"I reckon they won't git our land, ner our timber, ner our coal,
without we wants ter sell hit. I reckon ef they tries thet, guns will
come in handy. Things has stood here like they is now, fer a hundred
years. I reckon we kin keep 'em that-away fer a spell longer." But it
was evident that Samson was arguing against his own belief; that he was
trying to bolster up his resolution and impeached loyalty, and that at
heart he was sick to be up and going to a world which did not despise
"eddication." After a little, he waved his hand vaguely toward "down
below."
"Ef I went down thar," he questioned suddenly and irrelevantly, "would
I hev' ter cut my ha'r?"
"My dear boy," laughed Lescott, "I can introduce you in New York
studios to many distinguished gentlemen who would feel that their heads
had been shorn if they let their locks get as short as yours. In New
York, you might stroll along Broadway garbed in turban and a
burnouse without greatly exciting anybody. I think my own hair
is as long as yours."
"Because," doggedly declared the mountaineer, "I wouldn't allow nobody
ter make me cut my ha'r."
"Why?" questioned Lescott, amused at the stubborn inflection.
"I don't hardly know why--" He paused, then admitted with a glare as
though defying criticism: "Sally likes hit that-away--an' I won't let
nobody dictate ter me, that's all."
The leaven was working, and one night Samson announced to his Uncle
from the doorstep that he was "studyin' erbout goin' away fer a spell,
an' seein' the world."
The old man laid down his pipe. He cast a reproachful glance at the
painter, which said clearly, though without words: "I have opened my home to you and offered you what I had, yet in my
old age you take away my mainstay." For a time, he sat silent, but his
shoulders hunched forward with a sag which they had not held a moment
before. His seamed face appeared to age visibly and in the moment. He
ran one bony hand through his gray mane of hair.
"I 'lowed you was a-studyin' erbout thet, Samson," he said, at last.
"I've done ther best fer ye I knowed. I kinder 'lowed thet from now on
ye'd do the same fer me. I'm gittin' along in years right smart...."
"Uncle Spicer," interrupted the boy, "I reckon ye knows thet any time
ye needed me I'd come back."