Enigmatic Pilot_ A Tall Tale Too True - Kris Saknussemm [18]
Being a blacksmith who fancied himself an engineer, and a modern man of fire and steel, once he had recognized the need for power and motion Hephaestus felt that the question could be resolved with steam, and so set about collecting boilerplate and rocker arms and designing a shining piston-driven beast that looked like a cross between a grasshopper locomotive and a calliope. But the harder he worked and scratched his head, the thirstier he got for elderberry brandy and the more he realized that time was running out. Their money already had. He was trying to build the prototype for a new form of power, and day by day the hourglasses emptied themselves, the beeswax candles burned down—and one day the grandfather clock fell over in an exhausted clash of chimes, glass, and splintered wood.
But where it all came unglued once and for all was the fair to mark the reopening of the local school (which Mabel Peanut, the earnest Episcopalian school marm, dubbed “A Celebration of Progress”). The owners of the flour mill, the pottery factory, and the new tool-and-die works had all chipped in to offer a cash prize in honor of Brazilla Rice, the first brickmaker in Zanesville, to be awarded to the youngster with the best scientific exhibit—with the exception of Lloyd.
Lloyd’s exclusion was phrased subtly but unmistakably, based on a condition of entry the family could not argue with: the number of days of school attendance in the past calendar year. No one was in doubt, however, about the real reason. If Lloyd was allowed to enter, there would be no contest. The other children would look ridiculous and the school itself would be revealed for the backwater log chink box of birds and mud pies that it was.
And there was another point at issue—one that no one involved, not even Lloyd, saw at the moment. Although progress was being celebrated, there was an inherent fear of it as well. Throughout all America this was true—but nowhere was that fear sharper than in a realm like Zanesville, which was neither an eastern bastion of culture and emerging convenience nor a frontier town anymore, on the edge of the wilderness. It was a crossroads town, torn between two worlds, resentful and anxious regarding them both.
The Sitturds were stung by the unfairness. The prize money seemed a small fortune to them, and any award for excellence, intelligence, and innovation had Lloyd’s name on it—and the whole town knew, despite Hephaestus’s efforts to keep the boy’s genius hidden. Rapture insisted that they go along to the showcase, anyway, as a matter of pride. Hephaestus agreed but was still so angry and so hurt by what was happening to them that he had to take on a good load of elderberry brandy for the occasion. When it came time, they could not find Lloyd anywhere and concluded that it was perhaps just as well. Why should he want to see what to him was idiocy being celebrated?
A large crowd was on hand at the schoolhouse, some clapping, others gawking sympathetically when Sterling Riddle battled his speech impediment to present a swollen bladder worm that he had cut out of a Poland China sow all by himself. Millie Rambush introduced a charming, novel method of caring for small plants by using eggshells as flowerpots, but then went off on a tangent about where her sixth finger used to be, and how her daddy had removed it with a violin string. Hermione Witherspoon and Lucy Dalrymple had no exhibits. They had cooked rabbit pie for the judges, and as Mrs. Witherspoon pointed out, “Progress is very fine, but you can’t throw out tradition.” (To which Rapture telepathed to Hephaestus, “Na, w’ich tradishun she be sayn ’bout?”)
Caleb Holcomb was awarded the cash prize for his simple but effective idea of installing a Paint Can Hook on his Uncle Shute’s ladder. However, when the applause died down something unexpected happened, which would trigger the Sitturds’ end in Zanesville.
The “thingum” (to use the cogent phrase of Burgess Fluff) made its way across the floor with a telltale ticking