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- 6347
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 6260
- text
- inland summer sun was already oppressively warm. Presently I saw my
uncle advancing beneath the trees, hat off, and wiping his brow; while
far behind struggled poor old Yorpy, with what seemed one of the gates
of Gaza on his back.
"Come, hurrah, stump along, Yorpy!" cried my uncle, impatiently turning
round every now and then.
Upon the black's staggering up to the skiff, I perceived that the
great gate of Gaza was transformed into a huge, shabby, oblong box,
hermetically sealed. The sphinx-like blankness of the box quadrupled
the mystery in my mind.
"Is _this_ the wonderful apparatus," said I in amazement. "Why, it's
nothing but a battered old dry-goods box, nailed up. And is _this_ the
thing, uncle, that is to make you a million of dollars ere the year be
out? What a forlorn-looking, lack-lustre, old ash-box it is."
"Put it into the skiff!" roared my uncle to Yorpy, without heeding
my boyish disdain. "Put it in, you grizzled-headed cherub--put it
in carefully, carefully! If that box bursts, my everlasting fortune
collapses."
"Bursts?--collapses?" cried I, in alarm. "It ain't full of
combustibles? Quick, let me go to the further end of the boat!"
"Sit still, you simpleton!" cried my uncle again. "Jump in, Yorpy,
and hold on to the box like grim death while I shove off. Carefully!
carefully! you dunderheaded black! Mind t'other side of the box, I say!
Do you mean to destroy the box?"
"Duyvel take te pox!" muttered old Yorpy, who was a sort of Dutch
African. "De pox has been my cuss for de ten long 'ear."
"Now, then, we're off--take an oar, youngster; you, Yorpy, clinch
the box fast. Here we go now. Carefully! carefully! You, Yorpy, stop
shaking the box! Easy! there's a big snag. Pull now. Hurrah! deep water
at last! Now give way, youngster, and away to the island."
"The island!" said I. "There's no island hereabouts."
"There is ten miles above the bridge, though," said my uncle,
determinately.
"Ten miles off! Pull that old dry-goods box ten miles up the river in
this blazing sun?"
"All that I have to say," said my uncle, firmly, "is that we are bound
to Quash Island."
"Mercy, uncle! if I had known of this great long pull of ten mortal
miles in this fiery sun, you wouldn't have juggled _me_ into the skiff
so easy. What's _in_ that box?--paving-stones? See how the skiff
settles down under it. I won't help pull a box of paving-stones ten
miles. What's the use of pulling 'em?"
"Look you, simpleton," quoth my uncle, pausing upon his suspended oar.
"Stop rowing, will ye! Now then, if you don't want to share in the
glory of my experiment; if you are wholly indifferent to halving its
immortal renown; I say, sir, if you care not to be present at the
first trial of my Great Hydraulic-Hydrostatic Apparatus for draining
swamps and marshes, and converting them, at the rate of one acre the
hour, into fields more fertile than those of the Genesee; if you care
not, I repeat, to have this proud thing to tell--in far future days,
when poor old I shall have been long dead and gone, boy--to your
children and your children's children; in that case, sir, you are free
to land forthwith."
"Oh, uncle! I did not mean--"
"No words, sir! Yorpy, take his oar, and help pull him ashore."
"But, my dear uncle; I declare to you that--"
"Not a syllable, sir; you have cast open scorn upon the Great
Hydraulic-Hydrostatic Apparatus. Yorpy, put him ashore, Yorpy. It's
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."
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