"
"What is that?" asked Em, instantly becoming decidedly better.
"You will tell it to no human being?"
"No."
He bent nearer to her, and with deep solemnity said:
"I have made a machine!"
Em opened her eyes.
"Yes; a machine for shearing sheep. It is almost done," said the boy.
"There is only one thing that is not right yet; but it will be soon. When
you think, and think, and think, all night and all day, it comes at last,"
he added mysteriously.
"Where is it?"
"Here! I always carry it here," said the boy, putting his hand to his
breast, where a bulging-out was visible. "This is a model. When it is
done they will have to make a large one."
"Show it me."
The boy shook his head.
"No, not till it is done. I cannot let any human being see it till then."
"It is a beautiful secret," said Em; and the boy shuffled out to pick up
his skins.
That evening father and son sat in the cabin eating their supper. The
father sighed deeply sometimes. Perhaps he thought how long a time it was
since Bonaparte had visited the cabin; but his son was in that land in
which sighs have no part. It is a question whether it were not better to
be the shabbiest of fools, and know the way up the little stair of
imagination to the land of dreams, than the wisest of men, who see nothing
that the eyes do not show, and feel nothing that the hands do not touch.
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