"There's something in grit, I reckon," said the engineer. Then his
wonderful locomotive glided away, leaving Ike staring after it in silent
ecstasy, and his companions dying with laughter.

He started out to overtake the world at a night-school, where his mental
quickness contrasted oddly with his slow, stolid demeanor. He worked
hard at the forge all day; but everybody was kind.

Outside of Poor Valley life seemed joyous and hopeful; progress and
activity were on every hand; and the time he spent here was the happiest
he had ever known,--except for the recollection of that frightened,
beseeching face which had looked out after him through the closing
mists.

He wished he had turned back for a word. He wished his mother might know
he was well and happy. He began to feel that he could go no further
without making his peace with her. So one day he left his employer with
the promise to return the following week, "ef the Lord spares me an'
nuthin' happens," as the cautious rural formula has it, and set out for
his home.

The mists had lifted from it, but the snow had fallen deep. Poor Valley
lay white and drear--it seemed to him that he had never before known how
drear--between the grim mountain with its great black crags, its chasms,
its gaunt, naked trees, and the long line of flinty hills, whose stunted
pines bent with the weight of the snow.

There was no smoke from the chimney of the blacksmith's shop. There were
no footprints about the door. An atmosphere charged with calamity seemed
to hang over the dwelling. Somehow he knew that a dreadful thing had
happened even before he opened the door and saw his mother's mournful
white face.

She sprang up at the sight of him with a wild, sobbing cry that was half
grief, half joy. He had only a glimpse of the interior,--of Jube,
looking anxious and unnaturally grave; of the listless children, grouped
about the fire; of the big, burly blacksmith, with a strange, deep
pallor upon his face, and as he shifted his position--why, how was that?

The boy's mother had thrust him out of the door, and closed it behind
her. The jar brought down from the low eaves a few feathery flakes of
snow, which fell upon her hair as she stood there with him.

"Don't say nuthin' 'bout'n it," she implored. "He can't abide ter hear
it spoke of."

"What ails dad's hand?" he asked, bewildered.

"It's gone!" she sobbed. "He war over ter the sawmill the day ye
lef'--somehow 'nuther the saw cot