Somebody told the Baptist pastor of it as he was ascending the pulpit-stairs.
"I will have it attended to," said he; and, calling the sexton, he ordered him to go into the steeple at once and take down the kite.
Easy to say, but impossible to do. The highest point the sexton could reach was more than forty feet below the top of the spire, and there he could only poke his head out at a little trap-door. The appearance of his head at this door was the signal for a derisive shout from a group of boys on the sidewalk.
By the time the services in the various churches were over, and the people on their way home, nearly everybody in town had heard of the phenomenon. They gathered in small groups, and gazed at it, and talked about it. These groups continually grew larger, and frequently two or three of them coalesced. They soon found that the best point to view it from—considering the position of the sun, and other circumstances—was the southwest corner of the square; and here they gradually gathered, till there was a vast throng, with upturned faces, gazing at the kite and its appendages, and wondering how it got there.
It was amusing to hear the wild conjectures and grave theories that were put forth.
One man thought it must have been an accident. "Probably some boy in a neighboring town," he said, "was flying the kite, when it broke away, and, as the string dragged along, it happened to catch somehow on that steeple."
Another said he had read that in China grown-up people flew kites, and were very expert at it. "Depend upon it," said he, solemnly, "you'll find there's a Chinaman in town."
Another presumed it was some new and ingenious method of advertising. "Probably at a certain hour," said he, "that thing will burst, and scatter over the town a shower of advertisements of a new baking-powder, warranted to raise your bread as high as a kite, or some other humbug."
Still another sagacious observer maintained that it might be merely an optical illusion,—a thing having no real existence. "It may be a mirage," said he; "or perhaps some practical joker has made a sort of magic-lantern that projects such an image in mid-air."
Patsy Rafferty happened to see a lady sitting at her window, and looking at the kite through an opera-glass. Immediately he was struck with an idea, and ran off home at his best speed. His mother was out visiting a neighbor; but he didn't need to call her home; he knew where she kept his money.
Going straight to the pantry, he climbed on a chair and took down what in its day had been an elegant china teapot, but was now useless, because the spout was broken off. Thrusting in his hand, he drew out the money which the Clown had collected for him from the crowd on the tow-path,—every cent of it, except the crossed shilling, the bogus quarter, the brass buttons, and the temperance medal.
Patsy then ran to a pawnbroker's shop, before the window of which he had often stood and studied the "unredeemed pledges" there displayed.
The pawnbroker, whose Sabbath was the seventh day, sat in the open door, smoking a pipe.
"How much for a spy glass?" said Patsy, as soon as he could get his breath.
"Come inside," said the pawnbroker. "This one I shall sell you for five dollars—very cheap." And he handed Patsy an old binocular, which really had very powerful glasses, though the tubes were much battered.
Patsy pointed it out of the door, and looked through it.
"Oh, Moses!" said he, as a dog larger than an elephant ran across the field of vision.
"Sir?" said the pawnbroker.
"I can't buy it," said Patsy, with a sigh, laying it upon the counter.
"Why not?" said the pawnbroker.
"I haven't enough money," said Patsy.
"How much have you got?" said the pawnbroker.
"Three dollars and eighty-four cents," said Patsy.
"And you don't get some more next Saturday night?" said the pawnbroker.
"No," said Patsy.
"Well, you are a good boy," said the pawnbroker; "I can see that already; so I shall sell you this fine glass for three dollars and eighty-four cents,—the very lowest price. I could not do it, but I shall hope that I trade with you again some day."
Patsy put down the money in a hurry, took the glass, and left the shop.
He went to where the crowd was gazing at the kite, took a long look at it himself, and then began renting out the glass at ten cents a look, at which price he found plenty of eager customers.
When they looked through the glass, they read this legend on the face of the kite:
When Teddy Dwyer saw the success of Patsy's speculation, he thought he also had an idea, and running home, he soon reappeared on the square with a large piece of newly smoked glass. But nobody seemed to care to view the wonder through smoked glass, though he offered it at the low price of "wan cent a look," and Teddy's investment was hardly remunerative.
Patsy, before the day was over, amassed nearly thirteen dollars. He carried it all home, and without saying anything to his mother, slipped it into the disabled teapot, where the money collected for him by the Clown had been kept.
The next day he quietly asked his mother if he might have ten cents of his money to spend.
"No, Patsy," she answered, "I'm keeping that ag'in the day you go into business."
But Mrs. Rourke was present, and she pleaded so eloquently Patsy's right to have "a little enjoyment of what he had earned," that his mother relented, and went to get it.
"Either my hands are getting weak," said she, as she lifted it down, "or this teapot has grown heavy."
She thrust her hand into it, uttered an exclamation of surprise, and then turned it upside down upon the table, whereupon there was a tableau in the Rafferty family.
"I often heard," said Mrs. Rafferty, "that money breeds money, but I never knew it bred so fast as that."
She more than half believed in fairies, and was proceeding to account for it as their work, when Patsy burst out laughing, and then, of course, had to tell the story of how the money came there.
"And so you got it be goin' after pawnbrokers, and be workin' on Sunday?" said his mother.
Patsy confessed that he did.
"Then I'll have none of it," said she, and opening the stove, was about to cast in a handful of the coins, when she hesitated.
"After all," said she, "'tisn't the money that's done wrong; why should I punish it?"
So she put it back into the teapot, and adopted a less expensive though more painful method of teaching her son to respect the Sabbath.
In the bitterness of the moment, Patsy firmly resolved that when he was a millionnaire—as he expected to be some day—he wouldn't give his mother a single dime. He afterward so far relented, however, as to admit to himself that he might let her have twenty thousand dollars, rather than see her suffer, but not a cent more.
AN EXTRA FOURTH-OF-JULY.
AN EXTRA FOURTH-OF-JULY.
Deacon Graham had predicted that "the wind would go down with the sun," and then the kite would fall. But the prediction was not fulfilled: at least there seemed to be a steady breeze up where the kite was, and in the moon-lighted evening it swayed gently to and fro, tugging at its string, and gracefully waving its pendulous tail. All the young people in town appeared to be walking out to see it, and the evening services were very slimly attended.
Monday morning the trustees of the church began to take vigorous measures for the suppression of the mysterious kite.
The cart of Hook-and-Ladder No. 1 was wheeled up in front of the church, and the two longest ladders taken off, spliced together, and raised with great labor. But they fell far short of reaching any point from which the hoop that held the kite could be touched.
"I hope you are satisfied," said the foreman to the trustees. "I told you them ladders wouldn't reach it, nor no others that you can get."
"Yes, I see," said Deacon Graham. "I supposed the ladders were longer. But we're very much obliged to you and your men."
"You're welcome," said the foreman, as the men replaced the ladders on the cart. "And by the way, Deacon, if you was thinking of sending a dish of oysters and a cup of coffee around to the engine-house, I may say that my men prefer Saddle-rocks and Java."
"Just so!" said the Deacon. "I'll send Saddle-rocks and Java, if I send any."
One of the trustees suggested that the most muscular of the firemen might go up in the steeple, open the little trap-door, and from there throw clubs at the string.
One of the firemen procured some sticks, about such as boys like for throwing into chestnut-trees, and went up and tried it. But the door was so far below the top of the steeple, and the position so awkward to throw from, that he did not even hit the string, and after one of the clubs in descending had crashed through the stained-glass skylight of a neighboring mansion, this experiment was abandoned.
The next consisted in firing with rifles at the kite, the hoop, and the string. The trustees looked up two amateur huntsmen for this purpose, and furnished a small amount of ammunition.
As there was a city ordinance against discharging firearms "in any street, lane, or alley, park, or square of the said city," the trustees were obliged to go first to the Mayor and get a suspension of the ordinance for this special purpose, which was readily granted.
As soon as the two huntsmen saw this in black and white, they fired half a dozen shots. But they did not succeed in severing the string or smashing the hoop. Like all failures, however, they gave excellent reasons for their want of success, explaining to the trustees that there was a difference between a covey of partridges and a small hoop on the top of a steeple. Their explanation was so lucid that I feel confident the trustees must have understood it.
"In rifle-shooting," added one of the huntsmen, "you always have to make allowance for the wind, and we can't tell how it may be blowing at the top of that spire till we learn by experimental shots. But we shall get the range after awhile; it's only a question of time."
What little ammunition they had with them was soon exhausted, and Deacon Graham, who was very excitable and over-sensitive as to anything connected with the church, rushed down town to buy some more.
"How much powder will you have?" said the clerk. "Enough to shoot a kite off from a steeple," said the Deacon.
The clerk couldn't tell exactly how much that would take—had not been in the habit of selling powder for that purpose.
"Give me enough, at any rate," said the Deacon.
The clerk suggested that the best way would be to send up a small keg and let them use as much as was necessary, the remainder to be returned. To this the Deacon assented, and accordingly a small keg of powder, with a liberal quantity of bullets and caps, was sent up at once,—all to be charged to the account of the church militant.
At the first shot the boys had begun to gather. When they found what was going on, that the ordinance was suspended, and that ammunition was as free as the gospel, they disappeared one after another, and soon reappeared carrying all sorts of shot-guns, muskets, and even horse-pistols and revolvers. No boy who could get a fire-arm failed to bring it out. Most of us had to hunt for them; for, so far as I know, not one of our boys was guilty of the folly of habitually carrying a pistol in his pocket.
The powder and bullets were on the church steps, where all who wished to aid in the good work could help themselves; and within half an hour from the time the ball opened, at least thirty happy and animated boys were loading and firing.
The unsectarian spirit of those boys was beautiful to behold. They were from all denominations, and yet every one of them was both willing and eager to burn Baptist powder in firing Baptist bullets at a Baptist steeple.
The noise had attracted the townspeople, and several hundred of them now stood looking on at the strange spectacle.
Patsy Rafferty ran home to draw some money from his teapot-bank, but found the cashier present, and hesitated. However, he soon plucked up courage, and said, with a roguish twinkle:
"Mother, will you please lend me two dollars of my money?"
Ordinarily, Mrs. Rafferty would have said no. But she was a very bright woman, and was so pleased with this evidence that Patsy had inherited some of her own wit, that she could not find it in her heart to refuse him.
"There's two dollars, and I suppose when you come back it'll be four," said she, remembering how money breeds money.
"Yes—four o'clock," said Patsy, as he ran out of the door and made for his friend the pawnbroker's, who sold him an old musket, with which, in a few minutes, Patsy joined the volunteers.
Ned Rogers had not been able to find any fire-arm; but when he learned where Patsy got his musket, and that the pawnbroker had a mate to it, he ran off to his aunt's house at his best speed, and entering unceremoniously, exclaimed:
"Aunty, I want two dollars quicker than lightning!"
"Edmund Burton! how you frighten me," said his Aunt Mercy. "Jane, get my pocket-book from the right-hand corner of my top bureau-drawer, and throw it downstairs right away."
The instant the pocket-book struck the floor, Ned snatched two dollars out of it and was off like a shot.
"Sweet, benevolent boy!" said Aunt Mercy. "I've no doubt he's hastening to relieve some peculiar and urgent case of distress he has discovered among the poor and sorrowful."
As it was rather late when Ned arrived at the church with his weapon, and the keg of powder was in its last quarter, he thought he'd make up for lost time. So he slipped in three bullets, instead of one, with his first load, and in his excitement rammed them so hard as almost to weld them together.
The consequence was that, when he discharged it, a large sliver was torn from the spire, and at the same time he found himself rolling over into the gutter, a very peculiar case of distress, indeed.
When Deacon Graham saw how fast the ammunition was disappearing, while the desultory firing produced no effect upon the kite, he thought some better plan should be devised, and conceived of a way in which, as he believed, concerted action might accomplish the desired result. But when he tried to explain it to the crowd, everybody was excited, and nobody paid the slightest attention to him.
The spectators partook of the general excitement, and applauded the performance.
"Bang away, boys! Never mind the Deacon!" said the pastor's son, as he pulled both triggers of a neat little double-barrelled shot-gun.
"Epigrus via, generosissimi tormentarii!Peg away, most noble gunners!" shouted Holman.
The Deacon, who had been growing more and more excited, was now beside himself. In his desperation, he sat down upon the keg of powder, and declared that no more should be used till he was listened to. Whereupon the pastor's son produced a lucifer match, lighted it, and declared that if the Deacon didn't get up at once, he'd send him kiting.
"Get up, or go up," was the laconic way in which he put it; and the Deacon got up.
"I'll tell you, Deacon," said one of the huntsmen, "a chain-shot would be the thing to break that string with."
"You shall have it," said the Deacon, and off he posted down town again, to order chain-shot. But the article was not to be had, and when he returned, the kite still rode triumphant.
The trustees held a meeting on the steps of the church. "Now don't get excited," said Mr. Simmons, the calmest of them; "the first shower will bring down the kite. We've only to go off quietly about our business, and leave it to nature."
"I don't know about that," said Monkey Roe, in a low tone, to one of the boys who had crowded around to learn what the trustees would do. "The back of that kite is pretty thoroughly greased. It'll shed water like a duck, and nothing less than a heavy hail-storm can bring it down."
"How do you know that, young man?" said Mr. Simmons, who overheard him.
"Why," said Monkey, seeing that he had betrayed himself, "you see—the fact is—I—I—saw a little bird try to light on the kite, but he slipped off so quick I knew it must be greased."
"Humph!" said Mr. Simmons. "That's a likely story."
"Brother Simmons," said Deacon Graham, "we can't wait for a storm,—there is no prospect of any. If we don't dispose of this thing pretty soon, I'm afraid it'll make us ridiculous."
Nobody was able to suggest any means of relief. Perhaps a sailor could have climbed the lightning-rod; but there was no sailor in town, and half way up the spire the rod was broken and a section was missing. There seemed to be no way short of building a scaffolding to the top of the steeple, which would have cost considerable money.
The pastor's son took Monkey Roe aside. "Your prophesy has been nobly fulfilled," said he, "and you've given us a tremendous piece of fun. Get us up another as good as this."
The result of the deliberations of the trustees was, that they resolved to offer a reward of twenty dollars to any one who would get the kite off from the steeple; and this offer was formally proclaimed to the crowd by Deacon Graham.
Hardly had the proclamation been made, when Phaeton Rogers, who had conceived a plan for getting down the kite, and had been preparing the necessary implements, appeared on the scene with his equipment.
This consisted of a powerful hickory bow, about as tall as himself, two heavy arrows, and a large ball of the best kite-string.
After measuring with his eye the height of the steeple and the direction of the kite, Phaeton said he must mount to the roof of the church.
"Certainly, young man," said Deacon Graham; "anything you want, and twenty dollars reward if you'll get that thing down. Here, sexton, show this young gentleman the way to the roof."
Phaeton passed in at the door with the sexton, and soon reappeared on the roof. The crowd seemed to watch him with considerable interest.
Standing on the ridge-pole, he strung his bow. Then he unwound a large part of the ball of string, and laid it out loosely on the roof; after which he tied the end of it to one of the arrows, and laid the arrow across his bow.
A murmur of approbation ran through the crowd, as they thought they saw his plan.
Pointing the arrow upward at a slight angle from the perpendicular, and drawing it to the head, he discharged it. The shaft ascended gracefully on one side of the string of the kite, and descended on the other side.
At sight of this, the crowd burst into applause, supposing that the task was virtually accomplished. It would have been easy enough now to take hold of the two ends of the string that had been carried by the arrow, and by simply pulling bring down the kite. But this would not have taken off the hoop from the top of the spire, and it would have been necessary to break off the kite-string, leaving more or less of it attached to the hoop, to float on the breeze like a streamer till it rotted away. Phaeton intended to make a cleaner job than that.
When the arrow fell upon the ground, Ned, by his brother's direction, picked it up and held it just as it was. Phaeton threw down the ball of string still unwound, and then descended to the ground. He very quickly made a slip-knot on the end of the string, passed the ball through it, and then, by pulling carefully and steadily on the ball-end, made the slip-knot slide up till it reached the string of the kite. Before it was pulled up tight, he walked out on the square in a direction to pull the slip-knot as close as possible to the hoop.
This done, he placed himself, with the string in his hand, on the spot where he supposed the one who got up the kite must have stood while putting the hoop over the point of the lightning-rod. That is to say, he walked from the church in such a direction, and to such a distance, that the string he held in his hand formed a continuous and (but for the sag) straight line with the string that held the kite to the hoop.
He expected, on arriving at this point, to raise his hand, give a jerk or two at the string, and see the hoop slide up and off the rod, from the tendency—caused by the kite's pulling at one end of the string, and himself at the other—to take up the sag.
His theory was perfect, but the plan did not work; probably because the wind had died down a little, and the kite was flying lower than when it was first put up.
When he saw that the hoop was not to be lifted by this means, he cast about for a further expedient, the crowd meanwhile expressing disappointment and impatience.
Carrying the string entirely across the square, he stopped in front of the house that was in line with it, and asked permission to ascend to the roof, which was granted. Breaking off the string, and telling Ned to stand there and hold the end, he put the ball into his pocket, took a pebble in his hand, and went up through the house and came out at the scuttle.
Tying the pebble to the end of the string, he threw it down to his brother, who tied the end of the string to the end he had been holding. Phaeton then drew it up, and once more pulled at the hoop.
It stuck a little at first; but as he alternately pulled and slackened, it was started at last, and began to slide up the lightning-rod; whereupon the crowd set up a shout, and a great many people remarked that they knew all the while the boy would succeed.
But the hoop only rose to a point about half way between its former resting-place and the tip of the rod, and there it remained. No sleight-of-hand that Phaeton could exercise would make it rise another inch. If the wind had freshened, so as to make the kite sail higher, the hoop would have slid to the top of the rod at once. But the wind did not freshen, and there was no taller building anywhere in line with the string than the one Phaeton was standing on.
The crowd expressed disappointment again, some of them groaned, and remarked that they had been confident all the while the boy couldn't do it.
"Ned," said Phaeton, "come up here."
Ned went up.
"Now," said Phaeton, "stand right in this spot; hold the string just as you see me holding it now; and try to pull on it just hard enough to make the hoop hang loosely around the rod instead of being held close against it either by the tugging of the kite one way, or by your pulling the other."
"I understand," said Ned. "I'll do my best."
Phaeton then went back to the church, and ascended to the roof again with his bow and arrow and the ball of string. Laying out the string as before, and tying the end to the arrow, he shot it over the kite-string so that the arrow fell upon the roof.
Making a slip-knot as before, he pulled upon the end of his string till the knot slid up to the kite-string at a point pretty near the hoop. He now broke off the string, leaving it just long enough to reach from the point where it was attached to the kite-string straight down to where he stood on the roof.
He tied the end to his arrow, and, drawing the shaft to the head, shot it straight upward. As the arrow left the bow, the crowd cheered again, for it was evident that when the arrow, in its course, should reach a point as far above the kite-string as Phaeton was below it, it would begin to pull the kite-string upward, and if it had force enough to go a yard or two higher, it must, of course, pull the hoop off from the rod.
But it lacked force enough. It rose till it had almost straightened the string it was carrying, and then wearily turned its head and dropped to the roof again.
The crowd groaned, and some of them left for their homes or their business, saying they knew all the while that foolery wouldn't work.
Phaeton sat down on the ridge-pole of the church, put his head between his hands, and thought. While he sat there, the crowd shouted all sorts of advice to him, most of which was intended to be sarcastic, though some spoke seriously enough, as those who suggested that he use a larger bow and a lighter string.
After some moments he got up, went to the arrow, and detached it from the string; then, taking the end of the string between his palms, he rolled it and rolled it, until he had very greatly hardened the twist.
If you have ever twisted a piece of common string up tight, and then, taking the two ends between your thumb and finger, let go of the middle, you know what it does. It doubles and twists itself together, in the vain effort to untwist.
When Phaeton had tightened the twist of his string as much as he could, he tied the arrow on again, laid it across his bow, pointed it toward the zenith, drew it to the head, and once more discharged it.
While the arrow was climbing, the string—wherever the slack folds of it hung near enough to one another—was doubling and twisting together, thus greatly shortening itself. The arrow had not gone much more than half its former distance above the kite-string when it arrived at the end of its own now shortened string, and gave such a jerk as pulled the hoop clear up from the end of the lightning-rod.
When the crowd saw this, they burst into a tremendous cheer, threw their caps into the air, and bestowed all sorts of compliments upon Phaeton.
Phaeton took off his hat and made a low bow to the people, and then disappeared through the little door in the tower, by which he had gained access to the roof. He soon reappeared, emerging from the front door, and then ran across the square, to the house where Ned still stood on the roof, like a statue, or Casabianca, waiting for his next orders.
"Haul her in," said Phaeton, and Ned immediately began winding in the kite, using his left forearm as a reel, and passing the string around his elbow and through the notch between his thumb and forefinger. He wound on everything as he came to it—hoop, mottoes, even Phaeton's arrow.
Phaeton stood in the street before the house, caught the kite by the tail as it approached the ground, and soon had it secure. He broke off the string, and Ned came down through the house.
An immense crowd surrounded them, and impeded their progress as they started for home.
"Jump into my carriage; I'll take you home," said the driver of an open barouche, who had stopped to see the performance, and like everybody else was intensely interested in it.
Phaeton was instantly seized in the arms of three or four men and lifted into the carriage. Then Ned was lifted in the same way and seated beside him. Then the kite was stood up on the front seat, leaning against the driver's back, with its astonishing motto staring the boys in the face. Lukey Finnerty, who had been proudly holding Ned's musket for him, handed it up, and it was placed aslant of the seat between the two boys. The bow, brought by the sexton, was placed beside it, and the carriage then moved off, while a large number of boys followed in its wake, three of them being suspended from the hind axle by their hands, while their feet were drawn up to clear the ground.
"Why is he carrying away that kite?" said Deacon Graham, asking the question in a general way, as if he expected the crowd to answer it in concert. "That belongs to the church."
"Sic nodus—not so," said Isaac Holman. "It belongs to him; he made it."
"Ah, ha!" said the Deacon; "I smell a mice, I s-m-e-l-l a mice!"
As the driver had recently procured his new and handsome barouche, and was anxious to exhibit it, he drove rather slowly and took a somewhat circuitous route. All the way along, people were attracted to their windows. As the carriage was passing through West street, Phaeton colored a little when he saw three ladies standing on an upper balcony, and lifted his hat with some trepidation when the youngest of them bowed. The next moment she threw a bouquet, which landed in the carriage and was picked up and appropriated by Ned.
"I am inclined to think," said Phaeton, "that bouquet was intended for me."
"Was it?" said Ned. "Then take it, of course. I could buy one just like it for a quarter, if I cared for flowers. But, by the way, Fay, what are you going to do with the twenty dollars you've won? That's considerable money."
"I am going to put it to the best possible use for money," said Phaeton.
"I didn't know there was any one use better than all others," said Ned. "What is it?"
"To pay a debt," said Phaeton.
"I never should have guessed that," said Ned; "and I don't believe many people think so."
As they rode by Jack's Box, Jack, who stood in the door, learned for the first time what Monkey Roe had wanted the Scripture motto for.
They also passed Aunt Mercy's house, and their aunt and Miss Pinkham were on the piazza. Ned stood up in the carriage and swung his hat. Phaeton saluted his aunt more quietly.
"What in the world are those boys doing in that barouche?" said Aunt Mercy.
"I don't know, but I'll go and find out," said Miss Pinkham, and she ran to the gate and got the story from one of the Dublin boys, who spoke of Phaeton and Ned as "the Rogers boys," without differentiating them, as a scientific man would say.
Miss Pinkham returned to the piazza and repeated the whole story.
"Edmund Burton always was a smart boy," said Aunt Mercy. "I could have predicted he would be the one to get that kite off. He'd find a way to scrape the spots off the sun, if they wanted him to. But I don't see why that stupid brother of his should be stuck up there to share his glory."
When it came to the question of paying the reward, Deacon Graham stoutly opposed the payment, on the ground that Phaeton himself had been concerned in putting the kite on the steeple—or, at least, had furnished the kite—for the very purpose of getting it down as he did. He said "no boy could fool him,—it was too long since he was a boy himself,"—which seemed to me a very singular reason.
It looked for a while as if Phaeton would not get the money; but the other trustees investigated the matter, rejected the deacon's theory, and paid the reward.
On their complaint, Monkey Roe was brought before 'Squire Moore, the Police Justice, to answer for his roguery. The court-room was full, about half the spectators being boys.
"What is your name?" said the Justice.
"I'm not sure that I know," said Monkey.
"Not know your own name? How's that?"
"Because, my mother calls me Monty, my father calls me James, and the boys call me Monkey Roe."
"I suppose the boys are more numerous than your parents?" said the Justice.
"Much more," said Monkey.
"And you probably answer somewhat more readily when they call?"
"I'm afraid I do."
"Then," said the Justice, "we'll consider the weight of evidence to be in favor of the name Monkey Roe, and I'll enter it thus on the record."
As he wrote it down, he murmured: "We've often had Richard Roe arraigned in this court, but never Monkey, I believe."
"Now, Monkey, I'm going to ask a question, which you need not answer unless you choose to. Did you, on Saturday night last, between the hours of sunset and sunrise, raise, fly, and elevate one six-cornered paper kite, bearing a motto or sentiment from the sacred book called Leviticus, and tie, fix, anchor, attach, or fasten the same to the lightning-rod that surmounts the spire, or steeple, of the First Church of the sect or denomination known and designated as Baptist, fronting and abutting on Independence square in this city?"
"To the best of my knowledge and belief, I did," said Monkey.
"Please state to the court, Monkey, your motives, if you had any, for this wicked and atrocious act."
In answer to this, Monkey told briefly and clearly the whole story, which the reader already knows, beginning at the point where he "just stopped half a second, Sunday morning, to see how that boy's kite pulled." When he came to the scene in the Sunday-school room, he gave it with a dramatic effect that was well calculated to arouse sympathy for himself.
'Squire Moore had been as much interested as anybody in the kite on the steeple, and had laughed his enormous sides sore when he scanned it and its appendages through Patsy's glass. When Monkey had finished his story, the 'Squire delivered the decision of the court in a little speech.
"I have searched the Revised Statutes," said he, "and have consulted the best authorities; but I look in vain to find any statute which makes it a penal office to attach a kite to a steeple. The common law is silent on the subject, and none of the authorities mention any precedent. You have succeeded, young man, in committing a misdemeanor for which there is no penalty, and the court is, therefore, obliged to discharge you, with the admonition never to do so any more."
As Monkey left the bar, there was a rush for the door, the boys getting out first. They collected in a body in front of the building, and, when he appeared, gave him three tremendous cheers, with three others for 'Squire Moore,—in which performance the pastor's son was conspicuous.
But when Monkey came to face the domestic tribunal over which his father presided, he found that a lack of precedent was no bar to the administration of justice in that court.
About a week later, a package addressed to me, and bearing the business-card of a well-known tailor, was left at our door. When I opened it, I found a new Sunday suit, to replace the one which had been ruined when Phaeton wore it to the fire. It must have taken about all of his reward money to pay for it.
For years afterward, the boys used to allude to that season as "the summer we had two Fourth-of-Julys." The scars made by the bullets on the steeple were never healed, and you can see them now, if you chance to pass that way.
A CONQUEST.
A CONQUEST.
When, at length, Phaeton got an answer from the chief engineer concerning his invention, it seemed rather surly.
"This thing won't do at all, boy," said he. "It can't be made to work on a large scale." And he handed the drawing to Phaeton, and then turned his back to him and resumed his work.
Phaeton thrust it into his pocket, and walked out of the shop, quite crestfallen. When he told us about it, Ned became indignant.
"I don't believe a word of it," said he; "I see through the whole plot. The chief engineer has entered into a conspiracy with himself to crush out your invention, because he knows it would do away with all the fire-engines and hook-and-ladders, and the city wouldn't need a chief engineer any more, and he couldn't draw that nice little salary of a thousand dollars just for running to fires and bossing things."
"I didn't know that the firemen got any pay," said I. "I thought it was only a patriotic duty,—besides all the fun."
"That's just it," said Ned. "The men who do the hard work don't get a cent; but the chief engineer, who has more fun than any of us,—for he can choose the best place to see the fire from, and can order the engines to play any way he likes,—gets a thousand dollars a year."
I thought almost everybody had had a better place than Ned's to see the Novelty Works' fire, but kept my thoughts to myself.
"I'll spoil that job for him," continued Ned.
"How can you do it?" said I.
"By getting Fay's invention patented, and then having it brought before the Common Council at their very next meeting. We might let this city use it free; that would give us a great reputation for patriotism, and bring it into notice, and then we could make all the other cities pay a big price for it."
"Wouldn't some people oppose it?" said I.
"Yes, the boys would, because it spoils all the fun of fires; and the chief engineers would, because it spoils their salaries; but all the other people would go for it, because it saves millions of dollars' worth of property. The women, especially, would be friendly to it, because it saves the scare."
"What do you mean by that?" said I, not quite understanding him.
"Why, you must know," said Ned, "that when a woman wakes up in the middle of the night and finds the four walls of her room on fire, and the floor hotter than an oven, and the ceiling cracking open, and the bed-clothes blazing, she's awfully scared, as a general thing."
"I don't doubt it," said I.
"But Fay's invention puts out the fires so quick, besides keeping them from spreading, that it saves all that anguish of mind, as well as the property."
"It seems to me it's a good plan," said I, referring to Ned's proposal for taking out a patent at once.
"Then we'll go to Aunt Mercy and get the money right away," said he. "What do you say, Fay?"
This conversation took place in the printing-office. Phaeton, after telling us the result of his interviews with the chief engineer, had taken no further part in it, but busied himself setting type.
"I've no special objection," said he, in answer to Ned's question.
"Then let's have your drawing," said Ned, and with that in hand, he and I set off for Aunt Mercy's.
"I don't feel quite right," said Ned, as we went along, "about the way Aunt Mercy has always misunderstood these things. This time I am determined to make her understand it right."
"You mean to let her know that it's Phaeton's invention, and not yours?" said I.
"That's the main thing," said he. "I've got a good deal of credit that belonged to him; but I never meant to take it. She has always managed to misunderstand, somehow, and I could never see any way to correct it without spoiling the whole business."
"But if you tell her that, will she let you have the money?" said I.
"Not so easily, of course," said Ned; "but still Aunt Mercy's a good-hearted woman, after all, and I think I can talk her into doing the generous thing by Fay."
We found Aunt Mercy apparently in an unpleasant mood, from some mysterious cause. But Ned talked away in a lively manner, and when she began to brighten up, he gradually approached the subject which he really had in mind.
"Aunty," said he, sympathetically, "don't you ever feel afraid of fire?"
"Yes, indeed, Edmund Burton," said she. "I'm afraid of it all the time, especially since I've had this new girl in the kitchen. It seems to me she's very careless."
"If your house should take fire in the night, and burn up the stairs the first thing, how would you get out?" said Ned.
"I really don't know," said she. "I ought, by good rights, to be taken out of the window and down a ladder by some gallant fireman. But it seems to me they don't have any such gentlemen now for firemen as they used to. They're more of a rowdy set."
"They're certainly not very gentle," said Ned. "Did you hear how they knocked Mr. Glidden's house and furniture to pieces at the last fire?"
"Yes; but why were they allowed to do so?" said Aunt Mercy.
"That's it," said Ned. "Somebody, out of all the people there, ought to have had sense enough to stop them. As for myself, I wasn't there. I was going, but was detained on the way."
"If you had been, you'd have stopped them, I've no doubt," said his aunt.
"I should have tried to, I hope," said Ned. "And now, Aunty, I'd like to show you a little invention for doing away with all those horrors."
"Something you want me to furnish money to make a muddle of, I suppose?" said she.
"Well, yes, if it pleases you," and here Ned produced the drawing of the fire-extinguisher. "And now I want to tell you, Aunty, that this is not my own invention, but my brother's; and I think it's about the best that he's ever made."
"U-m-m-m," said Aunt Mercy.
Ned then proceeded to explain the drawing.
"I see it all quite plainly," said Aunt Mercy, when he had finished. "My house takes fire——"
"I hope not," said Ned.
"The alarm is given, and this thing is brought out——"
"Just so," said Ned.
"In about a minute it is clapped right down over the house——"
"Precisely," said Ned.
"And smothers the fire instantly——"
"That's it exactly," said Ned.
"And smothers me in it, as well."
Ned was dumbfounded for a moment, but soon came to his senses.
"As to that," said he, "it's to be supposed that you'd run out of the house just before we put on the extinguisher. But the fact is, you've suggested an improvement already. I guess Fay must have inherited his inventive genius from you. Of course we shall have to build the extinguisher with several flaps, like tent-doors, so that if thereareany people in the house, they can easily escape."
"And you think I ought to furnish that brother of yours the money necessary to make a proper muddle of this thing?"
"I should be glad if you would," said Ned.
"Well," said Aunt Mercy, "there's a piece of his work in the kitchen now. I wish you'd step out and look at it, andthentell me what you think."
Ned and I walked out to the kitchen. There stood the skeletons of half a dozen chairs—those from which we had taken the rounds to make our rope-ladder.
"Those look well, don't they?" said Aunt Mercy, who had followed us. "They belonged to my great-grandfather, and were probably not new in his time. I had them stored at your house, and yesterday I sent a furniture man to get them and polish them up for me. He brings them home in this plight, and tells me the mischief has been done recently, for the saw-cuts are all fresh. They were priceless relics; I wouldn't have taken ten dollars apiece for them; and your brother has ruined every one of them."
Ned was staggered, and I wondered what he would find to say. But he was equal to the occasion.
"Aunty," said he, "Fay didn't do that——"
"Don't tell me, child; nobody but a boy would ever have thought of such mischief."
"Very true," said Ned; "itwasa boy—two boys—and we two are the ones."
Aunt Mercy turned pale with astonishment. Apparently it had never occurred to her that Ned could do any mischief.
"We sawed out the rounds," he continued, "to make a rope-ladder. But we didn't know the chairs were good for anything, or we wouldn't have touched them. If there's any way we can put them in again, we'll do it. I suppose we can get them all—except a few that the policeman carried off."
Aunt Mercy was still more confounded. "Rope-ladder"—"policeman"—that sounded like robbery and State-prison.
"Go home, Edmund Burton," said she, as soon as she could get her breath. "Go home at once, and take away out of my house this bad boy who has led you into evil ways."
Ned wanted to explain my innocence; but I took myself out of the house with all possible haste, and he soon followed.
"It's of no use," said he. "Aunt Mercy's heavily prejudiced against me."
When all this was told at the Rogers's breakfast-table next morning, Mr. Rogers could not help laughing heartily. He said his sister valued the chairs far above their real worth, though of course that did not excuse us for sawing out the rounds.
"But as for patenting your invention, boys," said he, "you need not trouble yourselves. It has been tried."
"How can it have been tried?" said Phaeton.
"As a great many others are," said his father. "By being stolen first. The reason why our worthy chief engineer kept putting you off, was because he thought it was a good invention and wanted to appropriate it. He had a model built, and applied for a patent through lawyer Stevens, from whom I have the information. The application was rejected by the Patent Office, and he had just received notice of it when you called on him yesterday, and found him so surly. His model cost him forty dollars, the Patent Office fee on a rejected application is fifteen dollars, and he had to pay his lawyer something besides. You can guess at the lawyer's fee, and the express company's charge for taking the model and drawings to Washington, and then reckon up how much his dishonesty probably cost him."
"But what puzzles me," said Ned, "is the rejection. That's such a splendid invention, I should think they would have given it a patent right away."
"It does seem so," said Mr. Rogers, who never liked to discourage the boys by pointing out the fatal defects in their contrivances; "but the Commissioner probably had some good reason for it. A great many applications are rejected, for one cause or another."
Phaeton had suddenly ceased to take any part or interest in the conversation, and Ned observed that he was cutting his bread and butter into very queer shapes. One was the profile of a chair; another was a small cylinder, notched on the end.
As soon as breakfast was over, Phaeton took his hat and disappeared. He went up to his aunt's house, and asked to see the mutilated chairs.
"I think they can be mended," said he.
"Of course they can," said his aunt. "The cabinetmaker can put in new rounds, but those wouldn't be the old rounds, and he'd be obliged to take the chairs apart, more or less, to get them in. I don't want anything new about them, and I don't want them weakened by being pulled apart. Unless they are the same old chairs, every splinter of them, that stood in Grandfather's dining-room, they can have no value for me."
"I think I could put in the old rounds without taking the chairs apart," said Phaeton; "and if you'll let me, I'll take one home and try it."
"Try what you like," said Aunt Mercy. "You can't make them look any worse than they do now."
So Phaeton took up one of the ancient chairs, inverted it and placed it on his head as the easiest way of carrying it, and marched home.
His next care was to secure the missing rounds. He came over to our house and got the rope-ladder, and then went to the police-station and had the good fortune to recover the piece which the over-shrewd policeman had carried off as evidence. This gave him the whole twenty-four rounds, and it did not take him long to select from them the four that had been sawed from the particular chair which he had in hand. Ned and I had done our work hurriedly, and somewhat roughly, and no two were sawed precisely alike. We had sawed them so that stubs, perhaps an inch long, were left sticking out from the legs.
Phaeton procured a fine saw, and sawed one of the rounds in two, lengthwise, thus splitting it in halves, each of which, of course, had one flat side and one curved side.
Then he sawed in each of the two stubs which had originally been parts of that same round, a notch, or "shoulder," which cut away about half of the stub,—the upper side of one and the lower side of the other,—carefully saving the pieces that came out of the notches.
Then he put the two halves of the round together, as they were before being sawed apart,—except that he slid them by each other, lengthwise, a distance equal to the length of the notches in the stubs.