A BOTTOMLESS GRAVE


My name is John Brenwalter. My father, a drunkard, had a patent for an
invention, for making coffee-berries out of clay; but he was an honest
man and would not himself engage in the manufacture. He was, therefore,
only moderately wealthy, his royalties from his really valuable
invention bringing him hardly enough to pay his expenses of litigation
with rogues guilty of infringement. So I lacked many advantages enjoyed
by the children of unscrupulous and dishonorable parents, and had it not
been for a noble and devoted mother, who neglected all my brothers and
sisters and personally supervised my education, should have grown up in
ignorance and been compelled to teach school. To be the favorite child
of a good woman is better than gold.

When I was nineteen years of age my father had the misfortune to die. He
had always had perfect health, and his death, which occurred at the
dinner table without a moment's warning, surprised no one more than
himself. He had that very morning been notified that a patent had been
granted him for a device to burst open safes by hydraulic pressure,
without noise. The Commissioner of Patents had pronounced it the most
ingenious, effective and generally meritorious invention that had ever
been submitted to him, and my father had naturally looked forward to an
old age of prosperity and honor. His sudden death was, therefore, a deep
disappointment to him; but my mother, whose piety and resignation to the
will of Heaven were conspicuous virtues of her character, was apparently