ake all the
other bedclothes, freeing them from their moorings and submerging his
head in a smothering weight of disorganized sheets and counterpanes
only to leave his poor shivering body a prey to the unfriendly
elements. An attack of lumbago that rendered him helpless from January
until March followed and had decided Jan that inventors were born, not
made. Thereafter he had been content to abandon the realm of research
to his comrade and allow Willie to furnish the inspiration for further
creative ventures. Nevertheless his retirement from the spheres of
discovery did not prevent him from zealously assisting in the
mechanical details that rendered Willie's schemes material. Jan not
only possessed a far more practical type of mind than did his friend
but he was also a more skilful workman and therefore in the carrying
out of any plan his aid was indispensable. He was, moreover, content
to be the lesser power, looking up to Willie's ability with admiration
and asserting with unfeigned sincerity to every one he met that Willie
Spence had not only been born with the _injun_ but he had the _newity_
to go with it.

"Why," Jan would often declare with spirit, "in my opinion Willie has
every whit as much call to write X, Y, Z, an' all them other letters
after his name as any of those fellers that graduate from colleges!
He's a wonder, Willie Spence is--a walkin' wonder! Some day he's goin'
to make his mark, too, an' cause the folks in this town to set up an'
take notice. See if he don't."

Willie's neighbors had long since tired of waiting for the glorious
moment of his fame to arrive; and although they had too genuine a
regard for the little old inventor to state publicly what they really
thought of the strings, the nails, the spools, the wires, and the
pulleys, in private they did not hesitate to denounce derisively the
scientist's contrivances and assert that some fine day the house on the
bluff would come to dire disaster.

"Somebody's goin' to get hung or strangled on one of them contraptions
Willie's rigged up," Captain Phineas Taylor prophesied impressively to
Zenas Henry as the two men sat smoking in the lee of the wood pile.
"You watch out an' see if they don't."

Indeed there was no denying that Celestina was continually catching
hairpins, hooks, and buttons in the strings; or that some such dilemma
as had been predicted had actually occurred, for one day while alone in
the house a pin fastening the back