“In what way have you failed, Mr. Wallace?” Again hopefully the boy ventured a remark.
This time the dreamy grey-blue eyes turned toward him. “I was sure there was a hidden spring up there,” he said more to himself than to a listener. “But the instrument doesn’t show water and I won’t dynamite until it does.”
Gordon, more interested than he thought wise to show, asked, “Mr. Wallace, may I see your instrument?”
The older man nodded and pointed toward a long narrow wooden box on the ground near.
Reverentially the lad knelt and lifted the cover. There lay an instrument of delicate mechanism. At the sight of it, the inventor’s eyes burned and leaning forward he said, Gordon thought almost angrily, “Give it to me! I’ll break it into a thousand pieces. I’ve given my life’s blood to try to perfect it, I’ve caused untold suffering to my wife and children, but, God knows, I meant no harm. I had faith in it. I dreamed that a fortune would be theirs, everything, everything, schooling for the kiddies, Peter was to go to Yale where I went.”
Gordon was on his feet at once, and, grasping the thin hand of the man, he cried in boyish glee, “I say, Mr. Wallace, I’m bully glad that you went to Yale. And don’t you worry. It’s always darkest before the dawn, you know that. Peter’ll make college. Everything will turn out all right. You see if it doesn’t. Don’t give up. Keep your faith.”
The dreamy eyes had turned toward the boy when he began this enthusiastic outburst, and in them there gradually dawned a light of understanding.
“Who are you?” the man inquired as one awakening from a sleep. “I haven’t seen you before, have I?”
“No, Mr. Wallace. I’m just passing this way, but I’m ever so interested in your invention. Won’t you come up to the spot where you are sure there is water, or ought to be, and show me how it works.”
There was a sudden renewed eagerness in the eyes of the poor man who had been so scoffed and laughed at. “Why, would you really like to see it work?” he asked as though hardly able to believe his ears.