The Bishop of Cottontown Part 27

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 gra.s.s 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 s.h.i.+nin' 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 c.o.o.n-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 s.h.i.+nin', 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 st.i.tch 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 G.o.d lives an' is just--an' no man can doubt that.

No--no--Bud, this life ain't all, because it's G.o.d'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 G.o.d into us, Bud--we're all a little part of G.o.d, even the worst of us, an' we can make it big or let it die out accordin' as we pray. If we stop prayin' G.o.d jes' dies out in us. Of course G.o.d 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 G.o.d is behind the law, an' if you get in harmony with G.o.d'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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d.

"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. G.o.d 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--"G.o.d 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, a.s.surin' you of rain an' suns.h.i.+ne 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d it didn't pester me no more'n it did them."