“Not too fast. Chase. All you are going to do just now is to buy a thousand acres surrounding the professor’s farm. You can pay for it yourself.”
“I’ll do it. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to watch those fractions for three years. I don’t doubt the boy’s executive ability, but I want to make sure about his ability to direct research. If you ever get a telegram from me about research, you’ll know I’m ready to go fifty-fifty.”
Chapter 73. Tantalum
The departure of the rich left the Riches as poor as ever, but as a result of the eastern trip the sale of the text-books increased a little, and furthermore the doctor earned a hundred dollars by writing out his Roman ladies. This was Kate Coggeshall’s doing. She asked him for the article, sold it for him, and sent him the check. He turned it over to his daughter for her own use.
Jean used it. Being determined not to break her heart over a chemist, she decided to study chemistry. Ojeeg was only too glad, now that the Little Pine had departed for school, to buy the lumber for her and begin to build her a little laboratory over in the clearing. The boys on the patrol boat discovered what he was doing, and lent him a hand to raise the frame.
Meantime Marvin resumed his work. If like Tantalus he was doomed to hunger, it only made him plunge deeper into the secrets of Jove. His only dissipation that autumn was to desert his studies long enough to act as best man while Gratia was transmuted into Mrs. James Endicott La Hogue.
Chapter 74. Tungsten
When her little laboratory was ready, even to an air-tight stove, Jean moved in. She had her Lucretius, a recent text-book, a few chemicals, and her dog for company.
Far away her lost lover was deep in the study of carbon—so she thought. That must be an awfully difficult subject, and she must begin with something easier. She plunged into oxygen, and did so with as much joy as ever she plunged from a rock into her river. It did not spoil the St. Mary’s to be made mostly of oxygen. She found it more beautiful than ever. The feel and look and taste and rush of it were all there, only now she was getting deeper into it. Her own body was mostly composed of the St. Mary’s, and now a swim was like being stroked by one’s own mother.