The Bishop of Cottontown: A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills
"Four, and two of them spinners. Carpenter, you must go at once and
see about it. They are playing off, I am sure."
"Lem'me see the list, suh,"--and he ran his eye over the names.
"Bud Billings--plague his old crotchety head--. He kno's that
machine's got to run, whether no. Narthin's the matter with him--bet
a dollar his wife licked him last night an' he's mad about it."
"That will do us no good," said Kingsley--"what he is mad about. That
machine must be started at once. The others you can see afterwards."
Carpenter jerked his slouch hat down over his eyes and went quickly
out.
In half an hour he was back again. His hat was off, his face was red,
his shaggy eyebrows quivered with angry determination, as, with one
hand in the collar of the frightened Bud, he pulled the slubber into
the superintendent's presence.
Following her husband came Mrs. Billings--a small, bony, wiry,
black-eyed woman, with a firmly set mouth and a perpetual
thunder-cloud on her brow--perhaps the shadow of her coarse,
crow-black hair.
While Jud dragged him, she carried a stick and prodded Bud in the
rear. Nor was she chary in abuse.
Jerked into the superintendent's presence, Bud's scared eyes darted
here and there as if looking for a door to break through, and all the
time they were silently protesting. His hands, too, joined in the
protest; one of them wagged beseechingly behind appealing to his
spouse to desist--the other went through the same motion in front
begging Jud Carpenter for mercy.
But not a word did he utter--not even a grunt did he make.
They halted as quickly as they entered. Bud's eyes sought the
ceiling, the window, the floor,--anywhere but straight ahead of him.
His wife walked up to the superintendent's desk--she was hot and
flushed. Her small black eyes, one of which was cocked cynically,
flashed fire, her coarse hair fell across her forehead, or was
plastered to her head with perspiration.
It was pathetic to look at Bud, with his deep-set, scared eyes.
Kingsley had never heard him speak a word, nor had he even been able
to catch his eye. But he was the best slubber in the mill--tireless,
pain-staking. His place could not be filled.
Bud was really a good-natured favorite of Kingsley and when the
superintendent saw him, scared and panting, his tongue half out,
with Jud Carpenter's hand still in his collar, he motioned to Jud to
turn him loose.
"Uh--uh--" grunted Jud "--he will bolt sho!"
Kingsley noticed that Bud's head was bound with a cloth.
"What's the matter, Bud?" he asked kindly.
The slubber never spoke, but glanced at his wife, who stood glaring
at him. Then she broke out in a thin, drawling, daring, poor-white
voice--a ring of impertinence and even a challenge in it:
"I'll tell you'uns what's the matter with Bud. Bud Billings is got
what most men needs when they begin to raise sand about their vittels
for nothin'. I've busted a plate over his head."
She struck an attitude before Kingsley which plainly indicated that
she might break another one. It was also an attitude which asked:
"What are you going to do about it?"
Bud nodded emphatically--a nod that spoke more than words. It was a
positive, unanimous assertion on his part that the plate had been
broken there.
"Ne'ow, Mister Kingsley, you know yo'se'f that Bud is mighty slow
mouthed--he don't talk much an' I have to do his talkin' fur him.
Ne'ow Bud don't intend for to be so mean"--she added a little
softer--"but every month about the full of the moon, Bud seems to
think somehow that it is about time fur him to make a fool of hisse'f
again. He wouldn't say nothin' fur a month--he is quiet as a lam' an'
works steady as a clock--then all to once the fool spell 'ud hit him
an' then some crockery 'ud have to be wasted.
"They ain't no reason for it, Mister Kingsley--Bud cyant sho' the
rappin' of yo' finger fur havin' sech spells along towards the full
of the moon. Bud cyant tell you why, Mister Kingsley, to save his
soul--'cept that he jes' thinks he's got to do it an' put me to the
expense of bustin' crockery.
"I stood it mighty nigh two years arter Bud and me was spliced,
thinkin' maybe it war ther bed-bugs a-bitin' Bud, long towards the
full of the moon. So I watched that pint an' killed 'em all long
towards the first quarter with quicksilver an' the white of an egg.
Wal, Bud never sed a word all that month. He never opened his mouth
an' he acted jes' lak a puf'fec' gentleman an' a dutiful dotin'
husband--(Bud wiped away a tear)--until the time come for the fool
spell to hit 'im, an 'all to once you never seed sech a fool spell
hit a man befo'.
"What you reckin' Bud done, Mister Kingsley? Bud Billins thar, what
did he do? Got mad about his biscuits--it's the funny way the fool
spell allers hits him, he never gits mad about anything but his
biscuits. Why I cud feed Bud on dynamite an' he'd take it all right
if he cu'd eat it along with his biscuits. Onct I put concentrated
lye in his coffee by mistake. I'd never knowed it if the pup hadn't
got some of it by mistake an' rolled over an' died in agony. I rushed
to the mill thinkin' Bud ud' be dead, sho'--but he wa'nt. He never
noticed it. I noticed his whiskers an' eyebrows was singed off an'
questioned 'im 'bout it and he 'lowed he felt sorter quare arter he
drunk his coffee, an' full like, an' he belched an' it sot his
whiskers an' eyebrows a-fiah, which ther same kinder puzzled him fur
a while; but it must be biscuits to make him raise cain. It happened
at the breakfas' table. Mind you, Mister Kingsley, Bud didn't say it
to my face--no, he never says anything to my face--but he gits up an'
picks up the cat an' tells ther cat what he thinks of me--his own
spliced an' wedded wife--sland'in' me to the cat."
She shook her finger in his face--"You know you did, Bud Billins--an'
what you reckin he told ther cat, Mister Kingsley--told her I was
a--a--"
She gasped--she clinched her fist. Bud dodged an' tried to break
away.
"Told him I was a--a--heifer!"
Bud looked sheepishly around--he tried even to run, but Jud Carpenter
held him fast. She shook her finger in his face. "I heard you say it,
Bud Billins, you know I did an' I busted a plate over yo' head."
"But, my dear Madam," said Kingsley, "that was no reason to treat him
so badly."
"Oh, it wa'nt?" she shrieked--"to tattle-tale to the house-cat about
yo' own spliced an' wedded wife? In her own home an' yard--her that
you've sworn to love an' cherish agin bed an' board--ter call her a
heifer?"
She slipped her hand under her apron and produced a deadly looking
blue plate of thick cheap ware. Her eyes blazed, her voice became
husky with anger.
"An' you don't think that was nothin'?" she shrieked.
"You don't understand me, my dear Madam," said Kingsley quickly. "I
meant that it was no reason why you should continue to treat him so
after he has suffered and is sorry. Of course you have got to control
Bud."
She softened and went on.
"Wal it was mighty nigh a year befo' Bud paid any mo' 'tention to the
cat. The full moon quit 'fectin' him--he even quit eatin' biscuits.
Then the spell commenced to come onct a year an' he cu'dn't pass over
blackberry winter to save his life. Mind you he never sed anything to
me about it, but one day he ups an' gits choked on a chicken gizzerd
an' coughs an' wheezes an' goes on so like a fool that I ups with the
cheer an' comes down on his head a-thinkin' I'd make him cough it up.
I mout a bin a little riled an' hit harder'n I orter, but I didn't
mean anything by it, an' he did cough it up on my clean floor, an'
I'm willin' to say agin' I was a little hasty, that's true, in
callin' him a lop-sided son of a pigeon-toed monkey, for Bud riled me
mighty. But what you reckin he done?"
She shook her finger in his face again. Bud tried to run again.
"You kno' you done it, Bud Billins--I followed you an' listened when
you tuck up the cat an' you whispered in the cat's year that your
spliced an' wedded wife was a--a--_she devil_!"
"It tuck two plates that time, Mister Kingsley--that's the time Bud
didn't draw no pay fur two weeks.
"Wal, that was over a year ago, an' Bud he's been a behavin' mighty
well, untwell this mornin'. It's true he didn't say much, but he sed
'nuff fur me to see ther spell was acomin' on an' I'd better bust it
up befo' it got into his blood an' sot 'im to cultivate the company
of the cat. I seed I had to check the disease afore it got too
strong, fur I seed Bud was tryin' honestly to taper off with them
spells an' shake with the cat if he cu'd, so when he kinder snorted a
little this mornin' because he didn't have but one aig an' then
kinder began to look aroun' as if he was thinkin' of mice, I busted a
saucer over his head an' fotched 'im too, grateful la'k an' happy, to
be hisse'f agin. I think he's nearly c'wored an' I'm mighty glad you
is, Bud Billins, fur it's costin' a lot of mighty good crockery to
c'wore you.
"Now you all jes' lem'me 'lone, Mister Kingsley--lem'me manage Bud.
He's slo' mouthed as I'm tellin' you, but he's gittin' over them
spells an' I'm gwinter c'wore him if I hafter go into the queensware
bus'ness on my own hook. Now, Bud Billins, you jes' go in there now
an' go to tendin' to that slubbin' machine, an' don't you so much as
look at a cat twixt now an' next Christmas."
Bud needed no further admonition. He bolted for the door and was soon
silently at work.
CHAPTER XVIII
SAMANTHA CAREWE
But Jud Carpenter did not finish his work by starting the slubbing
machine. Samantha Carewe, one of the main loom women, was absent.
Going over to her cottage, he was told by her mother, a glinty-eyed,
shrewd looking, hard featured woman--that Samantha was "mighty nigh
dead."
"Oh, she's mighty nigh dead, is she," said Jud with a tinge of
sarcasm--"I've heurn of her bein' mighty nigh dead befo'. Well, I
wanter see her."
The mother looked at him sourly, but barred the doorway with her
form. Jud fixed his hard cunning eyes on her.
"Cyant see her; I tell you--she's mighty po'ly."
"Well, cyant you go an' tell her that Mister Jud Cyarpenter is here
an' 'ud like to kno' if he can be of any sarvice to her in orderin'
her burial robe an' coffin, or takin' her last will an' testerment."
With that he pushed himself in the doorway, rudely brushing the woman
aside. "Now lem'me see that gyrl--" he added sternly--"that loom is
got to run or you will starve, an' if she's sick I want to kno' it.
I've seed her have the toe-ache befo'."
The door of the room in which Samantha lay was open, and in plain
view of the hall she lay with a look of pain, feigned or real, on
her face. She was a woman past forty--a spinster truly--who had been
in the mill since it was first started, and, as she came from a South
Carolina mill to the Acme, had, in fact, been in a cotton mill, as
she said--"all her life." For she could not remember when, as a child
even, she had not worked in one.
Her chest was sunken, her shoulders stooped, her whole form corded
and knotted with the fight against machinery. Her skin, bronzed and
sallow, looked not unlike the hard, fine wood-work of the loom, oiled
with constant use.
Jud walked in unceremoniously.
"What ails you, Samanthy?" he asked, with feigned kindness.
"Oh, I dunno, Jud, but I've got a powerful hurtin' in my innards."
"The hurtin' was so bad," said her mother, "that I had to put a hot
rock on her stomach, last night."
She motioned to a stone lying on the hearth. Jud glanced at it--its
size staggered him.
"Good Lord! an' you say you had that thing on her stomach? Why didn't
you send her up to the mill an' let us lay a hot steam engine on
her?"
"What you been eatin', Samanthy?" he asked suddenly.
"Nuthin', Jud--I aint got no appetite at all!"