They built their houses again and tilled the soil and reaped corn and raised cattle. They cut timber in the forests and the seamen built new ships. Many years passed before the disaster was overcome, but at last the whole tribe was recovered to such an extent that they forgot about it, all excepting Two-Legs.
He was always sitting and pondering and thinking about it. That is to say, it was not the disaster itself he thought about: he had forgotten that, like the others. He had forgotten the dead, for he now had so many descendants that he no longer knew their number or their names. It was Steam he thought about.
When he saw how the wind turned the sails of the mill or carried the ships across the sea, he gave a scornful smile. It went so terribly slowly, he considered. And then a storm might come, when they could neither sail nor grind, or a head-wind so strong that they had to divert their course for it, or a calm, when everything had to stand still.
“You’re only a second-rate servant, friend Wind,” he said. “Ah, Steam! Now there’s a fellow for you!”
He remembered how the captive steam broke out and, in a moment, obscured the sun and turned day into night, how it scattered far and wide over the land great stones and mud and ashes and all that the fiery mountain or volcano contained. In a few hours, the plain was transformed into a wilderness. It was all done so quickly and with such force that no one could possibly imagine it who had not seen it. Surely, Steam must be the strongest power on earth.
He thought of what the steam had said, how it came into existence when the water got above the fire.
“That’s right,” he said.
He sat and looked at the pot, which was boiling. As soon as the water grew hot enough, the white steam floated above it.
He took a piece of glass and held it over the steam. The steam settled on the glass in clear drops.