anyway."
It proved to be six whole months, however, before the decision was
rendered. Lucy's visit was almost at an end when one day in September
Grandfather came in with the newspaper. "Well, here's good news for
Goodyear," he exclaimed. "Hear this." And he read aloud the article
which concluded with these words:
"It is due to Mr. Goodyear to say that I am entirely satisfied that he
is the original inventor of the process of vulcanizing rubber as stated
in his bill; and that he is entitled not only to the relief which he
asks, but to all the merits and benefits of that discovery."
"I wonder how much money Goodyear had to pay for his victory,"
commented Grandmother.
"Oh, Webster will make money. Of course Goodyear won't have to pay it
all, for several rubber firms united with him against Day to protect
their own interests. The talk among the lawyers when I came away was
that Webster would get somewhere in the vicinity of twenty-five
thousand dollars. I don't believe Goodyear even in these last years has
made so much as that above his expenses. But he's generosity itself
when he has anything to give. What do you suppose he's sent to Mr.
Webster for a present?"
"Oh, I don't know. He's so unpractical that he'd give his house away
if some one wanted it," answered Grandmother, whose own good judgment
could not be denied.
"I think you're a little severe," answered her husband. "But you
won't be surprised to know that he's sent to Marshfield that handsome
thoroughbred that he drove Webster to the court house with, because
Webster admired the animal so much."
"Just exactly like him!" was the response. "He'll probably wish some
day he had the money that colt would bring."
Lucy did not go to Trenton again for eight years. On her next visit,
strangely enough, Grandfather's household was again talking of the
beloved, unpractical dreamer, who by this time had sacrificed his life
in the interests of humanity. For Mr. Goodyear had come to the end of
his useful, honored, but difficult career. In spite of his triumphant
success, his health had been permanently broken by hard work and worry,
and his last years had not been entirely free from the occasional
threatenings of poverty.
Indeed, by an unlucky circumstance, again his misfortune but not his
fault, he was thrown once more for a short time into a debtors' prison
when he was visiting France on a business trip. But the friends who
knew him pitied him, trusted him, and honored him to the end; and
though Lucy Hobart is now almost seventy-eight years old and has seen
most of the prominent Americans of the later nineteenth century, she
remembers no one who worked harder or suffered more for the good of
humanity than the undaunted Goodyear who insisted, "If it is to be
done, it must be done and it will be done. Somebody will yet thank me
for it."
THE EASIER WAY OF PRINTING
PART I
On the very first day of a Christmas vacation about forty years ago
Jimmie Granger broke his leg coasting. That meant six weeks in bed
and no more of the wonderful coasting of that winter. Jimmie was only
twelve years old, and he found it hard to lie still and be cheerful
while the other fellows were having so much fun. Every day seemed a
week long until he was allowed to sit up; even then each seemed three
times as long as usual.
Jimmie's Uncle Francis was so sorry for his unlucky little nephew
that he always brought something "to kill time" when he came to spend
Sunday at Jimmie's home just outside the big city. Two weeks after the
accident Jimmie received from his Uncle Francis the present he liked
best of all. It was a small printing press, something entirely new to
Jimmie, who had never seen one before, and never had thought very much
about how books and newspapers are actually made.
"If you'll print me every week until you can walk again the _Home
Record_, a newspaper page four columns wide and ten inches long, giving
the news of the house, and of the neighborhood, too, if you like, I'll
give you another double runner, a better sled than the old broken one."
"Oh, not another double runner! You don't want him to break the other
leg!" cried Jimmie's mother.
"Of course not; but you don't want him to stop coasting, do you?" Uncle
Francis asked his sister.
"N-o-o," replied Jimmie's mother.
"And we both think he has learned never to take the risk he took
before, don't we?"
"Yes," answered Jimmie's mother.
Jimmie wanted a new double runner more than anything else, and so he
went right to work on his little newspaper. The printing press was not
large enough to print the paper all at once, and so it was printed
in parts and these were pasted on a large sheet of paper of the size
ordered.
Uncle Francis was specially interested in newspapers, because he
was editor of a big city daily called the _Record_. Jimmie felt
that of course his uncle would be very critical and that the little
_Home Record_ must be just right. The morning after he started the
paper he had a bright idea: he would ask his mother to be head proof
reader--Jimmie felt pretty shaky about spelling and punctuation; and he
would ask Tom Frazer, when he came over to see him, if he would not be
head reporter and tell him what was happening outside--Tom always knew
what the fellows were doing. He could give Tom the rear sled of his old
double runner, which was not broken in the accident. Tom had said he
should have to have a new sled, and that was really a very good one.
[Illustration: A MONK COPYING MANUSCRIPT BOOKS]
Both assistants seemed glad to serve and the work began merrily.
When Jimmie's father came home that night he said he would be the
"printer's devil."
"What's that?" asked Jimmie.
"Don't believe they have them now," said his mother.
[Illustration: THE FIRST PRINTING LOOKED LIKE THIS]
"They don't need so many of them in these days of steam perfecting
presses as they used to, but surely the printer has to have assistants
even to-day," said his father. "Perhaps now that machinery does so
much of the work the men do not get black and inky enough to be called
'devils.' While Jimmie has to lie with that leg fixed as it is now, he
will want some one to run that press when he gets everything ready for
the printing. Don't you think so, son?"
Jimmie agreed with his father, as he looked at the leg so straight and
stiff.
"I shall be glad to have your help as a--what is it they call it--a
pressman? I think that I shall have something ready to print to-morrow
night," said Jimmie--and he did.
As Jimmie was the whole newspaper force except the head proof reader,
the head reporter, and the head pressman, he had both to set the
type and to write the newspaper himself. Writing compositions Jimmie
detested, but writing a newspaper he found was not half bad.
"Don't see what you can write about," his father said jokingly.
"There's nothing doing in this house when _you_ have to keep still."
[Illustration: A TYPE ENLARGED]
Jimmie did not, however, suffer from any lack of news. In fact, his
friends brought him so much that the second day he started a baseball
column and the third day a society column.
The type setting was interesting to Jimmie because it was all new to
him. His type was just like the type in a printing office. Each piece
was a thin bar of metal with a raised letter on the end, unless it had
a punctuation mark instead of the letter, or was blank in order to make
proper spaces between the words. Each letter of a word had to be picked
up by itself out of the case of type and put in place before the next
letter of the word could be placed where it belonged.
It was slow work and it was a little hard at first to be spelling a
line of words with every letter upside down, but Jimmie found out
the very first thing that it had to be so if the words were to be
right side up on the printed page. It made _Widow_ look like this:
[Illustration: Widow (inverted)]; but it did not take long to learn to
read the words that way to make sure they were right.
When the type for the first column of the paper was in order and
securely locked into the form which held it, there were two things more
to be done--inking the type and pressing the paper on it. Jimmie did
the inking and his father put on the paper and took off the impression.
The first printing showed that Jimmie had been too lavish with his ink,
but the second was so good they put it away for his Uncle Francis.
"Our history says that Benjamin Franklin learned the printer's trade.
Did he set the type and print this way?" Jimmie asked his uncle the
first time he came out after Jimmie became a printer.
"Yes, just that way," answered his uncle. "In Benjamin Franklin's time
and most of the time ever since, each letter has had to be picked up by
hand and put in place. There is a little type-setting machine now which
is quite a help, but we need something better."
"I don't see how you ever get a daily paper ready," exclaimed Jimmie.
"It must take millions of letters."
"Not so many, I think," replied his uncle, "but enough so that it
does take a good many girls to set the type. There is going to be a
great change soon, however, because in a short time there is going to
be an entirely new type-setting machine. Mr. Ottman Mergenthaler of
Baltimore has been working on one for ten years and it is almost ready
for us. When that is perfected it will be as wonderful as the big
presses though it is not a large machine. He will call it the linotype
(line-of-type). It will work somewhat like a typewriter. When the
operator strikes a letter on the keyboard that same letter in the type
will be freed from its place in the type case and come sliding down a
path, or channel, to take its place in the word and line that is being
set. When this machine is perfected one person will be able to do as
much as four now can."
[Illustration: FRANKLIN'S PRINTING PRESS]
"If Benjamin Franklin could visit our newspaper office at the present
time," continued his uncle, "what would astonish him most are the big
steam cylinder presses. He never saw anything but a hand press of the
simplest kind."
"Mine is a hand press, isn't it?" asked Jimmie. "Yes, a very small hand
press. Many of the old hand presses were taller than a man. One that
Benjamin Franklin actually used is in the patent office in Washington.
You'll see it some day probably. I think I can describe it so that you
can get a picture of it. Did you ever see your Grandmother Manter's
cheese press? No? Do you remember the linen press that your Great-aunt
Caroline has for decoration now in her dining room? I don't suppose you
do. Well, the old hand presses were made on the same principle as the
cheese and the linen presses and the cider press. They stood high like
the cheese press, and were made of two upright beams with two cross
beams between them, like a capital H, only there were two cross pieces
instead of one. The lower cross beam served as a support, or table, on
which to place the type in the page 'form' when ready for printing.
"Over the type, after it was inked, was laid the paper, slightly
dampened; over this was laid a blanket. Then a heavy weight had to be
put on top the blanket and pressed down hard on the inked type in order
to make a good print. This weight was a large wooden block fastened to
the lower end of a great wooden screw which extended up through the
upper cross piece. To turn this screw so that the block was pressed
hard enough on the blanket and the paper to get a good clear print, and
then to loosen the screw so that the printed sheet could be taken out
and dried was no easy matter. The printer must use a long iron bar to
turn the screw. This he would fit into a hole, or socket, in the screw
and then, using this handle, turn the screw as far as he could."
"I know," said Jimmie. "There's a picture of that in my history. The
poor fellow is just breaking his back to get more of a turn on that
screw."
"Yes, that's it. There were several sockets around the head of the
screw. The printer would turn the screw as far as he could with the
bar in one socket, and then fit the bar into the next to get more of
a turn. How I should like to see Franklin or Gutenberg or any other
famous old-time printer examining the new press that will be ready
for use in the _Record_ office in a month or so. I think he would be
speechless."
PART II
The day before his uncle's next visit Jimmie set his type to say,
"Much interest is felt in the new Hoe press which will be installed
in the _Record_ office early next month. It is the first of the kind
to be used by any newspaper in the city and will mark a revolution in
newspaper printing. This new 'perfecting press' will make it possible
to print 24,000 eight-page papers an hour--a thing not dreamed of a
few years ago. People are anxious to see this fast press printing,
cutting, folding, and delivering the papers all ready for the newsboys."
"You really know of somebody who is anxious to see the press, do you?"
asked his uncle with a twinkle in his eye when he read the item in
Jimmie's paper.
"Guess I do," said Jimmie. "Honestly, I won't be any bother; I won't be
_any_ bother; I won't ask any questions except about the press--cross
my heart and hope to die."
Uncle Francis laughed. He knew Jimmie too well to think he would not be
any bother, but he said, "All right; as soon as you have two good legs
again I'll invite you to see the new machinery."
Jimmie's leg mended as fast as the leg of any boy should, and he was
able in March to take the trip to the city. Jimmie's mother went with
him.
"I want to see the big press, too," she explained to her brother.
"I'm glad you came," said Uncle Francis as he greeted her. "I should
think every man and woman in the United States would be interested in
this new kind of printing press. Do you know, it will bring down the
price of a paper from a nickel to three cents! They have just begun to
print the afternoon edition. Shall we go now to see the new Hoe rotary
perfecting press? It is the most wonderful thing in printing that has
ever been invented since Gutenberg invented movable type more than
four hundred years ago. It seems as though it must mark the limit in
fast printing, but who knows? Surely Gutenberg and Faust would have
thought our old press with the pages of type on a stationary flat bed
over which rollers and paper passed, the limit of wonders. Come and
see this new press eat up the paper!"
[Illustration: THE EARLIEST PRINTERS AT WORK]
They soon stood before a great throbbing monster, a mystery of wheels
within wheels and of gleaming steel. At one end was a huge roll of
white paper; at the other was an unceasing stream of newspapers. Jimmie
watched in wide-eyed wonder. He heard his uncle say that the huge roll,
or web, of white paper was being fed into one end of the press, was
being printed on both sides, the newspaper sheets were being cut apart,
folded, and finally delivered, counted, at the other end of the press.
How could it be done!
"Well, what do you think of it all?" asked Uncle Francis, turning to
Jimmie.
Jimmie hardly took his fascinated gaze from the great whirring monster.
"It's great! It's a hundred times more wonderful than I thought it
would be! Now that I've seen what this press can do I think I shall run
one of these instead of being an editor."
His uncle laughed. "All right," he said; "you see how this runs, do
you?"
"Not _all_ of it," admitted Jimmie.
"Probably the type part bothers you," said his uncle, "because you are
accustomed to seeing the type in a flat steel frame, or chase, as we
call it. Here it is on the outside of one of those huge rollers, or
cylinders, as we call them. Do you see it?"
"Yes," said Jimmie, "but there isn't any type on the cylinder just
under it."
"No," answered his uncle, "the other is the impression cylinder. Those
two big cylinders work together like the rollers of a clothes wringer.
That broad ribbon of paper, just as wide as our newspaper, goes between
the two cylinders as clothes pass between the rollers of the wringer.
The impression cylinder rolls the paper hard against the inked type
cylinder and prints one side of the paper. If one of the rollers of
a clothes wringer had ink marks on it they would be printed on the
clothes as they went between the rollers, wouldn't they? That is the
way this press works. Can you see the paper as it goes on?"
"Yes, and there are two more cylinders like the other pair!" cried
Jimmie.
"That's right," answered his uncle. "I think you can see that when
the paper passes between the second pair the other side of the paper
is printed. Just get your eye on the paper as it is unwound from that
enormous spool, or web, and watch as far as you can. The white paper
in that web is a strip four miles long and as wide as two pages of the
_Record_. The type cylinders turn so fast you can't see what is on
them, but there is enough type to print four pages of the newspaper on
each cylinder."
"Why do they need such a quantity of small black rollers?" asked
Jimmie's mother.
"Those small rollers you are watching are inking cylinders," answered
her brother. "They are very important in the printing. See them keep
inking the type cylinder, rolling against the part which has just done
some printing as it turns around to print again. I don't believe you
can see the ink fountain which covers them with ink so that they in
turn can cover the type, but it is there, working all the time."
"It is easy enough to see why it is called a rotary press," said Mrs.
Granger. "Cylinders and cylinders and cylinders rolling round and round
and round."
"Do you see why it is called a perfecting press, Jimmie?" asked Uncle
Francis.
"No, I don't believe I do. Do you, mother?" he asked.
"Why, yes, I think so. Look at the other end of the press and see
those newspapers fairly pouring out all cut from the web, folded, and
even counted. If they are completed in every respect so that there is
nothing for anybody to do but sell them, I should think the press might
be called a perfecting press."
"Of course," assented Jimmie, "that's the reason. Why didn't I see it?"
[Illustration: CURVED STEREOTYPE PLATE]
"Shall we go back to the office now where there is less noise and see
what to-day's paper says?" asked Uncle Francis after giving Jimmie a
good long time to watch the press. "There is one thing more I should
like to have you see, but it is too late for you to do so to-day. Give
one look at the type cylinder before you leave. Can you see that the
type is not in little pieces of one letter each, but is in solid pieces
of metal curved to fit the cylinder?" On the way back to the office
Uncle Francis showed Jimmie a stereotype plate which he could study at
close range.
"These plates are what you saw on the type cylinder," explained Uncle
Francis. "You shall see one made sometime. In these days in the big
offices after the real type is set letter by letter it isn't used
for the printing at all. It wears it out too fast to print 50,000
newspapers from it each day, and besides it takes too much type.
Instead of using the movable type for the printing, we cover the type
with a soft substance like soaked up pasteboard, press it hard on the
type, dry it, and have a perfect copy of the type except that the
letters are little hollows instead of raised pieces.
"This copy, or model, is used for a mold into which we pour liquid
metal. When this cools we have, you see, another copy of the type and
in this the letters are all raised. The mold is curved to fit the
cylinders before the molten metal is poured in, so that the stereotype
plate, as the page of fixed type is called, can be clamped tight on the
big cylinder. It is these big plates that you have seen used for type
on the press cylinders."
"Jingles! but it is some work to print a newspaper!" exclaimed Jimmie.
"Yes, it is, and it is a very wonderful process, too, more wonderful
every year. You and your mother will be interested in this paragraph
in to-day's paper," said his uncle, passing Mrs. Granger one of the
freshly printed papers. "In that article about the new press are some
striking comparisons you will enjoy."
"What a change in printing!" said Mrs. Granger. "Just listen, Jimmie!
'The old flat screw press of the colonial period could print fifty
small papers on one side in an hour; the Washington compound lever hand
press in 1829--the best hand press ever made--brought the number up to
250; the revolving cylinder press made it possible to print about 1000
an hour; then in 1847 the Hoe lightning press printed 30,000; and now
the Hoe rotary perfecting press prints on both sides,--not a little
four-page paper, but a large-sized eight-page paper--at the rate of
24,000 an hour!'"
"Jingles!" said Jimmie again, for what can a boy say to such figures as
those.
When Jimmie reached home that night he announced to his father that he
was going to be a newspaper man.
"I'm willing," replied his father. "The printing press has done more
for the progress of civilization than anything else, and the modern
newspaper is one of the greatest factors in the world's advancement.
Go ahead. You'll live to see the printing press reach even more people
than it does now."
[Illustration: SEXTUPLE PERFECTING PRESS]
Mr. Granger was right. When Jimmie was no older than his uncle had
been on the day that Jimmie first saw a big press, Jimmie did indeed
see another wonder. It was a Hoe Double Octuple Press--the biggest
press in the world in 1912--which, with others built on the same
principle even if they were smaller, made newspaper printing cheap
enough so that a sixteen-page paper could be sold for one cent.
The grown-up Jimmie felt as he stood by the new press very much as
he felt years before. Could there be a more wonderful machine? Eight
rolls of paper were feeding the monster; eighteen plate cylinders
were revolving, each carrying type enough for eight pages of a
large newspaper; the cylinders, turning at a speed of three hundred
revolutions a minute, were consuming paper at the rate of 108 miles of
paper six feet wide in an hour. Jimmie, then an experienced newspaper
man, watched the four sets of folders pouring out thirty-two-page
papers at the rate of 75,000 an hour, until he turned away, saying,
"Can it be possible that printing will ever be easier? How I wish
Benjamin Franklin could see this press! How he would glory in its
possibilities! It is perfectly true that the printing press is to
literature what the steam engine is to the industries, and what the
locomotive is to traffic."
ANNA HOLMAN'S DAGUERREOTYPE
When Anna Holman was twelve years old she had to sit perfectly still
for one hundred twenty seconds--think of it! two whole minutes!--to
have her picture taken. Now she could have it taken in one hundredth of
the time at one hundredth of the cost.
The only likenesses of people which Anna knew about before she was
twelve were the pictures in the parlor of her home. Two of these were
pictures of her Grandfather and Grandmother Holman, whom she had never
seen. These pictures always interested her, though for a certain reason
she did not like them.
Anna had been told that her grandmother was a great beauty in her day,
and she often tried to see if she could tell how her grandmother had
looked. This she never felt sure she knew, as the picture was only a
silhouette. Of all the different kinds of pictures that people have had
made, the silhouette, surely, is the most unsatisfactory.
These were not uncommon in the days before photography was known. They
were made by using a strong light to obtain a clear, black shadow of
the profile of the sitter, and then cutting from plain black paper as
perfect a copy as possible of the shadow head. Of course, the sitter
was always posed for a direct side view in order to get an outline of
the features; and, of course, in such a picture the expression of the
face was wholly lacking.
[Illustration: SILHOUETTES OF GRANDFATHER AND GRANDMOTHER]
When Grandmother Holman sat for her silhouette and the picture maker
had cut out the little black shadow which her beautiful head had made,
Grandfather Holman said, "It is perfect, Rebecca"; and then when
Grandfather Holman, in turn, had sat for his picture and the picture
maker had cut a silhouette which showed very little but his straight
nose and strong chin, Grandmother Holman said: "It is just like you,
James."
They knew each other well enough to supply the expression which the
pictures lacked. In fact they were so well pleased with the little
black paper heads that they had them mounted on white cards and framed
for the parlor, never dreaming how these same silhouettes would some
day disappoint a little granddaughter who wanted to know how her
grandparents had really looked.
In the same room was a life-size oil portrait of Anna's great
grandfather. This she liked, and she felt that she knew just how he had
looked.
"Why didn't Grandmother Holman have some artist paint a picture of
her?" Anna asked her mother one day.
"It cost too much," her mother answered. "She wanted a portrait of your
grandfather and he wanted a portrait of her; and I think there never
was money enough to have a good artist paint them both. I wish we were
rich enough to have a miniature of you painted, Anna. Perhaps we shall
be sometime. Your Aunt Anna in her last letter says she wishes we would
send her a daguerreotype of you for her Christmas present.
"I know very little about these new pictures, but they are a
wonderful kind which the sun makes. I have heard that they are not
very expensive, and I think that if there were only a chance here in
town to have the daguerreotype taken we might do what she suggests.
These pictures, as I understand it, are entirely different from
anything you and I have ever seen: they show the face, the eyes, the
smile--everything, like a portrait--but there are no colors; the
pictures are all in black and white."
Anna had really been wondering, ever since she heard of her aunt's
wish, why anybody should care to have a picture of a girl who had
freckles and straight yellow hair and blue eyes, instead of curly black
hair and black eyes. When she heard her mother's last words she laughed
merrily.
"Would my hair be black in the picture? And my eyes, too?" she
exclaimed.
"Yes, I think so," answered her mother with a smile.
"How lovely! How I hope I can have my picture taken!"
Later that very day when Anna went down town on an errand she saw this
notice:
COMING AUGUST 20
_Prof. Aaron B. Coleman, Artist,_
will open a daguerreotype gallery and furnish perfect likenesses of
his patrons for $2.00 a picture.
Abigail Silsbee joined Anna while she was still studying the notice.
"I'm going to have my picture taken!" exclaimed Abigail joyfully.
"Mrs. Follen saw some daguerreotypes in Boston when she was there, and
she says they are splendid. She told mother about them yesterday,
and mother says I may have one taken. Why don't you have your picture
taken?"
"Perhaps I shall," answered Anna. "I'll tell my father and mother about
the notice."
At supper time when Anna brought up the matter of having her picture
taken, her father did not approve.
"I do not believe there are any satisfactory pictures except oil
portraits," he said. "I think it would be just a waste of money."
By that time, however, Anna had become quite enthusiastic over
daguerreotypes. She had learned during the afternoon of three of her
friends who were going to have their pictures taken.
"May I have mine taken if I earn the money myself?" she asked.
"Oh, yes, indeed," her father replied, and then dismissed the matter,
feeling that when she had seen a daguerreotype she would have no
further interest in them.
It was then two weeks before the artist, as he called himself, would
come to town. Anna went to work at once picking blueberries. The
berries were plentiful, and Anna's purse held enough money for the
picture before the two weeks had passed. Anna, however, did not go to
the picture gallery the first day it was opened. She waited to see
Abigail's picture. When Abigail fairly danced into the house the
second afternoon after the artist's arrival, Anna was much disappointed
at first, because she thought Abigail had left the picture at home.
"See!" cried Abigail, holding up something that looked like a little
black wooden book. It was about four inches by three and a half and not
more than half an inch thick.
[Illustration: ABIGAIL'S DAGUERREOTYPE]
Abigail unfastened the two tiny brass hooks which held the two covers
together, and displayed the picture inside. Fitted into one of the
covers and framed by a mat of red velvet was a likeness of Abigail
which made Anna gasp with surprise. There was Abigail's face, Abigail's
smile, even the sprigs of roses on Abigail's new delaine dress. It was
not a colored picture, to be sure, but otherwise it was just as good a
picture as an oil painting, so Anna thought.
Such daguerreotypes as that of Abigail, and the ambrotypes and
the ferrotypes which were advertised at almost the same time--so
quickly were new kinds of pictures invented when once the process
of photography was discovered--were the first portraits made by the
camera. Compared with the beautiful photographs of to-day, these
pictures taken during the ten years preceding the Civil War seem very
poor and unsatisfactory; but to those who had never seen any likenesses
except either the oil portraits or the silhouettes, these likenesses
made by the camera were very wonderful.
It is rather surprising that the pictures taken when Anna was a child
were as good as those still in existence show them to have been. It had
been little more than ten years since Monsieur Daguerre had announced
to the French Academy his invention of photography. Unlike most other
inventors he actually wished all his discoveries to be made public, and
as a result, the further discoveries of other men greatly hastened the
development of the art.
In 1839, when Daguerre announced his discovery, he exposed his picture
one hour and twelve minutes. This, of course, meant that it could
not be used for portraits until the exposure could be reduced to a
reasonable length. The use of different chemicals from those Daguerre
used soon brought the time of exposure to thirty minutes; but one
of the newspapers of the day says that the portraits taken then were
"terrific likenesses of the human visage."
By 1850 such improvements had been made that one writer says that in
the large cities cameras were as common as hand organs, and that the
pictures were no longer "terrific." The credit for all this surely
belongs to the far-seeing inventor who asked that he might give to the
public all that he had found out, in order that other men might build
on his discoveries.
After seeing three of these new pictures, it was no wonder that Anna
could hardly wait until the next day to go to the photographer's
herself. That night at bedtime she said to her mother, "I suppose, if
my hair is going to look black in the picture, I could have black curls
if you were willing to do up my hair on rags."
"Do you really want me to?" asked her mother, hoping Anna would decide
against the curls.
"Of course I don't. I was just joking. I want Aunt Anna to have a real
picture of me," replied Anna.
The first thing the next morning Anna wanted to know when they should
go to the photographer's.
"Right away after dinner I think will be the best time," her mother
answered.
Accordingly, as early in the afternoon as possible, Anna dressed to
have her picture taken. As this was back in 1853, Anna wore, although
she was only twelve years old, a full, ruffled skirt which came almost
to the tops of her brown gaiter boots. The boots were her special
pride, and as they were the very first she had ever owned with kid
vamps and cloth tops, she did hope they would show in the picture. She
wore her best white guimpe, which was cut in what was called a half-low
neck; her sprigged muslin, which had very large, flowing sleeves; and
her new white muslin undersleeves, which had been a present from Aunt
Anna. Her hair was parted in the middle and held in place on the sides
by a round comb.
"Do I look all right?" Anna asked, turning slowly for her mother to
inspect her.
"Yes, I think so, and to me you look very nice," her mother answered.
"Don't you think you'll need your galoshes? The showers last night have
left the streets very muddy."
"I'll wear them, for I'm sure I don't want anything to happen to my
beautiful boots," said Anna, and so she buckled on a pair of the clumsy
rubber overshoes which they wore in those days.
Anna wanted a full length picture; her mother said little, but
preferred the head and shoulders only, as the face then would be so
much larger and plainer. Finally it was decided to have the little
girl seated in a quaintly carved high-backed chair. In those early
days of photography Anna must keep still two minutes--one hundred and
twenty seconds--instead of one second, and so it was really better to
sit than to stand.
When Anna was seated, she folded her hands, and held her head very
high. The photographer said her position seemed a little stiff, and so
he turned her head slightly to one side and gave her the choice of a
stuffed bird or a paper rose to hold in her hands. Anna chose the rose
because it was pink and matched the roses in her new sprigged muslin
dress. She forgot that the picture would be all black and white anyway.
She felt more at ease when she had something to hold and was sure she
could sit as still as a stone for one hundred twenty seconds or even
twice that.
The photographer went behind the great, awkward machine which he
called a camera and covered up his head and part of the camera, with
what looked to Anna like a tablecloth. She almost laughed, and the
photographer, who was looking through the camera, told her almost
sharply not to smile so much because it made her open her mouth.
"Say 'Flip' to make your mouth small and get it into shape again," he
directed.
Anna said "Flip," anxious at the same time to try "Flop" to see if it
would make a large mouth. It was just as well she did not delay matters
just then by trying, for only a very little later she actually read in
the Boston _Transcript_: "For a small mouth 'Flip,' for a large mouth
'Cabbage.'"
"All ready," said the man at last, after he had taken his head from
under the shawl several times to arrange the folds of Anna's skirt, to
turn her head a little more, or to straighten her shoulders. Then he
slipped the plate for the picture into place in the camera and said,
"Now look pleasant."
Anna did her best to do so, but her mouth felt stiff, and she wanted
both to wink and to swallow, and, worst of all, her nose itched. It
seemed one hundred twenty minutes instead of one hundred twenty seconds
to the little girl, but at last the photographer said, "All done."
In those early days of photography the completed picture was the very
plate which had been placed in the camera. They did not know then how
to print from the plate as photographers do now, and so the plate on
which the image was made was developed and "fixed" and then mounted
under glass in such little cases as Abigail's. Only one picture could
be made at a time, and pictures were consequently expensive.
It did not take long, however, to develop a daguerreotype and mount
it. Soon Anna was looking at her own picture. She thought it very good
indeed and secretly felt it more elegant than Abigail's, because she
was seated and showed the whole figure, and Abigail's was only of head
and shoulders.
"Good!" said Anna's father when he saw it. "I didn't believe there
was much in this new process of photography, but there is. Monsieur
Daguerre and all those who have made improvements on his discovery
certainly deserve great honor. This is really a picture of my little
girl. If this is Aunt Anna's, then I must have another to keep myself."
"It really is a good picture of Anna, isn't it?" said Mrs. Holman
as her husband passed it back to her. Then, as she looked again at
the picture, she laughed merrily. "It is a very good picture of the
galoshes, too."
"The galoshes!" exclaimed Anna.
"The galoshes!" said her father.
"Didn't I take them off?" asked Anna.
"It must be that you didn't," replied her mother. "Never mind; it must
be a very fine picture of you yourself or we should have seen the
galoshes sooner."
Anna wondered if her Aunt Anna would notice the overshoes. The present
reached her aunt in her far-off western home on Christmas day.
"I am delighted with the picture," she wrote. "It is like having a
visit from my dear little niece. It seems as if she could speak to me
if she wished. What a lovely dress, and what a lovely guimpe! Really, I
am so pleased with the picture that I even admire the _galoshes_."
Anna had many other pictures taken before she was grown up, but she
said she always felt the marvel of sitting before a camera for the
sun to reflect and imprint her features on a plate which she could
not see. Indeed, the faithfulness and the certainty of the result
always made her declare that she could never have her picture taken
without recalling the lines which Lucy Larcom wrote after her first
daguerreotype was made:
"Oh, what if thus our evil deeds
Are mirrored on the sky,
And every line of our wild lives
Daguerreotyped on high."
THE STORY OF THE REAPER
"What if Cyrus McCormick should be able to make his reaper really
work and we could cut all that wheat by machinery! No more dreadful
backaches then in harvest time!" said Ezra Harding, as he stood looking
out of the back door of a Virginia farmhouse one bright morning in June
in the year 1832.
He saw nothing of the beauty all around him; all he saw was acre
upon acre of yellow wheat ready to be harvested. How he dreaded the
harvesting! It meant the hardest work his father ever asked him to do.
Help was so scarce that even Ezra, the youngest of the five Harding
boys, though he was only fifteen, had to do a man's work. It made Ezra
feel almost eighty to think about the back-breaking work that was to
begin the next morning.
At that time all the wheat in the world was cut by hand, and on that
account there was not enough raised so that everybody could have white
bread. In the old world the peasants used chiefly the sickle to cut the
wheat; in the new world the farmers preferred the scythe and cradle.
To harvest wheat means both to cut it and to tie the long stalks into
bundles, or sheaves, for the drying which is necessary before the
wheat kernels are threshed out. Hay can be pitched about hit-or-miss,
but not so the wheat. It must be tied up in an orderly fashion so that
as it dries it can be gathered into the barns without shaking out and
losing too many of the wheat kernels.
[Illustration: THE OLD WAY OF REAPING]
Ezra knew his part would be to swing a cradle scythe. This was a rather
broad scythe with a wooden frame attached which was called a cradle.
This cradle was nothing more than a set of wooden fingers parallel
with the scythe, which helped to lay the cut grain straight in the
rows because they collected the grain and carried it to the end of the
stroke. The straighter it fell, the easier it was to bundle it. The
contrivance was clumsy and Ezra disliked it very much. However, he was
thankful he did not have to follow the men who mowed the grain and do
the bundling and tying. That work he knew was the most back-breaking of
all.
Ezra was feeling anything but cheerful when he saw his father come out
of the barn with a smile on his face.
"What do you think I heard last night at Lexington Court House?" his
father asked, coming up the path. "Cyrus McCormick is going to try his
new reaping machine here in Lexington in Farmer Ruff's wheat field
to-day. I want to see the trial. We'll all go over, if you boys like."
Like to go? Indeed they would, and they thought of nothing but the
possibility of a successful reaping machine all through breakfast time.
Late in the season the preceding year Cyrus McCormick had created a
sensation by cutting six acres of oats in an afternoon at Steele's
Tavern near his home eighteen miles north of the Hardings' farm.
None of the Hardings had seen that event, but they had been deeply
interested not only because they would welcome a successful reaping
machine, but also because the young man's father, Robert McCormick,
was a friend of Mr. Harding, and they knew of the repeated trials and
failures of the father's reaping machine. In fact, Robert McCormick had
worked for fifteen years on a reaper which he had tried for the last
time in that same season of 1831 and then had reluctantly put away
forever as a failure.
"I still believe a successful reaping machine is possible, but somebody
else will have to make it," he had said sadly.
The Hardings knew that the son Cyrus, who had worked for years with his
father, had not given up even then, and, begging his father to leave
one small patch of grain for him to use for trial, had started a new
machine on a different principle, and late in the season had tried it
at home with only his own family to watch its working.
"It is a success!" they had said one to another, but they dared say
very little outside because it was still far from satisfactory.
Mr. Harding had learned from the older McCormick that it had not run
smoothly, but that it had cut the grain without tangling it and had
left it on a platform from which the raker could take it off in good
order for the bundling. To the McCormicks, however, it had been a proof
that the machine could be made a success, and a few days later, after
making some changes, Cyrus McCormick had cut the six acres of oats at
Steele's Tavern in one afternoon. It was then too late in the season
for other demonstrations, and the Hardings had heard nothing more about
the invention until the day before the trial at Lexington in Farmer
Ruff's field.
An hour before the time set for the trial of the reaper Ezra Harding
and his brothers were at the appointed place. They watched the crowd
gather. There were Negroes, and farm laborers, and some owners of
farms. Most of the people around Ezra, to his surprise, not only seemed
to expect the machine to fail, but actually hoped it would. He could
not understand why until he heard two rough, ignorant fellows talk
about losing their chance to earn their bread if machines could be made
to do the work of men.
[Illustration: THE FIRST TYPE OF MCCORMICK REAPER]
"We'll smash the things," they said, "before we'll have the bread taken
out of our mouths by any such contraptions."
Ezra thought it strange they should oppose the invention for he knew
how anxious his father was that it should be a success. His father
said machinery meant the possibility of larger crops, and therefore not
less work, but more work and more wealth for all. Ezra was puzzling
over the strange stupidity of these men who could not see what larger
crops would mean, and who seemed to want to go on in their old
back-breaking toil, at the same pitifully small wages,--for the pay of
these days was actually less than a nickel an hour,--when the machine
came in view drawn by two horses. Two Negroes were leading the horses
because the machine made such a clattering noise that it frightened
them. About a hundred spectators had gathered by that time. The crowd
jeered at the sight of the strange machine.
"It's drunk," they said, and laughed uproariously at their own wit.
On it came, turned into the field, and began in a short time to cut the
wheat. It did not work well. The field was rough and hilly, and the
heavy, cumbersome machine careened like a ship in a gale. The crowd
ran up and down the field alongside the machine, hooting at the top of
their voices and calling the reaper all kinds of names. The Negroes
were doubled up with laughter at the slewing of the unwieldy machine.
One man said to another with decision, "Give me the old cradle yet."
Another said scornfully, "It's a humbug!"
Farmer Ruff, rough by nature as well as by name, ran, too, shouting,
"Stop! Stop! your machine is rattling the heads off my wheat!"
It did look as if the trial would end in complete failure. Much as Ezra
wished the machine to succeed he had no confidence that it was going
to, and he turned to see if he could read his father's thoughts. Just
as he turned he saw a fine-looking man on horseback ride up to the
jeering crowd. It was Hon. William Taylor. Taking in the situation at a
glance he changed everything instantly.
"Pull down the fence," he ordered, pointing to the division fence
between his field and that of Farmer Ruff, "and cross over into my
wheat field. I'll give you a fair chance to try your machine!"
This opportunity was eagerly seized by the young inventor, and soon
he was ready to begin again the trial of his precious machine. Mr.
Taylor's field was smoother and less hilly than that of Farmer
Ruff. The machine began to cut the grain successfully. Once around!
Ezra could scarcely credit his eyes. Round and round the machine
went--cutting, cutting, cutting. The heavy clack-clack of the machine
was sweet music to the little group of those who were eager for its
success.
The crowd became quieter as the grain continued to fall, and many after
an hour or two lost all interest in watching and went home. For nearly
five hours the reaper was driven around Mr. Taylor's field, and the
six acres of wheat were cut in that time--the first wheat in the United
States to be cut by machinery. No wonder the young inventor was proud
of the accomplishment. His machine had done in less than half a day
what he knew would have required, according to the method generally
used in Europe, twenty-four peasants with sickles.
After the trial was over, Mr. Harding and Ezra joined the excited
little group around the inventor.
"Your reaper is a success," Ezra heard Robert McCormick say to his son,
"and it makes me proud to have a son do what I could not do!" Ezra felt
like throwing his cap and cheering. What a joy to have a machine which
could do that back-breaking work he had had to do in harvesting the
grain!
That night the machine was hauled to the court house square in
Lexington. There it was examined by a crowd of curious people who had
heard of the successful trial in the afternoon. One of the men who
was specially interested in the machine was Professor Bradshaw of
the Female Academy of Lexington, a thoughtful man whose judgment was
greatly respected in the community. In his usual impressive manner he
fairly astounded the bystanders by the wholly improbable statement,
"That machine is worth--a--hundred--thousand--dollars!"
"A hundred thousand dollars!" repeated Mr. Harding when the remark was
told him the next day. "I think this time Professor Bradshaw is wrong.
Cyrus McCormick will be disappointed, surely, if he expects any such
large returns from his invention. The great inventors have not become
very rich men even when the invention, like the cotton gin, has caused
a revolution in a whole industry."
This was when Cyrus McCormick was twenty-three years old. Before he
was an old man the reaper had proved itself worth more millions than
the predicted thousands, and Ezra and his father had many a laugh over
Mr. Harding's criticism of Professor Bradshaw. However, at the time
the astounding remark was made, not even the inventor himself dreamed
of the complete change in methods of farming which the reaper would
make all over the country. Nobody, indeed, could realize that within
the life time of the inventor it would be possible for the farmers of
the United States to raise enough wheat to feed the whole world. Most
people, naturally enough, perhaps, felt as did Miss Polly Carson when
she saw the reaper dragged along the road on the way to Farmer Ruff's
field. Years later when she told the story of that day she said:
"I thought it a right smart curious sort of thing, but that it wouldn't
amount to much."
The successful trial of the reaper was in 1832, when the United States
was about fifty years old. For the next ten years Cyrus McCormick was
preaching reapers but he did not succeed in selling them. They seemed
very costly to the farmer; and, moreover, they were not the perfect
machines we know to-day, machines which work as if they had brains of
their own. Not until 1840 was Cyrus McCormick successful in selling the
reapers, which he made himself at his home. Then he sold two machines
for fifty dollars each. Two years later he sold seven for one hundred
dollars each. Soon he could sell hundreds.
The West Virginia home was not a good location for making the reapers
as it was both difficult and expensive, with the poor railroad
facilities of the day, to ship the machines to the great West where it
was already plain that the largest number would be used. Accordingly
Cyrus McCormick moved nearer his best market, establishing himself
first in Cincinnati, but two years later, in 1847, choosing the very
new, very muddy, very unattractive little town which has since become
the immense city of Chicago. History has shown the wisdom of his
choice. Chicago soon became the greatest distributing center of the
West, and as the reaper was necessary to work successfully the big
wheat fields, it was no uncommon sight as early as the sixties to see,
moving out from Chicago, a whole train loaded with nothing but showy
bright-red reapers.
[Illustration: MCCORMICK'S REAPING MACHINE
As advertised in _The Working Farmer_, 1852. Notice that a man rides on
the machine to rake off the grain.]
During the ten years while Cyrus McCormick was struggling to introduce
his reaper, Ezra Harding grew to admire more and more the tall,
handsome, powerful man who never lost his courage. Ezra believed
in reapers almost as fully as did Mr. McCormick himself; and when
Mr. McCormick moved to Chicago, Ezra followed him to help make the
wonderful machines.
In the years between the first successful trial and the time when Ezra
went to Chicago so many changes had been made in the reaper that Miss
Polly Carson would hardly have recognized it, had she seen it coming
down the road. When the machine was tried in Farmer Ruff's field the
grain was cut by a cutting bar similar to that on a mowing machine,
then it was caught by a reel and carried to a platform from which it
was raked to be tied in bundles. Two men were needed with each machine;
one walked beside the horses to drive them, the other walked beside
the platform to rake off the wheat for the bundling. Not very long
afterward Mr. McCormick added seats for both driver and raker. One of
the next big changes was to take off the raker and his seat and put in
their place an "iron man." This was really a long iron finger moved by
the turning wheels, which did the work of the raker, and automatically
pushed off the cut grain in untied bundles.
Tying, or binding, the bundles remained for years the hardest part of
the harvesting. It was the custom to tie the sheaves with a crude rope
made of the grain. This hard, back-breaking work required both strength
and skill and could be endured only by the strongest men. Even Ezra
Harding said:
"No genius will ever live who can make a machine throw a cord around a
bundle of wheat and knot that cord securely."
In this, however, Ezra was wrong, for within twenty-five years from
the time when the first reapers were sold Ezra saw added to the
machine two steel arms which, driven by the revolution of the wheels,
caught each bundle of grain before it left the platform on which it
was collected, whirled a wire tight around it, fastened the two ends
together with a twist, cut it loose, and tossed it on the ground.
There was then only one complaint made by the farmers. When the grain
was fed to cattle they were often injured by pieces of wire. This
trouble was remedied later by substituting twine for wire, adding
a very ingenious contrivance for knotting the twine, and then the
McCormick Reaper and Self-Binder might be said to be perfected.
One man alone, to drive the reaper, could then do what, only twenty
years before, had required twenty men. Moreover, the harvesting of a
bushel of wheat which required under the slow snip, snip of a sickle
three hours could be done in ten minutes! Long before Ezra Harding
was an old man he saw moving out of the Chicago freight yards a train
loaded with nothing but reapers, carrying these machines not only over
the United States but even to Russia and China. He saw the wheat crop
of this country doubled and trebled and quadrupled; he saw the time
when even a poor man could have white bread to eat, because the cost
of a loaf had been cut in two; he saw the reaper bring millions and
millions of dollars to its inventor; and he saw not only this great
wealth come to the man he himself had long admired, but also, while
Cyrus McCormick was still in the prime of life, the honor and fame
which have been denied many of the great inventors until after death.
GRANDMA'S INTRODUCTION TO ELECTRIC CARS
In 1891 when Harriet Lewis wrote just before her grandmother's annual
visit:
"We have something in Portland this year that really will surprise you,
Grandma," all the family laughed over her grandmother's answer.
"If you mean the electric cars which I have been reading about in
the _Press_," so her grandmother's letter ran, "remember that I have
already seen street cars running up and down hill in San Francisco
without any horses to draw them, and that it won't be any more
surprising to see them running all alone in Portland, even if it is
electricity this time which makes them go."
"Can't astonish Grandma, can we?" said Harriet's father, smiling.
It certainly was hard to do so. Grandma had always been a traveler.
She was born in Bath, Maine, in the days when Maine was famous for its
ship building, and Maine sailing vessels went all around the world. Her
father had been a sea captain and Grandma had been to China with him
before she was eighteen; her husband also had been a sea captain and
she had been around the world twice with him. Grandma had seen so much
and was always so interested in what was going on in the world that
when she went to Portland to visit her oldest son the family there used
to say jokingly:
"We must find something new to show Grandma or she won't feel that she
has been anywhere."
They had all expected Grandma to think it as wonderful as they did that
electricity could take the place of horses, and had expected her to be
very anxious to see the new cars of which so much had been written.
Evidently she did not think them very much ahead of the cable cars.
"Don't be disappointed, Harriet," said Mr. Lewis to his little ten-year
old daughter, who was Grandma's namesake. "Wait until Grandma has seen
the new cars; perhaps then she will think it as marvelous as we do that
electricity can be harnessed to make these cars slide along the rails.
She never has believed that electric cars would be a success."
"I remember last year when she was here," said Harriet's mother,
turning to the little girl's father, "how she used to say, 'I don't
like horse cars on these Maine hills. You ought to have cable cars.
They are the only proper things for hills!' and how you used to say,
'Wait until next year, Mother, and you shall see something better than
cable cars.'"
"She always answered, I recall," added Mr. Lewis, "'John, never in my
lifetime or yours will electricity be anything but a mystery and a
danger. It may be used to some extent for lighting, but, mark my words,
it can never be made to run heavily loaded cars. It is too absurd to
consider.'"
When Grandma reached Portland, Harriet and her father met her at the
station, and drove her home behind steady old Prince, who had drawn the
family carriage for years. As they jogged along on the way to the house
they met an electric car.
"I really don't see why it should go, but it is plain that it does go.
If they keep on going for another twenty-four hours, I am going to have
a ride in one to-morrow morning," said Grandma.
"Oh Mother, Mother!" exclaimed the son. "You do like to try new things,
don't you? Here I drove Prince to the station just so that you wouldn't
have to ride in one of these cars until you became used to seeing them
slide along driven by what you call that dangerous fluid."
"Well, I'm going to ride once anyway. I've always tried all the
different ways of getting about that I could. Why, I was the very
first person from our town to ride in a street car in Boston. That was
way back in 1856 in a little bobbing horse car drawn by two horses
harnessed tandem. Lots of people then made fun of the little cars, I
remember. They said the omnibus was better. They used to have races
between car and omnibus sometimes to prove which was better. How the
passengers on the one ahead would cheer! In the spring, when the snow
was going off, the omnibus, which would still be on runners, would get
stuck in the mud and the car would win; in the winter, if there was
drifting snow, the car would get stuck and the omnibus would go gliding
by with sleigh bells ringing and passengers waving their hands. Oh, it
was quite exciting, but the omnibuses were not used a great while after
the cars were introduced, as the cars were really more comfortable,
more convenient, and could make better time."
Several times during the first day of her visit Grandma exclaimed, "I
am thankful not to see any poor horses straining to draw those cars!"
Pity for the horses had always interfered with Grandma's enjoyment
in riding on the horse cars. When she and Harriet had been on their
accustomed rides, Harriet always had taken pains to tell when a third
horse was added to the usual pair to help draw a car up a hill.
"Now he's on, Grandma," she would say when the car stopped at the foot
of a hard hill and a boy brought up the horse which had been waiting
there and hooked the heavy tugs to the whiffletree bar so that the
third horse could run along beside the others, although just outside
the rails. "It's a big horse," she would often add.
But even this had not satisfied Grandma. She had been in San Francisco
when the cable cars were first put in use and she believed them the
only car suitable for a hilly city.
"You ought to have the cable cars," she had said many a time. However,
before she had watched the electric cars a half day Grandma went so
far as to say, "If you could be sure there would be no danger from
electricity and be sure of power enough I don't know why these wouldn't
do just as well as the cable cars."
"Tell me about the cable cars, won't you, Grandma? What makes them
go?" asked Harriet, now old enough to be interested in the difference
between the systems.
"The cable makes them go," answered her grandmother. "It is an endless
iron chain which the engine at the central station keeps running all
the time. It travels between the rails in an open channel or groove
just below ground. The car is carried along by being fastened to this
cable. What is it you call the driver of your new cars--a motorman? The
man who drives a cable car is called a gripman. It is his business to
work the 'grip,' a stout iron contrivance which must catch hold of the
cable when the car is to be carried along and must be loosened when the
car is to be stopped."
"Is San Francisco the only city where they have those cars?" asked
Harriet.
"Oh, no," answered Grandma. "They have them now in several of the other
large cities. San Francisco was the first city to have them. The hills
there are so steep that it was out of the question to use horses.
Something had to be invented, and Andrew S. Hallidie planned this
system which has been used successfully ever since 1873."
"Weren't there any people in those days who thought the cable cars were
dangerous, Mother?" asked Harriet's father slyly.
"Oh, dear me, yes," replied his mother. "The gripman himself lost his
courage, I remember, on one of the very first trips and stopped his car
at the top of his first steep hill. He got off the car and said that,
as he had a wife and children, he did not think it would be right for
him to take the car down such a hill. The passengers said it was not a
case of right or wrong but a case of being scared, and they insisted
upon his getting on again and taking them to their journey's end."
"There goes another electric car, Grandma!" said Harriet who was
looking out the window. "It goes a good deal faster than a horse car,
doesn't it?"
"I should think it did," answered Grandma, "In contrast with travel on
horse cars, going as fast as that must seem like flying. How can it be
possible to get power enough to drive a big car like that!"
"It comes right along that overhead wire," answered Harriet's father.
"Oh, yes, I know that from what I have read," continued Grandma. "And
it is conducted to the car along that long iron rod which runs from the
overhead wire to the car. What is it you call that?"
"The trolley," said Mr. Lewis.
"Then what really happens after the electricity has reached the car?"
"This current of electricity runs to those cylinders in front of the
motorman. Then it is where it can be controlled. By the turning of a
crank the motorman can turn on the power to start the motor and drive
the car ahead, or he can shut it off and make the car stand still. Just
as steam power turns the wheels of the locomotive, so electric power
turns the wheels of these cars."
"It is very mysterious after all," said Grandma.
"It certainly is," assented her son. "Oliver Wendell Holmes says it is
like witchcraft. Have you read his poem which says:
'Since then on many a car you'll see
A broomstick, plain as plain can be;
On every stick there's a witch astride--
The string, you see, to her leg is tied!'"
Grandma and Harriet laughed.
"How fast are these cars going?" asked Grandma.
"About ten miles an hour including the stops. Probably the rate without
stops is about fifteen miles," answered Mr. Lewis.
"There never could be power enough in electricity to drive the car much
faster than that, I suppose?" said Grandma.
"Yes, they have already gone considerably faster," replied her son. "I
was reading only last night that back in 1880 when Thomas Edison first
began his experiments with electricity as a motive power on his own
private track at Menlo Park, he drove his little electric train more
than twice as fast. In June 1880, Grosvenor Lowry wrote, 'Have spent
part of a day at Menlo, and all is glorious. I have ridden at forty
miles an hour on Mr. Edison's electric railway--and we ran off the
track.'"
"It is dangerous after all, isn't it?" commented Grandma.
"Most people do not think so. That was when they were experimenting
and of course accidents were bound to happen. In the three years since
Richmond introduced the system of electric cars more than a hundred
other cities have introduced it; and a hundred more are putting it in,
I suppose, at this present moment."
"We'll ride to-morrow in one of the new cars, Harriet," said Grandma.
"Goody," said Harriet, "I love to ride in them. I'd like to ride on Mr.
Edison's own electric railway, and go forty miles an hour."
"I don't doubt you would, puss," said her father, "but I think he is
not using that at all now. He considers the electric railway a success
and he is working now on something which his friends say will make it
possible to run a horseless carriage without the help of either rails
or a trolley."
"Oh, surely that never can be, John," said Grandma.
"I don't know. I should have said the same thing ten years ago about a
horseless street car, I think. Edison's friends remind us that first
it was the horse without the carriage, then it was the horse and the
carriage, and now they say it is surely going to be the carriage
without the horse. Wonders do not seem to cease; it may come true."
That night about midnight there was a splintering crash which Grandma
thought was only a short distance from her window. Something had
certainly happened in the street, but there was no outcry and all
was still again in a few minutes after the crash. Grandma could not
explain it, but it did not worry her and she went to sleep again.
Very early in the morning she was wakened again by unusual noises on
her side of the house. Going to the window she was surprised to see an
electric car across the gutter, stopped apparently in its course by a
broken telegraph pole. How had it come there? It seemed to have come
down the track on the hill opposite, and then to have come without any
track at all straight across the street at the foot of the hill until
it crashed into the pole. The front of the car was considerably broken.
It had evidently run into the pole with force enough to snap that off
short and spoil the front of the car.
Grandma watched with interest the crew which had been sent out to get
the injured car back again on the track and take it to the car barn
before most people were stirring. They had a smaller car to which they
securely fastened the runaway car. Then the little service car pulled
the runaway out of the gutter, across the street, and on to the track
once more. The last Grandma saw of the wrecked car it was at the top of
the hill still being pulled along by the other car.
"There's no question of power," said Grandma to herself. "One small
car can run along with a big car trailing after it as easily as if it
were alone. There is only one question left in my mind, and that is
the question of control of the power. To see a big car right across the
gutter surely does not look as if the power were under control."
At breakfast Grandma told what she had heard and seen.
"Do you know what made the car run away?" she asked her son.
"Yes, I went out to the street last night after the crash and found
out. There was just one man out there and he didn't feel very much like
talking, but he did finally tell me what had happened. The man I found
was the conductor."
"What had become of the motorman? Was he hurt?" asked Mrs. Lewis
quickly.
"Nobody was hurt, and nothing was injured except the pole, and the
front of the car, and the conductor's feelings. It seems that on the
last trip last evening there was nobody on the car except the conductor
and the motorman, and so, though it is against the rules, the conductor
offered to let the motorman get off when they reached his home, and to
take the car himself up to the end of the line and then back a little
way to the car barn. His own home is close by the barn. All went well
until the new driver was reaching the end of the line just opposite
us. Then the trolley slipped off and the car came to a standstill. The
conductor stepped off to put the trolley back in place, and he easily
and quickly swung it back where it belonged, when--Great Scott!--the
car sailed off and left him! Went to the end of the rails and then had
momentum enough to roll straight across the street plump into the pole."
"What made it go?" asked Harriet, completely mystified.
Harriet was not the only one of those present who was puzzled, and they
all listened very carefully when Mr. Lewis said, "Because the conductor
forgot to shut off the motor when he left the car. As there wasn't any
power on when he stepped off, naturally he felt no need of shutting it
off, but, unfortunately for him, there was plenty of power as soon as
the trolley was on again."
Harriet began to laugh.
"I see! I see! How easy it was to start a real runaway! Nothing to do
but to put the trolley on when everything was right for the car to go
ahead."
"Exactly," said her father.
"How surprised that poor conductor must have felt," said Grandma.
"How mortified he must have felt," said Mamma.
"He must have felt the way I did when I left the water running and
flooded the bathroom," said Harriet sadly.
"I think he had all those feelings," said Mr. Lewis, "judging from what
he said last night."
"Well, it proves there's power enough to run a car even without smooth
rails," said Grandma. "And perhaps it proves it is well controlled if
it runs the car straight ahead even when there is nobody aboard to
drive it."
"I hope this strange introduction to electric cars won't make any
difference about your enjoying your ride to-day, Mother," said Mr.
Lewis.
"Difference? Why should it? There won't be any more conductors taking
the place of motormen to-day, I know," said Grandma.
"Probably not," replied Mr. Lewis, laughing.
"I'm perfectly satisfied with the way the car behaved," said Grandma.
"We'll ride and ride to-day, Harriet."
And ride and ride they surely did. Grandma liked the motion and she
was interested in all the details of running the car, even in how the
whistle was operated, and how the end of the trolley was connected to
the car.
"My introduction to electric cars may have been peculiar," said Grandma
that night, "but my acquaintance thus far is entirely satisfactory. I
really think I know how they are run and I shouldn't wonder if I could
run one as well as the conductor on the car last night."
"If you let the motorman get off and you run the car for him, you won't
get off to put the trolley on unless you have shut off the motor, will
you, Grandma?" asked Harriet.
Everybody laughed to think how the car had run away and left the
astonished conductor in the road unable to stop it; but Grandma said,
"Runaways or no runaways, the electric car is the marvel of the age.
It does not seem as if the mind of man could devise anything more
wonderful than this harnessing of electricity; but yet it may be that
Harriet will sometime ride in one of the horseless carriages her
father spoke of yesterday. If they ever do have such things of course
they'll be very, very dangerous, but I do wish"--and everybody knew
what Grandma was going to wish--"that I could have just one ride in one
myself."
Transcriber's Note:
Small capitals have been rendered in full capitals. Italics are indicated
by _underscores_. Apparent typographical errors have been corrected.
The carat character (^) indicates that the following letter is
superscripted. If two or more letters are superscripted they are enclosed
in curly brackets (example: 15^{th}).