Chapter Twenty-Five: A Shining Example

Chapter Twenty-Five

A Shining Example

There was a young carpenter on that project who had emigrated only recently from Ireland. I employed him, partly because he seemed so eager to go to work. He proved to be a good worker and after a few months, he came to me with a check for $3,000. He said it represented his savings, and he asked if I would keep it for him. It turned out that he had been in an automobile accident, and he was afraid the other party might sue him. Thus he didn't want to have any traceable assets.

He agreed that I was free to use the money in my business. I gave him a note, at 6% interest, payable on 60-day demand.

In about a year, he asked for the return of his money. He had found a building lot, upon which he decided to put up a speculative house. He thereupon left my employ, but he conferred with me from time to time.

He never borrowed more money than was necessary to complete a house. His loans became smaller and smaller until the day arrived when he didn't require any loan.

He continued to build and his cash reserve mounted. He married a young Irish-American girl and children began to appear. Every other year he took his family to visit his mother in Ireland. He told me he went because he wanted to get potatoes that were cooked the proper way.

He didn't arrange to secure a contractor's license so he never could contract to build for others. Several times I pointed out the advantages that could accrue from having a license, and he always averred that he would soon take time off to study for the examination. But the time never seemed to arrive.

He was not greatly handicapped, since he graduated to a greater volume of self-financed houses.

The years passed and we sort of lost contact with each other. I knew that he had built a beautiful home for his family in an exclusive area, but that was the extent of my knowledge of him.

One day he came into my office. After the usual small talk, he told me he wanted my advice about building apartment houses. He had been a part of my crew on some of my apartment projects and said he always wanted to have an apartment building of his own.

I asked him if he had obtained a contractor's license. He said he didn't need one, because his oldest boy had turned twenty-one and was licensed. "Now," he said, "I can build anything I want. It was the studying that ‘kilt’ me off, but my son has a college diploma."

It was then that I realized why he never studied for a state exam. He could neither read nor write. In fact, I remembered how he used to call a sixteenth of an inch, as it appears on a ruler, "one of them little tings."

Tom was 26 years old when he came to work for me, a lad fresh from Ireland. Today he is not quite sixty. His three boys and one girl are all college graduates.

He could not read this book, even today, but he is a very wealthy man. He is wealthy because he didn't let money becomes his master. Rather he made his moves so that he became the master of his money.

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