The Call of the Cumberlands

"I reckon ye aims ter be friendly, all right," was his conservative

response.

The painter went on earnestly: "I realize that I am urging things of which your people disapprove,

but it is only because they misunderstand that they do disapprove. They

are too close, Samson, to see the purple that mountains have when they

are far away. I want you to go where you can see the purple. If you are

the sort of man I think, you won't be beguiled. You won't lose your

loyalty. You won't be ashamed of your people."

"I reckon I wouldn't be ashamed," said the youth. "I reckon there

hain't no better folks nowhar."

"I'm sure of it. There are going to be sweeping changes in these

mountains. Conditions here have stood as immutably changeless as the

hills themselves for a hundred years. That day is at its twilight. I

tell you, I know what I'm talking about. The State of Kentucky is

looking this way. The State must develop, and it is here alone that it

can develop. In the Bluegrass, the possibilities for change are

exhausted. Their fields lie fallow, their woodlands are being stripped.

Tobacco has tainted the land. It has shouldered out the timber, and is

turning forest to prairie. A land of fertile loam is vying with cheap

soil that can send almost equal crops to market. There is no more

timber to be cut, and when the timber goes the climate changes. In

these hills lie the sleeping sources of wealth. Here are virgin forests

and almost inexhaustible coal veins. Capital is turning from an orange

squeezed dry, and casting about for fresher food. Capital has seen your

hills. Capital is inevitable, relentless, omnipotent. Where it comes,

it makes its laws. Conditions that have existed undisturbed will

vanish. The law of the feud, which militia and courts have not been

able to abate, will vanish before Capital's breath like the mists when

the sun strikes them. Unless you learn to ride the waves which will

presently sweep over your country, you and your people will go under.

You may not realize it, but that is true. It is written."

The boy had listened intently, but at the end he smiled, and in his

expression was something of the soldier who scents battle, not without

welcome.

"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."