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?”

“N-no,” stammered the boy.  “I wisht I was!”

“Well, what’s to prevent?  We are going to have the completest plant in the country right here, and it will be a fine chance for your father’s son; the finest in the world.”

“‘Tain’t goin’ to do me any good,” said Thomas Jefferson dejectedly.  “I got to be a preacher.”

Mr. Duxbury Farley looked down at him curiously.  He was a religious person himself, coming to be known as a pillar in St. Michael’s Church at South Tredegar, a liberal contributor, and a prime mover in a plan to tear down the old building and to erect a new one more in keeping with the times and South Tredegar’s prosperity.  Yet he was careful to draw the line between religion as a means of grace and business as a means of making money.

“That is your mother’s wish, I suppose:  and it’s a worthy one; very worthy.  Yet, unless you have a special vocation—­but there; your mother doubtless knows best.  I am only anxious to see your father’s son succeed in whatever he undertakes.”

After that, Thomas Jefferson secretly made Success his god, and was alertly ready to fetch and carry for the high priest in its temple, only the opportunities were infrequent.

For, wide as the Paradise field seemed to be growing from Thomas Jefferson’s point of view, it was altogether too narrow for Duxbury Farley.  The principal offices of Chiawassee Coal and Iron were in South Tredegar, and there the first vice-president was building a hewn-stone mansion, and had become a charter member of the city’s first club; was domiciled in due form, and was already beginning to soften his final “r’s,” and to speak of himself as a Southerner—­by adoption.