i
the one astonishing thing about life, as we have but now mentioned, is its utter commonplaceness. it is a terrible thing to die, to end our connection with life as we know it; yet folk die, and the world accepts the fact with not more than a few hours' concern. folk are born, a very wonderful thing, yet a common. we flash messages across the sea—as soon we shall across the ether, to other planets. the latter event will be but of brief interest. we travel by impounded steam, and have long ago ceased to marvel at that miracle. soon we will travel by means of other power, at speeds inconceivable to-day. were that time here we would not wonder. it is all, all commonplace. and none of us does much thinking. it is only over the unimportant things that we ponder. thus, over a revolution in politics we chatter excitedly; but the revolution in principles excites us not at all. the revolution in science, in thought, in life, is accepted, when it comes, with no concern, as though belonging to us from time immemorial; as indeed it did.
it was wholly within human practice that affairs should now go on at kelly row much as they had always gone, in spite of the fact that kelly row now harbored, in a certain woodshed back of the dingy rawn abode, ideas and deeds that had not earlier been known in kelly row routine. here mr. rawn and his intending son-in-law were carrying on experiments whose most immediate result, in case of success, would be the extrication of mr. rawn from rather an awkward situation; because, although mr. rawn, in the usual and commonplace human fashion, had taken as his own an idea when he saw it, he negligently had done so forgetful of the fact that it still lacked many features as a definite commercial proposition.
ii
rawn had told the truth regarding his resources. he had but one month's salary in his pocket when these final experiments began, and for this money there was just as much need as there ever had been in any other month; for laura rawn had quite as much use, at the going scale of living, for one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month now, as she had had for seventy-five dollars a month five years earlier. yet when laura rawn suggested a deferred payment on certain weekly bills, the shopkeepers to whom she had been paying her stipend daily for years demurred sorely. the truth is that the poorest way in the world to establish a credit is to pay bills in cash. foolishly allow a man to see your cash, and he can see nothing else. pay him partly in cash, partly in good checks, partly in bad ones, and partly not at all, and he will trust you largely; this being a commercial truth not known of all men, although worth knowing. it may be seen, therefore, that young halsey's little capital of five hundred dollars was as important as young halsey's original idea; which latter mr. rawn had also appropriated.
so now these two bought very considerable bundles of copper wire and other things, and made several machines of this and the other shape, and tried divers experiments which need not be set down here. in all this work young halsey's manual skill and technical training continually was in quest, john rawn for the most part standing by and frowning heavily, watching jacob labor for the earning of rachel: for halsey knew this surrender of his idea was the price of grace. halsey had little hope of ultimate success in his appliances. not so rawn. he had something akin to a feeling of certainty.
iii
differing thus—yet who shall say they were not partners, after all, since all these things were true regarding them?—they at last emerged from the woodshed in kelly row, after many long weeks, whose deeds we need not further chronicle. they carried into the front room of the rawn house in kelly row a small machine, which presently was to do large things; that is to say, to save the self-respect of certain prominent railway men who by this time were convinced that they had been hypnotized to their disadvantage; and also to save the face of john rawn, although he had not known his face had needed saving.
this novel and mysterious little machine, with a glass jar underneath, many coils and wheels within, and an odd, toothed crest of little upreaching metal fingers, had been produced only at great cost, great sacrifice. it had seemed wholly right and reasonable that all of young halsey's five hundred dollars should disappear little by little, and it had done so, long ago. it seemed proper that the small savings which grace had deposited in a tin baking-powder can—for she was like her mother, part ground-squirrel, and secretive—should also disappear little by little, and they also had gone. in some way, only the women knew; how, they all had had enough to eat, so far as that meant actually necessary food; but the entire rawn family were a gaunt and haggard, as well as a wearied and anxious quartette, when finally they gathered about the little machine out of the woodshed. their play was on one card, and the card was turned. what was it?
if either of the women doubted, she held her peace. rawn did not doubt. he had been sure all along that charles halsey, engineer, would work out his, rawn's, idea.
and young halsey, engineer, had done that very thing. there is no roof in all the world ever has covered a vaster and more epoch-making thought than did the patched cover of the woodshed in kelly row.
on the afternoon of the day wherein they emerged from the woodshed, these two, none too well clad, took the street-car to the city, halsey with a newspaper bundle under his arm. in it was what mr. rawn called his second-current motor, which comprised the basic idea of international power, soon to loom large in the business world.
