There are some men to whom experience never teaches anything.
Hawkins is one of them; I am another.
As concerns Hawkins, I feel pretty sure that some obscure mental
aberration lies at the seat of his trouble; for my own part, I am
inclined to blame my confiding, unsuspicious nature.
Now, when the Hawkins' cook and the Hawkins' maid came “'cross lots” and
carried off our own domestic staff to some festivity, I should have been
able to see the hand of Fate groping around in my locality, clearing the
scene so as to leave me, alone and unprotected, with Hawkins.
Moreover, when Mrs. Hawkins drove over in style with Patrick, to take my
wife to somebody's afternoon euchre, and brought me a message from her
“Herbert,” asking me to come and assist him in fighting off the demon of
loneliness, I should have realized that Fate was fairly clutching at me.
By this time I should be aware that when Hawkins is left alone he
doesn't bother with that sort of demon; he links arms with the old,
original Satan, and together they stroll into Hawkins' workshop--to
perfect an invention.
But I suspected nothing. I went over at once to keep Hawkins company.
When I reached his place, Hawkins didn't meet my eye at first, but
something else did.
For a moment, I fancied that the Weather Bureau had recognized Hawkins'
scientific attainments, and built an observatory for him out by the
barn. Then I saw that the thing was merely a tall, skeleton steel tower,
with a wind-mill on top--the contrivance with which many farmers pump
water from their wells.
“Well,” remarked Hawkins, appearing at this point, “can you name it?”
“Well,” I said, leaning on the gate and regarding the affair, “I imagine
that it is the common or domestic windmill.”
“And your imagination, as usual, is all wrong,” smiled Hawkins. “That,
Griggs, is the Hawkins Pumpless Pump!”
“What!” I gasped, vaulting into the road. “Another invention!”
“Now, don't be a clown, Griggs,” snapped the inventor. “It is----”
“Wait. Did you lure me over here, Hawkins, with the fiendish purpose of
demonstrating that thing?”
“Certainly not. It is----”
“Just one minute more. Is it tied down? Will it, by any chance, suddenly
gallop over here and fall upon us?”
“No, it will not,” replied Hawkins shortly. “The foundations run twenty
feet into the ground. Are you coming in or not?”
“Under the circumstances--yes,” I said, entering again, but keeping a
wary eye on the steel tower. “But can't we spend the afternoon out here
by the gate?”
“We cannot,” said Hawkins sourly. “Your humor, Griggs, is as pointless
as it is childish. When you see every farmer in the United States using
that contrivance, you will blush to recall your idiotic words.”
I was tempted to make some remark about the greater likelihood of memory
producing a consumptive pallor; but I refrained and followed Hawkins to
the veranda.
“When I built that tower,” pursued the inventor, waving his hand at it,
“I intended, of course, to use the regulation pump, taking the power
from the windmill.
“Then I got an idea.
“You know how a grain elevator works--a series of buckets on an endless
chain, running over two pulleys, just as a bicycle chain runs over two
sprockets? Very well. Up at the top of that tower I extended the hub of
the windmill back to form a shaft with big cogs. Down at the bottom of
the well there is another corresponding shaft with the same cogs. Over
the two, as you will see, runs an endless ladder of steel cable. Is that
clear?”
“I guess so,” I said, wearily. “Go on.”
“Well, that's as far as I have gone. Next week the buckets are coming. I
shall hitch one to each rung of the chain, or ladder, throw on the gear,
and let her go.
“The buckets will run down into the well upside down, come up on the
other side filled, run to the top of the tower, and dump the water
into a reservoir tank--and go down again. Thus I pump water without a
pump--in other words, with a pumpless pump!
“Simple! Efficient! Nothing to get out of order--no valves, no pistons,
no air-chambers--nothing whatever!” finished Hawkins triumphantly.
“Wonderful!” I said absently.
“Isn't it?” cried the inventor. “Now, do you want to look over it,
to-day, Griggs, or shall we run through those drawings of my new loom?”
Hawkins has invented a loom, too. I don't know much about machinery in
general, but I do know something about the plans, and from what I can
judge by the plans, if any workman was fool-hardy enough to enter the
room with Hawkins' loom in action, that intricate bit of mechanism would
reach out for him, drag him in, macerate him, and weave him into the
cloth, all in about thirty seconds.
But an explanation of this to Hawkins would merely have precipitated
another conflict. I chose what seemed to be the lesser evil; I elected
to examine the pumpless pump.
“All right,” said the inventor happily. “Come along, Griggs. You're the
only one that knows anything about this. In a week or two, when somebody
writes it up in the _Scientific American_, you'll feel mighty proud of
having heard my first explanation of the thing.”
The pump was just as Hawkins had described--a thin steel ladder coming
out of the well's black mouth, running up to and over the shaft, and
descending into the blackness again. When we reached its side, it was
stationary, for the air was still.
“There!” cried Hawkins. “All it needs is the buckets and the tank on
top. That idea comes pretty near to actual execution, Griggs, doesn't
it?”
“Most of your ideas do come pretty near to actual execution, Hawkins,” I
sighed.
That passed over Hawkins' head.
“Now, look down here,” he continued, leaning over the well with a calm
disregard of the frailty of the human make-up, and grasping one of the
rungs of the ladder. “Just look down here, Griggs. Sixty feet deep!”
“I'll take your word for it,” I said. “I wouldn't hold on to that
ladder, Hawkins; it might take a notion to go down with you.”
“Nonsense!” smiled the inventor. “The gear's locked. It can't move. Why,
look here!”
The man actually swung himself out to the ladder and stood there. It
made my blood run cold.
I expected to see Hawkins, ladder, and all shoot down into the water,
and I wondered whether Heaven would send wind enough to hoist him out
before he drowned.
But nothing happened. Hawkins himself stood there and surveyed me with
sneering triumph.
“You see, Griggs,” he observed caustically, “once in a while I do know
something about my inventions. Now, if your faint heart will allow it,
I should advise you to take a peep down here. So far as I know, it's
the only well in the State built entirely of white tiles. Just steady
yourself on the ladder and look.”
Like a senseless boy taking a dare, I reached out, gripped the rung
above Hawkins, and looked down.
Certainly it was a fine well. I never paid much attention to wells, but
I could see at a glance that this one was exceptional.
“I had it tiled last week,” continued Hawkins. “A tiled well is
absolutely safe, you see. Nothing can happen in a tiled well, no----”
That was another of Hawkins' fallacies. Something happened right then
and there.
A gentle breeze started the windmill. Slowly, spectacularly, the ladder
began to move--downwards!
“Why, say!” cried the inventor, in amazement, as he made one futile
effort to regain the ground. “Do you think----”
I wasn't thinking for him, just then. All my wits were centered on one
great, awful problem.
Before I could realize it and release my hold, the ladder had dropped
far enough to throw me off my balance. The problem was whether to let
go and risk dashing down sixty feet, or to keep hold and run the very
promising chance of a slow and chilly ducking.
I took the latter alternative, threw myself upon the ladder, and clung
there, gasping with astonishment at the suddenness of the thing.
“Well, Hawkins?” I said, getting breath as my head sank below the level
of the beautiful earth.
“Well, Griggs,” said the inventor defiantly, from the second rung below,
“the gear must have slipped--that's all.”
“Isn't it lucky that this is a tiled well?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why,” I said, “a tiled well is absolutely safe, you see. Nothing can
happen in a tiled well, Hawkins.”
“Now, don't stand there grinding out your cheap wit, Griggs,” snapped
Hawkins. “How the dickens are we going to escape being soaked?”
Down, down, down, down, went the ladder.
“Well,” I said, thoughtfully, “the bottom usually falls out of your
schemes, Hawkins. If the bottom will only fall out of the water
department of your pumpless pump within the next half-minute, all will
be lovely.”
“Oh, dry up!” exclaimed the inventor nervously. “Goodness! We're halfway
down already!”
“Why not climb?” I suggested.
“Really, Griggs,” cried the inventor, “for such an unpractical man as
yourself, that idea is remarkable! Climb, Griggs, climb. Get about it!”
I think myself that the notion was rather bright. If the ladder was
climbing down into the well, we could climb up the ladder.
And we climbed! Good heavens, how we did climb! It was simply a
perpendicular treadmill, and with the rungs a full yard apart, a mighty
hard one to tread.
Every rung seemed to strain my muscles to the breaking point; but we
kept on climbing, and we were gaining on the ladder. We were not ten
feet from the top when Hawkins called out:
“Wait, Griggs! Hey! Wait a minute! Yes, by Jove, she's stopped!”
She had. I noted that, far above, the windmill had ceased to revolve.
The ladder was motionless.
“Oh, I knew we'd get out all right,” remarked the inventor, dashing all
perspiration from his brow. “I felt it.”
“Yes, I noticed that you were entirely confident a minute or two ago,” I
observed.
“Well, go on now and climb out,” said Hawkins, waving an answer to the
observation. “Go ahead, Griggs.”
I was too thankful for our near deliverance to spend my breath on
vituperation. I reached toward the rung above me and prepared to pull
myself back to earth.
And then a strange thing happened. The rung shot upward. I shot after
it. One instant I was in the twilight of the well; the next instant I
was blinded by the sun.
Too late I realized that I had ascended above the mouth, and was
journeying rapidly toward the top of the tower. It had all happened
with that sickening, surprising suddenness that characterizes Hawkins'
inventions.
Up, up, up, I went, at first quickly, and then more slowly, and still
more slowly, until the ladder stopped again, with my eyes peering over
the top of the tower.
It was obliging of the ladder to stop there; it could have hurled me
over the top just as easily and broken my neck.
I didn't waste any time in thanking the ladder. Before the accursed
thing could get into motion again, I climbed to the shaft and perched
there, dizzy and bewildered.
Hawkins followed suit, clambered to the opposite end of the shaft, and
arranged himself there, astride.
“Well,” I remarked, when I had found a comparatively secure seat on the
bearing--a seat fully two inches wide by four long--“did the gear slip
again?”
“No, of course not,” said the inventor. “The windmill simply started
turning in the opposite direction.”
“It's a weak, powerless little thing, your windmill, isn't it?”
“Well, when I built it I calculated it to hoist two tons.”
“Instead of which it has hoisted two--or rather, one misguided man, who
allowed himself to be enticed within its reach.”
“See here,” cried Hawkins wrathfully, “I suppose you blame me for
getting you into a hole?”
“Not at all,” I replied. “I blame you for getting me altogether too far
out of the hole.”
“Well, you needn't. If it hadn't been for your stupidity, we shouldn't
be here now.”
“What!”
“Certainly. Why didn't you jump off as we passed the mouth of the well?”
“My dear Hawkins,” I said mildly, “do you realize that we flitted past
that particular point at a speed of about seventy feet per second? Why
didn't you jump?”
“I--I--I didn't want to desert you, Griggs,” rejoined Hawkins weakly,
looking away.
“That was truly noble of you,” I observed. “It reveals a beautiful side
of your character which I had never suspected, Hawkins.”
“That'll do,” said the inventor shortly. “Are you going down first or
shall I?”
“Do you propose to trust all that is mortal of yourself to that
capricious little ladder again?”
“Certainly. What else?”
“I was thinking that it might be safer, if slightly less comfortable,
to wait here until Patrick gets back. He could put up a ladder--a real,
old-fashioned, wooden ladder--for us.”
“Yes, and when Patrick gets back those women will get back with him,”
replied Hawkins heatedly. “Your wife's coming over here to tea.”
“Well?”
“Well, do you suppose I'm going to be found stuck up here like a
confounded rooster on a weather vane?” shouted the inventor. “No, sir!
You can stay and look all the fool you like. I won't. I'm going down
now!”
Hawkins reached gingerly with one foot for a place on the ladder. I
looked at him, wondered whether it would be really wicked to hurl him
into space, and looked away again, in the direction of the woods.
My gaze traveled about a mile; and my nerves received another shock.
“See here, Hawkins!” I cried.
“Well, what do you want?” demanded the inventor gruffly, still striving
for a footing.
“What will happen if a breeze hits this infernal machine now?”
“You'll be knocked into Kingdom Come, for one thing,” snapped Hawkins
with apparent satisfaction. “That arm of the windmill right behind you
will rap your head with force enough to put some sense in it.”
I glanced backward. He was right--about the fact of the rapping, at any
rate.
The huge wing was precisely in line to deal my unoffending cranium a
terrific whack, which would probably stun me, and certainly brush me
from my perch.
“There's a big wind coming!” I cried. “Look at those trees.”
“By Jimminy! You're right!” gasped the inventor, recklessly hurling
himself upon the ladder. “Quick, Griggs. Come down after me. Quick!”
When one of Hawkins' inventions gets you in its toils, you have to
make rapid decisions as to the manner of death you would prefer. In
the twinkling of an eye, I decided to cast my fate with Hawkins on the
ladder.
Nerving myself for the task, I swung to the quivering steel cable,
kicked wildly for a moment, and then found a footing.
“Now, down!” shouted Hawkins, below me. “Be quick!”
That diabolical windmill must have heard him and taken the remark for a
personal injunction. It obeyed to the letter.
When an elevator drops suddenly, you feel as if your entire internal
organism was struggling for exit through the top of your head. As
the words left Hawkins' mouth, that was precisely the sensation I
experienced.
Clinging to the ladder for dear life, down we went!
They say that a stone will drop sixteen feet in the first second,
thirty-two in the next, and so on. We made far better time than that.
The wind had hit the windmill, and she was reeling us back into the well
to the very best of her ability.
Before I could draw breath we flashed to the level of the earth,
down through the mouth of the well, and on down into the white-tiled
twilight.
My observations ceased at that point. A gurgling shriek came from
Hawkins. Then a splash.
My nether limbs turned icy cold, next my body and shoulders, and then
cracked ice seemed to fill my ears, and I still clung to the ladder, and
prayed fervently.
For a time I descended through roaring, swirling water. Then my feet
were wrenched from their hold, and for a moment I hung downward by my
hands alone. Still I clung tightly, and wondered dimly why I seemed to
be going up again. Not that it mattered much, for I had given up hope
long ago, but still I wondered.
And then, still clutching the ladder with a death-grip, with Hawkins
kicking about above me, out of the water I shot, and up the well once
more. An instant of the half-light, the flash of the sun again--and I
hurled myself away from the ladder.
I landed on the grass. Hawkins landed on me. Soaking wet, breathless,
dazed, we sat up and stared at each other.
“I'm glad, Griggs,” said Hawkins, with a watery smile--“I'm glad you had
sense enough to keep your grip going around that sprocket at the bottom.
I knew we'd be all right if you didn't let go----”
“Hawkins,” I said viciously, “shut up!”
“But--oh, good Lord!”
I glanced toward the gate. The carriage was driving in. The ladies were
in the carriage. Evidently the afternoon euchre had been postponed.
“There, Hawkins,” I gloated, “you can explain to your wife just why you
knew we'd be all right. She'll be a sympathetic listener.”
Said Hawkins, with a sickly smile:
“Oh, Griggs!”
Said Mrs. Hawkins, gasping with horror as Patrick whipped the horses to
our side----.
But never mind what Mrs. Hawkins said. This chronicle contains enough
unpleasantness as it is. There are remarks which, when addressed to one,
one feels were better left unsaid.
I think that Hawkins felt that way about practically everything his wife
said upon this occasion. Let that suffice.