Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches

"I remember a boy," answered Marion briefly. "He never would finish any game, no matter what it was, but always wanted to try something new."

"Like his mother," said Mrs. Manning, heaving a reminiscent sigh, and then laughing. "Sally Telfair used to change about the things in her work-basket and on her table every day of her life. Let me see – Lawrence must be twenty-eight now."

"He has come back, I suppose, to take care of his grandfather in his old age," said Bro, who was eating his dinner in large, slow mouthfuls, in a manner which might have been called ruminative if ruminating animals were not generally fat.

"Yes, of course," replied Mrs. Manning, with her comfortable belief in everybody's good motives.

When Marion and her mother returned home the next day at dusk a third person was with them as they walked along the track, their figures outlined clearly against the orange after-glow in the west. Bro, who had come across for his tea, saw them, and supposed it was young Vickery. He supposed correctly. Young Vickery came in, staid to tea, and spent the evening. Bro, as usual, went over to the mill. The next day young Vickery came again, and the next; the third day the Mannings went over to the island. Then it began over again.

"I do hope, Bro, that your dinners have been attended to properly," said Mrs. Manning, during the second week of these visitations.

"Oh, yes, certainly," replied Bro, who would have eaten broiled rhinoceros unnoticingly.

"You see Mr. Vickery has the old-time ideas about company and visiting to celebrate a great occasion, and Lawrence's return is, of course, that. It is a perfect marvel to hear where, or rather where not, that young man has been."

"Where?" said Bro, obediently asking the usual question which connected Mrs. Manning's narratives, and gave them a reason for being.

"Everywhere. All over the wide world, I should say."

"Oh, no, mother; he was in Germany most of the time," said Marion.

"He saw the Alps, Marion."

"The Bavarian Alps."

"And he saw France."

"From the banks of the Moselle."

"And Russia, and Holland, and Bohemia," pursued Mrs. Manning. "You will never make me believe that one can see all those countries from Germany, Marion. Germany was never of so much importance in my day. And to think, too, that he has lived in Bohemia! I must ask him about it. I have never understood where it was, exactly; but I have heard persons called Bohemians who had not a foreign look at all."

"He did not live in Bohemia, mother."

"Oh, yes, he did, child; I am sure I heard him say so."

"You are thinking of Bavaria."

"Marion! Marion! how can you tell what I am thinking of?" said Mrs. Manning oracularly. "There is no rule of arithmetic that can tell you that. But here is Lawrence himself at the door. – You have lived in Bohemia, have you not?" she asked, as the young man entered: he came in and out now like one of the family. "Marion says you have not."

"Pray, don't give it up, but stick to that opinion, Miss Marion," said the young man, with a merry glint in his eyes. Ah! yes, young Vickery had wandered, there was no doubt of it; he used contractions, and such words as "stick." Mrs. Manning and Marion had never said "don't" or "can't" in their lives.

"I do not know what you mean," replied Marion, a slight color rising in her cheeks. "It is not a matter of opinion one way or the other, but of fact. You either have lived in Bohemia, or you have not."

"Well, then, I have," said Vickery, laughing.

"There! Marion," exclaimed Mrs. Manning triumphantly.

Vickery, overcome by mirth, turned to Bro, as if for relief; Bro was at least a man.

But Bro returned his gaze mildly, comprehending nothing.

"Going over to the mill?" said Vickery. "I'll go with you, and have a look about."

They went off together, and Vickery examined the mill from top to bottom; he measured the logs, inspected the engine, chaffed the negroes, climbed out on the roof, put his head into Bro's cell-like bedroom, and came at last to the locked door.

"What have we here?" he asked.

"Only a little workshop of mine, which I keep locked," replied Bro.

"So I see. But what's inside?"

"Nothing of much consequence – as yet," replied the other, unable to resist adding the adverb.

"You must let me in," said Vickery, shaking the door. "I never could abide a secret. Come, Bro; I won't tell. Let me in, or I shall climb up at night and break in," he added gayly.

Bro stood looking at him in silence. Eleven years had he labored there alone, too humble to speak voluntarily of his labors; too insignificant, apparently, for questions from others. Although for the most part happy over his work, there were times when he longed for a friendly ear to talk to, for other eyes to criticise, the sympathy of other minds, the help of other hands. At these moments he felt drearily lonely over his valve and register; they even seemed to mock him. He was not imaginative, yet occasionally they acted as if moved by human motives, and, worse still, became fairly devilish in their crooked perverseness. Nobody had ever asked before to go into that room. Should he? Should he not? Should he? Then he did.

Lawrence, at home everywhere, sat on a high stool, and looked on with curiosity while the inventor brought out his inventions and explained them. It was a high day for Bro: new life was in him; he talked rapidly; a dark color burned in his thin cheeks. He talked for one hour without stopping, the buzz of the great saw below keeping up an accompaniment; then he paused.

"How do they seem to you?" he asked feverishly.

"Well, I have an idea that self-registers are about all they can be now; I have seen them in use in several places at the North," said Lawrence. "As to the steam-valve, I don't know; there may be something in it. But there is no doubt about that screw: for some uses it is perfect, better than anything we have, I should say."

"Oh, the screw?" said the other man, in a slow, disappointed voice. "Yes, it is a good screw; but the valve – "

"Yes, as you say, the valve," said Lawrence, jumping down from his stool, and looking at this and that carelessly on his way to the door. "I don't comprehend enough of the matter, Bro, to judge. But you send up that screw to Washington at once and get a patent out on it; you will make money, I know."

He was gone; there was nothing more to see in the saw-mill, so he paddled across, and went down toward the dock. The smoke of a steamer coming in from the ocean could be seen; perhaps there would be something going on down there.

"He is certainly a remarkably active young fellow," said Mrs. Manning, as she saw the top of his head passing, the path along-shore being below the level of the cottage. "He has seen more in Wilbarger already than I have ever seen here in all my life."

"We are, perhaps, a little old-fashioned, mother," replied Marion.

"Perhaps we are, child. Fashions always were a long time in reaching Wilbarger. But there! what did it matter? We had them sooner or later, though generally later. Still, bonnets came quite regularly. But I have never cared much about bonnets," pursued Mrs. Manning reflectively, "since capes went out, and those sweet ruches in front, full of little rose-buds. There is no such thing now as a majestic bonnet."

Bro came over to tea as usual. He appeared changed. This was remarkable; there had never been any change in him before, as far back as they could remember.

"You are surely not going to have a fever?" asked Mrs. Manning anxiously, skilled in fever symptoms, as are all dwellers on that shore.

"No; I have been a little overturned in mind this afternoon, that is all," replied Bro. Then, with a shadow of importance, "I am obliged to write to Washington."

"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Manning, for once assuming the position of questioner.

"I have invented a – screw," he answered, hesitatingly – "a screw, which young Mr. Vickery thinks a good one. I am going to apply for a patent on it."

"Dear me! Apply for a patent? Do you know how?"

"Yes, I know how," replied the inventor quietly.