Rubber That Would Not Melt: Vulcanisation
Rubber That Would Not Melt: Vulcanisation — an invention story. 10 illustrated pages, narrated, free to read on Wonder Inventions.
Page 1
The crate had sat on the cobbles since dawn, waiting for the buyer who never came, and in the thick August heat it finally gave way. One corner cracked, then the whole side slumped inward, and the stacked life-preservers inside slid and burst their own skins, collapsing into a black stinking syrup that ran between the setts like tar. Charles dropped to his knees, grabbing at the edges of the crate, trying to scoop the ruined gum back with his bare hands, but it only slicked his fingers and ran further. Dockhands cursed and kicked the broken crate back toward him, boots slipping in the mess, and gulls that had been picking at fish-heads scattered shrieking into the masts overhead. Clarissa ran forward from the warehouse shade, catching Charles under the arm before he sprawled face-first into the muck, hauling him upright, her own skirt-hem already blackened. Men backed away laughing, holding their noses, while the stench rose thick in the wharf heat, and somewhere behind them a ship's bell clanged for the tide.
Page 2
The granite walls rose three times a man's height, and the barred arch cut the sky to a grey ribbon. Clarissa came across the yard with her arms full, shouldering past a guard's elbow, and pressed herself to the bars. She pushed the rolling pin through sideways, then the tin of magnesia, then the fist-sized lump of raw gum, working each past the iron with both hands while Charles reached and grabbed from the other side, his black-stained fingers closing round the gum like a man seizing bread. Behind them Pike hauled his fat ledger up onto the wall-ledge, the chain scraping granite, and licked his thumb to flip the pages. He dragged his pen across a line with a hard stroke, pressing so the nib near tore the paper, and slammed the cover shut, the chain banging his hip as he straightened. Charles pulled the gum through the last inch, knuckles scraping stone, and clutched it to his burnt coat as though it might be taken back.
Page 3
The window frame stood taller than a man, its glass long gone, jagged teeth of it still clinging to the sill. Hayward laced his huge fingers together and boosted Charles up by the boot until he scrambled over the splintered sash and dropped inside with a grunt. 'Mind the floor,' Hayward called, hauling himself up after. Inside, three barrels of spoiled rubber stood waist-high in the gloom, rimed with frost. They rolled them one by one across the warped boards, out through the broken doorway and onto the frozen millpond, the barrels thudding and skidding on the ice. Charles was shoving the last barrel when a plank gave way beneath him with a crack like a gunshot, and he dropped through to the knee, floorboards splintering round his shin. Hayward lunged, grabbing him under the arms and hauling him up bodily before the hole could widen. Clarissa, waiting on the bank, ran forward with her shawl already off her shoulders to wrap his soaked leg.
Page 4
The wind came off Horn Pond Mountain all at once, flattening the pasture grass and snapping the racks like whips. Sheets the size of bedsheets, waist-high on their drying frames, tore loose and cracked in the air. Charles dropped the sulphur sieve and ran at the nearest rack, grabbing two corners of flapping gum before it took flight, while Clarissa threw her whole weight onto a third sheet and wrestled it down under the canvas tarp they hauled between them. Pike, ledger banging his hip, grabbed at a rope and missed, cursing as two more sheets ripped free and went sailing low over the fence toward the cow-pond. Hayward bellowed and ran, boots slamming through mud, and plunged straight into the pond without stopping, water climbing to his chest as he lunged and caught the drifting sheets before they sank. He hauled them back hand over hand, dripping and sulphur-streaked, while Charles leaned over the bank and pulled him in by the apron strap.
Page 5
The sled had carried them two miles on good ice, runners whistling, and now at Baldwin's Lock it slewed sideways, caught the rotted edge where the canal men had never thought to mend the margin, and went through with a crack like a gunshot. Charles lunged after it and nearly followed it down, boots skidding on the glazed stones. Hayward threw himself flat and grabbed the trailing rope before it whipped out of reach. Clarissa seized the rope behind him, bracing her boot-heels against a fence-post, hauling with both red hands. Pike came stumbling down the bank shouting, his ledger swinging wildly on its chain and banging against the lock stones with every stride, bruising his own hip, though he would not unhook it even to pull. Together they dragged, hand over hand, the sled's black cargo surfacing streaming and glistening, barrels still lashed, until it scraped up onto solid ice and lay there dripping.
Page 6
Two of Pike's men came through the door shoulder first, their fingers hooked under the kitchen table's edge, hauling it toward the snow-packed threshold as if the house itself were being emptied bone by bone. Charles lunged after them, grabbing at the table rim, and in the scramble he threw up both hands, crying out, and the lump of sulphured gum shot from his stained fingers and struck the red stove-top with a hiss. Clarissa dropped the dresser drawer she carried and ran to the stove, but Charles caught her wrist before she could sweep the gum off. "Leave it, leave it burn!" he shouted. The edge of the lump blackened, curling, smoke rising thin and sour, yet the body of it held, glistening, refusing to run into liquid as every other batch had done. Hayward set down the barrel he was rolling toward the door and bent close, squinting through the smoke. Pike, ledger banging his hip, folded his arms over the doorway and watched the table vanish into the snow outside without a flicker of concern for anything but his columns of figures.
Page 7
Charles drove the nail through the charred scrap with three hammer-blows, pinning it flat to the woodshed door, the wood grey and frost-cracked waist-high beside the drift. 'Let the cold have it, then,' he said, blowing on his fingers. Clarissa held the lantern close so he could see the last nail seat true, her other hand steadying his wrist against the shake of cold. Pike stamped his boots in the snow, ledger banging his hip, muttering of wasted candle-ends. Hayward, newly fetched from the barn, folded his huge arms and said nothing, watching the moon whiten the fields. All night the scrap hung there, stiffening under frost. At dawn Charles came running out in his shirtsleeves, breath smoking, and prised the nail loose with a chisel. He bent the scrap double between his black-stained fingers — and it bent like a strip of harness leather, supple, unbroken. De Forest, stepping fresh off the Boston coach, screwed his monocle into his eye and leaned close, lips parting in astonishment.
Page 8
The counting-house door slammed shut in Charles's face, a slab of oak taller than himself, and the clerk's voice barked through it that no more credit would be wasted on gum. Charles reeled back onto the wharf planks, his bundle of rubber samples clutched against his chest, and in his fury flung it over the edge toward the harbour below. It struck the weedy piles and vanished into the mud flats exposed by low tide, twenty feet down. Without a word he swung himself over the wharf rail, boots scrabbling on barnacled timbers slick with weed, and lowered himself hand over hand down the pilings into the stinking black ooze. Pike leaned over the rail above, bellowing that drowned men paid no debts, his ledger banging the rail with every shout. Clarissa knelt at the edge, reaching a rope down toward her husband's shoulders. De Forest, unmoved by the spectacle, calmly counted coins into Pike's open palm, settling the account while Charles, waist-deep in muck, dug the blackened bundle free and held it aloft like a trophy.
Page 9
The seam let go with a crack like a pistol, and a jet of scalding steam shot sideways across the curing room, white and screaming. Charles dropped his tally-stick and lunged for the iron tray, waist-high and longer than a man, where the sheets lay half-cured and smoking. 'Hooks, man, the hooks!' he shouted, and De Forest, coat already flung off, seized the second hook from the wall and drove it under the tray's rim beside him. Together they hauled, boots skidding on the wet brick floor, dragging the tray's full weight clear of the burst joint before the rubber scorched black. Clarissa came running with a sack soaked from the slop-bucket, and threw it bodily over the hissing seam, pressing it down with both hands though the heat reddened her knuckles. Steam rolled up around her skirt. 'Hold it, hold it there!' Charles called, hauling the tray the last few feet to safety. The jet choked under the sacking to a thin hiss, then nothing, and the three of them stood gasping in the sudden quiet, scalded, soaked, and triumphant.
Page 10
The wind came off the Serpentine without warning and got under the raft like a hand beneath a tablecloth. Charles felt the rope leap taut in his fists and his boots skidded two full strides across the gravel before he dug his heels in. 'Hold her, hold her!' he shouted, and Clarissa threw her whole weight back against the line, her apron snapping, her cap nearly torn free. De Forest dropped his gloves outright and lunged for the trailing rope with both hands, hauling hand over hand to bring the great rubber hull back down toward the grass. Onlookers who had been strolling toward the glass palace came running now, grabbing at the loose ropes, laughing and shouting as the raft bucked and dipped like a kite the size of a rowing boat. Charles planted both feet and leaned his whole gaunt body backward against the pull. 'Get her nose down before she takes the elms!' Clarissa cried, and between the three of them and a dozen willing strangers the great black shape sank, trembling, onto the lawn before the crowded doors.
About this story
- Audience: general readers
- Format: 10 illustrated pages, narrated, free to read on Wonder Inventions
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