But when she had read about the Berlin professor and his motor and thought of her own John Henry making bricks without straw and bearing up bravely against disappointment, and still writing so cheerfully and hopefully in spite of everything, she simply could not stand it another day. As I have said, King Christmas turned over just before waking, and he put out a big generous hand in his sleep and laid it on her heart. Whenever he does that to anybody, man, woman, or child, a splendid longing seizes them to give all they have to the one child, or woman, or man that each loves best, or to the being of all others that is most in need, or to help the work which seems to each of them the noblest and the best, if they are grown up and are lonely.

This is what happened to Helen Overholt, in spite of her good sense and all her practical resolutions. As long as she had anything to give, John Henry should have it and be happy, and succeed, if success were possible. She had saved most of her salary for a long time past, spending as little as she well could on herself. He should have it all, for love's sake, and because she believed in him, and because Christmas was waking up, and had laid his great affectionate old hand on her.

So it came to pass that when Overholt was pottering over the beautiful motionless Motor, late at night, sure that it would work if he had a little more money, but still more sure that it must be sold for old metal the next morning, to buy bread for the boy, even at that hour help was near, and from the hand he loved best in the world, which would make it ten thousand times sweeter when it reached him.

It was going to be an awful wrench to give up the invention, for now, at the moment of abandoning it, he saw, or thought he saw, that he was right at last, and that it could not fail. It was useless to try it as it was, yet he would, just once more. He adjusted the tangent-balance and the valves; he put in the supply of the chemical with the long name and screwed down the hermetic plug. With the small hand air-pump he produced the first vacuum which was necessary; all was ready, every joint and stuffing-box was lubricated, the spring of the balance was adjusted to a nicety. But the engine would not start, though he turned the fly-wheel with his hand again and again, as if to encourage it. Of course it would not turn alone! He understood perfectly that the one piece on which all depended must be made over again, exactly the other way. That was all!

There was the wooden model of it, all ready for the foundry that would not cast it for nothing. If only the wooden piece would serve for a moment's trial! But he knew that this was folly; it would not stand the enormous strain an instant, and the joints could not possibly be made air-tight.

He was utterly worn out by all he had been through during the long day, and he fell asleep in his chair towards morning, his head on his breast, his feet struck out straight before him, one arm hanging down beside him and his other hand thrust into his pocket. He looked more like a shabby lay figure stuffed with sawdust than like a living man. If Newton had come down and found him lying there under the lamplight he would have started back and shuddered, and waited a while before he could find courage to come nearer.

But the man was only very sound asleep, and he did not wake till the December dawn gleamed through the clear winter's sky and made the artificial light look dim and smoky; and when he opened his eyes it was he himself who started to find himself there in the cold before his great failure, in broad daylight.

Nevertheless, he had slept soundly, and felt better able to face all the trouble that was in store for him. He stirred the embers in the stove, put in some kindling and a supply of coal, and warmed himself, still heavy with sleep, and glad to waken consciously, by degrees, and to feel that his resolution was not going to break down.

When he felt quite himself he left the room and went upstairs cautiously, lest he should wake the boy, though it was really time to get up, and Newton was already dressing.

"I'll walk into town with you," said Overholt when they were at breakfast in the parlour. "It will do me good to get some air, and I must see about selling those things. There's no time to be lost."

Newton swallowed his hominy and bread and butter and milk, and reflected on the futility of the sacrifice he had made, since his father insisted on selling everything for old metal; but he said nothing, because he was dreadfully disappointed.

Near the town they met the postman. As a rule Barbara got the mail when she went to market, and Overholt was not even going to ask the man if there were any letters for him. But the postman stopped him. There was one from his wife, and it was registered. He signed the little receipt for it, the man passed them on his rounds, and they slackened their pace as Overholt broke the seal.

He uttered a loud exclamation when he had glanced at the contents, and he stood still in the road. Newton stared at him in surprise.

"A thousand dollars!" he cried, overcome with amazement. "A thousand dollars! Oh, Helen, Helen—you've saved my life!"

He got to the side of the road and leaned against the fence, clutching the letter and the draft in his hand, and gazing into his son's face, half crazy with delight.

"She's saved it all for me, boy. Do you understand? Your mother has saved all her salary for the Motor, and here it is! Look at it, look at it! It's success, it's fame, it's fortune for us all! Oh, if she were only here!"

Newton understood and rejoiced. He forgot his poor little attempt to help, and his own disappointment, and everything except the present glorious truth—not unadorned by the pleasant vision of the Christmas turkey, vast now, and smoking, and flanked by perfect towers of stiff cranberry jelly, ever so much better than mere liquid cranberry sauce; in the middle distance, behind the noble dish, a noble pyramid of ice-cream raised its height, and yellow cream-cakes rose beyond, like many little suns on the far horizon. In that first moment of delight there was almost a Christmas tree, and the mother's face beside it; but that was too much; they faded, and the rest remained, no mean forecast of a jolly time.

"That's perfectly grand!" Newton cried when he got his breath after his surprise at the announcement. "Besides, I told you so. What did I say? She wouldn't let you give up the Motor! I knew she wouldn't! Who's right now, father? That's something like what I call a mother! But then she always was!"

He was slightly incoherent, but that did not matter at all. Nothing mattered. In his young beatific vision he saw the bright wheel going round and round in a perfect storm of turkeys, and it was all his mother's doing.

Overholt only half heard, for he had been reading the letter; the letter of a loving wife who believes in her husband and gives him all she has for his work, with every hope, every encouragement, and every blessing and Christmas wish.

"There's no time to be lost!" Overholt said, repeating the words he had spoken in a very different mood and tone half an hour earlier. "I won't walk on with you, my boy, for I must go back and get the wooden model for the foundry. They'll do it for me now, fast enough! And I can pay what I owe at the bank, and there will be plenty left over for your Christmas too!"

"Oh, bother my Christmas, father!" answered Newton with a fine indifference which he did not feel. "The Motor's the thing! I want to see that wheel go round for a Christmas present!"

"It will! It shall! It must! I promise you that!" The man was almost beside himself with joy.

No misgiving disturbed him. He had the faith that tosses mountains aside like pebbles, now that the means were in his hand. He had the little fulcrum for his lever, which was all Archimedes required to move the world. He had in him the certainty of being right that has sent millions of men to glory or destruction.

That day was one of the happiest in all his life, either before or, afterwards. He could have believed that he had fallen asleep at the moment when he had quite broken down, and that a hundred years of change had glided by, like a watch in the night, when he opened his wife's letter and wakened in a blaze of joy and hope and glorious activity. Nothing he could remember of that kind could compare with his pride and honourable satisfaction when he walked into the bank two hours afterwards, with his head high, and said he should be glad to take up the note he had signed yesterday and have the balance of the cheque placed to his credit; and few surprises which the partner who had obliged him could recollect, had equalled that worthy gentleman's amazement when the debt was paid so soon.

"If you had only told me that you would be in funds so soon, Mr. Overholt," he said, "I should not have thought of troubling you. Here is your note. Will you kindly look at it and tear it up?"

"I did not know," answered Overholt, doing as he was told.

It is a curious fact that the little note lay in a locked drawer of the partner's magnificent table, instead of being put away in the safe with other and larger notes, where it belonged. It may seem still stranger that, on the books, Overholt's account showed that it had been balanced by a deposit exactly equal to the deficit, made by the partner himself, instead of by crediting the amount of the note. But Overholt never knew this, for a pass-book had always been a mystery to him, and made his head ache. The banker had thought of his face some time after he had gone out with his battered umbrella and his shabby shoulders rounded as under a burden, and somehow the Christmas spirit must have come in quietly and touched the rich man too, though even the stenographer did not see what happened. For he had once been in terrible straits himself, a quarter of a century ago, and some one had helped him just in time, and he knew what it meant to slink out of a big bank, in shabby clothes, his back bowed under the heavy weight of debt and failure.

Overholt never knew; but he expressed his warm thanks for what now seemed a small favour, and with his wooden model of the casting, done up in brown paper, under his arm, he went off to the foundry in Long Island.

Much careful work had been done for him there, and the people were willing to oblige him, and promised that the piece should certainly be ready before Christmas Day, and as much earlier as possible, and should be made with the greatest exactness which the most precise machinery and the most careful work could ensure.

This being settled, Overholt returned to New York and went to two or three places in the Bowery, well known to him, where he bought certain fine tools and pieces of the most perfectly turned steel spring, and several other small objects, which he needed for the construction of the new tangent-balance he had to make for the reversed curve. Finally, he bought a silver watch like the one Newton had sold, and a new pair of skates, presents which the boy certainly deserved, and which would make a very good show at Christmas, when they were to be produced. He felt as if he had come into a large fortune.

Moreover, when he got out of the train at his own station he went into the town, and ordered beforehand the good things for the feast, though there were three weeks still, and he wanted to pay for them in advance, because he felt inside of himself that no one could be quite sure of what might happen in twenty-one days; but the dealers flatly refused to take his money, though they told him what the things would cost. Then Overholt did almost the only prudent thing he had done in his life, for he took the necessary money and five dollars more and sealed it up in an envelope, which he put away in a safe place. The only difficulty would lie in remembering where the place was, so he told Newton about it, and the boy wrote it down on a piece of paper which he pinned up in his own room, where he could see it. There was nothing like making sure of that turkey, he thought. And I may as well say at once that in this matter, at least, no untoward accident occurred, and the money was actually there at the appointed time. What happened was something quite different, and much more unexpected, not to say extraordinary and even amazing; and in spite of all that, it will not take very long to tell.

Meanwhile, before it happened, Overholt and the boy were perfectly happy. All day long the inventor worked at the tangent-balance, till he had brought it to such perfection that it would be affected by a variation of one-tenth of one second in the aggregate speed of ten revolutions, and an increase or decrease of a tenth of a grain in the weight of the volume of the compressed air. It was so sensitive that John Henry and Newton trod cautiously on the floor of the workshop so as not to set it vibrating under the glass clock-shade, where it was kept safe from dust and dampness.

After it had been placed there to wait for the casting, the inventor took the engine to pieces and made the small changes that would be necessary before finally putting it together again, which would probably occupy two days.

Meanwhile the little City of Hope grew rapidly, and was becoming an important centre of civilisation and commerce, though it was only made of paper and chips, and bits of matchboxes and odds and ends cleverly put together with glue and painted; except the people in the street. For it was inhabited now, and though the men and women did not move about, they looked as if they might, if they were only bigger. Overholt had seen the population in the window of a German toy-shop one day when he was in New York to get a new crocusing wheel for polishing some of the small parts of the engine. They were the smallest doll-people he had ever seen, and were packed by dozens and dozens in Nuremberg toy-boxes, and cost very little, so he bought a quantity of them. At first Newton rather resented them, just because they were only toys, but his father explained to him that models of human figures were almost necessary to models of buildings, to give an idea of the population, and that when architects make coloured sketches of projected houses, they generally draw in one or two people for that reason; and this was perfectly satisfactory to the boy, and saved his dignity from the slight it would have suffered if he had been actually seen amusing himself with mere playthings.

Overholt was divinely happy in anticipation of the final success that was so near, and in the daily work that was making it more and more a certainty, as he thought; and then, when the day was over, he was just as happy with the little City, which was being decorated for Christmas, with wreaths in the windows of the houses, and a great many more holly-trees than had at first been thought of, and numberless little Christmas booths round the common, like those in Avenue A, south of Tompkins Square, in New York, which make you fancy you are in Munich or Prague if you go and see them at the right hour on Christmas Eve.

Before long Overholt received a short note from the President of his old College, simply saying that the latter knew of no opening at present, but would bear him in mind. But that did not matter now.

So the two spent their time very pleasantly during the next weeks; but though Overholt was so hopeful and delighted with his work, he knew that he was becoming nervous and overwrought by the great anticipation, and that he could not stand such a strain very long.

Then, two days before Christmas, he received a note saying that the new piece was finished and had been sent to him by express. That was almost too much happiness to bear, and when he found the heavy case at the station the next morning, and got it put on a cart, his heart was doing queer things, and he was as white as a sheet.



VIII

HOW THE WHEELS WENT ROUND AT LAST

The hush of Christmas Eve lay upon the tumble-down cottage, and on the soft fresh snow outside, and the lamps were burning quietly in the workshop, where father and son were sitting before the finished Motor.

The little City was there too, but not between them now, though Newton had taken off its brown paper cover in honour of the great event which was about to take place.

In order to be doubly sure of the result, and dreading even the possibility of a little disappointment, Overholt had decided that he would subject the only chemical substance which the machine consumed to a final form of refinement by heat, melting, boiling and cooling it, all of which would require an hour or more before it was quite ready. He felt like a man who is going to risk his life over a precipice, trusting to a single rope for safety; that one rope must not be even a little chafed; if possible each strand must be perfect in itself, and all the strands must be laid up without a fault. Of the rest, of the machine itself, Overholt felt absolutely sure; yet although a slight impurity in the chemical could certainly not hinder the whole from working, it might interfere with the precision of the revolutions, or even cause the engine to stop after a few hours instead of going on indefinitely, as long as the supply of the substance produced the alternate disturbance of equilibrium which was the main principle on which the machine depended.

That sweetly prophetic evening silence, before the great feast of Good Will, does not come over everything each year, even in a lonely cottage in an abandoned farm in Connecticut, than which you cannot possibly imagine anything more silent or more remote from the noise of the world. Sometimes it rains in torrents just on that night, sometimes it blows a raging gale that twists the leafless birches and elms and hickory trees like dry grass and bends the dark firs and spruces as if they were feathers, and you can hardly be heard unless you shout, for the howling and screaming and whistling of the blast.

But now and then, once in four or five years perhaps, the feathery snow lies a foot deep, fresh-fallen, on the still country-side and in the woods; and the waxing moon sheds her large light on all, and Nature holds her breath to wait for the happy day, and tries to sleep but cannot, from sheer happiness and peace. Indoors the fire is glowing on the wide hearth, a great bed of coals that will last all night, because it is not bitter weather, but only clear and cold and still, as it should be; or if there is only a poor stove, like Overholt's, the wide door is open, and a comfortable and cheery red light shines out from within upon the battered iron plate and the wooden floor beyond; and the older people sit round it, not saying much, but thinking with their hearts rather than with their heads; but small boys and girls know that interesting things have been happening in the kitchen all the afternoon, and are rather glad that the supper was not very good, because there will be the more room for good things to-morrow; and the grown-ups and the children have made up any little differences of opinion they may have had before supper-time, because Good Will must reign, and reign alone, like Alexander; so that there is nothing at all to regret, and nothing hurts anybody any more, and they are all happy in just wishing for King Christmas to open the door softly and make them all great people in his kingdom. But if it is the right sort of house, he is already looking in through the window, to be sure that every one is all ready for him, and that nothing has been forgotten.

Now, although Overholt's cottage was a miserable place for a professor who had lived very comfortably and well in a College town, and although the thirteen-year-old boy could remember several pretty trees, lighted up with coloured candles and gleaming with tinsel and gilt apples, they both felt that this was going to be the greatest Christmas in their lives, because the motionless Motor was going to move, and that would mean everything—most of all to both of them, the end of the mother's exile, and her speedy home-coming. Therefore neither said anything for a long time while the chemical stuff was slowly warming itself and getting ready, inside a big iron pot, of which the cover was screwed on with a high-temperature thermometer sealed in it, and which stood on the top of the stove where Overholt could watch the scale.

He would really have preferred to be alone for the first trial, but it was utterly impossible to think of sending the boy to bed. He was sure of success, it is true, yet he would far rather have been left to himself till that success was no longer in the future, but present; then at last, even if Newton had been asleep, he would have waked him and brought him downstairs again to see his triumph. The lad's presence made him nervous, and suggested a failure which was all but impossible. More than once he was on the point of trying to explain this to Newton, but when he glanced at the young face he could not find it in his heart to speak. If he only asked the boy, as a kindness, to go into the next room for five minutes while the machine was being started, he knew what would happen. Newton would go quietly, without a word, and wait till he was called; but half his Christmas would be spoilt by the disappointment he would try hard to hide. Had they not suffered together, and had not the boy sacrificed the best of his small possessions, dearly treasured, to help in their joint distress? It would be nothing short of brutal to deprive him of the first moment of triumphant surprise, that was going to mean so much hereafter. Yet the inventor would have given anything to be alone. He was overwrought by the long strain that had so often seemed unbearable, and when the liquid that was heating had reached the right temperature and the iron pot had to be taken off the stove, his hands shook so that he nearly dropped it; but Newton did not see that.

"It's wonderful how everything has come out just right!" the boy exclaimed as he looked at the machine. "Out of your three wishes you'll get two, father, for the wheel will go round and I'm going to have a regular old patent, double-barrelled Christmas with a gilt edge!" His similes were mixed, but effective in their way. "And you'll probably get the other wish in half a shake now, for mother'll come right home, won't she?"

"If the trial succeeds," Overholt said, still instinctively seeking to forestall a disappointment he did not expect. "Nothing is a fact until it has happened, you know!"

"Well," said Newton, "if I had anything to bet with, and somebody to bet against, I'd bet, that's all. But I haven't. It's a pity too, now that everything's coming out right. Do you remember how we were trying to make bricks without straw less than a month ago, father? It didn't look just then as if we were going to have a roaring old Christmas this year, did it?"

He chattered on happily, looking at the Motor all the time, and Overholt tried to smile and answered him with a word or two now and then, though he was becoming more and more nervous as the minutes passed and the supreme moment came nearer. In his own mind he was going over the simple operations he had to perform to start the engine; yet easy as they were he was afraid that he might make some fatal mistake. He did not let himself think of failure; he did not dare to wonder how he should tell his wife if anything went wrong and all her hard-saved earnings were lost in the general ruin that must follow if the thing would not move. There was next to nothing left of what she had sent, now that everything was paid for; it would support him and the boy for a month, if so long, but certainly no more.

He was ready at last, but, strange to say, he would gladly have put off the great moment for half an hour now that there was no reason for waiting another moment. He sat down again in his chair and folded his hands.

"Aren't you going to begin, father?" asked Newton. "What are you waiting for?"

Overholt pulled himself together, rose with a pale face, and laid his shaking hands on the heavy plate-glass case. It moved upwards by its chain and counterpoise, almost at a touch, till it was near the low ceiling, quite clear of the machine.

He was very slow in doing what was still necessary, and the boy watched him in breathless suspense, for he had seen other trials that had failed—more than two or three, perhaps half a dozen. Every one who has lived with an inventor, even a boy, has learned to expect disappointment as inevitable; only the seeker himself is confident up to a certain point, and then his own hand trembles, when the moment of trial is come.

Overholt poured the chemical into the chamber at the base, screwed down the air-tight plug, and opened the communication between the reservoir and the machine. Then he took out his watch and waited four minutes, that being twice the time he had ascertained to be necessary for a sufficient quantity of the liquid to penetrate into the distributors beyond. He next worked the hand air-pump, keeping his eye on the vacuum gauge, and lastly, as soon as the needle marked the greatest exhaustion he knew to be obtainable, he moved the starting lever to the proper position, and then stepped back to watch the result.

For a moment, in the joy of anticipation, a strange light illuminated his face, his lips parted as in a foretasted wonder, and he forgot even to drop the hand he had just withdrawn. The boy held his breath unconsciously till he was nearly dizzy.

Then a despairing cry burst from the wretched man's lips, he threw up his hands as if he had been shot through the heart, and stumbled backwards.

The Motor stood still, motionless as ever, and gleaming under the brightly shining lamps.

"Oh, Helen! God forgive me!"

With the words he fell heavily to the floor, and lay there, a nerveless, breathless heap. Newton was kneeling beside him in an instant.

"Father!" cried the boy in agony, bending over the still white face. "Father! Speak to me! You can't be dead—you can't—"

In his mortal terror the lad held each breath till it seemed as if his head must burst, then breathed once and shut his lips again with all his strength. Some instinct made him lay his ear to the man's chest to listen for the beatings of his heart, but he could hear nothing.

Half-suffocated with sudden mingled grief and fright, he straightened himself on his knees and looked up at the cursed machine that had wrought such awful destruction.

Then he in turn uttered a cry, but it was low and full of wonder, long drawn out and trembling as the call of a frightened young wild animal.

The thing was moving, steadily, noiselessly moving in the bright light; the double levers worked like iron jaws opening and shutting regularly, the little valve-rods rose and sank, and the heavy wheel whirled round and round. The boy was paralysed with amazement, and for ten seconds he forgot that he was kneeling beside his father's fallen body on the floor; then he felt it against him and it was no longer quite still.

Overholt groaned and turned upon his side as his senses slowly came back and his agony tortured him to life again. Instantly the boy bent over him.

"Father! It's going! Wake up, father! The wheel's going round at last!"



IX

HOW THE KING OF HEARTS MADE A FEAST IN THE CITY OF HOPE

When Overholt understood what he heard, he opened his eyes and looked up into his son's face, moving his head mournfully from side to side as it lay on the boards. But suddenly he caught sight of the engine. He gasped for breath, his jaw dropped, and his eyes were starting from their sockets as he struggled to get up with the boy's help.

His voice came with a sort of rasping scream that did not sound human, and then broke into wild laughter, interrupted by broken words.

"Mad!" he cried. "I knew it—it had to come—my boy—help me to get away from that thing—I'm raving mad—I see it moving—"

"But it really is moving, father! Wake up! Look at it! The wheel is going round and round!"

Then Overholt was silent, sitting up on the floor and leaning against his arm. Slowly he realised that he was in his senses, and that the dream of long years had come true. Not a sound broke the stillness, so perfect was the machinery, except a kind of very soft hum made by the heavy fly-wheel revolving in the air.

"Are you sure, boy? Aren't we dreaming?" he asked in a low tone.

"It's going like clock-work, as sure as you're born," the lad answered. "I think your falling down shook it up and started it. That was all it wanted."

The inventor got up slowly, first upon his knees, at last to his feet, never once taking his eyes from the beautiful engine. He went close to it, and put out his hand, till he felt the air thrown off by the wheel, and he gently touched the smooth, swift-turning rim with one finger, incredulous still.

"There's no doubt about it," he said at last, yielding to the evidence of touch and sight. "It works, and it works to perfection. If it doesn't stop soon, it will go on for twenty-four hours!"

Almost as much overcome by joy as he had been by despair, he let himself sink into his seat.

"Get me that tea-bottle," he said unsteadily. "Quick! I feel as if I were going to faint again!"

The draught he swallowed steadied his nerves, and then he sat a long time quite silent in his unutterable satisfaction, and Newton stood beside him watching the moving levers, the rising and sinking valve rods, and the steadily whirling wheel.

"She did it, my boy," Overholt said at last, very softly. "Your mother did it! Without her help the Motor would have been broken up for old metal three weeks ago."

"It's something like a Christmas present," Newton answered. "But then I always said she wouldn't let you give it up. Do you know, father, when you fell just now, I thought you were dead, you looked just awful! And it was quite a long time before I saw that the Motor was moving. And then, when I did see it, and thought you were dead—well, I can't tell you—"

"Poor little chap! But it's all right now, my boy, and I haven't spoilt your Christmas, after all!"

"Not quite!"

Newton laughed joyfully, and, turning round, he saw the little City smiling on its board in the strong light, with the tiny red and green wreaths in the windows and the pretty booths, and the crowds of little people buying Christmas presents at them.

"They're going to have a pretty good time in the City too," the boy observed. "They know just as well as we do that Hope has come to stay now!"

But Overholt did not hear. Silent and rapt he sat in his old Shaker rocking-chair gazing steadily at the great success of his life, that was moving ceaselessly before his eyes, where motionless failure had sat mocking him but a few minutes ago; and as the wheel whirled steadily round and round, throwing off a little breeze like a fan, the cruel past was wafted away like a mist by a morning wind, and the bright future floated in and filled its place altogether and more also, as daylight shows the distance which was all hidden from us by the close darkness we groped in before it rose.

Overholt sat still, and saw, and wondered, and little by little the wheel and the soft vision of near happiness hypnotised him, for his body and brain were weary beyond words to tell, so that all at once his eyes were shut and he was sleeping like a child, as happy in dreamland as he had just been awake; and happier far, for there was a dear presence with him now, a hand he loved lay quietly in his, and he heard a sweet low voice that was far away.

The boy saw, and understood, for ever since he had been very small he had been taught that he must not wake his father, who slept badly at all times, and little or not at all when he was anxious. So Newton would not disturb him now, and at once formed a brave resolution to sit bolt upright all night, if necessary, for fear of making any noise. Besides, he did not feel at all sleepy. There was the Motor to look at, and there was Christmas to think of, and it was bright and clear outside where the snow was like silver, under the young moon. He could look out of the window as he sat, or at his father, or at the beautiful moving engine, or at the little City of Hope, all without doing more than just turning his head.

To tell the truth, it was not really a great sacrifice he was making, for if there is anything that strikes a boy of thirteen as more wildly exciting than anything else in the world, it is to sit up all night instead of going to bed like a Christian child; moreover, the workshop was warm, and his own room would be freezing cold, and he was so well used to the vile odour of the chemical stuff, that he did not notice it at all. It was even said to be healthy to breathe the fumes of it, as the air of a tannery is good for the lungs, or even London coal smoke.

But it is one thing to resolve to keep awake, even with many delightful things to think about; it is quite another to keep one's eyes open when they are quite sure that they ought to be shut, and that you ought to be tucked up in bed. The boy found it so, and in less than half an hour his arm had got across the back of the chair, his cheek was resting on it quite comfortably, and he was in dreamland with his father, and quite as perfectly happy.

So the two slept in their chairs under the big bright lamps; and while they rested the Air-Motor worked silently, hour after hour, and the heavy wheel whirled steadily on its axle, and only its soft and drowsy humming was heard in the still air.

That was the most refreshing sleep Overholt remembered for a long time. When he stirred at last and opened his eyes, he did not even know that he had slept, and forgot that he had closed his eyes when he saw the engine moving. He thought it was still nine o'clock in the evening, and that the boy might as well finish his little nap where he was, before going to bed. Newton might sleep till ten o'clock if he liked.

The lamps burned steadily, for they held enough oil to last sixteen hours when the winter darkness is longest, and they had not been lighted till after supper.

But all at once Overholt was aware of a little change in the colour of things, and he slowly rubbed his eyes and looked about him, and towards the window. The moon had set long ago; there was a grey light on the snow outside and in the clear air, and Overholt knew that it was the dawn. He looked at his watch then, and it was nearly seven o'clock; for in New York and Connecticut, as you may see by your pocket calendar, the sun rises at twenty-three minutes past seven on Christmas morning.

He sprang to his feet in astonishment, and at the sound Newton awoke and looked up in blank and sleepy surprise.

"Merry Christmas, my boy!" cried Overholt, and he laughed happily.

"Not yet," answered Newton in a disappointed tone, and rubbing his arm, which was stiff. "I've got to go to bed first, I suppose."

"Oh no! You and I have slept in our chairs all night and the sun is rising, so it's merry Christmas in earnest! And the Motor is running still, after nine or ten hours. What a sleep we've had!"

The boy looked out of the window stupidly, and vaguely wished that his father would not make fun of him. Then he saw the dawn, and jumped up in wild delight.

"Hurrah!" he shouted. "Merry Christmas! Hurrah! hurrah!" If anything could make that morning happier than it had promised to be, it was to have actually cheated bed for the first time in his life.

They were gloriously happy, as people have a right to be, and should be, when they have been living in all sorts of trouble, with a great purpose before them, and have won through and got all they hoped for, if not quite all they could have wished—because there is absolutely no limit to wishing if you let it go on.

The people watched them curiously in church, for they looked so happy; and for a long time the man's expression had always been anxious, if it had no longer been sad of late, and the boy's young face had been preternaturally grave; yet every one saw that neither of them even had a new coat for Christmas Day, and that both needed one pretty badly. But no one thought the worse of them for that, and in the generous Good Will that was everywhere that morning everybody was glad to see that every one else looked happy.

In due time the two got home again; the Motor was still working to perfection, as if nothing could ever stop it again, and Overholt oiled the bearings carefully, passed a leather over the fixed parts, and examined the whole machine minutely before sitting down to the feast, while Newton stood beside him, looking on and hoping that he would not be long.

The boy had his new watch in his pocket, and it told him that it was time for that turkey at last, and his new skates were in the parlour, and there was splendid ice on the pond where the boys had cleared away the snow, and it was the most perfect Christmas weather that ever was; and in order to enjoy everything it would be necessary to get to work soon.

The two were before the Air-Motor, turning their backs to the door; and they heard it open quietly, for old Barbara always came to call Overholt to his meals, because he was very apt to forget them.

"We are just coming," he said, without turning round. But the boy turned, for he was hungry for the good things; and suddenly a perfect yell of joy rent the air, and he dashed forward as Overholt turned sharp round.

"Mother!"

"Helen!"

And there she was, instead of in Munich. For the rich people she was with had happily smashed their automobile without hurting themselves, and had taken a fancy to spend Christmas at home; and, after the manner of very rich people, they had managed everything in a moment, had picked up their children and the governess, had just caught the fastest steamer afloat at Cherbourg, and had arrived in New York late on Christmas Eve. And Helen Overholt had taken the earliest train that she could manage to get ready for, and had come out directly to surprise her two in their lonely cottage.

So John Henry Overholt had his three wishes after all on Christmas Day. And everybody had helped to bring it all about, even Mr. Burnside, who had said that Hope was cheap and that there was plenty of it to be had.

But as for the little Christmas City in which Hope had dwelt and waited so long, they all three put the last touches to it together, and carried it with them when they went back to the College town, where they felt that they would be happier than anywhere else in the world, even if they were to grow very rich, which seems quite likely now.

That is how it all happened.



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