The Bishop of Cottontown: A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills
about it. Quite unusual, I must say--he seemed to be trying to drown
a young lady in a spring."
He eased his burden over the saddle and dropped him into the road.
Richard Travis took it in instantly, and as Clay rode away he heard
the cousin say: "You damned yellow cur--to bear the name of Travis."
CHAPTER III
WORK IN A NEW LIGHT
It was an hour before Clay Westmore rode back to Millwood. He had
been too busy plowing that day to get, sooner, a specimen of the rock
he had seen out-cropping on Sand Mountain. At night, after supper, he
had ridden over for it.
And now by moonlight he had found it!
He flushed with the strength of it all as he put it in his
satchel--the strength of knowing that not even poverty, nor work, nor
night could keep him from accomplishing his purpose.
Then he rode back, stopping at Millwood. For he thought, too, that he
might see Helen, and while he had resolved not to force himself on
her after what she had said when he last saw her, still he wished
very much to see her now and then.
For somehow, it never got out of his deductive head that some day she
would learn to love him. Had he known the temptation, the despair
that was hers, he would not have been so quietly deliberate. But she
had never told him. In fact, he had loved her from a distance all his
life in his quiet way, though now, by her decree, they were scarcely
more than the best of friends. Some day, after he had earned enough,
he would tell her just how much he loved her. At present he could
not, for was he not too poor, and were not his mother and sister
dependent upon him?
He knew that Harry Travis loved her in a way--a love he was certain
would not last, and in the fullness and depths of his sincere nature,
he felt as sure of ultimately winning her, by sheer force of
strength, of consistency and devotion, as he was that every great
thing in life had been done by the same force and would be to the end
of time.
As sure as that, by this same force, he, himself, would one day
discover the vein of coal which lay somewhere in the beautiful valley
of the Tennessee.
And so he waited his time with the easy assurance of the philosopher
which he was, and with that firm faith which minds of his strength
always have in themselves and their ultimate success.
It surprised him, it is true--hurt him--when he found to what extent
Harry Travis had succeeded in winning the love of Helen. He was hurt
because he expected--hoped--she would see further into things than
she had. And counting all the poverty and hardships of his life, the
Sunday afternoon when he had left her in the arbor, after she had
told him she was engaged to Harry Travis, he could not remember when
anything had been so hard for him to bear. Later he had heard how she
had gone to work in the mill, and he knew that it meant an end of her
love affair with Harry.
To-night something told him it was time to see her again, not to tell
her of his own love, and how it would never change, whether she was
mill girl or the mistress of Millwood, but to encourage her in the
misery of it all.
Work--and did not he himself love to work? Was it not the noblest
thing of life?
He would tell her it was.
He was surprised when he saw what had just happened; but all his life
he had controlled himself to such a degree that in critical moments
he was coolest; and so what with another might have been a serious
affair, he had turned into half retributive fun, but the deadliest
punishment, as it afterwards turned out, that he could have inflicted
on a temperament and nature such as Harry Travis'. For that young
man, unable to stand the gibes of the neighborhood and the sarcasm of
his uncle when it all became known, accepted a position in another
town and never came back again.
To have been shot or floored in true melodramatic style by his rival,
as he stood on a rock with a helpless girl in his clutch, would have
been more to his liking than to be picked up bodily, by the nape of
his neck, and taken from the scene of his exploits like a pig across
a saddle.
That kind of a combat did not meet his ideas of chivalry.
Helen was dressed in her prettiest gown when Clay rode back to
Millwood, after securing the samples he had started for. She knew he
was coming and so she tied a white scarf over her head and went again
to her favorite seat beneath the trees.
"I don't know how to thank you, Clay," she said, as he swung down
from his saddle and threw his leathern bag on the grass.
"Now, you look more like yourself," he smiled admiringly, as he
looked down on her white dress and auburn hair, drooping low over her
neck and shoulders.
"Tell me about yourself and how you like it at the mill," he went on
as he sat down.
"Oh, you will not be willing to speak to me now--now that I am a
mill-girl," she added. "Do you know? Clay--"
"I know that, aside from being beautiful, you have just begun to be
truly womanly in my sight."
"Oh, Clay, do you really think that? It is the first good word that
has been spoken to me since--since my--disgrace."
He turned quickly: "Your disgrace! Do you call it disgrace to
work--to make an honest living--to be independent and self-reliant?"
He picked up his bag of samples and she saw that his hands had become
hard and sunburnt from the plow handles.
"Helen," he went on earnestly, "that is one of the hide-bound
tyrannies that must be banished from our Southland--banished as that
other tyranny, slavery, has been banished--a sin, which, with no
fault of our own, we inherited from the centuries. We shall never be
truly great--as God intended we should be great--until we learn to
work. We have the noblest and sunniest of lands, with more resources
than man now dreams of, a greater future than we know of if we will
only work--work and develop them. You have set an example for every
girl in the South who has been thrown upon her own resources. Never
before in my life have I cared--so--much--for you."
And he blushed as he said it, and fumbled his samples.
"Then you do care some for me?" she asked pleadingly. She was
heart-sick for sympathy and did not know just what she said.
He flushed and started to speak. He looked at her, and his big
glasses quivered with the suppressed emotions which lay behind them
in his eyes.
But he saw that she did not love him, that she was begging for
sympathy and not for love. Besides, what right had he to plan to
bring another to share his poverty?
He mounted his horse as one afraid to trust himself to stay longer.
But he touched her hair in his awkward, funny way, before he swung
himself into the saddle, and Helen, as she went into the desolate
home, felt uplifted as never before.
Never before had she seen work in that light--nor love.
CHAPTER IV
MAGGIE
It was Maggie's last day at the mill, and she had been unusually
thoughtful. Her face was more pinched, Helen thought, and the sadness
in her eyes had increased.
Helen had proved to be an apt pupil, and Maggie declared that
thereafter she would be able to run her machine without assistance.
It was Saturday noon and Maggie was ready to go, though the mill did
not shut down until six that day. And so she found herself standing
and looking with tearful eyes at the machine she had learned to love,
at the little room in which she had worked so long, supporting her
invalid father and her little ones--as she motherly called the
children. It had been hard--so hard, and the years had been long and
she was so weak now, compared to what she had been. How happy she had
thought the moment of her leaving would be; and yet now that it had
come--now--she was weeping.
"I didn't think," she said to Helen--"I didn't think I'd--I'd care so
to leave it--when--when--the time--came."
She turned and brushed away her tears in time to see Travis come
smiling up.
"Why, Maggie," he said playfully flipping the tip of her ear as he
passed her. "I thought you left us yesterday afternoon. You'll not be
forgetting us now that you will not see us again, will you?"
She flushed and Helen heard her say: "Forget you--ever? Oh, please,
Mr. Travis--" and her voice trembled.
"Oh, tut," he said, frowning quickly--"nothing like that here. Of
course, you will hate to leave the old mill and the old machine.
Come, Maggie, you needn't wait--you're a good girl--we all know
that."
He turned to Helen and watched her as she drew in the threads. Her
head was bent over, and her great coil of hair sat upon it like a
queen on a throne.
What a neck and throat she had--what a beautiful queenly manner!
Travis smiled an amused smile when he thought of it--an ironical
sneering smile; but he felt, as he stood there, that the girl had
fascinated him in a strange way, and now that she was in his power,
"now that Fate, or God has combined to throw her into my arms--almost
unasked for--is it possible that I am beginning to fall in love with
her?"
He had forgotten Maggie and stood looking at Helen. And in that look
Maggie saw it all. He heard her sit down suddenly.
"I would go if I were you, Maggie--you are a good girl and we shall
not forget you."
"May I stay a little while longer?" she asked. "I won't ever come
back any more, you know."
Travis turned quickly and walked off. He came back and spoke to
Helen.
"Remember, I am to take you home to-night. But it will be later than
usual, on account of the pay-roll."
As he shut the door Maggie turned, and her heart being too full to
speak, she came forward and dropped on her knees, burying her face in
Helen's lap. "You must not notice me," she said--"don't--don't--oh,
don't look at me."
Helen stroked her cheek and finally she was quiet.
Then she looked into Helen's face. "Do you know--oh, will you mind if
I speak to you--or perhaps I shouldn't--but--but--don't you see that
he loves you?"
Helen reddened to her ears.
"I am foolish--sick--nervous--I know I am silly an' yet I don't see
how he could help it--you are so queenly--beautiful--so different
from any that are here. He--he--has forgotten me--"
Helen looked at her quickly.
"Why, I don't understand," she said.
"I mean," she stammered, "he used to notice us common girls--me and
the others--"
"I don't understand you," said Helen, half indignantly.
"Oh, don't pay no 'tention to me," she said. "I, I fear I am sick,
you know--sicker than I thought," and she coughed violently.
She lay with her head in Helen's lap. "Please," she said timidly,
looking up into Helen's face at last--"please let me stay this way a
while. I never knew a mother--nobody has ever let me do this befo',
an' I am so happy for it."
Helen stroked her face and hair anew, and Maggie kneeled looking up
at her eagerly, earnestly, hungrily, scanning every feature of the
prettier girl with worshipping eyes.
"How could he he'p it--how could he he'p it," she said
softly--"yes--yes--you are his equal and so beautiful."
"I don't understand you, Maggie--indeed I do not."
Maggie arose quickly: "Good-bye--let me kiss you once mo'--I feel
like I'll never see you again--an'--an'--I've learned to love you
so!"
Helen raised her head and kissed her.
Then Maggie passed quickly out, and with her eyes only did she look
back and utter a farewell which carried with it both a kiss and a
tear. And something else which was a warning.
And Helen never forgot.
CHAPTER V
PAY-DAY
It was Saturday afternoon and pay-day, and the mill shut down at six
o'clock.
When Helen went in Kingsley sat at the Superintendent's desk, issuing
orders on the Secretary and Treasurer, Richard Travis, who sat at his
desk near by and paid the wages in silver.
Connected with the mill was a large commissary or store--a cheap