Any lingering interest that Andy might have had in his uncle’s place disappeared, temporarily, on the spot. He had figured that he might have trouble in arranging things so that he could help about the place and yet find time to help build an aeroplane. To be sentenced to “paint the house” was more than he had bargained for. The boy was in despair.

But as they approached the house, his interest began to revive. When he saw that his uncle’s home was a substantial little building, backed by a grove of golden-studded orange trees, he began to forget his new trouble.

The house, two stories high, with a porch or gallery on two sides, stood on open ground.

“From the second story,” explained Captain Anderson, “it looks out over the river. You can even see the spray of the ocean breakers on the other side of the peninsula, sometimes.”

“The sea?” exclaimed Andy.

“And miles up and down the river,” replied the captain, nodding his head.

[53]

The place contained about twenty acres, of which five in the rear were in oranges and one in pineapples. On the slope in front was a garden patch, while the low ground near the creek was a swamp.

“It is so much more than I expected,” exclaimed Mrs. Leighton at once, “that I almost wish we could keep it and live here.”

“Do you think we could afford it, mother?” Andy began. “I don’t think father will come down here.”

“What is it worth, Captain?” asked Mrs. Leighton.

“About two thousand dollars—maybe a little less.”

“Mother,” said Andy, “of course, we ought to clean up around here a little, but I don’t think we should spend any money on paint or repairs until father knows all about it. Let’s write to him.”

That meant perhaps a week’s reprieve. In that time considerable might be done on the projected flying machine.

“We’ll see,” answered his mother.

Mrs. Leighton and Andy entered the place with great curiosity. The front of the house was one living room of undecorated pine.[54] There was a stove standing in a box of sand, and a long table, a couch, and bookshelves built in the end of the room. A chair at the table and a handmade lounging chair with a canvas back were the only seating accommodations.

The table bore a big green-shaded student lamp, and was laden with books, pamphlets, magazines—all in order in little racks—and, in the center, a heap of blank books, scratch paper pads, dry ink bottles, pens, tobacco jars, pipes, matches, and newspaper clippings. On the walls, here and there, were attractive colored prints.

On the table Andy noticed several foreign magazines and reviews. A large portion of the contents of the bookcases were European scientific magazines. One of these, turned over on the table, was a German periodical devoted to chemistry.

On the far side of the room a steep stairway led to the second floor. While his elders ascended to the rooms above the boy opened a door in the rear. The scientific publications had instantly revived his curiosity concerning the shop or workroom. The door led into a small, bare room with a door opening on the side gallery—evidently a dining room. Beyond[55] this, was a kitchen and a door leading out on the orange grove.

A few yards within the grove, the boy found, in a clearing, the building that his uncle had used as a shop. It was of weather-worn boards, and had a tar-paper roof. The windows, on two sides of the shed, were almost continuous, and protected by shutters. The door, on a windowless side, was fastened with a padlock. But this did not long deter the curious Andy. Many kinds of pipe, bars of iron, empty carboys, boards, boxes, and barrels of hard and soft coal were about the shed. Catching up a piece of bar iron, Andy demolished the lock staple with a blow.

The spaces between the board siding had been filled in with laths and, as the shutters were closed, it was a moment or two before the prying visitor could make out his surroundings. As he began to do so he knew that Captain Anderson’s suggestions were more than justified. He was plainly in the workroom of an experimenter of wide scope.

The intruder’s first work was to throw open the wooden shutters. Then, despite the dust-covered windows, he began a quick inventory of the place. The side where there were no windows[56] looked like the disordered shelves of a country drug store. Glass bottles and smaller vials, wicker demijohns, and labeled boxes were jammed together in confusion. There was an acid, mouldy smell about the place, as if sunshine and air had not entered for a long time.

Beneath the windows on the long side of the room was a little workbench such as watchmakers use. It was littered with tools looking much like a watchmaker’s outfit. In a cleared place on it was tacked a sheet of paper, now brown with dust. In lead pencil, on this, were chemical formulae and algebraical equations. By its side was a box of drawing instruments, steel rules, drawing curves and dividers, with pens and drawing inks.

“Nothing much doing!” chuckled Andy to himself, smacking his lips. He reveled in places of this character. It meant many possible hours of prolonged examination and the joy of almost any kind of discovery.

On the right of this bench was a heavier one for metal working, with two vises and a lathe operated by shaft and pulley. The shaft extended through the side of the room and connected with a small gasoline engine outside.

[57]

“Nothing Much Doing!”

[58-
59]

Continuing his hasty survey of the curious laboratory, Andy faced the other windowed side of the room. Crowded into a corner, he made out a portable forge. Next to it, was an anvil with hammers, tongs, and bending blocks. Next to this was another and still heavier bench.

It was the first close view of this that made Andy spring forward as if he had caught sight of a bed of gold nuggets. Hereon, plainly enough, were the physical expressions of the eccentric experimenter’s peculiar ideas. Metal wheels, shafts, springs, cylinders, and pistons were heaped together. In front of them was a wooden, soot-smeared and oil-begrimed miniature model of something. The little model had somewhat the appearance of a mechanical fan. As Andy picked it up, a voice from behind him exclaimed:

“Couldn’t wait, eh?”

It was Captain Anderson, and he was followed by Mrs. Leighton and Mrs. Anderson.

“Where’s that power generator or transformer, or whatever it is?” was Andy’s only answer as he replaced the model.

“Andrew!” exclaimed his mother, as she caught sight of the boy, whose face was streaked with dust and perspiration, and[60] whose coat was already covered with cobwebs. “You’re ruining your best suit. Come out of that dirty place.”

The boy did so, but it was partly because Captain Anderson had motioned him around the shed. There, beneath a lean-to protection, was a fourth bench. On this, even the untrained Andy instantly made out six small cylinders connected by steel tubes, in the center of each of which was an arrangement of valves and stop cocks. Attached to the first of the cylinders was a compact device resembling a blower, operated by a hand crank. From this, a steel tube led below the bench.

“Don’t ask me what it is,” exclaimed Captain Anderson. “All I know about it is your uncle said that when he got those cylinders workin’ right, he’d have no more use for gasoline.”

“Looks like a new kind o’ compressor,” began Andy, his face beaming. “I think I—”

“Andy, come right along up to the house and help us get things in order,” commanded his mother. “Did you ever see so much rubbish?” she added, turning to Mrs. Anderson and gathering up her skirts anew. “All this stuff must have cost a lot of money. Is it worth anything[61] now?” she asked, peering timidly into the disorderly shop once more.

“The tools are worth something,” answered Captain Anderson. “As for the other things, I guess they ain’t good for anything except junk.”

They were on their way back to the house, Andy tagging behind and thinking. Finally he touched the captain on the arm.

“Don’t you be too sure about that ‘junk’ business.”

“Did you find anything?” asked the captain, with a smile.

“I didn’t,” answered the boy, “but my uncle didn’t keep that place goin’ just to kill time. You can bet there are ideas buried somewhere in that stuff.”

“And you are goin’ to dig ’em up?” laughed Captain Anderson.

“There ain’t any law against tryin’,” retorted Andy, red in the face, “and if my mother tries to sell that shanty or the ‘junk’ in it before I’m through with it, she’s agoin’ to strike a snag.”

The negro, Ba, had carried the trunks to the gallery, where a council was now held. The only food in the house was a few tins of fruit[62] and vegetables and some ant-infested sugar. The entire place was much in need of soap, water, and broom. The bedding did not meet Mrs. Leighton’s approval. Besides, there was but one bed in the house.

The boy’s suggestion to his mother was to “camp out” in the house until the next morning. There were preserved peaches and tinned baked beans in the pantry, to say nothing of oranges and pineapples on the place, and these Andy thought quite sufficient in the way of food. Then, on the following day, they would borrow Captain Anderson’s sailboat and go to Melbourne to lay in supplies.

This suggestion receiving no immediate objection, the boy began to exercise his growing energy in his attack on the disorderly floor of the big room. In the midst of this Captain Anderson stopped him.

“You can’t stay here,” explained the elder. “Your mother has agreed with us, and you’re going back to our house.”

A look of disappointment spread over the boy’s face. Then this changed as he turned to his mother.

“Then you ain’t goin’ to paint the house right away?”

“Not at once,” was the answer. “Captain[63] Anderson has kindly offered to let us board with him for a few days until we hear from your father. Then, if he wants to sell the house, and we can’t do it at once, we may make arrangements to come here and live.”

Although it had been decided to return to Captain Anderson’s home, and the trunks were carried back to the boat at once, it was nearly noon before the party prepared to leave. Two hours were spent in looking over the grove and the pineapple field, and in a more careful survey of the house and its contents. Then Captain Anderson prepared to lock the house again.

“Don’t that road lead to your house?” asked Andy, who had been in new thought for some time, addressing the captain.

“Sure,” laughed Captain Anderson, “want to walk? It’s two miles.”

“Mother,” asked Andy, “do you mind if I stay here awhile? I’ll walk back.”

His mother eyed him suspiciously.

“What are you planning to do?” she asked.

“Just want to nose around—books and things,” he explained.

“Can he do any harm?” Mrs. Leighton asked, with a smile. “I guess it’s ‘things’ more than books.”

[64]

“Let him stay,” urged the captain. “The place needs all the airing it can get.”

As soon as Andy saw that his request had been granted, he hurried to the boats and opened his trunk. He soon extracted a little red volume. As the returning party approached, he slipped the book to Captain Anderson.

“Captain,” he said quietly, “here’s the book you wanted to see. I thought you might look at it this afternoon. Things are workin’ all right,” he added winking slyly. “I’m on the job to begin earning that boat to-morrow—”

“What book is that?” interrupted Mrs. Leighton, who had her eyes on her son.

Andy hesitated, but Captain Anderson volunteered:

“It’s a book about aeroplanes. He’s lending it to me.”

“Aeroplanes?” exclaimed Mrs. Leighton instantly, turning to her son. Then, looking at the captain, she added: “I hope you’ll keep it, Captain Anderson. Andy wasted one whole summer on an engine that won’t work. We don’t need any aeroplanes of the same kind.” Turning to Andy again, she said: “Be sure and be at Captain Anderson’s by five o’clock—and take in all that bedding before you leave.”