She looked about her at the sordid details of the scene,—the grimy cabins, the piles of slack,—and left the sentence uncompleted. But she had proved for herself one great and hopeful truth—that no corner of the world is so small or mean but that love and helpfulness may be found there.
CHAPTER VIII
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.