"
After getting up so extravagantly early, all the last memorable winter
to make a machine for getting up perhaps still earlier seemed so
ridiculous that he very nearly laughed. But after controlling himself
and getting command of a sufficiently solemn face and voice he said
severely, "Do you not think it is very wrong to waste your time on
such nonsense?"
"No," I said meekly, "I don't think I'm doing any wrong."
"Well," he replied, "I assure you I do; and if you were only half as
zealous in the study of religion as you are in contriving and
whittling these useless, nonsensical things, it would be infinitely
better for you. I want you to be like Paul, who said that he desired
to know nothing among men but Christ and Him crucified."
To this I made no reply, gloomily believing my fine machine was to be
burned, but still taking what comfort I could in realizing that anyhow
I had enjoyed inventing and making it.
After a few days, finding that nothing more was to be said, and that
father after all had not had the heart to destroy it, all necessity
for secrecy being ended, I finished it in the half-hours that we had
at noon and set it in the parlor between two chairs, hung moraine
boulders that had come from the direction of Lake Superior on it for
weights, and set it running.
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