r, when the reorganization was effected; when the troublesome,
dividend-hungry stock-holders of the original company were eliminated by
due process of law, Caleb's name appeared on the Farley slate with the
title of general manager of the new company--for the same good and
sufficient reasons.

It was during the fervid six months of Chiawassee Coal and Iron
development that Thomas Jefferson had passed from the old life to the
new--from childhood to boyhood.

Simultaneously, there were the coal-mines opening under the cliffs of
Mount Lebanon, the long, double row of coking-ovens building on the flat
below the furnace, and the furnace itself taking on undreamed-of
magnitudes under the hands of the army of workmen. Thomas Jefferson did
his best to keep the pace, being driven by a new and eager thirst for
knowledge mechanical, and by a gripping desire to be present at all the
assemblings of all the complicated parts of the threefold machine. And
when he found it impossible to be in three places at one and the same
moment, it distressed him to tears.

Of the home life during that strenuous interval there was little more
than the eating and sleeping for one whose time for the absorbent
process was all too limited. Also, the perplexing questions reaching
down into the under-soul of things were silent. Also, again--mark of a
change so radical that none but a Thomas Jefferson may read and
understand--an awe-inspiring Major Dabney had ceased to be the first
citizen of the world, that pinnacle being now occupied by a tall,
sallow, smooth-faced gentleman, persuasive of speech and superhuman in
accomplishment, who was the life and soul of the activities, and whom
his father and mother always addressed respectfully as "Colonel" Farley.

One day, in the very heat of the battle, this commanding personage, at
whose word the entire world of Paradise was in travail, had deigned to
speak directly to him--Thomas Jefferson. It was at the mine on the
mountain. The workmen were bolting into place the final trestle of the
inclined railway which was to convey the coal in descending carloads to
the bins at the coke-ovens, and Thomas Jefferson was absorbing the
details as a dry sponge soaks water.

"Making sure that they do it just right, are you, my boy?" said the
great man, patting him approvingly on the shoulder. "That's good. I like
to see a boy anxious to get to the bottom of things. Going to be an
iron-master, like your father, are you?"