He got the situation as to the visionary, kindly father with a turn for
book learning and a liking for enterprises that appealed to his
imagination. Uncle Pros and the silver mine were always touched upon
with the tender kindness Johnnie felt for the old man and his life-long
quest. But the little mother and the children--ah, it was here that the
listener found Johnnie's incentive.
"Mr. Stoddard," she concluded, "there wasn't a bit of hope of schooling
for the children unless I could get out and work in the factory. I think
it's a splendid chance for a girl. I think any girl that wouldn't take
such a chance would be mighty mean and poor-spirited."
Gray Stoddard revolved this conception of a chance in the world in his
mind for some time.
"I did get some schooling," she told him. "You wouldn't think it to hear
me talk, because I'm careless, but I've been taught, and I can do
better. Yet if I don't see to it, how am I to know that the children
will have as much even as I've had? Mountain air is mighty pure and
healthy, and the water up here is the finest you ever drank; but that's
only for the body. Of course there's beauty all about you--there was
never anything more sightly than big Unaka and the ridges that run from
it, and the sky, and the big woods--and all. And yet human beings have
got to have more than that.
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