{"id":"01KFNR8B5YSCS5R1FN569Q3M8N","cid":"bafkreigcqqewvzty4hb3seg7xeym2osmsxuamunfer62un6qfqedseulia","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":18666,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.406Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":18611,"text":"of his heart. And so it was.—Most miserable!\r\n\r\nA peculiar walk in this old man, a certain slight but painful appearing\r\nyawing in his gait, had at an early period of the voyage excited the\r\ncuriosity of the mariners. And to the importunity of their persisted\r\nquestionings he had finally given in; and so it came to pass that every\r\none now knew the shameful story of his wretched fate.\r\n\r\nBelated, and not innocently, one bitter winter’s midnight, on the road\r\nrunning between two country towns, the blacksmith half-stupidly felt\r\nthe deadly numbness stealing over him, and sought refuge in a leaning,\r\ndilapidated barn. The issue was, the loss of the extremities of both\r\nfeet. Out of this revelation, part by part, at last came out the four\r\nacts of the gladness, and the one long, and as yet uncatastrophied\r\nfifth act of the grief of his life’s drama.\r\n\r\nHe was an old man, who, at the age of nearly sixty, had postponedly\r\nencountered that thing in sorrow’s technicals called ruin. He had been\r\nan artisan of famed excellence, and with plenty to do; owned a house\r\nand garden; embraced a youthful, daughter-like, loving wife, and three\r\nblithe, ruddy children; every Sunday went to a cheerful-looking church,\r\nplanted in a grove. But one night, under cover of darkness, and further\r\nconcealed in a most cunning disguisement, a desperate burglar slid into\r\nhis happy home, and robbed them all of everything. And darker yet to\r\ntell, the blacksmith himself did ignorantly conduct this burglar into\r\nhis family’s heart. It was the Bottle Conjuror! Upon the opening of\r\nthat fatal cork, forth flew the fiend, and shrivelled up his home. Now,\r\nfor prudent, most wise, and economic reasons, the blacksmith’s shop was\r\nin the basement of his dwelling, but with a separate entrance to it; so\r\nthat always had the young and loving healthy wife listened with no\r\nunhappy nervousness, but with vigorous pleasure, to the stout ringing\r\nof her young-armed old husband’s hammer; whose reverberations, muffled\r\nby passing through the floors and walls, came up to her, not unsweetly,\r\nin her nursery; and so, to stout Labor’s iron lullaby, the blacksmith’s\r\ninfants were rocked to slumber.\r\n\r\nOh, woe on woe! Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes be timely?\r\nHadst thou taken this old blacksmith to thyself ere his full ruin came\r\nupon him, then had the young widow had a delicious grief, and her\r\norphans a truly venerable, legendary sire to dream of in their after\r\nyears; and all of them a care-killing competency. But Death plucked\r\ndown some virtuous elder brother, on whose whistling daily toil solely\r\nhung the responsibilities of some other family, and left the worse than\r\nuseless old man standing, till the hideous rot of life should make him\r\neasier to harvest.\r\n\r\nWhy tell the whole? The blows of the basement hammer every day grew\r\nmore and more between; and each blow every day grew fainter than the\r\nlast; the wife sat frozen at the window, with tearless eyes,\r\nglitteringly gazing into the weeping faces of her children; the bellows\r\nfell; the forge choked up with cinders; the house was sold; the mother\r\ndived down into the long church-yard grass; her children twice followed\r\nher thither; and the houseless, familyless old man staggered off a\r\nvagabond in crape; his every woe unreverenced; his grey head a scorn to\r\nflaxen curls!\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84EGVKVZJN297R0MQBMY","peer_label":"The Carpenter","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84EGVKVZJN297R0MQBMY","peer_label":"The Carpenter","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV","peer_label":"Moby Dick","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KFNR8B7V8GB6Z9JBB4QRVMYE","peer_label":"Chunk 3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR8B6FS9DQ5VVY5D5B3Y6K","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.773Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:18.917Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}