I was my father’s only boy, and he had always manifested a peculiar interest in me. Even before I was old enough to go to school, while we lived on the banks of the Hudson, my father was in the habit of taking me into the engine-room with him. I used to ask him hundreds of childish questions about the machinery, whose answers I was not old enough to understand; but, as I grew in years and mental power, the questions were repeated, and so carefully explained, that, before I ever read a description of the steam-engine, I had a very tolerable idea of the principles upon which it was constructed, and knew its mechanical structure.
When I was old enough to read and understand books, the steam-engine became the study of my life. I not only studied its philosophy in school, but my father had quite a little library of books relating to the subject, which I had read a great many times, and whose contents I had considered with the utmost care. A large portion of my spare time was spent in the engine-room at the mills. I had even run the machine for a week when my father was sick.
I had gone farther than this in the study of my favorite theme. As an engineer, my father was well acquainted with all of the men of the same calling in the steamboats on the lake, and with some of them on the locomotives which ran on the railroad through Ucayga, at the foot of the lake. When our family paid a visit to our former residence on the Hudson, I rode on the engine all the way, and made a practical study of the locomotive. I flattered myself I could run the machine as well as the best of them. Christy Holgate was the engineer of the steamer now coming up to the pier, and under his instruction I had mastered the mysteries of the marine engine, with which I was already acquainted in theory, after much study of the subject in the books.
I did not pretend to know anything but the steam-engine, and I thought I understood that pretty well. My father thought so too, which very much strengthened my confidence in my own ability. I am sorry I have not some one else to tell my story for me, for it is very disagreeable to feel obliged to say so much about myself. I hope my friends will not think ill of me on this account, for they will see that I can’t help saying it, for my story would seem monstrously impossible without this explanation.
“Wolf, what was that noise down by the mill, a little while ago?” asked my father, as I joined him at the wharf.
“The canal boat at the mill pier was blown up,” I replied, with some embarrassment.
“Blown up!” exclaimed he.
“Yes, sir.”
“They were blowing rocks back of the mill, and I thought they must have set off a seam-blast; but the noise did not seem to be in the direction of the quarry. I don’t see how the canal boat could have blown up. It wasn’t the water that blew her up. Do you know anything about it, Wolf?”
“Yes, sir; I know a good deal more about it than I wish I did,” I answered, for my father had always been fair and square with me, and I should as soon have thought of cutting off my own nose as telling him a falsehood.