Chapter II: The New Jerusalem

Montcalm observed that part of the estate which was open to his view. The white wrap of winter was nearly worn out, but here and there islands and peninsulas of snow glimmered in isolated stations from the somberer areas of lately uncovered earth, or stretched away in varying and grotesquely formed curves to join the more protected strips along the fences. The cultivated land on that side of the road was enclosed in semicircular shape, and a strip of timber extended from the swamp to a point northwest of the house, as if starting out to cut the improvements in twain, and afterward repenting of its design. At the western end it terminated in a patch of shrubs over which could be seen the tops of the statelier trees beyond. To the east the hardwood timber, mostly of oak, skirted, till it nearly reached the road, along the marsh which bordered the great swamp. The only signs of vegetable life which were visible to Montcalm were in the spruce and pine, which could be distinguished from the tamaracks by their evergreen branches.

With the major discoursing volubly as they went along, the two men passed to the barns. These were three in number. The largest, ornamented on the top with three cupolas and a prancing horse, was the center from the extremities of which branched the others, nearly forming a yard, which was completed by a connecting fence.

A discourse, which his biographer has not taken the trouble to find, was given by the major on the character and phrenology of each beast: on the horse which would threaten but never kick, on the one which would kick but never threaten, on the cow which would jump from good to poor pasture for the mere satisfaction of being unruly, and on several others which would jump from poor to good pasture for obvious reasons.

"Here is the finest animal I have," said the major, laying his hand on the hip of a horse with a long foretop and a fine head and ears. "Zachary Taylor, probably the best blooded horse in the county. Taylor went in two fifty-nine when he was four, just previous to his purchase by me. He ought to beat that by twenty seconds now, but I have let Maria and Manie drive him. Next summer nobody except myself shall hold a rein over him. Taylor, old boy, you want an ear of corn? You have not seen my machine shop," said the animated old man, opening the door of a building at the west end of the group of barns. "Are you interested in machinery?"

"I have an interest in progress," answered Montcalm, "but little knowledge of mechanics."

A practical machinist would have had much difficulty in classifying the various specimens of constructive talent hanging on the walls and strewn in chaos about the floor. Old reapers, clocks, fanning mills and threshing machines had been dissected to furnish material for wild inventive schemes, more than half of which had been left unfinished. A strange looking wagon had in an unusual degree the merit of originality. Each wheel, six feet high, revolved on a peg set between two upright posts. These posts were connected at the top so that the vehicle had no axle-tree. Two boxes suspended from the posts, and about two and one half feet in height, were joined together by an attachment underneath.

"A revolution in road vehicles is coming," began the major. "The days of hard pulling and breaking horses' legs by blows from the tongue are almost over. You can see at once that this wagon must have a light draught. The attachment of the tongue down low lessens the rolling friction on the ground, and the six-foot wheel does a great deal to lessen the sliding friction on the axle. Let me make that plain. The passage of the wheel along the ground is called friction, but I question its right to the definition. One molecule is planted on the ground and rests there until another takes its place, when it rises and a second particle becomes the pivotal point, to be succeeded by the third, fourth and so on. The only friction then is in the adhesion of the surfaces as the upper one is planted down and removed; a great difference, you observe, from that which comes from passing parallel with the surface of a body. But that at the point of the revolutionary pivot is different. Here the wheel is continually scraping over the axle, a resistance which it requires much more force to overcome. A six-foot wheel revolves every--let me see--every six multiplied by three and one thousand and four hundred and sixteen ten-thousandths," and the major began to figure on the wall, "every time it goes eighteen and eight thousand four hundred and ninety-six ten-thousandth's feet. A four-and-one-half-foot wheel revolves, I'll tell you in a moment--every time it goes fourteen and one thousand three hundred and seventy-two ten-thousandth's feet. The smaller wheels, having a swifter movement at the pivot, occasion a greater amount of friction."

Montcalm, though tortured by the tedious harangue, practiced his well learned art of flattery by attention, and tipped his head on one side with an air of gravest concern.

"If I had it in shape," pursued the major, "we would hitch on and try it, but it is not ironed yet, and it has cost me too much labor to use it up recklessly."

Montcalm hastened to protest against the sacrifice to his curiosity of an invention which had cost so much labor of hand and brain. He was anxious, very anxious, to see the wagon tested, but he begged the major on no account to subject it to a trial until it was properly ironed and fitted for running.

"I'll tell you what we can do," suggested the major. "Get in and let me draw you, and we will try its draught."

To this proposal Montcalm objected, but he volunteered to act as horse while the major rode. Accordingly the inventor seated himself in the product of his genius, which Montcalm drew back and forth, praising the lightness of its draught and suppressing the grunts whose utterance would have belied his statement.

When Montcalm's energy began to flag, the major inquired, "You do not know the name of the wagon, do you, Trace?"

"No, I was wondering about that," answered Montcalm; "it seems to me an ancient name would be proper, some kind of chariot,--Pharaoh's chariot for instance."

"No," said the major, shaking his head and clambering from the vehicle, "I call it the New Jerusalem."

"What induced you to call it that?" asked Montcalm. "Was it the splendor of the ornaments you mean to put on or some reason which I do not comprehend?"

"Well," answered the major, purposely keeping his auditor in suspense, "it is a long history. Some years ago there was, over across the swamp, an old man by the name of Barrow, an out-and-out Adventist. He said the world was coming to an end before long. He could not tell exactly when, but it could not be longer than '69, and he could prove it by the prophecies in fourteen different ways. He used to go up and down the road to Break o'Day, and to the neighbors' houses, without a hat, always with the same strain, 'Babylon is fallen, is fallen.' A quarter of the topers and loafers who hung around Rorus's drug-store were scared into leaving off an occasional spree, and the other three-quarters had some fun repeating his prophecies about the restoration of the Jews. One day he came bareheaded out to the barn, where my men and I were looking over the old wagon, the first one I invented, and he began:

"'The world's going to burn--going to burn up, I tell you. The time of the Gentiles is fulfilled. Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen' (the old man always talked fast), 'and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. Come out of her, my people. The Jews are to be gathered to Jerusalem.

"'When will the great day come? "For the day of vengeance is in mine heart and the year of my redeemed is come.

"'"From the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days."

'"'That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.'

'"'We've had the caterpillar and the grasshopper and the potato-bug and the weevil. Describes it exactly.

'"'And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by.'

"'Jerusalem has been so they couldn't raise a thing there, not a thing, and now they're raising wheat. Wheat in Jerusalem! They sent a thrashing machine there last year.

"'We've got to turn in with the Jews and go to Jerusalem. Never mind your wagon, Ratke. You better make a Jerusalem wagon.'

"Well, the idea struck my men so forcibly that they dubbed it the Jerusalem wagon, and the name always stuck by it. I like it well enough myself, and so after I made the second one, to distinguish between them, I called it the New Jerusalem."

It is as yet an unsolved problem how long the old man would have continued the recital of these reminiscences had he not been interrupted by a strange clamor from near the house. The noise seemed to be produced by the strokes of some metallic object against a steel plate, which had a resonance sufficient to make the sound continuous.

"Dinner!" exclaimed the major.

As the men left the machine shop, the cause of the commotion was apparent to Montcalm. Mrs. Grippin, with the energy characteristic of all her actions, was using a two-foot iron bar to belabor a long upright saw suspended from an apple-tree, and that superannuated piece of machinery was protesting against the punishment with the most doleful lamentations.

"You have not expressed your opinion of my bell. Trace," said the major.

"It has a very powerful voice," commented Montcalm.

"Make an estimate of the cost of that bell," said the major.

"Ten dollars," suggested Montcalm.

"No."

"Twenty-five dollars."

"No."

"I give it up," said Montcalm.

"I calculate that that bell cost me about ten thousand dollars," said the major, watching his companion to note the effect of his words.

"Indeed!" exclaimed Montcalm, manifesting the proper amount of surprise. "How is that?"

"That is the old upright saw which used to be in McGraw's mill," said the major. "I got it for one dollar, and, in less than a month, I had the plan for a drag-saw for small logs that was ahead of any invention which had been projected up to that date, for it was to take only two horses. One day, about noon, I heard a hubbub loud enough to wake the nations, and when I got where it was, I found Maria pounding the edge of that saw just as she is doing now. See how viciously she strikes, as if she were bent on destroying the last vestige of its usefulness. She had banged the teeth so much that using it afterwards was wholly put of the question. I always suspected that she did it on purpose to defeat my plan. And she did. I turned my attention to the old Jerusalem, and before I did anything more with the saw, a Wisconsin lumberman had the start of me. If all people were like her, this would be an unprogressive world."

On entering the house, the veteran found awaiting him a visitor, whom Mrs. Grippin introduced as follows:

"James, here is a man that wants work."

The major made mental observations on the capacity of the new-comer for labor.

The young fellow, who was not more than twenty-two years old, gave his name as John Wrengell. His stature was above the common height, but his form was not Stocky. He had Saxon blue eyes, light brown hair and the sensitive nature which accompanies the nervous temperament. The evidence of a strong character was visible in his well-shaped head, his expressive countenance and his intelligent, though embarrassed speech.

The introduction to the ladies exhibited a vast difference between Montcalm and Wrengell. Montcalm bowed with a courtesy which was at once easy and pleasing.

Wrengell blushed, mispronounced one name, half mumbled the other, and in sitting down overturned with a backward sweep of his arm the heap of dirt so much doted on by the major.

Miss Warfle with much difficulty repressed her mirth, and the old officer with still more trouble kept back his irritation from open expression.

"There, James," exclaimed Mrs. Grippin, who arrived on the scene just in time to see the sand and gravel scattered over the floor. "There, I told you you'd have that thing tipped over. Can't you bring in dirt enough on your boots without lugging it in in a heap to make me sweep up?"

"I thought," responded the major, "that my model hill would keep its line of direction within its base, and that its cohesion would not be acted upon by external forces sufficiently to destroy it. My clay mound stayed here two weeks, and it constantly maintained a preponderance of attractive over repulsive forces, but clay possesses more viscosity than sand."

"Viscosity," repeated Mrs. Grippin in disgust. "Now you've got on one of your high-sounding strains. Can't you talk so anybody can understand you? Who ever heard of viscosity?"

"It is a mortifying fact," said the major, putting a degree of solemnity into his voice, "that I have a sister who does not know the meaning of viscosity. It is derived from the Latin viscum. Viscum, viscositas; French, viscosite; Provencal, viscositat; Spanish, viscosidad; Portuguese, vis----"

"'What do we care about your viscos and viscovuses?" retorted Mrs. Grippin. "When you talk common English, folks give you credit for some sense, but when you try to show off so smart, everybody is disgusted with you."

The approach of the hired men was now heralded by the confused hum of voices, varied now and then by a boisterous laugh. When they had taken their turns at the wash-dishes, the towel and the looking-glass, they passed to the dining-room.