His mother said she supposed so, “she knew they larned out o’ things they called books,” and then she explained as best she could to him what schools and books were. When his father came in again Steve said boldly:
“Pappy, I’m er goin’ over the mountains an’ larn how to make them watch things.”
The mountaineer stood as if paralyzed a moment, then his dull eyes blazed.
“No, you won’t nuther! Not a step will ye go! Ye shan’t nuver hev nothin’ to do with no city folks, so help me God!”
The boy dropped back cowed and trembling; he had never seen his father so stirred. He didn’t dare ask a question, but when the mountaineer had seated himself in the chimney corner opposite his wife, he continued:
“City folks with all their larnin’, fine clothes an’ fine ways ain’t to be depended on. I wouldn’t trus’ one of ’em with a jay bird lessen I wanted to git shed of it. Don’t you let me hear no mo’ o’ your goin’ over the mountains arter city folks.”
The prejudice of some mountaineers against the 21 city is deep-seated. They have little use for the “settlements,” meaning the smaller towns, but the city is their abomination. Jim Langly’s prejudice was even stronger than that of the average mountain man of this type, for it had been a matter of contention between himself and his wife in the early days of their married life. She had always longed to see what was beyond the mountains and besieged him to go till the subject could no more be mentioned between them.
Steve soon climbed to his bed in a corner of the room with a very heavy heart. If city folks weren’t to be depended on then he would never get that watch, and all the beautiful visions of learning to do things in a wonderful new world grew dim and uncertain. So heavy was his heart as he fell asleep that when he waked at daylight, it was with a terrible sense of loss and grief. The morning meal over he wandered off with Tige, dull and dejected, till the unlucky rabbit had crossed his path and stirred strange, resentful enmity towards his little familiar contestants of the woods. Sending the dog angrily off he skinned the rabbit with savage jerks and then carried it at once back to his home, saying:
“Fry it, ’Randy, fry it dog-goned hard.”
His mother caught the sullen, angry tone, and 22 when Mirandy went out in the kitchen to begin the dinner, she called him from where he sat on the door-step.