How refreshing the air—hot and tired as she was. And such horses—she had never before ridden behind anything so fine. How quickly he put her at her ease—how intellectual he was—how much of a gentleman. And was it not a triumph—a social triumph for her? A mill girl, in name, to have him notice her? It made her heart beat quickly to think that Richard Travis should care enough for her to give her this pleasure and at a time when—when she always saw her mother's eyes.

Timidly she sat by him scarce lifting her eyes to speak, but conscious all the time that his eyes were devouring her, from her neck and hair to her slippered foot, sticking half way out from skirts of old lace-trimmed linen.

She reminded him at last that they should go back home.

No—he would have her at home directly. Yes, he'd have her there before the old nurse missed her.

She knew the trotters were going fast, but she did not know just how fast, until presently, in a cloud of whirling dust they flew around a buggy whose horse, trot as fast as it could, seemed stationary to the speed the pair showed as they passed.

It was Harry and Nellie. She glanced coldly at him, and when he raised his hat she cut him with a smile of scorn. She saw his jaw drop dejectedly as Richard Travis sang out banteringly:

"Sweets to the sweet, and good-bye to the three-minute class."

It was a good half hour, but it seemed but a few minutes before he had her back at the home gate, her cheeks burning with the glory of that burst of speed, and rush of air.

He had helped her out and stood holding her hand as one old enough to be her father. He smiled and, looking down at her glowing face, and hair, and neck, repeated:

"What thou art we know not. What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody."

Then he changed as she thanked him, and said: "When you go into the mill I shall have many pleasant surprises for you like this."

He bent over her and whispered: "I have arranged for your pay to be double—we are neighbors, you know—your father and I,—and a pretty girl, like you, need not work always."

She started and looked at him quickly.

The color went from her cheeks. Then it came again in a crimson tide, so full and rich, that Richard Travis, like Titian with his brush, stood spellbound before the work he had done.

Fearing he had said too much, he dropped his voice and with a twinkle in his eye said:

"For there is Harry—you know."

All her timidity vanished—her hanging of the head, her silence, her blushes. Instead, there leaped into her eyes that light which Richard Travis had never seen before—the light of a Conway on mettle.

"I hate him."

"I do not blame you," he said. "I shall be a—father to you if you will let me."

He pressed her hand, and raising his hat, was gone.

As he drove away he turned and looked at her slipping across the lawn in the twilight. In his eyes was a look of triumphant excitement.

"To own her—such a creature—God—it were worth risking my neck."

The mention of Harry brought back all her bitter recklessness to Helen. She was but a child and her road, indeed, was hard. And as she turned at the old gate and looked back at the vanishing buggy she said:

"Had he asked me this evening I'd—yes—I'd go to the end of the world with him. I'd go—go—go—and I care not how."

Richard Travis was in a jolly mood at the supper table that night, and Harry became jolly also, impertinently so. He had not said a word about his cousin being with Helen, but it burned in his breast, and he awaited his chance to mention it.

"I have thought up a fable since I have been at supper, Cousin Richard. Shall I tell you?"

"Oh"—with a cynical smile—"do!"

"Well," began Harry unabashed, and with many sly winks and much histrionic effort, "it is called the 'Fox and the Lion.' Now a fox in the pursuit ran down a beautiful young doe and was about to devour her when the lion came up and with a roar and a sweep of his paw, took her saying...."

"'Get out of the way, you whelp,'" said his cousin, carrying the fable on, "for I perceive you are not even a fox, but a coyote, since no fox was ever known to run down a doe."

The smile was gradually changed on his face to a cruel sneer, and Harry ceased talking with a suddenness that was marked.



CHAPTER XVII

THE WHIPPER-IN

When the mill opened the next day, there was work for Jud Carpenter. He came in and approached the superintendent's desk briskly.

"Well, suh, hu' many to-day?" he asked.

Kingsley looked over his list of absentees.

"Four, and two of them spinners. Carpenter, you must go at once and see about it. They are playing off, I am sure."

"Lem'me see the list, suh,"—and he ran his eye over the names.

"Bud Billings—plague his old crotchety head—. He kno's that machine's got to run, whether no. Narthin's the matter with him—bet a dollar his wife licked him last night an' he's mad about it."

"That will do us no good," said Kingsley—"what he is mad about. That machine must be started at once. The others you can see afterwards."

Carpenter jerked his slouch hat down over his eyes and went quickly out.

In half an hour he was back again. His hat was off, his face was red, his shaggy eyebrows quivered with angry determination, as, with one hand in the collar of the frightened Bud, he pulled the slubber into the superintendent's presence.

Following her husband came Mrs. Billings—a small, bony, wiry, black-eyed woman, with a firmly set mouth and a perpetual thunder-cloud on her brow—perhaps the shadow of her coarse, crow-black hair.

While Jud dragged him, she carried a stick and prodded Bud in the rear. Nor was she chary in abuse.

Jerked into the superintendent's presence, Bud's scared eyes darted here and there as if looking for a door to break through, and all the time they were silently protesting. His hands, too, joined in the protest; one of them wagged beseechingly behind appealing to his spouse to desist—the other went through the same motion in front begging Jud Carpenter for mercy.

But not a word did he utter—not even a grunt did he make.

They halted as quickly as they entered. Bud's eyes sought the ceiling, the window, the floor,—anywhere but straight ahead of him.

His wife walked up to the superintendent's desk—she was hot and flushed. Her small black eyes, one of which was cocked cynically, flashed fire, her coarse hair fell across her forehead, or was plastered to her head with perspiration.

It was pathetic to look at Bud, with his deep-set, scared eyes. Kingsley had never heard him speak a word, nor had he even been able to catch his eye. But he was the best slubber in the mill—tireless, pain-staking. His place could not be filled.

Bud was really a good-natured favorite of Kingsley and when the superintendent saw him, scared and panting, his tongue half out, with Jud Carpenter's hand still in his collar, he motioned to Jud to turn him loose.

"Uh—uh—" grunted Jud "—he will bolt sho!"

Kingsley noticed that Bud's head was bound with a cloth.

"What's the matter, Bud?" he asked kindly.

The slubber never spoke, but glanced at his wife, who stood glaring at him. Then she broke out in a thin, drawling, daring, poor-white voice—a ring of impertinence and even a challenge in it:

"I'll tell you'uns what's the matter with Bud. Bud Billings is got what most men needs when they begin to raise sand about their vittels for nothin'. I've busted a plate over his head."

She struck an attitude before Kingsley which plainly indicated that she might break another one. It was also an attitude which asked: "What are you going to do about it?"

Bud nodded emphatically—a nod that spoke more than words. It was a positive, unanimous assertion on his part that the plate had been broken there.

"Ne'ow, Mister Kingsley, you know yo'se'f that Bud is mighty slow mouthed—he don't talk much an' I have to do his talkin' fur him. Ne'ow Bud don't intend for to be so mean"—she added a little softer—"but every month about the full of the moon, Bud seems to think somehow that it is about time fur him to make a fool of hisse'f again. He wouldn't say nothin' fur a month—he is quiet as a lam' an' works steady as a clock—then all to once the fool spell 'ud hit him an' then some crockery 'ud have to be wasted.

"They ain't no reason for it, Mister Kingsley—Bud cyant sho' the rappin' of yo' finger fur havin' sech spells along towards the full of the moon. Bud cyant tell you why, Mister Kingsley, to save his soul—'cept that he jes' thinks he's got to do it an' put me to the expense of bustin' crockery.

"I stood it mighty nigh two years arter Bud and me was spliced, thinkin' maybe it war ther bed-bugs a-bitin' Bud, long towards the full of the moon. So I watched that pint an' killed 'em all long towards the first quarter with quicksilver an' the white of an egg. Wal, Bud never sed a word all that month. He never opened his mouth an' he acted jes' lak a puf'fec' gentleman an' a dutiful dotin' husband—(Bud wiped away a tear)—until the time come for the fool spell to hit 'im, an 'all to once you never seed sech a fool spell hit a man befo'.

"What you reckin' Bud done, Mister Kingsley? Bud Billins thar, what did he do? Got mad about his biscuits—it's the funny way the fool spell allers hits him, he never gits mad about anything but his biscuits. Why I cud feed Bud on dynamite an' he'd take it all right if he cu'd eat it along with his biscuits. Onct I put concentrated lye in his coffee by mistake. I'd never knowed it if the pup hadn't got some of it by mistake an' rolled over an' died in agony. I rushed to the mill thinkin' Bud ud' be dead, sho'—but he wa'nt. He never noticed it. I noticed his whiskers an' eyebrows was singed off an' questioned 'im 'bout it and he 'lowed he felt sorter quare arter he drunk his coffee, an' full like, an' he belched an' it sot his whiskers an' eyebrows a-fiah, which ther same kinder puzzled him fur a while; but it must be biscuits to make him raise cain. It happened at the breakfas' table. Mind you, Mister Kingsley, Bud didn't say it to my face—no, he never says anything to my face—but he gits up an' picks up the cat an' tells ther cat what he thinks of me—his own spliced an' wedded wife—sland'in' me to the cat."

She shook her finger in his face—"You know you did, Bud Billins—an' what you reckin he told ther cat, Mister Kingsley—told her I was a—a—"

She gasped—she clinched her fist. Bud dodged an' tried to break away.

"Told him I was a—a—heifer!"

Bud looked sheepishly around—he tried even to run, but Jud Carpenter held him fast. She shook her finger in his face. "I heard you say it, Bud Billins, you know I did an' I busted a plate over yo' head."

"But, my dear Madam," said Kingsley, "that was no reason to treat him so badly."

"Oh, it wa'nt?" she shrieked—"to tattle-tale to the house-cat about yo' own spliced an' wedded wife? In her own home an' yard—her that you've sworn to love an' cherish agin bed an' board—ter call her a heifer?"

She slipped her hand under her apron and produced a deadly looking blue plate of thick cheap ware. Her eyes blazed, her voice became husky with anger.

"An' you don't think that was nothin'?" she shrieked.

"You don't understand me, my dear Madam," said Kingsley quickly. "I meant that it was no reason why you should continue to treat him so after he has suffered and is sorry. Of course you have got to control Bud."

She softened and went on.

"Wal it was mighty nigh a year befo' Bud paid any mo' 'tention to the cat. The full moon quit 'fectin' him—he even quit eatin' biscuits. Then the spell commenced to come onct a year an' he cu'dn't pass over blackberry winter to save his life. Mind you he never sed anything to me about it, but one day he ups an' gits choked on a chicken gizzerd an' coughs an' wheezes an' goes on so like a fool that I ups with the cheer an' comes down on his head a-thinkin' I'd make him cough it up. I mout a bin a little riled an' hit harder'n I orter, but I didn't mean anything by it, an' he did cough it up on my clean floor, an' I'm willin' to say agin' I was a little hasty, that's true, in callin' him a lop-sided son of a pigeon-toed monkey, for Bud riled me mighty. But what you reckin he done?"

She shook her finger in his face again. Bud tried to run again.

"You kno' you done it, Bud Billins—I followed you an' listened when you tuck up the cat an' you whispered in the cat's year that your spliced an' wedded wife was a—a—she devil!"

"It tuck two plates that time, Mister Kingsley—that's the time Bud didn't draw no pay fur two weeks.

"Wal, that was over a year ago, an' Bud he's been a behavin' mighty well, untwell this mornin'. It's true he didn't say much, but he sed 'nuff fur me to see ther spell was acomin' on an' I'd better bust it up befo' it got into his blood an' sot 'im to cultivate the company of the cat. I seed I had to check the disease afore it got too strong, fur I seed Bud was tryin' honestly to taper off with them spells an' shake with the cat if he cu'd, so when he kinder snorted a little this mornin' because he didn't have but one aig an' then kinder began to look aroun' as if he was thinkin' of mice, I busted a saucer over his head an' fotched 'im too, grateful la'k an' happy, to be hisse'f agin. I think he's nearly c'wored an' I'm mighty glad you is, Bud Billins, fur it's costin' a lot of mighty good crockery to c'wore you.

"Now you all jes' lem'me 'lone, Mister Kingsley—lem'me manage Bud. He's slo' mouthed as I'm tellin' you, but he's gittin' over them spells an' I'm gwinter c'wore him if I hafter go into the queensware bus'ness on my own hook. Now, Bud Billins, you jes' go in there now an' go to tendin' to that slubbin' machine, an' don't you so much as look at a cat twixt now an' next Christmas."

Bud needed no further admonition. He bolted for the door and was soon silently at work.



CHAPTER XVIII

SAMANTHA CAREWE

But Jud Carpenter did not finish his work by starting the slubbing machine. Samantha Carewe, one of the main loom women, was absent. Going over to her cottage, he was told by her mother, a glinty-eyed, shrewd looking, hard featured woman—that Samantha was "mighty nigh dead."

"Oh, she's mighty nigh dead, is she," said Jud with a tinge of sarcasm—"I've heurn of her bein' mighty nigh dead befo'. Well, I wanter see her."

The mother looked at him sourly, but barred the doorway with her form. Jud fixed his hard cunning eyes on her.

"Cyant see her; I tell you—she's mighty po'ly."

"Well, cyant you go an' tell her that Mister Jud Cyarpenter is here an' 'ud like to kno' if he can be of any sarvice to her in orderin' her burial robe an' coffin, or takin' her last will an' testerment."

With that he pushed himself in the doorway, rudely brushing the woman aside. "Now lem'me see that gyrl—" he added sternly—"that loom is got to run or you will starve, an' if she's sick I want to kno' it. I've seed her have the toe-ache befo'."

The door of the room in which Samantha lay was open, and in plain view of the hall she lay with a look of pain, feigned or real, on her face. She was a woman past forty—a spinster truly—who had been in the mill since it was first started, and, as she came from a South Carolina mill to the Acme, had, in fact, been in a cotton mill, as she said—"all her life." For she could not remember when, as a child even, she had not worked in one.

Her chest was sunken, her shoulders stooped, her whole form corded and knotted with the fight against machinery. Her skin, bronzed and sallow, looked not unlike the hard, fine wood-work of the loom, oiled with constant use.

Jud walked in unceremoniously.

"What ails you, Samanthy?" he asked, with feigned kindness.

"Oh, I dunno, Jud, but I've got a powerful hurtin' in my innards."

"The hurtin' was so bad," said her mother, "that I had to put a hot rock on her stomach, last night."

She motioned to a stone lying on the hearth. Jud glanced at it—its size staggered him.

"Good Lord! an' you say you had that thing on her stomach? Why didn't you send her up to the mill an' let us lay a hot steam engine on her?"

"What you been eatin', Samanthy?" he asked suddenly.

"Nuthin', Jud—I aint got no appetite at all!"

"No, she aint eat a blessed thing, hardly, to-day," said her mother—"jes' seemed to have lost her appetite from a to izzard."

"I wish the store'd keep wild cherry bark and whiskey—somethin' to make us eat. We cyant work unless we can eat," said Samantha, woefully.

"Great Scott," said Jud, "what we want to do is to keep you folks from eatin' so much. Lem'me see," he added after a pause, as if still thinking he'd get to the source of her trouble—"Yistidday was Sunday—you didn't have to work—now what did you eat for breakfast?"

"Nothin'—oh, I aint got no appetite at all"—whined Miss Samantha.

"Well, what did you eat—I wanter find out what ails you?"

"Well, lem'me see," said Miss Samantha, counting on her fingers—"a biled mackrel, some fried bacon, two pones of corn bread—kinder forced it down."

"Ur-huh—" said Jud, thoughtfully—"of course you had to drink, too."

"Yes"—whined Miss Samantha woefully—"two glasses of buttermilk."

Jud elevated his eyebrows "An' for dinner?"

"O, Lor'. Jes' cu'dn't eat nothin' fur dinner," she wailed. "If the Company'd only get some cherry bark an' whiskey"—

"At dinner," said Mrs Carewe, stroking her chin—"we had some sour-kraut—she eat right pe'rtly of that—kinder seemed lak a appetizer to her. She mixed it with biled cabbage an' et right pe'rtly of it."

"An' some mo' buttermilk—it kinder cools my stomach," whined Miss Samantha. "An' hog-jowl, an' corn-bread—anything else Maw?"

"A raw onion in vinegar," said her mother—"It's the only thing that seems to make you want to eat a little. An' reddishes—we had some new reddishes fur dinner—didn't we, Samanthy?"

"Good Lord," snapped Jud—"reddishes an' buttermilk—no wonder you needed that weight on your stomach—it's all that kept you from floatin' in the air. Cyant eat—O good Lord!"

They were silent—Miss Samantha making wry faces with her pain.

"Of course you didn't eat no supper?" he asked.

"No—we don' eat no supper Sunday night," said Mrs. Carewe.

"Didn't eat none at all," asked Jud—"not even a little?"

"Well, 'bout nine o'clock I thought I'd eat a little, to keep me from gittin' hungry befo' day, so I et a raw onion, an' some black walnuts, and dried prunes, an'—an'—"

"A few apples we had in the cellar," added her mother, "an' a huckleberry pie, an' buttermilk—"

Jud jumped up—"Good Lord, I thought you was a fool when you said you put that stone on her stomach, but now I know you done the right thing—you might have anchored her by a chain to the bed post, too, in case the rock didn't hold her down. Now look here," he went on to Mrs. Carewe, "I'll go to the sto' an' send you a half pound of salts, a bottle of oil an' turbb'ntine. Give her plenty of it an' have her at the mill by to-morrow, or I'll cut off all your rations. As it is I don't see that you need them, anyway, to eat"—he sneered—"for you 'aint got no appetite at all.'"

From the Carewe cottage Jud went to a small yellow cottage on the farthest side of the valley. It was the home of John Corbin, and Willis, his ten-year-old son, was one of the main doffers. The father was lounging lazily on the little front verandah, smoking his pipe.

"What's the matter with Willis?" asked Jud after he had come up.

"Why, nothin'—" drawled the father. "Aint he at the mill?"

"No—the other four children of your'n is there, but Willis aint."

The man arose with more than usual alacrity. "I'll see that he is there—" he declared—"it's as much as we can do to live on what they makes, an' I don't want no dockin' for any sickness if I can he'p it."

Willis, a pale over-worked lad, was down with tonsillitis. Jud heard the father and mother in an angry dispute. She was trying to persuade him to let the boy stay at home. In the end hot words were used, and finally the father came out followed by the pale and hungry-eyed boy.

"He'd better die at the mill at work than here at home," the father added brutally, as Jud led him off, "fur then the rest of us will have that much ahead to live on."

He settled lazily back in his chair, and resumed his smoking.



CHAPTER XIX

A QUICK CONVERSION

It happened that morning that the old Bishop was on his daily round, visiting the sick of Cottontown. He went every day, from house to house, helping the sick, cheering the well, and better than all things else, putting into the hearts of the disheartened that priceless gift of coming again.

For of all the gifts the gods do give to men, that is the greatest—the ability to induce their fallen fellow man to look up and hope again. The gift to spur others onward—the gift to make men reach up. His flock were all mill people, their devotion to him wonderful. In the rush and struggle of the strenuous world around them, this humble old man was the only being to whom they could go for spiritual help.

To-day in his rounds, one thing impressed him more sadly than anything else—for he saw it so plainly when he visited their homes—and that was that with all their hard work, from the oldest to the youngest, with all their traffic in human life, stealing the bud along with the broken and severed stem—as a matter of fact, the Acme mills paid out to the people but very little money. Work as they might, they seldom saw anything but an order on a store, for clothes and provisions sold to them at prices that would make a Jew peddler blush for shame.

The Bishop found entire families who never saw a piece of money the year round.

There are families and families, and some are more shiftless than others.

In one of the cottages the old man found a broken down little thing of seven, sick. For just such trips he kept his pockets full of things, and such wonderful pockets they would have been to a healthful natural child! Ginger cakes—a regular Noah's Ark, and apples, red and yellow. Sweet gum, too, which he had himself gathered from the trees in the woods. And there were even candy dolls and peppermints.

"Oh, well, maybe I can help her, po' little thing," the Bishop said when the mother conducted him in. But one look at her was enough—that dead, unmeaning look, not unconscious, but unmeaning—deadened—a disease which to a robust child would mean fever and a few days' sickness—to this one the Bishop knew it meant atrophy and death. And as the old man looked at her, he thought it were better that she should go. For to her life had long since lost its individuality, and dwarfed her into a nerveless machine—the little frame was nothing more than one of a thousand monuments to the cotton mill—a mechanical thing, which might cease to run at any time.

"How old is she?" asked the Bishop, sitting down by the child on the side of the bed.

"We put her in the mill two years ago when she was seven," said the mother. "We was starvin' an' had to do somethin'." She added this with as much of an apologetic tone as her nature would permit. "We told the mill men she was ten," she added. "We had to do it. The fust week she got two fingers mashed off."

The Bishop was silent, then he said: "It's bes' always to tell the truth. Liar is a fast horse, but he never runs but one race."

Although there were no laws in Alabama against child labor, the mill drew the lines then as now, if possible, on very young children. Not that it cared for the child—but because it could be brought to the mill too young for any practical use, unless it was wise beyond its age.

He handed the little thing a ginger man. She looked at it—the first she had ever seen,—and then at the giver in the way a wild thing would, as if expecting some trick in the proffered kindness; but when he tried to caress her and spoke kindly, she shrank under the cover and hid her head with fear.

It was not a child, but a little animal—a wild being of an unknown species in a child's skin—the missing link, perhaps; the link missing between the natural, kindly instinct of the wild thing, the brute, the monkey, the anthropoid ape, which protects its young even at the expense of its life, and civilized man of to-day, the speaking creature, the so-called Christian creature, who sells his young to the director-Devils of mills and machinery and prolongs his own life by the death of his offspring.

Biology teaches that many of the very lowest forms of life eat their young. Is civilized man merely a case, at last, of reversion to a primitive type?

She hid her head and then peeped timidly from under the cover at the kindly old man. He had seen a fox driven into its hole by dogs do the same thing.

She did not know what a smile meant, nor a caress, nor a proffered gift. Tremblingly she lay, under the dirty quilt, expecting a kick, a cuff.

The Bishop sat down by the bedside and took out a paper. "It'll be an hour or so I can spend," he said to the mother—"maybe you'd like to be doin' about a little."

"Come to think of it, I'm pow'ful obleeged to you," she said. "I've all my mornin' washin' to do yit, only I was afraid to leave her alone."

"You do yo' washin'—I'll watch her. I'm a pretty good sort of a hoss doctor myse'f."

The child had nodded off to sleep, the Bishop was reading his paper, when a loud voice was heard in the hallway and some rough steps that shook the little flimsily made floor of the cottage, and made it rock with the tramp of them. The door opened suddenly and Jud Carpenter, angry, boisterous, and presumptuous, entered. The child had awakened at the sound of Carpenter's foot fall, and now, frightened beyond control, she trembled and wept under the cover.

There are natural antipathies and they are God-given. They are the rough cogs in the wheel of things. But uneven as they are, rough and grating, strike them off and the wheel would be there still, but it would not turn. It is the friction of life that moves it. And movement is the law of life.

Antipathies—thank God who gave them to us! But for them the shepherd dog would lie down with the wolf.

The only man in Cottontown who did not like the Bishop was Jud Carpenter, and the only man in the world whom the Bishop did not love was Jud Carpenter. And many a time in his life the old man had prayed: "O God, teach me to love Jud Carpenter and despise his ways."

Carpenter glared insolently at the old man quietly reading his paper, and asked satirically. "Wal, what ails her, doctor?"

"Mill-icious fever," remarked the Bishop promptly with becoming accent on the first syllable, and scarcely raising his eyes from the paper.

Carpenter flushed. He had met the Bishop too often in contests which required courage and brains not to have discovered by now that he was no match for the man who could both pray and fight.

"They aint half as sick as they make out an' I've come to see about it," he added. He felt the child's pulse. "She ain't sick to hurt. That spinner is idle over yonder an' I guess I'll jes' be carryin' her back. Wuck—it's the greatest tonic in the worl'—it's the Hostetter's Bitters of life," he added, trying to be funny.

The Bishop looked up. "Yes, but I've knowed men to get so drunk on bitters they didn't kno' a mill-dam from a dam'-mill!"

Carpenter smiled: "Wal, she ain't hurt—guess I'll jes' git her cloze on an' take her over"—still feeling the child's wrist while she shuddered and hid under the cover. Nothing but her arm was out, and from the nervous grip of her little claw-like fingers the old man could only guess her terrible fear.

"You sho'ly don't mean that, Jud Carpenter?" said the Bishop, with surprise in his heretofore calm tone.

"Wal, that's jus' what I do mean, Doctor," remarked Carpenter dryly, and in an irritated voice.

"Jud Carpenter," said the old man rising—"I am a man of God—it is my faith an' hope. I'm gettin' old, but I have been a man in my day, an' I've still got strength enough left with God's he'p to stop you. You shan't tech that child."

In an instant Carpenter was ablaze—profane, abusive, insolent—and as the old man stepped between him and the bed, the Whipper-in's anger overcame all else.

The child under the cover heard a resounding whack and stuck her head out in time to see the hot blood leap to the old man's cheeks where Carpenter's blow had fallen. For a moment he paused, and then the child saw the old overseer's huge fist gripping spasmodically, and the big muscles of his arms and shoulders rolling beneath the folds of his coat, as a crouching lion's skin rolls around beneath his mane before he springs.

Again and again it gripped, and relaxed—gripped and relaxed again. Mastering himself with a great effort, the old man turned to the man who had slapped him.

"Strike the other cheek, you coward, as my Master sed you would."

Even the child was surprised when Carpenter, half wickedly, in rage, half tauntingly slapped the other cheek with a blow that almost sent the preacher reeling against the bed. Again the great fist gripped convulsively, and the big muscles that had once pitched the Mountain Giant over a rail fence worked—rolled beneath their covering.

"What else kin I do for you at the request of yo' Master?" sneered Carpenter.

"As He never said anything further on the subject," said the old man, in a dry pitched voice that told how hard he was trying to control himself, "I take it He intended me to use the same means that He employed when He run the thieves an' bullies of His day out of the temple of God."

The child thought they were embracing. It was the old hold and the double hip-thrust, by which the overseer had conquered so often before in his manhood's prime. Nor was his old-time strength gone. It came in a wave of righteous indignation, and like the gust of a whirlwind striking the spars of a rotting ship. Never in his life had Carpenter been snapped so nearly in two. It seemed to him that every bone in his body broke when he hit the floor.... It was ten minutes before his head began to know things again. Dazed, he opened his eyes to see the Bishop sitting calmly by his side bathing his face with cold water. The blood had been running from his nose, for the rag and water were colored. His head ached.

Jud Carpenter had one redeeming trait—it was an appreciation of the humorous. No man has ever been entirely lost or entirely miserable, who has had a touch of humor in him. As the Bishop put a pillow under his head and then locked the door to keep any one else out, the ridiculousness of it all came over him, and he said sillily:

"Wal, I reckin you've 'bout converted me this time."

"Jud Carpenter," said the Bishop, his face white with shame, "for God's sake don't tell anybody I done that—"

Jud smiled as he arose and put on his hat. "I can stan' bein' licked," he added good naturedly—"because I remember now that I've run up agin the old champion of the Tennessee Valley—ain't that what they useter call you?—but it does hurt me sorter, to think you'd suppose I'd be such a damned fool as to tell it."

He felt the child's wrist again. "'Pears lak she's got a little fever since all this excitement—guess I'll jes' let her be to-day."

"I do think it 'ud be better, Jud," said the Bishop gently.

And Jud pulled down his hat and slipped quietly out.

The mother never did understand from the child just what happened. When she came in the Bishop had her so much better that the little thing actually was playing with his ginger cake dolls, and had eaten one of them.

It was bed time that night before the child finally whispered it out: "Maw, did you ever see two men hug each other?"

"No—why?"

"Why, the Bishop he hugged Jud Carpenter so hard he fetched the bleed out of his nose!"

It was her first and last sight of a ginger-man. Two days later she was buried, and few save the old Bishop knew she had died; for Cottontown did not care.



CHAPTER XX

A LIVE FUNERAL

The next Sunday was an interesting occasion—voted so by all Cottontown when it was over. There was a large congregation out, caused by the announcement of the Bishop the week before.

"Nex' Sunday I intend to preach Uncle Dave Dickey's funeral sermon. I've talked to Dave about it an' he tells me he has got all kinds of heart disease with a fair sprinklin' of liver an' kidney trouble an' that he is liable to drap off any day.

"I am one of them that believes that whatever bouquets we have for the dead will do 'em mo' good if given while they can smell; an' whatever pretty things we've got to say over a coffin had better be said whilst the deceased is up an' kickin' around an' can hear—an' so Dave is pow'ful sot to it that I preach his fun'ral whilst he's alive. An' I do hope that next Sunday you'll all come an' hear it. An' all the bouquets you expect to give him when he passes away, please fetch with you."

To-day Uncle Dave was out, dressed in his long-tail jeans frock suit with high standing collar and big black stock. His face had been cleanly shaved, and his hair, coming down to his shoulders, was cut square away around his neck in the good old-fashioned way. He sat on the front bench and looked very solemn and deeply impressed. On one side of him sat Aunt Sally, and on the other, Tilly; and the coon dog, which followed them everywhere, sat on its tail, well to the front, looking the very essence of concentrated solemnity.

But the coon dog had several peculiar idiosyncrasies; one of them was that he was always very deeply affected by music—especially any music which sounded anything like a dinner horn. As this was exactly the way Miss Patsy Butts' organ music sounded, no sooner did she strike up the first notes than the coon dog joined in, with his long dismal howl—much to the disgust of Uncle Dave and his family.

This brought things to a standstill, and all the Hillites to giggling, while Archie B. moved up and took his seat with the mourners immediately behind the dog.

Tilly looked reproachfully at Aunt Sally; Aunt Sally looked reproachfully at Uncle Dave, who passed the reproach on to the dog.

"There now," said Uncle Dave—"Sally an' Tilly both said so! They both said I mustn't let him come."

He gave the dog a punch in the ribs with his huge foot. This hushed him at once.

"Be quiet Dave," said the Bishop, sitting near—"it strikes me you're pow'ful lively for a corpse. It's natural for a dog to howl at his master's fun'ral."

The coon dog had come out intending to enter fully into the solemnity of the occasion, and when the organ started again he promptly joined in.

"I'm sorry," said the Bishop, "but I'll have to rise an' put the chief mourner out."

It was unnecessary, for the chief mourner himself arose just then, and began running frantically around the pulpit with snaps, howls and sundry most painful barks.

Those who noticed closely observed that a clothes-pin had been snapped bitingly on the very tip end of his tail, and as he finally caught his bearing, and went down the aisle and out of the door with a farewell howl, they could hear him tearing toward home, quite satisfied that live funerals weren't the place for him.

What he wanted was a dead one.

"Maw!" said Miss Patsy Butts—"I wish you'd look after Archie B."

Everybody looked at Archie B., who looked up from a New Testament in which he was deeply interested, surprised and grieved.

The organ started up again.

But it grew irksome to Miss Samantha Carewe seated on the third bench.

"Ma," she whispered, "I've heard o' fun'rals in Irelan' where they passed around refreshments—d'ye reckin this is goin' to be that kind? I'm gittin' pow'ful hungry."

"Let us trust that the Lord will have it so," said her mother devoutly.

Amid great solemnity the Bishop had gone into the pulpit and was preaching:

"It may be a little onusual," he said, "to preach a man's fun'ral whilst he's alive, but it will certn'ly do him mo' good than to preach it after he's dead. If we're goin' to do any good to our feller man, let's do it while he's alive.

"Kind words to the livin' are more than monuments to the dead.

"Come to think about it, but ain't we foolish an' hypocritical the way we go on over the dead that we have forgot an' neglected whilst they lived?

"If we'd reverse the thing how many a po' creature that had given up the fight, an' shuffled off this mortal coil fur lack of a helpin' han' would be alive to-day!

"How many another that had laid down an' quit in the back stretch of life would be up an' fightin'! Why, the money spent for flowers an' fun'rals an' monuments for the pulseless dead of the world would mighty nigh feed the living dead that are always with us.

"What fools we mortals be! Why, we're not a bit better than the heathen Chinee that we love to send missionaries to and call all kinds of hard names. The Chinee put sweet cakes an' wine an' sech on the graves of their departed, an' once one of our missionaries asked his servant, Ching Lu, who had just lost his brother an' had put all them things on his grave, when he thought the corpse 'ud rise up an' eat them; an' Ching Lu told him he thought the Chinee corpse 'ud rise up an' eat his sweetmeats about the same time that the Melican man's corpse 'ud rise up an' smell all the bouquets of sweet flowers spread over him.

"An' there we are, right on the same footin' as the heathen an' don't know it.

"David Dickey, the subject of this here fun'ral discourse, was born on the fourth day of July, 1810, of pious, godly parents. Dave as a child was always a good boy, who loved his parents, worked diligently and never needed a lickin' in his life"—

"Hold on, Bishop," said Uncle Davy, rising and protesting earnestly—"this is my fun'ral an' I ain't a-goin' to have nothin' told but the exact facts: Jes' alter that by sayin' I was a tollerbul good boy, tollerbul diligent, with a big sprinklin' o' meanness an' laziness in me, an' that my old daddy,—God bless his memory for it—in them days cleared up mighty nigh a ten acre lot of guv'ment land cuttin' off the underbrush for my triflin' hide."

Uncle Dave sat down. The Bishop was confused a moment, but quickly said: "Now bretherin, there's another good p'int about preachin' a man's fun'ral whilst he's alive. It gives the corpse a chance to correct any errors. Why, who'd ever have thought that good old Uncle Dave Dickey was that triflin' when he was young? Much obliged, Dave, much obliged, I'll try to tell the exact facts hereafter."

Then he began again:

"In manner Uncle Dave was approachable an' with a kind heart for all mankind, an' a kind word an' a helpin' han' for the needy. He was tollerbul truthful"—went on the Bishop—with a look at Uncle Davy as if he had profited by previous interruptions.

"Tell it as it was, Hillard,"—nodded Uncle Dave, from the front bench—"jes' as it was—no lies at my fun'ral."

"Tollerbul truthful," went on the Bishop, "on all subjects he wanted to tell the truth about. An' I'm proud to say, bretherin, that after fifty odd years of intermate acquantance with our soon-to-be-deceased brother, you cu'd rely on him tellin' the truth in all things except"—

"Tell it as it was, Hillard—no—filigree work at my fun'ral—" said Uncle Dave.

—"Except," went on the Bishop, "returnin' any little change he happen'd to borry from you, or swoppin' horses, or tellin' the size of the fish he happened to ketch. On them p'ints, my bretherin, the lamented corpse was pow'ful weak; an' I'm sorry to have to tell it, but I've been warned, as you all kno', to speak the exact facts."

"Hillard Watts," said Uncle Dave rising hotly—"that's a lie an' you know it!"

"Sit down, Dave," said the Bishop calmly, "I've been preachin' fun'rals fur fifty years an' that is the fus' time I ever was sassed by a corpse. You know it's so an' besides I left out one thing. You're always tellin' what kinder weather it's gwinter be to-morrow an' missin' it. You burnt my socks off forty years ago on the only hoss-trade I ever had with you. You owe me five dollars you borrowed ten years ago, an' you never caught a half pound perch in yo' life that you didn't tell us the nex' day it was a fo' pound trout. So set down. Oh, I'm tellin' the truth without any filigree, Dave."

Aunt Sally and Tilly pulled Uncle Dave down while they conversed with him earnestly. Then he arose and said:

"Hillard, I beg yo' pardon. You've spoken the truth—Sally and Tilly both say so. I tell yo', bretherin," he said turning to the congregation—"it'd be a good thing if we c'ud all have our fun'ral sermon now and then correctly told. There would be so many points brought out as seen by our neighbors that we never saw ourselves."

"The subject of this sermon"—went on the Bishop—"the lamented corpse-to-be, was never married but once—to his present loving widow-to-be, and he never had any love affair with any other woman—she bein' his fust an' only love—"

"Hillard," said Uncle Dave rising, "I hate to—"

"Set down, David Dickey," whispered Aunt Sally, hotly, as she hastily jerked him back in his seat with a snap that rattled the teeth in his head:

"If you get up at this time of life to make any post-mortem an' dyin' declaration on that subject in my presence, ye'll be takin' out a corpse sho' 'nuff!"

Uncle Dave very promptly subsided.

"An' the only child he's had is the present beautiful daughter that sits beside him."

Tilly blushed.

"David, I am very sorry to say, had some very serious personal faults. He always slept with his mouth open. I've knowed him to snore so loud after dinner that the folks on the adjoining farm thought it was the dinner horn."

"Now Hillard," said Uncle Dave, rising—"do you think it necessary to bring in all that?"

"A man's fun'ral," said the Bishop, "ain't intended to do him any good—it's fur the coming generation. Boys and girls, beware of sleepin' with yo' mouth open an' eatin' with yo' fingers an' drinkin' yo' coffee out of the saucer, an' sayin' them molasses an' I wouldn't choose any when you're axed to have somethin' at the table.

"Dave Dickey done all that.

"Brother Dave Dickey had his faults as we all have. He was a sprinklin' of good an' evil, a mixture of diligence an' laziness, a brave man mostly with a few yaller crosses in him, truthful nearly always, an' lyin' mostly fur fun an' from habit; good at times an' bad at others, spiritual at times when it looked like he cu'd see right into heaven's gate, an' then again racked with great passions of the flesh that swept over him in waves of hot desires, until it seemed that God had forgotten to make him anything but an animal.

"Come to think of it, an' that's about the way with the rest of us?

"But he aimed to do right, an' he strove constantly to do right, an' he prayed constantly fur help to do right, an' that's the main thing. If he fell he riz agin, fur he had a Hand outstretched in his faith that cu'd lift him up, an' knew that he could go to a Father that always forgave—an' that's the main thing. Let us remember, when we see the faults and vices of others—that we see only what they've done—as Bobby Burns says, we don't kno' what they have resisted. Give 'em credit for that—maybe it over-balances. Balancin'—ah, my bretherin, that's a gran' thing. It's the thing on which the whole Universe hangs—the law of balance. The pendulum every whar swings as fur back as it did furra'd, an' the very earth hangs in space by this same law. An' it holds in the moral worl' as well as the t'other one—only man is sech a liar an' so bigoted he can't see it. But here comes into the worl' a man or woman filled so full of passion of every sort,—passions they didn't make themselves either—regular thunder clouds in the sky of life. Big with the rain, the snow, the hail—the lightning of passion. A spark, a touch, a strong wind an' they explode, they fall from grace, so to speak. But what have they done that we ain't never heard of? All we've noticed is the explosion, the fall, the blight. They have stirred the sky, whilst the little white pale-livered untempted clouds floated on the zephyrs—they've brought rain that made the earth glad, they've cleared the air in the very fall of their lightnin'. The lightnin' came—the fall—but give 'em credit fur the other. The little namby-pamby, white livered, zephyr clouds that is so divine an' useless, might float forever an' not even make a shadow to hide men from the sun.

"So credit the fallen man or woman, big with life an' passion, with the good they've done when you debit 'em with the evil. Many a 'oman so ugly that she wasn't any temptation even for Sin to mate with her, has done more harm with her slanderin' tongue an' hypocrisy than a fallen 'oman has with her whole body.

"We're mortals an' we can't he'p it—animals, an' God made us so. But we'll never fall to rise no mo' 'less we fail to reach up fur he'p.

"What then is our little sins of the flesh to the big goodness of the faith that is in us?

"For forty years Uncle Dave has been a consistent member of the church—some church—it don't matter which. For forty years he has trod the narrer path, stumpin' his toe now an' then, but allers gettin' up agin, for forty years he has he'ped others all he cu'd, been charitable an' forgivin', as hones' as the temptation would permit, an' only a natural lie now an' then as to the weather or the size of a fish, trustin' in God to make it all right.

"An' now, in the twilight of life, when his sun is 'most set an' the dews of kindness come with old age, right gladly will he wake up some mornin' in a better lan', the scrub in him all bred out, the yaller streak gone, the sins of the flesh left behind. An' that's about the way with the most of us,—no better an' maybe wuss—Amen!"

Uncle Dave was weeping:

"Oh, Hillard—Hillard," he said, "say all that over agin about the clouds an' the thunder of passion—say all the last part over agin—it sounds so good!"

The congregation thronged around him and shook his hand. They gave him the flowers they had brought; they told him how much they thought of him, how sorry they would be to see him dead, how they had always intended to come to see him, but had been so busy, and to cheer up that he wasn't dead yet.

"No"—said Uncle Dave, weeping—"no, an' now since I see how much you all keer fur me I don't b'lieve—I—I wanter die at all."



CHAPTER XXI

JACK AND THE LITTLE ONES

No one would ever have supposed that the big blacksmith at the village was Jack Bracken. All the week he worked at his trade—so full of his new life that it shone continually in his face—his face strong and stern, but kindly. With his leathern apron on, his sleeves rolled up, his hairy breast bare and shining in the open collar, physically he looked more like an ancient Roman than a man of to-day.

His greatest pleasure was to entice little children to his shop, talking to them as he worked. To get them to come, he began by keeping a sack of ginger snaps in his pockets. And the villagers used to smile at the sight of the little ones around him, especially after sunset when his work was finished. Often a half dozen children would be in his lap or on his knees at once, and the picture was so beautiful that people would stop and look, and wonder what the big strong man saw in all those noisy children to love.

They did not know that this man had spent his life a hunted thing; that the strong instinct of home and children had been smothered in him, that his own little boy had been taken, and that to him every child was a saint.

But they soon learned that the great kind-hearted, simple man was a tiger when aroused. A small child from the mill, sickly and timid, was among those who stopped one morning to get one of his cakes.

Not knowing it was a mill child on its way to work, Jack detained it in all the kindness of his heart, and the little thing was not in a hurry to go. Indeed, it forgot all about the mill until its father happened along an hour after it should have been at work. His name was Joe Hopper, a ne'er-do-well whose children, by working at the mill, supported him in idleness.

Catching the child, he berated it and boxed its ears soundly. Jack was at work, but turning, and seeing the child chastised, he came at the man with quiet fury. With one huge hand in Joe Hopper's collar, he boxed his ears until he begged for mercy. "Now go," said Jack, as he released him, "an' know hereafter how it feels for the strong to beat the weak."

Of all things, Jack wanted to talk with Margaret Adams; but he could never make up his mind to seek her out, though his love for this woman was the love of his life. Often at night he would slip away from the old preacher's cabin and his cot by Captain Tom's bed, to go out and walk around her little cottage and see that all was safe.

James, her boy, peculiarly interested Jack, but it was some time before he came to know him. He knew the boy was Richard Travis's son, and that he alone had stood between him and his happiness. That but for him—the son of his mother—he would never have been the outlaw that he was, and even now but for this son he would marry her. But outlaw that he was, Jack Bracken had no free-booting ideas of love. Never did man revere purity in woman more than he—that one thing barred Margaret Adams forever from his life, though not from his heart.

He felt that he would hate James Adams; but instead he took to the lad at once—his fine strange ways, his dignity, courage, his very aloofness and the sorrow he saw there, drew him to the strange, silent lad.

One day while at work in his shop he looked up and saw the boy standing in the door watching him closely and with evident admiration.

"Come in, my lad," said Jack, laying down his big hammer. "What is yo' name?"

"Well, I don't know that that makes any difference," he replied smiling, "I might ask you what is yours."

Jack flushed, but he pitied the lad.

He smiled: "I guess you an' I could easily understan' each other, lad—what can I do for you?"

"I wanted you to fix my pistol for me, sir—and—and I haven't anything to pay you."

Jack looked it over—the old duelling pistol. He knew at once it was Colonel Jeremiah Travis's. The boy had gotten it somehow. The hair-spring trigger was out of fix. Jack soon repaired it and said:

"Now, son, she's all right, and not a cent do I charge you."

"I didn't mean that," said the boy, flushing. "I have no money, but I want to pay you, for I need this pistol—need it very badly."

"To shoot rabbits?" smiled Jack.

The boy did not smile. He ran his hand in his pocket and handed Jack a thin gold ring, worn almost to a wire; but Jack paled, and his hand shook when he took it, for he recognized the little ring he himself had given Margaret Adams years ago.

"It's my mother's," said the boy, "and some man gave it to her once—long ago—for she is foolish about it. Now, of late, I think I have found out who that man was, and I hate him as I do hell itself. I am determined she shall never see it again. So take it, or I'll give it to somebody else."

"If you feel that way about it, little 'un," said Jack kindly, "I'll keep it for you," and he put the precious relic in his pocket.

"Now, look here, lad," he said, changing the subject, "but do you know you've got an' oncommon ac'rate gun in this old weepon?"

The boy smiled—interested.

"It's the salt of the earth," said Jack, "an' I'll bet it's stood 'twixt many a gentleman and death. Can you shoot true, little 'un?"

"Only fairly—can you?"

"Some has been kind enough to give me that character"—he said promptly. "Want me to give you a few lessons?"

The boy warmed to him at once. Jack took him behind the shop, tied a twine string between two trees and having loaded the old pistol with cap and powder and ball, he stepped off thirty paces and shot the string in twain.

"Good," said the boy smiling, and Jack handed him the pistol with a boyish flush of pride in his own face.

"Now, little 'un, it's this away in shootin' a weepon like this—it's the aim that counts most. But with my Colts now—the self-actin' ones—you've got to cal'c'late chiefly on another thing—a kinder thing that ain't in the books—the instinct that makes the han' an' the eye act together an' 'lowin', at the same time, for the leverage on the trigger." The lad's face glowed with excitement. Jack saw it and said: "Now I'll give you a lesson to-day. Would you like to shoot at that tree?" he asked kindly.

"Do you suppose I could hit the string?" asked the boy innocently.

Jack had to smile. "In time—little 'un—in time you might. You're a queer lad," he said again laughing. "You aim pretty high."

"Oh, then I'll never hit below my mark. Let me try the string, please."

To humor him, Jack tied the string again, and the boy stepped up to the mark and without taking aim, but with that instinct which Jack had just mentioned, that bringing of the hand and eye together unconsciously, he fired and the string flew apart.

"You damned little cuss," shouted Jack enthusiastically, as he grabbed the boy and hugged him—"to make a sucker of me that way! To take me in like that!"

"Oh," said the boy, "I do nothing but shoot this thing from morning till night. It was my great grandfather's."

And from that time the two were one.

But another thing happened which cemented the tie more strongly. One Saturday afternoon Jack took a crowd of his boy friends down to the river for a plunge. The afternoon was bright and warm; the frost of the morning making the water delightful for a short plunge. It was great sport. They all obeyed him and swam in certain places he marked off—all except James Adams. He boldly swam out into the deep current of the river and came near losing his life. Jack plunged in in time to reach him, but had to dive to get him, he having sunk the third time. It required hard work to revive him on the bank, but the man was strong and swung the lad about by the heels till he got the water out of his lungs, and his circulation started again. James opened his eyes at last, and Jack said, smiling: "That's all right, little 'un, but I feared onct, you was gone."

He took the boy home, and then it was that for the first time for fifteen years he saw and talked to the woman he loved.

"Mother," said the boy, "this is the new blacksmith that I've been telling you about, and he is great guns—just pulled me out of the bottom of the Tennessee river."

Jack laughed and said: "The little 'un ca'n't swim as well as he can shoot, ma'am."

There was no sign of recognition between them, nothing to show they had ever seen each other before, but Jack saw her eyes grow tender at the first word he uttered, and he knew that Margaret Adams loved him then, even as she had loved him years ago.

He stayed but a short while, and James Adams never saw the silent battle that was waged in the eyes of each. How Jack Bracken devoured her with his eyes,—the comely figure, the cleanliness and sweetness of the little cottage—his painful hungry look for this kind of peace and contentment—the contentment of love.

And James noticed that his mother was greatly embarrassed, even to agitation, but he supposed it was because of his narrow escape from drowning, and it touched him even to caressing her, a thing he had never done before.

It hurt Jack—that caress. Richard Travis's boy—she would have been his but for him. He felt a terrible bitterness arising. He turned abruptly to go.

Margaret had not spoken. Then she thanked him and bade James change his clothes. As the boy went in the next room to do this, she followed Jack to the little gate and stood pale and suffering, but not able to speak.

"Good-bye," he said, giving her his hand—"you know, Margaret, my life—why I am here, to be near you,—how I love you, have loved you."

"And how I love you, Jack," she said simply.

The words went through him with a fierce sweetness that shook him.

"My God—don't say that—it hurts me so, after—what you've done."

"Jack," she whispered sadly—"some day you'll know—some day you'll understand that there are things in life greater even than the selfishness of your own heart's happiness."

"They can't be," said Jack bitterly—"that's what all life's for—heart happiness—love. Why, hunger and love, them's the fust things; them's the man an' the woman; them's the law unto theyselves, the animal, the instinct, the beast that's in us; the things that makes God excuse all else we do to get them—we have to have 'em. He made us so; we have to have 'em—it's His own doin'."

"But," she said sweetly—"suppose it meant another to be despised, reviled, made infamous."

"They'd have to be," he said sternly, for he was thinking of Richard Travis—"they'd have to be, for he made his own life."

"Oh, you do not understand," she cried. "And you cannot now—but wait—wait, and it will be plain. Then you'll know all and—that I love you, Jack."

He turned bitterly and walked away.



CHAPTER XXII

THE BROKEN THREAD

For the first time in years, the next Sunday the little church on the mountain side was closed, and all Cottontown wondered. Never before had the old man missed a Sabbath afternoon since the church had been built. This was to have been Baptist day, and that part of his congregation was sorely disappointed.

For an hour Bud Billings had stood by the little gate looking down the big stretch of sandy road, expecting to see the familiar shuffling, blind old roan coming:

"Sum'pins happened to Ben Butler," said Bud at last—and at thought of such a calamity, he sat down and shed tears.

His simple heart yearned for pity, and feeling something purring against him he picked up the cat and coddled it.

"You seem to be cultivatin' that cat again, Bud Billings," came a sharp voice from the cabin window.

Bud dropped the animal quickly and struck out across the mountain for the Bishop's cabin.

But he was not prepared for the shock that came to his simple heart: Shiloh was dying—the Bishop himself told him so—the Bishop with a strange, set, hard look in his eyes—a look which Bud had never seen there before, for it was sorrow mingled with defiance—in that a great wrong had been done and done over his protest. It was culpable sorrow too, somewhat, in that he had not prevented it, and a heart-hardening sorrow in that it took the best that he loved.

"She jes' collapsed, Bud—sudden't like—wilted like a vi'let that's stepped on, an' the Doctor says she's got no sho' at all, ther' bein' nothin' to build on. She don't kno' nothin'—ain't knowed nothin' since last night, an' she thinks she's in the mill—my God, it's awful! The little thing keeps reaching out in her delirium an' tryin' to piece the broken threads, an' then she falls back pantin' on her pillow an' says, pitful like—'the thread—the thread is broken!' an' that's jes' it, Bud—the thread is broken!"

Tears were running down the old man's cheeks, and that strange thing which now and then came up in Bud's throat and stopped him from talking came again. He walked out and sat under a tree in the yard. He looked at the other children sitting around stupid—numbed—with the vague look in their faces which told that a sorrow had fallen, but without the sensitiveness to know or care where. He saw a big man, bronzed and hard-featured, but silent and sorrowful, walking to and fro. Now and then he would stop and look earnestly through the window at the little still figure on the bed, and then Bud would hear him say—"like little Jack—like little Jack."

The sun went down—the stars came up—but Bud sat there. He could do nothing, but he wanted to be there.

When the lamp was lighted in the cabin he could see all within the home and that an old man held on a large pillow in his lap a little child, and that he carried her around from window to window for air, and that the child's eyes were fixed, and she was whiter than the pillow. He also saw an old woman, lantern-jawed and ghostly, tidying around and she mumbling and grumbling because no one would give the child any turpentine.

And still Bud sat outside, with that lump in his throat, that thing that would not let him speak.

Late at night another man came up with saddle bags, and hitching his horse within a few feet of Bud, walked into the cabin.

He was a kindly man, and he stopped in the doorway and looked at the old man, sitting with the sick child in his lap. Then he pulled a chair up beside the old man and took the child's thin wrist in his hand. He shook his head and said:

"No use, Bishop—better lay her on the bed—she can't live two hours."

Then he busied himself giving her some drops from a vial.

"When you get through with your remedy and give her up," said the old man slowly—"I'm gwinter try mine."

The Doctor looked at the old man sorrowfully, and after a while he went out and rode home.

Then the old man sent them all to bed. He alone would watch the little spark go out.

And Bud alone in the yard saw it all. He knew he should go home—that it was now past midnight, but somehow he felt that the Bishop might need him.

He saw the moon go down, and the big constellations shine out clearer. Now and then he could see the old nurse reach over and put his ear to the child's mouth to see if it yet breathed. But Bud thought maybe he was listening for it to speak, for he could see the old man's lips moving as he did when he prayed at church. And Bud could not understand it, but never before in his life did he feel so uplifted, as he sat and watched the old man holding the little child and praying. And all the hours that he sat there, Bud saw that the old man was praying as he had never prayed before. The intensity of it increased and began to be heard, and then Bud crept up to the window and listened, for he dearly loved to hear the Bishop, and amid the tears that ran down his own cheek, and the quick breathing which came quicker and quicker from the little child in the lap, Bud heard:

"Save her, oh, God, an' if I've done any little thing in all my po' an' blunderin' life that's entitled to credit at Yo' han's, give it now to little Shiloh, for You can if You will. If there's any credit to my account in the Book of Heaven, hand it out now to the little one robbed of her all right up to the door of death. She that is named Shiloh, which means rest. Do it, oh, God,—take it from my account if she ain't got none yet herse'f, an' I swear to You with the faith of Abraham that henceforth I will live to light a fire-brand in this valley that will burn out this child slavery, upheld now by ignorance and the greed of the gold lovers. Save little Shiloh, for You can."

Bud watched through the crisis, the shorter and shorter breaths, the struggle—the silence when, only by holding the lighted candle to her mouth, could the old man tell whether she lived or not. And Bud stood outside and watched his face, lit up like a saint in the light of the candle falling on his silvery hair, whiter than the white sand of Sand Mountain, a stern, strong face with lips which never ceased moving in prayer, the eyes riveted on the little fluttering lips. And watching the stern, solemn lips set, as Bud had often seen the white stern face of Sunset Rock, when the clouds lowered around it, suddenly he saw them relax and break silently, gently, almost imperceptibly into a smile which made the slubber think the parting sunset had fallen there; and Bud gripped the window-sill outside, and swallowed and swallowed at the thing in his throat, and stood tersely wiggling on his strained tendons, and then almost shouted when he saw the smile break all over the old man's face and light up his eyes till the candle's flickering light looked pale, and saw him bow his head and heard him say:

"Lord God Almighty ... My God ... My own God ... an' You ain't never gone back on me yet.... 'Bless the Lord all my soul, an' all that is within me; bless His Holy Name!'"

Bud could not help it. He laughed out hysterically. And then the old face, still smiling, looked surprised at the window and said: "Go home, Bud. God is the Great Doctor, an' He has told me she shall live."

Then, as he turned to go, his heart stood still, for he heard Shiloh say in her little piping child voice, but, oh, so distinctly, and so sweetly, like a bird in the forest:

"Pap, sech a sweet dream—an' I went right up to the gate of heaven an' the angel smiled an' kissed me an' sed:

"'Go back, little Shiloh—not yet—not yet!'"

Then Bud slipped off in the dawn of the coming light.



CHAPTER XXIII

GOD WILL PROVIDE

In a few days Shiloh was up, but the mere shadow of a little waif, following the old man around the place. She needed rest and good food and clothes; and Bull Run and Seven Days and Appomattox and Atlanta needed them, and where to get them was the problem which confronted the grandfather.

Shiloh's narrow escape from death had forever settled the child-labor question with him—he would starve, "by the Grace of God," as he expressed it, before one of them should ever go into the mill again.

He had a bitter quarrel about it with Mrs. Watts; but the good old man's fighting blood was up at last—that hatred of child-slavery, which had been so long choked by the smoke of want, now burst into a blaze when the shock of it came in Shiloh's collapse—a blaze which was indeed destined "to light the valley with a torch of fire."

On the third day Jud Carpenter came out to see about it; but at sight of him the old man took down from the rack over the hall door the rifle he had carried through the war, and with a determined gesture he stopped the employment agent at the gate: "I am a man of God, Jud Carpenter," he said in a strange voice, rounded with a deadly determination, "but in the name of God an' humanity, if you come into that gate after my little 'uns, I'll kill you in yo' tracks, jes' as a bis'n bull 'ud stamp the life out of a prowlin' coyote."

And Jud Carpenter went back to town and spread the report that the old man was a maniac, that he had lost his mind since Shiloh came so near dying.

The problem which confronted the old man was serious.

"O Jack, Jack," he said one night, "if I jes' had some of that gold you had!"

Jack replied by laying ten silver dollars in the old man's hand.

"I earned it,"—he said simply—"this week—shoeing horses—it's the sweetest money I ever got."

"Why, Jack," said the Bishop—"this will feed us for a week. Come here, Tabitha," he called cheerily—"come an' see what happens to them that cast their bread upon the waters. We tuck in this outcast an' now behold our bread come back ag'in."

The old woman came up and took it gingerly. She bit each dollar to test it, remarking finally: "Why, hit's genuwine!"—

Jack laughed.

"Why, hit's mo' money'n I've seed fur years," she said—"I won't hafter hunt fur 'sang roots to-morrow."

"Jack," said the Bishop, after the others had retired, and the two men sat in Captain Tom's cabin—"Jack, I've been thinkin' an' thinkin'—I must make some money."

"How much?" asked Jack.

"A thousand or two."

"That's a lot of money," said the outlaw quickly. "A heap fur you to need."

"It's not fur me," he said—"I don't need it—I wouldn't have it for myself. It's for him—see!" he pointed to the sleeping man on the low cot. "Jack, I've been talkin' to the Doctor—he examined Cap'n Tom's head, and he says it'd be an easy job—that it's a shame it ain't been done befo'—that in a city to the North,—he gave me the name of a surgeon there who could take that pressure from his head and make him the man he was befo'—the man, mind you, the man he was befo'."

Jack sat up excited. His eyes glittered.

"Then there's Shiloh," went on the old man—"it'll mean life to her too—life to git away from the mill.

"Cap'n Tom and Shiloh—I must have it, Jack—I must have it. God will provide a way. I'd give my home—I'd give everything—just to save them two—Cap'n Tom and little Shiloh."

He felt a touch on his shoulder and looked up.

Jack Bracken stood before him, clutching the handle of his big Colt's revolver, and his hat was pulled low over his eyes. He was flushed and panting. A glitter was in his eyes, the glitter of the old desperado spirit returned.

"Bishop," he said, "ever' now and then it comes over me ag'in, comes over me—the old dare-devil feelin'." He held up his pistol: "All week I've missed somethin'. Last night I fingered it in my sleep."

He pressed it tenderly. "Jes' you say the word," he whispered, "an' in a few hours I'll be back here with the coin. Shipton's bank is dead easy an' he is a money devil with a cold heart." The old man laughed and took the revolver from him.

"It's hard, I know, Jack, to give up old ways. I must have made po' Cap'n Tom's and Shiloh's case out terrible to tempt you like that. But not even for them—no—no—not even for them. Set down."

Jack sat down, subdued. Then the Bishop pulled out a paper from his pocket and chuckled.

"Now, Jack, you're gwinter have the laugh on me, for the old mood is on me an' I'm yearnin' to do this jes' like you yearn to hold up the bank ag'in. It's the old instinct gettin' to wurk. But, Jack, you see—this—mine—ain't so bad. God sometimes provides in an onexpected way."

"What is it?" asked Jack.

The old man chuckled again. Then Jack saw his face turn red—as if half ashamed: "Why should I blame you, Jack, fur I'm doin' the same thing mighty nigh—I'm longin' for the flesh pots of Egypt. As I rode along to-day thinkin'—thinkin'—thinkin'—how can I save the children an' Cap'n Tom, how can I get a little money to send Cap'n Tom off to the Doctor—an' also repeatin' to myself—'The Lord will provide—He will provide—' I ran up to this, posted on a tree, an' kinder starin' me an' darin' me in the face."

He laughed again: "Jes' scolded you, Jack, but see here. See how the old feelin' has come over me at sight of this bragging, blow-hard challenge. It makes my blood bile.

"Race horse?—Why, Richard Travis wouldn't know a real race horse if he had one by the tail. It's disgustin'—these silk-hat fellers gettin' up a three-cornered race, an' then openin' it up to the valley—knowin' they've put the entrance fee of fifty dollars so high that no po' devil in the County can get in, even if he had a horse equal to theirs.

"Three thousan' dollars!—think of it! An' then Richard Travis rubs it in. He's havin' fun over it—he always would do that. Read the last line ag'in—in them big letters:

"'Open to anything raised in the Tennessee Valley.'

"Fine fun an' kinder sarcastic, but, Jack, Ben Butler cu'd make them blooded trotters look like steers led to slaughter."

Jack sat looking silently in the fire.

"If I had the entrance fee I'd do it once—jes' once mo' befo' I die? Once mo' to feel the old thrill of victory! An' for Cap'n Tom an' Shiloh. God'll provide, Jack—God'll provide!"



CHAPTER XXIV

BONAPARTE'S WATERLOO

Bonaparte lay on the little front porch—the loafing place which opened into Billy Buch's bar-room. Apparently, he was asleep and basking in the warm Autumn sunshine. In reality he was doing his star trick and one which could have originated only in the brains of a born genius. Feigning sleep, he thus enticed within striking distance all the timid country dogs visiting Cottontown for the first time, and viewing its wonders with a palpitating heart. Then, like a bolt from the sky, he would fall on them, appalled and paralyzed—a demon with flashing teeth and abbreviated tail.

When finally released, with lacerated hides and wounded feelings, they went rapidly homeward, and they told it in dog language, from Dan to Beersheba, that Cottontown was full of the terrible and the unexpected.

And a great morning he had had of it—for already three humble and unsuspecting curs, following three humble and unsuspecting countrymen who had walked in to get their morning's dram, had fallen victims to his guile.

Each successful raid of Bonaparte brought forth shouts of laughter from within, in which Billy Buch, the Dutch proprietor, joined. It always ended in Bonaparte being invited in and treated to a cuspidor of beer—the drinking, with the cuspidor as his drinking horn, being part of his repertoire. After each one Billy Buch would proudly exclaim:

"Mine Gott, but dat Ponyparte ees one greet dog!"

Then Bonaparte would reel around in a half drunken swagger and go back to watch for other dogs.

"I tell you, Billy," said Jud Carpenter—"Jes' watch that dog. They ain't no dog on earth his e'kal when it comes to brains. Them country dogs aflyin' up the road reminds me of old Uncle Billy Alexander who paid for his shoes in bacon, and paid every spring in advance for the shoes he was to get in the fall. But one fall when he rid over after his shoes, the neighbors said the shoemaker had gone—gone for good—to Texas to live—gone an' left his creditors behin'. Uncle Billy looked long an' earnestly t'wards the settin' sun, raised his han's to heaven an' said: 'Good-bye, my bacon!'"

Billy Buch laughed loudly.

"Dat ees goot—goot—goot-bye, mine bac'n! I dus remember dat."

Bonaparte had partaken of his fourth cuspidor of beer and was in a delightful state of swagger and fight when he saw an unusual commotion up the street. What was it, thought Bonaparte—a crowd of boys and men surrounding another man with an organ and leading a little devil of a hairy thing, dressed up like a man.

His hair bristled with indignation. That little thing dividing honors with him in Cottontown? It was not to be endured for a moment!

Bonaparte stood gazing in indignant wonder. He slowly arose and shambled along half drunkenly to see what it all meant. A crowd had gathered around the thing—the insignificant thing which was attracting more attention in Cottontown than himself, the champion dog. Among them were some school boys, and one of them, a red-headed lad, was telling his brother all about it.

"Now, Ozzie B., this is a monkey—the furst you've ever seed. He looks jes' like I told you—sorter like a man an' sorter like a nigger an' sorter like a groun' hog."

"The pretties' thing I ever seed," said Ozzie B., walking around and staring delightedly.

The crowd grew larger. It was a show Cottontown had never seen before.

Then two men came out of the bar-room—one, the bar-keeper, fat and jolly, and the other lank and with malicious eyes.

This gave Bonaparte his cue and he bristled and growled.

"Look out, mister," said the tender-hearted Ozzie B. to the Italian, "watch this here dog, Bonaparte; he's terrible 'bout fightin'. He'll eat yo' monkey if he gets a chance."

"Monk he noo 'fear'd ze dog," grinned the Italian. "Monk he whup ze dog."

"Vot's dat?" exclaimed Billy Buch—"Vot's dat, man, you say? Mine Gott, I bet ten to one dat Ponyparte eats him oop!"

To prove it Bonaparte ran at the monkey savagely. But the monkey ran up on the Italian's shoulder, where he grinned at the dog.

The Italian smiled. Then he ran his hand into a dirty leathern belt which he carried around his waist—and slowly counted out some gold coins. With a smile fresh as the skies of Italy, full of all sweetness, gentleness and suavity:

"Cover zees, den, py Gar!"

Billy gasped and grasped Jud around the neck where he clung, with his Dutch smile frozen on his lips. Jud, with collapsed under jaw, looked sheepishly around. Bonaparte tried to stand, but he, too, sat down in a heap.

The crowd cheered the Italian.

"We will do it, suh," said Jud, who was the first to recover, and who knew he would get his part of it from Billy.

"Ve vill cover eet," said Billy, with ashen face.

"We will!" barked Bonaparte, recovering his equilibrium and snarling at the monkey.

There was a sob and a wail on the outskirts of the crowd.

"Oh, don't let him kill the monkey—oh, don't!"

It was Ozzie B.

Archie B. ran hastily around to him, made a cross mark in the road with his toe and spat in it.

"You're a fool as usual, Ozzie B.," he said, shaking his brother. "Can't you see that Italian knows what he's about? If he'd risk that twenty, much as he loves money, he'd risk his soul. Venture pee-wee under the bridge—bam—bam—bam!"

Ozzie B. grew quieter. Somehow, what Archie B. said always made things look differently. Then Archie B. came up and whispered in his ear: "I'm fur the monkey—the Lord is on his side."

Ozzie B. thought this was grand.

Then Archie B. hunted for his Barlow pocket knife. Around his neck, tied with a string, was a small greasy, dirty bag, containing a piece of gum asafoetida and a ten-dollar gold piece. The asafoetida was worn to keep off contagious diseases, and the gold piece, which represented all his earthly possessions, had been given him by his grandmother the year she died.

Archie B. was always ready to "swap sight under seen." He played marbles for keeps, checkers for apples, ran foot-races for stakes, and even learned his Sunday School lessons for prizes.

The Italian still stood, smiling, when a small red-headed boy came up and touched him on the arm. He put a ten-dollar gold piece into the Italian's hand.

"Put this in for me, mister—an' make 'em put up a hundred mo'. I want some of that lucre."

The Italian was touched. He patted Archie B.'s head:

"Breens," he said, "breens uppa da."

Again he shook the gold in the face of Jud and Bill.

"Now bring on ze ten to one, py Gar!"

The cheers of the crowd nettled Billy and Jud.

"Jes' wait till we come back," said Jud. "'He laughs bes' who laughs las'.'"

They retired for consultation.

Bonaparte followed.

Within the bar-room they wiped the cold perspiration from their faces and looked speechlessly into each other's eyes. Billy spoke first.

"Mine Gott, but we peek it oop in de road, Jud?"

"It seems that way to me—a dead cinch."

Bonaparte was positive—only let him get to the monkey, he said with his wicked eyes.

Billy looked at Bonaparte, big, swarthy, sinewy and savage. He thought of the little monkey.

"Dees is greet!—dees is too goot!—Jud, we peek it oop in de road, heh?"

"I'm kinder afraid we'll wake an' find it a dream, Billy—hurry up. Get the cash."

Billy was thoughtful: "Tree hun'd'd dollars—Jud—eef—eef—" he shook his head.

"Now, Billy," said Jud patronizingly—"that's nonsense. Bonaparte will eat him alive in two minutes. Now, he bein' my dorg, jes' you put up the coin an' let me in on the ground floor. I'll pay it back—if we lose—" he laughed. "If we lose—it's sorter like sayin' if the sun don't rise."

"Dat ees so, Jud, we peek eet oop in de road. But eef we don't peek eet oop, Billy ees pusted!"

"Oh," said Jud, "it's all like takin' candy from your own child."

The news had spread and a crowd had gathered to see the champion dog of the Tennessee Valley eat up a monkey. All the loafers and ne'er-do-wells of Cottontown were there. The village had known no such excitement since the big mill had been built.

They came up and looked sorrowfully at the monkey, as they would look in the face of the dead. But, considering that he had so short a time to live, he returned the grin with a reverence which was sacrilegious.

"So han'sum—so han'sum," said Uncle Billy Caldwell, the squire. "So bright an' han'sum an' to die so young!"

"It's nothin' but murder," said another.

This proved too much for Ozzie B.—

"Don't—d-o-n-'t—let him kill the monkey," he cried.

There was an electric flash of red as Archie B. ran around the tree and kicked the sobs back into his brother.

"Just wait, Ozzie B., you fool."

"For—what?" sobbed Ozzie.

"For what the monkey does to Bonaparte," he shouted triumphantly.

The crowd yelled derisively: "What the monkey does to Bonaparte—that's too good?"

"Boy," said Uncle Billy kindly—"don't you know it's ag'in nachur—why, the dorg'll eat him up!"

"That's rot," said Archie B. disdainfully. Then hotly: "Yes, it wus ag'in nachur when David killed Goliath—when Sampson slew the lion, and when we licked the British. Oh, it wus ag'in nachur then, but it looks mighty nach'ul now, don't it? Jes' you wait an' see what the monkey does to Bonaparte. I tell you, Uncle Billy, the Lord's on the monkey's side—can't you see it?"

Uncle Billy smiled and shook his head. He was interrupted by low laughter and cheers. A villager had drawn a crude picture on a white paste-board and was showing it around. A huge dog was shaking a lifeless monkey and under it was written:

"What Bonaparte Done To The Monkey!"

Archie B. seized it and spat on it derisively: "Oh, well, that's the way of the worl'," he said. "God makes one wise man to see befo', an' a million fools to see afterwards."

The depths of life's mysteries have never yet been sounded, and one of the wonders of it all is that one small voice praying for flowers in a wilderness of thorns may live to see them blossom at his feet.

"I've seed stranger things than that," remarked Uncle Billy thoughtfully. "The boy mout be right."

And now Jud and Billy were seen coming out of the store, with their hands full of gold.

"Eet's robbery—eet's stealin'"—winked Billy at the crowd—"eet's like takin' it from a babe—"

With one accord the crowd surged toward the back lot, where Bonaparte, disgusted with the long delay, had lain down on a pile of newly-blown leaves and slept. Around the lot was a solid plank fence, with one gate open, and here in the lot, sound asleep in the sunshine, lay the champion.

The Italian brought along the monkey in his arms. Archie B. calmly and confidently acting as his bodyguard. Jud walked behind to see that the monkey did not get away, and behind him came Ozzie B. sobbing in his hiccoughy way:

"Don't let him kill the po' little thing!"

He could go no farther than the gate. There he stood weeping and looking at the merciless crowd.

Bonaparte was still asleep on his pile of leaves. Jud would have called and wakened him, but Archie B. said: "Oh, the monkey will waken him quick enough—let him alone."

In the laugh which followed, Jud yielded and Archie B. won the first blood in the battle of brains.

The crowd now stood silent and breathless in one corner of the lot. Only Ozzie B.'s sobs were heard. In the far corner lay Bonaparte.

The Italian stooped, and unlinking the chain of the monkey's collar, sat him on the ground and, pointing to the sleeping dog, whispered something in Italian into his pet's ear.

The crowd scarcely drew its breath as it saw the little animal slipping across the yard to its death.

Within three feet of the dog he stopped, then springing quickly on Bonaparte, with a screeching, bloodcurdling yell, grabbed his stump of a tail in both hands, and as the crowd rushed up, they heard its sharp teeth close on Bonaparte's most sensitive member with the deadly click of a steel trap.

The effect was instantaneous. A battery could not have brought the champion to his feet quicker. With him came the monkey—glued there—a continuation of the dog's tail.

Around and around went Bonaparte, snarling and howling and making maddening efforts to reach the monkey. But owing to the shortness of Bonaparte's tail, the monkey kept just out of reach, its hind legs braced against the dog, its teeth and nails glued to the two inches of tail.

Around and around whirled Bonaparte, trying to throw off the things which had dropped on him, seemingly, from the skies. His growls of defiance turned to barks, then to bowls of pain and finally, as he ran near to Archie B., he was heard to break into yelps of fright as he broke away dashing around the lot in a whirlwind of leaves and dust.

The champion dog was running!

"Sick him, Bonaparte, grab him—turn round an' grab him!" shouted Jud pale to his eyes, and shaking with shame.

"Seek heem, Ponyparte—O mine Gott, seek him," shouted Billy.

Jud rushed and tried to head the dog, but the champion seemed to have only one idea in his head—to get away from the misery which brought up his rear.

Around he went once more, then seeing the gate open, he rushed out, knocking Ozzie B. over into the dust, and when the crowd rushed out, nothing could be seen except a cloud of dust going down the village street, in the hind most cloud of it a pair of little red coat tails flapping in the breeze.

Then the little red coat tails suddenly dropped out of the cloud of dust and came running back up the road to meet its master.

Jud watched the vanishing cloud of dust going toward the distant mountains.

"My God—not Bonaparte—not the champion," he said.

Billy stood also looking with big Dutch tears in his eyes. He watched the cloud of dust go over the distant hills. Then he waved his hand sadly—

"Goot-pye, mine bac'n!"

The monkey came up grinning triumphantly.

Thinking he had done something worthy of a penny, he added to Billy Buch's woe by taking off his comical cap and passing it around for a collection.

He was honest in it, but the crowd took it as irony, and amid their laughter Jud and Billy slipped away.

Uncle Billy, the stake-holder, in handing the money over to the Italian, remarked:

"Wal, it don't look so much ag'in nachur now, after all."

"Breens uppa dar"—smiled the Italian as he put ten eagles into Archie B.'s hand. All of which made Archie B. vain, for the crowd now cheered him as they had jeered before.

"Come, let's go, Ozzie B.," he said. "They ain't no man livin' can stand too much heroism."



CHAPTER XXV

A BORN NATURALIST

Archie B. trotted off, striking a path leading through the wood. It was a near cut to the log school house which stood in an old field, partly grown up in scrub-oaks and bushes.

Down in the wood, on a clean bar where a mountain stream had made a bed of white sand, he stopped, pulled off his coat, counted his gold again with eyes which scarcely believed it yet, and then turned handsprings over and over in the white sand.

This relieved him of much of the suppressed steam which had been under pressure for two hours. Then he sat down on a log and counted once more his gold.

Ozzie B., pious, and now doubly so at sight of his brother's wealth, stood looking over his shoulder:

"It was the good Lord done it," he whispered reverently, as he stood and looked longingly at the gold.

"Of course, but I helped at the right time, that's the way the Lord does everything here."

Then Archie B. went down into his coat pocket and brought out a hollow rubber ball, with a small hole in one end. Ozzie B. recognized his brother's battery of Gypsy Juice.

"How—when, oh, Archie B.!"

"-S-h-h—Ozzie B. It don't pay to show yo' hand even after you've won—the other feller might remember it nex' time. 'Taint good business sense. But I pumped it into Bonaparte at the right time when he was goin' round an' round an' undecided whether he'd take holt or git. This settled him—he got. The Lord was on the monkey's side, of course, but He needed Gypsy Juice at the right time."

Then he showed Ozzie B. how it was done. "So, with yo' hand in yo' pocket—so! Then here comes Bonaparte round an' round an' skeered mighty nigh to the runnin' point. So—then sczit! It wus enough."

Ozzie B. shuddered: "You run a terrible risk doin' that. They'd have killed you if they'd seen it, Jud an' Billy. An' all yo' money up too."

"Of course," said his brother, "but Ozzie B., when you bluff, bluff bold; when you bet, bet big; when you steal, steal straight."

Ozzie B. shook his head. Then he looked up at the sun high above the trees.

He sprang up from the log, pale and scared.

"Archie B.—Archie B., jes' look at the sun! It must be 'leven o'clock an—an think what we'll ketch for bein' late at school. Oh, but I clean forgot—oh—"

He started off trembling.

"Hold on, hold on!" said his brother running and catching Ozzie B. in the coat collar. "Now you sho'ly ain't goin' to be sech a fool as that? It's too late to go now; we'll only ketch a whuppin'. We are goin' to play hookey to-day."

But Ozzie B. only shook his head. "That's wrong—so wrong. The Lord—He will not bless us—maw says so. Oh, I can't, Archie B."

"Now look here, Ozzie B. The Lord don't expec' nobody but a fool to walk into a tan-hidin'. If you go to school now, old Triggers will tan yo' hide, see? Then he'll send word to paw an' when you get home to-night you'll git another one."

"Maw said I was to allers do my duty. Oh, I can't tell him a lie!"

"You've got to lie, Ozzie B. They's times when everybody has got to lie. Afterwards when it's all over an' understood they can square it up in other ways. When a man or 'oman is caught and downed it's all over—they can't tell the truth then an' get straight—an' there's no come ag'in! But if they lie an' brazen it out they'll have another chance yet. Then's the time to stop lyin'—after yo' ain't caught."

"Oh, I can't," said Ozzie B., trying to pull away. "I must—must go to school."

"Rats"—shouted Archie B., seizing him with both hands and shaking him savagely—"here I am argu'in' with you about a thing that any fool orter see when I cu'd a bin yonder a huntin' for that squirrel nest I wus tellin' you about. Now what'll happen if you go to school? Ole Triggers'll find out where you've been an' what a-doin'—he'll lick you. Paw'll know all about it when you git home—he'll lick you."

Ozzie B. only shook his head: "It's my duty—hate to do it, Archie B.—but it's my duty. If the Lord wills me a lickin' for tellin' the truth, I'll, I'll hafter take it—" and he looked very resigned.

"Oh, you're playin' for martyrdom again!"

"There was Casabianca, Archie B.—him that stood on the burnin' deck"—he ventured timidly.

"Tarnashun!" shouted his brother—"an' I hope he is still standin' on a burnin' deck in the other worl'—don't mention that fool to me!—to stay there an' git blowed up after the ship was afire an' his dad didn't sho' up." He spat on a mark: "Venture pee-wee under the bridge—bam—bam—bam."

"There was William Tell's son," ventured his brother again.

"Another gol-darn id'jut, Ozzie B., like his dad that put him up to it. Why, if the ole man had missed, the two would'er gone down in history as the champion ass an' his colt. The risk was too big for the odds. Why, he didn't have one chance in a hundred. Besides, them fellers actin' the fool don't hurt nobody but theyselves. Now you—"

"How's that, Archie B.?"

Archie B. lowered his voice to a gentle persuasive whisper: "Don't do it, ole man—come now—be reasonable. If we stay here in the woods, Triggers'll think we're at home. Dad will think we're in school. They'll never know no better. It's wrong, but we'll have plenty o' time to make it right—we've got six months mo' of school this year. Now, if you do go—you'll be licked twice an'—an', Ozzie B., I'll git licked when paw hears of it to-night."

"Oh," said Ozzie B., "that's it, is it?"

"Yes, of course; if a man don't look out for his own hide, whose goin' to do it for him? Come now, ole man."

Ozzie B. was silent. His brother saw the narrow forehead wrinkling in indecision. He knew the different habits—not principles—of his nature were at work for mastery. Finally the hypocrite habit prevailed, when he said piously: "We have sowed the wind, Archie B.—we'll hafter reap the whirlwind, like paw says."

"Go!" shouted his brother. "Go!" and he helped him along with a kick—"Go, since I can't save you. You'll reap the whirlwind, but I won't if my brains can save me."

He sat down on a log and watched his brother go down the path, sobbing as usual, when he felt that he was a martyr. He sat long and thought.