Steve and the Steam Engine by Sara Ware Bassett (best book club books for discussion .txt) 📖

bay window that fronted the shifting panorama before him.

"So you like my moving picture, do you, Steve?" inquired the New Yorker merrily.

"It is great! If I lived here I shouldn't do a bit of studying," was the lad's answer.

"You think the influence of the place bad, then."

"It would be for me," Stephen chuckled.

Both Mr. Tolman and Mr. Ackerman laughed.

"I will own," the latter confessed, "that at first those front windows demoralized me not a little. They had the same lure for me as they have for you. But by and by I gained the strength of mind to turn my back and let the Hudson River traffic look out for itself."

"You might try that remedy, son," suggested Steve's father.

"No, no, Tolman! Let the boy alone. If he is enjoying the ferries and steamboats so much the better."

"But there seem to be plenty of steamboats here in the room to enjoy," was Mr. Tolman's quick retort.

"Steamboats?" repeated Steve vaguely, turning and looking about him.

Sure enough, there were steamboats galore! Wherever he looked he saw them. Not only were the walls covered with pictures of every imaginable type of steamer, but wherever there was space enough there were tiers of little ship models in glass cases. There were side-wheelers, awkwardly constructed boats with sprawling paddles, screw propellers, and twin-screw craft; ferryboats, tugs, steam yachts, and ocean liners. Every known variety of sea-going contrivance was represented. The large room was like a museum of ships and the boy gave an involuntary exclamation of delight.

"Jove!"

It was a laconic tribute to the marvels about him but it was uttered with so much vehemence that there was no mistaking its sincerity. Evidently, terse as it was, its ring of fervor satisfied Mr. Ackerman for he smiled to himself.

"I never saw so many boats in all my life!" burst out Steve.

"I told you I was in the steamboat business," put in Mr. Ackerman mischievously.

"I should think you were!" was the lad's comment.

"This is a wonderful collection, Ackerman," Mr. Tolman asserted, as he rose and began to walk about the room. "How did you ever get it together? Many of these prints are priceless."

"Oh, I have been years doing it," Mr. Ackerman said. "It has been my hobby. I have chosen to sink my money in these toys instead of in an abandoned farm or antique furniture. It is just a matter of taste, you see."

"You must have done some scouring of the country to make your collection so complete. I don't see how you ever succeeded in finding these old pictures and models. It is a genuine history lesson."

"I do not deserve all the credit, by any means," the capitalist protested with modesty. "My grandfather, who was one of the owners of the first of the Hudson River steamers, began collecting pictures and drawings; and at his death they came to my father who added to them. Afterward, when the collection descended to me, I tried to fill in the gaps in order to make the sequence complete. Of course in many cases I have not been able to find what I wanted, for neither prints nor models of some of the ships I desired were to be had. Either there were no copies of them in existence, or if there were no money could tempt their owners to part with them. Still I have a well enough graded lot to show the progression."

"I should think you had!" said Mr. Tolman heartily. "You have arranged them beautifully, too, from the old whalers and early American coasting ships to the clippers. Then come the first steam packets, I see, and then the development of the steamboat through its successive steps up to our present-day floating palace. It tells its own story, doesn't it?"

"In certain fashion, yes," Mr. Ackerman agreed. "But the real romance of it will never be fully told, I suppose. What an era of progress through which to have lived!"

"And shared in, as your family evidently did," interposed Mr. Tolman quickly.

His host nodded.

"Yes," he answered, "I am quite proud to think that both my father and my grandfather had their humble part in the story."

"And well you may be. They were makers of history."

Both men were silent an instant, each occupied with his own thoughts.

Mr. Tolman moved reflectively toward the mantelpiece before which Steve was standing, gazing intently at a significant quartette of tiny models under glass. First came a ship of graceful outline, having a miniature figurehead of an angel at its prow and every sail set. Beside this was an ungainly side-wheeler with scarce a line of beauty to commend it. Next in order came an exquisite, up-to-date ocean liner; and the last in the group was a modern battleship with guns, wireless, and every detail cunningly reproduced.

Stephen stood speechless before them.

"What are you thinking of, son?" his father asked.

"Why, I—" the boy hesitated.

"Come, tell us! I'd like to know, too," echoed Mr. Ackerman.

"Why, to be honest I was wondering how you happened to pick these particular four for your mantel," replied the lad with confusion.

The steamboat man smiled kindly.

"You think there are handsomer boats in the room than these, do you?"

"Certainly there are better looking steamships than this one," Steve returned, pointing with a shrug of his shoulders at the clumsy side-wheeler.

"But that rather ugly craft is the most important one of the lot, my boy," Mr. Tolman declared.

"I suppose that is true," Mr. Ackerman agreed. "The fate of all the others hung on that ship."

"Why?" was the boy's prompt question.

"Oh, it is much too long a yarn to tell you now," laughed his host. "Were we to begin that tale we should not get to the theater to-night, say nothing of having any dinner."

"I'd like to hear the story," persisted Stephen.

"You will be reading it from a book some day."

"I'd rather hear you tell it."

"If that isn't a spontaneous compliment, Ackerman, I don't know what is," laughed Mr. Tolman.

The steamboat man did not reply but he could not quite disguise his pleasure, although he said a bit gruffly:

"We shall have to leave the story and go to the show to-night. I've bought the tickets and there is no escape," added he humorously. "But perhaps before you leave New York there will be some other chance for me to spin my yarn for you, and put your father's railroad romances entirely in the shade."

The butler announced dinner and they passed into the dining room.

If, however, Stephen thought that he was now to leave ships behind him he was mistaken, for the dining room proved to be quite as much of a museum as the library had been. Against the dull blue paper hung pictures of racing yachts, early American fighting ships, and nautical encounters on the high seas. The house was a veritable wonderland, and so distracted was the lad that he could scarcely eat.

"Come, come, son," objected Mr. Tolman at last, "you will not be ready in time to go to any show unless you turn your attention to your dinner."

"That's right," Mr. Ackerman said. "Fall to and eat your roast beef. We are none too early as it is."

Accordingly Stephen fixed his eyes on his plate with resolution and tried his best to think no more of his alluring surroundings. With the coming of the ice-cream he had almost forgotten there were such things as ships, and when he rose from the table he found himself quite as eager to set forth to the theater as any other healthy-minded lad of his age would have been.

The "show" Mr. Ackerman had selected had been chosen with much care and was one any boy would have delighted to see. The great stage had, for the time being, been transformed to a western prairie and across it came a group of canvas-covered wagons, or prairie schooners, such as were used in the early days by the first settlers of the West. Women and children were huddled beneath the arched canopy of coarse cloth and inside this shelter they passed the weary days and nights of travel. Through sun and storm the wagons rumbled on; jogging across the rough, uncharted country and jolting over rocks, sagebrush, and sand. There were streams to ford, mountains to climb on the long trip westward, but undaunted by obstacles the heroic little band of settlers who had with such determination left kin and comfort behind them passed on to that new land toward which their faces were set.

It was such a company as this that Stephen now saw pictured before him. Perched on the front seat of the wagon driving the horses was the father of the family, rugged, alert, and of the woodsman type characteristic of the New England pioneer. The cavalcade halted. A fire was built and the travelers cooked their supper. Across the valley one could see the fading sunset deepen into twilight. From a little stream near-by the men brought water for the tired horses. Then the women and children clambered into the "ship of the desert" and prepared for a night's rest.

In the meantime the men lingered about the dying fire and one of them, a gun in his hand, paced back and forth as if on guard. Then suddenly he turned excitedly to his comrades with his finger on his lips. He had heard a sound, the sound they all dreaded,—the cry of an Indian.

Presently over the crest of the hill came stealing a stealthy band of savages. On they came, crouching against the rocks and moving forward with the lithe, gliding motion of serpents. The men sank down behind the brush, weapons in hand, and waited. On came the bloodthirsty Indians. Then, just when the destruction of the travelers seemed certain, onto the stage galloped a company of cowboys. Immediately there was a flashing of rifles and a din of battle. First it seemed as if the heroic rescuers would surely be slaughtered. But they fought bravely and soon the Indians were either killed or captured. Amid the confusion the owners of the prairie schooners leaped to the seats of their wagons, lashed forward their tired horses, and disappeared in safety with the terrified women and children.

It was not until the curtain fell upon this thrilling adventure that Stephen sank back into his chair and drew a long breath.

"Some show, eh, son?" said Mr. Tolman, as they put on their overcoats to leave the theater after the three long acts were over.

The boy looked up, his eyes wide with excitement.

"I should say!" he managed to gasp.

"Did you like it, sonny?" Mr. Ackerman inquired.

"You bet I did!"

"Think you would have preferred to cross the continent by wagon rather than by train?"

Steve hesitated.

"I guess a train would have been good enough for me," he replied. "Was it really as bad as that before the railroads were built?"

"Quite as bad, I'm afraid," was his father's answer. "Sometimes it was even worse, for the unfortunate settlers did not always contrive to escape. It took courage to be a pioneer and travel the country in those days. Undoubtedly there was much romance in the adventure but hand in hand with it went no little peril and discomfort. We owe a great deal to the men who settled the West; and, I sometimes think, even more to the dauntless women."

Stephen did not reply. Very quietly he walked down the aisle between his father and Mr. Ackerman, and when he gave his hand to the latter and said good-night he was still thoughtful. It was evident that the scenes he had witnessed had made a profound impression on him and that he was still immersed in the atmosphere of prairie schooners, lurking Indians, and desert hold-ups. Even when he reached the hotel he was too tense and broad awake to go to bed.

"I wish you'd tell me, Dad, how the first railroad across the country was built," he said. "I don't see how any track was ever laid through such a wilderness. Didn't the Indians attack the workmen? I should think they would have."

His father placed a hand kindly on his shoulder.

"To-morrow we'll talk trans-continental railroads, son, if by that time you still wish to," said he. "But to-night we'll go to bed and think no more about them. I am tired and am sure you must be."

"I'm not!" was the prompt retort.

"I rather fancy you will discover you are after you have undressed," smiled his father. "At any rate we'll have to call off railroading for to-night, for if you are not sleepy, I am."

"But you won't have time to tell me anything to-morrow," grumbled Steve, rising