Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1881-03-23

of the engineer, monkey-wrench in
hand, he was screwing iron nuts on or
off, Very slowly, but surely, it came
to pass that the entire charge of the
works was intrusted to him.
During all these years he made his
home with Peter Johnson, a provision
dealer across the street, exercising a
stern economy, having his own peculiar
hours of eating and sleeping. And all
along he remained the same thickset,
shock haired, square headed, slow-spo-
ken country fellow. Flooding, indiifer-
cnt to the delights Of the rum-shop or
the perennial circus, occupied in and
wholly satisfied with his work, he came
at last to seem but mere movable
part of the machinery Only it was
little people imagined that his satisfac-
ton lay in certain vague but persist
ent grasping after that which came
within the very palms of his hands
merely to show him what it could do
if he could hold it, and then in chief
measure eluded his grip, and escaped
from him. He said net a word about
it to soul; but every cough of the es-
cape-pipe was to him as derisive as that
by which hostile bearer seeks to 81
lence a public speaker Whenever John
saw the volleys of steam leap, as he
came back from dinner, from the lips of
tie pipe, it provoked him as if each said
as it curled in white clouds into the air,
and foated away: why didn't you
work me while you had me, old chap?
But you didn't because you don't know
how. Find out if you can. And good
byn
1t is more than doubtful if the plod-
ding engineer ever heard of Shaspeare
but there never was Prospero who so
clutched, in soul at least, after his de-
parting Ariel-clutched in vain. so far,
but with a slow eagerness to sieze up
on and hold it, which yet grew strong
er every day
But John Detmold would have de-
sired in vain, if it had not been for an
ally, which, all unconscious of its mis-
sion, was fastening as fast as it could
to his help. That half the force of the
steam eluded and escaped him he knew
so well that, almost from his entrance
into the engine-room-from the instant,
rather, of his first hasty exit from it
through the window-he had pondered
and scratched his head, and toiled with
pencil in his greasy fingers day and
night to plan against it, contriving this
and that, experimenting on the sly
bu alas all in vain. until he'll came.
1t came in the shape of one of the
other sex. That of course, onl V it was
in the person of one who was as much
unlike her sex in general as the engi
neer was unlike his. She was the
daughter of the man with whom he
boarded across the way. On going
there to dinner one day he had heard
the feeblest of walls mp stairs. A babe
bad been born and week or two there
after the new arrival had been shown
to him, and, being the kindest-hearted
of men, he balanced the pitiful morsel
of humanity upon his broad brown
palms, considering it as he did so as
about the frailest bit of machinery he
had ever inspected As such be took a
singular interest in the particularly
miserable mite Of thing as it struggled
through its infancy into childhood.
The engineer often demanded of his
machinery, in his silent fashion, how
ii could stand it if it bad 20 go through
such convulsions of crawp, cole, meas
les, sore throat, earache, and the man.
fold other ills, from some one of which
the child seemed to be never free And
little Matilda, for so it was named, was
such thin-faced, frail-bodied scrap Of
girl, with light blue eyes, pale checks,
bonv frame, that the curiosity of the
machinest warmed into sincerest pity
for her. She grew, but her growth
merely exaggerated her feebeness At
eight years she was the flimsiest of
mortals, her washed-out hair hanging
about her colorless cheeks and down
upon her projecting shoulder-blades in
locks as destitute cf curl as her spare
frame was of curve or plumpness.
And thus it happened that the two
became great friends The poor child,
hustled about in the swarming house
hold of sturdy boys and robust girls,
grew to look forward to John Detmold's
regular returns from the Power House
as he one consolation in life. Although
the brightest, in her shallow fashion, of
her family she had nothing to say at
any other time. For her friend she re-
served everything. The instant he
had done his dinner he took his seat at
a window, from which he could keep
his eyes upon the Power House. She
was more than welcome to get into his
lap then for the twenty minutes which
he gave to his pipe, to his digestion, to
watching lest the boilers, left in care of
the fireman, should burst while he was
away, and to her
But night was to small Matilda the
best time of all. Then she could sit
upon his knee, and while he smoked
and pondered over his experiments,
pour out uninterrupted the accumulated
talk of the whole day. There was less
meaning in it than in the song of a ca
nary; but John grew to like the shrill,
incessant chatter for the mere sounds
sake, since he could have told after
ward as little as the child what she had
been talking about. 1t stimulated his
thinking, somehow. Tired as he was
he would let her exhaust herself with
talk, and then take her in his arms up
stairs to bed Small wonder was it
that long as she lived the peculiar fra
GRANGE which hovered about John as an
aureole of tobacco smoke and lubricat-
ing oil was to her the sweetest perfume
of all.
The trouble with the honest fellow
was that unless small Matilda was
perched chirping upon his knee, he
would drop off to sleep almost as soon
as he sat down. What with his hard
work from early dawn, his hearty meal.