Before going home Monk Tooley walked with Derrick to the Widow Sterling's, to inquire after his boy, and was much pleased to learn that he was getting along nicely.
"It lightens my heart ter hear yer say dat, missus," he said to Mrs. Sterling, "an' it's not one woman in ten thousand would do what yer doin' fer my poor lad."
"Derrick proposed it," said Mrs. Sterling, with a mother's anxiety that her son should receive all the credit due him. "Without his help I'm afraid I should not have been able to invite Bill to come here."
"He's a fine lad, missus," replied the miner, "an' if de time ever comes dat I can serve you or him, my name's not Monk Tooley if I don't jump at de chance."
After sitting a while with Bill, and doing what lay in his power to make him comfortable, Derrick again got out his father's plans of the old workings of the mine, and pored over them intently. Finally he exclaimed, "It's all right; I am sure of it!"
"What are you so sure of, my son?" asked his mother, looking up from her work.
"Something I have been trying to find out for Mr. Jones, mother, but he does not want a word said about it; so I must keep the secret to myself, at any rate until after I have seen him."
"Seems to me that you and Mr. Jones have a great many secrets together. You really are becoming quite an important young man, Derrick."
Although Derrick only smiled in reply, he thought to himself that his mother was about right, and hoped others would take the same view of his importance that she did.
Selecting some tracing-paper from among the things left by his father, the boy made a tracing from the plan he had been studying. He followed all the lines of the original carefully, except in one place where the plan was so indistinct that he could not tell exactly where they were intended to go. Being in a hurry, and feeling confident that they should be continued in a certain direction, he drew them so without verifying his conclusions.