Sara Ware Bassett

“ Good-by Ackerman! Good-by, Dick. Good luck to you! We are pinning our faith on you, remember. Don't disappoint us."
"I'll try not to," the boy answered, as he stepped to the platform.
"Dick is a fine, manly young chap," observed Mr. Tolman, after the train was once more under way and he and Stephen were alone. "I have a feeling that he is going to make good, too. All he needed was a chance. He has splendid stuff in him. There isn't a mean bone in his body." ”

“ Out of this impetus for prosperity came the remarkable clipper-ship era.
"We shall probably never see such beautiful ships again," continued Mr. Tolman, a trifle sadly. "Youth and romance go hand in hand, and our country was very young, and proud and eager in those days. Our commerce was only beginning and the far corners of the world were strange, unexplored and alluring. It is like an Arabian Night's Tale to read of those wonderful ships built to carry merchandise to China, India and other foreign ports. Speed was their aim—speed, speed, speed! ”

“ Tolman paused a moment, yawned, and then rose and beckoned to the porter.
"We still have much to perfect in our modern railroad, however," he said with a touch of humor. "The sleeping car, for example, is an abomination, as you are speedily to have proved to you. Here, porter! We'd like these berths made up. I guess we'd better turn in now, son. You have had enough railroading for one day and are tired. You must get a rest and be in the pink of condition to-morrow for, remember, you are going to wake up in New York." ”

“ Steve hesitated.
"I guess a train would have been good enough for me," he replied. "Was it really as bad as that before the railroads were built?"
"Quite as bad, I'm afraid," was his father's answer. "Sometimes it was even worse, for the unfortunate settlers did not always contrive to escape. It took courage to be a pioneer and travel the country in those days. Undoubtedly there was much romance in the adventure but hand in hand with it went no little peril and discomfort. We owe a great deal to the men who settled the West; and, I sometimes think, even more to the dauntless women." ”

“ And you in college," jeered Steve disdainfully.
"I am not taking a course in steam engines there," laughed his sister teasingly. "Anyway, girls are not expected to know who invented all the machines in the world, are they, Dad?"
Mr. Tolman waited a moment, then said soothingly:
"No, dear. Girls are not usually so much interested in scientific subjects as boys are—although why they should not be I never could quite understand. Nevertheless, I think it might be as well for even a girl to know to whom we are indebted for such a significant invention as the steam engine. ”

“ Although the route was only sixteen miles long the innovation was such a novel and tremendous one that all along the way crowds of spectators assembled to watch the passing of the magic train. At the starting point near the Hudson there was a dense throng of curious onlookers who gathered to see for the first time in all their lives the steam locomotive and its brigade of coaches,—for in those days people never spoke of a train of cars; a group of railroad carriages was always known as a brigade, and the term coach was, and in many cases still is applied to the cars. ”

“ He went up to the attic with Mr. Ackerman, where the two searched out skates, woolen gloves and sweaters; he jested with Doris and Jane Harden; he challenged Dick to a race across the frozen ground. But beneath his lightness lingered a grave depression which betokened to those who knew him best that something was wrong. Yet he was evidently determined the cloud should not obtrude itself and spoil the happiness of the day. Probably some business annoyance that could not be remedied had arisen; or possibly Havens had given notice. ”

“ I have not been on the ice in years but in my day I used to be quite a hockey player."
"Oh, do come, Mr. Ackerman!" cried Steve eagerly. "If you used to skate it will all come back to you. It is like swimming, you know; once you have learned you never forget how."
"But I've nothing to skate with," laughed the New Yorker.
"Oh, we can fix you up with skates all right, if you really want to go," Mr. Tolman said. "I have a couple of pairs and am sure you could manage to use one of them."
"So you are a skater, are you, Tolman?" the capitalist observed, with surprise. ”

“ Tolman cut him short.
"You took the quickest, most sensible course, Ackerman," said he. "Too much was at stake for you to risk delay. When a pocketbook filled with negotiable securities disappears one must of necessity act with speed. Neither Stephen nor I cherish the least ill-will about the affair; do we, son?"
"No, indeed."
Then smiling ingenuously up into the face of the New York man, he said:
"Don't you want to look in your pocketbook and see if everything is all right, sir?"
The steamboat financier laughed.
"You are a prudent young man," declared he. ”

“ There was a moment of silence and the rumble of the busy street rose to their ears.
"I never shall build anything that will help the men of the future," observed Stephen, in a low tone.
"Every human being is building all the time," replied his father. "He is building a strong body that shall mean a better race; a clean mind that shall mean a purer race; a loyalty to country that will result in finer citizenship; and a life of service to his fellows that will bring in time a broader Christianity. Will not the world be the better for all these things? ”

“ You are old enough now to be treated like a man, not like a little boy."
As he spoke he looked toward Stephen with an expression of such pride and affection that the force of it swept over the lad as it never had done before. What a bully sort his father was, he suddenly thought; and how genuinely he believed in him! Why not speak out now and clear up the wretched deception he had practiced, and start afresh with a clean conscience? With impulsive resolve he gripped the arms of the chair and pulled himself together for his confession. ”

“ How these three men managed to keep their secret so well is a mystery; but apparently they did, and when Fulton suddenly appeared on the Hudson with a steamboat named the Clermont for Mr. Livingston's country seat on the Palisades, the public was amazed. A model of the boat with a miniature engine had previously been tried out so the three promoters had little doubt that their project would work, and it did. As the new craft moved along without any sails to propel it the sensation it made was tremendous. People were divided as to whether to flee from it in terror or linger and marvel at it. ”

“ Tolman. "I shall not sit back and allow you two people to cry down the railroads. They are not perfect, I will admit, and unquestionably trains do not always go at the hours we wish they did; a touring car is, perhaps, a more comfortable and luxurious method of travel, especially in summer. But just as it is an improvement over the train, so the train was a mighty advance over the stagecoach of olden days."
"Oh, I don't know, Dad," Stephen mused. "I am not so sure that I should not have liked stagecoaches better. Think what jolly sport it must have been to drive all over the country!" ”

“ A swarm of added opponents dwelt on the fact that the passengers would be made ill by the lurching of the trains; that the rapid inrush of air would prevent their breathing; and that every sort of people would be herded together without regard to class,—the latter a very terrible calamity in a land where democracy was unknown. Even such intelligent men as the poet Wordsworth and the famous writer Ruskin came out hotly against the innovation, seeing in it nothing but evil."
"Didn't the opening of the Manchester and Liverpool Railroad convince the kickers they were wrong?" asked Steve. ”

“ In the meantime in America thoughtful men were mulling over the problem of steam navigation. Watt's engine had opened to the minds of inventors endless possibilities; and the success of the early railroads made many persons feel that a new era of science, whose wonders had only begun to unfold, was at hand. In Connecticut there lived a watchmaker by the name of John Fitch, who, although he knew little of the use of steam, knew much about machinery. ”

“ Therefore with naïve delight they welcomed one new invention after another, overlooking its defects and considering themselves greatly blessed to have anything as fine. Probably we, who are a thousand per cent better off than they, do more grumbling over the tiny flaws in the mechanism of our lives than they did over the mammoth ones."
"Oh, come, Dad!" protested Stephen. "Aren't you putting it rather strong?"
"Not a whit too strong, Steve," Mrs. Tolman interrupted. "I believe we are a fussy, pampered, ungrateful generation. ”

“ You see at the time Stephenson invented his steam locomotive nothing was known of this novel method of travel. As I told you, persons were accustomed to make journeys either by coach or canal. Then the steam engine was invented and immediately the notion that this power might be applied to transportation took possession of the minds of people in different parts of England. As a result, first one and then another made a crude locomotive and tried it out without scruple on the public highway, where it not only frightened horses but terrified the passers-by. ”

“ They had left their luggage at the hotel and now, while Steve's father went to meet a business appointment, the boy was to take a ride up the Avenue on one of the busses, a diversion of which he never tired. To sit on top and look down on the throng in the streets was always novel and entertaining to one who passed his days in a quiet New England town. Therefore he stopped one of the moving vehicles and in great good humor bade his father good-by; and feeling very self-sufficient to be touring New York by himself, clambered eagerly up to a seat. ”

“ Distance always brings a glamor with it. However, pretty or not, there was no disputing that she was a great favorite for every circle of students opened its magic ring at her approach and greeted her with a noisy clamor of affection. That she held herself with quiet reserve and was less demonstrative than those about her did not appear to lessen in the least their regard for her, and as Stephen watched he registered the wager that she was a person of more common sense than most girls. ”

“ It was with a sense of deep regret that Stephen bade good-by to Mr. Ackerman and Dick and returned to the hotel to join his father. For the steamboat financier he had established one of those ardent admirations which a boy frequently cherishes toward a man of attractive personality who is older than himself; and for Dick he had a genuine liking. There was a quality very winning in the youthful East-sider and now that the chance for betterment had come his way Steve felt sure that the boy would make good. ”

“ Perhaps we are a trifle more humane; and yet there is certainly much to be desired in the way we still sacrifice the public to our greed for money. An evil sometimes has to come to a climax to make us conscious of our injustice. Let us hope that our generation will not be so blind that it will not heed the warnings of its conscience, and instead delay until some such catastrophe comes upon it as pursued the racing boats of the Hudson River. ”

“ Tolman heartily. "Every great invention is usually suggested by a great need and so it was with this one. By 1836 the craze for railroad building swept both hemispheres. In England the construction of lines to most out-of-the-way and undesirable places were proposed, and the wildest schemes for propelling trains suggested; some visionaries even tried sails as a medium of locomotion instead of steam. Rich and poor rushed to invest their savings in railroads and alas, in many cases the misguided enthusiasts lost every shilling of their money in the project. ”

“ If every generation were as wise at the beginning as it is at the end there would be no progress. Nevertheless, when you reflect that ten thousand Chinese and Chilean laborers died while building one of the South American railroads it does make us wonder why we should be the ones to reap the benefits of so much that others sowed, doesn't it?" mused the boy's father.
"Do you mean to say that ten thousand persons were killed while that railroad was being built?" questioned Stephen, aghast. ”

“ The fun he had missed was, however, of scant consequence now. All he asked was to get the car safely back to his father's garage before the family returned from New York on the afternoon train. Now that his excitement had cooled into sober second thought, he marveled that he had been led into committing such a monstrous offense. He must have been mad. Often he had begged to do the very thing he had done and his father had always refused to let him, insisting that an expensive touring car was no toy for a boy of his age. ”

“ Her father shook his head.
"The perfecting of the locomotive, my dear, is, as Kipling says, another story."
"Tell it to us."
"Not now, daughter," protested Mr. Tolman. "I am far too hungry; and more than that I am eager to enjoy this beautiful country and forget railroads and locomotives."
"Did you say you were hungry, Henry?" asked Mrs. Tolman.
"I am—starved!" her husband said apologetically. "Isn't it absurd to be hungry so early in the day?"
"It is nearly noon, Dad!" said Steve, glancing down at the clock in the front of the car. ”

“ Tolman at breakfast. "The invitation has hung on Stephen and Dick, and I am glad to say they each have made good. How fine that that little East Side chap should have turned out so well! I don't wonder Ackerman is pleased. Everybody does not get appreciation in return for kindness. I know many a parent whose children repay what is done for them only with sneaking, unworthy conduct and utter ingratitude. Dick may not have been born into prosperity but he is a thoroughbred at heart and it shows in his actions. He is every inch a gentleman." ”

“ He was a mischievous, happy-go-lucky lad but in his homely, freckled face there was a winsome manliness. Whatever the scrapes he got into through sheer love of fun it was characteristic of him that he was always courageous enough to confess to them. This was the first inkling he had had that Stephen had not acquainted his father with the escapade of the previous week and such a course was so at variance with his own frank nature that he was aghast. ”