As Steve grew to young manhood Mr. Polk asked him as often as studies would permit in summer to go down to the office. He liked to give the boy a taste of the financial whirl, and it was intensely interesting and exciting to Steve. He felt something of the same tremor of wonder and delight over the inner whirl of gigantic machinery moving railroad systems which stirred him when he felt the first rush of a passing railroad train, and there was a certain eager desire to be a part of it all.
It was upon his sixth vacation visit that Mr. Polk turned to him one day at the office as the boy’s eyes glistened with interest and said:
“I shall want you at my elbow in a few years now. I shall be too old after a while to do all the things waiting to be done, and you remember your promise to climb that mountain of success for me whose heights I never shall be able to reach.”
But the youth of nineteen suddenly looked afar as the boy of thirteen had done when it was proposed that he change the old name of Langly, and a vision of rugged mountains and deep valleys which again spread out before him were tracked by eager bared feet of poorly clad children hurrying towards the few schools which here and there dotted the wilderness. 115 He was silent, for a definite conflict had begun in his soul.
Mr. Polk noticed the silence, and with a restless energy which was growing upon him, said to his wife that evening when they were alone:
“Look here, Grace, I am uncertain about Steve. That boy’s unfathomable. Here I have been counting upon his going into business, and I know business appeals to him for I can see it in his eye, and yet when I spoke to him definitely to-day he just looked off into space,” he ended in disgust.
Mrs. Polk laughed. “Well, you know, I have never been an enthusiast over money-making, and I don’t believe Steve ever will be,––though he may.”
“Why, look here,” her husband said impatiently, “if he gets a good knowledge of geology and mining engineering, as I mean he shall, he can locate and open up some good mines in those Kentucky mountains which will make us all rich.”
“Oh,” laughed Mrs. Polk again, “that doesn’t stir me a bit. But when I think of every little yearning child of the mountains well shod, with a clean kerchief in its pocket, and trudging away to school frosty mornings, then I begin to thrill.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Polk with impatient energy; “but money will help bring that to pass.”