Hendersonville, though but a moderate sized town, seemed to the
mountain boy to contain all the world's wonders. Both car doors were
thrown wide open, and as they had to remain on a siding until an
express went by, Ralph indulged his curiosity fully.

The two and three story buildings, nicely painted and standing so close
together, the teams, the stores, the shouting negroes and hurrying
whites, were all a startling novelty to him.

"Looks like everybody is a rushin' as if he'd forgot something," he
thought. "What a sight of niggers! Good Lord! What's that?"

This last he uttered aloud as the express whizzed by them at a moderate
rate of speed.

"That's the train we were waiting for. Now we'll get on, I guess. You
see, our train is a freight, and we have to make way for pretty much
everything."

Presently their car began to move. As they passed the depot an engine
close by blew a whistle, at which the boy started.

The hissing, steaming locomotive was to him the most wonderful thing of
all. Truly, the mountain people lived as in another world.

"I am glad I left home," said he to himself. "Grandpa would never have
let me know anything. Down here there is a chance to do something and
be somebody."