At the
end of a half-hour's run Jarley was worn out, but the engine seemed to
gather strength and speed the farther it travelled; and as it let out a
fearful shriek--possibly a whistle--every time the rear end of the train
suggested side-tracking and a cessation of traffic for a month or two,
Jarley in his indulgence invariably withdrew the proposition. The
consequence was that when Mrs. Jarley returned from church Jarley was a
wreck, and as he handed the engine over to the maternal care he observed
with some testiness that in a well-kept household it seemed to him
matters should be so arranged that a busy man should not be compelled to
turn himself into a child's nurse, especially on the one day of the week
which he could devote to rest and relaxation. "If I had that boy's
energy," he said to himself as he fled to his library, "what wonders I
would accomplish! What a shame it is, too, that the wasted energy of
youth cannot be stored up in some way, so that when there comes the real
need for it, it can be made available!"
This thought was the germ of his invention. As he lay there in the
library he thought over the possibilities of life if the nervous force
of childhood, the misdirected energy of play-time, could only be put by
and drawn upon later just as man puts by the money he does not need in
the present for use in case of future rainy days. Then, as the sun sank
below the hills and the twilight hours with their inspiring softness
came on, Jarley resolved that he was the man to whom had come the
mission which should make of this ideal a reality.
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