The Call of the Cumberlands

A realization that the "gun-lugger" had friends "higher up" percolated

at the station-house in another hour, when a limousine halted at the

door, and a legal celebrity, whose ways were not the ways of police

stations or magistrates' courts, stepped to the curb.

"I am waiting to meet Mr. Lescott," announced the Honorable Mr.

Wickliffe, curtly.

When a continuance of the case had been secured, and bond given, the

famous lawyer and Samson lunched together at the studio as Lescott's

guests, and, after the legal luminary had thawed the boy's native

reserve and wrung from him his story, he was interested enough to use

all his eloquence and logic in his efforts to show the mountaineer what

inherent necessities of justice lay back of seemingly restrictive laws.

"You simply 'got in bad' through your failure to understand conditions

here," laughed the lawyer. "I guess we can pull you through, but in

future you'll have to submit to some guidance, my boy."

And Samson, rather to Lescott's surprise, nodded his head with only a

ghost of resentment. From friends, he was willing to learn.

Lescott had been afraid that this initial experience would have an

extinguishing effect on Samson's ambitions. He half-expected to hear

the dogged announcement, "I reckon I'll go back home. I don't b'long

hyar nohow." But no such remark came.

One night, they sat in the cafe of an old French hostelry where, in

the polyglot chatter of three languages, one hears much shop talk of

art and literature. Between the mirrored walls, Samson was for the

first time glimpsing the shallow sparkle of Bohemia. The orchestra was

playing an appealing waltz. Among the diners were women gowned as he

had never seen women gowned before. They sat with men, and met the

challenge of ardent glances with dreamy eyes. They hummed an

accompaniment to the air, and sometimes loudly and publicly quarreled.

But Samson looked on as taciturn and unmoved as though he had never

dined elsewhere. And yet, his eyes were busy, for suddenly he laid down

his knife, and picked up his fork.

"Hit 'pears like I've got a passel of things ter l'arn," he said,

earnestly. "I reckon I mout as well begin by l'arnin' how ter eat." He

had heretofore regarded a fork only as a skewer with which to hold meat

in the cutting.

Lescott laughed.

"Most rules of social usage," he explained, "go back to the test of

efficiency. It is considered good form to eat with the fork,

principally because it is more efficient," The boy nodded.