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Silence reigned for several moments, the fragrant silence of a warm May night. And then: "I am sure it will, I am sure it will," mused Father Anthony, smiling confidently. "I have no fear as to what the end will be for Jim, my one-armed tramp." "But the other man, Father, the boss of the stone-crusher? What has become of him?"
Much of the boy had gone out of him. He moved with the motion and sloth of decrepit age. Next week you will not know him for the same boy. His feet will be hardened, he will dance over the macadam mixed streets with the callosity of a stone-crusher, and the fugacious cat will be lucky if it gets its tail through the fence in time.
"'During his wanderings he picked up odd jobs here and there, and one day he is taken on by the boss of the stone-crusher over there in those quarries of yours. They were badly in need of some one to stoke the engine, and even a rough looking tramp was welcome. That same day there comes to the place a certain priest who is searching for one of the stray sheep from his own fold.
Those heaps of stones broken by the hammer of a poor wretch who bends over his dull task through the weary day by the roadside, scantily clad, in sharp frost perhaps or chilling showers, are they more lovely to a painter's eye than if they had been broken, without so much human labour and suffering, by a steam stone-crusher?
An astonished stillness fell over the group around the gate. The whole show, in fact, stood wide-eyed and agape with wonder, for what should be coming up the road, moving entirely of its own accord, without horse or other visible means of locomotion, but a huge red double buggy, with wheels like a stone-crusher, and the appearance of a threshing-machine!
But there was never a response, and even his neighbors on the Hill, who cheerfully enjoy his smooth stretch of stone road over the ancient wallow of their fathers, manifested no active appreciation of his generosity. The generous resident had purchased a stone-crusher and other necessaries for the work; but they have been used only on private grounds.
Blake's stone-breaker, though only represented by model in the United States section, where it belongs, is shown by two English firms; and though some Europeans profess to have improved upon its details, no efficient substitute has been found for it, but it remains the premium stone-crusher of the world, and has rendered services in the exploitation of gold quartz and silver ores, and in the crushing of stones for public works and for concretes, which can hardly be exaggerated.
Crane made a number of these instruments, mounted in gymbals, so that the delicate needles were free to turn in any direction whatever. They were mounted upon jeweled bearings, but bearings made of such great strength, that Seaton protested. "What's the use, Mart? You don't expect a watch to be treated like a stone-crusher. That needle weighs less than half a gram.
He was never at home when I called; so I decided that my only chance of coming to close quarters with the enemy was to surprise him at his work. That afternoon I had gone to the quarries and found my man superintending the gang in charge of the stone-crusher.
The tramp recognizes the priest at once, and the sight of that familiar face brings back the old, happy days of his innocent boyhood. The priest commences to speak; he pleads, he reasons with the boss of the stone-crusher.
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