Rodman the Keeper Part 29

"Marion! Marion! how can you tell what I am thinking of?" said Mrs.

Manning oracularly. "There is no rule of arithmetic that can tell you that. But here is Lawrence himself at the door.--You _have_ lived in Bohemia, have you not?" she asked, as the young man entered: he came in and out now like one of the family. "Marion says you have not."

"Pray, don't give it up, but stick to that opinion, Miss Marion," said the young man, with a merry glint in his eyes. Ah! yes, young Vickery had wandered, there was no doubt of it; he used contractions, and such words as "stick." Mrs. Manning and Marion had never said "don't" or "can't" in their lives.

"I do not know what you mean," replied Marion, a slight color rising in her cheeks. "It is not a matter of opinion one way or the other, but of fact. You either have lived in Bohemia, or you have not."

"Well, then, I have," said Vickery, laughing.

"There! Marion," exclaimed Mrs. Manning triumphantly.

Vickery, overcome by mirth, turned to Bro, as if for relief; Bro was at least a man.

But Bro returned his gaze mildly, comprehending nothing.

"Going over to the mill?" said Vickery. "I'll go with you, and have a look about."

They went off together, and Vickery examined the mill from top to bottom; he measured the logs, inspected the engine, chaffed the negroes, climbed out on the roof, put his head into Bro's cell-like bedroom, and came at last to the locked door.

"What have we here?" he asked.

"Only a little workshop of mine, which I keep locked," replied Bro.

"So I see. But what's inside?"

"Nothing of much consequence--as yet," replied the other, unable to resist adding the adverb.

"You must let me in," said Vickery, shaking the door. "I never could abide a secret. Come, Bro; I won't tell. Let me in, or I shall climb up at night and break in," he added gayly.

Bro stood looking at him in silence. Eleven years had he labored there alone, too humble to speak voluntarily of his labors; too insignificant, apparently, for questions from others. Although for the most part happy over his work, there were times when he longed for a friendly ear to talk to, for other eyes to criticise, the sympathy of other minds, the help of other hands. At these moments he felt drearily lonely over his valve and register; they even seemed to mock him. He was not imaginative, yet occasionally they acted as if moved by human motives, and, worse still, became fairly devilish in their crooked perverseness.

n.o.body had ever asked before to go into that room. Should he? Should he not? Should he? Then he did.

Lawrence, at home everywhere, sat on a high stool, and looked on with curiosity while the inventor brought out his inventions and explained them. It was a high day for Bro: new life was in him; he talked rapidly; a dark color burned in his thin cheeks. He talked for one hour without stopping, the buzz of the great saw below keeping up an accompaniment; then he paused.

"How do they seem to you?" he asked feverishly.

"Well, I have an idea that self-registers are about all they can be now; I have seen them in use in several places at the North," said Lawrence.

"As to the steam-valve, I don't know; there may be something in it. But there is no doubt about that screw: for some uses it is perfect, better than anything we have, I should say."

"Oh, the screw?" said the other man, in a slow, disappointed voice.

"Yes, it is a good screw; but the valve--"

"Yes, as you say, the valve," said Lawrence, jumping down from his stool, and looking at this and that carelessly on his way to the door.

"I don't comprehend enough of the matter, Bro, to judge. But you send up that screw to Washington at once and get a patent out on it; you will make money, I know."

He was gone; there was nothing more to see in the saw-mill, so he paddled across, and went down toward the dock. The smoke of a steamer coming in from the ocean could be seen; perhaps there would be something going on down there.

"He is certainly a remarkably active young fellow," said Mrs. Manning, as she saw the top of his head pa.s.sing, the path along-sh.o.r.e being below the level of the cottage. "He has seen more in Wilbarger already than I have ever seen here in all my life."

"We are, perhaps, a little old-fashioned, mother," replied Marion.

"Perhaps we are, child. Fashions always were a long time in reaching Wilbarger. But there! what did it matter? We had them sooner or later, though generally later. Still, bonnets came quite regularly. But I have never cared much about bonnets," pursued Mrs. Manning reflectively, "since capes went out, and those sweet ruches in front, full of little rose-buds. There is no such thing now as a majestic bonnet."

Bro came over to tea as usual. He appeared changed. This was remarkable; there had never been any change in him before, as far back as they could remember.

"You are surely not going to have a fever?" asked Mrs. Manning anxiously, skilled in fever symptoms, as are all dwellers on that sh.o.r.e.

"No; I have been a little overturned in mind this afternoon, that is all," replied Bro. Then, with a shadow of importance, "I am obliged to write to Washington."

"What _do_ you mean?" asked Mrs. Manning, for once a.s.suming the position of questioner.

"I have invented a--screw," he answered, hesitatingly--"a screw, which young Mr. Vickery thinks a good one. I am going to apply for a patent on it."

"Dear me! Apply for a patent? Do you know how?"

"Yes, I know how," replied the inventor quietly.

Marion was looking at him in surprise.

"You _invented_ the screw, Ambrose?"

"Yes, Miss Marion." Then, unable to keep down his feelings any longer--"But there is a valve also," he added with pride, "which seems to _me_ more important; and there is a self-register."

"Lawrence was over there this evening, was he not? And you showed him your inventions then?"

"Yes, Miss Marion, I did."

"But why in the world, Bro, have you not told _us_, or, indeed, any one, about them all these years?" interposed Mrs. Manning, surveying her listener with new eyes.

"You did not ask; n.o.body has ever asked. Mr. Vickery is the only one."

"Then it was Lawrence who advised you to write to Washington?" said Marion.

"Yes."

"You will take me over to the mill immediately," said the girl, rising; "I wish to see everything.--And, mother, will you come, too?"

"Certainly," replied Mrs. Manning, with a determination to go in spite of her avoirdupois, the darkness, the row-boat, and the steep mill-stairs. She was devoured by curiosity, and performed the journey without flinching. When they reached the work-room at last, Bro, in his excitement, lighted all the lamps he had in the mill and brought them in, so that the small place was brilliant. Mrs. Manning wondered and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, tried not to knock over small articles, listened, comprehended nothing, and finally took refuge mentally with the screw and physically in an old arm-chair; these two things at least she understood. Marion studied the valve a long time, listening attentively to Bro's eager explanations. "I can make nothing of it," she said at last, in a vexed tone.

"Neither could Mr. Vickery," said Bro.

She next turned to the register, and, before long, caught its idea.

"It is not _quite_ right yet, for some reason," explained the inventor, apologetically.

She looked over his figures.

"It is plain enough why it is not right," she said, after a moment, in her schoolmistress tone. "Your calculations are wrong. Give me a pencil." She went to work at once, and soon had a whole sheet covered.

"It will take me some time," she said, glancing up at the end of a quarter of an hour. "If you are tired, mother, you had better go back."