The Bishop of Cottontown: A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills
Sykes an' told him whenever you offered him two hundred cash for him
to let him go. Jes' keep him,' sez I, 'till you find his mate, an'
I'll take an oath to buy 'em.'"
Bud slapped his leg an' yelled with delight.
"Whew," said the Bishop--"not so loud. We're at the church.
"But remember, Bud, it's good policy allers to freeze. When you're in
doubt--freeze!"
CHAPTER V
THE FLOCK
The Bishop's flock consisted of two distinct classes: Cottontowners
and Hillites.
"There's only a fair sprinklin' of Hillites that lives nigh about
here," said the Bishop, "an' they come because it suits them better
than the high f'lutin' services in town. When a Christian gits into a
church that's over his head, he is soon food for devil-fish."
The line of demarcation, even in the Bishop's small flock, was easily
seen. The Hillites, though lean and lanky, were swarthy, healthy and
full of life. "But Cottontown," said the Bishop, as he looked down on
his congregation--"Cottontown jes' naturally feels tired."
It was true. Years in the factory had made them dead, listless,
soulless and ambitionless creatures. To look into their faces was
like looking into the cracked and muddy bottom of a stream which once
ran.
Their children were there also--little tots, many of them, who worked
in the factory because no man nor woman in all the State cared enough
for them to make a fight for their childhood.
They were children only in age. Their little forms were not the forms
of children, but of diminutive men and women, on whose backs the
burden of earning their living had been laid, ere the frames had
acquired the strength to bear it.
Stunted in mind and body, they were little solemn, pygmy peoples,
whom poverty and overwork had canned up and compressed into
concentrated extracts of humanity. The flavor--the juices of
childhood--had been pressed out.
"'N no wonder," thought the Bishop, as he looked down upon them from
his crude platform, "for them little things works six days every week
in the factory from sun-up till dark, an' often into the night, with
jes' forty minutes at noon to bolt their food. O God," he said softly
to himself, "You who caused a stream of water to spring up in the
wilderness that the life of an Ishmaelite might be saved, make a
stream of sentiment to flow from the heart of the world to save these
little folks."
Miss Patsy Butts, whose father, Elder Butts of the Hard-shell faith,
owned a fertile little valley farm beyond the mountain, was organist.
She was fat and so red-faced that at times she seemed to be oiled.
She was painfully frank and suffered from acute earnestness.
And now, being marriageable, she looked always about her with shy,
quick, expectant glances.
The other object in life, to Patsy, was to watch her younger brother,
Archie B., and see that he kept out of mischief. And perhaps the
commonest remark of her life was:
"Maw, jus' look at Archie B.!"
This was a great cross for Archie B., who had been known to say
concerning it: "If I ever has any kids, I'll never let the old'uns
nuss the young'uns. They gits into a bossin' kind of a habit that
sticks to 'em all they lives."
To-day Miss Patsy was radiantly shy and happy, caused by the fact
that her fat, honest feet were encased in a pair of beautiful new
shoes, the uppers of which were clasped so tightly over her ankles as
to cause the fat members to bulge in creases over the tops, as
uncomfortable as two Sancho Panzas in armor.
"Side-but'ners," said Mrs. Butts triumphantly to Mrs. O'Hooligan of
Cottontown,--"side-but'ners--I got 'em for her yistiddy--the fust
that this town's ever seed. La, but it was a job gittin' 'em on
Patsy. I had to soak her legs in cold water nearly all night, an'
then I broke every knittin' needle in the house abut'nin' them side
but'ners.
"But fashion is fashion, an' when I send my gal out into society,
I'll send her in style. Patsy Butts," she whispered so loud that
everybody on her side of the house heard her--"when you starts up
that ole wheez-in' one gallus organ, go slow or you'll bust them
side-but'ners wide open."
When the Bishop came forward to preach his sermon, or talk to his
flock, as he called it, his surplice would have astonished anyone,
except those who had seen him thus attired so often. A stranger might
have laughed, but he would not have laughed long--the old man's
earnestness, sincerity, reverence and devotion were over-shadowing.
Its pathos was too deep for fun.
Instead of a clergyman's frock he wore a faded coat of blue buttoned
up to his neck. It had been the coat of an officer in the artillery,
and had evidently passed through the Civil War. There was a bullet
hole in the shoulder and a sabre cut in the sleeve.
CHAPTER VI
A BISHOP MILITANT
No one had ever heard the Bishop explain his curious surplice but
once, and that had been several years before, when the little chapel,
by the aid of a concert Miss Alice gave, contributions from the
Excelsior Mill headed by Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley, and other sources had
been furnished, and the Bishop came forward to make his first talk:
"This is the only church of its kind in the worl', I reckin'," he
said. "I've figured it out an' find we're made up of Baptis',
Metherdis', Presbyterian, 'Piscopalian, Cam'elites an' Hard-shells.
You've 'lected me Bishop, I reckon, 'cause I've jined all of 'em, an'
so far as I know I am the only man in the worl' who ever done that
an' lived to tell the tale. An' I'm not ashamed to say it, for I've
allers foun' somethin' in each one of 'em that's a little better than
somethin' in the other. An' if there's any other church that'll teach
me somethin' new about Jesus Christ, that puffect Man, I'll jine it.
I've never seed a church that had Him in it that wa'n't good enough
for me."
The old man smiled in humorous retrospection as he went on:
"The first company of Christians I jined was the Hard-shells. I was
young an' a raw recruit an' nachully fell into the awkward squad. I
liked their solar plexus way of goin' at the Devil, an' I liked the
way they'd allers deal out a good ration of whiskey, after the fight,
to ev'ry true soldier of the Cross--especially if we got our feet too
wet, which we mos' always of'ntimes gen'ally did."
This brought out visible smiles all down the line, from the others at
the Hard-shells and their custom of foot-washing.
"But somehow," went on the old man, "I didn't grow in grace--spent
too much time in singin' an' takin' toddies to keep off the effect of
cold from wet feet. Good company, but I wanted to go higher, so I
drapt into the Baptis' rigiment, brave an' hones', but they spen' too
much time a-campin' in the valley of the still water, an' when on the
march, instid of buildin' bridges to cross dry-shod over rivers an'
cricks, they plunge in with their guns stropped to their backs, their
powder tied up in their socks in their hats, their shoes tied 'round
their necks an' their butcher-knife in their teeth. After they lan'
they seem to think it's the greates' thing in the worl' that they've
been permitted to wade through water instead of crossin' on a log,
an' they spen' the balance of their time marchin' 'roun' an' singin':
"'Billows of mercy, over me roll,
Oceans of Faith an' Hope, come to my soul.'
"Don't want to fly to heaven--want to swim there. An' if they find
too much lan' after they get there, they'll spen' the res' of
eternity prayin' for a deluge.
"Bes' ole relig'un in the worl', tho,--good fighters, too, in the
Lord's cause. Ole timey, an' a trifle keerless about their
accoutrements, an' too much water nachully keeps their guns rusty an'
their powder damp, but if it comes to a square-up fight agin the
cohorts of sin, an' the powder in their pans is too damp for
flashin', they'd jes' as soon wade in with the butcher-knife an' the
meat axe. I nachully out-grow'd 'em, for I seed if the Great Captain
'ud command us all to jine armies an' fight the worl', the Baptis'
'ud never go in, unless it was a sea-fight.
"From them to the Cam'elites was easy, for I seed they was
web-footed, too. The only diff'rence betwix' them an' the Baptis' is
that they are willin' to jine in with any other rigiment, provided
allers that you let them 'pint the sappers an' miners an' blaze out
the way. Good fellers, tho', an' learned me lots. They beats the
worl' for standin' up for each other an' votin' allers for fust
place. If there's a promotion in camp they want it; 'n' when they
ain't out a-drillin' their companies they're sho' to be in camp
'sputin' with other rigiments as to how to do it. Good, hones'
fighters, tho', and tort me how to use my side arms in a tight place.
Scatterin' in some localities, but like the Baptises, whenever you
find a mill-dam there'll be their camp an' plenty o' corn.
"Lord, how I did enjoy it when I struck the Methodis' rigiment! The
others had tort me faith an' zeal, but these tort me discipline. They
are the best drilled lot in the army of the Lord, an' their drill
masters run all the way from wet-nurses to old maids. For furagin'
an' free love for ev'rything they beats the worl', an' they pay mo'
'tenshun to their com'sary department than they do to their
ord'nance. They'll march anywhere you want 'em, swim rivers or build
bridges, fight on ship or sho', strong in camp-meetin's or battle
songs, an' when they go, they go like clockwuck an' carry their dead
with 'em!
"The only thing they need is an incubator, to keep up their hennery
department an' supply their captains with the yellow legs of the
land. Oh, but I love them big hearted Methodists!
"I foun' the Presbyterian phalanx a pow'ful army, steady, true an'
ole-fashioned, their powder strong of brimstone an' sulphur an' their
ordnance antique. Why, they're usin' the same old mortars John Knox
fired at the Popes, an' the same ole blunderbusses that scatter wide
enough to cover all creation an' is as liable to kick an' kill
anything in the rear as in front. They won't sleep in tents an'
nothin' suits 'em better'n being caught in a shower on the march. In
battle they know no fear, for they know no ball is goin' to kill you
if you're predistined to be hung. In the fight they know no
stragglers an' fallers from grace.
"Ay, but they're brave. I jined 'em Sunday night after the battle of
Shiloh, when I saw one of their captains stan' up amid the dead an'
dyin' of that bloody field, with the shells from the Yankee gun-boats
fallin' aroun' him. Standin' there tellin' of God an' His
forgiveness, until many a po' dyin' soldier, both frien' an' foe,
like the thief on the cross, found peace at the last hour.
"Befo' I jined the 'Piscopal corps I didn't think I cu'd stan'
'em--too high furlutin' for my raisin'. They seemed to pay mo'
attenshun to their uniforms than their ordnance, an' their
drum-majors outshine any other churches' major generals. An'
drillin'? They can go through mo' monkey manoeuvers in five minutes
than any other church can in a year. It's drillin'--drillin' with 'em
all the time, an' red-tape an' knee breeches, an' when they ain't
drillin' they're dancin'. They have signs an' countersigns, worl'
without end, ah-men. An' I've knowed many of them to put all his
three months' pay into a Sunday uniform for dress parade.
"Weepons? They've got the fines' in the worl' an' they don't think
they can bring down the Devil les' they shoot at him with a silver
bullet. Everything goes by red-tape with 'em, an' the ban'-wagon goes
in front.
"But I jined 'em," went on the old man, "an' I'll tell you why."
He paused--his voice trembled, and the good natured, bubbling humor,
which had floated down the smooth channel of his talk, vanished as
bubbles do when they float out into the deep pool beyond.