The Bishop of Cottontown: A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills
fellers tried to buy the filly an' get the old man to throw in the
gal for her keep an' board."
"I was one of 'em. I was clerkin' for the old man an' boardin' in the
house, an' whenever a young feller begins to board in a house where
there is a thoroughbred gal, the nex' thing he knows he'll be--"
"Buckled in the traces," cried Bud slapping his leg gleefully, at
this, his first product of brilliancy.
The old man smiled: "'Pon my word, Bud, you're gittin' so smart. I
don't know what I'll be doin' with you--so 'riginal an' smart. Why,
you'll quit keepin' an old man's company--like me. I won't be able to
entertain you at all. But, as I was sayin', the next thing he knows,
he'll be one of the family."
"So me an' Kathleen, we soon got spoony an' wanted to marry. Lots of
'em wanted to marry her, but I drawed the pole an' was the only one
she'd take as a runnin' mate. So I went after the old man this a way:
I told him I'd buy the filly if he'd give me Kathleen. I never will
forgit what he said: 'They ain't narry one of 'em for sale, swap or
hire, an' I wish you young fellers 'ud tend to yo' own business an'
let my fillies alone. I'm gwinter bus' the wurl's record wid 'em
both--Kathleena the runnin' record an' Kathleen the gal record, so be
damn to you an' don't pester me no mo'.'"
"Did he say _damn_?" asked Bud aghast--that such a word should ever
come from the Bishop.
"He sho' did, Bud. I wouldn't lie about the old man, now that he's
dead. It ain't right to lie about dead people--even to make 'em say
nice an' proper things they never thought of whilst alive. If we'd
stop lyin' about the ungodly dead an' tell the truth about 'em, maybe
the livin' 'ud stop tryin' to foller after 'em in that respect. As it
is, every one of 'em knows that no matter how wicked he lives
there'll be a lot o' nice lies told over him after he's gone, an' a
monument erected, maybe, to tell how good he was. An' there's another
lot of half pious folks in the wurl it 'ud help--kind o' sissy pious
folks--that jus' do manage to miss all the fun in the world an' jus'
are mean enough to ketch hell in the nex'. Get religion, but don't
get the sissy kind. So I am for tellin' it about old man Galloway
jus' as he was.
"You orter heard him swear, Bud--it was part of his religion. An'
wherever he is to-day in that other world, he is at it yet, for in
that other life, Bud, we're just ourselves on a bigger scale than we
are in this. He used to cuss the clerks around the store jus' from
habit, an' when I went to work for him he said:
"'Young man, maybe I'll cuss you out some mornin', but don't pay no
'tention to it--it's just a habit I've got into, an' the boys all
understand it.'
"'Glad you told me,' I said, lookin' him square in the eye--'one
confidence deserves another. I've got a nasty habit of my own, but I
hope you won't pay no 'tention to it, for it's a habit, an' I can't
help it. I don't mean nothin' by it, an' the boys all understand it,
but when a man cusses me I allers knock him down--do it befo' I
think'--I said--'jes' a habit I've got.'
"Well, he never cussed me all the time I was there. My stock went up
with the old man an' my chances was good to get the gal, if I hadn't
made a fool hoss-trade; for with old man Galloway a good hoss-trade
covered all the multitude of sins in a man that charity now does in
religion. In them days a man might have all the learnin' and virtues
an' graces, but if he cudn't trade hosses he was tinklin' brass an'
soundin' cymbal in that community.
"The man that throwed the silk into me was Jud Carpenter--the same
feller that's now the Whipper-in for these mills. Now, don't be
scared," said the old man soothingly as Bud's scary eyes looked about
him and he clutched the buggy as if he would jump out--"he'll not
pester you now--he's kept away from me ever since. He swapped me a
black hoss with a star an' snip, that looked like the genuine thing,
but was about the neatest turned gold-brick that was ever put on an
unsuspectin' millionaire.
"Well, in the trade he simply robbed me of a fine mare I had, that
cost me one-an'-a-quarter. Kathleen an' me was already engaged, but
when old man Galloway heard of it, he told me the jig was up an' no
such double-barrel idiot as I was shu'd ever leave any of my colts in
the Galloway paddock--that when he looked over his gran'-chillun's
pedigree he didn't wanter see all of 'em crossin' back to the same
damned fool! Oh, he was nasty. He said that my colts was dead sho' to
be luffers with wheels in their heads, an' when pinched they'd quit,
an' when collared they'd lay down. That there was a yaller streak in
me that was already pilin' up coupons on the future for tears and
heartaches an', maybe a gallows or two, an' a lot of uncomplimentary
talk of that kind.
"Well, Kathleen cried, an' I wept, an' I'll never forgit the night
she gave me a little good-bye kiss out under the big oak tree an'
told me we'd hafter part.
"The old man maybe sized me up all right as bein' a fool, but he
missed it on my bein' a quitter. I had no notion of being fired an'
blistered an' turned out to grass that early in the game. I wrote her
a poem every other day, an' lied between heats, till the po' gal was
nearly crazy, an' when I finally got it into her head that if it was
a busted blood vessel with the old man, it was a busted heart with
me, she cried a little mo' an' consented to run off with me an' take
the chances of the village doctor cuppin' the old man at the right
time.
"The old lady was on my side and helped things along. I had
everything fixed even to the moon which was shinin' jes' bright
enough to carry us to the Justice's without a lantern, some three
miles away, an' into the nex' county.
"I'll never forgit how the night looked as I rode over after her, how
the wild-flowers smelt, an' the fresh dew on the leaves. I remember
that I even heard a mockin'-bird wake up about midnight as I tied my
hoss to a lim' in the orchard nearby, an' slipped aroun' to meet
Kathleen at the bars behin' the house. It was a half mile to the
house an' I was slippin' through the sugar-maple trees along the path
we'd both walked so often befo' when I saw what I thought was
Kathleen comin' towards me. I ran to meet her. It wa'n't Kathleen,
but her mother--an' she told me to git in a hurry, that the old man
knew all, had locked Kathleen up in the kitchen, turned the brindle
dog loose in the yard, an' was hidin' in the woods nigh the barn,
with his gun loaded with bird-shot, an' that if I went any further
the chances were I'd not sit down agin for a year. She had slipped
around through the woods just to warn me.
"Of course I wanted to fight an' take her anyway--kill the dog an'
the old man, storm the kitchen an' run off with Kathleen in my arms
as they do in novels. But the old lady said she didn't want the dog
hurt--it being a valuable coon-dog,--and that I was to go away out of
the county an' wait for a better time.
"It mighty nigh broke me up, but I decided the old lady was right an'
I'd go away. But 'long towards the shank of the night, after I had
put up my hoss, the moon was still shinin', an' I cudn't sleep for
thinkin' of Kathleen. I stole afoot over to her house just to look at
her window. The house was all quiet an' even the brindle dog was
asleep. I threw kisses at her bed-room window, but even then I cudn't
go away, so I slipped around to the barn and laid down in the hay to
think over my hard luck. My heart ached an' burned an' I was nigh
dead with love.
"I wondered if I'd ever get her, if they'd wean her from me, an' give
her to the rich little feller whose fine farm j'ined the old man's
an' who the old man was wuckin' fur--whether the two wouldn't
over-persuade her whilst I was gone. For I'd made up my mind I'd go
befo' daylight--that there wasn't anything else for me to do.
"I was layin' in the hay, an' boylike, the tears was rollin' down. If
I c'ud only kiss her han' befo' I left--if I c'ud only see her face
at the winder!
"I must have sobbed out loud, for jus' then I heard a gentle,
sympathetic whinny an' a cold, inquisitive little muzzle was thrust
into my face, as I lay on my back with my heart nearly busted. It was
Kathleena, an' I rubbed my hot face against her cool cheek--for it
seemed so human of her to come an' try to console me, an' I put my
arms around her neck an' kissed her silky mane an' imagined it was
Kathleen's hair.
"Oh, I was heart-broke an' silly.
"Then all at onct a thought came to me, an' I slipped the bridle an'
saddle on her an' led her out at the back door, an' I scratched this
on a slip of paper an' stuck it on the barn do':
"'_To old man Galloway:_
"'_You wouldn't let me 'lope with yo' dorter, so I've 'loped with yo'
filly, an' you'll never see hair nor hide of her till you send me
word to come back to this house an' fetch a preacher._'
"'(Signed) _Hillard Watts._'"
The old man smiled, and Bud slapped his leg gleefully.
"Great--great! Oh my, but who'd a thought of it?" he grunted.
"They say it 'ud done you good to have been there the nex' mornin'
an' heurd the cussin' recurd busted--but me an' the filly was forty
miles away. He got out a warrant for me for hoss-stealin', but the
sheriff was for me, an' though he hunted high an' low he never could
find me."
"Well, it went on for a month, an' I got the old man's note, sent by
the sheriff:
"_'To Hillard Watts, Wher-Ever Found._
"_'Come on home an' fetch yo' preacher. Can't afford to loose the
filly, an' the gal has been off her feed ever since you left._
"'_Jobe Galloway._'
"Oh, Bud, I'll never forgit that home-comin' when she met me at the
gate an' kissed me an' laughed a little an' cried a heap, an' we
walked in the little parlor an' the preacher made us one.
"Nor of that happy, happy year, when all life seemed a sweet dream
now as I look back, an' even the memory of it keeps me happy. Memory
is a land that never changes in a world of changes, an' that should
show us our soul is immortal, for memory is only the reflection of
our soul."
His voice grew more tender, and low: "Toward the last of the year I
seed her makin' little things slyly an' hidin' 'em away in the bureau
drawer, an' one night she put away a tiny half-finished little dress
with the needle stickin' in the hem--just as she left it--just as her
beautiful hands made the last stitch they ever made on earth....
"O Bud, Bud, out of this blow come the sweetest thought I ever had,
an' I know from that day that this life ain't all, that we'll live
agin as sho' as God lives an' is just--an' no man can doubt that.
No--no--Bud, this life ain't all, because it's God's unvarying law to
finish things. That tree there is finished, an' them birds, they are
finished, an' that flower by the roadside an' the mountain yonder an'
the world an' the stars an' the sun. An' we're mo' than they be,
Bud--even the tinies' soul, like Kathleen's little one that jes'
opened its eyes an' smiled an' died, when its mammy died. It had
something that the trees an' birds an' mountains didn't have--a
soul--an' don't you kno' He'll finish all such lives up yonder? He'll
pay it back a thousandfold for what he cuts off here."
Bud wept because the tears were running down the old man's cheeks. He
wanted to say something, but he could not speak. That queer feeling
that came over him at times and made him silent had come again.
CHAPTER III
AN ANSWER TO PRAYER
Then the old man remembered that he was making Bud suffer with his
own sorrow, and when Bud looked at him again the Bishop had wiped his
eyes on the back of his hand and was smiling.
Ben Butler, unknown to either, had come to a standstill.
The Bishop broke out in a cheery tone: