St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1882-06-23

: wife of the foreman of one room in II
, machine-shOp
Maggie scarcely heard his bitter
words. Their scOrn and hate did not
touch her. She understood only one
thing, that her father would not give
her up, and that she must not desert
J him while he claimed her. She could
almost seem to hear her mother say
again.
"There might come a time when you
wanted something very much but if
it went against your fathers interests
and his wishes, you must give it up,
even though it broke yOur heart"
: And she had promised. That was
all there was about it ; and there was
only one thing to do. have made you
understand Maggie but poorly if you
do not know that. whether her heart
broke or not, she would do the thing
she had to do quietly, and make about
it no ado.
every well, father" she said, "when
he comes again will tell him that it
cannot be-"
ale shall not come again ~ the fa-
ther cried, harshly. "YOu shall not so
much as speak to him. / will tell him.
A miserable cur, coming round here to
steal The Invention ~
Maggie uttered no single word of re-
monstrance; and Roger Faithful seized
his hat, rushed down stairs and out of
doors, and raced off towards the ma
chine shop, as if he were walking for a
wager. Maggie found in drawer a
fOrlOrn last sheet of paper, and she
wrote on it to Robert Keith
"DO not come again. 1t is all ended.
1t must be as father says"
This note she posted, then she came
back, and sat down in the low chair
where her mother used to sit, and threw
her apron over her face. Once she
murmured,-
go mother, you said it might break
my heart ~
Beyond that there was no word of
complaint. She never mentioned Rob
ert Keith's name. She did all her du
ties as faithfully as ever. There was
no change i'll her, except that her face
grew a little thinner, and her footsteps
Jagged and these things there was no
one to notice, for her father had eyes
only for The Invention.
And, at last, success began to seem
to him nearer and more certain than
ever. He saw, or thought he saw,
what his idol lacked and set himself to
remedy it.
1t was in Nav that this revelation
came to him. 1t seemed to him like
part of the spring. There was good
deal to do, to make the changes he
thought necessary but he gave him
self no rest. Sometimes at the ma
chine-shop, sometimes ut home, he
worked at least twenty hours out of
the twenty four.
He grew arrogant, ms those who said,
eve will tear down our barns and
build greater They would not stay
where they were long, he declared.
, Life that was life would open for them
soon.
And this time he did not fail. There
came night in early June when Mag
gle sitting quietly by herself as usual
heard overhead sudden loud cry of
triumph, "At last it moves !" and then
, IA heavy fall.
With an awful, nameleSs terror upon
her, she hurried up stairs. The Inven-
tiOn moved, indeed. All its parts seem
ed instinct with life, but her father lay
prone upon the floor, rs still, already,
as the dead of a dead century.
? Had his life gone out of him into The
Invention Maggie asked herself, with
Il thrill of superstitiOus terror.
/ She hardly knew what she did. Like
some one in frightful nightmare, she
, moved about, summoning IL neighbOI
or two, and doing little things around
the hOuse-all the time seeing nothing,
! knowing nothing, save The Invention,
! so awfully alive, and her father dead.
t. When it was time for the machine
shop to open, some one carried word to
2 the superintendent of Roger Faithful's
e death. 1t was not more than ten
} o'clock when Robert Keith came to
} Maggie.
. If he had asked her then to marry
him, no doubt she would have been toe
e shocked and too timid to say yes but
' he asked nothing. He simply said, in
e the most assured and matter of fact
4 way
a "Your father needs you no longer
2 nOU You belong to me" and then he set
himself to arrange everything for her
and to save her all care and trouble.
| Soon after the funeral they went qui-
2 etly and were married for Just now
| they had but one will between them
a and that was Roberts. As they came
DttNh was "
3 think that she was happy. The whole
S world seemed to her to have burst into
= bloom and the sunshine was the sun
T shine of June.
"Let us look at The Invention" she
:, said, when they were at home again
+ Perhaps she thought that her too great
Joy needed some Christening.
t They went up stairs together. They
| set the machinery to going. Oh, how
e alive The Thing was ! They stood
t hand in hand, as they looked at it
y When they turned away there were
tears in Maggie's eyes.
e ''Poor father" she said, ''he gave al
), his life to it, and then died just as he
/ had reached the end of his struggles
q 1t seems almost wicked that 1t should
go on.n
(. And just then, as if The Thing
T scorned to live, when he whose very
e soul it was lay dead, there came {
q? strange collapse. Some part was no
h strong enough for the rest, perhaps
- do not know.
At any rate, there it lay, shapeles.
d wreck of steel and iron. Roger Faith
e full was dead, and this was the end o
o The Invention.
II Miraculous Escape from sud.
d den Death.