“‘That!’ said the fellow, looking startled, while the girl hung her head.
“‘Yes, that,’ I replied in perfect seriousness. And the two wrote the lines under my most calm, most dignified eye till they were thoroughly disgusted with themselves and one another. When at last they went out, the girl tossed her head and ignored both her crestfallen and her jealous lover. With books under her arm she went alone straightway to the boarding hall.
“The story of the discomfited lovers is spreading in the school, and the quotation of ‘Frog went courting, he did ride,’ hilariously given is quenching the ardour of many an amorous swain. Possibly a little wholesome humour may after all be more helpful than stern enforcement of rules, and you know if there is one thing more than another we mountain folks lack, it is a sense of humour! So, even on general principles, it will do no harm to cultivate it.
“However, with all this cruel separation of tender hearts perhaps I am in a fair way to become a cynical old bachelor instead of a sentimentalist.”
He was determined to write cheerfully, for he knew that she constantly grieved over the alienation between Mr. Polk and himself, so his letters usually held bright accounts of his work, though sometimes he let her have a glimpse of the struggle which went on in his heart.
He wrote once after a contest with himself over natural desire for more congenial surroundings:
“Little mother, when things seem too sordid and commonplace and barren for endurance, as I confess they have a way of doing at times, I do crave a look into your dear face. But as I am too far away to see you clearly, I remember how you came down here and worked with dauntless courage and good cheer, and I take heart again. Then several things recently have contributed to make me ashamed of faint-heartedness, and I really think I am going to develop some stronger fibre.
“The pathos of the mountain desire for ‘larnin” has come to me overwhelmingly lately. A woman came on foot forty miles over the mountains last week bringing her daughter and seven others of neighbours and friends to the school only to find there was no room for them. But so great was the mother’s distress and so appealing her sacrifice and hardship in making the trip that one of our lady teachers took the daughter into her own room rather 138 than see the mother disappointed. A few days later two boys came in having driven a pair of lean goats over thirty miles hitched to a rude cart, which held all the earthly possessions they could muster, the old father and mother walking behind,––all hoping to buy entrance to the school for the boys. They, too, were disappointed, for we are full to overflowing this year. Then to cap the argument for stout-heartedness on my part, I went for a stroll yesterday afternoon and came across a boy who is making one of the bravest fights for an education that I ever saw. I found him putting his shoulder to great boulders on the mountainside, rolling them down and then setting himself to break them in pieces for use in paving our little town,––for you must know that under the influence of the school it is beginning to strive for general improvement. The boy, whose father is a worthless fellow, works at rock-breaking till he earns enough to go to school a while; then, when the money is gone, he returns to work again with a pathetic patience which has stirred me deeply.
“So, mother mine, when I long for a sight of your face,––and an old-time hand-clasp from Mr. Polk, as I assure you I too often do, or when I crave the feast of books and the quiet student atmosphere of a city library, I am simply going to think on these things in the future.”