"I reckon if these here fellers air a-comin' up here ter run things, an' drownd out my folks, hit's a right good reason fer me ter stay here --an' holp my folks." "By staying here, you can't help them. It won't be work for guns, but for brains. By going away and coming back armed with knowledge, you can save them. You will know how to play the game." "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." The old man's face hardened. "Ef ye goes," he said, almost sharply, "I won't never send fer ye. Any time ye ever wants ter come back, ye knows ther way. Thar'll be room an' victuals fer ye hyar." "I reckon I mout be a heap more useful ef I knowed more."