“Come, Mickey, git up here.”
“Arrah now, but I never learnt to ride the divil when I was home in the ould country,” replied the Irishman, backing away.
But both Ethan and Baldy united in their persuasions, and finally Mickey consented, although with great trepidation. He timidly climbed upon the wagon and took his seat beside the Yankee, looking very much as a man may be supposed to look who mounts the hearse to attend his own funeral.
“When yer wants to start, jist pull that ’ere gimcrack!” said Baldy, pointing to the crook in the rod upon which his hand rested.
“Git eout, naow! do you think you’re goin’ to teach me that has teached school fur five year in Connecticut?”
There were some peculiarities about the steam man which made him a rather unwieldy contrivance. He had a way of starting with a jerk, unless great skill was used in letting on steam; and his stoppage was equally sudden, from the same cause.
When the Irishman and Yankee had fairly ensconced themselves on their perch, the latter looked carefully round to make sure that no one was in the way, and then he tuned the valve, which let on a full head of steam.
For a second the monster did not stir. The steam had not fairly taken “hold” yet; then he raised one immense spiked foot and held it suspended in air.
“That’s a great contrivance, ain’t it?” exclaimed Ethan, contemptuously.
“Can’t do nothin’ more than lift his foot. Wait till you see more! he’s goin’ to dance and skip like a lamb, or outrun any locomotive you ever sot eyes on!”
“Bad luck to the loikes of yees, why d’ yees go on?” exclaimed the irate Irishman, as he leaned forward and addressed the obdurate machine. “Are yees tryin’ to fool us, bad luck to yees?”
At this instant, the feet of the steam man began rising and falling with lightning like rapidity, the wagon being jerked forward with such sudden swiftness, that both Ethan and Mickey turned back summersets, rolling heels over head off the vehicle to the ground, while the monster went puffing over the prairie, and at a terrific rate. Baldy was about to start in pursuit of it, when Johnny, the deformed boy, restrained him.
“It won’t run far; the steam is nearly out.”
“Be jibbers! but me head is caved in!” exclaimed the Irishman, rising to his feet, rubbing his head, and looking at his hand to see whether there was blood upon it.
“Jerusalem! I thought she had upset or busted her b’iler!” said the Yankee, looking around him with a bewildered air.
The two spectators were laughing furiously, and they could scarcely stand the trick which had been played upon them.
“Let your old machine go to blazes!” muttered Ethan. “If it acts that way, I don’t want nothin’ to do with it.”
In the mean time the steamer had gone rattling over the prairie, until about a quarter of a mile distant, when it rapidly slackened, and as quickly halted.
“What’s the matter wid it now?” asked Mickey; “has it got the cramps and gi’n out?”
“The steam is used up!” replied the dwarf, as he hurried after it; “we can soon start it again!”
All four made all haste toward the stationary figure; but the light frame and superior activity of little Johnny brought him to it considerably in advance of the others. Emptying a lot of wood from the wagon, he was busily engaged in throwing it into his stomach when the other two came up. His eyes sparkled, as he said:
“Jump up there, and I’ll give you all a ride!”
The three clambered up and took their seats with great care, Mickey and Ethan especially clinging as if their life depended on it.
Johnny threw in the fuel until the black smoke poured in a stream from the hat. Before leaving it, he opened two smaller doors, at the knees, which allowed the superfluous cinders and ashes to fall out. The water in the boiler was then examined, and found all right. Johnny mounted in his place, and took charge.
“Now we are ready! hold fast!”
“Begorrah, if I goes I takes the wagon wid me,” replied Mickey, as he closed his teeth and hung on like death.
The engineer managed the monster with rare skill, letting on a full head of steam, and just as it made a move shutting it off, and letting it on almost immediately, and then shutting off and admitting it again, until it began moving at a moderate pace, which, however, rapidly increased until it was going fully thirty miles an hour.
Nothing could be more pleasant than this ride of a mile over the prairie. The plain was quite level, and despite the extraordinary speed attained, the wagon glided almost as smoothly as if running upon a railroad. Although the air was still, the velocity created a stiff breeze about the ears of the four seated on the top of the wood.
The hight of the steam man’s head carried the smoke and cinders clear of those behind, while the wonderful machinery within, worked with a marvelous exactness, such as was a source of continued amazement to all except the little fellow who had himself constructed the extraordinary mechanism. The click of the joints as they obeyed their motive power was scarcely audible, and, when once started, there was no unevenness at all in its progress.
When the party had ridden about a half-mile, Johnny described a large circle, and finally came back to the starting, checking the progress with the same skill that he had started it. He immediately sprung down, examined the fire, and several points of the man, when finding everything right, he opened his knee-caps and let cinders and ashes drop out.
“How kin yeou dew that?” inquired Ethan Hopkins, peering over his shoulder.
“What’s to hinder?”
“How kin he work his legs, if they’re holler that way and let the fire down ’em?”
“They ain’t hollow. Don’t you see they are very large, and there is plenty of room for the leg-rods, besides leaving a place for the draft and ashes?”
“Wal, I swan, if that ain’t rather queer. And you made it all out of your head naow?” asked the Yankee, looking at the diminutive inventor before him.
“No, I had to use a good deal of iron,” was the reply of the youngster, with a quizzical smile.
“You mean you got up the thing yourself?”
“Yes, sir,” was the quiet but proud reply of the boy.
“Jingo and Jerusalem! but your daddy must be fond of you!” exclaimed the enthusiastic New Englander, scanning him admiringly from head to foot.
“I haven’t any father.”
“Your mother then.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Say, you, can’t yer tell a feller ’bout it?”
“Not now; I haven’t time.”
As the steam horse was to rest for the present, he was “put up.” The engineer opened several cavities in his legs and breast, and different parts of his body, and examined the machinery, carefully oiling the various portions, and when he had completed, he drew a large oil skin from the wagon, which, being spread out, covered both it and the steam man himself.
CHAPTER III
A Genius
Having progressed thus far in our story, or properly having began in the middle, it is now necessary that we should turn back to the proper starting point.
Several years since a widow woman resided in the outskirts of St. Louis, whose name was Brainerd. Her husband had been a mechanic, noted for his ingenuity, but was killed some five years before by the explosion of a steam boiler. He left behind him a son, hump-backed, dwarfed, but with an amiable disposition that made him a favorite with all with whom he came in contact.
If nature afflicts in one direction she frequently makes amends in another direction, and this dwarf, small and misshapen as he was, was gifted with a most wonderful mind. His mechanical ingenuity bordered on the marvelous. When he went to school, he was a general favorite with teachers and pupils. The former loved him for his sweetness of disposition, and his remarkable proficiency in all studies, while the latter based their affection chiefly upon the fact that he never refused to assist any of them at their tasks, w
hile with the pocket-knife which he carried he constructed toys which were their delight. Some of these were so curious and amusing that, had they been securer by letters patent, they would have brought a competency to him and his widowed mother.
But Johnny never thought of patenting them, although the principal support of himself and mother came from one or two patents, which his father had secured upon inventions, not near the equal of his.
There seemed no limit to his inventive powers. He made a locomotive and then a steamboat, perfect in every part, even to the minutest, using nothing but his knife, hammer, and a small chisel. He constructed a clock with his jack-knife, which kept perfect time, and the articles which he made were wonderfully stared at at fairs, and in show windows, while Johnny modestly pegged away at some new idea. He became a master of the art of telegraphy without assistance from any one using merely a common school philosophy with which to acquire the alphabet. He then made a couple of batteries, ran a line from his window to a neighbor’s, insulating it by means of the necks of some bottles, taught the other boy the alphabet, and thus they amused themselves sending messages back and forth.
Thus matters progressed until he was fifteen years of age, when he came home one day, and lay down on the settee by his mother, and gave a great sigh.
“What is the matter?” she inquired. “I want to make something.”
“Why, then, don’t you make it?”
“Because I don’t know what it shall be; I’ve fixed up everything I can think of.”
“And you are like Alexander, sighing for more worlds to conquer. Is that it?”
“Not exactly, for there is plenty for one to do, if I could only find out what it is.”
“Have you ever made a balloon?” The boy laughed.
“You were asking for the cat the other day, and wondering what had become of her. I didn’t tell you that the last I saw of her was through the telescope, she being about two miles up in the clouds, and going about fifty miles an hour.”
“I thought you looked as though you knew something about her,” replied the mother, trying to speak reprovingly, and yet smiling in spite of herself.
“Can’t you tell me something to make?” finally asked the boy.
“Yes; there is something I have often thought of, and wonder why it was not made long ago; but you are not smart enough to do it, Johnny.”
“Maybe not; but tell me what it is.”
“It is a man that shall go by steam!” The boy lay still several minutes without speaking a word and then sprung up. “By George! I’ll do it!” And he started out of the room, and was not seen again until night. His mother felt no anxiety. She was pleased; for, when her boy was at work, he was happy, and she knew that he had enough now, to keep him engaged for months to come.
So it proved. He spent several weeks in thought, before he made the first effort toward constructing his greatest success of all. He then enlarged his workshop, and so arranged it, that he would not be in danger of being seen by any curious eyes. He wanted no disturbance while engaged upon this scheme.
From a neighboring foundry, whose proprietor took great interest in the boy, he secured all that he needed. He was allowed full liberty to make what castings he chose, and to construct whatever he wished. And so he began his work.
The great point was to obtain the peculiar motion of a man walking. This secured, the man himself could be easily made, and dressed up in any style required. Finally the boy believed that he had hit upon the true scheme.
So he plied harder than ever, scarcely pausing to take his meals. Finally he got the machine together, fired up, and with feelings somewhat akin to those, of Sir Isaac Newton, when demonstrating the truth or falsity of some of his greatest discoveries, he watched the result.
Soon the legs begin moving up and down, but never a step did they advance! The power was there, sufficient to run a saw-mill, every thing seemed to work, but the thing wouldn’t go!
The boy was not ready to despair. He seated himself on the bench beside the machine, and keeping up a moderate supply of steam, throwing in bits of wood, and letting in water, when necessary, he carefully watched the movement for several hours.
Occasionally, Johnny walked slowly back and forth, and with his eyes upon the “stately stepping,” endeavored to discover the precise nature of that which was lacking in his machine.
At length it came to him. He saw from the first that it was not merely required that the steam man should lift up its feet and put them down again, but there must be a powerful forward impulse at the same moment. This was the single remaining difficulty to be overcome. It required two weeks before Johnny Brainerd succeeded. But it all came clear and unmistakable at last, and in this simple manner:
(Ah! but we cannot be so unjust to the plodding genius as to divulge his secret. Our readers must be content to await the time when the young man sees fit to reveal it himself.)
When the rough figure was fairly in working order, the inventor removed everything from around it, so that it stood alone in the center of his shop. Then he carefully let on steam.
Before he could shut it off, the steam man walked clean through the side of his shop, and fetched up against the corner of the house, with a violence that shook it to its foundation. In considerable trepidation, the youngster dashed forward, shut off steam, and turned it round. As it was too cumbersome for him to manage in any other way, he very cautiously let on steam again, and persuaded it to walk back into the shop, passing through the same orifice through which it had emerged, and came very nigh going out on the opposite side again.
The great thing was now accomplished, and the boy devoted himself to bringing it as near perfection as possible. The principal thing to be feared was its getting out of order, since the slightest disarrangement would be sufficient to stop the progress of the man.
Johnny therefore made it of gigantic size, the body and limbs being no more than “Shells,” used as a sort of screen to conceal the working of the engine. This was carefully painted in the manner mentioned in another place, and the machinery was made as strong and durable as it was possible for it to be. It was so constructed as to withstand the severe jolting to which it necessarily would be subjected, and finally was brought as nearly perfect as it was possible to bring a thing not possessing human intelligence.
By suspending the machine so that Its feet were clear of the floor, Johnny Brainerd ascertained that under favorable circumstances It could run very nearly sixty miles an hour. It could easily do that, and draw a car connected to it on the railroad, while on a common road it could make thirty miles, the highest rate at which he believed it possible for a wagon to be drawn upon land with any degree of safety.
It was the boy’s intention to run at twenty miles an hour, while where everything was safe, he would demonstrate the power of the invention by occasionally making nearly double that.
As it was, he rightly calculated that when it came forth, it would make a great sensation throughout the entire United States.
CHAPTER IV
The Trapper and the Artisan
“Hello, younker! what in thunder yer tryin’ to make?”
Johnny Brainerd paused and looked up, not a little startled by the strange voice and the rather singular figure which stood before him. It was a hunter in half civilized costume, his pants tucked into his immense boot tops, with revolvers and rifles at his waist, and a general negligent air, which showed that he was at home in whatever part of the world he chose to wander.
He stood with his hand in his pocket, chewing his quid, and complacently viewing the operations of the boy, who was not a little surprised to understand how he obtained entrance into his shop.
“Stopped at the house to ax whar old Washoe Pete keeps his hotel,” replied the stranger, rightly surmising the query which was agitating him, “and I cotched a glimpse of yer old machine. Thought I’d come in and see what in blazes it war. Looks to me like a man that’s gwine to run by steam.”
“That’s just what it is,” replied the boy, seeing there was no use in attempting to conceal the truth from the man.
“Will it do it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t think you mean to lie, younker, but I don’t believe any such stuff as that.”
“It don’t make any difference to me whether you believe me or not,” was the quiet reply of the boy; “but if you will come inside and shut the door, and let me fasten it, so that there will be no danger of our being disturbed, I will soon show you.”
These two personages, so unlike in almost every respect, had taken quite a fancy to each other. The strong, hardy, bronzed trapper, powerful in all that goes to make up the physical man, looked upon the pale, sweet-faced boy, with his misshapen body, as an affectionate father would look upon an afflicted child.
On the other hand, the brusque, outspoken manner of the hunter pleased the appreciative mind of the boy, who saw much to admire, both in his appearance and manner.
“I don’t s’pose yer know me,” said the stranger, as he stepped inside and allowed the boy to secure the door behind him.
“I never saw you before.”
“I am Baldy Bicknell, though I ginerally go by the name of ‘Baldy.’”
“That’s rather an odd name.”
“Yas; that’s the reason.”
As he spoke, the stranger removed his hat and displayed his clean-shaven pate.
“Yer don’t understand that, eh? That ’ere means I had my ha’r lifted ten years ago. The Sioux war the skunks that done it. After they took my top-knot off. It had grow’d on ag’in and that’s why they call me Baldy.”
In the mean time the door had been closed, and all secured. The hat of the steam man emptied its smoke and steam into a section of stove-pipe, which led into the chimney, so that no suspicion of anything unusual could disturb the passers-by in the street.
“You see it won’t do to let him walk here, for when I tried it first, he went straight through the side of the house; but you can tell by the way in which he moves his legs, whether he is able to walk or not.”
The Edward S. Ellis Megapack Page 70
