And then the work, warm under her hand, was growing ever more absorbing, for the task of building up Tommy’s education had begun in earnest. In this she found the minister a helper. How carefully the boy’s studies were mapped out between them! They did not tell him the whole plan, but only so much of it as would serve to give him ambition to get on, without him at the work which lay before him. It was not an easy thing to compress into one year the studies which ordinarily must have taken four or five, but the boy developed a great willingness and capacity for work, and if there were times when his teachers despaired, there were others when the way seemed bright before them. I think they both took pleasure in watching his growth and development from week to week,—almost, indeed, from day to day,—in noting the birth of new thoughts and the power of grasping new ideas. To cultured minds there is no occupation more , so the devoted of this man and woman was not wholly without reward. But at last such progress had been made that Mr. Remington’s consent must be obtained before they could venture on further steps.
Mr. Bayliss went about the task one Sunday afternoon, as the only time he could find the boy’s father at home and not wholly worn out with . He approached the cabin with great inward , but with determination to win if it were possible to do so. He found the family, as he had found it once before, listening to Tommy’s reading, only this time the reader proceeded with much greater . He stopped as Mr. Bayliss knocked, and welcoming him warmly, placed a chair for him. The minister greeted the other members of the family, and at once into his business, before his courage should fail him.
“You enjoy your son’s reading a great deal, do you not?” he asked.
“Ya-as,” the miner, slowly. “It’s a great thing. I hed no idee there was such books in th’ world.”
“There are thousands of them.” And the minister smiled. “Not all, perhaps, quite so good and as the ones you have been reading, but many of more direct value. There are books that tell about the sciences—about the stars and the earth and the flowers, and about animals and man. There are books that tell about the different countries of the earth, written by men who have traveled through all these countries. There are others that tell the history of the earth and of all the peoples that have ever lived on it, so far as it is known. There are hundreds which tell of the lives of great men—of kings and emperors and great generals and statesmen; yes, and of the men who have written the great books. Many of these are written in the English language, but there are many, too, in Latin and Greek, and French, and Italian, and German, and Spanish, which are no less valuable.”
The miner and his wife sat staring with starting eyes at the speaker.
“But—but nobody ever read ’em all!” the latter.
“Certainly no one man ever read them all.” And the minister smiled again. “But any man may read and understand a great part of the best of them. Tommy might, if he had the chance.”
Tommy sat suddenly bolt upright in his chair, and the blood flew to his face.
“Th’ chance?” repeated his mother, slowly. “What d’ you mean by th’ chance, Mr. Bayliss?”
“I mean that after he had learned all that Miss Andrews and I could teach him, he would have to go away for a time to study—to Princeton, say, where I went, where there are men who devote their whole lives to teaching.”
Mr. Remington stirred impatiently in his chair.
“What fer?” he demanded. “S’pose he could read all th’ books in th’ world, what good ’d it do him?”
The minister perceived that there was only one argument which would be understood—the one, the one of dollars and cents, of earning a living.
“When a man has learned certain things,” he explained, “he can teach them to others. A man who can teach things well can always command a good position. It would rescue your son from the mines, and, I believe, would make him better and happier.”
The miner sat for a moment, turning this over in his mind.
“Mebbe ’twould, an’ then ag’in mebbe ’twouldn’t,” he said at last. “Anyway,” he added, with an air of finality, “it ain’t t’ be thort of. How I pay fer him t’ go away t’ school? It must cost a heap o’ money. Why, I can’t hardly keep my fambly in bread an’ meat an’ clothes.”
It was the objection the minister had been waiting for, and he seized upon it eagerly.
“We’ll provide for all that, Mr. Remington,” he said. “It sha’n’t cost you a cent. Of course I know the struggle you have to get along—that every miner has. But every big college has hundreds of scholarships for deserving young men, and there are many ways in which the students can make money enough to pay all their expenses.”
He glanced at Tommy, and saw that his lips were trembling. Mrs. Remington was clasping and unclasping her hands. Even her husband was more moved than he cared to show.
“I’m not going to press you for a decision now,” added the minister. “It’s too grave a question to decide hastily. Yet, if you consider your son’s welfare, I don’t see how you can decide against him. Send him to me to-morrow with your decision. It will be a great thing for him if he can go,” he concluded, and took his leave.
There was silence for a few minutes in the little room. Mrs. Remington continued knitting her fingers together, while her husband stared through the window at the visitor’s retreating form. Tommy sat glued to his chair, hopeful and despairing by turns, not daring to speak. No such crisis had ever before appeared in his life.
“Well, Silas,” said his mother, at last, “it’s like th’ preacher says. It’s a great chance fer th’ boy. He wouldn’t be a-takin’ all this trouble ef he didn’t think th’ boy was worth it.”
The miner turned slowly away from the window and glanced at her and then at their son.
“Would y’ like t’ go, Tommy?” he asked.
There was a tone in his voice which told that the battle was already won. The boy recognized its meaning in an instant.
“Oh, father!” he cried, and his arms were about his neck.
“All right, Tommy,” he said, in a voice not very steady. “I’m not th’ man t’ stand in my boy’s light. Mebbe ef I’d hed a chance like this when I was a boy, I could ’a’ give you a show myself. But I can’t.”
The mother hastily brushed away a tear that was down her wrinkled cheek.
“Come here, Tommy,” she said, and when she had him in her arms: “Your pa ain’t hed much chance, thet’s so,” she said, “but he’s done th’ best he could, an’ he’s been a good man t’ me. Don’t y’ fergit thet, an’ don’t y’ ever be ashamed o’ your pa.”
“You , mother,” protested her husband; but there was a tenderness in his voice which made the command almost a . After all, not even the slavery of the mines can kill love in the heart, so it be pure and honest, and that little mountain cabin was a that afternoon.
Bright and early the next morning, Tommy, with shining face, took the good news to the minister, and together they rejoiced at it, as did Miss Andrews when she heard. Then work began with new earnestness. Both of them recognized the fact that no education could be sound which was not firmly grounded on the , the “three R’s,” so they confined themselves to these foundation-stones, and budded them as strongly as they could. There was no more question of working in the mine in the afternoon. His father there without a helper, doing two men’s work, blasting down the coal and then loading it on the cars—at what a sacrifice no one unacquainted with the mines can understand. For there is a great social
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