A WONDERFUL CHANGE IN KILLSBURY.
In less than four years after the events recorded in the last chapter a
young man of fascinating appearance stepped off from the train at the
Killsbury station. His name was Alfonso Bombs. He had just returned from
his trip abroad. He had seen the Russo-Japanese army fighting like
fiends--setting hellish traps for each other and blowing whole regiments
into eternity. Vassili Verestchagin had lost his life in the terrible
explosion of the Petropavlovsk and thousands of men had died awful deaths
through the same satanic agencies that had snatched this noble
truth-painter from his needed work. The commercial world was being made
hideous with the manufacture and transportation of monstrous battleships
and explosives. Mr. Schwarmer had been blown to atoms by a dynamite
explosion on a railroad train and his widow had married a military man and
was deeply interested in "_The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals_." She contemplated giving a fine building for its use and
enlarging its scope by adding an infirmary for disabled war-horses; but
Mr. Bombs was not thinking of these things nor of the immense army of
youth that was being prepared for the annual slaughter although it was
Independence Day and the nation's flag was flying from every train. He
refused the proffered carriage and walked leisurely through the town,
stopping here and there and looking around in pleased surprise. It seemed
to him that the whole atmosphere of the place had changed. The gardens
were full of flowers, the lawns were green and velvety, the crooked old
fences had disappeared, the sidewalks were in a perfect condition, the
roads were gravelled, and the ugly hollows filled up.
When he got to Library Street, he stopped and surveyed it critically. The
improvement was still more apparent there. The Adelaide Library was
handsomely winged. He wondered how it would be with Adelaide herself. He
felt that she would have wings spiritual if not visible--quite after his
heart's desire. He reasoned that if all these improvements had been made
through her influence, she must be a very rare woman and well beloved--so
well that she would not need any other love perhaps. Then the little viper
of jealousy slid into his heart; but he cast it out with the lash of
self-assurance. He would not think that he could not win her if he should
approve of her and really wish to have her for his very own.
Up to this point he had not met any one he knew and he was glad he had
not. He went on noting changes until he found himself at the point, where
the street branched off for the "Round About Way" to Schwarmer Hill. He
avoided it instinctively. He took the Straight Road; but his reverie as he
ascended the hill had a tragic element in it that robbed it of its charm.
After that, the reign of disappointment set in. Schwarmer mansion had not
improved in the least--rather the reverse.
If he had expressed his thought he would have said:
"It looks as though it had doffed a turret and were reaching down to bring
the buildings below up to its own stature."
The truth was, Adelaide had ordered one of the most useless and imposing
turrets to be taken down as it was found to be unsafe.
The Queery buildings remained intact and the grounds were greatly
improved; but he saw at a glance that it was an improvement in which he
and his Pyro-pieces had not been taken into account. Little children were
playing on the grass, small boys and girls were running from the fountain
to the garden and baby carts were being wheeled about the numerous walks.
He hastened on to the mansion and rang the bell.
Mary Langley opened the door and started back.
"O I see that you remember me," laughed Bombs. "Is Miss Adelaide at home?"
"Miss Adelaide is down at the college. Will you come in and wait for her?"
"Thanks. I will wait on the veranda or roam about. I find many changes of
interest."
He sat down and rested from his walk while he looked out over the handsome
grounds and inhaled the odor of violets and mignonette. After he had
rested he went out to the brow of the hill. There was always a strong
breeze on the brow of the hill; but there was something else this
morning--something more stirring than the rustling leaves. There were
musical sounds. His first thought was that they were from the throats of
young orioles. He listened intently and heard instead of warblings, fine
strains of music like those of an aeolian harp.
"Yes a hundred aeolian harps!" he ejaculated and the fancy possessed him
that Adelaide had taken advantage of the situation and had strung aeolian
harps in the tops of the trees for the winds of heaven to play upon. He
did not try to find out if it were so. If it were a delusion he preferred
to enjoy it instead of dispelling it. He stood still and listened
intently.
Without knowing it he stood on the very spot where Mary Langley had lost
her baby. He hit his toe against a stone and looking down he saw that, it
was fringed with moss and bore a name and date in tiny artistic letters.
The name was _Adelaide S. Langley_ and the date was _July 4th, 1902_. He
knew then that he had been doubly remembered; but it was not flattering to
his vanity to be remembered so strongly in this case, any more than it was
to be entirely forgotten in the matter of transforming The Queery grounds
into a children's park. He turned away abruptly and saw Adelaide Schwarmer
coming up the hill.
He knew her at a glance; but he was a trifle disappointed. His first
thought was, that like the mansion she had been holding herself down to
the level of the Killsbury people.
"You surprise me," he said. "You have changed so very, very little."
"And you do not seem to have changed at all; and yet I am not surprised."
"But you were at the changeable age and I was not."
"And you have been changing places and peoples and views constantly. I
should think you would be changed by reflection if nothing more."
"There is something in that apparently," laughed Bombs. "Then it must be
because you have lived in the same place and with the same people that you
look the same. If the theory is true you should move on in order to attain
a full development. That would be in accordance with Goethe's idea would
it not?
'Keep not standing fixed and rooted.
Briskly venture--briskly roam.'
"Perhaps I didn't 'foot it freely' enough to receive a benefaction of
bronze and muscle that the ladies admire."
"From the Occident to the Orient even on wheels, there must be much to see
and learn, Mr. Bombs."
"Yes, Miss Adelaide, and much that is not worth learning. When I was in
Turkey, I learned nothing of more interest than that the Sultan had
finished his forty days fast at Ramazar and taken a new wife."
"But the treacherous war, with its horrid weapons! You must have seen how
awful it was, Mr. Bombs?"
"It was the same old story, Miss Adelaide; men were made to kill each
other with fists or dynamite--no matter which."
"You are caustic as ever, Mr. Bombs. You must have spent your time chiefly
with chemicals and in lurid laboratories--looking inward instead of
outward--trying to find out and master the hidden forces. Father told me
of your investigations only the day before he died," said Adelaide closing
her eyes and leaning back in her chair.
There was silence for a few moments, then she added: "Please tell me what
you have discovered, Mr. Bombs."
"There isn't much to be told at present date, Miss Adelaide, except that
I have discovered or think I have, the long sought for and greatly to be
desired explosive--the ideal force which combines the highest known power
with perfect safety in use; an explosive which when put upon the market
and used in the place of dynamite will make such accidents as that which
cost your father his life, practically impossible."
"I don't believe such awful things can _be_ made safe, any more than the
arch-fiend himself, Mr. Bombs."
"But they can be, Miss Adelaide, if properly harnessed and handled--at
least my explosive can be. It will not explode unless rightly treated or
_en_-treated. It is very particular about that," laughed Bombs. "It won't
respond to hard knocks or kicks or a shower of bullets, and a child might
treat it to a lighted match and coals of fire and it would do no more than
burn with a gentle blue flame. An ounce of it would make a safe and
satisfactory firecracker in a boy's hands; while the same quantity in
skilful hands, could be made to blow up an immense battleship!"
"How horrible!" exclaimed Adelaide. "What need have we for such powerful
explosives? Are we commanded to wreck the world--or grind it into powder?
I heard a few days ago of a man who had invented a machine that would
crunch up great rocks in its horrible jaws in less time than it takes a
dog to eat a bone. At that rate there wouldn't be a rock left in a few
years' time and the blessed earth would be little else than a succession
of pitfalls!"
"Pretty good," laughed Bombs. "It's time for the inventor of safety
appliances to come to the rescue, eh! Miss Adelaide."
"We cry safety! and yet there is no safety with such monsters all around
us. If we were all good and wise--full grown savants, we might talk of
safety--but there are the children who don't know how to use safety
appliances and the criminal who is using dynamite to terrorize the
railroads."
"There's where my explosive has the advantage. There isn't but one way to
explode it; and there's too much science about it for the child, the idiot
or the railroad dynamiter. He couldn't be on hand with an electric
battery; and it can't be exploded by accident.
"Let me show you something," said Bombs, fumbling in his pocket and
bringing forth a small piece of reddish brown substance. "You see how
harmless it looks; and so it is ordinarily but by employing certain
agencies it could be made to blow up as large an establishment as your
library building."
She shuddered involuntarily.
"I see you have no confidence in it, Miss Adelaide," he said tossing it up
and down in his hand. "I have some larger pieces in my traveling case. I
will prove them to you some day if you like."
"No! no! Mr. Bombs. I don't want any proof! This is no longer a fit place
for proving grounds, as you will see."
She looked out over the network of walks and added: "The children have
gone home to dinner, but they will be back again soon. They come and go
like the birds of heaven."
"O Adelaide, how cruel," exclaimed Bombs, half in jest. "If your father
were here, he would receive me with open arms. He would be proud to have
me show up my discoveries and inventions. He built the Queery at my
instigation; but you--"
"Father told me I might do as I liked and he knew I did not like dangerous
things. We were alone here for several weeks and we talked it all over and
made plans," sobbed Adelaide.
"Well, don't cry, Adelaide. I shall not insist. I ought not to wonder that
you feel as you do especially since his death and about anything of the
same nature that caused it; but you will change your mind I am sure when
you see that my invention is entirely the reverse of the old and
everlastingly dangerous ones. I am going to have some experiments tried
with it by Government authority at the Indian Head Proving Grounds later
on, and I hope you will be induced to come and see for yourself that it
will be a blessing rather than a curse. It is ten times more powerful when
its power is needed than the horrible dynamite of which you have had such
a sad experience; but it is religiously believed that the very might of
it will make disastrous celebrations and even war practically impossible."
"Religiously believed!" exclaimed Adelaide. "I should say that it was
anything but religious to believe that disastrous celebrations and wars
are to be done away with by monstrous life destroying agencies instead of
the human and divine agencies of love and true friendliness. No! no, Mr.
Bombs! That is treacherous military pretense. We have never had any
Independence Day accidents here since the fireworks were abolished. We had
a great many before. Ruth Cornwallis began the crusade against them and
our Golden Rule President with his earnest appeals and wise prohibitions
made a clean sweep of them. You remember Laurens Cornwallis's mysterious
death. You said you would tell me what you knew about it when you came
back. Please tell me now, Mr. Bombs."