He understood now her dress and speech, and he was not surprised at the answer to his next question.
"I hain't nuver been to school. Pap couldn't spare me."
"Can you read and write?"
"No," she said, but she flushed, and he knew straightway the sensitiveness and pride with which he would have to deal.
"Well," he said kindly, "we will begin now."
And he took the alphabet and told her the names of several letters and had her try to make them with a lead pencil, which she did with such uncanny seriousness and quickness that the pity of it, that in his own State such intelligence should be going to such broadcast waste for the want of such elemental opportunities, struck him deeply. The general movement to save that waste was only just beginning, and in that movement he meant to play his part. He was glad now to have under his own supervision one of those mountaineers of whom, but for one summer, he had known so little and heard so much—chiefly to their discredit—and he determined then and there to do all he could for her. So he took her back to her seat with a copy-book and pencil and told her to go on with her work, and that he would go to see her father and mother as soon as possible.
"I hain't got no mammy—hit's a step-mammy," she said, and she spoke of the woman as of a horse or a cow, and again he smiled. Then as he turned away he repeated her name to himself and with a sudden wonder turned quickly back.
"I used to know some Hawns down in your mountains. A little fellow named Jason Hawn used to go around with me all the time."
Her eyes filled and then flashed happily.
"Why, mebbe you air the rock-pecker?"