CHAPTER II
A VISIT TO THE PANCHRONICON
At precisely eight o'clock that evening, a knock was again heard at thedoor of the Wise home, and Droop was admitted by the younger sister. Shedid not speak, and her face was invisible in the dark hall. The visitorturned to the right and entered the parlor, followed by his younghostess. Rebecca was sitting by the lamp, sewing. As she looked up andnodded, Droop saw that her features expressed only gloomy severity. Heturned in consternation and caught sight for the first time ofPhoebe's face. Her eyes and pretty nose were red and her mouth wasdrawn into a curve of plaintive rebellion.
"Set down, Mr. Droop. Give me yer hat," she said; and there was asuspicious catch in her voice.
The visitor seated himself by the centre-table beside the lamp and satslowly rubbing his hands, the while he gazed mournfully from one to theother of the silent sisters. Phoebe sat on the long horse-hair"settle," and played moodily with the tassel hanging at its head.
There was a long pause. Each of the women seemed bent on forcing theother to break the silence.
Poor Droop felt that his plans were doomed, and he dared not urge eitherwoman to speech, lest he hear the death-sentence of his hopes. Finally,however, the awkward silence became unbearable.
"Well?" he said, inquiringly, still rubbing his hands.
"Well," Rebecca exclaimed, "it seems it's not to be done," and shelooked reproachfully at Phoebe.
The words fulfilled his fears, but the tone and glance produced a thrillof hope. It was evident that Rebecca at least favored his plans.
Turning now to the younger sister, Droop asked, in a melancholy tone:
"Don't you want to get rich, Cousin Phoebe?"
"Rich--me!" she replied, indignantly. "A mighty lot of riches it'llbring me, won't it? That's just what riles me so! You an' Rebecca justthink of nothin' but your own selves. You never stop to think of me!"
Droop opened his eyes very wide indeed, and Rebecca said, earnestly:
"Phoebe, you know you ain't got any call to say sech a thing!"
"Oh, haven't I?" cried Phoebe, in broken accents. "Did either of youthink what would happen to me if we all went back to 1876? Two yearsold! That's what I'd be! A little toddling baby, like Susan Mellick'sAnnie! Put to bed before supper--carried about in everybody's arms--fedon a bottle and--and perhaps--and perhaps getting _spanked_!"
With the last word, Phoebe burst into tears of mingled grief andmortification and rushed from the room.
The others dared not meet each other's guilty eyes. Droop gazed aboutthe room in painful indecision. He could not bear to give up all hope,and yet--this unforeseen objection really seemed a very serious one. Toleave the younger sister behind was out of the question. On the otherhand, the consequences of the opposite course were--well, painful to herat least.
In his nervousness he unconsciously grasped a small object on the tableupon which his left hand had been lying. It was a miniature daintilypainted on ivory. He looked vacantly upon it; his mind at first quiteabsent from his eyes. But as he gazed, something familiar in the lovelyface depicted there fixed his attention. Before long he was examiningthe picture with the greatest interest.
"Well, now!" he exclaimed, at length. "Ain't that pretty! Looks jestlike her, too. When was that tuck, Miss Wise?"
"That ain't Phoebe," said Rebecca, dejectedly.
"Ain't Phoebe!" Droop cried, in amazement. "Why, it's the finestlikeness--why--but--it _must_ be yer sister!"
"Well, 'tain't. Thet pictur is jest three hundred years old."
"Three hundred--" he began--then very slowly, "Well, now, do tell!" hesaid.
"Phoebe's got the old letter that tells about it. The's a lot of 'emin that little carved-wood box there. They say it come over in theMayflower."
Droop could not take his eyes from the picture. The likeness wasperfect. Here was the pretty youthful oval of her face--the same playfulblue eye--the sensitive red lips seeming about to sparkle into asmile--even the golden brown mist of hair that hid the delicately turnedear!
Then Droop suddenly remembered his plans, and with his hand he droppedthe picture as his mind dismissed it. He rose and looked about for hishat.
"Ye wouldn't want to come back to '76 with me an' leave Cousin Phoebebehind, would ye?" he suggested, dismally.
"What!" cried Rebecca, giving vent to her pent-up feelings, "an' neversee my sister again! Why, I'd hev to come livin' along up behind her,and, all I could do, I'd never catch up with her--never! You'd ought tobe ashamed to stand there an' think o' sech a thing, Copernicus Droop!"
For some time he stood with bent head and shoulders, twirling his hatbetween his fingers. At length he straightened up suddenly and movedtoward the door.
"Well," he said, "the' isn't any use you seem' the Panchronicon now, isthe'?"
"What's it like, Mr. Droop?" Rebecca inquired.
He paused helpless before the very thought of description.
"Oh," he said, weakly, "et's like--et's a--why--Oh, it's a machine!"
"Hez it got wings?"
"Not exactly wings," he began, then, more earnestly, "why don't ye comeand see it, anyway! It can't do ye any harm to jest look at it!"
Rebecca dropped her hands into her lap and replied, with a hesitatingmanner:
"I'd like to fust rate--it must be an awful queer machine! But I don'tget much time fer traipsin' 'round now days."
"Why can't ye come right along now?" Droop asked, eagerly. "It's dry asa bone underfoot down in the swamp now. The's ben no rain in a longtime."
She pondered some time before replying. Her first impulse was to rejectthe proposal as preposterous. The hour seemed very ill chosen. Rebeccawas not accustomed to leaving home for any purpose at night, and she wasextremely conservative.
On the other hand, she felt that only under cover of the darkness couldshe consent to go anywhere in company with the village reprobate. Everytongue in the place would be set wagging were she seen walking withCopernicus Droop. She had not herself known how strong was the curiositywhich his startling theories and incredible story had awakened in her.She looked up at her visitor with indecision in her eyes.
"I don't see how I could go now," she said. "Besides, it's mos' toodark to see the thing, ain't it?"
"Not a mite," he replied, confidently. "The's lights inside I can turnon, an' we'll see the hull thing better'n by daylight."
Then, as she still remained undecided, he continued, in an undertone:
"Cousin Phoebe's up in her room, ain't she? Ye might not get anotherchance so easy."
He had guessed instinctively that, under the circumstances, Rebeccapreferred not revealing to Phoebe her own continued interest in thewonderful machine.
The suggestion was vital. Phoebe was in all probability sulking in herown bedroom, and in that event would not quit it for an hour. It seemednow or never.
Rebecca rolled up her knitting work and rose to her feet.
"Jest wait here a spell," she said, rapidly. "I won't be a minute!"
* * * * *
Shortly afterward, two swiftly moving, shadowy figures emerged from thelittle white gate and turned into a dark lane made more gloomy byoverhanging maples. This was the shortest route to Burnham's swamp.
Copernicus was now more hopeful. He could not but feel that, if theelder sister came face to face with his marvellous machine, good mustresult for his plans. Rebecca walked with nervous haste, dreadingPhoebe's possible discovery of this most unconventional conduct.
The night was moonless, and the two stumbled and groped their way downthe lane at a pace whose slowness exasperated Rebecca.
"Ef I'd a-known!" she exclaimed, under her breath.
"We're 'most there, Cousin Rebecca," said Copernicus, with deprecatingsoftness. "Here, give me holt o' yer hand while we climb over the wall.Here's Burnham's swamp right now."
Accepting the proffered aid, Rebecca found herself in the midst of athicket of bushes, many of which were thorny
and all of which seemedbent upon repelling nocturnal adventurers.
Droop, going ahead, did his best to draw aside the obstinate twigs, andRebecca followed him with half-averted head, lifting her skirts andwalking sidewise.
"'Mighty lucky, 'tain't wet weather!" she mumbled.
At that moment her guide stood still.
"There!" he exclaimed, in a low, half-awed voice.
Rebecca stopped and gazed about. A little to the right the dark gray ofthe sky was cut by a looming black mass of uncertain form.
It looked like the crouching phantom of some shapeless sea-monster.Rebecca half expected to see it dissolve like a wind-driven fog.
Their physical sight could distinguish nothing of the outercharacteristics of this mysterious structure; but for this very reason,the imagination was the more active. Rebecca, with all her directness ofnature and commonplace experience, felt in this unwonted presence thatsense of awed mystery which she would have called a "creepy feeling."
What unknown and incomprehensible forces were locked within thatformless mass? By what manner of race as yet unborn had its elementsbeen brought together--no, no--_would_ they be brought together? Howassume a comfortable mental attitude toward this creation whose presentexistence so long antedated its own origin?
One sentiment, at least, Rebecca could entertain with heartyconsistency. Curiosity asserted its supremacy over every other feeling.
"Can't we get into the thing, an' light a candle or suthin'?" she said.
"Of course we can," said Droop. "That's what I brought ye here fer. Takeholt o' my hand an' lift yer feet, or you'll stumble."
Leading his companion by the hand, Copernicus approached the dark form,moving with great caution over the clumps of grassy turf. Presently hereached the side of the machine. Rebecca heard him strike it with hishand two or three times, as though groping for something. Then she wasdrawn forward again, and suddenly found herself entering an invisibledoorway. She stumbled on the threshold and flung out her free hand forsupport. She clutched at a hand-rail that seemed to lead spirallyupward.
Droop's voice came out of the blackness.
"Jest wait here a minute," he said. "I'll go up an' turn on the light."
She heard him climbing a short flight of stairs, and a few moments latera flood of light streamed from a doorway above her head, amply lightingthe little hallway in which Rebecca was standing.
The hand-rail to which she was already clinging skirted the iron stairsleading to the light, and she started at once up this narrow spiral.
She was met at the door by Copernicus, who was smiling with a proudcomplacency.
"Wal, Cousin Rebecca," he said, with a sweeping gesture indicating theirgeneral surroundings, "what d'ye think o' this?"
They were standing at the head of a sort of companion-way in a roomyantechamber much resembling the general cabin of a luxurious old-timesailing-packet. The top of the stairs was placed between two windows inone side wall of the machine, through which there was just then enteringa gentle breeze. Two similar openings faced these in the opposite sidewall, and under each of the four windows there was a long wooden benchcarrying a flat mattress cushion.
In the middle of the room, on a square deep-piled rug, stood a tablecovered with a red cloth and surrounded by three or four solid-lookingupholstered chairs. Here were some books and papers, and directly overthe table a handsome electric chandelier hung from the ceiling ofdark-wood panels. This was the source of their present illumination.
"This here's the settin'-room," Droop explained. "An' these are thestate-rooms--that's what he called 'em."
He walked toward two doors in one of the end walls and, opening one ofthem, turned the switch of the lamp within.
"'Lectric lights in it, like down to Keene," Rebecca remarked,approaching the cabin and peering in.
She saw a small bedroom comfortably furnished. The carpet was apparentlynew, and on the tastefully papered walls hung a number of smalloil-paintings.
Droop opened the other door.
"They're both alike," he said.
Rebecca glanced into the second apartment, which was indeed thecounterpart of its companion.
"Well, it wouldn't do no harm to sweep an' beat these carpets!" sheexclaimed. Then, slipping her forefinger gingerly over the edge of achair: "Look at that dust!" she said, severely, holding up her hand forinspection.
But Droop had bustled off to another part of the room.
"Here's lockers under these window-seats," he explained, with adignified wave of the hand. "Here's books an' maps in this set o'shelves. Here's a small pianner that plays itself when you turn on theelectricity----"
There was a stumbling crash and a suppressed cry at the foot of thestairs.
With his heart in his mouth, Droop leaped to the chandelier and turnedout the lights; then rushed to the state-rooms and was about to turntheir switches as well, when a familiar voice greeted their ears frombelow--
"Don't be scared--it's only Phoebe."
"What ever possessed--" began Rebecca, in a low tone.
But at that moment Phoebe's head appeared over the stair rail in thelight shed from the two state-rooms.
"Won't you light up again, Mr. Droop?" she said, merrily, smiling thewhile into her sister's crestfallen face. "I heard you two leavin' thehouse, an' I just guessed what you'd be up to. So I followed you downhere."
She dropped into one of the chairs beside the table just as Drooprelighted the lamps.
With one slender hand resting upon the table, she looked up into Droop'sface and went on:
"I was havin' a dreadful time, stumbling over stocks an' stones at everystep, till suddenly there was quite a light struck my face, and first Iknew I was lookin' right into your lighted windows. I guess we'll have apleasant meetin' here of all the folks in town pretty soon--not tomention the skeeters, which are comin' right early this year!"
"Lands sakes!" cried Rebecca.
"There now!" exclaimed Copernicus, bustling toward the windows, "I mustbe a nateral born fool!"
Phoebe laughed in high spirits at thought of her prank, while Droopclosed the tight iron shutters at each window, thus confining every rayof light.
Rebecca seated herself opposite Phoebe and looked severely straightbefore her with her hands folded in her lap. She was ashamed of hercuriosity and much chagrined at being discovered in this unconventionalsituation by her younger sister.
Phoebe gazed about her and, having taken in the general aspect of theantechamber in which they were assembled, she explored the twostate-rooms. Thence she returned for a more detailed survey. Droopfollowed her about explaining everything, but Rebecca remained unmoved.
"What's all those dials on the wall, Mr. Droop?" asked the youngersister.
"I wish't you'd call me Cousin Copernicus," said Droop, appealingly.
Phoebe ran up very close to a large steel dial-plate covered withfigures.
"Now what the land is this for?" she exclaimed.
"Thet," said Droop, slowly, "is an indicator of height above ground andtells yer direction."
"And what d'ye do with this little handle?"
"Why, you set that for north or west or any other way, an' the hullmachine keeps headed that way until ye change it."
"Oh, is that the rudder?"
"No, that is fer settin' jest one course fer a long ride--like's ef wewas goin' north to the pole, ye know. The rudder's in here, 'long withthe other machinery."
He walked to one of the two doors which faced the state-rooms.
Phoebe followed him and found herself in the presence of a bewilderingarray of controlling and guiding handles--gauges--test cocks--meters andindicators. She was quite overawed, and listened with a new respect forher distant relative as he explained the uses of the variousinstruments. It was evident that he had quite mastered the significanceof each implement.
When Droop had completed his lecture, Phoebe found that she understoodthe uses of three of the levers. The rest was a mystery to her.
r /> "This is the starting-lever," she said. "This steers, and this reverses.Is that it?"
"That's correct," said Droop, "an' if----"
She cut him short by whisking out of the room.
"What drives the thing?" she asked, as he meekly followed her.
"Oh, the's power storage an' all kinds o' works down below stairs."
"An' what's this room for?" she asked, opening the door next theengine-room.
"Thet's the kitchen an' butler's pantry," said Droop. "It's mightyfinely fitted up, I tell ye. That future-man was what ye call aconusure. My, but he could cook up fine victuals!"
Rebecca found this temptation stronger than her ill humor, and she rosewith alacrity and followed her companions into the now brightly lightedkitchen.
Here the appointments were the completest possible, and, after she andPhoebe had mastered the theory of the electric range, they agreed thatthey had never seen such a satisfactory equipment.
Phoebe stood in the middle of the room and looked about her withkindling eyes. The novelty of this adventure had intoxicated her.Rebecca's enthusiasm was repeated threefold in the more youthful bosomof her sister.
"My!" she cried, "wouldn't it be lovely if we could make this our housedown here for a while! What would the Mellicks an' the Tituses an'----"
"They'd take us for a lunatic asylum," Rebecca exclaimed, severely.
Phoebe considered a moment and then gravely replied:
"Yes, I s'pose they would."
Copernicus was pacing slowly up and down from range to china-closet andback, rubbing his hands slowly over each other.
"I wish't you'd try to see ef ye couldn't change yer mind, CousinPhoebe," he said, earnestly. "Jest think of all there is in thisextrordnery vessel--what with kitchen an' little cunnin'state-rooms--what with the hull machinery an' all--it's a sinful wasteto leave it all to rot away down in this here swamp when we might all goback to the Centennial an' get rich as--as Solomon's temple!"
Phoebe led the way in silence to the outer room again, and Droopcarefully extinguished the lights in the kitchen and engine-room.
As the three stood together under the main chandelier their faces werethe exponents of three different moods.
Droop was wistful--anxious.
Rebecca looked grimly regretful.
In Phoebe's eyes there shone a cheerful light--but her expression wasenigmatic.
"Now let's go home," she said, briskly. "I've got somethin' that I wantto talk to Rebecca about. Can't you call in to-morrow mornin', Mr.Droop?"
"Don't ye believe ye might change yer mind?" he asked, mournfully.
"We'll be through with the breakfast an' have things set to rights byeight o'clock," said Phoebe.