Part 15

"I suppose they are nice girls enough, in their way," said Mrs. Peterson; "but of course they don't expect to associate with other young persons about here. I suppose you know, Ruth, that, if you are a nurse-girl, you can only go with your own class: and, besides, you will have no time to yourself; you will have to be with the children you take care of, day and night.

"Yes, ma'am," replied Ruth, coloring; "I know that; but I think it will be pleasanter than being where there are no children. I had younger brothers and sisters at home, and I used to help take care of them. I liked it very much. I've missed them a good deal."

"How came you to be separated from your brothers and sisters?"

"My father was dead, and their father was my step-father. After our mother died, my stepfather was married again, and my step-mother thought it was enough to have my step-father's children. So my uncle came and took me, because I hadn't any own father and mother."

"Oh! that was it? That was very mixed up. How old were you when your mother married again?"

"Six years old. And my father died when I was a year old. He used to live a little way from here: he was a farmer."

"And what is your step-father's business?"

"He keeps a grocery-store in town."

Just then Julia came back with a very red face and flashing eyes.

"I can't find my kitten anywhere!" she exclaimed, in an indignant tone, "and I don't believe but what Felix Le Bras and Jack Billings have done something with her! I believe they've carried her off! She always comes when I call her the least little bit; but I've called and called, ever so far from the house, too, and I haven't heard a single mew!"

"Perhaps she has wandered off farther than usual, and will be back pretty soon," said Mrs. Peterson soothingly. "I am sure I should have noticed if the boys had a cat about them, when they went past, down the road. They walked close by the piazza, where I was sitting and appeared perfectly innocent and unconcerned."

"I don't care! She's gone! And, if they didn't take her, who has?" returned Julia, sitting down disconsolately in a large rocker, and rocking violently back and forth, in an unabated state of excitement.

At that moment Johnny, who was sitting on the railing at the end of the piazza, holding to the corner post, exclaimed,--

"There comes Felix now! Let's ask him about it."

Julia sprang up, and ran around into the front piazza. Sue followed her closely. Ruth came and stood by Johnny's side, who said to her, "I wonder if it is possible Felix has had any thing to do with the kitten's being missing! If he has, I am afraid there will be another penalty to pay."

"What is a penalty?" asked Ruth.

"Why, if any of us do any thing wrong, my father has some punishment for us, which he calls a penalty."

Felix was a little way down the road. Julia called out,--

"Felix Le Bras, what have you done with my kitten?"

"I haven't done any thing with your kitten," replied Felix. But since he laughed as he spoke, his denial did not have the force that it might have had if he had looked sober and in earnest.

"Why, what's the matter about your kitten? Isn't she all right? The last time I saw her, she was right up here by the house," he continued.

"Didn't Jack carry her off?" asked Julia, looking perplexed.

"No, of course he didn't! We went fishing. Do you suppose we wanted a cat for bait? Look there!"

As he spoke, Felix swung forward a very respectable string of blackfish, with a long eel hanging from their midst. He then ran forward, brandishing the fish and the swinging eel, coming right up on the steps where the girls were standing. Julia and Sue screamed, ran back, and got behind Johnny, who was laughing in spite of his efforts to look dignified.

"Don't you accuse me of carrying off your kitten!" shouted Felix, swinging the eel towards Julia. "I've had enough of your sauce before now, Miss Julia Peterson."

Felix had not noticed Mrs. Peterson until now, when she came forward out of the shady western piazza, saying,--

"No more rudeness, Felix! Go away with your eel!--Do you really know nothing about Julia's kitten?"

"No, ma'am," replied Felix, trying to look more sober and gentlemanly: "what should I know about her kitten?--How do you do, Ruth?--Come along to the house, Johnny, and help me skin these things in time to have them cooked for dinner."

Johnny very willingly followed Felix, taking out and opening his jack-knife as he went. The girls brought up the rear, keeping out of the sweep of Felix's eel; for he was still swinging his arm vigorously, although with apparent carelessness. The carelessness was a pretence, however; for once, when Julia came a little nearer, the tail of the eel swung against her ankle, much to her horror.

"I tell you! but this eel is a slippery fellow! and if he didn't hold on to the hook! I had to pull it out of his mouth by main force, holding him down with my foot. Jack showed me how."

The girls shuddered; but Johnny said, "That's the reason I don't like to catch eels: it is almost impossible to get the hook out of their mouths any other way. I've caught them in the river, down by my grandfather's."

Soon after the fish were dressed, the dinner-bell rang. Mrs. Le Bras left the table after the first course of the dessert; but the children sat for some time over the nuts and candy, chatting merrily. After dinner they went out on the veranda, where the awning had been drawn to keep out the rays of the sun. There was a cool breeze from the water; and the waves curled merrily upon the beach, with a sound not unlike laughter, as they dashed here and there against the white bowlders.

Pierre, who had been writing some law-papers for Mr. Le Bras, in his room, all the morning, was reclining in the hammock when they came out. He offered to give up the hammock, but the children preferred the great comfortable piazza-chairs. Pierre had a book in his hand, but he did not appear to be reading very attentively.

"Shall we disturb your reading, Pierre?" asked Johnny.

"Oh, no! I am not reading: I am only playing at reading. In fact, I am too tired to read," replied Pierre, closing his book: "I think I had rather hear you children talk."

"I miss my laboratory very much," remarked Johnny: "I think I will never go away from home again without bringing my 'Play-Book of Science,' and some materials for making experiments. If I had some of my apparatus and chemicals here, I could amuse and interest the girls very much for a while this afternoon."

"Oh, I wish you had!" said Julia. "I love to see experiments dearly: I've been to some lectures where they had them, with my cousin Ernest, who is at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy."

"Is that so?" said Johnny. "I should like to know your cousin very much. Is he coming to see you this summer?"

"No: he has gone up into the mountains with his folks."

"What is your 'Play-Book of Science'?" inquired Pierre.

"You wouldn't think it much of a play-book if you could see it; it is one of the deepest books I have; and the experiments are most of them so elaborate that I haven't been able to try them yet, and can't until I get a good deal older. It is a book my father had when he was a boy, and goes into philosophy and chemistry pretty thoroughly. It is very interesting, and has four hundred and seventy pictures illustrating the experiments and principles. There are over four hundred pages of pretty fine print."

"Who is the author of it?"

"Professor Pepper."

"Oh, yes! An English professor. I know. It must be an excellent work."

"And I have the 'Play-Book of Metals,' by the same author."

"Who are the publishers of the books?"

"Routledge & Sons, London."

"I should like to see your laboratory, Johnny," said Julia. "I went into a very large laboratory with Ernest, once: it was full of bottles and all sorts of queer things for performing experiments."

"Johnny's would make you laugh, then," said Felix. "It's a little room; and all his bottles are vials, and they're in a small closet."

"But he's learned a lot up in that laboratory," said Sue. "And he can perform ever so many pretty experiments. You can make fire burn under water, can't you, Johnny?"

"Yes: I learned that out of the 'Play-Book.'"

"I don't see how you can make any thing burn under water," remarked Ruth; "for water puts out fire."

"Can't you tell, Felix?" asked Johnny.

"How can I tell?"

"You remember about the gunpowder burning shut up in the holes the men drilled?"

"Yes. That was because fire is produced by the oxygen of the air uniting with the carbon and hydrogen in other substances; and although the air is shut out in the drill-hole, there is oxygen in the nitre, which unites with the sulphur and charcoal."

"Bravo, Felix!" exclaimed Pierre: "you may be a scholar yet! I didn't think Johnny had got you as far as that."

"Oh, yes! What with Johnny and you and uncle Frank, I'm getting quite learned, I guess. Can't you begin to call me professor, girls?"

"Not till you know more than that," said Sue; "for I know that."

"Felix has got the idea about the fire under water, I guess," said Johnny. "You see, I mix some nitrate of potash, powdered charcoal, sulphur, and nitrate of strontium, and put it into a long narrow paper case, tightly closed with gum. I set it on fire at the bottom, and sink it in the water by a piece of lead hung to it."

"And sometimes the fire is red," said Sue.

"Yes; but I have a different mixture for the red fire. You see, Ruth, the reason water puts out fire is because it shuts out the oxygen by shutting out the air. If you can furnish oxygen to a combustible material under water, you can burn it under water. As I put something in my mixture to furnish oxygen, I have a fire without any trouble. But I have seen a larger laboratory than the one you saw, Julia."

"Where?"

"Oh! I've seen one in everyplace I ever was in.--That's a riddle for you. See who'll guess it first."

"No, you haven't seen one in every place you were ever in; for you haven't seen one here at the beach?" replied Julia.

"Yes, I have."

"It's some nonsense," said Felix. "We'll give it up. There's no fun in trying to guess riddles that have a catch in them: you never can guess them."

"I can see a part of a great laboratory from where I am sitting," returned Johnny, who was sitting on the doorstep. "Or, at least, I can see a part of one of its distilleries."

Pierre began to smile.

"I can't see any of its great retorts," continued Johnny, "nor the furnaces under them, nor the gas burned as it comes out. But I can see a good many of the contrivances for storing up heat so that it can be kept cool in a very useful, beautiful form until the heat is needed, when it can very easily be brought out again in flames. And I can see some more of the stored heat that has gone through a second process, by which it serves the purpose of slow combustion, which gives heat and force without any light."

Pierre began to laugh. "Can't you guess the riddle now?" he said.

But the children still looked puzzled.

"Oh! I haven't been trying to guess," said Felix: "I think riddles are more trouble than they are worth."

"There is a good deal of the slow combustion going on in this veranda," continued Johnny, "and some of the stored-up force; though the machines might be made a good deal more active, if it were not just after dinner-time, when the fuel that's been put in is in a pretty compact form, and hasn't begun to be distributed much. In an hour or two the machines may get quite antic."

"He means us, by the machines, don't he?" said Julia.

"But what do you mean by the great retorts?" asked Felix.

"And the heat stored up in a cool form?" added Ruth.

"And the big distillery?" queried Sue.

"I should think you would know about the big distilleries, yourself, Sue. Come and sit here by me, and you can see quite a piece of one of them."

Sue came and sat down by Johnny.

"Now look right ahead."

"I don't see any thing but the water, and a blue strip of land beyond."

"And which would the distillery have in it? land or water?"

"Why, water.--He means the sea."

"I mean the Atlantic Ocean for one of the distilleries, a part of which I see from here."

"What do you call that a distillery for?" asked Felix.

"Why, distilling is obtaining a liquor in a pure form, by vaporizing it, and then cooling the vapor back into liquid form. Vapor is pure liquid: no mineral substances can be taken up in it. I have a little apparatus at home for distilling water. I can take well-water, which has mineral substances in it, and obtain the water quite free from any thing else. That is what is going on from the oceans, and, in a smaller way, from the rivers, lakes, and ponds. The heat of the sun causes the water, which, you know, here at the ocean is very salt, and full of other impurities, to rise in pure vapor, and form clouds overhead. The winds carry the clouds over the land: they become condensed by cooling, and fall in rain. The rain, which is pure water, except for the little particles of various things floating in the air which it brings down with it, soaks into the ground, forming springs, and helps to swell the ponds and lakes and rivers, and so it gets mineral and other substances in it again, especially salt, which is found in small quantities in all spring-water, and this impure water is carried to the ocean again to be purified; that is, it is carried back to the great distillery, to be made into pure rain-water. What I can't make out is, what is to keep the ocean from getting too salt by and by, since considerable salt is always coming into it from the rivers. What do you think about it, Pierre?"

"There are various ways by which the ocean gets rid of some of its salt, the most important of which is the making of salt, by men, out of salt water; and the natural manufacture, by the salt water lodging in the rocks, and then evaporating, and leaving the salt, which is collected in large quantities. There may be some way of its escaping, too, that has not been found out. I am pretty sure there is some natural provision by which the ocean can never become too salt, as long as the earth is intended for the home of man."

"I thought the reason why the ocean is salt, is because there is a great deal of salt in the bottom, which washes up into the water," remarked Ruth.

"That may be one reason," replied Johnny; "though the books don't say so. Don't you think, Pierre, that a good deal of the salt may have come from salt deposits under the oceans?"

"I don't see why not. There is a great amount of surface under the oceans, and it would be a wonder if there were not great deposits of salt there, as well as on the land; although they must be pretty well covered up by this time, by ocean deposits."

"But how about those retorts?" asked Felix, who had seen Johnny's experiment of making a little retort out of a clay pipe.

"I don't know what a retort is," remarked Julia.

"Nor I," said Ruth.

"A retort is a place where you heat any combustible very hot, without letting the air get to it. Of course, if there is no oxygen at hand, it can't burn; and so the heat merely causes the hydrogen to separate from the carbon, in the form of gas. They have large retorts at the gas-works, in which they heat soft coal excluded from the air; and, you know, the gas that is driven out is carried through pipes into the houses and stores, and then, when the gas is allowed to escape from one of the jets, they light it, and, because there is oxygen around, it burns steadily until you shut it off; that is, until you exclude the air."

"But how about your retorts in your big laboratory?" asked Felix.

"The largest that I have heard of," continued Johnny, "is around Pittsburg. That is in the soft-coal region. The heat in the earth has driven off the gas, or hydrogen, from the coal in the mines. Once, when they were boring a well, some of this pent-up gas, which was where they happened to be boring, burst out in a kind of explosion, tearing their boring apparatus all to pieces, and frightening the workmen pretty thoroughly. Afterwards the gas at this hole got on fire, and burned in a great big jet. But it was some time before the Pittsburg folks got it through their heads that nature had some monstrous big gas-works under them, so that they had only to pipe the gas, and bring it into their houses and manufactories, to get rid of using the coal that made Pittsburg such a black, smoky city. But they found it out after a while; and now they have not only natural-gas lights, but gas-fires in their manufactories, so that the atmosphere is as pure in Pittsburg as in any other manufacturing city."

"Then, the coal from which the gas came must be coke," said Felix, "something like that folks buy at the gas-works, after they have got the gas out?"

"Yes: it is the carbon of coal without the hydrogen, and so it does not burn with a flame; the flame of a fire is the burning of the hydrogen which escapes from the coal or wood when it is heated, and its burning, as it rises, makes the flames that leap up and curve about so in a fire. The anthracite coal is coal which has had most of the hydrogen driven out by heat."

"I wish you would tell us now," said Ruth, "about the stored-up heat in a cool form. I've been wondering about that most of all."

"You know plants can't grow without sunlight, Ruth?"

"Yes; that is, I know that if they don't have sunlight, they will grow very white, as they do when they are in a cellar."

"If the cellar were perfectly cold and dark, they would not grow at all; but they grow, as you have seen them, because there is some sunlight and sunheat, even in a cellar. The heat of the sun causes the plants to grow by taking in carbon from the air, and hydrogen from the water in the earth, and in rain and dew, and so the carbon and hydrogen are gradually stored up in the plants and trees; of course, there is the largest quantity in trees, because they grow large and solid. And it has been proved that you can get just as much heat by burning these things afterwards, that is, making the carbon and hydrogen unite with the oxygen from which they had been taken away, as there was heat of the sun expended in the process of their growing, or gathering up carbon and hydrogen."

"I remember about your telling that before, at the doctor's when I hurt my head; but I don't see how they ever proved it," said Felix.

"You could understand by studying it up. I have books that tell how it was proved. So, you see, it amounts to this,--that the heat from the sun is stored up some way, in the things that have grown out of the earth; and the very amount of heat stored, without a particle of waste, can be got out of the combustible a thousand or more years after it was bottled up in that way."

"Not a thousand years!" exclaimed Julia. "Trees don't live to be a thousand years old."

"Yes,--the big trees of California," said Ruth.

"That's so," said Johnny; "but I was thinking of the coal mines which are old, buried forests packed hard under ground, where the stored heat has been preserved so long, and will be preserved for no one knows how many hundreds and thousands of years to come."

"But it will get used up sometime, and all the forests get cut off: I've heard my father say so," said Felix.

"I suppose so; but by that time we shall have found out how to burn water."

"To burn water!" exclaimed all but Pierre.

"Yes. They can burn water now, only the process is too expensive; but by that time they will have found some very cheap way. That is what the scientific men are pretty certain of. Water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen; and, you see, hydrogen is very inflammable, being what we burn for gas, and that which burns in a fire to make the flame, while oxygen is the very gas it must have in order to burn."

"Then, I don't see why water isn't very inflammable indeed," said Felix wonderingly. "I wonder the oceans and rivers and lakes haven't burned up and set all the rest of the world on fire."

"Why, you see, the hydrogen in water won't unite with the oxygen in the air, because it has all the oxygen it wants already. It has got to be separated from the oxygen it has, before it will be ready to take in oxygen, and so cause fire."

"Oh!" said Felix. "But I shouldn't think it would be so hard to get it away from its oxygen."

"It is, though," said Johnny; "for hydrogen and oxygen have a very great liking, or affinity, for each other."

"I should think, then," said Felix musingly, "if water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, that, when hydrogen combines with oxygen in the burning of gas or a common fire, they would form water."

"So they do," said Johnny.

"Oh, no, they don't!" exclaimed Julia.

"Yes; although you do not notice it, because the water is in the form of a fine vapor which passes off through the air. But I could prove to you, if you were in my laboratory, that the flame of even a little taper produces water. I have performed that experiment a good many times."

"Yes, he has," said Sue; "I've seen him: the water settles on the glass, just as if you had breathed on it."

"And it can be done so that the drops will trickle down the sides of the receiver," said Johnny.

"But how about the slow combustion going on in this veranda, Johnny?" asked Sue.

"Slow combustion goes on in animals. They eat the plants in which the sun has stored up heat, or other animals whose bodies have been formed out of the stored heat in plants, and the carbon and hydrogen go into their blood, and are carried by the blood to the lungs, where they come in contact with the oxygen of the air, under a moderate heat, to make more heat, by uniting with the oxygen to form carbonic-acid gas, which is breathed out into the air to help furnish carbon for the plants."

"But there are no animals in this veranda, except a few flies," said Julia.

"Oh, yes!" said Sue. "There's you and I, and Johnny and Felix, and Ruth and Pierre!"

"I am not an animal!" exclaimed Julia indignantly. "Am I, Johnny?"

"The part of us that dies is animal," replied Johnny, "just as much as Clyde or these flies are animals."

"No," persisted Julia: "we are folks."

"Our bodies are the highest kind of animals," said Johnny, smiling. "You and Ruth are very good-looking animals."

"That's a pretty compliment!" exclaimed Julia. "Now I have been called an animal, I have a mind to go right home. At any rate, I am going home to see if I can find my kitten. If she is coming back at all, I am sure she has come by this time."

"Let me go with you," said Felix mischievously.

"No, you don't! But Sue can go."

"You come, too, Ruth," said Sue.

"No, thank you," replied Ruth. "I think I ought to be going down to the cottages by this time: I will ask your mother to excuse me a little while, while I go to inquire if any one wants to hire a children's maid."

"I think I'll go up with Ruth to see mamma, then," said Sue, "for I am to go down to the cottages with Ruth."

"Why, they'll think you want to hire out, too, Sue," replied Julia.

"I don't care if they do. Come, Ruth."

Sue took Ruth's hand, and they went upstairs, while Julia ran home to find the kitten. By this time, Pierre had fallen asleep in the hammock.

"I guess, while the girls are gone, I'll go out and pick some huckleberries for supper, father is so fond of them," said Johnny; "and Katie says we haven't more than half enough. She wanted us all to pick some; but it was too warm after dinner, and I don't believe the girls will be back in time. It is getting cool now, because there is such a breeze."

"I'll bet there'll be a storm before long," replied Felix, looking at the sky. "But it's too stupid picking berries! Can't we do something else?"