Flood Tide | Page 3

be one gigantic spider's web, her initial

impression was that strings played far too important a part in the
household. What a labyrinthine entanglement the dwelling was! Had a
mammoth silkworm woven his airy filaments within its interior, the
effect could scarcely have been more grotesque.
Strings stretched from the back door, across the kitchen and through the
hallway, and disappeared up the stairs into Willie's bedroom, where one
pull of a cord lifted the iron latch to admit Oliver Goldsmith, the
Maltese cat, whenever he rattled for entrance. There was a string that
hoisted and lowered the coal hod from the cellar through a square hole
in the kitchen floor, thereby saving one the fatigue of tugging it up the
stairs.
"A coal hod is such an infernal tote to tote!" Willie would explain to his
listeners.
Then there was a string which in like manner swung the wood box into
place. Other strings opened and closed the kitchen windows, unfastened
the front gate, rang a bell in Celestina's room, and whisked Willie's
slippers forth from their hiding place beneath the stairs; not to mention
myriad red, blue, green, yellow, and purple strings that had their goals
in the ice chest, the pump, the letter box, and the storm door, and in
connection with which objects they silently performed mystic
benefactions.
Probably, however, the most significant string of all was that of stout
twine that reached from Willie's shop to the home of Janoah Eldridge,
two fields beyond, just at the junction of the Belleport and Harbor
roads. This string not only linked the two cottages but sustained upon
its taut line a small wooden box that could be pulled back and forth at
will and convey from one abode to the other not only written
communications but also such diminutive articles as pipes, tobacco,
spectacles, balls of string, boxes of tacks, and even tools of moderate
weight. By means of this primitive special delivery service Jan
Eldridge could be summoned posthaste whenever an especially
luminous inspiration flashed upon Willie's intellect and could assist in
helping to make the dream a reality.

For it was always through Willie's plastic imagination that these
creative visions flitted. In all his seventy years Jan had been beset by
only one outburst of genius and that had pertained to whisking an extra
blanket over himself when he was cold at night. How much pleasanter
to lie placidly between the sheets and have the blanket miraculously
appear without the chill and discomfort of arising to fetch it, he argued!
But alas! the magic spell had failed to work. Instead the strings had
wrenched the corners from the age-worn covering, thereby arousing
Mrs. Eldridge's ire. Moreover, although Jan had not confessed it at the
time, the blanket while in process of locomotion had for some
unfathomable reason dragged in its wake all the other bedclothes,
freeing them from their moorings and submerging his head in a
smothering weight of disorganized sheets and counterpanes only to
leave his poor shivering body a prey to the unfriendly elements. An
attack of lumbago that rendered him helpless from January until March
followed and had decided Jan that inventors were born, not made.
Thereafter he had been content to abandon the realm of research to his
comrade and allow Willie to furnish the inspiration for further creative
ventures. Nevertheless his retirement from the spheres of discovery did
not prevent him from zealously assisting in the mechanical details that
rendered Willie's schemes material. Jan not only possessed a far more
practical type of mind than did his friend but he was also a more skilful
workman and therefore in the carrying out of any plan his aid was
indispensable. He was, moreover, content to be the lesser power,
looking up to Willie's ability with admiration and asserting with
unfeigned sincerity to every one he met that Willie Spence had not only
been born with the injun but he had the newity to go with it.
"Why," Jan would often declare with spirit, "in my opinion Willie has
every whit as much call to write X, Y, Z, an' all them other letters after
his name as any of those fellers that graduate from colleges! He's a
wonder, Willie Spence is--a walkin' wonder! Some day he's goin' to
make his mark, too, an' cause the folks in this town to set up an' take
notice. See if he don't."
Willie's neighbors had long since tired of waiting for the glorious
moment of his fame to arrive; and although they had too genuine a

regard for the little old inventor to state publicly what they really
thought of the strings, the nails, the spools, the wires, and the pulleys,
in private they did not hesitate to denounce derisively the scientist's
contrivances and assert that some