joined the coachman on one of the seats inside the coach for my sleeping place.; Our arrival in Honiton was likewise uneventful. I dismounted the driver's box with my small bag of belongings and began looking for Master Eaton. In his letter to my father, he had said he would wear a red shirt. I quickly spied him sitting on a bench in front of the station and went to introduce myself. Master Eaton looked old to me at the time, but such is the way the young view adults I would suppose. I later learned he was forty-one at the time, and had worked many years as a journeyman to earn the title of Master. He seemed to be a stern man. As my apprenticeship progressed, I found this was the case, but that he was also a fair man in his appraisal of my work. After confirming my name, he walked me to the shop attached to one side of his house. Though I did not know what to expect, his shop seemed small in comparison to the blacksmith's shop on the estate. It was indeed smaller, but I soon learned it was of the appropriate size for the few tools used by a tinsmith. There was a large table used for the laying out and cutting of the tin plate with a large shear at one end. The only other equipment I saw were two devices of iron shaped like the letter "T" stuck into holes in sections of log and what appeared to be a small stove. Of more of a surprise was his wife. Upon seeing her in the kitchen preparing the evening meal, I thought her to be his daughter, for she looked very much younger than he. Master Eaton introduced her as his wife, Estelle. She smiled at me and then went back to her work. Master Eaton then showed me the quarters which would be mine for the duration of my apprenticeship. It was a very small room, more of a large closet really, and directly across the hall from the bedchamber he and Estelle used.; As my apprenticeship was six years and the first four were only my learning the simpler tasks of the trade, it would be somewhat boring to relate those first four years here. Suffice it to say I spent nearly a year at sweeping up the workshop, cleaning the small stove, and filing parts to remove the sharp edges left by the shears. My day began at first light with a breakfast of oats and cream, and ended when the sunlight coming into the workshop through the windows had waned enough it was difficult to see to work. A supper came after a washing up, and then it was off to bed. Only Saturday and Sunday were different. Saturday was market day, and Master Eaton and I would load his wagon with pails, lanterns, and pots and pans, and then go to the village market to sell them. I was expected to demonstrate the features of each to customers and to announce the price when asked. After a day at the market, we would come back to the workshop. I would again clean up and arrange things while Master Eaton counted the proceeds of the sales. On Sundays, we did not work. Master Eaton was a pious man, and insisted upon my attendance at church in the mornings. The afternoons were mine to use as I wished, though since I had no coin, I could only enjoy a walk by the river or a trip through the town to see the sights.; After that first year, Master Eaton taught me to do simple layouts and to use the hand shears. I thought this to be a great achievement at first. After spending hours upon hours laying out and then cutting the ears for pail and lantern handles, I wished for something more. Gradually over that year and the next two, Master Eaton taught me the proper use of the tools in the workshop. By the fourth year of my training, I could make pastry cutters in various designs for sale to the local women. These small cutters were used to cut the dough used for biscuits and tea crackers into pleasing shapes. They were a joy to make, for I was able to use my own designs as well as the standard stars, circles, and ovals. It was with some pride I manufactured pastry cutters in the shape of the waning moon and the snowmen I had drawn on paper as a child.; On my eighteenth birthday, Master Eaton instructed me to make a new candle lantern for Estelle as my first major undertaking. She used the lantern to light her way should she need to use the privy after dark. Her old lantern did not yield much light, for the panes were not of glass but of horn scraped thin enough to be mostly transparent. She wished for one with glass panes. The pattern was to be the same, so I would take her lantern after breakfast, use it during the day to take measurements and to confirm how it was assembled, and then return it to her at dinner. I was very careful in constructing the lantern, because it was a test of my skills by Master Eaton, and also because of its intended owner. When I first arrived at Master Eaton's workshop, I viewed Estelle as somewhat an ordinary woman. She was not in my estimation a particularly pretty woman though she did have a very pleasant smile and I did like the way in which her long dark-brown hair flowed over her shoulders. Her cooking was very good as were her efforts to maintain a clean house and to care for her husband. On Saturday of every week she changed the sheets on the beds, including those on mine, then washed them and hung them on the lines behind the house to dry. The other days of the week she occupied her time with other housework or the sewing of clothing for herself, Master Eaton, and once I came to live in the house, for me. I confess that as I grew older, I began to look upon Estelle in a different way. I began thinking she was a prettier woman than I had at first thought, and by the time I reached the age of eighteen, had discovered her to have a very arousing figure. I could not see much of her curves, of course. The propriety of the day dictated that women not expose themselves to any save their husband. She did have some ways of working, however, that tightened her bodice to her breasts or outlined the curve of her rounded backside when she assumed certain positions. I was always watching from the corner of my eye for one of these positions. Estelle seemed not to notice my observations. She continued to bend at the waist in front of me when setting my bowl on the table at meal times. Doing so would cause her breasts to well up to the top of her dress, and the soft mounds would draw my eyes and fill my head with thoughts of touching them. She would bend at the waist when retrieving something from her oven as well, and the way her dress outlined her shapely hips caused similar thoughts. Those thoughts usually caused a rising in my trousers. I understood the rising and its purpose, for I had seen the same rising by the ram each spring. His organ would extend from his sheath as he nuzzled a ewe who seemed to be agreeable to his attentions. He would then mount her and thrust his organ through her swollen portal and pump away for a while. My father had explained this was the way the ram planted his seed in the ewe. I had no actual teachings in how this might be accomplished by people, though I assumed it to be much the same, for I had witnessed the same event with the cattle and the horses on the estate. I thought surely women must have a similar entrance though I had never seen a woman in such a state of undress that I might do a proper inspection. I could only imagine how such an entrance might appear every time Estelle bent to get some item from a low shelf or her oven. It was often I imagined such of an evening, and stroked my manhood in an attempt to simulate what I imagined how coupling with a woman would feel. The first time seed erupted from the tip, I gasped, for the sensation was quite overpowering. It was also very pleasant, and from that day forth, I would exercise my imagination when visiting the privy. Those visits were very pleasurable, though I felt the act would be even more so when done as nature intended. Alas, though I saw several girls of my age as they accompanied their mothers into the workshop to purchase a new pail or pan, I was somewhat backward with the ladies. They were a mystery to me, a mystery that tied my tongue into knots when I attempted to speak to them.; As I related earlier, Estelle sewed the clothing we wore every day. She was an excellent seamstress, though my trousers and shirts tended to be loose fitting at first. Her reasons for the fit was that I was growing taller and broader through the shoulders, and were the fit proper at first, I would quickly be stretching her seams to the breaking point. She would size my clothing by using a string to obtain the various lengths and circumferences required, and then lay the string upon a rule and record the actual dimension. I was eighteen and a half when she came to the workshop one afternoon. Master Eaton happened to be away at the rolling mill to purchase a supply of tin plate that day. I was taking the measurements for Estelle's new lantern at the time. Estelle smiled and said my trousers were nearly worn through at the knees and she would make me a new pair. She produced her measuring string and began. Estelle wrapped her string around my waist as she had in the past, but her fingers seemed to trace from my sides to my belly in a somewhat different manner. I took little notice of this as her interruption would cost me half an hour of working time and Master Eaton had given me a required date for the completion of her lantern. Estelle pinched the string between her fingers, then laid it on her rule and noted the length on a small piece of paper. Then, she used her string to measure from my waist to my ankles. Again, her fingertips seemed to trace the path of the string, and this time, I felt a twinge in my manhood. She recorded that measurement as she had for my waist and then proceeded to measure from my ankle to my crotch. She had never made this measurement in the past and I wondered at the reason. She smiled at my expression. "Boys do not require so loose a fit as men. As you are nearly a man, I must increase the fit that you may be comfortable." I understood her meaning and thought this to be a reasonable explanation, though my manhood and sack had been of a quite larger size for some time now. That there might be a different reason did not occur to me until she made the measurement. With her left hand, Estelle held the end of her string at my ankle. She asked me to spread my legs a little, and once I had done so, her right paid out the string as she slowly moved her hand upwards. Her fingers brushed the inside of my thigh and I felt that same stirring in my manhood. They moved further up, still slowly, until they touched my sack. My manhood gave a lurch that pushed out the front of my trousers. I was quite embarrassed, but Estelle seemed not to notice. When she turned to do the recording, I quickly pushed my manhood to an upright position and somewhat relived the bulge in my trousers. Estelle made the measurement several times, saying she wished to be certain of the dimension. I was certain she would notice how my erect manhood still bulged my trousers since her hand touched it with each measuring attempt, but she said nothing. After she measured around my thigh in the area of my crotch and touched my sack several times in the process, my manhood was frightfully erect and I knew she must see it. Still, she gave no indication different than in the past. As one might surmise, my manhood would not lay back down after such an experience. When Estelle went back into the house, I went to the privy. Remembering how her small hands had touched my body was enough to bring an end to my arousal. I went back to the workshop to resume my work.; As I had learned from Master Eaton, all Masters of a certain craft belonged to a guild of those craftsmen. They met from time to time to discuss the craft and more importantly, the pricing of such goods the craftsmen made. In this way, they were able to value their wares at such prices as would bring in a good income and no Master would seek to price his work lower than any other. A week after Estelle had measured me for my new trousers, Master Eaton left for the guild meeting. I knew from past meetings it would be the next morning when he returned. Estelle and I ate our evening meal and then prepared for bed. As was my usual practice, I went to the privy to relieve myself that I should not require the trip halfway through the night. Upon returning to the house, I quietly walked down the short hall for I did not wish to disturb Estelle. When I passed her door, it was ajar a ways, and I could not stop myself from looking through the opening. Estelle stood beside their bed and she was without any clothing at all. She was facing away from me, and I felt my manhood begin to rise at the sight of her slender thighs, soft rounded hips, and the small diamond shaped opening between those thighs and hips. I could not tear away my eyes. Such a sight I had never before seen, and my mind drank in every soft curve. Estelle turned toward me then, and her full breasts swayed gently at the movement. They were round and soft looking, and her teats were large, darker lumps sitting on likewise dark circles in the very centers of the firm