“Perhaps not,” she said slowly, “but to think of no good music, no pleasures, no,––anything that makes up our delightful living here,” she ended.
“That is true,” he responded gravely, adding almost to himself, “but it must be carried to them through work and sacrifice by somebody.”
Then becoming conscious the next instant of the brilliant scene about him his smile flashed over his face again and he turned to her with:
“By the way, did you see an account in the papers of the wreckage of a car load of millinery in the Kentucky mountains a few days ago?”
“No, I did not,” she smiled back.
“Well, there was a railroad wreck somewhere up there and a whole car load of millinery was sent out upon the four winds of heaven. Big hats and little, such as women know all about and men can’t even talk of, with all sorts of gorgeous flower trimmings, feathers and ribbons were scattered through the woods, and they say barefooted mountain women flocked from every direction and decked themselves in the latest styles of head-gear.”
Both laughed over the picture and Steve added:
“I suppose it would only need a procession of fashionable gowns parading the mountains to transform our women, while the sight of swallow-tails and silk hats might do as much for the men, for like the 121 rest of the world we take up the superficial with ease, but”––sobering again––“to give our people a glimpse into the knowledge contained in books, to waken us to life’s highest harmonies and open our eyes to nature’s beautiful hidden colours, is going to take a long time, and as I said, somebody must work and sacrifice for it.”
He searched the beautiful face beside him for sympathetic understanding, but she only looked at him with wide eyes as the frivolous little girl had done years before, not comprehending, while she wanted to say again, this time a little wistfully, “You funny mountain boy.”
No conception of life translated into labour and sacrifice for others, such as he had begun to battle with, had ever come within her range of thought, and the starting of the music again was welcome to them both.