“It’s easily told,” said Steam. “You see, I am the sea water, which soaks
through the ground into the mountain yonder. I ooze in through a thousand
underground passages. But inside the mountain there is a tremendous fire,
which smoulders everlastingly and never goes out. Now, when the water
rises above the fire, it turns to steam; and the steam is collected in
great cavities down the mountain, so long as there is room for it. At
last, there is so much of it that it can’t exist there. Then the mountain
bursts. Rocks and stones ... the whole mountain-lake up there, which is
boiling because of the fire in the ground ... mud and sludge, boiling
water and scalding steam come rushing out over the land, as you have just
seen. I burst everything, when I am tortured beyond endurance. There is
not a wall that can imprison me, not a door which I cannot open ... do you
understand?”
Two-Legs nodded.
“You have seen the column of smoke that rises from the mountain every
day,” said Steam. “There is always a little opening, you know, an
air-hole through which some of me can escape. But at last it is no longer
big enough and then I burst the whole concern. Now learn from what has
happened to you to-day that you must never build your abode where you see
a smoking mountain, for you can never be safe there.”
“It’s not enough for me to be safe,” said Two-Legs. “I don’t want to avoid
you. I want to rule you. You are the strongest force I know in the world.
You must be my servant, like the horse and the ox and the wind.”
“Catch me and use me, if you can!” said Steam.
“Well,” said Two-Legs, “I will try. But first tell me what becomes of you
when you float through the air, as you are doing now.”
“Then I turn cold,” said Steam. “And, when I have turned cold, I become
water ... rain ... mist ... whatever you please.”
“And then you fall into the sea,” said Two-Legs. “And then you soak into
the mountain, where the fire is, and become steam again; and so on and so
on, for ever and ever.”
“That’s it,” said Steam.
Then he floated on across the wilderness and disappeared out at sea.
Two-Legs gazed after him and then stared at the mountain again, which was
smoking peacefully, as it had done before.
He sat the whole night and pondered. Then he rose, called the dog and went
after the others.
6
Two-Legs and his family had discovered a new country.
They built their houses again and tilled the soil and reaped corn and
raised cattle. They cut timber in the forests and the seamen built new
ships. Many years passed before the disaster was overcome, but at last the
whole tribe was recovered to such an extent that they forgot about it, all
excepting Two-Legs.
He was always sitting and pondering and thinking about it. That is to
say, it was not the disaster itself he thought about: he had forgotten
that, like the others. He had forgotten the dead, for he now had so many
descendants that he no longer knew their number or their names. It was
Steam he thought about.
When he saw how the wind turned the sails of the mill or carried the ships
across the sea, he gave a scornful smile. It went so terribly slowly, he
considered. And then a storm might come, when they could neither sail nor
grind, or a head-wind so strong that they had to divert their course for
it, or a calm, when everything had to stand still.
“You’re only a second-rate servant, friend Wind,” he said. “Ah, Steam! Now
there’s a fellow for you!”
He remembered how the captive steam broke out and, in a moment, obscured
the sun and turned day into night, how it scattered far and wide over
the land great stones and mud and ashes and all that the fiery mountain
or volcano contained. In a few hours, the plain was transformed into a
wilderness. It was all done so quickly and with such force that no one
could possibly imagine it who had not seen it. Surely, Steam must be the
strongest power on earth.
He thought of what the steam had said, how it came into existence when the
water got above the fire.
“That’s right,” he said.
He sat and looked at the pot, which was boiling. As soon as the water grew
hot enough, the white steam floated above it.
He took a piece of glass and held it over the steam. The steam settled on
the glass in clear drops.
“That’s right, too,” he said. “The steam turns to water again.”
He saw them put a lid on the pot to keep in the heat. They made up the
fire and more steam came, so that the lid began to jump.
“Now it’s getting too close in there,” he said. “Just as Steam told me
about the volcano.”
They put a stone on the lid to hold it down. Two-Legs added more and more
fuel and more and more steam came. At last it flung off the lid with the
stone and darted out into the room.
“The mountain is splitting,” said Two-Legs, rubbing his hands.
7
He built himself a big boiler and a great furnace. Here he kept up a
constant fire and tried the strength of the steam and pondered how to make
use of it. He had only one person with him, one of his grandsons, who was
cleverer than the others, and with whom he often talked of the thought
that dwelt in him.
Many a time they two would sit long into the night and work and talk,
always of the same thing. It was the question of making the steam work
the way it should and no other and as strongly as it should and no more.
No one ventured to disturb them. All the rest of the tribe looked upon
Two-Legs’ house with awe and reverence, for they knew how clever he was
and that he was working alone for the good of the whole race. Some of
them, also, believed that he would at last succeed in mastering Steam, but
many thought that it would never come to pass and that it would end in
terror, as though he were fighting the most secret and powerful forces in
nature.
But, whether they held this view or that, they all preferred to keep away
from Two-Legs’ house, because they understood how great the danger was to
which he exposed himself. All those who had survived the calamity of the
volcano were long since dead; but the legend of that terrible day still
lingered in the tribe and Two-Legs’ kinsmen could not help thinking what
terrible things might happen if Steam should suddenly, one day, turn bad
again.
[Illustration]
Two-Legs took no heed of what they thought or said.
Now and again, the elders came to him to report on what was happening,
good or bad, in the family: the number of children born, the losses
suffered or the gain in prosperity. He looked up hastily from his work,
nodded to them and then bade them go and leave him alone.
Sometimes, a young man would come running up, radiantly happy at some
discovery he had made, to gather praise from the old, wise man whom
they all honoured above any other. Two-Legs scarcely looked up from his
work and did not hear him to the end. He knew that the ideas with which
he himself was busied were far greater and more important and longed
impatiently for the day when they should be realized.
He built new boilers of strange shapes and bigger, so that they could hold
more steam, and stronger, so that the steam could not burst them. He made
his people dig coal from the mountains and used it for fuel, because he
had discovered that it gave greater heat and therefore more quickly turned
the water into steam. As each year passed, he thought he was nearing the
goal, but as yet he had not reached it and sometimes he was despairing.
One day, the boiler burst. He himself was struck on the forehead by a
fragment of iron and received a deep wound; but his grandson and assistant
was killed before his eyes.
They all came running up with wailing and lamentations. But Two-Legs wiped
the blood from his face and stood long and gazed at the burst boiler. Then
he turned and looked at the dead man:
“Poor fellow!” he said. “He would so much have liked to live and see the
great work finished. Now he had to die; and indeed he had a fine death,
for he died for the greater prosperity of his brethren. Bury him and set a
monument over his grave.”
They took him and were about to carry him away, but Two-Legs stopped them
and said:
“Wait a minute ... I must have one in the place of him who died: is there
any of you that will help me? He knows the lot that awaits him: death,
perhaps, and disappointment for many years, before we succeed, and scorn
from the blockheads who do not understand.”
Seven at once applied. For, though they were certainly afraid, they felt
attracted by the mystery and the danger; and there was no greater honour
in the tribe than to stand by Two-Legs.
So he chose one of them, took him into his house and initiated him into
his secrets, while the others carried the dead man away and buried him.
8
The years passed. One day, the people saw Two-Legs stand outside his house
and wave his arms and shout aloud. They ran from every side to hear what
he wanted.
“I have found it, I have found it,” he shouted.
He took the elders indoors and showed them a great iron cylinder which
he had constructed. At the top of the cylinder was a hole which joined
another cylinder. In the first cylinder was a piston, also of iron, which
fitted so accurately that it could just slide up and down; and it was
smeared with oil so that it might slide as easily as possible. At the
bottom of the cylinder was the boiler with the water and under the boiler
the furnace.
Two-Legs lit a fire in the furnace, the water turned to steam and the
steam went up to the top cylinder and lifted the piston right up to the
top end of the cylinder. There it escaped through the hole into the
cylinder beside it, where it was cooled and became water again and ran
down into the boiler and was once more heated by the fire and turned into
steam.
But, when the steam had escaped through the hole, the piston slid down
again to the bottom of the cylinder, was lifted up by fresh steam and rose
and fell again; and this went on as long as the fire burnt in the furnace.
“Look, look!” said Two-Legs; and his eyes beamed with pride and delight.
“See, I have caught Steam and imprisoned him in this cylinder. When I make
a fire in the furnace, he rises out of the water and lifts the piston to
the top of the cylinder. Then he has done my bidding and turns to water in
the other cylinder until I once more bid him turn to steam and lift the
piston. See ... see ... I have caught Steam and made him my servant, like
the ox and the horse and the wind!”
“We see it right enough, Father Two-Legs,” said one of the tribe. “But we
don’t understand what you mean to use your servant for. Tell us, was it
worth while, on this account, for you to live shut up in your house for so
many years, while we have had to dispense with your wise counsel?”
“You do not understand,” said Two-Legs. “Go away and come back again this
day twelvemonth: then you shall see what I use my new servant for. When I
have shown you, you can continue the work yourselves. I tell you, so great
is the new servant’s strength and cleverness that, if you learn to use him
properly, the whole face of the earth will be changed.”
Thereupon he went into the house and shut his door.
He sat contentedly and looked at his new engine:
“Ho, ho, dear Steam!” he said. “I have you now. I can call you forth and
turn you off. I can make you strong and I can make you weak. The more
fire, the more water, the more steam. And you must always remain inside
the cylinder and do my bidding. I can make the cylinder long and I can
make it short; I can make the piston heavy and I can make it light: you
must needs draw it up and down, my good Steam.”
“You call me good,” said the steam. “On the day when I burst the mountain
and destroyed all your land, you called me bad. Now I told you that I was
neither good nor bad. I am what I am. You have caught me and, if you can
use me, then use me!”
Two-Legs laughed merrily and rubbed his hands. He lit the furnace and
poured water into the boiler and sat and watched how the piston slid up
and down:
“Yes, what shall we use you for now?” he said. “Shall we put you to the
carriage instead of the horse? I think you might get along the road at a
very different pace. Shall I use you to draw the ship? Then you can run
close to the wind and need not care a pin for him. Shall I let you turn
the stones in the mill?... Oh, there are a thousand things that you must
do for me!”
Two-Legs put out the fire. Then he fastened a rod to the piston and to the
rod he joined another, which was fastened to the axle of a wheel. He lit
the fire under the boiler and, behold, the piston went up and down, the
rod moved and the wheel whirred!
He made a carriage, put the whole steam-engine on the carriage and
connected the rod with the wheel. He himself stood at the back of the
carriage, where the furnace was, lit the fire and heaped on coal. The
wheels turned and the carriage ran along the road.
[Illustration]
The people of the tribe came hurrying from everywhere and stared in
amazement at the strange turn-out. Most of them ran to one side and
screamed in terror of the dangerous monster and said that it must end
badly. Only the cleverest understood the value of it and looked at the new
carriage and talked about it.
“Father Two-Legs,” said one of the elders, “you must not drive that
carriage. We fear that it will go badly and the steam burst the engine and
kill you, as it once killed your assistant.”
“It was just his death that taught me to be careful,” said Two-Legs. “Come
and see.”
Then he explained to them how he had calculated the strength of the steam
and the quantity of the steam which he should use to drive his carriage.
The more steam there was, the faster the piston slid up and down, the
faster the wheels turned, the faster the carriage moved. The stronger the
boiler was and the cylinder, the more steam it could hold without bursting.
But in one part of the boiler there was a hole, which was covered with a
valve, fastened by a hinge. The valve was just so heavy that the steam
could not lift it when there was as much as there should be and as the
engine could bear. But, as soon as more steam came, then the valve became
too light and rose and the superfluous steam rushed out of the hole.
“Father Two-Legs is the cleverest of us all,” they said.
But Two-Legs stepped down from the carriage:
“I give it to you,” he said. “Now you can settle for yourselves how you
mean to use it. Some of you can go on searching, as I did, and invent
new things. The smiths can bring their tools and their ingenuity. The
steam-engine is yours and you can do with it what you please.”
Then he went into his house and sat down anew to look out over the world
and think.
But the cleverest of the tribe set to work on the steam-engine. As the
years passed, they invented first one improvement and then another, so
that it worked ever more safely and smoothly.
They laid rails over the ground, so that the steam-carriage ran at a pace
of which none had ever seen the like and drew a number of heavily loaded
coaches after it. A man could now make a journey in a few days or weeks
which formerly had taken him months and years. The produce that grew at
one end of the earth was now sent quickly and cheaply to the other.
They put the steam-engine in ships, where it turned paddle-wheels, so that
the ships ran against wind and current. They used it to thrash the corn
in the barn, to grind it in the mill: there was no end to the objects for
which they were able to use it.
[Illustration]
The steam-engine had changed the face of the earth, as Two-Legs had
foretold.
TWO-LEGS CONQUERS ELECTRICITY
[Illustration]
1
Two-Legs had grown so old that no one now knew his age.
His family was constantly increasing and dispersed over the whole earth.
When people thought that they were becoming too many in one place, then
some of them broke up and moved to others, where the land was new. They
reclaimed it, extracted metals from the mountains and sailed on the rivers
and the sea. Railways and steamboats ran from one end of the earth to the
other.
People went so far apart that they spoke different languages and no longer
knew one another. In every country there were clever men who made new and
marvellous discoveries that lightened the work of their brethren and made
them richer and happier.
Each time that a man made one of these discoveries, he went off to
Two-Legs, wherever he might happen to be, to show it to him and receive
his praise, for he was honoured by them all as the father of the whole
race and the wisest of all who lived on earth.
Two-Legs himself no longer had any idea of the number of his descendants;
and it seemed as if he simply did not care. He lived now with one tribe
of his people and now with the other, always alone in a house to himself,
where he could quietly indulge in thought. Often, young men came to him to
learn from him. Then he gave them of his wisdom and sent them out into the
world again; but what he thought of in his inmost self he talked about to
no one.
When he sat outside his house and gazed and pondered, the voices spoke to
him as before:
“Two-Legs ... the lord of the earth ... the vanquisher of the animals....”
“Two-Legs ... who conquered the wind and made it his servant, as he did
with the ox and the horse....”
“Two-Legs ... who tamed the wild steam and imprisoned it in the engine,
which now has to obey his commands and do his errands....”
Two-Legs listened to the voices.
He patted the dog, who lay at his feet:
“You were once a wild and fierce animal and now you are gentle and serve
me faithfully,” he said.
He listened to the wind, who was whispering in the trees:
“You can cool my forehead on a hot day and you can rush over the earth
like a wild monster,” he said. “I know you and I use you.”
He looked across the meadow, where the mist was rising and the fine white
steam floated to and fro:
“You, too,” he said and nodded. “You are as light as a veil and dainty and
white and innocent. The poets sing of you and you make little children
cough. But you are the same that burst the mountain and destroyed my land.
I watched you and discovered you and caught you and put you in my engine;
and now you must toil for my descendants the wide world over.”
The thunder rolled in the distance. There came long and deep peals. Now
and again, a flash of lightning gleamed and lit up the darkness. And the
voices spoke again:
“It is thunder, Two-Legs ... it is lightning.... You do not know what that
is. No one knows what it is.”
“The world is full of mighty, secret forces ... mightier than the wind ...
harder to understand than steam.”
“The ox and the horse tremble before the thunder and the lightning.
Two-Legs and all his descendants tremble wherever the thunder-storm
reaches. There is more between heaven and earth than Two-Legs knows of.”
The storm came nearer. The thunder pealed and the lightning-flashes
crackled. Those who lived close came running to Two-Legs’ house in great
alarm:
“Father Two-Legs, what shall we do?” they cried. “God’s wrath is upon
us.... Look, look, His fire has struck the house yonder. Now it’s burning;
it is all in flames!”
Two-Legs did not look at the blazing house, but up at the clouds, where
the thunder pealed and the lightning-flashes darted:
“That is not God’s wrath,” he said. “It is a strange force up there in the
clouds ... stronger than the wind ... stronger than Steam. Oh, if I could
catch it and compel it to serve me, as I compel the ox and the horse and
the others!”
They heard what he said and looked at one another in affright.
Much as they honoured and loved him, they thought that this was madman’s
talk. For how could any one dream of taking the terrible lightning into
his service?
“Two-Legs has grown old,” said one to the other. “He is in his dotage and
does not know what he is saying.”
Two-Legs did not listen to them, but continued to gaze at the storm
overhead:
“Look! See how the lightning darts!” he said. “In a second, it darts from
one horizon to the other!... Oh, if I could put it into my carriage!”
They recoiled from him, so frightened were they at his words.
“Look! See how the lightning shines!” he said. “In a second, it is as
light as bright noonday!... Oh, if I could catch the lightning’s light and
hold it fast and compel it to shine peacefully for human beings!”
One of the elders went up to him and laid his hand on his shoulder:
“Two-Legs,” he said, “the success you have had has driven you mad. Your
talk is foolish. You are tempting God.”
“God kindled the lightning and God kindled my understanding,” said
Two-Legs. “He gave me the one that I might explore the other. Go away and
mind your own business and leave me alone.”
They went away. Two-Legs stood and gazed till the last lightning had
vanished from the sky.
2
One day, Two-Legs sat on his bench, looking at a boy who was running about
and playing with a piece of amber.
The boy rubbed it against his breeches to make it bright. Then he held it
up in the air and rejoiced to see it shine so prettily.
Just then, a fluff of seamews down came flying and fastened on the amber.
Another came ... and another ... and more still. As soon as they came near
the amber, they hurried and settled on it.
“Look, look!” said the boy and laughed with amusement. “There’s a spirit
in the amber! When I rub it on my breeches, the spirit comes out and
catches the little fluffs.”
Two-Legs took the amber from the boy and looked at it. He rubbed it and
caught the fluffs. He held it close to husks and little bits of paper.
“Look, the spirit catches them too!” said the boy and clapped his hands.
More came and looked on. They told it to others, who left their work and
came and stood and stared at Two-Legs and the amber.
“Is it a spirit, Father Two-Legs?” asked one of the elders.
“A mighty spirit,” said Two-Legs. “A new and rare spirit. I do not know
him. Go to your work and leave me alone, so that I can explore him.”
“Give the spirit a name, Father Two-Legs,” said the man who had spoken
before.
Two-Legs reflected that the people in the part of the world where he was
then living called amber electron.
Then he told them that they might call the spirit of the amber Electricity.
3
From that day, Two-Legs collected as much amber on the beach as he could
find.
He rubbed it and saw that then the spirit constantly came forth and seized
upon the little things near by. He put his ear to it and listened, but
could hear nothing. He tasted it and smelt it; he broke it to pieces and
gazed at it with his old eyes, but could discover nothing:
“The spirit is hiding from me,” he said. “But I shall find him, I shall
find him!”
It occurred to him one day that the strange spirit might dwell elsewhere
than in the amber.
He began to rub a glass tube and shouted aloud for joy when the spirit
at once appeared and seized upon the down and husks and shreds of paper.
He took a piece of sulphur and rubbed it and exulted when just the same
thing happened. But, in a little while, the spirit disappeared from the
amber, the glass tube and the sulphur alike and did not come back until
he rubbed them again.
He made himself a big sulphur ball, with an iron bar through the middle.
The iron bar was fixed between two stakes, so that he could turn the ball
with a handle which was at one end of the bar.
Now, when he turned the handle and laid his hand on the ball, he saw that
the little fluffs which flew in the air at that moment stuck to the ball
and, immediately after, flew out into the air, as though the spirit had
pushed them away. He turned the handle briskly and the fluffs danced about
the ball. One of them flew on his nose and stayed there for a little while
and then flew back to the ball again.
“The spirit dwells in me too,” said Two-Legs, gladly. “I believe he is
everywhere and in everything, if only one could manage to call him forth
from his hiding-place. Now I will summon the whole tribe and show them
something which they have never seen.”
He sent word round and they came and stood in crowds about his house. Then
he asked for the little boy who had played with the amber on the beach and
been the first of all to call forth the mysterious spirit:
“You deserve the honour of sharing in this day,” he said. “You all
remember the spirit to whom I gave the name of Electricity?”
“We remember him,” said the oldest of those present. “If you have anything
good to tell us about him, we shall be pleased to hear it. If it is
anything bad, then keep it to yourself and we will flee to a new country
where the spirit does not dwell.”