Larry Barlow's ambition

“Now, if this ladder will only work, it ought to be worth a good deal to every large city fire department.”

The speaker was a tall, well-built young fellow of nineteen. He had curly brown hair, clear brown eyes and a face that was as handsome as it was full of power.

He stood at a working bench set up in a little garret chamber of a cottage. The walls were hung with pictures and drawings of various machines, the bench was littered with tools, and the floor was covered with shavings.

On the bench in front of the young worker rested the wooden model of a peculiarly constructed extension ladder, a ladder meant to be made out of steel.

The model was built to the scale of one inch to the foot, and when shut up was less than twenty inches in length. This meant that the ladder itself when shut up would be less than twenty feet long.

But when opened up, by means of an intricate piece of machinery which was part of the model, the ladder would extend into the air to a height of over two hundred feet, and when planted in the street according to directions, would be strong enough to support the weight of several men as well as four lines of hose pipes, the lines to be used at the full force of the fire engines operating them.

From the above the reader will understand that the extension ladder was meant to be used exclusively by fire departments.

Larry Barlow, the young inventor, had worked on this model during his spare time for over six months. He was, by trade, a machinist, employed as such in the Humber Printing Press Works at a small town up the Hudson River, which I shall call Ferryville.

Larry was an orphan and lived with his sister, Kate, who was a year older, and who kept house for him. The young machinist earned a salary of eighteen dollars per week and this enabled sister and brother to live in a fairly comfortable, though not elegant style.

Larry was ambitious, and this was not to be wondered at. His father before him had been an inventor and equally ambitious, and had once perfected a novel elevator lift from which great things had been expected. With his invention Mr. Barlow had departed for New York, and from that city had written home that capitalists had offered him ten thousand dollars for his patent rights, but that he had refused to sell more than a half interest. Then, of a sudden, Mr. Barlow disappeared.

This was a great shock to Kate Barlow and likewise Larry, and much worried the young machinist, who was just out of school at the time. He went to the metropolis to look for his parent.

But Mr. Barlow could not be found, and although the police took up the case, the mystery was not solved, nor was the invention recovered.

The particulars of the device were not known to anybody outside of Mr. Barlow, so that so far as the invention went, it was lost to the Barlows from that time on.

“But some day I’ll hunt down the man or men who did up father,” said Larry to his sister. “And then—well, they had better beware that’s all!” And his eyes shone in a way that made Kate’s blood run cold. Yet she could not blame her brother for feeling so vindictive.

More than once Larry tried to rebuild the elevator lift as he remembered it, but some parts were not clear to his mind and at last he gave up the idea. Then he saw in a patent paper that there was a demand from fire departments in all large cities for apparatus to be used in fighting fires in tall office buildings, and he turned his attention to the extension ladder.

Larry had always taken an interest in fire matters, and he was a member of the Ferryville Volunteer Fire Department, being foreman of Hook and Ladder Company No. 1. But he longed for something more thrilling than this and once said, while at work in the shop, that he was going to try to get into the New York City department.

“They won’t take a country jay like you,” said one of the machine-shop hands, who heard Larry speak of this. “They don’t take nobody but up-to-date city fellows.”

“I’m not such a country jay as you, Lank Possy,” retorted Larry.

“Huh! do you call me a country jay?” blustered Lank, who was a tall young man, weighing a hundred and thirty pounds, and the bully of the shop. “Take that back, Larry Barlow, or it will be the worse for you!”

And doubling up his fist he confronted Larry. But the young machinist was undaunted and never budged an inch.

“You won’t hit me, Lank,” he said, calmly.

“And why not?”

“Because if you do you’ll get the worst of it.”

“A fight! A fight!” cried several of the shop-hands, and a crowd quickly gathered around the pair.

Lank Possy let drive right and left intending to take our hero in the nose.

Larry dodged two of the blows, but the third caught him on the neck and sent him staggering up against a bench. At once the friends of the bully set up a shout of delight.

Somewhat dazed, Larry braced up and stood on the defensive until he got back his wind. Then, watching his chance, he made a feint at Possy’s stomach. Down went the bully’s hands, and then up shot Larry’s left, and the bully got a smashing blow on the chin which stretched him flat on the floor.

“Hurrah for Larry Barlow!” was the cry from our hero’s friends.

“Wonder how Lank Possy likes that?”

More than dazed, Lank staggered to his feet, reeling like a drunken man.

“Who—ho hit me with a club?” he stammered.

“Nobody hit you with a club. Larry let you have it with his fist.”

“Somebody hit me with a club,” went on the bully. “You imp, I’ll fix you!”

Lying close at hand was a short iron bar, and before anybody could stop him, Lank Possy had this. Raising it over his head he made a murderous rush for our hero.

Had the iron bar come down on Larry’s head our hero must have been killed on the spot. But others leaped in and caught hold of the bar.

“For shame, Lank! Fight fair!” was the cry.

“Lemme alone!” burst out the bully, furiously. “I know what I’m doing!”

“No, you don’t. Larry hit you with his fist. Put down the bar!”

A babble of voices arose, in the midst of which came the cry:

“Stop it! the foreman! Get to work here comes old Grinder!”

Away scampered the workmen in all directions, leaving Larry and Lank still confronting each other.

“What’s the meaning of this fighting?” demanded Amos Grinder, rushing up.

He was a little, dried up old man, the terror of all who worked under him, with one exception. That exception was Lank Possy, for Grinder owed Lank’s father some money, and consequently he did not dare treat the bully as harshly as he treated the other workmen.

“He struck me with a club—knocked me down!” answered the bully, before our hero could speak.

“It’s not true!” cried Larry. “He began the quarrel by calling me a country jay.”

“Stop!” ejaculated old Grinder. “I won’t have such talk here. We have had trouble enough. Barlow, you can go to the office and get your time.”

“What, do you discharge me, Mr. Grinder?” gasped Larry, in amazement.

“I do.”

Although our hero did not know it, old Grinder had been hoping to discharge somebody that day. He had a nephew coming on from the West, and he wanted to put the young fellow at work under him. The shop was now full, and room had to be made for the new arrival.

“Mr. Grinder, you are the meanest man I know!” burst out Larry. “I’ll get out, but I shan’t forget how you have treated me.”

“Say another word and I’ll have you pitched out!” roared Amos Grinder, his face growing red.

“You won’t touch me,” answered Larry.

Walking to his bench, he took off his overalls, rolled his tools up in the garment and marched to the office. Here he received his time and was paid off, and then started for home to tell his sister Kate the disagreeable news.