Newton understood and rejoiced. He forgot his poor little attempt to help, and his own disappointment, and everything except the present glorious truth--not unadorned by the pleasant vision of the Christmas turkey, vast now, and smoking, and flanked by perfect towers of stiff cranberry jelly, ever so much better than mere liquid cranberry sauce; in the middle distance, behind the noble dish, a noble pyramid of ice-cream raised its height, and yellow cream-cakes rose beyond, like many little suns on the far horizon. In that first moment of delight there was almost a Christmas tree, and the mother's face beside it; but that was too much; they faded, and the rest remained, no mean forecast of a jolly time.
"That's perfectly grand!" Newton cried when he got his breath after his surprise at the announcement. "Besides, I told you so. What did I say? She wouldn't let you give up the Motor! I knew she wouldn't! Who's right now, father? That's something like what I call a mother! But then she always was!"
He was slightly incoherent, but that did not matter at all. Nothing mattered. In his young beatific vision he saw the bright wheel going round and round in a perfect storm of turkeys, and it was all his mother's doing.
Overholt only half heard, for he had been reading the letter; the letter of a loving wife who believes in her husband and gives him all she has for his work, with every hope, every encouragement, and every blessing and Christmas wish.
"There's no time to be lost!" Overholt said, repeating the words he had spoken in a very different mood and tone half an hour earlier. "I won't walk on with you, my boy, for I must go back and get the wooden model for the foundry. They'll do it for me now, fast enough! And I can pay what I owe at the bank, and there will be plenty left over for your Christmas too!"
"Oh, bother my Christmas, father!" answered Newton with a fine indifference which he did not feel. "The Motor's the thing! I want to see that wheel go round for a Christmas present!"
"It will! It shall! It must! I promise you that!" The man was almost beside himself with joy.
No misgiving disturbed him. He had the faith that tosses mountains aside like pebbles, now that the means were in his hand. He had the little fulcrum for his lever, which was all Archimedes required to move the world. He had in him the certainty of being right that has sent millions of men to glory or destruction.