The Big Idea. Ray Cummings
her little frame house, dressed in her newest print frock, her long black hair in braids over her shoulders, and a gray woolen scarf wound about her throat. Her cheeks were red with the color of youth and health, and her eyes sparkled with pleasure at sight of him. Jimmy kissed her in greeting, thinking as he did so that she was the most beautiful and wonderful little girl in all the world.
“Where we going?” asked Anne when he had released her.
“I don’t know. Where?”
“It’s a beautiful day,” said the girl, looking up into the blue of the sky. Then she put her hand in his. “Let’s go—anywhere.”
Walking hand in hand, they slipped past the little village—Jimmy instinctively turned away from the mines—down the road, and out into the open country. Distant blue hills lay ahead; on both sides of the road lay rolling country, and sometimes they passed fields of wild flowers.
“It ain’t that I mind the work,” said Jimmy suddenly, when they had been walking for some time. “The work’s all right. But up here—like to-day, Anne—under the sky—it’s different up here. Seems like a fellow had a chance to do something big up here. But down there, Anne—in the dark and damp—all shut in—”
He stopped as the girl tightened the pressure of her fingers upon his. He had often spoken this way to her before—used the very same words, perhaps—and he knew that she understood, and felt that way about it, too. But to-day it seemed different, more important, more pressing a problem—as though to-day, somehow, he must find some way out, some goal ahead toward which he could strive.
He did not care how long it might take to reach it, or what difficulties might be in the way. He knew he would overcome them some way, somehow, if only he could find some goal to head for—some thing definite instead of just dreams.
“Dad was a mule-boy, Anne,” he went on after a moment. “And he died still working in the same mine where he started. Your dad’s there, too. It ain’t that I’m any better than them, Anne. Only I’m—I’m different. You know that. I want to do something—something big. And all day I sit down there thinking and planning and scheming. And it’s no good, Anne. It don’t get me anything—and sometimes I wonder if it ever will.”
The little girl pressed his hand again and looked shyly up into his face.
“It will, Jimmy,” she said softly. “You’re going to be a wonderful man some day—I just know you will. And we’ll—we’ll all be so proud of you.”
Again they fell silent. The road they were following—they were now some two miles from Menchon—was taking them directly toward the burning mines that were famous throughout all that part of Pennsylvania. These were a system of coal-mines that years before had been in active operation. They had caught fire, and eventually had to be abandoned.
And all these years since, far down in the great coal measures underground, the fires had been raging. From one mine to another the fire had spread, until now the whole region, several square miles in ex tent, was honeycombed with uncontrollable subterranean fires.
Through fissures in the ground in many places smoke and steam continually issued; in other parts the fire had broken out to the surface; it was burned out now, leaving a great, jagged, pitted hole. But mostly the coal seams lay so far beneath the surface that only the steam and the thick smoke of the partly consumed coal gases coming through holes in the ground gave evidence of their presence.
The fame of the burning mines of Menchon brought many tourists to visit them. In the summer-time especially, on Sundays, crowds of them came up from the cities of New York and Philadelphia to wander about the region, testing the heat of the ground with amazement, and picnicking beside the little holes that vomited their smoke into the air above.'
To them the sight was interesting and wonderful; but to Jimmy and Anne it was an old story—something they had known all their lives and accepted without wonderment.
This afternoon, as the smoke, rising near by, reminded them where they were, they left the road, and with Anne still carrying a bunch of daisies under her arm, approached the scarred region that, as Jimmy had often said, looked for all the world like the volcano pictures in the books. He made that remark again today as they sat down on a rock to rest beside a little smoking crevice.
“You ever seen a picture of the volcano in Hawaii, Anne?” he asked. And when she told him no, he added almost eagerly; “It, looks just like this, only very much more wonderful.” And then to the admiring and thrilled little girl he described the crater of the great volcano of Mauna Loa as he had read of it.
“It’s—it’s wonderful to know all those things,” said Anne when he paused a moment.
“Some day I’m going to see them all, too,” he answered. “Some day I’m going everywhere in the world and see myself all the things in the books—some day when I’m rich—when I’ve done something.”
Then, as his problem came back to him with the words, he relapsed into silence, sitting with his arm about the girl’s shoulders and staring idly at the little stream of smoke coming up from the ground before him.
For a long time he sat silent. The familiar scene around, which he had always accepted as usual and without interest, suddenly seemed remarkable and inspiring. He thought of these vast fires in the ground beneath his feet, burning away the coal year after year, and discharging their heat upward into the air uselessly. This tremendous waste seemed now suddenly appalling.
He withdrew his arm from around Anne’s shoulder, and, leaning forward, put his hand down close to the little crevice. It was hot there—hot enough to boil water in a kettle, perhaps, he thought. A picture he had seen once, in a book, of James Watt discovering the power of steam, came to his mind. He sat up again and turned to the girl.
“You ever heard of James Watt, Anne?”
Anne shook her head.
“He was the man who discovered about steam. He was just a boy, Anne. One day he was sitting beside his mother’s hearth looking at a big iron kettle that had water boiling in it. And he could see that the steam was lifting up the lid of the kettle. And then all at once it came to him how powerful the steam must be, and why couldn’t he do something with it.
“You see, Anne, nobody had ever thought of that before. It looks easy enough to us—that you can make steam and use the power—but nobody had ever thought of it then. And it was right in front of their eyes all the time, and they couldn’t see it. But James Watt saw it. And when he got the idea he wouldn’t give it up, no matter what anybody said. He worked and worked, and finally he built an engine that would use the power that steam has.
“That was the first steam-engine, Anne. Just think of it—the first steam-engine. And James Watt doped it out all by himself—just because he had noticed how the steam lifted the lid of that kettle. And he had seen it do that hundreds of times before—and so had everybody else—and never thought anything about it. Isn’t that wonderful, Anne?”
The girl’s eyes were very big and tender as she looked up into his face.
“Yes—it’s very wonderful, Jimmy. You know about so many wonderful things,” she said softly.
“I was just thinking, Anne—” He paused. “When coal burns underground, you can get the heat out of it just the same. And then if—if—” His voice trailed into silence; he sat staring straight ahead into the distance.
Anne sat quiet, gazing with awe up into his set face, as though she was in the presence of genius. The minutes passed. Then abruptly Jimmy spoke again:
“Why—why do you have to mine coal at all?” he said slowly. “If you can burn it in the ground and get the heat—why do you have to mine it at all?”
Anne did not understand, but she was thrilled by the new note of tenseness in his voice.
She put her hand over his, pressing it encouragingly. “Yes,