The Call of the Cumberlands

The first peep of daylight through the studio skylight found the

mountain boy awake. Before the daylight came he had seen the stars

through its panes. Lescott's servant, temporarily assigned to the

studio, was still sleeping when Samson dressed and went out. As he put

on his clothes, he followed his custom of strapping the pistol-holster

under his left armpit outside his shirt. He did it with no particular

thought and from force of habit. His steps carried him first into

Washington Square, at this cheerless hour empty except for a shivering

and huddled figure on a bench and a rattling milk-cart.

The boy wandered aimlessly until, an hour later, he found himself on Bleecker

Street, as that thoroughfare began to awaken and take up its day's

activity. The smaller shops that lie in the shadow of the elevated

trestle were opening their doors. Samson had been reflecting on the

amused glances he had inspired yesterday and, when he came to a store

with a tawdry window display of haberdashery and ready-made clothing,

he decided to go in and investigate.

Evidently, the garments he now wore gave him an appearance of poverty

and meanness, which did not comport with the dignity of a South. Had

any one else criticized his appearance his resentment would have

blazed, but he could make voluntary admissions. The shopkeeper's

curiosity was somewhat piqued by a manner of speech and appearance

which, were, to him, new, and which he could not classify. His first

impression of the boy in the stained suit, slouch hat, and patched

overcoat, was much the same as that which the Pullman porter had

mentally summed up as, "Po' white trash"; but the Yiddish shopman could

not place his prospective customer under any head or type with which he

was familiar.

He was neither "kike," "wop," "rough-neck," nor beggar,

and, as the proprietor laid out his wares with unctuous solicitude, he

was, also, studying his unresponsive and early visitor. When Samson,

for the purpose of trying on a coat and vest, took off his own outer

garments, and displayed, without apology or explanation, a huge and

murderous-looking revolver, the merchant became nervously excited. Had

Samson made gratifying purchases, he might have seen nothing, but it

occurred to the mountaineer, just as he was counting money from a

stuffed purse, that it would perhaps be wiser to wait and consult

Lescott in matters of sartorial selection. So, with incisive bluntness,

he countermanded his order--and made an enemy. The shopkeeper, standing

at the door of his basement establishment, combed his beard with his

fingers, and thought regretfully of the fat wallet; and, a minute

after, when two policemen came by, walking together, he awoke suddenly

to his responsibilities as a citizen. He pointed to the figure now half

a block away.