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.
said upon this occasion. Let that suffice.
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