GOOD-BY TO NEW RIVER VALLEY
The passing days dulled somewhat her memory of the terrors of the
mine, and brought her to a truer view of it than had been possible
in those first moments. After all, she reflected, there is none of
the great, strenuous occupations of life which has not its peculiar
dangers. The sailor, the engineer, the builder, the fireman—each
must look death boldly in the face at times, and each, no doubt,
comes strengthened out of the hour of trial. To the miner that daily
journey into the darkness becomes one of life’s commonplaces, and is
in no way nerve-disturbing—just as the master-builder will walk
calmly and unhesitatingly across a narrow beam high in air, where
another man would falter and grow sick.
And then the work, warm under her hand, was growing ever more
absorbing, for the task of building up Tommy’s education had begun
in earnest. In this she found the minister a devoted helper. How
carefully the boy’s studies were mapped out between them! They did
not tell him the whole plan, but only so much of it as would serve
to give him ambition to get on, without appalling him at the work
which lay before him. It was not an easy thing to compress into one
year the studies which ordinarily must have taken four or five, but
the boy developed a great willingness and capacity for work, and if
there were times when his teachers despaired, there were others when
the way seemed bright before them. I think they both took pleasure
in watching his growth and development from week to week,—almost,
indeed, from day to day,—in noting the birth of new thoughts and the
power of grasping new ideas. To cultured minds there is no
occupation more delightful, so the devoted labor of this man and
woman was not wholly without reward. But at last such progress had
been made that Mr. Remington’s consent must be obtained before they
could venture on further steps.
Mr. Bayliss went about the task one Sunday afternoon, as the only
time he could find the boy’s father at home and not wholly worn out
with fatigue. He approached the cabin with great inward misgiving,
but with determination to win if it were possible to do so. He found
the family, as he had found it once before, listening to Tommy’s
reading, only this time the reader proceeded with much greater
fluency. He stopped as Mr. Bayliss knocked, and welcoming him
warmly, placed a chair for him. The minister greeted the other
members of the family, and plunged at once into his business, before
his courage should fail him.
“You enjoy your son’s reading a great deal, do you not?” he asked.
“Ya-as,” assented the miner, slowly. “It’s a great thing. I hed no
idee there was such books in th’ world.”
“There are thousands of them.” And the minister smiled. “Not all,
perhaps, quite so good and worthy as the ones you have been reading,
but many of more direct value. There are books that tell about the
sciences—about the stars and the earth and the flowers, and about
animals and man. There are books that tell about the different
countries of the earth, written by men who have traveled through all
these countries. There are others that tell the history of the earth
and of all the peoples that have ever lived on it, so far as it is
known. There are hundreds which tell of the lives of great men—of
kings and emperors and great generals and statesmen; yes, and of the
men who have written the great books. Many of these are written in
the English language, but there are many, too, in Latin and Greek,
and French, and Italian, and German, and Spanish, which are no less
valuable.”
The miner and his wife sat staring with starting eyes at the
speaker.
“But—but nobody ever read ’em all!” gasped the latter.
“Certainly no one man ever read them all.” And the minister smiled
again. “But any man may read and understand a great part of the best
of them. Tommy might, if he had the chance.”
Tommy sat suddenly bolt upright in his chair, and the blood flew to
his face.
“Th’ chance?” repeated his mother, slowly. “What d’ you mean by th’
chance, Mr. Bayliss?”
“I mean that after he had learned all that Miss Andrews and I could
teach him, he would have to go away for a time to study—to
Princeton, say, where I went, where there are men who devote their
whole lives to teaching.”
Mr. Remington stirred impatiently in his chair.
“What fer?” he demanded. “S’pose he could read all th’ books in th’
world, what good ’d it do him?”
The minister perceived that there was only one argument which would
be understood—the utilitarian one, the one of dollars and cents, of
earning a living.
“When a man has learned certain things,” he explained, “he can teach
them to others. A man who can teach things well can always command a
good position. It would rescue your son from the mines, and, I
believe, would make him better and happier.”
The miner sat for a moment, turning this over in his mind.
“Mebbe ’twould, an’ then ag’in mebbe ’twouldn’t,” he said at last.
“Anyway,” he added, with an air of finality, “it ain’t t’ be thort
of. How kin I pay fer him t’ go away t’ school? It must cost a heap
o’ money. Why, I can’t hardly keep my fambly in bread an’ meat an’
clothes.”
It was the objection the minister had been waiting for, and he
seized upon it eagerly.
“We’ll provide for all that, Mr. Remington,” he said. “It sha’n’t
cost you a cent. Of course I know the struggle you have to get
along—that every miner has. But every big college has hundreds of
scholarships for deserving young men, and there are many ways in
which the students can make money enough to pay all their expenses.”
He glanced at Tommy, and saw that his lips were trembling. Mrs.
Remington was nervously clasping and unclasping her hands. Even her
husband was more moved than he cared to show.
“I’m not going to press you for a decision now,” added the minister.
“It’s too grave a question to decide hastily. Yet, if you consider
your son’s welfare, I don’t see how you can decide against him. Send
him to me to-morrow with your decision. It will be a great thing for
him if he can go,” he concluded, and took his leave.
There was silence for a few minutes in the little room. Mrs.
Remington continued knitting her fingers together, while her husband
stared moodily through the window at the visitor’s retreating form.
Tommy sat glued to his chair, hopeful and despairing by turns, not
daring to speak. No such momentous crisis had ever before appeared
in his life.
“Well, Silas,” said his mother, at last, “it’s like th’ preacher
says. It’s a great chance fer th’ boy. He wouldn’t be a-takin’ all
this trouble ef he didn’t think th’ boy was worth it.”
The miner turned slowly away from the window and glanced at her and
then at their son.
“Would y’ like t’ go, Tommy?” he asked.
There was a tone in his voice which told that the battle was already
won. The boy recognized its meaning in an instant.
“Oh, father!” he cried, and his arms were about his neck.
“All right, Tommy,” he said, in a voice not very steady. “I’m not
th’ man t’ stand in my boy’s light. Mebbe ef I’d hed a chance like
this when I was a boy, I could ’a’ give you a show myself. But I
can’t.”
The mother hastily brushed away a tear that was trickling down her
wrinkled cheek.
“Come here, Tommy,” she said, and when she had him in her arms:
“Your pa ain’t hed much chance, thet’s so,” she said, “but he’s done
th’ best he could, an’ he’s been a good man t’ me. Don’t y’ fergit
thet, an’ don’t y’ ever be ashamed o’ your pa.”
“You hush, mother,” protested her husband; but there was a
tenderness in his voice which made the command almost a caress.
After all, not even the slavery of the mines can kill love in the
heart, so it be pure and honest, and that little mountain cabin was
a shrine that afternoon.
Bright and early the next morning, Tommy, with shining face, took
the good news to the minister, and together they rejoiced at it, as
did Miss Andrews when she heard. Then work began with new
earnestness. Both of them recognized the fact that no education
could be sound which was not firmly grounded on the rudiments, the
“three R’s,” so they confined themselves to these foundation-stones,
and budded them as strongly as they could. There was no more
question of working in the mine in the afternoon. His father labored
there without a helper, doing two men’s work, blasting down the coal
and then loading it on the cars—at what a sacrifice no one
unacquainted with the mines can understand. For there is a great
social gulf between the miner and the laborer: each has his certain
work to do, and does only that. But the father conquered his pride
and dared to step down for a time to the lower scale; not without
qualm and hesitation and moments of vexation; but there was another
light with him besides the smoking oil one that flickered in his
cap—a light which came from the heart and made the wearing labor
almost easy.
It was not proposed to send Tommy to the preparatory school until
mid-September, so there were ten months remaining for work at home.
And it was astonishing what progress they made. He had grown through
his early boyhood, his mind like a great blank sheet of paper, ready
to show and to retain the slightest touch. The beginning had been
good,—there had been no false start, no waste of energy, no storing
the precious chamber of the mind with useless lumber,—and the
progress was still better. Long and anxiously did his two teachers
consult together over the best methods to pursue in this unusual
case, and his progress proved the wisdom of their decisions.
So the months passed. Spring came, and summer, and at last it was
time for Miss Andrews to close her school and return to her home.
She was almost sorry to go, her work had grown so fascinating, her
life so full and useful. She had come to look upon the world about
her from a view-point altogether changed; she thought no longer of
how it might affect her, but of how she might affect it. In a word,
she had grown to a true woman’s stature, in mind as well as body.
But Tommy’s studies were arranged for the summer, and she would be
back again before he left for the East. He and the minister waved
her good-by from the platform of the little yellow frame station,
and turned back to their work. Those summer months were the hardest
of them all, for his tutor was determined that the boy should make a
good showing at the school, and so kept him close at work, watching
carefully, however, to see he was not driven beyond his capacity and
the edge taken from his eagerness for knowledge. But, despite the
long hours of study, Tommy kept health and strength and freshness.
All his life he had used his body only; now he was using his brain,
with all the unspent energy of those boyish years stored up in it.
And when his other teacher came back to her school she was
astonished at his progress.
Mr. Bayliss had good news for her, too, of another sort.
“I have secured him a scholarship,” he said. “I knew I could count
on the help of the head-master. It is an unusual concession, too,
for the scholarships are rarely granted until the end of the first
term. But they have never before had a case like this, and it
appealed to them, as I knew it would. So three hundred dollars a
year will see him through.”
“That is fine!” she cried. “I will see about the money at once.”
It was the evening after her return from Richmond that she sought
out Jabez Smith in his accustomed seat on the back porch. He glanced
at her wonderingly as she resolutely brought the low rocker forward,
planted it near his chair, and sat down.
“Nice evenin’, ain’t it?” he observed, hitching one leg over the
other and puffing his pipe uneasily, for he had developed a great
shyness of her.
“Yes, it _is_ a nice evening,” she assented, laughing to herself,
for she felt that she knew this man through and through. “I’ve come
to make my report, Mr. Smith.”
“Report?” he repeated.
“Yes—about Tommy Remington. He’s been working hard for almost a
year, and has made wonderful progress. You wanted us to find out if
he had the making of a scholar in him. Well, he has. He is fine
enough to take almost any polish.”
Jabez grunted and looked out at the hillside.
“His father has consented, too,” she continued resolutely, “and Mr.
Bayliss has secured him a scholarship, so you see we’ve performed
our part of the bargain.”
“An’ now y’ want me t’ do mine,” he said. “Well, Jabez Smith never
went back on a barg’in, an’ he ain’t a-goin’ t’ break thet record
now.”
He took a great wallet from an inside pocket and slowly counted out
a pile of bills.
“I was ready fer y’,” he said, and handed her the money. “I guessed
you’d be a-comin’ after me afore long. There’s three hunderd
dollars. An’ here’s th’ note; now don’t y’ fergit this is
business—not a bit o’ sentiment about it. You git him t’ sign his
name t’ th’ note, an’ then bring it back t’ me.”
She took the money and the paper with trembling hands.
“Well, ain’t thet all?” he asked, seeing that she still lingered.
“No, it is not all,” she cried impulsively. “I want to tell you
something of the great good you’re doing—of how I feel about it.”
“Not a word,” he said sternly. “It’s business, I tell y’.”
“Business!” she echoed. “I suppose all the rest was business,
too—the food for the miners’ families when they were starving, the—”
“Stop!” he interrupted fiercely. “D’ y’ want t’ spile my smoke?”
“I see through you!” she cried. “I know you! Be just as cross as you
like; I can see the soft, warm heart beating under it all.”
He sprang from his chair as though to run away; but she caught him
by the shoulders, pressed him back into it, printed a swift kiss on
his forehead, and fled, leaving him staring bewilderedly at the
hillside.
She gave Tommy the note next morning and asked him to sign it,
telling him, too, of Jabez Smith’s kindness, and that he must make
no effort at present to show his gratitude—that could come later.
What his thoughts were she could only guess, for after he had
signed, he sat for a long time, looking straight before him with
eyes that saw nothing, and with lips held tight together to keep
them from trembling.
Every period of waiting must have an end, and the day of departure
came at last. Word of this new and wonderful venture into the
unknown world had got about among the cabins, and quite a crowd
gathered at the station to see him off. Opinion was divided as to
the wisdom of the enterprise. Some thought it foolish. Others
regarded it with a kind of awe. But all looked with interest at the
little procession which presently emerged from the Remington cabin
and came slowly down the path.
Tommy they hardly knew. His father, by working overtime and
practising biting economy, had saved enough money to buy him a new
suit of clothes, a new hat, and a new pair of shoes. The remainder
of his wardrobe, prepared by his mother with loving fingers,
disputed the possession of a small square trunk with the books which
the minister had given him and which he would need at Lawrenceville.
It was not a gay procession. To father and mother alike, this
journey of five hundred miles seemed a tempting of Providence, and
Tommy himself was awed at the trip before him. So little was said as
they stood on the platform and waited for the train.
Miss Andrews and the minister kept up a desultory talk, but the
gloom extended even to them. It is always a venturesome thing to
take a boy from the sphere in which he is born and the environment
in which he has grown up, and attempt to launch him upon some other
plane of life. The responsibility of those who try to shape the
lives of others is no little one, nor is it to be undertaken
lightly. These two, who fancied they saw in this boy a capability
for greater things than mere labor in the mines, fully understood
all this, and for the moment it weighed upon them and was not to be
shaken off.
At last, away down the track, sounded the whistle of the approaching
train, and in a moment it whirled into sight. Mrs. Remington caught
her boy in her arms and kissed him.
“Good-by, Tommy,” she said, and pressed him convulsively to her
breast. “Be a good boy.”
All pretense of composure dropped from Tommy, and he turned to his
father with streaming eyes.
“Good-by, father,” he sobbed.
His father hugged him close.
“Good-by, son,” he said with trembling voice. “Y’ must write to your
ma an’ me. The preacher’ll read us th’ letters, an’ we’ll like t’
git ’em.”
“I will, oh, I will!” sobbed Tommy.
The train stopped at the platform with shrieking wheels.
“All aboard!” shouted the conductor. “Hurry up, there.”
Tommy shook hands tremulously with Miss Andrews and the minister. He
caught a glimpse of Jabez Smith coming to get the mail, and started
toward him with a vague intention of thanking him; but some one
caught Tommy by the arm and pushed him up the steps and into the
coach. The train was off. Through the window he caught one more
glimpse of the little group on the platform, and then the train
whirled him away into the great unknown.