Ronnie was so busy telling Bill about his idea, and Bill was listening to it so intently, that neither of the boys saw the station wagon until it was almost upon them. “... and if we could build a dam across that narrow gap the village could be saved,” Ronnie was saying.
It was Bill who saw the station wagon first and he stopped dead in his tracks. “Look, Ronnie,” he exclaimed, “a car—inhere!”
There was an old dirt road leading from the highway and connecting with the cobblestone road, but neither of the boys could ever remember seeing it used. But now that Ronnie thought about it, there wasn’t any reason why it couldn’t be used—if someone had a mind to get to the village without walking, someone traveling along the highway, that is. And here apparently was someone who wanted to do just that.
The man stopped the car, turned off the engine, and stepped out. He came toward the boys, smiling broadly. “You don’t know how glad I am to see you. I thought sure I was lost and the road was too narrow to turn around and go back to the highway.” He took a step toward Ronnie, offeringhis hand. “My name’s Caldwell,” he said. “Joseph Caldwell.”
Ronnie shook hands. “I’m Ronnie, and this here’s Bill. You looking for something special, mister?”
“Yes. The old Rorth Glassworks.”
“You’ve found it,” Bill answered.
“But there’s nothing here any more, Mr. Caldwell,” Ronnie added quickly. “I mean, they don’t make glass now—not for the last seventy-five or eighty years, near-abouts.”
“I know.” The man smiled faintly. “Anybody who’s traveled up that dirt road could guess that there’s been no activity here for years.”
Ronnie grinned. “Now that you’re here, what are you fixing to do?” he asked.
“Well, what I’d like to do is look the place over. But I suppose I’ll have to get permission first.”
Ronnie shook his head. “You won’t have to do that, Mr. Caldwell. This land belongs to my grandfather. He’ll let you look. Maybe you’d like to have us show you around?”
“I’d like that very much!” Mr. Caldwell answered.
As Ronnie led the man down the cobbled street, a hundred stories Grandfather had told him about the village leaped to his mind and begged to be told. He remembered the evening Grandfather and he had sat on the top of the bluff overlooking the village, with the bats circling overhead and the buildings standing silent below and fading from sight among the trees in the gathering darkness. How vividly Grandfather had told the story of the great fire of 1871 when ten of the workers’ cottages had burned to the ground, and Great-great-grandfather Ezra had worked besidehis men, battling the blaze until he had fallen from smoke poisoning.
Or, the winter of the great blizzard when the roof of the Glassworks had caved in from the weight, and when the drifts were so high it took three days to dig out the road so that supplies could be procured from the storehouses.
He remembered, too, the story Grandfather told about the duchess from Bavaria who had visited the Works because she admired the Rorth glassware so much. Great-great-grandfather had blown a special piece for her that day, and she, in turn, had left a treasured piece of Bavarian glass.
They approached the two-story building beside Goose Brook. “This was the gristmill,” Ronnie told Mr. Caldwell. “Every bit of flour and meal for the village was made here from the grain grown on the fields up above where Dad has his orchards now.”
Caldwell inspected the huge, overshot waterwheel mounted on its two stone-and-cement piers and connected to the inside of the building with a rusty shaft by which the power was transferred to the grinding stones.
They went inside. A musty smell of damp stone and stale air touched Ronnie’s nostrils. The large grinding stone stood motionless now. Big copper caldrons and stone mixing pots gave evidence that the grain had not only been ground to flour, but baked into bread as well. A massive fireplace with an iron oven on each side formed the entire rear wall.
Caldwell poked about among the smaller articles for a while and then followed the boys outside. Next they visited the main building where the glass had been made andblown. Bill showed the man the main furnace with its four openings into the main chimney which rose like a giant above the furnace and disappeared through the roof. Some of the long-handled “pots” in which the glass was heated were still stacked against the wall.
Otherwise, the building was bare of its former equipment. Caldwell led the way outside. “I’ve got time for more—if you have,” he announced.
The church, sawmill, and a few of the workers’ houses which were still intact, followed. Then came a quick inspection of the smith shop and finally the old office.
“All boarded up and locked, I see!” Caldwell commented. “Something special housed inside?”
“Why, no, sir!” Ronnie answered. He didn’t feel like giving an explanation of something so personal that even Grandfather didn’t like to talk about it.
Caldwell didn’t press his question. “I certainly am impressed by how well preserved some of the buildings are,” he said instead.
“That’s because Grandfather didn’t want to see the village fall to pieces,” Ronnie answered. “Before he came down with his gout he spent days working down here, every time he could get away from the farm. He told me for a while he even milled his own lumber from the wood lot so’s he could afford to do it.”
“Your grandfather must have a real love for this place,” the man said sincerely.
“I reckon it’s just about the biggest thing in his life.” Ronnie was going to add “and mine too,” but he didn’t because Caldwell had turned away and had started down the path toward the cobbled road.
“Grandpa even replaced some of these stones in the old roadbed,” Ronnie added as the three headed back toward Mr. Caldwell’s car.
He handed each of the boys a quarter. “You’ve been real fine guides,” he said. “Thank you for taking me around.”
“You don’t need to pay us, mister,” Ronnie said, handing the money back. “Bill and I—we would have hung around here anyway.”
“Keep it, please,” the man insisted. “Who knows—I may want you to help me more, and then I wouldn’t feel right asking you, would I?”
“All right,” Ronnie agreed. Bill had already pocketed his quarter. “Say, Mr. Caldwell,” Ronnie had an idea, “do you suppose other people would pay money to have us show them around?”
Mr. Caldwell thought about the question. “I’m sure you could attract quite a few interested people—if they knew about it.” He opened the door to his car. “Say, son, I wonder if I could come to see your parents tomorrow and your grandfather, too.”
“I haven’t got any mother. She died when I was born. But you can sure come to see Dad and Grandfather. Something you want, maybe?”
“Well, perhaps. You see, I’m writing a book about early American glassware, and an idea just struck me that might prove interesting. But let me go back to my motel and think it over, and I’ll tell you about it tomorrow when I visit your folks.”
“Suits me fine,” Ronnie answered.
Caldwell climbed into his car and started the engine.Ronnie and Bill watched him while he maneuvered his machine about on the narrow, cobbled roadway and headed in the opposite direction. Then Caldwell leaned from the window and waved good-by. He started back up the road toward the highway in low gear.
Bill turned to Ronnie.
“Now just what do you suppose brought him here to see the village in the first place? He couldn’t have stumbled on it just by accident, that’s for sure!”
“He was eying the locked-up building mighty suspicious-like, I’ll tell you that!” Ronnie added. “Did you see him, Bill?”
Bill nodded his head. “He’s come here for something, and I don’t think writing a book is the whole answer.”
They walked up the path together, picking up old acorns and shooting them into the trees. Suddenly Bill stopped and confronted Ronnie. “How come you asked him would other people pay money to see the village, Ronnie?” he asked.
“I was putting one and one together, and I think I came up with two.”
“And what’s this two you came up with?”
“Well, that narrow gap where Goose Brook comes down through the valley, plus some money we might be able to earn this summer showing people around. Maybe it equals a dam and saving the village.”
Bill thought about that while he searched the dried leaves beneath a giant bull oak for more ammunition. “How much you figure a dam would cost?”
Ronnie shrugged. “I haven’t got the slightest idea. A hundred dollars, maybe?”
Bill shook his head. “Maybe more like a thousand. Maybe ten thousand.”
“Well, it would be abeginninganyway. And I know people hereabouts who would want to see the village saved, too, and I’ll bet if they heard how we were working to earn money, maybe they’d help out too. My dad knows the president of the historical society in town, and he told Dad he was sick hearing about how the village would be bulldozed and flooded, and if there was anything the society could do to help, he should just speak up.” Ronnie sighed. “I’d sure like totryto earn the money to save the village. It would be fun, too—you and me and maybe Phil, if he wants to, and you don’t care.”
“And then if we can’t use the money for the village, we can always have it to put in the bank.”
“Let’s try it, huh, Bill?” Ronnie said.
“It’s a deal! Rorth and Beckney, Guided Tours of the Rorth Glassworks’ Deserted Village.”
As they walked together down the path, each of the boys was filled with ideas as to how they would proceed. There would have to be a sign on the highway, of course. And the road leading into the village would need some repairs, and the branches overhanging it should be pruned short. They’d have to decide upon how much to charge and what they’d tell their guests about each of the buildings.
They stopped where the path divided—one route leading toward the Beckney farm, the other, up the embankment to the Rorth orchard.
“Tomorrow, Bill?” Ronnie asked him.
“Tomorrow, partner!” Bill answered.
Ronnie turned and began to run, digging his toes intothe embankment as he scrambled to the top. He raced through the apple orchard, leaping a time or two to grab at a pea-sized apple. He suddenly felt light enough to fly. At least now he’d bedoingsomething to save the deserted village, not just standing by and listening to Grandfather argue with Mr. Evans.