Part 37 (2/2)
”How can I ever thank you enough, Doctor?” said Tom, with tears in his voice. As for his eyes they could not be seen in the darkness.
”By not thanking me at all. Don't you understand, Tom, that my father, my brothers and myself have invested heavily in this mining venture? I have put into it every spare dollar I had in the world, and naturally I want it to 'go.' I believe that your practical common sense can mightily help in accomplis.h.i.+ng that, and for that reason I have encouraged the chief engineer in his purpose to make you his overseer.”
”Thank you, Doctor,” said Tom. ”But if you know me at all you know I'm honest. I made up my mind to stay here on any terms that I could make, because I want to study this thing that you call mine engineering. I wanted to see how it is done, so that some day I could do it myself. I don't intend to remain an engineer's overseer all my life. I intend to be the best engineer I can make out of the raw material in me. So my plan is to stay here, keep my eyes and my mind open, and learn all I can of practical engineering work, till the mine begins to pay. Then I intend to go away to some scientific school and take a regular course in engineering.”
”That's admirable!” said the Doctor, with enthusiasm. ”Now, I'll venture some suggestions. How much mathematics do you know?”
”Algebra, elementary and higher, and a little geometry.”
”Good!” exclaimed the Doctor. ”Now, I propose this plan: You shall live with me in the little house that I'm going to build, and serve as the chief engineer's executive at a fair salary from the company. I'll teach you all I know of general chemistry and geology of evenings, and I'll interest the chief engineer to teach you trigonometry, the calculus and surveying. In the meantime you'll be learning the practical part of engineering in your daily work, and when you go off to that scientific school its faculty will have little to do except to take your fees, record your name, and grant you your diploma.”
Six years later Camp Venture mine was, in the phrase of the investors, ”one of the richest paying enterprises” in that part of the country. Dr.
Latrobe had become president of the company after the death of his father, and the enterprise owed much of its success, as every body agreed, to the skill, the energy, and the wonderful common sense of its chief engineer, Thomas Ridsdale, Esq., graduate of a noted school of mines.
Tom was only twenty-four years old then, but he had always been accounted ”old for his age,” and as he stood upon the bluff, contemplated the long line of cars loaded with the product of Camp Venture mine and planned new side tracks in order that cars enough might stand there to receive the other waiting cargoes of the concentrated suns.h.i.+ne of thousands of years ago, ”Little Tom,” grown now to six feet two inches in his stockings, was satisfied with his life and his work.
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