THE MAINSPRING OF ENDEAVOR.
One morning, some two years after Mr. Leffingwell Hope was thus
summarily dismissed from the Wentworth company, Mr. James Rand,
assistant general manager of the Wentworth Optical Glass Company, was
seated in the private office of Robert G. Wentworth, president of the
parent organization.
They had been two eventful years to Jimmy. For five months after his
momentous second interview with the president, the technical men of
the company had worked on the plan, making endless experiments. Then
there was the investigation of Mrs. Rand’s property. Additional
borings were made. The coal measures were estimated as to quantity and
extent, and the sand was similarly valued.
With Jimmy’s mother the company dealt in a strictly businesslike
manner. Her property was purchased. She received an adequate amount in
cash, and a substantial block of stock in the new company.
Then the legal department of the company took the matter up, and
innumerable applications for patents covering the special apparatus
that had been devised were made.
Then the board of directors of the Wentworth company met, and plans
for the organizing and financing of a new company were outlined.
Jimmy had not realized there were so many technical, legal, and
financial things in the world to do, let alone apply them all just to
one project—and especially to _his_ project.
Jimmy, of course, had taken no active part in all this; but Mr.
Wentworth seemed desirous of having him in touch with it all, and he
was present at most of the conferences.
During all this time Jimmy had continued in the employ of the
Wentworth Company, and at the end of the first year his salary was
fifty dollars a week. He no longer answered correspondence, but at the
president’s suggestion devoted his entire time to learning all there
was to know about the glass business—the making of optical glass
particularly.
Then one day Mr. Wentworth had handed him a neat little
stock-certificate assigning to him an equal number of shares in the
new company with his mother. At the same time he was informed that his
position with this subsidiary company would be that of assistant
general manager, at a yearly salary of eight thousand dollars—which,
Mr. Wentworth said, patting him on the back, “For a kid like you, is
going some.”
Mr. Cooper and Isaac Merkle both received stock, and the former a
position with the new company also.
So matters stood when at last the new factory was put into successful
operation. And thus, from the brain of Jimmy Rand, coal miner in the
Fallon Brothers’ mine, came into being the first of the new factories
for the utilizing of coal without mining it. Coal was still mined, of
course, for the world had thousands of uses for it besides the needs
of factories. But Jimmy’s big idea used coal that never could have
been mined. And it postponed, for many years, that inevitable day when
the world’s coal supply was finally to come to an end.
Mr. James Rand smiled cheerfully at his president, this morning in Mr.
Wentworth’s office, and the president, lighting himself another cigar,
smiled cheerfully back at his youthful protégé.
“You always thought you were going to put it over, didn’t you, Jimmy?”
Mr. Wentworth was saying.
Jimmy’s smile broadened to a grin. He looked fully six years older
than when he had first come to New York, a trifle heavier, and
infinitely more sophisticated; but he still had his ingenuous manner.
“Yes, sir, I did,” he admitted.
The president eyed him with affectionate appraisal. “You’re a pretty
smart kid—in some ways.”
“They’ve been telling me that so much I’m getting to believe it,” said
Jimmy.
Mr. Wentworth paused. Then, with a quizzical smile, “You’ll be getting
married I suppose, now that you’ve got a start in life.”
The telephone rang sharply, and the incident closed. But it was enough
for Jimmy. With sudden realization he saw how foolish—how unfair,
perhaps—he had been. For during these past two years, since that first
morning Mr. Cooper introduced them, he and Estelle had become very
good friends.
He had found the president’s daughter, when he got to know her better,
quite a likable girl; he was ashamed of his first impression of her.
As a matter of fact, Estelle was no different than she ever had been,
or ever would be. But Jimmy soon became the most promising young man
in her father’s company, if not of her entire acquaintance. She did
not exactly “set her cap for him”—she was too proud for that—but she
did seek his society upon every possible occasion.
Jimmy had always imagined somehow that Estelle knew all about Anne;
but now he realized, with a sudden shock of surprise, that she
didn’t—couldn’t—for certainly he could never remember any specific
occasion when he had mentioned Anne—either to Estelle or to anybody
else. His love for Anne had always seemed so sacred, so far removed
from his business life in the city, that the impulse to tell of it
never had come to him.
But now he suddenly found himself wondering what Estelle thought of
him. And that led him to consider what Anne might have been thinking
also. Dear little Anne! He had loved her so much always that he had
sometimes forgotten to tell her much about it. Instead, he had
described the wonderful business things that were happening to him—his
life in the city.
And the things he and Estelle were doing—the opera, the theaters, and
all that—he had told it all to Anne with a great personal pride,
because it seemed to typify his own success.
How Anne must have felt! Jimmy felt himself very small and mean when
his reflections reached this point. He had thought he had learned a
lot; but he could see now there were many, many things in life he had
yet to learn.
Jimmy took the train for Menchon that same afternoon. He stayed there
three days. They were the three most important and wonderful days in
his whole life, notwithstanding the wonderful things that had already
happened to him.
On the afternoon of the fourth day he was back again in New York, and
in Mr. Wentworth’s office. But this time he was not alone, for he held
firmly by the hand the shyest, prettiest, dearest little girl in all
the world.
Anne was dressed in a mart little tailor-made suit. She wore her hair
up now, but her face still had that startled, shy look that always
made her seem, to Jimmy, anyhow, just like a sweet, half-frightened
little child.
Jimmy was somewhat a privileged character by this time in the
Wentworth company, and he entered Mr. Wentworth’s office without much
ceremony. It so happened that at that moment its only two occupants
were the president and his daughter.
Just inside the doorway Jimmy paused abruptly, with an apology on his
lips. Anne stood close beside him, holding tight to his arm.
What Jimmy said by way of introduction is unimportant. But he finished
with:
“And—and this is Anne—I mean my—my wife—Mrs. Rand. We were married
yesterday. And—and now we’re going away for a month—we’re going to
disappear. I wanted to tell you so you’d know where I was. And I
wanted you both to meet Anne.”
He paused an instant, looked down into Anne’s adoring eyes, that
stared up into his face just as they always used to, and went on with
a rush:
“You think I’ve put over something big with this company, don’t you,
Mr. Wentworth? You’ve said so, anyway. Well, I never would have been
able to do it only for Anne; she made me want to do it. She deserves
all the credit.
“You’ll have to thank her, Mr. Wentworth.”
And since all his life Jimmy believed that to be so, it probably was.
(The End.)
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the July 10, 1920 issue
of The Argosy magazine]