The child laughed. "I did then—but I hain't now." After a moment's pause he added with a note of pride: "See thet flag? Hit's ther American flag an' hit's my job ter put hit up every day at sun-up an' take hit down at sun-set. I aims ter show ye right now how I does hit."
Bear Cat met young women from Eastern colleges who had come here to aid in the work. In their presence he felt very uncouth and ignorant, but they did not suspect that inner admission. They saw a young man who reminded them of a bronze athlete, with clear and fearless eyes, touched with a dreamer's zeal, and in his manner they recognized a simple dignity and an inherent chivalry.
CHAPTER XXVIII
On the porch of Miss Pendleton's house that night, guitars were tinkling. From inside came the glow of shaded lamps softly amber—and outside along the hillsides where the whippoorwills called plaintively, slept a silver wash of moonlight.
The stars were large and low-hanging and a pale mist tempered the slopes that rose in a nocturne of majesty and peace.
Bear Cat Stacy sat there immersed in reverie. He was seeing such a school grow up on the spot where he had hoped to build a house for Blossom and himself—then that vision faded and his face grew set because the other and more personal picture had intervened—the picture of the dwelling-house to which he had looked forward.
He did not notice that the guitars and the singing voices had come to silence, and that the white patches of the women's dresses had vanished from the shaded porch—he was looking out into the summer mists—and thinking his own thoughts.
Then he heard Miss Pendleton's voice, and came out of his abstraction with a start, looking about to realize for the first time that the two of them stood alone out there.
"Now you must talk business," smiled the lady. "I haven't introduced you yet to the person who is best of all fitted to discuss the details. She knows just what we seek to do here and how we do it. She knows the needs of mountain children, too—because she is a mountain girl herself. She came here really as a pupil—but she's much more than that now. She teaches the younger children while she studies herself—and she has developed a positive genius for this work."
Miss Pendleton paused and then added: "I'm going to let the two of you talk together first—and then I'll join you."