The Bishop of Cottontown Part 47

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 G.o.d--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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d."

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 s.h.i.+p. 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 G.o.d'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 d.a.m.ned 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 d.i.c.key'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 pa.s.ses 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 c.o.o.n dog, which followed them everywhere, sat on its tail, well to the front, looking the very essence of concentrated solemnity.

But the c.o.o.n 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 b.u.t.ts' organ music sounded, no sooner did she strike up the first notes than the c.o.o.n 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 pa.s.sed 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 c.o.o.n 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 b.u.t.ts--"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.