dream half the time," the wife said, worried. "You aren't coming down with a fever, are you?"
"I should say not!" Henry replied hastily, with visions of brewed snakeroot and wormwood. "I feel fine. Where's the milk pail?"
He took it and his lantern and hurried out to the barn, but even while he sat on the three-legged stool, his practiced hands sending streams of warm milk foaming into the pail, his mind returned to that problem of the steam engine. He was sure a machine could be made to do the work of horses; he was confident that he could make it if he persisted long enough.
The trouble was the weight of the water. He must have it to make steam; he must have steam to develop power, and the whole power was required to haul the water. It looked like an inexorable circle. He went over it again, looking for the weak spot in the reasoning—and suddenly he saw it.
Steam was not necessary. Why not use gasoline?
The thought opened a door into unknown possibilities. Up to that time, as far as he knew, no one had ever dreamed of a self-propelling gasoline engine. A thousand obstacles rose immediately before his mind—the gearing, the drive, the construction of the engine itself—a dazzling array of problems to be faced and solved.
Difficulties innumerable stood in the way of his carrying out the idea—difficulties apparently
