The Story of Our Country Part 18

He came down to breakfast the next morning with a very sad face, hardly knowing how he was to pay his board and get home. He was met by a young lady, Miss Annie Ellsworth, who came to him with a smile.

"Let me congratulate you, Mr. Morse," she said.

"For what, my dear friend?"

"For the pa.s.sage of your bill."

"What!" he said, in great astonishment; "the pa.s.sage of my bill?"

"Yes; do you not know of it?"

"No; it cannot be true!"

"You came home too early last night, Mr. Morse. Your bill has pa.s.sed, and I am happy to be the first to bring you the good news."

"You give me new life, Miss Ellsworth," he said. "For your good news I promise you this: when my telegraph line is laid, you shall have the honor of selecting the first message to be sent over it."

Congress had granted only thirty thousand dollars. It was not much, but Morse went actively to work. He wanted to dig a ditch to lay his pipe in, through which the wire was to run. He got another inventor to help him, Ezra Cornell, who afterwards founded Cornell University. Mr.

Cornell invented a machine which dug the ditch at a great rate, laid the pipe, and covered it in. In five minutes it laid and covered one hundred feet of pipe.

But Cornell did not think the underground wire would work.

"It will work," said Morse. "While I have been fighting Congress, men have laid short lines in England which work very well. What can be done there can be done here."

For all that, it would not work. A year pa.s.sed and only seven thousand dollars of the money were left, and all the wires laid were of no use.

"If it won't go underground we must try and coax it to go over-ground,"

said Morse.

Poles were erected; the wire was strung on gla.s.s insulators; it now worked to a charm. On May 11, 1844, the Whig National Convention at Baltimore nominated Henry Clay for President, and the news was sent to Washington in all haste by the first railroad train. But the pa.s.sengers were surprised to find that they brought stale news; everybody in Washington knew it already. It had reached there an hour or two before by telegraph. That was a great triumph for Morse. The telegraph line was not then finished quite to Baltimore. When it reached there, on May 24th, the first message sent was one which Miss Ellsworth had chosen from the Bible, "What hath G.o.d wrought?" G.o.d had wrought wonderfully indeed, for since then the electric wire has bound the ends of the earth together.

If I should attempt to tell you about all our inventors I am afraid it would be a long story. There is almost no end to them, and many of them invented wonderful machines. I might tell you, for instance, about Thomas Blanchard, who invented the machine by which tacks are made, dropping them down as fast as a watch can tick. This is only one out of many of his inventions. One of them was a steamboat to run in shallow water, and which could go hundreds of miles up rivers where Fulton's steamboat would have run aground.

Then there was Cyrus McCormick, who invented the reaping machine. When he showed his reaper at the London World's Fair in 1851, the newspapers made great fun of it. The London "Times" said it was a cross between a chariot, a wheelbarrow and a flying-machine. But when it was put in a wheat-field and gathered in the wheat like a living and thinking machine, they changed their tune, and the "Times" said it was worth more than all the rest of the Exhibition. This was the first of the great agricultural machines. Since then hundreds have been made, and the old-fashioned slow hand-work in the fields is over. McCormick made a fortune out of his machine. I cannot say that of all inventors, for many of them had as hard a time as Morse with his telegraph. Two of them, Charles Goodyear and Elias Howe, came as near starving as Professor Morse.

All the rubber goods we have to-day we owe to Charles Goodyear. Before his time India-rubber was of very little use. It would grow stiff in the winter and sticky in the summer, and people said it was a nuisance. What was wanted was a rubber that would stand heat and cold, and this Goodyear set himself to make.

After a time he tried mixing sulphur with the gum, and by accident touched a red-hot stove with the mixture. To his delight the gum did not melt. Here was the secret. Rubber mixed with sulphur and exposed to heat would stand heat and cold alike. He had made his discovery, but it took him six years more to make it a success, and he never made much money from it. Yet everybody honors him to-day as a great inventor.

Elias Howe had as hard a time with the sewing machine. For years he worked at it, and when he finished it n.o.body would buy it or use it. He went to London, as Morse had done, and had the same bad luck. He had to p.a.w.n his model and patent papers to get home again. His wife was very sick, and he reached home only in time to see her die.

Poor fellow! life was very dark to him then. His invention had been stolen by others, who were making fortunes out of it while he was in need of bread. Friends lent him money and he brought suit against these robbers, but it took six years to win his rights in the courts. In the end he grew rich and gained great honor from his invention.

There has been no man more talked of in our time than Thomas A. Edison.

All of you must have heard of him. He went into business when he was only twelve years old, selling newspapers and other things on the cars, and he was so bright and did so well that he was able to send his parents five hundred dollars a year. When he was sixteen he saved the child of a station-master from being run over by a locomotive, and the father was so grateful that he taught him how to telegraph. He was so quick in his work that he become one of the best telegraph operators in the United States.

After he grew up Edison began to invent. He worked out a plan by which he could send two messages at once over one wire. He kept at this till he could send sixteen messages over a wire, eight one way and eight the other. He made money out of his inventions, but the telegraph companies made much more. Instead of sending fifty or sixty words a minute, he showed them how they could send several thousand words a minute.

Then he began experimenting with the electric light. He did not invent this, but he made great improvements in it. The electric light could be made, but it could not be controlled and used before Edison taught people how to keep it in its little gla.s.s bulb. How brilliantly the streets, the stores, and many of the houses are now lit up by electricity. All from Edison's wonderful discoveries.

Then there was the telephone, or talking telegraph, which many of you may have used yourselves. That was not known before 1876; but people now wonder how they ever got along without it. It is certainly very wonderful, when you have to speak with somebody a mile or a hundred miles away, to ring him up and talk with him over the telephone wire as easily as if you were talking with some one in the next room. The telephone, as I suppose you know, works by electricity. It is only another form of the telegraph. The telephone was not invented by Edison, but by another American named Alexander Bell. But Edison improved it. He added the "transmitter," which is used in all telephones, and is very important indeed. So we must give credit first to Bell and second to Edison for the telephone.

Edison's most wonderful invention is the phonograph. This word means "sound writer." One of you may talk with a little machine, and the sound of your voice will make marks on a little roll of gelatine or tinfoil within. Then when the machine is set going you may hear your own voice coming back to you. Or by the use of a great trumpet called a megaphone, it may be heard all over a large room.

The wonderful thing is that the sound of a man's voice may be heard long after he is dead. If they had possessed the phonograph in old times we might be able to hear Shakespeare or Julius Caesar speaking to-day. Very likely many persons who live a hundred or two hundred years from now may hear Edison's voice coming out of one of his own machines. Does not this seem like magic?

In every way this is a wonderful age of invention. Look at the trolley car, shooting along without any one being able to see what makes it move. Look at the wheels whirling and lights flashing and stoves heating from electric power. Steam was the most powerful thing which man knew a century ago. Electricity has taken its place as the most powerful and marvelous thing we know to-day. More wonderful than anything I have said is the power we now have of telegraphing without wires, and of telephoning in the same way. Thus men can now stand on the sh.o.r.e and talk with their friends hundreds of miles away on the broad sea.

Such are some of the inventions which have been made in recent times. If you ask for more I might name the steam plow, and the typewriter, and the printing machine, and the bicycle, and the automobile, and the air-ship, and a hundred others. But they are too many for me to say anything about, so I shall have to stop right here.

CHAPTER XXVI

HOW THE CENTURY ENDED FOR THE UNITED STATES

VERY likely many of my young readers live in the city of Philadelphia, which was founded by William Penn more than two hundred years ago on the banks of the broad Delaware River, and where now many more than a million people make their homes. And many of you who do not live there, but who love your country and are proud of its history, are likely to go there some time during your lives, to visit the birthplace of your n.o.ble nation.

Have you ever thought that the United States, as an independent nation, was born in Philadelphia? In that city stands the stately Independence Hall, in which the Declaration of Independence was made and signed. You may see there the famous old bell, which rang out "Liberty throughout the land!" And you may stand in the room in which our grand Const.i.tution was formed. So Philadelphia should be a place of pilgrimage to all true-hearted Americans, who wish to see where their country was born.

It was such a place of pilgrimage in the year 1876. Then from every part of our country, from the North, the South, the West and the East, our people made their way in thousands towards that great city, which was then the proud center of all American thought. A hundred years had pa.s.sed from the time the famous Declaration was signed, and the Centennial Anniversary which marked the one hundredth year after this great event was being celebrated in the city which may be called the cradle of the American nation.

A grand exhibition was held. It was called a "World's Fair," for splendid objects were sent to it from all parts of the world, and our own country sent the best of everything it had to show, from Maine to California. On the broad lawns of Fairmount Park many handsome buildings were erected, all filled with objects of use or beauty, and more than ten million people pa.s.sed through the gates, glad to see what America and the world had to show.

If you wish to know what our own country showed, I may say that the most striking things were its inventions, machines that could do almost everything which the world wants done. And the newest and most wonderful of all these things was the telephone. This magical invention was shown there to the people for the first time, and the first voice shouted "Hallo!" over the talking wire.

In the years that followed centennial celebrations became common. In 1881 the centennial anniversary of the surrender of Cornwallis was celebrated at Yorktown. In 1882 the bi-centennial (the two hundredth anniversary) of the landing of William Penn was celebrated at Philadelphia. A vessel that stood for the old ship "Welcome" sailed up the stream, and a man dressed like the famous old Quaker landed and was greeted by a number of men who took the part of Indian chiefs.

In 1887 Philadelphia had another grand anniversary, that of the signing of the Const.i.tution of the United States, which was celebrated by magnificent parades and processions, while the whole city was dressed in the red, white and blue. In 1889 New York celebrated the next grand event in the history of the nation, the taking of the oath by Washington, our first President.

The next great anniversary was that of the discovery of America by Columbus, four hundred years before. This was celebrated by a wonderfully splendid exhibition at Chicago, the most beautiful that the world had ever seen. Columbus landed in October, 1492, and the buildings were dedicated in October, 1892, but the exhibition did not take place till the next year. Those who saw this exhibition will never forget it, and very likely some of my readers were among them. Its buildings were like fairy palaces, so white and grand and beautiful; and at night, when it was lit up by thousands of electric lights, the whole place looked like fairy land. The world will not soon see anything more beautiful.

I cannot tell of all the exhibitions. There were others, at New Orleans, Atlanta, and other cities, but I think you will be satisfied with hearing about the large ones. The Centennial at Philadelphia set the fashion. After that, cities all over the country wanted to have their great fairs, and many of the little towns had their centennial celebrations, with music and parades, speeches and fireworks.

During all this time the country kept growing. People crossed the ocean in millions. Our population went up, not like a tree growing, but like a deer jumping. In 1880 we had 50,000,000 people. In 1900 we had half as many more. Just think of that! Over 25,000,000 people added in twenty years! How many do you think we will have when the youngest readers of this book get to be old men and women? I am afraid to guess.

As our people increased in number they spread more widely over the country. Railroads were built everywhere, steamboats ran on all the streams, telegraphs and telephones came near to every man's front door, the post-offices spread until letters and newspapers and packages were carried to the smallest village in the land. n.o.body wanted to stay at home, in the old fashion. People thought nothing of a journey across the continent or the ocean. Wherever they were, they could talk with their friends by letter or telegraph, and they could go nowhere that the newspaper could not follow them.

So the waste places of the country began rapidly to fill up. If you have ever seen an old-time map of our country you must have noticed places in the West marked "great desert," or "unknown territory," or by some such name. But people made their way into these unknown regions and filled them up. First they went with their families and household goods in great wagons. Then they went far more swiftly in railroad trains. Here they settled down and began farming; farther on, where there was not rain enough to farm, they raised cattle and sheep on the rich gra.s.ses; still farther, in the mountain regions, they set to work mining, getting gold, silver, copper, iron and coal from the hard rocks.

Cities grew up where the Indian and the buffalo had roamed. The factory followed the farmer; the engine began to puff its steam into the air, the wheels to turn, the machines to work, goods of all kinds to be made. The whole country became like a great hive of workers, where everybody was busy, and thousands of the people grew rich.

But all this great western country was not given up to the farmer, the miner and the wood-chopper. There were places which nature had made beautiful or wonderful or grand, and these were kept as places for all the people to visit. One of these was the beautiful Yosemite Valley, in California; another was the wonderful Yellowstone Park, with its marvelous spouting springs; others were the groves of giant trees; still others were great forests, from which the government told the wood-choppers to keep out, for the woods had been set aside for the good or the pleasure of all the people of the land.

Some of you may ask, what became of the old people of the country--the Indians, who were spread all over the West? There were hundreds of tribes of them, and many of them were bold and brave, and when they saw the white men pushing into their country they fought fiercely for their homes. But they could not stand before the guns of the pioneers and the cannon of the soldiers, and in time they were all forced to submit. Then places were set aside for them and they were made to live in them. The Indians were not always treated well. They were robbed and cheated in a hundred ways. But that, I hope, is all over now, for they are being well cared for and educated, and they seem likely, before many years, to become good and useful citizens of our country.