A clever boy's future fate seems sealed until visitors come to the family farm.While the other boys in Bloomboro were saving up their pennies to buy whistles and pop-guns and caramels, or base-ball bats and bicycles, according to their ages and tastes or to the seasons, Tom Pickernell was always saving up to buy tools. Sometimes they were of one kind, sometimes of another. He had bought even farming tools, although he had the lowest possible opinion of farming. His grandfather seemed to think that farming was the chief end of man; he was determined that Tom should be a farmer whether he liked or not; but he believed in good old-fashioned ways, and refused to buy any "new-fangled" machinery. Tom argued and argued, but his grandfather would not listen. He was scornful of all Tom's great undertakings in the mechanical line, and even Grandma, who usually had some sympathy with a boy, laughed until she cried at his idea of inventing a machine which should "instantly separate milk into its component parts." No tedious waiting for cream to rise, no slow and back-aching churning process. (Tom had reason to feel deeply on this point.) Almost in the twinkling of an eye the milk, as it came from the cow, was to be changed into butter and buttermilk. Cynthy, the hired girl, said it was "flyin' in the face of Proverdunce to talk like that," and was sure that a boy who did n't believe in churnin' would "surely turn out an infiddle."
Tom knew that the great creameries had improved upon the old-fashioned churns, but their improvements were only child's play compared to what he meant to do. He kept on thinking over his plans, and experimenting as far as he could, in spite of every one's jeers, although he became so exasperated sometimes, when people would n't understand him, that he would lie down on his face in the pine grove, and dig his fingers into the soil, and kick. But that was when he was younger. He was fourteen now, and had discovered that it was better to fight manfully against obstacles than to kick the empty air. He had also begun to learn that he did n't know so much as he thought he did; and this was a very hopeful sign for Tom, for it is n't taught in the grammar-school books, and seems to be a neglected branch even at the universities.
He had begun to understand, also, why he was "a trial," as Grandma and Cynthy said. He could n't see but that a boy had a right to take things to pieces, if he put them together again; but sometimes, quite unexpectedly, they failed to go together as they were before. This (as in the case of the alarm-clock, and Grandma's long-cherished music-box) was annoying, Tom candidly acknowledged. He felt so unhappy about those failures, that he forbore to remind them, when they scolded him, that he had made Grandma's worn-out egg-beater better than when it was new, and repaired Cynthy's long-broken accordion, so that now she could enjoy herself, playing and singing "Hark, from the Tombs," on rainy Sunday evenings.
It was a discouraging world, in Tom's opinion, but he was, nevertheless, still determined to invent, some day, The Instantaneous Butter-maker. Many, many times, in imagination, he had gone over all the details of a wonderful success with that invention, even to Grandpa's noble and candid confession (generally accompanied by tears) that he had misunderstood and wronged Tom; but the details were becoming modified as he grew older; he had begun to strongly doubt whether any such thing could ever be expected of Grandpa. There had been a schoolmaster at Bloomboro for one winter, who held the consoling belief that a boy might not be altogether a dunce although he was so "mixed up" in geography as to declare that Constantinople was the capital of Indiana, and was unable to regard English grammar as anything but a hopeless conundrum. Out of school he taught Tom geometry, and was astonished at his quickness. He even confided to Grandpa that he should not be surprised if Tom turned out a genius.
But this had anything but the desired effect upon Grandpa; for to his mind a genius was an out-at-elbows fellow who played on the fiddle, and eventually came to the poor-house. Grandma's idea was even worse: she said that if Tom's father had lived he would know how to bring Tom up so that he would n't turn out a genius, but she was afraid they should n't;—she thought it all came of his mother being a Brown.
But Grandma was too kind and sympathetic to be hard upon a boy, as Grandpa was. She laughed at him, and sometimes sighed dreadfully,—that was almost the hardest thing for Tom to bear,—and occasionally confided privately to Grandpa that she "was n't going to believe but that Tom would turn out as well as any boy, he was so kind-hearted and affectionate; and as for smartness, what other boy could make a foxtrap out of his own head?" Sly Grandma knew that Grandpa valued that fox-trap because it was useful on the farm, and so she kept it in remembrance.
Tom had no sympathizers among the boys. He liked Jo Whipple best of any, but Jo was a famous scholar; he could recite whole pages of history without missing a word; in dates you could seldom catch him tripping; he could see sense in grammar, and he was going to study Greek with the minister. And Tom shrewdly suspected that Jo secretly thought him a fool. Jed Appleby was the only boy in Bloomboro who had any interest in Tom's favorite pursuits, and Tom had painful doubts of his honesty and thought Jed meant to steal his inventions. So it happened that when Tom wished for that sympathy which is a necessity to most of us he was forced to seek it from Caddy Jane.
Caddy Jane was his cousin, and she was an orphan, too, and was being brought up by Grandpa and Grandma. It was Tom's opinion that that process was less hard upon a girl than upon a boy—and perhaps he was right; nevertheless, Caddy Jane had her private griefs. Grandma dressed her as little girls were dressed when she was young, and the other girls jeered at her pantalettes. Then, too, Grandma did n't approve of banged hair; she said Nature had given Caddy Jane "a beautiful high forehead," and she was n't going to have it spoiled; so she parted Caddy's hair in the middle and strained it back as tightly as possible into the tightest of little braids at the back. Tom wondered, sometimes, with a sense of the hollowness of life, if it were not that straining back of her hair which gave Caddy Jane's eyes the round, wide-open look which he took for wonder and admiration, when he showed her his machinery or told her his plans. It was certainly quite doubtful whether Caddy Jane understood, at all. Tom, in his heart, suspected her of being a very stupid little thing, but she had this agreeable way of looking with round-eyed, openmouthed wonder at one's productions, and would listen silently and with apparent interest to the longest outpouring of one's interests and plans; and if this is not sympathy it is certainly not a bad substitute for it. And if Caddy Jane was a little stupid, well,—it would be uncomfortable not to be able to feel superior to a girl, Tom thought; and if she had been quick at her lessons he knew he should not have liked her half so much. Caddy Jane not only found geography hard, but she was struggling with skepticisms as well. She did not believe that the earth was round, because, if it were, why did not the Chinamen fall off? Once when Grandpa had taken her with him to market, at Newtown, she had slipped, all by herself, into a Chinaman's laundry and asked him if he could walk head downward, like a fly, and the Chinaman had positively disclaimed any such ability. This (to Caddy Jane's mind the only possible solution of the mystery) having failed, she felt that there was nothing for a rational mind to do but to resign itself to a bold and dreadful doubt of the Geography. This seemed so reckless, and her trouble was so great, that she confided in Tom; although she was, as her grandmother said, "a dreadful close-mouthed little thing." The doubt grew still more painful when she discovered, through Tom's jests and evasions, that he knew no more about it than she. He said he could n't stop to explain it, and a girl need n't bother herself about such things, but she might ask Jo Whipple. Jo Whipple!—who made most unpleasant faces at her through a hole in the fence, and whooped dismally in the dusk while she ran across the field to carry the Scammons' milk! Caddy Jane felt that it would be quite impossible to ask him, and, moreover, she did n't believe that he knew any more than Tom, and said so, which was very gratifying to Tom. When one is conscious of being generally regarded as a dunce, it is agreeable to have even a silly little thing like Caddy Jane believe in one. So Caddy Jane was a real consolation to Tom, and there was no drawback to the pleasure of their meetings, except the fact that Caddy Jane's boots were almost always squeaky (Grandma believed in good, stout, economical ones), and Tom's enterprises were so strongly disapproved of that he was obliged to carry them on in the privacy of the old granary, which had been abandoned to rats and mice and weather.
It made a great stir at the farm when, one day, a letter came from Cousin David Creighton, asking if his wife and daughter might spend the summer there. He was going to Europe, and his wife wanted to be where she could have perfect rest from excitement and gayety, and he wanted Dulcie ("that is the little girl, I suppose," Grandma said, adjusting her glasses for the twentieth time in her excitement as she read the letter, "though of all the names I ever heard of—!") he wanted Dulcie to have cows' milk and country fare generally, and to get acquainted with Bloomboro, where he had been a boy.
Cousin David Creighton had been a very poor boy in Bloomboro. He had been fatherless and motherless and homeless, sheltered here and there, where any one would have him, and "bound out" to the miller; he had picked berries to pay for his winter shoes, and known the physical and mental trials of outgrown jackets and trousers. And then, suddenly, he had taken his fortunes into his own hands, and slipped away from Bloomboro; and scarcely any one cared to inquire where he had gone, and for years no one knew. The miller's wife had a theory that he had died of overeating, for she never knew a boy to have such an appetite. When his name began to appear often in the New York papers that found their way to Bloomboro, the old men would look at one another and wonder if it could be the one. The doubt was ended when a commercial traveler, who knew all about David Creighton, appeared at the Bloomboro hotel. It was their David, and, according to the commercial traveler, he could buy a gold mine every morning before breakfast, if he cared to, and carried two or three of the great railroads in his pocket. Grandpa said he 'most wished he had given David a dollar when he went away. He had thought of it, when he saw him tying up his bundle, but he was only a kind of second cousin, and he had been afraid, too, that he would n't make a good use of it. And Grandma said David's story was "like a made-up one in a picture-paper, and it seemed kind o' light-minded to listen to it." But the Bloomboro boys listened, and the heart of many a one burned within him.
David's wife was a fine city lady; the commercial traveler had heard wonderful reports of her diamonds and her turnouts. Grandma was afraid she would put on airs, and not be satisfied with anything; but Grandpa said he did n't " see how they could refuse, bein' 't was relations "—besides, crops had been poor for two years and the bank-account was running low. Grandpa thought much about that.
So the letter was sent, saying that David's wife and daughter might come; and Caddy Jane scarcely slept a wink three nights, for thinking and wondering about Dulcie, who was just nine, as she was; but Tom did n't trouble himself in the least about the expected guests, having weightier matters on his mind.
He had been at work for months, in his spare time, on a miniature threshing-machine of his own invention. Grandpa was so discouragingly old-fashioned as to believe in a boy and a flail as a threshing-machine. In Tom's opinion the horse-power threshing-machines, which some of the Bloomboro farmers boasted, were not much better. His machinery was somewhat complicated, and he had not yet quite decided whether the motive power should be steam or electricity, though he had leanings toward the latter. He had kept many midnight vigils in the old granary, with no company except now and then a bright-eyed, inquisitive mouse, and he thought in about a week or two he should finish the machine to his satisfaction. It was disheartening to find that Caddy Jane had transferred her interest almost entirely to the expected guests. And Jo Whipple was continually urging him to go fishing. A boy who thought great thoughts must think them alone, Tom reflected, bitterly.
Cousin David Creighton came to Bloomboro with his wife and daughter. They brought a French maid, their pug-dog, and a great amount of luggage; but, nevertheless, Caddy Jane and even Grandma herself were somewhat disappointed at the appearance of the party, for they did n't look in the least as if they came out of a fairy-book, as Caddy Jane expected, or even a picture-paper, they were so plainly dressed; and Grandma felt sure they had on their best clothes, because no one in Bloomboro would think of wearing anything else on a journey. And Grandma thought Dulcie such a queer, "outlandish-looking" little girl, with her hair down to her eyes, and her dresses down to her shoes and far too short-waisted. Grandma hoped she could have the Bloomboro dressmaker "fix her up a little" before the minister's wife called.
Although they were both nine, Dulcie and Caddy Jane looked askance at each other. It was only when, the day after the arrival, Dulcie needed sympathy in a great trouble that the ice was broken between them, and they immediately became great friends. Dulcie's dearest doll, Jacquetta, had been carelessly packed, and a heavy box pressing upon her had maimed and disfigured her for life.
Caddy Jane went flying through the woodshed that afternoon, with Jacquetta under her arm, to meet Tom. "O Tom, you never saw anything like her! Such a beauty! and she feels orfley! She cried and cried, and— you don't think you could mend her, do you, Tom? And anyway I want you to hear her talk; that was n't broken, and it's almost enough to frighten you, and oh! Tom, what is the matter?"
Caddy Jane's tone suddenly changed, for she discovered, as Tom came nearer, that his face was pale and his eyes so dark that they looked unlike Tom's soft, blue ones, and his teeth were set tightly together; altogether he looked almost
as if he were not Tom at all, as Caddy Jane said to herself. She had never seen him look so but once before, and that was when Samp' Peters set his fierce dog upon Tom's white kitten, and the kitten's back was broken.
"Do tell me what it is, Tom?" said Caddy Jane.
Tom set his teeth more tightly together, and then, suddenly, it came over him that it would be a relief to tell Caddy Jane. It always was,—perhaps because she was such a foolish little thing; she never gave any advice. Tom did n't like advice when he felt miserable.
"They were going over the farm, Grandpa and Cousin David Creighton," began Tom, in a strained, high-keyed voice, which he tried very hard to keep calm and steady. "Cousin David wanted to see the places that he remembered. I did n't think they would go into the old granary, it's such a tumble-down old place, but they did, and Grandpa rummaged around. He saw some of my tools—I've got careless since nobody ever goes there—and that made him suspect. I was away down on the edge of the swamp when I saw them in there; you'd better believe I ran! When I got to the door Grandpa had my model in his hand. I screamed out. I don't know what I said, but I tried to tell him what it was. I thought if I could make him understand that it would do more in five minutes than two men in a week!—but it was of no use; he had that smile on his face that just maddens a fellow. He threw my model down on the floor and set his foot on it."
"Oh, Tom!" Caddy Jane stepped upon some wood to make her tall enough, and put her arm around Tom's neck. Tom shook her off, after a moment; he thought the fellows would call him "a softy" if they should see her. But Caddy Jane knew that he was not displeased, for he went on to say, not without a little choking in his throat:
"And that is n't the worst, Caddy Jane."
"O Tom, what could be worse?" cried Caddy Jane.
"That man—Cousin David Creighton—acted as if he meant to be kind; he picked up the pieces and looked them over; he stayed after Grandpa had gone out; and he asked me about the machine. And he said I had made a mistake. I did n't believe him at first, but he showed it to me. Caddy, it would n't have gone, anyway!"
"But you could have made it right, Tom! You can make it over and make it go!" cried Caddy Jane, with intense conviction.
"He said I did n't know enough: that I was too ambitious; that I must learn things first. And it's true! That's the very worst of it! I don't believe I shall ever make anything that will go. I may as well dig potatoes all my life, as Grandpa wishes me to."
"Oh, Tom, you will make things that will go! I know you will," cried Caddy Jane. "You would n't think such wonderful things unless you could do them. Things will go wrong just at first. I thought I should never learn to heel and toe off, and now you can't tell my stockings from Grandma's. And you are so smart," she added quickly, feeling it presumptuous to compare herself, in any way, to Tom. "And oh, Tom, there are so many troubles! Dulcie has cried and cried. Just look here! Her beautiful nose all flattened, her eye dropped out, her cheek crushed in, and her dear arm broken off!"
Caddy Jane held up the melancholy wreck of a golden-haired wax doll.
"Pooh! girls' rubbish," growled Tom, thinking that Caddy Jane was going to be much less satisfactory, now that this new girl had come.
"But listen, Tom!"
"Pa-pa!" "Mam-ma!" said the golden-haired doll, not in a faint voice, as one might expect from her condition, but quite distinctly.
Tom fairly jumped; talking dolls were quite unknown to Bloomboro. Then he seized the doll eagerly from Caddy Jane's hands, and squeezed it again and again.
"I wonder how they do it! I wonder what the machinery is like!" he exclaimed. "She's all smashed up, anyway. That girl would n't mind if I should take her to pieces, would she?"
Tom had quite forgotten his troubles for the moment; his face was all aglow.
"Oh, Tom!" Caddy Jane's accent was full of horror. "I don't know what she would say. She says she thinks just as much as ever of her. And she feels orfley because, she says, she has neglected her lately for a colored doll that was given her in Boston. She's only made of kid, and she's got raveled yarn for wool, and bead eyes, and she's not so very much better-looking than my old Dinah; but she never saw a colored doll before, and she thinks she is perfectly fascinating; that's what she says, 'perfectly fascinating'; and her name is Nancy Ray, and she says if she could only talk, like Jacquetta—"
Tom was gazing at Jacquetta with speculative and longing eyes.
"You might leave her here. I will mend her arm some time," he said, with an assumption of indifference.
"Oh, I could n't do that. You might take her to pieces—of course you would n't mean to, but you might without thinking—and perhaps she would n't go together again!" said Caddy Jane, with a vivid recollection of some of Tom's enterprises.
"You'd better take her away just as quick as you can. She might get a scratch—such a handsome new doll!" sneered Tom.
Caddy hesitated. She could never bear to have Tom cross, and he was looking dejected again.
"I might ask Dulcie if she would like to have you mend her arm," she said.
"Well, go along, and don't keep talking about it. It is n't worth while," said Tom, crossly.
Caddy Jane was back in a minute.
"She says she does n't care. They 're making a new red dress for Nancy Ray, Dulcie and the French woman are, and I think Dulcie is almost forgetting about Jacquetta."
"Leave old Jacket here, then," said Tom, quite restored to good-nature. "And, I say, Caddy Jane, you might get up a little picnic for that girl. It would be nice to go down to Plunkett's pond and stay all day."
Caddy Jane caught readily at the idea. She said she would go, this very minute, and see what Grandma thought about it. She looked back wistfully at Jacquetta. Although she was nine, Caddy Jane still had the feelings of a mother toward dolls, and she strongly suspected that Jacquetta was about to be sacrificed to Tom's spirit of investigation. And there was the dreadful doubt whether she would go together again! But Caddy Jane struggled against her feelings, for Tom's sake—poor Tom, whose precious model had been crushed under Grandpa's heel!
Tom, the moment he was alone, thrust Jacquetta under his jacket, as far as she would go, and set out for the old granary. A half-hour before, he had said to himself that he could never bear to enter that place again; but now he pushed aside the ruins of his model with only a dull pang of remembrance, so absorbing was his curiosity about this wonderful new machinery.
He mended the arm first. It seemed a great waste of time; but that girl might take it into her head to want the doll suddenly, and she might make a fuss and cry. She was evidently not a girl like Caddy Jane, whom a fellow could put in her proper place. It is to be feared that the mending of that arm did small credit to Tom's mechanical skill; it certainly was a very hurried performance. And when it was done he carefully locked the granary door, and proceeded to discover what made Jacquetta say "Papa" and "Mamma."
He worked for a long time, and sometimes his forehead was puckered up into a very hard frown, and several times he uttered a little exclamation of satisfaction. Once he longed so much for Caddy Jane that he was tempted to go in search of her. He had made a discovery which he wished so much to tell to some one.
He had taken the machinery all apart, and he could put it together again; he would have liked to have Grandma and every one know that; but it did seem a great pity to fasten it up again in that old ruin of a doll.
Suddenly so bright an idea struck Tom that he threw his cap up among the cobwebby beams of the granary. "I 'll go and stir Caddy Jane up about that picnic. I 'll make her have it to-morrow. I can't wait," he said to himself. "Nobody could blame a fellow for trying such a scientific experiment as that." He quite surprised Grandma by his zeal in making preparations for the picnic, as he was not at all in the habit of being attentive to guests, and had shown a strong inclination to run away from "that girl." When the morning of the picnic came, Grandma thought he seemed more like himself, for he steadfastly refused to go.
"That boy is up to something; 't is n't any use to tell me!" Cynthy sagely remarked, as Tom prowled restlessly about the house, evidently in search of something.
At length, in a secluded corner of the piazza, he seemed to find what he sought and ran off with it to the old granary; and nothing more was seen of him for that day.
The picnic party returned late, and although it was plain to Caddy Jane's experienced eye that Tom had something on his mind, he did not confide in her. She observed that he continually cast anxious glances at a certain corner of the piazza; and when Grandma had sent him out to find a stray chicken which was peeping disconsolately in the tall grass, she went to see what there could be in that corner. But she found nothing except Nancy Ray, sitting in the carriage which had been poor Jacquetta's, just as her mistress had left her. She did not think it possible that Tom could have any interest in Nancy Ray; it was not long ago that he had terribly wounded her feelings by letting all the sawdust run out of her first doll, in an investigating spirit, and since then he had shown only scorn of dolls. She would have liked to ask him about Jacquetta, but he gave her no opportunity.
Early the next morning Dulcie went across the field with Caddy Jane, on an errand to Mrs. Scammon. As they passed the old granary, Dulcie caught sight of a bit of striped ribbon fluttering from the top of a tall thistle near the door. "It is Jacquetta's belt! " she exclaimed. "I should know it anywhere. Oh, my poor, dear Jacquetta! I wonder if he has mended her arm. This is the little house where you said he works, is n't it? Let us go in and see if we can find her."
Caddy Jane objected, but Dulcie had already pushed open the door. And it was quite useless, as Caddy Jane had found already, to object to anything that Dulcie wished to do. She opened drawers and peered into boxes and barrels, while Caddy Jane, filled with anxious forebodings, begged her to come away; and at last, at the same time, they both caught sight of some golden locks, a waxen cheek, a collapsed, dismembered body! These fragments lay on a table, in a heap of rubbish partially covered with shavings.
"Oh, oh, that cruel, wicked boy! he has broken her all to pieces! And she was the very dearest doll I ever had! And you said he would mend her! Oh, how could I trust you! Oh, my poor, dear Jacquetta!"
Dulcie's grief waxed louder upon reflection. She heaped reproaches upon Caddy Jane. She ran toward the house, in spite of all Caddy's entreaties, crying with grief and rage. Caddy saw, with a sinking heart, that Grandpa and Dulcie's father were standing together upon the piazza. Grandpa would be very angry. Tom's passion for taking things to pieces was the one thing with which he had no patience. And he had especially enjoined upon both Tom and Caddy to be very polite and attentive to the guests. Oh, what would happen to Tom?
There he was now, coming around the corner of the house, just in time to see the doll's mangled remains in Dulcie's hands, and to hear her woful complaint, poured out with tears and sobs. Grandpa's face was like a thunder-cloud, and when he asked Tom, in a dreadful voice, what he had to say for himself, Tom would not answer a word. He was in one of his sullen moods, and, indeed, it was not of much use to try to answer Grandpa when he was in that state of mind. And Dulcie's father looked as if he were very sorry—for his little girl, of course, Caddy Jane thought.
"And I never knew a doll that could talk before, and he's broken it right out of her!" sobbed Dulcie.
And then a sudden inspiration seized Caddy Jane; she had them sometimes, though she was such a foolish little thing.
She flew along the piazza and seized Nancy Ray out of the carriage, pressed her to her bosom, and uttered a cry of joy. She thrust her into Dulcie's arms, while Dulcie ceased her sobs in astonishment.
"Papa!" "Mamma!" said Nancy Ray.
"Oh, oh, she can talk!" cried Dulcie, becoming a rainbow. "What does it mean? She was the nicest doll I ever had, before,"—(Oh, false and fickle Dulcie!)" and now she's perfect! Oh, did you do it?" (to Tom, who tried to look indifferent.) "It's too bad that I called you an orfie boy when you are such a nice one, and can do such wonderful things. And Jacquetta was only a broken old thing."
Tom was beginning to talk to Dulcie's father; Grandpa had walked away, with something like an amused look upon his face. Tom was excited and talked eagerly. It was a comfort to explain that machinery to some one who seemed to understand and be interested. And there was one little point where he thought an improvement might be made—it might be less complicated. He hesitated before saying this, because he thought Cousin David might find some mistake again, or perhaps laugh at him. But he did n't; he seemed to consider the matter seriously, and asked a great many questions, and at last said that he should n't wonder if Tom were right, and if Tom would work up his idea so that it could be seen he might possibly secure a patent for it! He thought those talking dolls were not made in this country, but he would see what could be done with it abroad; sometimes a little thing like that amounted to a great deal. And, anyway, he had become so convinced of Tom's mechanical ability, that he was going to ask Grandpa's consent to Tom's going to New York in the fall, where he would give the boy a technical education.
Tom was so overcome that he only colored, and gasped, and looked at Caddy Jane. And Caddy Jane, being only a foolish little girl, cried. But I think Cousin David felt that he was receiving gratitude enough.
"I never expected anybody would believe in me till I'd made an Instantaneous Buttermaker or an improved phonograph, or something great," said Tom; "and to think it 's come about through a silly old doll!"
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