If he set on foot some scheme, one
learns to study it and to endeavor to see to what outcome it may lead
ten years after its inception. He looked always to the future, and more
than once one may see where he has forgone immediate profit in order to
derive that profit a hundredfold a generation later.
So, as Scattergood twiddled his reflective toes, he looked far ahead
into the future of Coldriver Valley; he saw that valley as his own,
developed as few mountain valleys are ever developed. Its stage line,
already his property, was replaced by a railroad. The waters of its
river and tributaries were dammed to give a cheap and constant power
which should be connected in some way to this electricity of which he
heard so much and about which he always desired to hear more. He saw
factories springing up. In short, he saw his valley as the center of the
state's commercial life, and himself as the center of the valley.
Scattergood was well aware that there always will exist those who will
clog the road of progress and attempt to stem any tide arising for the
public good--unless they can see for themselves an individual benefit.
He knew that it is not uncommon for those whose business is the common
good--such individuals as legislators and governors and judges--to
assume some such attitude, and he knew that it was regarded as expensive
to win their favor.
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