by Anthology
"How'll you know when we get there?" asked Phoebe.
Droop glanced apprehensively at Rebecca and replied in a whisper:
"We'll see the pole a-stickin' up. We can't go wrong, you know. The Panchronicon is fixed to guide itself allus due north."
"You don't need to whisper--speak right up, Mr. Droop," said Rebecca, sharply.
Copernicus started, looked nervously about and then stared out of the window northward with a very business-like frown.
"Is the' really an' truly a pole there?" Phoebe asked.
"Yes," said Droop, shortly.
"An' can ye see the meridians jammed together like in the geographies?" asked Rebecca.
"No," said Droop, "no, indeed--at least, I didn't see any."
"Why, Rebecca," said Phoebe, "the meridians are only conventional signs, you know. They don't----"
"Hallo!" Droop cried, suddenly, "what's that?" He raised a spyglass with which he had hitherto been playing and directed it northward for a few seconds. Then he turned with a look of relief on his face.
"It's the pole!" he exclaimed.
Phoebe snatched the spyglass and applied it to her eye.
Yes, on the horizon she could discern a thin black line, rising vertically from the plain of ice. Even as she looked it seemed to be nearer, so rapid was their progress.
Droop went to the engine-room, lessened speed and brought the aeroplanes to the horizontal. He could look directly forward through a thick glass port directly over the starting-handle. Gradually the great machine settled lower and lower. It was now running quite slowly and the aeroplanes acted only as parachutes as they glided still forward toward the black upright line.
In silence the three waited for the approaching end of this first stage of their journey. A few hundred yards south of their goal they seemed about to alight, but Droop slightly inclined the aeroplanes and speeded up the propeller a little. Their vessel swept gently upward and northward again, like a gull rising from the sea. Then Droop let it settle again. Just as they were about to fall rather violently upon the solid mass of ice below them, he projected a relatively small volume of gas from beneath the structure. Its reaction eased their descent, and they settled down without noise or shock.
They had arrived!
Copernicus came forward to the window and pointed to a tall, stout steel pole projecting from the ice a few yards to the right of the vessel.
"Thet, neighbors, is the North Pole!" he said, with a sweeping wave of the hand.
For some minutes the three voyagers stood in silence gazing through the window at the famous pole. This, then, was the goal of so much heroic endeavor! It was to reach this complete opposite of all that is ordinarily attractive that countless ambitious men had suffered--that so many had died!
"Well!" exclaimed Rebecca at length. "I be switched ef I see what there is fer so many folks to make sech a fuss about!"
Droop scratched his head thoughtfully and made no reply. Surely it would have been hard to point out any charms in the endless plain of opaque ice hummocks, unrelieved save by that gaunt steel pole.
"Where's the open sea?" Rebecca asked, after a few moments' pause. "Dr. Kane said the' was an open sea up here."
"Oh, Dr. Kane!" said Droop, contemptuously. "He's no 'count fer modern facts."
"What I can't understand," said Phoebe, "is how it comes that, if nobody's ever been up here, they all seem to know there's a North Pole here."
"That's a fact," Rebecca exclaimed. "How'd they know about it? The' ain't anythin' in the Bible 'bout it, is the'?"
Droop looked more cheerful at this and answered briskly:
"Oh, they don't know 'bout it. Ye see, that pole there ain't a nat'ral product of the soil at all. Et's the future man done that--the man who invented this Panchronicon and brought me up here before. He told me how that he stuck that post in there to help him run this machine 'round and 'round fer cuttin' meridians."
"Oh!" exclaimed both sisters together.
"Yes," Droop continued. "D'ye see thet big iron ring 'round the pole, lyin' on the ground?"
"I don't see any ground," said Rebecca, ruefully.
"Well, on the ice, then. Don't ye see it lyin' black there against the snow?"
"Yes--yes, I see it," said Phoebe.
"Well, that's what I'm goin' to hitch the holdin' rope on to. You'll see how it's done presently."
He glanced at the clock.
"Seven o'clock," he said. "I guessed mighty close when I said 'twould take us twenty hours. We left Peltonville at ten-thirty last night."
"Seven o'clock!" cried Rebecca. "So 'tis. Why, what's the matter with the sun. Ain't it goin' to set at all?"
"Not much!" said Droop, chuckling. "Sun don't set up here, Cousin Rebecca. Not until winter-time, an' then et stays set till summer again."
"Well!" was the breathless reply. "An' where in creation does it go when it stays set?"
"Why, Rebecca," exclaimed Phoebe, "the sun is south of the equator in winter, you know."
"Shinin' on the South Pole then," Droop added, nodding.
For a moment Rebecca looked from one to the other of her companions, and then, realizing the necessity of keeping her mind within its accustomed sphere, she changed the subject.
"Come now--the' ain't any wind to blow us away now, I hope. Let's open our windows an' air out those state-rooms."
She started toward her door.
"Hold on!" cried Droop, extending his arm to stop her. "You don't want to fall down dead o' cold, do ye?"
"What!"
"Don't you know what a North Pole is like fer weather an' sich?" Droop continued. "Why, Cousin Rebecca, it's mos' any 'mount below zero outside. Don't you open a window--not a tiny crack--if ye don't want to freeze solid in a second."
"There!" Rebecca exclaimed. "You do provoke me beyond anythin', Copernicus Droop! Ef I'd a-knowed the kind o' way we'd had to live--why, there! It's wuss'n pigs!"
She marched indignantly into her room and closed the door. A moment later she put out her head.
"Phoebe Wise," she said, "if you take my advice, you'll make your bed an' tidy yer room at once. Ain't any use waitin' any longer fer a chance to air."
Phoebe smiled and moved toward her own door.
"Thet's a good idea," said Droop. "You fix yer rooms an' I'll do some figurin'. Ye see I've got to figure out how long it'll take us to get back six years. I've a notion it'll take about eighteen hours, but I ain't certain sure."
Poor Rebecca set to work in her rooms with far from enviable feelings. Her curiosity had been largely satisfied and the unwonted conditions were proving very trying indeed. Could she have set out with the prospect of returning to those magical days of youth and courtship, as Droop had originally proposed, the end would have justified the means. But they could not do this now if they would, for Phoebe had left her baby clothes behind. Thus her disappointment added to her burdens, and she found herself wishing that she had never left her comfortable home, however amazing had been her adventures.
"I could'v aired my bed at least," she muttered, as she turned the mattress of her couch in the solitude of her chamber.
She found the long-accustomed details of chamber work a comfort and solace, and, as she finally gazed about the tidy room at her completed work, she felt far more contented with her lot than she had felt before beginning.
"I guess I'll go help Phoebe," she thought. "The girl is that slow!"
As she came from her room she found Copernicus leaning over the table, one hand buried in his hair and the other wielding a pencil. He was absorbed in arithmetical calculations.
She did not disturb him, but turned and entered Phoebe's room without the formality of knocking. As she opened the door, there was a sharp clatter, as of a door or lid slamming.
"Who's there?" cried Phoebe, sharply.
She was seated on the floor in front of her trunk, and she looked up at her sister with a flushed and startled face.
"Oh, it's you!" she said, guilt
ily.
Rebecca glanced at the bed.
It had not been touched.
"Well, I declare!" Rebecca exclaimed. "Ain't you ever agoin' to fix up your room, Phoebe Wise?"
"Oh, in a minute, Rebecca. I was just agoin' over my trunk a minute."
She leaned back against the foot of the bed, and folding her hands gazed pensively into vacancy, while Rebecca stared at her in astonishment.
"Do you know," Phoebe went on, "I've ben thinkin' it's awful mean not to give you a chance to go back to 1876, Rebecca. Joe Chandler's a mighty fine man!"
Rebecca gave vent to an unintelligible murmur and turned to Phoebe's bed. She grasped the mattress and gave it a vicious shake as she turned it over. She was probably only transferring to this inoffensive article a process which she would gladly have applied elsewhere.
There was a long silence while Rebecca resentfully drew the sheets into proper position, smoothed them with swift pats and caressings, and tucked them neatly under at head and sides. Then came a soft, apologetic voice.
"Rebecca!"
The spinster made no reply but applied herself to a mathematically accurate adjustment of the top edge of the upper sheet.
"Rebecca!"
The second call was a little louder than the first, and there was a queer half-sobbing, half-laughing catch in the speaker's voice that commanded attention.
Rebecca looked up.
Phoebe was still sitting on the floor beside her trunk, but the trunk was open now and the young woman's rosy face was peering with a pathetic smile over a--what!--could it be!
Rebecca leaned forward in amazement.
Yes, it was! In Phoebe's outstretched hands was the dearest possible little baby's undergarment--all of cambric, with narrow ribbons at the neck.
For a few seconds the two sisters looked at each other over this unexpected barrier. Then Phoebe's lips quivered into a pathetic curve and she buried her face in the little garment, laughing and crying at once.
Rebecca dropped helplessly into a chair.
"Phoebe Martin Wise!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean--hev you brought----?"
She fell silent, and then, darting at her sister, she took her head in her hands and deposited a sudden kiss on the smooth bright gold-brown hair and whisked out of Phoebe's room and into her own.
In the meantime Copernicus was too deeply absorbed in his calculations to notice these comings and goings. Apparently he had been led into the most abstruse mathematical regions. Nothing short of the triple integration of transcendental functions should have been adequate to produce those lines of anxious care in his face as he slowly covered sheet after sheet with figures.
He was at length startled from his preoccupation by a gentle voice at his side.
"Can't I help, Mr. Droop?"
It was Phoebe, who, having made all right in her room and washed all traces of tears from her face, had come to note Droop's progress.
Dazed, he raised his head and looked unexpectedly into a lovely face made the more attractive by an expression only given by a sense of duty unselfishly done.
"I--I wish'd you'd call me Cousin Copernicus," he said for the fifth time.
She picked up one of the sheets on which he had been scribbling as though she had not heard him, and said:
"Why, dear me! How comes it you have so much figurin' to do?"
"Well," he began, in a querulous tone, "it beats all creation how many things a feller has to work out at once! Ye see, I've got a rope forty foot long that's got to tie the Panchronicon to the North Pole while we swing 'round to cut meridians. Now, then, the question is, How many times an hour shall we swing 'round to get to 1892, an' how long's it goin' to take an' how fast must I make the old thing hum along?"
"But you said eighteen hours by the clock would do it."
"Well, I jest guessed at that by the time the future man an' I took to go back five weeks, ye know. But I can't seem to figur it out right."
Phoebe seated herself at the table and took up a blank sheet of paper.
"Please lend me your pencil," she said. "Now, then, every time you whirl once 'round the pole to westward you lose one day, don't you?"
"That's it," said Droop, cheerfully. "Cuttin' twenty-four meridians----"
"And how many days in twenty-two years?" Phoebe broke in.
"You mean in six years."
"Why, no," she replied, glancing at Droop with a mischievous smile, "it's twenty-two years back to 1876, ain't it?"
"To '76--why, but----"
He caught sight of her face and stopped short.
There came a pleased voice from one of the state-rooms.
"Yes, we've decided to go all the way back, Mr. Droop."
It was Rebecca.
She came forward and stood beside her sister, placing one hand affectionately upon her shoulder.
Droop leaned back in his chair with both hands on the edge of the table.
"Goin' all the way! Why, but then----"
He leaped to his feet with a radiant face.
"Great Jumpin' Jerusha!" he cried.
Slapping his thigh he began to pace excitedly up and down.
"Why, then, we'll get all the big inventions out--kodak an' phonograph and all. We'll marry Joe Chandler an' set things agoin' in two shakes fer millions."
"Eight thousand and thirty-five," said Phoebe in a quiet voice, putting her pencil to her lips. "We'll have to whirl round the pole eight thousand and thirty-five times."
"Whose goin' to keep count?" asked Rebecca, cheerfully. Ah, how different it all seemed now! Every dry detail was of interest.
Phoebe looked up at Droop, who now resumed his seat, somewhat sobered.
"Don't have to keep count," he replied. "See that indicator?" he continued, pointing to a dial in the ceiling which had not been noticed before. "That reads May 3, 1898, now, don't it? Well, it's fixed to keep always tellin' the right date. It counts the whirls we make an' keeps tabs on every day we go backward. Any time all ye hev to do is to read that thing an' it'll tell ye jest what day 'tis."
"Then what do you want to calculate how often to whirl round?" asked Phoebe, in disgusted tones.
"Well, ye see I want to plan out how long it'll take," Droop replied. "I want to go slow so as to avoid side weight--but I don't want to go too slow."
"I see," said Phoebe. "Well, then, how many times a minute did the future man take you when you whirled back five weeks?"
"'Bout two times a minute."
"That's one hundred and twenty times every hour. Did you feel much side weight then?"
"Scarcely any."
"Well, let's see. Divide eight thousand and thirty-five whirls by one hundred and twenty, an' you get sixty-seven hours. So that, ef we go at that rate it'll be two days and nineteen hours 'fore we get back to 1876."
"Don't talk about days," Droop objected. "It's sixty-seven hours by the clock--but it's twenty-two years less than no time in days, ye know."
"Sixty-seven hours," said Phoebe. "Well, that ain't so bad, is it? Why not go round twice a minute?"
"We can't air our beds fer three days, Phoebe," said Rebecca.
"But if we go much faster, we'll all be sick with this side weight trouble that Mr. Droop tells about."
"I vote fer twice a minute," said Droop. And so twice a minute was adopted.
"Air ye goin' to start to-night, Mr. Droop?" asked Rebecca.
"Well, no," he replied. "I think it's best to wait till to-morrow. Ye see, the power that runs the Panchronicon is got out o' the sunlight that falls on it. Of course, we're not all run out o' power by a good lot, but we've used considerable, an' I think it's a little mite safer to lie still fer a few hours here an' take in power from the sun. Ye see, it'll shine steady on us all night, an' we'll store up enough power to be sure o' reachin' 1876 in one clip."
"Well," said Rebecca, "ef thet's the plan, I'm goin' to bed right now. It's after eight o'clock, an' I didn't get to sleep las' night till goodness knows when. Good-night! Hedn't you b
etter go, too, Phoebe?"
"I guess I will," said Phoebe, turning to Copernicus. "Good-night, Mr. Droop."
"Good-night, Cousin Phoebe--good-night, Cousin Rebecca. I'll go to bed myself, I b'lieve."
The two doors were closed and Droop proceeded to draw the steel shutters in order to produce artificially the gloom not vouchsafed by a too-persistent sun.
In half an hour all were asleep within the now motionless conveyance.
CHAPTER V
DROOP'S THEORY IN PRACTICE
All were up betimes when the faithful clock announced that it ought to be morning. As for the sun, as though resenting the liberties about to be taken by these adventurers with its normal functions, it refused to set, and was found by the three travellers at the same altitude as the night before.
Promptly after breakfast Droop proceeded to don a suit of furs which he drew from a cupboard within the engine-room.
"Ye'd better hev suthin' hot ready when I come in again," he said. "I 'xpect I'll be nigh froze to death."
He drew on a huge cap of bear's fur which extended from his crown to his shoulders. There was a small hole in front which exposed only his nose and eyes.
"My, but you do look just like a pictur of Kris Kringle!" laughed Phoebe. "Don't he, Rebecca?"
Rebecca came to the kitchen door wiping a dish with slow circular movements of her towel.
"I don't guess you'll freeze very much with all that on," she remarked.
"Thet shows you don't know what seventy or eighty below zero means," said a muffled voice from within the fur cap. "You'll hev suthin' hot, won't ye?" Droop continued, looking appealingly at Phoebe.
"The'll be a pot o' good hot tea," she said. "That'll warm you all right."
Droop thought of something more stimulating and fragrant, but said nothing as he returned to the cupboard. Here he drew forth an apparently endless piece of stout rope. This he wound in a thick coil and hung over his head.
"Now, then," he said, "when I get down you shet the door at the top of the stairs tight, coz jest's soon's I open the outside door, thet hall's goin' to freeze up solid."
"All right!" said Phoebe. "I'll see to it."
Droop descended the stairs with a heavy tread, and as he reached the foot Phoebe closed the upper door, which she now noticed was provided with weather-strips.