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Show rE JIB CRANE I? . AT an hour that seemed immediate-1 --y after sunrise there was a kind of volcanic upheaval in the cot along- il 'A. 8 my e( an( a n'B vooe PPe(l w ' out vlsorously: I K "Hello, Daddy is this today?" (ftjjil "No," I muttered drowsily, "it's last If If1 night. Go to sleep, you young beg- H Wf ( But the young beggar climbed re- R 0w lentlessly upon my bed, sat upon my k llT chest Napoleonically and continued: 1 W "What day is this, Daddy? Is this LJM Saturday? Are you going to the of- jjffjp ' fice?" IT It was Saturday. I was not going l jfhould construct the crane with cot- iltv, to the office. I was contemplating a wt'k restful day at home. He knew all BLf that, and without giving me time to fljjv equivocate he demanded, "Well, will j Hh you make me a crane ?" Hpf "A crane?" said I. "How do you Wffl mean a crane?' 1 Wg Only too well I knew how he meant. aE" I recalled a day at the sea side when E my young hopeful saw a boy with a i Eg toy crane lifting buckets of sand on as? to a SanKway which the fishermen I lUr ad a fancy use for setting at their S& boats and where none but he desired j Up sand. The boy was such an abvious IraL' nuisance to the men that the sight of E&' him inspired my son to an instant de- mSn. ' mand for such a toy as that crane. In Hfe? a large paternal way I had replied to Bffip his eager request: Bap "You wait until wo get home, old chap, and I'll make you a crane, a better crane than that." I meant it at the time I did really, i saw, at that moment, exactly how 1 ton-reels for pulleys, you know, and an effective, but simply designed winch, made out of oh, any old thing. I had felt that I could not continually refuse the child everything he wanted, want-ed, having already rejected his plea for a live donkey and a motor-car to take home with us. So now, in bed, when I feebly parried par-ried with "How do you mean?" my son promptly explained how he meant. "Like you said at the seaside, Daddy, an' a boy was liftin' luggids when the boatmen tried to walk on that little wooden road an' ' As if a man wanted to be reminded of what he had said at the seaside! There was no escape, however. We rose and dressed. I found that the construction of that crane was not to be a leisurely artistic job. I was expected ex-pected to make It now, before breakfast. break-fast. No, the boy did not want to eat his porridge all he wanted was that Daddy should make his crane. Similarly he did "not want Daddy to waste any precious time on eating. He was good humored, but terribly firm about that until Daddy became terribly ter-ribly Arm without being at all good-humored. good-humored. Then the child wept grievously, griev-ously, whereupon threats were uttered utter-ed that unless he instantly became a good boy, I would certainly not make him a crane. He became good, be- came almost angelic, with disconcerting disconcert-ing promptitude, thus automatically putting me on my honor to construct that piece of machinery as sooii as breakfast was over. Really the boy's "goodness" gave me a rather uncomfortablo feeling; for now that the job was actually confronting me I was seized with a horrible doubt whether I could make a crane after all. In my youth I used to mess about with a hammer and a few nails and knock together a rabbit-hutch rabbit-hutch or something of that kind, but I was never a real handy man, and here I was going to expose my incapacity inca-pacity to my confidently expectant son. After breakfast I filled my pipe and leaned back in my chair beside the table, which drew from my employer the protest: "Don't smoke your pipe. Daddy; make me a crane." I rose with a sigh and we adjourned adjourn-ed to the garden where, behind the tool shed, I knew there was a pile of wood, some of which might reasonably reason-ably be expected to prove useful as raw material for my or, rather, the boy's purpose. I picked out a narrow nar-row board, and sitting on the garden seat, I gazed at it, trying to see In it the embryo of a crane. But I could not. The boy watched me with the critical criti-cal coldness of a police magistrate; his gaze pierced to my guilty soul.y "Don't sit on the seat, Daddy," he urged; "make my crane." "Be quiet," I snapped, "or else I don't." He gazed at me for about ten seconds, sec-onds, and inquired: "Are you thinkin', Daddy?" "Trying to," I grunted. "Don't think, Daddy, he mildly suggested; sug-gested; "make my crane." I drew out a bit of paper and a pencil and began to sketch something that an imaginative and sympathetic person might mistake for a crane. The youth regarded my doings wtih obvious suspicion. "What are you writln', Daddy?" ho inquired. "Don't write: just make me a crane." "I'm drawing a crane. Can't you see?" I asked irritably. "But I don't want a crane drawed," he responded; "I want a real crane to lift luggids, like you said at the seaside, sea-side, an' " "Look here, young man," I sternly declared, "you just go and play seaside sea-side on the sand-heap. How can I make a crane with you dancing all over me?" With feverish haste I rummaged in the wood-pile and found a six-foot lath an Inch wide, half an inch or so thick. Out of the tool-house I disinterred a two-foot rule and a very ru3ty saw. I sawed the lath into two pieces, with the unavoidable help of thn boy, who came and stood just where the end of the saw would catch him, trod on my toes at moments of crisis, and put out a helping hand with an unexpected unex-pected sudden dart which i early cost him a finger. When he realized that I was fairly embarked upon the job a subtle ihange came over his manner. He ran about the garden, picking up silly B oddments of stick and thrusting them B upon me with such remarks as "Will B this do for your crane, Daddy?" or B "Here's a splendid stick for your H crane, Daddy." H The position has altered. Daddy H was spending the day at home just to H make himself a toy crane, and his de- H voted little son was humoring the old H man in this eccentric pastime. Not 1 Until, after four hours of strenuous B labor, an actual crane emerged, cap- B able, In skilled hands, of lifting three H or four pounds weight, did he relax H his attitude of patronizing consulta- i fl tiveness. It was really a jib crane, H much to the astonishment of the man- H ufacturer, and, if it showed a strong H tendency to jib when least expected, H still, it would lift "luggids." M For quite half an hour, with the H maker in close attendance, that mar- H velous bit of mechanism w.as the pride H of a gratified youngster's heart. H That was several days ago. H Now it stands forlornly perched I H upon two boxes near the back door. H Milkmen, bakers and errand lads who i H call upon us are amazed at its Inge- H nuity. They stand and gaze at it in H their employers' time, with admiring H awe. It is still intact, and its owner H would weep outrageously if anything H happened to it. l H Bt nothing ever does happen to it. H In splendid isolation it thrusts its 1 three-foot jib in air. Its hook the H making of which, from a stiff bit of ''1 wire, gave me a blistered thumb hangs seductively over its pulley, but M never catches anything, not even a M glance of the boy's blue eye. B On the sand-heap at the other end B of the garden the boy sits banging an B empty biscuit tin with a penny wood- H en spade. He is quite happy in the ' B music thus evoked. The idea that he H could be the relentless taskmaster H who dragged me from my bed and H made me spend a rare day of leisure jH in the hard toil of inventing and mak- H ing the jib crane is inconceivable. H Punch. B |