They're quite familiar with my penchant for keenness, too, often observing me slicing paper to gauge a new knife or assess my progress in honing an old one. It’s fair to say that they expect it.
The younger boy was around last week when a Bark River Mountain Man arrived in the mail. I opened the box, pulled out the knife and turned it over in my hands briefly before passing it to him.After a minute or so he returned it to me, knowing what was coming next. I picked up a single sheet of printer paper with my left hand, holding it out in front of me between thumb and forefinger, and with my right I poised the Mountain Man over the upper edge of the sheet.
Bringing blade into contact with paper, I let the thin convex grind cleave the fibers effortlessly, a sliver of the sheet falling to the floor at our feet.
The 14-year-old watched the ritual intently. His eyes followed the knife, then the curled sliver. He stared at it for a moment before looking up and speaking softly, with a tone approaching reverence.
"That never gets old."
Indeed.
