The train from Pittsburgh went through northern Ohio to a junction where
Hugh would get another train for Bidwell. Great booming towns, Youngstown,
Akron, Canton, Massillon--manufacturing towns all--lay along the way. In
the smoker Hugh sat, again playing with the colored stones held in his
hand. There was relief for his mind in the stones. The light continually
played about them, and their color shifted and changed. One could look at
the stones and get relief from thoughts. Raising his eyes he looked out of
the car window. The train was passing through Youngstown. His eyes looked
along grimy streets of worker's houses clustered closely about huge mills.
The same light that had played over the stones in his hand began to play
over his mind, and for a moment he became not an inventor but a poet. The
revolution within had really begun. A new declaration of independence wrote
itself within him. "The gods have thrown the towns like stones over the
flat country, but the stones have no color. They do not burn and change in
the light," he thought.
Two men who sat in a seat in the westward bound train began to talk, and
Hugh listened. One of them had a son in college. "I want him to be a
mechanical engineer," he said. "If he doesn't do that I'll get him started
in business. It's a mechanical age and a business age. I want to see him
succeed. I want him to keep in the spirit of the times.
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