{"id":"01KG8AM5C7TX5F9HHY1G4KTMT3","cid":"bafkreigfi2accssq6ku7enohnk63gnwx7ej2ubtg4625gp7tavbfrdwc6m","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":6716,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:26.985Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","start_line":6631,"text":"miles in this fiery sun, you wouldn’t have juggled _me_ into the skiff\r\nso easy. What’s _in_ that box?--paving-stones? See how the skiff settles\r\ndown under it. I won’t help pull a box of paving-stones ten miles.\r\nWhat’s the use of pulling ’em?’\r\n\r\n‘Look you, simpleton,’ quoth my uncle, pausing upon his suspended oar.\r\n‘Stop rowing, will ye! Now then, if you don’t want to share in the glory\r\nof my experiment; if you are wholly indifferent to halving its immortal\r\nrenown; I say, sir, if you care not to be present at the first trial of\r\nmy Great Hydraulic-Hydrostatic Apparatus for draining swamps and\r\nmarshes, and converting them, at the rate of one acre the hour, into\r\nfields more fertile than those of the Genesee; if you care not, I\r\nrepeat, to have this proud thing to tell--in far future days, when poor\r\nold I shall have been long dead and gone, boy--to your children, and\r\nyour children’s children; in that case, sir, you are free to land\r\nforthwith.’\r\n\r\n‘Oh, uncle! I did not mean----’\r\n\r\n‘No words, sir! Yorpy, take this oar, and help pull him ashore.’\r\n\r\n‘But, my dear uncle; I declare to you that----’\r\n\r\n‘Not a syllable, sir: you have cast open scorn upon the Great\r\nHydraulic-Hydrostatic Apparatus. Yorpy, put him ashore, Yorpy. It’s\r\nshallow here again. Jump out, Yorpy, and wade with him ashore.’\r\n\r\n‘Now, my dear, good, kind uncle, do but pardon me this one time, and I\r\nwill say just nothing about the apparatus.’\r\n\r\n‘Say nothing about it! when it is my express end and aim it shall be\r\nfamous! Put him ashore, Yorpy.’\r\n\r\n‘Nay, uncle, I _will_ not give up my oar. I have an oar in this matter,\r\nand I mean to keep it. You shall not cheat me out of my share of your\r\nglory.’\r\n\r\n‘Ah, now there--that’s sensible. You may stay, youngster. Pull again\r\nnow.’\r\n\r\nWe were all silent for a time, steadily plying our way. At last I\r\nventured to break water once more.\r\n\r\n‘I am glad, dear uncle, you have revealed to me at last the nature and\r\nend of your great experiment. It is the effectual draining of swamps; an\r\nattempt, dear uncle, in which, if you do but succeed (as I know you\r\nwill), you will earn the glory denied to a Roman emperor. He tried to\r\ndrain the Pontine marsh, but failed.’\r\n\r\n‘The world has shot ahead the length of its own diameter since then,’\r\nquoth my uncle, proudly. ‘If that Roman emperor were here, _I_’d show\r\nhim what can be done in the present enlightened age.’\r\n\r\nSeeing my good uncle so far mollified now as to be quite\r\nself-complacent, I ventured another remark.\r\n\r\n‘This is a rather severe, hot pull, dear uncle.’\r\n\r\n‘Glory is not to be gained, youngster, without pulling hard for\r\nit--against the stream, too, as we do now. The natural tendency of man,\r\nin the mass, is to go down with the universal current into oblivion.’\r\n\r\n‘But why pull so far, dear uncle, upon the present occasion? Why pull\r\nten miles for it? You do but propose, as I understand it, to put to the\r\nactual test this admirable invention of yours. And could it not be\r\ntested almost anywhere?’\r\n\r\n‘Simple boy,’ quoth my uncle, ‘would you have some malignant spy steal\r\nfrom me the fruits of ten long years of high-hearted, persevering\r\nendeavour? Solitary in my scheme, I go to a solitary place to test it.\r\nIf I fail--for all things are possible--no one out of the family will\r\nknow it. If I succeed, secure in the secrecy of my invention, I can\r\nboldly demand any price for its publication.’\r\n\r\n‘Pardon me, dear uncle; you are wiser than I.’\r\n\r\n‘One would think years and gray hairs should bring wisdom, boy.’\r\n\r\n‘Yorpy there, dear uncle; think you his grizzled locks thatch a brain\r\nimproved by long life?’\r\n\r\n‘Am I Yorpy, boy? Keep to your oar!’\r\n\r\nThus padlocked again, I said no further word till the skiff grounded on\r\nthe shallows, some twenty yards from the deep-wooded isle.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKG13FDANC8D5YAET6KW5","peer_type":"intro","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM5C711TQMNZG3D2FQAZ9","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:28.039Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:41.646Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}