The Battery and the Boiler | Page 2

among the latter. His father, a poor gentleman, procured a situation as accountant in a mercantile house. His mother busied herself--and she was a very busy little creature--with the economics of home. She clothed Robin's body and stored his mind. Among other things, she early taught him to read from the Bible.
As Robin grew he waxed strong and bold and lively, becoming a source of much anxiety, mingled with delight, to his mother, and of considerable alarm, mixed with admiration and surprise, to his father. He possessed an inquisitive mind. He inquired into everything--including the antique barometer and the household clock, both of which were heirlooms, and were not improved by his inquiries. Strange to say, Robin's chief delight in those early days was a thunderstorm. The rolling of heaven's artillery seemed to afford inexpressible satisfaction to his little heart, but it was the lightning that affected him most. It filled him with a species of awful joy. No matter how it came--whether in the forked flashes of the storm, or the lambent gleamings of the summer sky--he would sit and gaze at it in solemn wonder. Even in his earliest years he began to make inquiries into that remarkable and mysterious agent.
"Musser," he said one day, during a thunderstorm, raising his large eyes to his mother's face with intense gravity,--"Musser, what is lightenin'?"
Mrs Wright, who was a soft little unscientific lady with gorgeous eyes, sat before her son, perplexed.
"Well, child, it is--it--really, I don't know what it is!"
"Don't know?" echoed Robin, with surprise, "I sought you know'd everysing."
"No, not everything, dear," replied Mrs Wright, with a deprecatory smile; "but here comes your father, who will tell you."
"Does he know everysing?" asked the child.
"N-no, not exactly; but he knows many things--oh, ever so many things," answered the cautious wife and mother.
The accountant had barely crossed his humble threshold and sat down, when Robin clambered on his knee and put the puzzling question.--"Fasser, what is lightenin'?"
"Lightning, my boy?--why, it's--it's--let me see--it's fire, of course, of some sort, that comes out o' the clouds and goes slap into the earth--there, don't you see it?"
Robin did see it, and was so awestruck by the crash which followed the blinding flash that he forgot at the moment to push his inquiries further, much to his father's satisfaction, who internally resolved to hunt up the Encyclopaedia Britannica that very evening--letter L--and study it.
In process of time Robin increased in size. As he expanded in body he developed in mind and in heart, for his little mother, although profoundly ignorant of electricity and its effects, was deeply learned in the Scriptures. But Robin did not hunger in vain after scientific knowledge. By good fortune he had a cousin--cousin Sam Shipton--who was fourteen years older than himself, and a clerk at a neighbouring railway station, where there was a telegraphic instrument.
Now, Sam, being himself possessed of strongly scientific tendencies, took a great fancy to little Robin, and sought to enlighten his young mind on many subjects where "musser's" knowledge failed. Of course he could not explain all that he himself knew about electricity--the child was too young for that,--but he did what he could, and introduced him one day to the interior of the station, where he filled his youthful mind with amazement and admiration by his rapid, and apparently meaningless, manipulation of the telegraph instrument.
Cousin Sam, however, did a good deal more for him than that in the course of time; but before proceeding further, we must turn aside for a few minutes to comment on that wonderful subject which is essentially connected with the development of this tale.
CHAPTER TWO.
REFERS TO A NOTABLE CHARACTER.
Sparks, as a rule, are looked upon as a race of useless and disreputable fellows. Their course is usually erratic. They fly upward, downward, forward, and backward--here, there, and everywhere. You never know when you have them, or what will be their next flight. They often create a good deal of alarm, sometimes much surprise; they seldom do any good, and frequently cause irreparable damage. Only when caught and restrained, or directed, do sparks become harmless and helpful.
But there is one Spark in this world--a grand, glowing, gushing fellow-- who has not his equal anywhere. He is old as the hills--perhaps older-- and wide as the world--perchance wider. Similar to ordinary sparks in some respects, he differs from them in several important particulars. Like many, he is "fast," but immeasurably faster than all other sparks put together. Unlike them, however, he submits to be led by master minds. Stronger than Hercules, he can rend the mountains. Fleeter than Mercury, he can outstrip the light. Gentler than Zephyr, he can assume the condition of a current, and enter our very marrow without causing pain. His name is Electricity. No one knows what he is.