The Booming of Acre Hill by John Kendrick Bangs (the best books to read .TXT) 📖

gas and midnight oil to impecunious writers which its use was said to bring about, and when fully equipped consisted simply of a writing-table with all the appliances and conveniences thereof treated with phosphorus in such a manner that in the blackest of darkness they could all be seen readily. The ink even was phosphorescent. The paper was luminous in the dark. The penholders, pens, pen-wipers, mucilage-bottle, everything, in fact, that an author really needs for the production of literature, save ideas, were so prepared that they could not fail to be visible to the weakest eye in the darkest night without the aid of other illumination. The chief trouble with the invention was that in the long-run it was more expensive than gas or oil could possibly be in the most extravagant household; but that bothered Jarley not a jot. Nor was he at all upset when his ingenious Library Folding-Bed, comprising a real bookcase and sofa-couch, failed to suit his practical-minded friends because, when turned down for use as a couch, all the books in the bookcase side of it fell out upon the floor. His arrangement was better than the ordinary folding-bed, he said, because the bookcase side of it was not a sham, but the real thing, while that of the folding-bed of commerce was a delusion and a snare. As a hater of shams he justified his invention, though of course it couldn't be put to much practical use unless the purchaser was willing to take his books out of the shelves when he intended using the piece of furniture for sleeping purposes. If the purchaser was too lazy to do this it was not Jarley's fault, so the inventor reasoned, nor did he intend improving his machine in order to accommodate the lazy man in his pursuit of a life of indolence.

When Jarley married he turned his attention to the devising of apparatus to make domestic life less trying to Mrs. Jarley. As a bachelor he had contrived quite a number of mechanical effects which made his lonely life easier. He had fitted up his rooms with devices by means of which, while lying in bed on cold mornings, he could light his gas-stove without getting up; and his cigars, the ends of which he had dipped in sulphur, so that they could be lit by scratching them on the under side of the mantel-piece, just as matches are ignited, were the delight of his life. Now, however, he turned his mind towards helping little Mrs. Jarley on in the domestic world. He prepared a chart by means of which the monotony of marketing was done away with entirely. He also arranged for her a charming automatic curl-paper box, and drew up a plan for a patent pair of curling-tongs, which could be fastened to the gas-fixture and kept heated to the degree required, so that it might be used at a moment's notice. This was provided with a number of movable ends, all different, in order that Mrs. Jarley could, if she chose, vary the appearance of her curls according to her taste; and although the little lady never approved of it sufficiently to have it made, it was undoubtedly a valuable contrivance.

Then when Jarley junior came along to delight the parent soul, self-rocking cradles and perpetual reservoirs for food were devised, and some of them put into actual use, though, as a rule, Mrs. Jarley preferred the old-fashioned methods to which she was by her home training more accustomed.

The great invention of Jarley, however, was the result of his study of Jarley junior as that very charming and exceedingly agile child developed from infancy into boyhood. The idea came to him one Sunday afternoon while Mrs. Jarley was at church. It was the nursemaid's afternoon out, and Jarley had undertaken to care for Master Jarley in the absence of his true guardians.

"Well, Jack," he said to his son, when they had been left in sole possession of the Jarley mansion, "you and I must entertain each other this afternoon. What shall we do?"

"I'd like to play choo-choo car with you," said Jack. "I'll be the engine and you be the train."

"Very well," said Jarley. "Have you got your steam up?"

"Yeth," lisped Jack. "All aboard!"

Jarley hitched himself on to the engine as best he could by grabbing hold of Jack's little coat tail, and the train started. It was the most tedious journey Jarley ever undertook. The train went up and down stairs, out upon the piazza, and finally landed in the kitchen, where the engine fired up on such fuel as gingerbread and cookies. Incidentally the train, as represented by Jarley, took on a load of freight, consisting of the same fuel, and off they started again. At the end of a half-hour's run Jarley was worn out, but the engine seemed to gather strength and speed the farther it travelled; and as it let out a fearful shriek--possibly a whistle--every time the rear end of the train suggested side-tracking and a cessation of traffic for a month or two, Jarley in his indulgence invariably withdrew the proposition. The consequence was that when Mrs. Jarley returned from church Jarley was a wreck, and as he handed the engine over to the maternal care he observed with some testiness that in a well-kept household it seemed to him matters should be so arranged that a busy man should not be compelled to turn himself into a child's nurse, especially on the one day of the week which he could devote to rest and relaxation. "If I had that boy's energy," he said to himself as he fled to his library, "what wonders I would accomplish! What a shame it is, too, that the wasted energy of youth cannot be stored up in some way, so that when there comes the real need for it, it can be made available!"

This thought was the germ of his invention. As he lay there in the library he thought over the possibilities of life if the nervous force of childhood, the misdirected energy of play-time, could only be put by and drawn upon later just as man puts by the money he does not need in the present for use in case of future rainy days. Then, as the sun sank below the hills and the twilight hours with their inspiring softness came on, Jarley resolved that he was the man to whom had come the mission which should make of this ideal a reality. Probably in the full glare of day he would not have undertaken it; but Jarley, in common with most men of dreamy nature, felt in the quiet dusk the power to do all things. He had the poetic temperament which sometimes leads on to great things, and the man so gifted who does not feel himself capable, at that hour of the day of rest, of battering down Gibraltar or of upbuilding the whole human race, must account himself a failure.

"I'll do it," he murmured, drowsily, to himself, and he did. How he did it was Jarley's own secret, and while he confides many things to me, this secret he kept, and still keeps. All I know is that he fitted up a play-room for Jack on the attic floor, and by means of an apparatus, the peculiarities of whose construction he alone knows, he managed after a while to store up the superfluous energy which Jack expended upon everything that he did. Every time Jack turned a somersault he contributed, unknown to himself, something to the growing bulk of hoarded force in the reservoir provided for its reception. All the strength necessary for the somersault was devoted to that operation. The superfluity went to the reservoir. So, also, when in his play of scaling imaginary rocks after fictitious wild beasts he endeavored futilely to walk up the play-room wall, the unavailing energy went to augment the stores from which Jarley hoped to extract so much that would prove of value to the world.

When the reservoir was full the question that confronted Jarley was as to the value of its contents, and to ascertain this he resolved upon an experiment upon himself. No one else, he believed, would be willing to subject himself to the experiment, nor did he wish at that time to let others into his secret. Even Mrs. Jarley was not aware of his efforts, and so he made the experiment. He liquefied the energy Jack had wasted, and upon retiring one night took what he considered to be the proper dose for the test. The effect was remarkable.

When he rose up the next morning he experienced a consciousness of power that reminded him of sundry tales of Samson. But there was one drawback. He did not seem quite able to control himself. For instance, instead of dressing in the usual dignified and quiet way, he found himself prancing about his room like a young colt, and while he was taking his bath he had a yearning for objects of juvenile _virtu_ which had for many years been strangers to his tub. He was not at all satisfied with his dip plain and unadorned, and he had developed an unconquerable aversion for soap. It was all he could do to restrain his inclination to call vociferously for a number of small tin boats and birch-bark canoes, without which Jack never bathed. He did conquer it, however, and at the end of a half-hour managed to reach the end of his bath, though as a rule he had hitherto rarely expended more than ten minutes in his morning ablutions. Then came another difficulty. He found himself utterly unable to stand still while he was putting on his clothes, and finally Mrs. Jarley had to be called in to comb his hair for him. Jarley himself could no more have taken the time to part it satisfactorily than he could have flown.

"What _is_ the matter with you?" said Mrs. Jarley, as she made several ineffectual attempts to get his truant locks into shape. "Have you caught St. Vitus's dance?"

"Nothing's the matter with me," returned Jarley, standing on one foot and hopping up and down thereon. "I feel well, that's all."

And then he tore out of the room, mounted the banisters, and slid downstairs in an utterly unbecoming fashion, considering that he was a man of thirty-five and the head of the house. He felt a little ashamed of himself in the midst of this operation, particularly when he observed that the waitress was standing in the hall below-stairs, looking at him with eyes that betokened an astonishment as creditable to her as it was disgraceful to him. He tried vainly to stop his wild descent when he noted her presence. He clutched madly at the banisters, turning his hands and knees into brakes in his effort to save his dignity; but once started he could not stop, and as a consequence he went down like a flash, slid precipitately over the newel-post, and landed with a cry of mortification on the hall floor. He was not hurt, save in his self-esteem, and gathering himself together, he endeavored to walk with dignity into the dining-room; but he had hardly reached the door, when he was overcome with a mad desire to whoop--and whoop he did. As a consequence of the whoop Jack was scolded when Mrs. Jarley came down. She had no idea that Jarley himself could be so blind to propriety as to yell in so indecorous a fashion; and when poor little Jack was upbraided, Jarley, despite his good intention to confess himself the guilty party, discovered that the only act he was capable of was giggling. Jack of course wept, and the more he wept the more Jarley giggled,