He
was in the Klondike gold-fields, in the salmon canneries, a prospector, a
lumber-jack in the Canadian Northwest, a cowboy, a sailor, a worker in the
Panama Canal Zone, on the Big Ditch, and too many other things to remember.
Finally, he drifted to Pittsburgh, where his prodigious strength served him
in the steel-mills, and, let me add, served
me, as I stated.
"And ever, no matter where he wandered, or what was his toil, whenever
possible, Thorwald studied. His promise to his mother was always his goal,
and in the cities he studied, or in the wilds he read all the books he
could find. The past year, finding he had a good-pay job in Pittsburgh, he
settled to determined effort, and by sheer resolution, by his wonderful
power to grasp facts and ideas for good once he gets them, he made great
progress in night school, until he was shifted, a week before he saved my
life, to work that required him to toil nightly, alternate weeks. So, for a
year, Thor has had every possible advantage, some, unknown to him, I paid
for myself; I got him clerical work, with shorter hours, he went to night
school, and I employed the very best tutor obtainable, letting Thorwald
pay him, as he thought, though his payments wouldn't keep the tutor in
neckties. The gratitude of the blond giant is pathetic, and suspecting that
I paid the tutor something, he insisted on paying all he could, which I
allowed, of course.
"Well, in August, a year after Thorwald rescued me from serious injury,
perhaps death, I was in 'Frisco, and read of Thorwald, Sr.
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