The Brick Moon and Other Stories Part 4

But Despair, if Giotto be correct, is the chief of sins. So has he depicted her in the fresco of the Arena in Padua. No sin, that, of ours! After searching all that Friday night, we slept all Sat.u.r.day (sleeping after sweeping). We all came to the Chapel, Sunday, kept awake there, and taught our Sunday cla.s.ses special lessons on Perseverance. On Monday we began again, and that week we calculated sixty-seven more orbits. I am sure I do not know why we stopped at sixty-seven. All of these were on the supposition that the revolution of the Brick Moon, or Io-Phoebe, was so fast that it would require either fifteen days to complete its...o...b..t, or sixteen days, or seventeen days, and so on up to eighty-one days. And, with these orbits, on the next Friday we waited for the darkness. As we sat at tea, I asked if I should begin observing at the smallest or at the largest orbit. And there was a great clamor of diverse opinions. But little Bertha said, "Begin in the middle."

"And what is the middle?" said George, chaffing the little girl.

But she was not to be dismayed. She had been in and out all the week, and knew that the first orbit was of fifteen days and the last of eighty-one; and, with true Lincoln School precision, she said, "The mean of the smallest orbit and the largest orbit is forty-eight days."

"Amen!" said I, as we all laughed. "On forty-eight days we will begin."

Alice ran to the sheets, turned up that number, and read, "R. A. 27@ 11'. South declination 34@ 49'."

"Convenient place," said George; "good omen, Bertha, my darling! If we find her there, Alice and Bertha and Clara shall all have new dolls."

It was the first word of pleasantry that had been spoken about the horrid thing since Spoonwood Hill!

Night came at last. We trained the gla.s.s on the fated spot. I bade Polly take the eye-gla.s.s. She did so, shook her head uneasily, screwed the tube northward herself a moment, and then screamed, "It is there! it is there,--a clear disk,--gibbous shape,--and very sharp on the upper edge. Look! look! as big again as Jupiter!"

Polly was right! The Brick Moon was found!

Now we had found it, we never lost it. Zitta and Gmelin, I suppose, had had foggy nights and stormy weather often. But we had some one at the eye-gla.s.s all that night, and before morning had very respectable elements, good measurements of angular distance when we got one, from another star in the field of our lowest power. For we could see her even with a good French opera-gla.s.s I had, and with a night-gla.s.s which I used to carry on the South Atlantic Station. It certainly was an extraordinary ill.u.s.tration of Orcutt's engineering ability, that, flying off as she did, without leave or license, she should have gained so nearly the orbit of our original plan,--nine thousand miles from the earth's centre, five thousand from the surface. He had always stuck to the hope of this, and on his very last tests of the Flies he had said they, were almost up to it. But for this accuracy of his, I can hardly suppose we should have found her to this hour, since she had failed, by what cause I then did not know, to take her intended place on the meridian of No. 9. At five thousand miles the MOON appeared as large as the largest satellite of Jupiter appears. And Polly was right in that first observation, when she said she got a good disk with that admirable gla.s.s of Mrs. Bowdoin.

The orbit was not on the meridian of No. 9, nor did it remain on any meridian. But it was very nearly South and North,--an enormous motion in declination with a very slight RETROGRADE motion in Right Ascension. At five thousand miles the MOON showed as large as a circle two miles and a third in diameter would have shown on old Thornbush, as we always called her older sister. We longed for an eclipse of Thornbush by B. M., but no such lucky chance is on the cards in any place accessible to us for many years. Of course, with a MOON so near us the terrestrial parallax is enormous.

Now, you know, dear reader, that the gigantic reflector of Lord Rosse, and the exquisite fifteen- inch refractors of the modern observatories, eliminate from the chaotic rubbish-heap of the surface of old Thornbush much smaller objects than such a circle as I have named. If you have read Mr. Locke's amusing Moon Hoax as often as I have, you have those details fresh in your memory. As John Farrar taught us when all this began,--and as I have said already,--if there were a State House in Thornbush two hundred feet long, the first Herschel would have seen it. His magnifying power was 6450; that would have brought this deaf and dumb State House within some forty miles. Go up on Mt. Was.h.i.+ngton and see white sails eighty miles away, beyond Portland, with your naked eye, and you will find how well he would have seen that State House with his reflector. Lord Rosse's statement is, that with his reflector he can see objects on old Thornbush two hundred and fifty-two feet long. If he can do that he can see on our B. M. objects which are five feet long; and, of course, we were beside ourselves to get control of some instrument which had some approach to such power. Haliburton was for at once building a reflector at No. 9; and perhaps he will do it yet, for Haliburton has been successful in his paper- making and lumbering. But I went to work more promptly.

I remembered, not an apothecary, but an observatory, which had been dormant, as we say of volcanoes, now for ten or a dozen years,--no matter why! The trustees had quarrelled with the director, or the funds had given out, or the director had been shot at the head of his division,--one of those accidents had happened which will happen even in observatories which have fifteen-inch equatorials; and so the equatorial here had been left as useless as a cannon whose metal has been strained or its reputation stained in an experiment. The observatory at Tamworth, dedicated with such enthusiasm,--"another light-house in the skies," had been, so long as I have said, worthless to the world. To Tamworth, therefore, I travelled. In the neighborhood of the observatory I took lodgings. To the church where wors.h.i.+pped the family which lived in the observatory buildings I repaired; after two Sundays I established acquaintance with John Donald, the head of this family. On the evening of the third, I made acquaintance with his wife in a visit to them. Before three Sundays more he had recommended me to the surviving trustees as his successor as janitor to the buildings. He himself had accepted promotion, and gone, with his household, to keep a store for Haliburton in North Ovid. I sent for Polly and the children, to establish them in the janitor's rooms; and, after writing to her, with trembling eye I waited for the Brick Moon to pa.s.s over the field of the fifteen-inch equatorial.

Night came. I was "sole alone"! B. M. came, more than filled the field of vision, of course! but for that I was ready. Heavens! how changed. Red no longer, but green as a meadow in the spring. Still I could see-- black on the green--the large twenty-foot circles which I remembered so well, which broke the concave of the dome; and, on the upper edge--were these palm-trees?

They were. No, they were hemlocks, by their shape, and among them were moving to and fro---------- flies? Of course, I cannot see flies! But something is moving,-- coming, going. One, two, three, ten; there are more than thirty in all! They are men and women and their children!

Could it be possible? It was possible! Orcutt and Brannan and the rest of them had survived that giddy flight through the ether, and were going and coming on the surface of their own little world, bound to it by its own attraction and living by its own laws!

As I watched, I saw one of them leap from that surface. He pa.s.sed wholly out of my field of vision, but in a minute, more or less, returned. Why not! Of course the attraction of his world must be very small, while he retained the same power of muscle he had when he was here. They must be horribly crowded, I thought. No.

They had three acres of surface, and there were but thirty-seven of them. Not so much crowded as people are in Roxbury, not nearly so much as in Boston; and, besides, these people are living underground, and have the whole of their surface for their exercise.

I watched their every movement as they approached the edge and as they left it. Often they pa.s.sed beyond it, so that I could see them no more. Often they sheltered themselves from that tropical sun beneath the trees.

Think of living on a world where from the vertical heat of the hottest noon of the equator to the twilight of the poles is a walk of only fifty paces! What atmosphere they had, to temper and diffuse those rays, I could not then conjecture.

I knew that at half-past ten they would pa.s.s into the inevitable eclipse which struck them every night at this period of their orbit, and must, I thought, be a luxury to them, as recalling old memories of night when they were on this world. As they approached the line of shadow, some fifteen minutes before it was due, I counted on the edge thirty-seven specks arranged evidently in order; and, at one moment, as by one signal, all thirty- seven jumped into the air,--high jumps. Again they did it, and again. Then a low jump; then a high one. I caught the idea in a moment. They were telegraphing to our world, in the hope of an observer. Long leaps and short leaps,--the long and short of Morse's Telegraph Alphabet,--were communicating ideas. My paper and pencil had been of course before me. I jotted down the despatch, whose language I knew perfectly:--

"Show 'I understand' on the Saw-Mill Flat."

"Show 'I understand' on the Saw-Mill Flat."

"Show 'I understand' on the Saw-Mill Flat."

By "I understand" they meant the responsive signal given, in all telegraphy, by an operator who has received and understood a message.

As soon as this exercise had been three times repeated, they proceeded in a solid body--much the most apparent object I had had until now--to Circle No. 3, and then evidently descended into the MOON.

The eclipse soon began, but I knew the MOON'S path now, and followed the dusky, coppery spot without difficulty. At 1.33 it emerged, and in a very few moments I saw the solid column pa.s.s from Circle No. 3 again, deploy on the edge again, and repeat three times the signal:--

"Show 'I understand' on the Saw-Mill Flat."

"Show 'I understand' on the Saw-Mill Flat."

"Show 'I understand' on the Saw-Mill Flat."

It was clear that Orcutt had known that the edge of his little world would be most easy of observation, and that he had guessed that the moments of obscuration and of emersion were the moments when observers would be most careful. After this signal they broke up again, and I could not follow them. With daylight I sent off a despatch to Haliburton, and, grateful and happy in comparison, sank into the first sleep not haunted by horrid dreams, which I had known for years.

Haliburton knew that George Orcutt had taken with him a good Dolland's refractor, which he had bought in London, of a two-inch gla.s.s. He knew that this would give Orcutt a very considerable power, if he could only adjust it accurately enough to find No. 9 in the 3d Range. Orcutt had chosen well in selecting the "Saw-Mill Flat," a large meadow, easily distinguished by the peculiar shape of the mill-pond which we had made. Eager though Haliburton was to join me, he loyally took moneys, caught the first train to Skowhegan, and, travelling thence, in thirty-six hours more was again descending Spoonwood Hill, for the first time since our futile observations. The snow lay white upon the Flat. With Rob. Shea's help, he rapidly unrolled a piece of black cambric twenty yards long, and pinned it to the crust upon the snow; another by its side, and another. Much cambric had he left. They had carried down with them enough for the funerals of two Presidents. Haliburton showed the symbols for "I understand," but he could not resist also displaying ..-- .--, which are the dots and lines to represent O. K., which, he says, is the shortest message of comfort. And not having exhausted the s.p.a.ce on the Flat, he and Robert, before night closed in, made a gigantic O. K., fifteen yards from top to bottom, and in marks that were fifteen feet through.

I had telegraphed my great news to Haliburton on Monday night. Tuesday night he was at Skowhegan.

Thursday night he was at No. 9. Friday he and Rob.

stretched their cambric. Meanwhile, every day I slept.

Every night I was glued to the eye-piece. Fifteen minutes before the eclipse every night this weird dance of leaps two hundred feet high, followed by hops of twenty feet high, mingled always in the steady order I have described, spelt out the ghastly message: "Show 'I understand' on the Saw-Mill Flat."

And every morning, as the eclipse ended, I saw the column creep along to the horizon, and again, as the duty of opening day, spell out the same:--

"Show 'I understand' on the Saw-Mill Flat."

They had done this twice in every twenty-four hours for nearly two years. For three nights steadily I read these signals twice each night; only these, and nothing more.

But Friday night all was changed. After "Attention,"

that dreadful "Show" did not come, but this cheerful signal:--

"Hurrah. All well. Air, food, and friends! what more can man require? Hurrah."

How like George! How like Ben Brannan! How like George's wife! How like them all! And they were all well! Yet poor _I_ could not answer. Nay, I could only guess what Haliburton had done. But I have never, I believe, been so grateful since I was born.

After a pause, the united line of leapers resumed their jumps and hops. Long and short spelled out:--

"Your O. K. is twice as large as it need be."

Of the meaning of this, lonely _I_ had, of course, no idea.

"I have a power of seven hundred," continued George.

How did he get that? He has never told us. But this I can see, that all our a.n.a.logies deceive us,--of views of the sea from Mt. Was.h.i.+ngton, or of the Boston State House from Wachusett. For in these views we look through forty or eighty miles of dense terrestrial atmosphere. But Orcutt was looking nearly vertically through an atmosphere which was, most of it, rare indeed, and pure indeed, compared with its lowest stratum.

In the record-book of my observations these despatches are entered as 12 and 13. Of course it was impossible for me to reply. All I could do was to telegraph these in the morning to Skowhegan, sending them to the care of the Moores, that they might forward them.

But the next night showed that this had not been necessary.

Friday night George and the others went on for a quarter of an hour. Then they would rest, saying, "two,"

"three," or whatever their next signal time would be.

Before morning I had these despatches:--

14. "Write to all hands that we are doing well.

Langdon's baby is named Io, and Leonard's is named Phoebe."

How queer that was! What a coincidence! And they had some humor there.

15 was: "Our atmosphere stuck to us. It weighs three tenths of an inch--our weight."

16. "Our rain-fall is regular as the clock. We have made a cistern of Kilpatrick."