“Hit mought be the way to treat some strangers. As fer yore shoes an’ coat, ye needn’t say I’m a-wearin’ ‘em no longer.” And so, deliberately, Joslin removed both the shoes and the coat, and stood coatless and barefooted, leaning against the gallery rail. He felt with a certain mortification the straight gaze of the young woman who had sat listening quietly. She spoke now. “Mr. Joslin,” said she in the low and even tones usual for her speaking voice, “I think you need those things. I quite understand how you feel about wearing them, but you will oblige me very much by keeping them until you are able to earn something better.” David Joslin, the shame, humiliation and hot anger of his heart struggling for mastery, turned to her, for the moment unable to speak. Then, silently as he had removed the offending articles, he replaced them. “I thank ye, Ma’am,” said he. “I reckon ye know better’n I do what I’d orter do.” “Well, sir,” said she, turning toward him in the twilight a face that to him had the charm of an angel’s, “my husband wants you to go back in there with him. Why is it impossible?” “Hit’s impossible, Ma’am, because when I make up my mind to a thing it’s impossible to change it.” She sat looking at him curiously. Never in all her life had she seen a personality more powerful than that of this half-wild heathen who stood before her. The feel of the iron of his soul came upon her with strange effect. “I’ll not ask you why you’re going outside,” said she, after a moment. “Jest because ye don’t ax me, I’ll tell ye,” said Joslin suddenly. “I’m a-goin’ outside to git a education.” “An education? There aren’t many schools back in there?” “Thar hain’t no schools at all, Ma’am. My daddy war a preacher afore he died. I kain’t read in no book to amount to nothin’. I kain’t hardly write my own name. I’m a-goin’ outside to git a education, because I’m a-goin’ to build a college, Ma’am.” “A college!” “Yes, Ma’am. I’ve got to do it. My people have been a-killin’ each other in thar fer a hundred years. They kain’t read, they kain’t write, they kain’t think. They hain’t amountin’ to nothin’ whatever in the world. They’re a great people, Ma’am. They’re worth savin’. Well, it kind of come to me, in a sort of callin’, that I’d orter save them. So, like I said, I’m a-goin’ Outside to git me a education, soon as I kin.” The situation had suddenly become extraordinary. They waited for the mountaineer to go on, as presently he did. “I’ve nuvver been further down the river than a couple of locks below. I’ve rafted here sence I was fourteen year old, but beyant the aidge of the hills I don’t know nothin’ of the world. Kin ye tell me whar I kin git my education? I don’t reckon it’ll take long—us mounting people larn right fast, Ma’am, when we git a chancet.”