ccess. The born builder's eye is like an ear for music,
a facility for languages, or the power of drawing from nature; all the
application in the world will not do in years what any one of these does
instantly, spontaneously, instinctively, without the smallest effort.
You cannot make talent out of a combination of taste and industry. You
cannot train a cart-horse to trot a mile in a little over a minute.

Newton returned, bringing his materials, to describe which would be
profitless, if it were possible. He had everything littered together in
two battered deal candle-boxes, including the broken soup-plate
containing the flour paste, a loathely, mouldering little mess that
diffused a nauseous odour, distinctly perceptible through that of the
unpronounceable chemical on which the Air-Motor was to depend for its
existence.

The light outside was failing in the murky November air, and Overholt
lit the big reflecting lamp that hung over the work-table. There was
another above the lathe, for no gas or electricity was to be had so far
from the town, and one of old Barbara's standing causes of complaint
against Overholt was his reckless use of kerosene--she thought it would
be better if he had more fat turkeys and rump-steaks and less light.

So the man and the boy "went to work to play" at building the City of
Hope, for at least an hour before supper and half an hour after it,
almost every day; and with the boy's marvellous memory and the father's
skill, and the delicious profusion of fresh material which Newton kept
finding in every corner of the workshop, it grew steadily, till it was a
little work of art in its way. There were the ups and downs, the crooked
old roads and lanes and the straight new streets, the little wooden
cottages and the big brick houses, and there was the grassy common with
its trees and its tiny iron railing; and John Henry easily made posts to
carry the trolley wires, which had seemed an impossible dream to the
boy, beyond all realisation; and one day, when the inventor seemed
farther from the tangent-balance than ever, he spent a whole afternoon
in making a dozen little trolley-cars that ran on real wheels, made by
sawing off little sections from a lead pencil, which is the best thing
in the world for that, because the lead comes out and leaves nice round
holes for the axles. When the first car was painted red and yellow and
ran up and down Main Street, guided by the wire above and only needing
on