CHAPTER

I. An Accidental Experiment

II. The "Illustrated Lecture"

III. The Sky-room

IV. The Unwelcome Guest

V. Compromises

VI. Two Lessons from Nature

VII. Pierre's Story

VIII. At the Cottage

IX. Lost

X. Trouble

XI. Going for Ruth

XII. The Day

XIII. Going to the Harbor

XIV. Odds and Ends

_*PROFESSOR JOHNNY.*_

*CHAPTER I.*

*AN ACCIDENTAL EXPERIMENT.*

Johnny had been named The Professor by some of his young friends,

because he wore spectacles, was fond of studying natural philosophy and

chemistry, and of performing experiments. He had become so used to the

name that he did not mind it much, even when some of the rude boys in

the street called him Professor or Prof. His merry little sister Sue,

also, was quite as apt to call him Prof. as Johnny.

One evening in June, Johnny and Sue were at home alone. Their father

and mother were making calls; and Kate, the girl, had gone out

marketing. It was not very uncommon for them to be in the house alone;

for although Sue was rather wild and thoughtless, Johnny was very quiet

and thoughtful, and Sue had been taught to mind him when her parents

were away.

Johnny had been reading, and Sue amusing herself by undressing her doll

and putting it to bed; but after the doll was in bed, and supposedly

sound asleep, she could not think of any thing else to do by herself,

and so began to tease Johnny to put up his book and play with her.

Johnny was so much interested in his book that he paid but little

attention to her at first, merely replying that he would play by and by.

But finally Sue took hold of his book playfully, saying,--

"I mean to take away your book, for you have read long enough: mamma

would say so herself if she were here."

Johnny laughed.

"That's a very handy excuse for you: whenever you want me to play, you

have a sudden anxiety about my eyes."

"But you know it's just what papa and mamma say, that you read too much,

and they ask you to stop reading a good deal oftener than I do. I'm

sure, if they had been here, you would have had to put up that book half

an hour ago."

"I shouldn't wonder if you were right about that. Well, what shall we

do? Shall we play checkers?"

"Oh, no! don't let's play any thing still: let's romp a little."

"Romp!" exclaimed Johnny, making up a comical face. "You know I hate

romping. Let us play a game of chess."

"No: you always beat me at those games, and so it isn't any fun; but I

can beat you at romping, and so I like it. Besides, papa and mamma say

it is better for you to exercise more, and they like to have you romp

with me."

"I should think you were setting up for a doctress, if I didn't know you

better. You are the greatest girl to get up excuses for whatever you

want to do. But I suppose there'll be no peace until I romp."

Johnny put down his book with a sigh and a smile. Sue said, "Come,

let's play tag. Catch me if you can!" and ran off into the dining-room.

As the gas was only lighted in the front hall and in the sitting-room,

it was pretty dark in the dining-room; but this suited Sue all the

better: she ran around the table, with Johnny after her; and, as she hit

now and then against the table, the dishes rattled ominously. She was

laughing uproariously all the time, and evidently thought of nothing but

the sport of dodging Johnny, at all risks.

"This won't do," said Johnny, coming to a stand-still, as Sue, in trying

to escape him as he turned suddenly in the direction in which she was

running, knocked over a pitcher near the end of the table: "we shall be

sure to break something before long, at this rate."

"Let's go into the kitchen, then," replied Sue: "there isn't any fire in

the stove, and we can't hurt any thing there. It'll be real nice and

dark too: I'll bet I can hide where you can't find me."

"All right," said Johnny; and Sue danced into the kitchen, and hid

behind the door. Johnny cornered her at once, however; for it happened

to be lighter there than in the dining-room.

"Why, this is real queer!" exclaimed Sue, in a half vexed tone, as

Johnny pulled her from her hiding-place: "it isn't dark here a single

mite!"

"So it isn't," replied Johnny. "I wonder what makes it so light! The

light comes in at the window. There must be a lamp in the shed, or out

on the platform."

Johnny opened the door and went out. Sue followed him. The "platform"

extended some little distance from the back-door, and was covered by a

roof: it might have been called a piazza or a porch but for its width.

At the side of the "platform" was what Johnny called the "shed:" it had

been intended only for storage of wood and coal, but was so large that a

small summer kitchen had been partitioned off next to the kitchen, with

a door into the kitchen, and another opening upon the platform. This

kitchen was used in warm weather for baking, washing, and ironing, in

order to keep the heat out of the house. Kate had been ironing that

afternoon, and the fire in the stove had not gone out.

As soon as they were outside the door, Sue set up a cry of alarm.

"Fire! Fire!" she cried. "The house is on fire! O Johnny, let's run

off! we shall get burned up!"

Johnny stood quite still, and said nothing.

"O Johnny! come! come! what makes you stand there? It's going to

explode! It'll reach over here, and set the house on fire! Let's run

out into the street, and call some one to come! What makes you stand

there, and not call out? You'll let the house burn up! But I shan't go

and let you be burned up: you've got to come too!"

She took hold of his jacket, and pulled with all her might; for she

thought Johnny was too frightened to stir.

"Keep still, Sue: I'm thinking," he replied, looking calmly and fixedly

at the alarming light in the shed-window. "I can't get at it through

this door very well: I guess I'll go around through the kitchen-door."

"You ain't going near it?" cried Sue, in astonishment and alarm.

"Of course I am: I can't put it out without going near it."

"You sha'n't do it! There! It's getting worse than ever! O Johnny,

come in!--It's going to explode this minute!"

Johnny came in, but it was not on account of Sue's direction: he had

just thought what to do.

The danger proceeded from a kerosene-lamp which stood in the summer

kitchen, on a table, near the window facing the platform. It was

streaming up very high, and blazing in a very remarkable and peculiar

manner, as if on the point of instant explosion: the flashing and

flickering were what had lighted up the kitchen so strangely.

On entering the kitchen, Johnny seized a piece of carpet which was in

front of the sink, and ran with it toward the inner door of the shed.

"You sha'n't go in there, Johnny!" cried Sue. "You're going to kill

yourself, and me, too, 'cause I sha'n't run away and leave you;" and she

began to cry bitterly. But Johnny hurried on into the shed, and Sue

dared not follow him: she was only just brave enough not to run out of

the house, and leave him there to die or be horribly burned alone.

Just then Kate returned. As she stepped upon the platform, and saw the

alarming spectacle, she screamed wildly, "Fire! help! help!" Just at

that moment, too, a boy in the neighborhood, who had heard Sue's cries,

came rushing into the yard. Hearing Kate's outcry, and seeing the blaze

in the shed, he rushed into the street, shouting "Fire!" at the top of

his voice, and telling everybody he met that the back part of Mr. Le

Bras' house was all in a blaze. The first man who heard the news gave

the signal at the alarm-box at the corner.

But before Kate or Sue could scream again, Johnny had darted through the

inner door, and thrown the rug over the lamp.

"O Johnny! Johnny! run! run! it'll explode now, sure!" cried Kate

wildly, thinking the carpet would send the blaze down into the lamp

instantly. But all was in darkness.

"Johnny! Oh! where is he?" screamed Sue, almost fancying he must have

died with the blaze somehow.

"Sure, and there ain't any fire now at all!" said Kate, in wonderment.

"Where are you, Johnny?"

"Here I am," said a calm voice at her elbow. "Didn't that go out

quickly? I knew it would as soon as the rug was over it, but I was a

little afraid it might explode before I could get it covered: I didn't

really believe it would, though; for father says he is always very

careful to get the best of kerosene."

"What a brave boy!" said Kate admiringly. "But you oughtn't to have

risked your life so, Johnny. And what could have ailed that lamp? I'll

light a candle, and go and see what the matter was; for I don't dare

touch another kerosene-lamp. I left that one all right when I went off,

about an hour and a half ago."

After lighting the gas in the kitchen, Kate lighted a candle, and

entered the shed, preceded by Johnny. Sue still feared it was unsafe,

and stood on the platform, telling them they had better not go in.

Kate took up the end of the rug, and peered cautiously underneath,

prepared to run and pull Johnny after her if there was a spark of fire

left; but, as all was dark, she assisted Johnny to remove the rug. The

lamp appeared to be all right. Johnny put his hand upon the glass

portion.

"Why, see how hot it is, Katie!" he said: "it must have got heated

standing in this little warm room so near the stove, and that made the

kerosene swell, I guess, and go up in the wick, and run over at the top;

and so the kerosene was on fire on the outside,--that was all."

"That was all!" exclaimed Sue, who had now ventured to follow them.

"Well, I should think that was enough. I never was so scared in all my

life.--But there's a fire somewhere, for there's the bell ringing."

"Sure enough," said Johnny; "and it's our box too!"

At that moment, a number of men and boys came running into the yard.

"Where's the fire?" said the foremost man, as he stepped hurriedly upon

the platform.

"There isn't any fire here," replied Johnny: "a kerosene-lamp was

blazing, that's all; but we've put it out."

Then the men went off laughing, and the boys hooting. Kate let the fire

down in the grate, saying she was going to have every spark of fire out

in that stove before she went to bed; and the children went back into

the sitting-room.

"Well, Sue," said Johnny, "I hope you've had all the romping you want

for this evening."

Just then a key turned hurriedly in the door, and Mr. Le Bras entered,

followed by Mrs. Le Bras. Mr. Le Bras glanced at Sue and Johnny without

saying a word; and Mrs. Le Bras sank into a chair, looking very pale and

helpless. Mr. Le Bras went to the dining-room and got some water,

without saying a word to the children, who stood by in great alarm.

"What is the matter with mamma?" asked Sue, in a hushed voice.

Mr. Le Bras offered his wife the water, but she shook her head. "I

shall feel better presently," she said, in a faint voice. "Can the

house be on fire, and they not know it, Frank?"

"No, indeed," replied Mr. Le Bras; "and I told you the engine would not

have gone back into the engine-house unless it were a false alarm, or

the fire was put out." Then he said, turning to Johnny, "The fire has

been put out, hasn't it, my son?"

"Yes," said Johnny: "it wasn't any thing but a kerosene-lamp blazing up

in the summer kitchen."

"And 'twas Johnny who put it out," said Sue.

"Sue and Katie screamed, and made the alarm," said Johnny.--"So they got

the engine started, did they?"

"Yes," replied Mr. Le Bras: "it was just going back into the

engine-house when we came by there. As we turned the corner, we heard a

man saying our house was on fire; and I thought your mother would die

before I got her home, although I called her attention to the fact that

the engine was going back."

"I feel better now," said Mrs. Le Bras. "So there hasn't been a fire at

all! I never had such a fright before in all my life!"

But Mrs. Le Bras was still so nervous that her husband would not allow

the children to talk about the accident any more, after they and Katie

had fully explained the occurrence. The conversation regarding it was

ended for the evening by Johnny's saying to his father, "That was a

pretty good experiment to illustrate how soon a fire will stop if the

supply of oxygen is cut off: only it was an accidental experiment."

"It could not properly be called an experiment," replied his father: "an

experiment is something done purposely; but it answered the same

purpose."

"I don't understand why the fire went out when Johnny threw the rug over

it," said Sue.

"That's what I can't understand," added Kate.

"I'll explain it to you to-morrow," said Johnny. "Alec Miner is coming

over to-morrow after school to see me perform some experiments: and

while I am performing some of them, I will explain how a fire is caused

by the uniting of oxygen with carbon and hydrogen; for it is nothing but

a chemical union, like ever so many that can be made; only it is so

common that folks don't think any thing about it."

"So common that folks don't think about it?" said Sue.

"Johnny has stated it very well," said Mr. Le Bras, smiling. "If you

saw a fire for the first time, Sue, you would be very anxious to know

what produced the heat and the bright light; but because you have seen

the phenomenon so often, ever since you can remember, you never think to

ask the cause of it."

*CHAPTER II.*

*THE "ILLUSTRATED LECTURE."*

Something happened the next day to disturb Johnny's naturally good

spirits. When he got home from school at noon, Sue met him at the door

with,--

"Something has happened to make you feel awful bad, Johnny. It came

this morning in a letter; and mamma said I might prepare your mind for

it, but I mustn't tell you right out in the first place."

Mr. Le Bras, who was in the sitting-room when Sue made this

announcement, began to laugh heartily.

"Well, well, Sue!" he said: "if your mother heard how well you tell bad

news, I am afraid she would not trust you to do it again. Why, you have

given Johnny a regular bomb-shell to begin with!"

"I guess it isn't any thing so bad as you pretend, Sue, since father is

laughing at it," replied Johnny cheerfully, although his face had fallen

considerably before his father began to laugh.

"I'll bet you," said Sue, looking quite disturbed at her father's

interference in her news-telling, "that he's only laughing so as not to

let you think it's so bad as it is: but now he's begun, he can tell it

to you his own self; though mother said I might."

Sue went off into the dining-room, where Kate was, with tears in her

eyes, and something very like a pout about her mouth.

"I think papa was too bad!" she said.

"What is it, father?" asked Johnny, after Sue had disappeared.

"I think I'll let Sue tell, when she gets over her pet," replied Mr. Le

Bras. "The heavens are not going to fall, Johnny. I think you are

enough of a philosopher to rise above the calamity, although I really

suppose you will feel pretty badly in the first place."

"This is funny enough," said Johnny, not knowing whether to laugh or

feel anxious: although, of course, he saw it must be only an individual

annoyance pertaining to himself, and not a household misfortune, since

his father was inclined to laugh so heartily over it.

Just then Mrs. Le Bras entered the room.

"Mother," asked Johnny, "what dreadful thing has happened to me?"

"Hasn't Sue told you?" replied his mother.

"No," said Johnny, and he related what had occurred. Mrs. Le Bras

smiled. "Very well. Sue has prepared your mind for it, then, and your

father has shown that it is something that can be lived through: I think

that will do until Sue gets ready to tell you the rest; for, although

she is inclined to be sulky, I think I will not break my promise of

letting her tell you, unless she gets to be very naughty indeed."

Kate then announced that dinner was ready; and they all went into the

dining-room, and sat down at the table. Sue was there in her place by

Johnny's side; but she said nothing more about the bad news, and looked

quite dignified as well as very sober.

"Come, Sue," said Johnny coaxingly, "tell me what has happened."

"No: papa can tell you, since he couldn't let me do it my own self."

"I don't see what bad news could possibly come to me in a letter."

"But there has, and that's all I'm going to say about it: papa can tell

you," replied Sue resolutely.

"Don't tease Sue to tell you," said his mother. "If it were good news,

you would naturally be anxious to hear it; but since Sue assures you

that it is bad news, the longer you are ignorant of it the better."

"Only it rather keeps me in suspense," said Johnny, smiling.--"Come,

Sue, tell me, please."

"No, I sha'n't," said Sue, shaking her head resolutely.

Mr. Le Bras gave Johnny a look which meant, "Don't ask her to tell;" and

nothing more was said about the bad news that noon. Johnny went off to

school in quite good spirits: and when he got home, and found Alec

there, and his sister Belle with him, he was wholly forgetful of the

calamitous news in store for him; so that he had quite a little respite

between the first hint of the coming misfortune and the bitter

realization of it which arrived shortly afterwards.

After talking upon ordinary topics with his visitors for a little while,

Johnny said, "Since you wanted to see some little experiments, if you

will go up in my laboratory I will perform a few. As I haven't any but

the very simplest apparatus, and besides don't know much about chemistry

and philosophy, I can't show you much; but I'll do the best I can."

"You know a good deal more than I do," replied Alec. "I expect to study

chemistry and philosophy at the high school next year; but I don't know

any thing about them now, and, of course, Belle don't; she just came

over with me out of curiosity, when I told her you had promised to show

me how to do a few experiments if I would come over to-day."

"Is there any particular subject you would like to have illustrated?"

asked Johnny politely.

"No," replied Alec: "one thing will do just as well as another."

"Then, perhaps you would like to see how two chemicals will combine to

make a third entirely different from either of the two."

"Yes," replied Belle, "I should like that very much."

"So should I," said Alec.

"I think I'll call Sue to go into the laboratory with us, as I promised

to show her some experiments when you were here;--if you will please

excuse me a moment."

Presently Johnny came back with Sue.

As soon as Sue got into the room, she said, "Johnny's going to tell us

all about fire, and how the rug came to put the lamp out."

Of course, then Johnny had to explain what Sue meant; and that led to a

full account of the accident of the evening before, and how Sue and Kate

got out the fire-engine, which interested and amused the visitors very

much.

The laboratory was a small room at the end of the upper hall. As there

were plenty of rooms up-stairs, there had never been a bed in it; and

after Johnny began to have so many chemicals, and to experiment so much,

Mrs. Le Bras had taken up the carpet, and allowed him to use the room

for a laboratory. Mr. Le Bras had hired a carpenter to put some shelves

in the front part of the closet; and here were arranged the various

bottles, jars, saucers, tumblers, pipes, tubes, and other appliances

which Johnny had collected.

There was a table in the centre of the room, with a chair beside it.

"I will get some chairs," said Johnny, disappearing as soon as the

guests were ushered in; while Sue politely offered the chair to Belle.

"Johnny don't have company in the laboratory very often," she explained.

Johnny came back immediately, bringing two chairs; but Alec said he did

not care to sit down at present. As for Johnny, he was very busy taking

things from the closet-shelf, and arranging them on the table, talking

all the time.

"I suppose you know what chemical union is?" said Johnny to Alec.

"No, I don't think I do," replied Alec hesitatingly. "That is, although

I know what union means, and what chemical means, I am not sure what

they mean together."

"You know how sugar and salt dissolve in water, the particles of sugar

and salt lying between the particles of water, just as a whole lot of

different kinds of little seeds might be all mixed together without

uniting at all?"

"I never thought about that before," replied Alec. "I didn't suppose

fluid could be compared to seeds; and I had an idea that the salt and

sugar became fluid somehow when they were dissolved, and so mixed in

with the water."

"The particles of the water are very small; and the sugar and salt, when

they come into contact with water, separate into very tiny particles,

which fill in the places between the particles of water until there is

no room left, and then all the sugar or salt you put in afterwards

settles to the bottom by itself. But there is no union at all between

the salt or sugar and the water; that is, they do not unite to form any

different substance."

While Johnny was saying this, he was pouring some grayish powder into a

cup. Then he put an old spoon in the powder, and took a vial of yellow

liquid from the shelf.

"This is whiting," said Johnny. "If I put some water on it, and stir

them together, I shall have nothing but whiting and water. Perhaps I'd

better prove that first."

Here he took out a spoonful of the whiting, and put it into a little

saucer, and poured some water upon it, and stirred it.

"There you have a mixture similar to sugar and water, or salt and water;

the ingredients are very closely mixed, but they are not united to form

any different substance; if it should stand a while, the water would

evaporate, and leave the same amount of real whiting.--But now I will

pour some vinegar on the whiting in the cup, and you will see a

difference."

Johnny poured some vinegar from the vial into the cup, and stirred the

mixture with the spoon.

"You see all those bubbles? Those are bubbles of a kind of gas; as fast

as they break, the gas that has been formed by the chemical union of the

vinegar and whiting will pass into the air, and what is left in the cup

will not be vinegar and whiting; there will be no real vinegar and no

real whiting left; parts of each have united to make the gas; so each

has lost something peculiar to itself, and cannot be the very same

article that it was before."

"Some of the bubbles are real big, and you can't break them easily with

the spoon," said Sue, who was stirring the mixture curiously. "I wish my

soap-bubbles would be as tough."

"Now," continued Johnny, "mixing the whiting and the vinegar caused a

real chemical union: two substances united to make a third substance

entirely different from the two original ingredients."

"I think I understand what a chemical union is now," said Alec.

"And so do I," said Belle.

"This would be a beautiful experiment to illustrate a chemical union, if

it were not so very common," continued Johnny.

As he spoke, he took a match from a match-safe he had placed on the

table, struck it against the edge of the table, and held it out, smiling

playfully.

"Fire is one of the most beautiful chemical unions known; and the

burning of a match is an excellent illustration of the different

temperatures which different substances require, in order that they may

unite with the oxygen in the air, or be on fire as we call it."

As the match was pretty well burned by this time, Johnny applied the

flame to a spirit-lamp upon the table, which was the principal purpose

for which he had lighted the match.

"A very moderate amount of heat will cause phosphorus, which is the

substance on the end of the match, to form a chemical union with the

oxygen in the air: brimstone requires a little higher temperature than

phosphorus, but not so high as wood requires. The heat produced by a

little friction is enough to light the phosphorus, the heat produced by

the burning phosphorus is enough to cause the brimstone to take fire,

and that produced by the burning brimstone is enough to cause the wood

to burn; that is, to form a chemical union with oxygen. And, although

the burning phosphorus or brimstone would not have produced sufficient

heat for lighting the lamp, the burning wood furnished the necessary

temperature; so that the alcohol in the wick began the union at once,

when the blaze of the wood came in contact with it."

"I see now how it is that we kindle a coal-fire," replied Alec. "First

we put some paper in the grate, and then some pine-kindlings, and then

some charcoal, and then the hard coal: then we set the paper on fire

with a match, and presently the coal is burning."

"And we separate the kindlings so that the oxygen can get to them more

easily," said Johnny.

"How queer we never understood exactly why a fire was kindled in that

way, until now," said Belle. "And I should never have thought of fire

being a chemical union."

"You can carry on the same principle a good deal farther," said Johnny.

"From having a fire of coals, you might have a house on fire, and this

would produce heat sufficient to set the neighboring houses on fire; and

the uniting of such a quantity of carbon and hydrogen with oxygen, to

make carbonic-acid gas, would create such a vacuum by the rising of the

heated air and gas, that so much oxygen would rush in about the fire, in

the form of a high wind, as to make the fire hotter and hotter, until,

if it surrounded an iron building, it would burn it up just as easily as

wood houses are burned in an ordinary fire; as was the case at the great

Chicago fire, where so many fire-proof blocks were totally destroyed."

"But the iron buildings did not actually burn: they only melted down in

the great heat," said Alec.

"Oh, no! they burned," said Johnny: "there is no trouble about burning

iron up, if you get the right degree of heat."

"I should think there was a good deal of trouble about it, if great

buildings they didn't mean to have burned, if there was a fire, did go

and burn up right before their eyes," said Sue.

"Do you mean that the iron really burned as wood does?" said Belle.

"Why, certainly," replied Johnny: "iron will burn up more completely

than wood; for when wood is burned, the earthy part remains in the form

of ashes: but pure iron, which has no earthy matter in it, will burn up

completely; it will all combine with the oxygen in the air to form gas.

When iron is in a mass, it takes a very intense heat to produce this

chemical union with oxygen; but when it is separated into very small

particles, it will burn in an ordinary fire."

"If iron will burn up, I wonder we never see it burning so," said Alec.

"I've been in blacksmiths' shops and foundries, and I never saw any iron

burning up, although I've seen it at a white-heat."

"The fires in blacksmiths' shops and foundries are not hot enough to

burn iron in the mass," replied Johnny; "or, if they are, they can't get

enough oxygen near enough to combine with it. At the great Chicago

fire, the intense heat caused such a high wind,--that is, such a flow of

oxygen toward the fire,--that the fire became so intensely hot there was

no difficulty in the iron blazing and burning more completely than the

wood."

Here Johnny looked rather disconcerted at Alec's apparent incredulity.

"But, Alec," said he, "if little particles of iron, such as you would

file off of a bar of iron, will burn up, of course the whole bar could

be burned if it was all filed up; and if the filings could be burned in

an ordinary lamp like this, why couldn't the whole bar be burned in a

fire that was hot enough?"

"Yes," said Belle, who was troubled at Alec's being so impolite as to

seem to doubt Johnny's word: "it's just like the difference between a

log of wood and the sawdust produced by sawing the log in two; you

couldn't burn the log without building a hot fire under it, while you

could set the sawdust on fire with a match."

"That is a very good illustration," said Johnny. "Now, I lit this lamp

to show you how nicely iron will burn."

Johnny took a large-mouthed bottle from the shelf, which was about half

full of rather bright particles.

"These are steel-filings I got at a machine-shop; but, if you prefer, I

will get a nail and file, and let you make some iron-filings yourself,

which will answer just as well. I keep the steel-filings because they

are so handy. I just ask the men for them, and they give me a whole lot

that last ever so long."

Johnny then opened his knife, and, taking out some of the filings on the

end of the blade, dropped them, or rather shook them, slowly into the

flame.

"Oh, how pretty!" exclaimed Belle: "they burn something like gunpowder."

"So they actually burn up, and don't just get red-hot and fall down and

cool?" said Alec.

"Oh, yes!" replied Johnny: "they burn up just like so much sawdust, only

more so; for there would be some ashes left of sawdust, even though they

might be invisible."

"So the filings have combined with the oxygen in the air, and gone off

in gas?" said Belle.

"Yes," replied Johnny.

"I wish you would file some iron," said Sue, "because that experiment

makes such pretty fireworks."

"Very well, I will, if you will go down and bring me a piece of iron

from papa's tool-box."