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- 2026-01-30T07:57:45.584Z
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- shallow here again. Jump out, Yorpy, and wade with him ashore."
"Now, my dear, good, kind uncle, do but pardon me this one time, and I
will say nothing about the apparatus."
"Say nothing about it! when it is my express end and aim it shall be
famous! Put him ashore, Yorpy."
"Nay, uncle, I _will_ not give up my oar. I have an oar in this matter,
and I mean to keep it. You shall not cheat me out my share of your
glory."
"Ah, now there--that's sensible. You may stay, youngster. Pull again
now."
We were all silent for a time, steadily plying our way. At last I
ventured to break water once more.
"I am glad, dear uncle, you have revealed to me at last the nature and
end of your great experiment. It is the effectual draining of swamps;
an attempt, dear uncle, in which, if you do but succeed (as I know you
will), you will earn the glory denied to a Roman emperor. He tried to
drain the Pontine marsh, but failed."
"The world has shot ahead the length of its own diameter since then,"
quoth my uncle, proudly. "If that Roman emperor were here, I'd show him
what can be done in the present enlightened age."
Seeing my good uncle so far mollified now as to be quite
self-complacent, I ventured another remark.
"This is a rather severe, hot pull, dear uncle."
"Glory is not to be gained, youngster, without pulling hard for
it--against the stream, too, as we do now. The natural tendency of man,
in the mass, is to go down with the universal current into oblivion."
"But why pull so far, dear uncle, upon the present occasion? Why pull
ten miles for it? You do but propose, as I understand it, to put to
the actual test this admirable invention of yours. And could it not be
tested almost anywhere?"
"Simple boy," quoth my uncle, "would you have some malignant spy steal
from me the fruits of ten long years of high-hearted, persevering
endeavor? Solitary in my scheme, I go to a solitary place to test it.
If I fail--for all things are possible--no one out of the family will
know it. If I succeed, secure in the secrecy of my invention, I can
boldly demand any price for its publication."
"Pardon me, dear uncle; you are wiser than I."
"One would think years and gray hairs should bring wisdom, boy."
"Yorpy there, dear uncle; think you his grizzled locks thatch a brain
improved by long life?"
"Am I Yorpy, boy? Keep to your oar!"
Thus padlocked again, I said no further word till the skiff grounded on
the shallows, some twenty yards from the deep-wooded isle.
"Hush!" whispered my uncle, intensely; "not a word now!" and he sat
perfectly still, slowly sweeping with his glance the whole country
around, even to both banks of the here wide-expanded stream.
"Wait till that horseman, yonder, passes!" he whispered again, pointing
to a speck moving along a lofty, riverside road, which perilously wound
on midway up a long line of broken bluffs and cliffs. "There--he's out
of sight now, behind the copse. Quick! Yorpy! Carefully, though! Jump
overboard, and shoulder the box, and--Hold!"
We were all mute and motionless again.
"Ain't that a boy, sitting like Zaccheus in yonder tree of the orchard
on the other bank? Look, youngster--young eyes are better than
old--don't you see him?"
"Dear uncle, I see the orchard, but I can't see any boy."
"He's a spy--I know he is," suddenly said my uncle, disregardful of my
answer, and intently gazing, shading his eyes with his flattened hand.
"Don't touch the box, Yorpy. Crouch! crouch down, all of ye!"
"Why, uncle--there--see--the boy is only a withered white bough. I see
it very plainly now."
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