“About thirteen or fourteen years old. You see, my father was an amateur boat-builder, in a small way, and did very good work, but usually not for sale. But I began the work as a business thirty-six years ago, when I was about twenty-two.”
HE WOULD NOT BE DISCOURAGED
“You must have been terribly handicapped by your blindness.”
“It was an obstacle, but I simply would not allow it to discourage me, and did my best, just the same as if I could see. My mother had taught me to think, and so I made thought and memory take the place of eyes. I acquired a kind of habit of mental projection which has enabled me to see models in my mind, as it were, and to consider their good and bad points intelligently. Besides, I cultivated my powers of observation to the utmost, in other respects. Even now, I take an occasional trip of observation, for I like to see what others are doing, and so keep abreast of the progress of the age. But I must stop or I shall get to ‘talking shop,’ the thing I declined to do at first.
THE SUM OF IT ALL
“The main thing for a boy is to have a good mother, to heed her advice, to do his best, and not get a ‘swelled head’ as he rises,—in other words, not to expect to put a gallon into a pint cup, or a bushel into a peck measure. Concentration, decision, industry and economy should be his watchwords, and invincible determination and persistence his rule of action.”
With another cordial handshake, he bade me good-by.
II
WHAT THE HERRESHOFF BROTHERS HAVE BEEN DOING
Their recent Cup Defenders have made their names familiar to all, but shipping circles have long known them. The business of the firm was long confined almost wholly to the creation of boats with single masts, each craft from twenty to thirty-six feet long. In their first ten years of associated work, they built nearly two thousand of these. But they were wonderful little boats, and of unrivaled swiftness. Then they made as wonderful a success in building steam fishing yachts. Then came torpedo boats.