The Boy from Hollow Hut: A Story of the Kentucky MountainsMullins, Isla May
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The Boy from Hollow Hut: A Story of the Kentucky Mountains
Mullins, Isla May
Kentucky -- Fiction; Mountain life -- Fiction
Mrs. Polk's dreams were of another sort altogether. She never lost
interest in the cause of education in these same Kentucky mountains,
and many were the talks she and Steve had about the progress being
made there and the needs constantly developing. Engrossed in business,
as Mr. Polk came more and more to be, he took no note of his wife's
indirect influence, while she did not realize that she was
interfering with plans of his.
As Steve grew to young manhood Mr. Polk asked him as often as studies
would permit in summer to go down to the office. He liked to give the
boy a taste of the financial whirl, and it was intensely interesting
and exciting to Steve. He felt something of the same tremor of wonder
and delight over the inner whirl of gigantic machinery moving railroad
systems which stirred him when he felt the first rush of a passing
railroad train, and there was a certain eager desire to be a part of
it all.
It was upon his sixth vacation visit that Mr. Polk turned to him one
day at the office as the boy's eyes glistened with interest and said:
"I shall want you at my elbow in a few years now. I shall be too old
after a while to do all the things waiting to be done, and you
remember your promise to climb that mountain of success for me whose
heights I never shall be able to reach."
But the youth of nineteen suddenly looked afar as the boy of thirteen
had done when it was proposed that he change the old name of Langly,
and a vision of rugged mountains and deep valleys which again spread
out before him were tracked by eager bared feet of poorly clad
children hurrying towards the few schools which here and there dotted
the wilderness. He was silent, for a definite conflict had begun in
his soul.
Mr. Polk noticed the silence, and with a restless energy which was
growing upon him, said to his wife that evening when they were alone:
"Look here, Grace, I am uncertain about Steve. That boy's unfathomable.
Here I have been counting upon his going into business, and I know
business appeals to him for I can see it in his eye, and yet when I
spoke to him definitely to-day he just looked off into space," he
ended in disgust.
Mrs. Polk laughed. "Well, you know, I have never been an enthusiast
over money-making, and I don't believe Steve ever will be,--though he
may."
"Why, look here," her husband said impatiently, "if he gets a good
knowledge of geology and mining engineering, as I mean he shall, he
can locate and open up some good mines in those Kentucky mountains
which will make us all rich."
"Oh," laughed Mrs. Polk again, "that doesn't stir me a bit. But when I
think of every little yearning child of the mountains well shod, with
a clean kerchief in its pocket, and trudging away to school frosty
mornings, then I begin to thrill."
"Of course," said Mr. Polk with impatient energy; "but money will help
bring that to pass."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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