Chapter XIII Going to the Harbor
Mr. Le Bras told Pierre that a friend of Mr. Frothingham, who was a guest at the large hotel at the Harbor, had gone out with them in the yacht, and had stated, incidentally, that he was anxious to find some good teacher of German to instruct his son in that language; since the young man was to travel in Germany in the fall, and it would be an advantage to know something about the language to begin with. He said he had spoken of Pierre, and recommended him; and the gentleman was anxious that he should come down to the hotel the next day, and hold an interview with himself and his son. Pierre was much pleased: he understood the German language as well as he understood English, and this would give him an opportunity to earn something during vacation. Mr. Le Bras said they would go down to the Harbor, then, in the morning, and Mrs. Le Bras and the children could go too, if they wished. Mrs. Le Bras replied that she had other plans for the next morning, and the children could ask Julia in her place, if they liked. The invitation was, accordingly, given to Julia, much to her delight. She said she liked to go to the hotel, it was such a gay place, and her mother always let her wear her best clothes when she went there.
They started the next morning about ten. Mr. Le Bras said they would not be home to dinner, but would dine at the hotel, so as to spend the afternoon, and give the children a good chance to see all the sights at the Harbor. He should go into town on business in the afternoon, and if the children and Pierre preferred to go with him rather than remain at the Harbor, they could do so.
Julia was dressed very handsomely, and wore a diamond ring, which shone brightly through her delicate, colored mitts.
“I wish Ruth was with us too,” said Sue, as the horses pranced off down the shell road.
“What! in that blue calico?” replied Julia, laughing.
Sue, thus reminded, thought, herself, the blue calico would look rather odd in the fine carriage, by the side of their best clothes; and yet, somehow, it didn’t seem as though it ought to, since the blue calico was the best dress Ruth had, and it was not her fault that she could not dress as well as they did.
“She’s a real nice girl, anyhow,” said Sue, “and just as good as we are,—if not better.”
“It don’t make any difference about her being good,” returned Felix: “rich folks are rich folks, and poor folks are poor folks, and they can’t go together.”
“Yes, they can,” returned Sue: “we went together yesterday, and had a real good time.”
“I mean they can’t go together and take dinner at a big hotel: they can’t go together where folks have to be dressed up and look smart.”
“I think it’s too bad, anyhow,” said Sue emphatically.
“So do I!” said Johnny. “I guess that’s the reason folks don’t like to be poor: they can’t have as good times as rich folks, and they have to be looked down upon. I shouldn’t like to be poor.”
“I am poor, and yet I have a pretty good time, Johnny,” remarked Pierre.
“And you and I are not rich, my son, and yet we manage to be pretty cheerful,” added Mr. Le Bras.
“But we’re not so very poor,” replied Johnny: “Pierre dresses well, and so do we, and no one would think of calling us poor.”
“Then, it is about as good as if we were rich,” said Mr. Le Bras; “and perhaps it is better, though we are not apt to think so. It is my opinion that Pierre enjoys that new suit of his far more for having had to work hard in my office to earn it; and I don’t enjoy seeing you and Sue in your best clothes any the less, because I have had to do some writing and talking in my office, or some speech-making in court, to purchase them. I cannot have just the kind of enjoyment Mr. Frothingham has in his fine yacht; but perhaps I manage to have just as good a time some other way, even when I do not have the advantage of your uncle’s cottage by the sea. You and I have had pretty good times, before this summer, Johnny.”
“Oh, yes!” said Johnny. “I think we have grand times at home.”
“And often with nothing more costly than a book out of a free library. Don’t go to having the dreary thought that persons who are not rich cannot enjoy themselves; for if that were so, the great portion of the people in the world would be miserable, and that would be a sad thing to think of. I shouldn’t wonder if Ruth were enjoying herself in some way over at the lighthouse, as much as we are here in the carriage.”
“I don’t believe she is,” said Sue; “because her mother is dead, and her aunt don’t like to have her stay there.”
“But that isn’t because she is poor. If her own mother were there, she might be happy.”
“Oh, yes! I could be real happy there, myself, seeing the waves, and hearing them clash, if you and mamma and Johnny were there; and it wouldn’t make any difference if I had on my very worst dress.”
“Wouldn’t you be just a little happier if you had on a diamond ring like Julia’s?” asked Felix quizzically.
“Perhaps I should for a little while; but I would rather papa should have a diamond pin like Mr. Frothingham’s. Didn’t it shine beautifully?”
“A diamond is nothing but carbon,” remarked Johnny; “and charcoal is carbon too. I will give papa a piece of charcoal to wear.”
“Ho, ho!” laughed Felix: “that’s a yarn! A diamond is just as different from charcoal as possible!”
“How?” asked Johnny.
“Why, it’s white, and charcoal is black; it’s transparent, and charcoal isn’t; it won’t rub off, and charcoal will; it won’t burn up like charcoal, and it’s worth no end of times more.”
“But they are both carbon just the same; and those lozenges you are eating are principally carbon, too, although they are a good deal whiter than charcoal. You haven’t any idea how much charcoal you are eating, when you eat sugar or candy. There isn’t any particular difference between the whitest of sugar and charcoal, except that the particles are so arranged as to reflect or absorb light differently. I can take a handful of white sugar, and, by putting in something to change the arrangement of the particles, make it look as much like charcoal as it is, just as black as your boot, and spread out into a great deal larger space than it occupied before.”
“Yes, he can,” said Sue: “I’ve seen him do it.”
“Well, I’d like to see him do it, before I believe it.”
“I’ll do it when we get home, to-night, if you will give me five cents, and papa will get me some acid to do it with, when he goes into town. The kind of acid I want will cost five cents.”
“All right! here’s your five cents,” replied Felix, taking the amount from his pocket-book.
“After you have seen it proved that sugar is like charcoal, perhaps you can believe more easily that a diamond is. The particles of carbon in a diamond are packed very closely together, and in such a way as to reflect the rays of light beautifully, and separate them like a prism, when it is cut right. It is so hard, that it is not easy to burn it,—that is, to separate the particles by heat, and make them combine with the oxygen in the air,—but it will burn up if subjected to very strong heat indeed. There’s no danger of your diamond burning up, though, Julia, even though you should drop it into the fire by accident; for a fire in a stove wouldn’t be hot enough.”
“I’m glad of that,” replied Julia.
“I don’t see as chemistry does so very much good,” remarked Felix: “it only tells you about things; it don’t make any thing.”
“O Felix!” exclaimed Johnny: “there are hardly any of the arts that can be carried on without chemicals, or things chemists have learned how to make; and some of the most useful discoveries in the world have been made by chemists.”
“Tell him about the way they learned how to make Bessemer steel out of common iron, as an example, Johnny,” said Pierre.
“Well. You see, Felix, they can’t make Bessemer steel out of iron that has much phosphorus in it; and most of the iron in the world has a good deal of phosphorus in it; and about all in our country and England has. So the English had to buy the pure iron in Spain, or some other country, and bring it over at a great cost, to make Bessemer steel of.”
“Why didn’t they take the phosphorus out of the iron?”
“Ah! that’s just it! They didn’t know how. They studied and studied to do that very thing; for if they could find an easy way to get the phosphorus out, they could make railway steel out of their own iron, and stop buying of Europe. Mr. Thomas, a young English chemist, did not believe what other folks said, who had tried experiments to get phosphorus out of iron: they said it could not be driven out by heat. So he and a friend of his set to work, with a little kettle, to try again. When iron ore is melted, the phosphorus has such an affinity for iron, that it will leave the stone, and go into the iron; or if there is any in the coal or limestone used, it will leave either of them to get into the iron. But Mr. Thomas and his friend found by experiment, that although the phosphorus had a greater affinity for iron than any thing else up to a very high temperature, yet, if the iron was heated up to twenty-five hundred degrees, it would leave the iron to go into limestone; and you must keep it at that heat until the limestone with the phosphorus in it was drawn off from the iron, or the phosphorus will go right back to the iron again. So, by a patent process which Mr. Thomas and Mr. Gilchrist invented, one of the principal things about which is the putting of a quantity of limestone into the furnace with the iron ore, as a bait to attract the phosphorus when it is heated to twenty-five hundred degrees, they can get pure iron in England out of very common ore, and so sell us railroad-steel a good deal cheaper than we can make it; and England does not have to send to Spain and other countries now, as it used to, for iron that has no phosphorus in it.”
“That is a pretty good story, Prof. Tell us some more chemistry stories.”
“No,” said Mr. Le Bras: “we can’t have Johnny teaching all the way to the Harbor. And you, young man, must begin to look up information in books, as Johnny has, without always troubling some one to tell you; and then you can begin to inform others of some things, and not always take the place of a learner. Pierre, you must begin to put this young man into a solid course of reading, where he will be gaining some information of value by his own efforts. Isn’t he out of stories yet?—that is, don’t he read any thing else?”
“I was intending to ask you pretty soon,” replied Pierre, “if I hadn’t better go into town and see if I can find some book of information. I have begun to have him read items of importance in the papers, but there is no suitable book at the cottage.”
“Get him a book to-day, any thing you please, and I will foot the bill.”
“Don’t get me any thing awful dry, will you, Pierre?” said Felix. “If you do, I shall just read it without knowing a word I have read.”
“I’ll see to that. Perhaps I shall have to send to New York for what I want. But I think I can fix you, sir. I don’t mean that you shall forget any thing you read that is worth remembering, even if I have to catechise you every day about it.”
“Well, anyhow, I don’t have to read but an hour a day,” returned Felix; “and I guess I can stand it a while longer.”
“That is all put on,” said Pierre to Mr. Le Bras, in a low tone: “he is beginning to like his hour of reading in the morning; he told me so yesterday.”
“And does he keep on improving?”
“Oh, yes! he is doing finely.”
Before long, they reached the harbor, which was the broad mouth of a beautiful river. There was a white, sandy beach, with long rows of bathing-houses at one point, and a great shore-dinner room with pavilion. Farther down was a wharf, about which were sailboats and yachts, and a beautiful little steamer, that ran between the harbor and the town. A great hotel stood a little back from the shore, near which stood a number of pretty cottages for lodging some of the guests of the house. At intervals along the beach were handsome great cottages, as large as Mr. Frothingham’s. There was also a lighthouse on the beach. At a little distance back of the lighthouse was a pretty grove with seats, swings, and revolving hobby-horses. The children spent the rest of the morning in the grove, and along the shore. Then came the novel event of the day,—dinner in the great dining-room at the hotel, with colored waiters, and all the courses, from soup to nuts. The tables were filled with handsomely dressed, merry persons. The show and clatter, discussion of the bill of fare, and the courses with their long pauses between, made it easy to spend so much time at the table that a good part of the afternoon was gone before they left the dining-room; and so the children concluded they would not go into town that day.
As they were passing out through the hall, Johnny noticed that a good many men were sitting with newspapers in their hands. He stopped as they passed the desk, and asked of the clerk,—
“Does any boy sell papers here?”
“No,” replied the clerk.
“Where do all these gentlemen get their papers?”
“Some of them come by mail, and some get them when they go into town.”
As they were going down the steps toward the wharf, to see Mr. Le Bras and Pierre off for town,—since they had decided to go in the steamer, and leave the carriage for Oliver to take the children for a drive along the beach,—Johnny said,—
“There are no papers brought here to the hotel: I have a mind to go over to town mornings, and get some papers and bring them up; if I could sell a good many, I could make considerable money, and have a good time, by coming to the town and Harbor every day.”
“But you might not sell enough to make it pay,” replied his father.
“I can afford to try it one day. I feel rather badly about not earning any spending-money this summer, and so I should like to try.”
“But how could you get into town every day?”
“Why, Pierre will come over mornings to teach that young man, won’t he?”
“Yes; that is decided: but he only comes as far as the Harbor.”
“I can go to town and back in the steamer.”
“But that will cost you twenty cents a day.”
“Yes; but I expect to earn more than that; and then, I shall get my money’s worth in the sail; I expect to spend some of the money I earn, in having a good time.”
“Very well: you can try the experiment, if you have any money to risk in the enterprise.”
“I brought two dollars with me of money I earned myself, and so I think I will try it.”
“What’s the use of taking all that bother for some money?” said Felix. “Won’t you give him all the money he wants, uncle Frank?”
“I cannot very well afford to give a boy all the money he wants,” replied Mr. Le Bras; “and, besides, I think it is a very bad plan.”
“I like money better that I’ve earned myself, and I like what I buy with it better than I do the things bought with money other persons have earned,” said Johnny. “Besides, I belong to The Independents, who don’t spend money themselves that they have not earned.”
“But you have to: you can’t buy your own clothes.”
“I don’t spend the money for my clothes: my father buys those things for me. But I earn all my own spending-money, and have these two years.”
“I’m glad I don’t have to,” said Felix.
“Ah! but you don’t know what great fun it is.”
As Mr. Le Bras and Pierre stepped on board the little steamer, Johnny handed his father the five cents Felix had given him, rolled up in a little slip of paper. “Please get me the acid, father,” he said: “I’ve written the name of it on that slip of paper.”
After the steamer had gone, the children remained some time on the pier, looking at the yachts, particularly Mr. Frothingham’s, which was named “Grace,” after his wife. It was the largest yacht there, and the handsomest. Then they went up into the grove to stay until it was cooler, after which Oliver was to take them to ride all about the Harbor, and down to see the fort, which was half-way between the harbor and the town.
As they were riding back from the fort, up the Harbor road, about five o’clock, a very handsome carriage came into the road at a turn just ahead of them, with a span of black horses wearing very handsome harness. On the back scat were a lady and a girl, and a gentleman sat opposite talking with them. The driver was in livery.
“Why! There’s Mr. and Mrs. Frothingham! and—and Ruth, I do believe!” exclaimed Felix.
At that moment, Ruth observed the children, and said something to Mr. and Mrs. Frothingham, who turned and bowed. Mr. Frothingham spoke to the driver, who drove more slowly as he turned in the direction of the Harbor; so that Oliver speedily overtook him, and the two carriages were side by side.
“So you are alone by yourselves?” said Mr. Frothingham.
“Father and Pierre have gone into town,” replied Johnny, “and we are riding until they come back. We came down this morning, and took dinner at the hotel.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Frothingham: “that was a good idea. I think, Grace, we had better take Ruth to the hotel for an ice-cream. Suppose we all take some cream or ices?”
Mr. Frothingham then said, turning to the children, “Mrs. Frothingham and I have been over to the lighthouse to get Ruth: she is to make us a visit. We rode around here to give her a little drive before we went home. You must come up to the house and see her this week: I expect she will be a little homesick at first, away from her uncle.”
But Ruth did not look at all homesick yet; her eyes sparkled, and her cheeks were glowing; she looked so happy and so handsome, that even the plain dark-blue calico seemed very becoming.
When they reached the hotel, Mr. Frothingham insisted upon their all going in for ice-cream and cake and maccaroons.
Julia was rather horrified at first, at entering the big hotel dining-room, with its groups of richly dressed guests, accompanied by a girl in a calico dress; but seeing that the waiters treated Mr. and Mrs. Frothingham with great deference, and the gentlemen and ladies bowed very respectfully as they passed, she concluded that the honors of the occasion quite offset the disgrace, and enjoyed the entertainment very much. Ruth, in her pretty, modest way, seemed quite happy and animated, much more so than at the time she had spent the day at Mr. Le Bras’, with, the going down to the cottages to find a place to work on her mind.
Mr. and Mrs. Frothingham and Ruth rode directly home after leaving the hotel; and as Mr. Le Bras and Pierre had not returned, Oliver drove the children up and down near the pier until they arrived. It appeared that Pierre, having come across an old grist-mill in the suburbs, as Mr. Le Bras and he were walking about the town, had wished to stop and sketch it, and Mr. Le Bras had waited for him; for the sketch was to be a present to Mrs. Le Bras, who might like to make a painting from it.
“I must begin to make some sketches too,” said Johnny.
“So must I,” said Sue.
“Why, you can’t draw, can you?” replied Julia, who did not know how to use a pencil with any skill herself.
“Oh, yes!” said Sue. “At least, I can draw pictures from nature that are good enough for my sketch-book. I didn’t bring my sketch-book, but I can paste the pictures in afterwards. Did you bring any paper and drawing-pencils, Johnny?”
“No; but mother has plenty she will lend us; she told me I need not pack any.”
“Did you remember the acid, uncle Frank?” asked Felix.
“Yes,” replied Mr. Le Bras, taking a little vial, wrapped in white paper, from his pocket, and handing it to Johnny. “The druggist labelled it ‘Poison,’ I noticed; so be careful of it.”
“I know it is poison well enough without the label,” replied Johnny. “I have learned what it is made of, how it is made, and all about it, from my chemistry.”
When they reached home, Sue was telling her mother about Mr. and Mrs. Frothingham taking Ruth home for a visit, and how they all had ice-cream together at the hotel.
“Just think!” said Felix: “there was Ruth in that old calico dress.”
“No Felix: it is a new calico,” interrupted Sue.
“Common calico, I mean; and there was every one else all dressed up. I should think Mr. and Mrs. Frothingham would have been ashamed of her.”
“I respect them very much for not being ashamed of her,” replied Mrs. Le Bras: “persons who are ashamed of other people for circumstances for which the persons who suffer most from them are not to blame, ought to be ashamed of themselves. I shall always be proud to say that I made the acquaintance here this summer of a millionnaire and his wife who were not spoiled by having a great amount of money, but were true gentleman and lady. No one can be a true gentleman or lady who is not kind-hearted, and free from foolish pride and assumption. Ruth seems to be as nice a little girl as I ever saw, and it is nothing to her discredit that she cannot dress finely.”
While they were at supper, Johnny poured some water into a tumbler, and added so much sugar that it was soon quite a sirup.
“I like sugar and water: I guess I’ll have some too,” remarked Felix, putting a little water into his tumbler, and drawing the sugar-bowl towards him.
“Johnny isn’t going to eat that, Felix,” said Sue.
“What is he going to do with it, then?”
“You wait and see,” replied Johnny. “I want the sugar to get well dissolved by the time supper is over, and so I mixed it now.”
After supper, Johnny took the vial from his pocket, and asked Kate if she would be kind enough to bring him a common teaspoon. When the spoon was brought, Johnny handed the vial to Sue. Now that the paper was removed, the vial was seen to contain some nearly white fluid.
“You pour it in gently while I stir,” said Johnny.
Sue took out the cork, and began to pour the fluid slowly into the tumbler, while Johnny stirred the sweetened water, etc., briskly. Presently the contents of the tumbler grew very black, and began to solidify, rising rapidly in the tumbler, while what Felix called “smoke” issued from it.
“Put your hand on the tumbler, Felix,” said Johnny.
Felix did so, but drew it back quickly. “It burns,” said he.
“Yes,” said Johnny: “chemical union causes heat, and there are two substances uniting here. You know the uniting of carbon or hydrogen with oxygen produces heat, and it’s so with many other substances.”
“It’s going to run over!” said Sue.
Johnny slipped a saucer under the tumbler; and the black mass overflowed, half filling the saucer also.
“Now, you see,” continued Johnny, “the particles of matter have changed very much; for one thing, it is plain enough that they are farther apart; the acid and the sirup would not have half filled the tumbler with their particles as near together as they were to begin with; but now they fill the tumbler and part of the saucer. Who says that there isn’t charcoal for you? Just think, Felix! if you had eaten that sirup, you would have eaten so much charcoal: it would probably be more than you could burn up in your lungs to-day or to-morrow, with all the rest of the articles having carbon in them that you have eaten, and so you would have laid it up in extra fat on your body to use some other time, unless you keep on taking in more fuel than you need all the time; and, in that case, it would stay as stored fuel in the shape of fat, I suppose, unless the blood managed to carry off some of it to the lungs to be burned as waste matter. I don’t exactly know about that: I haven’t got very far in physiology yet.”
“It’s stopped smoking now,” said Felix, taking up some of the black mass in his fingers. “I suppose it isn’t good to eat with that poison acid in it.”
“And it don’t look very appetizing, either,” replied Johnny. “But a person who had the right kind of apparatus, and knew how, could get all the sugar I put in there back again, so that it would be just as good to eat as it was before. I suppose that smoke was a gas escaping. I haven’t studied into this experiment as I ought; but I shouldn’t wonder if the oxygen in the water united with the acid, and that set the hydrogen in the water free, so that the ‘smoke’ was hydrogen gas. But I am not certain. I’ll find out exactly how it is when I get back where my books are. Or, like enough, Pierre will tell us all about it.”
“Well! This does look amazingly like charcoal,” said Felix, “only it is sort of sticky. I guess we had better put it away till it dries.”
“I don’t believe it will dry,” replied Johnny; “because that acid has such an affinity for water that it will collect moisture. It will stay just about as it is now; and, after you have looked at it enough, I had better throw it in the fire, where it will be out of the way: mother don’t like to have any thing with poison in it about.”