The Story of Iron by Elizabeth I. Samuel - HTML preview

CHAPTER XVI
 WHAT MR. PRESCOTT SAID

T four o’clock, Joseph.”

Billy looked at Mr. Prescott wonderingly.

“Why four o’clock, questioner? Because, when I’m going to see a place, I like to see it at its best. I like to see this place in the afternoon, when the shadows have grown long.

“No; no more questions.”

At a quarter past four, Joseph stopped the car in front of a beautiful wrought iron gate.

“That’s a beauty!” exclaimed Dr. Crandon. “It reminds me of some of the old mediæval work that I saw in Italy. What’s this, anyway?”

Mr. Prescott shook his head.

“All right, Prescott,” said Dr. Crandon, “I’ll wait.”

“As for that gate,” said Mr. Prescott, “I may as well admit that I am a bit proud of it. The men of my year put it there.

“As for the place, I think,” said Mr. Prescott slowly, “I think I might safely say that it is where they make, or try to make, a certain kind of castings.”

“Would it be fair, Prescott,” said Dr. Crandon with a smile, “for me to say that you yourself are prone to think professionally?”

“Quite fair, I assure you,” answered Mr. Prescott, with a bow.

“I don’t see anybody making anything,” said Billy, in a disappointed tone.

“In the summer they have to rest both their machinery and their material,” said Mr. Prescott.

Then Billy knew that Mr. Prescott expected him to keep his eyes and his ears open until he found out for himself where they were.

“Let’s walk,” said Mr. Prescott.

“HE’S STILL LOOKING AT THE GATE”

They were at the first corner when Billy exclaimed:

“Where’s Uncle John?”

“There he is,” said Mr. Prescott, turning around. “He’s still looking at that gate. Don’t blame him much,” he added.

Back Billy went.

John Bradford was so absorbed in studying the gate that Billy had to call him the second time before he turned.

“Eh! Billy, my lad!” he said. “I should like to do a piece of work as beautiful as that. That is true artist work.”

Something in his tone made Billy say quickly:

“You’re an artist yourself, Uncle John. Miss King said so.”

“I should really like,” said John Bradford again, “to do such a piece of work as that.”

“When we get home,” said Billy, “why don’t you begin?”

“Eh! Billy, my lad!” said Uncle John, but this time he said it with a smile.

“He was wishing,” said Billy when they overtook the others, “that he could make an iron gate.”

“I’ll confess, here and now,” said Mr. Prescott, “that I myself have had aspirations of that sort.”

“Is iron-work coming in again?” asked Dr. Crandon. “It seems to me that, just lately, I have seen some very beautiful gates.”

“I think so,” answered Mr. Prescott. “There are a few men who seem to have caught the spirit of the old smiths, and to have seen the possibilities in wrought iron. The man who made that gate is one of them. He has invented a liquid, too, to prevent the rusting of the iron.

“You see that a man who works in iron must be both an artist and a smith—he must blow the forge and use the hammer. That gate in cast iron would be almost ugly. In the Swedish wrought iron, it is truly beautiful.

“The old fellows knew much more about the artistic side of iron than we do. Look at the old French locks—even a French king prided himself on his ability to make locks.

“There was a time when an apprentice to a locksmith had to make a masterpiece lock before he could become a master. It usually took him two years to do it, for he had to chase and chisel it from the solid.

“I’ll tell you, Bradford, something that Billy Bradford doesn’t know. I have a workshop of my own at home in the lower part of the house.

“A long time ago I began an iron gate for the garden. When we go back, Bradford, let’s finish it.”

Billy, looking at his Uncle John, smiled serenely.

Then Billy walked by Uncle John, while Mr. Prescott and Dr. Crandon went slowly before them down the long avenue of elms.

Billy listened to the two men as they talked. He found out that they had both been to college, and then somewhere else. He couldn’t quite make out what Mr. Prescott’s other place was; but it was somewhere specially to study iron.

This talk about college was all new to Billy. He liked the stories that they told, one after another. He had never seen Mr. Prescott so happy.

“That,” he said, stopping before a large brick building that looked very old, “is where I used to room. Second story front.

“Billy, look back.”

Billy, turning, saw the great yard, green everywhere, with long shadows of trees and buildings resting on it in the low light of the afternoon.

“It’s like the city and the country put together,” he said. “It’s the most beautiful place that I ever saw!”

“Prescott,” said Dr. Crandon, “were you ever on a football team?”

“He was captain,” broke in Billy. “He told me so!”

“He’s captain still,” said John Bradford, in his slow, even way.

They all looked at him a moment.

“Good, Bradford, good!” exclaimed Dr. Crandon. “That’s what he is! I’m inclined to think that football is a good training place for a captain of industry.”

“It’s all team work,” said John Bradford. “Some do one thing and some another, but without a captain a team can’t win.”

There were times when Uncle John said things that Billy couldn’t understand. He did just then. But Billy knew, by the look that came into Mr. Prescott’s face, that he was very much pleased.

“It takes,” said Dr. Crandon, “two sets of men to make the world move along: those who work with their heads, and those who work with their hands. For my part, I believe that one set works about as hard as the other.”

“I’m truly thankful, Crandon,” said Mr. Prescott, “that there’s somebody in the world who realizes that.”

Then they all started down the avenue of elms. Mr. Prescott had slipped his arm through John Bradford’s, and was talking to him earnestly.

Dr. Crandon and Billy loitered along behind.

“Mr. Prescott seems to be unusually fond of his ‘Alma Mater,’” said Dr. Crandon.

“What,” asked Billy, “does ‘Alma Mater’ mean?”

“It’s a Latin name for a college,” answered Dr. Crandon. “I think that ‘cherishing mother’ is a pretty good way to translate it into English.

“A college looks after you, and tries to make a man of you, something the way your mother does, you know.”

“All the mother I ever had,” said Billy, “was only a week.”

“Oh, young chap, I’m sorry,” said Dr. Crandon, throwing his arm across Billy’s shoulder the way college boys sometimes do.

“I tell you what I’d do,” he added quickly; “I’d begin to think about an ‘Alma Mater.’ You could work your way through, you know. I began that way myself.

“Don’t you do it, though, on less than three meals a day—square ones,” he added with professional zeal.

“I shall keep an eye on you, young chap. I surely shall!”

Then he remembered that he had some letters to post, and hurried off to the nearest box.

Billy kept on walking toward Mr. Prescott and Uncle John, who were coming slowly back under the beautiful trees.

After he had gone a little way, Billy waited, in the middle of the walk, for them to come up.

Mr. Prescott still had his hand through Uncle John’s arm. How happy Uncle John looked, and Mr. Prescott, too!

When they reached him, they stopped.

“I’ve found out,” said Billy. “This is where they make——”

“Try to make,” corrected Mr. Prescott.

“Men,” finished Billy.

Then Mr. Prescott put his hand on Billy’s shoulder, and, looking right down into Billy’s eyes, said slowly:

“He’s your boy, Bradford, but he belongs to me, too.

“We’ll work together, and we’ll see whether between us we can help him to come to be a man.”

END