THE EXTENSION LADDER.
“Discharged! Oh, Larry, what will we do now? We have only a little
money saved up!”
Such were Kate’s words when he brought his story home.
“Don’t worry, Kate, I’ll land on my feet all right enough,” Larry
answered cheerfully. He was never one to look on the dark side, of a
thing.
“Do you think you can get another job in Ferryville?”
“Perhaps I can. I’m going to try over to the rolling mill, and at the
Hardware Works.”
But before going Larry went up to the garret room to look over his
invention and to speak the words with which our story opened.
Larry worked on his model for the rest of that day, and far into the
night.
“If I could only sell this we’d be in clover, and I could tell fellows
like old Grinder to go to Halifax!” said Larry, when Kate came up to
make him go to bed.
“That’s true, Larry,” she answered. “But come to bed now; you mustn’t
worry all night over your inventions.”
“I can’t help it, Kate,” he laughed. “I love the work. They tell me
Edison keeps at it sometimes for three and four days and nights at a
stretch, and I don’t wonder at it.”
Yet, though he went to bed late, Larry was up bright and early on the
day following, and after a hasty breakfast he started out to look for
another situation.
His first visit was to the rolling mill, a long, low place lying close
to the river. Here the noise was deafening, and our hero could hardly
make, himself heard as he approached the superintendent in the yard for
a job.
“Sorry Barlow,” said the superintendent, “but I haven’t any opening. If
I had I would take you on willingly. I knew your father, and he was a
fine man, and a splendid bench hand. Come around in a month or so and
see me again—if you don’t strike anything in the meantime.”
“I’ll remember that sir, and I thank you.”
At that moment one of the general managers of the rolling mill came up
to speak to the superintendent.
Larry walked away, but he had not gone over fifty paces when a boy came
running after him.
“Mr. Willis wants you,” he said. Willis was the superintendent’s name
and Larry at once went back.
“Mr. Hobart, our manager, wants a man to go to New York for him,”
explained the superintendent. “There is a special order to fill, and it
ought to be under the direction of a practical machinist. If you want
the job you can have it. It will take two or three days’ time.”
“I’ll take it,” answered our hero, willingly. It might give him just
the opening for which he was looking.
He walked into the office, and there received full directions as to
what to do. The errand pleased him greatly, for the work would take him
to one of the fire engine houses of the metropolis.
On the following morning he bade goodby to Kate, and set out for New
York, along with a fellow workman. The goods to be delivered went by
freight on one of the river boats.
Larry had not been to the metropolis for several years, and the sights
pleased him greatly, but nothing was so interesting to him as the
houses and apparatus of the fire department.
“You are interested, no doubt of that,” said one of the captains of a
downtown company, as he showed the youth around.
“I would like to be a New York fireman,” answered Larry. “Some day I’m
going to try to be, too,” he added.
“It’s a hard life, lad, and but little time to yourself.”
“I am a volunteer fireman up at Ferryville. I belong to the hook and
ladder company.”
“Yes? Then you must know something about the work, although let me
tell you that a fireman’s duties in this city are more perilous than
anywhere else. We often have dangerous conflagrations to fight.”
“I’d be willing to go where anybody else went,” answered Larry, readily.
“You might not be so willing if you saw where our boys are called on
to go—down in smoke-choked cellars, and into buildings stored with
dangerous chemicals and sometimes explosives?”
“Of course I wouldn’t want to lose my life, sir, but I wouldn’t hang
behind the rest, I am sure of it!” smiled Larry, confidently.
He was just preparing to leave the engine house, when an alarm rang
out. He had hardly time to step out of the way, when in leaped the
horses from the stable. The harness hung over them, and in a twinkle
the sets came down and were secured automatically. The fire under the
boiler was already lit, and down the stairs and the sliding pole came
the firemen, some donning their rubber boots and coats as they ran.
“Can I go?” asked Larry, eagerly.
“On foot—yes,” answered the captain. “No outsiders allowed on the
machine. It’s against the department rules.” And then, almost before
Larry knew it, the engine had left the house and was whirling down the
street as fast as three heavy and powerful horses could carry it.
“All right, I can run if I’m put to it!” muttered the young machinist,
and the way he sprinted over the sidewalk, through the streets and
among the trucks and cars caused many a person to gaze after him in
wonder.
The fire was in a downtown office building, and if the truth must be
told, Larry saw but little, for being only a private citizen, he was
speedily hustled back by a policeman, and then he had to keep outside
of the ropes which were stretched from point to point. But he watched
as much as he could see with interest, and spent a good part of the
time in inspecting the hook and ladder trucks and the extension ladder
truck which reached the scene.
“If my invention don’t beat that, then I’ll split it up for fire-wood,”
was what he told himself, as he looked the extension ladder over. “Mine
will go higher than that, it can be worked in a smaller space, and I’ll
bet it will bear twice, yes, three times as much weight and pressure.”
“What do you want here?” demanded one of the hook and ladder men, as
he knocked against Larry. He had had but little sleep for forty-eight
hours, and felt far from pleasant in consequence.
“I was only looking at the truck and the ladder, sir.”
“Well, clear out; we don’t want boys around.”
“Thank you—for nothing!” answered Larry.
“You needn’t get gay about it!” growled the fireman, savagely.
“And you needn’t get impudent,” returned Larry, and walked off.
Part of Larry’s errand called him uptown on the East side, and after
remaining at the fire as long as he dared, he inquired his way to the
entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge, and there took a Third Avenue Elevated
train uptown.
The train was fairly well filled, and the youth had to take a seat
directly behind one of the cross seats in the center of the car.
The cross seat was occupied by two men, who soon attracted his
attention. One was nicely dressed, and at least fifty years of age; the
other was younger, and much rougher in appearance.
“I think we can use that lift now,” one of the men was saying. “The
inventor has been dead several years, you know.”
“That’s true,” was the answer of the man who was well dressed. “But we
must go slow. He had a son, remember. The young man may be on the watch
for us.”
“Bah! He was from a town away up the river. I don’t believe he’ll ever
come to New York. I want some money, and if it’s in that elevator lift
I want to get it out. Nothing ventured nothing gained.”
The two men arose and hurried to quit the train, which had just rolled
into a station. Larry stared at them in amazement.
“They must be speaking of father’s invention,” he murmured to himself.
“I must find out who they are.”