My grandfather had a pen knife. Not an ordinary one, but a magical knife. He used it for extra-ordinary feats. H carried it in his pocket, so I suppose you might have called it a pocket knife, but he also had a sharpener. That couldn't have been carried in his pocket, for it was about two inches wide, eighteen inches around, and was made of sand stone. It sat on a wooden tripod, with iron fittings, and a foot pedal, and was kept in the back yard ready for instant use.
Of course, there have been many kinds of knives through the ages. When a lad I had a jack knife that fit in a pocket of my lace-up boots. But grandfather had a pen knife. What use could he have had for a pen knife? For one thing, he used it to get a sharper blade than most knives had. His were of tempered carbon steel, not stainless. He claimed that stainless steel blades would not hone to the sharpness he needed, so he spent many an hour on the grind stone, honing the blades to the keenness he desired. He checked his work by shaving the hairs off of a portion of his fore-arm. When the hairs came off without the least little tugging, the blade was ready to use. Not before! Barbers used razor strops to fine-tune straight razors back when barbers shaved faces, but for Grandfather the grindstone sufficed. Since he was a Methodist Missionary preacher, he took his impatience out on the grindstone instead of cussing.
A pen knife is a small folding instrument, originally used for cutting quills to make a pen nibs. To make a quill pen, the wing feather of a goose or crow is first hardened by drying. The quill is then cut to a broad edge with a special pen knife.
A scrivener was a person who could read and write, normally secretarial and administrative staff who kept business, judicial, and history records for church and government. St. Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, used teams of such scribes, often six at a time, dictating to each in turn. They had to recut their quill pens frequently to maintain their edge. By the 18th century the width of the edge had diminished and the length of the slit had increased, creating a flexible point that produced thick and thin strokes by pressure on the point rather than by the angle at which the broad edge was held.
Grandfather may have used his pen knife to whittle a goose feather, but I doubt it. He used it for whittling! Of the many things he made, with his whittling I remember mostly his whistles. Whittling whistles was usually a late-spring occupation. He would select a sturdy twig from a branch, about three-quarters of an inch in diameter. He rolled it between his palms until he could slide the bark from the wood. a lengthy process. Cutting off a section about four-inches long, he cut a plug from the long end of the twig, then cut a short piece at the whistle end, He then cut a v-shaped notch in the bark and cut that off at an angle to form the business end of the whistle. Reassembling the lot, he went "TOOT - TOOT", which could be heard clear across the wood lot. And in saying that, I realize that even without preaching, Grandfather taught!
