Part 31 (1/2)
”It would be so negative. How long will the Colonel and Dale be closeted?”
”Lord knows. They've lots to talk about. Dale has reached a place where the Colonel finds him exciting.”
”Isn't he a marvel!” she exclaimed.
”Oh, he's a marvel, all right,” Brent grumbled. ”But his vanity will surpa.s.s his great achievements;--don't delude yourself about that!”
”Well; you're an authority on that condition of life. Do you enjoy it?”
”If you'll give me more reason to be vain, I'll tell you.”
She ignored this, and when they were among the cedars he began again; not caring what he talked about as much as to be talking. He felt that if he stopped, she might read through his depression.
”Do you remember the last time we were here? You lectured me for loafing, and shooting woodp.e.c.k.e.rs. There were other things, but you couldn't recall them at the moment. I've been doing some right stiff thinking since then!”
”Retrospection is good for the soul,” she smiled at him.
”On the contrary, retrospection makes for hollow eyes, and introspection is tinged with bitterness. Keep your face to the future if you would have your soul contented.”
”And what is your future?” she archly inquired.
”These coming minutes while you are here with me.”
”Really,” she flashed him a rather bewildering look, ”I did think for once you were going to be serious!”
”I am serious,” he dug the heel of his boot thoughtfully into the tanbark. ”I wish I weren't--or didn't have to be.”
”Has something gone wrong--with the road?” There was a slight tinge of irony in the suggestion.
”No, but something's gone wrong with the world. I wish,” he suddenly looked up at her, ”that I could be as sure of laying a smooth grade for--for my friends as I am for trains of coal!”
”Your friends might have to wait a long time before traveling about,”
she laughed, but there was a note of apprehension in her voice which again put him on his guard;--and yet he could not help feeling that a partial preparation was only fair to her.
”It wouldn't be a bad thing if some people never traveled about,” he smiled. ”I might then succeed in keeping you here, and those hot-headed mountaineers would stay back in their holes and rot forever, as they ought.”
”Oh, Brent,” she exclaimed, in a hurt voice, ”there is such a wealth of splendid human material up there if we can only get hold of it! They're all ambitious--if stirred!”
He waited, asking: ”And what else?”
”Nothing else.”
”But you didn't say anything nice about Dale!”
She laughed. ”I thought you knew about Dale--and me; for I'm of the mountains!”
”You didn't belong to those people,” he murmured. ”You're a spirit who lived in a deep spring, and you just floated down with the brook. I know, because I've dreamed about you. And I know, too,” he shook off the spell, ”a little something about stirring the ambition of _real_ people up there. I've seen it tried in a mining camp where a railroad has been running for years! I've seen a fair and square company build model cottages, and in every way try to improve conditions. It put in baths, and the tubs were used for vegetable bins. It built a reading room, and the walls were covered with charcoal pictures. Two men used their little front porches for firewood, rather than pick up all they wanted a hundred yards away. One winter coal took a jump. The mine had a bonanza chance, and the men who had been making their two and a half dollars a day, or thereabouts, could with the same hours' work pull down twice that much. Did they? I'll tell you what they did: they laughed at the superintendent and worked half time; they sat about the store and whittled, saying that two and a half was all they needed. But they forgot this quick enough when the union afterwards went in and told them they ought to get twenty cents more! You'd have thought then that they'd been on the verge of starvation for years, and the harrowing tales which went forth about their 'wretched conditions' would have made you laugh--had you known the facts. The union had photographs taken of the two cottages without front porches, and sent them broadcast so the world could see how capital trod upon its hire. Ambition? They don't know the word deeper than its two first letters! And you've got to be ready for many a disappointment here, too--let me tell you that!”
She was looking at him earnestly, and in a few moments said: ”I agree with everything you say. I grant it all, every bit. But, Brent, consider! A mother tells her little boy to wash his face, to read his primer, and he doesn't. And the next day she tells him, and he doesn't.