CHAPTER IX
The colourful years sped. At fifteen Wilbur Cowan, suddenly alive tothis quick way of time, was looking back to the days of his heedlessyouth. That long aisle of years seemed unending, but it narrowed inperspective until earlier experiences were but queerly dissolvingshapes, wavering of outline, dimly discerned, piquant or sad in themind, but elusive when he would try to fix them.
On a shining, full-starred night he stood before the little house in thePenniman side yard and bade farewell to this youth. A long time he gazedinto the arched splendour above. He had never noticed that the starswere so many and so bright; and they were always there, by day as wellas by night, so his father said. Many of them, on the same veraciousauthority, were peopled; some with people who were yet but monkeys likethe Vielhaber's Emil; some with people now come to be human likehimself; others with ineffable beings who had progressed in measurelessperiods of time beyond any human development that even Dave Cowan couldsurmise.
The aging boy felt suddenly friendly with all those distant worlds, gladthey were there, so almost sociably near. On more than one of them,perhaps far off in that white streak they called the Milky Way, theremust be boys like himself, learning useful things about life, to readgood books and all about machinery, and have good habits, and so forth.Surely on one of those far worlds there was at least one boy likehimself, who was being a boy for the last time and would to-morrow be aman. For Wilbur Cowan, beneath this starry welter of creation--of worldsto be or in being, or lifeless hulks that had been worlds and wereoutworn--was on this June night uplifted to face the parting of theways. His last day had been lived as a boy with publicly bare feet.
No more would he feel the soft run of new grass beneath his soles, orlonger need beware the chance nail or sharp stone in the way. On themorrow, presumably to be a day inviting to bare feet as had all theother days of his summers, remembered and forgotten, he would, when herose, put on stockings and stout shoes; and he would put them on worldwithout end through all the new mornings of his life, howsoever urgentlywith their clement airs they might solicit the older mode. It was asolemn thing to reflect upon, under a glittering heaven that held, ornot, those who might feel with him the bigness of the moment. Hesuffered a vision of the new shoes, stiffly formidable, side by side atthe foot of his bed in the little house. It left him feeling all hisyears.
And he would wear long trousers! With tolerant amusement he saw himselfas of old, barefoot, bare-legged, the knee pants buttoned to the calicoblouse. It was all over. He scanned the stars a last time, dimly feelingthat the least curious of their inhabitants would be aware of thiscrisis.
Perhaps on one of those blinking orbs people with a proper concern forother world events would be saying to one another: "Yes, he's grown upnow. Didn't you hear the big news? Why, to-morrow he's going to begindriving a truck for Trimble Cushman--got a job for the whole summer."
If the announcement startled less than great news should, the speakercould surely produce a sensation by adding: "The first automobile truckin Newbern Center."
And how had this immature being, capable out-of-doors boy though he was,come to be so exalted above his fellows? Sam Pickering's linotype hadfirst revealed his gift for machinery. For Sam had installed a linotype,and Wilbur Cowan had patiently mastered its distracting intricacies.Dave Cowan had informally reappeared one day, still attired withdecreasing elegance below the waist--his cloth-topped shoes but littlemore than distressing memories--and announced that he was now an ableoperator of this wondrous machine; and the harried editor of the_Advance_, stung to enterprise by flitting wastrels who tarried at hiscase only long enough to learn the name of the next town, had soughtrelief in machinery, even if it did take bread from the mouths of honesttypesetters. Their lack of preference as to where they earned therebread, their insouciant flights from town to town without notice, hadmade Sam brutal. He had ceased to care whether they had bread or not. SoDave for a summer had brought him surcease from help worries.
The cynical journeyman printer of the moment, on a day when Dave triedout the new machine, had stood by and said she might set type but shecertainly couldn't justify it, because it took a human to do that, andhow would a paper look with unevenly ending lines? When Dave, seatedbefore the thing, proved that she uncannily could justify the lines oftype before casting them in metal, the dismayed printer had shuddered atthe mystery of it.
Dave Cowan seized the moment to point out to his admiring son and otherbystanders that it was all the working of evolution. If you couldn'tchange when your environment demanded it Nature scrapped you. Handcompositors would have to learn to set type by machinery or go down inthe struggle for existence. Survival of the fittest--that was it. Thedoubting printer was not there to profit by this lecture. Though it wasbut five o'clock, he was down on the depot platform moodily waiting forthe six-fifty-eight.
The next number of the _Advance_ was set by linotype, a circumstance ofwhich one of its columns spoke feelingly, and set, moreover, in thepresence of as many curious persons as could crowd about the operator.Among these none was so fascinated as Wilbur Cowan. He hung lovinglyabout the machine, his fingers itching to be at its parts. When work forthe day was over he stayed by it until the light grew dim in thelow-ceilinged, dusty office. He took liberties with its delicatestructure that would have alarmed its proud owner, playing upon it withwrench and screw driver, detaching parts from the whole for the purepleasure of putting them back. He thus came to an intimate knowledge ofthe contrivance. He knew what made it go. He early mastered its mereoperation. Sam Pickering felt fortified against the future.
Then it developed that though Dave Cowan could perform ably upon theinstrument while it retained its health he was at a loss when itdeveloped ailments; and to these it was prone, being a machine oftemperament and airs, inclined to lose spirit, to sulk, even irritablyto refuse all response to Dave's fingering of the keyboard. Dave wassincerely startled when his son one day skillfully restored tone to thething after it had disconcertingly rebelled. Sam Pickering, on the pointof wiring for the mechanic who had installed his treasure, looked uponthe boy with awe as his sure hands wrought knowingly among the weirdestof its vitals. Dave was impressed to utter lack of speech, and resumedwork upon the again compliant affair without comment. Perhaps hereflected that the stern processes of his favourite evolution demandedmore knowledge of this machine than even he had acquired.
* * * * *
There ensued further profitable education for the young mechanic fromthe remarkable case of Sharon Whipple's first motor car. Sharon, thesummer before, after stoutly affirming for two years that he would neverhave one of the noisy things on the place, even though the Whipple NewPlace now boasted two--boasting likewise of their speed andconvenience--and even though Gideon Whipple jestingly called him afossilized barnacle on the ship of progress, had secretly bought a motorcar and secretly for three days taken instructions in its running fromthe city salesman who delivered it. His intention was to become daringlyexpert in its handling and flash upon the view of the discomfitedGideon, who had not yet driven a car. He would wheel carelessly up thedrive to the Whipple New Place in apparently contemptuous mastery of thething, and he would specifically deny ever having received any drivinglessons whatever, thus by falsehood overwhelming his brother withconfusion.
In the stable, therefore, one afternoon he had taken his place at thewheel. Affecting a jovial ease of mind, he commanded the company of hisstableman, Elihu Titus, on the seat beside him. He wished a little toshow off to Elihu, but he wished even more to be not alone if somethinghappened. With set jaws and a tight grip of the wheel he had backed fromthe stable, and was rendered nervous in the very beginning by theapparent mad resolve of the car to continue backing long after it waswished not to. Elihu Titus was also rendered nervous, and was safely onthe ground before the car yielded to the invincible mass of a boxwoodhedge that had been forty years in growing. Sharon pointed his eyebrows.
"It makes you feel l
ike a helpless fool," he confided to his hireling.
"She's all right on this side," said Elihu Titus, cannily peering at thenether mechanism in pretense that he had left his seat to do just that.
The next start was happier in results. Down the broad driveway Sharonhad piloted the monster, and through the wide gate, though in a suddenshuddering wonder if it were really wide enough for his mount; then hehad driven acceptably if jerkily along back streets for an excitinghour. It wasn't so bad, except once when he met a load of hay andemerged with frayed nerves from the ordeal of passing it; and he hadbeen compelled to drive a long way until he could find space in which toturn round. The smarty that had sold the thing to him had turned in anarrow road, but not again that day would Sharon employ the whimsicallytreacherous gear of the retrograde.
He came at last to a stretch of common that permitted a wide circle, andtook this without mishap. A block farther along he had picked up theCowan boy. He was not above prizing the admiration of this child for hismechanical genius. Wilbur exclaimed his delight at the car and lolledgingerly upon its luxurious back seat. He was taken full into thegrounds of the Whipple Old Place, because Sharon had suddenly conceivedthat he could not start the car again if he stopped it to let down hisguest. The car entered the wide gateway, which again seemed dangerouslynarrow to its driver, and purred on up the gravelled drive. When halfthe distance to the haven of the stable had been covered it betrayedsymptoms of some obscure distress, coughing poignantly. Sharon pretendednot to notice this. A dozen yards beyond it coughed again, feebly,plaintively, then it expired. There could be no doubt of its utterextinction. All was over. The end had come suddenly, almost painlessly.
They got out and blankly eyed the lifeless hulk. After a moment of this,which was fruitless, Sharon spoke his mind concerning the car. For allthe trepidation it had caused him, the doubts and fears and panics, hetook his revenge in words of biting acidity--and he was through with thething.
"Let's get it out of sight," he said at last, and the three of thempushed it on along the drive to the shelter of the stable.
Elihu Titus then breathed a long sigh and went silently to curry a horsein a neighbouring box stall. He knew when to talk and when not to. ButWilbur Cowan, wishing motor cars were in build more like linotypes,fearlessly opened the hood.
"My shining stars!" murmured Sharon at this his first view of his car'smore intimate devices. "She's got innards like a human, ain't she?" Heinstantly beheld a vision of the man in the front of the almanac whoseenvelope is neatly drawn back to reveal his complicated structure inbehalf of the zodiacal symbols. "It's downright gruesome," he added. Buthis guest was viewing the neat complexities of metal with real pleasureand with what seemed to the car's owner a practiced and knowing eye.
"Understand 'em?" demanded Sharon.
The boy hesitated. What he wished more than anything was freedom totake the thing apart, all that charming assemblage of still warm metaland pipes and wires. He wanted to know what was inside of things, whatmade them go, and--to be sure--what had made them stop.
"Well, I could if I had a chance," he said at last.
"You got it," said Sharon. "Spend all your born days on the old cadaverif you're so minded." Already to Sharon it was an old car. He turnedaway from the ghastly sight, but stopped for a final warning: "But don'tyou ever tell anybody. I ain't wanting this to get out on me."
"No, sir," said Wilbur.
"Maybe we ought to----" began Sharon, but broke off his speech with ahearty cough. He was embarrassed, because he had been on the point ofsuggesting that they call Doc Mumford. Doc Mumford was the veterinary.The old man withdrew. Elihu Titus appeared dimly in the background.
"Ain't she one gosh-awful crazy hellion?" he called softly to Wilbur,and returned to the horse, whose mechanism was understandable.
The boy was left sole physician to the ailing monster. He drew a longbreath of gloating and fell upon it. For three days he lived in grimed,greased, and oiled ecstasy, appeasing that sharp curiosity to know whatwas inside of things. The first day he took down the engine bit by bit.The clean-swept floor about the dismantled hulk was a spreading turmoilof parts. Sharon, on cool afterthought, had conceived that his purchasemight not have suffered beyond repair, but returning to survey thewreck, had thrown up his fat hands in a gesture of hopeless finality.
"That does settle it," he murmured. He pointed to the scattered members."How in time did you ever find all them fiddlements in that littlespace?" Of course no one could ever put them back.
He picked up the book that had come with the car, a book falselypretending to elucidate its mechanism, even to minor intelligences. Thebook was profuse in diagrams, and each diagram was profuse in lettersof the alphabet, but these he found uninforming. For the maker of thecar had unaccountably neglected to put A, B, or C on the partsthemselves, which rendered the diagrams but maddening puzzles. He threwdown the book, to watch the absorbed young mechanic who was franklypuzzled but still hopeful.
"It's an autopsy," said Sharon. He fled again, in the buggy drawn by theroan. "A fool and his money!" he called from the sagging seat.
The second day passed with the parts still spread about the floor. ElihuTitus told Sharon the boy was only playing with them. Sharon said he wasglad they could furnish amusement, and mentally composed the beginningof what would be a letter of withering denunciation to the car's maker.
But the third day the parts were unaccountably reassembled. Elihu Titusadmitted that every one of them was put back, though he hinted they wereprobably by no means where they had been. But Sharon, coming again tothe dissecting room at the day's end, was stricken with awe for theastounding genius that had put back all those parts. He felt a gleam ofhope.
"She'd ought to go now," said the proud mechanic.
"You ought to know," said Sharon. "You been plumb into her gizzard."
"Only other thing I can think of," continued the mechanic, "mebbe sheneeds more of that gasoline stuff." He raised the cushion of the frontseat and unscrewed a cap. "We might try that," he suggested, brightly."This tank looks like she's empty."
"Try it," said Sharon, and the incredulous Elihu Titus was dispatched tothe village for a five-gallon tin of the gasoline stuff. Elihu wasincredulous, because in Newbern gasoline was until now something thatwomen cleaned white gloves with. But when the tank was replenished thecar came again to life, throbbing buoyantly.
"I'll be switched!" said Sharon.
A day later he was telling that his new car had broke down on him, butBuck Cowan had taken her all apart and found out the trouble in no time,and put her gizzard and lights and liver back as good as new. And BuckCowan himself came to feel quite unjustifiably a creator's pride in thecar. It was only his due that Sharon should let him operate it; perhapsnatural that Sharon should prefer him to. Sharon himself was never tobecome an accomplished chauffeur. He couldn't learn to relax at thewheel.
So it was that the boy was tossed to public eminence on a day whenStarling Tucker, accomplished horseman, descended into the vale ofignominy by means of the Mansion House's new motor bus. Starling hadpermitted the selling agents to instruct him briefly in the operation ofthe new bus, though with lordly condescension, for it was his convictionthat a man who could tame wild horses and drive anything that wore haircould by no means fail to guide a bit of machinery that wouldn't r'arand run even if a newspaper blew across its face. He mounted the seat,on his first essay alone, with the jauntiness becoming a master ofvehicular propulsion. There may have been in his secret heart a bit oftrepidation, now that the instructor was not there. In fact, one of theassembled villagers who closely observed his demeanour related afterwardthat Star's face was froze and that he had hooked onto the wheel like hewas choking it to death. But the shining structure had glided off towardthe depot, its driver's head rigid, his glance strained upon the road'scentre. As it moved away Wilbur Cowan leaped to the rear steps and wascarried with it. He had almost asked Starling Tucker for the privilegeof a seat beside him, but the occ
asion was really too great.
Five blocks down Geneseo Street Starling had turned out to permit thepassing of Trimble Cushman's loaded dray--and he had inexplicably,terribly, kept on turning out when there was no longer need for it.Frozen with horror, helpless in the fell clutch of circumstance, he satinert and beheld himself guide the new bus over the sidewalk and throughthe neat white picket fence of the Dodwell place. It demolished oneentire panel of this, made deep progress over a stretch of soft lawn,and came at last--after threatening a lawless invasion of the sanctityof domicile--to a grinding stop in a circular bed of pansies that wouldnever be the same again. There was commotion within the bus. Wild-eyedfaces peered from the polished windows. A second later, in the speech ofa bystander, "she was sweating passengers at every pore!"
Then came a full-throated scream of terror from the menaced house, andthere in the doorway, clad in a bed gown, but erect and defiant, was theperson of long-bedridden Grandma Dodwell herself. She brandished herlace cap at Starling Tucker and threatened to have him in jail if therewas any law left in the land. Excited citizens gathered to the scene,for the picket fence had not succumbed without protest, and the crashhad carried well. Even more than at the plight of Starling, theymarvelled at the miracle that had been wrought upon the agedsufferer--her that hadn't put foot to floor in twenty years. There wereoutcries of alarm and amazement, hasty suggestions, orders to StarlingTucker to do many things he was beyond doing; but above them all roseclear-toned, vigorous denunciation from the outraged owner of the latepansy bed, who now issued from the doorway, walked unsupported down theneat steps, and started with firm strides for the offender. StarlingTucker beheld her approach, and to him, as to others there assembled, itwas as if the dead walked. He climbed swiftly down upon the oppositeside of his juggernaut, pushed a silent way through the crowd, andstrode rapidly back to town. Starling's walk had commonly been aloose-jointed swagger, his head up in challenge, as befitted a hero ofmanifold adventure with wild horses. He now walked head down with noswagger.
But the crowd ceased to regard him, for now a slight boyish figure--noneother than that of Wilbur Cowan--leaped to the seat, performed swiftmotions, grasped the fateful wheel, and made the bus roar. The smell ofburned gasoline affronted the pretty garden. Wheels revolved savagelyamong the bruised roots of innocent pansies. Grandma Dodwell screamedanew. Then slowly, implacably hesitant, ponderous but determined, thehuge bus backed along the track it had so cruelly worn in the sward--outthrough the gap in the fair fence, over the side-walk and into the road,rocking perilously, but settling level at last. Thereupon the young herohad done something else with mysterious handles, and the bus glidedswiftly on to the depot, making the twelve-two in ample time.
Great moments are vouchsafed only to those souls fortified to survivethem. To one who had tamed the proud spirit of Sharon Whipple's hellionit was but lightsome child's play to guide this honest and amiable newbus. To the Mansion he returned in triumph with a load of passengers,driving with zest, and there receiving from villagers inflamed by talesof his prowess an ovation that embarrassed him with its heartiness. Hehastened to remove the refulgent edifice, steering it prudently to itsstation in the stable yard. Then he went to find the defeated StarlingTucker. That stricken veteran sat alone amid the ruins of his toppledempire in the little office, slumped and torpid before the cold, rustystove. He refused to be comforted by his devotee. He said he would nevertouch one of them things again, not for no man's money. The Darwinianhypothesis allows for no petty tact in the process of evolution.Starling Tucker was unfit to survive into the new age. Unable to adapthimself, he would see the Mansion's stable become a noisome garage,while he performed humble and gradually dwindling service to a fewremaining horses.
Wilbur Cowan guided the Mansion's bus for two days. He longed for it asa life work, but school was on and he was not permitted to abandon this,even for a glorious life at the wheel. There came a youth in neatuniform to perform this service--described by Starling Tucker as a youngsquirt that wouldn't know one end of a hawse from the other. Only onSaturdays--on Saturdays openly and clandestinely on Sundays--was therepresent on the driver's seat a knowing amateur who could have sat thereevery day but for having unreasonably to learn about compound fractionsand geography.
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