The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-01-31

capacity to sur up trouble was llllmlt-
able
Jacob had never assimlated in prison
society. He was like spoonful Of nitric
acid in the salad dressing. But Inflow
would welcome the solitude Of a single
cell, for plans were swiftly forming in
that cunning brain of his and those
resilient spirits were already on the re-
bound
But they did not leave him in solitude
during the day. They put him to work
in the machine shop, for Jacob was
exceedingly clever with tools. He could
get action out of wheels and cogs that
stood still for every one else.
II was also foregonc conclusion that
trouble would start when Jacob did for
he had the same marvellous capacity
for clogging the mechanism of prison
discipline that he had for making ma
chnery run. But the prison officials
were willing TO take chances on this. try
ing by rcprimands transfers withdraw
ais Of privileges and even by strait
Jackets and "solitares' to undo the
damage that he did to the prison social
order, while the man himself. with
grease stained hands, scrap of waste
in his hip pocket, his cap over one ear
and his cunning eyes peering cannlly
into the intricacies before him. with
wizardlike precision was undoing the
wrongs that careless handling had done
to the lathes and looms and cutters and
stitchers.
This arrangement also suited Jacob
well 1t put him in touch with tools
and materials necessary to build his ma
chine. for he was determining to build
it surreptitiously, under the very eyes
Of the guards. This also brought him
into relations with the twenty convicts
in the machine shop and into occasional
contact with the convict operators OF
the machines from every part Of the
plant who were continually coming in
about their mechanical difficulties.
These men were thus foreordained to
he Jacobs messengers TO the outside IN
ways Of which they wot not.
And now too. in the furtherance Of
his plans Jacob busted himself in every
spare moment with such rude drawing
materials as We're available. AS the
months heightened into a year, and IN
every unoccupied hour he was engaged
with his drawings, it began to be Joke
around the shop. a furtive joke 10 be
chuckled over when Jacob could not
hear.
Toward the end Of the second year
the foreman laughed openly as ne
peered over Jake's shoulder at the sheet,
continuing to chuckle brazenly as he
gazed, for the coarse paper was filled
from end to end and from side TO side
with finely drawn lines that indicated
bars and wheels and ratchets and trac-
ton rods and cogs and pawls. the sew
eral parts of Jacobs great invention, the
name and object Of which he cunningly
guarded. However. the work never APP
peared to get any further than draw
ingy. This was the joke. This was why
the foreman laughed
Perhaps the foreman would not have
chuckled quite so long If he had known
that "A duplicate set Of those drawings
had gone out Of the prison the day be-
fore seweG up in bale Of jute bags
and that an old woman picking up coal
on the railroad tracks had hung about
the little station, moilinE furtiVely
among the bales as they stood on the
freight platform, ill she came upon one
marked quite inconspicuously with a
smutty cross, and that when she
trudged away finally with her sack OF
coal upon her shoulder she clutched that
duplicate set of drawings in her bosom.
But the time was coming for Jacob
Inflow, the convict, to laugh. Each week
he received through the mail bundle
Of newspapers addressed in a cramped,
uneven hand. The week after the
drawings went out Jacob found upon
the wrapper that carried his papers an
inconspicuous, smutty little cross.
When he saw this he laughed not the
hearty, wholesome exclamation that
So Nshn
in the open but a dry, ghostly chortle
that died half apologetically upon his
lips.
Yet the very next day convict, GO
ing out to work in the quarry. carried
in his shoe a peculiarly shaped bit of
wood cut from a cigar box, which ex-
actly correspondent to one Of the details
upon Jacobs drawing. The woman who
gathered coal would find 1t under a
loose rock at the edge of the quarry,
and following carefully the drawing,
would At It into the marvellous machine
which was TO grow bit by bit and week
by week under her hand in her own
hovel, from the brain that was Great
ing it,
The years had begun to walk along
steadily now, and the prison officials
were pTlStu TO ItdllLt llldl
had been strangely docle for a long
time. In the past trouble had started
like circling wavelets from the restless
soul of Inflow, but it was not so now.
For five years and more he had toled
placidly at his bench, always amusing
| himself between times with those ever
present drawings which had ceased to
be joke, and were now regarded quite
reVcrently by all as a mark Of the
strange alterations OF an acute mind.
There were 96i separate parts in his
machine. Sometimes a piece outward
| bound was lost ana he was long in
learning Of it, 1t was disappointing to
find out on the under side Of the wrap
per that carried his weekly papers a
family traced number which when
pressed against his oil lamp at night
read, gel" That minus sign meant
that part No, 361 had gone astray or
been broken.
But the man persisted-persisted
| while his hair whitened and his frame
bent-persisted through the years un-
| Ill one long day. pressing his wrapper
| against the lamp he read; 1854 + !"
That plus sign opposite 964 meant that
the last part had been received and