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 preëmpted 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.