Better days; or, A Millionaire of To-morrow

by Thomas Fitch; Anna M. Fitch

In the early dawn of an August day in the year of grace eighteen hundred and ninety-two, David Morning stepped through the French window of his bedroom out upon the broad and sheltered piazza of the railroad station hotel at Tucson, Arizona.

A mass of straight brown hair crowned rather than shaded a broad, high brow, over the surface of which thought and time had indented a few lines which gave strength and meaning to the face. Eyes of sea gray hue, as candid and as translucent as the deeps which they resembled, were divided by a nose somewhat too thick at the base for perfect features but running to an aquiline point, with the thin and flexible nostrils of the racer. A short upper lip was covered with a luxuriant chestnut brown mustache, shading a chin which, though long and resolute and firmly upheld against the upper lip, was yet divided by a deep dimple which quivered with sensitiveness. A thick-set but graceful and erect figure, clothed in a suit of dark blue flannel, completed the tout ensemble of the subject of our sketch, who, with thirty-two years of human experience behind him, had stepped five hours before from the West-bound Pullman sleeper.

David Morning—the only child of a Connecticut father and a Knickerbocker mother—was born and passed the days of his boyhood in the city of New York, where he was a pupil of the public schools, and where he was making preparation for entering upon a course at Yale, when, at sixteen years of age, the sudden death of his father, followed within a fortnight by that of his mother, compelled him to surrender his studies and seek a means of livelihood.

A distant relative offered him a place as clerk in a general merchandise store in Southern Colorado, whither the lad journeyed. For two years he faithfully served his employer. Always of an exploring and adventurous disposition, he had, while “geologizing”—as he called it—in the neighboring hills, in company with a prospector who had taken a fancy to “the kid,” discovered a quartz lode, which his companion located on joint account, David being under age. This location was soon afterwards sold to an Eastern company for the sum of $20,000, of which the lad received one-half. Declining several friendly offers to invest the money in promising mines, he wisely determined to return East and resume the studies which had been interrupted by the death of his parents; but, guided by his Colorado experience, and having a strong inclination for the vocation of a mining engineer, he determined to study in special lines which were outside of the usual collegiate course. He had not deemed it necessary to leave his own country to obtain the necessary instruction, and, four years later, he found himself with $5,000 left of his capital, with no knowledge of the Greek alphabet and but small acquaintance with Latin, yet able to speak and write fluently French, Spanish, and German, and possessed of a good knowledge of geology, metallurgy, chemistry, and both civil and mechanical engineering, and with a cultivated as well as a natural taste for politico-economic science.

At twenty-two years of age, having completed his studies, David Morning located in Denver, adopted the profession of a civil and mining engineer, and promptly proceeded to fall in love with the only daughter of Professor John Thornton, the principal of the Denver public schools.

Ellen Thornton at seventeen gave abundant promise of the splendid womanhood that was to follow. Above the middle height, slender in form, and graceful in carriage, with a broad, low brow crowned with silky, lustrous, dark hair, and eyes of chestnut brown, that, in moments of inspiration, grew radiant as stars, she captivated the young engineer and was readily captivated by him in turn. An engagement of marriage followed, to be fulfilled as soon as the clientage of Morning should be sufficient to warrant the union.

But business comes slowly to young men of two and twenty, and Ellen’s mother grew impatient of the fetters which she deemed kept her charming daughter from more advantageous arrangements. Ellen was proud-spirited and ambitious, and, although she was earnest and conscientious, she was not so stable of purpose as to be unaffected by the arguments and appeals of her mother. At times she was sure that she loved David Morning, and at other times she was not so sure that her love was of that enduring and devoted character which a wife should feel for her husband. Her reading had created in her mind a conception of an ideal passion which she could not feel had as yet come into her life. She believed that her affianced had undeveloped powers that would some day bring him fame and fortune, and again she was not so sure that he possessed the tact and persistence to utilize his powers to the best advantage. This doubt would not have deterred her from fulfilling her engagement of marriage if she had been entirely certain of her love for him. But she was divided by doubts as to whether the affection she felt was really the ideal and exalted passion of her dreams, or only a strong desire for a companionship which she found to be exceedingly pleasant.

She was not quite certain in all things of her affianced, not quite certain of herself, not quite certain of anything, and one day, yielding to an irresistible impulse of doubt and hesitancy, she asked to be released from her engagement.

Morning was amazed, indignant, and almost heartbroken at her request. Had he been of riper age and experience he would have known how to allow for the doubts and self-questionings of a young girl in her first love affair, but he was as unsophisticated as she, and more secure in his own possession of himself. Frank and proud, he took her at the word, which she regretted almost as soon as it was uttered. He neither sued nor remonstrated, but with only a “God bless you” and a “good-by,” and without even a request for a parting kiss, which, if given, might have opened the way to a better understanding, he hurriedly left the house.

The next day he was on his way to Leadville, in fulfillment of a professional engagement, and when he returned two weeks later he found that his former affianced had accompanied her parents to Boston, where Professor Thornton had been suddenly called by the death of a relative, to whose large fortune he succeeded.