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diff --git a/30356.txt b/30356.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0fd1acf --- /dev/null +++ b/30356.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5661 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Boy from Hollow Hut, by Isla May Mullins + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Boy from Hollow Hut + A Story of the Kentucky Mountains + +Author: Isla May Mullins + +Release Date: October 29, 2009 [EBook #30356] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY FROM HOLLOW HUT *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE BOY FROM HOLLOW HUT + + + + +[Illustration: "I kin kill rabbits if I can't do nothin' else"] + + + + +The Boy From Hollow Hut + +A STORY OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS + +By ISLA MAY MULLINS + +Illustrated + +New York Chicago Toronto + +Fleming H. Revell Company + +London and Edinburgh + + + + +Copyright, 1911, by + +FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY + +New York: 158 Fifth Avenue + +Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. + +London: 21 Paternoster Square + +Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street + + + + +To MRS. J. B. MARVIN + +Whose unceasing devotion to the cause of education in the +mountains of Kentucky inspired this little story + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. A STRANGER AND A PROMISE 11 + II. A PACKAGE BY MAIL 24 + III. IN THE WILDERNESS 36 + IV. A HALT ON THE ROAD 44 + V. A DOUBLE RESCUE 57 + VI. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING 72 + VII. A TRIP TO THE CITY 78 + VIII. OPPORTUNITY 91 + IX. A STARTLING APPEARANCE 98 + X. STEVE DEVELOPS A MIND OF HIS OWN 111 + XI. EXPERIENCE 129 + XII. LOVE'S AWAKENING 149 + XIII. OLD TIES RENEWED 160 + XIV. "ALL RIGHT, SON" 180 + XV. FLICKERING HOPE 190 + XVI. IN THE CRUCIBLE 198 + XVII. FRUITION 204 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + "I kin kill rabbits if I can't do nothin' else" _Frontispiece_ + The Old Greely Mill 70 + "Hit's Champ fer his pappy" 142 + "Tilda pacing back and forth at her spinning-wheel" 174 + + + + +THE BOY FROM HOLLOW HUT + +I + +A STRANGER AND A PROMISE + + +The rabbit bounded away and was lost in the underbrush. Steve stood +looking disgustedly after him, a limp figure, one shoulder dropping +until the old knit suspender fell at his side, and a sullen, +discouraged look settling in his brown eyes. + +"I ain' no hunter noways. Peers lack I don't even know 'nough to ketch +a rabbit," he said with scorn. "Whar's that lazy Tige anyways?" he +added, his scorn merging into wrath. + +Then jerking the old suspender in place he straightened up on his +sturdy, bare feet, and darted through the underbrush in the direction +where the rabbit had disappeared. + +"I'll ketch you yit, yes I will, you same old cottontail," he muttered +through clenched teeth. + +There it was again! Just a moment the round, gray back darted above +the bushes, and then plunging into deeper undergrowth, bounded on and +on. But the slim, knotty brown legs plunged on and on too, till at +last a swift, cruel stone felled the unlucky little woodlander, for +Steve was a most skillful marksman. + +"Huh! thought you'd git away from me, did ye?" said the boy, picking +up the still body. "I reckons I kin do some things yit," he said, "ef +I don't know much." + +The boy was in a strange, new mood. He did not understand himself. +Though a good hunter for a lad of twelve he had been heretofore a +generous friend or conqueror of the fur and feathered folk, wont to +deal gently with a fallen foe. Now he jerked up the limp body of the +rabbit savagely and struck its head spitefully against a near-by tree +trunk. + +"I kin kill rabbits ef I can't do nothin' else." + +Just then a big black and tan dog came into view with the dignity +befitting age. Boy and dog had been born the same month, but while one +was scarcely well entered upon life, the other's race was almost run. +The boy was usually most considerate of the infirmities of his +lifelong friend, but to-day he scolded the dog till with drooping tail +and grieved, uncomprehending eyes he slunk away out of sight. + +A strange experience had come to the mountain boy the day before which +had changed his whole world. It was as though the wooded mountains +which hemmed in his little cabin home had parted for a moment and +given him a glimpse of a fascinating world beyond. He and Tige had +wandered farther from home that day than ever before, though wanderers +they had always been, the woods holding a deep interest for Steve. He +loved to hide in the densest solitudes, lie still with his dog and +dream, fantastic, unreal dreams. Now a definite, tangible vision had +come to him out of the solitude of a hazy November day in the +mountains of Kentucky. He had lain for two hours or more in the +stillness when suddenly Tige lifted his head and gave a sharp bark, +then came the sound of voices, strange voices Steve at once knew them +to be, and as he caught the tones more clearly, recognized that one at +least was of a kind which he had never heard before. Keeping Tige +quiet with a firm hand, he lifted his head and listened with ear and +soul, then into view stepped a man of medium height with a clean, fine +face, clothes of a sort unknown to the boy, and an easy, alert stride +totally foreign to the mountaineer's slouching gait. A mountain man +accompanied him, but he too was a stranger to the boy. + +The man of the new, strange species smiled at the boy's gaping mouth +and wonder-wide eyes. + +"Well, son," he said pleasantly, "are you a sportsman too?" + +The quick, clear, cultured voice, the unfamiliar accent was so utterly +foreign to anything the boy had ever heard that he could not take in +the import of the words, and amazed silence was his only reply. + +"Wal," drawled the mountain guide, "who'd er thought er seein' a chap +lack that heah? Whar'd you come from anyways?" + +This was familiar vernacular, and Steve, rising slowly from the +ground, and allowing Tige to make friendly acquaintance with the +strangers, said: + +"I lives at Hollow Hut and I comes over here whenever I pleases. +Whar'd you uns come from?" + +The man gave a hearty but musical laugh at the ready dignity of the +reply, but the boy's mouth dropped once more in consternation, as +words came again in crisp, foreign accent. + +"I came from the city, my lad, to get some of your fine quail and +deer. You are willing I should have a few, are you not? My friend here +is showing me the way." + +The mountain folk had proved a most entertaining study for this +sportsman, and his interest was ready for each new specimen +encountered. Turning to the guide he said: + +"Suppose we lunch here," and taking out his watch continued, "yes, it +is high time; twelve thirty to the minute." + +The boy stepped forward involuntarily for a look at the queer, pretty +thing in the man's hand. + +"What's that?" he asked. + +"Why, that's a watch, son. Didn't you ever see one?" said the man +kindly. + +The guide smiled derisively: "Wal, I reckons not," while the boy, too +interested for reply, asked again: + +"What's a watch?" and the man with his genial laugh said: + +"Son, we will be greatly pleased if you will take lunch with us. My +name is Polk, Samuel Polk," he said, touching his cap with the +unfailing courtesy of a true gentleman. "And after we eat I will show +you the watch and tell you all about it." + +But the mountaineer does not readily eat with "furriners," so Steve +stood near by and looked on while the two men ate very strange things. +Little cans were opened and tiny fish taken out that looked +exceedingly queer. Mr. Polk, trying to persuade the boy to eat, +explained that these were sardines, some square, white things were +crackers, a thick stuff was cheese and that some big, round, yellow +things were oranges. But Steve only stared in silence till the meal +was over though Tige, with no instinctive handicap, accepted delicious +scraps with astonishment and relish. + +So amazed, however, had the boy been with it all that he nearly +forgot about the watch. But when he remembered and the man let him +take it in his rusty, brown fingers, that was the most wonderful +moment of all. The tick, tick inside was a marvel, almost a thing +uncanny to the boy, and when it was explained how the hands went round +and round, telling the time of day, it surely seemed a thing beyond +mortal ken. + +The guide drawled out with a superior air: "Wal, sonny, you come from +the backwoods shore ef you never heerd tell of a watch before." + +The boy looked squarely at him in sullen resentment a moment, but with +such opportunity at hand he wouldn't waste time with the likes of him. +He asked, "What moves them things round?" and the man kindly opened +the watch at the back and displayed all the cunning wheels which +respond to the loosening spring, explained how it was wound each day +to keep it from running down, and in answer to the boy's eager +questions as to how such things were made told him something of watch +manufacture. + +At last the wonderful hour was over and the two strange men prepared +to leave. + +"Good-bye, son," said the man; "one of these days you will leave the +mountains and go out into the big world to live a life of usefulness +and honour, I hope." + +The words, so simple and commonplace to the man, were to the boy like +a telescope lifted to the unknown heavens, but through which he could +not yet look. He watched the men go down the mountainside, the strange +words which he did not comprehend, but was never to forget, ringing in +his ears. A bit of heavy timber hid them at last, and the boy stood +dejected a moment, his heart swelling with an agony of strange +longing, while the dog looked up at him almost pleading to understand. +Then suddenly, with a cry of hope, Steve sprang after them, the dog +following. Breathless he came upon them, and the man turned in +surprise at the tragic voice and face. When the boy could speak he +panted out: + +"I've got the bes' fox skin anywheres hereabout. I'll swap it with you +uns fer that watch thing." + +The man suppressed a smile and kindly replied: + +"Why, lad, I couldn't do without it for the rest of this hunting trip, +but I tell you what I will do. When I get back to the city I'll send +you one." + +"Then ef yer'll come home with me I'll give ye the fox skin now," the +boy responded promptly. + +"Oh, never mind about the fox skin now; I must get back to camp before +dark and we are many miles away," said the man. + +"But I can't take the watch 'thout you git the skin," said the boy +sturdily. + +"Well, now, I'll tell you," said the man, realizing that he had struck +the stubborn, independent pride of a mountaineer. "You give me your +name, tell me where you live and I'll send you the watch; then next +time I'm over here I'll get the skin." The address was a difficult +matter to determine, but the mountaineer helped them out. + +This satisfied the boy and he saw the two strangers depart with better +spirit, since he could look forward to the coming of the watch. He did +not understand how it would ever reach him, but trusted the stranger +implicitly. When the last sound of departing feet among the underbrush +had died away, Steve turned and went home with long, rapid strides, +the dog recognizing the relief and following with wagging tail. + +He found supper on the table, the savoury bacon and hoe-cake greeting +him from the door. The head of the family, lean, lank and brown, was +already transporting huge mouthfuls from the tin platter to his mouth; +the fat, slovenly daughter sat for a moment to rest and cool her face +before beginning to eat, while the mother still occupied a chimney +corner, pipe in mouth, for she "hadn't wanted nothin' to eat lately, +her stomick seemed off the hooks somehow." These, with the boy, +composed the family, a row of graves out under the trees at the back +of the hut filling the long gap between Mirandy, a young woman of +twenty-one, and Steve. The boy sat down, but before he ate that +remarkable tale of his morning experience had to be told. When he was +done the father said: + +"Huh, better let city folks alone; don't have nothin' to do with none +of 'em." + +The boy, feeling the rebuke, then turned to his supper, but when his +father had gone out to smoke, and Mirandy was in the lane looking for +her sweetheart, Steve stole up to his mother's side and stood digging +his toe in the sand hearth. + +"Mammy," he said at last, "what makes that man diffrunt from we uns?" + +The old woman smoked a moment in silence and then said: + +"Wal, there's a heap over the mountains what makes him diffrunt,--things +we ain' never seen ner heern tell on." She smoked again a puff or two, +then added, "I recken schoolin's the most." + +"What's schoolin'?" said the boy. + +"Larnin' things," she replied. + +The subject of schools had never been discussed in the boy's hearing. +His father didn't believe in them, there wasn't a book, not even a +Bible, in all the scattered little remote mountain community, and if +the boy had ever heard either books or schools mentioned before the +words had made no impression on him. + +"Do they larn to make watch things thar?" he asked. + +His mother said she supposed so, "she knew they larned out o' things +they called books," and then she explained as best she could to him +what schools and books were. When his father came in again Steve said +boldly: + +"Pappy, I'm er goin' over the mountains an' larn how to make them +watch things." + +The mountaineer stood as if paralyzed a moment, then his dull eyes +blazed. + +"No, you won't nuther! Not a step will ye go! Ye shan't nuver hev +nothin' to do with no city folks, so help me God!" + +The boy dropped back cowed and trembling; he had never seen his father +so stirred. He didn't dare ask a question, but when the mountaineer +had seated himself in the chimney corner opposite his wife, he +continued: + +"City folks with all their larnin', fine clothes an' fine ways ain't +to be depended on. I wouldn't trus' one of 'em with a jay bird lessen +I wanted to git shed of it. Don't you let me hear no mo' o' your goin' +over the mountains arter city folks." + +The prejudice of some mountaineers against the city is deep-seated. +They have little use for the "settlements," meaning the smaller towns, +but the city is their abomination. Jim Langly's prejudice was even +stronger than that of the average mountain man of this type, for it +had been a matter of contention between himself and his wife in the +early days of their married life. She had always longed to see what +was beyond the mountains and besieged him to go till the subject could +no more be mentioned between them. + +Steve soon climbed to his bed in a corner of the room with a very +heavy heart. If city folks weren't to be depended on then he would +never get that watch, and all the beautiful visions of learning to do +things in a wonderful new world grew dim and uncertain. So heavy was +his heart as he fell asleep that when he waked at daylight, it was +with a terrible sense of loss and grief. The morning meal over he +wandered off with Tige, dull and dejected, till the unlucky rabbit had +crossed his path and stirred strange, resentful enmity towards his +little familiar contestants of the woods. Sending the dog angrily off +he skinned the rabbit with savage jerks and then carried it at once +back to his home, saying: + +"Fry it, 'Randy, fry it dog-goned hard." + +His mother caught the sullen, angry tone, and when Mirandy went out +in the kitchen to begin the dinner, she called him from where he sat +on the door-step. + +"Come here, sonny." + +It was a rare term of endearment, and Steve got up quickly and went to +her side. + +"Don't think too much o' whut ye pappy said about city folks. He's +allus hated 'em fer some reason, I don't know whut, 'less hit was +'cause I saw one when I was a gal afore we married, nuver min' how ner +where, and arter that I allus wanted to see whut was over the +mountings. Ef ever ye git a chanct I want ye ter go thar an' larn ter +do things. I'd er done hit ef I'd er been a man. But don't say nothin' +to ye pappy." + +This caution was unnecessary; and what a change the simple words made +for Steve! His spirit bounded up into the world of visions again, and +when dinner was on the table he refused to take a mouthful of the +savoury rabbit, so ashamed was he of the manner of its killing. + +After this his mind was constantly on the watch which was to come. How +it was to reach him he did not think out, for the simple reason that +he knew nothing of the distance which stretched between him and the +city, nor of methods of communication. No letter or piece of mail of +any sort had ever come to his home, or that of any one else of which +he knew but things of various sorts were gotten from the crossroads +store ten miles away, skillets and pans, axes and hoes, which were +made somewhere, and he supposed some time when some one of the +community went to the store they'd find his watch there. But week +after week went by till spring came on, and nobody went to the store. +The mountain folk indeed had little need of stores. They spun and wove +the cloth for their clothes, raised their corn, pigs, and tobacco, +made their own "sweetin'," long and short, meaning sugar and molasses, +and distilled their own whiskey. So the boy's heart grew heavy again +with the long delay and he began to think bitterly that his father and +not his mother was right, when one day a stranger whom he had never +seen before drove up to the door. + + + + +II + +A PACKAGE BY MAIL + + +"Howdye! Does airy feller named Stephen Langly live here?" said the +stranger, reining in his tired, raw-boned steed without difficulty. + +Mirandy went to the cabin door, stared a minute in surprise and then +shook her head slowly. But Steve pushed past her saying: + +"Yes, thar is, too. I'm Stephen Langly." + +"You! Sakes erlive, I clean forgot that was yo' name!" and his sister +laughed lazily, while the stranger joined in. + +"Wal, you're a powerful little chap to be a-gittin' mail. But this +here thing has yo' name on it, they tole me at the store, an' so I +brung it along as I was a-comin' this-a-way. Hit's been thar mo' than +three months they tole me." + +Steve took the package, his hands trembling with eagerness and would +have darted away to the woods with his treasure where he might look +upon it first alone, but Mirandy stormed when he turned to go, and the +man said: + +"'Pears to me you mought show what ye got, when I brung it all this +long ways to ye." + +That did seem the fair thing to do, so when they had asked the man to +"light and hitch," Steve sat down on the door-step and removed the +wrappings from the square box; there was tissue paper first, a miracle +of daintiness which the boy had never beheld before, and at last the +watch came to view. Steve lifted it in trembling fingers, and while +Mirandy and the man expressed their admiration his first quivering +words were: + +"That other one was yaller." + +"Wal, now," said Mirandy, "that one was gold; you couldn't expect that +man to send you no gold." + +Mirandy, having a precious gilded trinket, was better posted on the +colour and value of metals than Steve, though she made a slight error +in her next statement. + +"This hern is silver; that's the next thing to gold," and the bright +nickel of the Waterbury twinkled in the spring sunshine as though +trying to measure up to its admirers' estimate. + +"A silver watch," said the stranger after he had heard the story of +that autumn day with its promise of a watch which was just now +fulfilled--"wal, you air a lucky boy, shore." + +Mrs. Langly called feebly from within, and Steve went and laid it on +the bed beside her. Her "stomick had never seemed to get on the +hooks," as she expressed it, all winter; her spinning-wheel and loom +had been long silent, and for a few days she had not left her bed. + +Her eyes gleamed with strange, new fire as they fell upon the shining +thing which belonged to another world from theirs, and when Steve had +laboriously wound it, which he had not forgotten how to do, setting +the wonderful machinery running, she whispered to him: + +"Remember you air goin' whar you kin larn to make things lack that." + +Steve's shining eyes answered hers, though the boy failed to catch the +light of prophecy and final benediction which they held. Hugging his +treasure, with no hint of oncoming change he went out to feed the +stranger's horse while Mirandy prepared the dinner. + +It was not until the visitor had gone and Steve was in the solitude of +the woods with Tige that he found fullest joy in his new possession. +It seemed to him he could never in all his life take his eyes from it +again. He watched the hands go round and round, the little flying +second hand, the more leisurely minute marker and the creeping hand +which told the hours as they passed. Then again and again the back +was opened and the busy little wheels held his breathless interest. He +took no notice of Tige, but the old dog knew that his mate was happy +and lay content beside him. Although for the first time in possession +of a noter of the hours, he lost all account of time and did not move +from the mossy bed where he had thrown himself until it was too late +to see either hands or wheels. Then he called Tige to come and hurried +back to his home to sit by the cabin firelight till Mirandy made him +go to bed. The family all slept in the same room, three beds occupying +corners; this main room and the lean-to kitchen constituting the whole +house. + +Steve's watch never left his hand the long night through, and for the +first time in his uneventful life he slept fitfully, waking every +little while to make sure it was there. + +Jim Langly was away for a few days "to a logrolling" several miles +away and did not return until dusk of the evening after Steve's watch +came. The boy sat again by the firelight, watch in hand, when Jim +walked in at the door. His eyes fell at once upon the strange, shining +thing and his face was convulsed with sudden wrath: + +"Didn't I tell ye to have nothin' to do with city folks? Ye shan't +keep that thing. I'll smash it, so he'p me God!" But before he could +lift a hand a scream came from the bed, and Mrs. Langly sat up wild +and dishevelled. + +"Let him hev it, Jim Langly, let him hev it," and then she dropped +back gray and still. Jim Langly had seen that gray stillness before, +and he stood looking upon it now in dumb terror. His wife had been +ailing a long time, it was true, yet no one had thought of death. But +the grim visitor was there in all his quiet majesty. The weary spirit, +which had for so many years longed for flight into new haunts of men, +had winged its way at last to a far, mysterious country of which she +had heard little, but towards which for months past she had been +reaching out with a strange prescience of which no one guessed. + +It was a dreary night at the cabin. No one tried to sleep. Jim Langly +said no more to Steve about the watch, and the boy wore it in his +bosom attached to a stout string about his neck, keeping it out of +sight, and sobbing in the stillness of the woods as he wandered with +Tige, "Mammy wanted me to have it." And though his joy in it for the +time was gone, there was peculiar comfort in this thought of her +approval. The old dog looked up in the boy's face from time to time +pitifully, or stuck his nose in the lad's hand, knowing well, in a way +dogs have, what had happened. + +Next day the wife and mother was laid to rest beside the row of little +graves, and life completely changed for Steve. He went to bed as usual +in his corner of the room, but he could not forget the still form +which had lain in another corner the night before, and while Mirandy +and his father slept heavily, he slipped from the bed, took a blanket +and with Tige at his heels went into the woods again. Here in the +stillness which he loved, worn out with loss of sleep and his first +encounter with grief, nestling close to old Tige slumber came and held +him until late the next day. His father and Mirandy paid little +attention to what he did, so night after night he took his blanket and +dog and slept in the woods, the two only going to the cabin for +meals. + +During all these strange, restless days the words of Steve's mother +came to him over and over: "Remember you air goin' whar you kin larn +to make things lack that watch." And he thought, "How am I a-goin' +lessen I jes' go?" He knew his father would never give him permission, +it was not worth while to ask it, so gradually his plans took shape in +the solitude of the woods with no one to counsel. Had the boy known +what distance lay between him and his goal he would have grown +faint-hearted, but he had no conception of what his undertaking meant. +So he laid his plans with good courage, which plans, of course, +included the taking of his dog. For three or four days Steve took an +extra share of corn pone and bacon, Mirandy not noticing in her +shiftless manner of providing, and feeling the loss of her mother, she +was even more listless than usual. These extra rations for himself and +Tige Steve carried to the woods and laid away. Then his beloved fox +skin, the greatest treasure which he possessed beside the watch, he +must take that with him, because it was "the man's"; he had promised +it in return for the watch, and now that he was going he must take it +along to give to the man. The boy had no thought of any difficulty in +such a search. The food, the skin, the watch, and the scanty clothes +he wore constituted all his equipment for the journey. When he started +out with the skin Mirandy lazily asked what he was going to do with +it, and he replied: "Use it fer a piller in the woods." + +"Ye better quit sleepin' out thar," she said; "somethin' 'll eat ye up +some night." + +"I ain't a-feerd," he said, and she thought no more about it. + +Three days passed with a good accumulation of food, and as Steve and +Tige lay down to sleep at night the boy said: + +"Tige, we've gotter be a-goin' 'bout day arter ter-morrer," and the +dog wagged sleepy assent. But next morning when Steve wakened a +peculiar stillness smote him. Tige was usually alert at his least +move. With intuitive alarm Steve put out his hand,--and touched a +rigid body! Drawing back he sprang to his feet, a cry of anguished +appeal on his lips: + +"O Tige, Tige, ye ain't dead too?" + +But death makes no reply. His lifelong playmate lay straightened out +in that last unalterable, mysterious sleep. + +The boy was too stunned for tears. He knelt beside his dog in silent +misery. After a long while he rose from the ground and going to a +moss-covered rock near by where laurel and forget-me-nots blossomed +and rhododendron bells hung in clusters, with a stout stick and his +sturdy hands he dug beneath the rock an opening large enough to hold +his dead dog. Then he went back to where his old playmate lay, and +lifting the stiffened body in his arms he stumbled blindly to the rock +and laid it away. + +Towards evening he slowly made his lonely way home. + +Mirandy, missing the dog at last, inquired: "Whar's Tige?" and Steve's +stiff lips articulated the one word, "Dead." + +She replied indifferently, "Wal, he want no 'count any mo'. I reckons +hit's a good thing." + +Steve had no answer and with swelling heart made his way to the woods +to sleep alone. It was long before he could sleep, and as he lay in +the unbearable loneliness, he decided that next morning he would start +on that journey to the unknown. Perhaps to that new world sorrow would +not follow! He would not need so much food now; he had enough saved +already. The death of the dog urged him on to his purpose as nothing +else could have done. + +He went down to the cabin next morning for the last time. It was a +warm spring morning. Passing Mirandy sitting on the door-step, her +breakfast dishes not yet washed, he paused a minute, longing to say +something, for although the bond between them was of blood and not of +the heart, yet she was part of the life from which he was tearing +himself away, and he longed to sob out a good-bye. But he must not, so +choking down words and tears he stumbled off, never once looking back. +His father sat in the chimney corner smoking his morning pipe, but +father and son had always lacked interests in common, and the coming +of the watch had put an insurmountable barrier between them. So +Steve's only thought in passing him had been to escape suspicion. It +was to his mother that the boy had always shyly told his day-dreams in +the woods,--dreams which reached out into a wonder world lying beyond +the mountains. And she had smoked her pipe in silent sympathy, +occasionally asking: "Did ye see big houses, rows and rows of 'em on +land, and some a-ridin' the water? I've hearn tell of 'em in my day," +so furnishing inspiration for more dreams in the future. + +"O Mammy, O Tige," sobbed the boy when safe at last in the woods, and +he threw himself down in an agony of weeping beside the rock where the +old dog lay buried. When calm at last, he took up his bundle of bread +and bacon wrapped about with his fox skin, and started slowly away. He +took no thought as to direction, he was simply "goin'," as his mother +had told him. A dismal rain soon set in, but on and on he persistently +tramped all the long day, water dripping from his ragged trousers and +old hat as he went farther and farther away from all he had ever +known. He met no one, saw no habitation anywhere, only the startled +denizens of the wood scurrying here and there out of his path. Over +mountains and across ravines he went on and on. He was puzzled and +discouraged when night dropped down, and his aching feet and tired +legs said he must have travelled many miles. "Shorely I'll git thar +to-morrer," he said, as he lay down upon his fox skin, but another +weary day of tramping over unknown ways without sight of any human +being brought terror to his sturdy heart and when he lay down alone at +night he felt that he was the only human being in the universe. Oh, if +he only had Tige! + +All the people he had known and those he expected to see beyond the +mountains seemed to have sunk into some great unseen abyss. He could +never find his way back to the old cabin, he knew, and he began to +feel that he could never reach forward to the wonderful city of which +he had dreamed. In the agony of loneliness and the chill of night +which settled upon him he cried again, "O Tige, O Mammy!" Did the +tender mother-arms reach down and draw her boy near to the heart of +God? At any rate he grew quiet. He remembered vaguely that he had +heard how God is everywhere, and with a new strange sense of +companionship with the great Creator, which comes to souls in +extremity, he fell asleep and did not waken until the sun, bursting +forth with new brilliance after the day of rain, had lit up the +mountain tops and set the birds to singing. + +He enjoyed the breakfast of very hard corn pone and bacon, and took +out his beloved watch. The busy, little shining thing, which he never +forgot to wind, did not mean much to him as a marker of time, for he +knew little about the hours as enumerated by the watch, but it was on +this morning of new courage a fresh pledge of wonderful things +awaiting him. He started on again with steady strides, and tramped +bravely till mid afternoon without adventure. + +Suddenly, without premonition, his heart thrilled at faint sounds +which seemed marvellously like those of a human voice. He stood still +a moment in an agony of uncertainty, straining eye and ear for +confirmation. + +Yes, he was right! He caught the crackle of dry twigs and underbrush, +while the faint human tones grew clear and distinct. Under the +discipline of loneliness and distress the face of the untutored boy +beamed with eager welcome which held no reserve and caught no +suspicious glimmer of lurking treachery as near-by bushes parted and +steps were close upon him. + + + + +III + +IN THE WILDERNESS + + +Two men were before him, men very similar in appearance to those Steve +had known, though with something in their faces which made him draw +back even in the moment of joy at meeting others of his kind. + +"Sakes erlive, Bub, whar'd ye come from?" called the taller, harder +looking of the two. + +"I come from Hollow Hut," answered the boy with his simple dignity. + +"And whar you goin' to?" called the other man, while both laughed +unpleasantly. + +"Ter the city," said the boy. + +"Wal, now, that's a pretty nice fox skin ye got rolled up thar," said +the tall one as they came closer. "S'pose you jes' hand that over to +us." + +"I can't," said the boy, holding it tighter in real alarm. "I swapped +it with a man fer a watch, an' I'm a-takin' it ter him." + +"Is that so!" exclaimed the tall man. "So you've got a watch, hev ye? +Who'd a-thought it,"--and they both haw-hawed loudly. "Now, ye can +jes' han' that over too, fer we mean bizness, don't we, Bill?" + +And with that they pounced upon the terrified boy, jerked the fox skin +from his clinging fingers and soon brought forth from its hiding-place +in his bosom the beautiful, beautiful watch! Steve fought like a small +tiger, but he was no match for them and stunned and bruised he soon +lay upon the ground while the two men walked off, never once looking +back at their helpless victim. + +For a few minutes Steve could not think, so severe had been their +cruel blows; then indignation, such as he had never known in his life, +swept over him in a sudden flood. He sprang to his feet, ignoring pain +and keenly watching which way they went, stealthily followed after. +For two hours he kept within hearing of them, though being careful +always that they did not get a glimpse of him. He did not know what he +was going to do, but when they finally halted for the night he halted +too. The men had also taken the last of his corn pone and bacon; there +was nothing for him to eat, but he did not even think of it, so +intently was he listening. Soon they began to sing and laugh very +loudly and he knew then they had plenty of whiskey with them. Hope +rose in his heart. After a bit they would fall into heavy sleep. He +knew well the ways of drink. + +Soon all was still, and after waiting a while till the sleep was deep +he crept upon them. Fortunately the moon was up in its full glory and +Steve could see plainly what he was about. He crept up close to the +two snoring men and across the feet of the tall one lay his fox skin. + +"I must git that anyways," said the boy to himself, "for it belongs to +the man in the city." + +Slowly, cautiously he lifted it from the big heavy feet, and there was +not a stir. Then he stood, his heart almost bursting with longing for +his watch. It was in the big man's pocket he was sure, and he stooped +close a minute, reaching out a hand,--but he didn't dare. If he waked +them, skin and watch would both be gone, and he must by all means get +the skin to give to the man in the city. He went sorrowfully away with +only the skin. He didn't dare stop near them, so he tramped half the +night in spite of frequent twinges in his left ankle which had had a +little twist as the men threw him down, and at last the boy dropped +upon the ground, utterly exhausted, to sleep until noon next day. + +When he wakened, stiff and sore from the blows of the men, and tried +to get upon his feet he found that left ankle so swollen and painful +he could not put the foot to the ground. He realized for the first +time also with great consternation that he had nothing to eat. +Bruised, sore, empty, helpless he sat alone in the woods. But even +then he did not know the desolation of the night before. He felt once +more that comforting sense of companionship with the great Creator, +and he faced the situation sturdily. + +He crept about on his knees hunting berries which he knew were good to +eat. It was a laborious way to get breakfast, or more properly dinner, +but he succeeded in finding enough to still somewhat the gnawing in +his empty stomach, and suddenly as he lifted his head a road lay +before him. With hope that was almost a tranquil certainty he crept to +the roadside and sat down. An hour or more passed with only the call +and song of birds to break the stillness,--when, list! There was +surely a rumble of wheels! And then the cry came distinctly, "Git up +thar!" + +Tears of joy rained down the boy's face as a covered wagon drawn by +four mules came into view, though he sturdily brushed them aside as +the wagon drove up and halted. + +"Hello, thar," called a lusty youthful voice, and the driver, a young +fellow of perhaps nineteen who was mounted on one of the mules, turned +round and saw at a glance the swollen, helpless foot. + +"Done up, air ye, Bub? Whar do ye belong anyways?" + +Steve knew at once that these people were friends, and told them his +little story. + +"I want to git to the city, so's to give the skin to the man thar an' +then I'm goin' to larn to make watches an' things," he concluded. + +"Wal, you air a long piece from the city, but we uns kin help ye git +to the railroad and that'll take ye to the city." + +Several heads of varying sizes were sticking out of the wagon by this +time, and when Steve had been helped in among the occupants he found +it was a family moving from one little hamlet to another. The husband +and father had recently died and they were going back to their +mother's home to live among her "kin." + +The kindly mother at once bound up Steve's injured foot with white of +egg and salt, which she said would "fetch it round all right," and +hearing the empty rumbles of his poor little stomach she said she +didn't believe "thar was a thing inside of it," and proceeded to give +him a good square meal. + +Was there ever anything happier than to be driving along the road with +a comfortable foot, a full stomach and in the midst of friends! Steve +had never known greater joy than that moment held. They were a +"happy-go-lucky" family he had fallen in with,--and for the first time +in his life he was in the midst of the merry banter of children. The +mountain folk of remote regions lack a sense of humour, and Steve had +grown up entirely alone, the cabins of Hollow Hut being scattered, so +he sat through the afternoon in a maze of delight. There were snickers +and giggles, punching in the ribs and tickling of toes from these +children who lived on the border of civilization, for Steve had really +gone blindly towards his goal. + +As they drove gaily along Steve heard a sudden rumbling which +suggested thunder, the children cried, "The train, the train," and +stopping the mules quickly the big brother who was driving jumped +down, while three of the children sprang out with a bound and all +grasped the bridles at their heads. It was done so quickly there +wasn't time to ask a question and then a monster came tearing, +puffing, hissing past them. Steve's eyes almost started from their +sockets and when it was past he sank back limp and quivering. + +"Why, chile, didn't ye nuver see no railroad trains afore?" said the +good mother. + +Steve managed to say, "No," and then the children told him all the +astonishing things about railroads. To his mingled joy and terror +another came along from the opposite direction when they had driven on +about a mile further, and this time it came more slowly, making a +full stop near them. + +"Whut air they a-doin' that for?" asked Steve, and when it was +explained that they had stopped for fuel or water, there being no +station near, a quivering light broke over his face, and remembering +his watch as his mind tried to grasp new sources of motion, he said: + +"They're jes' a-stoppin' to wind hit up, then." + +Very soon after this they came to a cabin by the roadside and all the +family within poured out to see the strangers. + +"Won't you light and hitch?" drawled the man of the house, but the boy +driver refused, saying they wanted "to git to their kin afore night." +He suggested to Steve, however, that if he wanted to go to the city he +had better stop there, for they were going further from any station +than he would be there. The folks of the cabin were hearty in their +invitation to the boy when they had heard his story, even the fact of +his probable helplessness for a while not marring the beauty of their +royal hospitality. So Steve was carefully lifted out and helped in +among new friends. + +The little cabin was full to overflowing with boys and girls, one girl +of fifteen fondling her baby as she would a big doll, in ignorant, +unlawful, and one perhaps should say innocent motherhood. She, a waif +herself, had come along needing shelter and they had taken her in. + +When Steve had had his supper pallets were spread everywhere about the +cabin floor upon which the family went to rest fully clothed, after +the fashion of mountaineers, and to the boy the night was a great +contrast from the previous one in the loneliness of the woods. He +thought of his own home as he had never done since he left it, +wondering if his father and Mirandy would like to see him, but he +never dreamed of how they had searched the woods for miles around when +he was missed the second day after leaving. His failure to return the +first day and night they thought little of, for he frequently did not +come back after morning, but the second day's absence had brought real +alarm, and when they found his blanket Mirandy said she knew something +had killed and eat him up; she had forgotten about the fox skin which +in that case should also have been there. But Jim Langly set his teeth +grimly and said the boy had gone off "along o' that watch," and he did +not cease to make inquiry as he had opportunity, trying to trace his +son, while he angrily threatened to kill that city man if ever he +"showed up agin in them parts." + + + + +IV + +A HALT ON THE ROAD + + +Steve spent a week in the crowded but hospitable cabin of his latest +friends resting the swollen foot. It was not seriously sprained and +would have given him no trouble but for the long tramp upon it the +night before and his general fatigue. + +He had an interesting time with this family on the roadside. They were +of the most shiftless type of mountain folk. Life was a long holiday +to them, every meal a picnic. There were too many to gather about the +table in the little log lean-to, so the elders only sat down at meal +times. The children came up shuffling, pushing and squirming good +naturedly to get their portions and ran away again full-handed to sit +on the door-step or flat upon the ground outside while they ate. +Sometimes one ambitious consumer would succeed in disposing of his +viands more rapidly than the others and then woe to some small +delinquent! His food would be snatched away and a lively fisticuff +probably follow during which the inevitable "yaller dog" was usually +the gainer. The disturbance at times reached a height which brought +the mother lazily to the door with a mild: + +"Now ef ye alls don't quit fussin', I'll set the boogers arter ye +ter-night," which was a dire and telling threat, for, to the mountain +children, "boogers" meant ghosts, witches, hobgoblins, thieves, or any +other terrible, mysterious creature of the night. + +Steve went up to the table with the rest for his portion of food, and +took his chances with the other children if a squabble began. +Association with the children was most enjoyable to Steve. They told +marvellous tales about giants and mountain feuds and the mother's +threat of "boogers" was sure to stir up all their recollections about +ghosts. Wherever there was a "killin'" as the result of a mountain +feud ghosts were sure to congregate and marvellous were the tales +which clustered about each bloody spot. Steve being a new listener +must hear all these old tragic stories. + +When meals were over, the family disposed themselves to their liking. +The head of the house invariably lit his pipe and sat in the chimney +corner to smoke, a custom quite familiar to Steve. The mother washed +the skillet and few utensils used about the meal, smoking her pipe the +while. The young girl sat down outside in the sun to play with her +baby, the big boys perhaps went off hunting and the children wandered +aimlessly in and out. + +The fields of corn and tobacco had been planted and now there was +little to do but watch it grow, so they thought. The hogs practically +took care of themselves. What more could any one demand, a blank look +would unconsciously have inquired, if asked why they did not work. + +When the day was over and the troop of children began to grow sleepy, +one after another dropped down upon the cabin floor, perhaps upon a +pallet, perhaps not, and fell asleep. The older ones followed in the +same way, as inclination suggested, and room was cheerfully made for +Steve among the rest. For a night or two the full chorus of audible +breathing wakened him frequently, but he soon became accustomed to +it. + +In the morning the voice of some child was apt to be heard first: + +"Mammy, I'm hongry." + +And the reply would come, "Now you shet up, 'tain't time ter be +gittin' up yit," or perhaps the satisfied parent would yawn and say: + +"Wal, I reckons I might as well git up and stop ye mouth," and so the +household would gradually emerge from slumber. + +This was the normal daily life, but comedy and tragedy came to them +as to the rest of the world, and Steve had a taste of both during his +stay of a week. + +Unlike Hollow Hut it was a somewhat thickly settled community and one +moonlight night some young folks from neighbouring cabins came in. +Steve's friends made the visitors welcome and hailed with delight the +banjo which one of them had brought. The young folks were out for a +frolic and laugh and joke were ready. + +Pretty soon the banjo began to tune up and set everybody's feet to +patting. + +"Clear out things," called one of the boys, and in no time the few +articles the room held were out of the way. Then the air vibrated with +"Hook and Line," "Sourwood Mountain," and other lively tunes, while +everybody danced except Steve, who crept to the farthest corner and in +wonder looked and listened. He had never seen dancing or heard music +before. + +The girl with the baby came and dropped it down upon his lap while she +joined in the fun, and it almost seemed that the cabin itself would +break from its moorings in the abandon of rollicking, swaying motion. + +When everybody was tired out the banjo player, a young fellow with +deep-set black eyes and the unmistakable look of an artist in embryo, +swung into a monologue accompanied by the banjo, part talk, part +song, describing a fox hunt which was most fascinating and altogether +remarkable. + +He called the hounds with "Here Tige," "Here Jack," "Here Spot," "Here +Bob-tail," interspersed with the tooting of a horn, long musical +whistles and the banjo striking soft staccato chords. He mustered the +men, he raced the horses with excited calls of "Git up thar," and gave +clever imitation of fleeing hoofs, "to-bucket, to-bucket, to-bucket," +in a rapid, low, chanting song. Then the leading hound opened with a +plaintive bay "how!-oo-oo-oo, how!-oo-oo-oo," and one by one the +others joined in with varying notes till it swelled to a weird chorus +of baying hounds which the banjo and the musician's voice made most +realistic. Next the fox was spied and there were cries of "Hello! Ho! +Here he is!" "There he runs," with the banjo thumping like mad! Then +the medley shaded down into a wild, monotonous drumming from the +strings and the voice, which represented most thrillingly the chase at +full height. At last the fox was caught with dogs barking, men +calling, and banjo shrilling a triumphant strain in stirring climax. + +Steve followed it all in breathless excitement, and the rest of the +audience received it with boisterous enthusiasm. + +After this somebody started the lovely old ballad, "Barbary Allen," in +which all joined; then, "I have a True Love in the Army," and "The +Swapping Song" followed, while "Whistle up your Dogs, Boys, and +Shoulder your Guns," made lively the leave-taking and echoed back from +far down the road. + +Then there was a night of tragedy during Steve's visit. The sleepers +of the cabin were suddenly aroused by blood-curdling whoops and yells, +gunshots, racing horses and running men. Everybody was instantly alert +and the family turned out of the cabin en masse. It was thrilling. All +knew well what it meant. The head of the house and older boys joined +the fleeing crowd like dogs in a chase. + +"That's Bud Levit's folks and the Cuneys done broke out agin 'bout +that ole fuss, I bet," drawled the wife and mother, when the tumult +had died down to faint echoes. + +"I reckon thar'll be a big killin' this time," said one of the +children with zest. + +"Thar shore was a passle er folks and a pile er shootin'," said +another enthusiastically. + +"Now, you-alls git back to bed an' shet up," said the mother, and her +brood gradually quieted down. + +Next day when the man of the house and older boys returned about dark, +full of whiskey and full of talk, a most exciting tale was unfolded +to the eager listeners. + +"Hit was the biggest killin' whut's been in these parts fur many er +day," said the man with pride. "I'll tell ye when they did git +together they fit lack beastes. When ev'ythin' was over thar was five +on 'em a-layin' in their blood. Three of the Levits an' two of the +Cuneys." + +"Wal, I hope they'll keep quiet fer a spell now," commented the +woman. + +Then all the ghastly details were gone over with the children +listening eagerly, drinking it in as they would a story of an exciting +hunt. When the children discussed it afterwards one little fellow said +to another: "I tell yer what, I'm er goin' ter be a fighter jes' lack +them Levits. I'll shoot 'em down ef anybody comes foolin' round me." + +Steve listened soberly. The experience was not a new one to him, but +he remembered that his "Mammy" had always said she didn't like +killings and that mountain folks ought to "larn better some way." The +words came back to the boy with peculiar meaning since the voice which +uttered them was still. He said nothing, but it all made him more +anxious to move on towards that other world of which he and "Mammy" +had dreamed. + +The following morning his foot seeming fully restored and clearing +weather having come after several days of rain, Steve said "he thought +he'd move on." + +"Whar ye goin'?" said the man of the house who had paid little +attention to him before. + +"I'm er goin' to the railroad fust, an' then from thar to the city to +give the fox skin to the man, an' to larn things." + +"Larn things," said the man scornfully, not being in the best of +humour after the previous day's dissipation. "Huh! I s'pose ye'll be +goin' to some er them city schools. Ye better go on back whar you come +from. Schoolin' ain't no good ter anybody. Hit's them schools whut +larns folks to go 'round pesterin' other folks, breakin' up 'stills.' +Folks has got jest as good er right ter make whiskey es anything +else," which showed in what he was especially interested. + +Steve made no answer for the man was too forbidding in his irritability, +but the boy kept to his determination to press on at once towards the +railroad. After breakfast was over he went back to see the woman of +the house, and in lazy kindness she said she wished she had a little +bread and meat to give him but "there wan't none left," which Steve +was quite prepared to hear, for there were many mouths to feed and +never any left. + +"I hope ye'll git thar all right. I reckons ye'll git somethin' to eat +on the road, and ef ye're ever to come this-a-way agin come an' see +us," she drawled as she smoked. + +"Ye been mighty good ter me," said Steve, "an' I ain't nuver goin' ter +forgit it." + +He passed the children about the door-step, his fox skin under his +arm, and they stood and watched him leave with a sort of sorrowful +solemnity. Goodbyes are a thing unknown to mountain folk. + +Then he walked off without much thought as to direction, having a +definite impression, however, as to the way he should go, which was +part instinct and partly remembrance of what the boy on the moving +wagon had told him. The people he had left were too inert to think of +giving him any instructions. But down the road he passed the big boys +of the house sitting idly by the roadside. They had heard with +satisfaction their father's opinion as to Steve's going in search of +"larnin'." As Steve came in sight one of them nudged the other and +said, "Less throw him off the scent." + +"Which-a-way ye goin', Bub?" he asked when Steve came up. + +Then for the first time Steve stopped and thought. + +"Why, that-a-way," he replied pointing. + +The big boys laughed boisterously. "Ye'll nuver git to no railroad +goin' that-a-way. Thar's the way ye want ter go," said one, pointing +off at a slightly different angle, which made the greatest difference +in the boy's ultimate destination. + +Steve looked doubtfully, but when he reflected a moment he remembered +that he really did not know positively in what direction to go. + +"Is that so?" he inquired looking earnestly at the boys. + +"Hit shore is," returned both of them. + +"How fur is it?" asked Steve. + +"Oh, 'tain't fur," said one of the boys; "ye ought ter git thar before +night easy. You go straight as a crow flies that-a-way," pointing as +he had before, "and ye'll come to the railroad tracks. Ye can't miss +hit fer ye're bound to cross 'em, an' ef ye go straight, lack I tell +ye, ye'll be right at the station." + +The boy on the moving wagon had described the railroad tracks to him, +so Steve started off feeling reassured, and it never occurred to him +that any one could be mean enough to misdirect him. It was a pity the +echoes from the boisterous laughter of the boys when he was out of +hearing could not have reached the little traveller's ears, but they +did not, and Steve pressed on with good spirits feeling that he was +almost in sight of his goal with less than a day's journey before +him. + +He turned at once from the road and went on and on, knowing as well as +the crow how to keep straight with the compass, although like the +crow he had never heard of one. The straight path took him quickly +into the wilderness, but that did not dismay him as wilderness travel +had become most familiar to him. At noon he began to feel so empty, he +longed for just a little piece of corn bread. And then remembering +that the mother thought he'd get something to eat on the road he began +looking cheerfully for the smoke of a cabin somewhere. He had been +vaguely disappointed at striking no road anywhere, but he had not +asked the boys any particulars as to the route. Everything so far in +his journeying had been unexpected, and the possibilities of routes +were so totally unknown to him that he had started on again, as when +he left home, unquestioning. + +The empty stomach continued to cry loudly for food as the afternoon +wore on, and no cabin smoke gave token of life anywhere. He did not +suffer from thirst for mountain streams and springs were abundant. He +pressed bravely forward, cheering himself with the thought that the +boys had said he would come to the tracks before dark. But twilight +began creeping in among the forest trees and still no tracks were in +sight. Anxiously he listened for the terrible yet thrilling rush of a +train which he remembered so well. He ought to be in hearing distance +of them by now. But nothing broke the forest stillness save the +twitter and song of birds, the scurrying of rabbits or frisking of +squirrels with occasionally the sound of some larger animal in the +underbrush. + +Finally night fell with the poor boy straining his anxious eyes for +the shining tracks of which he had heard. He forced his aching limbs +along till suddenly, with a quivering sob, his strength seemed all to +go and he sank upon the ground in a pitiful heap. He was too exhausted +to think and in a few moments was sound asleep. + +He lay upon the summit of a rugged mountain, which dropped precipitately +down just beyond the sleeping boy, to ripple off again in lesser +lofty heights, with beautiful fertile valleys and tossing streams +between. A little, lonely, helpless human soul he lay upon Nature's +majestic bosom, with the Infinite hand beneath his head. + +In the morning when he waked billows of mist in silver splendour were +rolling slowly from the valleys below, like Nature's incense rising in +her sacred morning hour. + +Although born in the mountains the mystic grandeur of the scene filled +Steve with awe. Rising, he gazed, a part of the worshipful silence, +and then as the sun burst suddenly into golden glory above the waves +of mist, his mind as suddenly seemed to shoot up from the mists of +fatigue and sleep. It was the peculiarly clear brain which sometimes +comes with long abstinence from food. Instantly he knew that he had +been fooled! + +Turning to look back over the way he had come he said to himself: +"Them boys told me wrong, an' they did hit a purpose. They're lack +their pappy, they don't want to larn nothin' an' they don't want +nobody else ter nuther." + + + + +V + +A DOUBLE RESCUE + + +The boy stood quietly on the mountain top and took his bearings. He +knew the way he had come, and remembering his previous impressions, +and what his friend on the moving wagon had said, he turned at last +and started down at an acute angle from the direction he had come. He +gathered again as he went whatever he knew to be good to eat in the +way of berries and herbs, but he soon began to feel so weary that he +could hardly drag himself along. Had he gotten out of the wilderness +only to plunge into it again and be lost? For as the day went on and +he met no one, saw no cabin or the long-looked-for railroad tracks, +discouragement and anxiety beset him. Noon passed again. Sometimes he +thought he must stop and rest, but he was afraid if he did he could +never get up again. His fatigue and hunger were far greater than in +his previous experience in the wilderness, for he had never eaten +heartily at the roadside cabin, knowing that food was not abundant +there. So he was not in the best of trim for a long fast and great +physical strain. + +The remnants of his courage were wearing away when at last he seemed +to be emerging into a more open country. He was still in the woods, +but there was a subtle difference. He felt somehow that man was in +proximity somewhere, though he had as yet seen no sign. His pulses +quickened a little, and then suddenly a child's scream rang out. + +Steve bounded forward at first with joy, and then as scream after +scream followed, with the unmistakable agony of fear in the cry, +forgetting his deadly weariness he ran swiftly in the direction of the +sound, dropping the fox skin as he ran. In a breathless moment he came +in sight of a good sized tree, and hanging from a high limb by the +skirt of her dress was a little girl, head downward. + +Steve saw in an instant that she could not help herself, and that she +might fall to her death any moment. He did not pause or hesitate. Up +the tree he went, his bare feet clinging to the sides, up and up in a +twinkling, then he carefully crept out upon the limb and drew the +little girl safely up beside him. + +"Oh," she said when she had recovered her equilibrium and gotten her +breath, "I thank you so much," and even then Steve was conscious that +he had never seen anything so pretty in all his life as the blue eyes +which looked up into his, and the soft yellow curls which framed her +little face. But he hurried to get her down safely. With infinite care +he helped her until she could go on down the tree alone, and then, he +did not know what happened, but things suddenly seemed to whirl round +and he fell to the ground in an unconscious heap. + +The next he knew some one was wiping his face with a damp cloth and +chafing his hands. He was too tired to open his eyes and see who it +was. Then a woman's voice was saying in a worried but gentle tone: + +"What were you doing in the tree, Nancy? You know I don't like for you +to climb trees." + +"Why, mother," replied a frightened little voice, "I found a poor +little birdie out of its nest, and I pinned it up tight in my apron +pocket and carried it up the tree and put it into the nest. The father +and mother bird were so worried about it. I didn't know I was going to +fall, and make this boy fall too, and hurt himself so bad," and the +small voice broke pitifully. + +"You never should have tried to do such a thing," said her mother +firmly, and then as the little voice went into sobs, Steve opened his +eyes in a brave effort to try to assure them he was all right. + +"Oh, I'm so glad you are better," exclaimed the woman who knelt beside +him. + +She looked so kind and nice that Steve struggled to get up and further +reassure her, but there seemed weights holding him down and a sharp +pain thrust through and through his left arm. + +"I am afraid you have broken your arm," said the woman anxiously. +"Nancy, you run right over to the store and get your father," she said +to the little girl. And Steve watched a white pinafore and flying +yellow curls through a half-conscious dream mist, with a satisfied +sense that he was at last in the new world of his visions. + +And he was, for he had stumbled blindly through a bit of wood at the +back of Mr. Follet's, the station-master's home, and just in time to +rescue his little girl. + +Mrs. Follet had heard the child's screams, for the tree was in the +edge of the wood only a little way from the house, and she reached the +place just after Steve had fallen to the ground, having seen the +child's perilous position and Steve's rescue. She had dampened her +handkerchief in a near-by spring and worked over the boy until +consciousness returned. + +The little white pinafore was soon running back with Mr. Follet +walking rapidly. + +"What under the cano_pee_ does all this mean?" he asked excitedly as +he came up, although Nancy had told him about the accident. "Are you +hurt much, boy?" he went on. + +Steve heard what was said in a vague way, but he couldn't reply and +Mrs. Follet explained that she didn't think the boy was fully +conscious yet, and they would have to try to get him to the house. + +So Mr. Follet, who was a small but very wiry man, soon had him up in +his arms, while Mrs. Follet supported his head and together they +carried him to the house and laid him down on a couch. Then Mrs. +Follet quickly fixed him a hot drink and gave it slowly to him. With +each swallow the sturdy boy felt stronger, and by the time he had +taken a cup full, was able to talk freely. + +"Where under the cano_pee_ did you come from anyway? You don't live +hereabouts, do you?" asked Mr. Follet, who was of the restless, +nervous temperament which must know things at once. + +"Now, Pa," said Mrs. Follet, "you must get the doctor to set his arm +before you ask him anything," and Mr. Follet started off. + +Steve looked curiously at the arm hanging limply by his side. He had +never seen a broken arm before though he had heard that arms and legs +could break and be mended like hoe or ax handles. + +By questioning, Mrs. Follet found that he had had nothing to eat +since the day before, so she prepared him a dainty meal which filled +the mountain boy with wonder. There was a poached egg, a bit of toast +and a cup of hot milk, none of which had he ever tasted or seen +prepared before. But it all was very, very good, and as he ate Nancy +slipped shyly into the room. She had stayed outside in frightened +misery, feeling that all the trouble was her fault. Her mother said +kindly: + +"That's right, child, come on in; our boy is better now." The little +girl sat down timidly on the edge of a chair, and Steve took in the +complete vision. + +Soft yellow locks strayed out from a ribbon and tumbled about before a +pair of deep blue eyes. Round cheeks were pink and soft, sweet lips +were red and shyly smiling, a white apron with ruffles almost covered +a blue gingham dress. The boy held his breath at the beauty of the +apparition. He had never dreamed of anything so sweet and pretty in +all the world. + +It was not long before Mr. Follet returned with the doctor and the +broken arm was successfully set, Steve bearing the pain "like a +trump," as Mr. Follet put it. Then Mrs. Follet said he must go to bed +at once, and he went up a tiny flight of stairs to a bed in a little +attic chamber which she had made ready. Knowing the ways of mountain +folk, Mrs. Follet did not insist that he undress, as the task would +be difficult for him with the broken arm. He slept soundly in spite of +pain in the arm upon a remarkable bed "off the floor" and awoke +feeling well, and eager to see again his new friends. + +When he got down the stairs, Mrs. Follet was busy getting the +breakfast, and Mr. Follet was ready with questions. + +"Where under the cano_pee_ (which was a favourite expression with Mr. +Follet) did you drap from yesterday, just in time to save our Nancy? +You don't live hereabouts, do you?" + +"No," said Steve, "I come from Hollow Hut." + +"And where's that?" returned Mr. Follet. + +Steve couldn't tell very clearly, but gave an account of his long +journey and told about the watch and the fox skin which he was going +to take to the man in the city. + +Mr. and Mrs. Follet were much interested in his story, so much so that +they forgot the waiting breakfast. Then they turned to it, but Steve +had remembered that he dropped his fox skin as he ran to Nancy's +rescue and he wanted to go at once for it, but Mrs. Follet would not +let him go till he had eaten breakfast. The neatly laid table with its +snowy cloth was a new wonder to Steve, and when the little girl, +looking fresh and sweet as a rose, sat down opposite him, he was so +awed and thrilled he could scarcely eat. Angels could hardly have +given him a more heavenly vision than did this little girl. + +Breakfast over, Steve started at once for the fox skin, and Mrs. +Follet sent Nancy with him to help find it. The little girl lost some +of her shyness as they looked for the skin, and Steve listened to her +chatter, feeling in a strange way that it was all a dream which he had +had before, as we do sometimes in experiences which move us strongly. + +They found the skin with little trouble, and when they had carried it +back to the house, Mr. Follet took it up and carefully examined it. + +"So you're trying to get this here skin to the man in the city who +sent the watch to you?" + +"Yes," said Steve. + +"And you ain't got hair or hide o' the watch now?" continued Mr. +Follet. + +"No, I hain't," said the boy sorrowfully. + +"Well, I'll be sniggered," said Mr. Follet. "And how under the +cano_pee_ do you expect to find him in the city when you git thar?" + +The boy's uncomprehending stare showed that he had no conception of a +city, and Mr. Follet looked at his wife, laughed and went over to the +station, which was station and store combined. + +For a few days Steve continued to live in a dream. The house was a +marvel to him. Mrs. Follet cooked on a stove and constantly fixed +strange, nice things to eat; a clock ticked on the mantel, which +comforted him somewhat for the loss of his watch,--there were queer +but to him surprisingly beautiful and comfortable pieces of furniture, +and one room had a nice piece of good stout cloth with red and green +flowers on it spread over the floor on which people walked! + +Then marvel of marvels, every now and then that engine and great train +of cars came puffing and hissing by the house in full view, and the +boy's spirits mounted on wings as he thought of the wonders of the +world. + +Even with one arm disabled, he took hold at once to help with the work +about the place. He fed the chickens, horse and cow. With only one +hand he could not learn to milk, though he was eager to do so. He went +over to the store on errands and made himself useful in many ways. + +One day when at the store he said to Mr. Follet that as soon as his +arm was well he would have to be going on to the city to take the fox +skin. + +"And how under the cano_pee_ do you expect to be ridin' round on the +railroad without money?" said Mr. Follet. He knew well the boy had +none. "You ain't a Rockefeller or a Jay Gould, air you?" + +These allusions of course meant nothing to the boy, and the question +of money was a new one to him. None of his late friends in their +simplicity had thought of it, and the man had to make clear the need +of it in the business world which Steve had come into. With his people +things had always been "swapped"; corn, tobacco and whiskey, for the +few things they needed from a store, and he had seen very few pieces +of money in his life. + +"Now, how under the cano_pee_ are you going to come up with the +money?" asked Mr. Follet briskly, and with practical pertinence. + +Steve certainly did not know and then Mr. Follet proposed that he stay +with them through the summer, work for him and he would give him his +board and clothes and pay him fifty cents a week. + +Steve agreed readily and at once felt a new sense of responsibility +and manliness. + +When his arm was quite well Mrs. Follet gave him some long white +garments which she called "nightshirts," and told him to undress at +night and wear them for sleeping! It was a very needless performance, +he felt in his secret heart, but he had already learned to love the +gentle woman and he would have done even more foolish things to please +her. In fact, the thing which she gave him for brushing his hair +seemed at first to bring him to the limit of acquiescence, but the bit +of broken looking-glass stuck in one of the timbers of his room soon +told him that a little smoothing down of his tousled head made an +immense difference in his looks, and somehow made him seem a little +more worthy to be in Nancy's presence. + +The little girl had lessons at night from her mother in wonderful +books, and Steve listened with rapt attention each time, beginning +very soon to catch their meaning. It was not long till he had confided +to Nancy how his "mammy" had wanted him to "larn things" too, and that +was another reason why he was trying to get to the city. + +"You're going to school then," said the little girl. "My mama teaches +me, and some day she is going to send me to a big, big college." + +Mrs. Follet had been a school-teacher from the north in one of the +small Kentucky towns, an orphan girl, who very young had been obliged +to make her own way in the world. She had met Mr. Follet, and in one +of those strange attractions between complete opposites in temperament +and training, had married him. She was a quiet, refined and very +kind-hearted woman. She would gladly have taught the boy, but finding +that he did not know even his letters, she felt that with Nancy in the +second reader, she could not take another pupil who was a beginner. + +But when the lessons were going on in the evening Steve soon began to +spell over the words to himself as Nancy spelled them, and then it +came about that often at odd times the brown shock of hair and the +little yellow curls bent together over bits of paper, as the little +girl pointed out and explained the make-up of the letters to the big +boy. + +"Don't you see, Steve, this little chicken coop with a piece across it +is big A, and this one with the piece standing up and two curly things +at the side is big B." The peculiarities of similar letters were +discussed, how the bottom curly thing in big R turned the other way, +while P didn't have any bottom curly thing at all, and F didn't have +any bottom cross piece, while E did. + +"See here," said Steve, growing alert, "here's a powerful nice gate; +whut's that?" + +"Oh, that's big H," said Nancy, "and wriggly, twisty S is just the +prettiest letter of all, I think. Oh, Steve, that is the letter which +begins your name," said she, in generous, childish joy. + +"Is that so?" exclaimed Steve, with eager pleasure because she was +pleased. "And which is the one whut begins yourn?" + +"Oh, mine is just two straight standing up pieces with a slanting +piece between. It's one kind of a gate but not just like H," and she +hunted out an N to show him. + +"_I_ think that's the prettiest letter of all," said Steve, with +unconscious gallantry. "Whar's the other letters in yo' name?" he +inquired, and Nancy hunted them all out. Then she found the other +letters in his name, and Steve had an undefined disappointment that +his name did not have a single letter in it which belonged to her +name. It seemed to shut him out more completely from the things which +belonged to her. + +So the lessons went on from the little girl to the big boy, and Mrs. +Follet was amazed one day to find that Steve could read quite well. He +studied every book and paper within reach as he found time, though he +never neglected his duties. + +Corn was constantly brought Mr. Follet in exchange for goods at the +store, and one of Steve's duties was to take the old horse with two +big bags of corn over to the Greely mill to be ground into meal. Nancy +was mounted upon the old horse in front of the bags to show Steve the +way on his first trip, and afterwards she always begged to go. To +Steve it was the greatest joy to take the little girl with him, though +he wouldn't have dared ask it. He taught her to put her small foot in +his hand while he sturdily lifted her to the old white mare's back, +and on the return she stepped down into his palm with equal ease. + +The way to the mill lay along the road for a time, and then a short +cut was made across what was known as the Greely Ridge. It was a steep +cliff of rugged woodland, and both Nancy and Steve enjoyed the trip +through the woods, Steve walking close beside the horse and the two +chatting all the way. He told the little girl such interesting things +about birds and squirrels, rabbits and foxes. + +"Don't you wish we were birds," said Nancy one day, "so we could fly +way off and see lots of things?" + +"Yes," said Steve, "I shore do; then I could find Mr. Polk and give +him his fox skin." The thought of getting to Mr. Polk was always in +his mind, and though the little girl knew all about it she wanted to +hear again how Steve got the skin and about that wonderful day in the +woods when he met Mr. Polk, and the beautiful watch that the robbers +took. + +"When you find Mr. Polk and learn to make watches and things, like +your mother wanted you to, you will make one just like yours for me, +won't you, Steve?" + +"Yes, I shore will," said Steve earnestly, never doubting that he +would keep his promise. + +There was nothing Steve would not attempt for her pleasure. He went to +the tops of trees after some vacant bird nest or hanging flower, he +chased rabbits and hunted squirrels that she might get a glimpse of +them. + +[Illustration: The Old Greely Mill] + +"Some day, Steve," said Nancy innocently, "let's build us a house and +live here always; we do have such good times when we come to this +wood." + +Steve replied again, "Yes, I shore will," and neither dreamed what the +wood was hiding for them to be revealed, far out in the veiled +future. + +When they reached the mill, Mr. and Mrs. Greely were always so glad to +see them. They had no children of their own and they liked the +straightforward, dependable boy, while the little girl with her sweet, +shy ways, was always a delight. Mrs. Greely would often stop her +spinning to get a little treat for them, which they would eat while +the corn was being ground, and going to mill came to make four people +happy each trip. + + + + +VI + +AN UNEXPECTED MEETING + + +Mr. Follet was a man of unique business methods. He had no idea of +orderliness, though he insisted he knew where everything was, and +strenuously declined his wife's offers to go over to the store, or +stores rather, and help him "straighten up." The stock had overflowed +the floor of the original building and instead of putting in shelves +to dispose of the stock conveniently, he built another and still +another shanty to hold the overflow. But in spite of queer methods he +was making money steadily. He kept each building securely locked, for +he said he wouldn't have idle folks sitting around in his store. He +went over to the station according to the railroad time schedule, +though it was only a flag station and was seldom flagged, and whenever +he saw a customer at the store door or on the way, he bustled over to +unlock the door, stumble around in the dark, for there were no +windows, and hunt out what they wanted. + +Bacon, molasses, dress-goods, coffins and farm implements were on +close terms of intimacy and whatever was wanted Mr. Follet could +produce with amazing promptness. + +Such methods, however, consumed a great deal of time on the path +between his home and the store, and Steve filled an urgent need of the +combined establishment. + +One morning at breakfast in early autumn Mr. Follet was in a great +flutter of excitement. A travelling auditor of the railroad was to be +there for the day looking over his accounts and this not frequent +event was a sore trial to both the station-master and the auditor. +Each time Mr. Follet said to him nervously: "Now, you know I can't +keep things like the road tells me to, and if things don't just come +out even I'll make up whatever's lacking." + +When the auditor, a big, broad-shouldered, kindly-faced gentleman +arrived on this particular morning, and was seated for work, Mr. +Follet made his usual statement. + +"All right, Mr. Follet, all right," said the genial auditor, "we know +you are straight as a string. Are you sure you've got all the ticket +stubs?" he continued as Mr. Follet brought out some bits of pasteboard +from a big bushel basket. + +"Oh, yes, I'm sure," said Mr. Follet. "I don't let nobody in here but +myself and so nothing is out of place." Then thinking a minute, he +said, "Well now I do believe I stuck a few stubs in this tin pail." +He looked, and sure enough there were a few more. + +"And the bills of lading," said the auditor, "are these all?" + +Mr. Follet pondered a moment and then brightening, exclaimed: "Why no, +I stuck a few of them in one of these here coffins one day for safe +keeping," and he stepped over to a grim pine coffin keeping company +with a pile of gay bandanas, and brought forth another bunch of bills. +But his foot caught in a coil of barbed wire as he started over to the +auditor with them and it was at that moment that Steve came to the +station door to get something and Mr. Follet called out, "Here, Steve, +hand these over to the gentleman." The boy started to obey, but when +he turned and faced the auditor he stood rooted to the floor, his face +white and eyes staring. + +"What ails you?" said Mr. Follet sharply, noticing him. The auditor +looked quickly up also, and the boy found his voice. + +"Samuel Polk," he said slowly. + +The auditor smiled, and replied pleasantly, "That's my name, son, and +where did you ever know me?" + +"Ye sent me the watch," said the boy. + +"Is that so!" exclaimed Mr. Polk. "So you are the boy I met in the +woods! Well, this is marvellous, sure, that we should meet here. How +did you ever get so far away from Hollow Hut?" he went on smiling. + +The boy told him briefly, while Mr. Follet listened with lively +interest. When the pitiful tale of the loss of the watch was told, +Steve added sturdily: + +"But I got yer fox skin in spite of 'em, an' I've been a-workin' to +git to the city to give it ter ye." + +"Working to take the skin to me when you have no watch," said the +auditor, gently. + +"Course," said the boy; "hit was yourn jes' the same," and the auditor +reached out and drew the boy to him tenderly, thinking of all the +hardship he had borne in the effort to be square and honest. + +"You are the boy for me," he said with a glimmer in his eyes that made +Steve feel queer, and he broke away, saying, "I'll go and brung ye the +skin." + +He was back as quickly as his sturdy legs could bring him, and laid +the fox skin on Mr. Polk's knee. It was gravely accepted and admired, +and then Steve returned to his work with all the earnestness he could +summon after the excitement of this unexpected meeting. + +When Mr. Follet and Mr. Polk came over to dinner the acquaintance of +the two who had met that November day in the mountains was continued +and Mr. Polk was greatly pleased to find that the boy was already +"larnin'," and astonished at the progress which had been made during +the summer. On the way back to the store he said to Mr. Follet: + +"I've taken a great fancy to that boy; he ought to have a good +education. I am all alone in the world and no good to anybody. If it's +all square with you, I'll take that boy to the city with me this +afternoon when I leave at four-thirty and put him in school +somewhere." + +Mr. Follet was amazed and he hated to give up the boy who had become +so useful, but after a moment's thought, he said: + +"I don't see as I have anything to say about it. He just stopped here +on his way to you, and you've come to him. You'll have to take him if +you want him, though I don't see how under the canopee we'll get along +without him now." + +"That is just like you, Follet, straight always," said the other +warmly, and after a little the station-master went back to take the +news to Steve. It startled them all and Mrs. Follet expressed her +great regret in seeing the boy go, but she put his few little +belongings in good order and prepared him to start off "clean and +whole," as she expressed it. Nancy looked on wide-eyed, and Steve got +ready like one in a dream. He wrapped his small bundle of clothes in +the fox skin, which Mr. Polk had asked him to take care of, and went +over to the station. + +At four-thirty the train rushed up. Mr. Polk led Steve into a +beautiful plush-seated car and placed the boy where he could have a +last look at his friends, for Mr. and Mrs. Follet and Nancy stood on +the platform. + +It was Nancy who held his eyes till the last moment, little Nancy with +two big tears dropping down her cheeks. Steve's throat ached +unaccountably. + + + + +VII + +A TRIP TO THE CITY + + +"Here we are," said Mr. Polk, as the train thundered into the +station at Louisville. The ride of four hours had been a continued +kaleidoscopic delight. Steve could not understand how it was that +trees and houses went racing by the car windows and Mr. Polk had +rare enjoyment in the boy's unsophisticated inquiry and comment. + +Bringing this boy into the city was like giving sudden sight to a +child who had lived its life in blindness. With keenest pleasure, +Mr. Polk took him into a brilliantly lighted restaurant for supper +and then afterwards up town by trolley into a large furnishing +establishment, for it was Saturday night and the stores were open. +There he fitted the little fellow out from top to toe according to +his liking, the outfit including a shining German silver watch! The +two attracted attention everywhere, the boy's face a study in its +swiftly changing expression and the man full of eager interest which +he could not curb. + +When Steve was all dressed and stood before a mirror, Mr. Polk +exclaimed: + +"Now, that is something like!" And the boy turning from the +transformed vision of himself, lifted a quivering face to his +benefactor. + +There was a delicately sensitive side to the nature of this boy of the +woods. To him this experience was not simply getting new, fine +clothes, but his old familiar self seemed to go with the old clothes, +and like the chrysalis emerging into the butterfly, he could not pass +into the new life, which the new type of clothes represented, without +having his joy touched with the pain of travail. + +With the tenderness of a woman Mr. Polk put his arm about the little +fellow in quick contrition, knowing that it had been too much for this +habitant of the quiet woods, and said in a most matter-of-fact way: +"Now, son, for home and bed," and in a few minutes more the boy was +snugly tucked in bed in Mr. Polk's comfortable bachelor quarters, and +the next morning when he woke he was a new boy inwardly as well as +outwardly. + +He was ready for new "thrills" and they came. After a very astonishing +breakfast he went with Mr. Polk to church. The beautiful building and +wonderfully dressed people held his wide-eyed interest, but when the +deep-toned organ poured forth its solemn melody, big tears dropped +down the boy's face and Mr. Polk drew him within a protecting arm. It +was like touching the quivering chords of a little bared soul with +new, strange harmonies, and the sensitive heart of the man understood +intuitively the boy's mingled joy and pain. + +In the afternoon Mr. Polk took his charge to the home of a friend to +see about schools, as his friend had a boy about the same age, and +also to get help as to the general problem of caring for his protege. + +Arrived at the house, the friend, Mr. Colton, his wife and Maud, the +young daughter about fifteen years of age, were at home and gave the +visitors a lively welcome. They were at once greatly interested in the +mountain boy, but so civilized was his outfit, and intelligent his +face that they could not realize his difference from themselves except +when he talked. This they were delighted to get him to do, and he +answered all questions unabashed, though he liked better to look and +listen. + +The Coltons were well-to-do people with ever-ready, easy hospitality +and insisted that Mr. Polk and Steve remain to tea. + +"The maids are both out as it happens, so we must get tea ourselves," +said Mrs. Colton, adding with mock graciousness, "and everybody may +help!" + +They all trooped out in responsive pleasantry through the hall, and +Mr. Colton inquired: + +"Where is Raymond?" + +"Oh, he is out," replied Mrs. Colton. "There is no telling when he +will be in." + +That they were very indulgent parents and Raymond was an exceedingly +lively boy, Mr. Polk already knew. + +The hostess and her daughter exchanged glances of sudden consternation +when they reached the dining-room, then burst into merriest laughter. + +At last Mrs. Colton said between subsiding ripples, "Father, please go +down in the basement and look in the furnace and you'll find the baker +with the cold roast left from dinner! Mr. Polk, you go along too, +please, and you'll see some loose bricks between the joists right +under this dining-room window, and right behind them is the bread-box +which you can bring up!" + +"The cake is up-stairs in the hat-box of my trunk under lock and key," +gaily put in Maud, "and you can come with me, Steve, and bring down +the preserves from under the bed!" + +By this time the whole family were in gales of laughter, and Steve was +greatly puzzled at this new phase of civilization. Mrs. Colton finally +explained that for a few Sundays past Raymond had been carrying off +everything there was to eat in the house, and having "spreads" in the +barn with his chums. This time they determined to outwit him. + +Mr. Polk joined heartily in all the merriment, going after and +bringing in provisions, but in his heart he thought, "This is the +product of too much opportunity--give me my mountain boy every time. +If he doesn't outstrip this pampered son, I miss my guess." + +A little later Raymond came in and dominated the conversation at once, +after the manner of too many bright, confident children of modern city +life. After tea he took Steve in charge on a lively tour of +exploration, and Mr. Polk talked over his plans for his boy. + +"The thing you ought to do," said Mr. Colton who was very clear-headed +concerning everything except his own son, "is to put the boy in a +mountain college. He would be at a disadvantage among boys of his age +in town, and then you've no way to take care of him, travelling as you +do. My wife has a friend near here who is greatly interested in a +mountain college; just go over and see her." + +This seemed good advice and Mr. Colton took Mr. Polk and Steve over at +once. + +The lady came in and greeted them with gracious cordiality, but when +she learned their errand and knew that one of the little mountain +boys, to whose welfare she had given so much thought, time and money, +was before her, her eyes grew tender and filled with tears. + +"He must go to our mountain college at once; the school has just +opened," she said. So they heard all about the school and its +opportunities. When she had finished Steve spoke up: + +"Is all that jes' fer mountain boys lack me?" This seemed beyond +belief, but they assured him it was. + +Raymond had greatly enjoyed demonstrating the mysteries of the +telephone, electric lights and various contrivances of his own to so +totally unenlightened and yet so appreciative an intelligence as +Steve's, while the quaint mountain speech interested and amused him +exceedingly. So when Mr. Polk and the boy took leave of the Coltons +for the night Raymond secured a promise that Steve might attend school +with him next day. Mr. Polk would be busy making arrangements for the +few days' holiday which would be necessary to take Steve back to the +mountains and place him in school. + +Promptly next morning Raymond arrived at Mr. Polk's rooms for Steve +and the boys started off together like two comrades. It was Steve's +first day in a schoolroom, and eye and ear were on the alert, taking +in everything. + +He was well dressed and with his intelligent face the other boys +noted nothing unusual until the noon hour when Raymond introduced his +new specimen with keen relish. He had no unkind intentions in the sly +winks he gave chosen comrades, but these aroused the curiosity of his +fellows, and when Steve began to talk the boys awoke to lively +possibilities. One after another began to ask questions. + +"What did you do for fun down at Hollow Hut?" asked one. + +"We uns didn't do nothin' fer fun, 'cep'in' hunt cotton tails, foxes +an' coons," answered the boy. + +"Didn't you play football?" asked some one else. + +"I nuver hearn tell of it," said Steve. + +"Du tell," returned another boy, venturing to fall a little into the +stranger's vernacular. + +"Didn't you ever play tennis, shinny or baseball?" persisted some one +else, and Steve replied politely "that nobody ever hearn o' them +things in Hollow Hut." + +The boys then began to venture more boldly into imitations of Steve's +speech while some got behind him and doubled up in silent laughter. +Raymond looked on, feeling himself the hero of the day in having +furnished such a comedy. + +Suddenly Steve turned, perhaps with some intuition of what was going +on, and with swift comprehension knew that he was being made fun of. +His face on the instant was electrified with wrath. He drew himself +up, and clenched his hands. Then in a twinkling his coat and cap were +upon the ground. Taking the first boy at hand Steve dealt him a blow +from the shoulder with a lean, sinewy arm that sent him spinning +across the yard, and before any one could realize what was happening +three or four others followed, and the rest, frightened at his fury, +took to their heels with speed. + +Steve stood alone at last quivering from head to foot; then calming +slowly, he took his coat on his arm, put on his cap and walked away, +not knowing whither he was going. But as he grew more quiet he took +his bearings, and his keen sense of direction and good recollection of +things they had passed in going, led him without trouble back to Mr. +Polk's rooms. + +Raymond was not a cad, and when he had time to think was thoroughly +ashamed of himself. He went to the teacher and made confession; then +as both were afraid the boy might get lost or come to some harm, he +went at once on a search. He did not dream that Steve could so +directly find his way back, and Raymond wandered about for hours in a +fruitless search, doing without his dinner. At last, frightened and +contrite, he went to Mr. Polk's office. Here the confession was harder +to make, but it came out in all its humiliating details. Having eased +his conscience he wound up with a burst of enthusiasm: "I tell you, +Mr. Polk, Steve's got the stuff in him. There isn't a fellow in school +but thinks he is fine. We didn't mean a thing by our fun, but he +served us just right, and every fellow wants to take his paw." + +Mr. Polk said little but sending Raymond home and promising to +telephone later, he went directly to his rooms, knowing Steve's keenly +intuitive mind better than Raymond. Though anxious until it was proven +true, Mr. Polk found Steve as he had expected, seated in his rooms +when he got there. But he saw a most dejected little figure. The new +clothes were laid aside, the old mountain things were on, and the +boy's face was drawn and white, though he fronted Mr. Polk sturdily. + +"I don't belong in no town. I ain't got no town ways. I'll jes' go +back to Hollow Hut and stay thar." + +Mr. Polk put his arm about the boy and gently drew him to a seat. For +some moments there was silence. + +"Steve," he said at last, "did the trip over the mountains from Hollow +Hut to Mr. Follet's sometimes seem hard for you?" + +"Hit shore did," said the boy slowly. + +"But you didn't give up the struggle, did you?" + +"No," said Steve, still slowly. + +"Well, the journey of life is like that journey over the mountains: it +is often hard; there are things to overcome and things to endure. You +have started now up the long, hard hill of learning, and I hope you +are not going to turn back at the laughter of a few boys. You thrashed +them out, I understand," he went on, and his voice held a strong hint +of satisfaction; "pass right on now, putting the incident behind you +just as you did each rocky summit you mounted on that difficult +journey. You must climb to the top, son, understand; nothing short of +that will satisfy me!" And he looked earnestly, almost vehemently into +the boy's eyes. + +The penetrating gaze was returned, but with a puzzled, groping inquiry +for his benefactor's full intent. + +"Yer mean I mus' larn as much as you know?" he asked at last. + +"More,--infinitely more," said Mr. Polk with energy. "I have half-way +climbed the mountain of knowledge and success in life,--I have even +stopped less than half-way," he corrected a little bitterly, "but," +rousing himself, "I want to begin life over again in you, and nothing +but the very top of the mountain of success will ever satisfy me!" He +turned again to the boy with a deep, searching gaze. + +"You are a boy of your word," he went on after a moment, "that is what +pleased me most about you, and now at the very outset of this business +of learning and succeeding in life, I want your promise that you will +not halt before obstacles, but go to the top!" + +There was impelling enthusiasm as well as energy in the resonant +tones, and Steve's spirit kindled with answering enthusiasm and a +glimmering vision of heights which he had not hitherto glimpsed. + +"I'll git ter the top, Mr. Polk,--ef I don't die on the way," he said +with solemn earnestness. + +It was a most unexpected, peculiarly intense moment for both, and in +the silence which followed, the imagination of boy and man scaled +lofty peaks, but the mountain of material success which filled Mr. +Polk's vision was not the beautiful, mystic height upon which the boy +gazed, and neither dreamed of the conflict which this fact was to +bring about in future years. + +"God hath set eternity in the heart of man," and the child of the +woods felt the stirring of an eternal purpose, undefined though it +was. The glamour of the world had long since intervened for the man. + +The telephone rang noisily, having no respect for visions, and Mr. +Polk rose to answer it while Steve began at once to put on again the +new clothes in unconscious ratification of his solemn life-promise to +Mr. Polk. + +It was Mrs. Colton at the phone and she learned with great relief that +Steve had been found. She insisted that Mr. Polk and the boy must come +over to supper, after which there would be a little impromptu party of +Raymond's friends for Steve. + +The boy looked very sober when this announcement was made to him, but +Mr. Polk smiled and said heartily, as he had already done to Mrs. +Colton: + +"Of course we will go!" And they went. + +There was just a bit of awkwardness when the boys came into the +Coltons' that evening and met Steve once more, but Mr. Polk, with an +adroit question, started him to telling them about trapping rabbits, +chasing foxes and treeing coons while the boys became so interested, +including Steve himself, that all unpleasantness was forgotten. Upon +leaving, each boy took Steve's hand with real respect and liking, and +Raymond expressed the general sentiment when he exclaimed, "You're a +brick!" + +Next day Mr. Polk and Steve started for the mountain school. As they +sat together on the train Steve said: "I'll be larnin' to do things +jes' like mammy said fer me ter do. I wonder ef she will know." + +"I think so," said Mr. Polk simply, but with a gentle sympathy in his +voice, which, whenever expressed by look or tone, seemed to bring the +boy close to the heart of the man. Resting a moment in this embrace, +Steve asked a question which had come to him several times. His father +and all the mature men he had known had been married,--for bachelors +are rare in the mountains,--why had Mr. Polk no wife? + +"Is ye woman dead, Mr. Polk?" was the question he asked. + +"No," answered Mr. Polk, with a smile that flitted quickly, "she did +not marry me at all, and so has left me lonely all my life. I would +have been a far better man had she done so. As it is," and the +bitterness crept into his voice again, "I stopped half-way up the hill +of success as I told you, and threw my prospects away. That is why you +are to live my life over for me and bring success whether or no." + + + + +VIII + +OPPORTUNITY + + +Mr. Polk and Steve made their railroad trip by night, and the sleeper +with its rows of shelf-like beds was a fresh experience for the boy, +but he climbed to the upper berth and slept the sleep of healthy +youth. They reached L---- about seven o'clock in the morning, and the +sight of mountain and valley spread out before them in purple beauty +gave a strange thrill of joy to Steve. The mountaineer's love of the +mountains rushed upon him after all his new, pleasant experiences with +a first consciously defined emotion. + +"Well," said Mr. Polk, "now the problem is how we can cover that forty +miles which lies between us and our school." But just at that moment +he spied an old man helping a woman into a wagon, and at once he +stepped up, found they were fortunately going to the same point, and +would gladly take in two passengers with the ready accommodation of +mountain people. + +They travelled leisurely on and on, Steve seeing things of a familiar +type and Mr. Polk much that was fresh and interesting. They stopped +over night at a little settlement and journeyed on again next day, +reaching their destination early in the evening. When the group of +school buildings came into view, the old mountaineer pointed out the +main building with its tower, and told them which was the "gals' +sleepin' place," and which "the boys' sleepin' place," as he termed +the two dormitories. He drove directly to the president's home, a +little unpainted frame house. They were cordially received, +entertained at supper and taken afterwards to the boys' dormitory, +where Steve was given a room with several other boys. Then they walked +over to "The Hall," as it was called, and were introduced to the +teachers, who were gathering there for the study hour. They had met +several when a young woman's trim, slender figure, with a decided air +of the city about it, appeared in the doorway, and the light from +within lit up a pair of clear, steady brown eyes, a pleasant mouth +with firmness lurking in the corners, and fluffy brown hair put back +in a roll from a very attractive face. + +She stood a moment there in the doorway with a casual glance for the +strangers, then suddenly caught her breath and went white, but +instantly recovered herself as the president, oblivious of any tragic +moment for her, turned and said: + +"This is Miss Grace Trowbridge; she came down here all the way from +New York City to teach mountain boys and girls,--and she knows how to +do it, too." + +Miss Trowbridge bowed and passed quickly within the hall. + +Mr. Polk acknowledged the introduction with a look on his face that +Steve had never seen before, and the boy felt somehow that his good +friend had become a stranger as they walked back to the boys' +dormitory for the night. Next morning, too, something had come between +them, and when Mr. Polk said he would leave that day instead of +staying several days, as he had intended, Steve could make no reply. + +Before Mr. Polk left, however, in giving final instructions to his +charge, the old kindly manner returned, and as he said, "I hope you +will like it here, son," the boy replied with his old freedom: + +"I knows I'm a-goin' to like it, and that thar Miss Grace Trowbridge +is the nicest one of 'em all. She used ter live in New York City, the +president said, whar you used ter live. Didn't you nuver know her +thar?" he asked innocently, not yet comprehending in the least city +conditions. + +Mr. Polk set his lips grimly and answered sternly: "Yes," as he +mounted a mule to ride back the forty miles to the nearest railroad +station. + +What was the matter again? The boy did not know, and he felt as +though a sudden chill had come upon him. But a moment later Mr. Polk +looked down at him kindly, reached over, pressed his hand, and said: +"Be a good boy," as he rode away on the ambling mule. + +So Steve began his school life. He went into the second reader class, +his opportunities at the Follets' having put him beyond the beginners. +In his class were children of all ages and mature men and women, who +were just getting their first opportunity to learn. Steve was bright +and quick, had a good mind, and made rapid progress. + +With the superior social advantages which he had found along the way +from Hollow Hut to the school, the boy became a great ally of the +teachers in the battle for nightgowns, combs, and brushes for the hair +and teeth, also for white shirts, collars and neckties on Sunday, +which most of the boys thought "plum foolishness anyways." + +"Here, fellows," Steve would say when he found them turning in at +night with soiled feet, coats and trousers, "this ain't the way ter +git ter be president." He organized a company of "regulators" in the +boys' dormitory, and when any fellows turned in with soiled feet, +coats and trousers, Steve's shrill whistle summoned the army and a +lively pillow fight ensued which was hard on the pillows but always +brought victory for nightgowns. And when a boy refused to brush his +hair in the morning the regulators invariably caught him, and the +penalty was a thorough brushing down of his rebellious locks by at +least twenty-five sturdy young arms. Under such methods the cause of +nightgowns and brushes was made to thrive. + +There was another cause which was more difficult, but which enlisted +all Steve's best endeavour. Mountain children are apt to know the +taste of liquor from babyhood, but Steve had never liked it and +neither had his mother. Occasionally parents, especially fathers, when +they visited the school would bring the children bottles of +"moonshine" to hide and drink from as they pleased, and the teachers +found Steve a great helper, though his corps of "regulators" could not +always be relied upon. + +In the midst of his interesting, new surroundings Steve's mind often +went back to the rock where Tige lay and to the grave of his "mammy." +How pleased she would be, he thought again and again,--maybe she +was--that he was where he could "larn things." + +He soon began to write letters to Mr. Polk, and a steady improvement +was noted all winter in these letters. There was always a great deal +in them about Miss Grace, for she seemed to make him her special +charge and the two were great friends. She loved to walk in the woods +and talk with Steve, hearing him tell many interesting things which he +had learned from intimate association with birds and animals. +Sometimes she would take his hand at the top of a hill and together +they would race down, laughing and breathless to the bottom. After +such a run, one day, they halted by the bank of a stream beneath one +of the grand old beeches for which Kentucky is famous. + +"Oh, Steve," she exclaimed enthusiastically, "what a beautiful old +beech this is. How symmetrical its giant trunk, how perfect its +development of each branch and twig, while it pushes up into the sky +higher than all its fellows, gets more sunshine than all the rest, has +the prettiest growth of ferns and violets at its base,--and I just +know the birds and squirrels love it best!" + +Miss Grace had a bubbling, contagious enthusiasm, and Steve followed +her expressive gestures as she pointed out each detail of perfection +with answering admiration. + +"Steve!" She turned suddenly and bent her eyes upon him with still +more radiant emphasis. "I want you to be just such a grand specimen of +a man! Big and strong and well developed,--pushing up into the sky +further than all the rest about you, getting more sunshine than any +one else--making little plants to grow and blossom all about you and +drawing to you the sweetest and best in life!" + +He smiled back into her shining eyes, somewhat bewildered, but with an +earnest: + +"I shore will try, Miss Grace, but I don't know just what you mean." + +"I mean I want you to study hard, to develop every power of mind and +body you have, and then,--give your life for the uplift of the +children of the mountains." + +She did not press him for a promise, nor linger upon the subject, but +the first dim outline of that mystic height of the boy's vision had +been traced. + +Upon another walk which they took together Steve asked Miss Grace how +she happened to come from her home way up in New York down to Kentucky +to teach mountain boys and girls, and she was silent a moment, a look +which he could not fathom coming over her bright face. At last she +said, "I was very foolish; I threw away happiness. Then I heard of +this work and came here that I might redeem my life by making it +useful." + +There was something about this boy of the mountains that made the +telling of the simple truth the natural thing; but startled at even so +vague a revealing of her bruised heart, she turned the talk quickly to +other things. + + + + +IX + +A STARTLING APPEARANCE + + +In the spring following came a great day for the mountain school when +some friends and benefactors were coming. Great preparations were +made. The school about three hundred strong fronted the main hall, and +there was great waving of small and large handkerchiefs in a genuine +salute as the visiting party drove up. + +When the company had scattered a little after the greeting, Steve +suddenly felt an arm about him and turning, found Mr. Polk smiling +down upon him. The boy was overjoyed and could only cling to his hand, +speechless for a moment. Mr. Polk had met the visiting party on the +train, among whom was the lady who had told him of the school, and she +would take no refusal,--he must go with them. + + * * * * * + +It was a beautiful day for Steve and in his boyish talk about his life +and school he often spoke of Miss Grace, but each time came that grim +setting of Mr. Polk's lips and the boy soon instinctively dropped her +name. The day was destined to be full of events, some in honour of the +visitors and some that were totally unexpected. + +The speech of welcome from the school was made by Stephen Langly. Miss +Grace had told him to say in his own words whatever was in his heart +to say. So the boy stepped out from the gathered school, mounted a +little platform and stood before the assembled crowd unabashed, for +the mountaineer knows no embarrassment, while in simple good English +he thanked the generous friends and teachers for what they were doing +for mountain boys and girls. As he stood there well dressed, erect, +manly, he bore little resemblance to the forlorn boy who had crept +away from his cabin home at Hollow Hut a year before. + +As the crowd dispersed a little after the speech-making, in which +several took part, Mr. Polk and Steve walked away together and passed +a group of teachers and students of which the visiting lady of Mr. +Polk's acquaintance was the centre. + +"Come here, Mr. Polk, please, and bring Steve to see me," she called. + +Miss Grace Trowbridge was one of the group and Mr. Polk halted +reluctantly, but finally joined them. + +Before a word could be exchanged a tall, lank, grim mountaineer +slouched forward and laid a horny hand upon Steve's shoulder. The +startled boy looked up to see his father standing beside him! + +The Kentucky mountain product, unlike any other so-called shiftless +man in the world, may idle his days away with pipe and drink, but let +a wrong, real or fancied, be done him or his and in his thirst for +vengeance he is transformed. His energy, his perseverance, his +intelligence, his fury become colossal. So, Jim Langly, convinced +after months of waiting and brooding that his boy had been enticed +away by the giver of the watch, had set out with a grim purpose of +finding boy and man which had been undaunted by any obstacle. With +slow but persistent effort he had traced the child over mountain and +valley, often losing all clue, but never relaxing till at last he had +reached Mr. Follet and learned that the boy was in school. From thence +he easily made his way to the school of Mr. Polk's selection, and, +arriving by strange providence upon a gala day, had found the two +objects of his search at the same moment. + +"I've found ye at last," he said grimly, "an' when I set eyes on the +man whut give ye that watch and tolled my boy away from his home, I'll +shoot him down lack a dog!" + +Mr. Polk quietly walked out and said, "I am your man, Mr. Langly." + +"You," the enraged mountaineer yelled, and jerking a pistol from his +trousers pocket, he lifted and would have cocked it, but quick as a +deer Grace Trowbridge had stepped in front of Mr. Polk, protecting him +with her body, while Steve threw himself on his father and screamed +shrilly, dropping into the speech of the mountains: + +"No, oh, pappy, pappy, don't shoot him! He nuver got me ter leave +home; I went myself, and I'll go back with yer and stay all my life!" + +Frantically the boy clung to his father, pleading pitifully, while +Grace Trowbridge with all her strength pushed Mr. Polk back among a +quickly gathering crowd. Others joined her, and in the excitement of +the moment, both she and Mr. Polk were hurried into safety within one +of the school buildings and the door locked upon them. + +The town constable was on the ground, for his services were quite +likely to be needed in any public gathering, and before Jim Langly +realized what was happening, being wholly unfamiliar with the ways of +law and order, his pistol had been wrenched from his hand (something +unheard of in mountain ethics), and he was hurried from the scene like +an infuriated lion made captive. + +Breathless and spent, Grace Trowbridge found herself looking into the +face of her old lover when the door was locked upon them. She stood an +instant like a frightened bird driven to cover, her eyes gazing into +his, anxiety, relief, tragic intensity born of but one emotion in her +white quivering face,--and then the warm blood surged up with +returning realization of the years of estrangement between them, and +she wheeled for instant flight. + +But the door was locked, and baffled she faced him again, crying, "Oh, +Sam, let me out!" + +For answer he caught her in his arms and said, "Let you out, and away +from me? Never! I shall hold you fast instead. I love you, love +you, love you," he cried vehemently, "and what is more, you love +me!" He crushed her to him and the tense, spent figure relaxed in +his arms while love in full tide swept over them, after six weary +years of longing and restraint. Their separation had followed a +misunderstanding which now did not even seem to need explanation. + +"Sam," she cried at last, moving energetically away from him, "I can +never give up these blessed mountain children. You'll have to adopt +every one of them if you take me!" + +"All right," he said happily, "just as many of them as you please." + +Instantly both remembered Steve. + +"Oh, Sam, where is Steve? Do you suppose his father has carried him +off, and that we will never see him again?" she exclaimed in distress, +and a few moments later, when release came to them, their first +anxious inquiry was for the boy. + +No one had seen or thought of him in the excitement, and when the +story of Jim Langly's arrest had been told them, they searched the +grounds and buildings in great anxiety before they finally found Steve +in his room. + +When Mr. Polk opened the door the boy stood before him dressed in a +little ragged shirt and old pair of trousers he had worn for hunting +and with bared feet. The hopeless expression of the lost was in his +face. + +"I can't keep my promise to you, Mr. Polk," he said brokenly. "I can't +ever climb that mountain fer yer, but it is better fer me ter die on +the way than fer you to be killed." Correct speech had no part in such +despair. + +Mr. Polk drew the boy to him while Miss Grace stood without, her lips +tremulous and eyes full of tears. After a silent moment Mr. Polk led +the boy outside and put him in her arms. + +"Do you think we are going to give you up?" Mr. Polk said, striding up +and down the hall. "Not by a long shot," he went on with energy, and a +conviction for which he could not at the moment see any tangible +foundation. "This is all going to be fixed up,--just leave everything +to Miss Grace and me." + +The boy shook his head. "Ye don't know pappy," he said sadly. + +"I may not," returned Mr. Polk cheerfully, "but I know Grace +Trowbridge, and I am going to trust her to keep you here. Do just as +she says, son, and everything will come right." + +He left them to talk with the president of the school. They discussed +what should be done with Jim Langly. Mr. Polk greatly regretted the +man's arrest, but was compelled to admit it could not have been +avoided. He begged, however, that prosecution of the case be delayed +until every effort could be made to make Langly see that only good was +intended for his son. + +"Of course I must relinquish all claim to the boy," he said sadly, +"but we must by some means win the father's consent that Steve remain +here,--that is the important thing." + +So it was decided that Mr. Polk should leave, as his presence could +only infuriate the man, and the president gladly promised to do +everything in his power to win the father. + +For a week Jim Langly remained in the lock-up of the town. He had +wrenched his back severely in the struggle with his captors; then, +like a caged lion indeed, he had beaten the walls of his prison all +night without food or drink, and being a man of indolent habits, he +collapsed utterly next morning. The gaunt, haggard face with deep +hollows beneath the eyes, the giant figure lying helpless upon a rude +couch of the lock-up touched deeply the heart of Grace Trowbridge when +she went in to see him. In his blind fury he had not noticed her +especially the day before; and when, without saying a word, she +stepped lightly across the room and reaching through the iron bars +closed a rude shutter to screen the glare of the morning sun from his +eyes, then gently adjusted a pillow beneath his head and fed him a cup +of hot broth, he accepted it all like a wild, sick animal which in its +helplessness has lost all animosity to man. + +During the day she tended him unobtrusively, but with infinite +kindness, and next morning she found him better, but still willing to +accept her care. He even watched her with a far-away interest as one +would something unknown and yet strangely pleasing. By the third +morning she talked to him a bit as she smoothed his pillow, and smiled +as he ate her toast with relish. + +At last he said with an effort, "Whar's Steve?" + +"He is here," she said gladly, "just waiting outside the door for you +to ask for him. He has been there every day," she added softly. + +Then she stepped to the door and motioned for Steve. The boy came in, +still dressed in mountain fashion, for no amount of persuasion could +induce him to again put on the better clothes. This evidently met the +father's approval, for a look of bitter expectancy which had come into +his face faded at once as he saw the old trousers and bare feet. + +"Set down," he commanded feebly, but not unkindly, though he had +nothing more to say. + +The two stayed with him through the day, and gradually Grace, with +consummate tact, made conversation which included the three, though +Langly took little part. Then she read a stirring story which +compelled his attention and interest even though he had never heard +anything read aloud before. It was the first time in the mountaineer's +long life that he had ever been unable to rise from his bed and go his +way and the helplessness had softened his spirit like the touch of a +fairy's wand. As he listened to the sweet, cultured voice of the woman +while she read and saw Steve with quickened intelligence following +every word, he realized for the first time that the world held strange +things in which he had no part, but for which his boy was ready. + +At last Miss Grace turned to Steve and said in the most natural +manner, "My throat is getting tired; won't you read a little for us?" + +The boy looked at his father in quick alarm, but the gaunt face +betrayed nothing, and the reading went on in Steve's boyish voice. + +Several days passed during which Miss Grace and Steve had been +constantly with the prisoner, then his injured back was sufficiently +restored to permit of his being raised in bed to a sitting posture, +and Miss Grace felt it was time she tried to win his consent to +Steve's remaining at school. With woman's intuition she divined the +best method of approach. Steve was not there and she told with simple +pathos of the boy's love for his mother. Jim Langly had loved his wife +with all the mountain man's lack of expression, but the natural +portrayal of the boy's affection did not displease him. The old self +in fact seemed to pass out with that day of terrible fury and the +softer spirit which had taken its place seemed to linger. She went on +to tell how the boy's mother had longed for him to have a chance to +learn, and that only a few minutes before her death she had made him +promise to go where he could learn. + +"It was this," she ended, "which made Steve leave home and not the man +who sent the watch." + +Jim Langly lay silent a long while after hearing this, and then he +said: + +"I was agin that in her alive, I reckon I won't be agin her dead." + +After a little he inquired with resentment in his voice, "How come +that man whut give him the watch ter be with him here?" + +"The boy happened to find the man," she said, "and the man was good to +him when he needed a friend. But we will get Steve to tell us all +about it," she ended brightly, as Steve came just then to the door. +And with a glad heart the boy told all his story from the day he left +Hollow Hut till his father's appearance a few days before. + +The president of the school then visited Langly, told of the boy's +progress and begged earnestly that he be allowed to stay. Nothing was +said as to how the boy's expenses were to be met, and since Jim Langly +knew as little as a child about the cost of such things, he asked no +questions. When strong enough at last Langly walked out a free man, +the president having withdrawn all charges against him, and after +looking about the buildings with strange interest he started back to +Hollow Hut, with no good-bye for his boy after the manner of the +mountains, but with an understanding that when school closed Steve +should return to his old home for the summer. + +It was some two months later when Mr. Polk carried out this promise +which had been made the father, by taking the boy back to the woods +where they had first met. He expected to camp there for a few days' +fishing, and to arrange for Steve's safe return to the school in the +fall, as happy plans of his own for the autumn would probably prevent +his coming in person. + +When Steve left Mr. Polk he swung off down the well-remembered +mountainside with strange joy in his heart. He had felt a new kinship +for his father growing upon him since he could remain at school in the +freedom of parental consent, and shy thought had come of reading aloud +sometimes in the old Hollow Hut cabin from the pile of books under his +arms while his father smoked and listened, as he had in the beautiful +days when Miss Grace had tended him. + +But a few hours later he came slowly back up the same path with a +stricken look on his face. + +"Pappy's dead, too," he said brokenly, when Mr. Polk stepped forward +in surprise and alarm to meet him. + +The boy sat down upon a log, dropping his books in a heap beside him, +and his bent shoulders shook with sobs. + +Mr. Polk comforted him with silent tenderness for a time, then +gradually drew out the story of Jim Langly's short illness of a week +from a virulent fever and his burial two days before. + +Together they went again next day to the cabin. Mirandy had married a +few weeks previous and she and her husband were beginning family life +anew in the old place. She had been stirred somewhat by the events of +the year, and looked with interest upon Mr. Polk and Steve, the latter +showing plainly to her the touch of new surroundings, and when Mr. +Polk told her he wanted to take the boy for his own and educate him, +she said with a touch of bitterness: + +"Tek him erlong; he won't nuver know nothin' here." + +So the two who had seemed bound from the first by close ties went away +together, Steve to spend the summer at the school, where a few were +always accommodated during the vacation, and Mr. Polk to wind up his +business affairs in the South preparatory to a return to New York. He +had formerly been associated with an uncle having large railroad +interests in the East, who had often urged his return. He now proposed +to do so, taking advantage of opportunities still open to him. These +had been thrown away upon the breaking of his engagement with Grace +Trowbridge, six years before, to take a position with a southern +railroad and wander restlessly among new scenes. + + + + +X + +STEVE DEVELOPS A MIND OF HIS OWN + + +In the autumn Mr. Polk's happy plans materialized. There was a wedding +in a handsome New York City home, and Steve Langly arrived the day +before for the festivities. At the ceremony he and Anita Trowbridge, +the little sister of Miss Grace, were the attendants. They came in +first, Steve dressed as a page in a velvet suit which went well with +his clear, dark complexion, and little Nita, as she was called, +tripped beside him in delicate pink as a fairy flower girl. They stood +on either side of a beautiful fox-skin rug with a history, upon which +the bride and groom, slowly following, took their places to repeat the +sacred vows which bound them for life. + +Steve and Nita, as the only children, spent the evening together, +roaming about the house, Steve finding new interests everywhere. He +looked around at the rich furnishings and beautiful floral decorations +with appreciative eyes, seeming not at all out of place in such +surroundings. A feeling of awkwardness and timidity might have +possessed so poor a boy reared anywhere else, but mountain-born as he +was, he accepted man's magnificence with the same tranquil spirit that +he did the shimmering silver of a mountain sunrise or the gorgeous +colour-triumph of its sunset. But he did not understand Nita. She +tried her most grown-up ways upon him, chatting after the manner of a +little society belle, and while she was so pretty that he loved to +look at her as he would have looked at a beautiful flower, he did not +know what to say to her. Having talked of many things, and being an +ardent little lover of pretty clothes, taken in with appreciative eyes +the handsome costumes of the guests, she sighed at last and said: + +"Oh, I just love to go down Broadway, don't you, and see all the +handsome gowns on people as they pass, and look in at the store +windows!" + +"I don't know; I nuver was there," he answered with a touch of his +mountain speech, and then she laughed a silvery, childish laugh and +said: + +"You funny mountain boy," in a natural, frank way that made Steve +smile back and feel more at ease. + +After this they got on well as a couple of children, while Nita often +exclaimed, "You funny mountain boy." + +Mr. and Mrs. Polk called him their boy with a new sense of parentage +after their marriage, and wanted to make him legally their son, but +when it was proposed that he be known in the future as Stephen Polk, +he looked far off into space a moment, and then as though his spirit +had winged its way back into the wilderness of its birth, he dropped +into the old manner of speech and said: + +"I thank yer, but I was born Langly, an' I think I ought ter die +Langly." + +They said no more, and soon decided to send him back to the mountain +school for his preparatory work at least, largely because Mrs. Polk +was strongly convinced this was best for the boy; so, during the next +six years, he spent the school terms in the mountains and his +vacations in the north with his foster-parents. The last two summers +he took work in a city university with special courses in geology and +mining engineering, for Mr. Polk, knowing the rich treasures stored in +the Kentucky mountains, had brilliant plans for Steve's future, +dreaming of a time when the boy should be able to link these treasures +with northern capital. + +Mrs. Polk's dreams were of another sort altogether. She never lost +interest in the cause of education in these same Kentucky mountains, +and many were the talks she and Steve had about the progress being +made there and the needs constantly developing. Engrossed in business, +as Mr. Polk came more and more to be, he took no note of his wife's +indirect influence, while she did not realize that she was +interfering with plans of his. + +As Steve grew to young manhood Mr. Polk asked him as often as studies +would permit in summer to go down to the office. He liked to give the +boy a taste of the financial whirl, and it was intensely interesting +and exciting to Steve. He felt something of the same tremor of wonder +and delight over the inner whirl of gigantic machinery moving railroad +systems which stirred him when he felt the first rush of a passing +railroad train, and there was a certain eager desire to be a part of +it all. + +It was upon his sixth vacation visit that Mr. Polk turned to him one +day at the office as the boy's eyes glistened with interest and said: + +"I shall want you at my elbow in a few years now. I shall be too old +after a while to do all the things waiting to be done, and you +remember your promise to climb that mountain of success for me whose +heights I never shall be able to reach." + +But the youth of nineteen suddenly looked afar as the boy of thirteen +had done when it was proposed that he change the old name of Langly, +and a vision of rugged mountains and deep valleys which again spread +out before him were tracked by eager bared feet of poorly clad +children hurrying towards the few schools which here and there dotted +the wilderness. He was silent, for a definite conflict had begun in +his soul. + +Mr. Polk noticed the silence, and with a restless energy which was +growing upon him, said to his wife that evening when they were alone: + +"Look here, Grace, I am uncertain about Steve. That boy's unfathomable. +Here I have been counting upon his going into business, and I know +business appeals to him for I can see it in his eye, and yet when I +spoke to him definitely to-day he just looked off into space," he +ended in disgust. + +Mrs. Polk laughed. "Well, you know, I have never been an enthusiast +over money-making, and I don't believe Steve ever will be,--though he +may." + +"Why, look here," her husband said impatiently, "if he gets a good +knowledge of geology and mining engineering, as I mean he shall, he +can locate and open up some good mines in those Kentucky mountains +which will make us all rich." + +"Oh," laughed Mrs. Polk again, "that doesn't stir me a bit. But when I +think of every little yearning child of the mountains well shod, with +a clean kerchief in its pocket, and trudging away to school frosty +mornings, then I begin to thrill." + +"Of course," said Mr. Polk with impatient energy; "but money will help +bring that to pass." + +"Yes, but it isn't money alone that is necessary. They need an +apostle of education, one of their very own who shall go among them +opening their eyes to the world of knowledge and opportunity." + +"And you would like our Steve to be that apostle, as you call him, I +suppose." Looking at her intently a moment, he softened and added, +"Well, you are a dear, unworldly woman." Then in sudden justification +of himself, he went on: "I am willing he should be an apostle too, but +one with money, so he can bring things to pass." + +And he said no more to his wife, neither did he trouble Steve in the +least with definite propositions for the future, but in the late +summer of that year he remarked in a matter-of-fact way: + +"Well, Steve, it must be college now for the next two years at +least." + +Whereupon Steve looked very sober and finally said: "Mr. Polk, you +have been so good to me I cannot even talk about it. I do want to go +to college more than I can express, but great, strapping fellow that I +am, I ought not to accept your generosity any longer." + +"Now, son," said Mr. Polk, with the tenderness he had given the little +boy years before, "I want to do for you as I would for my own." + +Steve said huskily, "I appreciate it deeply, but you know I couldn't +give up my name, and it is just as hard for me to give up my +independence. If I go to college at your expense it must be with the +distinct understanding that I am to repay every penny spent for me. +Forgive me," he added with a smile, "I suppose it is my mountain blood +that makes me want to be free." + +Mr. Polk, looking at the strong young face, knew that he must yield, +and so the money was advanced for Steve's college expenses with the +understanding that it was a loan. + +The two college years were busy and profitable ones for Steve. He was +fond of study and the regular courses of the school led him into new +lines of interest while he still pursued his specialties of geology +and mining engineering. The companionship of young men and women of +inherited culture and opportunity of the best type was broadening and +a fine means of general culture for him. Among the young women with +whom he was thrown there developed no special interest for him, though +he often wondered why. He, however, came to smile as he questioned his +own heart or was questioned by chums, while he said, "We of mountain +blood are slow, you know," and he failed to note how certain memories +of soft yellow curls above a little white pinafore were so sacred that +he never mentioned them. + +He matured greatly in the two years, and at twenty-one was +broad-shouldered from college athletics, six feet two in height, and +his abundant dark hair with a suggestion of curl at the ends crowned a +fine, clean-cut, somewhat slender face which in repose was serious, +but possessed of a hidden smile which had formed the habit of flashing +out suddenly, transforming his face with a peculiar radiance. + +For the Christmas holidays of his last year at college he went home to +the Polks as usual and one evening sat at the opera beside Nita +Trowbridge in a little family party which included her. During all his +comings and goings of the school years he had seen Nita with almost +the familiarity of a brother. She was the child of middle age, petted +and spoiled and much of a society butterfly as she developed into +young ladyhood, though a very lovable one. Mr. and Mrs. Polk were +greatly attached to her, and though it had not been hinted at, Steve +knew that Mr. Polk would like nothing better than that they should +marry when he was established in business. How Mrs. Polk would feel +about it he was not so sure. Perhaps she doubted their congeniality of +tastes. + +As Nita sat beside him on this evening she watched Steve's rapt +enjoyment of Wagner's beautiful, weird melodies. Between acts she +said: + +"How intensely you enjoy music!" + +"Yes," he returned, throwing off the spell with an effort, "I do." And +then with a reminiscent flash the smile broke over his face. "I +remember well where I heard the first music of my life. It was when I +was twelve years old, and from a mountain fellow who had had no +training. But he simply made the banjo talk, as the darkeys would say, +and reproduced with skillful touch and thrilling voice a fox hunt +which fairly set me crazy. + +"Then the next," he went on, "was at a church, just a little later, +and never will I forget how the deep-toned organ stirred my soul to +the very depths." There was a quiet solemnity upon him as he said this +which Nita did not break for a moment. Then she said: + +"How barren the mountains must be! You will never want to go there +again, will you?" + +"Barren!" he exclaimed in return. "I wish I were an artist in word +painting and I would make mountain peak after mountain peak glow with +rhododendron and laurel, fill the valleys with silver sunrise-mist to +glorify their verdure for you, and then call out all the fur and +feathered folk and troops of mountain children from their forest +homes. You would not think it a barren country," he concluded with +smiling eloquence. + +"Perhaps not," she said slowly, "but to think of no good music, no +pleasures, no,--anything that makes up our delightful living here," +she ended. + +"That is true," he responded gravely, adding almost to himself, "but +it must be carried to them through work and sacrifice by somebody." + +Then becoming conscious the next instant of the brilliant scene about +him his smile flashed over his face again and he turned to her with: + +"By the way, did you see an account in the papers of the wreckage of a +car load of millinery in the Kentucky mountains a few days ago?" + +"No, I did not," she smiled back. + +"Well, there was a railroad wreck somewhere up there and a whole car +load of millinery was sent out upon the four winds of heaven. Big hats +and little, such as women know all about and men can't even talk of, +with all sorts of gorgeous flower trimmings, feathers and ribbons were +scattered through the woods, and they say barefooted mountain women +flocked from every direction and decked themselves in the latest +styles of head-gear." + +Both laughed over the picture and Steve added: + +"I suppose it would only need a procession of fashionable gowns +parading the mountains to transform our women, while the sight of +swallow-tails and silk hats might do as much for the men, for like +the rest of the world we take up the superficial with ease, +but"--sobering again--"to give our people a glimpse into the knowledge +contained in books, to waken us to life's highest harmonies and open +our eyes to nature's beautiful hidden colours, is going to take a long +time, and as I said, somebody must work and sacrifice for it." + +He searched the beautiful face beside him for sympathetic understanding, +but she only looked at him with wide eyes as the frivolous little +girl had done years before, not comprehending, while she wanted to say +again, this time a little wistfully, "You funny mountain boy." + +No conception of life translated into labour and sacrifice for others, +such as he had begun to battle with, had ever come within her range of +thought, and the starting of the music again was welcome to them +both. + +At the end of two years Steve was graduated, having been thoroughly +prepared upon entering college, and when he returned to his +foster-parents at the close of school they were greatly pleased with +their boy. On the second night after his arrival Mr. Polk sat with him +after dinner and smoked in great satisfaction. But it was of short +duration. Steve had had a letter from his alma mater, the Kentucky +mountain school, asking him to return as a teacher there the next +year, putting forth strongly the need and opportunity for good. He +had waited to talk the matter over with Mr. and Mrs. Polk before +deciding, though it was pretty well settled in his own mind. He handed +the letter to Mr. Polk. + +"Of course you will not go," said Mr. Polk, with decision, as soon as +he had finished it. "There is an opening for you in the office and I +am anxious for you to take hold at once." + +Steve looked afar again, as he had twice before when his fate was +about to be settled for him, and Mr. Polk stirred impatiently. But the +younger man turned at once, this time with that sudden smile upon his +face, and said ingratiatingly: + +"Mr. Polk, I am afraid I haven't any head for business,--I love books +far better. I feel a premonition that I shall be stupid in business." + +"Nonsense," said Mr. Polk, with quick irritation. "I don't believe it. +You have never been stupid about anything." + +"I do not know," Steve replied, serious again. "I have not been tried, +I admit, and I must confess that business had a certain fascination +for me as I have watched things stir in your office." + +"Of course, of course," broke in Mr. Polk. "I have seen it in your +face." + +"But----" said Steve as promptly, and with a compelling earnestness in +his voice that made the older man hold himself in restraint. "Mr. +Polk, I must tell you something before we go any further in this +matter. My barren boyhood has never faded from my mind. I cannot put +it from me. I live it again in the thought of every little child +hidden away in the mountains in ignorance and squalor. + +"There may be little ones of my own blood in the Hollow Hut home," he +added, and his voice dropped into a deep intensity which held them +both motionless for a moment; then, for relief, breaking it again with +that smile, he said: "I suppose it is the survival of our feudal +mountain blood in me which makes me ready to go back to fight, bleed +and die for my own." + +"It is simply a Quixotic idea you have gotten into your head that you +should go back to the mountains and spend your life trying to help +your people," Mr. Polk replied emphatically. + +"I don't deny you may be right," said Steve patiently, "but I got the +idea fixed when I was a boy there at school having privileges which +were denied so many, and you know one is very impressionable in early +youth, and I confess that though for many pleasant reasons I have +wanted to shake it off, I have been unable to do so." + +This roused Mr. Polk to instant combat. He rose and strode the +floor. + +Mrs. Polk stood in the doorway an instant just then, but wisely and +noiselessly slipped away. + +"That's all right to want to help your own, but the practical way to +do it is with money," he said vehemently. + +"I am not entirely sure," returned Steve slowly. "I confess I may be +mistaken--but I have thought and thought over this ever since you +first proposed two years ago that I should go into business with you, +and though, as I have said, I am still uncertain, I believe I ought to +go there and work for my people. It will be ten years at least before +I can do much in a monetary way, but I can begin teaching at once. +Besides," he hurried on before Mr. Polk could speak, "people there +need indoctrination,--inoculating so to speak, with the idea of +education as much as they need money, and no one can do this so well +as one of their own. Thanks to you, the best friend any boy ever had," +he went on, his voice breaking a little, "I have had advantages which +have fallen to the lot of few mountain boys, and I feel that my +responsibility is tremendous." + +"Yes," said Mr. Polk, "but I do not agree with you as to the best way +of meeting it. However," he ended hotly, "I see you are like most +young men of to-day whatever their obligations, you do not wish +advice." + +Steve was deeply hurt. "Mr. Polk," he said, "I would rather give my +right arm than have anything come between us. If it were a matter of +personal ambition, I would yield at once to your good judgment, +but--please understand,--let me make this clear,--I am not sure that +going myself to work among my people is the best way, but I simply +feel it should be tried first. If I should remain here a while, I know +I would never go there, and if I find that I am wrong in going, at the +end of two years I will gladly return to you for business." + +"If you go, Steve Langly, contrary to my advice and better judgment, +you go for good," said Mr. Polk sternly, pausing in his striding and +emphasizing with a stamp of his foot. + +Mr. Polk with his gentleness had always had a hot-headed, unreasonable +side to his nature. It was seldom in evidence, but it had shown itself +years before in his break with his sweetheart and it was showing +itself again with the boy whom he loved most devotedly. + +Steve bowed his head in silent, dignified acceptance. Following a +forceful law of human nature this unreasonable resistance (as he saw +it) was fixing him very firmly in his own resolution. But the thought +of all the older man had been to him rushed upon him again with +softening effect, and he said sadly at last: + +"I do not know how to make you understand, Mr. Polk,--but this need to +go back to my own and try to help them is something inborn." + +"I am afraid it is," said Mr. Polk curtly. "It is the mountain +shiftlessness in you." + +Steve rose with flashing eyes and heaving breast, but remembering +again, he controlled himself, and sat down. His voice was cool and +crisp, however, as he said a moment later: + +"I have no intention of forgetting my debt to you, Mr. Polk, and you +have a right to know what are my prospects for paying it." He named +his salary, which was very meagre, and then added, "But my wants will +be few,--and I have found that my pen promises to be a pretty good +earning implement." This he added with reluctance, for he had not +meant to tell it. "I shall pay you as soon as possible," he ended. + +"Just as you please," said Mr. Polk again curtly, and strode this time +out of the room for the night. + +Steve soon followed, going to his room with a sense of desolation that +was akin to the desolation of his boyhood in the wilderness. He felt +that he must leave New York at once, for he could not stay longer with +self-respect under the roof which had been home to him for so many +years. What "little mother," as he had come to call Mrs. Polk, would +say he did not know, but his heart warmed when he thought of her, and +comforted at last by the feeling that she at least would not +misunderstand him, he fell asleep towards morning. And in his fitful +dreaming her sweet face was strangely crowned with soft yellow curls +and she wore a little white pinafore! + +The next day Steve had a long talk with Mrs. Polk. She had heard of +the trouble from Mr. Polk, and had done all in her power to bring +about a change in his state of mind. Failing utterly and knowing his +tenacity when an idea was once fixed, she could not encourage Steve +with the hope of any immediate change. Neither could she urge the +young man to abandon his purpose, for she felt that he alone must +decide his future, and though in her heart she approved his course, so +deeply was she grieved over the alienation between him and Mr. Polk +that she held it in restraint. She knew that she had helped to shape +his determination, and woman-like was fearful now she had made a +mistake. + +When Steve said that he must go, she did not try to keep him, but her +eyes were brimming with tears when he tenderly kissed her good-bye, as +he had always been in the habit of doing, and she pressed a roll of +money in his hand, whispering, "It is my own." + +"No, no, little mother," he said with determined good cheer, "I do +not need it. I was very economical the last few weeks at school, for I +had forebodings of trouble; then,--I earned some money writing little +stories for boys, the past year." + +Scarcely noticing the last remark she hesitated a moment, wanting to +insist that he take it, and yet reluctant. Then she held him by the +shoulders with her slender hands, and said earnestly: + +"If you ever need, you will let me know, will you not?" + +"I certainly will, dearest little mother in the world," he said, his +own eyes glistening with tears. + +There was a formal leave-taking with Mr. Polk at the office, and then +he went his way back to the mountains of his birth. + + + + +XI + +EXPERIENCE + + +As the train carrying Steve southward reached a point where rugged +peaks began pushing majestically up into the distant firmament he felt +again the old thrill of the mountaineer's love of the mountains, while +his trained eye noted with keen pleasure new details of line and +colour. Then, when the railroad trip was over and he neared the end of +the forty-mile wagon ride, bringing the little tower surmounting "The +Hall" of his alma mater in sight once more, his face lit up with +tender joy, for the old place had meant more to him than schools do to +the average boy. Sweeping his eye back over a landscape where purple +heights were tipped with sunset gold in the distance, giant beeches +held aloft their summer leafage in the valleys and mountain +flower-favourites bloomed in glorious June profusion everywhere, he +inwardly exclaimed, with sudden reverence: + +"That is God's part, the fashioning of this beautiful setting," and +then turning again to the group of school buildings, "and this is +man's,--the bringing of humanity into harmony with the perfection of +His handiwork." + +He had been unable to throw off entirely the depression which had +followed the rupture with Mr. Polk, and deeply stirred emotionally as +he had been in parting with Mrs. Polk, it required this spiritual +interpretation of school life to restore his equilibrium. + +But the battle involved in the step he had taken was by no means +fought in that one flash of high conception. Being a wholesome, +normal fellow with an ordinary amount of selfish desire for comfort +(though he had seemed to follow a Quixotic idea into the wilderness), +he found himself at once missing the luxuries of life to which he +had become accustomed. All through the summer he travelled about on +horseback,--sometimes on foot,--stopping often at little squalid +cabins, and often also at meagre homes where housewives wrung his +heart with their pathetic effort to be thrifty and cleanly on almost +nothing, and everywhere he tried to inoculate the people with the idea +of education. On the whole his experience proved more of a hardship +than he had believed possible with his early mountain bringing up. +He discovered that he had a decided liking for individual towels, and +was quite capable of annoyance when obliged to bathe his face in a +family tin wash-pan,--or temporarily idle skillet where wash-pans +were unknown,--while his predilection for a bath tub with hot and cold +water on tap had become more fixed than he had suspected. + +"Have I already grown too fastidious to be helpful to my own people?" +he asked himself in disgust. Then he squared his shoulders and set his +lips in fresh determination. But, a moment later, with that sudden +smile upon his face, he also resolved to compromise a bit with +hardship. He stopped at the first wayside store and invested in towels +which he learned to wash and dry at convenient times. This gave him +pleasant independence, and since his bedroom had always been fixed in +the open,--for from the first he could not bring himself to sleep in +crowded rooms where whole families took their rest,--he could make his +morning toilet without offense to his hosts, while a soapy plunge in +some mountain stream became a luxury he would not readily forego. And +always, whatever the hardship, there was the compensation of +barefooted boys and girls held spellbound, and often fathers and +mothers as well, while he unfolded the wonders of a world which lay +beyond the mountain's rim, and always he had the advantage of being +able to assure them that he, too, was mountain bred. + +So, with contending against many things distasteful on one side, and +exhilaration while little hands clung to his as his had clung to Mr. +Polk's that long ago day in the heights about Hollow Hut, the summer +passed and he began his work as teacher. + +He had long known that he would enjoy teaching, and took up his +duties with keen interest. Fortunately for him he had little conceit +or pedantry, which would have been a fatal handicap for him as teacher +among his own people, simple-hearted though they were. He organized +his work with straightforward earnestness and quiet ability and things +usually moved smoothly in his class room. But many old difficulties in +the life of the school with which he had seen the teachers battling +when he was a pupil promptly presented themselves afresh to test the +tact, skill and wisdom of the young teacher. Some boys still came to +school with well-developed taste for tobacco and liquor which parents +still indulged, and passing mountaineers often good-naturedly +fostered. Having helped to battle with these things as a boy he knew +somewhat how to handle them. But another matter of which he took +little note in his student days, but which had nevertheless always +been a difficult problem, was love-making in the school. He was sorely +puzzled how to wisely handle this. + +"Little mother," he wrote Mrs. Polk, "my chief difficulty is laughable +in a sense, but from another point of view it is really a stupendous +problem! One old mountaineer said to me last summer, 'Them schools is +the courtin'est places in the world.' I begin to think he was right, +and it is not always the superficial flirting and love-making which is +a part of your coeducational schools,--a thing simply trivial and +naughty,--but often tragic passion instead, quite in harmony with the +title of Dryden's play, 'All for Love, or the World Well Lost'! + +"Really, these children of the woods hear the call to mate as +naturally as the birds in the trees, and knowing nothing of Fifth +Avenue brown stone fronts or cozy cottages at Newport, they want to +leave school, gather twigs and build their nests at once. And +sometimes one feels as guilty in breaking up such prospective nests as +when molesting a pair of birds! + +"Am I getting to be something of a sentimentalist? Well, I assure you +I am not going to let it grow upon me. I bear sternly in mind that, +like the first pair of human beings in the Garden of Eden, they have +really eaten of the tree of knowledge and know some things which they +ought not to know,--having some secrets from the rest of mankind which +are not at all good for them,--while the things they need to know for +higher, better living are so numerous, that I ruthlessly break the +tenderest hearts, and insist on study and discipline; for nothing but +education, mental, moral and spiritual, will ever bring the greatest +people in the world, the people of the Kentucky mountains, into their +just inheritance! You see how completely identified I am again when I +indulge in Kentucky brag,--which is not so different after all from +the brag of other sections, and I promise not to let this grow upon me +either, for work and not brag is before me, as you know. I want you to +see, however, that I continue to feel the mountaineer is worth working +for. + +"But to return to the love-making. Tragedy and comedy are in evidence +enough to lure me into the field of romance, but the practical +hindrances to daily school work are too absorbing for great indulgence +of my pen. Ardent swains pay open court to their sweethearts, +promenading halls and grounds together and even pressing suit in the +class room! While frequently the crowning difficulty in the whole +matter is the pleased approval of parents! Early marriage, you know, +is most common in the mountains, girls of twelve and thirteen often +taking up the duties of wives and the great desire of parents for +their daughters is usually to get them early married off. + +"But,--I suspect this is all familiar to you," he reminded himself, +"and still I must tell it to you,--and let you laugh over a recent +experience I have had with a pair of lovers. + +"You may be sure that I have lectured most earnestly and scientifically +upon the evils of tobacco and liquor for the young, and also have set +forth as tactfully and convincingly as I know how the fact that a +school is not the place for lover-like attentions, beseeching them to +give themselves wholly to the business of acquiring knowledge while +they are here, with all the eloquence of which I am capable. But, in +spite of this, as I was leaving my recitation room at the close of +school a few days ago I noticed a girl, Alice Tomby, lingering with Joe +Mott, one of her admirers, and stepping outside I found another admirer +of hers standing beneath a near-by tree, with clenched fist and +blazing eyes. + +"I knew that a typical mountain tragedy was quite possible and +stopping casually a moment to look at my watch, I turned and went back +to find the girl and her beau in a most lover-like attitude. + +"I threw my shoulders out to their broadest, and walked with all the +dignity I could summon to my desk where I stood before them a moment +in silence. Their sheepish faces were a study for the cartoonist, and +I wanted to laugh more than I can tell you, but I finally said +gravely: + +"'Miss Tomby and Mr. Mott' (the use of the last name with Mr. or Miss, +which is unusual in the mountains, is always most impressive), 'you +are guilty of breaking a rule of the school. You must remain and write +twenty times each the sentence I shall put upon the board.' + +"Then an old song came suddenly into my mind and I wrote without +quiver of lash or hint of smile the silly lines: + + "'Frog went courting, he did ride, + Sword and pistol by his side.' + +"'That!' said the fellow, looking startled, while the girl hung her +head. + +"'Yes, that,' I replied in perfect seriousness. And the two wrote the +lines under my most calm, most dignified eye till they were thoroughly +disgusted with themselves and one another. When at last they went out, +the girl tossed her head and ignored both her crestfallen and her +jealous lover. With books under her arm she went alone straightway to +the boarding hall. + +"The story of the discomfited lovers is spreading in the school, and +the quotation of 'Frog went courting, he did ride,' hilariously given +is quenching the ardour of many an amorous swain. Possibly a little +wholesome humour may after all be more helpful than stern enforcement +of rules, and you know if there is one thing more than another we +mountain folks lack, it is a sense of humour! So, even on general +principles, it will do no harm to cultivate it. + +"However, with all this cruel separation of tender hearts perhaps I am +in a fair way to become a cynical old bachelor instead of a +sentimentalist." + +He was determined to write cheerfully, for he knew that she constantly +grieved over the alienation between Mr. Polk and himself, so his +letters usually held bright accounts of his work, though sometimes he +let her have a glimpse of the struggle which went on in his heart. + +He wrote once after a contest with himself over natural desire for +more congenial surroundings: + +"Little mother, when things seem too sordid and commonplace and barren +for endurance, as I confess they have a way of doing at times, I do +crave a look into your dear face. But as I am too far away to see you +clearly, I remember how you came down here and worked with dauntless +courage and good cheer, and I take heart again. Then several things +recently have contributed to make me ashamed of faint-heartedness, and +I really think I am going to develop some stronger fibre. + +"The pathos of the mountain desire for 'larnin" has come to me +overwhelmingly lately. A woman came on foot forty miles over the +mountains last week bringing her daughter and seven others of +neighbours and friends to the school only to find there was no room +for them. But so great was the mother's distress and so appealing her +sacrifice and hardship in making the trip that one of our lady +teachers took the daughter into her own room rather than see the +mother disappointed. A few days later two boys came in having driven a +pair of lean goats over thirty miles hitched to a rude cart, which +held all the earthly possessions they could muster, the old father and +mother walking behind,--all hoping to buy entrance to the school for +the boys. They, too, were disappointed, for we are full to overflowing +this year. Then to cap the argument for stout-heartedness on my part, +I went for a stroll yesterday afternoon and came across a boy who is +making one of the bravest fights for an education that I ever saw. I +found him putting his shoulder to great boulders on the mountainside, +rolling them down and then setting himself to break them in pieces for +use in paving our little town,--for you must know that under the +influence of the school it is beginning to strive for general +improvement. The boy, whose father is a worthless fellow, works at +rock-breaking till he earns enough to go to school a while; then, when +the money is gone, he returns to work again with a pathetic patience +which has stirred me deeply. + +"So, mother mine, when I long for a sight of your face,--and an +old-time hand-clasp from Mr. Polk, as I assure you I too often do, or +when I crave the feast of books and the quiet student atmosphere of a +city library, I am simply going to think on these things in the +future." + +The second summer in the mountains came on and was a repetition of the +first. The school was getting more pupils than could be accommodated, +it was true, but Steve felt that contact with the thought of education +would help to further the general cause. Then, journeying about +through the wilderness was also a means of gathering fresh material +for his nature and hunting stories for boys. + +There was a distinct drawing towards the Follets in his subconscious +mind, the real objective of which he would scarcely admit to himself. +He put from him suggestive pictures of curls and pinafores which +memory and flitting dreams still flashed before him at times. He meant +to go there some day for he wanted to express his gratitude for all +the kindness of the past, but the time had not yet come. He must not +for the present be diverted in the least from the purpose which was +occupying him. He must repay Mr. Polk,--that was the thought which +dominated him, and to that end he was frugally gathering all the money +he could. As he had carried the fox skin through the wilderness when a +boy, so now he carried the thought of that debt in his mind, and no +robber in the form of pleasant indulgence should prevent him from +meeting his obligation. + +The second session passed, and he had learned how to handle his +difficulties with better success, while his method of teaching was +more definitely marked out and he found more leisure for the use of +his pen. Fresh, bright stories with the breath of the mountains in +them began to find ready sale, and occasionally as his pen dipped a +bit into romance it brought more than ordinary returns. Upon the tide +of this success came a strong temptation: Why not go to a distinctly +literary atmosphere and make a business of literature? He felt an +inward assurance of making good and a longing for the work which was +almost overpowering. Money for the debt must continue to accumulate +very slowly when so much time must be given to the daily business of +teaching, for which he was very poorly paid, and he could not know +freedom until that debt was paid. In literary work, too, he could +combine the cause of mountain need with his daily task with equal +effectiveness in both directions, for could he not portray with great +pathos the mental, spiritual and material poverty of his people? And +he stifled for the moment something within him which cried, "Others +might do that, but never one of our own!" Beside all this it was +probable, as Mr. Polk had said, that money was more sorely needed for +schools than personal service and he believed by giving himself to +literary work he could earn it. He had never been perfectly sure that +giving his life to teaching and personal work among his people was the +best method of helping them, so he need not feel chagrined by any +inconsistency. + +So great was the temptation which came to him at this crisis that he +determined when the session closed to go for a visit to Mirandy's +family and from there to the Follets, with the thought that he would +not like to leave the mountains without seeing them, and it would +doubtless be best to go east for his literary career. In this +satisfactory justification of the latter visit he allowed himself the +freedom of pleasant reminiscence about the spot where life first began +to really unfold for him. + +"Little Nancy," he said to himself, "why she must be nineteen now, +clothed in long frocks and maidenly dignity, I suspect,--but I +certainly hope she still wears the little white pinafores." And his +eyes grew misty with a tenderness which he would have classified as +brotherly, had it occurred to him to question himself. Then he smiled +suddenly and said, "Yes, I must go and see about those pinafores +before I leave the mountains." + +He made the visit to Hollow Hut first, and in the ease of a saddle +seat he reached the old familiar wood by a much more direct trail than +he had followed when a boy. He halted his pony at last by the great +boulder where Tige lay buried. The tragedy of his grief on that +long-ago morning when he had touched the stiffened body of his old +friend came back to him with such vividness that, in spite of "Time's +long caressing hand," he could not "smile beholding it." He hitched +his horse close by with a sense of the old dog's nearness and +protection, for he meant to camp on that spot during his stay as he +used to do when a boy. Then he went on foot down the mountainside to +his old home in the hollow, little dreaming, as he passed along its +rocky fastness, that a "still" was hidden there. + +It was just dusk of an early June day, and cool shadows dropped their +soft curtains about the old log house as he walked towards the door +unannounced. He stopped a moment at the grave of his father and +mother, and then followed noiselessly the little worn path to the +cabin. As he drew near, he saw the fitful light of blazing pine-knots +on the hearth and caught the sound of boisterous laughter. Reaching +the door he stood a moment in the shadow of the outer darkness, before +stepping into the light. Then,--what he saw transfixed him! White to +the lips he watched a moment. + +A group of men, Mirandy's husband among them, surrounded a little +fellow about six years old, who, having been made reeling drunk, was +trying to walk a crack in the floor. The little victim swayed and +tottered and struggled under the hilarious urging of his spectators. + +[Illustration: "Hit's Champ fer his pappy"] + +Steve's first mad impulse was to snatch up the wronged child, and, if +necessary, face the half-drunken men in battle. But this would be +worse than useless his second sober thought told him, for there stood +Mirandy looking carelessly on from the kitchen door behind. The child +was doubtless hers, and the father was taking part in the revolting +deed! What could he do? He knew they would brook no interference. + +With hard-won self-control he stepped upon the threshold, courteously +lifted his hat and bade them "Good-evening." + +Instantly the men turned and pistols clicked, for they thought him a +revenue officer; but Mirandy, looking into his still boyish face which +had caught the light, while his unfamiliar figure was in shadow, +exclaimed: + +"Don't shoot! Hit's Steve, my little buddie Steve!" And she stepped +across the room to him in a way which showed she was capable of being +stirred into action sometimes. + +The men looked uncertain, but Mirandy's husband, peering into Steve's +face a moment, said: + +"Yes, that's right, hit's Steve Langly, though I'd nuver knowed ye in +the world," and the other men dropped back. + +The child in the centre of the room looked about with dull eyes, then +dropped to the floor in a pitiful little drunken heap. + +With his heart wrung to the point of agony, Steve stepped forward and +stooping down lifted it tenderly to his breast. In the old home that +little boy represented himself, as he used to be. When he could speak +he said in a voice which trembled upon the silence: + +"This is my little nephew, is it not?" + +And Mirandy cried out sharply to her husband, without answering the +question: + +"Ye shan't nuver do that no more," and the men slunk out one by one, +ashamed, rebuked, sobered, though they could not have told why. + +Steve turned as they left and sat down, still holding the child to his +breast. Then gently releasing his hold with one hand he tenderly +pushed back the damp hair from the little swollen face, while Mirandy +stood by, the tears dropping down her cheeks,--a thing most unusual +for a mountain woman. And she said again passionately, "Champ shan't +nuver make him drunk agin." + +"What is his name?" asked Steve at last. + +"Hit's Champ fer his pappy. The bigges' one--he's outdoors +some'eres,--he's named Steve," she said in mollifying tone. "He was +borned the nex' winter atter you was here, an' you'd been sech a +likely lookin' boy I thought I'd name him fer ye." + +"That was good ev you, Randy," said Steve dropping tenderly into the +old form of speech. "I'll be glad ter see my namesake. Air the two all +ye hev?" + +"No, thar's the baby on the bed; she's a little gal," Mirandy replied +dully. "Then there's two on 'em that died, when they was babies. We +women allus gits chillun enough," she said, in a whining voice +peculiar to the older women of the mountains which she had already +acquired. + +Steve remained a month and it was the most trying time of his life. +When he learned of the "still," which he did very promptly, despair +for Mirandy, her husband and the children filled his heart. Champ +Brady was always under the influence of his "moonshine," and Steve +knew it was perfectly useless to try to dissuade him from making or +using it. Mirandy had his own distaste for it, but she had been +accustomed to the thought of its free use all her life, and how could +he make her listless mind comprehend its danger for her children? Not +trusting her emotion and passionate protest the day he came, he talked +with her earnestly many times and made her promise to do all she could +to keep the children from it. + +He took the two little boys, Steve and Champ, with their dog, every +day up to the old haunt by Tige's rock, where he camped every night. +He had brought picture books with him, illustrated alphabets and +one-syllable stories with the thought of possible need for them. And +the brown eyes of the two little fellows, so like his own in the old +days, as he well knew, in their blankness and wonder, gave eager +response to new things. He called the spot "our school," and the two +little pupils soon learned their letters, while in a month's time +little Steve was reading simple stories telling that "The dog is on +the mat," and "The cat is on the rug" with great exhilaration, and +spelling out laboriously more complex things. + +But Champ Brady was restless under the visit. He told Mirandy +frequently that he had no use for a fellow who hadn't enough stuff in +him to drink good liquor when it was put before him; and Steve, +knowing well his state of mind without hearing any expression of it, +went sadly away from the cabin at Hollow Hut for the third time. + +After a last earnest talk with Mirandy, he took the little boys to the +old spot where they had kept school and he had camped for the month +and put into the hands of Steve the second a German silver watch which +he had also brought with the thought of a boy in the old home again as +a possibility. + +"This little shining ticker will tell you each day that you are going +to make big, strong men who know things one of these days. You will +listen to it always, will you not?" he said, and each in turn, as he +was held up in the tender arms, promised earnestly with queer aching +in their little throats. Then Steve set them down and rode away, +looking back again and again with a waving hand at the two sober +little figures as long as they were in sight. + +"Oh, God of the wilderness," he cried, when at last he saw them no +more, "Thou didst come and comfort me when I wandered here alone; oh, +now give me assurance that Thou wilt watch over these two of my own +blood and bring them into the light." + +The prayer went up in despair akin to that of his boyhood's desolation +and again, after a time, a sense of comfort and peace flooded his +soul, while, in its full tide, a fresh resolve was fixed upon him: + +"I will give my life to the work. Not money alone, please God, if I +should make it, but my daily breath and life and vigour shall go for +the uplift of my people of the mountains!" + +And he smiled to think that literature should ever have appealed to +him, for a sense of linking himself to the Almighty God to whom he had +prayed had come to him in the holy stillness of the wilderness, making +anything else seem trivial beyond compare. + +He did not go to the Follets as he had intended, but made his way +slowly back to the school, stopping at cabins here and there as in +previous summers, chatting with the people, getting into their life +and giving them visions as no alien could have done. + +On this trip he passed a great coal mine and here he spent a couple of +weeks watching the work with great interest. He carefully examined the +various strata of the excavation and studied the practical working of +the mine with keen intent, his college course having given him ample +preparation for its intelligent comprehension. + +Suddenly a bright thought struck him. + +"Look here," he said to himself, "why not locate a mine here in the +mountains, as Mr. Polk used to talk of my doing, buy the land for a +few hundred dollars, as I am sure I can in some localities, and then +make it over to Mr. Polk? He will know how to handle it, and if it is +valuable will certainly make it pay. With another year's work I can +have the money, and by that means I can cancel that debt with one fell +stroke, perhaps," he went on jubilantly,--and if it proved to do so +many times over, he would only be the more rejoiced, he thought. + + + + +XII + +LOVE'S AWAKENING + + +Full of this happy inspiration Steve went back to his work, determined +to gather during the year a sum sufficient to make his purchase, so as +to be ready for the next vacation when he would be free to go +prospecting. Under the stimulus of this good hope he worked with great +absorption, only allowing himself the recreation of a weekly letter to +Mrs. Polk, which he never failed to send, continuing to put into it +all the interesting and amusing things which came into his work,--and +they did come in spite of the seriousness of his life. + +Oftentimes in brooding thought he went back to the little Steve who +was duplicating his own early life in the old home. He had considered +mountain educational work hitherto in the large; he began now to think +of it from the nucleus of the home. How he would like to see the old +spot of his boyhood redeemed by an ideal home life! And the thought +touched many latent springs of his manly nature, calling forth dim, +sweet visions of domestic love and beauty. + +But he hushed nature's appeal peremptorily, he thrust back the +visions with the firm decision that he had no leisure for dreams, and +continued his many-sided work through another winter with accustomed +constancy. It was in the early spring of that year when an unexpected +telegram came to him from Mrs. Polk. It read: + +"Meet Nita and myself at L---- to-morrow, 7 A. M. train". + +How the brief message thrilled him! He had plodded so long alone. He +sprang up from his place at the breakfast table where the message had +been handed him, his eyes shining and his step buoyant. Securing leave +of absence from school duties for a couple of days, he went at once to +hire a team which would take him forty miles over the mountains to the +railroad station. + +Forty miles! With a good team and a buoyant spirit they seemed little +more than so many city blocks. To look into the face and talk once +more with the "little mother" would renew his enthusiasm for his work. +She must have known that he was growing dull and spiritless with the +lingering winter days,--she had such a wonderful way of divining +things. His eyes grew misty with tender recollection of her. + +And Nita,--beautiful Nita Trowbridge,--when she should step out in the +early morning light, it would be like flashing his glorious mountain +sunrise upon some artist's masterpiece! And he was hungry for the +beauty and grace and charm of the city which she embodied. Yes, it was +true, there was no denying it! And fast and faster sped the retreating +miles under his joyful expectations till the journey was ended, a +night's refreshing sleep had passed and he stood at last at the little +station, restlessly pacing up and down the platform, with eye and ear +strained to detect the first hint of the incoming train. + +Next he was rushing into the rear sleeper! + +"Little mother!" + +"Steve!" were the greetings as he took Mrs. Polk in his arms while the +eyes of both brimmed with tears. Then turning quickly to Nita, he +greeted her with less demonstration but with equal warmth. + +Catching up their hand-bags he hurried them out, for through trains +show scant respect for mountain stations, and leading the way to his +waiting vehicle he helped Mrs. Polk in with easy confidence, then +turned to Nita. What was it about her that made him instantly +conscious that the spring wagonette was very plain, the newness long +gone and that the horses, with abundant manes and tails, lacked +trimness and style? He started to apologize for his turnout, then +quickly set his lips. If he must begin apologizing here, where would +it end? + +"This is just a mild forerunner of the heights before you," he said +laughingly, as he carefully helped her mount the high step before +which she had stood uncertainly. + +But the trip proved equally delightful for them all. The mountain air +was bracing, the morning panorama spread out before them, gloriously +beautiful as it always was, brought constant delighted exclamation +from both Mrs. Polk and Nita while Steve found fresh enjoyment in +their pleasure. + +The little cabins which came into view on the way, standing bare and +barren by the roadside, or looking out from forest recesses where +there was hardly a road to follow, or clinging to some lofty "bench" +upon the mountainside, all were fronted by poorly clad children gazing +in solemn, open-mouthed interest while the strangers passed. + +"Dear little things," said Mrs. Polk, "they stand in mute appeal to us +to open a path for them out into our world,--to take them into the +fold of our larger brotherhood." + +Steve looked back into her bright, earnest face with kindling eyes, +while Nita turned from one to the other with the old childish wonder +again in her face. These mountain folk were a new species to her, +interesting and amusing perhaps, but from whom she instinctively +shrank. Not that she was in the least disdainful, she was of too +sweet a nature for that, but she had no conception of a divine bond of +human kinship which could ever include her and them. + +They spent the night at a mountain village, breaking the long drive +for the ladies, and the next day reached the school where Steve +daily gave his best, and which was so dear to Mrs. Polk. During +the two days following, as during the trip, Steve made them as +comfortable as possible, still making no apologies for anything, +and indeed no apology was necessary, for Mrs. Polk had known what to +expect, and the royal hospitality which glorified it, while Nita +accepted the one with simple good taste and the other with real, if +not genial, appreciation. The visit was full of interest for Mrs. +Polk as she noted the growth of the work, and Nita went about +through school buildings and grounds, her beauty and tasteful +attire making her a most observed visitor. Nor did she fail to show +interest in the work, thoroughly courteous and kindly, and yet +which somehow seemed detached. + +As Steve followed her with admiring eyes and sincere regard, he could +not help seeing most clearly that she could never fit into the +mountain landscape. He thought whimsically of Mr. Polk's dreams for +her and himself and knew that though he could have remained in her +world and found happiness, she could never have come into his. His +early intuition had not been at fault; she would never touch the +height, breadth and depth of universal womanhood with its vision and +its sympathy. + +Just before leaving, the two visitors spent a recitation period in +Steve's class room, and so eager was he to reveal the best in his +pupils that he did not dream he was also putting forth the teacher's +best. + +When the pupils had filed out and the three stood alone, Mrs. Polk +made a gay little bow, and said with glistening eyes: + +"Bravo, Sir Knight of the Mountains, you have certainly won your +spurs,--though they be of civilian make!" + +He smiled in return, brought back to a consciousness of himself, but +turning from it instantly again, he inquired: + +"And what do you think of my brother knights?" + +"They are equally fine," said Mrs. Polk warmly. + +"They are indeed," joined in Nita, "but how you have penetrated the +hopeless exteriors of these people, as we saw them on our way here, +found the germs of promise and developed them, will always remain an +unfathomable mystery for me," she declared. "I confess I understand +your skill less than I do that of the sculptor who makes the marble +express beauty, thought and feeling,--and his work would be infinitely +more to my taste. I think nothing more distasteful than contact with +people can be,--and when it must be daily----" She shrugged her +shoulders in conclusion expressively. + +Steve smiled back at her for he knew she did not think of him as one +of these people with whom she could not bear the thought of daily +contact. + +"Now confess, don't you get dreadfully tired of it all?" she +persisted, looking with real appeal into his face as though she would +draw him away from it if she could. + +"Unspeakably, sometimes," he smiled back again, then looking beyond +her over the mountains he added simply, "but I belong here." + +And uncomprehending as she would ever be, she turned at last lightly +away and walking to the outer door stepped out upon the campus, +leaving her sister and Steve for a little talk alone, which she was +sure they would like. + +When she was gone, Mrs. Polk laid a hand upon Steve's arm and said +softly: "Some day, Steve, everything will come right," looking +expressively into his eyes, and he knew she meant between himself and +Mr. Polk, a subject that had not been mentioned since she came. "I +catch beautiful prophecies sometimes of all this human desert +blossoming as a rose," she went on with her old gay enthusiasm, "and I +am fully persuaded now, as I never have quite been since you left us, +that you have chosen your work wisely. I had to come at last and see +for myself. + +"But are you going to live your life alone, Steve, dear," she asked +after a moment wistfully, "with no sweet home ties?" + +"I do not know, little mother," he said gravely. His mind went +instantly to the old cabin home and little Steve, but he couldn't tell +even her of the family life there now,--nor yet of the mystic vision +which had intruded upon his brooding thought. + +His sudden smile flashed over the seriousness of his face as he +replied at last, "I have been too busy and too poor to think about it +so far." + +She did not smile in return, but catching both his hands in hers she +looked up at him with motherly insistence, and asked: + +"Have you never loved any dear girl? Is there no sweet face that +sometimes steals into the little home which nestles always in every +true man's innermost heart?" + +Her strong mother-love had surely lent her a mystic's insight and +compelling power! + +Instantly into the dim outline of the vision of his brooding thought +which he had hitherto constantly thrust aside, came with a +distinctness that startled him, a childish face framed in yellow curls +above a little white pinafore! + +He caught his breath with the vividness of it, then pulled himself +together and looking down into the dear eyes of the woman who had been +more than second mother to him, and who thereby had won the right to +question him, he said with a curiously puzzled look: + +"Why, I do not know,--perhaps so,"--then, as she still looked intently +at him, "you have startled me. I have become such a stupid grind, I +guess I need waking up. I will commune with myself, as I have never +done before, and let you know what I discover," he ended more +lightly. + +She knew that a revelation had come to him in that moment and was +content without further questioning. With a last gentle, loving +pressure for his hands she released them and they walked out together +to join Nita. + +Their team was soon ready and after another long, pleasant drive Steve +was watching the departing train from the little station platform. He +felt keen regret as it bore his friends out of sight, but he turned to +his team for the homeward drive with a strange exhilaration in his +heart. He had hardly been able to wait for that communion with +himself, and when the opportunity came there was no uncertainty in +its tenor. + +"Of course I love Nancy Follet! I have loved her ever since I first +set eyes upon her sweet little face,--and it has come before me always +in any stress of mind or heart as though to tell me she was always to +have part in my life. And yet I have been so dull I did not +understand. She preempted my heart from the first and that is why I +did not love beautiful Nita Trowbridge,--why I have never been able to +look at any girl with a spark of interest since." How he loved to +linger over the revelation which had come to him! It was like having +emerged from a desert into a land flowing with milk and honey. Little +Nancy! She had been so gentle, so confiding, so eager to help him with +things,--she would be his dear helper in the work of his life,--and +the work would thereby be glorified beyond measure! Under the spell of +his tender musing the forty miles again sped by unheeded and he was +back once more at the schoolroom door. + +It was well that his tasks for the year were well-nigh over, for he at +once became consumed with the desire to see Nancy in the maturity of +her girlhood. He promptly decided that he would go as soon as school +closed and win her promise before he went on that prospecting tour. In +the meantime his mind continued to hover over the hours they had +spent together as boy and girl. He went to mill once more walking +beside a little fairy figure on old Dobbin's back,--he caught the +fragrance of shy flowers which nestled in cool woodland depths, and +memory let softly down the bars into a holy of holies as the little +girl said again in her sweet innocence, "Steve, let's build us a house +in this wood and live here always." He mounted the rugged steeps of +Greely's Ridge, her strong protector, while she reached down once more +a timid little hand to hold his tightly,--and suddenly he was startled +with remembrance of the character of that ridge. It must have held +minerals! Coal, yes, coal,--he was sure of it! There was the piece of +land he had been wanting to find! + +And so with buoyant, twofold hope he started as soon as school was out +towards the Follet home, having deposited in the bank a sum which he +felt would be sufficient to purchase the Greely Ridge, should he find +it as valuable as he suspected and no one had preceded him in its +discovery. + + + + +XIII + +OLD TIES RENEWED + + +It was mid-afternoon of a late June day when Steve stopped at Mr. +Follet's store. He wondered if his old friend would be there. Yes, the +door was open, and for a moment Steve stood on the platform in front, +his tall figure erect, his head bared as he looked reverently towards +the little home which had opened the world of books to him. Then Mr. +Follet's high voice rang out from the dark depths where dry-goods and +groceries rioted in hopeless confusion as of old. + +"Hello, stranger, what's the time o' day?" + +Steve stepping forward put out an eager hand, and cried: + +"Mr. Follet, don't you know me?" + +But the man only stared, coming forward into the light of the +doorway. + +"Never saw you before," he declared at last; "or if I did, can't tell +where under the cano_pee_ 'twas." + +Steve laughed with keen enjoyment at hearing the familiar old +expression, and said eagerly: + +"Don't you remember Steve, little Steve Langly who worked for you one +summer?" + +"Steve!" exclaimed Mr. Follet; "of course I do; nobody at my house +has forgotten him, not by a jugful,--but this ain't Steve!" + +"This _is_ Steve though, Mr. Follet,--the same Steve, with just as +grateful a heart for you and Mrs. Follet as I had the day I left you +about a dozen years ago." + +"Well, this does beat me," said Mr. Follet. "We'll lock right up and +go over to the house. My wife and Nancy will be powerful glad to see +you if they can ever think who under the cano_pee_ you are." And he +stepped briskly about locking up, and then the two walked over to the +house. + +Mrs. Follet was seated on the piazza with some light sewing when they +came up, and to Mr. Follet's excited introduction of Mr. Langly she +made polite but unrecognizing acknowledgment, and her husband was too +impatient to delay his revelation. + +"Why, ma, you don't tell me you don't know Steve," he exclaimed. + +"Steve," returned Mrs. Follet bewildered. + +"Why, yes! little, old, scrawny, mountain Steve," exclaimed Mr. +Follet, "who did everything that was done here one summer!" + +Then Mrs. Follet slowly grasped the astonishing thought that little +ignorant Steve and the fine-looking young man before her were one and +the same, and gave him gentle, motherly greeting. + +"Where's Nancy?" went on Mr. Follet, impatiently. + +"She's gone with Gyp for a gallop," returned Mrs. Follet, "but she +ought to be back any minute now." And by the time they had exchanged +brief accounts of the years that had passed since they last met, Nancy +was seen swaying gracefully down the road upon her pony's rounded +back. She waved gaily as she passed the porch not noticing the +stranger who was somewhat screened by hanging vines, and then she +turned into the lane which led to the stable. + +Steve's eyes glistened at the vision of the girl which time had so +charmingly matured, and starting up he exclaimed: + +"Let me meet her at the stable where I used to help her on and off old +Dobbin's back," and with a bound he was off the porch and striding +towards the lane. + +Nancy had slowed her pace along the shady driveway, and Steve, going +noiselessly through the grass, was at her side when she was ready to +dismount. + +Smilingly he held out his hand for her to step upon, his glowing eyes +lifted to hers. Startled she drew back, her eyes held and fascinated, +however, by his intent gaze. + +For a long instant they gazed, and then she breathed: + +"Oh, Steve!" + +Had the meeting occurred otherwise, she probably would never have +taken the tall, broad-shouldered, handsome young fellow for the Steve +of her childish memory, but she only saw and recognized those brown +eyes lifted to hers as they used to be in the old days when he took +her from Dobbin's back, with the same tender light in them. + +"Yes, Nancy, it's Steve!" he exclaimed joyfully. "And you knew me +after all these years!" + +A smile that held something sweet and sensitive flashed assent, and +then in reaction from the stir of undefined feeling, which she was not +ready to acknowledge, her eyes danced with sudden humour. Keeping her +saddle she glanced behind her to the pony's back, and said: + +"Where are our bags of meal?" + +Steve laughed in responsive gaiety, and in spite of himself let his +eyes rest upon her in kindling admiration. + +"Oh, I see good grist which the mill of time has ground for you," he +said, and put out his palm again for her to step upon. + +But she, flushing with girlish surprise at his ready gallantry, which +showed how completely the little mountain boy had been lost in the +cultured man, drew back once more and with equal quick wit said, +laughing: + +"You will certainly find it has, and in good, substantial material if +you try to take my weight in your hand." + +"The same mill has ground out for me an adequate amount of muscle," he +declared, adding with a hint of pleading in his voice, "You must let +me renew old times," and without further protest she lightly touched +his hand with her foot as she sprang from the pony's back. + +"Weight doesn't count with so light a touch as that," laughed Steve, +and started to lead the pony into the stable, when a coloured boy +stepped up to care for it. + +"You see we keep a groom these days," said Nancy. + +"Yes; what style the mountains are taking on," returned Steve, as +Nancy gathered up the long skirt of her riding habit, and the two +walked together through the grass to the porch. + +"To what an astonishing height you have grown," said she with naive +charm, looking up at him. + +"You have done equally well," he returned, measuring with his eye her +slender length; then he added with his sudden smile which held the +whimsical quality of old friendship, "Please tell me,--where are the +curls?" + +"Oh, they are tucked snugly away out of sight," said she demurely, +with a pretty gesture which straying tendrils had made habitual, and +the warm colour rising again to her face. + +"There should be a law against carrying curls concealed," said he. + +By this time they were at the porch, and as they resumed the family +exchange of items of interest from each side, Steve and Nancy sitting +on the steps as in the old days, he saw the fair dream-structure of +the past few weeks in the beginning of complete realization. + +In the evening as Mr. and Mrs. Follet, Steve and Nancy sat again on +the porch enjoying the night air after a warm day, they talked +interestedly of old times and the changes which had taken place. +Steve found that Crosscut, the little flag station over which Mr. +Follet presided, had expanded into a small straggling town with a +meeting-house, school of uncertain sessions and a thriving saloon. + +As they chatted pleasantly a young man turned into the gate and came +up the path with a debonair swing that proclaimed him much at home. + +"Howdy everybody," he said jauntily, and Nancy rose with pleasant +greeting for him. Then turning to Steve she introduced Mr. Colton to +Mr. Langly. + +Steve met the newcomer with quiet courtesy, while Mr. Colton responded +with cordiality of the "hail-fellow-well-met" type, and immediately +seated himself beside Nancy with an air of proprietorship. + +Very soon Mr. Follet in the course of conversation turned and +addressed Steve by his first name. + +"Steve!" exclaimed the visitor. "Didn't Miss Nancy introduce you to me +as Mr. Langly? Are you Steve Langly who visited Louisville with a Mr. +Polk some ten or twelve years ago?" + +"I am," said Steve with much surprise. + +"Is that so?" returned Mr. Colton with enthusiasm. "Well, I am Raymond +Colton!" + +"Indeed," exclaimed Steve heartily. "Well, this is pleasant." + +"I should say so," returned Raymond. "I tell you, old fellow, we never +forgot that lickin' you gave us at our school--served us right and did +us good." He launched into a hilarious account of that experience +which everybody enjoyed, and there was a little pleasant, general +conversation. Then Raymond suddenly exclaimed: + +"Miss Nancy, where's your banjo?" and went at once for it. + +"I tell you, Steve, she can play on the old banjo and sing as no one +else ever did," he said as he returned and laid it in her lap. + +Nancy turned to Steve with a quick flush which showed even in the +moonlight and protested: "I really don't know a thing about it, only +what father taught me when I was a little girl." + +And Mr. Follet said excitedly, "You see, Steve, she was so lonesome +after you left I had to get the old thing down to cheer her up. I +hadn't played any on it since I was a young fellow courtin' her +mother. I don't believe I'd ever got her without that banjo," he added +and laughed with great good humour. "Nancy don't think much of it," he +went on. "She thinks it's nothin' beside the piano, but Raymond, here, +is like me, he thinks it beats the piano all hollow." + +"Sing 'Robin Adair,'" put in Raymond, and Nancy began striking soft +minor chords for a little prelude. Then a rich, contralto voice, low +and clear, told the tender old story of Robin Adair and his love, +which the banjo echoed with little improvised hints of the air. +Raymond and Mr. Follet called for one song after another of the old +favourites, Raymond often joining in with a fine tenor, which +harmonized perfectly with Nancy's contralto. At last she sang of her +own accord "The Rosary." + +There was an exquisite pathos in the beautiful, heart-breaking notes +that stirred Steve deeply. What depth of feeling, as well as maidenly +reserve and charm, his little Nancy had developed! The curls and +pinafores were gone, it was true, but as he watched her sweet, +expressive face in the moonlight and felt the fullness of her sympathy +and understanding in the singing, he said to himself, "I am willing to +lose them for this!" + +"Miss Nancy, please don't ever sing that any more; it gives me the +shivers," said Raymond and was seconded by Mr. Follet. + +"It's bedtime for old folks, anyhow," the latter went on, and added, +"I guess Steve's tired enough to go, too," and though Steve was not +ready to admit this, Raymond gave him gay good-night and he followed +his host to the little attic room where he had slept as a boy, and +which Mrs. Follet had made ready for him, because he had insisted that +it was just the place for him. The house was small and he knew +somebody must vacate comfortable quarters if he slept elsewhere. + +But once in the old bed Steve did not find fair memories crowding +about as he had anticipated. Even the echoing sweet songs lost their +melody. Indeed he could think of nothing but the fact that Nancy and +Raymond Colton sat together on the front porch, left there by her +parents as though he had special rights. A midnight thunder-storm +caught up his perturbed thought with noisy energy. + +"But why not!" he exclaimed sadly for the hundredth time to his +rebellious heart. "You certainly have no claim." + +But that lately aroused, throbbing fountain of love's pulsations +replied with vehemence: "I have! I have loved her every moment since I +first looked upon her as a little girl, and I love her in her sweet +maturity with all my soul. She is mine!" + +So the wordy war went on between his good sense and his yearning +heart, banishing every dear, cherished memory and postponing sleep +till the wee morning hours. + +Next day after the breakfast dishes were done, Mrs. Follet proposed +that Nancy take Steve for a ride with Gyp and the family horse over to +the Greely woods, their old favourite haunt, and this exactly suited +Steve, for, in spite of the night's disturbance, nothing could please +him more than an opportunity for companionship with Nancy alone, and +he was still impatient to see if his memory of that rugged ridge of +woodland was correct. + +He went out at once to saddle the horses. It was a crisp, cool, clear +morning after the storm, and Nancy soon appeared in a trim riding +habit and cap with deep visor to shade the eyes. The severe lines and +dark blue of her costume made charming contrast to her softly rounded +face, with its delicate colouring and the stray yellow tendrils of +hair which were always slipping out from the fluffy braids which +bound her head. She surely was fair to look upon, and when Steve had +assisted her to mount in the old way,--holding out his hand and she +stepping upon it in laughing ease,--she sat her pony with the graceful +poise of the true Kentucky girl, making a picture which less partial +observers than Steve could not have failed to find full of charm. They +cantered off briskly down the road. + +When they reached the wood Steve grew keenly reminiscent, as had +become his habit the last few weeks. Forgetting Raymond completely, +the past came back to him vividly; he seemed to feel again Nancy's +confiding trust in him,--and he yearned to know how clearly she +remembered. He looked often upon her as she rode beside him, the two +horses touching noses in the narrow path, but the delicate face +revealed nothing. + +"Do you remember," he said at last, "what a veritable slave you made +of me in this old wood?" + +She laughed brightly and replied, "Why no, I haven't any such +recollection." + +"Well, you knew even then just how to do it," he returned with a bit +of insinuation. "You would look up at the tallest, hardest tree to +climb and see some high-hanging blossom which you coveted, and I +immediately scaled the tree's height to lay the blossom at your +feet." + +She laughed again and her cheeks this time flushed a rosy hue, +unaccountably disconcerting to her. + +"But that, after all, was as it should have been," he went on after a +moment, smiling. "We men need your bidding to send us to the heights, +always." + +"I do not agree with you," she said, recovering her poise instantly; +and summoning a girlish perversity, she led him straightway from +sentiment to the substantial. "Each one must mount up in his own +strength, like these splendid old trees, without prop or help, only +the light from above to draw it upward," and a very demure look +crossed her ever-changing face as she finished the little speech. + +"You are right," said Steve smiling and remembering Mrs. Polk's lesson +from the giant beech so long ago. "And yet, after all, many things +help the tree in its growth besides the light from above,--the sun. +There are the winds and the rain, and"--he paused a moment,--"its +mates. Don't you know a tree rarely stands alone unless man has cut +down its companions. They like comradeship. I believe they are +dependent upon it in ways we do not know." + +"How stupid of me to forget I was talking with a professor," said +Nancy archly. + +"And worse still for me to forget that I was trying to enlighten the +lady who initiated me into the world of books," replied he promptly, +yielding to her mood. + +"Oh, how lovely that graceful, clinging vine is," she exclaimed, +ignoring his retort and pointing up to a vine covered tree, while +Steve thrust back into the secret place of his heart all the cherished +memories which the old wood held for him, realizing decidedly that +Nancy was no longer a shy, timid little girl ready to place her hand +in his, but a young woman who would need to be wooed before she was +won,--even though there were no Raymond. + +"What had he expected anyway?" he reiterated sternly. "That she would +be waiting his coming, all ready for the plucking?" He straightened +himself in the saddle. He had long since learned how to work and wait +for things he wanted; he could do it again. + +He led the conversation away from the personal. They talked of nature, +each finding under the spur of companionship many new interests in the +old wood; and being a devoted nature lover, Steve was pleased to find +that Nancy had added to her tender interest in the feathered folk much +information as to peculiar characteristics of varying species. It was +an easy transition from nature to nature's interpreters, the poets, +and the two found mutual interest in recalling some choice things of +literature. She had spent four years at a fine old Kentucky college, +graduating in June with high honours. There was still a sweet +seriousness about her as in the little Nancy of old, in spite of her +girlish gaiety, and while the years of study had brought her an +unmistakable breadth and culture, there was also a quaint freshness of +speech and manner that made her especially attractive. Steve found +keen satisfaction in the conversation, for the girl understood his +view-point and yet had fresh conceptions of her own which she knew how +to express. + +He said to himself as he studied her (which having put aside the +personal he could now do), "She has the New England alertness of mind +inherited from her mother without the New England reticence, and from +her Kentucky father, eccentric as he is, she gets the vivacity and +charm which is the Kentucky girl's birthright." + +And yet in the midst of his enjoyment an insistent despair of heart +returned as he recalled a certain good fellowship in her attitude +towards Raymond, which was missing with him. Obtuse as lovers usually +are, it never occurred to him that this was one of the best of +symptoms in his favour! + +They had gone in leisurely fashion through the wood, but the tall +trees began to drop away at last, and they went down the slope till +the old mill stood before them in soft, quaker-gray upon the bank of a +turbulent, rushing mountain creek. The big, wooden wheel had fallen +from its place and the old mill itself was fast dropping into complete +decay, but the trees in fresh summer green still hung affectionately +over it. Just beyond the mill nestled the gray log cabin with its +porch across the front; and, yes, there was Tildy pacing back and +forth at her spinning-wheel just as she used to do when Steve and +Nancy were children. She was of the thrifty type of mountain women, +always cleanly, always busy, making the most of the meagre means at +hand. To the young people it was as though some magic lantern had +flashed before them a scene from the past, and the two turned +involuntarily to one another with a rush of something tender upon +their faces. + +Without speaking they rode to the door, and before Steve could +dismount Nancy had sprung from the saddle, caught up her skirt, and +was warmly shaking hands with the old woman, whom now she did not +often see. Steve quickly followed, and with the air of an old friend +also, put out his hand cordially to Tildy. + +She took it doubtfully, saying: + +"Howdye, stranger?" + +[Illustration: "Tilda pacing back and forth at her spinning-wheel"] + +"Why, don't you know me, Mother Greely?" Steve asked. + +"I shore don't," she replied, pushing her spectacles up on her nose +and peering earnestly through them. "No," she said finally, "I nuver +seed ye afore; leastways I ain't no recollection of hit ef I ever +did." + +The old man, who with the old mill had fallen into decrepitude, then +came slowly hobbling out, an inquiring look on his kind old face. +Tildy turned to him, raising her voice shrilly, for he heard with +difficulty and asked: "Nat, have ye ever seed this young man afore?" + +"No," the old man returned after searching scrutiny. + +Then Steve said: "Don't you remember an old gray horse that used to +come to the mill with a little girl in white pinafore on his back, two +bags of corn behind her, and a tousled, brown-haired boy of about +twelve walking beside her?" + +"And the little girl was always on the verge of starvation, and only +molasses cakes could rescue her," put in Nancy laughing. + +"Nancy and Steve," exclaimed the old woman, and then with the +intuition of her sex for romance, she further exclaimed: "An' ye hev +done got married!" + +"No," Steve hastened to say; but the old man, more accustomed to his +wife's shrill voice, caught her affirmation, and failed to hear +Steve's denial. + +"Well, now," said he, rubbing his hands together, greatly pleased, +"Tildy and me allus said ye'd marry some day; ye was jes' suited to +one another." + +Nancy hated herself for flushing so unreasonably again, and Steve, not +daring to look towards her, was hurrying to the rescue, when the old +woman with a swift, keen glance at both, broke in with: + +"No, pap, no they hain't," piped shrilly into the old man's ear. + +His face dropped with evident disappointment, and there was an +embarrassed moment for all of them. + +"Mother Greely," said Nancy gaily, determinedly recovering herself, +"have you got any of those molasses cakes you used to give us when we +came over?" + +"Wal now, I think I hev," said the old woman, rising as quickly as her +stiffened limbs would let her. + +Steve looked down at Nancy as Tildy went in, smiled, and said: + +"Shall we sit on the door-step, as we used to?" + +Nancy's eyes did not meet his, and she turned her head to hide that +provokingly rising colour as she sat down in a matter-of-fact way. + +When they rode away from the mill, having made the aged couple happy +with the renewal of old times, Steve again with eager yearning +strained his inner vision for a glimpse into her heart, but she +betrayed not the slightest consciousness of the embarrassing episode. + +As the horses went leisurely back along through the wood, Steve and +Nancy talked gently of the two old people with their wondrous mountain +combination of barest poverty, dense ignorance, keen intelligence, +simple kindliness and gentle dignity,--qualities which the young folks +were now prepared to recognize. + +"It is curious how like two people grow from constant association," +said Steve at last, musingly. "The resemblance between the old miller +and his wife is striking, isn't it?" + +"Yes, it is," returned Nancy; "the shape of face and type of feature +is the same in both, and as for expression, each might be a mirror for +the other." + +"It would be interesting to know which had most influenced the other," +said Steve; "whether she has conformed to his type or he to hers." + +"Old Nat and Tildy certainly furnish a good opportunity for study of +that problem," said Nancy, "for there has been little except the +influence of each upon the other to leave its impress." + +"The subject is an interesting field for the aspiring investigator," +Steve went on. "I wonder that some fine-spun, scientific theory has +not already been advanced,--but it only remains another formidable +matrimonial hazard," he ended with his sudden smile. + +"It does indeed," laughed Nancy. "Wouldn't it be dreadful to think of +growing daily more and more like some people?" + +"And on the other hand," promptly returned Steve, "how delightful to +think of growing more and more like certain other people," turning to +her with a light in his eye. + +"But then there is the uncertainty,--which is most likely to influence +the other," said Nancy, switching dexterously away from hinted +personal application, and then with a dash of daring gaiety, adding, +"When you marry a girl with a crooked nose, will yours begin to crook +likewise, or will hers take on your symmetrical lines?" + +"But I am not going to take one with a crooked nose," said Steve, +smiling significantly in spite of himself. + +"Perhaps not, but the question remains,--which is most likely to +conform, a husband or a wife," said Nancy, shying back to the abstract +again, with pretty positiveness. And then she called gaily, as she +touched Gyp with her whip and started both horses off on a brisk +canter, leaving the wood for the road, "Please let me know if you +solve the problem, so I may be relieved in mind or forewarned." + +As she dashed on slightly ahead of him, spirit and beauty in every +line of pony and rider, Steve said to himself with a quizzical smile: + +"How cleverly she manages to keep me at arm's length. Oh, little +Nancy, where did you learn such tactics?" and he did not know that +"such tactics" were sure forerunners of surrender. + +As for Nancy, she stood a little later by her bedroom window. The +trim, smart riding-habit was laid aside and a little light muslin of +almost childlike simplicity had taken its place. She stood looking out +at nothing through brimming tears, with flushed cheeks and quivering +lips. + +"I do blush so horridly when I am with him, and I'm afraid I say +things I shouldn't. Oh, what makes me, when I do like him so much!" + + + + +XIV + +"ALL RIGHT, SON" + + +After dinner Steve walked over to the store with Mr. Follet, talked +with him a little, and then strolling up the street afterwards, he was +joined with great cordiality by Raymond Colton. + +The talk was breezy as was inevitable with Raymond. He had graduated +at a great northern university in June, had any amount of _sang froid_ +and had as yet caught no glimpse of life save as a field for +pleasure. + +"What do you think of Miss Nancy?" he inquired enthusiastically. +"Isn't she the prettiest thing going? I have seen them north, south, +east, and west, but I honestly believe I never saw a sweeter flower +growing than Nancy Follet!" he went on without waiting for Steve to +answer his question, so a smile was all the response which seemed +necessary. + +"I came here," went on Raymond, "to look after a land proposition for +father. They say there's lots of valuable coal and iron ore about +here. I've dipped a good deal into that sort of thing at college and +father sent me up to make some tests for him, and if I found anything +rich to take up a 'claim' instanter. I've been here three weeks and I +haven't done a thing yet. Miss Nancy has fascinated me so, I haven't +had eyes for sordid things. But there's plenty of time; no danger of +anybody's rushing in ahead in this sleepy little burg." + +"I'm not so sure of that," returned Steve quietly. "You never know +when somebody may slip in ahead of you. Business competition is a very +lively thing I've been told, though I confess I don't know much about +it," he ended easily. + +"Well, I've been getting a good bit of experience in business here and +there, and I can tell that there's nobody hanging about here that has +much business go." He had no intention of being personal and Steve +bowed, smiling remotely. + +After some more desultory talk they separated and Steve went back to +join Nancy on the porch where he thought he would find her. + +Raymond looked after him with a half smile. + +"Poor old Steve," he said to himself, "he's caught already, and the +worst of it is, I am afraid he's got the best chance. She's a dear +little chum with me, loves to sing to my tenor and laugh at my +foolishness, but I noticed last night the blushes were for him." And +his handsome face set into unusual, firm lines as he went on: "But I +am going to win her! I'll do it in spite of him. To-night I'll walk +off with her whether or no, and he'll think his case is lost, for he +doesn't know girls, I can see that." And with restored confidence he +went over to the store to visit Mr. Follet. He and Mr. Follet were on +fine terms, and he spent an hour or so at the store every day. They +seemed in fact to have some project in common requiring much +consultation. + +Evening brought Raymond again to the Follet porch, and after a little +music and general talk, turning to Mrs. Follet he said: + +"Mother Follet, won't you let us children, Miss Nancy and me, go for a +little walk together? It is so hard for us to sit still." He said it +with mock childishness that was irresistible, and without waiting for +Mrs. Follet's consent, he laughingly grasped Nancy's hand and made off +with her, whether or no. + +Steve could not see the laughing but real protest in Nancy's face, and +his lips set firmly as he watched her white frock swaying gently up +the long, straggling street. + +Mrs. Follet then went in and Mr. Follet, turning to Steve, began in +pleased excitement: + +"Raymond's mightily in love with her, ain't he?" and went on without +waiting for a reply, "I can't tell about her,--you never can tell +nothin' about girls, anyway, you know, and she's just wrapped up in +her piano music. She spends hours thumpin' on what she calls +classical music, but I wouldn't give it for one tune on the banjo. +She's been begging me to let her go to New York and study, but Lord, +she knows as much now as any woman under the cano_pee_'s got use for, +I think, and I've told her she can't do it. Raymond says, though, she +ought to go, and that he'd like nothin' better than to give her the +chance. His folks have got money, I reckon, and he can do it all +right. If anything'll help to get her that will." + +Steve laughed in reply with as good grace as he could, and soon +followed Mrs. Follet to bed as one of the "old folks" before the +"children" returned. + +It was evident enough that he did not count with anybody except the +Greelys as a possible suitor for Nancy, and his sturdy heart chafed in +almost bitter protest. Again sweet memories played truant in the small +attic chamber. "And little Nancy has musical aspirations," he thought. +"With the life I have chosen I could never gratify her. It is +absolutely hopeless for me,--I have nothing to offer her. I am old and +staid, anyway," he said finally to his rebellious heart. "I have known +the responsibilities of life too long, and Nancy is made only for +joy." + +The next morning, putting aside his depression sternly, Steve went on +horseback alone, taking the same road he and Nancy had taken the +morning before. He lingered again in the Greely woods, this time on a +prospecting tour testing here and testing there carefully. + +When he at last rode up to the little one-roomed log cabin the old +folks again made him welcome. After chatting a goodly length of time +with them, and getting his voice well pitched for the old man's +hearing, Steve asked if Mr. Greely would not like to sell off some of +his land. + +The old man looked surprised at the question, for no coal fields had +then been opened up in that part of Kentucky, so that he was not aware +of the value of coal bearing land. + +"Wal, course I would, but nobody would want ter buy hit. Thar's only +this patch the cabin and mill sets on what's any a'count, an' that I +want ter keep long's me an' the ole woman lives." + +"I am sure you are mistaken about that, Mr. Greely. I think all that +woodland ridge is good land, and I would like to own it. Will you and +Mrs. Greely think it over, give me a price on it by to-morrow and let +me have the first chance at it?" + +Astonished beyond measure the old man looked helplessly at his wife. + +"Why, Steve, give me what ye think hit is wuth, if you really want +hit." + +"Mr. Greely, I must tell you frankly that I cannot give what I think +it is worth, but I can pay you more a thousand times than you can ever +get out of it, for you are too old to attempt anything with it, and +there are no children. I think it can be made to yield returns in ways +of which you do not dream or I wouldn't buy it, but I do not _know_ +and I am making a venture in buying it." + +The old man thought a minute, then said: "Wal, I know as much now +about hit as I will ter-morror and you can have hit fer a hundred +dollars, ef ye kin pay that much." + +"No, Mr. Greely, I can't take it for that," said Steve smiling; "it +will be worth much more to me if it is worth anything. I am willing to +venture more on it," and he named a much larger sum than the one +asked. + +The old man could not speak for amazement. He had never heard of any +one in "them parts" having so much money at one time and the trade was +practically closed at once. + +He left the old folks feeling like millionaires and felt immense +satisfaction himself that the deal had progressed so well. If the old +couple should live in luxury, as they might conceive the word, for the +rest of their lives, they could never spend that sum in the +mountains. + +Steve knew the lay of the land for miles around and he felt sure +there was nothing so valuable as the Greely Ridge with the railroad +lying not far from its base. + +Asking the Follets if he might leave his traps there for a few days he +went at once in the afternoon to the county seat to take the necessary +steps for the transfer of the land, and found the title perfectly +clear. + +With elation over the assured deal and happy expectation of more than +cancelling his debt, he telegraphed Mr. Polk what he had done. A reply +came promptly back saying, "I will be on at once and bring expert." + +It was with mingled feelings that Steve thought of the meeting as he +busied himself with the details completing the transaction, going over +with a notary public for the old folks to sign the papers, getting +everything ready for Mr. Polk's signature as purchaser since he was +coming and one transfer would be sufficient. He did not stop at the +Follets, but returned at once to meet his old friend. + +When Mr. Polk stepped from the train and looked again upon the boy he +had loved as his own, he put an arm about him, as he used to in the +old days, and said: + +"How are you, son?" + +"Well, thank you," answered Steve, and both voices trembled a +little. + +That was all, but it restored the old frank relations. They talked +with great interest about the purchase and went as soon as possible +with the expert to get his opinion upon it. When careful tests of the +property had been made, the expert was enthusiastic. + +"I believe it will prove to be a rich coal deposit, and if well +managed ought to bring you a small fortune." + +That night when they returned to the little "hotel," so named, Mr. +Polk and Steve talked long and interestedly over plans for developing +the mine. Mr. Polk had pretty well-defined ideas for the immediate +organization of a company and the beginning of operations. + +Finally he turned to Steve and said: + +"Son, I have grown since you left,--I hope, some wiser, and that +little woman made me see before I left home that I had no right to +dictate to you what you should do with your life. I know you have +worked hard these three years, or you never could have saved money +enough to buy this piece of land, even at so small a price, and I +don't doubt you have done good at the same time. But I still feel that +you might do just as good work perhaps by earning money for the cause +you are so greatly interested in, so I am going to make a proposition +to you. Suppose you take the oversight of this mining business, +handling the money and seeing that everything goes straight. We could +well afford to pay you a good salary for this service and give you +some shares in the company too. Then you can live right here and exert +your influence upon your people, as you call them, at the same time." + +Steve listened intently, and the thought of money, and Nancy and music +lessons, while he remained in the mountains, made his brain whirl. + +Finally he put out his hand. "You hev allus been kind an' generous ter +me," he said uncertainly, with emotion which carried him back for an +instant to the old-time speech. Then lifting his head he smiled and +added, "Let me think of this till to-morrow." + +Mr. Polk agreed, and they separated for the night. + +It was again a time of sore temptation for Steve. All night he tossed +and thought. In spite of recurring depression he had not given up hope +of winning Nancy. Her desire for musical advantages had been the most +discouraging thing of all, however, and if he accepted this offer, he +could hope to give her what she wanted, while since Raymond was not +accepted he felt free to win her if he could. He pictured the future +with increasing exhilaration, as the night approached its zenith, the +time of keenest mental activity; and then, as the ebb came with the +waning hours, suddenly a little figure reeled and staggered as it +tried to walk a crack in a cabin floor, and springing from bed Steve +strode to the window, and looked out upon the silent, starry sky. + +"Oh, God," he said, "keep me from temptation;" and after a time he +went back to bed firm in the old resolution that whatever the +sacrifice involved, he would give himself, and not money alone, to the +work. And then he slept. + +Next morning he smiled his sudden smile as Mr. Polk looked keenly into +his face, and said: + +"I guess I am incorrigible, Mr. Polk,--I can't see it except in the +old way." + +"All right, son," said Mr. Polk quietly, and when they separated it +was with a warm hand-clasp as Mr. Polk exacted a promise that Steve +would visit them his first opportunity. "'The little mother' longs to +see her boy," he said affectionately; then added, "Some day we hope to +be in shape to help you with your work." + +When he was gone Steve left for the Follets again. A great peace had +come upon him with the renewal of his resolution, and his heart leaped +at the prospect of seeing Nancy again. + +"How long it seems since I left her," he laughed to himself, and the +thought sprang to his mind from out the ever active realm of human +hope: "Perhaps I shall win her yet by some miracle!" + + + + +XV + +FLICKERING HOPE + + +It was with keen satisfaction that Steve caught a glimpse of Nancy's +white dress out under the trees upon his return to the Follets. He +hurried over to the bench where she sat. + +"Is there anything more satisfying than these Kentucky mountains?" he +said, with enthusiasm, as he seated himself beside her. "There is +something that constantly assures me I belong to them." + +"I have wondered that you were not captured by the city with all its +allurements," said Nancy. + +"No," returned Steve, "though perhaps I might have been at first had +not my little foster-mother been loyal to Kentucky mountain need. But +my experience the past three years as teacher has made it impossible +for me to ever get away from the outstretched hand of Kentucky +mountain children," and his voice dropped into deep earnestness. + +"I can understand how you feel," said Nancy after a little silence. "I +could not help being interested in the school when it was opened here. +Little children came trudging in from the most barren cabin homes, +wide-eyed, and eager to 'larn,' and grown-up men and women tramped +barefoot miles and miles every day to try to get some of the 'larnin' +they'd heard about. Then they would plod away with the utmost patience +trying to read and write. It was intensely pathetic. Nothing has ever +touched and interested me so much as some supply work I have done for +our school," she added, a light upon her face, which thrilled Steve's +heart anew. What a help she could be to him in his chosen work! + +"I am so glad you have felt the appeal of mountain need," said he, +struggling to keep the thrill out of his voice. And then he told her +of his hopes and plans, of the dream he had of a new school within +reach of Hollow Hut, a region to which new possibilities were about to +come, he had learned at the county seat, through a projected railroad +line. Of how he hoped to have help in the work from Mr. and Mrs. Polk +and perhaps other capitalists of the north, and she was most +interested, most appreciative, showing all the sweet seriousness of +little Nancy of old. + +But this long talk of some two hours which revealed again congenial +tastes and ideals of life for the two only served to make Steve's +heart more intensely rebellious when, after supper, Raymond walked in +once more with his debonair proprietorship of Nancy. As it happened +she had just stepped out under the trees to get a bit of fancy work +left there in the afternoon, and Raymond joining her, barricaded the +way to the house, insisting that the "old folks" were glad to get rid +of them, till she laughingly sat with him there. It had been purely +accidental, her going out just then, and she remained with inward +protest, but Steve could only see in it complete surrender to the +ardent suitor. + +Mrs. Follet had not yet come out and Mr. Follet turned to Steve, +laughing in a pleased way. + +"I don't mind telling you, for I know you are interested," he said +confidentially, "that Raymond told me this morning he was simply crazy +about her, he couldn't wait any longer, and was going to pop the +question to-night. I s'pose there ain't much question about it though, +for I reckon she's as much in love as he, though,--as I said, you +never can tell." + +And he little suspected that what he said seemed to Steve the +death-knell to his hopes. + +Mr. Follet continued loquaciously: "Raymond's the greatest fellow I +ever saw. Everybody likes him. Why, he's in with the moonshiners about +here hand and glove, and they're powerful offish. Never saw anything +under the cano_pee_ like him. He has big plans too, about some of the +land round here which he says is full of coal. He's looked a little +at the Greely Ridge; he thinks that's the finest piece, but he hasn't +been over it carefully yet--been too much in love, you know," and he +laughed contentedly. + +Steve made conventional reply, and admitting he was quite tired, went +to the little attic for another restless, unhappy night. + +If the good fairies had only visited his couch and whispered their +story of what was going on under the trees, how sweet would have been +his sleep! But they did not. + +Next morning Steve announced at the breakfast table that he must be +leaving the following morning; a few days off from work for pleasure +was all he could take with good grace. + +Mr. and Mrs. Follet expressed their regret, while Nancy's eyes were +upon her plate. Mr. Follet was complaining of some sciatic pain, but +tried to throw it off with his usual nervous energy. + +"Nancy," he said, "you haven't taken Steve over to Borden's Cave, +which has been discovered since he was here. Why don't you go this +morning?" + +"Why, I should be glad to," responded Nancy, and Steve, feeling that +her agreement was upon the basis of the old family relationship +between them, made no excuse, though he did not doubt, with the +fatality of anxious lovers, that the engagement had taken place. The +two started off with Gyp and the family horse for a three mile canter, +and Steve's spirit rose with the exhilaration of it in spite of +himself. + +The cave proved to be a most interesting rock formation and when they +had examined it, Steve pointing out some curious scientific facts, +they sat down in the quiet woods upon a fallen tree trunk, while the +horses grazed. + +Nancy looked up at him when they were seated, and said naively: + +"How much you have learned in these last busy years!" + +"Have I?" said Steve, his eyes brightening. "I am especially glad you +think I have used my time well, because I can never forget that it was +you who taught me my letters,--even how to spell my name," and he +turned kindling eyes upon her. + +"Did I?" she said, laughing and flushing. + +"Yes," he returned, and a bit of tenderness crept into his voice. "I +will never forget how you did it, how picturesquely you characterized +the various letters for me, how you thought curly S the very prettiest +letter in the alphabet, and how disappointed I was when I found my +poor name did not hold a single letter which belonged to yours," and +there was such deep pathos in the last words, as he looked far into +the distance, that she stirred uneasily and could make no answer. + +After a moment he went on: "I suppose I read in it, even then, a +prophecy of our future, how yours must be separate from mine. There +could be nothing in common." + +And still she was dumb; not a word came to her lips. But he seemed to +need no reply; a sad meditativeness was stealing upon him which made +him oblivious for the moment of his surroundings. + +But suddenly setting his lips firmly, he turned and said with forced +lightness: + +"What a bear bachelorhood makes of a man! I have spent so much time +alone the last few years that I am already acquiring the bad habit of +thinking my thoughts aloud sometimes. Forgive me, won't you?" And he +turned to her with more in the tone than the simple words could +convey. + +"I have nothing to forgive," said she, but with an effort,--which he +misinterpreted. + +Then gathering her wits she repeated, "I have nothing to forgive, but +everything for which to thank you. My starting you in the life +intellectual cannot compare with your finding me hanging by a mere +thread from a tall tree top and restoring me to the life physical, +without which my brilliant intellectual attainments would have been as +nothing," she ended gaily, breaking the tension which both had felt. + +The talk continued to drift near the sacred realm of the heart, +however, until the sanctity of engagement was finally touched upon. + +"An engagement is to me a very sacred thing," said Nancy with sweet +seriousness, in response to something from Steve. "I have never +understood how it could be lightly entered into with only the basis of +a brief, gay acquaintance." + +Was not that just what she had done? "Oh, consistency, thy name is +certainly not woman," thought Steve bitterly. He said: + +"Oh, yes, that is good theory, but it is generally overwhelmed by +practice when a gay cavalier comes along and takes the maiden heart by +storm." + +"Perhaps so, with some," returned Nancy quietly, "but so far as I am +concerned I do not believe I could be deceived into thinking that a +brief, gay acquaintance was sufficient assurance for the binding of +two in the tenderest tie of life, when their tastes and ideals might +prove to be totally at variance." + +Steve's heart leaped within him. Was she trying to tell him +something,--to undeceive him with regard to Raymond and herself? +Impetuous words rose and trembled on his lips, while the thought raced +through his brain that it would not be dishonourable to ask if there +were the least hope for him. He would not utter another word if she +said the sacred tie was already entered into with Raymond. + +But Nancy, in the yielding and yet withdrawing which is characteristic +of woman and man never fully understands, plunged into a new topic. +Frightened at the plainness of her revelation and almost seeming to +divine his purpose, with her brightest talk she led him far afield. + +Steve, however, baffled though he was, found memory of that shy look +coming back to him insistently, till he suddenly, firmly determined as +they rode home once more that Nancy Follet should have the opportunity +of accepting or refusing him before he left the place! + + + + +XVI + +IN THE CRUCIBLE + + +When Steve and Nancy reached home they found Mr. Follet in bed +suffering intensely with sciatic pains. He fretted constantly, +declaring he would get up whether or no by afternoon. He was obliged +to make a trip into the country for a load of hay, able or not, that +evening, he said. Steve offered to go for him, but Mr. Follet +impatiently declared that nobody could do it but himself, as there was +some other business to be attended to at the same time. + +The pain continued so severe, however, that getting up was an +impossibility, and about seven o'clock after fretting and fuming for +hours, occupying Mrs. Follet and Nancy continually, he said to his +wife: + +"Go tell Steve to come here." + +Mrs. Follet obeyed and brought Steve in from the porch where he sat +supposedly reading, Nancy being busy then with the supper dishes. + +"Now you go out, ma, and don't come back till I tell you," said Mr. +Follet querulously, and his wife went wonderingly. + +"Steve," said Mr. Follet as soon as the young man entered, "I know I +can trust you, and I am going to get you to do some important business +for me." + +"I will certainly do anything for you, Mr. Follet, with great +pleasure, and I appreciate more than I can tell you the fact that you +feel you can trust me," said Steve warmly. + +"Well," said Mr. Follet, a little uneasily, "this is mighty partic'ler +business I've got. The fact is," he went on with nervous energy, "a +part of the world is getting so good it ain't content with just being +good itself but is bound and determined that the rest of the world +shall do just as it says, and there's a good bit of difference of +opinion about what goodness strictly is." + +Steve listened a little surprised at the homily. Then Mr. Follet went +on: + +"I ain't ever cared anything about liquor myself, though I could have +had all I wanted all my life long, but I am willing other people +should make it, and have it, or sell it, all they want to." + +Steve looked more surprised and his lips settled just a little into +firmer lines, but Mr. Follet failed to notice it. + +"Now, old Kaintuck, which has always been the freest state in the +Union, has got a passle o' folks turned loose in it just like the +folks I was telling you about. They're so good themselves they ain't +satisfied till they make everybody else do just as they say. They're +making laws in the towns that no liquor can be sold, and I tell you +men of old Kaintuck ain't goin' to stand that and I don't blame 'em," +he concluded vehemently. + +Steve started to reply, his lips growing firmer, and his eyes taking +fire, but Mr. Follet gave him no chance. + +"Now, I promised some fellows that I would meet 'em to-night,--and +bring home a load of hay," he ended with an excited laugh. + +"A load of hay with whiskey enclosed?" asked Steve, instantly +suspecting. + +"Yes," said Mr. Follet, delighted with Steve's quickness, "that's the +idee. Then I unload it in my barn and ship it as I please to these dry +towns. I'm in for the law as a general thing," he added quickly, "but +I believe in folks having their rights." + +"Well, Mr. Follet," said Steve, going to the foot of the bed and +leaning hard upon it, "we must understand each other at once. I do not +agree with you as to our rights. I do not think we have the right to +destroy ourselves or others with any weapon whatsoever, the pistol, +the knife, poison or whiskey. I am with the law in every particular," +he said firmly. + +"With the law," exclaimed Mr. Follet excitedly, "when it says a man +can't do with his own corn on his own place what he wants to do with +it? A man's got as good a right, in my mind, to put up a still and +make whiskey out of his corn as his wife has to gather apples and make +pies!" he concluded, fairly quivering with excitement. + +Steve held himself quietly, and said gently: + +"Mr. Follet, you are too ill for me to discuss these things with you +now. I see we look at them from totally different points of view." + +"There ain't but one point of view," shrilly returned Mr. Follet, "and +that's the point of view of man's rights. Why, it won't be long till a +man can't milk his own cow without the government standing round to +watch her switch her tail and tell him how to do it,--all ready to +grab the money if he sells a little to a neighbour!" + +"Well, Mr. Follet," said Steve, looking steadily but kindly in the +enraged eyes of his opponent, "there is one thing that we do agree +upon, and that is, every man has a right to his own opinion," and the +kindness in Steve's eyes merged into his sudden smile, which stemmed a +little the rising tide of Mr. Follet's wrath. + +After a somewhat subdued pause he turned to Steve appealingly: + +"But you will go and get this load for me,--you will have no +responsibility about it. I have never had anything to do with +moonshiners before," he went on, "but Raymond got in with 'em and +thinks it would be a huge joke to send a lot of their whiskey to his +friends in these 'dry towns,' and that prohibition business has riled +me so that I promised I would help pass the stuff along. Raymond's +going to hang around the saloon and the station to see that the coast +is clear o' government men, while the thing is goin' on." + +"No," said Steve instantly and firmly when Mr. Follet was through, "I +cannot do it, Mr. Follet, greatly as it grieves me to refuse you a +favour. I feel that whiskey, the knife and the pistol have been +Kentucky's greatest curses, especially among the people of the +mountains. I would lay down my life, if necessary, for mountain folks, +but I long instead to spend it for them in replacing the pistol and +the knife with the book and the pen, and in cultivating among them a +thirst for knowledge instead of drink," said Steve with quiet passion +which held Mr. Follet's unwilling attention. Then he added: + +"Understand me, Mr. Follet, I do not attempt to decide for you what is +right or wrong, I only know that I cannot do this thing you ask and +keep my self-respect. I must live within the laws of my country even +if I should feel sometimes that they are unjust, and I can never take +even a remote part in the distribution of whiskey in the land I love," +he concluded earnestly. + +At this Mr. Follet fairly shouted in a sudden access of rage. He was +all the more angry for the moment because in the light of Steve's +clear statement he not only felt that Steve was right, but that he +himself was wrong. + +"Then leave my house this instant with your contemptible idees about +Kentucky's rights, and don't dare to stop and speak to my wife or my +daughter." + +"It is your house, Mr. Follet; I will do just as you say," Steve +replied. + +Mr. Follet reiterated shrilly: + +"Go on out of my house then, and don't you ever come near it again." + +Steve bowed and left, not even stopping to get his travelling bag; in +fact he forgot he had one, and only caught up his hat from the porch +as he passed out. + + + + +XVII + +FRUITION + + +Mrs. Follet and Nancy knew that something very exciting was going on +between Mr. Follet and Steve and both were exceedingly anxious. When +silence took the place of heated discussion they could bear it no +longer and went to Mr. Follet's door. + +Mrs. Follet had never seen her husband so wrought up before, though he +had always been of an exciteable temperament. She did not dare ask a +question, but busied herself doing little things for his comfort while +Nancy brought in his supper, which he had not wanted earlier and still +querulously refused to touch. + +A terrible silence settled upon them all. Nancy sat on the porch in +distressed wonder over what had happened between her father and Steve, +while Mrs. Follet, equally anxious, sat silently by the bed of the +restless man. She proposed to get a neighbour to go for the doctor, +but Mr. Follet wouldn't hear of it. Hours passed by and then Mr. +Follet suddenly started up in bed. + +"My God," he cried wildly, "they'll kill him!" + +"Who?" cried his wife, starting up also, while Nancy's white face at +once appeared in the door. + +"Why, Steve," screamed Mr. Follet. "He's gone, and I don't doubt he +went straight to old man Greely's for the night. If he did, he's cut +across the woods and run into some moonshiners. They'll take him for a +government man and shoot him soon's they lay eyes on him!" + +He paused for breath, and Mrs. Follet and Nancy were too appalled to +speak. + +"Do something," screamed Mr. Follet; "I can't have the boy's blood on +my hands!" + +Then Mrs. Follet with her gentle strength made him quiet down enough +to tell them particulars, and she learned that Mr. Follet was to have +gone after a load of hay, and coming back would stop at the edge of +the wood leading to old man Greely's, walk into the woods a piece to +meet the men, and then, if the coast was clear, they'd hide the liquor +in the hay load. At the end she said: + +"You must go, Nancy----" + +"Yes," cried Mr. Follet, "you must go, child, and save Steve. Jim +Sutton will know you. They won't touch you, and they'll believe +you. I was a fool ever to have anything to do with that moonshine +business!" + +But Nancy was already out of the room flying for the stable. There was +no thought of riding habit or saddle. Throwing a bridle over Gyp's +head, she sprang upon his back and like the wind the two rushed forth +into the midnight stillness. Would she be in time to save him? It had +been so long since he left the house. Oh, would she be too late? She +urged Gyp wildly on and on, along the road directly towards the Greely +woods, where she would find the moonshiners, and perhaps,--oh, +perhaps! God only knew what else she might find. + +Every throbbing pulse beat became a prayer that she might be in time +to save him. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Steve, upon leaving Mr. Follet, had not gone out into the +street, but crossing the lawn into the driveway he went past the +stable to the wood back of the house from whence he had come so many +years ago. His mind and heart were in a tumult. He scarcely thought +where he was going till he suddenly became conscious that he was in +the old wood where he had rescued Nancy so long ago. Little Nancy! And +he had loved her ever since consciously or unconsciously. But she was +completely lost to him now,--that was final. The fair dream-structure +which had risen anew that afternoon had fallen again in a tragic +moment's space. The mountain blood in Mr. Follet would never forget +or forgive. He must leave the place forever. He was adrift again in +the world. There would never be tender home ties for him,--he could +never love another, no one could be a part of his very self like +little Nancy. He dropped down upon a little seat which he had fixed +there for her in the old days, and was lost in depressed thought, +taking no note of how long he remained. + +The stillness of the wood quieted him finally, as it had always done, +and he remembered his old friends the Greelys. They would be glad to +have him come in for breakfast in the morning, and for the night he +would sleep in the Greely woods. He would feel very near to Nancy +there, for that spot was hallowed by her memory as no other for him. +He rose and made his way over into the road which led to the wood. + +It was a brilliant moonlight night, and he walked on under the +majestic beauty of the firmament with quieted spirit. + +Suddenly, as he had almost reached the wood, he heard rapid hoof-beats +behind him and paused to listen, for it was a little-travelled road. +Nearer and nearer they came, and then he could distinguish a white +dress fluttering in the wind from the flying animal's back and knew +the rider must be a woman. The speed of the horse began to slacken as +she was almost upon him, and he saw that it was Gyp and Nancy! + +She also had recognized him, and the next instant she sprang from the +pony and stood beside him. + +"Oh, Steve," she panted, "they will kill you!" and stretched her +shaking hands out to him. Her agitation was pitiable. Unconsciously he +drew her instantly within his arms, while he said with equal +unconsciousness: + +"Why, Nancy, darling, what do you mean?" + +For answer she dropped her head upon his breast and sobbed convulsively. + +He held her close, stroking her face and soothing her with tenderest +words of love till she was able to speak again. + +"The moonshiners that father was to meet, Steve,--they are in the +Greely wood, and they will think you are a revenue man and kill you +sure," she said brokenly. "You were going there, weren't you?" + +"Yes," he said gravely. + +"Father thought you would and sent me for you. Oh, it was dreadful, +the terror of it," she said shuddering and sobbing anew. + +Again he soothed her with caresses and whispered, "But, sweetheart, +you know I am not going there now,--not when I can hold you like +this." And she nestled in his arms at last in quiet happiness. + +Finally she lifted her head and smiled up at him. He turned her face +up to the moon's full light and looked longingly into it. + +"Nancy, do you love me?" he said. + +"Oh, Steve, I've always loved you, I think," she softly replied. + +"And it never was Raymond?" he went on insistently, his voice taking +on a resonant ring. + +"Not in the least," she returned. Then smiling demurely at him she +said, "Oh, Steve, you weren't nearly so stupid in learning your +letters!" + +And he punished her with kisses. + +"Do you remember," he said at last tenderly, looking over at the +Greely wood, "that you asked me when a little girl to build a house +for you and me over there where we might live always?" + +"Yes," she said with a touch of sweet reluctance, "I confess I have +always remembered that childish speech,--with an intuitive knowledge +that I shouldn't have made it, I suppose." + +"While I have always treasured it consciously or unconsciously," he +returned, with eager joy creeping into the tenderness of his voice. +"You were a blessed little prophetess, for it is here under the shadow +of the old wood that love has at last built for us the fairest, +holiest structure earth ever knew." + +Then they remembered the hour of the night and the anxiety of her +father and mother, and started back down the road, Nancy saying she +would like to walk a little and Steve leading Gyp, who had been +unconcernedly grazing by the roadside. + +After a time the lover went on again joyously: + +"We have equal right to one another now, have we not, sweetheart, for +if I saved you from possible death at the moment of our meeting, you +have probably saved me from a tragic end to-night. It is the way of +our mountain life," he added, his voice taking on a note of sadness; +"our joy must always be mingled with tragedy until we learn the +beautiful ways of peace." + +Then he stopped again and turned her face up to the moonlight once +more. + +"Will you be content, dearest, to help me in the work I have +chosen,--it will probably mean sacrifice,--the giving up of your +ambitions." + +She smiled back with a low, "More than content, if I may be always +with you." + + * * * * * + +The next day Steve met Raymond on the street, and the latter was more +serious than Steve had ever seen him. + +"Well, old fellow," he said with an attempt at a smile, "you've licked +me again. I know all about the sale of Greely Ridge and your narrow +escape last night. Those two things, I admit, show me I am a good +deal of a fool, and something of a cad as I used to be. I want you to +know that the business with the moonshiners is all off. The other +victory you've won over me I can't talk about. I acknowledge you +deserve her though, more than I do, and I wish you luck." + +Before Steve could reply he went on: "You got some hard knocks when +you were a boy, Steve, and they did you good. That is when we need +them most. These are the first real blows I have ever had. I've always +been in for a good time and had it, but I don't believe it pays. +Father is going to be no end put out with me about the loss of that +coal land. I'm going home and make a clean breast of it,--then I am +going to clear out. I've decided this morning to write Mr. Polk and +see if he has any chance for me there. I know he will give it to me, +if he has, for father's sake." + +"That is just the thing," said Steve heartily. "I feel sure he can +take you in, and the game of business is so interesting there, I know +you will like it, and I believe you will make good." He extended his +hand with the last words and Raymond took it with a warm clasp. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Polk's mine was promptly opened up and proved to be a valuable +property. In the formation of his company some shares had been placed +in the name of Stephen Langly. At the end of two years they began to +yield good returns and Steve felt that this, with the income from his +work, would make comfort assured for Nancy. Then came a wedding in the +Follet home, and just before the company arrived for the ceremony Mr. +and Mrs. Polk, her eyes shining as of old, slipped into the little +parlour and placed on the carpet, for the bride and groom to stand +upon, a beautiful fox-skin rug with a history. + +Mr. Follet coming in a moment later nudged his wife excitedly and +said: + +"Can you tell where under the cano_pee_ you ever saw that before?" +while she nodded smiling assent. + +It caught the eye of Steve as he entered with Nancy on his arm, and he +took his place upon it with firm, glad step. + +Mr. and Mrs. Polk were obliged to hurry away as soon as the +congratulations were over, in order to get back to New York in time +for the wedding of Raymond and Nita Trowbridge,--Raymond having well +fulfilled Steve's prophecy of making good. + +In the fall four years later when the mountains glowed with unusually +brilliant colour, as though nature had caught the glory tints of +fresh, bright hope for her people, Steve and Nancy opened a new +school. Its well-equipped, modern buildings crowned the old wooded +mountain of Steve's boyhood, and Steve the second, a sturdy boy, came +daily with little Champ to school. The "still" had passed away with +the passing of Champ, the elder, in a mountain fight, and a new day +had dawned for Hollow Hut. + +THE END + +Printed in the United States of America + + + + +RECENT BOOKS OF WORTH + +AGNES SLIGH TURNBULL + +FAR ABOVE RUBIES + +Heart Stories of Bible Women. + +Second Edition. Illustrated, $2.00 + +Chicago Evening Post: "Here at last are Bible women revealed through +the sympathetic, creative imagination of a woman, who with great +dramatic sense lifts one out of the present into Bethsaida and +Capernaum." The Bookman says: "There is poetry of spirit, deep, clear +understanding, and fine revelation. Imaginative--yes, but fine +spiritual imagination of woman's heart in the moving drama of familiar +Biblical scenes." + +JOHN D. 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Almost incredible in spite of its truth, the book is +thrilling in every incident and in every sense of the word. + +MAUDE WHITMORE MADDEN + +Author of "In the Land of the Cherry Blossoms," + +Young Hearts in Old Japan + +Japanese-American Interpretations. + +Illustrated, $1.50 + +The color, the fragrance, the delicacy and the indefinable charm of +Japan--all these are in this new vivid and alluring volume by Mrs. +Madden. The captivating chapters vibrate with human interest. This is +a book to enlarge one's understanding of the Japanese, to increase +one's admiration for them, and to quicken one's appreciation of the +value of Christian missions among them. + +HOME MISSIONS + +JOHN T. FARIS + +Author of "Making Good," etc. + +The Alaskan Pathfinder + +The Story of Sheldon Jackson. + +New edition, with introduction by Dr. John A. Marquis, Gen. Sec. +Presbyterian Board of National Missions. Illustrated, $1.50 + +"Dr. Sheldon Jackson did a pioneer work in Alaska that can never be +repeated and that will not need to be done again. The story is here +told with all its adventure and romance, and as Dr. Marquis says in +concluding his Introduction, 'Missionary, Explorer, Educator and +Social Builder, his story must never be forgotten."'--Presbyterian +Banner. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Boy from Hollow Hut, by Isla May Mullins + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY FROM HOLLOW HUT *** + +***** This file should be named 30356.txt or 30356.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/3/5/30356/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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