The Old Man and the Brass

The old man worked the brass in the morning light. He had been working brass for longer than he could remember and his hands knew the metal , his hands knew the leather.

"Hand-polished," he said. "Hand-inked. The way we always done it."

The workshop smelled of leather and metal polish. Outside, Paris, Kentucky was waking up. Inside, the old man made name plates.

He picked up a piece of brass. Four and a half inches. They used to be four inches but horses had bigger names now. Or maybe people just needed more space for their dreams.

The engraving machine hummed. Letters cut deep into the brass. Capital letters. Clean. No nonsense. The way names should be.

"Seventeen thousand halters last year," his partner said from across the shop.

The old man nodded. He didn't need to count. His hands counted for him.

The website showed the name plates on white backgrounds. Clean photographs. No decoration. The brass spoke for itself. It didn't need explanation.

A customer called from Alabama. Then one from Alberta. They wanted name plates for their horses. Good horses, probably. Or horses they hoped would be good.

"We ship everywhere," the old man said into the phone. His voice was steady. He had said these words ten thousand times.

The brass cooled under his hands. He polished it until it caught the light properly. Then he inked the letters. Black ink in deep grooves. The contrast was everything.

The name plate was finished. It would go on a halter. The halter would go on a horse. The horse would carry the name until it was old or until it was sold or until it was gone.

But the brass would remain. Polished and perfect. Waiting.

The old man set down his tools. Tomorrow there would be more brass to work. More names to cut. More horses to identify.

He had been doing this for too long to count. If he was lucky, he would do it for a few more years.

The brass did not care about luck. The brass only cared about being true.

And in the workshop in Paris, Kentucky, surrounded by leather and metal and the weight of honest work, that was enough.