XIII
Although Morris had never reached the heart-strings of his pupil, the youth was his one human interest—his father was dead long since; and as Fessenden fully realized his debt of gratitude to the capable and conscientioustutor, as well as being a person in whom habit struck long roots, the parting was unexpectedly affecting. As Fessenden returned from the station of the little town of Turbine, where he was to spend the greater part of the next four years, he suddenly conceived a violent antipathy for his new surroundings, and a desire to flee back to his mountains. This flat interminable prairie, this cheap town, not an elevation in sight, much less the mountains which had gone far into the modelling of his nature—there was nothing here resembling the great world of which he had dreamed. He longed for real solitude, feeling for the first time the miserable substitute the crowd offers; and suddenly understood how much closer to the great realities of life it brings a man than any actual juxtaposition.
But in a few days he was too busy and interested for either homesickness or dreams. Morris had drilled him so thoroughly in English, the dead languages, German, French, in history and mathematics, that he could have entered Yale or Harvard with sails spread, and in the younger university he took a rank at once which gave him the more time for the course known as “Training for Business.” Almost immediately it seemed to him that sleeping things rose in his brain, things whose existence he had never suspected, and strove to put themselves in touch with inspiring forces without. Fessenden, who had made up his mind to place himself in a neutral receptive state, to give no more thought to the future and to ambition until he had learned all that the university could teach him, was some time recognizing that these new-comers were talents, and that they responded to all that was inventive and practical in his initial course.
He recognized them in time, however, as day by day he grew more absorbed in the mysteries of the engine and electricity; and the glimpses he had, in his firstyear, of finance and political economy stirred him like old love-letters. His imagination idealized and personified the engine he worked upon as it had his canoe; and on the day when he finally mastered the difficult art of taking it to pieces and putting it together again without help or hitch, he challenged the strong man of the college to combat, and polished him off with such enthusiasm that once more he occupied the proud position of champion. This satisfied his masculine vanity, besides delivering him from the chaffing and petty persecutions provoked by his mountain hues; he was henceforth permitted to indulge his passion for sweaters and old hats, even on Sundays, unchallenged, while his remarkable abilities were as frankly acknowledged.
The military drill did not give him enough exercise, and he had promised his father he would waste no time on sport. “Your passion to excel,” Mr. Abbott had written, “would make you neglect your studies; so be wise and get your exercise some other way.” Fessenden was feeling nervous and somewhat confused one Friday afternoon when he suddenly bethought himself of his axe. He brought it forth, fingered it lovingly in a rush of memories, then shouldered it and started for the open country. He was not long finding a farmer who was willing to have his wood cut for nothing, and thereafter Fessenden spent an hour every evening and half of Saturday, either felling Mr. Lunt’s trees or sawing his logs; and the exercise relieved his brain and kept his muscles hard.
The military drill not only dismissed his mountain slouch and gave him a free and upright carriage, but inspired him with dreams of war and glory. The martial music quickened his blood, and secretly he fancied himself very much in his uniform. It was not long before he became restless in the ranks and announced to theWest Point officer in charge his desire to become captain. The officer stared, laughed, then reminded him that military rank was—as a rule—or should be (he was a victim of politics himself), the result of superior accomplishments and talents, to say naught of hard work. Thereafter, three times a week during two of the afternoon hours, Fessenden dismissed books and machinery from his brain and concentrated that energetic instrument upon military drill alone.
But he spent the greater part of his time and thought in the shops and yards. Aside from the ambition and the superabundant energy which prompted him to excel in all he undertook, his imagination was absorbed in the rapture of unravelling certain mysteries of science—was at work on far-distant but great and picturesque results. He was in no hurry to invent, but even while signalling and switching at night he saw trains of unimaginable beauty and grace and lightness skim by in the dark, and great fleets of ships, invincible and terrible in war, forcing the Monroe Doctrine down the throat of Europe, perhaps annexing the rotten old monarchies altogether. That the red hair of a daughter of the Cæsars would one day entangle itself in his wondrous electrical stores, and jerk them far afield, he did not forebode then, poor Fessenden; he was happy in his dreams and ideals.