"Children! You may come up and bring mother."
Suzanna ran out into the kitchen. Mother had her hands in a pan of dough and was kneading vigorously. She looked up at Suzanna's message and replied: "You children run up to father; I'll come when I can. Go quietly by the bedroom door, the baby's asleep."
Upstairs then the children flew. At the top they paused and looked in. Father was standing close to The Machine; he turned as they appeared, and with a princely gesture (Suzanna's private term), invited them in.
The attic was dimly lit. Shadows seemed to lurk in its corners. It was an attic in name only, since it held no stored treasures of former days. It stood consecrated to a great endeavor. The children knew that, and instinctively paused at the threshold. They got the sense that big thoughts filled this room, big ambitions for Man.
They approached and paused before The Machine. It stood high, cabinet-shaped, of brilliantly polished wood whose surface seemed to catch and hold soft, rosy lights from out the shadows. Above The Machine rose a nickel-plated flexible arm, at the end of which hung a sort of helmet. Some distance back of the arm, and extending about a foot above the cabinet, were two tubes connected by a glass plate; and beneath the plate, a telescope arrangement into which was set a gleaming lens.
Mr. Procter opened a door at the side of the cabinet. The children, peering in, beheld interesting looking springs, coils, and batteries. He shut the door, walked around to the front of the cabinet and opened another and smaller door. Here the children, following, saw a number of small black discs. The inventor reached in, touched a lever, and immediately a rhythmic, clicking sound ensued.
Next he drew down dark shades over the low windows. The filmed glass plate above the cabinet alone showed clear in the eclipse, as though waiting.
"Now, Suzanna, come!"
Suzanna, at some new electric quality in her father's voice, sprang forward. He procured a chair, placed it directly before the cabinet, drew the flexible arm till the helmet rested perhaps four inches above the child's head but did not touch it, pulled forward the telescope and focused its lens upon her expectant face.
"Watch the plate glass," he said in a tense whisper, and Suzanna kept her eyes as directed.