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.