So Mr. Follet, who was a small but very wiry man, soon had him up in his arms, while Mrs. Follet supported his head and together they carried him to the house and laid him down on a couch. Then Mrs.
Follet quickly fixed him a hot drink and gave it slowly to him. With each swallow the st.u.r.dy boy felt stronger, and by the time he had taken a cup full, was able to talk freely.
"Where under the cano_pee_ did you come from anyway? You don"t live hereabouts, do you?" asked Mr. Follet, who was of the restless, nervous temperament which must know things at once.
"Now, Pa," said Mrs. Follet, "you must get the doctor to set his arm before you ask him anything," and Mr. Follet started off.
Steve looked curiously at the arm hanging limply by his side. He had never seen a broken arm before though he had heard that arms and legs could break and be mended like hoe or ax handles.
By questioning, Mrs. Follet found that he had had nothing to eat since the day before, so she prepared him a dainty meal which filled the mountain boy with wonder. There was a poached egg, a bit of toast and a cup of hot milk, none of which had he ever tasted or seen prepared before. But it all was very, very good, and as he ate Nancy slipped shyly into the room. She had stayed outside in frightened misery, feeling that all the trouble was her fault. Her mother said kindly:
"That"s right, child, come on in; our boy is better now." The little girl sat down timidly on the edge of a chair, and Steve took in the complete vision.
Soft yellow locks strayed out from a ribbon and tumbled about before a pair of deep blue eyes. Round cheeks were pink and soft, sweet lips were red and shyly smiling, a white ap.r.o.n with ruffles almost covered a blue gingham dress. The boy held his breath at the beauty of the apparition. He had never dreamed of anything so sweet and pretty in all the world.
It was not long before Mr. Follet returned with the doctor and the broken arm was successfully set, Steve bearing the pain "like a trump," as Mr. Follet put it. Then Mrs. Follet said he must go to bed at once, and he went up a tiny flight of stairs to a bed in a little attic chamber which she had made ready. Knowing the ways of mountain folk, Mrs. Follet did not insist that he undress, as the task would be difficult for him with the broken arm. He slept soundly in spite of pain in the arm upon a remarkable bed "off the floor" and awoke feeling well, and eager to see again his new friends.
When he got down the stairs, Mrs. Follet was busy getting the breakfast, and Mr. Follet was ready with questions.
"Where under the cano_pee_ (which was a favourite expression with Mr.
Follet) did you drap from yesterday, just in time to save our Nancy?
You don"t live hereabouts, do you?"
"No," said Steve, "I come from Hollow Hut."
"And where"s that?" returned Mr. Follet.
Steve couldn"t tell very clearly, but gave an account of his long journey and told about the watch and the fox skin which he was going to take to the man in the city.
Mr. and Mrs. Follet were much interested in his story, so much so that they forgot the waiting breakfast. Then they turned to it, but Steve had remembered that he dropped his fox skin as he ran to Nancy"s rescue and he wanted to go at once for it, but Mrs. Follet would not let him go till he had eaten breakfast. The neatly laid table with its snowy cloth was a new wonder to Steve, and when the little girl, looking fresh and sweet as a rose, sat down opposite him, he was so awed and thrilled he could scarcely eat. Angels could hardly have given him a more heavenly vision than did this little girl.
Breakfast over, Steve started at once for the fox skin, and Mrs.
Follet sent Nancy with him to help find it. The little girl lost some of her shyness as they looked for the skin, and Steve listened to her chatter, feeling in a strange way that it was all a dream which he had had before, as we do sometimes in experiences which move us strongly.
They found the skin with little trouble, and when they had carried it back to the house, Mr. Follet took it up and carefully examined it.
"So you"re trying to get this here skin to the man in the city who sent the watch to you?"
"Yes," said Steve.
"And you ain"t got hair or hide o" the watch now?" continued Mr.
Follet.
"No, I hain"t," said the boy sorrowfully.
"Well, I"ll be sn.i.g.g.e.red," said Mr. Follet. "And how under the cano_pee_ do you expect to find him in the city when you git thar?"
The boy"s uncomprehending stare showed that he had no conception of a city, and Mr. Follet looked at his wife, laughed and went over to the station, which was station and store combined.
For a few days Steve continued to live in a dream. The house was a marvel to him. Mrs. Follet cooked on a stove and constantly fixed strange, nice things to eat; a clock ticked on the mantel, which comforted him somewhat for the loss of his watch,--there were queer but to him surprisingly beautiful and comfortable pieces of furniture, and one room had a nice piece of good stout cloth with red and green flowers on it spread over the floor on which people walked!
Then marvel of marvels, every now and then that engine and great train of cars came puffing and hissing by the house in full view, and the boy"s spirits mounted on wings as he thought of the wonders of the world.
Even with one arm disabled, he took hold at once to help with the work about the place. He fed the chickens, horse and cow. With only one hand he could not learn to milk, though he was eager to do so. He went over to the store on errands and made himself useful in many ways.
One day when at the store he said to Mr. Follet that as soon as his arm was well he would have to be going on to the city to take the fox skin.
"And how under the cano_pee_ do you expect to be ridin" round on the railroad without money?" said Mr. Follet. He knew well the boy had none. "You ain"t a Rockefeller or a Jay Gould, air you?"
These allusions of course meant nothing to the boy, and the question of money was a new one to him. None of his late friends in their simplicity had thought of it, and the man had to make clear the need of it in the business world which Steve had come into. With his people things had always been "swapped"; corn, tobacco and whiskey, for the few things they needed from a store, and he had seen very few pieces of money in his life.
"Now, how under the cano_pee_ are you going to come up with the money?" asked Mr. Follet briskly, and with practical pertinence.
Steve certainly did not know and then Mr. Follet proposed that he stay with them through the summer, work for him and he would give him his board and clothes and pay him fifty cents a week.
Steve agreed readily and at once felt a new sense of responsibility and manliness.
When his arm was quite well Mrs. Follet gave him some long white garments which she called "nightshirts," and told him to undress at night and wear them for sleeping! It was a very needless performance, he felt in his secret heart, but he had already learned to love the gentle woman and he would have done even more foolish things to please her. In fact, the thing which she gave him for brushing his hair seemed at first to bring him to the limit of acquiescence, but the bit of broken looking-gla.s.s stuck in one of the timbers of his room soon told him that a little smoothing down of his tousled head made an immense difference in his looks, and somehow made him seem a little more worthy to be in Nancy"s presence.
The little girl had lessons at night from her mother in wonderful books, and Steve listened with rapt attention each time, beginning very soon to catch their meaning. It was not long till he had confided to Nancy how his "mammy" had wanted him to "larn things" too, and that was another reason why he was trying to get to the city.
"You"re going to school then," said the little girl. "My mama teaches me, and some day she is going to send me to a big, big college."
Mrs. Follet had been a school-teacher from the north in one of the small Kentucky towns, an orphan girl, who very young had been obliged to make her own way in the world. She had met Mr. Follet, and in one of those strange attractions between complete opposites in temperament and training, had married him. She was a quiet, refined and very kind-hearted woman. She would gladly have taught the boy, but finding that he did not know even his letters, she felt that with Nancy in the second reader, she could not take another pupil who was a beginner.
But when the lessons were going on in the evening Steve soon began to spell over the words to himself as Nancy spelled them, and then it came about that often at odd times the brown shock of hair and the little yellow curls bent together over bits of paper, as the little girl pointed out and explained the make-up of the letters to the big boy.
"Don"t you see, Steve, this little chicken coop with a piece across it is big A, and this one with the piece standing up and two curly things at the side is big B." The peculiarities of similar letters were discussed, how the bottom curly thing in big R turned the other way, while P didn"t have any bottom curly thing at all, and F didn"t have any bottom cross piece, while E did.
"See here," said Steve, growing alert, "here"s a powerful nice gate; whut"s that?"
"Oh, that"s big H," said Nancy, "and wriggly, twisty S is just the prettiest letter of all, I think. Oh, Steve, that is the letter which begins your name," said she, in generous, childish joy.
"Is that so?" exclaimed Steve, with eager pleasure because she was pleased. "And which is the one whut begins yourn?"
"Oh, mine is just two straight standing up pieces with a slanting piece between. It"s one kind of a gate but not just like H," and she hunted out an N to show him.
"_I_ think that"s the prettiest letter of all," said Steve, with unconscious gallantry. "Whar"s the other letters in yo" name?" he inquired, and Nancy hunted them all out. Then she found the other letters in his name, and Steve had an undefined disappointment that his name did not have a single letter in it which belonged to her name. It seemed to shut him out more completely from the things which belonged to her.
So the lessons went on from the little girl to the big boy, and Mrs.
Follet was amazed one day to find that Steve could read quite well. He studied every book and paper within reach as he found time, though he never neglected his duties.
Corn was constantly brought Mr. Follet in exchange for goods at the store, and one of Steve"s duties was to take the old horse with two big bags of corn over to the Greely mill to be ground into meal. Nancy was mounted upon the old horse in front of the bags to show Steve the way on his first trip, and afterwards she always begged to go. To Steve it was the greatest joy to take the little girl with him, though he wouldn"t have dared ask it. He taught her to put her small foot in his hand while he st.u.r.dily lifted her to the old white mare"s back, and on the return she stepped down into his palm with equal ease.
The way to the mill lay along the road for a time, and then a short cut was made across what was known as the Greely Ridge. It was a steep cliff of rugged woodland, and both Nancy and Steve enjoyed the trip through the woods, Steve walking close beside the horse and the two chatting all the way. He told the little girl such interesting things about birds and squirrels, rabbits and foxes.
"Don"t you wish we were birds," said Nancy one day, "so we could fly way off and see lots of things?"
"Yes," said Steve, "I sh.o.r.e do; then I could find Mr. Polk and give him his fox skin." The thought of getting to Mr. Polk was always in his mind, and though the little girl knew all about it she wanted to hear again how Steve got the skin and about that wonderful day in the woods when he met Mr. Polk, and the beautiful watch that the robbers took.