CHAPTER IV
THE GANG TAKES A HAND
For days after that visit, Jimmy Bobb stuck in Lee's mind. The crippleboy had so little. If only there were something one could do to give hima little pleasure!
Then a plan came to Lee. He just believed he'd--well, what he believedwas so vague that he couldn't put it into words, but it started him offon a very busy time.
Lee turned back through the pages of the old science book, studying asection here, copying off a diagram there in painstaking pencil lines.In between times he roamed the Renaud place from attic to cellar, fromold stable yard to wood lot. And the things he collected--a brokenpipestem, a bit of beeswax, some feathers, an old cornstalk, wire, aneedle, a few threads raveled from a piece of yellowed silk! A strangeassortment for a strong, husky boy to spend his time gathering together!Anybody might have thought he had gone as batty as old Johnny Poolak.Only there was nobody to see. And as for bothering about making himselfridiculous--um! well, Lee Renaud was so intent upon his task that allthought of self had gone out of his head.
Towards the end of the week, Lee tramped over to the Bobb cabin.
"Good evening, everybody! Tomorrow suppose--" in his excitement, Leetwisted his cap round and round in his hands--"suppose old Pomp and Icome here and carry Jimmy, chair and all, over to our place. I've gotsomething to show him. It would be all right, wouldn't it?"
"Would it! O-o-oh! Think of going somewhere!" Jimmy Bobb swayed in hischair. His eyes seemed to get three sizes bigger. "I can, can't I, ma?"
Not being given to over many words, Sarah Ann Bobb merely nodded. Buther face was no longer apathetic; some of its tiredness seemed to havegone away.
The next day, though, when Lee and old Pomp parted the bushes on thenarrow trail and came out on the bare knoll of the Bobb place, thingsappeared entirely different. There was a change in atmosphere--due to agroup of rough-looking fellows massed close to the cabin door. Some ofthose tobacco-spitting loafers Lee had had to navigate around every timehe went to the country store! Like all the Cove people, these ganglingyouths were an unkempt, taciturn lot. Even as Lee and Pomp drew nearer,they gave no greeting, but merely drew closer together like a guardbefore the door.
Lee Renaud could almost feel the down on his spine prickle as his angerrose against them. What was this gang up to? They had gathered here forsomething! Must have heard that he and Pomp were going to carry Jimmyover to the electrical shop. Full of the Coveite's ignorances andsuperstitions, they must have gotten together here to try to interferewith his plans. Well, just let 'em try to stop him--just let 'em!Involuntarily his fists clenched, his jaw tightened. He was going togive Jimmy a good time--as he'd planned! He'd fight 'em all before he'dgive up!
Renaud strode forward, with old Pomp edging back a little behind him.
Lem Hicks, who seemed to be leader of the gang, detached himself fromhis fellows and stepped out into the path.
When the long-armed, hulking Lemuel spoke, what he had to say camenearer knocking the wind out of Lee Renaud than any fist blow might havedone.
"We--we allowed we'd carry Jimmy over for you."
Lee stood like one rooted to the ground. He couldn't believe he'd heardaright. There must be some trick in it. This rough gang was up tosomething.
His fists, that had relaxed, tightened up again. Another was steppingout of the group, the one they called Big Sandy. He was a tall fellow,but he grasped a couple of poles taller than himself.
"Done cut some hickory saplings for to slide under Jimmy's chair forhandles, like. Jimmy, he ain't so big, but I allow he'd be quite a totefor just you two. Us four can do it more better--"
"Sure--fine!" Lee Renaud's voice surprised himself. He blurted it outalmost before he knew it. But there was a something in the eyes of theseboys that made him say what he did. It was that same terribleeagerness--like in Jimmy Bobb's--that hunger after something of interestin their meager lives.
Little dark Tony Zita (one of those lowlife fishing folk, old Pomp hadonce dubbed him) darted up close to Lee, a new light in the black eyesbeneath his tousled black locks. "You gonner let us see it all--what yougonner show to Jimmy? We ain't never seen no 'lectricity, nor nothing!"
It was a lively procession that went forward down the little woods trailbetween the log cabin and the warped and leaking elegance of the oldRenaud mansion. Jimmy Bobb, almost hysterical with excitement, rode likea king in the wheelless chariot of his old armchair. Lem and Big Sandy,being the strongest in the bunch, handled a pole end on either sidewhere the weight was heaviest. The Zita boy and Joe Burk put a shoulderto the other ends of the poles. Mackey, who went along too, and Lee tooktheir turns at carrying.
Class feeling had been swept away. The antagonism of these secludedbackwoods folk for a "city dude what slicked his hair," the antagonismof an educated fellow toward the narrow, suspicious ignorance of countrylouts--a new feeling had suddenly taken the place of all this. Thisgroup was now just "boys" bound together by an interest.
Up in the littered second-story room that served as Lee's workshop,young Renaud didn't need to press very strongly his warning against"folks mixing too much with the dangers of electricity." The great glasswheel, with its strange gearing of wood and brass and fur, laid its ownspell of warning on the boys. The old thing did look queer andoutlandish. One almost expected some black-robed wizard to step out ofthe past and "make magic" on it.
Well, electricity was a sort of magic, it was so wonderful and powerful,thought Lee, only it wasn't the "black magic" of evil; it was a greatpower for good.
As Lee cranked the machine into a swift whirl, the other boys stood wellback, but looked with all their eyes. Like a showman putting his chargesthrough their stunts, Lee put all his crude, homemade apparatusesthrough their paces.
"He's doing it! He's ketching lightning, like they said!" whispered TonyZita as sparks leaped and crackled across the metal points set in brassso close to the wheel.
He showed his Leyden Jar "that you stored electricity in just likepouring molasses in a bucket, then shot it out again on a wire whatsparks!"
He exhibited his Voltaic Pile, a crude stack of broken bits of iron andpieces of a copper pot and squares of old flannel wet in salt waterthat, as Lem Hicks admiringly put it, "without no rubbing together ofthings--without no nothing doing at all except piling up of wet iron andcopper--just went ahead and made this here electricity!"
"Gosh A'mighty," Lem exclaimed, "that's a smart thing! Wish I could fixup something like it oncet!"
Jimmy Bobb didn't have so much to say. He just looked, taking it in andstoring it away in his eager hungering brain.
Then Lee opened a wall cupboard and brought out his latesttreasures--the things he had prepared especially to show Jimmy Bobb whatelectricity could do. He came back to the group now, bearing the pieceof broken pipestem in his hand. It was a clear, yellowish piece of stem,with a pretty sheen to it. Lee handed it to Jimmy, along with a rag offlannel cloth.
"Rub the yellow stuff with the cloth," he ordered. "Rub hard."
Jimmy's legs might be feeble, but his arms were strong. He put in somesharp, vigorous rubs, his face excited but withal mystified. He didn'tknow what it was all about, but he was making a try at it.
"Now that's enough." As he spoke, Lee scattered some downy feathers onthe table. "Reach the yellow piece out, somewhere near the feathers," hewent on, "and see what'll happen."
Jimmy stretched out the old piece of pipestem, and the feathers leapedup to it as though they were alive.
"Well, I'll be blowed!" shouted Jimmy, trying the experiment time andagain, and each time having the fluff leap up to cling to the stem."What is it? What makes it act all alive?"
"Electricity." Lee Renaud picked up the broken stem. "This thing isamber. I just happened to find it in a junk pile. An old book told meabout how people found out long ago that 'delectable amber, rubbed withwoolen' would generate enough electricity to draw to itself lightobjects."
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"I'll be blowed! Well, I'll be blowed!" Jimmy Bobb kept saying tohimself, as he tried the amber and feather stunt over and over. "Justthink, I can rub up this here lightning-power myself!"
Lee Renaud was not through with his show pieces yet. From the cupboardhe brought out the strangest little contraption of all. Upon the centerof a stout plank about two feet long, he had erected two small posts ofwood. The tiny figure of a man, ingeniously cut out of cornstalk pith,sat in a swing of frail silken thread that hung suspended from the topsof the posts. At one end of the board was an insulated standard ofbrass. At the other end was a brass standard, uninsulated. Lee carefullyarranged this curious apparatus so that the insulated stand wasconnected with the "prime conductor" of the old glass friction-wheel.Against the other standard was laid a little chain so that the chain endtouched the floor, thus making what is known electrically as groundcontact.
Now the fun began. Electrified by its connection with the primeconductor, the insulated standard drew the tiny figure in the silkenswing up against the brass where the figure took on an electricalcharge. Then off swung the little man to discharge his load ofelectricity against the ground contact post at the other end of theboard.
This way, that way swung the tiny figure, an animated little cornstalkman that for all the world looked as if he was enjoying his high riding.Back and forth, back and forth he swung, pulled now by the positive, nowby the negative power of that strange thing, electricity. And hecontinued to swing just as long as electrical power was supplied to him.
Shouts of laughter greeted the antics of Lee's little man.
"This here electricity's fun!"
"Better'n a show!"
"We can come again, huh, can't we?"
Altogether, Lee Renaud had a pleasurable afternoon showing off histreasures. His pride was punctured a bit, though, when, upon leaving,one fellow said, "This here 'lectricity's a right pretty thing. Pity itain't no use for helping folks."