The Big Idea/Chapter 9

NE 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 outline [sic].

Jimmy had not realized there were so many technical, legal, and financial things in the world to do, let done apply them all just to one project—and especially to his project.

Jimmy, of course, had taken no active part in 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, lifting himself another cigar, smiled cheerfully back 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, not withstanding 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 smart 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)