_After Supper_
"Boys," said Jack while supper was in process of consumption, "I'm
afraid we've all got to do a little work to-night by moonlight.
Fortunately there is a moon, but these thin, fleecy clouds mean snow or
I'm mistaken."
"What is the work to be done, Jack," asked Ed. "Why," said Jack, "we've
got to have some dry broom straw for our beds, and we've got to gather
it to-night. Otherwise it'll all be wet."
"Broom straw" in Virginia means a tall grass of the prairie grass kind,
which grows thickly in every open space. In winter it is dry and nothing
makes a sweeter smelling bed.
The boys were tired after their hard day's work, but their enthusiasm
instantly outvoted their weariness, for their proceedings had not yet
lost the character of a sort of frolic in their minds.
"Besides," said little Tom as the supper drew to an end, "I for one am
not half as tired as I was when we sat down to eat."
"Naturally not," said the Doctor.
"But why is it?" asked Tom. "I don't see how I have got rested so soon."
"You've fired up," replied the Doctor. "Did you ever see an engine that
worked badly for want of steam? Did you ever observe what the engineer
does in that case?"
"Yes, of course; he sets the stoker to firing up under the boiler. But
what has that to do with getting tired and getting rested again? I don't
see the connection."
"Yet it is clear enough," the Doctor responded. "The human system is a
machine. It must have energy or force or whatever you choose to call it,
to enable it to do its work. Now an engine gets its energy from the coal
or wood burned under its boiler. This human machine derives its energy
solely from food put into the stomach. When you are tired it means
simply that your supply of physical force has run low. When you eat you
replenish the supply, just as firing up does it for the engine."
"But Doctor," said Jack with an accent of puzzled inquiry, "how about
those people that are always tired--'born tired' as they say? They eat,
but they never get over being tired."
"Dyspeptics, every one of them," replied the Doctor. "It doesn't help an
engine to shovel coal into its furnace if the coal doesn't burn. In the
same way it doesn't strengthen a man to eat unless he digests and
assimilates his food."
"Well now, if you people have sufficiently assimilated your food and
your ideas," broke in little Tom, "let's get to work."
Some of the boys pulled the grass and piled it in rude shocks. The
others carried it to the hut and bestowed it in one corner, ready for
use. As they carried on the work the moon slowly went out, and just as
they were finishing it, Jim Chenowith called out:
"There's the snow," and very gently the flakes began descending. "Jack
you're a good weather prophet, and this time it's lucky for us that you
are. Otherwise we should have had wet broom straw to sleep on all
winter. By the way, how are we going to arrange our beds?"
"Why, we'll build a platform of small poles along the eastern wall of
our house--the fireplace being on the western side. We'll divide this
platform into compartments, each to serve as a bed. We'll lay clapboards
on the poles to make a smooth surface, and on them we'll pile all the
broom straw we've got. Then we'll wrap ourselves in our blankets and
crawl in. Do you see?"
"Yes, but how about the fellows that must sleep under the Doctor's
muslin window?" asked Harry. "Won't they sleep pretty cold, Doctor?"
"I don't think so," answered the Doctor. "The windows will keep out the
cold quite as well as the logs themselves do."
"But how can they? How can two thin sheets of muslin keep cold out or
heat in, which I believe is the better way of putting it?" asked Harry.
"They can't," answered the Doctor. "Bring those two sheets of muslin
together and they would let heat out and cold in as freely almost as an
open hole does. It isn't the muslin that keeps the cold out or the heat
in--which ever way you choose to put it. It is the imprisoned air
between the two pieces of muslin. There is hardly anywhere a worse
conductor of heat than confined air. That is why in building fire proof
structures in the great cities they use hollow bricks for partition
walls. No amount of heat on one side can pass through the confined air
in the bricks and set fire to anything on the other side of the wall. In
the contracts for such buildings it is often stipulated that the owner
shall be free to build as hot a bonfire as he pleases in any room he may
select, and if it sets fire to anything in any other room the contractor
shall pay a heavy penalty."
"But where did you get your idea of greased muslin windows, Doctor?"
asked Jack. "I never heard of it before."
"I got it by reading history," answered the Doctor. "In old English
times nobody but princes could afford to use glass. Its cost was too
great. And then later, when glass became cheaper, a stupid government
put a tax on windows, and so men went on using greased cloth instead of
glass in order to get the light of heaven into their habitations without
having their substance eaten up by a window tax."
"But why was it 'stupid' as you say for the government to raise revenue
by so simple a means as that of taxing windows?" asked Jack.
"Because governments exist for the good of the people governed, and not
the reverse of that. Otherwise no government would have any right to
exist at all. A window tax discourages the use of windows. As a result
the people live in darkness and foul air, which is not good for them.
But governments in the old days assumed not that the government existed
for the good of the people, but that the people existed for the good of
the government. Never until our American Republic was established was
that notion driven out of the minds of Kings, Princes and great
ministers of state. It is one of our country's best services to human
kind that it has taught this lesson until now in every part of the
civilized world it is perfectly understood that the government is the
servant of the people, not the people the servant of the government."
"Yes, I remember," said Jack, "that when the colonies were resisting
British oppression, Thomas Jefferson put into an address to George III a
pointed and not very polite reminder that the King was after all only a
chosen chief magistrate of the people, appointed by them to do their
service and promote their happiness. There wasn't much idea of 'the
divine right of kings' in Jefferson's noddle."
"No," responded the Doctor, "nor in Franklin's, or Patrick Henry's or
John Adams's or James Otis's. Jefferson simply formulated the thought of
all of them when he contended that the British parliament had no more
right to pass laws for the government and taxation of Virginia than the
Virginia legislature had to pass laws for the government and taxation of
Great Britain. But the beauty of the whole thing lies in the fact that
these great truths, asserted by the Americans in justification of their
rebellion, have been fastened upon the minds of men everywhere, and all
civilized governments have been compelled to accept and submit to them.
There are kings and emperors still, but they have completely changed
their conception of their functions. They have been taught, mainly by
American statesmen, that they are nothing more than the servants of the
people, and that so far from owning the people, the people are their
masters. But come boys, it's time to get to bed. So turn in at once. I'm
on guard for the next hour and a half."