The Bishop of Cottontown: A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills

heart and flashed in his eyes like the first swift crackle of lightning before the blow of thunder, brought his whip down on his own mare, welting her from withers to rump in a last desperate chance. Gamely she responded and forged ahead--the old pacer was beaten! They thundered along, Travis whipping his mare at every stride. She stood it like the standard-bred she was, and never winced, then she forged ahead farther, and farther, and held the old pacer anchored at her wheels, and the wire not fifty feet away! There was nothing left for the old man to do--with tears streaming down his cheeks he shouted--"Ben Butler, Ben Butler--it's God's way--the chastening rod--" and his whip fell like a blade of fire on the old horse's flank. It stung him to madness. The Bishop striking him, the old man he loved, and who never struck! He shook his great ugly head like a maddened bull and sprang savagely at the wire, where the silken thing flaunted in his face in a burst of speed that left all behind. Nor could the old man stop him after he shot past it, for his flank fluttered like a cyclone of fire and presently he went down on his knees--gently, gently, then--he rolled over! His driver jumped to the ground. It was all he knew except he heard Bud weeping as he knelt on the ground where the old horse lay, and saying: "_Great hoss--great hoss!_" Then he remembered saying: "Now, Bud, don't cry--if he does die, won't it be glorious, to die in harness, giving his life for others--Cap'n Tom--Shiloh? Think of it, Bud, to die at the wire, his race won, his work finished, the crown his! O Bud, who would not love to go like Ben Butler?" But he could not talk any more, for he saw Jack Bracken spring forward, and then the gleam of a whiskey flask gleamed above Ben Butler's fluttering nostrils and Jack's terrible gruff voice said: "Wait till he's dead fust. Stand back, give him air," and his great hat fluttered like a windmill as he fanned the gasping nostrils of the struggling horse. The old man turned with an hysterical sob in his throat that was half a shout of joy. Travis stood by him watching the struggles of the old horse for breath. "Well, I've killed him," he said, laconically. There was a grip like a vise on his shoulders. He turned and looked into the eyes of the old man and saw a tragic light there he had never seen before. "Don't--for God's sake don't, Richard Travis, don't tempt me here, wait till I pray, till this devil goes out of my heart." And then in his terrible, steel-gripping way, he pulled Richard Travis, with a sudden jerk up against his own pulsing heart, as if the owner of The Gaffs had been a child, burying his great hardened fingers in the man's arm and fairly hissing in a whisper these words: "If he dies--Richard Travis--remember he died for you ... it tuck both yo' mares to kill him--no--no--don't start--don't turn pale ... you are safe ... I made Col'nel Troup give me his word ... he'd not expose you ... if Ben Butler won an' he saved his money. I knew what it 'ud mean ... that last heat ... that it 'ud kill him ... but I drove it to save you ... to keep Troup from exposin' yo' ... I've got his word. An' then I was sure ... as I live, I knew that God will touch you yet ... an' his touch will be as quickening fire to the dead honor that is in you.... Go! Richard Travis.... Go ... don't tempt me agin...." He remembered later feeling very queer because he held so much gold in a bag, and it was his. Then he became painfully acute to the funny thing that happened, so funny that he had to sit down and laugh. It was on seeing Ben Butler rising slowly to his feet and shaking himself with that long powerful shake he had seen so often after wallowing. And the funniest thing!--two balls of cotton flew out of his ears, one hitting Flecker of Tennessee on the nose, the other Colonel Troup in the eye. "By Gad, sah," drawled Colonel Troup, "but now, I see. I thought he cudn't ah been made of flesh an' blood, sah, why damme he's made of cotton! An' you saved my money, old man, an' that damned rascal's name by that trick? Well, you kno' what I said, sah, a gentleman an' his word--but--but--" he turned quickly on the old man--excitedly, "ah, here--I'll give you the thousand dollars I hedged now ... if you'll give me back my promise--damned if I don't! Won't do it? No? Well, it's yo' privilege. I admire yo' charity, it's not of this world." And then he remembered seeing Bud sitting in the old cart driving Ben Butler home and telling everybody what they now knew: "_Great hoss--G-r-e-a-t hoss!_" And the old horse shuffled and crow-hopped along, and Jack followed the Bishop carrying the gold. And then such a funny thing: Ben Butler, frightened at a mule braying in his ear, ran away and threw Bud out! When the old man heard it he sat down and laughed and cried--to his own disgust--"like a fool, sissy man," he said, "a sissy man that ain't got no nerve. But, Lord, who'd done that but Ben Butler?" CHAPTER XXVII YOU'LL COME BACK A MAN It was after dark when the old man, pale, and his knees still shaking with the terrible strain and excitement of it all, reached his cabin on the mountain. The cheers of the grand-stand still echoed in his ears, and, shut his eyes as he would, he still saw Ben Butler, stretched out on the track struggling for the little breath that was in him. Jack Bracken walked in behind the old man carrying a silken sack which sagged and looked heavy. The grandfather caught up Shiloh first and kissed her. Then he sat down with the frail form in his arms and looked earnestly at her with his deep piercing eyes. "Where's the ole hoss," began his wife, her eyes beginning to snap. "You've traded him off an' I'll bet you got soaked, Hillard Watts--I can tell it by that pesky, sheepish look in yo' eyes. You never cu'd trade horses an' I've allers warned you not to trade the ole roan." "Wal, yes," said the Bishop. "I've traded him for this--" and his voice grew husky with emotion--"for this, Tabitha, an', Jack, jes' pour it out on the table there." It came out, yellow waves of gold. The light shone on them, and as the tired eyes of little Shiloh peeped curiously at them, each one seemed to throw to her a kiss of hope, golden tipped and resplendent. The old woman stood dazed, and gazing sillily. Then she took up one of the coins and bit it gingerly. "In God's name, Hillard Watts, what does all this mean? Why, it's genuwine gold." "It means," said the old man cheerily, "that Shiloh an' the chillun will never go into that mill ag'in--that old Ben Butler has give 'em back their childhood an' a chance to live. It means," he said triumphantly, "that Cap'n Tom's gwinter have the chance he's been entitled to all these years--an' that means that God'll begin to unravel the tangle that man in his meanness has wound up. It means, Tabitha, that you'll not have to wuck anymo' yo'self--no mo', as long as you live--" The old woman clutched at the bed-post: "Me?--not wuck anymo'? Not hunt 'sang an' spatterdock an' clean up an' wash an' scour an' cook an'--" "No, why not, Tabitha? We've got a plenty to--" He saw her clutch again at the bed-post and go down in a heap, saying:-- "Lemme die--now, if I can't wuck no mo'." They lifted her on the bed and bathed her face. It was ten minutes before she came around and said feebly: "I'm dyin', Hillard, it's kilt me to think I'll not have to wuck any mo'." "Oh, no, Tabitha, I wouldn't die fur that," he said soothingly. "It's terrible suddent like, I kno', an' hard fur you to stan', but try to bear it, honey, fur our sakes. It's hard to be stricken suddent like with riches, an' I've never seed a patient get over it, it is true. You'll be wantin' to change our cabin into an ole Colonial home, honey, an' have a carriage an' a pair of roached mules, an' a wantin' me to start a cotton factory an' jine a whis'-club, whilst you entertain the Cottontown Pettico't Club with high-noon teas, an' cut up a lot o' didoes that'll make the res' of the town laugh. But you mus' fight ag'in it, Tabitha, honey. We'll jes' try to live as we've allers lived an' not spend our money so as to have people talk about how we're throwin' it at the ducks. You can get up befo' day as usual an' hunt 'sang on the mountain side, and do all the other things you've l'arnt to do befo' breakfast." This was most reassuring, and the old woman felt much better. But the next morning she complained bitterly: "I tested ever' one o' them yaller coins las' night, they mout a put a counterfeit in the lot, an' see heah, Hillard--" she grinned showing her teeth--"I wore my teeth to the quick a testin' 'em!" The next week, as the train took the Bishop away, he stood on the rear platform to cry good-bye to Shiloh and Jack Bracken who were down to see him off. By his side was a stooped figure and as the old man jingled some gold in his pocket he said, patting the figure on the back: "You'll come back a man, Cap'n Tom--thank God! a man ag'in!" PART FIFTH.--THE LOOM CHAPTER I A NEW MILL GIRL The autumn had deepened--the cotton had been picked. The dry stalks, sentinelling the seared ground, waved their tattered remnants of unpicked bolls to and fro--summer's battle flags which had not yet fallen. Millwood was astir early that morning--what there was of it. One by one the lean hounds had arisen from their beds of dry leaves under the beeches, and, shaking themselves with that hound-shake which began at their noses and ended in a circular twist of their skeleton tails, had begun to hunt for stray eggs and garbage. Yet their master was already up and astir. He came out and took a long drink from the jug behind the door. He drank from the jug's mouth, and the gurgling echo sounded down the empty hall: _Guggle--guggle--gone! Guggle--guggle--gone!_ It said to Edward Conway as plainly as if it had a voice. "Yes, you've gone--that's the last of you. Everything is gone," he said. He sat down on his favorite chair, propped his feet upon the rotten balcony's rim and began to smoke. Within, he heard Lily sobbing. Helen was trying to comfort her. Conway glanced into the room. The oldest sister was dressed in a plain blue cotton gown--for to-day she would begin work at the mill. Conway remembered it. He winced, but smoked on and said nothing. "'Tain't no use--'tain't no use," sobbed the little one--"My mammy's gone--gone!" Such indeed was the fact. Mammy Maria had gone. All that any of them knew was that only an hour before another black mammy had come to serve them, and all she would say was that she had come to take Mammy Maria's place--gone, and she knew not where. Conway winced again and then swore under his breath. At first he had not believed it, none of them had. But as the morning went on and Mammy Maria failed to appear, he accepted it, saying: "Jus' like a niggah--who ever heard of any of them havin' any gratitude!" Helen was too deeply numbed by the thought of the mill to appreciate fully her new sorrow. All she knew--all she seemed to feel--was, that go to the mill she must--go--go--and Lily might cry and the world might go utterly to ruin--as her own life was going: "I want my mammy--I want my mammy," sobbed the little one. Then the mother instinct of Helen--that latent motherhood which is in every one of her sex, however young--however old--asserted itself for the first time. She soothed the younger child: "Never mind, Lily, I am going to the mill only to learn my lesson this week--next week you shall go with me. We will not be separated after that." "I want my mammy--oh, I want my mammy," was all Lily could say.