Prologue
3Push down, pull out, oars dipping, boat moving, the small boy in the rowboat pulled steadily toward the horseshoe-shaped harbor. Overhead, sea gulls wheeled and squawked as if to say he was not truly alone. He smiled. Other boys dreamed about the adventures to be had living on an island; Bucky Fuller lived them every summer. When Bucky was nine years old, his Grandma Andrews had been persuaded to buy an island in Maine. That next summer, the schooner Polly had brought the materials and men from Boston to build the large, shingled house that stood now on the high bluff of Bear Island.
4 Bucky jumped out of the rowboat and gave it a hard shove up onto the beach. He shivered once. The ice-cold waters of Penobscot Bay made a freezing carpet under his feet. At least his canvas shoes saved his feet from the spiny sea urchins left on the beach by the outgoing tide. Slipping through the heavy woods of pine and birch, he pretended to be Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest. Sometimes he stopped to explore the old cellar holes, traces of the families who lived there years ago. Bucky had counted eleven of these scattered on the island. Crossing the grassy meadow, he hunted for the wild strawberries that hugged the ground.
5 Life on an island-farm in 1906 was not just idleness and fun. Food had to be grown; supplies had to be brought in by boat. There were jobs enough for everyone, including eleven-year-old Bucky. Every day, rain or shine, he rowed to Eagle Island for the mail. In good weather Bucky never minded making that four-mile round trip. There were the dark blue waters to watch, seals to look for, the smell of salt and the fresh taste of Maine air to enjoy. He liked the exercise that made his shoulders broader and his muscles tough. But when he had to pull hard against the currents in thick fog, he wished there were an easier way to make the trip.
6 Leaving behind the mail in the Big House, Bucky headed back down to the pebbly beach. He hunted for pebbles to skip across the water. One, two, three, the stones skipped across, dipped touching the surface, skipped again, and finally sank. To be able to move so easily across the top of the water, and better yet, to see where he was going…Still skimming stones, Bucky thought of all the living things that moved in the waters around his island. Codfish, lobsters, haddock, jellyfish—Maine waters were full of creatures large and small. He could see them all in his mind. It was then that the idea sneaked up on him. Excitement made the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight on end and his scalp prickled and itched. Yes, it could work. It would work.
7 With all the family gathered around the long table, dinner seemed to take forever that night. In the big stone fireplace, the flames climbed higher and took the chill from the long room. Grownups talked about the weather, the picnic plans for tomorrow. Voices bounced back from the low ceiling as the cousins argued over who should wind up the phonograph and which Victrola record should be played first after dinner. Bucky ignored them all. His attention was focused on the idea that had come to him earlier. At last the table was cleared. By the flickering light of the kerosene lamps, he set to work. The picture of the white jellyfish was clear in his head as he sketched, measured, and planned.
8 Nobody ever did chores faster than Bucky that next morning. With the firewood stacked neatly and fresh drinking water carried up from the spring, Bucky took off. He collected the tools and supplies on his way to the beach where the rowboat rested. There he hammered and nailed steadily, stopping just once to hunt for a big iron ring which he screwed into the stern of the rowboat. Then Bucky wiped his sweating hands on the sides of his knickers. Sliding the long pole through the ring, he was ready to push off. Only the sun and a single gull saw him pole out into the sparkling bay waters. But a crowd of children playing on the beach saw him when he came slumming back.
9 Cousin Andy shouted, ‘‘Hey, Bucky’s back. Did you get the mail already?’’ Then he frowned, shading his eyes against the sun with his hand. ‘‘What’s that he’s doing? Where are his oars?’’
10 Splashing into the water with eager hands reaching out to pull the boat in, they were all talking excitedly. A grinning Bucky tried to answer all the questions at once.
11 ‘‘Yes,’’ and he held up the mail as evidence. ‘‘Faster than rowing. Made it in half the time and you can see where you’re going every minute.’’
12 ‘‘Let me see. Let me see.’’
13 To show them, Bucky lifted his long pole out of the water. At the end of it there was a web-like contraption, a folding cone something like an inside-out umbrella. When the pole slid down through the ring into the water, the cone or umbrella opened up to push against the water. It was like touching bottom. That hard shove from the rear sent the boat forward. As he pulled the pole back up and out of the water, the cone collapsed and became again an inside-out umbrella.
14 ‘‘Neat-o,’’ said his younger brother, Wolcott. ‘‘But how do you steer?’’
15 ‘‘Easy. When you put the pole in, put it in a little to the left of the stern and the boat goes left, a little to the right and the boat goes right.’’
16 Wolcott, who was only seven, hunted for words. ‘‘It’s a…it’s a push-pull pole.’’
17 ‘‘No,’’ said Bucky. ‘‘It’s a mechanical jellyfish.’’ And he laughed out loud with the pure pleasure of what he had done this day.
18 Looking at Nature, he had taken one of her ways of moving creatures and put it to his own use. In years to come, he would look again and again to Nature’s rules and ways; he would put them to work with surprising and successful results for all men.