The Bishop of Cottontown Part 51

"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 s.h.i.+loh--not yet--not yet!'"

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

CHAPTER XXIII

G.o.d WILL PROVIDE

In a few days s.h.i.+loh 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.

s.h.i.+loh's narrow escape from death had forever settled the child-labor question with him--he would starve, "by the Grace of G.o.d," 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 s.h.i.+loh'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 G.o.d, Jud Carpenter," he said in a strange voice, rounded with a deadly determination, "but in the name of G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+loh 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 s.h.i.+loh," went on the old man--"it'll mean life to her too--life to git away from the mill.

"Cap'n Tom and s.h.i.+loh--I must have it, Jack--I must have it. G.o.d will provide a way. I'd give my home--I'd give everything--just to save them two--Cap'n Tom and little s.h.i.+loh."

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. s.h.i.+pton'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 s.h.i.+loh'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. G.o.d 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'

s.h.i.+loh. G.o.d'll provide, Jack--G.o.d'll provide!"

CHAPTER XXIV