The invention has something to do with the pig iron out at the
Cumberland Iron Furnaces that father owns in the Harpeth Valley, and
Mr. Douglass works for him. It turns it into steel sooner than anybody
else has ever discovered how to do it before, and it is such a
wonderful invention that it will make so much money for him and his
family that they won't know what to do with it. Roxanne is going to
tell me more about it to-morrow.
I didn't say anything to keep Roxanne from being happy over her
brother getting all that money, but it made me sad. The more money you
get the less happiness there seems to be on the market to buy. All
Father's dollars couldn't have bought me even one of those hugs around
the neck from Roxanne--I had to risk my life to get them. And that's
where Lovelace Peyton and his badness come in. I'm catching my breath
as I think about it.
Mr. Douglass has a little shed down in the cottage garden boxed off to
make his experiments in. He keeps it locked up with a padlock, and has
commanded that nobody is to go even near the door. There is one big
bottle that has some kind of nitroglycerin mixture in it that is going
to blow the iron into steel while it is hot, he hopes.
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