FAME COMES TO THE DREAMER OF DREAMS
Richard Galbraith returned thoughtfully over the Harbor Road not sorry
at the turn affairs had taken. The honorable and magnanimous thing had
been done with the Lee fortune, and it had been firmly and proudly
refused. Now it could go unreservedly to Robert Morton for whom the
financier had a particular regard and in whose wisdom to make a
sensible use of it he felt every confidence. The money would not only
place the young man in a position to marry without delay, but
indirectly its benefits would reach the two individuals that Madam Lee
would most earnestly have desired to help. Nor did the capitalist's
regard for Delight, which had steadily been growing, decrease when
viewed from this new angle. The Lees were a proud race and the girl
came justly by the attribute. He was not sure, now that he reflected
on the matter, but that he himself would have scorned the legacy in the
same high-handed fashion. Nevertheless he had not expected this
termination of the interview, had not expected it at all. His recently
acquired relatives were proving themselves interesting persons. Who
would have dreamed that a penniless fisherman's daughter would have
tossed the Lee ducats back into his face?
He laughed to himself when he thought of the paradox. He had always
admired spirit in a woman.
The car rolled on, flashing past swamps of swaying iris bedded deep in
the salt marsh-grass, past tangles of fragrant honeysuckle and garlands
of clinging clematis, and presently shot out into the sunny stretch of
road that like a white ribbon bound the blue waters of the bay. When
it reached the bluff where the sand mounted into green-capped dunes,
patched in their hollows with shadows of violet, it slowed down and
came to a stop before Willie Spence's weathered cottage.
The old inventor and Bob were seated idly on the workshop steps. No
longer did the vibrant hammer and purring plane blend their metallic
notes with the music of the surf. Their work was done, and until he
was "kitched with a new idee" Willie had nothing to do but smoke
beneath the shade of the grapevine and rambler rose and watch the vast
reach of water to the line where it melted into the blue of the sky.
Since his interview with Mr. Galbraith, Robert Morton had had all he
could do to keep from Willie the assurance that Janoah's accusations
were false and that instead of misfortune good luck was winging its way
toward the low gray house on the bay. Bob was a generous fellow and it
added tenfold to his present happiness to know that joy was also coming
to one toward whom he cherished an abiding affection. The secret,
however, was Mr. Galbraith's, and until the New Yorker saw fit to
impart it he must maintain silence. Therefore, with smiles wreathing
his face and the wonderful story locked tightly in his possession, he
tried to be patient until the final revelation should be made.
And now with the approach of the capitalist he knew that at last the
great moment had arrived. The dream of years was to come true and the
darling of Willie's brain, his greatest and most ambitious idea, was to
be made a potent factor in the broad universe. So perfectly did he
understand the quaint, half-shrinking inventor that he knew well no
money, no fame, no praise could mean to him what this recognition
would. Persons were to use the thing he had thought out,--to use it
neither because of friendship nor interest, but because it was a
practical, indispensable article which no mind had previously given to
the world. In the days and weeks Bob had spent in the Spence cottage
it was impossible not to read all this and more in the sensitive,
hungering nature of the man who had worked beside him. Love and
parenthood in its smaller and more specific sense had passed Willie
Spence by, but in their place there had sprung into life a broader
altruism and a larger creative impulse. The children his mind begot
were as much of his blood and marrow as if they had actually been born
of his own flesh; and to have one of them go victoriously forth into
that moving current that reached so far beyond his own humble door
would be like sending a child into battle. It transformed the father
to one of the elect.
Surely, thought Robert Morton, great and unexpected issues had centered
about his visit to Wilton. When confronted by the present unfoldings,
who would have the temerity to boast that one's destinies were matters
of chance?
"Well," called Mr. Galbraith as he came up the walk, "you two people
look comfortable. Is there room on that doorstep for one more?"
"Certainly, sir! Certainly!" Willie replied. "But wouldn't you rather
we heaved a box or something out of the shop for you to set on? You'll
find these steps a good way down, I'm afraid."
"Not a bit of it," the New Yorker answered, dropping into the welcome
shade of the trellis. "You have deserted the shop, I see. Does that
mean your work is done?"
"Done an' delivered," smiled Willie. "We've discharged our cargo an'
ain't took nothin' else aboard yet. We're just kinder ridin' at
anchor."
"How did your friend, Mr. Brewster, like your handiwork?"
In spite of his native modesty Willie's bronzed face lighted with pride.
"Say, you'd oughter seen him!" exclaimed he, forgetting everything else
in his pleasure. "He was struck clean abeam! He never suspected
nothin' about it an' the surprise took him broadside. An' it works!"
continued the little man with enthusiasm. "Yes, siree! It works!
That cockleshell of a _Sea Gull_ goes rippin' along through the eel
grass, her propeller clear and free as if she had twenty fathoms of
water under her. It's as pretty a sight as you'd care to look on."
Mr. Galbraith watched the shining eyes of the inventor.
"Mr. Spence," he said, "that idea of yours is going to be a very useful
and valuable one. Have you thought of that?"
Willie flushed.
"Well," replied he with hesitation, "yesterday when I was shuckin'
clams it did come to me that mebbe there'd be other folks besides Zenas
Henry would like it."
"A great many folks!" rejoined the capitalist. "I am in a position to
know, because shipbuilding chances to be my business."
"So I was told," his listener remarked quietly. An expression of quick
surprise passed over the other's countenance.
"Yes," he went on, "both Mr. Snelling and I are interested in boats in
our way."
"It's a fine job," Willie observed evasively.
"Yes, it is. Not only is shipbuilding a fascinating occupation but it
is a patriotic one as well, for I believe the resurrection of our
merchant marine to be one of the most important duties of our nation.
Everything that works toward that end is a service to the country, in
my estimation."
"You're right, sir," was the rejoinder. "I'm terrible fond of ships
myself. They're human as people an' as different. You can turn 'em
out from the same model, but no two of 'em will ever be alike. I've
got a little yawl down on the shore I wouldn't take a thousand dollars
for. She's knowin' as if she was alive. I can tell to an inch how
much sail she'll stand an' how much water she'll draw. She answers to
the tiller quick as a child to your voice, too--quicker'n most
children. I've had her for years, an' smooth weather or foul she ain't
never gone back on me. Folks disappoint you sometimes; but a boat
never does." As if sensing that he was venturing on dangerous ground,
he stopped abruptly. "So you build boats, do you?" he commented to
change the subject.
Richard Galbraith nodded.
"That's my calling," he assented. "And since it is, I am in a position
to handle things that have to do with boats of all kinds. That is why
your motor-boat idea has interested me so deeply. I saw its
possibilities from the moment I first laid eyes on it, and I wish to
congratulate you on having given the public such a useful invention."
"It ain't got far toward the public," objected Willie, with a
deprecating shrug of his shoulders.
"But it is going to," Mr. Galbraith declared with promptness. "Bob,
Mr. Snelling and I have taken matters into our own hands and have
ventured to have an application for a patent prepared--description,
claims and all; and after you have sworn to the affidavit and affixed
your signature, we will send it off to Washington, where I haven't a
doubt it will be granted. I thought this would save you the bother of
attending to it yourself."
Poor Willie was too amazed to speak.
"Now Galbraith and Company will want the monopoly of that patent, Mr.
Spence," hurried on the financier. "We are going to make you a
proposition either for the purchase of it outright, or for its use on a
royalty basis."
With a supreme disregard for business, Willie wheeled on him before he
could go further and said simply:
"Law, Mr. Galbraith, you can use the thing an' welcome. Turn out as
many of 'em as you like. It won't make no odds to me. But the
patent--think of havin' a real patent on somethin' I've thought out!
Just you picture it!"
He repeated the words in a soft, musing voice that hushed his hearers
into stillness.
"I never thought to live to see the day anything of mine would be
patented. That means that nobody else anywhere in the world ever was
kitched by that same idee before, don't it? It's sorter--sorter
wonderful an' gratifyin'. But if it hadn't been for the rest of you
that's helped me, the claptraption would never have been in any kind of
shape. 'Twould 'a' been just a hit-or-miss contrivance like the rest
of the idees I've got indoors. You see, I never had the schoolin' to
manage my notions, even when once I'd got 'em. I know that well
enough. So if I should get a patent on this thing, 'twould be mostly
due to you that's helped me, an' I thank you most humble." His voice
trembled with feeling. "After all you've done--the three of you--you
wouldn't expect me to take money from you for usin' the scheme, would
you? Take it an' welcome, an' may it bring luck to your business! But
there's one thing I would like," he added timidly. "If we should get
them patent papers from the government an' they ain't no particular use
to you, I'd like to keep 'em by me to read over now an' again. 'Twould
sorter make it all seem more real some way, an' less as if I'd dreamed
it. I've imagined this happenin' so many times an' woke up to find
'twas only imaginin's."
The blue eyes softened into mistiness.
"To think of gettin' a patent! To think of it! Celestina will be
glad. I'm afraid, by an' large, I've bothered her quite considerable
with my strings, an' spools, an' tacks, an' such. She'll like to know
some of 'em went for somethin', after all. The Brewsters an' Delight
will be pleased, too. An' there's Janoah! Oh, Janoah must be told
right away, Bob, quick's ever we can fetch it. 'Twill clear the air
'twixt him an' me, an' make us both happier. I ain't never been able
to convince him that if you put your trust in folks they seldom betray
it. Who knows but when he finds out what's happened he'll kitch _that_
idee? If he should, 'twould be worth all the inventions and patents in
the world put together. Look for the best, I say, an' you get it every
time," continued the little old man, with a smile of exquisite
serenity. "The universe is full of kindly souls with hearts a-beatin'
inside 'em same's yours. Meet 'em with your hands out, an' their hands
will come the other halfway."
"It is a pity you can't take out a patent on that notion, Mr. Spence,
and sow it broadcast," returned the New Yorker soberly.
Willie's gaze traveled with wistful and reverent faith across the
other's face to the sky above him.
"Somehow," he murmured, "I like to believe that idee was patented
centuries ago by One who put it right to work by believin' the best of
all us poor sinners. Folks ain't used the notion yet, much as they
might, but they're gettin' round to, an' the day'll come when not to
believe in the other feller's soul will be like--well, like havin' a
motor-boat without our attachment," concluded he whimsically.