"I'm going to the city!" he stood in the wide door of the blacksmith-shop, with his hands in his pockets, looking down the street, toward the rickety old bridge over the Cocahutchie. He was a sandy-haired, freckled-faced boy, and if he was really only about fifteen, he was tall for his age. Across the top of the door, over his head, stretched a cracked and faded sign, with a horse-shoe painted on one end and a hammer on the other, and the name "John Ogden" almost faded out, between them. (1st paragraph of book)