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