“What’s the orders, nurse?” Mr. Morton asked as he looked at her over his wife’s shoulder.
“You would better be resting, Mr. Morton. The doctor will be here at half past eight and he’ll scold me if he finds you feverish.”
The family withdrew leaving the old man, weak and pale but with a face wreathed in happy smiles. His head sought the pillow gratefully and soon he was sleeping like a child.
It was now that John heard the full details of the accident to his father. He had been suffering all summer, diabetes the doctors had said. When they came to New York from Newport, he was much improved and felt himself well enough to go out to Utah to look over his pet mine, the Calumet Minnie. It was there the accident occurred. Nobody knew just how it happened. The elevator had been inspected only the week before. In the cage with him were the manager, Carson, the superintendent, two engineers and a foreman. At the hundred and fifty foot level something went wrong--the safety clutch didn’t work--and the cage dropped some eighty feet. Carson was killed, the foreman also, and the rest badly hurt. His father’s weakened state before the accident complicated things and the doctor considered the case serious. Later in the seclusion of her own room, his mother broke down utterly before him. She knew his father would never get better, she said, and she feared the worst. John tried all in his power to comfort her, but he succeeded only in bringing pathetic smiles to her face and hopeful looks in her eyes as she looked at him. He understood what was passing in her thoughts and swore inwardly that he would never fail her.
Then came the anxious days of hope and fear, when the elder Morton’s strength failed to respond to the doctors’ treatment. To John these days were inexpressibly distressful. Gloom settled on the old mansion which had seen the happiest times for both parents and children. John did all he could to brighten the home, and spent many hours with his father in intimate talk of his ambitions and aims in life. It was in these confidences that he learned to know his father and, in knowing him, to honor and admire him.
Dan Morton prided himself on the great fortune he had made, because in making it he had never wronged another and he had brought the treasures of the earth to enrich his fellow-men’s lives. That was the secret spring of his success and power; and he knew how to use that power because he was most keenly aware of the responsibility which its use entailed.