The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1943-01-29

which was my memory OF NOR
man Tinker.
How I survived those earliest
years, along the dock fronts u
San Francisco and San Pedro
in the hot little villages of the
San Bernardino Valley and the
slum streets of Los Angeles, is
of no great moment here. Peo-
pie were kind to me. That Is
enough to say. And I learned
the meaning of work. I learned
the value of money.
AS the years move ID on,
learned not only the value OF
money, but how to make it, and
! made a considerable amount
of it. How, and where, are like
wise of no great moment. 1t Is
enough to say, aga n, that
found my fortunes as honestly
as most fortunes are found. And
while doing it / drove myself
with grim patience into the &C.
QUESTION of an education. l read
and read, everything that came
into my hands, and ! listened.
When / grew old enough to
pay my own way for food and
lodgings and even for transpor-
tation, went back to the Set
Element. 1t had changed vastly,
for there was a great working
mine upstream now - our mine
and l saw no familiar faces.
When / asked, in the office
which was built in that far val
ley, who owned the mine and
where that owner might be
found, I was told that the own
er was a great corporation -
that a man named Tinker, or
something like that, had sold
the fabulous thing years before.
And that if / wanted someone in
authority l might call upon the
president of the company, who
had his offices in Seattle.
l did visit that president. He
knew nothing of Norman Tink-
err, and cared nothing. l did not
speak of my own special inter-
ests in the circumstances, and !
went back to Southern Califor-
MIA.
At that point l settled upon
the method of my hunt for Nor
man Tinker. assumed that he
would change his name, for he
knew that / had been left alive,
and yet he could not possibly
know what course l might fol-
low to bring him to book-what
men in authority might even
listen to me, and themselves
start in search of him.
Therefore it would be futile
to search for Norman Tinker as
Norman Tinker - the four syl-
tables of a name. And it would
be equally futile to prowl the
land - hoping for some glimpse
of that unforgettable face on a
street corner, or in cafe or
hotel, or on a train or in a shop.
Men have wasted their lives and
defeated their purposes before
now, chasing the wild goose.
l had one assumption, then, to
begin with:
Norman Tinker would change
his name.
And l had other assumptions,
equally convincing to me, at any
rate:
Norman Tinker had, for all
his life, a passion for mining
and the byways of mining. He
was rich, now, from the dis
posal of the lands which my
father had found. But he was
not the man to take his wealth
and either run away or under
take new passions in the bust
ness of life. He would, under
whatever name he chose for
himself, be drawn always to the
magnet of rich ores, or wond-
rous metals hidden in the earth.
So would search out all the
names in the written lore of
mining, and watch most partic-
ularly for new names. And
would find, by the grace of the
destiny of retribution, where
each name sprung from.
I ordered, by subscription,
every special journal that con-
cerned itself with the mining of
metals, the finding and the dig
ging of metals, the promoting of
companies which developed the
treasures of the earth, and the
companies which smelted away
the dross to find the virgin ele-
ment.
l catalogued, laboriously, ev-
cry name that was printed in
those journals. / made my own
small dossier Of every name, and
likewise of the names which ap-
peared in half dozen daily
newspapers which devoted GER
tain of their columns to the bust
ness of mining.
The dossiers: / went to Who's
-