THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES

 
 And there she was, instead of in Munich.
 
 THE WORKS OF 
 
 F. MARION 
 CRAWFORD 
 
 LITTLE CITY 
 OF HOPE 
 
 McKiNLAY, STONE & MACKENZIE 
 
 NEW YORK
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1907, 
 BY F. MARION CRAWFORD. 
 
 Set up and dec troty ped. Published November, 1907. 
 
 Jfrtttf 
 
 J. 8. Cashing Co. Berwick & Smith Co. 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
 
 -PS- 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. How John Henry Ovcrholt sat down on Pam- 
 
 dora's Box . . . . . .II 
 
 II. How a Man and a Boy founded the Little 
 
 City of Hope 37 
 
 III. How they made Bricks without Straw . . 6$ 
 
 IV. How there was a Famine in the City . . 87 
 
 V. How the City was besieged and the Lid of 
 
 Pandora's Box came Off . . .107 
 
 VI. How a Small Boy did a Big Thing and 
 
 nailed down the Lid of the Box . . 12 j 
 
 VII. How a Little Woman did a Great Thing to 
 
 save the City 145 
 
 VIII. How the Wheels went round at Last . .175 
 
 IX. How the King of Hearts made a Feast in the 
 
 City of Hope 191
 
 L Ham) John Henry 
 Overtoil sat down on 'Pandora's
 
 /. How John Henry 0<verholt sat down on 
 's SBor 
 
 " HOPE is very cheap. There's always plenty 
 of it about." 
 
 " Fortunately for poor men. Good morning." 
 
 With this mild retort and civil salutation 
 
 John Henry Overholt rose and went towards the 
 
 door, quite forgetting to shake hands with 
 
 Mr. Burnside, though the latter made a motion 
 
 to do so. Mr. Burnside always gave his hand in 
 
 a friendly way, even when he had flatly refused 
 
 to do what people had asked of him. It was 
 
 cheap; so he gave it. 
 
 13
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 But he was not pleased when they did not 
 take it; for whatever he chose to give seemed of 
 some value to him as soon as it was offered, even 
 his hand. Therefore, when his visitor forgot to 
 take it out of pure absence of mind, he was 
 offended and spoke to him sharply before he 
 had time to leave the private office. 
 
 "You need not go away like that, Mr. Over- 
 holt, without shaking hands ! " 
 
 The visitor stopped and turned back at once. 
 He was thin, and rather shabbily dressed. I 
 know many poor men who are fat and some who 
 dress very well; but this was not that kind of 
 poor man. 
 
 " Excuse me," he said mildly, " I didn't mean 
 to be rude. I quite forgot." 
 
 He came back, and Mr. Burnside shook hands 
 with becoming coldness, as having just given a 
 lesson in manners. He was not a bad man, nor 
 a miser, nor a Scrooge, but he was a great
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 stickler for manners, especially with people 
 who had nothing to give him. Besides, he 
 had already lent Overholt money ; or, to 
 put it nicely, he had invested a little in his 
 invention, and he did not see any reason 
 why he should invest any more, until it suc- 
 ceeded. Overholt called it selling shares, but 
 Mr. Burnside called it borrowing money. 
 Overholt was sure that if he could raise more 
 funds, not much more, he could make a success 
 of the * Air-Motor*; Mr. Burnside was equally 
 sure that nothing would ever come of it. 
 They had been explaining their respective 
 points of view to each other, and in sheer 
 absence of mind Overholt had forgotten to 
 shake hands. 
 
 Mr. Burnside had no head for mechanics, 
 but Overholt had already made an invention 
 which was considered very successful, though 
 he had got little or nothing for it. The me-
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 chanic who had helped him in its construction 
 had stolen his principal idea before the device 
 was patented and had taken out a patent for a 
 cheap little article which every one at once used 
 and which made a fortune for him. Overholt's 
 instrument took its place in every laboratory in 
 the world ; but the mechanic's labor-saving 
 utensil took its place in every house. It was on 
 the strength of its being a valuable tool of 
 science that Mr. Burnside had invested two 
 thousand dollars in the Air-Motor without 
 really having the smallest idea whether it was to 
 be a machine that would move the air, or was to 
 be moved by it. A number of business men 
 had done the same thing. 
 
 Now, at a political dinner in a club, three of 
 the investors had dined at the same small table, 
 and in an interval between two dull speeches, 
 one of the three told the others that he had 
 
 looked into the invention, and that there was 
 
 16
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 nothing in Overholt's motor after all. Over- 
 holt was crazy. 
 
 "It's like this," he had said. "You know 
 how a low-pressure engine acts; the steam does 
 a part of the work and the weight of the atmos- 
 phere does the rest. Now this man Overholt 
 thinks he can make the atmosphere do both 
 parts of the work with no steam at all, and as 
 that's absurd, of course, he won't get any more 
 of my money. It's like getting into a basket and 
 trying to lift yourself by the handles." 
 
 Each of the two hearers repeated this simple 
 demonstration to at least a dozen acquaintances, 
 ^ho repeated it to dozens of others ; and after 
 that John Henry Overholt could not raise 
 another dollar to complete the Air-Motor. 
 
 Mr. Burnside's refusal had been definite and 
 final, and he had been the last to whom the 
 inventor had applied, merely because he 
 was undoubtedly the most close-fisted man
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 of business of all who had invested in the 
 invention. 
 
 Overholt saw failure before him, at the very 
 moment of success, with the not quite indifferent 
 accompaniment of starvation. Many a man 
 as good as he has been in the same straits, 
 even more than once in life, and has succeeded 
 after all, and Overholt knew this quite well 
 and therefore did not break down, nor despair, 
 nor even show distinct outward signs of mental 
 distress. 
 
 Metaphorically, he took Pandora's box to the 
 Park, put it in a sunny corner, and sat upon it, 
 to keep the lid down with Hope inside, while he 
 thought over the situation. 
 
 It was not at all a pleasant one. It is one 
 thing to have no money to spare, but it is quite 
 another to have none at all, and he was not far 
 from that. He had some small possessions, 
 
 but those with which he was willing to part were 
 
 18
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 worth nothing, and those which would bring 
 a little money were the expensive tools and 
 valuable materials with which he was working. 
 For he worked alone, made cautious by his expe- 
 rience with the mechanic who had robbed him of 
 one of his most profitable patents. When the idea 
 of the Air-Motor had occurred to him, he had 
 gone into a machine-shop and had spent nearly 
 two years in learning the use of fine tools. 
 Then he had bought what he needed out of the 
 money invested in his idea, and had gone to 
 work himself, sending models of such castings 
 as jhe required to different parts of the United 
 States, that the pieces might be made indepen- 
 dently. 
 
 He was not an accomplished workman, and 
 he made slow progress, with only his little son 
 to help him when the boy was not at school. 
 Often, through lack of skill, he wasted good 
 material, and more than once he spoiled an 
 '9
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 expensive casting, and was obliged to wait 
 till it could be made again and sent to him. 
 Besides, he and the boy had to live, and living 
 is dear nowadays, even in a cottage in an out- 
 of-the-way corner of Connecticut; and he 
 needed fire and light in abundance for his 
 work, besides something to eat and decent 
 clothes to wear and somebody to cook the 
 dinner; and when he took out his diary note- 
 book and examined the figures on the page near 
 the end headed * Cash Account November/ 
 he made out that he had three hundred and 
 eighteen dollars and twelve cents to his credit 
 and nothing to come after that, and he knew that 
 the men who had believed in him had invested, 
 amongst them, ten thousand dollars in shares 
 and had paid him the money in cash, in the 
 course of the past three years, but would invest 
 no more; and it was all gone. 
 One thousand more, clear of living expenses,
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 would do it. He was positively sure that it 
 would be enough, and he and the boy could live 
 on his little cash balance, by great economy, 
 for four months, at the end of which time the 
 Air-Motor would be perfected. But without 
 the thousand, the end of the four months would 
 be the end of everything that was worth while 
 in life. After that, he would have to go back 
 to teaching, in order to live, and the invention 
 would be lost; for the work needed all his 
 time and thought. 
 
 He was a mathematician and a very good 
 one, besides being otherwise a man of culti- 
 vated mind and wide reading. Unfortunately 
 for himself, or the contrary, if the invention ever 
 succeeded, he had given himself up to higher 
 mathematics when a young man, instead of 
 turning his talent to account in an architect's 
 office, a ship-building yard or a locomotive 
 shop. He could find the strain on any part 
 
 21
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 of an iron frame building by the differential and 
 integral calculus to the millionth of an ounce, 
 but the everyday technical routine work with 
 volumes of ready-made tables was unfamiliar 
 and uncongenial to him; he would rather have 
 calculated the tables themselves. The true 
 science of mathematics is the most imaginative 
 and creative of all sciences ; but the mere appli- 
 cation of mathematics to figures, for the con- 
 struction of engines, ships or buildings, is the 
 dullest sort of drudgery. 
 
 Rather than that, he had chosen to teach 
 what he knew and to dream of great problems 
 at his leisure when teaching was over for the day, 
 or for the term. He had taught in a small 
 college, and had known the rare delight of 
 having one or two pupils who were really in- 
 terested. It had been a good position, and he 
 had married a clever New England girl, the 
 daughter of his predecessor, who had died 
 
 22
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 suddenly. They had been very happy together 
 for years and one boy had been born to them 
 whom his father insisted on christening Newton. 
 Then Overholt had thrown up his employment 
 for the sake of getting freedom to perfect 
 his invention, though much against his wife's 
 advice, for she was a prudent little woman, 
 besides being clever, and she thought of the 
 future of the two beings she loved, and of her 
 own, while her husband dreamed of hastening 
 the progress of science. 
 
 Overholt came to New York, because he could 
 
 work better there than elsewhere, and could get 
 
 * 
 better tools made, and could obtain more easily 
 
 the materials he wanted. For a time every- 
 thing went well enough, but when the investors 
 began to lose faith in him, things went very 
 badly. 
 
 Then Mrs. Overholt told her husband that 
 two could live where three could not, especially
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 if one was a boy of twelve ; and as she would not 
 break his heart by teazing him into giving up 
 the invention as a matter of duty, she told him 
 that she would support herself until it was per- 
 fected or until he abandoned it of his own accord. 
 She was very well fitted to be a governess, she 
 said, and she had friends in New England who 
 could find her a situation. He should see her 
 whenever it was possible, she added, but there 
 was no other way. 
 
 Now it is not easy to find a thoroughly re- 
 spectable young married governess of unex- 
 ceptionable manners, who comes of a good 
 stock and is able to teach young ladies. 
 Such a person is a treasure to rich people who 
 need somebody to take charge of their girls 
 while they fly round and round the world in 
 automobiles, seeking whom they may destroy. 
 Therefore Mrs. Overholt obtained a very good 
 place before long, and when the family in which 
 
 24
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 she taught had its next attack of European fever 
 and it was decided that the girls must stay in 
 Munich to improve their German and their 
 music, Mrs. Overholt was offered an increase 
 of salary if she would take them there and see 
 to it, while their parents quartered Germany, 
 France, Spain, Italy and Austria at the rate of 
 forty miles an hour, or even fifty and sixty where 
 the roads were good. If the parents broke their 
 necks, Mrs. Overholt would take the children 
 home; but this was rather in the understanding 
 than in the agreement. 
 
 Tftat was the position when John Henry sat 
 down upon the lid of Pandora's box in a sunny 
 corner of the Central Park and reflected on Mr. 
 Burnside's remark that 'there was plenty of 
 hope about/ The inventor thought that there 
 was not much; but such as it was, he did 
 not mean to part with it on the ground 
 that the man of business had called it 'cheap.' 
 25
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 He resolved his feelings into factors and sim- 
 plified the forms of each ; and this little mathe- 
 matical operation showed him that he was 
 miserable for three reasons. 
 
 The first was that there was no money for the 
 tangent-balance of the Air-Motor, which was 
 the final part, on which he had spent months of 
 hard work and a hundred more than half- 
 sleepless nights. 
 
 The second reason was that he had not seen 
 his wife for nearly a year and had no idea how 
 long it would be before he saw her again, and 
 he was just as much in love with her as he had 
 been fourteen years ago, when he married her. 
 
 The third, and not the least, was that Christ- 
 mas was coming, and he did not see how in the 
 world he was to make a Christmas out of noth- 
 ing for Newton, seeing that a thirteen-year-old 
 boy wants everything under the sun to cheer 
 him up, when he has no brothers and sisters, 
 
 26
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 and school is closed for the holidays, and his 
 mother is away from home, and there is nobody 
 but a dear old tiresome father who has his nose 
 over a lathe all day long unless he is blinding 
 himself with calculating quaternions for some 
 
 reason that no lad, and very few men, can 
 
 v 
 
 possibly understand. John Henry was obliged 
 to confess that Hope was not much of a Christ- 
 mas present for a boy in Newton's surround- 
 ings. 
 
 For the surroundings would be dismal in the 
 extreme. A rickety cottage, on an abandoned 
 Connecticut farm that is waiting for a Bohemian 
 emigrant to make it pay, is not a gay place, 
 especially when two-thirds of the house has 
 been turned into a workshop that smells ever- 
 lastingly of smith's coal, brass filings and a 
 nauseous chemical which seemed to be necessary 
 to the life of the Air- Motor; and when the rest 
 
 of the home is furnished in a style that would 
 27
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 make a condemned cell look attractive by con- 
 trast. 
 
 Besides, it would rain, or snow, and it rarely 
 snowed in a decent, Christian manner by Christ- 
 mas. It snowed slush, as Newton expressed 
 it. A certain kind of snow-slush makes nice 
 hard snowballs, it is true, just like stones; 
 but when there is no other boy to fight, it is no 
 good. Overholt had once offered to have a 
 game of snowballing with his son on a Satur- 
 day afternoon in winter; and the invitation 
 was accepted with alacrity. But it was never 
 extended again. The boy was a perfect terror 
 at that form of diversion. Yet so distressed 
 was Overholt at the prospect of a sad Christ- 
 mas for his son that he even thought of volun- 
 tarily giving up his thin body to the torment 
 again on the twenty-fifth of December, if that 
 would amuse Newton and make it seem less 
 
 dull for him. Good-will towards men, and 
 
 28
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 even towards children, could go no further 
 than that, even at Christmas time. At least, 
 Overholt could think of no greater sacrifice 
 that might serve. 
 
 For what are toys to a boy of thirteen ? 
 He wants a gun and something to kill, or he 
 wants a boat in which he can really sail, or 
 a live pony with a real head, a real tail and 
 four real legs, one at each corner. That had 
 been Newton's definition of the desired ani- 
 mal when he was six years old, and some one 
 had given him a wooden one on rockers with 
 the legs painted on each side. Girls of thirteen 
 can still play with dolls, and John Henry had 
 read that far away in ancient times, girls 
 dedicated their dolls, with all the dolls' clothes, 
 to Artemis on the eve of their wedding day. 
 But no self-respecting boy of thirteen cares 
 a straw for anything that is not real except 
 
 an imaginary pain that will keep him away 
 29
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 from school without cutting down his rations; 
 and in the invention and presentation of such 
 fictitious suffering he beats all the doll-makers 
 in Germany and all the playwrights and actors 
 in the world. You must have noticed that 
 the pain is always as far from the stomach as 
 is compatible with probability. Toothache is a 
 grand thing, for nobody can blame a healthy 
 boy for eating then, if he can only bear the pain. 
 And he can, and does, bear it nobly, though 
 with awful faces. The little beast knows 
 that all toothaches do not make your cheek 
 swell. Then there is earache; that is a splen- 
 did invention; it goes through your head like 
 a red-hot corkscrew with a powerful brakeman 
 at the other end, turning it steadily be- 
 tween meals. Only certain kinds of things 
 really seem to make him stop. Ice-cream is 
 one, and it takes a great deal of it. It is well 
 
 known that ice will cool a red-hot corkscrew. 
 
 30
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 But this is a digression, for no boy ever has 
 any pain at Christmas; it is only afterward 
 that it comes on; usually about ten days. 
 
 After an hour Overholt came to the con- 
 clusion that he had better take Pandora's box 
 out to the cottage and sit on it there, since 
 nothing suggested itself to him, in spite of his 
 immense good-will to accept any suggestion 
 which the spirit of coming Christmas might 
 be kind enough to offer; and if he could do 
 nothing else, he could at least work at his 
 machine, and try to devise some means of 
 constructing the tangent-balance with the 
 materials he had left, and perhaps, by the 
 time he was thoroughly grimy, and the 
 workshop smelt like the biblical bottomless 
 pit, something would occur to him for New- 
 ton. 
 
 He would also write a letter to his wife, a 
 sort of anticipatory Christmas letter, and send
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 her the book he had bought as a little gift, 
 wrapping it in nice white paper first, tied with 
 a bit of pale green ribband which she had left 
 behind her, and which he had cherished nearly 
 a year, and marking it 'to be opened on Christ- 
 mas morning'; and the parcel should then be 
 done up securely in good brown grocer's paper 
 and addressed to her, and even registered, so that 
 it could not possibly be lost. It was a pretty 
 book, and also a very excellent book, which 
 he knew she wanted and would read often ; so 
 it was as well to take precautions. He wished 
 that Newton wanted a book, or even two or 
 three, or magazines with gaily coloured pictures, 
 or anything that older or younger boys would 
 have liked a little. But Newton was at that 
 age which comes sooner or later to every 
 healthy boy, and the sight of a book which 
 he was meant to read, and ought to read, was 
 infinitely worse than the ugliest old toad that 
 
 32
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 ever flops out of a hollow tree at dusk, blink- 
 ing his devilish little eyes at you when you 
 come too near him. 
 
 Overholt had been brought up by people 
 who lived in peace and good-will towards 
 men, in a city where the Spirit of Christmas 
 still dwells, and sleeps most of the time, but 
 wakens every year like a giant of good courage 
 and good cheer, at the sound of the merry bells 
 across the snow and to the sweet carol under 
 the windows in the frosty night. The Germans 
 say that bad men have no songs; and we and 
 all good fellows may say that those people 
 have no Christmas, though they copy the 
 letter that know not the spirit; and I say 
 that a copied Christmas is not Christmas 
 at all, because Christmas is the feast of hearts, 
 and not of poor bits of cut-down trees stuck 
 up in sawdust and covered with lights and 
 tinsel, even if they are hung with the most 
 33
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 expensive gewgaws and jimcracks that ever 
 are bought for gifts by people who are ex- 
 pected to give, whether they like it or not. 
 But when the heart for Christmas is there, 
 and is beating, then a very little tree will do, 
 if there be none better to the hand. 
 
 Overholt thought so, while the train rumbled, 
 creaked and clattered and jerked itself along, 
 as only local trains can, probably because they 
 are old and rheumatic and stiff and weak 
 in the joints, like superannuated crocodiles, 
 though they may have once been young ex- 
 press trains, sleek and shiny, and quick and 
 noiseless as bright snakes. 
 
 Overholt thought so, too; but the trouble 
 was that he saw not even the least little mite of 
 a tree in sight for his boy, when the twenty- 
 fifth of December should come. And it was 
 coming, and was only a month away; and 
 time is not a local train that stops at every 
 
 34
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 station and then kicks itself on a bit, to stop 
 at the next; it is the 'Fast Limited/ and what 
 is more it is the only one we can go by; and 
 we cannot get out, because it never stops any- 
 where. 
 
 35
 
 77. H&VJ a. Man and 
 a Boy founded the Little City of Hops
 
 II. How a Man and a Boy founded the Little 
 Qfy of Hope 
 
 OVERHOLT'S boy came home from school 
 at the usual hour with his books buckled to- 
 gether in an old skate strap, which had never 
 been very good because the leather was too 
 soft and tore from one hole to the next; but 
 it served very well for the books, as no great 
 strain was caused by an arithmetic thumbed 
 to mushiness, a history in the same state, 
 and a geography of which the binding gave 
 in and doubled up from sheer weariness, while 
 the edges were so worn that the eastern coast 
 of China and Siberia had quite disappeared. 
 39
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 He was a good-looking lad, not tall for his 
 age, but as tough as a street-cat in hard train- 
 ing. He had short and thick brown hair, a 
 clear complexion, his father's energetically intel- 
 lectual features, though only half developed yet, 
 a boldly set mouth and his mother's kindly, 
 practical blue eyes. For surely, the eyes of prac- 
 tical people are always quite different from 
 those of all others; and not many people really 
 are practical, though I never knew anybody 
 who did not think he or she was, except pinch- 
 beck artists, writers and players, who are sure 
 that since they must be geniuses, it is neces- 
 sary to be bohemians in order to show it. The 
 really big ones are always trying to be practi- 
 cal, like Sir Isaac Newton when he ordered a 
 good-sized hole to be cut in his barn door for 
 the cat, and a little one next it for the kitten. 
 
 But Newton Overholt did not at all resemble 
 his great namesake. He was a practical young 
 
 40
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 soul and had not yet developed the American 
 disease which consists in thinking of two things 
 at the same time. John Henry had it badly, 
 for he had been thinking of the tangent-balance, 
 his wife, his boy and the coming Christmas, 
 all together, since he had got home, and the 
 three problems had got mixed and had made 
 his head ache. 
 
 Nevertheless he looked up from his work- 
 table and smiled, when his son came in. 
 
 "Everything all right?" he asked, with an 
 attempt to be cheerful. 
 
 "Oh yes, fine,'* answered the boy, looking 
 at the motionless model for the five-hundredth 
 time, and sticking his hands into his pockets. 
 "I'm only third in arithmetic yet, but I'm 
 head in everything else. I wish I had your 
 brains, father ! I'd be at the head of the arith- 
 metic class in half a shake of a lamb's tail, 
 if I had your brains."
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 So far as arithmetic was concerned this 
 sounded probable to John Henry, who would 
 have considered the speed of the tail to be a 
 variable function of lamb depending on the 
 value of mother plus or minus milk. 
 
 "Well," he said in an encouraging tone, "I 
 never could remember geography, so it makes 
 us even." 
 
 "I'd like to know how!" cried the boy in 
 a tone of protest. "You could do sums and 
 you grew up to be a great mathematician and 
 an inventor. But what's the good of a geog- 
 raphician, anyway? They can only make 
 school books. They never invent anything, 
 do they ? You can't invent geography, can 
 you ? At least, you can, and some boys do, 
 but they go to the bottom of the class like lead. 
 It's safer to invent history than geography, 
 isn't it, father?" 
 
 Overholt's clever mouth twitched. 
 
 4*
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 "It's much safer, my boy. Almost all 
 historians have found it so." 
 
 "There! I said so to-day and now you 
 say just the same thing. I don't believe one 
 word of ancient history ! Not one word ! 
 They wrote it about their own nations, didn't 
 they? All right; then you might just as well 
 expect them to tell what really happened as 
 think that I'd tell on another boy in my own 
 school. I must say, it would be as mean as 
 dog-pie of them if they did, but all the same 
 that doesn't make history true, does it?" 
 
 Newton had a practical mind. His father, 
 who had not, meditated with unnecessary gravity 
 on the boy's point of view, and said nothing. 
 
 "For instance," continued the lad, sitting 
 down on the high stool before the lathe Overholt 
 was not using, "the charge of Balaclava's a 
 true story, because it's been told by both sides; 
 but they all say that it did no good, anyway, 
 43
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 except to make poetry of. But Marathon ! 
 Nobody had a chance to say a word about it 
 but the Greeks themselves, and they weren't 
 going to show that the Persians wiped up the 
 floor with them, were they ? Why should 
 they ? And if Balaclava had happened then, 
 those Greek fellows would have told us the 
 Light Brigade carried the Russian guns back 
 with them across their saddles, wouldn't they ? 
 I say, father!" 
 
 "What is it?" asked Overholt, looking up, 
 for he had gone back to his work and was 
 absorbed in it. 
 
 "The boys are all beginning to talk about 
 Christmas down at the school. Now what are 
 we going to do at Christmas ? I've been won- 
 dering." 
 
 "So have I!" responded the man, laying 
 down the screw-plate with which he had been 
 cutting a fine thread on the end of a small 
 
 44
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 brass rod, for the tangent-balance. "I've been 
 thinking about it a good deal to-day, and I 
 haven't decided on anything." 
 
 "Let's have turkey and cranberry sauce, 
 anyway," said Newton, thoughtfully, for he 
 had a practical mind. "And I suppose we 
 can have ice-cream if it freezes and we can get 
 some ice. Snow does pretty well if you pack 
 it down tight enough with salt, and go on put- 
 ting in more when it melts. Barbara doesn't 
 make ice-cream as well as they do in New York. 
 She puts in a lot of wintergreen and too little 
 cocoanut. But it's not so bad. We can have 
 it, can't we, father?" 
 
 "Oh yes. Turkey, cranberry sauce and ice- 
 cream. But that isn't a whole Christmas !" 
 
 "I don't see what else you want, I'm sure," 
 
 answered the boy, thoughtfully. "I mean, if 
 
 it's a big turkey and there's enough ice-cream. 
 
 Cream-cakes, maybe. You get good cream- 
 
 45
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 cakes at Bangs's, two for five cents. They're 
 not very big, but they're all right inside 
 all gooey, you know. Can you think of any- 
 thing else?" 
 
 "Not to eat!" 
 
 " Oh, well, then what's the matter with our 
 Christmas ? I can't see. No school, and heaps 
 of good gobbler." 
 
 "Good what?" Overholt looked at the 
 boy with an inquiring glance, and then under- 
 stood. " I see ! Is that the proper word ? " 
 
 "When there's lots, it is," answered Newton 
 with conviction. "Of course, there are all 
 sorts of things I'd like to have, but it's no good 
 wishing you could lay Columbus's egg and 
 hatch the American eagle, is it? 1 What would 
 you like, father, if you could choose ? " 
 
 1 The writer acknowledges his indebtedness for this fact 
 in natural and national history, to his aunt, Mrs. Julia 
 Ward Howe, to whom it was recently revealed in the course 
 of making an excellent speech. 
 
 46
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 " Three things," answered Overholt, promptly. 
 " I should like to see that wheel going round, 
 softly and steadily, all Christmas Day. I should 
 like to see that door open, and your mother 
 coming in " 
 
 " You bet I would, too ! " cried Newton, 
 dropping from bold metaphor to vulgar ver- 
 nacular. " Well, what's the third thing ? You 
 said there were three." 
 
 " I should like you to have a real old-fashioned 
 glorious Christmas, my boy, such as you had 
 when you were smaller, before we left the house 
 where you were born." 
 
 "Oh, well, you needn't worry about me, 
 father; if there's plenty of turkey and ice-cream, 
 and the cream-cakes, I can stand it. Mother 
 can't come, anyhow, and that's settled and 
 it's no use to think about it. But the Motor 
 that's different. There's hope, anyway. The 
 wheel may go round. If you didn't hope so, 
 47
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 you wouldn't go on fussing over it, would you ? 
 You'd go and do something else. They always 
 say hope's better than nothing." 
 
 " It's about all we shall have left for Christ- 
 mas, so we may as well build as much on it as 
 we can." 
 
 " I love building," said Newton. " I like 
 to stand and watch a bricklayer just putting 
 one brick on another and making the wall 
 grow." 
 
 " Perhaps you'll turn out an architect." 
 
 "I'd like to. I never showed you my city, 
 did I ?" He knew very well that he had not, 
 and his father looked at him inquiringly. " No. 
 Oh, well, you wouldn't care to see it." 
 
 " Yes, I should ! But I don't understand. 
 What sort of a city do you mean ?" 
 
 " Oh, it's nothing," answered the boy, affect- 
 ing carelessness. "It's only a little paper 
 
 city on a board. I don't believe you'd care 
 
 48
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 to see it, father. Let's talk about Christ- 
 mas!" 
 
 " No. I want to see what you have made. 
 Where is it ? I'll go with you." 
 
 Newton laughed. 
 
 " I'll bring it, if you really want me to. It's 
 easy enough to carry. The whole thing's 
 only paper!" 
 
 He left the workshop and returned before 
 Overholt had finished cutting the thread of 
 the screw he was making. The man turned 
 as the boy pushed the door open with his foot 
 and came in carrying what had evidently 
 once been the top of a deal table. 
 
 On the board he had built an ingenious 
 model of a town, or part of one, for it was not 
 finished. It was entirely made of bits of card- 
 board, chips of wood, the sides of matchboxes 
 and odds and ends of all sorts which he picked 
 up wherever he saw them and brought home 
 49
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 in his pocket for his purpose. He had an 
 immense supply of such stuff stowed away, 
 much more than he could ever use. 
 
 Overholt looked at it with admiration, but 
 said nothing. It was the college town where 
 he had lived so happily and hoped to live again. 
 It was distinctly recognizable, and many of 
 the buildings were not only clearly made, but 
 were coloured very like the originals. He was so 
 much interested that he forgot to say anything. 
 
 "It's a silly thing, anyway," said Newton, 
 disappointed by his silence. "It's like toys!" 
 
 Overholt looked up, and the boy saw his 
 pleased face. 
 
 "It's very far from silly," he said. "I be- 
 lieve you're born to be a builder, boy ! It's not 
 only not silly, but it's very well done indeed !" 
 
 "I'll bet you can't tell what the place is," 
 observed Newton, a secret joy stealing through 
 him at his father's words. 
 
 5
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 " Know it ! I should think I did, and I wish 
 we were there ! Here's the College, and there's 
 our house in the street on the other side of the 
 Common. The church is first rate; it's really 
 like it and there's the Roman Catholic 
 chapel, and the Public Library in Main 
 Street." 
 
 "Why, you really do recognize the places!" 
 cried Newton in delight. " I didn't think 
 anybody'd know them ! " 
 
 " One would have to be blind not to, if one 
 knew the town," said Overholt. "And there's 
 the dear old lane!" He was absorbed in the 
 model. "And the three hickory trees, and 
 even the little bench!" 
 
 "Why, do you remember that bench, father ?" 
 
 Overholt looked up again, quickly and rather 
 dreamily. 
 
 "Yes. It was there that I asked your mother 
 to marry me," he said. 
 53
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 "Not really? Then I'm glad I put it in!" 
 
 "So am I, for the dear old time's sake, and 
 for her sake, and for yours, my boy. Tell me 
 when you made this, and how you can remem- 
 ber it all so well." 
 
 The lad sat down on the high stool again, 
 before the lathe, and looked through the dingy 
 window at the scraggy trees outside, beyond 
 the forlorn yard. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," he said. "I kind of 
 remembered it, I suppose, because I liked it 
 better than this. And when I first had the 
 idea, I was sitting out there in the yard, looking 
 at this board. It belonged to a broken table 
 that had been thrown out there. And I carried 
 it up to my room when you were out I thought 
 you wouldn't mind my taking it. And I picked 
 up scraps that might be useful, and got some 
 gum, and old Barbara made me some flour 
 paste. It's got all green now, and it smells 
 
 54
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 like thunder, but it's good still. That's about 
 all, I suppose. Now I'll take it away again. 
 I keep it in the dark closet behind my room, 
 because that doesn't leak when it rains." 
 
 "Don't take it away," said Overholt, sud- 
 denly. " I'll make room for it here, and you 
 can work at it while I'm busy, and in the even- 
 ings I'll try and help you, and we'll finish it 
 together." 
 
 Newton was amazed. 
 
 "Why, father, it's playing! How can you 
 go to work to play ? It would be so funny ! 
 But of course, if you really would help a little 
 you've got such lots of nice things !" 
 
 He wistfully eyed a little coil of very fine 
 steel wire, which would make a beautiful tele- 
 graph. Newton even dreamt of making the 
 trolley, too, in the Main Street, but that would 
 be a very troublesome job, and as for the rail- 
 way station, it was easy enough to build a shed 
 55
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 and a platform, but what is a railway station 
 without a train ? 
 
 Overholt did not answer the boy at once, 
 and when he spoke, there was a queer little 
 quaver in his voice. 
 
 "We'll call it our Little City of Hope," he 
 said, "and perhaps we can 'go to work to 
 play/ as you call it, so hard that Hope will 
 really come and live in the city.** 
 
 "Well,** said Newton, "I never thought 
 you*d even care to see it! Shall I go up and 
 get my stuff, and the gum and the flour paste, 
 and bring them down here, father? But the 
 flour paste smells pretty bad it might give 
 you a headache.'* 
 
 " Bring it down, my boy. My headaches 
 don't come from such things." 
 
 " Don't they ? It's true that stuff you use 
 here's about as bad as anything, till you get 
 used to it. What is it, anyway?" 
 
 56
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 Overholt gave him the almost unpronounce- 
 able name of a recently discovered substance, 
 and smiled at his expression as he listened. 
 
 " If that's its name," said the boy, gravely, 
 "it sounds like the way it smells. I wonder 
 what a skunk's name is in science. But the 
 flour paste's pretty bad, too. You'll see!" 
 
 He went off, and his father finished cutting 
 the little screw while he was gone, and then 
 turned to look at the model again, and became 
 absorbed in tracing the well-known streets and 
 trying to recall the shops and houses in each, 
 and the places where his friends had lived, 
 and no doubt lived still, for college towns do 
 not change as fast as others. He was amazed 
 at the memory the boy had shown for details; 
 if the lad had not yet developed any special 
 talent, he had at least proved that he possessed 
 one of those natural gifts which are sometimes 
 alone enough to make success. The born 
 57
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 builder's eye is like an ear for music, a facility 
 for languages or the power of drawing from 
 nature; all the application in the world will 
 not do in years what any one of those does 
 instantly, spontaneously, instinctively, without 
 the smallest effort. You cannot make talent 
 out of a combination of taste and industry. 
 You cannot train a cart-horse to trot a mile 
 in a little over a minute. 
 
 Newton returned, bringing his materials, 
 to describe which would be profitless, if it were 
 possible. He had everything littered together 
 in two battered deal candle-boxes, including 
 the broken soup-plate containing the flour 
 paste, a loathly, mouldering little mess that 
 diffused a nauseous odour distinctly perceptible 
 through that of the unpronounceable chemical 
 on which the Air-Motor was to depend for its 
 existence. 
 
 The light outside was failing in the murky 
 
 58
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 November air, and Overholt lit the big reflect- 
 ing lamp that hung over the work-table. There 
 was another above the lathe, for no gas or 
 electricity was to be had so far from the town, 
 and one of old Barbara's standing causes of 
 complaint against Overholt was his reckless 
 use of kerosene. She thought he would be 
 better if he had more fat turkeys and rump 
 steaks, and less light. 
 
 So the man and the boy 'went to work to 
 play ' at building the City of Hope, for at 
 least an hour before supper, and half an hour 
 after it, almost every day; and with the boy's 
 marvellous memory and the father's skill, and 
 the delirious profusion of fresh material which 
 Newton kept finding in every corner of the 
 workshop, it grew steadily, till it was a little 
 work of art in its way. There were the ups 
 and downs, the crooked old roads and lanes 
 and the straight new streets, the little wooden 
 59
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 cottages and the big brick houses, and there 
 was the grassy common with its trees and its 
 tiny iron railing; and John Henry easily made 
 posts to carry the trolley wires, which had 
 seemed an impossible dream to the boy, beyond 
 all realization; and one day, when the inventor 
 seemed further from the tangent-balance than 
 ever, he spent a whole afternoon in making 
 half a dozen little trolley cars that ran on real 
 wheels, made by sawing off sections from 
 a lead pencil, which is the best thing in the 
 world for that, because the lead comes out and 
 leaves nice round holes for the axles. When 
 the first car was painted red and yellow and 
 ran up and down Main Street, guided by the 
 wire above and only needing one little artificial 
 push to send it either way, it looked so real 
 that the boy was in ecstacies of delight. 
 
 " It's worth while to be a great inventor, to 
 
 be able to make things like that ! " he cried, 
 
 So
 
 and Overholt was as much pleased by the praise 
 as an opera singer is who is called out three 
 times before the curtain after the first act. 
 
 So the Little City of Hope grew, and they 
 both felt that Hope herself was soon coming 
 to dwell therein, if she had not come already.
 
 J37. How they 
 made Bricks e o)Hhoai Strum
 
 HI. Ho<w they made Brick* 
 orit boat Straw 
 
 Bur then something happened ; for Overholt 
 was tormented by the vague consciousness of a 
 coming idea so that he had headaches, and 
 could not sleep at night. It flashed upon him at 
 last one evening, when Newton was in bed, and 
 he was sitting before his motor, wishing he had 
 the thousand dollars which would surely com- 
 plete it, even if he used the most expensive 
 materials in the market. 
 
 The idea which developed suddenly in all its 
 
 clearness was that he had made one of the most 
 67
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 important parts of the machine exactly the con- 
 verse of what it should be; what was on the 
 right should have been on the left, and what 
 was down should certainly have been up. 
 Then the engine would work, even if the tan- 
 gent-balance were a very poor affair indeed. 
 
 The particular piece of brass casting which 
 was the foundation of that part had been made 
 in New York, and owing to the necessity for its 
 being finished very accurately and machine- 
 planed and turned, it had cost a great deal of 
 money. Already it had been made and spoilt 
 three times over, and now it was perfectly clear 
 that it must be cast over again in a reversed form. 
 It was quite useless to make the balance yet, 
 for it would be of no use till the right casting 
 was finished ; it would have to be reversed, too, 
 and the tangent would apply to a reversed curve. 
 
 He had no money for the casting, but even 
 
 before trying to raise the cash, it was necessary 
 
 68
 
 THE LITTLE 
 CITY OF 
 HOPE 
 
 to make the wooden model. He could do that, 
 and he set to work to sketch the drawing within 
 five minutes after the idea had flashed upon him. 
 As his eye followed the lines made by his pencil, 
 he became more and more convinced that he 
 was right. When the rough sketch was done, 
 he looked up at the engine. Its familiar features 
 seemed to be drawn into a diabolical grimace 
 of contempt at his stupidity, and it looked as if 
 it were conscious, and wanted to throw the 
 wrongly made piece at his head. But he was 
 overwrought just then, and could have fancied 
 any folly. 
 
 He rose, shook himself and then took a long 
 pull at a black bottle that always stood on a 
 shelf. When a man puts a black bottle to his 
 lips, tips it up and takes down several good pulls 
 almost without drawing breath, most people 
 suppose that he is a person of vicious habits. 
 
 In Overholt's case, most people would have 
 69