CHAPTER III
A NEW FRIEND
“I’VE MADE IT!” PANTED BEN HARDY.
“I’ve made it!” panted Ben Hardy, with a swing landing both feet safely on the platform of the last car of the speeding train.
“Now to find my man,” he added, pausing a moment or two to catch his breath and then entering the coach.
Ben had the name of the man well in mind to whom he was to deliver the machine parts. He also recalled the vague description given of the man by Mr. Saxton. The lad glanced casually at the occupants of the seats on each side of the coach as he proceeded down the aisle of the car.
No tall bearded man with eye glasses showed up, and gaining the front platform of the coach Ben took up the package where it had landed and entered the next car.
“Fare, there,” pronounced the conductor of the train, confronting him.
“Oh, yes,” said Ben with a smile, resting his package on a radiator and producing the quarter Mr. Saxton had given him. “Ought to keep it to frame as a souvenir, I suppose,” added Ben to himself comically, “but it happens to be all the money I’ve got. First stop, conductor—the junction, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll go that far. Take fifteen cents out of that,” directed Ben, producing the reward coin.
“It’s twenty-five cents if you don’t have a ticket,” announced the conductor, “ten cents extra, that’s the rule.”
“That’s so,” said Ben with a wry grimace.
“You’d ought to have thought of that,” suggested the conductor.
“I didn’t have much time to think of anything except getting aboard this train double quick,” answered Ben. “You don’t happen to know a gentleman named Mr. Davis, do you, conductor?”
The fare collector shook his head in dissent and proceeded on his round of duty to the rear coach. Ben took up his package again and began to scan the passengers beyond him.
“That twenty-five cent piece ought to have turned out counterfeit to carry out the fun of the thing,” smiled Ben. “There’s a likely prospect—I think it is my man,” added the youth, fixing his eyes upon a person occupying a double seat near the front of the coach.
This individual had a heavy beard, was tall and athletic, wore eye glasses, and was acting excited and nervous. He would glance from his car window and then ahead and back in the coach, and half arose as if to go in search of a train official to ask some important question.
As Ben approached the seats he occupied, he noticed a book of mechanical drawings lying open against the front cushions. Also leaning against the seat were several quite long parcels. The ends of these showed what Ben took to be rods or bars. The man was certainly in the mechanical line, Ben reasoned, and he advanced without hesitation.
“Is this Mr. Davis?” he inquired politely.
“Yes, that’s me,” responded the other, turning quickly and fixing an eager glance on his questioner.
“Glad to have found you,” said Ben. “I am from the Saxton Automobile Works, and this is for you.”
Mr. Davis was so glad to receive the machine part that he took it from Ben’s hands and held it under his own arm as if it were some precious treasure.
“Good for you!” he exclaimed heartily, a pleasant smile chasing away the anxiety on his face. “I was worrying over it, I tell you. I simply had to have it to-day. Here, sit down. I fancy you’ve been doing some fast running, eh?”
“A little,” rejoined Ben with a laugh. “It was jolly, though. You see, a fellow likes to beat a hard task just for practice once in a while.”
Ben sank to a seat greatly enjoying the relief from a severe strain. His companion looked at him with interest and remarked:
“I was afraid that part wasn’t going to reach me. Thought it was strange, too, for I had been very explicit in my directions. I told the Saxton people to spare no expense so I got it in time. As it was a sort of test as to what you folks could do and meant lots of work for your shop in the future, I counted on the right work on time.”
The speaker unpacked the part. Ben knew something about machinery, and observed that it was a double eccentric with several complicated attachments. He recognized it as a class of work always given into his father’s expert hands. It was exquisitely turned, jointed and polished.
“Neat as the works of a watch, eh?” said Mr. Davis admiringly. “That’s what I call fine work.”
“My father always does fine work,” said Ben, with a tinge of pride.
“Oh, your father had a hand in this, did he?” questioned Mr. Davis.
“I think so—yes, I am sure of it,” answered Ben, inspecting the part. “I remember him mentioning it as something outside of the usual run, and wondering what it was to be used for.”
“It is a part of the machinery of my new airship,” explained Mr. Davis.
“Oh, say, is that it?” ejaculated Ben with great animation, and his eyes wandering to the open book on the seat before him, he scanned with interest the outlines of an aeroplane.
“Pleases you, does it?” interrogated his companion.
“Immensely,” acknowledged Ben. “My father is the head mechanic at the Saxton works, and he is an inventor, too. He has got up any number of new improvements on the Estrelle car.”
“I would like to know him,” said Mr. Davis. “I am glad to know you. Let me see, what is your name?”
“Hardy—Ben Hardy.”
“Do you work at the Saxton plant, too, Ben?”
“No, sir,” answered Ben, “but I spend a good deal of my spare time there. Father works there, you see, and I like machinery.”
“How did you come to bring the machine part to me?”
“I happened to be around, and there was no one else to send at the time. The reason it was delayed was that the engine at the works went wild.”
“Is that so? Tell me about it.”
Ben had not calculated on a casual remark leading to a particular explanation. Before he was aware of it he had pretty nearly recited the whole story of the belt mishap at the Saxton shop.
“They ought to do something pretty fine for you, those people,” suggested Mr. Davis. “I am certainly very much obliged to you for your share in getting this machine part to me. I suppose some day you will go to work at the Saxton plant?”
“I am making drafting a special study,” replied Ben, “and I would like to start in at the model desk in the pattern rooms after school is over.”
“Do you follow after your father in the invention line, Ben?” asked Mr. Davis seriously.
“I would like to,” answered Ben. “I hardly think it is in me, though, Mr. Davis. I once got up a perpetual motion machine.”
Mr. Davis smiled, so did Ben.
“Yes,” nodded the latter gaily, “it perpetuated until I had to start it again. The only practical thing I ever did was a whistle which I made out of a simple piece of tin.”
“Patented it, did you?”
“Oh, dear, no,” explained Ben. “I made it for a friend of mine. He could warble on it like a mocking bird. I never saw anybody else who could, though. There was a certain knack about it that he could get, it seemed. Can I look over that book, Mr. Davis?”
Ben was soon immersed in the drawings before him. His companion seemed greatly pleased at his interest in them. Once or twice, too, he took occasion to commend Ben for some comment or suggestion he made concerning the models.
“Why,” he said as they came to the last drawing of a superb machine, “you seem to have done some digging in the aeroplane line.”
“Oh, all I know is second hand,” declared Ben. “My father believes that the coming motor is the aeroplane, and has done some experimenting in that line. I have taken a great delight in watching him and helping him. I will have to leave the train in a few minutes, Mr. Davis,” he added. “There is the whistle for the junction now, and I will have to get back to Woodville.”
“Two things, Ben,” said Mr. Davis as he rose from the seat. “It is a big thing for me to get that machine part on time. Here is something for your trouble,” and he handed out a folded bank note.
“Oh, no,” dissented Ben, arising quickly.
“Oh, yes,” insisted Mr. Davis. “Here’s the second thing,” and he pressed a card into Ben’s hand after writing something on its back. “I want you to ask your father to let you come down to the big aero meet at Blairville next week. That card will admit you anywhere about the grounds. I shall be in great evidence there, to speak modestly,” smiled Mr. Davis, “and I will take pleasure in showing you some things that will set that active head of yours buzzing for a spell.”
Ben’s eyes glowed over the welcome invitation.
“I don’t know anything that would give me more pleasure than to see those airships go up,” said the youth.
“Be sure to come—I shall expect you,” declared Mr. Davis, shaking hands warmly.
“Here’s luck!” exclaimed Ben, as he alighted on the junction platform, ran across it, and got aboard a train just starting in an opposite direction for Woodville, the conductor of which he knew very well, and who had the privilege of passing friends short distances.
He had calculated on a two-hours’ wait at the junction, and here was the afternoon accommodation train, twenty minutes late, but just in time to start him homeward bound without a minute’s delay.
Ben reached Woodville and went up to the automobile works at once. It lacked half an hour of quitting time, and he decided he had better report the safe delivery of the machine part at the office. Besides that, he would have a chance to walk home with his father.
“Oh, it’s you?” observed Mr. Saxton, as he entered the office.
“Yes, sir,” replied Ben.
“Did you deliver the parcel to Mr. Davis?”
“I did, Mr. Saxton. I managed to just catch the train on the fly.”
“How was that?”
Ben explained.
“Then you had to go clear to the junction?”
“Or jump off,” smiled Ben.
“H’m—cost you fifteen cents, then?”
“No, sir, a quarter. You see there’s an extra ten cents when you do not buy your ticket in advance.”
“H’m!” again commented the manufacturer. “You ought to get back that rebate. Here, Smith,” to the bookkeeper, “give Hardy twenty-five cents.”
“Oh, no,” dissented Ben, and Saxton brightened up magically. “Mr. Davis insisted on giving me five dollars.”
“He did, eh?” spoke Jasper Saxton thoughtfully.
“Yes, sir. He was very glad to get the machine part, and insisted on paying me for what he called my trouble.”
“Very good. Glad. That is—h’m—you see—quite right, Hardy.”
At first Ben fancied that Jasper Saxton was going to suggest that he divide up the five dollars with the company. However, Mr. Saxton dismissed him with a wave of the hand and Ben went in search of his father.
He recited his recent experience, showed him the five-dollar bill with some pride in his face, and told his father he would wait till quitting time and go home with him.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to change that programme, Ben,” advised Mr. Hardy.
“How is that, father?”
“Mr. Saxton wants the engine overhauled and that shaft reset, and I will have to put in a few hours extra time, so I shall not go home till later.”
“What about supper, father?” inquired Ben.
“Oh, I’ll pick up something at a restaurant.”
“Mother will insist on sending something to you, I know,” prophesied Ben.
“Well, I won’t say that home cooking wouldn’t suit me best,” confessed Mr. Hardy.
Ben started from the shop, when Caleb Dunn hailed him with the words:
“Hold on there, young man.”
“All right,” responded Ben, smiling.
The foreman gained Ben’s side. He drew a shop-soiled sheet of paper from the pocket of his working blouse.
“Every man in the shop,” he announced.
“Every man what?” queried Ben.
“Name signed to the document.”
“What for?”
“Subscription.”
“Oh!” said Ben, guessing and flushing.
“Understand, do you?” demanded the iron fisted, warm hearted foreman with a grim chuckle. “Testimonial—Watch—Open face—Solid gold—Get out.”
He gave Ben a shove and shook his fist playfully at him, and the boy went on his way laughing and feeling joyful.
Ben had to tell the story of the day’s experience all over again when he reached home. His mother said little, as between the lines she read the noble impulses that had actuated the good son of a good father in striving to do his duty and be of benefit to others. She kissed him fondly, however, and her eyes were moist and loving as after supper he started for the works with the basket of food she had prepared for Mr. Hardy.
Ben found the works closed down and his father overhauling some tools, ready to set at work when the foreman, who lived near by, returned from his supper. Mr. Hardy said that they would finish their work by about ten o’clock.
“Let me come up about nine o’clock and watch around, father, and go home with you,” suggested Ben.
“I am always glad of your company, my son,” said Mr. Hardy.
“All right, I’ll be here,” said Ben.
He did not go directly home. It was a pleasant evening, and Ben leisurely strolled about the downtown streets, taking in the sights of the liveliest hour of the day among the stores.
“Hello!” he said, quickening his steps as he caught the sound of music, and following its source he noticed a crowd gathered about a corner curb.
As Ben neared the group he discovered a street piano mounted on wheels, being operated by a man. Standing by him was his partner. The latter had a piece of tin between his lips. Keeping in tune with the hurdy gurdy, he was producing beautiful liquid notes that rang out clear and musical as the soaring notes of a lark.
The crowd was enchanted. The music was novel and harmonious. The whistle gave out notes as clear and pure as those of a flute.
The tune ended. Ben Hardy watched the whistler remove the piece of tin from between his lips. As he did so Ben started forward, his eyes fixed upon the little device intently.
“Why!” exclaimed Ben in profound astonishment, “that is the very whistle I invented for Bob Dallow.”