Steve listened soberly. The experience was not a new one to him, but he remembered that his "Mammy" had always said she didn"t like killings and that mountain folks ought to "larn better some way." The words came back to the boy with peculiar meaning since the voice which uttered them was still. He said nothing, but it all made him more anxious to move on towards that other world of which he and "Mammy"
had dreamed.
The following morning his foot seeming fully restored and clearing weather having come after several days of rain, Steve said "he thought he"d move on."
"Whar ye goin"?" said the man of the house who had paid little attention to him before.
"I"m er goin" to the railroad fust, an" then from thar to the city to 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e 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. .h.i.t 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 rea.s.sured, 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 compa.s.s, 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 n.o.body 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 pa.s.sed 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 ap.r.o.n 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 a.s.sure 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 rea.s.sure 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.