Steve and the Steam Engine, Sara Ware Bassett [8 ebook reader txt] 📗
- Author: Sara Ware Bassett
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"I've no solution at all to offer. How could I have?"
For the fraction of a second Mr. Tolman looked sharply at his son as if some new thought had suddenly struck him; then the piercing scrutiny faded from his eyes and he turned away.
"Well, I guess we shall have to drop the matter for the present, anyway, and be getting home," said he. "It will do no good for us to stand here in the cold and argue. We shall be no nearer an answer. Come, jump in, Steve!"
With a strange sense of reluctance the boy obeyed. He felt the door to confession closing with finality behind him; and now that he saw all chance for dallying on its threshold cut off, he began to regret that it should so completely close. Once again the opportunity to clear his conscience had come about in an easy, natural manner; confession had been gently and tactfully invited and he had turned his back. Never again, probably, would he have such a chance as this. Without any ignominious preamble he could have spoken the few words necessary and been a free man! But alas, he had hesitated too long. His father followed him into the car, banged the door, and they shot homeward.
Perhaps, temporized the lad as they rode along, he would say something when they reached the house. Why wasn't it better anyway to wait until he and his father were quiet and alone? Who could blame him for not wanting to confess his misdemeanors before an audience? His father would understand and forgive his reticence, he was sure. Having lulled his conscience to rest with the assurance of this future reparation he sank back against the cushions and drew the robe closer about him. There was no use in letting the ride be spoiled by worry. He did not need to speak until he got back, and he needn't speak at all if he did not wish to. If no favorable opening occurred, why, he could still remain silent and wait a better chance. He had taken no vow, made no promise; nothing actually bound him to act unless he chose.
It was surprising how his spirits rose with this realization. He even ventured to talk a little and make a joke or two. These overtures received only scant response from his father, however, for Mr. Tolman's brow had settled into a frown and it needed no second glance to assure Stephen that the happenings of the past half-hour had put the elder man very much out of humor. How unfortunate, mused the boy, that this mood should have come upon his father. It would take more than an ordinary measure of courage to approach him now. Why, it would be braving the lions, actually tempting fate to go to him with a confession when he looked like this. Would it not be much wiser to wait?
With a sharp swerve they turned in at the gate and rolled up the long driveway; then the front door burst open and from it issued not only Mrs. Tolman and Doris but with them the girl with the wonderful hair, Jane Harden, whom he had seen at Northampton. A hubbub of greeting ensued and in the interchange of gay conversation all thought of confession was swept from Stephen's mind.
Nor in the days that followed, with their round of skating, hockey, snow-shoeing, and holiday festivities, did the inclination to revert to the follies of the past arise. The big red touring-car was sent away without further allusion to its battered condition and with its departure the last link with the misfortunes that tormented him seemed destroyed. Once, it is true, when he overheard his father telling his mother that the bill for repainting and varnishing the car was going to be very large, his conscience smote him. But what, he argued, could he do? Even were he to come forward now and shoulder the blame it would not reduce the expense of which his father complained. He had no money. Therefore he decided it was better to close his ears and try and forget the entire affair. His father had evidently accepted the calamity with resignation and made up his mind to bear the consequences without further demur. Why not let the matter rest there? At this late date it would be absurd to speak, especially when it could not alter the situation.
In the meantime letters came from Mr. Ackerman and from Dick. The latter was very happy at the New Haven school and was making quite a record for himself, and it was easy to detect between the lines of the steamboat magnate's epistle that he was much gratified by the progress of his protégé. Thanksgiving would soon be here and if the Tolmans still extended their invitation for the holidays the two New Yorkers would be glad to accept it.
"I'll write Ackerman to-day," announced Mr. 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."
At the words Stephen's blood tingled.
What would his father think of him if he knew what a mean-spirited coward he was? Well, it was impossible to tell him now. It would upset the whole Thanksgiving party.
The night before Thanksgiving Mr. Ackerman and Dick arrived at Coventry and it was difficult to believe the change wrought in the New York boy. Not only was his face round, rosy and radiant with happiness but along with a new manliness had stolen a gentler bearing and a courtesy that had not been there when he had set forth to school.
"Why, you must have put on ten pounds, Dick!" cried Mr. Tolman, shaking hands with his young guest after greeting the steamboat magnate.
"It is eleven pounds, sir," laughed Dick. "We have bully eats at school and all you want of them."
The final phrase had a reminiscent ring as if it harked back to a time when three ample meals were a mirage of the imagination.
"Well, I am glad to hear you have done justice to them and encouraged the cook," was Mr. Tolman's jocular reply. "Now while you stay here you must cheer on our cook in the same fashion. If you don't we shall think you like New Haven better."
"I guess there is no danger of that," put in Mr. Ackerman. "Dick seems hollow down to his ankles. There is no filling him up; is there, boy?"
"I couldn't eat that third ice-cream you offered me yesterday," was the humorous retort.
"I hope you've saved some room for to-morrow's dinner," Mrs. Tolman interrupted, "for there will be mince pie and plum pudding and I don't know what not. And then there is the turkey—we ordered an extra large one on purpose."
Dick and Steve exchanged a sheepish grin.
"Well, it is jolly to see you good people," Mr. Tolman declared, as he ushered the visitors into the living room, where a bright fire burned on the hearth. "Our boys have done well, haven't they, Ackerman? I don't know which is to win the scholarship race—the steamboats or the railroads."
"We could compare marks," Stephen suggested.
"That would hardly be fair," Mr. Ackerman objected quickly, "for the steamboats did not start even with the railroads in this contest. Dick has had to put in a lot of hours with a tutor to make up for the work he missed at the beginning of the year. He has been compelled to bone down like a beaver to go ahead with his class; but he has succeeded, haven't you, sonny?"
"I hope I have," was the modest retort.
"Furthermore," went on Mr. Ackerman, "there are other things beside scholarship to be considered in this bargain. We want fine, manly boys as well as wise ones. Conduct counts for a great deal, you know."
Stephen felt himself coloring.
"There have been no black marks on Dick's record thus far. How about yours, Steve?" asked the New York man.
"I—er—no. I haven't had any black marks, either," responded Stephen, with a gulp of shame.
"That is splendid, isn't it!" commented Mr. Ackerman. "I wasn't looking for them. You have too fine a father to be anything but a square boy."
Once more Stephen knew himself to be blushing. If they would only talk about something else!
"Are you going to finish your steamboat story for us while you are here?" inquired he with sudden inspiration.
"Why, I had not thought of doing any steamboating down here," laughed the capitalist. "Rather I came to help the Pilgrims celebrate their first harvest."
"But even they had to come to America by boat," suggested Doris mischievously.
"I admit that," owned the New Yorker. "And what is more, they probably would have come in a steamboat if one had been running at the time."
"What was the first American steamship to cross the Atlantic, Ackerman?" questioned Mr. Tolman when they were all seated before the library fire.
"I suppose the Savannah had that distinction," was the reply. "She was built in New York in 1818 to be used as a sailing packet; but she had side wheels and an auxiliary engine, and although she did not make the entire trans-Atlantic distance by steam she did cover a part of it under steam power. Her paddle wheels, it is interesting to note, were so constructed that they could be unshipped and taken aboard when they were not in use, or when the weather was rough. I believe it took her twenty-seven days to make the trip from Savannah to Liverpool and eighty hours of that time she was using her engine. Although she made several trips in safety it was quite a while before the American public was sufficiently convinced of the value of steam to build other steamships. A few small ones appeared in our harbors, it is true, but they came from Norway or England; they made much better records, too, than anything previously known, the Sirius crossing in 1838 in nineteen days, and the Great Western in fifteen. In the meantime shipbuilders on both sides of the Atlantic were studying the steamboat problem and busy brains in Nova Scotia and on the Clyde were working out an answer to the puzzle. One of the most alert of these brains belonged to Samuel Cunard, the founder of the steamship line that has since become world famous. In May, 1840, through his instrumentality, the Unicorn set out from England for Boston arriving in the harbor June third after a voyage of sixteen days. When we reflect that she was a wooden side-wheeler, not much larger than one of our tugboats, we marvel that she ever put in her appearance. Tidings of her proposed trip had already preceded her, and when after much anxious watching she was sighted there was the greatest enthusiasm along the water front, the over-zealous populace who wished to give her a royal welcome setting off a six-pounder in her honor that shattered to atoms most of her stained glass as she tied up at the dock."
His audience laughed.
"You see," continued the capitalist, "the ship came in answer to a circular sent out by our government to various shipbuilders asking bids from swift and reliable boats to carry our mails to England. Cunard immediately saw the commercial advantages of such an opportunity, and not having money enough to back the venture himself the Halifax man went to Scotland where he met Robert Napier, a person who like himself had had wide experience in shipping affairs. Both men were enthusiastic over the project; before long the money necessary for the undertaking was raised, and the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, with a line of four ships, was awarded the United States Government contract. These ships were very significantly named: the Britannia in honor of England, the Arcadia as a compliment to Mr. Cunard's Nova Scotia home, the Caledonia in memory of Napier's Scotch ancestry, and the Columbia out of regard to America. And in passing it is rather interesting to recall that in homage to these pioneer ships it has become a tradition of the Cunard
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