g, had turned the Valley into
a straggling town almost twenty miles long. So high and busy were the
chimneys that when the south wind blew toward the capital of this
industrial community, often the sun was dimmed in Harvey by a haze. But
on this fair winter's day the air was dry and cold and even in Harvey
shadows were black and clear, and the sun's warmth had set the redbirds
to singing in the brush and put so much joy into the world that Judge
Thomas Van Dorn had ventured out with his new automobile--a chugging,
clattering wonder that set all the horses of Greeley County on their
hind feet, making him a person of distinction in the town far beyond his
renown as a judge and an orator and a person of more than state-wide
reputation. But the Judge's automobile was frail and prone to err--being
not altogether unlike its owner in that regard. Thus many a time when it
chugged out of his barn so proudly, it came limping back behind a span
of mules. And so it happened on that bright, beautiful, December day
that the Judge was sitting upon a box in Captain Morton's shop, while
the Captain at his little forge was welding some bits of metal together
and discoursing upon the virtues of his Household Horse, which he was
assembling in small quantities--having arranged with a firm in South
Chicago to cast the two iron pieces that were needed.

"Now, for instance, on a clothes wringer," the Captain was saying: "It's
a perfect wonder on a clothes wringer: I have the agency of a clothes
wringer that is making agents rich all over the country. But women don't
like clothes wringers; why? Because they require such hard work. All
right--hitch on my Household Horse, and the power required is reduced
three-fifths and a day's wash may be put on the line as easy as a girl
could play The Maiden's Prayer on a piano--eh? Or, say, put it on a
churn--same Horse--one's all that's needed to a house. Or make it an ice
cream freezer or a cradle or a sewing machine, or anything on earth that
runs by a crank--and 'y gory, man, you make housework a joy. I sold
Laura one--traded her one for lessons for Ruth, and she says wash-day at
the Doctor's is like Sunday now--what say? Lila's so crazy about it they
can't keep her out of the basement while the woman works,--likes to
dabble in the water you know like all children, washing her doll
clothes, what say?"

But the Judge said nothing. The Captain tinkered with the metal, and
dipped it slowly in and out of a