e going to run the foundry, too, Patty, and on full time. There
will be work for all of you on the terms I have named."

Caleb Gordon closed his eyes and put his face in his hands. For weeks
before the shut-down the foundry had been run on short time, because
there was no market for its miscellaneous output. Surely Tom must be
losing his mind!

But the negro foundry men were taking his word for it, as the miners
had. "Pup-pup-put up yo' hands, boys!" said Patty, and again the ayes
had it.

Tom looked vastly relieved.

"Well, that was a short horse soon curried," he said bruskly. "The power
goes on to-morrow morning, and we'll blow in as soon as the furnaces are
relined. Ludlow, you come to the office at five o'clock and I'll list
the shifts with you. Patty, you report to Mr. Helgerson, and you and the
pattern-maker show up at half-past five. I want to talk over some new
work with you. Anybody else got anything to say? If not, we'll adjourn."

Caleb followed his son out and across the yard to the old log homestead
which still served as the superintendent's office and laboratory. When
the door was shut, he dropped heavily into a chair.

"Son," he said brokenly, "you're--you're crazy--plum' crazy. Don't you
know you can't do the first one o' these things you've been promisin'?"

Tom was already busy at the desk, emptying the pigeonholes one after
another and rapidly scanning their contents.

"If I believed that, I'd be taking to the high grass and the tall
timber. But don't you worry, pappy; we're going to do them--all of
them."

"But, Buddy, you can't sell a pound of foundry product! We may be able
to make pig cheaper than some others, but when it comes to the foundry
floor, South Tredegar can choke us off in less'n a week."

"Wait," said Tom, still rummaging. "There is one thing we can make--and
sell."

"I'd like tolerable well to know what it is," was the hopeless
rejoinder.

"You ought to know, better than any one else. It's cast-iron
pipe--water-pipe. Where are the plans of that invention of yours that
Farley wouldn't let you install?"

Caleb found the blue-prints, and his hands were trembling. The
invention, a pit machine process for molding and casting water-and
gas-pipe at a cost that would put all other makers of the commodity out
of the field, had been wrought out and perfected in Tom's second Boston
year. It was Caleb's one ewe lamb, and he had nursed it by hand through
a long preparatory period