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- 6716
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:26.985Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 6631
- text
- 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 this 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 just 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 of 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
endeavour? 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.
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- Chunk 1