by Don Wilcox
Still, there was a sort of logic to Dusty’s rash ways. Other folks could talk; he couldn’t. But he could act on their ideas. That’s what happened today. He heard Mr. Sleem complain about the mail being late. Mr. Sleem came back from the mail box angry, so Dusty decided to do something about it. He picked up the iron cat that served as a door stop and battered the mail box to junk. Then grinning with pride, he sat down to wait for Mr. Sleem to discover what he had done. When the master returned, his face flamed with rage. He marched Dusty off to the detention room to try to beat some sense into him.
Sleem’s beatings were no joke; nevertheless the inmates silently gloated over this incident. Let Mr. Sleem fry in his own grease. They knew he could never beat sense into Dusty’s cloudy brain. Previous events proved that. They remembered the time that Mr. Sleem growled because the windows were so dirty he couldn’t see out, and Dusty forthwith smashed out five panes before anyone could stop him.
“Mr. Sleem’s sure to be in an ugly mood today,” said Linda as she told Dave of these happenings. Her amusement was mixed with trembling. This constant tension was bad for her, Dave thought. She had grown up in a world of music, harmony, peace. Two years had not reconciled her to the harshness of this institution, its bad mixture of problems. Inwardly she rebelled.
Dave guessed her feelings, questioned her, listened tensely as she confided in him.
“If it hadn’t been for playing the organ, I’d have run away long ago—but now—”
There was new happiness in her face, but her confession broke off sharply.
“Yes?” Dave pursued. Her loveliness inflamed him. His hand stole across hers. At once he seemed very close to her, almost alone with her. The only others in the room were the blind pupils engrossed in their own conversations. He wanted to take her in his arms but he knew Mr. Sleem would come in at any moment.
“I can’t thank you enough for the radio you gave me,” she said, discreetly changing the subject.
“Like it?”
“It’s wonderful. You’ve no idea—yet—what it means to one who is blind . . .”
Linda’s joy was genuine. Dave’s gift reopened a world she had lost—a world of music and of hope. She knew the danger to blind persons of sinking into mental lethargy. The radio promised new stimulations.
“Miss Yost has moved the other blind girls in with me so they can hear it too,” she said. “We tune it in softly every night. Of course, Mr. Sleem mustn’t know I have it.”
Dave stifled an oath. That old fashioned pedagogue with his sledge hammer methods! It would be a blessing if some tortured creature like Dusty would turn on him some day and run him off the premises.
“It’s a crime!” Dave declared. “With all the fine instruments there are to make life interesting, he still clings to the old ruts. Has he ever let you use the Talking Books?”[*]
Dave could have guessed the answer. Sleem was too much concerned with the goods his pupils produced to bother about putting anything back into their lives.
“Did you hear the radio news item about the blind person last night?” Linda asked. “Someone who is making a sort of automatic wheeled chair to get around in safely.” The girl glowed with enthusiasm.
Dave swallowed hard. “Why—er—yes, I heard, that is—they didn’t give his name—”
“No, just someone in Chicago who is going blind. But think!” the girl exulted. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful! Of course you’ve never thought about it yet. But soon you’ll understand. You see, it isn’t so bad to be without sight, if that’s all there was to it. But to have to depend on someone else, wherever you go, whatever you do—that’s the tragic thing!”
The girl wept in spite of herself. Dave breathed hard. She had never spoken of tragedy before. It came to him anew with a strange lingering chill.
Linda applied her handkerchief and was all smiles again. She talked on of the good luck of the unknown person who was to have the robotcycle, wondered if he would appreciate his wonderful advantage, never guessed that the lucky person was the genial, soft-spoken young man who sat beside her, gripping her hand so tightly she could feel his heart beat.
Visions whirled through Dave’s mind, left him breathless. He didn’t try to put his thoughts into words. It was enough at the moment to be magically drawn by this beautiful spirit. Let them call her rebellious if they wanted to. He admired her rebellion, her fight to cling to her ideals, her love for esthetic things, her fragments of freedom.
In the rapture of the moment his arm passed back of her shoulders.
The spell was not easily broken, even though Mr. Sleem strutted in with considerable clatter.
Linda was right about the master’s mood. Nor was Dusty responsible for all the angry heat that showed in his face. He saw Dave’s arm drop away from the back of Linda’s chair, his eyes snapped, his puffy lips clicked open. There was more than disciplinary fervor in his hot tempered impulse; there was jealousy, revealed as plain as the pince-nez he jammed to his nose.
A split second of hesitation. He wasn’t dealing with Dusty now. This young man of the world was not on his disciplinary list. Very well, Linda LeFraine was, and he had a trap ready for her that would nip this little romance in the bud.
“Linda! You’ve got a radio in your room! Where’d you get it?”
Before the startled girl could utter a coherent word, Dave Melbourne spoke up to defend his gift to her. His cool frankness was disarming. But Sleem saw his way to decisive action.
“I regret, Mr. Melbourne, that I can no longer retain you as a pupil.”
“What?” Dave blurted. “Why?”
“Unfortunately your presence has proved a detriment to our spirit of obedience. I must ask you to go.” Dave was stunned. Little did he guess how much Sleem regretted having admitted him in the first place, how deeply the pedagogue’s jealousy ran. For all his harsh words to her, Sleem secretly regarded the beautiful blind girl as his private art treasure. It was his innermost intention never to let her out of this institution as long as he remained here.
“Come into my office, Melbourne. You’re entitled to a slight settlement on your fees.”
Dave tried to argue the matter but it was useless. Dazed, he took the check and moved toward the door. Miss Yost called him back to the reception room. “Would you mind waiting a moment?”
He took a chair. Soon the matron returned to explain, “Linda wants to speak with you before you go. I’ve sidetracked Mr. Sleem for a minute or two. Here’s Linda now.”
The blind girl felt her way into the room. Miss Yost stepped out.
“David,” Linda spoke in a tremulous voice.
“What is it, Linda?” He went to her, took her hand.
“I hope you won’t mind what I’m going to ask you,” there was a strange eagerness in her voice. “You see . . . I’ve never seen you.”
Dave didn’t know what to make of her words.
“But I’ve pictured you in my mind,” she continued. “Maybe you’ve never thought about it, but after you’re blind sometimes you’ll almost burn up with curiosity to know how someone—some special friend—really looks. That’s how I—that is—before you go, would you care if I passed my hands over your face?”
“Of course not,” he laughed. “Why didn’t you mention it before?” He put her hands to his forehead.
Her face lighted with joy. In spite of difficulty repressing her tears, she gave a quick, mischievous laugh. “I wanted to prove to myself that you couldn’t possibly be as handsome as I pictured you.” Her trembling fingers passed over his face.
Dave smiled, and her sensitive touch lingered upon his smile.
“Thank you,” she breathed.
“Well, am I as handsome as you thought?” he asked, still smiling to her touch.
“No,” she laughed. “But you’re not at all bad looking. May I . . . once again?” She was radiantly happy.
For a second time the evil snarl of E. Caspar Sleem intruded upon an ecstatic moment. His words fell like
slabs of stone.
“You are violating one of my rules!”
“It’s a pleasure!” Dave cracked.
The master’s rasping voice went violent. “Linda LeFraine, go to the detention room and stay there until—” His words stopped like a radio snapped off. Astonishment cut him off—the unbelievable boldness of Dave
Melbourne, who snatched Linda up in his arms and made straight for the exit.
Too flabbergasted to speak, Sleem blocked the doorway.
“Get out of the way!” Dave ordered. The shocked master gave ground.
“We’re going out for dinner,” Dave shouted back at Miss Yost, who looked as blank as the iron cat that served as a door stop. “I’ll bring her back safely by midnight!”
Late that night, after a gay, glorious evening in downtown Chicago, a thrilling concert, and a far more thrilling good night kiss, Linda LeFraine was delivered back into the protecting hands of Miss Yost.
It was well after midnight when Dave got home, but before turning in he sketched the initial plans for some changes in the design of his house. Daybreak caught him as he turned his attention to the robotcycle design, converted it with a few swift strokes into a robotcycle for two.
CHAPTER III
Headed for a Crash
Dave was dizzily in love. He knew Linda was the same way. His coming blindness seemed to draw them together. Without that, he rightly guessed, she would never have consented to marry him. In spite of her heart.
That was Linda. Too proud to take a chance on marriage knowing she might become a burden upon a husband, a drawback to his career. She had firmly vowed she would never marry. Then Dave came, facing blindness. That changed everything. Dave needed her.
Dave glimpsed all this vaguely, then forgot it. The feverish race against time engulfed him. He must get the house built. At last, with Linda’s help, it was planned to the final nail, the last photoelectric cell. To her great joy he insisted there must be a pipe organ. She revelled in anticipation, planned to put her few dollars into their building fund.
Dave’s spirits were high. However, he might have been disturbed, had he heard the words of his doctors following one of his weekly examinations.
“He’s a strange case,” the senior physician commented. “He’s apparently doomed to blindness, still the development is surprisingly slow.”
“Perhaps the disease won’t run its course,” his assistant ventured.
“We’d better not give him any false hopes on that scorc,” said the senior physician. “His sight will no doubt deteriorate swiftly before long. Damn, I. hate it that there’s nothing we can do. But those symptoms . . . He might come through an unaccountable exception . . . We shall see.”
Under the pressure of time Dave rushed the construction of the robot-cycle. Day and night. Plans, trials, tests, toil, sweat. Costly errors. Surprise successes.
Three heads were better than one. His comrades were loyal Trojans. They waded into obstacles, battled them as if they were nests of rattlesnakes. Six hands were better than two, or twenty for that matter. Results came.
Eventually the completed robotcycle rolled out of the shop, onto the sidewalks of Chicago. Rounded like an electric generator, its crystal hoods open, it gleamed with glass and metal, eased along on responsive rubber wheels.
A live prehistoric monster wouldn’t have attracted any more cameramen. Or excited children. Or half-frightened old ladies who were sure someone would get killed. Or preoccupied businessmen, the sort who pause barely long enough to utter, “What’s the world coming to?” whenever they see something they don’t understand.
The long awaited day. The robot-cycle moved southward over Chicago’s endless sidewalks. Dave sat at the controls. Strob occupied the other tandem seat, watched critically over Dave’s shoulder. There was no room for Eddie so he coasted alongside on a rented bicycle.
By midday the party stopped before Mother Rafferty’s Home. Linda was ready. Miss Yost, who had achieved a temporary victory over the dictatorial Mr. Sleem by appealing directly to Mother Rafferty, was also on hand, scarcely less excited than Linda.
Dave escorted the blind girl down the portico steps and introduced Strob and Eddie to her. His assistant inventors had never seen her before.
Eddie nudged Strob and mumbled, “Gosh, ain’t she a beaut!” A common error, to forget that blind persons hear what you say about them. Naturally, Linda heard and they all laughed, but Eddie had no trouble defending his opinion.
“Will you step into my carriage?” Dave said proudly. “It isn’t quite as speedy as the Illinois Central or even as a street car but it makes nicer music.” They got in.
“I’ll follow along on the bicycle,” said Eddie.
“What makes you think they want to be followed?” Strob cracked.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Eddie grinned. After all, the robotcycle had passed its test; it was ready for service. “Guess I better pump back to the city and stop the rent on this thing.”
“We’ll see you later,” said Strob. “Don’t forget to make a recording of the dial sounds. So long.”
Phonograph records would be a useful device for analyzing the sounds.
The robotcycle for two coasted along beautifully. Primarily it was a miniature electric automobile; its fuel, a small but powerful battery. Linda was amazed at its simplicity. A rheostat arm, a steering lever, brakes, a switch for reverse—those were the driver’s principal gadgets. In addition, there were numerous automatic controls, automatic stops, automatic dodgers and rectifiers. Dave wanted to explain everything at once.
“But where’s all the funny music coming from?” Linda asked.
“That’s the dial sounds. They’re an awful jumble at first, but the separate tones soon take on meaning. That strongest hum is the sunlight reflected off the cement sidewalk. Notice how it breaks with a low click at regular intervals—”
Tip . . . tip . . . tip . . . tip . . . : Fine as pin points Faster as the robot accelerated.
“That’s the cracks in the sidewalk. Very useful, too. They keep us going straight, with the help of the automatic rectifier. If I deliberately turn off at an angle—”
He swerved the craft to illustrate his point. Immediately there were double clicks, one from the right side of the instrument board followed by one from the left. It was no trick for the ear to catch the meaning.
“We’re angling to the left,” said Linda.
“Exactly!”
The craft retarded to a stop.
“We’re at the curb,” Dave explained. “A safety gadget stopped us. We can’t even roll over a two-inch curb unless we release the automatic brakes. That low buzz was the safety brake warning.”
“It’s marvellous,” Linda gasped. “But I never knew before that you could get music out of a sidewalk.”
Dave laughed. “It’s rather a roundabout method. The light vibrations are far too rapid to convert directly into sound. We’d never hear them. But we’ve devised what we call light interpreters. The robotcycle’s electric eyes reach out. The impulses they pick up are translated by the light interpreters to govern these vibrators we hear. We adapted the tone ranges arbitrarily, for the convenience of our ears.”
“Light interpreters!” Linda echoed in a voice that spoke volumes of appreciation. She breathed poetry into scientific mysteries. “It’s as if light is simply a foreign tongue we’ve forgotten, which only needs to be translated into the language we understand.”
It was glorious fun, the entrance to a new wonderland of sensations. Very dizzying at first, then clearer, clearer.
That night when Linda’s friends at Mother Rafferty’s besieged her with questions, her answers sounded fantastic even to herself. But there was the portable phonograph, the newly made record of the ride she had taken. Young and old gathered around to listen.
Echoes of the excitement carried down the hall stairs to the office of E. Casper Sleem, who sat seething with silent hate. His dictatorial reign was eroding away. Tides from
the outside world swept in, threatened him. Linda and her inventor. Radios. Phonographs. Yost appealing directly to Mother Rafferty, getting him in bad. Well, there was still time to put things to rights before Mother Rafferty passed on. Get back into her good graces. Bide his time. Persuade her to sign things over to him with her last breath. Not a bad stunt to go over to the hospital for a chat with her now. He rang for his chauffeur.
“Sounds like Chinese music!” one of the children laughed as the curious record played.
“It’s a game, isn’t it, Linda?” another asked.
“It’s a robotcycle music,” Linda explained. “Listen to the notes change. Every change is something we saw—that is, with our electric eyes.”
She replayed the record, gave running comments: “Now we’re moving along. Hear the click of the sidewalk? . . . And the longer clicks—shadows of lamp posts . . . There, that low clatter—we rolled onto a brick walk . . . And that sputter—we edged over into a lawn . . . Now we’re back . . . The pitch gets lower as the sky grows cloudier . . . And now you hear Dave explaining to me what happened . . . More cement sidewalks . . . We slow down on that low buzz. The curb stopped us . . . A dark car passed ahead of us . . . Dave tells me there’s no stop light at this intersection. Now we’re crossing. That’s our siren you hear. Our red neons are flashing too . . . Street car tracks . . .Dark pavement . . . A high curb. Our stilts lift us and we vault over . . . Sidewalk again . . . We’re turning. Hear the clicks go double . . . There we dodged something, probably a lamp post . . . Now we creep along near the buildings . . . People walking past us. You can tell how much room they have. That thin whine grows louder as they come close. Sounds dangerous at first, but soon you think nothing of it. Even when cars cut in ahead of you on the intersections.”