and it seemed to me a body could see up the river and
down the river about a thousand miles, though of
course it wasn’t so much. By and by the earth was a
ball — just a round ball, of a dull color, with shiny
stripes wriggling and winding around over it, which
was rivers. The Widder Douglas always told me the
earth was round like a ball, but I never took any stock
in a lot of them superstitions o’ hers, and of course I
paid no attention to that one, because I could see my-
self that the world was the shape of a plate, and flat.
I used to go up on the hill, and take a look around
and prove it for myself, because I reckon the best way
to get a sure thing on a fact is to go and examine for
yourself, and not take anybody’s say-so. But I had to
give in now that the widder was right. That is, she
was right as to the rest of the world, but she warn’t
right about the part our village is in; that part is the
shape of a plate, and flat, I take my oath!
The professor had been quiet all this time, as if he
was asleep; but he broke loose now, and he was mighty
bitter. He says something like this:
“Idiots! They said it wouldn’t go; and they
wanted to examine it, and spy around and get the
secret of it out of me. But I beat them. Nobody
knows the secret but me. Nobody knows what makes
it move but me; and it’s a new power — a new power,
and a thousand times the strongest in the earth!
Steam’s foolishness to it! They said I couldn’t go to
Europe. To Europe! Why, there’s power aboard to
last five years, and feed for three months. They are
fools! What do they know about it? Yes, and they
said my air-ship was flimsy. Why, she’s good for
fifty years! I can sail the skies all my life if I want
to, and steer where I please, though they laughed at
that, and said I couldn’t. Couldn’t steer! Come
here, boy; we’ll see. You press these buttons as I
tell you.”
He made Tom steer the ship all about and every
which way, and learnt him the whole thing in nearly
no time; and Tom said it was perfectly easy. He
made him fetch the ship down ‘most to the earth, and
had him spin her along so close to the Illinois prairies
that a body could talk to the farmers, and hear every-
thing they said perfectly plain; and he flung out
printed bills to them that told about the balloon, and
said it was going to Europe. Tom got so he could
steer straight for a tree till he got nearly to it, and then
dart up and skin right along over the top of it. Yes,
and he showed Tom how to land her; and he done it
first-rate, too, and set her down in the prairies as soft
as wool. But the minute we started to skip out the
professor says, “No, you don’t!” and shot her up in
the air again. It was awful. I begun to beg, and so
did Jim; but it only give his temper a rise, and he
begun to rage around and look wild out of his eyes,
and I was scared of him.
Well, then he got on to his troubles again, and
mourned and grumbled about the way he was treated,
and couldn’t seem to git over it, and especially people’s
saying his ship was flimsy. He scoffed at that, and at
their saying she warn’t simple and would be always
getting out of order. Get out of order! That graveled
him; he said that she couldn’t any more get out of
order than the solar sister.
He got worse and worse, and I never see a person
take on so. It give me the cold shivers to see him,
and so it did Jim. By and by he got to yelling and
screaming, and then he swore the world shouldn’t ever