did not go to the Follets as he had intended, but made his way
slowly back to the school, stopping at cabins here and there as in
previous summers, chatting with the people, getting into their life
and giving them visions as no alien could have done.

On this trip he passed a great coal mine and here he spent a couple of
weeks watching the work with great interest. He carefully examined the
various strata of the excavation and studied the practical working of
the mine with keen intent, his college course having given him ample
preparation for its intelligent comprehension.

Suddenly a bright thought struck him.

"Look here," he said to himself, "why not locate a mine here in the
mountains, as Mr. Polk used to talk of my doing, buy the land for a
few hundred dollars, as I am sure I can in some localities, and then
make it over to Mr. Polk? He will know how to handle it, and if it is
valuable will certainly make it pay. With another year's work I can
have the money, and by that means I can cancel that debt with one fell
stroke, perhaps," he went on jubilantly,--and if it proved to do so
many times over, he would only be the more rejoiced, he thought.

XII

LOVE'S AWAKENING

Full of this happy inspiration Steve went back to his work, determined
to gather during the year a sum sufficient to make his purchase, so as
to be ready for the next vacation when he would be free to go
prospecting. Under the stimulus of this good hope he worked with great
absorption, only allowing himself the recreation of a weekly letter to
Mrs. Polk, which he never failed to send, continuing to put into it
all the interesting and amusing things which came into his work,--and
they did come in spite of the seriousness of his life.

Oftentimes in brooding thought he went back to the little Steve who
was duplicating his own early life in the old home. He had considered
mountain educational work hitherto in the large; he began now to think
of it from the nucleus of the home. How he would like to see the old
spot of his boyhood redeemed by an ideal home life! And the thought
touched many latent springs of his manly nature, calling forth dim,
sweet visions of domestic love and beauty.

But he hushed nature's appeal peremptorily, he thrust back the
visions with the firm decision that he had no leisure for dreams, and
continued his many-sided work through another winter with accustomed
constancy. It was in the early spring of that year whe