And he planned a new bridge which should stand the Chinook and the Spider and the de'il himself, said Brodie, Medicine or no Medicine. And full seven year it lasted; then the fire-water spoke for the wicked Scotchman--and he himself went out into the night.
And after he died, miserable wreck of a man--and of a very great man--the Spider woke and took his pawky bridge and tied up the main line for two weeks and set us crazy--for we were already losing our grip on the California fast freight business. But at that time Hailey was superintendent of bridges on the West End.
His father was a section foreman. When Hailey was a kid--a mere kid--he got into Brodie's office doing errands; but whenever he saw a draughtsman at work he was no good for errands. At such times he went all into a mental tangle that could neither be thrashed nor kicked out of him, though both were conscientiously tried by old man Hailey and Superintendent Brodie; and Brodie, since he could do nothing else with him, finally kicked him into learning to read--and to cipher, Brodie called it. Then, by and by, Hailey got an old table and part of a cake of India ink himself, and himself became a draughtsman, and soon, with some cursing from Brodie and a "Luk a' that now!" from his paralyzed daddy, became chief draughtsman in Brodie's office. Hailey was no college man--Hailey was a Brodie man. Single mind on single mind--concentration absolute. Mathematics, drawing, bridges, brains--that was Hailey. But no classics except Brodie, who himself was a classic. All that Brodie knew, Hailey had from him; and where Brodie was weak, Hailey was strong--master of himself. When Brodie shamed the image he was made in, Hailey hid the shame best he could,--though never touched or made it his own--and Brodie, who hated even himself, showed still a light in the wreck by molding Hailey to his work. For, one day, said Brodie in his heart, this boy shall be master of these bridges. When I am rot, he will be here what I ought to have been--this Irish boy--and they will say he was Brodie's man. And better than any of these dough-heads they send me out, better than any of their Eastern graduates he shall be, if he was made engineer by a drunkard. And Hailey was better, far, far better than the graduates, better than Brodie--and to Hailey came the time to wrestle the Spider.