"The Lord give us appetites to enjoy, and strength to digest ALL the
good things set before us. Amen!"

And everybody said "Amen" very cheerfully and fell to.




IV

HOW THERE WAS A FAMINE IN THE CITY


It rained in New York and it "snowed slush" in Connecticut, after its
manner, and the world was a very dreary place, especially all around the
dilapidated cottage where everything was going to pieces, including John
Henry Overholt's last hopes.

If he had been alone in the world he would have taken his small cash
balance and his model to the foundry, quite careless as to whether he
ever got a meal again until the Motor worked. But there was the boy to
be thought of, and desperate as the unhappy inventor was, he would not
starve his son as well as himself. He was quite sure of his little
balance, though he had never had any head for figures of that sort. It
was an easy affair in his eyes to handle the differential calculus,
which will do anything, metaphorically speaking, from smashing a rock as
flat and thin as a postage stamp, to regulating an astronomical clock;
but to understand the complication of a pass-book and a bank account was
a matter of the greatest possible difficulty. Newton would have done it
much better, though he could not get to the head of his class in