Read Ebook: Cornish Feasts and Folk-lore by Courtney M A Margaret Ann

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Ebook has 1119 lines and 79083 words, and 23 pages

Dr. Brinton found a crowd in the indoor test lab, chuckling over the line being drawn by a differential analyzer. He elbowed his way to the front, looked himself, and began a little dance of impatience. The analyzer was connected with linkages to the test stand where a tiny rocket motor was thrusting out a hot blue pencil of flame. The results from the analyzer were plotted as range capability against time on a piece of graph paper which had four curved colored lines overprinted on it. The curved lines were marked in succession: "Earth," "Moon," "Moon" and "Earth."

If the first Earth line, colored red, was passed, the fuel under test could power a rocket to leave Earth, carrying men with it. If the yellow line--the first Moon line--was reached, the rocket could theoretically land men on the Moon. Several rockets, carrying dummy loads, had already tried and failed: their fuels, though the best available, barely reached the yellow line when under test.

The blue--second--Moon line was calculated to indicate an escape from, the Moon without refueling, and the last line, in green, was a theoretical powered landing back on Earth.

The pen of the analyzer had already passed the blue line and was more than halfway to the green!

"This the stuff that was left in the catalyzer after the explosion yesterday!" Dr. Ferber shouted to Dr. Brinton over the roar from the little engine. "It looked as if it would burn, so I tested it. Jackpot!"

"What is it?" asked Dr. Brinton.

The last word seemed louder because the test rocket just then ran out of fuel and grew silent. The tracing of the pen stopped a fraction short of the green line.

Dr. Ferber continued in his normal voice while he busied himself with the connections of the engine: "We didn't have anything to do to put on a show for MacNeill yesterday, so I told the lads to carry on with experiments of their own. It was Harrison who made this stuff. He was cut by flying glass and landed in the hospital. I phoned there this morning and found the damn fool doctor took his appendix out. Said he figured he might as well while Harrison was in there. He's still under the anesthetic and we won't be able to ask him anything for several hours."

"Doesn't matter," said Dr. Brinton. "We know it works; we have to find out why it works. Got any left? We'll analyze it."

The next few hours saw Dr. Brinton rapidly become a bitter and disillusioned man.

When a qualitative test informed them that the presence of nitrogen meant they were going to have to use an even longer and more laborious process than the ordinary one, he uttered a few sentences that made a couple of nearby German exchange students wonder if perhaps they hadn't a portion missed in the English language learning.

When he found that he had forgotten his pipe at home, and the analysis required too much of their attention to allow him to go home and get it, he quoted a paragraph or two that earned him the undivided attention of everyone in the lab.

But when he took the results over to a calculator and worked them out to carbon 281.6% he had barely started the prologue when frustration overtook him and he subsided, speechless. He was at a loss to say or do anything except mumble that 281.6% was impossible.

Dr. Ferber came over and took the paper with the results from him. Everyone in the lab watched while he checked the calculations patiently.

A delegation minutely checked the apparatus the two doctors had used; it was faultless. One person even went so far as to cast a suspicious look at the big automatic micro-balance standing on its pedestal in the center of the room. He weighed a piece of paper, wrote his name on it in pencil and reweighed it. The difference was satisfactory. For a few moments, they all just stood and looked at each other. Then the whole lot of them set to work.

The two German exchange students made a few tries at finding the class of compound. They soon were deep in a technical discussion in their own language, the only recognizable words being "biuret," "dumkopf," and "damn."

A senior research-chemist tried crystalizing some and invented an entirely new swear word.

With four helpers, Dr. Brinton and Dr. Ferber redid the combustion analysis in slightly less than twice the time it would have taken only one of them. Of course they were assured of accuracy; each step was checked at least twice by everyone.

The result was still carbon 281.6%.

Dr. Brinton escaped the ensuing mental paralysis since he had already been through the experience once. He went over and began to study the figures written in on the side of the spectral photograph. Out of little more than idle curiosity, he compared the ratios of the rough quantitative estimate found spectrographically with the more accurate but impossible answer of the combustion micro-analysis.

While he was doing the necessary figuring, he listened sympathetically to the technician. The young man was complaining bitterly about things in general, and chemistry in particular. Chemical reference books came in for a special roasting, because: "either that lousy book is incomplete, or this structural formula is out of this world."

That did it.

Brinton got out a scratch pad and drew a little diagram.

Then he went to talk to Dr. Ferber.

"Would it be possible that Harrison started with a multi-ringed phenol?" he asked. Dr. Ferber nodded. Dr. Brinton showed him the drawing. "Does that remind you of any geometrical figure?"

Dr. Ferber looked. There was a pause, then his eyes lit up.

"Of course," he said. "Since formulae are usually drawn in one plane, I doubt if anyone ever noticed that before. And when it comes under stress by compression, it's only natural that it should fold." He paused and looked at the calendar, "Four weeks?" he asked.

"That'll do fine," said Dr. Brinton. "I'll arrange the details. You look after the fuel. Harrison can give us the details of this one, but there are probably any number of fuels based on this principal. Some will be even more efficient, too."

He excused himself, went to a phone, and asked for a Washington number. The call was answered.

"Hello, Senator MacNeill?" he said. "How would you like to be guest of honor at a party?"

Brinton peered through the ring of reporters over to the head table where Senator MacNeill was speaking, and speaking, and speaking.

"He's on his home state," Dr. Brinton said. "About half an hour to go. Now, gentlemen, you were asking about the new fuel. You all received press handouts containing the information. You will probably receive copies of the Senator's speech. And the broadcast from our first men on the Moon went out over several networks hours ago. It seems to me that you have enough for several stories."

One of the reporters asked bewilderedly, "What is a tesseract? I read the handout twice and I still don't understand."

"A mathematician would be better qualified to explain," said Dr. Brinton, "but I'll try. A tesseract is a fourth dimensional cube. A line has one dimension, a square has two, a cube has three, and a tesseract has four. A cube can be unfolded into six squares, and a tesseract unfolds to eight cubes. The new fuel had a molecular structure resembling an unfolded tesseract. When pressure is applied, it folds up into a tesseract so that it takes up less room and relieves the pressure.

"The practical application is that we can get eight pounds of it into a one pound can. The other seven pounds of it are riding around in the fourth dimension. As soon as it starts to burn, the structure is destroyed, so that it comes back out of the fourth dimension. Several people have assured me that it can't work. They're probably right, except that it does. Oh, I'll be back in a minute."

He went over to another group and spoke to one of its members. The man addressed nodded his head and left. Dr. Brinton returned.

"If there are no more questions, I suggest we do some serious drinking. I am now out of a job and I want to celebrate."

Promptly at seven-thirty, a relay clicked and the alarm clock went into its usual daily routine with the chimes, window, lights, and bath water.

Dr. Brinton woke up enough to reach out a lazy arm and flip a newly installed toggle switch beside his bed. Everything returned to normal. The light and the chimes both faded away, the window reopened, and a soft gurgling came from the bathroom.

A slight gurgling also came from the bed, where Dr. Brinton, with a happy little smile on his face, had gone peacefully back to sleep, perfectly satisfied that he had worked himself into unemployment by finding the fuel that would power spaceships to--and from--any part of the Solar System.

Transcriber's Notes

Thought breaks are shown by 5 asterisks:

In the week after Christmas-day a fair is held at Launceston , called "giglet fair" . It is principally attended by young people. "At this 'giglet market,' or wife-market, the rustic swain was privileged with self-introduction to any of the nymphs around him, so that he had a good opportunity of choosing a suitable partner if tired of a single life."--

It is unlucky to begin a voyage on Childermas , also to wash clothes, or to do any but necessary household work.

On New Year's-eve in the villages of East Cornwall, soon after dusk, parties of men, from four to six in a party, carrying a small bowl in their hands, went from house to house begging money to make a feast. They opened the doors without knocking, called out Warsail, and sang,--

"These poor jolly Warsail boys Come travelling through the mire."

This custom was common fifty years since, and may still be observed in remote rural districts. There is one saint whose name is familiar to all in Cornwall, but whose sex is unknown. This saint has much to answer for; promises made, but never intended to be kept, are all to be fulfilled on next St. Tibbs's-eve, a day that some folks say "falls between the old and new year;" others describe it as one that comes "neither before nor after Christmas."

Parties are general in Cornwall on New Year's-eve to watch in the New Year and wish friends health and happiness; but I know of no peculiar customs, except that before retiring to rest the old women opened their Bibles at hap-hazard to find out their luck for the coming year. The text on which the fore-finger of the right hand rested was supposed to foretell the future. And money, generally a piece of silver, was placed on the threshold, to be brought in the first thing on the following day, that there might be no lack of it for the year. Nothing was ever lent on New Year's-day, as little as possible taken out, but all that could be brought into the house. "I have even known the dust of the floor swept inwards."--

Door-steps on New Year's-day were formerly sanded for good luck, because I suppose people coming into the house were sure to bring some of it in with them sticking to their feet.

Many elderly people at the beginning of the present century still kept to the "old style," and held their Christmas-day on Epiphany. On the eve of that day they said "the cattle in the fields and stalls never lay down, but at midnight turned their faces to the east and fell on their knees."

Twelfth-day was a time of general feasting and merriment. Into the Twelfth-day cake were put a wedding-ring, a sixpence, and a thimble. It was cut into as many portions as there were guests; the person who found the wedding-ring in his portion would be married before the year was out; the holder of the thimble would never be married, and the one who got the sixpence would die rich. After candlelight many games were played around the open fires. I will describe one:--"Robin's alight." A piece of stick was set on fire, and whirled rapidly in the hands of the first player, who repeated the words--

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