“Hallo! good people all, how are ’ee? morning—morning. Boys, d’ee know that the saw-mill’s come to grief?”
“No, are you in earnest, father?” cried Tim, jumping up.
“In earnest! Of course I am. Pretty engineers you are. Sawed its own bed in two, or burst itself. Don’t know which, and what’s more I don’t care. Come, Martha, my bantam chicken, let’s have a cup of tea. Bother that stick, it can’t keep its legs much better than myself. How are you, mother? Glorious weather, isn’t it?”
Mr Merryboy ignored deafness. He continued to speak to his mother just as though she heard him.
And she continued to nod and smile, and make-believe to hear with more demonstration of face and cap than ever. After all, her total loss of hearing made little difference, her sentiments being what Bobby Frog in his early days would have described in the words, “Wot’s the hodds so long as you’re ’appy?”
But Bobby had now ceased to drop or misapply his aitches—though he still had some trouble with his R’s.
As he was chief engineer of the saw-mill, having turned out quite a mechanical genius, he ran down to the scene of disaster with much concern on hearing the old gentleman’s report.
And, truly, when he and Tim reached the picturesque spot where, at the water’s edge among fine trees and shrubs, the mill stood clearly reflected in its own dam, they found that the mischief done was considerable. The machinery, by which the frame with its log to be sawn was moved along quarter-inch by quarter-inch at each stroke, was indeed all right, but it had not been made self-regulating. The result was that, on one of the attendant workmen omitting to do his duty, the saw not only ripped off a beautiful plank from a log, but continued to cross-cut the end of the heavy framework, and then proceeded to cut the iron which held the log in its place. The result, of course, was that the iron refused to be cut, and savagely revenged itself by scraping off, flattening down, turning up, and otherwise damaging, the teeth of the saw!
“H’m! that comes of haste,” muttered Bob, as he surveyed the wreck. “If I had taken time to make the whole affair complete before setting the mill to work, this would not have happened.”
“Never mind, Bob, we must learn by experience, you know,” said Tim, examining the damage done with a critical eye. “Luckily, we have a spare saw in the store.”