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Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska. - "The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James"

Jules Verne - "De la Terre  la Lune"

Kate Wiggin - "Rose O' the River by Kate Douglas Wiggin"

Charles Johnston - "The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali"

The Brick Moon, et. al.

E >> Edward Everett Hale >> The Brick Moon, et. al.



Left {greek}, @ for degree and ^ for
superscript





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The Brick Moon
and Other Stories

by EDWARD EVERETT HALE
Short Story Index Reprint Series




Preface


To read these stories again, thirty and more years after
they were written, is to recall many memories, sad or
glad, with which this reader need not be interrupted.
But I have to make sure that they are intelligible to
readers of a generation later than that for which they
were written.

The story of The Brick Moon was begun in my dear
brother Nathan's working-room in Union College,
Schenectady, in the year 1870, when he was professor of
the English language there. The account of the first
plan of the moon is a sketch, as accurate as was needed,
of the old chat and dreams, plans and jokes, of our
college days, before he left Cambridge in 1838. As I
learned almost everything I know through his care and
love and help, directly or indirectly, it is a pleasure
to say this here. The story was published in the
"Atlantic Monthly," in 1870 and 1871. It was the last
story I wrote for that magazine, before assuming the
charge of "Old and New," a magazine which I edited from
1870 to 1876, and for which I wrote "Ten Times One is
Ten," which has been printed in the third volume of this
series.

Among the kind references to "The Brick Moon" which
I have received from sympathetic friends, I now recall
with the greatest pleasure one sent me by Mr. Asaph Hall,
the distinguished astronomer of the National Observatory.
In sending me the ephemeris of the two moons of Mars,
which he revealed to this world of ours, he wrote, "The
smaller of these moons is the veritable Brick Moon."
That, in the moment of triumph for the greatest
astronomical discovery of a generation, Dr. Hall should
have time or thought to give to my little parable,--this
was praise indeed.

Writing in 1870, I said, as the reader will see on
page 66, that George Orcutt did not tell how he used a
magnifying power of 700. Nor did I choose to tell then,
hoping that in some fortunate winter I might be able
myself to repeat his process, greatly to the convenience
of astronomers who have not Alvan Clark's resources at
hand, or who have to satisfy themselves with glass lenses
of fifteen inches, or even thirty, in diameter. But no
such winter has come round to me, and I will now give
Orcutt's invention to the world. He had unlimited
freezing power. So have we now, as we had not then.
With this power he made an ice lens, ten feet in
diameter, which was easily rubbed, by the delicate hands
of the careful women around him, to precisely the
surface which he needed. Let me hope that before next
winter passes some countryman or countrywoman of mine
will have equalled his success, and with an ice lens will
surpass all the successes of the glasses of our time.

The plan of "Crusoe in New York" was made when I was
enjoying the princely hospitality of Henry Whitney
Bellows in New York. The parsonage in that city
commanded a view of a "lot" not built on, which would
have given for many years a happy home to any disciple of
Mayor Pingree, if a somewhat complicated social order had
permitted. The story was first published in Frank
Leslie's illustrated paper. In reading it in 1899, I am
afraid that the readers of a hard, money generation may
not know that "scrip" was in the sixties the name for
small change.

I regard a knowledge of every detail of the original
Robinson Crusoe as well-nigh a necessity in education.
Girls may occasionally be excused, but never boys. It
ought to be unnecessary, therefore, to say that some of
the narrative passages of Crusoe in New York are taken,
word for word, from the text of Defoe. If I do state
this for the benefit of a few unfortunate ladies who are
not familiar with that text, it is because I think no one
among many courteous critics has observed it.

"The Survivor's Story" is one of eight short stories
which were published in the first Christmas number of
"Old and New."

Of the other stories I think no explanation is
needed, but such as was given at the time of their
publication and is reprinted with each of them here.

EDWARD E. HALE.
ROXBURY, July 6, 1899.



CONTENTS



THE BRICK MOON
CRUSOE IN NEW YORK
BREAD ON THE WATERS
THE LOST PALACE
99 LINWOOD STREET
IDEALS
THANKSGIVING AT THE POLLS
THE SURVIVOR'S STORY



THE BRICK MOON

[From the papers of Captain FREDERIC INGHAM.]

I

PREPARATION

I have no sort of objection now to telling the whole
story. The subscribers, of course, have a right to
know what became of their money. The astronomers may
as well know all about it, before they announce any
more asteroids with an enormous movement in
declination. And experimenters on the longitude may as
well know, so that they may act advisedly in attempting
another brick moon or in refusing to do so.

It all began more than thirty years ago, when we were
in college; as most good things begin. We were studying
in the book which has gray sides and a green back, and is
called "Cambridge Astronomy" because it is translated
from the French. We came across this business of the
longitude, and, as we talked, in the gloom and glamour of
the old South Middle dining-hall, we had going the usual
number of students' stories about rewards offered by the
Board of Longitude for discoveries in that matter,--
stories, all of which, so far as I know, are lies. Like
all boys, we had tried our hands at perpetual motion.
For me, I was sure I could square the circle, if they
would give me chalk enough. But as to this business of
the longitude, it was reserved for Q.[1] to make the
happy hit and to explain it to the rest of us.


[1] Wherever Q. is referred to in these pages my
brother Nathan is meant. One of his noms de plume
was Gnat Q. Hale, because G and Q may be silent letters.


I wonder if I can explain it to an unlearned world,
which has not studied the book with gray sides and a
green cambric back. Let us try.

You know then, dear world, that when you look at the
North Star, it always appears to you at just the same
height above the horizon or what is between you and the
horizon: say the Dwight School-house, or the houses in
Concord Street; or to me, just now, North College. You
know also that, if you were to travel to the North Pole,
the North Star would be just over your head. And, if you
were to travel to the equator, it would be just on your
horizon, if you could see it at all through the red,
dusty, hazy mist in the north, as you could not. If you
were just half-way between pole and equator, on the line
between us and Canada, the North Star would be half-way
up, or 45@ from the horizon. So you would know there
that you were 45@ from the equator. Then in Boston, you
would find it was 42@ 20' from the horizon. So you know
there that you are 42@ 20' from the equator. At Seattle
again you would find it was 47@ 40' high, so our friends
at Seattle know that they are at 47@ 40' from the
equator. The latitude of a place, in other words, is
found very easily by any observation which shows how high
the North Star is; if you do not want to measure the
North Star, you may take any star when it is just to
north of you, and measure its height; wait twelve hours,
and if you can find it, measure its height again. Split
the difference, and that is the altitude of the pole, or
the latitude of you, the observer.

"Of course we know this," says the graduating world.
"Do you suppose that is what we borrow your book for, to
have you spell out your miserable elementary astronomy?"
At which rebuff I should shrink distressed, but that a
chorus of voices an octave higher comes up with, "Dear
Mr. Ingham, we are ever so much obliged to you; we did
not know it at all before, and you make it perfectly
clear."

Thank you, my dear, and you, and you. We will not
care what the others say. If you do understand it, or do
know it, it is more than Mr. Charles Reade knew, or he
would not have made his two lovers on the island guess at
their latitude, as they did. If they had either of them
been educated at a respectable academy for the Middle
Classes, they would have fared better.

Now about the longitude.

The latitude, which you have found, measures your
distance north or south from the equator or the pole. To
find your longitude, you want to find your distance
east or west from the meridian of Greenwich. Now, if any
one would build a good tall tower at Greenwich, straight
into the sky,--say a hundred miles into the sky,--of
course if you and I were east or west of it, and could
see it, we could tell how far east or west we were by
measuring the apparent height of the tower above our
horizon. If we could see so far, when the lantern with
a Drummond's light, "ever so bright," on the very top of
the tower, appeared to be on our horizon, we should know
we were eight hundred and seventy-three miles away from
it. The top of the tower would answer for us as the North
Star does when we are measuring the latitude. If we were
nearer, our horizon would make a longer angle with the
line from the top to our place of vision. If we were
farther away, we should need a higher tower.

But nobody will build any such tower at Greenwich, or
elsewhere on that meridian, or on any meridian. You see
that to be of use to the half the world nearest to it, it
would have to be so high that the diameter of the world
would seem nothing in proportion. And then, for the
other half of the world you would have to erect another
tower as high on the other side. It was this difficulty
that made Q. suggest the expedient of the Brick Moon.

For you see that if, by good luck, there were a ring
like Saturn's which stretched round the world, above
Greenwich and the meridian of Greenwich, and if it would
stay above Greenwich, turning with the world, any one
who wanted to measure his longitude or distance from
Greenwich would look out of window and see how high this
ring was above his horizon. At Greenwich it would be
over his head exactly. At New Orleans, which is quarter
round the world from Greenwich, it would be just in his
horizon. A little west of New Orleans you would begin to
look for the other half of the ring on the west instead
of the east; and if you went a little west of the Feejee
Islands the ring would be over your head again. So if we
only had a ring like that, not round the equator of the
world,--as Saturn's ring is around Saturn,--but vertical
to the plane of the equator, as the brass ring of an
artificial globe goes, only far higher in proportion,--
"from that ring," said Q., pensively, "we could calculate
the longitude."

Failing that, after various propositions, he
suggested the Brick Moon. The plan was this: If from
the surface of the earth, by a gigantic peashooter, you
could shoot a pea upward from Greenwich, aimed northward
as well as upward; if you drove it so fast and far that
when its power of ascent was exhausted, and it began to
fall, it should clear the earth, and pass outside the
North Pole; if you had given it sufficient power to get
it half round the earth without touching, that pea would
clear the earth forever. It would continue to rotate
above the North Pole, above the Feejee Island place,
above the South Pole and Greenwich, forever, with the
impulse with which it had first cleared our atmosphere
and attraction. If only we could see that pea as it
revolved in that convenient orbit, then we could measure
the longitude from that, as soon as we knew how high the
orbit was, as well as if it were the ring of Saturn.

"But a pea is so small!"

"Yes," said Q., "but we must make a large pea." Then
we fell to work on plans for making the pea very large
and very light. Large,--that it might be seen far away
by storm-tossed navigators: light,--that it might be the
easier blown four thousand and odd miles into the air;
lest it should fall on the heads of the Greenlanders or
the Patagonians; lest they should be injured and the
world lose its new moon. But, of course, all this lath-
and-plaster had to be given up. For the motion through
the air would set fire to this moon just as it does to
other aerolites, and all your lath-and-plaster would
gather into a few white drops, which no Rosse telescope
even could discern. "No," said Q. bravely, "at the least
it must be very substantial. It must stand fire well,
very well. Iron will not answer. It must be brick; we
must have a Brick Moon."

Then we had to calculate its size. You can see, on
the old moon, an edifice two hundred feet long with any
of the fine refractors of our day. But no such
refractors as those can be carried by the poor little
fishermen whom we wanted to befriend, the bones of whose
ships lie white on so many cliffs, their names
unreported at any Lloyd's or by any Ross,

Themselves the owners and their sons the crew.

On the other hand, we did not want our moon two hundred
and fifty thousand miles away, as the old moon is, which
I will call the Thornbush moon, for distinction. We did
not care how near it was, indeed, if it were only far
enough away to be seen, in practice, from almost the
whole world. There must be a little strip where they
could not see it from the surface, unless we threw it
infinitely high. "But they need not look from the
surface," said Q.; "they might climb to the mast-head.
And if they did not see it at all, they would know that
they were ninety degrees from the meridian."

This difficulty about what we call "the strip,"
however, led to an improvement in the plan, which made it
better in every way. It was clear that even if "the
strip" were quite wide, the moon would have to be a good
way off, and, in proportion, hard to see. If, however,
we would satisfy ourselves with a moon four thousand
miles away, THAT could be seen on the earth's surface
for three or four thousand miles on each side; and twice
three thousand, or six thousand, is one fourth of the
largest circumference of the earth. We did not dare have
it nearer than four thousand miles, since even at that
distance it would be eclipsed three hours out of every
night; and we wanted it bright and distinct, and not of
that lurid, copper, eclipse color. But at four
thousand miles' distance the moon could be seen by a belt
of observers six or eight thousand miles in diameter.
"Start, then, two moons,"--this was my contribution to
the plan. "Suppose one over the meridian of Greenwich,
and the other over that of New Orleans. Take care that
there is a little difference in the radii of their
orbits, lest they `collide' some foul day. Then, in most
places, one or other, perhaps two will come in sight. So
much the less risk of clouds: and everywhere there may be
one, except when it is cloudy. Neither need be more than
four thousand miles off; so much the larger and more
beautiful will they be. If on the old Thornbush moon old
Herschel with his reflector could see a town-house two
hundred feet long, on the Brick Moon young Herschel will
be able to see a dab of mortar a foot and a half long, if
he wants to. And people without the reflector, with
their opera-glasses, will be able to see sufficiently
well." And to this they agreed: that eventually there
must be two Brick Moons. Indeed, it were better that
there should be four, as each must be below the horizon
half the time. That is only as many as Jupiter has. But
it was also agreed that we might begin with one.

Why we settled on two hundred feet of diameter I
hardly know. I think it was from the statement of dear
John Farrar's about the impossibility of there being a
state house two hundred feet long not yet discovered, on
the sunny side of old Thornbush. That, somehow, made
two hundred our fixed point. Besides, a moon of two
hundred feet diameter did not seem quite unmanageable.
Yet it was evident that a smaller moon would be of no
use, unless we meant to have them near the world, when
there would be so many that they would be confusing, and
eclipsed most of the time. And four thousand miles is a
good way off to see a moon even two hundred feet in
diameter.

Small though we made them on paper, these two-
hundred-foot moons were still too much for us. Of course
we meant to build them hollow. But even if hollow there
must be some thickness, and the quantity of brick would
at best be enormous. Then, to get them up! The pea-
shooter, of course, was only an illustration. It was
long after that time that Rodman and other guns sent iron
balls five or six miles in distance,--say two miles, more
or less, in height.

Iron is much heavier than hollow brick, but you can
build no gun with a bore of two hundred feet now,--far
less could you then. No.

Q. again suggested the method of shooting oft the
moon. It was not to be by any of your sudden explosions.
It was to be done as all great things are done,--by the
gradual and silent accumulation of power. You all know
that a flywheel--heavy, very heavy on the circumference,
light, very light within it--was made to save up power,
from the time when it was produced to the time when it
was wanted. Yes? Then, before we began even to
build the moon, before we even began to make the brick,
we would build two gigantic fly-wheels, the diameter of
each should be "ever so great," the circumference heavy
beyond all precedent, and thundering strong, so that no
temptation might burst it. They should revolve, their
edges nearly touching, in opposite directions, for years,
if it were necessary, to accumulate power, driven by some
waterfall now wasted to the world. One should be a
little heavier than the other. When the Brick Moon was
finished, and all was ready, IT should be gently rolled
down a gigantic groove provided for it, till it lighted
on the edge of both wheels at the same instant. Of
course it would not rest there, not the ten-thousandth
part of a second. It would be snapped upward, as a drop
of water from a grindstone. Upward and upward; but the
heavier wheel would have deflected it a little from the
vertical. Upward and northward it would rise, therefore,
till it had passed the axis of the world. It would, of
course, feel the world's attraction all the time, which
would bend its flight gently, but still it would leave
the world more and more behind. Upward still, but now
southward, till it had traversed more than one hundred
and eighty degrees of a circle. Little resistance,
indeed, after it had cleared the forty or fifty miles of
visible atmosphere. "Now let it fall," said Q., inspired
with the vision. "Let it fall, and the sooner the
better! The curve it is now on will forever clear
the world; and over the meridian of that lonely
waterfall,--if only we have rightly adjusted the gigantic
flies,--will forever revolve, in its obedient orbit,
the--

BRICK MOON,

the blessing of all seamen,--as constant in all change
as its older sister has been fickle, and the second
cynosure of all lovers upon the waves, and of all girls
left behind them." "Amen," we cried, and then we sat in
silence till the clock struck ten; then shook each other
gravely by the hand, and left the South Middle dining-
hall.

Of waterfalls there were plenty that we knew.

Fly-wheels could be built of oak and pine, and hooped
with iron. Fly-wheels did not discourage us.

But brick? One brick is, say, sixty-four cubic
inches only. This moon,--though we made it hollow,--
see,--it must take twelve million brick.

The brick alone will cost sixty thousand dollars!


The brick alone would cost sixty thousand dollars.
There the scheme of the Brick Moon hung, an airy vision,
for seventeen years,--the years that changed us from
young men into men. The brick alone, sixty thousand
dollars! For, to boys who have still left a few of their
college bills unpaid, who cannot think of buying that
lovely little Elzevir which Smith has for sale at
auction, of which Smith does not dream of the value,
sixty thousand dollars seems as intangible as sixty
million sestertia. Clarke, second, how much are sixty
million sestertia stated in cowries? How much in
currency, gold being at 1.37 1/4/? Right; go up. Stop,
I forget myself!

So, to resume, the project of the Brick Moon hung in
the ideal, an airy vision, a vision as lovely and as
distant as the Brick Moon itself, at this calm moment of
midnight when I write, as it poises itself over the
shoulder of Orion, in my southern horizon. Stop! I
anticipate. Let me keep--as we say in Beadle's Dime
Series--to the even current of my story.

Seventeen years passed by, we were no longer boys,
though we felt so. For myself, to this hour, I never
enter board meeting, committee meeting, or synod, without
the queer question, what would happen should any one
discover that this bearded man was only a big boy
disguised? that the frockcoat and the round hat are none
of mine, and that, if I should be spurned from the
assembly, as an interloper, a judicious public, learning
all the facts, would give a verdict, "Served him right."
This consideration helps me through many bored meetings
which would be else so dismal. What did my old copy
say?--

"Boards are made of wood, they are long and narrow."

But we do not get on!

Seventeen years after, I say, or should have said,
dear Orcutt entered my room at Naguadavick again. I had
not seen him since the Commencement day when we
parted at Cambridge. He looked the same, and yet not the
same. His smile was the same, his voice, his tender look
of sympathy when I spoke to him of a great sorrow, his
childlike love of fun. His waistband was different, his
pantaloons were different, his smooth chin was buried in
a full beard, and he weighed two hundred pounds if he
weighed a gramme. O, the good time we had, so like the
times of old! Those were happy days for me in
Naguadavick. At that moment my double was at work for me
at a meeting of the publishing committee of the
Sandemanian Review, so I called Orcutt up to my own
snuggery, and we talked over old times; talked till tea
was ready. Polly came up through the orchard and made
tea for us herself there. We talked on and on, till
nine, ten at night, and then it was that dear Orcutt
asked me if I remembered the Brick Moon. Remember it? of
course I did. And without leaving my chair I opened the
drawer of my writing-desk, and handed him a portfolio
full of working-drawings on which I had engaged myself
for my "third"[1] all that winter. Orcutt was delighted.
He turned them over hastily but intelligently, and said:
"I am so glad. I could not think you had forgotten. And
I have seen Brannan, and Brannan has not forgotten."
"Now do you know," said he, "in all this railroading of
mine, I have not forgotten. When I built the great
tunnel for the Cattawissa and Opelousas, by which we
got rid of the old inclined planes, there was never a
stone bigger than a peach-stone within two hundred miles
of us. I baked the brick of that tunnel on the line with
my own kilns. Ingham, I have made more brick, I believe,
than any man living in the world!"


[1] "Every man," says Dr. Peabody, "should have a
vocation and an avocation." To which I add,"A third."


"You are the providential man," said I.

"Am I not, Fred? More than that," said he; "I have
succeeded in things the world counts worth more than
brick. I have made brick, and I have made money!"

"One of us make money?" asked I, amazed.

"Even so," said dear Orcutt; "one of us has, made
money." And he proceeded to tell me how. It was not in
building tunnels, nor in making brick. No! It was by
buying up the original stock of the Cattawissa and
Opelousas, at a moment when that stock had hardly a
nominal price in the market. There were the first
mortgage bonds, and the second mortgage bonds, and the
third, and I know not how much floating debt; and worse
than all, the reputation of the road lost, and deservedly
lost. Every locomotive it had was asthmatic. Every car
it had bore the marks of unprecedented accidents, for
which no one was to blame. Rival lines, I know not how
many, were cutting each other's throats for its
legitimate business. At this juncture dear George
invested all his earnings as a contractor, in the
despised original stock,--he actually bought it for 3 1/4
per cent,--good shares that had cost a round hundred
to every wretch who had subscribed. Six thousand eight
hundred dollars--every cent he had--did George thus
invest. Then he went himself to the trustees of the
first mortgage, to the trustees of the second, and to the
trustees of the third, and told them what he had done.

Now it is personal presence that moves the world.
Dear Orcutt has found that out since, if he did not know
it before. The trustees who would have sniffed had
George written to them, turned round from their desks,
and begged him to take a chair, when he came to talk with
them. Had he put every penny he was worth into that
stock? Then it was worth something which they did not
know of, for George Orcutt was no fool about railroads.
The man who bridged the Lower Rapidan when a freshet was
running was no fool.

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