The Call of the Cumberlands

capable of making the trip out to the railroad. Yet, June had ended; July had burned the slopes from emerald to russet-green; August had brought purp

thought he recognized twin gifts: a spark of a genius too rare to be allowed to flicker out, and a potentiality for constructive work among his own people, which needed for its perfecting only education and experience. Having aroused a soul's restiveness in the boy, he felt

tool, and that each man must stick to his own. You are in part right, in part wrong. A mail uses any t

al struggle, and his answer had that sullen ring which

iggest right is to sta

He's done been good te

rged meant disloyalty to your people, I would cut out my tongue before I argued for it. You must believe me in that.

nds, and he does not indulge in superlatives of affection. He loved and admired this man from th

friendly, all right," was

r went on

e. They are too close, Samson, to see the purple that mountains have when they are far away. I want you to go where you can see the

" said the youth. "I reckon ther

bacco has tainted the land. It has shouldered out the timber, and is turning forest to prairie. A land of fertile loam is vying with cheap soil that can send almost equal crops to market. There is no more timber to be cut, and when the timber goes the climate changes. In these hills lie the sleeping sources of wealth. Here are virgin forests and almost inexhaustible coal veins. Capital is turning from an orange squeezed dry, and casting about for fresher food. Capital has s

smiled, and in his expression was something of th

ter run things, an' drownd out my folks, hit's a righ

s, but for brains. By going away and coming back armed with kno

w, fer a hundred years. I reckon we kin keep 'em that-away fer a spell longer." But it was evident that Samson was arguing against his own belief; that he was trying to bolster up his res

he questioned suddenly

er cut m

el that their heads had been shorn if they let their locks get as short as yours. In New York, you might stroll along

mountaineer, "I wouldn't allow

scott, amused at the

a glare as though defying criticism: "Sally likes hit tha

d to his Uncle from the doorstep that he was "studyin

a reproachful glance at the painter, w

time, he sat silent, but his shoulders hunched forward with a sag which they had not held a moment before. H

"I've done ther best fer ye I knowed. I kinder 'lowed thet from now o

boy, "I reckon ye knows thet any

an's face

end fer ye. Any time ye ever wants ter come back, ye kn

a heap more useful

by they gets more useful, but they don't git useful ter us. Either they don't come back at all, or mebby they comes

lent. After a time, the old man went on again in a weary voice, as he b

in't quite twenty-one yet, an' I reckon I could refuse ter let ye sell yer prop'ty. But thar hain

e boy, shamefacedly. "But, ef I does go, I hain't a-goi

nd those of old Spicer's cows. He went down to the creek at the hour when he knew Sally, also, would be making her way thither with her milk-pail, and intercepted her coming. As she approached, she was singing, and the man watched her from the distance. He was a landscape painter and not a master of genre or portrait. Yet, he wished that he might, before going, paint Sally. She was really, after all, a part of the landscape, as much a thing of nature and the hills as the hollyhocks that had come along the picket-fences. She swayed as gracefully and thoughtlessly to her movements as do strong and pliant stems under the breeze's kiss. Artfulness she had not; nor has the flower: only the joy and fragrance of a brief bloom. It was that thought which just now struck the painter most forcibly. It was shameful that this girl and boy should go on to the hard and unlighted life that inevitably awaited them, if neither had the opportunity of development. She would be at forty a later edition of the Widow Miller. He had seen the wi

me, mother, ma

y heart and I fai

e and went

an, uncertainly, "I

upper dishes were washed and she sat in the honeysuckle fragrance of the young night with the whippoorwills calling, she had been accustomed to hear a particular whippoorwill-note call, much like the real ones, yet distinct to her waiting ears. She was wont to rise and go to the stile to meet him. She had known that every day she would, seemingly by chance, me

azement to the man that in such an environment she was not only wildly beautiful, but invariably the pink of neatness. She could climb a tree or a mountain, or emerge from a sweltering b

goin' ter tell

n, "I've discovered s

yes flashe

ut Samson," she declared, "wi

very nice," the

e I already knows hit," came her

ok his head

a genius,

t's

at abilities to become

d, in prompt and f

the biggest man in th

to be more

a cloud across the viol

ye mean?" s

nd then said bluntly-"I mean that I wan

wn hands clenched into tight little fists. Her bosom heaved convulsi

le girlish body, drawn into rigid uprightness, was a-quiver with the incarnate spirit of the woman defending her home and institutions. For a moment af

was like one of the sudden and magnificent tempests that often swept these hills, a brief visit of the furi

If a man should lose a girl like you, he couldn't gain enough in the world to make

d no fotched-on help ter m

but that's the least part of it. He can come back equip

a hurt quaver in her voice-"ye mean

ant to take him where he can see more of the world-not only a little section of the world. Surely,

rs. She was speaking in a transport of grief. "Don't ye say hit. Take anybody else-take 'em

ender body shook under a harrowing convulsion of unhappiness. Lescott felt as though he had struck her; as though he had ruthlessly blighted the irresponsi

ally-"

ed, infuriated face, stormy with blazin

eces. Ye're jest a pizen snake, anyhow!" Then, she pointed a tremulous finger off up the road. "Git away from hyar," she comma

a rustle, and, turning, saw Sally standing not far off. She was hesitating at the edge of the underbrush, and Lescott read in her eyes the effort it was costing her to come forward and apologize. Her cheeks were still pale and her eyes wet, but the tempest of her anger had spent itself, and in the girl

to go and meet her. But he knew her shyness, and realized that the kindest thing would be to pretend that he had n

out of sight, but always bracing herself and drawing a little nearer. Finally, he knew that she was standing almos

nd with labored utterance. He looked up to see her standing with her

ows thet Samson's got a right ter edd

ng to change Samson, except to make h

t nothin' green, an' thar hain't no birds a-singin', an' thar hain't nothin' but rain an' snow an' fog an' misery. They're a-goin' ter be like thet all the time fer me, atter Samson's gone away." She choked back something like a sob bef