Although Morris had never reached the heart-strings of his pupil, the
youth was his one human interest--his father was dead long since; and
as Fessenden fully realized his debt of gratitude to the capable and
conscientious tutor, as well as being a person in whom habit struck
long roots, the parting was unexpectedly affecting. As Fessenden
returned from the station of the little town of Turbine, where he was
to spend the greater part of the next four years, he suddenly conceived
a violent antipathy for his new surroundings, and a desire to flee back
to his mountains. This flat interminable prairie, this cheap town,
not an elevation in sight, much less the mountains which had gone far
into the modelling of his nature--there was nothing here resembling
the great world of which he had dreamed. He longed for real solitude,
feeling for the first time the miserable substitute the crowd offers;
and suddenly understood how much closer to the great realities of life
it brings a man than any actual juxtaposition.
But in a few days he was too busy and interested for either
homesickness or dreams. Morris had drilled him so thoroughly
in English, the dead languages, German, French, in history and
mathematics, that he could have entered Yale or Harvard with sails
spread, and in the younger university he took a rank at once which gave
him the more time for the course known as “Training for Business.”
Almost immediately it seemed to him that sleeping things rose in his
brain, things whose existence he had never suspected, and strove to put
themselves in touch with inspiring forces without. Fessenden, who had
made up his mind to place himself in a neutral receptive state, to give
no more thought to the future and to ambition until he had learned all
that the university could teach him, was some time recognizing that
these new-comers were talents, and that they responded to all that was
inventive and practical in his initial course.
He recognized them in time, however, as day by day he grew more
absorbed in the mysteries of the engine and electricity; and the
glimpses he had, in his first year, of finance and political economy
stirred him like old love-letters. His imagination idealized and
personified the engine he worked upon as it had his canoe; and on the
day when he finally mastered the difficult art of taking it to pieces
and putting it together again without help or hitch, he challenged the
strong man of the college to combat, and polished him off with such
enthusiasm that once more he occupied the proud position of champion.
This satisfied his masculine vanity, besides delivering him from the
chaffing and petty persecutions provoked by his mountain hues; he was
henceforth permitted to indulge his passion for sweaters and old hats,
even on Sundays, unchallenged, while his remarkable abilities were as
frankly acknowledged.
The military drill did not give him enough exercise, and he had
promised his father he would waste no time on sport. “Your passion to
excel,” Mr. Abbott had written, “would make you neglect your studies;
so be wise and get your exercise some other way.” Fessenden was feeling
nervous and somewhat confused one Friday afternoon when he suddenly
bethought himself of his axe. He brought it forth, fingered it lovingly
in a rush of memories, then shouldered it and started for the open
country. He was not long finding a farmer who was willing to have his
wood cut for nothing, and thereafter Fessenden spent an hour every
evening and half of Saturday, either felling Mr. Lunt’s trees or sawing
his logs; and the exercise relieved his brain and kept his muscles hard.
The military drill not only dismissed his mountain slouch and gave him
a free and upright carriage, but inspired him with dreams of war and
glory. The martial music quickened his blood, and secretly he fancied
himself very much in his uniform. It was not long before he became
restless in the ranks and announced to the West Point officer in
charge his desire to become captain. The officer stared, laughed, then
reminded him that military rank was--as a rule--or should be (he was
a victim of politics himself), the result of superior accomplishments
and talents, to say naught of hard work. Thereafter, three times a
week during two of the afternoon hours, Fessenden dismissed books and
machinery from his brain and concentrated that energetic instrument
upon military drill alone.
But he spent the greater part of his time and thought in the shops
and yards. Aside from the ambition and the superabundant energy which
prompted him to excel in all he undertook, his imagination was absorbed
in the rapture of unravelling certain mysteries of science--was at work
on far-distant but great and picturesque results. He was in no hurry to
invent, but even while signalling and switching at night he saw trains
of unimaginable beauty and grace and lightness skim by in the dark,
and great fleets of ships, invincible and terrible in war, forcing the
Monroe Doctrine down the throat of Europe, perhaps annexing the rotten
old monarchies altogether. That the red hair of a daughter of the
Cæsars would one day entangle itself in his wondrous electrical stores,
and jerk them far afield, he did not forebode then, poor Fessenden; he
was happy in his dreams and ideals.