“I’ve got it, Anne!” he cried excitedly. “I’ve got it—the big idea. Why, it’s as clear as daylight, once you think of it. I’ve got it; I’ve got it!” He threw his arms around the girl, kissing her and hugging her to him with all the strength of his vigorous young arms. “It’s the big idea, Anne—what I’ve always been trying to get. And now I’ve got it!”
Anne struggled from his embrace.
“What, Jimmy?” she asked eagerly. “What is it?”
Jimmy’s face was flushed; his eyes sparkled.
“Why—why, just that, Anne! I’m going to build a factory over where the coal is and burn the coal in the ground without bothering to mine it at all, and just pipe the heat up to the boilers. Don’t you see, Anne? Nobody ever thought of that before. They mine the coal now—dig it out and bring it up to the top and take it away on railroads to factories to be burned. And all you’ve got to do is leave it where it is, and put the factory overhead. Look at the work you save, Anne! Look how easy and simple it is.
“And nobody ever thought of it before. But I’ve thought of it now, Anne. And I’m going to do it, no matter what anybody says—or how hard I have to work—or how long it takes. I’m going to do it because it’s a big idea—and nobody else thought of it, only me!”
CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST SETBACK.
It was some minutes before Jimmy’s excitement had abated enough for him to tell Anne his plan; or indeed to be able to formulate in his own mind just what this wonderful new idea that had so suddenly come to him would mean. He could understand now how James Watt must have felt as he planned the first steam-engine—a sort of exaltation which Jimmy could feel now in his own heart plainly.
The idea had come to him abruptly, almost full-born, as Jimmy had read such big ideas often do come. He had seized upon it at once with the feeling that it was his big idea, believing in it blindly, without stopping to reason it out.
Now with Anne sitting adoringly beside him, imploring him to explain it to her, he felt suddenly self-conscious and embarrassed. The real reason was that he had no knowledge of the subject, no technical information upon which to base an opinion of whether the idea was feasible or not.