[to be continued.]
THE BUILDING OF MODERN WONDERS.
AN ELECTRIC TROLLEY-CAR.
BY HERBERT LAWS WEBB.
One day, not very long ago, when electric cars were something of a novelty, a city official was talking about them to one of the electrical engineers in charge of a certain electric railway.
"It seems to me," said he, "that those trolley-poles on top of the cars ought to be very much stronger than they are."
"Why so?" asked the electrical man. "We very seldom have any accident with them. They almost never break."
"Don't they!" queried the other, with some astonishment. "Well, they don't look to me half strong enough to push those heavy cars along."
I suppose very few readers of the Round Table have such very foggy ideas about electric cars as that man had. But still it is something of a mystery to many people how the slender wire stretched along the street takes the place of the hundreds of tugging horses or of the rattling, whirring cable that glides ceaselessly through the long iron trough under the pavement.
Many years ago one of those famous scientific men who were always making experiments to discover new things about electricity, so as to enable practical men in these days to invent machines to do useful work, discovered that when he moved a wire about in front of a magnet an electric current appeared in the wire. This was a great discovery, because it brought to light the wonderful sympathy between magnetism and electricity. It made no difference whether the wire or the magnet were moved; as long as they were close enough together any movement of either caused a current to appear in the wire.
Then another famous discoverer found that by winding a wire round a bar of iron and sending a current of electricity through the wire he turned the bar of iron into a magnet. As long as the current was passing through the wire the iron bar acted just like a permanent steel magnet; it would attract pieces of iron and hold up nails, but the moment the current was stopped the bar lost its magnetism, the nails or pieces of iron dropped off, and it became just an ordinary bar of iron again. This invention is called the electro-magnet, and the electro-magnet is used in some form or other in every electrical industry.
The electric dynamo owes its being to those two discoveries. It consists of coils of copper wire wound on a shaft, and that shaft is revolved close to a powerful magnet. The influence of the magnet causes electric currents to be produced in the coils of copper wire, and these currents are delivered by the coils into suitable conductors or wires by means of which the currents are led to the place where they have to do their work. One very interesting thing about the modern dynamo machine is that it is what electrical men call "self-exciting." That does not mean that it gets into a state of excitement about itself. It means that the dynamo provides its own magnetism. At first dynamos were made with great big steel magnets, but those were very expensive and unsatisfactory. Then a clever inventor hit upon the plan of using electro-magnets, and sending part of the current of the dynamo through their coils to give them magnetism. This is the action of the self-exciting dynamo. When the collection of coils wound on the revolving shaft first begins to turn, very little current is produced, because there is very little magnetism in the iron magnets. Part of this current goes through the magnet coils and increases the magnetism; this strengthens the current in the coils, and this process goes on until, after a few minutes, the magnets are fully magnetized and the coils are giving their full strength of current.
Diagram showing the electric circuit through each car, and illustrating the method of sending more than one car along the same wire.
Some time after this was discovered, it became known that if the two wires from a dynamo were joined to a second dynamo instead of to an electric lamp, this second dynamo would revolve, and could be used to drive a machine, such as a sewing-machine or a printing-press.
At first this electric motor, as it was called, was used only for turning wheels that were stationary, but it was soon seen that there was good work for it to do in turning wheels that should travel along over the ground. Then began the electric railway.
Having got your electric motor it would seem a comparatively easy job to mount it on a car, to fix up a moving connection with an electric wire, and to make the motor turn the car-wheels. It looks easy enough to-day in places where hundreds of horseless cars are running about in all directions as if by magic. In the beginning it was not such an easy job, and those who led the way in the building and running of electric cars had many difficulties to contend with and many obstacles to overcome before they made the electric street-car the practical everyday affair that it is now.
Just look first at your electric motor. It is, like all electrical instruments and machines, a pretty delicate affair, very likely to suffer serious injury from hard usage or exposure to bad weather.
To place such a machine underneath a jolting car close to the surface of the street, and make it work properly at all times and in all weathers, is no small feat. One great difficulty was to keep the wire coils of the motor properly insulated. If two neighboring coils get connected with each other the motor goes wrong, and as water is a powerful conductor of electricity such accidents often happened at first through parts of the motor getting wet from splashings from the street. Now motors are made water-proof, and the cars go along merrily, even though there may be an inch or two of water in the streets, or several inches of snow or slush.
The motor is attached to the frame of the car-truck, and the power is transmitted to the axle of the car by means of gearing. In some electric locomotives that have been made the armature of the motor is wound on the axle itself, but for ordinary street cars it is found best to keep the motor separate from the axle, and to transmit the power by geared wheels.
THE TROLLEY-CAR.
The current reaches the motor under the car by means of the trolley-wheel and pole. The trolley-wheel is a solid copper wheel, deeply grooved, which is pressed upward against the bare copper wire stretched over the middle of the track; the long flexible pole which carries the trolley-wheel has a strong spring which tends to press it forward, and so keeps the wheel always firmly pressed against the wire however much the car may jump about in rough places. An insulated wire connected with the trolley-wheel is led down the pole and through the car to the switches and regulating boxes placed at either end of the car, just against the dash-board. No current can reach the motor without passing through the switch and regulating box under control of the motorman. With the switch the motorman can turn the current on or off completely, he can regulate the amount of current that reaches the motor so as to start gradually or go slowly in crowded places, or fast in quiet ones, and he can even reverse the motor and make the car go backwards, a thing that neither the driver of the horse-car nor the gripman of the cable-car can do.
Perhaps it is not quite clear how so many motors can work from a single line. As a rule electric railways are provided with but a single wire from which the motors obtain their supply of current, and this system has come to be called the single trolley system in distinction to the double trolley, or double wire system, which was tried in the early days but has been abandoned in all but one or two places. The single wire hung over the centre of the track carries the current out from the station where the dynamos are placed, and the rails and the earth carry it back to the dynamos after it has passed through the motors and has done its work. The trolley wire is kept constantly charged with electricity, which the dynamos at the power station pump into it, much as if they were pumping-engines forcing water into a long pipe. If any connection is made, by means of an electrical conductor, between the trolley-wire and the ground, the current will flow down into the ground. The only connections made with it are those made by the cars, and then the current has to pass through the motors and turn the wheels.
The trolley-wire has to be carefully put up so as to be just the right height, and exactly in the middle of the track. It must be properly insulated so as to prevent the escape of the current down the poles or along the suspension wires, so at every point where it is attached to a pole or a suspension wire it is hung from an insulator of some material that will not conduct electricity. Every here and there you will notice that heavy electric wires or cables are connected with the trolley-wires. These-wires are called "feeders"; they are run out from the dynamos at the power-house, and connect on to the trolley-wire to force fresh supplies of current into it. When an electric current travels along a wire it loses a certain amount of power by reason of the resistance or electrical friction of the wire itself, so in order to keep the supply of current up to the proper pitch required for working the motors at all points of the line, these "feeders" are run out from the power-house, and they literally feed the trolley-wire with the current that the cars are always demanding from it.
It is often said in the newspapers that the trolley-wire is very dangerous to human life. This is not really so. Nobody has ever been killed by a shock from a trolley-wire. The current used for electric railways, although great power is conveyed by it, has not the property of giving a fatal shock to the human system. There are just as great differences between the electric currents used for different purposes as there are between streams of water. Some streams have great volume, but very slow flow, others fly out of a half-inch nozzle with sufficient velocity to drill a hole through a man's body as cleanly as a rifle bullet. It is the same with an electric current. You may have a current capable of fusing bars of iron, yet you could not feel it pass through your body, and another kind of current that can be carried by a fine wire will give a shock strong enough to kill. Therefore, believe me, there is a great deal of nonsense written in the newspapers about the "deadly trolley."
Where the "deadliness" of the trolley certainly comes in is in the extreme handiness of the cars. The horse-car driver has hard work to get much speed out of his team; the gripman of the cable-car can go no faster than the cable will drag him; but the motorman of the trolley-car can with a twirl of his wrist send his heavy car bounding on like a thing of life. The temptation to "speed up" when it is so easily done is too much for human nature. This accounts for the many accidents that occur, though it is only fair to say that the fault is partly with the mothers who allow their little ones to play in streets where there are car tracks, for the victims of the trolley-cars seem to be nearly always young children.
A PARTNERSHIP ARRANGEMENT.
BY WALTER CLARKE NICHOLS.
A partnership once, as some historians state,
Was formed on the banks of the slow-flowing Nile
By a young Cheshire cat, an elephant straight
From the jungle, and, thirdly, an old crocodile.
"For surely," the elephant plausibly said,
"We can all of us turn in the forth-coming years,
When sad, to the crocodile, whom we've been led
To believe an exceptional expert in tears."
"Quite right," quoth the latter. "We cannot begin
Too early, and when we need mutual mirth
We can look to our pussie, whose broad Cheshire grin
Excels in duration all others on earth."
"And then, when we're travelling," chimed in the cat,
Who had been for some moments in solemn thought sunk,
"We can carry conveniently coat, shoes, and hat,
Since we'll always have with us the elephant's trunk."
Many boys and girls have seen the famous actor Joe Jefferson in his great play Rip Van Winkle, that delightful story of the Catskill fairies, and in it that weird scene where he partakes of the spirits that the elves give him, making him sleep for twenty years. Well, there is a good story told about Jefferson in that particular scene. Once being near some good fishing-grounds, he spent the day drawing in the gamy trout, and was thoroughly tired when the curtain rolled up for the evening performance. Things moved smoothly enough until he is supposed to fall asleep. Now that sleep in fiction lasts twenty years, but on the stage about two minutes. This time, however, the two minutes were lengthened out into ten, much to the amusement of the audience and provocation of the stage-manager. Jefferson had really fallen asleep, and his snores, it is said, were quite audible beyond the footlight. Several remarks were fired at him by the audience, and, finally, the stage-manager had to go beneath the stage and open a trap near where Jefferson was lying to try and wake him up.
He called and called, but it was no use, and in desperation he succeeded in jabbing a pin into him, which made Jefferson jump up with a sharp cry, and quickly realize where he was.
"A PIECE OF WORK."
BY JAMES BARNES.
The train-despatcher's window at the Jimtown crossing commanded a good view of the yards. It was a wet night, with a penetrating drizzle so fine that it almost led one to believe that the earth was steaming from the heat of the forenoon. The ray of light that shot over the train-despatcher's shoulder as he looked out into the darkness showed, however, that it was rain drifting downwards in the minutest drops.
It was almost time for the night despatcher, Rollins, to put in an appearance, and Mr. Mingle looked at his watch and drummed with his fingers on the pane of glass.
The light of the switchmen's lanterns occasionally gleamed from the shining slippery rails. A noisy little engine that had been drilling freight cars about the yard stopped on the siding just beneath the window, and commenced to roar angrily with a burst of feathery vapor. The despatcher watched the fireman open the door of the furnace and stand for an instant silhouetted against the red glare that was reflected by the dampness all around. Suddenly as he glanced up he saw a man on the top of a freight car across the yards swing his lantern about his head and make a jump clear to the ground into a pile of cinders.
"That was a foolish thing to do," said Mr. Mingle to himself. "He might have broken his legs; then he'd have sued the company."
The man was not injured, however, for he skipped across the tracks and approached the tower-house on a run. He stopped and shouted to the fireman of the engine that was raising such a row beneath the window. The glow from the rosy coals made everything quite plain.
Never in his life had Mr. Mingle seen a face wear such a look as that.
The fireman closed the furnace door with a slam, and the engineer, who had been out on the foot-board, hurried back at a gesture. Two words, and he dropped the bundle of waste in his hand and pulled wide the throttle. At the same time the engine shrieked for open switches. What could it mean? As the despatcher turned to the door of the staircase, he ran into the man whose face he had seen in the glare from the fire-box. It was the assistant yard-master.
"Lord, Mr. Mingle!" he exclaimed, "is No. 44 on time? Hurry and find out! Has she passed the junction yet?"
The despatcher in one stride stepped to the instrument on the desk. With his fingers on the key-board, he paused. "Tell me, quickly," he said, "what has happened. Talk, man!"
"The ore train!" exclaimed the yard-master, sinking back into the worn arm-chair and dropping his hands helplessly to either side of him. "Some one left the switch open, and the brakes slipped or something. She pulled out by herself down the grade on the main track. I saw her going from the top of the freight. How she started, Lord knows. She slipped out like a ghost, sir."
Mr. Mingle had caught only the first few words. His nervous hand was jumping as he sounded the call for the operator at Selina Junction, twenty-five miles down the road. At last he stopped, and suddenly switched off for the return.
"Tick! Tick! Tick-a-tick!" the answer came; the yard-master watched the despatcher's face as a condemned man might look at the face of a judge—and Mr. Mingle had grown paler.
"Forty-four has just passed the junction," he said, in a high strained voice. Then his teeth chattered as if he had felt a blast of icy wind. There was nothing to do.
Fifteen of that twenty-five miles was all down grade on a single track—a bad grade that necessitated an extra engine to help its brother puff and tug the heavy trains up out of the valley. Between Jimtown and the junction there was no station, and only one siding that ran out to the Fetterolf quarries, ten miles below.
"The switch engine has gone after her," said the yard-master. "If she can catch up before they reach the steep grade near the pine woods they may be able to make a flying couple."
"She will never catch them now," said Mr. Mingle. "Heaven help all in 44!" A great sob like a shiver shook him. "Quick, hurry, Tomes!" he said, shaking the yard-master violently. "Make up a wrecking train, and send one of the boys to gather all the doctors. There are three of them up near the hotel. I'll telegraph headquarters. They will be safe for twenty minutes yet. Hurry, man. Don't sit there like a fool!"
The yard-master slipped his hat on his head and plunged down the steep stairway.
The despatcher rubbed his forehead.
It was a hard thing to do! Sixty miles away they would know of the accident before it occurred, simply by his touching the little instrument that his trembling hand reached forward for. How could he begin the message? The idea of that load of ore gathering frightful headway every minute, whirling along through the darkness toward that slowly approaching train, made him sick and faint. There was going to be a wreck, and nothing in the whole world could stop it. In his mind's eye he could see the crash. He could see what that fireman and engineer of 44 would see through the rain-drops in the glare from the head-light. Old Jack Lane, he knew him well. It would be Jack's last trip. There would not be time to think; no time to press the throttle. It would be on them all at once.
The despatcher called up headquarters. Would they never answer? It seemed already half an hour since the yard-master had left him.
Somebody thumped up the stairway.
"Hello, Mixer!" said a cheerful voice. "Fine night for ducks, eh?" The speaker, a young man with a slight athletic frame, dashed his hat on the table. "What's up, cully?" he asked; as Mr. Mingle turned from the instrument, and the other caught a glimpse of his scared white face.
Mr. Mingle's voice was hoarse, as if he had been shouting, but he spoke slowly and distinctly. The young man he had been addressing had thrown off his rubber coat. The tails had been pinned up, and his back was covered with a streak of mud. When the despatcher had finished, his companion reached the head of the stairs in a jump.
"I'll try for it!" he said. "There's just one chance. I'll try to make the quarries!"
Despite the fact that headquarters was now calling back, Mingle ran to the door. He was just in time to see the night despatcher lifting something down the steps outside.
"Try for it, Rollie!" he shouted, and ran out into the rain. As he stood there he caught a glimpse of a figure fast leaving the yards. It was a man bent low over the handle-bars of a bicycle, his feet rising and falling with the quickness and ease of the trained racer. Mingle caught a flash of the steel spokes as the night despatcher turned the corner under the lamp-post into the road. Then he pulled himself up the stairs as if his feet were made of lead, and telegraphed the message to headquarters as slowly as if he had been a beginner, and not one of the best operators on the line.
The road that led outside of Jimtown stretched along through a bit of woods, and then plunged down the side of the mountain so steeply that loaded teams would halt every hundred feet or so to rest in the ascent.
A year before Rollins had coasted down Coon Hill, on a wager, but that was in broad daylight, with his club-mates stationed at every curve, and the roadway was cleared for him as far as the sandy stretch before the railroad crossing. Every stone had been picked out, and the water-bars evened up at the left-hand side. At one place, he remembered, his speed had been reckoned, in a measured one hundred yards, at forty miles an hour.
The railroad, to avoid the grade, followed the course of the Coponie, and circled about to the northward. Rollins had only to ride four miles to the ore-cars eleven—but such a night for coasting!
The rain made it hard for him to follow the little circle of light that his lantern threw before him as he scorched along the level stretch.
Before he reached the hill-top it seemed to him that he was standing still, and the road coming up at him like the surface of a great wheel.
At last, he felt that he had reached down-grade. How he longed now for the brake that he had so disdained! He determined to keep his feet going as long as he safely could, and he back-pedalled gently to keep them in place.
Thud! he struck the first water-bar, and his cap came forward over his eyes. He threw it off with a backward toss of his head.
Another jolt! He was too much in the middle of the road. He must keep more to the left. He was flying now. The rain poured down his face and stung him in a thousand prickling points.
The wind roared frightfully in his ears, and he straightened up as far as his crooked racing-handles would allow. He was at the first turn. He swirled about it, and his feet came off the ratchets. He lifted up his knees, and placed his legs on the rests. He was riding a runaway.
"Hard to the left!" he kept saying to himself, with his arms braced straight like iron rods. The front wheel wriggled, and he knew he had struck the bit of sandy road above the second angle, and the worst. It warned him just in time. He remembered the huge rock with the advertisements on it, and a ray from the lantern caught it as he flashed by and then swooped off to the right. A sharp jingle as a stone flew up against the spokes; he was once more in the straight shoot for the last turn of all.
With wide-staring eyes he prayed; his tongue formed the words behind his closely shut teeth. "Bear to the left now!" He knew the path was better on that side.
Again the front wheel wriggled fiercely. It was by nothing but luck this time that he had chosen the right moment. There was a hollow thump as he crossed a wooden culvert and bounded for a moment clear into the air. The greatest danger was passed. Below him stretched a straight decline, and then the sandy patch before he reached the crossing.
How could he stop? He could never catch those flying pedals. But stop he must or he would overshoot his mark a half-mile before he found the level.
It was no easy thing to do to hold that struggling front wheel steady. He straightened up, and bending his right knee, placed the sole of his foot against the tire of the front wheel. He could feel it warming through the leather, but he had partly checked the speed. Then there was a ringing sound, a twist of both his arms, and over he went with a sickening momentary cry of fear.
He rolled up on his hands and knees. To save his life he could not help that choking, whimpering sound. His mouth was full of sand, and he felt as though his breast had been crushed in against his lungs. A sharp pain ran through his left leg; but at last he caught his breath.
There was the track within thirty feet of where he had fallen. He could only tell this by seeing the ghostlike danger-post that stretched above the roadway like a white warning gallows. There, a few rods down the track, was the switch that turned through the sharp cut to the quarries.
Rollins gave a cry. "The key!" The switch was locked. Would he have to stand there and see the ore-cars rush by him? He twisted with both hands at the guard chain to the lock. It wouldn't move. But what was that standing close on the siding?
A hand-car is a good lift for two men at any time, but it seemed as if made of pine wood instead of heavy iron wheels and bars. He rolled it to the track, and up-ended it as easily as a laborer would throw over a wheel-barrow.
Then he heard a roaring sound above him along the grade. The sharp staccato tooting of the drilling engine he heard also. Then far below him, four miles away, the long confident whistle of No. 44 at a grade crossing. The rails were slippery, and he knew that the train was coming slowly up the grade. As the hand-car toppled across the track he threw upon the heap two heavy ties, and scrambled up the opposite bank. Now the roaring was upon him! Crash! A snap and a whirl, and the wheels of the foremost ore-car caught the obstruction. The load piled forward, and the flats behind reared up and threw their heavy freight in all directions. He had wrecked her just in time.
He hurried back to the crossing. A tangle of wire and frame-work, the bicycle lay at the road-side. He must have missed striking that huge rock by nothing short of a miracle. The lamp, twisted and broken, was attached to the front fork. He could smell the oil, and he sopped it with his handkerchief. His hands were sticky, and the match refused to light. At last he struck a handful of them; they flashed feebly, then sputtered and went out. In the brief space Rollins had seen that his hands were dripping red.
A great white eye and the tinkling of the rails told that the little switch engine would strike the obstruction first.
It was alongside now! The young man saw that the wheels were reversing furiously. Then he heard a second crash and a screeching, long continued, that went through and through his dizzy brain.
"Safe! safe!" he said, and fell limp in the sand.
"Are you hurted, Bill, lad?" said the engineer of the switch engine, rubbing his bruised sides and letting up for a minute his pull on the whistle rope. "Them ore-cars jumped the track."
"No; all O K," came the answer from the opposite side of the cab. "Jest bumped a bit. Listen! There's old Jack whistling for brakes."
The shrieking of the switch engine was warning No. 44 in time. They could make-out her head-light through the leaves of the trees just at the tangent of the curve a quarter of a mile below. Some figures were running up the track, for they could see a lantern bobbing up and down, and soon the voices were quite close.
"What has happened here?" inquired a man with brass buttons, as he caught a glimpse of the engineer swinging himself painfully off the step to the ground behind the wreckage.
"The Lord's finger, I reckon," said the engineer. "I swear I saw a light!" and in a few words he told the story.
"I SAY, YOU PEOPLE, THERE'S A DEAD MAN OR SOMETHING HERE IN THE ROAD."
A group of passengers had surrounded the heap of boards, ore, iron wheels, and axles. The head-light of the switch engine had gone out in the jar, and there was not a face shown in the dim rays from the lantern that did not pale.
A drummer in a silk travelling-cap struck a match to light a paper cigarette, but his hand trembled so that he gave up, and sat down on the ties, and mechanically brushed off his shoes with his pocket-handkerchief as if it were dusty and broad daylight.
Another whistle sounded up the grade.
"There's no train due," said the curly-headed young brakeman who had come up with another lantern on his arm. A large crowd of the passengers of No. 44 accompanied him.
"I presume likely that's the wrecking-train," said the engineer, "come down to pick you fellows up."
"Get up the track and flag her, Billy! Jump quick!" ordered the conductor.
The brakeman started on a run. As he passed the grade crossing he shouted back,
"I say, you people, there's a dead man or something here in the road," and, without a pause, he hurried on.
Rollins opened his eyes and felt the familiar motion of a moving train, but for an instant he could not call back his wits to think. He was lying on a mattress on the floor and his head and shoulders were propped up comfortably. There was a crowd standing about him.
"You're all right, my lad," said a voice. "There are four of us here to look out for you." The doctor arose from his knees and laughed.
Rollins faintly smiled. "Oh, I'm kind of comfortable," he said.
"The company ought to give him a gold bicycle set with diamonds," said the conductor.
"I'd rather have a trip to Europe," said Rollins.
A quiet-looking man standing in a corner of the car heard this remark and made a note of it.
The whistle hallooed exultantly at the entrance of the Jimtown yards.
The sound reached the ears of Mr. Mingle as he sat with his forehead resting on the edge of his desk. The three sharp toots that were being given so often in succession could be nothing else than cheers.
"Headquarters there! O. K. My side partner saved the train. Hurrah! Forty-four is safe!"
He twitched the dots and dashes out with his nervous fingers. Then he drew his sleeve across his eyes and dashed down the steps to meet the train.
"Rollie's a piece of work," he said to himself.
OAKLEIGH.
BY ELLEN DOUGLAS DELAND.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Edith recovered slowly; but the shock had told upon her, and it was thought she needed a change of air.
"Take her to a city," suggested the doctor. "She requires diversion."
And very hurriedly and unexpectedly they decided to go to Washington for a week or two, stopping in Philadelphia on their way back for a glimpse of Neal.
The party consisted of Mrs. Franklin, Edith, and Cynthia, with the addition at the last moment of Aunt Betsey. Each of the three Franklins felt a slight pang of disappointment when they heard that Miss Trinkett intended to join them; it would have been just a little nicer to go alone. But the old lady never suspected this, and she met them in Boston on the morning of the 1st of June, full of excitement and pleasure at the thought of seeing "the inner workings of this wonderful government of ours."
Hester's one thought was that she should soon see her brother again. During the last few weeks a letter had come from the head master at St. Asaph's, deeply regretting the unjust judgment that had been passed upon Neal in suspending him from school. It had since been proved that he was innocent, and the faculty would be only too glad to welcome him back. Mrs. Franklin felt that she could not do too much to atone to Neal for having suspected him, and she longed to tell him so.
"And if I once see him I can persuade him to come back. I know I can!" she said, joyfully, to Cynthia.
The visit was an unqualified success. The Franklin party did a vast amount of sight-seeing, Miss Trinkett being the most indefatigable of all. Indeed, Cynthia was the only one who was able physically to keep up with her energetic little grand-aunt, and even she was sometimes forced to plead fatigue.
Miss Betsey left nothing undone. She journeyed to the top of the Monument, she made a solemn pilgrimage to Alexandria. She was never too tired to go to the Capitol, and her little black-robed figure and large black bonnet soon became familiar objects in the visitors' gallery, while she listened carefully to all the speeches, thrilling or dull as they chanced to be. When the latter was the case, as frequently happened, Miss Trinkett waxed warm with indignation at the lack of attention paid to the prosy old member by his inconsiderate colleagues.
"Look!" she would whisper to Cynthia; "they are actually reading and writing and talking quite load to each other while that poor old gentleman is speaking; and some have gone out. How shocking!"
And she would lean forward again in an attitude of renewed attention, and listen to the reasons for or against some very unimportant project.
At Mount Vernon, Miss Trinkett's joy and patriotism knew no bounds. She bought little hatchets by the score, and herself drew up the bucket from the General's own well. She was even guilty of breaking off a twig in Mrs. Washington's garden, notwithstanding the signs which informed her that she was doing it under penalty of the law.
"I just couldn't help it," she said afterwards to her nieces, in apologetic tones. "To think of that labyrinth and that box-border being Martha Washington's own, and me with the same thing in my garden at home! It made me fairly thrill to think of Martha and me having the same tastes in common. I knew she'd have let me take it if she'd been here, for I always heard she was real kind-hearted, if she was dignified, so I just did it."
But the most exciting day of all was when they visited the Dead-letter Office. Miss Trinkett, interested as she had always been in the mail service, was much impressed. She sat upstairs for hours, and gazed over the railing at the rows of men who were opening and examining thousands of missent letters. She could only be torn away by the entreaties of Cynthia, who begged her to come see the collection of curiosities which had found their way to this vast receptacle.
At the first glass case Miss Betsey stood appalled.
"CYNTHIA FRANKLIN," SHE EXCLAIMED, "LOOK THERE!"
"Cynthia Franklin," she exclaimed, "look there!"
Cynthia looked. There was every conceivable thing in the place, from a beehive to a baby's rattle.
"Do you see?"
"What, Aunt Betsey?"
"There! Look, my own rag doll!"
"Aunt Betsey, it can't be!"
"It is, Cynthy. Don't I know the work of my own hands, I should like to ask? Well, well, I want to know! I want—to—know! Find me a chair, Cynthy. I feel that taken aback I don't know but what I'm going to faint, though I never did such a thing. But do tell! do tell! Oh, this government of ours! It is an age to live in, Cynthy."
Cynthia brought her the chair, and the old lady seated herself in front of the case.
"I do declare if there ain't the very eyes I sewed in with my own hands—black beads they are, Cynthy—and the hair I embroidered with fine black yarn! And the petticoats, Cynthy! The flannel one's feather-stitched. I could tell you what that doll has on to her very stockings. To think that something I made so innocently, away off in Wayborough, for our little Janet, now belongs to the United States government! Well, well, it's a great honor; almost too good to be true. But the little satchel, Cynthy—the satchel that hung at her side with the gold in it, where's that?"
That indeed was missing.
"Well, well, we won't say anything. I'm sure government deserves it for all the trouble it takes, opening all those letters and bundles."
But her family thought differently, and wheels within wheels were set in motion by which the fifty dollars in gold were recovered—the famous fifty dollars, the loss of which had so affected the fortunes of Neal Gordon.
It seemed that in her agitation, after the death of Silas Green, Miss Betsey, though she stamped it generously, had put no address at all on the package, and having sent it off by the half-blind Mr. Peters, the deficiency had not been discovered.
He had taken it to Tottenham post-office, where both he and Miss Trinkett were unknown, and hurried away, leaving the valuable package to the mercies of government.
"And to think that government takes care of things and gives them back to you when you are as careless as all that!" said Miss Betsey. The doll she would not receive.
"No, no," she said; "let it stay where it is. I'll make another for Janet some day. It's an honor I never expected, to have one of my rag dolls set up in a glass case in a public building in the city of Washington for thousands and thousands of the American people to gaze at! Indeed, I want to know!"
The two weeks in Washington finally came to an end, and the Franklins bade farewell to the beautiful city with its parks and circles, its magnificent avenues, its public buildings, and towering Monument.
"Well, well," said Miss Betsey, as she took her last look. "I haven't lived all these years for nothing! I've been to the capital of my country, and I've visited the tomb of Washington. And, Cynthy, now it's all over and we're safely out of the way, I'm real glad I took that twig from the garden. I had a kind of an uneasy feeling about it all the time I was in town, but now I feel better."
When they arrived at Philadelphia Mr. Carpenter was waiting for them at the station. Neal, he explained, was at the lumber-yard; he could not get off at that hour. They intended going to a hotel, but William Carpenter, with Quaker hospitality, insisted that they should stay under his roof while they were in the city.
"Rachel expects thee," he said to his cousin when she remonstrated; "she has made the necessary preparations."
"But there are so many of us," said Mrs. Franklin.
"There is room for all, and more," he replied, calmly.
Miss Trinkett was much pleased with all she saw, though somewhat surprised when she heard herself called by her given name on so short an acquaintance.
"However, it gives you an at-home feeling right away," she confided to her nieces. "It seems as if I were back in Wayborough with the people that have known me ever since I was born, I wouldn't like to say how many years ago, though not so very many, either."
It was the middle of the afternoon when Neal came in. Hester heard his familiar step coming down the long narrow hall to her room, where she was resting. There was a knock at the door, and she called to him to come in. In another instant his arms were around her.
"Neal, Neal," she cried, "is it really you at last? Oh, how I have longed to see you! Let me look at you."
She held herself away from him, and scrutinized the face which was far above hers.
"You've grown. You are taller than ever. I only come up to your shoulder, Neal. What a big man you are going to be! And you have altered—your face looks different. What is it?"
"Can't say," he laughed. "Don't stare a fellow out of countenance, Hessie; it's embarrassing. Did you have a good time in Washington?"
It was evident that he did not wish to refer to past events, but Hester insisted upon speaking. She felt that something must be said sooner or later, and there was no time like the present. It would be well to get it over.
"Neal," she said, tenderly, taking his hand as they sat together on the sofa, "I never really thought you took the money. I only did for an instant after you ran away. Of course that seemed strange. But, Neal, you will forgive us for thinking so at all. You will come back, won't you, dear? John wants you to as well as I, and you will go to college."
Neal rose and walked to the window. He stood there for a moment, with his hands in his pockets. Then he turned, and, coming back, stood in front of her.
"I'll tell you what it is. Hessie, we've both got something to forgive. I was beastly extravagant at St. Asaph's, and not at all fair and square when I asked you for the money that time. Then, being suspended was all against me, and of course John had a right to get mad. It's awfully hard to swallow the fact that he wouldn't believe me, and he thought I would steal; however, he had some excuse for it. My old pride was at the bottom of it all. You see, I've had time to think it over since I've been here; two months is a good long time. I've been alone a lot, and when you're not measuring boards at a lumber-yard you have plenty of time for thinking over your sins. And I suppose I was pretty well in the wrong, too. I ought not to have run away; I know that."
Now that Neal had reached this conclusion he was courageous enough to acknowledge it.
"And you will come home now, and go to college."
"No, I don't think I will. Cousin William seems to think I do pretty well in the business, and I shouldn't wonder if he'd feel rather badly to have me go. He was very good to take me in. Then I made up my mind I'd stick at the old thing and show Cyn—show some people I'm no coward. Then I'm not very much gone on books, Hessie, and if I went to college I'd want to give a good deal of time to sports and all that, and I'd need a lot of money. Somehow I don't seem to be able to see other fellows spending a pile without doing likewise. I haven't got it, and I am not going to be dependent on you, Hessie dear, much as I know you would like to give me every cent you own. But, on the whole, I think I like better to make my own living. I rather like the feeling of it."
Hester felt that Neal was showing that he was made of good stuff. She was not a little proud of his independent spirit. She was greatly disappointed that he was not going through college; but, after all, she reflected, there was great wisdom in what he said. She determined to say no more until she had consulted with her husband, but she knew that he would agree with Neal.
"And now where are the girls?" demanded Neal, with a view to changing the subject. "I want to see them."
His sister called them in from the next room, and they had a merry meeting.
"How funny it is," thought Cynthia. "The last time I saw Neal we were like two drenched water-rats on the river at home. Whoever thought we should meet away off here in a strange house and a strange city, where all is so different? I believe things are really going to come right after all, and that day I was perfectly certain they never would. Here is Edith well and strong when I thought she was surely going to die, and mamma has seen Neal and seems as happy as a lark, and Neal himself looks fine. Somehow he seems more like a man. I'm proud of him."
All of which train of thought took place while Cynthia was indulging in an unwonted fit of silence.
Neal soon suggested that they should take a walk, and the girls acceding to it, the three set forth, Neal feeling extremely proud of the two pretty maidens with whom he was walking.
"Philadelphia has an awfully forlorn look in summer," he said, with the air of having been born and brought up a Philadelphian. "You see, everybody goes out of town, and the houses are all boarded up. You're here at just the wrong time."
"We are certainly here at a very hot time," remarked Edith, as she raised her parasol.
"They call it very cool for this time of year," said Neal. "You forget you are farther south than old Massachusetts. It is a dandy place, I think, though I wouldn't mind knowing a few people that are not Friends."
"How can you know people unless they are friends?" asked Cynthia, gayly.
"Cynth, what a pun!" said Neal, with an attempt at a frown. "I say, though, it's awfully jolly to have you two girls here, even if Cynthia does keep at her old tricks and make very poor puns. How long are you going to stay?"
"As long as we're bidden, I suppose," returned Cynthia, with one of her well-known little skips, as they set foot on Walnut Street Bridge.
It was six o'clock, but being June the sun was still high above the horizon. A gentle breeze came off the river, and the afternoon light threw a soft radiance over the masts of the vessels which lay at anchor at the wharves, and the spires and chimneys of the town.
They wandered through the pretty streets of West Philadelphia; Neal, happy in having companions of his own age again, laughing and talking in his old way, care-free and fun-loving once more.
To Cynthia the past year seemed a hideous dream, now to be blotted out forever.
She and Neal had one conversation alone together. It was the night before the visitors were to leave Philadelphia, and the two were in the old garden that was at the back of Mr. Carpenter's house. It was not like Aunt Betsey's garden, nor the more modern one at Oakleigh, but the roses and the lilac blossoms suggested a bit of country here among city bricks and mortar.
Neal was very quiet, and Cynthia rallied him for being so, as she herself laughed heartily at one of her own jokes.
"Well, perhaps I am rather glum," said he; "but I think you are horribly heartless, Cynthia, laughing that way when you're going off to-morrow, and nobody knows when I shall see you again."
Cynthia was sobered in a moment.
"Neal, I want to tell you something," she said. "Mamma told me that you have decided to stay here and work instead of going to college, and I admire you for doing it. Of course, it's a great pity for a boy not to go to college, but then yours is a peculiar case, and I'm proud of you, Neal. Yes, I am! You're plucky to stick it out."
"Wait until I do stick it out," said Neal, coloring hotly at the unexpected praise. "But it's rather nice to hear you tell me I'm something besides a coward."
"Hush! Don't remember what I said that day. Just forget it all."
"Indeed, I won't! It is written down in my brain, every word of it, in indelible ink. There was something else you said, Cynth. You said you had faith in me. I mean to show you that you didn't make a mistake. It will be harder work than ever now, though. Having seen you all makes the idea of toiling and moiling here pretty poky. My mind is made up. I will stick it out!"