The Little City of Hope | Page 8

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.
"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 remember 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 remember 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 belongs 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 green now, and it smells 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 suddenly. "I'll make room for it
here, and you can work at it while I'm busy, and in the evenings 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 at play? It would be
so funny! But, of course, if you really would help me a little--you've
got such lots of nice things!"
He wistfully eyed a little coil of some very fine steel wire which would
make a beautiful telegraph. Newton even dreamt of making the trolley,
too, in the Main Street, but that would be a very troublesome job; and
as for the railway station, it was easy enough to build a shed 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 ever 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?"
Overholt gave him the almost unpronounceable name of some 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 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 these 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 loathely, mouldering little mess that diffused a
nauseous odour, distinctly perceptible through that of