“Your turbine ain’t gone,” says Mark, stuttering so he could hardly speak. “It’s out in the wagon right this m-m-m—”
“Minute,” I says, to help him out.
The lawyer got up and edged around to the door. He didn’t say a word, but put on his hat and went out of the house quick; and that was the end of him.
Mr. Tidd sat like he was stunned, not knowing exactly what had happened, and turning from one to the other of us with the blankest look you ever saw.
“But,” says he, “what—”
Mr. Whiteley turned in then and told him the whole business. As he went along describing how Mark and I had gone after the engine Mr. Tidd kept looking at Mark and blinking; and pretty soon he stretched out his hand and took a hold of Mark and pulled him over close, hanging onto him tight. When Mr. Whiteley told about the way we stood the siege at the cave and fought Batten and Bill Mr. Tidd patted Mark soft-like with his hand and looked up at him that proud you’d never believe it. I felt funny to see him sitting there so kind of honest and simple and good. My throat ached and—well, I walked over and made believe I was looking out of the window.
When Mr. Whiteley was all done Mr. Tidd says, kind of choked up and broken; “I never heard anything like it—never. Man and boy I’ve been a-readin’ the Decline and Fall thirty-five years, and there ain’t a thing in it equal to this. Not a thing. No, sir.”
We didn’t stay very long after that, but went away and left Mark with his father and mother and the turbine. I never saw three folks so happy as they were, and I never saw two people as proud of a boy as Mr. and Mrs. Tidd were of Mark. And I don’t blame them.
Plunk and Binney and I weren’t long getting together, and as soon as we thought it was polite we went hurrying over to Mark’s. Plunk and Binney wanted to hear all about it again, and to have Mark do the telling. We felt it was the biggest thing that ever happened in Wicksville, and I can tell you we were pretty proud to be mixed up in it. The town was all excited, and folks kept coming to call on Mrs. Tidd in a steady stream until she was so nervous and flustered it wasn’t safe for us boys to stay around. Mrs. Tidd was the kind of person that wanted to do her regular work every day, no matter what happened; and she didn’t have a speck of patience with all the inquisitive folks that came traipsing over to ask about it, and get a look at Mark as though they hadn’t been seeing him every day for almost a year. She kept getting sharper and sharper, and more anxious and more anxious to get to her work, until Mark says to us that we’d better dig out before the explosion came.
“She can’t take it out on the folks,” says he, “so we’ll catch it. Somebody’s b-b-bound to.”