There stands to-day, as it stood then, in front of the town of Franklin, on the highest point of the ridge, a large linden tree, now showing the effects of age. It was half-past three o'clock in the afternoon, when General Hood rode unattended to that tree, threw the stump of the leg that was shot off at Chickamauga over the pommel of his saddle, drew out his field glasses and sat looking for a long time across the valley at the enemy's position.

Strange to say, on the high river bluff beyond the town, amid the guns of the fort, also with field glass in hand anxiously watching the confederates, stood the federal general. A sharp-shooter in either line could have killed the commanding general in the other. And now that prophesying silence which always seems to precede a battle was afloat in the air. In the hollow of its stillness it seemed as if one could hear the ticking of the death-watch of eternity. But presently it was broken by the soft strains of music which floated up from the town below. It was the federal band playing "Just Before The Battle, Mother."

The men in gray on the hill and the men in blue in the valley listened, and then each one mentally followed the tune with silent words, and not without a bit of moisture in their eyes.

"Just before the battle, Mother, I am thinking most of thee."

Suddenly Hood closed his glasses with that nervous jerk which was a habit with him, straightened himself in the saddle and, riding back to General Stewart, said simply: "We will make the fight, General Stewart."

Stewart pressed his General's hand, wheeled and formed his corps on the right. Cheatham formed his on the left. A gun—and but few were used by Hood in the fight for fear of killing the women and children in the town—echoed from the ridge. It was the signal for the battle to begin. The heavy columns moved down the side of the ridge, the brigades marching in echelon.

At the sound of the gun, the federal army, some of whom were on duty, but the larger number loitering around at rest, or engaged in preparing their evening meal, sprang noiselessly to their places behind the breastworks, while hurried whispers of command ran down the line.

General Travis had been given a place of honor on General Hood's staff. He insisted on going into the ranks, but his commander had said: "Stay with me, I shall need you elsewhere." And so the old man sat his horse silently watching the army forming and marching down. But directly, as a Mississippi regiment passed by, he noticed at the head of one of the companies an old man, almost as old as himself, his clothes torn, and ragged from long marching; shoeless, his feet tied up in sack-cloth and his old slouch hat aflop over his ears. But he did not complain, he stood erect, and gamely led his men into battle. As the company halted for a moment, General Travis rode up to the old man whose thin clothes could not keep him from shivering in the now chill air of late afternoon, for it was then past four o'clock, saluted him and said:

"Captain, will you do me the favor to pull off this boot?" Withdrawing his boot from the stirrup and thrusting it towards the old man, the latter looked at him a moment in surprise but sheathed his sword and complied with the request. "And now the other one?" said Travis as he turned his horse around. This, too, was pulled off.

"Just put them on, Captain, if you please," said the rider. "I am mounted and do not need them as much as you do?" and before the gallant old Captain could refuse, he rode away for duty—in his stocking feet!

And now the battle began in earnest.

The confederates came on in splendid form. On the extreme right, Forrest's cavalry rested on the river; then Stewart's corps of Loring, Walthall, French, from right to left in the order named. On the left Cheatham's corps, of Cleburne, Brown, Bate, and Walker. Behind Cheatham marched Johnston's and Clayton's brigade for support, thirty thousand and more of men, in solid lines, bands playing and flags fluttering in the afternoon wind.

Nor had the federals been idle. Behind the breastworks lay the second and third divisions of the 23rd Corps, commanded in person by the gallant General J. D. Cox. From the railroad on the left to the Carter's Creek pike on the right, the brigades of these divisions stood as follows: Henderson's, Casement's, Reilly's, Strickland's, Moore's. And from the right of the Carter's Creek pike to the river lay Kimball's first division of the Fourth Corps. In front of the breastworks, across the Columbia pike, General Wagner, commanding the second division of the Fourth Corps, had thrown forward the two brigades of Bradley and Lane to check the first assault of the confederates, while Opdyck's brigade of the same division was held in the town as a reserve. Seven splendid batteries growled along the line of breastworks, and showed their teeth to the advancing foe, while three more were caged in the fort above and beyond the town.

Never did men march with cooler courage on more formidable lines of defense. Never did men wait an attack with cooler courage. Breastworks with abatis in front through which the mouth of cannon gaped; artillery and infantry on the right to enfilade; siege guns in the fort high above all, to sweep and annihilate.

Schofield, born general that he was, simply lay in a rock-circled, earth-circled, water-circled, iron-and-steel-circled cage, bayonet and flame tipped, proof against the armies of the world!

But Hood's brave army never hesitated, never doubted.

Even in the matter of where to throw up his breastworks, Schofield never erred. On a beautiful and seemingly level plain like this, a less able general might have thrown them up anywhere, just so that they encircled the town and ran from river to river.

But Schofield took no chances. His quick eye detected that even in apparent level plains there are slight undulations. And so, following a gentle rise all the way round, just on its top he threw up his breastworks. So that, besides the ditch and the abatis, there was a slight depression in his immediate front, open and clear, but so situated that on the gentle slope in front, down which the confederates must charge, the background of the slope brought them in bold relief—gray targets for the guns. On that background the hare would loom up as big as the hound.

There were really two federal lines, an outer and an inner one. The outer one consisted of Bradley's and Lane's brigades which had retired from Spring Hill before the Confederate army, and had been ordered to halt in front of the breastworks to check the advance of the army. They were instructed to fire and then fall back to the breastworks, if stubbornly charged by greatly their superiors in numbers. They fired, but, true to American ideas, they disliked to retreat. When forced to do so, they were swept away with the enemy on their very heels and as they rushed in over the last line at the breastworks on the Columbia pike the eager boys in gray rushed over with them, swept away portions of Reilly's and Strickland's troops, and bayoneted those that remained.

It was then that Schofield's heart sank as he looked down from the guns of the fort. But Cox had the forethought to place Opdyck's two thousand men in reserve at this very point. These sprang gallantly forward and restored the line.

They saved the Union army!

The battle was now raging all around the line. There was a succession of yells, a rattle, a shock and a roar, as brigade after brigade struck the breastworks, only to be hurled back again or melt and die away in the trenches amid the abatis. Clear around the line of breastworks it rolled, at intervals, like a magazine of powder flashing before it explodes, then the roar and upheaval, followed anon and anon by another. The ground was soon shingled with dead men in gray, while down in the ditches or hugging the bloody sides of the breastworks right under the guns, thousands, more fortunate or daring than their comrades, lay, thrusting and being thrust, shooting and being shot. And there they staid throughout the fight—not strong enough to climb over, and yet all the guns of the federal army could not drive them away. Many a gray regiment planted its battle-flag on the breastworks and then hugged those sides of death in its efforts to keep it there, as bees cling around the body of their queen.

"I have the honor to forward to the War Department nine stands of colors," writes General Cox to General Geo. L. Thomas; "these flags with eleven others were captured by the Twenty-third Army Corps along the parapets."

Could Bonaparte's army have planted more on the ramparts of Mount St. Jean?

The sun had not set; yet the black smoke of battle had set it before its time. God had ordained otherwise; but man, in his fury had shut out the light of heaven against the decree of God, just as, equally against His decree, he has now busily engaged in blotting out many a brother's bright life, before the decree of its sunset. Again and again and again, from four till midnight—eight butchering hours—the heart of the South was hurled against those bastions of steel and flame, only to be pierced with ball and bayonet.

And for every heart that was pierced there broke a dozen more in the shade of the southern palmetto, or in the shadow of the northern pine. After nineteen hundred years of light and learning, what a scientific nation of heart-stabbers and brother-murderers we Christians are!

It was now that the genius of the confederate cavalry leader, Forrest, asserted itself. With nearly ten thousand of his intrepid cavalry-men, born in the saddle, who carried rifles and shot as they charged, and whom with wonderful genius their leader had trained to dismount at a moment's notice and fight as infantry—he lay on the extreme right between the river and the railroad. In a moment he saw his opportunity, and rode furiously to Hood's headquarters. He found the General sitting on a flat rock, a smouldering fire by his side, half way down the valley, at the Winstead House, intently watching the progress of the battle.

"Let me go at 'em, General," shouted Forrest in his bluff way, "and I'll flank the federal army out of its position in fifteen minutes."

"No! Sir," shouted back Hood. "Charge them out! charge them out!"

Forrest turned and rode back with an oath of disgust. Years afterwards, Colonel John McGavock, whose fine plantation lay within the federal lines and who had ample opportunity for observation, says that when in the early evening a brigade of Forrest's cavalry deployed across the river as if opening the way for the confederate infantry to attack the federal army in flank and rear, hasty preparations were made by the federal army for retreat. And thus was Forrest's military wisdom corroborated. "Let me flank them out," was military genius. "No, charge them out," was dare-devil blundering!

The shock, the shout and the roar continued. The flash from the guns could now plainly be seen as night descended. So continuous was the play of flame around the entire breastwork that it looked to the general at headquarters like a circle of prairie fire, leaping up at intervals along the breastworks, higher and higher where the batteries were ablaze.

In a black-locust thicket, just to the right of the Columbia turnpike and near the Carter House, with abatis in front, the strongest of the batteries had been placed. It mowed down everything in front. Seeing it, General Hood turned to General Travis and said: "General, my compliments to General Cleburne, and say to him I desire that battery at his hands."

The old man wheeled and was gone. In a moment, it seemed, the black smoke of battle engulfed him. Cleburne's command was just in front of the old gin house, forming for another charge. The dead lay in heaps in front. They almost filled the ditch around the breastworks. But the command, terribly cut to pieces, was forming as coolly as if on dress parade. Above them floated a peculiar flag, a field of deep blue on which was a crescent moon and stars. It was Cleburne's battle flag and well the enemy knew it. They had seen and felt it at Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Ringgold Gap, Atlanta. "I tip my hat to that flag," said General Sherman years after the war. "Whenever my men saw it they knew it meant fight."

As the old man rode up, the division charged. Carried away in the excitement he charged with them, guiding his horse by the flashes of the guns. As they rushed on the breastworks a gray figure on a chestnut horse rode diagonally across the front of the moving column at the enemy's gun. The horse went down within fifty yards of the breastwork. The rider arose, waved his sword and led his men on foot to the very ramparts. Then he staggered and fell, pierced with a dozen minie balls. It was Cleburne, the peerless field-marshal of confederate brigade commanders; the genius to infantry as Forrest was to cavalry. His corps was swept back by the terrible fire, nearly half of them dead or wounded.

Ten minutes afterwards General Travis stood before General Hood.

"General Cleburne is dead, General"—was all he said. Hood did not turn his head.

"My compliments to General Adams," he said, "and tell him I ask that battery at his hands."

Again the old man wheeled and was gone. Again he rode into the black night and the blacker smoke of battle.

General Adams's brigade was in Walthall's division. As the aged courier rode up, Adams was just charging. Again the old man was swept away with the charge. They struck the breastworks where Stile's and Casement's brigades lay on the extreme left of the federal army. "Their officers showed heroic examples and self-sacrifice," wrote General Cox in his official report, "riding up to our lines in advance of their men, cheering them on. One officer, Adams, was shot down upon the parapet itself, his horse falling across the breastworks." Casement himself, touched by the splendor of his ride, had cotton brought from the old gin house and placed under the dying soldier's head. "You are too brave a man to die," said Casement tenderly; "I wish that I could save you."

"'Tis the fate of a soldier to die for his country," smiled the dying soldier. Then he passed away.

It was a half hour before the old man reached Hood's headquarters again, his black horse wet with sweat.

"General Adams lies in front of the breastworks—dead! His horse half over it—dead"—was all he said.

Hood turned pale. His eyes flashed with indignant grief.

"Then tell General Gist," he exclaimed. The old man vanished again and rode once more into the smoke and the night. Gist's brigade led the front line of Brown's division, Cheatham's corps. It was on the left, fronting Strickland's and Moore's, on the breastworks. The Twenty-fourth South Carolina Infantry was in front of the charging lines. "In passing from the left to the right of the regiment," writes Colonel Ellison Capers commanding the South Carolina regiment above named, "the General (Gist) waved his hat to us, expressed his pride and confidence in the Twenty-fourth and rode away in the smoke of battle never more to be seen by the men he had commanded on so many fields. His horse was shot, and, dismounting, he was leading the right of the brigade when he fell, pierced through the heart. On pressed the charging lines of the brigade, driving the advance force of the enemy pell-mell into a locust abatis where many were captured and sent to the rear; others were wounded by the fire of their own men. This abatis was a formidable and fearful obstruction. The entire brigade was arrested by it. But Gist's and Gordon's brigade charged on and reached the ditch, mounted the works and met the enemy in close combat. The colors of the Twenty-fourth were planted and defended on the parapet, and the enemy retired in our front some distance, but soon rallied and came back in turn to charge us. He never succeeded in retaking the line we held. Torn and exhausted, deprived of every general officer and nearly every field officer, the division had only strength enough left to hold its position."

The charging became intermittent. Then out of the night, as Hood sat listening, again came the old man, his face as white as his long hair, his horse once black, now white with foam.

"General Gist too, is dead," he said sadly.

"Tell Granbury, Carter, Strahl—General! Throw them in there and capture that battery and break that line."

The old man vanished once more and rode into the shock and shout of battle.

General Strahl was leading his brigade again against the breastworks. "Strahl's and Carter's brigade came gallantly to the assistance of Gist's and Gordon's" runs the confederate report sent to Richmond, "but the enemy's fire from the houses in the rear of the line and from guns posted on the far side of the river so as to enfilade the field, tore their line to pieces before it reached the locust abatis."

General Carter fell mortally wounded before reaching the breastworks, but General Strahl reached the ditch, filled with dead and dying men, though his entire staff had been killed. Here he stood with only two men around him, Cunningham and Brown. "Keep firing" said Strahl as he stood on the bodies of the dead and passed up guns to the two privates. The next instant Brown fell heavily; he, too, was dead.

"What shall I do, General?" asked Cunningham.

"Keep firing," said Strahl.

Again Cunningham fired. "Pass me another gun, General," said Cunningham. There was no answer—the general was dead.

Not a hundred yards away lay General Granbury, dead. He died leading the brave Texans to the works.

To the commanding General it seemed an age before the old man returned. Then he saw him in the darkness afar off, before he reached the headquarters. The General thought of death on his pale horse and shivered.

"Granbury, Carter, Strahl—all dead, General," he said. "Colonels command divisions, Captains are commanding brigades."

"How does Cheatham estimate his loss?" asked the General.

"At half his command killed and wounded," said the old soldier sadly.

"My God!—my God!—this awful, awful day!" cried Hood.

There was a moment's silence and then: "General?" It came from General Travis.

The General looked up.

"May I lead the Tennessee troops in—I have led them often before."

Hood thought a moment, then nodded and the horse and the rider were gone. It was late—nearly midnight. The firing on both sides had nearly ceased,—only a desultory rattling—the boom of a gun now and then. But O, the agony, the death, the wild confusion! This was something like the babel that greeted the old soldier's ears as he rode forward:

"The Fourth Mississippi—where is the Fourth Mississippi?" "Here is the Fortieth Alabama's standard—rally men to your standard!" "Where is General Cleburne, men? Who has seen General Cleburne?" "Up, boys, and let us at 'em agin! Damn 'em, they've wounded me an' I want to kill some more!"

"Water!—water—for God's sake give us water!" This came from a pile of wounded men just under the guns on the Columbia pike. It came from a sixteen year old boy in blue. Four dead comrades lay across him.

"And this is the curse of it," said General Travis, as he rode among the men.

But suddenly amid the smoke and confusion, the soldiers saw what many thought was an apparition—an old, old warrior, on a horse with black mane and tail and fiery eyes, but elsewhere covered with white sweat and pale as the horse of death. The rider's face too, was deadly white, but his keen eyes blazed with the fire of many generations of battle-loving ancestors.

The soldiers flocked round him, half doubting, half believing. The terrible ordeal of that bloody night's work; the poignant grief from beholding the death and wounds of friends and brothers; the weird, uncanny groans of the dying upon the sulphurous-smelling night air; the doubt, uncertainty, and yet, through it all, the bitter realization that all was in vain, had shocked, benumbed, unsettled the nerves of the stoutest; and many of them scarcely knew whether they were really alive, confronting in the weird hours of the night ditches of blood and breastworks of death, or were really dead—dead from concussion, from shot or shell, and were now wandering on a spirit battle-field till some soul-leader should lead them away.

And so, half dazed and half dreaming, and yet half alive to its realization, they flocked around the old warrior, and they would not have been at all surprised had he told them he came from another world.

Some thought of Mars. Some thought of death and his white horse. Some felt of the animal's mane and touched his streaming flanks and cordy legs to see if it were really a horse and not an apparition, while "What is it?" and "Who is he?" was whispered down the lines.

Then the old rider spoke for the first time, and said simply:

"Men, I have come to lead you in."

A mighty shout came up. "It's General Lee!—he has come to lead us in," they shouted.

"No, no, men,"—said the old warrior quickly. "I am not General Lee. But I have led Southern troops before. I was at New Orleans. I was—"

"It's Ole Hick'ry—by the eternal!—Ole Hick'ry—and he's come back to life to lead us!" shouted a big fellow as he threw his hat in the air.

"Ole Hickory! Ole Hickory!" echoed and re-echoed down the lines, till it reached the ears of the dying soldiers in the ditch itself, and many a poor, brave fellow, as his heart strings snapped and the broken chord gurgled out into the dying moan, saw amid the blaze and light of the new life, the apparition turn into a reality and a smile of exquisite satisfaction was forever frozen on his face in the mould of death, as he whispered with his last breath:

"It's Old Hickory—my General—I have fought a good fight—I come!"

Then the old warrior smiled—a smile of simple beauty and grandeur, of keen satisfaction that such an honor should have been paid him, and he tried to speak to correct them. But they shouted the more, and drowned out his voice and would not have it otherwise. Despairing, he rode to the front and drew his long, heavy, old, revolutionary sword. It flashed in the air. It came to "attention"—and then a dead silence followed.

"Men," he said, "this is the sword of John Sevier, the rebel that led us up the sides of King's Mountain when every tyrant gun that belched in our face called us—rebels!"

"Old Hick'ry! Old Hick'ry, forever!" came back from the lines.

Again the old sword came to attention, and again a deep hush followed.

"Men," he said, drawing a huge rifled barreled pistol—"this is the pistol of Andrew Jackson, the rebel that whipped the British at New Orleans when every gun that thundered in his face, meant death to liberty!"

"Old Hickory! Old Hickory!!" came back in a frenzy of excitement.

Again the old sword came to attention—again, the silence. Then the old man fairly stood erect in his stirrups—he grew six inches taller and straighter and the black horse reared and rose as if to give emphasis to his rider's assertion:

"Men," he shouted, "rebel is the name that tyranny gives to patriotism! And now, let us fight, as our fore-fathers fought, for our state, our homes and our firesides!" And then clear and distinct there rang out on the night air, a queer old continental command:

"Fix, pieces!"

They did not know what this meant at first. But some old men in the line happened to remember and fixed their bayonets. Then there was clatter and clank down the entire line as others imitated their examples.

"Poise, fo'k!" rang out again more queerly still. The old men who remembered brought their guns to the proper position. "Right shoulder, fo'k!"—followed. Then, "Forward, March!" came back and they moved straight at the batteries—now silent—and straight at the breastworks, more silent still. Proudly, superbly, they came on, with not a shout or shot—a chained line with links of steel—a moving mass with one heart—and that heart,—victory.

On they came at the breastworks, walking over the dead who lay so thick they could step from body to body as they marched. On they came, following the old cocked hat that had once held bloodier breastworks against as stubborn foe.

On—on—they came, expecting every moment to see a flame of fire run round the breastworks, a furnace of flame leap up from the batteries, and then—victory or death—behind old Hickory! Either was honor enough!

And now they were within fifty feet of the breastworks, moving as if on dress parade. The guns must thunder now or never! One step more—then, an electrical bolt shot through every nerve as the old man wheeled his horse and again rang out that queer old continental command, right in the mouth of the enemy's ditch, right in the teeth of his guns:

"Charge, pieces!"

It was Tom Travis who commanded the guns where the Columbia Pike met the breastworks at the terrible deadly locust thicket. All night he had stood at his post and stopped nine desperate charges. All night in the flash and roar and the strange uncanny smell of blood and black powder smoke, he had stood among the dead and dying calling stubbornly, monotonously:

"Ready!"

"Aim!"

"Fire!"

And now it was nearly midnight and Schofield, finding the enemy checked, was withdrawing on Nashville.

Tom Travis thought the battle was over, but in the glare and flash he looked and saw another column, ghostly gray in the starlight, moving stubbornly at his guns.

"Ready!" he shouted as his gunners sprang again to their pieces.

On came the column—beautifully on. How it thrilled him to see them! How it hurt to think they were his people!

"Aim!" he thundered again, and then as he looked through the gray torch made, starlighted night, he quailed in a cold sickening fear, for the old man who led them on was his grandsire, the man whom of all on earth he loved and revered the most.

Eight guns, with grim muzzles trained on the old rider and his charging column, waited but for the captain's word to hurl their double-shotted canisters of death.

And Tom Travis, in the agony of it, stood, sword in hand, stricken in dumbness and doubt. On came the column, the old warrior leading them—on and:—

"The command—the command! Give it to us, Captain," shouted the gunners.

"Cease firing!"

The gunners dropped their lanyards with an oath, trained machines that they were.

It was a drunken German who brought a heavy sword-hilt down on the young officer's head with:

"You damned traitor!"

A gleam of gun and bayonet leaped in the misty light in front, from shoulder to breast—a rock wall, tipped with steel swept crushingly forward over the trenches over the breastworks.

Under the guns, senseless, his skull crushed, an upturned face stopped the old warrior. Down from his horse he came with a weak, hysterical sob.

"O Tom—Tom, I might have known it was you—my gallant, noble boy—my Irish Gray!"

He kissed, as he thought, the dead face, and went on with his men.

It was just midnight.

"At midnight, all being quiet in front, in accordance with orders from the commanding Generals," writes General J. D. Cox in his official report, "I withdrew my command to the north bank of the river."

"The battle closed about twelve o'clock at night," wrote General Hood, "when the enemy retreated rapidly on Nashville, leaving the dead and wounded in our hands. We captured about a thousand prisoners and several stands of colors."

Was this a coincidence—or as some think—did the boys in blue retreat before they would fire on an old Continental and the spirit of '76?

An hour afterwards a negro was sadly leading a tired old man on a superb horse back to headquarters, and as the rider's head sank on his breast he said:

"Lead me, Bisco, I'm too weak to guide my horse. Nothing is left now but the curse of it."

And O, the curse of it!

Fifty-seven Union dead beside the wounded, in the little front yard of the Carter House, alone. And they lay around the breastworks from river to river, a chain of dead and dying. In front of the breastworks was another chain—a wider and thicker one. It also ran from river to river, but was gray instead of blue. Chains are made of links, and the full measure of "the curse of it" may have been seen if one could have looked over the land that night and have seen where the dead links lying there were joined to live under the roof trees of far away homes.

But here is the tale of a severed link: About two o'clock lights began to flash about over the battle-field—they were hunting for the dead and wounded. Among these, three had come out from the Carter House. A father, son and daughter; each carried a lantern and as they passed they flashed their lights in the faces of the dead.

"May we look for brother?" asked the young girl, of an officer. "We hope he is not here but fear he is. He has not been home for two years, being stationed in another state. But we heard he could not resist the temptation to come home again and joined General Bate's brigade. And O, we fear he has been killed for he would surely have been home before this."

They separated, each looking for "brother." Directly the father heard the daughter cry out. It was in the old orchard near the house. On reaching the spot she was seated on the ground, holding the head of her dying brother in her lap and sobbing:

"Brother's come home! Brother's come home!" Alas, she meant—gone home!

"Captain Carter, on staff duty with Tyler's brigade," writes General Wm. B. Bate in his official report, "fell mortally wounded near the works of the enemy and almost at the door of his father's home. His gallantry I witnessed with much pride, as I had done on other fields, and here take pleasure in mentioning it especially."

The next morning in the first light of the first day of that month celebrated as the birth-month of Him who declared long ago that war should cease, amid the dead and dying of both armies, stood two objects which should one day be carved in marble—One, to represent the intrepid bravery of the South, the other, the cool courage of the North, and both—"the curse of it."

The first was a splendid war-horse, dead, but lying face forward, half over the federal breastworks. It was the horse of General Adams.

The other was a Union soldier—the last silent sentinel of Schofield's army. He stood behind a small locust tree, just in front of the Carter House gate. He had drawn his iron ram-rod which rested under his right arm pit, supporting that side. His gun, with butt on the ground at his left, rested with muzzle against his left side, supporting it. A cartridge, half bitten off was in his mouth. He leaned heavily against the small tree in front. He was quite dead, a minie ball through his head; but thus propped he stood, the wonder of many eyes, the last sentinel of the terrible night battle.

* * * * *

But another severed link cut deepest of all. In the realization of her love for Thomas Travis, Alice Westmore's heart died within her. In the years which followed, if suffering could make her a great singer, now indeed was she great.



PART FOURTH—THE LINT



CHAPTER I

COTTONTOWN

Slavery clings to cotton.

When the directors of a cotton mill, in a Massachusetts village, decided, in the middle '70's, to move their cotton factory from New England to Alabama, they had two objects in view—cheaper labor and cheaper staple.

And they did no unwise thing, as the books of the company from that time on showed.

In the suburbs of a growing North Alabama town, lying in the Tennessee Valley and flanked on both sides by low, regularly rolling mountains, the factory had been built.

It was a healthful, peaceful spot, and not unpicturesque. North and south the mountains fell away in an undulating rhythmical sameness, with no abrupt gorges to break in and destroy the poetry of their scroll against the sky. The valley supplemented the effect of the mountains; for, from the peak of Sunset Rock, high up on the mountain, it looked not unlike the chopped up waves of a great river stiffened into land—especially in winter when the furrowed rows of the vast cotton fields lay out brown and symmetrically turned under the hazy sky.

The factory was a low, one-story structure of half burnt bricks. Like a vulgar man, cheapness was written all over its face. One of its companions was a wooden store house near by, belonging to the company. The other companion was a squatty low-browed engine room, decorated with a smoke-stack which did business every day in the week except Sunday. A black, soggy exhaust-pipe stuck out of a hole in its side, like a nicotine-soaked pipe in an Irishman's mouth, and so natural and matter-of-fact was the entire structure that at evening, in the uncertain light, when the smoke was puffing out of its stack, and the dirty water running from its pipes, and the reflected fire from the engine's furnace blazed through the sunken eyes of the windows, begrizzled and begrimed, nothing was wanted but a little imagination to hear it cough and spit and give one final puff at its pipe and say: "Lu'd but o'ive wur-rek hard an' o'im toired to-day!"

Around it in the next few years had sprung up Cottontown.

The factory had been built on the edge of an old cottonfield which ran right up to the town's limit; and the field, unplowed for several years, had become sodded with the long stolens of rank Bermuda grass, holding in its perpetual billows of green the furrows which had been thrown up for cotton rows and tilled years before.

This made a beautiful pea-green carpet in summer and a comfortable straw-colored matting in winter; and it was the only bit of sentiment that clung to Cottontown.

All the rest of it was practical enough: Rows of scurvy three-roomed cottages, all exactly alike, even to the gardens in the rear, laid off in equal breadth and running with the same unkept raggedness up the flinty side of the mountain.

There was not enough originality among the worked-to-death inhabitants of Cottontown to plant their gardens differently; for all of them had the same weedy turnip-patch on one side, straggling tomatoes on another, and half-dried mullein-stalks sentineling the corners. For years these cottages had not been painted, and now each wore the same tinge of sickly yellow paint. It was not difficult to imagine that they had had a long siege of malarial fever in which the village doctor had used abundant plasters of mustard, and the disease had finally run into "yaller ja'ndice," as they called it in Cottontown.

And thus Cottontown had stood for several years, a new problem in Southern life and industry, and a paying one for the Massachusetts directors.

In the meanwhile another building had been put up—a little cheaply built chapel, of long-leaf yellow pine. It was known as the Bishop's church, and sat on the side of the mountain, half way up among the black-jacks, exposed to the blistering suns of summer and the winds of winter.

It had never been painted: "An' it don't need it," as the Bishop had said when the question of painting it had been raised by some of the members.

"No, it don't need it, for the hot sun has drawed all the rosin out on its surface, an' pine rosin's as good a paint as any church needs. Jes' let God be, an' He'll fix His things like He wants 'em any way. He put the paint in the pine-tree when He made it. Now man is mighty smart,—he can make paint, but he can't make a pine tree."

It was Sunday morning, and as the Bishop drove along to church he was still thinking of Jack Bracken and Captain Tom, and the burial of little Jack. When he arose that morning Jack was up, clean-shaved and neatly dressed. As Mrs. Watts, the Bishop's wife, had become used, as she expressed it, to his "fetchin' any old thing, frum an old hoss to an old man home, wharever he finds 'em,"—she did not express any surprise at having a new addition to the family.

The outlaw looked nervous and sorrow-stricken. Several times, when some one came on him unexpectedly, the Bishop saw him feeling nervously for a Colt's revolver which had been put away. Now and then, too, he saw great tears trickling down the rough cheeks, when he thought no one was noticing him.

"Now, Jack," said the Bishop after breakfast, "you jes' get on John Paul Jones an' hunt for Cap'n Tom. I know you'll not leave no stone unturned to find him. Go by the cave and see if him an' Eph ain't gone back. I'm not af'eard—I know Eph will take care of him, but we want to fin' him. After meetin' if you haven't found him I'll join in the hunt myself—for we must find Cap'n Tom, Jack, befo' the sun goes down. I'd ruther see him than any livin' man. Cap'n Tom—Cap'n Tom—him that's been as dead all these years! Fetch him home when you find him—fetch him home to me. He shall never want while I live. An', Jack, remember—don't forget yo'se'f and hold up anybody. I'll expec' you to jine the church nex' Sunday."

"I ain't been in a church for fifteen years," said the other.

"High time you are going, then. You've put yo' hands to the plough—turn not back an' God'll straighten out everything."

Jack was silent. "I'll go by the cave fus' an' jus' look where little Jack is sleepin'. Po' little feller, he must ha' been mighty lonesome last night."

It was ten o'clock and the Bishop was on his way to church. He was driving the old roan of the night before. A parody on a horse, to one who did not look closely, but to one who knows and who looks beyond the mere external form for that hidden something in both man and horse which bespeaks strength and reserve force, there was seen through the blindness and the ugliness and the sleepy, ambling, shuffling gait a clean-cut form, with deep chest and closely ribbed; with well drawn flanks, a fine, flat steel-turned bone, and a powerful muscle, above hock and forearms, that clung to the leg as the Bishop said, "like bees a'swarmin'."

At his little cottage gate stood Bud Billings, the best slubber in the cotton mill. Bud never talked to any one except the Bishop; and his wife, who was the worst Xanthippe in Cottontown, declared she had lived with him six months straight and never heard him come nearer speaking than a grunt. It was also a saying of Richard Travis, that Bud had been known to break all records for silence by drawing a year's wages at the mill, never missing a minute and never speaking a word.

Nor had he ever looked any one full in the eye in his life.

As the Bishop drove shamblingly along down the road, deeply preoccupied in his forthcoming sermon, there came from out of a hole, situated somewhere between the grizzled fringe of hair that marked Bud's whiskers and the grizzled fringe above that marked his eyebrows, a piping, apologetic voice that sounded like the first few rasps of an old rusty saw; but to the occupant of the buggy it meant, with a drawl:

"Howdy do, Bishop?"

A blind horse is quick to observe and take fright at anything uncanny. He is the natural ghost-finder of the highways, and that voice was too much for the old roan. To him it sounded like something that had been resurrected. It was a ghost-voice, arising after many years. He shied, sprang forward, half wheeled and nearly upset the buggy, until brought up with a jerk by the powerful arms of his driver. The shaft-band had broken and the buggy had run upon the horse's rump, and the shafts stuck up almost at right angles over his back. The roan stood trembling with the half turned, inquisitive muzzle of the sightless horse—a paralysis of fear all over his face. But when Bud came forward and touched his face and stroked it, the fear vanished, and the old roan bobbed his tail up and down and wiggled his head reassuringly and apologetically.

"Wal, I declar, Bishop," grinned Bud, "kin yo' critter fetch a caper?"

The Bishop got leisurely out of his buggy, pulled down the shafts and tied up the girth before he spoke. Then he gave a puckering hitch to his underlip and deposited in the sand, with a puddling plunk, the half cup of tobacco juice that had closed up his mouth.

He stepped back and said very sternly:

"Whoa, Ben Butler!"

"Why, he'un's sleep a'ready," grinned Bud.

The Bishop glanced at the bowed head, cocked hind foot and listless tail: "Sof'nin' of the brain, Bud," smiled the Bishop; "they say when old folks begin to take it they jus' go to sleep while settin' up talkin'. Now, a horse, Bud," he said, striking an attitude for a discussion on his favorite topic, "a horse is like a man—he must have some meanness or he c'udn't live, an' some goodness or nobody else c'ud live. But git in, Bud, and let's go along to meetin'—'pears like it's gettin' late."

This was what Bud had been listening for. This was the treat of the week for him—to ride to meetin' with the Bishop. Bud, a slubber-slave—henpecked at home, brow-beaten and cowed at the mill, timid, scared, "an' powerful slow-mouthed," as his spouse termed it, worshipped the old Bishop and had no greater pleasure in life, after his hard week's work, than "to ride to meetin' with the old man an' jes' hear him narrate."

The Bishop's great, sympathetic soul went out to the poor fellow, and though he had rather spend the next two miles of Ben Butler's slow journey to church in thinking over his sermon, he never failed, as he termed it, "to pick up charity even on the roadside," and it was pretty to see how the old man would turn loose his crude histrionic talent to amuse the slubber. He knew, too, that Bud was foolish about horses, and that Ben Butler was his model!

They got into the old buggy, and Ben Butler began to draw it slowly along the sandy road to the little church, two miles away up the mountain side.



CHAPTER II

BEN BUTLER

Bud was now in a seventh heaven. He was riding behind Ben Butler, the greatest horse in the world, and talking to the Bishop, the only person who ever heard the sound of his voice, save in deprecatory and scary grunts.

It was touching to see how the old man humored the simple and imposed-upon creature at his side. It was beautiful to see how, forgetting himself and his sermon, he prepared to entertain, in his quaint way, this slave to the slubbing machine.

Bud looked fondly at the Bishop—then admiringly at Ben Butler. He drew a long breath of pure air, and sitting on the edge of the seat, prepared to jump if necessary; for Bud was mortally afraid of being in a runaway, and his scared eyes seemed to be looking for the soft places in the road.

"Bishop," he drawled after a while, "huc-cum you name sech a hoss"—pointing to the old roan—"sech a grand hoss, for sech a man—sech a man as he was," he added humbly.

"Did you ever notice Ben Butler's eyes, Bud?" asked the old man, knowingly.

"Blind," said Bud sadly, shaking his head—"too bad—too bad—great—great hoss!"

"Yes, but the leds, Bud—that hoss, Ben Butler there, holds a world's record—he's the only cock-eyed hoss in the world."

"You don't say so—that critter!—cock-eyed?" Bud laughed and slapped his leg gleefully. "Didn't I always tell you so? World's record—great—great!"

Then it broke gradually through on Bud's dull mind.

He slapped his leg again. "An' him—his namesake—he was cock-eyed, too—I seed him onct at New 'Leens."

"Don't you never trust a cock-eyed man, Bud. He'll flicker on you in the home-stretch. I've tried it an' it never fails. Love him, but don't trust him. The world is full of folks we oughter love, but not trust."

"No—I never will," said Bud as thoughtfully as he knew how to be—"nor a cock-eyed 'oman neither. My wife's cock-eyed," he added.

He was silent a moment. Then he showed the old man a scar on his forehead: "She done that last month—busted a plate on my head."

"That's bad," said the Bishop consolingly—"but you ortenter aggravate her, Bud."

"That's so—I ortenter—least-wise, not whilst there's any crockery in the house," said Bud sadly.

"There's another thing about this hoss," went on the Bishop—"he's always spoony on mules. He ain't happy if he can't hang over the front gate spoonin' with every stray mule that comes along. There's old long-eared Lize that he's dead stuck on—if he c'u'd write he'd be composin' a sonnet to her ears, like poets do to their lady love's—callin' them Star Pointers of a Greater Hope, I reck'n, an' all that. Why, he'd ruther hold hands by moonlight with some old Maria mule than to set up by lamplight with a thoroughbred filly."

"Great—great!" said Bud slapping his leg—"didn't I tell you so?"

"So I named him Ben Butler when he was born. That was right after the war, an' I hated old Ben so an' loved hosses so, I thought ef I'd name my colt for old Ben maybe I'd learn to love him, in time."

Bud shook his head. "That's agin nature, Bishop."

"But I have, Bud—sho' as you are born I love old Ben Butler." He lowered his voice to an earnest whisper: "I ain't never told you what he done for po' Cap'n Tom."

"Never heurd o' Cap'n Tom."

The Bishop looked hurt. "Never mind, Bud, you wouldn't understand. But maybe you will ketch this, listen now."

Bud listened intently with his head on one side.

"I ain't never hated a man in my life but what God has let me live long enough to find out I was in the wrong—dead wrong. There are Jews and Yankees. I useter hate 'em worse'n sin—but now what do you reckon?"

"One on 'em busted a plate on yo' head?" asked Bud.

"Jesus Christ was a Jew, an' Cap'n Tom jined the Yankees."

"Bud," he said cheerily after a pause, "did I ever tell you the story of this here Ben Butler here?"

Bud's eyes grew bright and he slapped his leg again.

"Well," said the old man, brightening up into one of his funny moods, "you know my first wife was named Kathleen—Kathleen Galloway when she was a gal, an' she was the pretties' gal in the settlement an' could go all the gaits both saddle an' harness. She was han'som' as a three-year-old an' cu'd out-dance, out-ride, out-sing an' out-flirt any other gal that ever come down the pike. When she got her Sunday harness on an' began to move, she made all the other gals look like they were nailed to the roadside. It's true, she needed a little weight in front to balance her, an' she had a lot of ginger in her make-up, but she was straight and sound, didn't wear anything but the harness an' never teched herself anywhere nor cross-fired nor hit her knees."

"Good—great!" said Bud, slapping his leg.

"O, she was beautiful, Bud, with that silky hair that 'ud make a thoroughbred filly's look coarse as sheep's wool, an' two mischief-lovin' eyes an' a heart that was all gold. Bud—Bud"—there was a huskiness in the old man's voice—"I know I can tell you because it will never come back to me ag'in, but I love that Kathleen now as I did then. A man may marry many times, but he can never love but once. Sometimes it's his fust wife, sometimes his secon', an' often it's the sweetheart he never got—but he loved only one of 'em the right way, an' up yander, in some other star, where spirits that are alike meet in one eternal wedlock, they'll be one there forever."

"Her daddy, old man Galloway, had a thoroughbred filly that he named Kathleena for his daughter, an' she c'ud do anything that the gal left out. An' one day when she took the bit in her teeth an' run a quarter in twenty-five seconds, she sot 'em all wild an' lots of 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:

"My, how far off the subject I got! I started out to tell you all about Ben Butler, and—and—how he come in answer to prayer," said the Bishop solemnly.

Bud grinned: "It muster been, 'Now I lay me down to sleep.'"

The Bishop laughed: "Well I'll swun if he ain't sound asleep sho' 'nuff." He laughed again: "Bud, you're gittin' too bright for anything. I jes' don't see how the old man's gwinter talk to you much longer 'thout he goes to school agin."

"No—Ben Butler is a answer to prayer," he went on.

"The trouble with the world is it don't pray enough. Prayer puts God into us, Bud—we're all a little part of God, even the worst of us, an' we can make it big or let it die out accordin' as we pray. If we stop prayin' God jes' dies out in us. Of course God don't answer any fool prayer, for while we're here we are nothin' but a bundle of laws, an' the same unknown law that moves the world around makes yo' heart beat. But God is behind the law, an' if you get in harmony with God's laws an' pray, He'll answer them. Christ knowed this, an' there was some things that even He wouldn't ask for. When the Devil tempted Him to jump off the top of the mountain. He drawed the line right there, for He knowed if God saved Him by stoppin' the law of gravitation it meant the wreck of the world."

"Bud," he went on earnestly, "I've lived a long time an' seed a heap o' things, an' the plaines' thing I ever seed in my life is that two generations of scoffers will breed a coward, an' three of 'em a thief, an' that the world moves on only in proportion as it's got faith in God.

"I was ruined after the war—broken—busted—ruined! An' I owed five hundred dollars on the little home up yander on the mountain. When I come back home from the army I didn't have nothin' but one old mare,—a daughter of that Kathleena I told you about. I knowed I was gone if I lost that little home, an' so one night I prayed to the Lord about it an' then it come to me as clear as it come to Moses in the burnin' bush. God spoke to me as clear as he did to Moses."

"How did he say it?" asked Bud, thoroughly frightened and looking around for a soft spot to jump and run.

"Oh, never mind that," went on the Bishop—"God don't say things out loud—He jes' brings two an' two together an' expects you to add 'em an' make fo'. He gives you the soil an' the grain an' expects you to plant, assurin' you of rain an' sunshine to make the crop, if you'll only wuck. He comes into yo' life with the laws of life an' death an' takes yo' beloved, an' it's His way of sayin' to you that this life ain't all. He shows you the thief an' the liar an' the adulterer all aroun' you, an' if you feel the shock of it an' the hate of it, it's His voice tellin' you not to steal an' not to lie an' not to be impure. You think only of money until you make a bad break an' loose it all. That's His voice tellin' you that money ain't everything in life. He puts opportunities befo' you, an' if you grasp 'em it's His voice tellin' you to prosper an' grow fat in the land. No, He don't speak out, but how clearly an' unerringly He does speak to them that has learned to listen for His voice!

"I rode her across the river a hundred miles up in Marshall County, Tennessee, and mated her to a young horse named Tom Hal. Every body knows about him now, but God told me about him fust.

"Then I knowed jes' as well as I am settin' in this buggy that that colt was gwinter give me back my little home an' a chance in life. Of course, I told everybody 'bout it an' they all laughed at me—jes' like they all laughed at Noah an' Abraham an' Lot an' Moses, an' if I do say it—Jesus Christ. But thank God it didn't pester me no more'n it did them."

"Well, the colt come ten years ago—an' I named him Ben Butler—cause I hated old Ben Butler so. He had my oldest son shot in New Orleans like he did many other rebel prisoners. But this was God's colt an' God had told me to love my enemies an' do good to them that did wrong to me, an' so I prayed over it an' named him Ben Butler, hopin' that God 'ud let me love my enemy for the love I bore the colt. An' He has."

Bud shook his head dubiously.

"He showed me I was wrong, Bud, to hate folks, an' when I tell you of po' Cap'n Tom an' how good Gen. Butler was to him, you'll say so, too.

"From the very start Ben Butler was a wonder. He came with fire in his blood an' speed in his heels.

"An' I trained him. Yes—from the time I was Gen. Travis' overseer I had always trained his hosses. I'm one of them preachers that believes God intended the world sh'ud have the best hosses, as He intended it sh'ud have the best men an' women. Take all His works, in their fitness an' goodness, an' you'll see He never 'lowed for a scrub an' a quitter anywhere. An' so when He gave me this tip on Ben Butler's speed I done the rest.

"God gives us the tips of life, but He expects us to make them into the dead cinches.

"Oh, they all laughed at us, of course, an' nicknamed the colt Mister Isaacs, because, like Sarah's son, he came in answer to prayer. An' when in his two-year-old form, I led him out of the stable one cold, icy day, an' he was full of play an' r'ared an' fell an' knocked down his hip, they said that 'ud fix Mister Isaacs.

"But it didn't pester me at all. I knowed God had done bigger things in this world than fixin' a colt's hip, an' it didn't shake my faith. I kept on prayin' an' kept on trainin'.

"Well, it soon told. His hip was down, but it didn't stop him from flyin'. As a three-year-old he paced the Nashville half mile track in one-one flat, an' though they offered me then an' there a thousand dollars for Ben Butler, I told 'em no,—he was God's colt an' I didn't need but half of that to raise the mortgage, an' he'd do that the first time he turned round in a race.

"I drove him that race myself, pulled down the five hundred dollar purse, refused all their fine offers for Ben Butler, an' me an' him's been missionaryin' round here ever since."

"Great hoss—great!" said Bud, his eyes sparkling,—"allers told you so! Think I'll get out and hug him."

This he did while the Bishop sat smiling. But in the embrace Ben Butler planted a fore foot on Bud's great toe. Bud came back limping and whimpering with pain.

"Now there, Bud," said the Bishop, consolingly. "God has spoken to you right there."

"What 'ud He say?" asked Bud, looking scary again.

"Why, he said through Nature's law an' voice that you mustn't hug a hoss if you don't want yo' toes tramped on."

"Who must you hug then?" asked Bud.

"Yo' wife, if you can't do no better," said the Bishop quietly.

"My wife's wussern a hoss," said Bud sadly—"she bites. I'm sorry you didn't take that thar thousan' dollars for him," he said, looking at his bleeding toe.

"Bud," said the old man sternly, "don't say that no mo'. It mou't make me think you are one of them selfish dogs that thinks money'll do anything. Then I'd hafter watch you, for I'd know you'd do anything for money."

Bud crawled in rather crest-fallen, and they drove on.



CHAPTER IV

HOW THE BISHOP FROZE

The Bishop laughed outright as his mind went back again.

"Well," he went on reminiscently, "I'll have to finish my tale an' tell you how I throwed the cold steel into Jud Carpenter when I got back. I saw I had it to do, to work back into my daddy-in-law's graces an' save my reputation.

"Now, Jud had lied to me an' swindled me terribly, when he put off that old no-count hoss on me. Of course, I might have sued him, for a lie is a microbe which naturally develops into a lawyer's fee. But while it's a terrible braggart, it's really cowardly an' delicate, an' will die of lock-jaw if you only pick its thumb.

"So I breshed up that old black to split-silk fineness, an' turned him over to Dr. Sykes, a friend of mine living in the next village. An' I said to the Doctor, 'Now remember he is yo' hoss until Jud Carpenter comes an' offers you two hundred dollars for him.'

"'Will he be fool enough to do it?' he asked, as he looked the old counterfeit over.

"'Wait an' see,' I said.

"I said nothin', laid low an' froze an' it wa'n't long befo' Jud come 'round as I 'lowed he'd do. He expected me to kick an' howl; but as I took it all so nice he didn't understand it. Nine times out of ten the best thing to do when the other feller has robbed you is to freeze. The hunter on the plain knows the value of that, an' that he can freeze an' make a deer walk right up to him, to find out what he is. Why, a rabbit will do it, if you jump him quick, an' he gets confused an' don't know jes' what's up; an' so Jud come as I thort he'd do. He couldn't stan' it no longer, an' he wanted to rub it in. He brought his crowd to enjoy the fun.

"'Oh, Mr. Watts,' he said grinnin', 'how do you like a coal black stump-sucker?'

"'Well,' I said indifferent enough—'I've knowed good judges of hosses to make a hones' mistake now an' then, an' sell a hoss to a customer with the heaves thinkin' he's a stump-sucker. But it 'ud turn out to be only the heaves an' easily cured.'

"'Is that so?' said Jud, changing his tone.

"'Yes,' I said, 'an' I've knowed better judges of hosses to sell a nervous hoss for a balker that had been balked onct by a rattle head. But in keerful hands I've seed him git over it,' I said, indifferent like.

"'Indeed?' said Jud.

"'Yes, Jud,' said I, 'I've knowed real hones' hoss traders to make bad breaks of that kind, now and then—honest intentions an' all that, but bad judgment,'—sez I—'an' I'll cut it short by sayin' that I'll just give you two an' a half if you'll match that no-count, wind broken black as you tho'rt, that you swapped me.'

"'Do you mean it?' said Jud, solemn-like.

"'I'll make a bond to that effect,' I said solemnly.

"Jud went off thoughtful. In a week or so he come back. He hung aroun' a while an' said:

"'I was up in the country the other day, an' do you kno' I saw a dead match for yo' black? Only a little slicker an' better lookin'—same star an' white hind foot. As nigh like him as one black-eyed pea looks like another.'

"'Jud,' I said, 'I never did see two hosses look exactly alike. You're honestly mistaken.'

"'They ain't a hair's difference,' he said. 'He's a little slicker than yours—that's all—better groomed than the one in yo' barn.'

"'I reckon he is,' said I, for I knew very well there wa'n't none in my barn. 'That's strange,' I went on, 'but you kno' what I said.'

"'Do you still hold to that offer?' he axed.

"'I'll make bond with my daddy-in-law on it,' I said.

"'Nuff said,' an' Jud was gone. The next day he came back leading the black, slicker an' hence no-counter than ever, if possible.

"'Look at him,' he said proudly—'a dead match for yourn. Jes' han' me that two an' a half an' take him. You now have a team worth a thousan'.'

"I looked the hoss over plum' surprised like.

"'Why, Jud,' I said as softly as I cu'd, for I was nigh to bustin', an' I had a lot of friends come to see the sho', an' they standin' 'round stickin' their old hats in their mouths to keep from explodin'—'Why, Jud, my dear friend,' I said, 'ain't you kind o' mistaken about this? I said a match for the black, an' it peers to me like you've gone an' bought the black hisse'f an' is tryin' to put him off on me. No—no—my kind frien', you'll not fin' anything no-count enuff to be his match on this terrestrial ball.'

"By this time you cu'd have raked Jud's eyes off his face with a soap-gourd.

"'What? w-h-a-t? He—why—I bought him of Dr. Sykes.'

"'Why, that's funny,' I said, 'but it comes in handy all round. If you'd told me that the other day I might have told you,' I said—'yes, I might have, but I doubt it—that I'd loaned him to Dr. 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.

"Here," he said, lifting his arm, and showing the coat of the Captain of Artillery—"this is what made me jine 'em. This is the coat of Cap'n Tom, that saved my life at the risk of his own an' that was struck down at Franklin; an' no common man of clay, as I be, ever befo' had so God-like a man of marble to pattern after. I saw him in the thick of the fight with his guns parked an' double-shotted, stop our victorious rush almos' up to the river bank an' saved Grant's army from defeat an' capture. I was on the other side, an' chief of scouts for Albert Sidney Johnston, but I see him now in his blue Yankee coat, fightin' his guns like the hero that he was. I was foolish an' rushed in. I was captured an' in a prison pen, I drawed the black ball with 'leven others that was sentenced to be shot. It was Cap'n Tom who came to me in the early dawn of the day of the execution an' said: 'They shall not shoot you, Bishop—put on my blue coat an' go through the lines. I owe much to my country—I am giving it all.

"'I owe something to you. They shall not shoot you like a dog. I will tell my colonel what I have done to-morrow. If they think it is treason they may shoot me instead. I have nothing to live for—you, all. Go.'

"I have never seed him sence.

"We are mortals and must think as mortals. If we conceive of God, we can conceive of Him only as in human form. An' I love to think that the blessed an' brave an' sweet Christ looked like Cap'n Tom looked in the early dawn of that morning when he come an' offered himself,—captain that he was—to be shot, if need be, in my place—so gran', so gentle, so brave, so forgivin', so like a captain—so like God."

His voice had dropped lower and lower still. It died away in a sobbing murmur, as a deep stream purls and its echo dies in a deeper eddy.

"It was his church an' I jined it. This was his coat, an' so, let us pray."



CHAPTER VII

MARGARET ADAMS

There passed out of the church, after the service, a woman leading a boy of twelve.

He was a handsome lad with a proud and independent way about him. He carried his head up and there was that calmness that showed good blood. There was even a haughtiness which was pathetic, knowing as the village did the story of his life.

The woman herself was of middle age, with neat, well-fitting clothes, which, in the smallest arrangement of pattern and make-up, bespoke a natural refinement.

Her's was a sweet face, with dark eyes, and in their depths lay the shadow of resignation.

Throughout the sermon she had not taken her eyes off the old man in the pulpit, and so interested was she, and so earnestly did she drink in all he said, that any one noticing could tell that, to her, the plain old man in the pulpit was more than a pastor.

She sat off by herself. Not one of them in all Cottontown would come near her.

"Our virtue is all we po' fo'ks has got—if we lose that we ain't got nothin' lef'," Mrs. Banks of grass-widow fame had once said, and saying it had expressed Cottontown's opinion.

Mrs. Banks was very severe when the question of woman's purity was up. She was the fastest woman at the loom in all Cottontown. She was quick, with a bright, deep-seeing eye. She had been pretty—but now at forty-five she was angular and coarse-looking, with a sharp tongue.

The Bishop had smiled when he heard her say it, and then he looked at Margaret Adams sitting in the corner with her boy. In saying it, Mrs. Banks had elevated her nose as she looked in the direction where sat the Magdalene.

The old man smiled, because he of all others knew the past history of Mrs. Banks, the mistress of the loom.

He replied quietly: "Well, I dun'no—the best thing that can be said of any of us in general is, that up to date, it ain't recorded that the Almighty has appinted any one of us, on account of our supreme purity, to act as chief stoner of the Universe. Mighty few of us, even, has any license to throw pebbles."

Of all his congregation there was no more devoted member than Margaret Adams—"an' as far as I kno'," the old man had often said, "if there is an angel on earth, it is that same little woman."

When she came into church that day, the old man noticed that even the little Hillites drew away from her. Often they would point at the little boy by her side and make faces at him. To-day they had carried it too far when one of them, just out in the church yard, pushed him rudely as he walked proudly by the side of his mother, looking straight before him, in his military way, and not so much as giving them a glance.

"Wood's-colt," sneered the boy in his ear, as he pushed him.

"No—thoroughbred"—came back, and with it a blow which sent the intruder backward on the grass.

Several old men nodded at him approvingly as he walked calmly on by the side of his mother.

"Jimmie—Jimmie!" was all she said as she slipped into the church.

"I guess you must be a new-comer," remarked Archie B. indifferently to the boy who was wiping the blood from his face as he arose from the ground and looked sillily around. "That boy Jim Adams is my pardner an' I could er tole you what you'd git by meddlin' with him. He's gone in with his mother now, but him an' me—we're in alliance—we fights for each other. Feel like you got enough?"—and Archie B. got up closer and made motions as if to shed his coat.

The other boy grinned good naturedly and walked off.

To-day, just outside of the church Ben Butler had been hitched up and the Bishop sat in the old buggy.

Bud Billings stood by holding the bit, stroking the old horse's neck and every now and then striking a fierce attitude, saying "Whoa—whoa—suh!"

As usual, Ben Butler was asleep.

"Turn him loose, Bud," said the old man humoring the slubber—"I've got the reins an' he can't run away now. I can't take you home to-day—I'm gwinter take Margaret, an' you an' Jimmie can come along together."

No other man could have taken Margaret Adams home and had any standing left, in Cottontown.

And soon they were jogging along down the mountain side, toward the cabin where the woman lived and supported herself and boy by her needle.

To-day Margaret was agitated and excited—more than the Bishop had ever known her to be. He knew the reason, for clean-shaved and neatly dressed, Jack Bracken passed her on the road to church that morning, and as they rode along the Bishop told her it was indeed Jack whom she had seen, "an' he loves you yet, Margaret," he said.

She turned pink under her bonnet. How pretty and fresh she looked—thought the Bishop—and what purity in a face to have such a name.

"It was Jack, then," she said simply—"tell me about him, please."

"By the grace of God he has reformed," said the old man—"and—Margaret—he loves you yet, as I sed. He is going under the name of Jack Smith, the blacksmith here, an' he'll lead another life—but he loves you yet," he whispered again.

Then he told her what had happened, knowing that Jack's secret would be safe with her.

When he told her how they had buried little Jack, and of the father's admission that his determination to lead the life of an outlaw had come when he found that she had been untrue to him, she was shaken with grief. She could only sit and weep. Not even at the gate, when the old man left her, did she say anything.

Within, she stopped before a picture which hung over the mantle-piece and looked at it, through eyes that filled again and again with tears. It was the picture of a pretty mountain girl with dark eyes and sensual lip.

Margaret knelt before it and wept.

The boy had come and stood moodily at the front gate. The hot and resentful blood still tinged in his cheek. He looked at his knuckles—they were cut and swollen where he had struck the boy who had jeered him. It hurt him, but he only smiled grimly.

Never before had any one called him a wood's-colt. He had never heard the word before, but he knew what it meant. For the first time in his life, he hated his mother. He heard her weeping in the little room they called home. He merely shut his lips tightly and, in spite of the stoicism that was his by nature, the tears swelled up in his eyes.

They were hot tears and he could not shake them off. For the first time the wonder and the mystery of it all came over him. For the first time he felt that he was not as other boys,—that there was a meaning in this lonely cabin and the shunned woman he called mother, and the glances, some of pity, some of contempt, which he had met all of his life.

As he stood thinking this, Richard Travis rode slowly down the main road leading from the town to The Gaffs. And this went through the boy successively—not in words, scarcely—but in feelings:

"What a beautiful horse he is riding—it thrills me to see it—I love it naturally—oh, but to own one!

"What a handsome man he is—and how like a gentleman he looks! I like the way he sits his horse. I like that way he has of not noticing people. He has got the same way about him I have got—that I've always had—that I love—a way that shows me I'm not afraid, and that I have got nerve and bravery.

"He sits that horse just as I would sit him—his head—his face—the way that foot slopes to the stirrup—why that's me—"

He stopped—he turned pale—he trembled with pride and rage. Then he turned and walked into the room where Margaret Adams sat. She held out her arms to him pleadingly.

But he did not notice her, and never before had she seen such a look on his face as he said calmly:

"Mother, if you will come to the door I will show you my father."

Margaret Adams had already seen. She turned white with a hidden shame as she said:

"Jimmie—Jimmie—who—who—?"

"No one," he shouted fiercely—"by God"—she had never before heard him swear—"I tell you no one—on my honor as a Travis—no one! It has come to me of itself—I know it—I feel it."

He was too excited to talk. He walked up and down the little room, his proud head lifted and his eyes ablaze.

"I know now why I love honesty, why I despise those common things beneath me—why I am not afraid—why I struck that boy as I did this morning—why—" he walked into the little shed room that was his own and came back with a long single barrel pistol in his hand and fondled it lovingly—"why all my life I have been able to shoot this as I have—"

He held in his hand a long, single barrel, rifle-bored duelling pistol—of the type used by gentlemen at the beginning of the century. Where he had got it she did not know, but always it had been his plaything.

"O Jimmie—you would not—" exclaimed the woman rising and reaching for it.

"Tush—" he said bitterly—"tush—that's the way Richard Travis talks, ain't it? Does not my very voice sound like his? No—but I expect you now, mother"—he said it softly—"tell me—tell me all about it."

For a moment Margaret Adams was staggered. She only shook her head.

He looked at her cynically—then bitterly. A dangerous flash leaped into his eyes.

"Then, by God," he cried fiercely, "this moment will I walk over to his house with this pistol in my hand and I will ask him. If he fails to tell me—damn him—I dare him—"

She jumped up and seized him in her arms.

"Promise me that if I tell you all—all, Jimmy, when you are fifteen—promise me—will you be patient now—with poor mother, who loves you so?" And she kissed him fondly again and again.

He looked into her eyes and saw all her suffering there.

The bitterness went out of his.

"I'll promise, mother," he said simply, and walked back into his little room.



CHAPTER VIII

HARD-SHELL SUNDAY

"This bein' Hard-shell Sunday," said the Bishop that afternoon when his congregation met, "cattle of that faith will come up to the front rack for fodder. Elder Butts will he'p me conduct these exercises."

"It's been so long sence I've been in a Hard-shell lodge, I may be a little rusty on the grip an' pass word, but I'm a member in good standin' if I am rusty."

There was some laughing at this, from the other members, and after the Hard-shells had come to the front the Bishop caught the infection and went on with a sly wink at the others.

"The fact is, I've sometimes been mighty sorry I jined any other lodge; for makin' honorable exception, the other churches don't know the diff'r'nce betwixt twenty-year-old Lincoln County an' Michigan pine-top.

"The Hard-shells was the fust church I jined, as I sed. I hadn't sampled none of the others"—he whispered aside—"an' I didn't know there was any better licker in the jug. But the Baptists is a little riper, the Presbyterians is much mellower, an' compared to all of them the 'Piscopalians rises to the excellence of syllabub an' champagne.

"A hones' dram tuck now an' then, prayerfully, is a good thing for any religion. I've knowed many a man to take a dram jes' in time to keep him out of a divorce court. An' I've never knowed it to do anybody no harm but old elder Shotts of Clay County. An' ef he'd a stuck to it straight he'd abeen all right now. But one of these old-time Virginia gentlemen stopped with him all night onct, an' tor't the old man how to make a mint julip; an' when I went down the next year to hold services his wife told me the good old man had been gathered to his fathers. 'He was all right' she 'lowed, 'till a little feller from Virginia came along an' tort 'im ter mix greens in his licker, an' then he jes drunk hisself to death.'

"There's another thing I like about two of the churches I'm in—the Hard-shells an' the Presbyterians—an' that is special Providence. If I didn't believe in special Providence I'd lose my faith in God.

"My father tuck care of me when I was a babe, an' we're all babes in God's sight.

"The night befo' the battle of Shiloh, I preached to some of our po' boys the last sermon that many of 'em ever heard. An' I told 'em not to dodge the nex' day, but to stan' up an' 'quit themselves like men, for ever' shell an' ball would hit where God intended it should hit.

"In the battle nex' day I was chaplain no longer, but chief of scouts, an' on the firin' line where it was hot enough. In the hottest part of it General Johnston rid up, an' when he saw our exposed position he told us to hold the line, but to lay down for shelter. A big tree was nigh me an' I got behin' it. The Gineral seed me an' he smiled an' sed:

"'Oh, Bishop,'"—his voice fell to a proud and tender tone—"did you know it was Gineral Johnston that fust named me the Bishop?"

"'Oh, Bishop,' he said, 'I can see you puttin' a tree betwixt yo'se'f an' special Providence.' 'Yes, Gineral,' I sed, 'an' I looks on it as a very special Providence jus' at this time.'

"He laughed, an' the boys hoorawed an' he rid off.

"Our lives an' the destiny of our course is fixed as firmly as the laws that wheel the planets. Why, I have knowed men to try to hew out their own destiny an' they'd make it look like a gum-log hewed out with a broad axe, until God would run the rip-saw of His purpose into them, an' square them out an' smooth them over an' polish them into pillars for His Temple.

"What is, was goin' to be; an' the things that's got to come to us has already happened in God's mind.

"I've knowed poor an' unpretentious, God-fearin' men an' women to put out their hands to build shanties for their humble lives, an' God would turn them into castles of character an' temples of truth for all time.