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+Project Gutenberg's The Bishop of Cottontown, by John Trotwood Moore
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Bishop of Cottontown
+       A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills
+
+Author: John Trotwood Moore
+
+Release Date: November 26, 2007 [EBook #23637]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BISHOP OF COTTONTOWN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marcia Brooks and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE KINNEYS "Take care of Lily"]
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+Bishop of Cottontown
+
+A STORY OF THE SOUTHERN
+COTTON MILLS
+
+BY
+JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"A Summer Hymnal," "Ole Mistis," "Songs and Stories
+from Tennessee," etc.
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY THE KINNEYS
+
+
+
+
+       "And each in his separate star,
+    Shall paint the thing as he sees it
+          For the God of Things As They Are."
+
+                                            Kipling
+
+
+
+
+PHILADELPHIA
+
+THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
+
+1906
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1906,
+
+BY JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE
+
+Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, 1906
+
+
+_All Rights Reserved_
+
+
+
+
+IN MEMORY OF MY MOTHER,
+
+EMILY BILLINGSLEA MOORE,
+
+WHO DIED
+
+DECEMBER 14TH, 1903,
+
+THE FAITH OF THIS BOOK BEING HERS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                     PAGE
+
+
+PART FIRST--THE BLOOM.
+
+PROLOGUE--THE COTTON BLOSSOM                   7
+
+
+PART SECOND--THE BOLL.
+
+    I. COTTON                                 13
+   II. RICHARD TRAVIS                         18
+  III. JUD CARPENTER                          27
+   IV. FOOD FOR THE FACTORY                   39
+    V. THE FLY CATCHER CAUGHT                 50
+   VI. THE FLINT AND THE COAL                 64
+  VII. HILLARD WATTS                          84
+ VIII. WESTMORELAND                           92
+   IX. A MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING                103
+    X. A STAR AND A SATELLITE                108
+   XI. A MIDNIGHT BURIAL                     117
+  XII. JACK BRACKEN                          127
+
+
+PART THIRD--THE GIN.
+
+    I. ALICE WESTMORE                        143
+   II. THE REAL HEROES                       151
+  III. FRANKLIN                              154
+
+
+PART FOURTH--THE LINT.
+
+    I. COTTONTOWN                            179
+   II. BEN BUTLER                            187
+  III. AN ANSWER TO PRAYER                   199
+   IV. HOW THE BISHOP FROZE                  205
+    V. THE FLOCK                             209
+   VI. A BISHOP MILITANT                     213
+  VII. MARGARET ADAMS                        219
+ VIII. HARD-SHELL SUNDAY                     226
+   IX. THE RETURN                            232
+    X. THE SWAN SONG OF THE CREPE MYRTLE     239
+   XI. THE CASKET AND THE GHOST              248
+  XII. A MIDNIGHT GUARD                      254
+ XIII. THE THEFT OF A CHILDHOOD              258
+  XIV. UNCLE DAVE'S WILL                     275
+   XV. EDWARD CONWAY                         287
+  XVI. HELEN'S DESPAIR                       296
+ XVII. THE WHIPPER-IN                        305
+XVIII. SAMANTHA CAREWE                       312
+  XIX. A QUICK CONVERSION                    317
+   XX. A LIVE FUNERAL                        326
+  XXI. JACK AND THE LITTLE ONES              336
+ XXII. THE BROKEN THREAD                     344
+XXIII. GOD WILL PROVIDE                      350
+ XXIV. BONAPARTE'S WATERLOO                  355
+  XXV. A BORN NATURALIST                     366
+ XXVI. BEN BUTLER'S LAST RACE                380
+XXVII. YOU'LL COME BACK A MAN                414
+
+
+PART FIFTH--THE LOOM.
+
+    I. A NEW MILL GIRL                       419
+   II. IN THE DEPTHS                         431
+  III. WORK IN A NEW LIGHT                   438
+   IV. MAGGIE                                443
+    V. PAY-DAY                               447
+   VI. THE PLOT                              456
+  VII. MRS. WESTMORE TAKES A HAND            464
+ VIII. A QUESTION BROUGHT HOME               473
+   IX. THE PEDIGREE OF ACHIEVEMENT           487
+    X. MARRIED IN GOD'S SIGHT                493
+   XI. THE QUEEN IS DEAD                     499
+  XII. IN THYSELF THERE IS WEAKNESS          508
+ XIII. HIMSELF AGAIN                         512
+  XIV. THE JOY OF THE MORNING                519
+   XV. THE TOUCH OF GOD                      526
+  XVI. MAMMY MARIA                           533
+ XVII. THE DOUBLE THAT DIED                  545
+XVIII. THE DYING LION                        552
+  XIX. FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH               564
+   XX. THE ANGEL WITH THE FLAMING SWORD      572
+  XXI. THE GREAT FIRE                        581
+ XXII. A CONWAY AGAIN                        588
+XXIII. DIED FOR THE LAW                      596
+ XXIV. THE ATONEMENT                         611
+  XXV. THE SHADOWS AND THE CLOUDS            624
+ XXVI. THE MODEL MILL                        633
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer errors, have been silently
+corrected. For clarity, have added new paragraphs with respect to
+dialogue within paragraphs. The name Hillard and Hilliard have
+been uniformly changed to Hillard. Corrected incorrect usages of
+'its' and 'it's.' All other inconsistencies (i.e. The inconsistent
+spellings--sombre/somber, gray/grey, hyphen/no hyphen) have been
+left as they were in the original.]
+
+
+
+
+PART FIRST--THE BLOOM
+
+
+
+
+THE COTTON BLOSSOM
+
+
+The cotton blossom is the only flower that is born in the shuttle of
+a sunbeam and dies in a loom.
+
+It is the most beautiful flower that grows, and needs only to become
+rare to be priceless--only to die to be idealized.
+
+For the world worships that which it hopes to attain, and our ideals
+are those things just out of our reach.
+
+Satiety has ten points and possession is nine of them.
+
+If, in early August, the delicately green leaves of this most
+aristocratic of all plants, instead of covering acres of Southland
+shimmering under a throbbing sun, peeped daintily out, from among the
+well-kept beds of some noble garden, men would flock to see that
+plant, which, of all plants, looks most like a miniature tree.
+
+A stout-hearted plant,--a tree, dwarfed, but losing not its dignity.
+
+Then, one morning, with the earliest sunrise, and born of it, there
+emerges from the scalloped sea-shell of the bough an exquisite,
+pendulous, cream-white blossom, clasping in its center a golden
+yellow star, pinked with dawn points of light, and, setting high up
+under its sky of milk-white petals flanked with yellow stars, it
+seems to the little nestling field-wrens born beneath it to be the
+miniature arch of daybreak, ere the great eye of the morning star
+closes.
+
+Later, when the sun rises and the sky above grows pink and purple,
+it, too, changes its color from pink to purple, copying the sky from
+zone to zone, from blue to deeper blue, until, at late evening the
+young nestlings may look up and say, in their bird language: "It is
+twilight."
+
+What other flower among them can thus copy Nature, the great master?
+
+Under every sky is a sphere, and under this sky picture, when night
+falls and closes it, a sphere is born. And in that sphere is all of
+earth.
+
+Its oils and its minerals are there, and one day, becoming too full
+of richness, it bursts, and throws open a five-roomed granary, stored
+with richer fabric than ever came from the shuttles of Fez and
+holding globes of oil such as the olives of Hebron dreamed not of.
+
+And in that fabric is the world clothed.
+
+Oh, little loom of the cotton-plant, poet that can show us the sky,
+painter that paints it, artisan that reaches out, and, from the skein
+of a sunbeam, the loom of the air and the white of its own soul,
+weaves the cloth that clothes the world!
+
+From dawn and darkness building a loom. From sunlight and shadow
+weaving threads of such fineness that the spider's were ropes of sand
+and the hoar frost's but clumsy icicles.
+
+Weaving--weaving--weaving them. And the delicately patterned tapestry
+of ever-changing clouds forming patterns of a fabric, white as the
+snow of the centuries, determined that since it has to make the
+garments of men, it will make them unsullied.
+
+Oh, little plant, poet, painter, master-artisan!
+
+It is true to Nature to the last. The summer wanes and the winter
+comes, and when the cotton sphere bursts, 'tis a ball of snow, but a
+dazzling white, spidery snow, which warms and does not chill, brings
+comfort and not care, wealth and the rich warm blood, and not the
+pinches of poverty.
+
+There are those who cannot hear God's voice unless He speaks to them
+in the thunders of Sinai, nor see Him unless He flares before them in
+the bonfires of a burning bush. They grumble because His Messenger
+came to a tribe in the hill countries of Long Ago. They wish to see
+the miracle of the dead arising. They see not the miracle of life
+around them. Death from Life is more strange to them than life from
+death.
+
+'Tis the silent voice that speaks the loudest. Did Sinai speak louder
+than this? Hear it:
+
+"I am a bloom, and yet I reflect the sky from the morning's star to
+the midnight's. I am a flower, yet I show you the heaven from the
+dawn of its birth to the twilight of its death. I am a boll, and yet
+a miniature earth stored with silks and satins, oils of the olives,
+minerals of all lands. And when I am ripe I throw open my five-roomed
+granary, each fitted to the finger and thumb of the human hand, with
+a depth between, equalled only by the palm."
+
+O voice of the cotton-plant, do we need to go to oracles or listen
+for a diviner voice than yours when thus you tell us: Pluck?
+
+
+
+
+PART SECOND--THE BOLL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+COTTON
+
+
+The frost had touched the gums and maples in the Tennessee Valley,
+and the wood, which lined every hill and mountain side, looked like
+huge flaming bouquets--large ones, where the thicker wood clustered
+high on the side of Sand Mountain and stood out in crimson, gold and
+yellow against the sky,--small ones, where they clustered around the
+foot hills.
+
+Nature is nothing if not sentimental. She will make bouquets if none
+be made for her; or, mayhap, she wishes her children to be, and so
+makes them bouquets herself.
+
+There was that crispness in the air which puts one to wondering if,
+after all, autumn is not the finest time of the year.
+
+It had been a prosperous year in the Tennessee Valley--that year of
+1874. And it had brought a double prosperity, in that, under the
+leadership of George S. Houston, the white men of the state, after a
+desperate struggle, had thrown off the political yoke of the negro
+and the carpetbagger, and once more the Saxon ruled in the land of
+his birth.
+
+Then was taken a full, long, wholesome, air-filling Anglo-Saxon
+breath, from the Tennessee Valley to the Gulf. There was a quickening
+of pulses that had faltered, and heart-beats that had fluttered,
+dumb and discouraged, now rattled like kettle-drums, to the fight of
+life.
+
+It meant change--redemption--prosperity. And more: that the white
+blood which had made Alabama, need not now leave her for a home
+elsewhere.
+
+It was a year glorious, and to be remembered. One which marks an
+epoch. One wherein there is an end of the old and a beginning of the
+new.
+
+The cotton--the second picking--still whitened thousands of acres.
+There were not hands enough to pick it. The negroes, demoralized for
+a half score of years by the brief splendor of elevation, and backed,
+at first, by Federal bayonets and afterwards by sheer force of their
+own number in elections, had been correspondingly demoralized and
+shiftless. True to their instinct then, as now, they worked only so
+long as they needed money. If one day's cotton picking fed a negro
+for five, he rested the five.
+
+The negro race does not live to lay up for a rainy day.
+
+And so the cotton being neglected, its lengthened and frowseled locks
+hung from wide open bolls like the locks of a tawdry woman in early
+morning.
+
+No one wanted it--that is, wanted it bad enough to pick it. For
+cotton was cheap that fall--very cheap--and picking cotton is a
+back-bending business. Therefore it hung its frowsy locks from the
+boll.
+
+And nothing makes so much for frowsiness in the cotton plant, and in
+woman, as to know they are not wanted.
+
+The gin-houses were yet full, tho' the gin had been running day and
+night. That which poured, like pulverized snow, from the mouth of the
+flues into the pick-room--where the cotton fell before being pressed
+into bales--scarcely had time to be tramped down and packed off in
+baskets to the tall, mast-like screws which pressed the bales and
+bound them with ties, ere the seed cotton came pouring in again from
+wagon bed and basket.
+
+The gin hummed and sawed and sang and creaked, but it could not
+devour the seed cotton fast enough from the piles of the incoming
+fleece.
+
+Those grew lighter and larger all the time.
+
+The eight Tennessee sugar-mules, big and sinewy, hitched to the lever
+underneath the gin-house at The Gaffs, sweated until they sprinkled
+in one continual shower the path which they trod around the
+pivot-beam from morning until night.
+
+Around--around--forever around.
+
+For the levers turned the pivot-beam, and the pivot-beam turned the
+big shaft-wheel which turned the gin-wheel, and the gin had to go or
+it seemed as if the valley would be smothered in cotton.
+
+Picked once, the fields still looked like a snowfall in November, if
+such a thing were possible in a land which scarcely felt a dozen
+snowfalls in as many years.
+
+Dust! There is no dust like that which comes from a gin-house. It may
+be tasted in the air. All other dust is gravel compared to the
+penetrating fineness of that diabolical, burning blight which flies
+out of the lint, from the thousand teeth of the gin-saws, as diamond
+dust flies from the file.
+
+It is all penetrating, consumptive-breeding, sickening, stifling,
+suffocating. It is hot and has a metallic flavor; and it flies from
+the hot steel teeth of the saws, as pestilence from the hot breath of
+the swamps.
+
+It is linty, furry, tickling, smothering, searing.
+
+It makes one wonder why, in picturing hell, no priest ever thought of
+filling it with cotton-gin dust instead of fire.
+
+And it clings there from the Lint to the Loom.
+
+Small wonder that the poor little white slaves, taking up their
+serfdom at the loom where the negro left off at the lint, die like
+pigs in a cotton-seed pen.
+
+There was cotton everywhere--in the fields, unpicked; in the
+gin-houses, unginned. That in the fields would be plowed under next
+spring, presenting the strange anomaly of plowing under one crop to
+raise another of the same kind. But it has been done many times in
+the fertile Valley of the Tennessee.
+
+There is that in the Saxon race that makes it discontented, even with
+success.
+
+There was cotton everywhere; it lay piled up around the gin-houses
+and screws and negro-cabins and under the sheds and even under the
+trees. All of it, which was exposed to the weather, was in bales,
+weighing each a fourth of a ton and with bulging white spots in their
+bellies where the coarse cotton baling failed to cover their
+nakedness.
+
+It was cotton--cotton--cotton. Seed,--ginned,--lint,--baled,--cotton.
+
+The Gaffs was a fine estate of five thousand acres which had been
+handed down for several generations. The old home sat in a grove of
+hickory, oak and elm trees, on a gentle slope. Ancient sentinels, and
+they were there when the first Travis came from North Carolina to the
+Tennessee Valley and built his first double-log cabin under the
+shelter of their arms.
+
+From the porch of The Gaffs,--as the old home was called--the
+Tennessee River could be seen two miles away, its brave swift channel
+glittering like the flash of a silver arrow in the dark green wood
+which bordered it.
+
+Back of the house the mountain ridge rolled; not high enough to be
+awful and unapproachable, nor so low as to breed contempt from a too
+great familiarity. Not grand, but the kind one loves to wander over.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+RICHARD TRAVIS
+
+
+Strength was written in the face of Richard Travis--the owner of The
+Gaffs--intellectual, physical, passion-strength, strength of purpose
+and of doing. Strength, but not moral strength; and hence lacking all
+of being all-conquering.
+
+He had that kind of strength which made others think as he thought,
+and do as he would have them do. He saw things clearly, strongly,
+quickly. His assurance made all things sure. He knew things and was
+proud of it. He knew himself and other men. And best of all, as he
+thought, he knew women.
+
+Richard Travis was secretary and treasurer of the Acme Cotton Mills.
+
+To-night he was alone in the old-fashioned but elegant dining-room of
+the Gaffs. The big log fire of ash and hickory was pleasant, and the
+blaze, falling in sombre color on the old mahogany side-board which
+sat opposite the fireplace, on the double ash floor, polished and
+shining, added a deeper and richer hue to it. From the toes of the
+dragon on which it rested, to the beak of the hand-carved eagle,
+spreading his wings over the shield beneath him, carved in the solid
+mahogany and surrounded by thirteen stars, all was elegance and
+aristocracy. Even the bold staring eyes of the eagle seemed proud of
+the age of the side-board, for had it not been built when the stars
+numbered but thirteen? And was not the eagle rampant then?
+
+The big brass andirons were mounted with the bronzed heads of
+wood-nymphs, and these looked saucily up at the eagle. The
+three-cornered cupboard, in one corner of the room, was of cherry,
+with small diamond-shaped windows in front, showing within rare old
+sets of china and cut glass. The handsome square dining table matched
+the side-board, only its dragon feet were larger and stronger, as if
+intended to stand up under more weight, at times.
+
+Everything was ancient and had a pedigree. Even the Llewellyn setter
+was old, for he was grizzled around the muzzle and had deep-set,
+lusterless eyes, from which the firelight, as if afraid of their very
+uncanniness, darted out as soon as it entered. And he carried his
+head to one side when he walked, as old and deaf dogs do.
+
+He lay on a rug before the fire. He had won this license, for
+opposite his name on the kennel books were more field-trials won than
+by any other dog in Alabama. And now he dozed and dreamed of them
+again, with many twitchings of feet, and cocked, quivering ears, and
+rigid tail, as if once more frozen to the covey in the tall
+sedge-grass of the old field, with the smell of frost-bitten
+Lespedeza, wet with dew, beneath his feet.
+
+Travis stooped and petted the old dog. It was the one thing of his
+household he loved most.
+
+"Man or dog--'tis all the same," he mused as he watched the dreaming
+dog--"it is old age's privilege to dream of what has been done--it is
+youth's to do."
+
+He stretched himself in his big mahogany chair and glanced down his
+muscular limbs, and drew his arms together with a snap of quick
+strength.
+
+Everything at The Gaffs was an open diary of the master's life. It is
+so in all homes--that which we gather around us, from our books to
+our bed-clothes, is what we are.
+
+And so the setter on the rug meant that Richard Travis was the best
+wing-shot in the Tennessee Valley, and that his kennel of Gladstone
+setters had won more field trials than any other kennel in the South.
+No man has really hunted who has never shot quail in Alabama over a
+well-broken setter. All other hunting is butchery compared to the
+scientific sweetness of this sport.
+
+There was a good-night, martial, daring crow, ringing from the
+Hoss-apple tree at the dining-room window. Travis smiled and called
+out:
+
+"Lights waked you up, eh, Dick? You're a gay Lothario--go back to
+sleep."
+
+Richard Travis had the original stock--the Irish Greys--which his
+doughty old grandsire, General Jeremiah Travis, developed to
+championship honors, and in a memorable main with his friend, General
+Andrew Jackson, ten years after the New Orleans campaign, he had
+cleared up the Tennesseans, cock and pocket. It was a big main in
+which Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama were pitted against each other,
+and in which the Travis cocks of the Emerald Isle strain, as Old
+Hickory expressed it, "stood the steel like a stuck she-b'ar,
+fightin' for her cubs."
+
+General Travis had been an expert at heeling a cock; and it is said
+that his skill on that occasion was worth more than the blood of his
+Greys; for by a peculiar turn of the gaffs,--so slight as to escape
+the notice of any but an expert--his champion cock had struck the
+blow which ended the battle. With the money won, he had added four
+thousand acres to his estate, and afterwards called it The Gaffs.
+
+And a strong, brave man had been General Jeremiah Travis,--pioneer,
+Indian fighter, Colonel in the Creek war and at New Orleans, and a
+General in the war with Mexico.
+
+His love for the Union had been that of a brave man who had gone
+through battles and shed his blood for his country.
+
+The Civil War broke his heart.
+
+In his early days his heart had been in his thoroughbred horses and
+his fighting cocks, and when he heard that his nephew had died with
+Crockett and Bowie at the Alamo, he drew himself proudly up and said:
+"A right brave boy, by the Eternal, and he died as becomes one
+crossed on an Irish Grey cock."
+
+That had been years before. Now, a new civilization had come on the
+stage, and where the grandsire had taken to thoroughbreds, Richard
+Travis, the grandson, took to trotters. In the stalls where once
+stood the sons of Sir Archie, Boston, and imported Glencoe himself,
+now were sons of Mambrino Patchin, and George Wilkes and Harold. And
+a splendid lot they were--sires,--brood mares and colts, in the
+paddocks of The Gaffs.
+
+Travis took no man's dust in the Tennessee Valley. At county fairs he
+had a walk-over.
+
+He had inherited The Gaffs from his grandfather, for both his parents
+died in his infancy, and his two remaining uncles gave their lives in
+Virginia, early in the war, following the flag of the Confederacy.
+
+One of them had left a son, whom Richard Travis had educated and who
+had, but the June before, graduated from the State University.
+
+Travis saw but little of him, since each did as he pleased, and it
+did not please either of them to get into each other's way.
+
+There had been no sympathy between them. There could not be, for they
+were too much alike in many ways.
+
+There can be no sympathy in selfishness.
+
+All through the summer Harry Travis had spent his time at picnics and
+dances, and, but for the fact that his cousin now and then missed one
+of his best horses from the stable, or found his favorite gun put
+away foul, or his fishing tackle broken, he would not have known that
+Harry was on the place.
+
+Cook-mother Charity kept the house. Bond and free, she had spent all
+her life at The Gaffs. Of this she was prouder than to have been
+housekeeper at Windsor. Her word was law; she was the only mortal who
+bossed, as she called it, Richard Travis.
+
+Usually, friends from town kept the owner company, and The Gaffs'
+reputation for hospitality, while generous, was not unnoted for its
+hilarity.
+
+To-night Richard Travis was lonely. His supper tray had not been
+removed. He lit a cigar and picked up a book--it was Herbert Spencer,
+and he was soon interested.
+
+Ten minutes later an octoroon house-girl, with dark Creole eyes, and
+bright ribbons in her hair, came in to remove the supper dishes. She
+wore a bright-colored green gown, cut low. As she reached over the
+table near him he winced at the strong smell of musk, which beauties
+of her race imagine adds so greatly to their aesthetic _status-quo_.
+She came nearer to him than was necessary, and there was an attempted
+familiarity in the movement that caused him to curve slightly the
+corner of his thin, nervous lip, showing beneath his mustache. She
+kept a half glance on him always. He smoked and read on, until the
+rank smell of her perfume smote him again through the odor of his
+cigar, and as he looked up she had busied around so close to him that
+her exposed neck was within two feet of him bent in seeming innocence
+over the tray. With a mischievous laugh he reached over and flipped
+the hot ashes from his cigar upon her neck. She screamed affectedly
+and danced about shaking off the ashes. Then with feigned maidenly
+piquancy and many reproachful glances, she went out laughing good
+humoredly.
+
+He was good natured, and when she was gone he laughed boyishly.
+
+Good nature is one of the virtues of impurity.
+
+Still giggling she set the tray down in the kitchen and told
+Cook-mother Charity about it. That worthy woman gave her a warning
+look and said:
+
+"The frisk'ness of this new gen'ration of niggers makes me tired.
+Better let Marse Dick alone--he's a dan'g'us man with women."
+
+In the dining-room Travis sat quiet and thoughtful. He was a
+handsome man, turning forty. His face was strong, clean shaved,
+except a light mustache, with full sensual lips and an unusually fine
+brow. It was the brow of intellect--all in front. Behind and above
+there was no loftiness of ideality or of veneration. His smile was
+constant, and though slightly cold, was always approachable. His
+manner was decisive, but clever always, and kind-hearted at times.
+
+Contrary to his habit, he grew reminiscent. He despised this kind of
+a mood, because, as he said, "It is the weakness of a fool to think
+about himself." He walked to the window and looked out on the broad
+fields of The Gaffs in the valley before him. He looked at the
+handsomely furnished room and thought of the splendid old home. Then
+he deliberately surveyed himself in the mirror. He smiled:
+
+"'Survival of the fittest'--yes, Spencer is right--a great--great
+mind. He is living now, and the world, of course, will not admit his
+greatness until he is dead. Life, like the bull that would rule the
+herd, is never ready to admit that other life is great. A poet is
+always a dead rhymester,--a philosopher, a dead dreamer.
+
+"Let Spencer but die!
+
+"Tush! Why indulge in weak modesty and fool self-depreciation? Even
+instinct tells me--that very lowest of animal intellectual
+forces--that I survive because I am stronger than the dead.
+Providence--God--whatever it is, has nothing to do with it except to
+start you and let you survive by overcoming. Winds you up and
+then--devil take the hindmost!
+
+"It is brains--brains--brains that count--brains first and always.
+This moral stuff is fit only for those who are too weak to
+conquer. I have accomplished everything in life I have ever
+undertaken--everything--and--by brains! Not once have I failed--I have
+done it by intellect, courage--intuition--the thing in one that speaks.
+
+"Now as to things of the heart,"--he stopped suddenly--he even
+scowled half humorously. It came over him--his failure there, as one
+who, sweeping with his knights the pawns of an opponent, suddenly
+finds himself confronting a queen--and checkmated.
+
+He walked to the window again and looked toward the northern end of
+the valley. There the gables of an old and somewhat weather-beaten
+home sat in a group of beech on a rise among the foothills.
+
+"Westmoreland"--he said--"how dilapidated it is getting to be!
+Something must be done there, and Alice--Alice,"--he repeated the
+name softly--reverently--"I feel--I know it--she--even she shall be
+mine--after all these years--she shall come to me yet."
+
+He smiled again: "Then I shall have won all around. Fate? Destiny?
+Tush! It's living and surviving weaker things, such for instance as
+my cousin Tom."
+
+He smiled satisfactorily. He flecked some cotton lint from his coat
+sleeve.
+
+"I have had a hard time in the mill to-day. It's a beastly business
+robbing the poor little half-made-up devils."
+
+He rang for Aunt Charity. She knew what he wished, and soon came in
+bringing him his cocktail--his night-cap as she always called
+it,--only of late he had required several in an evening,--a thing
+that set the old woman to quarreling with him, for she knew the limit
+of a gentleman. And, in truth, she was proud of her cocktails. They
+were made from a recipe given by Andrew Jackson. For fifty years
+Cook-mother Charity had made one every night and brought it to "old
+marster" before he retired. Now she proudly brought it to his
+grandson.
+
+"Oh, say Mammy," he said as the old woman started out--"Carpenter
+will be here directly with his report. Bring another pair of these
+in--we will want them."
+
+The old woman bristled up. "To be sure, I'll fix 'em, honey. He'll
+not know the difference. But the licker he gits in his'n will come
+outen the bottle we keep for the hosses when they have the colic. The
+bran' we keep for gem'men would stick in his th'oat."
+
+Travis laughed: "Well--be sure you don't get that horse brand in
+mine."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+JUD CARPENTER
+
+
+An hour afterwards, Travis heard a well-known walk in the hall and
+opened the door.
+
+He stepped back astonished. He released the knob and gazed half
+angry, half smiling.
+
+A large dog, brindled and lean, walked complacently and
+condescendingly in, followed by his master. At a glance, the least
+imaginative could see that Jud Carpenter, the Whipper-in of the Acme
+Cotton Mills, and Bonaparte, his dog, were well mated.
+
+The man was large, raw-boned and brindled, and he, also, walked in,
+complacently and condescendingly.
+
+The dog's ears had been cropped to match his tail, which in his
+infancy had been reduced to a very few inches. His under jaw
+protruded slightly--showing the trace of bull in his make-up.
+
+That was the man all over. Besides he had a small, mean, roguish ear.
+
+The dog was cross-eyed--"the only cross-eyed purp in the worl'"--as
+his master had often proudly proclaimed, and the expression of his
+face was uncanny.
+
+Jud Carpenter's eastern-eye looked west, and his western-eye looked
+east, and the rest of the paragraph above fitted him also.
+
+The dog's pedigree, as his master had drawlingly proclaimed, was
+"p'yart houn', p'yart bull, p'yart cur, p'yart terrier, an' the rest
+of him--wal, jes' dog."
+
+Reverse this and it will be Carpenter's: Just dog, with a sprinkling
+of bull, cur, terrier, and hound.
+
+Before Richard Travis could protest, the dog walked deliberately to
+the fireplace and sprang savagely on the helpless old setter dreaming
+on the rug. The older dog expostulated with terrific howls, while
+Travis turned quickly and kicked off the intruder.
+
+He stood the kicking as quietly as if it were part of the programme
+in the last act of a melodrama in which he was the villain. He was
+kicked entirely across the room and his head was driven violently
+into the half-open door of the side-board. Here it came in contact
+with one of Cook-mother's freshly baked hams, set aside for the
+morrow's lunch. Without even a change of countenance--for, in truth,
+it could not change--without the lifting even of a hair in surprise,
+the brute seized the ham and settled right where he was, to lunch.
+And he did it as complacently as he had walked in, and with a
+satisfied growl which seemed to say that, so far as the villain was
+concerned, the last act of the melodrama was ending to his entire
+satisfaction.
+
+Opening a side door, Travis seized him by the stump of a tail and one
+hind leg--knowing his mouth was too full of ham to bite anything--and
+threw him, still clutching the ham, bodily into the back yard.
+Without changing the attitude he found himself in when he hit the
+ground, the brindled dog went on with his luncheon.
+
+The very cheek of it set Travis to laughing. He closed the door and
+said to the man who had followed the dog in: "Carpenter, if I had
+the nerve of that raw-boned fiend that follows you around, I'd soon
+own the world."
+
+The man had already taken his seat by the fire as unaffectedly as had
+the dog. He had entered as boldly and as indifferently and his two
+deep-set, cat-gray cross-eyes looked around as savagely.
+
+He was a tall, lank fellow, past middle age, with a crop of stiff,
+red-brown hair, beginning midway of his forehead, so near to an
+equally shaggy and heavy splotch of eyebrows as to leave scarce a
+finger's breadth between them.
+
+He was wiry and shrewd-looking, and his two deep-set eyes seemed
+always like a leopard's,--walking the cage of his face, hunting for
+some crack to slip through. Furtive, sly, darting, rolling hither and
+thither, never still, comprehensive, all-seeing, malicious and deadly
+shrewd. These were the eyes of Jud Carpenter, and they told it all.
+To this, add again that they looked in contrary directions.
+
+As a man's eye, so is the tenor of his life.
+
+Yet in them, now and then, the twinkle of humor shone. He had a
+conciliatory way with those beneath him, and he considered all the
+mill hands in that class. To his superiors he was a frowning, yet
+daring and even presumptuous underling.
+
+Somewhat better dressed than the Hillites from whom he sprang was
+this Whipper-in of the Acme Cotton Mills--somewhat better dressed,
+and with the air of one who had arisen above his surroundings. Yet,
+withal, the common, low-born, malicious instinct was there--the
+instinct which makes one of them hate the man who is better educated,
+better dressed than he. All told, it might be summed up and said of
+Jud Carpenter that he had all the instincts of a Hillite and all the
+arrogance of a manager.
+
+"Nobody understands that dog, Bonaparte, but me," said Carpenter
+after a while--"he's to dogs what his namesake was to man. He's the
+champ'un fighter of the Tennessee Valley, an' the only cross-eyed
+purp in the worl', as I have often said. Like all gen'uses of course,
+he's a leetle peculiar--but him and me--we understan's each other."
+
+He pulled out some mill papers and was about to proceed to discuss
+his business when Travis interrupted:
+
+"Hold on," he said, good humoredly, "after my experience with that
+cross-eyed genius of a dog, I'll need something to brace me up."
+
+He handed Carpenter a glass and each drank off his cocktail at a
+quaff.
+
+Travis settled quickly to business. He took out his mill books, and
+for an hour the two talked in a low tone and mechanically. The
+commissary department of the mill was taken up and the entire
+accounts gone over. Memoranda were made of goods to be ordered. The
+accounts of families were run over and inspected. It was tedious
+work, but Travis never flagged and his executive ability was quick
+and incisive. At last he closed the book with an impatient gesture:
+
+"That's all I'll do to-night," he muttered decisively. "I've other
+things to talk to you about. But we'll need something first."
+
+He went to the side-board and brought out a decanter of whiskey, two
+goblets and a bowl of loaf sugar.
+
+He laughed: "Mammy knows nothing about this. Two cocktails are the
+limit she sets for me, and so I keep this private bottle."
+
+He made a long-toddy for himself, but Carpenter took his straight. In
+all of it, his furtive eyes, shining out of the splotch of eyebrows
+above, glanced inquiringly around and obsequiously followed every
+movement of his superior.
+
+"Now, Carpenter," said the Secretary after he had settled back in his
+chair and lit a cigar, handing the box afterwards to the other--"You
+know me--you and I--must understand each other in all things."
+
+"'Bleeged to be that way," drawled the Whipper-in--"we must wu'ck
+together. You know me, an' that Jud Carpenter's motto is, 'mum, an'
+keep movin'.' That's me--that's Jud Carpenter."
+
+Travis laughed: "O, it's nothing that requires so much heavy villain
+work as the tone of your voice would suggest. We're not in a
+melodrama. This is the nineteenth century and we're talking business
+and going to win a thing or two by common sense and business ways,
+eh?"
+
+Carpenter nodded.
+
+"Well, now, the first is quite matter of fact--just horses. I believe
+we are going to have the biggest fair this fall we have ever had."
+
+"It's lots talked about," said Carpenter--"'specially the big race
+an' purse you've got put up."
+
+Travis grew interested quickly and leaned over excitedly.
+
+"My reputation is at stake--and that of The Gaffs' stable. You see,
+Carpenter, it's a three-cornered race for three-thousand
+dollars--each of us, Col. Troup, Flecker and me, have put up a
+thousand--three heats out of five--the winner takes the stake. Col.
+Troup, of Lenox, has entered a fast mare of his, and Flecker, of
+Tennessee, will be there with his gelding. I know Flecker's horse. I
+could beat him with Lizette and one of her legs tied up. I looked him
+over last week. Contracted heels and his owner hasn't got horse-sense
+to know it. It's horse-sense, Carpenter, that counts for success in
+life as in a race."
+
+Carpenter nodded again.
+
+"But it's different with Col. Troup's entry. Ever been to Lenox?" he
+asked suddenly.
+
+Carpenter shook his head.
+
+"Don't know anybody there?" asked Travis. "I thought so--just what I
+want."
+
+He went on indifferently, but Carpenter saw that he was measuring his
+words and noting their effect upon himself. "They work out over there
+Tuesdays and Fridays--the fair is only a few weeks off--they will be
+stepping their best by Friday. Now, go there and say nothing--but
+just sit around and see how fast Col. Troup's mare can trot."
+
+"That'll be easy," said Carpenter.
+
+"I have no notion of losing my thousand and reputation, too." He bent
+over to Carpenter and laughed. "All's fair in love and--a horse race.
+You know it's the 2:25 class, and I've entered Lizette, but Sadie B.
+is so much like her that no living man who doesn't curry them every
+day could tell them apart. Sadie B.'s mark is 2:15. Now see if Troup
+can beat 2:25. Maybe he can't beat 2:15."
+
+Then he laughed ironically.
+
+Carpenter looked at him wonderingly.
+
+It was all he said, but it was enough for Carpenter. Fraud's wink to
+the fraudulent is an open book. Her nod is the nod of the Painted
+Thing passing down the highway.
+
+Base-born that he was--low by instinct and inheritance, he had never
+heard of so brilliant and so gentlemanly a piece of fraud. The
+consummate boldness of it made Carpenter's eyes twinkle--a gentleman
+and in a race with gentlemen--who would dare to suspect? It was the
+boldness of a fine woman, daring to wear a necklace of paste-diamonds.
+
+He sat looking at Travis in silent admiration. Never before had his
+employer risen to such heights in the eyes of the Whipper-in. He sat
+back in his chair and chuckled. His furtive eyes danced.
+
+"Nobody but a born gen'us 'ud ever have tho'rt of that," he
+said--"never seed yo' e'kal--why, the money is your'n, any way you
+fix it. You can ring in Lizette one heat and Sadie B."----
+
+"There are things to be thought and not talked of," replied Travis
+quickly. "For a man of your age ar'n't you learning to talk too much
+out loud? You go and find out what I've asked--I'll do the rest. I'm
+thinking I'll not need Sadie B. Never run a risk, even a dead sure
+one, till you're obliged to."
+
+"I'll fetch it next week--trust me for that. But I hope you will do
+it--ring in Sadie B. just for the fun of it. Think of old bay-window
+Troup trottin' his mare to death ag'in two fast horses an' never
+havin' sense enough to see it."
+
+He looked his employer over--from his neatly turned foot to the
+cravat, tied in an up-to-date knot. At that, even, Travis flushed.
+"Here," he said--"another toddy. I'll trust you to bring in your
+report all right."
+
+Carpenter again took his straight--his eyes had begun to glitter, his
+face to flush, and he felt more like talking.
+
+Travis lit another cigar. He puffed and smoked in silence for a
+while. The rings of smoke went up incessantly. His face had begun to
+redden, his fingers to thrill to the tip with pulsing blood. With it
+went his final contingency of reserve, and under it he dropped to the
+level of the base-born at his side.
+
+Whiskey is the great leveler of life. Drinking it, all men are,
+indeed, equal.
+
+"When are you going out to get in more hands for the mill?" asked
+Travis after a pause.
+
+"To-morrow----"
+
+"So soon?" asked Travis.
+
+"Yes, you see," said Carpenter, "there's been ha'f a dozen of the
+brats died this summer an' fall--scarlet fever in the mill."
+
+Travis looked at him and smiled.
+
+"An' I've got to git in some mo' right away," he went on. "Oh,
+there's plenty of 'em in these hills."
+
+Travis smoked for a few minutes without speaking.
+
+"Carpenter, had you ever thought of Helen Conway--I mean--of getting
+Conway's two daughters into the mill?" He made the correction with a
+feigned indifference, but the other quickly noticed it. In an instant
+Carpenter knew.
+
+As a matter of fact the Whipper-in had not thought of it, but it was
+easy for him to say what he thought the other wished him to say.
+
+"Wal, yes," he replied; "that's jes' what I had been thinkin' of.
+They've got to come in--'ristocrats or no 'ristocrats! When it comes
+to a question of bread and meat, pedigree must go to the cellar."
+
+"To the attic, you mean," said Travis--"where their old clothes are."
+
+Carpenter laughed: "That's it--you all'ers say the k'rect thing. 'N'
+as I was sayin'"--he went on--"it is a ground-hog case with 'em. The
+Major's drunk all the time. His farm an' home'll be sold soon. He's
+'bleeged to put 'em in the mill--or the po'-house."
+
+He paused, thinking. Then, "But ain't that Helen about the pretties'
+thing you ever seed?" He chuckled. "You're sly--but I seen you givin'
+her that airin' behin' Lizette and Sadie B.--"
+
+"You've nothing to do with that," said Travis gruffly. "You want a
+new girl for our drawing-in machine--the best paying and most
+profitable place in the mill--off from the others--in a room by
+herself--no contact with mill-people--easy job--two dollars a day--"
+
+"One dollar--you forgit, suh--one dollar's the reg'lar price, sah,"
+interrupted the Whipper-in.
+
+The other turned on him almost fiercely: "Your memory is as weak as
+your wits--two dollars, I tell you, and don't interrupt me again--"
+
+"To be sho'," said the Whipper-in, meekly--"I did forgit--please
+excuse me, sah."
+
+"Then, in talking to Conway, you, of course, would draw his attention
+to the fact that he is to have a nice cottage free of rent--that will
+come in right handy when he finds himself out in the road--sold out
+and nowhere to go," he said.
+
+"'N' the commissary," put in Carpenter quietly. "Excuse me, sah, but
+there's a mighty good bran' of whiskey there, you know!"
+
+Travis smiled good humoredly: "Your wits are returning," he said; "I
+think you understand."
+
+"I'll see him to-morrow," said Carpenter, rising to go.
+
+"Oh, don't be in a hurry," said Travis.
+
+"Excuse me, sah, but I'm afraid I've bored you stayin' too long."
+
+"Sit down," said the other, peremptorily--"you will need something to
+help you along the road. Shall we take another?"
+
+So they took yet another drink, and Carpenter went out, calling his
+dog.
+
+Travis stood in the doorway and watched them go down the driveway.
+They both staggered lazily along. Travis smiled: "Both drunk--the dog
+on ham."
+
+As he turned to go in, he reeled slightly himself, but he did not
+notice it.
+
+When he came back he was restless. He looked at the clock. "Too early
+for bed," he said. "I'd give a ten if Charley Biggers were here with
+his little cocktail laugh to try me a game of poker."
+
+Suddenly he went to the window, and taking a small silver whistle
+from his pocket he blew it toward the stables. Soon afterwards a well
+dressed mulatto boy entered.
+
+"How are the horses to-night, Jim?" he asked.
+
+"Fine, sir--all eatin' well an' feelin' good."
+
+"And Coquette--the saddle mare?"
+
+"Like split silk, sir."
+
+"Exercise her to-morrow under the saddle, and Sunday afternoon we
+will give Miss Alice her first ride on her--she's to be a present for
+her on her birth-day, you know--eh?"
+
+Jim bowed and started out.
+
+"You may fix my bath now--think I'll retire. O Jim!" he called, "see
+that Antar, the stallion, is securely stalled. You know how dangerous
+he is."
+
+He was just dozing off when the front door closed with a bang.
+
+Then a metal whip handle thumped heavily on the floor and the
+jingling of a spur rattled over the hall floor, as Harry Travis
+boisterously went down the hall, singing tipsily,
+
+    "Oh, Johnny, my dear,
+        Just think of your head,
+     Just think of your head
+        In the morning."
+
+Another door banged so loudly it awakened even the setter. The old
+dog came to the side of the bed and laid his head affectionately in
+Travis' palm. The master of The Gaffs stroked his head, saying: "It
+is strange that I love this old dog so."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+FOOD FOR THE FACTORY
+
+
+The next morning being Saturday, Carpenter, the Whipper-in, mounted
+his Texas pony and started out toward the foothills of the mountains.
+
+Upon the pommel of his saddle lay a long single-barreled squirrel
+gun, for the hills were full of squirrels, and Jud was fond of a
+tender one, now and then. Behind him, as usual, trotted Bonaparte,
+his sullen eyes looking for an opportunity to jump on any timid
+country dog which happened along.
+
+There are two things for which all mills must be prepared--the wear
+and tear of Time on the machinery--the wear and tear of Death on the
+frail things who yearly work out their lives before it.
+
+In the fight for life between the machine and the human labor, in the
+race of life for that which men call success, who cares for the life
+of one little mill hand? And what is one tot of them from another?
+And if one die one month and another the next, and another the next
+and the next, year in and year out, who remembers it save some
+poverty-hardened, stooped and benumbed creature, surrounded by a
+scrawny brood calling ever for bread?
+
+The world knows not--cares not--for its tiny life is but a thread in
+the warp of the great Drawing-in Machine.
+
+So fearful is the strain upon the nerve and brain and body of the
+little things, that every year many of them pass away--slowly,
+surely, quietly--so imperceptibly that the mill people themselves
+scarcely miss them. And what does it matter? Are there not hundreds
+of others, born of ignorance and poverty and pain, to take their
+places?
+
+And the dead ones--unknown, they simply pass into a Greater Unknown.
+Their places are filled with fresh victims--innocents, whom Passion
+begets with a caress and Cupidity buys with a curse. Children they
+are--tots--and why should they know that they are trading--life for
+death?
+
+It was a bright fall morning, and Jud Carpenter rode toward the
+mountain a few miles away. They are scarcely mountains--these
+beautifully wooded hills in the Tennessee Valley, hooded by blue in
+the day and shrouded in somber at night; but it pleases the people
+who live within the sweet influence of their shadows to call them
+mountains.
+
+Jud knew where he was going, and he rode leisurely along, revolving
+in his mind the plan of his campaign. He needed the recruits for the
+Acme Mills, and in all his past experience as an employment agent he
+had never undertaken to bring in a family where as much tact and
+diplomacy was required as in this case.
+
+It was a dilapidated gate at which he drew rein. There had once been
+handsome pillars of stone and brick, but these had fallen and the
+gate had been swung on a convenient locust tree that had sprung up
+and grown with its usual rapidity from its sheltered nook near the
+crumbling rock wall. Only one end of the gate was hung; and it lay
+diagonally across the entrance of what had once been a thousand acres
+of the finest farm in the Tennessee Valley.
+
+Dismounting, Jud hitched his horse and set his gun beside the tree;
+and as it was easier to climb over the broken-down fence than to lift
+the gate around, he stepped over and then shuffled along in his lazy
+way toward the house.
+
+It was an old farmhouse, now devoid of paint; and the path to it had
+once been a well-kept gravel walk, lined with cedars; but the
+box-plants, having felt no pruning shears for years, almost filled,
+with their fantastically jagged boughs, the narrow path, while the
+cedars tossed about their broken and dead limbs.
+
+The tall, square pillars in the house, from dado above to where they
+rested in the brick base below, showed the naked wood, untouched so
+long by paint that it had grown furzy from rain and snow, and
+splintery from sun and heat. Its green shutters hung, some of them,
+on one hinge; and those which could be closed, were shut up close and
+sombre under the casements.
+
+A half dozen hounds came baying and barking around him. As Jud
+proceeded, others poured out from under the house. All were ribby,
+and half starved.
+
+Without a moment's hesitation they promptly covered Bonaparte, much
+to the delight of that genius. Indeed, from the half-satisfied, half
+malignant snarl which lit up his face as they piled rashly and
+brainlessly on him, Jud took it that Bonaparte had trotted all these
+miles just to breakfast on this remnant of hound on the half-shell.
+
+In a few minutes Bonaparte's terrible, flashing teeth had them flying
+in every direction.
+
+Jud promptly cuffed him back to the gate and bade him wait there.
+
+On the front portico, his chair half-tilted back, his trousers in his
+boot legs, and his feet on the balustrade rim, the uprights of which
+were knocked out here and there, like broken teeth in a comb,--sat a
+man in a slouch hat, smoking a cob pipe. He was in his shirt sleeves.
+His face was flushed and red; his eyes were watery, bleared. His head
+was fine and long--his nose and chin seemed to meet in a sharp point.
+His face showed that form of despair so common in those whom whiskey
+has helped to degenerate. He did not smile--he scowled continuously,
+and his voice had been imprecatory so long that it whined in the same
+falsetto twang as one of his hounds.
+
+Jud stepped forward and bowed obsequiously.
+
+"How are you to-day, Majah, sah?" he asked while his puckered and
+wrinkled face tried to smile.
+
+Jud was chameleon. Long experience had taught him to drop
+instinctively into the mannerism--even the dialect--of those he hoped
+to cajole. With the well-bred he could speak glibly, and had airs
+himself. With the illiterate and the low-bred, he could out-Caliban
+the herd of them.
+
+The man did not take the pipe out of his mouth. He did not even turn
+his head. Only his two bleared eyes shot sidewise down to the
+ground, where ten feet below him stood the employment agent of the
+mills, smiling, smirking, and doing his best to spell out on the
+signboard of his unscrupulous face the fact that he came in peace and
+good will.
+
+Major Edward Conway scarcely grunted--it might have been anything
+from an oath to an eructation. Then, taking his pipe-stem from
+between his teeth, and shifting his tobacco in his mouth,--for he was
+both chewing and smoking--he expectorated squarely into the eyes of a
+hound which had followed Jud up the steps, barking and snarling at
+his heels.
+
+He was a good marksman even with spittle, and the dog fled, whining.
+
+Then he answered, with an oath, that he was about as well as the
+rheumatism and the beastly weather would permit.
+
+Jud came up uninvited and sat down. The Major did not even turn his
+head. The last of a long line of gentlemen did not waste his manners
+on one beneath him socially.
+
+Jud was discreetly silent, and soon the Major began to tell all of
+his troubles, but in the tone of one who was talking to his servant
+and with many oaths and much bitterness:
+
+"You see it's this damned rheumatism, Carpenter. Las' night, suh, I
+had to drink a quart of whiskey befo' I cu'd go to sleep at all. It
+came on me soon aftah I come out of the wah, an' it growed on me like
+jim'son weeds in a hog-pen. My appetite's quit on me--two pints of
+whiskey an' wild-cherry bark a day, suh, don't seem to help it at
+all, suh. I cyant tell whut the devil's the matter with my stomach.
+Nothin' I eat or drink seems to agree with me but whiskey. If I drink
+this malarial water, suh, m'legs an' m'feet begin to swell. I have to
+go back to whiskey. Damn me, but I was born for Kentucky. Why, I've
+got a forty dollar thirst on me this very minute. I'm so dry I cu'd
+kick up a dust in a hog wallow. Maybe, though, it's this rotten stuff
+that cross-roads Jew is sellin' me an' callin' it whiskey. He's got a
+mortgage on everything here but the houn's and the house cat, an'
+he's tryin' to see if he cyant kill me with his bug-juice an' save a
+suit in Chancery. I'm goin' to sen' off an' see if I cyant git
+another bran' of it, suh."
+
+Edward Conway was the type of the Southerner wrecked financially and
+morally by the war. His father and grandfather had owned Millwood,
+and the present owner had gone into the war a carefully educated,
+well reared youth of twenty. He came out of it alive, it is true,
+but, like many another fine youth of both North and South, addicted
+to drink.
+
+The brutality of war lies not alone in death--it is often more fatal,
+more degenerating, in the life it leaves behind.
+
+Coming out of the war, Conway found, as did all others in the
+Tennessee Valley who sided with the South, that his home was a wreck.
+Not a fence, even, remained--nothing but the old home--shutterless,
+plasterless, its roof rotten, its cellar the abode of hogs.
+
+Thousands of others found themselves likewise--brave hearts--men they
+proved themselves to be--in that they built up their homes out of
+wreck and their country out of chaos.
+
+The man who retrieves his fortune under the protecting arm of law and
+order is worthy of great praise; but he who does it in the surly,
+snarling teeth of Disorder itself is worthy of still greater praise.
+
+And the real soldier is not he with his battles and his bravery. All
+animals will fight--it is instinct. But he who conquers in the great
+moral battle of peace and good government, overcoming prejudice,
+ignorance, poverty and even injustice, till he rises to the height of
+the brave whose deeds do vindicate them--this is the real soldier.
+
+Thousands of Southern soldiers did this, but Edward Conway had not
+been one of them. For where whiskey sits he holds a scepter whose
+staff is the body of the Upas tree, and there is no room for the oak
+of thrift or the wild-flower of sweetness underneath.
+
+From poverty to worse poverty Edward Conway had gone, until now,
+hopelessly mortgaged, hopelessly besotted, hopelessly soured, he
+lived the diseased product of weakness, developed through stimulated
+inactivity.
+
+Nature is inexorable, morally, physically, mentally, and as two
+generations of atheists will beget a thief, so will two generations
+of idle rich beget nonentities.
+
+On this particular morning that Jud Carpenter came, things had
+reached a crisis with Edward Conway. By a decree of the court, the
+last hope he had of retaining a portion of his family estate had been
+swept away, and the entire estate was to be advertised for sale, to
+satisfy a mortgage and judgment. It is true, he had the two years of
+redemption under the Alabama law, but can a drunkard redeem his land
+when he can not redeem himself?
+
+And so, partly from despair, and partly from that instinct which
+makes even the most sensitive of mortals wish to pour their secret
+troubles into another's ear, partly even from drunken recklessness,
+Edward Conway sat on his verandah this morning and poured his
+troubles into the designing ear of Jud Carpenter. The refrain of his
+woe was that luck--luck--remorseless luck was against him.
+
+Luck, since the beginning of the world, has been the cry of him who
+gambles with destiny. Work is the watchword of the man who believes
+in himself.
+
+This thing went because that man had been against him, and this went
+because of the faithlessness of another. His health--well, that was
+God's doing.
+
+Jud was too shrewd to let him know that he thought whiskey had
+anything to do with it--and so, very cautiously did the employment
+agent proceed.
+
+A child with sunny hair and bright eyes ran across the yard. She was
+followed by an old black mammy, whose anxiety for fear her charge
+might get her clothes soiled was plainly evident; from the parlor
+came the notes of an old piano, sadly out of tune, and Jud could hear
+the fine voice of another daughter singing a love ballad.
+
+"You've got two mighty pyeart gyrls here," at last he ventured.
+
+"Of course, they are, suh," snapped their father--"they are
+Conways."
+
+"Ever think of it, sah," went on Jud, "that they could make you a
+livin' in the mill?"
+
+Conway was silent. In truth, he had thought of that very thing.
+To-day, however, he was nerved and desperate, being more besotted
+than usual.
+
+"Now, look aheah--it's this way," went on Jud--"you're gettin' along
+in age and you need res'. You've been wuckin' too hard. I tell you,
+Majah, sah, you're dead game--no other man I know of would have stood
+up under the burdens you've had on yo' shoulders."
+
+The Major drew himself up: "That's a family trait of the Conways,
+suh."
+
+"Wal, it's time for you to res' awhile. No use to drive a willin'
+hoss to death. I can get a place for both of the gyrls in the mill,
+an' aftah the fust month--aftah they learn the job, they can earn
+enough to support you comf't'bly. Now, we'll give you a nice little
+cottage--no bother of keepin' up a big run-down place like this--jes'
+a neat little cottage. Aunt Mariah can keep it in nice fix. The gyrls
+will be employed and busy an' you can jes' live comf't'bly, an' res'.
+An' say," he added, slyly--"you can get all the credit at the
+Company's sto' you want an' I'm thinkin' you'll find a better brand
+of licker than that you've been samplin'."
+
+Besotted as he was--hardened and discouraged--the proposition came
+over Conway with a wave of shame. Even through his weakened mind the
+old instinct of the gentleman asserted itself, and for a moment the
+sweet refined face of a beautiful dead wife, the delicate beauty of a
+little daughter, the queenliness of an elder one, all the product of
+good breeding and rearing, came over him. He sprang to his feet.
+"What do you mean, suh? My daughters--grandchildren of Gen. Leonidas
+Conway--my daughters work in the mill by the side of that poor trash
+from the mountains? I'll see you damned first."
+
+He sat down--he bowed his head in his hands. A glinty look came into
+his eyes.
+
+Jud drew his chair up closer: "But jes' think a minute--you're sold
+out--you've got no whur to go, you've wuck'd yo'self down tryin' to
+save the farm. We've all got to wuck these days. The war has changed
+all the old order of things. We havn't got any mo' slaves."
+
+"We,"--repeated Conway, and he looked at the man and laughed.
+
+Jud flushed even through his sallow skin:
+
+"Wal, that's all right," he added. "Listen to me, now, I'm tryin' to
+save you from trouble. The war changed everything. Your folks got to
+whur they did by wuckin'. They built up this big estate by economy
+an' wuck. Now, you mus' do it. You've got the old dead-game Conway
+breedin' in yo' bones an' you've got the brains, too." He lowered his
+voice: "It's only for a little while--jes' a year or so--it'll give
+you a nice little home to live in while you brace up an' pull out of
+debt an' redeem yo' farm. Here--it is only for a year or so--sign
+this--givin' you a home, an' start all over in life--sign it right
+there, only for a little while--a chance to git on yo' feet--."
+
+Conway scarcely knew how it happened that he signed--for Jud quickly
+changed the subject.
+
+After a while Jud arose to go. As he did so, Lily, the little
+daughter, came out, and putting her arms around her father's neck,
+kissed him and said:
+
+"Papa--luncheon is served, and oh, do come on! Mammy and Helen and I
+are so hungry."
+
+Mammy Maria had followed her and stood deferentially behind the
+chair. And as Jud went away he thought he saw in the old woman's
+eyes, as she watched him, a trace of that fine scorn bred of
+generations of gentleness, but which whiskey had destroyed in the
+master.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE FLY CATCHER CAUGHT
+
+
+As Jud went out of the dilapidated gate at Millwood, he chuckled to
+himself. He had, indeed, accomplished something. He had gained a
+decided advance in the labor circles of the mill. He had broken into
+the heretofore overpowering prejudice the better class had against
+the mill, for he held in his possession the paper wherein an
+aristocrat had signed his two daughters into it. Wouldn't Richard
+Travis chuckle with him?
+
+In the South social standing is everything.
+
+To have the mill represented by a first family--even if brought to
+poverty through drunkenness--was an entering wedge.
+
+His next job was easier. A mile farther on, the poor lands of the
+mountain side began. Up on the slope was a cabin, in the poorest and
+rockiest portion of it, around the door of which half a dozen cracker
+children stared at Jud with unfeigned interest as he rode up.
+
+"Light an' look at yer saddle"--came from a typical Hillite within,
+as Jud stopped.
+
+Jud promptly complied--alighted and looked at his saddle.
+
+A cur--which, despite his breeding, is always a keen detective of
+character--followed him, barking at his heels.
+
+This one knew Jud as instinctively and as accurately as he knew a
+fresh bone from a rank one--by smell. He was also a judge of other
+dogs and, catching sight of Bonaparte, his anger suddenly fled and he
+with it.
+
+"Won't you set down an' res' yo' hat?" came invitingly from the
+doorway.
+
+Jud sat down and rested his hat.
+
+A tall, lank woman, smoking a cob pipe which had grown black with age
+and Samsonian in strength, came from the next room. She merely ducked
+her long, sharp nose at Jud and, pretending to be busily engaged
+around the room, listened closely to all that was said.
+
+Jud told the latest news, spoke of the weather and made many familiar
+comments as he talked. Then he began to draw out the man and woman.
+They were poor, child-burdened and dissatisfied. Gradually,
+carefully, he talked mill and the blessings of it. He drew glorious
+pictures of the house he would take them to, its conveniences--the
+opportunities of the town for them all. He took up the case of each
+of the six children, running from the tot of six to the girl of
+twenty, and showed what they could earn.
+
+In all it amounted to sixteen dollars a week.
+
+"You sho'ly don't mean it comes to sixteen dollars ev'y week," said
+the woman, taking the cob pipe out for the first time, long enough to
+spit and wipe her mouth on the back of her hand, "an' all in silver
+an' all our'n?" she asked. "Why that thar is mo' money'n we've seed
+this year. What do you say to tryin' it, Josiah?"
+
+Josiah was willing. "You see," he added, "we needn't stay thar
+longer'n a year or so. We'll git the money an' then come back an' buy
+a good piece of land."
+
+Suddenly he stopped and fired this point blank at Jud: "But see heah,
+Mister-man, is thar any niggers thar? Do we hafter wuck with
+niggers?"
+
+Jud looked indignant. It was enough.
+
+At the end of an hour the family head had signed for a five years'
+contract. They would move the next week.
+
+"Cash--think of it--cash ever' week. An' in silver, too," said the
+woman. "Why, I dunno hardly how it'll feel. I'm afeared it mou't gin
+me the eetch."
+
+Jud, when he left, had induced their parents to sell five children
+into slavery for five years.
+
+It meant for life.
+
+And both parents declared when he left that never before had they
+"seed sech a nice man."
+
+Jud had nearly reached the town when he passed, high up on the level
+plateau by which the mountain road now ran, the comfortable home of
+Elder Butts. Peach and apple trees adorned the yard, while bee-hives
+sat in a corner under the shade of them behind the cottage. The
+tinkle of a sheep bell told of a flock of sheep nearby. A neatly
+painted new wagon stood under the shed by the house, and all around
+was an air of thrift and work.
+
+"Now if I cu'd git that Butts family," he mused, "I'd have something
+to crow about when I got back to Kingsley to-night. He's got a little
+farm an' is well to do an' is thrifty, an' if I cu'd only git that
+class started in the mill an' contented to wuck there, it 'ud open up
+a new class of people. There's that Archie B.--confound him, he cu'd
+run ten machines at onct and never know it. I'd like to sweat that
+bottled mischief out of him a year or two.
+
+"Hello!"
+
+Jud drew his horse up with a jerk. Above him, with legs locked, high
+up around the body of a dead willow, his seat the stump of a broken
+bough and fully twenty feet above the employment agent's head, sat
+Archie B., a freckled-faced lad, with fiery red hair and a world of
+fun in his blue eyes. He was one of the Butts twins and the very
+object of the Whipper-in's thoughts. From his head to his feet he had
+on but three garments--a small, battered, all-wool hat, a coarse
+cotton shirt, wide open at the neck, and a pair of jeans pants which
+came to his knees. But in the pockets of his pants were small samples
+of everything of wood and field, from shells of rare bird eggs to a
+small supply of Gypsy Juice.
+
+His pockets were miniature museums of nature.
+
+No one but a small boy, bent on fun, knows what Gypsy Juice is. No
+adult has ever been able to procure its formula and no small boy in
+the South cares, so long as he can get it.
+
+"The thing that hit does," Archie B. explained to his timid and pious
+twin brother, Ozzie B., "is ter make anything it touches that wears
+hair git up and git."
+
+Coons, possums, dogs, cats--with now and then a country horse or
+mule, hitched to the town rack--with these, and a small vial of Gypsy
+Juice, Archie B., as he expressed it, "had mo' fun to the square
+inch than ole Barnum's show ever hilt in all its tents."
+
+Jud stood a moment watching the boy. It was easy to see what Archie
+B. was after. In the body of the dead tree a wood-pecker had chiseled
+out a round hole.
+
+"Hello, yo'se'f"--finally drawled Jud--"whatcher doin' up thar?"
+
+"Why, I am goin' to see if this is a wood-pecker's nes' or a
+fly-ketcher's."
+
+Bonaparte caught his cue at once and ran to the foot of the tree
+barking viciously, daring the tree-climber to come down. His vicious
+eyes danced gleefully. He looked at his master between his snarls as
+much as to say: "Well, this is great, to tree the real live son of
+the all-conquering man!"
+
+It maddened him, too, to see the supreme indifference with which the
+all-conqueror's son treated his presence.
+
+Jud grunted. He prided himself on his bird-lore. Finally he said:
+"Wal, any fool could tell you--it's a wood-pecker's nest."
+
+"Yes, that's so and jus' exacly what a fool 'ud say," came back from
+the tree. "But it 'ud be because he is a fool, tho', an' don't see
+things as they be. It's a fly-ketcher's nest, for all that--" he
+added.
+
+"Teach yo' gran'-mammy how to milk the house cat," sneered Jud, while
+Bonaparte grew furious again with this added insult. "Don't you know
+a wood-pecker's nest when you see it?"
+
+"Yes," said Archie B., "an' I also know a fly-ketcher will whip a
+wood-pecker and take his nes' from him, an' I've come up here to see
+if it's so with this one."
+
+"Oh," said Jud, surprised, "an' what is it?"
+
+"Jus' as I said--he's whipped the wood-pecker an' tuck his nes'."
+
+"What's a fly-ketcher, Mister Know-It-All?" said Jud. Then he grinned
+derisively.
+
+Bonaparte, watching his master, ran around the tree again and
+squatting on his stump of a tail grinned likewise.
+
+"A fly-ketcher," said Archie B. calmly, "is a sneaking sort of a
+bird, that ketches flies an' little helpless insects for a--mill,
+maybe. Do you know any two-legged fly-ketchers a-doin' that?"
+
+Jud glared at him, and Bonaparte grew so angry that he snapped
+viciously at the bark of the tree as if he would tear it down.
+
+"What do you mean, you little imp?--what mill?"
+
+"Why his stomach," drawled Archie B., "it's a little differunt from a
+cotton-mill, but it grinds 'em to death all the same."
+
+Jud looked up again. He glared at Archie B.
+
+"How do you know that's a fly-ketcher's nest and not a wood-pecker's,
+then?" he asked, to change the subject.
+
+"That's what I'd like to know, too," said Bonaparte as plainly as his
+growls and two mean eyes could say it.
+
+"If it's a fly-ketcher's, the nest will be lined with a
+snake's-skin," said Archie B. "That's nachrul, ain't it," he
+added--"the nest of all sech is lined with snake-skins."
+
+Bonaparte, one of whose chief amusements in life was killing snakes,
+seemed to think this a personal thrust at himself, for he flew around
+the tree with renewed rage while Archie B., safe on his high perch,
+made faces at him and laughed.
+
+"I'll bet it ain't that way," said Jud, rattled and discomfited and
+shifting his long squirrel gun across his saddle. Archie B. replied
+by carefully thrusting a brown sunburnt arm into the hole and
+bringing out a nest. "Now, a wood-pecker's egg," he said, carefully
+lifting an egg out and then replacing it, "'ud be pearly white."
+
+"How did you learn all that?" sneered Jud.
+
+"Oh, by keepin' out of a cotton mill an' usin' my eye," said Archie
+B., winking at Bonaparte.
+
+Bonaparte glared back.
+
+"I'd like to git you into the mill," said Jud. "I'd put you to wuck
+doin' somethin' that 'ud be worth while."
+
+"Oh, yes, you would for a few years," sneered back Archie B. "Then
+you'd put me under the groun', where I'd have plenty o' time to
+res'."
+
+"I'm goin' up there now to see yo' folks an' see if I can't git you
+into the mill."
+
+"Oh, you are?--Well, don't be in sech a hurry an' look heah at yo'
+snake-skin fust--didn't I tell you it 'ud be lined with a
+snake-skin?" And he threw down a last year's snake-skin which
+Bonaparte proceeded to rend with great fury.
+
+"Now, come under here," went on Archie B. persuasively, "and I'll
+sho' you they're not pearly white, like a wood-pecker's, but
+cream-colored with little purple splotches scratched over 'em--like a
+fly-ketcher's."
+
+Jud rode under and looked up. As he did so Archie B. suddenly turned
+the nest upside down, that Jud might see the eggs, and as he looked
+up four eggs shot out before he could duck his head, and caught him
+squarely between his shaggy eyes. Blinded, smeared with yelk and
+smarting with his eyes full of fine broken shell, he scrambled from
+his horse, with many oaths, and began feeling for the little branch
+of water which ran nearby.
+
+"I'll cut that tree down, but I'll git you and wring yo' neck," he
+shouted, while Bonaparte endeavored to tear it down with his teeth.
+
+But Archie B. did not wait. Slowly he slid down the tree, while
+Bonaparte, thunder-struck with joy, waited at the foot, his eyes
+glaring, his mouth wide open, anticipating the feast on fresh boy
+meat. Can he be--dare he be--coming down? Right into my jaws, too?
+The very thought of it stopped his snarls.
+
+Jud's curses filled the air.
+
+Down--down, slid Archie B., both legs locked around the tree, until
+some ten feet above the dog, and, then tantalizingly, just out of
+reach, he suddenly tightened his brown brakes of legs, and thrusting
+his hand in his pocket, pulled out a small rubber ball. Reaching
+over, he squirted half of its contents over the dog, which still sat
+snarling, half in fury and half in wonder.
+
+Then something happened. Jud could not see, being down on his knees
+in the little stream, washing his eyes, but he first heard
+demoniacal barks proceed from Bonaparte, ending in wailful snorts,
+howls and whines, beginning at the foot of the tree and echoing in a
+fast vanishing wail toward home.
+
+Jud got one eye in working order soon enough to see a cloud of sand
+and dust rolling down the road, from the rear of which only the stub
+of a tail could be seen, curled spasmodically downward toward the
+earth.
+
+Jud could scarcely believe his eyes--Bonaparte--the champion
+dog--running--running like that?
+
+"Whut--whut--whut,"--he stammered, "Whut _did he do_ to Bonaparte?"
+
+Then he saw Archie B. up the road toward home, rolling in the sand
+with shouts of laughter.
+
+"If I git my hands on you," yelled Jud, shaking his fist at the boy,
+"I'll swaller you alive."
+
+"That's what the fly-ketcher said to the butterfly," shouted back
+Archie B.
+
+It was a half hour before Jud got all the fine eggshell out of his
+eyes. After that he decided to let the Butts family alone for the
+present. But as he rode away he was heard to say again:
+
+"Whut--whut--whut _did he do_ to Bonaparte?"
+
+Archie B. was still rolling on the ground, and chuckling now and then
+in fits of laughter, when a determined, motherly looking, fat girl
+appeared at the doorway of the family cottage. It was his sister,
+Patsy Butts:
+
+"Maw," she exclaimed, "I wish you'd look at Archie B. I bet he's done
+sump'in."
+
+There was a parental manner in her way. Her one object in life,
+evidently, was to watch Archie B.
+
+"You Archie B.," yelled his mother, a sallow little woman of quick
+nervous movements, "air you havin' a revulsion down there? What air
+you been doin' anyway? Now, you git up from there and go see why
+Ozzie B. don't fetch the cows home."
+
+Archie B. arose and went down the road whistling.
+
+A ground squirrel ran into a pile of rocks. Archie B. turned the
+rocks about until he found the nest, which he examined critically and
+with care. He fingered it carefully and patted it back into shape.
+"Nice little nes'," he said--"that settles it--I thought they lined
+it with fur." Then he replaced the rocks and arose to go.
+
+A quarter of a mile down the road he stopped and listened.
+
+He heard his brother, Ozzie B., sobbing and weeping.
+
+Ozzie B. was his twin brother--his "after clap"--as Archie B. called
+him. He was timid, uncertain, pious and given to tears--"bo'hn on a
+wet Friday"--as Archie B. had often said. He was always the effect of
+Archie B.'s cause, the illustration of his theorem, the solution of
+his problem of mischief, the penalty of his misdemeanors.
+
+Presently Ozzie B. came in sight, hatless and driving his cows along,
+but sobbing in that hiccoughy way which is the final stage of an
+acute thrashing.
+
+No one saw more quickly than Archie B., and he knew instantly that
+his brother had met Jud Carpenter, on his way back to the mill.
+
+"He's caught my lickin' ag'in," said Archie B., indignantly--"it's a
+pity he looks so much like me."
+
+It was true, and Ozzie B. stood and dug one toe into the ground, and
+sobbed and wiped his eyes on his shirt sleeve, and told how, in spite
+of his explanations and beseechings, the Whipper-in had met him down
+the road and thrashed him unmercifully.
+
+"Ozzie B.," said his brother, "you make me tired all over and in
+spots. I hate for as big a fool as you to look like me. Whyncher
+run--whyncher dodge him?"
+
+"I--I--wanted ter do my duty," sobbed Ozzie B. "Maw tole me ter
+drive--drive the cows right up the road--"
+
+Archie B. surveyed him with fine scorn:
+
+"When the Devil's got the road," said Archie B., "decent fo'ks had
+better take to the wood. I'd fixed him an' his ole dorg, an' now you
+come along an' spile it all."
+
+He made a cross mark in the road and spat on it. Then he turned with
+his back to the cross, threw his hat over his head and said slowly:
+"_Venture pee wee under the bridge! bam--bam--bam!_"
+
+"What's that fur?" asked Ozzie B., as he ceased sobbing. His brother
+always had something new, and it was always absorbingly interesting
+to Ozzie B.
+
+"That," said Archie B., solemnly, "I allers say after meetin' a Jonah
+in the road. The spell is now broke. Jus' watch me fix Jud Carpenter
+agin. Wanter see me git even with him? Well, come along."
+
+"What'll you do?" asked Ozzie B.
+
+"I'll make that mustang break his neck for the way he treated you, or
+my name ain't Archie B. Butts--that's all. _Venture pee wee under
+the bridge, bam--bam--bam!_"
+
+"No--oo--no," began Ozzie B., beginning to cry again--"Don't kill
+'im--it'll be cruel."
+
+"Don't wanter see me go an' git even with the man that's jus' licked
+you for nuthin'?"
+
+"No--oo--no--" sobbed Ozzie B. "Paw says--leave--leave--that for--the
+Lord."
+
+"Tarnashun!"--said Archie B., spitting on the ground, disgustedly--,
+"too much relig'un is a dang'us thing. You've got all of paw's
+relig'un an' maw's brains, an' that's 'nuff said."
+
+With this he kicked Ozzie B. soundly and sent him, still sobbing, up
+the road.
+
+Then he ran across the wood to head off Jud Carpenter, who he knew
+had to go around a bend in the road.
+
+There was no bird that Archie B. could not mimic. He knew every
+creature of the wood. Every wild thing of the field and forest was
+his friend. Slipping into the underbrush, a hundred yards from the
+road down which he knew Jud Carpenter had to ride, he prepared
+himself for action.
+
+Drawing a turkey-call from his pocket, he gave the call of the wild
+turkey going to roost, as softly as a violinist tries his instrument
+to see if it is in tune.
+
+Prut--prut--prut--it rang out clear and distinctly.
+
+"All right,"--he said--"she'll do."
+
+He had not long to wait. Up the road he soon saw the Whipper-in,
+riding leisurely along.
+
+Archie B. swelled with anger at sight of the complacent and
+satisfactory way he rode along. He even thought he saw a smile--a
+kind of even-up smile--light his face.
+
+When opposite his hiding place, Archie B. put his call to his mouth:
+_Prut--Prut--P-R-U-T_--it rang out. Then _Prut--prut!_
+
+Jud Carpenter stopped his horse instantly.
+
+"Turkeys goin' to roost."--he muttered. He listened for the
+direction.
+
+_Prut--Prut_--it came out of the bushes on the right--a hundred yards
+away under a beech tree.
+
+Jud listened: "Eatin' beech-mast,"--he said, and he slipped off his
+pony, tied him quietly to the limb of a sweet-gum tree, and cocking
+his long gun, slipped into the wood.
+
+Five minutes later he heard the sound still farther off. "They're
+walkin'," muttered Jud--"I mus' head 'em off." Then he pushed on
+rapidly into the forest.
+
+Archie B. let him go--then, making a short circuit, slipped like an
+Indian through the wood, and came up to the pony hitched on the road
+side.
+
+Quietly removing the saddle and blanket, he took two tough prickly
+burrs of the sweet-gum and placed one on each side of the pony's
+spine, where the saddle would rest. Then he put the blanket and
+saddle back, taking care to place them on very gently and tighten the
+girth but lightly.
+
+He shook all over with suppressed mirth as he went farther into the
+wood, and lay down on the mossy bank behind a clay-root to watch the
+performance.
+
+It was a quarter of an hour before Jud, thoroughly tired and
+disgusted, gave up the useless search and came back.
+
+Untying the pony, he threw the bridle rein over its head and vaulted
+lightly into the saddle.
+
+Archie B. grabbed the clay-root and stuffed his wool hat into his
+mouth just in time.
+
+"It was worth a dollar," he told Ozzie B. that night, after they had
+retired to their trundle bed. "The pony squatted fust mighty nigh to
+the groun'--then he riz a-buckin'. I seed Jud's coat-tail a-turnin'
+summersets through the air, the saddle and blanket a-followin'. I
+heard him when he hit the swamp hole on the side of the road
+_kersplash!_--an' the pony skeered speechless went off tearin'
+to-ards home. Then I hollered out: '_Go it ole, fly-ketcher--you're
+as good for tad-poles as you is for bird-eggs_'--an' I lit out
+through the wood."
+
+Ozzie B. burst out crying: "Oh, Archie B., do you reckin the po' man
+got hurt?"
+
+Archie B. replied by kicking him in the ribs until he ceased crying.
+
+"Say yo' prayers now and go to sleep. I'll kick you m'se'f, but I'll
+lick anybody else that does it."
+
+As Ozzie B. dozed off he heard:
+
+"_Venture pee-wee under the bridge--bam--bam--bam._ Oh, Lord, you who
+made the tar'nal fools of this world, have mussy on 'em!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE FLINT AND THE COAL
+
+
+Love is love and there is nothing in all the world like it. Its
+romance comes but once, and it is the perfume that precedes the
+ripened fruit of all after life. It is not amenable to any of the
+laws of reason; nor subject to any law of logic; nor can it be
+explained by the analogy of anything in heaven or earth. Do not,
+therefore, try to reason about it. Only love once--and in youth--and
+be forever silent.
+
+One of the mysteries of love to older ones is that two young people
+may become engaged and never a word be spoken. Put the girl in a
+convent, even, and let the boy but walk past, and the thing is done.
+They look and love, and the understanding is complete. They see and
+sigh, and read each other's secret thoughts, past and present--each
+other's hopes, fears.
+
+They sigh and are engaged, and there is perfect understanding.
+
+Time and Romance travel not together. Time must hurry on. Romance
+would loiter by the way. And so Romance, in her completeness, loves
+to dwell most where Time, traveling over the mile-tracks of the
+tropics, which belong by heredity to Alabama--stalks slower than on
+those strenuous half-mile tracks that spin around the earth in
+latitudes which grow smaller as they approach the frozen pole.
+
+The sun had reached, in his day's journey, the bald knob of Sunset
+Peak, and there, behind it, seemed to stop. At least to Helen Conway,
+born and reared under the brow of Sand Mountain, he seemed every
+afternoon, when he reached the mountain peak, to linger, in a
+friendly way, behind it.
+
+And a bold warrior-looking crest it was, helmeted with a stratum of
+sand-stone, jutting out in visor-shaped fullness about his head, and
+feathery above with scrub-oak and cedar.
+
+Perhaps it had been a fancy which lingered from childhood; but from
+the time when Mammy Maria had first told her that the sun went to bed
+in the valley beyond the mountain until now,--her eighteenth
+year,--Helen still loved to think it was true, and that behind the
+face of Sunset Rock he still lingered to undress; and, lingering, it
+made for her the sweetest and most romantic period of the day.
+
+True to her antebellum ideas, Mammy Maria dressed her two girls every
+afternoon before dinner. It is also true that she cooked the dinner
+herself and made their dresses with her own fingers, and that of late
+years, in the poverty of her drunken master, she had little to dress
+them with and less to cook.
+
+But the resources of the old woman seemed wonderful--to the people
+round about,--for never were two girls more gorgeously gowned than
+Helen and Lily. It was humorous, it was pathetic--the way it was
+done.
+
+From old bureau drawers and cedar chests, stored away in the attic
+and unused rooms of Millwood, where she herself had carefully put
+them in days long gone--days of plenty and thrift--she brought forth
+rich gowns of another age, and made them over for Helen and Lily.
+
+"Now, this gown was Miss Clara's," she would say as she took out a
+bundle of satin and old lace. She looked at it fondly--often with
+tears in her honest black eyes. "Lor', how well I disremember the
+night she fust wore it--the night of the ball we give to Jineral
+Jackson when he first come to see old Marster. This flowered silk
+with pol'naize she wore at the Gov'nor's ball and the black velvet
+with cut steel I've seed her wearin' at many an' many a dinner here
+in this very house."
+
+And so the old woman would go over all her treasures. Then, in a few
+days the gossipy and astounded neighbors would behold Helen and Lily,
+dressed, each, in a gown of white brocaded satin, with a dinner gown
+of black velvet, and for Sunday, old point lace, with petticoats of
+finest hand-made Irish linen and silk stockings--all modernized with
+matchless deft and skill.
+
+"I guess my gals will shine as long as the old chist lasts," she
+would say, "an' I ain't started on 'em yet. I'm a-savin' some for
+their weddin', bless Gord, if I ever sees a man fitten for 'em."
+
+It was an hour yet before dinner, and Aunt Maria had dressed Helen,
+this Saturday afternoon, with great care--for after a little frost,
+each day and night in Alabama becomes warmer and warmer until the
+next frost.
+
+Mammy Maria knew things by intuition, and hence her care to see that
+Helen looked especially pretty to-day.
+
+There was no sun save where he streamed his ribbon rays from behind
+Sunset Rock, and threw them in pearl and ivory fan handles--white and
+gold and emerald, across the mackerel sky beyond.
+
+Helen's silk skirt fitted her well, and one of those beautiful old
+ribbons, flowered in broad leaf and blossoms, wound twice around her
+slender waist and fell in broad streamers nearly to the ground. The
+bodice was cut V-shaped at the throat--the corsage being taken from
+one of her grandmother's made in 1822, and around her neck was a long
+chain of pure gold beads.
+
+She was a type of Southern beauty obtained only after years of gentle
+dames and good breeding.
+
+Her face was pure and fine, rather expressionless at her age, with a
+straight nose and rich fine lips. Her heavy hair was coiled
+gracefully about her head and fell in a longer coil, almost to her
+shoulders. She was tall with a sloping, angular form, the flat
+outlines of which were not yet filled with that fullness that time
+would soon add.
+
+Her waist was well turned, her shoulders broad and slightly rounded,
+with that fullness of chest and breast which Nature, in her hour of
+generosity, gives only to the queenly woman. The curves of her
+sloping neck were perfect and carried not a wave-line of grossness.
+It was as unsensual as a swan's.
+
+Her gown, low cut, showed slight bony shoulders of classic turn and
+whiteness, waiting only for time to ripen them to perfection; and the
+long curved lines which ran up to where the deep braid of her rich
+brown hair fell over them, together with the big joints of her arms
+and the long, fine profile of her face were forerunners of a beauty
+that is strong--like that of the thoroughbred brood mare after a
+year's run on blue-grass.
+
+Her eyes were her only weakness. They were deep and hazel, and given
+to drooping too readily with that feigned modesty wherein vanity
+clothes boldness. Down in their depths, also, shone that bright,
+penetrating spark of a taper by which Folly lights, in woman, the
+lamp of ambition.
+
+Her forehead was high--her whole bearing the unconscious one of a
+born lady.
+
+Romance--girlish, idealized romance--was her's to-day. A good
+intentioned, but thoughtless romance--and therefore a weak one. And
+worse still, one which, coupled with ambition, might be led to ruin.
+
+Down through the tangled box-planted walks she strolled, swinging her
+dainty hat of straw and old lace in her hand; on through the small
+gate that bound the first yard, then through the shaded lawn, unkept
+now and rank with weeds, but still holding the old trees which, in
+other days, looked down over the well kept lawn of grass beneath. Now
+gaunt hogs had rooted it up and the weeds had taken it, and the limbs
+of the old trees, falling, had been permitted to lie as they fell.
+
+The first fence was down. She walked across the road and took a path
+leading through a cottonfield, which, protected on all sides by the
+wood, and being on the elevated plateau on which the residence stood,
+had escaped the severer frosts.
+
+And so she stopped and stood amid it, waist high.
+
+The very act of her stopping showed the romance of her nature.
+
+She had seen the fields of cotton all her life, but she could never
+pass through one in bloom and in fruit--the white and purple
+blossoms, mingled with the green of the leaves and all banked over
+billows of snowy lint,--that she did not stop, thrilled with the same
+childhood feeling that came with the first reading of the Arabian
+Nights.
+
+She had seen the field when it was first plowed, in the spring, and
+the small furrows were thrown up by the little turning shovels. Then,
+down the entire length of the ridge the cotton-planter had followed,
+its two little wheels straddling the row, while the small bull-tongue
+in front opened the shallow furrow for the linty, furry, white seeds
+to fall in and be covered immediately by the mold-board behind. She
+had seen it spring up from one end of the ridge to the other, like
+peas, then chopped out by the hoe, the plants left standing, each the
+width of the hoe apart. Then she had watched it all summer, growing
+under the Southern sun, throwing out limb above limb of beautiful
+delicate leaves, drawing their life and sustenance more from the air
+and sunshine above than from the dark soil beneath. Drawing it from
+the air and sunshine above, and therefore cotton, silken, snowy
+cotton--with the warmth of the sun in the skein of its sheen and the
+purity of heaven in the fleece of its fold.
+
+Child of the air and the sky and sun; therefore, cotton--and not
+corn, which draws its life from the clay and mud and decay which
+comes from below.
+
+She had seen the first cream-white bloom come.
+
+She had found it one sweet day in July, early in the morning, on the
+tip end of the eldest branch of the cotton stalk nearest the ground.
+It hung like the flower of the cream-white, pendulous abutilon, with
+pollen of yellow stars beaded in dew and throwing off a rich,
+delicate, aromatic odor, smelt nowhere on earth save in a
+cottonfield, damp with early dew and warmed by the rays of the rising
+sun. Cream-white it was in the morning, but when she had visited it
+again at nightfall, it hung purple in the twilight.
+
+Then had she plucked it.
+
+Through the hot month of July she had watched the boll grow and
+expand, until in August the lowest and oldest one next to the ground
+burst, and shone through the pale green leaves like the image of a
+star reflected in waters of green. And every morning new cream-white
+blooms formed to the very top, only to turn purple by twilight, while
+beneath, climbing higher and higher as the days went by and the cool
+nights came, star above star of cotton arose and stood twinkling in
+its sky of green and purple, above the dank manger where, in early
+spring, the little child-seed had lain.
+
+To-day, touched by the great frost, the last purple bloom in the very
+tip-top seemed to look up yearningly and plead with the sun for one
+more day of life; that it, too, might add in time its snowy tribute
+to the bank of white which rolled entirely across the field, one big
+billow of cotton.
+
+And in the midst of it the girl stood dreaming and wondering.
+
+She plucked a purple blossom and pinned it to her breast. Then, with
+a deep sigh of saddened longing--that this should be the last--she
+walked on, daintily lifting her gown to avoid the damp stars of
+cotton, now fast gathering the night dew.
+
+Across the field, a vine of wild grape ran over the top of two small
+hackberry trees, forming a natural umbrella-shaped arbor above two
+big moss-covered boulders which cropped out of the ground beneath,
+making two natural rustic seats. On one of these she sat down. Above
+her head glowed the impenetrable leaves of the grape-vine and the
+hackberry, and through them all hung the small purple bunches of wild
+grapes, waiting for the frost of affliction to convert into sugar the
+acid of their souls.
+
+She was in plain view of Millwood, not a quarter of a mile away, and
+in the glow of the blazing red sunset, shining through its broken
+shutters and windows, she could see Mammy Maria busy about their
+dinner.
+
+She looked up the road anxiously--then, with an impatient gesture she
+took the cotton bloom from her bosom and began to pluck the petals
+apart, one by one, saying aloud:
+
+    "One, I love--two, I love--
+     Three, I love, I say.
+     Four, I love with all my heart,
+     And five, I cast away--"
+
+She stopped short and sighed--"O, pshaw! that was Harry; why did I
+name it for him?"
+
+Again she looked impatiently up the road and then went on:
+
+    "Six, he loves, seven, she loves,
+     Eight, both love--"
+
+She turned quickly. She heard the gallop of a saddle horse coming.
+The rider sprang off, tied his horse and sat on the rock by her side.
+
+She appeared not to notice him, and her piqued face was turned away
+petulantly.
+
+It was a handsome boyish face that looked at her for a moment
+mischievously. Then he seized and kissed her despite her struggles.
+
+For this she boxed his ears soundly and sat off on another rock.
+
+"Harry Travis, you can't kiss me every time you want to, no matter if
+we are engaged."
+
+It was a strong and rather a masculine voice, and it grated on one
+slightly, being scarcely expected from so beautiful a face. In it was
+power, self-will, ambition--but no tenderness nor that voice, soft
+and low, which "is an excellent thing in woman."
+
+He laughed banteringly.
+
+"Did you ever hear that love is not love if it is a minute late? Just
+see how long I have waited here for you?"
+
+She sat down by his side and looked fondly up into his face, flushed
+with exercise and smiling half cynically. It was the same smile seen
+so often on the face of Richard Travis.
+
+"Oh, say," he said, dolefully, "but don't start the
+hubby-come-to-taw-business on me until we are married. I was late
+because I had to steal the Gov'nor's new mare--isn't she a beauty?"
+
+"Oh, say," he went on, "but that is a good one--he has bought her for
+somebody he is stuck on--can't say who--and I heard him tell Jim not
+to let anybody get on her back.
+
+"Well,"--he laughed--"she certainly has a fine back. I stole her out
+and galloped right straight here.
+
+"You ought to own her,"--he went on flippantly--pinching playfully at
+the lobe of her ear--"her name is Coquette."
+
+Then he tried to kiss her again.
+
+"Harry!" she said, pulling away--"don't now--Mammy Maria said I was
+never to--let you kiss me."
+
+"Oh," he said with some iciness--"Listen to her an' you will die an
+old maid. Besides, I am not engaged to Mammy Maria."
+
+"Do you think I am a coquette?" she asked, sitting down by him again.
+
+"Worst I ever saw--I said to Nellie just now--I mean--" he stopped
+and laughed.
+
+She looked at him, pained.
+
+"Then you've stopped to see Nellie, and that is why you are late? I
+do not care what she says--I am true to you, Harry--because--because
+I love you."
+
+He was feigning anger, and tapping his boot with his riding whip:
+
+"Well--kiss me yourself then--show me that Mammy Maria does not boss
+my wife."
+
+She laughed and kissed him. He received it with indifference and some
+haughtiness.
+
+Then his good nature returned and they sat and talked, watching the
+sunset.
+
+"Don't you think my dress is pretty?" she asked after a while, with a
+becoming toss of her head.
+
+"Why, I hadn't noticed it--stunning--stunning. If there is a queen on
+earth it is you,"--he added.
+
+She flushed under the praise and was silent.
+
+"Harry,"--she said after a while, "I hate to trouble you now, but I
+am so worried about things at home."
+
+He looked up half frowning.
+
+"You know I have always told you I could not marry you now. I would
+not burden you with Papa."
+
+"Why, yes," he answered mechanically, "we're both young and can wait.
+You see, really, Pet--you know I am dependent at present on the
+Gov'nor an'--"
+
+"I understand all that," she said quickly--"but"--
+
+"A long engagement will only test our love," he broke in with a show
+of dignity.
+
+"You do not understand," she went on. "Things have got so bad at home
+that I must earn something."
+
+He frowned and tapped his foot impatiently. She sat up closer to him
+and put her hand on his. He did not move nor even return the
+pressure.
+
+"And so, Harry--if--if to help papa--and Millwood is sold--and I can
+get a good place in the mill--one off by myself--what they call
+drawer-in--at good wages,--and, if only for a little while I'd work
+there--to help out, you know--what would you think?"
+
+He sprang up from his seat and dropped her hand.
+
+"Good God, Helen Conway, are you crazy?" he said brutally--"why, I'd
+never speak to you again. Me? A Travis?--and marry a mill girl?"
+
+The color went out of her face. She looked in her shame and sorrow
+toward the sunset, where a cloud, but ten minutes before, had stood
+all rosy and purple with the flush of the sunbeams behind it.
+
+Now the beams were gone, and it hung white and bloodless.
+
+In the crisis of our lives such trifles as these flash over us. In
+the greatness of other things--often turning points in our
+life--Nature sometimes points it all with a metaphor.
+
+For Nature is the one great metaphor.
+
+Helen knew that she and the cloud were now one.
+
+But she was not a coward, and with her heart nerved and looking him
+calmly in the face, she talked on and told him of the wretched
+condition of affairs at Millwood. And as she talked, the setting sun
+played over her own cheeks, touching them with a halo of such
+exquisite colors that even the unpoetic soul of Harry Travis was
+touched by the beauty of it all.
+
+And to any one but Harry Travis the proper solution would have been
+plain. Not that he said it or even meant it--for she was too proud a
+spirit even to have thought of it--there is much that a man should
+know instinctively that a woman should never know at all.
+
+Harry surprised himself by the patience with which he listened to
+her. In him, as in his cousin--his pattern--ran a vein of tact when
+the crisis demanded, through and between the stratum of bold
+sensuousness and selfishness which made up the basis of his
+character.
+
+And so as he listened, in the meanness and meagerness of his soul, he
+kept thinking, "I will let her down easy--no need for a scene."
+
+It was narrow and little, but it was all that could come into the
+soul of his narrowness.
+
+For we cannot think beyond our fountain head, nor can we even dream
+beyond the souls of the two things who gave us birth. There are men
+born in this age of ripeness, born with an alphabet in their mouths
+and reared in the regal ways of learning, who can neither read nor
+write. And yet had Shakespeare been born without a language, he would
+have carved his thoughts as pictures on the trees.
+
+Harry Travis was born as so many others are--not only without a
+language, but without a soul within him upon which a picture might be
+drawn.
+
+And so it kept running in his mind, quietly, cold-bloodedly,
+tactfully down the narrow, crooked, slum-alleys of his mind: "I
+will--I will drop her--now!" She ceased--there were tears in her eyes
+and her face was blanched whiter even than the cloud.
+
+He arose quickly and glanced at the setting sun: "Oh, say, but I must
+get the Gov'nor's mare back. Jim will miss her at feeding time."
+
+There was a laugh on his lips and his foot was already in the
+stirrup. "Sorry to be in such a hurry just now, too--because there
+is so much I want to say to you on that subject--awful sorry--but
+the Gov'nor will raise Cain if he knows what I've done. I'll just
+write you a long letter to-night--and I'll be over, maybe,
+soon--ta--ta--but this mare, confound her--see how she cuts up--so
+sorry I can't stay longer--but I'll write--to-night."
+
+He threw her a kiss as he rode off.
+
+She sat dazed, numbed, with the shallowness of it all--the shale of
+sham which did not even conceal the base sub-stratum of deceit below.
+
+Nothing like it had ever come into her life before.
+
+She dropped down behind the rock, but instead of tears there came
+steel. In it all she could only say with her lips white, a defiant
+poise of her splendid head, and with a flash of the eyes which came
+with the Conway aroused: "Oh, and I kissed him--and--and--I loved
+him!"
+
+She sat on the rock again and looked at the sunset. She was too hurt
+now to go home--she wished to be alone.
+
+She was a strong girl--mentally--and with a deep nature; but she was
+proud, and so she sat and crushed it in her pride and strength,
+though to do it shook her as the leaves were now being shaken by the
+breeze which had sprung up at sunset.
+
+She thought she could conquer--that she had conquered--then, as the
+breeze died away, and the leaves hung still and limp again, her pride
+went with the breeze and she fell again on her knees by the big rock,
+fell and buried her face there in the cool moss and cried: "Oh, and
+I loved that thing!"
+
+Ten minutes later she sat pale and smiling. The Conway pride had
+conquered, but it was a dangerous conquest, for steel and tears had
+mingled to make it.
+
+In her despair she even plucked another cotton bloom from her bosom
+as if trying to force herself to be happy again in saying:
+
+    "One, I love--two, I love,
+     Three, I love, I say--"
+
+But this only hurt her, because she remembered that when she had said
+it before she had had an idol which now lay shattered, as the petals
+of the cotton-blossom which she had plucked and thrown away.
+
+Then the breeze sprang up again and with it, borne on it, came the
+click--click--click of a hammer tapping a rock. It was a small gladey
+valley through which a gulley ran. Boulders cropped out here and
+there, and haws, red and white elms, and sassafras grew and shaded
+it.
+
+Down in the gulch, not a hundred yards from her, she saw a pair of
+broad shoulders overtopped by a rusty summer hat--the worse for a
+full season's wear. Around the shoulders was strung a leathern
+satchel, and she could see that the person beneath the hat was
+closely inspecting the rocks he chipped off and put into the satchel.
+Then his hammer rang out again.
+
+She sat and watched him and listened to the tap of his hammer half
+sadly--half amused. Harry Travis had crushed her as she had never
+been crushed before in her life, and the pride in a woman which
+endureth a fall is not to be trifled with afterwards.
+
+She grew calmer--even quiet. The old spirit returned. She knew that
+she had never been as beautiful in her life, as now--just now--in the
+halo of the sunset shining on her hair and reflected in the rare old
+gown she wore.
+
+The person with the leathern satchel was oblivious of everything but
+his work. The old straw hat bobbed energetically--the big shoulders
+nodded steadily beneath it. She watched him silently a few minutes
+and then she called out pleasantly:
+
+"You do seem to be very busy, Clay!"
+
+He stopped and looked up. Then he took off his hat and, awkwardly
+bowing, wiped his brow, broad, calm and self-reliant, and a
+deliberate smile spread over his face. Everything he did was
+deliberate. The smile began in the large friendly mouth and spread in
+kindred waves upward until it flashed out from his kindly blue eyes,
+through the heavy double-lens glasses that covered them.
+
+Without a word he picked up the last rock he had broken off and put
+it into his satchel. Very deliberate, too, was his walk up the hill
+toward the grape arbor, mopping his brow as he came along--a brow big
+and full of cause and effect and of quiet deductions and deliberate
+conclusions. His coat was seedy, his trousers bagged at the knees,
+his shoes were old, and there were patches on them, but his collar
+and linen were white and very much starched, and his awkward,
+shambling gait was honest to the last footfall. A world of depth and
+soul was in his strong, fine face, lit up now with an honest, humble
+smile, but, at rest, full of quiet dignity.
+
+He shuffled along and sat down in a big brotherly way by the girl's
+side.
+
+She sat still, looking at him with a half amused smile on her lips.
+
+He smiled back at her abstractedly. She could see that he had not yet
+really seen her. He was looking thoughtfully across at the hill
+beyond:
+
+"It puzzles me," he said in a fine, mellow voice, "why I should find
+this rotten limestone cropping out here. Now, in the blue limestone
+of the Niagara period I was as sure of finding it as I am--"
+
+"Of not finding me at all,"--it came queenly, haughtily from her.
+
+He turned, and the thick lenses of his glasses were focused on her--a
+radiant, superb being. Then there were swept away all his
+abstractions and deductions, and in their place a real smile--a
+lover's smile of satisfaction looking on the paradise of his dreams.
+
+"You know I have always worshiped you," he said simply and
+reverently.
+
+She moved up in a sisterly way to him and looked into his face.
+
+"Clay--Clay--but you must not--I have told you--I am engaged."
+
+He did not appear to hear her. Already his mind was away off in the
+hills where his eyes were. He went on: "Now, over there I struck a
+stratum of rotten limestone--it's a curious thing. I traced that vein
+of coal from Walker County--clear through the carboniferous period,
+and it is bound to crop out somewhere in this altitude--bound to do
+it."
+
+"Now it's just this way," he said, taking her hand without being
+conscious of it and counting off the periods with her fingers. "Here
+is the carboniferous, the sub-carboniferous--" She jerked her hand
+away with what would have been an amused laugh except that in a half
+conscious way she remembered that Harry had held her hand but half an
+hour ago; and it ended in a frigid shaft feathered with a smile--the
+arrow which came from the bow of her pretty mouth.
+
+He came to himself with a boyish laugh and a blush that made Helen
+look at him again and watch it roll down his cheek and neck, under
+the fine white skin there.
+
+Then he looked at her closely again--the romantic face, the coil of
+brown hair, the old gown of rich silk, the old-fashioned corsage and
+the rich old gold necklace around her throat.
+
+"If there's a queen on earth--it's you," he said simply.
+
+He reddened again, and to divert it felt in his satchel and took out
+a rock. Then he looked across at the hills again:
+
+"If I do trace up that vein of coal and the iron which is needed with
+it--when I do--for I know it is here as well as Leverrier knew that
+Neptune was in our planetary system by the attraction exerted--when I
+do--"
+
+He looked at her again. He could not say the words. Real love has
+ideas, but never words. It feels, but cannot speak. That which comes
+out of the mouth, being words, is ever a poor substitute for that
+which comes from the heart and is spirit.
+
+"Clay," she said, "you keep forgetting. I say I--I am--was--" She
+stopped confused.
+
+He looked hurt for a moment and smiled in his frank way: "I know it
+is here," he said holding up a bit of coal--"here, by the million
+tons, and it is mine by right of birth and education and breeding. It
+is my heritage to find it. One day Alabama steel will outrank
+Pittsburgh's. Oh, to put my name there as the discoverer!"
+
+"Then you"--he turned and said it fondly--reverently--"you should be
+mine by right of--of love."
+
+She sighed.
+
+"Clay--I am sorry for you. I can never love you that way. You have
+told me that, since--oh, since I can remember, and I have always told
+you--you know we are cousins, anyway--second cousins." She shook her
+head.
+
+"Under the heart of the flinty hill lies the coal," he said simply.
+
+But she did not understand him. She had looked down and seen Harry's
+foot-track on the moss.
+
+And so they sat until the first star arose and shimmered through the
+blue mist which lay around the far off purpling hill tops. Then there
+was the clang of a dinner bell.
+
+"It is Mammy Maria," she said--"I must go. No--you must not walk
+home with me. I'd rather be alone."
+
+She did not intend it, but it was brutal to have said it that way--to
+the sensitive heart it went to. He looked hurt for a moment and then
+tried to smile in a weak way. Then he raised his hat gallantly,
+turned and went off down the gulch.
+
+Helen stood looking for the last time on the pretty arbor. Here she
+had lost her heart--her life. She fell on the moss again and kissed
+the stone. Then she walked home--in tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+HILLARD WATTS
+
+
+It is good for the world now and then to go back to first principles
+in religion. It would be better for it never to get away from them;
+but, since it has that way of doing--of breeding away and breaking
+away from the innate good--it is well that a man should be born in
+any age with the faith of Abraham.
+
+It matters not from what source such a man may spring. And he need
+have no known pedigree at all, except an honest ancestry behind him.
+
+Such a man was Hillard Watts, the Cottontown preacher.
+
+Sprung from the common people of the South, he was a most uncommon
+man, in that he had an absolute faith in God and His justice, and an
+absolute belief that some redeeming goodness lay in every human
+being, however depraved he may seem to the world. And so firm was his
+faith, so simple his religion--so contrary to the worldliness of the
+religion of his day,--that the very practice of it made him an
+uncommon man.
+
+As the overseer of General Jeremiah Travis's large estate before the
+war, he proved by his success that even slaves work better for
+kindness. Of infinite good sense, but little education, he had a mind
+that went to the heart of things, and years ago the fame of his
+homely but pithy sayings stuck in the community. In connection with
+kindness to his negroes one of his sayings was, "Oh, kindness can't
+be classified--it takes in the whole world or nothin'."
+
+When General Travis got into dire financial straits once, he sent for
+his overseer, and advised with him as to the expediency of giving up.
+The overseer, who knew the world and its ways with all the good
+judgment of his nature, dryly remarked: "That'll never do. Never let
+the world know you've quit; an' let the undertaker that buries you be
+the fust man to find out you're busted."
+
+General Travis laughed, and that season one of his horses won the
+Tennessee Valley Futurity, worth thirty-thousand dollars--and the
+splendid estate was again free from debt.
+
+There was not a negro on the place who did not love the overseer, not
+one who did not carry that love to the extent of doing his best to
+please him. He had never been known to punish one, and yet the work
+done by the Travis hands was proverbial.
+
+Among his duties as overseer, the entire charge of the Westmore
+stable of thoroughbreds fell to his care. This was as much from love
+as choice, for never was a man born with more innate love of all dumb
+creatures than the preacher-overseer.
+
+"I've allers contended that a man could love God an' raise horses, too,"
+he would say; and it was ludicrous to see him when he went off to the
+races, filling the tent trunk with religious tracts, which, after the
+races, he would distribute to all who would read them. And when night
+came he would regularly hold prayers in his tent--prayer-meetings in
+which his auditors were touts, stable-boys and gamblers. And woe to the
+stable-boy who uttered an oath in his presence or dared to strike or
+maltreat any of his horses!
+
+He preached constantly against gambling on the races. "That's the
+Devil's end of it," he would say--"The Almighty lets us raise good
+horses as a benefit to mankind, an' the best one wins the purse. It
+was the Devil's idea that turned 'em into gambling machines."
+
+No one ever doubted the honesty of his races. When the Travis horses
+ran, the racing world knew they ran for blood.
+
+Physically, he had been an athlete--a giant, and unconscious of his
+strength. Incidentally, he had taken to wrestling when a boy, and as
+a man his fame as a wrestler was coincident with the Tennessee
+Valley. It was a manly sport which gave him great pleasure, just as
+would the physical development of one of his race horses. Had he
+lived in the early days of Greece, he would have won in the Olympian
+wrestling match.
+
+There was in Hillard Watts a trait which is one of the most
+pronounced of his type of folks,--a sturdy, honest humor. Humor, but
+of the Cromwell type--and withal, a kind that went with praying and
+fighting. Possessed, naturally, of a strong mind of great good sense,
+he had learned to read and write by studying the Bible--the only book
+he had ever read through and through and which he seemed to know by
+heart. He was earnest and honest in all things, but in his
+earnestness and strong fight for right living there was the twinkle
+of humor. Life, with him, was a serious fight, but ever through the
+smoke of its battle there gleamed the bright sun of a kindly humor.
+
+The overseer's home was a double log hut on the side of the mountain.
+His plantation, he called it,--for having been General Travis's
+overseer, he could not imagine any farm being less than a plantation.
+
+It consisted of forty acres of flinty land on the mountain side--"too
+po' to sprout cow-peas," as his old wife would always add--"but hits
+pow'ful for blackberries, an' if we can just live till blackberry
+time comes we can take keer ourselves."
+
+Mrs. Watts had not a lazy bone in her body. Her religion was work:
+"Hit's nature's remedy," she would add--"wuck and five draps o'
+turpentine if you're feelin' po'ly."
+
+She despised her husband's ways and thought little of his religion.
+Her tongue was frightful--her temper worse. Her mission on
+earth--aside from work--work--work--was to see that too much peace
+and good will did not abide long in the same place.
+
+Elder Butts, the Hard-Shell preacher, used to say: "She can go to the
+full of the moon mighty nigh every month 'thout raisin' a row, if
+hard pressed for time an' she thinks everybody else around her is
+miser'ble. But if things look too peaceful and happy, she'll raise
+sand in the last quarter or bust. The Bishop's a good man, but if he
+ever gits to heaven, the bigges' diamon' in his crown'll be because
+he's lived with that old 'oman an' ain't committed murder. I don't
+believe in law suits, but if he ain't got a damage case agin the
+preacher that married him, then I'm wrong."
+
+But no one ever heard the old man use harsher language in speaking of
+her than to remark that she was "a female Jineral--that's what
+Tabitha is."
+
+Perhaps she was, and but for her the Bishop and his household had
+starved long ago.
+
+"Furagin' is her strong point"--he would always add--"she'd made
+Albert Sydney Johnston a great chief of commissary."
+
+And there was not an herb of any value that Mrs. Watts did not know
+all about. Any fair day she might be seen on the mountain side
+plucking edibles. Ginseng was her money crop, and every spring she
+would daily go into the mountain forests and come back with enough of
+its roots to help them out in the winter's pinch.
+
+"Now, if anybody'll study Nature," she would say, "they'll see she
+never cal'c'lated to fetch us here 'ithout makin' 'lowance fur to
+feed us. The fus' thing that comes up is dandelions--an' I don't want
+to stick my tooth in anything that's better than dandelion greens
+biled with hog-jowl. I like a biled dinner any way. Sas'fras tea
+comes mighty handy with dandelions in the spring, an' them two'll
+carry us through April. Then comes wild lettice an' tansy-tea--that's
+fur May. Blackberries is good fur June an' the jam'll take us through
+winter if Bull Run and Appomattox ain' too healthy. In the summer we
+can live on garden truck, an' in the fall there is wild reddishes an'
+water-cresses an' spatterdock, an' nuts an' pertatoes come in mighty
+handy fur winter wuck. Why, I was born wuckin'--when I was a gal I
+cooked, washed and done house-work for a family of ten, an' then had
+time to spin ten hanks o' yarn a day."
+
+"Now there's the old man--he's too lazy to wuck--he's like all
+parsons, he'd rather preach aroun' all his life on a promise of
+heaven than to wuck on earth for cash!"
+
+"How did I ever come to marry Hillard Watts? Wal, he wa'n't that
+triflin' when I married him. He didn't have so much religiun then.
+But I've allers noticed a man's heredity for no-countness craps out
+after he's married. Lookin' back now I reckin' I married him jes' to
+res' myself. When I'm wuckin' an' git tired, I watches Hillard doin'
+nothin' awhile an' it hopes me pow'ful."
+
+"He gits so busy at it an' seems so contented an' happy."
+
+Besides his wife there were five grandchildren in his
+family--children of the old man's son by his second wife. "Their
+father tuck after his stepmother," he would explain regretfully, "an'
+wucked hisself to death in the cotton factory. The dust an' lint give
+him consumption. He was the only man I ever seed that tuck after his
+stepmother"--he added sadly.
+
+An old soldier never gets over the war. It has left a nervous shock
+in his make-up--a memory in all his after life which takes precedence
+over all other things. The old man had the naming of the
+grandchildren, and he named them after the battles of the Civil war.
+Bull Run and Seven Days were the boys. Atlanta, Appomattox and Shiloh
+were the girls. His apology for Shiloh was: "You see I thout I'd name
+the last one Appomattox. Then came a little one befo' her mammy died,
+so weak an' pitiful I named her Shiloh."
+
+It was the boast of their grandmother--that these children--even
+little Shiloh--aged seven--worked from ten to twelve hours every day
+in the cotton factory, rising before day and working often into the
+night, with forty minutes at noon for lunch.
+
+They had not had a holiday since Christmas, and on the last
+anniversary of that day they had worked until ten o'clock, making up
+for lost time. Their pay was twenty-five cents a day--except Shiloh,
+who received fifteen.
+
+"But I'll soon be worth mo', pap," she would say as she crawled up
+into the old man's lap--her usual place when she had eaten her supper
+and wanted to rest. "An you know what I'm gwine do with my other
+nickel every day? I'm gwine give it to the po' people of Indy an'
+China you preaches about."
+
+And thus she would prattle--too young to know that, through the
+cupidity of white men, in this--the land of freedom and
+progress--she--this blue-eyed, white-skinned child of the Saxon race,
+was making the same wages as the Indian sepoy and the Chinese coolie.
+
+It was Saturday night and after the old man had put Shiloh to bed, he
+mounted his horse and rode across the mountain to Westmoreland.
+
+"Oh," said the old lady--"he's gwine over to Miss Alice's to git his
+Sunday School less'n. An' I'd like to know what good Sunday school
+less'ns 'll do any body. If folks'd git in the habit of wuckin' mo'
+an' prayin' less, the worl'ud be better off, an' they'd really have
+somethin' to be thankful fur when Sunday comes, 'stid of livin' frum
+han' to mouth an' trustin' in some unknown God to cram feed in you'
+crops."
+
+Hardened by poverty, work, and misfortune, she was the soul of
+pessimism.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WESTMORELAND
+
+
+From The Gaffs to Westmoreland, the home of Alice Westmore, was
+barely two miles up the level white pike.
+
+Jim sat in the buggy at The Gaffs holding the horses while Richard
+Travis, having eaten his supper, was lighting a cigar and drawing on
+his overcoat, preparatory to riding over to Westmoreland.
+
+The trotters stood at the door tossing their heads and eager to be
+off. They were cherry bays and so much alike that even Jim sometimes
+got them mixed. They were clean-limbed and racy looking, with flanks
+well drawn up, but with a broad bunch of powerful muscles which
+rolled from hip to back, making a sturdy back for the splendid full
+tails which almost touched the ground. In front they stood up
+straight, deep-chested, with clean bony heads, large luminous eyes
+and long slender ears, tapering into a point as velvety and soft as
+the tendril-bud on the tip of a Virginia creeper.
+
+They stood shifting the bits nervously. The night air was cool and
+they wanted to go.
+
+Travis came out and sprang from the porch to the buggy seat with the
+quick, sure footing of an athlete. Jim sat on the offside and passed
+him the lines just as he sang cheerily out:
+
+"Heigh-ho--my honies--go!"
+
+The two mares bounded away so quickly and keenly that the near mare
+struck her quarters and jumped up into the air, running. Her off mate
+settled to work, trotting as steadily as a bolting Caribou, but
+pulling viciously.
+
+Travis twisted the near bit with a deft turn of his left wrist, and
+as the two mares settled to their strides there was but one stroke
+from their shoes, so evenly and in unison did they trot. Down the
+level road they flew, Travis sitting gracefully upright and holding
+the lines in that sure, yet careless way which comes to the expert
+driver with power in his arms.
+
+"How many times must I tell you, Jim," he said at last rather
+gruffly--"never to bring them out, even for the road, without their
+boots? Didn't you see Lizette grab her quarters and fly up just now?"
+
+Jim was duly penitent.
+
+Travis let them out a link. They flew down a soft, cool graveled
+stretch. He drew them in at the sound of an ominous click. It came
+from Sadie B.
+
+"Sadie B.'s forging again. Didn't I tell you to have the blacksmith
+move her hind shoes back a little?"
+
+"I did, sir," said Jim.
+
+"You've got no weight on her front feet, then," said Travis
+critically.
+
+"Not to-night, sir--I took off the two ounces thinking you'd not
+speed them to-night, sir."
+
+"You never know when I'm going to speed them. The night is as good as
+the day when I want a tonic."
+
+They had reached the big stone posts which marked the boundary of
+Westmoreland. A little farther on the mares wheeled into the gate,
+for it was open and lay, half on the ground, hanging by one hinge. It
+had not been painted for years. The driveway, too, had been
+neglected. The old home, beautiful even in its decay, sat in a fine
+beech grove on the slope of a hill. A wide veranda, with marble
+flag-stones as a base, ran across the front. Eight Corinthian pillars
+sentineled it, resting on a marble base which seemed to spring up out
+of the flag-stones themselves, and towering to the projecting
+entablature above.
+
+On one side an ell could be seen, covered with ivy. On the other the
+roof of a hot-house, with the glass broken out.
+
+It touched even Richard Travis--this decay. He had known the place in
+the days of its glory before its proprietor, Colonel Theodore
+Westmore, broken by the war, in spirit and in pocket, had sent a
+bullet into his brain and ended the bitter fight with debt. Since
+then, no one but the widow and her daughter knew what the fight had
+been, for Clay Westmore, the brother, was but a boy and in college at
+the time. He had graduated only a few months before, and was now at
+home, wrapped up, as Richard Travis had heard, in what to him was a
+visionary scheme of some sort for discovering a large area of coal
+and iron thereabouts. He had heard, too, that the young man had taken
+hold of what had been left, and that often he had been seen following
+the plough himself.
+
+Travis drove through the driveway--then he pulled up the mares very
+gently, got out and felt of their flanks.
+
+"Take them to the barn and rub them off," he said, "while you wait.
+And for a half hour bandage their hind legs--I don't want any wind
+puffs from road work."
+
+He started into the house. Then he turned and said: "Be here at the
+door, Jim, by ten o'clock, sharp. I shall make another call after
+this. Mind you now, ten o'clock, sharp."
+
+At the library he knocked and walked in.
+
+Mrs. Westmore sat by the fire. She was a small, daintily-made woman,
+and beautiful even at fifty-five. She had keen, black eyes and
+nervous, flighty ways. A smile, half cynical, half inviting, lit up
+continuously her face.
+
+"Richard?" she said, rising and taking his hand.
+
+"Cousin Alethea--I thought you were Alice and I was going to surprise
+her."
+
+Mrs. Westmore laughed her metallic little laugh. It was habit. She
+intended it to be reassuring, but too much of it made one nervous. It
+was the laugh without the soul in it--the eye open and lighted, but
+dead. It was a Damascus blade falling from the stricken arm to the
+stone pavement and not against the ringing steel of an opponent.
+
+"You will guess, of course, where she is," she said after they were
+seated.
+
+"No?" from Travis.
+
+"Getting their Sunday School lesson--she, Uncle Bisco, and the
+Bishop."
+
+Travis frowned and gave a nervous twitch of his shoulders as he
+turned around to find himself a chair.
+
+"No one knows just how we feel towards Uncle Bisco and his wife,"
+went on Mrs. Westmore in half apology--"she has been with us so long
+and is now so old and helpless since they were freed; their children
+have all left them--gone--no one knows where. And so Uncle Bisco and
+Aunt Charity are as helpless as babes, and but for Alice they would
+suffer greatly."
+
+A sudden impulse seized Travis: "Let us go and peep in on them. We
+shall have a good joke on Her Majesty."
+
+Mrs. Westmore laughed, and they slipped quietly out to Uncle Bisco's
+cabin. Down a shrubbery-lined walk they went--then through the woods
+across a field. It was a long walk, but the path was firm and good,
+and the moon lit it up. They came to the little cabin at last, in the
+edge of another wood. Then they slipped around and peeped in the
+window.
+
+A small kerosene lamp sat on a table lighting up a room scrupulously
+clean.
+
+Uncle Bisco was very old. His head was, in truth, a cotton plant full
+open. His face was intelligent, grave--such a face as Howard Weeden
+only could draw from memory. He had finished his supper, and from the
+remnants left on the plate it was plain that Alice Westmore had
+prepared for the old man dainties which she, herself, could not
+afford to indulge in.
+
+By him sat his old wife, and on the other side of the fireplace was
+the old overseer, his head also white, his face strong and
+thoughtful. He was clean shaven, save a patch of short white
+chin-whiskers, and his big straight nose had a slight hook of
+shrewdness in it.
+
+Alice Westmore was reading the chapter--her voice added to it an
+hundred fold: "Let not your heart be troubled.... Ye believe in God,
+believe also in me.... In my Father's house are many mansions...!"
+
+The lamplight fell on her hair. It was brown where the light flashed
+over it, and lay in rippling waves around her temples in a splendid
+coil down the arch of her neck, and shining in strong contrast
+through the gauzy dark sheen of her black gown. But where the light
+fell, there was that suspicion of red which the last faint tendril a
+dying sunbeam throws out in a parting clutch at the bosom of a cloud.
+
+It gave one a feeling of the benediction of twilight.
+
+And when she looked up, her eyes were the blessings poured
+out--luminous, helpful, uplifting, restful,--certain of life and
+immortality, full of all that which one sees not, when awake, but
+only when in the borderland of sleep, and memory, unleashed, tracks
+back on the trail of sweet days which once were.
+
+They spake indeed always thus: "Let not your heart be troubled....
+Peace, be still."
+
+Her face did not seem to be a separate thing--apart--as with most
+women. For there are women whose hair is one thing and whose face is
+another. The hair is beautiful, pure, refined. The face beautiful,
+merely. The hair decorous, quiet, unadorned and debauched not by
+powder and paint, stands aloof as Desdemona, Ophelia or Rosalind. The
+face, brazen, with a sharp-tongued, vulgar queen of a thing in its
+center, on a throne, surrounded by perfumed nymphs, under the sensual
+glare of two rose-colored lamps, sits and holds a Du Barry court.
+
+They are neighbors, but not friends, and they live in the same
+sphere, held together only by the law of gravity which holds to one
+spot of earth the rose and the ragwort. And the hair, like the rose,
+in all the purity of its own rich sweetness, all the naturalness of
+its soul, sits and looks down upon the face as a queen would over the
+painted yellow thing thrust by the law of life into her presence.
+
+But the face of Alice Westmore was companion to her hair. The
+firelight fell on it; and while the glow from the lamp fell on her
+hair in sweet twilight shadows of good night, the rosy, purple beams
+of the cheerful firelight lit up her face with the sweet glory of a
+perpetual good morning.
+
+Travis stood looking at her forgetful of all else. His lips were
+firmly set, as of a strong mind looking on its life-dream, the quarry
+of his hunter-soul all but in his grasp. Flashes of hope and little
+twists of fear were there; then, as he looked again, she raised, half
+timidly, her face as a Madonna asking for a blessing; and around his,
+crept in the smile which told of hope long deferred.
+
+Selfish, impure, ambitious, forceful and masterful as he was, he
+stood hopeless and hungry-hearted before this pure woman. She had
+been the dream of his life--all times--always--since he could
+remember.
+
+To own her--to win her!
+
+As he looked up, the hardness of his face attracted even Mrs.
+Westmore, smiling by his side at the scene before her. She looked up
+at Travis, but when she saw his face the smile went out of hers. It
+changed to fear.
+
+All the other passions in his face had settled into one cruel cynical
+smile around his mouth--a smile of winning or of death.
+
+For the first time in her life she feared Richard Travis.
+
+"I must go now," said Alice Westmore to the old men--"but I'll sing
+you a verse or two."
+
+The overseer leaned back in his chair. Uncle Bisco stooped forward,
+his chin resting on his hickory staff.
+
+And then like the clear notes of a spring, dripping drop by drop with
+a lengthening cadence into the covered pool of a rock-lined basin,
+came a simple Sunday School song the two old men loved so well.
+
+There were tears in the old negro's eyes when she had finished. Then
+he sobbed like a child.
+
+Alice Westmore arose to go.
+
+"Now, Bishop--" she smiled at the overseer--"don't keep Uncle Bisco up
+all night talking about the war, and if you don't come by the house and
+chat with mamma and me awhile, we'll be jealous."
+
+The overseer looked up: "Miss Alice--I'm an ole man an' we ole men all
+dream dreams when night comes. Moods come over us and, look where we
+will, it all leads back to the sweet paths of the past. To-day--all
+day--my mind has been on"--he stopped, afraid to pronounce the word and
+hunting around in the scanty lexicon of his mind for some phrase of
+speech, some word even that might not awaken in Alice Westmore memories
+of the past.
+
+Richard Travis had an intuition of things as naturally as an eagle has
+the homing instinct, however high in air and beyond all earth's
+boundaries he flies. In this instance Mrs. Westmore also had it, for she
+looked up quickly at the man beside her. All the other emotions had
+vanished from his face save the one appealing look which said: "Come,
+let us go--we have heard enough."
+
+Then they slipped back into the house.
+
+Alice Westmore had stopped, smiling back from the doorway.
+
+"On what, Bishop?" she finally asked.
+
+He shook his head. "Jus' the dream of an ole man," he said. "Don't
+bother about us two ole men. I'll be 'long presently."
+
+"Bisco," said the old preacher after a while, "come mighty nigh
+makin' a break then--but I've been thinkin' of Cap'n Tom all day. I
+can't throw it off."
+
+Bisco shook his head solemnly. "So have I--so have I. The older I
+gits, the mo' I miss Marse Tom."
+
+"I don't like the way things are goin'--in yonder"--and the preacher
+nodded his head toward the house.
+
+Uncle Bisco looked cautiously around to see that no one was near:
+"He's doin' his bes'--the only thing is whether she can forgit Marse
+Tom."
+
+"Bisco, it ain't human nature for her to stan' up agin all that's
+brought to bear on her. Cap'n Tom is dead. Love is only human at
+las', an' like all else that's human it mus' fade away if it ain't
+fed. It's been ten years an' mo'--sence--Cap'n Tom's light went out."
+
+"The last day of November--'64--" said Uncle Bisco, "I was thar an'
+seed it. It was at the Franklin fight."
+
+"An' Dick Travis has loved her from his youth," went on the overseer,
+"an' he loves her now, an' he's a masterful man."
+
+"So is the Devil," whispered Uncle Bisco, "an' didn't he battle with
+the angels of the Lord an' mighty nigh hurled 'em from the crystal
+battlements."
+
+"Bisco, I know him--I've knowed him from youth. He's a conjurin'
+man--a man who does things--he'll win her--he'll marry her yet.
+She'll not love him as she did Cap'n Tom. No--she'll never love
+again. But life is one thing an' love is another, an' it ain't often
+they meet in the same person. Youth mus' live even if it don't love,
+an' the law of nature is the law of life."
+
+"I'm afeered so," said the old negro, shaking his head, "I'm afeered
+it'll be that way--but--I'd ruther see her die to-night."
+
+"If God lets it be," said the preacher, "Bisco, if God lets it be--"
+he said excitedly, "if he'll let Cap'n Tom die an' suffer the
+martyrdom he suffered for conscience sake an' be robbed, as he was
+robbed, of his home, an' of his love--if God'll do that, then all I
+can say is, that after a long life walkin' with God, it'll be the
+fus' time I've ever knowed Him to let the wrong win out in the end.
+An' that ain't the kind of God I'm lookin' fur."
+
+"Do you say that, Marse Hillyard?" asked the old negro quickly--his
+eyes taking on the light of hope as one who, weak, comes under the
+influence of a stronger mind. "Marse Hillyard, do you believe it?
+Praise God."
+
+"Bisco--I'm--I'm ashamed--why should I doubt Him--He's told me a
+thousand truths an' never a lie."
+
+"Praise God," replied the old man softly.
+
+And so the two old men talked on, and their talk was of Captain Tom.
+No wonder when the old preacher mounted his horse to go back to his
+little cabin, all of his thoughts were of Captain Tom. No wonder
+Uncle Bisco, who had raised him, went to bed and dreamed of Captain
+Tom--dreamed and saw again the bloody Franklin fight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING
+
+
+In the library, Travis and Mrs. Westmore sat for some time in
+silence. Travis, as usual, smoked, in his thoughtful way watching the
+firelight which flickered now and then, half lighting up the room. It
+was plain that both were thinking of a subject that neither wished to
+be the first to bring up.
+
+"I have been wanting all day to ask you about the mortgage," she said
+to him, finally.
+
+"Oh," said Travis, indifferently enough--"that's all right. I
+arranged it at the bank to-day."
+
+"I am so much obliged to you; it has been so on my mind," said his
+companion. "We women are such poor financiers, I wonder how you men
+ever have patience to bother with us. Did you get Mr. Shipton to
+carry it at the bank for another year?"
+
+"Why--I--you see, Cousin Alethea--Shipton's a close dog--and the most
+unaccommodating fellow that ever lived when it comes to money. And
+so--er--well--the truth is--is--I had to act quickly and for what I
+thought was your interest."
+
+Mrs. Westmore looked up quickly, and Travis saw the pained look in
+her face. "So I bought it in myself," he went on, carelessly flecking
+his cigar ashes into the fire. "I just had the judgment and sale
+transferred to me--to accommodate you--Cousin Alethea--you
+understand that--entirely for you. I hate to see you bothered this
+way--I'll carry it as long as you wish."
+
+She thanked him again, more with her eyes than her voice. Then there
+crept over her face that look of trouble and sorrow, unlike any
+Travis had ever seen there. Once seen on any human face it is always
+remembered, for it is the same, the world over, upon its millions and
+millions--that deadened look of trouble which carries with it the
+knowledge that the spot called home is lost forever.
+
+There are many shifting photographs from the camera called sorrow,
+pictured on the delicate plate of the human soul or focused in the
+face. There is the crushed look when Death takes the loved one, the
+hardened look when an ideal is shattered, the look of dismay from
+wrecked hopes and the cynical look from wrecked happiness--but none
+of these is the numbed and dumb look of despair which confronts
+humanity when the home is gone.
+
+It runs not alone through the man family, but every other animal as
+well, from the broken-hearted bird which sits on the nearby limb, and
+sees the wreck of her home by the ravages of a night-prowling
+marauder, to the squalidest of human beings, turning their backs
+forever on the mud-hut that had once sheltered them.
+
+To Mrs. Westmore it was a keen grief. Here had she come as a
+bride--here had she lived since--here had been born her two
+children--here occurred the great sorrow of her life.
+
+And the sacredest memory, at last, of life, lies not in the
+handclasp of a coming joy, but in the footfall of a vanishing sorrow.
+
+Westmoreland meant everything to Mrs. Westmore--the pride of birth,
+of social standing, the ties of motherhood, the very altar of her
+life. And it was her husband's name and her own family. It meant she
+was not of common clay, nor unknown, nor without influence. It was
+bound around and woven into her life, and part of her very existence.
+
+Home in the South means more than it does anywhere else on earth; for
+local self-government--wherever the principle came from--finds its
+very altar there. States-right is nothing but the home idea,
+stretched over the state and bounded by certain lines. The peculiar
+institutions of the South made every home a castle, a town, a
+government, a kingdom in itself, in which the real ruler is a queen.
+
+Ask the first negro or child met in the road, whose home is this, or
+that, and one would think the entire Southland was widowed.
+
+From the day she had entered it as a bride, Westmoreland, throughout
+the County, had been known as the home of Mrs. Westmore.
+
+She was proud of it. She loved it with that love which had come down
+through a long line of cavaliers loving their castles.
+
+And now she knew it must go, as well as that, sooner or later, Death
+itself must come.
+
+She knew Richard Travis, and she knew that, if from his life were
+snatched the chance of making Alice Westmore his wife he would sell
+the place as cold-bloodedly as Shipton would.
+
+Travis sat smoking, but reading her. He spelled her thoughts as
+easily as if they had been written on her forehead, for he was a man
+who spelled. He smoked calmly and indifferently, but the one question
+of his heart--the winning of Alice,--surged in his breast and it
+said: "Now is the time--now--buy her--the mother. This is the one
+thing which is her price."
+
+He looked at Mrs. Westmore again. He scanned her closely, from her
+foot to the dainty head of beautiful, half-grey hair. He could read
+her as an open book--her veneration of all Westmoreland things--her
+vanity--her pride of home and name and position; the overpowering
+independence of that vanity which made her hold up her head in
+company, just as in the former days, tho' to do it she must work,
+scrub, pinch, ay, even go hungry.
+
+He knew it all and he knew it better than she guessed--that it had
+actually come to a question of food with them; that her son was a
+geological dreamer, just out of college, and that Alice's meagre
+salary at the run-down female college where she taught music was all
+that stood between them and poverty of the bitterest kind.
+
+For there is no poverty like the tyranny of that which sits on the
+erstwhile throne of plenty.
+
+He glanced around the room--the hall--the home--in his mind's
+eye--and wondered how she did it--how she managed that poverty should
+leave no trace of itself in the home, the well furnished and elegant
+old home, from its shining, polished furniture and old silver to the
+oiled floor of oak and ash.
+
+Could he buy her--bribe her, win her to work for him? He started to
+speak and say: "Cousin Alethea, may not all this be stopped, this
+debt and poverty and make-believe--this suffering of pride,
+transfixed by the spears of poverty? Let you and me arrange it, and
+all so satisfactorily. I have loved Alice all my life."
+
+There is the fool in every one of us. And that is what the fool in
+Richard Travis wished him to say. What he did say was:
+
+"Oh, it was nothing but purely business on my part--purely business.
+I had the money and was looking for a good investment. I was glad to
+find it. There are a hundred acres and the house left. And by the
+way, Cousin Alethea, I just added five-hundred dollars more to the
+principal,--thought, perhaps, you'd need it, you know? You'll find it
+to your credit at Shipton's bank."
+
+He smoked on as if he thought it was nothing. As a business fact he
+knew the place was already mortgaged for all it was worth.
+
+"Oh, how can we ever thank you enough?"
+
+Travis glanced at her when she spoke. He flushed when he heard her
+place a slight accent on the we. She glanced at him and then looked
+into the fire. But in their glances which met, they both saw that the
+other knew and understood.
+
+"And by the way, Cousin Alethea," said Travis after a while, "of
+course it is not necessary to let Alice know anything of this
+business. It will only worry her unnecessarily."
+
+"Of course not," said Mrs. Westmore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A STAR AND A SATELLITE
+
+
+An hour later Mrs. Westmore had gone to her room and Alice had been
+singing his favorite songs. Her singing always had a peculiar
+influence over Richard Travis--a moral influence, which, perhaps, was
+the secret of its power; and all influence which is permanent is
+moral. There was in it for him an uplifting force that he never
+experienced save in her presence and under the influence of her
+songs.
+
+He was a brilliant man and he knew that if he won Alice Westmore it
+must be done on a high plane. Women were his playthings--he had won
+them by the score and flung them away when won. But all his
+life--even when a boy--he had dreamed of finally winning Alice
+Westmore and settling down.
+
+Like all men who were impure, he made the mistake of thinking that
+one day, when he wished, he could be pure.
+
+Such a man may marry, but it is a thing of convenience, a matter in
+which he selects some woman, who he knows will not be his mistress,
+to become his housekeeper.
+
+And thus she plods along in life, differing eventually only from his
+mistress in that she is the mother of his children.
+
+In all Richard's longings, too, for Alice Westmore, there was an
+unconscious cause. He did not know it because he could not know.
+
+Sooner or later love, which is loose, surfeits and sours. It is then
+that it turns instinctively to the pure, as the Jews, straying from
+their true God and meeting the chastisement of the sword of Babylon,
+turned in their anguish to the city of their King.
+
+Nature is inexorable, and love has its laws as fixed as those which
+hold the stars in their course. And woe to the man or woman who
+transgresses! He who, ere it is ripe, deflowers the bud of blossoming
+love in wantonness and waste, in after years will watch and wait and
+water it with tears, in vain, for that bloom will never come.
+
+She came over by the fire. Her face was flushed; her beautiful sad
+eyes lighted with excitement.
+
+"Do you remember the first time I ever heard you sing, Alice?"
+
+His voice was earnest and full of pathos, for him.
+
+"Was it not when father dressed me as a gypsy girl and I rode my pony
+over to The Gaffs and sang from horse-back for your grandfather?"
+
+He nodded: "I thought you were the prettiest thing I ever saw, and I
+have thought so ever since. That's when I fell in love with you."
+
+"I remember quite distinctly what you did," she said. "You were a big
+boy and you came up behind my pony and jumped on, frightening us
+dreadfully."
+
+"Tried to kiss you, didn't I?"
+
+She laughed: "That was ever a chronic endeavor of your youth."
+
+How pretty she looked. Had it been any other woman he would have
+reached over and taken her hand.
+
+"Overpower her, master her, make her love you by force of arms"--his
+inner voice said.
+
+He turned to the musing woman beside him and mechanically reached out
+his hand. Hers lay on the arm of her chair. The next instant he would
+have dropped his upon it and held it there. But as he made the motion
+her eyes looked up into his, so passion-free and holy that his own
+arm fell by his side.
+
+But the little wave of passion in him only stirred him to his depths.
+Ere she knew it or could stop him he was telling her the story of his
+love for her. Poetry,--romance,--and with it the strength of
+saying,--fell from his lips as naturally as snow from the clouds. He
+went into the history of old loves--how, of all loves they are the
+greatest--of Jacob who served his fourteen years for Rachel, of the
+love of Petrarch, of Dante.
+
+"Do you know Browning's most beautiful poem?" he asked at last. His
+voice was tenderly mellow:
+
+    "All that I know of a certain star
+     Is, it can throw (like the angled spar)
+     Now a dart of red, now a dart of blue;
+     Till my friends have said they would fain see, too,
+     My star that dartles the red and the blue!
+     Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:
+     They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
+     What matter to me if their star is a world?
+     Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it."
+
+"Alice," he said, drawing his chair closer to her, "I know I have no
+such life to offer as you would bring to me. The best we men can do
+is to do the best we can. We are saved only because there is one
+woman we can look to always as our star. There is much of our past
+that we all might wish to change, but change, like work, is the law
+of life, and we must not always dream."
+
+Quietly he had dropped his hand upon hers. Her own eyes were far
+off--they were dreaming. So deep was her dream that she had not
+noticed it. Passion practised, as he was, the torch of her hand
+thrilled him as with wine; and as with wine was he daring.
+
+"I know where your thoughts have been," he went on.
+
+She looked up with a start and her hand slipped from under his into
+her lap. It was a simple movement and involuntary--like that of the
+little brown quail when she slips from the sedge-grass into the
+tangled depths of the blossoming wild blackberry bushes at the far
+off flash of a sharp-shinned hawk-wing, up in the blue. Nor could she
+say whether she saw it, or whether it was merely a shadow, an
+instinctive signal from the innocent courts of the sky to the
+brood-children of her innocence below.
+
+But he saw it and said quickly, changing with it the subject: "At
+least were--but all that has passed. I need you, Alice," he went on
+passionately--"in my life, in my work. My home is there, waiting! It
+has been waiting all these years for you--its mistress--the only
+mistress it shall ever have. Your mother"--Alice looked at him
+surprised.
+
+"Your mother--you,--perhaps, had not thought of that--your mother
+needs the rest and the care we could give her. Our lives are not
+always our own," he went on gravely--"oftentimes it belongs partly to
+others--for their happiness."
+
+He felt that he was striking a winning chord.
+
+"You can love me if you would say so," he said, bending low over her.
+
+This time, when his hand fell on hers, she did not move. Surprised,
+he looked into her eyes. There were tears there.
+
+Travis knew when he had gone far enough. Reverently he kissed her
+hand as he said:
+
+"Never mind--in your own time, Alice. I can wait--I have waited long.
+Twenty years," he added, patiently, even sweetly, "and if need be,
+I'll wait twenty more."
+
+"I'll go now," he said, after a moment.
+
+She looked at him gratefully, and arose. "One moment, Richard," she
+said--"but you were speaking of mother, and knowing your zeal for her
+I was afraid you might--might--the mortgage has been troubling her."
+
+"Oh, no--no"--he broke in quickly--"I did nothing--absolutely
+nothing--though I wanted to for your sake."
+
+"I'm so glad," she said--"we will manage somehow. I am so sensitive
+about such things."
+
+"I'll come to-morrow afternoon and bring your mare."
+
+She smiled, surprised.
+
+"Yes, your mare--I happened on her quite unexpectedly in Tennessee. I
+have bought her for you--she is elegant, and I wish you to ride her
+often. I have given Jim orders that no one but you shall ride her. If
+it is a pretty day to-morrow I shall be around in the afternoon, and
+we will ride down to the bluffs five miles away to see the sunset."
+
+The trotters were at the door. He took her hand as he said good-bye,
+and held it while he added:
+
+"Maybe you'd better forget all I said to-night--be patient with
+me--remember how long I have waited."
+
+He was off and sprang into the buggy, elated. Never before had she
+let him hold her hand even for a moment. He felt, he knew, that he
+would win her.
+
+He turned the horses and drove off.
+
+From Westmoreland Travis drove straight toward the town. The
+trotters, keen and full of play, flew along, tossing their queenly
+heads in the very exuberance of life.
+
+At The Gaffs, he drew rein: "Now, Jim, I'll be back at midnight. You
+sleep light until I come in, and have their bedding dry and blankets
+ready."
+
+He tossed the boy a dollar as he drove off.
+
+Up the road toward the town he drove, finally slackening his
+trotters' speed as he came into the more thickly settled part of the
+outskirts. Sand Mountain loomed high in the faint moonlight, and at
+its base, in the outposts of the town, arose the smoke-stack of the
+cotton mills.
+
+Around it lay Cottontown.
+
+Slowly he brought the nettled trotters down to a walk. Quietly he
+turned them into a shaded lane, overhung with forest trees, near
+which a cottage, one of the many belonging to the mill, stood in the
+shadow of the forest.
+
+Stopping his horses in the shadow, he drew out his watch and pressed
+the stem. It struck eleven.
+
+He drew up the buggy-top and taking the little silver whistle from
+his pocket, gave a low whistle.
+
+It was ten minutes later before the side door of the cottage opened
+softly and a girl came noiselessly out. She slipped out, following
+the shadow line of the trees until she came up to the buggy. Then she
+threw the shawl from off her face and head and stood smiling up at
+Travis. It had been a pretty face, but now it was pinched by overwork
+and there was the mingling both of sadness and gladness in her eyes.
+But at sight of Travis she blushed joyfully, and deeper still when he
+held out his hand and drew her into the buggy and up to the seat
+beside him.
+
+"Maggie"--was all he whispered. Then he kissed her passionately on
+her lips. "I am glad I came," he went on, as he put one arm around
+her and drew her to him--"you're flushed and the ride will do you
+good."
+
+She was satisfied to let her head lie on his shoulder.
+
+"They are beauties"--she said after a while, as the trotters'
+thrilling, quick step brought the blood tingling to her veins.
+
+"Beauties for the beauty," said Travis, kissing her again. Her brown
+hair was in his face and the perfume of it went through him like the
+whistling flash of the first wild doe he had killed in his first
+boyish hunt and which he never forgot.
+
+"You do love me," she said at last, looking up into his face, where
+her head rested. She could not move because his arm held her girlish
+form to him with an overpowering clasp.
+
+"Why?" he asked, kissing her again and in sheer passionate excess
+holding his lips on hers until she could not speak, but only look
+love with her eyes. When she could, she sighed and said:
+
+"Because, you could not make me so happy if you didn't."
+
+He relaxed his arm to control the trotters, which were going too fast
+down the road. She sat up by his side and went on.
+
+"Do you know I have thought lots about what you said last Saturday
+night?"
+
+"Why, what?" he asked.
+
+She looked pained that he had forgotten.
+
+"About--about--our bein' married to each
+other--even--even--if--if--there's no preacher. You know--that true
+love makes marriages, and not a ceremony--and--and--that the heart is
+the priest to all of us, you know!"
+
+Travis said nothing. He had forgotten all about it.
+
+"One thing I wrote down in my little book when I got back home an'
+memorized it--Oh, you can say such beautiful things."
+
+He seized her and kissed her again.
+
+"I am so happy with you--always--" she laughed.
+
+He drove toward the shaded trees down by the river.
+
+"I want you to see how the setting moonlight looks on the river," he
+said. "There is nothing in all nature like it. It floats like a
+crescent above, falling into the arms of its companion below. All
+nature is love and never fails to paint a love scene in preference
+to all others, if permitted. How else can you account for it making
+two lover moons fall into each other's arms," he laughed.
+
+She looked at him enraptured. It was the tribute which mediocrity
+pays to genius.
+
+Presently they passed by Westmoreland, and from Alice's window a
+light shone far out into the golden tinged leaves of the beeches
+near.
+
+Travis glanced up at it. Then at the pretty mill-girl by his side:
+
+"A star and--a satellite!"--he smiled to himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A MIDNIGHT BURIAL
+
+
+It was growing late when the old preacher left Westmoreland and rode
+leisurely back toward the cabin on Sand Mountain. The horse he was
+riding--a dilapidated roan--was old and blind, but fox-trotted along
+with the easy assurance of having often travelled the same road.
+
+The bridle rested on the pommel of the saddle. The old man's head was
+bent in deep thought, and the roan, his head also down and half
+dreaming, jogged into the dark shadows which formed a wooded gulch,
+leading into the valley and from thence into the river.
+
+There is in us an unnameable spiritual quality which, from lack of a
+more specific name, we call mental telepathy. Some day we shall know
+more about it, just as some day we shall know what unknown force it
+is which draws the needle to the pole.
+
+It is the border land of the spiritual--a touch of it, given, to let
+us know there is more and in great abundance in the country to which
+we ultimately shall go,--a glimpse of the kingdom which is to be.
+
+To-night, this influence was on the old man. The theme of his
+thoughts was, Captain Tom. Somehow he felt that even then Captain Tom
+was near him. How--where--why--he could not tell. He merely felt it.
+
+And so the very shadows of the trees grew uncanny to him as he rode
+by them and the slight wind among them mourned _Captain
+Tom--Captain Tom_.
+
+It was a desolate place in the narrow mountain road and scarcely
+could the old man see the white sand which wound in and through it,
+and then out again on the opposite side into the clearing beyond the
+scraggy side of Sand Mountain. But the horse knew every foot of the
+way, and though it was always night with him, instinct had taught him
+a sure footing.
+
+Suddenly the rider was awakened from his reverie by the old horse
+stopping so suddenly as almost to unseat him. With a snort the roan
+had stopped and had thrown up his head, quivering with fear, while
+with his nose he was trying to smell out the queer thing which stood
+in his path.
+
+The moon broke out from behind a cloud at the same moment, and there,
+in the middle of the road, not ten yards from him, stood a heavily
+built, rugged, black-bearded man in a ragged slouched hat and
+pointing a heavy revolver at the rider's head.
+
+"Hands up, Hillard Watts!"
+
+The old man looked quietly into the muzzle of the revolver and said,
+with a laugh:
+
+"This ain't 'zactly my benediction time, Jack Bracken, an' I've no
+notion of h'istin' my arms an' axin' a blessin' over you an' that old
+pistol. Put it up an' tell me what you want," he said more softly.
+
+"Well, you do know me," said the man, coming forward and thrusting
+his pistol into its case. "I wa'nt sho' it was you," he said, "and I
+wa'nt sho' you'd kno' me if it was. In my business I have to be
+mighty keerful," he added with a slight laugh.
+
+He came up to the saddle-skirt and held out his hand, half
+hesitatingly, as he spoke.
+
+The Bishop--as every one knew him--glanced into the face before him
+and saw something which touched him quickly. It was grief-stricken,
+and sorrow sat in the fierce eyes, and in the shadows of the dark
+face. And through it all, a pleading, beseeching appeal for sympathy
+ran as he half doubtingly held out his hand.
+
+"Why,--yes--, I'll take it, Jack, robber that you are," said the old
+man cheerily. "You may not be as bad as they say, an' no man is worse
+than his heart. But what in the worl' do you want to hold up as po' a
+man as me--an' if I do say it, yo' frien' when you was a boy?"
+
+"I know," said the other--"I know. I don't want yo' money, even if
+you had it. I want you. You've come as a God-send. I--I couldn't bury
+him till you'd said somethin'."
+
+His voice choked--he shook with a suppressed sob.
+
+The bishop slid off his horse: "What is it, Jack? You hain't kilt
+anybody, have you?"
+
+"No--no"--said the other--"it's little--little Jack--he's dead."
+
+The Bishop looked at him inquiringly. He had never before heard of
+little Jack.
+
+"I--I dunno', Jack," he said. "You'll have to tell me all. I hain't
+seed you sence you started in your robber career after the war--sence
+I buried yo' father," he added. "An' a fine, brave man he was,
+Jack--a fine, brave man--an' I've wondered how sech a man's son
+could ever do as you've done."
+
+"Come," said the other--"I'll tell you. Come, an' say a prayer over
+little Jack fust. You must do it"--he said almost fiercely--"I won't
+bury him without a prayer--him that was an angel an' all I had on
+earth. Hitch yo' hoss just outer the road, in the thicket, an' follow
+me."
+
+The Bishop did as he was told, and Jack Bracken led the way down a
+rocky gulch under the shaggy sides of Sand Mountain, furzed with
+scraggy trees and thick with underbrush and weeds.
+
+It was a tortuous path and one in which the old man himself, knowing,
+as he thought he did, every foot of the country around, could easily
+have been lost. Above, through the trees, the moon shone dimly, and
+no path could be seen under foot. But Jack Bracken slouched heavily
+along, in a wabbling, awkward gait, never once looking back to see if
+his companion followed.
+
+For a half mile they went through what the Bishop had always thought
+was an almost impenetrable cattle trail. At last they wound around a
+curve on the densely wooded side of the mountain, beyond which lay
+the broad river breathing out frosty mist and vapor from its sleeping
+bosom.
+
+Following a dry gulch until it ended abruptly at the river's bluff,
+around the mouth of which great loose rocks lay as they had been
+washed by the waters of many centuries, and bushes grew about, the
+path terminated abruptly. It overlooked the river romantically, with
+a natural rock gallery in front.
+
+Jack Bracken stopped and sat down on one of the rocks. From
+underneath he drew forth a lantern and prepared to light it. "This is
+my home," he said laconically.
+
+The Bishop looked around: "Well, Jack, but this is part of my own
+leetle forty-acre farm. Why, thar's my cabin up yander. We've wound
+in an' aroun' the back of my place down by the river! I never seed
+this hole befo'."
+
+"I knew it was yo's," said the outlaw quietly. "That's why I come
+here. Many a Sunday night I've slipped up to the little church winder
+an' heard you preach--me an' po' little Jack. Oh, he loved to hear
+the Bible read an' he never forgot nothin' you ever said. He knowed
+all about Joseph an' Moses an' Jesus, an' last night when he died o'
+that croup befo' I c'ud get him help or anything, he wanted you, an'
+he said he was goin' to the lan' where you said Jesus was--"
+
+He broke down--he could not say it.
+
+Stepping into the mouth of the cave, he struck a match, when out of
+sight of the entrance way, and stepping from stone to stone he guided
+the Bishop down some twenty feet, following the channel the water had
+cut on its way underground to the river. Here another opening entered
+into the dry channel, and into it he stepped.
+
+It was a nicely turned cave--a natural room,--arched above with
+beautiful white lime-rock, the stalactites hanging in pointed
+clusters, their starry points twinkling above like stars in a winter
+sky. Underneath, the soft sand made a clean, warm floor, and the
+entire cave was so beautiful that the old man could do nothing but
+look and admire, as the light fell on stalagmite and ghostly columns
+and white sanded floors.
+
+"Beautiful," he said--"Jack, you cudn't he'p gettin' relig'un here."
+
+"Little Jack loved 'em," said the outlaw. "He'd lay here ev'y night
+befo' he'd go to sleep an' look up an' call it his heaven; an' he
+said that big column thar was the great white throne, an' them big
+things up yander with wings was angels. He had all them other columns
+named for the fellers you preached about--Moses an' Aaron an' Joseph
+an' all of 'em, an' that kind o' double one lookin' like a woman
+holding her child, he called Mary an' little Jesus."
+
+"He's gone to a prettier heaven than this," said the Bishop looking
+down on the little figure, with face as pale and white as any of the
+columns around him, neatly dressed and wrapped, save his face, in an
+old oil cloth and lying on the little bed that sat in a corner.
+
+The old man sat down very tenderly by the little dead boy and,
+pulling out a testament from his pocket, read to the outlaw, whose
+whole soul was centered in all he said, the comforting chapter which
+Miss Alice had that night read to the old negro: "_Let not your
+hearts be troubled...._"
+
+He explained as he read, and told the father how little Jack was now
+in one of the many mansions and far better off than living in a cave,
+the child of an outlaw, for the Bishop did not mince his words. He
+dwelt on it, that God had taken the little boy for love of him, and
+to give him a better home and perhaps as a means of changing the
+father, and when he said the last prayer over the dead child asking
+for forgiveness for the father's sins, that he might meet the little
+one in heaven, the heart of the outlaw burst with grief and
+repentance within him.
+
+He fell at the old man's feet, on his knees--he laid his big shaggy
+head in the Bishop's lap and wept as he had never wept before.
+
+"There can't be--you don't mean," he said--"that there is forgiveness
+for me--that I can so live that I'll see little Jack again!"
+
+"That's just what I mean, Jack," said the old man--"here it all
+is--here--in a book that never lies, an' all vouched for by Him who
+could walk in here to-night and lay His sweet hands on little Jack
+an' tell him to rise an' laugh agin, an' he'd do it. You turn about
+now an' see if it ain't so--an' that you'll be better an' happier."
+
+"But--my God, man--you don't know--you don't understan'. I've robbed,
+I've killed. Men have gone down befo' my bullets like sheep. They was
+shootin' at me, too--but I shot best. I'm a murderer."
+
+The old Bishop looked at him calmly.
+
+"So was Moses and David," he replied--"men after God's own heart. An'
+so was many another that's now called a saint, from old Hickory
+Jackson up."
+
+"But I'm a robber--a thief"--began Jack Bracken.
+
+"We all steal," said the old man sadly shaking his head--"it's human
+nature. There's a thief in every trade, an' every idle hand is a
+robber, an' every idle tongue is a thief an' a liar. We all steal.
+But there's somethin' of God an' divinity in all of us, an' in spite
+of our shortcomin' it'll bring us back at last to our Father's home
+if we'll give it a chance. God's Book can't lie, an' it says: '_Tho'
+your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow!_' ... an' then
+agin, _shall have life everlasting!_"
+
+"Life everlastin'," repeated the outlaw. "Do you believe that? Oh, if
+it was only so! To live always up there an' with little Jack. How do
+you know it ain't lyin'?--It's too gran' to be so. How do you know it
+ain't lyin', I say? Hillard Watts, are you handin' it out to me
+straight about this here Jesus Christ?" he cried bitterly.
+
+"Well, it's this way, Jack," said the old man, "jes' this away an'
+plain as the nose on yo' face: Now here's me, ain' it? Well, you know
+I won't lie to you. You believe me, don't you?"
+
+The outlaw nodded.
+
+"Why?" asked the Bishop.
+
+"Because you ain't never lied to me," said the other. "You've allers
+told me the truth about the things I know to be so."
+
+"But now, suppose," said the old man, "I'd tell you about somethin'
+you had never seed--that, for instance, sence you've been an outcast
+from society an' a livin' in this cave, I've seed men talk to each
+other a hundred miles apart, with nothin' but a wire betwix' 'em."
+
+"That's mighty hard to believe," said the outlaw grimly.
+
+"But I've seed it done," said the Bishop.
+
+"Do you mean it?" asked the other.
+
+"As I live, I have," said the Bishop.
+
+"Then it's so," said Jack.
+
+"Now that's faith, Jack--an' common sense, too. We know what'll be
+the earthly end of the liar, an' the thief, an' the murderer, an' him
+that's impure--because we see 'em come to thar end all the time. It
+don't lie when it tells you the good are happy, an' the hones' are
+elevated an' the mem'ry of the just shall not perish, because them
+things we see come so. Now, if after tellin' you all that, that's
+true, it axes you to believe when it says there is another life--a
+spiritual life, which we can't conceive of, an' there we shall live
+forever, can't you believe that, too, sence it ain't never lied about
+what you can see, by your own senses? Why ever' star that shines, an'
+ever' beam of sunlight fallin' on the earth, an' ever' beat of yo'
+own heart by some force that we know not of, all of them is mo'
+wonderful than the telegraph, an' the livin' agin of the spirit ain't
+any mo' wonderful than the law that holds the stars in their places.
+You'll see little Jack agin as sho' as God lives an' holds the worl'
+in His hand."
+
+The outlaw sat mute and motionless, and a great light of joy swept
+over his face.
+
+"By God's help I'll do it"--and he bowed his head in prayer--the
+first he had uttered since he was a boy.
+
+It was wonderful to see the happy and reconciled change when he arose
+and tenderly lifted the dead child in his arms. His face was
+transformed with a peace the old man had never seen before in any
+human being.
+
+Strong men are always strong--in crime--in sin. When they reform it
+is the reformation of strength. Such a change came over Jack Bracken,
+the outlaw.
+
+He carried his dead child to the next room: "I've got his grave
+already chiseled out of the rocks. I'll bury him here--right under
+the columns he called Mary and little Jesus, that he loved to talk of
+so much."
+
+"It's fitten"--said the old man tenderly--"it's fitten an' beautiful.
+The fust burial we know of in the Bible is where Abraham bought the
+cave of Machpelah for to bury Sarah, his wife. And as Abraham bought
+it of Ephron, the Hittite, and offered it to Abraham for to bury his
+dead out of his sight, so I give this cave to you, Jack Bracken,
+forever to be the restin' place of little Jack."
+
+And so, tenderly and with many kisses did they bury little Jack,
+sinless and innocent, deep in the pure white rock, covered as he was
+with purity and looking ever upwards toward the statue above, wherein
+Nature's chisel had carved out a Madonna and her child.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+JACK BRACKEN
+
+
+Jack Bracken was comfortably fixed in his underground home. There was
+every comfort for living. It was warm in winter and cool in summer,
+and in another apartment adjoining his living room was what he called
+a kitchen in which a spring of pure water, trickling down from rock
+to rock, formed in a natural basin of whitest rock below.
+
+"Jack," said the old man, "won't you tell me about yo'self an' how
+you ever got down to this? I knowed you as a boy, up to the time you
+went into the army, an' if I do say it to yo' face, you were a brave
+hon'rble boy that never forgot a frien' nor--"
+
+"A foe," put in Jack quickly. "Bishop, if I cu'd only forgive my
+foes--that's been the ruin of me."
+
+The old man was thoughtful a while: "Jack, that's a terrible thing in
+the human heart--unforgiveness. It's to life what a drought is to
+Nature--an' it spiles mo' people than any other weakness. But that
+don't make yo' no wuss than the rest of us, nor does robbery nor even
+murder. So there's a chance for you yet, Jack--a mighty fine chance,
+too, sence yo' heart is changed."
+
+"Many a time, Jack, many a time when the paper 'ud be full of yo'
+holdin' up a train or shootin' a shar'ff, or robbin' or killin', I'd
+tell 'em what a good boy you had been, brave an' game but revengeful
+when aroused. I'd tell 'em how you dared the bullets of our own men,
+after the battle of Shiloh, to cut down an' carry off a measley
+little Yankee they'd hung up as a spy 'cause he had onct saved yo'
+father's life. You shot two of our boys then, Jack."
+
+"They was a shootin' me, too," he said quietly. "I caught two bullets
+savin' that Yankee. But he was no spy; he was caught in a Yankee
+uniform an'--an' he saved my father, as you said--that settled it
+with me."
+
+"It turned our boys agin you, Jack."
+
+"Yes, an' the Yankees were agin me already--that made all the worl'
+agin me, an' it's been agin me ever since--they made me an outlaw."
+
+The old man softened: "How was it, Jack? I knowed you was driven to
+it."
+
+"They shot my father--waylaid and killed him--some home-made Yankee
+bush-whackers that infested these hills--as you know."
+
+The Bishop nodded. "I know--I know--it was awful. 'But vengeance is
+mine--I will repay'--saith the Lord."
+
+"Well, I was young, an' my father--you know how I loved him. Befo' I
+c'ud get home they had burned our house, killed my sick mother from
+exposure and insulted my sisters."
+
+"Jack," said the old man hotly--"a home-made Yankee is a 'bomination
+to the Lord. He's a twin brother to the Copperhead up north."
+
+"My little brother--they might have spared him," went on the
+outlaw--"they might have spared him. He tried to defen' his mother
+an' sisters an' they shot him down in col' blood."
+
+"'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord," replied the old man sadly.
+
+"Well, I acted as His agent that time,"--his eyes were hot with a
+bright glitter. "I put on their uniform an' went after 'em. I j'ined
+'em--the devils! An' they had a nigger sarjent an' ten of their
+twenty-seven was niggers, wearin' a Yankee uniform. I j'ined
+'em--yes,--for wasn't I the agent of the Lord?" He laughed bitterly.
+"An' didn't He say: 'He that killeth with the sword must be killed
+with the sword.' One by one they come up missin', till I had killed
+all but seven. These got panicky--followed by an unknown doom an'
+they c'udn't see it, for it come like a thief at midnight an' agin
+like a pesterlence it wasted 'em at noonday. They separated--they
+tried to fly--they hid--but I followed 'em 'an I got all but one. He
+fled to California."
+
+"It was awful, Jack--awful--God he'p you."
+
+"Then a price was put on my head. I was Jack Bracken, the spy and the
+outlaw. I was not to be captured, but shot and hung. Then I cut down
+that Yankee an' you all turned agin me. I was hunted and hounded. I
+shot--they shot. I killed an' they tried to. I was shot down three
+times. I've got bullets in me now.
+
+"After the war I tried to surrender. I wanted to quit and live a
+decent life. But no, they put a bigger price on my head. I came home
+like other soldiers an' went to tillin' my farm. They ran me
+away--they hunted an' hounded me. Civilization turned ag'in me.
+Society was my foe. I was up ag'in the fust law of Nature. It is the
+law of the survival--the wild beast that, cowered, fights for his
+life. Society turned on me--I turned on Society."
+
+"But there was one thing that happen'd that put the steel in me wuss
+than all. All through them times was one star I loved and hoped for.
+I was to marry her when the war closed. She an' her sister--the
+pretty one--they lived up yander on the mountain side. The pretty one
+died. But when I lost faith in Margaret Adams, I lost it in mankind.
+I'd ruther a seen her dead. It staggered me--killed the soul in
+me--to think that an angel like her could fall an' be false."
+
+"I don't blame you," said the old man. "I've never understood it
+yet."
+
+"I was to marry Margaret. I love her yet," he added simply. "When I
+found she was false I went out--and--well, you know the rest."
+
+He took a turn around the room, picked up one of little Jack's shoes,
+and cried over it.
+
+"So I married his mother--little Jack's mother, a mountain lass that
+hid me and befriended me. She died when the boy was born. His granny
+kep' him while I was on my raids--nobody knowed it was my son. His
+granny died two years ago. This has been our home ever sence, an' not
+once, sence little Jack has been with me, have I done a wrong deed.
+Often an' often we've slipt up to hear you preach--what you've said
+went home to me."
+
+"Jack," said the old man suddenly aroused--"was that you--was it you
+been puttin' them twenty dollar gol' pieces in the church
+Bible--between the leds, _ever'_ month for the las' two years? By it
+I've kep' up the po' of Cottontown. I've puzzled an' wonder'd--I've
+thought of a dozen fo'ks--but I sed nothin'--was it you?"
+
+The outlaw smiled: "It come from the rich an' it went to the po'.
+Come," he said--"that's somethin' we must settle."
+
+He took up the lantern and led the way into the other room. Under a
+ledge of rocks, securely hid, sat, in rows, half a dozen common water
+buckets, made of red cedar, with tops fitting securely on them.
+
+The outlaw spread a blanket on the sand, then knelt and, taking up a
+bucket, removed the top and poured out its contents on the blanket.
+They chuckled and rolled and tumbled over each other, the yellow
+eagles and half eagles, like thoroughbred colts turned out in the
+paddocks for a romp.
+
+The old man's knees shook under him. He trembled so that he had to
+sit down on the blanket. Then he ran his hand through them--his
+fingers open, letting the coins fall through playfully.
+
+Never before had he seen so much gold. Poor as he was and had ever
+been--much and often as he had suffered--he and his, for the
+necessities of life, even, knowing its value and the use he might
+make of it, it thrilled him with a strange, nervous longing--a
+childish curiosity to handle it and play with it.
+
+Modest and brave men have looked on low-bosomed women in the glitter
+of dissipative lights with the same feeling.
+
+The old man gazed, silent--doubtless with the same awe which Keats
+gave to Cortez, when he first looked on the Pacific and stood
+
+    "Silent, upon a peak in Darien."
+
+The outlaw lifted another bucket and took off the lid. It also was
+full. "There are five mo'," he said--"that last one is silver an'
+this one--" He lifted the lid of a small cedar box. In it was a large
+package, wrapped in water-proof. Unravelling it, he shoved out
+packages of bank bills of such number and denomination as fairly made
+the old preacher wonder.
+
+"How much in all, Jack?"
+
+"A little the rise of one hundred thousand dollars."
+
+He pushed them back and put the buckets under their ledge of rocks.
+"I'd give it all just to have little Jack here agin--an'--an'--start
+out--a new man. This has cost me ten years of outlawry an' fo'teen
+bullets. Now I've got all this an'--well--a hole in the groun' an'
+little Jack in the hole. If you wanter preach a sermon on the folly
+of pilin' up money," he went on half ironically, "here is yo' tex'.
+All me an' little Jack needed or cu'd use, was a few clothes, some
+bac'n an' coffee an' flour. Often I'd fill my pockets an' say: 'Well,
+I'll buy somethin' I want, an' that little Jack will want.' I'd go to
+town an' see it all, an' think an' puzzle an' wonder--then I'd come
+home with a few toys, maybe, an' bac'n an' flour an' coffee."
+
+"With all our money we can't buy higher than our source, an' when we
+go we leave even that behind," he added.
+
+"The world," said the old man quaintly, "is full of folks who have
+got a big pocket-book an' a bac'n pedigree."
+
+"Do you know who this money belongs to?" he asked the outlaw.
+
+"Every dollar of it," said Jack Bracken. "It come from railroads,
+banks and express companies. I didn't feel squirmish about takin' it,
+for all o' them are robbers. The only diff'r'nce betwix' them an' me
+is that they rob a little every day, till they get their pile, an' I
+take mine from 'em, all at onct."
+
+He thought awhile, then he said: "But it must all go back to 'em,
+Jack. Let them answer for their own sins. Leave it here until next
+week--an' then we will come an' haul it fifty miles to the next town,
+where you can express it to them without bein' known, or havin'
+anybody kno' what's in the buckets till you're safe back here in this
+town. I'll fix it an' the note you are to write. They'll not pester
+you after they get their money. The crowd you've named never got hot
+under a gold collar. A clean shave will change you so nobody will
+suspect you, an' there's a good openin' in town for a blacksmith, an'
+you can live with me in my cabin."
+
+"But there's one thing I've kept back for the las'," said Jack, after
+they had gone into the front part of the room and sat down on the
+deer skins there.
+
+"That sword there"--and he pointed to the wall where it hung.
+
+The Bishop glanced up, and as he did so he felt a strange thrill of
+recognition run through him--"It belongs to Cap'n Tom," said Jack
+quietly.
+
+The old man sprang up and took it reverently, fondly down.
+
+"Jack--" he began.
+
+"I was at Franklin," went on Jack proudly. "I charged with old Gen.
+Travis over the breastworks near the Carter House. I saw Cap'n Tom
+when he went under."
+
+"Cap'n Tom," repeated the old man slowly.
+
+"Cap'n Tom, yes--he saved my life once, you know. He cut me down when
+they were about to hang me for a spy--you heard about it?"
+
+The Bishop nodded.
+
+"It was his Company that caught me an' they was glad of any excuse to
+hang me. An' they mighty nigh done it, but Cap'n Tom came up in time
+to cut me down an' he said he'd make it hot for any man that teched
+me, that I was a square prisoner of war, an' he sent me to Johnson
+Island. Of course it didn't take me long to get out of that hole--I
+escaped."
+
+The Bishop was silent, looking at the sword.
+
+"Well, at Franklin, when I seed Cap'n Tom dyin' as I tho'rt, shunned
+by the Yankees as a traitor----"
+
+"As a traitor?" asked the old man hotly--"what, after Shiloh--after
+he give up Miss Alice for the flag he loved an' his old grand sire
+an' The Gaffs an' all of us that loved him--you call that a traitor?"
+
+"You never heard," said Jack, "how old Gen'l Travis charged the
+breastworks at Franklin and hit the line where Cap'n Tom's battery
+stood. Nine times they had charged Cap'n Tom's battery that
+night--nine times he stood his ground an' they melted away around it.
+But when he saw the line led by his own grandsire the blood in him
+was thicker than water and----"
+
+"An' whut?" gasped the Bishop.
+
+"Well, why they say it was a drunken soldier in his own battery who
+struck him with the heavy hilt of a sword. Any way I found the old
+Gen'l cryin' over him: 'My Irish Gray--my Irish Gray,' he kept
+sayin'. 'I might have known it was you,' and the old Gen'l charged on
+leaving him for dead. An' so I found him an' tuck him in my arms an'
+carried him to my own cabin up yonder on the mountain--carried him
+an'----"
+
+"An' whut?"--asked the old man, grasping the outlaw's
+shoulder--"Didn't he die? We've never been able to hear from him."
+
+Jack shook his head. "It 'ud been better for him if he had"--and he
+touched his forehead significantly.
+
+"Tell me, Jack--quick--tell it all," exclaimed the old man, still
+gripping Jack's shoulder.
+
+"There's nothin' to tell except that I kept him ever
+sence--here--right here for two years, with little Jack an' Ephrum,
+the young nigger that was his body servant--he's been our cook an'
+servant. He never would leave Cap'n Tom, followed me offen the field
+of Franklin. An' mighty fond of each other was all three of 'em."
+
+The old man turned pale and his voice trembled so with excitement he
+could hardly say:
+
+"Where is he, Jack? My God--Cap'n Tom--he's been here all this time
+too--an' me awonderin'--"
+
+"Right here, Bishop--kind an' quiet and teched in his head, where the
+sword-hilt crushed his skull. All these years I've cared for him--me
+an' Ephrum, my two boys as I called 'em--him an' little Jack. An'
+right here he staid contented like till little Jack died last
+night--then--"
+
+"In God's name--quick!--tell me--Jack--"
+
+"That's the worst of it--Bishop--when he found little Jack was dead
+he wandered off--"
+
+"When?" almost shouted the old man.
+
+"To-day--this even'. I have sent Eph after him--an' I hope he has
+found him by now an' tuck him somewhere. Eph'll never stop till he
+does."
+
+"We must find him, Jack. Cap'n Tom alive--thank God--alive, even if
+he is teched in his head. Oh, God, I might a knowed it--an' only
+to-day I was doubtin' You."
+
+He fell on his knees and Jack stood awed in the presence of the great
+emotion which shook the old man.
+
+Finally he arose. "Come--Jack--let us go an' hunt for Cap'n Tom."
+
+But though they hunted until the moon went down they found no trace
+of him. For miles they walked, or took turn about in riding the old
+blind roan.
+
+"It's no use, Bishop," said Jack. "We will sleep a while and begin
+to-morrow. Besides, Eph is with him. I feel it--he'll take keer o'
+him."
+
+That is how it came that at midnight, that Saturday night, the old
+Bishop brought home a strange man to live in the little cabin in his
+yard.
+
+That is how, a week later, all the South was stirred over the
+strange return of a fortune to the different corporations from which
+it had been taken, accompanied by a drawling note from Jack Bracken
+saying he returned ill-gotten gain to live a better life.
+
+It ended laconically:
+
+"_An' maybe you'd better go an' do likewise._"
+
+The dim starlight was shining faintly through the cracks of the
+outlaw's future home when the old man showed him in.
+
+"Now, Jack," he said, "it's nearly mornin' an' the old woman may be
+wild an' raise sand. But learn to lay low an' shoe hosses. She was
+bohn disapp'inted--maybe because she wa'n't a boy," he whispered.
+
+There was a whinny outside, in a small paddock, where a nearby stable
+stood: "That's Cap'n Tom's horse," said the old man--"I mus' go see
+if he's hungry."
+
+"I've kept his horse these ten years, hopin' maybe he'd come back
+agin. It's John Paul Jones--the thoroughbred, that the old General
+give him."
+
+"I remember him," said Jack.
+
+The great bloodlike horse came up and rubbed his nose on the old
+man's shoulder.
+
+"Hungry, John Paul?"
+
+"It's been a job to get feed fur him, po' as I've
+been--but--but--he's Cap'n Tom's. You kno'--"
+
+"An' Cap'n Tom will ride him yet," said Jack.
+
+"Do you believe it, Jack?" asked the old man huskily "God be
+praised!"
+
+That Saturday night was one never to be forgotten by others beside
+Jack Bracken and the old preacher of Cottontown.
+
+When Helen Conway, after supper, sought her drunken father and
+learned that he really intended to have Lily and herself go into the
+cotton mills, she was crushed for the first time in her life.
+
+An hour later she sent a boy with a note to The Gaffs to Harry
+Travis.
+
+He brought back an answer that made her pale with wounded love and
+grief. Not even Mammy Maria knew why she had crept off to bed. But in
+the night the old woman heard sobs from the young girl's room where
+she and her sister slept.
+
+"What is it, chile?" she asked as she slipped from her own cot in the
+adjoining little room and went in to Helen's.
+
+The girl had been weeping all night--she had no mother--no one to
+whom she could unbosom her heart--no one but the old woman who had
+nursed her from her infancy. This kind old creature sat on the bed
+and held the girl's sobbing head on her lap and stroked her cheek.
+She knew and understood--she asked no questions:
+
+"It isn't that I must work in the mill," she sobbed to the old
+woman--"I can do that--anything to help out--but--but--to think that
+Harry loves me so little as to give me up for--for--that."
+
+"Don't cry, chile," said Mammy soothingly--"It ain't registered that
+you gwine wuck in that mill yit--I ain't made my afferdavit yit."
+
+"But Harry doesn't love me--Oh, he doesn't love me," she wept. "He
+would not give me up for anything if he did."
+
+"I'm gwine give that Marse Harry a piece of my mind when I see
+him--see if I don't. Don't you cry, chile--hold up yo' haid an' be a
+Conway. Don't you ever let him know that yo' heart is bustin' for him
+an' fo' the year is out we'll have that same Marse Harry acrawlin' on
+his very marrow bones to aix our forgiveness. See if we won't."
+
+It was poor consolation to the romantic spirit of Helen Conway.
+Daylight found her still heart-broken and sobbing in the old woman's
+lap.
+
+
+
+
+PART THIRD--THE GIN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ALICE WESTMORE
+
+
+It is remarkable how small a part of our real life the world
+knows--how little our most intimate friends know of the secret
+influences which have proven to be climaxes, at the turning points of
+our existence.
+
+There was no more beautiful woman in Alabama than Alice Westmore; and
+throughout that state, where the song birds seem to develop,
+naturally, along with the softness of the air, and the gleam of the
+sunshine, and the lullaby of the Gulf's soft breeze among the pine
+trees, there was no one, they say, who could sing as she sang.
+
+And she seemed to have caught it from her native mocking-birds, so
+natural was it. Not when they sing in the daylight, when everything
+is bright and joyous and singing is so easy; but when they waken at
+midnight amid the _arbor vitæ_ trees, and under the sweet, sad
+influence of a winter moon, pour out their half awakened notes to the
+star-sprays which fall in mist to blend and sparkle around the soft
+neck of the night.
+
+For like the star-sprays her notes were as clear; and through them
+ran a sadness as of a mist of moonlight. And just as moonbeams, when
+they mingle with the mist, make the melancholy of night, so the
+memory of a dead love ran through everything Alice Westmore sang.
+
+And this made her singing divine.
+
+Why should it be told? What right has a blacksmith to pry into a
+grand piano to find out wherein the exquisite harmony of the
+instrument lies? Who has the right to ask the artist how he blended
+the colors that crowned his picture with immortality, or the poet to
+explain his pain in the birth of a mood which moved the world?
+
+Born in the mountains of North Alabama, she grew up there and
+developed this rare voice; and when her father sent her to Italy to
+complete her musical education, the depth and clearness of it
+captured even that song nation of the world.
+
+The great of all countries were her friends and princes sought her
+favors. She sang at courts and in great cathedrals, and her genius
+and beauty were toasts with society.
+
+"Still, Mademoiselle will never be a great singer, perfect as her
+voice is,"--said her singing master to her one day--a famous Italian
+teacher, "until Mademoiselle has suffered. She is now rich and
+beautiful and happy. Go home and suffer if you would be a great
+singer," he said, "for great songs come only with great suffering."
+
+If this were true, Alice Westmore was now, indeed, a great singer;
+for now had she suffered. And it was the death of a life with her
+when love died. For there be some with whom love is a separate life,
+and when love dies all that is worth living dies with it.
+
+From childhood she and Cousin Tom--Captain Thomas Travis he lived to
+be--had been sweethearts. He was the grandson of Colonel Jeremiah
+Travis of "The Gaffs," and Tom and Alice had grown up together. Their
+love was one of those earthly loves which comes now and then that we
+may not altogether lose our faith in heaven.
+
+Both were of a romantic temperament with high ideals, and with keen
+and sensitive natures.
+
+Their love was the poem of their lives.
+
+And though a toast in society, and courted by the nobility of the old
+world, Alice Westmore remembered only a moon-lighted night when she
+told Cousin Tom good-bye. For though they had loved each other all
+their lives, they had never spoken of it before that night. To them
+it had been a thing too sacred to profane with ordinary words.
+
+Thomas Travis had just graduated from West Point, and he was at home
+on vacation before being assigned to duty. To-night he had ridden
+John Paul Jones--the pick of his grandfather's stable of
+thoroughbreds--a present from the sturdy old horse-racing,
+fox-hunting gentleman to his favorite grandson for graduating first
+in a class of fifty-six.
+
+How handsome he looked in his dark blue uniform! And there was the
+music of the crepe-myrtle in the air--the music of it, wet with the
+night dew--for there are flowers so delicate in their sweetness that
+they pass out of the realm of sight and smell, into the unheard world
+of rhythm. Their very existence is the poetry of perfume. And this
+music of the crepe-myrtle, pulsing through the shower-cooled leaves
+of that summer night, was accompanied by a mocking-bird from his nest
+in the tree.
+
+Never did the memory of that night leave Alice Westmore. In after
+years it hurt her, as the dream of childhood's home with green fields
+about, and the old spring in the meadow, hurts the fever-stricken one
+dying far away from it all.
+
+How long they sat on the rustic bench under the crepe-myrtle they did
+not know. At parting there was the light clasp of hands, and Cousin
+Tom drew her to him and put his lips reverently to hers. When he had
+ridden off there was a slender ring on her finger.
+
+There was nothing in Italy that could make her forget that night,
+though often from her window she had looked out on Venice,
+moon-becalmed, while the nightingale sang from pomegranate trees in
+the hedgerows.
+
+Where a woman's love is first given, that, thereafter, is her heart's
+sanctuary.
+
+Alice Westmore landed at home again amid drum beats. War sweeps even
+sentiment from the world--sentiment that is stronger than common
+sense, and which moves the world.
+
+On the retreat of the Southern army from Fort Donelson, Thomas
+Travis, now Captain of Artillery, followed, with Grant's army, to
+Pittsburgh Landing. And finding himself within a day's journey of his
+old home, he lost no time in slipping through the lines to see Alice,
+whom he had not seen since her return.
+
+He went first to her, and the sight of his blue uniform threw Colonel
+Westmore into a rage.
+
+"To march into our land in that thing and claim my daughter--" he
+shouted. "To join that John Brown gang of abolitionists who are
+trying to overrun our country! Your father was a Southern gentleman
+and the bosom friend of my youth, but I'll see you damned before you
+shall ever again come under my roof, unless you can use your pistols
+quicker than I can use mine."
+
+"Oh, Tom," said Alice when they were alone--"how--how could you do
+it?"
+
+"But it is my side," he said quietly. "I was born, reared, educated
+in the love of the Union. My grandfather himself taught it to me. He
+fought with Jackson at New Orleans. My father died for it in Mexico.
+I swore fidelity to it at West Point, and the Union gave me my
+military education on the faith of my oath. Farragut is a
+Tennessean--Thomas a Virginian--and there are hundreds of others, men
+who love the Union more than they do their State. Alice--Alice--I do
+not love you less because I am true to my oath--my flag."
+
+"Your flag," said Alice hotly--"your flag that would overrun our
+country and kill our people? It can never be my flag!"
+
+She had never been angry before in all her life, but now the hot
+blood of her Southern clime and ancestry surged in her cheeks. She
+arose with a dignity she had never before imagined, even, with Cousin
+Tom. "You will choose between us now," she said.
+
+"Alice--surely you will not put me to that test. I will go--" he
+said, rising. "Some day, if I live, you can tell me to come back to
+you without sacrificing my conscience and my word of honor--my sacred
+oath--write me and--and--I will come."
+
+And that is the way it ended--in tears for both.
+
+Thomas Travis had always been his grandsire's favorite. His other
+grandson, Richard Travis, was away in Europe, where he had gone as
+soon as rumors of the war began to be heard.
+
+That night the old man did not even speak to him. He could not. Alone
+in his room, he walked the floor all night in deep sorrow and
+thought.
+
+He loved Thomas Travis as he did no other living being, and when
+morning came his great nature shook with contending emotions. It
+ended in the grandson receiving this note, a few minutes before he
+rode away:
+
+"All my life I taught you to love the Union which I helped to make,
+with my blood in war and my brains in peace. I gave it my beloved
+boy--your father's life--in Mexico. We buried him in its flag. I sent
+you to West Point and made you swear to defend that flag with your
+life. How now can I ask you to repudiate your oath and turn your back
+on your rearing?
+
+"Believing as I do in the right of the State first and the Union
+afterwards, I had hoped you might see it differently. But who, but
+God, controls the course of an honest mind?
+
+"Go, my son--I shall never see you again. But I know you, my son, and
+I shall die knowing you did what you thought was right."
+
+The young man wept when he read this--he was neither too old nor too
+hardened for tears--and when he rode away, from the ridge of the
+Mountain he looked down again--the last time, on all that had been
+his life's happiness.
+
+It was an hour afterwards when the old General called in his
+overseer.
+
+"Watts," he said, "in the accursed war which is about to wreck the
+South and which will eventually end in our going back into the Union
+as a subdued province and under the heel of our former slaves, there
+will be many changes. I, myself, will not live to see it. I have two
+grandsons, as you know, Tom and Richard. Richard is in Europe; he
+went there following Alice Westmore, and is going to stay, till this
+fight is over. Now, I have added a codicil to my will and I wish you
+to hear it."
+
+He took up a lengthy document and read the last codicil:
+
+"_Since the above will was written and acknowledged, leaving The
+Gaffs to be equally divided between my two grandsons, Thomas and
+Richard Travis, my country has been precipitated into the horrors of
+Civil War. In view of this I hereby change my will as above and give
+and bequeath The Gaffs to that one of my grandsons who shall
+fight--it matters not to me on which side--so that he fights. For The
+Gaffs shall never go to a Dominecker. If both fight and survive the
+war, it shall be divided equally between them as above expressed. If
+one be killed it shall go to the survivor. If both be killed it shall
+be sold and the money appropriated among those of my slaves who have
+been faithful to me to the end, one-fifth being set aside for my
+faithful overseer, Hillard Watts._"
+
+In the panel of the wall he opened a small secret drawer, zinc-lined,
+and put the will in it.
+
+"It shall remain there unchanged," he said, "and only you and I shall
+know where it is. If I die suddenly, let it remain until after the
+war, and then do as you think best."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE REAL HEROES
+
+
+The real heroes of the war have not been decorated yet. They have not
+even been pensioned, for many of them lie in forgotten graves, and
+those who do not are not the kind to clamor for honors or emoluments.
+
+On the last Great Day, what a strange awakening for decorations there
+will be, if such be in store for the just and the brave: Private
+soldiers, blue and gray, arising from neglected graves with tattered
+clothes and unmarked brows. Scouts who rode, with stolid faces set,
+into Death's grim door and died knowing they went out unremembered.
+Spies, hung like common thieves at the end of a rope--hung, though
+the bravest of the brave.
+
+Privates, freezing, starving, wounded, dying,--unloved, unsoothed,
+unpitied--giving their life with a last smile in the joy of
+martyrdom. Women, North, whose silent tears for husbands who never
+came back and sons who died of shell and fever, make a tiara around
+the head of our reunited country. Women, South, glorious Rachels,
+weeping for children who are not and with brave hearts working amid
+desolate homes, the star and inspiration of a rebuilded land. Slaves,
+faithfully guarding and working while their masters went to the
+front, filling the granaries that the war might go on--faithful to
+their trust though its success meant their slavery--faithful and
+true.
+
+O Southland of mine, be gentle, be just to these simple people, for
+they also were faithful.
+
+Among the heroic things the four years of the American Civil War
+brought out, the story of Captain Thomas Travis deserves to rank with
+the greatest of them.
+
+The love of Thomas Travis for the preacher-overseer was the result of
+a life of devotion on the part of the old man for the boy he had
+reared. Orphaned as he was early in life, Thomas Travis looked up to
+the overseer of his grandfather's plantation as a model of all that
+was great and good.
+
+Tom and Alice,--on the neighboring plantations--ran wild over the
+place and rode their ponies always on the track of the overseer. He
+taught them to ride, to trap the rabbit, to boat on the beautiful
+river. He knew the birds and the trees and all the wild things of
+Nature, and Tom and Alice were his children.
+
+As they grew up before him, it became the dream of the
+preacher-overseer to see his two pets married. Imagine his sorrow
+when the war fell like a thunderbolt out of a harvest sky and, among
+the thousand of other wrecked dreams, went the dream of the overseer.
+
+The rest is soon told: After the battle of Shiloh, Hillard Watts,
+Chief of Johnston's scouts, was captured and sent to Camp Chase.
+Scarcely had he arrived before orders came that twelve prisoners
+should be shot, by lot, in retaliation for the same number of Federal
+prisoners which had been executed, it was said, unjustly, by
+Confederates. The overseer drew one of the black balls. Then happened
+one of those acts of heroism which now and then occur, perhaps, to
+redeem war of the base and bloody.
+
+On the morning before the execution, at daylight, Thomas Travis
+arrived and made arrangements to save his friend at the risk of his
+own life and reputation. It was a desperate chance and he acted
+quickly. For Hillard Watts went out a free man dressed in the blue
+uniform of the Captain of Artillery.
+
+The interposition of the great-hearted Lincoln alone saved the young
+officer from being shot.
+
+The yellow military order bearing the words of the martyred President
+is preserved to-day in the library of The Gaffs:
+
+"_I present this young man as a Christmas gift to my old friend, his
+grandsire, Colonel Jeremiah Travis. The man who could fight his guns
+as he did at Shiloh, and could offer to die for a friend, is good
+enough to receive pardon, for anything he may have done or may do,
+from_
+
+"A. LINCOLN."
+
+Afterwards came Franklin and the news that Captain Tom had been
+killed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+FRANKLIN
+
+
+But General Jeremiah Travis could not keep out of the war; for toward
+the last, when Hood's army marched into Tennessee the Confederacy
+called for everything--even old age.
+
+And so there rode out of the gates of The Gaffs a white-haired old
+man, who sat his superb horse well. He was followed by a negro on a
+mule.
+
+They were General Jeremiah Travis and his body-servant, Bisco.
+
+"I have come to fight for my state," said General Travis to the
+Confederate General.
+
+"An' I am gwine to take keer of old marster suh," said Bisco as he
+stuck to his saddle girth.
+
+It was the middle of the afternoon of the last day of November--and
+also the last day of many a gallant life--when Hood's tired army
+marched over the brow of the high ridge of hills that looked down on
+the town of Franklin, in front of which, from railroad to river,
+behind a long semicircular breastwork lay Schofield's determined
+army. It was a beautiful view, and as plain as looking down from the
+gallery into the pit of an amphitheatre.
+
+Just below them lay the little town in a valley, admirably situated
+for defense, surrounded as it was on three sides by the bend of a
+small river, the further banks of which were of solid rocks rising
+above the town. On the highest of these bluffs--Roper's Knob--across
+and behind the town, directly overlooking it and grimly facing Hood's
+army two miles away, was a federal fort capped with mighty guns,
+ready to hurl their shells over the town at the gray lines beyond.
+From the high ridge where Hood's army stood the ground gradually
+rolled to the river. A railroad ran through a valley in the ridge to
+the right of the Confederates, spun along on the banks of the river
+past the town and crossed it in the heart of the bend to the left of
+the federal fort. From that railroad on the Confederate right, in
+front and clear around the town, past an old gin house which stood
+out clear and distinct in the November sunlight--on past the Carter
+House, to the extreme left bend of the river on the left--in short,
+from river to river again and entirely inclosing the town and facing
+the enemy--ran the newly made and hastily thrown-up breastworks of
+the federal army, the men rested and ready for battle.
+
+There stands to-day, as it stood then, in front of the town of
+Franklin, on the highest point of the ridge, a large linden tree, now
+showing the effects of age. It was half-past three o'clock in the
+afternoon, when General Hood rode unattended to that tree, threw the
+stump of the leg that was shot off at Chickamauga over the pommel of
+his saddle, drew out his field glasses and sat looking for a long
+time across the valley at the enemy's position.
+
+Strange to say, on the high river bluff beyond the town, amid the
+guns of the fort, also with field glass in hand anxiously watching
+the confederates, stood the federal general. A sharp-shooter in
+either line could have killed the commanding general in the other.
+And now that prophesying silence which always seems to precede a
+battle was afloat in the air. In the hollow of its stillness it
+seemed as if one could hear the ticking of the death-watch of
+eternity. But presently it was broken by the soft strains of music
+which floated up from the town below. It was the federal band playing
+"Just Before The Battle, Mother."
+
+The men in gray on the hill and the men in blue in the valley
+listened, and then each one mentally followed the tune with silent
+words, and not without a bit of moisture in their eyes.
+
+    "Just before the battle, Mother,
+     I am thinking most of thee."
+
+Suddenly Hood closed his glasses with that nervous jerk which was a
+habit with him, straightened himself in the saddle and, riding back
+to General Stewart, said simply: "We will make the fight, General
+Stewart."
+
+Stewart pressed his General's hand, wheeled and formed his corps on
+the right. Cheatham formed his on the left. A gun--and but few were
+used by Hood in the fight for fear of killing the women and children
+in the town--echoed from the ridge. It was the signal for the battle
+to begin. The heavy columns moved down the side of the ridge, the
+brigades marching in echelon.
+
+At the sound of the gun, the federal army, some of whom were on duty,
+but the larger number loitering around at rest, or engaged in
+preparing their evening meal, sprang noiselessly to their places
+behind the breastworks, while hurried whispers of command ran down
+the line.
+
+General Travis had been given a place of honor on General Hood's
+staff. He insisted on going into the ranks, but his commander had
+said: "Stay with me, I shall need you elsewhere." And so the old man
+sat his horse silently watching the army forming and marching down.
+But directly, as a Mississippi regiment passed by, he noticed at the
+head of one of the companies an old man, almost as old as himself,
+his clothes torn, and ragged from long marching; shoeless, his feet
+tied up in sack-cloth and his old slouch hat aflop over his ears. But
+he did not complain, he stood erect, and gamely led his men into
+battle. As the company halted for a moment, General Travis rode up to
+the old man whose thin clothes could not keep him from shivering in
+the now chill air of late afternoon, for it was then past four
+o'clock, saluted him and said:
+
+"Captain, will you do me the favor to pull off this boot?"
+Withdrawing his boot from the stirrup and thrusting it towards the
+old man, the latter looked at him a moment in surprise but sheathed
+his sword and complied with the request. "And now the other one?"
+said Travis as he turned his horse around. This, too, was pulled off.
+
+"Just put them on, Captain, if you please," said the rider. "I am
+mounted and do not need them as much as you do?" and before the
+gallant old Captain could refuse, he rode away for duty--in his
+stocking feet!
+
+And now the battle began in earnest.
+
+The confederates came on in splendid form. On the extreme right,
+Forrest's cavalry rested on the river; then Stewart's corps of
+Loring, Walthall, French, from right to left in the order named. On
+the left Cheatham's corps, of Cleburne, Brown, Bate, and Walker.
+Behind Cheatham marched Johnston's and Clayton's brigade for support,
+thirty thousand and more of men, in solid lines, bands playing and
+flags fluttering in the afternoon wind.
+
+Nor had the federals been idle. Behind the breastworks lay the second
+and third divisions of the 23rd Corps, commanded in person by the
+gallant General J. D. Cox. From the railroad on the left to the
+Carter's Creek pike on the right, the brigades of these divisions
+stood as follows: Henderson's, Casement's, Reilly's, Strickland's,
+Moore's. And from the right of the Carter's Creek pike to the river
+lay Kimball's first division of the Fourth Corps. In front of the
+breastworks, across the Columbia pike, General Wagner, commanding the
+second division of the Fourth Corps, had thrown forward the two
+brigades of Bradley and Lane to check the first assault of the
+confederates, while Opdyck's brigade of the same division was held in
+the town as a reserve. Seven splendid batteries growled along the
+line of breastworks, and showed their teeth to the advancing foe,
+while three more were caged in the fort above and beyond the town.
+
+Never did men march with cooler courage on more formidable lines of
+defense. Never did men wait an attack with cooler courage.
+Breastworks with abatis in front through which the mouth of cannon
+gaped; artillery and infantry on the right to enfilade; siege guns in
+the fort high above all, to sweep and annihilate.
+
+Schofield, born general that he was, simply lay in a rock-circled,
+earth-circled, water-circled, iron-and-steel-circled cage, bayonet
+and flame tipped, proof against the armies of the world!
+
+But Hood's brave army never hesitated, never doubted.
+
+Even in the matter of where to throw up his breastworks, Schofield
+never erred. On a beautiful and seemingly level plain like this, a
+less able general might have thrown them up anywhere, just so that
+they encircled the town and ran from river to river.
+
+But Schofield took no chances. His quick eye detected that even in
+apparent level plains there are slight undulations. And so, following
+a gentle rise all the way round, just on its top he threw up his
+breastworks. So that, besides the ditch and the abatis, there was a
+slight depression in his immediate front, open and clear, but so
+situated that on the gentle slope in front, down which the
+confederates must charge, the background of the slope brought them in
+bold relief--gray targets for the guns. On that background the hare
+would loom up as big as the hound.
+
+There were really two federal lines, an outer and an inner one. The
+outer one consisted of Bradley's and Lane's brigades which had
+retired from Spring Hill before the Confederate army, and had been
+ordered to halt in front of the breastworks to check the advance of
+the army. They were instructed to fire and then fall back to the
+breastworks, if stubbornly charged by greatly their superiors in
+numbers. They fired, but, true to American ideas, they disliked to
+retreat. When forced to do so, they were swept away with the enemy on
+their very heels and as they rushed in over the last line at the
+breastworks on the Columbia pike the eager boys in gray rushed over
+with them, swept away portions of Reilly's and Strickland's troops,
+and bayoneted those that remained.
+
+It was then that Schofield's heart sank as he looked down from the
+guns of the fort. But Cox had the forethought to place Opdyck's two
+thousand men in reserve at this very point. These sprang gallantly
+forward and restored the line.
+
+They saved the Union army!
+
+The battle was now raging all around the line. There was a succession
+of yells, a rattle, a shock and a roar, as brigade after brigade
+struck the breastworks, only to be hurled back again or melt and die
+away in the trenches amid the abatis. Clear around the line of
+breastworks it rolled, at intervals, like a magazine of powder
+flashing before it explodes, then the roar and upheaval, followed
+anon and anon by another. The ground was soon shingled with dead men
+in gray, while down in the ditches or hugging the bloody sides of the
+breastworks right under the guns, thousands, more fortunate or daring
+than their comrades, lay, thrusting and being thrust, shooting and
+being shot. And there they staid throughout the fight--not strong
+enough to climb over, and yet all the guns of the federal army could
+not drive them away. Many a gray regiment planted its battle-flag on
+the breastworks and then hugged those sides of death in its efforts
+to keep it there, as bees cling around the body of their queen.
+
+"I have the honor to forward to the War Department nine stands of
+colors," writes General Cox to General Geo. L. Thomas; "these flags
+with eleven others were captured by the Twenty-third Army Corps along
+the parapets."
+
+Could Bonaparte's army have planted more on the ramparts of Mount St.
+Jean?
+
+The sun had not set; yet the black smoke of battle had set it before
+its time. God had ordained otherwise; but man, in his fury had shut
+out the light of heaven against the decree of God, just as, equally
+against His decree, he has now busily engaged in blotting out many a
+brother's bright life, before the decree of its sunset. Again and
+again and again, from four till midnight--eight butchering hours--the
+heart of the South was hurled against those bastions of steel and
+flame, only to be pierced with ball and bayonet.
+
+And for every heart that was pierced there broke a dozen more in the
+shade of the southern palmetto, or in the shadow of the northern
+pine. After nineteen hundred years of light and learning, what a
+scientific nation of heart-stabbers and brother-murderers we
+Christians are!
+
+It was now that the genius of the confederate cavalry leader,
+Forrest, asserted itself. With nearly ten thousand of his intrepid
+cavalry-men, born in the saddle, who carried rifles and shot as they
+charged, and whom with wonderful genius their leader had trained to
+dismount at a moment's notice and fight as infantry--he lay on the
+extreme right between the river and the railroad. In a moment he saw
+his opportunity, and rode furiously to Hood's headquarters. He found
+the General sitting on a flat rock, a smouldering fire by his side,
+half way down the valley, at the Winstead House, intently watching
+the progress of the battle.
+
+"Let me go at 'em, General," shouted Forrest in his bluff way, "and
+I'll flank the federal army out of its position in fifteen minutes."
+
+"No! Sir," shouted back Hood. "Charge them out! charge them out!"
+
+Forrest turned and rode back with an oath of disgust. Years
+afterwards, Colonel John McGavock, whose fine plantation lay within
+the federal lines and who had ample opportunity for observation, says
+that when in the early evening a brigade of Forrest's cavalry
+deployed across the river as if opening the way for the confederate
+infantry to attack the federal army in flank and rear, hasty
+preparations were made by the federal army for retreat. And thus was
+Forrest's military wisdom corroborated. "Let me flank them out," was
+military genius. "No, charge them out," was dare-devil blundering!
+
+The shock, the shout and the roar continued. The flash from the guns
+could now plainly be seen as night descended. So continuous was the
+play of flame around the entire breastwork that it looked to the
+general at headquarters like a circle of prairie fire, leaping up at
+intervals along the breastworks, higher and higher where the
+batteries were ablaze.
+
+In a black-locust thicket, just to the right of the Columbia turnpike
+and near the Carter House, with abatis in front, the strongest of the
+batteries had been placed. It mowed down everything in front. Seeing
+it, General Hood turned to General Travis and said: "General, my
+compliments to General Cleburne, and say to him I desire that battery
+at his hands."
+
+The old man wheeled and was gone. In a moment, it seemed, the black
+smoke of battle engulfed him. Cleburne's command was just in front of
+the old gin house, forming for another charge. The dead lay in heaps
+in front. They almost filled the ditch around the breastworks. But
+the command, terribly cut to pieces, was forming as coolly as if on
+dress parade. Above them floated a peculiar flag, a field of deep
+blue on which was a crescent moon and stars. It was Cleburne's battle
+flag and well the enemy knew it. They had seen and felt it at Shiloh,
+Murfreesboro, Ringgold Gap, Atlanta. "I tip my hat to that flag,"
+said General Sherman years after the war. "Whenever my men saw it
+they knew it meant fight."
+
+As the old man rode up, the division charged. Carried away in the
+excitement he charged with them, guiding his horse by the flashes of
+the guns. As they rushed on the breastworks a gray figure on a
+chestnut horse rode diagonally across the front of the moving column
+at the enemy's gun. The horse went down within fifty yards of the
+breastwork. The rider arose, waved his sword and led his men on foot
+to the very ramparts. Then he staggered and fell, pierced with a
+dozen minie balls. It was Cleburne, the peerless field-marshal of
+confederate brigade commanders; the genius to infantry as Forrest was
+to cavalry. His corps was swept back by the terrible fire, nearly
+half of them dead or wounded.
+
+Ten minutes afterwards General Travis stood before General Hood.
+
+"General Cleburne is dead, General"--was all he said. Hood did not
+turn his head.
+
+"My compliments to General Adams," he said, "and tell him I ask that
+battery at his hands."
+
+Again the old man wheeled and was gone. Again he rode into the black
+night and the blacker smoke of battle.
+
+General Adams's brigade was in Walthall's division. As the aged
+courier rode up, Adams was just charging. Again the old man was swept
+away with the charge. They struck the breastworks where Stile's and
+Casement's brigades lay on the extreme left of the federal army.
+"Their officers showed heroic examples and self-sacrifice," wrote
+General Cox in his official report, "riding up to our lines in
+advance of their men, cheering them on. One officer, Adams, was shot
+down upon the parapet itself, his horse falling across the
+breastworks." Casement himself, touched by the splendor of his ride,
+had cotton brought from the old gin house and placed under the dying
+soldier's head. "You are too brave a man to die," said Casement
+tenderly; "I wish that I could save you."
+
+"'Tis the fate of a soldier to die for his country," smiled the dying
+soldier. Then he passed away.
+
+It was a half hour before the old man reached Hood's headquarters
+again, his black horse wet with sweat.
+
+"General Adams lies in front of the breastworks--dead! His horse half
+over it--dead"--was all he said.
+
+Hood turned pale. His eyes flashed with indignant grief.
+
+"Then tell General Gist," he exclaimed. The old man vanished again
+and rode once more into the smoke and the night. Gist's brigade led
+the front line of Brown's division, Cheatham's corps. It was on the
+left, fronting Strickland's and Moore's, on the breastworks. The
+Twenty-fourth South Carolina Infantry was in front of the charging
+lines. "In passing from the left to the right of the regiment,"
+writes Colonel Ellison Capers commanding the South Carolina regiment
+above named, "the General (Gist) waved his hat to us, expressed his
+pride and confidence in the Twenty-fourth and rode away in the smoke
+of battle never more to be seen by the men he had commanded on so
+many fields. His horse was shot, and, dismounting, he was leading the
+right of the brigade when he fell, pierced through the heart. On
+pressed the charging lines of the brigade, driving the advance force
+of the enemy pell-mell into a locust abatis where many were captured
+and sent to the rear; others were wounded by the fire of their own
+men. This abatis was a formidable and fearful obstruction. The entire
+brigade was arrested by it. But Gist's and Gordon's brigade charged
+on and reached the ditch, mounted the works and met the enemy in
+close combat. The colors of the Twenty-fourth were planted and
+defended on the parapet, and the enemy retired in our front some
+distance, but soon rallied and came back in turn to charge us. He
+never succeeded in retaking the line we held. Torn and exhausted,
+deprived of every general officer and nearly every field officer, the
+division had only strength enough left to hold its position."
+
+The charging became intermittent. Then out of the night, as Hood sat
+listening, again came the old man, his face as white as his long
+hair, his horse once black, now white with foam.
+
+"General Gist too, is dead," he said sadly.
+
+"Tell Granbury, Carter, Strahl--General! Throw them in there and
+capture that battery and break that line."
+
+The old man vanished once more and rode into the shock and shout of
+battle.
+
+General Strahl was leading his brigade again against the breastworks.
+"Strahl's and Carter's brigade came gallantly to the assistance of
+Gist's and Gordon's" runs the confederate report sent to Richmond,
+"but the enemy's fire from the houses in the rear of the line and
+from guns posted on the far side of the river so as to enfilade the
+field, tore their line to pieces before it reached the locust
+abatis."
+
+General Carter fell mortally wounded before reaching the breastworks,
+but General Strahl reached the ditch, filled with dead and dying men,
+though his entire staff had been killed. Here he stood with only two
+men around him, Cunningham and Brown. "Keep firing" said Strahl as he
+stood on the bodies of the dead and passed up guns to the two
+privates. The next instant Brown fell heavily; he, too, was dead.
+
+"What shall I do, General?" asked Cunningham.
+
+"Keep firing," said Strahl.
+
+Again Cunningham fired. "Pass me another gun, General," said
+Cunningham. There was no answer--the general was dead.
+
+Not a hundred yards away lay General Granbury, dead. He died leading
+the brave Texans to the works.
+
+To the commanding General it seemed an age before the old man
+returned. Then he saw him in the darkness afar off, before he reached
+the headquarters. The General thought of death on his pale horse and
+shivered.
+
+"Granbury, Carter, Strahl--all dead, General," he said. "Colonels
+command divisions, Captains are commanding brigades."
+
+"How does Cheatham estimate his loss?" asked the General.
+
+"At half his command killed and wounded," said the old soldier sadly.
+
+"My God!--my God!--this awful, awful day!" cried Hood.
+
+There was a moment's silence and then: "General?" It came from
+General Travis.
+
+The General looked up.
+
+"May I lead the Tennessee troops in--I have led them often before."
+
+Hood thought a moment, then nodded and the horse and the rider were
+gone. It was late--nearly midnight. The firing on both sides had
+nearly ceased,--only a desultory rattling--the boom of a gun now and
+then. But O, the agony, the death, the wild confusion! This was
+something like the babel that greeted the old soldier's ears as he
+rode forward:
+
+"The Fourth Mississippi--where is the Fourth Mississippi?" "Here is
+the Fortieth Alabama's standard--rally men to your standard!" "Where
+is General Cleburne, men? Who has seen General Cleburne?" "Up, boys,
+and let us at 'em agin! Damn 'em, they've wounded me an' I want to
+kill some more!"
+
+"Water!--water--for God's sake give us water!" This came from a pile
+of wounded men just under the guns on the Columbia pike. It came from
+a sixteen year old boy in blue. Four dead comrades lay across him.
+
+"And this is the curse of it," said General Travis, as he rode among
+the men.
+
+But suddenly amid the smoke and confusion, the soldiers saw what many
+thought was an apparition--an old, old warrior, on a horse with black
+mane and tail and fiery eyes, but elsewhere covered with white sweat
+and pale as the horse of death. The rider's face too, was deadly
+white, but his keen eyes blazed with the fire of many generations of
+battle-loving ancestors.
+
+The soldiers flocked round him, half doubting, half believing. The
+terrible ordeal of that bloody night's work; the poignant grief from
+beholding the death and wounds of friends and brothers; the weird,
+uncanny groans of the dying upon the sulphurous-smelling night air;
+the doubt, uncertainty, and yet, through it all, the bitter
+realization that all was in vain, had shocked, benumbed, unsettled
+the nerves of the stoutest; and many of them scarcely knew whether
+they were really alive, confronting in the weird hours of the night
+ditches of blood and breastworks of death, or were really dead--dead
+from concussion, from shot or shell, and were now wandering on a
+spirit battle-field till some soul-leader should lead them away.
+
+And so, half dazed and half dreaming, and yet half alive to its
+realization, they flocked around the old warrior, and they would not
+have been at all surprised had he told them he came from another
+world.
+
+Some thought of Mars. Some thought of death and his white horse. Some
+felt of the animal's mane and touched his streaming flanks and cordy
+legs to see if it were really a horse and not an apparition, while
+"What is it?" and "Who is he?" was whispered down the lines.
+
+Then the old rider spoke for the first time, and said simply:
+
+"Men, I have come to lead you in."
+
+A mighty shout came up. "It's General Lee!--he has come to lead us
+in," they shouted.
+
+"No, no, men,"--said the old warrior quickly. "I am not General Lee.
+But I have led Southern troops before. I was at New Orleans. I was--"
+
+"It's Ole Hick'ry--by the eternal!--Ole Hick'ry--and he's come back
+to life to lead us!" shouted a big fellow as he threw his hat in the
+air.
+
+"Ole Hickory! Ole Hickory!" echoed and re-echoed down the lines, till
+it reached the ears of the dying soldiers in the ditch itself, and
+many a poor, brave fellow, as his heart strings snapped and the
+broken chord gurgled out into the dying moan, saw amid the blaze and
+light of the new life, the apparition turn into a reality and a smile
+of exquisite satisfaction was forever frozen on his face in the mould
+of death, as he whispered with his last breath:
+
+"It's Old Hickory--my General--I have fought a good fight--I come!"
+
+Then the old warrior smiled--a smile of simple beauty and grandeur,
+of keen satisfaction that such an honor should have been paid him,
+and he tried to speak to correct them. But they shouted the more, and
+drowned out his voice and would not have it otherwise. Despairing, he
+rode to the front and drew his long, heavy, old, revolutionary sword.
+It flashed in the air. It came to "attention"--and then a dead
+silence followed.
+
+"Men," he said, "this is the sword of John Sevier, the rebel that led
+us up the sides of King's Mountain when every tyrant gun that belched
+in our face called us--rebels!"
+
+"Old Hick'ry! Old Hick'ry, forever!" came back from the lines.
+
+Again the old sword came to attention, and again a deep hush
+followed.
+
+"Men," he said, drawing a huge rifled barreled pistol--"this is the
+pistol of Andrew Jackson, the rebel that whipped the British at New
+Orleans when every gun that thundered in his face, meant death to
+liberty!"
+
+"Old Hickory! Old Hickory!!" came back in a frenzy of excitement.
+
+Again the old sword came to attention--again, the silence. Then the
+old man fairly stood erect in his stirrups--he grew six inches
+taller and straighter and the black horse reared and rose as if to
+give emphasis to his rider's assertion:
+
+"Men," he shouted, "rebel is the name that tyranny gives to
+patriotism! And now, let us fight, as our fore-fathers fought, for
+our state, our homes and our firesides!" And then clear and distinct
+there rang out on the night air, a queer old continental command:
+
+"Fix, pieces!"
+
+They did not know what this meant at first. But some old men in the
+line happened to remember and fixed their bayonets. Then there was
+clatter and clank down the entire line as others imitated their
+examples.
+
+"Poise, fo'k!" rang out again more queerly still. The old men who
+remembered brought their guns to the proper position. "Right
+shoulder, fo'k!"--followed. Then, "Forward, March!" came back and
+they moved straight at the batteries--now silent--and straight at the
+breastworks, more silent still. Proudly, superbly, they came on, with
+not a shout or shot--a chained line with links of steel--a moving
+mass with one heart--and that heart,--victory.
+
+On they came at the breastworks, walking over the dead who lay so
+thick they could step from body to body as they marched. On they
+came, following the old cocked hat that had once held bloodier
+breastworks against as stubborn foe.
+
+On--on--they came, expecting every moment to see a flame of fire run
+round the breastworks, a furnace of flame leap up from the batteries,
+and then--victory or death--behind old Hickory! Either was honor
+enough!
+
+And now they were within fifty feet of the breastworks, moving as if
+on dress parade. The guns must thunder now or never! One step
+more--then, an electrical bolt shot through every nerve as the old
+man wheeled his horse and again rang out that queer old continental
+command, right in the mouth of the enemy's ditch, right in the teeth
+of his guns:
+
+"Charge, pieces!"
+
+It was Tom Travis who commanded the guns where the Columbia Pike met
+the breastworks at the terrible deadly locust thicket. All night he
+had stood at his post and stopped nine desperate charges. All night
+in the flash and roar and the strange uncanny smell of blood and
+black powder smoke, he had stood among the dead and dying calling
+stubbornly, monotonously:
+
+"Ready!"
+
+"Aim!"
+
+"Fire!"
+
+And now it was nearly midnight and Schofield, finding the enemy
+checked, was withdrawing on Nashville.
+
+Tom Travis thought the battle was over, but in the glare and flash he
+looked and saw another column, ghostly gray in the starlight, moving
+stubbornly at his guns.
+
+"Ready!" he shouted as his gunners sprang again to their pieces.
+
+On came the column--beautifully on. How it thrilled him to see them!
+How it hurt to think they were his people!
+
+"_Aim!_" he thundered again, and then as he looked through the gray
+torch made, starlighted night, he quailed in a cold sickening fear,
+for the old man who led them on was his grandsire, the man whom of
+all on earth he loved and revered the most.
+
+Eight guns, with grim muzzles trained on the old rider and his
+charging column, waited but for the captain's word to hurl their
+double-shotted canisters of death.
+
+And Tom Travis, in the agony of it, stood, sword in hand, stricken in
+dumbness and doubt. On came the column, the old warrior leading
+them--on and:--
+
+"The command--the command! Give it to us, Captain," shouted the
+gunners.
+
+"_Cease firing!_"
+
+The gunners dropped their lanyards with an oath, trained machines
+that they were.
+
+It was a drunken German who brought a heavy sword-hilt down on the
+young officer's head with:
+
+"You damned traitor!"
+
+A gleam of gun and bayonet leaped in the misty light in front, from
+shoulder to breast--a rock wall, tipped with steel swept crushingly
+forward over the trenches over the breastworks.
+
+Under the guns, senseless, his skull crushed, an upturned face
+stopped the old warrior. Down from his horse he came with a weak,
+hysterical sob.
+
+"O Tom--Tom, I might have known it was you--my gallant, noble boy--my
+Irish Gray!"
+
+He kissed, as he thought, the dead face, and went on with his men.
+
+It was just midnight.
+
+"At midnight, all being quiet in front, in accordance with orders
+from the commanding Generals," writes General J. D. Cox in his
+official report, "I withdrew my command to the north bank of the
+river."
+
+"The battle closed about twelve o'clock at night," wrote General
+Hood, "when the enemy retreated rapidly on Nashville, leaving the
+dead and wounded in our hands. We captured about a thousand prisoners
+and several stands of colors."
+
+Was this a coincidence--or as some think--did the boys in blue
+retreat before they would fire on an old Continental and the spirit
+of '76?
+
+An hour afterwards a negro was sadly leading a tired old man on a
+superb horse back to headquarters, and as the rider's head sank on
+his breast he said:
+
+"Lead me, Bisco, I'm too weak to guide my horse. Nothing is left now
+but the curse of it."
+
+And O, the curse of it!
+
+Fifty-seven Union dead beside the wounded, in the little front yard
+of the Carter House, alone. And they lay around the breastworks from
+river to river, a chain of dead and dying. In front of the
+breastworks was another chain--a wider and thicker one. It also ran
+from river to river, but was gray instead of blue. Chains are made of
+links, and the full measure of "the curse of it" may have been seen
+if one could have looked over the land that night and have seen where
+the dead links lying there were joined to live under the roof trees
+of far away homes.
+
+But here is the tale of a severed link: About two o'clock lights
+began to flash about over the battle-field--they were hunting for the
+dead and wounded. Among these, three had come out from the Carter
+House. A father, son and daughter; each carried a lantern and as they
+passed they flashed their lights in the faces of the dead.
+
+"May we look for brother?" asked the young girl, of an officer. "We
+hope he is not here but fear he is. He has not been home for two
+years, being stationed in another state. But we heard he could not
+resist the temptation to come home again and joined General Bate's
+brigade. And O, we fear he has been killed for he would surely have
+been home before this."
+
+They separated, each looking for "brother." Directly the father heard
+the daughter cry out. It was in the old orchard near the house. On
+reaching the spot she was seated on the ground, holding the head of
+her dying brother in her lap and sobbing:
+
+"Brother's come home! Brother's come home!" Alas, she meant--gone
+home!
+
+"Captain Carter, on staff duty with Tyler's brigade," writes General
+Wm. B. Bate in his official report, "fell mortally wounded near the
+works of the enemy and almost at the door of his father's home. His
+gallantry I witnessed with much pride, as I had done on other fields,
+and here take pleasure in mentioning it especially."
+
+The next morning in the first light of the first day of that month
+celebrated as the birth-month of Him who declared long ago that war
+should cease, amid the dead and dying of both armies, stood two
+objects which should one day be carved in marble--One, to represent
+the intrepid bravery of the South, the other, the cool courage of the
+North, and both--"the curse of it."
+
+The first was a splendid war-horse, dead, but lying face forward,
+half over the federal breastworks. It was the horse of General Adams.
+
+The other was a Union soldier--the last silent sentinel of
+Schofield's army. He stood behind a small locust tree, just in front
+of the Carter House gate. He had drawn his iron ram-rod which rested
+under his right arm pit, supporting that side. His gun, with butt on
+the ground at his left, rested with muzzle against his left side,
+supporting it. A cartridge, half bitten off was in his mouth. He
+leaned heavily against the small tree in front. He was quite dead, a
+minie ball through his head; but thus propped he stood, the wonder of
+many eyes, the last sentinel of the terrible night battle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But another severed link cut deepest of all. In the realization of
+her love for Thomas Travis, Alice Westmore's heart died within her.
+In the years which followed, if suffering could make her a great
+singer, now indeed was she great.
+
+
+
+
+PART FOURTH--THE LINT
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+COTTONTOWN
+
+
+Slavery clings to cotton.
+
+When the directors of a cotton mill, in a Massachusetts village,
+decided, in the middle '70's, to move their cotton factory from New
+England to Alabama, they had two objects in view--cheaper labor and
+cheaper staple.
+
+And they did no unwise thing, as the books of the company from that
+time on showed.
+
+In the suburbs of a growing North Alabama town, lying in the
+Tennessee Valley and flanked on both sides by low, regularly rolling
+mountains, the factory had been built.
+
+It was a healthful, peaceful spot, and not unpicturesque. North and
+south the mountains fell away in an undulating rhythmical sameness,
+with no abrupt gorges to break in and destroy the poetry of their
+scroll against the sky. The valley supplemented the effect of the
+mountains; for, from the peak of Sunset Rock, high up on the
+mountain, it looked not unlike the chopped up waves of a great river
+stiffened into land--especially in winter when the furrowed rows of
+the vast cotton fields lay out brown and symmetrically turned under
+the hazy sky.
+
+The factory was a low, one-story structure of half burnt bricks.
+Like a vulgar man, cheapness was written all over its face. One of
+its companions was a wooden store house near by, belonging to the
+company. The other companion was a squatty low-browed engine room,
+decorated with a smoke-stack which did business every day in the week
+except Sunday. A black, soggy exhaust-pipe stuck out of a hole in its
+side, like a nicotine-soaked pipe in an Irishman's mouth, and so
+natural and matter-of-fact was the entire structure that at evening,
+in the uncertain light, when the smoke was puffing out of its stack,
+and the dirty water running from its pipes, and the reflected fire
+from the engine's furnace blazed through the sunken eyes of the
+windows, begrizzled and begrimed, nothing was wanted but a little
+imagination to hear it cough and spit and give one final puff at its
+pipe and say: "Lu'd but o'ive wur-rek hard an' o'im toired to-day!"
+
+Around it in the next few years had sprung up Cottontown.
+
+The factory had been built on the edge of an old cottonfield which
+ran right up to the town's limit; and the field, unplowed for several
+years, had become sodded with the long stolens of rank Bermuda grass,
+holding in its perpetual billows of green the furrows which had been
+thrown up for cotton rows and tilled years before.
+
+This made a beautiful pea-green carpet in summer and a comfortable
+straw-colored matting in winter; and it was the only bit of sentiment
+that clung to Cottontown.
+
+All the rest of it was practical enough: Rows of scurvy three-roomed
+cottages, all exactly alike, even to the gardens in the rear, laid
+off in equal breadth and running with the same unkept raggedness up
+the flinty side of the mountain.
+
+There was not enough originality among the worked-to-death
+inhabitants of Cottontown to plant their gardens differently; for all
+of them had the same weedy turnip-patch on one side, straggling
+tomatoes on another, and half-dried mullein-stalks sentineling the
+corners. For years these cottages had not been painted, and now each
+wore the same tinge of sickly yellow paint. It was not difficult to
+imagine that they had had a long siege of malarial fever in which the
+village doctor had used abundant plasters of mustard, and the disease
+had finally run into "yaller ja'ndice," as they called it in
+Cottontown.
+
+And thus Cottontown had stood for several years, a new problem in
+Southern life and industry, and a paying one for the Massachusetts
+directors.
+
+In the meanwhile another building had been put up--a little cheaply
+built chapel, of long-leaf yellow pine. It was known as the Bishop's
+church, and sat on the side of the mountain, half way up among the
+black-jacks, exposed to the blistering suns of summer and the winds
+of winter.
+
+It had never been painted: "An' it don't need it," as the Bishop had
+said when the question of painting it had been raised by some of the
+members.
+
+"No, it don't need it, for the hot sun has drawed all the rosin out
+on its surface, an' pine rosin's as good a paint as any church needs.
+Jes' let God be, an' He'll fix His things like He wants 'em any way.
+He put the paint in the pine-tree when He made it. Now man is mighty
+smart,--he can make paint, but he can't make a pine tree."
+
+It was Sunday morning, and as the Bishop drove along to church he was
+still thinking of Jack Bracken and Captain Tom, and the burial of
+little Jack. When he arose that morning Jack was up, clean-shaved and
+neatly dressed. As Mrs. Watts, the Bishop's wife, had become used, as
+she expressed it, to his "fetchin' any old thing, frum an old hoss to
+an old man home, wharever he finds 'em,"--she did not express any
+surprise at having a new addition to the family.
+
+The outlaw looked nervous and sorrow-stricken. Several times, when
+some one came on him unexpectedly, the Bishop saw him feeling
+nervously for a Colt's revolver which had been put away. Now and
+then, too, he saw great tears trickling down the rough cheeks, when
+he thought no one was noticing him.
+
+"Now, Jack," said the Bishop after breakfast, "you jes' get on John
+Paul Jones an' hunt for Cap'n Tom. I know you'll not leave no stone
+unturned to find him. Go by the cave and see if him an' Eph ain't
+gone back. I'm not af'eard--I know Eph will take care of him, but we
+want to fin' him. After meetin' if you haven't found him I'll join in
+the hunt myself--for we must find Cap'n Tom, Jack, befo' the sun goes
+down. I'd ruther see him than any livin' man. Cap'n Tom--Cap'n
+Tom--him that's been as dead all these years! Fetch him home when you
+find him--fetch him home to me. He shall never want while I live.
+An', Jack, remember--don't forget yo'se'f and hold up anybody. I'll
+expec' you to jine the church nex' Sunday."
+
+"I ain't been in a church for fifteen years," said the other.
+
+"High time you are going, then. You've put yo' hands to the
+plough--turn not back an' God'll straighten out everything."
+
+Jack was silent. "I'll go by the cave fus' an' jus' look where little
+Jack is sleepin'. Po' little feller, he must ha' been mighty lonesome
+last night."
+
+It was ten o'clock and the Bishop was on his way to church. He was
+driving the old roan of the night before. A parody on a horse, to one
+who did not look closely, but to one who knows and who looks beyond
+the mere external form for that hidden something in both man and
+horse which bespeaks strength and reserve force, there was seen
+through the blindness and the ugliness and the sleepy, ambling,
+shuffling gait a clean-cut form, with deep chest and closely ribbed;
+with well drawn flanks, a fine, flat steel-turned bone, and a
+powerful muscle, above hock and forearms, that clung to the leg as
+the Bishop said, "like bees a'swarmin'."
+
+At his little cottage gate stood Bud Billings, the best slubber in
+the cotton mill. Bud never talked to any one except the Bishop; and
+his wife, who was the worst Xanthippe in Cottontown, declared she had
+lived with him six months straight and never heard him come nearer
+speaking than a grunt. It was also a saying of Richard Travis, that
+Bud had been known to break all records for silence by drawing a
+year's wages at the mill, never missing a minute and never speaking
+a word.
+
+Nor had he ever looked any one full in the eye in his life.
+
+As the Bishop drove shamblingly along down the road, deeply
+preoccupied in his forthcoming sermon, there came from out of a hole,
+situated somewhere between the grizzled fringe of hair that marked
+Bud's whiskers and the grizzled fringe above that marked his
+eyebrows, a piping, apologetic voice that sounded like the first few
+rasps of an old rusty saw; but to the occupant of the buggy it meant,
+with a drawl:
+
+"Howdy do, Bishop?"
+
+A blind horse is quick to observe and take fright at anything
+uncanny. He is the natural ghost-finder of the highways, and that
+voice was too much for the old roan. To him it sounded like something
+that had been resurrected. It was a ghost-voice, arising after many
+years. He shied, sprang forward, half wheeled and nearly upset the
+buggy, until brought up with a jerk by the powerful arms of his
+driver. The shaft-band had broken and the buggy had run upon the
+horse's rump, and the shafts stuck up almost at right angles over his
+back. The roan stood trembling with the half turned, inquisitive
+muzzle of the sightless horse--a paralysis of fear all over his face.
+But when Bud came forward and touched his face and stroked it, the
+fear vanished, and the old roan bobbed his tail up and down and
+wiggled his head reassuringly and apologetically.
+
+"Wal, I declar, Bishop," grinned Bud, "kin yo' critter fetch a
+caper?"
+
+The Bishop got leisurely out of his buggy, pulled down the shafts and
+tied up the girth before he spoke. Then he gave a puckering hitch to
+his underlip and deposited in the sand, with a puddling _plunk_, the
+half cup of tobacco juice that had closed up his mouth.
+
+He stepped back and said very sternly:
+
+"Whoa, Ben Butler!"
+
+"Why, he'un's sleep a'ready," grinned Bud.
+
+The Bishop glanced at the bowed head, cocked hind foot and listless
+tail: "Sof'nin' of the brain, Bud," smiled the Bishop; "they say when
+old folks begin to take it they jus' go to sleep while settin' up
+talkin'. Now, a horse, Bud," he said, striking an attitude for a
+discussion on his favorite topic, "a horse is like a man--he must have
+some meanness or he c'udn't live, an' some goodness or nobody else c'ud
+live. But git in, Bud, and let's go along to meetin'--'pears like it's
+gettin' late."
+
+This was what Bud had been listening for. This was the treat of
+the week for him--to ride to meetin' with the Bishop. Bud, a
+slubber-slave--henpecked at home, brow-beaten and cowed at the mill,
+timid, scared, "an' powerful slow-mouthed," as his spouse termed it,
+worshipped the old Bishop and had no greater pleasure in life, after his
+hard week's work, than "to ride to meetin' with the old man an' jes'
+hear him narrate."
+
+The Bishop's great, sympathetic soul went out to the poor fellow, and
+though he had rather spend the next two miles of Ben Butler's slow
+journey to church in thinking over his sermon, he never failed, as he
+termed it, "to pick up charity even on the roadside," and it was
+pretty to see how the old man would turn loose his crude histrionic
+talent to amuse the slubber. He knew, too, that Bud was foolish about
+horses, and that Ben Butler was his model!
+
+They got into the old buggy, and Ben Butler began to draw it slowly
+along the sandy road to the little church, two miles away up the
+mountain side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BEN BUTLER
+
+
+Bud was now in a seventh heaven. He was riding behind Ben Butler, the
+greatest horse in the world, and talking to the Bishop, the only
+person who ever heard the sound of his voice, save in deprecatory and
+scary grunts.
+
+It was touching to see how the old man humored the simple and
+imposed-upon creature at his side. It was beautiful to see how,
+forgetting himself and his sermon, he prepared to entertain, in his
+quaint way, this slave to the slubbing machine.
+
+Bud looked fondly at the Bishop--then admiringly at Ben Butler. He
+drew a long breath of pure air, and sitting on the edge of the seat,
+prepared to jump if necessary; for Bud was mortally afraid of being
+in a runaway, and his scared eyes seemed to be looking for the soft
+places in the road.
+
+"Bishop," he drawled after a while, "huc-cum you name sech a
+hoss"--pointing to the old roan--"sech a grand hoss, for sech a
+man--sech a man as he was," he added humbly.
+
+"Did you ever notice Ben Butler's eyes, Bud?" asked the old man,
+knowingly.
+
+"Blind," said Bud sadly, shaking his head--"too bad--too
+bad--great--great hoss!"
+
+"Yes, but the leds, Bud--that hoss, Ben Butler there, holds a world's
+record--he's the only cock-eyed hoss in the world."
+
+"You don't say so--that critter!--cock-eyed?" Bud laughed and slapped
+his leg gleefully. "Didn't I always tell you so? World's
+record--great--great!"
+
+Then it broke gradually through on Bud's dull mind.
+
+He slapped his leg again. "An' him--his namesake--he was cock-eyed,
+too--I seed him onct at New 'Leens."
+
+"Don't you never trust a cock-eyed man, Bud. He'll flicker on you in
+the home-stretch. I've tried it an' it never fails. Love him, but
+don't trust him. The world is full of folks we oughter love, but not
+trust."
+
+"No--I never will," said Bud as thoughtfully as he knew how to
+be--"nor a cock-eyed 'oman neither. My wife's cock-eyed," he added.
+
+He was silent a moment. Then he showed the old man a scar on his
+forehead: "She done that last month--busted a plate on my head."
+
+"That's bad," said the Bishop consolingly--"but you ortenter
+aggravate her, Bud."
+
+"That's so--I ortenter--least-wise, not whilst there's any crockery
+in the house," said Bud sadly.
+
+"There's another thing about this hoss," went on the Bishop--"he's
+always spoony on mules. He ain't happy if he can't hang over the
+front gate spoonin' with every stray mule that comes along. There's
+old long-eared Lize that he's dead stuck on--if he c'u'd write he'd
+be composin' a sonnet to her ears, like poets do to their lady
+love's--callin' them Star Pointers of a Greater Hope, I reck'n, an'
+all that. Why, he'd ruther hold hands by moonlight with some old
+Maria mule than to set up by lamplight with a thoroughbred filly."
+
+"Great--great!" said Bud slapping his leg--"didn't I tell you so?"
+
+"So I named him Ben Butler when he was born. That was right after the
+war, an' I hated old Ben so an' loved hosses so, I thought ef I'd
+name my colt for old Ben maybe I'd learn to love him, in time."
+
+Bud shook his head. "That's agin nature, Bishop."
+
+"But I have, Bud--sho' as you are born I love old Ben Butler." He
+lowered his voice to an earnest whisper: "I ain't never told you what
+he done for po' Cap'n Tom."
+
+"Never heurd o' Cap'n Tom."
+
+The Bishop looked hurt. "Never mind, Bud, you wouldn't understand.
+But maybe you will ketch this, listen now."
+
+Bud listened intently with his head on one side.
+
+"I ain't never hated a man in my life but what God has let me live
+long enough to find out I was in the wrong--dead wrong. There are
+Jews and Yankees. I useter hate 'em worse'n sin--but now what do you
+reckon?"
+
+"One on 'em busted a plate on yo' head?" asked Bud.
+
+"Jesus Christ was a Jew, an' Cap'n Tom jined the Yankees."
+
+"Bud," he said cheerily after a pause, "did I ever tell you the story
+of this here Ben Butler here?"
+
+Bud's eyes grew bright and he slapped his leg again.
+
+"Well," said the old man, brightening up into one of his funny moods,
+"you know my first wife was named Kathleen--Kathleen Galloway when
+she was a gal, an' she was the pretties' gal in the settlement an'
+could go all the gaits both saddle an' harness. She was han'som' as a
+three-year-old an' cu'd out-dance, out-ride, out-sing an' out-flirt
+any other gal that ever come down the pike. When she got her Sunday
+harness on an' began to move, she made all the other gals look like
+they were nailed to the roadside. It's true, she needed a little
+weight in front to balance her, an' she had a lot of ginger in her
+make-up, but she was straight and sound, didn't wear anything but the
+harness an' never teched herself anywhere nor cross-fired nor hit her
+knees."
+
+"Good--great!" said Bud, slapping his leg.
+
+"O, she was beautiful, Bud, with that silky hair that 'ud make a
+thoroughbred filly's look coarse as sheep's wool, an' two
+mischief-lovin' eyes an' a heart that was all gold. Bud--Bud"--there
+was a huskiness in the old man's voice--"I know I can tell you
+because it will never come back to me ag'in, but I love that Kathleen
+now as I did then. A man may marry many times, but he can never love
+but once. Sometimes it's his fust wife, sometimes his secon', an'
+often it's the sweetheart he never got--but he loved only
+one of 'em the right way, an' up yander, in some other star, where
+spirits that are alike meet in one eternal wedlock, they'll be one
+there forever."
+
+"Her daddy, old man Galloway, had a thoroughbred filly that he named
+Kathleena for his daughter, an' she c'ud do anything that the gal
+left out. An' one day when she took the bit in her teeth an' run a
+quarter in twenty-five seconds, she sot 'em all wild an' lots of
+fellers tried to buy the filly an' get the old man to throw in the
+gal for her keep an' board."
+
+"I was one of 'em. I was clerkin' for the old man an' boardin' in the
+house, an' whenever a young feller begins to board in a house where
+there is a thoroughbred gal, the nex' thing he knows he'll be--"
+
+"Buckled in the traces," cried Bud slapping his leg gleefully, at
+this, his first product of brilliancy.
+
+The old man smiled: "'Pon my word, Bud, you're gittin' so smart. I
+don't know what I'll be doin' with you--so 'riginal an' smart. Why,
+you'll quit keepin' an old man's company--like me. I won't be able to
+entertain you at all. But, as I was sayin', the next thing he knows,
+he'll be one of the family."
+
+"So me an' Kathleen, we soon got spoony an' wanted to marry. Lots of
+'em wanted to marry her, but I drawed the pole an' was the only one
+she'd take as a runnin' mate. So I went after the old man this a way:
+I told him I'd buy the filly if he'd give me Kathleen. I never will
+forgit what he said: 'They ain't narry one of 'em for sale, swap or
+hire, an' I wish you young fellers 'ud tend to yo' own business an'
+let my fillies alone. I'm gwinter bus' the wurl's record wid 'em
+both--Kathleena the runnin' record an' Kathleen the gal record, so be
+damn to you an' don't pester me no mo'.'"
+
+"Did he say _damn_?" asked Bud aghast--that such a word should ever
+come from the Bishop.
+
+"He sho' did, Bud. I wouldn't lie about the old man, now that he's
+dead. It ain't right to lie about dead people--even to make 'em say
+nice an' proper things they never thought of whilst alive. If we'd
+stop lyin' about the ungodly dead an' tell the truth about 'em, maybe
+the livin' 'ud stop tryin' to foller after 'em in that respect. As it
+is, every one of 'em knows that no matter how wicked he lives
+there'll be a lot o' nice lies told over him after he's gone, an' a
+monument erected, maybe, to tell how good he was. An' there's another
+lot of half pious folks in the wurl it 'ud help--kind o' sissy pious
+folks--that jus' do manage to miss all the fun in the world an' jus'
+are mean enough to ketch hell in the nex'. Get religion, but don't
+get the sissy kind. So I am for tellin' it about old man Galloway
+jus' as he was.
+
+"You orter heard him swear, Bud--it was part of his religion. An'
+wherever he is to-day in that other world, he is at it yet, for in
+that other life, Bud, we're just ourselves on a bigger scale than we
+are in this. He used to cuss the clerks around the store jus' from
+habit, an' when I went to work for him he said:
+
+"'Young man, maybe I'll cuss you out some mornin', but don't pay no
+'tention to it--it's just a habit I've got into, an' the boys all
+understand it.'
+
+"'Glad you told me,' I said, lookin' him square in the eye--'one
+confidence deserves another. I've got a nasty habit of my own, but I
+hope you won't pay no 'tention to it, for it's a habit, an' I can't
+help it. I don't mean nothin' by it, an' the boys all understand it,
+but when a man cusses me I allers knock him down--do it befo' I
+think'--I said--'jes' a habit I've got.'
+
+"Well, he never cussed me all the time I was there. My stock went up
+with the old man an' my chances was good to get the gal, if I hadn't
+made a fool hoss-trade; for with old man Galloway a good hoss-trade
+covered all the multitude of sins in a man that charity now does in
+religion. In them days a man might have all the learnin' and virtues
+an' graces, but if he cudn't trade hosses he was tinklin' brass an'
+soundin' cymbal in that community.
+
+"The man that throwed the silk into me was Jud Carpenter--the same
+feller that's now the Whipper-in for these mills. Now, don't be
+scared," said the old man soothingly as Bud's scary eyes looked about
+him and he clutched the buggy as if he would jump out--"he'll not
+pester you now--he's kept away from me ever since. He swapped me a
+black hoss with a star an' snip, that looked like the genuine thing,
+but was about the neatest turned gold-brick that was ever put on an
+unsuspectin' millionaire.
+
+"Well, in the trade he simply robbed me of a fine mare I had, that
+cost me one-an'-a-quarter. Kathleen an' me was already engaged, but
+when old man Galloway heard of it, he told me the jig was up an' no
+such double-barrel idiot as I was shu'd ever leave any of my colts in
+the Galloway paddock--that when he looked over his gran'-chillun's
+pedigree he didn't wanter see all of 'em crossin' back to the same
+damned fool! Oh, he was nasty. He said that my colts was dead sho' to
+be luffers with wheels in their heads, an' when pinched they'd quit,
+an' when collared they'd lay down. That there was a yaller streak in
+me that was already pilin' up coupons on the future for tears and
+heartaches an', maybe a gallows or two, an' a lot of uncomplimentary
+talk of that kind.
+
+"Well, Kathleen cried, an' I wept, an' I'll never forgit the night
+she gave me a little good-bye kiss out under the big oak tree an'
+told me we'd hafter part.
+
+"The old man maybe sized me up all right as bein' a fool, but he
+missed it on my bein' a quitter. I had no notion of being fired an'
+blistered an' turned out to grass that early in the game. I wrote her
+a poem every other day, an' lied between heats, till the po' gal was
+nearly crazy, an' when I finally got it into her head that if it was
+a busted blood vessel with the old man, it was a busted heart with
+me, she cried a little mo' an' consented to run off with me an' take
+the chances of the village doctor cuppin' the old man at the right
+time.
+
+"The old lady was on my side and helped things along. I had
+everything fixed even to the moon which was shinin' jes' bright
+enough to carry us to the Justice's without a lantern, some three
+miles away, an' into the nex' county.
+
+"I'll never forgit how the night looked as I rode over after her, how
+the wild-flowers smelt, an' the fresh dew on the leaves. I remember
+that I even heard a mockin'-bird wake up about midnight as I tied my
+hoss to a lim' in the orchard nearby, an' slipped aroun' to meet
+Kathleen at the bars behin' the house. It was a half mile to the
+house an' I was slippin' through the sugar-maple trees along the path
+we'd both walked so often befo' when I saw what I thought was
+Kathleen comin' towards me. I ran to meet her. It wa'n't Kathleen,
+but her mother--an' she told me to git in a hurry, that the old man
+knew all, had locked Kathleen up in the kitchen, turned the brindle
+dog loose in the yard, an' was hidin' in the woods nigh the barn,
+with his gun loaded with bird-shot, an' that if I went any further
+the chances were I'd not sit down agin for a year. She had slipped
+around through the woods just to warn me.
+
+"Of course I wanted to fight an' take her anyway--kill the dog an'
+the old man, storm the kitchen an' run off with Kathleen in my arms
+as they do in novels. But the old lady said she didn't want the dog
+hurt--it being a valuable coon-dog,--and that I was to go away out of
+the county an' wait for a better time.
+
+"It mighty nigh broke me up, but I decided the old lady was right an'
+I'd go away. But 'long towards the shank of the night, after I had
+put up my hoss, the moon was still shinin', an' I cudn't sleep for
+thinkin' of Kathleen. I stole afoot over to her house just to look at
+her window. The house was all quiet an' even the brindle dog was
+asleep. I threw kisses at her bed-room window, but even then I cudn't
+go away, so I slipped around to the barn and laid down in the hay to
+think over my hard luck. My heart ached an' burned an' I was nigh
+dead with love.
+
+"I wondered if I'd ever get her, if they'd wean her from me, an' give
+her to the rich little feller whose fine farm j'ined the old man's
+an' who the old man was wuckin' fur--whether the two wouldn't
+over-persuade her whilst I was gone. For I'd made up my mind I'd go
+befo' daylight--that there wasn't anything else for me to do.
+
+"I was layin' in the hay, an' boylike, the tears was rollin' down. If
+I c'ud only kiss her han' befo' I left--if I c'ud only see her face
+at the winder!
+
+"I must have sobbed out loud, for jus' then I heard a gentle,
+sympathetic whinny an' a cold, inquisitive little muzzle was thrust
+into my face, as I lay on my back with my heart nearly busted. It was
+Kathleena, an' I rubbed my hot face against her cool cheek--for it
+seemed so human of her to come an' try to console me, an' I put my
+arms around her neck an' kissed her silky mane an' imagined it was
+Kathleen's hair.
+
+"Oh, I was heart-broke an' silly.
+
+"Then all at onct a thought came to me, an' I slipped the bridle an'
+saddle on her an' led her out at the back door, an' I scratched this
+on a slip of paper an' stuck it on the barn do':
+
+"'_To old man Galloway:_
+
+"'_You wouldn't let me 'lope with yo' dorter, so I've 'loped with yo'
+filly, an' you'll never see hair nor hide of her till you send me
+word to come back to this house an' fetch a preacher._'
+
+"'(Signed)                         _Hillard Watts._'"
+
+The old man smiled, and Bud slapped his leg gleefully.
+
+"Great--great! Oh my, but who'd a thought of it?" he grunted.
+
+"They say it 'ud done you good to have been there the nex' mornin'
+an' heurd the cussin' recurd busted--but me an' the filly was forty
+miles away. He got out a warrant for me for hoss-stealin', but the
+sheriff was for me, an' though he hunted high an' low he never could
+find me."
+
+"Well, it went on for a month, an' I got the old man's note, sent by
+the sheriff:
+
+"_'To Hillard Watts, Wher-Ever Found._
+
+"_'Come on home an' fetch yo' preacher. Can't afford to loose the
+filly, an' the gal has been off her feed ever since you left._
+
+"'_Jobe Galloway._'
+
+"Oh, Bud, I'll never forgit that home-comin' when she met me at the
+gate an' kissed me an' laughed a little an' cried a heap, an' we
+walked in the little parlor an' the preacher made us one.
+
+"Nor of that happy, happy year, when all life seemed a sweet dream
+now as I look back, an' even the memory of it keeps me happy. Memory
+is a land that never changes in a world of changes, an' that should
+show us our soul is immortal, for memory is only the reflection of
+our soul."
+
+His voice grew more tender, and low: "Toward the last of the year I
+seed her makin' little things slyly an' hidin' 'em away in the bureau
+drawer, an' one night she put away a tiny half-finished little dress
+with the needle stickin' in the hem--just as she left it--just as her
+beautiful hands made the last stitch they ever made on earth....
+
+"O Bud, Bud, out of this blow come the sweetest thought I ever had,
+an' I know from that day that this life ain't all, that we'll live
+agin as sho' as God lives an' is just--an' no man can doubt that.
+No--no--Bud, this life ain't all, because it's God's unvarying law to
+finish things. That tree there is finished, an' them birds, they are
+finished, an' that flower by the roadside an' the mountain yonder an'
+the world an' the stars an' the sun. An' we're mo' than they be,
+Bud--even the tinies' soul, like Kathleen's little one that jes'
+opened its eyes an' smiled an' died, when its mammy died. It had
+something that the trees an' birds an' mountains didn't have--a
+soul--an' don't you kno' He'll finish all such lives up yonder? He'll
+pay it back a thousandfold for what he cuts off here."
+
+Bud wept because the tears were running down the old man's cheeks. He
+wanted to say something, but he could not speak. That queer feeling
+that came over him at times and made him silent had come again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+AN ANSWER TO PRAYER
+
+
+Then the old man remembered that he was making Bud suffer with his
+own sorrow, and when Bud looked at him again the Bishop had wiped his
+eyes on the back of his hand and was smiling.
+
+Ben Butler, unknown to either, had come to a standstill.
+
+The Bishop broke out in a cheery tone:
+
+"My, how far off the subject I got! I started out to tell you all
+about Ben Butler, and--and--how he come in answer to prayer," said
+the Bishop solemnly.
+
+Bud grinned: "It muster been, '_Now I lay me down to sleep_.'"
+
+The Bishop laughed: "Well I'll swun if he ain't sound asleep sho'
+'nuff." He laughed again: "Bud, you're gittin' too bright for
+anything. I jes' don't see how the old man's gwinter talk to you much
+longer 'thout he goes to school agin."
+
+"No--Ben Butler is a answer to prayer," he went on.
+
+"The trouble with the world is it don't pray enough. Prayer puts God
+into us, Bud--we're all a little part of God, even the worst of us,
+an' we can make it big or let it die out accordin' as we pray. If we
+stop prayin' God jes' dies out in us. Of course God don't answer any
+fool prayer, for while we're here we are nothin' but a bundle of
+laws, an' the same unknown law that moves the world around makes yo'
+heart beat. But God is behind the law, an' if you get in harmony with
+God's laws an' pray, He'll answer them. Christ knowed this, an' there
+was some things that even He wouldn't ask for. When the Devil tempted
+Him to jump off the top of the mountain. He drawed the line right
+there, for He knowed if God saved Him by stoppin' the law of
+gravitation it meant the wreck of the world."
+
+"Bud," he went on earnestly, "I've lived a long time an' seed a heap
+o' things, an' the plaines' thing I ever seed in my life is that two
+generations of scoffers will breed a coward, an' three of 'em a
+thief, an' that the world moves on only in proportion as it's got
+faith in God.
+
+"I was ruined after the war--broken--busted--ruined! An' I owed five
+hundred dollars on the little home up yander on the mountain. When I
+come back home from the army I didn't have nothin' but one old
+mare,--a daughter of that Kathleena I told you about. I knowed I was
+gone if I lost that little home, an' so one night I prayed to the
+Lord about it an' then it come to me as clear as it come to Moses in
+the burnin' bush. God spoke to me as clear as he did to Moses."
+
+"How did he say it?" asked Bud, thoroughly frightened and looking
+around for a soft spot to jump and run.
+
+"Oh, never mind that," went on the Bishop--"God don't say things out
+loud--He jes' brings two an' two together an' expects you to add 'em
+an' make fo'. He gives you the soil an' the grain an' expects you to
+plant, assurin' you of rain an' sunshine to make the crop, if you'll
+only wuck. He comes into yo' life with the laws of life an' death an'
+takes yo' beloved, an' it's His way of sayin' to you that this life
+ain't all. He shows you the thief an' the liar an' the adulterer all
+aroun' you, an' if you feel the shock of it an' the hate of it, it's
+His voice tellin' you not to steal an' not to lie an' not to be
+impure. You think only of money until you make a bad break an' loose
+it all. That's His voice tellin' you that money ain't everything in
+life. He puts opportunities befo' you, an' if you grasp 'em it's His
+voice tellin' you to prosper an' grow fat in the land. No, He don't
+speak out, but how clearly an' unerringly He does speak to them that
+has learned to listen for His voice!
+
+"I rode her across the river a hundred miles up in Marshall County,
+Tennessee, and mated her to a young horse named Tom Hal. Every body
+knows about him now, but God told me about him fust.
+
+"Then I knowed jes' as well as I am settin' in this buggy that that
+colt was gwinter give me back my little home an' a chance in life. Of
+course, I told everybody 'bout it an' they all laughed at me--jes'
+like they all laughed at Noah an' Abraham an' Lot an' Moses, an' if I
+do say it--Jesus Christ. But thank God it didn't pester me no more'n
+it did them."
+
+"Well, the colt come ten years ago--an' I named him Ben Butler--cause
+I hated old Ben Butler so. He had my oldest son shot in New Orleans
+like he did many other rebel prisoners. But this was God's colt an'
+God had told me to love my enemies an' do good to them that did
+wrong to me, an' so I prayed over it an' named him Ben Butler, hopin'
+that God 'ud let me love my enemy for the love I bore the colt. An'
+He has."
+
+Bud shook his head dubiously.
+
+"He showed me I was wrong, Bud, to hate folks, an' when I tell you of
+po' Cap'n Tom an' how good Gen. Butler was to him, you'll say so,
+too.
+
+"From the very start Ben Butler was a wonder. He came with fire in
+his blood an' speed in his heels.
+
+"An' I trained him. Yes--from the time I was Gen. Travis' overseer I
+had always trained his hosses. I'm one of them preachers that
+believes God intended the world sh'ud have the best hosses, as He
+intended it sh'ud have the best men an' women. Take all His works, in
+their fitness an' goodness, an' you'll see He never 'lowed for a
+scrub an' a quitter anywhere. An' so when He gave me this tip on Ben
+Butler's speed I done the rest.
+
+"God gives us the tips of life, but He expects us to make them into
+the dead cinches.
+
+"Oh, they all laughed at us, of course, an' nicknamed the colt Mister
+Isaacs, because, like Sarah's son, he came in answer to prayer. An'
+when in his two-year-old form, I led him out of the stable one cold,
+icy day, an' he was full of play an' r'ared an' fell an' knocked down
+his hip, they said that 'ud fix Mister Isaacs.
+
+"But it didn't pester me at all. I knowed God had done bigger things
+in this world than fixin' a colt's hip, an' it didn't shake my faith.
+I kept on prayin' an' kept on trainin'.
+
+"Well, it soon told. His hip was down, but it didn't stop him from
+flyin'. As a three-year-old he paced the Nashville half mile track in
+one-one flat, an' though they offered me then an' there a thousand
+dollars for Ben Butler, I told 'em no,--he was God's colt an' I
+didn't need but half of that to raise the mortgage, an' he'd do that
+the first time he turned round in a race.
+
+"I drove him that race myself, pulled down the five hundred dollar
+purse, refused all their fine offers for Ben Butler, an' me an' him's
+been missionaryin' round here ever since."
+
+"Great hoss--great!" said Bud, his eyes sparkling,--"allers told you
+so! Think I'll get out and hug him."
+
+This he did while the Bishop sat smiling. But in the embrace Ben
+Butler planted a fore foot on Bud's great toe. Bud came back limping
+and whimpering with pain.
+
+"Now there, Bud," said the Bishop, consolingly. "God has spoken to
+you right there."
+
+"What 'ud He say?" asked Bud, looking scary again.
+
+"Why, he said through Nature's law an' voice that you mustn't hug a
+hoss if you don't want yo' toes tramped on."
+
+"Who must you hug then?" asked Bud.
+
+"Yo' wife, if you can't do no better," said the Bishop quietly.
+
+"My wife's wussern a hoss," said Bud sadly--"she bites. I'm sorry you
+didn't take that thar thousan' dollars for him," he said, looking at
+his bleeding toe.
+
+"Bud," said the old man sternly, "don't say that no mo'. It mou't
+make me think you are one of them selfish dogs that thinks money'll
+do anything. Then I'd hafter watch you, for I'd know you'd do
+anything for money."
+
+Bud crawled in rather crest-fallen, and they drove on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+HOW THE BISHOP FROZE
+
+
+The Bishop laughed outright as his mind went back again.
+
+"Well," he went on reminiscently, "I'll have to finish my tale an'
+tell you how I throwed the cold steel into Jud Carpenter when I got
+back. I saw I had it to do, to work back into my daddy-in-law's
+graces an' save my reputation.
+
+"Now, Jud had lied to me an' swindled me terribly, when he put off
+that old no-count hoss on me. Of course, I might have sued him, for a
+lie is a microbe which naturally develops into a lawyer's fee. But
+while it's a terrible braggart, it's really cowardly an' delicate,
+an' will die of lock-jaw if you only pick its thumb.
+
+"So I breshed up that old black to split-silk fineness, an' turned
+him over to Dr. Sykes, a friend of mine living in the next village.
+An' I said to the Doctor, 'Now remember he is yo' hoss until Jud
+Carpenter comes an' offers you two hundred dollars for him.'
+
+"'Will he be fool enough to do it?' he asked, as he looked the old
+counterfeit over.
+
+"'Wait an' see,' I said.
+
+"I said nothin', laid low an' froze an' it wa'n't long befo' Jud come
+'round as I 'lowed he'd do. He expected me to kick an' howl; but as I
+took it all so nice he didn't understand it. Nine times out of ten
+the best thing to do when the other feller has robbed you is to
+freeze. The hunter on the plain knows the value of that, an' that he
+can freeze an' make a deer walk right up to him, to find out what he
+is. Why, a rabbit will do it, if you jump him quick, an' he gets
+confused an' don't know jes' what's up; an' so Jud come as I thort
+he'd do. He couldn't stan' it no longer, an' he wanted to rub it in.
+He brought his crowd to enjoy the fun.
+
+"'Oh, Mr. Watts,' he said grinnin', 'how do you like a coal black
+stump-sucker?'
+
+"'Well,' I said indifferent enough--'I've knowed good judges of
+hosses to make a hones' mistake now an' then, an' sell a hoss to a
+customer with the heaves thinkin' he's a stump-sucker. But it 'ud
+turn out to be only the heaves an' easily cured.'
+
+"'Is that so?' said Jud, changing his tone.
+
+"'Yes,' I said, 'an' I've knowed better judges of hosses to sell a
+nervous hoss for a balker that had been balked onct by a rattle head.
+But in keerful hands I've seed him git over it,' I said, indifferent
+like.
+
+"'Indeed?' said Jud.
+
+"'Yes, Jud,' said I, 'I've knowed real hones' hoss traders to make
+bad breaks of that kind, now and then--honest intentions an' all
+that, but bad judgment,'--sez I--'an' I'll cut it short by sayin'
+that I'll just give you two an' a half if you'll match that no-count,
+wind broken black as you tho'rt, that you swapped me.'
+
+"'Do you mean it?' said Jud, solemn-like.
+
+"'I'll make a bond to that effect,' I said solemnly.
+
+"Jud went off thoughtful. In a week or so he come back. He hung
+aroun' a while an' said:
+
+"'I was up in the country the other day, an' do you kno' I saw a dead
+match for yo' black? Only a little slicker an' better lookin'--same
+star an' white hind foot. As nigh like him as one black-eyed pea
+looks like another.'
+
+"'Jud,' I said, 'I never did see two hosses look exactly alike.
+You're honestly mistaken.'
+
+"'They ain't a hair's difference,' he said. 'He's a little slicker
+than yours--that's all--better groomed than the one in yo' barn.'
+
+"'I reckon he is,' said I, for I knew very well there wa'n't none in
+my barn. 'That's strange,' I went on, 'but you kno' what I said.'
+
+"'Do you still hold to that offer?' he axed.
+
+"'I'll make bond with my daddy-in-law on it,' I said.
+
+"'Nuff said,' an' Jud was gone. The next day he came back leading the
+black, slicker an' hence no-counter than ever, if possible.
+
+"'Look at him,' he said proudly--'a dead match for yourn. Jes' han'
+me that two an' a half an' take him. You now have a team worth a
+thousan'.'
+
+"I looked the hoss over plum' surprised like.
+
+"'Why, Jud,' I said as softly as I cu'd, for I was nigh to bustin',
+an' I had a lot of friends come to see the sho', an' they standin'
+'round stickin' their old hats in their mouths to keep from
+explodin'--'Why, Jud, my dear friend,' I said, 'ain't you kind o'
+mistaken about this? I said a _match_ for the black, an' it peers to
+me like you've gone an' bought the black hisse'f an' is tryin' to
+put him off on me. No--no--my kind frien', you'll not fin' anything
+no-count enuff to be his match on this terrestrial ball.'
+
+"By this time you cu'd have raked Jud's eyes off his face with a
+soap-gourd.
+
+"'What? w-h-a-t? He--why--I bought him of Dr. Sykes.'
+
+"'Why, that's funny,' I said, 'but it comes in handy all round. If
+you'd told me that the other day I might have told you,' I
+said--'yes, I might have, but I doubt it--that I'd loaned him to Dr.
+Sykes an' told him whenever you offered him two hundred cash for him
+to let him go. Jes' keep him,' sez I, 'till you find his mate, an'
+I'll take an oath to buy 'em.'"
+
+Bud slapped his leg an' yelled with delight.
+
+"Whew," said the Bishop--"not so loud. We're at the church.
+
+"But remember, Bud, it's good policy allers to freeze. When you're in
+doubt--freeze!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE FLOCK
+
+
+The Bishop's flock consisted of two distinct classes: Cottontowners
+and Hillites.
+
+"There's only a fair sprinklin' of Hillites that lives nigh about
+here," said the Bishop, "an' they come because it suits them better
+than the high f'lutin' services in town. When a Christian gits into a
+church that's over his head, he is soon food for devil-fish."
+
+The line of demarcation, even in the Bishop's small flock, was easily
+seen. The Hillites, though lean and lanky, were swarthy, healthy and
+full of life. "But Cottontown," said the Bishop, as he looked down on
+his congregation--"Cottontown jes' naturally feels tired."
+
+It was true. Years in the factory had made them dead, listless,
+soulless and ambitionless creatures. To look into their faces was
+like looking into the cracked and muddy bottom of a stream which once
+ran.
+
+Their children were there also--little tots, many of them, who worked
+in the factory because no man nor woman in all the State cared enough
+for them to make a fight for their childhood.
+
+They were children only in age. Their little forms were not the forms
+of children, but of diminutive men and women, on whose backs the
+burden of earning their living had been laid, ere the frames had
+acquired the strength to bear it.
+
+Stunted in mind and body, they were little solemn, pygmy peoples,
+whom poverty and overwork had canned up and compressed into
+concentrated extracts of humanity. The flavor--the juices of
+childhood--had been pressed out.
+
+"'N no wonder," thought the Bishop, as he looked down upon them from
+his crude platform, "for them little things works six days every week
+in the factory from sun-up till dark, an' often into the night, with
+jes' forty minutes at noon to bolt their food. O God," he said softly
+to himself, "You who caused a stream of water to spring up in the
+wilderness that the life of an Ishmaelite might be saved, make a
+stream of sentiment to flow from the heart of the world to save these
+little folks."
+
+Miss Patsy Butts, whose father, Elder Butts of the Hard-shell faith,
+owned a fertile little valley farm beyond the mountain, was organist.
+She was fat and so red-faced that at times she seemed to be oiled.
+
+She was painfully frank and suffered from acute earnestness.
+
+And now, being marriageable, she looked always about her with shy,
+quick, expectant glances.
+
+The other object in life, to Patsy, was to watch her younger brother,
+Archie B., and see that he kept out of mischief. And perhaps the
+commonest remark of her life was:
+
+"Maw, jus' look at Archie B.!"
+
+This was a great cross for Archie B., who had been known to say
+concerning it: "If I ever has any kids, I'll never let the old'uns
+nuss the young'uns. They gits into a bossin' kind of a habit that
+sticks to 'em all they lives."
+
+To-day Miss Patsy was radiantly shy and happy, caused by the fact
+that her fat, honest feet were encased in a pair of beautiful new
+shoes, the uppers of which were clasped so tightly over her ankles as
+to cause the fat members to bulge in creases over the tops, as
+uncomfortable as two Sancho Panzas in armor.
+
+"Side-but'ners," said Mrs. Butts triumphantly to Mrs. O'Hooligan of
+Cottontown,--"side-but'ners--I got 'em for her yistiddy--the fust
+that this town's ever seed. La, but it was a job gittin' 'em on
+Patsy. I had to soak her legs in cold water nearly all night, an'
+then I broke every knittin' needle in the house abut'nin' them side
+but'ners.
+
+"But fashion is fashion, an' when I send my gal out into society,
+I'll send her in style. Patsy Butts," she whispered so loud that
+everybody on her side of the house heard her--"when you starts up
+that ole wheez-in' one gallus organ, go slow or you'll bust them
+side-but'ners wide open."
+
+When the Bishop came forward to preach his sermon, or talk to his
+flock, as he called it, his surplice would have astonished anyone,
+except those who had seen him thus attired so often. A stranger might
+have laughed, but he would not have laughed long--the old man's
+earnestness, sincerity, reverence and devotion were over-shadowing.
+Its pathos was too deep for fun.
+
+Instead of a clergyman's frock he wore a faded coat of blue buttoned
+up to his neck. It had been the coat of an officer in the artillery,
+and had evidently passed through the Civil War. There was a bullet
+hole in the shoulder and a sabre cut in the sleeve.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A BISHOP MILITANT
+
+
+No one had ever heard the Bishop explain his curious surplice but
+once, and that had been several years before, when the little chapel,
+by the aid of a concert Miss Alice gave, contributions from the
+Excelsior Mill headed by Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley, and other sources had
+been furnished, and the Bishop came forward to make his first talk:
+
+"This is the only church of its kind in the worl', I reckin'," he
+said. "I've figured it out an' find we're made up of Baptis',
+Metherdis', Presbyterian, 'Piscopalian, Cam'elites an' Hard-shells.
+You've 'lected me Bishop, I reckon, 'cause I've jined all of 'em, an'
+so far as I know I am the only man in the worl' who ever done that
+an' lived to tell the tale. An' I'm not ashamed to say it, for I've
+allers foun' somethin' in each one of 'em that's a little better than
+somethin' in the other. An' if there's any other church that'll teach
+me somethin' new about Jesus Christ, that puffect Man, I'll jine it.
+I've never seed a church that had Him in it that wa'n't good enough
+for me."
+
+The old man smiled in humorous retrospection as he went on:
+
+"The first company of Christians I jined was the Hard-shells. I was
+young an' a raw recruit an' nachully fell into the awkward squad. I
+liked their solar plexus way of goin' at the Devil, an' I liked the
+way they'd allers deal out a good ration of whiskey, after the fight,
+to ev'ry true soldier of the Cross--especially if we got our feet too
+wet, which we mos' always of'ntimes gen'ally did."
+
+This brought out visible smiles all down the line, from the others at
+the Hard-shells and their custom of foot-washing.
+
+"But somehow," went on the old man, "I didn't grow in grace--spent
+too much time in singin' an' takin' toddies to keep off the effect of
+cold from wet feet. Good company, but I wanted to go higher, so I
+drapt into the Baptis' rigiment, brave an' hones', but they spen' too
+much time a-campin' in the valley of the still water, an' when on the
+march, instid of buildin' bridges to cross dry-shod over rivers an'
+cricks, they plunge in with their guns stropped to their backs, their
+powder tied up in their socks in their hats, their shoes tied 'round
+their necks an' their butcher-knife in their teeth. After they lan'
+they seem to think it's the greates' thing in the worl' that they've
+been permitted to wade through water instead of crossin' on a log,
+an' they spen' the balance of their time marchin' 'roun' an' singin':
+
+    "'Billows of mercy, over me roll,
+     Oceans of Faith an' Hope, come to my soul.'
+
+"Don't want to fly to heaven--want to swim there. An' if they find
+too much lan' after they get there, they'll spen' the res' of
+eternity prayin' for a deluge.
+
+"Bes' ole relig'un in the worl', tho,--good fighters, too, in the
+Lord's cause. Ole timey, an' a trifle keerless about their
+accoutrements, an' too much water nachully keeps their guns rusty an'
+their powder damp, but if it comes to a square-up fight agin the
+cohorts of sin, an' the powder in their pans is too damp for
+flashin', they'd jes' as soon wade in with the butcher-knife an' the
+meat axe. I nachully out-grow'd 'em, for I seed if the Great Captain
+'ud command us all to jine armies an' fight the worl', the Baptis'
+'ud never go in, unless it was a sea-fight.
+
+"From them to the Cam'elites was easy, for I seed they was
+web-footed, too. The only diff'rence betwix' them an' the Baptis' is
+that they are willin' to jine in with any other rigiment, provided
+allers that you let them 'pint the sappers an' miners an' blaze out
+the way. Good fellers, tho', an' learned me lots. They beats the
+worl' for standin' up for each other an' votin' allers for fust
+place. If there's a promotion in camp they want it; 'n' when they
+ain't out a-drillin' their companies they're sho' to be in camp
+'sputin' with other rigiments as to how to do it. Good, hones'
+fighters, tho', and tort me how to use my side arms in a tight place.
+Scatterin' in some localities, but like the Baptises, whenever you
+find a mill-dam there'll be their camp an' plenty o' corn.
+
+"Lord, how I did enjoy it when I struck the Methodis' rigiment! The
+others had tort me faith an' zeal, but these tort me discipline. They
+are the best drilled lot in the army of the Lord, an' their drill
+masters run all the way from wet-nurses to old maids. For furagin'
+an' free love for ev'rything they beats the worl', an' they pay mo'
+'tenshun to their com'sary department than they do to their
+ord'nance. They'll march anywhere you want 'em, swim rivers or build
+bridges, fight on ship or sho', strong in camp-meetin's or battle
+songs, an' when they go, they go like clockwuck an' carry their dead
+with 'em!
+
+"The only thing they need is an incubator, to keep up their hennery
+department an' supply their captains with the yellow legs of the
+land. Oh, but I love them big hearted Methodists!
+
+"I foun' the Presbyterian phalanx a pow'ful army, steady, true an'
+ole-fashioned, their powder strong of brimstone an' sulphur an' their
+ordnance antique. Why, they're usin' the same old mortars John Knox
+fired at the Popes, an' the same ole blunderbusses that scatter wide
+enough to cover all creation an' is as liable to kick an' kill
+anything in the rear as in front. They won't sleep in tents an'
+nothin' suits 'em better'n being caught in a shower on the march. In
+battle they know no fear, for they know no ball is goin' to kill you
+if you're predistined to be hung. In the fight they know no
+stragglers an' fallers from grace.
+
+"Ay, but they're brave. I jined 'em Sunday night after the battle of
+Shiloh, when I saw one of their captains stan' up amid the dead an'
+dyin' of that bloody field, with the shells from the Yankee gun-boats
+fallin' aroun' him. Standin' there tellin' of God an' His
+forgiveness, until many a po' dyin' soldier, both frien' an' foe,
+like the thief on the cross, found peace at the last hour.
+
+"Befo' I jined the 'Piscopal corps I didn't think I cu'd stan'
+'em--too high furlutin' for my raisin'. They seemed to pay mo'
+attenshun to their uniforms than their ordnance, an' their
+drum-majors outshine any other churches' major generals. An'
+drillin'? They can go through mo' monkey manoeuvers in five minutes
+than any other church can in a year. It's drillin'--drillin' with 'em
+all the time, an' red-tape an' knee breeches, an' when they ain't
+drillin' they're dancin'. They have signs an' countersigns, worl'
+without end, ah-men. An' I've knowed many of them to put all his
+three months' pay into a Sunday uniform for dress parade.
+
+"Weepons? They've got the fines' in the worl' an' they don't think
+they can bring down the Devil les' they shoot at him with a silver
+bullet. Everything goes by red-tape with 'em, an' the ban'-wagon goes
+in front.
+
+"But I jined 'em," went on the old man, "an' I'll tell you why."
+
+He paused--his voice trembled, and the good natured, bubbling humor,
+which had floated down the smooth channel of his talk, vanished as
+bubbles do when they float out into the deep pool beyond.
+
+"Here," he said, lifting his arm, and showing the coat of the Captain
+of Artillery--"this is what made me jine 'em. This is the coat of
+Cap'n Tom, that saved my life at the risk of his own an' that was
+struck down at Franklin; an' no common man of clay, as I be, ever
+befo' had so God-like a man of marble to pattern after. I saw him in
+the thick of the fight with his guns parked an' double-shotted, stop
+our victorious rush almos' up to the river bank an' saved Grant's
+army from defeat an' capture. I was on the other side, an' chief of
+scouts for Albert Sidney Johnston, but I see him now in his blue
+Yankee coat, fightin' his guns like the hero that he was. I was
+foolish an' rushed in. I was captured an' in a prison pen, I drawed
+the black ball with 'leven others that was sentenced to be shot. It
+was Cap'n Tom who came to me in the early dawn of the day of the
+execution an' said: 'They shall not shoot you, Bishop--put on my blue
+coat an' go through the lines. I owe much to my country--I am giving
+it all.
+
+"'I owe something to you. They shall not shoot you like a dog. I will
+tell my colonel what I have done to-morrow. If they think it is
+treason they may shoot me instead. I have nothing to live for--you,
+all. Go.'
+
+"I have never seed him sence.
+
+"We are mortals and must think as mortals. If we conceive of God, we
+can conceive of Him only as in human form. An' I love to think that
+the blessed an' brave an' sweet Christ looked like Cap'n Tom looked
+in the early dawn of that morning when he come an' offered
+himself,--captain that he was--to be shot, if need be, in my
+place--so gran', so gentle, so brave, so forgivin', so like a
+captain--so like God."
+
+His voice had dropped lower and lower still. It died away in a
+sobbing murmur, as a deep stream purls and its echo dies in a deeper
+eddy.
+
+"It was his church an' I jined it. This was his coat, an' so, let us
+pray."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+MARGARET ADAMS
+
+
+There passed out of the church, after the service, a woman leading a
+boy of twelve.
+
+He was a handsome lad with a proud and independent way about him. He
+carried his head up and there was that calmness that showed good
+blood. There was even a haughtiness which was pathetic, knowing as
+the village did the story of his life.
+
+The woman herself was of middle age, with neat, well-fitting clothes,
+which, in the smallest arrangement of pattern and make-up, bespoke a
+natural refinement.
+
+Her's was a sweet face, with dark eyes, and in their depths lay the
+shadow of resignation.
+
+Throughout the sermon she had not taken her eyes off the old man in
+the pulpit, and so interested was she, and so earnestly did she drink
+in all he said, that any one noticing could tell that, to her, the
+plain old man in the pulpit was more than a pastor.
+
+She sat off by herself. Not one of them in all Cottontown would come
+near her.
+
+"Our virtue is all we po' fo'ks has got--if we lose that we ain't got
+nothin' lef'," Mrs. Banks of grass-widow fame had once said, and
+saying it had expressed Cottontown's opinion.
+
+Mrs. Banks was very severe when the question of woman's purity was
+up. She was the fastest woman at the loom in all Cottontown. She was
+quick, with a bright, deep-seeing eye. She had been pretty--but now
+at forty-five she was angular and coarse-looking, with a sharp
+tongue.
+
+The Bishop had smiled when he heard her say it, and then he looked at
+Margaret Adams sitting in the corner with her boy. In saying it, Mrs.
+Banks had elevated her nose as she looked in the direction where sat
+the Magdalene.
+
+The old man smiled, because he of all others knew the past history of
+Mrs. Banks, the mistress of the loom.
+
+He replied quietly: "Well, I dun'no--the best thing that can be said
+of any of us in general is, that up to date, it ain't recorded that
+the Almighty has appinted any one of us, on account of our supreme
+purity, to act as chief stoner of the Universe. Mighty few of us,
+even, has any license to throw pebbles."
+
+Of all his congregation there was no more devoted member than
+Margaret Adams--"an' as far as I kno'," the old man had often said,
+"if there is an angel on earth, it is that same little woman."
+
+When she came into church that day, the old man noticed that even the
+little Hillites drew away from her. Often they would point at the
+little boy by her side and make faces at him. To-day they had carried
+it too far when one of them, just out in the church yard, pushed him
+rudely as he walked proudly by the side of his mother, looking
+straight before him, in his military way, and not so much as giving
+them a glance.
+
+"Wood's-colt," sneered the boy in his ear, as he pushed him.
+
+"No--thoroughbred"--came back, and with it a blow which sent the
+intruder backward on the grass.
+
+Several old men nodded at him approvingly as he walked calmly on by
+the side of his mother.
+
+"Jimmie--Jimmie!" was all she said as she slipped into the church.
+
+"I guess you must be a new-comer," remarked Archie B. indifferently
+to the boy who was wiping the blood from his face as he arose from
+the ground and looked sillily around. "That boy Jim Adams is my
+pardner an' I could er tole you what you'd git by meddlin' with him.
+He's gone in with his mother now, but him an' me--we're in
+alliance--we fights for each other. Feel like you got enough?"--and
+Archie B. got up closer and made motions as if to shed his coat.
+
+The other boy grinned good naturedly and walked off.
+
+To-day, just outside of the church Ben Butler had been hitched up and
+the Bishop sat in the old buggy.
+
+Bud Billings stood by holding the bit, stroking the old horse's neck
+and every now and then striking a fierce attitude, saying
+"Whoa--whoa--suh!"
+
+As usual, Ben Butler was asleep.
+
+"Turn him loose, Bud," said the old man humoring the slubber--"I've
+got the reins an' he can't run away now. I can't take you home
+to-day--I'm gwinter take Margaret, an' you an' Jimmie can come along
+together."
+
+No other man could have taken Margaret Adams home and had any
+standing left, in Cottontown.
+
+And soon they were jogging along down the mountain side, toward the
+cabin where the woman lived and supported herself and boy by her
+needle.
+
+To-day Margaret was agitated and excited--more than the Bishop had
+ever known her to be. He knew the reason, for clean-shaved and neatly
+dressed, Jack Bracken passed her on the road to church that morning,
+and as they rode along the Bishop told her it was indeed Jack whom
+she had seen, "an' he loves you yet, Margaret," he said.
+
+She turned pink under her bonnet. How pretty and fresh she
+looked--thought the Bishop--and what purity in a face to have such a
+name.
+
+"It _was_ Jack, then," she said simply--"tell me about him, please."
+
+"By the grace of God he has reformed," said the old
+man--"and--Margaret--he loves you yet, as I sed. He is going under
+the name of Jack Smith, the blacksmith here, an' he'll lead another
+life--but he loves you yet," he whispered again.
+
+Then he told her what had happened, knowing that Jack's secret would
+be safe with her.
+
+When he told her how they had buried little Jack, and of the father's
+admission that his determination to lead the life of an outlaw had
+come when he found that she had been untrue to him, she was shaken
+with grief. She could only sit and weep. Not even at the gate, when
+the old man left her, did she say anything.
+
+Within, she stopped before a picture which hung over the mantle-piece
+and looked at it, through eyes that filled again and again with
+tears. It was the picture of a pretty mountain girl with dark eyes
+and sensual lip.
+
+Margaret knelt before it and wept.
+
+The boy had come and stood moodily at the front gate. The hot and
+resentful blood still tinged in his cheek. He looked at his
+knuckles--they were cut and swollen where he had struck the boy who
+had jeered him. It hurt him, but he only smiled grimly.
+
+Never before had any one called him a wood's-colt. He had never heard
+the word before, but he knew what it meant. For the first time in his
+life, he hated his mother. He heard her weeping in the little room
+they called home. He merely shut his lips tightly and, in spite of
+the stoicism that was his by nature, the tears swelled up in his
+eyes.
+
+They were hot tears and he could not shake them off. For the first
+time the wonder and the mystery of it all came over him. For the
+first time he felt that he was not as other boys,--that there was a
+meaning in this lonely cabin and the shunned woman he called mother,
+and the glances, some of pity, some of contempt, which he had met all
+of his life.
+
+As he stood thinking this, Richard Travis rode slowly down the main
+road leading from the town to The Gaffs. And this went through the
+boy successively--not in words, scarcely--but in feelings:
+
+"What a beautiful horse he is riding--it thrills me to see it--I love
+it naturally--oh, but to own one!
+
+"What a handsome man he is--and how like a gentleman he looks! I like
+the way he sits his horse. I like that way he has of not noticing
+people. He has got the same way about him I have got--that I've
+always had--that I love--a way that shows me I'm not afraid, and that
+I have got nerve and bravery.
+
+"He sits that horse just as I would sit him--his head--his face--the
+way that foot slopes to the stirrup--why that's me--"
+
+He stopped--he turned pale--he trembled with pride and rage. Then he
+turned and walked into the room where Margaret Adams sat. She held
+out her arms to him pleadingly.
+
+But he did not notice her, and never before had she seen such a look
+on his face as he said calmly:
+
+"Mother, if you will come to the door I will show you my father."
+
+Margaret Adams had already seen. She turned white with a hidden shame
+as she said:
+
+"Jimmie--Jimmie--who--who--?"
+
+"No one," he shouted fiercely--"by God"--she had never before heard
+him swear--"I tell you no one--on my honor as a Travis--no one! It
+has come to me of itself--I know it--I feel it."
+
+He was too excited to talk. He walked up and down the little room,
+his proud head lifted and his eyes ablaze.
+
+"I know now why I love honesty, why I despise those common things
+beneath me--why I am not afraid--why I struck that boy as I did this
+morning--why--" he walked into the little shed room that was his own
+and came back with a long single barrel pistol in his hand and
+fondled it lovingly--"why all my life I have been able to shoot this
+as I have--"
+
+He held in his hand a long, single barrel, rifle-bored duelling
+pistol--of the type used by gentlemen at the beginning of the
+century. Where he had got it she did not know, but always it had been
+his plaything.
+
+"O Jimmie--you would not--" exclaimed the woman rising and reaching
+for it.
+
+"Tush--" he said bitterly--"tush--that's the way Richard Travis
+talks, ain't it? Does not my very voice sound like his? No--but I
+expect you now, mother"--he said it softly--"tell me--tell me all
+about it."
+
+For a moment Margaret Adams was staggered. She only shook her head.
+
+He looked at her cynically--then bitterly. A dangerous flash leaped
+into his eyes.
+
+"Then, by God," he cried fiercely, "this moment will I walk over to
+his house with this pistol in my hand and I will ask him. If he fails
+to tell me--damn him--I dare him--"
+
+She jumped up and seized him in her arms.
+
+"Promise me that if I tell you all--all, Jimmy, when you are
+fifteen--promise me--will you be patient now--with poor mother, who
+loves you so?" And she kissed him fondly again and again.
+
+He looked into her eyes and saw all her suffering there.
+
+The bitterness went out of his.
+
+"I'll promise, mother," he said simply, and walked back into his
+little room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+HARD-SHELL SUNDAY
+
+
+"This bein' Hard-shell Sunday," said the Bishop that afternoon when
+his congregation met, "cattle of that faith will come up to the front
+rack for fodder. Elder Butts will he'p me conduct these exercises."
+
+"It's been so long sence I've been in a Hard-shell lodge, I may be a
+little rusty on the grip an' pass word, but I'm a member in good
+standin' if I am rusty."
+
+There was some laughing at this, from the other members, and after
+the Hard-shells had come to the front the Bishop caught the infection
+and went on with a sly wink at the others.
+
+"The fact is, I've sometimes been mighty sorry I jined any other
+lodge; for makin' honorable exception, the other churches don't know
+the diff'r'nce betwixt twenty-year-old Lincoln County an' Michigan
+pine-top.
+
+"The Hard-shells was the fust church I jined, as I sed. I hadn't
+sampled none of the others"--he whispered aside--"an' I didn't know
+there was any better licker in the jug. But the Baptists is a little
+riper, the Presbyterians is much mellower, an' compared to all of
+them the 'Piscopalians rises to the excellence of syllabub an'
+champagne.
+
+"A hones' dram tuck now an' then, prayerfully, is a good thing for
+any religion. I've knowed many a man to take a dram jes' in time to
+keep him out of a divorce court. An' I've never knowed it to do
+anybody no harm but old elder Shotts of Clay County. An' ef he'd a
+stuck to it straight he'd abeen all right now. But one of these
+old-time Virginia gentlemen stopped with him all night onct, an'
+tor't the old man how to make a mint julip; an' when I went down the
+next year to hold services his wife told me the good old man had been
+gathered to his fathers. 'He was all right' she 'lowed, 'till a
+little feller from Virginia came along an' tort 'im ter mix greens in
+his licker, an' then he jes drunk hisself to death.'
+
+"There's another thing I like about two of the churches I'm in--the
+Hard-shells an' the Presbyterians--an' that is special Providence. If
+I didn't believe in special Providence I'd lose my faith in God.
+
+"My father tuck care of me when I was a babe, an' we're all babes in
+God's sight.
+
+"The night befo' the battle of Shiloh, I preached to some of our po'
+boys the last sermon that many of 'em ever heard. An' I told 'em not
+to dodge the nex' day, but to stan' up an' 'quit themselves like men,
+for ever' shell an' ball would hit where God intended it should hit.
+
+"In the battle nex' day I was chaplain no longer, but chief of
+scouts, an' on the firin' line where it was hot enough. In the
+hottest part of it General Johnston rid up, an' when he saw our
+exposed position he told us to hold the line, but to lay down for
+shelter. A big tree was nigh me an' I got behin' it. The Gineral
+seed me an' he smiled an' sed:
+
+"'Oh, Bishop,'"--his voice fell to a proud and tender tone--"did you
+know it was Gineral Johnston that fust named me the Bishop?"
+
+"'Oh, Bishop,' he said, 'I can see you puttin' a tree betwixt yo'se'f
+an' special Providence.' 'Yes, Gineral,' I sed, 'an' I looks on it as
+a very special Providence jus' at this time.'
+
+"He laughed, an' the boys hoorawed an' he rid off.
+
+"Our lives an' the destiny of our course is fixed as firmly as the
+laws that wheel the planets. Why, I have knowed men to try to hew out
+their own destiny an' they'd make it look like a gum-log hewed out
+with a broad axe, until God would run the rip-saw of His purpose into
+them, an' square them out an' smooth them over an' polish them into
+pillars for His Temple.
+
+"What is, was goin' to be; an' the things that's got to come to us
+has already happened in God's mind.
+
+"I've knowed poor an' unpretentious, God-fearin' men an' women to put
+out their hands to build shanties for their humble lives, an' God
+would turn them into castles of character an' temples of truth for
+all time.
+
+"Elder Butts will lead in prayer."
+
+It was a long prayer and was proceeding smoothly, until, in its
+midst, from the front row, Archie B.'s head bobbed cautiously up.
+Keeping one eye on his father, the praying Elder, he went through a
+pantomime for the benefit of the young Hillites around him, who, like
+himself, had had enough of prayer. Before coming to the meeting he
+had cut from a black sheep's skin a gorgeous set of whiskers and a
+huge mustache. These now adorned his face.
+
+There was a convulsive snicker among the young Hillites behind him.
+The Elder opened one eye to see what it meant. They were natural
+children, whose childhood had not been dwarfed in a cotton mill, and
+it was exceedingly funny to them.
+
+But the young Cottontowners laughed not. They looked on in stoical
+wonder at the presumption of the young Hillites who dared to do such
+a deed.
+
+Humor had never been known to them. There is no humor in the all-day
+buzz of the cotton factory; and fun and the fight of life for daily
+bread do not sleep in the same crib.
+
+The Hillites tittered and giggled.
+
+"Maw," whispered Miss Butts, "look at Archie B."
+
+Mrs. Butts hastily reached over the bench and yanked Archie B. down.
+His whiskers were confiscated and in a moment he was on his knees and
+deeply devotional, while the young Hillites nudged each other, and
+giggled and the young Cottontowners stared and wondered, and looked
+to see when Archie B. would be hung up by the thumbs.
+
+The Bishop was reading the afternoon chapter when the animal in
+Archie B. broke out in another spot. The chapter was where Zacharias
+climbed into a sycamore tree to see his passing Lord. There was a
+rattling of the stove pipe in one corner.
+
+"Maw," whispered Miss Butts, "Jes' look at Archie B.--he's climbin'
+the stove pipe like Zacharias did the sycamo'."
+
+Horror again swept over Cottontown, while the Hillites cackled aloud.
+The Elder settled it by calmly laying aside his spectacles and
+starting down the pulpit steps. But Archie B. guessed his purpose and
+before he had reached the last step he was sitting demurely by the
+side of his pious brother, intently engaged in reading the New
+Testament.
+
+Without his glasses, the Elder never knew one twin from the other,
+but presuming that the studious one was Ozzie B., he seized the other
+by the ear, pulled him to the open window and pitched him out on the
+grass.
+
+It was Ozzie B. of course, and Archie B. turned cautiously around to
+the Hillites behind, after the Elder had gone back to his chapter,
+and whispered:
+
+"_Venture pee-wee under the bridge--bam--bam--bam._"
+
+Throughout the sermon Archie B. kept the young Hillites in a paroxysm
+of smirks.
+
+Elder Butts' legs were brackets, or more properly parentheses, and as
+he preached and thundered and gesticulated and whined and sang his
+sermon, he forgot all earthly things.
+
+Knowing this, Archie B. would crawl up behind his father and
+thrusting his head in between his legs, where the brackets were most
+pronounced, would emphasize all that was said with wry grimaces and
+gestures.
+
+No language can fittingly describe the way Elder Butts delivered his
+discourse. The sentences were whined, howled or sung, ending always
+in the vocal expletive--"_ah--ah_."
+
+When the elder had finished and sat down, Archie B. was sitting
+demurely on the platform steps.
+
+Then the latest Scruggs baby was brought forward to be baptised.
+There were already ten in the family.
+
+The Bishop took the infant tenderly and said: "Sister Scruggs, which
+church shall I put him into?"
+
+"'Piscopal," whispered the good Mrs. Scruggs.
+
+The Bishop looked the red-headed young candidate over solemnly. There
+was a howl of protest from the lusty Scruggs.
+
+"He's a Cam'elite," said the Bishop dryly--"ready to dispute
+a'ready"--here the young Scruggs sent out a kick which caught the
+Bishop in the mouth.
+
+"With Baptis' propensities," added the Bishop. "Fetch the baptismal
+fount."
+
+"Please, pap," said little Appomattox Watts from the front bench,
+"but Archie B. has drunk up all the baptismal water endurin' the
+first prayer."
+
+"I had to," spoke up Archie B., from the platform steps--"I et dried
+mackerel for breakfas'."
+
+"We'll postpone the baptism' till nex' Sunday," said the Bishop.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE RETURN
+
+
+It was Sunday and Jack Bracken had been out all the afternoon,
+hunting for Cap'n Tom--as he had been in the morning, when not at
+church. Hitching up the old horse, the Bishop started out to hunt
+also.
+
+He did not go far on the road toward Westmoreland, for as Ben Butler
+plodded sleepily along, he almost ran over a crowd of boys in the
+public road, teasing what they took to be a tramp, because of his
+unkempt beard, his tattered clothes, and his old army cap.
+
+They had angered the man and with many gestures he was endeavoring to
+expostulate with his tormentors, at the same time attempting
+imprecations which could not be uttered and ended in a low pitiful
+sound. He shook his fist at them--he made violent gestures, but from
+his mouth came only a guttural sound which had no meaning.
+
+At a word from the Bishop his tormentors vanished, and when he pulled
+up before the uncouth figure he found him to be a man not yet in his
+prime, with an open face, now blank and expressionless, overgrown
+with a black, tangled, and untrimmed beard.
+
+He was evidently a demented tramp.
+
+But at a second look the Bishop started. It was the man's eyes which
+startled him. There was in them something so familiar and yet so
+unknown that the Bishop had to study a while before he could
+remember.
+
+Then there crept into his face a wave of pitying sorrow as he said to
+himself:
+
+"Cap'n Tom--Cap'n Tom's eyes."
+
+And from that moment the homeless and demented tramp had a warm place
+in the old man's heart.
+
+The Bishop watched him closely. His tattered cap had fallen off,
+showing a shock of heavy, uncut hair, streaked prematurely with gray.
+
+"What yo' name?" asked the Bishop kindly.
+
+The man, flushed and angered, still gesticulated and muttered to
+himself. But at the sound of the Bishop's voice, for a moment there
+flashed into his eyes almost the saneness of returned reason. His
+anger vanished. A kindly smile spread over his face. He came toward
+the Bishop pleadingly--holding out both hands and striving to speak.
+Climbing into the buggy, he sat down by the old man's side, quite
+happy and satisfied--and as a little child.
+
+"Where are you from?" asked the Bishop again.
+
+The man shook his head. He pointed to his head and looked meaningly
+at the Bishop.
+
+"Can't you tell me where you're gwine, then?"
+
+He looked at the Bishop inquisitively, and for a moment, only, the
+same look--almost of intelligence--shone in his eyes. Slowly and with
+much difficulty--ay, even as if he were spelling it out, he said:
+
+"A-l-i-c-e"--
+
+The old man turned quickly. Then he paled tremblingly to his very
+forehead. The word itself--the sound of that voice sent the blood
+rushing to his heart.
+
+"Alice?--and what does he mean? An' his voice an' his eyes--Alice--my
+God--it's Cap'n Tom!"
+
+Tenderly, calmly he pulled the cap from off the strange being's head
+and felt amid the unkempt locks. But his hands trembled so he could
+scarcely control them, and the sight of the poor, broken, half
+demented thing before him--so satisfied and happy that he had found a
+voice he knew--this creature, the brave, the chivalrous, the heroic
+Captain Tom! He could scarcely see for the tears which ran down his
+cheeks.
+
+But as he felt, in the depth of his shock of hair, his finger slipped
+into an ugly scar, sinking into a cup-shaped hollow fracture which
+gleamed in his hair.
+
+"Cap'n Tom, Cap'n Tom," he whispered--"don't you know me--the
+Bishop?"
+
+The man smiled reassuringly and slipped his hand, as a child might,
+into that of the old man.
+
+"A-l-i-c-e"--he slowly and stutteringly pronounced again, as he
+pointed down the road toward Westmoreland.
+
+"My God," said the Bishop as he wiped away the tears on the back of
+his hand--"my God, but that blow has spiled God's noblest gentleman."
+Then there rushed over him a wave of self-reproach as he raised his
+head heavenward and said:
+
+"_Almighty Father, forgive me! Only this morning I doubted You; and
+now, now, You have sent me po' Cap'n Tom!_"
+
+"You'll go home with me, Cap'n Tom!" he added cheerily.
+
+The man smiled and nodded.
+
+"A-l-i-c-e," again he repeated.
+
+There was the sound of some one riding, and as the Bishop turned Ben
+Butler around Alice Westmore rode up, sitting her saddle mare with
+that natural grace which comes only when the horse and rider have
+been friends long enough to become as one. Richard Travis rode with
+her.
+
+The Bishop paled again: "My God," he muttered--"but she mustn't know
+this is Cap'n Tom! I'd ruther she'd think he's dead--to remember him
+only as she knowed him last."
+
+The man's eyes were riveted on her--they seemed to devour her as she
+rode up, a picture of grace and beauty, sitting her cantering mare
+with the ease of long years of riding. She smiled and nodded brightly
+at the Bishop, as she cantered past, but scarcely glanced at the man
+beside him.
+
+Travis followed at a brisk gait:
+
+"Hello, Bishop," he said banteringly--"got a new boarder to-day?"
+
+He glanced at the man as he spoke, and then galloped on without
+turning his head.
+
+"Alice!--Alice!"--whispered the man, holding out his hands
+pleadingly, in the way he had held them when he first saw the Bishop.
+"Alice!"--but she disappeared behind a turn in the road. She had not
+noticed him.
+
+The Bishop was relieved.
+
+"We'll go home, Cap'n Tom--you'll want for nothin' whilst I live. An'
+who knows--ay, Cap'n Tom, who knows but maybe God has sent you here
+to-day to begin the unraveling of the only injustice I've ever knowed
+Him to let go so long. It 'ud be so easy for Him--He's done bigger
+things than jes' to straighten out little tangles like that. Cap'n
+Tom! Cap'n Tom!" he said excitedly--"God'll do it--God'll do it--for
+He is just!"
+
+As he turned to go a negro came up hurriedly: "I was fetchin' him to
+you, Marse Hillard--been lookin' for yo' home all day. I had gone to
+the spring for water an' 'lowed I'd be back in a minute."
+
+"Why, it's Eph," said the Bishop. "Come on to my home, Eph, we'll
+take keer of Cap'n Tom."
+
+It was Sunday night. They had eaten their supper, and the old man was
+taking his smoke before going to bed. Shiloh, as usual, had climbed
+up into his lap and lay looking at the distant line of trees that
+girdled the mountain side. There was a flush on her cheeks and a
+brightness in her eyes which the old man had noticed for several
+weeks.
+
+Shiloh was his pet--his baby. All the affection of his strong nature
+found its outlet in this little soul--this motherless little waif,
+who likewise found in the old man that rare comradeship of
+extremes--the inexplicable law of the physical world which brings the
+snow-flower in winter. The one real serious quarrel the old man had
+had with his stubborn and ignorant old wife had been when Shiloh was
+sent to the factory. But it was always starvation times with them;
+and when aroused, the temper and tongue of Mrs. Watts was more than
+the peaceful old man could stand up against. And as there were a
+dozen other tots of her age in the factory, he had been forced to
+acquiesce.
+
+Long after all others had retired--long after the evening star had
+arisen, and now, high overhead, looked down through the chinks in the
+roof of the cabin on the mountain side, saying it was midnight and
+past, the patient old man sat with Shiloh on his lap, watching her
+quick, restless breathing, and fearing to put her to bed, lest he
+might awaken her.
+
+He put her in bed at last and then slipped into Captain Tom's cabin
+before he himself lay down.
+
+To his surprise he was up and reading an old dictionary--studying and
+puzzling over the words. It was the only book except the Bible the
+Bishop had in his cabin, and this book proved to be Captain Tom's
+solace.
+
+After that, day after day, he would sit out under the oak tree by his
+cabin intently reading the dictionary.
+
+Eph, his body servant, slept on the floor by his side, and Jack
+Bracken sat near him like a sturdy mastiff guarding a child.
+Sympathy, pity--were written in the outlaw's face, as he looked at
+the once splendid manhood shorn of its strength, and from that day
+Jack Bracken showered on Captain Tom all the affection of his
+generous soul--all that would have gone to little Jack.
+
+"For he's but a child--the same as little Jack was," he would say.
+
+"Put up yo' novel, Cap'n Tom," said the old man cheerily, when he
+went in, "an' let's have prayers."
+
+The sound of the old man's voice was soothing to Captain Tom.
+Quickly the book was closed and down on their knees went the three
+men.
+
+It was a queer trio--the three kneeling in prayer.
+
+"Almighty God," prayed the old man--"me an' Cap'n Tom an' Jack
+Bracken here, we thank You for bein' so much kinder to us than we
+deserves. One of us, lost to his friends, is brought back home; one
+of us, lost in wickedness but yestiddy, is redeemed to-day; an' me
+that doubted You only yestiddy, to me You have fotcht Cap'n Tom back,
+a reproach for my doubts an' my disbelief, lame in his head, it is
+true, but You've fotcht him back where I can keer for him an' nuss
+him. An' I hope You'll see fit, Almighty God, You who made the worl'
+an' holds it in the hollow of Yo' han', You, who raised up the dead
+Christ, to give po' Cap'n Tom back his reason, that he may fulfill
+the things in life ordained by You that he should fulfill since the
+beginning of things.
+
+"An' hold Jack Bracken to the mark, Almighty God,--let him toe the
+line an' shoot, hereafter, only for good. An' guide me, for I need
+it--me that in spite of all You've done for me, doubted You but
+yestiddy. Amen."
+
+It was a simple, homely prayer, but it comforted even Captain Tom,
+and when Jack Bracken put him to bed that night, even the outlaw felt
+that the morning of a new era would awaken them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE SWAN-SONG OF THE CREPE-MYRTLE
+
+
+It was twilight when Mrs. Westmore heard the clatter of horses' hoofs
+up the gravelled roadway, and two riders cantered up.
+
+Richard Travis sat his saddle horse in the slightly stooping way of
+the old fox-hunter--not the most graceful seat, but the most natural
+and comfortable for hard riding. Alice galloped ahead--her fine
+square shoulders and delicate but graceful bust silhouetted against
+the western sky in the fading light.
+
+Mrs. Westmore sat on the veranda and watched them canter up. She
+thought how handsome they were, and how well they would look always
+together.
+
+Alice sprang lightly from her mare at the front steps.
+
+"Did you think we were never coming back? Richard's new mare rides so
+delightfully that we rode farther than we intended. Oh, but she
+canters beautifully!"
+
+She sat on the arm of her mother's chair, and bent over and kissed
+her cheek. The mother looked up to see her finely turned profile
+outlined in a pale pink flush of western sky which glowed behind her.
+Her cheeks were of the same tinge as the sky. They glowed with the
+flush of the gallop, and her eyes were bright with the happiness of
+it. She sat telling of the new mare's wonderfully correct saddle
+gaits, flipping her ungloved hand with the gauntlet she had just
+pulled off.
+
+Travis turned the horses over to Jim and came up.
+
+"Glad to see you, Cousin Alethea," he said, as she arose and advanced
+gracefully to meet him--"no, no--don't rise," he added in his half
+jolly, half commanding way. "You've met me before and I'm not such a
+big man as I seem." He laughed: "Do you remember Giant Jim, the big
+negro Grandfather used to have to oversee his hands on the lower
+place? Jim, you know, in consideration of his elevation, was granted
+several privileges not allowed the others. Among them was the
+privilege of getting drunk every Saturday night. Then it was he would
+stalk and brag among those he ruled while they looked at him in awe
+and reverence. But he had the touch of the philosopher in him and
+would finally say: 'Come, touch me, boys; come, look at me; come,
+feel me--I'm nothin' but a common man, although I appear so big.'"
+
+Mrs. Westmore laughed in her mechanical way, but all the while she
+was looking at Alice, who was watching the mare as she was led off.
+
+Travis caught her eye and winked mischievously as he added: "Now,
+Cousin Alethea, you must promise me to make Alice ride her whenever
+she needs a tonic--every day, if necessary. I have bought her for
+Alice, and she must get the benefit of her before it grows too cold."
+
+He turned to Alice Westmore: "You have only to tell me which days--if
+I am too busy to go with you--Jim will bring her over."
+
+She smiled: "You are too kind, Richard, always thinking of my
+pleasure. A ride like this once a week is tonic enough."
+
+She went into the house to change her habit. Her brother Clay, who
+had been sitting on the far end of the porch unobserved, arose and,
+without noticing Travis as he passed, walked into the house.
+
+"I cannot imagine," said Mrs. Westmore apologetically, "what is the
+matter with Clay to-day."
+
+"Why?" asked Travis indifferently enough.
+
+"He has neglected his geological specimens all day, nor has he ever
+been near his laboratory--he has one room he calls his laboratory,
+you know. To-night he is moody and troubled."
+
+Travis said nothing. At tea Clay was not there.
+
+When Travis left it was still early and Alice walked with him to the
+big gate. The moon shone dimly and the cool, pure light lay over
+everything like the first mist of frost in November. Beyond, in the
+field, where it struck into the open cotton bolls, it turned them
+into December snow-banks.
+
+Travis led his saddle horse, and as they walked to the gate, the
+sweet and scarcely perceptible odor of the crepe-myrtle floated out
+on the open air.
+
+The crepe-myrtle has a way of surprising us now and then, and often
+after a wet fall, it gives us the swan-song of a bloom, ere its
+delicate blossoms, touched to death by frost, close forever their
+scalloped pink eyes, on the rare summer of a life as spiritual as the
+sweet soft gulf winds which brought it to life.
+
+Was it symbolic to-night,--the swan-song of the romance of Alice
+Westmore's life, begun under those very trees so many summers ago?
+
+They stopped at the gate. Richard Travis lit a cigar before mounting
+his horse. He seemed at times to-night restless, yet always
+determined.
+
+She had never seen him so nearly preoccupied as he had been once or
+twice to-night.
+
+"Do you not think?" he asked, after a while as they stood by the
+gate, "that I should have a sweet answer soon?"
+
+Her eyes fell. The death song of the crepe-myrtle, aroused by a south
+wind suddenly awakened, smote her painfully.
+
+"You know--you know how it is, Richard"--
+
+"How it was--Alice. But think--life is a practical--a serious thing.
+We all have had our romances. They are the heritage of dreaming
+youth. We outlive them--it is best that we should. Our spiritual life
+follows the law of all other life, and spiritually we are not the
+same this year that we were last. Nor will we be the next. It is
+always change--change--even as the body changes. Environment has
+more to do with what we are, what we think and feel--than anything
+else. If you will marry me you will soon love me--it is the law of
+love to beget love. You will forget all the lesser loves in the great
+love of your life. Do you not know it, feel it, Sweet?"
+
+She looked at him surprised. Never before had he used any term of
+endearment to her. There was a hard, still and subtle yet determined
+light in his eyes.
+
+"Richard--Richard--you--I"--
+
+"See," he said, taking from his vest pocket a magnificent ring set in
+an exquisite old setting--inherited from his grandmother, and it had
+been her engagement ring. "See, Alice, let me put this on to-night."
+
+He took her hand--it thrilled him as he had never been thrilled
+before. This impure man, who had made the winning of women a
+plaything, trembled with the fear of it as he took in his own the
+hand so pure that not even his touch could awaken sensuality in it.
+The odor of her beautiful hair floated up to him as he bent over. A
+wave of hot passion swept over him--for with him love was
+passion--and his reason, for a moment, was swept from its seat. Then
+almost beside himself for love of this woman, so different from any
+he had ever known, he opened his arms to fold her in one
+overpowering, conquering embrace.
+
+It was but a second and more a habit than thought--he who had never
+before hesitated to do it.
+
+She stepped back and the hot blood mounted to her cheek. Her eyes
+shone like outraged stars, dreaming earthward on a sleeping past,
+unwarningly obscured by a passing cloud, and then flashing out into
+the night, more brightly from the contrast.
+
+She did not speak and he crunched under his feet, purposely, the turf
+he was standing on, and so carrying out, naturally, the gesture of
+clasping the air, in establishing his balance--as if it was an
+accident.
+
+She let him believe she thought it was, and secured relief from the
+incident.
+
+"Alice--Alice!" he exclaimed. "I love you--love you--I must have you
+in my life! Can you not wear this now? See!"
+
+He tried to place it on her finger. He held the small beautiful hand
+in his own. Then it suddenly withdrew itself and left him holding his
+ring and looking wonderingly at her.
+
+She had thrown back her head, and, half turned, was looking toward
+the crepe-myrtle tree from which the faint odor came.
+
+"You had better go, Richard," was all she said.
+
+"I'll come for my answer--soon?" he asked.
+
+She was silent.
+
+"Soon?" he repeated as he rose in the stirrup--"soon--and to claim
+you always, Alice."
+
+He rode off and left her standing with her head still thrown back,
+her thoughtful face drinking in the odor of the crepe-myrtle.
+
+Travis did not understand, for no crepe-myrtle had ever come into his
+life. It could not come. With him all life had been a passion flower,
+with the rank, strong odor of the sensuous, wild honeysuckle, which
+must climb ever upon something else, in order to open and throw off
+the rank, brazen perfume from its yellow and streaked and variegated
+blossoms.
+
+And how common and vulgar and all-surfeiting it is, loading the air
+around it with its sickening imitation of sweetness, so that even the
+bees stagger as they pass through it and disdain to stop and shovel,
+for the mere asking, its musky and illicit honey.
+
+But, O mystic odor of the crepe-myrtle--O love which never dies--how
+differently it grows and lives and blooms!
+
+In color, constant--a deep pink. Not enough of red to suggest the
+sensual, nor yet lacking in it when the full moment of ripeness
+comes. How delicately pink it is, and yet how unfadingly it stands
+the summer's sun, the hot air, the drought! How quickly it responds
+to the Autumn showers, and long after the honeysuckle has died, and
+the bees have forgotten its rank memory, this beautiful creature of
+love blooms in the very lap of Winter.
+
+O love that defies even the breath of death!
+
+The yellow lips of the honeysuckle are thick and sensual; but the
+beautiful petals of this cluster of love-cells, all so daintily
+transparent, hanging in pink clusters of loveliness with scalloped
+lips of purity, that even the sunbeam sends a photograph of his heart
+through them and every moonbeam writes in it the romance of its life.
+And the skies all day long, reflecting in its heart, tells to the
+cool green leaves that shadow it the story of its life, and it
+catches and holds the sympathy of the tiniest zephyr, from the way it
+flutters to the patter of their little feet.
+
+All things of Nature love it--the clouds, the winds, the very stars,
+and sun, because love--undying love--is the soul of God, its Maker.
+
+The rose is red in the rich passion of love, the lily is pale in the
+poverty of it; but the crepe-myrtle is pink in the constancy of it.
+
+O bloom of the crepe-myrtle! And none but a lover ever smelled
+it--none but a lover ever knew!
+
+She ran up the gentle slope to the old-fashioned garden and threw
+herself under the tree from whence the dying odor came. She fell on
+her knees--the moonlight over her in fleckings of purification. She
+clung to the scaly weather-beaten stem of the tree as she would have
+pressed a sister to her breast. Her arms were around it--she knew
+it--its very bark.
+
+She seized a bloom that had fallen and crushed it to her bosom and
+her cheek.
+
+"O Tom--Tom--why--why did you make me love you here and then leave me
+forever with only the memory of it?"
+
+"Twice does it bloom, dear Heart,--can not my love bloom like
+it--twice?"
+
+"A-l-i-c-e!"
+
+The voice came from out the distant woods nearby.
+
+The blood leaped and then pricked her like sharp-pointed icicles, and
+they all seemed to freeze around and prick around her heart. She
+could not breathe.... Her head reeled.... The crepe-myrtle fell on
+her and smothered her....
+
+When she awoke Mrs. Westmore sat by her side and was holding her head
+while her brother was rubbing her arms.
+
+"You must be ill, darling," said her mother gently. "I heard you
+scream. What--"
+
+They helped her to rise. Her heart still fluttered violently--her
+head swam.
+
+"Did you call me before--before"--she was excited and eager.
+
+"Why, yes"--smiled her mother. "I said, 'Alice--Alice!'"
+
+"It was not that--no, that was not the way it sounded," she said as
+they led her into the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE CASKET AND THE GHOST
+
+
+Richard Travis could not sleep that night--why, he could not tell.
+
+After he returned from Westmoreland, Mammy Charity brought him his
+cocktail, and tidied up his room, and beat up the feathers in his
+pillows and bed--for she believed in the old-fashioned feather-bed
+and would have no other kind in the house.
+
+The old clock in the hall--that had sat there since long before he,
+himself, could remember--struck ten, and then eleven, and then, to
+his disgust, even twelve.
+
+At ten he had taken another toddy to put himself to sleep.
+
+There is only one excuse for drunkenness, and that is sleeplessness.
+If there is a hell for the intellectual it is not of fire, as for
+commoner mortals, but of sleeplessness--the wild staring eyes of an
+eternity of sleeplessness following an eon of that midnight mental
+anguish which comes with the birth of thoughts.
+
+But still he slept not, and so at ten he had taken another toddy--and
+still another, and as he felt its life and vigor to the ends of his
+fingers, he quaffed his fourth one; then he smiled and said: "And now
+I don't care if I never go to sleep!"
+
+He arose and dressed. He tried to recite one of his favorite poems,
+and it angered him that his tongue seemed thick.
+
+His head slightly reeled, but in it there galloped a thousand
+beautiful dreams and there were visions of Alice, and love, and the
+satisfaction of conquering and the glory of winning.
+
+He could feel his heart-throbs at the ends of his fingers. He could
+see thoughts--beautiful, grand thoughts--long before they reached
+him,--stalking like armed men, helmeted and vizored, stalking forward
+into his mind.
+
+He walked out and down the long hall.
+
+The ticking of the clock sounded to him so loud that he stopped and
+cursed it.
+
+Because, somehow, it ticked every time his heart beat; and he could
+count his heart-beats in his fingers' ends, and he didn't want to
+know every time his heart beat. It made him nervous.
+
+It might stop; but it would not stop. And then, somehow, he imagined
+that his heart was really out in the yard, down under the hill, and
+was pumping the water--as the ram had done for years--through the
+house. It was a queer fancy, and it made him angry because he could
+not throw it off.
+
+He walked down the hall, rudely snatched the clock door open, and
+stopped the big pendulum. Then he laughed sillily.
+
+The moonbeams came in at the stained glass windows, and cast red and
+yellow and pale green fleckings of light on the smooth polished
+floor.
+
+He began to feel uncanny. He was no coward and he cursed himself for
+it.
+
+Things began to come to him in a moral way and mixed in with the
+uncanniness of it all. He imagined he saw, off in the big square
+library across the way, in the very spot he had seen them lay out his
+grandfather--Maggie, and she arose suddenly from out of his
+grandfather's casket and beckoned to him with--
+
+"I love you so--I love _you_ so!"
+
+It was so real, he walked to the spot and put his hands on the black
+mohair Davenport. And the form on it, sitting bolt upright, was but
+the pillow he had napped on that afternoon.
+
+He laughed and it sounded hollow to him and echoed down the hall:
+
+"How like her it looked!"
+
+He walked into Harry's room and lit the lamp there. He smiled when he
+glanced around the walls. There were hunting scenes and actresses in
+scant clothing. Tobacco pipes of all kinds on the tables, and stumps
+of ill-smelling cigarettes, and over the mantel was a crayon picture
+of Death shaking the dice of life. Two old cutlasses crossed
+underneath it.
+
+On his writing desk Travis picked up and read the copy of the note
+written to Helen the day before.
+
+He smiled with elevated eyebrows. Then he laughed ironically:
+
+"The little yellow cur--to lie down and quit--to throw her over like
+that! Damn him--he has a yellow streak in him and I'll take pleasure
+in pulling down the purse for him. Why, she was born for me anyway!
+That kid, and in love with Helen! Not for The Gaffs would I have him
+mix up with that drunken set--nor--nor, well, not for The Gaffs to
+have him quit like that."
+
+And yet it was news to him. Wrapped in his own selfish plans, he had
+never bothered himself about Harry's affairs.
+
+But he kept on saying, as if it hurt him: "The little yellow cur--and
+he a Travis!" He laughed: "He's got another one, I'll bet--got her
+to-night and by now is securely engaged. So much the better--for my
+plans."
+
+Again he went into the hall and walked to and fro in the dim light.
+But the Davenport and the pillow instantly formed themselves again
+into Maggie and the casket, and he turned in disgust to walk into his
+own room.
+
+Above his head over the doorway in the hall, on a pair of splendid
+antlers--his first trophy of the chase,--rested his deer gun, a clean
+piece of Damascus steel and old English walnut, imported years
+before. The barrels were forty inches and choked. The small bright
+hammers rested on the yellow brass caps deep sunk on steel nippers.
+They shone through the hammer slit fresh and ready for use.
+
+He felt a cold draught of air blow on him and turned in surprise to
+find the hall window, which reached to the veranda floor, open; and
+he could see the stars shining above the dark green foliage of the
+trees on the lawn without.
+
+At the same instant there swept over him a nervous fear, and he
+reached for his deer gun instinctively. Then there arose from the
+Davenport coffin a slouching unkempt form, the fine bright eyes of
+which, as the last rays of the moonlight fell on them, were the eyes
+of his dead cousin, Captain Tom, and it held out its hands pleadingly
+to him and tenderly and with much effort said:
+
+"_Grandfather, forgive. I've come back again._"
+
+Travis's heart seemed to freeze tightly. He tried to breathe--he only
+gasped--and the corners of his mouth tightened and refused to open.
+He felt the blood rush up from around his loins, and leave him
+paralyzed and weak. In sheer desperation he threw the gun to his
+shoulder, and the next instant he would have fired the load into the
+face of the thing with its voice of the dead, had not something burst
+on his head with a staggering, overpowering blow, and despite his
+efforts to stand, his knees gave way beneath him and it seemed
+pleasant for him to lie prone upon the floor....
+
+When he awakened an hour afterwards, he sat up, bewildered. His gun
+lay beside him, but the window was closed securely and bolted. No
+night air came in. The Davenport and pillow were there as before. His
+head ached and there was a bruised place over his ear. He walked into
+his own room and lit the lamp.
+
+"I may have fallen and struck my head," he said, bewildered with the
+strangeness of it all. "I may have," he repeated--"but if I didn't
+see Tom Travis's ghost to-night there is no need to believe one's
+senses."
+
+He opened the door and let in two setters which fawned upon him and
+licked his hand. All his nervousness vanished.
+
+"No one knows the comfort of a dog's company," he said, "who does not
+love a dog?"
+
+Then he bathed his face and head and went to sleep.
+
+It was after midnight when Jack Bracken led Captain Tom in and put
+him to bed.
+
+"A close shave for you, Cap'n Tom," he said--"I struck just in time.
+I'll not leave you another night with the door unlocked." Then: "But
+poor fellow--how can we blame him for wandering off, after all those
+years, and trying to get back again to his boyhood home."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A MIDNIGHT GUARD
+
+
+Jack Bracken rolled himself in his blanket on the cot, placed in the
+room next to Captain Tom, and prepared to sleep again.
+
+But the excitement of the night had been great; his sudden awakening
+from sleep, his missing Captain Tom, and finding him in time to
+prevent a tragedy, had aroused him thoroughly, and now sleep was far
+from his eyes.
+
+And so he lay and thought of his past life, and as it passed before
+him it shook him with nervous sleeplessness.
+
+It hurt him. He lay and panted with the strong sorrow of it.
+
+Perhaps it was that, but with it were thoughts also of little Jack,
+and the tears came into the eyes of the big-hearted outlaw.
+
+He had his plans all arranged--he and the Bishop--and now as the
+village blacksmith he would begin the life of an honest man.
+
+Respected--his heart beat proudly to think of it.
+
+Respected--how little it means to the man who is, how much to the man
+who is not.
+
+"Why," he said to himself--"perhaps after a while people will stop
+and talk to me an' say as they pass my shop: 'Good mornin',
+neighbor, how are you to-day?' Little children--sweet an' innocent
+little children--comin' from school may stop an' watch the sparks fly
+from my anvil, like they did in the poem I onct read, an' linger
+aroun' an' talk to me, shy like; maybe, after awhile I'll get their
+confidence, so they will learn to love me, an' call me Uncle
+Jack--Uncle Jack," he repeated softly.
+
+"An' I won't be suspectin' people any mo' an' none of 'em will be my
+enemy. I'll not be carryin' pistols an' havin' buckets of gold an'
+not a friend in the worl'."
+
+His heart beat fast--he could scarcely wait for the morning to come,
+so anxious was he to begin the life of an honest man again. He who
+had been an outlaw so long, who had not known what it was to know
+human sympathy and human friendship--it thrilled him with a rich,
+sweet flood of joy.
+
+Then suddenly a great wave swept over him--a wave of such exquisite
+joy that he fell on his knees and cried out: "O God, I am a changed
+man--how happy I am! jus' to be human agin an' not hounded! How can I
+thank You--You who have given me this blessed Man the Bishop tells us
+about--this Christ who reaches out an' takes us by the han' an' lifts
+us up. O God, if there is divinity given to man, it is given to that
+man who can lift up another, as the po' outlaw knows."
+
+He lay silent and thoughtful. All day and night--since he had first
+seen Margaret, her eyes had haunted him. He had not seen her before
+for many years; but in all that time there had not been a day when he
+had not thought of--loved--her.
+
+Margaret--her loneliness--the sadness of her life, all haunted him.
+She lived, he knew, alone, in her cottage--an outcast from society.
+He had looked but once in her eyes and caught the lingering look of
+appeal which unconsciously lay there. He knew she loved him yet--it
+was there as plain as in his own face was written the fact that he
+loved her. He thought of himself--of her. Then he said:
+
+"For fifteen years I have robbed--killed--oh, God--killed--how it
+hurts me now! All the category of crime in bitter wickedness I have
+run. And she--once--and now an angel--Bishop himself says so."
+
+"I am a new man--I am a respectable and honest man,"--here he arose
+on his cot and drew himself up--"I am Jack Smith--Mr. Jack Smith, the
+blacksmith, and my word is my bond."
+
+He slipped out quietly. Once again in the cool night, under the stars
+which he had learned to love as brothers and whose silent paths
+across the heavens were to him old familiar footpaths, he felt at
+ease, and his nervousness left him.
+
+He had not intended to speak to Margaret then--for he thought she was
+asleep. He wished only to guard her cabin, up among the stunted old
+field pines--while she slept--to see the room he knew she slept
+in--the little window she looked out of every day.
+
+The little cabin was a hallowed spot to him. Somehow he knew--he felt
+that whatever might be said--in it he knew an angel dwelt. He could
+not understand--he only knew.
+
+There is a moral sense within us that is a greater teacher than
+either knowledge or wisdom.
+
+For an hour he stood with his head uncovered watching the little
+cabin where she lived. Everything about it was sacred, because
+Margaret lived there. It was pretty, too, in its neatness and
+cleanliness, and there were old-fashioned flowers in the yard and
+old-fashioned roses clambered on the rock wall.
+
+He sat down in the path--the little white sanded path down which he
+knew she went every day, and so made sacred by her footsteps.
+
+"Perhaps, I am near one of them now," he said--and he kissed the
+spot.
+
+And that night and many others did the outlaw watch over the lonely
+cabin on the mountain side. And she, the outcast woman, slept within,
+unconscious that she was being protected by the man who had loved her
+all his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE THEFT OF A CHILDHOOD
+
+
+The Watts children were up the next morning by four o'clock.
+
+Mrs. Watts ate, always, by candle-light. The sun, she thought, would
+be dishonored, were he to find her home in disorder, her breakfast
+uncooked, her day's work not ready for her, with his first beams.
+
+For Mrs. Watts did not consider that arising at four, and cooking and
+sweeping and tidying up the cabin, and quarreling with the Bishop as
+"a petty old bundle of botheration"--and storming around at the
+children--all by sun-up--this was not work at all.
+
+It was merely an appetizer.
+
+The children were aroused by her this morning with more severity than
+usual. Half frightened they rolled stupidly out of their
+beds--Appomattox, Atlanta, and Shiloh from one, and the boys from
+another. Then they began to put on their clothes in the same
+listless, dogged, mechanical way they had learned to do
+everything--learned it while working all day between the whirl of the
+spindle and the buzz of the bobbin.
+
+The sun had not yet risen, and a cold gray mist crept up from the
+valley, closing high up and around the wood-girdled brow of the
+mountain as billows around a rock in the sea. The faint, far-off
+crowing of cocks added to the weirdness; for their shrill voices
+alone broke through the silence which came down with the mist. Around
+the brow of Sand Mountain the vapor made a faint halo--touched as it
+was by the splendid flush of the East.
+
+It was all grand and beautiful enough without, but within was the
+poverty of work, and the two--poverty and work--had already had their
+effect on the children, except, perhaps, Shiloh. She had not yet been
+in the mill long enough to be automatonized.
+
+Looking out of the window she saw the star setting behind the
+mountain, and she thought it slept, by day, in a cavern she knew of
+there.
+
+"Wouldn't it be fine, Mattox," she cried, "if we didn't have to work
+at the mill to-day an' cu'd run up on the mountain an' pick up that
+star? I seed one fall onct an' I picked it up."
+
+For a moment the little face was thoughtful--wistful--then she added:
+
+"I wonder how it would feel to spen' the day in the woods onct.
+Archie B. says it's just fine and flowers grow everywhere. Oh, jes'
+to be 'quainted with one Jeree--like Archie B. is--an' have him come
+to yo' winder every mornin' an' say, '_Wake up, Pet! Wake up, Pet!
+Wake up, Pet!_' An' then hear a little 'un over in another tree say,
+'_So-s-l-ee-py--So-s-l-ee-py!_'"
+
+Her chatter ceased again. Then: "Mattox, did you ever see a rabbit? I
+seen one onct, a settin' up in a fence corner an' a spittin' on his
+han's to wash his face."
+
+She laughed at the thought of it. But the other children, who had
+dressed, sat listlessly in their seats, looking at her with
+irresponsive eyes, set deep back into tired, lifeless, weazened
+faces.
+
+"I'd ruther a rabbit 'ud wash his face than mine," drawled Bull Run.
+
+Mrs. Watts came in and jerked the chair from under him and he sat
+down sprawling. Then he lazily arose and deliberately spat, between
+his teeth, into the fireplace.
+
+There was not enough of him alive to feel that he had been imposed
+upon.
+
+For breakfast they had big soda biscuits and fried bacon floating in
+its own grease. There was enough of it left for the midday lunch.
+This was put into a tin pail with a tight fitting top. The pail, when
+opened, smelt of the death and remains of every other soda biscuit
+that had ever been laid away within this tightly closed mausoleum of
+tin.
+
+They had scarcely eaten before the shrill scream of the mill-whistle
+called them to their work.
+
+Shiloh, at the sound, stuck her small fingers into her ears and
+shuddered.
+
+Then the others struck out across the yard, and Shiloh followed.
+
+To this child of seven, who had already worked six months in the
+factory, the scream of the whistle was the call of a frightful
+monster, whose black smoke-stack of a snout, with its blacker breath
+coming out, and the flaming eyes of the engine glaring through the
+smoke, completed the picture of a wild beast watching her. Within,
+the whirr and tremble of shuttle and machinery were the purr and
+pulsation of its heart.
+
+She was a nervous, sensitive child, who imagined far more than she
+saw; and the very uncanniness of the dark misty morning, the silence,
+broken only by the tremble and roar of the mill, the gaunt shadows of
+the overtopping mountain, filled her with childish fears.
+
+Nature can do no more than she is permitted; and the terrible strain
+of twelve hours' work, every day except Sunday, for the past six
+months, where every faculty, from hand and foot to body, eye and
+brain, must be alert and alive to watch and piece the never-ceasing
+breaking of the threads, had already begun to undermine the
+half-formed framework of that little life.
+
+As she approached the mill she clung to the hand of Appomattox, and
+shrinking, kept her sister between herself and the Big Thing which
+put the sweet morning air a-flutter around its lair. As she drew near
+the door she almost cried out in affright--her little heart grew
+tight, her lips were drawn.
+
+"Oh, it can't hurt you, Shiloh," said her sister pulling her along.
+"You'll be all right when you get inside."
+
+There was a snarling clatter and crescendo tremble, ending in an
+all-drowning roar, as the big door was pushed open for a moment, and
+Shiloh, quaking, but brave, was pulled in, giving the tiny spark of
+her little life to add to the Big Thing's fire.
+
+Within, she was reassured; for there was her familiar spinning frame,
+with its bobbins ready to be set to spinning and whirling; and the
+room was full of people, many as small as she.
+
+The companionship, even of fear, is helpful.
+
+Besides, the roar and clatter drowned everything else.
+
+Shiloh was too small to see, to know; but had she looked to the right
+as she entered, she had seen a sight which would have caused a stone
+man to flush with pity. It was Byrd Boyle, one of the mill hands who
+ran a slubbing machine, and he held in his arms (because they were
+too young to walk so far) twins, a boy and a girl. And they looked
+like half made up dolls left out on the grass, weather-beaten by
+summer rains. They were too small to know where their places were in
+the room, and as their father sat them down, in their proper places,
+it took the two together to run one side of a spinner, and the tiny
+little workers could scarcely reach to their whirling bobbins.
+
+To the credit of Richard Travis, this working of children under
+twelve years of age in the mills was done over his protest. Not so
+with Kingsley and his wife, who were experienced mill people from New
+England and knew the harm of it--morally, physically. Travis had even
+made strict regulations on the subject, only to be overruled by the
+combined disapproval of Kingsley and the directors and, strange to
+say, of the parents of the children themselves. His determination
+that only children of twelve years and over should work in the mill
+came to naught, more from the opposition of the parents themselves
+than that of Kingsley. These, to earn a little more for the family,
+did not hesitate to bring a child of eight to the mill and swear it
+was twelve. This and the ruling of the directors,--and worse than
+all, the lack of any state law on the subject,--had brought about the
+pitiful condition which prevailed then as now in Southern cotton
+mills.
+
+There was no talking inside the mill. Only the Big Thing was
+permitted to talk. No singing--for songs come from the happy heart of
+labor, unshackled. No noise of childhood, though the children were
+there. They were flung into an arena for a long day's fight against a
+thing of steel and steam, and there was no time for anything save
+work, work, work--walk, walk, walk--watch, forever watch,--the
+interminable flying whirl of spindle and spool.
+
+Early as it was, the children were late, and were soundly rebuffed by
+the foreman.
+
+The scolding hurt only Shiloh--it made her tremble and cry. The
+others were hardened--insensible--and took it with about the same
+degree of indifference with which caged and starved mice look at the
+man who pours over their wire traps the hot water which scalds them
+to death.
+
+The fight between steel, steam and child-flesh was on.
+
+Shiloh, Appomattox and Atlanta were spinners.
+
+Spinners are small girls who walk up and down an aisle before a
+spinning-frame and piece up the threads which are forever breaking.
+There were over a hundred spindles on each side of the frame, each
+revolving with the rapidity of an incipient cyclone and snapping
+every now and then the delicate white thread that was spun out like
+spiders' web from the rollers and the cylinders, making a
+balloon-like gown of cotton thread, which settled continuously around
+the bobbin.
+
+All day long and into the night, they must walk up and down, between
+these two rows of spinning-frames, amid the whirling spindles,
+piecing the broken threads which were forever breaking.
+
+It did not require strength, but a certain skill, which,
+unfortunately, childhood possessed more than the adult. Not power,
+but dexterity, watchfulness, quickness and the ability to walk--as
+children walk--and watch--as age should watch.
+
+No wonder that in a few months the child becomes, not the flesh and
+blood of its heredity, but the steel and wood of its environment.
+
+Bull Run and Seven Days were doffers, and confined to the same set of
+frames. They followed their sisters, taking off the full bobbins and
+throwing them into a cart and thrusting an empty bobbin into its
+place. This requires an eye of lightning and a hand with the
+quickness of its stroke.
+
+For it must be done between the pulsings of the Big Thing's heart--a
+flash, a snap, a snarl of broken thread--up in the left hand flies
+the bobbin from its disentanglement of thread and skein, and down
+over the buzzing point of steel spindles settles the empty bobbin,
+thrust over the spindle by the right.
+
+It is all done with two quick movements--a flash and a jerk of one
+hand up, and the other down, the eye riveted to the nicety of a
+hair's breadth, the stroke downward gauged to the cup of a thimble,
+to settle over the point of the spindle's end; for the missing of a
+thread's breadth would send a spindle blade through the hand, or
+tangle and snap a thread which was turning with a thousand
+revolutions in a minute.
+
+_Snap--bang! Snap--bang!_ One hundred and twenty
+times--_Snap--bang!_ and back again, went the deft little workers
+pushing their cart before them.
+
+Full at last, their cart is whirled away with flying heels to another
+machine.
+
+It was a steady, lightning, endless track. Their little trained
+fingers betook of their surroundings and worked like fingers of
+steel. Their legs seemed made of India rubber. Their eyes shot out
+right and left, left and right, looking for the broken threads on the
+whirling bobbins as hawks sweep over the marsh grass looking for
+mice, and the steel claws, which swooped down on the bobbins when
+they found it, made the simile not unsuitable.
+
+Young as she was, Shiloh managed one of these harnessed, fiery lines
+of dancing witches, pirouetting on boards of hardened oak or hickory.
+Up and down she walked--up and down, watching these endless whirling
+figures, her bare fingers pitted against theirs of brass, her bare
+feet against theirs shod with iron, her little head against theirs
+insensate and unpitying, her little heart against theirs of flame
+which throbbed in the boiler's bosom and drove its thousand steeds
+with a whip of fire.
+
+In the bloodiest and cruelest days of the Roman Empire, man was
+matched against wild beasts. But in the man's hand was the blade of
+his ancestors and over his breast the steel ribs which had helped his
+people to conquer the world.
+
+And in the Beast's body was a heart!
+
+Ay, and the man was a man--a trained gladiator--and he was nerved by
+the cheers of thousands of sympathizing spectators.
+
+And now, centuries after, and in the age of so-called kindness, comes
+this battle to be fought over. And the fight, now as then, is for
+bread and life.
+
+But how cruelly unfair is the fight of to-day, when the weak and
+helpless child is made the gladiator, and the fight is for bread, and
+the Beast is of steel and steam, and is soulless and heartless.
+Steel--that by which the old gladiator conquered--that is the heart
+of the Thing the little one must fight. And the cheers--the glamour
+of it is lacking, for the little one cannot hear even the sound of
+its own voice--in the roar of the thousand-throated Thing which
+drives the Steel Beast on.
+
+Seven o'clock--eight o'clock--Shiloh's head swam--her shoulders
+ached, her ears quivered with sensitiveness, and seemed not to catch
+sounds any more, but sharp and shooting pains. She was dazed already
+and weak; but still the Steam Thing cheered its steel legions on.
+
+Up and down, up and down she walked, her baby thoughts coming to her
+as through the roar of a Niagara, through pain and sensitiveness,
+through aches and a dull, never-ending sameness.
+
+Nine o'clock! Oh, she was so tired of it all!
+
+Hark, she thought she heard a bird sing in a far off, dreamy way, and
+for a moment she made mud pies in the back yard of the hut on the
+mountain, under the black-oak in the yard, with the glint of soft
+sunshine over everything and the murmur of green leaves in the trees
+above, as the wind from off the mountain went through them, and the
+anemone, and bellworts, and daisies grew beneath and around. Was it a
+bluebird? She had never seen but one and it had built its nest in a
+hole in a hollow tree, the summer before she went into the mill to
+work.
+
+She listened again--yes, it did sound something like a bluebird,
+peeping in a distant far off way, such as she had heard in the cabin
+on the mountain before she had ever heard the voice of the Big Thing
+at the mill. She listened, and a wave of disappointment swept over
+her baby face; for, listening closely, she found it was an unoiled
+separator, that peeped in a bluebird way now and then, above the
+staccato of some rusty spindle.
+
+But in the song of that bluebird and the glory of an imaginary mud
+pie, all the disappointment of what she had missed swept over her.
+
+Ten o'clock--the little fingers throbbed and burned, the tiny legs
+were stiff and tired, the little head seemed as a block of wood, but
+still the Steam Thing took no thought of rest.
+
+Eleven o'clock--oh, but to rest awhile! To rest under the trees in
+the yard, for the sunshine looked so warm and bright out under the
+mill-windows, and the memory of that bluebird's song, though but an
+imitation, still echoed in her ear. And those mud pies!--she saw them
+all around her and in such lovely bits of old broken crockery
+and--....
+
+She felt a rude punch in the side. It was Jud Carpenter standing over
+her and pointing to where a frowzled broken thread was tangling
+itself around a separator. She had dreamed but a minute--half a dozen
+threads had broken.
+
+It was a rude punch and it hurt her side and frightened her. With a
+snarl and a glare he passed on while Shiloh flew to her bobbin.
+
+This fright made her work the next hour with less fatigue. But she
+could not forget the song of the bluebird, and once, when Appomattox
+looked at her, she was working her mouth in a song,--a Sunday School
+song she had picked up at the Bishop's church. Appomattox could not
+hear it--no one had a license to hear a song in the Beast Thing's
+Den--nothing was ever privileged to sing but it,--but she knew from
+the way her mouth was working that Shiloh was singing.
+
+Oh, the instinct of happiness in the human heart! To sing through
+noises and aches and tired feet and stunned, blocky heads. To sing
+with no hope before her and the theft of her very childhood--ay, her
+life--going on by the Beast Thing and his men.
+
+God intended us to be happy, else He had never put so strong an
+instinct there.
+
+Twelve o'clock. The Steam Beast gave a triumphant scream heard above
+the roar of shuttle and steel. It was a loud, defiant, victorious
+roar which drowned all others.
+
+Then it purred and paused for breath--purred softer and softer
+and--slept at last.
+
+It was noon.
+
+The silence now was almost as painful to Shiloh as the noise had
+been. The sudden stopping of shuttle and wheel and belt and beam did
+not stop the noise in her head. It throbbed and buzzed there in an
+echoing ache, as if all the previous sounds had been fire-waves and
+these the scorched furrows of its touch. Wherever she turned, the
+echo of the morning's misery sounded in her ears.
+
+And now they had forty minutes for noon recess.
+
+They sat in a circle, these five children--and ate their lunch of cold
+soda biscuits and fat bacon.
+
+Not a word did they say--not a laugh nor a sound to show they were
+children,--not even a sigh to show they were human.
+
+Silently, like wooden things they choked it down and then--O men and
+women who love your own little ones--look!
+
+Huddled together on the great, greasy, dirty floor of this mill, in all
+the attitudes of tired-out, exhausted childhood, they slept. Shiloh
+slept bolt upright, her little head against the spinning-frame, where
+all the morning she had chased the bobbins up and down the long aisle.
+Appomattox and Atlanta were grouped against her. Bull Run slept at her
+feet and Seven Days lay, half way over on his bobbin cart, so tired that
+he went to sleep as he tried to climb into it.
+
+In other parts of the mill, other little ones slept and even large girls
+and boys, after eating, dozed or chatted. Spoolers, weavers, slubbers,
+warpers, nearly grown but all hard-faced, listless--and many of them
+slept on shawls and battings of cotton.
+
+They were awakened by the big whistle at twenty minutes to one o'clock.
+At the same time, Jud Carpenter, the foreman, passed down the aisles and
+dashed cold water in the sleeping faces. Half laughingly he did it, but
+the little ones arose instantly, and with stooped forms, and tired,
+cowed eyes, in which the Anglo-Saxon spirit of resentment had been
+killed by the Yankee spirit of greed, they looked at the foreman, and
+then began their long six hours' battle with the bobbins.
+
+Three o'clock! The warm afternoon's sun poured on the low flat tin roof
+of the mill and warmed the interior to a temperature which was
+uncomfortable.
+
+Shiloh grew sleepy--she dragged her stumbling little feet along, and had
+she stopped but a moment, she had paid the debt that childhood owes to
+fairy-land. The air was close--stifling. Her shoulders ached--her head
+seemed a stuffy thing of wood and wooly lint.
+
+As it was she nodded as she walked, and again the song of the bluebird
+peeped dreamily from out the unoiled spindle. She tried to sing to keep
+awake, and then there came a strange phantasy to mix with it all, and
+out of the half-awake world in which she now staggered along she caught
+sight of something which made her open her eyes and laugh outright.
+
+_Was it--could it be? In very truth it was--_
+
+_Dolls!_
+
+_And oh, so many! And all in a row dressed in matchless gowns of snowy
+white. She would count them up to ten--as far as she had learned to
+count.... But there were ten,--yes, and many more than ten-- ... and
+just to think of whole rows of them-- ... all there-- ... and waiting
+for her to reach out and fondle and caress._
+
+_And she--never in her life before had she been so fortunate as to own
+one...._
+
+A smile lit up her dreaming eyes. _Rows upon rows of dolls.... And not
+even Appomattox and Atlanta had ever seen so many before; and now how
+funny they acted, dancing around and around and bobbing their quaint
+bodies and winking and nodding at her.... It was Mayday with them and
+down the long line of spindles these cotton dolls were dancing around
+their May Queen, and beckoning Shiloh to join them...._
+
+_It was too cute--too cunning--! they were dancing and drawing her
+in--they were actually singing-- ... humming and chanting a May
+song...._
+
+_O lovely--lovely dolls!..._
+
+Jud Carpenter found her asleep in the greasy aisle, her head resting
+on her arm, a smile on her little face--a hand clasping a rounded
+well-threaded doll-like bobbin to her breast.
+
+It is useless to try to speak in a room in which the Steam Beast's
+voice drowns all other voices. It is useless to try to awaken one by
+calling. One might as well stand under Niagara Falls and whistle to
+the little fishes. No other voice can be heard while the Steam Beast
+speaks.
+
+Shiloh was awakened by a dash of cold water and a rough kick from the
+big boot of that other beast who called himself the overseer. He did
+not intend to jostle her hard, but Shiloh was such a little thing
+that the kick she got in the side accompanied by the dash of water
+shocked and frightened her instantly to her feet, and with scared
+eyes and blanched face she darted down to the long line of bobbins,
+mending the threads.
+
+If, in the great Mystic Unknown,--the Eden of Balance,--there lies no
+retributive Cause to right the injustice of that cruel Effect, let us
+hope there is no Here-after; that we all die and rot like dogs, who
+know no justice; that what little kindness and sweetness and right,
+man, through his happier dreams, his hopeful, cheerful idealism, has
+tried to establish in the world, may no longer stand as mockery to
+the Sweet Philosopher who long ago said: "_Suffer the little children
+to come unto me._..."
+
+They were more dead than alive when, at seven o'clock, the Steam
+Beast uttered the last volcanic howl which said they might go home.
+
+Outside the stars were shining and the cool night air struck into
+them with a suddenness which made them shiver. They were children,
+and so they were thoughtless and did not know the risk they ran by
+coming out of a warm mill, hot and exhausted, into the cool air of an
+Autumn night. Shiloh was so tired and sleepy that Bull Run and Seven
+Days had to carry her between them.
+
+Everybody passed out of the mill--a speechless, haggard, over-worked
+procession. Byrd Boyle, with a face and form which seemed to belong
+to a slave age, carried his twins in his arms.
+
+Their heads lay on his shoulders. They were asleep.
+
+Scarcely had the children eaten their supper of biscuit and bacon,
+augmented with dandelion salad, ere they, too, were asleep--all but
+Shiloh.
+
+She could not sleep--now that she wanted to--and she lay in her
+grandfather's lap with flushed face and hot, over-worked heart. The
+strain was beginning to tell, and the old man grew uneasy, as he
+watched the flush on her cheeks and the unusual brightness in her
+eyes.
+
+"Better give her five draps of tub'bentine an' put her to bed," said
+Mrs. Watts as she came by. "She'll be fittin' an' good by mornin'."
+
+The old man did not reply--he only sang a low melody and smoothed her
+forehead.
+
+It was ten o'clock, and now she lay on the old man's lap asleep from
+exhaustion. A cricket began chirping in the fireplace, under a
+hearth-brick.
+
+"What's that, Pap?" asked Shiloh half asleep.
+
+"That's a cricket, Pet," smiled the old man.
+
+She listened a while with a half-amused smile on her lips:
+
+"Well, don't you think his spindles need oilin', Pap?"
+
+There was little but machinery in her life.
+
+Another hour found the old man tired, but still holding the sleeping
+child in his arms:
+
+"If I move her she'll wake," he said to himself. "Po' little Shiloh."
+
+He was silent a while and thoughtful. Then he looked up at the shadow
+of Sand Mountain, falling half way down the valley in the moonlight.
+
+"The shadow of that mountain across that valley," he said, "is like
+the shadow of the greed of gain across the world. An' why should it
+be? What is it worth? Who is happier for any money more than he needs
+in life?"
+
+He bowed his head over the sleeping Shiloh.
+
+"Oh, God," he prayed--"You, who made the world an' said it might
+have a childhood--remember what it means to have it filched away.
+It's like stealin' the bud from the rose-bush, the dew from the
+grass, hope from the heart of man. Take our manhood--O God--it is
+strong enough to stand it--an' it has been took from many a strong
+man who has died with a smile on his lips. Take our old age--O
+God--for it's jus' a memory of Has Beens. But let them not steal that
+from any life that makes all the res' of it beautiful with dreams of
+it. If, by some inscrutable law which we po' things can't see
+through, stealin' in traffic an' trade must go on in the world, O
+God, let them steal our purses, but not our childhood. Amen."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+UNCLE DAVE'S WILL
+
+
+The whistle of the mill had scarcely awakened Cottontown the next
+morning before Archie B., hatless and full of excitement, came over
+to the Bishop with a message from his mother. No one was astir but
+Mrs. Watts, and she was sweeping vigorously.
+
+"What's the matter, Archie B.?" asked the old man when he came out.
+
+"Uncle Dave Dickey is dyin' an' maw told me to run over an' tell you
+to hurry quick if you wanted to see the old man die."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Dave is dyin', is he? Well, we'll go, Archie B., just as
+soon as Ben Butler can be hooked up. I've got some more calls to make
+anyway."
+
+Ben Butler was ready by the time the children started for the mill.
+Little Shiloh brought up the rear, her tiny legs bravely following
+the others. Archie B. looked at them curiously as the small
+wage-earners filed past him for work.
+
+"Say, you little mill-birds," he said, "why don't you chaps come over
+to see me sometimes an' lem'me show you things outdoors that's made
+for boys an' girls?"
+
+"Is they very pretty?" asked Shiloh, stopping and all ears at once.
+"Oh, tell me 'bout 'em! I am jus' hungry to see 'em. I've learned
+the names of three birds myself an' I saw a gray squirrel onct."
+
+"Three birds--shucks!" said Archie B., "I could sho' you forty, but
+I'll tell you what's crackin' good fun an' it'll test you mor'n
+knowin' the birds--that's easy. But the hard thing is to find their
+nests an' then to tell by the eggs what bird it is. That's the
+cracker-jack trick."
+
+Shiloh's eyes opened wide: "Why, do they lay eggs, Archie B.? Real
+eggs like a hen or a duck?"
+
+Archie B. laughed: "Well, I should say so--an' away up in a tree, an'
+in the funniest little baskets you ever saw. An' some of the eggs is
+white, an' some blue, and some green, an' some speckled an' oh, so
+many kind. But I'll tell you a thing right now that'll help you to
+remember--mighty nigh every bird lays a egg that's mighty nigh like
+the bird herself. The cat bird's eggs is sorter blue--an' the
+wood-pecker's is white, like his wing, an' the thrasher's is mottled
+like his breast."
+
+Ben Butler was hitched to the old buggy and the Bishop drove up. He
+had a bunch of wild flowers for Shiloh and he gave it with a kiss.
+"Run along now, Baby, an' I'll fetch you another when I come back."
+
+They saw her run to catch up with the others and breathlessly tell
+them of the wonderful things Archie B. had related. And all through
+the day, in the dust and the lint, the thunder and rumble of the
+Steam Thing's war, Shiloh saw white and blue and mottled eggs, in
+tiny baskets, with homes up in the trees where the winds rocked the
+cradles when the little birds came; and young as she was, into her
+head there crept a thought that something was wrong in man's
+management of things when little birds were free and little children
+must work.
+
+As she ran off she waved her hand to her grandfather.
+
+"I'll fetch you another bunch when I come back, Pet," he called.
+
+"You'd better fetch her somethin' to eat, instead of prayin' aroun'
+with old fools that's always dyin'," called Mrs. Watts to him from
+the kitchen door where she was scrubbing the cans.
+
+"The Lord will always provide, Tabitha--he has never failed me yet."
+
+She watched him drive slowly over the hill: "That means I had better
+get a move on me an' go to furagin'," she said to herself.
+
+"Hillard Watts has mistuck me for the Almighty mighty nigh all his
+life. It's about time the blackberries was a gittin' ripe anyway."
+
+The Bishop found the greatest distress at Uncle Dave Dickey's. Aunt
+Sally Dickey, his wife, was weeping on the front porch, while Tilly,
+Uncle Dave's pretty grown daughter, her calico dress tucked up for
+the morning's work, showing feet and ankles that would grace a
+duchess, was lamenting loudly on the back porch. A coon dog of
+uncertain lineage and intellectual development, tuned to the howling
+pitch, doubtless, by the music of Tilly's sobs, joined in the chorus.
+
+"Po' Davy is gwine--he's most gone--boo--boo-oo!" sobbed Aunt Sally.
+
+"Pap--Pap--don't leave us," echoed Tilly from the back porch.
+
+"Ow--wow--oo--oo," howled the dog.
+
+The Bishop went in sad and subdued, expecting to find Uncle Davy
+breathing his last. Instead, he found him sitting bolt upright in
+bed, and sobbing even more lustily than his wife and daughter. He
+stretched out his hands pitiably as his old friend went in.
+
+"Most gone"--he sobbed--"Hillard--the old man is most gone. You've
+come jus' in time to see your old friend breathe his las' an' to
+witness his will," and he broke out sobbing afresh, in which Aunt
+Sally and Tilly and the dog, all of whom had followed the Bishop in,
+joined.
+
+The Bishop took in the situation at a glance. Then he broke into a
+smile that gradually settled all over his kindly face.
+
+"Look aheah, Davy, you ain't no mo' dyin' than I am."
+
+"What--what?" said Uncle Davy between his sobs--"I ain't a dyin',
+Hillard? Oh, yes, I be. Sally and Tilly both say so."
+
+"Now, look aheah, Davy, it ain't so. I've seed hundreds die--yes,
+hundreds--strong men, babes--women and little tots, strong ones, and
+weak and frail ones, given to tears, but I've never seed one die yet
+sheddin' a single tear, let alone blubberin' like a calf. It's agin
+nature. Davy, dyin' men don't weep. It's always all right with 'em.
+It's the one moment of all their lives, often, that everything is all
+right, seein' as they do, that all life has been a dream--all back of
+death jes' a beginnin' to live, an' so they die contented. No--no,
+Davy, if they've lived right they want to smile, not weep."
+
+There was an immediate snuffing and drying of tears all around. Uncle
+Davy looked sheepishly at Aunt Sally, she passed the same look on to
+Tilly, and Tilly passed it to the coon dog. Here it rested in its
+birthplace.
+
+"Come to think of it, Hillard," said Uncle Dave after a while, "but I
+believe you are right."
+
+Tilly came back, and she and Aunt Sally nodded their heads: "Yes,
+Hillard, you're right," went on Uncle Davy, "Tilly and Sally both say
+so."
+
+"How come you to think you was dyin' anyway?" asked the Bishop.
+
+"Hillard,--you kno', Hillard--the old man's been thinkin' he'd go
+sudden-like a long time." He raised his eyes to heaven: "Yes, Lord,
+thy servant is even ready."
+
+"Last night I felt a kind o' flutterin' of my heart an' I cudn't
+breathe good. I thought it was death--death,--Hillard, on the back of
+his pale horse. Tilly and Sally both thought so."
+
+The Bishop laughed. "That warn't death on the back of a horse,
+Davy--that was jus' wind on the stomach of an ass."
+
+This was too much for Uncle Davy--especially when Tilly and Sally
+made it unanimous by giggling outright.
+
+"You et cabbages for supper," said the Bishop.
+
+Uncle Davy nodded, sheepishly.
+
+"Then I sed my will an' Tilly writ it down an', oh, Hillard,
+I am so anxious to hear you read it. I wanter see how it'ull
+feel fer a man to have his will read after he is dead--an'--an'
+how his widder takes it," he added, glancing at Aunt Sally--"an'
+his friends. I wanter heah you read it, Hillard, in that deep
+organ way of yours,--like you read the Old Testament. In that
+_In-the-Beginning-God-Created-the-Heaven-an'-the-Earth-Kinder_ voice!
+Drap your voice low like a organ, an' let the old man hear it befo' he
+goes. I fixed it when I thought I was a-dyin'."
+
+"Makin' yo' will ain't no sign you're dyin'," said the Bishop.
+
+"But Tilly an' Aunt Sally both said so," said Uncle Davy, earnestly.
+
+"All yo' needs," said the Bishop going to his saddle bags, "is a good
+straight whiskey. I keep a little--a very, very little bit in my
+saddle bags, for jes' sech occasions as these. It's twenty years
+old," he said, "an' genuwine old Lincoln County. I keep it only for
+folks that's dyin'," he winked, "an' sometimes, Davy, I feel mighty
+like I'm about to pass away myself."
+
+He poured out a very small medicine glass of it, shining and
+shimmering in the morning light like a big ruby,--and handed it to
+Uncle Davy.
+
+"You say that's twenty years old, Hillard?" asked Uncle Davy as he
+wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and again held the little
+glass out entreatingly:
+
+"Hillard, ain't it mighty small for its age--'pears to me it orter be
+twins to make it the regulation size. Don't you think so?"
+
+The Bishop gave him another and took one himself, remarking as he did
+so, "I was pow'ful flustrated when I heard you was dyin' again, Davy,
+an' I need it to stiddy my nerves. Now, fetch out yo' will, Davy," he
+added.
+
+As he took it the Bishop adjusted his big spectacles, buttoned up his
+coat, and drew himself up as he did in the pulpit. He blew his nose
+to get a clear sonorous note:
+
+"I've got a verse of poetry that I allers tunes my voice up to the
+occasion with," he said. "I do it sorter like a fiddler tunes up his
+fiddle. It's a great poem an' I'll put it agin anything in the Queen's
+English for real thunder music an' a sentiment that Shakespeare an'
+Milton nor none of 'em cud a writ. It stirs me like our park of
+artillery at Shiloh, an' it puts me in tune with the great dead of
+all eternity. It makes me think of Cap'n Tom an' Albert Sidney
+Johnston."
+
+Then in a deep voice he repeated:
+
+    "'The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
+          The soldier's last tattoo--
+     No more on earth's parade shall meet
+          That brave and fallen few.
+     On Fame's eternal camping ground
+          Their silent tents are spread
+     And glory guards with solemn sound
+          The Bivouac of the Dead.'"
+
+"Now give me yo' will."
+
+Uncle Davy sat up solemnly, keenly, expectantly. Tilly and Aunt Sally
+sat subdued and sad, with that air of solemn importance and respect
+which might be expected of a dutiful daughter and bereaved widow on
+such an occasion. It was too solemn for Uncle Davy. He began to
+whimper again: "I didn't think I would ever live to see the day when
+I'd hear my own will read after I was dead, an' Hillard a-readin' it
+around my own corpse. It's Tilly's handwrite," he explained, as he saw
+the Bishop scrutinizing the testament closely. "I can't write, as you
+kno', but I've made my mark at the end, an' I want you to witness
+it."
+
+Pitching his voice to organ depths, the Bishop read:
+
+"_'In the name of God, amen: I, Davy Dickey, of the County of ----,
+and State of Alabama, being of sound mind and retentive memory, but
+knowing the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death, do hereby
+make and ordain this--my last will and testamen--_'"
+
+Uncle Davy had lain back, his eyes closed, his hands clasped,
+drinking it all in.
+
+"O, Hillard--Hillard, read it agin--it makes me so happy! It does me
+so much good. It sounds like the first chapter of Genesis, an' Daniel
+Webster's reply to Hayne an' the 19th Psalm all put together."
+
+The Bishop read it again.
+
+"So happy--so happy--" sobbed Uncle Davy, in which Aunt Sally and
+Tilly and the coon dog joined.
+
+"_'First,'_" read on the Bishop, following closely Tilly's pretty
+penmanship; "_'Concerning that part of me called the soul or spirit
+which is immortal, I will it back again to its Maker, leaving it to
+Him to do as He pleases with, without asking any impertinent
+questions or making any fool requests.'_"
+
+The Bishop paused. "That's a good idea, Davy--Givin' it back to its
+Maker without asking any impert'n'ent questions."
+
+"_'Second,'_" read the Bishop, "_'I wills to be buried alongside of
+Dan'l Tubbs, on the Chestnut Knob, the same enclosed with a rock
+wall, forever set aside for me an' Dan'l and running west twenty
+yards to a black jack, then east to a cedar stump three rods, then
+south to a stake twenty yards and thence west back to me an' Dan'l. I
+wills the fence to be built horse high, bull strong and pig tight, so
+as to keep out the Widow Simmon's old brindle cow; the said cow
+having pestered us nigh to death in life, I don't want her to worry
+us back to life after death._
+
+"_'Third. All the rest of the place except that occupied as aforesaid
+by me an' Dan'l, and consisting of twenty acres, more or less, I will
+to go to my dutiful wife, Sally Ann Dickey, providing, of course,
+that she do not marry again.'_"
+
+"David?" put in Aunt Sallie, promptly, wiping her eyes, "I think that
+last thing mout be left out."
+
+"Well, I don't kno'," said Uncle Davy--"you sho'ly ain't got no
+notion of marryin' agin, have you, Sally?"
+
+"No--no--" said Aunt Sallie, thoughtfully, "but there aint no tellin'
+what a po' widder mout have to do if pushed to the wall."
+
+"Well," sagely remarked Uncle Davy, "we'll jes' let it stan' as it
+is. It's like a dose of calomel for disorder of the stomach--if you
+need it it'll cure you, an' if you don't it won't hurt you. This
+thing of old folks fallin' in love ain't nothin' but a disorder of
+the stomach anyhow."
+
+Aunt Sally again protested a poor widow was often pushed to the wall
+and had to take advantage of circumstances, but Uncle Davy told the
+Bishop to read on.
+
+At this point Tilly got up and left the room.
+
+"_'Fourth. I give and bequeath to my devoted daughter, Tilly, and her
+husband, Charles C. Biggers, all my personal property, including the
+crib up in the loft, the razor my grandfather left me, the old mare
+and her colt, the best bed in the parlor, and--'_"
+
+The Bishop stopped and looked serious.
+
+"Davy, ain't you a trifle previous in this?" he asked.
+
+"Not for a will," he said. "You see this is supposed to happen and be
+read after you're dead. You see Charles has been to see her twice and
+writ a poem on her eyes."
+
+The Bishop frowned: "You'll have to watch that Biggers boy--he is a
+wild reckless rake an' not in Tilly's class in anything."
+
+"He's pow'ful sweet on Tilly," said Aunt Sallie.
+
+"Has he asked her to marry him?" asked the Bishop astonished.
+
+"S-h-h--not yet," said Uncle Davy, "but he's comin' to it as fast as
+a lean hound to a meat block. He's got the firs' tech now--silly an'
+poetic. After a while he'll get silly an' desperate, an' jes' 'fo' he
+kills hisse'l Tilly'll fix him all right an' tie him up for life. The
+good Lord makes every man crazy when he is ripe for matrimony, so he
+can mate him off befo' he comes to."
+
+The Bishop shook his head: "I am glad I came out here to-day--if for
+nothin' else to warn you to let that Biggers boy alone. He don't
+study nothin' but fast horses an' devilment."
+
+"I never seed a man have a wuss'r case," said Aunt Sally. "Won't
+Tilly be proud of herse'f as the daughter of Old Judge Biggers? An'
+me--jes' think of me as the grandmother of Biggerses--the riches' an'
+fines' family in the land."
+
+"An' me?--I'll be the gran'pap of 'em--won't I, Sally?"
+
+"You forgit, Davy," said Aunt Sally--"this is yo' will--you'll be
+dead."
+
+"I did forgit," said Uncle Davy sadly--"but I'd sho' love to live an'
+take one of them little Biggerses on my knees an' think his gran'pap
+had bred up to this. Me an' old Judge Biggers--gran'paws of the same
+kids! Now, you see, Hillard, he met Tilly at a party an' he tuck her
+in to supper. The next day he writ her a poem, an' I think it's a
+pretty good start on the gran'pap business."
+
+The Bishop smiled: "It does look like he loves her," he added, dryly.
+"If I was the devil an' wanted to ketch a woman I'd write a poem to
+her every day an' lie between heats. Love lives on lies."
+
+"Now, I've ca'culated them things out," said Uncle Davy, "an' it'll
+be this away: Tilly is as pretty as a peach an' Charlie is gittin'
+stuck wus'n wus'n every day. By the time I am dead they will be
+married good an' hard. I am almost gone as it is, the ole man he's
+liable to drap off any time--yea, Lord, thy servant is ready to
+go--but I do hope that the good master will let me live long enough
+to hold one of my Biggers grandboys on my knees."
+
+"All I've got to say," said the Bishop, "is jus' to watch yo'
+son-in-law. Every son-in-law will stan' watchin' after the ceremony,
+but yours will stan' it all the time."
+
+"_'Lastly,'_" read the Bishop, "_'I wills it that things be left just
+as they be on the place--no moving around of nothing, especially the
+well, it being eighty foot deep, and with good cool water; and
+finally I leave anything else I've got, mostly my good will, to the
+tender mercies of the lawyers and courts.'_"
+
+The Bishop witnessed it, gave Uncle Davy another toddy, and, after
+again cautioning him to watch young Biggers closely, rode away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+EDWARD CONWAY
+
+
+Across the hill the old man rode to Millwood, and as he rode his head
+was bent forward in troubled thought.
+
+He had heard that Edward Conway had come to the sorest need--even to
+where he would place his daughters in the mill. None knew better than
+Hillard Watts what this would mean socially for the granddaughters of
+Governor Conway.
+
+Besides, the old preacher had begun to hate the mill and its infamous
+system of child labor with a hatred born of righteousness. Every
+month he saw its degradation, its slavery, its death.
+
+He preached, he talked against it. He began to be pointed out as the
+man who was against the mill. Ominous rumors had come to his ears,
+and threats. It was whispered to him that he had better be silent,
+and some of the people he preached to--some of those who had children
+in the mill and were supported in their laziness by the life blood of
+their little ones--these were his bitterest enemies.
+
+To-day, the drunken proprietor of Millwood sat in his accustomed
+place on the front balcony, his cob-pipe in his mouth and ruin all
+around him.
+
+Like others, he had a great respect for the Bishop--a man who had
+been both his own and his father's friend. Often as a lad he had
+hunted, fished, and trapped with the preacher-overseer, who lived
+near his father's plantation. He had broken all of the stubborn colts
+in the overseer's care; he had ridden them even in some of their
+fiercest, hardest races, and he had felt the thrill of victory at the
+wire and known the great pride which comes to one who knows he has
+the confidence of a brave and honest man.
+
+The old trainer's influence over Edward Conway had always been great.
+
+To-day, as he saw the Bishop ride up, he thought of his boyhood days,
+and of Tom Travis. How often had they gone with the old man hunting
+and fishing! How he reverenced the memory of his gentleness and
+kindness!
+
+The greatest desire of Hillard Watts had been to reform Edward
+Conway. He had prayed for him, worked for him. In spite of his
+drunkenness the old man believed in him.
+
+"God'll save him yet," he would say. "I've prayed for it an' I kno'
+it--tho' it may be by the crushing of him. Some men repent to God's
+smile, some to His frown, and some to His fist. I'm afraid it will
+take a blow to save Ned, po' boy."
+
+For Ned was always a boy to him.
+
+Conway was drunker than usual to-day. Things grew worse daily, and he
+drank deeper.
+
+It is one of the strangest curses of whiskey that as it daily drags a
+man down, deeper and deeper, it makes him believe he must cling to
+his Red God the closer.
+
+He met the old overseer cordially, in a half drunken endeavor to be
+natural. The old man glanced sadly up at the bloated, boastful face,
+and thought of the beautiful one it once had been. He thought of the
+fine, brilliant mind and marveled that with ten years of drunkenness
+it still retained its strength. And the Bishop remembered that in
+spite of his drinking no one had ever accused Edward Conway of doing
+a dishonorable thing. "How strong is that man's character rooted for
+good," he thought, "when even whiskey cannot undermine it."
+
+"Where are the babies, Ned?" he asked, after he was seated.
+
+The father called and the two girls came running out.
+
+The old man was struck with the developing beauty of Helen--he had
+not seen her for a year. Lily hunted in his pockets for candy, as she
+had always done--and found it--and Helen--though eighteen and grown,
+sat thoughtful and sad, on a stool by his side.
+
+The old man did not wonder at her sadness.
+
+"Ned," he said, as he stroked Helen's hand, "this girl looks mo' like
+her mother every day, an' you know she was the handsomest woman that
+ever was raised in the Valley."
+
+Conway took his pipe out of his mouth. He dropped his head and looked
+toward the distant blue hills. What Memory and Remorse were
+whispering to him the old man could only guess. Silently--nodding--he
+sat and looked and spoke not.
+
+"She ain't gwineter be a bit prettier than my little Lil, when she
+gits grown," said a voice behind them.
+
+It was Mammy Maria who, as usual, having dressed the little girl as
+daintily as she could, stood nearby to see that no harm befell her.
+
+"Wal, Aunt Maria," drawled the Bishop. "Whar did you come from? I
+declar' it looks like ole times to see you agin'."
+
+There is something peculiar in this, that those unlettered, having
+once associated closely with negroes, drop into their dialect when
+speaking to them. Perhaps it may be explained by some law of
+language--some rule of euphony, now unknown. The Bishop unconsciously
+did this; and, from dialect alone, one could not tell which was white
+and which was black.
+
+Aunt Maria had always been very religious, and the Bishop arose and
+shook her hand gravely.
+
+"Pow'ful glad to see you," said the old woman.
+
+"How's religion--Aunt Maria," he asked.
+
+"Mighty po'ly--mighty po'ly"--she sighed. "It looks lak the Cedars of
+Lebanon is dwarfed to the scrub pine. The old time religin' is
+passin' away, an' I'm all that's lef' of Zion."
+
+The Bishop smiled.
+
+"Yes, you see befo' you all that's lef' of Zion. I'se been longin' to
+see you an' have a talk with you--thinkin' maybe you cud he'p me out.
+You kno' me and you is Hard-shells."
+
+The Bishop nodded.
+
+"We 'blieves in repentince an' fallin' from grace, an' backslidin'
+an' all that," she went on. "Well, they've lopped them good ole
+things off one by one an' they don't 'bleeve in nothin' now but jes'
+jin'in'. They think jes' jin'in' fixes 'em--that it gives 'em a free
+pass into the pearly gates. So of all ole Zion Church up at the
+hill, sah, they've jes' jined an' jined around, fust one church an'
+then another, till of all the ole Zion Church that me an' you loved
+so much, they ain't none lef' but Parson Shadrack, the preacher,
+sister Tilly, an' me--We wus Zion."
+
+"Pow'ful bad, pow'ful bad," said the Bishop--"and you three made
+Zion."
+
+"We _wus_," said Aunt Maria, sadly--"but now there ain't but one
+lef'. _I'm Zion._ It's t'arrable, but it's true. As it wus in the
+days of Lot, so it is to-day in Sodom."
+
+"Why, how did that happen?" asked the Bishop.
+
+Aunt Maria's eyes kindled: "It's t'arrable, but it's true--last week
+Parson Shadrack deserts his own wife an' runs off with Sis Tilly. It
+looked lak he mouter tuck me, too, an' kept the fold together as
+Abraham did when he went into the Land of the Philistines. But thank
+God, if I am all that's lef', one thing is mighty consolin'--I can
+have a meetin' of Zion wherever I is. If I sets down in a cheer to
+meditate I sez to myself--'Be keerful, Maria, for the church is in
+session.' When I drink, it is communion--when I bathes, it is
+baptism, when I walks, I sez to myself: 'Keep a straight gait, Maria,
+you are carryin' the tabbernackle of all goodness.' Aunt Tilly got
+the preacher, but thank God, I got Zion."
+
+"But I mus' go. Come on, Lily," she said to the little girl,--"let
+ole Zion fix up yo' curls."
+
+She took her charge and curtsied out, and the Bishop knew she would
+die either for Zion or the little girl.
+
+The old man sat thinking--Helen had gone in and was practising a love
+song.
+
+"Ned," said the Bishop, "I tell you a man ain't altogether friendless
+when he's got in his home a creature as faithful as she is. She'd die
+for that child. That one ole faithful 'oman makes me feel like
+liftin' my hat to the whole nigger race. I tell you when I get to
+heaven an' fail to see ole Mammy settin' around the River of Life,
+I'll think somethin' is wrong."
+
+The Bishop was silent a while, and then he asked: "Ned, it can't be
+true that you are goin' to put them girls in the factory?"
+
+"It's all I can do," said Conway, surlily--"I'll be turned out of
+home soon--out in the public road. Everything I've got has been sold.
+I've no'where to go, an' but for Carpenter's offer from the Company
+of the cottage, I'd not have even a home for them. The only condition
+I could go on was that--"
+
+"That you sell your daughters into slavery," said the Bishop quietly.
+
+"You don't seem to think it hurts your's," said Conway bluntly.
+
+"If I had my way they'd not work there a day,"--the old man replied
+hastily. "But it's different with me, an' you know it. My people take
+to it naturally. I am a po' white, an underling by breedin' an'
+birth, an' if my people build, they must build up. But you--you are
+tearing down when you do that. Po' as I am, I'd rather starve than to
+see little children worked to death in that trap, but Tabitha sees it
+different, and she is the one bein' in the world I don't cross--the
+General"--he smiled--"she don't understand, she's built different."
+
+He was silent a while. Then he said: "I am old an' have nothin'."
+
+He stopped again. He did not say that what little he did have went to
+the poor and the sorrow-stricken of the neighborhood. He did not add
+that in his home, besides its poverty and hardness, he faced daily
+the problem of far greater things.
+
+"If I only had my health," said Conway, "but this cursed rheumatism!"
+
+"Some of us has been so used to benefits," said the old man, "that
+it's only when they've withdrawn that we miss 'em. We're always ready
+to blame God for what we lose, but fail to remember what He gives us.
+We kno' what diseases an' misfortunes we have had, we never know, by
+God's mercy, what we have escaped. Death is around us daily--in the
+very air we breathe--and yet we live.
+
+"I'll talk square with you, Ned--though you may hate me for it. Every
+misfortune you have, from rheumatism to loss of property, is due to
+whiskey. Let it alone. Be a man. There's greatness in you yet. You'd
+have no chance if you was a scrub. But no man can estimate the value
+of good blood in man or hoss--it's the unknown quantity that makes him
+ready to come again. For do the best we can, at last we're in the
+hands of God an' our pedigree."
+
+"Do you think I've got a show yet?" asked Conway, looking up.
+
+"Do I? Every man has a chance who trusts God an' prays. You can't
+down that man. Your people were men--brave an' honest men. They
+conquered themselves first, an' all this fair valley afterwards. They
+overcame greater obstacles than you ever had, an' in bringin' you
+into the world they gave you, by the very laws of heredity, the power
+to overcome, too. Why do you grasp at the shadow an' shy at the form?
+You keep these hound dogs here, because your father rode to hounds.
+But he rode for pleasure, in the lap of plenty, that he had made by
+hard licks. You ride, from habit, in poverty. He rode his hobbies--it
+was all right. Your hobbies ride you. He fought chickens for an
+hour's pastime, in the fullness of the red blood of life. You fight
+them for the blood of the thing--as the bred-out Spaniards fight
+bulls. He took his cocktails as a gentleman--you as a drunkard."
+
+The old man was excited, indignant, fearless.
+
+Conway looked at him in wonder akin to fear. Even as the idolaters of
+old looked at Jeremiah and Isaiah.
+
+"Why--why is it"--went on the old man earnestly, rising and shaking
+his finger ominously--"that two generations of cocktails will breed
+cock-fighters, and two generations of whiskey will breed a scrub? Do
+you know where you'll end? In bein' a scrub? No, no--you will be dead
+an' the worms will have et you--but"--he pointed to the house--"you
+are fixin' to make scrubs of them--they will breed back.
+
+"Go back to the plough--quit this whiskey and be the man your people
+was. If you do not," he said rising to go--"God will crush you--not
+kill you, but mangle you in the killin'."
+
+"He has done that already," said Conway bitterly. "He has turned the
+back of His hand on me."
+
+"Not yet"--said the Bishop--"but it will fall and fall there." He
+pointed to Helen, whose queenly head could be seen in the old parlor
+as she trummed out a sad love song.
+
+Conway blanched and his hand shook. He felt a nameless fear--never
+felt before. He looked around, but the old man was gone. Afterwards,
+as he remembered that afternoon, he wondered if, grown as the old man
+had in faith, God had not also endowed him with the gift of
+prophecy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+HELEN'S DESPAIR
+
+
+An hour afterward, the old nurse found Helen at the piano, her head
+bowed low over the old yellow keys. "It's gittin' t'wards dinner
+time, chile," she said tenderly, "an' time I was dressin' my queen
+gal for dinner an sendin' her out to get roses in her cheeks."
+
+"Oh, Mammy, don't--don't dress me that way any more. I am--I am to
+be--after this--just a mill girl, you know?"
+
+There was a sob and her head sank lower over the piano.
+
+"You may be for a while, but you'll always be a Conway"--and the old
+woman struck an attitude with her arms akimbo and stood looking at
+the portraits which hung on the parlor wall.
+
+"That--that--makes it worse, Mammy." She wiped away her tears and
+stood up, and her eyes took on a look Aunt Maria had not seen since
+the old Governor had died. She thought of ghosts and grew nervous
+before it.
+
+"If my father sends me to work in that place--if he does--" she cried
+with flaming eyes--"I shall feel that I am disgraced. I cannot hold
+my head up again. Then you need not be surprised at anything I do."
+
+"It ain't registered that you're gwine there yet," and Mammy Maria
+stroked her head. "But if you does--it won't make no difference whar
+you are nor what you have to do, you'll always be a Conway an' a
+lady."
+
+An hour afterwards, dressed as only Mammy Maria could dress her,
+Helen had walked out again to the rock under the wild grape vine.
+
+How sweet and peaceful it was, and yet how changed since but a short
+time ago she had sat there watching for Harry!
+
+"Harry"--she pulled out the crumpled, tear-stained note from her
+bosom and read it again. And the reading surprised her. She expected
+to weep, but instead when she had finished she sat straight up on the
+mossy rock and from her eyes gleamed again the light before which the
+political enemies of the old dead Governor had so often quailed.
+
+Nor did it change in intensity, when, at the sound of wheels and the
+clatter of hoofs, she instinctively dropped down on the moss behind
+the rock and saw through the grape leaves one of Richard Travis's
+horses, steaming hot, and stepping,--right up to its limit--a
+clipping gait down the road.
+
+She had dropped instinctively because she guessed it was Harry. And
+instinctively, too, she knew the girl with the loud boisterous laugh
+beside him was Nellie.
+
+The buggy was wheeled so rapidly past that she heard only broken
+notes of laughter and talk. Then she sat again upon her rock, with
+the deep flush in her eyes, and said:
+
+"I hate--him--I hate him--and oh--to think--"
+
+She tore his note into fragments, twisted and rolled them into a ball
+and shot it, as a marble, into the gulch below.
+
+Then, suddenly she remembered, and reaching over she looked into a
+scarred crevice in the rock. Twice that summer had Clay Westmore left
+her a quaint love note in this little rock-lined post-office. Quaint
+indeed, and they made her smile, for they had been queer mixtures of
+geology and love. But they were honest--and they had made her flush
+despite the fact that she did not love him.
+
+Still she would read them two or three times and sigh and say: "Poor
+Clay--" after every reading.
+
+"Surely there will be one this afternoon," she thought as she peeped
+over.
+
+But there was not, and it surprised her to know how much she was
+disappointed.
+
+"Even Clay has forgotten me," she said as she arose hastily to go.
+
+A big sob sprang up into her throat and the Conway light of defiance,
+that had blazed but a few moments before in her eyes, died in the
+depths of the cloud of tears which poured between it and the open.
+
+A cruel, dangerous mood came over her. It enveloped her soul in its
+sombre hues and the steel of it struck deep.
+
+She scarcely remembered her dead mother--only her eyes. But when
+these moods came upon Helen Conway--and her life had been one wherein
+they had fallen often--the memory of her mother's eyes came to her
+and stood out in the air before her, and they were sombre and sad,
+and full, too, of the bitterness of hopes unfulfilled.
+
+All her life she had fought these moods when they came. But now--now
+she yielded to the subtle charm of them--the wild pleasure of their
+very sinfulness.
+
+"And why not," she cried to herself when the consciousness of it came
+over her, and like a morphine fiend carrying the drug to his lips,
+she knew that she also was pressing there the solace of her misery.
+
+"Why should I not dissipate in the misery of it, since so much of it
+has fallen upon me at once?
+
+"Mother?--I never knew one--only the eyes of one, and they were the
+eyes of Sorrow. Father?"--she waved her hand toward the old
+home--"drunk-wrecked--he would sell me for a quart of whiskey.
+
+"Then I loved--loved an image which is--mud--mud"--she fairly spat it
+out. "One poor friend I had--I scorned him, and he has forgotten me,
+too. But I did know that I had social standing--that my name was an
+honored one until--now."
+
+"Now!"--she gulped it down. "Now I am a common mill girl."
+
+She had been walking rapidly down the road toward the house. So
+rapidly that she did not know how flushed and beautiful she had
+become. She was swinging her hat impatiently in her hand, her fine
+hair half falling and loose behind, shadowing her face as rosy sunset
+clouds the temple on Mt. Ida. A face of more classic beauty, a skin
+of more exquisite fairness, flushed with the bloom of youth, Richard
+Travis had never before seen.
+
+And so, long before she reached him, he reined in his trotters and
+sat silently watching her come. What a graceful step she had--what a
+neck and head and hair--half bent over with eyes on the ground,
+unconscious of the beauty and grace of their own loveliness.
+
+She almost ran into his buggy--she stopped with a little start of
+surprise, only to look into his clean-cut face, smiling half
+patronizingly, half humorously, and with a look of command too, and
+of patronage withal, of half-gallant heart-undoing.
+
+It was the look of the sharp-shinned hawk hovering for an instant, in
+sheer intellectual abandon and physical exuberance, above the
+unconscious oriole bent upon its morning bath.
+
+He was smiling down into her eyes and repeating half humorously, half
+gallantly, and altogether beautifully, she thought, Keats' lines:
+
+    "A thing of beauty is a joy forever;
+     Its loveliness increases; it will never
+     Pass into nothingness; but will keep
+     A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
+     Full of sweet dreams and health and
+     Quiet breathing...."
+
+Even Helen could not tell how it was done nor why she had
+consented....
+
+"No--no--you are hot and tired and you shall not walk.... I will give
+you just a little spin before Mammy Maria calls you to dinner....
+Yes, Lizzette and Sadie B. always do their best when a pretty girl is
+behind them."
+
+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.
+
+"It's bad," he sighed--"a man cu'd do so much mo' in life if he
+didn't hafter waste so much time arguin' with fools. Well, I'm here
+fur the day an' I'll learn somethin'. Now, I wanter know if one
+squirrel er two squirrels stays in the same hole in winter. Then
+there's the wild-duck. I wanter kno' when the mallards go south."
+
+In a few minutes he had hid himself behind a tree in a clump of
+brush. He was silent for ten minutes, so silent that only the falling
+leaves could be heard. Then very cautiously he imitated the call of
+the gray squirrel--once, twice, and still again. He had not long to
+wait. In a hole high up in a hickory a little gray head popped
+out--then a squirrel came out cautiously--first its head, then half
+of its body, and each time it moved looking and listening, with its
+cunning, bright eyes, taking in everything. Then it frisked out with
+a flirt of its tail, and sat on a limb nearby. It was followed by
+another and another. Archie B. watched them for a half hour, a
+satisfied smile playing around his lips. He was studying squirrel. He
+saw them run into the hole again and bring out each a nut and sit on
+a nearby limb and eat it.
+
+"That settles that," he said to himself. "I thought they kept their
+nuts in the same hole."
+
+There was the sound of voices behind him and the squirrels vanished.
+Archie B. stood up and saw an old man and some children gathering
+nuts.
+
+"It's the Bishop an' the little mill-mites. I'll bet they've brought
+their dinner."
+
+This was the one thing Archie B. needed to make his day in the woods
+complete.
+
+"Hello," he shouted, coming up to them.
+
+"Why, it's Archie B.," said Shiloh, delighted.
+
+"Why, it is," said her grandfather. "What you doin', Archie B.?"
+
+"Studyin' squirrels right now. What you all doin'?"
+
+"I've tuck the kids out of the mill an' I'm givin' 'em their fus' day
+in the woods. Shiloh, there, has been mighty sick and is weak yet, so
+we're goin' slow. Mighty glad to run upon you, Archie B. Can't you
+sho' Shiloh the squirrels? She's never seed one yet, have you, pet?"
+
+"No," said Shiloh thoughtfully. "Is they like them little jorees that
+say _Wake-up, pet! Wake-up, pet?_ Oh, do sho' me the squirrel!
+Mattox, ain't this jes' fine, bein' out of the mill?"
+
+Archie B.'s keen glance took in the well-filled lunch basket. At once
+he became brilliantly entertaining. In a few minutes he had Shiloh
+enraptured at the wood-lore he told her,--even Bull Run and Seven
+Days, Atlanta and Appomattox were listening in amazement, so
+interesting becomes nature's story when it finds a reader.
+
+And so all the morning Archie B. went with them, and never had they
+seen so much and enjoyed a day as they had this one.
+
+And the lunch--how good it tasted! It was a new life to them.
+Shiloh's color came in the healthful exercise, and even Bull Run
+began to look out keenly from his dull eyes.
+
+After lunch Shiloh went to sleep on a soft carpet of Bermuda grass
+with the old man's coat for a blanket, while the other children waded
+in the branch, and gathered nuts till time to go back home.
+
+It was nearly sun-down when they reached the gate of the little hut
+on the mountain.
+
+"We must do this often, Archie B.," said the Bishop, as the children
+went in, tired and hungry, leaving him and Archie B. at the gate.
+"I've never seed the little 'uns have sech a time, an' it mighty nigh
+made me young ag'in."
+
+All afternoon Archie B. had been thinking. All day he had felt the
+lumpy, solid thing in the innermost depths of his jeans pocket, which
+told him one hundred dollars in gold lay there, and that it would
+need an explanation when he reached home or he was in for the worst
+whipping he ever had. Knowing this, he had not been thinking all the
+afternoon for nothing. The old man bade him good-night, but still
+Archie B. lingered, hesitated, hung around the gate.
+
+"Won't you come in, Archie B.?"
+
+"No-o--thank you, Bishop, but I'd--I'd like to, really tho', jes' to
+git a little spirt'ul g'idance"--a phrase he had heard his father use
+so often.
+
+"Why, what's the matter, Archie B.?"
+
+Archie B. rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I'm--I'm--thinkin' of
+j'inin' the church, Bishop."
+
+"Bless yo' h'art--that's right. I know'd you'd quit yo' mischeev'us
+ways an' come in--an' I honor you fur it, Archie B.--praise the
+Lord!"
+
+Archie B. still stood pensive and sobered:
+
+"But a thing happened to-day, Bishop, an' it's worryin' me very much.
+It makes me think, perhaps--I--ain't--ain't worthy of--the bestowal
+of--the grace--you know, the kind I heard you speak of?"
+
+"Tell me, Archie B., lad--an' I'll try to enlighten you in my po'
+way."
+
+"Well, now; it's this--jes' suppose you wus goin' along now--say to
+school, an' seed a dorg, say his name was Bonaparte, wantin' to eat
+up a little monkey; an' a lot of fellers, say like Jud Carpenter an'
+Billy Buch, a-bettin' he cu'd do it in ten minutes an' a-sickin' him
+on the po' little monkey--this big savage dorg. An' suppose now you
+feel sorry for the monkey an' somethin'--you can't tell what--but
+somethin' mighty plain tells you the Lord wus on the monkey's
+side--so plain you cu'd read it--like it told David--an' the dorg
+wus as mean an' bostful as Goliath wus--"
+
+"Archie B., my son, I'd a been fur the monkey, I sho' would," said
+the Bishop impressively.
+
+Archie B. smiled: "Bishop, you've called my hand--I _wus_ for that
+monkey."
+
+The old man smiled approvingly: "Good--good--Archie B."
+
+"Now, what happened? I'm mighty inter'sted--oh, that is good. I'm
+bettin' the monkey downed him, the Lord bein' on his side."
+
+"But, s'pose furst," went on Archie B. argumentatively, "that you
+wanted to give some money fur a little church that you wanted to
+j'ine--up on the mountain side, a little po'-fo'k church, that
+depended on charity--"
+
+"I understan's, I understan's, Archie B., that wus the Lord's
+doin's,--ten to one on the monkey, Archie--ten to one!"
+
+"An' that you had ten dollars in gold around yo' neck in a little
+bag, given you by your ole Granny when she died--an' knowin' how the
+Lord wus for the monkey, an' it bein' a dead cinch, an' all that--an'
+these fellers blowin' an' offerin' to bet ten to one--an' seein' you
+c'ud pick it up in the road--all for the little church, mind you,
+Bishop--"
+
+"Archie B.," exclaimed the old man excitedly, "them bein' the facts
+an' the thing at stake, with that ole dorg an' Jud Carpenter at the
+bottom of it, I'd a put it up on the monkey, son--fur charity, you
+know, an' fur the principle of it,--I'd a put it up, Archie B., if
+I'd lost ever' cent!"
+
+"Exactly, Bishop, an' I did--at ten to one--think of the odds! Ten to
+one, mighty nigh as great as wus ag'in David."
+
+"An' you won, of course, Archie B., you won in a walk?" said the old
+man breathlessly. "God was fur you an' the monkey."
+
+Archie B. smiled triumphantly and pulled out his handful of gold. The
+old man sat down on a log, dazed.
+
+"Archie B., sho'ly, sho'ly, not all that? An' licked the dorg, an'
+that gang, an' cleaned 'em up?"
+
+Archie B. told him the story with all the quaint histrionic talent of
+his exuberant nature.
+
+The Bishop sat and laughed till the tears came.
+
+"An' Bonaparte went down the road with the monkey holt his tail--the
+champion dorg--an' you won all that?"
+
+"All fur charity, Bishop, except, you know, part fur keeps as a
+kinder nes' egg."
+
+"Of co-u-r-se--Archie B., of--course, no harm in the
+worl'--if--if--my son--_if you carry out your original ideas_, or
+promise, ruther; it won't work if you go back on yo' promise to God.
+'God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform,'" added the
+Bishop solemnly.
+
+Archie B. slipped fifty of his dollars into the old man's hands.
+
+"Do you know, Archie B., I prayed for this las' night? Now you tell
+me God don't answer prayers?"
+
+He was silent, touched. Seldom before had a prayer of his been
+answered so directly.
+
+"Fur charity, Archie B., fur charity. I'll take it, an' little you
+know what this may mean."
+
+Archie B. was silent. So far so good, but it was plain from his still
+thoughtful looks that he had only half won out yet. He had heard the
+old man speak, and there had been a huskiness about his voice.
+
+"Now there is paw, Bishop--you know he ain't jes like you--he don't
+see so far. He might not understan' it. Would you mind jes' droppin'
+him a line, you know? I'll take it to him--in case he looks at the
+thing differently, you know, fur whut you write will go a long way
+with him."
+
+The old man smiled: "Of course, Archie B.--he must understan' it. Of
+course, it 'ud never do to have him spile as good a thing as
+that--an' fur charity, all fur the Lord--"
+
+"An' why I didn't go to school, helpin' you all in the woods," put in
+Archie B.
+
+"Of course, Archie B., why of course, my son; I'll fix it right."
+
+And he scribbled a few lines on the fly leaf of his note book for
+Archie B. to take home:
+
+"God bless you, my son, good-night."
+
+Archie B. struck out across the fields jingling his remaining gold
+and whistling. At home it was as he expected. Patsy met him at the
+gate. One look into her expectant face showed him that she was
+delighted at the prospect of his punishment. It was her hope
+deferred, now long unfulfilled. He had always gotten out before, but
+now--
+
+"Walk in, Mister Gambler, Mr. Hookey--walk in--paw is waitin' fur
+you," she said, smirking.
+
+The Deacon stood in the door, silent, grim, determined. In his hand
+were well-seasoned hickories. By him stood his wife more silent, more
+grim, more determined.
+
+"Pull off yo' coat, Archie B.," said the Deacon, "I'm gwinter lick
+you fur gamblin'."
+
+"Pull off yo' coat, Archie B.," said his mother, "I'm goin' to lick
+you fur playin' hookey."
+
+"Pull it off, Archie B.," said his sister bossily, "I'm goin' to
+stan' by an' see."
+
+Archie B. pulled off his coat deliberately.
+
+"That's all right," he said, "Many a man has been licked befo' fur
+bein' on the Lord's side."
+
+"You mean to tell me, Archie B. Butts, you bet on a dorg fight sho'
+nuff," said his father, nervously handling his hickories.
+
+"An' played hookey?" chimed in his mother.
+
+"Tell it, Archie B., tell the truth an' shame the devil," mocked
+Patsy.
+
+"Yes, I done all that--fur charity," he said boldly, and with a
+victorious ring in his voice.
+
+"Did you put up that ten dollars yo' Granny lef' you?" screamed his
+mother.
+
+"Did you dare, Archie B.," said Patsy.
+
+His father paled at the thought of it: "An' lost it, Archie B., lost
+it, my son. Oh, I mus' teach you how sinful it is to gamble."
+
+Archie B. replied by running his hand deep down into his pocket and
+bringing up a handful of gold--five eagles!
+
+His father dropped the switches and stared. His mother sat down
+suddenly in a chair and Patsy reached out, took it and counted it
+deliberately:--
+
+"One--two--three--fo'--five--an' all gold--my gracious, Maw!"
+
+"That's jes' ha'f of it," said Archie B. indifferently. "I gave the
+old Bishop five of 'em--fur--charity. Here's his note."
+
+The Deacon read it and rubbed his chin thoughtfully: "That's a
+different thing," he said after a while. "Entirely different
+proposition, my son."
+
+"Yes, it 'pears to be," said his mother counting the gold again.
+"We'll jes' keep three of 'em, Archie B. They'll come in handy this
+winter."
+
+"Put on yo' coat, my son," said the Deacon gently.
+
+"Patsy, fetch him in the hot waffles an' syrup--the lad 'pears to be
+a leetle tired," said his mother.
+
+"How many whippings did you git, Archie B.?" whispered his brother as
+Archie B., after entertaining the family for an hour, all about the
+great fight, crawled into bed: "I got three," went on Ozzie B.
+"Triggers fust, then paw, then maw."
+
+"None," said Archie B., as he put his two pieces of gold under his
+pillow.
+
+"I can't see why that was," wailed Ozzie B. "I done nothin'
+an'--an'--got all--all--the--lickin'!"
+
+"You jes' reaped my whirlwind," sneered his brother--"All fools do!"
+
+But later he felt so sorry for poor Ozzie B. because he could not lie
+on his back at all, that he gave him one of his beautiful coins to go
+to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+BEN BUTLER'S LAST RACE
+
+
+It was the last afternoon of the fair, and the great race was to come
+off at three o'clock.
+
+There is nothing so typical as a fair in the Tennessee Valley. It is
+the one time in the year when everybody meets everybody else. Besides
+being the harvest time of crops, of friendships, of happy interchange
+of thought and feeling, it is also the harvest time of perfected
+horseflesh.
+
+The forenoon had been given to social intercourse, the display of
+livestock, the exhibits of deft women fingers, of housewife skill, of
+the tradesman, of the merchant, of cotton--cotton, in every form and
+shape.
+
+At noon, under the trees, lunch had been spread--a bountiful lunch,
+spreading as it did from the soft grass of one tree to that of
+another--as family after family spread their linen--an almost
+unbroken line of fried chicken, flanked with pickles and salad, and
+all the rich profusion of the country wife's pantry.
+
+And now, after lunch, the grand stand had been quickly filled, for
+the fame of the great race had spread up and down the valley, and the
+valley dearly loved a horse-race.
+
+Five hundred dollars was considered a large purse, but this race was
+three thousand!
+
+Three thousand! It would buy a farm. It would buy thirty mules, and
+twice that many steers. It would make a family independent for life.
+
+And to-day it was given to see which one, of three rich men, owned
+the best horse.
+
+No wonder that everybody for miles around was there.
+
+Sturdy farmers with fat daughters, jaded wives, and lusty sons who
+stepped awkwardly on everything on the promenade, and in trying to
+get off stepped on themselves. They went about, with broad, strong,
+stooping shoulders, and short coats that sagged in the middle,
+dropping under-jaws, and eyes that were kindly and shrewd.
+
+The town people were better dressed and fed than the country people,
+and but only half way in fashion between the city and country, yet
+knowing it not.
+
+The infield around the judges' stand, and in front of the
+grand-stand, was thronged with surreys and buggies, and filled with
+ladies and their beaux. A ripple of excitement had gone up when
+Richard Travis drove up in a tally-ho. It was filled with gay gowns
+and alive with merriment and laughter, and though Alice Westmore was
+supposed to be on the driver's box with the owner, she was not there.
+
+Tennesseans were there in force to back Flecker's gelding--Trumps,
+and they played freely and made much noise. Col. Troup's
+mare--Trombine--had her partisans who were also vociferous. But
+Travis's entry, Lizzette, was a favorite, and, when he appeared on
+the track to warm up, the valley shouted itself hoarse.
+
+Then Flecker shot out of the draw-gate and spun merrily around the
+track, and Col. Troup joined him with Trombine, and the audience
+watched the three trotters warm up and shouted or applauded each as
+it spun past the grand-stand.
+
+Then the starting-judge held up a silk bag in the center of the wire.
+It held three thousand dollars in gold, and it swung around and then
+settled, to a shining, shimmering silken sack, swaying the wire as it
+flashed in the sun.
+
+The starting-judge clanged his bell, but the drivers, being
+gentlemen, were heedless of rules and drove on around still warming
+up.
+
+The starting-judge was about to clang again--this time more
+positively--when there appeared at the draw-gate a new comer, the
+sight of whose horse and appointments set the grand-stand into a wild
+roar of mingled laughter and applause.
+
+As he drove demurely on the track, he lifted quaintly and stiffly his
+old hat and smiled.
+
+He was followed by the village blacksmith, whose very looks told that
+they meant business and were out for blood. The audience did not like
+the looks of this blacksmith--he was too stern for the fun they were
+having. But they recognized the shambling creature who followed him
+as Bud Billings, and they shouted with laughter when they saw he had
+a sponge and bucket!
+
+"Bud Billings a swipe!"
+
+Cottontown wanted to laugh, but it was too tired. It merely grinned
+and nudged one another. For Travis had given a half holiday and all
+Cottontown was there.
+
+The old man's outfit brought out the greatest laughter. The cart was
+a big cheap thing, new and brightly repainted, and it rattled
+frightfully. The harness was a combination--the saddle was made of
+soft sheep skin, the wool next to the horse, as were also the
+head-stall of the bridle, the breast-strap and the breeching. The
+rest of it was undressed leather, and the old man had evidently made
+it himself.
+
+But Ben Butler--never had he looked so fine. Blind, cat-hammed and
+pacing along,--but his sides were slick and hard, his quarters
+rubber.
+
+The old man had not been training him on the sandy stretches of Sand
+Mountain for nothing.
+
+A man with half an eye could have seen it, but the funny people in
+the grand-stand saw only the harness, and the blind sunken eyes of
+the old horse. So they shouted and cat-called and jeered. The outfit
+ambled up to the starting judge, and the old driver handed him fifty
+dollars.
+
+The starter laughed as he recovered himself, and winking at the
+others, asked:
+
+"What's this for, old man?"
+
+"Oh, jes' thought I'd j'ine in--" smiling.
+
+"Why, you can't do it. What's your authority?"
+
+The Bishop ran his hand in his pocket, while Bud held Ben Butler's
+head and kept saying with comical seriousness: "Whoa--whoa, sah!"
+
+Pending it all, and seeing that more talk was coming, Ben Butler
+promptly went to sleep. Finally the old man brought out a faded
+poster. It was Travis's challenge and conditions.
+
+"Jes' read it," said the old driver, "an' see if I ain't under the
+conditions."
+
+The starting judge read: "_Open to the Tennessee Valley--trot or
+pace. Parties entering, other than the match makers, to pay fifty
+dollars at the wire._"
+
+"Phew!" said the starting judge, as he scratched his head. Then he
+stroked his chin and re-read the conditions, looking humorously down
+over his glasses at the queer combination before him.
+
+The audience took it in and began to shout: "Let him in! Let him in!
+It's fair!"
+
+But others felt outraged and shouted back: "No--put him out! Put him
+out!"
+
+The starting judge clanged his bell again, and the other three
+starters came up.
+
+Flecker, good-natured and fat, his horse in a warming-up foam,
+laughed till he swayed in the sulky. Col. Troup, dignified and
+reserved, said nothing. But Travis swore.
+
+"It's preposterous!--it will make the race a farce. We're out for
+blood and that purse. This is no comedy," he said.
+
+The old man only smiled and said: "I'm sorry to spile the sport of
+gentlemen, but bein' gentlemen, I know they will stan' by their own
+rules."
+
+"It's here in black and white, Travis," said the starter, "You made
+it yourself."
+
+"Oh, hell," said Travis hotly, "that was mere form and to satisfy the
+Valley. I thought the entrance fee would bar any outsider."
+
+"But it didn't," said the Judge, "and you know the rules."
+
+"Let him start, let the Hill-Billy start!" shouted the crowd, and
+then there was a tumult of hisses, groans and cat-calls.
+
+Then it was passed from mouth to mouth that it was the old Cottontown
+preacher, and the excitement grew intense.
+
+It was the most comical, most splendid joke ever played in the
+Valley. Travis was not popular, neither was the dignified Col. Troup.
+Up to this time the crowd had not cared who won the purse; nor had
+they cared which of the pretty trotters received the crown. It meant
+only a little more swagger and show and money to throw away.
+
+But here was something human, pathetic. Here was a touch of the stuff
+that made the grand-stand kin to the old man. The disreputable cart,
+the lifeless, blind old pacer, the home-made harness, the seediness
+of it all--the pathos.
+
+Here was the quaint old man, who, all his life, had given for others,
+here was the ex-overseer and the ex-trainer of the Travis stables,
+trying to win the purse from gentlemen.
+
+"Ten to one," said a prosperous looking man, as he looked quietly
+on--"the Bishop wants it for charity or another church. Like as not
+he knows of some poverty-stricken family he's going to feed."
+
+"If that's so," shouted two young fellows who were listening, and who
+were partisans of Flecker of Tennessee, "if that's the way of it,
+we'll go over and take a hand in seeing that he has fair play."
+
+They arose hastily, each shifting a pistol in his pocket, and butted
+through the crowd which was thronged around the Judge's stand, where
+the old man sat quietly smiling from his cart, and Travis and Troup
+were talking earnestly.
+
+"Damned if I let Trombine start against such a combination as that,
+sah. I'll drive off the track now, sah--damned if I don't, sah!"
+
+But the two young men had spoken to big fat Flecker of Tennessee, and
+he arose in his sulky-seat and said: "Now, gentlemen, clear the track
+and let us race. We will let the old man start. Say, old man," he
+laughed, "you won't feel bad if we shut you out the fust heat, eh?"
+
+"No," smiled the Bishop--"an' I 'spec you will. Why, the old hoss
+ain't raced in ten years."
+
+"Oh, say, I thought you were going to say twenty," laughed Flecker.
+
+Some rowdy had crowded around the old cart and attempted to unscrew
+the axle tap. But some one reached over the head of the crowd and
+gripped him where his shoulder and arm met, and pulled him forward
+and twirled him around like a top.
+
+It was enough. It was ten minutes before he could lift up his arm at
+all; it felt dead.
+
+"Don't hurt nobody, Jack," whispered the old man, "be keerful."
+
+The crowd were for the old man. They still shouted--"Fair play, fair
+play--let him start," and they came thronging and crowding on the
+track.
+
+"Clear the track," cried the starting-judge to a deputy sheriff in
+charge--"I'll let him start."
+
+This set the crowd in a roar.
+
+"Square man," they yelled--"Square man!"
+
+Travis bit his lips and swore.
+
+"Why, damn him," he said, "we'll lose him the first heat. I'll shut
+him out myself."
+
+"We will, sah, we will!" said Col. Troup. "But if that rattling
+contraption skeers my mare, I'll appeal to the National Association,
+sah. I'll appeal--sah," and he drove off up the stretch, hotter than
+his mare.
+
+And now the track was cleared--the grand stand hummed and buzzed with
+excitement.
+
+It was indeed the greatest joke ever played in the Tennessee Valley.
+Not that there was going to be any change in the race, not that the
+old preacher had any chance, driving as he did this bundle of ribs
+and ugliness, and hitched to such a cart--but that he dared try it at
+all, and against the swells of horsedom. There would be one heat of
+desperate fun and then--
+
+A good-natured, spasmodic gulp of laughter ran clear through the
+grand-stand, and along with it, from excited groups, from the
+promenade, from the track and infield and stables, even, came such
+expressions as these:
+
+"Worth ten dollars to see it!"
+
+"Wouldn't take a hoss for the sight!"
+
+"If he _did_ happen to beat that trio of sports!"
+
+"Boss, it's gwinter to be a hoss race from wire to wire!"
+
+"Oh, pshaw! one heat of fun--they'll shut him out!"
+
+In heart, the sympathy of the crowd was all with the old preacher.
+
+The old man had a habit when keyed to high pitch, emotionally, of
+talking to himself. He seemed to regard himself as a third person,
+and this is the way he told it, heat by heat:
+
+"Fus' heat, Ben Butler--Now if we can manage to save our distance
+an' leave the flag a few yards, we'll be doin' mighty well. Long
+time since you stretched them ole muscles of yo's in a race--long
+time--an' they're tied up and sore. Ever' heat'll be a wuck out
+to you till you git hot. If I kin only stay in till you git
+hot--(_Clang--clang--clang_). That's the starter's bell. Yes--we'll
+score now--the fus' heat'll be our wuss. They've got it in fur us--they'll
+set the pace an' try to shet us out an', likely es not, do it. God
+he'p us--Shiloh--Cap'n Tom--it's only for them, Ben Butler--fur them.
+(_Clang!--Clang!_) Slow there--heh--heh--Steady--ah-h!"
+
+_Clang--clang-clang!_ vigorously. The starter was calling them back.
+
+They had scored down for the first time, but the hot-heads had been
+too fast for the old ambler. In their desire to shut him out, they
+rushed away like a whirlwind. The old pacer followed, rocking and
+rolling in his lazy way. He wiggled, shuffled, skipped, and when the
+strain told on the sore old muscles, he winced, and was left at the
+wire!
+
+The crowd jeered and roared with laughter.
+
+"He'll never get off!"
+
+"He's screwed there--fetch a screw driver!"
+
+"Pad his head, he'll fall on it nex'!"
+
+"Go back, gentlemen, go back," shouted the starter, "and try again.
+The old pacer was on a break"--_Clang--clang--clang!_ and he jerked
+his bell vigorously.
+
+Travis was furious as he drove slowly back. "I had to pull my mare
+double to stop her," he called to the starter. "We were all aligned
+but the old pacer--why didn't you let us go?"
+
+"Because I am starting these horses by the rules, Mr. Travis. I know
+my business," said the starter hotly.
+
+Col. Troup was blue in the face with rage.
+
+Flecker laughed.
+
+They all turned again and came down, the numbers on the drivers' arms
+showing 1, 2, 3, 4--Travis, Troup, Flecker, and the old Bishop,
+respectively.
+
+"Ben Butler, ole hoss, this ain't no joke--you mus' go this time. We
+ain't goin' to meetin'--Stretch them ole legs as you did!--oh, that's
+better--ef we could only score a few more times--look!--ah!"
+
+_Clang--clang--clang!_
+
+This time it was Col. Troup's mare. She broke just at the wire.
+
+"She saved us that time, Ben Butler. We wus two rods behind--"
+
+They came down the third time. "Now, thank God, he's jes' beginnin'
+to unlimber," chuckled the old man as the old pacer, catching on to
+the game and warming to his work, was only a length behind at the
+wire, as they scored the fourth time, when Flecker's mare flew up in
+the air and again the bell clanged.
+
+The crowd grew impatient. The starter warned them that time was up
+and that he'd start them the next time they came down if he had the
+ghost of a chance.
+
+Again they aligned and came thundering down. The old man was pale and
+silent, and Ben Butler felt the lines telegraphing nervous messages
+to his bitted mouth; but all he heard was: "_Shiloh--Cap'n
+Tom--Steady, old hoss!_"
+
+"Go!"
+
+It sounded like a gun-shot in the old man's ears. There was a whirr
+of wheels, a patter of feet grappling with dirt and throwing it all
+over him--another whirr and flutter and buzz as of a covey flushed,
+and the field was off, leaving him trailing.
+
+"Whew, Ben Butler, we're in fur it now--the Lord 'a-mussy on our
+souls! Take the pole--s'artenly,--it's all yowin, since you're
+behin'! Steady ole hoss, there's one consolation,--they're breakin'
+the wind for you, an' thank God!--yes Ben Butler, look! they're after
+one other,--they're racin' like Tam O'Shanter an' cookin' each other
+to a gnat's heel--Oh, Lord what fools! It'll tell on 'em--if we can
+only save our distance--this heat--jes' save our distance--Wh-o-p,
+sah! Oh, my Lord, told you so--Troup's mare's up an' dancin' like a
+swamp rabbit by moonlight. Who-op, sah, steady ole hoss--there now
+we've passed him--Trombine and Lizette ahead--steady--let 'em go, big
+devil, little devil, an' pumpin' each other--Go now, go old hoss,
+now's the time to save our distance--go old hoss, step lively
+now--'tain't no meetin', no Sunday School--it's life, bread and a
+chance for Cap'n Tom! Oh, but you ain't forgot entirely,
+no-no,--ain't forgot that you come in answer to prayer, ain't forgot
+that half in one-one, ain't forgot yo' pious raisin', yo' pedigree.
+Ain't forgot you're racin' for humanity an' a chance, ain't
+forgot--there! the flag--my God and safe!"
+
+He had passed the flag. Lizzette and Trombine were already at the
+wire, but poor Troup--his mare had never been able to settle after
+her wild break, and she caught the flag square in the face.
+
+The crowd met the old pacer with a yell of delight. He had not been
+shut out--marvel of marvels!
+
+It was getting interesting indeed.
+
+Bud and Jack met him with water and a blanket. How proud they were!
+But the heavy old cart had told on Ben Butler. He panted like a
+hound, he staggered and was distressed.
+
+"He'll get over that," said the old driver cheerily to Bud's tearful
+gaze--"he ain't used to it yet--ten years, think of it," and Jack led
+Ben Butler blanketed away.
+
+The old man looked at the summary the judges had hung up. It was:
+
+_1st Heat:_ _Trumps, 1st_; _Lizzette, 2nd_; _Ben Butler, 3rd_;
+_Trombine distanced._ _Time_, 2:17-1/2.
+
+Then he heard a man swearing elegantly. It was Col. Troup. He was
+sitting in his sulky in front of the grand stand and talking to
+Travis and the genial Flecker:
+
+"A most unprofessional thing, gentlemen,--damned unprofessional,
+sah, to shut me out. Yes, sah, to shut out a gentleman, sah, an' the
+first heat, sah, with his horse on a break."
+
+"What!" said Flecker excitedly--"you, Col'nel? Shut out--why, I
+thought it was the old pacer."
+
+"I swear I did, too, Colonel," said Travis apologetically. "I heard
+something rattling and galloping along--I thought it was the old
+pacer and I drove like the devil to shut him out!"
+
+"It was me, sah, me! damned unprofessional, sah; my mare throwed a
+boot!"
+
+He walked around and swore for ten minutes. Then he quieted down and
+began to think. He was shut out--his money was gone. But--"By gad,
+sah," he said cracking his whip--"By gad I'll do it!"
+
+Ten minutes later as Ben Butler, cooled and calm, was being led out
+for the second heat, Col. Troup puffed boisterously up to the Bishop:
+"Old man, by gad, sah, I want you to use my sulky and harness. It's a
+hundred pounds lighter than that old ox-cart you've got. I'm goin' to
+he'p you, sah, beat that pair of short dogs that shets out a
+gentleman with his horse on a break, sah!"
+
+And that was how the old man drew first blood and came out in a new
+sulky and harness.
+
+How proud Ben Butler seemed to feel! How much lighter and how
+smoothly it ran!
+
+They got the word at the first score, Trumps and Lizzette going at it
+hammer and tongs--Ben Butler, as usual, trailing.
+
+The old man sat pale and ashy, but driving like the born reinsman
+that he was.
+
+"Steady, old hoss, steady agin'--jes' save our distance, that's
+all--they've done forgot us--done forgot us--don't know we're here.
+They'll burn up each other an' then, oh, Ben Butler, God he'p us!
+Cap'n Tom, Cap'n Tom an' Shiloh! Steady, whoa there!--Lord, how
+you're lar'nin'! How the old clip is comin' agin! Ho--hi--there ole
+hoss--here we are--what a bresh of speed he's got--hi--ho!"
+
+And the grand-stand was cheering again, and as the old man rode up
+the judges hung out:
+
+_2nd Heat:_ _Trumps, 1st_; _Lizzette, 2nd_; _Ben Butler, 3rd._
+_Time_, 2:15-1/2.
+
+The old man looked at it in wonder: "Two fifteen an' not shet out,
+Ben Butler? Only five lengths behind? My God, can we make it--can we
+make it?"
+
+His heart beat wildly. For the first time he began to hope.
+
+Trumps now had two heats. As the race was best three out of five, one
+more heat meant that Flecker of Tennessee would win the race and the
+purse. But when the old man glanced at Trumps, his experienced eye
+told him the gallant gelding was all out--he was distressed
+greatly--in a paroxyism of thumps. He glanced at Lizzette. She was
+breathing freely and was fresh. His heart fell.
+
+"Trumps is done fur, Ben Butler, but Lizzette--what will Travis
+do?--Ah, ole hoss, we're up ag'in it!"
+
+It was too true, as the next heat proved. Away Trumps and Lizzette
+went, forgetful of all else, while the old man trailed behind,
+talking to, soothing, coaxing the old horse and driving him as only a
+master could.
+
+"They're at it ag'in--ole hoss, what fools! Whoa--steady there!
+Trumps is done fur, an' you'll see--No sand left in his crops,
+cooked--watch an' see, oh, my, Ben Butler--there--he's up now--up an'
+done fur--Go now--move some--hi--"
+
+Trumps and Lizzette had raced it out to the head of the stretch. But
+Trumps was not equal to the clip which Travis had made cyclonic,
+knowing the horse was sadly distressed. Trumps stood it as long as
+flesh and blood could, and then jumped into the air, in a
+heart-broken, tired break. It was then that the old man began to
+drive, and moving like well-balanced machinery, the old pacer caught
+again the spirit of his youth, as the old time speed came back, and
+leaving Trumps behind he even butted his bull-dog nose into the seat
+of Lizzette's sulky, and clung determinedly there, right up to the
+wire, beaten only by a length.
+
+Lizzette had won the heat. The judge hung out:
+
+_3rd Heat:_ _Lizzette, 1st_; _Ben Butler, 2nd_; _Trumps distanced._
+_Time_, 2:20.
+
+Lizzette had won, but the crowd had begun to see.
+
+"The old pacer--the old pacer!"--they yelled.
+
+Travis bit his lip--"what did it all mean? He had won the heat.
+Trumps was shut out, and there they were yelling for the old pacer!"
+
+The Bishop was pale to the roots of his hair when he got out of the
+sulky.
+
+"Great hoss! great! great!" yelled Bud as he trotted along bringing
+the blanket.
+
+The old man bowed his head in the sulky-seat, a moment, amid the
+crash of the band and the noise of the crowd:
+
+"Dear God--my Father--I thank Thee. Not for me--not for Ben
+Butler--but for life--life--for Shiloh--and Cap'n Tom. Help us--old
+and blind--help us! O God--"
+
+Col. Troup grasped his hand. The Tennesseans, followers of Flecker,
+flocked around him. Flecker, too, was there--chagrined, maddened--he
+too had joined his forces with the old Bishop.
+
+"Great Scott, old man, how you do drive! We've hedged on you--me and
+the Colonel--we've put up a thousand each that you'll win. We've
+cooked ourselves good and hard. Now drive from hell to breakfast next
+heat, and Travis is yo' meat! Fools that we were! We've cut each
+other to pieces like a pair of cats tied by the tails. Travis is at
+your mercy."
+
+"Yes, sah, Flecker is right. Travis is yo' meat, sah," said the
+Colonel, solemnly.
+
+The old man walked around with his lips moving silently, and a great
+pulsing, bursting, gripping pain in his heart--a pain which was half
+a hope and half despair.
+
+The crowd was on tip-toe. Never before had such a race been paced in
+the Tennessee Valley. Could he take the next heat from Lizzette? If
+he could, he had her at his mercy.
+
+Grimly they scored down. Travis sullen that he had to fight the old
+pacer, but confident of shutting him out this time. Confident and
+maddened. The old man, as was his wont in great emergencies, had put
+a bullet in his mouth to clinch his teeth on. He had learned it from
+Col. Jeremiah Travis, who said Jackson did it when he killed
+Dickinson, and at Tallapoosa, and at New Orleans.
+
+"GO!"
+
+And he heard Travis whirl away with a bitter curse that floated back.
+Then the old man shot out in the long, stealing, time-eating stride
+the old pacer had, and coming up just behind Lizzette's sulky he hung
+there in a death struggle.
+
+One quarter, half, three-quarters, and still they swung
+around--locked--Travis bitter with hot oaths and the old man pale
+with prayer. He could see Travis's eyes flashing lightning hatred
+across the narrow space between them--hatred, curses, but the old man
+prayed on.
+
+"The flag--now--ole hoss--for Jesus' sake!--"
+
+He reached out in the old way, lifted his horse by sheer great force
+and fairly flung him ahead!--
+
+"Flu-r-r-r!" it was Lizzette's breath as he went by her. He shot his
+eyes quickly sideways as she flailed the air with her forefeet within
+a foot of his head. Her eyes glowed, sunken,--beat--in their sockets;
+with mouth wide open, collapsed, frantic, in heart-broken dismay, she
+wabbled, staggered and quit!
+
+"Oh, God bless you, Ben Butler!--"
+
+But that instant in the air with her mouth wide open within a foot of
+the old man's head her lower teeth exposed, the old driver saw she
+was only four years old. Why had he noticed it? What mental telepathy
+in great crises cause us to see the trifles on which often the
+destiny of our life hangs?
+
+Ben Butler, stubborn, flying, was shaking his game old head in a
+bull-dog way as he went under the wire. It maddened him to be pulled
+up.
+
+"So, softly, softly old fellow! We've got 'em licked, you've got
+religin' in yo' heels, too. Ain't been goin' to church for ten years
+for nothin'!"
+
+The old man wanted to shout, and yet he was actually shedding tears,
+talking hysterically and trembling all over. He heard in a dazed way
+the yells and thunder from the grand-stand. But he was faint and
+dizzy, and worst of all, as he laughed to himself and said: "Kinder
+sissy an' soft in spots."
+
+Jack and Bud had Ben Butler and were gone. No wonder the grand-stand
+pulsed with human emotion. Never before had anything been done like
+this. The old, blind pacer,--the quaint old preacher--the thing they
+were going to shut out,--the pathos, the splendor of it all,--shook
+them as humanity will ever be shaken when the rejected stone comes up
+in the beauty of purest marble. Here it was:
+
+_4th Heat:_ _Ben Butler, 1st_; _Lizzette, 2nd._ _Time_, 2:19-1/2.
+
+What a record it was for the old pacer! Starting barely able to save
+his distance, he had grown in speed and strength and now had the mare
+at his mercy--the two more heats he had yet to win would be a walk
+around for him.
+
+Oh, it was glorious--glorious!
+
+"Oh, by gad, sah," shouted Col. Troup, pompously. "I guess I've
+hedged all right. Travis will pay my thousand. He'll know how to shet
+out gentlemen the nex' time. Oh, by gad, sah!"
+
+Flecker and the Tennesseans took drinks and shouted themselves
+hoarse.
+
+Then the old preacher did something, but why he never could explain.
+It seemed intuition when he thought of it afterwards. Calling Col.
+Troup to him he said: "I'm kinder silly an' groggy, Col'nel, but I
+wish you'd go an' look in her mouth an' see how old Lizzette is."
+
+The Colonel looked at him, puzzled.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh, I dunno, Col'nel--but when a thing comes on me that away, maybe
+it's because I'm so nervous an' upsot, but somehow I seem to have a
+second sight when I git in this fix. I wanted you to tell me."
+
+"What's it got to do with the race, sah! There is no bar to age. Have
+you any susp--"
+
+"Oh, no--no--Col'nel, it's jes' a warnin', an intuition. I've had 'em
+often, it's always from God. I b'leeve it's Him tellin' me to watch,
+watch an' pray. I had it when Ben Butler come, thar, come in answer
+to prayer--"
+
+Colonel Troup smiled and walked off. In a short while he sauntered
+carelessly back:
+
+"Fo' sah, she was fo' years old this last spring."
+
+"Thank ye, Col'nel!"
+
+The Colonel smiled and whispered: "Oh, how cooked she is! Dead on her
+feet, dead. Don't drive yo' ole pacer hard--jes' walk around him,
+sah. Do as you please, you've earned the privilege. It's yo' walk
+over an' yo' money."
+
+The fifth heat was almost a repetition of the fourth, the old pacer
+beating the tired mare cruelly, pacing her to a standstill. It was
+all over with Lizzette, anyone could see that. The judges hung out:
+
+_5th Heat:_ _Ben Butler, 1st_; _Lizzette, 2nd._ _Time_, 2:24.
+
+Travis's face was set, set in pain and disappointment when he went to
+the stable. He looked away off, he saw no one. He smoked. He walked
+over to the stall where they were cooling Lizzette out.
+
+"Take the full twenty minutes to cool her, Jim."
+
+In the next stall stood Sadie B. She had been driven around by Jud
+Carpenter, between heats, to exercise her, he had said. She was
+warmed up, and ready for speed.
+
+Travis stood watching Lizzette cool out. Jud came up and stood
+looking searchingly at him. There was but a glance and a nod, and
+Travis walked over to the grand-stand, light-hearted and even jolly,
+where he stood in a group of society folks.
+
+He was met by a protest of feminine raillery: "Oh, our gloves, our
+candy! Oh, Mr. Travis, to get beat that way!"
+
+He laughed: "I'll pay all you ladies lose. I was just playing with
+the old pacer. Bet more gloves and candy on the next heat!"
+
+"Oh--oh," they laughed. "No--no-o! We've seen enough!"
+
+Travis smiled and walked off. He turned at the gate and threw them
+back a bantering kiss.
+
+"You'll see--" was all he said.
+
+The old man spent the twenty minutes helping to rub off Ben Butler.
+
+"It does me good--kinder unkeys me," he said to Bud and Jack. He put
+his ear to the old horses' flank--it pulsed strong and true.
+
+Then he laughed to himself. It vexed him, for it was half hysterical
+and he kept saying over to himself:
+
+    "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty--
+     All Thy works shall praise Thy name, in earth and sky and sea;
+     Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty--"
+
+Some one touched his arm. It was Jack: "Bishop, Bishop, time's up!
+We're ready. Do you hear the bell clanging?"
+
+The Bishop nodded, dazed:
+
+"Here, you're kinder feeble, weak an', an' sorter silly. Why, Bishop,
+you're recitin' poetry--" said Jack apologetically. "A man's gone
+when he does that--here!"
+
+He had gone to the old man's saddle bags, and brought out his ancient
+flask.
+
+"Jes' a swaller or two, Bishop," he said coaxingly, as one talking to
+a child--"Quick, now, you're not yo'self exactly--you've dropped into
+poetry."
+
+"I guess I am a little teched, Jack, but I don't need that when I can
+get poetry, sech poetry as is now in me. Jack, do you want to hear
+the gran'est verse ever writ in poetry?"
+
+"No--no, Bishop, don't! Jack Bracken's yo' friend, he'll freeze to
+you. You'll be all right soon. It's jes' a little spell. Brace up an'
+drop that stuff."
+
+The old man smiled sadly as if he pitied Jack. Then he repeated
+slowly:
+
+    "Holy, holy, holy, all the saints adore Thee
+     Castin' down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
+     Cherubim an' Seraphim, fallin' down before Thee
+     Which wert an' art, an' ever more shall be."
+
+Feebly he leaned on Jack, the tears ran down his cheek: "'Tain't
+weakness, Jack, 'tain't that--it's joy, it's love of God, Whose done
+so much for me. It's the glory, glory of them lines--Oh, God--what a
+line of poetry!"
+
+    "Castin' down their golden crowns around the glassy sea!"
+
+Ben Butler stood ready, the bell clanged again. Jack helped him into
+the sulky; never had he seen the old man so feeble. Travis was
+already at the post.
+
+They got the word immediately, but to the old man's dismay, Travis's
+mare shot away like a scared doe, trotting as frictionless as a
+glazed emery wheel.
+
+The old man shook up Ben Butler and wondered why he seemed to stand
+so still. The old horse did his best, he paced as he never had
+before, but the flying thing like a red demon flitted always just
+before him, a thing with tendons of steel and feet of fire.
+
+"Oh, God, Ben Butler, what is it--what? Have you quit on me, ole
+hoss?--you, Ben Butler, you that come in answer to prayer? My God,
+Cap'n Tom, Shiloh!"
+
+And still before him flew the red thing with wings.
+
+At the half, at the three-quarters: "Now ole hoss!" And the old horse
+responded gamely, grandly. He thundered like a cyclone bursting
+through a river-bed. Foot by foot, inch by inch, he came up to
+Travis's mare. Nose to nose they flew along. There was a savage
+yell--a loud cracking of Travis' whip in the blind horse's ears.
+Never had the sightless old horse had such a fright! He could not
+see--he could only hear the terrible, savage yell. Frightened, he
+forgot, he dodged, he wavered--
+
+"Steady, Ben Butler, don't--oh--"
+
+It was a small trick of Travis', for though the old pacer came with a
+rush that swept everything before it, the drive had been made too
+late. Travis had the heat won already.
+
+Still there was no rule against it. He could yell and crack his whip
+and make all the noise he wished, and if the other horse was
+frightened, it was the fault of his nerves. Everybody who knew
+anything of racing knew that.
+
+A perfect tornado of hisses met Travis at the grand-stand.
+
+But he had won the heat! What did he care? He could scarcely stop his
+mare. She seemed like a bird and as fresh. He pulled her double to
+make her turn and come back after winning, and as she came she still
+fought the bit.
+
+As he turned, he almost ran into the old pacer jogging,
+broken-hearted behind. The mare's mouth was wide open, and the
+Bishop's trained eye fell on the long tusk-like lower teeth, flashing
+in the sun.
+
+Startled, he quivered from head to foot. He would not believe his own
+eyes. He looked closely again. There was no doubt of it--she was
+eight years old!
+
+In an instant he knew--his heart sank, "We're robbed, Cap'n
+Tom--Shiloh--my God!"
+
+Travis drove smilingly back, amid hisses and cheers and the
+fluttering of ladies' handkerchiefs in the boxes.
+
+"How about the gloves and candy now?" he called to them with his cap
+in his hand.
+
+Above the judges had hung out:
+
+_6th Heat:_ _Lizzette, 1st_; _Ben Butler, 2nd._ _Time_, 2:14.
+
+When Flecker of Tennessee saw the time hung out, he jumped from his
+seat exclaiming: "Six heats and the last heat the fastest? Who ever
+heard of a tired mare cutting ten seconds off that way? By the
+eternal, but something's wrong there."
+
+"Six heats an' the last one the fastest--By gad, sah," said Col.
+Troup. "It is strange. That mare Lizzette is a wonder, an' by gad,
+sah, didn't the old pacer come? By gad, but if he'd begun that drive
+jus' fifty yards sooner--our money"--
+
+Flecker groaned: "We're gone, Colonel--one thousand we put up and the
+one we hedged with."
+
+"By gad, sah, but, Flecker, don't you think Lizzette went smoother
+that last heat? She had a different stride, a different gait."
+
+Flecker had not noticed it. "But it was a small thing," he said--"to
+frighten the old horse. No rule against it, but a gentleman--"
+
+The Colonel smiled: "Damn such gentlemen, sah. They're a new breed to
+me."
+
+The old man went slowly back to the stable. He said nothing. He
+walked dazed, pale, trembling, heart-broken. But never before had he
+thought so keenly.
+
+Should he expose Travis?--Ruin him, ruin him--here? Then there passed
+quickly thoughts of Cap'n Tom--of Miss Alice. What a chance to
+straighten every thing out, right every wrong--to act for Justice,
+Justice long betrayed--for God. For God? And had not, perhaps, God
+given him this opportunity for this very purpose? Was not God,--God,
+the ever merciful but ever just, behind it all? Was it not He who
+caused him to look at the open mouth of the first mare? Was it not He
+giving him a chance to right a wrong so long, so long delayed? If he
+failed to speak out would he not be doing every man in the race a
+wrong, and Cap'n Tom and Shiloh, and even Miss Alice, so soon to
+marry this man--how it went through him!--even God--even God a wrong!
+
+He trembled; he could not walk. He sat down; Jack and Bud had the
+horse, the outlaw's eyes flashing fire as he led him away. But Bud,
+poor Bud, he was following, broken-hearted, blubbering and still
+saying between his sobs: "Great--hoss--he skeered him!"
+
+The grand-stand sat stupefied, charged to the explosive point with
+suppressed excitement. Six terrible heats and no horse had won three.
+But now Lizzette and Ben Butler had two each--who would win the next,
+the decisive heat. God help the old preacher, for he had no chance.
+Not after the speed that mare showed.
+
+Colonel Troup came up: "By gad, sah, Bishop--don't give up--you've
+got one mo' chance. Be as game as the ole hoss."
+
+"We are game, sir--but--but, will you do as I tell you an' swear to
+me on yo' honor as a gentleman never to speak till I say the word?
+Will you swear to keep sacred what I show you, until I let you tell?"
+
+The Colonel turned red: "What do you mean, sah?"
+
+"Swear it, swear it, on yo' honor as a gentleman--"
+
+"On my honor as a gentleman, sah? I swear it."
+
+"Go," said the old man quickly, "an' look in the mouth of the mare
+they are jes' bringin' in--the mare that won that heat. Go, an'
+remember yo' honor pledged. Go an' don't excite suspicion."
+
+The old man sat down and, as he waited, he thought. Never before had
+he thought so hard. Never had such a burden been put upon him. When
+he looked up Colonel Troup stood pale and silent before him--pale
+with close-drawn lips and a hot, fierce, fighting gleam in his eyes.
+
+"You've explained it, sah--" he said. Then he fumbled his pistol in
+his pocket. "Now--now, give me back my promise, my word. I have two
+thousand dollars at stake, and--and clean sport, sah,--clean sport.
+Give me back my word."
+
+"Sit down," said the old man quietly.
+
+The Colonel sat down so still that it was painful. He was calm but
+the Bishop saw how hard the fight was.
+
+Then the old man broke out: "I can't--O God, I can't! I can't _make_
+a character, why should I _take_ one? It's so easy to take a word--a
+nod--it is gone! And if left maybe it 'ud come agin. Richard
+Travis--it looks bad--he may be bad--but think what he may do yet--if
+God but touch him? No man's so bad but that God can't touch
+him--change him. We may live to see him do grand and noble
+things--an' God will touch him," said the old man hotly, "he will
+yet."
+
+"If you are through with me," said Colonel Troup, coolly, "and will
+give me back my promise, I'll go and touch him--yes, damn him, I'll
+shoot him as he should be."
+
+"But I ain't gwine to give it back," smiled the old man.
+
+Colonel Troup flushed: "What'll you do, then? Let him rob you an' me,
+sah? Steal my two thousand, and Flecker's? Your purse that you've
+already won--yours--yours, right this minute? Rob the public in a
+fake race, sah? You've won the purse, it is yours, sah. He forfeited
+it when he brought out that other mare. Think what you are doing,
+sah!"
+
+"Cap'n Tom an' Shiloh, too"--winced the old man. "But I forgot--you
+don't kno'--yes"--and he smiled triumphantly. "Yes, Col'nel, I'll
+let him do all that if--if God'll let it be. But God won't let it
+be!"
+
+Colonel Troup arose disgusted--hot. "What do you mean, old man. Are
+you crazy, sah? Give me back my word--"
+
+"Wait--no--no," said the Bishop. "Col'nel, you're a man of yo'
+word--wait!"
+
+And he arose and was gone.
+
+The Colonel swore soundly. He walked around and damned everything in
+sight. He fumbled his pistol in his pocket, and wondered how he could
+break his word and yet keep it.
+
+There was no way, and he went off to take a drink.
+
+Bud, the tears running down his cheeks--was rubbing Ben Butler down,
+and saying: "Great hoss--great hoss!"
+
+Of all, he and the Bishop had not given up.
+
+"I'm afeard we'll have to give it up, Bishop," said Jack.
+
+"Me, me give it up, Jack? Me an' Ben Butler quit like yeller dogs?
+Why, we're jes' beginnin' to fight--with God's help."
+
+Then he thought a moment: "Fetch me some cotton."
+
+He took it and carefully packed it in the old horse's ears.
+
+"It was a small trick, that yellin' and frightening the ole hoss,"
+said Jack.
+
+"Ben Butler," said the old man, as he stepped back and looked at the
+horse, "Ben Butler, I've got you now where God's got me--you can't
+see an' you can't hear. You've got to go by faith, by the lines of
+faith. But I'll be guidin' 'em, ole hoss, as God guides me--by
+faith."
+
+The audience sat numbed and nerveless when they scored for the last
+heat. The old pacer's gallant fight had won them all--and now--now
+after winning two heats, with only one more to win--now to lose at
+last. For he could not win--not over a mare as fresh and full of
+speed as that mare now seemed to be. And she, too, had but one heat
+to win.
+
+But Col. Troup had been thinking and he stopped the old man as he
+drove out on the track.
+
+"Been thinkin', parson, 'bout that promise, an' I'll strike a bargain
+with you, sah. You say God ain't goin' to let him win this heat an'
+race an' so forth, sah."
+
+The Bishop smiled: "I ain't give up, Col'nel--not yet."
+
+"Well, sah, if God does let Travis win, I take it from yo' reasoning,
+sah, that he's a sorry sort of a God to stand in with a fraud an'
+I'll have nothin' to do with Him. I'll tell all about it."
+
+"If that's the way you think--yes," said the old man,
+solemnly--"yes--tell it--but God will never stan' in with fraud."
+
+"We'll see," said the Colonel. "I'll keep my word if--if--you win!"
+
+Off they went as before, the old pacer hugging the mare's sulky
+wheels like a demon. Even Travis had time to notice that the old man
+had done something to steady the pacer, for how like a steadied ship
+did he fly along!
+
+Driving, driving, driving--they flew--they fought it out. Not a
+muscle moved in the old man's body. Like a marble statue he sat and
+drove. Only his lips kept moving as if talking to his horse, so close
+that Travis heard him: "It's God's way, Ben Butler, God's
+way--faith,--the lines of faith--'He leadeth me--He leadeth me'!"
+
+Up--up--came the pacer fearless with frictionless gait, pacing like a
+wild mustang-king of the desert, gleaming in sweat, white covered
+with dust, rolling like a cloud of fire. The old man sang soft and
+low:
+
+    "He leadeth me, O blessed thought,
+      O word with heavenly comfort fraught,
+      Whate'er I do, whate'er I be,
+      Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me."
+
+Inch by inch he came up. And now the home stretch, and the old pacer
+well up, collaring the flying mare and pacing her neck to neck.
+
+Travis smiled hard and cruel as he drew out his whip and circling it
+around his head, uttered again, amid fierce crackling, his Indian
+yell: "Hi--hi--there--ho--ha--ho--hi--hi--e--e!"
+
+But the old pacer swerved not a line, and Travis, white and
+frightened now with a terrible, bitter fear that tightened around his
+heart and flashed in his eyes like the first swift crackle of
+lightning before the blow of thunder, brought his whip down on his
+own mare, welting her from withers to rump in a last desperate
+chance.
+
+Gamely she responded and forged ahead--the old pacer was beaten!
+
+They thundered along, Travis whipping his mare at every stride. She
+stood it like the standard-bred she was, and never winced, then she
+forged ahead farther, and farther, and held the old pacer anchored at
+her wheels, and the wire not fifty feet away!
+
+There was nothing left for the old man to do--with tears streaming
+down his cheeks he shouted--"Ben Butler, Ben Butler--it's God's
+way--the chastening rod--" and his whip fell like a blade of fire on
+the old horse's flank.
+
+It stung him to madness. The Bishop striking him, the old man he
+loved, and who never struck! He shook his great ugly head like a
+maddened bull and sprang savagely at the wire, where the silken thing
+flaunted in his face in a burst of speed that left all behind. Nor
+could the old man stop him after he shot past it, for his flank
+fluttered like a cyclone of fire and presently he went down on his
+knees--gently, gently, then--he rolled over!
+
+His driver jumped to the ground. It was all he knew except he heard
+Bud weeping as he knelt on the ground where the old horse lay, and
+saying: "_Great hoss--great hoss!_"
+
+Then he remembered saying: "Now, Bud, don't cry--if he does die,
+won't it be glorious, to die in harness, giving his life for
+others--Cap'n Tom--Shiloh? Think of it, Bud, to die at the wire, his
+race won, his work finished, the crown his! O Bud, who would not
+love to go like Ben Butler?"
+
+But he could not talk any more, for he saw Jack Bracken spring
+forward, and then the gleam of a whiskey flask gleamed above Ben
+Butler's fluttering nostrils and Jack's terrible gruff voice said:
+"Wait till he's dead fust. Stand back, give him air," and his great
+hat fluttered like a windmill as he fanned the gasping nostrils of
+the struggling horse.
+
+The old man turned with an hysterical sob in his throat that was half
+a shout of joy.
+
+Travis stood by him watching the struggles of the old horse for
+breath.
+
+"Well, I've killed him," he said, laconically.
+
+There was a grip like a vise on his shoulders. He turned and looked
+into the eyes of the old man and saw a tragic light there he had
+never seen before.
+
+"Don't--for God's sake don't, Richard Travis, don't tempt me here,
+wait till I pray, till this devil goes out of my heart."
+
+And then in his terrible, steel-gripping way, he pulled Richard
+Travis, with a sudden jerk up against his own pulsing heart, as if
+the owner of The Gaffs had been a child, burying his great hardened
+fingers in the man's arm and fairly hissing in a whisper these words:
+"If he dies--Richard Travis--remember he died for you ... it tuck
+both yo' mares to kill him--no--no--don't start--don't turn pale ...
+you are safe ... I made Col'nel Troup give me his word ... he'd not
+expose you ... if Ben Butler won an' he saved his money. I knew what
+it 'ud mean ... that last heat ... that it 'ud kill him ... but I
+drove it to save you ... to keep Troup from exposin' yo' ... I've got
+his word. An' then I was sure ... as I live, I knew that God will
+touch you yet ... an' his touch will be as quickening fire to the
+dead honor that is in you.... Go! Richard Travis.... Go ... don't
+tempt me agin...."
+
+He remembered later feeling very queer because he held so much gold
+in a bag, and it was his. Then he became painfully acute to the funny
+thing that happened, so funny that he had to sit down and laugh. It
+was on seeing Ben Butler rising slowly to his feet and shaking
+himself with that long powerful shake he had seen so often after
+wallowing. And the funniest thing!--two balls of cotton flew out of
+his ears, one hitting Flecker of Tennessee on the nose, the other
+Colonel Troup in the eye.
+
+"By Gad, sah," drawled Colonel Troup, "but now, I see. I thought he
+cudn't ah been made of flesh an' blood, sah, why damme he's made of
+cotton! An' you saved my money, old man, an' that damned rascal's
+name by that trick? Well, you kno' what I said, sah, a gentleman an'
+his word--but--but--" he turned quickly on the old man--excitedly,
+"ah, here--I'll give you the thousand dollars I hedged now ... if
+you'll give me back my promise--damned if I don't! Won't do it? No?
+Well, it's yo' privilege. I admire yo' charity, it's not of this
+world."
+
+And then he remembered seeing Bud sitting in the old cart driving Ben
+Butler home and telling everybody what they now knew: "_Great
+hoss--G-r-e-a-t hoss!_"
+
+And the old horse shuffled and crow-hopped along, and Jack followed
+the Bishop carrying the gold.
+
+And then such a funny thing: Ben Butler, frightened at a mule braying
+in his ear, ran away and threw Bud out!
+
+When the old man heard it he sat down and laughed and cried--to his
+own disgust--"like a fool, sissy man," he said, "a sissy man that
+ain't got no nerve. But, Lord, who'd done that but Ben Butler?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+YOU'LL COME BACK A MAN
+
+
+It was after dark when the old man, pale, and his knees still shaking
+with the terrible strain and excitement of it all, reached his cabin
+on the mountain. The cheers of the grand-stand still echoed in his
+ears, and, shut his eyes as he would, he still saw Ben Butler,
+stretched out on the track struggling for the little breath that was
+in him.
+
+Jack Bracken walked in behind the old man carrying a silken sack
+which sagged and looked heavy.
+
+The grandfather caught up Shiloh first and kissed her. Then he sat
+down with the frail form in his arms and looked earnestly at her with
+his deep piercing eyes.
+
+"Where's the ole hoss," began his wife, her eyes beginning to snap.
+"You've traded him off an' I'll bet you got soaked, Hillard Watts--I
+can tell it by that pesky, sheepish look in yo' eyes. You never cu'd
+trade horses an' I've allers warned you not to trade the ole roan."
+
+"Wal, yes," said the Bishop. "I've traded him for this--" and his
+voice grew husky with emotion--"for this, Tabitha, an', Jack, jes'
+pour it out on the table there."
+
+It came out, yellow waves of gold. The light shone on them, and as
+the tired eyes of little Shiloh peeped curiously at them, each one
+seemed to throw to her a kiss of hope, golden tipped and resplendent.
+
+The old woman stood dazed, and gazing sillily. Then she took up one
+of the coins and bit it gingerly.
+
+"In God's name, Hillard Watts, what does all this mean? Why, it's
+genuwine gold."
+
+"It means," said the old man cheerily, "that Shiloh an' the chillun
+will never go into that mill ag'in--that old Ben Butler has give 'em
+back their childhood an' a chance to live. It means," he said
+triumphantly, "that Cap'n Tom's gwinter have the chance he's been
+entitled to all these years--an' that means that God'll begin to
+unravel the tangle that man in his meanness has wound up. It means,
+Tabitha, that you'll not have to wuck anymo' yo'self--no mo', as long
+as you live--"
+
+The old woman clutched at the bed-post: "Me?--not wuck anymo'? Not
+hunt 'sang an' spatterdock an' clean up an' wash an' scour an' cook
+an'--"
+
+"No, why not, Tabitha? We've got a plenty to--"
+
+He saw her clutch again at the bed-post and go down in a heap,
+saying:--
+
+"Lemme die--now, if I can't wuck no mo'."
+
+They lifted her on the bed and bathed her face. It was ten minutes
+before she came around and said feebly:
+
+"I'm dyin', Hillard, it's kilt me to think I'll not have to wuck any
+mo'."
+
+"Oh, no, Tabitha, I wouldn't die fur that," he said soothingly. "It's
+terrible suddent like, I kno', an' hard fur you to stan', but try to
+bear it, honey, fur our sakes. It's hard to be stricken suddent like
+with riches, an' I've never seed a patient get over it, it is true.
+You'll be wantin' to change our cabin into an ole Colonial home,
+honey, an' have a carriage an' a pair of roached mules, an' a wantin'
+me to start a cotton factory an' jine a whis'-club, whilst you
+entertain the Cottontown Pettico't Club with high-noon teas, an' cut
+up a lot o' didoes that'll make the res' of the town laugh. But you
+mus' fight ag'in it, Tabitha, honey. We'll jes' try to live as we've
+allers lived an' not spend our money so as to have people talk about
+how we're throwin' it at the ducks. You can get up befo' day as usual
+an' hunt 'sang on the mountain side, and do all the other things
+you've l'arnt to do befo' breakfast."
+
+This was most reassuring, and the old woman felt much better. But the
+next morning she complained bitterly:
+
+"I tested ever' one o' them yaller coins las' night, they mout a put
+a counterfeit in the lot, an' see heah, Hillard--" she grinned
+showing her teeth--"I wore my teeth to the quick a testin' 'em!"
+
+The next week, as the train took the Bishop away, he stood on the
+rear platform to cry good-bye to Shiloh and Jack Bracken who were
+down to see him off. By his side was a stooped figure and as the old
+man jingled some gold in his pocket he said, patting the figure on
+the back:
+
+"You'll come back a man, Cap'n Tom--thank God! a man ag'in!"
+
+
+
+
+PART FIFTH.--THE LOOM
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A NEW MILL GIRL
+
+
+The autumn had deepened--the cotton had been picked. The dry stalks,
+sentinelling the seared ground, waved their tattered remnants of
+unpicked bolls to and fro--summer's battle flags which had not yet
+fallen.
+
+Millwood was astir early that morning--what there was of it. One by
+one the lean hounds had arisen from their beds of dry leaves under
+the beeches, and, shaking themselves with that hound-shake which
+began at their noses and ended in a circular twist of their skeleton
+tails, had begun to hunt for stray eggs and garbage. Yet their master
+was already up and astir.
+
+He came out and took a long drink from the jug behind the door. He
+drank from the jug's mouth, and the gurgling echo sounded down the
+empty hall: _Guggle--guggle--gone! Guggle--guggle--gone!_ It said to
+Edward Conway as plainly as if it had a voice.
+
+"Yes, you've gone--that's the last of you. Everything is gone," he
+said.
+
+He sat down on his favorite chair, propped his feet upon the rotten
+balcony's rim and began to smoke.
+
+Within, he heard Lily sobbing. Helen was trying to comfort her.
+
+Conway glanced into the room. The oldest sister was dressed in a
+plain blue cotton gown--for to-day she would begin work at the mill.
+Conway remembered it. He winced, but smoked on and said nothing.
+
+"'Tain't no use--'tain't no use," sobbed the little one--"My mammy's
+gone--gone!"
+
+Such indeed was the fact. Mammy Maria had gone. All that any of them
+knew was that only an hour before another black mammy had come to
+serve them, and all she would say was that she had come to take Mammy
+Maria's place--gone, and she knew not where.
+
+Conway winced again and then swore under his breath. At first he had
+not believed it, none of them had. But as the morning went on and
+Mammy Maria failed to appear, he accepted it, saying: "Jus' like a
+niggah--who ever heard of any of them havin' any gratitude!"
+
+Helen was too deeply numbed by the thought of the mill to appreciate
+fully her new sorrow. All she knew--all she seemed to feel--was, that
+go to the mill she must--go--go--and Lily might cry and the world
+might go utterly to ruin--as her own life was going:
+
+"I want my mammy--I want my mammy," sobbed the little one.
+
+Then the mother instinct of Helen--that latent motherhood which is in
+every one of her sex, however young--however old--asserted itself for
+the first time.
+
+She soothed the younger child: "Never mind, Lily, I am going to the
+mill only to learn my lesson this week--next week you shall go with
+me. We will not be separated after that."
+
+"I want my mammy--oh, I want my mammy," was all Lily could say.
+
+Breakfast was soon over and then the hour came--the hour when Helen
+Conway would begin her new life. This thought--and this only--burned
+into her soul: To-day her disgrace began. She was no longer a Conway.
+The very barriers of her birth, that which had been thrown around her
+to distinguish her from the common people, had been broken down. The
+foundation of her faith was shattered with it.
+
+For the last time, as a Conway, she looked at the fields of
+Millwood--at the grim peak of Sunset Rock above--the shadowed wood
+below. Until then she did not know it made such a difference in the
+way she looked at things. But now she saw it and with it the ruin,
+the abandonment of every hope, every ambition of her life. As she
+stood upon the old porch before starting for the mill, she felt that
+she was without a creed and without a principle.
+
+"I would do anything," she cried bitterly--"I care for nothing. If I
+am tempted I shall steal, I know I shall--I know I shall"--she
+repeated.
+
+It is a dangerous thing to change environments for the worse. It is
+more dangerous still to break down the moral barrier, however frail
+it may be, which our conscience has built between the good and the
+evil in us. Some, reared under laws that are loose, may withstand
+this barrier breaking and be no worse for the change; but in the case
+of those with whom this barrier of their moral belief stands securely
+between conscience and forbidden paths, let it fall, and all the best
+of them will fall with it.
+
+For with them there are no degrees in degradation--no caste in the
+world of sin. Headlong they rush to moral ruin. And there are those
+like Helen Conway, too blinded by the environment of birth to know
+that work is not degradation. To them it is the lowering of every
+standard of their lives, standards which idleness has erected. And
+idleness builds strange standards.
+
+If it had occurred to Helen Conway--if she had been reared to know
+that to work honestly for an honest living was the noblest thing in
+life, how different would it all have been!
+
+And so at last what is right and what is wrong depend more upon what
+has gone before than what follows after. It is more a question of
+pedigree and environment than of trials and temptations.
+
+"I shall steal," she repeated--"oh, I know I shall."
+
+And yet, as her father drove her in the old shambling buggy across
+the hill road to the town, there stood out in her mind one other
+picture which lingered there all day and for many days. She could not
+forget it nor cast it from her, and in spite of all her sorrow it
+uplifted her as she had been uplifted at times before when, reading
+the country newspaper, there had blossomed among its dry pages the
+perfume of a stray poem, whose incense entered into her soul of
+souls.
+
+It was a young man in his shirt sleeves, his face flushed with work,
+his throat bare, plowing on the slope of the hillside for the fall
+sowing of wheat.
+
+What a splendid picture he was, silhouetted in the rising sun against
+the pink and purple background of sunbeams!
+
+It was Clay Westmore, and he waved his hand in his slow, calm
+forceful way as he saw her go by.
+
+It was a little thing, but it comforted her. She remembered it long.
+
+The mill had been running several hours when Kingsley looked up, and
+saw standing before him at his office window a girl of such stately
+beauty that he stood looking sillily at her, and wondering.
+
+He did not remember very clearly afterwards anything except this
+first impression; that her hair was plaited in two rich coils upon
+her head, and that never before had he seen so much beauty in a
+gingham dress.
+
+He remembered, too, that her eyes, which held him spellbound, wore
+more an expression of despair and even desperation than of youthful
+hope. He could not understand why they looked that way, forerunners
+as they were of such a face and hair.
+
+And so he stood, sillily smiling, until Richard Travis arose from his
+desk and came forward to meet her.
+
+She nodded at him and tried to smile, but Kingsley noticed that it
+died away into drawn, hard lines around her pretty mouth.
+
+"It is Miss Conway," he said to Kingsley, taking her hand familiarly
+and holding it until she withdrew it with a conscious touch of
+embarrassment.
+
+"She is one of my neighbors, and, by the way, Kingsley, she must have
+the best place in the mill."
+
+Kingsley continued to look sillily at her. He had not heard of
+Helen--he did not understand.
+
+"A place in the mill--ah, let me see," he said thoughtfully.
+
+"I've been thinking it out," went on Travis, "and there is a
+drawing-in machine ready for her. I understand Maggie is going to
+quit on account of her health."
+
+"I, ah--" began Kingsley--"Er--well, I never heard of a beginner
+starting on a drawing-in machine."
+
+"I have instructed Maggie to teach her," said Travis shortly. Then he
+beckoned to Helen: "Come."
+
+She followed Richard Travis through the mill. He watched her as she
+stepped in among the common herd of people--the way at first in which
+she threw up her head in splendid scorn. Never had he seen her so
+beautiful. Never had he desired to own her so much as then.
+
+"The exquisite, grand thing," he muttered. "And I shall--she shall be
+mine."
+
+Then her head sank again with a little crushed smile of helpless pity
+and resignation. It touched even Travis, and he said, consolingly, to
+her:
+
+"You are too beautiful to have to do this and you shall not--for
+long. You were born to be queen of--well, The Gaffs, eh?"
+
+He laughed and then he touched boldly her hair which lay splendidly
+around her temples.
+
+She looked at him resignedly, then she flushed to her eyes and
+followed him.
+
+The drawer-in is to the loom what the architect is to the building.
+And more--it is both architect and foundation, for as the threads are
+drawn in so must the cloth be.
+
+The work is tedious and requires skill, patience, quickness, and that
+nicety of judgment which comes with intellect of a higher order than
+is commonly found in the mill. For that reason the drawer-in is
+removed from the noise of the main room--she sits with another
+drawer-in in a quiet, little room nearby, and, with her trained
+fingers, she draws in through the eyelets the threads, which set the
+warp.
+
+Maggie was busy, but she greeted him with a quaint, friendly little
+smile. Helen noticed two things about her at once: that there was a
+queer bright light in her eyes, and that beneath them glowed two
+bright red spots, which, when Travis approached, deepened quickly.
+
+"Yes, I am going to leave the mill," she said, after Travis had left
+them together. "I jus' can't stan' it any longer. Mother is dead, you
+know, an' father is an invalid. I've five little brothers and sisters
+at home. I couldn't bear to see them die in here. It's awful on
+children, you know. So I've managed to keep 'em a-goin'
+until--well--I've saved enough an' with the help
+of--a--a--friend--you see--a very near friend--I've managed to get us
+a little farm. We're all goin' to it next week. Oh, yes, of course,
+I'll be glad to teach you."
+
+She glanced at Helen's hands and smiled: "Yo' hands don't look like
+they're used to work. They're so white and beautiful."
+
+Helen was pleased. Her fingers were tapering and beautiful, and she
+knew her hands were the hands of many generations of ladies.
+
+"I have to make a living for myself now," she said with a dash of
+bitterness.
+
+"If I looked like you," said Maggie, slyly and yet frankly, "I'd do
+something in keeping with my place. I can't bear to think of anybody
+like you bein' here."
+
+Helen was silent and Maggie saw that the tears were ready to start.
+She saw her half sob and she patted her cheek in a motherly way as
+she said:
+
+"Oh, but I didn't mean to hurt you so. Only I do hate so to see--oh,
+I am silly, I suppose, because I am going to get out of this
+terrible, terrible grind."
+
+Her pale face flushed and she coughed, as she bent over her work to
+show Helen how to draw in the threads.
+
+"Now, I'm a good drawer-in, an' he said onct"--she nodded at the door
+from which Travis had gone out--"that I was the best in the worl';
+the whole worl'." She blushed slightly. "But, well--I've made no
+fortune yet--an' somehow, in yo' case now--you see--somehow I feel
+sorter 'fraid--about you--like somethin' awful was goin' to happen to
+you."
+
+"Why--what--" began Helen, surprised.
+
+"Oh, it ain't nothin'," she said trying to be cheerful--"I'll soon
+get over this ... out in the air. I'm weak now and I think it makes
+me nervous an' skeery.... I'll throw it off that quick," she snapped
+her fingers--"out in the open air again--out on the little farm." She
+was silent, as if trying to turn the subject, but she went back to it
+again. "You don't know how I've longed for this--to get away from the
+mill. It's day in an' day out here an' shut up like a convict. It
+ain't natural--it can't be--it ain't nature. If anybody thinks it is,
+let 'em look at them little things over on the other side," and she
+nodded toward the main room. "Why, them little tots work twelve hours
+a day an' sometimes mo'. Who ever heard of children workin' at all
+befo' these things come into the country? Now, I've no objection to
+'em, only that they ought to work grown folks an' not children. They
+may kill me if they can," she laughed,--"I am grown, an' can stan'
+it, but I can't bear to think of 'em killin' my little brothers an'
+sisters--they're entitled to live until they get grown anyway."
+
+She stopped to cough and to show Helen how to untangle some threads.
+
+"Oh, but they can't hurt me," she laughed, as if ashamed of her
+cough; "this is bothersome, but it won't last long after I get out on
+the little farm."
+
+She stopped talking and fell to her work, and for two hours she
+showed Helen just how to draw the threads through, to shift the
+machine, to untangle the tangled threads.
+
+It was nearly time to go home when Travis came to see how Helen was
+progressing. He came up behind the two girls and stood looking at
+them work. When they looked up Maggie started and reddened and Helen
+saw her tighten her thin lips in a peculiar way while the blood flew
+from them, leaving a thin white oval ring in the red that flushed her
+face.
+
+"You are doing finely," he said to Helen--"you will make a swift
+drawer-in." He stooped over and whispered: "Such fingers and hands
+would draw in anything--even hearts."
+
+Helen blushed and looked quickly at Maggie, over whose face the
+pinched look had come again, but Maggie was busy at her machine.
+
+"I remember when I came here five years ago," went on Maggie after
+Travis had left, "I was so proud an' happy. I was healthy an' well
+an' so happy to think I cu'd make a livin' for the home-folks--for
+daddy an' the little ones. Oh, they would put them in the mill, but I
+said no, I'll work my fingers off first. Let 'em play an' grow. Yes,
+they've lived on what I have made for five years--daddy down on his
+back, too, an' the children jus' growin', an' now they are big enough
+and strong enough to he'p me run the little farm--instead"--she said
+after a pause--"instead of bein' dead an' buried, killed in the mill.
+That was five years ago--five years"--she coughed and looked out of
+the window reflectively.
+
+"Daddy--poor daddy--he couldn't help the tree fallin' on his back an'
+cripplin' him; an' little Buddy, well, he was born weakly, so I done
+it all. Oh, I am not braggin' an' I ain't complainin', I'm so proud
+to do it."
+
+Helen was silent, her own bitterness softened by the story Maggie was
+telling, and for a while she forgot herself and her sorrow.
+
+It is so always. When we would weep we have only to look around and
+see others who would wail.
+
+"When I come I was as rosy as you," Maggie went on; "not so pretty
+now, mind you--nobody could be as pretty as you."
+
+She said it simply, but it touched Helen.
+
+"But I'll get my color back on the little farm--I'll be well again."
+She was silent a while. "I kno' you are wonderin' how I saved and got
+it." Helen saw her face sparkle and the spots deepen. "Mr. Travis
+has been so kind to me in--in other ways--but that's a big secret,"
+she laughed, "I'm to tell you some day, or rather you'll see yo'self,
+an' then, oh--every thing will be all right an' I'll be ever so much
+happier than I am now."
+
+She jumped up impulsively and stood before Helen.
+
+"Mightn't I kiss you once,--you're so pretty an' fresh?" And she
+kissed the pretty girl half timidly on the cheek.
+
+"It makes me so happy to think of it," she went on excitedly, "to
+think of owning a little farm all by ourselves, to go out into the
+air every day whenever you feel like it and not have to work in the
+mill, nor ask anybody if you may, but jus' go out an' see things
+grow--an' hear the birds sing and set under the pretty green trees
+an' gather wild flowers if you want to. To keep house an' to clean up
+an' cook instead of forever drawin'-in, an' to have a real flower
+garden of yo' own--yo' very own."
+
+They worked for hours, Maggie talking as a child who had found at
+last a sympathetic listener. Twilight came and then a clang of bells
+and the shaft above them began to turn slower and slower. Helen
+looked up wondering why it had all stopped so suddenly. She met the
+eyes of Travis looking at her.
+
+"I am to take you home," he said to her, "the trotters are at the
+door. Oh," as he looked at her work--"why, you have done first rate
+for the day."
+
+"It's Maggie's," she whispered.
+
+He had not seen Maggie and he stood looking at Helen with such
+passionate, patronizing, commanding, masterful eyes, that she shrank
+for a moment, sideways.
+
+Then he laughed: "How beautiful you are! There are queens born and
+queens made--I shall call you the queen of the mill, eh?"
+
+He reached out and tried to take her hand, but she shrank behind the
+machine and then--
+
+"Oh, Maggie!" she exclaimed--for the girl's face was now white and
+she stood with a strained mouth as if ready to sob.
+
+"Oh, Maggie's a good little girl," said Travis, catching her hand.
+
+"Oh, please don't--please"--said Maggie.
+
+Then she walked out, drawing her thin shawl around her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+IN THE DEPTHS
+
+
+All the week the two girls worked together at the mill; a week which
+was to Helen one long nightmare, filled, as it was, with the hum and
+roar of machinery, the hot breath of the mill, and worst of all, the
+seared and deadening thought that she was disgraced.
+
+In the morning she entered the mill hoping it might fall on and
+destroy her. At night she went home to a drunken father and a little
+sister who needed, in her childish sorrow, all the pity and care of
+the elder one.
+
+And one night her father, being more brutal than ever, had called out
+as Helen came in: "Come in, my mill-girl!"
+
+Richard Travis always drove her home, and each night he became more
+familiar and more masterful. She felt,--she knew--that she was
+falling under his fascinating influence.
+
+And worse than all, she knew she did not care.
+
+There is a depth deeper even than the sin--the depth where the doer
+ceases to care.
+
+Indeed, she was beginning to make herself believe that she loved
+him--as he said he wished her to do--and as he loved her, he said;
+and with what he said and what he hinted she dreamed beautiful,
+desperate dreams of the future.
+
+She did not wonder, then, that on one drive she had permitted him to
+hold her hand in his. What a strong hand it was, and how could so
+weak a hand as her's resist it? And all the time he had talked so
+beautifully and had quoted Browning and Keats. And finally he had
+told her that she had only to say the word, and leave the mill with
+him forever.
+
+But where, she did not even care--only to get away from the mill,
+from her disgrace, from her drunken father, from her wretched life.
+
+And another night, when he had helped her out of the buggy, and while
+she was close to him and looking downward, he had bent over her and
+kissed her on the neck, where her hair had been gathered up and had
+left it white and fair and unprotected. And it sent a hot flame of
+shame to the depths of her brain, but she could only look up and
+say--"Oh, please don't--please don't, Mr. Travis," and then dart
+quickly into the old gate and run to her home.
+
+But within it was only to meet the taunts and sneers of her father
+that brought again the hot Conway blood in defying anger to her face,
+and then she had turned and rushed back to the gate which Travis had
+just left, crying:
+
+"Take me now--anywhere--anywhere. Carry me away from here."
+
+But she heard only the sound of his trotters' feet up the road, and
+overcome with the reflective anguish of it all, she had tottered and
+dropped beneath the tree upon the grass--dropped to weep.
+
+After a while she sat up, and going down the long path to the old
+spring, she bathed her face and hands in its cool depths. Then she
+sat upon a rock which jutted out into the water. It calmed her to sit
+there and feel the rush of the air from below, upon her hot cheeks
+and her swollen eyes.
+
+The moon shone brightly, lighting up the water, the rocks which held
+the spring pool within their fortress of gray, and the long green
+path of water-cresses, stretching away and showing where the spring
+branch ran to the pasture.
+
+Glancing down, she saw her own image in the water, and she smiled to
+see how beautiful it was. There was her hair hanging splendidly down
+her back, and in the mirror of water beneath she saw it was tinged
+with that divine color which had set the Roman world afire in
+Cleopatra's days. But then, there was her dress--her mill dress.
+
+She sighed--she looked up at the stars. They always filled her with
+great waves of wonder and reverence.
+
+"Is mother in one of you?" she asked. "Oh, mother, why were you taken
+from your two little girls? and if the dead are immortal, can they
+forget us of earth? Can they be indifferent to our fate? How could
+they be happy if they knew--" She stopped and looking up, picked out
+a single star that shone brighter than the others, clinging so close
+to the top of Sunset Rock as to appear a setting to his crown.
+
+"I will imagine she is there"--she whispered--"in that world--O
+mother--mother--will you--cannot you help me?"
+
+She was weeping and had to bathe her face again. Then another impulse
+seized her--an impulse of childhood. Pulling off her stockings, she
+dipped her feet in the cool water and splashed them around in sheer
+delight.
+
+The moonbeams falling on them under the water turned the pink into
+white, and she smiled to see how like the pictures of Diana her
+ankles looked.
+
+She had forgotten that the old spring was near the public road and
+that the rail fence was old and fallen. Her revery was interrupted by
+a bantering, half drunken, jolly laugh:
+
+"Well, I must say I never saw anything quite so pretty!"
+
+She sprang up in shame. Leaning on the old fence, she saw Harry
+Travis, a roguish smile on his face. She thought she would run, then
+she remembered her bare feet and she sat down on the grass, covering
+her ankles with her skirt. At first she wanted to cry, then she grew
+indignant as he came tipsily toward her and sat down by her side.
+
+She was used to the smell of whiskey on the breath. Its slightest
+odor she knew instantly. To her it was the smell of death.
+
+"Got to the Gov'nor's private bottle to-night," he said familiarly,
+"and took a couple of cocktails. Going over to see Nellie, but
+couldn't resist such beauties as"--he pointed to her feet.
+
+"It was mean of you to slip upon me as you did," she said. Then she
+turned the scorn of her eyes on him and coolly looked him over, the
+weak face, the boyish, half funny smile, the cynical eyes,--trying to
+be a man of the world and too weak to know what it all meant.
+
+The Conway spirit had come to her--it always did in a critical
+moment. She no longer blushed or even feared him.
+
+"How, how," she said slowly and looking him steadily over, "did I
+ever love such a thing as you?"
+
+He moved up closer. "You will have to kiss me for that," he said
+angrily. "I've kissed you so often I know just how to do it," and he
+made an attempt to throw his arms around her.
+
+She sprang away from him into the spring branch, standing knee deep
+in the water and among the water-cresses.
+
+He arose hot with insolence: "Oh, you think you are too good for me
+now--now that the Gov'nor has set his heart on you. Damn him--you
+were mine before you were his. He may have you, but he will take you
+with Cassius' kisses on your lips."
+
+He sprang forward, reached over the rock and seized her by the arm.
+But she jerked away from him and sprang back into the deeper water of
+the spring. She did not scream, but it seemed that her heart would
+burst with shame and anger. She thought of Ophelia, and as she looked
+down into the water she wiped away indifferently and silently the
+cool drops which had splashed up into her face, and she wondered if
+she might not be able to drop down flat and drown herself there, and
+thus end it all.
+
+He had come to the edge of the rock and stood leering drunkenly down
+on her.
+
+"I love you," he laughed ironically.
+
+"I hate you," she said, looking up steadily into his eyes and moving
+back out of his reach.
+
+The water had wet her dress, and she stooped and dipped some of it up
+and bathed her hot cheeks.
+
+"I'll kiss you if I have to wade into that spring."
+
+"If I had a brother,--oh, if I even had a father," she said, looking
+at him with a flash of Conway fire in her eyes--"and you did--you
+would not live till morning--you know you wouldn't."
+
+She stood now knee-deep in water. Above her the half-drunken boy,
+standing on the rock which projected into the spring, emboldened with
+drink and maddened by the thought that she had so easily given him
+up, had reached out and seized her around the neck. He was rough, and
+it choked her as he drew her to him.
+
+She screamed for the first time--for she thought she heard hoof beats
+coming down the road; then she heard a horseman clear the low fence
+and spur into the spring branch. The water from the horse's feet
+splashed over her. She remembered it only faintly--the big
+glasses--the old straw hat,--the leathern bag of samples around his
+shoulders.
+
+"Most unusual," she heard him say, with more calmness it seemed to
+Helen than ever: "Quite unusual--insultingly so!"
+
+Instinctively she held up her arms and he stooped in the saddle and
+lifted her up and set her on the stone curbing on the side farthest
+from Harry Travis.
+
+Then he turned and very deliberately reached over and seized Harry
+Travis, who stood on the rock, nearly on a line with the pommel of
+the saddle. But the hand that gripped the back of Harry's neck was
+anything but gentle. It closed around the neck at the base of the
+brain, burying its fingers in the back muscles with paralyzing pain
+and jerked him face downward across the saddle with a motion so swift
+that he was there before he knew it. Then another hand seized him and
+rammed his mouth, as he lay across the pommel of the saddle, into the
+sweaty shoulders below the horse's withers, and he felt the horse
+move out and into the road and up to the crossing of the ways just as
+a buggy and two fast bay mares came around the corner.
+
+The driver of the bays stopped as he saw his cousin thrown like a pig
+over the pommel and held there kicking and cursing.
+
+"I was looking for him," said Richard Travis quietly, "but I would
+like to know what it all means."
+
+The big glasses shone in kindly humor. They did not reflect any
+excitement in the eyes behind them.
+
+"I am afraid it means that he is drunk. Perhaps he will tell you
+about it. Quite unusual, I must say--he seemed to be trying to drown
+a young lady in a spring."
+
+He eased his burden over the saddle and dropped him into the road.
+
+Richard Travis took it in instantly, and as Clay rode away he heard
+the cousin say: "You damned yellow cur--to bear the name of Travis."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+WORK IN A NEW LIGHT
+
+
+It was an hour before Clay Westmore rode back to Millwood. He had
+been too busy plowing that day to get, sooner, a specimen of the rock
+he had seen out-cropping on Sand Mountain. At night, after supper, he
+had ridden over for it.
+
+And now by moonlight he had found it!
+
+He flushed with the strength of it all as he put it in his
+satchel--the strength of knowing that not even poverty, nor work, nor
+night could keep him from accomplishing his purpose.
+
+Then he rode back, stopping at Millwood. For he thought, too, that he
+might see Helen, and while he had resolved not to force himself on
+her after what she had said when he last saw her, still he wished
+very much to see her now and then.
+
+For somehow, it never got out of his deductive head that some day she
+would learn to love him. Had he known the temptation, the despair
+that was hers, he would not have been so quietly deliberate. But she
+had never told him. In fact, he had loved her from a distance all his
+life in his quiet way, though now, by her decree, they were scarcely
+more than the best of friends. Some day, after he had earned enough,
+he would tell her just how much he loved her. At present he could
+not, for was he not too poor, and were not his mother and sister
+dependent upon him?
+
+He knew that Harry Travis loved her in a way--a love he was certain
+would not last, and in the fullness and depths of his sincere nature,
+he felt as sure of ultimately winning her, by sheer force of
+strength, of consistency and devotion, as he was that every great
+thing in life had been done by the same force and would be to the end
+of time.
+
+As sure as that, by this same force, he, himself, would one day
+discover the vein of coal which lay somewhere in the beautiful valley
+of the Tennessee.
+
+And so he waited his time with the easy assurance of the philosopher
+which he was, and with that firm faith which minds of his strength
+always have in themselves and their ultimate success.
+
+It surprised him, it is true--hurt him--when he found to what extent
+Harry Travis had succeeded in winning the love of Helen. He was hurt
+because he expected--hoped--she would see further into things than
+she had. And counting all the poverty and hardships of his life, the
+Sunday afternoon when he had left her in the arbor, after she had
+told him she was engaged to Harry Travis, he could not remember when
+anything had been so hard for him to bear. Later he had heard how she
+had gone to work in the mill, and he knew that it meant an end of her
+love affair with Harry.
+
+To-night something told him it was time to see her again, not to tell
+her of his own love, and how it would never change, whether she was
+mill girl or the mistress of Millwood, but to encourage her in the
+misery of it all.
+
+Work--and did not he himself love to work? Was it not the noblest
+thing of life?
+
+He would tell her it was.
+
+He was surprised when he saw what had just happened; but all his life
+he had controlled himself to such a degree that in critical moments
+he was coolest; and so what with another might have been a serious
+affair, he had turned into half retributive fun, but the deadliest
+punishment, as it afterwards turned out, that he could have inflicted
+on a temperament and nature such as Harry Travis'. For that young
+man, unable to stand the gibes of the neighborhood and the sarcasm of
+his uncle when it all became known, accepted a position in another
+town and never came back again.
+
+To have been shot or floored in true melodramatic style by his rival,
+as he stood on a rock with a helpless girl in his clutch, would have
+been more to his liking than to be picked up bodily, by the nape of
+his neck, and taken from the scene of his exploits like a pig across
+a saddle.
+
+That kind of a combat did not meet his ideas of chivalry.
+
+Helen was dressed in her prettiest gown when Clay rode back to
+Millwood, after securing the samples he had started for. She knew he
+was coming and so she tied a white scarf over her head and went again
+to her favorite seat beneath the trees.
+
+"I don't know how to thank you, Clay," she said, as he swung down
+from his saddle and threw his leathern bag on the grass.
+
+"Now, you look more like yourself," he smiled admiringly, as he
+looked down on her white dress and auburn hair, drooping low over her
+neck and shoulders.
+
+"Tell me about yourself and how you like it at the mill," he went on
+as he sat down.
+
+"Oh, you will not be willing to speak to me now--now that I am a
+mill-girl," she added. "Do you know? Clay--"
+
+"I know that, aside from being beautiful, you have just begun to be
+truly womanly in my sight."
+
+"Oh, Clay, do you really think that? It is the first good word that
+has been spoken to me since--since my--disgrace."
+
+He turned quickly: "Your disgrace! Do you call it disgrace to
+work--to make an honest living--to be independent and self-reliant?"
+
+He picked up his bag of samples and she saw that his hands had become
+hard and sunburnt from the plow handles.
+
+"Helen," he went on earnestly, "that is one of the hide-bound
+tyrannies that must be banished from our Southland--banished as that
+other tyranny, slavery, has been banished--a sin, which, with no
+fault of our own, we inherited from the centuries. We shall never be
+truly great--as God intended we should be great--until we learn to
+work. We have the noblest and sunniest of lands, with more resources
+than man now dreams of, a greater future than we know of if we will
+only work--work and develop them. You have set an example for every
+girl in the South who has been thrown upon her own resources. Never
+before in my life have I cared--so--much--for you."
+
+And he blushed as he said it, and fumbled his samples.
+
+"Then you do care some for me?" she asked pleadingly. She was
+heart-sick for sympathy and did not know just what she said.
+
+He flushed and started to speak. He looked at her, and his big
+glasses quivered with the suppressed emotions which lay behind them
+in his eyes.
+
+But he saw that she did not love him, that she was begging for
+sympathy and not for love. Besides, what right had he to plan to
+bring another to share his poverty?
+
+He mounted his horse as one afraid to trust himself to stay longer.
+But he touched her hair in his awkward, funny way, before he swung
+himself into the saddle, and Helen, as she went into the desolate
+home, felt uplifted as never before.
+
+Never before had she seen work in that light--nor love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MAGGIE
+
+
+It was Maggie's last day at the mill, and she had been unusually
+thoughtful. Her face was more pinched, Helen thought, and the sadness
+in her eyes had increased.
+
+Helen had proved to be an apt pupil, and Maggie declared that
+thereafter she would be able to run her machine without assistance.
+
+It was Saturday noon and Maggie was ready to go, though the mill did
+not shut down until six that day. And so she found herself standing
+and looking with tearful eyes at the machine she had learned to love,
+at the little room in which she had worked so long, supporting her
+invalid father and her little ones--as she motherly called the
+children. It had been hard--so hard, and the years had been long and
+she was so weak now, compared to what she had been. How happy she had
+thought the moment of her leaving would be; and yet now that it had
+come--now--she was weeping.
+
+"I didn't think," she said to Helen--"I didn't think I'd--I'd care so
+to leave it--when--when--the time--came."
+
+She turned and brushed away her tears in time to see Travis come
+smiling up.
+
+"Why, Maggie," he said playfully flipping the tip of her ear as he
+passed her. "I thought you left us yesterday afternoon. You'll not be
+forgetting us now that you will not see us again, will you?"
+
+She flushed and Helen heard her say: "Forget you--ever? Oh, please,
+Mr. Travis--" and her voice trembled.
+
+"Oh, tut," he said, frowning quickly--"nothing like that here. Of
+course, you will hate to leave the old mill and the old machine.
+Come, Maggie, you needn't wait--you're a good girl--we all know
+that."
+
+He turned to Helen and watched her as she drew in the threads. Her
+head was bent over, and her great coil of hair sat upon it like a
+queen on a throne.
+
+What a neck and throat she had--what a beautiful queenly manner!
+
+Travis smiled an amused smile when he thought of it--an ironical
+sneering smile; but he felt, as he stood there, that the girl had
+fascinated him in a strange way, and now that she was in his power,
+"now that Fate, or God has combined to throw her into my arms--almost
+unasked for--is it possible that I am beginning to fall in love with
+her?"
+
+He had forgotten Maggie and stood looking at Helen. And in that look
+Maggie saw it all. He heard her sit down suddenly.
+
+"I would go if I were you, Maggie--you are a good girl and we shall
+not forget you."
+
+"May I stay a little while longer?" she asked. "I won't ever come
+back any more, you know."
+
+Travis turned quickly and walked off. He came back and spoke to
+Helen.
+
+"Remember, I am to take you home to-night. But it will be later than
+usual, on account of the pay-roll."
+
+As he shut the door Maggie turned, and her heart being too full to
+speak, she came forward and dropped on her knees, burying her face in
+Helen's lap. "You must not notice me," she said--"don't--don't--oh,
+don't look at me."
+
+Helen stroked her cheek and finally she was quiet.
+
+Then she looked into Helen's face. "Do you know--oh, will you mind if
+I speak to you--or perhaps I shouldn't--but--but--don't you see that
+he loves you?"
+
+Helen reddened to her ears.
+
+"I am foolish--sick--nervous--I know I am silly an' yet I don't see
+how he could help it--you are so queenly--beautiful--so different
+from any that are here. He--he--has forgotten me--"
+
+Helen looked at her quickly.
+
+"Why, I don't understand," she said.
+
+"I mean," she stammered, "he used to notice us common girls--me and
+the others--"
+
+"I don't understand you," said Helen, half indignantly.
+
+"Oh, don't pay no 'tention to me," she said. "I, I fear I am sick,
+you know--sicker than I thought," and she coughed violently.
+
+She lay with her head in Helen's lap. "Please," she said timidly,
+looking up into Helen's face at last--"please let me stay this way a
+while. I never knew a mother--nobody has ever let me do this befo',
+an' I am so happy for it."
+
+Helen stroked her face and hair anew, and Maggie kneeled looking up
+at her eagerly, earnestly, hungrily, scanning every feature of the
+prettier girl with worshipping eyes.
+
+"How could he he'p it--how could he he'p it," she said
+softly--"yes--yes--you are his equal and so beautiful."
+
+"I don't understand you, Maggie--indeed I do not."
+
+Maggie arose quickly: "Good-bye--let me kiss you once mo'--I feel
+like I'll never see you again--an'--an'--I've learned to love you
+so!"
+
+Helen raised her head and kissed her.
+
+Then Maggie passed quickly out, and with her eyes only did she look
+back and utter a farewell which carried with it both a kiss and a
+tear. And something else which was a warning.
+
+And Helen never forgot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PAY-DAY
+
+
+It was Saturday afternoon and pay-day, and the mill shut down at six
+o'clock.
+
+When Helen went in Kingsley sat at the Superintendent's desk, issuing
+orders on the Secretary and Treasurer, Richard Travis, who sat at his
+desk near by and paid the wages in silver.
+
+Connected with the mill was a large commissary or store--a cheap
+modern structure which stood in another part of the town, filled with
+the necessaries of life as well as the flimsy gewgaws which delight
+the heart of the average mill hand. In establishing this store, the
+directors followed the usual custom of cotton-mills in smaller towns
+of the South; paying their employees part in money and part in
+warrants on the store. It is needless to add that the prices paid for
+the goods were, in most cases, high enough to cut the wages to the
+proper margin. If there was any balance at the end of the month, it
+was paid in money.
+
+Kingsley personally supervised this store, and his annual report to
+the directors was one of the strong financial things of his
+administration.
+
+A crowd of factory hands stood around his desk, and the
+Superintendent was busy issuing orders on the store, or striking a
+balance for the Secretary and Treasurer to pay in silver.
+
+They stood around tired, wretched, lint- and dust-covered, but
+expectant. Few were there compared with the number employed; for the
+wages of the minors went to their parents, and as minors included
+girls under eighteen and boys under twenty-one, their parents were
+there to receive their wages for them.
+
+These children belonged to them as mercilessly as if they had been
+slaves, and despite the ties of blood, no master ever more
+relentlessly collected and appropriated the wages of his slaves than
+did the parents the pitiful wages of their children.
+
+There are two great whippers-in in the child slavery of the
+South--the mills which employ the children and the parents who permit
+it--encourage it. Of these two the parents are often the worse, for,
+since the late enactment of child labor laws, they do not hesitate to
+stultify themselves by false affidavits as to the child's real age.
+
+Kingsley had often noticed how promptly and even proudly the girls,
+after reaching eighteen, and the boys twenty-one, had told him
+hereafter to place their wages to their own credit, and not to the
+parent's. They seemed to take a new lease on life. Decrepit,
+drawn-faced, hump-shouldered and dried up before their time, the few
+who reached the age when the law made them their own masters, looked
+not like men and women who stand on the threshold of life, but rather
+like over-worked middle-aged beings of another period.
+
+Yet that day their faces put on a brighter look.
+
+They stood around the office desk, awaiting their turn. The big
+engine had ceased to throb and the shuttles to clatter and whirl. The
+mill was so quiet that those who had, year in and year out, listened
+to its clatter and hum, seemed to think some overhanging calamity was
+about to drop out of the sky of terrible calm.
+
+"Janette Smith," called out Kingsley.
+
+She came forward, a bony, stoop-shouldered woman of thirty-five years
+who had been a spooler since she was fifteen.
+
+"Seventy-seven hours for the week"--he went on mechanically, studying
+the time book, "making six dollars and sixteen cents. Rent deducted
+two dollars. Wood thirty-five cents. Due commissary for goods
+furnished--here, Mr. Kidd," he said to the book-keeper, "let me see
+Miss Smith's account." It was shoved to him across the desk. Kingsley
+elevated his glasses. Then he adjusted them with a peculiar lilt--it
+was his way of being ironical:
+
+"Oh, you don't owe the store anything, Miss Smith--just eleven
+dollars and eighty cents."
+
+The woman stood stoically--not a muscle moved in her face, and not
+even by the change of an eye did she indicate that such a thing as
+the ordinary human emotions of disappointment and fear had a home in
+the heart.
+
+"Mother was sick all last month," she said at last in a voice that
+came out in the same indifferent, unvarying tone. "I had to
+overdraw."
+
+Kingsley gave his eye-glasses another lilt. They said as plainly as
+eye-glasses could: "Well, of course, I made her sick." Then he added
+abruptly: "We will advance you two dollars this week--an' that will
+be all."
+
+"I hoped to get some little thing that she could eat--some relish,"
+she began.
+
+"Not our business, Miss Smith--sorry--very sorry--but try to be more
+economical. Economy is the great objective haven of life. Emerson
+says so. And Browning in a most beautiful line of poetry says the
+same thing," he added.
+
+"The way to begin economy is to begin it--Emerson is so helpful to
+me--he always comes in at the right time."
+
+"And it's only to be two dollars," she added.
+
+"That's all," and he pushed her the order. She took it, cashed it and
+went hurriedly out, her poke bonnet pulled over her face. But there
+were hot tears and a sob under her bonnet.
+
+And so it went on for two hours--some drawing nothing, but remaining
+to beg for an order on the store to keep them running until next
+week.
+
+One man with six children in the mill next came forward and drew
+eighteen dollars. He smiled complacently as he drew it and chucked
+the silver into his pocket. This gave Jud Carpenter, standing near, a
+chance to get in his mill talk.
+
+"I tell you, Joe Hopper," he said, slapping the man on the back,
+"that mill is a great thing for the mothers an' fathers of this
+little settlement. What 'ud we do if it warn't for our chillun?"
+
+"You're talkin now--" said Joe hopefully.
+
+"It useter be," said Jud, looking around at his crowd, "that the
+parents spoiled the kids, but now it is the kids spoilin' the
+parents."
+
+His audience met this with smiles and laughter.
+
+"I never did know before," went on Jud, "what that old sayin' really
+meant: 'A fool for luck an' a po' man for chillun.'"
+
+Another crackling laugh.
+
+"How much did Joe Hopper's chillun fetch 'im in this week?"
+
+Joe jingled his silver in his pocket and spat importantly on the
+floor.
+
+"I tell you, when I married," said Jud, "I seed nothin' but poverty
+an' the multiplication of my part of the earth ahead of me--poverty,
+I tell you, starvation an' every new chile addin' to it. But since
+you started this mill, Mister Kingsley (Kingsley smiled and bowed
+across the desk at him), I've turned what everybody said 'ud starve
+us into ready cash. And now I say to the young folks: 'Marry an'
+multiply an' the cash will be forthcomin'.'"
+
+This was followed by loud laughs, especially from those who were
+blessed with children, and they filed up to get their wages.
+
+Jim Stallings, who had four in the mill, was counted out eleven
+dollars. As he pocketed it he looked at Jud and said:
+
+"Oh, no, Jud; it don't pay to raise chillun. I wish I had the chance
+old Sollerman had. I'd soon make old Vanderbilt look like shin
+plaster."
+
+He joined in the laughter which followed.
+
+In the doorway he cut a pigeon-wing in which his thin, bowed legs
+looked comically humorous.
+
+Jud Carpenter was a power in the mill, standing as he did so near to
+the management. To the poor, ignorant ones around him he was the
+mouth-piece of the mill, and they feared him even more than they did
+Kingsley himself, Kingsley with his ironical ways and lilting
+eye-glasses. With them Jud's nod alone was sufficient.
+
+They were still grouped around the office awaiting their turn. In the
+faces of some were shrewdness, cunning, hypocrisy. Some looked out
+through dull eyes, humbled and brow-beaten and unfeeling. But all of
+them when they spoke to Jud Carpenter--Jud Carpenter who stood in
+with the managers of the mill--became at once the grinning, fawning
+framework of a human being.
+
+"Yes, boys," said Jud patronizingly as Stallings went out, "this here
+mill is a god-send to us po' folks who've got chillun to burn. They
+ain't a day we ortenter git down on our knees an' thank Mr. Kingsley
+an' Mister Travis there. You know I done took down that sign I useter
+have hangin' up in my house in the hall--that sign which said, _God
+bless our home_? I've put up another one now."
+
+"What you done put up now, Jud?" grinned a tall weaver with that
+blank look of expectancy which settles over the face of the middle
+man in a negro minstrel troupe when he passes the stale question to
+the end man, knowing the joke which was coming.
+
+"Why, I've put up," said Jud brutally, "'_Suffer Little Children to
+Come Unto Me_.' That's scriptural authority for cotton mills, ain't
+it?"
+
+The paying went on, after the uproarious laughter had subsided, and
+down the long row only the clinking of silver was heard, intermingled
+now and then with the shrill voice of some creature disputing with
+Kingsley about her account. Generally it ran thus: "_It cyant be thet
+away. Sixty hours at five cents an hour--wal, but didn't the chillun
+wuck no longer than that? I cyant--I cyant--I jes' cyant live on that
+little bit._"
+
+Such it was, and it floated down the line to Helen like the wail of a
+lost soul. When her time came Kingsley met her with a smile. Then he
+gave her an order and Travis handed her a bright crisp ten-dollar
+bill.
+
+She looked at him in astonishment. "But--but," she said. "Surely, I
+didn't earn all this, did I? Maggie--you had to pay Maggie for
+teaching me this week. It was she who earned it. I cannot take it."
+
+Kingsley smiled: "If you must know--though we promised her we would
+not tell you," he said--"no, Miss Conway, you did not earn but five
+dollars this week. The other five is Maggie's gift to you--she left
+it here for you."
+
+She looked at him stupidly--in dazed gratitude. Travis came forward:
+
+"I've ordered Jim to take you home to-night. I cannot leave now."
+
+And he led her out to where the trotters stood. He lifted her in,
+pressing her hand as he did so--but she did not know it--she burned
+with a strange fullness in her throat as she clutched her money, the
+first she had ever earned, and thought of Maggie--Maggie, dying and
+unselfish.
+
+Work--it had opened a new life to her. Work--and never before had she
+known the sweetness of it.
+
+"Oh, father," she said when she reached home, "I have made some
+money--I can support you and Lily now."
+
+When Travis returned Jud Carpenter met him at the door.
+
+"I had a mess o' trouble gittin' that gal into the mill. Huh! but
+ain't she a beaut! I guess you 'orter tip me for throwin' sech a
+peach as that into yo' arms. Oh, you're a sly one--" he went on
+whisperingly--"the smoothest one with women I ever seed. But you'll
+have to thank me for that queen. Guess I'll go down an' take a dram.
+I want to git the lint out of my throat."
+
+"I'll be down later," said Travis as he looked at his watch. "Charley
+Biggers and I. It's our night to have a little fun with the boys."
+
+"I'll see you there," said Jud.
+
+The clinking of silver, questions, answers, and expostulations went
+on. In the midst of it there was the sudden shrill wail of an angry
+child.
+
+"I wants some of my money, Paw--I wants to buy a ginger man."
+
+Then came a cruel slap which was heard all over the room, and the boy
+of ten, a wild-eyed and unkempt thing, staggered and grasped his face
+where the blow fell.
+
+"Take that, you sassy meddling up-start--you belong to me till you
+are twenty-one years old. What 'ud you do with a ginger man 'cept to
+eat it?" He cuffed the boy through the door and sent him flying home.
+
+It was Joe Sykes, the wages of whose children kept him in active
+drunkenness and chronic inertia. He was the champion loafer of the
+town.
+
+In a short time he had drawn a pocketful of silver, and going out
+soon overtook Jud Carpenter.
+
+"I tell you, Jud, we mus' hold these kids down--we heads of the
+family. I've mighty nigh broke myself down this week a controllin'
+mine. Goin' down to take a drink or two? Same to you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE PLOT
+
+
+A village bar-room is a village hell.
+
+Jud Carpenter and Joe Hopper were soon there, and the silver their
+children had earned at the mill began to go for drinks.
+
+The drinks made them feel good. They resolved to feel better, so they
+drank again. As they drank the talk grew louder. They were joined by
+others from the town--ne'er-do-wells, who hung around the bar--and
+others from the mill.
+
+And so they drank and sang and danced and played cards and drank
+again, and threw dice for more drinks.
+
+It was nearly nine o'clock before the Bacchanal laugh began to ring
+out at intervals--so easily distinguished from the sober laugh, in
+that it carries in its closing tones the queer ring of the maniac's.
+
+Only the mill men had any cash. The village loafers drank at their
+expense, and on credit.
+
+"And why should we not drink if we wish," said one of them. "Our
+children earned the money and do we not own the children?"
+
+Twice only were they interrupted. Once by the wife of a weaver who
+came in and pleaded with her husband for part of their children's
+money. Her tears touched the big-hearted Billy Buch, and as her
+husband was too drunk to know what he was doing, Billy took what
+money he had left and gave it to the wife. She had a sick child, she
+told Billy Buch, and what money she had would not even buy the
+medicine.
+
+Billy squinted the corner of one eye and looked solemnly at the
+husband: "He ha'f ten drinks in him ag'in, already. I vill gif you
+pay for eet all for the child. An' here ees one dollar mo' from Billy
+Buch. Now go, goot voman."
+
+The other interruption was the redoubtable Mrs. Billings; her
+brother, also a slubber, had arrived early, but had scarcely taken
+two delightful, exquisite drinks before she came on the scene, her
+eyes flashing, her hair disheveled, and her hand playing familiarly
+with something under her apron.
+
+Her presence threw them into a panic.
+
+"Mine Gott!" said Billy, turning pale. "Eet es Meeses Billings an'
+her crockery."
+
+Half a dozen jubilants pointed out a long-haired man at a center
+table talking proudly of his physical strength and bravery.
+
+"Cris Ham?" beckoned Mrs. Billings, feeling nervously under her
+apron. "Come with me!"
+
+"I'll be along t'orectly, sis."
+
+"You will come now," she said, and her hands began to move ominously
+beneath her apron.
+
+"To be sho'," he said as he walked out with her. "I didn't know you
+felt that away about it, sis."
+
+It was after ten o'clock when the quick roll of a buggy came up to
+the door, and Richard Travis and Charley Biggers alighted.
+
+They had both been drinking. Slowly, surely, Travis was going down in
+the scale of degeneracy. Slowly the loose life he was leading was
+lowering him to the level of the common herd. A few years ago he
+would not have thought of drinking with his own mill hands. To-night
+he was there, the most reckless of them all. Analyzed, it was for the
+most part conceit with him; the low conceit of the superior intellect
+which would mingle in infamy with the lowest to gain its ignorant
+homage. For Intellect must have homage if it has to drag it from the
+slums.
+
+Charley Biggers was short and boyish, with a fat, round face. When he
+laughed he showed a fine set of big, sensual teeth. His eyes were
+jolly, flighty, insincere. Weakness was written all over him, from a
+derby hat sitting back rakishly on his forehead to the small,
+effeminate boot that fitted so neatly his small effeminate foot. He
+had a small hand and his little sensual face had not a rough feature
+on it. It was set off by a pudgy, half-formed dab of a nose that let
+his breath in and out when his mouth happened to be shut. His eyes
+were the eyes of one who sees no wrong in anything.
+
+They came in and pulled off their gloves, daintily. They threw their
+overcoats on a chair. Travis glanced around the circle of the four or
+five who were left and said pompously:
+
+"Come up, gentlemen, and have something at my expense." Then he
+walked up to the bar.
+
+They came. They considered it both a pleasure and an honor, as Jud
+Carpenter expressed it, to drink with him.
+
+"It is a good idea to mingle with them now and then," whispered
+Travis to Charley. "It keeps me solid with them--health, gentlemen!"
+
+Charley Biggers showed his good-natured teeth:
+
+"Health, gentlemen," he grinned.
+
+Then he hiccoughed through his weak little nose.
+
+"Joe Hopper can't rise, gentlemen, Joe is drunk, an'--an' a widderer,
+besides," hiccoughed Joe from below.
+
+Joe had been a widower for a year. His wife, after being the mother
+of eleven children, who now supported Joe in his drunkenness, had
+passed away.
+
+Then Joe burst into tears.
+
+"What's up, Joe?" asked Jud kindly.
+
+"Liza's dead," he wailed.
+
+"Why, she's been dead a year," said Jud.
+
+"Don't keer, Jud--I'm jes'--jes' beginnin' to feel it now"--and he
+wept afresh.
+
+It was too much for Charley Biggers, and he also wept. Travis looked
+fixedly at the ceiling and recited portions of the Episcopal burial
+service. Then Jud wept. They all wept.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Travis solemnly, "let us drink to the health of the
+departed Mrs. Hopper. Here's to her!"
+
+This cheered all except Joe Hopper--he refused to be comforted. They
+tried to console him, but he only wept the more. They went on
+drinking and left him out, but this did not tend to diminish his
+tears.
+
+"Oh, Mister Hopper, shet up," said Jud peremptorily--"close up--I've
+arranged for you to marry a grass-widder."
+
+This cheered him greatly.
+
+"O Jud--Jud--if I marry a grass-widder whut--whut'll I be then?"
+
+"Why? a grasshopper, sure," said Travis.
+
+They all roared. Then Jud winked at Travis and Travis winked at the
+others. Then they sat around a table, all winking except poor Joe,
+who continued to weep at the thought of being a grasshopper. He did
+not quite understand how it was, but he knew that in some way he was
+to be changed into a grasshopper, with long green wings and legs to
+match.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Jud seriously--"it is our duty to help out po' Joe.
+Now, Joe, we've arranged it for you to marry Miss Kate Galloway--the
+grass-widder."
+
+"Not Miss Kate," said Travis with becoming seriousness.
+
+"Why not her, Mr. Travis?" asked Jud, winking.
+
+"Because his children will be Katydids," said Travis.
+
+This brought on thundering roars of laughter and drinks all around.
+Only Joe wept--wept to think his children would be katydids.
+
+"Now, Joe, it's this way. I've talked it all over and arranged it.
+That's what we've met for to-night--ain't it, gents?" said Jud.
+
+"Sure--sure," they all exclaimed.
+
+"Now, Joe, you mus' dry yo' tears an' become reconciled--we've got a
+nice scheme fixed for you."
+
+"I'll never be reconciled--never," wailed Joe. "Liza's dead an'--I'm
+a grasshopper."
+
+"Now, wait till I explain to you--but, dear, devoted friend,
+everything is ready. The widder's been seen an' all you've got to do
+is to come with us and get her."
+
+"She's a mighty handsome 'oman," said Jud, winking his eye.
+"Dear--dear frien's--all--I'm feelin' reconciled already"--said Joe.
+
+They all joined in the roar. Jud winked. They all winked. Jud went
+on:
+
+"Joe, dear, dear Joe--we have had thy welfare at heart, as the books
+say. We wanted thee to become a millionaire. Thou hast eleven
+children to begin with. They pay you--"
+
+"Eighteen dollars a week, clear,"--said Joe proudly.
+
+"Well, now, Joe--it's all arranged--you marry the widder an' in the
+course of time you'll have eleven mo'. That's another eighteen
+dollars--or thirty-six dollars a week clear in the mills."
+
+"Now, but I hadn't thought of that," said Joe
+enthusiastically--"that's a fact. When--when did you say the
+ceremony'd be performed?"
+
+"Hold on," said Jud, "now, we've studied this thing all out for you.
+You're a Mormon--the only one of us that is a Mormon--openly."
+
+They all laughed.
+
+"Openly--" he went on--"you've j'ined the Mormon church here up in
+the mountains."
+
+"But we don't practise polygamy--now"--said Joe.
+
+"That's only on account of the Grand Jury and the law--not yo'
+religion. You see--you'll marry an' go to Utah--but--es the kids come
+you'll sen' 'em all down here to the mills--every one a kinder livin'
+coupon. All any man's got to do in this country to git rich is to
+marry enough wives."
+
+"Can I do that--do the marryin' in Utah an' keep sendin' the--the
+chilluns down to the mill?" His eyes glittered.
+
+"Sart'inly"--said Jud--"sure!"
+
+"Then there's Miss Carewe"--he went on--"you haf'ter cal'clate on
+feedin' several wives in one, with her. But say eleven mo' by her.
+That's thirty-seven mo'."
+
+Joe jumped up.
+
+"Is she willin'?"
+
+"Done seen her," said Jud; "she say come on."
+
+"Hold on," said Travis with feigned anger. "Hold on. Joe is fixin' to
+start a cotton-mill of his own. That'll interfere with the Acme.
+No--no--we must vote it down. We mustn't let Joe do it."
+
+Joe had already attempted to rise and start after his wives. But in
+the roar of laughter that followed he sat down and began to weep
+again for Liza.
+
+It was nearly midnight. Only Travis, Charley Biggers and Jud remained
+sober enough to talk. Charley was telling of Tilly and her wondrous
+beauty.
+
+"Now--it's this way," he hiccoughed--"I've got to go off to
+school--but--but--I've thought of a plan to marry her first, with a
+bogus license and preacher."
+
+There was a whispered conversation among them, ending in a shout of
+applause.
+
+"What's the matter with you takin' yo' queen at the same time?" asked
+Jud of Travis.
+
+Travis, drunk as he was, winced to think that he would ever permit
+Jud Carpenter to suggest what he had intended should only be known to
+himself. His tongue was thick, his brain whirled, and there were gaps
+in his thoughts; but through the thickness and heaviness he thought
+how low he had fallen. Lower yet when, despite all his vanishing
+reserve, all his dignity and exclusiveness, he laughed sillily and
+said:
+
+"Just what I had decided to do--two queens and an ace."
+
+They all cheered drunkenly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+MRS. WESTMORE TAKES A HAND
+
+
+"What are you playing, Alice?"
+
+The daughter arose from the piano and kissed her mother, holding for
+a moment the pretty face, crowned with white hair, between her two
+palms.
+
+"It--it is an old song which Tom and I used to love to sing."
+
+The last of the sentence came so slowly that it sank almost into
+silence, as of one beginning a sentence and becoming so absorbed in
+the subject as to forget the speech. Then she turned again to the
+piano, as if to hide from her mother the sorrow which had crept into
+her face.
+
+"You should cease to think of that. Such things are dreams--at
+present we are confronted by very disagreeable realities."
+
+"Dreams--ah, mother mine"--she answered with forced cheeriness--"but
+what would life be without them?"
+
+"For one thing, Alice"--and she took the daughter's place at the
+piano and began to play snatches of an old waltz tune--"it would be
+free from all the morbid unnaturalness, the silliness, the froth of
+things. There is too much hardness in every life--in the world--in
+the very laws of life, for such things ever to have been part of the
+original plan. For my part, I think they are the product of man and
+wine or women or morphine or some other narcotic."
+
+"We make the dreams of life, but the realities of it make us," she
+added.
+
+"Oh, no, mother. 'Tis the dreams that make the realities. Not a great
+established fact exists but it was once the vision of a dreamer. Our
+dreams to-day become the realities of to-morrow."
+
+"Do you believe Tom is not dead--that he will one day come back?"
+asked her mother abruptly.
+
+It was twilight and the fire flickered, lighting up the library. But
+in the flash of it Mrs. Westmore saw Alice's cheek whiten in a
+hopeless, helpless, stricken way.
+
+Then she walked to the window and looked out on the darkness fast
+closing in on the lawn, clustering denser around the evergreens and
+creeping ghostlike toward the dim sky line which shone clear in the
+open.
+
+The very helplessness of her step, her silence, her numbed, yearning
+look across the lawn told Mrs. Westmore of the death of all hope
+there.
+
+She followed her daughter and put her arms impulsively around her.
+
+"I should not have hurt you so, Alice. I only wanted to show you how
+worse than useless it is ... but to change the subject, I do wish to
+speak to you of--our condition."
+
+Alice was used to her mother's ways--her brilliancy--her pointed
+manner of going at things--her quick change of thought--of mood, and
+even of temperament. An outsider would have judged Mrs. Westmore to
+be fickle with a strong vein of selfishness and even of egotism.
+Alice only knew that she was her mother; who had suffered much; who
+had been reduced by poverty to a condition straitened even to
+hardships. To help her the daughter knew that she was willing to make
+any sacrifice. Unselfish, devoted, clear as noonday in her own ideas
+of right and wrong, Alice's one weakness was her blind devotion to
+those she loved. A weakness beautiful and even magnificent, since it
+might mean a sacrifice of her heart for another. The woman who gives
+her time, her money, her life, even, to another gives but a small
+part of her real self. But there is something truly heroic when she
+throws in her heart also. For when a woman has given that she has
+given all; and because she has thrown it in cold and dead--a lifeless
+thing--matters not; in the poignancy of the giving it is gone from
+her forever and she may not recall it even with the opportunity of
+bringing it back to life.
+
+She who gives her all, but keeps her heart, is as a priest reading
+mechanically the Sermon on the Mount from the Bible. But she who
+gives her heart never to take it back again gives as the Christ dying
+on the Cross.
+
+"Now, here is the legal paper about"--
+
+Her voice failed and she did not finish the sentence.
+
+Alice took the paper and glanced at it. She flushed and thrust it
+into her pocket. They were silent a while and Mrs. Westmore sat
+thinking of the past. Alice knew it by the great reminiscent light
+which gleamed in her eyes. She thought of the time when she had
+servants, money, friends unlimited--of the wealth and influence of
+her husband--of the glory of Westmoreland.
+
+Every one has some secret ambition kept from the eyes of every living
+soul--often even to die in its keeper's breast. It is oftenest a mean
+ambition of which one is ashamed and so hides it from the world. It
+is often the one weakness. Alice never knew what was her mother's.
+She did not indeed know that she had one, for this one thing Mrs.
+Westmore had kept inviolately secret. But in her heart there had
+always rankled a secret jealousy when she thought of The Gaffs. It
+had been there since she could remember--a feeling cherished
+secretly, too, by her husband: for in everything their one idea had
+been that Westmoreland should surpass The Gaffs,--that it should be
+handsomer, better kept, more prosperous, more famous.
+
+Now, Westmoreland was gone--this meant the last of it. It would be
+sold, even the last hundred acres of it, with the old home on it.
+Gone--gone--all her former glory--all her family tradition, her
+memories, her very name.
+
+Gone, and The Gaffs remained!
+
+Remained in all its intactness--its beauty--its well equipped barns
+with all the splendor of its former days. For so great was the
+respect of Schofield's army for the character of Colonel Jeremiah
+Travis that his home escaped the torch when it was applied to many
+others in the Tennessee Valley. And Richard Travis had been shrewd
+enough after the war to hold his own. Joining the party of the negro
+after the war, he had been its political ruler in the county. And the
+Honorable Richard Travis had been offered anything he wanted. At
+present he was State Senator. He with others called himself a
+Republican--one of the great party of Lincoln to which the negroes
+after their enfranchisement united themselves. It was a fearful
+misnomer. The Republican party in the South, composed of ninety-nine
+ignorant negroes to one renegade white, about as truly represented
+the progressive party of Lincoln as a black vampire the ornithology
+of all lands. Indeed, since the war, there has never been in the
+South either a Republican or a Democratic party. The party line is
+not drawn on belief but on race and color. The white men, believing
+everything they please from free trade to protection, vote a ticket
+which they call Democratic. The negroes, and a few whites who allied
+themselves with them for the spoils of office, vote the other ticket.
+Neither of them represent anything but a race issue.
+
+To this negro party belonged Richard Travis--and the price of his
+infamy had been _Honorable_ before his name.
+
+But Mrs. Westmore cared nothing for this. She only knew that he was a
+leader of men, was handsome, well reared and educated, and that he
+owned The Gaffs, her old rival. And that there it stood, a fortune--a
+refuge--a rock--offered to her and her daughter, offered by a man
+who, whatever his other faults, was brave and dashing, sincere in his
+idolatrous love for her daughter. That he would make Alice happy she
+did not doubt; for Mrs. Westmore's idea of happiness was in having
+wealth and position and a splendid name. Having no real heart, how
+was it possible for her to know, as Alice could know, the happiness
+of love?
+
+An eyeless fish in the river of Mammoth Cave might as well try to
+understand what light meant.
+
+He would make Alice happy, of course he would; he would make her happy
+by devotion, which he was eager to give her with an unstinted hand.
+Alice needed it, she herself needed it. It was common sense to accept
+it,--business sense. It was opportunity--fate. It was the reward of a
+life--the triumph of it--to have her old rival--enemy--bound and
+presented to her.
+
+And nothing stood between her and the accomplishment of it all but the
+foolish romance of her daughter's youth.
+
+And so she sat building her castles and thinking:
+
+"With The Gaffs, with Richard Travis and his money would come all I
+wish, both for her and for me. Once more I would hold the social
+position I once held: once more I would be something in the world.
+And Alice, of course, she would be happy; for her's is one of those
+trusting natures which finds first where her duty points and then
+makes her heart follow."
+
+But Mrs. Westmore wisely kept silent. She did not think aloud. She
+knew too well that Alice's sympathetic, unselfish, obedient spirit
+was thinking it over.
+
+She sat down by her mother and took up a pet kitten which had come
+purring in, begging for sympathy. She stroked it thoughtfully.
+
+Mrs. Westmore read her daughter's thoughts:
+
+"So many people," the mother said after a while, "have false ideas of
+love and marriage. Like ignorant people when they get religion, they
+think a great and sudden change must come over them--changing their
+very lives."
+
+She laughed her ringing little laugh: "I told you of your father's
+and my love affair. Why, I was engaged to three other men at the same
+time--positively I was. And I would have been just as happy with any
+of them."
+
+"Why did you marry father, then?"
+
+Her mother laughed and tapped the toe of her shoe playfully against
+the fender: "It was a silly reason; he swam the Tennessee River on
+his horse to see me one day, when the ferry-boat was a wreck. I
+married him."
+
+"Would not the others have done as well?"
+
+"Yes, but I knew your father was brave. You cannot love a coward--no
+woman can. But let a man be brave--no matter what his faults are--the
+rest is all a question of time. You would soon learn to love him as I
+did your father."
+
+Mrs. Westmore was wise. She changed the subject.
+
+"Have you noticed Uncle Bisco lately, mother?" asked Alice after a
+while.
+
+"Why, yes; I intended to ask you about him."
+
+"He says there are threats against his life--his and Aunt Charity's.
+He had a terrible dream last night, and he would have me to interpret
+it."
+
+"Quite Biblical," laughed her mother. "What was it?"
+
+"They have been very unhappy all day--you know the negroes have been
+surly and revengeful since the election of Governor Houston--they
+believe they will be put back into slavery and they know that Uncle
+Bisco voted with his white friends. It is folly, of course--but they
+beat Captain Roland's old body servant nearly to death because he
+voted with his old master. And Uncle Bisco has heard threats that he
+and Aunt Charity will be visited in a like manner. I think it will
+soon blow over, though at times I confess I am often worried about
+them, living alone so far off from us, in the cabin in the wood."
+
+"What was Uncle Bisco's dream?" asked Mrs. Westmore.
+
+"Why, he said an angel had brought him water to drink from a
+Castellonian Spring. Now, I don't know what a Castellonian Spring is,
+but that was the word he used, and that he was turned into a live-oak
+tree, old and moss-grown. Then he stood in the forest surrounded by
+scrub-oaks and towering over them and other mean trees when suddenly
+they all fell upon him and cut him down. Now, he says, these
+scrub-oaks are the radical negroes who wish to kill him for voting
+with the whites. You will laugh at my interpretation," she went on.
+"I told him that the small black oaks were years that still stood
+around him, but that finally they would overpower him and he would
+sink to sleep beneath them, as we must all eventually do. I think it
+reassured him--but, mamma, I am uneasy about the two old people."
+
+"If the Bishop were here--"
+
+"He would sleep in the house with a shotgun, I fear," laughed Alice.
+
+They were silent at last: "When did you say Richard was coming again,
+Alice?"
+
+"To-morrow night--and--and--I hear Clay in his laboratory. I will go
+and talk to him before bed time."
+
+She stooped and kissed her mother. To her surprise, she found her
+mother's arms around her neck and heard her whisper brokenly:
+
+"Alice--Alice--you could solve it all if you would.
+Think--think--what it would mean to me--to all of us--oh, I can stand
+this poverty no longer--this fight against that which we cannot
+overcome."
+
+She burst into a flood of tears. Never before had Alice seen her show
+her emotions over their condition, and it hurt her, stabbed her to
+the vital spot of all obedience and love.
+
+With moistened eyes she went into her brother's room.
+
+And Mrs. Westmore wrote a note to Richard Travis. It did not say so
+in words but it meant: "_Come and be bold--you have won._"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A QUESTION BROUGHT HOME
+
+
+"I shall go to Boston next week to meet the directors of the mill and
+give in my annual report."
+
+The three had been sitting in Westmoreland library this Sunday
+night--for Richard Travis came regularly every Sunday night, and he
+had been talking about the progress of the mill and the great work it
+was doing for the poor whites of the valley. "I imagine," he added,
+"that they will be pleased with the report this year."
+
+"But are you altogether pleased with it in all its features?" asked
+Alice thoughtfully.
+
+"Why, what do you mean, Alice?" asked her mother, surprised.
+
+"Just this, mother, and I have been thinking of talking to Richard
+about it for some time."
+
+Travis took his cigar out of his mouth and looked at her quizzically.
+
+She flushed under his gaze and added: "If I wasn't saying what I am
+for humanity's sake I would be willing to admit that it was
+impertinent on my part. But are you satisfied with the way you work
+little children in that mill, Richard, and are you willing to let it
+go on without a protest before your directors? You have such a fine
+opportunity for good there," she added in all her old beautiful
+earnestness.
+
+"Oh, Alice, my dear, that is none of our affair. Now I should not
+answer her, Richard," and Mrs. Westmore tapped him playfully on the
+arm.
+
+"Frankly, I am not," he said to Alice. "I think it is a horrible
+thing. But how are we to remedy it? There is no law on the subject at
+all in Alabama--"
+
+"Except the broader, unwritten law," she added.
+
+Travis laughed: "You will find that it cuts a small figure with
+directors when it comes in conflict with the dividends of a
+corporation."
+
+"But how is it there?" she asked,--"in New England?"
+
+"They have seen the evils of it and they have a law against child
+labor. The age is restricted to twelve years, and every other year
+they must go to a public school before they may be taken back into
+the mill. But even with all that, the law is openly violated, as it
+is in England, where they have been making efforts to throttle the
+child-labor problem for nearly a century, and after whose law the New
+England law was patterned."
+
+"Why, by the parents of the children falsely swearing to their age."
+
+Alice looked at him in astonishment.
+
+"Do you really mean it?" she asked.
+
+"Why, certainly--and it would be the same here. If we had a law the
+lazy parents of many of them would swear falsely to their children's
+ages."
+
+"There could be some way found to stop that," she said.
+
+"It has not been found yet," he added. "What is to prevent two
+designing parents swearing that an eight year old child is
+twelve--and these little poor whites," he added with a laugh, "all
+look alike from eight to sixteen--scrawny--hard and half-starved. In
+many cases no living man could swear whether they are six or twelve."
+
+"If you really should make it a rule to refuse all children under
+twelve," she added, "tell me how many would go out of your mill."
+
+"In other words, how many under twelve do we work there?" he asked.
+
+She nodded.
+
+He thought a while and then said: "About one hundred and
+twenty-five."
+
+She started: "That is terrible--terrible! Couldn't you--couldn't you
+bring the subject up before the directors for--for--"
+
+"Your sake--yes"--he said, admiringly.
+
+"Humanity's--God's--Right's--helpless, ignorant, dying children!"
+
+"Do you know," he added quickly, "how many idle parents these hundred
+and twenty-five children support--actually support? Why, about fifty.
+Now do you see? The whole influence of these fifty people will be to
+violate the law--to swear the children are twelve or over. Yes, I am
+opposed to it--so is Kingsley--but we are powerless."
+
+"My enthusiasm has been aroused, of late, on the subject," Alice
+went on, "by the talks and preaching of my old friend, Mr. Watts."
+
+Travis frowned: "The old Bishop of Cottontown," he added
+ironically--"and he had better stop it--he will get into trouble
+yet."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he is doing the mill harm."
+
+"And I don't suppose one should do a corporation harm," she said
+quickly,--"even to do humanity good?"
+
+"Oh, Alice, let us drop so disagreeable a subject," said her mother.
+"Come, Richard and I want some music."
+
+"Any way," said Alice, rising, "I do very much hope you will bring
+the subject up in your visit to the directors. It has grown on me
+under the talks of the old Bishop and what I have seen myself--it has
+become a nightmare to me."
+
+"I don't think it is any of our business at all," spoke up Mrs.
+Westmore quickly.
+
+Alice turned her big, earnest eyes and beautiful face on her mother.
+
+"Do you remember when I was six years old?" she asked.
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"Suppose--suppose--that our poverty had come to us then, and you and
+papa had died and left brother and me alone and friendless. Then
+suppose we had been put into that mill to work fourteen hours a
+day--we--your own little ones--brother and I"--
+
+Mrs. Westmore sprang up with a little shriek and put her hands over
+her daughter's mouth.
+
+Richard Travis shrugged his shoulders: "I had not thought of it that
+way myself," he said. "That goes home to one."
+
+Richard Travis was always uplifted in the presence of Alice. It was
+wonderful to him what a difference in his feelings, his behavior, his
+ideas, her simple presence exerted. As he looked at her he thought of
+last night's debauch--the bar-room--the baseness and vileness of it
+all. He thought of his many amours. He saw the purity and grandeur of
+her in this contrast--all her queenliness and beauty and simplicity.
+He even thought of Maggie and said to himself: "Suppose Alice should
+know all this.... My God! I would have no more chance of winning her
+than of plucking a star from the sky!"
+
+He thought of Helen and it made him serious. Helen's was a different
+problem from Maggie's. Maggie was a mill girl--poor, with a
+bed-ridden father. She was nameless. But Helen--she was of the same
+blood and caste of this beautiful woman before him, whom he fully
+expected to make his wife. There was danger in Helen--he must act
+boldly, but decisively--he must take her away with him--out of the
+State, the South even. Distance would be his protection, and her
+pride and shame would prevent her ever letting her whereabouts or her
+fate be known.
+
+Cold-bloodedly, boldly, and with clear-cut reasoning, all this ran
+through his mind as he stood looking at Alice Westmore.
+
+We are strangely made--the best of us. Men have looked on the Madonna
+and wondered why the artist had not put more humanity there--had not
+given her a sensual lip, perhaps. And on the Cross, the Christ was
+thinking of a thief.
+
+Two hours later he was bidding her good-bye.
+
+"Next Sunday, do you remember--Alice--next Sunday night you are to
+tell me--to fix the day, Sweet?"
+
+"Did mother tell you that?" she asked. "She should let me speak for
+myself."
+
+But somehow he felt that she would. Indeed he knew it as he kissed
+her hand and bade her good-night.
+
+Richard Travis had ridden over to Westmoreland that Sunday night, and
+as he rode back, some two miles away, and within the shadows of a
+dense clump of oaks which bordered the road, he was stopped by two
+dusky figures. They stood just on the edge of the forest and came out
+so suddenly that the spirited saddle mare stopped and attempted to
+wheel and bolt. But Travis, controlling her with one hand and,
+suspecting robbers, had drawn his revolver with the other, when one
+of them said:
+
+"Friends, don't shoot."
+
+"Give the countersign," said Travis with ill-concealed irritation.
+
+"Union League, sir. I am Silos, sir."
+
+Travis put his revolver back into his overcoat pocket and quieted his
+mare.
+
+The two men, one a negro and the other a mulatto, came up to his
+saddle-skirt and stood waiting respectfully.
+
+"You should have awaited me at The Gaffs, Silos."
+
+"We did, sir," said the mulatto, "but the boys are all out here in
+the woods, and we wanted to hold them together. We didn't know when
+you would come home."
+
+"Oh, it's all right," said Travis pettishly--"only you came near
+catching one of my bullets by mistake. I thought you were Jack
+Bracken and his gang."
+
+The mulatto smiled and apologized. He was a bright fellow and the
+barber of the town.
+
+"We wanted to know, sir, if you were willing for us to do the work
+to-night, sir?"
+
+"Why bother me about it--no need for me to know, Silos, but one thing
+I must insist upon. You may whip them--frighten them, but nothing
+else, mind you, nothing else."
+
+"But you are the commander of the League--we wanted your consent."
+
+Travis bent low over the saddle and talked earnestly to the man a
+while. It was evidently satisfactory to the other, for he soon
+beckoned his companion and started off into the woods.
+
+"Have you representatives from each camp present, Silos?"
+
+The mulatto turned and came back.
+
+"Yes--but the toughest we could get. I'll not stay myself to see it.
+I don't like such work, sir--only some one has to do it for the
+cause--the cause of freedom, sir."
+
+"Of course--why of course," said Travis. "Old Bisco and his kind are
+liable to get all you negroes put back into slavery--if the Democrats
+succeed again as they have just done. Give them a good scare."
+
+"We'll fix him to-night, boss," said the black one, grinning good
+naturedly. Then he added to himself: "Yes, I'll whip 'em--to death."
+
+"I heard a good deal of talk among the boys, to-night, sir," said the
+mulatto. "They all want you for Congress next time."
+
+"Well, we'll talk about that, Silos, later. I must hurry on."
+
+He started, then wheeled suddenly:
+
+"Oh, say, Silos--"
+
+The latter came back.
+
+"Do your work quietly to-night--Just a good scare--If you
+disturb"--he pointed to the roof of Westmoreland in the distance
+showing above the beech tops. "You know how foolish they are about
+old Bisco and his wife--"
+
+"They'll never hear anything." He walked off, saying to himself: "A
+nigger who is a traitor to his race ought to be shot, but for fear of
+a noise and disturbin' the ladies--I'll hang 'em both,--never fear."
+
+Travis touched his mare with the spur and galloped off.
+
+Uncle Bisco and his wife were rudely awakened. It was nearly midnight
+when the door of their old cabin was broken open by a dozen black,
+ignorant negroes, who seized and bound the old couple before they
+could cry out. Bisco was taken out into the yard under a tree, while
+his wife, pleading and begging for her husband's life, was tied to
+another tree.
+
+"Bisco," said the leader, "we cum heah to pay you back fur de blood
+you drawed frum our backs whilst you hilt de whip ob slabery an'
+oberseed fur white fo'ks. An' fur ebry lick you giv' us, we gwi' giv'
+you er dozen on your naked back, an' es fur dis ole witch," said the
+brute, pointing to old Aunt Charity, "we got de plain docyments on
+her fur witchin' Br'er Moses' little gal--de same dat she mek hab
+fits, an' we gwi' hang her to a lim'."
+
+The old man drew himself up. In every respect--intelligence, physical
+and moral bravery--he was superior to the crowd around him. Raised
+with the best class of whites, he had absorbed many of their virtues,
+while in those around him were many who were but a few generations
+removed from the cowardice of darkest Africa.
+
+"I nurver hit you a lick you didn't deserve, suh, I nurver had you
+whipped but once an' dat wus for stealin' a horg which you sed
+yo'se'f you stole. You ken do wid me es you please," he went on, "you
+am menny an' kin do it, an' I am ole an' weak. But ef you hes got
+enny soul, spare de po' ole 'oman who ain't nurver dun nothin' but
+kindness all her life. De berry chile you say she witched hes hed
+'leptis fits all its life an' Cheerity ain't dun nuffin' but take it
+medicine to kwore it. Don't hurt de po' ole 'oman," he exclaimed.
+
+"Let 'em do whut dey please wid me, Bisco," she said: "Dey can't do
+nuffin' to dis po' ole body but sen' de tired soul on dat journey
+wher de buterful room is already fix fur it, es you read dis berry
+night. But spare de ole man, spare 'im fur de secun' blessin' which
+Gord dun promised us, an' which boun' ter cum bekase Gord can't lie.
+O Lord," she said suddenly, "remember thy po' ole servants dis
+night."
+
+But her appeals were fruitless. Already the "witch council" of the
+blacks was being formed to decide their fate. And it was an uncanny
+scene that the moon looked down on that night, under the big trees on
+the banks of the Tennessee. They formed in a circle around the "Witch
+Finder," an old negro whose head was as white as snow, and who was so
+ignorant he could scarcely speak even negro dialect.
+
+Both his father and mother were imported from Africa, and the former
+was "Witch Finder" for his tribe there. The negroes said the African
+Witch Finder had imparted his secret only to his son, and that it had
+thus been handed down in one family for many generations.
+
+The old negro now sat upon the ground in the center of the circle. He
+was a small, bent up, wiry-looking black, with a physiognomy closely
+resembling a dog's, which he took pains to cultivate by drawing the
+plaits of his hair down like the ears of a hound, while he shaped his
+few straggling strands of beard into the under jaw of the same
+animal. Three big negroes had led him, blind-folded, into the circle,
+chanting a peculiar song, the music of which was weird and uncanny.
+And now as he sat on the ground the others regarded him with the
+greatest reverence and awe. It was in one of the most dismal portions
+of the swamp, a hundred yards or two from the road that led to the
+ferry at the river. Here the old people had been brought from their
+homes and tied to this spot where the witch council was to be held.
+Before seating himself the Witch Finder had drawn three rings within
+a circle on the ground with the thigh bone of a dog. Then,
+unbuttoning his red flannel shirt, he took from his bosom, suspended
+around his neck, a kind of purse, made from the raw-hide of a calf,
+with white hair on one side and red on the other, and from this bag
+he proceeded to take out things which would have given Shakespeare
+ideas for his witch scene in Macbeth. A little black ring, made of
+the legs of the black spider and bound together with black horse
+hair; a black thimble-like cup, not much longer than the cup of an
+acorn, made of the black switch of a mule containing the liver of a
+scorpion. The horny head and neck of the huge black beetle, commonly
+known to negroes as the black Betsy Bug; the rattle and button of a
+rattlesnake; the fang-tooth of a cotton-mouth moccasin, the left hind
+foot of a frog, seeds of the stinging nettle, and pods of peculiar
+plants, all incased in a little sack made of a mole's hide. These
+were all given sufficient charm by a small round cotton yarn, in the
+center of which was a drop of human blood. They were placed on the
+ground around him, but he held the ball of cotton yarn in his hand,
+and ordered that the child be brought into the ring. The poor thing
+was frightened nearly to death at sight of the Witch Finder, and when
+he began slowly to unwind his ball of cotton thread and chant his
+monotonous funeral song, she screamed in terror. At a signal from the
+"Witch Finder," Aunt Charity was dragged into the ring, her hands
+tied behind her. The sight of such brutality was too much for the
+child, and she promptly had another fit. No other evidence was
+needed, and the Witch Finder declared that Aunt Charity was Queen of
+Witches. The council retired, and in a few minutes their decision was
+made: Uncle Bisco was to be beaten to death with hickory flails and
+his old wife hung to the nearest tree. Their verdict being made, two
+stout negroes came forward to bind the old man to a tree with his
+arms around it. At sight of these ruffians the old woman broke out
+into triumphant song:
+
+    "O we mos' to de home whar we all gwi' res',
+         Cum, dear Lord, cum soon!
+     An' take de ole weary ones unto yo' bres',
+         Cum, dear Lord, cum soon!
+     Fur we ole an' we tired an' we hungry fur yo' sight,
+     An' our lim's dey am weary, fur we fou't er good fight,
+     An' we longin' fur de lan' ob lub an' light--
+         Cum, dear Lord, cum soon."
+
+And it was well that she sang that song, for it stopped three
+horsemen just as they forded the creek and turned their horses' heads
+into the lane that led to the cabin. One who was tall and with square
+shoulders sat his horse as if born in the saddle. Above, his dark
+hair was streaked with white, but the face was calm and sad, though
+lit up now with two keen and kindly eyes which glowed with suppressed
+excitement. It was the face of splendid resolve and noble purpose,
+and the horse he rode was John Paul Jones. The other was the village
+blacksmith. A negro followed them, mounted on a raw-bone pony, and
+carrying his master's Enfield rifle.
+
+The first horseman was just saying: "Things look mighty natural at
+the old place, Eph; I wonder if the old folks will know us? It seems
+to me--"
+
+He pulled up his horse with a jerk. He heard singing just over to his
+left in the wood. Both horsemen sat listening:
+
+    O we mos' to de do' ob our Father's home--
+        Lead, dear Lord, lead on!
+    An' we'll nurver mo' sorrer an' nurver mo' roam--
+        Lead, dear Lord, lead on!
+    An' we'll meet wid de lam's dat's gohn on befo'
+    An' we lie in de shade ob de good shepherd's do',
+    An' he'll wipe away all ob our tears as dey flow--
+        Lead, dear Lord, lead on!
+
+"Do you know that voice, Eph?" cried the man in front to his body
+servant. "We must hurry"; and he touched the splendid horse with the
+heel of his riding boot.
+
+But the young negro had already plunged two spurs into his pony's
+flanks and was galloping toward the cabin.
+
+It was all over when the white rider came up. Two brutes had been
+knocked over with the short heavy barrel of an Enfield rifle. There
+was wild scattering of others through the wood. An old man was
+clinging in silent prayer to his son's knees and an old woman was
+clinging around his neck, and saying:
+
+"Praise God--who nurver lies--it's little Ephrum--come home ag'in."
+
+Then they looked up and the old man raised his hands in a pitiful
+tumult of joy and fear and reverence as he said:
+
+"An' Marse Tom, so help me God--a-ridin' John Paul Jones!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE PEDIGREE OF ACHIEVEMENT
+
+
+Man may breed up all animals but himself. Strive as he may, the laws
+of heredity are hidden. "Like produces like or the likeness of an
+ancestor" is the unalterable law of the lower animal. Not so with
+man--he is a strange anomaly. Breed him up--up--and then from his
+high breeding will come reversion. From pedigrees and plumed hats and
+ruffled shirts come not men, but pygmies--things which in the real
+fight of life are but mice to the eagles which have come up from the
+soil with the grit of it in their craws and the strength of it in
+their talons.
+
+We stop in wonder--balked. Then we see that we cannot breed men--they
+are born; not in castles, but in cabins.
+
+And why in cabins? For therein must be the solution. And the solution
+is plain: It is work--work that does it.
+
+We cannot breed men unless work--achievement--goes with it.
+
+From the loins of great horses come greater horses; for the pedigree
+of work--achievement--is there. Unlike man, the race-horse is kept
+from degeneracy by work. Each colt that comes must add achievement
+to pedigree when he faces the starter, or he goes to the shambles or
+the surgeon.
+
+Why may not man learn this simple lesson--the lesson of work--of
+pedigree, but the pedigree of achievement?
+
+The son who would surpass his father must do more than his father
+did. Two generations of idleness will beget nonentities, and three,
+degenerates.
+
+The preacher, the philosopher, the poet, the ruler--it matters not
+what his name--he who first solves the problem of how to keep mankind
+achieving will solve the problem of humanity.
+
+And now to Helen Conway for the first time in her life this simple
+thing was happening--she was working--she was earning--she was
+supporting herself and Lily and her father. Not only that, but
+gradually she was learning to know what the love of one like Clay
+meant--unselfish, devoted, true.
+
+If to every tempted woman in the world could be given work, and to
+work achievement, and to achievement independence, there would be few
+fallen ones.
+
+All the next week Helen went to the mill early--she wanted to go. She
+wanted to earn more money and keep Lily out of the mill. And she went
+with a light heart, because for the first time in her life since she
+could remember, her father was sober. Helen's earnings changed even
+him. There was something so noble in her efforts that it uplifted
+even the drunkard. In mingled shame and pride he thought it out:
+Supported by his daughter--in a mill and such a daughter! He arose
+from it all white-lipped with resolve: "_I will be a Conway again!_"
+He said it over and over. He swore it.
+
+It is true he was not entirely free from that sickening, sour,
+accursed smell with which she had associated him all her life. But
+that he was himself, that he was making an earnest effort, she knew
+by his neatly brushed clothes, his clean linen, his freshly shaved
+face, his whole attire which betokened the former gentleman.
+
+"How handsome he must have been when he was once a Conway!" thought
+Helen.
+
+He kissed his daughters at the breakfast table. He chatted with them,
+and though he said nothing about it, even Lily knew that he had
+resolved to reform.
+
+After breakfast Helen left him, with Lily sitting on her father's
+lap, her face bright with the sunshine of it:
+
+"If papa would always be like this"--and she patted his cheek.
+
+Conway started. The very intonation of her voice, her gesture, was of
+the long dead mother.
+
+Tears came to his eyes. He kissed her: "Never again, little daughter,
+will I take another drop."
+
+She looked at him seriously: "Say with God's help--" she said simply.
+"Mammy Maria said it won't count unless you say that."
+
+Conway smiled. "I will do it my own self."
+
+But Lily only shook her head in a motherly, scolding way.
+
+"With God's help, then," he said.
+
+Never was an Autumn morning more beautiful to Helen as she walked
+across the fields to the mill. She had learned a nearer way, one
+which lay across hill and field. The path ran through farms, chiefly
+The Gaffs, and cut across the hills and meadow land. Through little
+dells, amid fragrant groves of sweet gum and maples, their beautiful
+many-colored leaves now scattered in rich profusion around. Then down
+little hollows where the brooks sputtered and frothed and foamed
+along, the sun all the time darting in and out, as the waters ran
+first in sunshine and then in shadow. And above, the winds were so
+still, that the jumping of the squirrel in the hickories made the
+only noise among the leaves which still clung to the boughs.
+
+All so beautiful, and never had Helen been so happy.
+
+She was earning a living--she was saving Lily from the mill and her
+father from temptation.
+
+Her path wound along an old field and plunged into scrub cedar and
+glady rocks. A covey of quail sprang up before her and she screamed,
+frightened at the sudden thunder of their wings.
+
+Then the path ran through a sedge field, white with the tall silvered
+panicled-leaves of the life-everlasting.
+
+Beyond her she saw the smoke-stack of the mill, and a short cut
+through a meadow of The Gaffs would soon take her there.
+
+She failed to see a warning on the fence which said: _Keep
+out--Danger._
+
+Through the bars she went, intent only on soon reaching the mill
+beyond and glorying in the strong rich smell of autumn in leaf and
+grass and air.
+
+"What a beautiful horse that is in the pasture," she thought, and
+then her attention went to a meadow lark flushed and exultant. She
+heard shouts, and now--why was Jim, the stable boy, running toward
+her so fast, carrying a pitchfork in his hands and shouting:
+"Whoa--there, Antar--Antar,--you, sir!"
+
+And the horse! One look was enough. With ears laid back, and mouth
+wide open, with eyes blazing with the fire of fury he was plunging
+straight at her.
+
+Helpless, she turned in sickening doubt, to feel that her limbs were
+limp in the agony of fear. She heard the thunder of the man-eating
+stallion's hoofs just behind her and she butted blindly, as she sank
+down, into some one who held bravely her hand as she fell, and the
+next instant she heard a thundering report and smelt a foul blast of
+gunpowder. She looked up in time to see the great horse pitch back on
+his haunches, rear, quiver a moment and strike desperately at the air
+with his front feet and fall almost upon her.
+
+When she revived, the stable boy stood near by the dead stallion,
+pale with fright and wonder. A half-grown boy stood by her, holding
+her hand.
+
+"You are all right now," he said quietly as he helped her to arise.
+In his right hand he held a pistol and the foul smoke still oozed up
+from the nipple where the exploded cap lay shattered, under the
+hammer.
+
+He was perfectly cool--even haughtily so. He scarcely looked at Helen
+nor at Jim, who kept saying nervously:
+
+"You've killed him--you've killed him--what will Mr. Travis say?"
+
+The boy laughed an ironical laugh. Then he walked up and examined the
+shot he had made. Squarely between the great eyes the ball had gone,
+and scarcely had the glaring, frenzied eye-balls of the man-eater
+been fixed in the rigid stare of death. He put his fingers on it, and
+turning, said:
+
+"A good shot, running--and at twenty paces!"
+
+Then he stood up proudly, and his blue eyes flashed defiance as he
+said:
+
+"And what will Mr. Travis say? Well, tell him first of all that this
+man-eating stallion of his caught the bullet I had intended for his
+woman-eating master--this being my birth-day. And tell him, if he
+asks you who I am, that last week I was James Adams, but now I am
+James Travis. He will understand."
+
+He came over to Helen gallantly--his blue eyes shining through a
+smile which now lurked in them:
+
+"This is Miss Conway, isn't it? I will see you out of this."
+
+Then, taking her hand as if she had been his big sister, he led her
+along the path to the road and to safety.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MARRIED IN GOD'S SIGHT
+
+
+Night--for night and death, are they not one? A farm cabin in a
+little valley beyond the mountain. An Indian Summer night in
+November, but a little fire is pleasant, throwing its cheerful light
+on a room rough from puncheon floor to axe-hewn rafters, but
+cleanly-tidy in its very roughness. It looked sinewy, strong, honest,
+good-natured. There was roughness, but it was the roughness of
+strength. Knots of character told of the suffering, struggles and
+privations of the sturdy trees in the forest, of seams twisted by the
+tempests; rifts from the mountain rocks; fibre, steel-chilled by the
+terrible, silent cold of winter stars.
+
+And now plank and beam and rafter and roof made into a home, humble
+and honest, and giving it all back again under the warm light of the
+hearth-stone.
+
+On a bed, white and beautifully clean, lay a fragile creature,
+terribly white herself, save where red live coals gleamed in her
+cheeks beneath the bright, blazing, fever-fire burning in her eyes
+above.
+
+She coughed and smiled and lay still, smiling.
+
+She smiled because a little one--a tiny, sickly little girl--had come
+up to the bed and patted her cheek and said: "Little mother--little
+mother!"
+
+There were four other children in the room, and they sat around in
+all the solemn, awe-stricken sorrow of death, seen for the first
+time.
+
+Then a man in an invalid chair, helpless and with a broken spine,
+spoke, as if thinking aloud:
+
+"She's all the mother the little 'uns ever had, Bishop--'pears like
+it's cruel for God to take her from them."
+
+"God's cruelty is our crown," said the old man--"we'll understand it
+by and by."
+
+Then the beautiful woman who had come over the mountain arose from
+the seat by the fireside, and came to the bed. She took the little
+one in her arms and petted and soothed her.
+
+The child looked at her timidly in childish astonishment. She was not
+used to such a beautiful woman holding her--so proud and fine--from a
+world that she knew was not her world.
+
+"May I give you some nourishment now, Maggie?"
+
+The girl shook her head.
+
+"No--no--Miss Alice," and then she smiled so brightly and cheerfully
+that the little one in Alice Westmore's arms clapped her hands and
+laughed: "Little mother--be up, well, to-morrow."
+
+Little Mother turned her eyes on the child quickly, smiled and nodded
+approval. But there were tears--tears which the little one did not
+understand.
+
+An hour went by--the wind had ceased, and with it the rain. The
+children were asleep in bed; the father in his chair.
+
+A cold sweat had broken out on the dying girl's forehead and she
+breathed with a terrible effort. And in it all the two watchers
+beside the bed saw that there was an agony there but not the fear of
+death. She kept trying to bite her nails nervously and saying:
+
+"There is only-- ... one thing-- ... one ... thing...."
+
+"Tell me, Maggie," said the old man, bending low and soothing her
+forehead with his hands, "tell us what's pesterin' you--maybe it
+hadn't oughter be. You mustn't worry now--God'll make everything
+right--to them that loves him even to the happy death. You'll die
+happy an' be happy with him forever. The little 'uns an' the father,
+you know they're fixed here--in this nice home an' the farm--so don't
+worry."
+
+"That's it!.... Oh, that's it!.... I got it that way-- ... all for
+them ... but it's that that hurts now...."
+
+He bent down over her: "Tell us, child--me an' Miss Alice--tell us
+what's pesterin' you. You mustn't die this way--you who've got such a
+right to be happy."
+
+The hectic spark burned to white heat in her cheek. She bit her nails,
+she picked at the cover, she looked toward the bed and asked feebly:
+"Are they asleep? Can I talk to you two?"
+
+The old man nodded. Alice soothed her brow.
+
+Then she beckoned to the old preacher, who knelt by her side, and he
+put his arms around her neck and raised her on the pillow. And his
+ear was close to her lips, for she could scarcely talk, and Alice
+Westmore knelt and listened, too. She listened, but with a griping,
+strained heartache,--listened to a dying confession from the pale
+lips, and the truth for the first time came to Alice Westmore, and
+kneeling, she could not rise, but bent again her head and heard the
+pitiful, dying confession. As she listened to the broken, gasping
+words, heard the heart-breaking secret come out of the ruins of its
+wrecked home, her love, her temptation, her ignorance in wondering if
+she were really married by the laws of love, and then the great
+martyrdom of it all--giving her life, her all, that the others might
+live--a terrible tightening gathered around Alice Westmore's heart,
+her head fell with the flooding tears and she knelt sobbing, her
+bloodless fingers clutching the bed of the dying girl.
+
+"Don't cry," said Maggie. "I should be the one to weep, ... only I am so
+happy ... to think ... I am loved by the noblest, best, of men, ... an'
+I love him so, ... only he ain't here; ... but I wouldn't have him see
+me die. Now--now ... what I want to know, Bishop, ..." she tried to
+rise. She seemed to be passing away. The old man caught her and held her
+in his arms.
+
+Her eyes opened: "I--is--" she went on, in the agony of it all with the
+same breath, "am ... am I married ... in God's sight ... as well as
+his--"
+
+The old man held her tenderly as if she were a child. He smiled calmly,
+sweetly, into her eyes as he said:
+
+"You believed it an' you loved only him, Maggie--poor chile!"
+
+"Oh, yes--yes--" she smiled, "an' now--even now I love him up--right
+up--as you see ... to the door, ... to the shadow, ... to the valley
+of the shadow...."
+
+"And it went for these, for these"--he said looking around at the
+room.
+
+"For them--my little ones--they had no mother, you kno'--an' Daddy's
+back. Oh, I didn't mind the work, ... the mill that has killed ...
+killed me, ... but, ... but was I"--her voice rose to a shrill cry of
+agony--"am I married in God's sight?"
+
+Alice quivered in the beauty of the answer which came back from the old
+man's lips:
+
+"As sure as God lives, you were--there now--sleep and rest; it is all
+right, child."
+
+Then a sweet calmness settled over her face, and with it a smile of
+exquisite happiness.
+
+She fell back on her pillow: "In God's sight ... married ... married ...
+my--Oh, I have never said it before ... but now, ... can't I?"
+
+The Bishop nodded, smiling.
+
+"My husband, ... my husband, ... dear heart, ... Good-bye...."
+
+She tried to reach under her pillow to draw out something, and then
+she smiled and died.
+
+When Alice Westmore dressed her for burial an hour afterwards, her
+heart was shaken with a bitterness it had never known before--a
+bitterness which in a man would have been a vengeance. For there was
+the smile still on the dead face, carried into the presence of God.
+
+Under the dead girl's pillow lay the picture of Richard Travis.
+
+The next day Alice sent the picture to Richard Travis, and with it a
+note.
+
+"_It is your's_," she wrote calmly, terribly calm--"_from the girl
+who died believing she was your wife. I am helping bury her to-day.
+And you need not come to Westmoreland to-morrow night, nor next week,
+nor ever again._"
+
+And Richard Travis, when he read it, turned white to his hard,
+bitter, cruel lips, the first time in all his life.
+
+For he knew that now he had no more chance to recall the living than
+he had to recall the dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE QUEEN IS DEAD--LONG LIVE THE QUEEN
+
+
+All that week at the mill, Richard Travis had been making
+preparations for his trip to Boston. Regularly twice, and often three
+times a year, he had made the same journey, where his report to the
+directors was received and discussed. After that, there were always
+two weeks of theatres, operas, wine-suppers and dissipations of other
+kinds--though never of the grossest sort--for even in sin there is
+refinement, and Richard Travis was by instinct and inheritance
+refined.
+
+He was not conscious--and who of his class ever are?--of the effects
+of the life he was leading--the tightening of this chain of immoral
+habits, the searing of what conscience he had, the freezing of all
+that was generous and good within him.
+
+Once his nature had been as a lake in midsummer, its surface
+shimmering in the sunlight, reflecting something of the beauty that
+came to it. Now, cold, sordid, callous, it lay incased in winter ice
+and neither could the sunlight go in nor its reflection go out. It
+slept on in coarse opaqueness, covered with an impenetrable crust
+which he himself did not understand.
+
+"But," said the old Bishop more than once, "God can touch him and he
+will thaw like a spring day. There is somethin' great in Richard
+Travis if he can only be touched."
+
+But vice cannot reason. Immorality cannot deduce. Only the moral
+ponders deeply and knows both the premises and the conclusions,
+because only the moral thinks.
+
+Vice, like the poisonous talons of a bird of prey, while it buries
+its nails in the flesh of its victim, carries also the narcotic which
+soothes as it kills.
+
+And Richard Travis had arrived at this stage. At first it had been
+with him any woman, so there was a romance--and hence Maggie. But he
+had tired of these, and now it was the woman beautiful as Helen, or
+the woman pure and lovely as Alice Westmore.
+
+What a tribute to purity, that impurity worships it the more as
+itself sinks lower in the slime of things. It is the poignancy of the
+meteorite, which, falling from a star, hisses out its life in the
+mud.
+
+The woman pure--Alice--the very thought of her sent him farther into
+the mud, knowing she could not be his. She alone whom he had wanted
+to wed all his life, the goal of his love's ambition, the one woman
+in the world he had never doubted would one day be his wife.
+
+Her note to him--"_Never ... never ... again_"--he kept reading it
+over, stunned, and pale, with the truth of it. In his blindness it
+had never occurred to him that Alice Westmore and Maggie would ever
+meet. In his blindness--for Wrong, daring as a snake, which, however
+alert and far-seeing it may be in the hey-day of its spring, sees
+less clearly as the Summer advances, until, in the August of its
+infamy, it ceases to see altogether and becomes an easy victim for
+all things with hoofs.
+
+Then, the poignant reawakening. Now he lay in the mud and above him
+still shone the star.
+
+The star--his star! And how it hurt him! It was the breaking of a
+link in the chain of his life.
+
+Twice had he written to her. But each time his notes came back
+unopened. Twice had he gone to Westmoreland to see her. Mrs. Westmore
+met him at the door, cordial, sympathetic, but with a nervous jerk in
+the little metallic laugh. His first glance at her told him she knew
+everything--and yet, knew nothing. Alice was locked in her room and
+would not see him.
+
+"But, oh, Richard," and again she laughed her little insincere,
+unstable, society laugh, beginning with brave frankness in one corner
+of her mouth and ending in a hypocritical wave of forgetfulness
+before it had time to finish the circle, but fluttering out into a
+cynical twitching of a thing which might have been a smile or a
+sneer--
+
+"True love--you know--dear Richard--you must remember the old
+saying."
+
+She pressed his hand sympathetically. The mouth said nothing, but the
+hand said plainly: "Do not despair--I am working for a home at The
+Gaffs."
+
+He pitied her, for there was misery in her eyes and in her laugh and
+in the very touch of her hand. Misery and insincerity, and that
+terrible mental state when weakness is roped up between the two and
+knows, for once in its life, that it has no strength at all.
+
+And she pitied him, for never before on any human face had she seen
+the terrible irony of agony. Agony she had often seen--but not this
+irony of it--this agony that saw all its life's happiness blasted and
+knew it deserved it.
+
+Richard Travis, when he left Westmoreland, knew that he left it
+forever.
+
+"The Queen is dead--long live the Queen," he said bitterly.
+
+And then there happened what always happens to the thing in the
+mud--he sank deeper--desperately deeper.
+
+Now--now he would have Helen Conway. He would have her and own her,
+body and soul. He would take her away--as he had planned, and keep
+her away. That was easy, too--too far away for the whisper of it ever
+to come back. If he failed in that he would marry her. She was
+beautiful--and with a little more age and education she would grace
+The Gaffs. So he might marry her and set her up, a queen over their
+heads.
+
+This was his determination when he went to the mill the first of the
+week. All the week he watched her, talked with her, was pleasant,
+gallant and agreeable. But he soon saw that Helen was not the same.
+There was not the dull wistful resignation in her look, and despair
+had given way to a cheerfulness he could not understand. There was a
+brightness in her eyes which made her more beautiful.
+
+The unconscious grip which the shamelessness of it all had over him
+was evidenced in what he did. He confided his plans to Jud Carpenter,
+and set him to work to discover the cause.
+
+"See what's wrong," he said significantly. "I am going to take that
+girl North with me, and away from here. After that it is no affair of
+yours."
+
+"Anything wrong?" He had reached the point of his moral degradation
+when right for Helen meant wrong for him.
+
+Jud, with a characteristic shrewdness, put his finger quickly on the
+spot.
+
+Edward Conway was sober. Clay saw her daily.
+
+"But jes' wait till I see him ag'in--down there. I'll make him drunk
+enough. Then you'll see a change in the Queen--hey?"
+
+And he laughed knowingly. With a little more bitterness she would go
+to the end of the world with him.
+
+It was that day he held her hands in the old familiar way, but when
+he would kiss her at the gate she still fled, crimson, away.
+
+The next morning Clay Westmore walked with her to the mill, and
+Travis lilted his eyebrows haughtily:
+
+"If anything of that kind happens," he said to himself, "nothing can
+save me."
+
+He watched her closely--how beautiful she looked that day--how
+regally beautiful! She had come wearing the blue silk gown, with the
+lace and beads which had been her mother's. In sheer delight Travis
+kept slipping to the drawing-in room door to watch her work. Her
+posture, beautifully Greek, before the machine, so natural that it
+looked not unlike a harp in her hand; her half-bent head and graceful
+neck, the flushed face and eyes, the whole picture was like a Titian,
+rich in color and life.
+
+And she saw him and looked up smiling.
+
+It was not the smile of happiness. He did not know it because, being
+blind, he could not know. It was the happiness of work--achievement.
+
+He came in smiling. "Why are you so much happier than last week?"
+
+"Would you really like to know?" she said, looking him frankly in the
+eyes.
+
+He touched her hair playfully. She moved her head and shook it
+warningly.
+
+"It is because I am at work and father is trying so hard to reform."
+
+"I thought maybe it was because you had found out how much I love
+you."
+
+It was his old, stereotyped, brazen way, but she did not know it and
+blushed prettily.
+
+"You are kind, Mr. Travis, but--but that mustn't be thought of.
+Please, but I wish you wouldn't talk that way."
+
+"Why, it is true, my queen--of The Gaffs?" he said smiling.
+
+She began to work again.
+
+He came over to her and bent low:
+
+"You know I am to take you Monday night"--
+
+Her hands flew very rapidly--her cheeks mantled into a rich glow. One
+of the threads snapped. She stopped, confused.
+
+Travis glanced around. No one was near. He bent and kissed her hair:
+
+"My queen," he whispered, "my beautiful queen."
+
+Then he walked quickly out. He went to his office, but he still saw
+the beautiful picture. It thrilled him and then there swept up over
+him another picture, and he cried savagely to himself:
+
+"I'll make her sorry. She shall bow to that fine thing yet--my
+queen."
+
+Nor would it leave him that day, and into the night he dreamed of
+her, and it was the same Titian picture in a background of red
+sunset. And her machine was a harp she was playing. He wakened and
+smiled:
+
+"Am I falling in love with that girl? That will spoil it all."
+
+He watched her closely the next day, for it puzzled him to know why
+she had changed so rapidly in her manner toward him. He had ridden to
+Millwood to bring her to the mill, himself; and he had some exquisite
+roses for her--clipped in the hot-house by his own hands. It was with
+an unmistakable twitch of jealousy that he learned that Clay Westmore
+had already come by and gone with her.
+
+"I know what it is now," he said to Jud Carpenter at the mill that
+morning; "she is half in love with that slow, studious fellow."
+
+Jud laughed: "Say, excuse me, sah--but hanged if you ain't got all
+the symptoms, y'self, boss?"
+
+Travis flushed:
+
+"Oh, when I start out to do a thing I want to do it--and I'm going to
+take her with me, or die trying."
+
+Jud laughed again: "Leave it to me--I'll fix the goggle-eyed fellow."
+
+That night when the door bell rang at Westmoreland, Jud Carpenter was
+ushered into Clay's workshop. He sat down and looked through his
+shaggy eyebrows at the lint and dust and specimens of ore. Then he
+spat on the floor disgustedly.
+
+"Sorry to disturb you, but be you a surveyor also?"
+
+The big bowed glasses looked at him quietly and nodded affirmatively.
+
+"Wal, then," went on Jud, "I come to git you to do a job of surveying
+for the mill. It's a lot of timber land on the other side of the
+mountain--some twenty miles off. The Company's bought five thousand
+acres of wood and they want it surveyed. What'll you charge?"
+
+Clay thought a moment: "Going and coming, on horse-back--it will take
+me a week," said Clay thoughtfully. "I shall charge a hundred
+dollars."
+
+"An' will you go right away--to-morrow mornin'?"
+
+Clay nodded.
+
+"Here's fifty of it," said Jud--"the Company is in a hurry. We want
+the survey by this day week. Let me see, this is Sat'dy--I'll come
+next Sat'dy night."
+
+Clay's face flushed. Never before had he made a hundred dollars in a
+week.
+
+"I'll go at once."
+
+"To-morrow at daylight?" asked Jud, rising.
+
+Clay looked at him curiously. There was something in the tone of the
+man that struck him as peculiar, but Jud went on in an easy way.
+
+"You see we must have it quick. All our winter wood to run the mill
+is there an' we can't start into cordin' till it's surveyed an' the
+deed's passed. Sorry to hurry you"--
+
+Clay promised to start at daylight and Jud left.
+
+He looked at his watch. It was late. He would like to tell Helen
+about it--he said aloud: "Making a hundred dollars a week. If I could
+only keep up that--I'd--I'd--"
+
+He blushed. And then he turned quietly and went to bed. And that was
+why Helen wondered the next day and the next, and all the next week
+why she did not see Clay, why he did not come, nor write, nor send
+her a message. And wondering the pang of it went into her hardening
+heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+IN THYSELF THERE IS WEAKNESS
+
+
+It was the middle of Saturday afternoon, and all the week Edward
+Conway had fought against the terrible thirst which was in him. Not
+since Monday morning had he touched whiskey at all, and now he walked
+the streets of the little town saying over and over to himself: "I am
+a Conway again."
+
+He had come to town to see Jud Carpenter about the house which had
+been promised him--for he could not expect to hold Millwood much
+longer. With his soberness some of his old dignity and manhood
+returned, and when Carpenter saw him, the Whipper-in knew
+instinctively what had happened.
+
+He watched Edward Conway closely--the clear eye, the haughty turn of
+his head, the quiet, commanding way of the man sober; and the
+Whipper-in frowned as he said to himself:
+
+"If he keeps this up I'll have it to do all over."
+
+And yet, as he looked at him, Jud Carpenter took it all in--the
+weakness that was still there, the terrible, restless thirst which
+now made him nervous, irritable, and turned his soul into a very
+tumult of dissatisfaction.
+
+Carpenter, even as he talked to him, could see the fight which was
+going on; and now and then, in spite of it and his determination, he
+saw that the reformed drunkard was looking wistfully toward the
+bar-room of Billy Buch.
+
+And so, as Jud talked to Edward Conway about the house, he led him
+along toward the bar-room. All the time he was complimenting him on
+his improved health, and telling how, with help from the mill, he
+would soon be on his feet again.
+
+At the bar door he halted:
+
+"Let us set down here an' res', Majah, sah, it's a good place on this
+little porch. Have somethin'? Billy's got a mighty fine bran' of old
+Tennessee whiskey in there."
+
+Jud watched him as he spoke and saw the fire of expectancy burn in
+his despairing eyes.
+
+"No--no--Carpenter--no--I am obliged to you--but I have sworn never
+to touch another drop of it. I'll just rest here with you." He threw
+up his head and Jud Carpenter saw how eagerly he inhaled the odor
+which came out of the door. He saw the quivering lips, the tense
+straining of the throat, the wavering eyes which told how sorely he
+was tempted.
+
+It was cool, but the sweat stood in drops on Edward Conway's temple.
+He gulped, but swallowed only a dry lump, which immediately sprang
+back into his throat again and burned as a ball of fire.
+
+"No--no--Carpenter," he kept saying in a dazed, abstracted
+way--"no--no--not any more for me. I've promised--I've promised."
+
+And yet even while saying it his eyes were saying: "For God's
+sake--bring it to me--quick--quick."
+
+Jud arose and went into the bar and whispered to Billy Buch. Then he
+came back and sat down and talked of other things. But all the time
+he was watching Edward Conway--the yearning look--turned half
+pleadingly to the bar--the gulpings which swallowed nothing.
+
+Presently Jud looked up. He heard the tinkle of glasses, and Billy
+Buch stood before them with two long toddies on a silver waiter. The
+ice tinkled and glittered in the deep glasses--the cherries and
+pineapple gleamed amid it and the whiskey--the rich red whiskey!
+
+"My treat--an' no charges, gentlemen! Compliments of Billy Buch."
+
+Conway looked at the tempting glass for a moment in the terrible
+agony of indecision. Then remorse, fear, shame, frenzy, seized him:
+
+"No--no--I've sworn off, Billy--I'll swear I have. My God, but I'm a
+Conway again"--and before the words were fairly out of his mouth he
+had seized the glass and swallowed the contents.
+
+It was nearly dark when Helen, quitting the mill immediately on its
+closing, slipped out of a side door to escape Richard Travis and
+almost ran home across the fields. Never had she been so full of her
+life, her plans for the future, her hopes, her pride to think her
+father would be himself again.
+
+"For if he will," she whispered, "all else good will follow."
+
+Just at the gate she stopped and almost fell in the agony of it all.
+Her father lay on the dry grass by the roadside, unable to walk.
+
+She knelt by his side and wept. Her heart then and there gave up--her
+soul quit in the fight she was making.
+
+With bitterness which was desperate she went to the spring and
+brought water and bathed his face. Then when he was sufficiently
+himself to walk, she led him, staggering, in, and up the steps.
+
+Jud Carpenter reached the mill an hour after dark: He sought out
+Richard Travis and chuckled, saying nothing.
+
+Travis was busy with his books, and when he had finished he turned
+and smiled at the man.
+
+"Tell me what it is?"
+
+"Oh, I fixed him, that's all."
+
+Then he laughed:
+
+"He was sober this morning an' was in a fair way to knock our plans
+sky high--as to the gal, you kno'. Reformed this mornin', but you'll
+find him good and drunk to-night."
+
+"Oh," said Travis, knitting his brows thoughtfully.
+
+"Did you notice how much brighter, an' sech, she's been for a day or
+two?" asked Jud.
+
+"I notice that she has shunned me all day"--said Travis--"as if I
+were poison."
+
+"She'll not shun you to-morrow," laughed Jud. "She is your's--for a
+woman desperate is a woman lost--" and he chuckled again as he went
+out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+HIMSELF AGAIN
+
+
+Never had the two old servants been so happy as they were that night
+after their rescue. At first they looked on it as a miracle, in which
+the spirits of their young master and his body-servant, their only
+son, had come back to earth to rescue them, and for a while their
+prayers and exhortations took on the uncanny tone of superstition.
+But after they had heard them talk in the old natural way and seen
+Captain Tom walking in the living flesh, they became satisfied that
+it was indeed their young master whom they had supposed to be dead.
+
+Jack Bracken, with all the tenderness of one speaking to little
+children, explained it all to them--how he had himself carried
+Captain Tom off the battle-field of Franklin; how he had cared for
+him since--even to the present time; how Ephraim would not desert his
+young master, but had stayed with them, as cook and house boy. And
+how Captain Tom had now become well again.
+
+Jack was careful not to go too much into details--especially Ephraim
+having lived for two years within a few miles of his parents and not
+making himself known! The truth was, as Jack knew, Ephraim had become
+infatuated with the free-booting life of Jack Bracken. He had gone
+with him on many a raid, and gold came too easy that way to dig it
+out of the soil, as in a cotton field.
+
+The old people supposed all this happened far away, and in another
+country, and that they had all come home as soon as they could.
+
+With this they were happy.
+
+"And now," added Jack, "we are going to hide with you a week or so,
+until Captain Tom can lay his plans."
+
+"Thank God--thank God!"--said Uncle Bisco, and he would feel of his
+young master and say: "Jes' lak he allus wus, only his hair is a
+leetle gray. An' in the same uniform he rid off in--the same gran'
+clothes."
+
+Captain Tom laughed: "No, not the same, but like them. You see, I
+reported at Washington and explained it to the Secretary of War,
+Jack. It seems that Mr. Lincoln had been kind enough to write a
+personal letter about me to my grandfather,--they were old friends.
+It was a peculiar scene--my interview with the Secretary. My
+grandfather had filed this letter at the War Department before he
+died, and my return to life was a matter of interest and wonder to
+them. And so I am still Captain of Artillery," he smiled.
+
+In the little cabin the old servants gave him the best room, cleanly
+and sweet with an old-fashioned feather-bed and counterpane. Jack
+Bracken had a cot by his bed, and on the wall was a picture of Miss
+Alice.
+
+Long into the night they talked, the young man asking them many
+questions and chief of all, of Alice. They could see that he was
+thinking of her, and often he would stop before the picture and look
+at it and fall into a reverie.
+
+"It seems to me but yesterday," he said, "since I left her and went
+off to the war. She is not to know that I am here--not yet. You must
+hide me if she runs in," he smiled. "I must see her first in my own
+way."
+
+He noticed Jack Bracken's cot by his bedside and smiled.
+
+"You see, I have been takin' keer of you so long," said Jack after
+the old servants had left them to themselves, "that I can't git out
+of the habit. I thought you wus never comin' home."
+
+"It's good we came when we did, Jack."
+
+"You ought to have let me shoot."
+
+The young Captain shook his head: "O Jack--Jack, I've seen murder
+enough--it seems but yesterday since I was at Franklin."
+
+"Do you know who's at the head of all this?" asked Jack. "It's
+Richard Travis."
+
+"The Bishop told me all, Jack--and about my grandfather's will. But I
+shall divide it with him--it is not fair."
+
+Jack watched the strong, tall man, as he walked to and fro in the
+room, and a proud smile spread over the outlaw's face.
+
+"What a man you are--what a man you are, Cap'n Tom!"
+
+"It's good to be one's self again, Jack. How can I ever repay you for
+what you have done for me?"
+
+"You've paid it long ago--long ago. Where would Jack Bracken have
+been if you hadn't risked yo' life to cut me down, when the rope"--
+
+Captain Tom put his hand on Jack's shoulder affectionately: "We'll
+forget all those horrible things--and that war, which was hell,
+indeed. Jack--Jack--there is a new life ahead for us both," he said,
+smiling happily.
+
+"For you--yes--but not for me"--and he shook his head.
+
+"Do you remember little Jack, Cap'n Tom--him that died? I seem to
+think mo' of him now than ever--"
+
+"It is strange, Jack--but I do distinctly; an' our home in the cave,
+an' the beautiful room we had, an' the rock portico overlaid with
+wild honeysuckle and Jackson vines overlooking the grand river."
+
+"Jack, do you know we must go there this week and see it again? I
+have plans to carry out before making my identity known."
+
+An hour afterwards the old servants heard Captain Tom step out into
+the yard. It was then past midnight--the most memorable night of all
+their lives. Neither of the old servants could sleep, for hearing
+Ephraim talk, and that lusty darkey had sadly mixed his imagination
+and his facts.
+
+The old man went out: "Don't be uneasy," said Captain Tom. "I am
+going to saddle John Paul Jones and ride over the scenes of my youth.
+They might see me by daylight, and the moonlight is so beautiful
+to-night. I long to see The Gaffs, and Westmoreland, my grandfather's
+grave," and then in a tenderer tone--"and my father's; he lies buried
+in the flag I love."
+
+He smiled sadly and went out.
+
+John Paul Jones had been comfortably housed in the little stable
+nearby. He nickered affectionately as his master came up and led him
+out.
+
+The young officer stood a few moments looking at the splendid horse,
+and with the look came a flood of memories so painful that he bowed
+his head in the saddle.
+
+When he looked up Jack Bracken stood by his side: "I don't much like
+this, Cap'n Tom. Not to-night, after all we've done to them. They've
+got out spies now--I know them; a lot of negroes calling themselves
+Union League, but secretly waylaying, burning and killing all who
+differ with them in politics. They've made the Klu-Klux a necessity.
+Now, I don't want you to turn me into a Klu-Klux to-night."
+
+"Ah, they would not harm me, Jack, not me, after all I have suffered.
+It has all been so hazy," he went on, as if trying to recall it all,
+"so hazy until now. Now, how clear it all is! Here is the creek,
+yonder the mountain, and over beyond that the village. And yonder is
+Westmoreland. I remember it all--so distinctly. And after Franklin,
+my God, it was so hazy, with something pressing me down as if I were
+under a house which had fallen on me and pinned me to the ground. But
+now, O God, I thank Thee that I am a man again!"
+
+Jack went back into the cabin.
+
+Captain Tom stood drinking it all in--the moonlight, on the roof of
+Westmoreland, shining through the trees. Then he thought of what the
+old Bishop had told him of Alice, the great pressure brought to bear
+on her to marry Richard Travis, and of her devotion to the memory of
+her first love.
+
+"And for her love and her constancy, oh, God, I thank Thee most of
+all," he said, looking upward at the stars.
+
+He mounted his horse and rode slowly out into the night, a commanding
+figure, for the horse and rider were one, and John Paul Jones tossed
+his head as if to show his joy, tossed his head proudly and was in
+for a gallop.
+
+Captain Tom's pistols were buckled to his side, for he had had
+experience enough in the early part of the night to show him the
+unsettled state of affairs still existing in the country under negro
+domination.
+
+There were no lights at Westmoreland, but he knew which was Alice's
+room, and in the shadow of a tree he stopped and looked long at the
+window. Oh, to tear down the barriers which separated him from her! To
+see her once more--she the beautiful and true--her hair--her eyes, and
+to place again the kiss of a new betrothal on her lips, the memory of
+which, in all his sorrows and afflictions, had never left him. And now
+they told him she was more beautiful than ever. Twelve years--twelve
+years out of his life--years of forgetfulness--and yet it seemed but a
+few months since he had bade Alice good-bye--here--here under the
+crepe-myrtle tree where he now stood. He knelt and kissed the holy sod.
+A wave of triumphant happiness came over him. He arose and threw
+passionate kisses toward her window. Then he mounted and rode off.
+
+At The Gaffs he looked long and earnestly. He imagined he saw the old
+Colonel, his grandfather, sitting in his accustomed place on the front
+porch, his feet propped on the balcony, his favorite hound by his side.
+Long he gazed, looking at every familiar place of his youth. He knew now
+that every foot of it would be his. He had no bitterness in his heart.
+Not he, for in the love and constancy of Alice Westmore all such things
+seemed unspeakable insignificance to the glory of that.
+
+In the old family cemetery, which lay hid among the cedars on the hill,
+he stood bare-headed before the grave of his grandsire and silently the
+tears fell:
+
+"My noble old grandsire," he murmured, "if the spirits of the dead
+look down on the living, tell me I have not proved unworthy. It was
+his flag--my father's, and he lies by you wrapped in it. Tell me I
+have not been unworthy the same, for I have suffered."
+
+And from the silent stars, as he looked up, there fell on him a
+benediction of peace.
+
+Then he drew himself up proudly and gave each grave a military
+salute, mounted and rode away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE JOY OF THE MORNING
+
+
+All the week, since the scene at Maggie's deathbed, Alice Westmore
+had remained at home, while strange, bitter feelings, such as she had
+never felt before, surged in her heart. Her brother was away, and
+this gave her more freedom to do as she wished--to remain in her
+room--and her mother's presence now was not altogether the solace her
+heart craved.
+
+Of the utmost purity of thought herself, Alice Westmore had never
+even permitted herself to harbor anything reflecting on the character
+of those she trusted; and in the generosity of her nature, she
+considered all her friends trustworthy. Thinking no evil, she knew
+none; nor would she permit any idle gossip to be repeated before her.
+In her case her unsuspecting nature was strengthened by her
+environment, living as she was with her mother and brother only.
+
+It is true that she had heard faint rumors of Richard Travis's life;
+but the full impurity of it had never been realized by her until she
+saw Maggie die. Then Richard Travis went, not only out of her life,
+but out of her very thoughts. She remembered him only as she did some
+evil character read of in fiction or history. Perhaps in this she was
+more severe than necessary--since the pendulum of anger swings
+always farthest in the first full stroke of indignation. And then the
+surprise of it--the shock of it! Never had she gone through a week so
+full of unhappiness, since it had come to her, years before, that Tom
+Travis had been killed at Franklin.
+
+Her mother's entreaties--tears, even--affected her now no more than
+the cries of a spoiled child.
+
+"Oh, Alice," she said one night when she had been explaining and
+apologizing for Richard Travis--"you should know now, child, really,
+you ought to know by now, that all men may not have been created
+alike, but they are all alike."
+
+"I do not believe it," said Alice with feeling--"I never want to
+believe it--I never shall believe it."
+
+"My darling," said the mother, laying her face against Alice's, "I
+have reared you too far from the world."
+
+But for once in her life Mrs. Westmore knew that her daughter, who
+had heretofore been willing to sacrifice everything for her mother's
+comfort, now halted before such a chasm as this, as stubborn and
+instinctively as a wild doe in her flight before a precipice.
+
+Twice Alice knew that Richard Travis had called; and she went to her
+room and locked the door. She did not wish even to think of him; for
+when she did it was not Richard Travis she saw, but Maggie dying,
+with the picture of him under her pillow.
+
+She devised many plans for herself, but go away she must, perhaps to
+teach.
+
+In the midst of her perplexity there came to her Saturday afternoon
+a curiously worded note, from the old Cottontown preacher, telling
+her not to forget now that he had returned and that Sunday School
+lessons at Uncle Bisco's were in order. He closed with a remark
+which, read between the lines, she saw was intended to warn and
+prepare her for something unexpected, the greatest good news, as he
+said, of her life. Then he quoted:
+
+"_And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea
+returned to his strength when the morning appeared._"
+
+There was but one great good news that Alice Westmore cared for, and,
+strange to say, all the week she had been thinking of it. It came
+about involuntarily, as she compared men with one another.
+
+It came as the tide comes back to the ocean, as the stars come with
+the night. She tried to smother it, but it would not be smothered. At
+last she resigned herself to the wretchedness of it--as one when,
+despairing of throwing off a mood, gives way to it and lets it eat
+its own heart out.
+
+She could scarcely wait until night. Her heart beat at intervals, in
+agitated fierceness, and flushes of red went through her cheek all
+the afternoon, at the thought in her heart that at times choked her.
+
+Then came the kindly old man himself, his face radiant with a look
+she had not seen on a face for many weeks. After the week she had
+been through, this itself was a comfort. She met him with feigned
+calmness and a little laugh.
+
+"You promised to tell me where you had been, Bishop, all these
+weeks. It must have made you very, very happy."
+
+"I'll tell you down at the cabin, if you'll dress yo' very pretties'.
+There's friends of yo's down there you ain't seen in a long
+time--that's mighty anxious to see you."
+
+"Oh, I do indeed feel ashamed of myself for having neglected the old
+servants so long; but you cannot know what has been on my mind. Yes,
+I will go with you directly."
+
+The old man looked at her admiringly when she was ready to go--at the
+dainty gown of white, the splendid hair of dark auburn crowning her
+head, the big wistful eyes, the refined face. Upon him had devolved
+the duty of preparing Alice Westmore for what she would see in the
+cabin, and never did he enter more fully into the sacredness of such
+an occasion.
+
+And now, when she was ready and stood before him in all her superb
+womanhood, a basket of dainties on her arm for the old servants, he
+spoke very solemnly as he handed her an ambrotype set in a large gold
+breast-pin.
+
+"You'll need this to set you off--around yo' neck."
+
+At sight of it all the color left her cheeks.
+
+"Why, it is mine--I gave it to--to--Tom. He took it to the war with
+him. Where"--A sob leaped into her throat and stopped her.
+
+"On my journey," said the old man quickly, "I heard somethin' of
+Cap'n Tom. You must prepare yo'se'f for good news."
+
+Her heart jumped and the blood surged back again, and she grew weak,
+but the old man laughed his cheery laugh, and, pretending to clap her
+playfully on the shoulder, he held her firmly with his great iron
+hand, as he saw the blood go out of her cheeks, leaving them as white
+as white roses:
+
+"Down there," he added, "I'll tell you all. But God is good--God is
+good."
+
+Bewildered, pale, and with throbbing heart, she let him take her
+basket and lead her down the well-beaten path. She could not speak,
+for something, somehow, said to her that Captain Tom Travis was alive
+and that she would see him--next week perhaps--next month or year--it
+mattered not so that she would see him. And yet--and yet--O all these
+years--all these years! She kept saying over the words of the old
+Bishop, as one numbed, and unable to think, keeps repeating the last
+thing that enters the mind. Trembling, white, her knees weak beneath
+her, she followed saying:
+
+"God is good--oh, Bishop--tell me--why--why--why--"
+
+"Because Cap'n Tom is not dead, Miss Alice, he is alive and well."
+
+They had reached the large oak which shadowed the little cabin. She
+stopped suddenly in the agony of happiness, and the strong old man,
+who had been watching her, turned and caught her with a firm grasp,
+while the stars danced frantically above her. And half-unconscious
+she felt another one come to his aid, one who took her in his arms
+and kissed her lips and her eyes ... and carried her into the bright
+fire-lighted cabin, ... carried her in strength and happiness that
+made her lay her cheek against his, ... and there were tears on it,
+and somehow she lay as if she were a child in his arms, ... a child
+again and she was happy, ... and there were silence and sweet dreams
+and the long-dead smell of the crepe-myrtle.... She did not remember
+again until she sat up on the cot in the clean little cabin, and Tom
+Travis, tall and in the splendor of manhood, sat holding her hands
+and stroking her hair and whispering: "_Alice, my darling--it is all
+well--and I have come back for you, at last!_"
+
+And the old servants stood around smiling and happy, but so silent
+and composed that she knew that they had been schooled to it, and a
+big man, who seemed to watch Captain Tom as a big dog would his
+master, kept blowing his nose and walking around the room. And by the
+fire sat the old Cottontown preacher, his back turned to them and
+saying just loud enough to be heard: "_The Lord is my shepherd, I
+shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, ... he
+restoreth my soul-- ... my cup runneth over...._"
+
+And then sillily, as Alice thought, she threw her arms around the
+neck of the man she loved and burst into the tears which brought the
+sweetness of assurance, the calmness of a reality that meant
+happiness.
+
+And for an hour she sobbed, her arms there, and he holding her tight
+to his breast and talking in the old way, natural and soothing and
+reassuring and taking from her heart all fear and the shock of it,
+until at last it all seemed natural and not a dream, ... and the
+sweetness of it all was like the light which cometh with the joy of
+the morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE TOUCH OF GOD
+
+
+The news of Captain Tom's return spread quickly. By noon it was known
+throughout the Tennessee Valley.
+
+The sensational features of it required prompt action on his and
+Alice's part, and their decision was quickly made: they would be
+married that Sunday afternoon in the little church on the mountain
+side and by the old man who had done so much to make their happiness
+possible.
+
+For once in its history the little church could not hold the people
+who came to witness this romantic marriage, and far down the mountain
+side they stood to see the bride and groom pass by. Many remembered
+the groom, all had heard of him,--his devotion to his country's flag;
+to the memory of his father; his gallantry, his heroism, his
+martyrdom, dying (as they supposed) rather than turn his guns on his
+brave old grandsire. And now to come back to life again--to win the
+woman he loved and who had loved him all these years! Besides, there
+was no one in the Tennessee Valley considered more beautiful than the
+bride, and they loved her as if she had been an angel of light.
+
+And never had she appeared more lovely.
+
+A stillness swept over the crowd when the carriage drove up to the
+little church, and when the tall, handsome man in the uniform of a
+captain of artillery lifted Alice out with the tenderness of all
+lovers in his touch and the strength of a strong lover, with a lily
+in his hand, the crowd, knowing his history, could not refrain from
+cheering. He lifted his cap and threw back his iron-gray hair,
+showing a head proud and tender and on his face such a smile as
+lovers only wear. Then he led her in,--pale and tearful.
+
+The little church had been prettily decorated that Sabbath morning,
+and when the old preacher came forward and called them to him, he
+said the simple words which made them man and wife, and as he blessed
+them, praying, a mocking-bird, perched on a limb near the window,
+sang a soft low melody as if one singer wished to compliment another.
+
+They went out hand in hand, and when they reached the door, the sun
+which had been hid burst out as a benediction upon them.
+
+Among the guests one man had stepped in unnoticed and unseen. Why he
+came he could not tell, for never before did he have any desire to go
+to the little church.
+
+It was midnight when the news came to him that Tom Travis had
+returned as from the dead. It was Jud Carpenter who had awakened him
+that Saturday night to whisper at the bedside the startling news.
+
+But Travis only yawned from his sleep and said: "I've been expecting
+it all the time--go somewhere and go to bed."
+
+After Carpenter had gone, he arose, stricken with a feeling he could
+not describe, but had often seen in race horses running desperately
+until within fifty yards of the wire, and then suddenly--quitting. He
+had almost reached his goal--but now one week had done all this.
+Alice--gone, and The Gaffs--he must divide that with his cousin--for
+his grandfather had left no will.
+
+Divide The Gaffs with Tom Travis?--He would as soon think of dividing
+Alice's love with him. In the soul of Richard Travis there was no
+such word as division.
+
+In the selfishness of his life, it had ever been all or nothing.
+
+All night he thought, he walked the halls of the old house, he ran
+over a hundred solutions of it in his mind. And still there was no
+solution that satisfied him, that seemed natural. It seemed that his
+mind, which had heretofore worked so unerringly, deducing things so
+naturally, now balked before an abyss that was bridgeless. Heretofore
+he had looked into the future with the bold, true sweep of an eagle
+peering from its mountain home above the clouds into the far
+distance, his eyes unclouded by the mist, which cut off the vision of
+mortals below. But now he was the blindest of the blind. He seemed to
+stop as before a wall--a chasm which ended everything--a chasm, on
+the opposite wall of which was printed: Thus far and no farther.
+
+Think as he would, he could not think beyond it. His life seemed to
+stop there. After it, he was nothing.
+
+Our minds, our souls--are like the sun, which shines very plainly as
+it moves across the sky of our life of things--showing them in all
+distinctness and clearness; so that we see things as they happen to
+us with our eyes of daylight. But as the sun throws its dim twilight
+shadows even beyond our earth, so do the souls of men of great mind
+and imagination see, faintly, beyond their own lives, and into the
+shadow of things.
+
+To-night that mysterious sight came to Richard Travis, as it comes in
+the great crises of life and death, to every strong man, and he saw
+dimly, ghostily, into the shadow; and the shadow stopped at the
+terrible abyss which now barred his ken; and he felt, with the keen
+insight of the dying eagle on the peak, that the thing was death.
+
+In the first streak of light, he was rudely awakened to it. For there
+on the rug, as naturally as if asleep, lay the only thing he now
+loved in the world, the old setter, whose life had passed out in
+slumber.
+
+All animals have the dying instinct. Man, the highest, has it the
+clearest. And Travis remembered that the old dog had come to his bed,
+in the middle of the night, and laid his large beautiful head on his
+master's breast, and in the dim light of the smouldering fire had
+said good-bye to Richard Travis as plainly as ever human being said
+it. And now on the rug, before the dead gray ashes of the night, he
+had found the old dog forever asleep, naturally and in great peace.
+
+His heart sank as he thought of the farewell of the night before, and
+bitterness came, and sitting down on the rug by the side of the dead
+dog he stroked for the last time the grand old silken head, so calm
+and poised, for the little world it had been bred for, and ran his
+palm over the long strong nose that had never lied to the scent of
+the covey. His lips tightened and he said: "O God, I am dying myself,
+and there is not a living being whom I can crawl up to, and lay my
+head on its breast and know it loves and pities me, as I love you,
+old friend."
+
+The thought gripped his throat, and as he thought of the sweetness
+and nobility of this dumb thing, his gentleness, faithfulness and
+devotion, the sureness of his life in filling the mission he came
+for, he wept tears so strange to his cheek that they scalded as they
+flowed, and he bowed his head and said: "Gladstone, Gladstone,
+good-bye--true to your breeding, you were what your master never
+was--a gentleman."
+
+And the old housekeeper found this strong man, who had never wept in
+his life, crying over the old dead setter on the rug.
+
+And the same feeling, the second sight--the presentiment--the
+terrible balking of his mind that had always seen so clearly, ever
+into the future, held him as in a vise all the morning and moved him
+in a strange mysterious way to go to the church and see the woman he
+had loved all his life, the being whose very look uplifted him, and
+whose smile could make him a hero or a martyr, married to the man who
+came home to take her, and half of his all.
+
+Numbed, hardened, speechless, and yet with that terrible presentiment
+of the abyss before him, he had stood and seen Alice Westmore made
+the wife of another.
+
+He remembered first how quickly he had caught the text of the old
+man; indeed, it seemed to him now that everything he heard struck
+into him like a brand of fire--for never had life appeared to him as
+it did to-day.
+
+"_For the hand of God hath touched me--_" he kept repeating over and
+over--repeating and then cursing himself for repeating it--for
+remembering it.
+
+And still it stayed there all day--the unbidden ghost-guest of his
+soul.
+
+And everything the old preacher said went searing into his quivering
+soul, and all the time he kept looking--looking at the woman he loved
+and seeing her giving her love, her life, with a happy smile, to
+another. And all the time he stood wondering why he came to see it,
+why he felt as he did, why things hurt him that way, why he acted so
+weakly, why his conscience had awakened at last, why life hurt him
+so--life that he had played with as an edged tool--why he could not
+get away from himself and his memory, but ran always into it, and why
+at last with a shudder, why did nothing seem to be beyond the wall?
+
+He saw her go off, the wife of another. He saw their
+happiness--unconscious even that he lived, and he cursed himself and
+kept saying: "_The hand of God hath touched me._"
+
+Then he laughed at himself for being silly.
+
+He rode home, but it was not home. Nothing was itself--not even he.
+In the watches of one night his life had been changed and the light
+had gone out.
+
+When night came it was worse. He mounted his horse and rode--where?
+And he could no more help it than he could cease to breathe.
+
+He did not guide the saddle mare, she went herself through wood
+sombre and dark with shadows, through cedar trees, dwarfed, and
+making pungent the night air with aromatic breath; through old sedge
+fields, garish in the faint light; up, up the mountain, over it; and
+at last the mare stopped and stood silently by a newly made grave,
+while Richard Travis, with strained hard mouth and wet eyes, knelt
+and, knowing that no hand in the world cared to feel his repentant
+face in it, he buried it in the new made sod as he cried:
+"Maggie--Maggie--forgive me, for the hand of God hath touched me!"
+
+And it soothed him, for he knew that if she were alive he might have
+lain his head there--on her breast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MAMMY MARIA
+
+
+That Monday was a memorable day for Helen Conway. She went to the
+mill with less bitterness than ever before--the sting of it all was
+gone--for she felt that she was helpless to the fate that was
+hers--that she was powerless in the hands of Richard Travis:
+
+"_I will come for you Monday night. I will take you away from here.
+You shall belong to me forever--My Queen!_"
+
+These words had rung in her ears all Saturday night, when, after
+coming home, she had found her father fallen by the wayside.
+
+In the night she had lain awake and wondered. She did not know where
+she was going--she did not care. She did not even blush at the
+thought of it. She was hardened, steeled. She knew not whether it
+meant wife or mistress. She knew only that, as she supposed, God had
+placed upon her more than she could bear.
+
+"If my life is wrecked," she said as she lay awake that Sunday
+night--"God himself will do it. Who took my mother before I knew her
+influence? Who made me as I am and gave me poverty with this fatal
+beauty--poverty and a drunken father and this terrible temptation?"
+
+"Oh, if I only had her, Mammy--negro that she is."
+
+Lily was asleep with one arm around her sister's neck.
+
+"What will become of Lily, in the mill, too?" She bent and kissed
+her, and she saw that the little one, though asleep, had tears in her
+own eyes.
+
+Young as she was, Helen's mind was maturer than might have been
+supposed. And the problem which confronted her she saw very clearly,
+although she was unable to solve it. The problem was not new, indeed,
+it has been Despair's conundrum since the world began: Whose fault
+that my life has been as it is? In her despair, doubting, she cried:
+
+"Is there really a God, as Mammy Maria told me? Does He interpose in
+our lives, or are we rushed along by the great moral and physical
+laws, which govern the universe; and if by chance we fail to
+harmonize with them, be crushed for our ignorance--our ignorance
+which is not of our own making?"
+
+"By chance--by chance," she repeated, "but if there be great fixed
+laws, how can there be any--chance?"
+
+The thought was hopeless. She turned in her despair and hid her face.
+And then out of the darkness came the strong fine face of Clay
+Westmore--and his words: "We must all work--it is life's badge of
+nobility."
+
+How clearly and calmly they came to her. And then her heart
+fluttered. Suppose Clay loved her--suppose this was her solution? He
+had never pressed his love on her. Did he think a woman could be
+loved that way--scientifically--as coal and iron are discovered?
+
+She finally slept, her arms around her little sister. But the last
+recollection she had was Clay's fine face smiling at her through the
+darkness and saying: "We must all work--it is life's badge of
+nobility."
+
+It was Monday morning, and she would take Lily with her to the mill;
+for the child's work at the spinning frames was to begin that day.
+There was no alternative. Again the great unknown law rushed her
+along. Her father had signed them both, and in a few days their home
+would be sold.
+
+They were late at the mill, but the little one, as she trudged along
+by the side of her sister, was happier than she had been since her
+old nurse had left. It was great fun for her, this going to the mill
+with her big sister.
+
+The mill had been throbbing and humming long before they reached it.
+Helen turned Lily over to the floor manager, after kissing her
+good-bye, and bade her do as she was told. Twice again she kissed
+her, and then with a sob hurried away to her own room.
+
+Travis was awaiting her in the hall. She turned pale and then crimson
+when she saw him. And yet, when she ventured to look at him as she
+was passing, she was stopped with the change which lay on his face.
+It was a sad smile he gave her, sad but determined. And in the
+courtly bow was such a look of tenderness that with fluttering heart
+and a strange new feeling of upliftedness--a confidence in him for
+the first time, she stopped and gave him her hand with a grateful
+smile. It was a simple act and so pretty that the sadness went from
+Travis' face as he said:
+
+"I was not going to stop you--this is kind of you. Saturday, I
+thought you feared me."
+
+"Yes," she smiled, "but not now--not when you look like that."
+
+"Have I changed so much since then?" and he looked at her curiously.
+
+"There is something in your face I never saw before. It made me
+stop."
+
+"I am glad it was there, then," he said simply, "for I wished you to
+stop, though I did not want to say so."
+
+"Saturday you would have said so," she replied with simple frankness.
+
+He came closer to her with equal frankness, and yet with a tenderness
+which thrilled her he said:
+
+"Perhaps I was not so sure Saturday of many things that I am positive
+of to-day."
+
+"Of what?" she asked flushing.
+
+He smiled again, but it was not the old smile which had set her to
+trembling with a flurry of doubt and shame. It was the smile of
+respect. Then it left him, and in its stead flashed instantly the old
+conquering light when he said:
+
+"To-night, you know, you will be mine!"
+
+The change of it all, the shock of it, numbed her. She tried to
+smile, but it was the lifeless curl of her lips instead--and the look
+she gave him--of resignation, of acquiescence, of despair--he had
+seen it once before, in the beautiful eyes of the first young doe
+that fell to his rifle. She was not dead when he bounded to the spot
+where she lay--and she gave him that look.
+
+Edward Conway watched his two daughters go out of the gate on their
+way to the mill, sitting with his feet propped up, and drunker than
+he had been for weeks. But indistinct as things were, the poignancy
+of it went through him, and he groaned. In a dazed sort of way he
+knew it was the last of all his dreams of respectability, that from
+now on there was nothing for him and his but degradation and a lower
+place in life. To do him justice, he did not care so much for
+himself; already he felt that he himself was doomed, that he could
+never expect to shake off the terrible habit which had grown to be
+part of his life,--unless, he thought, unless, as the Bishop had
+said--by the blow of God. He paled to think what that might mean. God
+had so many ways of striking blows unknown to man. But for his
+daughters--he loved them, drunkard though he was. He was proud of
+their breeding, their beauty, their name. If he could only go and
+give them a chance--if the blow would only fall and take him!
+
+The sun was warm. He grew sleepy. He remembered afterwards that he
+fell out of his chair and that he could not arise.... It was a nice
+place to sleep anyway.... A staggering hound, with scurviness and
+sores, came up the steps, then on the porch, and licked his face....
+
+When he awoke some one was bathing his face with cold water from the
+spring. He was perfectly sober and he knew it was nearly noon. Then
+he heard the person say: "I guess you are all right now, Marse Ned,
+an' I'm thinkin' it's the last drink you'll ever take outen that
+jug."
+
+His astonishment in recognizing that the voice was the voice of Mammy
+Maria did not keep him from looking up regretfully at sight of the
+precious broken jug and the strong odor of whiskey pervading the air.
+
+How delightful the odor was!
+
+He sat up amazed, blinking stupidly.
+
+"Aunt Maria--in heaven's name--where?"
+
+"Never mind, Marse Ned--jes' you git into the buggy now an' I'll take
+you home. You see, I've moved everything this mohnin' whilst you
+slept. The last load is gone to our new home."
+
+"What?" he exclaimed--"where?" He looked around--the home was empty.
+
+"I thort it time to wake you up," she went on, "an' besides I wanter
+talk to you about my babies.
+
+"You'll onderstan' all that when you see the home I've bought for
+us"--she said simply. "We're gwine to it now. Git in the buggy"--and
+she helped him to arise.
+
+Then Edward Conway guessed, and he was silent, and without a word the
+old woman drove him out of the dilapidated gate of Millwood toward
+the town.
+
+"Mammy," he began as if he were a boy again--"Mammy," and then he
+burst into tears.
+
+"Don't cry, chile," said the old woman--"it's all behind us now. I
+saved the money years ago, when we all wus flush--an' you gave me so
+much when you had an' wus so kind to me, Marse Ned. I saved it. We're
+gwine to reform now an' quit drinkin'. We'se gwine to remove to
+another spot in the garden of the Lord, but the Lord is gwine with us
+an' He is the tower of strength--the tower of strength to them that
+trust Him--Amen. But I must have my babies--that's part of the
+barg'in. No mill for them--oh, Marse Ned, to think that whilst I was
+off, fixin' our home so nice to s'prize you all--wuckin' my fingers
+off to git the home ready--you let them devils get my babies! Git up
+heah"--and she rapped the horse down the back with the lines. "Hurry
+up--I'm gwine after 'em es soon es I git home."
+
+Conway could only bow his head and weep.
+
+It was nearly noon when a large coal-black woman, her head tied up
+with an immaculately white handkerchief, with a white apron to match
+over her new calico gown, walked into the mill door. She passed
+through Kingsley's office, without giving him the courtesy of a nod,
+holding her head high and looking straight before her. A black
+thunder-cloud of indignation sat upon her brow, and her large black
+eyes were lit up with a sarcastic light.
+
+Before Kingsley could collect his thoughts she had passed into the
+big door of the main room, amid the whirl and hum of the machinery,
+and walking straight to one of the spinning frames, she stooped and
+gathered into her arms the beautiful, fair-skinned little girl who
+was trying in vain to learn the tiresome lesson of piecing the
+ever-breaking threads of the bewildering, whirling bobbins.
+
+The child was taken so by surprise that she screamed in fright--not
+being able to hear the footfall or the voice of her who had so
+suddenly folded her in her arms and showered kisses on her face and
+hair. Then, seeing the face, she shouted:
+
+"It's Mammy Maria--oh, it's my mammy!" and she threw her arms around
+the old woman's neck and clung there.
+
+"Mammy's baby--did you think old Mammy dun run off an' lef' her
+baby?"
+
+But Lily could only sob for joy.
+
+Then the floor manager came hurriedly over--for the entire force of
+the mill had ceased to work, gazing at the strange scene. In vain he
+gesticulated his protests--the big fat colored woman walked proudly
+past him with Lily in her arms.
+
+In Kingsley's office she stopped to get Lily's bonnet, while the
+little girl still clung to her neck, sobbing.
+
+Kingsley stood taking in the scene in astonishment. He adjusted his
+eye glasses several times, lilting them with the most pronounced
+sarcastic lilt of which he was capable.
+
+He stepped around and around the desk in agitated briskness.
+
+He cleared his throat and jerked his pant legs up and down. And all
+the time the fat old woman stood looking at him, with the
+thunder-cloud on her brow and unexpressed scorn struggling for speech
+in her eyes.
+
+"Ah-hem--ah-ha--Aunt Maria" for Kingsley had caught on to the better
+class of Southern ways--"inform me--ah, what does all this mean?"
+
+The old woman drew herself up proudly and replied with freezing
+politeness:
+
+"I beg yo' pardon, sah--but I was not awares that I had any nephew
+in the mill, or was related to anybody in here, sah. I hav'nt my
+visitin' cyard with me, but if I had 'em heah you'd find my
+entitlements, on readin', was somethin' lak this: _Miss Maria Conway,
+of Zion!_"
+
+Kingsley flushed, rebuked. Then he adjusted his glasses again with
+agitated nervous attempts at a lilt. Then he struck his level and
+fell back on his natural instinct, unmixed, with attempts at being
+what he was not:
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Conway"--
+
+"Git my entitlements right, please sah. I'm the only old maid lady of
+color you ever seed or ever will see again. Niggahs, these days, lak
+birds, all git 'em a mate some way--but I'm Miss Conway of Zion."
+
+"Ah, beg pardon, Miss Conway--Miss Conway of Zion. And where, pray,
+is that city, Miss Conway? I may have to have an officer communicate
+with you."
+
+"With pleasure, sah--It's a pleasure for me to he'p people find a
+place dey'd never find without help--no--not whilst they're a-workin'
+the life out of innocent tots an' babes--"
+
+Kingsley flushed hot, angered:
+
+"What do you mean, old woman?"
+
+"The ole woman means," she said, looking him steadily in the eye,
+"that you are dealin' in chile slavery, law or no law; that you're
+down heah preachin' one thing for niggahs an' practisin' another for
+yo' own race; that yo' hair frizzles on yo' head at tho'rt of niggah
+slavery, whilst all the time you are enslavin' the po' little whites
+that's got yo' own blood in their veins. An' now you wanter know what
+I come for? I come for my chile!"
+
+Kingsley was too dumfounded to speak. In all his life never had his
+hypocrisy been knocked to pieces so completely.
+
+"What does all this mean?" asked Jud Carpenter rushing hastily into
+the room.
+
+"Come on baby," said the old woman as she started toward the door.
+"I've got a home for us, an' whilst old mammy can take in washin'
+you'll not wuck yo' life out with these people."
+
+Jud broke in harshly: "Come, ole 'oman,--you put that child down.
+You've got nothin' to support her with."
+
+She turned on him quickly: "I've got mo' silver tied up in ole socks
+that the Conways give me in slavery days when they had it by the
+bushel, than sech as you ever seed. Got nothin'? Jus' you come over
+and see the little home I've got fixed up for Marse Ned an' the
+babies. Got nothin'? See these arms? Do you think they have forgot
+how to cook an' wash? Come on, baby--we'll be gwine home--Miss
+Helen'll come later."
+
+"Put her down, old woman," said Carpenter sternly. "You can't take
+her--she's bound to the mill."
+
+"Oh, I can't?" said the old woman as she walked out with Lily--"Can't
+take her. Well, jes' look at me an' see. This is what I calls Zion,
+an' the Lam' an' the wolves had better stay right where they are,"
+she remarked dryly, as she walked off carrying Lily in her arms.
+
+Down through a pretty part of the town, away from Cottontown, she led
+the little girl, laughing now and chatting by the old woman's side,
+a bird freed from a cage.
+
+"And you'll bring sister Helen, too?" asked Lily.
+
+"That I will, pet,--she'll be home to-night."
+
+"Oh, Mammy, it's so good to have you again--so good, and I thought
+you never would come."
+
+They walked away from Cottontown and past pretty houses. In a quiet
+street, with oaks and elms shading it, she entered a yard in which
+stood a pretty and nicely painted cottage. Lily clapped her hands
+with laughter when she found all her old things there--even her pet
+dolls to welcome her--all in the cunningest and quaintest room
+imaginable. The next room was her father's, and Mammy's room was next
+to hers and Helen's. She ran out only to run into her father's arms.
+Small as she was, she saw that he was sober. He took her on his lap
+and kissed her.
+
+"My little one," he said--"my little one"--
+
+"Mammy," asked the little girl as the old woman came out--"how did
+you get all this?"
+
+"Been savin' it all my life, chile--all the money yo' blessed mother
+give me an' all I earned sence I was free. I laid it up for a rainy
+day an' now, bless God, it's not only rainin' but sleetin' an' cold
+an' snowin' besides, an' so I went to the old socks. It's you all's,
+an' all paid fur, an' old mammy to wait on you. I'm gwine to go after
+Miss Helen before the mill closes, else she'll be gwine back to
+Millwood, knowin' nothin' of all this surprise for her. No,
+sah,--nary one of yo' mother's chillun shall ever wuck in a mill."
+
+Conway bowed his head. Then he drew Lily to him as he knelt and
+said: "Oh, God help me--make me a man, make me a Conway again."
+
+It was his first prayer in years--the beginning of his reformation.
+And every reformation began with a prayer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE DOUBLE THAT DIED
+
+
+Two hours before the mill closed Richard Travis came hurriedly into
+the mill office. There had been business engagements to be attended
+to in the town before leaving that night for the North, and he had
+been absent from the mill all day. Now everything was ready even to
+his packed trunk--all except Helen.
+
+"He's come for her," said Jud to himself as he walked over to the
+superintendent's desk.
+
+Then amid the hum and the roar of the mill he bent his head and the
+two whispered low and earnestly together. As Jud talked in excited
+whispers, Travis lit a cigar and listened coolly--to Jud's
+astonishment--even cynically.
+
+"An' what you reckin' she done--the ole 'oman? Tuck the little gyrl
+right out of my han's an' kerried her home--marched off as proud as
+ole Queen Victory."
+
+"Home? What home?" asked Travis.
+
+"An' that's the mischief of it," went on Jud. "I thort she was lyin'
+about the home, an' I stepped down there at noon an' I hope I may die
+to-night if she ain't got 'em all fixed up as snug as can be, an' the
+Major is there as sober es a jedge, an' lookin' like a gentleman an'
+actin' like a Conway. Say, but you watch yo' han'. That's blood that
+won't stan' monkeyin' with when it's in its right mind. An' the
+little home the ole 'oman's got, she bought it with her own money,
+been savin' it all her life an' now"--
+
+"What did you say to her this morning?" asked Travis.
+
+"Oh, I cussed her out good--the old black"--
+
+A peculiar light flashed in Richard Travis' eyes. Never before had
+the Whipper-in seen it. It was as if he had looked up and seen a halo
+around the moon.
+
+"To do grand things--to do grand things--like that--negro that she
+is! No--no--of course you did not understand. Our moral sense is
+gone--we mill people. It is atrophied--yours and mine and all of
+us--the soul has gone and mine? My God, why did you give it back to
+me now--this ghost soul that has come to me with burning breath?"
+
+Jud Carpenter listened in amazement and looked at him suspiciously.
+He came closer to see if he could smell whiskey on his breath, but
+Travis looked at him calmly as he went on: "Why, yes, of course you
+cursed her--how could you understand? How could you know--you, born
+soulless, know that you had witnessed something which, what does the
+old preacher call him--the man Jesus Christ--something He would have
+stopped and blessed her for. A slave and she saved it for her master.
+A negro and she loved little children where we people of much
+intellect and a higher civilization and Christianity--eh, Jud,
+Christians"--and he laughed so strangely that Jud took a turn around
+the room watching Travis out of the corner of his eyes.
+
+"Oh--and you cursed her!"
+
+Jud nodded. "An' to-morrow I'll go an' fetch the little 'un back. Why
+she's signed--she's our'n for five years."
+
+Travis turned quickly and Jud dodged under the same strange light
+that showed again in his eyes. Then he laid his hand on Jud's arm and
+said simply: "No--no--you will not!"
+
+Jud looked at him in open astonishment.
+
+Travis puffed at his cigar as he said:
+
+"Don't study me too closely. Things have happened--have happened, I
+tell you--my God! we are all double--that is if we are anything--two
+halves to us--and my half--my other half, got lost till the other
+night and left this aching, pitiful, womanly thing behind, that
+bleeds to the touch and has tears. Why, man, I am either an angel, a
+devil, or both. Don't you go there and touch that little child, nor
+thrust your damned moral Caliban monstrosity into that sweet isle,
+nor break up with your seared conscience the glory of that unselfish
+act. If you do I'll kill you, Jud Carpenter--I'll kill you!"
+
+Jud turned and walked to the water bucket, took a drink and squirted
+it through his teeth.
+
+He was working for thinking time: "He's crazy--he's sho' crazy--" he
+said to himself. Coming back, he said:
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Travis--but the oldes' gyrl--what--what about her,
+you know?"
+
+"She's mine, isn't she? I've won her--outgeneraled the others--by
+brains and courage. She should belong to my harem--to my band--as
+the stallion of the plains when he beats off with tooth and hoof and
+neck of thunder his rival, and takes his mares."
+
+Jud nodded, looking at him quizzically.
+
+"Well, what about it?" asked Travis.
+
+"Nothin'--only this"--then he lowered his voice as he came
+nearer--"the ole 'oman will be after her in an hour--an' she'll take
+her--tell her all. Maybe you'll see somethin' to remind you of Jesus
+Christ in that."
+
+Travis smiled.
+
+"Well," went on Jud, "you'd better take her now--while the whole
+thing has played into yo' hands; but she--the oldes' gyrl--she don't
+know the ole 'oman's come back an' made her a home; that her father
+is sober an' there with her little sister, that Clay is away an'
+ain't deserted her. She don't know anything, an' when you set her out
+in that empty house, deserted, her folks all deserted her, as she'll
+think, don't you know she'll go to the end of the worl' with you?"
+
+"Well?" asked Travis as he smiled calmly.
+
+"Well, take her and thank Jud Carpenter for the Queen of the
+Valley--eh?" and he laughed and tried to nudge Travis familiarly, but
+the latter moved away.
+
+"I'll take her," at last he said.
+
+"She'll go to The Gaffs with you"--went on Jud. "There she's safe.
+Then to-night you can drive her to the train at Lenox, as we told
+Biggers."
+
+He came over and whispered in Travis's ear.
+
+"That worked out beautifully," said Travis after a while, "but I'll
+not trust her to you or to Charley Biggers. I'll take her
+myself--she's mine--Richard Travis's--mine--mine! I who have been
+buffeted and abused by Fate, given all on earth I do not want, and
+denied the one thing I'd die for; I'll show them who they are up
+against. I'll take her, and they may talk and rave and shoot and be
+damned!"
+
+His old bitterness was returning. His face flushed:
+
+"That's the way you love to hear me talk, isn't it--to go on and say
+I'll take her and do as I please with her, and if it pleases me to
+marry her I'll set her up over them all--heh?"
+
+Jud nodded.
+
+"That's one of me," said Travis--"the old one. This is the new." And
+he opened the back of his watch where a tiny lock of Alice Westmore's
+auburn hair lay: "Oh, if I were only worthy to kiss it!"
+
+He walked into the mill and down to the little room where Helen sat.
+He stood a while at the door and watched her--the poise of the
+beautiful head, the cheeks flushed with the good working blood that
+now flowed through them, the hair falling with slight disorder, a
+stray lock of it dashed across her forehead and setting off the rest
+of it, darker and deeper, as a cloudlet, inlaid with gold, the sunset
+of her cheeks.
+
+His were the eyes of a connoisseur when it came to women, and as he
+looked he knew that every line of her was faultless; the hands
+slender and beautifully high-born; the fingers tapering with that
+artistic slope of the tips, all so plainly visible now that they were
+at work. One foot was thrust out, slender with curved and high
+instep. He flushed with pride of her--his eyes brightened and he
+smiled in the old ironical way, a smile of dare-doing, of victory.
+
+He walked in briskly and with a business-like, forward alertness. She
+looked up, paled, then flushed.
+
+"Oh, I was hoping so you had forgotten," she said tremblingly.
+
+He smiled kindly: "I never forget."
+
+She put up one hand to her cheek and rested her head on it a moment
+in thought.
+
+He came up and stood deferentially by her side, looking down on her,
+on her beautiful head. She half crouched, expecting to hear something
+banteringly complimentary; bold, commonplace--to feel even the touch
+of his sensual hand on her hair, on her cheek and _My Queen--my
+Queen!_
+
+After a while she looked up, surprised. The excitement in her
+eyes--the half-doubting--half-yielding fight there, of ambition, and
+doubt, and the stubborn wrong of it all, of her hard lot and bitter
+life, of the hidden splendor that might lie beyond, and yet the
+terrible doubt, the fear that it might end in a living death--these,
+fighting there, lit up her eyes as candles at an altar of love. Then
+the very difference of his attitude, as he stood there, struck
+her,--the beautiful dignity of his face, his smile. She saw in an
+instant that sensualism had vanished--there was something spiritual
+which she had never seen before. A wave of trust, in her utter
+helplessness, a feeling of respect, of admiration, swept over her.
+She arose quickly, wondering at her own decision.
+
+He bowed low, and there was a ringing sweetness in his voice as he
+said: "I have come for you, Helen--if you wish to go."
+
+"I will go, Richard Travis, for I know now you will do me no harm."
+
+"Do you think you could learn to love me?"
+
+She met his eyes steadily, bravely: "That was never in the bargain.
+That is another thing. This is barter and trade--the last ditch
+rather than starvation, death. This is the surrender of the earthen
+fort, the other the glory of the ladder leading to the skies.
+Understand me, you have not asked for that--it is with me and God,
+who made me and gave it. Let it stay there and go back to him. You
+offer me bread"--
+
+"But may it not turn into a stone, an exquisite, pure diamond?" he
+asked.
+
+She looked at him sadly. She shook her head.
+
+"Diamonds are not made in a day."
+
+The light Jud Carpenter saw flashed in his eyes: "I have read of one
+somewhere who turned water into wine--and that was as difficult."
+
+"If--if--" she said gently--"if you had always been this--if you
+would always be this"--
+
+"A woman knows a man as a rose knows light," he said simply--"as a
+star knows the sun. But we men--being the sun and the star, we are
+blinded by our own light. Come, you may trust me, Sweet Rose."
+
+She put her hand in his. He took it half way to his mouth.
+
+"Don't," she said--"please--that is the old way."
+
+He lowered it gently, reverently, and they walked out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE DYING LION
+
+
+"Lily has been taken home," he said as she walked out with him. "She
+is safe and will be cared for--so will be your father. I will explain
+it to you as we drive to Millwood."
+
+She wondered, but her cheeks now burned so that all her thoughts
+began to flow back upon herself as a tide, flowing inland, and
+forgetting the sea of things. Her heart beat faster--she felt
+guilty--of what, she could not say.
+
+Perhaps the guilt of the sea for being found on the land.
+
+The common mill girls--were they not all looking at her, were they
+not all wondering, did they not all despise her, her who by birth and
+breeding should be above them? Her lips tightened at the thought--she
+who was above them--now--now--they to be above her--poor-born and
+common as they were--if--if--he betrayed her.
+
+He handed her quietly--reverently even, into the buggy, and the
+trotters whirled her away; but not before she thought she saw the
+mill girls peeping at her through the windows, and nodding their
+heads at each other, and some of them smiling disdainfully. And yet
+when she looked closely there was no one at the windows.
+
+The wind blew cool. Travis glanced at her dress, her poorly protected
+shoulders.
+
+"I am afraid you will be too cold after coming from a warm mill and
+going with the speed we go."
+
+He reached under the seat and drew out a light overcoat. He threw it
+gently over her shoulders, driving, in his masterful way, with the
+reins in one hand.
+
+He did not speak again until he reached Millwood.
+
+The gate was down, bits of strewn paper, straw and all the debris of
+things having been moved, were there. The house was dark and empty,
+and Helen uttered a surprised cry:
+
+"Why, what does all this mean? Oh, has anything happened to them?"
+
+She clung in pallor to Travis's arm.
+
+"Be calm," he said, "I will explain. They are all safe. They have
+moved. Let us go in, a moment."
+
+He drew the mares under a shed and hitched them, throwing blankets
+over them and unchecking their heads. Then he lifted her out. How
+strong he was, and how like a limp lily she felt in the grasp of his
+hands.
+
+The moon flashed out now and then from clouds scurrying fast, adding
+a ghostliness to the fading light, in which the deserted house stood
+out amid shadowy trees and weeds tall and dried. The rotten steps and
+balcony, even the broken bottles and pieces of crockery shone bright
+in the fading light. Tears started to her eyes:
+
+"Nothing is here--nothing!"
+
+Travis caught her hand in the dark and she clung to him. A hound
+stepped out from under the steps and licked her other hand. She
+jumped and gave a little shriek. Then, when she understood, she
+stroked the poor thing's head, its eyes staring hungrily in the dim
+light.
+
+She followed Travis up the steps. Within, he struck a match, and she
+saw the emptiness of it all--the broken plastering and the paper torn
+off in spots, a dirty, littered floor, and an old sofa and a few
+other things left, too worthless to be moved.
+
+She held up bravely, but tears were running down her cheeks. Travis
+struck another match to light a lamp which had been forgotten and
+left on the mantel. He attempted to light it, but something huge and
+black swept by and extinguished it. Helen shrieked again, and coming
+up timidly seized his arm in the dark. He could feel her heart
+beating excitedly against it.
+
+He struck another match.
+
+"Don't be uneasy, it is nothing but an owl."
+
+The light was turned up and showed an owl sitting on the top of an
+old tester that had formerly been the canopy of her grandmother's
+bed.
+
+The owl stared stupidly at them--turning its head solemnly.
+
+Helen laughed hysterically.
+
+"Now, sit down on the old sofa," he said. "There is much to say to
+you. We are now on the verge of a tragedy or a farce, or--"
+
+"Sometimes plays end well, where all are happy, do they not?" she
+asked, smiling hysterically and sitting by him, but looking at the
+uncanny owl beyond. She was silent, then:
+
+"Oh, I--I--don't you think I am entitled now--to have something end
+happily--now--once--in my life?"
+
+He pitied her and was silent.
+
+"Tell me," she said after a while, "you have moved father and Lily
+to--to--one of the Cottontown cottages?"
+
+He arose: "In a little while I will tell you, but now we must have
+something to eat first--you see I had this lunch fixed for our
+journey." He went out, over to his lap-robe and cushion, and brought
+a basket and placed it on an old table.
+
+"You may begin now and be my housekeeper," he smiled. "Isn't it time
+you were learning? I daresay I'll not find you a novice, though."
+
+She flushed and smiled. She arose gracefully, and her pretty hands
+soon had the lunch spread, Travis helping her awkwardly.
+
+It was a pretty picture, he thought--her flushed girlish face, yet
+matronly ways. He watched her slyly, with a sad joyousness in his
+eyes, drinking it in, as one who had hungered long for contentment
+and peace, such as this.
+
+She had forgotten everything else in the housekeeping. She even
+laughed some at his awkwardness and scolded him playfully, for,
+man-like, forgetting a knife and fork. It was growing chilly, and
+while she set the lunch he went out and brought in some wood. Soon a
+fine oak fire burned in the fireplace.
+
+They sat at the old table at last, side by side, and ate the
+delightful lunch. Under the influence of the bottle of claret, from
+The Gaffs cellar, her courage came and her animation was beautiful to
+him--something that seemed more of girlhood than womanhood. He drank
+it all in--hungry--heart-hungry for comfort and love; and she saw and
+understood.
+
+Never had he enjoyed a lunch so much. Never had he seen so beautiful
+a picture!
+
+When it was over he lit a cigar, and the fine odor filled the old
+room.
+
+Then very quietly he told her the story of Mammy Maria's return, of
+the little home she had prepared for them; of her coming that day to
+the mill and taking Lily, and that even now, doubtless, she was there
+looking for the elder sister.
+
+She did not show any surprise--only tears came slowly: "Do you know
+that I felt that something of this kind would happen? Dear
+Mammy--dear, dear Mammy Maria! She will care for Lily and father."
+
+She could stand it no longer. She burst into childish tears and,
+kneeling, she put her beautiful head on Travis's lap as innocently as
+if it were her old nurse's, and she, a child, seeking consolation.
+
+He stroked her hair, her cheek, gently. He felt his lids grow moist
+and a tenderness he never had known came over him.
+
+"I have told you this for a purpose," he whispered in her ear--"I
+will take you to them, now."
+
+She raised her wet eyes--flushed. He watched her closely to see signs
+of any battle there. And then his heart gave a great leap and surged
+madly as she said calmly: "No--no--it is too late--too late--now.
+I--could--never explain. I will go with you, Richard Travis, to the
+end of the world."
+
+He sat very still and looked at her kneeling there as a child would,
+both hands clasped around his knee, and looking into his eyes with
+hers, gray-brown and gloriously bright. They were calm--so calm, and
+determined and innocent. They thrilled him with their trust and the
+royal beauty of her faith. There came to him an upliftedness that
+shook him.
+
+"To the end of the world," he said--"ah, you have said so much--so
+much more than I could ever deserve."
+
+"I have stood it all as long as I could. My father's drunkenness, I
+could stand that, and Mammy's forsaking us, as I thought--that, too.
+When the glory of work, of earning my own living opened itself to
+me,--Oh, I grasped it and was happy to think that I could support
+them! That's why your temptation--why--I--"
+
+He winced and was silent.
+
+"They were nothing," she went on, "but to be forgotten, forsaken
+by--by--"
+
+"Clay?" he helped her say.
+
+"Oh," she flushed--"yes,--that was part of it, and then to see--to
+see--you so different--with this strange look on you--something which
+says so plainly to me that--that--oh, forgive me, but do you know I
+seem to see you dying--dying all the time, and now you are so
+changed--indeed--oh please understand me--I feel differently toward
+you--as I would toward one dying for sympathy and love."
+
+She hid her face again. He felt his face grow hot. He sat perfectly
+still, listening. At last she said:
+
+"When I came here to-night and saw it all--empty--I thought: 'This
+means I am deserted by all--he has brought me here to see it--to know
+it. What can I do but go with him? It is all that is left. Did I make
+myself? Did I give myself this fatal beauty--for you say I am
+beautiful. And did I make you with your strength--your conquering
+strength, and--Oh, could I overcome my environment?' But now--now--it
+is different--and if I am lost, Richard Travis--it will be your
+fault--yours and God's."
+
+He stroked her hair. He was pale and that strange light which Jud
+Carpenter had seen in his eyes that afternoon blazed now with a
+nervous flash.
+
+"That is my story," she cried. "It is now too late even for God to
+come and tell me through you--now since we--you and I--oh, how can I
+say it--you have taken me this way--you, so strong and brave
+and--grand--"
+
+He flushed hot with shame. He put his hand gently over her mouth.
+
+"Hush--hush--child--my God--you hurt me--shame me--you know not what
+you say."
+
+"I can understand all--but one thing," she went on after a while.
+"Why have you brought me to this--here--at night alone with you--to
+tell me this--to make me--me--oh, change in my feelings--to you? Oh,
+must I say it?" she cried--"tell you the truth--that--that--now since
+I see you as you are--I--I,--I am willing to go!"
+
+"Hush, Helen, my child, my God--don't crush me--don't--listen,
+child--listen! I am a villain--a doubly-dyed, infamous one--when you
+hear"--
+
+She shook her head and put one of her pretty hands over his mouth.
+
+"Let me tell you all, first. Let me finish. After all this, why have
+you brought me here to tell me this, when all you had to do was to
+keep silent a few more hours--take me on to the station, as you
+said--and--and--"
+
+"I will tell you," he said gently. "Yes, you have asked the question
+needed to be explained. Now hear from my own lips my infamy--not all
+of it, God knows--that would take the night; but this peculiar part
+of it. Do you know why I love to stroke your hair, why I love to
+touch it, to touch you, to look into your eyes; why I should love,
+next to one thing of all earth, to take you in my arms and smother
+you--kill you with kisses--your hair, your eyes, your mouth?"
+
+She hid her face, crimson.
+
+"Did no one tell you, ever tell you--how much you look like your
+cousin"--he stopped--he could not say the word, but she guessed.
+White with shame, she sprang up from him, startled, hurt. Her heart
+tightened into a painful thing which pricked her.
+
+"Then--then--it is not I--but my Cousin Alice--oh--I--yes--I did
+hear--I should have known"--it came from her slowly and with a
+quivering tremor.
+
+He seized her hands and drew her back down by him on the sofa.
+
+"When I started into this with you I was dead--dead. My soul was
+withered within me. All women were my playthings--all but one. She
+was my Queen--my wife that was to be. I was dead, my God--how dead I
+was! I now see with a clearness that is killing me; a clearness as of
+one waking from sleep and feeling, in the first wave of conscience,
+that inconceivable tenderness which hurts so--hurts because it is
+tender and before the old hard consciousness of material things come
+again to toughen. How dead I was, you may know when I say that all
+this web now around you--from your entrance into the mill till
+now--here to-night--in my power--body and soul--that it was all to
+gratify this dead sea fruit of my soul, this thing in me I cannot
+understand, making me conquer women all my life for--oh, as a lion
+would, to kill, though not hungry, and then lie by them, dying, and
+watch them,--dead! Then this same God--if any there be--He who you
+say put more on you than you could bear--He struck me, as,
+well--no--He did not strike--but ground me, ground me into dust--took
+her out of my life and then laid my soul before me so naked that the
+very sunlight scorches it. What was it the old preacher said--that
+'touch of God' business? 'Touch--'" he laughed, "not touch, but blow,
+I say--a blow that ground me into star-dust and flung me into space,
+my heart a burning comet and my soul the tail of it, dissolving
+before my very eyes. What then can I, a lion, dying, care for the doe
+that crosses my path? The beautiful doe, beautiful even as you are.
+Do you understand me, child?"
+
+She scarcely knew what she did. She remembered only the terrible
+empty room. The owl uncannily turning its head here and there and
+staring at her with its eyes, yellow in the firelight.
+
+She dropped on the floor by him and clung again to his knees, her
+head in his lap in pity for him.
+
+"That is the story of the dying lion," he said after a while. "The
+lion who worked all his cunning and skill and courage to get the
+beautiful doe in his power, only to find he was dying--dying and
+could not eat. Could you love a dying lion, child?" he asked
+abruptly--"tell me truly, for as you speak so will I act--would make
+you queen of all the desert."
+
+She raised her eyes to his. They were wet with tears. He had touched
+the pity in them. She saw him as she had never seen him before. All
+her fear of him vanished, and she was held by the cords of a strange
+fascination. She knew not what she did. The owl looked at her
+queerly, and she almost sobbed it out, hysterically:
+
+"Oh, I could--love--you--you--who are so strong and who
+suffer--suffer so"--
+
+"You could love me?" he asked. "Then, then I would marry you
+to-night--now--if--if--that uncovering--that touch--had not been put
+upon me to do nobler things than to gratify my own passion, had not
+shown me the other half which all these years has been dead--my
+double." He was silent.
+
+"And so I sent to-day," he began after a while, "for a friend of
+yours, one with whom you can be happier than--the dying lion. He has
+been out of the county--sent out--it was part of the plan, part of
+the snare of the lion and his whelp. And so I sent for him this
+morning, feeling the death blow, you know. I sent him an urgent
+message, to meet you here at nine." He glanced at his watch. "It is
+past that now, but he had far to ride. He will come, I hope--ah,
+listen!"
+
+They heard the steps of a rider coming up the gravel walk.
+
+"It is he," said Travis calmly--"Clay."
+
+She sprang up quickly, half defiantly. The old Conway spirit flashed
+in her eyes and she came to him tall and splendid and with half a
+look of protest, half command, and yet in it begging, pleading,
+yearning for--she knew not what.
+
+"Why--why--did you? Oh, you do not know! You do not
+understand--love--love--can it be won this way--apprenticed,
+bargained--given away?"
+
+"You must go with him, he loves you. He will make you happy. I am
+dying--is not part of me already dead?"
+
+For answer she came to him, closer, and stood by him as one who in
+war stands by a comrade shot through and ready to fall.
+
+He put his arms around her and drew her to him closer, and she did
+not resist--but as a child would, hers also she wound around his neck
+and whispered:
+
+"My lion! Oh, kill me--kill me--let me die with you!"
+
+"Child--my precious one--my--oh, God, and you--forgive me this. But
+let me kiss you once and dream--dream it is she"--
+
+She felt his kisses on her hair, her eyes.
+
+"Good-bye--Alice--Alice--good-bye--forever--"
+
+He released her, but she clung to him sobbing. Her head lay on his
+breast, and she shook in the agony of it all.
+
+"You will forgive me, some day--when you know--how I loved her," he
+gasped, white and with a bitter light in his face.
+
+She looked up: "I would die," she said simply, "for a love like
+that."
+
+They heard the steps of a man approaching the house. She sat down on
+the old sofa pale, trembling and with bitterness in her heart.
+
+Travis walked to the door and opened it:
+
+"Come in, Clay," he said quietly. "I am glad that my man found you.
+We have been waiting for you."
+
+"I finished that survey and came as fast as I could. Your man rode on
+to The Gaffs, but I came here as you wrote me to do," and Clay came
+in quietly, speaking as he walked to the fire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH
+
+
+He came in as naturally as if the house were still inhabited, though
+he saw the emptiness of it all, and guessed the cause. But when he
+saw Helen, a flushed surprise beamed through his eyes and he gave her
+his hand.
+
+"Helen!--why, this is unexpected--quite unusual, I must say."
+
+She did not speak, as she gave him her hand, but smiled sadly. It
+meant: "Mr. Travis will tell you all. I know nothing. It is all his
+planning."
+
+Clay sat down in an old chair by the fire and warmed his hands,
+looking thoughtfully at the two, now and then, and wonderingly. He
+was not surprised when Travis said:
+
+"I sent for you hurriedly, as one who I knew was a friend of Miss
+Conway. A crisis has arisen in her affairs to-day in which it is
+necessary for her friends to act."
+
+"Why, yes, I suppose I can guess," said Clay thoughtfully and
+watching Helen closely all the while as he glanced around the empty
+room. "I was only waiting. Why, you see--"
+
+Helen flushed scarlet and looked appealingly at Travis. But he broke
+in on Clay without noticing her.
+
+"Yes, I knew you were only waiting. I think I understand you, but you
+know the trouble with nearly every good intention is that it waits
+too long."
+
+Clay reddened.
+
+Helen arose and, coming over, stood by Travis, her face pale, her
+eyes shining. "I beg--I entreat--please, say no more. Clay," she said
+turning on him with flushed face, "I did not know you were coming. I
+did not know where you were. Like all the others, I supposed you too
+had--had deserted me."
+
+"Why, I was sent off in a hurry to--" he started.
+
+"Mr. Travis told me to-night," she interrupted. "I understand now.
+But really, it makes no difference to me now. Since--since--"
+
+"Now look here," broke in Travis with feigned lightness,--"I am not
+going to let you two lovers misunderstand each other. I have planned
+it all out and I want you both to make me happy by listening to one
+older, one who admires you both and sincerely wishes to see you
+happy. Things have happened at your house," he said addressing
+Clay--"things which will surprise you when you reach home--things
+that affect you and me and Miss Conway. Now I know that you love her,
+and have loved her a long time, and that only--"
+
+"Only our poverty," said Clay thankfully to Travis for breaking the
+ice for him.
+
+Helen stood up quickly--a smile on her lips: "Don't you both think
+that before this bargain and sale goes further you had better get the
+consent of the one to be sold?" She turned to Clay.
+
+"Don't you think you have queer ideas of love--of winning a woman's
+love--in this way? And you"--she said turning to Travis--"Oh you
+_know_ better."
+
+Travis arose with a smile half joyous, half serious, and Clay was so
+embarrassed that he mopped his brow as if he were plowing in the sun.
+
+"Why, really, Helen--I--you know--I have spoken to you--you know, and
+but for my--"
+
+"Poverty"--said Helen taking up the word--"And what were poverty to
+me, if I loved a man? I'd love him the more for it. If he were dying
+broken-hearted, wrecked--even in disgrace,--"
+
+Travis flushed and looked at her admiringly, while the joyous light
+flashed yet deeper in his eyes.
+
+"Come," he said. "I have arranged all. I am not going to give you
+young people an excuse to defer your happiness longer." He turned to
+Clay: "I shall show you something which you have been on the track of
+for some time. I have my lantern in the buggy, and we will have to
+walk a mile or more. But it is pleasant to-night, and the walk will
+do us all good. Come."
+
+They both arose wonderingly--Helen came over and put her hand on his
+arm: "I will go," she whispered, "if there be no more of that talk."
+
+He smiled. "You must do as I say. Am I not now your guardian? Bring
+your leathern sack with your hammer and geological tools," he
+remarked to Clay.
+
+Clay arose hastily, and they went out of the old house and across the
+fields. Past the boundaries of Millwood they walked, Travis silently
+leading, and Clay following with Helen, who could not speak, so
+momentous it all seemed. She saw only Travis's fine square
+shoulders, and erect, sinewy form, going before them, into the night
+of shadows, of trees, of rocks, of the great peak of the mountain,
+silent and dark.
+
+He did not speak. He walked in silent thought. They passed the
+boundary line of Millwood, and then down a slight ravine he led them
+to the ragged, flinty hill, on which the old preacher's cabin stood
+on their right.
+
+"Now," he said stopping--"if I am correct, Clay, this hill is the old
+Bishop's," pointing to his right where the cabin stood, "and over
+here is what is left of Westmoreland. This gulch divides them. This
+range really runs into Westmoreland," he said with a sweep of his
+hand toward it. "Get your bearings," he smiled to Clay, "for I want
+you to tell whose fortune this is."
+
+He lit his lantern and walking forward struck away some weeds and
+vines which partially concealed the mouth of a small opening in the
+hillside caused by a landslide. It was difficult going at first, but
+as they went further the opening grew larger, and as the light
+flashed on its walls, Clay stopped in admiration and shouted:
+
+"Look--look--there it is!"
+
+Before them running right and left--for the cave had split it in two,
+lay the solid vein of coal, shining in the light, and throwing back
+splinters of ebony, to Clay more beautiful than gold.
+
+Travis watched him with an amused smile as he hastily took off his
+satchel and struck a piece off the ledge. Helen stood wondering,
+looking not at Clay, but at Travis, and her eyes shone brilliantly
+and full of proud splendor.
+
+Clay forgot that they were there. He measured the ledge. He chipped
+off piece after piece and examined it closely. "I never dreamed it
+would be here, in this shape," he said at last. "Look!--and fully
+eight feet, solid. This hill is full of it. The old preacher will
+find it hard to spend his wealth."
+
+"But that is not all," said Travis; "see how the dip runs--see the
+vein--this way." He pointed to the left.
+
+Clay paled: "That means--it is remarkable--very remarkable. Why, this
+vein should not have been here. It is too low to be in the
+Carboniferous." He suddenly stopped: "But here it is--contrary to all
+my data and--and--why really it takes the low range of the poor land
+of Westmoreland. It--it--will make me rich."
+
+"You haven't seen all," said Travis--"look!" He turned and walked to
+another part of the small cave, where the bank had broken, and there
+gleamed, not the black, but the red--the earth full of rich ore.
+
+Clay picked up one eagerly.
+
+"The finest iron ore!--who--who--ever heard of such a freak of
+nature?"
+
+"And the lime rock is all over the valley," said Travis, "and that
+means, coal, iron and lime--"
+
+"Furnaces--why, of course--furnaces and wealth. Helen, I--I--it will
+make Westmoreland rich. Now, in all earnestness--in all sincerity I
+can tell you--"
+
+"Do not tell me anything, Clay--please do not. You do not
+understand. You can never understand." Her eyes were following
+Travis, who had walked off pretending to be examining the cave. Then
+she gave a shriek which sounded frightfully intense as it echoed
+around.
+
+Travis turned quickly and saw standing between him and them a gaunt,
+savage thing, with froth in its mouth and saliva-dripping lips. At
+first he thought it was a panther, so low it crouched to spring; but
+almost instantly he recognized Jud Carpenter's dog. Then it began to
+creep uncertainly, staggeringly forward, toward Clay and Helen, its
+neck drawn and contracted in the paroxysms of rabies; its deadly
+eyes, staring, unearthly yellow in the lantern light. Within two
+yards of Clay, who stood helpless with fear and uncertainty, it
+crouched to spring, growling and snapping at its own sides, and Helen
+screamed again as she saw Travis's quick, lithe figure spring forward
+and, grasping the dog by the throat from behind, fling himself with
+crushing force on the brute, choking it as he fell.
+
+Total darkness--for in his rush Travis threw aside his lantern--and
+it seemed an age to Helen as she heard the terrible fight for life
+going on at her feet, the struggles and howls of the dog, the
+snapping of the huge teeth, the stinging sand thrown up into her
+face. Then after a while all was still, and then very quietly from
+Travis:
+
+"A match, Clay--light the lantern! I have choked him to death."
+
+Under the light he arose, his clothes torn with tooth and fang of the
+gaunt dog, which lay silent. He stood up hot and flushed, and then
+turned pallid, and for a moment staggered as he saw the blood
+trickling from his left arm.
+
+Helen stood by him terror-eyed, trembling, crushed,--with a terrible
+sickening fear.
+
+"He was mad," said Travis gently, "and I fear he has bitten me,
+though I managed to jump on him before he bit you two."
+
+He took off his coat--blood was on his shirt sleeve and had run down
+his arm. Helen, pale and with a great sob in her throat, rolled up
+the sleeve, Travis submitting, with a strange pallor in his face and
+the new light in his eyes.
+
+His bare arm came up strong and white. Above the elbow, near the
+shoulder, the blood still flowed where the fangs had sunk.
+
+"There is only one chance to save me," he said quietly, "and that, a
+slim one. It bleeds--if I could only get my lips to it--"
+
+He tried to expostulate, to push her off, as he felt her lips against
+his naked arm. But she clung there sucking out the virus. He felt her
+tears fall on his arm. He heard her murmur:
+
+"My dying lion--my dying lion!"
+
+He bent and whispered: "You are risking your own life for me, Helen!
+Life for life--death for death!"
+
+It was too much even for his great strength, and when he recovered
+himself he was sitting on the sand of the little cave. How long she
+had clung to his arm he did not know, but it had ceased to pain him
+and her own handkerchief was tied around it.
+
+He staggered out, a terrible pallor on his face, as he said: "Not
+this way--not to go this way. Oh, God, your blow--I care not for
+death, but, oh, not this death?"
+
+"Clay," he said after a while--"Take her--take her to your mother and
+sister to-night. I must bid you both good-night, ay, and good-bye.
+See, you walk only across the field there--that is Westmoreland."
+
+He turned, but he felt some one clinging to his hand, in the dark. He
+looked down at her, at the white, drawn face, beautiful with a
+terrible pain: "Take me--take me," she begged--"with you--to the end
+of the world--oh, I love you and I care not who knows."
+
+"Child--child"--he whispered sadly--"You know not what you say. I am
+dying. I shall be mad--unless--unless what you have done--"
+
+"Take me," she pleaded--"my lion. I am yours."
+
+He stooped and kissed her and then walked quickly away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE ANGEL WITH THE FLAMING SWORD
+
+
+It was nearly time for the mill to close when Mammy Maria, her big
+honest face beaming with satisfaction at the surprise she had in
+store for Helen, began to wind her red silk bandana around her head.
+She had several bandanas, but when Lily saw her put on the red silk
+one, the little girl knew she was going out--"dressin' fur
+prom'nade"--as the old lady termed it.
+
+"You are going after Helen," said the little girl, clapping her
+hands.
+
+She sat on her father's lap: "And we want you to hurry up, Mammy
+Maria," he said, "I want all my family here. I am going to work
+to-morrow. I'll redeem Millwood before my two years expire or I am
+not a Conway again."
+
+Mammy Maria was agitated enough. She had been so busy that she had
+failed to notice how late it was. In her efforts to surprise Helen
+she had forgotten time, and now she feared the mill might close and
+Helen, not knowing they had moved, would go back to Millwood. This
+meant a two mile tramp and delay. She had plenty of time, she knew,
+before the mill closed; but the more she thought of the morning's
+scene at the mill and of Jud Carpenter, the greater her misgivings.
+For Mammy Maria was instinctive--a trait her people have. It is
+always Nature's substitute when much intellect is wanting.
+
+All afternoon she had chuckled to herself. All afternoon, the three
+of them,--for even Major Conway joined in, and helped work and
+arrange things--talked it over as they planned. His face was clear
+now, and calm, as in the old days. Even the old servant could see he
+had determined to win in the fight.
+
+"Marse Ned's hisse'f ag'in," she would say to him
+encouragingly--"Marse Ned's hisse'f--an' Zion's by his side, yea,
+Lord, the Ark of the Tabbernackle!"
+
+For the last time she surveyed the little rooms of the cottage. How
+clean and fresh it all was, and how the old mahogany of Millwood set
+them off! And now all was ready.
+
+It was nearly dark when she reached the mill. It had not yet closed
+down, and lights began to blaze first from one window, then another.
+She could hear the steam and the coughing of the exhaust pipe.
+
+This was all the old woman had hoped--to be in time for Helen when
+the mill closed.
+
+But one thing was in her way, or she had taken her as she did Lily:
+She did not know where Helen's room was in the mill. There was no
+fear in the old nurse's heart. She had taken Lily, she would take
+Helen. She would show the whole tribe of them that she would! But in
+which room was the elder sister?
+
+So she walked again into the main office, fearless, and with her head
+up. For was she not Zion, the Lord's chosen, the sanctified one, and
+the powers of hell were naught?
+
+No one was in the office but Jud Carpenter, and to her surprise he
+treated her with the utmost courtesy. Indeed, his courtesy was so
+intense that any one but Zion, who, being black, knew little of irony
+and less of sarcasm, might have seen that Jud's courtesy was strongly
+savored of the two.
+
+"Be seated, Madam," he said with a profound bow. "Be seated, Upholder
+of Heaven, Chief-cook-an'-bottle-washer in the Kingdom to come! An'
+what may have sent the angel of the Lord to honor us with another
+visit?"
+
+The old woman's fighting feathers arose instantly:--
+
+"The same that sent 'em to Sodom an' Gomarrer, suh," she replied.
+
+"Ah," said Jud apologetically, "an' I hope we won't smell any
+brimstone to-night."
+
+"If you don't smell it to-night, you'll smell it befo' long. And now
+look aheah, Mister White Man, no use for you an' me to set here
+a-jawin' an' 'spu'tin'. I've come after my other gyrl an' you know
+I'm gwine have her!"
+
+"Oh, she'll be out 'torectly, Mrs. Zion! Jes' keep yo' robes on an'
+hol' yo' throne down a little while. She'll be out 'torectly."
+
+There was a motive in this lie, as there was in all others Jud
+Carpenter told.
+
+It was soon apparent. For scarcely had the old woman seated herself
+with a significant toss of her head when the mill began to cease to
+hum and roar.
+
+She sat watching the door keenly as they came out. What creatures
+they were, lint-and-dust-covered to their very eyes. The yellow,
+hard, emotionless faces of the men, the haggard, weary ones of the
+girls and women and little children! Never had she seen such white
+people before, such hollow eyes, with dark, bloodless rings beneath
+them, sunken cheeks, tanned to the color of oiled hickory, much used.
+Dazed, listless, they stumbled out past her with relaxed under-jaws
+and faces gloomy, expressionless--so long bent over looms, they had
+taken on the very looks of them--the shapes of them, moving, walking,
+working, mechanically. Women, smileless, and so tired and numbed that
+they had forgotten the strongest instinct of humanity--the romance of
+sex; for many of them wore the dirty, chopped-off jackets of men,
+their slouched black hats, their coarse shoes, and talked even in the
+vulgar, hard irony of the male in despair.
+
+They all passed out--one by one--for in them was not even the
+instinct of the companionship of misery.
+
+Every moment the old nurse expected Helen to walk out, to walk out in
+her queenly way, with her beautiful face and manners, so different
+from those around her.
+
+Jud Carpenter sat at his desk quietly cutting plug tobacco to fill
+his pipe-bowl, and watching the old woman slyly.
+
+"Oh, she'll be 'long 'torectly--you see the drawer-in bein' in the
+far room comes out last."
+
+The last one passed out. The mill became silent, and yet Helen did
+not appear.
+
+The old nurse arose impatiently: "I reck'n I'll go find her," she
+said to Carpenter.
+
+"I'd better sho' you the way, old 'oman," he said, lazily shuffling
+off the stool he was sitting on pretending to be reading a
+paper--"you'll never fin' the room by yo'self."
+
+He led her along through the main room, hot, lint-filled and
+evil-smelling. It was quite dark. Then to the rear, where the mill
+jutted on the side of a hill, he stopped in front of a door and said:
+"This is her room; she's in there, I reckin--she's gen'ly late."
+
+With quickening heart the old woman entered and, almost immediately,
+she heard the door behind her shut and the key turn in the bolt. The
+room was empty and she sprang back to the door, only to find it
+securely locked, and to hear Jud Carpenter's jeers from without. She
+ran to the two small windows. They were high and looked out over a
+ravine.
+
+She did not utter a word. Reared as she had been among the Conways,
+she was too well bred to act the coward, and beg and plead in
+undignified tones for relief. At first she thought it was only a
+cruel joke of the Whipper-in, but when he spoke, she saw it was not.
+
+"Got you where I want you, Mother of Zion," he said through the key
+hole. "I guess you are safe there till mornin' unless the Angel of
+the Lord opens the do' as they say he has a way of doin' for
+Saints--ha--ha--ha!"
+
+No word from within.
+
+"Wanter kno' what I shet you up for, Mother of all Holiness? Well,
+listen: It's to keep you there till to-morrow--that's good reason,
+ain't it? You'll find a lot of cotton in the fur corner--a mighty
+good thing for a bed. Can't you talk? How do you like it? I guess you
+ain't so independent now."
+
+There was a pause. The old woman sat numbly in Helen's chair. She saw
+a bunch of violets in her frame, and the odor brought back memories
+of her old home. A great fear began to creep over her--not for
+herself, but for Helen, and she fell on her knees by the frame and
+prayed silently.
+
+Jud's voice came again: "Want to kno' now why you'll stay there till
+mornin'? Well, I'll tell you--it'll make you pass a com'f'table
+night--you'll never see Miss Helen ag'in--"
+
+The old nurse sprang to her feet. She lost control of herself, for
+all day she had felt this queer presentiment, and now was it really
+true? She blamed herself for not taking Helen that morning.
+
+She threw herself against the door. It was strong and secure.
+
+Jud met it with a jeering laugh.
+
+"Oh, you're safe an' you'll never see her agin. I don't mind tellin'
+you she has run off with Richard Travis--they'll go North to-night.
+You'll find other folks can walk off with yo' gals--'specially the
+han'sum ones--besides yo'se'f."
+
+The old nurse was stricken with weakness. Her limbs shook so she sat
+down in a heap at the door and said pleadingly:--"Are you lyin' to
+me, white man? Will--will he marry her or--"
+
+"Did you ever hear of him marryin' anybody?" came back with a laugh.
+"No, he's only took a deserted young 'oman in out of the cold--he'll
+take care of her, but he ain't the marryin' kind, is he?"
+
+The reputation of Richard Travis was as well known to Mammy Maria as
+it was to anyone. She did not know whether to believe Jud or not, but
+one thing she knew--something--something dreadful was happening to
+Helen. The old nurse called to mind instantly things that had
+happened before she herself had left Millwood--things Helen had
+said--her grief, her despair, her horror of the mill, her belief that
+she was already disgraced. It all came to the old nurse now so
+plainly. Tempted as she was, young as she was, deserted and forsaken
+as she thought she was, might not indeed the temptation be too much
+for her?
+
+She groaned as she heard Jud laugh and walk off.
+
+"O my baby, my beautiful baby!" she wept, falling on her knees again.
+
+The mill grew strangely silent and dark. On a pile of loose cotton
+she fell, praying after the manner of her race.
+
+An hour passed. The darkness, the loneliness, the horror of it all
+crept into her superstitious soul, and she became frantic with
+religious fervor and despair.
+
+Pacing the room, she sang and prayed in a frenzy of emotional tumult.
+But she heard only the echo of her own voice, and only the wailings
+of her own songs came back. Negro that she was, she was intelligent
+enough to know that Jud Carpenter spoke the truth--that not for his
+life would he have dared to say this if it had not had some truth in
+it. What?--she did not know--she only knew that harm was coming to
+Helen.
+
+She called aloud for help--for Edward Conway. But the mill was closed
+tight--the windows nailed.
+
+Another hour passed. It began to tell on the old creature's mind.
+Negroes are simple, religious, superstitious folks, easily unbalanced
+by grief or wrong.
+
+She began to see visions in this frenzy of religious excitement, as
+so many of her race do under the nervous strain of religious feeling.
+She fell into a trance.
+
+It was most real to her. Who that has ever heard a negro give in his
+religious experience but recognizes it? She was carried on the wings
+of the morning down to the gates of hell. The Devil himself met her,
+tempting her always, conducting her through the region of darkness
+and showing her the lakes of fire and threatening her with all his
+punishment if she did not cease to believe. She overcame him only by
+constant prayer. She fled from him, he followed her, but could not
+approach her while she prayed.... She was rescued by an angel--an
+angel from heaven ... an angel with a flaming sword. Through all the
+glories of heaven this angel conducted her, praised her, and bidding
+her farewell at the gate, told her to go back to earth and take this:
+_It was a torch of fire!_
+
+"_Burn! burn!_" said the angel--"_for I shall make the governors of
+Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire on
+a sheaf. And they shall devour all the people around about, on the right
+hand and the left; and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own
+place, even in Jerusalem._"
+
+She came out of the trance in a glory of religious fervor: "Jerusalem
+shall be inhabited ag'in!--the Angel has told me--told me--Burn--burn,"
+she cried. "Oh Lord--you have spoken and Zion has ears to hear--Amen."
+
+Quickly she gathered up the loose cotton and placed it at the door,
+piling it up to the very bolt. She struck a match, swaying and rocking
+and chanting: "Yea, Lord, thy servant hath heard--thy servant hath
+heard!"
+
+The flames leaped up quickly enveloping the door. The room began to fill
+with smoke, but she retreated to a far corner and fell on her knees in
+prayer. The panels of the door caught first and the flames spreading
+upward soon heated the lock around which the wood blazed and crackled.
+It burned through. She sprang up, rushed through the blinding smoke,
+struck the door as it blazed, in a broken mass, and rushed out. Down the
+long main room she ran to a low window, burst it, and stepped out on the
+ground:
+
+"Jerusalem shall be inhabited again," she shouted as she ran
+breathless toward home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE GREAT FIRE
+
+
+Edward Conway sat on the little porch till the stars came out,
+wondering why the old nurse did not return. Sober as he was and knew
+he would ever be, it seemed that a keen sensitiveness came with it,
+and a feeling of impending calamity.
+
+"Oh, it's the cursed whiskey," he said to himself--"it always leaves
+you keyed up like a fiddle or a woman. I'll get over it after a while
+or I'll die trying," and he closed his teeth upon each other with a
+nervous twist that belied his efforts at calmness.
+
+But even Lily grew alarmed, and to quiet her he took her into the
+house and they ate their supper in silence.
+
+Again he came out on the porch and sat with the little girl in his
+lap. But Lily gave him no rest, for she kept saying, as the hours
+passed: "Where is she, father--oh, do go and see!"
+
+"She has gone to Millwood through mistake," he kept telling her, "and
+Mammy Maria has doubtless gone after her. Mammy will bring her back.
+We will wait awhile longer--if I had some one to leave you with," he
+said gently, "I'd go myself. But she will be home directly."
+
+And Lily went to sleep in his lap, waiting.
+
+The moon came up, and Conway wrapped Lily in a shawl, but still held
+her in his arms. And as he sat holding her and waiting with a
+fast-beating heart for the old nurse, all his wasted life passed
+before him.
+
+He saw himself as he had not for years--his life a failure, his
+fortune gone. He wondered how he had escaped as he had, and as he
+thought of the old Bishop's words, he wondered why God had been as
+good to him as He had, and again he uttered a silent prayer of
+thankfulness and for strength. And with it the strength came, and he
+knew he could never more be the drunkard he had been. There was
+something in him stronger than himself.
+
+He was a strong man spiritually--it had been his inheritance, and the
+very thought of anything happening to Helen blanched his cheek. In
+spite of the faults of his past, no man loved his children more than
+he, when he was himself. Like all keen, sensitive natures, his was
+filled to overflowing with paternal love.
+
+"My God," he thought, "suppose--suppose she has gone back to
+Millwood, found none of us there, thinks she had been deserted,
+and--and--"
+
+The thought was unbearable. He slipped in with the sleeping Lily in
+his arms and began to put her in bed without awakening her,
+determined to mount his horse and go for Helen himself.
+
+But just then the old nurse, frantic, breathless and in a delirium of
+religious excitement, came in and fell fainting on the porch.
+
+He revived her with cold water, and when she could talk she could
+only pronounce Helen's name, and say they had run off with her.
+
+"Who?"--shouted Conway, his heart stopping in the staggering shock of
+it.
+
+The old woman tried to tell Jud Carpenter's tale, and Conway heard
+enough. He did not wait to hear it all--he did not know the mill was
+now slowly burning.
+
+"Take care of Lily"--he said, as he went into his room and came out
+with his pistol buckled around his waist.
+
+Then he mounted his horse and rode swiftly to Millwood.
+
+He was astonished to find a fire in the hearth, a lamp burning, and
+one of Helen's gloves lying on the table.
+
+By it was another pair. He picked them up and looked closely. Within,
+in red ink, were the initials: _R. T._
+
+He bit his lips till the blood came. He bowed his head in his hands.
+
+Sometimes there comes to us that peculiar mental condition in which
+we are vaguely conscious that once before we have been in the same
+place, amid the same conditions and surroundings which now confront
+us. We seem to be living again a brief moment of our past life, where
+Time himself has turned back everything. It came that instant to
+Edward Conway.
+
+"It was here--and what was it? Oh, yes:--'Some men repent to God's
+smile, some to His frown, and some to His fist?'"--He groaned:--"This
+is His fist. Never--never before in all the history of the Conway
+family has one of its women--"
+
+He sat down on the old sofa and buried, again, his face in his hands.
+
+Edward Conway was sober, but he still had the instincts of the
+drunkard--it never occurred to him that he had done anything to cause
+it. Drunkenness was nothing--a weakness--a fault which was now behind
+him. But this--this--the first of all the Conway women--and his
+daughter--his child--the _beautiful one_. He sat still, and then he
+grew very calm. It was the calmness of the old Conway spirit
+returning. "Richard Travis," he said to himself, "knows as well what
+this act of his means in the South,--in the unwritten law of our
+land--as I do. He has taken his chance of life or death. I'll see
+that it is death. This is the last of me and my house. But in the
+fall I'll see that this Philistine of Philistines dies under its
+ruins."
+
+He arose and started out. He saw the lap robe in the hall, and this
+put him to investigating. The mares and buggy he found under the
+shed. It was all a mystery to him, but of one thing he was sure: "He
+will soon come back for them. I can wait."
+
+Choosing a spot in the shadow of a great tree, he sat down with his
+pistol across his knees. The moon had arisen and cast ghostly shadows
+over everything. It was a time for repentance, for thoughts of the
+past with him, and as he sat there, that terrible hour, with murder
+in his heart, bitterness and repentance were his.
+
+He was a changed man. Never again could he be the old self. "But the
+blow--the blow," he kept saying, "I thought it would fall on me--not
+on her--my beautiful one--not on a Conway woman's chastity--not my
+wife's daughter--"
+
+He heard steps coming down the path. His heart ceased a moment, it
+seemed to him, and then beat wildly. He drew a long breath to relieve
+it--to calm it with cool oxygen, and then he cocked the five chambered
+pistol and waited as full of the joy of killing as if the man who was
+now walking down the path was a wolf or a mad dog--down the path and
+right into the muzzle of the pistol, backed by the arm which could kill.
+
+He saw Richard Travis coming, slowly, painfully, his left arm tied up,
+and his step, once so quick and active, so full of strength and life,
+now was as if the blight of old age had come upon it.
+
+In spite of his bitter determination Conway noticed the great change,
+and instinct, which acts even through anger and hatred and revenge and
+the maddening fury of murder,--instinct, the ever present--whispered its
+warning to his innermost ear.
+
+Still, he could not resist. Rising, he threw his pistol up within a few
+yards of Richard Travis's breast, his hand upon the trigger. But he
+could not fire, although Travis stood quietly under its muzzle and
+looked without surprise into his face.
+
+Conway glanced along the barrel of his weapon and into the face of
+Richard Travis. And then he brought his pistol down with a quick
+movement.
+
+The face before him was begging him to shoot!
+
+"Why don't you shoot?" said Travis at last, breaking the silence and
+in a tone of disappointment.
+
+"Because you are not guilty," said Conway--"not with that look in
+your face."
+
+"I am sorry you saw my face, then," he smiled sadly--"for it had been
+such a happy solution for it all--if you had only fired."
+
+"Where is my child?"
+
+"Do you think you have any right to ask--having treated her as you
+have?"
+
+Conway trembled, at first with rage, then in shame:
+
+"No,"--he said finally. "No, you are right--I haven't."
+
+"That is the only reply you could have made me that would make it
+obligatory on my part to answer your question. In that reply I see
+there is hope for you. So I will tell you she is safe, unharmed,
+unhurt."
+
+"I felt it," said Conway, quietly, "for I knew it, Richard Travis, as
+soon as I saw your face. But tell me all."
+
+"There is little to tell. I had made up my mind to run off with her,
+marry her, perhaps, since she had neither home nor a father, and was
+a beautiful young thing which any man might be proud of. But things
+have come up--no, not come up, fallen, fallen and crushed. It has
+been a crisis all around--so I sent for Clay--a fine young fellow and
+he loves her--I had him meet me here and--well, he has taken her to
+Westmoreland to-night. You know she is safe there. She will come to
+you to-morrow as pure as she left, though God knows you do not
+deserve it."
+
+Something sprang into Edward Conway's throat--something kin to a
+joyous shout. He could not speak. He could only look at the strange,
+calm, sad man before him in a gratitude that uplifted him. He stared
+with eyes that were blinded with tears.
+
+"Dick--Dick," he said, "we have been estranged, since the war. I
+misjudged you. I see I never knew you. I came to kill, but here--" He
+thrust the grip of his pistol toward Travis--"here, Dick, kill
+me--shoot me--I am not fit to live--but, O God, how clearly I see
+now; and, Dick--Dick--you shall see--the world shall see that from
+now on, with God's help, as Lily makes me say--Dick, I'll be a Conway
+again."
+
+The other man pressed his hand: "Ned, I believe it--I believe it. Go
+back to your little home to-night. Your daughter is safe. To-morrow
+you may begin all over again. To-morrow--"
+
+"And you, Dick--I have heard--I can guess, but why may not you,
+to-morrow--"
+
+"There will be no to-morrow for me," he said sadly. "Things stop
+suddenly before me to-night as before an abyss--"
+
+He turned quickly and looked toward the low lying range of mountains.
+A great red flush as of a rising sun glowed even beyond the rim of
+them, and then out of it shot tinges of flame.
+
+Conway saw it at the same instant:
+
+"It's the mill--the mill's afire," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A CONWAY AGAIN
+
+
+It was a great fire the mill made, lighting the valley for miles. All
+Cottontown was there to see it burn, hushed, with set faces, some of
+anger, some of fear--but all in stricken numbness, knowing that their
+living was gone.
+
+It was not long before Jud Carpenter was among them, stirring them
+with the story of how the old negro woman had burned it--for he knew
+it was she. Indeed, he was soon fully substantiated by others who
+heard her when she had run home heaping her maledictions on the mill.
+
+Soon among them began the whisper of lynching. As it grew they became
+bolder and began to shout it: _Lynch her!_
+
+Jud Carpenter, half drunk and wholly reckless, stood on a stump, and
+after telling his day's experience with Mammy Maria, her defiance of
+the mill's laws, her arrogance, her burning of the mill, he shouted
+that he himself would lead them.
+
+"Lynch her!" they shouted. "Lead us, Jud Carpenter! We will lynch
+her."
+
+Some wanted to wait until daylight, but "Lynch her--lynch her now,"
+was the shout.
+
+The crowd grew denser every moment.
+
+The people of Cottontown, hot and revengeful, now that their living
+was burned; hill dwellers who sympathized with them, and coming in,
+were eager for any excitement; the unlawful element which infests
+every town--all were there, the idle, the ignorant, the vicious.
+
+And a little viciousness goes a long way.
+
+There had been so many lynchings in the South that it had ceased to
+be a crime--for crime, the weed, cultivated--grows into a flower to
+those who do the tending.
+
+Many of the lynchings, it is true, were honest--the frenzy of
+outraged humanity to avenge a terrible crime which the law, in its
+delay, often had let go unpunished. The laxity of the law, the
+unscrupulousness of its lawyers, their shrewdness in clearing
+criminals if the fee was forthcoming, the hundreds of technicalities
+thrown around criminals, the narrowness of supreme courts in
+reversing on these technicalities. All these had thrown the law back
+to its source--the people. And they had taken it in their own hands.
+In violent hands, but deadly sure and retributory.
+
+If there was ever an excuse for lynching, the South was entitled to
+it. For the crime was the result of the sudden emancipation of
+ignorant slaves, who, backed by the bayonets of their liberators, and
+attributing a far greater importance to their elevation than was
+warranted, perpetuated an unnameable crime as part of their system of
+revenge for years of slavery. And the South arose to the terribleness
+of the crime and met it with the rifle, the torch and the rope.
+
+Why should it be wondered at? Why should the South be singled out
+for blame? Is it not a fact that for years in every newly settled
+western state lynch-law has been the unchallenged, unanimous verdict
+for a horse thief? And is not the honor of a white woman more than
+the hide of a broncho?
+
+But from an honest, well intentioned frenzy of justice outraged to
+any pretext is an easy step. From the quick lynching of the rapist
+and murderer--to be sure that the lawyers and courts did not acquit
+them--was one step. To hang a half crazy old woman for burning a mill
+was another, and the natural consequence of the first.
+
+And so these people flocked to the burning--they who had helped lynch
+before--the negro-haters, who had never owned a negro and had no
+sympathy--no sentiment for them. It is they who lynch in the South,
+who lynch and defy the law.
+
+The great mill was in ruins--its tall black smokestacks alone stood
+amid its smoking, twisted mass of steel and ashes--a rough,
+blackened, but fitting monument of its own infamy.
+
+They gathered around it--the disorderly, the vicious, the lynchers of
+the Tennessee Valley.
+
+Fitful flashes of flame now and then burst out amid the ruins,
+silhouetting the shadows of the lynchers into fierce giant forms with
+frenzied faces from which came first murmurs and finally shouts of:
+
+"_Lynch her! Lynch her!_"
+
+Above, in the still air of the night, yet hung the pall of the black
+smoke-cloud, from whose heart had come the torch which had cost capital
+its money, and the mill people their living.
+
+They were not long acting. Mammy Maria had flown to the little
+cottage--a crazy, hysterical creature--a wreck of herself--over-worked
+in body and mind, and frenzied between the deed and the promptings of a
+blind superstitious religion.
+
+Lily hung to her neck sobbing, and the old woman in her pitiful fright
+was brought back partly to reason in the great love of her life for the
+little child. Even in her feebleness she was soothing her pet.
+
+There were oaths, curses and trampling of many feet as they rushed in
+and seized her. Lily, screaming, was held by rough arms while they
+dragged the old nurse away.
+
+Into a wood nearby they took her, the rope was thrown over a limb, the
+noose placed around her neck.
+
+"Pray, you old witch--we will give you five minutes to pray."
+
+The old woman fell on her knees, but instead of praying for herself,
+she prayed for her executioners.
+
+They jeered--they laughed. One struck her with a stick, but she only
+prayed for them the more.
+
+"String her up," they shouted--"her time's up!"
+
+"Stand back there!"
+
+The words rang out even above the noise of the crowd. Then a man,
+with the long blue deadly barrel of the Colt forty-four, pushed his
+way through them--his face pale, his fine mouth set firm and close,
+and the splendid courage of many generations of Conways shining in
+his eyes.
+
+"_Stand back!_--" and he said it in the old commanding way--the old
+way which courage has ever had in the crises of the world.
+
+"O Marse Ned!--I knowed you'd come!"
+
+He had cut the rope and the old woman sat on the ground clasping his
+feet.
+
+For a moment he stood over her, his pale calm face showing the
+splendor of determination in the glory of his manhood restored. For a
+moment the very beauty of it stopped them--this man, this former sot
+and drunkard, this old soldier arising from the ashes of his buried
+past, a beautiful statue of courage cut out of the marble of manhood.
+The moral beauty of it--this man defending with his life the old
+negro--struck even through the swine of them.
+
+They ceased, and a silence fell, so painful that it hurt in its very
+uncanniness.
+
+Then Edward Conway said very clearly, very slowly, but with a fitful
+nervous ring in his voice: "Go back to your homes! Would you hang
+this poor old woman without a trial? Can you not see that she has
+lost her mind and is not responsible for her acts? Let the law
+decide. Shall not her life of unselfishness and good deeds be put
+against this one insane act of her old age? Go back to your homes!
+Some of you are my friends, some my neighbors--I ask you for her but
+a fair trial before the law."
+
+They listened for a moment and then burst into jeers, hoots, and
+hisses:
+
+"Hang her, now! That's the way all lawyers talk!"
+
+And one shouted above the rest: "He's put up a plea of insanity
+a-ready. Hang her, now!"
+
+Edward Conway flashed hot through his paleness and he placed himself
+before the bowed and moaning form while the crowd in front of him
+surged and shouted and called for a rope.
+
+He felt some one touch his arm and turned to find the sheriff by his
+side--one of those disreputables who infested the South after the
+war, holding office by the votes of the negroes.
+
+"Better let 'em have her,--it ain't worth the while. You'll hafter
+kill, or be killed."
+
+"You scallawag!" said Conway, now purple with anger--"is that the way
+you respect your sworn oath? And you have been here and seen all this
+and not raised your hand?"
+
+"Do you think I'm fool enuff to tackle that crowd of hillbillies?
+They've got the devil in them--fur they've got a devil leadin'
+'em--Jud Carpenter. Better let 'em have her--they'll kill you. We've
+got a good excuse--overpowered--don't you see?"
+
+"Overpowered? That's the way all cowards talk," said Conway. "Do one
+thing for me," he said quickly--"tell them you have appointed me your
+deputy. If you do not--I'll fall back on the law of riots and appoint
+myself."
+
+"Gentlemen," said the sheriff, turning to the crowd, and speaking
+half-shamedly--"Gentlemen, it's better an' I hopes you all will go
+home. We don't wanter hurt nobody. I app'ints Major Conway my deputy
+to take the prisoner to jail. Now the blood be on yo' own heads.
+I've sed my say."
+
+A perfect storm of jeers met this. They surged forward to seize her,
+while the sheriff half frightened, half undecided, got behind Conway
+and said:--"It's up to you--I've done all I cu'd."
+
+"Go back to your homes, men"--shouted Conway--"I am the sheriff here
+now, and I swear to you by the living God it means I am a Conway
+again, and the man who lays a hand on this old woman is as good as
+dead in his tracks!"
+
+For an instant they surged around him cursing and shouting; but he
+stood up straight and terribly silent; only his keen grey eyes
+glanced down to the barrel of his pistol and he stood nervously
+fingering the small blue hammer with his thumb and measuring the
+distance between himself and the nearest ruffian who stood on the
+outskirts of the mob shaking a pistol in Conway's face and shouting:
+"Come on, men, we'll lynch her anyway!"
+
+Then Conway acted quickly. He spoke a few words to the old nurse, and
+as she backed off into the nearby wood, he covered the retreat. To
+his relief he saw that the sheriff, now thoroughly ashamed, had hold
+of the prisoner and was helping her along.
+
+In the edge of the wood he felt safe--with the trees at his back.
+And he took courage as he heard the sheriff say:
+
+"If you kin hold 'em a little longer I'll soon have my buggy here and
+we'll beat 'em to the jail."
+
+But the mob guessed his plans, and the man who had been most
+insolent in the front of the mob--a long-haired, narrow-chested
+mountaineer--rushed up viciously.
+
+Conway saw the gleam of his pistol as the man aimed and fired at the
+prisoner. Instinctively he struck at the weapon and the ball intended
+for the prisoner crushed spitefully into his left shoulder. He reeled
+and the grim light of an aroused Conway flashed in his eyes as he
+recovered himself, for a moment, shocked, blinded. Then he heard some
+one say, as he felt the blood trickling down his arm and hand:
+
+"Marse Ned! Oh, an' for po' ole Zion! Don't risk yo' life--let 'em
+take me!"
+
+Dimly he saw the mob rushing up; vaguely it came to him that it was
+kill or be killed. Vaguely, too, that it was the law--his law--and
+every other man's law--against lawlessness. Hazily, that he was the
+law--its representative, its defender, and then clear as the blue
+barrel in his hand,--all the dimness and uncertainty gone,--it came
+to him, that thing that made him say: "I am a Conway again!"
+
+Then his pistol leaped from the shadow by his side to the gray light
+in front, and the man who had fired and was again taking aim at the
+old woman died in his tracks with his mouth twisted forever into the
+shape of an unspoken curse.
+
+It was enough. Stricken, paralyzed, they fell back before such
+courage--and Conway found himself backing off into the woods,
+covering the retreat of the prisoner. Then afterward he felt the
+motion of buggy wheels, and of a galloping drive, and the jail, and
+he in the sheriff's room, the old prisoner safe for the time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+DIED FOR THE LAW
+
+
+And thus was begun that historical lynching in the Tennessee
+Valley--a tragedy which well might have remained unwritten had it not
+fallen into the woof of this story.
+
+A white man had been killed for a negro--that was enough.
+
+It is true the man was attempting to commit murder in the face of the
+law of the land; and in attempting it had shot the representative of
+the law. It is true, also, that he had no grievance, being one of
+several hundred law-breakers bent on murder. This, too, made no
+difference; they neither thought nor cared;--for mobs, being
+headless, do not think; and being soulless, do not suffer.
+
+They had failed only for lack of a leader.
+
+But now they had a leader, and a mob with a leader is a dangerous
+thing.
+
+That leader was Richard Travis.
+
+It was after midnight when he rode up on the scene. Before he
+arrived, Jud Carpenter had aroused the mob to do its first fury, and
+still held them, now doubly vengeful and shouting to be led against
+the jail. But to storm a jail they needed a braver man than Jud
+Carpenter. And they found him in Richard Travis--especially Richard
+Travis in the terrible mood, the black despair which had come upon
+him that night.
+
+Why did he come? He could not say. In him had surged two great forces
+that night--the force of evil and the force of good. Twice had the
+good overcome--now it was the evil's turn, and like one hypnotized,
+he was led on.
+
+He sat his horse among them, pale and calm, but with a cruel instinct
+flashing in his eyes. At least, so Jud Carpenter interpreted the mood
+which lay upon him; but no one knew the secret workings of this man's
+heart, save God.
+
+He had come to them haggard and blanched and with a nameless dread,
+his arm tied up where the dog's fang had been buried in his flesh,
+his heart bitter in the thought of the death that was his. Already he
+felt the deadly virus pulsing through his veins. A hundred times in
+the short hour that had passed he suffered death--death beginning
+with the gripping throat, the shortened breath, the foaming mouth,
+the spasm!
+
+He jerked in the saddle--that spasmodic chill of the nerves,--and he
+grew white and terribly silent at the thought of it--the death that
+was his!
+
+Was his! And then he thought: "No, there shall be another and quicker
+way to die. A braver way--like a Travis--with my boots on--my boots
+on--and not like a mad-dog tied to a stake.
+
+"Besides--Alice--Alice!"
+
+She had gone out of his life. Could such a thing be and he live to
+tell it? Alice--love--ambition--the future--life! Alice, hazel-eyed
+and glorious, with hair the smell of which filled his soul with
+perfume as from the stars. She who alone uplifted him--she another's,
+and that other Tom Travis!
+
+Tom Travis--returned and idealized--with him, the joint heir of The
+Gaffs.
+
+And that mad-dog--that damned mad-dog! And if perchance he was
+saved--if that virus was sucked out of his veins, it was she--Helen!
+
+"This is the place to die," he said grimly--"here with my boots on.
+To die like a Travis and unravel this thing called life. Unravel it
+to the end of the thread and know if it ends there, is snapped, is
+broken or--
+
+"Or--my God," he cried aloud, "I never knew what those two little
+letters meant before--not till I face them this way, on the Edge of
+Things!"
+
+He gathered the mob together and led them against the jail--with
+hoots and shouts and curses; with flaming torches, and crow-bars,
+with axes and old guns.
+
+"Lynch her--lynch the old witch! and hang that devil Conway with
+her!" was the shout.
+
+In front of the jail they stopped, for a man stood at the door. His
+left arm was in a sling, but in his right hand gleamed something that
+had proved very deadly before. And he stood there as he had stood in
+the edge of the wood, and the bonfires and torches of the mob lit up
+more clearly the deadly pale face, set and more determined than
+before.
+
+For as he stood, pale and silent, the shaft of a terrible
+pain,--of broken bone and lacerated muscle--twinged and twitched
+his arm, and to smother it and keep from crying out he gripped
+bloodlessly--nervously--the stock of his pistol saying over and over:
+
+"I am a Conway again--a man again!"
+
+And so standing he defied them and they halted, like sheep at the
+door of the shambles. The sheriff had flown, and Conway alone stood
+between the frenzied mob and the old woman who had given her all for
+him.
+
+He could hear her praying within--an uncanny mixture of faith and
+miracle--of faith which saw as Paul saw, and which expected angels to
+come and break down her prison doors. And after praying she would
+break out into a song, the words of which nerved the lone man who
+stood between her and death:
+
+    "'I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger,
+      I can tarry, I can tarry but a night.
+      Do not detain me, for I am going
+      To where the streamlets are ever flowing.
+      I'm a pilgrim--and I'm a stranger
+      I can tarry--I can tarry but a night.'"
+
+And now the bonfire burned brighter, lighting up the scene--the
+shambling stores around the jail on the public square, the better
+citizens making appeals in vain for law and order, the shouting,
+fool-hardy mob, waiting for Richard Travis to say the word, and he
+sitting among them pale, and terribly silent with something in his
+face they had never seen there before.
+
+Nor would he give the command. He had nothing against Edward
+Conway--he did not wish to see him killed.
+
+And the mob did not attack, although they cursed and bluffed, because
+each one of them knew it meant death--death to some one of them, and
+that one might be--I!
+
+Between life and death "I" is a bridge that means it all.
+
+A stone wall ran around the front of the jail. A small gate opened
+into the jail-yard. At the jail door, covering that opening, stood
+Edward Conway.
+
+They tried parleying with him, but he would have none of it.
+
+"Go back--" he said, "I am the sheriff here--I am the law. The man
+who comes first into that gate will be the first to die."
+
+In ten minutes they made their attack despite the commands of their
+leader, who still sat his horse on the public square, pale and with a
+bitter conflict raging in his breast.
+
+With shouts and curses and a headlong rush they went. Pistol bullets
+flew around Conway's head and scattered brick dust and mortar over
+him. Torches gleamed through the dark crowd as stars amid fast flying
+clouds in a March night. But through it all every man of them heard
+the ringing warning words:
+
+"Stop at the gateway--stop at the dead line!"
+
+Right at it they rushed and crowded into it like cattle--shooting,
+cursing, throwing stones.
+
+Then two fell dead, blocking the gateway. Two more, wounded, with
+screams of pain which threw the others into that indescribable panic
+which comes to all mobs in the death-pinch, staggered back carrying
+the mob with them.
+
+Safe from the bullets, they became frenzied.
+
+The town trembled with their fury.
+
+All order was at an end.
+
+And Edward Conway stood, behind a row of cotton bales, in the
+jail-yard, covering still the little gateway, and the biting pain in
+his shoulder had a companion pain in his side, where a pistol ball
+had ploughed through, but he forgot it as he slipped fresh cartridges
+into the chambers of his pistol and heard again the chant which came
+from out the jail window, like a ghost-voice from the clouds:
+
+    "Of that City, to which I journey,
+     My Redeemer, my Redeemer is the light.
+     There is no sorrow, nor any sighing,
+     Nor any tears there, nor any dying...,
+     I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger,
+     I can tarry--I can tarry but a night."
+
+At a long distance they shot at Conway,--they hooted, jeered, cursed
+him, but dared not come closer, for he had breast-worked himself
+behind some cotton-bales in the yard, and they knew he could still
+shoot.
+
+Then they decided to batter down the stone wall first--to make an
+opening they could rush through, and not be blocked in the deadly
+gateway.
+
+An hour passed, and torches gleamed everywhere. Attacking the wall
+farther down, they soon had it torn away. They could now get to him.
+It was a perilous position, and Conway knew it. Help--he must have
+it--help to protect his flank while he shot in front. If not, he
+would die soon, and the law with him.
+
+He looked around him--but there was no solution. Then he felt that
+death was near, for the mob now hated him more than they did the
+prisoner. They seemed to have forgotten her, for all their cry now
+was:
+
+"_Kill Conway! Kill the man who murdered our people!_"
+
+In ten minutes they were ready to attack again, but looking up they
+saw a strange sight.
+
+Help had come to Conway. On one side of him stood the old Cottontown
+preacher, his white hair reflecting back the light from the bonfires
+and torches in front--lighting up a face which now seemed to have
+lost all of its kindly humor in the crisis that was there. He was
+unarmed, but he stood calm and with a courage that was more of sorrow
+than of anger.
+
+By him stood the village blacksmith, a man with the wild light of an
+old, untamed joy gleaming in his eyes--a cruel, dangerous light--the
+eyes of a caged tiger turned loose at last, and yearning for the
+blood of the thing which had caged him.
+
+And by him in quiet bravery, commanding, directing, stood the tall
+figure of the Captain of Artillery.
+
+When Richard Travis saw him, a cruel smile deepened in his eyes. "I
+am dying myself," it said--"why not kill him?"
+
+Then he shuddered with the hatred of the terrible thing that had come
+into his heart--the thing that made him do its bidding, as if he
+were a puppet, and overthrew all the good he had gathered there, that
+terrible night, as the angels were driven from Paradise. And yet, how
+it ruled him, how it drove him on!
+
+"Jim--Jim," he whispered as he bent over his horse's neck--"Jim--my
+repeating rifle over the library door--quick--it carries true and far!"
+
+As Jim sped away his master was silent again. He thought of the nobility
+of the things he had done that night--the touch of God that had come
+over him in making him save Helen--the beautiful dreams he had had. He
+thought of it all--and then--here--now--murdering the man whose life
+carried with it the life, the love of--
+
+He looked up at the stars, and the old wonder and doubt came back to
+him--the old doubt which made him say to himself: "It is nothing--it is
+the end. Dust thou art, and unto dust--dust--dust--dust--" he bit his
+tongue to keep from saying it again--"Dust--to be blown away and mingle
+with the elements--dust! And yet, I stand here--now--blood--flesh--a
+thinking man--tempted--terribly--cruelly--poignantly--dying--of a poison
+in my veins--of sorrow in my heart--sorrow and death. Who would not take
+the dust--gladly take it--the dust and the--forgetting."
+
+He remembered and repeated:
+
+    "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,
+     The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
+     Hath had elsewhere its setting
+     And cometh from afar--"
+
+"'And cometh from afar,'" he whispered--"My God--suppose it does--and
+that I am mistaken in it all?--Dust--and then maybe something after
+dust."
+
+With his rifle in his hand, it all vanished and he began to train it on
+the tall figure while the mob prepared to storm the jail again--and his
+shot would be the signal--this time in desperate determination to take
+it or die.
+
+In the mob near Richard Travis stood a boy, careless and cool, and
+holding in his hand an old pistol. Richard Travis noticed the boy
+because he felt that the boy's eyes were always on him--always. When he
+looked down into them he was touched and sighed, and a dream of the
+long-ago swept over him--of a mountain cabin and a maiden fair to look
+upon. He bit his lip to keep back the tenderness--bit his lip and rode
+away--out of reach of the boy's eyes.
+
+But the boy, watching him, knew, and he said in his quiet, revengeful
+way: "Twice have I failed to kill you--but to-night--my Honorable
+father--to-night in the death that will be here, I shall put this bullet
+through your heart."
+
+Travis turned to the mob: "Men, when I fire this rifle--it will mean for
+you to charge!"
+
+A hush fell over the crowd as they watched him. He looked at his
+rifle closely. He sprang the breech and threw out a shell or two to
+see that it worked properly.
+
+"Stay where you are, men," came that same voice they had heard so
+plainly before that night. "We are now four and well armed and sworn
+to uphold the law and protect the prisoner, and if you cross the dead
+line you will die."
+
+There was a silence, and then that old voice again, the voice that
+roused the mob to fury:
+
+    "I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger,
+     I can tarry--I can tarry but a night--"
+
+"Lead us on--give the signal, Richard Travis," they shouted.
+
+Again the silence fell as Richard Travis raised his rifle and aimed
+at the tall figure outlined closely and with magnified distinctness
+in the glare of bonfire and torch. How splendidly cool and brave he
+looked--that tall figure standing there, giving orders as calmly as
+he gave them at Shiloh and Franklin, and so forgetful of himself and
+his own safety!
+
+Richard Travis brought his rifle down--it shook so--brought it down
+saying to himself with a nervous laugh: "It is not Tom--not Tom
+Travis I am going to kill--it's--it's Alice's husband of only two
+days--her lover--"
+
+"Shoot! Why don't you shoot?" they shouted. "We are waiting to
+rush--"
+
+Even where he stood, Richard Travis could see the old calm, quiet and
+now triumphant smile lighting up Tom Travis's face, and he knew he
+was thinking of Alice--Alice, his bride.
+
+And then that same nervous, uncanny chill ran into the very marrow of
+Richard Travis and brought his gun down with an oath on his lips as
+he said pitifully--"I am poisoned--it is that!"
+
+The crowd shouted and urged him to shoot, but he sat shaking to his
+very soul. And when it passed there came the old half humorous, half
+bitter, cynical laugh as he said: "Alice--Alice a widow--"
+
+It passed, and again there leaped into his eyes the great light Jud
+Carpenter had seen there that morning, and slipping the cartridges
+out of the barrel's breech, he looked up peacefully with the halo of
+a holy light around his eyes as he said: "Oh, God, and I thank
+Thee--for this--this touch again! Hold the little spark in my
+heart--hold it, oh, God, but for a little while till the temptation
+is gone, and I shall rest--I shall rest."
+
+"Shoot--Richard Travis--why the devil don't you shoot?" they shouted.
+
+He raised his rifle again, this time with a flourish which made some
+of the mob think he was taking unnecessary risk to attract the
+attention of the grim blacksmith who stood, pistol in hand, his
+piercing eyes scanning the crowd. He stood by the side of Tom Travis,
+his bodyguard to the last.
+
+"Jack--Jack--" kept whispering to him the old preacher, "don't shoot
+till you're obleeged to,--maybe God'll open a way, maybe you won't
+have to spill blood. 'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord."
+
+Jack smiled. It was a strange smile--of joy, in the risking glory of
+the old life--the glory of blood-letting, of killing, of death. And
+sorrow--sorrow in the new.
+
+"Stand pat, stand pat, Bishop," he said; "you all know the trade. Let
+me who have defied the law so long, let me now stand for it--die for
+it. It's my atonement--ain't that the word? Ain't that what you said
+about that there Jesus Christ, the man you said wouldn't flicker even
+on the Cross, an' wouldn't let us flicker if we loved Him--Hol' him
+to His promise, now, Bishop. It's time for us to stand pat. No--I'll
+not shoot unless I see some on 'em makin' a too hasty movement of
+gun-arm toward Cap'n--"
+
+Had Richard Travis looked from his horse down into the crowd he had
+seen another sight. Man can think and do but one thing at a time, but
+oh, the myrmidons of God's legions of Cause and Effect!
+
+Below him stood a boy, his face white in the terrible tragedy of his
+determination. And as Richard Travis threw up his empty rifle, the
+octagonal barrel of the pistol in the boy's hand leaped up and came
+straight to the line of Richard Travis's heart. But before the boy
+could fire Travis saw the hawk-like flutter of the blacksmith's
+pistol arm, as it measured the distance with the old quick training
+of a bloody experience, and Richard Travis smiled, as he saw the
+flash from the outlaw's pistol and felt that uncanny chill starting
+in his marrow again, leap into a white heat to the shock of the ball,
+and he pitched limply forward, slipped from his horse and went down
+on the ground murmuring, "Tom--Tom--safe, and Alice--he shot at
+last--and--thank God for the touch again!"
+
+He lay quiet, feeling the life blood go out of him. But with it came
+an exhalation he had never felt before--a glory that, instead of
+taking, seemed to give him life.
+
+The mob rushed wildly at the jail at the flash of Jack Bracken's
+pistol, all but one, a boy--whose old dueling pistol still pointed at
+the space in the air, where Richard Travis had sat a moment
+before--its holder nerveless--rigid--as if turned into stone.
+
+He saw Richard Travis pitch forward off his horse and slide limply to
+the ground. He saw him totter and waver and then sit down in a
+helpless, pitiful way,--then lie down as if it were sweet to rest.
+
+And still the boy stood holding his pistol, stunned, frigid,
+numbed--pointing at the stars.
+
+Silently he brought his arm and weapon down. He heard only shouts of
+the mob as they rushed against the jail, and then, high above it, the
+words of the blacksmith, whom he loved so well: "Stand back--all;
+Me--me alone, shoot--me! I who have so often killed the law, let me
+die for it."
+
+And then came to the boy's ears the terrible staccato cough of the
+two Colts pistols whose very fire he had learned to know so well. And
+he knew that the blacksmith alone was shooting--the blacksmith he
+loved so--the marksman he worshipped--the man who had saved his
+life--the man who had just shot his father.
+
+Richard Travis sat up with an effort and looked at the boy standing
+by him--looked at him with frank, kindly eyes,--eyes which begged
+forgiveness, and the boy saw himself there--in Richard Travis, and
+felt a hurtful, pitying sorrow for him, and then an uncontrolled, hot
+anger at the man who had shot him out of the saddle. His eyes
+twitched wildly, his heart jumped in smothering beats, a dry sob
+choked him, and he sprang forward crying: "My father--oh, God--my
+poor father!"
+
+Richard Travis looked up and smiled at him.
+
+"You shoot well, my son," he said, "but not quick enough."
+
+The boy, weeping, saw. Shamed,--burning--he knelt and tried to
+staunch the wound with a handkerchief. Travis shook his head: "Let it
+out, my son--let it out--it is poison! Let it out!"
+
+Then he lay down again on the ground. It felt sweet to rest.
+
+The boy saw his blood on the ground and he shouted: "Blood,--my
+father--blood is thicker than water."
+
+Then the hatred that had burned in his heart for his father, the
+father who had begot him into the world, disgraced, forsaken--the
+father who had ruined and abandoned his mother, was turned into a
+blaze of fury against the blacksmith, the blacksmith whom he had
+loved.
+
+Wheeling, he rushed toward the jail, but met the mob pouring
+panic-stricken back with white faces, blanched with fear.
+
+Jack Bracken stood alone on the barricade, shoving more cartridges
+into his pistol chambers.
+
+The boy, blinded, weeping, hot with a burning revenge, stumbled and
+fell twice over dead men lying near the gateway. Then he crawled
+along over them under cover of the fence, and kneeling within twenty
+feet of the gate, fired at the great calm figure who had driven the
+mob back, and now stood reloading.
+
+Jack did not see the boy till he felt the ball crush into his side.
+Then all the old, desperate, revengeful instinct of the outlaw
+leaped into his eyes as he quickly turned his unerring pistol on the
+object from whence the flash came. Never had he aimed so accurately,
+so carefully, for he felt his own life going out, and this--this was
+his last shot--to kill.
+
+But the object kneeling among the dead arose with a smile of
+revengeful triumph and stood up calmly under the aim of the great
+pistol, his fair hair flung back, his face lit up with the bravery of
+all the Travises as he shouted:
+
+"Take that--damn you--from a Travis!"
+
+And when Jack saw and understood, a smile broke through his
+bloodshot, vengeful eyes as starlight falls on muddy waters, and he
+turned away his death-seeking aim, and his mouth trembled as he said:
+
+"Why--it's--it's the Little 'Un! I cudn't kill him--" and he clutched
+at the cotton-bale as he went down, falling--and Captain Tom grasped
+him, letting him down gently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE ATONEMENT
+
+
+And now no one stood between the prisoner and death but the old
+preacher and the tall man in the uniform of a Captain of Artillery.
+And death it meant to all of them, defenders as well as prisoners,
+for the mob had increased in numbers as in fury. Friends, kindred,
+brothers, fathers--even mothers and sisters of the dead were there,
+bitter in the thought that their dead had been murdered--white men,
+for one old negress.
+
+In their fury they did not think it was the law they themselves were
+murdering. The very name of the law was now hateful to them--the law
+that had killed their people.
+
+Slowly, surely, but with grim deadliness they laid their plans--this
+time to run no risk of failure.
+
+There was a stillness solemn and all-pervading. And from the window
+of the jail came again in wailing uncanny notes:--
+
+     "I'm a pilgrim and I'm a stranger,
+    I can tarry, I can tarry but a night--"
+
+It swept over the mob, frenzied now to the stillness of a white heat,
+like a challenge to battle, like the flaunt of a red flag. Their
+dead lay all about the gate of the rock fence, stark and still. Their
+wounded were few--for Jack Bracken did not wound. They saw them
+all--dead--lying out there dead--and they were willing to die
+themselves for the blood of the old woman--a negro for whom white men
+had been killed.
+
+But their wrath now took another form. It was the wrath of coolness.
+They had had enough of the other kind. To rush again on those bales
+of cotton doubly protected behind a rock fence, through one small
+gate, commanded by the fire of such marksmen as lay there, was not to
+be thought of.
+
+They would burn the jail over the heads of its defenders and kill
+them as they were uncovered. A hundred men would fire the jail from
+the rear, a hundred more with guns would shoot in front.
+
+It was Jud Carpenter who planned it, and soon oil and saturated paper
+and torches were prepared.
+
+"We are in for it, Bishop," said Captain Tom, as he saw the
+preparation; "this is worse than Franklin, because there we could
+protect our rear."
+
+He leaped up on his barricade, tall and splendid, and called to them
+quietly and with deadly calm:
+
+"Go to your homes, men--go! But if you will come, know that I fought
+for my country's laws from Shiloh to Franklin, and I can die for them
+here!"
+
+Then he took from over his heart a small silken flag, spangled with
+stars and the blood-splotches of his father who fell in Mexico, and
+he shook it out and flung it over his barricade, saying cheerily: "I
+am all right for a fight now, Bishop. But oh, for just one of my
+guns--just one of my old Parrots that I had last week at Franklin!"
+
+The old man, praying on his knees behind his barricade, said:
+
+"Twelve years ago, Cap'n Tom, twelve years. Not last week."
+
+The mob had left Richard Travis for dead, and in the fury of their
+defeat had thought no more of him. But now, the loss of blood, the cool
+night air revived him. He sat up, weak, and looked around. Everywhere
+bonfires burned. Men were running about. He heard their talk and he knew
+all. He was shot through the left lung, so near to his heart that, as he
+felt it, he wondered how he had escaped.
+
+He knew it by the labored breathing, by the blood that ran down and half
+filled his left boot. But his was a constitution of steel--an athlete, a
+hunter, a horseman, a man of the open. The bitterness of it all came
+back to him when he found he was not dead as he had hoped--as he had
+made Jack Bracken shoot to do.
+
+"To die in bed at last," he said, "like a monk with liver complaint--or
+worse still--my God, like a mad dog, unless--unless--her lips--Helen!"
+
+He lay quite still on the soft grass and looked up at the stars. How
+comfortable he was! He felt around.
+
+A boy's overcoat was under him--a little round-about, wadded up, was his
+pillow.
+
+He smiled--touched: "What a man he will make--the brave little devil!
+Oh, if I can live to tell him he is mine, that I married his mother
+secretly--that I broke her heart with my faithlessness--that she died
+and the other is--is her sister."
+
+He heard the clamor and the talk behind him. The mob, cool now, were
+laying their plans only on revenge,--revenge with the torch and the
+bullet.
+
+Jud Carpenter was the leader, and Travis could hear him giving his
+orders. How he now loathed the man--for somehow, as he thought, Jud
+Carpenter stood for all the seared, blighted, dead life behind
+him--all the old disbelief, all the old infamy, all the old doubt and
+shame. But now, dying, he saw things differently. Yonder above him
+shone the stars and in his heart the glory of that touch of God--the
+thing that made him wish rather to die than have it leave him again
+to live in his old way.
+
+He heard the mob talking. He heard their plans. He knew that Jud
+Carpenter, hating the old preacher as he did, would rather kill him
+than any wolf of the forest. He knew that neither Tom Travis nor the
+old preacher could ever hope to come out alive.
+
+The torches were ready--the men were aligned in front with deadly
+shotguns.
+
+"When the fire gets hot," he heard Jud Carpenter say, "they'll hafter
+come out--then shoot--shoot an' shoot to kill. See our own dead!"
+
+They answered him with groans, with curses, with shouts of "_Lead us
+on, Jud Carpenter!_"
+
+"When the jail is fired from the rear," shouted Carpenter, "stay
+where you are and shoot; they've no chance at all. It's fire or
+bullet."
+
+Richard Travis heard it and his heart leaped--but only for one
+tempting moment, when a vision of loveliness in widow's weeds swept
+through that soul of his inner sight, which sees into the future.
+Then the new light came back uplifting him with a wave of joyous
+strength that was sweetly calm in its destiny--glad that he had
+lived, glad that this test had come, glad for the death that was
+coming.
+
+It was all well with him.
+
+He forgot himself, he forgot his deadly wound, the bitterness of his
+life, the dog's bite--all--in the glory of this feeling, the new
+feeling which now would go with him into eternity.
+
+For, as he lay there, he had seen the bell's turret above the jail
+and his mind was quick to act.
+
+He smiled faintly--a happy smile--the smile of the old Roman ere he
+leaped into the chasm before the walls of Rome--leaped and saved his
+countrymen. He loved to do difficult things--to conquer and overcome
+where others would quit. This always had been his glory--he
+understood that. But this new thing--this wanting to save men who
+were doomed behind their barricade--this wanting to give what was
+left of his life for them--his enemies--this was the thing he could
+not understand. He only knew it was the call of something within him,
+stronger than himself and kin to the stars, which, clear and sweet
+above his head, seemed to be all that stood between him and that
+clear Sweet Thing out, far out, in the pale blue Silence of Things.
+
+He reached out and found his rifle. In his coat pocket were
+cartridges. His arms were still strong--he sprang the magazine and
+filled it.
+
+Then slowly, painfully, he began to crawl off toward the jail,
+pulling his rifle along. No one saw him but, God! how it hurt!...
+that star falling ... scattering splinters of light everywhere ... so
+he lay on his face and slept awhile....
+
+When he awoke he flushed with the shame of it: "Fainted--me--like a
+girl!" And he spat out the blood that boiled out of his lips.
+
+Crawling--crawling--and dragging the heavy rifle. It seemed he would
+never strike the rock fence. Once--twice, and yet a third time he had
+to sink flat on the grass and spit out the troublesome blood....
+
+The fence at last, and following it he was soon in the rear of the
+jail. He knew where the back stair was and crawled to it. Slowly,
+step by step, and every step splotched with his blood, he went up. At
+the top he pushed up the trap-door with his head and, crawling
+through, fell fainting.
+
+But, oh, the glory of that feeling that was his now! That feeling
+that now--now he would atone for it all--now he would be brother to
+the stars and that Sweeter Thing out, far out, in the pale blue
+Silence of Things.
+
+Then the old Travis spirit came to him and he smiled:
+"_Dominecker--oh, my old grandsire, will you think I am a Dominecker
+now? I found your will--in the old life--and tore it up. But it's
+Tom's now--Tom's anyway--Dominecker! Wipe it out--wipe it out! If I
+do not this night honor your blood, strike me from the roll of
+Travis._"
+
+Around him was the belfry railing, waist high and sheeted with metal
+save four holes, for air, at the base, where he could thrust his
+rifle through as he lay flat.
+
+He was in a bullet proof turret, and he smiled: "I hold the fort!"
+
+Slowly he pulled himself up, painfully he stood erect and looked
+down. Just below him was the barricade of cotton bales, its two
+defenders, grim and silent behind them--the two wounded ones lying
+still and so quiet--so quiet it looked like death, and Richard Travis
+prayed that it was not.
+
+One of them had given him his death wound, but he held no bitterness
+for him--only that upliftedness, only the glory of that feeling
+within him he knew not what.
+
+He called gently to them. In astonishment they looked up. Thirty feet
+above their heads they saw him and heard him say painfully, slowly,
+but oh, so bravely: "_I am Richard Travis, Tom, and I'll back you to
+the death.... They are to burn you out ... but I command the jail,
+both front and rear. Stay where you both are ... be careful ... do
+not expose yourselves, for while I live you are safe ... and the law
+is safe._"
+
+And then came back to him clear and with all sweetness the earnest
+words of the old preacher:
+
+"God bless you, Richard Travis, for He has sent you jus' in time. I
+knew that He would, that He'd touch yo' heart, that there was
+greatness in you--all in His own time, an' His own good way. Praise
+God!"
+
+Travis wished to warn the mob, but his voice was nearly gone. He
+could only sink down and wait.
+
+He heard shouts. They had formed in the rear, and now men with
+torches came to fire the jail. Their companions in front, hearing
+them, shouted back their approval.
+
+Richard Travis thrust his rifle barrel through the air hole and aimed
+carefully. The torches they carried made it all so plain and so easy.
+
+Then two long, spiteful flashes of flame leaped out of the belfry
+tower and the arm of the first incendiary, shot through and
+through--holding his blazing torch, leaped like a rabbit in a sack,
+and the torch went down and out. The torch of the second one was shot
+out of its bearer's hand.
+
+Panic-stricken, they looked up, saw, and fled. Those in front also
+saw and bombarded the belfry with shot and pistol ball. And then, on
+their side of the belfry, the same downward, spiteful flashes leaped
+out, and two men, shot through the shoulder and the arm, cried out in
+dismay, and they all fell back, stampeded, at the deadliness of the
+spiteful thing in the tower, the gun that carried so true and so
+far--so much farther than their own cheap guns.
+
+They rushed out of its range, gathered in knots and cursed and
+wondered who it was. But they dared not come nearer. Travis lay
+still. He could not speak now, for the blood choked him when he
+opened his mouth, and the stars which had once been above him now
+wheeled and floated below, and around him. And that Sweeter Thing
+that had been behind the stars now seemed to surround him as a halo,
+a halo of silence which seemed to fit the silence of his own soul and
+become part of him forever. It was all around him, as he had often
+seen it around the summer moon; only now he felt it where he only
+saw it before. And now, too, it was in his heart and filled it with a
+sweet sadness, a sadness that hurt, it was so sweet, and which came
+with an odor, the smell of the warm rain falling on the dust of a
+summer of long ago.
+
+And all his life passed before him--he lived it again--even more than
+he had remembered before--even the memory of his mother whom he never
+knew; but now he knew her and he reached up his arms--for he was in a
+cradle and she bent over him--he reached up his arms and said: "_Oh,
+mother, now I know what eternity is--it's remembering before and
+after!_"
+
+Visions, too--and Alice Westmore--Alice, pitying and smiling
+approval--smiling,--and then a burning passionate kiss, and when he
+would kiss again it was Helen's lips he met.
+
+And through it all the great uplifting joy, and something which made
+him try to shout and say: "The atonement--the atonement--"
+
+Clear now and things around him seemed miles away.
+
+He knew he was sinking and he kicked one foot savagely against the
+turret to feel again the sensation of life in his limb. Then he struck
+himself in his breast with his right fist to feel it there. But in spite
+of all he saw a cloud of darkness form beyond the rim of the starlit
+horizon and come sweeping over him, coming in black waves that would
+rush forward and then stop--forward, and stop--forward and stop.... And
+the stops kept time exactly with his heart, and he knew the last stop of
+the wave meant the last beat of his heart--then forward ... for the last
+time.... "Oh, God, not yet!... Look!"
+
+His heart rallied at the sight and beat faster, making the black waves
+pulse, in the flow and ebb of it.... The thing was below him ... a man
+... a ghostly, vengeful thing, whose face was fierce in hatred ...
+crawling, crawling, up to the rock fence--a snake with the face ... the
+eyes of Jud Carpenter....
+
+And the black wave coming in ... and he did so want to live ... just a
+little ... just a while longer....
+
+He pushed the wave back, as he gripped for the last time his rifle's
+stock, and he knew not whether it was only visions such as he had been
+seeing ... or Jud Carpenter really crouching low behind the rock fence,
+his double-barrel shotgun aimed ... drawing so fine a bead on both the
+unconscious defenders ... going to shoot, and only twenty paces, and now
+it rose up, aiming: "_God, it is--it is Jud Carpenter ...
+back--back--black wave!" he cried, "and God have mercy on your soul, Jud
+Carpenter...._"
+
+And, oh, the nightmare of it!--trying to pull the trigger that would not
+be pulled, trying to grip a stock that had grown so large it was now a
+tree--a huge tree--flowing red blood instead of sap, red blood over
+things, ... and then at last ... thank God ... the trigger ... and the
+flash and report ... the flash so far off ... and the report that was
+like thunder among the stars ... the stars.... Among the stars ... all
+around him ... and Alice on one star throwing him a kiss ... and
+saying: "_You saved his life, oh, Richard, and I love you for it!_" A
+kiss and forgiveness ... and the two walking out with him ... out into
+the dim, blue, Sweet Silence of Things, hand in hand with him, beyond
+even the black wave, beyond even the rim of the rainbow that came down
+over all ... out--out with music, quaint, sweet, weird music--that
+filled his soul so, fitted him ... was he ...
+
+    "_I'm ... a pilgrim ... I'm a stranger,
+     I can tarry--I can tarry but a night._"
+
+In the early dawn, a local company of State troops, called out by the
+governor, had the jail safe.
+
+It was a gruesome sight in front of the stone wall where the deadly
+fire from Jack Bracken's pistols had swept. Thirteen dead men lay,
+and the back-bone of lynching had been broken forever in Alabama.
+
+It was the governor himself, bluff and rugged, who grasped Jack
+Bracken's hand as he lay dying, wrapped up, on a bale of cotton, and
+Margaret Adams, pale, weeping beside him: "Live for me, Jack--I love
+you. I have always loved you!"
+
+"And for me, Jack," said the old governor, touched at the scene--"for
+the state, to teach mobs how to respect the law. In the glory of what
+you've done, I pardon you for all the past."
+
+"It is fitten," said Jack, simply; "fitten that I should die for the
+law--I who have been so lawless."
+
+He turned to Margaret Adams: "You are lookin' somethin' you want to
+say--I can tell by yo' eyes."
+
+She faltered, then slowly: "Jack, he was not my son--my poor
+sister--I could not see her die disgraced."
+
+Jack drew her down and kissed her.
+
+And as his eyes grew dim, a figure, tall and in military clothes,
+stood before him, shaken with grief and saying, "Jack--Jack, my poor
+friend--"
+
+Jack's mind was wandering, but a great smile lit up his face as he
+said: "_Bishop--Bishop--is--is--it Cap'n Tom, or--or--Jesus Christ?_"
+And so he passed out.
+
+And up above them all in the belfry, lying prone, but still gripping
+his rifle's stock which, sweeping the jail with its deadly protruding
+barrel, had held back hundreds of men, they found Richard Travis, a
+softened smile on his lips as if he had just entered into the glory
+of the great Sweet Silence of Things. And by him sat the old
+preacher, where he had sat since Richard Travis's last shot had saved
+the jail and the defenders; sat and bound up his wound and gave him
+the last of his old whiskey out of the little flask, and stopped the
+flow of blood and saved the life which had nearly bubbled out.
+
+And as they brought the desperately wounded man down to the surgeon
+and to life, the old governor raised his hat and said: "The Travis
+blood--the Irish Gray--when it's wrong it is hell--when it's right it
+is heaven."
+
+But the old preacher smiled as he helped carry him tenderly down and
+said: "He is right, forever right, now, Gov'nor. God has made him so.
+See that smile on his lips! He has laughed before--that was from the
+body. He is smiling now--that is from the soul. His soul is born
+again."
+
+The old governor smiled and turned. Edward Conway, wounded, was
+sitting up. The governor grasped his hand: "Ned, my boy, I've
+appointed you sheriff of this county in place of that scallawag who
+deserted his post. Stand pat, for you're a Conway--no doubt about
+that. Stand pat."
+
+Under the rock wall, they found a man, dead on his knees, leaning
+against the wall; his gun, still cocked and deadly, was resting
+against his shoulder and needing only the movement of a finger to
+sweep with deadly hail the cotton-bales. His scraggy hair topped the
+rock fence and his staring eyes peeped over, each its own way. And
+one of them looked forward into a future which was Silence, and the
+other looked backward into a past which was Sin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE SHADOWS AND THE CLOUDS
+
+
+When Richard Travis came to himself after that terrible night, they
+told him that for weeks he had lain with only a breath between him
+and death.
+
+"It was not my skill that has saved you," said the old surgeon who
+had been through two wars and who knew wounds as he did maps of
+battlefields he had fought on. "No," he said, shaking his head, "no,
+it was not I--it was something beyond me. That you miraculously live
+is proof of it."
+
+He was in his room at The Gaffs, and everything looked so natural. It
+was sweet to live again, for he was yet young and life now meant so
+much more than it ever had. Then his eyes fell on the rug, wearily,
+and he remembered the old setter.
+
+"The dog--and that other one?"
+
+He sat up nervously in bed, trembling with the thought. The old
+surgeon guessed and bade him be quiet.
+
+"You need not fear that," he said, touching his arm. "The time has
+passed for fear. You were saved by the shadow of death and--the blood
+letting you had--and, well, a woman's lips, as many a man has been
+saved before you. You'd better sleep again now...."
+
+He slept, but there were visions as there had been all along. And two
+persons came in now and then. One was Tom Travis, serious and quiet
+and very much in earnest that the patient might get well.
+
+Another was Tom's wife, Alice, who arranged the wounded man's pillows
+with a gentleness and deftness as only she could, and who gave quiet
+orders to the old cook in a way that made Richard Travis feel that
+things were all right, though he could not speak, nor even open his
+eyes long enough to see distinctly.
+
+A month afterward Richard Travis was sitting up. His strength came
+very fast. For a week he had sat by the fire and thought--thought.
+But no man knew what was in his mind until one day, after he had been
+able to walk over the place, he said:
+
+"Tom, you and Alice have been kinder to me--far kinder--than I have
+deserved. I am going away forever, next week--to the Northwest--and
+begin life over. But there is something I wish to say to you first."
+
+"Dick," said his cousin, and he arose, tall and splendid, before the
+firelight--"there is something I wish to say to you first. Our lives
+have been far apart and very different, but blood is blood and you
+have proved it, else I had not been here to-night to tell it."
+
+He came over and put his hand affectionately on the other's shoulder.
+At its touch Richard Travis softened almost to tears.
+
+"Dick, we two are the only grandsons that bear his name, and we
+divide this between us. Alice and I have planned it. You are to
+retain the house and half the land. We have our own and more than
+enough. You will do it, Dick?"
+
+Richard Travis arose, strangely moved. He grasped his cousin's hand.
+"No, no, Tom, it is not fair. No Travis was ever a welcher. It is all
+yours--you do not understand--I saw the will--I do not want it. I am
+going away forever. My life must lead now in other paths. But--"
+
+The other turned quickly and looked deep into Richard Travis's eyes.
+"I can see there is no use of my trying to change your mind, Dick,
+though I had hoped--"
+
+The other shook his head. It meant a Travis decision, and his cousin
+knew it.
+
+"But as I started to say, Tom, and there is no need of my mincing
+words, if you'll raise that boy of mine--" he was silent awhile, then
+smiling: "He is mine and more of a Travis to-day than his father ever
+was. If you can help him and his aunt--"
+
+"He shall have the half of it, Dick, and an education, under our
+care. We will make a man of him, Alice and I."
+
+Richard Travis said no more.
+
+The week before he left, one beautiful afternoon, he walked over to
+Millwood for the last time. For Edward Conway was now sheriff of the
+county, and with the assistance of the old bishop, whose fortune now
+was secured, he had redeemed his home and was in a fair way to pay
+back every dollar of it.
+
+A new servant ushered Travis in, for the good old nurse had passed
+away, the strain of that terrible night being too much, first, for
+her reason, and afterwards, her life.
+
+Edward Conway was away, but Helen came in presently, and greeted him
+with such a splendid high-born way, so simple and so unaffected that
+he marveled at her self-control, feeling his own heart pulsing
+strangely at sight of her. In the few months that had elapsed how
+changed she was and how beautiful! This was not the romantic, yet
+buffeted, beautiful girl who had come so near being the tragedy of
+his old life? How womanly she now was, and how calm and at her ease!
+Could independence and the change from poverty and worry, the strong,
+free feeling of being one's self again and in one's sphere, make so
+great a difference in so short a while? He wondered at himself for
+not seeing farther ahead. He had come to bid her good-bye and offer
+again--this time in all earnestness and sincerity, to take her with
+him--to share his life--but the words died in his mouth.
+
+He could no more have said them than he could have profanely touched
+her.
+
+When he left she walked with him to the parting of the ways.
+
+The blue line of tremulous mountain was scrolled along a horizon that
+flamed crimson in the setting sun. A flock of twilight clouds--flamingos
+of the sky--floated toward the sunset as if going to roost. Beyond was
+the great river, its bosom as wan, where it lay in the shadow of the
+mountain, as Richard Travis's own cheek; but where the sunset fell on it
+the reflected light turned it to pink which to him looked like Helen's.
+
+The wind came down cool from the frost-tinctured mountain side, and the
+fine sweet odor of life everlasting floated in it--frost-bitten--and
+bringing a wave of youth and rabbit hunts and of a life of dreams and
+the sweet unclouded far-off hope of things beautiful and immortal. And
+the flow of it hurt Richard Travis--hurt him with a tenderness that
+bled.
+
+The girl stopped and drank in the beauty of it all, and he stood looking
+at her, "the picture for the frame"--as he said to himself.
+
+It had rained and the clouds were scattered, yet so full that they
+caught entirely the sunset rays and held them as he would that moment
+have loved to hold her. Something in her--something about her thrilled
+him strangely, as he had often been thrilled when looking at the great
+pictures in the galleries of the old world. He repeated softly to her,
+as she stood looking forward--to him--into the future:
+
+    "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."
+
+She turned and held out her hand.
+
+"I must bid you good-bye now and I wish you all happiness--so much
+more than you have ever had in all your life."
+
+He took it, but he could not speak. Something shook him strangely. He
+knew nothing to say. Had he spoken, he knew he had stammered and
+blundered.
+
+Never had the Richard Travis of old done such a thing.
+
+"Helen--Helen--if--if--you know once I asked you to go with
+me--once--in the old, awful life. Now, in the new--the new life which
+you can make sweet--"
+
+She came up close to him. The sun had set and the valley lay in
+silence. When he saw her eyes there were tears in them--tears so full
+and deep that they hurt him when she said:
+
+"It can never--never be--now. You made me love you when you could not
+love; and love born of despair is mateless ever; it would die in its
+realization. Mine, for you, was that--" She pointed to the sunset.
+"It breathed and burned. I saw it only because of clouds, of shadow.
+But were the clouds, the shadows, gone--"
+
+"There would be no life, no burning, no love," he said. "Ah, I think
+I understand," and his heart sank with pain. What--why--he could not
+say, only he knew it hurt him, and he began to wonder.
+
+"You do not blame me," she said as she still held his hand and looked
+up into his eyes in the old way he had seen, that terrible night at
+Millwood.
+
+For reply he held her hand in both of his and then laid it over his
+heart. She felt his tears fall on it, tears, which even death could
+not bring, had come to Richard Travis at last, and he wondered. In
+the old life he never wondered--he always knew; but in this--this new
+life--it was all so strange, so new that he feared even himself. Like
+a sailor lost, he could only look up, by day, helplessly at the sun,
+and, by night, helplessly at the stars.
+
+"Helen--Helen," he said at last, strangely shaken in it all,--"if I
+could tell you now that I do--that I could love--"
+
+She put her hand over his mouth in the old playful way and shook her
+head, smiling through her tears: "Do not try to mate my love with a
+thing that balks."
+
+It was simply said, and forceful. It was enough. Richard Travis
+blushed for very shame.
+
+"Do you not see," she said, "how hopeless it is? Do you not know that
+I was terribly tempted--weak--maddened--deserted that night? That now
+I know what Clay's love has been? Oh, why do we not learn early in
+life that fire will burn, that death will kill, that we are the deed
+of all we think and feel--the wish of all we will to be?"
+
+Travis turned quickly: "Is that true? Then let me wish--as I do,
+Helen; let me wish that I might love you as you deserve."
+
+She saddened: "Oh, but you have wished--you have willed--too
+often--too differently. It can never be now."
+
+"I understand you," he said. "It is natural--I should say it is
+nature--nature, the never-lying. I but reap my own folly, and now
+good-bye forever, Helen, and may God bless you and bring you that
+happiness you have deserved."
+
+"Do you know," she said calmly, "that I have thought of all that,
+too. There are so many of us in the world, and so little happiness
+that like flowers it cannot go around--some must go without."
+
+She held his hand tightly as if she did not want him to go.
+
+"My child, I must go out of your life--go--and stay. I see--I
+see--and I only make you wretched. And I have no right to. It is
+ignoble. It is I who should bear this burden of sorrow--not you. You
+who have never sinned, who are so young and so beautiful. In time you
+will love a nobler man--Clay--"
+
+She looked at him, but said nothing. She knew for the first time the
+solution of her love's problem. She was silent, holding his hand.
+
+"Child," he said again. "Helen, you must do as I say. There is
+happiness for you yet when I am gone--when I am out of your life and
+the memory and the pain of it cease. Then you will marry Clay--"
+
+"Do you really think so? Oh, and he has loved me so and is so
+splendid and true."
+
+Travis was silent, waiting.
+
+"Now let me go," she said--"let me forget all my madness and folly in
+learning to love one whose love was made for mine. In time I shall
+love him as he deserves. Good-bye."
+
+Then she broke impulsively away, and he watched her walk back through
+the shadows and under the clouds.
+
+At the turning of the path across the meadow, he saw another shadow
+join her. It was Clay, and the two went through the twilight
+together.
+
+Travis turned. "It is right--it is the solution--he alone deserves
+her. I must reap my past, reap it and see my harvest blighted and
+bound with rotten twine. But, oh, to know it when it is too late--to
+know that I might love her and could be happy--then to have to give
+it up--now--now--when I need it most. The Deed," he said--"we are the
+deed of all we think and feel."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE MODEL MILL
+
+
+The discovery of coal and iron made both the old Bishop and
+Westmoreland rich. Captain Tom sent James Travis to West Point and
+Archie B. to Annapolis, and their records were worthy of their names.
+
+And now, five years after the great fire, there might be seen in
+Cottontown, besides two furnaces, whose blazing turrets lighted the
+valley with Prosperity's torch--another cotton mill, erected by the
+old Bishop.
+
+Long and earnestly he thought on the subject before building the
+mill. Indeed, he first prayed over it and then preached on the
+subject, and this is the sermon he preached to his people the Sunday
+before he began the erection of The Model Cotton Mill:
+
+"Now, it's this way, my brethren: God made cotton for a mill. You
+can't get aroun' that; and the mill is to give people wuck an' this
+wuck is to clothe the worl'. That's all plain an' all good, because
+it's from God. Man made the bad of it--child labor, and overwuck and
+poor pay and the terrible everlastin' grind and foul air an' dirt an'
+squaller an' death.
+
+"The trouble with the worl' to-day is that it don't carry God into
+business. Why should we not be kinder an' mo' liberal with each other
+in business matters? We are unselfish in everything but business.
+All social life is based on unselfishness. To charity we give of our
+tears an' our money. For the welfare of mankind an' the advancement
+of humanity you can always count us on the right side. Even to those
+whose characters are rotten an' whose very shadows leave dark places
+in life, we pass the courtesies of the hour or the palaverin'
+compliments of the day. But let the struggler for the bread of life
+come along and ask us to share our profits with him, let the dollar
+be the thing involved an' business shrewdness the principle at stake,
+an' then all charity is forgotten, every man for himse'f, an' the
+chief aim of man seems to be to get mo' out of the trade than his
+brother.
+
+"Now the soul of trade is Selfishness, an' Charity never is invited
+over her doorway.
+
+"I have known men with tears in their eyes to give to the poor one
+day an' rob them the nex' in usurious interest an' rent, as cheerful
+as they gave the day befo'. I have known men to open their purses as
+wide as the gates of hades for some church charity, an' then close
+them the nex' day, in a business transaction, as they called it--with
+some helpless debtor or unexperienced widder. The graveyard is full
+of unselfish, devoted fathers an' husbands who worked themselves to
+death for the comfort an' support of their own families, yet spendin'
+their days on earth tryin' to beat their neighbors in the same game.
+
+"It's funny how we're livin'. It's amusin', it is--our ethics of
+Christianity. We've baptised everything but business. We give to the
+church an' rob the poor. We weep over misfortune an' steal from the
+unfortunate. We give a robe to Charity one day and filch it the
+nex'. We lay gifts at the altar of the Temple of Kindness for the
+Virgin therein, but if we caught her out on the highways of trade an'
+commerce we'd steal her an' sell her into slavery. An' after she was
+dead we'd go deep into our pockets to put up a monument over her!
+
+"We weep an' rob, an' smile an' steal, an' laugh an' knife, an' wring
+the hand of friendship while we step on her toes with our brogans of
+business. Can't we be hones' without bein' selfish, fair without
+graspin', make a profit without wantin' it all? Is it possible that
+Christ's religion has gone into every nook an' corner of the worl'
+an' yet missed the great highway of business, the everyday road of
+dollars an' cents, profit an' loss!
+
+"So I am goin' to build the mill an' run it like God intended it
+should be run, an' I am goin' to put, for once, the plan of salvation
+into business, if it busts me an' the plan too! For if it can't stand
+a business test it ought to bust!"
+
+He planned it all himself, and, aided by Captain Tom, and Alice, the
+beautiful structure went up. Strong and airy and with every comfort
+for the workers. "For it strikes me," said the old man, "that the
+people who wuck need mo' comforts than them that don't--at least the
+comforts of bein' clean. The fust thing I learned in geography was
+that God made three times as much water on the surface of the earth
+as he did dirt. But you wouldn't think so to look at the human race.
+It takes us a long time to take a hint."
+
+The big mountain spring settled the point, and when the mill was
+finished there were hot and cold baths in it for the tired workers.
+"For there's nothin' so good," said the old man, "for a hot man or a
+hot hoss as a warm body-wash. It relaxes the muscles an' makes them
+come ag'in. An' the man that comes ag'in is the man the worl' wants."
+
+In the homes of the workers, too, he had baths placed, until it grew
+to be a saying of the good old man "that it was easier to take a bath
+in Cottontown than to take a drink."
+
+The main building was lofty between floor and ceiling, letting in all
+the light and air possible, and the floors were of hard-wood and
+clean. As the greatest curse of the cotton lint was dust, atomizers
+for spraying the air were invented by Captain Tom. These were
+attached to the machinery and could be turned off or on as the
+operators desired. It was most comfortable now to work in the mill,
+and tired and hot employees, instead of lounging through their noon,
+bathed in the cool spring water which came down from the mountain
+side and flowed into the baths, not only in the mill, but through
+every cottage owned by the mill. And as the bath is the greatest
+civilizer known to man, a marked difference was soon noticed in every
+inhabitant of Cottontown. They were cleanly, and cleanliness begets a
+long list of other virtues, beginning with cleaner and better clothes
+and ending with ambition and godliness.
+
+But it was the old Bishop's policy for the wage-earners, which put
+the ambition there--a system never heard of before in the ranks of
+capital, and first tested and proved in his Model Cotton Mill.
+
+"There are two things in the worl'," said the Bishop, "that is as
+plain as God could write them without tellin' it Himself from the
+clouds. The first is that the money of the worl' was intended for all
+the worl' that reaches out a hand an' works for it.
+
+"The other is that every man who works is entitled to a home.
+
+"It was never intended for one man, or one corporation or one trust
+or one king or one anything else, to own more than his share of the
+money of the worl', no matter how they get it. Every man who piles up
+mo' money than he needs--actually needs--in life, robs every other
+man or woman or child in the worl' that pinches and slaves and
+starves for it in vain. Every man who makes a big fortune leaves just
+that many wrecked homes in his path."
+
+In carrying out this idea the old bishop had the mill incorporated at
+one hundred thousand dollars, which included all his fortune, except
+enough to live on and educate his grandchildren; for he never changed
+his home, and the only luxury he indulged in was a stable for Ben
+Butler.
+
+The stock was divided into shares of ten dollars each, which could be
+acquired only by those who worked in the mill, to be held only during
+life-time, and earned only in part payment for labor, given according
+to proficiency and work done, and credited on wages. In this way
+every employee of the mill became a stockholder--a partner in the
+mill, receiving dividends on his stock in addition to his regular
+wages, and every year he worked in the mill added both to his stock
+and dividends. At death it reverted again to The Model Cotton Mill
+Company, to be obtained again, in turn, by other mill workers coming
+on up the line. This made every mill worker a partner in the mill and
+spurred them on to do their best.
+
+But the home idea of the bishop was the more original one, and a far
+greater boon to the people. Instead of paying rent to the mill for
+their homes, as they had before, every married mill worker was deeded
+a home in the beginning, a certain per cent of his wages being
+appropriated each month in part payment; in addition, ten per cent of
+the stock acquired, as above, by each individual home owner, went to
+the payment of the home, and the whole was so worked out and adjusted
+that by the time a faithful worker had arrived at middle age, the
+home, as paid for, was absolutely his and his children's, and when he
+arrived at old age the dividends of the stock acquired were
+sufficient to support him the balance of his life.
+
+In this way the mill was virtually resolved into a corporation or
+community of interests, running perpetually for the maintenance and
+support of those who worked in it. The only property actually
+acquired by the individual was a home, his savings in wages, and the
+dividends on his stock acquired by long service and work.
+
+Some wanted the old man to run a general store on the same plan of
+community of interest, the goods and necessities of life to be bought
+at first cost and only the actual expenses of keeping the store
+added. But he wisely shook his head, saying: "No, that will not do;
+that's forming a trust ag'in the tillers of the earth an' the workers
+in every other occupation. That's cuttin' in on hones' competition,
+an' if carried out everywhere would shut off the rest of the worl'
+from a livin'. We're makin' our livin'--let them make theirs."
+
+The old bishop was proud of the men he selected to carry out his
+plans. Captain Tom was manager of the Model Mill.
+
+"Now," said the old man, after the mill had run two years and
+declared a semi-annual dividend, both years, of eight per cent each,
+"now you all see what it means to run even business by the Golden
+Rule. Here is this big fortune that I accidentally stumbled on, as
+everybody does who makes one--put out like God intended it sh'ud,
+belonging to nobody and standing there, year after year, makin' a
+livin' an' a home an' life an' happiness for over fo' hundred people,
+year in an' year out, an' let us pray God, forever. It was not mine
+to begin with--it belonged to the worl'. God put the coal and iron in
+the ground, not for me, but for everybody. An' so I've given it to
+everybody. Because I happened to own the lan' didn't make the
+treasure God put there mine, any mo' than the same land will be mine
+after I've passed away. We're only trustees for humanity for all we
+make mo' than we need, jus' as we're only tenants of God while we
+live on the earth."
+
+As for children, the bishop settled that quickly and effectively. His
+rule was that no boy or girl under sixteen should be permitted to
+work in the mill, and to save any parents, weakly inclined, from the
+temptation, he established a physical standard in weight, height and
+health.
+
+He found afterwards there was really small need of his stringent
+rule, for under this system of management the temptations of child
+labor were removed.
+
+Among the good features of the mill, established by Alice Travis, was
+a library, a pretty little building in the heart of Cottontown. It
+was maintained yearly by the mill, together with donations, and
+proved to be the greatest educational and refining influence of the
+mill. It was kept, for one week at a time, by each girl in the mill
+over twenty, the privilege always being given by the mill's physician
+to the girl who seemed most in need of a week's rest. It came to be a
+great social feature also, and any pretty afternoon, and all Saturday
+afternoon,--for the mill never ran then--could be seen there the
+young girls and boys of Cottontown.
+
+To this was afterwards added a Cottontown school for the younger
+children, who before had been slaves to the spinner and doffer carts.
+
+And so it ran on several years, but still the Bishop could see that
+something was lacking--that there was too much sickness, that in
+spite of only eight hours his people, year in and year out, grew
+tired and weak and disheartened, and with his great good sense he put
+his finger on it.
+
+"Now, it's this away," he said to his directors, "God never intended
+for any people to work all the time between walls an' floors. Tilling
+the soil is the natural work of man, an' there is somethin' in the
+very touch of the ground to our feet that puts new life in our
+bodies.
+
+"The farmin' instinct is so natural in us that you can't stop it by
+flood or drought or failure. Year in an' year out the farmer will
+plant an' work his crop in spite of failure, hopin' every year to
+hit it the nex' time. Would a merchant or manufacturer or anybody
+else do that? No, they'd make an assignment the second year of
+failure. But not so with the farmer, and it shows God intended he
+shu'd keep at it.
+
+"Now, I'm goin' to give this mill a chance to raise its own cotton,
+besides everything else its people needs to eat. I figger we can
+raise cotton cheaper than we can buy it, an' keep our folks healthy,
+too."
+
+Near Cottontown was an old cotton plantation of four thousand acres.
+It had been sadly neglected and run down. This the bishop purchased
+for the company for only ten dollars an acre, and divided it into
+tracts of twenty acres each, building a neat cottage, dairy and barn,
+and other outhouses on each tract--but all arranged for a family of
+four or five, and thus sprang up in a year a new settlement of two
+hundred families around Cottontown. It was no trouble to get them,
+for the fame of The Model Mill had spread, and far more applied
+yearly for employment than could be accommodated. This large farm,
+when equipped fully, represented fifty thousand dollars more, or an
+investment of ninety thousand dollars, and immediately became a
+valuable asset of the mill.
+
+It was divided into four parts, each under the supervision of a manager,
+a practical and experienced cotton farmer of the valley, and the tenants
+were selected every year from among all the workers of the mill,
+preference always being given to the families who needed the outdoor
+work most, and those physically weak from long work in the mill. It was
+so arranged that only fifty families, or one-fourth of the mill, went
+out each year, staying four years each on the farm. And thus every four
+years were two hundred families given the chance in the open to get in
+touch with nature, the great physician, and come again. After four years
+they went back to the mill, sunburnt, swarthy, and full of health, and
+what is greater than health,--cheerfulness--the cheerfulness that comes
+with change.
+
+On the farm they received the same wages as when in the mill, and each
+family was furnished with a mule, a cow, and poultry, and with a good
+garden.
+
+To reclaim this land and build up the soil was now the chief work of the
+old man; but having been overseer on a large cotton plantation, he knew
+his business, and set to work at it with all the zeal and good sense of
+his nature.
+
+He knew that cotton was one of the least exhaustive crops of the world,
+taking nearly all its sustenance from the air, and that it was also one
+of the most easily raised, requiring none of the complicated and
+expensive machinery necessary for wheat and other smaller grains. He
+knew, too, that under the thorough preparation of the soil necessary for
+cotton, wheat did best after it, and with clover sown on the wheat, he
+would soon have nature's remedy for reclaiming the soil. He also knew
+that the most expensive feature of cotton raising was the picking--the
+gathering of the crop--and in the children of Cottontown, he saw at once
+that he had a quick solution--one which solved the picking problem and
+yet gave to each growing boy and girl three months, in the cool,
+delightful fall, of healthful work, with pay more than equal to a year
+of the old cheap labor behind the spinners. For,--as it proved, at
+seventy-five cents per hundred pounds for the seed cotton picked,--these
+children earned from seventy-five cents to a dollar and a half a day.
+The first year, only half of the land was put in cotton, attention being
+given to reclaiming the other half. But even this proved a surprise for
+all, for nearly one thousand bales of cotton were ginned, at a total
+cost to the mill of only four cents per pound, while Cottontown had been
+fed during summer with all the vegetables and melons needed--all raised
+on the farm.
+
+That fall, the land, under the clean and constant plowing necessary
+to raise the cotton, was ready to sow in wheat, which in February was
+followed with clover--nature's great fertilizer--the clover being
+sown broadcast on the wheat, behind a light harrow run over the
+wheat. The wheat crop was small, averaging less than ten bushels to
+the acre, but it was enough to keep all Cottontown in bread for a
+year, or until the next harvest time, and some, even, to sell. Behind
+the wheat, after it was mowed, came the clover, bringing in good
+dividends. After two years, it was turned under, and then it was that
+the two thousand acres of land produced fifteen hundred bales of
+cotton at a total cost of four cents per pound, or twenty dollars per
+bale. And this included everything, even the interest on the money
+and the paying of seventy-five cents per hundred pounds to the
+Cottontown children for picking and storing the crop.
+
+In a few years, under this rotation, the farm produced all the cotton
+necessary to run The Model Mill, besides raising all its vegetables,
+fruit, and bread for all the families of Cottontown.
+
+But the most beautiful sight to the old man was to see the children
+every fall picking the cotton. Little boys and girls, who before had
+worked twelve hours a day in the old, hot, stifling, ill-smelling
+mill, now stood out in the sunshine and in the frosty air of the
+mornings, each with sack to side, waist deep in pure white cotton,
+flooded in sunshine and health and sweetness.
+
+They were deft with their fingers--the old mill had taught many of
+them that--and their pay, daily, ran from seventy-five cents to a
+dollar and a half--as much as some of them had earned in a week of
+the old way. And, oh, the health of it, the glory of air and sky and
+sunshine, the smell of dew on the bruised cotton-heads, the rustle of
+the mountain breeze cooling the heated cheeks; the healthy hunger,
+and the lunches in the shade by the cool spring; the shadows of
+evening creeping down from the mountains, the healthy fatigue--and
+the sweet home-going in the twilight, riding beneath the silent stars
+on wagons of snowy seed cotton, burrowing in bed of down and purest
+white--this snow of a Southern summer--with the happy laughter of
+childhood and the hunger of home-coming, and the glory and freedom of
+it all!
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Bishop of Cottontown, by John Trotwood Moore
+
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Bishop of Cottontown, by John Trotwood Moore
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Bishop of Cottontown
+       A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills
+
+Author: John Trotwood Moore
+
+Release Date: November 26, 2007 [EBook #23637]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BISHOP OF COTTONTOWN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marcia Brooks and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 323px;">
+<img src="images/illus001-1.jpg" width="323" height="500" alt="illlus001-1" title="Take care of Lily" />
+<span class="caption">&ldquo;Take care of Lily&rdquo;</span></div>
+
+<h2>THE</h2>
+<h1>Bishop of Cottontown</h1>
+<h3>A STORY OF THE SOUTHERN COTTON MILLS</h3>
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+<h2>JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE</h2>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">AUTHOR OF</span></h4>
+<h5>&ldquo;A Summer Hymnal,&rdquo; &ldquo;Ole Mistis,&rdquo; &ldquo;Songs and Stories
+from Tennessee,&rdquo; etc.</h5>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">ILLUSTRATED BY THE KINNEYS</span></h3>
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">&ldquo;And each in his separate star,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shall paint the thing as he sees it<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">For the God of Things As They Are.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">Kipling<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h4>PHILADELPHIA<br />
+THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY<br />
+1906</h4>
+
+<center><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1906,<br />
+By John Trotwood Moore</span><br />
+Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, 1906<br /><br />
+<i>All Rights Reserved</i></center>
+<br /><br />
+
+<center><span class="smcap">In Memory Of My Mother,</span><br />
+<br />
+EMILY BILLINGSLEA MOORE,<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Who Died<br />
+<br />
+December 14th, 1903,<br />
+The Faith Of This Book Being Hers.</span></center>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<a name="toc" id="toc"></a>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<h3>PART FIRST&mdash;THE BLOOM.</h3>
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC1" width="50%">
+<tr><td></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Prologue&mdash;the Cotton Blossom</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<h3>PART SECOND&mdash;THE BOLL.</h3>
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC2" width="50%">
+<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Cotton</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Richard Travis</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Jud Carpenter</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Food for the Factory</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Fly Catcher Caught</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Flint and the Coal</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Hillard Watts</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Westmoreland</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Mutual Understanding</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Star and a Satellite</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Midnight Burial</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Jack Bracken</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<h3>PART THIRD&mdash;THE GIN.</h3>
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC3" width="50%">
+<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Alice Westmore</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Real Heroes</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Franklin</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_154">154</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<h3>PART FOURTH&mdash;THE LINT.</h3>
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC4" width="50%">
+<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Cottontown</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Ben Butler</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">An Answer to Prayer</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">How the Bishop Froze</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Flock</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Bishop Militant</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Margaret Adams</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Hard-shell Sunday</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Return</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_232">232</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Swan Song of the Crepe Myrtle</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Casket and the Ghost</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_248">248</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Midnight Guard</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Theft of a Childhood</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_258">258</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Uncle Dave's Will</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Edward Conway</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_287">287</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Helen's Despair</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_296">296</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Whipper-in</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_305">305</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Samantha Carewe</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_312">312</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Quick Conversion</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_317">317</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Live Funeral</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_326">326</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Jack and the Little Ones</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_336">336</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Broken Thread</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_344">344</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">God Will Provide</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_350">350</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Bonaparte's Waterloo</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_355">355</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Born Naturalist</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_366">366</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Ben Butler's Last Race</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_380">380</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXVII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">You'll Come Back a Man</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_414">414</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<h3>PART FIFTH&mdash;THE LOOM.</h3>
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC5" width="50%">
+<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A New Mill Girl</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_419">419</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">In the Depths</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_431">431</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Work in a New Light</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_438">438</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Maggie</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_443">443</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Pay-day</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_447">447</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Plot</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_456">456</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Mrs. Westmore Takes a Hand</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_464">464</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Question Brought Home</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_473">473</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Pedigree of Achievement</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_487">487</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Married in God's Sight</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_493">493</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Queen Is Dead</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_499">499</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">In Thyself There Is Weakness</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_508">508</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Himself Again</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_512">512</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Joy of the Morning</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_519">519</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Touch of God</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_526">526</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Mammy Maria</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_533">533</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Double That Died</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_545">545</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Dying Lion</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_552">552</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Face To Face With Death</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_564">564</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Angel With the Flaming Sword</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_572">572</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Great Fire</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_581">581</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Conway Again</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_588">588</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Died for the Law</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_596">596</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Atonement</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_611">611</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Shadows and the Clouds</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_624">624</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Model Mill</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_633">633</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class="trans-note">Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer errors, have been silently corrected.
+For clarity, have added new paragraphs with respect to dialogue within paragraphs.
+The name Hillard and Hilliard have been uniformly changed to Hillard. Corrected incorrect usages of 'its' and 'it's.'
+All other inconsistencies (i. e. The inconsistent spellings&mdash;sombre/somber, gray/grey, hyphen/no hyphen) have been left as they were in the original.</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<h2>PART FIRST&mdash;THE BLOOM</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE COTTON BLOSSOM</h2>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">T</span>he cotton blossom is the only flower that is born in
+the shuttle of a sunbeam and dies in a loom.</p>
+
+<p>It is the most beautiful flower that grows, and
+needs only to become rare to be priceless&mdash;only to
+die to be idealized.</p>
+
+<p>For the world worships that which it hopes to attain,
+and our ideals are those things just out of our reach.</p>
+
+<p>Satiety has ten points and possession is nine of them.</p>
+
+<p>If, in early August, the delicately green leaves of this
+most aristocratic of all plants, instead of covering acres
+of Southland shimmering under a throbbing sun, peeped
+daintily out, from among the well-kept beds of some
+noble garden, men would flock to see that plant, which,
+of all plants, looks most like a miniature tree.</p>
+
+<p>A stout-hearted plant,&mdash;a tree, dwarfed, but losing
+not its dignity.</p>
+
+<p>Then, one morning, with the earliest sunrise, and born
+of it, there emerges from the scalloped sea-shell of the
+bough an exquisite, pendulous, cream-white blossom,
+clasping in its center a golden yellow star, pinked with
+dawn points of light, and, setting high up under its sky
+of milk-white petals flanked with yellow stars, it seems
+to the little nestling field-wrens born beneath it to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+the miniature arch of daybreak, ere the great eye of
+the morning star closes.</p>
+
+<p>Later, when the sun rises and the sky above grows
+pink and purple, it, too, changes its color from pink to
+purple, copying the sky from zone to zone, from blue to
+deeper blue, until, at late evening the young nestlings
+may look up and say, in their bird language: &ldquo;It is
+twilight.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>What other flower among them can thus copy Nature,
+the great master?</p>
+
+<p>Under every sky is a sphere, and under this sky picture,
+when night falls and closes it, a sphere is born.
+And in that sphere is all of earth.</p>
+
+<p>Its oils and its minerals are there, and one day, becoming
+too full of richness, it bursts, and throws open a
+five-roomed granary, stored with richer fabric than ever
+came from the shuttles of Fez and holding globes of oil
+such as the olives of Hebron dreamed not of.</p>
+
+<p>And in that fabric is the world clothed.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, little loom of the cotton-plant, poet that can show
+us the sky, painter that paints it, artisan that reaches
+out, and, from the skein of a sunbeam, the loom of the
+air and the white of its own soul, weaves the cloth that
+clothes the world!</p>
+
+<p>From dawn and darkness building a loom. From
+sunlight and shadow weaving threads of such fineness
+that the spider's were ropes of sand and the hoar frost's
+but clumsy icicles.</p>
+
+<p>Weaving&mdash;weaving&mdash;weaving them. And the delicately
+patterned tapestry of ever-changing clouds forming
+patterns of a fabric, white as the snow of the cen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>turies,
+determined that since it has to make the garments
+of men, it will make them unsullied.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, little plant, poet, painter, master-artisan!</p>
+
+<p>It is true to Nature to the last. The summer wanes
+and the winter comes, and when the cotton sphere bursts,
+'tis a ball of snow, but a dazzling white, spidery snow,
+which warms and does not chill, brings comfort and
+not care, wealth and the rich warm blood, and not the
+pinches of poverty.</p>
+
+<p>There are those who cannot hear God's voice unless
+He speaks to them in the thunders of Sinai, nor see Him
+unless He flares before them in the bonfires of a burning
+bush. They grumble because His Messenger came to a
+tribe in the hill countries of Long Ago. They wish to
+see the miracle of the dead arising. They see not the
+miracle of life around them. Death from Life is more
+strange to them than life from death.</p>
+
+<p>'Tis the silent voice that speaks the loudest. Did
+Sinai speak louder than this? Hear it:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am a bloom, and yet I reflect the sky from the
+morning's star to the midnight's. I am a flower, yet I
+show you the heaven from the dawn of its birth to the
+twilight of its death. I am a boll, and yet a miniature
+earth stored with silks and satins, oils of the olives,
+minerals of all lands. And when I am ripe I throw open
+my five-roomed granary, each fitted to the finger and
+thumb of the human hand, with a depth between,
+equalled only by the palm.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>O voice of the cotton-plant, do we need to go to
+oracles or listen for a diviner voice than yours when thus
+you tell us: Pluck?</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<h2>PART SECOND&mdash;THE BOLL</h2>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<h3>COTTON</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">T</span>he frost had touched the gums and maples in the
+Tennessee Valley, and the wood, which lined
+every hill and mountain side, looked like huge
+flaming bouquets&mdash;large ones, where the thicker wood
+clustered high on the side of Sand Mountain and stood
+out in crimson, gold and yellow against the sky,&mdash;small
+ones, where they clustered around the foot hills.</p>
+
+<p>Nature is nothing if not sentimental. She will make
+bouquets if none be made for her; or, mayhap, she
+wishes her children to be, and so makes them bouquets
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>There was that crispness in the air which puts one to
+wondering if, after all, autumn is not the finest time
+of the year.</p>
+
+<p>It had been a prosperous year in the Tennessee Valley&mdash;that
+year of 1874. And it had brought a double
+prosperity, in that, under the leadership of George S.
+Houston, the white men of the state, after a desperate
+struggle, had thrown off the political yoke of the negro
+and the carpetbagger, and once more the Saxon ruled in
+the land of his birth.</p>
+
+<p>Then was taken a full, long, wholesome, air-filling
+Anglo-Saxon breath, from the Tennessee Valley to the
+Gulf. There was a quickening of pulses that had fal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>tered,
+and heart-beats that had fluttered, dumb and discouraged,
+now rattled like kettle-drums, to the fight of
+life.</p>
+
+<p>It meant change&mdash;redemption&mdash;prosperity. And
+more: that the white blood which had made Alabama,
+need not now leave her for a home elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>It was a year glorious, and to be remembered. One
+which marks an epoch. One wherein there is an end of
+the old and a beginning of the new.</p>
+
+<p>The cotton&mdash;the second picking&mdash;still whitened
+thousands of acres. There were not hands enough to
+pick it. The negroes, demoralized for a half score of
+years by the brief splendor of elevation, and backed, at
+first, by Federal bayonets and afterwards by sheer force
+of their own number in elections, had been correspondingly
+demoralized and shiftless. True to their instinct
+then, as now, they worked only so long as they needed
+money. If one day's cotton picking fed a negro for
+five, he rested the five.</p>
+
+<p>The negro race does not live to lay up for a rainy day.</p>
+
+<p>And so the cotton being neglected, its lengthened and
+frowseled locks hung from wide open bolls like the locks
+of a tawdry woman in early morning.</p>
+
+<p>No one wanted it&mdash;that is, wanted it bad enough to
+pick it. For cotton was cheap that fall&mdash;very cheap&mdash;and
+picking cotton is a back-bending business.
+Therefore it hung its frowsy locks from the boll.</p>
+
+<p>And nothing makes so much for frowsiness in the
+cotton plant, and in woman, as to know they are not
+wanted.</p>
+
+<p>The gin-houses were yet full, tho' the gin had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+running day and night. That which poured, like pulverized
+snow, from the mouth of the flues into the pick-room&mdash;where
+the cotton fell before being pressed into
+bales&mdash;scarcely had time to be tramped down and
+packed off in baskets to the tall, mast-like screws which
+pressed the bales and bound them with ties, ere the seed
+cotton came pouring in again from wagon bed and
+basket.</p>
+
+<p>The gin hummed and sawed and sang and creaked,
+but it could not devour the seed cotton fast enough from
+the piles of the incoming fleece.</p>
+
+<p>Those grew lighter and larger all the time.</p>
+
+<p>The eight Tennessee sugar-mules, big and sinewy,
+hitched to the lever underneath the gin-house at The
+Gaffs, sweated until they sprinkled in one continual
+shower the path which they trod around the pivot-beam
+from morning until night.</p>
+
+<p>Around&mdash;around&mdash;forever around.</p>
+
+<p>For the levers turned the pivot-beam, and the pivot-beam
+turned the big shaft-wheel which turned the gin-wheel,
+and the gin had to go or it seemed as if the valley
+would be smothered in cotton.</p>
+
+<p>Picked once, the fields still looked like a snowfall in
+November, if such a thing were possible in a land which
+scarcely felt a dozen snowfalls in as many years.</p>
+
+<p>Dust! There is no dust like that which comes from a
+gin-house. It may be tasted in the air. All other dust
+is gravel compared to the penetrating fineness of that
+diabolical, burning blight which flies out of the lint,
+from the thousand teeth of the gin-saws, as diamond
+dust flies from the file.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is all penetrating, consumptive-breeding, sickening,
+stifling, suffocating. It is hot and has a metallic flavor;
+and it flies from the hot steel teeth of the saws, as
+pestilence from the hot breath of the swamps.</p>
+
+<p>It is linty, furry, tickling, smothering, searing.</p>
+
+<p>It makes one wonder why, in picturing hell, no priest
+ever thought of filling it with cotton-gin dust instead of
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>And it clings there from the Lint to the Loom.</p>
+
+<p>Small wonder that the poor little white slaves, taking
+up their serfdom at the loom where the negro left off at
+the lint, die like pigs in a cotton-seed pen.</p>
+
+<p>There was cotton everywhere&mdash;in the fields, unpicked;
+in the gin-houses, unginned. That in the fields
+would be plowed under next spring, presenting the
+strange anomaly of plowing under one crop to raise
+another of the same kind. But it has been done many
+times in the fertile Valley of the Tennessee.</p>
+
+<p>There is that in the Saxon race that makes it discontented,
+even with success.</p>
+
+<p>There was cotton everywhere; it lay piled up around
+the gin-houses and screws and negro-cabins and under
+the sheds and even under the trees. All of it, which was
+exposed to the weather, was in bales, weighing each a
+fourth of a ton and with bulging white spots in
+their bellies where the coarse cotton baling failed to
+cover their nakedness.</p>
+
+<p>It was cotton&mdash;cotton&mdash;cotton. Seed,&mdash;ginned,&mdash;lint,&mdash;baled,&mdash;cotton.</p>
+
+<p>The Gaffs was a fine estate of five thousand acres
+which had been handed down for several generations.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+The old home sat in a grove of hickory, oak and elm
+trees, on a gentle slope. Ancient sentinels, and they
+were there when the first Travis came from North Carolina
+to the Tennessee Valley and built his first double-log
+cabin under the shelter of their arms.</p>
+
+<p>From the porch of The Gaffs,&mdash;as the old home was
+called&mdash;the Tennessee River could be seen two miles
+away, its brave swift channel glittering like the flash of
+a silver arrow in the dark green wood which bordered it.</p>
+
+<p>Back of the house the mountain ridge rolled; not high
+enough to be awful and unapproachable, nor so low as
+to breed contempt from a too great familiarity. Not
+grand, but the kind one loves to wander over.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<h3>RICHARD TRAVIS</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">S</span>trength was written in the face of Richard
+Travis&mdash;the owner of The Gaffs&mdash;intellectual,
+physical, passion-strength, strength of purpose
+and of doing. Strength, but not moral strength; and
+hence lacking all of being all-conquering.</p>
+
+<p>He had that kind of strength which made others think
+as he thought, and do as he would have them do. He
+saw things clearly, strongly, quickly. His assurance
+made all things sure. He knew things and was proud
+of it. He knew himself and other men. And best of
+all, as he thought, he knew women.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis was secretary and treasurer of the
+Acme Cotton Mills.</p>
+
+<p>To-night he was alone in the old-fashioned but elegant
+dining-room of the Gaffs. The big log fire of ash and
+hickory was pleasant, and the blaze, falling in sombre
+color on the old mahogany side-board which sat opposite
+the fireplace, on the double ash floor, polished and
+shining, added a deeper and richer hue to it. From the
+toes of the dragon on which it rested, to the beak of the
+hand-carved eagle, spreading his wings over the shield
+beneath him, carved in the solid mahogany and surrounded
+by thirteen stars, all was elegance and aristocracy.
+Even the bold staring eyes of the eagle seemed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+proud of the age of the side-board, for had it not been
+built when the stars numbered but thirteen? And was
+not the eagle rampant then?</p>
+
+<p>The big brass andirons were mounted with the
+bronzed heads of wood-nymphs, and these looked saucily
+up at the eagle. The three-cornered cupboard, in one
+corner of the room, was of cherry, with small diamond-shaped
+windows in front, showing within rare old sets
+of china and cut glass. The handsome square dining
+table matched the side-board, only its dragon feet were
+larger and stronger, as if intended to stand up under
+more weight, at times.</p>
+
+<p>Everything was ancient and had a pedigree. Even
+the Llewellyn setter was old, for he was grizzled around
+the muzzle and had deep-set, lusterless eyes, from which
+the firelight, as if afraid of their very uncanniness,
+darted out as soon as it entered. And he carried his
+head to one side when he walked, as old and deaf dogs do.</p>
+
+<p>He lay on a rug before the fire. He had won this
+license, for opposite his name on the kennel books were
+more field-trials won than by any other dog in Alabama.
+And now he dozed and dreamed of them again, with
+many twitchings of feet, and cocked, quivering ears,
+and rigid tail, as if once more frozen to the covey in
+the tall sedge-grass of the old field, with the smell of
+frost-bitten Lespedeza, wet with dew, beneath his feet.</p>
+
+<p>Travis stooped and petted the old dog. It was the
+one thing of his household he loved most.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Man or dog&mdash;'tis all the same,&rdquo; he mused as he
+watched the dreaming dog&mdash;&ldquo;it is old age's privilege
+to dream of what has been done&mdash;it is youth's to do.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He stretched himself in his big mahogany chair and
+glanced down his muscular limbs, and drew his arms together
+with a snap of quick strength.</p>
+
+<p>Everything at The Gaffs was an open diary of the
+master's life. It is so in all homes&mdash;that which we
+gather around us, from our books to our bed-clothes,
+is what we are.</p>
+
+<p>And so the setter on the rug meant that Richard
+Travis was the best wing-shot in the Tennessee Valley,
+and that his kennel of Gladstone setters had won more
+field trials than any other kennel in the South. No man
+has really hunted who has never shot quail in Alabama
+over a well-broken setter. All other hunting is butchery
+compared to the scientific sweetness of this sport.</p>
+
+<p>There was a good-night, martial, daring crow, ringing
+from the Hoss-apple tree at the dining-room window.
+Travis smiled and called out:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lights waked you up, eh, Dick? You're a gay
+Lothario&mdash;go back to sleep.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis had the original stock&mdash;the Irish
+Greys&mdash;which his doughty old grandsire, General
+Jeremiah Travis, developed to championship honors,
+and in a memorable main with his friend, General
+Andrew Jackson, ten years after the New Orleans campaign,
+he had cleared up the Tennesseans, cock and
+pocket. It was a big main in which Tennessee, Georgia
+and Alabama were pitted against each other, and in
+which the Travis cocks of the Emerald Isle strain, as
+Old Hickory expressed it, &ldquo;stood the steel like a stuck
+she-b'ar, fightin' for her cubs.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>General Travis had been an expert at heeling a cock;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+and it is said that his skill on that occasion was worth
+more than the blood of his Greys; for by a peculiar
+turn of the gaffs,&mdash;so slight as to escape the notice of
+any but an expert&mdash;his champion cock had struck the
+blow which ended the battle. With the money won, he
+had added four thousand acres to his estate, and afterwards
+called it The Gaffs.</p>
+
+<p>And a strong, brave man had been General Jeremiah
+Travis,&mdash;pioneer, Indian fighter, Colonel in the Creek
+war and at New Orleans, and a General in the war with
+Mexico.</p>
+
+<p>His love for the Union had been that of a brave man
+who had gone through battles and shed his blood for his
+country.</p>
+
+<p>The Civil War broke his heart.</p>
+
+<p>In his early days his heart had been in his thoroughbred
+horses and his fighting cocks, and when he heard
+that his nephew had died with Crockett and Bowie at the
+Alamo, he drew himself proudly up and said: &ldquo;A right
+brave boy, by the Eternal, and he died as becomes one
+crossed on an Irish Grey cock.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>That had been years before. Now, a new civilization
+had come on the stage, and where the grandsire had
+taken to thoroughbreds, Richard Travis, the grandson,
+took to trotters. In the stalls where once stood the sons
+of Sir Archie, Boston, and imported Glencoe himself,
+now were sons of Mambrino Patchin, and George Wilkes
+and Harold. And a splendid lot they were&mdash;sires,&mdash;brood
+mares and colts, in the paddocks of The Gaffs.</p>
+
+<p>Travis took no man's dust in the Tennessee Valley.
+At county fairs he had a walk-over.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He had inherited The Gaffs from his grandfather,
+for both his parents died in his infancy, and his two
+remaining uncles gave their lives in Virginia, early in
+the war, following the flag of the Confederacy.</p>
+
+<p>One of them had left a son, whom Richard Travis
+had educated and who had, but the June before, graduated
+from the State University.</p>
+
+<p>Travis saw but little of him, since each did as he
+pleased, and it did not please either of them to get into
+each other's way.</p>
+
+<p>There had been no sympathy between them. There
+could not be, for they were too much alike in many ways.</p>
+
+<p>There can be no sympathy in selfishness.</p>
+
+<p>All through the summer Harry Travis had spent his
+time at picnics and dances, and, but for the fact that
+his cousin now and then missed one of his best horses
+from the stable, or found his favorite gun put away
+foul, or his fishing tackle broken, he would not have
+known that Harry was on the place.</p>
+
+<p>Cook-mother Charity kept the house. Bond and free,
+she had spent all her life at The Gaffs. Of this she was
+prouder than to have been housekeeper at Windsor.
+Her word was law; she was the only mortal who bossed,
+as she called it, Richard Travis.</p>
+
+<p>Usually, friends from town kept the owner company,
+and The Gaffs' reputation for hospitality, while generous,
+was not unnoted for its hilarity.</p>
+
+<p>To-night Richard Travis was lonely. His supper
+tray had not been removed. He lit a cigar and picked
+up a book&mdash;it was Herbert Spencer, and he was soon
+interested.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later an octoroon house-girl, with dark
+Creole eyes, and bright ribbons in her hair, came in to
+remove the supper dishes. She wore a bright-colored
+green gown, cut low. As she reached over the table near
+him he winced at the strong smell of musk, which
+beauties of her race imagine adds so greatly to their
+aesthetic <i>status-quo</i>. She came nearer to him than was
+necessary, and there was an attempted familiarity in
+the movement that caused him to curve slightly the corner
+of his thin, nervous lip, showing beneath his mustache.
+She kept a half glance on him always. He
+smoked and read on, until the rank smell of her perfume
+smote him again through the odor of his cigar, and as
+he looked up she had busied around so close to him that
+her exposed neck was within two feet of him bent in
+seeming innocence over the tray. With a mischievous
+laugh he reached over and flipped the hot ashes from his
+cigar upon her neck. She screamed affectedly and
+danced about shaking off the ashes. Then with feigned
+maidenly piquancy and many reproachful glances, she
+went out laughing good humoredly.</p>
+
+<p>He was good natured, and when she was gone he
+laughed boyishly.</p>
+
+<p>Good nature is one of the virtues of impurity.</p>
+
+<p>Still giggling she set the tray down in the kitchen
+and told Cook-mother Charity about it. That worthy
+woman gave her a warning look and said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The frisk'ness of this new gen'ration of niggers
+makes me tired. Better let Marse Dick alone&mdash;he's a
+dan'g'us man with women.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In the dining-room Travis sat quiet and thoughtful.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+He was a handsome man, turning forty. His face was
+strong, clean shaved, except a light mustache, with full
+sensual lips and an unusually fine brow. It was the
+brow of intellect&mdash;all in front. Behind and above
+there was no loftiness of ideality or of veneration. His
+smile was constant, and though slightly cold, was always
+approachable. His manner was decisive, but clever
+always, and kind-hearted at times.</p>
+
+<p>Contrary to his habit, he grew reminiscent. He
+despised this kind of a mood, because, as he said, &ldquo;It is
+the weakness of a fool to think about himself.&rdquo; He
+walked to the window and looked out on the broad fields
+of The Gaffs in the valley before him. He looked at the
+handsomely furnished room and thought of the splendid
+old home. Then he deliberately surveyed himself in the
+mirror. He smiled:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Survival of the fittest'&mdash;yes, Spencer is right&mdash;a
+great&mdash;great mind. He is living now, and the world,
+of course, will not admit his greatness until he is dead.
+Life, like the bull that would rule the herd, is never
+ready to admit that other life is great. A poet is always
+a dead rhymester,&mdash;a philosopher, a dead dreamer.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let Spencer but die!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tush! Why indulge in weak modesty and fool self-depreciation?
+Even instinct tells me&mdash;that very lowest
+of animal intellectual forces&mdash;that I survive because
+I am stronger than the dead. Providence&mdash;God&mdash;whatever
+it is, has nothing to do with it except to start
+you and let you survive by overcoming. Winds you up
+and then&mdash;devil take the hindmost!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is brains&mdash;brains&mdash;brains that count&mdash;brains<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+first and always. This moral stuff is fit only for those
+who are too weak to conquer. I have accomplished
+everything in life I have ever undertaken&mdash;everything&mdash;and&mdash;by
+brains! Not once have I failed&mdash;I have
+done it by intellect, courage&mdash;intuition&mdash;the thing in
+one that speaks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now as to things of the heart,&rdquo;&mdash;he stopped suddenly&mdash;he
+even scowled half humorously. It came
+over him&mdash;his failure there, as one who, sweeping with
+his knights the pawns of an opponent, suddenly finds
+himself confronting a queen&mdash;and checkmated.</p>
+
+<p>He walked to the window again and looked toward
+the northern end of the valley. There the gables of an
+old and somewhat weather-beaten home sat in a group
+of beech on a rise among the foothills.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Westmoreland&rdquo;&mdash;he said&mdash;&ldquo;how dilapidated it is
+getting to be! Something must be done there, and Alice&mdash;Alice,&rdquo;&mdash;he
+repeated the name softly&mdash;reverently&mdash;&ldquo;I
+feel&mdash;I know it&mdash;she&mdash;even she shall be mine&mdash;after
+all these years&mdash;she shall come to me yet.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He smiled again: &ldquo;Then I shall have won all around.
+Fate? Destiny? Tush! It's living and surviving
+weaker things, such for instance as my cousin Tom.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He smiled satisfactorily. He flecked some cotton lint
+from his coat sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have had a hard time in the mill to-day. It's a
+beastly business robbing the poor little half-made-up
+devils.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He rang for Aunt Charity. She knew what he
+wished, and soon came in bringing him his cocktail&mdash;his
+night-cap as she always called it,&mdash;only of late he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+had required several in an evening,&mdash;a thing that set
+the old woman to quarreling with him, for she knew the
+limit of a gentleman. And, in truth, she was proud of
+her cocktails. They were made from a recipe given by
+Andrew Jackson. For fifty years Cook-mother Charity
+had made one every night and brought it to &ldquo;old marster&rdquo;
+before he retired. Now she proudly brought it to
+his grandson.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, say Mammy,&rdquo; he said as the old woman started
+out&mdash;&ldquo;Carpenter will be here directly with his report.
+Bring another pair of these in&mdash;we will want them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old woman bristled up. &ldquo;To be sure, I'll fix
+'em, honey. He'll not know the difference. But the
+licker he gits in his'n will come outen the bottle we keep
+for the hosses when they have the colic. The bran' we
+keep for gem'men would stick in his th'oat.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis laughed: &ldquo;Well&mdash;be sure you don't get
+that horse brand in mine.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<h3>JUD CARPENTER</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">A</span>n hour afterwards, Travis heard a well-known
+walk in the hall and opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>He stepped back astonished. He released the
+knob and gazed half angry, half smiling.</p>
+
+<p>A large dog, brindled and lean, walked complacently
+and condescendingly in, followed by his master. At a
+glance, the least imaginative could see that Jud Carpenter,
+the Whipper-in of the Acme Cotton Mills, and
+Bonaparte, his dog, were well mated.</p>
+
+<p>The man was large, raw-boned and brindled, and he,
+also, walked in, complacently and condescendingly.</p>
+
+<p>The dog's ears had been cropped to match his tail,
+which in his infancy had been reduced to a very few
+inches. His under jaw protruded slightly&mdash;showing
+the trace of bull in his make-up.</p>
+
+<p>That was the man all over. Besides he had a small,
+mean, roguish ear.</p>
+
+<p>The dog was cross-eyed&mdash;&ldquo;the only cross-eyed purp
+in the worl'&rdquo;&mdash;as his master had often proudly proclaimed,
+and the expression of his face was uncanny.</p>
+
+<p>Jud Carpenter's eastern-eye looked west, and his western-eye
+looked east, and the rest of the paragraph above
+fitted him also.</p>
+
+<p>The dog's pedigree, as his master had drawlingly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+proclaimed, was &ldquo;p'yart houn', p'yart bull, p'yart cur,
+p'yart terrier, an' the rest of him&mdash;wal, jes' dog.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Reverse this and it will be Carpenter's: Just dog,
+with a sprinkling of bull, cur, terrier, and hound.</p>
+
+<p>Before Richard Travis could protest, the dog walked
+deliberately to the fireplace and sprang savagely on
+the helpless old setter dreaming on the rug. The
+older dog expostulated with terrific howls, while Travis
+turned quickly and kicked off the intruder.</p>
+
+<p>He stood the kicking as quietly as if it were part of
+the programme in the last act of a melodrama in which
+he was the villain. He was kicked entirely across the
+room and his head was driven violently into the half-open
+door of the side-board. Here it came in contact
+with one of Cook-mother's freshly baked hams, set aside
+for the morrow's lunch. Without even a change of
+countenance&mdash;for, in truth, it could not change&mdash;without
+the lifting even of a hair in surprise, the brute
+seized the ham and settled right where he was, to lunch.
+And he did it as complacently as he had walked in, and
+with a satisfied growl which seemed to say that, so far
+as the villain was concerned, the last act of the melodrama
+was ending to his entire satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Opening a side door, Travis seized him by the stump
+of a tail and one hind leg&mdash;knowing his mouth was too
+full of ham to bite anything&mdash;and threw him, still
+clutching the ham, bodily into the back yard. Without
+changing the attitude he found himself in when he hit
+the ground, the brindled dog went on with his luncheon.</p>
+
+<p>The very cheek of it set Travis to laughing. He
+closed the door and said to the man who had followed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+the dog in: &ldquo;Carpenter, if I had the nerve of that
+raw-boned fiend that follows you around, I'd soon own
+the world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The man had already taken his seat by the fire as unaffectedly
+as had the dog. He had entered as boldly
+and as indifferently and his two deep-set, cat-gray
+cross-eyes looked around as savagely.</p>
+
+<p>He was a tall, lank fellow, past middle age, with a
+crop of stiff, red-brown hair, beginning midway of his
+forehead, so near to an equally shaggy and heavy splotch
+of eyebrows as to leave scarce a finger's breadth between
+them.</p>
+
+<p>He was wiry and shrewd-looking, and his two deep-set
+eyes seemed always like a leopard's,&mdash;walking the
+cage of his face, hunting for some crack to slip through.
+Furtive, sly, darting, rolling hither and thither, never
+still, comprehensive, all-seeing, malicious and deadly
+shrewd. These were the eyes of Jud Carpenter, and
+they told it all. To this, add again that they looked
+in contrary directions.</p>
+
+<p>As a man's eye, so is the tenor of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Yet in them, now and then, the twinkle of humor
+shone. He had a conciliatory way with those beneath
+him, and he considered all the mill hands in that class.
+To his superiors he was a frowning, yet daring and even
+presumptuous underling.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat better dressed than the Hillites from whom
+he sprang was this Whipper-in of the Acme Cotton
+Mills&mdash;somewhat better dressed, and with the air of
+one who had arisen above his surroundings. Yet, withal,
+the common, low-born, malicious instinct was there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>&mdash;the
+instinct which makes one of them hate the man
+who is better educated, better dressed than he. All told,
+it might be summed up and said of Jud Carpenter that
+he had all the instincts of a Hillite and all the arrogance
+of a manager.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nobody understands that dog, Bonaparte, but me,&rdquo;
+said Carpenter after a while&mdash;&ldquo;he's to dogs what his
+namesake was to man. He's the champ'un fighter of
+the Tennessee Valley, an' the only cross-eyed purp in the
+worl', as I have often said. Like all gen'uses of course,
+he's a leetle peculiar&mdash;but him and me&mdash;we understan's
+each other.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He pulled out some mill papers and was about to
+proceed to discuss his business when Travis interrupted:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hold on,&rdquo; he said, good humoredly, &ldquo;after my experience
+with that cross-eyed genius of a dog, I'll need
+something to brace me up.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He handed Carpenter a glass and each drank off his
+cocktail at a quaff.</p>
+
+<p>Travis settled quickly to business. He took out his
+mill books, and for an hour the two talked in a low tone
+and mechanically. The commissary department of the
+mill was taken up and the entire accounts gone over.
+Memoranda were made of goods to be ordered. The
+accounts of families were run over and inspected. It
+was tedious work, but Travis never flagged and his executive
+ability was quick and incisive. At last he closed
+the book with an impatient gesture:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's all I'll do to-night,&rdquo; he muttered decisively.
+&ldquo;I've other things to talk to you about. But we'll
+need something first.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He went to the side-board and brought out a decanter
+of whiskey, two goblets and a bowl of loaf sugar.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed: &ldquo;Mammy knows nothing about this.
+Two cocktails are the limit she sets for me, and so I
+keep this private bottle.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He made a long-toddy for himself, but Carpenter
+took his straight. In all of it, his furtive eyes, shining
+out of the splotch of eyebrows above, glanced inquiringly
+around and obsequiously followed every movement of
+his superior.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, Carpenter,&rdquo; said the Secretary after he had
+settled back in his chair and lit a cigar, handing the box
+afterwards to the other&mdash;&ldquo;You know me&mdash;you and I&mdash;must
+understand each other in all things.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Bleeged to be that way,&rdquo; drawled the Whipper-in&mdash;&ldquo;we
+must wu'ck together. You know me, an' that
+Jud Carpenter's motto is, 'mum, an' keep movin'.'
+That's me&mdash;that's Jud Carpenter.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis laughed: &ldquo;O, it's nothing that requires so
+much heavy villain work as the tone of your voice would
+suggest. We're not in a melodrama. This is the nineteenth
+century and we're talking business and going to
+win a thing or two by common sense and business ways,
+eh?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Carpenter nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, now, the first is quite matter of fact&mdash;just
+horses. I believe we are going to have the biggest fair
+this fall we have ever had.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's lots talked about,&rdquo; said Carpenter&mdash;&ldquo;'specially
+the big race an' purse you've got put up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis grew interested quickly and leaned over excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My reputation is at stake&mdash;and that of The Gaffs'
+stable. You see, Carpenter, it's a three-cornered race
+for three-thousand dollars&mdash;each of us, Col. Troup,
+Flecker and me, have put up a thousand&mdash;three heats
+out of five&mdash;the winner takes the stake. Col. Troup,
+of Lenox, has entered a fast mare of his, and Flecker,
+of Tennessee, will be there with his gelding. I know
+Flecker's horse. I could beat him with Lizette and one
+of her legs tied up. I looked him over last week. Contracted
+heels and his owner hasn't got horse-sense to
+know it. It's horse-sense, Carpenter, that counts for
+success in life as in a race.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Carpenter nodded again.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But it's different with Col. Troup's entry. Ever
+been to Lenox?&rdquo; he asked suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>Carpenter shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't know anybody there?&rdquo; asked Travis. &ldquo;I
+thought so&mdash;just what I want.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He went on indifferently, but Carpenter saw that he
+was measuring his words and noting their effect upon
+himself. &ldquo;They work out over there Tuesdays and
+Fridays&mdash;the fair is only a few weeks off&mdash;they will
+be stepping their best by Friday. Now, go there
+and say nothing&mdash;but just sit around and see how fast
+Col. Troup's mare can trot.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That'll be easy,&rdquo; said Carpenter.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have no notion of losing my thousand and reputation,
+too.&rdquo; He bent over to Carpenter and laughed.
+&ldquo;All's fair in love and&mdash;a horse race. You know it's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+the 2:25 class, and I've entered Lizette, but Sadie B. is
+so much like her that no living man who doesn't curry
+them every day could tell them apart. Sadie B.'s mark
+is 2:15. Now see if Troup can beat 2:25. Maybe he
+can't beat 2:15.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he laughed ironically.</p>
+
+<p>Carpenter looked at him wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>It was all he said, but it was enough for Carpenter.
+Fraud's wink to the fraudulent is an open book. Her
+nod is the nod of the Painted Thing passing down the
+highway.</p>
+
+<p>Base-born that he was&mdash;low by instinct and inheritance,
+he had never heard of so brilliant and so gentlemanly
+a piece of fraud. The consummate boldness of it
+made Carpenter's eyes twinkle&mdash;a gentleman and in a
+race with gentlemen&mdash;who would dare to suspect? It
+was the boldness of a fine woman, daring to wear a
+necklace of paste-diamonds.</p>
+
+<p>He sat looking at Travis in silent admiration. Never
+before had his employer risen to such heights in the eyes
+of the Whipper-in. He sat back in his chair and
+chuckled. His furtive eyes danced.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nobody but a born gen'us 'ud ever have tho'rt of
+that,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;never seed yo' e'kal&mdash;why, the money
+is your'n, any way you fix it. You can ring in Lizette
+one heat and Sadie B.&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There are things to be thought and not talked of,&rdquo;
+replied Travis quickly. &ldquo;For a man of your age ar'n't
+you learning to talk too much out loud? You go and
+find out what I've asked&mdash;I'll do the rest. I'm think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>ing
+I'll not need Sadie B. Never run a risk, even a
+dead sure one, till you're obliged to.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll fetch it next week&mdash;trust me for that. But
+I hope you will do it&mdash;ring in Sadie B. just for the fun
+of it. Think of old bay-window Troup trottin' his
+mare to death ag'in two fast horses an' never havin'
+sense enough to see it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He looked his employer over&mdash;from his neatly turned
+foot to the cravat, tied in an up-to-date knot. At that,
+even, Travis flushed. &ldquo;Here,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;another
+toddy. I'll trust you to bring in your report all right.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Carpenter again took his straight&mdash;his eyes had begun
+to glitter, his face to flush, and he felt more like
+talking.</p>
+
+<p>Travis lit another cigar. He puffed and smoked in
+silence for a while. The rings of smoke went up incessantly.
+His face had begun to redden, his fingers to
+thrill to the tip with pulsing blood. With it went his
+final contingency of reserve, and under it he dropped
+to the level of the base-born at his side.</p>
+
+<p>Whiskey is the great leveler of life. Drinking it,
+all men are, indeed, equal.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When are you going out to get in more hands for
+the mill?&rdquo; asked Travis after a pause.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To-morrow&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So soon?&rdquo; asked Travis.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, you see,&rdquo; said Carpenter, &ldquo;there's been ha'f a
+dozen of the brats died this summer an' fall&mdash;scarlet
+fever in the mill.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis looked at him and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' I've got to git in some mo' right away,&rdquo; he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+went on. &ldquo;Oh, there's plenty of 'em in these hills.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis smoked for a few minutes without speaking.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Carpenter, had you ever thought of Helen Conway&mdash;I
+mean&mdash;of getting Conway's two daughters into
+the mill?&rdquo; He made the correction with a feigned indifference,
+but the other quickly noticed it. In an instant
+Carpenter knew.</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact the Whipper-in had not thought
+of it, but it was easy for him to say what he thought
+the other wished him to say.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wal, yes,&rdquo; he replied; &ldquo;that's jes' what I had been
+thinkin' of. They've got to come in&mdash;'ristocrats or
+no 'ristocrats! When it comes to a question of bread
+and meat, pedigree must go to the cellar.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To the attic, you mean,&rdquo; said Travis&mdash;&ldquo;where their
+old clothes are.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Carpenter laughed: &ldquo;That's it&mdash;you all'ers say the
+k'rect thing. 'N' as I was sayin'&rdquo;&mdash;he went on&mdash;&ldquo;it
+is a ground-hog case with 'em. The Major's drunk
+all the time. His farm an' home'll be sold soon. He's
+'bleeged to put 'em in the mill&mdash;or the po'-house.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He paused, thinking. Then, &ldquo;But ain't that Helen
+about the pretties' thing you ever seed?&rdquo; He chuckled.
+&ldquo;You're sly&mdash;but I seen you givin' her that airin'
+behin' Lizette and Sadie B.&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You've nothing to do with that,&rdquo; said Travis
+gruffly. &ldquo;You want a new girl for our drawing-in
+machine&mdash;the best paying and most profitable place
+in the mill&mdash;off from the others&mdash;in a room by herself&mdash;no
+contact with mill-people&mdash;easy job&mdash;two
+dollars a day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;One dollar&mdash;you forgit, suh&mdash;one dollar's the
+reg'lar price, sah,&rdquo; interrupted the Whipper-in.</p>
+
+<p>The other turned on him almost fiercely: &ldquo;Your
+memory is as weak as your wits&mdash;two dollars, I tell
+you, and don't interrupt me again&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To be sho',&rdquo; said the Whipper-in, meekly&mdash;&ldquo;I
+did forgit&mdash;please excuse me, sah.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then, in talking to Conway, you, of course, would
+draw his attention to the fact that he is to have a nice
+cottage free of rent&mdash;that will come in right handy
+when he finds himself out in the road&mdash;sold out and
+nowhere to go,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'N' the commissary,&rdquo; put in Carpenter quietly.
+&ldquo;Excuse me, sah, but there's a mighty good bran' of
+whiskey there, you know!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis smiled good humoredly: &ldquo;Your wits are returning,&rdquo;
+he said; &ldquo;I think you understand.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll see him to-morrow,&rdquo; said Carpenter, rising to
+go.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, don't be in a hurry,&rdquo; said Travis.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Excuse me, sah, but I'm afraid I've bored you
+stayin' too long.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sit down,&rdquo; said the other, peremptorily&mdash;&ldquo;you
+will need something to help you along the road. Shall
+we take another?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>So they took yet another drink, and Carpenter went
+out, calling his dog.</p>
+
+<p>Travis stood in the doorway and watched them go
+down the driveway. They both staggered lazily along.
+Travis smiled: &ldquo;Both drunk&mdash;the dog on ham.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As he turned to go in, he reeled slightly himself, but
+he did not notice it.</p>
+
+<p>When he came back he was restless. He looked at
+the clock. &ldquo;Too early for bed,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'd give
+a ten if Charley Biggers were here with his little cocktail
+laugh to try me a game of poker.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he went to the window, and taking a small
+silver whistle from his pocket he blew it toward the
+stables. Soon afterwards a well dressed mulatto boy
+entered.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How are the horses to-night, Jim?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fine, sir&mdash;all eatin' well an' feelin' good.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And Coquette&mdash;the saddle mare?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Like split silk, sir.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Exercise her to-morrow under the saddle, and Sunday
+afternoon we will give Miss Alice her first ride on
+her&mdash;she's to be a present for her on her birth-day,
+you know&mdash;eh?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jim bowed and started out.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You may fix my bath now&mdash;think I'll retire. O
+Jim!&rdquo; he called, &ldquo;see that Antar, the stallion, is securely
+stalled. You know how dangerous he is.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He was just dozing off when the front door closed
+with a bang.</p>
+
+<p>Then a metal whip handle thumped heavily on the
+floor and the jingling of a spur rattled over the hall
+floor, as Harry Travis boisterously went down the hall,
+singing tipsily,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Oh, Johnny, my dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Just think of your head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Just think of your head<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the morning.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>Another door banged so loudly it awakened even the
+setter. The old dog came to the side of the bed and
+laid his head affectionately in Travis' palm. The master
+of The Gaffs stroked his head, saying: &ldquo;It is
+strange that I love this old dog so.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+<h3>FOOD FOR THE FACTORY</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">T</span>he next morning being Saturday, Carpenter, the
+Whipper-in, mounted his Texas pony and started
+out toward the foothills of the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the pommel of his saddle lay a long single-barreled
+squirrel gun, for the hills were full of squirrels,
+and Jud was fond of a tender one, now and then. Behind
+him, as usual, trotted Bonaparte, his sullen eyes
+looking for an opportunity to jump on any timid country
+dog which happened along.</p>
+
+<p>There are two things for which all mills must be
+prepared&mdash;the wear and tear of Time on the machinery&mdash;the
+wear and tear of Death on the frail things
+who yearly work out their lives before it.</p>
+
+<p>In the fight for life between the machine and the
+human labor, in the race of life for that which men call
+success, who cares for the life of one little mill hand?
+And what is one tot of them from another? And if
+one die one month and another the next, and another the
+next and the next, year in and year out, who remembers
+it save some poverty-hardened, stooped and benumbed
+creature, surrounded by a scrawny brood calling ever
+for bread?</p>
+
+<p>The world knows not&mdash;cares not&mdash;for its tiny life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+is but a thread in the warp of the great Drawing-in
+Machine.</p>
+
+<p>So fearful is the strain upon the nerve and brain
+and body of the little things, that every year many
+of them pass away&mdash;slowly, surely, quietly&mdash;so imperceptibly
+that the mill people themselves scarcely miss
+them. And what does it matter? Are there not hundreds
+of others, born of ignorance and poverty and
+<span class="hover" title="pair">pain</span>, to take their places?</p>
+
+<p>And the dead ones&mdash;unknown, they simply pass into
+a Greater Unknown. Their places are filled with fresh
+victims&mdash;innocents, whom Passion begets with a caress
+and Cupidity buys with a curse. Children they are&mdash;tots&mdash;and
+why should they know that they are trading&mdash;life
+for death?</p>
+
+<p>It was a bright fall morning, and Jud Carpenter
+rode toward the mountain a few miles away. They are
+scarcely mountains&mdash;these beautifully wooded hills in
+the Tennessee Valley, hooded by blue in the day and
+shrouded in somber at night; but it pleases the people
+who live within the sweet influence of their shadows to
+call them mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Jud knew where he was going, and he rode leisurely
+along, revolving in his mind the plan of his campaign.
+He needed the recruits for the Acme Mills, and in all
+his past experience as an employment agent he had
+never undertaken to bring in a family where as much
+tact and diplomacy was required as in this case.</p>
+
+<p>It was a dilapidated gate at which he drew rein.
+There had once been handsome pillars of stone and
+brick, but these had fallen and the gate had been swung<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+on a convenient locust tree that had sprung up and
+grown with its usual rapidity from its sheltered nook
+near the crumbling rock wall. Only one end of the
+gate was hung; and it lay diagonally across the entrance
+of what had once been a thousand acres of the
+finest farm in the Tennessee Valley.</p>
+
+<p>Dismounting, Jud hitched his horse and set his gun
+beside the tree; and as it was easier to climb over the
+broken-down fence than to lift the gate around, he
+stepped over and then shuffled along in his lazy way
+toward the house.</p>
+
+<p>It was an old farmhouse, now devoid of paint; and
+the path to it had once been a well-kept gravel walk,
+lined with cedars; but the box-plants, having felt no
+pruning shears for years, almost filled, with their fantastically
+jagged boughs, the narrow path, while the
+cedars tossed about their broken and dead limbs.</p>
+
+<p>The tall, square pillars in the house, from dado above
+to where they rested in the brick base below, showed the
+naked wood, untouched so long by paint that it had
+grown furzy from rain and snow, and splintery from
+sun and heat. Its green shutters hung, some of them,
+on one hinge; and those which could be closed, were
+shut up close and sombre under the casements.</p>
+
+<p>A half dozen hounds came baying and barking
+around him. As Jud proceeded, others poured out from
+under the house. All were ribby, and half starved.</p>
+
+<p>Without a moment's hesitation they promptly covered
+Bonaparte, much to the delight of that genius. Indeed,
+from the half-satisfied, half malignant snarl which lit up
+his face as they piled rashly and brainlessly on him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+Jud took it that Bonaparte had trotted all these miles
+just to breakfast on this remnant of hound on the half-shell.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes Bonaparte's terrible, flashing teeth
+had them flying in every direction.</p>
+
+<p>Jud promptly cuffed him back to the gate and bade
+him wait there.</p>
+
+<p>On the front portico, his chair half-tilted back, his
+trousers in his boot legs, and his feet on the balustrade
+rim, the uprights of which were knocked out here and
+there, like broken teeth in a comb,&mdash;sat a man in a
+slouch hat, smoking a cob pipe. He was in his shirt
+sleeves. His face was flushed and red; his eyes were
+watery, bleared. His head was fine and long&mdash;his
+nose and chin seemed to meet in a sharp point. His
+face showed that form of despair so common in those
+whom whiskey has helped to degenerate. He did not
+smile&mdash;he scowled continuously, and his voice had been
+imprecatory so long that it whined in the same falsetto
+twang as one of his hounds.</p>
+
+<p>Jud stepped forward and bowed obsequiously.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How are you to-day, Majah, sah?&rdquo; he asked while
+his puckered and wrinkled face tried to smile.</p>
+
+<p>Jud was chameleon. Long experience had taught
+him to drop instinctively into the mannerism&mdash;even
+the dialect&mdash;of those he hoped to cajole. With the
+well-bred he could speak glibly, and had airs himself.
+With the illiterate and the low-bred, he could out-Caliban
+the herd of them.</p>
+
+<p>The man did not take the pipe out of his mouth.
+He did not even turn his head. Only his two bleared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+eyes shot sidewise down to the ground, where ten feet
+below him stood the employment agent of the mills,
+smiling, smirking, and doing his best to spell out on
+the signboard of his unscrupulous face the fact that he
+came in peace and good will.</p>
+
+<p>Major Edward Conway scarcely grunted&mdash;it might
+have been anything from an oath to an eructation.
+Then, taking his pipe-stem from between his teeth, and
+shifting his tobacco in his mouth,&mdash;for he was both
+chewing and smoking&mdash;he expectorated squarely into
+the eyes of a hound which had followed Jud up the
+steps, barking and snarling at his heels.</p>
+
+<p>He was a good marksman even with spittle, and the
+dog fled, whining.</p>
+
+<p>Then he answered, with an oath, that he was about
+as well as the rheumatism and the beastly weather would
+permit.</p>
+
+<p>Jud came up uninvited and sat down. The Major
+did not even turn his head. The last of a long line of
+gentlemen did not waste his manners on one beneath
+him socially.</p>
+
+<p>Jud was discreetly silent, and soon the Major began
+to tell all of his troubles, but in the tone of one who
+was talking to his servant and with many oaths and
+much bitterness:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You see it's this damned rheumatism, Carpenter.
+Las' night, suh, I had to drink a quart of whiskey befo'
+I cu'd go to sleep at all. It came on me soon aftah
+I come out of the wah, an' it growed on me like jim'son
+weeds in a hog-pen. My appetite's quit on me&mdash;two
+pints of whiskey an' wild-cherry bark a day, suh, don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+seem to help it at all, suh. I cyant tell whut the devil's
+the matter with my stomach. Nothin' I eat or drink
+seems to agree with me but whiskey. If I drink this
+malarial water, suh, m'legs an' m'feet begin to swell.
+I have to go back to whiskey. Damn me, but I was born
+for Kentucky. Why, I've got a forty dollar thirst on
+me this very minute. I'm so dry I cu'd kick up a dust
+in a hog wallow. Maybe, though, it's this rotten stuff
+that cross-roads Jew is sellin' me an' callin' it whiskey.
+He's got a mortgage on everything here but the houn's
+and the house cat, an' he's tryin' to see if he cyant kill
+me with his bug-juice an' save a suit in Chancery.
+I'm goin' to sen' off an' see if I cyant git another bran'
+of it, suh.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Edward Conway was the type of the Southerner
+wrecked financially and morally by the war. His father
+and grandfather had owned Millwood, and the present
+owner had gone into the war a carefully educated, well
+reared youth of twenty. He came out of it alive, it is
+true, but, like many another fine youth of both North
+and South, addicted to drink.</p>
+
+<p>The brutality of war lies not alone in death&mdash;it is
+often more fatal, more degenerating, in the life it leaves
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>Coming out of the war, Conway found, as did all
+others in the Tennessee Valley who sided with the
+South, that his home was a wreck. Not a fence, even,
+remained&mdash;nothing but the old home&mdash;shutterless,
+plasterless, its roof rotten, its cellar the abode of hogs.</p>
+
+<p>Thousands of others found themselves likewise&mdash;brave
+hearts&mdash;men they proved themselves to be&mdash;in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+that they built up their homes out of wreck and their
+country out of chaos.</p>
+
+<p>The man who retrieves his fortune under the protecting
+arm of law and order is worthy of great praise;
+but he who does it in the surly, snarling teeth of Disorder
+itself is worthy of still greater praise.</p>
+
+<p>And the real soldier is not he with his battles and his
+bravery. All animals will fight&mdash;it is instinct. But
+he who conquers in the great moral battle of peace and
+good government, overcoming prejudice, ignorance,
+poverty and even injustice, till he rises to the height of
+the brave whose deeds do vindicate them&mdash;this is the
+real soldier.</p>
+
+<p>Thousands of Southern soldiers did this, but Edward
+Conway had not been one of them. For where whiskey
+sits he holds a scepter whose staff is the body of the
+Upas tree, and there is no room for the oak of thrift or
+the wild-flower of sweetness underneath.</p>
+
+<p>From poverty to worse poverty Edward Conway had
+gone, until now, hopelessly mortgaged, hopelessly besotted,
+hopelessly soured, he lived the diseased product
+of weakness, developed through stimulated inactivity.</p>
+
+<p>Nature is inexorable, morally, physically, mentally,
+and as two generations of atheists will beget a thief,
+so will two generations of idle rich beget nonentities.</p>
+
+<p>On this particular morning that Jud Carpenter came,
+things had reached a crisis with Edward Conway. By
+a decree of the court, the last hope he had of retaining
+a portion of his family estate had been swept away,
+and the entire estate was to be advertised for sale, to
+satisfy a mortgage and judgment. It is true, he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+the two years of redemption under the Alabama law,
+but can a drunkard redeem his land when he can not
+redeem himself?</p>
+
+<p>And so, partly from despair, and partly from that
+instinct which makes even the most sensitive of mortals
+wish to pour their secret troubles into another's ear,
+partly even from drunken recklessness, Edward Conway
+sat on his verandah this morning and poured his troubles
+into the designing ear of Jud Carpenter. The refrain
+of his woe was that luck&mdash;luck&mdash;remorseless luck
+was against him.</p>
+
+<p>Luck, since the beginning of the world, has been the
+cry of him who gambles with destiny. Work is the
+watchword of the man who believes in himself.</p>
+
+<p>This thing went because that man had been against
+him, and this went because of the faithlessness of another.
+His health&mdash;well, that was God's doing.</p>
+
+<p>Jud was too shrewd to let him know that he thought
+whiskey had anything to do with it&mdash;and so, very
+cautiously did the employment agent proceed.</p>
+
+<p>A child with sunny hair and bright eyes ran across the
+yard. She was followed by an old black mammy,
+whose anxiety for fear her charge might get her clothes
+soiled was plainly evident; from the parlor came the
+notes of an old piano, sadly out of tune, and Jud could
+hear the fine voice of another daughter singing a love
+ballad.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You've got two mighty pyeart gyrls here,&rdquo; at last
+he ventured.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course, they are, suh,&rdquo; snapped their father&mdash;&ldquo;they
+are Conways.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ever think of it, sah,&rdquo; went on Jud, &ldquo;that they
+could make you a livin' in the mill?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Conway was silent. In truth, he had thought of
+that very thing. To-day, however, he was nerved and
+desperate, being more besotted than usual.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, look aheah&mdash;it's this way,&rdquo; went on Jud&mdash;&ldquo;you're
+gettin' along in age and you need res'. You've
+been wuckin' too hard. I tell you, Majah, sah, you're
+dead game&mdash;no other man I know of would have stood
+up under the burdens you've had on yo' shoulders.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Major drew himself up: &ldquo;That's a family trait
+of the Conways, suh.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wal, it's time for you to res' awhile. No use to
+drive a willin' hoss to death. I can get a place for both
+of the gyrls in the mill, an' aftah the fust month&mdash;aftah
+they learn the job, they can earn enough to support
+you comf't'bly. Now, we'll give you a nice little
+cottage&mdash;no bother of keepin' up a big run-down
+place like this&mdash;jes' a neat little cottage. Aunt
+Mariah can keep it in nice fix. The gyrls will be employed
+and busy an' you can jes' live comf't'bly, an'
+res'. An' say,&rdquo; he added, slyly&mdash;&ldquo;you can get all the
+credit at the Company's sto' you want an' I'm thinkin'
+you'll find a better brand of licker than that you've
+been samplin'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Besotted as he was&mdash;hardened and discouraged&mdash;the
+proposition came over Conway with a wave of
+shame. Even through his weakened mind the old instinct
+of the gentleman asserted itself, and for a moment
+the sweet refined face of a beautiful dead wife,
+the delicate beauty of a little daughter, the queenliness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+of an elder one, all the product of good breeding and
+rearing, came over him. He sprang to his feet.
+&ldquo;What do you mean, suh? My daughters&mdash;grandchildren
+of Gen. Leonidas Conway&mdash;my daughters
+work in the mill by the side of that poor trash from the
+mountains? I'll see you damned first.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He sat down&mdash;he bowed his head in his hands. A
+glinty look came into his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Jud drew his chair up closer: &ldquo;But jes' think a
+minute&mdash;you're sold out&mdash;you've got no whur to go,
+you've wuck'd yo'self down tryin' to save the farm.
+We've all got to wuck these days. The war has changed
+all the old order of things. We havn't got any mo'
+slaves.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We,&rdquo;&mdash;repeated Conway, and he looked at the
+man and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>Jud flushed even through his sallow skin:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wal, that's all right,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;Listen to me,
+now, I'm tryin' to save you from trouble. The war
+changed everything. Your folks got to whur they did
+by wuckin'. They built up this big estate by economy
+an' wuck. Now, you mus' do it. You've got the old
+dead-game Conway breedin' in yo' bones an' you've
+got the brains, too.&rdquo; He lowered his voice: &ldquo;It's only
+for a little while&mdash;jes' a year or so&mdash;it'll give you a
+nice little home to live in while you brace up an' pull
+out of debt an' redeem yo' farm. Here&mdash;it is only
+for a year or so&mdash;sign this&mdash;givin' you a home, an'
+start all over in life&mdash;sign it right there, only for a
+little while&mdash;a chance to git on yo' feet&mdash;.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Conway scarcely knew how it happened that he signed&mdash;for
+Jud quickly changed the subject.</p>
+
+<p>After a while Jud arose to go. As he did so, Lily,
+the little daughter, came out, and putting her arms
+around her father's neck, kissed him and said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Papa&mdash;luncheon is served, and oh, do come on!
+Mammy and Helen and I are so hungry.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mammy Maria had followed her and stood deferentially
+behind the chair. And as Jud went away he
+thought he saw in the old woman's eyes, as she watched
+him, a trace of that fine scorn bred of generations of
+gentleness, but which whiskey had destroyed in the
+master.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+<h3>THE FLY CATCHER CAUGHT</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">A</span>s Jud went out of the dilapidated gate at Millwood,
+he chuckled to himself. He had, indeed,
+accomplished something. He had gained
+a decided advance in the labor circles of the mill.
+He had broken into the heretofore overpowering prejudice
+the better class had against the mill, for he held in
+his possession the paper wherein an aristocrat had signed
+his two daughters into it. Wouldn't Richard Travis
+chuckle with him?</p>
+
+<p>In the South social standing is everything.</p>
+
+<p>To have the mill represented by a first family&mdash;even
+if brought to poverty through drunkenness&mdash;was
+an entering wedge.</p>
+
+<p>His next job was easier. A mile farther on, the
+poor lands of the mountain side began. Up on the
+slope was a cabin, in the poorest and rockiest portion
+of it, around the door of which half a dozen cracker
+children stared at Jud with unfeigned interest as he
+rode up.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Light an' look at yer saddle&rdquo;&mdash;came from a typical
+Hillite within, as Jud stopped.</p>
+
+<p>Jud promptly complied&mdash;alighted and looked at his
+saddle.</p>
+
+<p>A cur&mdash;which, despite his breeding, is always a keen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+detective of character&mdash;followed him, barking at his
+heels.</p>
+
+<p>This one knew Jud as instinctively and as accurately
+as he knew a fresh bone from a rank one&mdash;by smell.
+He was also a judge of other dogs and, catching sight
+of Bonaparte, his anger suddenly fled and he with it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Won't you set down an' res' yo' hat?&rdquo; came invitingly
+from the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>Jud sat down and rested his hat.</p>
+
+<p>A tall, lank woman, smoking a cob pipe which had
+grown black with age and Samsonian in strength, came
+from the next room. She merely ducked her long, sharp
+nose at Jud and, pretending to be busily engaged around
+the room, listened closely to all that was said.</p>
+
+<p>Jud told the latest news, spoke of the weather and
+made many familiar comments as he talked. Then he
+began to draw out the man and woman. They were
+poor, child-burdened and dissatisfied. Gradually, carefully,
+he talked mill and the blessings of it. He drew
+glorious pictures of the house he would take them to,
+its conveniences&mdash;the opportunities of the town for
+them all. He took up the case of each of the six
+children, running from the tot of six to the girl of
+twenty, and showed what they could earn.</p>
+
+<p>In all it amounted to sixteen dollars a week.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You sho'ly don't mean it comes to sixteen dollars
+ev'y week,&rdquo; said the woman, taking the cob pipe out for
+the first time, long enough to spit and wipe her mouth
+on the back of her hand, &ldquo;an' all in silver an' all
+our'n?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Why that thar is mo' money'n<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+we've seed this year. What do you say to tryin' it,
+Josiah?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Josiah was willing. &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;we
+needn't stay thar longer'n a year or so. We'll git the
+money an' then come back an' buy a good piece of land.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he stopped and fired this point blank at
+Jud: &ldquo;But see heah, Mister-man, is thar any niggers
+thar? Do we hafter wuck with niggers?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud looked indignant. It was enough.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of an hour the family head had signed for
+a five years' contract. They would move the next week.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cash&mdash;think of it&mdash;cash ever' week. An' in silver,
+too,&rdquo; said the woman. &ldquo;Why, I dunno hardly how
+it'll feel. I'm afeared it mou't gin me the eetch.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud, when he left, had induced their parents to sell
+five children into slavery for five years.</p>
+
+<p>It meant for life.</p>
+
+<p>And both parents declared when he left that never
+before had they &ldquo;seed sech a nice man.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud had nearly reached the town when he passed,
+high up on the level plateau by which the mountain road
+now ran, the comfortable home of Elder Butts. Peach
+and apple trees adorned the yard, while bee-hives sat in a
+corner under the shade of them behind the cottage.
+The tinkle of a sheep bell told of a flock of sheep nearby.
+A neatly painted new wagon stood under the shed by
+the house, and all around was an air of thrift and
+work.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now if I cu'd git that Butts family,&rdquo; he mused,
+&ldquo;I'd have something to crow about when I got back to
+Kingsley to-night. He's got a little farm an' is well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+to do an' is thrifty, an' if I cu'd only git that class
+started in the mill an' contented to wuck there, it 'ud
+open up a new class of people. There's that Archie B.&mdash;confound
+him, he cu'd run ten machines at onct and
+never know it. I'd like to sweat that bottled mischief
+out of him a year or two.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hello!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud drew his horse up with a jerk. Above him, with
+legs locked, high up around the body of a dead willow,
+his seat the stump of a broken bough and fully twenty
+feet above the employment agent's head, sat Archie B.,
+a freckled-faced lad, with fiery red hair and a world of
+fun in his blue eyes. He was one of the Butts twins and
+the very object of the Whipper-in's thoughts. From
+his head to his feet he had on but three garments&mdash;a
+small, battered, all-wool hat, a coarse cotton shirt, wide
+open at the neck, and a pair of jeans pants which came
+to his knees. But in the pockets of his pants were small
+samples of everything of wood and field, from shells of
+rare bird eggs to a small supply of Gypsy Juice.</p>
+
+<p>His pockets were miniature museums of nature.</p>
+
+<p>No one but a small boy, bent on fun, knows what
+Gypsy Juice is. No adult has ever been able to procure
+its formula and no small boy in the South cares, so
+long as he can get it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The thing that hit does,&rdquo; Archie B. explained to
+his timid and pious twin brother, Ozzie B., &ldquo;is ter make
+anything it touches that wears hair git up and git.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Coons, possums, dogs, cats&mdash;with now and then a
+country horse or mule, hitched to the town rack&mdash;with
+these, and a small vial of Gypsy Juice, Archie B., as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+expressed it, &ldquo;had mo' fun to the square inch than ole
+Barnum's show ever hilt in all its tents.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud stood a moment watching the boy. It was easy
+to see what Archie B. was after. In the body of the
+dead tree a wood-pecker had chiseled out a round hole.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hello, yo'se'f&rdquo;&mdash;finally drawled Jud&mdash;&ldquo;whatcher
+doin' up thar?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, I am goin' to see if this is a wood-pecker's
+nes' or a fly-ketcher's.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bonaparte caught his cue at once and ran to the foot
+of the tree barking viciously, daring the tree-climber
+to come down. His vicious eyes danced gleefully. He
+looked at his master between his snarls as much as to
+say: &ldquo;Well, this is great, to tree the real live son
+of the all-conquering man!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It maddened him, too, to see the supreme indifference
+with which the all-conqueror's son treated his presence.</p>
+
+<p>Jud grunted. He prided himself on his bird-lore.
+Finally he said: &ldquo;Wal, any fool could tell you&mdash;it's
+a wood-pecker's nest.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, that's so and jus' exacly what a fool 'ud say,&rdquo;
+came back from the tree. &ldquo;But it 'ud be because he is
+a fool, tho', an' don't see things as they be. It's a
+fly-ketcher's nest, for all that&mdash;&rdquo; he added.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Teach yo' gran'-mammy how to milk the house cat,&rdquo;
+sneered Jud, while Bonaparte grew furious again with
+this added insult. &ldquo;Don't you know a wood-pecker's
+nest when you see it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Archie B., &ldquo;an' I also know a fly-ketcher
+will whip a wood-pecker and take his nes' from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+him, an' I've come up here to see if it's so with this
+one.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Jud, surprised, &ldquo;an' what is it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jus' as I said&mdash;he's whipped the wood-pecker an'
+tuck his nes'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What's a fly-ketcher, Mister Know-It-All?&rdquo; said
+Jud. Then he grinned derisively.</p>
+
+<p>Bonaparte, watching his master, ran around the tree
+again and squatting on his stump of a tail grinned likewise.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A fly-ketcher,&rdquo; said Archie B. calmly, &ldquo;is a sneaking
+sort of a bird, that ketches flies an' little helpless insects
+for a&mdash;mill, maybe. Do you know any two-legged
+fly-ketchers a-doin' that?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud glared at him, and Bonaparte grew so angry that
+he snapped viciously at the bark of the tree as if he
+would tear it down.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What do you mean, you little imp?&mdash;what mill?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why his stomach,&rdquo; drawled Archie B., &ldquo;it's a little
+differunt from a cotton-mill, but it grinds 'em to death
+all the same.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud looked up again. He glared at Archie B.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How do you know that's a fly-ketcher's nest and
+not a wood-pecker's, then?&rdquo; he asked, to change the
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's what I'd like to know, too,&rdquo; said Bonaparte
+as plainly as his growls and two mean eyes could say it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If it's a fly-ketcher's, the nest will be lined with a
+snake's-skin,&rdquo; said Archie B. &ldquo;That's nachrul, ain't
+it,&rdquo; he added&mdash;&ldquo;the nest of all sech is lined with snake-skins.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bonaparte, one of whose chief amusements in life was
+killing snakes, seemed to think this a personal thrust at
+himself, for he flew around the tree with renewed rage
+while Archie B., safe on his high perch, made faces at
+him and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll bet it ain't that way,&rdquo; said Jud, rattled and discomfited
+and shifting his long squirrel gun across his
+saddle. Archie B. replied by carefully thrusting a
+brown sunburnt arm into the hole and bringing out a
+nest. &ldquo;Now, a wood-pecker's egg,&rdquo; he said, carefully
+lifting an egg out and then replacing it, &ldquo;'ud be pearly
+white.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How did you learn all that?&rdquo; sneered Jud.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, by keepin' out of a cotton mill an' usin' my
+eye,&rdquo; said Archie B., winking at Bonaparte.</p>
+
+<p>Bonaparte glared back.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'd like to git you into the mill,&rdquo; said Jud. &ldquo;I'd
+put you to wuck doin' somethin' that 'ud be worth
+while.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes, you would for a few years,&rdquo; sneered back
+Archie B. &ldquo;Then you'd put me under the groun',
+where I'd have plenty o' time to res'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'm goin' up there now to see yo' folks an' see if I
+can't git you into the mill.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you are?&mdash;Well, don't be in sech a hurry an'
+look heah at yo' snake-skin fust&mdash;didn't I tell you it
+'ud be lined with a snake-skin?&rdquo; And he threw down a
+last year's snake-skin which Bonaparte proceeded to
+rend with great fury.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, come under here,&rdquo; went on Archie B. persuasively,
+&ldquo;and I'll sho' you they're not pearly white, like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+a wood-pecker's, but cream-colored with little purple
+splotches scratched over 'em&mdash;like a fly-ketcher's.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud rode under and looked up. As he did so Archie
+B. suddenly turned the nest upside down, that Jud
+might see the eggs, and as he looked up four eggs shot
+out before he could duck his head, and caught him
+squarely between his shaggy eyes. Blinded, smeared
+with yelk and smarting with his eyes full of fine broken
+shell, he scrambled from his horse, with many oaths, and
+began feeling for the little branch of water which ran
+nearby.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll cut that tree down, but I'll git you and wring
+yo' neck,&rdquo; he shouted, while Bonaparte endeavored to
+tear it down with his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>But Archie B. did not wait. Slowly he slid down
+the tree, while Bonaparte, thunder-struck with joy,
+waited at the foot, his eyes glaring, his mouth wide open,
+anticipating the feast on fresh boy meat. Can he
+be&mdash;dare he be&mdash;coming down? Right into my jaws,
+too? The very thought of it stopped his snarls.</p>
+
+<p>Jud's curses filled the air.</p>
+
+<p>Down&mdash;down, slid Archie B., both legs locked
+around the tree, until some ten feet above the dog, and,
+then tantalizingly, just out of reach, he suddenly
+tightened his brown brakes of legs, and thrusting his
+hand in his pocket, pulled out a small rubber ball.
+Reaching over, he squirted half of its contents over the
+dog, which still sat snarling, half in fury and half in
+wonder.</p>
+
+<p>Then something happened. Jud could not see, being
+down on his knees in the little stream, washing his eyes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+but he first heard demoniacal barks proceed from Bonaparte,
+ending in wailful snorts, howls and whines, beginning
+at the foot of the tree and echoing in a fast
+vanishing wail toward home.</p>
+
+<p>Jud got one eye in working order soon enough to see
+a cloud of sand and dust rolling down the road, from the
+rear of which only the stub of a tail could be seen,
+curled spasmodically downward toward the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Jud could scarcely believe his eyes&mdash;Bonaparte&mdash;the
+champion dog&mdash;running&mdash;running like that?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Whut&mdash;whut&mdash;whut,&rdquo;&mdash;he stammered, &ldquo;Whut
+<i>did he do</i> to Bonaparte?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he saw Archie B. up the road toward home,
+rolling in the sand with shouts of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If I git my hands on you,&rdquo; yelled Jud, shaking his
+fist at the boy, &ldquo;I'll swaller you alive.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's what the fly-ketcher said to the butterfly,&rdquo;
+shouted back Archie B.</p>
+
+<p>It was a half hour before Jud got all the fine eggshell
+out of his eyes. After that he decided to let the
+Butts family alone for the present. But as he rode
+away he was heard to say again:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Whut&mdash;whut&mdash;whut <i>did he do</i> to Bonaparte?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. was still rolling on the ground, and chuckling
+now and then in fits of laughter, when a determined,
+motherly looking, fat girl appeared at the doorway of
+the family cottage. It was his sister, Patsy Butts:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Maw,&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;I wish you'd look at Archie
+B. I bet he's done sump'in.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was a parental manner in her way. Her one
+object in life, evidently, was to watch Archie B.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You Archie B.,&rdquo; yelled his mother, a sallow little
+woman of quick nervous movements, &ldquo;air you havin' a
+revulsion down there? What air you been doin' anyway?
+Now, you git up from there and go see why
+Ozzie B. don't fetch the cows home.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. arose and went down the road whistling.</p>
+
+<p>A ground squirrel ran into a pile of rocks. Archie
+B. turned the rocks about until he found the nest, which
+he examined critically and with care. He fingered it
+carefully and patted it back into shape. &ldquo;Nice little
+nes',&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;that settles it&mdash;I thought they lined
+it with fur.&rdquo; Then he replaced the rocks and arose
+to go.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of a mile down the road he stopped and
+listened.</p>
+
+<p>He heard his brother, Ozzie B., sobbing and weeping.</p>
+
+<p>Ozzie B. was his twin brother&mdash;his &ldquo;after clap&rdquo;&mdash;as
+Archie B. called him. He was timid, uncertain,
+pious and given to tears&mdash;&ldquo;bo'hn on a wet Friday&rdquo;&mdash;as
+Archie B. had often said. He was always the effect
+of Archie B.'s cause, the illustration of his theorem, the
+solution of his problem of mischief, the penalty of his
+misdemeanors.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Ozzie B. came in sight, hatless and driving
+his cows along, but sobbing in that hiccoughy way which
+is the final stage of an acute thrashing.</p>
+
+<p>No one saw more quickly than Archie B., and he
+knew instantly that his brother had met Jud Carpenter,
+on his way back to the mill.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He's caught my lickin' ag'in,&rdquo; said Archie B., indignantly&mdash;&ldquo;it's
+a pity he looks so much like me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was true, and Ozzie B. stood and dug one toe into
+the ground, and sobbed and wiped his eyes on his shirt
+sleeve, and told how, in spite of his explanations and
+beseechings, the Whipper-in had met him down the road
+and thrashed him unmercifully.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ozzie B.,&rdquo; said his brother, &ldquo;you make me tired all
+over and in spots. I hate for as big a fool as you to
+look like me. Whyncher run&mdash;whyncher dodge him?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;wanted ter do my duty,&rdquo; sobbed Ozzie B.
+&ldquo;Maw tole me ter drive&mdash;drive the cows right up the
+road&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. surveyed him with fine scorn:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When the Devil's got the road,&rdquo; said Archie B.,
+&ldquo;decent fo'ks had better take to the wood. I'd fixed
+him an' his ole dorg, an' now you come along an' spile
+it all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He made a cross mark in the road and spat on it.
+Then he turned with his back to the cross, threw his hat
+over his head and said slowly: &ldquo;<i>Venture pee wee under
+the bridge! bam&mdash;bam&mdash;bam!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What's that fur?&rdquo; asked Ozzie B., as he ceased
+sobbing. His brother always had something new, and it
+was always absorbingly interesting to Ozzie B.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That,&rdquo; said Archie B., solemnly, &ldquo;I allers say after
+meetin' a Jonah in the road. The spell is now broke.
+Jus' watch me fix Jud Carpenter agin. Wanter see me
+git even with him? Well, come along.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What'll you do?&rdquo; asked Ozzie B.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll make that mustang break his neck for the way
+he treated you, or my name ain't Archie B. Butts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>&mdash;that's
+all. <i>Venture pee wee under the bridge, bam&mdash;bam&mdash;bam!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;oo&mdash;no,&rdquo; began Ozzie B., beginning to cry
+again&mdash;&ldquo;Don't kill 'im&mdash;it'll be cruel.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't wanter see me go an' git even with the man
+that's jus' licked you for nuthin'?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;oo&mdash;no&mdash;&rdquo; sobbed Ozzie B. &ldquo;Paw says&mdash;leave&mdash;leave&mdash;that
+for&mdash;the Lord.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tarnashun!&rdquo;&mdash;said Archie B., spitting on the
+ground, disgustedly&mdash;, &ldquo;too much relig'un is a dang'us
+thing. You've got all of paw's relig'un an' maw's
+brains, an' that's 'nuff said.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>With this he kicked Ozzie B. soundly and sent him,
+still sobbing, up the road.</p>
+
+<p>Then he ran across the wood to head off Jud Carpenter,
+who he knew had to go around a bend in the road.</p>
+
+<p>There was no bird that Archie B. could not mimic.
+He knew every creature of the wood. Every wild thing
+of the field and forest was his friend. Slipping into
+the underbrush, a hundred yards from the road down
+which he knew Jud Carpenter had to ride, he prepared
+himself for action.</p>
+
+<p>Drawing a turkey-call from his pocket, he gave the
+call of the wild turkey going to roost, as softly as a
+violinist tries his instrument to see if it is in tune.</p>
+
+<p>Prut&mdash;prut&mdash;prut&mdash;it rang out clear and distinctly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo;&mdash;he said&mdash;&ldquo;she'll do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He had not long to wait. Up the road he soon saw
+the Whipper-in, riding leisurely along.</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. swelled with anger at sight of the compla<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>cent
+and satisfactory way he rode along. He even
+thought he saw a smile&mdash;a kind of even-up smile&mdash;light
+his face.</p>
+
+<p>When opposite his hiding place, Archie B. put his
+call to his mouth: <i>Prut&mdash;Prut&mdash;P-R-U-T</i>&mdash;it
+rang out. Then <i>Prut&mdash;prut</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Jud Carpenter stopped his horse instantly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Turkeys goin' to roost.&rdquo;&mdash;he muttered. He listened
+for the direction.</p>
+
+<p><i>Prut&mdash;Prut</i>&mdash;it came out of the bushes on the
+right&mdash;a hundred yards away under a beech tree.</p>
+
+<p>Jud listened: &ldquo;Eatin' beech-mast,&rdquo;&mdash;he said, and
+he slipped off his pony, tied him quietly to the limb of
+a sweet-gum tree, and cocking his long gun, slipped
+into the wood.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later he heard the sound still farther off.
+&ldquo;They're walkin',&rdquo; muttered Jud&mdash;&ldquo;I mus' head 'em
+off.&rdquo; Then he pushed on rapidly into the forest.</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. let him go&mdash;then, making a short circuit,
+slipped like an Indian through the wood, and came up
+to the pony hitched on the road side.</p>
+
+<p>Quietly removing the saddle and blanket, he took two
+tough prickly burrs of the sweet-gum and placed one on
+each side of the pony's spine, where the saddle would
+rest. Then he put the blanket and saddle back, taking
+care to place them on very gently and tighten the girth
+but lightly.</p>
+
+<p>He shook all over with suppressed mirth as he went
+farther into the wood, and lay down on the mossy bank
+behind a clay-root to watch the performance.</p>
+
+<p>It was a quarter of an hour before Jud, thoroughly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+tired and disgusted, gave up the useless search and came
+back.</p>
+
+<p>Untying the pony, he threw the bridle rein over
+its head and vaulted lightly into the saddle.</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. grabbed the clay-root and stuffed his wool
+hat into his mouth just in time.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was worth a dollar,&rdquo; he told Ozzie B. that night,
+after they had retired to their trundle bed. &ldquo;The pony
+squatted fust mighty nigh to the groun'&mdash;then he riz
+a-buckin'. I seed Jud's coat-tail a-turnin' summersets
+through the air, the saddle and blanket a-followin'. I
+heard him when he hit the swamp hole on the side of the
+road <i>kersplash!</i>&mdash;an' the pony skeered speechless went
+off tearin' to-ards home. Then I hollered out: '<i>Go
+it ole, fly-ketcher&mdash;you're as good for tad-poles as you
+is for bird-eggs</i>'&mdash;an' I lit out through the wood.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ozzie B. burst out crying: &ldquo;Oh, Archie B., do you
+reckin the po' man got hurt?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. replied by kicking him in the ribs until he
+ceased crying.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Say yo' prayers now and go to sleep. I'll kick
+you m'se'f, but I'll lick anybody else that does it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As Ozzie B. dozed off he heard:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Venture pee-wee under the bridge&mdash;bam&mdash;bam&mdash;bam.</i>
+Oh, Lord, you who made the tar'nal fools of this
+world, have mussy on 'em!&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<h3>THE FLINT AND THE COAL</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">L</span>ove is love and there is nothing in all the world
+like it. Its romance comes but once, and it is
+the perfume that precedes the ripened fruit of
+all after life. It is not amenable to any of the laws of
+reason; nor subject to any law of logic; nor can it be
+explained by the analogy of anything in heaven or
+earth. Do not, therefore, try to reason about it. Only
+love once&mdash;and in youth&mdash;and be forever silent.</p>
+
+<p>One of the mysteries of love to older ones is that
+two young people may become engaged and never a
+word be spoken. Put the girl in a convent, even, and
+let the boy but walk past, and the thing is done. They
+look and love, and the understanding is complete. They
+see and sigh, and read each other's secret thoughts, past
+and present&mdash;each other's hopes, fears.</p>
+
+<p>They sigh and are engaged, and there is perfect understanding.</p>
+
+<p>Time and Romance travel not together. Time must
+hurry on. Romance would loiter by the way. And so
+Romance, in her completeness, loves to dwell most where
+Time, traveling over the mile-tracks of the tropics,
+which belong by heredity to Alabama&mdash;stalks slower
+than on those strenuous half-mile tracks that spin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+around the earth in latitudes which grow smaller as they
+approach the frozen pole.</p>
+
+<p>The sun had reached, in his day's journey, the bald
+knob of Sunset Peak, and there, behind it, seemed to
+stop. At least to Helen Conway, born and reared under
+the brow of Sand Mountain, he seemed every afternoon,
+when he reached the mountain peak, to linger, in a
+friendly way, behind it.</p>
+
+<p>And a bold warrior-looking crest it was, helmeted
+with a stratum of sand-stone, jutting out in visor-shaped
+fullness about his head, and feathery above with scrub-oak
+and cedar.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it had been a fancy which lingered from
+childhood; but from the time when Mammy Maria had
+first told her that the sun went to bed in the valley
+beyond the mountain until now,&mdash;her eighteenth year,&mdash;Helen
+still loved to think it was true, and that behind
+the face of Sunset Rock he still lingered to undress;
+and, lingering, it made for her the sweetest and most
+romantic period of the day.</p>
+
+<p>True to her antebellum ideas, Mammy Maria dressed
+her two girls every afternoon before dinner. It is also
+true that she cooked the dinner herself and made their
+dresses with her own fingers, and that of late years, in
+the poverty of her drunken master, she had little to
+dress them with and less to cook.</p>
+
+<p>But the resources of the old woman seemed wonderful&mdash;to
+the people round about,&mdash;for never were two girls
+more gorgeously gowned than Helen and Lily. It was
+humorous, it was pathetic&mdash;the way it was done.</p>
+
+<p>From old bureau drawers and cedar chests, stored<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+away in the attic and unused rooms of Millwood, where
+she herself had carefully put them in days long gone&mdash;days
+of plenty and thrift&mdash;she brought forth rich
+gowns of another age, and made them over for Helen
+and Lily.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, this gown was Miss Clara's,&rdquo; she would say
+as she took out a bundle of satin and old lace. She
+looked at it fondly&mdash;often with tears in her honest
+black eyes. &ldquo;Lor', how well I disremember the night
+she fust wore it&mdash;the night of the ball we give to
+Jineral Jackson when he first come to see old Marster.
+This flowered silk with pol'naize she wore at the Gov'nor's
+ball and the black velvet with cut steel I've seed
+her wearin' at many an' many a dinner here in this very
+house.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And so the old woman would go over all her treasures.
+Then, in a few days the gossipy and astounded neighbors
+would behold Helen and Lily, dressed, each, in a
+gown of white brocaded satin, with a dinner gown of
+black velvet, and for Sunday, old point lace, with petticoats
+of finest hand-made Irish linen and silk stockings&mdash;all
+modernized with matchless deft and skill.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I guess my gals will shine as long as the old chist
+lasts,&rdquo; she would say, &ldquo;an' I ain't started on 'em yet.
+I'm a-savin' some for their weddin', bless Gord, if I
+ever sees a man fitten for 'em.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was an hour yet before dinner, and Aunt Maria had
+dressed Helen, this Saturday afternoon, with great care&mdash;for
+after a little frost, each day and night in Alabama
+becomes warmer and warmer until the next frost.</p>
+
+<p>Mammy Maria knew things by intuition, and hence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+her care to see that Helen looked especially pretty to-day.</p>
+
+<p>There was no sun save where he streamed his ribbon
+rays from behind Sunset Rock, and threw them in pearl
+and ivory fan handles&mdash;white and gold and emerald,
+across the mackerel sky beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Helen's silk skirt fitted her well, and one of those
+beautiful old ribbons, flowered in broad leaf and blossoms,
+wound twice around her slender waist and fell in
+broad streamers nearly to the ground. The bodice was
+cut V-shaped at the throat&mdash;the corsage being taken
+from one of her grandmother's made in 1822, and
+around her neck was a long chain of pure gold beads.</p>
+
+<p>She was a type of Southern beauty obtained only
+after years of gentle dames and good breeding.</p>
+
+<p>Her face was pure and fine, rather expressionless at
+her age, with a straight nose and rich fine lips. Her
+heavy hair was coiled gracefully about her head and
+fell in a longer coil, almost to her shoulders. She was
+tall with a sloping, angular form, the flat outlines of
+which were not yet filled with that fullness that time
+would soon add.</p>
+
+<p>Her waist was well turned, her shoulders broad and
+slightly rounded, with that fullness of chest and breast
+which Nature, in her hour of generosity, gives only to
+the queenly woman. The curves of her sloping neck
+were perfect and carried not a wave-line of grossness.
+It was as unsensual as a swan's.</p>
+
+<p>Her gown, low cut, showed slight bony shoulders of
+classic turn and whiteness, waiting only for time to
+ripen them to perfection; and the long curved lines which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+ran up to where the deep braid of her rich brown hair
+fell over them, together with the big joints of her arms
+and the long, fine profile of her face were forerunners of
+a beauty that is strong&mdash;like that of the thoroughbred
+brood mare after a year's run on blue-grass.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were her only weakness. They were deep
+and hazel, and given to drooping too readily with that
+feigned modesty wherein vanity clothes boldness. Down
+in their depths, also, shone that bright, penetrating
+spark of a taper by which Folly lights, in woman, the
+lamp of ambition.</p>
+
+<p>Her forehead was high&mdash;her whole bearing the unconscious
+one of a born lady.</p>
+
+<p>Romance&mdash;girlish, idealized romance&mdash;was her's
+to-day. A good intentioned, but thoughtless romance&mdash;and
+therefore a weak one. And worse still, one
+which, coupled with ambition, might be led to ruin.</p>
+
+<p>Down through the tangled box-planted walks she
+strolled, swinging her dainty hat of straw and old lace
+in her hand; on through the small gate that bound the
+first yard, then through the shaded lawn, unkept now
+and rank with weeds, but still holding the old trees
+which, in other days, looked down over the well kept
+lawn of grass beneath. Now gaunt hogs had rooted it
+up and the weeds had taken it, and the limbs of the old
+trees, falling, had been permitted to lie as they fell.</p>
+
+<p>The first fence was down. She walked across the road
+and took a path leading through a cottonfield, which,
+protected on all sides by the wood, and being on the
+elevated plateau on which the residence stood, had escaped
+the severer frosts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And so she stopped and stood amid it, waist high.</p>
+
+<p>The very act of her stopping showed the romance
+of her nature.</p>
+
+<p>She had seen the fields of cotton all her life, but she
+could never pass through one in bloom and in fruit&mdash;the
+white and purple blossoms, mingled with the green
+of the leaves and all banked over billows of snowy lint,&mdash;that
+she did not stop, thrilled with the same childhood
+feeling that came with the first reading of the
+Arabian Nights.</p>
+
+<p>She had seen the field when it was first plowed, in
+the spring, and the small furrows were thrown up by the
+little turning shovels. Then, down the entire length
+of the ridge the cotton-planter had followed, its two
+little wheels straddling the row, while the small bull-tongue
+in front opened the shallow furrow for the linty,
+furry, white seeds to fall in and be covered immediately
+by the mold-board behind. She had seen it spring up
+from one end of the ridge to the other, like peas, then
+chopped out by the hoe, the plants left standing, each
+the width of the hoe apart. Then she had watched it all
+summer, growing under the Southern sun, throwing
+out limb above limb of beautiful delicate leaves, drawing
+their life and sustenance more from the air and sunshine
+above than from the dark soil beneath. Drawing it
+from the air and sunshine above, and therefore cotton,
+silken, snowy cotton&mdash;with the warmth of the sun in
+the skein of its sheen and the purity of heaven in the
+fleece of its fold.</p>
+
+<p>Child of the air and the sky and sun; therefore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+cotton&mdash;and not corn, which draws its life from the
+clay and mud and decay which comes from below.</p>
+
+<p>She had seen the first cream-white bloom come.</p>
+
+<p>She had found it one sweet day in July, early in the
+morning, on the tip end of the eldest branch of the cotton
+stalk nearest the ground. It hung like the flower
+of the cream-white, pendulous abutilon, with pollen of
+yellow stars beaded in dew and throwing off a rich, delicate,
+aromatic odor, smelt nowhere on earth save in a
+cottonfield, damp with early dew and warmed by the rays
+of the rising sun. Cream-white it was in the morning,
+but when she had visited it again at nightfall, it hung
+purple in the twilight.</p>
+
+<p>Then had she plucked it.</p>
+
+<p>Through the hot month of July she had watched the
+boll grow and expand, until in August the lowest and
+oldest one next to the ground burst, and shone through
+the pale green leaves like the image of a star reflected
+in waters of green. And every morning new cream-white
+blooms formed to the very top, only to turn purple
+by twilight, while beneath, climbing higher and higher
+as the days went by and the cool nights came, star above
+star of cotton arose and stood twinkling in its sky of
+green and purple, above the dank manger where, in
+early spring, the little child-seed had lain.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, touched by the great frost, the last purple
+bloom in the very tip-top seemed to look up yearningly
+and plead with the sun for one more day of life; that
+it, too, might add in time its snowy tribute to the bank
+of white which rolled entirely across the field, one big
+billow of cotton.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And in the midst of it the girl stood dreaming and
+wondering.</p>
+
+<p>She plucked a purple blossom and pinned it to her
+breast. Then, with a deep sigh of saddened longing&mdash;that
+this should be the last&mdash;she walked on, daintily
+lifting her gown to avoid the damp stars of cotton, now
+fast gathering the night dew.</p>
+
+<p>Across the field, a vine of wild grape ran over the
+top of two small hackberry trees, forming a natural
+umbrella-shaped arbor above two big moss-covered
+boulders which cropped out of the ground beneath, making
+two natural rustic seats. On one of these she sat
+down. Above her head glowed the impenetrable leaves
+of the grape-vine and the hackberry, and through them
+all hung the small purple bunches of wild grapes, waiting
+for the frost of affliction to convert into sugar the
+acid of their souls.</p>
+
+<p>She was in plain view of Millwood, not a quarter of a
+mile away, and in the glow of the blazing red sunset,
+shining through its broken shutters and windows, she
+could see Mammy Maria busy about their dinner.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up the road anxiously&mdash;then, with an
+impatient gesture she took the cotton bloom from her
+bosom and began to pluck the petals apart, one by one,
+saying aloud:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;One, I love&mdash;two, I love&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Three, I love, I say.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Four, I love with all my heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And five, I cast away&mdash;&rdquo;<br /></span></div></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She stopped short and sighed&mdash;&ldquo;O, pshaw! that was
+Harry; why did I name it for him?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Again she looked impatiently up the road and then
+went on:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Six, he loves, seven, she loves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eight, both love&mdash;&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>She turned quickly. She heard the gallop of a saddle
+horse coming. The rider sprang off, tied his horse
+and sat on the rock by her side.</p>
+
+<p>She appeared not to notice him, and her piqued face
+was turned away petulantly.</p>
+
+<p>It was a handsome boyish face that looked at her for
+a moment mischievously. Then he seized and kissed her
+despite her struggles.</p>
+
+<p>For this she boxed his ears soundly and sat off on another
+rock.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Harry Travis, you can't kiss me every time you
+want to, no matter if we are engaged.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was a strong and rather a masculine voice, and it
+grated on one slightly, being scarcely expected from so
+beautiful a face. In it was power, self-will, ambition&mdash;but
+no tenderness nor that voice, soft and low, which
+&ldquo;is an excellent thing in woman.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He laughed banteringly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did you ever hear that love is not love if it is a
+minute late? Just see how long I have waited here for
+you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She sat down by his side and looked fondly up into
+his face, flushed with exercise and smiling half cynically.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+It was the same smile seen so often on the face of Richard
+Travis.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, say,&rdquo; he said, dolefully, &ldquo;but don't start the
+hubby-come-to-taw-business on me until we are married.
+I was late because I had to steal the Gov'nor's new mare&mdash;isn't
+she a beauty?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, say,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;but that is a good one&mdash;he
+has bought her for somebody he is stuck on&mdash;can't
+say who&mdash;and I heard him tell Jim not to let anybody
+get on her back.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo;&mdash;he laughed&mdash;&ldquo;she certainly has a fine
+back. I stole her out and galloped right straight
+here.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You ought to own her,&rdquo;&mdash;he went on flippantly&mdash;pinching
+playfully at the lobe of her ear&mdash;&ldquo;her name
+is Coquette.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he tried to kiss her again.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Harry!&rdquo; she said, pulling away&mdash;&ldquo;don't now&mdash;Mammy
+Maria said I was never to&mdash;let you kiss me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he said with some iciness&mdash;&ldquo;Listen to her an'
+you will die an old maid. Besides, I am not engaged
+to Mammy Maria.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you think I am a coquette?&rdquo; she asked, sitting
+down by him again.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Worst I ever saw&mdash;I said to Nellie just now&mdash;I
+mean&mdash;&rdquo; he stopped and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him, pained.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then you've stopped to see Nellie, and that is why
+you are late? I do not care what she says&mdash;I am
+true to you, Harry&mdash;because&mdash;because I love you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He was feigning anger, and tapping his boot with his
+riding whip:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well&mdash;kiss me yourself then&mdash;show me that
+Mammy Maria does not boss my wife.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She laughed and kissed him. He received it with indifference
+and some haughtiness.</p>
+
+<p>Then his good nature returned and they sat and
+talked, watching the sunset.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't you think my dress is pretty?&rdquo; she asked
+after a while, with a becoming toss of her head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, I hadn't noticed it&mdash;stunning&mdash;stunning.
+If there is a queen on earth it is you,&rdquo;&mdash;he added.</p>
+
+<p>She flushed under the praise and was silent.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Harry,&rdquo;&mdash;she said after a while, &ldquo;I hate to trouble
+you now, but I am so worried about things at home.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He looked up half frowning.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You know I have always told you I could not marry
+you now. I would not burden you with Papa.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, yes,&rdquo; he answered mechanically, &ldquo;we're both
+young and can wait. You see, really, Pet&mdash;you know
+I am dependent at present on the Gov'nor an'&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I understand all that,&rdquo; she said quickly&mdash;&ldquo;but&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A long engagement will only test our love,&rdquo; he
+broke in with a show of dignity.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You do not understand,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;Things
+have got so bad at home that I must earn something.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He frowned and tapped his foot impatiently. She
+sat up closer to him and put her hand on his. He did
+not move nor even return the pressure.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And so, Harry&mdash;if&mdash;if to help papa&mdash;and Millwood
+is sold&mdash;and I can get a good place in the mill<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>&mdash;one
+off by myself&mdash;what they call drawer-in&mdash;at good
+wages,&mdash;and, if only for a little while I'd work there&mdash;to
+help out, you know&mdash;what would you think?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He sprang up from his seat and dropped her hand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good God, Helen Conway, are you crazy?&rdquo; he said
+brutally&mdash;&ldquo;why, I'd never speak to you again. Me?
+A Travis?&mdash;and marry a mill girl?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The color went out of her face. She looked in her
+shame and sorrow toward the sunset, where a cloud, but
+ten minutes before, had stood all rosy and purple with
+the flush of the sunbeams behind it.</p>
+
+<p>Now the beams were gone, and it hung white and
+bloodless.</p>
+
+<p>In the crisis of our lives such trifles as these flash over
+us. In the greatness of other things&mdash;often turning
+points in our life&mdash;Nature sometimes points it all with
+a metaphor.</p>
+
+<p>For Nature is the one great metaphor.</p>
+
+<p>Helen knew that she and the cloud were now one.</p>
+
+<p>But she was not a coward, and with her heart nerved
+and looking him calmly in the face, she talked on and
+told him of the wretched condition of affairs at Millwood.
+And as she talked, the setting sun played over
+her own cheeks, touching them with a halo of such exquisite
+colors that even the unpoetic soul of Harry
+Travis was touched by the beauty of it all.</p>
+
+<p>And to any one but Harry Travis the proper solution
+would have been plain. Not that he said it or even
+meant it&mdash;for she was too proud a spirit even to have
+thought of it&mdash;there is much that a man should know
+instinctively that a woman should never know at all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Harry surprised himself by the patience with which
+he listened to her. In him, as in his cousin&mdash;his pattern&mdash;ran
+a vein of tact when the crisis demanded,
+through and between the stratum of bold sensuousness
+and selfishness which made up the basis of his character.</p>
+
+<p>And so as he listened, in the meanness and meagerness
+of his soul, he kept thinking, &ldquo;I will let her down
+easy&mdash;no need for a scene.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was narrow and little, but it was all that could
+come into the soul of his narrowness.</p>
+
+<p>For we cannot think beyond our fountain head, nor
+can we even dream beyond the souls of the two things
+who gave us birth. There are men born in this age of
+ripeness, born with an alphabet in their mouths and
+reared in the regal ways of learning, who can neither
+read nor write. And yet had Shakespeare been born
+without a language, he would have carved his thoughts
+as pictures on the trees.</p>
+
+<p>Harry Travis was born as so many others are&mdash;not
+only without a language, but without a soul within him
+upon which a picture might be drawn.</p>
+
+<p>And so it kept running in his mind, quietly, cold-bloodedly,
+tactfully down the narrow, crooked, slum-alleys
+of his mind: &ldquo;I will&mdash;I will drop her&mdash;now!&rdquo;
+She ceased&mdash;there were tears in her eyes and her face
+was blanched whiter even than the cloud.</p>
+
+<p>He arose quickly and glanced at the setting sun:
+&ldquo;Oh, say, but I must get the Gov'nor's mare back. Jim
+will miss her at feeding time.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was a laugh on his lips and his foot was already
+in the stirrup. &ldquo;Sorry to be in such a hurry just now,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+too&mdash;because there is so much I want to say to you on
+that subject&mdash;awful sorry&mdash;but the Gov'nor will raise
+Cain if he knows what I've done. I'll just write you a
+long letter to-night&mdash;and I'll be over, maybe, soon&mdash;ta&mdash;ta&mdash;but
+this mare, confound her&mdash;see how she
+cuts up&mdash;so sorry I can't stay longer&mdash;but I'll write&mdash;to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He threw her a kiss as he rode off.</p>
+
+<p>She sat dazed, numbed, with the shallowness of it
+all&mdash;the shale of sham which did not even conceal the
+base sub-stratum of deceit below.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing like it had ever come into her life before.</p>
+
+<p>She dropped down behind the rock, but instead of
+tears there came steel. In it all she could only say with
+her lips white, a defiant poise of her splendid head, and
+with a flash of the eyes which came with the Conway
+aroused: &ldquo;Oh, and I kissed him&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;I
+loved him!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She sat on the rock again and looked at the sunset.
+She was too hurt now to go home&mdash;she wished to be
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>She was a strong girl&mdash;mentally&mdash;and with a deep
+nature; but she was proud, and so she sat and crushed it
+in her pride and strength, though to do it shook her as
+the leaves were now being shaken by the breeze which
+had sprung up at sunset.</p>
+
+<p>She thought she could conquer&mdash;that she had conquered&mdash;then,
+as the breeze died away, and the leaves
+hung still and limp again, her pride went with the breeze
+and she fell again on her knees by the big rock, fell and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+buried her face there in the cool moss and cried: &ldquo;Oh,
+and I loved that thing!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later she sat pale and smiling. The
+Conway pride had conquered, but it was a dangerous
+conquest, for steel and tears had mingled to make it.</p>
+
+<p>In her despair she even plucked another cotton bloom
+from her bosom as if trying to force herself to be happy
+again in saying:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;One, I love&mdash;two, I love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Three, I love, I say&mdash;&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But this only hurt her, because she remembered that
+when she had said it before she had had an idol which
+now lay shattered, as the petals of the cotton-blossom
+which she had plucked and thrown away.</p>
+
+<p>Then the breeze sprang up again and with it, borne
+on it, came the click&mdash;click&mdash;click of a hammer tapping
+a rock. It was a small gladey valley through
+which a gulley ran. Boulders cropped out here and
+there, and haws, red and white elms, and sassafras grew
+and shaded it.</p>
+
+<p>Down in the gulch, not a hundred yards from her, she
+saw a pair of broad shoulders overtopped by a rusty
+summer hat&mdash;the worse for a full season's wear.
+Around the shoulders was strung a leathern satchel, and
+she could see that the person beneath the hat was closely
+inspecting the rocks he chipped off and put into the
+satchel. Then his hammer rang out again.</p>
+
+<p>She sat and watched him and listened to the tap of
+his hammer half sadly&mdash;half amused. Harry Travis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+had crushed her as she had never been crushed before in
+her life, and the pride in a woman which endureth a
+fall is not to be trifled with afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>She grew calmer&mdash;even quiet. The old spirit returned.
+She knew that she had never been as beautiful
+in her life, as now&mdash;just now&mdash;in the halo of the
+sunset shining on her hair and reflected in the rare old
+gown she wore.</p>
+
+<p>The person with the leathern satchel was oblivious
+of everything but his work. The old straw hat bobbed
+energetically&mdash;the big shoulders nodded steadily beneath
+it. She watched him silently a few minutes and
+then she called out pleasantly:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You do seem to be very busy, Clay!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped and looked up. Then he took off his hat
+and, awkwardly bowing, wiped his brow, broad, calm
+and self-reliant, and a deliberate smile spread over his
+face. Everything he did was deliberate. The smile
+began in the large friendly mouth and spread in kindred
+waves upward until it flashed out from his kindly
+blue eyes, through the heavy double-lens glasses that
+covered them.</p>
+
+<p>Without a word he picked up the last rock he had
+broken off and put it into his satchel. Very deliberate,
+too, was his walk up the hill toward the grape arbor,
+mopping his brow as he came along&mdash;a brow big and
+full of cause and effect and of quiet deductions and
+deliberate conclusions. His coat was seedy, his trousers
+bagged at the knees, his shoes were old, and there were
+patches on them, but his collar and linen were white and
+very much starched, and his awkward, shambling gait<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+was honest to the last footfall. A world of depth and
+soul was in his strong, fine face, lit up now with an
+honest, humble smile, but, at rest, full of quiet dignity.</p>
+
+<p>He shuffled along and sat down in a big brotherly way
+by the girl's side.</p>
+
+<p>She sat still, looking at him with a half amused smile
+on her lips.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled back at her abstractedly. She could see
+that he had not yet really seen her. He was looking
+thoughtfully across at the hill beyond:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It puzzles me,&rdquo; he said in a fine, mellow voice, &ldquo;why
+I should find this rotten limestone cropping out here.
+Now, in the blue limestone of the Niagara period I was
+as sure of finding it as I am&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of not finding me at all,&rdquo;&mdash;it came queenly,
+haughtily from her.</p>
+
+<p>He turned, and the thick lenses of his glasses were
+focused on her&mdash;a radiant, superb being. Then there
+were swept away all his abstractions and deductions, and
+in their place a real smile&mdash;a lover's smile of satisfaction
+looking on the paradise of his dreams.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You know I have always worshiped you,&rdquo; he said
+simply and reverently.</p>
+
+<p>She moved up in a sisterly way to him and looked into
+his face.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Clay&mdash;Clay&mdash;but you must not&mdash;I have told
+you&mdash;I am engaged.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He did not appear to hear her. Already his mind
+was away off in the hills where his eyes were. He went
+on: &ldquo;Now, over there I struck a stratum of rotten
+limestone&mdash;it's a curious thing. I traced that vein of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+coal from Walker County&mdash;clear through the carboniferous
+period, and it is bound to crop out somewhere in
+this altitude&mdash;bound to do it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now it's just this way,&rdquo; he said, taking her hand
+without being conscious of it and counting off the periods
+with her fingers. &ldquo;Here is the carboniferous,
+the sub-carboniferous&mdash;&rdquo; She jerked her hand away
+with what would have been an amused laugh except that
+in a half conscious way she remembered that Harry had
+held her hand but half an hour ago; and it ended in a
+frigid shaft feathered with a smile&mdash;the arrow which
+came from the bow of her pretty mouth.</p>
+
+<p>He came to himself with a boyish laugh and a blush
+that made Helen look at him again and watch it roll
+down his cheek and neck, under the fine white skin
+there.</p>
+
+<p>Then he looked at her closely again&mdash;the romantic
+face, the coil of brown hair, the old gown of rich silk,
+the old-fashioned corsage and the rich old gold necklace
+around her throat.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If there's a queen on earth&mdash;it's you,&rdquo; he said
+simply.</p>
+
+<p>He reddened again, and to divert it felt in his satchel
+and took out a rock. Then he looked across at the hills
+again:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If I do trace up that vein of coal and the iron which
+is needed with it&mdash;when I do&mdash;for I know it is here
+as well as Leverrier knew that Neptune was in our
+planetary system by the attraction exerted&mdash;when I
+do&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her again. He could not say the words.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+Real love has ideas, but never words. It feels, but cannot
+speak. That which comes out of the mouth, being
+words, is ever a poor substitute for that which comes
+from the heart and is spirit.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Clay,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you keep forgetting. I say I&mdash;I
+am&mdash;was&mdash;&rdquo; She stopped confused.</p>
+
+<p>He looked hurt for a moment and smiled in his frank
+way: &ldquo;I know it is here,&rdquo; he said holding up a bit of
+coal&mdash;&ldquo;here, by the million tons, and it is mine by
+right of birth and education and breeding. It is my
+heritage to find it. One day Alabama steel will outrank
+Pittsburgh's. Oh, to put my name there as the discoverer!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then you&rdquo;&mdash;he turned and said it fondly&mdash;reverently&mdash;&ldquo;you
+should be mine by right of&mdash;of love.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She sighed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Clay&mdash;I am sorry for you. I can never love you
+that way. You have told me that, since&mdash;oh, since I
+can remember, and I have always told you&mdash;you know
+we are cousins, anyway&mdash;second cousins.&rdquo; She shook
+her head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Under the heart of the flinty hill lies the coal,&rdquo; he
+said simply.</p>
+
+<p>But she did not understand him. She had looked
+down and seen Harry's foot-track on the moss.</p>
+
+<p>And so they sat until the first star arose and shimmered
+through the blue mist which lay around the far
+off purpling hill tops. Then there was the clang of a
+dinner bell.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is Mammy Maria,&rdquo; she said&mdash;&ldquo;I must go. No<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>&mdash;you
+must not walk home with me. I'd rather be
+alone.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She did not intend it, but it was brutal to have said it
+that way&mdash;to the sensitive heart it went to. He looked
+hurt for a moment and then tried to smile in a weak
+way. Then he raised his hat gallantly, turned and went
+off down the gulch.</p>
+
+<p>Helen stood looking for the last time on the pretty
+arbor. Here she had lost her heart&mdash;her life. She
+fell on the moss again and kissed the stone. Then she
+walked home&mdash;in tears.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<h3>HILLARD WATTS</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">I</span>t is good for the world now and then to go back
+to first principles in religion. It would be better
+for it never to get away from them; but, since it
+has that way of doing&mdash;of breeding away and breaking
+away from the innate good&mdash;it is well that a man
+should be born in any age with the faith of Abraham.</p>
+
+<p>It matters not from what source such a man may
+spring. And he need have no known pedigree at all,
+except an honest ancestry behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Such a man was Hillard Watts, the Cottontown
+preacher.</p>
+
+<p>Sprung from the common people of the South, he
+was a most uncommon man, in that he had an absolute
+faith in God and His justice, and an absolute belief that
+some redeeming goodness lay in every human being,
+however depraved he may seem to the world. And so
+firm was his faith, so simple his religion&mdash;so contrary
+to the worldliness of the religion of his day,&mdash;that the
+very practice of it made him an uncommon man.</p>
+
+<p>As the overseer of General Jeremiah Travis's large
+estate before the war, he proved by his success that even
+slaves work better for kindness. Of infinite good sense,
+but little education, he had a mind that went to the
+heart of things, and years ago the fame of his homely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+but pithy sayings stuck in the community. In connection
+with kindness to his negroes one of his sayings was,
+&ldquo;Oh, kindness can't be classified&mdash;it takes in the whole
+world or nothin'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>When General Travis got into dire financial straits
+once, he sent for his overseer, and advised with him as
+to the expediency of giving up. The overseer, who
+knew the world and its ways with all the good judgment
+of his nature, dryly remarked: &ldquo;That'll never do.
+Never let the world know you've quit; an' let the undertaker
+that buries you be the fust man to find out you're
+busted.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>General Travis laughed, and that season one of his
+horses won the Tennessee Valley Futurity, worth thirty-thousand
+dollars&mdash;and the splendid estate was again
+free from debt.</p>
+
+<p>There was not a negro on the place who did not love
+the overseer, not one who did not carry that love to the
+extent of doing his best to please him. He had never
+been known to punish one, and yet the work done by the
+Travis hands was proverbial.</p>
+
+<p>Among his duties as overseer, the entire charge of the
+Westmore stable of thoroughbreds fell to his care. This
+was as much from love as choice, for never was a man
+born with more innate love of all dumb creatures than
+the preacher-overseer.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I've allers contended that a man could love God an'
+raise horses, too,&rdquo; he would say; and it was ludicrous
+to see him when he went off to the races, filling the
+tent trunk with religious tracts, which, after the races,
+he would distribute to all who would read them. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+when night came he would regularly hold prayers in his
+tent&mdash;prayer-meetings in which his auditors were touts,
+stable-boys and gamblers. And woe to the stable-boy
+who uttered an oath in his presence or dared to strike
+or maltreat any of his horses!</p>
+
+<p>He preached constantly against gambling on the
+races. &ldquo;That's the Devil's end of it,&rdquo; he would say&mdash;&ldquo;The
+Almighty lets us raise good horses as a benefit
+to mankind, an' the best one wins the purse. It was the
+Devil's idea that turned 'em into gambling machines.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>No one ever doubted the honesty of his races. When
+the Travis horses ran, the racing world knew they ran
+for blood.</p>
+
+<p>Physically, he had been an athlete&mdash;a giant, and
+unconscious of his strength. Incidentally, he had taken
+to wrestling when a boy, and as a man his fame as a
+wrestler was coincident with the Tennessee Valley. It
+was a manly sport which gave him great pleasure, just
+as would the physical development of one of his race
+horses. Had he lived in the early days of Greece, he
+would have won in the Olympian wrestling match.</p>
+
+<p>There was in Hillard Watts a trait which is one of the
+most pronounced of his type of folks,&mdash;a sturdy, honest
+humor. Humor, but of the Cromwell type&mdash;and
+withal, a kind that went with praying and fighting.
+Possessed, naturally, of a strong mind of great good
+sense, he had learned to read and write by studying the
+Bible&mdash;the only book he had ever read through and
+through and which he seemed to know by heart. He
+was earnest and honest in all things, but in his earnestness
+and strong fight for right living there was the twin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>kle
+of humor. Life, with him, was a serious fight, but
+ever through the smoke of its battle there gleamed the
+bright sun of a kindly humor.</p>
+
+<p>The overseer's home was a double log hut on the side
+of the mountain. His plantation, he called it,&mdash;for
+having been General Travis's overseer, he could not
+imagine any farm being less than a plantation.</p>
+
+<p>It consisted of forty acres of flinty land on the
+mountain side&mdash;&ldquo;too po' to sprout cow-peas,&rdquo; as his
+old wife would always add&mdash;&ldquo;but hits pow'ful for
+blackberries, an' if we can just live till blackberry time
+comes we can take keer ourselves.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Watts had not a lazy bone in her body. Her
+religion was work: &ldquo;Hit's nature's remedy,&rdquo; she would
+add&mdash;&ldquo;wuck and five draps o' turpentine if you're
+feelin' po'ly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She despised her husband's ways and thought little
+of his religion. Her tongue was frightful&mdash;her temper
+worse. Her mission on earth&mdash;aside from work&mdash;work&mdash;work&mdash;was
+to see that too much peace and
+good will did not abide long in the same place.</p>
+
+<p>Elder Butts, the Hard-Shell preacher, used to say:
+&ldquo;She can go to the full of the moon mighty nigh every
+month 'thout raisin' a row, if hard pressed for time an'
+she thinks everybody else around her is miser'ble. But
+if things look too peaceful and happy, she'll raise sand
+in the last quarter or bust. The Bishop's a good man,
+but if he ever gits to heaven, the bigges' diamon' in his
+crown'll be because he's lived with that old 'oman an'
+ain't committed murder. I don't believe in law suits,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+but if he ain't got a damage case agin the preacher that
+married him, then I'm wrong.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But no one ever heard the old man use harsher language
+in speaking of her than to remark that she was
+&ldquo;a female Jineral&mdash;that's what Tabitha is.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps she was, and but for her the Bishop and his
+household had starved long ago.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Furagin' is her strong point&rdquo;&mdash;he would always
+add&mdash;&ldquo;she'd made Albert Sydney Johnston a great
+chief of commissary.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And there was not an herb of any value that Mrs.
+Watts did not know all about. Any fair day she
+might be seen on the mountain side plucking edibles.
+Ginseng was her money crop, and every spring she
+would daily go into the mountain forests and come back
+with enough of its roots to help them out in the winter's
+pinch.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, if anybody'll study Nature,&rdquo; she would say,
+&ldquo;they'll see she never cal'c'lated to fetch us here 'ithout
+makin' 'lowance fur to feed us. The fus' thing that
+comes up is dandelions&mdash;an' I don't want to stick my
+tooth in anything that's better than dandelion greens
+biled with hog-jowl. I like a biled dinner any way.
+Sas'fras tea comes mighty handy with dandelions in the
+spring, an' them two'll carry us through April. Then
+comes wild lettice an' tansy-tea&mdash;that's fur May.
+Blackberries is good fur June an' the jam'll take us
+through winter if Bull Run and Appomattox ain' too
+healthy. In the summer we can live on garden truck,
+an' in the fall there is wild reddishes an' water-cresses
+an' spatterdock, an' nuts an' pertatoes come in mighty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+handy fur winter wuck. Why, I was born wuckin'&mdash;when
+I was a gal I cooked, washed and done house-work
+for a family of ten, an' then had time to spin ten hanks
+o' yarn a day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now there's the old man&mdash;he's too lazy to wuck&mdash;he's
+like all parsons, he'd rather preach aroun' all his
+life on a promise of heaven than to wuck on earth for
+cash!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How did I ever come to marry Hillard Watts?
+Wal, he wa'n't that triflin' when I married him. He
+didn't have so much religiun then. But I've allers
+noticed a man's heredity for no-countness craps out
+after he's married. Lookin' back now I reckin' I married
+him jes' to res' myself. When I'm wuckin' an' git
+tired, I watches Hillard doin' nothin' awhile an' it hopes
+me pow'ful.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He gits so busy at it an' seems so contented an'
+happy.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Besides his wife there were five grandchildren in his
+family&mdash;children of the old man's son by his second
+wife. &ldquo;Their father tuck after his stepmother,&rdquo; he
+would explain regretfully, &ldquo;an' wucked hisself to death
+in the cotton factory. The dust an' lint give him consumption.
+He was the only man I ever seed that tuck
+after his stepmother&rdquo;&mdash;he added sadly.</p>
+
+<p>An old soldier never gets over the war. It has left a
+nervous shock in his make-up&mdash;a memory in all his
+after life which takes precedence over all other
+things. The old man had the naming of the grandchildren,
+and he named them after the battles of the
+Civil war. Bull Run and Seven Days were the boys.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+Atlanta, Appomattox and Shiloh were the girls. His
+apology for Shiloh was: &ldquo;You see I thout I'd name
+the last one Appomattox. Then came a little one befo'
+her mammy died, so weak an' pitiful I named her Shiloh.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was the boast of their grandmother&mdash;that these
+children&mdash;even little Shiloh&mdash;aged seven&mdash;worked
+from ten to twelve hours every day in the cotton factory,
+rising before day and working often into the night, with
+forty minutes at noon for lunch.</p>
+
+<p>They had not had a holiday since Christmas, and on
+the last anniversary of that day they had worked until
+ten o'clock, making up for lost time. Their pay was
+twenty-five cents a day&mdash;except Shiloh, who received
+fifteen.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But I'll soon be worth mo', pap,&rdquo; she would say as
+she crawled up into the old man's lap&mdash;her usual place
+when she had eaten her supper and wanted to rest.
+&ldquo;An you know what I'm gwine do with my other nickel
+every day? I'm gwine give it to the po' people of Indy
+an' China you preaches about.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And thus she would prattle&mdash;too young to know
+that, through the cupidity of white men, in this&mdash;the
+land of freedom and progress&mdash;she&mdash;this blue-eyed,
+white-skinned child of the Saxon race, was making the
+same wages as the Indian sepoy and the Chinese coolie.</p>
+
+<p>It was Saturday night and after the old man had put
+Shiloh to bed, he mounted his horse and rode across the
+mountain to Westmoreland.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said the old lady&mdash;&ldquo;he's gwine over to Miss
+Alice's to git his Sunday School less'n. An' I'd like to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+know what good Sunday school less'ns 'll do any body.
+If folks'd git in the habit of wuckin' mo' an' prayin'
+less, the worl'ud be better off, an' they'd really have
+somethin' to be thankful fur when Sunday comes, 'stid
+of livin' frum han' to mouth an' trustin' in some unknown
+God to cram feed in you' crops.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Hardened by poverty, work, and misfortune, she was
+the soul of pessimism.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+<h3>WESTMORELAND</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">F</span>rom The Gaffs to Westmoreland, the home of
+Alice Westmore, was barely two miles up the
+level white pike.</p>
+
+<p>Jim sat in the buggy at The Gaffs holding the horses
+while Richard Travis, having eaten his supper, was
+lighting a cigar and drawing on his overcoat, preparatory
+to riding over to Westmoreland.</p>
+
+<p>The trotters stood at the door tossing their heads and
+eager to be off. They were cherry bays and so much
+alike that even Jim sometimes got them mixed. They
+were clean-limbed and racy looking, with flanks well
+drawn up, but with a broad bunch of powerful muscles
+which rolled from hip to back, making a sturdy back
+for the splendid full tails which almost touched the
+ground. In front they stood up straight, deep-chested,
+with clean bony heads, large luminous eyes and long
+slender ears, tapering into a point as velvety and soft
+as the tendril-bud on the tip of a Virginia creeper.</p>
+
+<p>They stood shifting the bits nervously. The night
+air was cool and they wanted to go.</p>
+
+<p>Travis came out and sprang from the porch to the
+buggy seat with the quick, sure footing of an athlete.
+Jim sat on the offside and passed him the lines just as
+he sang cheerily out:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Heigh-ho&mdash;my honies&mdash;go!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The two mares bounded away so quickly and keenly
+that the near mare struck her quarters and jumped up
+into the air, running. Her off mate settled to work,
+trotting as steadily as a bolting Caribou, but pulling
+viciously.</p>
+
+<p>Travis twisted the near bit with a deft turn of his
+left wrist, and as the two mares settled to their strides
+there was but one stroke from their shoes, so evenly and
+in unison did they trot. Down the level road they flew,
+Travis sitting gracefully upright and holding the lines
+in that sure, yet careless way which comes to the expert
+driver with power in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How many times must I tell you, Jim,&rdquo; he said at
+last rather gruffly&mdash;&ldquo;never to bring them out, even for
+the road, without their boots? Didn't you see Lizette
+grab her quarters and fly up just now?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jim was duly penitent.</p>
+
+<p>Travis let them out a link. They flew down a soft,
+cool graveled stretch. He drew them in at the sound
+of an ominous click. It came from Sadie B.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sadie B.'s forging again. Didn't I tell you to have
+the blacksmith move her hind shoes back a little?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I did, sir,&rdquo; said Jim.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You've got no weight on her front feet, then,&rdquo; said
+Travis critically.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not to-night, sir&mdash;I took off the two ounces thinking
+you'd not speed them to-night, sir.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You never know when I'm going to speed them.
+The night is as good as the day when I want a tonic.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They had reached the big stone posts which marked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+the boundary of Westmoreland. A little farther on the
+mares wheeled into the gate, for it was open and lay,
+half on the ground, hanging by one hinge. It had not
+been painted for years. The driveway, too, had been
+neglected. The old home, beautiful even in its decay,
+sat in a fine beech grove on the slope of a hill. A wide
+veranda, with marble flag-stones as a base, ran across
+the front. Eight Corinthian pillars sentineled it, resting
+on a marble base which seemed to spring up out of
+the flag-stones themselves, and towering to the projecting
+entablature above.</p>
+
+<p>On one side an ell could be seen, covered with ivy.
+On the other the roof of a hot-house, with the glass
+broken out.</p>
+
+<p>It touched even Richard Travis&mdash;this decay. He
+had known the place in the days of its glory before its
+proprietor, Colonel Theodore Westmore, broken by the
+war, in spirit and in pocket, had sent a bullet into his
+brain and ended the bitter fight with debt. Since then,
+no one but the widow and her daughter knew what the
+fight had been, for Clay Westmore, the brother, was but
+a boy and in college at the time. He had graduated
+only a few months before, and was now at home,
+wrapped up, as Richard Travis had heard, in what to
+him was a visionary scheme of some sort for discovering
+a large area of coal and iron thereabouts. He had
+heard, too, that the young man had taken hold of what
+had been left, and that often he had been seen following
+the plough himself.</p>
+
+<p>Travis drove through the driveway&mdash;then he pulled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+up the mares very gently, got out and felt of their
+flanks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Take them to the barn and rub them off,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;while you wait. And for a half hour bandage their
+hind legs&mdash;I don't want any wind puffs from road
+work.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He started into the house. Then he turned and said:
+&ldquo;Be here at the door, Jim, by ten o'clock, sharp. I
+shall make another call after this. Mind you now, ten
+o'clock, sharp.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>At the library he knocked and walked in.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Westmore sat by the fire. She was a small,
+daintily-made woman, and beautiful even at fifty-five.
+She had keen, black eyes and nervous, flighty ways. A
+smile, half cynical, half inviting, lit up continuously
+her face.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Richard?&rdquo; she said, rising and taking his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cousin Alethea&mdash;I thought you were Alice and I
+was going to surprise her.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Westmore laughed her metallic little laugh.
+It was habit. She intended it to be reassuring, but
+too much of it made one nervous. It was the laugh
+without the soul in it&mdash;the eye open and lighted, but
+dead. It was a Damascus blade falling from the
+stricken arm to the stone pavement and not against the
+ringing steel of an opponent.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You will guess, of course, where she is,&rdquo; she said
+after they were seated.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No?&rdquo; from Travis.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Getting their Sunday School lesson&mdash;she, Uncle
+Bisco, and the Bishop.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis frowned and gave a nervous twitch of his
+shoulders as he turned around to find himself a chair.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No one knows just how we feel towards Uncle Bisco
+and his wife,&rdquo; went on Mrs. Westmore in half apology&mdash;&ldquo;she
+has been with us so long and is now so old and
+helpless since they were freed; their children have all
+left them&mdash;gone&mdash;no one knows where. And so Uncle
+Bisco and Aunt Charity are as helpless as babes, and
+but for Alice they would suffer greatly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A sudden impulse seized Travis: &ldquo;Let us go and
+peep in on them. We shall have a good joke on Her
+Majesty.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Westmore laughed, and they slipped quietly out
+to Uncle Bisco's cabin. Down a shrubbery-lined walk
+they went&mdash;then through the woods across a field. It
+was a long walk, but the path was firm and good, and
+the moon lit it up. They came to the little cabin at
+last, in the edge of another wood. Then they slipped
+around and peeped in the window.</p>
+
+<p>A small kerosene lamp sat on a table lighting up a
+room scrupulously clean.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Bisco was very old. His head was, in truth,
+a cotton plant full open. His face was intelligent,
+grave&mdash;such a face as Howard Weeden only could
+draw from memory. He had finished his supper, and
+from the remnants left on the plate it was plain that
+Alice Westmore had prepared for the old man dainties
+which she, herself, could not afford to indulge in.</p>
+
+<p>By him sat his old wife, and on the other side of the
+fireplace was the old overseer, his head also white, his
+face strong and thoughtful. He was clean shaven,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+save a patch of short white chin-whiskers, and his big
+straight nose had a slight hook of shrewdness in it.</p>
+
+<p>Alice Westmore was reading the chapter&mdash;her voice
+added to it an hundred fold: &ldquo;Let not your heart be
+troubled.... Ye believe in God, believe also in
+me.... In my Father's house are many mansions...!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The lamplight fell on her hair. It was brown where
+the light flashed over it, and lay in rippling waves
+around her temples in a splendid coil down the arch of
+her neck, and shining in strong contrast through the
+gauzy dark sheen of her black gown. But where the
+light fell, there was that suspicion of red which the last
+faint tendril a dying sunbeam throws out in a parting
+clutch at the bosom of a cloud.</p>
+
+<p>It gave one a feeling of the benediction of twilight.</p>
+
+<p>And when she looked up, her eyes were the blessings
+poured out&mdash;luminous, helpful, uplifting, restful,&mdash;certain
+of life and immortality, full of all that which one
+sees not, when awake, but only when in the borderland
+of sleep, and memory, unleashed, tracks back on the trail
+of sweet days which once were.</p>
+
+<p>They spake indeed always thus: &ldquo;Let not your
+heart be troubled.... Peace, be still.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Her face did not seem to be a separate thing&mdash;apart&mdash;as
+with most women. For there are women whose
+hair is one thing and whose face is another. The hair
+is beautiful, pure, refined. The face beautiful, merely.
+The hair decorous, quiet, unadorned and debauched not
+by powder and paint, stands aloof as Desdemona, Ophelia
+or Rosalind. The face, brazen, with a sharp-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>tongued,
+vulgar queen of a thing in its center, on a
+throne, surrounded by perfumed nymphs, under the
+sensual glare of two rose-colored lamps, sits and holds a
+Du Barry court.</p>
+
+<p>They are neighbors, but not friends, and they live in
+the same sphere, held together only by the law of gravity
+which holds to one spot of earth the rose and the ragwort.
+And the hair, like the rose, in all the purity of
+its own rich sweetness, all the naturalness of its soul, sits
+and looks down upon the face as a queen would over the
+painted yellow thing thrust by the law of life into her
+presence.</p>
+
+<p>But the face of Alice Westmore was companion to her
+hair. The firelight fell on it; and while the glow from
+the lamp fell on her hair in sweet twilight shadows of
+good night, the rosy, purple beams of the cheerful firelight
+lit up her face with the sweet glory of a perpetual
+good morning.</p>
+
+<p>Travis stood looking at her forgetful of all else. His
+lips were firmly set, as of a strong mind looking on its
+life-dream, the quarry of his hunter-soul all but in his
+grasp. Flashes of hope and little twists of fear were
+there; then, as he looked again, she raised, half timidly,
+her face as a Madonna asking for a blessing; and
+around his, crept in the smile which told of hope long
+deferred.</p>
+
+<p>Selfish, impure, ambitious, forceful and masterful as
+he was, he stood hopeless and hungry-hearted before
+this pure woman. She had been the dream of his life&mdash;all
+times&mdash;always&mdash;since he could remember.</p>
+
+<p>To own her&mdash;to win her!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As he looked up, the hardness of his face attracted
+even Mrs. Westmore, smiling by his side at the scene
+before her. She looked up at Travis, but when she saw
+his face the smile went out of hers. It changed to fear.</p>
+
+<p>All the other passions in his face had settled into one
+cruel cynical smile around his mouth&mdash;a smile of winning
+or of death.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time in her life she feared Richard
+Travis.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I must go now,&rdquo; said Alice Westmore to the old
+men&mdash;&ldquo;but I'll sing you a verse or two.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The overseer leaned back in his chair. Uncle Bisco
+stooped forward, his chin resting on his hickory staff.</p>
+
+<p>And then like the clear notes of a spring, dripping
+drop by drop with a lengthening cadence into the covered
+pool of a rock-lined basin, came a simple Sunday
+School song the two old men loved so well.</p>
+
+<p>There were tears in the old negro's eyes when she had
+finished. Then he sobbed like a child.</p>
+
+<p>Alice Westmore arose to go.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, Bishop&mdash;&rdquo; she smiled at the overseer&mdash;&ldquo;don't
+keep Uncle Bisco up all night talking about the
+war, and if you don't come by the house and chat with
+mamma and me awhile, we'll be jealous.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The overseer looked up: &ldquo;Miss Alice&mdash;I'm an ole
+man an' we ole men all dream dreams when night comes.
+Moods come over us and, look where we will, it all leads
+back to the sweet paths of the past. To-day&mdash;all day&mdash;my
+mind has been on&rdquo;&mdash;he stopped, afraid to pronounce
+the word and hunting around in the scanty lexicon
+of his mind for some <span class="hover" title="phrase">phase</span> of speech, some word<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+even that might not awaken in Alice Westmore memories
+of the past.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis had an intuition of things as naturally
+as an eagle has the homing instinct, however
+high in air and beyond all earth's boundaries he flies.
+In this instance Mrs. Westmore also had it, for she
+looked up quickly at the man beside her. All the other
+emotions had vanished from his face save the one appealing
+look which said: &ldquo;Come, let us go&mdash;we have
+heard enough.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then they slipped back into the house.</p>
+
+<p>Alice Westmore had stopped, smiling back from the
+doorway.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On what, Bishop?&rdquo; she finally asked.</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head. &ldquo;Jus' the dream of an ole man,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;Don't bother about us two ole men. I'll be
+'long presently.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bisco,&rdquo; said the old preacher after a while, &ldquo;come
+mighty nigh makin' a break then&mdash;but I've been
+thinkin' of Cap'n Tom all day. I can't throw it off.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bisco shook his head solemnly. &ldquo;So have I&mdash;so
+have I. The older I gits, the mo' I miss Marse Tom.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't like the way things are goin'&mdash;in yonder&rdquo;&mdash;and
+the preacher nodded his head toward the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Bisco looked cautiously around to see that no
+one was near: &ldquo;He's doin' his bes'&mdash;the only thing is
+whether she can forgit Marse Tom.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bisco, it ain't human nature for her to stan' up
+agin all that's brought to bear on her. Cap'n Tom is
+dead. Love is only human at las', an' like all else that's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+human it mus' fade away if it ain't fed. It's been ten
+years an' mo'&mdash;sence&mdash;Cap'n Tom's light went out.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The last day of November&mdash;'64&mdash;&rdquo; said Uncle
+Bisco, &ldquo;I was thar an' seed it. It was at the Franklin
+fight.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' Dick Travis has loved her from his youth,&rdquo;
+went on the overseer, &ldquo;an' he loves her now, an' he's a
+masterful man.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So is the Devil,&rdquo; whispered Uncle Bisco, &ldquo;an' didn't
+he battle with the angels of the Lord an' mighty nigh
+hurled 'em from the crystal battlements.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bisco, I know him&mdash;I've knowed him from youth.
+He's a conjurin' man&mdash;a man who does things&mdash;he'll
+win her&mdash;he'll marry her yet. She'll not love him as
+she did Cap'n Tom. No&mdash;she'll never love again.
+But life is one thing an' love is another, an' it ain't
+often they meet in the same person. Youth mus' live
+even if it don't love, an' the law of nature is the law
+of life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'm afeered so,&rdquo; said the old negro, shaking his
+head, &ldquo;I'm afeered it'll be that way&mdash;but&mdash;I'd ruther
+see her die to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If God lets it be,&rdquo; said the preacher, &ldquo;Bisco, if
+God lets it be&mdash;&rdquo; he said excitedly, &ldquo;if he'll let Cap'n
+Tom die an' suffer the martyrdom he suffered for conscience
+sake an' be robbed, as he was robbed, of his home,
+an' of his love&mdash;if God'll do that, then all I can say is,
+that after a long life walkin' with God, it'll be the fus'
+time I've ever knowed Him to let the wrong win out in
+the end. An' that ain't the kind of God I'm lookin'
+fur.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you say that, Marse Hillyard?&rdquo; asked the old
+negro quickly&mdash;his eyes taking on the light of hope as
+one who, weak, comes under the influence of a stronger
+mind. &ldquo;Marse Hillyard, do you believe it? Praise
+God.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bisco&mdash;I'm&mdash;I'm ashamed&mdash;why should I doubt
+Him&mdash;He's told me a thousand truths an' never a lie.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Praise God,&rdquo; replied the old man softly.</p>
+
+<p>And so the two old men talked on, and their talk was
+of Captain Tom. No wonder when the old preacher
+mounted his horse to go back to his little cabin, all of
+his thoughts were of Captain Tom. No wonder Uncle
+Bisco, who had raised him, went to bed and dreamed of
+Captain Tom&mdash;dreamed and saw again the bloody
+Franklin fight.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+<h3>A MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">I</span>n the library, Travis and Mrs. Westmore sat for
+some time in silence. Travis, as usual, smoked,
+in his thoughtful way watching the firelight which
+flickered now and then, half lighting up the room. It
+was plain that both were thinking of a subject that
+neither wished to be the first to bring up.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have been wanting all day to ask you about the
+mortgage,&rdquo; she said to him, finally.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Travis, indifferently enough&mdash;&ldquo;that's
+all right. I arranged it at the bank to-day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am so much obliged to you; it has been so on my
+mind,&rdquo; said his companion. &ldquo;We women are such poor
+financiers, I wonder how you men ever have patience to
+bother with us. Did you get Mr. Shipton to carry it at
+the bank for another year?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why&mdash;I&mdash;you see, Cousin Alethea&mdash;Shipton's a
+close dog&mdash;and the most unaccommodating fellow that
+ever lived when it comes to money. And so&mdash;er&mdash;well&mdash;the
+truth is&mdash;is&mdash;I had to act quickly and for
+what I thought was your interest.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Westmore looked up quickly, and Travis saw
+the pained look in her face. &ldquo;So I bought it in myself,&rdquo;
+he went on, carelessly flecking his cigar ashes into
+the fire. &ldquo;I just had the judgment and sale transferred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+to me&mdash;to accommodate you&mdash;Cousin Alethea&mdash;you
+understand that&mdash;entirely for you. I hate to see you
+bothered this way&mdash;I'll carry it as long as you wish.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She thanked him again, more with her eyes than her
+voice. Then there crept over her face that look of trouble
+and sorrow, unlike any Travis had ever seen there.
+Once seen on any human face it is always remembered,
+for it is the same, the world over, upon its millions and
+millions&mdash;that deadened look of trouble which carries
+with it the knowledge that the spot called home is lost
+forever.</p>
+
+<p>There are many shifting photographs from the camera
+called sorrow, pictured on the delicate plate of the
+human soul or focused in the face. There is the crushed
+look when Death takes the loved one, the hardened look
+when an ideal is shattered, the look of dismay from
+wrecked hopes and the cynical look from wrecked happiness&mdash;but
+none of these is the numbed and dumb look
+of despair which confronts humanity when the home is
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>It runs not alone through the man family, but every
+other animal as well, from the broken-hearted bird which
+sits on the nearby limb, and sees the wreck of her home
+by the ravages of a night-prowling marauder, to the
+squalidest of human beings, turning their backs forever
+on the mud-hut that had once sheltered them.</p>
+
+<p>To Mrs. Westmore it was a keen grief. Here had she
+come as a bride&mdash;here had she lived since&mdash;here had
+been born her two children&mdash;here occurred the great
+sorrow of her life.</p>
+
+<p>And the sacredest memory, at last, of life, lies not in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+the handclasp of a coming joy, but in the footfall of a
+vanishing sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>Westmoreland meant everything to Mrs. Westmore&mdash;the
+pride of birth, of social standing, the ties of motherhood,
+the very altar of her life. And it was her husband's
+name and her own family. It meant she was not
+of common clay, nor unknown, nor without influence. It
+was bound around and woven into her life, and part of
+her very existence.</p>
+
+<p>Home in the South means more than it does anywhere
+else on earth; for local self-government&mdash;wherever the
+principle came from&mdash;finds its very altar there. States-right
+is nothing but the home idea, stretched over the
+state and bounded by certain lines. The peculiar institutions
+of the South made every home a castle, a town,
+a government, a kingdom in itself, in which the real
+ruler is a queen.</p>
+
+<p>Ask the first negro or child met in the road, whose
+home is this, or that, and one would think the entire
+Southland was widowed.</p>
+
+<p>From the day she had entered it as a bride, Westmoreland,
+throughout the County, had been known as the
+home of Mrs. Westmore.</p>
+
+<p>She was proud of it. She loved it with that love
+which had come down through a long line of cavaliers
+loving their castles.</p>
+
+<p>And now she knew it must go, as well as that, sooner
+or later, Death itself must come.</p>
+
+<p>She knew Richard Travis, and she knew that, if from
+his life were snatched the chance of making Alice West<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>more
+his wife he would sell the place as cold-bloodedly as
+Shipton would.</p>
+
+<p>Travis sat smoking, but reading her. He spelled her
+thoughts as easily as if they had been written on her
+forehead, for he was a man who spelled. He smoked
+calmly and indifferently, but the one question of his
+heart&mdash;the winning of Alice,&mdash;surged in his breast and
+it said: &ldquo;Now is the time&mdash;now&mdash;buy her&mdash;the
+mother. This is the one thing which is her price.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at Mrs. Westmore again. He scanned her
+closely, from her foot to the dainty head of beautiful,
+half-grey hair. He could read her as an open book&mdash;her
+veneration of all Westmoreland things&mdash;her vanity&mdash;her
+pride of home and name and position; the
+overpowering independence of that vanity which made
+her hold up her head in company, just as in the former
+days, tho' to do it she must work, scrub, pinch, ay, even
+go hungry.</p>
+
+<p>He knew it all and he knew it better than she guessed&mdash;that
+it had actually come to a question of food with
+them; that her son was a geological dreamer, just out
+of college, and that Alice's meagre salary at the run-down
+female college where she taught music was all
+that stood between them and poverty of the bitterest
+kind.</p>
+
+<p>For there is no poverty like the tyranny of that which
+sits on the erstwhile throne of plenty.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced around the room&mdash;the hall&mdash;the home&mdash;in
+his mind's eye&mdash;and wondered how she did it&mdash;how
+she managed that poverty should leave no trace of
+itself in the home, the well furnished and elegant old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+home, from its shining, polished furniture and old silver
+to the oiled floor of oak and ash.</p>
+
+<p>Could he buy her&mdash;bribe her, win her to work for
+him? He started to speak and say: &ldquo;Cousin Alethea,
+may not all this be stopped, this debt and poverty and
+make-believe&mdash;this suffering of pride, transfixed by the
+spears of poverty? Let you and me arrange it, and all
+so satisfactorily. I have loved Alice all my life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There is the fool in every one of us. And that is what
+the fool in Richard Travis wished him to say. What
+he did say was:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, it was nothing but purely business on my part&mdash;purely
+business. I had the money and was looking for
+a good investment. I was glad to find it. There are
+a hundred acres and the house left. And by the way,
+Cousin Alethea, I just added five-hundred dollars more
+to the principal,&mdash;thought, perhaps, you'd need it, you
+know? You'll find it to your credit at Shipton's bank.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He smoked on as if he thought it was nothing. As a
+business fact he knew the place was already mortgaged
+for all it was worth.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, how can we ever thank you enough?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis glanced at her when she spoke. He flushed
+when he heard her place a slight accent on the we. She
+glanced at him and then looked into the fire. But in
+their glances which met, they both saw that the other
+knew and understood.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And by the way, Cousin Alethea,&rdquo; said Travis after
+a while, &ldquo;of course it is not necessary to let Alice know
+anything of this business. It will only worry her unnecessarily.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course not,&rdquo; said Mrs. Westmore.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+<h3>A STAR AND A SATELLITE</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">A</span>n hour later Mrs. Westmore had gone to her room
+and Alice had been singing his favorite songs.
+Her singing always had a peculiar influence
+over Richard Travis&mdash;a moral influence, which, perhaps,
+was the secret of its power; and all influence which
+is permanent is moral. There was in it for him an uplifting
+force that he never experienced save in her presence
+and under the influence of her songs.</p>
+
+<p>He was a brilliant man and he knew that if he won
+Alice Westmore it must be done on a high plane.
+Women were his playthings&mdash;he had won them by the
+score and flung them away when won. But all his life&mdash;even
+when a boy&mdash;he had dreamed of finally winning
+Alice Westmore and settling down.</p>
+
+<p>Like all men who were impure, he made the mistake
+of thinking that one day, when he wished, he could be
+pure.</p>
+
+<p>Such a man may marry, but it is a thing of convenience,
+a matter in which he selects some woman, who
+he knows will not be his mistress, to become his housekeeper.</p>
+
+<p>And thus she plods along in life, differing eventually
+only from his mistress in that she is the mother of his
+children.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In all Richard's longings, too, for Alice Westmore,
+there was an unconscious cause. He did not know it because
+he could not know.</p>
+
+<p>Sooner or later love, which is loose, surfeits and sours.
+It is then that it turns instinctively to the pure, as the
+Jews, straying from their true God and meeting the
+chastisement of the sword of Babylon, turned in their
+anguish to the city of their King.</p>
+
+<p>Nature is inexorable, and love has its laws as fixed as
+those which hold the stars in their course. And woe to
+the man or woman who transgresses! He who, ere it is
+ripe, deflowers the bud of blossoming love in wantonness
+and waste, in after years will watch and wait and water
+it with tears, in vain, for that bloom will never come.</p>
+
+<p>She came over by the fire. Her face was flushed; her
+beautiful sad eyes lighted with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you remember the first time I ever heard you
+sing, Alice?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>His voice was earnest and full of pathos, for him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Was it not when father dressed me as a gypsy girl
+and I rode my pony over to The Gaffs and sang from
+horse-back for your grandfather?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He nodded: &ldquo;I thought you were the prettiest thing
+I ever saw, and I have thought so ever since. That's
+when I fell in love with you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I remember quite distinctly what you did,&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;You were a big boy and you came up behind my pony
+and jumped on, frightening us dreadfully.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tried to kiss you, didn't I?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She laughed: &ldquo;That was ever a chronic endeavor of
+your youth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>How pretty she looked. Had it been any other
+woman he would have reached over and taken her hand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Overpower her, master her, make her love you by
+force of arms&rdquo;&mdash;his inner voice said.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to the musing woman beside him and mechanically
+reached out his hand. Hers lay on the arm
+of her chair. The next instant he would have dropped
+his upon it and held it there. But as he made the motion
+her eyes looked up into his, so passion-free and
+holy that his own arm fell by his side.</p>
+
+<p>But the little wave of passion in him only stirred him
+to his depths. Ere she knew it or could stop him he
+was telling her the story of his love for her. Poetry,&mdash;romance,&mdash;and
+with it the strength of saying,&mdash;fell
+from his lips as naturally as snow from the clouds. He
+went into the history of old loves&mdash;how, of all loves
+they are the greatest&mdash;of Jacob who served his fourteen
+years for Rachel, of the love of Petrarch, of Dante.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know Browning's most beautiful poem?&rdquo;
+he asked at last. His voice was tenderly mellow:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;All that I know of a certain star<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is, it can throw (like the angled spar)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now a dart of red, now a dart of blue;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till my friends have said they would fain see, too,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My star that dartles the red and the blue!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What matter to me if their star is a world?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Alice,&rdquo; he said, drawing his chair closer to her, &ldquo;I
+know I have no such life to offer as you would bring
+to me. The best we men can do is to do the best we can.
+We are saved only because there is one woman we can
+look to always as our star. There is much of our past
+that we all might wish to change, but change, like work,
+is the law of life, and we must not always dream.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Quietly he had dropped his hand upon hers. Her
+own eyes were far off&mdash;they were dreaming. So deep
+was her dream that she had not noticed it. Passion
+practised, as he was, the torch of her hand thrilled him
+as with wine; and as with wine was he daring.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I know where your thoughts have been,&rdquo; he went on.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up with a start and her hand slipped from
+under his into her lap. It was a simple movement and
+involuntary&mdash;like that of the little brown quail when
+she slips from the sedge-grass into the tangled depths of
+the blossoming wild blackberry bushes at the far off flash
+of a sharp-shinned hawk-wing, up in the blue. Nor
+could she say whether she saw it, or whether it was merely
+a shadow, an instinctive signal from the innocent courts
+of the sky to the brood-children of her innocence below.</p>
+
+<p>But he saw it and said quickly, changing with it the
+subject: &ldquo;At least were&mdash;but all that has passed. I
+need you, Alice,&rdquo; he went on passionately&mdash;&ldquo;in my life,
+in my work. My home is there, waiting! It has been
+waiting all these years for you&mdash;its mistress&mdash;the only
+mistress it shall ever have. Your mother&rdquo;&mdash;Alice
+looked at him surprised.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your mother&mdash;you,&mdash;perhaps, had not thought
+of that&mdash;your mother needs the rest and the care we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+could give her. Our lives are not always our own,&rdquo; he
+went on gravely&mdash;&ldquo;oftentimes it belongs partly to
+others&mdash;for their happiness.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He felt that he was striking a winning chord.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You can love me if you would say so,&rdquo; he said,
+bending low over her.</p>
+
+<p>This time, when his hand fell on hers, she did not
+move. Surprised, he looked into her eyes. There were
+tears there.</p>
+
+<p>Travis knew when he had gone far enough. Reverently
+he kissed her hand as he said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Never mind&mdash;in your own time, Alice. I can
+wait&mdash;I have waited long. Twenty years,&rdquo; he added,
+patiently, even sweetly, &ldquo;and if need be, I'll wait twenty
+more.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll go now,&rdquo; he said, after a moment.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him gratefully, and arose. &ldquo;One moment,
+Richard,&rdquo; she said&mdash;&ldquo;but you were speaking of
+mother, and knowing your zeal for her I was afraid
+you might&mdash;might&mdash;the mortgage has been troubling
+her.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, no&mdash;no&rdquo;&mdash;he broke in quickly&mdash;&ldquo;I did nothing&mdash;absolutely
+nothing&mdash;though I wanted to for
+your sake.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'm so glad,&rdquo; she said&mdash;&ldquo;we will manage somehow.
+I am so sensitive about such things.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll come to-morrow afternoon and bring your
+mare.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She smiled, surprised.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, your mare&mdash;I happened on her quite unexpectedly
+in Tennessee. I have bought her for you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>&mdash;she
+is elegant, and I wish you to ride her often. I have
+given Jim orders that no one but you shall ride her. If
+it is a pretty day to-morrow I shall be around in the
+afternoon, and we will ride down to the bluffs five miles
+away to see the sunset.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The trotters were at the door. He took her hand as
+he said good-bye, and held it while he added:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Maybe you'd better forget all I said to-night&mdash;be
+patient with me&mdash;remember how long I have waited.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He was off and sprang into the buggy, elated. Never
+before had she let him hold her hand even for a moment.
+He felt, he knew, that he would win her.</p>
+
+<p>He turned the horses and drove off.</p>
+
+<p>From Westmoreland Travis drove straight toward
+the town. The trotters, keen and full of play, flew
+along, tossing their queenly heads in the very exuberance
+of life.</p>
+
+<p>At The Gaffs, he drew rein: &ldquo;Now, Jim, I'll be back
+at midnight. You sleep light until I come in, and have
+their bedding dry and blankets ready.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He tossed the boy a dollar as he drove off.</p>
+
+<p>Up the road toward the town he drove, finally slackening
+his trotters' speed as he came into the more thickly
+settled part of the outskirts. Sand Mountain loomed
+high in the faint moonlight, and at its base, in the outposts
+of the town, arose the smoke-stack of the cotton
+mills.</p>
+
+<p>Around it lay Cottontown.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly he brought the nettled trotters down to a walk.
+Quietly he turned them into a shaded lane, overhung
+with forest trees, near which a cottage, one of the many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+belonging to the mill, stood in the shadow of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>Stopping his horses in the shadow, he drew out his
+watch and pressed the stem. It struck eleven.</p>
+
+<p>He drew up the buggy-top and taking the little silver
+whistle from his pocket, gave a low whistle.</p>
+
+<p>It was ten minutes later before the side door of the
+cottage opened softly and a girl came noiselessly out.
+She slipped out, following the shadow line of the trees
+until she came up to the buggy. Then she threw the
+shawl from off her face and head and stood smiling up at
+Travis. It had been a pretty face, but now it was
+pinched by overwork and there was the mingling both
+of sadness and gladness in her eyes. But at sight of
+Travis she blushed joyfully, and deeper still when he
+held out his hand and drew her into the buggy and up to
+the seat beside him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Maggie&rdquo;&mdash;was all he whispered. Then he kissed
+her passionately on her lips. &ldquo;I am glad I came,&rdquo; he
+went on, as he put one arm around her and drew her to
+him&mdash;&ldquo;you're flushed and the ride will do you good.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She was satisfied to let her head lie on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They are beauties&rdquo;&mdash;she said after a while, as the
+trotters' thrilling, quick step brought the blood tingling
+to her veins.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Beauties for the beauty,&rdquo; said Travis, kissing her
+again. Her brown hair was in his face and the perfume
+of it went through him like the whistling flash of the
+first wild doe he had killed in his first boyish hunt and
+which he never forgot.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You do love me,&rdquo; she said at last, looking up into
+his face, where her head rested. She could not move be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>cause
+his arm held her girlish form to him with an overpowering
+clasp.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; he asked, kissing her again and in sheer
+passionate excess holding his lips on hers until she could
+not speak, but only look love with her eyes. When she
+could, she sighed and said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Because, you could not make me so happy if you
+didn't.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He relaxed his arm to control the trotters, which were
+going too fast down the road. She sat up by his side
+and went on.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know I have thought lots about what you
+said last Saturday night?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, what?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She looked pained that he had forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;About&mdash;about&mdash;our bein' married to each other&mdash;even&mdash;even&mdash;if&mdash;if&mdash;there's
+no preacher. You
+know&mdash;that true love makes marriages, and not a ceremony&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;that
+the heart is the priest to all
+of us, you know!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis said nothing. He had forgotten all about it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;One thing I wrote down in my little book when I got
+back home an' memorized it&mdash;Oh, you can say such
+beautiful things.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He seized her and kissed her again.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am so happy with you&mdash;always&mdash;&rdquo; she laughed.</p>
+
+<p>He drove toward the shaded trees down by the river.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I want you to see how the setting moonlight looks
+on the river,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There is nothing in all nature
+like it. It floats like a crescent above, falling into the
+arms of its companion below. All nature is love and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+never fails to paint a love scene in preference to all
+others, if permitted. How else can you account for it
+making two lover moons fall into each other's arms,&rdquo; he
+laughed.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him enraptured. It was the tribute
+which mediocrity pays to genius.</p>
+
+<p>Presently they passed by Westmoreland, and from
+Alice's window a light shone far out into the golden
+tinged leaves of the beeches near.</p>
+
+<p>Travis glanced up at it. Then at the pretty mill-girl
+by his side:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A star and&mdash;a satellite!&rdquo;&mdash;he smiled to himself.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+<h3>A MIDNIGHT BURIAL</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">I</span>t was growing late when the old preacher left Westmoreland
+and rode leisurely back toward the cabin
+on Sand Mountain. The horse he was riding&mdash;a
+dilapidated roan&mdash;was old and blind, but fox-trotted
+along with the easy assurance of having often travelled
+the same road.</p>
+
+<p>The bridle rested on the pommel of the saddle. The
+old man's head was bent in deep thought, and the roan,
+his head also down and half dreaming, jogged into the
+dark shadows which formed a wooded gulch, leading into
+the valley and from thence into the river.</p>
+
+<p>There is in us an unnameable spiritual quality which,
+from lack of a more specific name, we call mental telepathy.
+Some day we shall know more about it, just as
+some day we shall know what unknown force it is which
+draws the needle to the pole.</p>
+
+<p>It is the border land of the spiritual&mdash;a touch of it,
+given, to let us know there is more and in great abundance
+in the country to which we ultimately shall go,&mdash;a
+glimpse of the kingdom which is to be.</p>
+
+<p>To-night, this influence was on the old man. The
+theme of his thoughts was, Captain Tom. Somehow he
+felt that even then Captain Tom was near him. How&mdash;where&mdash;why&mdash;he
+could not tell. He merely felt it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And so the very shadows of the trees grew uncanny
+to him as he rode by them and the slight wind among
+them mourned <i>Captain Tom</i>&mdash;<i>Captain Tom</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It was a desolate place in the narrow mountain road
+and scarcely could the old man see the white sand which
+wound in and through it, and then out again on the opposite
+side into the clearing beyond the scraggy side of
+Sand Mountain. But the horse knew every foot of the
+way, and though it was always night with him, instinct
+had taught him a sure footing.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the rider was awakened from his reverie by
+the old horse stopping so suddenly as almost to unseat
+him. With a snort the roan had stopped and had
+thrown up his head, quivering with fear, while with his
+nose he was trying to smell out the queer thing which
+stood in his path.</p>
+
+<p>The moon broke out from behind a cloud at the same
+moment, and there, in the middle of the road, not ten
+yards from him, stood a heavily built, rugged, black-bearded
+man in a ragged slouched hat and pointing a
+heavy revolver at the rider's head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hands up, Hillard Watts!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man looked quietly into the muzzle of the revolver
+and said, with a laugh:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;This ain't 'zactly my benediction time, Jack
+Bracken, an' I've no notion of h'istin' my arms an' axin'
+a blessin' over you an' that old pistol. Put it up an'
+tell me what you want,&rdquo; he said more softly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, you do know me,&rdquo; said the man, coming forward
+and thrusting his pistol into its case. &ldquo;I wa'nt
+sho' it was you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I wa'nt sho' you'd kno'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+me if it was. In my business I have to be mighty keerful,&rdquo;
+he added with a slight laugh.</p>
+
+<p>He came up to the saddle-skirt and held out his hand,
+half hesitatingly, as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop&mdash;as every one knew him&mdash;glanced into
+the face before him and saw something which touched
+him quickly. It was grief-stricken, and sorrow sat in
+the fierce eyes, and in the shadows of the dark face. And
+through it all, a pleading, beseeching appeal for sympathy
+ran as he half doubtingly held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why,&mdash;yes&mdash;, I'll take it, Jack, robber that you
+are,&rdquo; said the old man cheerily. &ldquo;You may not be as
+bad as they say, an' no man is worse than his heart. But
+what in the worl' do you want to hold up as po' a man
+as me&mdash;an' if I do say it, yo' frien' when you was a
+boy?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I know,&rdquo; said the other&mdash;&ldquo;I know. I don't want
+yo' money, even if you had it. I want you. You've
+come as a God-send. I&mdash;I couldn't bury him till you'd
+said somethin'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>His voice choked&mdash;he shook with a suppressed sob.</p>
+
+<p>The bishop slid off his horse: &ldquo;What is it, Jack?
+You hain't kilt anybody, have you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;no&rdquo;&mdash;said the other&mdash;&ldquo;it's little&mdash;little
+Jack&mdash;he's dead.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop looked at him inquiringly. He had never
+before heard of little Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I dunno', Jack,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You'll have to tell
+me all. I hain't seed you sence you started in your robber
+career after the war&mdash;sence I buried yo' father,&rdquo;
+he added. &ldquo;An' a fine, brave man he was, Jack&mdash;a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+fine, brave man&mdash;an' I've wondered how sech a man's
+son could ever do as you've done.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come,&rdquo; said the other&mdash;&ldquo;I'll tell you. Come, an'
+say a prayer over little Jack fust. You must do it&rdquo;&mdash;he
+said almost fiercely&mdash;&ldquo;I won't bury him without a
+prayer&mdash;him that was an angel an' all I had on earth.
+Hitch yo' hoss just outer the road, in the thicket, an'
+follow me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop did as he was told, and Jack Bracken led
+the way down a rocky gulch under the shaggy sides of
+Sand Mountain, furzed with scraggy trees and thick
+with underbrush and weeds.</p>
+
+<p>It was a tortuous path and one in which the old man
+himself, knowing, as he thought he did, every foot of
+the country around, could easily have been lost. Above,
+through the trees, the moon shone dimly, and no path
+could be seen under foot. But Jack Bracken slouched
+heavily along, in a wabbling, awkward gait, never once
+looking back to see if his companion followed.</p>
+
+<p>For a half mile they went through what the Bishop
+had always thought was an almost impenetrable cattle
+trail. At last they wound around a curve on the densely
+wooded side of the mountain, beyond which lay the broad
+river breathing out frosty mist and vapor from its sleeping
+bosom.</p>
+
+<p>Following a dry gulch until it ended abruptly at the
+river's bluff, around the mouth of which great loose
+rocks lay as they had been washed by the waters of
+many centuries, and bushes grew about, the path terminated
+abruptly. It overlooked the river romantically,
+with a natural rock gallery in front.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jack Bracken stopped and sat down on one of the
+rocks. From underneath he drew forth a lantern and
+prepared to light it. &ldquo;This is my home,&rdquo; he said laconically.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop looked around: &ldquo;Well, Jack, but this is
+part of my own leetle forty-acre farm. Why, thar's
+my cabin up yander. We've wound in an' aroun' the
+back of my place down by the river! I never seed this
+hole befo'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I knew it was yo's,&rdquo; said the outlaw quietly.
+&ldquo;That's why I come here. Many a Sunday night I've
+slipped up to the little church winder an' heard you
+preach&mdash;me an' po' little Jack. Oh, he loved to hear
+the Bible read an' he never forgot nothin' you ever said.
+He knowed all about Joseph an' Moses an' Jesus, an' last
+night when he died o' that croup befo' I c'ud get him
+help or anything, he wanted you, an' he said he was
+goin' to the lan' where you said Jesus was&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He broke down&mdash;he could not say it.</p>
+
+<p>Stepping into the mouth of the cave, he struck a
+match, when out of sight of the entrance way, and stepping
+from stone to stone he guided the Bishop down
+some twenty feet, following the channel the water had
+cut on its way underground to the river. Here another
+opening entered into the dry channel, and into it he
+stepped.</p>
+
+<p>It was a nicely turned cave&mdash;a natural room,&mdash;arched
+above with beautiful white lime-rock, the stalactites
+hanging in pointed clusters, their starry points
+twinkling above like stars in a winter sky. Underneath,
+the soft sand made a clean, warm floor, and the entire<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+cave was so beautiful that the old man could do nothing
+but look and admire, as the light fell on stalagmite and
+ghostly columns and white sanded floors.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Beautiful,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;Jack, you cudn't he'p gettin'
+relig'un here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Little Jack loved 'em,&rdquo; said the outlaw. &ldquo;He'd lay
+here ev'y night befo' he'd go to sleep an' look up an'
+call it his heaven; an' he said that big column thar was
+the great white throne, an' them big things up yander
+with wings was angels. He had all them other columns
+named for the fellers you preached about&mdash;Moses an'
+Aaron an' Joseph an' all of 'em, an' that kind o' double
+one lookin' like a woman holding her child, he called
+Mary an' little Jesus.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He's gone to a prettier heaven than this,&rdquo; said the
+Bishop looking down on the little figure, with face as
+pale and white as any of the columns around him, neatly
+dressed and wrapped, save his face, in an old oil cloth
+and lying on the little bed that sat in a corner.</p>
+
+<p>The old man sat down very tenderly by the little dead
+boy and, pulling out a testament from his pocket, read
+to the outlaw, whose whole soul was centered in all he
+said, the comforting chapter which Miss Alice had that
+night read to the old negro: &ldquo;<i>Let not your hearts be
+troubled....</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He explained as he read, and told the father how
+little Jack was now in one of the many mansions and far
+better off than living in a cave, the child of an outlaw,
+for the Bishop did not mince his words. He dwelt on
+it, that God had taken the little boy for love of him,
+and to give him a better home and perhaps as a means<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+of changing the father, and when he said the last prayer
+over the dead child asking for forgiveness for the
+father's sins, that he might meet the little one in heaven,
+the heart of the outlaw burst with grief and repentance
+within him.</p>
+
+<p>He fell at the old man's feet, on his knees&mdash;he laid
+his big shaggy head in the Bishop's lap and wept as he
+had never wept before.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There can't be&mdash;you don't mean,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;that
+there is forgiveness for me&mdash;that I can so live that I'll
+see little Jack again!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's just what I mean, Jack,&rdquo; said the old man&mdash;&ldquo;here
+it all is&mdash;here&mdash;in a book that never lies, an'
+all vouched for by Him who could walk in here to-night
+and lay His sweet hands on little Jack an' tell him to rise
+an' laugh agin, an' he'd do it. You turn about now
+an' see if it ain't so&mdash;an' that you'll be better an' happier.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But&mdash;my God, man&mdash;you don't know&mdash;you
+don't understan'. I've robbed, I've killed. Men have
+gone down befo' my bullets like sheep. They was
+shootin' at me, too&mdash;but I shot best. I'm a murderer.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old Bishop looked at him calmly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So was Moses and David,&rdquo; he replied&mdash;&ldquo;men after
+God's own heart. An' so was many another that's now
+called a saint, from old Hickory Jackson up.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But I'm a robber&mdash;a thief&rdquo;&mdash;began Jack
+Bracken.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We all steal,&rdquo; said the old man sadly shaking his
+head&mdash;&ldquo;it's human nature. There's a thief in every
+trade, an' every idle hand is a robber, an' every idle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+tongue is a thief an' a liar. We all steal. But there's
+somethin' of God an' divinity in all of us, an' in spite
+of our shortcomin' it'll bring us back at last to our
+Father's home if we'll give it a chance. God's Book
+can't lie, an' it says: '<i>Tho' your sins be as scarlet
+they shall be white as snow!</i>' ... an' then agin,
+<i>shall have life everlasting!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Life everlastin',&rdquo; repeated the outlaw. &ldquo;Do you
+believe that? Oh, if it was only so! To live always up
+there an' with little Jack. How do you know it ain't
+lyin'?&mdash;It's too gran' to be so. How do you know it
+ain't lyin', I say? Hillard Watts, are you handin' it
+out to me straight about this here Jesus Christ?&rdquo; he
+cried bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, it's this way, Jack,&rdquo; said the old man, &ldquo;jes'
+this away an' plain as the nose on yo' face: Now here's
+me, ain' it? Well, you know I won't lie to you. You
+believe me, don't you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The outlaw nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; asked the Bishop.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Because you ain't never lied to me,&rdquo; said the other.
+&ldquo;You've allers told me the truth about the things I know
+to be so.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But now, suppose,&rdquo; said the old man, &ldquo;I'd tell you
+about somethin' you had never seed&mdash;that, for instance,
+sence you've been an outcast from society an' a livin' in
+this cave, I've seed men talk to each other a hundred
+miles apart, with nothin' but a wire betwix' 'em.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's mighty hard to believe,&rdquo; said the outlaw
+grimly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But I've seed it done,&rdquo; said the Bishop.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you mean it?&rdquo; asked the other.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;As I live, I have,&rdquo; said the Bishop.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then it's so,&rdquo; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now that's faith, Jack&mdash;an' common sense, too.
+We know what'll be the earthly end of the liar, an' the
+thief, an' the murderer, an' him that's impure&mdash;because
+we see 'em come to thar end all the time. It don't
+lie when it tells you the good are happy, an' the hones'
+are elevated an' the mem'ry of the just shall not perish,
+because them things we see come so. Now, if after
+tellin' you all that, that's true, it axes you to believe when
+it says there is another life&mdash;a spiritual life, which we
+can't conceive of, an' there we shall live forever, can't
+you believe that, too, sence it ain't never lied about what
+you can see, by your own senses? Why ever' star that
+shines, an' ever' beam of sunlight fallin' on the earth,
+an' ever' beat of yo' own heart by some force that we
+know not of, all of them is mo' wonderful than the telegraph,
+an' the livin' agin of the spirit ain't any mo'
+wonderful than the law that holds the stars in their
+places. You'll see little Jack agin as sho' as God lives
+an' holds the worl' in His hand.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The outlaw sat mute and motionless, and a great light
+of joy swept over his face.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By God's help I'll do it&rdquo;&mdash;and he bowed his head
+in prayer&mdash;the first he had uttered since he was a boy.</p>
+
+<p>It was wonderful to see the happy and reconciled
+change when he arose and tenderly lifted the dead child
+in his arms. His face was transformed with a peace the
+old man had never seen before in any human being.</p>
+
+<p>Strong men are always strong&mdash;in crime&mdash;in sin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+When they reform it is the reformation of strength.
+Such a change came over Jack Bracken, the outlaw.</p>
+
+<p>He carried his dead child to the next room: &ldquo;I've
+got his grave already chiseled out of the rocks. I'll
+bury him here&mdash;right under the columns he called Mary
+and little Jesus, that he loved to talk of so much.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's fitten&rdquo;&mdash;said the old man tenderly&mdash;&ldquo;it's
+fitten an' beautiful. The fust burial we know of in the
+Bible is where Abraham bought the cave of Machpelah
+for to bury Sarah, his wife. And as Abraham bought
+it of Ephron, the Hittite, and offered it to Abraham
+for to bury his dead out of his sight, so I give this cave
+to you, Jack Bracken, forever to be the restin' place of
+little Jack.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And so, tenderly and with many kisses did they bury
+little Jack, sinless and innocent, deep in the pure white
+rock, covered as he was with purity and looking ever
+upwards toward the statue above, wherein Nature's
+chisel had carved out a Madonna and her child.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+<h3>JACK BRACKEN</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">J</span>ack Bracken was comfortably fixed in his
+underground home. There was every comfort
+for living. It was warm in winter and cool in
+summer, and in another apartment adjoining his living
+room was what he called a kitchen in which a spring
+of pure water, trickling down from rock to rock, formed
+in a natural basin of whitest rock below.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jack,&rdquo; said the old man, &ldquo;won't you tell me about
+yo'self an' how you ever got down to this? I knowed
+you as a boy, up to the time you went into the army,
+an' if I do say it to yo' face, you were a brave hon'rble
+boy that never forgot a frien' nor&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A foe,&rdquo; put in Jack quickly. &ldquo;Bishop, if I cu'd
+only forgive my foes&mdash;that's been the ruin of me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man was thoughtful a while: &ldquo;Jack, that's
+a terrible thing in the human heart&mdash;unforgiveness.
+It's to life what a drought is to Nature&mdash;an' it spiles
+mo' people than any other weakness. But that don't
+make yo' no wuss than the rest of us, nor does robbery
+nor even murder. So there's a chance for you yet, Jack&mdash;a
+mighty fine chance, too, sence yo' heart is changed.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Many a time, Jack, many a time when the paper
+'ud be full of yo' holdin' up a train or shootin' a
+shar'ff, or robbin' or killin', I'd tell 'em what a good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+boy you had been, brave an' game but revengeful when
+aroused. I'd tell 'em how you dared the bullets of
+our own men, after the battle of Shiloh, to cut down an'
+carry off a measley little Yankee they'd hung up as a
+spy 'cause he had onct saved yo' father's life. You
+shot two of our boys then, Jack.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They was a shootin' me, too,&rdquo; he said quietly. &ldquo;I
+caught two bullets savin' that Yankee. But he was no
+spy; he was caught in a Yankee uniform an'&mdash;an' he
+saved my father, as you said&mdash;that settled it with me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It turned our boys agin you, Jack.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, an' the Yankees were agin me already&mdash;that
+made all the worl' agin me, an' it's been agin me ever
+since&mdash;they made me an outlaw.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man softened: &ldquo;How was it, Jack? I
+knowed you was driven to it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They shot my father&mdash;waylaid and killed him&mdash;some
+home-made Yankee bush-whackers that infested
+these hills&mdash;as you know.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop nodded. &ldquo;I know&mdash;I know&mdash;it was
+awful. 'But vengeance is mine&mdash;I will repay'&mdash;saith
+the Lord.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I was young, an' my father&mdash;you know how
+I loved him. Befo' I c'ud get home they had burned
+our house, killed my sick mother from exposure and
+insulted my sisters.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jack,&rdquo; said the old man hotly&mdash;&ldquo;a home-made
+Yankee is a 'bomination to the Lord. He's a twin
+brother to the Copperhead up north.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My little brother&mdash;they might have spared him,&rdquo;
+went on the outlaw&mdash;&ldquo;they might have spared him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+He tried to defen' his mother an' sisters an' they shot
+him down in col' blood.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord,&rdquo; replied the
+old man sadly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I acted as His agent that time,&rdquo;&mdash;his eyes
+were hot with a bright glitter. &ldquo;I put on their uniform
+an' went after 'em. I j'ined 'em&mdash;the devils! An'
+they had a nigger sarjent an' ten of their twenty-seven
+was niggers, wearin' a Yankee uniform. I j'ined 'em&mdash;yes,&mdash;for
+wasn't I the agent of the Lord?&rdquo; He
+laughed bitterly. &ldquo;An' didn't He say: 'He that
+killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.'
+One by one they come up missin', till I had killed all but
+seven. These got panicky&mdash;followed by an unknown
+doom an' they c'udn't see it, for it come like a thief at
+midnight an' agin like a pesterlence it wasted 'em at
+noonday. They separated&mdash;they tried to fly&mdash;they
+hid&mdash;but I followed 'em 'an I got all but one. He fled
+to California.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was awful, Jack&mdash;awful&mdash;God he'p you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then a price was put on my head. I was Jack
+Bracken, the spy and the outlaw. I was not to be captured,
+but shot and hung. Then I cut down that Yankee
+an' you all turned agin me. I was hunted and
+hounded. I shot&mdash;they shot. I killed an' they tried
+to. I was shot down three times. I've got bullets in
+me now.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;After the war I tried to surrender. I wanted to quit
+and live a decent life. But no, they put a bigger price
+on my head. I came home like other soldiers an' went
+to tillin' my farm. They ran me away&mdash;they hunted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+an' hounded me. Civilization turned ag'in me. Society
+was my foe. I was up ag'in the fust law of Nature.
+It is the law of the survival&mdash;the wild beast that,
+cowered, fights for his life. Society turned on me&mdash;I
+turned on Society.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But there was one thing that happen'd that put the
+steel in me wuss than all. All through them times was
+one star I loved and hoped for. I was to marry her
+when the war closed. She an' her sister&mdash;the pretty
+one&mdash;they lived up yander on the mountain side. The
+pretty one died. But when I lost faith in Margaret
+Adams, I lost it in mankind. I'd ruther a seen her
+dead. It staggered me&mdash;killed the soul in me&mdash;to
+think that an angel like her could fall an' be false.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't blame you,&rdquo; said the old man. &ldquo;I've never
+understood it yet.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I was to marry Margaret. I love her yet,&rdquo; he added
+simply. &ldquo;When I found she was false I went out&mdash;and&mdash;well,
+you know the rest.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He took a turn around the room, picked up one of
+little Jack's shoes, and cried over it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So I married his mother&mdash;little Jack's mother, a
+mountain lass that hid me and befriended me. She
+died when the boy was born. His granny kep' him
+while I was on my raids&mdash;nobody knowed it was my
+son. His granny died two years ago. This has been
+our home ever sence, an' not once, sence little Jack has
+been with me, have I done a wrong deed. Often an'
+often we've slipt up to hear you preach&mdash;what you've
+said went home to me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jack,&rdquo; said the old man suddenly aroused&mdash;&ldquo;was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+that you&mdash;was it you been puttin' them twenty dollar
+gol' pieces in the church Bible&mdash;between the leds,
+<i>ever'</i> month for the las' two years? By it I've kep' up
+the po' of Cottontown. I've puzzled an' wonder'd&mdash;I've
+thought of a dozen fo'ks&mdash;but I sed nothin'&mdash;was
+it you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The outlaw smiled: &ldquo;It come from the rich an' it
+went to the po'. Come,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;that's somethin'
+we must settle.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He took up the lantern and led the way into the
+other room. Under a ledge of rocks, securely hid, sat,
+in rows, half a dozen common water buckets, made of
+red cedar, with tops fitting securely on them.</p>
+
+<p>The outlaw spread a blanket on the sand, then knelt
+and, taking up a bucket, removed the top and poured out
+its contents on the blanket. They chuckled and rolled
+and tumbled over each other, the yellow eagles and half
+eagles, like thoroughbred colts turned out in the paddocks
+for a romp.</p>
+
+<p>The old man's knees shook under him. He trembled
+so that he had to sit down on the blanket. Then he
+ran his hand through them&mdash;his fingers open, letting
+the coins fall through playfully.</p>
+
+<p>Never before had he seen so much gold. Poor as he
+was and had ever been&mdash;much and often as he had suffered&mdash;he
+and his, for the necessities of life, even,
+knowing its value and the use he might make of it, it
+thrilled him with a strange, nervous longing&mdash;a childish
+curiosity to handle it and play with it.</p>
+
+<p>Modest and brave men have looked on low-bosomed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+women in the glitter of dissipative lights with the same
+feeling.</p>
+
+<p>The old man gazed, silent&mdash;doubtless with the same
+awe which Keats gave to Cortez, when he first looked
+on the Pacific and stood</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Silent, upon a peak in Darien.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The outlaw lifted another bucket and took off the
+lid. It also was full. &ldquo;There are five mo',&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;that
+last one is silver an' this one&mdash;&rdquo; He lifted the
+lid of a small cedar box. In it was a large package,
+wrapped in water-proof. Unravelling it, he shoved out
+packages of bank bills of such number and denomination
+as fairly made the old preacher wonder.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How much in all, Jack?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A little the rise of one hundred thousand dollars.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He pushed them back and put the buckets under their
+ledge of rocks. &ldquo;I'd give it all just to have little Jack
+here agin&mdash;an'&mdash;an'&mdash;start out&mdash;a new man. This
+has cost me ten years of outlawry an' fo'teen bullets.
+Now I've got all this an'&mdash;well&mdash;a hole in the groun'
+an' little Jack in the hole. If you wanter preach a sermon
+on the folly of pilin' up money,&rdquo; he went on half
+ironically, &ldquo;here is yo' tex'. All me an' little Jack
+needed or cu'd use, was a few clothes, some bac'n an'
+coffee an' flour. Often I'd fill my pockets an' say:
+'Well, I'll buy somethin' I want, an' that little Jack will
+want.' I'd go to town an' see it all, an' think an' puzzle
+an' wonder&mdash;then I'd come home with a few toys, maybe,
+an' bac'n an' flour an' coffee.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;With all our money we can't buy higher than our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+source, an' when we go we leave even that behind,&rdquo; he
+added.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The world,&rdquo; said the old man quaintly, &ldquo;is full of
+folks who have got a big pocket-book an' a bac'n pedigree.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know who this money belongs to?&rdquo; he asked
+the outlaw.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Every dollar of it,&rdquo; said Jack Bracken. &ldquo;It come
+from railroads, banks and express companies. I didn't
+feel squirmish about takin' it, for all o' them are robbers.
+The only diff'r'nce betwix' them an' me is that they
+rob a little every day, till they get their pile, an' I take
+mine from 'em, all at onct.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He thought awhile, then he said: &ldquo;But it must all
+go back to 'em, Jack. Let them answer for their own
+sins. Leave it here until next week&mdash;an' then we will
+come an' haul it fifty miles to the next town, where you
+can express it to them without bein' known, or havin'
+anybody kno' what's in the buckets till you're safe back
+here in this town. I'll fix it an' the note you are to
+write. They'll not pester you after they get their
+money. The crowd you've named never got hot under
+a gold collar. A clean shave will change you so nobody
+will suspect you, an' there's a good openin' in town for
+a blacksmith, an' you can live with me in my cabin.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But there's one thing I've kept back for the las',&rdquo;
+said Jack, after they had gone into the front part of the
+room and sat down on the deer skins there.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That sword there&rdquo;&mdash;and he pointed to the wall
+where it hung.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop glanced up, and as he did so he felt a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+strange thrill of recognition run through him&mdash;&ldquo;It
+belongs to Cap'n Tom,&rdquo; said Jack quietly.</p>
+
+<p>The old man sprang up and took it reverently, fondly
+down.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jack&mdash;&rdquo; he began.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I was at Franklin,&rdquo; went on Jack proudly. &ldquo;I
+charged with old Gen. Travis over the breastworks near
+the Carter House. I saw Cap'n Tom when he went
+under.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cap'n Tom,&rdquo; repeated the old man slowly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cap'n Tom, yes&mdash;he saved my life once, you know.
+He cut me down when they were about to hang me for a
+spy&mdash;you heard about it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was his Company that caught me an' they was
+glad of any excuse to hang me. An' they mighty nigh
+done it, but Cap'n Tom came up in time to cut me down
+an' he said he'd make it hot for any man that teched me,
+that I was a square prisoner of war, an' he sent me to
+Johnson Island. Of course it didn't take me long to
+get out of that hole&mdash;I escaped.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop was silent, looking at the sword.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, at Franklin, when I seed Cap'n Tom dyin' as
+I tho'rt, shunned by the Yankees as a traitor&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;As a traitor?&rdquo; asked the old man hotly&mdash;&ldquo;what,
+after Shiloh&mdash;after he give up Miss Alice for the flag
+he loved an' his old grand sire an' The Gaffs an' all of
+us that loved him&mdash;you call that a traitor?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You never heard,&rdquo; said Jack, &ldquo;how old Gen'l Travis
+charged the breastworks at Franklin and hit the line
+where Cap'n Tom's battery stood. Nine times they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+had charged Cap'n Tom's battery that night&mdash;nine
+times he stood his ground an' they melted away around
+it. But when he saw the line led by his own grandsire
+the blood in him was thicker than water and&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' whut?&rdquo; gasped the Bishop.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, why they say it was a drunken soldier in his
+own battery who struck him with the heavy hilt of a
+sword. Any way I found the old Gen'l cryin' over him:
+'My Irish Gray&mdash;my Irish Gray,' he kept sayin'.
+'I might have known it was you,' and the old Gen'l
+charged on leaving him for dead. An' so I found him
+an' tuck him in my arms an' carried him to my own
+cabin up yonder on the mountain&mdash;carried him an'&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' whut?&rdquo;&mdash;asked the old man, grasping the outlaw's
+shoulder&mdash;&ldquo;Didn't he die? We've never been
+able to hear from him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jack shook his head. &ldquo;It 'ud been better for him if
+he had&rdquo;&mdash;and he touched his forehead significantly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me, Jack&mdash;quick&mdash;tell it all,&rdquo; exclaimed the
+old man, still gripping Jack's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There's nothin' to tell except that I kept him ever
+sence&mdash;here&mdash;right here for two years, with little
+Jack an' Ephrum, the young nigger that was his body
+servant&mdash;he's been our cook an' servant. He never
+would leave Cap'n Tom, followed me offen the field of
+Franklin. An' mighty fond of each other was all three
+of 'em.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man turned pale and his voice trembled so
+with excitement he could hardly say:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Where is he, Jack? My God&mdash;Cap'n Tom&mdash;he's
+been here all this time too&mdash;an' me awonderin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Right here, Bishop&mdash;kind an' quiet and teched in
+his head, where the sword-hilt crushed his skull. All
+these years I've cared for him&mdash;me an' Ephrum, my
+two boys as I called 'em&mdash;him an' little Jack. An'
+right here he staid contented like till little Jack died
+last night&mdash;then&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In God's name&mdash;quick!&mdash;tell me&mdash;Jack&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's the worst of it&mdash;Bishop&mdash;when he found
+little Jack was dead he wandered off&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When?&rdquo; almost shouted the old man.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To-day&mdash;this even'. I have sent Eph after him&mdash;an'
+I hope he has found him by now an' tuck him
+somewhere. Eph'll never stop till he does.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We must find him, Jack. Cap'n Tom alive&mdash;thank
+God&mdash;alive, even if he is teched in his head.
+Oh, God, I might a knowed it&mdash;an' only to-day I was
+doubtin' You.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He fell on his knees and Jack stood awed in the presence
+of the great emotion which shook the old man.</p>
+
+<p>Finally he arose. &ldquo;Come&mdash;Jack&mdash;let us go an'
+hunt for Cap'n Tom.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But though they hunted until the moon went down
+they found no trace of him. For miles they walked, or
+took turn about in riding the old blind roan.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's no use, Bishop,&rdquo; said Jack. &ldquo;We will sleep
+a while and begin to-morrow. Besides, Eph is with him.
+I feel it&mdash;he'll take keer o' him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>That is how it came that at midnight, that Saturday
+night, the old Bishop brought home a strange man to
+live in the little cabin in his yard.</p>
+
+<p>That is how, a week later, all the South was stirred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+over the strange return of a fortune to the different
+corporations from which it had been taken, accompanied
+by a drawling note from Jack Bracken saying he returned
+ill-gotten gain to live a better life.</p>
+
+<p>It ended laconically:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>An' maybe you'd better go an' do likewise.</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The dim starlight was shining faintly through the
+cracks of the outlaw's future home when the old man
+showed him in.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, Jack,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it's nearly mornin' an' the
+old woman may be wild an' raise sand. But learn to lay
+low an' shoe hosses. She was bohn disapp'inted&mdash;maybe
+because she wa'n't a boy,&rdquo; he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>There was a whinny outside, in a small paddock,
+where a nearby stable stood: &ldquo;That's Cap'n Tom's
+horse,&rdquo; said the old man&mdash;&ldquo;I mus' go see if he's hungry.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I've kept his horse these ten years, hopin' maybe
+he'd come back agin. It's John Paul Jones&mdash;the thoroughbred,
+that the old General give him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I remember him,&rdquo; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>The great bloodlike horse came up and rubbed his
+nose on the old man's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hungry, John Paul?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's been a job to get feed fur him, po' as I've been&mdash;but&mdash;but&mdash;he's
+Cap'n Tom's. You kno'&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' Cap'n Tom will ride him yet,&rdquo; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you believe it, Jack?&rdquo; asked the old man huskily
+&ldquo;God be praised!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<br />
+<p>That Saturday night was one never to be forgotten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+by others beside Jack Bracken and the old preacher of
+Cottontown.</p>
+
+<p>When Helen Conway, after supper, sought her
+drunken father and learned that he really intended to
+have Lily and herself go into the cotton mills, she was
+crushed for the first time in her life.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later she sent a boy with a note to The Gaffs
+to Harry Travis.</p>
+
+<p>He brought back an answer that made her pale with
+wounded love and grief. Not even Mammy Maria
+knew why she had crept off to bed. But in the night
+the old woman heard sobs from the young girl's room
+where she and her sister slept.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What is it, chile?&rdquo; she asked as she slipped from
+her own cot in the adjoining little room and went in to
+Helen's.</p>
+
+<p>The girl had been weeping all night&mdash;she had no
+mother&mdash;no one to whom she could unbosom her heart&mdash;no
+one but the old woman who had nursed her from
+her infancy. This kind old creature sat on the bed and
+held the girl's sobbing head on her lap and stroked her
+cheek. She knew and understood&mdash;she asked no questions:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It isn't that I must work in the mill,&rdquo; she sobbed
+to the old woman&mdash;&ldquo;I can do that&mdash;anything to help
+out&mdash;but&mdash;but&mdash;to think that Harry loves me so
+little as to give me up for&mdash;for&mdash;that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't cry, chile,&rdquo; said Mammy soothingly&mdash;&ldquo;It
+ain't registered that you gwine wuck in that mill yit&mdash;I
+ain't made my afferdavit yit.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But Harry doesn't love me&mdash;Oh, he doesn't love<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+me,&rdquo; she wept. &ldquo;He would not give me up for anything
+if he did.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'm gwine give that Marse Harry a piece of my
+mind when I see him&mdash;see if I don't. Don't you cry,
+chile&mdash;hold up yo' haid an' be a Conway. Don't you
+ever let him know that yo' heart is bustin' for him an'
+fo' the year is out we'll have that same Marse Harry
+acrawlin' on his very marrow bones to aix our forgiveness.
+See if we won't.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was poor consolation to the romantic spirit of Helen
+Conway. Daylight found her still heart-broken and
+sobbing in the old woman's lap.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PART THIRD&mdash;THE GIN</h2>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<h3>ALICE WESTMORE</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">I</span>t is remarkable how small a part of our real life the
+world knows&mdash;how little our most intimate friends
+know of the secret influences which have proven to
+be climaxes, at the turning points of our existence.</p>
+
+<p>There was no more beautiful woman in Alabama than
+Alice Westmore; and throughout that state, where the
+song birds seem to develop, naturally, along with the
+softness of the air, and the gleam of the sunshine, and
+the lullaby of the Gulf's soft breeze among the pine
+trees, there was no one, they say, who could sing as she
+sang.</p>
+
+<p>And she seemed to have caught it from her native
+mocking-birds, so natural was it. Not when they sing
+in the daylight, when everything is bright and joyous
+and singing is so easy; but when they waken at midnight
+amid the <i>arbor vit&aelig;</i> trees, and under the sweet,
+sad influence of a winter moon, pour out their half
+awakened notes to the star-sprays which fall in mist to
+blend and sparkle around the soft neck of the night.</p>
+
+<p>For like the star-sprays her notes were as clear; and
+through them ran a sadness as of a mist of moonlight.
+And just as moonbeams, when they mingle with the
+mist, make the melancholy of night, so the memory of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+a dead love ran through everything Alice Westmore
+sang.</p>
+
+<p>And this made her singing divine.</p>
+
+<p>Why should it be told? What right has a blacksmith
+to pry into a grand piano to find out wherein the exquisite
+harmony of the instrument lies? Who has the
+right to ask the artist how he blended the colors that
+crowned his picture with immortality, or the poet to
+explain his pain in the birth of a mood which moved the
+world?</p>
+
+<p>Born in the mountains of North Alabama, she grew
+up there and developed this rare voice; and when her
+father sent her to Italy to complete her musical education,
+the depth and clearness of it captured even that
+song nation of the world.</p>
+
+<p>The great of all countries were her friends and princes
+sought her favors. She sang at courts and in great
+cathedrals, and her genius and beauty were toasts with
+society.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Still, Mademoiselle will never be a great singer,
+perfect as her voice is,&rdquo;&mdash;said her singing master to
+her one day&mdash;a famous Italian teacher, &ldquo;until Mademoiselle
+has suffered. She is now rich and beautiful
+and happy. Go home and suffer if you would be a
+great singer,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;for great songs come only with
+great suffering.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>If this were true, Alice Westmore was now, indeed, a
+great singer; for now had she suffered. And it was
+the death of a life with her when love died. For there
+be some with whom love is a separate life, and when love
+dies all that is worth living dies with it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From childhood she and Cousin Tom&mdash;Captain
+Thomas Travis he lived to be&mdash;had been sweethearts.
+He was the grandson of Colonel Jeremiah Travis of
+&ldquo;The Gaffs,&rdquo; and Tom and Alice had grown up together.
+Their love was one of those earthly loves which
+comes now and then that we may not altogether lose our
+faith in heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Both were of a romantic temperament with high ideals,
+and with keen and sensitive natures.</p>
+
+<p>Their love was the poem of their lives.</p>
+
+<p>And though a toast in society, and courted by the
+nobility of the old world, Alice Westmore remembered
+only a moon-lighted night when she told Cousin Tom
+good-bye. For though they had loved each other all
+their lives, they had never spoken of it before that night.
+To them it had been a thing too sacred to profane with
+ordinary words.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Travis had just graduated from West Point,
+and he was at home on vacation before being assigned
+to duty. To-night he had ridden John Paul Jones&mdash;the
+pick of his grandfather's stable of thoroughbreds&mdash;a
+present from the sturdy old horse-racing, fox-hunting
+gentleman to his favorite grandson for graduating first
+in a class of fifty-six.</p>
+
+<p>How handsome he looked in his dark blue uniform!
+And there was the music of the crepe-myrtle in the air&mdash;the
+music of it, wet with the night dew&mdash;for there
+are flowers so delicate in their sweetness that they pass
+out of the realm of sight and smell, into the unheard
+world of rhythm. Their very existence is the poetry of
+perfume. And this music of the crepe-myrtle, pulsing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+through the shower-cooled leaves of that summer night,
+was accompanied by a mocking-bird from his nest in
+the tree.</p>
+
+<p>Never did the memory of that night leave Alice Westmore.
+In after years it hurt her, as the dream of childhood's
+home with green fields about, and the old spring
+in the meadow, hurts the fever-stricken one dying far
+away from it all.</p>
+
+<p>How long they sat on the rustic bench under the
+crepe-myrtle they did not know. At parting there was
+the light clasp of hands, and Cousin Tom drew her to
+him and put his lips reverently to hers. When he had
+ridden off there was a slender ring on her finger.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing in Italy that could make her forget
+that night, though often from her window she
+had looked out on Venice, moon-becalmed, while the
+nightingale sang from pomegranate trees in the hedgerows.</p>
+
+<p>Where a woman's love is first given, that, thereafter,
+is her heart's sanctuary.</p>
+
+<p>Alice Westmore landed at home again amid drum
+beats. War sweeps even sentiment from the world&mdash;sentiment
+that is stronger than common sense, and which
+moves the world.</p>
+
+<p>On the retreat of the Southern army from Fort Donelson,
+Thomas Travis, now Captain of Artillery, followed,
+with Grant's army, to Pittsburgh Landing. And
+finding himself within a day's journey of his old home,
+he lost no time in slipping through the lines to see Alice,
+whom he had not seen since her return.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He went first to her, and the sight of his blue uniform
+threw Colonel Westmore into a rage.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To march into our land in that thing and claim my
+daughter&mdash;&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;To join that John Brown
+gang of abolitionists who are trying to overrun our
+country! Your father was a Southern gentleman and
+the bosom friend of my youth, but I'll see you damned
+before you shall ever again come under my roof, unless
+you can use your pistols quicker than I can use mine.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Tom,&rdquo; said Alice when they were alone&mdash;&ldquo;how&mdash;how
+could you do it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But it is my side,&rdquo; he said quietly. &ldquo;I was born,
+reared, educated in the love of the Union. My grandfather
+himself taught it to me. He fought with Jackson
+at New Orleans. My father died for it in Mexico.
+I swore fidelity to it at West Point, and the Union
+gave me my military education on the faith of my
+oath. Farragut is a Tennessean&mdash;Thomas a Virginian&mdash;and
+there are hundreds of others, men who love
+the Union more than they do their State. Alice&mdash;Alice&mdash;I
+do not love you less because I am true to
+my oath&mdash;my flag.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your flag,&rdquo; said Alice hotly&mdash;&ldquo;your flag that
+would overrun our country and kill our people? It can
+never be my flag!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She had never been angry before in all her life, but
+now the hot blood of her Southern clime and ancestry
+surged in her cheeks. She arose with a dignity she had
+never before imagined, even, with Cousin Tom. &ldquo;You
+will choose between us now,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Alice&mdash;surely you will not put me to that test. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
+will go&mdash;&rdquo; he said, rising. &ldquo;Some day, if I live, you
+can tell me to come back to you without sacrificing my
+conscience and my word of honor&mdash;my sacred oath&mdash;write
+me and&mdash;and&mdash;I will come.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And that is the way it ended&mdash;in tears for both.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Travis had always been his grandsire's favorite.
+His other grandson, Richard Travis, was away in
+Europe, where he had gone as soon as rumors of the war
+began to be heard.</p>
+
+<p>That night the old man did not even speak to him.
+He could not. Alone in his room, he walked the floor
+all night in deep sorrow and thought.</p>
+
+<p>He loved Thomas Travis as he did no other living
+being, and when morning came his great nature shook
+with contending emotions. It ended in the grandson
+receiving this note, a few minutes before he rode away:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All my life I taught you to love the Union which
+I helped to make, with my blood in war and my brains
+in peace. I gave it my beloved boy&mdash;your father's life&mdash;in
+Mexico. We buried him in its flag. I sent you
+to West Point and made you swear to defend that flag
+with your life. How now can I ask you to repudiate
+your oath and turn your back on your rearing?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Believing as I do in the right of the State first and
+the Union afterwards, I had hoped you might see it
+differently. But who, but God, controls the course of
+an honest mind?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go, my son&mdash;I shall never see you again. But I
+know you, my son, and I shall die knowing you did
+what you thought was right.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The young man wept when he read this&mdash;he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
+neither too old nor too hardened for tears&mdash;and when
+he rode away, from the ridge of the Mountain he
+looked down again&mdash;the last time, on all that had been
+his life's happiness.</p>
+
+<p>It was an hour afterwards when the old General called
+in his overseer.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Watts,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;in the accursed war which is about
+to wreck the South and which will eventually end in
+our going back into the Union as a subdued province
+and under the heel of our former slaves, there will be
+many changes. I, myself, will not live to see it. I have
+two grandsons, as you know, Tom and Richard. Richard
+is in Europe; he went there following Alice Westmore,
+and is going to stay, till this fight is over. Now,
+I have added a codicil to my will and I wish you to
+hear it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He took up a lengthy document and read the last
+codicil:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Since the above will was written and acknowledged,
+leaving The Gaffs to be equally divided between my two
+grandsons, Thomas and Richard Travis, my country
+has been precipitated into the horrors of Civil War.
+In view of this I hereby change my will as above and
+give and bequeath The Gaffs to that one of my grandsons
+who shall fight&mdash;it matters not to me on which
+side&mdash;so that he fights. For The Gaffs shall never go
+to a Dominecker. If both fight and survive the war,
+it shall be divided equally between them as above expressed.
+If one be killed it shall go to the survivor. If
+both be killed it shall be sold and the money appropriated
+among those of my slaves who have been faithful
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>to me to the end, one-fifth being set aside for my faithful
+overseer, Hillard Watts</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In the panel of the wall he opened a small secret
+drawer, zinc-lined, and put the will in it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It shall remain there unchanged,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and
+only you and I shall know where it is. If I die suddenly,
+let it remain until after the war, and then do as
+you think best.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<h3>THE REAL HEROES</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">T</span>he real heroes of the war have not been decorated
+yet. They have not even been pensioned,
+for many of them lie in forgotten graves, and
+those who do not are not the kind to clamor for honors
+or emoluments.</p>
+
+<p>On the last Great Day, what a strange awakening for
+decorations there will be, if such be in store for the just
+and the brave: Private soldiers, blue and gray, arising
+from neglected graves with tattered clothes and unmarked
+brows. Scouts who rode, with stolid faces set,
+into Death's grim door and died knowing they went out
+unremembered. Spies, hung like common thieves at the
+end of a rope&mdash;hung, though the bravest of the brave.</p>
+
+<p>Privates, freezing, starving, wounded, dying,&mdash;unloved,
+unsoothed, unpitied&mdash;giving their life with a
+last smile in the joy of martyrdom. Women, North,
+whose silent tears for husbands who never came back
+and sons who died of shell and fever, make a tiara
+around the head of our reunited country. Women,
+South, glorious Rachels, weeping for children who are
+not and with brave hearts working amid desolate homes,
+the star and inspiration of a rebuilded land. Slaves,
+faithfully guarding and working while their masters
+went to the front, filling the granaries that the war<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>
+might go on&mdash;faithful to their trust though its success
+meant their slavery&mdash;faithful and true.</p>
+
+<p>O Southland of mine, be gentle, be just to these simple
+people, for they also were faithful.</p>
+
+<p>Among the heroic things the four years of the American
+Civil War brought out, the story of Captain
+Thomas Travis deserves to rank with the greatest of
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The love of Thomas Travis for the preacher-overseer
+was the result of a life of devotion on the part of the
+old man for the boy he had reared. Orphaned as he was
+early in life, Thomas Travis looked up to the overseer
+of his grandfather's plantation as a model of all that
+was great and good.</p>
+
+<p>Tom and Alice,&mdash;on the neighboring plantations&mdash;ran
+wild over the place and rode their ponies always on
+the track of the overseer. He taught them to ride, to
+trap the rabbit, to boat on the beautiful river. He
+knew the birds and the trees and all the wild things of
+Nature, and Tom and Alice were his children.</p>
+
+<p>As they grew up before him, it became the dream of
+the preacher-overseer to see his two pets married.
+Imagine his sorrow when the war fell like a thunderbolt
+out of a harvest sky and, among the thousand of
+other wrecked dreams, went the dream of the overseer.</p>
+
+<p>The rest is soon told: After the battle of Shiloh,
+Hillard Watts, Chief of Johnston's scouts, was captured
+and sent to Camp Chase. Scarcely had he arrived before
+orders came that twelve prisoners should be shot,
+by lot, in retaliation for the same number of Federal
+prisoners which had been executed, it was said, unjustly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+by Confederates. The overseer drew one of the black
+balls. Then happened one of those acts of heroism
+which now and then occur, perhaps, to redeem war of
+the base and bloody.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning before the execution, at daylight,
+Thomas Travis arrived and made arrangements to save
+his friend at the risk of his own life and reputation. It
+was a desperate chance and he acted quickly. For Hillard
+Watts went out a free man dressed in the blue uniform
+of the Captain of Artillery.</p>
+
+<p>The interposition of the great-hearted Lincoln alone
+saved the young officer from being shot.</p>
+
+<p>The yellow military order bearing the words of the
+martyred President is preserved to-day in the library of
+The Gaffs:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>I present this young man as a Christmas gift to my
+old friend, his grandsire, Colonel Jeremiah Travis.
+The man who could fight his guns as he did at Shiloh,
+and could offer to die for a friend, is good enough to
+receive pardon, for anything he may have done or may
+do, from</i></p>
+
+<center>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">A. Lincoln</span>.&rdquo;</center>
+
+<p>Afterwards came Franklin and the news that Captain
+Tom had been killed.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<h3>FRANKLIN</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">B</span>ut General Jeremiah Travis could not keep out of
+the war; for toward the last, when Hood's army
+marched into Tennessee the Confederacy called
+for everything&mdash;even old age.</p>
+
+<p>And so there rode out of the gates of The Gaffs a
+white-haired old man, who sat his superb horse well.
+He was followed by a negro on a mule.</p>
+
+<p>They were General Jeremiah Travis and his body-servant,
+Bisco.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have come to fight for my state,&rdquo; said General
+Travis to the Confederate General.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' I am gwine to take keer of old marster suh,&rdquo;
+said Bisco as he stuck to his saddle girth.</p>
+
+<p>It was the middle of the afternoon of the last day of
+November&mdash;and also the last day of many a gallant
+life&mdash;when Hood's tired army marched over the brow
+of the high ridge of hills that looked down on the town
+of Franklin, in front of which, from railroad to river,
+behind a long semicircular breastwork lay Schofield's
+determined army. It was a beautiful view, and as plain
+as looking down from the gallery into the pit of an
+amphitheatre.</p>
+
+<p>Just below them lay the little town in a valley, admirably
+situated for defense, surrounded as it was on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
+three sides by the bend of a small river, the further
+banks of which were of solid rocks rising above the town.
+On the highest of these bluffs&mdash;Roper's Knob&mdash;across
+and behind the town, directly overlooking it and grimly
+facing Hood's army two miles away, was a federal fort
+capped with mighty guns, ready to hurl their shells over
+the town at the gray lines beyond. From the high ridge
+where Hood's army stood the ground gradually rolled
+to the river. A railroad ran through a valley in the
+ridge to the right of the Confederates, spun along on
+the banks of the river past the town and crossed it in
+the heart of the bend to the left of the federal fort.
+From that railroad on the Confederate right, in front
+and clear around the town, past an old gin house which
+stood out clear and distinct in the November sunlight&mdash;on
+past the Carter House, to the extreme left bend of the
+river on the left&mdash;in short, from river to river again
+and entirely inclosing the town and facing the enemy&mdash;ran
+the newly made and hastily thrown-up breastworks
+of the federal army, the men rested and ready for
+battle.</p>
+
+<p>There stands to-day, as it stood then, in front of the
+town of Franklin, on the highest point of the ridge, a
+large linden tree, now showing the effects of age. It
+was half-past three o'clock in the afternoon, when General
+Hood rode unattended to that tree, threw the stump
+of the leg that was shot off at Chickamauga over the
+pommel of his saddle, drew out his field glasses and sat
+looking for a long time across the valley at the enemy's
+position.</p>
+
+<p>Strange to say, on the high river bluff beyond the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+town, amid the guns of the fort, also with field glass in
+hand anxiously watching the confederates, stood the federal
+general. A sharp-shooter in either line could have
+killed the commanding general in the other. And now
+that prophesying silence which always seems to precede
+a battle was afloat in the air. In the hollow of its stillness
+it seemed as if one could hear the ticking of the
+death-watch of eternity. But presently it was broken
+by the soft strains of music which floated up from the
+town below. It was the federal band playing &ldquo;Just
+Before The Battle, Mother.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The men in gray on the hill and the men in blue in
+the valley listened, and then each one mentally followed
+the tune with silent words, and not without a bit of moisture
+in their eyes.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Just before the battle, Mother,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I am thinking most of thee.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Suddenly Hood closed his glasses with that nervous
+jerk which was a habit with him, straightened himself
+in the saddle and, riding back to General Stewart,
+said simply: &ldquo;We will make the fight, General Stewart.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Stewart pressed his General's hand, wheeled and
+formed his corps on the right. Cheatham formed his
+on the left. A gun&mdash;and but few were used by Hood
+in the fight for fear of killing the women and children
+in the town&mdash;echoed from the ridge. It was the
+signal for the battle to begin. The heavy columns
+moved down the side of the ridge, the brigades marching
+in echelon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At the sound of the gun, the federal army, some of
+whom were on duty, but the larger number loitering
+around at rest, or engaged in preparing their evening
+meal, sprang noiselessly to their places behind the breastworks,
+while hurried whispers of command ran down the
+line.</p>
+
+<p>General Travis had been given a place of honor on
+General Hood's staff. He insisted on going into the
+ranks, but his commander had said: &ldquo;Stay with me,
+I shall need you elsewhere.&rdquo; And so the old man
+sat his horse silently watching the army forming
+and marching down. But directly, as a Mississippi
+regiment passed by, he noticed at the head of one of
+the companies an old man, almost as old as himself, his
+clothes torn, and ragged from long marching; shoeless,
+his feet tied up in sack-cloth and his old slouch hat aflop
+over his ears. But he did not complain, he stood erect,
+and gamely led his men into battle. As the company
+halted for a moment, General Travis rode up to the old
+man whose thin clothes could not keep him from shivering
+in the now chill air of late afternoon, for it was then
+past four o'clock, saluted him and said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Captain, will you do me the favor to pull off this
+boot?&rdquo; Withdrawing his boot from the stirrup and
+thrusting it towards the old man, the latter looked at him
+a moment in surprise but sheathed his sword and complied
+with the request. &ldquo;And now the other one?&rdquo; said
+Travis as he turned his horse around. This, too, was
+pulled off.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Just put them on, Captain, if you please,&rdquo; said the
+rider. &ldquo;I am mounted and do not need them as much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+as you do?&rdquo; and before the gallant old Captain could
+refuse, he rode away for duty&mdash;in his stocking feet!</p>
+
+<p>And now the battle began in earnest.</p>
+
+<p>The confederates came on in splendid form. On the
+extreme right, Forrest's cavalry rested on the river; then
+Stewart's corps of Loring, Walthall, French, from right
+to left in the order named. On the left Cheatham's
+corps, of Cleburne, Brown, Bate, and Walker. Behind
+Cheatham marched Johnston's and Clayton's brigade
+for support, thirty thousand and more of men, in solid
+lines, bands playing and flags fluttering in the afternoon
+wind.</p>
+
+<p>Nor had the federals been idle. Behind the breastworks
+lay the second and third divisions of the 23rd
+Corps, commanded in person by the gallant General J.
+D. Cox. From the railroad on the left to the Carter's
+Creek pike on the right, the brigades of these divisions
+stood as follows: Henderson's, Casement's, Reilly's,
+Strickland's, Moore's. And from the right of the Carter's
+Creek pike to the river lay Kimball's first division
+of the Fourth Corps. In front of the breastworks,
+across the Columbia pike, General Wagner, commanding
+the second division of the Fourth Corps, had thrown forward
+the two brigades of Bradley and Lane to check
+the first assault of the confederates, while Opdyck's brigade
+of the same division was held in the town as a reserve.
+Seven splendid batteries growled along the line
+of breastworks, and showed their teeth to the advancing
+foe, while three more were caged in the fort above and
+beyond the town.</p>
+
+<p>Never did men march with cooler courage on more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
+formidable lines of defense. Never did men wait an
+attack with cooler courage. Breastworks with abatis in
+front through which the mouth of cannon gaped; artillery
+and infantry on the right to enfilade; siege guns in
+the fort high above all, to sweep and annihilate.</p>
+
+<p>Schofield, born general that he was, simply lay in a
+rock-circled, earth-circled, water-circled, iron-and-steel-circled
+cage, bayonet and flame tipped, proof against the
+armies of the world!</p>
+
+<p>But Hood's brave army never hesitated, never doubted.</p>
+
+<p>Even in the matter of where to throw up his breastworks,
+Schofield never erred. On a beautiful and seemingly
+level plain like this, a less able general might have
+thrown them up anywhere, just so that they encircled
+the town and ran from river to river.</p>
+
+<p>But Schofield took no chances. His quick eye detected
+that even in apparent level plains there are slight
+undulations. And so, following a gentle rise all the
+way round, just on its top he threw up his breastworks.
+So that, besides the ditch and the abatis, there was a
+slight depression in his immediate front, open and clear,
+but so situated that on the gentle slope in front, down
+which the confederates must charge, the background of
+the slope brought them in bold relief&mdash;gray targets for
+the guns. On that background the hare would loom up
+as big as the hound.</p>
+
+<p>There were really two federal lines, an outer and an
+inner one. The outer one consisted of Bradley's and
+Lane's brigades which had retired from Spring Hill before
+the Confederate army, and had been ordered to halt
+in front of the breastworks to check the advance of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+army. They were instructed to fire and then fall back to
+the breastworks, if stubbornly charged by greatly their
+superiors in numbers. They fired, but, true to American
+ideas, they disliked to retreat. When forced to do so,
+they were swept away with the enemy on their very heels
+and as they rushed in over the last line at the breastworks
+on the Columbia pike the eager boys in gray
+rushed over with them, swept away portions of Reilly's
+and Strickland's troops, and bayoneted those that remained.</p>
+
+<p>It was then that Schofield's heart sank as he looked
+down from the guns of the fort. But Cox had the
+forethought to place Opdyck's two thousand men in
+reserve at this very point. These sprang gallantly
+forward and restored the line.</p>
+
+<p>They saved the Union army!</p>
+
+<p>The battle was now raging all around the line.
+There was a succession of yells, a rattle, a shock and
+a roar, as brigade after brigade struck the breastworks,
+only to be hurled back again or melt and die away in
+the trenches amid the abatis. Clear around the line
+of breastworks it rolled, at intervals, like a magazine
+of powder flashing before it explodes, then the roar
+and upheaval, followed anon and anon by another.
+The ground was soon shingled with dead men in gray,
+while down in the ditches or hugging the bloody sides
+of the breastworks right under the guns, thousands,
+more fortunate or daring than their comrades, lay,
+thrusting and being thrust, shooting and being shot.
+And there they staid throughout the fight&mdash;not strong
+enough to climb over, and yet all the guns of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+federal army could not drive them away. Many a
+gray regiment planted its battle-flag on the breastworks
+and then hugged those sides of death in its efforts
+to keep it there, as bees cling around the body of their
+queen.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have the honor to forward to the War Department
+nine stands of colors,&rdquo; writes General Cox to General
+Geo. L. Thomas; &ldquo;these flags with eleven others
+were captured by the Twenty-third Army Corps along
+the parapets.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Could Bonaparte's army have planted more on the
+ramparts of Mount St. Jean?</p>
+
+<p>The sun had not set; yet the black smoke of battle
+had set it before its time. God had ordained otherwise;
+but man, in his fury had shut out the light of heaven
+against the decree of God, just as, equally against His
+decree, he has now busily engaged in blotting out many
+a brother's bright life, before the decree of its sunset.
+Again and again and again, from four till midnight&mdash;eight
+butchering hours&mdash;the heart of the South was
+hurled against those bastions of steel and flame, only to
+be pierced with ball and bayonet.</p>
+
+<p>And for every heart that was pierced there broke a
+dozen more in the shade of the southern palmetto, or in
+the shadow of the northern pine. After nineteen hundred
+years of light and learning, what a scientific nation
+of heart-stabbers and brother-murderers we Christians
+are!</p>
+
+<p>It was now that the genius of the confederate cavalry
+leader, Forrest, asserted itself. With nearly ten thousand
+of his intrepid cavalry-men, born in the saddle, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+carried rifles and shot as they charged, and whom with
+wonderful genius their leader had trained to dismount
+at a moment's notice and fight as infantry&mdash;he lay on
+the extreme right between the river and the railroad.
+In a moment he saw his opportunity, and rode furiously
+to Hood's headquarters. He found the General sitting
+on a flat rock, a smouldering fire by his side, half way
+down the valley, at the Winstead House, intently
+watching the progress of the battle.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let me go at 'em, General,&rdquo; shouted Forrest in his
+bluff way, &ldquo;and I'll flank the federal army out of its
+position in fifteen minutes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No! Sir,&rdquo; shouted back Hood. &ldquo;Charge them out!
+charge them out!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Forrest turned and rode back with an oath of disgust.
+Years afterwards, Colonel John McGavock,
+whose fine plantation lay within the federal lines and
+who had ample opportunity for observation, says that
+when in the early evening a brigade of Forrest's cavalry
+deployed across the river as if opening the way for the
+confederate infantry to attack the federal army in flank
+and rear, hasty preparations were made by the federal
+army for retreat. And thus was Forrest's military wisdom
+corroborated. &ldquo;Let me flank them out,&rdquo; was military
+genius. &ldquo;No, charge them out,&rdquo; was dare-devil
+blundering!</p>
+
+<p>The shock, the shout and the roar continued. The
+flash from the guns could now plainly be seen as night
+descended. So continuous was the play of flame around
+the entire breastwork that it looked to the general at
+headquarters like a circle of prairie fire, leaping up at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
+intervals along the breastworks, higher and higher
+where the batteries were ablaze.</p>
+
+<p>In a black-locust thicket, just to the right of the Columbia
+turnpike and near the Carter House, with abatis
+in front, the strongest of the batteries had been placed.
+It mowed down everything in front. Seeing it, General
+Hood turned to General Travis and said: &ldquo;General,
+my compliments to General Cleburne, and say to him I
+desire that battery at his hands.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man wheeled and was gone. In a moment,
+it seemed, the black smoke of battle engulfed him. Cleburne's
+command was just in front of the old gin house,
+forming for another charge. The dead lay in heaps in
+front. They almost filled the ditch around the breastworks.
+But the command, terribly cut to pieces, was
+forming as coolly as if on dress parade. Above them
+floated a peculiar flag, a field of deep blue on which was
+a crescent moon and stars. It was Cleburne's battle
+flag and well the enemy knew it. They had seen and
+felt it at Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Ringgold Gap, Atlanta.
+&ldquo;I tip my hat to that flag,&rdquo; said General Sherman years
+after the war. &ldquo;Whenever my men saw it they knew
+it meant fight.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As the old man rode up, the division charged. Carried
+away in the excitement he charged with them, guiding
+his horse by the flashes of the guns. As they rushed
+on the breastworks a gray figure on a chestnut horse
+rode diagonally across the front of the moving column
+at the enemy's gun. The horse went down within fifty
+yards of the breastwork. The rider arose, waved his
+sword and led his men on foot to the very ramparts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+Then he staggered and fell, pierced with a dozen minie
+balls. It was Cleburne, the peerless field-marshal of
+confederate brigade commanders; the genius to infantry
+as Forrest was to cavalry. His corps was swept back by
+the terrible fire, nearly half of them dead or wounded.</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes afterwards General Travis stood before
+General Hood.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;General Cleburne is dead, General&rdquo;&mdash;was all he
+said. Hood did not turn his head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My compliments to General Adams,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and
+tell him I ask that battery at his hands.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Again the old man wheeled and was gone. Again he
+rode into the black night and the blacker smoke of battle.</p>
+
+<p>General Adams's brigade was in Walthall's division.
+As the aged courier rode up, Adams was just charging.
+Again the old man was swept away with the charge.
+They struck the breastworks where Stile's and Casement's
+brigades lay on the extreme left of the federal
+army. &ldquo;Their officers showed heroic examples and self-sacrifice,&rdquo;
+wrote General Cox in his official report, &ldquo;riding
+up to our lines in advance of their men, cheering
+them on. One officer, Adams, was shot down upon the
+parapet itself, his horse falling across the breastworks.&rdquo;
+Casement himself, touched by the splendor of his ride,
+had cotton brought from the old gin house and placed
+under the dying soldier's head. &ldquo;You are too brave a
+man to die,&rdquo; said Casement tenderly; &ldquo;I wish that I
+could save you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Tis the fate of a soldier to die for his country,&rdquo; smiled the dying soldier. Then he
+passed away.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was a half hour before the old man reached Hood's
+headquarters again, his black horse wet with sweat.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;General Adams lies in front of the breastworks&mdash;dead!
+His horse half over it&mdash;dead&rdquo;&mdash;was all he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>Hood turned pale. His eyes flashed with indignant
+grief.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then tell General Gist,&rdquo; he exclaimed. The old
+man vanished again and rode once more into the smoke
+and the night. Gist's brigade led the front line of
+Brown's division, Cheatham's corps. It was on the left,
+fronting Strickland's and Moore's, on the breastworks.
+The Twenty-fourth South Carolina Infantry was in
+front of the charging lines. &ldquo;In passing from the left
+to the right of the regiment,&rdquo; writes Colonel Ellison
+Capers commanding the South Carolina regiment above
+named, &ldquo;the General (Gist) waved his hat to us, expressed
+his pride and confidence in the Twenty-fourth
+and rode away in the smoke of battle never more to be
+seen by the men he had commanded on so many fields.
+His horse was shot, and, dismounting, he was leading the
+right of the brigade when he fell, pierced through the
+heart. On pressed the charging lines of the brigade,
+driving the advance force of the enemy pell-mell into a
+locust abatis where many were captured and sent to the
+rear; others were wounded by the fire of their own men.
+This abatis was a formidable and fearful obstruction.
+The entire brigade was arrested by it. But Gist's and
+Gordon's brigade charged on and reached the ditch,
+mounted the works and met the enemy in close combat.
+The colors of the Twenty-fourth were planted and de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>fended
+on the parapet, and the enemy retired in our
+front some distance, but soon rallied and came back in
+turn to charge us. He never succeeded in retaking the
+line we held. Torn and exhausted, deprived of every
+general officer and nearly every field officer, the division
+had only strength enough left to hold its position.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The charging became intermittent. Then out of the
+night, as Hood sat listening, again came the old man,
+his face as white as his long hair, his horse once black,
+now white with foam.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;General Gist too, is dead,&rdquo; he said sadly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tell Granbury, Carter, Strahl&mdash;General! Throw
+them in there and capture that battery and break that
+line.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man vanished once more and rode into the
+shock and shout of battle.</p>
+
+<p>General Strahl was leading his brigade again against
+the breastworks. &ldquo;Strahl's and Carter's brigade came
+gallantly to the assistance of Gist's and Gordon's&rdquo; runs
+the confederate report sent to Richmond, &ldquo;but the
+enemy's fire from the houses in the rear of the line and
+from guns posted on the far side of the river so as to
+enfilade the field, tore their line to pieces before it
+reached the locust abatis.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>General Carter fell mortally wounded before reaching
+the breastworks, but General Strahl reached the ditch,
+filled with dead and dying men, though his entire staff
+had been killed. Here he stood with only two men
+around him, Cunningham and Brown. &ldquo;Keep firing&rdquo;
+said Strahl as he stood on the bodies of the dead and
+passed up guns to the two privates. The next instant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+Brown fell heavily; he, too, was dead.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What shall I do, General?&rdquo; asked Cunningham.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Keep firing,&rdquo; said Strahl.</p>
+
+<p>Again Cunningham fired. &ldquo;Pass me another
+gun, General,&rdquo; said Cunningham. There was no
+answer&mdash;the general was dead.</p>
+
+
+<p>Not a hundred yards away lay General Granbury,
+dead. He died leading the brave Texans to the works.</p>
+
+<p>To the commanding General it seemed an age before
+the old man returned. Then he saw him in the darkness
+afar off, before he reached the headquarters. The
+General thought of death on his pale horse and shivered.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Granbury, Carter, Strahl&mdash;all dead, General,&rdquo; he
+said. &ldquo;Colonels command divisions, Captains are commanding
+brigades.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How does Cheatham estimate his loss?&rdquo; asked the
+General.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;At half his command killed and wounded,&rdquo; said the
+old soldier sadly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My God!&mdash;my God!&mdash;this awful, awful day!&rdquo;
+cried Hood.</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence and then: &ldquo;General?&rdquo;
+It came from General Travis.</p>
+
+<p>The General looked up.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;May I lead the Tennessee troops in&mdash;I have led
+them often before.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Hood thought a moment, then nodded and the horse
+and the rider were gone. It was late&mdash;nearly midnight.
+The firing on both sides had nearly ceased,&mdash;only
+a desultory rattling&mdash;the boom of a gun now and
+then. But O, the agony, the death, the wild confusion!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+This was something like the babel that greeted the old
+soldier's ears as he rode forward:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Fourth Mississippi&mdash;where is the Fourth Mississippi?&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Here is the Fortieth Alabama's standard&mdash;rally
+men to your standard!&rdquo; &ldquo;Where is General
+Cleburne, men? Who has seen General Cleburne?&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Up, boys, and let us at 'em agin! Damn 'em, they've
+wounded me an' I want to kill some more!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Water!&mdash;water&mdash;for God's sake give us water!&rdquo;
+This came from a pile of wounded men just under the
+guns on the Columbia pike. It came from a sixteen
+year old boy in blue. Four dead comrades lay across
+him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And this is the curse of it,&rdquo; said General Travis, as
+he rode among the men.</p>
+
+<p>But suddenly amid the smoke and confusion, the soldiers
+saw what many thought was an apparition&mdash;an
+old, old warrior, on a horse with black mane and tail and
+fiery eyes, but elsewhere covered with white sweat and
+pale as the horse of death. The rider's face too, was
+deadly white, but his keen eyes blazed with the fire of
+many generations of battle-loving ancestors.</p>
+
+<p>The soldiers flocked round him, half doubting, half
+believing. The terrible ordeal of that bloody night's
+work; the poignant grief from beholding the death and
+wounds of friends and brothers; the weird, uncanny
+groans of the dying upon the sulphurous-smelling night
+air; the doubt, uncertainty, and yet, through it all, the
+bitter realization that all was in vain, had shocked, benumbed,
+unsettled the nerves of the stoutest; and many
+of them scarcely knew whether they were really alive,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+confronting in the weird hours of the night ditches of
+blood and breastworks of death, or were really dead&mdash;dead
+from concussion, from shot or shell, and were now
+wandering on a spirit battle-field till some soul-leader
+should lead them away.</p>
+
+<p>And so, half dazed and half dreaming, and yet half
+alive to its realization, they flocked around the old warrior,
+and they would not have been at all surprised had
+he told them he came from another world.</p>
+
+<p>Some thought of Mars. Some thought of death and
+his white horse. Some felt of the animal's mane and
+touched his streaming flanks and cordy legs to see if it
+were really a horse and not an apparition, while &ldquo;What
+is it?&rdquo; and &ldquo;Who is he?&rdquo; was whispered down the
+lines.</p>
+
+<p>Then the old rider spoke for the first time, and said
+simply:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Men, I have come to lead you in.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A mighty shout came up. &ldquo;It's General Lee!&mdash;he
+has come to lead us in,&rdquo; they shouted.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, no, men,&rdquo;&mdash;said the old warrior quickly. &ldquo;I
+am not General Lee. But I have led Southern troops
+before. I was at New Orleans. I was&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's Ole Hick'ry&mdash;by the eternal!&mdash;Ole Hick'ry&mdash;and
+he's come back to life to lead us!&rdquo; shouted a big
+fellow as he threw his hat in the air.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ole Hickory! Ole Hickory!&rdquo; echoed and re-echoed
+down the lines, till it reached the ears of the dying soldiers
+in the ditch itself, and many a poor, brave fellow,
+as his heart strings snapped and the broken chord gurgled
+out into the dying moan, saw amid the blaze and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+light of the new life, the apparition turn into a reality
+and a smile of exquisite satisfaction was forever frozen
+on his face in the mould of death, as he whispered with
+his last breath:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's Old Hickory&mdash;my General&mdash;I have fought
+a good fight&mdash;I come!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then the old warrior smiled&mdash;a smile of simple
+beauty and grandeur, of keen satisfaction that such an
+honor should have been paid him, and he tried to speak
+to correct them. But they shouted the more, and
+drowned out his voice and would not have it otherwise.
+Despairing, he rode to the front and drew his long,
+heavy, old, revolutionary sword. It flashed in the air.
+It came to &ldquo;attention&rdquo;&mdash;and then a dead silence followed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Men,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;this is the sword of John Sevier,
+the rebel that led us up the sides of King's Mountain
+when every tyrant gun that belched in our face called
+us&mdash;rebels!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Old Hick'ry! Old Hick'ry, forever!&rdquo; came back
+from the lines.</p>
+
+<p>Again the old sword came to attention, and again a
+deep hush followed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Men,&rdquo; he said, drawing a huge rifled barreled pistol&mdash;&ldquo;this
+is the pistol of Andrew Jackson, the rebel that
+whipped the British at New Orleans when every gun that
+thundered in his face, meant death to liberty!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Old Hickory! Old Hickory!!&rdquo; came back in a
+frenzy of excitement.</p>
+
+<p>Again the old sword came to attention&mdash;again, the
+silence. Then the old man fairly stood erect in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
+stirrups&mdash;he grew six inches taller and straighter and
+the black horse reared and rose as if to give emphasis
+to his rider's assertion:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Men,&rdquo; he shouted, &ldquo;rebel is the name that tyranny
+gives to patriotism! And now, let us fight, as our fore-fathers
+fought, for our state, our homes and our firesides!&rdquo;
+And then clear and distinct there rang out on
+the night air, a queer old continental command:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fix, pieces!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They did not know what this meant at first. But
+some old men in the line happened to remember and
+fixed their bayonets. Then there was clatter and clank
+down the entire line as others imitated their examples.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poise, fo'k!&rdquo; rang out again more queerly still.
+The old men who remembered brought their guns to the
+proper position. &ldquo;Right shoulder, fo'k!&rdquo;&mdash;followed.
+Then, &ldquo;Forward, March!&rdquo; came back and they moved
+straight at the batteries&mdash;now silent&mdash;and straight
+at the breastworks, more silent still. Proudly, superbly,
+they came on, with not a shout or shot&mdash;a chained
+line with links of steel&mdash;a moving mass with one heart&mdash;and
+that heart,&mdash;victory.</p>
+
+<p>On they came at the breastworks, walking over the
+dead who lay so thick they could step from body to body
+as they marched. On they came, following the old
+cocked hat that had once held bloodier breastworks
+against as stubborn foe.</p>
+
+<p>On&mdash;on&mdash;they came, expecting every moment to
+see a flame of fire run round the breastworks, a furnace
+of flame leap up from the batteries, and then&mdash;victory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+or death&mdash;behind old Hickory! Either was honor
+enough!</p>
+
+<p>And now they were within fifty feet of the breastworks,
+moving as if on dress parade. The guns must
+thunder now or never! One step more&mdash;then, an electrical
+bolt shot through every nerve as the old man
+wheeled his horse and again rang out that queer old
+continental command, right in the mouth of the enemy's
+ditch, right in the teeth of his guns:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Charge, pieces!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was Tom Travis who commanded the guns where
+the Columbia Pike met the breastworks at the terrible
+deadly locust thicket. All night he had stood at his
+post and stopped nine desperate charges. All night
+in the flash and roar and the strange uncanny smell of
+blood and black powder smoke, he had stood among the
+dead and dying calling stubbornly, monotonously:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ready!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Aim!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fire!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And now it was nearly midnight and Schofield, finding
+the enemy checked, was withdrawing on Nashville.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Travis thought the battle was over, but in the
+glare and flash he looked and saw another column,
+ghostly gray in the starlight, moving stubbornly at his
+guns.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ready!&rdquo; he shouted as his gunners sprang again
+to their pieces.</p>
+
+<p>On came the column&mdash;beautifully on. How it
+thrilled him to see them! How it hurt to think they were
+his people!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Aim!</i>&rdquo; he thundered again, and then as he looked
+through the gray torch made, starlighted night, he
+quailed in a cold sickening fear, for the old man who
+led them on was his grandsire, the man whom of all
+on earth he loved and revered the most.</p>
+
+<p>Eight guns, with grim muzzles trained on the old
+rider and his charging column, waited but for the captain's
+word to hurl their double-shotted canisters of
+death.</p>
+
+<p>And Tom Travis, in the agony of it, stood, sword
+in hand, stricken in dumbness and doubt. On came the
+column, the old warrior leading them&mdash;on and:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The command&mdash;the command! Give it to us,
+Captain,&rdquo; shouted the gunners.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Cease firing!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The gunners dropped their lanyards with an oath,
+trained machines that they were.</p>
+
+<p>It was a drunken German who brought a heavy sword-hilt
+down on the young officer's head with:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You damned traitor!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A gleam of gun and bayonet leaped in the misty
+light in front, from shoulder to breast&mdash;a rock wall,
+tipped with steel swept crushingly forward over the
+trenches over the breastworks.</p>
+
+<p>Under the guns, senseless, his skull crushed, an upturned
+face stopped the old warrior. Down from his
+horse he came with a weak, hysterical sob.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O Tom&mdash;Tom, I might have known it was you&mdash;my
+gallant, noble boy&mdash;my Irish Gray!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He kissed, as he thought, the dead face, and went on
+with his men.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was just midnight.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;At midnight, all being quiet in front, in accordance
+with orders from the commanding Generals,&rdquo; writes General
+J. D. Cox in his official report, &ldquo;I withdrew my
+command to the north bank of the river.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The battle closed about twelve o'clock at night,&rdquo;
+wrote General Hood, &ldquo;when the enemy retreated rapidly
+on Nashville, leaving the dead and wounded in our hands.
+We captured about a thousand prisoners and several
+stands of colors.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Was this a coincidence&mdash;or as some think&mdash;did the
+boys in blue retreat before they would fire on an old
+Continental and the spirit of '76?</p>
+
+<p>An hour afterwards a negro was sadly leading a tired
+old man on a superb horse back to headquarters, and
+as the rider's head sank on his breast he said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lead me, Bisco, I'm too weak to guide my horse.
+Nothing is left now but the curse of it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And O, the curse of it!</p>
+
+<p>Fifty-seven Union dead beside the wounded, in the little
+front yard of the Carter House, alone. And they
+lay around the breastworks from river to river, a chain
+of dead and dying. In front of the breastworks was
+another chain&mdash;a wider and thicker one. It also ran
+from river to river, but was gray instead of blue.
+Chains are made of links, and the full measure of &ldquo;the
+curse of it&rdquo; may have been seen if one could have looked
+over the land that night and have seen where the dead
+links lying there were joined to live under the roof trees
+of far away homes.</p>
+
+<p>But here is the tale of a severed link: About two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+o'clock lights began to flash about over the battle-field&mdash;they
+were hunting for the dead and wounded.
+Among these, three had come out from the Carter House.
+A father, son and daughter; each carried a lantern and
+as they passed they flashed their lights in the faces of
+the dead.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;May we look for brother?&rdquo; asked the young girl,
+of an officer. &ldquo;We hope he is not here but fear he is.
+He has not been home for two years, being stationed in
+another state. But we heard he could not resist the
+temptation to come home again and joined General
+Bate's brigade. And O, we fear he has been killed for
+he would surely have been home before this.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They separated, each looking for &ldquo;brother.&rdquo; Directly
+the father heard the daughter cry out. It was in
+the old orchard near the house. On reaching the spot
+she was seated on the ground, holding the head of her
+dying brother in her lap and sobbing:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Brother's come home! Brother's come home!&rdquo;
+Alas, she meant&mdash;gone home!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Captain Carter, on staff duty with Tyler's brigade,&rdquo;
+writes General Wm. B. Bate in his official report,
+&ldquo;fell mortally wounded near the works of the
+enemy and almost at the door of his father's home. His
+gallantry I witnessed with much pride, as I had done
+on other fields, and here take pleasure in mentioning it
+especially.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The next morning in the first light of the first day of
+that month celebrated as the birth-month of Him who
+declared long ago that war should cease, amid the dead
+and dying of both armies, stood two objects which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+should one day be carved in marble&mdash;One, to represent
+the intrepid bravery of the South, the other, the cool
+courage of the North, and both&mdash;&ldquo;the curse of it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The first was a splendid war-horse, dead, but lying
+face forward, half over the federal breastworks. It was
+the horse of General Adams.</p>
+
+<p>The other was a Union soldier&mdash;the last silent sentinel
+of Schofield's army. He stood behind a small
+locust tree, just in front of the Carter House gate. He
+had drawn his iron ram-rod which rested under his right
+arm pit, supporting that side. His gun, with butt on
+the ground at his left, rested with muzzle against his
+left side, supporting it. A cartridge, half bitten off
+was in his mouth. He leaned heavily against the small
+tree in front. He was quite dead, a minie ball through
+his head; but thus propped he stood, the wonder of
+many eyes, the last sentinel of the terrible night battle.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>But another severed link cut deepest of all. In the
+realization of her love for Thomas Travis, Alice Westmore's
+heart died within her. In the years which followed,
+if suffering could make her a great singer, now
+indeed was she great.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<h2>PART FOURTH&mdash;THE LINT</h2>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h3>COTTONTOWN</h3>
+
+<p><span class="first">S</span>lavery clings to cotton.</p>
+
+<p>When the directors of a cotton mill, in a
+Massachusetts village, decided, in the middle
+'70's, to move their cotton factory from New England to
+Alabama, they had two objects in view&mdash;cheaper labor
+and cheaper staple.</p>
+
+<p>And they did no unwise thing, as the books of the
+company from that time on showed.</p>
+
+<p>In the suburbs of a growing North Alabama town,
+lying in the Tennessee Valley and flanked on both sides
+by low, regularly rolling mountains, the factory had
+been built.</p>
+
+<p>It was a healthful, peaceful spot, and not unpicturesque.
+North and south the mountains fell away in an
+undulating rhythmical sameness, with no abrupt gorges
+to break in and destroy the poetry of their scroll against
+the sky. The valley supplemented the effect of the
+mountains; for, from the peak of Sunset Rock, high up
+on the mountain, it looked not unlike the chopped up
+waves of a great river stiffened into land&mdash;especially
+in winter when the furrowed rows of the vast cotton
+fields lay out brown and symmetrically turned under the
+hazy sky.</p>
+
+<p>The factory was a low, one-story structure of half<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+burnt bricks. Like a vulgar man, cheapness was written
+all over its face. One of its companions was a
+wooden store house near by, belonging to the company.
+The other companion was a squatty low-browed engine
+room, decorated with a smoke-stack which did business
+every day in the week except Sunday. A black,
+soggy exhaust-pipe stuck out of a hole in its side, like
+a nicotine-soaked pipe in an Irishman's mouth, and so
+natural and matter-of-fact was the entire structure that
+at evening, in the uncertain light, when the smoke was
+puffing out of its stack, and the dirty water running
+from its pipes, and the reflected fire from the engine's
+furnace blazed through the sunken eyes of the windows,
+begrizzled and begrimed, nothing was wanted but a little
+imagination to hear it cough and spit and give one
+final puff at its pipe and say: &ldquo;Lu'd but o'ive wur-rek
+hard an' o'im toired to-day!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Around it in the next few years had sprung up Cottontown.</p>
+
+<p>The factory had been built on the edge of an old
+cottonfield which ran right up to the town's limit; and
+the field, unplowed for several years, had become sodded
+with the long stolens of rank Bermuda grass, holding
+in its perpetual billows of green the furrows which had
+been thrown up for cotton rows and tilled years before.</p>
+
+<p>This made a beautiful pea-green carpet in summer
+and a comfortable straw-colored matting in winter; and
+it was the only bit of sentiment that clung to Cottontown.</p>
+
+<p>All the rest of it was practical enough: Rows of
+scurvy three-roomed cottages, all exactly alike, even to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+the gardens in the rear, laid off in equal breadth and
+running with the same unkept raggedness up the flinty
+side of the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>There was not enough originality among the worked-to-death
+inhabitants of Cottontown to plant their gardens
+differently; for all of them had the same weedy
+turnip-patch on one side, straggling tomatoes on another,
+and half-dried mullein-stalks sentineling the corners.
+For years these cottages had not been painted,
+and now each wore the same tinge of sickly yellow paint.
+It was not difficult to imagine that they had had a long
+siege of malarial fever in which the village doctor had
+used abundant plasters of mustard, and the disease had
+finally run into &ldquo;yaller ja'ndice,&rdquo; as they called it in
+Cottontown.</p>
+
+<p>And thus Cottontown had stood for several years, a
+new problem in Southern life and industry, and a paying
+one for the Massachusetts directors.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile another building had been put up&mdash;a
+little cheaply built chapel, of long-leaf yellow pine.
+It was known as the Bishop's church, and sat on the
+side of the mountain, half way up among the black-jacks,
+exposed to the blistering suns of summer and
+the winds of winter.</p>
+
+<p>It had never been painted: &ldquo;An' it don't need it,&rdquo;
+as the Bishop had said when the question of painting
+it had been raised by some of the members.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, it don't need it, for the hot sun has drawed all
+the rosin out on its surface, an' pine rosin's as good a
+paint as any church needs. Jes' let God be, an' He'll
+fix His things like He wants 'em any way. He put the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+paint in the pine-tree when He made it. Now man is
+mighty smart,&mdash;he can make paint, but he can't make
+a pine tree.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was Sunday morning, and as the Bishop drove
+along to church he was still thinking of Jack Bracken
+and Captain Tom, and the burial of little Jack. When
+he arose that morning Jack was up, clean-shaved and
+neatly dressed. As Mrs. Watts, the Bishop's wife, had
+become used, as she expressed it, to his &ldquo;fetchin' any
+old thing, frum an old hoss to an old man home, wharever
+he finds 'em,&rdquo;&mdash;she did not express any surprise
+at having a new addition to the family.</p>
+
+<p>The outlaw looked nervous and sorrow-stricken. Several
+times, when some one came on him unexpectedly, the
+Bishop saw him feeling nervously for a Colt's revolver
+which had been put away. Now and then, too, he saw
+great tears trickling down the rough cheeks, when he
+thought no one was noticing him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, Jack,&rdquo; said the Bishop after breakfast, &ldquo;you
+jes' get on John Paul Jones an' hunt for Cap'n Tom.
+I know you'll not leave no stone unturned to find him.
+Go by the cave and see if him an' Eph ain't gone back.
+I'm not af'eard&mdash;I know Eph will take care of him,
+but we want to fin' him. After meetin' if you haven't
+found him I'll join in the hunt myself&mdash;for we must
+find Cap'n Tom, Jack, befo' the sun goes down. I'd
+ruther see him than any livin' man. Cap'n Tom&mdash;Cap'n
+Tom&mdash;him that's been as dead all these years!
+Fetch him home when you find him&mdash;fetch him home
+to me. He shall never want while I live. An', Jack,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+remember&mdash;don't forget yo'se'f and hold up anybody.
+I'll expec' you to jine the church nex' Sunday.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I ain't been in a church for fifteen years,&rdquo; said the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;High time you are going, then. You've put yo'
+hands to the plough&mdash;turn not back an' God'll straighten
+out everything.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jack was silent. &ldquo;I'll go by the cave fus' an' jus'
+look where little Jack is sleepin'. Po' little feller, he
+must ha' been mighty lonesome last night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was ten o'clock and the Bishop was on his way to
+church. He was driving the old roan of the night before.
+A parody on a horse, to one who did not look
+closely, but to one who knows and who looks beyond the
+mere external form for that hidden something in both
+man and horse which bespeaks strength and reserve
+force, there was seen through the blindness and the ugliness
+and the sleepy, ambling, shuffling gait a clean-cut
+form, with deep chest and closely ribbed; with well
+drawn flanks, a fine, flat steel-turned bone, and a powerful
+muscle, above hock and forearms, that clung to the
+leg as the Bishop said, &ldquo;like bees a'swarmin'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>At his little cottage gate stood Bud Billings, the best
+slubber in the cotton mill. Bud never talked to any one
+except the Bishop; and his wife, who was the worst
+Xanthippe in Cottontown, declared she had lived with
+him six months straight and never heard him come
+nearer speaking than a grunt. It was also a saying
+of Richard Travis, that Bud had been known to break
+all records for silence by drawing a year's wages at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+mill, never missing a minute and never speaking a
+word.</p>
+
+<p>Nor had he ever looked any one full in the eye in his
+life.</p>
+
+<p>As the Bishop drove shamblingly along down the
+road, deeply preoccupied in his forthcoming sermon,
+there came from out of a hole, situated somewhere between
+the grizzled fringe of hair that marked Bud's
+whiskers and the grizzled fringe above that marked his
+eyebrows, a piping, apologetic voice that sounded like
+the first few rasps of an old rusty saw; but to the
+occupant of the buggy it meant, with a drawl:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Howdy do, Bishop?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A blind horse is quick to observe and take fright at
+anything uncanny. He is the natural ghost-finder of
+the highways, and that voice was too much for the old
+roan. To him it sounded like something that had been
+resurrected. It was a ghost-voice, arising after many
+years. He shied, sprang forward, half wheeled and
+nearly upset the buggy, until brought up with a jerk
+by the powerful arms of his driver. The shaft-band
+had broken and the buggy had run upon the horse's
+rump, and the shafts stuck up almost at right angles
+over his back. The roan stood trembling with the half
+turned, inquisitive muzzle of the sightless horse&mdash;a
+paralysis of fear all over his face. But when Bud came
+forward and touched his face and stroked it, the fear
+vanished, and the old roan bobbed his tail up and down
+and wiggled his head reassuringly and apologetically.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wal, I declar, Bishop,&rdquo; grinned Bud, &ldquo;kin yo' critter
+fetch a caper?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop got leisurely out of his buggy, pulled
+down the shafts and tied up the girth before he spoke.
+Then he gave a puckering hitch to his underlip and
+deposited in the sand, with a puddling <i>plunk</i>, the half
+cup of tobacco juice that had closed up his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>He stepped back and said very sternly:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Whoa, Ben Butler!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, he'un's sleep a'ready,&rdquo; grinned Bud.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop glanced at the bowed head, cocked hind
+foot and listless tail: &ldquo;Sof'nin' of the brain, Bud,&rdquo;
+smiled the Bishop; &ldquo;they say when old folks begin to
+take it they jus' go to sleep while settin' up talkin'.
+Now, a horse, Bud,&rdquo; he said, striking an attitude for a
+discussion on his favorite topic, &ldquo;a horse is like a man&mdash;he
+must have some meanness or he c'udn't live, an'
+some goodness or nobody else c'ud live. But git in,
+Bud, and let's go along to meetin'&mdash;'pears like it's gettin'
+late.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This was what Bud had been listening for. This was
+the treat of the week for him&mdash;to ride to meetin' with
+the Bishop. Bud, a slubber-slave&mdash;henpecked at home,
+brow-beaten and cowed at the mill, timid, scared, &ldquo;an'
+powerful slow-mouthed,&rdquo; as his spouse termed it, worshipped
+the old Bishop and had no greater pleasure in
+life, after his hard week's work, than &ldquo;to ride to meetin'
+with the old man an' jes' hear him narrate.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop's great, sympathetic soul went out to the
+poor fellow, and though he had rather spend the next
+two miles of Ben Butler's slow journey to church in
+thinking over his sermon, he never failed, as he termed
+it, &ldquo;to pick up charity even on the roadside,&rdquo; and it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+was pretty to see how the old man would turn loose his
+crude histrionic talent to amuse the slubber. He knew,
+too, that Bud was foolish about horses, and that Ben
+Butler was his model!</p>
+
+<p>They got into the old buggy, and Ben Butler began to
+draw it slowly along the sandy road to the little church,
+two miles away up the mountain side.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<h3>BEN BUTLER</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">B</span>ud was now in a seventh heaven. He was riding
+behind Ben Butler, the greatest horse in the
+world, and talking to the Bishop, the only person
+who ever heard the sound of his voice, save in deprecatory
+and scary grunts.</p>
+
+<p>It was touching to see how the old man humored the
+simple and imposed-upon creature at his side. It was
+beautiful to see how, forgetting himself and his sermon,
+he prepared to entertain, in his quaint way, this
+slave to the slubbing machine.</p>
+
+<p>Bud looked fondly at the Bishop&mdash;then admiringly
+at Ben Butler. He drew a long breath of pure air, and
+sitting on the edge of the seat, prepared to jump if
+necessary; for Bud was mortally afraid of being in a
+runaway, and his scared eyes seemed to be looking for
+the soft places in the road.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bishop,&rdquo; he drawled after a while, &ldquo;huc-cum you
+name sech a hoss&rdquo;&mdash;pointing to the old roan&mdash;&ldquo;sech
+a grand hoss, for sech a man&mdash;sech a man as he was,&rdquo;
+he added humbly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did you ever notice Ben Butler's eyes, Bud?&rdquo;
+asked the old man, knowingly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Blind,&rdquo; said Bud sadly, shaking his head&mdash;&ldquo;too
+bad&mdash;too bad&mdash;great&mdash;great hoss!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, but the leds, Bud&mdash;that hoss, Ben Butler
+there, holds a world's record&mdash;he's the only cock-eyed
+hoss in the world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You don't say so&mdash;that critter!&mdash;cock-eyed?&rdquo;
+Bud laughed and slapped his leg gleefully. &ldquo;Didn't
+I always tell you so? World's record&mdash;great&mdash;great!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then it broke gradually through on Bud's dull mind.</p>
+
+<p>He slapped his leg again. &ldquo;An' him&mdash;his namesake&mdash;he
+was cock-eyed, too&mdash;I seed him onct at New
+'Leens.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't you never trust a cock-eyed man, Bud. He'll
+flicker on you in the home-stretch. I've tried it an'
+it never fails. Love him, but don't trust him. The
+world is full of folks we oughter love, but not trust.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;I never will,&rdquo; said Bud as thoughtfully as he
+knew how to be&mdash;&ldquo;nor a cock-eyed 'oman neither. My
+wife's cock-eyed,&rdquo; he added.</p>
+
+<p>He was silent a moment. Then he showed the old man
+a scar on his forehead: &ldquo;She done that last month&mdash;busted
+a plate on my head.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's bad,&rdquo; said the Bishop consolingly&mdash;&ldquo;but
+you ortenter aggravate her, Bud.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's so&mdash;I ortenter&mdash;least-wise, not whilst
+there's any crockery in the house,&rdquo; said Bud sadly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There's another thing about this hoss,&rdquo; went on
+the Bishop&mdash;&ldquo;he's always spoony on mules. He ain't
+happy if he can't hang over the front gate spoonin'
+with every stray mule that comes along. There's old
+long-eared Lize that he's dead stuck on&mdash;if he c'u'd
+write he'd be composin' a sonnet to her ears, like poets<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+do to their lady love's&mdash;callin' them Star Pointers of
+a Greater Hope, I reck'n, an' all that. Why, he'd ruther
+hold hands by moonlight with some old Maria mule than
+to set up by lamplight with a thoroughbred filly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Great&mdash;great!&rdquo; said Bud slapping his leg&mdash;&ldquo;didn't
+I tell you so?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So I named him Ben Butler when he was born.
+That was right after the war, an' I hated old Ben so an'
+loved hosses so, I thought ef I'd name my colt for old
+Ben maybe I'd learn to love him, in time.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bud shook his head. &ldquo;That's agin nature, Bishop.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But I have, Bud&mdash;sho' as you are born I love old
+Ben Butler.&rdquo; He lowered his voice to an earnest
+whisper: &ldquo;I ain't never told you what he done for po'
+Cap'n Tom.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Never heurd o' Cap'n Tom.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop looked hurt. &ldquo;Never mind, Bud, you
+wouldn't understand. But maybe you will ketch this,
+listen now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bud listened intently with his head on one side.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I ain't never hated a man in my life but what God
+has let me live long enough to find out I was in the
+wrong&mdash;dead wrong. There are Jews and Yankees.
+I useter hate 'em worse'n sin&mdash;but now what do you
+reckon?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;One on 'em busted a plate on yo' head?&rdquo; asked
+Bud.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jesus Christ was a Jew, an' Cap'n Tom jined the
+Yankees.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bud,&rdquo; he said cheerily after a pause, &ldquo;did I ever
+tell you the story of this here Ben Butler here?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bud's eyes grew bright and he slapped his leg again.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the old man, brightening up into one of
+his funny moods, &ldquo;you know my first wife was named
+Kathleen&mdash;Kathleen Galloway when she was a gal, an'
+she was the pretties' gal in the settlement an' could go
+all the gaits both saddle an' harness. She was han'som'
+as a three-year-old an' cu'd out-dance, out-ride, out-sing
+an' out-flirt any other gal that ever come down the
+pike. When she got her Sunday harness on an' began
+to move, she made all the other gals look like they were
+nailed to the roadside. It's true, she needed a little
+weight in front to balance her, an' she had a lot of ginger
+in her make-up, but she was straight and sound,
+didn't wear anything but the harness an' never teched
+herself anywhere nor cross-fired nor hit her knees.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good&mdash;great!&rdquo; said Bud, slapping his leg.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, she was beautiful, Bud, with that silky hair that
+'ud make a thoroughbred filly's look coarse as sheep's
+wool, an' two mischief-lovin' eyes an' a heart that was
+all gold. Bud&mdash;Bud&rdquo;&mdash;there was a huskiness in the
+old man's voice&mdash;&ldquo;I know I can tell you because it will
+never come back to me ag'in, but I love that Kathleen
+now as I did then. A man may marry many times, but
+he can never love but once. Sometimes it's his fust
+wife, sometimes his secon', an' often <span class="hover" title="it's">its</span> the sweetheart
+he never got&mdash;but he loved only one of 'em the right
+way, an' up yander, in some other star, where spirits that
+are alike meet in one eternal wedlock, they'll be one there
+forever.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Her daddy, old man Galloway, had a thoroughbred
+filly that he named Kathleena for his daughter, an' she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>
+c'ud do anything that the gal left out. An' one day
+when she took the bit in her teeth an' run a quarter in
+twenty-five seconds, she sot 'em all wild an' lots of fellers
+tried to buy the filly an' get the old man to throw in
+the gal for her keep an' board.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I was one of 'em. I was clerkin' for the old man an'
+boardin' in the house, an' whenever a young feller begins
+to board in a house where there is a thoroughbred gal,
+the nex' thing he knows he'll be&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Buckled in the traces,&rdquo; cried Bud slapping his leg
+gleefully, at this, his first product of brilliancy.</p>
+
+<p>The old man smiled: &ldquo;'Pon my word, Bud, you're
+gittin' so smart. I don't know what I'll be doin' with
+you&mdash;so 'riginal an' smart. Why, you'll quit keepin'
+an old man's company&mdash;like me. I won't be able to
+entertain you at all. But, as I was sayin', the next thing
+he knows, he'll be one of the family.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So me an' Kathleen, we soon got spoony an' wanted
+to marry. Lots of 'em wanted to marry her, but I
+drawed the pole an' was the only one she'd take as a
+runnin' mate. So I went after the old man this a way:
+I told him I'd buy the filly if he'd give me Kathleen. I
+never will forgit what he said: 'They ain't narry one
+of 'em for sale, swap or hire, an' I wish you young fellers
+'ud tend to yo' own business an' let my fillies alone.
+I'm gwinter bus' the wurl's record wid 'em both&mdash;Kathleena
+the runnin' record an' Kathleen the gal record, so
+be damn to you an' don't pester me no mo'.'&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did he say <i>damn</i>?&rdquo; asked Bud aghast&mdash;that such
+a word should ever come from the Bishop.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He sho' did, Bud. I wouldn't lie about the old man,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>
+now that he's dead. It ain't right to lie about dead
+people&mdash;even to make 'em say nice an' proper things
+they never thought of whilst alive. If we'd stop lyin'
+about the ungodly dead an' tell the truth about 'em,
+maybe the livin' 'ud stop tryin' to foller after 'em in
+that respect. As it is, every one of 'em knows that no
+matter how wicked he lives there'll be a lot o' nice lies
+told over him after he's gone, an' a monument erected,
+maybe, to tell how good he was. An' there's another
+lot of half pious folks in the wurl it 'ud help&mdash;kind o'
+sissy pious folks&mdash;that jus' do manage to miss all the
+fun in the world an' jus' are mean enough to ketch hell
+in the nex'. Get religion, but don't get the sissy kind.
+So I am for tellin' it about old man Galloway jus' as
+he was.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You orter heard him swear, Bud&mdash;it was part of
+his religion. An' wherever he is to-day in that other
+world, he is at it yet, for in that other life, Bud, we're
+just ourselves on a bigger scale than we are in this. He
+used to cuss the clerks around the store jus' from habit,
+an' when I went to work for him he said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Young man, maybe I'll cuss you out some mornin',
+but don't pay no 'tention to it&mdash;it's just a habit I've
+got into, an' the boys all understand it.'</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Glad you told me,' I said, lookin' him square in the
+eye&mdash;'one confidence deserves another. I've got a nasty
+habit of my own, but I hope you won't pay no 'tention
+to it, for it's a habit, an' I can't help it. I don't mean
+nothin' by it, an' the boys all understand it, but when
+a man cusses me I allers knock him down&mdash;do it befo'
+I think'&mdash;I said&mdash;'jes' a habit I've got.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, he never cussed me all the time I was there.
+My stock went up with the old man an' my chances was
+good to get the gal, if I hadn't made a fool hoss-trade;
+for with old man Galloway a good hoss-trade covered
+all the multitude of sins in a man that charity now does
+in religion. In them days a man might have all the
+learnin' and virtues an' graces, but if he cudn't trade
+hosses he was tinklin' brass an' soundin' cymbal in that
+community.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The man that throwed the silk into me was Jud Carpenter&mdash;the
+same feller that's now the Whipper-in for
+these mills. Now, don't be scared,&rdquo; said the old man
+soothingly as Bud's scary eyes looked about him and he
+clutched the buggy as if he would jump out&mdash;&ldquo;he'll
+not pester you now&mdash;he's kept away from me ever since.
+He swapped me a black hoss with a star an' snip,
+that looked like the genuine thing, but was about the
+neatest turned gold-brick that was ever put on an unsuspectin'
+millionaire.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, in the trade he simply robbed me of a fine
+mare I had, that cost me one-an'-a-quarter. Kathleen
+an' me was already engaged, but when old man Galloway
+heard of it, he told me the jig was up an' no such
+double-barrel idiot as I was shu'd ever leave any of my
+colts in the Galloway paddock&mdash;that when he looked
+over his gran'-chillun's pedigree he didn't wanter see all
+of 'em crossin' back to the same damned fool! Oh, he
+was nasty. He said that my colts was dead sho' to be
+luffers with wheels in their heads, an' when pinched
+they'd quit, an' when collared they'd lay down. That
+there was a yaller streak in me that was already pilin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+up coupons on the future for tears and heartaches an',
+maybe a gallows or two, an' a lot of uncomplimentary
+talk of that kind.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, Kathleen cried, an' I wept, an' I'll never forgit
+the night she gave me a little good-bye kiss out
+under the big oak tree an' told me we'd hafter part.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The old man maybe sized me up all right as bein' a
+fool, but he missed it on my bein' a quitter. I had no
+notion of being fired an' blistered an' turned out to grass
+that early in the game. I wrote her a poem every other
+day, an' lied between heats, till the po' gal was nearly
+crazy, an' when I finally got it into her head that if it
+was a busted blood vessel with the old man, it was a
+busted heart with me, she cried a little mo' an' consented
+to run off with me an' take the chances of the village
+doctor cuppin' the old man at the right time.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The old lady was on my side and helped things
+along. I had everything fixed even to the moon which
+was shinin' jes' bright enough to carry us to the Justice's
+without a lantern, some three miles away, an' into
+the nex' county.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
+mother&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course I wanted to fight an' take her anyway&mdash;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&mdash;it being
+a valuable coon-dog,&mdash;and that I was to go away out
+of the county an' wait for a better time.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It mighty nigh broke me up, but I decided the old
+lady was right an' I'd go away. But 'long towards the
+shank of the night, after I had put up my hoss, the moon
+was still shinin', an' I cudn't sleep for thinkin' of Kathleen.
+I stole afoot over to her house just to look at her
+window. The house was all quiet an' even the brindle
+dog was asleep. I threw kisses at her bed-room window,
+but even then I cudn't go away, so I slipped around
+to the barn and laid down in the hay to think over my
+hard luck. My heart ached an' burned an' I was nigh
+dead with love.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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&mdash;whether the two wouldn't over-persuade
+her whilst I was gone. For I'd made up my mind I'd
+go befo' daylight&mdash;that there wasn't anything else for
+me to do.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I was layin' in the hay, an' boylike, the tears was
+rollin' down. If I c'ud only kiss her han' befo' I left&mdash;if
+I c'ud only see her face at the winder!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I was heart-broke an' silly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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':</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<center>&ldquo;<i>'To old man Galloway:</i></center>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>'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.'</i></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'(Signed)'</p>
+<p style="text-align: right;">&ldquo;'<i>Hillard Watts.'</i>&rdquo;</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>The old man smiled, and Bud slapped his leg gleefully.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Great&mdash;great! Oh my, but who'd a thought of
+it?&rdquo; he grunted.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They say it 'ud done you good to have been there
+the nex' mornin' an' heurd the cussin' recurd busted&mdash;but
+me an' the filly was forty miles away. He got out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
+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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, it went on for a month, an' I got the old
+man's note, sent by the sheriff:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<center>&ldquo;<i>'To Hillard Watts, Wher-Ever Found.</i></center>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>'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.</i></p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right;">&ldquo;'<i>Jobe Galloway</i>.'&rdquo;</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>His voice grew more tender, and low: &ldquo;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&mdash;just as she left it&mdash;just as her
+beautiful hands made the last stitch they ever made on
+earth....</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O Bud, Bud, out of this blow come the sweetest
+thought I ever had, an' I know from that day that this
+life ain't all, that we'll live agin as sho' as God lives an'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+is just&mdash;an' no man can doubt that. No&mdash;no&mdash;Bud,
+this life ain't all, because it's God's unvarying law to
+finish things. That tree there is finished, an' them birds,
+they are finished, an' that flower by the roadside an'
+the mountain yonder an' the world an' the stars an' the
+sun. An' we're mo' than they be, Bud&mdash;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&mdash;a soul&mdash;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<h3>AN ANSWER TO PRAYER</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">T</span>hen 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.</p>
+
+<p>Ben Butler, unknown to either, had come to a standstill.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop broke out in a cheery tone:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My, how far off the subject I got! I started out to
+tell you all about Ben Butler, and&mdash;and&mdash;how he
+come in answer to prayer,&rdquo; said the Bishop solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>Bud grinned: &ldquo;It muster been, '<i>Now I lay me down
+to sleep.</i>'&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop laughed: &ldquo;Well I'll swun if he ain't
+sound asleep sho' 'nuff.&rdquo; He laughed again: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;Ben Butler is a answer to prayer,&rdquo; he went
+on.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The trouble with the world is it don't pray enough.
+Prayer puts God into us, Bud&mdash;we're all a little part
+of God, even the worst of us, an' we can make it big or
+let it die out accordin' as we pray. If we stop prayin'
+God jes' dies out in us. Of course God don't answer any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+fool prayer, for while we're here we are nothin' but a
+bundle of laws, an' the same unknown law that moves the
+world around makes yo' heart beat. But God is behind
+the law, an' if you get in harmony with God's laws an'
+pray, He'll answer them. Christ knowed this, an' there
+was some things that even He wouldn't ask for. When
+the Devil tempted Him to jump off the top of the mountain.
+He drawed the line right there, for He knowed if
+God saved Him by stoppin' the law of gravitation it
+meant the wreck of the world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bud,&rdquo; he went on earnestly, &ldquo;I've lived a long
+time an' seed a heap o' things, an' the plaines' thing I
+ever seed in my life is that two generations of scoffers
+will breed a coward, an' three of 'em a thief, an' that the
+world moves on only in proportion as it's got faith in
+God.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I was ruined after the war&mdash;broken&mdash;busted&mdash;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,&mdash;a daughter of that Kathleena I told you about.
+I knowed I was gone if I lost that little home, an' so one
+night I prayed to the Lord about it an' then it come to
+me as clear as it come to Moses in the burnin' bush.
+God spoke to me as clear as he did to Moses.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How did he say it?&rdquo; asked Bud, thoroughly frightened
+and looking around for a soft spot to jump and
+run.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, never mind that,&rdquo; went on the Bishop&mdash;&ldquo;God
+don't say things out loud&mdash;He jes' brings two an' two
+together an' expects you to add 'em an' make fo'. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
+gives you the soil an' the grain an' expects you to plant,
+assurin' you of rain an' sunshine to make the crop, if
+you'll only wuck. He comes into yo' life with the laws
+of life an' death an' takes yo' beloved, an' it's His way
+of sayin' to you that this life ain't all. He shows you
+the thief an' the liar an' the adulterer all aroun' you,
+an' if you feel the shock of it an' the hate of it, it's
+His voice tellin' you not to steal an' not to lie an' not to
+be impure. You think only of money until you make
+a bad break an' loose it all. That's His voice tellin'
+you that money ain't everything in life. He puts opportunities
+befo' you, an' if you grasp 'em it's His voice
+tellin' you to prosper an' grow fat in the land. No,
+He don't speak out, but how clearly an' unerringly He
+does speak to them that has learned to listen for His
+voice!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I rode her across the river a hundred miles up in
+Marshall County, Tennessee, and mated her to a young
+horse named Tom Hal. Every body knows about him
+now, but God told me about him fust.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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&mdash;jes' like they all
+laughed at Noah an' Abraham an' Lot an' Moses, an'
+if I do say it&mdash;Jesus Christ. But thank God it didn't
+pester me no more'n it did them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, the colt come ten years ago&mdash;an' I named
+him Ben Butler&mdash;cause I hated old Ben Butler so. He
+had my oldest son shot in New Orleans like he did many
+other rebel prisoners. But this was God's colt an' God<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>
+had told me to love my enemies an' do good to them that
+did wrong to me, an' so I prayed over it an' named him
+Ben Butler, hopin' that God 'ud let me love my enemy
+for the love I bore the colt. An' He has.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bud shook his head dubiously.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He showed me I was wrong, Bud, to hate folks,
+an' when I tell you of po' Cap'n Tom an' how good Gen.
+Butler was to him, you'll say so, too.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;From the very start Ben Butler was a wonder. He
+came with fire in his blood an' speed in his heels.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' I trained him. Yes&mdash;from the time I was
+Gen. Travis' overseer I had always trained his hosses.
+I'm one of them preachers that believes God intended the
+world sh'ud have the best hosses, as He intended it sh'ud
+have the best men an' women. Take all His works,
+in their fitness an' goodness, an' you'll see He never
+'lowed for a scrub an' a quitter anywhere. An' so when
+He gave me this tip on Ben Butler's speed I done
+the rest.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;God gives us the tips of life, but He expects us to
+make them into the dead cinches.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, they all laughed at us, of course, an' nicknamed
+the colt Mister Isaacs, because, like Sarah's son, he came
+in answer to prayer. An' when in his two-year-old form,
+I led him out of the stable one cold, icy day, an' he was
+full of play an' r'ared an' fell an' knocked down his hip,
+they said that 'ud fix Mister Isaacs.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But it didn't pester me at all. I knowed God had
+done bigger things in this world than fixin' a colt's hip,
+an' it didn't shake my faith. I kept on prayin' an'
+kept on trainin'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, it soon told. His hip was down, but it didn't
+stop him from flyin'. As a three-year-old he paced the
+Nashville half mile track in one-one flat, an' though
+they offered me then an' there a thousand dollars for
+Ben Butler, I told 'em no,&mdash;he was God's colt an' I
+didn't need but half of that to raise the mortgage, an'
+he'd do that the first time he turned round in a race.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I drove him that race myself, pulled down the five
+hundred dollar purse, refused all their fine offers for
+Ben Butler, an' me an' him's been missionaryin' round
+here ever since.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Great hoss&mdash;great!&rdquo; said Bud, his eyes sparkling,&mdash;&ldquo;allers
+told you so! Think I'll get out and hug
+him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This he did while the Bishop sat smiling. But in the
+embrace Ben Butler planted a fore foot on Bud's great
+toe. Bud came back limping and whimpering with pain.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now there, Bud,&rdquo; said the Bishop, consolingly.
+&ldquo;God has spoken to you right there.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What 'ud He say?&rdquo; asked Bud, looking scary
+again.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, he said through Nature's law an' voice that
+you mustn't hug a hoss if you don't want yo' toes
+tramped on.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Who must you hug then?&rdquo; asked Bud.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yo' wife, if you can't do no better,&rdquo; said the Bishop
+quietly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My wife's wussern a hoss,&rdquo; said Bud sadly&mdash;&ldquo;she
+bites. I'm sorry you didn't take that thar thousan' dollars
+for him,&rdquo; he said, looking at his bleeding toe.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bud,&rdquo; said the old man sternly, &ldquo;don't say that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+no mo'. It mou't make me think you are one of them
+selfish dogs that thinks money'll do anything. Then
+I'd hafter watch you, for I'd know you'd do anything
+for money.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bud crawled in rather crest-fallen, and they drove on.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<h3>HOW THE BISHOP FROZE</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">T</span>he Bishop laughed outright as his mind went
+back again.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he went on reminiscently, &ldquo;I'll have to
+finish my tale an' tell you how I throwed the cold steel
+into Jud Carpenter when I got back. I saw I had it to
+do, to work back into my daddy-in-law's graces an' save
+my reputation.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, Jud had lied to me an' swindled me terribly,
+when he put off that old no-count hoss on me. Of
+course, I might have sued him, for a lie is a microbe
+which naturally develops into a lawyer's fee. But while
+it's a terrible braggart, it's really cowardly an' delicate,
+an' will die of lock-jaw if you only pick its thumb.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So I breshed up that old black to split-silk fineness,
+an' turned him over to Dr. Sykes, a friend of mine
+living in the next village. An' I said to the Doctor,
+'Now remember he is yo' hoss until Jud Carpenter
+comes an' offers you two hundred dollars for him.'</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Will he be fool enough to do it?' he asked, as he
+looked the old counterfeit over.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Wait an' see,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I said nothin', laid low an' froze an' it wa'n't long
+befo' Jud come 'round as I 'lowed he'd do. He expected
+me to kick an' howl; but as I took it all so nice he didn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>
+understand it. Nine times out of ten the best thing
+to do when the other feller has robbed you is to freeze.
+The hunter on the plain knows the value of that, an'
+that he can freeze an' make a deer walk right up to
+him, to find out what he is. Why, a rabbit will do it,
+if you jump him quick, an' he gets confused an' don't
+know jes' what's up; an' so Jud come as I thort he'd
+do. He couldn't stan' it no longer, an' he wanted to
+rub it in. He brought his crowd to enjoy the fun.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Oh, Mr. Watts,' he said grinnin', 'how do you like
+a coal black stump-sucker?'</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Well,' I said indifferent enough&mdash;'I've knowed
+good judges of hosses to make a hones' mistake now an'
+then, an' sell a hoss to a customer with the heaves thinkin'
+he's a stump-sucker. But it 'ud turn out to be only
+the heaves an' easily cured.'</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Is that so?' said Jud, changing his tone.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Yes,' I said, 'an' I've knowed better judges of
+hosses to sell a nervous hoss for a balker that had been
+balked onct by a rattle head. But in keerful hands I've
+seed him git over it,' I said, indifferent like.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Indeed?' said Jud.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Yes, Jud,' said I, 'I've knowed real hones' hoss
+traders to make bad breaks of that kind, now and then&mdash;honest
+intentions an' all that, but bad judgment,'&mdash;sez
+I&mdash;'an' I'll cut it short by sayin' that I'll just
+give you two an' a half if you'll match that no-count,
+wind broken black as you tho'rt, that you swapped me.'</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Do you mean it?' said Jud, solemn-like.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'I'll make a bond to that effect,' I said solemnly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jud went off thoughtful. In a week or so he come
+back. He hung aroun' a while an' said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'I was up in the country the other day, an' do you
+kno' I saw a dead match for yo' black? Only a little
+slicker an' better lookin'&mdash;same star an' white hind foot.
+As nigh like him as one black-eyed pea looks like another.'</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Jud,' I said, 'I never did see two hosses look exactly
+alike. You're honestly mistaken.'</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'They ain't a hair's difference,' he said. 'He's
+a little slicker than yours&mdash;that's all&mdash;better groomed
+than the one in yo' barn.'</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'I reckon he is,' said I, for I knew very well there
+wa'n't none in my barn. 'That's strange,' I went on,
+'but you kno' what I said.'</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Do you still hold to that offer?' he axed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'I'll make bond with my daddy-in-law on it,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Nuff said,' an' Jud was gone. The next day he
+came back leading the black, slicker an' hence no-counter
+than ever, if possible.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Look at him,' he said proudly&mdash;'a dead match for
+yourn. Jes' han' me that two an' a half an' take him.
+You now have a team worth a thousan'.'</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I looked the hoss over plum' surprised like.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Why, Jud,' I said as softly as I cu'd, for I was
+nigh to bustin', an' I had a lot of friends come to see the
+sho', an' they standin' 'round stickin' their old hats in
+their mouths to keep from explodin'&mdash;'Why, Jud, my
+dear friend,' I said, 'ain't you kind o' mistaken about
+this? I said a <i>match</i> for the black, an' it peers to me
+like you've gone an' bought the black hisse'f an' is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
+tryin' to put him off on me. No&mdash;no&mdash;my kind
+frien', you'll not fin' anything no-count enuff to be his
+match on this terrestrial ball.'</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By this time you cu'd have raked Jud's eyes off his
+face with a soap-gourd.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'What? w-h-a-t? He&mdash;why&mdash;I bought him of
+Dr. Sykes.'</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Why, that's funny,' I said, 'but it comes in handy
+all round. If you'd told me that the other day I might
+have told you,' I said&mdash;'yes, I might have, but I doubt
+it&mdash;that I'd loaned him to Dr. Sykes an' told him whenever
+you offered him two hundred cash for him to let him
+go. Jes' keep him,' sez I, 'till you find his mate, an'
+I'll take an oath to buy 'em.'&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bud slapped his leg an' yelled with delight.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Whew,&rdquo; said the Bishop&mdash;&ldquo;not so loud. We're at
+the church.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But remember, Bud, it's good policy allers to freeze.
+When you're in doubt&mdash;freeze!&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+<h3>THE FLOCK</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">T</span>he Bishop's flock consisted of two distinct classes:
+Cottontowners and Hillites.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There's only a fair sprinklin' of Hillites
+that lives nigh about here,&rdquo; said the Bishop, &ldquo;an' they
+come because it suits them better than the high f'lutin'
+services in town. When a Christian gits into a church
+that's over his head, he is soon food for devil-fish.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The line of demarcation, even in the Bishop's small
+flock, was easily seen. The Hillites, though lean and
+lanky, were swarthy, healthy and full of life. &ldquo;But
+Cottontown,&rdquo; said the Bishop, as he looked down on his
+congregation&mdash;&ldquo;Cottontown jes' naturally feels tired.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was true. Years in the factory had made them
+dead, listless, soulless and ambitionless creatures. To
+look into their faces was like looking into the cracked
+and muddy bottom of a stream which once ran.</p>
+
+<p>Their children were there also&mdash;little tots, many of
+them, who worked in the factory because no man nor
+woman in all the State cared enough for them to make
+a fight for their childhood.</p>
+
+<p>They were children only in age. Their little forms
+were not the forms of children, but of diminutive men
+and women, on whose backs the burden of earning their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>
+living had been laid, ere the frames had acquired the
+strength to bear it.</p>
+
+<p>Stunted in mind and body, they were little solemn,
+pygmy peoples, whom poverty and overwork had canned
+up and compressed into concentrated extracts of humanity.
+The flavor&mdash;the juices of childhood&mdash;had been
+pressed out.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'N no wonder,&rdquo; thought the Bishop, as he looked
+down upon them from his crude platform, &ldquo;for them
+little things works six days every week in the factory
+from sun-up till dark, an' often into the night, with
+jes' forty minutes at noon to bolt their food. O God,&rdquo;
+he said softly to himself, &ldquo;You who caused a stream of
+water to spring up in the wilderness that the life of an
+Ishmaelite might be saved, make a stream of sentiment
+to flow from the heart of the world to save these little
+folks.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Patsy Butts, whose father, Elder Butts of the
+Hard-shell faith, owned a fertile little valley farm beyond
+the mountain, was organist. She was fat and so
+red-faced that at times she seemed to be oiled.</p>
+
+<p>She was painfully frank and suffered from acute
+earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>And now, being marriageable, she looked always
+about her with shy, quick, expectant glances.</p>
+
+<p>The other object in life, to Patsy, was to watch her
+younger brother, Archie B., and see that he kept out
+of mischief. And perhaps the commonest remark of her
+life was:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Maw, jus' look at Archie B.!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This was a great cross for Archie B., who had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+known to say concerning it: &ldquo;If I ever has any kids,
+I'll never let the old'uns nuss the young'uns. They
+gits into a bossin' kind of a habit that sticks to 'em all
+they lives.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>To-day Miss Patsy was radiantly shy and happy,
+caused by the fact that her fat, honest feet were encased
+in a pair of beautiful new shoes, the uppers of which
+were clasped so tightly over her ankles as to cause the
+fat members to bulge in creases over the tops, as uncomfortable
+as two Sancho Panzas in armor.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Side-but'ners,&rdquo; said Mrs. Butts triumphantly to
+Mrs. O'Hooligan of Cottontown,&mdash;&ldquo;side-but'ners&mdash;I
+got 'em for her yistiddy&mdash;the fust that this town's ever
+seed. La, but it was a job gittin' 'em on Patsy. I
+had to soak her legs in cold water nearly all night, an'
+then I broke every knittin' needle in the house abut'nin'
+them side but'ners.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But fashion is fashion, an' when I send my gal out
+into society, I'll send her in style. Patsy Butts,&rdquo; she
+whispered so loud that everybody on her side of the
+house heard her&mdash;&ldquo;when you starts up that ole wheez-in'
+one gallus organ, go slow or you'll bust them side-but'ners
+wide open.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>When the Bishop came forward to preach his sermon,
+or talk to his flock, as he called it, his surplice would
+have astonished anyone, except those who had seen him
+thus attired so often. A stranger might have laughed,
+but he would not have laughed long&mdash;the old man's
+earnestness, sincerity, reverence and devotion were over-shadowing.
+Its pathos was too deep for fun.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of a clergyman's frock he wore a faded coat of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+blue buttoned up to his neck. It had been the coat of
+an officer in the artillery, and had evidently passed
+through the Civil War. There was a bullet hole in the
+shoulder and a sabre cut in the sleeve.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<h3>A BISHOP MILITANT</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">N</span>o one had ever heard the Bishop explain his curious
+surplice but once, and that had been several
+years before, when the little chapel, by the aid
+of a concert Miss Alice gave, contributions from the Excelsior
+Mill headed by Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley, and other
+sources had been furnished, and the Bishop came forward
+to make his first talk:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;This is the only church of its kind in the worl', I
+reckin',&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I've figured it out an' find we're
+made up of Baptis', Metherdis', Presbyterian, 'Piscopalian,
+Cam'elites an' Hard-shells. You've 'lected me
+Bishop, I reckon, 'cause I've jined all of 'em, an' so
+far as I know I am the only man in the worl' who ever
+done that an' lived to tell the tale. An' I'm not ashamed
+to say it, for I've allers foun' somethin' in each one of
+'em that's a little better than somethin' in the other.
+An' if there's any other church that'll teach me somethin'
+new about Jesus Christ, that puffect Man, I'll jine it.
+I've never seed a church that had Him in it that wa'n't
+good enough for me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man smiled in humorous retrospection as he
+went on:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The first company of Christians I jined was the
+Hard-shells. I was young an' a raw recruit an' nachully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>
+fell into the awkward squad. I liked their solar plexus
+way of goin' at the Devil, an' I liked the way they'd
+allers deal out a good ration of whiskey, after the fight,
+to ev'ry true soldier of the Cross&mdash;especially if we got
+our feet too wet, which we mos' always of'ntimes gen'ally
+did.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This brought out visible smiles all down the line, from
+the others at the Hard-shells and their custom of foot-washing.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But somehow,&rdquo; went on the old man, &ldquo;I didn't grow
+in grace&mdash;spent too much time in singin' an' takin'
+toddies to keep off the effect of cold from wet feet. Good
+company, but I wanted to go higher, so I drapt into the
+Baptis' rigiment, brave an' hones', but they spen' too
+much time a-campin' in the valley of the still water, an'
+when on the march, instid of buildin' bridges to cross
+dry-shod over rivers an' cricks, they plunge in with their
+guns stropped to their backs, their powder tied up in
+their socks in their hats, their shoes tied 'round their
+necks an' their butcher-knife in their teeth. After they
+lan' they seem to think it's the greates' thing in the
+worl' that they've been permitted to wade through water
+instead of crossin' on a log, an' they spen' the balance
+of their time marchin' 'roun' an' singin':</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;'Billows of mercy, over me roll,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oceans of Faith an' Hope, come to my soul.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't want to fly to heaven&mdash;want to swim there.
+An' if they find too much lan' after they get there,
+they'll spen' the res' of eternity prayin' for a deluge.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bes' ole relig'un in the worl', tho,&mdash;good fighters,
+too, in the Lord's cause. Ole timey, an' a trifle keerless
+about their accoutrements, an' too much water nachully
+keeps their guns rusty an' their powder damp, but if it
+comes to a square-up fight agin the cohorts of sin, an'
+the powder in their pans is too damp for flashin', they'd
+jes' as soon wade in with the butcher-knife an' the meat
+axe. I nachully out-grow'd 'em, for I seed if the Great
+Captain 'ud command us all to jine armies an' fight
+the worl', the Baptis' 'ud never go in, unless it was a
+sea-fight.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;From them to the Cam'elites was easy, for I seed
+they was web-footed, too. The only diff'rence betwix'
+them an' the Baptis' is that they are willin' to jine in
+with any other rigiment, provided allers that you let
+them 'pint the sappers an' miners an' blaze out the way.
+Good fellers, tho', an' learned me lots. They beats the
+worl' for standin' up for each other an' votin' allers for
+fust place. If there's a promotion in camp they want
+it; 'n' when they ain't out a-drillin' their companies
+they're sho' to be in camp 'sputin' with other rigiments
+as to how to do it. Good, hones' fighters, tho', and
+tort me how to use my side arms in a tight place. Scatterin'
+in some localities, but like the Baptises, whenever
+you find a mill-dam there'll be their camp an' plenty o'
+corn.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lord, how I did enjoy it when I struck the Methodis'
+rigiment! The others had tort me faith an' zeal, but
+these tort me discipline. They are the best drilled lot
+in the army of the Lord, an' their drill masters run all
+the way from wet-nurses to old maids. For furagin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+an' free love for ev'rything they beats the worl', an'
+they pay mo' 'tenshun to their com'sary department
+than they do to their ord'nance. They'll march anywhere
+you want 'em, swim rivers or build bridges, fight
+on ship or sho', strong in camp-meetin's or battle songs,
+an' when they go, they go like clockwuck an' carry their
+dead with 'em!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The only thing they need is an incubator, to keep
+up their hennery department an' supply their captains
+with the yellow legs of the land. Oh, but I love them
+big hearted Methodists!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I foun' the Presbyterian phalanx a pow'ful army,
+steady, true an' ole-fashioned, their powder strong of
+brimstone an' sulphur an' their ordnance antique.
+Why, they're usin' the same old mortars John Knox
+fired at the Popes, an' the same ole blunderbusses that
+scatter wide enough to cover all creation an' is as liable
+to kick an' kill anything in the rear as in front. They
+won't sleep in tents an' nothin' suits 'em better'n being
+caught in a shower on the march. In battle they know
+no fear, for they know no ball is goin' to kill you if
+you're predistined to be hung. In the fight they know
+no stragglers an' fallers from grace.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ay, but they're brave. I jined 'em Sunday night
+after the battle of Shiloh, when I saw one of their captains
+stan' up amid the dead an' dyin' of that bloody
+field, with the shells from the Yankee gun-boats fallin'
+aroun' him. Standin' there tellin' of God an' His forgiveness,
+until many a po' dyin' soldier, both frien' an'
+foe, like the thief on the cross, found peace at the last
+hour.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Befo' I jined the 'Piscopal corps I didn't think I
+cu'd stan' 'em&mdash;too high furlutin' for my raisin'.
+They seemed to pay mo' attenshun to their uniforms than
+their ordnance, an' their drum-majors outshine any other
+churches' major generals. An' drillin'? They can go
+through mo' monkey manoeuvers in five minutes than
+any other church can in a year. It's drillin'&mdash;drillin'
+with 'em all the time, an' red-tape an' knee breeches, an'
+when they ain't drillin' they're dancin'. They have
+signs an' countersigns, worl' without end, ah-men. An'
+I've knowed many of them to put all his three months'
+pay into a Sunday uniform for dress parade.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Weepons? They've got the fines' in the worl' an'
+they don't think they can bring down the Devil les' they
+shoot at him with a silver bullet. Everything goes by
+red-tape with 'em, an' the ban'-wagon goes in front.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But I jined 'em,&rdquo; went on the old man, &ldquo;an' I'll
+tell you why.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He paused&mdash;his voice trembled, and the good natured,
+bubbling humor, which had floated down the smooth
+channel of his talk, vanished as bubbles do when they
+float out into the deep pool beyond.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Here,&rdquo; he said, lifting his arm, and showing the
+coat of the Captain of Artillery&mdash;&ldquo;this is what made
+me jine 'em. This is the coat of Cap'n Tom, that saved
+my life at the risk of his own an' that was struck down
+at Franklin; an' no common man of clay, as I be, ever
+befo' had so God-like a man of marble to pattern after.
+I saw him in the thick of the fight with his guns parked
+an' double-shotted, stop our victorious rush almos' up
+to the river bank an' saved Grant's army from defeat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+an' capture. I was on the other side, an' chief of scouts
+for Albert Sidney Johnston, but I see him now in his
+blue Yankee coat, fightin' his guns like the hero that
+he was. I was foolish an' rushed in. I was captured
+an' in a prison pen, I drawed the black ball with 'leven
+others that was sentenced to be shot. It was Cap'n Tom
+who came to me in the early dawn of the day of the
+execution an' said: 'They shall not shoot you, Bishop&mdash;put
+on my blue coat an' go through the lines. I owe
+much to my country&mdash;I am giving it all.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'I owe something to you. They shall not shoot
+you like a dog. I will tell my colonel what I have done
+to-morrow. If they think it is treason they may shoot
+me instead. I have nothing to live for&mdash;you, all. Go.'</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have never seed him sence.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We are mortals and must think as mortals. If we
+conceive of God, we can conceive of Him only as in
+human form. An' I love to think that the blessed an'
+brave an' sweet Christ looked like Cap'n Tom looked
+in the early dawn of that morning when he come an'
+offered himself,&mdash;captain that he was&mdash;to be shot, if
+need be, in my place&mdash;so gran', so gentle, so brave,
+so forgivin', so like a captain&mdash;so like God.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>His voice had dropped lower and lower still. It died
+away in a sobbing murmur, as a deep stream purls and
+its echo dies in a deeper eddy.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was his church an' I jined it. This was his coat,
+an' so, let us pray.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<h3>MARGARET ADAMS</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">T</span>here passed out of the church, after the service,
+a woman leading a boy of twelve.</p>
+
+<p>He was a handsome lad with a proud and independent
+way about him. He carried his head up and
+there was that calmness that showed good blood. There
+was even a haughtiness which was pathetic, knowing as
+the village did the story of his life.</p>
+
+<p>The woman herself was of middle age, with neat, well-fitting
+clothes, which, in the smallest arrangement of
+pattern and make-up, bespoke a natural refinement.</p>
+
+<p>Her's was a sweet face, with dark eyes, and in their
+depths lay the shadow of resignation.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the sermon she had not taken her eyes
+off the old man in the pulpit, and so interested was she,
+and so earnestly did she drink in all he said, that any
+one noticing could tell that, to her, the plain old man
+in the pulpit was more than a pastor.</p>
+
+<p>She sat off by herself. Not one of them in all Cottontown
+would come near her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Our virtue is all we po' fo'ks has got&mdash;if we lose
+that we ain't got nothin' lef',&rdquo; Mrs. Banks of grass-widow
+fame had once said, and saying it had expressed
+Cottontown's opinion.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Banks was very severe when the question of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>
+woman's purity was up. She was the fastest woman at
+the loom in all Cottontown. She was quick, with a
+bright, deep-seeing eye. She had been pretty&mdash;but
+now at forty-five she was angular and coarse-looking,
+with a sharp tongue.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop had smiled when he heard her say it, and
+then he looked at Margaret Adams sitting in the corner
+with her boy. In saying it, Mrs. Banks had elevated
+her nose as she looked in the direction where sat
+the Magdalene.</p>
+
+<p>The old man smiled, because he of all others knew
+the past history of Mrs. Banks, the mistress of the
+loom.</p>
+
+<p>He replied quietly: &ldquo;Well, I dun'no&mdash;the best
+thing that can be said of any of us in general is, that
+up to date, it ain't recorded that the Almighty has appinted
+any one of us, on account of our supreme purity,
+to act as chief stoner of the Universe. Mighty few of
+us, even, has any license to throw pebbles.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Of all his congregation there was no more devoted
+member than Margaret Adams&mdash;&ldquo;an' as far as I kno',&rdquo;
+the old man had often said, &ldquo;if there is an angel on
+earth, it is that same little woman.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>When she came into church that day, the old man
+noticed that even the little Hillites drew away from her.
+Often they would point at the little boy by her side and
+make faces at him. To-day they had carried it too
+far when one of them, just out in the church yard,
+pushed him rudely as he walked proudly by the side of
+his mother, looking straight before him, in his military
+way, and not so much as giving them a glance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wood's-colt,&rdquo; sneered the boy in his ear, as he
+pushed him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;thoroughbred&rdquo;&mdash;came back, and with it a
+blow which sent the intruder backward on the grass.</p>
+
+<p>Several old men nodded at him approvingly as he
+walked calmly on by the side of his mother.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jimmie&mdash;Jimmie!&rdquo; was all she said as she slipped
+into the church.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I guess you must be a new-comer,&rdquo; remarked Archie
+B. indifferently to the boy who was wiping the blood
+from his face as he arose from the ground and looked
+sillily around. &ldquo;That boy Jim Adams is my pardner
+an' I could er tole you what you'd git by meddlin' with
+him. He's gone in with his mother now, but him an'
+me&mdash;we're in alliance&mdash;we fights for each other. Feel
+like you got enough?&rdquo;&mdash;and Archie B. got up closer
+and made motions as if to shed his coat.</p>
+
+<p>The other boy grinned good naturedly and walked off.</p>
+
+<br />
+<p>To-day, just outside of the church Ben Butler had
+been hitched up and the Bishop sat in the old buggy.</p>
+
+<p>Bud Billings stood by holding the bit, stroking the
+old horse's neck and every now and then striking a fierce
+attitude, saying &ldquo;Whoa&mdash;whoa&mdash;suh!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As usual, Ben Butler was asleep.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Turn him loose, Bud,&rdquo; said the old man humoring
+the slubber&mdash;&ldquo;I've got the reins an' he can't run away
+now. I can't take you home to-day&mdash;I'm gwinter take
+Margaret, an' you an' Jimmie can come along together.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>No other man could have taken Margaret Adams home
+and had any standing left, in Cottontown.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And soon they were jogging along down the mountain
+side, toward the cabin where the woman lived and
+supported herself and boy by her needle.</p>
+
+<p>To-day Margaret was agitated and excited&mdash;more
+than the Bishop had ever known her to be. He knew the
+reason, for clean-shaved and neatly dressed, Jack Bracken
+passed her on the road to church that morning, and
+as they rode along the Bishop told her it was indeed
+Jack whom she had seen, &ldquo;an' he loves you yet, Margaret,&rdquo;
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>She turned pink under her bonnet. How pretty and
+fresh she looked&mdash;thought the Bishop&mdash;and what
+purity in a face to have such a name.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It <i>was</i> Jack, then,&rdquo; she said simply&mdash;&ldquo;tell me about
+him, please.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By the grace of God he has reformed,&rdquo; said the old
+man&mdash;&ldquo;and&mdash;Margaret&mdash;he loves you yet, as I sed.
+He is going under the name of Jack Smith, the blacksmith
+here, an' he'll lead another life&mdash;but he loves you
+yet,&rdquo; he whispered again.</p>
+
+<p>Then he told her what had happened, knowing that
+Jack's secret would be safe with her.</p>
+
+<p>When he told her how they had buried little Jack, and
+of the father's admission that his determination to lead
+the life of an outlaw had come when he found that she
+had been untrue to him, she was shaken with grief.
+She could only sit and weep. Not even at the gate,
+when the old man left her, did she say anything.</p>
+
+<p>Within, she stopped before a picture which hung over
+the mantle-piece and looked at it, through eyes that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>
+filled again and again with tears. It was the picture of
+a pretty mountain girl with dark eyes and sensual lip.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret knelt before it and wept.</p>
+
+<br />
+<p>The boy had come and stood moodily at the front gate.
+The hot and resentful blood still tinged in his cheek.
+He looked at his knuckles&mdash;they were cut and swollen
+where he had struck the boy who had jeered him. It
+hurt him, but he only smiled grimly.</p>
+
+<p>Never before had any one called him a wood's-colt.
+He had never heard the word before, but he knew what it
+meant. For the first time in his life, he hated his
+mother. He heard her weeping in the little room they
+called home. He merely shut his lips tightly and, in
+spite of the stoicism that was his by nature, the tears
+swelled up in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>They were hot tears and he could not shake them off.
+For the first time the wonder and the mystery of it all
+came over him. For the first time he felt that he was
+not as other boys,&mdash;that there was a meaning in this
+lonely cabin and the shunned woman he called mother,
+and the glances, some of pity, some of contempt, which
+he had met all of his life.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood thinking this, Richard Travis rode slowly
+down the main road leading from the town to The Gaffs.
+And this went through the boy successively&mdash;not in
+words, scarcely&mdash;but in feelings:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What a beautiful horse he is riding&mdash;it thrills me
+to see it&mdash;I love it naturally&mdash;oh, but to own one!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What a handsome man he is&mdash;and how like a gentleman
+he looks! I like the way he sits his horse. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+like that way he has of not noticing people. He has
+got the same way about him I have got&mdash;that I've
+always had&mdash;that I love&mdash;a way that shows me I'm
+not afraid, and that I have got nerve and bravery.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He sits that horse just as I would sit him&mdash;his
+head&mdash;his face&mdash;the way that foot slopes to the stirrup&mdash;why
+that's me&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped&mdash;he turned pale&mdash;he trembled with
+pride and rage. Then he turned and walked into the
+room where Margaret Adams sat. She held out her
+arms to him pleadingly.</p>
+
+<p>But he did not notice her, and never before had she
+seen such a look on his face as he said calmly:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mother, if you will come to the door I will show
+you my father.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Margaret Adams had already seen. She turned white
+with a hidden shame as she said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jimmie&mdash;Jimmie&mdash;who&mdash;who&mdash;?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No one,&rdquo; he shouted fiercely&mdash;&ldquo;by God&rdquo;&mdash;she
+had never before heard him swear&mdash;&ldquo;I tell you no one&mdash;on
+my honor as a Travis&mdash;no one! It has come to
+me of itself&mdash;I know it&mdash;I feel it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He was too excited to talk. He walked up and down
+the little room, his proud head lifted and his eyes ablaze.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I know now why I love honesty, why I despise those
+common things beneath me&mdash;why I am not afraid&mdash;why
+I struck that boy as I did this morning&mdash;why&mdash;&rdquo;
+he walked into the little shed room that was his own and
+came back with a long single barrel pistol in his hand
+and fondled it lovingly&mdash;&ldquo;why all my life I have
+been able to shoot this as I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He held in his hand a long, single barrel, rifle-bored
+duelling pistol&mdash;of the type used by gentlemen at the
+beginning of the century. Where he had got it she did
+not know, but always it had been his plaything.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O Jimmie&mdash;you would not&mdash;&rdquo; exclaimed the
+woman rising and reaching for it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tush&mdash;&rdquo; he said bitterly&mdash;&ldquo;tush&mdash;that's the way
+Richard Travis talks, ain't it? Does not my very voice
+sound like his? No&mdash;but I expect you now, mother&rdquo;&mdash;he
+said it softly&mdash;&ldquo;tell me&mdash;tell me all about it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Margaret Adams was staggered. She
+only shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her cynically&mdash;then bitterly. A dangerous
+flash leaped into his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then, by God,&rdquo; he cried fiercely, &ldquo;this moment will
+I walk over to his house with this pistol in my hand and
+I will ask him. If he fails to tell me&mdash;damn him&mdash;I
+dare him&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She jumped up and seized him in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Promise me that if I tell you all&mdash;all, Jimmy, when
+you are fifteen&mdash;promise me&mdash;will you be patient now&mdash;with
+poor mother, who loves you so?&rdquo; And she
+kissed him fondly again and again.</p>
+
+<p>He looked into her eyes and saw all her suffering
+there.</p>
+
+<p>The bitterness went out of his.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll promise, mother,&rdquo; he said simply, and walked
+back into his little room.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+<h3>HARD-SHELL SUNDAY</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">&ldquo;T</span>his bein' Hard-shell Sunday,&rdquo; said the Bishop
+that afternoon when his congregation met,
+&ldquo;cattle of that faith will come up to the front
+rack for fodder. Elder Butts will he'p me conduct these
+exercises.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's been so long sence I've been in a Hard-shell
+lodge, I may be a little rusty on the grip an' pass word,
+but I'm a member in good standin' if I am rusty.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was some laughing at this, from the other members,
+and after the Hard-shells had come to the front
+the Bishop caught the infection and went on with a sly
+wink at the others.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The fact is, I've sometimes been mighty sorry I
+jined any other lodge; for makin' honorable exception,
+the other churches don't know the diff'r'nce betwixt
+twenty-year-old Lincoln County an' Michigan pine-top.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Hard-shells was the fust church I jined, as I
+sed. I hadn't sampled none of the others&rdquo;&mdash;he whispered
+aside&mdash;&ldquo;an' I didn't know there was any better
+licker in the jug. But the Baptists is a little riper, the
+Presbyterians is much mellower, an' compared to all of
+them the 'Piscopalians rises to the excellence of syllabub
+an' champagne.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A hones' dram tuck now an' then, prayerfully, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+a good thing for any religion. I've knowed many a
+man to take a dram jes' in time to keep him out of a
+divorce court. An' I've never knowed it to do anybody
+no harm but old elder Shotts of Clay County. An' ef
+he'd a stuck to it straight he'd abeen all right now. But
+one of these old-time Virginia gentlemen stopped with
+him all night onct, an' tor't the old man how to make
+a mint julip; an' when I went down the next year to
+hold services his wife told me the good old man had been
+gathered to his fathers. 'He was all right' she 'lowed,
+'till a little feller from Virginia came along an' tort 'im
+ter mix greens in his licker, an' then he jes drunk hisself
+to death.'</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There's another thing I like about two of the
+churches I'm in&mdash;the Hard-shells an' the Presbyterians&mdash;an'
+that is special Providence. If I didn't believe
+in special Providence I'd lose my faith in God.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My father tuck care of me when I was a babe, an'
+we're all babes in God's sight.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The night befo' the battle of Shiloh, I preached to
+some of our po' boys the last sermon that many of 'em
+ever heard. An' I told 'em not to dodge the nex' day,
+but to stan' up an' 'quit themselves like men, for ever'
+shell an' ball would hit where God intended it should
+hit.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In the battle nex' day I was chaplain no longer,
+but chief of scouts, an' on the firin' line where it was
+hot enough. In the hottest part of it General Johnston
+rid up, an' when he saw our exposed position he told us
+to hold the line, but to lay down for shelter. A big tree<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+was nigh me an' I got behin' it. The Gineral seed me
+an' he smiled an' sed:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Oh, Bishop,'&rdquo;&mdash;his voice fell to a proud and tender
+tone&mdash;&ldquo;did you know it was Gineral Johnston that
+fust named me the Bishop?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Oh, Bishop,' he said, 'I can see you puttin' a tree
+betwixt yo'se'f an' special Providence.' 'Yes, Gineral,'
+I sed, 'an' I looks on it as a very special Providence jus'
+at this time.'</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He laughed, an' the boys hoorawed an' he rid off.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Our lives an' the destiny of our course is fixed as
+firmly as the laws that wheel the planets. Why, I have
+knowed men to try to hew out their own destiny an'
+they'd make it look like a gum-log hewed out with a
+broad axe, until God would run the rip-saw of His
+purpose into them, an' square them out an' smooth them
+over an' polish them into pillars for His Temple.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What is, was goin' to be; an' the things that's got
+to come to us has already happened in God's mind.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I've knowed poor an' unpretentious, God-fearin'
+men an' women to put out their hands to build shanties
+for their humble lives, an' God would turn them into
+castles of character an' temples of truth for all time.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Elder Butts will lead in prayer.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was a long prayer and was proceeding smoothly,
+until, in its midst, from the front row, Archie B.'s
+head bobbed cautiously up. Keeping one eye on his
+father, the praying Elder, he went through a pantomime
+for the benefit of the young Hillites around him, who,
+like himself, had had enough of prayer. Before coming
+to the meeting he had cut from a black sheep's skin a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+gorgeous set of whiskers and a huge mustache. These
+now adorned his face.</p>
+
+<p>There was a convulsive snicker among the young Hillites
+behind him. The Elder opened one eye to see what
+it meant. They were natural children, whose childhood
+had not been dwarfed in a cotton mill, and it was exceedingly
+funny to them.</p>
+
+<p>But the young Cottontowners laughed not. They
+looked on in stoical wonder at the presumption of the
+young Hillites who dared to do such a deed.</p>
+
+<p>Humor had never been known to them. There is no
+humor in the all-day buzz of the cotton factory; and
+fun and the fight of life for daily bread do not sleep
+in the same crib.</p>
+
+<p>The Hillites tittered and giggled.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Maw,&rdquo; whispered Miss Butts, &ldquo;look at Archie B.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Butts hastily reached over the bench and yanked
+Archie B. down. His whiskers were confiscated and in
+a moment he was on his knees and deeply devotional,
+while the young Hillites nudged each other, and giggled
+and the young Cottontowners stared and wondered,
+and looked to see when Archie B. would be hung
+up by the thumbs.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop was reading the afternoon chapter when
+the animal in Archie B. broke out in another spot. The
+chapter was where Zacharias climbed into a sycamore
+tree to see his passing Lord. There was a rattling of
+the stove pipe in one corner.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Maw,&rdquo; whispered Miss Butts, &ldquo;Jes' look at Archie
+B.&mdash;he's climbin' the stove pipe like Zacharias did the
+sycamo'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Horror again swept over Cottontown, while the Hillites
+cackled aloud. The Elder settled it by calmly laying
+aside his spectacles and starting down the pulpit
+steps. But Archie B. guessed his purpose and before
+he had reached the last step he was sitting demurely
+by the side of his pious brother, intently engaged in
+reading the New Testament.</p>
+
+<p>Without his glasses, the Elder never knew one twin
+from the other, but presuming that the studious one
+was Ozzie B., he seized the other by the ear, pulled him
+to the open window and pitched him out on the grass.</p>
+
+<p>It was Ozzie B. of course, and Archie B. turned cautiously
+around to the Hillites behind, after the Elder had
+gone hack to his chapter, and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Venture pee-wee under the bridge&mdash;bam&mdash;bam&mdash;bam.</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the sermon Archie B. kept the young
+Hillites in a paroxysm of smirks.</p>
+
+<p>Elder Butts' legs were brackets, or more properly
+parentheses, and as he preached and thundered and gesticulated
+and whined and sang his sermon, he forgot all
+earthly things.</p>
+
+<p>Knowing this, Archie B. would crawl up behind his
+father and thrusting his head in between his legs, where
+the brackets were most pronounced, would emphasize all
+that was said with wry grimaces and gestures.</p>
+
+<p>No language can fittingly describe the way Elder
+Butts delivered his discourse. The sentences were
+whined, howled or sung, ending always in the vocal expletive&mdash;&ldquo;<i>ah&mdash;ah</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>When the elder had finished and sat down, Archie B.
+was sitting demurely on the platform steps.</p>
+
+<p>Then the latest Scruggs baby was brought forward to
+be baptised. There were already ten in the family.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop took the infant tenderly and said: &ldquo;Sister
+Scruggs, which church shall I put him into?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Piscopal,&rdquo; whispered the good Mrs. Scruggs.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop looked the red-headed young candidate
+over solemnly. There was a howl of protest from the
+lusty Scruggs.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He's a Cam'elite,&rdquo; said the Bishop dryly&mdash;&ldquo;ready
+to dispute a'ready&rdquo;&mdash;here the young Scruggs sent
+out a kick which caught the Bishop in the mouth.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;With Baptis' propensities,&rdquo; added the Bishop.
+&ldquo;Fetch the baptismal fount.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Please, pap,&rdquo; said little Appomattox Watts from
+the front bench, &ldquo;but Archie B. has drunk up all the
+baptismal water endurin' the first prayer.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I had to,&rdquo; spoke up Archie B., from the platform
+steps&mdash;&ldquo;I et dried mackerel for breakfas'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We'll postpone the baptism' till nex' Sunday,&rdquo; said
+the Bishop.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+<h3>THE RETURN</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">I</span>t was Sunday and Jack Bracken had been out all the
+afternoon, hunting for Cap'n Tom&mdash;as he had
+been in the morning, when not at church. Hitching
+up the old horse, the Bishop started out to hunt also.</p>
+
+<p>He did not go far on the road toward Westmoreland,
+for as Ben Butler plodded sleepily along, he almost ran
+over a crowd of boys in the public road, teasing what
+they took to be a tramp, because of his unkempt beard,
+his tattered clothes, and his old army cap.</p>
+
+<p>They had angered the man and with many gestures he
+was endeavoring to expostulate with his tormentors, at
+the same time attempting imprecations which could not
+be uttered and ended in a low pitiful sound. He shook
+his fist at them&mdash;he made violent gestures, but from his
+mouth came only a guttural sound which had no meaning.</p>
+
+<p>At a word from the Bishop his tormentors vanished,
+and when he pulled up before the uncouth figure he found
+him to be a man not yet in his prime, with an open face,
+now blank and expressionless, overgrown with a black,
+tangled, and untrimmed beard.</p>
+
+<p>He was evidently a demented tramp.</p>
+
+<p>But at a second look the Bishop started. It was the
+man's eyes which startled him. There was in them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>
+something so familiar and yet so unknown that the
+Bishop had to study a while before he could remember.</p>
+
+<p>Then there crept into his face a wave of pitying sorrow
+as he said to himself:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cap'n Tom&mdash;Cap'n Tom's eyes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And from that moment the homeless and demented
+tramp had a warm place in the old man's heart.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop watched him closely. His tattered cap
+had fallen off, showing a shock of heavy, uncut hair,
+streaked prematurely with gray.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What yo' name?&rdquo; asked the Bishop kindly.</p>
+
+<p>The man, flushed and angered, still gesticulated and
+muttered to himself. But at the sound of the Bishop's
+voice, for a moment there flashed into his eyes almost
+the saneness of returned reason. His anger vanished.
+A kindly smile spread over his face. He came toward
+the Bishop pleadingly&mdash;holding out both hands and
+striving to speak. Climbing into the buggy, he sat down
+by the old man's side, quite happy and satisfied&mdash;and
+as a little child.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Where are you from?&rdquo; asked the Bishop again.</p>
+
+<p>The man shook his head. He pointed to his head
+and looked meaningly at the Bishop.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Can't you tell me where you're gwine, then?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at the Bishop inquisitively, and for a moment,
+only, the same look&mdash;almost of intelligence&mdash;shone
+in his eyes. Slowly and with much difficulty&mdash;ay,
+even as if he were spelling it out, he said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A-l-i-c-e&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The old man turned quickly. Then he paled tremblingly
+to his very forehead. The word itself&mdash;the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+sound of that voice sent the blood rushing to his heart.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Alice?&mdash;and what does he mean? An' his voice
+an' his eyes&mdash;Alice&mdash;my God&mdash;it's Cap'n Tom!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Tenderly, calmly he pulled the cap from off the
+strange being's head and felt amid the unkempt locks.
+But his hands trembled so he could scarcely control them,
+and the sight of the poor, broken, half demented thing
+before him&mdash;so satisfied and happy that he had found
+a voice he knew&mdash;this creature, the brave, the chivalrous,
+the heroic Captain Tom! He could scarcely see
+for the tears which ran down his cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>But as he felt, in the depth of his shock of hair, his
+finger slipped into an ugly scar, sinking into a cup-shaped
+hollow fracture which gleamed in his hair.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cap'n Tom, Cap'n Tom,&rdquo; he whispered&mdash;&ldquo;don't
+you know me&mdash;the Bishop?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The man smiled reassuringly and slipped his hand, as
+a child might, into that of the old man.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A-l-i-c-e&rdquo;&mdash;he slowly and stutteringly pronounced
+again, as he pointed down the road toward Westmoreland.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My God,&rdquo; said the Bishop as he wiped away the tears
+on the back of his hand&mdash;&ldquo;my God, but that blow has
+spiled God's noblest gentleman.&rdquo; Then there rushed
+over him a wave of self-reproach as he raised his head
+heavenward and said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Almighty Father, forgive me! Only this morning
+I doubted You; and now, now, You have sent me po'
+Cap'n Tom!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You'll go home with me, Cap'n Tom!&rdquo; he added
+cheerily.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The man smiled and nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A-l-i-c-e,&rdquo; again he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>There was the sound of some one riding, and as the
+Bishop turned Ben Butler around Alice Westmore rode
+up, sitting her saddle mare with that natural grace
+which comes only when the horse and rider have been
+friends long enough to become as one. Richard Travis
+rode with her.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop paled again: &ldquo;My God,&rdquo; he muttered&mdash;&ldquo;but
+she mustn't know this is Cap'n Tom! I'd ruther
+she'd think he's dead&mdash;to remember him only as she
+knowed him last.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The man's eyes were riveted on her&mdash;they seemed to
+devour her as she rode up, a picture of grace and beauty,
+sitting her cantering mare with the ease of long years
+of riding. She smiled and nodded brightly at the
+Bishop, as she cantered past, but scarcely glanced at the
+man beside him.</p>
+
+<p>Travis followed at a brisk gait:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hello, Bishop,&rdquo; he said banteringly&mdash;&ldquo;got a new
+boarder to-day?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at the man as he spoke, and then galloped
+on without turning his head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Alice!&mdash;Alice!&rdquo;&mdash;whispered the man, holding out
+his hands pleadingly, in the way he had held them when
+he first saw the Bishop. &ldquo;Alice!&rdquo;&mdash;but she disappeared
+behind a turn in the road. She had not noticed
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop was relieved.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We'll go home, Cap'n Tom&mdash;you'll want for nothin'
+whilst I live. An' who knows&mdash;ay, Cap'n Tom, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
+knows but maybe God has sent you here to-day to begin
+the unraveling of the only injustice I've ever knowed
+Him to let go so long. It 'ud be so easy for Him&mdash;He's
+done bigger things than jes' to straighten out little
+tangles like that. Cap'n Tom! Cap'n Tom!&rdquo; he
+said excitedly&mdash;&ldquo;God'll do it&mdash;God'll do it&mdash;for He
+is just!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As he turned to go a negro came up hurriedly: &ldquo;I
+was fetchin' him to you, Marse Hillard&mdash;been lookin'
+for yo' home all day. I had gone to the spring for
+water an' 'lowed I'd be back in a minute.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, it's Eph,&rdquo; said the Bishop. &ldquo;Come on to my
+home, Eph, we'll take keer of Cap'n Tom.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was Sunday night. They had eaten their supper,
+and the old man was taking his smoke before going to
+bed. Shiloh, as usual, had climbed up into his lap and
+lay looking at the distant line of trees that girdled the
+mountain side. There was a flush on her cheeks and
+a brightness in her eyes which the old man had noticed
+for several weeks.</p>
+
+<p>Shiloh was his pet&mdash;his baby. All the affection of
+his strong nature found its outlet in this little soul&mdash;this
+motherless little waif, who likewise found in the old
+man that rare comradeship of extremes&mdash;the inexplicable
+law of the physical world which brings the snow-flower
+in winter. The one real serious quarrel the
+old man had had with his stubborn and ignorant old wife
+had been when Shiloh was sent to the factory. But it
+was always starvation times with them; and when
+aroused, the temper and tongue of Mrs. Watts was more
+than the peaceful old man could stand up against. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+as there were a dozen other tots of her age in the factory,
+he had been forced to acquiesce.</p>
+
+<p>Long after all others had retired&mdash;long after the
+evening star had arisen, and now, high overhead, looked
+down through the chinks in the roof of the cabin on the
+mountain side, saying it was midnight and past, the patient
+old man sat with Shiloh on his lap, watching her
+quick, restless breathing, and fearing to put her to bed,
+lest he might awaken her.</p>
+
+<p>He put her in bed at last and then slipped into Captain
+Tom's cabin before he himself lay down.</p>
+
+<p>To his surprise he was up and reading an old dictionary&mdash;studying
+and puzzling over the words. It
+was the only book except the Bible the Bishop had in
+his cabin, and this book proved to be Captain Tom's
+solace.</p>
+
+<p>After that, day after day, he would sit out under the
+oak tree by his cabin intently reading the dictionary.</p>
+
+<p>Eph, his body servant, slept on the floor by his side,
+and Jack Bracken sat near him like a sturdy mastiff
+guarding a child. Sympathy, pity&mdash;were written in
+the outlaw's face, as he looked at the once splendid manhood
+shorn of its strength, and from that day Jack
+Bracken showered on Captain Tom all the affection of
+his generous soul&mdash;all that would have gone to little
+Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For he's but a child&mdash;the same as little Jack was,&rdquo;
+he would say.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Put up yo' novel, Cap'n Tom,&rdquo; said the old man
+cheerily, when he went in, &ldquo;an' let's have prayers.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The sound of the old man's voice was soothing to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+Captain Tom. Quickly the book was closed and down
+on their knees went the three men.</p>
+
+<p>It was a queer trio&mdash;the three kneeling in prayer.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Almighty God,&rdquo; prayed the old man&mdash;&ldquo;me an'
+Cap'n Tom an' Jack Bracken here, we thank You for
+bein' so much kinder to us than we deserves. One of
+us, lost to his friends, is brought back home; one of us,
+lost in wickedness but yestiddy, is redeemed to-day; an'
+me that doubted You only yestiddy, to me You have
+fotcht Cap'n Tom back, a reproach for my doubts an'
+my disbelief, lame in his head, it is true, but You've
+fotcht him back where I can keer for him an' nuss him.
+An' I hope You'll see fit, Almighty God, You who made
+the worl' an' holds it in the hollow of Yo' han', You, who
+raised up the dead Christ, to give po' Cap'n Tom back
+his reason, that he may fulfill the things in life ordained
+by You that he should fulfill since the beginning of
+things.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' hold Jack Bracken to the mark, Almighty God,&mdash;let
+him toe the line an' shoot, hereafter, only for
+good. An' guide me, for I need it&mdash;me that in spite
+of all You've done for me, doubted You but yestiddy.
+Amen.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was a simple, homely prayer, but it comforted even
+Captain Tom, and when Jack Bracken put him to bed
+that night, even the outlaw felt that the morning of a
+new era would awaken them.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+<h3>THE SWAN-SONG OF THE CREPE-MYRTLE</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">I</span>t was twilight when Mrs. Westmore heard the clatter
+of horses' hoofs up the gravelled roadway, and two
+riders cantered up.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis sat his saddle horse in the slightly
+stooping way of the old fox-hunter&mdash;not the most
+graceful seat, but the most natural and comfortable for
+hard riding. Alice galloped ahead&mdash;her fine square
+shoulders and delicate but graceful bust silhouetted
+against the western sky in the fading light.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Westmore sat on the veranda and watched them
+canter up. She thought how handsome they were, and
+how well they would look always together.</p>
+
+<p>Alice sprang lightly from her mare at the front steps.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did you think we were never coming back? Richard's
+new mare rides so delightfully that we rode farther
+than we intended. Oh, but she canters beautifully!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She sat on the arm of her mother's chair, and bent
+over and kissed her cheek. The mother looked up to
+see her finely turned profile outlined in a pale pink flush
+of western sky which glowed behind her. Her cheeks
+were of the same tinge as the sky. They glowed with
+the flush of the gallop, and her eyes were bright with
+the happiness of it. She sat telling of the new mare's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+wonderfully correct saddle gaits, flipping her ungloved
+hand with the gauntlet she had just pulled off.</p>
+
+<p>Travis turned the horses over to Jim and came up.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Glad to see you, Cousin Alethea,&rdquo; he said, as she
+arose and advanced gracefully to meet him&mdash;&ldquo;no, no&mdash;don't
+rise,&rdquo; he added in his half jolly, half commanding
+way. &ldquo;You've met me before and I'm not such a big
+man as I seem.&rdquo; He laughed: &ldquo;Do you remember
+Giant Jim, the big negro Grandfather used to have to
+oversee his hands on the lower place? Jim, you know,
+in consideration of his elevation, was granted several
+privileges not allowed the others. Among them was the
+privilege of getting drunk every Saturday night. Then
+it was he would stalk and brag among those he ruled
+while they looked at him in awe and reverence. But he
+had the touch of the philosopher in him and would finally
+say: 'Come, touch me, boys; come, look at me; come,
+feel me&mdash;I'm nothin' but a common man, although I
+appear so big.'&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Westmore laughed in her mechanical way, but
+all the while she was looking at Alice, who was watching
+the mare as she was led off.</p>
+
+<p>Travis caught her eye and winked mischievously as
+he added: &ldquo;Now, Cousin Alethea, you must promise
+me to make Alice ride her whenever she needs a tonic&mdash;every
+day, if necessary. I have bought her for Alice,
+and she must get the benefit of her before it grows too
+cold.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Alice Westmore: &ldquo;You have only to
+tell me which days&mdash;if I am too busy to go with you&mdash;Jim
+will bring her over.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She smiled: &ldquo;You are too kind, Richard, always
+thinking of my pleasure. A ride like this once a week
+is tonic enough.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She went into the house to change her habit. Her
+brother Clay, who had been sitting on the far end of
+the porch unobserved, arose and, without noticing Travis
+as he passed, walked into the house.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I cannot imagine,&rdquo; said Mrs. Westmore apologetically,
+&ldquo;what is the matter with Clay to-day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; asked Travis indifferently enough.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He has neglected his geological specimens all day,
+nor has he ever been near his laboratory&mdash;he has one
+room he calls his laboratory, you know. To-night he is
+moody and troubled.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis said nothing. At tea Clay was not there.</p>
+
+<p>When Travis left it was still early and Alice walked
+with him to the big gate. The moon shone dimly and
+the cool, pure light lay over everything like the first mist
+of frost in November. Beyond, in the field, where it
+struck into the open cotton bolls, it turned them into
+December snow-banks.</p>
+
+<p>Travis led his saddle horse, and as they walked to the
+gate, the sweet and scarcely perceptible odor of the crepe-myrtle
+floated out on the open air.</p>
+
+<p>The crepe-myrtle has a way of surprising us now and
+then, and often after a wet fall, it gives us the swan-song
+of a bloom, ere its delicate blossoms, touched to
+death by frost, close forever their scalloped pink eyes,
+on the rare summer of a life as spiritual as the sweet soft
+gulf winds which brought it to life.</p>
+
+<p>Was it symbolic to-night,&mdash;the swan-song of the ro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>mance
+of Alice Westmore's life, begun under those very
+trees so many summers ago?</p>
+
+<p>They stopped at the gate. Richard Travis lit a cigar
+before mounting his horse. He seemed at times to-night
+restless, yet always determined.</p>
+
+<p>She had never seen him so nearly preoccupied as he
+had been once or twice to-night.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you not think?&rdquo; he asked, after a while as they
+stood by the gate, &ldquo;that I should have a sweet answer
+soon?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes fell. The death song of the crepe-myrtle,
+aroused by a south wind suddenly awakened, smote her
+painfully.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You know&mdash;you know how it is, Richard&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How it was&mdash;Alice. But think&mdash;life is a practical&mdash;a
+serious thing. We all have had our romances.
+They are the heritage of dreaming youth. We outlive
+them&mdash;it is best that we should. Our spiritual life follows
+the law of all other life, and spiritually we are not
+the same this year that we were last. Nor will we be the
+next. It is always change&mdash;change&mdash;even as the body
+changes. Environment has more to do with what we
+are, what we think and feel&mdash;than anything else. If
+you will marry me you will soon love me&mdash;it is the law
+of love to beget love. You will forget all the lesser
+loves in the great love of your life. Do you not know it,
+feel it, Sweet?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him surprised. Never before had he
+used any term of endearment to her. There was a hard,
+still and subtle yet determined light in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Richard&mdash;Richard&mdash;you&mdash;I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;See,&rdquo; he said, taking from his vest pocket a magnificent
+ring set in an exquisite old setting&mdash;inherited
+from his grandmother, and it had been her engagement
+ring. &ldquo;See, Alice, let me put this on to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He took her hand&mdash;it thrilled him as he had never
+been thrilled before. This impure man, who had made
+the winning of women a plaything, trembled with the
+fear of it as he took in his own the hand so pure that
+not even his touch could awaken sensuality in it. The
+odor of her beautiful hair floated up to him as he bent
+over. A wave of hot passion swept over him&mdash;for with
+him love was passion&mdash;and his reason, for a moment,
+was swept from its seat. Then almost beside himself
+for love of this woman, so different from any he had ever
+known, he opened his arms to fold her in one overpowering,
+conquering embrace.</p>
+
+<p>It was but a second and more a habit than thought&mdash;he
+who had never before hesitated to do it.</p>
+
+<p>She stepped back and the hot blood mounted to her
+cheek. Her eyes shone like outraged stars, dreaming
+earthward on a sleeping past, unwarningly obscured by
+a passing cloud, and then flashing out into the night,
+more brightly from the contrast.</p>
+
+<p>She did not speak and he crunched under his feet,
+purposely, the turf he was standing on, and so carrying
+out, naturally, the gesture of clasping the air, in establishing
+his balance&mdash;as if it was an accident.</p>
+
+<p>She let him believe she thought it was, and secured
+relief from the incident.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Alice&mdash;Alice!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;I love you&mdash;love<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
+you&mdash;I must have you in my life! Can you not wear
+this now? See!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He tried to place it on her finger. He held the small
+beautiful hand in his own. Then it suddenly withdrew
+itself and left him holding his ring and looking wonderingly
+at her.</p>
+
+<p>She had thrown back her head, and, half turned, was
+looking toward the crepe-myrtle tree from which the
+faint odor came.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You had better go, Richard,&rdquo; was all she said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll come for my answer&mdash;soon?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She was silent.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Soon?&rdquo; he repeated as he rose in the stirrup&mdash;&ldquo;soon&mdash;and
+to claim you always, Alice.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He rode off and left her standing with her head still
+thrown back, her thoughtful face drinking in the odor
+of the crepe-myrtle.</p>
+
+<p>Travis did not understand, for no crepe-myrtle had
+ever come into his life. It could not come. With him
+all life had been a passion flower, with the rank, strong
+odor of the sensuous, wild honeysuckle, which must climb
+ever upon something else, in order to open and throw
+off the rank, brazen perfume from its yellow and streaked
+and variegated blossoms.</p>
+
+<p>And how common and vulgar and all-surfeiting it is,
+loading the air around it with its sickening imitation of
+sweetness, so that even the bees stagger as they pass
+through it and disdain to stop and shovel, for the mere
+asking, its musky and illicit honey.</p>
+
+<p>But, O mystic odor of the crepe-myrtle&mdash;O love<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+which never dies&mdash;how differently it grows and lives
+and blooms!</p>
+
+<p>In color, constant&mdash;a deep pink. Not enough of
+red to suggest the sensual, nor yet lacking in it when
+the full moment of ripeness comes. How delicately pink
+it is, and yet how unfadingly it stands the summer's sun,
+the hot air, the drought! How quickly it responds to
+the Autumn showers, and long after the honeysuckle
+has died, and the bees have forgotten its rank memory,
+this beautiful creature of love blooms in the very lap of
+Winter.</p>
+
+<p>O love that defies even the breath of death!</p>
+
+<p>The yellow lips of the honeysuckle are thick and sensual;
+but the beautiful petals of this cluster of love-cells,
+all so daintily transparent, hanging in pink clusters
+of loveliness with scalloped lips of purity, that even
+the sunbeam sends a photograph of his heart through
+them and every moonbeam writes in it the romance of its
+life. And the skies all day long, reflecting in its heart,
+tells to the cool green leaves that shadow it the story of
+its life, and it catches and holds the sympathy of the
+tiniest zephyr, from the way it flutters to the patter of
+their little feet.</p>
+
+<p>All things of Nature love it&mdash;the clouds, the winds,
+the very stars, and sun, because love&mdash;undying love&mdash;is
+the soul of God, its Maker.</p>
+
+<p>The rose is red in the rich passion of love, the lily is
+pale in the poverty of it; but the crepe-myrtle is pink
+in the constancy of it.</p>
+
+<p>O bloom of the crepe-myrtle! And none but a lover
+ever smelled it&mdash;none but a lover ever knew!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She ran up the gentle slope to the old-fashioned garden
+and threw herself under the tree from whence the
+dying odor came. She fell on her knees&mdash;the moonlight
+over her in fleckings of purification. She clung
+to the scaly weather-beaten stem of the tree as she would
+have pressed a sister to her breast. Her arms were
+around it&mdash;she knew it&mdash;<span class="hover" title="it's">it's</span> very bark.</p>
+
+<p>She seized a bloom that had fallen and crushed it to
+her bosom and her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O Tom&mdash;Tom&mdash;why&mdash;why did you make me
+love you here and then leave me forever with only the
+memory of it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Twice does it bloom, dear Heart,&mdash;can not my love
+bloom like it&mdash;twice?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A-l-i-c-e!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The voice came from out the distant woods nearby.</p>
+
+<p>The blood leaped and then pricked her like sharp-pointed
+icicles, and they all seemed to freeze around and
+prick around her heart. She could not breathe.... Her
+head reeled.... The crepe-myrtle fell on her
+and smothered her....</p>
+
+<p>When she awoke Mrs. Westmore sat by her side and
+was holding her head while her brother was rubbing her
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You must be ill, darling,&rdquo; said her mother gently.
+&ldquo;I heard you scream. What&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They helped her to rise. Her heart still fluttered violently&mdash;her
+head swam.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did you call me before&mdash;before&rdquo;&mdash;she was excited
+and eager.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, yes&rdquo;&mdash;smiled her mother. &ldquo;I said, 'Alice&mdash;Alice!'&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was not that&mdash;no, that was not the way it sounded,&rdquo;
+she said as they led her into the house.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+<h3>THE CASKET AND THE GHOST</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">R</span>ichard Travis could not sleep that night&mdash;why,
+he could not tell.</p>
+
+<p>After he returned from Westmoreland,
+Mammy Charity brought him his cocktail, and tidied up
+his room, and beat up the feathers in his pillows and bed&mdash;for
+she believed in the old-fashioned feather-bed and
+would have no other kind in the house.</p>
+
+<p>The old clock in the hall&mdash;that had sat there since
+long before he, himself, could remember&mdash;struck ten,
+and then eleven, and then, to his disgust, even twelve.</p>
+
+<p>At ten he had taken another toddy to put himself to
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>There is only one excuse for drunkenness, and that is
+sleeplessness. If there is a hell for the intellectual it is
+not of fire, as for commoner mortals, but of sleeplessness&mdash;the
+wild staring eyes of an eternity of sleeplessness
+following an eon of that midnight mental anguish
+which comes with the birth of thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>But still he slept not, and so at ten he had taken another
+toddy&mdash;and still another, and as he felt its life
+and vigor to the ends of his fingers, he quaffed his fourth
+one; then he smiled and said: &ldquo;And now I don't care
+if I never go to sleep!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He arose and dressed. He tried to recite one of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+favorite poems, and it angered him that his tongue
+seemed thick.</p>
+
+<p>His head slightly reeled, but in it there galloped a
+thousand beautiful dreams and there were visions of
+Alice, and love, and the satisfaction of conquering and
+the glory of winning.</p>
+
+<p>He could feel his heart-throbs at the ends of his
+fingers. He could see thoughts&mdash;beautiful, grand
+thoughts&mdash;long before they reached him,&mdash;stalking
+like armed men, helmeted and vizored, stalking forward
+into his mind.</p>
+
+<p>He walked out and down the long hall.</p>
+
+<p>The ticking of the clock sounded to him so loud that
+he stopped and cursed it.</p>
+
+<p>Because, somehow, it ticked every time his heart beat;
+and he could count his heart-beats in his fingers' ends,
+and he didn't want to know every time his heart beat.
+It made him nervous.</p>
+
+<p>It might stop; but it would not stop. And then,
+somehow, he imagined that his heart was really out in
+the yard, down under the hill, and was pumping the
+water&mdash;as the ram had done for years&mdash;through the
+house. It was a queer fancy, and it made him angry because
+he could not throw it off.</p>
+
+<p>He walked down the hall, rudely snatched the clock
+door open, and stopped the big pendulum. Then he
+laughed sillily.</p>
+
+<p>The moonbeams came in at the stained glass windows,
+and cast red and yellow and pale green fleckings of light
+on the smooth polished floor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He began to feel uncanny. He was no coward and he
+cursed himself for it.</p>
+
+<p>Things began to come to him in a moral way and
+mixed in with the uncanniness of it all. He imagined he
+saw, off in the big square library across the way, in the
+very spot he had seen them lay out his grandfather&mdash;Maggie,
+and she arose suddenly from out of his grandfather's
+casket and beckoned to him with&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I love you so&mdash;I love <i>you</i> so!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was so real, he walked to the spot and put his hands
+on the black mohair Davenport. And the form on it,
+sitting bolt upright, was but the pillow he had napped
+on that afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed and it sounded hollow to him and echoed
+down the hall:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How like her it looked!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He walked into Harry's room and lit the lamp there.
+He smiled when he glanced around the walls. There
+were hunting scenes and actresses in scant clothing. Tobacco
+pipes of all kinds on the tables, and stumps of ill-smelling
+cigarettes, and over the mantel was a crayon
+picture of Death shaking the dice of life. Two old cutlasses
+crossed underneath it.</p>
+
+<p>On his writing desk Travis picked up and read the
+copy of the note written to Helen the day before.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled with elevated eyebrows. Then he laughed
+ironically:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The little yellow cur&mdash;to lie down and quit&mdash;to
+throw her over like that! Damn him&mdash;he has a yellow
+streak in him and I'll take pleasure in pulling down the
+purse for him. Why, she was born for me anyway!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>
+That kid, and in love with Helen! Not for The Gaffs
+would I have him mix up with that drunken set&mdash;nor&mdash;nor,
+well, not for The Gaffs to have him quit like
+that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And yet it was news to him. Wrapped in his own
+selfish plans, he had never bothered himself about Harry's
+affairs.</p>
+
+<p>But he kept on saying, as if it hurt him: &ldquo;The little
+yellow cur&mdash;and he a Travis!&rdquo; He laughed: &ldquo;He's
+got another one, I'll bet&mdash;got her to-night and by now
+is securely engaged. So much the better&mdash;for my
+plans.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Again he went into the hall and walked to and fro in
+the dim light. But the Davenport and the pillow instantly
+formed themselves again into Maggie and the
+casket, and he turned in disgust to walk into his own
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Above his head over the doorway in the hall, on a pair
+of splendid antlers&mdash;his first trophy of the chase,&mdash;rested
+his deer gun, a clean piece of Damascus steel and
+old English walnut, imported years before. The barrels
+were forty inches and choked. The small bright
+hammers rested on the yellow brass caps deep sunk on
+steel nippers. They shone through the hammer slit fresh
+and ready for use.</p>
+
+<p>He felt a cold draught of air blow on him and turned
+in surprise to find the hall window, which reached to the
+veranda floor, open; and he could see the stars shining
+above the dark green foliage of the trees on the lawn
+without.</p>
+
+<p>At the same instant there swept over him a nervous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+fear, and he reached for his deer gun instinctively. Then
+there arose from the Davenport coffin a slouching unkempt
+form, the fine bright eyes of which, as the last
+rays of the moonlight fell on them, were the eyes of his
+dead cousin, Captain Tom, and it held out its hands
+pleadingly to him and tenderly and with much effort
+said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Grandfather, forgive. I've come back again.</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis's heart seemed to freeze tightly. He tried to
+breathe&mdash;he only gasped&mdash;and the corners of his
+mouth tightened and refused to open. He felt the blood
+rush up from around his loins, and leave him paralyzed
+and weak. In sheer desperation he threw the gun to
+his shoulder, and the next instant he would have fired the
+load into the face of the thing with its voice of the dead,
+had not something burst on his head with a staggering,
+overpowering blow, and despite his efforts to stand, his
+knees gave way beneath him and it seemed pleasant for
+him to lie prone upon the floor....</p>
+
+<br />
+<p>When he awakened an hour afterwards, he sat up, bewildered.
+His gun lay beside him, but the window was
+closed securely and bolted. No night air came in. The
+Davenport and pillow were there as before. His head
+ached and there was a bruised place over his ear. He
+walked into his own room and lit the lamp.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I may have fallen and struck my head,&rdquo; he said,
+bewildered with the strangeness of it all. &ldquo;I may have,&rdquo;
+he repeated&mdash;&ldquo;but if I didn't see Tom Travis's ghost
+to-night there is no need to believe one's senses.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He opened the door and let in two setters which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
+fawned upon him and licked his hand. All his nervousness
+vanished.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No one knows the comfort of a dog's company,&rdquo; he
+said, &ldquo;who does not love a dog?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he bathed his face and head and went to sleep.</p>
+
+<br />
+<p>It was after midnight when Jack Bracken led Captain
+Tom in and put him to bed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A close shave for you, Cap'n Tom,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;I
+struck just in time. I'll not leave you another night
+with the door unlocked.&rdquo; Then: &ldquo;But poor fellow&mdash;how
+can we blame him for wandering off, after all those
+years, and trying to get back again to his boyhood
+home.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+<h3>A MIDNIGHT GUARD</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">J</span>ack Bracken rolled himself in his blanket on
+the cot, placed in the room next to Captain Tom,
+and prepared to sleep again.</p>
+
+<p>But the excitement of the night had been great; his
+sudden awakening from sleep, his missing Captain Tom,
+and finding him in time to prevent a tragedy, had
+aroused him thoroughly, and now sleep was far from his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>And so he lay and thought of his past life, and as it
+passed before him it shook him with nervous sleeplessness.</p>
+
+<p>It hurt him. He lay and panted with the strong sorrow
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it was that, but with it were thoughts also of
+little Jack, and the tears came into the eyes of the big-hearted
+outlaw.</p>
+
+<p>He had his plans all arranged&mdash;he and the Bishop&mdash;and
+now as the village blacksmith he would begin the life
+of an honest man.</p>
+
+<p>Respected&mdash;his heart beat proudly to think of it.</p>
+
+<p>Respected&mdash;how little it means to the man who is,
+how much to the man who is not.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; he said to himself&mdash;&ldquo;perhaps after a while
+people will stop and talk to me an' say as they pass my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>
+shop: 'Good mornin', neighbor, how are you to-day?'
+Little children&mdash;sweet an' innocent little children&mdash;comin'
+from school may stop an' watch the sparks fly
+from my anvil, like they did in the poem I onct read,
+an' linger aroun' an' talk to me, shy like; maybe, after
+awhile I'll get their confidence, so they will learn to love
+me, an' call me Uncle Jack&mdash;Uncle Jack,&rdquo; he repeated
+softly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' I won't be suspectin' people any mo' an' none of
+'em will be my enemy. I'll not be carryin' pistols an'
+havin' buckets of gold an' not a friend in the worl'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>His heart beat fast&mdash;he could scarcely wait for the
+morning to come, so anxious was he to begin the life of
+an honest man again. He who had been an outlaw so
+long, who had not known what it was to know human
+sympathy and human friendship&mdash;it thrilled him with
+a rich, sweet flood of joy.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly a great wave swept over him&mdash;a wave
+of such exquisite joy that he fell on his knees and cried
+out: &ldquo;O God, I am a changed man&mdash;how happy I
+am! jus' to be human agin an' not hounded! How can
+I thank You&mdash;You who have given me this blessed
+Man the Bishop tells us about&mdash;this Christ who reaches
+out an' takes us by the han' an' lifts us up. O God,
+if there is divinity given to man, it is given to that man
+who can lift up another, as the po' outlaw knows.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He lay silent and thoughtful. All day and night&mdash;since
+he had first seen Margaret, her eyes had haunted
+him. He had not seen her before for many years; but
+in all that time there had not been a day when he had
+not thought of&mdash;loved&mdash;her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Margaret&mdash;her loneliness&mdash;the sadness of her life,
+all haunted him. She lived, he knew, alone, in her cottage&mdash;an
+outcast from society. He had looked but
+once in her eyes and caught the lingering look of appeal
+which unconsciously lay there. He knew she loved him
+yet&mdash;it was there as plain as in his own face was written
+the fact that he loved her. He thought of himself&mdash;of
+her. Then he said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For fifteen years I have robbed&mdash;killed&mdash;oh, God&mdash;killed&mdash;how
+it hurts me now! All the category of
+crime in bitter wickedness I have run. And she&mdash;once&mdash;and
+now an angel&mdash;Bishop himself says so.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am a new man&mdash;I am a respectable and honest
+man,&rdquo;&mdash;here he arose on his cot and drew himself up&mdash;&ldquo;I
+am Jack Smith&mdash;Mr. Jack Smith, the blacksmith,
+and my word is my bond.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He slipped out quietly. Once again in the cool night,
+under the stars which he had learned to love as brothers
+and whose silent paths across the heavens were to him old
+familiar footpaths, he felt at ease, and his nervousness
+left him.</p>
+
+<p>He had not intended to speak to Margaret then&mdash;for
+he thought she was asleep. He wished only to guard
+her cabin, up among the stunted old field pines&mdash;while
+she slept&mdash;to see the room he knew she slept in&mdash;the
+little window she looked out of every day.</p>
+
+<p>The little cabin was a hallowed spot to him. Somehow
+he knew&mdash;he felt that whatever might be said&mdash;in
+it he knew an angel dwelt. He could not understand&mdash;he
+only knew.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There is a moral sense within us that is a greater
+teacher than either knowledge or wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>For an hour he stood with his head uncovered watching
+the little cabin where she lived. Everything about
+it was sacred, because Margaret lived there. It was
+pretty, too, in its neatness and cleanliness, and there were
+old-fashioned flowers in the yard and old-fashioned roses
+clambered on the rock wall.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down in the path&mdash;the little white sanded path
+down which he knew she went every day, and so made
+sacred by her footsteps.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps, I am near one of them now,&rdquo; he said&mdash;and
+he kissed the spot.</p>
+
+<p>And that night and many others did the outlaw watch
+over the lonely cabin on the mountain side. And she,
+the outcast woman, slept within, unconscious that she
+was being protected by the man who had loved her all
+his life.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+<h3>THE THEFT OF A CHILDHOOD</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">T</span>he Watts children were up the next morning by
+four o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Watts ate, always, by candle-light.
+The sun, she thought, would be dishonored, were he to
+find her home in disorder, her breakfast uncooked, her
+day's work not ready for her, with his first beams.</p>
+
+<p>For Mrs. Watts did not consider that arising at four,
+and cooking and sweeping and tidying up the cabin, and
+quarreling with the Bishop as &ldquo;a petty old bundle of
+botheration&rdquo;&mdash;and storming around at the children&mdash;all
+by sun-up&mdash;this was not work at all.</p>
+
+<p>It was merely an appetizer.</p>
+
+<p>The children were aroused by her this morning with
+more severity than usual. Half frightened they rolled
+stupidly out of their beds&mdash;Appomattox, Atlanta, and
+Shiloh from one, and the boys from another. Then
+they began to put on their clothes in the same listless,
+dogged, mechanical way they had learned to do everything&mdash;learned
+it while working all day between the
+whirl of the spindle and the buzz of the bobbin.</p>
+
+<p>The sun had not yet risen, and a cold gray mist crept
+up from the valley, closing high up and around the
+wood-girdled brow of the mountain as billows around
+a rock in the sea. The faint, far-off crowing of cocks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>
+added to the weirdness; for their shrill voices alone broke
+through the silence which came down with the mist.
+Around the brow of Sand Mountain the vapor made a
+faint halo&mdash;touched as it was by the splendid flush of
+the East.</p>
+
+<p>It was all grand and beautiful enough without, but
+within was the poverty of work, and the two&mdash;poverty
+and work&mdash;had already had their effect on the children,
+except, perhaps, Shiloh. She had not yet been in the
+mill long enough to be automatonized.</p>
+
+<p>Looking out of the window she saw the star setting behind
+the mountain, and she thought it slept, by day, in
+a cavern she knew of there.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wouldn't it be fine, Mattox,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;if we didn't
+have to work at the mill to-day an' cu'd run up on the
+mountain an' pick up that star? I seed one fall onct
+an' I picked it up.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the little face was thoughtful&mdash;wistful&mdash;then
+she added:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I wonder how it would feel to spen' the day in the
+woods onct. Archie B. says it's just fine and flowers
+grow everywhere. Oh, jes' to be 'quainted with one
+Jeree&mdash;like Archie B. is&mdash;an' have him come to yo'
+winder every mornin' an' say, '<i>Wake up, Pet! Wake
+up, Pet! Wake up, Pet!</i>' An' then hear a little 'un
+over in another tree say, '<i>So-s-l-ee-py&mdash;So-s-l-ee-py!</i>'&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Her chatter ceased again. Then: &ldquo;Mattox, did you
+ever see a rabbit? I seen one onct, a settin' up in a
+fence corner an' a spittin' on his han's to wash his face.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She laughed at the thought of it. But the other children,
+who had dressed, sat listlessly in their seats, looking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+at her with irresponsive eyes, set deep back into tired,
+lifeless, weazened faces.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'd ruther a rabbit 'ud wash his face than mine,&rdquo;
+drawled Bull Run.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Watts came in and jerked the chair from under
+him and he sat down sprawling. Then he lazily arose
+and deliberately spat, between his teeth, into the fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>There was not enough of him alive to feel that he had
+been imposed upon.</p>
+
+<p>For breakfast they had big soda biscuits and fried
+bacon floating in its own grease. There was enough of
+it left for the midday lunch. This was put into a tin
+pail with a tight fitting top. The pail, when opened,
+smelt of the death and remains of every other soda biscuit
+that had ever been laid away within this tightly
+closed mausoleum of tin.</p>
+
+<p>They had scarcely eaten before the shrill scream of
+the mill-whistle called them to their work.</p>
+
+<p>Shiloh, at the sound, stuck her small fingers into her
+ears and shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>Then the others struck out across the yard, and Shiloh
+followed.</p>
+
+<p>To this child of seven, who had already worked six
+months in the factory, the scream of the whistle was the
+call of a frightful monster, whose black smoke-stack of
+a snout, with its blacker breath coming out, and the
+flaming eyes of the engine glaring through the smoke,
+completed the picture of a wild beast watching her.
+Within, the whirr and tremble of shuttle and machinery
+were the purr and pulsation of its heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She was a nervous, sensitive child, who imagined far
+more than she saw; and the very uncanniness of the dark
+misty morning, the silence, broken only by the tremble
+and roar of the mill, the gaunt shadows of the overtopping
+mountain, filled her with childish fears.</p>
+
+<p>Nature can do no more than she is permitted; and the
+terrible strain of twelve hours' work, every day except
+Sunday, for the past six months, where every faculty,
+from hand and foot to body, eye and brain, must be
+alert and alive to watch and piece the never-ceasing
+breaking of the threads, had already begun to undermine
+the half-formed framework of that little life.</p>
+
+<p>As she approached the mill she clung to the hand of
+Appomattox, and shrinking, kept her sister between herself
+and the Big Thing which put the sweet morning
+air a-flutter around its lair. As she drew near the door
+she almost cried out in affright&mdash;her little heart grew
+tight, her lips were drawn.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, it can't hurt you, Shiloh,&rdquo; said her sister pulling
+her along. &ldquo;You'll be all right when you get inside.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was a snarling clatter and crescendo tremble,
+ending in an all-drowning roar, as the big door was
+pushed open for a moment, and Shiloh, quaking, but
+brave, was pulled in, giving the tiny spark of her little
+life to add to the Big Thing's fire.</p>
+
+<p>Within, she was reassured; for there was her familiar
+spinning frame, with its bobbins ready to be set to spinning
+and whirling; and the room was full of people,
+many as small as she.</p>
+
+<p>The companionship, even of fear, is helpful.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, the roar and clatter drowned everything else.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Shiloh was too small to see, to know; but had she
+looked to the right as she entered, she had seen a sight
+which would have caused a stone man to flush with pity.
+It was Byrd Boyle, one of the mill hands who ran a
+slubbing machine, and he held in his arms (because
+they were too young to walk so far) twins, a boy and
+a girl. And they looked like half made up dolls left
+out on the grass, weather-beaten by summer rains.
+They were too small to know where their places were
+in the room, and as their father sat them down, in their
+proper places, it took the two together to run one side
+of a spinner, and the tiny little workers could scarcely
+reach to their whirling bobbins.</p>
+
+<p>To the credit of Richard Travis, this working of children
+under twelve years of age in the mills was done
+over his protest. Not so with Kingsley and his wife,
+who were experienced mill people from New England
+and knew the harm of it&mdash;morally, physically. Travis
+had even made strict regulations on the subject, only to
+be overruled by the combined disapproval of Kingsley
+and the directors and, strange to say, of the parents of
+the children themselves. His determination that only
+children of twelve years and over should work in the
+mill came to naught, more from the opposition of the
+parents themselves than that of Kingsley. These, to
+earn a little more for the family, did not hesitate to bring
+a child of eight to the mill and swear it was twelve.
+This and the ruling of the directors,&mdash;and worse than
+all, the lack of any state law on the subject,&mdash;had
+brought about the pitiful condition which prevailed
+then as now in Southern cotton mills.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was no talking inside the mill. Only the Big
+Thing was permitted to talk. No singing&mdash;for songs
+come from the happy heart of labor, unshackled. No
+noise of childhood, though the children were there.
+They were flung into an arena for a long day's fight
+against a thing of steel and steam, and there was no time
+for anything save work, work, work&mdash;walk, walk, walk&mdash;watch,
+forever watch,&mdash;the interminable flying whirl
+of spindle and spool.</p>
+
+<p>Early as it was, the children were late, and were soundly
+rebuffed by the foreman.</p>
+
+<p>The scolding hurt only Shiloh&mdash;it made her tremble
+and cry. The others were hardened&mdash;insensible&mdash;and
+took it with about the same degree of indifference
+with which caged and starved mice look at the man who
+pours over their wire traps the hot water which scalds
+them to death.</p>
+
+<p>The fight between steel, steam and child-flesh was on.</p>
+
+<p>Shiloh, Appomattox and Atlanta were spinners.</p>
+
+<p>Spinners are small girls who walk up and down an
+aisle before a spinning-frame and piece up the threads
+which are forever breaking. There were over a hundred
+spindles on each side of the frame, each revolving with
+the rapidity of an incipient cyclone and snapping every
+now and then the delicate white thread that was spun
+out like spiders' web from the rollers and the cylinders,
+making a balloon-like gown of cotton thread, which
+settled continuously around the bobbin.</p>
+
+<p>All day long and into the night, they must walk up
+and down, between these two rows of spinning-frames,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+amid the whirling spindles, piecing the broken threads
+which were forever breaking.</p>
+
+<p>It did not require strength, but a certain skill, which,
+unfortunately, childhood possessed more than the adult.
+Not power, but dexterity, watchfulness, quickness and
+the ability to walk&mdash;as children walk&mdash;and watch&mdash;as
+age should watch.</p>
+
+<p>No wonder that in a few months the child becomes, not
+the flesh and blood of its heredity, but the steel and wood
+of its environment.</p>
+
+<p>Bull Run and Seven Days were doffers, and confined
+to the same set of frames. They followed their sisters,
+taking off the full bobbins and throwing them into a
+cart and thrusting an empty bobbin into its place. This
+requires an eye of lightning and a hand with the quickness
+of its stroke.</p>
+
+<p>For it must be done between the pulsings of the Big
+Thing's heart&mdash;a flash, a snap, a snarl of broken thread&mdash;up
+in the left hand flies the bobbin from its disentanglement
+of thread and skein, and down over the buzzing
+point of steel spindles settles the empty bobbin, thrust
+over the spindle by the right.</p>
+
+<p>It is all done with two quick movements&mdash;a flash and
+a jerk of one hand up, and the other down, the eye
+riveted to the nicety of a hair's breadth, the stroke downward
+gauged to the cup of a thimble, to settle over the
+point of the spindle's end; for the missing of a thread's
+breadth would send a spindle blade through the hand, or
+tangle and snap a thread which was turning with a thousand
+revolutions in a minute.</p>
+
+<p><i>Snap&mdash;bang! Snap&mdash;bang!</i> One hundred and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>
+twenty times&mdash;<i>Snap&mdash;bang!</i> and back again, went
+the deft little workers pushing their cart before them.</p>
+
+<p>Full at last, their cart is whirled away with flying
+heels to another machine.</p>
+
+<p>It was a steady, lightning, endless track. Their little
+trained fingers betook of their surroundings and worked
+like fingers of steel. Their legs seemed made of India
+rubber. Their eyes shot out right and left, left and
+right, looking for the broken threads on the whirling
+bobbins as hawks sweep over the marsh grass looking for
+mice, and the steel claws, which swooped down on the
+bobbins when they found it, made the simile not
+unsuitable.</p>
+
+<p>Young as she was, Shiloh managed one of these harnessed,
+fiery lines of dancing witches, pirouetting on
+boards of hardened oak or hickory. Up and down she
+walked&mdash;up and down, watching these endless whirling
+figures, her bare fingers pitted against theirs of brass,
+her bare feet against theirs shod with iron, her little head
+against theirs insensate and unpitying, her little heart
+against theirs of flame which throbbed in the boiler's
+bosom and drove its thousand steeds with a whip of fire.</p>
+
+<p>In the bloodiest and cruelest days of the Roman Empire,
+man was matched against wild beasts. But in the
+man's hand was the blade of his ancestors and over his
+breast the steel ribs which had helped his people to conquer
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>And in the Beast's body was a heart!</p>
+
+<p>Ay, and the man was a man&mdash;a trained gladiator&mdash;and
+he was nerved by the cheers of thousands of sympathizing
+spectators.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And now, centuries after, and in the age of so-called
+kindness, comes this battle to be fought over. And the
+fight, now as then, is for bread and life.</p>
+
+<p>But how cruelly unfair is the fight of to-day, when
+the weak and helpless child is made the gladiator, and
+the fight is for bread, and the Beast is of steel and
+steam, and is soulless and heartless. Steel&mdash;that by
+which the old gladiator conquered&mdash;that is the heart of
+the Thing the little one must fight. And the cheers&mdash;the
+glamour of it is lacking, for the little one cannot
+hear even the sound of its own voice&mdash;in the roar of
+the thousand-throated Thing which drives the Steel
+Beast on.</p>
+
+<p>Seven o'clock&mdash;eight o'clock&mdash;Shiloh's head swam&mdash;her
+shoulders ached, her ears quivered with sensitiveness,
+and seemed not to catch sounds any more, but sharp
+and shooting pains. She was dazed already and weak;
+but still the Steam Thing cheered its steel legions on.</p>
+
+<p>Up and down, up and down she walked, her baby
+thoughts coming to her as through the roar of a Niagara,
+through pain and sensitiveness, through aches and a dull,
+never-ending sameness.</p>
+
+<p>Nine o'clock! Oh, she was so tired of it all!</p>
+
+<p>Hark, she thought she heard a bird sing in a far off,
+dreamy way, and for a moment she made mud pies in
+the back yard of the hut on the mountain, under the
+black-oak in the yard, with the glint of soft sunshine
+over everything and the murmur of green leaves in the
+trees above, as the wind from off the mountain went
+through them, and the anemone, and bellworts, and
+daisies grew beneath and around. Was it a bluebird?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>
+She had never seen but one and it had built its nest in a
+hole in a hollow tree, the summer before she went into
+the mill to work.</p>
+
+<p>She listened again&mdash;yes, it did sound something like
+a bluebird, peeping in a distant far off way, such as she
+had heard in the cabin on the mountain before she had
+ever heard the voice of the Big Thing at the mill. She
+listened, and a wave of disappointment swept over her
+baby face; for, listening closely, she found it was an unoiled
+separator, that peeped in a bluebird way now and
+then, above the staccato of some rusty spindle.</p>
+
+<p>But in the song of that bluebird and the glory of an
+imaginary mud pie, all the disappointment of what she
+had missed swept over her.</p>
+
+<p>Ten o'clock&mdash;the little fingers throbbed and burned,
+the tiny legs were stiff and tired, the little head seemed
+as a block of wood, but still the Steam Thing took no
+thought of rest.</p>
+
+<p>Eleven o'clock&mdash;oh, but to rest awhile! To rest under
+the trees in the yard, for the sunshine looked so warm
+and bright out under the mill-windows, and the memory
+of that bluebird's song, though but an imitation, still
+echoed in her ear. And those mud pies!&mdash;she saw them
+all around her and in such lovely bits of old broken
+crockery and&mdash;....</p>
+
+<p>She felt a rude punch in the side. It was Jud Carpenter
+standing over her and pointing to where a
+frowzled broken thread was tangling itself around a separator.
+She had dreamed but a minute&mdash;half a dozen
+threads had broken.</p>
+
+<p>It was a rude punch and it hurt her side and fright<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>ened
+her. With a snarl and a glare he passed on while
+Shiloh flew to her bobbin.</p>
+
+<p>This fright made her work the next hour with less
+fatigue. But she could not forget the song of the bluebird,
+and once, when Appomattox looked at her, she was
+working her mouth in a song,&mdash;a Sunday School song
+she had picked up at the Bishop's church. Appomattox
+could not hear it&mdash;no one had a license to hear a song
+in the Beast Thing's Den&mdash;nothing was ever privileged
+to sing but it,&mdash;but she knew from the way her mouth
+was working that Shiloh was singing.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, the instinct of happiness in the human heart! To
+sing through noises and aches and tired feet and stunned,
+blocky heads. To sing with no hope before her and the
+theft of her very childhood&mdash;ay, her life&mdash;going on
+by the Beast Thing and his men.</p>
+
+<p>God intended us to be happy, else He had never put
+so strong an instinct there.</p>
+
+<p>Twelve o'clock. The Steam Beast gave a triumphant
+scream heard above the roar of shuttle and steel. It
+was a loud, defiant, victorious roar which drowned all
+others.</p>
+
+<p>Then it purred and paused for breath&mdash;purred softer
+and softer and&mdash;slept at last.</p>
+
+<p>It was noon.</p>
+
+<p>The silence now was almost as painful to Shiloh as
+the noise had been. The sudden stopping of shuttle and
+wheel and belt and beam did not stop the noise in her
+head. It throbbed and buzzed there in an echoing ache,
+as if all the previous sounds had been fire-waves and
+these the scorched furrows of its touch. Wherever she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+turned, the echo of the morning's misery sounded in her
+ears.</p>
+
+<p>And now they had forty minutes for noon recess.</p>
+
+<p>They sat in a circle, these five children&mdash;and ate
+their lunch of cold soda biscuits and fat bacon.</p>
+
+<p>Not a word did they say&mdash;not a laugh nor a sound
+to show they were children,&mdash;not even a sigh to show
+they were human.</p>
+
+<p>Silently, like wooden things they choked it down and
+then&mdash;O men and women who love your own little ones&mdash;look!</p>
+
+<p>Huddled together on the great, greasy, dirty floor of
+this mill, in all the attitudes of tired-out, exhausted
+childhood, they slept. Shiloh slept bolt upright, her
+little head against the spinning-frame, where all the
+morning she had chased the bobbins up and down the
+long aisle. Appomattox and Atlanta were grouped
+against her. Bull Run slept at her feet and Seven Days
+lay, half way over on his bobbin cart, so tired that he
+went to sleep as he tried to climb into it.</p>
+
+<p>In other parts of the mill, other little ones slept and
+even large girls and boys, after eating, dozed or chatted.
+Spoolers, weavers, slubbers, warpers, nearly grown but
+all hard-faced, listless&mdash;and many of them slept on
+shawls and battings of cotton.</p>
+
+<p>They were awakened by the big whistle at twenty minutes
+to one o'clock. At the same time, Jud Carpenter,
+the foreman, passed down the aisles and dashed cold
+water in the sleeping faces. Half laughingly he did it,
+but the little ones arose instantly, and with stooped
+forms, and tired, cowed eyes, in which the Anglo-Saxon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>
+spirit of resentment had been killed by the Yankee spirit
+of greed, they looked at the foreman, and then began
+their long six hours' battle with the bobbins.</p>
+
+<p>Three o'clock! The warm afternoon's sun poured on
+the low flat tin roof of the mill and warmed the interior
+to a temperature which was uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p>Shiloh grew sleepy&mdash;she dragged her stumbling little
+feet along, and had she stopped but a moment, she
+had paid the debt that childhood owes to fairy-land.
+The air was close&mdash;stifling. Her shoulders ached&mdash;her
+head seemed a stuffy thing of wood and wooly lint.</p>
+
+<p>As it was she nodded as she walked, and again the
+song of the bluebird peeped dreamily from out the unoiled
+spindle. She tried to sing to keep awake, and
+then there came a strange phantasy to mix with it all,
+and out of the half-awake world in which she now staggered
+along she caught sight of something which made
+her open her eyes and laugh outright.</p>
+
+<p><i>Was it&mdash;could it be? In very truth it was&mdash;</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Dolls!</i></p>
+
+<p><i>And oh, so many! And all in a row dressed in matchless
+gowns of snowy white. She would count them up to
+ten&mdash;as far as she had learned to count.... But
+there were ten,&mdash;yes, and many more than ten&mdash; ... and
+just to think of whole rows of them&mdash; ... all there&mdash; ... and
+waiting for her to
+reach out and fondle and caress.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>And she&mdash;never in her life before had she been so fortunate
+as to own one....</i></p>
+
+<p>A smile lit up her dreaming eyes. <i>Rows upon rows
+of dolls.... And not even Appomattox and At<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>lanta
+had ever seen so many before; and now how funny
+they acted, dancing around and around and bobbing their
+quaint bodies and winking and nodding at her....
+It was Mayday with them and down the long line of spindles
+these cotton dolls were dancing around their May
+Queen, and beckoning Shiloh to join them....</i></p>
+
+<p><i>It was too cute&mdash;too cunning&mdash;! they were dancing
+and drawing her in&mdash;they were actually singing&mdash; ... humming
+and chanting a May song....</i></p>
+
+<p><i>O lovely&mdash;lovely dolls!...</i></p>
+
+<p>Jud Carpenter found her asleep in the greasy aisle,
+her head resting on her arm, a smile on her little face&mdash;a
+hand clasping a rounded well-threaded doll-like bobbin
+to her breast.</p>
+
+<p>It is useless to try to speak in a room in which the
+Steam Beast's voice drowns all other voices. It is useless
+to try to awaken one by calling. One might as
+well stand under Niagara Falls and whistle to the little
+fishes. No other voice can be heard while the Steam
+Beast speaks.</p>
+
+<p>Shiloh was awakened by a dash of cold water and a
+rough kick from the big boot of that other beast who
+called himself the overseer. He did not intend to jostle
+her hard, but Shiloh was such a little thing that the
+kick she got in the side accompanied by the dash of
+water shocked and frightened her instantly to her feet,
+and with scared eyes and blanched face she darted down
+to the long line of bobbins, mending the threads.</p>
+
+<p>If, in the great Mystic Unknown,&mdash;the Eden of Balance,&mdash;there
+lies no retributive Cause to right the injustice
+of that cruel Effect, let us hope there is no Here-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>after;
+that we all die and rot like dogs, who know no
+justice; that what little kindness and sweetness and right,
+man, through his happier dreams, his hopeful, cheerful
+idealism, has tried to establish in the world, may no
+longer stand as mockery to the Sweet Philosopher who
+long ago said: &ldquo;<i>Suffer the little children to come unto
+me.</i>&rdquo; ...</p>
+
+<p>They were more dead than alive when, at seven o'clock,
+the Steam Beast uttered the last volcanic howl which said
+they might go home.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the stars were shining and the cool night air
+struck into them with a suddenness which made them
+shiver. They were children, and so they were thoughtless
+and did not know the risk they ran by coming out of
+a warm mill, hot and exhausted, into the cool air of an
+Autumn night. Shiloh was so tired and sleepy that
+Bull Run and Seven Days had to carry her between
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody passed out of the mill&mdash;a speechless, haggard,
+over-worked procession. Byrd Boyle, with a face
+and form which seemed to belong to a slave age, carried
+his twins in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>Their heads lay on his shoulders. They were asleep.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had the children eaten their supper of biscuit
+and bacon, augmented with dandelion salad, ere they,
+too, were asleep&mdash;all but Shiloh.</p>
+
+<p>She could not sleep&mdash;now that she wanted to&mdash;and
+she lay in her grandfather's lap with flushed face and
+hot, over-worked heart. The strain was beginning to
+tell, and the old man grew uneasy, as he watched the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>
+flush on her cheeks and the unusual brightness in her
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Better give her five draps of tub'bentine an' put her
+to bed,&rdquo; said Mrs. Watts as she came by. &ldquo;She'll be
+fittin' an' good by mornin'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man did not reply&mdash;he only sang a low melody
+and smoothed her forehead.</p>
+
+<p>It was ten o'clock, and now she lay on the old man's
+lap asleep from exhaustion. A cricket began chirping
+in the fireplace, under a hearth-brick.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What's that, Pap?&rdquo; asked Shiloh half asleep.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's a cricket, Pet,&rdquo; smiled the old man.</p>
+
+<p>She listened a while with a half-amused smile on her
+lips:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, don't you think his spindles need oilin',
+Pap?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was little but machinery in her life.</p>
+
+<p>Another hour found the old man tired, but still holding
+the sleeping child in his arms:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If I move her she'll wake,&rdquo; he said to himself. &ldquo;Po'
+little Shiloh.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He was silent a while and thoughtful. Then he looked
+up at the shadow of Sand Mountain, falling half way
+down the valley in the moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The shadow of that mountain across that valley,&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;is like the shadow of the greed of gain across
+the world. An' why should it be? What is it worth?
+Who is happier for any money more than he needs in
+life?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He bowed his head over the sleeping Shiloh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, God,&rdquo; he prayed&mdash;&ldquo;You, who made the world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>
+an' said it might have a childhood&mdash;remember what it
+means to have it filched away. It's like stealin' the bud
+from the rose-bush, the dew from the grass, hope from
+the heart of man. Take our manhood&mdash;O God&mdash;it
+is strong enough to stand it&mdash;an' it has been took from
+many a strong man who has died with a smile on his lips.
+Take our old age&mdash;O God&mdash;for it's jus' a memory of
+Has Beens. But let them not steal that from any life
+that makes all the res' of it beautiful with dreams of it.
+If, by some inscrutable law which we po' things can't see
+through, stealin' in traffic an' trade must go on in the
+world, O God, let them steal our purses, but not our
+childhood. Amen.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+<h3>UNCLE DAVE'S WILL</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">T</span>he whistle of the mill had scarcely awakened
+Cottontown the next morning before Archie
+B., hatless and full of excitement, came over to
+the Bishop with a message from his mother. No one
+was astir but Mrs. Watts, and she was sweeping vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What's the matter, Archie B.?&rdquo; asked the old man
+when he came out.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Uncle Dave Dickey is dyin' an' maw told me to run
+over an' tell you to hurry quick if you wanted to see the
+old man die.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Uncle Dave is dyin', is he? Well, we'll go,
+Archie B., just as soon as Ben Butler can be hooked up.
+I've got some more calls to make anyway.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ben Butler was ready by the time the children started
+for the mill. Little Shiloh brought up the rear, her tiny
+legs bravely following the others. Archie B. looked at
+them curiously as the small wage-earners filed past him
+for work.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Say, you little mill-birds,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;why don't you
+chaps come over to see me sometimes an' lem'me show
+you things outdoors that's made for boys an' girls?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is they very pretty?&rdquo; asked Shiloh, stopping and
+all ears at once. &ldquo;Oh, tell me 'bout 'em! I am jus'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>
+hungry to see 'em. I've learned the names of three birds
+myself an' I saw a gray squirrel onct.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Three birds&mdash;shucks!&rdquo; said Archie B., &ldquo;I could
+sho' you forty, but I'll tell you what's crackin' good fun
+an' it'll test you mor'n knowin' the birds&mdash;that's easy.
+But the hard thing is to find their nests an' then to tell
+by the eggs what bird it is. That's the cracker-jack
+trick.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Shiloh's eyes opened wide: &ldquo;Why, do they lay eggs,
+Archie B.? Real eggs like a hen or a duck?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. laughed: &ldquo;Well, I should say so&mdash;an'
+away up in a tree, an' in the funniest little baskets you
+ever saw. An' some of the eggs is white, an' some blue,
+and some green, an' some speckled an' oh, so many kind.
+But I'll tell you a thing right now that'll help you to
+remember&mdash;mighty nigh every bird lays a egg that's
+mighty nigh like the bird herself. The cat bird's eggs
+is sorter blue&mdash;an' the wood-pecker's is white, like his
+wing, an' the thrasher's is mottled like his breast.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ben Butler was hitched to the old buggy and the
+Bishop drove up. He had a bunch of wild flowers for
+Shiloh and he gave it with a kiss. &ldquo;Run along now,
+Baby, an' I'll fetch you another when I come back.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They saw her run to catch up with the others and
+breathlessly tell them of the wonderful things Archie B.
+had related. And all through the day, in the dust and
+the lint, the thunder and rumble of the Steam Thing's
+war, Shiloh saw white and blue and mottled eggs, in tiny
+baskets, with homes up in the trees where the winds rocked
+the cradles when the little birds came; and young as
+she was, into her head there crept a thought that some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>thing
+was wrong in man's management of things when
+little birds were free and little children must work.</p>
+
+<p>As she ran off she waved her hand to her grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll fetch you another bunch when I come back,
+Pet,&rdquo; he called.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You'd better fetch her somethin' to eat, instead of
+prayin' aroun' with old fools that's always dyin',&rdquo; called
+Mrs. Watts to him from the kitchen door where she was
+scrubbing the cans.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Lord will always provide, Tabitha&mdash;he has
+never failed me yet.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She watched him drive slowly over the hill: &ldquo;That
+means I had better get a move on me an' go to furagin',&rdquo;
+she said to herself.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hillard Watts has mistuck me for the Almighty
+mighty nigh all his life. It's about time the blackberries
+was a gittin' ripe anyway.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop found the greatest distress at Uncle Dave
+Dickey's. Aunt Sally Dickey, his wife, was weeping
+on the front porch, while Tilly, Uncle Dave's pretty
+grown daughter, her calico dress tucked up for the morning's
+work, showing feet and ankles that would grace a
+duchess, was lamenting loudly on the back porch. A
+coon dog of uncertain lineage and intellectual development,
+tuned to the howling pitch, doubtless, by the music
+of Tilly's sobs, joined in the chorus.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Po' Davy is gwine&mdash;he's most gone&mdash;boo&mdash;boo-oo!&rdquo;
+sobbed Aunt Sally.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pap&mdash;Pap&mdash;don't leave us,&rdquo; echoed Tilly from
+the back porch.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ow&mdash;wow&mdash;oo&mdash;oo,&rdquo; howled the dog.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Bishop went in sad and subdued, expecting to
+find Uncle Davy breathing his last. Instead, he found
+him sitting bolt upright in bed, and sobbing even more
+lustily than his wife and daughter. He stretched out
+his hands pitiably as his old friend went in.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Most gone&rdquo;&mdash;he sobbed&mdash;&ldquo;Hillard&mdash;the old
+man is most gone. You've come jus' in time to see your
+old friend breathe his las' an' to witness his will,&rdquo; and
+he broke out sobbing afresh, in which Aunt Sally and
+Tilly and the dog, all of whom had followed the Bishop
+in, joined.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop took in the situation at a glance. Then
+he broke into a smile that gradually settled all over his
+kindly face.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Look aheah, Davy, you ain't no mo' dyin' than
+I am.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What&mdash;what?&rdquo; said Uncle Davy between his sobs&mdash;&ldquo;I
+ain't a dyin', Hillard? Oh, yes, I be. Sally and
+Tilly both say so.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, look aheah, Davy, it ain't so. I've seed hundreds
+die&mdash;yes, hundreds&mdash;strong men, babes&mdash;women
+and little tots, strong ones, and weak and frail
+ones, given to tears, but I've never seed one die yet
+sheddin' a single tear, let alone blubberin' like a calf.
+It's agin nature. Davy, dyin' men don't weep. It's always
+all right with 'em. It's the one moment of all their
+lives, often, that everything is all right, seein' as they
+do, that all life has been a dream&mdash;all back of death
+jes' a beginnin' to live, an' so they die contented. No&mdash;no,
+Davy, if they've lived right they want to smile, not
+weep.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was an immediate snuffing and drying of tears
+all around. Uncle Davy looked sheepishly at Aunt
+Sally, she passed the same look on to Tilly, and Tilly
+passed it to the coon dog. Here it rested in its birthplace.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come to think of it, Hillard,&rdquo; said Uncle Dave after
+a while, &ldquo;but I believe you are right.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Tilly came back, and she and Aunt Sally nodded their
+heads: &ldquo;Yes, Hillard, you're right,&rdquo; went on Uncle
+Davy, &ldquo;Tilly and Sally both say so.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How come you to think you was dyin' anyway?&rdquo;
+asked the Bishop.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hillard,&mdash;you kno', Hillard&mdash;the old man's been
+thinkin' he'd go sudden-like a long time.&rdquo; He raised his
+eyes to heaven: &ldquo;Yes, Lord, thy servant is even ready.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Last night I felt a kind o' flutterin' of my heart an'
+I cudn't breathe good. I thought it was death&mdash;death,&mdash;Hillard,
+on the back of his pale horse. Tilly and
+Sally both thought so.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop laughed. &ldquo;That warn't death on the
+back of a horse, Davy&mdash;that was jus' wind on the stomach
+of an ass.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This was too much for Uncle Davy&mdash;especially when
+Tilly and Sally made it unanimous by giggling outright.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You et cabbages for supper,&rdquo; said the Bishop.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Davy nodded, sheepishly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then I sed my will an' Tilly writ it down an', oh,
+Hillard, I am so anxious to hear you read it. I wanter
+see how it'ull feel fer a man to have his will read after
+he is dead&mdash;an'&mdash;an' how his widder takes it,&rdquo; he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+added, glancing at Aunt Sally&mdash;&ldquo;an' his friends. I
+wanter heah you read it, Hillard, in that deep organ
+way of yours,&mdash;like you read the Old Testament. In
+that <i>In-the-Beginning-God-Created-the-Heaven-an'-the-Earth-Kinder</i>
+voice! Drap your voice low like a organ,
+an' let the old man hear it befo' he goes. I fixed it when
+I thought I was a-dyin'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Makin' yo' will ain't no sign you're dyin',&rdquo; said the
+Bishop.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But Tilly an' Aunt Sally both said so,&rdquo; said Uncle
+Davy, earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All yo' needs,&rdquo; said the Bishop going to his saddle
+bags, &ldquo;is a good straight whiskey. I keep a little&mdash;a
+very, very little bit in my saddle bags, for jes' sech occasions
+as these. It's twenty years old,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;an'
+genuwine old Lincoln County. I keep it only for folks
+that's dyin',&rdquo; he winked, &ldquo;an' sometimes, Davy, I feel
+mighty like I'm about to pass away myself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He poured out a very small medicine glass of it, shining
+and shimmering in the morning light like a big
+ruby,&mdash;and handed it to Uncle Davy.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You say that's twenty years old, Hillard?&rdquo; asked
+Uncle Davy as he wiped his mouth on the back of his
+hand and again held the little glass out entreatingly:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hillard, ain't it mighty small for its age&mdash;'pears
+to me it orter be twins to make it the regulation size.
+Don't you think so?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop gave him another and took one himself,
+remarking as he did so, &ldquo;I was pow'ful flustrated when I
+heard you was dyin' again, Davy, an' I need it to stiddy
+my nerves. Now, fetch out yo' will, Davy,&rdquo; he added.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As he took it the Bishop adjusted his big spectacles,
+buttoned up his coat, and drew himself up as he did in
+the pulpit. He blew his nose to get a clear sonorous
+note:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I've got a verse of poetry that I allers tunes my
+voice up to the occasion with,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I do it sorter
+like a fiddler tunes up his fiddle. It's a great poem an'
+I'll put it agin anything in the Queen's English for real
+thunder music an' a sentiment that Shakespeare an' Milton
+nor none of 'em cud a writ. It stirs me like our park
+of artillery at Shiloh, an' it puts me in tune with the
+great dead of all eternity. It makes me think of Cap'n
+Tom an' Albert Sidney Johnston.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then in a deep voice he repeated:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;'The muffled drum's sad roll has beat<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The soldier's last tattoo&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No more on earth's parade shall meet<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That brave and fallen few.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On Fame's eternal camping ground<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their silent tents are spread<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And glory guards with solemn sound<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Bivouac of the Dead.'&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now give me yo' will.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Davy sat up solemnly, keenly, expectantly.
+Tilly and Aunt Sally sat subdued and sad, with that air
+of solemn importance and respect which might be expected
+of a dutiful daughter and bereaved widow on
+such an occasion. It was too solemn for Uncle Davy.
+He began to whimper again: &ldquo;I didn't think I would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>
+ever live to see the day when I'd hear my own will read
+after I was dead, an' Hillard a-readin' it around my
+own corpse. It's Tilly's handwrite,&rdquo; he explained, as
+he saw the Bishop scrutinizing the testament closely.
+&ldquo;I can't write, as you kno', but I've made my mark at
+the end, an' I want you to witness it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Pitching his voice to organ depths, the Bishop read:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>'In the name of God, amen: I, Davy Dickey, of
+the County of &mdash;&mdash;, and State of Alabama, being
+of sound mind and retentive memory, but knowing the
+uncertainty of life and the certainty of death, do hereby
+make and ordain this&mdash;my last will and testamen&mdash;'</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Davy had lain back, his eyes closed, his hands
+clasped, drinking it all in.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, Hillard&mdash;Hillard, read it agin&mdash;it makes me
+so happy! It does me so much good. It sounds like
+the first chapter of Genesis, an' Daniel Webster's reply
+to Hayne an' the 19th Psalm all put together.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop read it again.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So happy&mdash;so happy&mdash;&rdquo; sobbed Uncle Davy, in
+which Aunt Sally and Tilly and the coon dog joined.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>'First,'</i>&rdquo; read on the Bishop, following closely
+Tilly's pretty penmanship; &ldquo;<i>'Concerning that part of
+me called the soul or spirit which is immortal, I will it
+back again to its Maker, leaving it to Him to do as He
+pleases with, without asking any impertinent questions
+or making any fool requests.'</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop paused. &ldquo;That's a good idea, Davy&mdash;Givin'
+it back to its Maker without asking any impert'n'ent
+questions.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>'Second,'</i>&rdquo; read the Bishop, &ldquo;<i>'I wills to be buried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>
+alongside of Dan'l Tubbs, on the Chestnut Knob, the
+same enclosed with a rock wall, forever set aside for me
+an' Dan'l and running west twenty yards to a black
+jack, then east to a cedar stump three rods, then south
+to a stake twenty yards and thence west back to me an'
+Dan'l. I wills the fence to be built horse high, bull
+strong and pig tight, so as to keep out the Widow Simmon's
+old brindle cow; the said cow having pestered us
+nigh to death in life, I don't want her to worry us back
+to life after death.</i></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>'Third. All the rest of the place except that occupied
+as aforesaid by me an' Dan'l, and consisting of
+twenty acres, more or less, I will to go to my dutiful
+wife, Sally Ann Dickey, providing, of course, that she
+do not marry again.'</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;David?&rdquo; put in Aunt Sallie, promptly, wiping her
+eyes, &ldquo;I think that last thing mout be left out.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I don't kno',&rdquo; said Uncle Davy&mdash;&ldquo;you sho'ly
+ain't got no notion of marryin' agin, have you, Sally?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;&rdquo; said Aunt Sallie, thoughtfully, &ldquo;but
+there aint no tellin' what a po' widder mout have to do if
+pushed to the wall.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; sagely remarked Uncle Davy, &ldquo;we'll jes' let
+it stan' as it is. It's like a dose of calomel for disorder
+of the stomach&mdash;if you need it it'll cure you, an' if you
+don't it won't hurt you. This thing of old folks fallin'
+in love ain't nothin' but a disorder of the stomach anyhow.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Sally again protested a poor widow was often
+pushed to the wall and had to take advantage of circumstances,
+but Uncle Davy told the Bishop to read on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At this point Tilly got up and left the room.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>'Fourth. I give and bequeath to my devoted
+daughter, Tilly, and her husband, Charles C. Biggers,
+all my personal property, including the crib up in the
+loft, the razor my grandfather left me, the old mare
+and her colt, the best bed in the parlor, and&mdash;'</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop stopped and looked serious.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Davy, ain't you a trifle previous in this?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not for a will,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You see this is supposed
+to happen and be read after you're dead. You
+see Charles has been to see her twice and writ a poem on
+her eyes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop frowned: &ldquo;You'll have to watch that
+Biggers boy&mdash;he is a wild reckless rake an' not in
+Tilly's class in anything.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He's pow'ful sweet on Tilly,&rdquo; said Aunt Sallie.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Has he asked her to marry him?&rdquo; asked the Bishop
+astonished.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;S-h-h&mdash;not yet,&rdquo; said Uncle Davy, &ldquo;but he's
+comin' to it as fast as a lean hound to a meat block.
+He's got the firs' tech now&mdash;silly an' poetic. After
+a while he'll get silly an' desperate, an' jes' 'fo' he kills
+hisse'l Tilly'll fix him all right an' tie him up for life.
+The good Lord makes every man crazy when he is ripe
+for matrimony, so he can mate him off befo' he comes
+to.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop shook his head: &ldquo;I am glad I came
+out here to-day&mdash;if for nothin' else to warn you to let
+that Biggers boy alone. He don't study nothin' but fast
+horses an' devilment.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I never seed a man have a wuss'r case,&rdquo; said Aunt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>
+Sally. &ldquo;Won't Tilly be proud of herse'f as the daughter
+of Old Judge Biggers? An' me&mdash;jes' think of me
+as the grandmother of Biggerses&mdash;the riches' an' fines'
+family in the land.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' me?&mdash;I'll be the gran'pap of 'em&mdash;won't I,
+Sally?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You forgit, Davy,&rdquo; said Aunt Sally&mdash;&ldquo;this is yo'
+will&mdash;you'll be dead.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I did forgit,&rdquo; said Uncle Davy sadly&mdash;&ldquo;but I'd
+sho' love to live an' take one of them little Biggerses on
+my knees an' think his gran'pap had bred up to this.
+Me an' old Judge Biggers&mdash;gran'paws of the same
+kids! Now, you see, Hillard, he met Tilly at a party
+an' he tuck her in to supper. The next day he writ
+her a poem, an' I think it's a pretty good start on the
+gran'pap business.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop smiled: &ldquo;It does look like he loves her,&rdquo;
+he added, dryly. &ldquo;If I was the devil an' wanted to
+ketch a woman I'd write a poem to her every day an' lie
+between heats. Love lives on lies.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, I've ca'culated them things out,&rdquo; said Uncle
+Davy, &ldquo;an' it'll be this away: Tilly is as pretty as a
+peach an' Charlie is gittin' stuck wus'n wus'n every day.
+By the time I am dead they will be married good an'
+hard. I am almost gone as it is, the ole man he's liable
+to drap off any time&mdash;yea, Lord, thy servant is ready
+to go&mdash;but I do hope that the good master will let me
+live long enough to hold one of my Biggers grandboys
+on my knees.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All I've got to say,&rdquo; said the Bishop, &ldquo;is jus' to
+watch yo' son-in-law. Every son-in-law will stan'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>
+watchin' after the ceremony, but yours will stan' it all
+the time.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>'Lastly,'</i>&rdquo; read the Bishop, &ldquo;<i>'I wills it that things
+be left just as they be on the place&mdash;no moving around
+of nothing, especially the well, it being eighty foot deep,
+and with good cool water; and finally I leave anything
+else I've got, mostly my good will, to the tender mercies
+of the lawyers and courts.'</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop witnessed it, gave Uncle Davy another
+toddy, and, after again cautioning him to watch young
+Biggers closely, rode away.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+<h3>EDWARD CONWAY</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">A</span>cross the hill the old man rode to Millwood, and
+as he rode his head was bent forward in troubled
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>He had heard that Edward Conway had come to the
+sorest need&mdash;even to where he would place his daughters
+in the mill. None knew better than Hillard Watts
+what this would mean socially for the granddaughters
+of Governor Conway.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, the old preacher had begun to hate the mill
+and its infamous system of child labor with a hatred
+born of righteousness. Every month he saw its degradation,
+its slavery, its death.</p>
+
+<p>He preached, he talked against it. He began to be
+pointed out as the man who was against the mill. Ominous
+rumors had come to his ears, and threats. It was
+whispered to him that he had better be silent, and some
+of the people he preached to&mdash;some of those who had
+children in the mill and were supported in their laziness
+by the life blood of their little ones&mdash;these were his
+bitterest enemies.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, the drunken proprietor of Millwood sat in his
+accustomed place on the front balcony, his cob-pipe in
+his mouth and ruin all around him.</p>
+
+<p>Like others, he had a great respect for the Bishop&mdash;a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>
+man who had been both his own and his father's friend.
+Often as a lad he had hunted, fished, and trapped with
+the preacher-overseer, who lived near his father's plantation.
+He had broken all of the stubborn colts in the
+overseer's care; he had ridden them even in some of their
+fiercest, hardest races, and he had felt the thrill of victory
+at the wire and known the great pride which comes
+to one who knows he has the confidence of a brave and
+honest man.</p>
+
+<p>The old trainer's influence over Edward Conway had
+always been great.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, as he saw the Bishop ride up, he thought of
+his boyhood days, and of Tom Travis. How often had
+they gone with the old man hunting and fishing! How
+he reverenced the memory of his gentleness and kindness!</p>
+
+<p>The greatest desire of Hillard Watts had been to
+reform Edward Conway. He had prayed for him,
+worked for him. In spite of his drunkenness the old
+man believed in him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;God'll save him yet,&rdquo; he would say. &ldquo;I've prayed
+for it an' I kno' it&mdash;tho' it may be by the crushing
+of him. Some men repent to God's smile, some to His
+frown, and some to His fist. I'm afraid it will take a
+blow to save Ned, po' boy.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>For Ned was always a boy to him.</p>
+
+<p>Conway was drunker than usual to-day. Things
+grew worse daily, and he drank deeper.</p>
+
+<p>It is one of the strangest curses of whiskey that as
+it daily drags a man down, deeper and deeper, it makes
+him believe he must cling to his Red God the closer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He met the old overseer cordially, in a half drunken
+endeavor to be natural. The old man glanced sadly up
+at the bloated, boastful face, and thought of the beautiful
+one it once had been. He thought of the fine, brilliant
+mind and marveled that with ten years of drunkenness
+it still retained its strength. And the Bishop remembered
+that in spite of his drinking no one had ever
+accused Edward Conway of doing a dishonorable thing.
+&ldquo;How strong is that man's character rooted for good,&rdquo;
+he thought, &ldquo;when even whiskey cannot undermine it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Where are the babies, Ned?&rdquo; he asked, after he was
+seated.</p>
+
+<p>The father called and the two girls came running out.</p>
+
+<p>The old man was struck with the developing beauty of
+Helen&mdash;he had not seen her for a year. Lily hunted
+in his pockets for candy, as she had always done&mdash;and
+found it&mdash;and Helen&mdash;though eighteen and grown,
+sat thoughtful and sad, on a stool by his side.</p>
+
+<p>The old man did not wonder at her sadness.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ned,&rdquo; he said, as he stroked Helen's hand, &ldquo;this
+girl looks mo' like her mother every day, an' you know
+she was the handsomest woman that ever was raised in
+the Valley.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Conway took his pipe out of his mouth. He dropped
+his head and looked toward the distant blue hills. What
+Memory and Remorse were whispering to him the old
+man could only guess. Silently&mdash;nodding&mdash;he sat
+and looked and spoke not.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She ain't gwineter be a bit prettier than my little
+Lil, when she gits grown,&rdquo; said a voice behind them.</p>
+
+<p>It was Mammy Maria who, as usual, having dressed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
+the little girl as daintily as she could, stood nearby to
+see that no harm befell her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wal, Aunt Maria,&rdquo; drawled the Bishop. &ldquo;Whar
+did you come from? I declar' it looks like ole times to
+see you agin'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There is something peculiar in this, that those unlettered,
+having once associated closely with negroes,
+drop into their dialect when speaking to them. Perhaps
+it may be explained by some law of language&mdash;some
+rule of euphony, now unknown. The Bishop unconsciously
+did this; and, from dialect alone, one could not
+tell which was white and which was black.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Maria had always been very religious, and the
+Bishop arose and shook her hand gravely.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pow'ful glad to see you,&rdquo; said the old woman.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How's religion&mdash;Aunt Maria,&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mighty po'ly&mdash;mighty po'ly&rdquo;&mdash;she sighed. &ldquo;It
+looks lak the Cedars of Lebanon is dwarfed to the scrub
+pine. The old time religin' is passin' away, an' I'm
+all that's lef' of Zion.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, you see befo' you all that's lef' of Zion. I'se
+been longin' to see you an' have a talk with you&mdash;thinkin'
+maybe you cud he'p me out. You kno' me and
+you is Hard-shells.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We 'blieves in repentince an' fallin' from grace, an'
+backslidin' an' all that,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;Well, they've
+lopped them good ole things off one by one an' they
+don't 'bleeve in nothin' now but jes' jin'in'. They think
+jes' jin'in' fixes 'em&mdash;that it gives 'em a free pass into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
+the pearly gates. So of all ole Zion Church up at the
+hill, sah, they've jes' jined an' jined around, fust one
+church an' then another, till of all the ole Zion Church
+that me an' you loved so much, they ain't none lef' but
+Parson Shadrack, the preacher, sister Tilly, an' me&mdash;We
+wus Zion.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pow'ful bad, pow'ful bad,&rdquo; said the Bishop&mdash;&ldquo;and
+you three made Zion.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We <i>wus</i>,&rdquo; said Aunt Maria, sadly&mdash;&ldquo;but now there
+ain't but one lef'. <i>I'm Zion.</i> It's t'arrable, but it's
+true. As it wus in the days of Lot, so it is to-day in
+Sodom.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, how did that happen?&rdquo; asked the Bishop.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Maria's eyes kindled: &ldquo;It's t'arrable, but it's
+true&mdash;last week Parson Shadrack deserts his own wife
+an' runs off with Sis Tilly. It looked lak he mouter
+tuck me, too, an' kept the fold together as Abraham did
+when he went into the Land of the Philistines. But
+thank God, if I am all that's lef', one thing is mighty
+consolin'&mdash;I can have a meetin' of Zion wherever I is.
+If I sets down in a cheer to meditate I sez to myself&mdash;'Be
+keerful, Maria, for the church is in session.' When
+I drink, it is communion&mdash;when I bathes, it is baptism,
+when I walks, I sez to myself: 'Keep a straight
+gait, Maria, you are carryin' the tabbernackle of all
+goodness.' Aunt Tilly got the preacher, but thank
+God, I got Zion.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But I mus' go. Come on, Lily,&rdquo; she said to the
+little girl,&mdash;&ldquo;let ole Zion fix up yo' curls.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She took her charge and curtsied out, and the Bishop
+knew she would die either for Zion or the little girl.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The old man sat thinking&mdash;Helen had gone in and
+was practising a love song.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ned,&rdquo; said the Bishop, &ldquo;I tell you a man ain't
+altogether friendless when he's got in his home a creature
+as faithful as she is. She'd die for that child.
+That one ole faithful 'oman makes me feel like liftin'
+my hat to the whole nigger race. I tell you when I get
+to heaven an' fail to see ole Mammy settin' around the
+River of Life, I'll think somethin' is wrong.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop was silent a while, and then he asked:
+&ldquo;Ned, it can't be true that you are goin' to put them
+girls in the factory?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's all I can do,&rdquo; said Conway, surlily&mdash;&ldquo;I'll be
+turned out of home soon&mdash;out in the public road.
+Everything I've got has been sold. I've no'where to go,
+an' but for Carpenter's offer from the Company of the
+cottage, I'd not have even a home for them. The only
+condition I could go on was that&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That you sell your daughters into slavery,&rdquo; said
+the Bishop quietly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You don't seem to think it hurts your's,&rdquo; said Conway
+bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If I had my way they'd not work there a day,&rdquo;&mdash;the
+old man replied hastily. &ldquo;But it's different with
+me, an' you know it. My people take to it naturally.
+I am a po' white, an underling by breedin' an' birth, an'
+if my people build, they must build up. But you&mdash;you
+are tearing down when you do that. Po' as I am,
+I'd rather starve than to see little children worked to
+death in that trap, but Tabitha sees it different, and
+she is the one bein' in the world I don't cross&mdash;the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>
+General&rdquo;&mdash;he smiled&mdash;&ldquo;she don't understand, she's
+built different.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He was silent a while. Then he said: &ldquo;I am old an'
+have nothin'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped again. He did not say that what little
+he did have went to the poor and the sorrow-stricken of
+the neighborhood. He did not add that in his home,
+besides its poverty and hardness, he faced daily the
+problem of far greater things.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If I only had my health,&rdquo; said Conway, &ldquo;but this
+cursed rheumatism!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Some of us has been so used to benefits,&rdquo; said the
+old man, &ldquo;that it's only when they've withdrawn that
+we miss 'em. We're always ready to blame God for what
+we lose, but fail to remember what He gives us. We
+kno' what diseases an' misfortunes we have had, we never
+know, by God's mercy, what we have escaped. Death
+is around us daily&mdash;in the very air we breathe&mdash;and
+yet we live.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll talk square with you, Ned&mdash;though you may
+hate me for it. Every misfortune you have, from
+rheumatism to loss of property, is due to whiskey.
+Let it alone. Be a man. There's greatness in you
+yet. You'd have no chance if you was a scrub. But
+no man can estimate the value of good blood in man
+or hoss&mdash;it's the unknown quantity that makes him
+ready to come again. For do the best we can, at last
+we're in the hands of God an' our pedigree.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you think I've got a show yet?&rdquo; asked Conway,
+looking up.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do I? Every man has a chance who trusts God an'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>
+prays. You can't down that man. Your people were
+men&mdash;brave an' honest men. They conquered themselves
+first, an' all this fair valley afterwards. They
+overcame greater obstacles than you ever had, an' in
+bringin' you into the world they gave you, by the very
+laws of heredity, the power to overcome, too. Why do
+you grasp at the shadow an' shy at the form? You
+keep these hound dogs here, because your father rode
+to hounds. But he rode for pleasure, in the lap of
+plenty, that he had made by hard licks. You ride,
+from habit, in poverty. He rode his hobbies&mdash;it was
+all right. Your hobbies ride you. He fought chickens
+for an hour's pastime, in the fullness of the red blood
+of life. You fight them for the blood of the thing&mdash;as
+the bred-out Spaniards fight bulls. He took his
+cocktails as a gentleman&mdash;you as a drunkard.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man was excited, indignant, fearless.</p>
+
+<p>Conway looked at him in wonder akin to fear. Even
+as the idolaters of old looked at Jeremiah and Isaiah.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why&mdash;why is it&rdquo;&mdash;went on the old man earnestly,
+rising and shaking his finger ominously&mdash;&ldquo;that two
+generations of cocktails will breed cock-fighters, and two
+generations of whiskey will breed a scrub? Do you
+know where you'll end? In bein' a scrub? No, no&mdash;you
+will be dead an' the worms will have et you&mdash;but&rdquo;&mdash;he
+pointed to the house&mdash;&ldquo;you are fixin' to make
+scrubs of them&mdash;they will breed back.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go back to the plough&mdash;quit this whiskey and be
+the man your people was. If you do not,&rdquo; he said rising
+to go&mdash;&ldquo;God will crush you&mdash;not kill you, but
+mangle you in the killin'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He has done that already,&rdquo; said Conway bitterly.
+&ldquo;He has turned the back of His hand on me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not yet&rdquo;&mdash;said the Bishop&mdash;&ldquo;but it will fall and
+fall there.&rdquo; He pointed to Helen, whose queenly head
+could be seen in the old parlor as she trummed out a
+sad love song.</p>
+
+<p>Conway blanched and his hand shook. He felt a
+nameless fear&mdash;never felt before. He looked around,
+but the old man was gone. Afterwards, as he remembered
+that afternoon, he wondered if, grown as the old
+man had in faith, God had not also endowed him with
+the gift of prophecy.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+<h3>HELEN'S DESPAIR</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">A</span>n hour afterward, the old nurse found Helen
+at the piano, her head bowed low over the old
+yellow keys. &ldquo;It's gittin' t'wards dinner time,
+chile,&rdquo; she said tenderly, &ldquo;an' time I was dressin' my
+queen gal for dinner an sendin' her out to get roses in
+her cheeks.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Mammy, don't&mdash;don't dress me that way any
+more. I am&mdash;I am to be&mdash;after this&mdash;just a mill
+girl, you know?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was a sob and her head sank lower over the
+piano.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You may be for a while, but you'll always be a
+Conway&rdquo;&mdash;and the old woman struck an attitude with
+her arms akimbo and stood looking at the portraits
+which hung on the parlor wall.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That&mdash;that&mdash;makes it worse, Mammy.&rdquo; She
+wiped away her tears and stood up, and her eyes took
+on a look Aunt Maria had not seen since the old Governor
+had died. She thought of ghosts and grew nervous
+before it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If my father sends me to work in that place&mdash;if
+he does&mdash;&rdquo; she cried with flaming eyes&mdash;&ldquo;I shall feel
+that I am disgraced. I cannot hold my head up again.
+Then you need not be surprised at anything I do.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It ain't registered that you're gwine there yet,&rdquo;
+and Mammy Maria stroked her head. &ldquo;But if you
+does&mdash;it won't make no difference whar you are nor
+what you have to do, you'll always be a Conway an' a
+lady.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>An hour afterwards, dressed as only Mammy Maria
+could dress her, Helen had walked out again to the rock
+under the wild grape vine.</p>
+
+<p>How sweet and peaceful it was, and yet how changed
+since but a short time ago she had sat there watching
+for Harry!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Harry&rdquo;&mdash;she pulled out the crumpled, tear-stained
+note from her bosom and read it again. And the reading
+surprised her. She expected to weep, but instead
+when she had finished she sat straight up on the mossy
+rock and from her eyes gleamed again the light before
+which the political enemies of the old dead Governor
+had so often quailed.</p>
+
+<p>Nor did it change in intensity, when, at the sound of
+wheels and the clatter of hoofs, she instinctively dropped
+down on the moss behind the rock and saw through the
+grape leaves one of Richard Travis's horses, steaming
+hot, and stepping,&mdash;right up to its limit&mdash;a clipping
+gait down the road.</p>
+
+<p>She had dropped instinctively because she guessed it
+was Harry. And instinctively, too, she knew the girl
+with the loud boisterous laugh beside him was Nellie.</p>
+
+<p>The buggy was wheeled so rapidly past that she
+heard only broken notes of laughter and talk. Then
+she sat again upon her rock, with the deep flush in her
+eyes, and said:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hate&mdash;him&mdash;I hate him&mdash;and oh&mdash;to think&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She tore his note into fragments, twisted and rolled
+them into a ball and shot it, as a marble, into the gulch
+below.</p>
+
+<p>Then, suddenly she remembered, and reaching over
+she looked into a scarred crevice in the rock. Twice
+that summer had Clay Westmore left her a quaint love
+note in this little rock-lined post-office. Quaint indeed,
+and they made her smile, for they had been queer mixtures
+of geology and love. But they were honest&mdash;and
+they had made her flush despite the fact that she did
+not love him.</p>
+
+<p>Still she would read them two or three times and sigh
+and say: &ldquo;Poor Clay&mdash;&rdquo; after every reading.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Surely there will be one this afternoon,&rdquo; she thought
+as she peeped over.</p>
+
+<p>But there was not, and it surprised her to know how
+much she was disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Even Clay has forgotten me,&rdquo; she said as she arose
+hastily to go.</p>
+
+<p>A big sob sprang up into her throat and the Conway
+light of defiance, that had blazed but a few moments
+before in her eyes, died in the depths of the cloud of
+tears which poured between it and the open.</p>
+
+<p>A cruel, dangerous mood came over her. It enveloped
+her soul in its sombre hues and the steel of it struck
+deep.</p>
+
+<p>She scarcely remembered her dead mother&mdash;only
+her eyes. But when these moods came upon Helen
+Conway&mdash;and her life had been one wherein they had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>
+fallen often&mdash;the memory of her mother's eyes came to
+her and stood out in the air before her, and they were
+sombre and sad, and full, too, of the bitterness of hopes
+unfulfilled.</p>
+
+<p>All her life she had fought these moods when they
+came. But now&mdash;now she yielded to the subtle charm
+of them&mdash;the wild pleasure of their very sinfulness.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And why not,&rdquo; she cried to herself when the consciousness
+of it came over her, and like a morphine fiend
+carrying the drug to his lips, she knew that she also
+was pressing there the solace of her misery.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why should I not dissipate in the misery of it,
+since so much of it has fallen upon me at once?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mother?&mdash;I never knew one&mdash;only the eyes of
+one, and they were the eyes of Sorrow. Father?&rdquo;&mdash;she
+waved her hand toward the old home&mdash;&ldquo;drunk-wrecked&mdash;he
+would sell me for a quart of whiskey.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then I loved&mdash;loved an image which is&mdash;mud&mdash;mud&rdquo;&mdash;she
+fairly spat it out. &ldquo;One poor friend I
+had&mdash;I scorned him, and he has forgotten me, too.
+But I did know that I had social standing&mdash;that my
+name was an honored one until&mdash;now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now!&rdquo;&mdash;she gulped it down. &ldquo;Now I am a common
+mill girl.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She had been walking rapidly down the road toward
+the house. So rapidly that she did not know how
+flushed and beautiful she had become. She was swinging
+her hat impatiently in her hand, her fine hair half
+falling and loose behind, shadowing her face as rosy sunset
+clouds the temple on Mt. Ida. A face of more
+classic beauty, a skin of more exquisite fairness, flushed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>
+with the bloom of youth, Richard Travis had never before
+seen.</p>
+
+<p>And so, long before she reached him, he reined in his
+trotters and sat silently watching her come. What a
+graceful step she had&mdash;what a neck and head and hair&mdash;half
+bent over with eyes on the ground, unconscious
+of the beauty and grace of their own loveliness.</p>
+
+<p>She almost ran into his buggy&mdash;she stopped with a
+little start of surprise, only to look into his clean-cut
+face, smiling half patronizingly, half humorously, and
+with a look of command too, and of patronage withal,
+of half-gallant heart-undoing.</p>
+
+<p>It was the look of the sharp-shinned hawk hovering
+for an instant, in sheer intellectual abandon and physical
+exuberance, above the unconscious oriole bent upon its
+morning bath.</p>
+
+<p>He was smiling down into her eyes and repeating half
+humorously, half gallantly, and altogether beautifully,
+she thought, Keats' lines:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;A thing of beauty is a joy forever;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its loveliness increases; it will never<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pass into nothingness; but will keep<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A bower quiet for us, and a sleep<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Full of sweet dreams and health and<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quiet breathing....&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Even Helen could not tell how it was done nor why
+she had consented....</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;you are hot and tired and you shall
+not walk.... I will give you just a little spin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>
+before Mammy Maria calls you to dinner.... Yes,
+Lizzette and Sadie B. always do their best when a
+pretty girl is behind them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>How refreshing the air&mdash;hot and tired as she was.
+And such horses&mdash;she had never before ridden behind
+anything so fine. How quickly he put her at her ease&mdash;how
+intellectual he was&mdash;how much of a gentleman.
+And was it not a triumph&mdash;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&mdash;when she always saw her mother's
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>She reminded him at last that they should go back
+home.</p>
+
+<p>No&mdash;he would have her at home directly. Yes, he'd
+have her there before the old nurse missed her.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sweets to the sweet, and good-bye to the three-minute
+class.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;What thou art we know not.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What is most like thee?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From rainbow clouds there flow not<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Drops so bright to see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Then he changed as she thanked him, and said:
+&ldquo;When you go into the mill I shall have many pleasant
+surprises for you like this.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He bent over her and whispered: &ldquo;I have arranged
+for your pay to be double&mdash;we are neighbors, you
+know&mdash;your father and I,&mdash;and a pretty girl, like
+you, need not work always.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She started and looked at him quickly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Fearing he had said too much, he dropped his voice
+and with a twinkle in his eye said:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For there is Harry&mdash;you know.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>All her timidity vanished&mdash;her hanging of the head,
+her silence, her blushes. Instead, there leaped into her
+eyes that light which Richard Travis had never seen
+before&mdash;the light of a Conway on mettle.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hate him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I do not blame you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I shall be a&mdash;father
+to you if you will let me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He pressed her hand, and raising his hat, was gone.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To own her&mdash;such a creature&mdash;God&mdash;it were
+worth risking my neck.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Had he asked me this evening I'd&mdash;yes&mdash;I'd go
+to the end of the world with him. I'd go&mdash;go&mdash;go&mdash;and
+I care not how.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<br />
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have thought up a fable since I have been at
+supper, Cousin Richard. Shall I tell you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh&rdquo;&mdash;with a cynical smile&mdash;&ldquo;do!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; began Harry unabashed, and with many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
+sly winks and much histrionic effort, &ldquo;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 ...&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Get out of the way, you whelp,'&rdquo; said his cousin,
+carrying the fable on, &ldquo;for I perceive you are not even
+a fox, but a coyote, since no fox was ever known to run
+down a doe.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The smile was gradually changed on his face to a
+cruel sneer, and Harry ceased talking with a suddenness
+that was marked.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+<h3>THE WHIPPER-IN</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">W</span>hen the mill opened the next day, there was
+work for Jud Carpenter. He came in and approached
+the superintendent's desk briskly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, suh, hu' many to-day?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Kingsley looked over his list of absentees.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Four, and two of them spinners. Carpenter, you
+must go at once and see about it. They are playing
+off, I am sure.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lem'me see the list, suh,&rdquo;&mdash;and he ran his eye
+over the names.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bud Billings&mdash;plague his old crotchety head&mdash;.
+He kno's that machine's got to run, whether no.
+Narthin's the matter with him&mdash;bet a dollar his wife
+licked him last night an' he's mad about it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That will do us no good,&rdquo; said Kingsley&mdash;&ldquo;what
+he is mad about. That machine must be started at once.
+The others you can see afterwards.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Carpenter jerked his slouch hat down over his eyes
+and went quickly out.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Following her husband came Mrs. Billings&mdash;a small,
+bony, wiry, black-eyed woman, with a firmly set mouth
+and a perpetual thunder-cloud on her brow&mdash;perhaps
+the shadow of her coarse, crow-black hair.</p>
+
+<p>While Jud dragged him, she carried a stick and prodded
+Bud in the rear. Nor was she chary in abuse.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the other went through the same motion
+in front begging Jud Carpenter for mercy.</p>
+
+<p>But not a word did he utter&mdash;not even a grunt did
+he make.</p>
+
+<p>They halted as quickly as they entered. Bud's eyes
+sought the ceiling, the window, the floor,&mdash;anywhere
+but straight ahead of him.</p>
+
+<p>His wife walked up to the superintendent's desk&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;tireless, pain-staking.
+His place could not be filled.</p>
+
+<p>Bud was really a good-natured favorite of Kingsley
+and when the superintendent saw him, scared and pant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>ing,
+his tongue half out, with Jud Carpenter's hand still
+in his collar, he motioned to Jud to turn him loose.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Uh&mdash;uh&mdash;&rdquo; grunted Jud &ldquo;&mdash;he will bolt sho!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Kingsley noticed that Bud's head was bound with a
+cloth.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What's the matter, Bud?&rdquo; he asked kindly.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a ring of impertinence
+and even a challenge in it:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She struck an attitude before Kingsley which plainly
+indicated that she might break another one. It was
+also an attitude which asked: &ldquo;What are you going
+to do about it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bud nodded emphatically&mdash;a nod that spoke more
+than words. It was a positive, unanimous assertion on
+his part that the plate had been broken there.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ne'ow, Mister Kingsley, you know yo'se'f that Bud
+is mighty slow mouthed&mdash;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&rdquo;&mdash;she added a little softer&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;he
+is quiet as a lam' an' works steady as a clock&mdash;then
+all to once the fool spell 'ud hit him an' then some
+crockery 'ud have to be wasted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They ain't no reason for it, Mister Kingsley&mdash;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&mdash;'cept
+that he jes' thinks he's got to do it an' put me to
+the expense of bustin' crockery.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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&mdash;(Bud wiped away a tear)&mdash;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'.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What you reckin' Bud done, Mister Kingsley? Bud
+Billins thar, what did he do? Got mad about his biscuits&mdash;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'&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>
+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&mdash;no, he never says
+anything to my face&mdash;but he gits up an' picks up the
+cat an' tells ther cat what he thinks of me&mdash;his own
+spliced an' wedded wife&mdash;sland'in' me to the cat.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She shook her finger in his face&mdash;&ldquo;You know you did,
+Bud Billins&mdash;an' what you reckin he told ther cat,
+Mister Kingsley&mdash;told her I was a&mdash;a&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She gasped&mdash;she clinched her fist. Bud dodged an'
+tried to break away.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Told him I was a&mdash;a&mdash;heifer!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bud looked sheepishly around&mdash;he tried even to run,
+but Jud Carpenter held him fast. She shook her finger
+in his face. &ldquo;I heard you say it, Bud Billins, you
+know I did an' I busted a plate over yo' head.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But, my dear Madam,&rdquo; said Kingsley, &ldquo;that was no
+reason to treat him so badly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, it wa'nt?&rdquo; she shrieked&mdash;&ldquo;to tattle-tale to
+the house-cat about yo' own spliced an' wedded wife?
+In her own home an' yard&mdash;her that you've sworn to
+love an' cherish agin bed an' board&mdash;ter call her a
+heifer?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' you don't think that was nothin'?&rdquo; she
+shrieked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You don't understand me, my dear Madam,&rdquo; said
+Kingsley quickly. &ldquo;I meant that it was no reason why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>
+you should continue to treat him so after he has suffered
+and is sorry. Of course you have got to control Bud.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She softened and went on.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wal it was mighty nigh a year befo' Bud paid any
+mo' 'tention to the cat. The full moon quit 'fectin'
+him&mdash;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?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She shook her finger in his face again. Bud tried to
+run again.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You kno' you done it, Bud Billins&mdash;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&mdash;a&mdash;<i>she devil</i>!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It tuck two plates that time, Mister Kingsley&mdash;that's
+the time Bud didn't draw no pay fur two weeks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now you all jes' lem'me 'lone, Mister Kingsley&mdash;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bud needed no further admonition. He bolted for
+the door and was soon silently at work.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+<h3>SAMANTHA CAREWE</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">B</span>ut 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&mdash;that
+Samantha was &ldquo;mighty nigh dead.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, she's mighty nigh dead, is she,&rdquo; said Jud with
+a tinge of sarcasm&mdash;&ldquo;I've heurn of her bein' mighty
+nigh dead befo'. Well, I wanter see her.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The mother looked at him sourly, but barred the
+doorway with her form. Jud fixed his hard cunning
+eyes on her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cyant see her; I tell you&mdash;she's mighty po'ly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>With that he pushed himself in the doorway, rudely
+brushing the woman aside. &ldquo;Now lem'me see that gyrl&mdash;&rdquo;
+he added sternly&mdash;&ldquo;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'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The door of the room in which Samantha lay was
+open, and in plain view of the hall she lay with a look<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>
+of pain, feigned or real, on her face. She was a
+woman past forty&mdash;a spinster truly&mdash;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&mdash;&ldquo;all her life.&rdquo; For
+she could not remember when, as a child even, she had
+not worked in one.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Jud walked in unceremoniously.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What ails you, Samanthy?&rdquo; he asked, with feigned
+kindness.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I dunno, Jud, but I've got a powerful hurtin'
+in my innards.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The hurtin' was so bad,&rdquo; said her mother, &ldquo;that I
+had to put a hot rock on her stomach, last night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She motioned to a stone lying on the hearth. Jud
+glanced at it&mdash;its size staggered him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What you been eatin', Samanthy?&rdquo; he asked suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nuthin', Jud&mdash;I aint got no appetite at all!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, she aint eat a blessed thing, hardly, to-day,&rdquo;
+said her mother&mdash;&ldquo;jes' seemed to have lost her appetite
+from a to izzard.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I wish the store'd keep wild cherry bark and whiskey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>&mdash;somethin'
+to make us eat. We cyant work unless we
+can eat,&rdquo; said Samantha, woefully.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Great Scott,&rdquo; said Jud, &ldquo;what we want to do is to
+keep you folks from eatin' so much. Lem'me see,&rdquo; he
+added after a pause, as if still thinking he'd get to the
+source of her trouble&mdash;&ldquo;Yistidday was Sunday&mdash;you
+didn't have to work&mdash;now what did you eat for breakfast?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nothin'&mdash;oh, I aint got no appetite at all&rdquo;&mdash;whined
+Miss Samantha.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, what did you eat&mdash;I wanter find out what
+ails you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, lem'me see,&rdquo; said Miss Samantha, counting
+on her fingers&mdash;&ldquo;a biled mackrel, some fried bacon,
+two pones of corn bread&mdash;kinder forced it down.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ur-huh&mdash;&rdquo; said Jud, thoughtfully&mdash;&ldquo;of course
+you had to drink, too.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes&rdquo;&mdash;whined Miss Samantha woefully&mdash;&ldquo;two
+glasses of buttermilk.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud elevated his eyebrows &ldquo;An' for dinner?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, Lor'. Jes' cu'dn't eat nothin' fur dinner,&rdquo; she
+wailed. &ldquo;If the Company'd only get some cherry bark
+an' whiskey&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;At dinner,&rdquo; said Mrs Carewe, stroking her chin&mdash;&ldquo;we
+had some sour-kraut&mdash;she eat right pe'rtly of
+that&mdash;kinder seemed lak a appetizer to her. She
+mixed it with biled cabbage an' et right pe'rtly of it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' some mo' buttermilk&mdash;it kinder cools my
+stomach,&rdquo; whined Miss Samantha. &ldquo;An' hog-jowl, an'
+corn-bread&mdash;anything else Maw?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A raw onion in vinegar,&rdquo; said her mother&mdash;&ldquo;It's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>
+the only thing that seems to make you want to eat a
+little. An' reddishes&mdash;we had some new reddishes fur
+dinner&mdash;didn't we, Samanthy?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good Lord,&rdquo; snapped Jud&mdash;&ldquo;reddishes an' buttermilk&mdash;no
+wonder you needed that weight on your
+stomach&mdash;it's all that kept you from floatin' in the
+air. Cyant eat&mdash;O good Lord!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They were silent&mdash;Miss Samantha making wry faces
+with her pain.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course you didn't eat no supper?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;we don' eat no supper Sunday night,&rdquo; said
+Mrs. Carewe.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Didn't eat none at all,&rdquo; asked Jud&mdash;&ldquo;not even a
+little?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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'&mdash;an'&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A few apples we had in the cellar,&rdquo; added her
+mother, &ldquo;an' a huckleberry pie, an' buttermilk&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud jumped up&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;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,&rdquo;
+he went on to Mrs. Carewe, &ldquo;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&rdquo;&mdash;he
+sneered&mdash;&ldquo;for you 'aint got no appetite at all.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What's the matter with Willis?&rdquo; asked Jud after
+he had come up.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, nothin'&mdash;&rdquo; drawled the father. &ldquo;Aint he at
+the mill?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;the other four children of your'n is there,
+but Willis aint.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The man arose with more than usual alacrity. &ldquo;I'll
+see that he is there&mdash;&rdquo; he declared&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He'd better die at the mill at work than here at
+home,&rdquo; the father added brutally, as Jud led him off,
+&ldquo;fur then the rest of us will have that much ahead to
+live on.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He settled lazily back in his chair, and resumed his
+smoking.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+<h3>A QUICK CONVERSION</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">I</span>t 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.</p>
+
+<p>For of all the gifts the gods do give to men, that
+is the greatest&mdash;the ability to induce their fallen fellow
+man to look up and hope again. The gift to spur
+others onward&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>To-day in his rounds, one thing impressed him more
+sadly than anything else&mdash;for he saw it so plainly
+when he visited their homes&mdash;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&mdash;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 pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>visions
+sold to them at prices that would make a Jew
+peddler blush for shame.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop found entire families who never saw a
+piece of money the year round.</p>
+
+<p>There are families and families, and some are more
+shiftless than others.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, well, maybe I can help her, po' little thing,&rdquo;
+the Bishop said when the mother conducted him in. But
+one look at her was enough&mdash;that dead, unmeaning
+look, not unconscious, but unmeaning&mdash;deadened&mdash;a
+disease which to a robust child would mean fever and
+a few days' sickness&mdash;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&mdash;the little
+frame was nothing more than one of a thousand monuments
+to the cotton mill&mdash;a mechanical thing, which
+might cease to run at any time.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How old is she?&rdquo; asked the Bishop, sitting down
+by the child on the side of the bed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We put her in the mill two years ago when she was
+seven,&rdquo; said the mother. &ldquo;We was starvin' an' had to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>
+do somethin'.&rdquo; She added this with as much of an
+apologetic tone as her nature would permit. &ldquo;We told
+the mill men she was ten,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;We had to do
+it. The fust week she got two fingers mashed off.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop was silent, then he said: &ldquo;It's bes' always
+to tell the truth. Liar is a fast horse, but he
+never runs but one race.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;but because it could be brought to the mill
+too young for any practical use, unless it was wise
+beyond its age.</p>
+
+<p>He handed the little thing a ginger man. She looked
+at it&mdash;the first she had ever seen,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>It was not a child, but a little animal&mdash;a wild being
+of an unknown species in a child's skin&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Biology teaches that many of the very lowest forms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>
+of life eat their young. Is civilized man merely a case,
+at last, of reversion to a primitive type?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop sat down by the bedside and took out a
+paper. &ldquo;It'll be an hour or so I can spend,&rdquo; he said
+to the mother&mdash;&ldquo;maybe you'd like to be doin' about
+a little.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come to think of it, I'm pow'ful obleeged to you,&rdquo;
+she said. &ldquo;I've all my mornin' washin' to do yit, only
+I was afraid to leave her alone.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You do yo' washin'&mdash;I'll watch her. I'm a pretty
+good sort of a hoss doctor myse'f.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>
+turn. It is the friction of life that moves it. And
+movement is the law of life.</p>
+
+<p>Antipathies&mdash;thank God who gave them to us! But
+for them the shepherd dog would lie down with the wolf.</p>
+
+<p>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: &ldquo;O
+God, teach me to love Jud Carpenter and despise his
+ways.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Carpenter glared insolently at the old man quietly
+reading his paper, and asked satirically. &ldquo;Wal, what
+ails her, doctor?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mill-icious fever,&rdquo; remarked the Bishop promptly
+with becoming accent on the first syllable, and scarcely
+raising his eyes from the paper.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They aint half as sick as they make out an' I've
+come to see about it,&rdquo; he added. He felt the child's
+pulse. &ldquo;She ain't sick to hurt. That spinner is idle
+over yonder an' I guess I'll jes' be carryin' her back.
+Wuck&mdash;it's the greatest tonic in the worl'&mdash;it's the
+Hostetter's Bitters of life,&rdquo; he added, trying to be
+funny.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop looked up. &ldquo;Yes, but I've knowed men
+to get so drunk on bitters they didn't kno' a mill-dam
+from a dam'-mill!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Carpenter smiled: &ldquo;Wal, she ain't hurt&mdash;guess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>
+I'll jes' git her cloze on an' take her over&rdquo;&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You sho'ly don't mean that, Jud Carpenter?&rdquo; said
+the Bishop, with surprise in his heretofore calm tone.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wal, that's jus' what I do mean, Doctor,&rdquo; remarked
+Carpenter dryly, and in an irritated voice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jud Carpenter,&rdquo; said the old man rising&mdash;&ldquo;I am
+a man of God&mdash;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In an instant Carpenter was ablaze&mdash;profane, abusive,
+insolent&mdash;and as the old man stepped between
+him and the bed, the Whipper-in's anger overcame all
+else.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Again and again it gripped, and relaxed&mdash;gripped
+and relaxed again. Mastering himself with a great
+effort, the old man turned to the man who had slapped
+him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Strike the other cheek, you coward, as my Master
+sed you would.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;rolled beneath
+their covering.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What else kin I do for you at the request of yo'
+Master?&rdquo; sneered Carpenter.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;As He never said anything further on the subject,&rdquo;
+said the old man, in a dry pitched voice that told how
+hard he was trying to control himself, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jud Carpenter had one redeeming trait&mdash;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:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wal, I reckin you've 'bout converted me this time.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jud Carpenter,&rdquo; said the Bishop, his face white
+with shame, &ldquo;for God's sake don't tell anybody I done
+that&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud smiled as he arose and put on his hat. &ldquo;I can
+stan' bein' licked,&rdquo; he added good naturedly&mdash;&ldquo;because
+I remember now that I've run up agin the old champion
+of the Tennessee Valley&mdash;ain't that what they
+useter call you?&mdash;but it does hurt me sorter, to think
+you'd suppose I'd be such a damned fool as to tell it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He felt the child's wrist again. &ldquo;'Pears lak she's
+got a little fever since all this excitement&mdash;guess I'll
+jes' let her be to-day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I do think it 'ud be better, Jud,&rdquo; said the Bishop
+gently.</p>
+
+<p>And Jud pulled down his hat and slipped quietly
+out.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>It was bed time that night before the child finally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>
+whispered it out: &ldquo;Maw, did you ever see two men
+hug each other?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;why?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, the Bishop he hugged Jud Carpenter so
+hard he fetched the bleed out of his nose!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+<h3>A LIVE FUNERAL</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">T</span>he next Sunday was an interesting occasion&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>But the coon dog had several peculiar idiosyncrasies;
+one of them was that he was always very deeply affected
+by music&mdash;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&mdash;much to the
+disgust of Uncle Dave and his family.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Tilly looked reproachfully at Aunt Sally; Aunt Sally
+looked reproachfully at Uncle Dave, who passed the reproach
+on to the dog.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There now,&rdquo; said Uncle Dave&mdash;&ldquo;Sally an' Tilly
+both said so! They both said I mustn't let him come.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He gave the dog a punch in the ribs with his huge
+foot. This hushed him at once.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Be quiet Dave,&rdquo; said the Bishop, sitting near&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'm sorry,&rdquo; said the Bishop, &ldquo;but I'll have to rise
+an' put the chief mourner out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>What he wanted was a dead one.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Maw!&rdquo; said Miss Patsy Butts&mdash;&ldquo;I wish you'd
+look after Archie B.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Everybody looked at Archie B., who looked up from
+a New Testament in which he was deeply interested,
+surprised and grieved.</p>
+
+<p>The organ started up again.</p>
+
+<p>But it grew irksome to Miss Samantha Carewe seated
+on the third bench.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ma,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;I've heard o' fun'rals in Irelan'
+where they passed around refreshments&mdash;d'ye
+reckin this is goin' to be that kind? I'm gittin' pow'ful
+hungry.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let us trust that the Lord will have it so,&rdquo; said her
+mother devoutly.</p>
+
+<p>Amid great solemnity the Bishop had gone into the
+pulpit and was preaching:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It may be a little onusual,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>
+we're goin' to do any good to our feller man, let's do
+it while he's alive.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Kind words to the livin' are more than monuments
+to the dead.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' there we are, right on the same footin' as the
+heathen an' don't know it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;David Dickey, the subject of this here fun'ral discourse,
+was born on the fourth day of July, 1810, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>
+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&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hold on, Bishop,&rdquo; said Uncle Davy, rising and
+protesting earnestly&mdash;&ldquo;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 <i>tollerbul</i> good boy, <i>tollerbul</i>
+diligent, with a big sprinklin' o' meanness an' laziness
+in me, an' that my old daddy,&mdash;God bless his memory
+for it&mdash;in them days cleared up mighty nigh a ten
+acre lot of guv'ment land cuttin' off the underbrush for
+my triflin' hide.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Dave sat down. The Bishop was confused a
+moment, but quickly said: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he began again:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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 <i>tollerbul</i> truthful&rdquo;&mdash;went
+on the Bishop&mdash;with a look at Uncle Davy as
+if he had profited by previous interruptions.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tell it as it was, Hillard,&rdquo;&mdash;nodded Uncle Dave,
+from the front bench&mdash;&ldquo;jes' as it was&mdash;no lies at
+my fun'ral.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Tollerbul</i> truthful,&rdquo; went on the Bishop, &ldquo;on all
+subjects he wanted to tell the truth about. An' I'm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>
+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&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tell it as it was, Hillard&mdash;no&mdash;filigree work at
+my fun'ral&mdash;&rdquo; said Uncle Dave.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;&ldquo;Except,&rdquo; went on the Bishop, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hillard Watts,&rdquo; said Uncle Dave rising hotly&mdash;&ldquo;that's
+a lie an' you know it!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sit down, Dave,&rdquo; said the Bishop calmly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Sally and Tilly pulled Uncle Dave down while
+they conversed with him earnestly. Then he arose and
+said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hillard, I beg yo' pardon. You've spoken the truth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>&mdash;Sally
+and Tilly both say so. I tell yo', bretherin,&rdquo;
+he said turning to the congregation&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The subject of this sermon&rdquo;&mdash;went on the Bishop&mdash;&ldquo;the
+lamented corpse-to-be, was never married but
+once&mdash;to his present loving widow-to-be, and he never
+had any love affair with any other woman&mdash;she bein'
+his fust an' only love&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hillard,&rdquo; said Uncle Dave rising, &ldquo;I hate to&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Set down, David Dickey,&rdquo; whispered Aunt Sally,
+hotly, as she hastily jerked him back in his seat with a
+snap that rattled the teeth in his head:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Dave very promptly subsided.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' the only child he's had is the present beautiful
+daughter that sits beside him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Tilly blushed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now Hillard,&rdquo; said Uncle Dave, rising&mdash;&ldquo;do you
+think it necessary to bring in all that?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A man's fun'ral,&rdquo; said the Bishop, &ldquo;ain't intended
+to do him any good&mdash;it's fur the coming generation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>
+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' <i>them molasses</i> an' <i>I wouldn't choose
+any</i> when you're axed to have somethin' at the table.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dave Dickey done all that.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come to think of it, an' that's about the way with
+the rest of us?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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&mdash;an' that's the main thing. Let us
+remember, when we see the faults and vices of others&mdash;that
+we see only what they've done&mdash;as Bobby Burns
+says, we don't kno' what they have resisted. Give 'em
+credit for that&mdash;maybe it over-balances. Balancin'&mdash;ah,
+my bretherin, that's a gran' thing. It's the thing
+on which the whole Universe hangs&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>
+this same law. An' it holds in the moral worl' as well as
+the t'other one&mdash;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,&mdash;passions
+they didn't make themselves either&mdash;regular
+thunder clouds in the sky of life. Big with the rain,
+the snow, the hail&mdash;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&mdash;they've brought rain that made
+the earth glad, they've cleared the air in the very fall
+of their lightnin'. The lightnin' came&mdash;the fall&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We're mortals an' we can't he'p it&mdash;animals, an'
+God made us so. But we'll never fall to rise no mo' 'less
+we fail to reach up fur he'p.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What then is our little sins of the flesh to the big
+goodness of the faith that is in us?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For forty years Uncle Dave has been a consistent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>
+member of the church&mdash;some church&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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,&mdash;no better an' maybe
+wuss&mdash;Amen!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Dave was weeping:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Hillard&mdash;Hillard,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;say all that
+over agin about the clouds an' the thunder of passion&mdash;say
+all the last part over agin&mdash;it sounds so good!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&rdquo;&mdash;said Uncle Dave, weeping&mdash;&ldquo;no, an' now
+since I see how much you all keer fur me I don't b'lieve&mdash;I&mdash;I
+wanter die at all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h3>JACK AND THE LITTLE ONES</h3>
+
+<p><span class="first">N</span>o one would ever have supposed that the big
+blacksmith at the village was Jack Bracken.
+All the week he worked at his trade&mdash;so full
+of his new life that it shone continually in his face&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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. &ldquo;Now go,&rdquo; said
+Jack, as he released him, &ldquo;an' know hereafter how it
+feels for the strong to beat the weak.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the son of his mother&mdash;he would never have
+been the outlaw that he was, and even now but for this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>
+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&mdash;that
+one thing barred Margaret Adams forever from his life,
+though not from his heart.</p>
+
+<p>He felt that he would hate James Adams; but instead
+he took to the lad at once&mdash;his fine strange ways, his
+dignity, courage, his very aloofness and the sorrow he
+saw there, drew him to the strange, silent lad.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come in, my lad,&rdquo; said Jack, laying down his big
+hammer. &ldquo;What is yo' name?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I don't know that that makes any difference,&rdquo;
+he replied smiling, &ldquo;I might ask you what is yours.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jack flushed, but he pitied the lad.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled: &ldquo;I guess you an' I could easily understan'
+each other, lad&mdash;what can I do for you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I wanted you to fix my pistol for me, sir&mdash;and&mdash;and
+I haven't anything to pay you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jack looked it over&mdash;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:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, son, she's all right, and not a cent do I charge
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I didn't mean that,&rdquo; said the boy, flushing. &ldquo;I
+have no money, but I want to pay you, for I need this
+pistol&mdash;need it very badly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To shoot rabbits?&rdquo; smiled Jack.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's my mother's,&rdquo; said the boy, &ldquo;and some man
+gave it to her once&mdash;long ago&mdash;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you feel that way about it, little 'un,&rdquo; said Jack
+kindly, &ldquo;I'll keep it for you,&rdquo; and he put the precious
+relic in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, look here, lad,&rdquo; he said, changing the subject,
+&ldquo;but do you know you've got an' oncommon ac'rate gun
+in this old weepon?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The boy smiled&mdash;interested.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's the salt of the earth,&rdquo; said Jack, &ldquo;an' I'll bet
+it's stood 'twixt many a gentleman and death. Can you
+shoot true, little 'un?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Only fairly&mdash;can you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Some has been kind enough to give me that character&rdquo;&mdash;he
+said promptly. &ldquo;Want me to give you a
+few lessons?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good,&rdquo; said the boy smiling, and Jack handed him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>
+the pistol with a boyish flush of pride in his own face.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, little 'un, it's this away in shootin' a weepon
+like this&mdash;it's the aim that counts most. But with
+my Colts now&mdash;the self-actin' ones&mdash;you've got to
+cal'c'late chiefly on another thing&mdash;a kinder thing that
+ain't in the books&mdash;the instinct that makes the han' an'
+the eye act together an' 'lowin', at the same time, for
+the leverage on the trigger.&rdquo; The lad's face glowed
+with excitement. Jack saw it and said: &ldquo;Now I'll
+give you a lesson to-day. Would you like to shoot at
+that tree?&rdquo; he asked kindly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you suppose I could hit the string?&rdquo; asked the
+boy innocently.</p>
+
+<p>Jack had to smile. &ldquo;In time&mdash;little 'un&mdash;in time
+you might. You're a queer lad,&rdquo; he said again laughing.
+&ldquo;You aim pretty high.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, then I'll never hit below my mark. Let me try
+the string, please.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You damned little cuss,&rdquo; shouted Jack enthusiastically,
+as he grabbed the boy and hugged him&mdash;&ldquo;to
+make a sucker of me that way! To take me in like
+that!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said the boy, &ldquo;I do nothing but shoot this
+thing from morning till night. It was my great grandfather's.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And from that time the two were one.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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:
+&ldquo;That's all right, little 'un, but I feared onct, you was
+gone.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mother,&rdquo; said the boy, &ldquo;this is the new blacksmith
+that I've been telling you about, and he is great guns&mdash;just
+pulled me out of the bottom of the Tennessee
+river.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jack laughed and said: &ldquo;The little 'un ca'n't swim
+as well as he can shoot, ma'am.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;the
+comely figure, the cleanliness and sweetness of the little
+cottage&mdash;his painful hungry look for this kind of
+peace and contentment&mdash;the contentment of love.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>It hurt Jack&mdash;that caress. Richard Travis's boy&mdash;she
+would have been his but for him. He felt a terrible
+bitterness arising. He turned abruptly to go.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good-bye,&rdquo; he said, giving her his hand&mdash;&ldquo;you
+know, Margaret, my life&mdash;why I am here, to be near
+you,&mdash;how I love you, have loved you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And how I love you, Jack,&rdquo; she said simply.</p>
+
+<p>The words went through him with a fierce sweetness
+that shook him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My God&mdash;don't say that&mdash;it hurts me so, after&mdash;what
+you've done.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jack,&rdquo; she whispered sadly&mdash;&ldquo;some day you'll
+know&mdash;some day you'll understand that there are
+things in life greater even than the selfishness of your
+own heart's happiness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They can't be,&rdquo; said Jack bitterly&mdash;&ldquo;that's what
+all life's for&mdash;heart happiness&mdash;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&mdash;we have
+to have 'em. He made us so; we have to have 'em&mdash;it's
+His own doin'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But,&rdquo; she said sweetly&mdash;&ldquo;suppose it meant another
+to be despised, reviled, made infamous.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They'd have to be,&rdquo; he said sternly, for he was
+thinking of Richard Travis&mdash;&ldquo;they'd have to be, for
+he made his own life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you do not understand,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;And you
+cannot now&mdash;but wait&mdash;wait, and it will be plain.
+Then you'll know all and&mdash;that I love you, Jack.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He turned bitterly and walked away.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+<h3>THE BROKEN THREAD</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">F</span>or 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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sum'pins happened to Ben Butler,&rdquo; said Bud at
+last&mdash;and at thought of such a calamity, he sat down
+and shed tears.</p>
+
+<p>His simple heart yearned for pity, and feeling something
+purring against him he picked up the cat and
+coddled it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You seem to be cultivatin' that cat again, Bud
+Billings,&rdquo; came a sharp voice from the cabin window.</p>
+
+<p>Bud dropped the animal quickly and struck out across
+the mountain for the Bishop's cabin.</p>
+
+<p>But he was not prepared for the shock that came to
+his simple heart: Shiloh was dying&mdash;the Bishop himself
+told him so&mdash;the Bishop with a strange, set, hard
+look in his eyes&mdash;a look which Bud had never seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>
+there before, for it was sorrow mingled with defiance&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She jes' collapsed, Bud&mdash;sudden't like&mdash;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'&mdash;ain't knowed nothin' since last
+night, an' she thinks she's in the mill&mdash;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&mdash;'<i>the
+thread&mdash;the thread is broken!</i>' an' that's jes'
+it, Bud&mdash;the thread <i>is</i> broken!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;numbed&mdash;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&mdash;&ldquo;<i>like little Jack&mdash;like little
+Jack</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The sun went down&mdash;the stars came up&mdash;but Bud
+sat there. He could do nothing, but he wanted to be
+there.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>And still Bud sat outside, with that lump in his throat,
+that thing that would not let him speak.</p>
+
+<p>Late at night another man came up with saddle bags,
+and hitching his horse within a few feet of Bud, walked
+into the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No use, Bishop&mdash;better lay her on the bed&mdash;she
+can't live two hours.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he busied himself giving her some drops from
+a vial.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When you get through with your remedy and give
+her up,&rdquo; said the old man slowly&mdash;&ldquo;I'm gwinter try
+mine.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor looked at the old man sorrowfully, and
+after a while he went out and rode home.</p>
+
+<p>Then the old man sent them all to bed. He alone
+would watch the little spark go out.</p>
+
+<p>And Bud alone in the yard saw it all. He knew he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>
+should go home&mdash;that it was now past midnight, but
+somehow he felt that the Bishop might need him.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>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,&mdash;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 ig<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>norance
+and the greed of the gold lovers. Save little
+Shiloh, for You can.</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bud watched through the crisis, the shorter and
+shorter breaths, the struggle&mdash;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:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>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!'</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bud could not help it. He laughed out hysterically.
+And then the old face, still smiling, looked surprised
+at the window and said: &ldquo;Go home, Bud. God is the
+Great Doctor, an' He has told me she shall live.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pap, sech a sweet dream&mdash;an' I went right up to
+the gate of heaven an' the angel smiled an' kissed me
+an' sed:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Go back, little Shiloh&mdash;not yet&mdash;not yet!'&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then Bud slipped off in the dawn of the coming
+light.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+<h3>GOD WILL PROVIDE</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">I</span>n 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.</p>
+
+<p>Shiloh's narrow escape from death had forever settled
+the child-labor question with him&mdash;he would starve,
+&ldquo;by the Grace of God,&rdquo; as he expressed it, before one
+of them should ever go into the mill again.</p>
+
+<p>He had a bitter quarrel about it with Mrs. Watts;
+but the good old man's fighting blood was up at last&mdash;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&mdash;a blaze
+which was indeed destined &ldquo;to light the valley with a
+torch of fire.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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: &ldquo;I am a
+man of God, Jud Carpenter,&rdquo; he said in a strange voice,
+rounded with a deadly determination, &ldquo;but in the name<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>
+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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The problem which confronted the old man was serious.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O Jack, Jack,&rdquo; he said one night, &ldquo;if I jes' had
+some of that gold you had!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jack replied by laying ten silver dollars in the old
+man's hand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I earned it,&rdquo;&mdash;he said simply&mdash;&ldquo;this week&mdash;shoeing
+horses&mdash;it's the sweetest money I ever got.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Jack,&rdquo; said the Bishop&mdash;&ldquo;this will feed us
+for a week. Come here, Tabitha,&rdquo; he called cheerily&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old woman came up and took it gingerly. She
+bit each dollar to test it, remarking finally: &ldquo;Why,
+hit's genuwine!&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Jack laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, hit's mo' money'n I've seed fur years,&rdquo; she
+said&mdash;&ldquo;I won't hafter hunt fur 'sang roots to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jack,&rdquo; said the Bishop, after the others had retired,
+and the two men sat in Captain Tom's cabin&mdash;&ldquo;Jack,
+I've been thinkin' an' thinkin'&mdash;I must make some
+money.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How much?&rdquo; asked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A thousand or two.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's a lot of money,&rdquo; said the outlaw quickly.
+&ldquo;A heap fur you to need.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's not fur me,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;I don't need it&mdash;I
+wouldn't have it for myself. It's for him&mdash;see!&rdquo; he
+pointed to the sleeping man on the low cot. &ldquo;Jack,
+I've been talkin' to the Doctor&mdash;he examined Cap'n
+Tom's head, and he says it'd be an easy job&mdash;that it's
+a shame it ain't been done befo'&mdash;that in a city to the
+North,&mdash;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'&mdash;the <i>man</i>, mind you, the <i>man</i> he
+was befo'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jack sat up excited. His eyes glittered.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then there's Shiloh,&rdquo; went on the old man&mdash;&ldquo;it'll
+mean life to her too&mdash;life to git away from the mill.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cap'n Tom and Shiloh&mdash;I must have it, Jack&mdash;I
+must have it. God will provide a way. I'd give my
+home&mdash;I'd give everything&mdash;just to save them two&mdash;Cap'n
+Tom and little Shiloh.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He felt a touch on his shoulder and looked up.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bishop,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;ever' now and then it comes
+over me ag'in, comes over me&mdash;the old dare-devil feelin'.&rdquo;
+He held up his pistol: &ldquo;All week I've missed
+somethin'. Last night I fingered it in my sleep.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He pressed it tenderly. &ldquo;Jes' you say the word,&rdquo;
+he whispered, &ldquo;an' in a few hours I'll be back here with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span>
+the coin. Shipton's bank is dead easy an' he is a money
+devil with a cold heart.&rdquo; The old man laughed and
+took the revolver from him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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&mdash;no&mdash;no&mdash;not
+even for them. Set down.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jack sat down, subdued. Then the Bishop pulled
+out a paper from his pocket and chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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&mdash;this&mdash;mine&mdash;ain't
+so bad. God sometimes provides in an onexpected
+way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; asked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>The old man chuckled again. Then Jack saw his
+face turn red&mdash;as if half ashamed: &ldquo;Why should I
+blame you, Jack, fur I'm doin' the same thing mighty
+nigh&mdash;I'm longin' for the flesh pots of Egypt. As I
+rode along to-day thinkin'&mdash;thinkin'&mdash;thinkin'&mdash;how
+can I save the children an' Cap'n Tom, <i>how can I get a
+little money to send Cap'n Tom off to the Doctor</i>&mdash;an'
+also repeatin' to myself&mdash;'<i>The Lord will provide&mdash;He
+will provide&mdash;</i>' I ran up to this, posted on a tree,
+an' kinder starin' me an' darin' me in the face.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He laughed again: &ldquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Race horse?&mdash;Why, Richard Travis wouldn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>
+know a real race horse if he had one by the tail. It's
+disgustin'&mdash;these silk-hat fellers gettin' up a three-cornered
+race, an' then openin' it up to the valley&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Three thousan' dollars!&mdash;think of it! An' then
+Richard Travis rubs it in. He's havin' fun over it&mdash;he
+always would do that. Read the last line ag'in&mdash;in
+them big letters:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'<i>Open to anything raised in the Tennessee Valley</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fine fun an' kinder sarcastic, but, Jack, Ben Butler
+cu'd make them blooded trotters look like steers led
+to slaughter.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jack sat looking silently in the fire.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If I had the entrance fee I'd do it once&mdash;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&mdash;God'll provide!&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+<h3>BONAPARTE'S WATERLOO</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">B</span>onaparte lay on the little front porch&mdash;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&mdash;a demon with flashing teeth and abbreviated
+tail.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>And a great morning he had had of it&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Each successful raid of Bonaparte brought forth
+shouts of laughter from within, in which Billy Buch,
+the Dutch proprietor, joined. It always ended in Bona<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>parte
+being invited in and treated to a cuspidor of beer&mdash;the
+drinking, with the cuspidor as his drinking horn,
+being part of his repertoire. After each one Billy
+Buch would proudly exclaim:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mine Gott, but dat Ponyparte ees one greet dog!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then Bonaparte would reel around in a half drunken
+swagger and go back to watch for other dogs.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I tell you, Billy,&rdquo; said Jud Carpenter&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;gone for good&mdash;to
+Texas to live&mdash;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!'&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Billy Buch laughed loudly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dat ees goot&mdash;goot&mdash;goot-bye, mine bac'n! I
+dus remember dat.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>His hair bristled with indignation. That little thing
+dividing honors with him in Cottontown? It was not
+to be endured for a moment!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, Ozzie B., this is a monkey&mdash;the furst you've
+ever seed. He looks jes' like I told you&mdash;sorter like
+a man an' sorter like a nigger an' sorter like a groun'
+hog.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The pretties' thing I ever seed,&rdquo; said Ozzie B.,
+walking around and staring delightedly.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd grew larger. It was a show Cottontown
+had never seen before.</p>
+
+<p>Then two men came out of the bar-room&mdash;one, the
+bar-keeper, fat and jolly, and the other lank and with
+malicious eyes.</p>
+
+<p>This gave Bonaparte his cue and he bristled and
+growled.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Look out, mister,&rdquo; said the tender-hearted Ozzie B.
+to the Italian, &ldquo;watch this here dog, Bonaparte; he's
+terrible 'bout fightin'. He'll eat yo' monkey if he gets
+a chance.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Monk he noo 'fear'd ze dog,&rdquo; grinned the Italian.
+&ldquo;Monk he whup ze dog.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Vot's dat?&rdquo; exclaimed Billy Buch&mdash;&ldquo;Vot's dat,
+man, you say? Mine Gott, I bet ten to one dat Ponyparte
+eats him oop!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>To prove it Bonaparte ran at the monkey savagely.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>
+But the monkey ran up on the Italian's shoulder, where
+he grinned at the dog.</p>
+
+<p>The Italian smiled. Then he ran his hand into a
+dirty leathern belt which he carried around his waist&mdash;and
+slowly counted out some gold coins. With a smile
+fresh as the skies of Italy, full of all sweetness, gentleness
+and suavity:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cover zees, den, py Gar!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd cheered the Italian.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We will do it, suh,&rdquo; said Jud, who was the first to
+recover, and who knew he would get his part of it from
+Billy.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ve vill cover eet,&rdquo; said Billy, with ashen face.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We will!&rdquo; barked Bonaparte, recovering his equilibrium
+and snarling at the monkey.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sob and a wail on the outskirts of the
+crowd.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, don't let him kill the monkey&mdash;oh, don't!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was Ozzie B.</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. ran hastily around to him, made a cross
+mark in the road with his toe and spat in it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You're a fool as usual, Ozzie B.,&rdquo; he said, shaking
+his brother. &ldquo;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. <i>Venture pee-wee under the
+bridge&mdash;bam&mdash;bam&mdash;bam!</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ozzie B. grew quieter. Somehow, what Archie B.
+said always made things look differently. Then Archie
+B. came up and whispered in his ear: &ldquo;I'm fur the
+monkey&mdash;the Lord is on his side.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ozzie B. thought this was grand.</p>
+
+<p>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 asaf&#339;tida and a
+ten-dollar gold piece. The asaf&#339;tida 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.</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. was always ready to &ldquo;swap sight under
+seen.&rdquo; He played marbles for keeps, checkers for apples,
+ran foot-races for stakes, and even learned his
+Sunday School lessons for prizes.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Put this in for me, mister&mdash;an' make 'em put up
+a hundred mo'. I want some of that lucre.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Italian was touched. He patted Archie B.'s
+head:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Breens,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;breens uppa da.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Again he shook the gold in the face of Jud and Bill.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now bring on ze ten to one, py Gar!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The cheers of the crowd nettled Billy and Jud.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jes' wait till we come back,&rdquo; said Jud. &ldquo;'He
+laughs bes' who laughs las'.'&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They retired for consultation.</p>
+
+<p>Bonaparte followed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Within the bar-room they wiped the cold perspiration
+from their faces and looked speechlessly into each other's
+eyes. Billy spoke first.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mine Gott, but we peek it oop in de road, Jud?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It seems that way to me&mdash;a dead cinch.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bonaparte was positive&mdash;only let him get to the
+monkey, he said with his wicked eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Billy looked at Bonaparte, big, swarthy, sinewy and
+savage. He thought of the little monkey.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dees is greet!&mdash;dees is too goot!&mdash;Jud, we peek
+it oop in de road, heh?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'm kinder afraid we'll wake an' find it a dream,
+Billy&mdash;hurry up. Get the cash.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Billy was thoughtful: &ldquo;Tree hun'd'd dollars&mdash;Jud&mdash;eef&mdash;eef&mdash;&rdquo;
+he shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, Billy,&rdquo; said Jud patronizingly&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;if we
+lose&mdash;&rdquo; he laughed. &ldquo;<i>If</i> we lose&mdash;it's sorter like sayin'
+if the sun don't rise.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dat ees so, Jud, we peek eet oop in de road. But
+eef we don't peek eet oop, Billy ees pusted!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Jud, &ldquo;it's all like takin' candy from your
+own child.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>They came up and looked sorrowfully at the monkey,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So han'sum&mdash;so han'sum,&rdquo; said Uncle Billy Caldwell,
+the squire. &ldquo;So bright an' han'sum an' to die so
+young!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's nothin' but murder,&rdquo; said another.</p>
+
+<p>This proved too much for Ozzie B.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't&mdash;d-o-n-'t&mdash;let him kill the monkey,&rdquo; he
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>There was an electric flash of red as Archie B. ran
+around the tree and kicked the sobs back into his brother.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Just wait, Ozzie B., you fool.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For&mdash;what?&rdquo; sobbed Ozzie.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For what the monkey does to Bonaparte,&rdquo; he shouted
+triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd yelled derisively: &ldquo;<i>What the monkey
+does to Bonaparte&mdash;that's too good?</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Boy,&rdquo; said Uncle Billy kindly&mdash;&ldquo;don't you know
+it's ag'in nachur&mdash;why, the dorg'll eat him up!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's rot,&rdquo; said Archie B. disdainfully. Then
+hotly: &ldquo;Yes, it wus ag'in nachur when David killed
+Goliath&mdash;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&mdash;can't
+you see it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>
+showing it around. A huge dog was shaking a lifeless
+monkey and under it was written:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What Bonaparte Done To The Monkey!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. seized it and spat on it derisively: &ldquo;Oh,
+well, that's the way of the worl',&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;God makes
+one wise man to see befo', an' a million fools to see afterwards.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I've seed stranger things than that,&rdquo; remarked Uncle
+Billy thoughtfully. &ldquo;The boy mout be right.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And now Jud and Billy were seen coming out of the
+store, with their hands full of gold.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Eet's robbery&mdash;eet's stealin'&rdquo;&mdash;winked Billy at
+the crowd&mdash;&ldquo;eet's like takin' it from a babe&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't let him kill the po' little thing!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He could go no farther than the gate. There he
+stood weeping and looking at the merciless crowd.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Bonaparte was still asleep on his pile of leaves. Jud
+would have called and wakened him, but Archie B. said:
+&ldquo;Oh, the monkey will waken him quick enough&mdash;let
+him alone.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In the laugh which followed, Jud yielded and Archie
+B. won the first blood in the battle of brains.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd scarcely drew its breath as it saw the little
+animal slipping across the yard to its death.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The effect was instantaneous. A battery could not
+have brought the champion to his feet quicker. With
+him came the monkey&mdash;glued there&mdash;a continuation
+of the dog's tail.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The champion dog was running!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sick him, Bonaparte, grab him&mdash;turn round an'
+grab him!&rdquo; shouted Jud pale to his eyes, and shaking
+with shame.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Seek heem, Ponyparte&mdash;O mine Gott, seek him,&rdquo;
+shouted Billy.</p>
+
+<p>Jud rushed and tried to head the dog, but the champion
+seemed to have only one idea in his head&mdash;to get
+away from the misery which brought up his rear.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Jud watched the vanishing cloud of dust going toward
+the distant mountains.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My God&mdash;not Bonaparte&mdash;not the champion,&rdquo;
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>Billy stood also looking with big Dutch tears in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>
+eyes. He watched the cloud of dust go over the distant
+hills. Then he waved his hand sadly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Goot-pye, mine bac'n!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The monkey came up grinning triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>He was honest in it, but the crowd took it as irony,
+and amid their laughter Jud and Billy slipped away.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Billy, the stake-holder, in handing the money
+over to the Italian, remarked:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wal, it don't look so much ag'in nachur now, after
+all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Breens uppa dar&rdquo;&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come, let's go, Ozzie B.,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They ain't
+no man livin' can stand too much heroism.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+<h3>A BORN NATURALIST</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">A</span>rchie 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Ozzie B., pious, and now doubly so at sight of his
+brother's wealth, stood looking over his shoulder:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was the good Lord done it,&rdquo; he whispered reverently,
+as he stood and looked longingly at the gold.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course, but I helped at the right time, that's the
+way the Lord does everything here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How&mdash;when, oh, Archie B.!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;-S-h-h&mdash;Ozzie B. It don't pay to show yo' hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>
+even after you've won&mdash;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&mdash;he got. The
+Lord was on the monkey's side, of course, but He needed
+Gypsy Juice at the right time.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he showed Ozzie B. how it was done. &ldquo;So, with
+yo' hand in yo' pocket&mdash;so! Then here comes Bonaparte
+round an' round an' skeered mighty nigh to the
+runnin' point. So&mdash;then sczit! It wus enough.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ozzie B. shuddered: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; said his brother, &ldquo;but Ozzie B., when
+you bluff, bluff bold; when you bet, bet big; when you
+steal, steal straight.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ozzie B. shook his head. Then he looked up at the
+sun high above the trees.</p>
+
+<p>He sprang up from the log, pale and scared.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Archie B.&mdash;Archie B., jes' look at the sun! It
+must be 'leven o'clock an&mdash;an think what we'll ketch
+for bein' late at school. Oh, but I clean forgot&mdash;oh&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He started off trembling.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hold on, hold on!&rdquo; said his brother running and
+catching Ozzie B. in the coat collar. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Ozzie B. only shook his head. &ldquo;That's wrong<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>&mdash;so
+wrong. The Lord&mdash;He will not bless us&mdash;maw
+says so. Oh, I can't, Archie B.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Maw said I was to allers do my duty. Oh, I can't
+tell him a lie!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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&mdash;they can't tell the truth then an' get straight&mdash;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'&mdash;after yo' ain't caught.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I can't,&rdquo; said Ozzie B., trying to pull away.
+&ldquo;I must&mdash;must go to school.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Rats&rdquo;&mdash;shouted Archie B., seizing him with both
+hands and shaking him savagely&mdash;&ldquo;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'&mdash;he'll lick you. Paw'll know all
+about it when you git home&mdash;he'll lick you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ozzie B. only shook his head: &ldquo;It's my duty&mdash;hate
+to do it, Archie B.&mdash;but it's my duty. If the
+Lord wills me a lickin' for tellin' the truth, I'll, I'll
+hafter take it&mdash;&rdquo; and he looked very resigned.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you're playin' for martyrdom again!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There was Casabianca, Archie B.&mdash;him that stood
+on the burnin' deck&rdquo;&mdash;he ventured timidly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tarnashun!&rdquo; shouted his brother&mdash;&ldquo;an' I hope he
+is still standin' on a burnin' deck in the other worl'&mdash;don't
+mention that fool to me!&mdash;to stay there an' git
+blowed up after the ship was afire an' his dad didn't sho'
+up.&rdquo; He spat on a mark: &ldquo;<i>Venture pee-wee under
+the bridge&mdash;bam&mdash;bam&mdash;bam.</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There was William Tell's son,&rdquo; ventured his brother
+again.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How's that, Archie B.?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. lowered his voice to a gentle persuasive
+whisper: &ldquo;Don't do it, ole man&mdash;come now&mdash;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&mdash;we've got six
+months mo' of school this year. Now, if you do go&mdash;you'll
+be licked twice an'&mdash;an', Ozzie B., I'll git licked
+when paw hears of it to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Ozzie B., &ldquo;that's it, is it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, of course; if a man don't look out for his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span>
+hide, whose goin' to do it for him? Come now, ole
+man.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ozzie B. was silent. His brother saw the narrow
+forehead wrinkling in indecision. He knew the different
+habits&mdash;not principles&mdash;of his nature were at
+work for mastery. Finally the hypocrite habit prevailed,
+when he said piously: &ldquo;We have sowed the
+wind, Archie B.&mdash;we'll hafter reap the whirlwind, like
+paw says.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go!&rdquo; shouted his brother. &ldquo;Go!&rdquo; and he helped
+him along with a kick&mdash;&ldquo;Go, since I can't save you.
+You'll reap the whirlwind, but I won't if my brains can
+save me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's bad,&rdquo; he sighed&mdash;&ldquo;a man cu'd do so much mo'
+in life if he didn't hafter waste so much time arguin'
+with fools. Well, I'm here fur the day an' I'll learn
+somethin'. Now, I wanter know if one squirrel er two
+squirrels stays in the same hole in winter. Then there's
+the wild-duck. I wanter kno' when the mallards go
+south.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes he had hid himself behind a tree in
+a clump of brush. He was silent for ten minutes, so
+silent that only the falling leaves could be heard. Then
+very cautiously he imitated the call of the gray squirrel&mdash;once,
+twice, and still again. He had not long to
+wait. In a hole high up in a hickory a little gray head
+popped out&mdash;then a squirrel came out cautiously&mdash;first
+its head, then half of its body, and each time it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>
+moved looking and listening, with its cunning, bright
+eyes, taking in everything. Then it frisked out with
+a flirt of its tail, and sat on a limb nearby. It was followed
+by another and another. Archie B. watched them
+for a half hour, a satisfied smile playing around his lips.
+He was studying squirrel. He saw them run into the
+hole again and bring out each a nut and sit on a nearby
+limb and eat it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That settles that,&rdquo; he said to himself. &ldquo;I thought
+they kept their nuts in the same hole.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was the sound of voices behind him and the
+squirrels vanished. Archie B. stood up and saw an old
+man and some children gathering nuts.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's the Bishop an' the little mill-mites. I'll bet
+they've brought their dinner.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This was the one thing Archie B. needed to make his
+day in the woods complete.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hello,&rdquo; he shouted, coming up to them.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, it's Archie B.,&rdquo; said Shiloh, delighted.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, it is,&rdquo; said her grandfather. &ldquo;What you
+doin', Archie B.?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Studyin' squirrels right now. What you all doin'?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I've tuck the kids out of the mill an' I'm givin' 'em
+their fus' day in the woods. Shiloh, there, has been
+mighty sick and is weak yet, so we're goin' slow. Mighty
+glad to run upon you, Archie B. Can't you sho' Shiloh
+the squirrels? She's never seed one yet, have you,
+pet?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Shiloh thoughtfully. &ldquo;Is they like them
+little jorees that say <i>Wake-up, pet! Wake-up, pet?</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span>
+Oh, do sho' me the squirrel! Mattox, ain't this jes'
+fine, bein' out of the mill?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Archie B.'s keen glance took in the well-filled lunch
+basket. At once he became brilliantly entertaining.
+In a few minutes he had Shiloh enraptured at the wood-lore
+he told her,&mdash;even Bull Run and Seven Days, Atlanta
+and Appomattox were listening in amazement, so
+interesting becomes nature's story when it finds a reader.</p>
+
+<p>And so all the morning Archie B. went with them,
+and never had they seen so much and enjoyed a day as
+they had this one.</p>
+
+<p>And the lunch&mdash;how good it tasted! It was a new
+life to them. Shiloh's color came in the healthful exercise,
+and even Bull Run began to look out keenly from
+his dull eyes.</p>
+
+<p>After lunch Shiloh went to sleep on a soft carpet of
+Bermuda grass with the old man's coat for a blanket,
+while the other children waded in the branch, and gathered
+nuts till time to go back home.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly sun-down when they reached the gate
+of the little hut on the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We must do this often, Archie B.,&rdquo; said the Bishop,
+as the children went in, tired and hungry, leaving him
+and Archie B. at the gate. &ldquo;I've never seed the little
+'uns have sech a time, an' it mighty nigh made me
+young ag'in.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>All afternoon Archie B. had been thinking. All day
+he had felt the lumpy, solid thing in the innermost
+depths of his jeans pocket, which told him one hundred
+dollars in gold lay there, and that it would need an explanation
+when he reached home or he was in for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>
+worst whipping he ever had. Knowing this, he had not
+been thinking all the afternoon for nothing. The old
+man bade him good-night, but still Archie B. lingered,
+hesitated, hung around the gate.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Won't you come in, Archie B.?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No-o&mdash;thank you, Bishop, but I'd&mdash;I'd like to,
+really tho', jes' to git a little spirt'ul g'idance&rdquo;&mdash;a
+phrase he had heard his father use so often.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, what's the matter, Archie B.?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. rubbed his chin thoughtfully. &ldquo;I'm&mdash;I'm&mdash;thinkin'
+of j'inin' the church, Bishop.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bless yo' h'art&mdash;that's right. I know'd you'd
+quit yo' mischeev'us ways an' come in&mdash;an' I honor you
+fur it, Archie B.&mdash;praise the Lord!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. still stood pensive and sobered:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But a thing happened to-day, Bishop, an' it's worryin'
+me very much. It makes me think, perhaps&mdash;I&mdash;ain't&mdash;ain't
+worthy of&mdash;the bestowal of&mdash;the
+grace&mdash;you know, the kind I heard you speak of?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me, Archie B., lad&mdash;an' I'll try to enlighten
+you in my po' way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, now; it's this&mdash;jes' suppose you wus goin'
+along now&mdash;say to school, an' seed a dorg, say his
+name was Bonaparte, wantin' to eat up a little monkey;
+an' a lot of fellers, say like Jud Carpenter an'
+Billy Buch, a-bettin' he cu'd do it in ten minutes an'
+a-sickin' him on the po' little monkey&mdash;this big savage
+dorg. An' suppose now you feel sorry for the monkey
+an' somethin'&mdash;you can't tell what&mdash;but somethin'
+mighty plain tells you the Lord wus on the monkey's
+side&mdash;so plain you cu'd read it&mdash;like it told David<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span>&mdash;an'
+the dorg wus as mean an' bostful as Goliath wus&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Archie B., my son, I'd a been fur the monkey, I sho'
+would,&rdquo; said the Bishop impressively.</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. smiled: &ldquo;Bishop, you've called my hand&mdash;I
+<i>wus</i> for that monkey.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man smiled approvingly: &ldquo;Good&mdash;good&mdash;Archie
+B.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, what happened? I'm mighty inter'sted&mdash;oh,
+that is good. I'm bettin' the monkey downed him,
+the Lord bein' on his side.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But, s'pose furst,&rdquo; went on Archie B. argumentatively,
+&ldquo;that you wanted to give some money fur a
+little church that you wanted to j'ine&mdash;up on the mountain
+side, a little po'-fo'k church, that depended on
+charity&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I understan's, I understan's, Archie B., that wus
+the Lord's doin's,&mdash;ten to one on the monkey, Archie&mdash;ten
+to one!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' that you had ten dollars in gold around yo'
+neck in a little bag, given you by your ole Granny when
+she died&mdash;an' knowin' how the Lord wus for the monkey,
+an' it bein' a dead cinch, an' all that&mdash;an' these
+fellers blowin' an' offerin' to bet ten to one&mdash;an' seein'
+you c'ud pick it up in the road&mdash;all for the little
+church, mind you, Bishop&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Archie B.,&rdquo; exclaimed the old man excitedly,
+&ldquo;them bein' the facts an' the thing at stake, with that
+ole dorg an' Jud Carpenter at the bottom of it, I'd a
+put it up on the monkey, son&mdash;fur charity, you know,
+an' fur the principle of it,&mdash;I'd a put it up, Archie B.,
+if I'd lost ever' cent!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Exactly, Bishop, an' I did&mdash;at ten to one&mdash;think
+of the odds! Ten to one, mighty nigh as great as wus
+ag'in David.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' you won, of course, Archie B., you won in a
+walk?&rdquo; said the old man breathlessly. &ldquo;God was fur
+you an' the monkey.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. smiled triumphantly and pulled out his
+handful of gold. The old man sat down on a log,
+dazed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Archie B., sho'ly, sho'ly, not all that? An' licked
+the dorg, an' that gang, an' cleaned 'em up?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. told him the story with all the quaint histrionic
+talent of his exuberant nature.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop sat and laughed till the tears came.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' Bonaparte went down the road with the monkey
+holt his tail&mdash;the champion dorg&mdash;an' you won
+all that?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All fur charity, Bishop, except, you know, part fur
+keeps as a kinder nes' egg.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of co-u-r-se&mdash;Archie B., of&mdash;course, no harm in
+the worl'&mdash;if&mdash;if&mdash;my son&mdash;<i>if you carry out your
+original ideas</i>, or promise, ruther; it won't work if you
+go back on yo' promise to God. 'God moves in a mysterious
+way his wonders to perform,'&rdquo; added the Bishop
+solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. slipped fifty of his dollars into the old
+man's hands.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know, Archie B., I prayed for this las'
+night? Now you tell me God don't answer prayers?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He was silent, touched. Seldom before had a prayer
+of his been answered so directly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fur charity, Archie B., fur charity. I'll take it,
+an' little you know what this may mean.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. was silent. So far so good, but it was
+plain from his still thoughtful looks that he had only
+half won out yet. He had heard the old man speak,
+and there had been a huskiness about his voice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now there is paw, Bishop&mdash;you know he ain't jes
+like you&mdash;he don't see so far. He might not understan'
+it. Would you mind jes' droppin' him a line, you
+know? I'll take it to him&mdash;in case he looks at the
+thing differently, you know, fur whut you write will go
+a long way with him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man smiled: &ldquo;Of course, Archie B.&mdash;he
+must understan' it. Of course, it 'ud never do to have
+him spile as good a thing as that&mdash;an' fur charity, all
+fur the Lord&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' why I didn't go to school, helpin' you all in
+the woods,&rdquo; put in Archie B.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course, Archie B., why of course, my son; I'll
+fix it right.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And he scribbled a few lines on the fly leaf of his
+note book for Archie B. to take home:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;God bless you, my son, good-night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. struck out across the fields jingling his
+remaining gold and whistling. At home it was as he
+expected. Patsy met him at the gate. One look into
+her expectant face showed him that she was delighted at
+the prospect of his punishment. It was her hope deferred,
+now long unfulfilled. He had always gotten
+out before, but now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Walk in, Mister Gambler, Mr. Hookey&mdash;walk in&mdash;paw
+is waitin' fur you,&rdquo; she said, smirking.</p>
+
+<p>The Deacon stood in the door, silent, grim, determined.
+In his hand were well-seasoned hickories. By
+him stood his wife more silent, more grim, more determined.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pull off yo' coat, Archie B.,&rdquo; said the Deacon, &ldquo;I'm
+gwinter lick you fur gamblin'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pull off yo' coat, Archie B.,&rdquo; said his mother, &ldquo;I'm
+goin' to lick you fur playin' hookey.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pull it off, Archie B.,&rdquo; said his sister bossily, &ldquo;I'm
+goin' to stan' by an' see.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. pulled off his coat deliberately.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's all right,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Many a man has been
+licked befo' fur bein' on the Lord's side.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You mean to tell me, Archie B. Butts, you bet on
+a dorg fight sho' nuff,&rdquo; said his father, nervously handling
+his hickories.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' played hookey?&rdquo; chimed in his mother.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tell it, Archie B., tell the truth an' shame the
+devil,&rdquo; mocked Patsy.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I done all that&mdash;fur charity,&rdquo; he said boldly,
+and with a victorious ring in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did you put up that ten dollars yo' Granny lef'
+you?&rdquo; screamed his mother.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did you dare, Archie B.,&rdquo; said Patsy.</p>
+
+<p>His father paled at the thought of it: &ldquo;An' lost it,
+Archie B., lost it, my son. Oh, I mus' teach you how
+sinful it is to gamble.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Archie B. replied by running his hand deep down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>
+into his pocket and bringing up a handful of gold&mdash;five
+eagles!</p>
+
+<p>His father dropped the switches and stared. His
+mother sat down suddenly in a chair and Patsy reached
+out, took it and counted it deliberately:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;One&mdash;two&mdash;three&mdash;fo'&mdash;five&mdash;an' all gold&mdash;my
+gracious, Maw!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's jes' ha'f of it,&rdquo; said Archie B. indifferently.
+&ldquo;I gave the old Bishop five of 'em&mdash;fur&mdash;charity.
+Here's his note.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Deacon read it and rubbed his chin thoughtfully:
+&ldquo;That's a different thing,&rdquo; he said after a
+while. &ldquo;Entirely different proposition, my son.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, it 'pears to be,&rdquo; said his mother counting the
+gold again. &ldquo;We'll jes' keep three of 'em, Archie B.
+They'll come in handy this winter.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Put on yo' coat, my son,&rdquo; said the Deacon gently.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Patsy, fetch him in the hot waffles an' syrup&mdash;the
+lad 'pears to be a leetle tired,&rdquo; said his mother.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How many whippings did you git, Archie B.?&rdquo;
+whispered his brother as Archie B., after entertaining
+the family for an hour, all about the great fight, crawled
+into bed: &ldquo;I got three,&rdquo; went on Ozzie B. &ldquo;Triggers
+fust, then paw, then maw.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;None,&rdquo; said Archie B., as he put his two pieces of
+gold under his pillow.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I can't see why that was,&rdquo; wailed Ozzie B. &ldquo;I
+done nothin' an'&mdash;an'&mdash;got all&mdash;all&mdash;the&mdash;lickin'!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You jes' reaped my whirlwind,&rdquo; sneered his brother&mdash;&ldquo;All
+fools do!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But later he felt so sorry for poor Ozzie B. because
+he could not lie on his back at all, that he gave him one
+of his beautiful coins to go to sleep.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+<h3>BEN BUTLER'S LAST RACE</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">I</span>t was the last afternoon of the fair, and the great
+race was to come off at three o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing so typical as a fair in the Tennessee
+Valley. It is the one time in the year when everybody
+meets everybody else. Besides being the harvest
+time of crops, of friendships, of happy interchange of
+thought and feeling, it is also the harvest time of perfected
+horseflesh.</p>
+
+<p>The forenoon had been given to social intercourse,
+the display of livestock, the exhibits of deft women
+fingers, of housewife skill, of the tradesman, of the
+merchant, of cotton&mdash;cotton, in every form and shape.</p>
+
+<p>At noon, under the trees, lunch had been spread&mdash;a
+bountiful lunch, spreading as it did from the soft grass
+of one tree to that of another&mdash;as family after family
+spread their linen&mdash;an almost unbroken line of fried
+chicken, flanked with pickles and salad, and all the rich
+profusion of the country wife's pantry.</p>
+
+<p>And now, after lunch, the grand stand had been
+quickly filled, for the fame of the great race had spread
+up and down the valley, and the valley dearly loved a
+horse-race.</p>
+
+<p>Five hundred dollars was considered a large purse,
+but this race was three thousand!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Three thousand! It would buy a farm. It would
+buy thirty mules, and twice that many steers. It would
+make a family independent for life.</p>
+
+<p>And to-day it was given to see which one, of three
+rich men, owned the best horse.</p>
+
+<p>No wonder that everybody for miles around was
+there.</p>
+
+<p>Sturdy farmers with fat daughters, jaded wives, and
+lusty sons who stepped awkwardly on everything on
+the promenade, and in trying to get off stepped on
+themselves. They went about, with broad, strong,
+stooping shoulders, and short coats that sagged in the
+middle, dropping under-jaws, and eyes that were kindly
+and shrewd.</p>
+
+<p>The town people were better dressed and fed than the
+country people, and but only half way in fashion between
+the city and country, yet knowing it not.</p>
+
+<p>The infield around the judges' stand, and in front of
+the grand-stand, was thronged with surreys and buggies,
+and filled with ladies and their beaux. A ripple of excitement
+had gone up when Richard Travis drove up
+in a tally-ho. It was filled with gay gowns and alive
+with merriment and laughter, and though Alice Westmore
+was supposed to be on the driver's box with the
+owner, she was not there.</p>
+
+<p>Tennesseans were there in force to back Flecker's gelding&mdash;Trumps,
+and they played freely and made much
+noise. Col. Troup's mare&mdash;Trombine&mdash;had her partisans
+who were also vociferous. But Travis's entry,
+Lizzette, was a favorite, and, when he appeared on the
+track to warm up, the valley shouted itself hoarse.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then Flecker shot out of the draw-gate and spun
+merrily around the track, and Col. Troup joined him
+with Trombine, and the audience watched the three trotters
+warm up and shouted or applauded each as it spun
+past the grand-stand.</p>
+
+<p>Then the starting-judge held up a silk bag in the
+center of the wire. It held three thousand dollars in
+gold, and it swung around and then settled, to a shining,
+shimmering silken sack, swaying the wire as it flashed
+in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>The starting-judge clanged his bell, but the drivers,
+being gentlemen, were heedless of rules and drove on
+around still warming up.</p>
+
+<p>The starting-judge was about to clang again&mdash;this
+time more positively&mdash;when there appeared at the
+draw-gate a new comer, the sight of whose horse and
+appointments set the grand-stand into a wild roar of
+mingled laughter and applause.</p>
+
+<p>As he drove demurely on the track, he lifted quaintly
+and stiffly his old hat and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>He was followed by the village blacksmith, whose very
+looks told that they meant business and were out for
+blood. The audience did not like the looks of this blacksmith&mdash;he
+was too stern for the fun they were having.
+But they recognized the shambling creature who followed
+him as Bud Billings, and they shouted with laughter
+when they saw he had a sponge and bucket!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bud Billings a swipe!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Cottontown wanted to laugh, but it was too tired. It
+merely grinned and nudged one another. For Travis
+had given a half holiday and all Cottontown was there.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The old man's outfit brought out the greatest
+laughter. The cart was a big cheap thing, new and
+brightly repainted, and it rattled frightfully. The harness
+was a combination&mdash;the saddle was made of soft
+sheep skin, the wool next to the horse, as were also the
+head-stall of the bridle, the breast-strap and the breeching.
+The rest of it was undressed leather, and the old
+man had evidently made it himself.</p>
+
+<p>But Ben Butler&mdash;never had he looked so fine. Blind,
+cat-hammed and pacing along,&mdash;but his sides were slick
+and hard, his quarters rubber.</p>
+
+<p>The old man had not been training him on the sandy
+stretches of Sand Mountain for nothing.</p>
+
+<p>A man with half an eye could have seen it, but the
+funny people in the grand-stand saw only the harness,
+and the blind sunken eyes of the old horse. So they
+shouted and cat-called and jeered. The outfit ambled
+up to the starting judge, and the old driver handed him
+fifty dollars.</p>
+
+<p>The starter laughed as he recovered himself, and winking
+at the others, asked:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What's this for, old man?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, jes' thought I'd j'ine in&mdash;&rdquo; smiling.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, you can't do it. What's your authority?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop ran his hand in his pocket, while Bud
+held Ben Butler's head and kept saying with comical
+seriousness: &ldquo;Whoa&mdash;whoa, sah!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Pending it all, and seeing that more talk was coming,
+Ben Butler promptly went to sleep. Finally the
+old man brought out a faded poster. It was Travis's
+challenge and conditions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jes' read it,&rdquo; said the old driver, &ldquo;an' see if I ain't
+under the conditions.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The starting judge read: &ldquo;<i>Open to the Tennessee
+Valley&mdash;trot or pace. Parties entering, other than the
+match makers, to pay fifty dollars at the wire.</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Phew!&rdquo; said the starting judge, as he scratched
+his head. Then he stroked his chin and re-read the
+conditions, looking humorously down over his glasses
+at the queer combination before him.</p>
+
+<p>The audience took it in and began to shout: &ldquo;Let
+him in! Let him in! It's fair!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But others felt outraged and shouted back: &ldquo;No&mdash;put
+him out! Put him out!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The starting judge clanged his bell again, and the
+other three starters came up.</p>
+
+<p>Flecker, good-natured and fat, his horse in a warming-up
+foam, laughed till he swayed in the sulky. Col.
+Troup, dignified and reserved, said nothing. But Travis
+swore.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's preposterous!&mdash;it will make the race a farce.
+We're out for blood and that purse. This is no comedy,&rdquo;
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>The old man only smiled and said: &ldquo;I'm sorry to
+spile the sport of gentlemen, but bein' gentlemen, I
+know they will stan' by their own rules.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's here in black and white, Travis,&rdquo; said the starter,
+&ldquo;You made it yourself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, hell,&rdquo; said Travis hotly, &ldquo;that was mere form
+and to satisfy the Valley. I thought the entrance fee
+would bar any outsider.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But it didn't,&rdquo; said the Judge, &ldquo;and you know the
+rules.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let him start, let the Hill-Billy start!&rdquo; shouted
+the crowd, and then there was a tumult of hisses, groans
+and cat-calls.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was passed from mouth to mouth that it was
+the old Cottontown preacher, and the excitement grew
+intense.</p>
+
+<p>It was the most comical, most splendid joke ever
+played in the Valley. Travis was not popular, neither
+was the dignified Col. Troup. Up to this time the
+crowd had not cared who won the purse; nor had they
+cared which of the pretty trotters received the crown.
+It meant only a little more swagger and show and money
+to throw away.</p>
+
+<p>But here was something human, pathetic. Here was
+a touch of the stuff that made the grand-stand kin to
+the old man. The disreputable cart, the lifeless, blind
+old pacer, the home-made harness, the seediness of it
+all&mdash;the pathos.</p>
+
+<p>Here was the quaint old man, who, all his life, had
+given for others, here was the ex-overseer and the ex-trainer
+of the Travis stables, trying to win the purse
+from gentlemen.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ten to one,&rdquo; said a prosperous looking man, as he
+looked quietly on&mdash;&ldquo;the Bishop wants it for charity
+or another church. Like as not he knows of some
+poverty-stricken family he's going to feed.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If that's so,&rdquo; shouted two young fellows who were
+listening, and who were partisans of Flecker of Ten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>nessee,
+&ldquo;if that's the way of it, we'll go over and take
+a hand in seeing that he has fair play.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They arose hastily, each shifting a pistol in his pocket,
+and butted through the crowd which was thronged
+around the Judge's stand, where the old man sat quietly
+smiling from his cart, and Travis and Troup were talking
+earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Damned if I let Trombine start against such a
+combination as that, sah. I'll drive off the track now,
+sah&mdash;damned if I don't, sah!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But the two young men had spoken to big fat Flecker
+of Tennessee, and he arose in his sulky-seat and said:
+&ldquo;Now, gentlemen, clear the track and let us race. We
+will let the old man start. Say, old man,&rdquo; he laughed,
+&ldquo;you won't feel bad if we shut you out the fust heat,
+eh?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; smiled the Bishop&mdash;&ldquo;an' I 'spec you will.
+Why, the old hoss ain't raced in ten years.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, say, I thought you were going to say twenty,&rdquo;
+laughed Flecker.</p>
+
+<p>Some rowdy had crowded around the old cart and
+attempted to unscrew the axle tap. But some one
+reached over the head of the crowd and gripped him
+where his shoulder and arm met, and pulled him forward
+and twirled him around like a top.</p>
+
+<p>It was enough. It was ten minutes before he could
+lift up his arm at all; it felt dead.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't hurt nobody, Jack,&rdquo; whispered the old man,
+&ldquo;be keerful.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The crowd were for the old man. They still shouted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>&mdash;&ldquo;Fair
+play, fair play&mdash;let him start,&rdquo; and they came
+thronging and crowding on the track.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Clear the track,&rdquo; cried the starting-judge to a
+deputy sheriff in charge&mdash;&ldquo;I'll let him start.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This set the crowd in a roar.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Square man,&rdquo; they yelled&mdash;&ldquo;Square man!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis bit his lips and swore.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, damn him,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we'll lose him the first
+heat. I'll shut him out myself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We will, sah, we will!&rdquo; said Col. Troup. &ldquo;But if
+that rattling contraption skeers my mare, I'll appeal to
+the National Association, sah. I'll appeal&mdash;sah,&rdquo; and
+he drove off up the stretch, hotter than his mare.</p>
+
+<p>And now the track was cleared&mdash;the grand stand
+hummed and buzzed with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>It was indeed the greatest joke ever played in the
+Tennessee Valley. Not that there was going to be any
+change in the race, not that the old preacher had any
+chance, driving as he did this bundle of ribs and ugliness,
+and hitched to such a cart&mdash;but that he dared
+try it at all, and against the swells of horsedom. There
+would be one heat of desperate fun and then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>A good-natured, spasmodic gulp of laughter ran clear
+through the grand-stand, and along with it, from excited
+groups, from the promenade, from the track and
+infield and stables, even, came such expressions as these:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Worth ten dollars to see it!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wouldn't take a hoss for the sight!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If he <i>did</i> happen to beat that trio of sports!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Boss, it's gwinter to be a hoss race from wire to
+wire!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, pshaw! one heat of fun&mdash;they'll shut him
+out!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In heart, the sympathy of the crowd was all with the
+old preacher.</p>
+
+<p>The old man had a habit when keyed to high pitch,
+emotionally, of talking to himself. He seemed to regard
+himself as a third person, and this is the way he
+told it, heat by heat:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fus' heat, Ben Butler&mdash;Now if we can manage
+to save our distance an' leave the flag a few yards, we'll
+be doin' mighty well. Long time since you stretched
+them ole muscles of yo's in a race&mdash;long time&mdash;an'
+they're tied up and sore. Ever' heat'll be a wuck out
+to you till you git hot. If I kin only stay in till you git
+hot&mdash;(<i>Clang&mdash;clang&mdash;clang</i>). That's the starter's
+bell. Yes&mdash;we'll score now&mdash;the fus' heat'll be our
+wuss. They've got it in fur us&mdash;they'll set the pace
+an' try to shet us out an', likely es not, do it. God he'p
+us&mdash;Shiloh&mdash;Cap'n Tom&mdash;it's only for them, Ben
+Butler&mdash;fur them. (<i>Clang!&mdash;Clang!</i>) Slow there&mdash;heh&mdash;heh&mdash;Steady&mdash;ah-h!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Clang&mdash;clang-clang!</i> vigorously. The starter was
+calling them back.</p>
+
+<p>They had scored down for the first time, but the hot-heads
+had been too fast for the old ambler. In their
+desire to shut him out, they rushed away like a whirlwind.
+The old pacer followed, rocking and rolling in
+his lazy way. He wiggled, shuffled, skipped, and when
+the strain told on the sore old muscles, he winced, and
+was left at the wire!</p>
+
+<p>The crowd jeered and roared with laughter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He'll never get off!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He's screwed there&mdash;fetch a screw driver!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pad his head, he'll fall on it nex'!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go back, gentlemen, go back,&rdquo; shouted the starter,
+&ldquo;and try again. The old pacer was on a break&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Clang&mdash;clang&mdash;clang!</i>
+and he jerked his bell vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>Travis was furious as he drove slowly back. &ldquo;I had
+to pull my mare double to stop her,&rdquo; he called to the
+starter. &ldquo;We were all aligned but the old pacer&mdash;why
+didn't you let us go?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Because I am starting these horses by the rules,
+Mr. Travis. I know my business,&rdquo; said the starter
+hotly.</p>
+
+<p>Col. Troup was blue in the face with rage.</p>
+
+<p>Flecker laughed.</p>
+
+<p>They all turned again and came down, the numbers
+on the drivers' arms showing 1, 2, 3, 4&mdash;Travis, Troup,
+Flecker, and the old Bishop, respectively.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ben Butler, ole hoss, this ain't no joke&mdash;you mus'
+go this time. We ain't goin' to meetin'&mdash;Stretch them
+ole legs as you did!&mdash;oh, that's better&mdash;ef we could
+only score a few more times&mdash;look!&mdash;ah!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Clang&mdash;clang&mdash;clang!</i></p>
+
+<p>This time it was Col. Troup's mare. She broke just
+at the wire.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She saved us that time, Ben Butler. We wus two
+rods behind&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They came down the third time. &ldquo;Now, thank God,
+he's jes' beginnin' to unlimber,&rdquo; chuckled the old man as
+the old pacer, catching on to the game and warming to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span>
+his work, was only a length behind at the wire, as they
+scored the fourth time, when Flecker's mare flew up in
+the air and again the bell clanged.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd grew impatient. The starter warned them
+that time was up and that he'd start them the next time
+they came down if he had the ghost of a chance.</p>
+
+<p>Again they aligned and came thundering down. The
+old man was pale and silent, and Ben Butler felt the
+lines telegraphing nervous messages to his bitted mouth;
+but all he heard was: &ldquo;<i>Shiloh&mdash;Cap'n Tom&mdash;Steady,
+old hoss!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It sounded like a gun-shot in the old man's ears.
+There was a whirr of wheels, a patter of feet grappling
+with dirt and throwing it all over him&mdash;another whirr
+and flutter and buzz as of a covey flushed, and the
+field was off, leaving him trailing.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Whew, Ben Butler, we're in fur it now&mdash;the Lord
+'a-mussy on our souls! Take the pole&mdash;s'artenly,&mdash;it's
+all yowin, since you're behin'! Steady ole hoss,
+there's one consolation,&mdash;they're breakin' the wind for
+you, an' thank God!&mdash;yes Ben Butler, look! they're
+after one other,&mdash;they're racin' like Tam O'Shanter an'
+cookin' each other to a gnat's heel&mdash;Oh, Lord what
+fools! It'll tell on 'em&mdash;if we can only save our distance&mdash;this
+heat&mdash;jes' save our distance&mdash;Wh-o-p,
+sah! Oh, my Lord, told you so&mdash;Troup's mare's up
+an' dancin' like a swamp rabbit by moonlight. Who-op,
+sah, steady ole hoss&mdash;there now we've passed him&mdash;Trombine
+and Lizette ahead&mdash;steady&mdash;let 'em go, big
+devil, little devil, an' pumpin' each other&mdash;Go now, go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span>
+old hoss, now's the time to save our distance&mdash;go old
+hoss, step lively now&mdash;'tain't no meetin', no Sunday
+School&mdash;it's life, bread and a chance for Cap'n Tom!
+Oh, but you ain't forgot entirely, no-no,&mdash;ain't forgot
+that you come in answer to prayer, ain't forgot that half
+in one-one, ain't forgot yo' pious raisin', yo' pedigree.
+Ain't forgot you're racin' for humanity an' a chance,
+ain't forgot&mdash;there! the flag&mdash;my God and safe!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He had passed the flag. Lizzette and Trombine were
+already at the wire, but poor Troup&mdash;his mare had
+never been able to settle after her wild break, and she
+caught the flag square in the face.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd met the old pacer with a yell of delight.
+He had not been shut out&mdash;marvel of marvels!</p>
+
+<p>It was getting interesting indeed.</p>
+
+<p>Bud and Jack met him with water and a blanket.
+How proud they were! But the heavy old cart had
+told on Ben Butler. He panted like a hound, he staggered
+and was distressed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He'll get over that,&rdquo; said the old driver cheerily to
+Bud's tearful gaze&mdash;&ldquo;he ain't used to it yet&mdash;ten years,
+think of it,&rdquo; and Jack led Ben Butler blanketed away.</p>
+
+<p>The old man looked at the summary the judges had
+hung up. It was:</p>
+
+<p><i>1st Heat:</i> <i>Trumps, 1st</i>; <i>Lizzette, 2nd</i>; <i>Ben Butler,
+3rd</i>; <i>Trombine distanced.</i> <i>Time</i>, 2:17&frac12;.</p>
+
+<p>Then he heard a man swearing elegantly. It was
+Col. Troup. He was sitting in his sulky in front of the
+grand stand and talking to Travis and the genial
+Flecker:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A most unprofessional thing, gentlemen,&mdash;damned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span>
+unprofessional, sah, to shut me out. Yes, sah, to shut
+out a gentleman, sah, an' the first heat, sah, with his
+horse on a break.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What!&rdquo; said Flecker excitedly&mdash;&ldquo;you, Col'nel?
+Shut out&mdash;why, I thought it was the old pacer.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I swear I did, too, Colonel,&rdquo; said Travis apologetically.
+&ldquo;I heard something rattling and galloping
+along&mdash;I thought it was the old pacer and I drove like
+the devil to shut him out!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was me, sah, me! damned unprofessional, sah;
+my mare throwed a boot!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He walked around and swore for ten minutes. Then
+he quieted down and began to think. He was shut out&mdash;his
+money was gone. But&mdash;&ldquo;By gad, sah,&rdquo; he said
+cracking his whip&mdash;&ldquo;By gad I'll do it!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later as Ben Butler, cooled and calm,
+was being led out for the second heat, Col. Troup puffed
+boisterously up to the Bishop: &ldquo;Old man, by gad,
+sah, I want you to use my sulky and harness. It's a
+hundred pounds lighter than that old ox-cart you've
+got. I'm goin' to he'p you, sah, beat that pair of short
+dogs that shets out a gentleman with his horse on a
+break, sah!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And that was how the old man drew first blood and
+came out in a new sulky and harness.</p>
+
+<p>How proud Ben Butler seemed to feel! How much
+lighter and how smoothly it ran!</p>
+
+<p>They got the word at the first score, Trumps and
+Lizzette going at it hammer and tongs&mdash;Ben Butler,
+as usual, trailing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The old man sat pale and ashy, but driving like the
+born reinsman that he was.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Steady, old hoss, steady agin'&mdash;jes' save our distance,
+that's all&mdash;they've done forgot us&mdash;done forgot
+us&mdash;don't know we're here. They'll burn up each
+other an' then, oh, Ben Butler, God he'p us! Cap'n
+Tom, Cap'n Tom an' Shiloh! Steady, whoa there!&mdash;Lord,
+how you're lar'nin'! How the old clip is comin'
+agin! Ho&mdash;hi&mdash;there ole hoss&mdash;here we are&mdash;what
+a bresh of speed he's got&mdash;hi&mdash;ho!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And the grand-stand was cheering again, and as the
+old man rode up the judges hung out:</p>
+
+<p><i>2nd Heat:</i> <i>Trumps, 1st</i>; <i>Lizzette, 2nd</i>; <i>Ben Butler,
+3rd.</i> <i>Time</i>, 2:15&frac12;.</p>
+
+<p>The old man looked at it in wonder: &ldquo;Two fifteen
+an' not shet out, Ben Butler? Only five lengths behind?
+My God, can we make it&mdash;can we make it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>His heart beat wildly. For the first time he began to
+hope.</p>
+
+<p>Trumps now had two heats. As the race was best
+three out of five, one more heat meant that Flecker of
+Tennessee would win the race and the purse. But when
+the old man glanced at Trumps, his experienced eye told
+him the gallant gelding was all out&mdash;he was distressed
+greatly&mdash;in a paroxyism of thumps. He glanced at
+Lizzette. She was breathing freely and was fresh. His
+heart fell.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Trumps is done fur, Ben Butler, but Lizzette&mdash;what
+will Travis do?&mdash;Ah, ole hoss, we're up ag'in it!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was too true, as the next heat proved. Away
+Trumps and Lizzette went, forgetful of all else, while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span>
+the old man trailed behind, talking to, soothing, coaxing
+the old horse and driving him as only a master could.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They're at it ag'in&mdash;ole hoss, what fools! Whoa&mdash;steady
+there! Trumps is done fur, an' you'll see&mdash;No
+sand left in his crops, cooked&mdash;watch an' see, oh,
+my, Ben Butler&mdash;there&mdash;he's up now&mdash;up an' done
+fur&mdash;Go now&mdash;move some&mdash;hi&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Trumps and Lizzette had raced it out to the head
+of the stretch. But Trumps was not equal to the clip
+which Travis had made cyclonic, knowing the horse was
+sadly distressed. Trumps stood it as long as flesh and
+blood could, and then jumped into the air, in a heart-broken,
+tired break. It was then that the old man began
+to drive, and moving like well-balanced machinery, the
+old pacer caught again the spirit of his youth, as the
+old time speed came back, and leaving Trumps behind
+he even butted his bull-dog nose into the seat of Lizzette's
+sulky, and clung determinedly there, right up to
+the wire, beaten only by a length.</p>
+
+<p>Lizzette had won the heat. The judge hung out:</p>
+
+<p><i>3rd Heat:</i> <i>Lizzette, 1st</i>; <i>Ben Butler, 2nd</i>; <i>Trumps
+distanced.</i> <i>Time</i>, 2:20.</p>
+
+<p>Lizzette had won, but the crowd had begun to see.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The old pacer&mdash;the old pacer!&rdquo;&mdash;they yelled.</p>
+
+<p>Travis bit his lip&mdash;&ldquo;what did it all mean? He had
+won the heat. Trumps was shut out, and there they
+were yelling for the old pacer!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop was pale to the roots of his hair when
+he got out of the sulky.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Great hoss! great! great!&rdquo; yelled Bud as he
+trotted along bringing the blanket.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The old man bowed his head in the sulky-seat, a moment,
+amid the crash of the band and the noise of the
+crowd:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dear God&mdash;my Father&mdash;I thank Thee. Not for
+me&mdash;not for Ben Butler&mdash;but for life&mdash;life&mdash;for
+Shiloh&mdash;and Cap'n Tom. Help us&mdash;old and blind&mdash;help
+us! O God&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Col. Troup grasped his hand. The Tennesseans,
+followers of Flecker, flocked around him. Flecker, too,
+was there&mdash;chagrined, maddened&mdash;he too had joined
+his forces with the old Bishop.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Great Scott, old man, how you do drive! We've
+hedged on you&mdash;me and the Colonel&mdash;we've put up
+a thousand each that you'll win. We've cooked ourselves
+good and hard. Now drive from hell to breakfast
+next heat, and Travis is yo' meat! Fools that we were!
+We've cut each other to pieces like a pair of cats tied
+by the tails. Travis is at your mercy.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, sah, Flecker is right. Travis is yo' meat,
+sah,&rdquo; said the Colonel, solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>The old man walked around with his lips moving silently,
+and a great pulsing, bursting, gripping pain in
+his heart&mdash;a pain which was half a hope and half
+despair.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd was on tip-toe. Never before had such a
+race been paced in the Tennessee Valley. Could he take
+the next heat from Lizzette? If he could, he had her
+at his mercy.</p>
+
+<p>Grimly they scored down. Travis sullen that he had
+to fight the old pacer, but confident of shutting him
+out this time. Confident and maddened. The old man,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span>
+as was his wont in great emergencies, had put a bullet
+in his mouth to clinch his teeth on. He had learned it
+from Col. Jeremiah Travis, who said Jackson did it
+when he killed Dickinson, and at Tallapoosa, and at
+New Orleans.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;GO!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And he heard Travis whirl away with a bitter curse
+that floated back. Then the old man shot out in the
+long, stealing, time-eating stride the old pacer had, and
+coming up just behind Lizzette's sulky he hung there in
+a death struggle.</p>
+
+<p>One quarter, half, three-quarters, and still they swung
+around&mdash;locked&mdash;Travis bitter with hot oaths and the
+old man pale with prayer. He could see Travis's eyes
+flashing lightning hatred across the narrow space between
+them&mdash;hatred, curses, but the old man prayed on.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The flag&mdash;now&mdash;ole hoss&mdash;for Jesus' sake!&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He reached out in the old way, lifted his horse by
+sheer great force and fairly flung him ahead!&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Flu-r-r-r!&rdquo; it was Lizzette's breath as he went
+by her. He shot his eyes quickly sideways as she
+flailed the air with her forefeet within a foot of his
+head. Her eyes glowed, sunken,&mdash;beat&mdash;in their
+sockets; with mouth wide open, collapsed, frantic, in
+heart-broken dismay, she wabbled, staggered and quit!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, God bless you, Ben Butler!&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But that instant in the air with her mouth wide open
+within a foot of the old man's head her lower teeth
+exposed, the old driver saw she was only four years old.
+Why had he noticed it? What mental telepathy in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span>
+great crises cause us to see the trifles on which often the
+destiny of our life hangs?</p>
+
+<p>Ben Butler, stubborn, flying, was shaking his game
+old head in a bull-dog way as he went under the wire.
+It maddened him to be pulled up.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So, softly, softly old fellow! We've got 'em licked,
+you've got religin' in yo' heels, too. Ain't been goin'
+to church for ten years for nothin'!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man wanted to shout, and yet he was actually
+shedding tears, talking hysterically and trembling all
+over. He heard in a dazed way the yells and thunder
+from the grand-stand. But he was faint and dizzy, and
+worst of all, as he laughed to himself and said: &ldquo;Kinder
+sissy an' soft in spots.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jack and Bud had Ben Butler and were gone. No
+wonder the grand-stand pulsed with human emotion.
+Never before had anything been done like this. The
+old, blind pacer,&mdash;the quaint old preacher&mdash;the thing
+they were going to shut out,&mdash;the pathos, the splendor
+of it all,&mdash;shook them as humanity will ever be shaken
+when the rejected stone comes up in the beauty of purest
+marble. Here it was:</p>
+
+<p><i>4th Heat:</i> <i>Ben Butler, 1st</i>; <i>Lizzette, 2nd.</i> <i>Time</i>,
+2:19&frac12;.</p>
+
+<p>What a record it was for the old pacer! Starting
+barely able to save his distance, he had grown in speed
+and strength and now had the mare at his mercy&mdash;the
+two more heats he had yet to win would be a walk around
+for him.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, it was glorious&mdash;glorious!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, by gad, sah,&rdquo; shouted Col. Troup, pompously.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span>
+&ldquo;I guess I've hedged all right. Travis will pay my
+thousand. He'll know how to shet out gentlemen the
+nex' time. Oh, by gad, sah!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Flecker and the Tennesseans took drinks and shouted
+themselves hoarse.</p>
+
+<p>Then the old preacher did something, but why he
+never could explain. It seemed intuition when he
+thought of it afterwards. Calling Col. Troup to him
+he said: &ldquo;I'm kinder silly an' groggy, Col'nel, but
+I wish you'd go an' look in her mouth an' see how old
+Lizzette is.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel looked at him, puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I dunno, Col'nel&mdash;but when a thing comes on
+me that away, maybe it's because I'm so nervous an'
+upsot, but somehow I seem to have a second sight when
+I git in this fix. I wanted you to tell me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What's it got to do with the race, sah! There is
+no bar to age. Have you any susp&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, no&mdash;no&mdash;Col'nel, it's jes' a warnin', an intuition.
+I've had 'em often, it's always from God. I
+b'leeve it's Him tellin' me to watch, watch an' pray. I
+had it when Ben Butler come, thar, come in answer to
+prayer&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Troup smiled and walked off. In a short
+while he sauntered carelessly back:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fo' sah, she was fo' years old this last spring.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thank ye, Col'nel!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel smiled and whispered: &ldquo;Oh, how cooked
+she is! Dead on her feet, dead. Don't drive yo' ole
+pacer hard&mdash;jes' walk around him, sah. Do as you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span>
+please, you've earned the privilege. It's yo' walk over
+an' yo' money.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The fifth heat was almost a repetition of the fourth,
+the old pacer beating the tired mare cruelly, pacing her
+to a standstill. It was all over with Lizzette, anyone
+could see that. The judges hung out:</p>
+
+<p><i>5th Heat:</i> <i>Ben Butler, 1st</i>; <i>Lizzette, 2nd.</i> <i>Time</i>,
+2:24.</p>
+
+<p>Travis's face was set, set in pain and disappointment
+when he went to the stable. He looked away off, he
+saw no one. He smoked. He walked over to the stall
+where they were cooling Lizzette out.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Take the full twenty minutes to cool her, Jim.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In the next stall stood Sadie B. She had been driven
+around by Jud Carpenter, between heats, to exercise her,
+he had said. She was warmed up, and ready for speed.</p>
+
+<p>Travis stood watching Lizzette cool out. Jud came
+up and stood looking searchingly at him. There was
+but a glance and a nod, and Travis walked over to the
+grand-stand, light-hearted and even jolly, where he
+stood in a group of society folks.</p>
+
+<p>He was met by a protest of feminine raillery: &ldquo;Oh,
+our gloves, our candy! Oh, Mr. Travis, to get beat that
+way!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He laughed: &ldquo;I'll pay all you ladies lose. I was
+just playing with the old pacer. Bet more gloves and
+candy on the next heat!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh&mdash;oh,&rdquo; they laughed. &ldquo;No&mdash;no-o! We've
+seen enough!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis smiled and walked off. He turned at the gate
+and threw them back a bantering kiss.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You'll see&mdash;&rdquo; was all he said.</p>
+
+<p>The old man spent the twenty minutes helping to rub
+off Ben Butler.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It does me good&mdash;kinder unkeys me,&rdquo; he said to
+Bud and Jack. He put his ear to the old horses' flank&mdash;it
+pulsed strong and true.</p>
+
+<p>Then he laughed to himself. It vexed him, for it
+was half hysterical and he kept saying over to himself:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All Thy works shall praise Thy name, in earth and sky and sea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty&mdash;&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Some one touched his arm. It was Jack: &ldquo;Bishop,
+Bishop, time's up! We're ready. Do you hear the
+bell clanging?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop nodded, dazed:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Here, you're kinder feeble, weak an', an' sorter
+silly. Why, Bishop, you're recitin' poetry&mdash;&rdquo; said
+Jack apologetically. &ldquo;A man's gone when he does that&mdash;here!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He had gone to the old man's saddle bags, and
+brought out his ancient flask.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jes' a swaller or two, Bishop,&rdquo; he said coaxingly,
+as one talking to a child&mdash;&ldquo;Quick, now, you're not
+yo'self exactly&mdash;you've dropped into poetry.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I guess I am a little teched, Jack, but I don't need
+that when I can get poetry, sech poetry as is now in
+me. Jack, do you want to hear the gran'est verse ever
+writ in poetry?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;no, Bishop, don't! Jack Bracken's yo'
+friend, he'll freeze to you. You'll be all right soon.
+It's jes' a little spell. Brace up an' drop that stuff.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man smiled sadly as if he pitied Jack. Then
+he repeated slowly:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Holy, holy, holy, all the saints adore Thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Castin' down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cherubim an' Seraphim, fallin' down before Thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which wert an' art, an' ever more shall be.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Feebly he leaned on Jack, the tears ran down his
+cheek: &ldquo;'Tain't weakness, Jack, 'tain't that&mdash;it's joy,
+it's love of God, Whose done so much for me. It's the
+glory, glory of them lines&mdash;Oh, God&mdash;what a line
+of poetry!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Castin' down their golden crowns around the glassy sea!&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Ben Butler stood ready, the bell clanged again. Jack
+helped him into the sulky; never had he seen the old
+man so feeble. Travis was already at the post.</p>
+
+<p>They got the word immediately, but to the old man's
+dismay, Travis's mare shot away like a scared doe,
+trotting as frictionless as a glazed emery wheel.</p>
+
+<p>The old man shook up Ben Butler and wondered why
+he seemed to stand so still. The old horse did his best,
+he paced as he never had before, but the flying thing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span>
+like a red demon flitted always just before him, a thing
+with tendons of steel and feet of fire.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, God, Ben Butler, what is it&mdash;what? Have
+you quit on me, ole hoss?&mdash;you, Ben Butler, you that
+come in answer to prayer? My God, Cap'n Tom,
+Shiloh!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And still before him flew the red thing with wings.</p>
+
+<p>At the half, at the three-quarters: &ldquo;Now ole hoss!&rdquo;
+And the old horse responded gamely, grandly. He
+thundered like a cyclone bursting through a river-bed.
+Foot by foot, inch by inch, he came up to Travis's
+mare. Nose to nose they flew along. There was a
+savage yell&mdash;a loud cracking of Travis' whip in the
+blind horse's ears. Never had the sightless old horse
+had such a fright! He could not see&mdash;he could only
+hear the terrible, savage yell. Frightened, he forgot,
+he dodged, he wavered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Steady, Ben Butler, don't&mdash;oh&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was a small trick of Travis', for though the old
+pacer came with a rush that swept everything before it,
+the drive had been made too late. Travis had the heat
+won already.</p>
+
+<p>Still there was no rule against it. He could yell and
+crack his whip and make all the noise he wished, and if
+the other horse was frightened, it was the fault of his
+nerves. Everybody who knew anything of racing knew
+that.</p>
+
+<p>A perfect tornado of hisses met Travis at the grand-stand.</p>
+
+<p>But he had won the heat! What did he care? He
+could scarcely stop his mare. She seemed like a bird and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span>
+as fresh. He pulled her double to make her turn and
+come back after winning, and as she came she still fought
+the bit.</p>
+
+<p>As he turned, he almost ran into the old pacer jogging,
+broken-hearted behind. The mare's mouth was
+wide open, and the Bishop's trained eye fell on the long
+tusk-like lower teeth, flashing in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>Startled, he quivered from head to foot. He would
+not believe his own eyes. He looked closely again.
+There was no doubt of it&mdash;she was eight years old!</p>
+
+<p>In an instant he knew&mdash;his heart sank, &ldquo;We're
+robbed, Cap'n Tom&mdash;Shiloh&mdash;my God!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis drove smilingly back, amid hisses and cheers
+and the fluttering of ladies' handkerchiefs in the boxes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How about the gloves and candy now?&rdquo; he called
+to them with his cap in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Above the judges had hung out:</p>
+
+<p><i>6th Heat:</i><i> Lizzette, 1st</i>; <i>Ben Butler, 2nd.</i> <i>Time</i>,
+2:14.</p>
+
+<p>When Flecker of Tennessee saw the time hung out,
+he jumped from his seat exclaiming: &ldquo;Six heats and
+the last heat the fastest? Who ever heard of a tired
+mare cutting ten seconds off that way? By the eternal,
+but something's wrong there.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Six heats an' the last one the fastest&mdash;By gad,
+sah,&rdquo; said Col. Troup. &ldquo;It is strange. That mare Lizzette
+is a wonder, an' by gad, sah, didn't the old pacer
+come? By gad, but if he'd begun that drive jus' fifty
+yards sooner&mdash;our money&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Flecker groaned: &ldquo;We're gone, Colonel&mdash;one
+thousand we put up and the one we hedged with.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By gad, sah, but, Flecker, don't you think Lizzette
+went smoother that last heat? She had a different
+stride, a different gait.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Flecker had not noticed it. &ldquo;But it was a small
+thing,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;to frighten the old horse. No rule
+against it, but a gentleman&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel smiled: &ldquo;Damn such gentlemen, sah.
+They're a new breed to me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man went slowly back to the stable. He said
+nothing. He walked dazed, pale, trembling, heart-broken.
+But never before had he thought so keenly.</p>
+
+<p>Should he expose Travis?&mdash;Ruin him, ruin him&mdash;here?
+Then there passed quickly thoughts of Cap'n
+Tom&mdash;of Miss Alice. What a chance to straighten
+every thing out, right every wrong&mdash;to act for Justice,
+Justice long betrayed&mdash;for God. For God? And
+had not, perhaps, God given him this opportunity for
+this very purpose? Was not God,&mdash;God, the ever
+merciful but ever just, behind it all? Was it not He
+who caused him to look at the open mouth of the first
+mare? Was it not He giving him a chance to right a
+wrong so long, so long delayed? If he failed to speak
+out would he not be doing every man in the race a
+wrong, and Cap'n Tom and Shiloh, and even Miss Alice,
+so soon to marry this man&mdash;how it went through him!&mdash;even
+God&mdash;even God a wrong!</p>
+
+<p>He trembled; he could not walk. He sat down; Jack
+and Bud had the horse, the outlaw's eyes flashing fire as
+he led him away. But Bud, poor Bud, he was following,
+broken-hearted, blubbering and still saying between
+his sobs: &ldquo;Great&mdash;hoss&mdash;he skeered him!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The grand-stand sat stupefied, charged to the explosive
+point with suppressed excitement. Six terrible heats
+and no horse had won three. But now Lizzette and Ben
+Butler had two each&mdash;who would win the next, the
+decisive heat. God help the old preacher, for he had no
+chance. Not after the speed that mare showed.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Troup came up: &ldquo;By gad, sah, Bishop&mdash;don't
+give up&mdash;you've got one mo' chance. Be as
+game as the ole hoss.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We are game, sir&mdash;but&mdash;but, will you do as I
+tell you an' swear to me on yo' honor as a gentleman
+never to speak till I say the word? Will you swear to
+keep sacred what I show you, until I let you tell?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel turned red: &ldquo;What do you mean,
+sah?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Swear it, swear it, on yo' honor as a gentleman&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On my honor as a gentleman, sah? I swear it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go,&rdquo; said the old man quickly, &ldquo;an' look in the
+mouth of the mare they are jes' bringin' in&mdash;the mare
+that won that heat. Go, an' remember yo' honor pledged.
+Go an' don't excite suspicion.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man sat down and, as he waited, he thought.
+Never before had he thought so hard. Never had such
+a burden been put upon him. When he looked up Colonel
+Troup stood pale and silent before him&mdash;pale with
+close-drawn lips and a hot, fierce, fighting gleam in his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You've explained it, sah&mdash;&rdquo; he said. Then he
+fumbled his pistol in his pocket. &ldquo;Now&mdash;now, give
+me back my promise, my word. I have two thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span>
+dollars at stake, and&mdash;and clean sport, sah,&mdash;clean
+sport. Give me back my word.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sit down,&rdquo; said the old man quietly.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel sat down so still that it was painful.
+He was calm but the Bishop saw how hard the fight
+was.</p>
+
+<p>Then the old man broke out: &ldquo;I can't&mdash;O God, I
+can't! I can't <i>make</i> a character, why should I <i>take</i>
+one? It's so easy to take a word&mdash;a nod&mdash;it is gone!
+And if left maybe it 'ud come agin. Richard Travis&mdash;it
+looks bad&mdash;he may be bad&mdash;but think what he
+may do yet&mdash;if God but touch him? No man's so
+bad but that God can't touch him&mdash;change him. We
+may live to see him do grand and noble things&mdash;an'
+God will touch him,&rdquo; said the old man hotly, &ldquo;he will
+yet.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you are through with me,&rdquo; said Colonel Troup,
+coolly, &ldquo;and will give me back my promise, I'll go and
+touch him&mdash;yes, damn him, I'll shoot him as he should
+be.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But I ain't gwine to give it back,&rdquo; smiled the old
+man.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Troup flushed: &ldquo;What'll you do, then?
+Let him rob you an' me, sah? Steal my two thousand,
+and Flecker's? Your purse that you've already won&mdash;yours&mdash;yours,
+right this minute? Rob the public
+in a fake race, sah? You've won the purse, it is yours,
+sah. He forfeited it when he brought out that other
+mare. Think what you are doing, sah!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cap'n Tom an' Shiloh, too&rdquo;&mdash;winced the old man.
+&ldquo;But I forgot&mdash;you don't kno'&mdash;yes&rdquo;&mdash;and he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span>
+smiled triumphantly. &ldquo;Yes, Col'nel, I'll let him do
+all that if&mdash;if God'll let it be. But God won't let it
+be!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Troup arose disgusted&mdash;hot. &ldquo;What do
+you mean, old man. Are you crazy, sah? Give me
+back my word&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wait&mdash;no&mdash;no,&rdquo; said the Bishop. &ldquo;Col'nel,
+you're a man of yo' word&mdash;wait!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And he arose and was gone.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel swore soundly. He walked around and
+damned everything in sight. He fumbled his pistol in
+his pocket, and wondered how he could break his word
+and yet keep it.</p>
+
+<p>There was no way, and he went off to take a drink.</p>
+
+<p>Bud, the tears running down his cheeks&mdash;was rubbing
+Ben Butler down, and saying: &ldquo;Great hoss&mdash;great
+hoss!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Of all, he and the Bishop had not given up.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'm afeard we'll have to give it up, Bishop,&rdquo; said
+Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Me, me give it up, Jack? Me an' Ben Butler quit
+like yeller dogs? Why, we're jes' beginnin' to fight&mdash;with
+God's help.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he thought a moment: &ldquo;Fetch me some cotton.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He took it and carefully packed it in the old horse's
+ears.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was a small trick, that yellin' and frightening
+the ole hoss,&rdquo; said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ben Butler,&rdquo; said the old man, as he stepped back
+and looked at the horse, &ldquo;Ben Butler, I've got you now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span>
+where God's got me&mdash;you can't see an' you can't hear.
+You've got to go by faith, by the lines of faith. But
+I'll be guidin' 'em, ole hoss, as God guides me&mdash;by
+faith.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The audience sat numbed and nerveless when they
+scored for the last heat. The old pacer's gallant fight
+had won them all&mdash;and now&mdash;now after winning two
+heats, with only one more to win&mdash;now to lose at last.
+For he could not win&mdash;not over a mare as fresh and
+full of speed as that mare now seemed to be. And she,
+too, had but one heat to win.</p>
+
+<p>But Col. Troup had been thinking and he stopped the
+old man as he drove out on the track.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Been thinkin', parson, 'bout that promise, an' I'll
+strike a bargain with you, sah. You say God ain't goin'
+to let him win this heat an' race an' so forth, sah.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop smiled: &ldquo;I ain't give up, Col'nel&mdash;not
+yet.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, sah, if God does let Travis win, I take it from
+yo' reasoning, sah, that he's a sorry sort of a God to
+stand in with a fraud an' I'll have nothin' to do with
+Him. I'll tell all about it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If that's the way you think&mdash;yes,&rdquo; said the old
+man, solemnly&mdash;&ldquo;yes&mdash;tell it&mdash;but God will never
+stan' in with fraud.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We'll see,&rdquo; said the Colonel. &ldquo;I'll keep my word
+if&mdash;if&mdash;you win!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Off they went as before, the old pacer hugging the
+mare's sulky wheels like a demon. Even Travis had
+time to notice that the old man had done something to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span>
+steady the pacer, for how like a steadied ship did he
+fly along!</p>
+
+<p>Driving, driving, driving&mdash;they flew&mdash;they fought
+it out. Not a muscle moved in the old man's body.
+Like a marble statue he sat and drove. Only his lips
+kept moving as if talking to his horse, so close that
+Travis heard him: &ldquo;It's God's way, Ben Butler, God's
+way&mdash;faith,&mdash;the lines of faith&mdash;'He leadeth me&mdash;He
+leadeth me'!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Up&mdash;up&mdash;came the pacer fearless with frictionless
+gait, pacing like a wild mustang-king of the desert,
+gleaming in sweat, white covered with dust, rolling like
+a cloud of fire. The old man sang soft and low:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;He leadeth me, O blessed thought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">O word with heavenly comfort fraught,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whate'er I do, whate'er I be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Inch by inch he came up. And now the home stretch,
+and the old pacer well up, collaring the flying mare and
+pacing her neck to neck.</p>
+
+<p>Travis smiled hard and cruel as he drew out his whip
+and circling it around his head, uttered again, amid
+fierce crackling, his Indian yell: &ldquo;Hi&mdash;hi&mdash;there&mdash;ho&mdash;ha&mdash;ho&mdash;hi&mdash;hi&mdash;e&mdash;e!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But the old pacer swerved not a line, and Travis,
+white and frightened now with a terrible, bitter fear
+that tightened around his heart and flashed in his eyes
+like the first swift crackle of lightning before the blow
+of thunder, brought his whip down on his own mare,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span>
+welting her from withers to rump in a last desperate
+chance.</p>
+
+<p>Gamely she responded and forged ahead&mdash;the old
+pacer was beaten!</p>
+
+<p>They thundered along, Travis whipping his mare at
+every stride. She stood it like the standard-bred she
+was, and never winced, then she forged ahead farther,
+and farther, and held the old pacer anchored at her
+wheels, and the wire not fifty feet away!</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing left for the old man to do&mdash;with
+tears streaming down his cheeks he shouted&mdash;&ldquo;Ben
+Butler, Ben Butler&mdash;it's God's way&mdash;the chastening
+rod&mdash;&rdquo; and his whip fell like a blade of fire on the old
+horse's flank.</p>
+
+<p>It stung him to madness. The Bishop striking him,
+the old man he loved, and who never struck! He shook
+his great ugly head like a maddened bull and sprang savagely
+at the wire, where the silken thing flaunted in his
+face in a burst of speed that left all behind. Nor could
+the old man stop him after he shot past it, for his flank
+fluttered like a cyclone of fire and presently he went down
+on his knees&mdash;gently, gently, then&mdash;he rolled over!</p>
+
+<p>His driver jumped to the ground. It was all he knew
+except he heard Bud weeping as he knelt on the ground
+where the old horse lay, and saying: &ldquo;<i>Great hoss&mdash;great
+hoss!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he remembered saying: &ldquo;Now, Bud, don't cry&mdash;if
+he does die, won't it be glorious, to die in harness,
+giving his life for others&mdash;Cap'n Tom&mdash;Shiloh?
+Think of it, Bud, to die at the wire, his race won, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span>
+work finished, the crown his! O Bud, who would not
+love to go like Ben Butler?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But he could not talk any more, for he saw Jack
+Bracken spring forward, and then the gleam of a whiskey
+flask gleamed above Ben Butler's fluttering nostrils
+and Jack's terrible gruff voice said: &ldquo;Wait till he's
+dead fust. Stand back, give him air,&rdquo; and his great
+hat fluttered like a windmill as he fanned the gasping
+nostrils of the struggling horse.</p>
+
+<p>The old man turned with an hysterical sob in his
+throat that was half a shout of joy.</p>
+
+<p>Travis stood by him watching the struggles of the
+old horse for breath.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I've killed him,&rdquo; he said, laconically.</p>
+
+<p>There was a grip like a vise on his shoulders. He
+turned and looked into the eyes of the old man and saw
+a tragic light there he had never seen before.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't&mdash;for God's sake don't, Richard Travis,
+don't tempt me here, wait till I pray, till this devil goes
+out of my heart.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And then in his terrible, steel-gripping way, he pulled
+Richard Travis, with a sudden jerk up against his own
+pulsing heart, as if the owner of The Gaffs had been a
+child, burying his great hardened fingers in the man's
+arm and fairly hissing in a whisper these words: &ldquo;If
+he dies&mdash;Richard Travis&mdash;remember he died for you ... it
+tuck both yo' mares to kill him&mdash;no&mdash;no&mdash;don't
+start&mdash;don't turn pale ... you are safe ... I
+made Col'nel Troup give me his word ... he'd
+not expose you ... if Ben Butler
+won an' he saved his money. I knew what it 'ud mean<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> ... that
+last heat ... that it 'ud kill him ... but
+I drove it to save you ... to keep
+Troup from exposin' yo' ... I've got his word.
+An' then I was sure ... as I live, I knew that God
+will touch you yet ... an' his touch will be as
+quickening fire to the dead honor that is in you ... Go!
+Richard Travis.... Go ... don't
+tempt me agin....&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He remembered later feeling very queer because he
+held so much gold in a bag, and it was his. Then he
+became painfully acute to the funny thing that happened,
+so funny that he had to sit down and laugh. It
+was on seeing Ben Butler rising slowly to his feet and
+shaking himself with that long powerful shake he had
+seen so often after wallowing. And the funniest thing!&mdash;two
+balls of cotton flew out of his ears, one hitting
+Flecker of Tennessee on the nose, the other Colonel
+Troup in the eye.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By Gad, sah,&rdquo; drawled Colonel Troup, &ldquo;but now,
+I see. I thought he cudn't ah been made of flesh an'
+blood, sah, why damme he's made of cotton! An' you
+saved my money, old man, an' that damned rascal's name
+by that trick? Well, you kno' what I said, sah, a gentleman
+an' his word&mdash;but&mdash;but&mdash;&rdquo; he turned quickly
+on the old man&mdash;excitedly, &ldquo;ah, here&mdash;I'll give you
+the thousand dollars I hedged now ... if you'll
+give me back my promise&mdash;damned if I don't! Won't
+do it? No? Well, it's yo' privilege. I admire yo'
+charity, it's not of this world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And then he remembered seeing Bud sitting in the
+old cart driving Ben Butler home and telling every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span>body
+what they now knew: &ldquo;<i>Great hoss&mdash;G-r-e-a-t
+hoss!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And the old horse shuffled and crow-hopped along,
+and Jack followed the Bishop carrying the gold.</p>
+
+<p>And then such a funny thing: Ben Butler, frightened
+at a mule braying in his ear, ran away and threw
+Bud out!</p>
+
+<p>When the old man heard it he sat down and laughed
+and cried&mdash;to his own disgust&mdash;&ldquo;like a fool, sissy
+man,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;a sissy man that ain't got no nerve.
+But, Lord, who'd done that but Ben Butler?&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+<h3>YOU'LL COME BACK A MAN</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">I</span>t was after dark when the old man, pale, and his knees
+still shaking with the terrible strain and excitement
+of it all, reached his cabin on the mountain.
+The cheers of the grand-stand still echoed in his ears,
+and, shut his eyes as he would, he still saw Ben Butler,
+stretched out on the track struggling for the little
+breath that was in him.</p>
+
+<p>Jack Bracken walked in behind the old man carrying
+a silken sack which sagged and looked heavy.</p>
+
+<p>The grandfather caught up Shiloh first and kissed
+her. Then he sat down with the frail form in his arms
+and looked earnestly at her with his deep piercing eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Where's the ole hoss,&rdquo; began his wife, her eyes beginning
+to snap. &ldquo;You've traded him off an' I'll bet
+you got soaked, Hillard Watts&mdash;I can tell it by that
+pesky, sheepish look in yo' eyes. You never cu'd trade
+horses an' I've allers warned you not to trade the ole
+roan.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wal, yes,&rdquo; said the Bishop. &ldquo;I've traded him for
+this&mdash;&rdquo; and his voice grew husky with emotion&mdash;&ldquo;for
+this, Tabitha, an', Jack, jes' pour it out on the table
+there.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It came out, yellow waves of gold. The light shone
+on them, and as the tired eyes of little Shiloh peeped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span>
+curiously at them, each one seemed to throw to her a
+kiss of hope, golden tipped and resplendent.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman stood dazed, and gazing sillily. Then
+she took up one of the coins and bit it gingerly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In God's name, Hillard Watts, what does all this
+mean? Why, it's genuwine gold.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It means,&rdquo; said the old man cheerily, &ldquo;that Shiloh
+an' the chillun will never go into that mill ag'in&mdash;that
+old Ben Butler has give 'em back their childhood an'
+a chance to live. It means,&rdquo; he said triumphantly,
+&ldquo;that Cap'n Tom's gwinter have the chance he's been
+entitled to all these years&mdash;an' that means that God'll
+begin to unravel the tangle that man in his meanness has
+wound up. It means, Tabitha, that you'll not have to
+wuck anymo' yo'self&mdash;no mo', as long as you live&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old woman clutched at the bed-post: &ldquo;Me?&mdash;not
+wuck anymo'? Not hunt 'sang an' spatterdock an'
+clean up an' wash an' scour an' cook an'&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, why not, Tabitha? We've got a plenty to&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He saw her clutch again at the bed-post and go down
+in a heap, saying:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lemme die&mdash;now, if I can't wuck no mo'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They lifted her on the bed and bathed her face. It
+was ten minutes before she came around and said feebly:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'm dyin', Hillard, it's kilt me to think I'll not
+have to wuck any mo'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, no, Tabitha, I wouldn't die fur that,&rdquo; he said
+soothingly. &ldquo;It's terrible suddent like, I kno', an'
+hard fur you to stan', but try to bear it, honey, fur our
+sakes. It's hard to be stricken suddent like with riches,
+an' I've never seed a patient get over it, it is true.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span>
+You'll be wantin' to change our cabin into an ole Colonial
+home, honey, an' have a carriage an' a pair of
+roached mules, an' a wantin' me to start a cotton factory
+an' jine a whis'-club, whilst you entertain the Cottontown
+Pettico't Club with high-noon teas, an' cut up a
+lot o' didoes that'll make the res' of the town laugh.
+But you mus' fight ag'in it, Tabitha, honey. We'll
+jes' try to live as we've allers lived an' not spend our
+money so as to have people talk about how we're throwin'
+it at the ducks. You can get up befo' day as usual an'
+hunt 'sang on the mountain side, and do all the other
+things you've l'arnt to do befo' breakfast.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This was most reassuring, and the old woman felt
+much better. But the next morning she complained
+bitterly:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I tested ever' one o' them yaller coins las' night,
+they mout a put a counterfeit in the lot, an' see heah,
+Hillard&mdash;&rdquo; she grinned showing her teeth&mdash;&ldquo;I wore
+my teeth to the quick a testin' 'em!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The next week, as the train took the Bishop away, he
+stood on the rear platform to cry good-bye to Shiloh
+and Jack Bracken who were down to see him off. By
+his side was a stooped figure and as the old man jingled
+some gold in his pocket he said, patting the figure on the
+back:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You'll come back a man, Cap'n Tom&mdash;thank God!
+a man ag'in!&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PART FIFTH.&mdash;THE LOOM</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<h3>A NEW MILL GIRL</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">T</span>he autumn had deepened&mdash;the cotton had been
+picked. The dry stalks, sentinelling the seared
+ground, waved their tattered remnants of unpicked
+bolls to and fro&mdash;summer's battle flags which
+had not yet fallen.</p>
+
+<p>Millwood was astir early that morning&mdash;what there
+was of it. One by one the lean hounds had arisen from
+their beds of dry leaves under the beeches, and, shaking
+themselves with that hound-shake which began at their
+noses and ended in a circular twist of their skeleton tails,
+had begun to hunt for stray eggs and garbage. Yet
+their master was already up and astir.</p>
+
+<p>He came out and took a long drink from the jug behind
+the door. He drank from the jug's mouth, and
+the gurgling echo sounded down the empty hall: <i>Guggle&mdash;guggle&mdash;gone!
+Guggle&mdash;guggle&mdash;gone!</i> It
+said to Edward Conway as plainly as if it had a voice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, you've gone&mdash;that's the last of you. Everything
+is gone,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down on his favorite chair, propped his feet
+upon the rotten balcony's rim and began to smoke.</p>
+
+<p>Within, he heard Lily sobbing. Helen was trying to
+comfort her.</p>
+
+<p>Conway glanced into the room. The oldest sister was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span>
+dressed in a plain blue cotton gown&mdash;for to-day she
+would begin work at the mill. Conway remembered it.
+He winced, but smoked on and said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Tain't no use&mdash;'tain't no use,&rdquo; sobbed the little
+one&mdash;&ldquo;My mammy's gone&mdash;gone!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Such indeed was the fact. Mammy Maria had gone.
+All that any of them knew was that only an hour before
+another black mammy had come to serve them, and all
+she would say was that she had come to take Mammy
+Maria's place&mdash;gone, and she knew not where.</p>
+
+<p>Conway winced again and then swore under his breath.
+At first he had not believed it, none of them had. But
+as the morning went on and Mammy Maria failed to
+appear, he accepted it, saying: &ldquo;Jus' like a niggah&mdash;who
+ever heard of any of them havin' any gratitude!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Helen was too deeply numbed by the thought of the
+mill to appreciate fully her new sorrow. All she knew&mdash;all
+she seemed to feel&mdash;was, that go to the mill she
+must&mdash;go&mdash;go&mdash;and Lily might cry and the world
+might go utterly to ruin&mdash;as her own life was going:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I want my mammy&mdash;I want my mammy,&rdquo; sobbed
+the little one.</p>
+
+<p>Then the mother instinct of Helen&mdash;that latent
+motherhood which is in every one of her sex, however
+young&mdash;however old&mdash;asserted itself for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>She soothed the younger child: &ldquo;Never mind, Lily,
+I am going to the mill only to learn my lesson this week&mdash;next
+week you shall go with me. We will not be
+separated after that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I want my mammy&mdash;oh, I want my mammy,&rdquo; was
+all Lily could say.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Breakfast was soon over and then the hour came&mdash;the
+hour when Helen Conway would begin her new life.
+This thought&mdash;and this only&mdash;burned into her soul:
+To-day her disgrace began. She was no longer a Conway.
+The very barriers of her birth, that which had
+been thrown around her to distinguish her from the
+common people, had been broken down. The foundation
+of her faith was shattered with it.</p>
+
+<p>For the last time, as a Conway, she looked at the fields
+of Millwood&mdash;at the grim peak of Sunset Rock above&mdash;the
+shadowed wood below. Until then she did not know
+it made such a difference in the way she looked at things.
+But now she saw it and with it the ruin, the abandonment
+of every hope, every ambition of her life. As she
+stood upon the old porch before starting for the mill,
+she felt that she was without a creed and without a principle.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I would do anything,&rdquo; she cried bitterly&mdash;&ldquo;I care
+for nothing. If I am tempted I shall steal, I know I
+shall&mdash;I know I shall&rdquo;&mdash;she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>It is a dangerous thing to change environments for
+the worse. It is more dangerous still to break down
+the moral barrier, however frail it may be, which our
+conscience has built between the good and the evil in us.
+Some, reared under laws that are loose, may withstand
+this barrier breaking and be no worse for the change;
+but in the case of those with whom this barrier of their
+moral belief stands securely between conscience and forbidden
+paths, let it fall, and all the best of them will
+fall with it.</p>
+
+<p>For with them there are no degrees in degradation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span>&mdash;no
+caste in the world of sin. Headlong they rush to
+moral ruin. And there are those like Helen Conway,
+too blinded by the environment of birth to know that
+work is not degradation. To them it is the lowering
+of every standard of their lives, standards which idleness
+has erected. And idleness builds strange standards.</p>
+
+<p>If it had occurred to Helen Conway&mdash;if she had been
+reared to know that to work honestly for an honest living
+was the noblest thing in life, how different would
+it all have been!</p>
+
+<p>And so at last what is right and what is wrong depend
+more upon what has gone before than what follows
+after. It is more a question of pedigree and environment
+than of trials and temptations.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I shall steal,&rdquo; she repeated&mdash;&ldquo;oh, I know I shall.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And yet, as her father drove her in the old shambling
+buggy across the hill road to the town, there stood out in
+her mind one other picture which lingered there all day
+and for many days. She could not forget it nor cast it
+from her, and in spite of all her sorrow it uplifted her
+as she had been uplifted at times before when, reading
+the country newspaper, there had blossomed among its
+dry pages the perfume of a stray poem, whose incense
+entered into her soul of souls.</p>
+
+<p>It was a young man in his shirt sleeves, his face
+flushed with work, his throat bare, plowing on the slope
+of the hillside for the fall sowing of wheat.</p>
+
+<p>What a splendid picture he was, silhouetted in the rising
+sun against the pink and purple background of
+sunbeams!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was Clay Westmore, and he waved his hand in his
+slow, calm forceful way as he saw her go by.</p>
+
+<p>It was a little thing, but it comforted her. She remembered
+it long.</p>
+
+<p>The mill had been running several hours when Kingsley
+looked up, and saw standing before him at his office
+window a girl of such stately beauty that he stood looking
+sillily at her, and wondering.</p>
+
+<p>He did not remember very clearly afterwards anything
+except this first impression; that her hair was
+plaited in two rich coils upon her head, and that never
+before had he seen so much beauty in a gingham dress.</p>
+
+<p>He remembered, too, that her eyes, which held him
+spellbound, wore more an expression of despair and
+even desperation than of youthful hope. He could not
+understand why they looked that way, forerunners as
+they were of such a face and hair.</p>
+
+<p>And so he stood, sillily smiling, until Richard Travis
+arose from his desk and came forward to meet her.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded at him and tried to smile, but Kingsley
+noticed that it died away into drawn, hard lines around
+her pretty mouth.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is Miss Conway,&rdquo; he said to Kingsley, taking her
+hand familiarly and holding it until she withdrew it with
+a conscious touch of embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She is one of my neighbors, and, by the way, Kingsley,
+she must have the best place in the mill.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Kingsley continued to look sillily at her. He had
+not heard of Helen&mdash;he did not understand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A place in the mill&mdash;ah, let me see,&rdquo; he said
+thoughtfully.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I've been thinking it out,&rdquo; went on Travis, &ldquo;and
+there is a drawing-in machine ready for her. I understand
+Maggie is going to quit on account of her health.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I, ah&mdash;&rdquo; began Kingsley&mdash;&ldquo;Er&mdash;well, I never
+heard of a beginner starting on a drawing-in machine.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have instructed Maggie to teach her,&rdquo; said Travis
+shortly. Then he beckoned to Helen: &ldquo;Come.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She followed Richard Travis through the mill. He
+watched her as she stepped in among the common herd
+of people&mdash;the way at first in which she threw up her
+head in splendid scorn. Never had he seen her so beautiful.
+Never had he desired to own her so much as
+then.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The exquisite, grand thing,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;And
+I shall&mdash;she shall be mine.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then her head sank again with a little crushed smile
+of helpless pity and resignation. It touched even
+Travis, and he said, consolingly, to her:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are too beautiful to have to do this and you
+shall not&mdash;for long. You were born to be queen of&mdash;well,
+The Gaffs, eh?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He laughed and then he touched boldly her hair which
+lay splendidly around her temples.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him resignedly, then she flushed to her
+eyes and followed him.</p>
+
+<p>The drawer-in is to the loom what the architect is to
+the building. And more&mdash;it is both architect and
+foundation, for as the threads are drawn in so must the
+cloth be.</p>
+
+<p>The work is tedious and requires skill, patience, quickness,
+and that nicety of judgment which comes with in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span>tellect
+of a higher order than is commonly found in
+the mill. For that reason the drawer-in is removed
+from the noise of the main room&mdash;she sits with another
+drawer-in in a quiet, little room nearby, and, with
+her trained fingers, she draws in through the eyelets the
+threads, which set the warp.</p>
+
+<p>Maggie was busy, but she greeted him with a quaint,
+friendly little smile. Helen noticed two things about
+her at once: that there was a queer bright light in her
+eyes, and that beneath them glowed two bright red spots,
+which, when Travis approached, deepened quickly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I am going to leave the mill,&rdquo; she said, after
+Travis had left them together. &ldquo;I jus' can't stan' it
+any longer. Mother is dead, you know, an' father is an
+invalid. I've five little brothers and sisters at home.
+I couldn't bear to see them die in here. It's awful on
+children, you know. So I've managed to keep 'em
+a-goin' until&mdash;well&mdash;I've saved enough an' with the
+help of&mdash;a&mdash;a&mdash;friend&mdash;you see&mdash;a very near
+friend&mdash;I've managed to get us a little farm. We're
+all goin' to it next week. Oh, yes, of course, I'll be
+glad to teach you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She glanced at Helen's hands and smiled: &ldquo;Yo'
+hands don't look like they're used to work. They're so
+white and beautiful.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Helen was pleased. Her fingers were tapering and
+beautiful, and she knew her hands were the hands of
+many generations of ladies.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have to make a living for myself now,&rdquo; she said
+with a dash of bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If I looked like you,&rdquo; said Maggie, slyly and yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span>
+frankly, &ldquo;I'd do something in keeping with my place.
+I can't bear to think of anybody like you bein' here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Helen was silent and Maggie saw that the tears were
+ready to start. She saw her half sob and she patted
+her cheek in a motherly way as she said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, but I didn't mean to hurt you so. Only I do
+hate so to see&mdash;oh, I am silly, I suppose, because I am
+going to get out of this terrible, terrible grind.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Her pale face flushed and she coughed, as she bent
+over her work to show Helen how to draw in the threads.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, I'm a good drawer-in, an' he said onct&rdquo;&mdash;she
+nodded at the door from which Travis had gone out&mdash;&ldquo;that
+I was the best in the worl'; the whole worl'.&rdquo;
+She blushed slightly. &ldquo;But, well&mdash;I've made no fortune
+yet&mdash;an' somehow, in yo' case now&mdash;you see&mdash;somehow
+I feel sorter 'fraid&mdash;about you&mdash;like somethin'
+awful was goin' to happen to you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why&mdash;what&mdash;&rdquo; began Helen, surprised.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, it ain't nothin',&rdquo; she said trying to be cheerful&mdash;&ldquo;I'll
+soon get over this ... out in the air. I'm
+weak now and I think it makes me nervous an' skeery.... I'll
+throw it off that quick,&rdquo; she snapped her
+fingers&mdash;&ldquo;out in the open air again&mdash;out on the little
+farm.&rdquo; She was silent, as if trying to turn the subject,
+but she went back to it again. &ldquo;You don't know how
+I've longed for this&mdash;to get away from the mill. It's
+day in an' day out here an' shut up like a convict. It
+ain't natural&mdash;it can't be&mdash;it ain't nature. If anybody
+thinks it is, let 'em look at them little things over
+on the other side,&rdquo; and she nodded toward the main room.
+&ldquo;Why, them little tots work twelve hours a day an'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span>
+sometimes mo'. Who ever heard of children workin' at
+all befo' these things come into the country? Now, I've
+no objection to 'em, only that they ought to work grown
+folks an' not children. They may kill me if they can,&rdquo;
+she laughed,&mdash;&ldquo;I am grown, an' can stan' it, but I
+can't bear to think of 'em killin' my little brothers an'
+sisters&mdash;they're entitled to live until they get grown
+anyway.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She stopped to cough and to show Helen how to untangle
+some threads.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, but they can't hurt me,&rdquo; she laughed, as if
+ashamed of her cough; &ldquo;this is bothersome, but it won't
+last long after I get out on the little farm.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She stopped talking and fell to her work, and for two
+hours she showed Helen just how to draw the threads
+through, to shift the machine, to untangle the tangled
+threads.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly time to go home when Travis came to
+see how Helen was progressing. He came up behind the
+two girls and stood looking at them work. When they
+looked up Maggie started and reddened and Helen saw
+her tighten her thin lips in a peculiar way while the
+blood flew from them, leaving a thin white oval ring in
+the red that flushed her face.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are doing finely,&rdquo; he said to Helen&mdash;&ldquo;you
+will make a swift drawer-in.&rdquo; He stooped over and
+whispered: &ldquo;Such fingers and hands would draw in
+anything&mdash;even hearts.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Helen blushed and looked quickly at Maggie, over
+whose face the pinched look had come again, but Maggie
+was busy at her machine.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I remember when I came here five years ago,&rdquo; went
+on Maggie after Travis had left, &ldquo;I was so proud an'
+happy. I was healthy an' well an' so happy to think
+I cu'd make a livin' for the home-folks&mdash;for daddy
+an' the little ones. Oh, they would put them in the
+mill, but I said no, I'll work my fingers off first. Let
+'em play an' grow. Yes, they've lived on what I have
+made for five years&mdash;daddy down on his back, too,
+an' the children jus' growin', an' now they are big
+enough and strong enough to he'p me run the little
+farm&mdash;instead&rdquo;&mdash;she said after a pause&mdash;&ldquo;instead
+of bein' dead an' buried, killed in the mill. That was
+five years ago&mdash;five years&rdquo;&mdash;she coughed and looked
+out of the window reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Daddy&mdash;poor daddy&mdash;he couldn't help the tree
+fallin' on his back an' cripplin' him; an' little Buddy,
+well, he was born weakly, so I done it all. Oh, I am not
+braggin' an' I ain't complainin', I'm so proud to do it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Helen was silent, her own bitterness softened by the
+story Maggie was telling, and for a while she forgot herself
+and her sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>It is so always. When we would weep we have only
+to look around and see others who would wail.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When I come I was as rosy as you,&rdquo; Maggie went
+on; &ldquo;not so pretty now, mind you&mdash;nobody could be
+as pretty as you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She said it simply, but it touched Helen.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But I'll get my color back on the little farm&mdash;I'll
+be well again.&rdquo; She was silent a while. &ldquo;I kno' you
+are wonderin' how I saved and got it.&rdquo; Helen saw her
+face sparkle and the spots deepen. &ldquo;Mr. Travis has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span>
+been so kind to me in&mdash;in other ways&mdash;but that's a
+big secret,&rdquo; she laughed, &ldquo;I'm to tell you some day, or
+rather you'll see yo'self, an' then, oh&mdash;every thing will
+be all right an' I'll be ever so much happier than I am
+now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She jumped up impulsively and stood before Helen.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mightn't I kiss you once,&mdash;you're so pretty an'
+fresh?&rdquo; And she kissed the pretty girl half timidly on
+the cheek.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It makes me so happy to think of it,&rdquo; she went on
+excitedly, &ldquo;to think of owning a little farm all by ourselves,
+to go out into the air every day whenever you
+feel like it and not have to work in the mill, nor ask
+anybody if you may, but jus' go out an' see things
+grow&mdash;an' hear the birds sing and set under the pretty
+green trees an' gather wild flowers if you want to. To
+keep house an' to clean up an' cook instead of forever
+drawin'-in, an' to have a real flower garden of yo' own&mdash;yo'
+very own.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They worked for hours, Maggie talking as a child
+who had found at last a sympathetic listener. Twilight
+came and then a clang of bells and the shaft above
+them began to turn slower and slower. Helen looked
+up wondering why it had all stopped so suddenly. She
+met the eyes of Travis looking at her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am to take you home,&rdquo; he said to her, &ldquo;the
+trotters are at the door. Oh,&rdquo; as he looked at her work&mdash;&ldquo;why,
+you have done first rate for the day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's Maggie's,&rdquo; she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>He had not seen Maggie and he stood looking at Helen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span>
+with such passionate, patronizing, commanding, masterful
+eyes, that she shrank for a moment, sideways.</p>
+
+<p>Then he laughed: &ldquo;How beautiful you are! There
+are queens born and queens made&mdash;I shall call you the
+queen of the mill, eh?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He reached out and tried to take her hand, but she
+shrank behind the machine and then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Maggie!&rdquo; she exclaimed&mdash;for the girl's face
+was now white and she stood with a strained mouth as if
+ready to sob.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Maggie's a good little girl,&rdquo; said Travis, catching
+her hand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, please don't&mdash;please&rdquo;&mdash;said Maggie.</p>
+
+<p>Then she walked out, drawing her thin shawl around
+her.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<h3>IN THE DEPTHS</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">A</span>ll the week the two girls worked together at the
+mill; a week which was to Helen one long nightmare,
+filled, as it was, with the hum and roar of
+machinery, the hot breath of the mill, and worst of all,
+the seared and deadening thought that she was disgraced.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning she entered the mill hoping it might
+fall on and destroy her. At night she went home to
+a drunken father and a little sister who needed, in her
+childish sorrow, all the pity and care of the elder one.</p>
+
+<p>And one night her father, being more brutal than
+ever, had called out as Helen came in: &ldquo;Come in, my
+mill-girl!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis always drove her home, and each night
+he became more familiar and more masterful. She felt,&mdash;she
+knew&mdash;that she was falling under his fascinating
+influence.</p>
+
+<p>And worse than all, she knew she did not care.</p>
+
+<p>There is a depth deeper even than the sin&mdash;the depth
+where the doer ceases to care.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, she was beginning to make herself believe that
+she loved him&mdash;as he said he wished her to do&mdash;and
+as he loved her, he said; and with what he said and what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span>
+he hinted she dreamed beautiful, desperate dreams of the
+future.</p>
+
+<p>She did not wonder, then, that on one drive she had
+permitted him to hold her hand in his. What a strong
+hand it was, and how could so weak a hand as her's resist
+it? And all the time he had talked so beautifully
+and had quoted Browning and Keats. And finally he
+had told her that she had only to say the word, and leave
+the mill with him forever.</p>
+
+<p>But where, she did not even care&mdash;only to get
+away from the mill, from her disgrace, from her drunken
+father, from her wretched life.</p>
+
+<p>And another night, when he had helped her out of
+the buggy, and while she was close to him and looking
+downward, he had bent over her and kissed her on the
+neck, where her hair had been gathered up and had
+left it white and fair and unprotected. And it sent a
+hot flame of shame to the depths of her brain, but she
+could only look up and say&mdash;&ldquo;Oh, please don't&mdash;please
+don't, Mr. Travis,&rdquo; and then dart quickly into the
+old gate and run to her home.</p>
+
+<p>But within it was only to meet the taunts and sneers
+of her father that brought again the hot Conway blood
+in defying anger to her face, and then she had turned
+and rushed back to the gate which Travis had just left,
+crying:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Take me now&mdash;anywhere&mdash;anywhere. Carry me
+away from here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But she heard only the sound of his trotters' feet up
+the road, and overcome with the reflective anguish of it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span>
+all, she had tottered and dropped beneath the tree upon
+the grass&mdash;dropped to weep.</p>
+
+<p>After a while she sat up, and going down the long
+path to the old spring, she bathed her face and hands
+in its cool depths. Then she sat upon a rock which
+jutted out into the water. It calmed her to sit there and
+feel the rush of the air from below, upon her hot cheeks
+and her swollen eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The moon shone brightly, lighting up the water, the
+rocks which held the spring pool within their fortress of
+gray, and the long green path of water-cresses, stretching
+away and showing where the spring branch ran to
+the pasture.</p>
+
+<p>Glancing down, she saw her own image in the water,
+and she smiled to see how beautiful it was. There was
+her hair hanging splendidly down her back, and in the
+mirror of water beneath she saw it was tinged with that
+divine color which had set the Roman world afire in Cleopatra's
+days. But then, there was her dress&mdash;her mill
+dress.</p>
+
+<p>She sighed&mdash;she looked up at the stars. They always
+filled her with great waves of wonder and reverence.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is mother in one of you?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Oh,
+mother, why were you taken from your two little girls?
+and if the dead are immortal, can they forget us of
+earth? Can they be indifferent to our fate? How
+could they be happy if they knew&mdash;&rdquo; She stopped and
+looking up, picked out a single star that shone brighter
+than the others, clinging so close to the top of Sunset
+Rock as to appear a setting to his crown.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I will imagine she is there&rdquo;&mdash;she whispered&mdash;&ldquo;in
+that world&mdash;O mother&mdash;mother&mdash;will you&mdash;cannot
+you help me?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She was weeping and had to bathe her face again.
+Then another impulse seized her&mdash;an impulse of childhood.
+Pulling off her stockings, she dipped her feet in
+the cool water and splashed them around in sheer delight.</p>
+
+<p>The moonbeams falling on them under the water
+turned the pink into white, and she smiled to see how like
+the pictures of Diana her ankles looked.</p>
+
+<p>She had forgotten that the old spring was near the
+public road and that the rail fence was old and fallen.
+Her revery was interrupted by a bantering, half drunken,
+jolly laugh:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I must say I never saw anything quite so
+pretty!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She sprang up in shame. Leaning on the old fence,
+she saw Harry Travis, a roguish smile on his face. She
+thought she would run, then she remembered her bare
+feet and she sat down on the grass, covering her ankles
+with her skirt. At first she wanted to cry, then she
+grew indignant as he came tipsily toward her and sat
+down by her side.</p>
+
+<p>She was used to the smell of whiskey on the breath.
+Its slightest odor she knew instantly. To her it was the
+smell of death.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Got to the Gov'nor's private bottle to-night,&rdquo; he
+said familiarly, &ldquo;and took a couple of cocktails. Going
+over to see Nellie, but couldn't resist such beauties as&rdquo;&mdash;he
+pointed to her feet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was mean of you to slip upon me as you did,&rdquo; she
+said. Then she turned the scorn of her eyes on him
+and coolly looked him over, the weak face, the boyish,
+half funny smile, the cynical eyes,&mdash;trying to be a man
+of the world and too weak to know what it all meant.</p>
+
+<p>The Conway spirit had come to her&mdash;it always did
+in a critical moment. She no longer blushed or even
+feared him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How, how,&rdquo; she said slowly and looking him steadily
+over, &ldquo;did I ever love such a thing as you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He moved up closer. &ldquo;You will have to kiss me for
+that,&rdquo; he said angrily. &ldquo;I've kissed you so often I
+know just how to do it,&rdquo; and he made an attempt to
+throw his arms around her.</p>
+
+<p>She sprang away from him into the spring branch,
+standing knee deep in the water and among the water-cresses.</p>
+
+<p>He arose hot with insolence: &ldquo;Oh, you think you
+are too good for me now&mdash;now that the Gov'nor has
+set his heart on you. Damn him&mdash;you were mine before
+you were his. He may have you, but he will take
+you with Cassius' kisses on your lips.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He sprang forward, reached over the rock and seized
+her by the arm. But she jerked away from him and
+sprang back into the deeper water of the spring. She
+did not scream, but it seemed that her heart would burst
+with shame and anger. She thought of Ophelia, and
+as she looked down into the water she wiped away indifferently
+and silently the cool drops which had splashed
+up into her face, and she wondered if she might not be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span>
+able to drop down flat and drown herself there, and thus
+end it all.</p>
+
+<p>He had come to the edge of the rock and stood leering
+drunkenly down on her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I love you,&rdquo; he laughed ironically.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hate you,&rdquo; she said, looking up steadily into his
+eyes and moving back out of his reach.</p>
+
+<p>The water had wet her dress, and she stooped and
+dipped some of it up and bathed her hot cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll kiss you if I have to wade into that spring.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If I had a brother,&mdash;oh, if I even had a father,&rdquo;
+she said, looking at him with a flash of Conway fire in
+her eyes&mdash;&ldquo;and you did&mdash;you would not live till
+morning&mdash;you know you wouldn't.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She stood now knee-deep in water. Above her the
+half-drunken boy, standing on the rock which projected
+into the spring, emboldened with drink and maddened
+by the thought that she had so easily given him up,
+had reached out and seized her around the neck. He
+was rough, and it choked her as he drew her to him.</p>
+
+<p>She screamed for the first time&mdash;for she thought she
+heard hoof beats coming down the road; then she heard
+a horseman clear the low fence and spur into the spring
+branch. The water from the horse's feet splashed over
+her. She remembered it only faintly&mdash;the big glasses&mdash;the
+old straw hat,&mdash;the leathern bag of samples
+around his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Most unusual,&rdquo; she heard him say, with more calmness
+it seemed to Helen than ever: &ldquo;Quite unusual&mdash;insultingly
+so!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively she held up her arms and he stooped in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span>
+the saddle and lifted her up and set her on the stone
+curbing on the side farthest from Harry Travis.</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned and very deliberately reached over
+and seized Harry Travis, who stood on the rock, nearly
+on a line with the pommel of the saddle. But the hand
+that gripped the back of Harry's neck was anything
+but gentle. It closed around the neck at the base of
+the brain, burying its fingers in the back muscles with
+paralyzing pain and jerked him face downward across
+the saddle with a motion so swift that he was there before
+he knew it. Then another hand seized him and
+rammed his mouth, as he lay across the pommel of the
+saddle, into the sweaty shoulders below the horse's
+withers, and he felt the horse move out and into the
+road and up to the crossing of the ways just as a buggy
+and two fast bay mares came around the corner.</p>
+
+<p>The driver of the bays stopped as he saw his cousin
+thrown like a pig over the pommel and held there kicking
+and cursing.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I was looking for him,&rdquo; said Richard Travis quietly,
+&ldquo;but I would like to know what it all means.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The big glasses shone in kindly humor. They did not
+reflect any excitement in the eyes behind them.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am afraid it means that he is drunk. Perhaps he
+will tell you about it. Quite unusual, I must say&mdash;he
+seemed to be trying to drown a young lady in a spring.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He eased his burden over the saddle and dropped him
+into the road.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis took it in instantly, and as Clay rode
+away he heard the cousin say: &ldquo;You damned yellow
+cur&mdash;to bear the name of Travis.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<h3>WORK IN A NEW LIGHT</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">I</span>t was an hour before Clay Westmore rode back to
+Millwood. He had been too busy plowing that
+day to get, sooner, a specimen of the rock he had
+seen out-cropping on Sand Mountain. At night, after
+supper, he had ridden over for it.</p>
+
+<p>And now by moonlight he had found it!</p>
+
+<p>He flushed with the strength of it all as he put it in
+his satchel&mdash;the strength of knowing that not even
+poverty, nor work, nor night could keep him from accomplishing
+his purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Then he rode back, stopping at Millwood. For he
+thought, too, that he might see Helen, and while he
+had resolved not to force himself on her after what she
+had said when he last saw her, still he wished very much
+to see her now and then.</p>
+
+<p>For somehow, it never got out of his deductive head
+that some day she would learn to love him. Had he
+known the temptation, the despair that was hers, he
+would not have been so quietly deliberate. But she had
+never told him. In fact, he had loved her from a
+distance all his life in his quiet way, though now, by
+her decree, they were scarcely more than the best of
+friends. Some day, after he had earned enough, he
+would tell her just how much he loved her. At present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span>
+he could not, for was he not too poor, and were not his
+mother and sister dependent upon him?</p>
+
+<p>He knew that Harry Travis loved her in a way&mdash;a
+love he was certain would not last, and in the fullness
+and depths of his sincere nature, he felt as sure of ultimately
+winning her, by sheer force of strength, of consistency
+and devotion, as he was that every great thing
+in life had been done by the same force and would be to
+the end of time.</p>
+
+<p>As sure as that, by this same force, he, himself, would
+one day discover the vein of coal which lay somewhere
+in the beautiful valley of the Tennessee.</p>
+
+<p>And so he waited his time with the easy assurance of
+the philosopher which he was, and with that firm faith
+which minds of his strength always have in themselves
+and their ultimate success.</p>
+
+<p>It surprised him, it is true&mdash;hurt him&mdash;when he
+found to what extent Harry Travis had succeeded in
+winning the love of Helen. He was hurt because he expected&mdash;hoped&mdash;she
+would see further into things
+than she had. And counting all the poverty and hardships
+of his life, the Sunday afternoon when he had left
+her in the arbor, after she had told him she was engaged
+to Harry Travis, he could not remember when anything
+had been so hard for him to bear. Later he had heard
+how she had gone to work in the mill, and he knew that
+it meant an end of her love affair with Harry.</p>
+
+<p>To-night something told him it was time to see her
+again, not to tell her of his own love, and how it would
+never change, whether she was mill girl or the mistress
+of Millwood, but to encourage her in the misery of it all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Work&mdash;and did not he himself love to work? Was
+it not the noblest thing of life?</p>
+
+<p>He would tell her it was.</p>
+
+<p>He was surprised when he saw what had just happened;
+but all his life he had controlled himself to such a
+degree that in critical moments he was coolest; and so
+what with another might have been a serious affair, he
+had turned into half retributive fun, but the deadliest
+punishment, as it afterwards turned out, that he could
+have inflicted on a temperament and nature such as
+Harry Travis'. For that young man, unable to stand
+the gibes of the neighborhood and the sarcasm of his
+uncle when it all became known, accepted a position in
+another town and never came back again.</p>
+
+<p>To have been shot or floored in true melodramatic
+style by his rival, as he stood on a rock with a helpless
+girl in his clutch, would have been more to his liking
+than to be picked up bodily, by the nape of his neck,
+and taken from the scene of his exploits like a pig across
+a saddle.</p>
+
+<p>That kind of a combat did not meet his ideas of
+chivalry.</p>
+
+<p>Helen was dressed in her prettiest gown when Clay
+rode back to Millwood, after securing the samples he
+had started for. She knew he was coming and so she
+tied a white scarf over her head and went again to her
+favorite seat beneath the trees.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't know how to thank you, Clay,&rdquo; she said, as
+he swung down from his saddle and threw his leathern
+bag on the grass.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, you look more like yourself,&rdquo; he smiled ad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span>miringly,
+as he looked down on her white dress and
+auburn hair, drooping low over her neck and shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me about yourself and how you like it at the
+mill,&rdquo; he went on as he sat down.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you will not be willing to speak to me now&mdash;now
+that I am a mill-girl,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;Do you know?
+Clay&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I know that, aside from being beautiful, you have
+just begun to be truly womanly in my sight.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Clay, do you really think that? It is the first
+good word that has been spoken to me since&mdash;since my&mdash;disgrace.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He turned quickly: &ldquo;Your disgrace! Do you call
+it disgrace to work&mdash;to make an honest living&mdash;to be
+independent and self-reliant?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He picked up his bag of samples and she saw that his
+hands had become hard and sunburnt from the plow
+handles.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Helen,&rdquo; he went on earnestly, &ldquo;that is one of the
+hide-bound tyrannies that must be banished from our
+Southland&mdash;banished as that other tyranny, slavery,
+has been banished&mdash;a sin, which, with no fault of our
+own, we inherited from the centuries. We shall never
+be truly great&mdash;as God intended we should be great&mdash;until
+we learn to work. We have the noblest and sunniest
+of lands, with more resources than man now dreams
+of, a greater future than we know of if we will only
+work&mdash;work and develop them. You have set an example
+for every girl in the South who has been thrown
+upon her own resources. Never before in my life have
+I cared&mdash;so&mdash;much&mdash;for you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And he blushed as he said it, and fumbled his samples.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then you do care some for me?&rdquo; she asked pleadingly.
+She was heart-sick for sympathy and did not
+know just what she said.</p>
+
+<p>He flushed and started to speak. He looked at her,
+and his big glasses quivered with the suppressed emotions
+which lay behind them in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>But he saw that she did not love him, that she was
+begging for sympathy and not for love. Besides, what
+right had he to plan to bring another to share his poverty?</p>
+
+<p>He mounted his horse as one afraid to trust himself
+to stay longer. But he touched her hair in his awkward,
+funny way, before he swung himself into the
+saddle, and Helen, as she went into the desolate home,
+felt uplifted as never before.</p>
+
+<p>Never before had she seen work in that light&mdash;nor
+love.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<h3>MAGGIE</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">I</span>t was Maggie's last day at the mill, and she had
+been unusually thoughtful. Her face was more
+pinched, Helen thought, and the sadness in her
+eyes had increased.</p>
+
+<p>Helen had proved to be an apt pupil, and Maggie
+declared that thereafter she would be able to run her
+machine without assistance.</p>
+
+<p>It was Saturday noon and Maggie was ready to go,
+though the mill did not shut down until six that day.
+And so she found herself standing and looking with
+tearful eyes at the machine she had learned to love, at
+the little room in which she had worked so long, supporting
+her invalid father and her little ones&mdash;as
+she motherly called the children. It had been hard&mdash;so
+hard, and the years had been long and she
+was so weak now, compared to what she had been. How
+happy she had thought the moment of her leaving
+would be; and yet now that it had come&mdash;now&mdash;she
+was weeping.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I didn't think,&rdquo; she said to Helen&mdash;&ldquo;I didn't think
+I'd&mdash;I'd care so to leave it&mdash;when&mdash;when&mdash;the time&mdash;came.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She turned and brushed away her tears in time to see
+Travis come smiling up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Maggie,&rdquo; he said playfully flipping the tip
+of her ear as he passed her. &ldquo;I thought you left us
+yesterday afternoon. You'll not be forgetting us now
+that you will not see us again, will you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She flushed and Helen heard her say: &ldquo;Forget you&mdash;ever?
+Oh, please, Mr. Travis&mdash;&rdquo; and her voice
+trembled.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, tut,&rdquo; he said, frowning quickly&mdash;&ldquo;nothing
+like that here. Of course, you will hate to leave the
+old mill and the old machine. Come, Maggie, you
+needn't wait&mdash;you're a good girl&mdash;we all know that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Helen and watched her as she drew in
+the threads. Her head was bent over, and her great
+coil of hair sat upon it like a queen on a throne.</p>
+
+<p>What a neck and throat she had&mdash;what a beautiful
+queenly manner!</p>
+
+<p>Travis smiled an amused smile when he thought of
+it&mdash;an ironical sneering smile; but he felt, as he stood
+there, that the girl had fascinated him in a strange way,
+and now that she was in his power, &ldquo;now that Fate, or
+God has combined to throw her into my arms&mdash;almost
+unasked for&mdash;is it possible that I am beginning to fall
+in love with her?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He had forgotten Maggie and stood looking at Helen.
+And in that look Maggie saw it all. He heard her sit
+down suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I would go if I were you, Maggie&mdash;you are a
+good girl and we shall not forget you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;May I stay a little while longer?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;I
+won't ever come back any more, you know.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis turned quickly and walked off. He came back
+and spoke to Helen.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Remember, I am to take you home to-night. But
+it will be later than usual, on account of the pay-roll.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As he shut the door Maggie turned, and her heart
+being too full to speak, she came forward and dropped
+on her knees, burying her face in Helen's lap. &ldquo;You
+must not notice me,&rdquo; she said&mdash;&ldquo;don't&mdash;don't&mdash;oh,
+don't look at me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Helen stroked her cheek and finally she was quiet.</p>
+
+<p>Then she looked into Helen's face. &ldquo;Do you know&mdash;oh,
+will you mind if I speak to you&mdash;or perhaps I
+shouldn't&mdash;but&mdash;but&mdash;don't you see that he loves
+you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Helen reddened to her ears.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am foolish&mdash;sick&mdash;nervous&mdash;I know I am silly
+an' yet I don't see how he could help it&mdash;you are so
+queenly&mdash;beautiful&mdash;so different from any that are
+here. He&mdash;he&mdash;has forgotten me&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Helen looked at her quickly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, I don't understand,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I mean,&rdquo; she stammered, &ldquo;he used to notice us common
+girls&mdash;me and the others&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't understand you,&rdquo; said Helen, half indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, don't pay no 'tention to me,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I, I
+fear I am sick, you know&mdash;sicker than I thought,&rdquo; and
+she coughed violently.</p>
+
+<p>She lay with her head in Helen's lap. &ldquo;Please,&rdquo; she
+said timidly, looking up into Helen's face at last&mdash;&ldquo;please
+let me stay this way a while. I never knew a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span>
+mother&mdash;nobody has ever let me do this befo', an' I am
+so happy for it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Helen stroked her face and hair anew, and Maggie
+kneeled looking up at her eagerly, earnestly, hungrily,
+scanning every feature of the prettier girl with worshipping
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How could he he'p it&mdash;how could he he'p it,&rdquo; she
+said softly&mdash;&ldquo;yes&mdash;yes&mdash;you are his equal and so
+beautiful.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't understand you, Maggie&mdash;indeed I do
+not.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Maggie arose quickly: &ldquo;Good-bye&mdash;let me kiss you
+once mo'&mdash;I feel like I'll never see you again&mdash;an'&mdash;an'&mdash;I've
+learned to love you so!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Helen raised her head and kissed her.</p>
+
+<p>Then Maggie passed quickly out, and with her eyes
+only did she look back and utter a farewell which carried
+with it both a kiss and a tear. And something else
+which was a warning.</p>
+
+<p>And Helen never forgot.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span></p>
+<h3>PAY-DAY</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">I</span>t was Saturday afternoon and pay-day, and the mill
+shut down at six o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>When Helen went in Kingsley sat at the Superintendent's
+desk, issuing orders on the Secretary and
+Treasurer, Richard Travis, who sat at his desk near by
+and paid the wages in silver.</p>
+
+<p>Connected with the mill was a large commissary or
+store&mdash;a cheap modern structure which stood in another
+part of the town, filled with the necessaries of life
+as well as the flimsy gewgaws which delight the heart
+of the average mill hand. In establishing this store,
+the directors followed the usual custom of cotton-mills
+in smaller towns of the South; paying their employees
+part in money and part in warrants on the store. It is
+needless to add that the prices paid for the goods were,
+in most cases, high enough to cut the wages to the
+proper margin. If there was any balance at the end
+of the month, it was paid in money.</p>
+
+<p>Kingsley personally supervised this store, and his
+annual report to the directors was one of the strong
+financial things of his administration.</p>
+
+<p>A crowd of factory hands stood around his desk, and
+the Superintendent was busy issuing orders on the store,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span>
+or striking a balance for the Secretary and Treasurer
+to pay in silver.</p>
+
+<p>They stood around tired, wretched, lint- and dust-covered,
+but expectant. Few were there compared with
+the number employed; for the wages of the minors went
+to their parents, and as minors included girls under
+eighteen and boys under twenty-one, their parents were
+there to receive their wages for them.</p>
+
+<p>These children belonged to them as mercilessly as if
+they had been slaves, and despite the ties of blood, no
+master ever more relentlessly collected and appropriated
+the wages of his slaves than did the parents the pitiful
+wages of their children.</p>
+
+<p>There are two great whippers-in in the child slavery
+of the South&mdash;the mills which employ the children and
+the parents who permit it&mdash;encourage it. Of these two
+the parents are often the worse, for, since the late enactment
+of child labor laws, they do not hesitate to stultify
+themselves by false affidavits as to the child's real age.</p>
+
+<p>Kingsley had often noticed how promptly and even
+proudly the girls, after reaching eighteen, and the boys
+twenty-one, had told him hereafter to place their wages
+to their own credit, and not to the parent's. They
+seemed to take a new lease on life. Decrepit, drawn-faced,
+hump-shouldered and dried up before their time,
+the few who reached the age when the law made them
+their own masters, looked not like men and women who
+stand on the threshold of life, but rather like over-worked
+middle-aged beings of another period.</p>
+
+<p>Yet that day their faces put on a brighter look.</p>
+
+<p>They stood around the office desk, awaiting their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span>
+turn. The big engine had ceased to throb and the shuttles
+to clatter and whirl. The mill was so quiet that
+those who had, year in and year out, listened to its clatter
+and hum, seemed to think some overhanging calamity
+was about to drop out of the sky of terrible calm.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Janette Smith,&rdquo; called out Kingsley.</p>
+
+<p>She came forward, a bony, stoop-shouldered woman
+of thirty-five years who had been a spooler since she was
+fifteen.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Seventy-seven hours for the week&rdquo;&mdash;he went on
+mechanically, studying the time book, &ldquo;making six dollars
+and sixteen cents. Rent deducted two dollars.
+Wood thirty-five cents. Due commissary for goods furnished&mdash;here,
+Mr. Kidd,&rdquo; he said to the book-keeper,
+&ldquo;let me see Miss Smith's account.&rdquo; It was shoved to
+him across the desk. Kingsley elevated his glasses.
+Then he adjusted them with a peculiar lilt&mdash;it was his
+way of being ironical:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you don't owe the store anything, Miss Smith&mdash;just
+eleven dollars and eighty cents.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The woman stood stoically&mdash;not a muscle moved in
+her face, and not even by the change of an eye did she
+indicate that such a thing as the ordinary human emotions
+of disappointment and fear had a home in the
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mother was sick all last month,&rdquo; she said at last in a
+voice that came out in the same indifferent, unvarying
+tone. &ldquo;I had to overdraw.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Kingsley gave his eye-glasses another lilt. They said
+as plainly as eye-glasses could: &ldquo;Well, of course, I
+made her sick.&rdquo; Then he added abruptly: &ldquo;We will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span>
+advance you two dollars this week&mdash;an' that will be
+all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hoped to get some little thing that she could eat&mdash;some
+relish,&rdquo; she began.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not our business, Miss Smith&mdash;sorry&mdash;very sorry&mdash;but
+try to be more economical. Economy is the
+great objective haven of life. Emerson says so. And
+Browning in a most beautiful line of poetry says the
+same thing,&rdquo; he added.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The way to begin economy is to begin it&mdash;Emerson
+is so helpful to me&mdash;he always comes in at the
+right time.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And it's only to be two dollars,&rdquo; she added.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's all,&rdquo; and he pushed her the order. She took
+it, cashed it and went hurriedly out, her poke bonnet
+pulled over her face. But there were hot tears and a
+sob under her bonnet.</p>
+
+<p>And so it went on for two hours&mdash;some drawing
+nothing, but remaining to beg for an order on the store
+to keep them running until next week.</p>
+
+<p>One man with six children in the mill next came forward
+and drew eighteen dollars. He smiled complacently
+as he drew it and chucked the silver into his
+pocket. This gave Jud Carpenter, standing near, a
+chance to get in his mill talk.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I tell you, Joe Hopper,&rdquo; he said, slapping the man
+on the back, &ldquo;that mill is a great thing for the mothers
+an' fathers of this little settlement. What 'ud we do if
+it warn't for our chillun?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You're talkin now&mdash;&rdquo; said Joe hopefully.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It useter be,&rdquo; said Jud, looking around at his crowd,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span>
+&ldquo;that the parents spoiled the kids, but now it is the kids
+spoilin' the parents.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>His audience met this with smiles and laughter.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I never did know before,&rdquo; went on Jud, &ldquo;what that
+old sayin' really meant: 'A fool for luck an' a po'
+man for chillun.'&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Another crackling laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How much did Joe Hopper's chillun fetch 'im in
+this week?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Joe jingled his silver in his pocket and spat importantly
+on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I tell you, when I married,&rdquo; said Jud, &ldquo;I seed nothin'
+but poverty an' the multiplication of my part of the
+earth ahead of me&mdash;poverty, I tell you, starvation an'
+every new chile addin' to it. But since you started this
+mill, Mister Kingsley (Kingsley smiled and bowed
+across the desk at him), I've turned what everybody said
+'ud starve us into ready cash. And now I say to the
+young folks: 'Marry an' multiply an' the cash will
+be forthcomin'.'&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This was followed by loud laughs, especially from
+those who were blessed with children, and they filed up
+to get their wages.</p>
+
+<p>Jim Stallings, who had four in the mill, was counted
+out eleven dollars. As he pocketed it he looked at Jud
+and said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, no, Jud; it don't pay to raise chillun. I wish I
+had the chance old Sollerman had. I'd soon make old
+Vanderbilt look like shin plaster.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He joined in the laughter which followed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the doorway he cut a pigeon-wing in which his
+thin, bowed legs looked comically humorous.</p>
+
+<p>Jud Carpenter was a power in the mill, standing as
+he did so near to the management. To the poor, ignorant
+ones around him he was the mouth-piece of the
+mill, and they feared him even more than they did
+Kingsley himself, Kingsley with his ironical ways and
+lilting eye-glasses. With them Jud's nod alone was
+sufficient.</p>
+
+<p>They were still grouped around the office awaiting
+their turn. In the faces of some were shrewdness, cunning,
+hypocrisy. Some looked out through dull eyes,
+humbled and brow-beaten and unfeeling. But all of
+them when they spoke to Jud Carpenter&mdash;Jud Carpenter
+who stood in with the managers of the mill&mdash;became
+at once the grinning, fawning framework of a
+human being.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, boys,&rdquo; said Jud patronizingly as Stallings went
+out, &ldquo;this here mill is a god-send to us po' folks who've
+got chillun to burn. They ain't a day we ortenter git
+down on our knees an' thank Mr. Kingsley an' Mister
+Travis there. You know I done took down that sign I
+useter have hangin' up in my house in the hall&mdash;that
+sign which said, <i>God bless our home</i>? I've put up another
+one now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What you done put up now, Jud?&rdquo; grinned a tall
+weaver with that blank look of expectancy which settles
+over the face of the middle man in a negro minstrel
+troupe when he passes the stale question to the end man,
+knowing the joke which was coming.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, I've put up,&rdquo; said Jud brutally, &ldquo;'<i>Suffer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span>
+Little Children to Come Unto Me.</i>' That's scriptural
+authority for cotton mills, ain't it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The paying went on, after the uproarious laughter
+had subsided, and down the long row only the clinking
+of silver was heard, intermingled now and then with the
+shrill voice of some creature disputing with Kingsley
+about her account. Generally it ran thus: &ldquo;<i>It cyant be
+thet away. Sixty hours at five cents an hour&mdash;wal,
+but didn't the chillun wuck no longer than that? I
+cyant&mdash;I cyant&mdash;I jes' cyant live on that little bit.</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Such it was, and it floated down the line to Helen like
+the wail of a lost soul. When her time came Kingsley
+met her with a smile. Then he gave her an order and
+Travis handed her a bright crisp ten-dollar bill.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him in astonishment. &ldquo;But&mdash;but,&rdquo;
+she said. &ldquo;Surely, I didn't earn all this, did I? Maggie&mdash;you
+had to pay Maggie for teaching me this
+week. It was she who earned it. I cannot take it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Kingsley smiled: &ldquo;If you must know&mdash;though we
+promised her we would not tell you,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;no,
+Miss Conway, you did not earn but five dollars this week.
+The other five is Maggie's gift to you&mdash;she left it
+here for you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him stupidly&mdash;in dazed gratitude.
+Travis came forward:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I've ordered Jim to take you home to-night. I cannot
+leave now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And he led her out to where the trotters stood. He
+lifted her in, pressing her hand as he did so&mdash;but she
+did not know it&mdash;she burned with a strange fullness
+in her throat as she clutched her money, the first she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span>
+had ever earned, and thought of Maggie&mdash;Maggie,
+dying and unselfish.</p>
+
+<p>Work&mdash;it had opened a new life to her. Work&mdash;and
+never before had she known the sweetness of it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, father,&rdquo; she said when she reached home, &ldquo;I
+have made some money&mdash;I can support you and Lily
+now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>When Travis returned Jud Carpenter met him at the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I had a mess o' trouble gittin' that gal into the
+mill. Huh! but ain't she a beaut! I guess you 'orter
+tip me for throwin' sech a peach as that into yo' arms.
+Oh, you're a sly one&mdash;&rdquo; he went on whisperingly&mdash;&ldquo;the
+smoothest one with women I ever seed. But you'll
+have to thank me for that queen. Guess I'll go down
+an' take a dram. I want to git the lint out of my
+throat.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll be down later,&rdquo; said Travis as he looked at his
+watch. &ldquo;Charley Biggers and I. It's our night to
+have a little fun with the boys.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll see you there,&rdquo; said Jud.</p>
+
+<p>The clinking of silver, questions, answers, and expostulations
+went on. In the midst of it there was the
+sudden shrill wail of an angry child.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I wants some of my money, Paw&mdash;I wants to buy a
+ginger man.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then came a cruel slap which was heard all over the
+room, and the boy of ten, a wild-eyed and unkempt
+thing, staggered and grasped his face where the blow
+fell.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Take that, you sassy meddling up-start&mdash;you be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span>long
+to me till you are twenty-one years old. What
+'ud you do with a ginger man 'cept to eat it?&rdquo; He
+cuffed the boy through the door and sent him flying
+home.</p>
+
+<p>It was Joe Sykes, the wages of whose children kept
+him in active drunkenness and chronic inertia. He was
+the champion loafer of the town.</p>
+
+<p>In a short time he had drawn a pocketful of silver,
+and going out soon overtook Jud Carpenter.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I tell you, Jud, we mus' hold these kids down&mdash;we
+heads of the family. I've mighty nigh broke myself
+down this week a controllin' mine. Goin' down to take
+a drink or two? Same to you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span></p>
+<h3>THE PLOT</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">A</span> village bar-room is a village hell.</p>
+
+<p>Jud Carpenter and Joe Hopper were soon
+there, and the silver their children had earned
+at the mill began to go for drinks.</p>
+
+<p>The drinks made them feel good. They resolved to
+feel better, so they drank again. As they drank the
+talk grew louder. They were joined by others from the
+town&mdash;ne'er-do-wells, who hung around the bar&mdash;and
+others from the mill.</p>
+
+<p>And so they drank and sang and danced and played
+cards and drank again, and threw dice for more drinks.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly nine o'clock before the Bacchanal laugh
+began to ring out at intervals&mdash;so easily distinguished
+from the sober laugh, in that it carries in its closing
+tones the queer ring of the maniac's.</p>
+
+<p>Only the mill men had any cash. The village loafers
+drank at their expense, and on credit.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And why should we not drink if we wish,&rdquo; said one
+of them. &ldquo;Our children earned the money and do we
+not own the children?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Twice only were they interrupted. Once by the wife
+of a weaver who came in and pleaded with her husband
+for part of their children's money. Her tears touched
+the big-hearted Billy Buch, and as her husband was too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span>
+drunk to know what he was doing, Billy took what
+money he had left and gave it to the wife. She had a
+sick child, she told Billy Buch, and what money she had
+would not even buy the medicine.</p>
+
+<p>Billy squinted the corner of one eye and looked solemnly
+at the husband: &ldquo;He ha'f ten drinks in him
+ag'in, already. I vill gif you pay for eet all for the
+child. An' here ees one dollar mo' from Billy Buch.
+Now go, goot voman.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The other interruption was the redoubtable Mrs. Billings;
+her brother, also a slubber, had arrived early, but
+had scarcely taken two delightful, exquisite drinks before
+she came on the scene, her eyes flashing, her hair
+disheveled, and her hand playing familiarly with something
+under her apron.</p>
+
+<p>Her presence threw them into a panic.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mine Gott!&rdquo; said Billy, turning pale. &ldquo;Eet es
+Meeses Billings an' her crockery.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Half a dozen jubilants pointed out a long-haired man
+at a center table talking proudly of his physical strength
+and bravery.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cris Ham?&rdquo; beckoned Mrs. Billings, feeling nervously
+under her apron. &ldquo;Come with me!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll be along t'orectly, sis.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You will come now,&rdquo; she said, and her hands began
+to move ominously beneath her apron.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To be sho',&rdquo; he said as he walked out with her. &ldquo;I
+didn't know you felt that away about it, sis.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<br />
+<p>It was after ten o'clock when the quick roll of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span>
+buggy came up to the door, and Richard Travis and
+Charley Biggers alighted.</p>
+
+<p>They had both been drinking. Slowly, surely, Travis
+was going down in the scale of degeneracy. Slowly
+the loose life he was leading was lowering him to the
+level of the common herd. A few years ago he would
+not have thought of drinking with his own mill hands.
+To-night he was there, the most reckless of them all.
+Analyzed, it was for the most part conceit with him;
+the low conceit of the superior intellect which would
+mingle in infamy with the lowest to gain its ignorant
+homage. For Intellect must have homage if it has to
+drag it from the slums.</p>
+
+<p>Charley Biggers was short and boyish, with a fat,
+round face. When he laughed he showed a fine set of
+big, sensual teeth. His eyes were jolly, flighty, insincere.
+Weakness was written all over him, from a derby
+hat sitting back rakishly on his forehead to the small,
+effeminate boot that fitted so neatly his small effeminate
+foot. He had a small hand and his little sensual face
+had not a rough feature on it. It was set off by a
+pudgy, half-formed dab of a nose that let his breath
+in and out when his mouth happened to be shut. His
+eyes were the eyes of one who sees no wrong in anything.</p>
+
+<p>They came in and pulled off their gloves, daintily.
+They threw their overcoats on a chair. Travis glanced
+around the circle of the four or five who were left and
+said pompously:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come up, gentlemen, and have something at my expense.&rdquo;
+Then he walked up to the bar.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They came. They considered it both a pleasure and
+an honor, as Jud Carpenter expressed it, to drink with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is a good idea to mingle with them now and
+then,&rdquo; whispered Travis to Charley. &ldquo;It keeps me solid
+with them&mdash;health, gentlemen!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Charley Biggers showed his good-natured teeth:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Health, gentlemen,&rdquo; he grinned.</p>
+
+<p>Then he hiccoughed through his weak little nose.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Joe Hopper can't rise, gentlemen, Joe is drunk, an'&mdash;an'
+a widderer, besides,&rdquo; hiccoughed Joe from below.</p>
+
+<p>Joe had been a widower for a year. His wife, after
+being the mother of eleven children, who now supported
+Joe in his drunkenness, had passed away.</p>
+
+<p>Then Joe burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What's up, Joe?&rdquo; asked Jud kindly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Liza's dead,&rdquo; he wailed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, she's been dead a year,&rdquo; said Jud.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't keer, Jud&mdash;I'm jes'&mdash;jes' beginnin' to feel
+it now&rdquo;&mdash;and he wept afresh.</p>
+
+<p>It was too much for Charley Biggers, and he also
+wept. Travis looked fixedly at the ceiling and recited
+portions of the Episcopal burial service. Then Jud
+wept. They all wept.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said Travis solemnly, &ldquo;let us drink to
+the health of the departed Mrs. Hopper. Here's to
+her!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This cheered all except Joe Hopper&mdash;he refused to
+be comforted. They tried to console him, but he only
+wept the more. They went on drinking and left him
+out, but this did not tend to diminish his tears.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Mister Hopper, shet up,&rdquo; said Jud peremptorily&mdash;&ldquo;close
+up&mdash;I've arranged for you to marry a
+grass-widder.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This cheered him greatly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O Jud&mdash;Jud&mdash;if I marry a grass-widder whut&mdash;whut'll
+I be then?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why? a grasshopper, sure,&rdquo; said Travis.</p>
+
+<p>They all roared. Then Jud winked at Travis and
+Travis winked at the others. Then they sat around a
+table, all winking except poor Joe, who continued to
+weep at the thought of being a grasshopper. He did
+not quite understand how it was, but he knew that in
+some way he was to be changed into a grasshopper,
+with long green wings and legs to match.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said Jud seriously&mdash;&ldquo;it is our duty
+to help out po' Joe. Now, Joe, we've arranged it for
+you to marry Miss Kate Galloway&mdash;the grass-widder.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not Miss Kate,&rdquo; said Travis with becoming seriousness.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why not her, Mr. Travis?&rdquo; asked Jud, winking.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Because his children will be Katydids,&rdquo; said Travis.</p>
+
+<p>This brought on thundering roars of laughter and
+drinks all around. Only Joe wept&mdash;wept to think his
+children would be katydids.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, Joe, it's this way. I've talked it all over and
+arranged it. That's what we've met for to-night&mdash;ain't
+it, gents?&rdquo; said Jud.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sure&mdash;sure,&rdquo; they all exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, Joe, you mus' dry yo' tears an' become reconciled&mdash;we've
+got a nice scheme fixed for you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll never be reconciled&mdash;never,&rdquo; wailed Joe.
+&ldquo;Liza's dead an'&mdash;I'm a grasshopper.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, wait till I explain to you&mdash;but, dear, devoted
+friend, everything is ready. The widder's been seen
+an' all you've got to do is to come with us and get her.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She's a mighty handsome 'oman,&rdquo; said Jud, winking
+his eye. &ldquo;Dear&mdash;dear frien's&mdash;all&mdash;I'm feelin'
+reconciled already&rdquo;&mdash;said Joe.</p>
+
+<p>They all joined in the roar. Jud winked. They all
+winked. Jud went on:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Joe, dear, dear Joe&mdash;we have had thy welfare at
+heart, as the books say. We wanted thee to become a
+millionaire. Thou hast eleven children to begin with.
+They pay you&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Eighteen dollars a week, clear,&rdquo;&mdash;said Joe
+proudly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, now, Joe&mdash;it's all arranged&mdash;you marry
+the widder an' in the course of time you'll have eleven
+mo'. That's another eighteen dollars&mdash;or thirty-six
+dollars a week clear in the mills.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, but I hadn't thought of that,&rdquo; said Joe enthusiastically&mdash;&ldquo;that's
+a fact. When&mdash;when did you
+say the ceremony'd be performed?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hold on,&rdquo; said Jud, &ldquo;now, we've studied this thing
+all out for you. You're a Mormon&mdash;the only one of
+us that is a Mormon&mdash;openly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They all laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Openly&mdash;&rdquo; he went on&mdash;&ldquo;you've j'ined the Mormon
+church here up in the mountains.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But we don't practise polygamy&mdash;now&rdquo;&mdash;said
+Joe.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's only on account of the Grand Jury and the
+law&mdash;not yo' religion. You see&mdash;you'll marry an' go
+to Utah&mdash;but&mdash;es the kids come you'll sen' 'em all
+down here to the mills&mdash;every one a kinder livin'
+coupon. All any man's got to do in this country to git
+rich is to marry enough wives.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Can I do that&mdash;do the marryin' in Utah an' keep
+sendin' the&mdash;the chilluns down to the mill?&rdquo; His eyes
+glittered.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sart'inly&rdquo;&mdash;said Jud&mdash;&ldquo;sure!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then there's Miss Carewe&rdquo;&mdash;he went on&mdash;&ldquo;you
+haf'ter cal'clate on feedin' several wives in one, with
+her. But say eleven mo' by her. That's thirty-seven
+mo'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Joe jumped up.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is she willin'?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Done seen her,&rdquo; said Jud; &ldquo;she say come on.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hold on,&rdquo; said Travis with feigned anger. &ldquo;Hold
+on. Joe is fixin' to start a cotton-mill of his own.
+That'll interfere with the Acme. No&mdash;no&mdash;we must
+vote it down. We mustn't let Joe do it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Joe had already attempted to rise and start after his
+wives. But in the roar of laughter that followed he sat
+down and began to weep again for Liza.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly midnight. Only Travis, Charley Biggers
+and Jud remained sober enough to talk. Charley
+was telling of Tilly and her wondrous beauty.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now&mdash;it's this way,&rdquo; he hiccoughed&mdash;&ldquo;I've got
+to go off to school&mdash;but&mdash;but&mdash;I've thought of a
+plan to marry her first, with a bogus license and
+preacher.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was a whispered conversation among them, ending
+in a shout of applause.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What's the matter with you takin' yo' queen at the
+same time?&rdquo; asked Jud of Travis.</p>
+
+<p>Travis, drunk as he was, winced to think that he
+would ever permit Jud Carpenter to suggest what he
+had intended should only be known to himself. His
+tongue was thick, his brain whirled, and there were gaps
+in his thoughts; but through the thickness and heaviness
+he thought how low he had fallen. Lower yet when,
+despite all his vanishing reserve, all his dignity and exclusiveness,
+he laughed sillily and said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Just what I had decided to do&mdash;two queens and
+an ace.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They all cheered drunkenly.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span></p>
+<h3>MRS. WESTMORE TAKES A HAND</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">&ldquo;W</span>hat are you playing, Alice?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The daughter arose from the piano and
+kissed her mother, holding for a moment the
+pretty face, crowned with white hair, between her two
+palms.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&mdash;it is an old song which Tom and I used to love
+to sing.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The last of the sentence came so slowly that it sank
+almost into silence, as of one beginning a sentence and
+becoming so absorbed in the subject as to forget the
+speech. Then she turned again to the piano, as if to
+hide from her mother the sorrow which had crept into
+her face.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You should cease to think of that. Such things are
+dreams&mdash;at present we are confronted by very disagreeable
+realities.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dreams&mdash;ah, mother mine&rdquo;&mdash;she answered with
+forced cheeriness&mdash;&ldquo;but what would life be without
+them?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For one thing, Alice&rdquo;&mdash;and she took the daughter's
+place at the piano and began to play snatches of
+an old waltz tune&mdash;&ldquo;it would be free from all the morbid
+unnaturalness, the silliness, the froth of things.
+There is too much hardness in every life&mdash;in the world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span>&mdash;in
+the very laws of life, for such things ever to have
+been part of the original plan. For my part, I think
+they are the product of man and wine or women or morphine
+or some other narcotic.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We make the dreams of life, but the realities of it
+make us,&rdquo; she added.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, no, mother. 'Tis the dreams that make the
+realities. Not a great established fact exists but it was
+once the vision of a dreamer. Our dreams to-day become
+the realities of to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you believe Tom is not dead&mdash;that he will one
+day come back?&rdquo; asked her mother abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>It was twilight and the fire flickered, lighting up the
+library. But in the flash of it Mrs. Westmore saw
+Alice's cheek whiten in a hopeless, helpless, stricken way.</p>
+
+<p>Then she walked to the window and looked out on the
+darkness fast closing in on the lawn, clustering denser
+around the evergreens and creeping ghostlike toward the
+dim sky line which shone clear in the open.</p>
+
+<p>The very helplessness of her step, her silence, her
+numbed, yearning look across the lawn told Mrs. Westmore
+of the death of all hope there.</p>
+
+<p>She followed her daughter and put her arms impulsively
+around her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I should not have hurt you so, Alice. I only wanted
+to show you how worse than useless it is ... but
+to change the subject, I do wish to speak to you of&mdash;our
+condition.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Alice was used to her mother's ways&mdash;her brilliancy&mdash;her
+pointed manner of going at things&mdash;her quick
+change of thought&mdash;of mood, and even of tempera<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span>ment.
+An outsider would have judged Mrs. Westmore
+to be fickle with a strong vein of selfishness and even of
+egotism. Alice only knew that she was her mother; who
+had suffered much; who had been reduced by poverty to
+a condition straitened even to hardships. To help her
+the daughter knew that she was willing to make any
+sacrifice. Unselfish, devoted, clear as noonday in her
+own ideas of right and wrong, Alice's one weakness was
+her blind devotion to those she loved. A weakness beautiful
+and even magnificent, since it might mean a sacrifice
+of her heart for another. The woman who gives
+her time, her money, her life, even, to another gives
+but a small part of her real self. But there is something
+truly heroic when she throws in her heart also.
+For when a woman has given that she has given all; and
+because she has thrown it in cold and dead&mdash;a lifeless
+thing&mdash;matters not; in the poignancy of the giving
+it is gone from her forever and she may not recall it
+even with the opportunity of bringing it back to life.</p>
+
+<p>She who gives her all, but keeps her heart, is as a
+priest reading mechanically the Sermon on the Mount
+from the Bible. But she who gives her heart never to
+take it back again gives as the Christ dying on the Cross.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, here is the legal paper about&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Her voice failed and she did not finish the sentence.</p>
+
+<p>Alice took the paper and glanced at it. She flushed
+and thrust it into her pocket. They were silent a while
+and Mrs. Westmore sat thinking of the past. Alice
+knew it by the great reminiscent light which gleamed in
+her eyes. She thought of the time when she had servants,
+money, friends unlimited&mdash;of the wealth and in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span>fluence
+of her husband&mdash;of the glory of Westmoreland.</p>
+
+<p>Every one has some secret ambition kept from the
+eyes of every living soul&mdash;often even to die in its
+keeper's breast. It is oftenest a mean ambition of which
+one is ashamed and so hides it from the world. It is
+often the one weakness. Alice never knew what was her
+mother's. She did not indeed know that she had one,
+for this one thing Mrs. Westmore had kept inviolately
+secret. But in her heart there had always rankled a
+secret jealousy when she thought of The Gaffs. It had
+been there since she could remember&mdash;a feeling cherished
+secretly, too, by her husband: for in everything
+their one idea had been that Westmoreland should surpass
+The Gaffs,&mdash;that it should be handsomer, better
+kept, more prosperous, more famous.</p>
+
+<p>Now, Westmoreland was gone&mdash;this meant the last
+of it. It would be sold, even the last hundred acres of
+it, with the old home on it. Gone&mdash;gone&mdash;all her
+former glory&mdash;all her family tradition, her memories,
+her very name.</p>
+
+<p>Gone, and The Gaffs remained!</p>
+
+<p>Remained in all its intactness&mdash;its beauty&mdash;its well
+equipped barns with all the splendor of its former days.
+For so great was the respect of Schofield's army for
+the character of Colonel Jeremiah Travis that his home
+escaped the torch when it was applied to many others
+in the Tennessee Valley. And Richard Travis had been
+shrewd enough after the war to hold his own. Joining
+the party of the negro after the war, he had been its
+political ruler in the county. And the Honorable Rich<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span>ard
+Travis had been offered anything he wanted. At
+present he was State Senator. He with others called
+himself a Republican&mdash;one of the great party of Lincoln
+to which the negroes after their enfranchisement
+united themselves. It was a fearful misnomer. The
+Republican party in the South, composed of ninety-nine
+ignorant negroes to one renegade white, about as truly
+represented the progressive party of Lincoln as a black
+vampire the ornithology of all lands. Indeed, since the
+war, there has never been in the South either a Republican
+or a Democratic party. The party line is not
+drawn on belief but on race and color. The white men,
+believing everything they please from free trade to protection,
+vote a ticket which they call Democratic. The
+negroes, and a few whites who allied themselves with
+them for the spoils of office, vote the other ticket. Neither
+of them represent anything but a race issue.</p>
+
+<p>To this negro party belonged Richard Travis&mdash;and
+the price of his infamy had been <i>Honorable</i> before his
+name.</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Westmore cared nothing for this. She
+only knew that he was a leader of men, was handsome,
+well reared and educated, and that he owned The Gaffs,
+her old rival. And that there it stood, a fortune&mdash;a
+refuge&mdash;a rock&mdash;offered to her and her daughter,
+offered by a man who, whatever his other faults, was
+brave and dashing, sincere in his idolatrous love for her
+daughter. That he would make Alice happy she did
+not doubt; for Mrs. Westmore's idea of happiness was
+in having wealth and position and a splendid name.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span>
+Having no real heart, how was it possible for her to
+know, as Alice could know, the happiness of love?</p>
+
+<p>An eyeless fish in the river of Mammoth Cave might
+as well try to understand what light meant.</p>
+
+<p>He would make Alice happy, of course he would; he
+would make her happy by devotion, which he was eager
+to give her with an unstinted hand. Alice needed it,
+she herself needed it. It was common sense to accept
+it,&mdash;business sense. It was opportunity&mdash;fate. It
+was the reward of a life&mdash;the triumph of it&mdash;to have
+her old rival&mdash;enemy&mdash;bound and presented to her.</p>
+
+<p>And nothing stood between her and the accomplishment
+of it all but the foolish romance of her daughter's
+youth.</p>
+
+<p>And so she sat building her castles and thinking:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;With The Gaffs, with Richard Travis and his money
+would come all I wish, both for her and for me. Once
+more I would hold the social position I once held: once
+more I would be something in the world. And Alice,
+of course, she would be happy; for her's is one of those
+trusting natures which finds first where her duty points
+and then makes her heart follow.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Westmore wisely kept silent. She did not
+think aloud. She knew too well that Alice's sympathetic,
+unselfish, obedient spirit was thinking it over.</p>
+
+<p>She sat down by her mother and took up a pet kitten
+which had come purring in, begging for sympathy. She
+stroked it thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Westmore read her daughter's thoughts:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So many people,&rdquo; the mother said after a while,
+&ldquo;have false ideas of love and marriage. Like ignorant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span>
+people when they get religion, they think a great and
+sudden change must come over them&mdash;changing their
+very lives.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She laughed her ringing little laugh: &ldquo;I told you
+of your father's and my love affair. Why, I was engaged
+to three other men at the same time&mdash;positively
+I was. And I would have been just as happy with any
+of them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why did you marry father, then?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Her mother laughed and tapped the toe of her shoe
+playfully against the fender: &ldquo;It was a silly reason;
+he swam the Tennessee River on his horse to see me one
+day, when the ferry-boat was a wreck. I married him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Would not the others have done as well?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, but I knew your father was brave. You cannot
+love a coward&mdash;no woman can. But let a man be
+brave&mdash;no matter what his faults are&mdash;the rest is all a
+question of time. You would soon learn to love him as
+I did your father.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Westmore was wise. She changed the subject.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have you noticed Uncle Bisco lately, mother?&rdquo;
+asked Alice after a while.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, yes; I intended to ask you about him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He says there are threats against his life&mdash;his and
+Aunt Charity's. He had a terrible dream last night,
+and he would have me to interpret it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Quite Biblical,&rdquo; laughed her mother. &ldquo;What was
+it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They have been very unhappy all day&mdash;you know
+the negroes have been surly and revengeful since the
+election of Governor Houston&mdash;they believe they will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span>
+be put back into slavery and they know that Uncle Bisco
+voted with his white friends. It is folly, of course&mdash;but
+they beat Captain Roland's old body servant nearly to
+death because he voted with his old master. And Uncle
+Bisco has heard threats that he and Aunt Charity will be
+visited in a like manner. I think it will soon blow over,
+though at times I confess I am often worried about
+them, living alone so far off from us, in the cabin in the
+wood.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What was Uncle Bisco's dream?&rdquo; asked Mrs. Westmore.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, he said an angel had brought him water to
+drink from a Castellonian Spring. Now, I don't know
+what a Castellonian Spring is, but that was the word he
+used, and that he was turned into a live-oak tree, old and
+moss-grown. Then he stood in the forest surrounded
+by scrub-oaks and towering over them and other mean
+trees when suddenly they all fell upon him and cut him
+down. Now, he says, these scrub-oaks are the radical
+negroes who wish to kill him for voting with the whites.
+You will laugh at my interpretation,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;I
+told him that the small black oaks were years that still
+stood around him, but that finally they would overpower
+him and he would sink to sleep beneath them, as
+we must all eventually do. I think it reassured him&mdash;but,
+mamma, I am uneasy about the two old people.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If the Bishop were here&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He would sleep in the house with a shotgun, I fear,&rdquo;
+laughed Alice.</p>
+
+<p>They were silent at last: &ldquo;When did you say Richard
+was coming again, Alice?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To-morrow night&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;I hear Clay in
+his laboratory. I will go and talk to him before bed
+time.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She stooped and kissed her mother. To her surprise,
+she found her mother's arms around her neck and heard
+her whisper brokenly:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Alice&mdash;Alice&mdash;you could solve it all if you would.
+Think&mdash;think&mdash;what it would mean to me&mdash;to all
+of us&mdash;oh, I can stand this poverty no longer&mdash;this
+fight against that which we cannot overcome.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She burst into a flood of tears. Never before had
+Alice seen her show her emotions over their condition,
+and it hurt her, stabbed her to the vital spot of all obedience
+and love.</p>
+
+<p>With moistened eyes she went into her brother's room.</p>
+
+<p>And Mrs. Westmore wrote a note to Richard Travis.
+It did not say so in words but it meant: &ldquo;<i>Come and
+be bold&mdash;you have won.</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span></p>
+<h3>A QUESTION BROUGHT HOME</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">&ldquo;I</span> shall go to Boston next week to meet the directors
+of the mill and give in my annual report.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The three had been sitting in Westmoreland library
+this Sunday night&mdash;for Richard Travis came regularly
+every Sunday night, and he had been talking
+about the progress of the mill and the great work it
+was doing for the poor whites of the valley. &ldquo;I imagine,&rdquo;
+he added, &ldquo;that they will be pleased with the report
+this year.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But are you altogether pleased with it in all its
+features?&rdquo; asked Alice thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, what do you mean, Alice?&rdquo; asked her mother,
+surprised.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Just this, mother, and I have been thinking of talking
+to Richard about it for some time.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis took his cigar out of his mouth and looked at
+her quizzically.</p>
+
+<p>She flushed under his gaze and added: &ldquo;If I wasn't
+saying what I am for humanity's sake I would be willing
+to admit that it was impertinent on my part. But are
+you satisfied with the way you work little children in
+that mill, Richard, and are you willing to let it go on
+without a protest before your directors? You have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span>
+such a fine opportunity for good there,&rdquo; she added in all
+her old beautiful earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Alice, my dear, that is none of our affair. Now
+I should not answer her, Richard,&rdquo; and Mrs. Westmore
+tapped him playfully on the arm.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Frankly, I am not,&rdquo; he said to Alice. &ldquo;I think it
+is a horrible thing. But how are we to remedy it?
+There is no law on the subject at all in Alabama&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Except the broader, unwritten law,&rdquo; she added.</p>
+
+<p>Travis laughed: &ldquo;You will find that it cuts a small
+figure with directors when it comes in conflict with the
+dividends of a corporation.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But how is it there?&rdquo; she asked,&mdash;&ldquo;in New England?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They have seen the evils of it and they have a law
+against child labor. The age is restricted to twelve
+years, and every other year they must go to a public
+school before they may be taken back into the mill.
+But even with all that, the law is openly violated, as it is
+in England, where they have been making efforts to
+throttle the child-labor problem for nearly a century,
+and after whose law the New England law was patterned.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, by the parents of the children falsely swearing
+to their age.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Alice looked at him in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you really mean it?&rdquo; she asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, certainly&mdash;and it would be the same here.
+If we had a law the lazy parents of many of them would
+swear falsely to their children's ages.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There could be some way found to stop that,&rdquo; she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It has not been found yet,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;What is
+to prevent two designing parents swearing that an eight
+year old child is twelve&mdash;and these little poor whites,&rdquo;
+he added with a laugh, &ldquo;all look alike from eight to
+sixteen&mdash;scrawny&mdash;hard and half-starved. In many
+cases no living man could swear whether they are six
+or twelve.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you really should make it a rule to refuse all
+children under twelve,&rdquo; she added, &ldquo;tell me how many
+would go out of your mill.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In other words, how many under twelve do we work
+there?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>He thought a while and then said: &ldquo;About one
+hundred and twenty-five.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She started: &ldquo;That is terrible&mdash;terrible! Couldn't
+you&mdash;couldn't you bring the subject up before the
+directors for&mdash;for&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your sake&mdash;yes&rdquo;&mdash;he said, admiringly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Humanity's&mdash;God's&mdash;Right's&mdash;helpless, ignorant,
+dying children!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know,&rdquo; he added quickly, &ldquo;how many idle
+parents these hundred and twenty-five children support&mdash;actually
+support? Why, about fifty. Now do
+you see? The whole influence of these fifty people
+will be to violate the law&mdash;to swear the children
+are twelve or over. Yes, I am opposed to it&mdash;so is
+Kingsley&mdash;but we are powerless.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My enthusiasm has been aroused, of late, on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span>
+subject,&rdquo; Alice went on, &ldquo;by the talks and preaching of
+my old friend, Mr. Watts.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis frowned: &ldquo;The old Bishop of Cottontown,&rdquo;
+he added ironically&mdash;&ldquo;and he had better stop it&mdash;he
+will get into trouble yet.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Because he is doing the mill harm.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And I don't suppose one should do a corporation
+harm,&rdquo; she said quickly,&mdash;&ldquo;even to do humanity
+good?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Alice, let us drop so disagreeable a subject,&rdquo;
+said her mother. &ldquo;Come, Richard and I want some
+music.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Any way,&rdquo; said Alice, rising, &ldquo;I do very much hope
+you will bring the subject up in your visit to the
+directors. It has grown on me under the talks of the
+old Bishop and what I have seen myself&mdash;it has become
+a nightmare to me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't think it is any of our business at all,&rdquo;
+spoke up Mrs. Westmore quickly.</p>
+
+<p>Alice turned her big, earnest eyes and beautiful face
+on her mother.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you remember when I was six years old?&rdquo; she
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course I do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Suppose&mdash;suppose&mdash;that our poverty had come
+to us then, and you and papa had died and left brother
+and me alone and friendless. Then suppose we had
+been put into that mill to work fourteen hours a day&mdash;we&mdash;your
+own little ones&mdash;brother and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span>&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Westmore sprang up with a little shriek and
+put her hands over her daughter's mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis shrugged his shoulders: &ldquo;I had
+not thought of it that way myself,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That
+goes home to one.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis was always uplifted in the presence of
+Alice. It was wonderful to him what a difference in his
+feelings, his behavior, his ideas, her simple presence exerted.
+As he looked at her he thought of last night's
+debauch&mdash;the bar-room&mdash;the baseness and vileness of
+it all. He thought of his many amours. He saw the
+purity and grandeur of her in this contrast&mdash;all her
+queenliness and beauty and simplicity. He even thought
+of Maggie and said to himself: &ldquo;Suppose Alice should
+know all this.... My God! I would have no
+more chance of winning her than of plucking a star
+from the sky!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He thought of Helen and it made him serious.
+Helen's was a different problem from Maggie's. Maggie
+was a mill girl&mdash;poor, with a bed-ridden father.
+She was nameless. But Helen&mdash;she was of the same
+blood and caste of this beautiful woman before him,
+whom he fully expected to make his wife. There was
+danger in Helen&mdash;he must act boldly, but decisively&mdash;he
+must take her away with him&mdash;out of the State,
+the South even. Distance would be his protection, and
+her pride and shame would prevent her ever letting her
+whereabouts or her fate be known.</p>
+
+<p>Cold-bloodedly, boldly, and with clear-cut reasoning,
+all this ran through his mind as he stood looking at
+Alice Westmore.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We are strangely made&mdash;the best of us. Men have
+looked on the Madonna and wondered why the artist
+had not put more humanity there&mdash;had not given her
+a sensual lip, perhaps. And on the Cross, the Christ
+was thinking of a thief.</p>
+
+<p>Two hours later he was bidding her good-bye.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Next Sunday, do you remember&mdash;Alice&mdash;next
+Sunday night you are to tell me&mdash;to fix the day,
+Sweet?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did mother tell you that?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;She
+should let me speak for myself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But somehow he felt that she would. Indeed he
+knew it as he kissed her hand and bade her good-night.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis had ridden over to Westmoreland that
+Sunday night, and as he rode back, some two miles away,
+and within the shadows of a dense clump of oaks which
+bordered the road, he was stopped by two dusky figures.
+They stood just on the edge of the forest and came
+out so suddenly that the spirited saddle mare stopped
+and attempted to wheel and bolt. But Travis, controlling
+her with one hand and, suspecting robbers, had
+drawn his revolver with the other, when one of them
+said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Friends, don't shoot.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Give the countersign,&rdquo; said Travis with ill-concealed
+irritation.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Union League, sir. I am Silos, sir.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis put his revolver back into his overcoat pocket
+and quieted his mare.</p>
+
+<p>The two men, one a negro and the other a mulatto,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span>
+came up to his saddle-skirt and stood waiting respectfully.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You should have awaited me at The Gaffs, Silos.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We did, sir,&rdquo; said the mulatto, &ldquo;but the boys are all
+out here in the woods, and we wanted to hold them together.
+We didn't know when you would come home.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, it's all right,&rdquo; said Travis pettishly&mdash;&ldquo;only
+you came near catching one of my bullets by mistake. I
+thought you were Jack Bracken and his gang.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The mulatto smiled and apologized. He was a bright
+fellow and the barber of the town.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We wanted to know, sir, if you were willing for us
+to do the work to-night, sir?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why bother me about it&mdash;no need for me to know,
+Silos, but one thing I must insist upon. You may whip
+them&mdash;frighten them, but nothing else, mind you,
+nothing else.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But you are the commander of the League&mdash;we
+wanted your consent.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis bent low over the saddle and talked earnestly
+to the man a while. It was evidently satisfactory to
+the other, for he soon beckoned his companion and
+started off into the woods.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have you representatives from each camp present,
+Silos?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The mulatto turned and came back.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes&mdash;but the toughest we could get. I'll not stay
+myself to see it. I don't like such work, sir&mdash;only
+some one has to do it for the cause&mdash;the cause of freedom,
+sir.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course&mdash;why of course,&rdquo; said Travis. &ldquo;Old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span>
+Bisco and his kind are liable to get all you negroes put
+back into slavery&mdash;if the Democrats succeed again as
+they have just done. Give them a good scare.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We'll fix him to-night, boss,&rdquo; said the black one,
+grinning good naturedly. Then he added to himself:
+&ldquo;Yes, I'll whip 'em&mdash;to death.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I heard a good deal of talk among the boys, to-night,
+sir,&rdquo; said the mulatto. &ldquo;They all want you for
+Congress next time.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, we'll talk about that, Silos, later. I must
+hurry on.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He started, then wheeled suddenly:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, say, Silos&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The latter came back.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do your work quietly to-night&mdash;Just a good
+scare&mdash;If you disturb&rdquo;&mdash;he pointed to the roof of
+Westmoreland in the distance showing above the beech
+tops. &ldquo;You know how foolish they are about old Bisco
+and his wife&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They'll never hear anything.&rdquo; He walked off, saying
+to himself: &ldquo;A nigger who is a traitor to his race
+ought to be shot, but for fear of a noise and disturbin'
+the ladies&mdash;I'll hang 'em both,&mdash;never fear.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis touched his mare with the spur and galloped
+off.</p>
+
+<br />
+<p>Uncle Bisco and his wife were rudely awakened. It
+was nearly midnight when the door of their old cabin
+was broken open by a dozen black, ignorant negroes,
+who seized and bound the old couple before they could
+cry out. Bisco was taken out into the yard under a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span>
+tree, while his wife, pleading and begging for her husband's
+life, was tied to another tree.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bisco,&rdquo; said the leader, &ldquo;we cum heah to pay you
+back fur de blood you drawed frum our backs whilst you
+hilt de whip ob slabery an' oberseed fur white fo'ks.
+An' fur ebry lick you giv' us, we gwi' giv' you er dozen
+on your naked back, an' es fur dis ole witch,&rdquo; said the
+brute, pointing to old Aunt Charity, &ldquo;we got de plain
+docyments on her fur witchin' Br'er Moses' little gal&mdash;de
+same dat she mek hab fits, an' we gwi' hang her to a
+lim'.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man drew himself up. In every respect&mdash;intelligence,
+physical and moral bravery&mdash;he was superior
+to the crowd around him. Raised with the best
+class of whites, he had absorbed many of their virtues,
+while in those around him were many who were but a
+few generations removed from the cowardice of darkest
+Africa.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I nurver hit you a lick you didn't deserve, suh, I
+nurver had you whipped but once an' dat wus for stealin'
+a horg which you sed yo'se'f you stole. You ken
+do wid me es you please,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;you am menny
+an' kin do it, an' I am ole an' weak. But ef you hes got
+enny soul, spare de po' ole 'oman who ain't nurver dun
+nothin' but kindness all her life. De berry chile you
+say she witched hes hed 'leptis fits all its life an' Cheerity
+ain't dun nuffin' but take it medicine to kwore it. Don't
+hurt de po' ole 'oman,&rdquo; he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let 'em do whut dey please wid me, Bisco,&rdquo; she
+said: &ldquo;Dey can't do nuffin' to dis po' ole body but sen'
+de tired soul on dat journey wher de buterful room is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span>
+already fix fur it, es you read dis berry night. But
+spare de ole man, spare 'im fur de secun' blessin' which
+Gord dun promised us, an' which boun' ter cum bekase
+Gord can't lie. O Lord,&rdquo; she said suddenly, &ldquo;remember
+thy po' ole servants dis night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But her appeals were fruitless. Already the &ldquo;witch
+council&rdquo; of the blacks was being formed to decide their
+fate. And it was an uncanny scene that the moon
+looked down on that night, under the big trees on the
+banks of the Tennessee. They formed in a circle around
+the &ldquo;Witch Finder,&rdquo; an old negro whose head was as
+white as snow, and who was so ignorant he could scarcely
+speak even negro dialect.</p>
+
+<p>Both his father and mother were imported from Africa,
+and the former was &ldquo;Witch Finder&rdquo; for his tribe
+there. The negroes said the African Witch Finder had
+imparted his secret only to his son, and that it had thus
+been handed down in one family for many generations.</p>
+
+<p>The old negro now sat upon the ground in the center
+of the circle. He was a small, bent up, wiry-looking
+black, with a physiognomy closely resembling a dog's,
+which he took pains to cultivate by drawing the plaits of
+his hair down like the ears of a hound, while he shaped
+his few straggling strands of beard into the under jaw of
+the same animal. Three big negroes had led him, blind-folded,
+into the circle, chanting a peculiar song, the
+music of which was weird and uncanny. And now as he
+sat on the ground the others regarded him with the
+greatest reverence and awe. It was in one of the most
+dismal portions of the swamp, a hundred yards or two
+from the road that led to the ferry at the river. Here<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span>
+the old people had been brought from their homes and
+tied to this spot where the witch council was to be held.
+Before seating himself the Witch Finder had drawn
+three rings within a circle on the ground with the thigh
+bone of a dog. Then, unbuttoning his red flannel shirt,
+he took from his bosom, suspended around his neck, a
+kind of purse, made from the raw-hide of a calf, with
+white hair on one side and red on the other, and from
+this bag he proceeded to take out things which would
+have given Shakespeare ideas for his witch scene in Macbeth.
+A little black ring, made of the legs of the black
+spider and bound together with black horse hair; a black
+thimble-like cup, not much longer than the cup of an
+acorn, made of the black switch of a mule containing
+the liver of a scorpion. The horny head and neck of
+the huge black beetle, commonly known to negroes as
+the black Betsy Bug; the rattle and button of a rattlesnake;
+the fang-tooth of a cotton-mouth moccasin, the
+left hind foot of a frog, seeds of the stinging nettle,
+and pods of peculiar plants, all incased in a little sack
+made of a mole's hide. These were all given sufficient
+charm by a small round cotton yarn, in the center of
+which was a drop of human blood. They were placed
+on the ground around him, but he held the ball of cotton
+yarn in his hand, and ordered that the child be
+brought into the ring. The poor thing was frightened
+nearly to death at sight of the Witch Finder, and when
+he began slowly to unwind his ball of cotton thread
+and chant his monotonous funeral song, she screamed
+in terror. At a signal from the &ldquo;Witch Finder,&rdquo; Aunt
+Charity was dragged into the ring, her hands tied be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span>hind
+her. The sight of such brutality was too much
+for the child, and she promptly had another fit. No
+other evidence was needed, and the Witch Finder declared
+that Aunt Charity was Queen of Witches. The
+council retired, and in a few minutes their decision was
+made: Uncle Bisco was to be beaten to death with hickory
+flails and his old wife hung to the nearest tree.
+Their verdict being made, two stout negroes came forward
+to bind the old man to a tree with his arms around
+it. At sight of these ruffians the old woman broke out
+into triumphant song:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;O we mos' to de home whar we all gwi' res',<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cum, dear Lord, cum soon!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' take de ole weary ones unto yo' bres',<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cum, dear Lord, cum soon!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fur we ole an' we tired an' we hungry fur yo' sight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' our lim's dey am weary, fur we fou't er good fight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' we longin' fur de lan' ob lub an' light&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cum, dear Lord, cum soon.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And it was well that she sang that song, for it stopped
+three horsemen just as they forded the creek and turned
+their horses' heads into the lane that led to the cabin.
+One who was tall and with square shoulders sat his horse
+as if born in the saddle. Above, his dark hair was
+streaked with white, but the face was calm and sad,
+though lit up now with two keen and kindly eyes which
+glowed with suppressed excitement. It was the face of
+splendid resolve and noble purpose, and the horse he
+rode was John Paul Jones. The other was the village<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span>
+blacksmith. A negro followed them, mounted on a raw-bone
+pony, and carrying his master's Enfield rifle.</p>
+
+<p>The first horseman was just saying: &ldquo;Things look
+mighty natural at the old place, Eph; I wonder if the
+old folks will know us? It seems to me&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He pulled up his horse with a jerk. He heard singing
+just over to his left in the wood. Both horsemen
+sat listening:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O we mos' to de do' ob our Father's home&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lead, dear Lord, lead on!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' we'll nurver mo' sorrer an' nurver mo' roam&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lead, dear Lord, lead on!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' we'll meet wid de lam's dat's gohn on befo'<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' we lie in de shade ob de good shepherd's do',<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' he'll wipe away all ob our tears as dey flow&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lead, dear Lord, lead on!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know that voice, Eph?&rdquo; cried the man in
+front to his body servant. &ldquo;We must hurry&rdquo;; and he
+touched the splendid horse with the heel of his riding
+boot.</p>
+
+<p>But the young negro had already plunged two spurs
+into his pony's flanks and was galloping toward the
+cabin.</p>
+
+<p>It was all over when the white rider came up. Two
+brutes had been knocked over with the short heavy barrel
+of an Enfield rifle. There was wild scattering
+of others through the wood. An old man was clinging
+in silent prayer to his son's knees and an old woman was
+clinging around his neck, and saying:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Praise God&mdash;who nurver lies&mdash;it's little Ephrum&mdash;come
+home ag'in.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then they looked up and the old man raised his hands
+in a pitiful tumult of joy and fear and reverence as he
+said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' Marse Tom, so help me God&mdash;a-ridin' John
+Paul Jones!&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span></p>
+<h3>THE PEDIGREE OF ACHIEVEMENT</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">M</span>an may breed up all animals but himself. Strive
+as he may, the laws of heredity are hidden.
+&ldquo;Like produces like or the likeness of an ancestor&rdquo;
+is the unalterable law of the lower animal. Not
+so with man&mdash;he is a strange anomaly. Breed him
+up&mdash;up&mdash;and then from his high breeding will come
+reversion. From pedigrees and plumed hats and ruffled
+shirts come not men, but pygmies&mdash;things which
+in the real fight of life are but mice to the eagles which
+have come up from the soil with the grit of it in their
+craws and the strength of it in their talons.</p>
+
+<p>We stop in wonder&mdash;balked. Then we see that we
+cannot breed men&mdash;they are born; not in castles, but
+in cabins.</p>
+
+<p>And why in cabins? For therein must be the solution.
+And the solution is plain: It is work&mdash;work
+that does it.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot breed men unless work&mdash;achievement&mdash;goes
+with it.</p>
+
+<p>From the loins of great horses come greater horses;
+for the pedigree of work&mdash;achievement&mdash;is there.
+Unlike man, the race-horse is kept from degeneracy by
+work. Each colt that comes must add achievement to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span>
+pedigree when he faces the starter, or he goes to the
+shambles or the surgeon.</p>
+
+<p>Why may not man learn this simple lesson&mdash;the
+lesson of work&mdash;of pedigree, but the pedigree of
+achievement?</p>
+
+<p>The son who would surpass his father must do more
+than his father did. Two generations of idleness will
+beget nonentities, and three, degenerates.</p>
+
+<p>The preacher, the philosopher, the poet, the ruler&mdash;it
+matters not what his name&mdash;he who first solves the
+problem of how to keep mankind achieving will solve the
+problem of humanity.</p>
+
+<p>And now to Helen Conway for the first time in her life
+this simple thing was happening&mdash;she was working&mdash;she
+was earning&mdash;she was supporting herself and Lily
+and her father. Not only that, but gradually she was
+learning to know what the love of one like Clay meant&mdash;unselfish,
+devoted, true.</p>
+
+<p>If to every tempted woman in the world could be
+given work, and to work achievement, and to achievement
+independence, there would be few fallen ones.</p>
+
+<p>All the next week Helen went to the mill early&mdash;she
+wanted to go. She wanted to earn more money and
+keep Lily out of the mill. And she went with a
+light heart, because for the first time in her life since
+she could remember, her father was sober. Helen's
+earnings changed even him. There was something so
+noble in her efforts that it uplifted even the drunkard.
+In mingled shame and pride he thought it out: Supported
+by his daughter&mdash;in a mill and such a daughter!
+He arose from it all white-lipped with resolve:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span>
+&ldquo;<i>I will be a Conway again!</i>&rdquo; He said it over and over.
+He swore it.</p>
+
+<p>It is true he was not entirely free from that sickening,
+sour, accursed smell with which she had associated
+him all her life. But that he was himself, that
+he was making an earnest effort, she knew by his neatly
+brushed clothes, his clean linen, his freshly shaved face,
+his whole attire which betokened the former gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How handsome he must have been when he was once
+a Conway!&rdquo; thought Helen.</p>
+
+<p>He kissed his daughters at the breakfast table. He
+chatted with them, and though he said nothing about
+it, even Lily knew that he had resolved to reform.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast Helen left him, with Lily sitting on
+her father's lap, her face bright with the sunshine
+of it:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If papa would always be like this&rdquo;&mdash;and she patted
+his cheek.</p>
+
+<p>Conway started. The very intonation of her voice,
+her gesture, was of the long dead mother.</p>
+
+<p>Tears came to his eyes. He kissed her: &ldquo;Never
+again, little daughter, will I take another drop.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him seriously: &ldquo;Say with God's
+help&mdash;&rdquo; she said simply. &ldquo;Mammy Maria said it
+won't count unless you say that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Conway smiled. &ldquo;I will do it my own self.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Lily only shook her head in a motherly, scolding
+way.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;With God's help, then,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+<p>Never was an Autumn morning more beautiful to
+Helen as she walked across the fields to the mill. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span>
+had learned a nearer way, one which lay across hill and
+field. The path ran through farms, chiefly The Gaffs,
+and cut across the hills and meadow land. Through
+little dells, amid fragrant groves of sweet gum and maples,
+their beautiful many-colored leaves now scattered
+in rich profusion around. Then down little hollows
+where the brooks sputtered and frothed and foamed
+along, the sun all the time darting in and out, as the
+waters ran first in sunshine and then in shadow. And
+above, the winds were so still, that the jumping of the
+squirrel in the hickories made the only noise among the
+leaves which still clung to the boughs.</p>
+
+<p>All so beautiful, and never had Helen been so happy.</p>
+
+<p>She was earning a living&mdash;she was saving Lily from
+the mill and her father from temptation.</p>
+
+<p>Her path wound along an old field and plunged into
+scrub cedar and glady rocks. A covey of quail sprang
+up before her and she screamed, frightened at the sudden
+thunder of their wings.</p>
+
+<p>Then the path ran through a sedge field, white with
+the tall silvered panicled-leaves of the life-everlasting.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond her she saw the smoke-stack of the mill, and a
+short cut through a meadow of The Gaffs would soon
+take her there.</p>
+
+<p>She failed to see a warning on the fence which said:
+<i>Keep out&mdash;Danger</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Through the bars she went, intent only on soon reaching
+the mill beyond and glorying in the strong rich
+smell of autumn in leaf and grass and air.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What a beautiful horse that is in the pasture,&rdquo; she
+thought, and then her attention went to a meadow lark<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span>
+flushed and exultant. She heard shouts, and now&mdash;why
+was Jim, the stable boy, running toward her so fast,
+carrying a pitchfork in his hands and shouting: &ldquo;Whoa&mdash;there,
+Antar&mdash;Antar,&mdash;you, sir!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And the horse! One look was enough. With ears
+laid back, and mouth wide open, with eyes blazing with
+the fire of fury he was plunging straight at her.</p>
+
+<p>Helpless, she turned in sickening doubt, to feel that
+her limbs were limp in the agony of fear. She heard
+the thunder of the man-eating stallion's hoofs just behind
+her and she butted blindly, as she sank down, into
+some one who held bravely her hand as she fell, and the
+next instant she heard a thundering report and smelt
+a foul blast of gunpowder. She looked up in time to
+see the great horse pitch back on his haunches, rear,
+quiver a moment and strike desperately at the air with
+his front feet and fall almost upon her.</p>
+
+<p>When she revived, the stable boy stood near by the
+dead stallion, pale with fright and wonder. A half-grown
+boy stood by her, holding her hand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are all right now,&rdquo; he said quietly as he helped
+her to arise. In his right hand he held a pistol and
+the foul smoke still oozed up from the nipple where the
+exploded cap lay shattered, under the hammer.</p>
+
+<p>He was perfectly cool&mdash;even haughtily so. He
+scarcely looked at Helen nor at Jim, who kept saying
+nervously:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You've killed him&mdash;you've killed him&mdash;what will
+Mr. Travis say?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The boy laughed an ironical laugh. Then he walked
+up and examined the shot he had made. Squarely be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span>tween
+the great eyes the ball had gone, and scarcely had
+the glaring, frenzied eye-balls of the man-eater been
+fixed in the rigid stare of death. He put his fingers on
+it, and turning, said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A good shot, running&mdash;and at twenty paces!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he stood up proudly, and his blue eyes flashed
+defiance as he said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And what will Mr. Travis say? Well, tell him first
+of all that this man-eating stallion of his caught the
+bullet I had intended for his woman-eating master&mdash;this
+being my birth-day. And tell him, if he asks you
+who I am, that last week I was James Adams, but now
+I am James Travis. He will understand.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He came over to Helen gallantly&mdash;his blue eyes shining
+through a smile which now lurked in them:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;This is Miss Conway, isn't it? I will see you out
+of this.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then, taking her hand as if she had been his big
+sister, he led her along the path to the road and to
+safety.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span></p>
+<h3>MARRIED IN GOD'S SIGHT</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">N</span>ight&mdash;for night and death, are they not one?
+A farm cabin in a little valley beyond the
+mountain. An Indian Summer night in November,
+but a little fire is pleasant, throwing its cheerful
+light on a room rough from puncheon floor to axe-hewn
+rafters, but cleanly-tidy in its very roughness.
+It looked sinewy, strong, honest, good-natured. There
+was roughness, but it was the roughness of strength.
+Knots of character told of the suffering, struggles and
+privations of the sturdy trees in the forest, of seams
+twisted by the tempests; rifts from the mountain rocks;
+fibre, steel-chilled by the terrible, silent cold of winter
+stars.</p>
+
+<p>And now plank and beam and rafter and roof made
+into a home, humble and honest, and giving it all back
+again under the warm light of the hearth-stone.</p>
+
+<p>On a bed, white and beautifully clean, lay a fragile
+creature, terribly white herself, save where red live coals
+gleamed in her cheeks beneath the bright, blazing, fever-fire
+burning in her eyes above.</p>
+
+<p>She coughed and smiled and lay still, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled because a little one&mdash;a tiny, sickly little
+girl&mdash;had come up to the bed and patted her cheek and
+said: &ldquo;Little mother&mdash;little mother!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There were four other children in the room, and they
+sat around in all the solemn, awe-stricken sorrow of
+death, seen for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>Then a man in an invalid chair, helpless and with a
+broken spine, spoke, as if thinking aloud:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She's all the mother the little 'uns ever had, Bishop&mdash;'pears
+like it's cruel for God to take her from them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;God's cruelty is our crown,&rdquo; said the old man&mdash;&ldquo;we'll
+understand it by and by.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then the beautiful woman who had come over the
+mountain arose from the seat by the fireside, and came
+to the bed. She took the little one in her arms and
+petted and soothed her.</p>
+
+<p>The child looked at her timidly in childish astonishment.
+She was not used to such a beautiful woman
+holding her&mdash;so proud and fine&mdash;from a world that
+she knew was not her world.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;May I give you some nourishment now, Maggie?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The girl shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;Miss Alice,&rdquo; and then she smiled so
+brightly and cheerfully that the little one in Alice Westmore's
+arms clapped her hands and laughed: &ldquo;Little
+mother&mdash;be up, well, to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Little Mother turned her eyes on the child quickly,
+smiled and nodded approval. But there were tears&mdash;tears
+which the little one did not understand.</p>
+
+<p>An hour went by&mdash;the wind had ceased, and with it
+the rain. The children were asleep in bed; the father
+in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>A cold sweat had broken out on the dying girl's forehead
+and she breathed with a terrible effort. And in it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span>
+all the two watchers beside the bed saw that there was
+an agony there but not the fear of death. She kept
+trying to bite her nails nervously and saying:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is only&mdash; ... one thing&mdash; ... one ... thing....&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me, Maggie,&rdquo; said the old man, bending low
+and soothing her forehead with his hands, &ldquo;tell us
+what's pesterin' you&mdash;maybe it hadn't oughter be.
+You mustn't worry now&mdash;God'll make everything right&mdash;to
+them that loves him even to the happy death.
+You'll die happy an' be happy with him forever. The
+little 'uns an' the father, you know they're fixed here&mdash;in
+this nice home an' the farm&mdash;so don't worry.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's it!... Oh, that's it!... I got
+it that way&mdash; ... all for them ... but it's
+that that hurts now....&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He bent down over her: &ldquo;Tell us, child&mdash;me an'
+Miss Alice&mdash;tell us what's pesterin' you. You mustn't
+die this way&mdash;you who've got such a right to be
+happy.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The hectic spark burned to white heat in her cheek.
+She bit her nails, she picked at the cover, she looked
+toward the bed and asked feebly: &ldquo;Are they asleep?
+Can I talk to you two?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man nodded. Alice soothed her brow.</p>
+
+<p>Then she beckoned to the old preacher, who knelt
+by her side, and he put his arms around her neck and
+raised her on the pillow. And his ear was close to her
+lips, for she could scarcely talk, and Alice Westmore
+knelt and listened, too. She listened, but with a griping,
+strained heartache,&mdash;listened to a dying confession<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span>
+from the pale lips, and the truth for the first time came
+to Alice Westmore, and kneeling, she could not rise, but
+bent again her head and heard the pitiful, dying confession.
+As she listened to the broken, gasping words,
+heard the heart-breaking secret come out of the ruins
+of its wrecked home, her love, her temptation, her ignorance
+in wondering if she were really married by the
+laws of love, and then the great martyrdom of it all&mdash;giving
+her life, her all, that the others might live&mdash;a
+terrible tightening gathered around Alice Westmore's
+heart, her head fell with the flooding tears and she knelt
+sobbing, her bloodless fingers clutching the bed of the
+dying girl.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't cry,&rdquo; said Maggie. &ldquo;I should be the one
+to weep, ... only I am so happy ... to
+think ... I am loved by the noblest, best, of men, ... an'
+I love him so, ... only he ain't here; ... but
+I wouldn't have him see me die. Now&mdash;now ... what
+I want to know, Bishop, ...&rdquo; she
+tried to rise. She seemed to be passing away. The
+old man caught her and held her in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes opened: &ldquo;I&mdash;is&mdash;&rdquo; she went on, in the
+agony of it all with the same breath, &ldquo;am ... am
+I married ... in God's sight ... as
+well as his&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man held her tenderly as if she were a child.
+He smiled calmly, sweetly, into her eyes as he said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You believed it an' you loved only him, Maggie&mdash;poor
+chile!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes&mdash;yes&mdash;&rdquo; she smiled, &ldquo;an' now&mdash;even
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span>now I love him up&mdash;right up&mdash;as you see ... to
+the door, ... to the shadow, ... to the
+valley of the shadow....&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And it went for these, for these&rdquo;&mdash;he said looking
+around at the room.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For them&mdash;my little ones&mdash;they had no mother,
+you kno'&mdash;an' Daddy's back. Oh, I didn't mind the
+work, ... the mill that has killed ...
+killed me, ... but, ... but was I&rdquo;&mdash;her
+voice rose to a shrill cry of agony&mdash;&ldquo;am I married in
+God's sight?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Alice quivered in the beauty of the answer which came
+back from the old man's lips:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;As sure as God lives, you were&mdash;there now&mdash;sleep
+and rest; it is all right, child.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then a sweet calmness settled over her face, and with
+it a smile of exquisite happiness.</p>
+
+<p>She fell back on her pillow: &ldquo;In God's sight ... married ... married ... my&mdash;Oh,
+I have never said it before ... but now, ... can't I?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop nodded, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My husband, ... my husband, ... dear
+heart, ... Good-bye....&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She tried to reach under her pillow to draw out something,
+and then she smiled and died.</p>
+
+<p>When Alice Westmore dressed her for burial an hour
+afterwards, her heart was shaken with a bitterness it
+had never known before&mdash;a bitterness which in a man
+would have been a vengeance. For there was the smile
+still on the dead face, carried into the presence of God.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Under the dead girl's pillow lay the picture of Richard
+Travis.</p>
+
+<p>The next day Alice sent the picture to Richard Travis,
+and with it a note.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>It is your's</i>,&rdquo; she wrote calmly, terribly calm&mdash;&ldquo;<i>from
+the girl who died believing she was your wife.
+I am helping bury her to-day. And you need not come
+to Westmoreland to-morrow night, nor next week, nor
+ever again.</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And Richard Travis, when he read it, turned white to
+his hard, bitter, cruel lips, the first time in all his life.</p>
+
+<p>For he knew that now he had no more chance to recall
+the living than he had to recall the dead.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span></p>
+<h3>THE QUEEN IS DEAD&mdash;LONG LIVE THE QUEEN</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">A</span>ll that week at the mill, Richard Travis had
+been making preparations for his trip to Boston.
+Regularly twice, and often three times a
+year, he had made the same journey, where his report
+to the directors was received and discussed. After that,
+there were always two weeks of theatres, operas, wine-suppers
+and dissipations of other kinds&mdash;though never
+of the grossest sort&mdash;for even in sin there is refinement,
+and Richard Travis was by instinct and inheritance
+refined.</p>
+
+<p>He was not conscious&mdash;and who of his class ever
+are?&mdash;of the effects of the life he was leading&mdash;the
+tightening of this chain of immoral habits, the searing
+of what conscience he had, the freezing of all that was
+generous and good within him.</p>
+
+<p>Once his nature had been as a lake in midsummer,
+its surface shimmering in the sunlight, reflecting something
+of the beauty that came to it. Now, cold, sordid,
+callous, it lay incased in winter ice and neither could
+the sunlight go in nor its reflection go out. It slept
+on in coarse opaqueness, covered with an impenetrable
+crust which he himself did not understand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But,&rdquo; said the old Bishop more than once, &ldquo;God
+can touch him and he will thaw like a spring day. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span>
+is somethin' great in Richard Travis if he can only be
+touched.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But vice cannot reason. Immorality cannot deduce.
+Only the moral ponders deeply and knows both the premises
+and the conclusions, because only the moral thinks.</p>
+
+<p>Vice, like the poisonous talons of a bird of prey, while
+it buries its nails in the flesh of its victim, carries also
+the narcotic which soothes as it kills.</p>
+
+<p>And Richard Travis had arrived at this stage. At
+first it had been with him any woman, so there was a
+romance&mdash;and hence Maggie. But he had tired of
+these, and now it was the woman beautiful as Helen, or
+the woman pure and lovely as Alice Westmore.</p>
+
+<p>What a tribute to purity, that impurity worships it the
+more as itself sinks lower in the slime of things. It is
+the poignancy of the meteorite, which, falling from a
+star, hisses out its life in the mud.</p>
+
+<p>The woman pure&mdash;Alice&mdash;the very thought of her
+sent him farther into the mud, knowing she could not
+be his. She alone whom he had wanted to wed all his
+life, the goal of his love's ambition, the one woman in
+the world he had never doubted would one day be his
+wife.</p>
+
+<p>Her note to him&mdash;&ldquo;<i>Never ... never ... again</i>&rdquo;&mdash;he
+kept reading it over, stunned, and pale,
+with the truth of it. In his blindness it had never occurred
+to him that Alice Westmore and Maggie would
+ever meet. In his blindness&mdash;for Wrong, daring as a
+snake, which, however alert and far-seeing it may be in
+the hey-day of its spring, sees less clearly as the Summer
+advances, until, in the August of its infamy, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span>
+ceases to see altogether and becomes an easy victim for
+all things with hoofs.</p>
+
+<p>Then, the poignant reawakening. Now he lay in the
+mud and above him still shone the star.</p>
+
+<p>The star&mdash;his star! And how it hurt him! It was
+the breaking of a link in the chain of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Twice had he written to her. But each time his notes
+came back unopened. Twice had he gone to Westmoreland
+to see her. Mrs. Westmore met him at the door,
+cordial, sympathetic, but with a nervous jerk in the little
+metallic laugh. His first glance at her told him she
+knew everything&mdash;and yet, knew nothing. Alice was
+locked in her room and would not see him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But, oh, Richard,&rdquo; and again she laughed her little
+insincere, unstable, society laugh, beginning with
+brave frankness in one corner of her mouth and ending
+in a hypocritical wave of forgetfulness before it had
+time to finish the circle, but fluttering out into a cynical
+twitching of a thing which might have been a smile or
+a sneer&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;True love&mdash;you know&mdash;dear Richard&mdash;you
+must remember the old saying.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She pressed his hand sympathetically. The mouth
+said nothing, but the hand said plainly: &ldquo;Do not
+despair&mdash;I am working for a home at The Gaffs.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He pitied her, for there was misery in her eyes and
+in her laugh and in the very touch of her hand. Misery
+and insincerity, and that terrible mental state when
+weakness is roped up between the two and knows, for
+once in its life, that it has no strength at all.</p>
+
+<p>And she pitied him, for never before on any human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span>
+face had she seen the terrible irony of agony. Agony
+she had often seen&mdash;but not this irony of it&mdash;this
+agony that saw all its life's happiness blasted and knew
+it deserved it.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis, when he left Westmoreland, knew
+that he left it forever.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Queen is dead&mdash;long live the Queen,&rdquo; he said
+bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>And then there happened what always happens to the
+thing in the mud&mdash;he sank deeper&mdash;desperately
+deeper.</p>
+
+<p>Now&mdash;now he would have Helen Conway. He would
+have her and own her, body and soul. He would take
+her away&mdash;as he had planned, and keep her away.
+That was easy, too&mdash;too far away for the whisper of it
+ever to come back. If he failed in that he would marry
+her. She was beautiful&mdash;and with a little more age and
+education she would grace The Gaffs. So he might
+marry her and set her up, a queen over their heads.</p>
+
+<p>This was his determination when he went to the mill
+the first of the week. All the week he watched her,
+talked with her, was pleasant, gallant and agreeable.
+But he soon saw that Helen was not the same. There
+was not the dull wistful resignation in her look, and despair
+had given way to a cheerfulness he could not understand.
+There was a brightness in her eyes which made
+her more beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>The unconscious grip which the shamelessness of it
+all had over him was evidenced in what he did. He confided
+his plans to Jud Carpenter, and set him to work
+to discover the cause.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;See what's wrong,&rdquo; he said significantly. &ldquo;I am
+going to take that girl North with me, and away from
+here. After that it is no affair of yours.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Anything wrong?&rdquo; He had reached the point of
+his moral degradation when right for Helen meant wrong
+for him.</p>
+
+<p>Jud, with a characteristic shrewdness, put his finger
+quickly on the spot.</p>
+
+<p>Edward Conway was sober. Clay saw her daily.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But jes' wait till I see him ag'in&mdash;down there. I'll
+make him drunk enough. Then you'll see a change in
+the Queen&mdash;hey?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And he laughed knowingly. With a little more bitterness
+she would go to the end of the world with him.</p>
+
+<p>It was that day he held her hands in the old familiar
+way, but when he would kiss her at the gate she still fled,
+crimson, away.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Clay Westmore walked with her to
+the mill, and Travis lilted his eyebrows haughtily:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If anything of that kind happens,&rdquo; he said to himself,
+&ldquo;nothing can save me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He watched her closely&mdash;how beautiful she looked
+that day&mdash;how regally beautiful! She had come
+wearing the blue silk gown, with the lace and beads
+which had been her mother's. In sheer delight Travis
+kept slipping to the drawing-in room door to watch her
+work. Her posture, beautifully Greek, before the machine,
+so natural that it looked not unlike a harp in her
+hand; her half-bent head and graceful neck, the flushed
+face and eyes, the whole picture was like a Titian, rich
+in color and life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And she saw him and looked up smiling.</p>
+
+<p>It was not the smile of happiness. He did not know
+it because, being blind, he could not know. It was the
+happiness of work&mdash;achievement.</p>
+
+<p>He came in smiling. &ldquo;Why are you so much happier
+than last week?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Would you really like to know?&rdquo; she said, looking
+him frankly in the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>He touched her hair playfully. She moved her head
+and shook it warningly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is because I am at work and father is trying so
+hard to reform.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I thought maybe it was because you had found out
+how much I love you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was his old, stereotyped, brazen way, but she did
+not know it and blushed prettily.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are kind, Mr. Travis, but&mdash;but that mustn't
+be thought of. Please, but I wish you wouldn't talk
+that way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, it is true, my queen&mdash;of The Gaffs?&rdquo; he
+said smiling.</p>
+
+<p>She began to work again.</p>
+
+<p>He came over to her and bent low:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You know I am to take you Monday night&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Her hands flew very rapidly&mdash;her cheeks mantled
+into a rich glow. One of the threads snapped. She
+stopped, confused.</p>
+
+<p>Travis glanced around. No one was near. He bent
+and kissed her hair:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My queen,&rdquo; he whispered, &ldquo;my beautiful queen.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he walked quickly out. He went to his office,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span>
+but he still saw the beautiful picture. It thrilled him
+and then there swept up over him another picture, and he
+cried savagely to himself:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll make her sorry. She shall bow to that fine
+thing yet&mdash;my queen.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Nor would it leave him that day, and into the night
+he dreamed of her, and it was the same Titian picture
+in a background of red sunset. And her machine was
+a harp she was playing. He wakened and smiled:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Am I falling in love with that girl? That will
+spoil it all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He watched her closely the next day, for it puzzled
+him to know why she had changed so rapidly in her
+manner toward him. He had ridden to Millwood to
+bring her to the mill, himself; and he had some exquisite
+roses for her&mdash;clipped in the hot-house by his own
+hands. It was with an unmistakable twitch of jealousy
+that he learned that Clay Westmore had already come
+by and gone with her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I know what it is now,&rdquo; he said to Jud Carpenter
+at the mill that morning; &ldquo;she is half in love with that
+slow, studious fellow.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud laughed: &ldquo;Say, excuse me, sah&mdash;but hanged
+if you ain't got all the symptoms, y'self, boss?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis flushed:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, when I start out to do a thing I want to do
+it&mdash;and I'm going to take her with me, or die trying.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud laughed again: &ldquo;Leave it to me&mdash;I'll fix the
+goggle-eyed fellow.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>That night when the door bell rang at Westmoreland,
+Jud Carpenter was ushered into Clay's workshop. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span>
+sat down and looked through his shaggy eyebrows at the
+lint and dust and specimens of ore. Then he spat on
+the floor disgustedly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sorry to disturb you, but be you a surveyor also?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The big bowed glasses looked at him quietly and nodded
+affirmatively.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wal, then,&rdquo; went on Jud, &ldquo;I come to git you to do
+a job of surveying for the mill. It's a lot of timber
+land on the other side of the mountain&mdash;some twenty
+miles off. The Company's bought five thousand acres
+of wood and they want it surveyed. What'll you
+charge?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Clay thought a moment: &ldquo;Going and coming, on
+horse-back&mdash;it will take me a week,&rdquo; said Clay
+thoughtfully. &ldquo;I shall charge a hundred dollars.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' will you go right away&mdash;to-morrow mornin'?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Clay nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Here's fifty of it,&rdquo; said Jud&mdash;&ldquo;the Company is
+in a hurry. We want the survey by this day week.
+Let me see, this is Sat'dy&mdash;I'll come next Sat'dy
+night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Clay's face flushed. Never before had he made a
+hundred dollars in a week.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll go at once.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To-morrow at daylight?&rdquo; asked Jud, rising.</p>
+
+<p>Clay looked at him curiously. There was something
+in the tone of the man that struck him as peculiar, but
+Jud went on in an easy way.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You see we must have it quick. All our winter
+wood to run the mill is there an' we can't start into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span>
+cordin' till it's surveyed an' the deed's passed. Sorry to
+hurry you&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Clay promised to start at daylight and Jud left.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at his watch. It was late. He would like
+to tell Helen about it&mdash;he said aloud: &ldquo;Making a
+hundred dollars a week. If I could only keep up that&mdash;I'd&mdash;I'd&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He blushed. And then he turned quietly and went
+to bed. And that was why Helen wondered the next
+day and the next, and all the next week why she did not
+see Clay, why he did not come, nor write, nor send her a
+message. And wondering the pang of it went into her
+hardening heart.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span></p>
+<h3>IN THYSELF THERE IS WEAKNESS</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">I</span>t was the middle of Saturday afternoon, and all the
+week Edward Conway had fought against the terrible
+thirst which was in him. Not since Monday
+morning had he touched whiskey at all, and now he
+walked the streets of the little town saying over and over
+to himself: &ldquo;I am a Conway again.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He had come to town to see Jud Carpenter about the
+house which had been promised him&mdash;for he could not
+expect to hold Millwood much longer. With his soberness
+some of his old dignity and manhood returned, and
+when Carpenter saw him, the Whipper-in knew instinctively
+what had happened.</p>
+
+<p>He watched Edward Conway closely&mdash;the clear eye,
+the haughty turn of his head, the quiet, commanding
+way of the man sober; and the Whipper-in frowned as
+he said to himself:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If he keeps this up I'll have it to do all over.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And yet, as he looked at him, Jud Carpenter took it
+all in&mdash;the weakness that was still there, the terrible,
+restless thirst which now made him nervous, irritable, and
+turned his soul into a very tumult of dissatisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Carpenter, even as he talked to him, could see the
+fight which was going on; and now and then, in spite
+of it and his determination, he saw that the reformed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span>
+drunkard was looking wistfully toward the bar-room of
+Billy Buch.</p>
+
+<p>And so, as Jud talked to Edward Conway about the
+house, he led him along toward the bar-room. All the
+time he was complimenting him on his improved health,
+and telling how, with help from the mill, he would soon
+be on his feet again.</p>
+
+<p>At the bar door he halted:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let us set down here an' res', Majah, sah, it's a good
+place on this little porch. Have somethin'? Billy's
+got a mighty fine bran' of old Tennessee whiskey in
+there.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud watched him as he spoke and saw the fire of expectancy
+burn in his despairing eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;Carpenter&mdash;no&mdash;I am obliged to
+you&mdash;but I have sworn never to touch another drop of
+it. I'll just rest here with you.&rdquo; He threw up his head
+and Jud Carpenter saw how eagerly he inhaled the odor
+which came out of the door. He saw the quivering lips,
+the tense straining of the throat, the wavering eyes
+which told how sorely he was tempted.</p>
+
+<p>It was cool, but the sweat stood in drops on Edward
+Conway's temple. He gulped, but swallowed only a
+dry lump, which immediately sprang back into his throat
+again and burned as a ball of fire.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;Carpenter,&rdquo; he kept saying in a dazed,
+abstracted way&mdash;&ldquo;no&mdash;no&mdash;not any more for me.
+I've promised&mdash;I've promised.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And yet even while saying it his eyes were saying:
+&ldquo;For God's sake&mdash;bring it to me&mdash;quick&mdash;quick.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud arose and went into the bar and whispered to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span>
+Billy Buch. Then he came back and sat down and
+talked of other things. But all the time he was watching
+Edward Conway&mdash;the yearning look&mdash;turned
+half pleadingly to the bar&mdash;the gulpings which swallowed
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Jud looked up. He heard the tinkle of
+glasses, and Billy Buch stood before them with two long
+toddies on a silver waiter. The ice tinkled and glittered
+in the deep glasses&mdash;the cherries and pineapple
+gleamed amid it and the whiskey&mdash;the rich red
+whiskey!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My treat&mdash;an' no charges, gentlemen! Compliments
+of Billy Buch.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Conway looked at the tempting glass for a moment
+in the terrible agony of indecision. Then remorse, fear,
+shame, frenzy, seized him:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;I've sworn off, Billy&mdash;I'll swear I
+have. My God, but I'm a Conway again&rdquo;&mdash;and before
+the words were fairly out of his mouth he had seized
+the glass and swallowed the contents.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly dark when Helen, quitting the mill immediately
+on its closing, slipped out of a side door to
+escape Richard Travis and almost ran home across the
+fields. Never had she been so full of her life, her plans
+for the future, her hopes, her pride to think her father
+would be himself again.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For if he will,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;all else good will
+follow.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Just at the gate she stopped and almost fell in the
+agony of it all. Her father lay on the dry grass by
+the roadside, unable to walk.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She knelt by his side and wept. Her heart then and
+there gave up&mdash;her soul quit in the fight she was making.</p>
+
+<p>With bitterness which was desperate she went to the
+spring and brought water and bathed his face. Then
+when he was sufficiently himself to walk, she led him,
+staggering, in, and up the steps.</p>
+
+<p>Jud Carpenter reached the mill an hour after dark:
+He sought out Richard Travis and chuckled, saying
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Travis was busy with his books, and when he had finished
+he turned and smiled at the man.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me what it is?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I fixed him, that's all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he laughed:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He was sober this morning an' was in a fair way to
+knock our plans sky high&mdash;as to the gal, you kno'.
+Reformed this mornin', but you'll find him good and
+drunk to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Travis, knitting his brows thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did you notice how much brighter, an' sech, she's
+been for a day or two?&rdquo; asked Jud.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I notice that she has shunned me all day&rdquo;&mdash;said
+Travis&mdash;&ldquo;as if I were poison.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She'll not shun you to-morrow,&rdquo; laughed Jud. &ldquo;She
+is your's&mdash;for a woman desperate is a woman lost&mdash;&rdquo;
+and he chuckled again as he went out.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span></p>
+<h3>HIMSELF AGAIN</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">N</span>ever had the two old servants been so happy
+as they were that night after their rescue. At
+first they looked on it as a miracle, in which the
+spirits of their young master and his body-servant, their
+only son, had come back to earth to rescue them, and for
+a while their prayers and exhortations took on the uncanny
+tone of superstition. But after they had heard
+them talk in the old natural way and seen Captain Tom
+walking in the living flesh, they became satisfied that
+it was indeed their young master whom they had supposed
+to be dead.</p>
+
+<p>Jack Bracken, with all the tenderness of one speaking
+to little children, explained it all to them&mdash;how
+he had himself carried Captain Tom off the battle-field
+of Franklin; how he had cared for him since&mdash;even
+to the present time; how Ephraim would not desert his
+young master, but had stayed with them, as cook and
+house boy. And how Captain Tom had now become
+well again.</p>
+
+<p>Jack was careful not to go too much into details&mdash;especially
+Ephraim having lived for two years within a
+few miles of his parents and not making himself known!
+The truth was, as Jack knew, Ephraim had become in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span>fatuated
+with the free-booting life of Jack Bracken.
+He had gone with him on many a raid, and gold came
+too easy that way to dig it out of the soil, as in a cotton
+field.</p>
+
+<p>The old people supposed all this happened far away,
+and in another country, and that they had all come
+home as soon as they could.</p>
+
+<p>With this they were happy.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And now,&rdquo; added Jack, &ldquo;we are going to hide with
+you a week or so, until Captain Tom can lay his plans.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thank God&mdash;thank God!&rdquo;&mdash;said Uncle Bisco,
+and he would feel of his young master and say: &ldquo;Jes'
+lak he allus wus, only his hair is a leetle gray. An'
+in the same uniform he rid off in&mdash;the same gran'
+clothes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Captain Tom laughed: &ldquo;No, not the same, but like
+them. You see, I reported at Washington and explained
+it to the Secretary of War, Jack. It seems
+that Mr. Lincoln had been kind enough to write a personal
+letter about me to my grandfather,&mdash;they were
+old friends. It was a peculiar scene&mdash;my interview
+with the Secretary. My grandfather had filed this letter
+at the War Department before he died, and my return
+to life was a matter of interest and wonder to
+them. And so I am still Captain of Artillery,&rdquo; he
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>In the little cabin the old servants gave him the best
+room, cleanly and sweet with an old-fashioned feather-bed
+and counterpane. Jack Bracken had a cot by his
+bed, and on the wall was a picture of Miss Alice.</p>
+
+<p>Long into the night they talked, the young man ask<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span>ing
+them many questions and chief of all, of Alice.
+They could see that he was thinking of her, and often
+he would stop before the picture and look at it and fall
+into a reverie.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It seems to me but yesterday,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;since I
+left her and went off to the war. She is not to know
+that I am here&mdash;not yet. You must hide me if she
+runs in,&rdquo; he smiled. &ldquo;I must see her first in my own
+way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He noticed Jack Bracken's cot by his bedside and
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You see, I have been takin' keer of you so long,&rdquo;
+said Jack after the old servants had left them to themselves,
+&ldquo;that I can't git out of the habit. I thought
+you wus never comin' home.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's good we came when we did, Jack.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You ought to have let me shoot.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The young Captain shook his head: &ldquo;O Jack&mdash;Jack,
+I've seen murder enough&mdash;it seems but yesterday
+since I was at Franklin.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know who's at the head of all this?&rdquo; asked
+Jack. &ldquo;It's Richard Travis.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Bishop told me all, Jack&mdash;and about my
+grandfather's will. But I shall divide it with him&mdash;it
+is not fair.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jack watched the strong, tall man, as he walked to
+and fro in the room, and a proud smile spread over the
+outlaw's face.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What a man you are&mdash;what a man you are, Cap'n
+Tom!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's good to be one's self again, Jack. How can I
+ever repay you for what you have done for me?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You've paid it long ago&mdash;long ago. Where would
+Jack Bracken have been if you hadn't risked yo' life to
+cut me down, when the rope&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Captain Tom put his hand on Jack's shoulder affectionately:
+&ldquo;We'll forget all those horrible things&mdash;and
+that war, which was hell, indeed. Jack&mdash;Jack&mdash;there
+is a new life ahead for us both,&rdquo; he said, smiling
+happily.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For you&mdash;yes&mdash;but not for me&rdquo;&mdash;and he shook
+his head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you remember little Jack, Cap'n Tom&mdash;him
+that died? I seem to think mo' of him now than
+ever&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is strange, Jack&mdash;but I do distinctly; an' our
+home in the cave, an' the beautiful room we had, an'
+the rock portico overlaid with wild honeysuckle and
+Jackson vines overlooking the grand river.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jack, do you know we must go there this week and
+see it again? I have plans to carry out before making
+my identity known.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>An hour afterwards the old servants heard Captain
+Tom step out into the yard. It was then past midnight&mdash;the
+most memorable night of all their lives.
+Neither of the old servants could sleep, for hearing
+Ephraim talk, and that lusty darkey had sadly mixed
+his imagination and his facts.</p>
+
+<p>The old man went out: &ldquo;Don't be uneasy,&rdquo; said
+Captain Tom. &ldquo;I am going to saddle John Paul Jones
+and ride over the scenes of my youth. They might see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</a></span>
+me by daylight, and the moonlight is so beautiful to-night.
+I long to see The Gaffs, and Westmoreland,
+my grandfather's grave,&rdquo; and then in a tenderer tone&mdash;&ldquo;and
+my father's; he lies buried in the flag I love.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He smiled sadly and went out.</p>
+
+<p>John Paul Jones had been comfortably housed in the
+little stable nearby. He nickered affectionately as his
+master came up and led him out.</p>
+
+<p>The young officer stood a few moments looking at
+the splendid horse, and with the look came a flood of
+memories so painful that he bowed his head in the saddle.</p>
+
+<p>When he looked up Jack Bracken stood by his side:
+&ldquo;I don't much like this, Cap'n Tom. Not to-night,
+after all we've done to them. They've got out spies
+now&mdash;I know them; a lot of negroes calling themselves
+Union League, but secretly waylaying, burning and killing
+all who differ with them in politics. They've made
+the Klu-Klux a necessity. Now, I don't want you to
+turn me into a Klu-Klux to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, they would not harm me, Jack, not me, after
+all I have suffered. It has all been so hazy,&rdquo; he went
+on, as if trying to recall it all, &ldquo;so hazy until now.
+Now, how clear it all is! Here is the creek, yonder the
+mountain, and over beyond that the village. And yonder
+is Westmoreland. I remember it all&mdash;so distinctly.
+And after Franklin, my God, it was so hazy, with something
+pressing me down as if I were under a house
+which had fallen on me and pinned me to the ground.
+But now, O God, I thank Thee that I am a man again!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jack went back into the cabin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Captain Tom stood drinking it all in&mdash;the moonlight,
+on the roof of Westmoreland, shining through
+the trees. Then he thought of what the old Bishop
+had told him of Alice, the great pressure brought to
+bear on her to marry Richard Travis, and of her devotion
+to the memory of her first love.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And for her love and her constancy, oh, God, I
+thank Thee most of all,&rdquo; he said, looking upward at the
+stars.</p>
+
+<p>He mounted his horse and rode slowly out into the
+night, a commanding figure, for the horse and rider
+were one, and John Paul Jones tossed his head as if to
+show his joy, tossed his head proudly and was in for a
+gallop.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Tom's pistols were buckled to his side, for he
+had had experience enough in the early part of the
+night to show him the unsettled state of affairs still existing
+in the country under negro domination.</p>
+
+<p>There were no lights at Westmoreland, but he knew
+which was Alice's room, and in the shadow of a tree he
+stopped and looked long at the window. Oh, to tear
+down the barriers which separated him from her! To
+see her once more&mdash;she the beautiful and true&mdash;her
+hair&mdash;her eyes, and to place again the kiss of a new
+betrothal on her lips, the memory of which, in all his
+sorrows and afflictions, had never left him. And now
+they told him she was more beautiful than ever. Twelve
+years&mdash;twelve years out of his life&mdash;years of forgetfulness&mdash;and
+yet it seemed but a few months since he
+had bade Alice good-bye&mdash;here&mdash;here under the crepe-myrtle
+tree where he now stood. He knelt and kissed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</a></span>
+the holy sod. A wave of triumphant happiness came
+over him. He arose and threw passionate kisses toward
+her window. Then he mounted and rode off.</p>
+
+<p>At The Gaffs he looked long and earnestly. He
+imagined he saw the old Colonel, his grandfather, sitting
+in his accustomed place on the front porch, his feet
+propped on the balcony, his favorite hound by his side.
+Long he gazed, looking at every familiar place of his
+youth. He knew now that every foot of it would be
+his. He had no bitterness in his heart. Not he, for
+in the love and constancy of Alice Westmore all such
+things seemed unspeakable insignificance to the glory of
+that.</p>
+
+<p>In the old family cemetery, which lay hid among
+the cedars on the hill, he stood bare-headed before the
+grave of his grandsire and silently the tears fell:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My noble old grandsire,&rdquo; he murmured, &ldquo;if the
+spirits of the dead look down on the living, tell me I
+have not proved unworthy. It was his flag&mdash;my
+father's, and he lies by you wrapped in it. Tell me I
+have not been unworthy the same, for I have suffered.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And from the silent stars, as he looked up, there fell
+on him a benediction of peace.</p>
+
+<p>Then he drew himself up proudly and gave each
+grave a military salute, mounted and rode away.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</a></span></p>
+<h3>THE JOY OF THE MORNING</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">A</span>ll the week, since the scene at Maggie's deathbed,
+Alice Westmore had remained at home,
+while strange, bitter feelings, such as she had
+never felt before, surged in her heart. Her brother
+was away, and this gave her more freedom to do as she
+wished&mdash;to remain in her room&mdash;and her mother's
+presence now was not altogether the solace her heart
+craved.</p>
+
+<p>Of the utmost purity of thought herself, Alice Westmore
+had never even permitted herself to harbor anything
+reflecting on the character of those she trusted;
+and in the generosity of her nature, she considered all
+her friends trustworthy. Thinking no evil, she knew
+none; nor would she permit any idle gossip to be repeated
+before her. In her case her unsuspecting nature
+was strengthened by her environment, living as she was
+with her mother and brother only.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that she had heard faint rumors of Richard
+Travis's life; but the full impurity of it had never
+been realized by her until she saw Maggie die. Then
+Richard Travis went, not only out of her life, but out
+of her very thoughts. She remembered him only as she
+did some evil character read of in fiction or history.
+Perhaps in this she was more severe than necessary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</a></span>&mdash;since
+the pendulum of anger swings always farthest in
+the first full stroke of indignation. And then the surprise
+of it&mdash;the shock of it! Never had she gone
+through a week so full of unhappiness, since it had come
+to her, years before, that Tom Travis had been killed at
+Franklin.</p>
+
+<p>Her mother's entreaties&mdash;tears, even&mdash;affected
+her now no more than the cries of a spoiled child.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Alice,&rdquo; she said one night when she had been
+explaining and apologizing for Richard Travis&mdash;&ldquo;you
+should know now, child, really, you ought to know by
+now, that all men may not have been created alike, but
+they are all alike.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I do not believe it,&rdquo; said Alice with feeling&mdash;&ldquo;I
+never want to believe it&mdash;I never shall believe it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My darling,&rdquo; said the mother, laying her face
+against Alice's, &ldquo;I have reared you too far from the
+world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But for once in her life Mrs. Westmore knew that her
+daughter, who had heretofore been willing to sacrifice
+everything for her mother's comfort, now halted before
+such a chasm as this, as stubborn and instinctively as a
+wild doe in her flight before a precipice.</p>
+
+<p>Twice Alice knew that Richard Travis had called; and
+she went to her room and locked the door. She did not
+wish even to think of him; for when she did it was not
+Richard Travis she saw, but Maggie dying, with the
+picture of him under her pillow.</p>
+
+<p>She devised many plans for herself, but go away she
+must, perhaps to teach.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of her perplexity there came to her Sat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span>urday
+afternoon a curiously worded note, from the old
+Cottontown preacher, telling her not to forget now that
+he had returned and that Sunday School lessons at
+Uncle Bisco's were in order. He closed with a remark
+which, read between the lines, she saw was intended to
+warn and prepare her for something unexpected, the
+greatest good news, as he said, of her life. Then he
+quoted:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea,
+and the sea returned to his strength when the morning
+appeared.</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was but one great good news that Alice Westmore
+cared for, and, strange to say, all the week she had
+been thinking of it. It came about involuntarily, as
+she compared men with one another.</p>
+
+<p>It came as the tide comes back to the ocean, as the
+stars come with the night. She tried to smother it, but
+it would not be smothered. At last she resigned herself
+to the wretchedness of it&mdash;as one when, despairing of
+throwing off a mood, gives way to it and lets it eat its
+own heart out.</p>
+
+<p>She could scarcely wait until night. Her heart beat
+at intervals, in agitated fierceness, and flushes of red
+went through her cheek all the afternoon, at the thought
+in her heart that at times choked her.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the kindly old man himself, his face radiant
+with a look she had not seen on a face for many
+weeks. After the week she had been through, this itself
+was a comfort. She met him with feigned calmness and
+a little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You promised to tell me where you had been,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span>
+Bishop, all these weeks. It must have made you very,
+very happy.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll tell you down at the cabin, if you'll dress yo'
+very pretties'. There's friends of yo's down there you
+ain't seen in a long time&mdash;that's mighty anxious to see
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I do indeed feel ashamed of myself for having
+neglected the old servants so long; but you cannot
+know what has been on my mind. Yes, I will go with
+you directly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man looked at her admiringly when she was
+ready to go&mdash;at the dainty gown of white, the splendid
+hair of dark auburn crowning her head, the big wistful
+eyes, the refined face. Upon him had devolved the duty
+of preparing Alice Westmore for what she would see in
+the cabin, and never did he enter more fully into the
+sacredness of such an occasion.</p>
+
+<p>And now, when she was ready and stood before him
+in all her superb womanhood, a basket of dainties on
+her arm for the old servants, he spoke very solemnly as
+he handed her an ambrotype set in a large gold breast-pin.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You'll need this to set you off&mdash;around yo' neck.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>At sight of it all the color left her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, it is mine&mdash;I gave it to&mdash;to&mdash;Tom. He
+took it to the war with him. Where&rdquo;&mdash;A sob leaped
+into her throat and stopped her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On my journey,&rdquo; said the old man quickly, &ldquo;I
+heard somethin' of Cap'n Tom. You must prepare yo'se'f
+for good news.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Her heart jumped and the blood surged back again,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span>
+and she grew weak, but the old man laughed his cheery
+laugh, and, pretending to clap her playfully on the
+shoulder, he held her firmly with his great iron hand, as
+he saw the blood go out of her cheeks, leaving them as
+white as white roses:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Down there,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;I'll tell you all. But
+God is good&mdash;God is good.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bewildered, pale, and with throbbing heart, she let
+him take her basket and lead her down the well-beaten
+path. She could not speak, for something, somehow,
+said to her that Captain Tom Travis was alive and that
+she would see him&mdash;next week perhaps&mdash;next month
+or year&mdash;it mattered not so that she would see him.
+And yet&mdash;and yet&mdash;O all these years&mdash;all these
+years! She kept saying over the words of the old
+Bishop, as one numbed, and unable to think, keeps repeating
+the last thing that enters the mind. Trembling,
+white, her knees weak beneath her, she followed
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;God is good&mdash;oh, Bishop&mdash;tell me&mdash;why&mdash;why&mdash;why&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Because Cap'n Tom is not dead, Miss Alice, he is
+alive and well.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They had reached the large oak which shadowed the
+little cabin. She stopped suddenly in the agony of
+happiness, and the strong old man, who had been watching
+her, turned and caught her with a firm grasp, while
+the stars danced frantically above her. And half-unconscious
+she felt another one come to his aid, one who
+took her in his arms and kissed her lips and her eyes<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">... and carried her into the bright fire-lighted</span><br />
+cabin, ... carried her in strength and happiness
+that made her lay her cheek against his, ... and
+there were tears on it, and somehow she lay as if she
+were a child in his arms, ... a child again and
+she was happy, ... and there were silence and
+sweet dreams and the long-dead smell of the crepe-myrtle....
+She did not remember again until she sat
+up on the cot in the clean little cabin, and Tom Travis,
+tall and in the splendor of manhood, sat holding her
+hands and stroking her hair and whispering: &ldquo;<i>Alice,
+my darling&mdash;it is all well&mdash;and I have come back for
+you, at last!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And the old servants stood around smiling and happy,
+but so silent and composed that she knew that they had
+been schooled to it, and a big man, who seemed to watch
+Captain Tom as a big dog would his master, kept
+blowing his nose and walking around the room. And
+by the fire sat the old Cottontown preacher, his back
+turned to them and saying just loud enough to be
+heard: &ldquo;<i>The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
+He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, ...
+he restoreth my soul&mdash; ... my cup runneth
+over....</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And then sillily, as Alice thought, she threw her arms
+around the neck of the man she loved and burst into
+the tears which brought the sweetness of assurance, the
+calmness of a reality that meant happiness.</p>
+
+<p>And for an hour she sobbed, her arms there, and he
+holding her tight to his breast and talking in the old
+way, natural and soothing and reassuring and taking
+from her heart all fear and the shock of it, until at last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span>
+it all seemed natural and not a dream, ... and
+the sweetness of it all was like the light which cometh
+with the joy of the morning.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span></p>
+<h3>THE TOUCH OF GOD</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">T</span>he news of Captain Tom's return spread quickly.
+By noon it was known throughout the Tennessee
+Valley.</p>
+
+<p>The sensational features of it required prompt action
+on his and Alice's part, and their decision was quickly
+made: they would be married that Sunday afternoon
+in the little church on the mountain side and by the old
+man who had done so much to make their happiness
+possible.</p>
+
+<p>For once in its history the little church could not hold
+the people who came to witness this romantic marriage,
+and far down the mountain side they stood to see the
+bride and groom pass by. Many remembered the
+groom, all had heard of him,&mdash;his devotion to his country's
+flag; to the memory of his father; his gallantry,
+his heroism, his martyrdom, dying (as they supposed)
+rather than turn his guns on his brave old grandsire.
+And now to come back to life again&mdash;to win the woman
+he loved and who had loved him all these years! Besides,
+there was no one in the Tennessee Valley considered
+more beautiful than the bride, and they loved her as if
+she had been an angel of light.</p>
+
+<p>And never had she appeared more lovely.</p>
+
+<p>A stillness swept over the crowd when the carriage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span>
+drove up to the little church, and when the tall, handsome
+man in the uniform of a captain of artillery lifted
+Alice out with the tenderness of all lovers in his touch
+and the strength of a strong lover, with a lily in his
+hand, the crowd, knowing his history, could not refrain
+from cheering. He lifted his cap and threw back his
+iron-gray hair, showing a head proud and tender and
+on his face such a smile as lovers only wear. Then he
+led her in,&mdash;pale and tearful.</p>
+
+<p>The little church had been prettily decorated that
+Sabbath morning, and when the old preacher came forward
+and called them to him, he said the simple words
+which made them man and wife, and as he blessed them,
+praying, a mocking-bird, perched on a limb near the
+window, sang a soft low melody as if one singer wished
+to compliment another.</p>
+
+<p>They went out hand in hand, and when they reached
+the door, the sun which had been hid burst out as a
+benediction upon them.</p>
+
+<p>Among the guests one man had stepped in unnoticed
+and unseen. Why he came he could not tell, for never
+before did he have any desire to go to the little church.</p>
+
+<p>It was midnight when the news came to him that
+Tom Travis had returned as from the dead. It was
+Jud Carpenter who had awakened him that Saturday
+night to whisper at the bedside the startling news.</p>
+
+<p>But Travis only yawned from his sleep and said:
+&ldquo;I've been expecting it all the time&mdash;go somewhere
+and go to bed.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>After Carpenter had gone, he arose, stricken with a
+feeling he could not describe, but had often seen in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span>
+race horses running desperately until within fifty yards
+of the wire, and then suddenly&mdash;quitting. He had almost
+reached his goal&mdash;but now one week had done
+all this. Alice&mdash;gone, and The Gaffs&mdash;he must divide
+that with his cousin&mdash;for his grandfather had left
+no will.</p>
+
+<p>Divide The Gaffs with Tom Travis?&mdash;He would as
+soon think of dividing Alice's love with him. In the
+soul of Richard Travis there was no such word as division.</p>
+
+<p>In the selfishness of his life, it had ever been all or
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>All night he thought, he walked the halls of the old
+house, he ran over a hundred solutions of it in his mind.
+And still there was no solution that satisfied him, that
+seemed natural. It seemed that his mind, which had
+heretofore worked so unerringly, deducing things so
+naturally, now balked before an abyss that was bridgeless.
+Heretofore he had looked into the future with
+the bold, true sweep of an eagle peering from its mountain
+home above the clouds into the far distance, his
+eyes unclouded by the mist, which cut off the vision of
+mortals below. But now he was the blindest of the
+blind. He seemed to stop as before a wall&mdash;a chasm
+which ended everything&mdash;a chasm, on the opposite wall
+of which was printed: Thus far and no farther.</p>
+
+<p>Think as he would, he could not think beyond it. His
+life seemed to stop there. After it, he was nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Our minds, our souls&mdash;are like the sun, which shines
+very plainly as it moves across the sky of our life of
+things&mdash;showing them in all distinctness and clearness;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span>
+so that we see things as they happen to us with our eyes
+of daylight. But as the sun throws its dim twilight
+shadows even beyond our earth, so do the souls of men
+of great mind and imagination see, faintly, beyond their
+own lives, and into the shadow of things.</p>
+
+<p>To-night that mysterious sight came to Richard
+Travis, as it comes in the great crises of life and death,
+to every strong man, and he saw dimly, ghostily, into
+the shadow; and the shadow stopped at the terrible
+abyss which now barred his ken; and he felt, with the
+keen insight of the dying eagle on the peak, that the
+thing was death.</p>
+
+<p>In the first streak of light, he was rudely awakened
+to it. For there on the rug, as naturally as if asleep,
+lay the only thing he now loved in the world, the old
+setter, whose life had passed out in slumber.</p>
+
+<p>All animals have the dying instinct. Man, the
+highest, has it the clearest. And Travis remembered
+that the old dog had come to his bed, in the middle of
+the night, and laid his large beautiful head on his master's
+breast, and in the dim light of the smouldering
+fire had said good-bye to Richard Travis as plainly as
+ever human being said it. And now on the rug, before
+the dead gray ashes of the night, he had found the old
+dog forever asleep, naturally and in great peace.</p>
+
+<p>His heart sank as he thought of the farewell of the
+night before, and bitterness came, and sitting down on
+the rug by the side of the dead dog he stroked for the
+last time the grand old silken head, so calm and poised,
+for the little world it had been bred for, and ran his
+palm over the long strong nose that had never lied to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span>
+the scent of the covey. His lips tightened and he said:
+&ldquo;O God, I am dying myself, and there is not a living
+being whom I can crawl up to, and lay my head on its
+breast and know it loves and pities me, as I love you, old
+friend.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The thought gripped his throat, and as he thought of
+the sweetness and nobility of this dumb thing, his gentleness,
+faithfulness and devotion, the sureness of his life
+in filling the mission he came for, he wept tears so
+strange to his cheek that they scalded as they flowed, and
+he bowed his head and said: &ldquo;Gladstone, Gladstone,
+good-bye&mdash;true to your breeding, you were what your
+master never was&mdash;a gentleman.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And the old housekeeper found this strong man, who
+had never wept in his life, crying over the old dead
+setter on the rug.</p>
+
+<p>And the same feeling, the second sight&mdash;the presentiment&mdash;the
+terrible balking of his mind that had
+always seen so clearly, ever into the future, held him
+as in a vise all the morning and moved him in a strange
+mysterious way to go to the church and see the woman
+he had loved all his life, the being whose very look uplifted
+him, and whose smile could make him a hero or a
+martyr, married to the man who came home to take her,
+and half of his all.</p>
+
+<p>Numbed, hardened, speechless, and yet with that terrible
+presentiment of the abyss before him, he had stood
+and seen Alice Westmore made the wife of another.</p>
+
+<p>He remembered first how quickly he had caught the
+text of the old man; indeed, it seemed to him now that
+everything he heard struck into him like a brand of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span>
+fire&mdash;for never had life appeared to him as it did to-day.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>For the hand of God hath touched me&mdash;</i>&rdquo; he kept
+repeating over and over&mdash;repeating and then cursing
+himself for repeating it&mdash;for remembering it.</p>
+
+<p>And still it stayed there all day&mdash;the unbidden
+ghost-guest of his soul.</p>
+
+<p>And everything the old preacher said went searing
+into his quivering soul, and all the time he kept looking&mdash;looking
+at the woman he loved and seeing her giving
+her love, her life, with a happy smile, to another. And
+all the time he stood wondering why he came to see it,
+why he felt as he did, why things hurt him that way,
+why he acted so weakly, why his conscience had awakened
+at last, why life hurt him so&mdash;life that he had played
+with as an edged tool&mdash;why he could not get away
+from himself and his memory, but ran always into it,
+and why at last with a shudder, why did nothing seem
+to be beyond the wall?</p>
+
+<p>He saw her go off, the wife of another. He saw their
+happiness&mdash;unconscious even that he lived, and he
+cursed himself and kept saying: &ldquo;<i>The hand of God
+hath touched me.</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he laughed at himself for being silly.</p>
+
+<p>He rode home, but it was not home. Nothing was
+itself&mdash;not even he. In the watches of one night his
+life had been changed and the light had gone out.</p>
+
+<p>When night came it was worse. He mounted his
+horse and rode&mdash;where? And he could no more help
+it than he could cease to breathe.</p>
+
+<p>He did not guide the saddle mare, she went herself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span>
+through wood sombre and dark with shadows, through
+cedar trees, dwarfed, and making pungent the night air
+with aromatic breath; through old sedge fields, garish
+in the faint light; up, up the mountain, over it; and at
+last the mare stopped and stood silently by a newly
+made grave, while Richard Travis, with strained hard
+mouth and wet eyes, knelt and, knowing that no hand
+in the world cared to feel his repentant face in it, he
+buried it in the new made sod as he cried: &ldquo;Maggie&mdash;Maggie&mdash;forgive
+me, for the hand of God hath
+touched me!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And it soothed him, for he knew that if she were alive
+he might have lain his head there&mdash;on her breast.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span></p>
+<h3>MAMMY MARIA</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">T</span>hat Monday was a memorable day for Helen
+Conway. She went to the mill with less bitterness
+than ever before&mdash;the sting of it all was
+gone&mdash;for she felt that she was helpless to the fate that
+was hers&mdash;that she was powerless in the hands of
+Richard Travis:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>I will come for you Monday night. I will take
+you away from here. You shall belong to me forever&mdash;My
+Queen!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>These words had rung in her ears all Saturday night,
+when, after coming home, she had found her father
+fallen by the wayside.</p>
+
+<p>In the night she had lain awake and wondered. She
+did not know where she was going&mdash;she did not care.
+She did not even blush at the thought of it. She was
+hardened, steeled. She knew not whether it meant wife
+or mistress. She knew only that, as she supposed, God
+had placed upon her more than she could bear.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If my life is wrecked,&rdquo; she said as she lay awake
+that Sunday night&mdash;&ldquo;God himself will do it. Who
+took my mother before I knew her influence? Who
+made me as I am and gave me poverty with this fatal
+beauty&mdash;poverty and a drunken father and this terrible
+temptation?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, if I only had her, Mammy&mdash;negro that she
+is.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Lily was asleep with one arm around her sister's neck.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What will become of Lily, in the mill, too?&rdquo; She
+bent and kissed her, and she saw that the little one,
+though asleep, had tears in her own eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Young as she was, Helen's mind was maturer than
+might have been supposed. And the problem which
+confronted her she saw very clearly, although she was
+unable to solve it. The problem was not new, indeed,
+it has been Despair's conundrum since the world began:
+Whose fault that my life has been as it is? In her
+despair, doubting, she cried:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is there really a God, as Mammy Maria told me?
+Does He interpose in our lives, or are we rushed along
+by the great moral and physical laws, which govern the
+universe; and if by chance we fail to harmonize with
+them, be crushed for our ignorance&mdash;our ignorance
+which is not of our own making?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By chance&mdash;by chance,&rdquo; she repeated, &ldquo;but if
+there be great fixed laws, how can there be any&mdash;chance?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The thought was hopeless. She turned in her despair
+and hid her face. And then out of the darkness came
+the strong fine face of Clay Westmore&mdash;and his words:
+&ldquo;We must all work&mdash;it is life's badge of nobility.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>How clearly and calmly they came to her. And then
+her heart fluttered. Suppose Clay loved her&mdash;suppose
+this was her solution? He had never pressed his love
+on her. Did he think a woman could be loved that way&mdash;scientifically&mdash;as
+coal and iron are discovered?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She finally slept, her arms around her little sister.
+But the last recollection she had was Clay's fine face
+smiling at her through the darkness and saying: &ldquo;We
+must all work&mdash;it is life's badge of nobility.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was Monday morning, and she would take Lily with
+her to the mill; for the child's work at the spinning
+frames was to begin that day. There was no alternative.
+Again the great unknown law rushed her along.
+Her father had signed them both, and in a few days
+their home would be sold.</p>
+
+<p>They were late at the mill, but the little one, as she
+trudged along by the side of her sister, was happier
+than she had been since her old nurse had left. It was
+great fun for her, this going to the mill with her big
+sister.</p>
+
+<p>The mill had been throbbing and humming long before
+they reached it. Helen turned Lily over to the
+floor manager, after kissing her good-bye, and bade her
+do as she was told. Twice again she kissed her, and
+then with a sob hurried away to her own room.</p>
+
+<p>Travis was awaiting her in the hall. She turned
+pale and then crimson when she saw him. And yet, when
+she ventured to look at him as she was passing, she was
+stopped with the change which lay on his face. It was
+a sad smile he gave her, sad but determined. And in
+the courtly bow was such a look of tenderness that with
+fluttering heart and a strange new feeling of upliftedness&mdash;a
+confidence in him for the first time, she stopped
+and gave him her hand with a grateful smile. It was a
+simple act and so pretty that the sadness went from
+Travis' face as he said:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I was not going to stop you&mdash;this is kind of you.
+Saturday, I thought you feared me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she smiled, &ldquo;but not now&mdash;not when you
+look like that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have I changed so much since then?&rdquo; and he
+looked at her curiously.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is something in your face I never saw before.
+It made me stop.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am glad it was there, then,&rdquo; he said simply, &ldquo;for
+I wished you to stop, though I did not want to say so.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Saturday you would have said so,&rdquo; she replied with
+simple frankness.</p>
+
+<p>He came closer to her with equal frankness, and yet
+with a tenderness which thrilled her he said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps I was not so sure Saturday of many things
+that I am positive of to-day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of what?&rdquo; she asked flushing.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled again, but it was not the old smile which
+had set her to trembling with a flurry of doubt and
+shame. It was the smile of respect. Then it left him,
+and in its stead flashed instantly the old conquering
+light when he said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To-night, you know, you will be mine!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The change of it all, the shock of it, numbed her.
+She tried to smile, but it was the lifeless curl of her lips
+instead&mdash;and the look she gave him&mdash;of resignation,
+of acquiescence, of despair&mdash;he had seen it once before,
+in the beautiful eyes of the first young doe that
+fell to his rifle. She was not dead when he bounded
+to the spot where she lay&mdash;and she gave him that look.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Edward Conway watched his two daughters go out
+of the gate on their way to the mill, sitting with his
+feet propped up, and drunker than he had been for
+weeks. But indistinct as things were, the poignancy of
+it went through him, and he groaned. In a dazed sort
+of way he knew it was the last of all his dreams of
+respectability, that from now on there was nothing for
+him and his but degradation and a lower place in life.
+To do him justice, he did not care so much for himself;
+already he felt that he himself was doomed, that he could
+never expect to shake off the terrible habit which had
+grown to be part of his life,&mdash;unless, he thought, unless,
+as the Bishop had said&mdash;by the blow of God. He
+paled to think what that might mean. God had so
+many ways of striking blows unknown to man. But
+for his daughters&mdash;he loved them, drunkard though he
+was. He was proud of their breeding, their beauty,
+their name. If he could only go and give them a
+chance&mdash;if the blow would only fall and take him!</p>
+
+<p>The sun was warm. He grew sleepy. He remembered
+afterwards that he fell out of his chair and that
+he could not arise.... It was a nice place to
+sleep anyway.... A staggering hound, with
+scurviness and sores, came up the steps, then on the
+porch, and licked his face....</p>
+
+<p>When he awoke some one was bathing his face with
+cold water from the spring. He was perfectly sober
+and he knew it was nearly noon. Then he heard the
+person say: &ldquo;I guess you are all right now, Marse
+Ned, an' I'm thinkin' it's the last drink you'll ever take
+outen that jug.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>His astonishment in recognizing that the voice was the
+voice of Mammy Maria did not keep him from looking
+up regretfully at sight of the precious broken jug and
+the strong odor of whiskey pervading the air.</p>
+
+<p>How delightful the odor was!</p>
+
+<p>He sat up amazed, blinking stupidly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Aunt Maria&mdash;in heaven's name&mdash;where?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Never mind, Marse Ned&mdash;jes' you git into the
+buggy now an' I'll take you home. You see, I've
+moved everything this mohnin' whilst you slept. The
+last load is gone to our new home.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What?&rdquo; he exclaimed&mdash;&ldquo;where?&rdquo; He looked
+around&mdash;the home was empty.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I thort it time to wake you up,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;an'
+besides I wanter talk to you about my babies.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You'll onderstan' all that when you see the home
+I've bought for us&rdquo;&mdash;she said simply. &ldquo;We're gwine
+to it now. Git in the buggy&rdquo;&mdash;and she helped him to
+arise.</p>
+
+<p>Then Edward Conway guessed, and he was silent, and
+without a word the old woman drove him out of the dilapidated
+gate of Millwood toward the town.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mammy,&rdquo; he began as if he were a boy again&mdash;&ldquo;Mammy,&rdquo;
+and then he burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't cry, chile,&rdquo; said the old woman&mdash;&ldquo;it's all
+behind us now. I saved the money years ago, when we
+all wus flush&mdash;an' you gave me so much when you had
+an' wus so kind to me, Marse Ned. I saved it. We're
+gwine to reform now an' quit drinkin'. We'se gwine
+to remove to another spot in the garden of the Lord, but
+the Lord is gwine with us an' He is the tower of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</a></span>
+strength&mdash;the tower of strength to them that trust
+Him&mdash;Amen. But I must have my babies&mdash;that's
+part of the barg'in. No mill for them&mdash;oh, Marse
+Ned, to think that whilst I was off, fixin' our home so
+nice to s'prize you all&mdash;wuckin' my fingers off to git
+the home ready&mdash;you let them devils get my babies!
+Git up heah&rdquo;&mdash;and she rapped the horse down the
+back with the lines. &ldquo;Hurry up&mdash;I'm gwine after
+'em es soon es I git home.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Conway could only bow his head and weep.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly noon when a large coal-black woman,
+her head tied up with an immaculately white handkerchief,
+with a white apron to match over her new calico
+gown, walked into the mill door. She passed through
+Kingsley's office, without giving him the courtesy of a
+nod, holding her head high and looking straight before
+her. A black thunder-cloud of indignation sat upon
+her brow, and her large black eyes were lit up with a
+sarcastic light.</p>
+
+<p>Before Kingsley could collect his thoughts she had
+passed into the big door of the main room, amid the
+whirl and hum of the machinery, and walking straight
+to one of the spinning frames, she stooped and gathered
+into her arms the beautiful, fair-skinned little girl who
+was trying in vain to learn the tiresome lesson of piecing
+the ever-breaking threads of the bewildering, whirling
+bobbins.</p>
+
+<p>The child was taken so by surprise that she screamed
+in fright&mdash;not being able to hear the footfall or the
+voice of her who had so suddenly folded her in her arms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</a></span>
+and showered kisses on her face and hair. Then, seeing
+the face, she shouted:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's Mammy Maria&mdash;oh, it's my mammy!&rdquo; and she
+threw her arms around the old woman's neck and
+clung there.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mammy's baby&mdash;did you think old Mammy dun
+run off an' lef' her baby?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Lily could only sob for joy.</p>
+
+<p>Then the floor manager came hurriedly over&mdash;for
+the entire force of the mill had ceased to work, gazing
+at the strange scene. In vain he gesticulated his protests&mdash;the
+big fat colored woman walked proudly past
+him with Lily in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>In Kingsley's office she stopped to get Lily's bonnet,
+while the little girl still clung to her neck, sobbing.</p>
+
+<p>Kingsley stood taking in the scene in astonishment.
+He adjusted his eye glasses several times, lilting them
+with the most pronounced sarcastic lilt of which he was
+capable.</p>
+
+<p>He stepped around and around the desk in agitated
+briskness.</p>
+
+<p>He cleared his throat and jerked his pant legs up and
+down. And all the time the fat old woman stood looking
+at him, with the thunder-cloud on her brow and unexpressed
+scorn struggling for speech in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah-hem&mdash;ah-ha&mdash;Aunt Maria&rdquo; for Kingsley
+had caught on to the better class of Southern ways&mdash;&ldquo;inform
+me&mdash;ah, what does all this mean?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old woman drew herself up proudly and replied
+with freezing politeness:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I beg yo' pardon, sah&mdash;but I was not awares that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</a></span>
+I had any nephew in the mill, or was related to anybody
+in here, sah. I hav'nt my visitin' cyard with me, but
+if I had 'em heah you'd find my entitlements, on readin',
+was somethin' lak this: <i>Miss Maria Conway, of Zion!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Kingsley flushed, rebuked. Then he adjusted his
+glasses again with agitated nervous attempts at a lilt.
+Then he struck his level and fell back on his natural instinct,
+unmixed, with attempts at being what he was
+not:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I beg your pardon, Mrs. Conway&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Git my entitlements right, please sah. I'm the only
+old maid lady of color you ever seed or ever will see
+again. Niggahs, these days, lak birds, all git 'em a
+mate some way&mdash;but I'm Miss Conway of Zion.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, beg pardon, Miss Conway&mdash;Miss Conway of
+Zion. And where, pray, is that city, Miss Conway?
+I may have to have an officer communicate with you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;With pleasure, sah&mdash;It's a pleasure for me to he'p
+people find a place dey'd never find without help&mdash;no&mdash;not
+whilst they're a-workin' the life out of innocent
+tots an' babes&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Kingsley flushed hot, angered:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What do you mean, old woman?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The ole woman means,&rdquo; she said, looking him steadily
+in the eye, &ldquo;that you are dealin' in chile slavery, law
+or no law; that you're down heah preachin' one thing for
+niggahs an' practisin' another for yo' own race; that
+yo' hair frizzles on yo' head at tho'rt of niggah slavery,
+whilst all the time you are enslavin' the po' little whites
+that's got yo' own blood in their veins. An' now you
+wanter know what I come for? I come for my chile!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Kingsley was too dumfounded to speak. In all his
+life never had his hypocrisy been knocked to pieces so
+completely.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What does all this mean?&rdquo; asked Jud Carpenter
+rushing hastily into the room.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come on baby,&rdquo; said the old woman as she started
+toward the door. &ldquo;I've got a home for us, an' whilst
+old mammy can take in washin' you'll not wuck yo' life
+out with these people.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud broke in harshly: &ldquo;Come, ole 'oman,&mdash;you put
+that child down. You've got nothin' to support her
+with.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She turned on him quickly: &ldquo;I've got mo' silver tied
+up in ole socks that the Conways give me in slavery
+days when they had it by the bushel, than sech as you
+ever seed. Got nothin'? Jus' you come over and see
+the little home I've got fixed up for Marse Ned an' the
+babies. Got nothin'? See these arms? Do you think
+they have forgot how to cook an' wash? Come on, baby&mdash;we'll
+be gwine home&mdash;Miss Helen'll come later.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Put her down, old woman,&rdquo; said Carpenter sternly.
+&ldquo;You can't take her&mdash;she's bound to the mill.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I can't?&rdquo; said the old woman as she walked out
+with Lily&mdash;&ldquo;Can't take her. Well, jes' look at me an'
+see. This is what I calls Zion, an' the Lam' an' the
+wolves had better stay right where they are,&rdquo; she remarked
+dryly, as she walked off carrying Lily in her
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>Down through a pretty part of the town, away from
+Cottontown, she led the little girl, laughing now and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</a></span>
+chatting by the old woman's side, a bird freed from a
+cage.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And you'll bring sister Helen, too?&rdquo; asked Lily.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That I will, pet,&mdash;she'll be home to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Mammy, it's so good to have you again&mdash;so
+good, and I thought you never would come.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They walked away from Cottontown and past pretty
+houses. In a quiet street, with oaks and elms shading
+it, she entered a yard in which stood a pretty and nicely
+painted cottage. Lily clapped her hands with laughter
+when she found all her old things there&mdash;even her pet
+dolls to welcome her&mdash;all in the cunningest and quaintest
+room imaginable. The next room was her father's,
+and Mammy's room was next to hers and Helen's. She
+ran out only to run into her father's arms. Small as
+she was, she saw that he was sober. He took her on his
+lap and kissed her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My little one,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;my little one&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mammy,&rdquo; asked the little girl as the old woman
+came out&mdash;&ldquo;how did you get all this?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Been savin' it all my life, chile&mdash;all the money
+yo' blessed mother give me an' all I earned sence I was
+free. I laid it up for a rainy day an' now, bless God,
+it's not only rainin' but sleetin' an' cold an' snowin' besides,
+an' so I went to the old socks. It's you all's, an'
+all paid fur, an' old mammy to wait on you. I'm gwine
+to go after Miss Helen before the mill closes, else she'll
+be gwine back to Millwood, knowin' nothin' of all this
+surprise for her. No, sah,&mdash;nary one of yo' mother's
+chillun shall ever wuck in a mill.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Conway bowed his head. Then he drew Lily to him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</a></span>
+as he knelt and said: &ldquo;Oh, God help me&mdash;make me
+a man, make me a Conway again.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was his first prayer in years&mdash;the beginning of his
+reformation. And every reformation began with a
+prayer.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</a></span></p>
+<h3>THE DOUBLE THAT DIED</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">T</span>wo hours before the mill closed Richard Travis
+came hurriedly into the mill office. There had
+been business engagements to be attended to in
+the town before leaving that night for the North, and
+he had been absent from the mill all day. Now everything
+was ready even to his packed trunk&mdash;all except
+Helen.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He's come for her,&rdquo; said Jud to himself as he
+walked over to the superintendent's desk.</p>
+
+<p>Then amid the hum and the roar of the mill he bent
+his head and the two whispered low and earnestly together.
+As Jud talked in excited whispers, Travis lit a
+cigar and listened coolly&mdash;to Jud's astonishment&mdash;even
+cynically.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' what you reckin' she done&mdash;the ole 'oman?
+Tuck the little gyrl right out of my han's an' kerried her
+home&mdash;marched off as proud as ole Queen Victory.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Home? What home?&rdquo; asked Travis.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An' that's the mischief of it,&rdquo; went on Jud. &ldquo;I
+thort she was lyin' about the home, an' I stepped down
+there at noon an' I hope I may die to-night if she ain't
+got 'em all fixed up as snug as can be, an' the Major
+is there as sober es a jedge, an' lookin' like a gentleman
+an' actin' like a Conway. Say, but you watch yo' han'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[Pg 546]</a></span>
+That's blood that won't stan' monkeyin' with when it's
+in its right mind. An' the little home the ole 'oman's
+got, she bought it with her own money, been savin' it all
+her life an' now&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What did you say to her this morning?&rdquo; asked
+Travis.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I cussed her out good&mdash;the old black&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>A peculiar light flashed in Richard Travis' eyes.
+Never before had the Whipper-in seen it. It was as if
+he had looked up and seen a halo around the moon.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To do grand things&mdash;to do grand things&mdash;like
+that&mdash;negro that she is! No&mdash;no&mdash;of course you
+did not understand. Our moral sense is gone&mdash;we mill
+people. It is atrophied&mdash;yours and mine and all of us&mdash;the
+soul has gone and mine? My God, why did you
+give it back to me now&mdash;this ghost soul that has come
+to me with burning breath?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud Carpenter listened in amazement and looked at
+him suspiciously. He came closer to see if he could
+smell whiskey on his breath, but Travis looked at him
+calmly as he went on: &ldquo;Why, yes, of course you cursed
+her&mdash;how could you understand? How could you
+know&mdash;you, born soulless, know that you had witnessed
+something which, what does the old preacher call him&mdash;the
+man Jesus Christ&mdash;something He would have
+stopped and blessed her for. A slave and she saved it
+for her master. A negro and she loved little children
+where we people of much intellect and a higher civilization
+and Christianity&mdash;eh, Jud, Christians&rdquo;&mdash;and he
+laughed so strangely that Jud took a turn around the
+room watching Travis out of the corner of his eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[Pg 547]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh&mdash;and you cursed her!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud nodded. &ldquo;An' to-morrow I'll go an' fetch the
+little 'un back. Why she's signed&mdash;she's our'n for
+five years.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis turned quickly and Jud dodged under the
+same strange light that showed again in his eyes. Then
+he laid his hand on Jud's arm and said simply: &ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;you
+will not!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud looked at him in open astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>Travis puffed at his cigar as he said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't study me too closely. Things have happened&mdash;have
+happened, I tell you&mdash;my God! we are all
+double&mdash;that is if we are anything&mdash;two halves to
+us&mdash;and my half&mdash;my other half, got lost till the
+other night and left this aching, pitiful, womanly thing
+behind, that bleeds to the touch and has tears. Why,
+man, I am either an angel, a devil, or both. Don't you
+go there and touch that little child, nor thrust your
+damned moral Caliban monstrosity into that sweet isle,
+nor break up with your seared conscience the glory of
+that unselfish act. If you do I'll kill you, Jud Carpenter&mdash;I'll
+kill you!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud turned and walked to the water bucket, took a
+drink and squirted it through his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>He was working for thinking time: &ldquo;He's crazy&mdash;he's
+sho' crazy&mdash;&rdquo; he said to himself. Coming back,
+he said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pardon me, Mr. Travis&mdash;but the oldes' gyrl&mdash;what&mdash;what
+about her, you know?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She's mine, isn't she? I've won her&mdash;outgeneraled
+the others&mdash;by brains and courage. She should be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[Pg 548]</a></span>long
+to my harem&mdash;to my band&mdash;as the stallion of
+the plains when he beats off with tooth and hoof and
+neck of thunder his rival, and takes his mares.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud nodded, looking at him quizzically.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, what about it?&rdquo; asked Travis.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nothin'&mdash;only this&rdquo;&mdash;then he lowered his voice
+as he came nearer&mdash;&ldquo;the ole 'oman will be after her in
+an hour&mdash;an' she'll take her&mdash;tell her all. Maybe
+you'll see somethin' to remind you of Jesus Christ in
+that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; went on Jud, &ldquo;you'd better take her now&mdash;while
+the whole thing has played into yo' hands; but
+she&mdash;the oldes' gyrl&mdash;she don't know the ole 'oman's
+come back an' made her a home; that her father is sober
+an' there with her little sister, that Clay is away an'
+ain't deserted her. She don't know anything, an' when
+you set her out in that empty house, deserted, her folks
+all deserted her, as she'll think, don't you know she'll
+go to the end of the worl' with you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; asked Travis as he smiled calmly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, take her and thank Jud Carpenter for the
+Queen of the Valley&mdash;eh?&rdquo; and he laughed and tried
+to nudge Travis familiarly, but the latter moved away.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll take her,&rdquo; at last he said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She'll go to The Gaffs with you&rdquo;&mdash;went on Jud.
+&ldquo;There she's safe. Then to-night you can drive her
+to the train at Lenox, as we told Biggers.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He came over and whispered in Travis's ear.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That worked out beautifully,&rdquo; said Travis after
+a while, &ldquo;but I'll not trust her to you or to Charley<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[Pg 549]</a></span>
+Biggers. I'll take her myself&mdash;she's mine&mdash;Richard
+Travis's&mdash;mine&mdash;mine! I who have been buffeted
+and abused by Fate, given all on earth I do not want,
+and denied the one thing I'd die for; I'll show them
+who they are up against. I'll take her, and they may
+talk and rave and shoot and be damned!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>His old bitterness was returning. His face flushed:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's the way you love to hear me talk, isn't it&mdash;to
+go on and say I'll take her and do as I please with
+her, and if it pleases me to marry her I'll set her up over
+them all&mdash;heh?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jud nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's one of me,&rdquo; said Travis&mdash;&ldquo;the old one.
+This is the new.&rdquo; And he opened the back of his watch
+where a tiny lock of Alice Westmore's auburn hair lay:
+&ldquo;Oh, if I were only worthy to kiss it!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He walked into the mill and down to the little room
+where Helen sat. He stood a while at the door and
+watched her&mdash;the poise of the beautiful head, the
+cheeks flushed with the good working blood that now
+flowed through them, the hair falling with slight disorder,
+a stray lock of it dashed across her forehead and
+setting off the rest of it, darker and deeper, as a cloudlet,
+inlaid with gold, the sunset of her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>His were the eyes of a connoisseur when it came to
+women, and as he looked he knew that every line of her
+was faultless; the hands slender and beautifully high-born;
+the fingers tapering with that artistic slope of the
+tips, all so plainly visible now that they were at work.
+One foot was thrust out, slender with curved and high
+instep. He flushed with pride of her&mdash;his eyes bright<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[Pg 550]</a></span>ened
+and he smiled in the old ironical way, a smile of
+dare-doing, of victory.</p>
+
+<p>He walked in briskly and with a business-like, forward
+alertness. She looked up, paled, then flushed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I was hoping so you had forgotten,&rdquo; she said
+tremblingly.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled kindly: &ldquo;I never forget.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She put up one hand to her cheek and rested her head
+on it a moment in thought.</p>
+
+<p>He came up and stood deferentially by her side, looking
+down on her, on her beautiful head. She half
+crouched, expecting to hear something banteringly complimentary;
+bold, commonplace&mdash;to feel even the touch
+of his sensual hand on her hair, on her cheek and <i>My
+Queen&mdash;my Queen</i>!</p>
+
+<p>After a while she looked up, surprised. The excitement
+in her eyes&mdash;the half-doubting&mdash;half-yielding
+fight there, of ambition, and doubt, and the stubborn
+wrong of it all, of her hard lot and bitter life, of the
+hidden splendor that might lie beyond, and yet the terrible
+doubt, the fear that it might end in a living death&mdash;these,
+fighting there, lit up her eyes as candles at an
+altar of love. Then the very difference of his attitude,
+as he stood there, struck her,&mdash;the beautiful dignity of
+his face, his smile. She saw in an instant that sensualism
+had vanished&mdash;there was something spiritual which
+she had never seen before. A wave of trust, in her utter
+helplessness, a feeling of respect, of admiration, swept
+over her. She arose quickly, wondering at her own decision.</p>
+
+<p>He bowed low, and there was a ringing sweetness in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551">[Pg 551]</a></span>
+his voice as he said: &ldquo;I have come for you, Helen&mdash;if
+you wish to go.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I will go, Richard Travis, for I know now you will
+do me no harm.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you think you could learn to love me?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She met his eyes steadily, bravely: &ldquo;That was never
+in the bargain. That is another thing. This is barter
+and trade&mdash;the last ditch rather than starvation, death.
+This is the surrender of the earthen fort, the other the
+glory of the ladder leading to the skies. Understand
+me, you have not asked for that&mdash;it is with me and
+God, who made me and gave it. Let it stay there and
+go back to him. You offer me bread&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But may it not turn into a stone, an exquisite, pure
+diamond?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him sadly. She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Diamonds are not made in a day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The light Jud Carpenter saw flashed in his eyes: &ldquo;I
+have read of one somewhere who turned water into wine&mdash;and
+that was as difficult.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If&mdash;if&mdash;&rdquo; she said gently&mdash;&ldquo;if you had always
+been this&mdash;if you would always be this&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A woman knows a man as a rose knows light,&rdquo; he
+said simply&mdash;&ldquo;as a star knows the sun. But we men&mdash;being
+the sun and the star, we are blinded by our
+own light. Come, you may trust me, Sweet Rose.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She put her hand in his. He took it half way to his
+mouth.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't,&rdquo; she said&mdash;&ldquo;please&mdash;that is the old way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He lowered it gently, reverently, and they walked out.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552">[Pg 552]</a></span></p>
+<h3>THE DYING LION</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">&ldquo;L</span>ily has been taken home,&rdquo; he said as she
+walked out with him. &ldquo;She is safe and will
+be cared for&mdash;so will be your father. I will
+explain it to you as we drive to Millwood.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She wondered, but her cheeks now burned so that all
+her thoughts began to flow back upon herself as a tide,
+flowing inland, and forgetting the sea of things. Her
+heart beat faster&mdash;she felt guilty&mdash;of what, she could
+not say.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the guilt of the sea for being found on the
+land.</p>
+
+<p>The common mill girls&mdash;were they not all looking
+at her, were they not all wondering, did they not all
+despise her, her who by birth and breeding should be
+above them? Her lips tightened at the thought&mdash;she
+who was above them&mdash;now&mdash;now&mdash;they to be above
+her&mdash;poor-born and common as they were&mdash;if&mdash;if&mdash;he
+betrayed her.</p>
+
+<p>He handed her quietly&mdash;reverently even, into the
+buggy, and the trotters whirled her away; but not before
+she thought she saw the mill girls peeping at her
+through the windows, and nodding their heads at each
+other, and some of them smiling disdainfully. And yet
+when she looked closely there was no one at the windows.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553">[Pg 553]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The wind blew cool. Travis glanced at her dress, her
+poorly protected shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am afraid you will be too cold after coming from
+a warm mill and going with the speed we go.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He reached under the seat and drew out a light overcoat.
+He threw it gently over her shoulders, driving,
+in his masterful way, with the reins in one hand.</p>
+
+<p>He did not speak again until he reached Millwood.</p>
+
+<p>The gate was down, bits of strewn paper, straw and
+all the debris of things having been moved, were there.
+The house was dark and empty, and Helen uttered a surprised
+cry:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, what does all this mean? Oh, has anything
+happened to them?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She clung in pallor to Travis's arm.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Be calm,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I will explain. They are all
+safe. They have moved. Let us go in, a moment.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He drew the mares under a shed and hitched them,
+throwing blankets over them and unchecking their heads.
+Then he lifted her out. How strong he was, and how
+like a limp lily she felt in the grasp of his hands.</p>
+
+<p>The moon flashed out now and then from clouds scurrying
+fast, adding a ghostliness to the fading light, in
+which the deserted house stood out amid shadowy trees
+and weeds tall and dried. The rotten steps and balcony,
+even the broken bottles and pieces of crockery
+shone bright in the fading light. Tears started to her
+eyes:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing is here&mdash;nothing!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis caught her hand in the dark and she clung to
+him. A hound stepped out from under the steps and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554">[Pg 554]</a></span>
+licked her other hand. She jumped and gave a little
+shriek. Then, when she understood, she stroked the
+poor thing's head, its eyes staring hungrily in the dim
+light.</p>
+
+<p>She followed Travis up the steps. Within, he struck
+a match, and she saw the emptiness of it all&mdash;the
+broken plastering and the paper torn off in spots, a
+dirty, littered floor, and an old sofa and a few other
+things left, too worthless to be moved.</p>
+
+<p>She held up bravely, but tears were running down her
+cheeks. Travis struck another match to light a lamp
+which had been forgotten and left on the mantel. He
+attempted to light it, but something huge and black
+swept by and extinguished it. Helen shrieked again,
+and coming up timidly seized his arm in the dark. He
+could feel her heart beating excitedly against it.</p>
+
+<p>He struck another match.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't be uneasy, it is nothing but an owl.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The light was turned up and showed an owl sitting on
+the top of an old tester that had formerly been the
+canopy of her grandmother's bed.</p>
+
+<p>The owl stared stupidly at them&mdash;turning its head
+solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>Helen laughed hysterically.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, sit down on the old sofa,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There
+is much to say to you. We are now on the verge of a
+tragedy or a farce, or&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sometimes plays end well, where all are happy, do
+they not?&rdquo; she asked, smiling hysterically and sitting
+by him, but looking at the uncanny owl beyond. She
+was silent, then:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555">[Pg 555]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I&mdash;I&mdash;don't you think I am entitled now&mdash;to
+have something end happily&mdash;now&mdash;once&mdash;in my
+life?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He pitied her and was silent.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; she said after a while, &ldquo;you have moved
+father and Lily to&mdash;to&mdash;one of the Cottontown cottages?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He arose: &ldquo;In a little while I will tell you, but now
+we must have something to eat first&mdash;you see I had this
+lunch fixed for our journey.&rdquo; He went out, over to his
+lap-robe and cushion, and brought a basket and placed
+it on an old table.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You may begin now and be my housekeeper,&rdquo; he
+smiled. &ldquo;Isn't it time you were learning? I daresay
+I'll not find you a novice, though.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She flushed and smiled. She arose gracefully, and
+her pretty hands soon had the lunch spread, Travis
+helping her awkwardly.</p>
+
+<p>It was a pretty picture, he thought&mdash;her flushed
+girlish face, yet matronly ways. He watched her slyly,
+with a sad joyousness in his eyes, drinking it in, as one
+who had hungered long for contentment and peace, such
+as this.</p>
+
+<p>She had forgotten everything else in the housekeeping.
+She even laughed some at his awkwardness and
+scolded him playfully, for, man-like, forgetting a knife
+and fork. It was growing chilly, and while she set the
+lunch he went out and brought in some wood. Soon a
+fine oak fire burned in the fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>They sat at the old table at last, side by side, and ate
+the delightful lunch. Under the influence of the bottle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556">[Pg 556]</a></span>
+of claret, from The Gaffs cellar, her courage came and
+her animation was beautiful to him&mdash;something that
+seemed more of girlhood than womanhood. He drank it
+all in&mdash;hungry&mdash;heart-hungry for comfort and love;
+and she saw and understood.</p>
+
+<p>Never had he enjoyed a lunch so much. Never had
+he seen so beautiful a picture!</p>
+
+<p>When it was over he lit a cigar, and the fine odor
+filled the old room.</p>
+
+<p>Then very quietly he told her the story of Mammy
+Maria's return, of the little home she had prepared for
+them; of her coming that day to the mill and taking
+Lily, and that even now, doubtless, she was there looking
+for the elder sister.</p>
+
+<p>She did not show any surprise&mdash;only tears came
+slowly: &ldquo;Do you know that I felt that something of
+this kind would happen? Dear Mammy&mdash;dear, dear
+Mammy Maria! She will care for Lily and father.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She could stand it no longer. She burst into childish
+tears and, kneeling, she put her beautiful head on
+Travis's lap as innocently as if it were her old nurse's,
+and she, a child, seeking consolation.</p>
+
+<p>He stroked her hair, her cheek, gently. He felt his
+lids grow moist and a tenderness he never had known
+came over him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have told you this for a purpose,&rdquo; he whispered
+in her ear&mdash;&ldquo;I will take you to them, now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She raised her wet eyes&mdash;flushed. He watched her
+closely to see signs of any battle there. And then his
+heart gave a great leap and surged madly as she said
+calmly: &ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;it is too late&mdash;too late&mdash;now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_557" id="Page_557">[Pg 557]</a></span>
+I&mdash;could&mdash;never explain. I will go with you, Richard
+Travis, to the end of the world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He sat very still and looked at her kneeling there as
+a child would, both hands clasped around his knee, and
+looking into his eyes with hers, gray-brown and gloriously
+bright. They were calm&mdash;so calm, and determined
+and innocent. They thrilled him with their trust
+and the royal beauty of her faith. There came to him
+an upliftedness that shook him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To the end of the world,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;ah, you have
+said so much&mdash;so much more than I could ever deserve.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have stood it all as long as I could. My father's
+drunkenness, I could stand that, and Mammy's forsaking
+us, as I thought&mdash;that, too. When the glory of
+work, of earning my own living opened itself to me,&mdash;Oh,
+I grasped it and was happy to think that I could
+support them! That's why your temptation&mdash;why&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He winced and was silent.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They were nothing,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;but to be forgotten,
+forsaken by&mdash;by&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Clay?&rdquo; he helped her say.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; she flushed&mdash;&ldquo;yes,&mdash;that was part of it, and
+then to see&mdash;to see&mdash;you so different&mdash;with this
+strange look on you&mdash;something which says so plainly
+to me that&mdash;that&mdash;oh, forgive me, but do you know
+I seem to see you dying&mdash;dying all the time, and now
+you are so changed&mdash;indeed&mdash;oh please understand
+me&mdash;I feel differently toward you&mdash;as I would toward
+one dying for sympathy and love.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_558" id="Page_558">[Pg 558]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She hid her face again. He felt his face grow hot.
+He sat perfectly still, listening. At last she said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When I came here to-night and saw it all&mdash;empty&mdash;I
+thought: 'This means I am deserted by all&mdash;he
+has brought me here to see it&mdash;to know it. What can
+I do but go with him? It is all that is left. Did I
+make myself? Did I give myself this fatal beauty&mdash;for
+you say I am beautiful. And did I make you with
+your strength&mdash;your conquering strength, and&mdash;Oh,
+could I overcome my environment?' But now&mdash;now&mdash;it
+is different&mdash;and if I am lost, Richard Travis&mdash;it
+will be your fault&mdash;yours and God's.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He stroked her hair. He was pale and that strange
+light which Jud Carpenter had seen in his eyes that
+afternoon blazed now with a nervous flash.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is my story,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;It is now too late
+even for God to come and tell me through you&mdash;now
+since we&mdash;you and I&mdash;oh, how can I say it&mdash;you
+have taken me this way&mdash;you, so strong and brave and&mdash;grand&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He flushed hot with shame. He put his hand gently
+over her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hush&mdash;hush&mdash;child&mdash;my God&mdash;you hurt me&mdash;shame
+me&mdash;you know not what you say.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I can understand all&mdash;but one thing,&rdquo; she went on
+after a while. &ldquo;Why have you brought me to this&mdash;here&mdash;at
+night alone with you&mdash;to tell me this&mdash;to
+make me&mdash;me&mdash;oh, change in my feelings&mdash;to you?
+Oh, must I say it?&rdquo; she cried&mdash;&ldquo;tell you the truth&mdash;that&mdash;that&mdash;now
+since I see you as you are&mdash;I&mdash;I,&mdash;I
+am willing to go!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_559" id="Page_559">[Pg 559]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hush, Helen, my child, my God&mdash;don't crush me&mdash;don't&mdash;listen,
+child&mdash;listen! I am a villain&mdash;a
+doubly-dyed, infamous one&mdash;when you hear&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head and put one of her pretty hands
+over his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let me tell you all, first. Let me finish. After
+all this, why have you brought me here to tell me this,
+when all you had to do was to keep silent a few more
+hours&mdash;take me on to the station, as you said&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I will tell you,&rdquo; he said gently. &ldquo;Yes, you have
+asked the question needed to be explained. Now hear
+from my own lips my infamy&mdash;not all of it, God knows&mdash;that
+would take the night; but this peculiar part of
+it. Do you know why I love to stroke your hair, why
+I love to touch it, to touch you, to look into your eyes;
+why I should love, next to one thing of all earth, to take
+you in my arms and smother you&mdash;kill you with kisses&mdash;your
+hair, your eyes, your mouth?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She hid her face, crimson.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did no one tell you, ever tell you&mdash;how much you
+look like your cousin&rdquo;&mdash;he stopped&mdash;he could not say
+the word, but she guessed. White with shame, she
+sprang up from him, startled, hurt. Her heart tightened
+into a painful thing which pricked her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then&mdash;then&mdash;it is not I&mdash;but my Cousin Alice&mdash;oh&mdash;I&mdash;yes&mdash;I
+did hear&mdash;I should have
+known&rdquo;&mdash;it came from her slowly and with a quivering
+tremor.</p>
+
+<p>He seized her hands and drew her back down by him
+on the sofa.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_560" id="Page_560">[Pg 560]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When I started into this with you I was dead&mdash;dead.
+My soul was withered within me. All women
+were my playthings&mdash;all but one. She was my
+Queen&mdash;my wife that was to be. I was dead, my
+God&mdash;how dead I was! I now see with a clearness that
+is killing me; a clearness as of one waking from sleep
+and feeling, in the first wave of conscience, that inconceivable
+tenderness which hurts so&mdash;hurts because it is
+tender and before the old hard consciousness of material
+things come again to toughen. How dead I was, you
+may know when I say that all this web now around you&mdash;from
+your entrance into the mill till now&mdash;here
+to-night&mdash;in my power&mdash;body and soul&mdash;that it was
+all to gratify this dead sea fruit of my soul, this thing
+in me I cannot understand, making me conquer women
+all my life for&mdash;oh, as a lion would, to kill, though not
+hungry, and then lie by them, dying, and watch them,&mdash;dead!
+Then this same God&mdash;if any there be&mdash;He
+who you say put more on you than you could bear&mdash;He
+struck me, as, well&mdash;no&mdash;He did not strike&mdash;but
+ground me, ground me into dust&mdash;took her out of my
+life and then laid my soul before me so naked that the
+very sunlight scorches it. What was it the old preacher
+said&mdash;that 'touch of God' business? 'Touch&mdash;'&rdquo;
+he laughed, &ldquo;not touch, but blow, I say&mdash;a blow that
+ground me into star-dust and flung me into space, my
+heart a burning comet and my soul the tail of it, dissolving
+before my very eyes. What then can I, a lion,
+dying, care for the doe that crosses my path? The
+beautiful doe, beautiful even as you are. Do you
+understand me, child?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_561" id="Page_561">[Pg 561]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She scarcely knew what she did. She remembered
+only the terrible empty room. The owl uncannily turning
+its head here and there and staring at her with its
+eyes, yellow in the firelight.</p>
+
+<p>She dropped on the floor by him and clung again to
+his knees, her head in his lap in pity for him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is the story of the dying lion,&rdquo; he said after
+a while. &ldquo;The lion who worked all his cunning and skill
+and courage to get the beautiful doe in his power, only
+to find he was dying&mdash;dying and could not eat. Could
+you love a dying lion, child?&rdquo; he asked abruptly&mdash;&ldquo;tell
+me truly, for as you speak so will I act&mdash;would
+make you queen of all the desert.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She raised her eyes to his. They were wet with tears.
+He had touched the pity in them. She saw him as she
+had never seen him before. All her fear of him vanished,
+and she was held by the cords of a strange fascination.
+She knew not what she did. The owl looked
+at her queerly, and she almost sobbed it out, hysterically:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I could&mdash;love&mdash;you&mdash;you&mdash;who are so
+strong and who suffer&mdash;suffer so&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You could love me?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Then, then I
+would marry you to-night&mdash;now&mdash;if&mdash;if&mdash;that uncovering&mdash;that
+touch&mdash;had not been put upon me to
+do nobler things than to gratify my own passion, had
+not shown me the other half which all these years has
+been dead&mdash;my double.&rdquo; He was silent.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And so I sent to-day,&rdquo; he began after a while, &ldquo;for
+a friend of yours, one with whom you can be happier
+than&mdash;the dying lion. He has been out of the county&mdash;sent
+out&mdash;it was part of the plan, part of the snare<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_562" id="Page_562">[Pg 562]</a></span>
+of the lion and his whelp. And so I sent for him this
+morning, feeling the death blow, you know. I sent him
+an urgent message, to meet you here at nine.&rdquo; He
+glanced at his watch. &ldquo;It is past that now, but he
+had far to ride. He will come, I hope&mdash;ah, listen!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They heard the steps of a rider coming up the gravel
+walk.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is he,&rdquo; said Travis calmly&mdash;&ldquo;Clay.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She sprang up quickly, half defiantly. The old Conway
+spirit flashed in her eyes and she came to him tall
+and splendid and with half a look of protest, half command,
+and yet in it begging, pleading, yearning for&mdash;she
+knew not what.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why&mdash;why&mdash;did you? Oh, you do not know!
+You do not understand&mdash;love&mdash;love&mdash;can it be won
+this way&mdash;apprenticed, bargained&mdash;given away?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You must go with him, he loves you. He will make
+you happy. I am dying&mdash;is not part of me already
+dead?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>For answer she came to him, closer, and stood by him
+as one who in war stands by a comrade shot through
+and ready to fall.</p>
+
+<p>He put his arms around her and drew her to him
+closer, and she did not resist&mdash;but as a child would,
+hers also she wound around his neck and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My lion! Oh, kill me&mdash;kill me&mdash;let me die with
+you!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Child&mdash;my precious one&mdash;my&mdash;oh, God, and
+you&mdash;forgive me this. But let me kiss you once and
+dream&mdash;dream it is she&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>She felt his kisses on her hair, her eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_563" id="Page_563">[Pg 563]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good-bye&mdash;Alice&mdash;Alice&mdash;good-bye&mdash;forever&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He released her, but she clung to him sobbing. Her
+head lay on his breast, and she shook in the agony of
+it all.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You will forgive me, some day&mdash;when you know&mdash;how
+I loved her,&rdquo; he gasped, white and with a bitter
+light in his face.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up: &ldquo;I would die,&rdquo; she said simply,
+&ldquo;for a love like that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They heard the steps of a man approaching the house.
+She sat down on the old sofa pale, trembling and with
+bitterness in her heart.</p>
+
+<p>Travis walked to the door and opened it:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come in, Clay,&rdquo; he said quietly. &ldquo;I am glad that
+my man found you. We have been waiting for you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I finished that survey and came as fast as I could.
+Your man rode on to The Gaffs, but I came here as you
+wrote me to do,&rdquo; and Clay came in quietly, speaking
+as he walked to the fire.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_564" id="Page_564">[Pg 564]</a></span></p>
+<h3>FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">H</span>e came in as naturally as if the house were still
+inhabited, though he saw the emptiness of it
+all, and guessed the cause. But when he saw
+Helen, a flushed surprise beamed through his eyes and he
+gave her his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Helen!&mdash;why, this is unexpected&mdash;quite unusual,
+I must say.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She did not speak, as she gave him her hand, but
+smiled sadly. It meant: &ldquo;Mr. Travis will tell you all.
+I know nothing. It is all his planning.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Clay sat down in an old chair by the fire and warmed
+his hands, looking thoughtfully at the two, now and then,
+and wonderingly. He was not surprised when Travis
+said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I sent for you hurriedly, as one who I knew was
+a friend of Miss Conway. A crisis has arisen in her
+affairs to-day in which it is necessary for her friends to
+act.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, yes, I suppose I can guess,&rdquo; said Clay
+thoughtfully and watching Helen closely all the while
+as he glanced around the empty room. &ldquo;I was only
+waiting. Why, you see&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Helen flushed scarlet and looked appealingly at
+Travis. But he broke in on Clay without noticing her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_565" id="Page_565">[Pg 565]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I knew you were only waiting. I think I understand
+you, but you know the trouble with nearly
+every good intention is that it waits too long.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Clay reddened.</p>
+
+<p>Helen arose and, coming over, stood by Travis, her
+face pale, her eyes shining. &ldquo;I beg&mdash;I entreat&mdash;please,
+say no more. Clay,&rdquo; she said turning on him
+with flushed face, &ldquo;I did not know you were coming.
+I did not know where you were. Like all the others, I
+supposed you too had&mdash;had deserted me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, I was sent off in a hurry to&mdash;&rdquo; he started.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Travis told me to-night,&rdquo; she interrupted. &ldquo;I
+understand now. But really, it makes no difference to
+me now. Since&mdash;since&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now look here,&rdquo; broke in Travis with feigned lightness,&mdash;&ldquo;I
+am not going to let you two lovers misunderstand
+each other. I have planned it all out and I want
+you both to make me happy by listening to one older,
+one who admires you both and sincerely wishes to see you
+happy. Things have happened at your house,&rdquo; he said
+addressing Clay&mdash;&ldquo;things which will surprise you when
+you reach home&mdash;things that affect you and me and
+Miss Conway. Now I know that you love her, and have
+loved her a long time, and that only&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Only our poverty,&rdquo; said Clay thankfully to Travis
+for breaking the ice for him.</p>
+
+<p>Helen stood up quickly&mdash;a smile on her lips:
+&ldquo;Don't you both think that before this bargain and sale
+goes further you had better get the consent of the one
+to be sold?&rdquo; She turned to Clay.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't you think you have queer ideas of love&mdash;of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_566" id="Page_566">[Pg 566]</a></span>
+winning a woman's love&mdash;in this way? And you&rdquo;&mdash;she
+said turning to Travis&mdash;&ldquo;Oh you <i>know</i> better.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis arose with a smile half joyous, half serious,
+and Clay was so embarrassed that he mopped his brow
+as if he were plowing in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, really, Helen&mdash;I&mdash;you know&mdash;I have
+spoken to you&mdash;you know, and but for my&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poverty&rdquo;&mdash;said Helen taking up the word&mdash;&ldquo;And
+what were poverty to me, if I loved a man? I'd
+love him the more for it. If he were dying broken-hearted,
+wrecked&mdash;even in disgrace,&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis flushed and looked at her admiringly, while the
+joyous light flashed yet deeper in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I have arranged all. I am not
+going to give you young people an excuse to defer your
+happiness longer.&rdquo; He turned to Clay: &ldquo;I shall show
+you something which you have been on the track of for
+some time. I have my lantern in the buggy, and we
+will have to walk a mile or more. But it is pleasant to-night,
+and the walk will do us all good. Come.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They both arose wonderingly&mdash;Helen came over and
+put her hand on his arm: &ldquo;I will go,&rdquo; she whispered,
+&ldquo;if there be no more of that talk.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He smiled. &ldquo;You must do as I say. Am I not now
+your guardian? Bring your leathern sack with your
+hammer and geological tools,&rdquo; he remarked to Clay.</p>
+
+<p>Clay arose hastily, and they went out of the old house
+and across the fields. Past the boundaries of Millwood
+they walked, Travis silently leading, and Clay
+following with Helen, who could not speak, so momentous
+it all seemed. She saw only Travis's fine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_567" id="Page_567">[Pg 567]</a></span>
+square shoulders, and erect, sinewy form, going before
+them, into the night of shadows, of trees, of rocks, of
+the great peak of the mountain, silent and dark.</p>
+
+<p>He did not speak. He walked in silent thought.
+They passed the boundary line of Millwood, and then
+down a slight ravine he led them to the ragged, flinty
+hill, on which the old preacher's cabin stood on their
+right.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; he said stopping&mdash;&ldquo;if I am correct, Clay,
+this hill is the old Bishop's,&rdquo; pointing to his right
+where the cabin stood, &ldquo;and over here is what is left of
+Westmoreland. This gulch divides them. This range
+really runs into Westmoreland,&rdquo; he said with a sweep of
+his hand toward it. &ldquo;Get your bearings,&rdquo; he smiled
+to Clay, &ldquo;for I want you to tell whose fortune this is.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He lit his lantern and walking forward struck away
+some weeds and vines which partially concealed the
+mouth of a small opening in the hillside caused by a
+landslide. It was difficult going at first, but as they
+went further the opening grew larger, and as the light
+flashed on its walls, Clay stopped in admiration and
+shouted:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Look&mdash;look&mdash;there it is!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Before them running right and left&mdash;for the cave
+had split it in two, lay the solid vein of coal, shining in
+the light, and throwing back splinters of ebony, to Clay
+more beautiful than gold.</p>
+
+<p>Travis watched him with an amused smile as he hastily
+took off his satchel and struck a piece off the ledge.
+Helen stood wondering, looking not at Clay, but at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_568" id="Page_568">[Pg 568]</a></span>
+Travis, and her eyes shone brilliantly and full of proud
+splendor.</p>
+
+<p>Clay forgot that they were there. He measured the
+ledge. He chipped off piece after piece and examined
+it closely. &ldquo;I never dreamed it would be here, in this
+shape,&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;Look!&mdash;and fully eight
+feet, solid. This hill is full of it. The old preacher
+will find it hard to spend his wealth.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But that is not all,&rdquo; said Travis; &ldquo;see how the
+dip runs&mdash;see the vein&mdash;this way.&rdquo; He pointed to
+the left.</p>
+
+<p>Clay paled: &ldquo;That means&mdash;it is remarkable&mdash;very
+remarkable. Why, this vein should not have been
+here. It is too low to be in the Carboniferous.&rdquo;
+He suddenly stopped: &ldquo;But here it is&mdash;contrary to
+all my data and&mdash;and&mdash;why really it takes the low
+range of the poor land of Westmoreland. It&mdash;it&mdash;will
+make me rich.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You haven't seen all,&rdquo; said Travis&mdash;&ldquo;look!&rdquo;
+He turned and walked to another part of the small cave,
+where the bank had broken, and there gleamed, not the
+black, but the red&mdash;the earth full of rich ore.</p>
+
+<p>Clay picked up one eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The finest iron ore!&mdash;who&mdash;who&mdash;ever heard of
+such a freak of nature?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And the lime rock is all over the valley,&rdquo; said
+Travis, &ldquo;and that means, coal, iron and lime&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Furnaces&mdash;why, of course&mdash;furnaces and wealth.
+Helen, I&mdash;I&mdash;it will make Westmoreland rich. Now,
+in all earnestness&mdash;in all sincerity I can tell you&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do not tell me anything, Clay&mdash;please do not.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_569" id="Page_569">[Pg 569]</a></span>
+You do not understand. You can never understand.&rdquo;
+Her eyes were following Travis, who had walked off
+pretending to be examining the cave. Then she gave
+a shriek which sounded frightfully intense as it echoed
+around.</p>
+
+<p>Travis turned quickly and saw standing between him
+and them a gaunt, savage thing, with froth in its mouth
+and saliva-dripping lips. At first he thought it was a
+panther, so low it crouched to spring; but almost instantly
+he recognized Jud Carpenter's dog. Then it
+began to creep uncertainly, staggeringly forward, toward
+Clay and Helen, its neck drawn and contracted
+in the paroxysms of rabies; its deadly eyes, staring, unearthly
+yellow in the lantern light. Within two yards of
+Clay, who stood helpless with fear and uncertainty, it
+crouched to spring, growling and snapping at its own
+sides, and Helen screamed again as she saw Travis's
+quick, lithe figure spring forward and, grasping the
+dog by the throat from behind, fling himself with crushing
+force on the brute, choking it as he fell.</p>
+
+<p>Total darkness&mdash;for in his rush Travis threw aside
+his lantern&mdash;and it seemed an age to Helen as she heard
+the terrible fight for life going on at her feet, the
+struggles and howls of the dog, the snapping of the
+huge teeth, the stinging sand thrown up into her face.
+Then after a while all was still, and then very quietly
+from Travis:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A match, Clay&mdash;light the lantern! I have
+choked him to death.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Under the light he arose, his clothes torn with tooth
+and fang of the gaunt dog, which lay silent. He stood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_570" id="Page_570">[Pg 570]</a></span>
+up hot and flushed, and then turned pallid, and for a
+moment staggered as he saw the blood trickling from his
+left arm.</p>
+
+<p>Helen stood by him terror-eyed, trembling, crushed,&mdash;with
+a terrible sickening fear.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He was mad,&rdquo; said Travis gently, &ldquo;and I fear he
+has bitten me, though I managed to jump on him before
+he bit you two.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He took off his coat&mdash;blood was on his shirt sleeve
+and had run down his arm. Helen, pale and with a
+great sob in her throat, rolled up the sleeve, Travis submitting,
+with a strange pallor in his face and the new
+light in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>His bare arm came up strong and white. Above the
+elbow, near the shoulder, the blood still flowed where the
+fangs had sunk.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is only one chance to save me,&rdquo; he said
+quietly, &ldquo;and that, a slim one. It bleeds&mdash;if I could
+only get my lips to it&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He tried to expostulate, to push her off, as he felt
+her lips against his naked arm. But she clung there
+sucking out the virus. He felt her tears fall on his arm.
+He heard her murmur:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My dying lion&mdash;my dying lion!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He bent and whispered: &ldquo;You are risking your own
+life for me, Helen! Life for life&mdash;death for death!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was too much even for his great strength, and
+when he recovered himself he was sitting on the sand of
+the little cave. How long she had clung to his arm he
+did not know, but it had ceased to pain him and her own
+handkerchief was tied around it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_571" id="Page_571">[Pg 571]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He staggered out, a terrible pallor on his face, as he
+said: &ldquo;Not this way&mdash;not to go this way. Oh, God,
+your blow&mdash;I care not for death, but, oh, not this
+death?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Clay,&rdquo; he said after a while&mdash;&ldquo;Take her&mdash;take
+her to your mother and sister to-night. I must bid
+you both good-night, ay, and good-bye. See, you walk
+only across the field there&mdash;that is Westmoreland.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He turned, but he felt some one clinging to his hand,
+in the dark. He looked down at her, at the white, drawn
+face, beautiful with a terrible pain: &ldquo;Take me&mdash;take
+me,&rdquo; she begged&mdash;&ldquo;with you&mdash;to the end of the world&mdash;oh,
+I love you and I care not who knows.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Child&mdash;child&rdquo;&mdash;he whispered sadly&mdash;&ldquo;You
+know not what you say. I am dying. I shall be mad&mdash;unless&mdash;unless
+what you have done&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Take me,&rdquo; she pleaded&mdash;&ldquo;my lion. I am yours.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He stooped and kissed her and then walked quickly
+away.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_572" id="Page_572">[Pg 572]</a></span></p>
+<h3>THE ANGEL WITH THE FLAMING SWORD</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">I</span>t was nearly time for the mill to close when
+Mammy Maria, her big honest face beaming with
+satisfaction at the surprise she had in store for
+Helen, began to wind her red silk bandana around her
+head. She had several bandanas, but when Lily saw her
+put on the red silk one, the little girl knew she was
+going out&mdash;&ldquo;dressin' fur prom'nade&rdquo;&mdash;as the old
+lady termed it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are going after Helen,&rdquo; said the little girl,
+clapping her hands.</p>
+
+<p>She sat on her father's lap: &ldquo;And we want you to
+hurry up, Mammy Maria,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I want all my
+family here. I am going to work to-morrow. I'll redeem
+Millwood before my two years expire or I am not
+a Conway again.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mammy Maria was agitated enough. She had been
+so busy that she had failed to notice how late it was.
+In her efforts to surprise Helen she had forgotten time,
+and now she feared the mill might close and Helen, not
+knowing they had moved, would go back to Millwood.
+This meant a two mile tramp and delay. She had
+plenty of time, she knew, before the mill closed; but the
+more she thought of the morning's scene at the mill and
+of Jud Carpenter, the greater her misgivings. For<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_573" id="Page_573">[Pg 573]</a></span>
+Mammy Maria was instinctive&mdash;a trait her people
+have. It is always Nature's substitute when much intellect
+is wanting.</p>
+
+<p>All afternoon she had chuckled to herself. All afternoon,
+the three of them,&mdash;for even Major Conway
+joined in, and helped work and arrange things&mdash;talked
+it over as they planned. His face was clear now, and
+calm, as in the old days. Even the old servant could
+see he had determined to win in the fight.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Marse Ned's hisse'f ag'in,&rdquo; she would say to him
+encouragingly&mdash;&ldquo;Marse Ned's hisse'f&mdash;an' Zion's by
+his side, yea, Lord, the Ark of the Tabbernackle!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>For the last time she surveyed the little rooms of the
+cottage. How clean and fresh it all was, and how the
+old mahogany of Millwood set them off! And now all
+was ready.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly dark when she reached the mill. It
+had not yet closed down, and lights began to blaze first
+from one window, then another. She could hear the
+steam and the coughing of the exhaust pipe.</p>
+
+<p>This was all the old woman had hoped&mdash;to be in time
+for Helen when the mill closed.</p>
+
+<p>But one thing was in her way, or she had taken her
+as she did Lily: She did not know where Helen's room
+was in the mill. There was no fear in the old nurse's
+heart. She had taken Lily, she would take Helen. She
+would show the whole tribe of them that she would!
+But in which room was the elder sister?</p>
+
+<p>So she walked again into the main office, fearless, and
+with her head up. For was she not Zion, the Lord's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_574" id="Page_574">[Pg 574]</a></span>
+chosen, the sanctified one, and the powers of hell were
+naught?</p>
+
+<p>No one was in the office but Jud Carpenter, and to
+her surprise he treated her with the utmost courtesy.
+Indeed, his courtesy was so intense that any one but
+Zion, who, being black, knew little of irony and less
+of sarcasm, might have seen that Jud's courtesy was
+strongly savored of the two.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Be seated, Madam,&rdquo; he said with a profound bow.
+&ldquo;Be seated, Upholder of Heaven, Chief-cook-an'-bottle-washer
+in the Kingdom to come! An' what may have
+sent the angel of the Lord to honor us with another
+visit?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old woman's fighting feathers arose instantly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The same that sent 'em to Sodom an' Gomarrer,
+suh,&rdquo; she replied.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Jud apologetically, &ldquo;an' I hope we won't
+smell any brimstone to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you don't smell it to-night, you'll smell it befo'
+long. And now look aheah, Mister White Man, no use
+for you an' me to set here a-jawin' an' 'spu'tin'. I've
+come after my other gyrl an' you know I'm gwine
+have her!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, she'll be out 'torectly, Mrs. Zion! Jes' keep
+yo' robes on an' hol' yo' throne down a little while.
+She'll be out 'torectly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was a motive in this lie, as there was in all
+others Jud Carpenter told.</p>
+
+<p>It was soon apparent. For scarcely had the old
+woman seated herself with a significant toss of her head
+when the mill began to cease to hum and roar.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_575" id="Page_575">[Pg 575]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She sat watching the door keenly as they came out.
+What creatures they were, lint-and-dust-covered to
+their very eyes. The yellow, hard, emotionless faces
+of the men, the haggard, weary ones of the girls and
+women and little children! Never had she seen such
+white people before, such hollow eyes, with dark, bloodless
+rings beneath them, sunken cheeks, tanned to the
+color of oiled hickory, much used. Dazed, listless, they
+stumbled out past her with relaxed under-jaws and faces
+gloomy, expressionless&mdash;so long bent over looms, they
+had taken on the very looks of them&mdash;the shapes of
+them, moving, walking, working, mechanically. Women,
+smileless, and so tired and numbed that they had forgotten
+the strongest instinct of humanity&mdash;the romance
+of sex; for many of them wore the dirty, chopped-off
+jackets of men, their slouched black hats, their coarse
+shoes, and talked even in the vulgar, hard irony of the
+male in despair.</p>
+
+<p>They all passed out&mdash;one by one&mdash;for in them
+was not even the instinct of the companionship of
+misery.</p>
+
+<p>Every moment the old nurse expected Helen to walk
+out, to walk out in her queenly way, with her beautiful
+face and manners, so different from those around her.</p>
+
+<p>Jud Carpenter sat at his desk quietly cutting plug
+tobacco to fill his pipe-bowl, and watching the old woman
+slyly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, she'll be 'long 'torectly&mdash;you see the drawer-in
+bein' in the far room comes out last.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The last one passed out. The mill became silent, and
+yet Helen did not appear.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_576" id="Page_576">[Pg 576]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The old nurse arose impatiently: &ldquo;I reck'n I'll go
+find her,&rdquo; she said to Carpenter.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'd better sho' you the way, old 'oman,&rdquo; he said,
+lazily shuffling off the stool he was sitting on pretending
+to be reading a paper&mdash;&ldquo;you'll never fin' the room
+by yo'self.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He led her along through the main room, hot, lint-filled
+and evil-smelling. It was quite dark. Then to
+the rear, where the mill jutted on the side of a hill, he
+stopped in front of a door and said: &ldquo;This is her
+room; she's in there, I reckin&mdash;she's gen'ly late.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>With quickening heart the old woman entered and,
+almost immediately, she heard the door behind her shut
+and the key turn in the bolt. The room was empty
+and she sprang back to the door, only to find it securely
+locked, and to hear Jud Carpenter's jeers from without.
+She ran to the two small windows. They were
+high and looked out over a ravine.</p>
+
+<p>She did not utter a word. Reared as she had been
+among the Conways, she was too well bred to act the
+coward, and beg and plead in undignified tones for
+relief. At first she thought it was only a cruel joke
+of the Whipper-in, but when he spoke, she saw it was
+not.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Got you where I want you, Mother of Zion,&rdquo; he
+said through the key hole. &ldquo;I guess you are safe there
+till mornin' unless the Angel of the Lord opens the do'
+as they say he has a way of doin' for Saints&mdash;ha&mdash;ha&mdash;ha!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>No word from within.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wanter kno' what I shet you up for, Mother of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_577" id="Page_577">[Pg 577]</a></span>
+Holiness? Well, listen: It's to keep you there till to-morrow&mdash;that's
+good reason, ain't it? You'll find a
+lot of cotton in the fur corner&mdash;a mighty good thing
+for a bed. Can't you talk? How do you like it? I
+guess you ain't so independent now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. The old woman sat numbly in
+Helen's chair. She saw a bunch of violets in her frame,
+and the odor brought back memories of her old home.
+A great fear began to creep over her&mdash;not for herself,
+but for Helen, and she fell on her knees by the
+frame and prayed silently.</p>
+
+<p>Jud's voice came again: &ldquo;Want to kno' now why
+you'll stay there till mornin'? Well, I'll tell you&mdash;it'll
+make you pass a com'f'table night&mdash;you'll never see
+Miss Helen ag'in&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old nurse sprang to her feet. She lost control
+of herself, for all day she had felt this queer presentiment,
+and now was it really true? She blamed herself
+for not taking Helen that morning.</p>
+
+<p>She threw herself against the door. It was strong
+and secure.</p>
+
+<p>Jud met it with a jeering laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you're safe an' you'll never see her agin. I
+don't mind tellin' you she has run off with Richard
+Travis&mdash;they'll go North to-night. You'll find other
+folks can walk off with yo' gals&mdash;'specially the han'sum
+ones&mdash;besides yo'se'f.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old nurse was stricken with weakness. Her limbs
+shook so she sat down in a heap at the door and said
+pleadingly:&mdash;&ldquo;Are you lyin' to me, white man? Will&mdash;will
+he marry her or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_578" id="Page_578">[Pg 578]</a></span>&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did you ever hear of him marryin' anybody?&rdquo;
+came back with a laugh. &ldquo;No, he's only took a deserted
+young 'oman in out of the cold&mdash;he'll take care
+of her, but he ain't the marryin' kind, is he?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The reputation of Richard Travis was as well known
+to Mammy Maria as it was to anyone. She did not
+know whether to believe Jud or not, but one thing she
+knew&mdash;something&mdash;something dreadful was happening
+to Helen. The old nurse called to mind instantly
+things that had happened before she herself had left
+Millwood&mdash;things Helen had said&mdash;her grief, her despair,
+her horror of the mill, her belief that she was
+already disgraced. It all came to the old nurse now so
+plainly. Tempted as she was, young as she was, deserted
+and forsaken as she thought she was, might not
+indeed the temptation be too much for her?</p>
+
+<p>She groaned as she heard Jud laugh and walk off.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O my baby, my beautiful baby!&rdquo; she wept, falling
+on her knees again.</p>
+
+<p>The mill grew strangely silent and dark. On a pile
+of loose cotton she fell, praying after the manner of her
+race.</p>
+
+<p>An hour passed. The darkness, the loneliness, the
+horror of it all crept into her superstitious soul, and she
+became frantic with religious fervor and despair.</p>
+
+<p>Pacing the room, she sang and prayed in a frenzy of
+emotional tumult. But she heard only the echo of her
+own voice, and only the wailings of her own songs
+came back. Negro that she was, she was intelligent
+enough to know that Jud Carpenter spoke the truth&mdash;that
+not for his life would he have dared to say this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_579" id="Page_579">[Pg 579]</a></span>
+if it had not had some truth in it. What?&mdash;she did not
+know&mdash;she only knew that harm was coming to Helen.</p>
+
+<p>She called aloud for help&mdash;for Edward Conway.
+But the mill was closed tight&mdash;the windows nailed.</p>
+
+<p>Another hour passed. It began to tell on the old
+creature's mind. Negroes are simple, religious, superstitious
+folks, easily unbalanced by grief or wrong.</p>
+
+<p>She began to see visions in this frenzy of religious
+excitement, as so many of her race do under the nervous
+strain of religious feeling. She fell into a trance.</p>
+
+<p>It was most real to her. Who that has ever heard
+a negro give in his religious experience but recognizes
+it? She was carried on the wings of the morning down
+to the gates of hell. The Devil himself met her, tempting
+her always, conducting her through the region of
+darkness and showing her the lakes of fire and threatening
+her with all his punishment if she did not cease
+to believe. She overcame him only by constant prayer.
+She fled from him, he followed her, but could not approach
+her while she prayed.... She was rescued
+by an angel&mdash;an angel from heaven ... an
+angel with a flaming sword. Through all the glories of
+heaven this angel conducted her, praised her, and bidding
+her farewell at the gate, told her to go back to
+earth and take this: <i>It was a torch of fire!</i></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Burn! burn!</i>&rdquo; said the angel&mdash;&ldquo;<i>for I shall make
+the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the
+wood, and like a torch of fire on a sheaf. And they
+shall devour all the people around about, on the right
+hand and the left; and Jerusalem shall be inhabited
+again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_580" id="Page_580">[Pg 580]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She came out of the trance in a glory of religious
+fervor: &ldquo;Jerusalem shall be inhabited ag'in!&mdash;the
+Angel has told me&mdash;told me&mdash;Burn&mdash;burn,&rdquo; she
+cried. &ldquo;Oh Lord&mdash;you have spoken and Zion has
+ears to hear&mdash;Amen.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Quickly she gathered up the loose cotton and placed
+it at the door, piling it up to the very bolt. She struck
+a match, swaying and rocking and chanting: &ldquo;Yea,
+Lord, thy servant hath heard&mdash;thy servant hath
+heard!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The flames leaped up quickly enveloping the door.
+The room began to fill with smoke, but she retreated to
+a far corner and fell on her knees in prayer. The
+panels of the door caught first and the flames spreading
+upward soon heated the lock around which the
+wood blazed and crackled. It burned through. She
+sprang up, rushed through the blinding smoke, struck
+the door as it blazed, in a broken mass, and rushed out.
+Down the long main room she ran to a low window,
+burst it, and stepped out on the ground:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jerusalem shall be inhabited again,&rdquo; she shouted as
+she ran breathless toward home.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_581" id="Page_581">[Pg 581]</a></span></p>
+<h3>THE GREAT FIRE</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">E</span>dward Conway sat on the little porch till
+the stars came out, wondering why the old nurse
+did not return. Sober as he was and knew he
+would ever be, it seemed that a keen sensitiveness came
+with it, and a feeling of impending calamity.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, it's the cursed whiskey,&rdquo; he said to himself&mdash;&ldquo;it
+always leaves you keyed up like a fiddle or a woman.
+I'll get over it after a while or I'll die trying,&rdquo; and he
+closed his teeth upon each other with a nervous twist
+that belied his efforts at calmness.</p>
+
+<p>But even Lily grew alarmed, and to quiet her he
+took her into the house and they ate their supper in
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>Again he came out on the porch and sat with the
+little girl in his lap. But Lily gave him no rest, for
+she kept saying, as the hours passed: &ldquo;Where is she,
+father&mdash;oh, do go and see!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She has gone to Millwood through mistake,&rdquo; he
+kept telling her, &ldquo;and Mammy Maria has doubtless
+gone after her. Mammy will bring her back. We will
+wait awhile longer&mdash;if I had some one to leave you
+with,&rdquo; he said gently, &ldquo;I'd go myself. But she will be
+home directly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And Lily went to sleep in his lap, waiting.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_582" id="Page_582">[Pg 582]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The moon came up, and Conway wrapped Lily in a
+shawl, but still held her in his arms. And as he sat
+holding her and waiting with a fast-beating heart for
+the old nurse, all his wasted life passed before him.</p>
+
+<p>He saw himself as he had not for years&mdash;his life a
+failure, his fortune gone. He wondered how he had
+escaped as he had, and as he thought of the old Bishop's
+words, he wondered why God had been as good to him
+as He had, and again he uttered a silent prayer of
+thankfulness and for strength. And with it the strength
+came, and he knew he could never more be the drunkard
+he had been. There was something in him stronger
+than himself.</p>
+
+<p>He was a strong man spiritually&mdash;it had been his
+inheritance, and the very thought of anything happening
+to Helen blanched his cheek. In spite of the faults
+of his past, no man loved his children more than he,
+when he was himself. Like all keen, sensitive natures,
+his was filled to overflowing with paternal love.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My God,&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;suppose&mdash;suppose she has
+gone back to Millwood, found none of us there, thinks
+she had been deserted, and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The thought was unbearable. He slipped in with
+the sleeping Lily in his arms and began to put her in
+bed without awakening her, determined to mount his
+horse and go for Helen himself.</p>
+
+<p>But just then the old nurse, frantic, breathless and
+in a delirium of religious excitement, came in and fell
+fainting on the porch.</p>
+
+<p>He revived her with cold water, and when she could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_583" id="Page_583">[Pg 583]</a></span>
+talk she could only pronounce Helen's name, and say
+they had run off with her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Who?&rdquo;&mdash;shouted Conway, his heart stopping in
+the staggering shock of it.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman tried to tell Jud Carpenter's tale,
+and Conway heard enough. He did not wait to hear it
+all&mdash;he did not know the mill was now slowly burning.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Take care of Lily&rdquo;&mdash;he said, as he went into his
+room and came out with his pistol buckled around his
+waist.</p>
+
+<p>Then he mounted his horse and rode swiftly to Millwood.</p>
+
+<p>He was astonished to find a fire in the hearth, a lamp
+burning, and one of Helen's gloves lying on the table.</p>
+
+<p>By it was another pair. He picked them up and
+looked closely. Within, in red ink, were the initials:
+<i>R. T.</i></p>
+
+<p>He bit his lips till the blood came. He bowed his
+head in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes there comes to us that peculiar mental
+condition in which we are vaguely conscious that once
+before we have been in the same place, amid the same
+conditions and surroundings which now confront us.
+We seem to be living again a brief moment of our past
+life, where Time himself has turned back everything.
+It came that instant to Edward Conway.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was here&mdash;and what was it? Oh, yes:&mdash;'Some
+men repent to God's smile, some to His frown,
+and some to His fist?'&rdquo;&mdash;He groaned:&mdash;&ldquo;This is His
+fist. Never&mdash;never before in all the history of the Conway
+family has one of its women<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_584" id="Page_584">[Pg 584]</a></span>&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He sat down on the old sofa and buried, again, his
+face in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Edward Conway was sober, but he still had the instincts
+of the drunkard&mdash;it never occurred to him that
+he had done anything to cause it. Drunkenness was
+nothing&mdash;a weakness&mdash;a fault which was now behind
+him. But this&mdash;this&mdash;the first of all the Conway
+women&mdash;and his daughter&mdash;his child&mdash;the <i>beautiful
+one</i>. He sat still, and then he grew very calm. It was
+the calmness of the old Conway spirit returning.
+&ldquo;Richard Travis,&rdquo; he said to himself, &ldquo;knows as well
+what this act of his means in the South,&mdash;in the unwritten
+law of our land&mdash;as I do. He has taken his
+chance of life or death. I'll see that it is death. This
+is the last of me and my house. But in the fall I'll
+see that this Philistine of Philistines dies under its
+ruins.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He arose and started out. He saw the lap robe in
+the hall, and this put him to investigating. The mares
+and buggy he found under the shed. It was all a mystery
+to him, but of one thing he was sure: &ldquo;He will
+soon come back for them. I can wait.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Choosing a spot in the shadow of a great tree, he sat
+down with his pistol across his knees. The moon had
+arisen and cast ghostly shadows over everything. It
+was a time for repentance, for thoughts of the past with
+him, and as he sat there, that terrible hour, with murder
+in his heart, bitterness and repentance were his.</p>
+
+<p>He was a changed man. Never again could he be
+the old self. &ldquo;But the blow&mdash;the blow,&rdquo; he kept saying,
+&ldquo;I thought it would fall on me&mdash;not on her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_585" id="Page_585">[Pg 585]</a></span>&mdash;my
+beautiful one&mdash;not on a Conway woman's chastity&mdash;not
+my wife's daughter&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He heard steps coming down the path. His heart
+ceased a moment, it seemed to him, and then beat wildly.
+He drew a long breath to relieve it&mdash;to calm it with
+cool oxygen, and then he cocked the five chambered
+pistol and waited as full of the joy of killing as if the
+man who was now walking down the path was a wolf
+or a mad dog&mdash;down the path and right into the muzzle
+of the pistol, backed by the arm which could kill.</p>
+
+<p>He saw Richard Travis coming, slowly, painfully,
+his left arm tied up, and his step, once so quick and
+active, so full of strength and life, now was as if the
+blight of old age had come upon it.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of his bitter determination Conway noticed
+the great change, and instinct, which acts even through
+anger and hatred and revenge and the maddening fury
+of murder,&mdash;instinct, the ever present&mdash;whispered its
+warning to his innermost ear.</p>
+
+<p>Still, he could not resist. Rising, he threw his pistol
+up within a few yards of Richard Travis's breast, his
+hand upon the trigger. But he could not fire, although
+Travis stood quietly under its muzzle and looked without
+surprise into his face.</p>
+
+<p>Conway glanced along the barrel of his weapon and
+into the face of Richard Travis. And then he brought
+his pistol down with a quick movement.</p>
+
+<p>The face before him was begging him to shoot!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why don't you shoot?&rdquo; said Travis at last, breaking
+the silence and in a tone of disappointment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_586" id="Page_586">[Pg 586]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Because you are not guilty,&rdquo; said Conway&mdash;&ldquo;not
+with that look in your face.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am sorry you saw my face, then,&rdquo; he smiled
+sadly&mdash;&ldquo;for it had been such a happy solution for it
+all&mdash;if you had only fired.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Where is my child?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you think you have any right to ask&mdash;having
+treated her as you have?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Conway trembled, at first with rage, then in shame:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo;&mdash;he said finally. &ldquo;No, you are right&mdash;I
+haven't.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is the only reply you could have made me
+that would make it obligatory on my part to answer
+your question. In that reply I see there is hope for
+you. So I will tell you she is safe, unharmed, unhurt.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I felt it,&rdquo; said Conway, quietly, &ldquo;for I knew it,
+Richard Travis, as soon as I saw your face. But tell
+me all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is little to tell. I had made up my mind
+to run off with her, marry her, perhaps, since she had
+neither home nor a father, and was a beautiful young
+thing which any man might be proud of. But things
+have come up&mdash;no, not come up, fallen, fallen and
+crushed. It has been a crisis all around&mdash;so I sent for
+Clay&mdash;a fine young fellow and he loves her&mdash;I had
+him meet me here and&mdash;well, he has taken her to
+Westmoreland to-night. You know she is safe there.
+She will come to you to-morrow as pure as she left,
+though God knows you do not deserve it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Something sprang into Edward Conway's throat&mdash;something
+kin to a joyous shout. He could not speak.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_587" id="Page_587">[Pg 587]</a></span>
+He could only look at the strange, calm, sad man before
+him in a gratitude that uplifted him. He stared
+with eyes that were blinded with tears.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dick&mdash;Dick,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we have been estranged,
+since the war. I misjudged you. I see I never knew
+you. I came to kill, but here&mdash;&rdquo; He thrust the grip
+of his pistol toward Travis&mdash;&ldquo;here, Dick, kill me&mdash;shoot
+me&mdash;I am not fit to live&mdash;but, O God, how
+clearly I see now; and, Dick&mdash;Dick&mdash;you shall see&mdash;the
+world shall see that from now on, with God's help,
+as Lily makes me say&mdash;Dick, I'll be a Conway again.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The other man pressed his hand: &ldquo;Ned, I believe
+it&mdash;I believe it. Go back to your little home to-night.
+Your daughter is safe. To-morrow you may begin
+all over again. To-morrow&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And you, Dick&mdash;I have heard&mdash;I can guess, but
+why may not you, to-morrow&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There will be no to-morrow for me,&rdquo; he said sadly.
+&ldquo;Things stop suddenly before me to-night as before an
+abyss&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He turned quickly and looked toward the low lying
+range of mountains. A great red flush as of a rising
+sun glowed even beyond the rim of them, and then out
+of it shot tinges of flame.</p>
+
+<p>Conway saw it at the same instant:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's the mill&mdash;the mill's afire,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_588" id="Page_588">[Pg 588]</a></span></p>
+<h3>A CONWAY AGAIN</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">I</span>t was a great fire the mill made, lighting the
+valley for miles. All Cottontown was there to see
+it burn, hushed, with set faces, some of anger, some
+of fear&mdash;but all in stricken numbness, knowing that
+their living was gone.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long before Jud Carpenter was among
+them, stirring them with the story of how the old negro
+woman had burned it&mdash;for he knew it was she. Indeed,
+he was soon fully substantiated by others who
+heard her when she had run home heaping her maledictions
+on the mill.</p>
+
+<p>Soon among them began the whisper of lynching.
+As it grew they became bolder and began to shout it:
+<i>Lynch her!</i></p>
+
+<p>Jud Carpenter, half drunk and wholly reckless, stood
+on a stump, and after telling his day's experience with
+Mammy Maria, her defiance of the mill's laws, her arrogance,
+her burning of the mill, he shouted that he
+himself would lead them.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lynch her!&rdquo; they shouted. &ldquo;Lead us, Jud Carpenter!
+We will lynch her.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Some wanted to wait until daylight, but &ldquo;Lynch her&mdash;lynch
+her now,&rdquo; was the shout.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd grew denser every moment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_589" id="Page_589">[Pg 589]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The people of Cottontown, hot and revengeful, now
+that their living was burned; hill dwellers who sympathized
+with them, and coming in, were eager for any
+excitement; the unlawful element which infests every
+town&mdash;all were there, the idle, the ignorant, the
+vicious.</p>
+
+<p>And a little viciousness goes a long way.</p>
+
+<p>There had been so many lynchings in the South that
+it had ceased to be a crime&mdash;for crime, the weed, cultivated&mdash;grows
+into a flower to those who do the tending.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the lynchings, it is true, were honest&mdash;the
+frenzy of outraged humanity to avenge a terrible
+crime which the law, in its delay, often had let go
+unpunished. The laxity of the law, the unscrupulousness
+of its lawyers, their shrewdness in clearing criminals
+if the fee was forthcoming, the hundreds of technicalities
+thrown around criminals, the narrowness of supreme
+courts in reversing on these technicalities. All
+these had thrown the law back to its source&mdash;the people.
+And they had taken it in their own hands. In
+violent hands, but deadly sure and retributory.</p>
+
+<p>If there was ever an excuse for lynching, the South
+was entitled to it. For the crime was the result of
+the sudden emancipation of ignorant slaves, who, backed
+by the bayonets of their liberators, and attributing a
+far greater importance to their elevation than was warranted,
+perpetuated an unnameable crime as part of their
+system of revenge for years of slavery. And the South
+arose to the terribleness of the crime and met it with
+the rifle, the torch and the rope.</p>
+
+<p>Why should it be wondered at? Why should the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_590" id="Page_590">[Pg 590]</a></span>
+South be singled out for blame? Is it not a fact that
+for years in every newly settled western state lynch-law
+has been the unchallenged, unanimous verdict for
+a horse thief? And is not the honor of a white woman
+more than the hide of a broncho?</p>
+
+<p>But from an honest, well intentioned frenzy of justice
+outraged to any pretext is an easy step. From the
+quick lynching of the rapist and murderer&mdash;to be sure
+that the lawyers and courts did not acquit them&mdash;was
+one step. To hang a half crazy old woman for burning
+a mill was another, and the natural consequence of
+the first.</p>
+
+<p>And so these people flocked to the burning&mdash;they
+who had helped lynch before&mdash;the negro-haters, who
+had never owned a negro and had no sympathy&mdash;no
+sentiment for them. It is they who lynch in the South,
+who lynch and defy the law.</p>
+
+<p>The great mill was in ruins&mdash;its tall black smokestacks
+alone stood amid its smoking, twisted mass of
+steel and ashes&mdash;a rough, blackened, but fitting monument
+of its own infamy.</p>
+
+<p>They gathered around it&mdash;the disorderly, the vicious,
+the lynchers of the Tennessee Valley.</p>
+
+<p>Fitful flashes of flame now and then burst out amid
+the ruins, silhouetting the shadows of the lynchers into
+fierce giant forms with frenzied faces from which came
+first murmurs and finally shouts of:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Lynch her! Lynch her!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Above, in the still air of the night, yet hung the pall
+of the black smoke-cloud, from whose heart had come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_591" id="Page_591">[Pg 591]</a></span>
+the torch which had cost capital its money, and the mill
+people their living.</p>
+
+<p>They were not long acting. Mammy Maria had
+flown to the little cottage&mdash;a crazy, hysterical creature&mdash;a
+wreck of herself&mdash;over-worked in body and mind,
+and frenzied between the deed and the promptings of
+a blind superstitious religion.</p>
+
+<p>Lily hung to her neck sobbing, and the old woman
+in her pitiful fright was brought back partly to reason
+in the great love of her life for the little child. Even
+in her feebleness she was soothing her pet.</p>
+
+<p>There were oaths, curses and trampling of many
+feet as they rushed in and seized her. Lily, screaming,
+was held by rough arms while they dragged the old
+nurse away.</p>
+
+<p>Into a wood nearby they took her, the rope was thrown
+over a limb, the noose placed around her neck.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pray, you old witch&mdash;we will give you five minutes
+to pray.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old woman fell on her knees, but instead of praying
+for herself, she prayed for her executioners.</p>
+
+<p>They jeered&mdash;they laughed. One struck her with
+a stick, but she only prayed for them the more.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;String her up,&rdquo; they shouted&mdash;&ldquo;her time's up!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Stand back there!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The words rang out even above the noise of the
+crowd. Then a man, with the long blue deadly barrel
+of the Colt forty-four, pushed his way through them&mdash;his
+face pale, his fine mouth set firm and close, and
+the splendid courage of many generations of Conways
+shining in his eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_592" id="Page_592">[Pg 592]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Stand back!</i>&mdash;&rdquo; and he said it in the old commanding
+way&mdash;the old way which courage has ever had
+in the crises of the world.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O Marse Ned!&mdash;I knowed you'd come!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He had cut the rope and the old woman sat on the
+ground clasping his feet.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he stood over her, his pale calm face
+showing the splendor of determination in the glory of
+his manhood restored. For a moment the very beauty
+of it stopped them&mdash;this man, this former sot and
+drunkard, this old soldier arising from the ashes of his
+buried past, a beautiful statue of courage cut out of
+the marble of manhood. The moral beauty of it&mdash;this
+man defending with his life the old negro&mdash;struck
+even through the swine of them.</p>
+
+<p>They ceased, and a silence fell, so painful that it
+hurt in its very uncanniness.</p>
+
+<p>Then Edward Conway said very clearly, very slowly,
+but with a fitful nervous ring in his voice: &ldquo;Go back
+to your homes! Would you hang this poor old woman
+without a trial? Can you not see that she has lost her
+mind and is not responsible for her acts? Let the law
+decide. Shall not her life of unselfishness and good
+deeds be put against this one insane act of her old age?
+Go back to your homes! Some of you are my friends,
+some my neighbors&mdash;I ask you for her but a fair trial
+before the law.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They listened for a moment and then burst into
+jeers, hoots, and hisses:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hang her, now! That's the way all lawyers talk!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_593" id="Page_593">[Pg 593]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And one shouted above the rest: &ldquo;He's put up a
+plea of insanity a-ready. Hang her, now!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Edward Conway flashed hot through his paleness and
+he placed himself before the bowed and moaning form
+while the crowd in front of him surged and shouted and
+called for a rope.</p>
+
+<p>He felt some one touch his arm and turned to find
+the sheriff by his side&mdash;one of those disreputables who
+infested the South after the war, holding office by the
+votes of the negroes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Better let 'em have her,&mdash;it ain't worth the while.
+You'll hafter kill, or be killed.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You scallawag!&rdquo; said Conway, now purple with
+anger&mdash;&ldquo;is that the way you respect your sworn oath?
+And you have been here and seen all this and not raised
+your hand?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you think I'm fool enuff to tackle that crowd
+of hillbillies? They've got the devil in them&mdash;fur
+they've got a devil leadin' 'em&mdash;Jud Carpenter. Better
+let 'em have her&mdash;they'll kill you. We've got a
+good excuse&mdash;overpowered&mdash;don't you see?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Overpowered? That's the way all cowards talk,&rdquo;
+said Conway. &ldquo;Do one thing for me,&rdquo; he said quickly&mdash;&ldquo;tell
+them you have appointed me your deputy. If
+you do not&mdash;I'll fall back on the law of riots and appoint
+myself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said the sheriff, turning to the crowd,
+and speaking half-shamedly&mdash;&ldquo;Gentlemen, it's better
+an' I hopes you all will go home. We don't wanter hurt
+nobody. I app'ints Major Conway my deputy to take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_594" id="Page_594">[Pg 594]</a></span>
+the prisoner to jail. Now the blood be on yo' own
+heads. I've sed my say.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A perfect storm of jeers met this. They surged forward
+to seize her, while the sheriff half frightened, half
+undecided, got behind Conway and said:&mdash;&ldquo;It's up to
+you&mdash;I've done all I cu'd.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go back to your homes, men&rdquo;&mdash;shouted Conway&mdash;&ldquo;I
+am the sheriff here now, and I swear to you by the
+living God it means I am a Conway again, and the man
+who lays a hand on this old woman is as good as dead
+in his tracks!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>For an instant they surged around him cursing and
+shouting; but he stood up straight and terribly silent;
+only his keen grey eyes glanced down to the barrel of
+his pistol and he stood nervously fingering the small
+blue hammer with his thumb and measuring the distance
+between himself and the nearest ruffian who stood
+on the outskirts of the mob shaking a pistol in Conway's
+face and shouting: &ldquo;Come on, men, we'll lynch
+her anyway!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then Conway acted quickly. He spoke a few words
+to the old nurse, and as she backed off into the nearby
+wood, he covered the retreat. To his relief he saw that
+the sheriff, now thoroughly ashamed, had hold of the
+prisoner and was helping her along.</p>
+
+<p>In the edge of the wood he felt safe&mdash;with the
+trees at his back. And he took courage as he heard the
+sheriff say:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you kin hold 'em a little longer I'll soon have
+my buggy here and we'll beat 'em to the jail.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But the mob guessed his plans, and the man who had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_595" id="Page_595">[Pg 595]</a></span>
+been most insolent in the front of the mob&mdash;a long-haired,
+narrow-chested mountaineer&mdash;rushed up viciously.</p>
+
+<p>Conway saw the gleam of his pistol as the man aimed
+and fired at the prisoner. Instinctively he struck at the
+weapon and the ball intended for the prisoner crushed
+spitefully into his left shoulder. He reeled and the
+grim light of an aroused Conway flashed in his eyes as
+he recovered himself, for a moment, shocked, blinded.
+Then he heard some one say, as he felt the blood trickling
+down his arm and hand:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Marse Ned! Oh, an' for po' ole Zion! Don't risk
+yo' life&mdash;let 'em take me!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Dimly he saw the mob rushing up; vaguely it came
+to him that it was kill or be killed. Vaguely, too, that
+it was the law&mdash;his law&mdash;and every other man's law&mdash;against
+lawlessness. Hazily, that he was the law&mdash;its
+representative, its defender, and then clear as the
+blue barrel in his hand,&mdash;all the dimness and uncertainty
+gone,&mdash;it came to him, that thing that made him
+say: &ldquo;I am a Conway again!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then his pistol leaped from the shadow by his side
+to the gray light in front, and the man who had fired
+and was again taking aim at the old woman died in his
+tracks with his mouth twisted forever into the shape of
+an unspoken curse.</p>
+
+<p>It was enough. Stricken, paralyzed, they fell back
+before such courage&mdash;and Conway found himself
+backing off into the woods, covering the retreat of the
+prisoner. Then afterward he felt the motion of buggy
+wheels, and of a galloping drive, and the jail, and he in
+the sheriff's room, the old prisoner safe for the time.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_596" id="Page_596">[Pg 596]</a></span></p>
+<h3>DIED FOR THE LAW</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">A</span>nd thus was begun that historical lynching in the
+Tennessee Valley&mdash;a tragedy which well might
+have remained unwritten had it not fallen into
+the woof of this story.</p>
+
+<p>A white man had been killed for a negro&mdash;that was
+enough.</p>
+
+<p>It is true the man was attempting to commit murder
+in the face of the law of the land; and in attempting it
+had shot the representative of the law. It is true, also,
+that he had no grievance, being one of several hundred
+law-breakers bent on murder. This, too, made no difference;
+they neither thought nor cared;&mdash;for mobs,
+being headless, do not think; and being soulless, do not
+suffer.</p>
+
+<p>They had failed only for lack of a leader.</p>
+
+<p>But now they had a leader, and a mob with a leader
+is a dangerous thing.</p>
+
+<p>That leader was Richard Travis.</p>
+
+<p>It was after midnight when he rode up on the scene.
+Before he arrived, Jud Carpenter had aroused the mob
+to do its first fury, and still held them, now doubly
+vengeful and shouting to be led against the jail. But
+to storm a jail they needed a braver man than Jud
+Carpenter. And they found him in Richard Travis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_597" id="Page_597">[Pg 597]</a></span>&mdash;especially
+Richard Travis in the terrible mood, the black
+despair which had come upon him that night.</p>
+
+<p>Why did he come? He could not say. In him had
+surged two great forces that night&mdash;the force of evil
+and the force of good. Twice had the good overcome&mdash;now
+it was the evil's turn, and like one hypnotized,
+he was led on.</p>
+
+<p>He sat his horse among them, pale and calm, but with
+a cruel instinct flashing in his eyes. At least, so Jud
+Carpenter interpreted the mood which lay upon him;
+but no one knew the secret workings of this man's heart,
+save God.</p>
+
+<p>He had come to them haggard and blanched and
+with a nameless dread, his arm tied up where the dog's
+fang had been buried in his flesh, his heart bitter in the
+thought of the death that was his. Already he felt the
+deadly virus pulsing through his veins. A hundred
+times in the short hour that had passed he suffered death&mdash;death
+beginning with the gripping throat, the shortened
+breath, the foaming mouth, the spasm!</p>
+
+<p>He jerked in the saddle&mdash;that spasmodic chill of
+the nerves,&mdash;and he grew white and terribly silent at
+the thought of it&mdash;the death that was his!</p>
+
+<p>Was his! And then he thought: &ldquo;No, there shall
+be another and quicker way to die. A braver way&mdash;like
+a Travis&mdash;with my boots on&mdash;my boots on&mdash;and
+not like a mad-dog tied to a stake.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Besides&mdash;Alice&mdash;Alice!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She had gone out of his life. Could such a thing be
+and he live to tell it? Alice&mdash;love&mdash;ambition&mdash;the
+future&mdash;life! Alice, hazel-eyed and glorious, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_598" id="Page_598">[Pg 598]</a></span>
+hair the smell of which filled his soul with perfume as
+from the stars. She who alone uplifted him&mdash;she
+another's, and that other Tom Travis!</p>
+
+<p>Tom Travis&mdash;returned and idealized&mdash;with him,
+the joint heir of The Gaffs.</p>
+
+<p>And that mad-dog&mdash;that damned mad-dog! And
+if perchance he was saved&mdash;if that virus was sucked
+out of his veins, it was she&mdash;Helen!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;This is the place to die,&rdquo; he said grimly&mdash;&ldquo;here
+with my boots on. To die like a Travis and unravel
+this thing called life. Unravel it to the end of the
+thread and know if it ends there, is snapped, is broken
+or&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Or&mdash;my God,&rdquo; he cried aloud, &ldquo;I never knew what
+those two little letters meant before&mdash;not till I face
+them this way, on the Edge of Things!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He gathered the mob together and led them against
+the jail&mdash;with hoots and shouts and curses; with flaming
+torches, and crow-bars, with axes and old guns.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lynch her&mdash;lynch the old witch! and hang that
+devil Conway with her!&rdquo; was the shout.</p>
+
+<p>In front of the jail they stopped, for a man stood at
+the door. His left arm was in a sling, but in his right
+hand gleamed something that had proved very deadly
+before. And he stood there as he had stood in the
+edge of the wood, and the bonfires and torches of the
+mob lit up more clearly the deadly pale face, set and
+more determined than before.</p>
+
+<p>For as he stood, pale and silent, the shaft of a terrible
+pain,&mdash;of broken bone and lacerated muscle&mdash;twinged
+and twitched his arm, and to smother it and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_599" id="Page_599">[Pg 599]</a></span>
+keep from crying out he gripped bloodlessly&mdash;nervously&mdash;the
+stock of his pistol saying over and over:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am a Conway again&mdash;a man again!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And so standing he defied them and they halted,
+like sheep at the door of the shambles. The sheriff had
+flown, and Conway alone stood between the frenzied
+mob and the old woman who had given her all for him.</p>
+
+<p>He could hear her praying within&mdash;an uncanny
+mixture of faith and miracle&mdash;of faith which saw as
+Paul saw, and which expected angels to come and break
+down her prison doors. And after praying she would
+break out into a song, the words of which nerved the
+lone man who stood between her and death:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;'I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I can tarry, I can tarry but a night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do not detain me, for I am going<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To where the streamlets are ever flowing.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'm a pilgrim&mdash;and I'm a stranger<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I can tarry&mdash;I can tarry but a night.'&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And now the bonfire burned brighter, lighting up
+the scene&mdash;the shambling stores around the jail on the
+public square, the better citizens making appeals in
+vain for law and order, the shouting, fool-hardy mob,
+waiting for Richard Travis to say the word, and he
+sitting among them pale, and terribly silent with something
+in his face they had never seen there before.</p>
+
+<p>Nor would he give the command. He had nothing
+against Edward Conway&mdash;he did not wish to see him
+killed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_600" id="Page_600">[Pg 600]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And the mob did not attack, although they cursed
+and bluffed, because each one of them knew it meant
+death&mdash;death to some one of them, and that one might
+be&mdash;I!</p>
+
+<p>Between life and death &ldquo;I&rdquo; is a bridge that means
+it all.</p>
+
+<p>A stone wall ran around the front of the jail. A
+small gate opened into the jail-yard. At the jail door,
+covering that opening, stood Edward Conway.</p>
+
+<p>They tried parleying with him, but he would have
+none of it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go back&mdash;&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I am the sheriff here&mdash;I
+am the law. The man who comes first into that gate
+will be the first to die.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In ten minutes they made their attack despite the
+commands of their leader, who still sat his horse on the
+public square, pale and with a bitter conflict raging in
+his breast.</p>
+
+<p>With shouts and curses and a headlong rush they went.
+Pistol bullets flew around Conway's head and scattered
+brick dust and mortar over him. Torches gleamed
+through the dark crowd as stars amid fast flying clouds
+in a March night. But through it all every man of
+them heard the ringing warning words:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Stop at the gateway&mdash;stop at the dead line!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Right at it they rushed and crowded into it like cattle&mdash;shooting,
+cursing, throwing stones.</p>
+
+<p>Then two fell dead, blocking the gateway. Two
+more, wounded, with screams of pain which threw the
+others into that indescribable panic which comes to all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_601" id="Page_601">[Pg 601]</a></span>
+mobs in the death-pinch, staggered back carrying the
+mob with them.</p>
+
+<p>Safe from the bullets, they became frenzied.</p>
+
+<p>The town trembled with their fury.</p>
+
+<p>All order was at an end.</p>
+
+<p>And Edward Conway stood, behind a row of cotton
+bales, in the jail-yard, covering still the little gateway,
+and the biting pain in his shoulder had a companion pain
+in his side, where a pistol ball had ploughed through,
+but he forgot it as he slipped fresh cartridges into the
+chambers of his pistol and heard again the chant which
+came from out the jail window, like a ghost-voice from
+the clouds:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Of that City, to which I journey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My Redeemer, my Redeemer is the light.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is no sorrow, nor any sighing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor any tears there, nor any dying...,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I can tarry&mdash;I can tarry but a night.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>At a long distance they shot at Conway,&mdash;they hooted,
+jeered, cursed him, but dared not come closer, for
+he had breast-worked himself behind some cotton-bales
+in the yard, and they knew he could still shoot.</p>
+
+<p>Then they decided to batter down the stone wall first&mdash;to
+make an opening they could rush through, and not
+be blocked in the deadly gateway.</p>
+
+<p>An hour passed, and torches gleamed everywhere.
+Attacking the wall farther down, they soon had it torn
+away. They could now get to him. It was a perilous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_602" id="Page_602">[Pg 602]</a></span>
+position, and Conway knew it. Help&mdash;he must have it&mdash;help
+to protect his flank while he shot in front. If
+not, he would die soon, and the law with him.</p>
+
+<p>He looked around him&mdash;but there was no solution.
+Then he felt that death was near, for the mob now
+hated him more than they did the prisoner. They
+seemed to have forgotten her, for all their cry now
+was:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Kill Conway! Kill the man who murdered our
+people!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In ten minutes they were ready to attack again, but
+looking up they saw a strange sight.</p>
+
+<p>Help had come to Conway. On one side of him stood
+the old Cottontown preacher, his white hair reflecting
+back the light from the bonfires and torches in front&mdash;lighting
+up a face which now seemed to have lost all of
+its kindly humor in the crisis that was there. He was
+unarmed, but he stood calm and with a courage that was
+more of sorrow than of anger.</p>
+
+<p>By him stood the village blacksmith, a man with the
+wild light of an old, untamed joy gleaming in his eyes&mdash;a
+cruel, dangerous light&mdash;the eyes of a caged tiger
+turned loose at last, and yearning for the blood of the
+thing which had caged him.</p>
+
+<p>And by him in quiet bravery, commanding, directing,
+stood the tall figure of the Captain of Artillery.</p>
+
+<p>When Richard Travis saw him, a cruel smile deepened
+in his eyes. &ldquo;I am dying myself,&rdquo; it said&mdash;&ldquo;why not
+kill him?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he shuddered with the hatred of the terrible
+thing that had come into his heart&mdash;the thing that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_603" id="Page_603">[Pg 603]</a></span>
+made him do its bidding, as if he were a puppet, and
+overthrew all the good he had gathered there, that terrible
+night, as the angels were driven from Paradise.
+And yet, how it ruled him, how it drove him on!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jim&mdash;Jim,&rdquo; he whispered as he bent over his
+horse's neck&mdash;&ldquo;Jim&mdash;my repeating rifle over the library
+door&mdash;quick&mdash;it carries true and far!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As Jim sped away his master was silent again. He
+thought of the nobility of the things he had done that
+night&mdash;the touch of God that had come over him in
+making him save Helen&mdash;the beautiful dreams he had
+had. He thought of it all&mdash;and then&mdash;here&mdash;now&mdash;murdering
+the man whose life carried with it the life,
+the love of&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at the stars, and the old wonder and
+doubt came back to him&mdash;the old doubt which made
+him say to himself: &ldquo;It is nothing&mdash;it is the end.
+Dust thou art, and unto dust&mdash;dust&mdash;dust&mdash;dust&mdash;&rdquo;
+he bit his tongue to keep from saying it again&mdash;&ldquo;Dust&mdash;to
+be blown away and mingle with the elements&mdash;dust!
+And yet, I stand here&mdash;now&mdash;blood&mdash;flesh&mdash;a
+thinking man&mdash;tempted&mdash;terribly&mdash;cruelly&mdash;poignantly&mdash;dying&mdash;of
+a poison in my veins&mdash;of
+sorrow in my heart&mdash;sorrow and death. Who would
+not take the dust&mdash;gladly take it&mdash;the dust and the&mdash;forgetting.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He remembered and repeated:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The soul that rises with us, our life's star,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_604" id="Page_604">[Pg 604]</a></span><span class="i0">Hath had elsewhere its setting<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And cometh from afar&mdash;&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'And cometh from afar,'&rdquo; he whispered&mdash;&ldquo;My
+God&mdash;suppose it does&mdash;and that I am mistaken in it
+all?&mdash;Dust&mdash;and then maybe something after dust.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>With his rifle in his hand, it all vanished and he began
+to train it on the tall figure while the mob prepared to
+storm the jail again&mdash;and his shot would be the signal&mdash;this
+time in desperate determination to take it or die.</p>
+
+<p>In the mob near Richard Travis stood a boy, careless
+and cool, and holding in his hand an old pistol. Richard
+Travis noticed the boy because he felt that the boy's eyes
+were always on him&mdash;always. When he looked down
+into them he was touched and sighed, and a dream of the
+long-ago swept over him&mdash;of a mountain cabin and a
+maiden fair to look upon. He bit his lip to keep back
+the tenderness&mdash;bit his lip and rode away&mdash;out of
+reach of the boy's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>But the boy, watching him, knew, and he said in his
+quiet, revengeful way: &ldquo;Twice have I failed to kill you&mdash;but
+to-night&mdash;my Honorable father&mdash;to-night in
+the death that will be here, I shall put this bullet through
+your heart.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis turned to the mob: &ldquo;Men, when I fire this
+rifle&mdash;it will mean for you to charge!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A hush fell over the crowd as they watched him. He
+looked at his rifle closely. He sprang the breech and
+threw out a shell or two to see that it worked properly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Stay where you are, men,&rdquo; came that same voice they
+had heard so plainly before that night. &ldquo;We are now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_605" id="Page_605">[Pg 605]</a></span>
+four and well armed and sworn to uphold the law and
+protect the prisoner, and if you cross the dead line you
+will die.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence, and then that old voice again, the
+voice that roused the mob to fury:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I can tarry&mdash;I can tarry but a night&mdash;&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lead us on&mdash;give the signal, Richard Travis,&rdquo;
+they shouted.</p>
+
+<p>Again the silence fell as Richard Travis raised his rifle
+and aimed at the tall figure outlined closely and with
+magnified distinctness in the glare of bonfire and torch.
+How splendidly cool and brave he looked&mdash;that tall
+figure standing there, giving orders as calmly as he gave
+them at Shiloh and Franklin, and so forgetful of himself
+and his own safety!</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis brought his rifle down&mdash;it shook so&mdash;brought
+it down saying to himself with a nervous
+laugh: &ldquo;It is not Tom&mdash;not Tom Travis I am going
+to kill&mdash;it's&mdash;it's Alice's husband of only two days&mdash;her
+lover&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Shoot! Why don't you shoot?&rdquo; they shouted.
+&ldquo;We are waiting to rush&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Even where he stood, Richard Travis could see the old
+calm, quiet and now triumphant smile lighting up Tom
+Travis's face, and he knew he was thinking of Alice&mdash;Alice,
+his bride.</p>
+
+<p>And then that same nervous, uncanny chill ran into
+the very marrow of Richard Travis and brought his gun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_606" id="Page_606">[Pg 606]</a></span>
+down with an oath on his lips as he said pitifully&mdash;&ldquo;I
+am poisoned&mdash;it is that!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The crowd shouted and urged him to shoot, but he sat
+shaking to his very soul. And when it passed there came
+the old half humorous, half bitter, cynical laugh as he
+said: &ldquo;Alice&mdash;Alice a widow&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It passed, and again there leaped into his eyes the
+great light Jud Carpenter had seen there that morning,
+and slipping the cartridges out of the barrel's breech, he
+looked up peacefully with the halo of a holy light around
+his eyes as he said: &ldquo;Oh, God, and I thank Thee&mdash;for
+this&mdash;this touch again! Hold the little spark in my
+heart&mdash;hold it, oh, God, but for a little while till the
+temptation is gone, and I shall rest&mdash;I shall rest.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Shoot&mdash;Richard Travis&mdash;why the devil don't you
+shoot?&rdquo; they shouted.</p>
+
+<p>He raised his rifle again, this time with a flourish
+which made some of the mob think he was taking unnecessary
+risk to attract the attention of the grim blacksmith
+who stood, pistol in hand, his piercing eyes scanning
+the crowd. He stood by the side of Tom Travis,
+his bodyguard to the last.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jack&mdash;Jack&mdash;&rdquo; kept whispering to him the old
+preacher, &ldquo;don't shoot till you're obleeged to,&mdash;maybe
+God'll open a way, maybe you won't have to spill blood.
+'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jack smiled. It was a strange smile&mdash;of joy, in the
+risking glory of the old life&mdash;the glory of blood-letting,
+of killing, of death. And sorrow&mdash;sorrow in the new.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Stand pat, stand pat, Bishop,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;you all
+know the trade. Let me who have defied the law so long,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_607" id="Page_607">[Pg 607]</a></span>
+let me now stand for it&mdash;die for it. It's my atonement&mdash;ain't
+that the word? Ain't that what you said
+about that there Jesus Christ, the man you said
+wouldn't flicker even on the Cross, an' wouldn't let us
+flicker if we loved Him&mdash;Hol' him to His promise, now,
+Bishop. It's time for us to stand pat. No&mdash;I'll not
+shoot unless I see some on 'em makin' a too hasty movement
+of gun-arm toward Cap'n&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Had Richard Travis looked from his horse down into
+the crowd he had seen another sight. Man can think
+and do but one thing at a time, but oh, the myrmidons of
+God's legions of Cause and Effect!</p>
+
+<p>Below him stood a boy, his face white in the terrible
+tragedy of his determination. And as Richard Travis
+threw up his empty rifle, the octagonal barrel of the
+pistol in the boy's hand leaped up and came straight to
+the line of Richard Travis's heart. But before the boy
+could fire Travis saw the hawk-like flutter of the blacksmith's
+pistol arm, as it measured the distance with the
+old quick training of a bloody experience, and Richard
+Travis smiled, as he saw the flash from the outlaw's
+pistol and felt that uncanny chill starting in his marrow
+again, leap into a white heat to the shock of the ball, and
+he pitched limply forward, slipped from his horse and
+went down on the ground murmuring, &ldquo;Tom&mdash;Tom&mdash;safe,
+and Alice&mdash;he shot at last&mdash;and&mdash;thank God
+for the touch again!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He lay quiet, feeling the life blood go out of him.
+But with it came an exhalation he had never felt before&mdash;a
+glory that, instead of taking, seemed to give him
+life.</p>
+
+<p>The mob rushed wildly at the jail at the flash of Jack<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_608" id="Page_608">[Pg 608]</a></span>
+Bracken's pistol, all but one, a boy&mdash;whose old dueling
+pistol still pointed at the space in the air, where Richard
+Travis had sat a moment before&mdash;its holder nerveless&mdash;rigid&mdash;as
+if turned into stone.</p>
+
+<p>He saw Richard Travis pitch forward off his horse
+and slide limply to the ground. He saw him totter and
+waver and then sit down in a helpless, pitiful way,&mdash;then
+lie down as if it were sweet to rest.</p>
+
+<p>And still the boy stood holding his pistol, stunned,
+frigid, numbed&mdash;pointing at the stars.</p>
+
+<p>Silently he brought his arm and weapon down. He
+heard only shouts of the mob as they rushed against the
+jail, and then, high above it, the words of the blacksmith,
+whom he loved so well: &ldquo;Stand back&mdash;all; Me&mdash;me
+alone, shoot&mdash;me! I who have so often killed the
+law, let me die for it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And then came to the boy's ears the terrible staccato
+cough of the two Colts pistols whose very fire he had
+learned to know so well. And he knew that the blacksmith
+alone was shooting&mdash;the blacksmith he loved so&mdash;the
+marksman he worshipped&mdash;the man who had
+saved his life&mdash;the man who had just shot his father.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis sat up with an effort and looked at the
+boy standing by him&mdash;looked at him with frank, kindly
+eyes,&mdash;eyes which begged forgiveness, and the boy saw
+himself there&mdash;in Richard Travis, and felt a hurtful,
+pitying sorrow for him, and then an uncontrolled, hot
+anger at the man who had shot him out of the saddle.
+His eyes twitched wildly, his heart jumped in smothering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_609" id="Page_609">[Pg 609]</a></span>
+beats, a dry sob choked him, and he sprang forward crying:
+&ldquo;My father&mdash;oh, God&mdash;my poor father!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis looked up and smiled at him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You shoot well, my son,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but not quick
+enough.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The boy, weeping, saw. Shamed,&mdash;burning&mdash;he
+knelt and tried to staunch the wound with a handkerchief.
+Travis shook his head: &ldquo;Let it out, my son&mdash;let
+it out&mdash;it is poison! Let it out!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he lay down again on the ground. It felt sweet
+to rest.</p>
+
+<p>The boy saw his blood on the ground and he shouted:
+&ldquo;Blood,&mdash;my father&mdash;blood is thicker than water.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then the hatred that had burned in his heart for his
+father, the father who had begot him into the world, disgraced,
+forsaken&mdash;the father who had ruined and abandoned
+his mother, was turned into a blaze of fury against
+the blacksmith, the blacksmith whom he had loved.</p>
+
+<p>Wheeling, he rushed toward the jail, but met the mob
+pouring panic-stricken back with white faces, blanched
+with fear.</p>
+
+<p>Jack Bracken stood alone on the barricade, shoving
+more cartridges into his pistol chambers.</p>
+
+<p>The boy, blinded, weeping, hot with a burning revenge,
+stumbled and fell twice over dead men lying near
+the gateway. Then he crawled along over them under
+cover of the fence, and kneeling within twenty feet of the
+gate, fired at the great calm figure who had driven the
+mob back, and now stood reloading.</p>
+
+<p>Jack did not see the boy till he felt the ball crush
+into his side. Then all the old, desperate, revengeful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_610" id="Page_610">[Pg 610]</a></span>
+instinct of the outlaw leaped into his eyes as he quickly
+turned his unerring pistol on the object from whence
+the flash came. Never had he aimed so accurately, so
+carefully, for he felt his own life going out, and this&mdash;this
+was his last shot&mdash;to kill.</p>
+
+<p>But the object kneeling among the dead arose with a
+smile of revengeful triumph and stood up calmly under
+the aim of the great pistol, his fair hair flung back, his
+face lit up with the bravery of all the Travises as he
+shouted:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Take that&mdash;damn you&mdash;from a Travis!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And when Jack saw and understood, a smile broke
+through his bloodshot, vengeful eyes as starlight falls
+on muddy waters, and he turned away his death-seeking
+aim, and his mouth trembled as he said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why&mdash;it's&mdash;it's the Little 'Un! I cudn't kill
+him&mdash;&rdquo; and he clutched at the cotton-bale as he went
+down, falling&mdash;and Captain Tom grasped him, letting
+him down gently.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_611" id="Page_611">[Pg 611]</a></span></p>
+<h3>THE ATONEMENT</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">A</span>nd now no one stood between the prisoner and
+death but the old preacher and the tall man
+in the uniform of a Captain of Artillery. And
+death it meant to all of them, defenders as well as
+prisoners, for the mob had increased in numbers as in
+fury. Friends, kindred, brothers, fathers&mdash;even
+mothers and sisters of the dead were there, bitter in the
+thought that their dead had been murdered&mdash;white men,
+for one old negress.</p>
+
+<p>In their fury they did not think it was the law they
+themselves were murdering. The very name of the law
+was now hateful to them&mdash;the law that had killed their
+people.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, surely, but with grim deadliness they laid their
+plans&mdash;this time to run no risk of failure.</p>
+
+<p>There was a stillness solemn and all-pervading. And
+from the window of the jail came again in wailing uncanny
+notes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">&ldquo;I'm a pilgrim and I'm a stranger,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I can tarry, I can tarry but a night&mdash;&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It swept over the mob, frenzied now to the stillness of
+a white heat, like a challenge to battle, like the flaunt of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_612" id="Page_612">[Pg 612]</a></span>
+a red flag. Their dead lay all about the gate of the rock
+fence, stark and still. Their wounded were few&mdash;for
+Jack Bracken did not wound. They saw them all&mdash;dead&mdash;lying
+out there dead&mdash;and they were willing to
+die themselves for the blood of the old woman&mdash;a negro
+for whom white men had been killed.</p>
+
+<p>But their wrath now took another form. It was the
+wrath of coolness. They had had enough of the other
+kind. To rush again on those bales of cotton doubly
+protected behind a rock fence, through one small gate,
+commanded by the fire of such marksmen as lay there,
+was not to be thought of.</p>
+
+<p>They would burn the jail over the heads of its defenders
+and kill them as they were uncovered. A hundred
+men would fire the jail from the rear, a hundred
+more with guns would shoot in front.</p>
+
+<p>It was Jud Carpenter who planned it, and soon oil and
+saturated paper and torches were prepared.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We are in for it, Bishop,&rdquo; said Captain Tom, as he
+saw the preparation; &ldquo;this is worse than Franklin, because
+there we could protect our rear.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He leaped up on his barricade, tall and splendid, and
+called to them quietly and with deadly calm:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go to your homes, men&mdash;go! But if you will come,
+know that I fought for my country's laws from Shiloh
+to Franklin, and I can die for them here!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he took from over his heart a small silken flag,
+spangled with stars and the blood-splotches of his father
+who fell in Mexico, and he shook it out and flung it
+over his barricade, saying cheerily: &ldquo;I am all right
+for a fight now, Bishop. But oh, for just one of my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_613" id="Page_613">[Pg 613]</a></span>
+guns&mdash;just one of my old Parrots that I had last week
+at Franklin!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man, praying on his knees behind his barricade,
+said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Twelve years ago, Cap'n Tom, twelve years. Not
+last week.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The mob had left Richard Travis for dead, and in the
+fury of their defeat had thought no more of him. But
+now, the loss of blood, the cool night air revived him. He
+sat up, weak, and looked around. Everywhere bonfires
+burned. Men were running about. He heard their talk
+and he knew all. He was shot through the left lung, so
+near to his heart that, as he felt it, he wondered how he
+had escaped.</p>
+
+<p>He knew it by the labored breathing, by the blood
+that ran down and half filled his left boot. But his was a
+constitution of steel&mdash;an athlete, a hunter, a horseman,
+a man of the open. The bitterness of it all came back
+to him when he found he was not dead as he had hoped&mdash;as
+he had made Jack Bracken shoot to do.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To die in bed at last,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;like a monk with
+liver complaint&mdash;or worse still&mdash;my God, like a mad
+dog, unless&mdash;unless&mdash;her lips&mdash;Helen!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He lay quite still on the soft grass and looked up at
+the stars. How comfortable he was! He felt around.</p>
+
+<p>A boy's overcoat was under him&mdash;a little round-about,
+wadded up, was his pillow.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled&mdash;touched: &ldquo;What a man he will make&mdash;the
+brave little devil! Oh, if I can live to tell him he is
+mine, that I married his mother secretly&mdash;that I broke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_614" id="Page_614">[Pg 614]</a></span>
+her heart with my faithlessness&mdash;that she died and the
+other is&mdash;is her sister.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He heard the clamor and the talk behind him. The
+mob, cool now, were laying their plans only on revenge,&mdash;revenge
+with the torch and the bullet.</p>
+
+<p>Jud Carpenter was the leader, and Travis could hear
+him giving his orders. How he now loathed the man&mdash;for
+somehow, as he thought, Jud Carpenter stood for
+all the seared, blighted, dead life behind him&mdash;all the
+old disbelief, all the old infamy, all the old doubt and
+shame. But now, dying, he saw things differently.
+Yonder above him shone the stars and in his heart the
+glory of that touch of God&mdash;the thing that made him
+wish rather to die than have it leave him again to live
+in his old way.</p>
+
+<p>He heard the mob talking. He heard their plans. He
+knew that Jud Carpenter, hating the old preacher as he
+did, would rather kill him than any wolf of the forest.
+He knew that neither Tom Travis nor the old preacher
+could ever hope to come out alive.</p>
+
+<p>The torches were ready&mdash;the men were aligned in
+front with deadly shotguns.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When the fire gets hot,&rdquo; he heard Jud Carpenter
+say, &ldquo;they'll hafter come out&mdash;then shoot&mdash;shoot an'
+shoot to kill. See our own dead!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They answered him with groans, with curses, with
+shouts of &ldquo;<i>Lead us on, Jud Carpenter!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When the jail is fired from the rear,&rdquo; shouted Carpenter,
+&ldquo;stay where you are and shoot; they've no
+chance at all. It's fire or bullet.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis heard it and his heart leaped&mdash;but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_615" id="Page_615">[Pg 615]</a></span>
+only for one tempting moment, when a vision of loveliness
+in widow's weeds swept through that soul of his
+inner sight, which sees into the future. Then the new
+light came back uplifting him with a wave of joyous
+strength that was sweetly calm in its destiny&mdash;glad that
+he had lived, glad that this test had come, glad for the
+death that was coming.</p>
+
+<p>It was all well with him.</p>
+
+<p>He forgot himself, he forgot his deadly wound, the
+bitterness of his life, the dog's bite&mdash;all&mdash;in the glory
+of this feeling, the new feeling which now would go with
+him into eternity.</p>
+
+<p>For, as he lay there, he had seen the bell's turret above
+the jail and his mind was quick to act.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled faintly&mdash;a happy smile&mdash;the smile of the
+old Roman ere he leaped into the chasm before the walls
+of Rome&mdash;leaped and saved his countrymen. He loved
+to do difficult things&mdash;to conquer and overcome where
+others would quit. This always had been his glory&mdash;he
+understood that. But this new thing&mdash;this wanting to
+save men who were doomed behind their barricade&mdash;this
+wanting to give what was left of his life for them&mdash;his
+enemies&mdash;this was the thing he could not understand.
+He only knew it was the call of something within him,
+stronger than himself and kin to the stars, which, clear
+and sweet above his head, seemed to be all that stood between
+him and that clear Sweet Thing out, far out, in
+the pale blue Silence of Things.</p>
+
+<p>He reached out and found his rifle. In his coat pocket
+were cartridges. His arms were still strong&mdash;he sprang
+the magazine and filled it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_616" id="Page_616">[Pg 616]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then slowly, painfully, he began to crawl off toward
+the jail, pulling his rifle along. No one saw him but,
+God! how it hurt!... that star falling ... scattering
+splinters of light everywhere ... so
+he lay on his face and slept awhile....</p>
+
+<p>When he awoke he flushed with the shame of it:
+&ldquo;Fainted&mdash;me&mdash;like a girl!&rdquo; And he spat out the
+blood that boiled out of his lips.</p>
+
+<p>Crawling&mdash;crawling&mdash;and dragging the heavy rifle.
+It seemed he would never strike the rock fence. Once&mdash;twice,
+and yet a third time he had to sink flat on the
+grass and spit out the troublesome blood....</p>
+
+<p>The fence at last, and following it he was soon in the
+rear of the jail. He knew where the back stair was and
+crawled to it. Slowly, step by step, and every step
+splotched with his blood, he went up. At the top he
+pushed up the trap-door with his head and, crawling
+through, fell fainting.</p>
+
+<p>But, oh, the glory of that feeling that was his now!
+That feeling that now&mdash;now he would atone for it all&mdash;now
+he would be brother to the stars and that Sweeter
+Thing out, far out, in the pale blue Silence of Things.</p>
+
+<p>Then the old Travis spirit came to him and he smiled:
+&ldquo;<i>Dominecker&mdash;oh, my old grandsire, will you think I
+am a Dominecker now? I found your will&mdash;in the old
+life&mdash;and tore it up. But it's Tom's now&mdash;Tom's
+anyway&mdash;Dominecker! Wipe it out&mdash;wipe it out! If
+I do not this night honor your blood, strike me from the
+roll of Travis.</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Around him was the belfry railing, waist high and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_617" id="Page_617">[Pg 617]</a></span>
+sheeted with metal save four holes, for air, at the base,
+where he could thrust his rifle through as he lay flat.</p>
+
+<p>He was in a bullet proof turret, and he smiled: &ldquo;I
+hold the fort!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Slowly he pulled himself up, painfully he stood erect
+and looked down. Just below him was the barricade of
+cotton bales, its two defenders, grim and silent behind
+them&mdash;the two wounded ones lying still and so quiet&mdash;so
+quiet it looked like death, and Richard Travis prayed
+that it was not.</p>
+
+<p>One of them had given him his death wound, but he
+held no bitterness for him&mdash;only that upliftedness, only
+the glory of that feeling within him he knew not what.</p>
+
+<p>He called gently to them. In astonishment they
+looked up. Thirty feet above their heads they saw him
+and heard him say painfully, slowly, but oh, so bravely:
+&ldquo;<i>I am Richard Travis, Tom, and I'll back you to the
+death.... They are to burn you out ... but
+I command the jail, both front and rear. Stay
+where you both are ... be careful ... do
+not expose yourselves, for while I live you are safe ... and
+the law is safe.</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And then came back to him clear and with all sweetness
+the earnest words of the old preacher:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;God bless you, Richard Travis, for He has sent you
+jus' in time. I knew that He would, that He'd touch yo'
+heart, that there was greatness in you&mdash;all in His own
+time, an' His own good way. Praise God!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis wished to warn the mob, but his voice was
+nearly gone. He could only sink down and wait.</p>
+
+<p>He heard shouts. They had formed in the rear, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_618" id="Page_618">[Pg 618]</a></span>
+now men with torches came to fire the jail. Their companions
+in front, hearing them, shouted back their approval.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis thrust his rifle barrel through the air
+hole and aimed carefully. The torches they carried
+made it all so plain and so easy.</p>
+
+<p>Then two long, spiteful flashes of flame leaped out of
+the belfry tower and the arm of the first incendiary, shot
+through and through&mdash;holding his blazing torch,
+leaped like a rabbit in a sack, and the torch went down
+and out. The torch of the second one was shot out of
+its bearer's hand.</p>
+
+<p>Panic-stricken, they looked up, saw, and fled. Those
+in front also saw and bombarded the belfry with shot and
+pistol ball. And then, on their side of the belfry, the
+same downward, spiteful flashes leaped out, and two men,
+shot through the shoulder and the arm, cried out in dismay,
+and they all fell back, stampeded, at the deadliness
+of the spiteful thing in the tower, the gun that carried
+so true and so far&mdash;so much farther than their own
+cheap guns.</p>
+
+<p>They rushed out of its range, gathered in knots and
+cursed and wondered who it was. But they dared not
+come nearer. Travis lay still. He could not speak now,
+for the blood choked him when he opened his mouth, and
+the stars which had once been above him now wheeled
+and floated below, and around him. And that Sweeter
+Thing that had been behind the stars now seemed to surround
+him as a halo, a halo of silence which seemed to fit
+the silence of his own soul and become part of him forever.
+It was all around him, as he had often seen it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_619" id="Page_619">[Pg 619]</a></span>
+around the summer moon; only now he felt it where he
+only saw it before. And now, too, it was in his heart and
+filled it with a sweet sadness, a sadness that hurt, it was
+so sweet, and which came with an odor, the smell of the
+warm rain falling on the dust of a summer of long ago.</p>
+
+<p>And all his life passed before him&mdash;he lived it again&mdash;even
+more than he had remembered before&mdash;even the
+memory of his mother whom he never knew; but now he
+knew her and he reached up his arms&mdash;for he was in a
+cradle and she bent over him&mdash;he reached up his arms
+and said: &ldquo;<i>Oh, mother, now I know what eternity is&mdash;it's
+remembering before and after!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Visions, too&mdash;and Alice Westmore&mdash;Alice, pitying
+and smiling approval&mdash;smiling,&mdash;and then a burning
+passionate kiss, and when he would kiss again it was
+Helen's lips he met.</p>
+
+<p>And through it all the great uplifting joy, and something
+which made him try to shout and say: &ldquo;The
+atonement&mdash;the atonement&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Clear now and things around him seemed miles away.</p>
+
+<p>He knew he was sinking and he kicked one foot savagely
+against the turret to feel again the sensation of life
+in his limb. Then he struck himself in his breast with his
+right fist to feel it there. But in spite of all he saw a
+cloud of darkness form beyond the rim of the starlit horizon
+and come sweeping over him, coming in black waves
+that would rush forward and then stop&mdash;forward, and
+stop&mdash;forward and stop.... And the stops kept
+time exactly with his heart, and he knew the last stop of
+the wave meant the last beat of his heart&mdash;then for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_620" id="Page_620">[Pg 620]</a></span>ward ... for
+the last time.... &ldquo;Oh, God,
+not yet!... Look!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>His heart rallied at the sight and beat faster, making
+the black waves pulse, in the flow and ebb of it....
+The thing was below him ... a man ... a
+ghostly, vengeful thing, whose face was fierce in hatred ... crawling,
+crawling, up to the rock fence&mdash;a
+snake with the face ... the eyes of Jud Carpenter....</p>
+
+<p>And the black wave coming in ... and he did
+so want to live ... just a little ... just
+a while longer....</p>
+
+<p>He pushed the wave back, as he gripped for the last
+time his rifle's stock, and he knew not whether it was only
+visions such as he had been seeing ... or Jud Carpenter
+really crouching low behind the rock fence, his
+double-barrel shotgun aimed ... drawing so fine
+a bead on both the unconscious defenders ... going
+to shoot, and only twenty paces, and now it rose up,
+aiming: &ldquo;<i>God, it is&mdash;it is Jud Carpenter ... back&mdash;back&mdash;black
+wave!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;and God have
+mercy on your soul, Jud Carpenter....</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And, oh, the nightmare of it!&mdash;trying to pull the
+trigger that would not be pulled, trying to grip a stock
+that had grown so large it was now a tree&mdash;a huge tree&mdash;flowing
+red blood instead of sap, red blood over
+things, ... and then at last ... thank God ... the
+trigger ... and the flash and report ... the
+flash so far off ... and the report
+that was like thunder among the stars ... the
+stars.... Among the stars ... all around<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_621" id="Page_621">[Pg 621]</a></span>
+him ... and Alice on one star throwing him a
+kiss ... and saying: &ldquo;<i>You saved his life, oh,
+Richard, and I love you for it!</i>&rdquo; A kiss and forgiveness ... and
+the two walking out with him ... out
+into the dim, blue, Sweet Silence of Things,
+hand in hand with him, beyond even the black wave, beyond
+even the rim of the rainbow that came down over
+all ... out&mdash;out with music, quaint, sweet, weird
+music&mdash;that filled his soul so, fitted him ... was
+he ...</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;<i>I'm ... a pilgrim ... I'm a stranger,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>I can tarry&mdash;I can tarry but a night.</i>&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In the early dawn, a local company of State troops,
+called out by the governor, had the jail safe.</p>
+
+<p>It was a gruesome sight in front of the stone wall
+where the deadly fire from Jack Bracken's pistols had
+swept. Thirteen dead men lay, and the back-bone of
+lynching had been broken forever in Alabama.</p>
+
+<p>It was the governor himself, bluff and rugged, who
+grasped Jack Bracken's hand as he lay dying, wrapped
+up, on a bale of cotton, and Margaret Adams, pale,
+weeping beside him: &ldquo;Live for me, Jack&mdash;I love you.
+I have always loved you!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And for me, Jack,&rdquo; said the old governor, touched
+at the scene&mdash;&ldquo;for the state, to teach mobs how to respect
+the law. In the glory of what you've done, I
+pardon you for all the past.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is fitten,&rdquo; said Jack, simply; &ldquo;fitten that I should
+die for the law&mdash;I who have been so lawless.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_622" id="Page_622">[Pg 622]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Margaret Adams: &ldquo;You are lookin'
+somethin' you want to say&mdash;I can tell by yo' eyes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She faltered, then slowly: &ldquo;Jack, he was not my son&mdash;my
+poor sister&mdash;I could not see her die disgraced.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jack drew her down and kissed her.</p>
+
+<p>And as his eyes grew dim, a figure, tall and in military
+clothes, stood before him, shaken with grief and saying,
+&ldquo;Jack&mdash;Jack, my poor friend&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jack's mind was wandering, but a great smile lit up
+his face as he said: &ldquo;<i>Bishop&mdash;Bishop&mdash;is&mdash;is&mdash;it
+Cap'n Tom, or&mdash;or&mdash;Jesus Christ?</i>&rdquo; And so he
+passed out.</p>
+
+<p>And up above them all in the belfry, lying prone, but
+still gripping his rifle's stock which, sweeping the jail
+with its deadly protruding barrel, had held back hundreds
+of men, they found Richard Travis, a softened
+smile on his lips as if he had just entered into the glory
+of the great Sweet Silence of Things. And by him sat
+the old preacher, where he had sat since Richard Travis's
+last shot had saved the jail and the defenders; sat and
+bound up his wound and gave him the last of his old
+whiskey out of the little flask, and stopped the flow of
+blood and saved the life which had nearly bubbled out.</p>
+
+<p>And as they brought the desperately wounded man
+down to the surgeon and to life, the old governor raised
+his hat and said: &ldquo;The Travis blood&mdash;the Irish Gray&mdash;when
+it's wrong it is hell&mdash;when it's right it is
+heaven.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But the old preacher smiled as he helped carry him
+tenderly down and said: &ldquo;He is right, forever right,
+now, Gov'nor. God has made him so. See that smile on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_623" id="Page_623">[Pg 623]</a></span>
+his lips! He has laughed before&mdash;that was from the
+body. He is smiling now&mdash;that is from the soul. His
+soul is born again.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old governor smiled and turned. Edward Conway,
+wounded, was sitting up. The governor grasped
+his hand: &ldquo;Ned, my boy, I've appointed you sheriff
+of this county in place of that scallawag who deserted his
+post. Stand pat, for you're a Conway&mdash;no doubt about
+that. Stand pat.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Under the rock wall, they found a man, dead on his
+knees, leaning against the wall; his gun, still cocked and
+deadly, was resting against his shoulder and needing
+only the movement of a finger to sweep with deadly hail
+the cotton-bales. His scraggy hair topped the rock
+fence and his staring eyes peeped over, each its own way.
+And one of them looked forward into a future which was
+Silence, and the other looked backward into a past which
+was Sin.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_624" id="Page_624">[Pg 624]</a></span></p>
+<h3>THE SHADOWS AND THE CLOUDS</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">W</span>hen Richard Travis came to himself after that
+terrible night, they told him that for weeks
+he had lain with only a breath between him
+and death.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was not my skill that has saved you,&rdquo; said the
+old surgeon who had been through two wars and who
+knew wounds as he did maps of battlefields he had fought
+on. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, shaking his head, &ldquo;no, it was not
+I&mdash;it was something beyond me. That you miraculously
+live is proof of it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He was in his room at The Gaffs, and everything
+looked so natural. It was sweet to live again, for he was
+yet young and life now meant so much more than it ever
+had. Then his eyes fell on the rug, wearily, and he remembered
+the old setter.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The dog&mdash;and that other one?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He sat up nervously in bed, trembling with the
+thought. The old surgeon guessed and bade him be
+quiet.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You need not fear that,&rdquo; he said, touching his arm.
+&ldquo;The time has passed for fear. You were saved by the
+shadow of death and&mdash;the blood letting you had&mdash;and,
+well, a woman's lips, as many a man has been saved
+before you. You'd better sleep again now....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_625" id="Page_625">[Pg 625]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He slept, but there were visions as there had been all
+along. And two persons came in now and then. One
+was Tom Travis, serious and quiet and very much in
+earnest that the patient might get well.</p>
+
+<p>Another was Tom's wife, Alice, who arranged the
+wounded man's pillows with a gentleness and deftness as
+only she could, and who gave quiet orders to the old cook
+in a way that made Richard Travis feel that things were
+all right, though he could not speak, nor even open his
+eyes long enough to see distinctly.</p>
+
+<p>A month afterward Richard Travis was sitting up.
+His strength came very fast. For a week he had sat by
+the fire and thought&mdash;thought. But no man knew what
+was in his mind until one day, after he had been able to
+walk over the place, he said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tom, you and Alice have been kinder to me&mdash;far
+kinder&mdash;than I have deserved. I am going away forever,
+next week&mdash;to the Northwest&mdash;and begin life
+over. But there is something I wish to say to you first.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dick,&rdquo; said his cousin, and he arose, tall and splendid,
+before the firelight&mdash;&ldquo;there is something I wish to
+say to you first. Our lives have been far apart and very
+different, but blood is blood and you have proved it, else
+I had not been here to-night to tell it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He came over and put his hand affectionately on the
+other's shoulder. At its touch Richard Travis softened
+almost to tears.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dick, we two are the only grandsons that bear his
+name, and we divide this between us. Alice and I have
+planned it. You are to retain the house and half the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_626" id="Page_626">[Pg 626]</a></span>
+land. We have our own and more than enough. You
+will do it, Dick?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis arose, strangely moved. He grasped
+his cousin's hand. &ldquo;No, no, Tom, it is not fair. No
+Travis was ever a welcher. It is all yours&mdash;you do not
+understand&mdash;I saw the will&mdash;I do not want it. I am
+going away forever. My life must lead now in other
+paths. But&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The other turned quickly and looked deep into Richard
+Travis's eyes. &ldquo;I can see there is no use of my trying
+to change your mind, Dick, though I had hoped&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The other shook his head. It meant a Travis decision,
+and his cousin knew it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But as I started to say, Tom, and there is no need
+of my mincing words, if you'll raise that boy of mine&mdash;&rdquo;
+he was silent awhile, then smiling: &ldquo;He is mine and
+more of a Travis to-day than his father ever was. If
+you can help him and his aunt&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He shall have the half of it, Dick, and an education,
+under our care. We will make a man of him, Alice
+and I.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Richard Travis said no more.</p>
+
+<p>The week before he left, one beautiful afternoon, he
+walked over to Millwood for the last time. For Edward
+Conway was now sheriff of the county, and with the assistance
+of the old bishop, whose fortune now was secured,
+he had redeemed his home and was in a fair way
+to pay back every dollar of it.</p>
+
+<p>A new servant ushered Travis in, for the good old
+nurse had passed away, the strain of that terrible night<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_627" id="Page_627">[Pg 627]</a></span>
+being too much, first, for her reason, and afterwards, her
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Edward Conway was away, but Helen came in presently,
+and greeted him with such a splendid high-born way,
+so simple and so unaffected that he marveled at her self-control,
+feeling his own heart pulsing strangely at sight
+of her. In the few months that had elapsed how changed
+she was and how beautiful! This was not the romantic,
+yet buffeted, beautiful girl who had come so near being
+the tragedy of his old life? How womanly she now was,
+and how calm and at her ease! Could independence and
+the change from poverty and worry, the strong, free
+feeling of being one's self again and in one's sphere,
+make so great a difference in so short a while? He wondered
+at himself for not seeing farther ahead. He had
+come to bid her good-bye and offer again&mdash;this time in
+all earnestness and sincerity, to take her with him&mdash;to
+share his life&mdash;but the words died in his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>He could no more have said them than he could have
+profanely touched her.</p>
+
+<p>When he left she walked with him to the parting of
+the ways.</p>
+
+<p>The blue line of tremulous mountain was scrolled
+along a horizon that flamed crimson in the setting sun.
+A flock of twilight clouds&mdash;flamingos of the sky&mdash;floated
+toward the sunset as if going to roost. Beyond
+was the great river, its bosom as wan, where it lay in the
+shadow of the mountain, as Richard Travis's own cheek;
+but where the sunset fell on it the reflected light turned it
+to pink which to him looked like Helen's.</p>
+
+<p>The wind came down cool from the frost-tinctured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_628" id="Page_628">[Pg 628]</a></span>
+mountain side, and the fine sweet odor of life everlasting
+floated in it&mdash;frost-bitten&mdash;and bringing a wave of
+youth and rabbit hunts and of a life of dreams and the
+sweet unclouded far-off hope of things beautiful and immortal.
+And the flow of it hurt Richard Travis&mdash;hurt
+him with a tenderness that bled.</p>
+
+<p>The girl stopped and drank in the beauty of it all, and
+he stood looking at her, &ldquo;the picture for the frame&rdquo;&mdash;as
+he said to himself.</p>
+
+<p>It had rained and the clouds were scattered, yet so
+full that they caught entirely the sunset rays and held
+them as he would that moment have loved to hold her.
+Something in her&mdash;something about her thrilled him
+strangely, as he had often been thrilled when looking
+at the great pictures in the galleries of the old world.
+He repeated softly to her, as she stood looking forward&mdash;to
+him&mdash;into the future:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;What thou art we know not,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">What is most like thee?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From rainbow clouds there flow not<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Drops so bright to see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>She turned and held out her hand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I must bid you good-bye now and I wish you all
+happiness&mdash;so much more than you have ever had in
+all your life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He took it, but he could not speak. Something shook
+him strangely. He knew nothing to say. Had he spoken,
+he knew he had stammered and blundered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_629" id="Page_629">[Pg 629]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Never had the Richard Travis of old done such a
+thing.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Helen&mdash;Helen&mdash;if&mdash;if&mdash;you know once I asked
+you to go with me&mdash;once&mdash;in the old, awful life.
+Now, in the new&mdash;the new life which you can make
+sweet&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She came up close to him. The sun had set and the
+valley lay in silence. When he saw her eyes there were
+tears in them&mdash;tears so full and deep that they hurt
+him when she said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It can never&mdash;never be&mdash;now. You made me love
+you when you could not love; and love born of despair
+is mateless ever; it would die in its realization. Mine,
+for you, was that&mdash;&rdquo; She pointed to the sunset. &ldquo;It
+breathed and burned. I saw it only because of clouds,
+of shadow. But were the clouds, the shadows, gone&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There would be no life, no burning, no love,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Ah, I think I understand,&rdquo; and his heart sank with
+pain. What&mdash;why&mdash;he could not say, only he knew
+it hurt him, and he began to wonder.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You do not blame me,&rdquo; she said as she still held his
+hand and looked up into his eyes in the old way he had
+seen, that terrible night at Millwood.</p>
+
+<p>For reply he held her hand in both of his and then laid
+it over his heart. She felt his tears fall on it, tears, which
+even death could not bring, had come to Richard Travis
+at last, and he wondered. In the old life he never wondered&mdash;he
+always knew; but in this&mdash;this new life&mdash;it
+was all so strange, so new that he feared even himself.
+Like a sailor lost, he could only look up, by day, helplessly
+at the sun, and, by night, helplessly at the stars.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_630" id="Page_630">[Pg 630]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Helen&mdash;Helen,&rdquo; he said at last, strangely shaken in
+it all,&mdash;&ldquo;if I could tell you now that I do&mdash;that I
+could love&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She put her hand over his mouth in the old playful
+way and shook her head, smiling through her tears:
+&ldquo;Do not try to mate my love with a thing that balks.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was simply said, and forceful. It was enough.
+Richard Travis blushed for very shame.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you not see,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;how hopeless it is? Do
+you not know that I was terribly tempted&mdash;weak&mdash;maddened&mdash;deserted
+that night? That now I know
+what Clay's love has been? Oh, why do we not learn
+early in life that fire will burn, that death will kill, that
+we are the deed of all we think and feel&mdash;the wish of
+all we will to be?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis turned quickly: &ldquo;Is that true? Then let me
+wish&mdash;as I do, Helen; let me wish that I might love you
+as you deserve.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She saddened: &ldquo;Oh, but you have wished&mdash;you
+have willed&mdash;too often&mdash;too differently. It can never
+be now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I understand you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is natural&mdash;I
+should say it is nature&mdash;nature, the never-lying. I but
+reap my own folly, and now good-bye forever, Helen,
+and may God bless you and bring you that happiness
+you have deserved.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know,&rdquo; she said calmly, &ldquo;that I have
+thought of all that, too. There are so many of us in the
+world, and so little happiness that like flowers it cannot
+go around&mdash;some must go without.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_631" id="Page_631">[Pg 631]</a></span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She held his hand tightly as if she did not want him
+to go.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My child, I must go out of your life&mdash;go&mdash;and
+stay. I see&mdash;I see&mdash;and I only make you wretched.
+And I have no right to. It is ignoble. It is I who should
+bear this burden of sorrow&mdash;not you. You who have
+never sinned, who are so young and so beautiful. In
+time you will love a nobler man&mdash;Clay&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him, but said nothing. She knew for
+the first time the solution of her love's problem. She
+was silent, holding his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Child,&rdquo; he said again. &ldquo;Helen, you must do as I
+say. There is happiness for you yet when I am gone&mdash;when
+I am out of your life and the memory and the pain
+of it cease. Then you will marry Clay&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you really think so? Oh, and he has loved me so
+and is so splendid and true.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Travis was silent, waiting.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now let me go,&rdquo; she said&mdash;&ldquo;let me forget all my
+madness and folly in learning to love one whose love was
+made for mine. In time I shall love him as he deserves.
+Good-bye.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then she broke impulsively away, and he watched her
+walk back through the shadows and under the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>At the turning of the path across the meadow, he saw
+another shadow join her. It was Clay, and the two went
+through the twilight together.</p>
+
+<p>Travis turned. &ldquo;It is right&mdash;it is the solution&mdash;he
+alone deserves her. I must reap my past, reap it and
+see my harvest blighted and bound with rotten twine.
+But, oh, to know it when it is too late&mdash;to know that I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_632" id="Page_632">[Pg 632]</a></span>
+might love her and could be happy&mdash;then to have to
+give it up&mdash;now&mdash;now&mdash;when I need it most. The
+Deed,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;we are the deed of all we think and
+feel.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_633" id="Page_633">[Pg 633]</a></span></p>
+<h3>THE MODEL MILL</h3>
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+
+<p><span class="first">T</span>he discovery of coal and iron made both the old
+Bishop and Westmoreland rich. Captain Tom
+sent James Travis to West Point and Archie B.
+to Annapolis, and their records were worthy of their
+names.</p>
+
+<p>And now, five years after the great fire, there might
+be seen in Cottontown, besides two furnaces, whose blazing
+turrets lighted the valley with Prosperity's torch&mdash;another
+cotton mill, erected by the old Bishop.</p>
+
+<p>Long and earnestly he thought on the subject before
+building the mill. Indeed, he first prayed over it and
+then preached on the subject, and this is the sermon he
+preached to his people the Sunday before he began the
+erection of The Model Cotton Mill:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, it's this way, my brethren: God made cotton
+for a mill. You can't get aroun' that; and the mill is to
+give people wuck an' this wuck is to clothe the worl'.
+That's all plain an' all good, because it's from God. Man
+made the bad of it&mdash;child labor, and overwuck and poor
+pay and the terrible everlastin' grind and foul air an'
+dirt an' squaller an' death.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The trouble with the worl' to-day is that it don't
+carry God into business. Why should we not be kinder
+an' mo' liberal with each other in business matters? We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_634" id="Page_634">[Pg 634]</a></span>
+are unselfish in everything but business. All social life
+is based on unselfishness. To charity we give of our
+tears an' our money. For the welfare of mankind an'
+the advancement of humanity you can always count us on
+the right side. Even to those whose characters are rotten
+an' whose very shadows leave dark places in life, we pass
+the courtesies of the hour or the palaverin' compliments
+of the day. But let the struggler for the bread of life
+come along and ask us to share our profits with him, let
+the dollar be the thing involved an' business shrewdness
+the principle at stake, an' then all charity is forgotten,
+every man for himse'f, an' the chief aim of man seems to
+be to get mo' out of the trade than his brother.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now the soul of trade is Selfishness, an' Charity
+never is invited over her doorway.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have known men with tears in their eyes to give
+to the poor one day an' rob them the nex' in usurious interest
+an' rent, as cheerful as they gave the day befo'. I
+have known men to open their purses as wide as the gates
+of hades for some church charity, an' then close them the
+nex' day, in a business transaction, as they called it&mdash;with
+some helpless debtor or unexperienced widder. The
+graveyard is full of unselfish, devoted fathers an' husbands
+who worked themselves to death for the comfort
+an' support of their own families, yet spendin' their days
+on earth tryin' to beat their neighbors in the same game.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's funny how we're livin'. It's amusin', it is&mdash;our
+ethics of Christianity. We've baptised everything
+but business. We give to the church an' rob the poor.
+We weep over misfortune an' steal from the unfortunate.
+We give a robe to Charity one day and filch it the nex'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_635" id="Page_635">[Pg 635]</a></span>
+We lay gifts at the altar of the Temple of Kindness for
+the Virgin therein, but if we caught her out on the highways
+of trade an' commerce we'd steal her an' sell her
+into slavery. An' after she was dead we'd go deep into
+our pockets to put up a monument over her!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We weep an' rob, an' smile an' steal, an' laugh an'
+knife, an' wring the hand of friendship while we step on
+her toes with our brogans of business. Can't we be hones'
+without bein' selfish, fair without graspin', make a profit
+without wantin' it all? Is it possible that Christ's religion
+has gone into every nook an' corner of the worl'
+an' yet missed the great highway of business, the everyday
+road of dollars an' cents, profit an' loss!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So I am goin' to build the mill an' run it like God
+intended it should be run, an' I am goin' to put, for
+once, the plan of salvation into business, if it busts me
+an' the plan too! For if it can't stand a business test it
+ought to bust!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He planned it all himself, and, aided by Captain Tom,
+and Alice, the beautiful structure went up. Strong and
+airy and with every comfort for the workers. &ldquo;For it
+strikes me,&rdquo; said the old man, &ldquo;that the people who
+wuck need mo' comforts than them that don't&mdash;at least
+the comforts of bein' clean. The fust thing I learned in
+geography was that God made three times as much water
+on the surface of the earth as he did dirt. But you
+wouldn't think so to look at the human race. It takes us
+a long time to take a hint.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The big mountain spring settled the point, and when
+the mill was finished there were hot and cold baths in it
+for the tired workers. &ldquo;For there's nothin' so good,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_636" id="Page_636">[Pg 636]</a></span>&rdquo;
+said the old man, &ldquo;for a hot man or a hot hoss as a
+warm body-wash. It relaxes the muscles an' makes them
+come ag'in. An' the man that comes ag'in is the man
+the worl' wants.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In the homes of the workers, too, he had baths placed,
+until it grew to be a saying of the good old man &ldquo;that
+it was easier to take a bath in Cottontown than to take
+a drink.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The main building was lofty between floor and ceiling,
+letting in all the light and air possible, and the floors were
+of hard-wood and clean. As the greatest curse of the
+cotton lint was dust, atomizers for spraying the air were
+invented by Captain Tom. These were attached to the
+machinery and could be turned off or on as the operators
+desired. It was most comfortable now to work in the
+mill, and tired and hot employees, instead of lounging
+through their noon, bathed in the cool spring water
+which came down from the mountain side and flowed into
+the baths, not only in the mill, but through every cottage
+owned by the mill. And as the bath is the greatest
+civilizer known to man, a marked difference was soon
+noticed in every inhabitant of Cottontown. They were
+cleanly, and cleanliness begets a long list of other virtues,
+beginning with cleaner and better clothes and ending
+with ambition and godliness.</p>
+
+<p>But it was the old Bishop's policy for the wage-earners,
+which put the ambition there&mdash;a system never
+heard of before in the ranks of capital, and first tested
+and proved in his Model Cotton Mill.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There are two things in the worl',&rdquo; said the Bishop,
+&ldquo;that is as plain as God could write them without tellin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_637" id="Page_637">[Pg 637]</a></span>
+it Himself from the clouds. The first is that the money
+of the worl' was intended for all the worl' that reaches
+out a hand an' works for it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The other is that every man who works is entitled
+to a home.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was never intended for one man, or one corporation
+or one trust or one king or one anything else, to own
+more than his share of the money of the worl', no
+matter how they get it. Every man who piles up mo'
+money than he needs&mdash;actually needs&mdash;in life, robs
+every other man or woman or child in the worl' that
+pinches and slaves and starves for it in vain. Every man
+who makes a big fortune leaves just that many wrecked
+homes in his path.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In carrying out this idea the old bishop had the mill
+incorporated at one hundred thousand dollars, which included
+all his fortune, except enough to live on and
+educate his grandchildren; for he never changed his
+home, and the only luxury he indulged in was a stable
+for Ben Butler.</p>
+
+<p>The stock was divided into shares of ten dollars each,
+which could be acquired only by those who worked in the
+mill, to be held only during life-time, and earned only in
+part payment for labor, given according to proficiency
+and work done, and credited on wages. In this way
+every employee of the mill became a stockholder&mdash;a
+partner in the mill, receiving dividends on his stock in
+addition to his regular wages, and every year he worked
+in the mill added both to his stock and dividends. At
+death it reverted again to The Model Cotton Mill Company,
+to be obtained again, in turn, by other mill workers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_638" id="Page_638">[Pg 638]</a></span>
+coming on up the line. This made every mill worker a
+partner in the mill and spurred them on to do their best.</p>
+
+<p>But the home idea of the bishop was the more original
+one, and a far greater boon to the people. Instead of
+paying rent to the mill for their homes, as they had before,
+every married mill worker was deeded a home in the
+beginning, a certain per cent of his wages being appropriated
+each month in part payment; in addition, ten
+per cent of the stock acquired, as above, by each individual
+home owner, went to the payment of the home, and
+the whole was so worked out and adjusted that by the
+time a faithful worker had arrived at middle age, the
+home, as paid for, was absolutely his and his children's,
+and when he arrived at old age the dividends of the stock
+acquired were sufficient to support him the balance of his
+life.</p>
+
+<p>In this way the mill was virtually resolved into a corporation
+or community of interests, running perpetually
+for the maintenance and support of those who worked in
+it. The only property actually acquired by the individual
+was a home, his savings in wages, and the dividends
+on his stock acquired by long service and work.</p>
+
+<p>Some wanted the old man to run a general store on
+the same plan of community of interest, the goods and
+necessities of life to be bought at first cost and only the
+actual expenses of keeping the store added. But he
+wisely shook his head, saying: &ldquo;No, that will not do;
+that's forming a trust ag'in the tillers of the earth an'
+the workers in every other occupation. That's cuttin' in
+on hones' competition, an' if carried out everywhere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_639" id="Page_639">[Pg 639]</a></span>
+would shut off the rest of the worl' from a livin'. We're
+makin' our livin'&mdash;let them make theirs.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old bishop was proud of the men he selected to
+carry out his plans. Captain Tom was manager of the
+Model Mill.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said the old man, after the mill had run two
+years and declared a semi-annual dividend, both years, of
+eight per cent each, &ldquo;now you all see what it means to
+run even business by the Golden Rule. Here is this big
+fortune that I accidentally stumbled on, as everybody
+does who makes one&mdash;put out like God intended it
+sh'ud, belonging to nobody and standing there, year
+after year, makin' a livin' an' a home an' life an' happiness
+for over fo' hundred people, year in an' year out,
+an' let us pray God, forever. It was not mine to begin
+with&mdash;it belonged to the worl'. God put the coal and
+iron in the ground, not for me, but for everybody. An'
+so I've given it to everybody. Because I happened to
+own the lan' didn't make the treasure God put there
+mine, any mo' than the same land will be mine after I've
+passed away. We're only trustees for humanity for all
+we make mo' than we need, jus' as we're only tenants of
+God while we live on the earth.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As for children, the bishop settled that quickly and
+effectively. His rule was that no boy or girl under sixteen
+should be permitted to work in the mill, and to save
+any parents, weakly inclined, from the temptation, he
+established a physical standard in weight, height and
+health.</p>
+
+<p>He found afterwards there was really small need of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_640" id="Page_640">[Pg 640]</a></span>
+his stringent rule, for under this system of management
+the temptations of child labor were removed.</p>
+
+<p>Among the good features of the mill, established by
+Alice Travis, was a library, a pretty little building in
+the heart of Cottontown. It was maintained yearly by
+the mill, together with donations, and proved to be the
+greatest educational and refining influence of the mill.
+It was kept, for one week at a time, by each girl in the
+mill over twenty, the privilege always being given by
+the mill's physician to the girl who seemed most in need
+of a week's rest. It came to be a great social feature
+also, and any pretty afternoon, and all Saturday afternoon,&mdash;for
+the mill never ran then&mdash;could be seen there
+the young girls and boys of Cottontown.</p>
+
+<p>To this was afterwards added a Cottontown school
+for the younger children, who before had been slaves to
+the spinner and doffer carts.</p>
+
+<p>And so it ran on several years, but still the Bishop
+could see that something was lacking&mdash;that there was
+too much sickness, that in spite of only eight hours his
+people, year in and year out, grew tired and weak and
+disheartened, and with his great good sense he put his
+finger on it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, it's this away,&rdquo; he said to his directors, &ldquo;God
+never intended for any people to work all the time between
+walls an' floors. Tilling the soil is the natural
+work of man, an' there is somethin' in the very touch of
+the ground to our feet that puts new life in our bodies.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The farmin' instinct is so natural in us that you
+can't stop it by flood or drought or failure. Year in an'
+year out the farmer will plant an' work his crop in spite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_641" id="Page_641">[Pg 641]</a></span>
+of failure, hopin' every year to hit it the nex' time.
+Would a merchant or manufacturer or anybody else do
+that? No, they'd make an assignment the second year
+of failure. But not so with the farmer, and it shows
+God intended he shu'd keep at it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, I'm goin' to give this mill a chance to raise
+its own cotton, besides everything else its people needs to
+eat. I figger we can raise cotton cheaper than we can
+buy it, an' keep our folks healthy, too.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Near Cottontown was an old cotton plantation of four
+thousand acres. It had been sadly neglected and run
+down. This the bishop purchased for the company for
+only ten dollars an acre, and divided it into tracts of
+twenty acres each, building a neat cottage, dairy and
+barn, and other outhouses on each tract&mdash;but all arranged
+for a family of four or five, and thus sprang up
+in a year a new settlement of two hundred families around
+Cottontown. It was no trouble to get them, for the
+fame of The Model Mill had spread, and far more applied
+yearly for employment than could be accommodated.
+This large farm, when equipped fully, represented
+fifty thousand dollars more, or an investment of
+ninety thousand dollars, and immediately became a valuable
+asset of the mill.</p>
+
+<p>It was divided into four parts, each under the supervision
+of a manager, a practical and experienced cotton
+farmer of the valley, and the tenants were selected every
+year from among all the workers of the mill, preference
+always being given to the families who needed the outdoor
+work most, and those physically weak from long
+work in the mill. It was so arranged that only fifty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_642" id="Page_642">[Pg 642]</a></span>
+families, or one-fourth of the mill, went out each year,
+staying four years each on the farm. And thus every
+four years were two hundred families given the chance
+in the open to get in touch with nature, the great physician,
+and come again. After four years they went back
+to the mill, sunburnt, swarthy, and full of health, and
+what is greater than health,&mdash;cheerfulness&mdash;the cheerfulness
+that comes with change.</p>
+
+<p>On the farm they received the same wages as when in
+the mill, and each family was furnished with a mule, a
+cow, and poultry, and with a good garden.</p>
+
+<p>To reclaim this land and build up the soil was now
+the chief work of the old man; but having been overseer
+on a large cotton plantation, he knew his business, and
+set to work at it with all the zeal and good sense of his
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>He knew that cotton was one of the least exhaustive
+crops of the world, taking nearly all its sustenance from
+the air, and that it was also one of the most easily raised,
+requiring none of the complicated and expensive machinery
+necessary for wheat and other smaller grains.
+He knew, too, that under the thorough preparation of
+the soil necessary for cotton, wheat did best after it,
+and with clover sown on the wheat, he would soon have
+nature's remedy for reclaiming the soil. He also knew
+that the most expensive feature of cotton raising was the
+picking&mdash;the gathering of the crop&mdash;and in the children
+of Cottontown, he saw at once that he had a quick
+solution&mdash;one which solved the picking problem and
+yet gave to each growing boy and girl three months, in
+the cool, delightful fall, of healthful work, with pay more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_643" id="Page_643">[Pg 643]</a></span>
+than equal to a year of the old cheap labor behind the
+spinners. For,&mdash;as it proved, at seventy-five cents per
+hundred pounds for the seed cotton picked,&mdash;these children
+earned from seventy-five cents to a dollar and a half
+a day. The first year, only half of the land was put in
+cotton, attention being given to reclaiming the other
+half. But even this proved a surprise for all, for nearly
+one thousand bales of cotton were ginned, at a total cost
+to the mill of only four cents per pound, while Cottontown
+had been fed during summer with all the vegetables
+and melons needed&mdash;all raised on the farm.</p>
+
+<p>That fall, the land, under the clean and constant plowing
+necessary to raise the cotton, was ready to sow in
+wheat, which in February was followed with clover&mdash;nature's
+great fertilizer&mdash;the clover being sown broadcast
+on the wheat, behind a light harrow run over the
+wheat. The wheat crop was small, averaging less than
+ten bushels to the acre, but it was enough to keep all
+Cottontown in bread for a year, or until the next harvest
+time, and some, even, to sell. Behind the wheat, after
+it was mowed, came the clover, bringing in good dividends.
+After two years, it was turned under, and then it
+was that the two thousand acres of land produced fifteen
+hundred bales of cotton at a total cost of four cents per
+pound, or twenty dollars per bale. And this included
+everything, even the interest on the money and the paying
+of seventy-five cents per hundred pounds to the
+Cottontown children for picking and storing the crop.</p>
+
+<p>In a few years, under this rotation, the farm produced
+all the cotton necessary to run The Model Mill, besides<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_644" id="Page_644">[Pg 644]</a></span>
+raising all its vegetables, fruit, and bread for all the
+families of Cottontown.</p>
+
+<p>But the most beautiful sight to the old man was to see
+the children every fall picking the cotton. Little boys
+and girls, who before had worked twelve hours a day in
+the old, hot, stifling, ill-smelling mill, now stood out in
+the sunshine and in the frosty air of the mornings, each
+with sack to side, waist deep in pure white cotton, flooded
+in sunshine and health and sweetness.</p>
+
+<p>They were deft with their fingers&mdash;the old mill had
+taught many of them that&mdash;and their pay, daily, ran
+from seventy-five cents to a dollar and a half&mdash;as much
+as some of them had earned in a week of the old way.
+And, oh, the health of it, the glory of air and sky and
+sunshine, the smell of dew on the bruised cotton-heads,
+the rustle of the mountain breeze cooling the heated
+cheeks; the healthy hunger, and the lunches in the shade
+by the cool spring; the shadows of evening creeping
+down from the mountains, the healthy fatigue&mdash;and
+the sweet home-going in the twilight, riding beneath the
+silent stars on wagons of snowy seed cotton, burrowing
+in bed of down and purest white&mdash;this snow of a
+Southern summer&mdash;with the happy laughter of childhood
+and the hunger of home-coming, and the glory and
+freedom of it all!</p>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The End.</span></h3>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Bishop of Cottontown, by John Trotwood Moore
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+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's The Bishop of Cottontown, by John Trotwood Moore
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Bishop of Cottontown
+       A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills
+
+Author: John Trotwood Moore
+
+Release Date: November 26, 2007 [EBook #23637]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BISHOP OF COTTONTOWN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marcia Brooks and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE KINNEYS "Take care of Lily"]
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+Bishop of Cottontown
+
+A STORY OF THE SOUTHERN
+COTTON MILLS
+
+BY
+JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"A Summer Hymnal," "Ole Mistis," "Songs and Stories
+from Tennessee," etc.
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY THE KINNEYS
+
+
+
+
+       "And each in his separate star,
+    Shall paint the thing as he sees it
+          For the God of Things As They Are."
+
+                                            Kipling
+
+
+
+
+PHILADELPHIA
+
+THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
+
+1906
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1906,
+
+BY JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE
+
+Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, 1906
+
+
+_All Rights Reserved_
+
+
+
+
+IN MEMORY OF MY MOTHER,
+
+EMILY BILLINGSLEA MOORE,
+
+WHO DIED
+
+DECEMBER 14TH, 1903,
+
+THE FAITH OF THIS BOOK BEING HERS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                     PAGE
+
+
+PART FIRST--THE BLOOM.
+
+PROLOGUE--THE COTTON BLOSSOM                   7
+
+
+PART SECOND--THE BOLL.
+
+    I. COTTON                                 13
+   II. RICHARD TRAVIS                         18
+  III. JUD CARPENTER                          27
+   IV. FOOD FOR THE FACTORY                   39
+    V. THE FLY CATCHER CAUGHT                 50
+   VI. THE FLINT AND THE COAL                 64
+  VII. HILLARD WATTS                          84
+ VIII. WESTMORELAND                           92
+   IX. A MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING                103
+    X. A STAR AND A SATELLITE                108
+   XI. A MIDNIGHT BURIAL                     117
+  XII. JACK BRACKEN                          127
+
+
+PART THIRD--THE GIN.
+
+    I. ALICE WESTMORE                        143
+   II. THE REAL HEROES                       151
+  III. FRANKLIN                              154
+
+
+PART FOURTH--THE LINT.
+
+    I. COTTONTOWN                            179
+   II. BEN BUTLER                            187
+  III. AN ANSWER TO PRAYER                   199
+   IV. HOW THE BISHOP FROZE                  205
+    V. THE FLOCK                             209
+   VI. A BISHOP MILITANT                     213
+  VII. MARGARET ADAMS                        219
+ VIII. HARD-SHELL SUNDAY                     226
+   IX. THE RETURN                            232
+    X. THE SWAN SONG OF THE CREPE MYRTLE     239
+   XI. THE CASKET AND THE GHOST              248
+  XII. A MIDNIGHT GUARD                      254
+ XIII. THE THEFT OF A CHILDHOOD              258
+  XIV. UNCLE DAVE'S WILL                     275
+   XV. EDWARD CONWAY                         287
+  XVI. HELEN'S DESPAIR                       296
+ XVII. THE WHIPPER-IN                        305
+XVIII. SAMANTHA CAREWE                       312
+  XIX. A QUICK CONVERSION                    317
+   XX. A LIVE FUNERAL                        326
+  XXI. JACK AND THE LITTLE ONES              336
+ XXII. THE BROKEN THREAD                     344
+XXIII. GOD WILL PROVIDE                      350
+ XXIV. BONAPARTE'S WATERLOO                  355
+  XXV. A BORN NATURALIST                     366
+ XXVI. BEN BUTLER'S LAST RACE                380
+XXVII. YOU'LL COME BACK A MAN                414
+
+
+PART FIFTH--THE LOOM.
+
+    I. A NEW MILL GIRL                       419
+   II. IN THE DEPTHS                         431
+  III. WORK IN A NEW LIGHT                   438
+   IV. MAGGIE                                443
+    V. PAY-DAY                               447
+   VI. THE PLOT                              456
+  VII. MRS. WESTMORE TAKES A HAND            464
+ VIII. A QUESTION BROUGHT HOME               473
+   IX. THE PEDIGREE OF ACHIEVEMENT           487
+    X. MARRIED IN GOD'S SIGHT                493
+   XI. THE QUEEN IS DEAD                     499
+  XII. IN THYSELF THERE IS WEAKNESS          508
+ XIII. HIMSELF AGAIN                         512
+  XIV. THE JOY OF THE MORNING                519
+   XV. THE TOUCH OF GOD                      526
+  XVI. MAMMY MARIA                           533
+ XVII. THE DOUBLE THAT DIED                  545
+XVIII. THE DYING LION                        552
+  XIX. FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH               564
+   XX. THE ANGEL WITH THE FLAMING SWORD      572
+  XXI. THE GREAT FIRE                        581
+ XXII. A CONWAY AGAIN                        588
+XXIII. DIED FOR THE LAW                      596
+ XXIV. THE ATONEMENT                         611
+  XXV. THE SHADOWS AND THE CLOUDS            624
+ XXVI. THE MODEL MILL                        633
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer errors, have been silently
+corrected. For clarity, have added new paragraphs with respect to
+dialogue within paragraphs. The name Hillard and Hilliard have
+been uniformly changed to Hillard. Corrected incorrect usages of
+'its' and 'it's.' All other inconsistencies (i.e. The inconsistent
+spellings--sombre/somber, gray/grey, hyphen/no hyphen) have been
+left as they were in the original.]
+
+
+
+
+PART FIRST--THE BLOOM
+
+
+
+
+THE COTTON BLOSSOM
+
+
+The cotton blossom is the only flower that is born in the shuttle of
+a sunbeam and dies in a loom.
+
+It is the most beautiful flower that grows, and needs only to become
+rare to be priceless--only to die to be idealized.
+
+For the world worships that which it hopes to attain, and our ideals
+are those things just out of our reach.
+
+Satiety has ten points and possession is nine of them.
+
+If, in early August, the delicately green leaves of this most
+aristocratic of all plants, instead of covering acres of Southland
+shimmering under a throbbing sun, peeped daintily out, from among the
+well-kept beds of some noble garden, men would flock to see that
+plant, which, of all plants, looks most like a miniature tree.
+
+A stout-hearted plant,--a tree, dwarfed, but losing not its dignity.
+
+Then, one morning, with the earliest sunrise, and born of it, there
+emerges from the scalloped sea-shell of the bough an exquisite,
+pendulous, cream-white blossom, clasping in its center a golden
+yellow star, pinked with dawn points of light, and, setting high up
+under its sky of milk-white petals flanked with yellow stars, it
+seems to the little nestling field-wrens born beneath it to be the
+miniature arch of daybreak, ere the great eye of the morning star
+closes.
+
+Later, when the sun rises and the sky above grows pink and purple,
+it, too, changes its color from pink to purple, copying the sky from
+zone to zone, from blue to deeper blue, until, at late evening the
+young nestlings may look up and say, in their bird language: "It is
+twilight."
+
+What other flower among them can thus copy Nature, the great master?
+
+Under every sky is a sphere, and under this sky picture, when night
+falls and closes it, a sphere is born. And in that sphere is all of
+earth.
+
+Its oils and its minerals are there, and one day, becoming too full
+of richness, it bursts, and throws open a five-roomed granary, stored
+with richer fabric than ever came from the shuttles of Fez and
+holding globes of oil such as the olives of Hebron dreamed not of.
+
+And in that fabric is the world clothed.
+
+Oh, little loom of the cotton-plant, poet that can show us the sky,
+painter that paints it, artisan that reaches out, and, from the skein
+of a sunbeam, the loom of the air and the white of its own soul,
+weaves the cloth that clothes the world!
+
+From dawn and darkness building a loom. From sunlight and shadow
+weaving threads of such fineness that the spider's were ropes of sand
+and the hoar frost's but clumsy icicles.
+
+Weaving--weaving--weaving them. And the delicately patterned tapestry
+of ever-changing clouds forming patterns of a fabric, white as the
+snow of the centuries, determined that since it has to make the
+garments of men, it will make them unsullied.
+
+Oh, little plant, poet, painter, master-artisan!
+
+It is true to Nature to the last. The summer wanes and the winter
+comes, and when the cotton sphere bursts, 'tis a ball of snow, but a
+dazzling white, spidery snow, which warms and does not chill, brings
+comfort and not care, wealth and the rich warm blood, and not the
+pinches of poverty.
+
+There are those who cannot hear God's voice unless He speaks to them
+in the thunders of Sinai, nor see Him unless He flares before them in
+the bonfires of a burning bush. They grumble because His Messenger
+came to a tribe in the hill countries of Long Ago. They wish to see
+the miracle of the dead arising. They see not the miracle of life
+around them. Death from Life is more strange to them than life from
+death.
+
+'Tis the silent voice that speaks the loudest. Did Sinai speak louder
+than this? Hear it:
+
+"I am a bloom, and yet I reflect the sky from the morning's star to
+the midnight's. I am a flower, yet I show you the heaven from the
+dawn of its birth to the twilight of its death. I am a boll, and yet
+a miniature earth stored with silks and satins, oils of the olives,
+minerals of all lands. And when I am ripe I throw open my five-roomed
+granary, each fitted to the finger and thumb of the human hand, with
+a depth between, equalled only by the palm."
+
+O voice of the cotton-plant, do we need to go to oracles or listen
+for a diviner voice than yours when thus you tell us: Pluck?
+
+
+
+
+PART SECOND--THE BOLL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+COTTON
+
+
+The frost had touched the gums and maples in the Tennessee Valley,
+and the wood, which lined every hill and mountain side, looked like
+huge flaming bouquets--large ones, where the thicker wood clustered
+high on the side of Sand Mountain and stood out in crimson, gold and
+yellow against the sky,--small ones, where they clustered around the
+foot hills.
+
+Nature is nothing if not sentimental. She will make bouquets if none
+be made for her; or, mayhap, she wishes her children to be, and so
+makes them bouquets herself.
+
+There was that crispness in the air which puts one to wondering if,
+after all, autumn is not the finest time of the year.
+
+It had been a prosperous year in the Tennessee Valley--that year of
+1874. And it had brought a double prosperity, in that, under the
+leadership of George S. Houston, the white men of the state, after a
+desperate struggle, had thrown off the political yoke of the negro
+and the carpetbagger, and once more the Saxon ruled in the land of
+his birth.
+
+Then was taken a full, long, wholesome, air-filling Anglo-Saxon
+breath, from the Tennessee Valley to the Gulf. There was a quickening
+of pulses that had faltered, and heart-beats that had fluttered,
+dumb and discouraged, now rattled like kettle-drums, to the fight of
+life.
+
+It meant change--redemption--prosperity. And more: that the white
+blood which had made Alabama, need not now leave her for a home
+elsewhere.
+
+It was a year glorious, and to be remembered. One which marks an
+epoch. One wherein there is an end of the old and a beginning of the
+new.
+
+The cotton--the second picking--still whitened thousands of acres.
+There were not hands enough to pick it. The negroes, demoralized for
+a half score of years by the brief splendor of elevation, and backed,
+at first, by Federal bayonets and afterwards by sheer force of their
+own number in elections, had been correspondingly demoralized and
+shiftless. True to their instinct then, as now, they worked only so
+long as they needed money. If one day's cotton picking fed a negro
+for five, he rested the five.
+
+The negro race does not live to lay up for a rainy day.
+
+And so the cotton being neglected, its lengthened and frowseled locks
+hung from wide open bolls like the locks of a tawdry woman in early
+morning.
+
+No one wanted it--that is, wanted it bad enough to pick it. For
+cotton was cheap that fall--very cheap--and picking cotton is a
+back-bending business. Therefore it hung its frowsy locks from the
+boll.
+
+And nothing makes so much for frowsiness in the cotton plant, and in
+woman, as to know they are not wanted.
+
+The gin-houses were yet full, tho' the gin had been running day and
+night. That which poured, like pulverized snow, from the mouth of the
+flues into the pick-room--where the cotton fell before being pressed
+into bales--scarcely had time to be tramped down and packed off in
+baskets to the tall, mast-like screws which pressed the bales and
+bound them with ties, ere the seed cotton came pouring in again from
+wagon bed and basket.
+
+The gin hummed and sawed and sang and creaked, but it could not
+devour the seed cotton fast enough from the piles of the incoming
+fleece.
+
+Those grew lighter and larger all the time.
+
+The eight Tennessee sugar-mules, big and sinewy, hitched to the lever
+underneath the gin-house at The Gaffs, sweated until they sprinkled
+in one continual shower the path which they trod around the
+pivot-beam from morning until night.
+
+Around--around--forever around.
+
+For the levers turned the pivot-beam, and the pivot-beam turned the
+big shaft-wheel which turned the gin-wheel, and the gin had to go or
+it seemed as if the valley would be smothered in cotton.
+
+Picked once, the fields still looked like a snowfall in November, if
+such a thing were possible in a land which scarcely felt a dozen
+snowfalls in as many years.
+
+Dust! There is no dust like that which comes from a gin-house. It may
+be tasted in the air. All other dust is gravel compared to the
+penetrating fineness of that diabolical, burning blight which flies
+out of the lint, from the thousand teeth of the gin-saws, as diamond
+dust flies from the file.
+
+It is all penetrating, consumptive-breeding, sickening, stifling,
+suffocating. It is hot and has a metallic flavor; and it flies from
+the hot steel teeth of the saws, as pestilence from the hot breath of
+the swamps.
+
+It is linty, furry, tickling, smothering, searing.
+
+It makes one wonder why, in picturing hell, no priest ever thought of
+filling it with cotton-gin dust instead of fire.
+
+And it clings there from the Lint to the Loom.
+
+Small wonder that the poor little white slaves, taking up their
+serfdom at the loom where the negro left off at the lint, die like
+pigs in a cotton-seed pen.
+
+There was cotton everywhere--in the fields, unpicked; in the
+gin-houses, unginned. That in the fields would be plowed under next
+spring, presenting the strange anomaly of plowing under one crop to
+raise another of the same kind. But it has been done many times in
+the fertile Valley of the Tennessee.
+
+There is that in the Saxon race that makes it discontented, even with
+success.
+
+There was cotton everywhere; it lay piled up around the gin-houses
+and screws and negro-cabins and under the sheds and even under the
+trees. All of it, which was exposed to the weather, was in bales,
+weighing each a fourth of a ton and with bulging white spots in their
+bellies where the coarse cotton baling failed to cover their
+nakedness.
+
+It was cotton--cotton--cotton. Seed,--ginned,--lint,--baled,--cotton.
+
+The Gaffs was a fine estate of five thousand acres which had been
+handed down for several generations. The old home sat in a grove of
+hickory, oak and elm trees, on a gentle slope. Ancient sentinels, and
+they were there when the first Travis came from North Carolina to the
+Tennessee Valley and built his first double-log cabin under the
+shelter of their arms.
+
+From the porch of The Gaffs,--as the old home was called--the
+Tennessee River could be seen two miles away, its brave swift channel
+glittering like the flash of a silver arrow in the dark green wood
+which bordered it.
+
+Back of the house the mountain ridge rolled; not high enough to be
+awful and unapproachable, nor so low as to breed contempt from a too
+great familiarity. Not grand, but the kind one loves to wander over.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+RICHARD TRAVIS
+
+
+Strength was written in the face of Richard Travis--the owner of The
+Gaffs--intellectual, physical, passion-strength, strength of purpose
+and of doing. Strength, but not moral strength; and hence lacking all
+of being all-conquering.
+
+He had that kind of strength which made others think as he thought,
+and do as he would have them do. He saw things clearly, strongly,
+quickly. His assurance made all things sure. He knew things and was
+proud of it. He knew himself and other men. And best of all, as he
+thought, he knew women.
+
+Richard Travis was secretary and treasurer of the Acme Cotton Mills.
+
+To-night he was alone in the old-fashioned but elegant dining-room of
+the Gaffs. The big log fire of ash and hickory was pleasant, and the
+blaze, falling in sombre color on the old mahogany side-board which
+sat opposite the fireplace, on the double ash floor, polished and
+shining, added a deeper and richer hue to it. From the toes of the
+dragon on which it rested, to the beak of the hand-carved eagle,
+spreading his wings over the shield beneath him, carved in the solid
+mahogany and surrounded by thirteen stars, all was elegance and
+aristocracy. Even the bold staring eyes of the eagle seemed proud of
+the age of the side-board, for had it not been built when the stars
+numbered but thirteen? And was not the eagle rampant then?
+
+The big brass andirons were mounted with the bronzed heads of
+wood-nymphs, and these looked saucily up at the eagle. The
+three-cornered cupboard, in one corner of the room, was of cherry,
+with small diamond-shaped windows in front, showing within rare old
+sets of china and cut glass. The handsome square dining table matched
+the side-board, only its dragon feet were larger and stronger, as if
+intended to stand up under more weight, at times.
+
+Everything was ancient and had a pedigree. Even the Llewellyn setter
+was old, for he was grizzled around the muzzle and had deep-set,
+lusterless eyes, from which the firelight, as if afraid of their very
+uncanniness, darted out as soon as it entered. And he carried his
+head to one side when he walked, as old and deaf dogs do.
+
+He lay on a rug before the fire. He had won this license, for
+opposite his name on the kennel books were more field-trials won than
+by any other dog in Alabama. And now he dozed and dreamed of them
+again, with many twitchings of feet, and cocked, quivering ears, and
+rigid tail, as if once more frozen to the covey in the tall
+sedge-grass of the old field, with the smell of frost-bitten
+Lespedeza, wet with dew, beneath his feet.
+
+Travis stooped and petted the old dog. It was the one thing of his
+household he loved most.
+
+"Man or dog--'tis all the same," he mused as he watched the dreaming
+dog--"it is old age's privilege to dream of what has been done--it is
+youth's to do."
+
+He stretched himself in his big mahogany chair and glanced down his
+muscular limbs, and drew his arms together with a snap of quick
+strength.
+
+Everything at The Gaffs was an open diary of the master's life. It is
+so in all homes--that which we gather around us, from our books to
+our bed-clothes, is what we are.
+
+And so the setter on the rug meant that Richard Travis was the best
+wing-shot in the Tennessee Valley, and that his kennel of Gladstone
+setters had won more field trials than any other kennel in the South.
+No man has really hunted who has never shot quail in Alabama over a
+well-broken setter. All other hunting is butchery compared to the
+scientific sweetness of this sport.
+
+There was a good-night, martial, daring crow, ringing from the
+Hoss-apple tree at the dining-room window. Travis smiled and called
+out:
+
+"Lights waked you up, eh, Dick? You're a gay Lothario--go back to
+sleep."
+
+Richard Travis had the original stock--the Irish Greys--which his
+doughty old grandsire, General Jeremiah Travis, developed to
+championship honors, and in a memorable main with his friend, General
+Andrew Jackson, ten years after the New Orleans campaign, he had
+cleared up the Tennesseans, cock and pocket. It was a big main in
+which Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama were pitted against each other,
+and in which the Travis cocks of the Emerald Isle strain, as Old
+Hickory expressed it, "stood the steel like a stuck she-b'ar,
+fightin' for her cubs."
+
+General Travis had been an expert at heeling a cock; and it is said
+that his skill on that occasion was worth more than the blood of his
+Greys; for by a peculiar turn of the gaffs,--so slight as to escape
+the notice of any but an expert--his champion cock had struck the
+blow which ended the battle. With the money won, he had added four
+thousand acres to his estate, and afterwards called it The Gaffs.
+
+And a strong, brave man had been General Jeremiah Travis,--pioneer,
+Indian fighter, Colonel in the Creek war and at New Orleans, and a
+General in the war with Mexico.
+
+His love for the Union had been that of a brave man who had gone
+through battles and shed his blood for his country.
+
+The Civil War broke his heart.
+
+In his early days his heart had been in his thoroughbred horses and
+his fighting cocks, and when he heard that his nephew had died with
+Crockett and Bowie at the Alamo, he drew himself proudly up and said:
+"A right brave boy, by the Eternal, and he died as becomes one
+crossed on an Irish Grey cock."
+
+That had been years before. Now, a new civilization had come on the
+stage, and where the grandsire had taken to thoroughbreds, Richard
+Travis, the grandson, took to trotters. In the stalls where once
+stood the sons of Sir Archie, Boston, and imported Glencoe himself,
+now were sons of Mambrino Patchin, and George Wilkes and Harold. And
+a splendid lot they were--sires,--brood mares and colts, in the
+paddocks of The Gaffs.
+
+Travis took no man's dust in the Tennessee Valley. At county fairs he
+had a walk-over.
+
+He had inherited The Gaffs from his grandfather, for both his parents
+died in his infancy, and his two remaining uncles gave their lives in
+Virginia, early in the war, following the flag of the Confederacy.
+
+One of them had left a son, whom Richard Travis had educated and who
+had, but the June before, graduated from the State University.
+
+Travis saw but little of him, since each did as he pleased, and it
+did not please either of them to get into each other's way.
+
+There had been no sympathy between them. There could not be, for they
+were too much alike in many ways.
+
+There can be no sympathy in selfishness.
+
+All through the summer Harry Travis had spent his time at picnics and
+dances, and, but for the fact that his cousin now and then missed one
+of his best horses from the stable, or found his favorite gun put
+away foul, or his fishing tackle broken, he would not have known that
+Harry was on the place.
+
+Cook-mother Charity kept the house. Bond and free, she had spent all
+her life at The Gaffs. Of this she was prouder than to have been
+housekeeper at Windsor. Her word was law; she was the only mortal who
+bossed, as she called it, Richard Travis.
+
+Usually, friends from town kept the owner company, and The Gaffs'
+reputation for hospitality, while generous, was not unnoted for its
+hilarity.
+
+To-night Richard Travis was lonely. His supper tray had not been
+removed. He lit a cigar and picked up a book--it was Herbert Spencer,
+and he was soon interested.
+
+Ten minutes later an octoroon house-girl, with dark Creole eyes, and
+bright ribbons in her hair, came in to remove the supper dishes. She
+wore a bright-colored green gown, cut low. As she reached over the
+table near him he winced at the strong smell of musk, which beauties
+of her race imagine adds so greatly to their aesthetic _status-quo_.
+She came nearer to him than was necessary, and there was an attempted
+familiarity in the movement that caused him to curve slightly the
+corner of his thin, nervous lip, showing beneath his mustache. She
+kept a half glance on him always. He smoked and read on, until the
+rank smell of her perfume smote him again through the odor of his
+cigar, and as he looked up she had busied around so close to him that
+her exposed neck was within two feet of him bent in seeming innocence
+over the tray. With a mischievous laugh he reached over and flipped
+the hot ashes from his cigar upon her neck. She screamed affectedly
+and danced about shaking off the ashes. Then with feigned maidenly
+piquancy and many reproachful glances, she went out laughing good
+humoredly.
+
+He was good natured, and when she was gone he laughed boyishly.
+
+Good nature is one of the virtues of impurity.
+
+Still giggling she set the tray down in the kitchen and told
+Cook-mother Charity about it. That worthy woman gave her a warning
+look and said:
+
+"The frisk'ness of this new gen'ration of niggers makes me tired.
+Better let Marse Dick alone--he's a dan'g'us man with women."
+
+In the dining-room Travis sat quiet and thoughtful. He was a
+handsome man, turning forty. His face was strong, clean shaved,
+except a light mustache, with full sensual lips and an unusually fine
+brow. It was the brow of intellect--all in front. Behind and above
+there was no loftiness of ideality or of veneration. His smile was
+constant, and though slightly cold, was always approachable. His
+manner was decisive, but clever always, and kind-hearted at times.
+
+Contrary to his habit, he grew reminiscent. He despised this kind of
+a mood, because, as he said, "It is the weakness of a fool to think
+about himself." He walked to the window and looked out on the broad
+fields of The Gaffs in the valley before him. He looked at the
+handsomely furnished room and thought of the splendid old home. Then
+he deliberately surveyed himself in the mirror. He smiled:
+
+"'Survival of the fittest'--yes, Spencer is right--a great--great
+mind. He is living now, and the world, of course, will not admit his
+greatness until he is dead. Life, like the bull that would rule the
+herd, is never ready to admit that other life is great. A poet is
+always a dead rhymester,--a philosopher, a dead dreamer.
+
+"Let Spencer but die!
+
+"Tush! Why indulge in weak modesty and fool self-depreciation? Even
+instinct tells me--that very lowest of animal intellectual
+forces--that I survive because I am stronger than the dead.
+Providence--God--whatever it is, has nothing to do with it except to
+start you and let you survive by overcoming. Winds you up and
+then--devil take the hindmost!
+
+"It is brains--brains--brains that count--brains first and always.
+This moral stuff is fit only for those who are too weak to
+conquer. I have accomplished everything in life I have ever
+undertaken--everything--and--by brains! Not once have I failed--I have
+done it by intellect, courage--intuition--the thing in one that speaks.
+
+"Now as to things of the heart,"--he stopped suddenly--he even
+scowled half humorously. It came over him--his failure there, as one
+who, sweeping with his knights the pawns of an opponent, suddenly
+finds himself confronting a queen--and checkmated.
+
+He walked to the window again and looked toward the northern end of
+the valley. There the gables of an old and somewhat weather-beaten
+home sat in a group of beech on a rise among the foothills.
+
+"Westmoreland"--he said--"how dilapidated it is getting to be!
+Something must be done there, and Alice--Alice,"--he repeated the
+name softly--reverently--"I feel--I know it--she--even she shall be
+mine--after all these years--she shall come to me yet."
+
+He smiled again: "Then I shall have won all around. Fate? Destiny?
+Tush! It's living and surviving weaker things, such for instance as
+my cousin Tom."
+
+He smiled satisfactorily. He flecked some cotton lint from his coat
+sleeve.
+
+"I have had a hard time in the mill to-day. It's a beastly business
+robbing the poor little half-made-up devils."
+
+He rang for Aunt Charity. She knew what he wished, and soon came in
+bringing him his cocktail--his night-cap as she always called
+it,--only of late he had required several in an evening,--a thing
+that set the old woman to quarreling with him, for she knew the limit
+of a gentleman. And, in truth, she was proud of her cocktails. They
+were made from a recipe given by Andrew Jackson. For fifty years
+Cook-mother Charity had made one every night and brought it to "old
+marster" before he retired. Now she proudly brought it to his
+grandson.
+
+"Oh, say Mammy," he said as the old woman started out--"Carpenter
+will be here directly with his report. Bring another pair of these
+in--we will want them."
+
+The old woman bristled up. "To be sure, I'll fix 'em, honey. He'll
+not know the difference. But the licker he gits in his'n will come
+outen the bottle we keep for the hosses when they have the colic. The
+bran' we keep for gem'men would stick in his th'oat."
+
+Travis laughed: "Well--be sure you don't get that horse brand in
+mine."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+JUD CARPENTER
+
+
+An hour afterwards, Travis heard a well-known walk in the hall and
+opened the door.
+
+He stepped back astonished. He released the knob and gazed half
+angry, half smiling.
+
+A large dog, brindled and lean, walked complacently and
+condescendingly in, followed by his master. At a glance, the least
+imaginative could see that Jud Carpenter, the Whipper-in of the Acme
+Cotton Mills, and Bonaparte, his dog, were well mated.
+
+The man was large, raw-boned and brindled, and he, also, walked in,
+complacently and condescendingly.
+
+The dog's ears had been cropped to match his tail, which in his
+infancy had been reduced to a very few inches. His under jaw
+protruded slightly--showing the trace of bull in his make-up.
+
+That was the man all over. Besides he had a small, mean, roguish ear.
+
+The dog was cross-eyed--"the only cross-eyed purp in the worl'"--as
+his master had often proudly proclaimed, and the expression of his
+face was uncanny.
+
+Jud Carpenter's eastern-eye looked west, and his western-eye looked
+east, and the rest of the paragraph above fitted him also.
+
+The dog's pedigree, as his master had drawlingly proclaimed, was
+"p'yart houn', p'yart bull, p'yart cur, p'yart terrier, an' the rest
+of him--wal, jes' dog."
+
+Reverse this and it will be Carpenter's: Just dog, with a sprinkling
+of bull, cur, terrier, and hound.
+
+Before Richard Travis could protest, the dog walked deliberately to
+the fireplace and sprang savagely on the helpless old setter dreaming
+on the rug. The older dog expostulated with terrific howls, while
+Travis turned quickly and kicked off the intruder.
+
+He stood the kicking as quietly as if it were part of the programme
+in the last act of a melodrama in which he was the villain. He was
+kicked entirely across the room and his head was driven violently
+into the half-open door of the side-board. Here it came in contact
+with one of Cook-mother's freshly baked hams, set aside for the
+morrow's lunch. Without even a change of countenance--for, in truth,
+it could not change--without the lifting even of a hair in surprise,
+the brute seized the ham and settled right where he was, to lunch.
+And he did it as complacently as he had walked in, and with a
+satisfied growl which seemed to say that, so far as the villain was
+concerned, the last act of the melodrama was ending to his entire
+satisfaction.
+
+Opening a side door, Travis seized him by the stump of a tail and one
+hind leg--knowing his mouth was too full of ham to bite anything--and
+threw him, still clutching the ham, bodily into the back yard.
+Without changing the attitude he found himself in when he hit the
+ground, the brindled dog went on with his luncheon.
+
+The very cheek of it set Travis to laughing. He closed the door and
+said to the man who had followed the dog in: "Carpenter, if I had
+the nerve of that raw-boned fiend that follows you around, I'd soon
+own the world."
+
+The man had already taken his seat by the fire as unaffectedly as had
+the dog. He had entered as boldly and as indifferently and his two
+deep-set, cat-gray cross-eyes looked around as savagely.
+
+He was a tall, lank fellow, past middle age, with a crop of stiff,
+red-brown hair, beginning midway of his forehead, so near to an
+equally shaggy and heavy splotch of eyebrows as to leave scarce a
+finger's breadth between them.
+
+He was wiry and shrewd-looking, and his two deep-set eyes seemed
+always like a leopard's,--walking the cage of his face, hunting for
+some crack to slip through. Furtive, sly, darting, rolling hither and
+thither, never still, comprehensive, all-seeing, malicious and deadly
+shrewd. These were the eyes of Jud Carpenter, and they told it all.
+To this, add again that they looked in contrary directions.
+
+As a man's eye, so is the tenor of his life.
+
+Yet in them, now and then, the twinkle of humor shone. He had a
+conciliatory way with those beneath him, and he considered all the
+mill hands in that class. To his superiors he was a frowning, yet
+daring and even presumptuous underling.
+
+Somewhat better dressed than the Hillites from whom he sprang was
+this Whipper-in of the Acme Cotton Mills--somewhat better dressed,
+and with the air of one who had arisen above his surroundings. Yet,
+withal, the common, low-born, malicious instinct was there--the
+instinct which makes one of them hate the man who is better educated,
+better dressed than he. All told, it might be summed up and said of
+Jud Carpenter that he had all the instincts of a Hillite and all the
+arrogance of a manager.
+
+"Nobody understands that dog, Bonaparte, but me," said Carpenter
+after a while--"he's to dogs what his namesake was to man. He's the
+champ'un fighter of the Tennessee Valley, an' the only cross-eyed
+purp in the worl', as I have often said. Like all gen'uses of course,
+he's a leetle peculiar--but him and me--we understan's each other."
+
+He pulled out some mill papers and was about to proceed to discuss
+his business when Travis interrupted:
+
+"Hold on," he said, good humoredly, "after my experience with that
+cross-eyed genius of a dog, I'll need something to brace me up."
+
+He handed Carpenter a glass and each drank off his cocktail at a
+quaff.
+
+Travis settled quickly to business. He took out his mill books, and
+for an hour the two talked in a low tone and mechanically. The
+commissary department of the mill was taken up and the entire
+accounts gone over. Memoranda were made of goods to be ordered. The
+accounts of families were run over and inspected. It was tedious
+work, but Travis never flagged and his executive ability was quick
+and incisive. At last he closed the book with an impatient gesture:
+
+"That's all I'll do to-night," he muttered decisively. "I've other
+things to talk to you about. But we'll need something first."
+
+He went to the side-board and brought out a decanter of whiskey, two
+goblets and a bowl of loaf sugar.
+
+He laughed: "Mammy knows nothing about this. Two cocktails are the
+limit she sets for me, and so I keep this private bottle."
+
+He made a long-toddy for himself, but Carpenter took his straight. In
+all of it, his furtive eyes, shining out of the splotch of eyebrows
+above, glanced inquiringly around and obsequiously followed every
+movement of his superior.
+
+"Now, Carpenter," said the Secretary after he had settled back in his
+chair and lit a cigar, handing the box afterwards to the other--"You
+know me--you and I--must understand each other in all things."
+
+"'Bleeged to be that way," drawled the Whipper-in--"we must wu'ck
+together. You know me, an' that Jud Carpenter's motto is, 'mum, an'
+keep movin'.' That's me--that's Jud Carpenter."
+
+Travis laughed: "O, it's nothing that requires so much heavy villain
+work as the tone of your voice would suggest. We're not in a
+melodrama. This is the nineteenth century and we're talking business
+and going to win a thing or two by common sense and business ways,
+eh?"
+
+Carpenter nodded.
+
+"Well, now, the first is quite matter of fact--just horses. I believe
+we are going to have the biggest fair this fall we have ever had."
+
+"It's lots talked about," said Carpenter--"'specially the big race
+an' purse you've got put up."
+
+Travis grew interested quickly and leaned over excitedly.
+
+"My reputation is at stake--and that of The Gaffs' stable. You see,
+Carpenter, it's a three-cornered race for three-thousand
+dollars--each of us, Col. Troup, Flecker and me, have put up a
+thousand--three heats out of five--the winner takes the stake. Col.
+Troup, of Lenox, has entered a fast mare of his, and Flecker, of
+Tennessee, will be there with his gelding. I know Flecker's horse. I
+could beat him with Lizette and one of her legs tied up. I looked him
+over last week. Contracted heels and his owner hasn't got horse-sense
+to know it. It's horse-sense, Carpenter, that counts for success in
+life as in a race."
+
+Carpenter nodded again.
+
+"But it's different with Col. Troup's entry. Ever been to Lenox?" he
+asked suddenly.
+
+Carpenter shook his head.
+
+"Don't know anybody there?" asked Travis. "I thought so--just what I
+want."
+
+He went on indifferently, but Carpenter saw that he was measuring his
+words and noting their effect upon himself. "They work out over there
+Tuesdays and Fridays--the fair is only a few weeks off--they will be
+stepping their best by Friday. Now, go there and say nothing--but
+just sit around and see how fast Col. Troup's mare can trot."
+
+"That'll be easy," said Carpenter.
+
+"I have no notion of losing my thousand and reputation, too." He bent
+over to Carpenter and laughed. "All's fair in love and--a horse race.
+You know it's the 2:25 class, and I've entered Lizette, but Sadie B.
+is so much like her that no living man who doesn't curry them every
+day could tell them apart. Sadie B.'s mark is 2:15. Now see if Troup
+can beat 2:25. Maybe he can't beat 2:15."
+
+Then he laughed ironically.
+
+Carpenter looked at him wonderingly.
+
+It was all he said, but it was enough for Carpenter. Fraud's wink to
+the fraudulent is an open book. Her nod is the nod of the Painted
+Thing passing down the highway.
+
+Base-born that he was--low by instinct and inheritance, he had never
+heard of so brilliant and so gentlemanly a piece of fraud. The
+consummate boldness of it made Carpenter's eyes twinkle--a gentleman
+and in a race with gentlemen--who would dare to suspect? It was the
+boldness of a fine woman, daring to wear a necklace of paste-diamonds.
+
+He sat looking at Travis in silent admiration. Never before had his
+employer risen to such heights in the eyes of the Whipper-in. He sat
+back in his chair and chuckled. His furtive eyes danced.
+
+"Nobody but a born gen'us 'ud ever have tho'rt of that," he
+said--"never seed yo' e'kal--why, the money is your'n, any way you
+fix it. You can ring in Lizette one heat and Sadie B."----
+
+"There are things to be thought and not talked of," replied Travis
+quickly. "For a man of your age ar'n't you learning to talk too much
+out loud? You go and find out what I've asked--I'll do the rest. I'm
+thinking I'll not need Sadie B. Never run a risk, even a dead sure
+one, till you're obliged to."
+
+"I'll fetch it next week--trust me for that. But I hope you will do
+it--ring in Sadie B. just for the fun of it. Think of old bay-window
+Troup trottin' his mare to death ag'in two fast horses an' never
+havin' sense enough to see it."
+
+He looked his employer over--from his neatly turned foot to the
+cravat, tied in an up-to-date knot. At that, even, Travis flushed.
+"Here," he said--"another toddy. I'll trust you to bring in your
+report all right."
+
+Carpenter again took his straight--his eyes had begun to glitter, his
+face to flush, and he felt more like talking.
+
+Travis lit another cigar. He puffed and smoked in silence for a
+while. The rings of smoke went up incessantly. His face had begun to
+redden, his fingers to thrill to the tip with pulsing blood. With it
+went his final contingency of reserve, and under it he dropped to the
+level of the base-born at his side.
+
+Whiskey is the great leveler of life. Drinking it, all men are,
+indeed, equal.
+
+"When are you going out to get in more hands for the mill?" asked
+Travis after a pause.
+
+"To-morrow----"
+
+"So soon?" asked Travis.
+
+"Yes, you see," said Carpenter, "there's been ha'f a dozen of the
+brats died this summer an' fall--scarlet fever in the mill."
+
+Travis looked at him and smiled.
+
+"An' I've got to git in some mo' right away," he went on. "Oh,
+there's plenty of 'em in these hills."
+
+Travis smoked for a few minutes without speaking.
+
+"Carpenter, had you ever thought of Helen Conway--I mean--of getting
+Conway's two daughters into the mill?" He made the correction with a
+feigned indifference, but the other quickly noticed it. In an instant
+Carpenter knew.
+
+As a matter of fact the Whipper-in had not thought of it, but it was
+easy for him to say what he thought the other wished him to say.
+
+"Wal, yes," he replied; "that's jes' what I had been thinkin' of.
+They've got to come in--'ristocrats or no 'ristocrats! When it comes
+to a question of bread and meat, pedigree must go to the cellar."
+
+"To the attic, you mean," said Travis--"where their old clothes are."
+
+Carpenter laughed: "That's it--you all'ers say the k'rect thing. 'N'
+as I was sayin'"--he went on--"it is a ground-hog case with 'em. The
+Major's drunk all the time. His farm an' home'll be sold soon. He's
+'bleeged to put 'em in the mill--or the po'-house."
+
+He paused, thinking. Then, "But ain't that Helen about the pretties'
+thing you ever seed?" He chuckled. "You're sly--but I seen you givin'
+her that airin' behin' Lizette and Sadie B.--"
+
+"You've nothing to do with that," said Travis gruffly. "You want a
+new girl for our drawing-in machine--the best paying and most
+profitable place in the mill--off from the others--in a room by
+herself--no contact with mill-people--easy job--two dollars a day--"
+
+"One dollar--you forgit, suh--one dollar's the reg'lar price, sah,"
+interrupted the Whipper-in.
+
+The other turned on him almost fiercely: "Your memory is as weak as
+your wits--two dollars, I tell you, and don't interrupt me again--"
+
+"To be sho'," said the Whipper-in, meekly--"I did forgit--please
+excuse me, sah."
+
+"Then, in talking to Conway, you, of course, would draw his attention
+to the fact that he is to have a nice cottage free of rent--that will
+come in right handy when he finds himself out in the road--sold out
+and nowhere to go," he said.
+
+"'N' the commissary," put in Carpenter quietly. "Excuse me, sah, but
+there's a mighty good bran' of whiskey there, you know!"
+
+Travis smiled good humoredly: "Your wits are returning," he said; "I
+think you understand."
+
+"I'll see him to-morrow," said Carpenter, rising to go.
+
+"Oh, don't be in a hurry," said Travis.
+
+"Excuse me, sah, but I'm afraid I've bored you stayin' too long."
+
+"Sit down," said the other, peremptorily--"you will need something to
+help you along the road. Shall we take another?"
+
+So they took yet another drink, and Carpenter went out, calling his
+dog.
+
+Travis stood in the doorway and watched them go down the driveway.
+They both staggered lazily along. Travis smiled: "Both drunk--the dog
+on ham."
+
+As he turned to go in, he reeled slightly himself, but he did not
+notice it.
+
+When he came back he was restless. He looked at the clock. "Too early
+for bed," he said. "I'd give a ten if Charley Biggers were here with
+his little cocktail laugh to try me a game of poker."
+
+Suddenly he went to the window, and taking a small silver whistle
+from his pocket he blew it toward the stables. Soon afterwards a well
+dressed mulatto boy entered.
+
+"How are the horses to-night, Jim?" he asked.
+
+"Fine, sir--all eatin' well an' feelin' good."
+
+"And Coquette--the saddle mare?"
+
+"Like split silk, sir."
+
+"Exercise her to-morrow under the saddle, and Sunday afternoon we
+will give Miss Alice her first ride on her--she's to be a present for
+her on her birth-day, you know--eh?"
+
+Jim bowed and started out.
+
+"You may fix my bath now--think I'll retire. O Jim!" he called, "see
+that Antar, the stallion, is securely stalled. You know how dangerous
+he is."
+
+He was just dozing off when the front door closed with a bang.
+
+Then a metal whip handle thumped heavily on the floor and the
+jingling of a spur rattled over the hall floor, as Harry Travis
+boisterously went down the hall, singing tipsily,
+
+    "Oh, Johnny, my dear,
+        Just think of your head,
+     Just think of your head
+        In the morning."
+
+Another door banged so loudly it awakened even the setter. The old
+dog came to the side of the bed and laid his head affectionately in
+Travis' palm. The master of The Gaffs stroked his head, saying: "It
+is strange that I love this old dog so."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+FOOD FOR THE FACTORY
+
+
+The next morning being Saturday, Carpenter, the Whipper-in, mounted
+his Texas pony and started out toward the foothills of the mountains.
+
+Upon the pommel of his saddle lay a long single-barreled squirrel
+gun, for the hills were full of squirrels, and Jud was fond of a
+tender one, now and then. Behind him, as usual, trotted Bonaparte,
+his sullen eyes looking for an opportunity to jump on any timid
+country dog which happened along.
+
+There are two things for which all mills must be prepared--the wear
+and tear of Time on the machinery--the wear and tear of Death on the
+frail things who yearly work out their lives before it.
+
+In the fight for life between the machine and the human labor, in the
+race of life for that which men call success, who cares for the life
+of one little mill hand? And what is one tot of them from another?
+And if one die one month and another the next, and another the next
+and the next, year in and year out, who remembers it save some
+poverty-hardened, stooped and benumbed creature, surrounded by a
+scrawny brood calling ever for bread?
+
+The world knows not--cares not--for its tiny life is but a thread in
+the warp of the great Drawing-in Machine.
+
+So fearful is the strain upon the nerve and brain and body of the
+little things, that every year many of them pass away--slowly,
+surely, quietly--so imperceptibly that the mill people themselves
+scarcely miss them. And what does it matter? Are there not hundreds
+of others, born of ignorance and poverty and pain, to take their
+places?
+
+And the dead ones--unknown, they simply pass into a Greater Unknown.
+Their places are filled with fresh victims--innocents, whom Passion
+begets with a caress and Cupidity buys with a curse. Children they
+are--tots--and why should they know that they are trading--life for
+death?
+
+It was a bright fall morning, and Jud Carpenter rode toward the
+mountain a few miles away. They are scarcely mountains--these
+beautifully wooded hills in the Tennessee Valley, hooded by blue in
+the day and shrouded in somber at night; but it pleases the people
+who live within the sweet influence of their shadows to call them
+mountains.
+
+Jud knew where he was going, and he rode leisurely along, revolving
+in his mind the plan of his campaign. He needed the recruits for the
+Acme Mills, and in all his past experience as an employment agent he
+had never undertaken to bring in a family where as much tact and
+diplomacy was required as in this case.
+
+It was a dilapidated gate at which he drew rein. There had once been
+handsome pillars of stone and brick, but these had fallen and the
+gate had been swung on a convenient locust tree that had sprung up
+and grown with its usual rapidity from its sheltered nook near the
+crumbling rock wall. Only one end of the gate was hung; and it lay
+diagonally across the entrance of what had once been a thousand acres
+of the finest farm in the Tennessee Valley.
+
+Dismounting, Jud hitched his horse and set his gun beside the tree;
+and as it was easier to climb over the broken-down fence than to lift
+the gate around, he stepped over and then shuffled along in his lazy
+way toward the house.
+
+It was an old farmhouse, now devoid of paint; and the path to it had
+once been a well-kept gravel walk, lined with cedars; but the
+box-plants, having felt no pruning shears for years, almost filled,
+with their fantastically jagged boughs, the narrow path, while the
+cedars tossed about their broken and dead limbs.
+
+The tall, square pillars in the house, from dado above to where they
+rested in the brick base below, showed the naked wood, untouched so
+long by paint that it had grown furzy from rain and snow, and
+splintery from sun and heat. Its green shutters hung, some of them,
+on one hinge; and those which could be closed, were shut up close and
+sombre under the casements.
+
+A half dozen hounds came baying and barking around him. As Jud
+proceeded, others poured out from under the house. All were ribby,
+and half starved.
+
+Without a moment's hesitation they promptly covered Bonaparte, much
+to the delight of that genius. Indeed, from the half-satisfied, half
+malignant snarl which lit up his face as they piled rashly and
+brainlessly on him, Jud took it that Bonaparte had trotted all these
+miles just to breakfast on this remnant of hound on the half-shell.
+
+In a few minutes Bonaparte's terrible, flashing teeth had them flying
+in every direction.
+
+Jud promptly cuffed him back to the gate and bade him wait there.
+
+On the front portico, his chair half-tilted back, his trousers in his
+boot legs, and his feet on the balustrade rim, the uprights of which
+were knocked out here and there, like broken teeth in a comb,--sat a
+man in a slouch hat, smoking a cob pipe. He was in his shirt sleeves.
+His face was flushed and red; his eyes were watery, bleared. His head
+was fine and long--his nose and chin seemed to meet in a sharp point.
+His face showed that form of despair so common in those whom whiskey
+has helped to degenerate. He did not smile--he scowled continuously,
+and his voice had been imprecatory so long that it whined in the same
+falsetto twang as one of his hounds.
+
+Jud stepped forward and bowed obsequiously.
+
+"How are you to-day, Majah, sah?" he asked while his puckered and
+wrinkled face tried to smile.
+
+Jud was chameleon. Long experience had taught him to drop
+instinctively into the mannerism--even the dialect--of those he hoped
+to cajole. With the well-bred he could speak glibly, and had airs
+himself. With the illiterate and the low-bred, he could out-Caliban
+the herd of them.
+
+The man did not take the pipe out of his mouth. He did not even turn
+his head. Only his two bleared eyes shot sidewise down to the
+ground, where ten feet below him stood the employment agent of the
+mills, smiling, smirking, and doing his best to spell out on the
+signboard of his unscrupulous face the fact that he came in peace and
+good will.
+
+Major Edward Conway scarcely grunted--it might have been anything
+from an oath to an eructation. Then, taking his pipe-stem from
+between his teeth, and shifting his tobacco in his mouth,--for he was
+both chewing and smoking--he expectorated squarely into the eyes of a
+hound which had followed Jud up the steps, barking and snarling at
+his heels.
+
+He was a good marksman even with spittle, and the dog fled, whining.
+
+Then he answered, with an oath, that he was about as well as the
+rheumatism and the beastly weather would permit.
+
+Jud came up uninvited and sat down. The Major did not even turn his
+head. The last of a long line of gentlemen did not waste his manners
+on one beneath him socially.
+
+Jud was discreetly silent, and soon the Major began to tell all of
+his troubles, but in the tone of one who was talking to his servant
+and with many oaths and much bitterness:
+
+"You see it's this damned rheumatism, Carpenter. Las' night, suh, I
+had to drink a quart of whiskey befo' I cu'd go to sleep at all. It
+came on me soon aftah I come out of the wah, an' it growed on me like
+jim'son weeds in a hog-pen. My appetite's quit on me--two pints of
+whiskey an' wild-cherry bark a day, suh, don't seem to help it at
+all, suh. I cyant tell whut the devil's the matter with my stomach.
+Nothin' I eat or drink seems to agree with me but whiskey. If I drink
+this malarial water, suh, m'legs an' m'feet begin to swell. I have to
+go back to whiskey. Damn me, but I was born for Kentucky. Why, I've
+got a forty dollar thirst on me this very minute. I'm so dry I cu'd
+kick up a dust in a hog wallow. Maybe, though, it's this rotten stuff
+that cross-roads Jew is sellin' me an' callin' it whiskey. He's got a
+mortgage on everything here but the houn's and the house cat, an'
+he's tryin' to see if he cyant kill me with his bug-juice an' save a
+suit in Chancery. I'm goin' to sen' off an' see if I cyant git
+another bran' of it, suh."
+
+Edward Conway was the type of the Southerner wrecked financially and
+morally by the war. His father and grandfather had owned Millwood,
+and the present owner had gone into the war a carefully educated,
+well reared youth of twenty. He came out of it alive, it is true,
+but, like many another fine youth of both North and South, addicted
+to drink.
+
+The brutality of war lies not alone in death--it is often more fatal,
+more degenerating, in the life it leaves behind.
+
+Coming out of the war, Conway found, as did all others in the
+Tennessee Valley who sided with the South, that his home was a wreck.
+Not a fence, even, remained--nothing but the old home--shutterless,
+plasterless, its roof rotten, its cellar the abode of hogs.
+
+Thousands of others found themselves likewise--brave hearts--men they
+proved themselves to be--in that they built up their homes out of
+wreck and their country out of chaos.
+
+The man who retrieves his fortune under the protecting arm of law and
+order is worthy of great praise; but he who does it in the surly,
+snarling teeth of Disorder itself is worthy of still greater praise.
+
+And the real soldier is not he with his battles and his bravery. All
+animals will fight--it is instinct. But he who conquers in the great
+moral battle of peace and good government, overcoming prejudice,
+ignorance, poverty and even injustice, till he rises to the height of
+the brave whose deeds do vindicate them--this is the real soldier.
+
+Thousands of Southern soldiers did this, but Edward Conway had not
+been one of them. For where whiskey sits he holds a scepter whose
+staff is the body of the Upas tree, and there is no room for the oak
+of thrift or the wild-flower of sweetness underneath.
+
+From poverty to worse poverty Edward Conway had gone, until now,
+hopelessly mortgaged, hopelessly besotted, hopelessly soured, he
+lived the diseased product of weakness, developed through stimulated
+inactivity.
+
+Nature is inexorable, morally, physically, mentally, and as two
+generations of atheists will beget a thief, so will two generations
+of idle rich beget nonentities.
+
+On this particular morning that Jud Carpenter came, things had
+reached a crisis with Edward Conway. By a decree of the court, the
+last hope he had of retaining a portion of his family estate had been
+swept away, and the entire estate was to be advertised for sale, to
+satisfy a mortgage and judgment. It is true, he had the two years of
+redemption under the Alabama law, but can a drunkard redeem his land
+when he can not redeem himself?
+
+And so, partly from despair, and partly from that instinct which
+makes even the most sensitive of mortals wish to pour their secret
+troubles into another's ear, partly even from drunken recklessness,
+Edward Conway sat on his verandah this morning and poured his
+troubles into the designing ear of Jud Carpenter. The refrain of his
+woe was that luck--luck--remorseless luck was against him.
+
+Luck, since the beginning of the world, has been the cry of him who
+gambles with destiny. Work is the watchword of the man who believes
+in himself.
+
+This thing went because that man had been against him, and this went
+because of the faithlessness of another. His health--well, that was
+God's doing.
+
+Jud was too shrewd to let him know that he thought whiskey had
+anything to do with it--and so, very cautiously did the employment
+agent proceed.
+
+A child with sunny hair and bright eyes ran across the yard. She was
+followed by an old black mammy, whose anxiety for fear her charge
+might get her clothes soiled was plainly evident; from the parlor
+came the notes of an old piano, sadly out of tune, and Jud could hear
+the fine voice of another daughter singing a love ballad.
+
+"You've got two mighty pyeart gyrls here," at last he ventured.
+
+"Of course, they are, suh," snapped their father--"they are
+Conways."
+
+"Ever think of it, sah," went on Jud, "that they could make you a
+livin' in the mill?"
+
+Conway was silent. In truth, he had thought of that very thing.
+To-day, however, he was nerved and desperate, being more besotted
+than usual.
+
+"Now, look aheah--it's this way," went on Jud--"you're gettin' along
+in age and you need res'. You've been wuckin' too hard. I tell you,
+Majah, sah, you're dead game--no other man I know of would have stood
+up under the burdens you've had on yo' shoulders."
+
+The Major drew himself up: "That's a family trait of the Conways,
+suh."
+
+"Wal, it's time for you to res' awhile. No use to drive a willin'
+hoss to death. I can get a place for both of the gyrls in the mill,
+an' aftah the fust month--aftah they learn the job, they can earn
+enough to support you comf't'bly. Now, we'll give you a nice little
+cottage--no bother of keepin' up a big run-down place like this--jes'
+a neat little cottage. Aunt Mariah can keep it in nice fix. The gyrls
+will be employed and busy an' you can jes' live comf't'bly, an' res'.
+An' say," he added, slyly--"you can get all the credit at the
+Company's sto' you want an' I'm thinkin' you'll find a better brand
+of licker than that you've been samplin'."
+
+Besotted as he was--hardened and discouraged--the proposition came
+over Conway with a wave of shame. Even through his weakened mind the
+old instinct of the gentleman asserted itself, and for a moment the
+sweet refined face of a beautiful dead wife, the delicate beauty of a
+little daughter, the queenliness of an elder one, all the product of
+good breeding and rearing, came over him. He sprang to his feet.
+"What do you mean, suh? My daughters--grandchildren of Gen. Leonidas
+Conway--my daughters work in the mill by the side of that poor trash
+from the mountains? I'll see you damned first."
+
+He sat down--he bowed his head in his hands. A glinty look came into
+his eyes.
+
+Jud drew his chair up closer: "But jes' think a minute--you're sold
+out--you've got no whur to go, you've wuck'd yo'self down tryin' to
+save the farm. We've all got to wuck these days. The war has changed
+all the old order of things. We havn't got any mo' slaves."
+
+"We,"--repeated Conway, and he looked at the man and laughed.
+
+Jud flushed even through his sallow skin:
+
+"Wal, that's all right," he added. "Listen to me, now, I'm tryin' to
+save you from trouble. The war changed everything. Your folks got to
+whur they did by wuckin'. They built up this big estate by economy
+an' wuck. Now, you mus' do it. You've got the old dead-game Conway
+breedin' in yo' bones an' you've got the brains, too." He lowered his
+voice: "It's only for a little while--jes' a year or so--it'll give
+you a nice little home to live in while you brace up an' pull out of
+debt an' redeem yo' farm. Here--it is only for a year or so--sign
+this--givin' you a home, an' start all over in life--sign it right
+there, only for a little while--a chance to git on yo' feet--."
+
+Conway scarcely knew how it happened that he signed--for Jud quickly
+changed the subject.
+
+After a while Jud arose to go. As he did so, Lily, the little
+daughter, came out, and putting her arms around her father's neck,
+kissed him and said:
+
+"Papa--luncheon is served, and oh, do come on! Mammy and Helen and I
+are so hungry."
+
+Mammy Maria had followed her and stood deferentially behind the
+chair. And as Jud went away he thought he saw in the old woman's
+eyes, as she watched him, a trace of that fine scorn bred of
+generations of gentleness, but which whiskey had destroyed in the
+master.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE FLY CATCHER CAUGHT
+
+
+As Jud went out of the dilapidated gate at Millwood, he chuckled to
+himself. He had, indeed, accomplished something. He had gained a
+decided advance in the labor circles of the mill. He had broken into
+the heretofore overpowering prejudice the better class had against
+the mill, for he held in his possession the paper wherein an
+aristocrat had signed his two daughters into it. Wouldn't Richard
+Travis chuckle with him?
+
+In the South social standing is everything.
+
+To have the mill represented by a first family--even if brought to
+poverty through drunkenness--was an entering wedge.
+
+His next job was easier. A mile farther on, the poor lands of the
+mountain side began. Up on the slope was a cabin, in the poorest and
+rockiest portion of it, around the door of which half a dozen cracker
+children stared at Jud with unfeigned interest as he rode up.
+
+"Light an' look at yer saddle"--came from a typical Hillite within,
+as Jud stopped.
+
+Jud promptly complied--alighted and looked at his saddle.
+
+A cur--which, despite his breeding, is always a keen detective of
+character--followed him, barking at his heels.
+
+This one knew Jud as instinctively and as accurately as he knew a
+fresh bone from a rank one--by smell. He was also a judge of other
+dogs and, catching sight of Bonaparte, his anger suddenly fled and he
+with it.
+
+"Won't you set down an' res' yo' hat?" came invitingly from the
+doorway.
+
+Jud sat down and rested his hat.
+
+A tall, lank woman, smoking a cob pipe which had grown black with age
+and Samsonian in strength, came from the next room. She merely ducked
+her long, sharp nose at Jud and, pretending to be busily engaged
+around the room, listened closely to all that was said.
+
+Jud told the latest news, spoke of the weather and made many familiar
+comments as he talked. Then he began to draw out the man and woman.
+They were poor, child-burdened and dissatisfied. Gradually,
+carefully, he talked mill and the blessings of it. He drew glorious
+pictures of the house he would take them to, its conveniences--the
+opportunities of the town for them all. He took up the case of each
+of the six children, running from the tot of six to the girl of
+twenty, and showed what they could earn.
+
+In all it amounted to sixteen dollars a week.
+
+"You sho'ly don't mean it comes to sixteen dollars ev'y week," said
+the woman, taking the cob pipe out for the first time, long enough to
+spit and wipe her mouth on the back of her hand, "an' all in silver
+an' all our'n?" she asked. "Why that thar is mo' money'n we've seed
+this year. What do you say to tryin' it, Josiah?"
+
+Josiah was willing. "You see," he added, "we needn't stay thar
+longer'n a year or so. We'll git the money an' then come back an' buy
+a good piece of land."
+
+Suddenly he stopped and fired this point blank at Jud: "But see heah,
+Mister-man, is thar any niggers thar? Do we hafter wuck with
+niggers?"
+
+Jud looked indignant. It was enough.
+
+At the end of an hour the family head had signed for a five years'
+contract. They would move the next week.
+
+"Cash--think of it--cash ever' week. An' in silver, too," said the
+woman. "Why, I dunno hardly how it'll feel. I'm afeared it mou't gin
+me the eetch."
+
+Jud, when he left, had induced their parents to sell five children
+into slavery for five years.
+
+It meant for life.
+
+And both parents declared when he left that never before had they
+"seed sech a nice man."
+
+Jud had nearly reached the town when he passed, high up on the level
+plateau by which the mountain road now ran, the comfortable home of
+Elder Butts. Peach and apple trees adorned the yard, while bee-hives
+sat in a corner under the shade of them behind the cottage. The
+tinkle of a sheep bell told of a flock of sheep nearby. A neatly
+painted new wagon stood under the shed by the house, and all around
+was an air of thrift and work.
+
+"Now if I cu'd git that Butts family," he mused, "I'd have something
+to crow about when I got back to Kingsley to-night. He's got a little
+farm an' is well to do an' is thrifty, an' if I cu'd only git that
+class started in the mill an' contented to wuck there, it 'ud open up
+a new class of people. There's that Archie B.--confound him, he cu'd
+run ten machines at onct and never know it. I'd like to sweat that
+bottled mischief out of him a year or two.
+
+"Hello!"
+
+Jud drew his horse up with a jerk. Above him, with legs locked, high
+up around the body of a dead willow, his seat the stump of a broken
+bough and fully twenty feet above the employment agent's head, sat
+Archie B., a freckled-faced lad, with fiery red hair and a world of
+fun in his blue eyes. He was one of the Butts twins and the very
+object of the Whipper-in's thoughts. From his head to his feet he had
+on but three garments--a small, battered, all-wool hat, a coarse
+cotton shirt, wide open at the neck, and a pair of jeans pants which
+came to his knees. But in the pockets of his pants were small samples
+of everything of wood and field, from shells of rare bird eggs to a
+small supply of Gypsy Juice.
+
+His pockets were miniature museums of nature.
+
+No one but a small boy, bent on fun, knows what Gypsy Juice is. No
+adult has ever been able to procure its formula and no small boy in
+the South cares, so long as he can get it.
+
+"The thing that hit does," Archie B. explained to his timid and pious
+twin brother, Ozzie B., "is ter make anything it touches that wears
+hair git up and git."
+
+Coons, possums, dogs, cats--with now and then a country horse or
+mule, hitched to the town rack--with these, and a small vial of Gypsy
+Juice, Archie B., as he expressed it, "had mo' fun to the square
+inch than ole Barnum's show ever hilt in all its tents."
+
+Jud stood a moment watching the boy. It was easy to see what Archie
+B. was after. In the body of the dead tree a wood-pecker had chiseled
+out a round hole.
+
+"Hello, yo'se'f"--finally drawled Jud--"whatcher doin' up thar?"
+
+"Why, I am goin' to see if this is a wood-pecker's nes' or a
+fly-ketcher's."
+
+Bonaparte caught his cue at once and ran to the foot of the tree
+barking viciously, daring the tree-climber to come down. His vicious
+eyes danced gleefully. He looked at his master between his snarls as
+much as to say: "Well, this is great, to tree the real live son of
+the all-conquering man!"
+
+It maddened him, too, to see the supreme indifference with which the
+all-conqueror's son treated his presence.
+
+Jud grunted. He prided himself on his bird-lore. Finally he said:
+"Wal, any fool could tell you--it's a wood-pecker's nest."
+
+"Yes, that's so and jus' exacly what a fool 'ud say," came back from
+the tree. "But it 'ud be because he is a fool, tho', an' don't see
+things as they be. It's a fly-ketcher's nest, for all that--" he
+added.
+
+"Teach yo' gran'-mammy how to milk the house cat," sneered Jud, while
+Bonaparte grew furious again with this added insult. "Don't you know
+a wood-pecker's nest when you see it?"
+
+"Yes," said Archie B., "an' I also know a fly-ketcher will whip a
+wood-pecker and take his nes' from him, an' I've come up here to see
+if it's so with this one."
+
+"Oh," said Jud, surprised, "an' what is it?"
+
+"Jus' as I said--he's whipped the wood-pecker an' tuck his nes'."
+
+"What's a fly-ketcher, Mister Know-It-All?" said Jud. Then he grinned
+derisively.
+
+Bonaparte, watching his master, ran around the tree again and
+squatting on his stump of a tail grinned likewise.
+
+"A fly-ketcher," said Archie B. calmly, "is a sneaking sort of a
+bird, that ketches flies an' little helpless insects for a--mill,
+maybe. Do you know any two-legged fly-ketchers a-doin' that?"
+
+Jud glared at him, and Bonaparte grew so angry that he snapped
+viciously at the bark of the tree as if he would tear it down.
+
+"What do you mean, you little imp?--what mill?"
+
+"Why his stomach," drawled Archie B., "it's a little differunt from a
+cotton-mill, but it grinds 'em to death all the same."
+
+Jud looked up again. He glared at Archie B.
+
+"How do you know that's a fly-ketcher's nest and not a wood-pecker's,
+then?" he asked, to change the subject.
+
+"That's what I'd like to know, too," said Bonaparte as plainly as his
+growls and two mean eyes could say it.
+
+"If it's a fly-ketcher's, the nest will be lined with a
+snake's-skin," said Archie B. "That's nachrul, ain't it," he
+added--"the nest of all sech is lined with snake-skins."
+
+Bonaparte, one of whose chief amusements in life was killing snakes,
+seemed to think this a personal thrust at himself, for he flew around
+the tree with renewed rage while Archie B., safe on his high perch,
+made faces at him and laughed.
+
+"I'll bet it ain't that way," said Jud, rattled and discomfited and
+shifting his long squirrel gun across his saddle. Archie B. replied
+by carefully thrusting a brown sunburnt arm into the hole and
+bringing out a nest. "Now, a wood-pecker's egg," he said, carefully
+lifting an egg out and then replacing it, "'ud be pearly white."
+
+"How did you learn all that?" sneered Jud.
+
+"Oh, by keepin' out of a cotton mill an' usin' my eye," said Archie
+B., winking at Bonaparte.
+
+Bonaparte glared back.
+
+"I'd like to git you into the mill," said Jud. "I'd put you to wuck
+doin' somethin' that 'ud be worth while."
+
+"Oh, yes, you would for a few years," sneered back Archie B. "Then
+you'd put me under the groun', where I'd have plenty o' time to
+res'."
+
+"I'm goin' up there now to see yo' folks an' see if I can't git you
+into the mill."
+
+"Oh, you are?--Well, don't be in sech a hurry an' look heah at yo'
+snake-skin fust--didn't I tell you it 'ud be lined with a
+snake-skin?" And he threw down a last year's snake-skin which
+Bonaparte proceeded to rend with great fury.
+
+"Now, come under here," went on Archie B. persuasively, "and I'll
+sho' you they're not pearly white, like a wood-pecker's, but
+cream-colored with little purple splotches scratched over 'em--like a
+fly-ketcher's."
+
+Jud rode under and looked up. As he did so Archie B. suddenly turned
+the nest upside down, that Jud might see the eggs, and as he looked
+up four eggs shot out before he could duck his head, and caught him
+squarely between his shaggy eyes. Blinded, smeared with yelk and
+smarting with his eyes full of fine broken shell, he scrambled from
+his horse, with many oaths, and began feeling for the little branch
+of water which ran nearby.
+
+"I'll cut that tree down, but I'll git you and wring yo' neck," he
+shouted, while Bonaparte endeavored to tear it down with his teeth.
+
+But Archie B. did not wait. Slowly he slid down the tree, while
+Bonaparte, thunder-struck with joy, waited at the foot, his eyes
+glaring, his mouth wide open, anticipating the feast on fresh boy
+meat. Can he be--dare he be--coming down? Right into my jaws, too?
+The very thought of it stopped his snarls.
+
+Jud's curses filled the air.
+
+Down--down, slid Archie B., both legs locked around the tree, until
+some ten feet above the dog, and, then tantalizingly, just out of
+reach, he suddenly tightened his brown brakes of legs, and thrusting
+his hand in his pocket, pulled out a small rubber ball. Reaching
+over, he squirted half of its contents over the dog, which still sat
+snarling, half in fury and half in wonder.
+
+Then something happened. Jud could not see, being down on his knees
+in the little stream, washing his eyes, but he first heard
+demoniacal barks proceed from Bonaparte, ending in wailful snorts,
+howls and whines, beginning at the foot of the tree and echoing in a
+fast vanishing wail toward home.
+
+Jud got one eye in working order soon enough to see a cloud of sand
+and dust rolling down the road, from the rear of which only the stub
+of a tail could be seen, curled spasmodically downward toward the
+earth.
+
+Jud could scarcely believe his eyes--Bonaparte--the champion
+dog--running--running like that?
+
+"Whut--whut--whut,"--he stammered, "Whut _did he do_ to Bonaparte?"
+
+Then he saw Archie B. up the road toward home, rolling in the sand
+with shouts of laughter.
+
+"If I git my hands on you," yelled Jud, shaking his fist at the boy,
+"I'll swaller you alive."
+
+"That's what the fly-ketcher said to the butterfly," shouted back
+Archie B.
+
+It was a half hour before Jud got all the fine eggshell out of his
+eyes. After that he decided to let the Butts family alone for the
+present. But as he rode away he was heard to say again:
+
+"Whut--whut--whut _did he do_ to Bonaparte?"
+
+Archie B. was still rolling on the ground, and chuckling now and then
+in fits of laughter, when a determined, motherly looking, fat girl
+appeared at the doorway of the family cottage. It was his sister,
+Patsy Butts:
+
+"Maw," she exclaimed, "I wish you'd look at Archie B. I bet he's done
+sump'in."
+
+There was a parental manner in her way. Her one object in life,
+evidently, was to watch Archie B.
+
+"You Archie B.," yelled his mother, a sallow little woman of quick
+nervous movements, "air you havin' a revulsion down there? What air
+you been doin' anyway? Now, you git up from there and go see why
+Ozzie B. don't fetch the cows home."
+
+Archie B. arose and went down the road whistling.
+
+A ground squirrel ran into a pile of rocks. Archie B. turned the
+rocks about until he found the nest, which he examined critically and
+with care. He fingered it carefully and patted it back into shape.
+"Nice little nes'," he said--"that settles it--I thought they lined
+it with fur." Then he replaced the rocks and arose to go.
+
+A quarter of a mile down the road he stopped and listened.
+
+He heard his brother, Ozzie B., sobbing and weeping.
+
+Ozzie B. was his twin brother--his "after clap"--as Archie B. called
+him. He was timid, uncertain, pious and given to tears--"bo'hn on a
+wet Friday"--as Archie B. had often said. He was always the effect of
+Archie B.'s cause, the illustration of his theorem, the solution of
+his problem of mischief, the penalty of his misdemeanors.
+
+Presently Ozzie B. came in sight, hatless and driving his cows along,
+but sobbing in that hiccoughy way which is the final stage of an
+acute thrashing.
+
+No one saw more quickly than Archie B., and he knew instantly that
+his brother had met Jud Carpenter, on his way back to the mill.
+
+"He's caught my lickin' ag'in," said Archie B., indignantly--"it's a
+pity he looks so much like me."
+
+It was true, and Ozzie B. stood and dug one toe into the ground, and
+sobbed and wiped his eyes on his shirt sleeve, and told how, in spite
+of his explanations and beseechings, the Whipper-in had met him down
+the road and thrashed him unmercifully.
+
+"Ozzie B.," said his brother, "you make me tired all over and in
+spots. I hate for as big a fool as you to look like me. Whyncher
+run--whyncher dodge him?"
+
+"I--I--wanted ter do my duty," sobbed Ozzie B. "Maw tole me ter
+drive--drive the cows right up the road--"
+
+Archie B. surveyed him with fine scorn:
+
+"When the Devil's got the road," said Archie B., "decent fo'ks had
+better take to the wood. I'd fixed him an' his ole dorg, an' now you
+come along an' spile it all."
+
+He made a cross mark in the road and spat on it. Then he turned with
+his back to the cross, threw his hat over his head and said slowly:
+"_Venture pee wee under the bridge! bam--bam--bam!_"
+
+"What's that fur?" asked Ozzie B., as he ceased sobbing. His brother
+always had something new, and it was always absorbingly interesting
+to Ozzie B.
+
+"That," said Archie B., solemnly, "I allers say after meetin' a Jonah
+in the road. The spell is now broke. Jus' watch me fix Jud Carpenter
+agin. Wanter see me git even with him? Well, come along."
+
+"What'll you do?" asked Ozzie B.
+
+"I'll make that mustang break his neck for the way he treated you, or
+my name ain't Archie B. Butts--that's all. _Venture pee wee under
+the bridge, bam--bam--bam!_"
+
+"No--oo--no," began Ozzie B., beginning to cry again--"Don't kill
+'im--it'll be cruel."
+
+"Don't wanter see me go an' git even with the man that's jus' licked
+you for nuthin'?"
+
+"No--oo--no--" sobbed Ozzie B. "Paw says--leave--leave--that for--the
+Lord."
+
+"Tarnashun!"--said Archie B., spitting on the ground, disgustedly--,
+"too much relig'un is a dang'us thing. You've got all of paw's
+relig'un an' maw's brains, an' that's 'nuff said."
+
+With this he kicked Ozzie B. soundly and sent him, still sobbing, up
+the road.
+
+Then he ran across the wood to head off Jud Carpenter, who he knew
+had to go around a bend in the road.
+
+There was no bird that Archie B. could not mimic. He knew every
+creature of the wood. Every wild thing of the field and forest was
+his friend. Slipping into the underbrush, a hundred yards from the
+road down which he knew Jud Carpenter had to ride, he prepared
+himself for action.
+
+Drawing a turkey-call from his pocket, he gave the call of the wild
+turkey going to roost, as softly as a violinist tries his instrument
+to see if it is in tune.
+
+Prut--prut--prut--it rang out clear and distinctly.
+
+"All right,"--he said--"she'll do."
+
+He had not long to wait. Up the road he soon saw the Whipper-in,
+riding leisurely along.
+
+Archie B. swelled with anger at sight of the complacent and
+satisfactory way he rode along. He even thought he saw a smile--a
+kind of even-up smile--light his face.
+
+When opposite his hiding place, Archie B. put his call to his mouth:
+_Prut--Prut--P-R-U-T_--it rang out. Then _Prut--prut!_
+
+Jud Carpenter stopped his horse instantly.
+
+"Turkeys goin' to roost."--he muttered. He listened for the
+direction.
+
+_Prut--Prut_--it came out of the bushes on the right--a hundred yards
+away under a beech tree.
+
+Jud listened: "Eatin' beech-mast,"--he said, and he slipped off his
+pony, tied him quietly to the limb of a sweet-gum tree, and cocking
+his long gun, slipped into the wood.
+
+Five minutes later he heard the sound still farther off. "They're
+walkin'," muttered Jud--"I mus' head 'em off." Then he pushed on
+rapidly into the forest.
+
+Archie B. let him go--then, making a short circuit, slipped like an
+Indian through the wood, and came up to the pony hitched on the road
+side.
+
+Quietly removing the saddle and blanket, he took two tough prickly
+burrs of the sweet-gum and placed one on each side of the pony's
+spine, where the saddle would rest. Then he put the blanket and
+saddle back, taking care to place them on very gently and tighten the
+girth but lightly.
+
+He shook all over with suppressed mirth as he went farther into the
+wood, and lay down on the mossy bank behind a clay-root to watch the
+performance.
+
+It was a quarter of an hour before Jud, thoroughly tired and
+disgusted, gave up the useless search and came back.
+
+Untying the pony, he threw the bridle rein over its head and vaulted
+lightly into the saddle.
+
+Archie B. grabbed the clay-root and stuffed his wool hat into his
+mouth just in time.
+
+"It was worth a dollar," he told Ozzie B. that night, after they had
+retired to their trundle bed. "The pony squatted fust mighty nigh to
+the groun'--then he riz a-buckin'. I seed Jud's coat-tail a-turnin'
+summersets through the air, the saddle and blanket a-followin'. I
+heard him when he hit the swamp hole on the side of the road
+_kersplash!_--an' the pony skeered speechless went off tearin'
+to-ards home. Then I hollered out: '_Go it ole, fly-ketcher--you're
+as good for tad-poles as you is for bird-eggs_'--an' I lit out
+through the wood."
+
+Ozzie B. burst out crying: "Oh, Archie B., do you reckin the po' man
+got hurt?"
+
+Archie B. replied by kicking him in the ribs until he ceased crying.
+
+"Say yo' prayers now and go to sleep. I'll kick you m'se'f, but I'll
+lick anybody else that does it."
+
+As Ozzie B. dozed off he heard:
+
+"_Venture pee-wee under the bridge--bam--bam--bam._ Oh, Lord, you who
+made the tar'nal fools of this world, have mussy on 'em!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE FLINT AND THE COAL
+
+
+Love is love and there is nothing in all the world like it. Its
+romance comes but once, and it is the perfume that precedes the
+ripened fruit of all after life. It is not amenable to any of the
+laws of reason; nor subject to any law of logic; nor can it be
+explained by the analogy of anything in heaven or earth. Do not,
+therefore, try to reason about it. Only love once--and in youth--and
+be forever silent.
+
+One of the mysteries of love to older ones is that two young people
+may become engaged and never a word be spoken. Put the girl in a
+convent, even, and let the boy but walk past, and the thing is done.
+They look and love, and the understanding is complete. They see and
+sigh, and read each other's secret thoughts, past and present--each
+other's hopes, fears.
+
+They sigh and are engaged, and there is perfect understanding.
+
+Time and Romance travel not together. Time must hurry on. Romance
+would loiter by the way. And so Romance, in her completeness, loves
+to dwell most where Time, traveling over the mile-tracks of the
+tropics, which belong by heredity to Alabama--stalks slower than on
+those strenuous half-mile tracks that spin around the earth in
+latitudes which grow smaller as they approach the frozen pole.
+
+The sun had reached, in his day's journey, the bald knob of Sunset
+Peak, and there, behind it, seemed to stop. At least to Helen Conway,
+born and reared under the brow of Sand Mountain, he seemed every
+afternoon, when he reached the mountain peak, to linger, in a
+friendly way, behind it.
+
+And a bold warrior-looking crest it was, helmeted with a stratum of
+sand-stone, jutting out in visor-shaped fullness about his head, and
+feathery above with scrub-oak and cedar.
+
+Perhaps it had been a fancy which lingered from childhood; but from
+the time when Mammy Maria had first told her that the sun went to bed
+in the valley beyond the mountain until now,--her eighteenth
+year,--Helen still loved to think it was true, and that behind the
+face of Sunset Rock he still lingered to undress; and, lingering, it
+made for her the sweetest and most romantic period of the day.
+
+True to her antebellum ideas, Mammy Maria dressed her two girls every
+afternoon before dinner. It is also true that she cooked the dinner
+herself and made their dresses with her own fingers, and that of late
+years, in the poverty of her drunken master, she had little to dress
+them with and less to cook.
+
+But the resources of the old woman seemed wonderful--to the people
+round about,--for never were two girls more gorgeously gowned than
+Helen and Lily. It was humorous, it was pathetic--the way it was
+done.
+
+From old bureau drawers and cedar chests, stored away in the attic
+and unused rooms of Millwood, where she herself had carefully put
+them in days long gone--days of plenty and thrift--she brought forth
+rich gowns of another age, and made them over for Helen and Lily.
+
+"Now, this gown was Miss Clara's," she would say as she took out a
+bundle of satin and old lace. She looked at it fondly--often with
+tears in her honest black eyes. "Lor', how well I disremember the
+night she fust wore it--the night of the ball we give to Jineral
+Jackson when he first come to see old Marster. This flowered silk
+with pol'naize she wore at the Gov'nor's ball and the black velvet
+with cut steel I've seed her wearin' at many an' many a dinner here
+in this very house."
+
+And so the old woman would go over all her treasures. Then, in a few
+days the gossipy and astounded neighbors would behold Helen and Lily,
+dressed, each, in a gown of white brocaded satin, with a dinner gown
+of black velvet, and for Sunday, old point lace, with petticoats of
+finest hand-made Irish linen and silk stockings--all modernized with
+matchless deft and skill.
+
+"I guess my gals will shine as long as the old chist lasts," she
+would say, "an' I ain't started on 'em yet. I'm a-savin' some for
+their weddin', bless Gord, if I ever sees a man fitten for 'em."
+
+It was an hour yet before dinner, and Aunt Maria had dressed Helen,
+this Saturday afternoon, with great care--for after a little frost,
+each day and night in Alabama becomes warmer and warmer until the
+next frost.
+
+Mammy Maria knew things by intuition, and hence her care to see that
+Helen looked especially pretty to-day.
+
+There was no sun save where he streamed his ribbon rays from behind
+Sunset Rock, and threw them in pearl and ivory fan handles--white and
+gold and emerald, across the mackerel sky beyond.
+
+Helen's silk skirt fitted her well, and one of those beautiful old
+ribbons, flowered in broad leaf and blossoms, wound twice around her
+slender waist and fell in broad streamers nearly to the ground. The
+bodice was cut V-shaped at the throat--the corsage being taken from
+one of her grandmother's made in 1822, and around her neck was a long
+chain of pure gold beads.
+
+She was a type of Southern beauty obtained only after years of gentle
+dames and good breeding.
+
+Her face was pure and fine, rather expressionless at her age, with a
+straight nose and rich fine lips. Her heavy hair was coiled
+gracefully about her head and fell in a longer coil, almost to her
+shoulders. She was tall with a sloping, angular form, the flat
+outlines of which were not yet filled with that fullness that time
+would soon add.
+
+Her waist was well turned, her shoulders broad and slightly rounded,
+with that fullness of chest and breast which Nature, in her hour of
+generosity, gives only to the queenly woman. The curves of her
+sloping neck were perfect and carried not a wave-line of grossness.
+It was as unsensual as a swan's.
+
+Her gown, low cut, showed slight bony shoulders of classic turn and
+whiteness, waiting only for time to ripen them to perfection; and the
+long curved lines which ran up to where the deep braid of her rich
+brown hair fell over them, together with the big joints of her arms
+and the long, fine profile of her face were forerunners of a beauty
+that is strong--like that of the thoroughbred brood mare after a
+year's run on blue-grass.
+
+Her eyes were her only weakness. They were deep and hazel, and given
+to drooping too readily with that feigned modesty wherein vanity
+clothes boldness. Down in their depths, also, shone that bright,
+penetrating spark of a taper by which Folly lights, in woman, the
+lamp of ambition.
+
+Her forehead was high--her whole bearing the unconscious one of a
+born lady.
+
+Romance--girlish, idealized romance--was her's to-day. A good
+intentioned, but thoughtless romance--and therefore a weak one. And
+worse still, one which, coupled with ambition, might be led to ruin.
+
+Down through the tangled box-planted walks she strolled, swinging her
+dainty hat of straw and old lace in her hand; on through the small
+gate that bound the first yard, then through the shaded lawn, unkept
+now and rank with weeds, but still holding the old trees which, in
+other days, looked down over the well kept lawn of grass beneath. Now
+gaunt hogs had rooted it up and the weeds had taken it, and the limbs
+of the old trees, falling, had been permitted to lie as they fell.
+
+The first fence was down. She walked across the road and took a path
+leading through a cottonfield, which, protected on all sides by the
+wood, and being on the elevated plateau on which the residence stood,
+had escaped the severer frosts.
+
+And so she stopped and stood amid it, waist high.
+
+The very act of her stopping showed the romance of her nature.
+
+She had seen the fields of cotton all her life, but she could never
+pass through one in bloom and in fruit--the white and purple
+blossoms, mingled with the green of the leaves and all banked over
+billows of snowy lint,--that she did not stop, thrilled with the same
+childhood feeling that came with the first reading of the Arabian
+Nights.
+
+She had seen the field when it was first plowed, in the spring, and
+the small furrows were thrown up by the little turning shovels. Then,
+down the entire length of the ridge the cotton-planter had followed,
+its two little wheels straddling the row, while the small bull-tongue
+in front opened the shallow furrow for the linty, furry, white seeds
+to fall in and be covered immediately by the mold-board behind. She
+had seen it spring up from one end of the ridge to the other, like
+peas, then chopped out by the hoe, the plants left standing, each the
+width of the hoe apart. Then she had watched it all summer, growing
+under the Southern sun, throwing out limb above limb of beautiful
+delicate leaves, drawing their life and sustenance more from the air
+and sunshine above than from the dark soil beneath. Drawing it from
+the air and sunshine above, and therefore cotton, silken, snowy
+cotton--with the warmth of the sun in the skein of its sheen and the
+purity of heaven in the fleece of its fold.
+
+Child of the air and the sky and sun; therefore, cotton--and not
+corn, which draws its life from the clay and mud and decay which
+comes from below.
+
+She had seen the first cream-white bloom come.
+
+She had found it one sweet day in July, early in the morning, on the
+tip end of the eldest branch of the cotton stalk nearest the ground.
+It hung like the flower of the cream-white, pendulous abutilon, with
+pollen of yellow stars beaded in dew and throwing off a rich,
+delicate, aromatic odor, smelt nowhere on earth save in a
+cottonfield, damp with early dew and warmed by the rays of the rising
+sun. Cream-white it was in the morning, but when she had visited it
+again at nightfall, it hung purple in the twilight.
+
+Then had she plucked it.
+
+Through the hot month of July she had watched the boll grow and
+expand, until in August the lowest and oldest one next to the ground
+burst, and shone through the pale green leaves like the image of a
+star reflected in waters of green. And every morning new cream-white
+blooms formed to the very top, only to turn purple by twilight, while
+beneath, climbing higher and higher as the days went by and the cool
+nights came, star above star of cotton arose and stood twinkling in
+its sky of green and purple, above the dank manger where, in early
+spring, the little child-seed had lain.
+
+To-day, touched by the great frost, the last purple bloom in the very
+tip-top seemed to look up yearningly and plead with the sun for one
+more day of life; that it, too, might add in time its snowy tribute
+to the bank of white which rolled entirely across the field, one big
+billow of cotton.
+
+And in the midst of it the girl stood dreaming and wondering.
+
+She plucked a purple blossom and pinned it to her breast. Then, with
+a deep sigh of saddened longing--that this should be the last--she
+walked on, daintily lifting her gown to avoid the damp stars of
+cotton, now fast gathering the night dew.
+
+Across the field, a vine of wild grape ran over the top of two small
+hackberry trees, forming a natural umbrella-shaped arbor above two
+big moss-covered boulders which cropped out of the ground beneath,
+making two natural rustic seats. On one of these she sat down. Above
+her head glowed the impenetrable leaves of the grape-vine and the
+hackberry, and through them all hung the small purple bunches of wild
+grapes, waiting for the frost of affliction to convert into sugar the
+acid of their souls.
+
+She was in plain view of Millwood, not a quarter of a mile away, and
+in the glow of the blazing red sunset, shining through its broken
+shutters and windows, she could see Mammy Maria busy about their
+dinner.
+
+She looked up the road anxiously--then, with an impatient gesture she
+took the cotton bloom from her bosom and began to pluck the petals
+apart, one by one, saying aloud:
+
+    "One, I love--two, I love--
+     Three, I love, I say.
+     Four, I love with all my heart,
+     And five, I cast away--"
+
+She stopped short and sighed--"O, pshaw! that was Harry; why did I
+name it for him?"
+
+Again she looked impatiently up the road and then went on:
+
+    "Six, he loves, seven, she loves,
+     Eight, both love--"
+
+She turned quickly. She heard the gallop of a saddle horse coming.
+The rider sprang off, tied his horse and sat on the rock by her side.
+
+She appeared not to notice him, and her piqued face was turned away
+petulantly.
+
+It was a handsome boyish face that looked at her for a moment
+mischievously. Then he seized and kissed her despite her struggles.
+
+For this she boxed his ears soundly and sat off on another rock.
+
+"Harry Travis, you can't kiss me every time you want to, no matter if
+we are engaged."
+
+It was a strong and rather a masculine voice, and it grated on one
+slightly, being scarcely expected from so beautiful a face. In it was
+power, self-will, ambition--but no tenderness nor that voice, soft
+and low, which "is an excellent thing in woman."
+
+He laughed banteringly.
+
+"Did you ever hear that love is not love if it is a minute late? Just
+see how long I have waited here for you?"
+
+She sat down by his side and looked fondly up into his face, flushed
+with exercise and smiling half cynically. It was the same smile seen
+so often on the face of Richard Travis.
+
+"Oh, say," he said, dolefully, "but don't start the
+hubby-come-to-taw-business on me until we are married. I was late
+because I had to steal the Gov'nor's new mare--isn't she a beauty?"
+
+"Oh, say," he went on, "but that is a good one--he has bought her for
+somebody he is stuck on--can't say who--and I heard him tell Jim not
+to let anybody get on her back.
+
+"Well,"--he laughed--"she certainly has a fine back. I stole her out
+and galloped right straight here.
+
+"You ought to own her,"--he went on flippantly--pinching playfully at
+the lobe of her ear--"her name is Coquette."
+
+Then he tried to kiss her again.
+
+"Harry!" she said, pulling away--"don't now--Mammy Maria said I was
+never to--let you kiss me."
+
+"Oh," he said with some iciness--"Listen to her an' you will die an
+old maid. Besides, I am not engaged to Mammy Maria."
+
+"Do you think I am a coquette?" she asked, sitting down by him again.
+
+"Worst I ever saw--I said to Nellie just now--I mean--" he stopped
+and laughed.
+
+She looked at him, pained.
+
+"Then you've stopped to see Nellie, and that is why you are late? I
+do not care what she says--I am true to you, Harry--because--because
+I love you."
+
+He was feigning anger, and tapping his boot with his riding whip:
+
+"Well--kiss me yourself then--show me that Mammy Maria does not boss
+my wife."
+
+She laughed and kissed him. He received it with indifference and some
+haughtiness.
+
+Then his good nature returned and they sat and talked, watching the
+sunset.
+
+"Don't you think my dress is pretty?" she asked after a while, with a
+becoming toss of her head.
+
+"Why, I hadn't noticed it--stunning--stunning. If there is a queen on
+earth it is you,"--he added.
+
+She flushed under the praise and was silent.
+
+"Harry,"--she said after a while, "I hate to trouble you now, but I
+am so worried about things at home."
+
+He looked up half frowning.
+
+"You know I have always told you I could not marry you now. I would
+not burden you with Papa."
+
+"Why, yes," he answered mechanically, "we're both young and can wait.
+You see, really, Pet--you know I am dependent at present on the
+Gov'nor an'--"
+
+"I understand all that," she said quickly--"but"--
+
+"A long engagement will only test our love," he broke in with a show
+of dignity.
+
+"You do not understand," she went on. "Things have got so bad at home
+that I must earn something."
+
+He frowned and tapped his foot impatiently. She sat up closer to him
+and put her hand on his. He did not move nor even return the
+pressure.
+
+"And so, Harry--if--if to help papa--and Millwood is sold--and I can
+get a good place in the mill--one off by myself--what they call
+drawer-in--at good wages,--and, if only for a little while I'd work
+there--to help out, you know--what would you think?"
+
+He sprang up from his seat and dropped her hand.
+
+"Good God, Helen Conway, are you crazy?" he said brutally--"why, I'd
+never speak to you again. Me? A Travis?--and marry a mill girl?"
+
+The color went out of her face. She looked in her shame and sorrow
+toward the sunset, where a cloud, but ten minutes before, had stood
+all rosy and purple with the flush of the sunbeams behind it.
+
+Now the beams were gone, and it hung white and bloodless.
+
+In the crisis of our lives such trifles as these flash over us. In
+the greatness of other things--often turning points in our
+life--Nature sometimes points it all with a metaphor.
+
+For Nature is the one great metaphor.
+
+Helen knew that she and the cloud were now one.
+
+But she was not a coward, and with her heart nerved and looking him
+calmly in the face, she talked on and told him of the wretched
+condition of affairs at Millwood. And as she talked, the setting sun
+played over her own cheeks, touching them with a halo of such
+exquisite colors that even the unpoetic soul of Harry Travis was
+touched by the beauty of it all.
+
+And to any one but Harry Travis the proper solution would have been
+plain. Not that he said it or even meant it--for she was too proud a
+spirit even to have thought of it--there is much that a man should
+know instinctively that a woman should never know at all.
+
+Harry surprised himself by the patience with which he listened to
+her. In him, as in his cousin--his pattern--ran a vein of tact when
+the crisis demanded, through and between the stratum of bold
+sensuousness and selfishness which made up the basis of his
+character.
+
+And so as he listened, in the meanness and meagerness of his soul, he
+kept thinking, "I will let her down easy--no need for a scene."
+
+It was narrow and little, but it was all that could come into the
+soul of his narrowness.
+
+For we cannot think beyond our fountain head, nor can we even dream
+beyond the souls of the two things who gave us birth. There are men
+born in this age of ripeness, born with an alphabet in their mouths
+and reared in the regal ways of learning, who can neither read nor
+write. And yet had Shakespeare been born without a language, he would
+have carved his thoughts as pictures on the trees.
+
+Harry Travis was born as so many others are--not only without a
+language, but without a soul within him upon which a picture might be
+drawn.
+
+And so it kept running in his mind, quietly, cold-bloodedly,
+tactfully down the narrow, crooked, slum-alleys of his mind: "I
+will--I will drop her--now!" She ceased--there were tears in her eyes
+and her face was blanched whiter even than the cloud.
+
+He arose quickly and glanced at the setting sun: "Oh, say, but I must
+get the Gov'nor's mare back. Jim will miss her at feeding time."
+
+There was a laugh on his lips and his foot was already in the
+stirrup. "Sorry to be in such a hurry just now, too--because there
+is so much I want to say to you on that subject--awful sorry--but
+the Gov'nor will raise Cain if he knows what I've done. I'll just
+write you a long letter to-night--and I'll be over, maybe,
+soon--ta--ta--but this mare, confound her--see how she cuts up--so
+sorry I can't stay longer--but I'll write--to-night."
+
+He threw her a kiss as he rode off.
+
+She sat dazed, numbed, with the shallowness of it all--the shale of
+sham which did not even conceal the base sub-stratum of deceit below.
+
+Nothing like it had ever come into her life before.
+
+She dropped down behind the rock, but instead of tears there came
+steel. In it all she could only say with her lips white, a defiant
+poise of her splendid head, and with a flash of the eyes which came
+with the Conway aroused: "Oh, and I kissed him--and--and--I loved
+him!"
+
+She sat on the rock again and looked at the sunset. She was too hurt
+now to go home--she wished to be alone.
+
+She was a strong girl--mentally--and with a deep nature; but she was
+proud, and so she sat and crushed it in her pride and strength,
+though to do it shook her as the leaves were now being shaken by the
+breeze which had sprung up at sunset.
+
+She thought she could conquer--that she had conquered--then, as the
+breeze died away, and the leaves hung still and limp again, her pride
+went with the breeze and she fell again on her knees by the big rock,
+fell and buried her face there in the cool moss and cried: "Oh, and
+I loved that thing!"
+
+Ten minutes later she sat pale and smiling. The Conway pride had
+conquered, but it was a dangerous conquest, for steel and tears had
+mingled to make it.
+
+In her despair she even plucked another cotton bloom from her bosom
+as if trying to force herself to be happy again in saying:
+
+    "One, I love--two, I love,
+     Three, I love, I say--"
+
+But this only hurt her, because she remembered that when she had said
+it before she had had an idol which now lay shattered, as the petals
+of the cotton-blossom which she had plucked and thrown away.
+
+Then the breeze sprang up again and with it, borne on it, came the
+click--click--click of a hammer tapping a rock. It was a small gladey
+valley through which a gulley ran. Boulders cropped out here and
+there, and haws, red and white elms, and sassafras grew and shaded
+it.
+
+Down in the gulch, not a hundred yards from her, she saw a pair of
+broad shoulders overtopped by a rusty summer hat--the worse for a
+full season's wear. Around the shoulders was strung a leathern
+satchel, and she could see that the person beneath the hat was
+closely inspecting the rocks he chipped off and put into the satchel.
+Then his hammer rang out again.
+
+She sat and watched him and listened to the tap of his hammer half
+sadly--half amused. Harry Travis had crushed her as she had never
+been crushed before in her life, and the pride in a woman which
+endureth a fall is not to be trifled with afterwards.
+
+She grew calmer--even quiet. The old spirit returned. She knew that
+she had never been as beautiful in her life, as now--just now--in the
+halo of the sunset shining on her hair and reflected in the rare old
+gown she wore.
+
+The person with the leathern satchel was oblivious of everything but
+his work. The old straw hat bobbed energetically--the big shoulders
+nodded steadily beneath it. She watched him silently a few minutes
+and then she called out pleasantly:
+
+"You do seem to be very busy, Clay!"
+
+He stopped and looked up. Then he took off his hat and, awkwardly
+bowing, wiped his brow, broad, calm and self-reliant, and a
+deliberate smile spread over his face. Everything he did was
+deliberate. The smile began in the large friendly mouth and spread in
+kindred waves upward until it flashed out from his kindly blue eyes,
+through the heavy double-lens glasses that covered them.
+
+Without a word he picked up the last rock he had broken off and put
+it into his satchel. Very deliberate, too, was his walk up the hill
+toward the grape arbor, mopping his brow as he came along--a brow big
+and full of cause and effect and of quiet deductions and deliberate
+conclusions. His coat was seedy, his trousers bagged at the knees,
+his shoes were old, and there were patches on them, but his collar
+and linen were white and very much starched, and his awkward,
+shambling gait was honest to the last footfall. A world of depth and
+soul was in his strong, fine face, lit up now with an honest, humble
+smile, but, at rest, full of quiet dignity.
+
+He shuffled along and sat down in a big brotherly way by the girl's
+side.
+
+She sat still, looking at him with a half amused smile on her lips.
+
+He smiled back at her abstractedly. She could see that he had not yet
+really seen her. He was looking thoughtfully across at the hill
+beyond:
+
+"It puzzles me," he said in a fine, mellow voice, "why I should find
+this rotten limestone cropping out here. Now, in the blue limestone
+of the Niagara period I was as sure of finding it as I am--"
+
+"Of not finding me at all,"--it came queenly, haughtily from her.
+
+He turned, and the thick lenses of his glasses were focused on her--a
+radiant, superb being. Then there were swept away all his
+abstractions and deductions, and in their place a real smile--a
+lover's smile of satisfaction looking on the paradise of his dreams.
+
+"You know I have always worshiped you," he said simply and
+reverently.
+
+She moved up in a sisterly way to him and looked into his face.
+
+"Clay--Clay--but you must not--I have told you--I am engaged."
+
+He did not appear to hear her. Already his mind was away off in the
+hills where his eyes were. He went on: "Now, over there I struck a
+stratum of rotten limestone--it's a curious thing. I traced that vein
+of coal from Walker County--clear through the carboniferous period,
+and it is bound to crop out somewhere in this altitude--bound to do
+it."
+
+"Now it's just this way," he said, taking her hand without being
+conscious of it and counting off the periods with her fingers. "Here
+is the carboniferous, the sub-carboniferous--" She jerked her hand
+away with what would have been an amused laugh except that in a half
+conscious way she remembered that Harry had held her hand but half an
+hour ago; and it ended in a frigid shaft feathered with a smile--the
+arrow which came from the bow of her pretty mouth.
+
+He came to himself with a boyish laugh and a blush that made Helen
+look at him again and watch it roll down his cheek and neck, under
+the fine white skin there.
+
+Then he looked at her closely again--the romantic face, the coil of
+brown hair, the old gown of rich silk, the old-fashioned corsage and
+the rich old gold necklace around her throat.
+
+"If there's a queen on earth--it's you," he said simply.
+
+He reddened again, and to divert it felt in his satchel and took out
+a rock. Then he looked across at the hills again:
+
+"If I do trace up that vein of coal and the iron which is needed with
+it--when I do--for I know it is here as well as Leverrier knew that
+Neptune was in our planetary system by the attraction exerted--when I
+do--"
+
+He looked at her again. He could not say the words. Real love has
+ideas, but never words. It feels, but cannot speak. That which comes
+out of the mouth, being words, is ever a poor substitute for that
+which comes from the heart and is spirit.
+
+"Clay," she said, "you keep forgetting. I say I--I am--was--" She
+stopped confused.
+
+He looked hurt for a moment and smiled in his frank way: "I know it
+is here," he said holding up a bit of coal--"here, by the million
+tons, and it is mine by right of birth and education and breeding. It
+is my heritage to find it. One day Alabama steel will outrank
+Pittsburgh's. Oh, to put my name there as the discoverer!"
+
+"Then you"--he turned and said it fondly--reverently--"you should be
+mine by right of--of love."
+
+She sighed.
+
+"Clay--I am sorry for you. I can never love you that way. You have
+told me that, since--oh, since I can remember, and I have always told
+you--you know we are cousins, anyway--second cousins." She shook her
+head.
+
+"Under the heart of the flinty hill lies the coal," he said simply.
+
+But she did not understand him. She had looked down and seen Harry's
+foot-track on the moss.
+
+And so they sat until the first star arose and shimmered through the
+blue mist which lay around the far off purpling hill tops. Then there
+was the clang of a dinner bell.
+
+"It is Mammy Maria," she said--"I must go. No--you must not walk
+home with me. I'd rather be alone."
+
+She did not intend it, but it was brutal to have said it that way--to
+the sensitive heart it went to. He looked hurt for a moment and then
+tried to smile in a weak way. Then he raised his hat gallantly,
+turned and went off down the gulch.
+
+Helen stood looking for the last time on the pretty arbor. Here she
+had lost her heart--her life. She fell on the moss again and kissed
+the stone. Then she walked home--in tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+HILLARD WATTS
+
+
+It is good for the world now and then to go back to first principles
+in religion. It would be better for it never to get away from them;
+but, since it has that way of doing--of breeding away and breaking
+away from the innate good--it is well that a man should be born in
+any age with the faith of Abraham.
+
+It matters not from what source such a man may spring. And he need
+have no known pedigree at all, except an honest ancestry behind him.
+
+Such a man was Hillard Watts, the Cottontown preacher.
+
+Sprung from the common people of the South, he was a most uncommon
+man, in that he had an absolute faith in God and His justice, and an
+absolute belief that some redeeming goodness lay in every human
+being, however depraved he may seem to the world. And so firm was his
+faith, so simple his religion--so contrary to the worldliness of the
+religion of his day,--that the very practice of it made him an
+uncommon man.
+
+As the overseer of General Jeremiah Travis's large estate before the
+war, he proved by his success that even slaves work better for
+kindness. Of infinite good sense, but little education, he had a mind
+that went to the heart of things, and years ago the fame of his
+homely but pithy sayings stuck in the community. In connection with
+kindness to his negroes one of his sayings was, "Oh, kindness can't
+be classified--it takes in the whole world or nothin'."
+
+When General Travis got into dire financial straits once, he sent for
+his overseer, and advised with him as to the expediency of giving up.
+The overseer, who knew the world and its ways with all the good
+judgment of his nature, dryly remarked: "That'll never do. Never let
+the world know you've quit; an' let the undertaker that buries you be
+the fust man to find out you're busted."
+
+General Travis laughed, and that season one of his horses won the
+Tennessee Valley Futurity, worth thirty-thousand dollars--and the
+splendid estate was again free from debt.
+
+There was not a negro on the place who did not love the overseer, not
+one who did not carry that love to the extent of doing his best to
+please him. He had never been known to punish one, and yet the work
+done by the Travis hands was proverbial.
+
+Among his duties as overseer, the entire charge of the Westmore
+stable of thoroughbreds fell to his care. This was as much from love
+as choice, for never was a man born with more innate love of all dumb
+creatures than the preacher-overseer.
+
+"I've allers contended that a man could love God an' raise horses, too,"
+he would say; and it was ludicrous to see him when he went off to the
+races, filling the tent trunk with religious tracts, which, after the
+races, he would distribute to all who would read them. And when night
+came he would regularly hold prayers in his tent--prayer-meetings in
+which his auditors were touts, stable-boys and gamblers. And woe to the
+stable-boy who uttered an oath in his presence or dared to strike or
+maltreat any of his horses!
+
+He preached constantly against gambling on the races. "That's the
+Devil's end of it," he would say--"The Almighty lets us raise good
+horses as a benefit to mankind, an' the best one wins the purse. It
+was the Devil's idea that turned 'em into gambling machines."
+
+No one ever doubted the honesty of his races. When the Travis horses
+ran, the racing world knew they ran for blood.
+
+Physically, he had been an athlete--a giant, and unconscious of his
+strength. Incidentally, he had taken to wrestling when a boy, and as
+a man his fame as a wrestler was coincident with the Tennessee
+Valley. It was a manly sport which gave him great pleasure, just as
+would the physical development of one of his race horses. Had he
+lived in the early days of Greece, he would have won in the Olympian
+wrestling match.
+
+There was in Hillard Watts a trait which is one of the most
+pronounced of his type of folks,--a sturdy, honest humor. Humor, but
+of the Cromwell type--and withal, a kind that went with praying and
+fighting. Possessed, naturally, of a strong mind of great good sense,
+he had learned to read and write by studying the Bible--the only book
+he had ever read through and through and which he seemed to know by
+heart. He was earnest and honest in all things, but in his
+earnestness and strong fight for right living there was the twinkle
+of humor. Life, with him, was a serious fight, but ever through the
+smoke of its battle there gleamed the bright sun of a kindly humor.
+
+The overseer's home was a double log hut on the side of the mountain.
+His plantation, he called it,--for having been General Travis's
+overseer, he could not imagine any farm being less than a plantation.
+
+It consisted of forty acres of flinty land on the mountain side--"too
+po' to sprout cow-peas," as his old wife would always add--"but hits
+pow'ful for blackberries, an' if we can just live till blackberry
+time comes we can take keer ourselves."
+
+Mrs. Watts had not a lazy bone in her body. Her religion was work:
+"Hit's nature's remedy," she would add--"wuck and five draps o'
+turpentine if you're feelin' po'ly."
+
+She despised her husband's ways and thought little of his religion.
+Her tongue was frightful--her temper worse. Her mission on
+earth--aside from work--work--work--was to see that too much peace
+and good will did not abide long in the same place.
+
+Elder Butts, the Hard-Shell preacher, used to say: "She can go to the
+full of the moon mighty nigh every month 'thout raisin' a row, if
+hard pressed for time an' she thinks everybody else around her is
+miser'ble. But if things look too peaceful and happy, she'll raise
+sand in the last quarter or bust. The Bishop's a good man, but if he
+ever gits to heaven, the bigges' diamon' in his crown'll be because
+he's lived with that old 'oman an' ain't committed murder. I don't
+believe in law suits, but if he ain't got a damage case agin the
+preacher that married him, then I'm wrong."
+
+But no one ever heard the old man use harsher language in speaking of
+her than to remark that she was "a female Jineral--that's what
+Tabitha is."
+
+Perhaps she was, and but for her the Bishop and his household had
+starved long ago.
+
+"Furagin' is her strong point"--he would always add--"she'd made
+Albert Sydney Johnston a great chief of commissary."
+
+And there was not an herb of any value that Mrs. Watts did not know
+all about. Any fair day she might be seen on the mountain side
+plucking edibles. Ginseng was her money crop, and every spring she
+would daily go into the mountain forests and come back with enough of
+its roots to help them out in the winter's pinch.
+
+"Now, if anybody'll study Nature," she would say, "they'll see she
+never cal'c'lated to fetch us here 'ithout makin' 'lowance fur to
+feed us. The fus' thing that comes up is dandelions--an' I don't want
+to stick my tooth in anything that's better than dandelion greens
+biled with hog-jowl. I like a biled dinner any way. Sas'fras tea
+comes mighty handy with dandelions in the spring, an' them two'll
+carry us through April. Then comes wild lettice an' tansy-tea--that's
+fur May. Blackberries is good fur June an' the jam'll take us through
+winter if Bull Run and Appomattox ain' too healthy. In the summer we
+can live on garden truck, an' in the fall there is wild reddishes an'
+water-cresses an' spatterdock, an' nuts an' pertatoes come in mighty
+handy fur winter wuck. Why, I was born wuckin'--when I was a gal I
+cooked, washed and done house-work for a family of ten, an' then had
+time to spin ten hanks o' yarn a day."
+
+"Now there's the old man--he's too lazy to wuck--he's like all
+parsons, he'd rather preach aroun' all his life on a promise of
+heaven than to wuck on earth for cash!"
+
+"How did I ever come to marry Hillard Watts? Wal, he wa'n't that
+triflin' when I married him. He didn't have so much religiun then.
+But I've allers noticed a man's heredity for no-countness craps out
+after he's married. Lookin' back now I reckin' I married him jes' to
+res' myself. When I'm wuckin' an' git tired, I watches Hillard doin'
+nothin' awhile an' it hopes me pow'ful."
+
+"He gits so busy at it an' seems so contented an' happy."
+
+Besides his wife there were five grandchildren in his
+family--children of the old man's son by his second wife. "Their
+father tuck after his stepmother," he would explain regretfully, "an'
+wucked hisself to death in the cotton factory. The dust an' lint give
+him consumption. He was the only man I ever seed that tuck after his
+stepmother"--he added sadly.
+
+An old soldier never gets over the war. It has left a nervous shock
+in his make-up--a memory in all his after life which takes precedence
+over all other things. The old man had the naming of the
+grandchildren, and he named them after the battles of the Civil war.
+Bull Run and Seven Days were the boys. Atlanta, Appomattox and Shiloh
+were the girls. His apology for Shiloh was: "You see I thout I'd name
+the last one Appomattox. Then came a little one befo' her mammy died,
+so weak an' pitiful I named her Shiloh."
+
+It was the boast of their grandmother--that these children--even
+little Shiloh--aged seven--worked from ten to twelve hours every day
+in the cotton factory, rising before day and working often into the
+night, with forty minutes at noon for lunch.
+
+They had not had a holiday since Christmas, and on the last
+anniversary of that day they had worked until ten o'clock, making up
+for lost time. Their pay was twenty-five cents a day--except Shiloh,
+who received fifteen.
+
+"But I'll soon be worth mo', pap," she would say as she crawled up
+into the old man's lap--her usual place when she had eaten her supper
+and wanted to rest. "An you know what I'm gwine do with my other
+nickel every day? I'm gwine give it to the po' people of Indy an'
+China you preaches about."
+
+And thus she would prattle--too young to know that, through the
+cupidity of white men, in this--the land of freedom and
+progress--she--this blue-eyed, white-skinned child of the Saxon race,
+was making the same wages as the Indian sepoy and the Chinese coolie.
+
+It was Saturday night and after the old man had put Shiloh to bed, he
+mounted his horse and rode across the mountain to Westmoreland.
+
+"Oh," said the old lady--"he's gwine over to Miss Alice's to git his
+Sunday School less'n. An' I'd like to know what good Sunday school
+less'ns 'll do any body. If folks'd git in the habit of wuckin' mo'
+an' prayin' less, the worl'ud be better off, an' they'd really have
+somethin' to be thankful fur when Sunday comes, 'stid of livin' frum
+han' to mouth an' trustin' in some unknown God to cram feed in you'
+crops."
+
+Hardened by poverty, work, and misfortune, she was the soul of
+pessimism.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WESTMORELAND
+
+
+From The Gaffs to Westmoreland, the home of Alice Westmore, was
+barely two miles up the level white pike.
+
+Jim sat in the buggy at The Gaffs holding the horses while Richard
+Travis, having eaten his supper, was lighting a cigar and drawing on
+his overcoat, preparatory to riding over to Westmoreland.
+
+The trotters stood at the door tossing their heads and eager to be
+off. They were cherry bays and so much alike that even Jim sometimes
+got them mixed. They were clean-limbed and racy looking, with flanks
+well drawn up, but with a broad bunch of powerful muscles which
+rolled from hip to back, making a sturdy back for the splendid full
+tails which almost touched the ground. In front they stood up
+straight, deep-chested, with clean bony heads, large luminous eyes
+and long slender ears, tapering into a point as velvety and soft as
+the tendril-bud on the tip of a Virginia creeper.
+
+They stood shifting the bits nervously. The night air was cool and
+they wanted to go.
+
+Travis came out and sprang from the porch to the buggy seat with the
+quick, sure footing of an athlete. Jim sat on the offside and passed
+him the lines just as he sang cheerily out:
+
+"Heigh-ho--my honies--go!"
+
+The two mares bounded away so quickly and keenly that the near mare
+struck her quarters and jumped up into the air, running. Her off mate
+settled to work, trotting as steadily as a bolting Caribou, but
+pulling viciously.
+
+Travis twisted the near bit with a deft turn of his left wrist, and
+as the two mares settled to their strides there was but one stroke
+from their shoes, so evenly and in unison did they trot. Down the
+level road they flew, Travis sitting gracefully upright and holding
+the lines in that sure, yet careless way which comes to the expert
+driver with power in his arms.
+
+"How many times must I tell you, Jim," he said at last rather
+gruffly--"never to bring them out, even for the road, without their
+boots? Didn't you see Lizette grab her quarters and fly up just now?"
+
+Jim was duly penitent.
+
+Travis let them out a link. They flew down a soft, cool graveled
+stretch. He drew them in at the sound of an ominous click. It came
+from Sadie B.
+
+"Sadie B.'s forging again. Didn't I tell you to have the blacksmith
+move her hind shoes back a little?"
+
+"I did, sir," said Jim.
+
+"You've got no weight on her front feet, then," said Travis
+critically.
+
+"Not to-night, sir--I took off the two ounces thinking you'd not
+speed them to-night, sir."
+
+"You never know when I'm going to speed them. The night is as good as
+the day when I want a tonic."
+
+They had reached the big stone posts which marked the boundary of
+Westmoreland. A little farther on the mares wheeled into the gate,
+for it was open and lay, half on the ground, hanging by one hinge. It
+had not been painted for years. The driveway, too, had been
+neglected. The old home, beautiful even in its decay, sat in a fine
+beech grove on the slope of a hill. A wide veranda, with marble
+flag-stones as a base, ran across the front. Eight Corinthian pillars
+sentineled it, resting on a marble base which seemed to spring up out
+of the flag-stones themselves, and towering to the projecting
+entablature above.
+
+On one side an ell could be seen, covered with ivy. On the other the
+roof of a hot-house, with the glass broken out.
+
+It touched even Richard Travis--this decay. He had known the place in
+the days of its glory before its proprietor, Colonel Theodore
+Westmore, broken by the war, in spirit and in pocket, had sent a
+bullet into his brain and ended the bitter fight with debt. Since
+then, no one but the widow and her daughter knew what the fight had
+been, for Clay Westmore, the brother, was but a boy and in college at
+the time. He had graduated only a few months before, and was now at
+home, wrapped up, as Richard Travis had heard, in what to him was a
+visionary scheme of some sort for discovering a large area of coal
+and iron thereabouts. He had heard, too, that the young man had taken
+hold of what had been left, and that often he had been seen following
+the plough himself.
+
+Travis drove through the driveway--then he pulled up the mares very
+gently, got out and felt of their flanks.
+
+"Take them to the barn and rub them off," he said, "while you wait.
+And for a half hour bandage their hind legs--I don't want any wind
+puffs from road work."
+
+He started into the house. Then he turned and said: "Be here at the
+door, Jim, by ten o'clock, sharp. I shall make another call after
+this. Mind you now, ten o'clock, sharp."
+
+At the library he knocked and walked in.
+
+Mrs. Westmore sat by the fire. She was a small, daintily-made woman,
+and beautiful even at fifty-five. She had keen, black eyes and
+nervous, flighty ways. A smile, half cynical, half inviting, lit up
+continuously her face.
+
+"Richard?" she said, rising and taking his hand.
+
+"Cousin Alethea--I thought you were Alice and I was going to surprise
+her."
+
+Mrs. Westmore laughed her metallic little laugh. It was habit. She
+intended it to be reassuring, but too much of it made one nervous. It
+was the laugh without the soul in it--the eye open and lighted, but
+dead. It was a Damascus blade falling from the stricken arm to the
+stone pavement and not against the ringing steel of an opponent.
+
+"You will guess, of course, where she is," she said after they were
+seated.
+
+"No?" from Travis.
+
+"Getting their Sunday School lesson--she, Uncle Bisco, and the
+Bishop."
+
+Travis frowned and gave a nervous twitch of his shoulders as he
+turned around to find himself a chair.
+
+"No one knows just how we feel towards Uncle Bisco and his wife,"
+went on Mrs. Westmore in half apology--"she has been with us so long
+and is now so old and helpless since they were freed; their children
+have all left them--gone--no one knows where. And so Uncle Bisco and
+Aunt Charity are as helpless as babes, and but for Alice they would
+suffer greatly."
+
+A sudden impulse seized Travis: "Let us go and peep in on them. We
+shall have a good joke on Her Majesty."
+
+Mrs. Westmore laughed, and they slipped quietly out to Uncle Bisco's
+cabin. Down a shrubbery-lined walk they went--then through the woods
+across a field. It was a long walk, but the path was firm and good,
+and the moon lit it up. They came to the little cabin at last, in the
+edge of another wood. Then they slipped around and peeped in the
+window.
+
+A small kerosene lamp sat on a table lighting up a room scrupulously
+clean.
+
+Uncle Bisco was very old. His head was, in truth, a cotton plant full
+open. His face was intelligent, grave--such a face as Howard Weeden
+only could draw from memory. He had finished his supper, and from the
+remnants left on the plate it was plain that Alice Westmore had
+prepared for the old man dainties which she, herself, could not
+afford to indulge in.
+
+By him sat his old wife, and on the other side of the fireplace was
+the old overseer, his head also white, his face strong and
+thoughtful. He was clean shaven, save a patch of short white
+chin-whiskers, and his big straight nose had a slight hook of
+shrewdness in it.
+
+Alice Westmore was reading the chapter--her voice added to it an
+hundred fold: "Let not your heart be troubled.... Ye believe in God,
+believe also in me.... In my Father's house are many mansions...!"
+
+The lamplight fell on her hair. It was brown where the light flashed
+over it, and lay in rippling waves around her temples in a splendid
+coil down the arch of her neck, and shining in strong contrast
+through the gauzy dark sheen of her black gown. But where the light
+fell, there was that suspicion of red which the last faint tendril a
+dying sunbeam throws out in a parting clutch at the bosom of a cloud.
+
+It gave one a feeling of the benediction of twilight.
+
+And when she looked up, her eyes were the blessings poured
+out--luminous, helpful, uplifting, restful,--certain of life and
+immortality, full of all that which one sees not, when awake, but
+only when in the borderland of sleep, and memory, unleashed, tracks
+back on the trail of sweet days which once were.
+
+They spake indeed always thus: "Let not your heart be troubled....
+Peace, be still."
+
+Her face did not seem to be a separate thing--apart--as with most
+women. For there are women whose hair is one thing and whose face is
+another. The hair is beautiful, pure, refined. The face beautiful,
+merely. The hair decorous, quiet, unadorned and debauched not by
+powder and paint, stands aloof as Desdemona, Ophelia or Rosalind. The
+face, brazen, with a sharp-tongued, vulgar queen of a thing in its
+center, on a throne, surrounded by perfumed nymphs, under the sensual
+glare of two rose-colored lamps, sits and holds a Du Barry court.
+
+They are neighbors, but not friends, and they live in the same
+sphere, held together only by the law of gravity which holds to one
+spot of earth the rose and the ragwort. And the hair, like the rose,
+in all the purity of its own rich sweetness, all the naturalness of
+its soul, sits and looks down upon the face as a queen would over the
+painted yellow thing thrust by the law of life into her presence.
+
+But the face of Alice Westmore was companion to her hair. The
+firelight fell on it; and while the glow from the lamp fell on her
+hair in sweet twilight shadows of good night, the rosy, purple beams
+of the cheerful firelight lit up her face with the sweet glory of a
+perpetual good morning.
+
+Travis stood looking at her forgetful of all else. His lips were
+firmly set, as of a strong mind looking on its life-dream, the quarry
+of his hunter-soul all but in his grasp. Flashes of hope and little
+twists of fear were there; then, as he looked again, she raised, half
+timidly, her face as a Madonna asking for a blessing; and around his,
+crept in the smile which told of hope long deferred.
+
+Selfish, impure, ambitious, forceful and masterful as he was, he
+stood hopeless and hungry-hearted before this pure woman. She had
+been the dream of his life--all times--always--since he could
+remember.
+
+To own her--to win her!
+
+As he looked up, the hardness of his face attracted even Mrs.
+Westmore, smiling by his side at the scene before her. She looked up
+at Travis, but when she saw his face the smile went out of hers. It
+changed to fear.
+
+All the other passions in his face had settled into one cruel cynical
+smile around his mouth--a smile of winning or of death.
+
+For the first time in her life she feared Richard Travis.
+
+"I must go now," said Alice Westmore to the old men--"but I'll sing
+you a verse or two."
+
+The overseer leaned back in his chair. Uncle Bisco stooped forward,
+his chin resting on his hickory staff.
+
+And then like the clear notes of a spring, dripping drop by drop with
+a lengthening cadence into the covered pool of a rock-lined basin,
+came a simple Sunday School song the two old men loved so well.
+
+There were tears in the old negro's eyes when she had finished. Then
+he sobbed like a child.
+
+Alice Westmore arose to go.
+
+"Now, Bishop--" she smiled at the overseer--"don't keep Uncle Bisco up
+all night talking about the war, and if you don't come by the house and
+chat with mamma and me awhile, we'll be jealous."
+
+The overseer looked up: "Miss Alice--I'm an ole man an' we ole men all
+dream dreams when night comes. Moods come over us and, look where we
+will, it all leads back to the sweet paths of the past. To-day--all
+day--my mind has been on"--he stopped, afraid to pronounce the word and
+hunting around in the scanty lexicon of his mind for some phrase of
+speech, some word even that might not awaken in Alice Westmore memories
+of the past.
+
+Richard Travis had an intuition of things as naturally as an eagle has
+the homing instinct, however high in air and beyond all earth's
+boundaries he flies. In this instance Mrs. Westmore also had it, for she
+looked up quickly at the man beside her. All the other emotions had
+vanished from his face save the one appealing look which said: "Come,
+let us go--we have heard enough."
+
+Then they slipped back into the house.
+
+Alice Westmore had stopped, smiling back from the doorway.
+
+"On what, Bishop?" she finally asked.
+
+He shook his head. "Jus' the dream of an ole man," he said. "Don't
+bother about us two ole men. I'll be 'long presently."
+
+"Bisco," said the old preacher after a while, "come mighty nigh
+makin' a break then--but I've been thinkin' of Cap'n Tom all day. I
+can't throw it off."
+
+Bisco shook his head solemnly. "So have I--so have I. The older I
+gits, the mo' I miss Marse Tom."
+
+"I don't like the way things are goin'--in yonder"--and the preacher
+nodded his head toward the house.
+
+Uncle Bisco looked cautiously around to see that no one was near:
+"He's doin' his bes'--the only thing is whether she can forgit Marse
+Tom."
+
+"Bisco, it ain't human nature for her to stan' up agin all that's
+brought to bear on her. Cap'n Tom is dead. Love is only human at
+las', an' like all else that's human it mus' fade away if it ain't
+fed. It's been ten years an' mo'--sence--Cap'n Tom's light went out."
+
+"The last day of November--'64--" said Uncle Bisco, "I was thar an'
+seed it. It was at the Franklin fight."
+
+"An' Dick Travis has loved her from his youth," went on the overseer,
+"an' he loves her now, an' he's a masterful man."
+
+"So is the Devil," whispered Uncle Bisco, "an' didn't he battle with
+the angels of the Lord an' mighty nigh hurled 'em from the crystal
+battlements."
+
+"Bisco, I know him--I've knowed him from youth. He's a conjurin'
+man--a man who does things--he'll win her--he'll marry her yet.
+She'll not love him as she did Cap'n Tom. No--she'll never love
+again. But life is one thing an' love is another, an' it ain't often
+they meet in the same person. Youth mus' live even if it don't love,
+an' the law of nature is the law of life."
+
+"I'm afeered so," said the old negro, shaking his head, "I'm afeered
+it'll be that way--but--I'd ruther see her die to-night."
+
+"If God lets it be," said the preacher, "Bisco, if God lets it be--"
+he said excitedly, "if he'll let Cap'n Tom die an' suffer the
+martyrdom he suffered for conscience sake an' be robbed, as he was
+robbed, of his home, an' of his love--if God'll do that, then all I
+can say is, that after a long life walkin' with God, it'll be the
+fus' time I've ever knowed Him to let the wrong win out in the end.
+An' that ain't the kind of God I'm lookin' fur."
+
+"Do you say that, Marse Hillyard?" asked the old negro quickly--his
+eyes taking on the light of hope as one who, weak, comes under the
+influence of a stronger mind. "Marse Hillyard, do you believe it?
+Praise God."
+
+"Bisco--I'm--I'm ashamed--why should I doubt Him--He's told me a
+thousand truths an' never a lie."
+
+"Praise God," replied the old man softly.
+
+And so the two old men talked on, and their talk was of Captain Tom.
+No wonder when the old preacher mounted his horse to go back to his
+little cabin, all of his thoughts were of Captain Tom. No wonder
+Uncle Bisco, who had raised him, went to bed and dreamed of Captain
+Tom--dreamed and saw again the bloody Franklin fight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING
+
+
+In the library, Travis and Mrs. Westmore sat for some time in
+silence. Travis, as usual, smoked, in his thoughtful way watching the
+firelight which flickered now and then, half lighting up the room. It
+was plain that both were thinking of a subject that neither wished to
+be the first to bring up.
+
+"I have been wanting all day to ask you about the mortgage," she said
+to him, finally.
+
+"Oh," said Travis, indifferently enough--"that's all right. I
+arranged it at the bank to-day."
+
+"I am so much obliged to you; it has been so on my mind," said his
+companion. "We women are such poor financiers, I wonder how you men
+ever have patience to bother with us. Did you get Mr. Shipton to
+carry it at the bank for another year?"
+
+"Why--I--you see, Cousin Alethea--Shipton's a close dog--and the most
+unaccommodating fellow that ever lived when it comes to money. And
+so--er--well--the truth is--is--I had to act quickly and for what I
+thought was your interest."
+
+Mrs. Westmore looked up quickly, and Travis saw the pained look in
+her face. "So I bought it in myself," he went on, carelessly flecking
+his cigar ashes into the fire. "I just had the judgment and sale
+transferred to me--to accommodate you--Cousin Alethea--you
+understand that--entirely for you. I hate to see you bothered this
+way--I'll carry it as long as you wish."
+
+She thanked him again, more with her eyes than her voice. Then there
+crept over her face that look of trouble and sorrow, unlike any
+Travis had ever seen there. Once seen on any human face it is always
+remembered, for it is the same, the world over, upon its millions and
+millions--that deadened look of trouble which carries with it the
+knowledge that the spot called home is lost forever.
+
+There are many shifting photographs from the camera called sorrow,
+pictured on the delicate plate of the human soul or focused in the
+face. There is the crushed look when Death takes the loved one, the
+hardened look when an ideal is shattered, the look of dismay from
+wrecked hopes and the cynical look from wrecked happiness--but none
+of these is the numbed and dumb look of despair which confronts
+humanity when the home is gone.
+
+It runs not alone through the man family, but every other animal as
+well, from the broken-hearted bird which sits on the nearby limb, and
+sees the wreck of her home by the ravages of a night-prowling
+marauder, to the squalidest of human beings, turning their backs
+forever on the mud-hut that had once sheltered them.
+
+To Mrs. Westmore it was a keen grief. Here had she come as a
+bride--here had she lived since--here had been born her two
+children--here occurred the great sorrow of her life.
+
+And the sacredest memory, at last, of life, lies not in the
+handclasp of a coming joy, but in the footfall of a vanishing sorrow.
+
+Westmoreland meant everything to Mrs. Westmore--the pride of birth,
+of social standing, the ties of motherhood, the very altar of her
+life. And it was her husband's name and her own family. It meant she
+was not of common clay, nor unknown, nor without influence. It was
+bound around and woven into her life, and part of her very existence.
+
+Home in the South means more than it does anywhere else on earth; for
+local self-government--wherever the principle came from--finds its
+very altar there. States-right is nothing but the home idea,
+stretched over the state and bounded by certain lines. The peculiar
+institutions of the South made every home a castle, a town, a
+government, a kingdom in itself, in which the real ruler is a queen.
+
+Ask the first negro or child met in the road, whose home is this, or
+that, and one would think the entire Southland was widowed.
+
+From the day she had entered it as a bride, Westmoreland, throughout
+the County, had been known as the home of Mrs. Westmore.
+
+She was proud of it. She loved it with that love which had come down
+through a long line of cavaliers loving their castles.
+
+And now she knew it must go, as well as that, sooner or later, Death
+itself must come.
+
+She knew Richard Travis, and she knew that, if from his life were
+snatched the chance of making Alice Westmore his wife he would sell
+the place as cold-bloodedly as Shipton would.
+
+Travis sat smoking, but reading her. He spelled her thoughts as
+easily as if they had been written on her forehead, for he was a man
+who spelled. He smoked calmly and indifferently, but the one question
+of his heart--the winning of Alice,--surged in his breast and it
+said: "Now is the time--now--buy her--the mother. This is the one
+thing which is her price."
+
+He looked at Mrs. Westmore again. He scanned her closely, from her
+foot to the dainty head of beautiful, half-grey hair. He could read
+her as an open book--her veneration of all Westmoreland things--her
+vanity--her pride of home and name and position; the overpowering
+independence of that vanity which made her hold up her head in
+company, just as in the former days, tho' to do it she must work,
+scrub, pinch, ay, even go hungry.
+
+He knew it all and he knew it better than she guessed--that it had
+actually come to a question of food with them; that her son was a
+geological dreamer, just out of college, and that Alice's meagre
+salary at the run-down female college where she taught music was all
+that stood between them and poverty of the bitterest kind.
+
+For there is no poverty like the tyranny of that which sits on the
+erstwhile throne of plenty.
+
+He glanced around the room--the hall--the home--in his mind's
+eye--and wondered how she did it--how she managed that poverty should
+leave no trace of itself in the home, the well furnished and elegant
+old home, from its shining, polished furniture and old silver to the
+oiled floor of oak and ash.
+
+Could he buy her--bribe her, win her to work for him? He started to
+speak and say: "Cousin Alethea, may not all this be stopped, this
+debt and poverty and make-believe--this suffering of pride,
+transfixed by the spears of poverty? Let you and me arrange it, and
+all so satisfactorily. I have loved Alice all my life."
+
+There is the fool in every one of us. And that is what the fool in
+Richard Travis wished him to say. What he did say was:
+
+"Oh, it was nothing but purely business on my part--purely business.
+I had the money and was looking for a good investment. I was glad to
+find it. There are a hundred acres and the house left. And by the
+way, Cousin Alethea, I just added five-hundred dollars more to the
+principal,--thought, perhaps, you'd need it, you know? You'll find it
+to your credit at Shipton's bank."
+
+He smoked on as if he thought it was nothing. As a business fact he
+knew the place was already mortgaged for all it was worth.
+
+"Oh, how can we ever thank you enough?"
+
+Travis glanced at her when she spoke. He flushed when he heard her
+place a slight accent on the we. She glanced at him and then looked
+into the fire. But in their glances which met, they both saw that the
+other knew and understood.
+
+"And by the way, Cousin Alethea," said Travis after a while, "of
+course it is not necessary to let Alice know anything of this
+business. It will only worry her unnecessarily."
+
+"Of course not," said Mrs. Westmore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A STAR AND A SATELLITE
+
+
+An hour later Mrs. Westmore had gone to her room and Alice had been
+singing his favorite songs. Her singing always had a peculiar
+influence over Richard Travis--a moral influence, which, perhaps, was
+the secret of its power; and all influence which is permanent is
+moral. There was in it for him an uplifting force that he never
+experienced save in her presence and under the influence of her
+songs.
+
+He was a brilliant man and he knew that if he won Alice Westmore it
+must be done on a high plane. Women were his playthings--he had won
+them by the score and flung them away when won. But all his
+life--even when a boy--he had dreamed of finally winning Alice
+Westmore and settling down.
+
+Like all men who were impure, he made the mistake of thinking that
+one day, when he wished, he could be pure.
+
+Such a man may marry, but it is a thing of convenience, a matter in
+which he selects some woman, who he knows will not be his mistress,
+to become his housekeeper.
+
+And thus she plods along in life, differing eventually only from his
+mistress in that she is the mother of his children.
+
+In all Richard's longings, too, for Alice Westmore, there was an
+unconscious cause. He did not know it because he could not know.
+
+Sooner or later love, which is loose, surfeits and sours. It is then
+that it turns instinctively to the pure, as the Jews, straying from
+their true God and meeting the chastisement of the sword of Babylon,
+turned in their anguish to the city of their King.
+
+Nature is inexorable, and love has its laws as fixed as those which
+hold the stars in their course. And woe to the man or woman who
+transgresses! He who, ere it is ripe, deflowers the bud of blossoming
+love in wantonness and waste, in after years will watch and wait and
+water it with tears, in vain, for that bloom will never come.
+
+She came over by the fire. Her face was flushed; her beautiful sad
+eyes lighted with excitement.
+
+"Do you remember the first time I ever heard you sing, Alice?"
+
+His voice was earnest and full of pathos, for him.
+
+"Was it not when father dressed me as a gypsy girl and I rode my pony
+over to The Gaffs and sang from horse-back for your grandfather?"
+
+He nodded: "I thought you were the prettiest thing I ever saw, and I
+have thought so ever since. That's when I fell in love with you."
+
+"I remember quite distinctly what you did," she said. "You were a big
+boy and you came up behind my pony and jumped on, frightening us
+dreadfully."
+
+"Tried to kiss you, didn't I?"
+
+She laughed: "That was ever a chronic endeavor of your youth."
+
+How pretty she looked. Had it been any other woman he would have
+reached over and taken her hand.
+
+"Overpower her, master her, make her love you by force of arms"--his
+inner voice said.
+
+He turned to the musing woman beside him and mechanically reached out
+his hand. Hers lay on the arm of her chair. The next instant he would
+have dropped his upon it and held it there. But as he made the motion
+her eyes looked up into his, so passion-free and holy that his own
+arm fell by his side.
+
+But the little wave of passion in him only stirred him to his depths.
+Ere she knew it or could stop him he was telling her the story of his
+love for her. Poetry,--romance,--and with it the strength of
+saying,--fell from his lips as naturally as snow from the clouds. He
+went into the history of old loves--how, of all loves they are the
+greatest--of Jacob who served his fourteen years for Rachel, of the
+love of Petrarch, of Dante.
+
+"Do you know Browning's most beautiful poem?" he asked at last. His
+voice was tenderly mellow:
+
+    "All that I know of a certain star
+     Is, it can throw (like the angled spar)
+     Now a dart of red, now a dart of blue;
+     Till my friends have said they would fain see, too,
+     My star that dartles the red and the blue!
+     Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:
+     They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
+     What matter to me if their star is a world?
+     Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it."
+
+"Alice," he said, drawing his chair closer to her, "I know I have no
+such life to offer as you would bring to me. The best we men can do
+is to do the best we can. We are saved only because there is one
+woman we can look to always as our star. There is much of our past
+that we all might wish to change, but change, like work, is the law
+of life, and we must not always dream."
+
+Quietly he had dropped his hand upon hers. Her own eyes were far
+off--they were dreaming. So deep was her dream that she had not
+noticed it. Passion practised, as he was, the torch of her hand
+thrilled him as with wine; and as with wine was he daring.
+
+"I know where your thoughts have been," he went on.
+
+She looked up with a start and her hand slipped from under his into
+her lap. It was a simple movement and involuntary--like that of the
+little brown quail when she slips from the sedge-grass into the
+tangled depths of the blossoming wild blackberry bushes at the far
+off flash of a sharp-shinned hawk-wing, up in the blue. Nor could she
+say whether she saw it, or whether it was merely a shadow, an
+instinctive signal from the innocent courts of the sky to the
+brood-children of her innocence below.
+
+But he saw it and said quickly, changing with it the subject: "At
+least were--but all that has passed. I need you, Alice," he went on
+passionately--"in my life, in my work. My home is there, waiting! It
+has been waiting all these years for you--its mistress--the only
+mistress it shall ever have. Your mother"--Alice looked at him
+surprised.
+
+"Your mother--you,--perhaps, had not thought of that--your mother
+needs the rest and the care we could give her. Our lives are not
+always our own," he went on gravely--"oftentimes it belongs partly to
+others--for their happiness."
+
+He felt that he was striking a winning chord.
+
+"You can love me if you would say so," he said, bending low over her.
+
+This time, when his hand fell on hers, she did not move. Surprised,
+he looked into her eyes. There were tears there.
+
+Travis knew when he had gone far enough. Reverently he kissed her
+hand as he said:
+
+"Never mind--in your own time, Alice. I can wait--I have waited long.
+Twenty years," he added, patiently, even sweetly, "and if need be,
+I'll wait twenty more."
+
+"I'll go now," he said, after a moment.
+
+She looked at him gratefully, and arose. "One moment, Richard," she
+said--"but you were speaking of mother, and knowing your zeal for her
+I was afraid you might--might--the mortgage has been troubling her."
+
+"Oh, no--no"--he broke in quickly--"I did nothing--absolutely
+nothing--though I wanted to for your sake."
+
+"I'm so glad," she said--"we will manage somehow. I am so sensitive
+about such things."
+
+"I'll come to-morrow afternoon and bring your mare."
+
+She smiled, surprised.
+
+"Yes, your mare--I happened on her quite unexpectedly in Tennessee. I
+have bought her for you--she is elegant, and I wish you to ride her
+often. I have given Jim orders that no one but you shall ride her. If
+it is a pretty day to-morrow I shall be around in the afternoon, and
+we will ride down to the bluffs five miles away to see the sunset."
+
+The trotters were at the door. He took her hand as he said good-bye,
+and held it while he added:
+
+"Maybe you'd better forget all I said to-night--be patient with
+me--remember how long I have waited."
+
+He was off and sprang into the buggy, elated. Never before had she
+let him hold her hand even for a moment. He felt, he knew, that he
+would win her.
+
+He turned the horses and drove off.
+
+From Westmoreland Travis drove straight toward the town. The
+trotters, keen and full of play, flew along, tossing their queenly
+heads in the very exuberance of life.
+
+At The Gaffs, he drew rein: "Now, Jim, I'll be back at midnight. You
+sleep light until I come in, and have their bedding dry and blankets
+ready."
+
+He tossed the boy a dollar as he drove off.
+
+Up the road toward the town he drove, finally slackening his
+trotters' speed as he came into the more thickly settled part of the
+outskirts. Sand Mountain loomed high in the faint moonlight, and at
+its base, in the outposts of the town, arose the smoke-stack of the
+cotton mills.
+
+Around it lay Cottontown.
+
+Slowly he brought the nettled trotters down to a walk. Quietly he
+turned them into a shaded lane, overhung with forest trees, near
+which a cottage, one of the many belonging to the mill, stood in the
+shadow of the forest.
+
+Stopping his horses in the shadow, he drew out his watch and pressed
+the stem. It struck eleven.
+
+He drew up the buggy-top and taking the little silver whistle from
+his pocket, gave a low whistle.
+
+It was ten minutes later before the side door of the cottage opened
+softly and a girl came noiselessly out. She slipped out, following
+the shadow line of the trees until she came up to the buggy. Then she
+threw the shawl from off her face and head and stood smiling up at
+Travis. It had been a pretty face, but now it was pinched by overwork
+and there was the mingling both of sadness and gladness in her eyes.
+But at sight of Travis she blushed joyfully, and deeper still when he
+held out his hand and drew her into the buggy and up to the seat
+beside him.
+
+"Maggie"--was all he whispered. Then he kissed her passionately on
+her lips. "I am glad I came," he went on, as he put one arm around
+her and drew her to him--"you're flushed and the ride will do you
+good."
+
+She was satisfied to let her head lie on his shoulder.
+
+"They are beauties"--she said after a while, as the trotters'
+thrilling, quick step brought the blood tingling to her veins.
+
+"Beauties for the beauty," said Travis, kissing her again. Her brown
+hair was in his face and the perfume of it went through him like the
+whistling flash of the first wild doe he had killed in his first
+boyish hunt and which he never forgot.
+
+"You do love me," she said at last, looking up into his face, where
+her head rested. She could not move because his arm held her girlish
+form to him with an overpowering clasp.
+
+"Why?" he asked, kissing her again and in sheer passionate excess
+holding his lips on hers until she could not speak, but only look
+love with her eyes. When she could, she sighed and said:
+
+"Because, you could not make me so happy if you didn't."
+
+He relaxed his arm to control the trotters, which were going too fast
+down the road. She sat up by his side and went on.
+
+"Do you know I have thought lots about what you said last Saturday
+night?"
+
+"Why, what?" he asked.
+
+She looked pained that he had forgotten.
+
+"About--about--our bein' married to each
+other--even--even--if--if--there's no preacher. You know--that true
+love makes marriages, and not a ceremony--and--and--that the heart is
+the priest to all of us, you know!"
+
+Travis said nothing. He had forgotten all about it.
+
+"One thing I wrote down in my little book when I got back home an'
+memorized it--Oh, you can say such beautiful things."
+
+He seized her and kissed her again.
+
+"I am so happy with you--always--" she laughed.
+
+He drove toward the shaded trees down by the river.
+
+"I want you to see how the setting moonlight looks on the river," he
+said. "There is nothing in all nature like it. It floats like a
+crescent above, falling into the arms of its companion below. All
+nature is love and never fails to paint a love scene in preference
+to all others, if permitted. How else can you account for it making
+two lover moons fall into each other's arms," he laughed.
+
+She looked at him enraptured. It was the tribute which mediocrity
+pays to genius.
+
+Presently they passed by Westmoreland, and from Alice's window a
+light shone far out into the golden tinged leaves of the beeches
+near.
+
+Travis glanced up at it. Then at the pretty mill-girl by his side:
+
+"A star and--a satellite!"--he smiled to himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A MIDNIGHT BURIAL
+
+
+It was growing late when the old preacher left Westmoreland and rode
+leisurely back toward the cabin on Sand Mountain. The horse he was
+riding--a dilapidated roan--was old and blind, but fox-trotted along
+with the easy assurance of having often travelled the same road.
+
+The bridle rested on the pommel of the saddle. The old man's head was
+bent in deep thought, and the roan, his head also down and half
+dreaming, jogged into the dark shadows which formed a wooded gulch,
+leading into the valley and from thence into the river.
+
+There is in us an unnameable spiritual quality which, from lack of a
+more specific name, we call mental telepathy. Some day we shall know
+more about it, just as some day we shall know what unknown force it
+is which draws the needle to the pole.
+
+It is the border land of the spiritual--a touch of it, given, to let
+us know there is more and in great abundance in the country to which
+we ultimately shall go,--a glimpse of the kingdom which is to be.
+
+To-night, this influence was on the old man. The theme of his
+thoughts was, Captain Tom. Somehow he felt that even then Captain Tom
+was near him. How--where--why--he could not tell. He merely felt it.
+
+And so the very shadows of the trees grew uncanny to him as he rode
+by them and the slight wind among them mourned _Captain
+Tom--Captain Tom_.
+
+It was a desolate place in the narrow mountain road and scarcely
+could the old man see the white sand which wound in and through it,
+and then out again on the opposite side into the clearing beyond the
+scraggy side of Sand Mountain. But the horse knew every foot of the
+way, and though it was always night with him, instinct had taught him
+a sure footing.
+
+Suddenly the rider was awakened from his reverie by the old horse
+stopping so suddenly as almost to unseat him. With a snort the roan
+had stopped and had thrown up his head, quivering with fear, while
+with his nose he was trying to smell out the queer thing which stood
+in his path.
+
+The moon broke out from behind a cloud at the same moment, and there,
+in the middle of the road, not ten yards from him, stood a heavily
+built, rugged, black-bearded man in a ragged slouched hat and
+pointing a heavy revolver at the rider's head.
+
+"Hands up, Hillard Watts!"
+
+The old man looked quietly into the muzzle of the revolver and said,
+with a laugh:
+
+"This ain't 'zactly my benediction time, Jack Bracken, an' I've no
+notion of h'istin' my arms an' axin' a blessin' over you an' that old
+pistol. Put it up an' tell me what you want," he said more softly.
+
+"Well, you do know me," said the man, coming forward and thrusting
+his pistol into its case. "I wa'nt sho' it was you," he said, "and I
+wa'nt sho' you'd kno' me if it was. In my business I have to be
+mighty keerful," he added with a slight laugh.
+
+He came up to the saddle-skirt and held out his hand, half
+hesitatingly, as he spoke.
+
+The Bishop--as every one knew him--glanced into the face before him
+and saw something which touched him quickly. It was grief-stricken,
+and sorrow sat in the fierce eyes, and in the shadows of the dark
+face. And through it all, a pleading, beseeching appeal for sympathy
+ran as he half doubtingly held out his hand.
+
+"Why,--yes--, I'll take it, Jack, robber that you are," said the old
+man cheerily. "You may not be as bad as they say, an' no man is worse
+than his heart. But what in the worl' do you want to hold up as po' a
+man as me--an' if I do say it, yo' frien' when you was a boy?"
+
+"I know," said the other--"I know. I don't want yo' money, even if
+you had it. I want you. You've come as a God-send. I--I couldn't bury
+him till you'd said somethin'."
+
+His voice choked--he shook with a suppressed sob.
+
+The bishop slid off his horse: "What is it, Jack? You hain't kilt
+anybody, have you?"
+
+"No--no"--said the other--"it's little--little Jack--he's dead."
+
+The Bishop looked at him inquiringly. He had never before heard of
+little Jack.
+
+"I--I dunno', Jack," he said. "You'll have to tell me all. I hain't
+seed you sence you started in your robber career after the war--sence
+I buried yo' father," he added. "An' a fine, brave man he was,
+Jack--a fine, brave man--an' I've wondered how sech a man's son
+could ever do as you've done."
+
+"Come," said the other--"I'll tell you. Come, an' say a prayer over
+little Jack fust. You must do it"--he said almost fiercely--"I won't
+bury him without a prayer--him that was an angel an' all I had on
+earth. Hitch yo' hoss just outer the road, in the thicket, an' follow
+me."
+
+The Bishop did as he was told, and Jack Bracken led the way down a
+rocky gulch under the shaggy sides of Sand Mountain, furzed with
+scraggy trees and thick with underbrush and weeds.
+
+It was a tortuous path and one in which the old man himself, knowing,
+as he thought he did, every foot of the country around, could easily
+have been lost. Above, through the trees, the moon shone dimly, and
+no path could be seen under foot. But Jack Bracken slouched heavily
+along, in a wabbling, awkward gait, never once looking back to see if
+his companion followed.
+
+For a half mile they went through what the Bishop had always thought
+was an almost impenetrable cattle trail. At last they wound around a
+curve on the densely wooded side of the mountain, beyond which lay
+the broad river breathing out frosty mist and vapor from its sleeping
+bosom.
+
+Following a dry gulch until it ended abruptly at the river's bluff,
+around the mouth of which great loose rocks lay as they had been
+washed by the waters of many centuries, and bushes grew about, the
+path terminated abruptly. It overlooked the river romantically, with
+a natural rock gallery in front.
+
+Jack Bracken stopped and sat down on one of the rocks. From
+underneath he drew forth a lantern and prepared to light it. "This is
+my home," he said laconically.
+
+The Bishop looked around: "Well, Jack, but this is part of my own
+leetle forty-acre farm. Why, thar's my cabin up yander. We've wound
+in an' aroun' the back of my place down by the river! I never seed
+this hole befo'."
+
+"I knew it was yo's," said the outlaw quietly. "That's why I come
+here. Many a Sunday night I've slipped up to the little church winder
+an' heard you preach--me an' po' little Jack. Oh, he loved to hear
+the Bible read an' he never forgot nothin' you ever said. He knowed
+all about Joseph an' Moses an' Jesus, an' last night when he died o'
+that croup befo' I c'ud get him help or anything, he wanted you, an'
+he said he was goin' to the lan' where you said Jesus was--"
+
+He broke down--he could not say it.
+
+Stepping into the mouth of the cave, he struck a match, when out of
+sight of the entrance way, and stepping from stone to stone he guided
+the Bishop down some twenty feet, following the channel the water had
+cut on its way underground to the river. Here another opening entered
+into the dry channel, and into it he stepped.
+
+It was a nicely turned cave--a natural room,--arched above with
+beautiful white lime-rock, the stalactites hanging in pointed
+clusters, their starry points twinkling above like stars in a winter
+sky. Underneath, the soft sand made a clean, warm floor, and the
+entire cave was so beautiful that the old man could do nothing but
+look and admire, as the light fell on stalagmite and ghostly columns
+and white sanded floors.
+
+"Beautiful," he said--"Jack, you cudn't he'p gettin' relig'un here."
+
+"Little Jack loved 'em," said the outlaw. "He'd lay here ev'y night
+befo' he'd go to sleep an' look up an' call it his heaven; an' he
+said that big column thar was the great white throne, an' them big
+things up yander with wings was angels. He had all them other columns
+named for the fellers you preached about--Moses an' Aaron an' Joseph
+an' all of 'em, an' that kind o' double one lookin' like a woman
+holding her child, he called Mary an' little Jesus."
+
+"He's gone to a prettier heaven than this," said the Bishop looking
+down on the little figure, with face as pale and white as any of the
+columns around him, neatly dressed and wrapped, save his face, in an
+old oil cloth and lying on the little bed that sat in a corner.
+
+The old man sat down very tenderly by the little dead boy and,
+pulling out a testament from his pocket, read to the outlaw, whose
+whole soul was centered in all he said, the comforting chapter which
+Miss Alice had that night read to the old negro: "_Let not your
+hearts be troubled...._"
+
+He explained as he read, and told the father how little Jack was now
+in one of the many mansions and far better off than living in a cave,
+the child of an outlaw, for the Bishop did not mince his words. He
+dwelt on it, that God had taken the little boy for love of him, and
+to give him a better home and perhaps as a means of changing the
+father, and when he said the last prayer over the dead child asking
+for forgiveness for the father's sins, that he might meet the little
+one in heaven, the heart of the outlaw burst with grief and
+repentance within him.
+
+He fell at the old man's feet, on his knees--he laid his big shaggy
+head in the Bishop's lap and wept as he had never wept before.
+
+"There can't be--you don't mean," he said--"that there is forgiveness
+for me--that I can so live that I'll see little Jack again!"
+
+"That's just what I mean, Jack," said the old man--"here it all
+is--here--in a book that never lies, an' all vouched for by Him who
+could walk in here to-night and lay His sweet hands on little Jack
+an' tell him to rise an' laugh agin, an' he'd do it. You turn about
+now an' see if it ain't so--an' that you'll be better an' happier."
+
+"But--my God, man--you don't know--you don't understan'. I've robbed,
+I've killed. Men have gone down befo' my bullets like sheep. They was
+shootin' at me, too--but I shot best. I'm a murderer."
+
+The old Bishop looked at him calmly.
+
+"So was Moses and David," he replied--"men after God's own heart. An'
+so was many another that's now called a saint, from old Hickory
+Jackson up."
+
+"But I'm a robber--a thief"--began Jack Bracken.
+
+"We all steal," said the old man sadly shaking his head--"it's human
+nature. There's a thief in every trade, an' every idle hand is a
+robber, an' every idle tongue is a thief an' a liar. We all steal.
+But there's somethin' of God an' divinity in all of us, an' in spite
+of our shortcomin' it'll bring us back at last to our Father's home
+if we'll give it a chance. God's Book can't lie, an' it says: '_Tho'
+your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow!_' ... an' then
+agin, _shall have life everlasting!_"
+
+"Life everlastin'," repeated the outlaw. "Do you believe that? Oh, if
+it was only so! To live always up there an' with little Jack. How do
+you know it ain't lyin'?--It's too gran' to be so. How do you know it
+ain't lyin', I say? Hillard Watts, are you handin' it out to me
+straight about this here Jesus Christ?" he cried bitterly.
+
+"Well, it's this way, Jack," said the old man, "jes' this away an'
+plain as the nose on yo' face: Now here's me, ain' it? Well, you know
+I won't lie to you. You believe me, don't you?"
+
+The outlaw nodded.
+
+"Why?" asked the Bishop.
+
+"Because you ain't never lied to me," said the other. "You've allers
+told me the truth about the things I know to be so."
+
+"But now, suppose," said the old man, "I'd tell you about somethin'
+you had never seed--that, for instance, sence you've been an outcast
+from society an' a livin' in this cave, I've seed men talk to each
+other a hundred miles apart, with nothin' but a wire betwix' 'em."
+
+"That's mighty hard to believe," said the outlaw grimly.
+
+"But I've seed it done," said the Bishop.
+
+"Do you mean it?" asked the other.
+
+"As I live, I have," said the Bishop.
+
+"Then it's so," said Jack.
+
+"Now that's faith, Jack--an' common sense, too. We know what'll be
+the earthly end of the liar, an' the thief, an' the murderer, an' him
+that's impure--because we see 'em come to thar end all the time. It
+don't lie when it tells you the good are happy, an' the hones' are
+elevated an' the mem'ry of the just shall not perish, because them
+things we see come so. Now, if after tellin' you all that, that's
+true, it axes you to believe when it says there is another life--a
+spiritual life, which we can't conceive of, an' there we shall live
+forever, can't you believe that, too, sence it ain't never lied about
+what you can see, by your own senses? Why ever' star that shines, an'
+ever' beam of sunlight fallin' on the earth, an' ever' beat of yo'
+own heart by some force that we know not of, all of them is mo'
+wonderful than the telegraph, an' the livin' agin of the spirit ain't
+any mo' wonderful than the law that holds the stars in their places.
+You'll see little Jack agin as sho' as God lives an' holds the worl'
+in His hand."
+
+The outlaw sat mute and motionless, and a great light of joy swept
+over his face.
+
+"By God's help I'll do it"--and he bowed his head in prayer--the
+first he had uttered since he was a boy.
+
+It was wonderful to see the happy and reconciled change when he arose
+and tenderly lifted the dead child in his arms. His face was
+transformed with a peace the old man had never seen before in any
+human being.
+
+Strong men are always strong--in crime--in sin. When they reform it
+is the reformation of strength. Such a change came over Jack Bracken,
+the outlaw.
+
+He carried his dead child to the next room: "I've got his grave
+already chiseled out of the rocks. I'll bury him here--right under
+the columns he called Mary and little Jesus, that he loved to talk of
+so much."
+
+"It's fitten"--said the old man tenderly--"it's fitten an' beautiful.
+The fust burial we know of in the Bible is where Abraham bought the
+cave of Machpelah for to bury Sarah, his wife. And as Abraham bought
+it of Ephron, the Hittite, and offered it to Abraham for to bury his
+dead out of his sight, so I give this cave to you, Jack Bracken,
+forever to be the restin' place of little Jack."
+
+And so, tenderly and with many kisses did they bury little Jack,
+sinless and innocent, deep in the pure white rock, covered as he was
+with purity and looking ever upwards toward the statue above, wherein
+Nature's chisel had carved out a Madonna and her child.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+JACK BRACKEN
+
+
+Jack Bracken was comfortably fixed in his underground home. There was
+every comfort for living. It was warm in winter and cool in summer,
+and in another apartment adjoining his living room was what he called
+a kitchen in which a spring of pure water, trickling down from rock
+to rock, formed in a natural basin of whitest rock below.
+
+"Jack," said the old man, "won't you tell me about yo'self an' how
+you ever got down to this? I knowed you as a boy, up to the time you
+went into the army, an' if I do say it to yo' face, you were a brave
+hon'rble boy that never forgot a frien' nor--"
+
+"A foe," put in Jack quickly. "Bishop, if I cu'd only forgive my
+foes--that's been the ruin of me."
+
+The old man was thoughtful a while: "Jack, that's a terrible thing in
+the human heart--unforgiveness. It's to life what a drought is to
+Nature--an' it spiles mo' people than any other weakness. But that
+don't make yo' no wuss than the rest of us, nor does robbery nor even
+murder. So there's a chance for you yet, Jack--a mighty fine chance,
+too, sence yo' heart is changed."
+
+"Many a time, Jack, many a time when the paper 'ud be full of yo'
+holdin' up a train or shootin' a shar'ff, or robbin' or killin', I'd
+tell 'em what a good boy you had been, brave an' game but revengeful
+when aroused. I'd tell 'em how you dared the bullets of our own men,
+after the battle of Shiloh, to cut down an' carry off a measley
+little Yankee they'd hung up as a spy 'cause he had onct saved yo'
+father's life. You shot two of our boys then, Jack."
+
+"They was a shootin' me, too," he said quietly. "I caught two bullets
+savin' that Yankee. But he was no spy; he was caught in a Yankee
+uniform an'--an' he saved my father, as you said--that settled it
+with me."
+
+"It turned our boys agin you, Jack."
+
+"Yes, an' the Yankees were agin me already--that made all the worl'
+agin me, an' it's been agin me ever since--they made me an outlaw."
+
+The old man softened: "How was it, Jack? I knowed you was driven to
+it."
+
+"They shot my father--waylaid and killed him--some home-made Yankee
+bush-whackers that infested these hills--as you know."
+
+The Bishop nodded. "I know--I know--it was awful. 'But vengeance is
+mine--I will repay'--saith the Lord."
+
+"Well, I was young, an' my father--you know how I loved him. Befo' I
+c'ud get home they had burned our house, killed my sick mother from
+exposure and insulted my sisters."
+
+"Jack," said the old man hotly--"a home-made Yankee is a 'bomination
+to the Lord. He's a twin brother to the Copperhead up north."
+
+"My little brother--they might have spared him," went on the
+outlaw--"they might have spared him. He tried to defen' his mother
+an' sisters an' they shot him down in col' blood."
+
+"'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord," replied the old man sadly.
+
+"Well, I acted as His agent that time,"--his eyes were hot with a
+bright glitter. "I put on their uniform an' went after 'em. I j'ined
+'em--the devils! An' they had a nigger sarjent an' ten of their
+twenty-seven was niggers, wearin' a Yankee uniform. I j'ined
+'em--yes,--for wasn't I the agent of the Lord?" He laughed bitterly.
+"An' didn't He say: 'He that killeth with the sword must be killed
+with the sword.' One by one they come up missin', till I had killed
+all but seven. These got panicky--followed by an unknown doom an'
+they c'udn't see it, for it come like a thief at midnight an' agin
+like a pesterlence it wasted 'em at noonday. They separated--they
+tried to fly--they hid--but I followed 'em 'an I got all but one. He
+fled to California."
+
+"It was awful, Jack--awful--God he'p you."
+
+"Then a price was put on my head. I was Jack Bracken, the spy and the
+outlaw. I was not to be captured, but shot and hung. Then I cut down
+that Yankee an' you all turned agin me. I was hunted and hounded. I
+shot--they shot. I killed an' they tried to. I was shot down three
+times. I've got bullets in me now.
+
+"After the war I tried to surrender. I wanted to quit and live a
+decent life. But no, they put a bigger price on my head. I came home
+like other soldiers an' went to tillin' my farm. They ran me
+away--they hunted an' hounded me. Civilization turned ag'in me.
+Society was my foe. I was up ag'in the fust law of Nature. It is the
+law of the survival--the wild beast that, cowered, fights for his
+life. Society turned on me--I turned on Society."
+
+"But there was one thing that happen'd that put the steel in me wuss
+than all. All through them times was one star I loved and hoped for.
+I was to marry her when the war closed. She an' her sister--the
+pretty one--they lived up yander on the mountain side. The pretty one
+died. But when I lost faith in Margaret Adams, I lost it in mankind.
+I'd ruther a seen her dead. It staggered me--killed the soul in
+me--to think that an angel like her could fall an' be false."
+
+"I don't blame you," said the old man. "I've never understood it
+yet."
+
+"I was to marry Margaret. I love her yet," he added simply. "When I
+found she was false I went out--and--well, you know the rest."
+
+He took a turn around the room, picked up one of little Jack's shoes,
+and cried over it.
+
+"So I married his mother--little Jack's mother, a mountain lass that
+hid me and befriended me. She died when the boy was born. His granny
+kep' him while I was on my raids--nobody knowed it was my son. His
+granny died two years ago. This has been our home ever sence, an' not
+once, sence little Jack has been with me, have I done a wrong deed.
+Often an' often we've slipt up to hear you preach--what you've said
+went home to me."
+
+"Jack," said the old man suddenly aroused--"was that you--was it you
+been puttin' them twenty dollar gol' pieces in the church
+Bible--between the leds, _ever'_ month for the las' two years? By it
+I've kep' up the po' of Cottontown. I've puzzled an' wonder'd--I've
+thought of a dozen fo'ks--but I sed nothin'--was it you?"
+
+The outlaw smiled: "It come from the rich an' it went to the po'.
+Come," he said--"that's somethin' we must settle."
+
+He took up the lantern and led the way into the other room. Under a
+ledge of rocks, securely hid, sat, in rows, half a dozen common water
+buckets, made of red cedar, with tops fitting securely on them.
+
+The outlaw spread a blanket on the sand, then knelt and, taking up a
+bucket, removed the top and poured out its contents on the blanket.
+They chuckled and rolled and tumbled over each other, the yellow
+eagles and half eagles, like thoroughbred colts turned out in the
+paddocks for a romp.
+
+The old man's knees shook under him. He trembled so that he had to
+sit down on the blanket. Then he ran his hand through them--his
+fingers open, letting the coins fall through playfully.
+
+Never before had he seen so much gold. Poor as he was and had ever
+been--much and often as he had suffered--he and his, for the
+necessities of life, even, knowing its value and the use he might
+make of it, it thrilled him with a strange, nervous longing--a
+childish curiosity to handle it and play with it.
+
+Modest and brave men have looked on low-bosomed women in the glitter
+of dissipative lights with the same feeling.
+
+The old man gazed, silent--doubtless with the same awe which Keats
+gave to Cortez, when he first looked on the Pacific and stood
+
+    "Silent, upon a peak in Darien."
+
+The outlaw lifted another bucket and took off the lid. It also was
+full. "There are five mo'," he said--"that last one is silver an'
+this one--" He lifted the lid of a small cedar box. In it was a large
+package, wrapped in water-proof. Unravelling it, he shoved out
+packages of bank bills of such number and denomination as fairly made
+the old preacher wonder.
+
+"How much in all, Jack?"
+
+"A little the rise of one hundred thousand dollars."
+
+He pushed them back and put the buckets under their ledge of rocks.
+"I'd give it all just to have little Jack here agin--an'--an'--start
+out--a new man. This has cost me ten years of outlawry an' fo'teen
+bullets. Now I've got all this an'--well--a hole in the groun' an'
+little Jack in the hole. If you wanter preach a sermon on the folly
+of pilin' up money," he went on half ironically, "here is yo' tex'.
+All me an' little Jack needed or cu'd use, was a few clothes, some
+bac'n an' coffee an' flour. Often I'd fill my pockets an' say: 'Well,
+I'll buy somethin' I want, an' that little Jack will want.' I'd go to
+town an' see it all, an' think an' puzzle an' wonder--then I'd come
+home with a few toys, maybe, an' bac'n an' flour an' coffee."
+
+"With all our money we can't buy higher than our source, an' when we
+go we leave even that behind," he added.
+
+"The world," said the old man quaintly, "is full of folks who have
+got a big pocket-book an' a bac'n pedigree."
+
+"Do you know who this money belongs to?" he asked the outlaw.
+
+"Every dollar of it," said Jack Bracken. "It come from railroads,
+banks and express companies. I didn't feel squirmish about takin' it,
+for all o' them are robbers. The only diff'r'nce betwix' them an' me
+is that they rob a little every day, till they get their pile, an' I
+take mine from 'em, all at onct."
+
+He thought awhile, then he said: "But it must all go back to 'em,
+Jack. Let them answer for their own sins. Leave it here until next
+week--an' then we will come an' haul it fifty miles to the next town,
+where you can express it to them without bein' known, or havin'
+anybody kno' what's in the buckets till you're safe back here in this
+town. I'll fix it an' the note you are to write. They'll not pester
+you after they get their money. The crowd you've named never got hot
+under a gold collar. A clean shave will change you so nobody will
+suspect you, an' there's a good openin' in town for a blacksmith, an'
+you can live with me in my cabin."
+
+"But there's one thing I've kept back for the las'," said Jack, after
+they had gone into the front part of the room and sat down on the
+deer skins there.
+
+"That sword there"--and he pointed to the wall where it hung.
+
+The Bishop glanced up, and as he did so he felt a strange thrill of
+recognition run through him--"It belongs to Cap'n Tom," said Jack
+quietly.
+
+The old man sprang up and took it reverently, fondly down.
+
+"Jack--" he began.
+
+"I was at Franklin," went on Jack proudly. "I charged with old Gen.
+Travis over the breastworks near the Carter House. I saw Cap'n Tom
+when he went under."
+
+"Cap'n Tom," repeated the old man slowly.
+
+"Cap'n Tom, yes--he saved my life once, you know. He cut me down when
+they were about to hang me for a spy--you heard about it?"
+
+The Bishop nodded.
+
+"It was his Company that caught me an' they was glad of any excuse to
+hang me. An' they mighty nigh done it, but Cap'n Tom came up in time
+to cut me down an' he said he'd make it hot for any man that teched
+me, that I was a square prisoner of war, an' he sent me to Johnson
+Island. Of course it didn't take me long to get out of that hole--I
+escaped."
+
+The Bishop was silent, looking at the sword.
+
+"Well, at Franklin, when I seed Cap'n Tom dyin' as I tho'rt, shunned
+by the Yankees as a traitor----"
+
+"As a traitor?" asked the old man hotly--"what, after Shiloh--after
+he give up Miss Alice for the flag he loved an' his old grand sire
+an' The Gaffs an' all of us that loved him--you call that a traitor?"
+
+"You never heard," said Jack, "how old Gen'l Travis charged the
+breastworks at Franklin and hit the line where Cap'n Tom's battery
+stood. Nine times they had charged Cap'n Tom's battery that
+night--nine times he stood his ground an' they melted away around it.
+But when he saw the line led by his own grandsire the blood in him
+was thicker than water and----"
+
+"An' whut?" gasped the Bishop.
+
+"Well, why they say it was a drunken soldier in his own battery who
+struck him with the heavy hilt of a sword. Any way I found the old
+Gen'l cryin' over him: 'My Irish Gray--my Irish Gray,' he kept
+sayin'. 'I might have known it was you,' and the old Gen'l charged on
+leaving him for dead. An' so I found him an' tuck him in my arms an'
+carried him to my own cabin up yonder on the mountain--carried him
+an'----"
+
+"An' whut?"--asked the old man, grasping the outlaw's
+shoulder--"Didn't he die? We've never been able to hear from him."
+
+Jack shook his head. "It 'ud been better for him if he had"--and he
+touched his forehead significantly.
+
+"Tell me, Jack--quick--tell it all," exclaimed the old man, still
+gripping Jack's shoulder.
+
+"There's nothin' to tell except that I kept him ever
+sence--here--right here for two years, with little Jack an' Ephrum,
+the young nigger that was his body servant--he's been our cook an'
+servant. He never would leave Cap'n Tom, followed me offen the field
+of Franklin. An' mighty fond of each other was all three of 'em."
+
+The old man turned pale and his voice trembled so with excitement he
+could hardly say:
+
+"Where is he, Jack? My God--Cap'n Tom--he's been here all this time
+too--an' me awonderin'--"
+
+"Right here, Bishop--kind an' quiet and teched in his head, where the
+sword-hilt crushed his skull. All these years I've cared for him--me
+an' Ephrum, my two boys as I called 'em--him an' little Jack. An'
+right here he staid contented like till little Jack died last
+night--then--"
+
+"In God's name--quick!--tell me--Jack--"
+
+"That's the worst of it--Bishop--when he found little Jack was dead
+he wandered off--"
+
+"When?" almost shouted the old man.
+
+"To-day--this even'. I have sent Eph after him--an' I hope he has
+found him by now an' tuck him somewhere. Eph'll never stop till he
+does."
+
+"We must find him, Jack. Cap'n Tom alive--thank God--alive, even if
+he is teched in his head. Oh, God, I might a knowed it--an' only
+to-day I was doubtin' You."
+
+He fell on his knees and Jack stood awed in the presence of the great
+emotion which shook the old man.
+
+Finally he arose. "Come--Jack--let us go an' hunt for Cap'n Tom."
+
+But though they hunted until the moon went down they found no trace
+of him. For miles they walked, or took turn about in riding the old
+blind roan.
+
+"It's no use, Bishop," said Jack. "We will sleep a while and begin
+to-morrow. Besides, Eph is with him. I feel it--he'll take keer o'
+him."
+
+That is how it came that at midnight, that Saturday night, the old
+Bishop brought home a strange man to live in the little cabin in his
+yard.
+
+That is how, a week later, all the South was stirred over the
+strange return of a fortune to the different corporations from which
+it had been taken, accompanied by a drawling note from Jack Bracken
+saying he returned ill-gotten gain to live a better life.
+
+It ended laconically:
+
+"_An' maybe you'd better go an' do likewise._"
+
+The dim starlight was shining faintly through the cracks of the
+outlaw's future home when the old man showed him in.
+
+"Now, Jack," he said, "it's nearly mornin' an' the old woman may be
+wild an' raise sand. But learn to lay low an' shoe hosses. She was
+bohn disapp'inted--maybe because she wa'n't a boy," he whispered.
+
+There was a whinny outside, in a small paddock, where a nearby stable
+stood: "That's Cap'n Tom's horse," said the old man--"I mus' go see
+if he's hungry."
+
+"I've kept his horse these ten years, hopin' maybe he'd come back
+agin. It's John Paul Jones--the thoroughbred, that the old General
+give him."
+
+"I remember him," said Jack.
+
+The great bloodlike horse came up and rubbed his nose on the old
+man's shoulder.
+
+"Hungry, John Paul?"
+
+"It's been a job to get feed fur him, po' as I've
+been--but--but--he's Cap'n Tom's. You kno'--"
+
+"An' Cap'n Tom will ride him yet," said Jack.
+
+"Do you believe it, Jack?" asked the old man huskily "God be
+praised!"
+
+That Saturday night was one never to be forgotten by others beside
+Jack Bracken and the old preacher of Cottontown.
+
+When Helen Conway, after supper, sought her drunken father and
+learned that he really intended to have Lily and herself go into the
+cotton mills, she was crushed for the first time in her life.
+
+An hour later she sent a boy with a note to The Gaffs to Harry
+Travis.
+
+He brought back an answer that made her pale with wounded love and
+grief. Not even Mammy Maria knew why she had crept off to bed. But in
+the night the old woman heard sobs from the young girl's room where
+she and her sister slept.
+
+"What is it, chile?" she asked as she slipped from her own cot in the
+adjoining little room and went in to Helen's.
+
+The girl had been weeping all night--she had no mother--no one to
+whom she could unbosom her heart--no one but the old woman who had
+nursed her from her infancy. This kind old creature sat on the bed
+and held the girl's sobbing head on her lap and stroked her cheek.
+She knew and understood--she asked no questions:
+
+"It isn't that I must work in the mill," she sobbed to the old
+woman--"I can do that--anything to help out--but--but--to think that
+Harry loves me so little as to give me up for--for--that."
+
+"Don't cry, chile," said Mammy soothingly--"It ain't registered that
+you gwine wuck in that mill yit--I ain't made my afferdavit yit."
+
+"But Harry doesn't love me--Oh, he doesn't love me," she wept. "He
+would not give me up for anything if he did."
+
+"I'm gwine give that Marse Harry a piece of my mind when I see
+him--see if I don't. Don't you cry, chile--hold up yo' haid an' be a
+Conway. Don't you ever let him know that yo' heart is bustin' for him
+an' fo' the year is out we'll have that same Marse Harry acrawlin' on
+his very marrow bones to aix our forgiveness. See if we won't."
+
+It was poor consolation to the romantic spirit of Helen Conway.
+Daylight found her still heart-broken and sobbing in the old woman's
+lap.
+
+
+
+
+PART THIRD--THE GIN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ALICE WESTMORE
+
+
+It is remarkable how small a part of our real life the world
+knows--how little our most intimate friends know of the secret
+influences which have proven to be climaxes, at the turning points of
+our existence.
+
+There was no more beautiful woman in Alabama than Alice Westmore; and
+throughout that state, where the song birds seem to develop,
+naturally, along with the softness of the air, and the gleam of the
+sunshine, and the lullaby of the Gulf's soft breeze among the pine
+trees, there was no one, they say, who could sing as she sang.
+
+And she seemed to have caught it from her native mocking-birds, so
+natural was it. Not when they sing in the daylight, when everything
+is bright and joyous and singing is so easy; but when they waken at
+midnight amid the _arbor vitae_ trees, and under the sweet, sad
+influence of a winter moon, pour out their half awakened notes to the
+star-sprays which fall in mist to blend and sparkle around the soft
+neck of the night.
+
+For like the star-sprays her notes were as clear; and through them
+ran a sadness as of a mist of moonlight. And just as moonbeams, when
+they mingle with the mist, make the melancholy of night, so the
+memory of a dead love ran through everything Alice Westmore sang.
+
+And this made her singing divine.
+
+Why should it be told? What right has a blacksmith to pry into a
+grand piano to find out wherein the exquisite harmony of the
+instrument lies? Who has the right to ask the artist how he blended
+the colors that crowned his picture with immortality, or the poet to
+explain his pain in the birth of a mood which moved the world?
+
+Born in the mountains of North Alabama, she grew up there and
+developed this rare voice; and when her father sent her to Italy to
+complete her musical education, the depth and clearness of it
+captured even that song nation of the world.
+
+The great of all countries were her friends and princes sought her
+favors. She sang at courts and in great cathedrals, and her genius
+and beauty were toasts with society.
+
+"Still, Mademoiselle will never be a great singer, perfect as her
+voice is,"--said her singing master to her one day--a famous Italian
+teacher, "until Mademoiselle has suffered. She is now rich and
+beautiful and happy. Go home and suffer if you would be a great
+singer," he said, "for great songs come only with great suffering."
+
+If this were true, Alice Westmore was now, indeed, a great singer;
+for now had she suffered. And it was the death of a life with her
+when love died. For there be some with whom love is a separate life,
+and when love dies all that is worth living dies with it.
+
+From childhood she and Cousin Tom--Captain Thomas Travis he lived to
+be--had been sweethearts. He was the grandson of Colonel Jeremiah
+Travis of "The Gaffs," and Tom and Alice had grown up together. Their
+love was one of those earthly loves which comes now and then that we
+may not altogether lose our faith in heaven.
+
+Both were of a romantic temperament with high ideals, and with keen
+and sensitive natures.
+
+Their love was the poem of their lives.
+
+And though a toast in society, and courted by the nobility of the old
+world, Alice Westmore remembered only a moon-lighted night when she
+told Cousin Tom good-bye. For though they had loved each other all
+their lives, they had never spoken of it before that night. To them
+it had been a thing too sacred to profane with ordinary words.
+
+Thomas Travis had just graduated from West Point, and he was at home
+on vacation before being assigned to duty. To-night he had ridden
+John Paul Jones--the pick of his grandfather's stable of
+thoroughbreds--a present from the sturdy old horse-racing,
+fox-hunting gentleman to his favorite grandson for graduating first
+in a class of fifty-six.
+
+How handsome he looked in his dark blue uniform! And there was the
+music of the crepe-myrtle in the air--the music of it, wet with the
+night dew--for there are flowers so delicate in their sweetness that
+they pass out of the realm of sight and smell, into the unheard world
+of rhythm. Their very existence is the poetry of perfume. And this
+music of the crepe-myrtle, pulsing through the shower-cooled leaves
+of that summer night, was accompanied by a mocking-bird from his nest
+in the tree.
+
+Never did the memory of that night leave Alice Westmore. In after
+years it hurt her, as the dream of childhood's home with green fields
+about, and the old spring in the meadow, hurts the fever-stricken one
+dying far away from it all.
+
+How long they sat on the rustic bench under the crepe-myrtle they did
+not know. At parting there was the light clasp of hands, and Cousin
+Tom drew her to him and put his lips reverently to hers. When he had
+ridden off there was a slender ring on her finger.
+
+There was nothing in Italy that could make her forget that night,
+though often from her window she had looked out on Venice,
+moon-becalmed, while the nightingale sang from pomegranate trees in
+the hedgerows.
+
+Where a woman's love is first given, that, thereafter, is her heart's
+sanctuary.
+
+Alice Westmore landed at home again amid drum beats. War sweeps even
+sentiment from the world--sentiment that is stronger than common
+sense, and which moves the world.
+
+On the retreat of the Southern army from Fort Donelson, Thomas
+Travis, now Captain of Artillery, followed, with Grant's army, to
+Pittsburgh Landing. And finding himself within a day's journey of his
+old home, he lost no time in slipping through the lines to see Alice,
+whom he had not seen since her return.
+
+He went first to her, and the sight of his blue uniform threw Colonel
+Westmore into a rage.
+
+"To march into our land in that thing and claim my daughter--" he
+shouted. "To join that John Brown gang of abolitionists who are
+trying to overrun our country! Your father was a Southern gentleman
+and the bosom friend of my youth, but I'll see you damned before you
+shall ever again come under my roof, unless you can use your pistols
+quicker than I can use mine."
+
+"Oh, Tom," said Alice when they were alone--"how--how could you do
+it?"
+
+"But it is my side," he said quietly. "I was born, reared, educated
+in the love of the Union. My grandfather himself taught it to me. He
+fought with Jackson at New Orleans. My father died for it in Mexico.
+I swore fidelity to it at West Point, and the Union gave me my
+military education on the faith of my oath. Farragut is a
+Tennessean--Thomas a Virginian--and there are hundreds of others, men
+who love the Union more than they do their State. Alice--Alice--I do
+not love you less because I am true to my oath--my flag."
+
+"Your flag," said Alice hotly--"your flag that would overrun our
+country and kill our people? It can never be my flag!"
+
+She had never been angry before in all her life, but now the hot
+blood of her Southern clime and ancestry surged in her cheeks. She
+arose with a dignity she had never before imagined, even, with Cousin
+Tom. "You will choose between us now," she said.
+
+"Alice--surely you will not put me to that test. I will go--" he
+said, rising. "Some day, if I live, you can tell me to come back to
+you without sacrificing my conscience and my word of honor--my sacred
+oath--write me and--and--I will come."
+
+And that is the way it ended--in tears for both.
+
+Thomas Travis had always been his grandsire's favorite. His other
+grandson, Richard Travis, was away in Europe, where he had gone as
+soon as rumors of the war began to be heard.
+
+That night the old man did not even speak to him. He could not. Alone
+in his room, he walked the floor all night in deep sorrow and
+thought.
+
+He loved Thomas Travis as he did no other living being, and when
+morning came his great nature shook with contending emotions. It
+ended in the grandson receiving this note, a few minutes before he
+rode away:
+
+"All my life I taught you to love the Union which I helped to make,
+with my blood in war and my brains in peace. I gave it my beloved
+boy--your father's life--in Mexico. We buried him in its flag. I sent
+you to West Point and made you swear to defend that flag with your
+life. How now can I ask you to repudiate your oath and turn your back
+on your rearing?
+
+"Believing as I do in the right of the State first and the Union
+afterwards, I had hoped you might see it differently. But who, but
+God, controls the course of an honest mind?
+
+"Go, my son--I shall never see you again. But I know you, my son, and
+I shall die knowing you did what you thought was right."
+
+The young man wept when he read this--he was neither too old nor too
+hardened for tears--and when he rode away, from the ridge of the
+Mountain he looked down again--the last time, on all that had been
+his life's happiness.
+
+It was an hour afterwards when the old General called in his
+overseer.
+
+"Watts," he said, "in the accursed war which is about to wreck the
+South and which will eventually end in our going back into the Union
+as a subdued province and under the heel of our former slaves, there
+will be many changes. I, myself, will not live to see it. I have two
+grandsons, as you know, Tom and Richard. Richard is in Europe; he
+went there following Alice Westmore, and is going to stay, till this
+fight is over. Now, I have added a codicil to my will and I wish you
+to hear it."
+
+He took up a lengthy document and read the last codicil:
+
+"_Since the above will was written and acknowledged, leaving The
+Gaffs to be equally divided between my two grandsons, Thomas and
+Richard Travis, my country has been precipitated into the horrors of
+Civil War. In view of this I hereby change my will as above and give
+and bequeath The Gaffs to that one of my grandsons who shall
+fight--it matters not to me on which side--so that he fights. For The
+Gaffs shall never go to a Dominecker. If both fight and survive the
+war, it shall be divided equally between them as above expressed. If
+one be killed it shall go to the survivor. If both be killed it shall
+be sold and the money appropriated among those of my slaves who have
+been faithful to me to the end, one-fifth being set aside for my
+faithful overseer, Hillard Watts._"
+
+In the panel of the wall he opened a small secret drawer, zinc-lined,
+and put the will in it.
+
+"It shall remain there unchanged," he said, "and only you and I shall
+know where it is. If I die suddenly, let it remain until after the
+war, and then do as you think best."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE REAL HEROES
+
+
+The real heroes of the war have not been decorated yet. They have not
+even been pensioned, for many of them lie in forgotten graves, and
+those who do not are not the kind to clamor for honors or emoluments.
+
+On the last Great Day, what a strange awakening for decorations there
+will be, if such be in store for the just and the brave: Private
+soldiers, blue and gray, arising from neglected graves with tattered
+clothes and unmarked brows. Scouts who rode, with stolid faces set,
+into Death's grim door and died knowing they went out unremembered.
+Spies, hung like common thieves at the end of a rope--hung, though
+the bravest of the brave.
+
+Privates, freezing, starving, wounded, dying,--unloved, unsoothed,
+unpitied--giving their life with a last smile in the joy of
+martyrdom. Women, North, whose silent tears for husbands who never
+came back and sons who died of shell and fever, make a tiara around
+the head of our reunited country. Women, South, glorious Rachels,
+weeping for children who are not and with brave hearts working amid
+desolate homes, the star and inspiration of a rebuilded land. Slaves,
+faithfully guarding and working while their masters went to the
+front, filling the granaries that the war might go on--faithful to
+their trust though its success meant their slavery--faithful and
+true.
+
+O Southland of mine, be gentle, be just to these simple people, for
+they also were faithful.
+
+Among the heroic things the four years of the American Civil War
+brought out, the story of Captain Thomas Travis deserves to rank with
+the greatest of them.
+
+The love of Thomas Travis for the preacher-overseer was the result of
+a life of devotion on the part of the old man for the boy he had
+reared. Orphaned as he was early in life, Thomas Travis looked up to
+the overseer of his grandfather's plantation as a model of all that
+was great and good.
+
+Tom and Alice,--on the neighboring plantations--ran wild over the
+place and rode their ponies always on the track of the overseer. He
+taught them to ride, to trap the rabbit, to boat on the beautiful
+river. He knew the birds and the trees and all the wild things of
+Nature, and Tom and Alice were his children.
+
+As they grew up before him, it became the dream of the
+preacher-overseer to see his two pets married. Imagine his sorrow
+when the war fell like a thunderbolt out of a harvest sky and, among
+the thousand of other wrecked dreams, went the dream of the overseer.
+
+The rest is soon told: After the battle of Shiloh, Hillard Watts,
+Chief of Johnston's scouts, was captured and sent to Camp Chase.
+Scarcely had he arrived before orders came that twelve prisoners
+should be shot, by lot, in retaliation for the same number of Federal
+prisoners which had been executed, it was said, unjustly, by
+Confederates. The overseer drew one of the black balls. Then happened
+one of those acts of heroism which now and then occur, perhaps, to
+redeem war of the base and bloody.
+
+On the morning before the execution, at daylight, Thomas Travis
+arrived and made arrangements to save his friend at the risk of his
+own life and reputation. It was a desperate chance and he acted
+quickly. For Hillard Watts went out a free man dressed in the blue
+uniform of the Captain of Artillery.
+
+The interposition of the great-hearted Lincoln alone saved the young
+officer from being shot.
+
+The yellow military order bearing the words of the martyred President
+is preserved to-day in the library of The Gaffs:
+
+"_I present this young man as a Christmas gift to my old friend, his
+grandsire, Colonel Jeremiah Travis. The man who could fight his guns
+as he did at Shiloh, and could offer to die for a friend, is good
+enough to receive pardon, for anything he may have done or may do,
+from_
+
+"A. LINCOLN."
+
+Afterwards came Franklin and the news that Captain Tom had been
+killed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+FRANKLIN
+
+
+But General Jeremiah Travis could not keep out of the war; for toward
+the last, when Hood's army marched into Tennessee the Confederacy
+called for everything--even old age.
+
+And so there rode out of the gates of The Gaffs a white-haired old
+man, who sat his superb horse well. He was followed by a negro on a
+mule.
+
+They were General Jeremiah Travis and his body-servant, Bisco.
+
+"I have come to fight for my state," said General Travis to the
+Confederate General.
+
+"An' I am gwine to take keer of old marster suh," said Bisco as he
+stuck to his saddle girth.
+
+It was the middle of the afternoon of the last day of November--and
+also the last day of many a gallant life--when Hood's tired army
+marched over the brow of the high ridge of hills that looked down on
+the town of Franklin, in front of which, from railroad to river,
+behind a long semicircular breastwork lay Schofield's determined
+army. It was a beautiful view, and as plain as looking down from the
+gallery into the pit of an amphitheatre.
+
+Just below them lay the little town in a valley, admirably situated
+for defense, surrounded as it was on three sides by the bend of a
+small river, the further banks of which were of solid rocks rising
+above the town. On the highest of these bluffs--Roper's Knob--across
+and behind the town, directly overlooking it and grimly facing Hood's
+army two miles away, was a federal fort capped with mighty guns,
+ready to hurl their shells over the town at the gray lines beyond.
+From the high ridge where Hood's army stood the ground gradually
+rolled to the river. A railroad ran through a valley in the ridge to
+the right of the Confederates, spun along on the banks of the river
+past the town and crossed it in the heart of the bend to the left of
+the federal fort. From that railroad on the Confederate right, in
+front and clear around the town, past an old gin house which stood
+out clear and distinct in the November sunlight--on past the Carter
+House, to the extreme left bend of the river on the left--in short,
+from river to river again and entirely inclosing the town and facing
+the enemy--ran the newly made and hastily thrown-up breastworks of
+the federal army, the men rested and ready for battle.
+
+There stands to-day, as it stood then, in front of the town of
+Franklin, on the highest point of the ridge, a large linden tree, now
+showing the effects of age. It was half-past three o'clock in the
+afternoon, when General Hood rode unattended to that tree, threw the
+stump of the leg that was shot off at Chickamauga over the pommel of
+his saddle, drew out his field glasses and sat looking for a long
+time across the valley at the enemy's position.
+
+Strange to say, on the high river bluff beyond the town, amid the
+guns of the fort, also with field glass in hand anxiously watching
+the confederates, stood the federal general. A sharp-shooter in
+either line could have killed the commanding general in the other.
+And now that prophesying silence which always seems to precede a
+battle was afloat in the air. In the hollow of its stillness it
+seemed as if one could hear the ticking of the death-watch of
+eternity. But presently it was broken by the soft strains of music
+which floated up from the town below. It was the federal band playing
+"Just Before The Battle, Mother."
+
+The men in gray on the hill and the men in blue in the valley
+listened, and then each one mentally followed the tune with silent
+words, and not without a bit of moisture in their eyes.
+
+    "Just before the battle, Mother,
+     I am thinking most of thee."
+
+Suddenly Hood closed his glasses with that nervous jerk which was a
+habit with him, straightened himself in the saddle and, riding back
+to General Stewart, said simply: "We will make the fight, General
+Stewart."
+
+Stewart pressed his General's hand, wheeled and formed his corps on
+the right. Cheatham formed his on the left. A gun--and but few were
+used by Hood in the fight for fear of killing the women and children
+in the town--echoed from the ridge. It was the signal for the battle
+to begin. The heavy columns moved down the side of the ridge, the
+brigades marching in echelon.
+
+At the sound of the gun, the federal army, some of whom were on duty,
+but the larger number loitering around at rest, or engaged in
+preparing their evening meal, sprang noiselessly to their places
+behind the breastworks, while hurried whispers of command ran down
+the line.
+
+General Travis had been given a place of honor on General Hood's
+staff. He insisted on going into the ranks, but his commander had
+said: "Stay with me, I shall need you elsewhere." And so the old man
+sat his horse silently watching the army forming and marching down.
+But directly, as a Mississippi regiment passed by, he noticed at the
+head of one of the companies an old man, almost as old as himself,
+his clothes torn, and ragged from long marching; shoeless, his feet
+tied up in sack-cloth and his old slouch hat aflop over his ears. But
+he did not complain, he stood erect, and gamely led his men into
+battle. As the company halted for a moment, General Travis rode up to
+the old man whose thin clothes could not keep him from shivering in
+the now chill air of late afternoon, for it was then past four
+o'clock, saluted him and said:
+
+"Captain, will you do me the favor to pull off this boot?"
+Withdrawing his boot from the stirrup and thrusting it towards the
+old man, the latter looked at him a moment in surprise but sheathed
+his sword and complied with the request. "And now the other one?"
+said Travis as he turned his horse around. This, too, was pulled off.
+
+"Just put them on, Captain, if you please," said the rider. "I am
+mounted and do not need them as much as you do?" and before the
+gallant old Captain could refuse, he rode away for duty--in his
+stocking feet!
+
+And now the battle began in earnest.
+
+The confederates came on in splendid form. On the extreme right,
+Forrest's cavalry rested on the river; then Stewart's corps of
+Loring, Walthall, French, from right to left in the order named. On
+the left Cheatham's corps, of Cleburne, Brown, Bate, and Walker.
+Behind Cheatham marched Johnston's and Clayton's brigade for support,
+thirty thousand and more of men, in solid lines, bands playing and
+flags fluttering in the afternoon wind.
+
+Nor had the federals been idle. Behind the breastworks lay the second
+and third divisions of the 23rd Corps, commanded in person by the
+gallant General J. D. Cox. From the railroad on the left to the
+Carter's Creek pike on the right, the brigades of these divisions
+stood as follows: Henderson's, Casement's, Reilly's, Strickland's,
+Moore's. And from the right of the Carter's Creek pike to the river
+lay Kimball's first division of the Fourth Corps. In front of the
+breastworks, across the Columbia pike, General Wagner, commanding the
+second division of the Fourth Corps, had thrown forward the two
+brigades of Bradley and Lane to check the first assault of the
+confederates, while Opdyck's brigade of the same division was held in
+the town as a reserve. Seven splendid batteries growled along the
+line of breastworks, and showed their teeth to the advancing foe,
+while three more were caged in the fort above and beyond the town.
+
+Never did men march with cooler courage on more formidable lines of
+defense. Never did men wait an attack with cooler courage.
+Breastworks with abatis in front through which the mouth of cannon
+gaped; artillery and infantry on the right to enfilade; siege guns in
+the fort high above all, to sweep and annihilate.
+
+Schofield, born general that he was, simply lay in a rock-circled,
+earth-circled, water-circled, iron-and-steel-circled cage, bayonet
+and flame tipped, proof against the armies of the world!
+
+But Hood's brave army never hesitated, never doubted.
+
+Even in the matter of where to throw up his breastworks, Schofield
+never erred. On a beautiful and seemingly level plain like this, a
+less able general might have thrown them up anywhere, just so that
+they encircled the town and ran from river to river.
+
+But Schofield took no chances. His quick eye detected that even in
+apparent level plains there are slight undulations. And so, following
+a gentle rise all the way round, just on its top he threw up his
+breastworks. So that, besides the ditch and the abatis, there was a
+slight depression in his immediate front, open and clear, but so
+situated that on the gentle slope in front, down which the
+confederates must charge, the background of the slope brought them in
+bold relief--gray targets for the guns. On that background the hare
+would loom up as big as the hound.
+
+There were really two federal lines, an outer and an inner one. The
+outer one consisted of Bradley's and Lane's brigades which had
+retired from Spring Hill before the Confederate army, and had been
+ordered to halt in front of the breastworks to check the advance of
+the army. They were instructed to fire and then fall back to the
+breastworks, if stubbornly charged by greatly their superiors in
+numbers. They fired, but, true to American ideas, they disliked to
+retreat. When forced to do so, they were swept away with the enemy on
+their very heels and as they rushed in over the last line at the
+breastworks on the Columbia pike the eager boys in gray rushed over
+with them, swept away portions of Reilly's and Strickland's troops,
+and bayoneted those that remained.
+
+It was then that Schofield's heart sank as he looked down from the
+guns of the fort. But Cox had the forethought to place Opdyck's two
+thousand men in reserve at this very point. These sprang gallantly
+forward and restored the line.
+
+They saved the Union army!
+
+The battle was now raging all around the line. There was a succession
+of yells, a rattle, a shock and a roar, as brigade after brigade
+struck the breastworks, only to be hurled back again or melt and die
+away in the trenches amid the abatis. Clear around the line of
+breastworks it rolled, at intervals, like a magazine of powder
+flashing before it explodes, then the roar and upheaval, followed
+anon and anon by another. The ground was soon shingled with dead men
+in gray, while down in the ditches or hugging the bloody sides of the
+breastworks right under the guns, thousands, more fortunate or daring
+than their comrades, lay, thrusting and being thrust, shooting and
+being shot. And there they staid throughout the fight--not strong
+enough to climb over, and yet all the guns of the federal army could
+not drive them away. Many a gray regiment planted its battle-flag on
+the breastworks and then hugged those sides of death in its efforts
+to keep it there, as bees cling around the body of their queen.
+
+"I have the honor to forward to the War Department nine stands of
+colors," writes General Cox to General Geo. L. Thomas; "these flags
+with eleven others were captured by the Twenty-third Army Corps along
+the parapets."
+
+Could Bonaparte's army have planted more on the ramparts of Mount St.
+Jean?
+
+The sun had not set; yet the black smoke of battle had set it before
+its time. God had ordained otherwise; but man, in his fury had shut
+out the light of heaven against the decree of God, just as, equally
+against His decree, he has now busily engaged in blotting out many a
+brother's bright life, before the decree of its sunset. Again and
+again and again, from four till midnight--eight butchering hours--the
+heart of the South was hurled against those bastions of steel and
+flame, only to be pierced with ball and bayonet.
+
+And for every heart that was pierced there broke a dozen more in the
+shade of the southern palmetto, or in the shadow of the northern
+pine. After nineteen hundred years of light and learning, what a
+scientific nation of heart-stabbers and brother-murderers we
+Christians are!
+
+It was now that the genius of the confederate cavalry leader,
+Forrest, asserted itself. With nearly ten thousand of his intrepid
+cavalry-men, born in the saddle, who carried rifles and shot as they
+charged, and whom with wonderful genius their leader had trained to
+dismount at a moment's notice and fight as infantry--he lay on the
+extreme right between the river and the railroad. In a moment he saw
+his opportunity, and rode furiously to Hood's headquarters. He found
+the General sitting on a flat rock, a smouldering fire by his side,
+half way down the valley, at the Winstead House, intently watching
+the progress of the battle.
+
+"Let me go at 'em, General," shouted Forrest in his bluff way, "and
+I'll flank the federal army out of its position in fifteen minutes."
+
+"No! Sir," shouted back Hood. "Charge them out! charge them out!"
+
+Forrest turned and rode back with an oath of disgust. Years
+afterwards, Colonel John McGavock, whose fine plantation lay within
+the federal lines and who had ample opportunity for observation, says
+that when in the early evening a brigade of Forrest's cavalry
+deployed across the river as if opening the way for the confederate
+infantry to attack the federal army in flank and rear, hasty
+preparations were made by the federal army for retreat. And thus was
+Forrest's military wisdom corroborated. "Let me flank them out," was
+military genius. "No, charge them out," was dare-devil blundering!
+
+The shock, the shout and the roar continued. The flash from the guns
+could now plainly be seen as night descended. So continuous was the
+play of flame around the entire breastwork that it looked to the
+general at headquarters like a circle of prairie fire, leaping up at
+intervals along the breastworks, higher and higher where the
+batteries were ablaze.
+
+In a black-locust thicket, just to the right of the Columbia turnpike
+and near the Carter House, with abatis in front, the strongest of the
+batteries had been placed. It mowed down everything in front. Seeing
+it, General Hood turned to General Travis and said: "General, my
+compliments to General Cleburne, and say to him I desire that battery
+at his hands."
+
+The old man wheeled and was gone. In a moment, it seemed, the black
+smoke of battle engulfed him. Cleburne's command was just in front of
+the old gin house, forming for another charge. The dead lay in heaps
+in front. They almost filled the ditch around the breastworks. But
+the command, terribly cut to pieces, was forming as coolly as if on
+dress parade. Above them floated a peculiar flag, a field of deep
+blue on which was a crescent moon and stars. It was Cleburne's battle
+flag and well the enemy knew it. They had seen and felt it at Shiloh,
+Murfreesboro, Ringgold Gap, Atlanta. "I tip my hat to that flag,"
+said General Sherman years after the war. "Whenever my men saw it
+they knew it meant fight."
+
+As the old man rode up, the division charged. Carried away in the
+excitement he charged with them, guiding his horse by the flashes of
+the guns. As they rushed on the breastworks a gray figure on a
+chestnut horse rode diagonally across the front of the moving column
+at the enemy's gun. The horse went down within fifty yards of the
+breastwork. The rider arose, waved his sword and led his men on foot
+to the very ramparts. Then he staggered and fell, pierced with a
+dozen minie balls. It was Cleburne, the peerless field-marshal of
+confederate brigade commanders; the genius to infantry as Forrest was
+to cavalry. His corps was swept back by the terrible fire, nearly
+half of them dead or wounded.
+
+Ten minutes afterwards General Travis stood before General Hood.
+
+"General Cleburne is dead, General"--was all he said. Hood did not
+turn his head.
+
+"My compliments to General Adams," he said, "and tell him I ask that
+battery at his hands."
+
+Again the old man wheeled and was gone. Again he rode into the black
+night and the blacker smoke of battle.
+
+General Adams's brigade was in Walthall's division. As the aged
+courier rode up, Adams was just charging. Again the old man was swept
+away with the charge. They struck the breastworks where Stile's and
+Casement's brigades lay on the extreme left of the federal army.
+"Their officers showed heroic examples and self-sacrifice," wrote
+General Cox in his official report, "riding up to our lines in
+advance of their men, cheering them on. One officer, Adams, was shot
+down upon the parapet itself, his horse falling across the
+breastworks." Casement himself, touched by the splendor of his ride,
+had cotton brought from the old gin house and placed under the dying
+soldier's head. "You are too brave a man to die," said Casement
+tenderly; "I wish that I could save you."
+
+"'Tis the fate of a soldier to die for his country," smiled the dying
+soldier. Then he passed away.
+
+It was a half hour before the old man reached Hood's headquarters
+again, his black horse wet with sweat.
+
+"General Adams lies in front of the breastworks--dead! His horse half
+over it--dead"--was all he said.
+
+Hood turned pale. His eyes flashed with indignant grief.
+
+"Then tell General Gist," he exclaimed. The old man vanished again
+and rode once more into the smoke and the night. Gist's brigade led
+the front line of Brown's division, Cheatham's corps. It was on the
+left, fronting Strickland's and Moore's, on the breastworks. The
+Twenty-fourth South Carolina Infantry was in front of the charging
+lines. "In passing from the left to the right of the regiment,"
+writes Colonel Ellison Capers commanding the South Carolina regiment
+above named, "the General (Gist) waved his hat to us, expressed his
+pride and confidence in the Twenty-fourth and rode away in the smoke
+of battle never more to be seen by the men he had commanded on so
+many fields. His horse was shot, and, dismounting, he was leading the
+right of the brigade when he fell, pierced through the heart. On
+pressed the charging lines of the brigade, driving the advance force
+of the enemy pell-mell into a locust abatis where many were captured
+and sent to the rear; others were wounded by the fire of their own
+men. This abatis was a formidable and fearful obstruction. The entire
+brigade was arrested by it. But Gist's and Gordon's brigade charged
+on and reached the ditch, mounted the works and met the enemy in
+close combat. The colors of the Twenty-fourth were planted and
+defended on the parapet, and the enemy retired in our front some
+distance, but soon rallied and came back in turn to charge us. He
+never succeeded in retaking the line we held. Torn and exhausted,
+deprived of every general officer and nearly every field officer, the
+division had only strength enough left to hold its position."
+
+The charging became intermittent. Then out of the night, as Hood sat
+listening, again came the old man, his face as white as his long
+hair, his horse once black, now white with foam.
+
+"General Gist too, is dead," he said sadly.
+
+"Tell Granbury, Carter, Strahl--General! Throw them in there and
+capture that battery and break that line."
+
+The old man vanished once more and rode into the shock and shout of
+battle.
+
+General Strahl was leading his brigade again against the breastworks.
+"Strahl's and Carter's brigade came gallantly to the assistance of
+Gist's and Gordon's" runs the confederate report sent to Richmond,
+"but the enemy's fire from the houses in the rear of the line and
+from guns posted on the far side of the river so as to enfilade the
+field, tore their line to pieces before it reached the locust
+abatis."
+
+General Carter fell mortally wounded before reaching the breastworks,
+but General Strahl reached the ditch, filled with dead and dying men,
+though his entire staff had been killed. Here he stood with only two
+men around him, Cunningham and Brown. "Keep firing" said Strahl as he
+stood on the bodies of the dead and passed up guns to the two
+privates. The next instant Brown fell heavily; he, too, was dead.
+
+"What shall I do, General?" asked Cunningham.
+
+"Keep firing," said Strahl.
+
+Again Cunningham fired. "Pass me another gun, General," said
+Cunningham. There was no answer--the general was dead.
+
+Not a hundred yards away lay General Granbury, dead. He died leading
+the brave Texans to the works.
+
+To the commanding General it seemed an age before the old man
+returned. Then he saw him in the darkness afar off, before he reached
+the headquarters. The General thought of death on his pale horse and
+shivered.
+
+"Granbury, Carter, Strahl--all dead, General," he said. "Colonels
+command divisions, Captains are commanding brigades."
+
+"How does Cheatham estimate his loss?" asked the General.
+
+"At half his command killed and wounded," said the old soldier sadly.
+
+"My God!--my God!--this awful, awful day!" cried Hood.
+
+There was a moment's silence and then: "General?" It came from
+General Travis.
+
+The General looked up.
+
+"May I lead the Tennessee troops in--I have led them often before."
+
+Hood thought a moment, then nodded and the horse and the rider were
+gone. It was late--nearly midnight. The firing on both sides had
+nearly ceased,--only a desultory rattling--the boom of a gun now and
+then. But O, the agony, the death, the wild confusion! This was
+something like the babel that greeted the old soldier's ears as he
+rode forward:
+
+"The Fourth Mississippi--where is the Fourth Mississippi?" "Here is
+the Fortieth Alabama's standard--rally men to your standard!" "Where
+is General Cleburne, men? Who has seen General Cleburne?" "Up, boys,
+and let us at 'em agin! Damn 'em, they've wounded me an' I want to
+kill some more!"
+
+"Water!--water--for God's sake give us water!" This came from a pile
+of wounded men just under the guns on the Columbia pike. It came from
+a sixteen year old boy in blue. Four dead comrades lay across him.
+
+"And this is the curse of it," said General Travis, as he rode among
+the men.
+
+But suddenly amid the smoke and confusion, the soldiers saw what many
+thought was an apparition--an old, old warrior, on a horse with black
+mane and tail and fiery eyes, but elsewhere covered with white sweat
+and pale as the horse of death. The rider's face too, was deadly
+white, but his keen eyes blazed with the fire of many generations of
+battle-loving ancestors.
+
+The soldiers flocked round him, half doubting, half believing. The
+terrible ordeal of that bloody night's work; the poignant grief from
+beholding the death and wounds of friends and brothers; the weird,
+uncanny groans of the dying upon the sulphurous-smelling night air;
+the doubt, uncertainty, and yet, through it all, the bitter
+realization that all was in vain, had shocked, benumbed, unsettled
+the nerves of the stoutest; and many of them scarcely knew whether
+they were really alive, confronting in the weird hours of the night
+ditches of blood and breastworks of death, or were really dead--dead
+from concussion, from shot or shell, and were now wandering on a
+spirit battle-field till some soul-leader should lead them away.
+
+And so, half dazed and half dreaming, and yet half alive to its
+realization, they flocked around the old warrior, and they would not
+have been at all surprised had he told them he came from another
+world.
+
+Some thought of Mars. Some thought of death and his white horse. Some
+felt of the animal's mane and touched his streaming flanks and cordy
+legs to see if it were really a horse and not an apparition, while
+"What is it?" and "Who is he?" was whispered down the lines.
+
+Then the old rider spoke for the first time, and said simply:
+
+"Men, I have come to lead you in."
+
+A mighty shout came up. "It's General Lee!--he has come to lead us
+in," they shouted.
+
+"No, no, men,"--said the old warrior quickly. "I am not General Lee.
+But I have led Southern troops before. I was at New Orleans. I was--"
+
+"It's Ole Hick'ry--by the eternal!--Ole Hick'ry--and he's come back
+to life to lead us!" shouted a big fellow as he threw his hat in the
+air.
+
+"Ole Hickory! Ole Hickory!" echoed and re-echoed down the lines, till
+it reached the ears of the dying soldiers in the ditch itself, and
+many a poor, brave fellow, as his heart strings snapped and the
+broken chord gurgled out into the dying moan, saw amid the blaze and
+light of the new life, the apparition turn into a reality and a smile
+of exquisite satisfaction was forever frozen on his face in the mould
+of death, as he whispered with his last breath:
+
+"It's Old Hickory--my General--I have fought a good fight--I come!"
+
+Then the old warrior smiled--a smile of simple beauty and grandeur,
+of keen satisfaction that such an honor should have been paid him,
+and he tried to speak to correct them. But they shouted the more, and
+drowned out his voice and would not have it otherwise. Despairing, he
+rode to the front and drew his long, heavy, old, revolutionary sword.
+It flashed in the air. It came to "attention"--and then a dead
+silence followed.
+
+"Men," he said, "this is the sword of John Sevier, the rebel that led
+us up the sides of King's Mountain when every tyrant gun that belched
+in our face called us--rebels!"
+
+"Old Hick'ry! Old Hick'ry, forever!" came back from the lines.
+
+Again the old sword came to attention, and again a deep hush
+followed.
+
+"Men," he said, drawing a huge rifled barreled pistol--"this is the
+pistol of Andrew Jackson, the rebel that whipped the British at New
+Orleans when every gun that thundered in his face, meant death to
+liberty!"
+
+"Old Hickory! Old Hickory!!" came back in a frenzy of excitement.
+
+Again the old sword came to attention--again, the silence. Then the
+old man fairly stood erect in his stirrups--he grew six inches
+taller and straighter and the black horse reared and rose as if to
+give emphasis to his rider's assertion:
+
+"Men," he shouted, "rebel is the name that tyranny gives to
+patriotism! And now, let us fight, as our fore-fathers fought, for
+our state, our homes and our firesides!" And then clear and distinct
+there rang out on the night air, a queer old continental command:
+
+"Fix, pieces!"
+
+They did not know what this meant at first. But some old men in the
+line happened to remember and fixed their bayonets. Then there was
+clatter and clank down the entire line as others imitated their
+examples.
+
+"Poise, fo'k!" rang out again more queerly still. The old men who
+remembered brought their guns to the proper position. "Right
+shoulder, fo'k!"--followed. Then, "Forward, March!" came back and
+they moved straight at the batteries--now silent--and straight at the
+breastworks, more silent still. Proudly, superbly, they came on, with
+not a shout or shot--a chained line with links of steel--a moving
+mass with one heart--and that heart,--victory.
+
+On they came at the breastworks, walking over the dead who lay so
+thick they could step from body to body as they marched. On they
+came, following the old cocked hat that had once held bloodier
+breastworks against as stubborn foe.
+
+On--on--they came, expecting every moment to see a flame of fire run
+round the breastworks, a furnace of flame leap up from the batteries,
+and then--victory or death--behind old Hickory! Either was honor
+enough!
+
+And now they were within fifty feet of the breastworks, moving as if
+on dress parade. The guns must thunder now or never! One step
+more--then, an electrical bolt shot through every nerve as the old
+man wheeled his horse and again rang out that queer old continental
+command, right in the mouth of the enemy's ditch, right in the teeth
+of his guns:
+
+"Charge, pieces!"
+
+It was Tom Travis who commanded the guns where the Columbia Pike met
+the breastworks at the terrible deadly locust thicket. All night he
+had stood at his post and stopped nine desperate charges. All night
+in the flash and roar and the strange uncanny smell of blood and
+black powder smoke, he had stood among the dead and dying calling
+stubbornly, monotonously:
+
+"Ready!"
+
+"Aim!"
+
+"Fire!"
+
+And now it was nearly midnight and Schofield, finding the enemy
+checked, was withdrawing on Nashville.
+
+Tom Travis thought the battle was over, but in the glare and flash he
+looked and saw another column, ghostly gray in the starlight, moving
+stubbornly at his guns.
+
+"Ready!" he shouted as his gunners sprang again to their pieces.
+
+On came the column--beautifully on. How it thrilled him to see them!
+How it hurt to think they were his people!
+
+"_Aim!_" he thundered again, and then as he looked through the gray
+torch made, starlighted night, he quailed in a cold sickening fear,
+for the old man who led them on was his grandsire, the man whom of
+all on earth he loved and revered the most.
+
+Eight guns, with grim muzzles trained on the old rider and his
+charging column, waited but for the captain's word to hurl their
+double-shotted canisters of death.
+
+And Tom Travis, in the agony of it, stood, sword in hand, stricken in
+dumbness and doubt. On came the column, the old warrior leading
+them--on and:--
+
+"The command--the command! Give it to us, Captain," shouted the
+gunners.
+
+"_Cease firing!_"
+
+The gunners dropped their lanyards with an oath, trained machines
+that they were.
+
+It was a drunken German who brought a heavy sword-hilt down on the
+young officer's head with:
+
+"You damned traitor!"
+
+A gleam of gun and bayonet leaped in the misty light in front, from
+shoulder to breast--a rock wall, tipped with steel swept crushingly
+forward over the trenches over the breastworks.
+
+Under the guns, senseless, his skull crushed, an upturned face
+stopped the old warrior. Down from his horse he came with a weak,
+hysterical sob.
+
+"O Tom--Tom, I might have known it was you--my gallant, noble boy--my
+Irish Gray!"
+
+He kissed, as he thought, the dead face, and went on with his men.
+
+It was just midnight.
+
+"At midnight, all being quiet in front, in accordance with orders
+from the commanding Generals," writes General J. D. Cox in his
+official report, "I withdrew my command to the north bank of the
+river."
+
+"The battle closed about twelve o'clock at night," wrote General
+Hood, "when the enemy retreated rapidly on Nashville, leaving the
+dead and wounded in our hands. We captured about a thousand prisoners
+and several stands of colors."
+
+Was this a coincidence--or as some think--did the boys in blue
+retreat before they would fire on an old Continental and the spirit
+of '76?
+
+An hour afterwards a negro was sadly leading a tired old man on a
+superb horse back to headquarters, and as the rider's head sank on
+his breast he said:
+
+"Lead me, Bisco, I'm too weak to guide my horse. Nothing is left now
+but the curse of it."
+
+And O, the curse of it!
+
+Fifty-seven Union dead beside the wounded, in the little front yard
+of the Carter House, alone. And they lay around the breastworks from
+river to river, a chain of dead and dying. In front of the
+breastworks was another chain--a wider and thicker one. It also ran
+from river to river, but was gray instead of blue. Chains are made of
+links, and the full measure of "the curse of it" may have been seen
+if one could have looked over the land that night and have seen where
+the dead links lying there were joined to live under the roof trees
+of far away homes.
+
+But here is the tale of a severed link: About two o'clock lights
+began to flash about over the battle-field--they were hunting for the
+dead and wounded. Among these, three had come out from the Carter
+House. A father, son and daughter; each carried a lantern and as they
+passed they flashed their lights in the faces of the dead.
+
+"May we look for brother?" asked the young girl, of an officer. "We
+hope he is not here but fear he is. He has not been home for two
+years, being stationed in another state. But we heard he could not
+resist the temptation to come home again and joined General Bate's
+brigade. And O, we fear he has been killed for he would surely have
+been home before this."
+
+They separated, each looking for "brother." Directly the father heard
+the daughter cry out. It was in the old orchard near the house. On
+reaching the spot she was seated on the ground, holding the head of
+her dying brother in her lap and sobbing:
+
+"Brother's come home! Brother's come home!" Alas, she meant--gone
+home!
+
+"Captain Carter, on staff duty with Tyler's brigade," writes General
+Wm. B. Bate in his official report, "fell mortally wounded near the
+works of the enemy and almost at the door of his father's home. His
+gallantry I witnessed with much pride, as I had done on other fields,
+and here take pleasure in mentioning it especially."
+
+The next morning in the first light of the first day of that month
+celebrated as the birth-month of Him who declared long ago that war
+should cease, amid the dead and dying of both armies, stood two
+objects which should one day be carved in marble--One, to represent
+the intrepid bravery of the South, the other, the cool courage of the
+North, and both--"the curse of it."
+
+The first was a splendid war-horse, dead, but lying face forward,
+half over the federal breastworks. It was the horse of General Adams.
+
+The other was a Union soldier--the last silent sentinel of
+Schofield's army. He stood behind a small locust tree, just in front
+of the Carter House gate. He had drawn his iron ram-rod which rested
+under his right arm pit, supporting that side. His gun, with butt on
+the ground at his left, rested with muzzle against his left side,
+supporting it. A cartridge, half bitten off was in his mouth. He
+leaned heavily against the small tree in front. He was quite dead, a
+minie ball through his head; but thus propped he stood, the wonder of
+many eyes, the last sentinel of the terrible night battle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But another severed link cut deepest of all. In the realization of
+her love for Thomas Travis, Alice Westmore's heart died within her.
+In the years which followed, if suffering could make her a great
+singer, now indeed was she great.
+
+
+
+
+PART FOURTH--THE LINT
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+COTTONTOWN
+
+
+Slavery clings to cotton.
+
+When the directors of a cotton mill, in a Massachusetts village,
+decided, in the middle '70's, to move their cotton factory from New
+England to Alabama, they had two objects in view--cheaper labor and
+cheaper staple.
+
+And they did no unwise thing, as the books of the company from that
+time on showed.
+
+In the suburbs of a growing North Alabama town, lying in the
+Tennessee Valley and flanked on both sides by low, regularly rolling
+mountains, the factory had been built.
+
+It was a healthful, peaceful spot, and not unpicturesque. North and
+south the mountains fell away in an undulating rhythmical sameness,
+with no abrupt gorges to break in and destroy the poetry of their
+scroll against the sky. The valley supplemented the effect of the
+mountains; for, from the peak of Sunset Rock, high up on the
+mountain, it looked not unlike the chopped up waves of a great river
+stiffened into land--especially in winter when the furrowed rows of
+the vast cotton fields lay out brown and symmetrically turned under
+the hazy sky.
+
+The factory was a low, one-story structure of half burnt bricks.
+Like a vulgar man, cheapness was written all over its face. One of
+its companions was a wooden store house near by, belonging to the
+company. The other companion was a squatty low-browed engine room,
+decorated with a smoke-stack which did business every day in the week
+except Sunday. A black, soggy exhaust-pipe stuck out of a hole in its
+side, like a nicotine-soaked pipe in an Irishman's mouth, and so
+natural and matter-of-fact was the entire structure that at evening,
+in the uncertain light, when the smoke was puffing out of its stack,
+and the dirty water running from its pipes, and the reflected fire
+from the engine's furnace blazed through the sunken eyes of the
+windows, begrizzled and begrimed, nothing was wanted but a little
+imagination to hear it cough and spit and give one final puff at its
+pipe and say: "Lu'd but o'ive wur-rek hard an' o'im toired to-day!"
+
+Around it in the next few years had sprung up Cottontown.
+
+The factory had been built on the edge of an old cottonfield which
+ran right up to the town's limit; and the field, unplowed for several
+years, had become sodded with the long stolens of rank Bermuda grass,
+holding in its perpetual billows of green the furrows which had been
+thrown up for cotton rows and tilled years before.
+
+This made a beautiful pea-green carpet in summer and a comfortable
+straw-colored matting in winter; and it was the only bit of sentiment
+that clung to Cottontown.
+
+All the rest of it was practical enough: Rows of scurvy three-roomed
+cottages, all exactly alike, even to the gardens in the rear, laid
+off in equal breadth and running with the same unkept raggedness up
+the flinty side of the mountain.
+
+There was not enough originality among the worked-to-death
+inhabitants of Cottontown to plant their gardens differently; for all
+of them had the same weedy turnip-patch on one side, straggling
+tomatoes on another, and half-dried mullein-stalks sentineling the
+corners. For years these cottages had not been painted, and now each
+wore the same tinge of sickly yellow paint. It was not difficult to
+imagine that they had had a long siege of malarial fever in which the
+village doctor had used abundant plasters of mustard, and the disease
+had finally run into "yaller ja'ndice," as they called it in
+Cottontown.
+
+And thus Cottontown had stood for several years, a new problem in
+Southern life and industry, and a paying one for the Massachusetts
+directors.
+
+In the meanwhile another building had been put up--a little cheaply
+built chapel, of long-leaf yellow pine. It was known as the Bishop's
+church, and sat on the side of the mountain, half way up among the
+black-jacks, exposed to the blistering suns of summer and the winds
+of winter.
+
+It had never been painted: "An' it don't need it," as the Bishop had
+said when the question of painting it had been raised by some of the
+members.
+
+"No, it don't need it, for the hot sun has drawed all the rosin out
+on its surface, an' pine rosin's as good a paint as any church needs.
+Jes' let God be, an' He'll fix His things like He wants 'em any way.
+He put the paint in the pine-tree when He made it. Now man is mighty
+smart,--he can make paint, but he can't make a pine tree."
+
+It was Sunday morning, and as the Bishop drove along to church he was
+still thinking of Jack Bracken and Captain Tom, and the burial of
+little Jack. When he arose that morning Jack was up, clean-shaved and
+neatly dressed. As Mrs. Watts, the Bishop's wife, had become used, as
+she expressed it, to his "fetchin' any old thing, frum an old hoss to
+an old man home, wharever he finds 'em,"--she did not express any
+surprise at having a new addition to the family.
+
+The outlaw looked nervous and sorrow-stricken. Several times, when
+some one came on him unexpectedly, the Bishop saw him feeling
+nervously for a Colt's revolver which had been put away. Now and
+then, too, he saw great tears trickling down the rough cheeks, when
+he thought no one was noticing him.
+
+"Now, Jack," said the Bishop after breakfast, "you jes' get on John
+Paul Jones an' hunt for Cap'n Tom. I know you'll not leave no stone
+unturned to find him. Go by the cave and see if him an' Eph ain't
+gone back. I'm not af'eard--I know Eph will take care of him, but we
+want to fin' him. After meetin' if you haven't found him I'll join in
+the hunt myself--for we must find Cap'n Tom, Jack, befo' the sun goes
+down. I'd ruther see him than any livin' man. Cap'n Tom--Cap'n
+Tom--him that's been as dead all these years! Fetch him home when you
+find him--fetch him home to me. He shall never want while I live.
+An', Jack, remember--don't forget yo'se'f and hold up anybody. I'll
+expec' you to jine the church nex' Sunday."
+
+"I ain't been in a church for fifteen years," said the other.
+
+"High time you are going, then. You've put yo' hands to the
+plough--turn not back an' God'll straighten out everything."
+
+Jack was silent. "I'll go by the cave fus' an' jus' look where little
+Jack is sleepin'. Po' little feller, he must ha' been mighty lonesome
+last night."
+
+It was ten o'clock and the Bishop was on his way to church. He was
+driving the old roan of the night before. A parody on a horse, to one
+who did not look closely, but to one who knows and who looks beyond
+the mere external form for that hidden something in both man and
+horse which bespeaks strength and reserve force, there was seen
+through the blindness and the ugliness and the sleepy, ambling,
+shuffling gait a clean-cut form, with deep chest and closely ribbed;
+with well drawn flanks, a fine, flat steel-turned bone, and a
+powerful muscle, above hock and forearms, that clung to the leg as
+the Bishop said, "like bees a'swarmin'."
+
+At his little cottage gate stood Bud Billings, the best slubber in
+the cotton mill. Bud never talked to any one except the Bishop; and
+his wife, who was the worst Xanthippe in Cottontown, declared she had
+lived with him six months straight and never heard him come nearer
+speaking than a grunt. It was also a saying of Richard Travis, that
+Bud had been known to break all records for silence by drawing a
+year's wages at the mill, never missing a minute and never speaking
+a word.
+
+Nor had he ever looked any one full in the eye in his life.
+
+As the Bishop drove shamblingly along down the road, deeply
+preoccupied in his forthcoming sermon, there came from out of a hole,
+situated somewhere between the grizzled fringe of hair that marked
+Bud's whiskers and the grizzled fringe above that marked his
+eyebrows, a piping, apologetic voice that sounded like the first few
+rasps of an old rusty saw; but to the occupant of the buggy it meant,
+with a drawl:
+
+"Howdy do, Bishop?"
+
+A blind horse is quick to observe and take fright at anything
+uncanny. He is the natural ghost-finder of the highways, and that
+voice was too much for the old roan. To him it sounded like something
+that had been resurrected. It was a ghost-voice, arising after many
+years. He shied, sprang forward, half wheeled and nearly upset the
+buggy, until brought up with a jerk by the powerful arms of his
+driver. The shaft-band had broken and the buggy had run upon the
+horse's rump, and the shafts stuck up almost at right angles over his
+back. The roan stood trembling with the half turned, inquisitive
+muzzle of the sightless horse--a paralysis of fear all over his face.
+But when Bud came forward and touched his face and stroked it, the
+fear vanished, and the old roan bobbed his tail up and down and
+wiggled his head reassuringly and apologetically.
+
+"Wal, I declar, Bishop," grinned Bud, "kin yo' critter fetch a
+caper?"
+
+The Bishop got leisurely out of his buggy, pulled down the shafts and
+tied up the girth before he spoke. Then he gave a puckering hitch to
+his underlip and deposited in the sand, with a puddling _plunk_, the
+half cup of tobacco juice that had closed up his mouth.
+
+He stepped back and said very sternly:
+
+"Whoa, Ben Butler!"
+
+"Why, he'un's sleep a'ready," grinned Bud.
+
+The Bishop glanced at the bowed head, cocked hind foot and listless
+tail: "Sof'nin' of the brain, Bud," smiled the Bishop; "they say when
+old folks begin to take it they jus' go to sleep while settin' up
+talkin'. Now, a horse, Bud," he said, striking an attitude for a
+discussion on his favorite topic, "a horse is like a man--he must have
+some meanness or he c'udn't live, an' some goodness or nobody else c'ud
+live. But git in, Bud, and let's go along to meetin'--'pears like it's
+gettin' late."
+
+This was what Bud had been listening for. This was the treat of
+the week for him--to ride to meetin' with the Bishop. Bud, a
+slubber-slave--henpecked at home, brow-beaten and cowed at the mill,
+timid, scared, "an' powerful slow-mouthed," as his spouse termed it,
+worshipped the old Bishop and had no greater pleasure in life, after his
+hard week's work, than "to ride to meetin' with the old man an' jes'
+hear him narrate."
+
+The Bishop's great, sympathetic soul went out to the poor fellow, and
+though he had rather spend the next two miles of Ben Butler's slow
+journey to church in thinking over his sermon, he never failed, as he
+termed it, "to pick up charity even on the roadside," and it was
+pretty to see how the old man would turn loose his crude histrionic
+talent to amuse the slubber. He knew, too, that Bud was foolish about
+horses, and that Ben Butler was his model!
+
+They got into the old buggy, and Ben Butler began to draw it slowly
+along the sandy road to the little church, two miles away up the
+mountain side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BEN BUTLER
+
+
+Bud was now in a seventh heaven. He was riding behind Ben Butler, the
+greatest horse in the world, and talking to the Bishop, the only
+person who ever heard the sound of his voice, save in deprecatory and
+scary grunts.
+
+It was touching to see how the old man humored the simple and
+imposed-upon creature at his side. It was beautiful to see how,
+forgetting himself and his sermon, he prepared to entertain, in his
+quaint way, this slave to the slubbing machine.
+
+Bud looked fondly at the Bishop--then admiringly at Ben Butler. He
+drew a long breath of pure air, and sitting on the edge of the seat,
+prepared to jump if necessary; for Bud was mortally afraid of being
+in a runaway, and his scared eyes seemed to be looking for the soft
+places in the road.
+
+"Bishop," he drawled after a while, "huc-cum you name sech a
+hoss"--pointing to the old roan--"sech a grand hoss, for sech a
+man--sech a man as he was," he added humbly.
+
+"Did you ever notice Ben Butler's eyes, Bud?" asked the old man,
+knowingly.
+
+"Blind," said Bud sadly, shaking his head--"too bad--too
+bad--great--great hoss!"
+
+"Yes, but the leds, Bud--that hoss, Ben Butler there, holds a world's
+record--he's the only cock-eyed hoss in the world."
+
+"You don't say so--that critter!--cock-eyed?" Bud laughed and slapped
+his leg gleefully. "Didn't I always tell you so? World's
+record--great--great!"
+
+Then it broke gradually through on Bud's dull mind.
+
+He slapped his leg again. "An' him--his namesake--he was cock-eyed,
+too--I seed him onct at New 'Leens."
+
+"Don't you never trust a cock-eyed man, Bud. He'll flicker on you in
+the home-stretch. I've tried it an' it never fails. Love him, but
+don't trust him. The world is full of folks we oughter love, but not
+trust."
+
+"No--I never will," said Bud as thoughtfully as he knew how to
+be--"nor a cock-eyed 'oman neither. My wife's cock-eyed," he added.
+
+He was silent a moment. Then he showed the old man a scar on his
+forehead: "She done that last month--busted a plate on my head."
+
+"That's bad," said the Bishop consolingly--"but you ortenter
+aggravate her, Bud."
+
+"That's so--I ortenter--least-wise, not whilst there's any crockery
+in the house," said Bud sadly.
+
+"There's another thing about this hoss," went on the Bishop--"he's
+always spoony on mules. He ain't happy if he can't hang over the
+front gate spoonin' with every stray mule that comes along. There's
+old long-eared Lize that he's dead stuck on--if he c'u'd write he'd
+be composin' a sonnet to her ears, like poets do to their lady
+love's--callin' them Star Pointers of a Greater Hope, I reck'n, an'
+all that. Why, he'd ruther hold hands by moonlight with some old
+Maria mule than to set up by lamplight with a thoroughbred filly."
+
+"Great--great!" said Bud slapping his leg--"didn't I tell you so?"
+
+"So I named him Ben Butler when he was born. That was right after the
+war, an' I hated old Ben so an' loved hosses so, I thought ef I'd
+name my colt for old Ben maybe I'd learn to love him, in time."
+
+Bud shook his head. "That's agin nature, Bishop."
+
+"But I have, Bud--sho' as you are born I love old Ben Butler." He
+lowered his voice to an earnest whisper: "I ain't never told you what
+he done for po' Cap'n Tom."
+
+"Never heurd o' Cap'n Tom."
+
+The Bishop looked hurt. "Never mind, Bud, you wouldn't understand.
+But maybe you will ketch this, listen now."
+
+Bud listened intently with his head on one side.
+
+"I ain't never hated a man in my life but what God has let me live
+long enough to find out I was in the wrong--dead wrong. There are
+Jews and Yankees. I useter hate 'em worse'n sin--but now what do you
+reckon?"
+
+"One on 'em busted a plate on yo' head?" asked Bud.
+
+"Jesus Christ was a Jew, an' Cap'n Tom jined the Yankees."
+
+"Bud," he said cheerily after a pause, "did I ever tell you the story
+of this here Ben Butler here?"
+
+Bud's eyes grew bright and he slapped his leg again.
+
+"Well," said the old man, brightening up into one of his funny moods,
+"you know my first wife was named Kathleen--Kathleen Galloway when
+she was a gal, an' she was the pretties' gal in the settlement an'
+could go all the gaits both saddle an' harness. She was han'som' as a
+three-year-old an' cu'd out-dance, out-ride, out-sing an' out-flirt
+any other gal that ever come down the pike. When she got her Sunday
+harness on an' began to move, she made all the other gals look like
+they were nailed to the roadside. It's true, she needed a little
+weight in front to balance her, an' she had a lot of ginger in her
+make-up, but she was straight and sound, didn't wear anything but the
+harness an' never teched herself anywhere nor cross-fired nor hit her
+knees."
+
+"Good--great!" said Bud, slapping his leg.
+
+"O, she was beautiful, Bud, with that silky hair that 'ud make a
+thoroughbred filly's look coarse as sheep's wool, an' two
+mischief-lovin' eyes an' a heart that was all gold. Bud--Bud"--there
+was a huskiness in the old man's voice--"I know I can tell you
+because it will never come back to me ag'in, but I love that Kathleen
+now as I did then. A man may marry many times, but he can never love
+but once. Sometimes it's his fust wife, sometimes his secon', an'
+often it's the sweetheart he never got--but he loved only
+one of 'em the right way, an' up yander, in some other star, where
+spirits that are alike meet in one eternal wedlock, they'll be one
+there forever."
+
+"Her daddy, old man Galloway, had a thoroughbred filly that he named
+Kathleena for his daughter, an' she c'ud do anything that the gal
+left out. An' one day when she took the bit in her teeth an' run a
+quarter in twenty-five seconds, she sot 'em all wild an' lots of
+fellers tried to buy the filly an' get the old man to throw in the
+gal for her keep an' board."
+
+"I was one of 'em. I was clerkin' for the old man an' boardin' in the
+house, an' whenever a young feller begins to board in a house where
+there is a thoroughbred gal, the nex' thing he knows he'll be--"
+
+"Buckled in the traces," cried Bud slapping his leg gleefully, at
+this, his first product of brilliancy.
+
+The old man smiled: "'Pon my word, Bud, you're gittin' so smart. I
+don't know what I'll be doin' with you--so 'riginal an' smart. Why,
+you'll quit keepin' an old man's company--like me. I won't be able to
+entertain you at all. But, as I was sayin', the next thing he knows,
+he'll be one of the family."
+
+"So me an' Kathleen, we soon got spoony an' wanted to marry. Lots of
+'em wanted to marry her, but I drawed the pole an' was the only one
+she'd take as a runnin' mate. So I went after the old man this a way:
+I told him I'd buy the filly if he'd give me Kathleen. I never will
+forgit what he said: 'They ain't narry one of 'em for sale, swap or
+hire, an' I wish you young fellers 'ud tend to yo' own business an'
+let my fillies alone. I'm gwinter bus' the wurl's record wid 'em
+both--Kathleena the runnin' record an' Kathleen the gal record, so be
+damn to you an' don't pester me no mo'.'"
+
+"Did he say _damn_?" asked Bud aghast--that such a word should ever
+come from the Bishop.
+
+"He sho' did, Bud. I wouldn't lie about the old man, now that he's
+dead. It ain't right to lie about dead people--even to make 'em say
+nice an' proper things they never thought of whilst alive. If we'd
+stop lyin' about the ungodly dead an' tell the truth about 'em, maybe
+the livin' 'ud stop tryin' to foller after 'em in that respect. As it
+is, every one of 'em knows that no matter how wicked he lives
+there'll be a lot o' nice lies told over him after he's gone, an' a
+monument erected, maybe, to tell how good he was. An' there's another
+lot of half pious folks in the wurl it 'ud help--kind o' sissy pious
+folks--that jus' do manage to miss all the fun in the world an' jus'
+are mean enough to ketch hell in the nex'. Get religion, but don't
+get the sissy kind. So I am for tellin' it about old man Galloway
+jus' as he was.
+
+"You orter heard him swear, Bud--it was part of his religion. An'
+wherever he is to-day in that other world, he is at it yet, for in
+that other life, Bud, we're just ourselves on a bigger scale than we
+are in this. He used to cuss the clerks around the store jus' from
+habit, an' when I went to work for him he said:
+
+"'Young man, maybe I'll cuss you out some mornin', but don't pay no
+'tention to it--it's just a habit I've got into, an' the boys all
+understand it.'
+
+"'Glad you told me,' I said, lookin' him square in the eye--'one
+confidence deserves another. I've got a nasty habit of my own, but I
+hope you won't pay no 'tention to it, for it's a habit, an' I can't
+help it. I don't mean nothin' by it, an' the boys all understand it,
+but when a man cusses me I allers knock him down--do it befo' I
+think'--I said--'jes' a habit I've got.'
+
+"Well, he never cussed me all the time I was there. My stock went up
+with the old man an' my chances was good to get the gal, if I hadn't
+made a fool hoss-trade; for with old man Galloway a good hoss-trade
+covered all the multitude of sins in a man that charity now does in
+religion. In them days a man might have all the learnin' and virtues
+an' graces, but if he cudn't trade hosses he was tinklin' brass an'
+soundin' cymbal in that community.
+
+"The man that throwed the silk into me was Jud Carpenter--the same
+feller that's now the Whipper-in for these mills. Now, don't be
+scared," said the old man soothingly as Bud's scary eyes looked about
+him and he clutched the buggy as if he would jump out--"he'll not
+pester you now--he's kept away from me ever since. He swapped me a
+black hoss with a star an' snip, that looked like the genuine thing,
+but was about the neatest turned gold-brick that was ever put on an
+unsuspectin' millionaire.
+
+"Well, in the trade he simply robbed me of a fine mare I had, that
+cost me one-an'-a-quarter. Kathleen an' me was already engaged, but
+when old man Galloway heard of it, he told me the jig was up an' no
+such double-barrel idiot as I was shu'd ever leave any of my colts in
+the Galloway paddock--that when he looked over his gran'-chillun's
+pedigree he didn't wanter see all of 'em crossin' back to the same
+damned fool! Oh, he was nasty. He said that my colts was dead sho' to
+be luffers with wheels in their heads, an' when pinched they'd quit,
+an' when collared they'd lay down. That there was a yaller streak in
+me that was already pilin' up coupons on the future for tears and
+heartaches an', maybe a gallows or two, an' a lot of uncomplimentary
+talk of that kind.
+
+"Well, Kathleen cried, an' I wept, an' I'll never forgit the night
+she gave me a little good-bye kiss out under the big oak tree an'
+told me we'd hafter part.
+
+"The old man maybe sized me up all right as bein' a fool, but he
+missed it on my bein' a quitter. I had no notion of being fired an'
+blistered an' turned out to grass that early in the game. I wrote her
+a poem every other day, an' lied between heats, till the po' gal was
+nearly crazy, an' when I finally got it into her head that if it was
+a busted blood vessel with the old man, it was a busted heart with
+me, she cried a little mo' an' consented to run off with me an' take
+the chances of the village doctor cuppin' the old man at the right
+time.
+
+"The old lady was on my side and helped things along. I had
+everything fixed even to the moon which was shinin' jes' bright
+enough to carry us to the Justice's without a lantern, some three
+miles away, an' into the nex' county.
+
+"I'll never forgit how the night looked as I rode over after her, how
+the wild-flowers smelt, an' the fresh dew on the leaves. I remember
+that I even heard a mockin'-bird wake up about midnight as I tied my
+hoss to a lim' in the orchard nearby, an' slipped aroun' to meet
+Kathleen at the bars behin' the house. It was a half mile to the
+house an' I was slippin' through the sugar-maple trees along the path
+we'd both walked so often befo' when I saw what I thought was
+Kathleen comin' towards me. I ran to meet her. It wa'n't Kathleen,
+but her mother--an' she told me to git in a hurry, that the old man
+knew all, had locked Kathleen up in the kitchen, turned the brindle
+dog loose in the yard, an' was hidin' in the woods nigh the barn,
+with his gun loaded with bird-shot, an' that if I went any further
+the chances were I'd not sit down agin for a year. She had slipped
+around through the woods just to warn me.
+
+"Of course I wanted to fight an' take her anyway--kill the dog an'
+the old man, storm the kitchen an' run off with Kathleen in my arms
+as they do in novels. But the old lady said she didn't want the dog
+hurt--it being a valuable coon-dog,--and that I was to go away out of
+the county an' wait for a better time.
+
+"It mighty nigh broke me up, but I decided the old lady was right an'
+I'd go away. But 'long towards the shank of the night, after I had
+put up my hoss, the moon was still shinin', an' I cudn't sleep for
+thinkin' of Kathleen. I stole afoot over to her house just to look at
+her window. The house was all quiet an' even the brindle dog was
+asleep. I threw kisses at her bed-room window, but even then I cudn't
+go away, so I slipped around to the barn and laid down in the hay to
+think over my hard luck. My heart ached an' burned an' I was nigh
+dead with love.
+
+"I wondered if I'd ever get her, if they'd wean her from me, an' give
+her to the rich little feller whose fine farm j'ined the old man's
+an' who the old man was wuckin' fur--whether the two wouldn't
+over-persuade her whilst I was gone. For I'd made up my mind I'd go
+befo' daylight--that there wasn't anything else for me to do.
+
+"I was layin' in the hay, an' boylike, the tears was rollin' down. If
+I c'ud only kiss her han' befo' I left--if I c'ud only see her face
+at the winder!
+
+"I must have sobbed out loud, for jus' then I heard a gentle,
+sympathetic whinny an' a cold, inquisitive little muzzle was thrust
+into my face, as I lay on my back with my heart nearly busted. It was
+Kathleena, an' I rubbed my hot face against her cool cheek--for it
+seemed so human of her to come an' try to console me, an' I put my
+arms around her neck an' kissed her silky mane an' imagined it was
+Kathleen's hair.
+
+"Oh, I was heart-broke an' silly.
+
+"Then all at onct a thought came to me, an' I slipped the bridle an'
+saddle on her an' led her out at the back door, an' I scratched this
+on a slip of paper an' stuck it on the barn do':
+
+"'_To old man Galloway:_
+
+"'_You wouldn't let me 'lope with yo' dorter, so I've 'loped with yo'
+filly, an' you'll never see hair nor hide of her till you send me
+word to come back to this house an' fetch a preacher._'
+
+"'(Signed)                         _Hillard Watts._'"
+
+The old man smiled, and Bud slapped his leg gleefully.
+
+"Great--great! Oh my, but who'd a thought of it?" he grunted.
+
+"They say it 'ud done you good to have been there the nex' mornin'
+an' heurd the cussin' recurd busted--but me an' the filly was forty
+miles away. He got out a warrant for me for hoss-stealin', but the
+sheriff was for me, an' though he hunted high an' low he never could
+find me."
+
+"Well, it went on for a month, an' I got the old man's note, sent by
+the sheriff:
+
+"_'To Hillard Watts, Wher-Ever Found._
+
+"_'Come on home an' fetch yo' preacher. Can't afford to loose the
+filly, an' the gal has been off her feed ever since you left._
+
+"'_Jobe Galloway._'
+
+"Oh, Bud, I'll never forgit that home-comin' when she met me at the
+gate an' kissed me an' laughed a little an' cried a heap, an' we
+walked in the little parlor an' the preacher made us one.
+
+"Nor of that happy, happy year, when all life seemed a sweet dream
+now as I look back, an' even the memory of it keeps me happy. Memory
+is a land that never changes in a world of changes, an' that should
+show us our soul is immortal, for memory is only the reflection of
+our soul."
+
+His voice grew more tender, and low: "Toward the last of the year I
+seed her makin' little things slyly an' hidin' 'em away in the bureau
+drawer, an' one night she put away a tiny half-finished little dress
+with the needle stickin' in the hem--just as she left it--just as her
+beautiful hands made the last stitch they ever made on earth....
+
+"O Bud, Bud, out of this blow come the sweetest thought I ever had,
+an' I know from that day that this life ain't all, that we'll live
+agin as sho' as God lives an' is just--an' no man can doubt that.
+No--no--Bud, this life ain't all, because it's God's unvarying law to
+finish things. That tree there is finished, an' them birds, they are
+finished, an' that flower by the roadside an' the mountain yonder an'
+the world an' the stars an' the sun. An' we're mo' than they be,
+Bud--even the tinies' soul, like Kathleen's little one that jes'
+opened its eyes an' smiled an' died, when its mammy died. It had
+something that the trees an' birds an' mountains didn't have--a
+soul--an' don't you kno' He'll finish all such lives up yonder? He'll
+pay it back a thousandfold for what he cuts off here."
+
+Bud wept because the tears were running down the old man's cheeks. He
+wanted to say something, but he could not speak. That queer feeling
+that came over him at times and made him silent had come again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+AN ANSWER TO PRAYER
+
+
+Then the old man remembered that he was making Bud suffer with his
+own sorrow, and when Bud looked at him again the Bishop had wiped his
+eyes on the back of his hand and was smiling.
+
+Ben Butler, unknown to either, had come to a standstill.
+
+The Bishop broke out in a cheery tone:
+
+"My, how far off the subject I got! I started out to tell you all
+about Ben Butler, and--and--how he come in answer to prayer," said
+the Bishop solemnly.
+
+Bud grinned: "It muster been, '_Now I lay me down to sleep_.'"
+
+The Bishop laughed: "Well I'll swun if he ain't sound asleep sho'
+'nuff." He laughed again: "Bud, you're gittin' too bright for
+anything. I jes' don't see how the old man's gwinter talk to you much
+longer 'thout he goes to school agin."
+
+"No--Ben Butler is a answer to prayer," he went on.
+
+"The trouble with the world is it don't pray enough. Prayer puts God
+into us, Bud--we're all a little part of God, even the worst of us,
+an' we can make it big or let it die out accordin' as we pray. If we
+stop prayin' God jes' dies out in us. Of course God don't answer any
+fool prayer, for while we're here we are nothin' but a bundle of
+laws, an' the same unknown law that moves the world around makes yo'
+heart beat. But God is behind the law, an' if you get in harmony with
+God's laws an' pray, He'll answer them. Christ knowed this, an' there
+was some things that even He wouldn't ask for. When the Devil tempted
+Him to jump off the top of the mountain. He drawed the line right
+there, for He knowed if God saved Him by stoppin' the law of
+gravitation it meant the wreck of the world."
+
+"Bud," he went on earnestly, "I've lived a long time an' seed a heap
+o' things, an' the plaines' thing I ever seed in my life is that two
+generations of scoffers will breed a coward, an' three of 'em a
+thief, an' that the world moves on only in proportion as it's got
+faith in God.
+
+"I was ruined after the war--broken--busted--ruined! An' I owed five
+hundred dollars on the little home up yander on the mountain. When I
+come back home from the army I didn't have nothin' but one old
+mare,--a daughter of that Kathleena I told you about. I knowed I was
+gone if I lost that little home, an' so one night I prayed to the
+Lord about it an' then it come to me as clear as it come to Moses in
+the burnin' bush. God spoke to me as clear as he did to Moses."
+
+"How did he say it?" asked Bud, thoroughly frightened and looking
+around for a soft spot to jump and run.
+
+"Oh, never mind that," went on the Bishop--"God don't say things out
+loud--He jes' brings two an' two together an' expects you to add 'em
+an' make fo'. He gives you the soil an' the grain an' expects you to
+plant, assurin' you of rain an' sunshine to make the crop, if you'll
+only wuck. He comes into yo' life with the laws of life an' death an'
+takes yo' beloved, an' it's His way of sayin' to you that this life
+ain't all. He shows you the thief an' the liar an' the adulterer all
+aroun' you, an' if you feel the shock of it an' the hate of it, it's
+His voice tellin' you not to steal an' not to lie an' not to be
+impure. You think only of money until you make a bad break an' loose
+it all. That's His voice tellin' you that money ain't everything in
+life. He puts opportunities befo' you, an' if you grasp 'em it's His
+voice tellin' you to prosper an' grow fat in the land. No, He don't
+speak out, but how clearly an' unerringly He does speak to them that
+has learned to listen for His voice!
+
+"I rode her across the river a hundred miles up in Marshall County,
+Tennessee, and mated her to a young horse named Tom Hal. Every body
+knows about him now, but God told me about him fust.
+
+"Then I knowed jes' as well as I am settin' in this buggy that that
+colt was gwinter give me back my little home an' a chance in life. Of
+course, I told everybody 'bout it an' they all laughed at me--jes'
+like they all laughed at Noah an' Abraham an' Lot an' Moses, an' if I
+do say it--Jesus Christ. But thank God it didn't pester me no more'n
+it did them."
+
+"Well, the colt come ten years ago--an' I named him Ben Butler--cause
+I hated old Ben Butler so. He had my oldest son shot in New Orleans
+like he did many other rebel prisoners. But this was God's colt an'
+God had told me to love my enemies an' do good to them that did
+wrong to me, an' so I prayed over it an' named him Ben Butler, hopin'
+that God 'ud let me love my enemy for the love I bore the colt. An'
+He has."
+
+Bud shook his head dubiously.
+
+"He showed me I was wrong, Bud, to hate folks, an' when I tell you of
+po' Cap'n Tom an' how good Gen. Butler was to him, you'll say so,
+too.
+
+"From the very start Ben Butler was a wonder. He came with fire in
+his blood an' speed in his heels.
+
+"An' I trained him. Yes--from the time I was Gen. Travis' overseer I
+had always trained his hosses. I'm one of them preachers that
+believes God intended the world sh'ud have the best hosses, as He
+intended it sh'ud have the best men an' women. Take all His works, in
+their fitness an' goodness, an' you'll see He never 'lowed for a
+scrub an' a quitter anywhere. An' so when He gave me this tip on Ben
+Butler's speed I done the rest.
+
+"God gives us the tips of life, but He expects us to make them into
+the dead cinches.
+
+"Oh, they all laughed at us, of course, an' nicknamed the colt Mister
+Isaacs, because, like Sarah's son, he came in answer to prayer. An'
+when in his two-year-old form, I led him out of the stable one cold,
+icy day, an' he was full of play an' r'ared an' fell an' knocked down
+his hip, they said that 'ud fix Mister Isaacs.
+
+"But it didn't pester me at all. I knowed God had done bigger things
+in this world than fixin' a colt's hip, an' it didn't shake my faith.
+I kept on prayin' an' kept on trainin'.
+
+"Well, it soon told. His hip was down, but it didn't stop him from
+flyin'. As a three-year-old he paced the Nashville half mile track in
+one-one flat, an' though they offered me then an' there a thousand
+dollars for Ben Butler, I told 'em no,--he was God's colt an' I
+didn't need but half of that to raise the mortgage, an' he'd do that
+the first time he turned round in a race.
+
+"I drove him that race myself, pulled down the five hundred dollar
+purse, refused all their fine offers for Ben Butler, an' me an' him's
+been missionaryin' round here ever since."
+
+"Great hoss--great!" said Bud, his eyes sparkling,--"allers told you
+so! Think I'll get out and hug him."
+
+This he did while the Bishop sat smiling. But in the embrace Ben
+Butler planted a fore foot on Bud's great toe. Bud came back limping
+and whimpering with pain.
+
+"Now there, Bud," said the Bishop, consolingly. "God has spoken to
+you right there."
+
+"What 'ud He say?" asked Bud, looking scary again.
+
+"Why, he said through Nature's law an' voice that you mustn't hug a
+hoss if you don't want yo' toes tramped on."
+
+"Who must you hug then?" asked Bud.
+
+"Yo' wife, if you can't do no better," said the Bishop quietly.
+
+"My wife's wussern a hoss," said Bud sadly--"she bites. I'm sorry you
+didn't take that thar thousan' dollars for him," he said, looking at
+his bleeding toe.
+
+"Bud," said the old man sternly, "don't say that no mo'. It mou't
+make me think you are one of them selfish dogs that thinks money'll
+do anything. Then I'd hafter watch you, for I'd know you'd do
+anything for money."
+
+Bud crawled in rather crest-fallen, and they drove on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+HOW THE BISHOP FROZE
+
+
+The Bishop laughed outright as his mind went back again.
+
+"Well," he went on reminiscently, "I'll have to finish my tale an'
+tell you how I throwed the cold steel into Jud Carpenter when I got
+back. I saw I had it to do, to work back into my daddy-in-law's
+graces an' save my reputation.
+
+"Now, Jud had lied to me an' swindled me terribly, when he put off
+that old no-count hoss on me. Of course, I might have sued him, for a
+lie is a microbe which naturally develops into a lawyer's fee. But
+while it's a terrible braggart, it's really cowardly an' delicate,
+an' will die of lock-jaw if you only pick its thumb.
+
+"So I breshed up that old black to split-silk fineness, an' turned
+him over to Dr. Sykes, a friend of mine living in the next village.
+An' I said to the Doctor, 'Now remember he is yo' hoss until Jud
+Carpenter comes an' offers you two hundred dollars for him.'
+
+"'Will he be fool enough to do it?' he asked, as he looked the old
+counterfeit over.
+
+"'Wait an' see,' I said.
+
+"I said nothin', laid low an' froze an' it wa'n't long befo' Jud come
+'round as I 'lowed he'd do. He expected me to kick an' howl; but as I
+took it all so nice he didn't understand it. Nine times out of ten
+the best thing to do when the other feller has robbed you is to
+freeze. The hunter on the plain knows the value of that, an' that he
+can freeze an' make a deer walk right up to him, to find out what he
+is. Why, a rabbit will do it, if you jump him quick, an' he gets
+confused an' don't know jes' what's up; an' so Jud come as I thort
+he'd do. He couldn't stan' it no longer, an' he wanted to rub it in.
+He brought his crowd to enjoy the fun.
+
+"'Oh, Mr. Watts,' he said grinnin', 'how do you like a coal black
+stump-sucker?'
+
+"'Well,' I said indifferent enough--'I've knowed good judges of
+hosses to make a hones' mistake now an' then, an' sell a hoss to a
+customer with the heaves thinkin' he's a stump-sucker. But it 'ud
+turn out to be only the heaves an' easily cured.'
+
+"'Is that so?' said Jud, changing his tone.
+
+"'Yes,' I said, 'an' I've knowed better judges of hosses to sell a
+nervous hoss for a balker that had been balked onct by a rattle head.
+But in keerful hands I've seed him git over it,' I said, indifferent
+like.
+
+"'Indeed?' said Jud.
+
+"'Yes, Jud,' said I, 'I've knowed real hones' hoss traders to make
+bad breaks of that kind, now and then--honest intentions an' all
+that, but bad judgment,'--sez I--'an' I'll cut it short by sayin'
+that I'll just give you two an' a half if you'll match that no-count,
+wind broken black as you tho'rt, that you swapped me.'
+
+"'Do you mean it?' said Jud, solemn-like.
+
+"'I'll make a bond to that effect,' I said solemnly.
+
+"Jud went off thoughtful. In a week or so he come back. He hung
+aroun' a while an' said:
+
+"'I was up in the country the other day, an' do you kno' I saw a dead
+match for yo' black? Only a little slicker an' better lookin'--same
+star an' white hind foot. As nigh like him as one black-eyed pea
+looks like another.'
+
+"'Jud,' I said, 'I never did see two hosses look exactly alike.
+You're honestly mistaken.'
+
+"'They ain't a hair's difference,' he said. 'He's a little slicker
+than yours--that's all--better groomed than the one in yo' barn.'
+
+"'I reckon he is,' said I, for I knew very well there wa'n't none in
+my barn. 'That's strange,' I went on, 'but you kno' what I said.'
+
+"'Do you still hold to that offer?' he axed.
+
+"'I'll make bond with my daddy-in-law on it,' I said.
+
+"'Nuff said,' an' Jud was gone. The next day he came back leading the
+black, slicker an' hence no-counter than ever, if possible.
+
+"'Look at him,' he said proudly--'a dead match for yourn. Jes' han'
+me that two an' a half an' take him. You now have a team worth a
+thousan'.'
+
+"I looked the hoss over plum' surprised like.
+
+"'Why, Jud,' I said as softly as I cu'd, for I was nigh to bustin',
+an' I had a lot of friends come to see the sho', an' they standin'
+'round stickin' their old hats in their mouths to keep from
+explodin'--'Why, Jud, my dear friend,' I said, 'ain't you kind o'
+mistaken about this? I said a _match_ for the black, an' it peers to
+me like you've gone an' bought the black hisse'f an' is tryin' to
+put him off on me. No--no--my kind frien', you'll not fin' anything
+no-count enuff to be his match on this terrestrial ball.'
+
+"By this time you cu'd have raked Jud's eyes off his face with a
+soap-gourd.
+
+"'What? w-h-a-t? He--why--I bought him of Dr. Sykes.'
+
+"'Why, that's funny,' I said, 'but it comes in handy all round. If
+you'd told me that the other day I might have told you,' I
+said--'yes, I might have, but I doubt it--that I'd loaned him to Dr.
+Sykes an' told him whenever you offered him two hundred cash for him
+to let him go. Jes' keep him,' sez I, 'till you find his mate, an'
+I'll take an oath to buy 'em.'"
+
+Bud slapped his leg an' yelled with delight.
+
+"Whew," said the Bishop--"not so loud. We're at the church.
+
+"But remember, Bud, it's good policy allers to freeze. When you're in
+doubt--freeze!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE FLOCK
+
+
+The Bishop's flock consisted of two distinct classes: Cottontowners
+and Hillites.
+
+"There's only a fair sprinklin' of Hillites that lives nigh about
+here," said the Bishop, "an' they come because it suits them better
+than the high f'lutin' services in town. When a Christian gits into a
+church that's over his head, he is soon food for devil-fish."
+
+The line of demarcation, even in the Bishop's small flock, was easily
+seen. The Hillites, though lean and lanky, were swarthy, healthy and
+full of life. "But Cottontown," said the Bishop, as he looked down on
+his congregation--"Cottontown jes' naturally feels tired."
+
+It was true. Years in the factory had made them dead, listless,
+soulless and ambitionless creatures. To look into their faces was
+like looking into the cracked and muddy bottom of a stream which once
+ran.
+
+Their children were there also--little tots, many of them, who worked
+in the factory because no man nor woman in all the State cared enough
+for them to make a fight for their childhood.
+
+They were children only in age. Their little forms were not the forms
+of children, but of diminutive men and women, on whose backs the
+burden of earning their living had been laid, ere the frames had
+acquired the strength to bear it.
+
+Stunted in mind and body, they were little solemn, pygmy peoples,
+whom poverty and overwork had canned up and compressed into
+concentrated extracts of humanity. The flavor--the juices of
+childhood--had been pressed out.
+
+"'N no wonder," thought the Bishop, as he looked down upon them from
+his crude platform, "for them little things works six days every week
+in the factory from sun-up till dark, an' often into the night, with
+jes' forty minutes at noon to bolt their food. O God," he said softly
+to himself, "You who caused a stream of water to spring up in the
+wilderness that the life of an Ishmaelite might be saved, make a
+stream of sentiment to flow from the heart of the world to save these
+little folks."
+
+Miss Patsy Butts, whose father, Elder Butts of the Hard-shell faith,
+owned a fertile little valley farm beyond the mountain, was organist.
+She was fat and so red-faced that at times she seemed to be oiled.
+
+She was painfully frank and suffered from acute earnestness.
+
+And now, being marriageable, she looked always about her with shy,
+quick, expectant glances.
+
+The other object in life, to Patsy, was to watch her younger brother,
+Archie B., and see that he kept out of mischief. And perhaps the
+commonest remark of her life was:
+
+"Maw, jus' look at Archie B.!"
+
+This was a great cross for Archie B., who had been known to say
+concerning it: "If I ever has any kids, I'll never let the old'uns
+nuss the young'uns. They gits into a bossin' kind of a habit that
+sticks to 'em all they lives."
+
+To-day Miss Patsy was radiantly shy and happy, caused by the fact
+that her fat, honest feet were encased in a pair of beautiful new
+shoes, the uppers of which were clasped so tightly over her ankles as
+to cause the fat members to bulge in creases over the tops, as
+uncomfortable as two Sancho Panzas in armor.
+
+"Side-but'ners," said Mrs. Butts triumphantly to Mrs. O'Hooligan of
+Cottontown,--"side-but'ners--I got 'em for her yistiddy--the fust
+that this town's ever seed. La, but it was a job gittin' 'em on
+Patsy. I had to soak her legs in cold water nearly all night, an'
+then I broke every knittin' needle in the house abut'nin' them side
+but'ners.
+
+"But fashion is fashion, an' when I send my gal out into society,
+I'll send her in style. Patsy Butts," she whispered so loud that
+everybody on her side of the house heard her--"when you starts up
+that ole wheez-in' one gallus organ, go slow or you'll bust them
+side-but'ners wide open."
+
+When the Bishop came forward to preach his sermon, or talk to his
+flock, as he called it, his surplice would have astonished anyone,
+except those who had seen him thus attired so often. A stranger might
+have laughed, but he would not have laughed long--the old man's
+earnestness, sincerity, reverence and devotion were over-shadowing.
+Its pathos was too deep for fun.
+
+Instead of a clergyman's frock he wore a faded coat of blue buttoned
+up to his neck. It had been the coat of an officer in the artillery,
+and had evidently passed through the Civil War. There was a bullet
+hole in the shoulder and a sabre cut in the sleeve.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A BISHOP MILITANT
+
+
+No one had ever heard the Bishop explain his curious surplice but
+once, and that had been several years before, when the little chapel,
+by the aid of a concert Miss Alice gave, contributions from the
+Excelsior Mill headed by Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley, and other sources had
+been furnished, and the Bishop came forward to make his first talk:
+
+"This is the only church of its kind in the worl', I reckin'," he
+said. "I've figured it out an' find we're made up of Baptis',
+Metherdis', Presbyterian, 'Piscopalian, Cam'elites an' Hard-shells.
+You've 'lected me Bishop, I reckon, 'cause I've jined all of 'em, an'
+so far as I know I am the only man in the worl' who ever done that
+an' lived to tell the tale. An' I'm not ashamed to say it, for I've
+allers foun' somethin' in each one of 'em that's a little better than
+somethin' in the other. An' if there's any other church that'll teach
+me somethin' new about Jesus Christ, that puffect Man, I'll jine it.
+I've never seed a church that had Him in it that wa'n't good enough
+for me."
+
+The old man smiled in humorous retrospection as he went on:
+
+"The first company of Christians I jined was the Hard-shells. I was
+young an' a raw recruit an' nachully fell into the awkward squad. I
+liked their solar plexus way of goin' at the Devil, an' I liked the
+way they'd allers deal out a good ration of whiskey, after the fight,
+to ev'ry true soldier of the Cross--especially if we got our feet too
+wet, which we mos' always of'ntimes gen'ally did."
+
+This brought out visible smiles all down the line, from the others at
+the Hard-shells and their custom of foot-washing.
+
+"But somehow," went on the old man, "I didn't grow in grace--spent
+too much time in singin' an' takin' toddies to keep off the effect of
+cold from wet feet. Good company, but I wanted to go higher, so I
+drapt into the Baptis' rigiment, brave an' hones', but they spen' too
+much time a-campin' in the valley of the still water, an' when on the
+march, instid of buildin' bridges to cross dry-shod over rivers an'
+cricks, they plunge in with their guns stropped to their backs, their
+powder tied up in their socks in their hats, their shoes tied 'round
+their necks an' their butcher-knife in their teeth. After they lan'
+they seem to think it's the greates' thing in the worl' that they've
+been permitted to wade through water instead of crossin' on a log,
+an' they spen' the balance of their time marchin' 'roun' an' singin':
+
+    "'Billows of mercy, over me roll,
+     Oceans of Faith an' Hope, come to my soul.'
+
+"Don't want to fly to heaven--want to swim there. An' if they find
+too much lan' after they get there, they'll spen' the res' of
+eternity prayin' for a deluge.
+
+"Bes' ole relig'un in the worl', tho,--good fighters, too, in the
+Lord's cause. Ole timey, an' a trifle keerless about their
+accoutrements, an' too much water nachully keeps their guns rusty an'
+their powder damp, but if it comes to a square-up fight agin the
+cohorts of sin, an' the powder in their pans is too damp for
+flashin', they'd jes' as soon wade in with the butcher-knife an' the
+meat axe. I nachully out-grow'd 'em, for I seed if the Great Captain
+'ud command us all to jine armies an' fight the worl', the Baptis'
+'ud never go in, unless it was a sea-fight.
+
+"From them to the Cam'elites was easy, for I seed they was
+web-footed, too. The only diff'rence betwix' them an' the Baptis' is
+that they are willin' to jine in with any other rigiment, provided
+allers that you let them 'pint the sappers an' miners an' blaze out
+the way. Good fellers, tho', an' learned me lots. They beats the
+worl' for standin' up for each other an' votin' allers for fust
+place. If there's a promotion in camp they want it; 'n' when they
+ain't out a-drillin' their companies they're sho' to be in camp
+'sputin' with other rigiments as to how to do it. Good, hones'
+fighters, tho', and tort me how to use my side arms in a tight place.
+Scatterin' in some localities, but like the Baptises, whenever you
+find a mill-dam there'll be their camp an' plenty o' corn.
+
+"Lord, how I did enjoy it when I struck the Methodis' rigiment! The
+others had tort me faith an' zeal, but these tort me discipline. They
+are the best drilled lot in the army of the Lord, an' their drill
+masters run all the way from wet-nurses to old maids. For furagin'
+an' free love for ev'rything they beats the worl', an' they pay mo'
+'tenshun to their com'sary department than they do to their
+ord'nance. They'll march anywhere you want 'em, swim rivers or build
+bridges, fight on ship or sho', strong in camp-meetin's or battle
+songs, an' when they go, they go like clockwuck an' carry their dead
+with 'em!
+
+"The only thing they need is an incubator, to keep up their hennery
+department an' supply their captains with the yellow legs of the
+land. Oh, but I love them big hearted Methodists!
+
+"I foun' the Presbyterian phalanx a pow'ful army, steady, true an'
+ole-fashioned, their powder strong of brimstone an' sulphur an' their
+ordnance antique. Why, they're usin' the same old mortars John Knox
+fired at the Popes, an' the same ole blunderbusses that scatter wide
+enough to cover all creation an' is as liable to kick an' kill
+anything in the rear as in front. They won't sleep in tents an'
+nothin' suits 'em better'n being caught in a shower on the march. In
+battle they know no fear, for they know no ball is goin' to kill you
+if you're predistined to be hung. In the fight they know no
+stragglers an' fallers from grace.
+
+"Ay, but they're brave. I jined 'em Sunday night after the battle of
+Shiloh, when I saw one of their captains stan' up amid the dead an'
+dyin' of that bloody field, with the shells from the Yankee gun-boats
+fallin' aroun' him. Standin' there tellin' of God an' His
+forgiveness, until many a po' dyin' soldier, both frien' an' foe,
+like the thief on the cross, found peace at the last hour.
+
+"Befo' I jined the 'Piscopal corps I didn't think I cu'd stan'
+'em--too high furlutin' for my raisin'. They seemed to pay mo'
+attenshun to their uniforms than their ordnance, an' their
+drum-majors outshine any other churches' major generals. An'
+drillin'? They can go through mo' monkey manoeuvers in five minutes
+than any other church can in a year. It's drillin'--drillin' with 'em
+all the time, an' red-tape an' knee breeches, an' when they ain't
+drillin' they're dancin'. They have signs an' countersigns, worl'
+without end, ah-men. An' I've knowed many of them to put all his
+three months' pay into a Sunday uniform for dress parade.
+
+"Weepons? They've got the fines' in the worl' an' they don't think
+they can bring down the Devil les' they shoot at him with a silver
+bullet. Everything goes by red-tape with 'em, an' the ban'-wagon goes
+in front.
+
+"But I jined 'em," went on the old man, "an' I'll tell you why."
+
+He paused--his voice trembled, and the good natured, bubbling humor,
+which had floated down the smooth channel of his talk, vanished as
+bubbles do when they float out into the deep pool beyond.
+
+"Here," he said, lifting his arm, and showing the coat of the Captain
+of Artillery--"this is what made me jine 'em. This is the coat of
+Cap'n Tom, that saved my life at the risk of his own an' that was
+struck down at Franklin; an' no common man of clay, as I be, ever
+befo' had so God-like a man of marble to pattern after. I saw him in
+the thick of the fight with his guns parked an' double-shotted, stop
+our victorious rush almos' up to the river bank an' saved Grant's
+army from defeat an' capture. I was on the other side, an' chief of
+scouts for Albert Sidney Johnston, but I see him now in his blue
+Yankee coat, fightin' his guns like the hero that he was. I was
+foolish an' rushed in. I was captured an' in a prison pen, I drawed
+the black ball with 'leven others that was sentenced to be shot. It
+was Cap'n Tom who came to me in the early dawn of the day of the
+execution an' said: 'They shall not shoot you, Bishop--put on my blue
+coat an' go through the lines. I owe much to my country--I am giving
+it all.
+
+"'I owe something to you. They shall not shoot you like a dog. I will
+tell my colonel what I have done to-morrow. If they think it is
+treason they may shoot me instead. I have nothing to live for--you,
+all. Go.'
+
+"I have never seed him sence.
+
+"We are mortals and must think as mortals. If we conceive of God, we
+can conceive of Him only as in human form. An' I love to think that
+the blessed an' brave an' sweet Christ looked like Cap'n Tom looked
+in the early dawn of that morning when he come an' offered
+himself,--captain that he was--to be shot, if need be, in my
+place--so gran', so gentle, so brave, so forgivin', so like a
+captain--so like God."
+
+His voice had dropped lower and lower still. It died away in a
+sobbing murmur, as a deep stream purls and its echo dies in a deeper
+eddy.
+
+"It was his church an' I jined it. This was his coat, an' so, let us
+pray."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+MARGARET ADAMS
+
+
+There passed out of the church, after the service, a woman leading a
+boy of twelve.
+
+He was a handsome lad with a proud and independent way about him. He
+carried his head up and there was that calmness that showed good
+blood. There was even a haughtiness which was pathetic, knowing as
+the village did the story of his life.
+
+The woman herself was of middle age, with neat, well-fitting clothes,
+which, in the smallest arrangement of pattern and make-up, bespoke a
+natural refinement.
+
+Her's was a sweet face, with dark eyes, and in their depths lay the
+shadow of resignation.
+
+Throughout the sermon she had not taken her eyes off the old man in
+the pulpit, and so interested was she, and so earnestly did she drink
+in all he said, that any one noticing could tell that, to her, the
+plain old man in the pulpit was more than a pastor.
+
+She sat off by herself. Not one of them in all Cottontown would come
+near her.
+
+"Our virtue is all we po' fo'ks has got--if we lose that we ain't got
+nothin' lef'," Mrs. Banks of grass-widow fame had once said, and
+saying it had expressed Cottontown's opinion.
+
+Mrs. Banks was very severe when the question of woman's purity was
+up. She was the fastest woman at the loom in all Cottontown. She was
+quick, with a bright, deep-seeing eye. She had been pretty--but now
+at forty-five she was angular and coarse-looking, with a sharp
+tongue.
+
+The Bishop had smiled when he heard her say it, and then he looked at
+Margaret Adams sitting in the corner with her boy. In saying it, Mrs.
+Banks had elevated her nose as she looked in the direction where sat
+the Magdalene.
+
+The old man smiled, because he of all others knew the past history of
+Mrs. Banks, the mistress of the loom.
+
+He replied quietly: "Well, I dun'no--the best thing that can be said
+of any of us in general is, that up to date, it ain't recorded that
+the Almighty has appinted any one of us, on account of our supreme
+purity, to act as chief stoner of the Universe. Mighty few of us,
+even, has any license to throw pebbles."
+
+Of all his congregation there was no more devoted member than
+Margaret Adams--"an' as far as I kno'," the old man had often said,
+"if there is an angel on earth, it is that same little woman."
+
+When she came into church that day, the old man noticed that even the
+little Hillites drew away from her. Often they would point at the
+little boy by her side and make faces at him. To-day they had carried
+it too far when one of them, just out in the church yard, pushed him
+rudely as he walked proudly by the side of his mother, looking
+straight before him, in his military way, and not so much as giving
+them a glance.
+
+"Wood's-colt," sneered the boy in his ear, as he pushed him.
+
+"No--thoroughbred"--came back, and with it a blow which sent the
+intruder backward on the grass.
+
+Several old men nodded at him approvingly as he walked calmly on by
+the side of his mother.
+
+"Jimmie--Jimmie!" was all she said as she slipped into the church.
+
+"I guess you must be a new-comer," remarked Archie B. indifferently
+to the boy who was wiping the blood from his face as he arose from
+the ground and looked sillily around. "That boy Jim Adams is my
+pardner an' I could er tole you what you'd git by meddlin' with him.
+He's gone in with his mother now, but him an' me--we're in
+alliance--we fights for each other. Feel like you got enough?"--and
+Archie B. got up closer and made motions as if to shed his coat.
+
+The other boy grinned good naturedly and walked off.
+
+To-day, just outside of the church Ben Butler had been hitched up and
+the Bishop sat in the old buggy.
+
+Bud Billings stood by holding the bit, stroking the old horse's neck
+and every now and then striking a fierce attitude, saying
+"Whoa--whoa--suh!"
+
+As usual, Ben Butler was asleep.
+
+"Turn him loose, Bud," said the old man humoring the slubber--"I've
+got the reins an' he can't run away now. I can't take you home
+to-day--I'm gwinter take Margaret, an' you an' Jimmie can come along
+together."
+
+No other man could have taken Margaret Adams home and had any
+standing left, in Cottontown.
+
+And soon they were jogging along down the mountain side, toward the
+cabin where the woman lived and supported herself and boy by her
+needle.
+
+To-day Margaret was agitated and excited--more than the Bishop had
+ever known her to be. He knew the reason, for clean-shaved and neatly
+dressed, Jack Bracken passed her on the road to church that morning,
+and as they rode along the Bishop told her it was indeed Jack whom
+she had seen, "an' he loves you yet, Margaret," he said.
+
+She turned pink under her bonnet. How pretty and fresh she
+looked--thought the Bishop--and what purity in a face to have such a
+name.
+
+"It _was_ Jack, then," she said simply--"tell me about him, please."
+
+"By the grace of God he has reformed," said the old
+man--"and--Margaret--he loves you yet, as I sed. He is going under
+the name of Jack Smith, the blacksmith here, an' he'll lead another
+life--but he loves you yet," he whispered again.
+
+Then he told her what had happened, knowing that Jack's secret would
+be safe with her.
+
+When he told her how they had buried little Jack, and of the father's
+admission that his determination to lead the life of an outlaw had
+come when he found that she had been untrue to him, she was shaken
+with grief. She could only sit and weep. Not even at the gate, when
+the old man left her, did she say anything.
+
+Within, she stopped before a picture which hung over the mantle-piece
+and looked at it, through eyes that filled again and again with
+tears. It was the picture of a pretty mountain girl with dark eyes
+and sensual lip.
+
+Margaret knelt before it and wept.
+
+The boy had come and stood moodily at the front gate. The hot and
+resentful blood still tinged in his cheek. He looked at his
+knuckles--they were cut and swollen where he had struck the boy who
+had jeered him. It hurt him, but he only smiled grimly.
+
+Never before had any one called him a wood's-colt. He had never heard
+the word before, but he knew what it meant. For the first time in his
+life, he hated his mother. He heard her weeping in the little room
+they called home. He merely shut his lips tightly and, in spite of
+the stoicism that was his by nature, the tears swelled up in his
+eyes.
+
+They were hot tears and he could not shake them off. For the first
+time the wonder and the mystery of it all came over him. For the
+first time he felt that he was not as other boys,--that there was a
+meaning in this lonely cabin and the shunned woman he called mother,
+and the glances, some of pity, some of contempt, which he had met all
+of his life.
+
+As he stood thinking this, Richard Travis rode slowly down the main
+road leading from the town to The Gaffs. And this went through the
+boy successively--not in words, scarcely--but in feelings:
+
+"What a beautiful horse he is riding--it thrills me to see it--I love
+it naturally--oh, but to own one!
+
+"What a handsome man he is--and how like a gentleman he looks! I like
+the way he sits his horse. I like that way he has of not noticing
+people. He has got the same way about him I have got--that I've
+always had--that I love--a way that shows me I'm not afraid, and that
+I have got nerve and bravery.
+
+"He sits that horse just as I would sit him--his head--his face--the
+way that foot slopes to the stirrup--why that's me--"
+
+He stopped--he turned pale--he trembled with pride and rage. Then he
+turned and walked into the room where Margaret Adams sat. She held
+out her arms to him pleadingly.
+
+But he did not notice her, and never before had she seen such a look
+on his face as he said calmly:
+
+"Mother, if you will come to the door I will show you my father."
+
+Margaret Adams had already seen. She turned white with a hidden shame
+as she said:
+
+"Jimmie--Jimmie--who--who--?"
+
+"No one," he shouted fiercely--"by God"--she had never before heard
+him swear--"I tell you no one--on my honor as a Travis--no one! It
+has come to me of itself--I know it--I feel it."
+
+He was too excited to talk. He walked up and down the little room,
+his proud head lifted and his eyes ablaze.
+
+"I know now why I love honesty, why I despise those common things
+beneath me--why I am not afraid--why I struck that boy as I did this
+morning--why--" he walked into the little shed room that was his own
+and came back with a long single barrel pistol in his hand and
+fondled it lovingly--"why all my life I have been able to shoot this
+as I have--"
+
+He held in his hand a long, single barrel, rifle-bored duelling
+pistol--of the type used by gentlemen at the beginning of the
+century. Where he had got it she did not know, but always it had been
+his plaything.
+
+"O Jimmie--you would not--" exclaimed the woman rising and reaching
+for it.
+
+"Tush--" he said bitterly--"tush--that's the way Richard Travis
+talks, ain't it? Does not my very voice sound like his? No--but I
+expect you now, mother"--he said it softly--"tell me--tell me all
+about it."
+
+For a moment Margaret Adams was staggered. She only shook her head.
+
+He looked at her cynically--then bitterly. A dangerous flash leaped
+into his eyes.
+
+"Then, by God," he cried fiercely, "this moment will I walk over to
+his house with this pistol in my hand and I will ask him. If he fails
+to tell me--damn him--I dare him--"
+
+She jumped up and seized him in her arms.
+
+"Promise me that if I tell you all--all, Jimmy, when you are
+fifteen--promise me--will you be patient now--with poor mother, who
+loves you so?" And she kissed him fondly again and again.
+
+He looked into her eyes and saw all her suffering there.
+
+The bitterness went out of his.
+
+"I'll promise, mother," he said simply, and walked back into his
+little room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+HARD-SHELL SUNDAY
+
+
+"This bein' Hard-shell Sunday," said the Bishop that afternoon when
+his congregation met, "cattle of that faith will come up to the front
+rack for fodder. Elder Butts will he'p me conduct these exercises."
+
+"It's been so long sence I've been in a Hard-shell lodge, I may be a
+little rusty on the grip an' pass word, but I'm a member in good
+standin' if I am rusty."
+
+There was some laughing at this, from the other members, and after
+the Hard-shells had come to the front the Bishop caught the infection
+and went on with a sly wink at the others.
+
+"The fact is, I've sometimes been mighty sorry I jined any other
+lodge; for makin' honorable exception, the other churches don't know
+the diff'r'nce betwixt twenty-year-old Lincoln County an' Michigan
+pine-top.
+
+"The Hard-shells was the fust church I jined, as I sed. I hadn't
+sampled none of the others"--he whispered aside--"an' I didn't know
+there was any better licker in the jug. But the Baptists is a little
+riper, the Presbyterians is much mellower, an' compared to all of
+them the 'Piscopalians rises to the excellence of syllabub an'
+champagne.
+
+"A hones' dram tuck now an' then, prayerfully, is a good thing for
+any religion. I've knowed many a man to take a dram jes' in time to
+keep him out of a divorce court. An' I've never knowed it to do
+anybody no harm but old elder Shotts of Clay County. An' ef he'd a
+stuck to it straight he'd abeen all right now. But one of these
+old-time Virginia gentlemen stopped with him all night onct, an'
+tor't the old man how to make a mint julip; an' when I went down the
+next year to hold services his wife told me the good old man had been
+gathered to his fathers. 'He was all right' she 'lowed, 'till a
+little feller from Virginia came along an' tort 'im ter mix greens in
+his licker, an' then he jes drunk hisself to death.'
+
+"There's another thing I like about two of the churches I'm in--the
+Hard-shells an' the Presbyterians--an' that is special Providence. If
+I didn't believe in special Providence I'd lose my faith in God.
+
+"My father tuck care of me when I was a babe, an' we're all babes in
+God's sight.
+
+"The night befo' the battle of Shiloh, I preached to some of our po'
+boys the last sermon that many of 'em ever heard. An' I told 'em not
+to dodge the nex' day, but to stan' up an' 'quit themselves like men,
+for ever' shell an' ball would hit where God intended it should hit.
+
+"In the battle nex' day I was chaplain no longer, but chief of
+scouts, an' on the firin' line where it was hot enough. In the
+hottest part of it General Johnston rid up, an' when he saw our
+exposed position he told us to hold the line, but to lay down for
+shelter. A big tree was nigh me an' I got behin' it. The Gineral
+seed me an' he smiled an' sed:
+
+"'Oh, Bishop,'"--his voice fell to a proud and tender tone--"did you
+know it was Gineral Johnston that fust named me the Bishop?"
+
+"'Oh, Bishop,' he said, 'I can see you puttin' a tree betwixt yo'se'f
+an' special Providence.' 'Yes, Gineral,' I sed, 'an' I looks on it as
+a very special Providence jus' at this time.'
+
+"He laughed, an' the boys hoorawed an' he rid off.
+
+"Our lives an' the destiny of our course is fixed as firmly as the
+laws that wheel the planets. Why, I have knowed men to try to hew out
+their own destiny an' they'd make it look like a gum-log hewed out
+with a broad axe, until God would run the rip-saw of His purpose into
+them, an' square them out an' smooth them over an' polish them into
+pillars for His Temple.
+
+"What is, was goin' to be; an' the things that's got to come to us
+has already happened in God's mind.
+
+"I've knowed poor an' unpretentious, God-fearin' men an' women to put
+out their hands to build shanties for their humble lives, an' God
+would turn them into castles of character an' temples of truth for
+all time.
+
+"Elder Butts will lead in prayer."
+
+It was a long prayer and was proceeding smoothly, until, in its
+midst, from the front row, Archie B.'s head bobbed cautiously up.
+Keeping one eye on his father, the praying Elder, he went through a
+pantomime for the benefit of the young Hillites around him, who, like
+himself, had had enough of prayer. Before coming to the meeting he
+had cut from a black sheep's skin a gorgeous set of whiskers and a
+huge mustache. These now adorned his face.
+
+There was a convulsive snicker among the young Hillites behind him.
+The Elder opened one eye to see what it meant. They were natural
+children, whose childhood had not been dwarfed in a cotton mill, and
+it was exceedingly funny to them.
+
+But the young Cottontowners laughed not. They looked on in stoical
+wonder at the presumption of the young Hillites who dared to do such
+a deed.
+
+Humor had never been known to them. There is no humor in the all-day
+buzz of the cotton factory; and fun and the fight of life for daily
+bread do not sleep in the same crib.
+
+The Hillites tittered and giggled.
+
+"Maw," whispered Miss Butts, "look at Archie B."
+
+Mrs. Butts hastily reached over the bench and yanked Archie B. down.
+His whiskers were confiscated and in a moment he was on his knees and
+deeply devotional, while the young Hillites nudged each other, and
+giggled and the young Cottontowners stared and wondered, and looked
+to see when Archie B. would be hung up by the thumbs.
+
+The Bishop was reading the afternoon chapter when the animal in
+Archie B. broke out in another spot. The chapter was where Zacharias
+climbed into a sycamore tree to see his passing Lord. There was a
+rattling of the stove pipe in one corner.
+
+"Maw," whispered Miss Butts, "Jes' look at Archie B.--he's climbin'
+the stove pipe like Zacharias did the sycamo'."
+
+Horror again swept over Cottontown, while the Hillites cackled aloud.
+The Elder settled it by calmly laying aside his spectacles and
+starting down the pulpit steps. But Archie B. guessed his purpose and
+before he had reached the last step he was sitting demurely by the
+side of his pious brother, intently engaged in reading the New
+Testament.
+
+Without his glasses, the Elder never knew one twin from the other,
+but presuming that the studious one was Ozzie B., he seized the other
+by the ear, pulled him to the open window and pitched him out on the
+grass.
+
+It was Ozzie B. of course, and Archie B. turned cautiously around to
+the Hillites behind, after the Elder had gone back to his chapter,
+and whispered:
+
+"_Venture pee-wee under the bridge--bam--bam--bam._"
+
+Throughout the sermon Archie B. kept the young Hillites in a paroxysm
+of smirks.
+
+Elder Butts' legs were brackets, or more properly parentheses, and as
+he preached and thundered and gesticulated and whined and sang his
+sermon, he forgot all earthly things.
+
+Knowing this, Archie B. would crawl up behind his father and
+thrusting his head in between his legs, where the brackets were most
+pronounced, would emphasize all that was said with wry grimaces and
+gestures.
+
+No language can fittingly describe the way Elder Butts delivered his
+discourse. The sentences were whined, howled or sung, ending always
+in the vocal expletive--"_ah--ah_."
+
+When the elder had finished and sat down, Archie B. was sitting
+demurely on the platform steps.
+
+Then the latest Scruggs baby was brought forward to be baptised.
+There were already ten in the family.
+
+The Bishop took the infant tenderly and said: "Sister Scruggs, which
+church shall I put him into?"
+
+"'Piscopal," whispered the good Mrs. Scruggs.
+
+The Bishop looked the red-headed young candidate over solemnly. There
+was a howl of protest from the lusty Scruggs.
+
+"He's a Cam'elite," said the Bishop dryly--"ready to dispute
+a'ready"--here the young Scruggs sent out a kick which caught the
+Bishop in the mouth.
+
+"With Baptis' propensities," added the Bishop. "Fetch the baptismal
+fount."
+
+"Please, pap," said little Appomattox Watts from the front bench,
+"but Archie B. has drunk up all the baptismal water endurin' the
+first prayer."
+
+"I had to," spoke up Archie B., from the platform steps--"I et dried
+mackerel for breakfas'."
+
+"We'll postpone the baptism' till nex' Sunday," said the Bishop.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE RETURN
+
+
+It was Sunday and Jack Bracken had been out all the afternoon,
+hunting for Cap'n Tom--as he had been in the morning, when not at
+church. Hitching up the old horse, the Bishop started out to hunt
+also.
+
+He did not go far on the road toward Westmoreland, for as Ben Butler
+plodded sleepily along, he almost ran over a crowd of boys in the
+public road, teasing what they took to be a tramp, because of his
+unkempt beard, his tattered clothes, and his old army cap.
+
+They had angered the man and with many gestures he was endeavoring to
+expostulate with his tormentors, at the same time attempting
+imprecations which could not be uttered and ended in a low pitiful
+sound. He shook his fist at them--he made violent gestures, but from
+his mouth came only a guttural sound which had no meaning.
+
+At a word from the Bishop his tormentors vanished, and when he pulled
+up before the uncouth figure he found him to be a man not yet in his
+prime, with an open face, now blank and expressionless, overgrown
+with a black, tangled, and untrimmed beard.
+
+He was evidently a demented tramp.
+
+But at a second look the Bishop started. It was the man's eyes which
+startled him. There was in them something so familiar and yet so
+unknown that the Bishop had to study a while before he could
+remember.
+
+Then there crept into his face a wave of pitying sorrow as he said to
+himself:
+
+"Cap'n Tom--Cap'n Tom's eyes."
+
+And from that moment the homeless and demented tramp had a warm place
+in the old man's heart.
+
+The Bishop watched him closely. His tattered cap had fallen off,
+showing a shock of heavy, uncut hair, streaked prematurely with gray.
+
+"What yo' name?" asked the Bishop kindly.
+
+The man, flushed and angered, still gesticulated and muttered to
+himself. But at the sound of the Bishop's voice, for a moment there
+flashed into his eyes almost the saneness of returned reason. His
+anger vanished. A kindly smile spread over his face. He came toward
+the Bishop pleadingly--holding out both hands and striving to speak.
+Climbing into the buggy, he sat down by the old man's side, quite
+happy and satisfied--and as a little child.
+
+"Where are you from?" asked the Bishop again.
+
+The man shook his head. He pointed to his head and looked meaningly
+at the Bishop.
+
+"Can't you tell me where you're gwine, then?"
+
+He looked at the Bishop inquisitively, and for a moment, only, the
+same look--almost of intelligence--shone in his eyes. Slowly and with
+much difficulty--ay, even as if he were spelling it out, he said:
+
+"A-l-i-c-e"--
+
+The old man turned quickly. Then he paled tremblingly to his very
+forehead. The word itself--the sound of that voice sent the blood
+rushing to his heart.
+
+"Alice?--and what does he mean? An' his voice an' his eyes--Alice--my
+God--it's Cap'n Tom!"
+
+Tenderly, calmly he pulled the cap from off the strange being's head
+and felt amid the unkempt locks. But his hands trembled so he could
+scarcely control them, and the sight of the poor, broken, half
+demented thing before him--so satisfied and happy that he had found a
+voice he knew--this creature, the brave, the chivalrous, the heroic
+Captain Tom! He could scarcely see for the tears which ran down his
+cheeks.
+
+But as he felt, in the depth of his shock of hair, his finger slipped
+into an ugly scar, sinking into a cup-shaped hollow fracture which
+gleamed in his hair.
+
+"Cap'n Tom, Cap'n Tom," he whispered--"don't you know me--the
+Bishop?"
+
+The man smiled reassuringly and slipped his hand, as a child might,
+into that of the old man.
+
+"A-l-i-c-e"--he slowly and stutteringly pronounced again, as he
+pointed down the road toward Westmoreland.
+
+"My God," said the Bishop as he wiped away the tears on the back of
+his hand--"my God, but that blow has spiled God's noblest gentleman."
+Then there rushed over him a wave of self-reproach as he raised his
+head heavenward and said:
+
+"_Almighty Father, forgive me! Only this morning I doubted You; and
+now, now, You have sent me po' Cap'n Tom!_"
+
+"You'll go home with me, Cap'n Tom!" he added cheerily.
+
+The man smiled and nodded.
+
+"A-l-i-c-e," again he repeated.
+
+There was the sound of some one riding, and as the Bishop turned Ben
+Butler around Alice Westmore rode up, sitting her saddle mare with
+that natural grace which comes only when the horse and rider have
+been friends long enough to become as one. Richard Travis rode with
+her.
+
+The Bishop paled again: "My God," he muttered--"but she mustn't know
+this is Cap'n Tom! I'd ruther she'd think he's dead--to remember him
+only as she knowed him last."
+
+The man's eyes were riveted on her--they seemed to devour her as she
+rode up, a picture of grace and beauty, sitting her cantering mare
+with the ease of long years of riding. She smiled and nodded brightly
+at the Bishop, as she cantered past, but scarcely glanced at the man
+beside him.
+
+Travis followed at a brisk gait:
+
+"Hello, Bishop," he said banteringly--"got a new boarder to-day?"
+
+He glanced at the man as he spoke, and then galloped on without
+turning his head.
+
+"Alice!--Alice!"--whispered the man, holding out his hands
+pleadingly, in the way he had held them when he first saw the Bishop.
+"Alice!"--but she disappeared behind a turn in the road. She had not
+noticed him.
+
+The Bishop was relieved.
+
+"We'll go home, Cap'n Tom--you'll want for nothin' whilst I live. An'
+who knows--ay, Cap'n Tom, who knows but maybe God has sent you here
+to-day to begin the unraveling of the only injustice I've ever knowed
+Him to let go so long. It 'ud be so easy for Him--He's done bigger
+things than jes' to straighten out little tangles like that. Cap'n
+Tom! Cap'n Tom!" he said excitedly--"God'll do it--God'll do it--for
+He is just!"
+
+As he turned to go a negro came up hurriedly: "I was fetchin' him to
+you, Marse Hillard--been lookin' for yo' home all day. I had gone to
+the spring for water an' 'lowed I'd be back in a minute."
+
+"Why, it's Eph," said the Bishop. "Come on to my home, Eph, we'll
+take keer of Cap'n Tom."
+
+It was Sunday night. They had eaten their supper, and the old man was
+taking his smoke before going to bed. Shiloh, as usual, had climbed
+up into his lap and lay looking at the distant line of trees that
+girdled the mountain side. There was a flush on her cheeks and a
+brightness in her eyes which the old man had noticed for several
+weeks.
+
+Shiloh was his pet--his baby. All the affection of his strong nature
+found its outlet in this little soul--this motherless little waif,
+who likewise found in the old man that rare comradeship of
+extremes--the inexplicable law of the physical world which brings the
+snow-flower in winter. The one real serious quarrel the old man had
+had with his stubborn and ignorant old wife had been when Shiloh was
+sent to the factory. But it was always starvation times with them;
+and when aroused, the temper and tongue of Mrs. Watts was more than
+the peaceful old man could stand up against. And as there were a
+dozen other tots of her age in the factory, he had been forced to
+acquiesce.
+
+Long after all others had retired--long after the evening star had
+arisen, and now, high overhead, looked down through the chinks in the
+roof of the cabin on the mountain side, saying it was midnight and
+past, the patient old man sat with Shiloh on his lap, watching her
+quick, restless breathing, and fearing to put her to bed, lest he
+might awaken her.
+
+He put her in bed at last and then slipped into Captain Tom's cabin
+before he himself lay down.
+
+To his surprise he was up and reading an old dictionary--studying and
+puzzling over the words. It was the only book except the Bible the
+Bishop had in his cabin, and this book proved to be Captain Tom's
+solace.
+
+After that, day after day, he would sit out under the oak tree by his
+cabin intently reading the dictionary.
+
+Eph, his body servant, slept on the floor by his side, and Jack
+Bracken sat near him like a sturdy mastiff guarding a child.
+Sympathy, pity--were written in the outlaw's face, as he looked at
+the once splendid manhood shorn of its strength, and from that day
+Jack Bracken showered on Captain Tom all the affection of his
+generous soul--all that would have gone to little Jack.
+
+"For he's but a child--the same as little Jack was," he would say.
+
+"Put up yo' novel, Cap'n Tom," said the old man cheerily, when he
+went in, "an' let's have prayers."
+
+The sound of the old man's voice was soothing to Captain Tom.
+Quickly the book was closed and down on their knees went the three
+men.
+
+It was a queer trio--the three kneeling in prayer.
+
+"Almighty God," prayed the old man--"me an' Cap'n Tom an' Jack
+Bracken here, we thank You for bein' so much kinder to us than we
+deserves. One of us, lost to his friends, is brought back home; one
+of us, lost in wickedness but yestiddy, is redeemed to-day; an' me
+that doubted You only yestiddy, to me You have fotcht Cap'n Tom back,
+a reproach for my doubts an' my disbelief, lame in his head, it is
+true, but You've fotcht him back where I can keer for him an' nuss
+him. An' I hope You'll see fit, Almighty God, You who made the worl'
+an' holds it in the hollow of Yo' han', You, who raised up the dead
+Christ, to give po' Cap'n Tom back his reason, that he may fulfill
+the things in life ordained by You that he should fulfill since the
+beginning of things.
+
+"An' hold Jack Bracken to the mark, Almighty God,--let him toe the
+line an' shoot, hereafter, only for good. An' guide me, for I need
+it--me that in spite of all You've done for me, doubted You but
+yestiddy. Amen."
+
+It was a simple, homely prayer, but it comforted even Captain Tom,
+and when Jack Bracken put him to bed that night, even the outlaw felt
+that the morning of a new era would awaken them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE SWAN-SONG OF THE CREPE-MYRTLE
+
+
+It was twilight when Mrs. Westmore heard the clatter of horses' hoofs
+up the gravelled roadway, and two riders cantered up.
+
+Richard Travis sat his saddle horse in the slightly stooping way of
+the old fox-hunter--not the most graceful seat, but the most natural
+and comfortable for hard riding. Alice galloped ahead--her fine
+square shoulders and delicate but graceful bust silhouetted against
+the western sky in the fading light.
+
+Mrs. Westmore sat on the veranda and watched them canter up. She
+thought how handsome they were, and how well they would look always
+together.
+
+Alice sprang lightly from her mare at the front steps.
+
+"Did you think we were never coming back? Richard's new mare rides so
+delightfully that we rode farther than we intended. Oh, but she
+canters beautifully!"
+
+She sat on the arm of her mother's chair, and bent over and kissed
+her cheek. The mother looked up to see her finely turned profile
+outlined in a pale pink flush of western sky which glowed behind her.
+Her cheeks were of the same tinge as the sky. They glowed with the
+flush of the gallop, and her eyes were bright with the happiness of
+it. She sat telling of the new mare's wonderfully correct saddle
+gaits, flipping her ungloved hand with the gauntlet she had just
+pulled off.
+
+Travis turned the horses over to Jim and came up.
+
+"Glad to see you, Cousin Alethea," he said, as she arose and advanced
+gracefully to meet him--"no, no--don't rise," he added in his half
+jolly, half commanding way. "You've met me before and I'm not such a
+big man as I seem." He laughed: "Do you remember Giant Jim, the big
+negro Grandfather used to have to oversee his hands on the lower
+place? Jim, you know, in consideration of his elevation, was granted
+several privileges not allowed the others. Among them was the
+privilege of getting drunk every Saturday night. Then it was he would
+stalk and brag among those he ruled while they looked at him in awe
+and reverence. But he had the touch of the philosopher in him and
+would finally say: 'Come, touch me, boys; come, look at me; come,
+feel me--I'm nothin' but a common man, although I appear so big.'"
+
+Mrs. Westmore laughed in her mechanical way, but all the while she
+was looking at Alice, who was watching the mare as she was led off.
+
+Travis caught her eye and winked mischievously as he added: "Now,
+Cousin Alethea, you must promise me to make Alice ride her whenever
+she needs a tonic--every day, if necessary. I have bought her for
+Alice, and she must get the benefit of her before it grows too cold."
+
+He turned to Alice Westmore: "You have only to tell me which days--if
+I am too busy to go with you--Jim will bring her over."
+
+She smiled: "You are too kind, Richard, always thinking of my
+pleasure. A ride like this once a week is tonic enough."
+
+She went into the house to change her habit. Her brother Clay, who
+had been sitting on the far end of the porch unobserved, arose and,
+without noticing Travis as he passed, walked into the house.
+
+"I cannot imagine," said Mrs. Westmore apologetically, "what is the
+matter with Clay to-day."
+
+"Why?" asked Travis indifferently enough.
+
+"He has neglected his geological specimens all day, nor has he ever
+been near his laboratory--he has one room he calls his laboratory,
+you know. To-night he is moody and troubled."
+
+Travis said nothing. At tea Clay was not there.
+
+When Travis left it was still early and Alice walked with him to the
+big gate. The moon shone dimly and the cool, pure light lay over
+everything like the first mist of frost in November. Beyond, in the
+field, where it struck into the open cotton bolls, it turned them
+into December snow-banks.
+
+Travis led his saddle horse, and as they walked to the gate, the
+sweet and scarcely perceptible odor of the crepe-myrtle floated out
+on the open air.
+
+The crepe-myrtle has a way of surprising us now and then, and often
+after a wet fall, it gives us the swan-song of a bloom, ere its
+delicate blossoms, touched to death by frost, close forever their
+scalloped pink eyes, on the rare summer of a life as spiritual as the
+sweet soft gulf winds which brought it to life.
+
+Was it symbolic to-night,--the swan-song of the romance of Alice
+Westmore's life, begun under those very trees so many summers ago?
+
+They stopped at the gate. Richard Travis lit a cigar before mounting
+his horse. He seemed at times to-night restless, yet always
+determined.
+
+She had never seen him so nearly preoccupied as he had been once or
+twice to-night.
+
+"Do you not think?" he asked, after a while as they stood by the
+gate, "that I should have a sweet answer soon?"
+
+Her eyes fell. The death song of the crepe-myrtle, aroused by a south
+wind suddenly awakened, smote her painfully.
+
+"You know--you know how it is, Richard"--
+
+"How it was--Alice. But think--life is a practical--a serious thing.
+We all have had our romances. They are the heritage of dreaming
+youth. We outlive them--it is best that we should. Our spiritual life
+follows the law of all other life, and spiritually we are not the
+same this year that we were last. Nor will we be the next. It is
+always change--change--even as the body changes. Environment has
+more to do with what we are, what we think and feel--than anything
+else. If you will marry me you will soon love me--it is the law of
+love to beget love. You will forget all the lesser loves in the great
+love of your life. Do you not know it, feel it, Sweet?"
+
+She looked at him surprised. Never before had he used any term of
+endearment to her. There was a hard, still and subtle yet determined
+light in his eyes.
+
+"Richard--Richard--you--I"--
+
+"See," he said, taking from his vest pocket a magnificent ring set in
+an exquisite old setting--inherited from his grandmother, and it had
+been her engagement ring. "See, Alice, let me put this on to-night."
+
+He took her hand--it thrilled him as he had never been thrilled
+before. This impure man, who had made the winning of women a
+plaything, trembled with the fear of it as he took in his own the
+hand so pure that not even his touch could awaken sensuality in it.
+The odor of her beautiful hair floated up to him as he bent over. A
+wave of hot passion swept over him--for with him love was
+passion--and his reason, for a moment, was swept from its seat. Then
+almost beside himself for love of this woman, so different from any
+he had ever known, he opened his arms to fold her in one
+overpowering, conquering embrace.
+
+It was but a second and more a habit than thought--he who had never
+before hesitated to do it.
+
+She stepped back and the hot blood mounted to her cheek. Her eyes
+shone like outraged stars, dreaming earthward on a sleeping past,
+unwarningly obscured by a passing cloud, and then flashing out into
+the night, more brightly from the contrast.
+
+She did not speak and he crunched under his feet, purposely, the turf
+he was standing on, and so carrying out, naturally, the gesture of
+clasping the air, in establishing his balance--as if it was an
+accident.
+
+She let him believe she thought it was, and secured relief from the
+incident.
+
+"Alice--Alice!" he exclaimed. "I love you--love you--I must have you
+in my life! Can you not wear this now? See!"
+
+He tried to place it on her finger. He held the small beautiful hand
+in his own. Then it suddenly withdrew itself and left him holding his
+ring and looking wonderingly at her.
+
+She had thrown back her head, and, half turned, was looking toward
+the crepe-myrtle tree from which the faint odor came.
+
+"You had better go, Richard," was all she said.
+
+"I'll come for my answer--soon?" he asked.
+
+She was silent.
+
+"Soon?" he repeated as he rose in the stirrup--"soon--and to claim
+you always, Alice."
+
+He rode off and left her standing with her head still thrown back,
+her thoughtful face drinking in the odor of the crepe-myrtle.
+
+Travis did not understand, for no crepe-myrtle had ever come into his
+life. It could not come. With him all life had been a passion flower,
+with the rank, strong odor of the sensuous, wild honeysuckle, which
+must climb ever upon something else, in order to open and throw off
+the rank, brazen perfume from its yellow and streaked and variegated
+blossoms.
+
+And how common and vulgar and all-surfeiting it is, loading the air
+around it with its sickening imitation of sweetness, so that even the
+bees stagger as they pass through it and disdain to stop and shovel,
+for the mere asking, its musky and illicit honey.
+
+But, O mystic odor of the crepe-myrtle--O love which never dies--how
+differently it grows and lives and blooms!
+
+In color, constant--a deep pink. Not enough of red to suggest the
+sensual, nor yet lacking in it when the full moment of ripeness
+comes. How delicately pink it is, and yet how unfadingly it stands
+the summer's sun, the hot air, the drought! How quickly it responds
+to the Autumn showers, and long after the honeysuckle has died, and
+the bees have forgotten its rank memory, this beautiful creature of
+love blooms in the very lap of Winter.
+
+O love that defies even the breath of death!
+
+The yellow lips of the honeysuckle are thick and sensual; but the
+beautiful petals of this cluster of love-cells, all so daintily
+transparent, hanging in pink clusters of loveliness with scalloped
+lips of purity, that even the sunbeam sends a photograph of his heart
+through them and every moonbeam writes in it the romance of its life.
+And the skies all day long, reflecting in its heart, tells to the
+cool green leaves that shadow it the story of its life, and it
+catches and holds the sympathy of the tiniest zephyr, from the way it
+flutters to the patter of their little feet.
+
+All things of Nature love it--the clouds, the winds, the very stars,
+and sun, because love--undying love--is the soul of God, its Maker.
+
+The rose is red in the rich passion of love, the lily is pale in the
+poverty of it; but the crepe-myrtle is pink in the constancy of it.
+
+O bloom of the crepe-myrtle! And none but a lover ever smelled
+it--none but a lover ever knew!
+
+She ran up the gentle slope to the old-fashioned garden and threw
+herself under the tree from whence the dying odor came. She fell on
+her knees--the moonlight over her in fleckings of purification. She
+clung to the scaly weather-beaten stem of the tree as she would have
+pressed a sister to her breast. Her arms were around it--she knew
+it--its very bark.
+
+She seized a bloom that had fallen and crushed it to her bosom and
+her cheek.
+
+"O Tom--Tom--why--why did you make me love you here and then leave me
+forever with only the memory of it?"
+
+"Twice does it bloom, dear Heart,--can not my love bloom like
+it--twice?"
+
+"A-l-i-c-e!"
+
+The voice came from out the distant woods nearby.
+
+The blood leaped and then pricked her like sharp-pointed icicles, and
+they all seemed to freeze around and prick around her heart. She
+could not breathe.... Her head reeled.... The crepe-myrtle fell on
+her and smothered her....
+
+When she awoke Mrs. Westmore sat by her side and was holding her head
+while her brother was rubbing her arms.
+
+"You must be ill, darling," said her mother gently. "I heard you
+scream. What--"
+
+They helped her to rise. Her heart still fluttered violently--her
+head swam.
+
+"Did you call me before--before"--she was excited and eager.
+
+"Why, yes"--smiled her mother. "I said, 'Alice--Alice!'"
+
+"It was not that--no, that was not the way it sounded," she said as
+they led her into the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE CASKET AND THE GHOST
+
+
+Richard Travis could not sleep that night--why, he could not tell.
+
+After he returned from Westmoreland, Mammy Charity brought him his
+cocktail, and tidied up his room, and beat up the feathers in his
+pillows and bed--for she believed in the old-fashioned feather-bed
+and would have no other kind in the house.
+
+The old clock in the hall--that had sat there since long before he,
+himself, could remember--struck ten, and then eleven, and then, to
+his disgust, even twelve.
+
+At ten he had taken another toddy to put himself to sleep.
+
+There is only one excuse for drunkenness, and that is sleeplessness.
+If there is a hell for the intellectual it is not of fire, as for
+commoner mortals, but of sleeplessness--the wild staring eyes of an
+eternity of sleeplessness following an eon of that midnight mental
+anguish which comes with the birth of thoughts.
+
+But still he slept not, and so at ten he had taken another toddy--and
+still another, and as he felt its life and vigor to the ends of his
+fingers, he quaffed his fourth one; then he smiled and said: "And now
+I don't care if I never go to sleep!"
+
+He arose and dressed. He tried to recite one of his favorite poems,
+and it angered him that his tongue seemed thick.
+
+His head slightly reeled, but in it there galloped a thousand
+beautiful dreams and there were visions of Alice, and love, and the
+satisfaction of conquering and the glory of winning.
+
+He could feel his heart-throbs at the ends of his fingers. He could
+see thoughts--beautiful, grand thoughts--long before they reached
+him,--stalking like armed men, helmeted and vizored, stalking forward
+into his mind.
+
+He walked out and down the long hall.
+
+The ticking of the clock sounded to him so loud that he stopped and
+cursed it.
+
+Because, somehow, it ticked every time his heart beat; and he could
+count his heart-beats in his fingers' ends, and he didn't want to
+know every time his heart beat. It made him nervous.
+
+It might stop; but it would not stop. And then, somehow, he imagined
+that his heart was really out in the yard, down under the hill, and
+was pumping the water--as the ram had done for years--through the
+house. It was a queer fancy, and it made him angry because he could
+not throw it off.
+
+He walked down the hall, rudely snatched the clock door open, and
+stopped the big pendulum. Then he laughed sillily.
+
+The moonbeams came in at the stained glass windows, and cast red and
+yellow and pale green fleckings of light on the smooth polished
+floor.
+
+He began to feel uncanny. He was no coward and he cursed himself for
+it.
+
+Things began to come to him in a moral way and mixed in with the
+uncanniness of it all. He imagined he saw, off in the big square
+library across the way, in the very spot he had seen them lay out his
+grandfather--Maggie, and she arose suddenly from out of his
+grandfather's casket and beckoned to him with--
+
+"I love you so--I love _you_ so!"
+
+It was so real, he walked to the spot and put his hands on the black
+mohair Davenport. And the form on it, sitting bolt upright, was but
+the pillow he had napped on that afternoon.
+
+He laughed and it sounded hollow to him and echoed down the hall:
+
+"How like her it looked!"
+
+He walked into Harry's room and lit the lamp there. He smiled when he
+glanced around the walls. There were hunting scenes and actresses in
+scant clothing. Tobacco pipes of all kinds on the tables, and stumps
+of ill-smelling cigarettes, and over the mantel was a crayon picture
+of Death shaking the dice of life. Two old cutlasses crossed
+underneath it.
+
+On his writing desk Travis picked up and read the copy of the note
+written to Helen the day before.
+
+He smiled with elevated eyebrows. Then he laughed ironically:
+
+"The little yellow cur--to lie down and quit--to throw her over like
+that! Damn him--he has a yellow streak in him and I'll take pleasure
+in pulling down the purse for him. Why, she was born for me anyway!
+That kid, and in love with Helen! Not for The Gaffs would I have him
+mix up with that drunken set--nor--nor, well, not for The Gaffs to
+have him quit like that."
+
+And yet it was news to him. Wrapped in his own selfish plans, he had
+never bothered himself about Harry's affairs.
+
+But he kept on saying, as if it hurt him: "The little yellow cur--and
+he a Travis!" He laughed: "He's got another one, I'll bet--got her
+to-night and by now is securely engaged. So much the better--for my
+plans."
+
+Again he went into the hall and walked to and fro in the dim light.
+But the Davenport and the pillow instantly formed themselves again
+into Maggie and the casket, and he turned in disgust to walk into his
+own room.
+
+Above his head over the doorway in the hall, on a pair of splendid
+antlers--his first trophy of the chase,--rested his deer gun, a clean
+piece of Damascus steel and old English walnut, imported years
+before. The barrels were forty inches and choked. The small bright
+hammers rested on the yellow brass caps deep sunk on steel nippers.
+They shone through the hammer slit fresh and ready for use.
+
+He felt a cold draught of air blow on him and turned in surprise to
+find the hall window, which reached to the veranda floor, open; and
+he could see the stars shining above the dark green foliage of the
+trees on the lawn without.
+
+At the same instant there swept over him a nervous fear, and he
+reached for his deer gun instinctively. Then there arose from the
+Davenport coffin a slouching unkempt form, the fine bright eyes of
+which, as the last rays of the moonlight fell on them, were the eyes
+of his dead cousin, Captain Tom, and it held out its hands pleadingly
+to him and tenderly and with much effort said:
+
+"_Grandfather, forgive. I've come back again._"
+
+Travis's heart seemed to freeze tightly. He tried to breathe--he only
+gasped--and the corners of his mouth tightened and refused to open.
+He felt the blood rush up from around his loins, and leave him
+paralyzed and weak. In sheer desperation he threw the gun to his
+shoulder, and the next instant he would have fired the load into the
+face of the thing with its voice of the dead, had not something burst
+on his head with a staggering, overpowering blow, and despite his
+efforts to stand, his knees gave way beneath him and it seemed
+pleasant for him to lie prone upon the floor....
+
+When he awakened an hour afterwards, he sat up, bewildered. His gun
+lay beside him, but the window was closed securely and bolted. No
+night air came in. The Davenport and pillow were there as before. His
+head ached and there was a bruised place over his ear. He walked into
+his own room and lit the lamp.
+
+"I may have fallen and struck my head," he said, bewildered with the
+strangeness of it all. "I may have," he repeated--"but if I didn't
+see Tom Travis's ghost to-night there is no need to believe one's
+senses."
+
+He opened the door and let in two setters which fawned upon him and
+licked his hand. All his nervousness vanished.
+
+"No one knows the comfort of a dog's company," he said, "who does not
+love a dog?"
+
+Then he bathed his face and head and went to sleep.
+
+It was after midnight when Jack Bracken led Captain Tom in and put
+him to bed.
+
+"A close shave for you, Cap'n Tom," he said--"I struck just in time.
+I'll not leave you another night with the door unlocked." Then: "But
+poor fellow--how can we blame him for wandering off, after all those
+years, and trying to get back again to his boyhood home."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A MIDNIGHT GUARD
+
+
+Jack Bracken rolled himself in his blanket on the cot, placed in the
+room next to Captain Tom, and prepared to sleep again.
+
+But the excitement of the night had been great; his sudden awakening
+from sleep, his missing Captain Tom, and finding him in time to
+prevent a tragedy, had aroused him thoroughly, and now sleep was far
+from his eyes.
+
+And so he lay and thought of his past life, and as it passed before
+him it shook him with nervous sleeplessness.
+
+It hurt him. He lay and panted with the strong sorrow of it.
+
+Perhaps it was that, but with it were thoughts also of little Jack,
+and the tears came into the eyes of the big-hearted outlaw.
+
+He had his plans all arranged--he and the Bishop--and now as the
+village blacksmith he would begin the life of an honest man.
+
+Respected--his heart beat proudly to think of it.
+
+Respected--how little it means to the man who is, how much to the man
+who is not.
+
+"Why," he said to himself--"perhaps after a while people will stop
+and talk to me an' say as they pass my shop: 'Good mornin',
+neighbor, how are you to-day?' Little children--sweet an' innocent
+little children--comin' from school may stop an' watch the sparks fly
+from my anvil, like they did in the poem I onct read, an' linger
+aroun' an' talk to me, shy like; maybe, after awhile I'll get their
+confidence, so they will learn to love me, an' call me Uncle
+Jack--Uncle Jack," he repeated softly.
+
+"An' I won't be suspectin' people any mo' an' none of 'em will be my
+enemy. I'll not be carryin' pistols an' havin' buckets of gold an'
+not a friend in the worl'."
+
+His heart beat fast--he could scarcely wait for the morning to come,
+so anxious was he to begin the life of an honest man again. He who
+had been an outlaw so long, who had not known what it was to know
+human sympathy and human friendship--it thrilled him with a rich,
+sweet flood of joy.
+
+Then suddenly a great wave swept over him--a wave of such exquisite
+joy that he fell on his knees and cried out: "O God, I am a changed
+man--how happy I am! jus' to be human agin an' not hounded! How can I
+thank You--You who have given me this blessed Man the Bishop tells us
+about--this Christ who reaches out an' takes us by the han' an' lifts
+us up. O God, if there is divinity given to man, it is given to that
+man who can lift up another, as the po' outlaw knows."
+
+He lay silent and thoughtful. All day and night--since he had first
+seen Margaret, her eyes had haunted him. He had not seen her before
+for many years; but in all that time there had not been a day when he
+had not thought of--loved--her.
+
+Margaret--her loneliness--the sadness of her life, all haunted him.
+She lived, he knew, alone, in her cottage--an outcast from society.
+He had looked but once in her eyes and caught the lingering look of
+appeal which unconsciously lay there. He knew she loved him yet--it
+was there as plain as in his own face was written the fact that he
+loved her. He thought of himself--of her. Then he said:
+
+"For fifteen years I have robbed--killed--oh, God--killed--how it
+hurts me now! All the category of crime in bitter wickedness I have
+run. And she--once--and now an angel--Bishop himself says so."
+
+"I am a new man--I am a respectable and honest man,"--here he arose
+on his cot and drew himself up--"I am Jack Smith--Mr. Jack Smith, the
+blacksmith, and my word is my bond."
+
+He slipped out quietly. Once again in the cool night, under the stars
+which he had learned to love as brothers and whose silent paths
+across the heavens were to him old familiar footpaths, he felt at
+ease, and his nervousness left him.
+
+He had not intended to speak to Margaret then--for he thought she was
+asleep. He wished only to guard her cabin, up among the stunted old
+field pines--while she slept--to see the room he knew she slept
+in--the little window she looked out of every day.
+
+The little cabin was a hallowed spot to him. Somehow he knew--he felt
+that whatever might be said--in it he knew an angel dwelt. He could
+not understand--he only knew.
+
+There is a moral sense within us that is a greater teacher than
+either knowledge or wisdom.
+
+For an hour he stood with his head uncovered watching the little
+cabin where she lived. Everything about it was sacred, because
+Margaret lived there. It was pretty, too, in its neatness and
+cleanliness, and there were old-fashioned flowers in the yard and
+old-fashioned roses clambered on the rock wall.
+
+He sat down in the path--the little white sanded path down which he
+knew she went every day, and so made sacred by her footsteps.
+
+"Perhaps, I am near one of them now," he said--and he kissed the
+spot.
+
+And that night and many others did the outlaw watch over the lonely
+cabin on the mountain side. And she, the outcast woman, slept within,
+unconscious that she was being protected by the man who had loved her
+all his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE THEFT OF A CHILDHOOD
+
+
+The Watts children were up the next morning by four o'clock.
+
+Mrs. Watts ate, always, by candle-light. The sun, she thought, would
+be dishonored, were he to find her home in disorder, her breakfast
+uncooked, her day's work not ready for her, with his first beams.
+
+For Mrs. Watts did not consider that arising at four, and cooking and
+sweeping and tidying up the cabin, and quarreling with the Bishop as
+"a petty old bundle of botheration"--and storming around at the
+children--all by sun-up--this was not work at all.
+
+It was merely an appetizer.
+
+The children were aroused by her this morning with more severity than
+usual. Half frightened they rolled stupidly out of their
+beds--Appomattox, Atlanta, and Shiloh from one, and the boys from
+another. Then they began to put on their clothes in the same
+listless, dogged, mechanical way they had learned to do
+everything--learned it while working all day between the whirl of the
+spindle and the buzz of the bobbin.
+
+The sun had not yet risen, and a cold gray mist crept up from the
+valley, closing high up and around the wood-girdled brow of the
+mountain as billows around a rock in the sea. The faint, far-off
+crowing of cocks added to the weirdness; for their shrill voices
+alone broke through the silence which came down with the mist. Around
+the brow of Sand Mountain the vapor made a faint halo--touched as it
+was by the splendid flush of the East.
+
+It was all grand and beautiful enough without, but within was the
+poverty of work, and the two--poverty and work--had already had their
+effect on the children, except, perhaps, Shiloh. She had not yet been
+in the mill long enough to be automatonized.
+
+Looking out of the window she saw the star setting behind the
+mountain, and she thought it slept, by day, in a cavern she knew of
+there.
+
+"Wouldn't it be fine, Mattox," she cried, "if we didn't have to work
+at the mill to-day an' cu'd run up on the mountain an' pick up that
+star? I seed one fall onct an' I picked it up."
+
+For a moment the little face was thoughtful--wistful--then she added:
+
+"I wonder how it would feel to spen' the day in the woods onct.
+Archie B. says it's just fine and flowers grow everywhere. Oh, jes'
+to be 'quainted with one Jeree--like Archie B. is--an' have him come
+to yo' winder every mornin' an' say, '_Wake up, Pet! Wake up, Pet!
+Wake up, Pet!_' An' then hear a little 'un over in another tree say,
+'_So-s-l-ee-py--So-s-l-ee-py!_'"
+
+Her chatter ceased again. Then: "Mattox, did you ever see a rabbit? I
+seen one onct, a settin' up in a fence corner an' a spittin' on his
+han's to wash his face."
+
+She laughed at the thought of it. But the other children, who had
+dressed, sat listlessly in their seats, looking at her with
+irresponsive eyes, set deep back into tired, lifeless, weazened
+faces.
+
+"I'd ruther a rabbit 'ud wash his face than mine," drawled Bull Run.
+
+Mrs. Watts came in and jerked the chair from under him and he sat
+down sprawling. Then he lazily arose and deliberately spat, between
+his teeth, into the fireplace.
+
+There was not enough of him alive to feel that he had been imposed
+upon.
+
+For breakfast they had big soda biscuits and fried bacon floating in
+its own grease. There was enough of it left for the midday lunch.
+This was put into a tin pail with a tight fitting top. The pail, when
+opened, smelt of the death and remains of every other soda biscuit
+that had ever been laid away within this tightly closed mausoleum of
+tin.
+
+They had scarcely eaten before the shrill scream of the mill-whistle
+called them to their work.
+
+Shiloh, at the sound, stuck her small fingers into her ears and
+shuddered.
+
+Then the others struck out across the yard, and Shiloh followed.
+
+To this child of seven, who had already worked six months in the
+factory, the scream of the whistle was the call of a frightful
+monster, whose black smoke-stack of a snout, with its blacker breath
+coming out, and the flaming eyes of the engine glaring through the
+smoke, completed the picture of a wild beast watching her. Within,
+the whirr and tremble of shuttle and machinery were the purr and
+pulsation of its heart.
+
+She was a nervous, sensitive child, who imagined far more than she
+saw; and the very uncanniness of the dark misty morning, the silence,
+broken only by the tremble and roar of the mill, the gaunt shadows of
+the overtopping mountain, filled her with childish fears.
+
+Nature can do no more than she is permitted; and the terrible strain
+of twelve hours' work, every day except Sunday, for the past six
+months, where every faculty, from hand and foot to body, eye and
+brain, must be alert and alive to watch and piece the never-ceasing
+breaking of the threads, had already begun to undermine the
+half-formed framework of that little life.
+
+As she approached the mill she clung to the hand of Appomattox, and
+shrinking, kept her sister between herself and the Big Thing which
+put the sweet morning air a-flutter around its lair. As she drew near
+the door she almost cried out in affright--her little heart grew
+tight, her lips were drawn.
+
+"Oh, it can't hurt you, Shiloh," said her sister pulling her along.
+"You'll be all right when you get inside."
+
+There was a snarling clatter and crescendo tremble, ending in an
+all-drowning roar, as the big door was pushed open for a moment, and
+Shiloh, quaking, but brave, was pulled in, giving the tiny spark of
+her little life to add to the Big Thing's fire.
+
+Within, she was reassured; for there was her familiar spinning frame,
+with its bobbins ready to be set to spinning and whirling; and the
+room was full of people, many as small as she.
+
+The companionship, even of fear, is helpful.
+
+Besides, the roar and clatter drowned everything else.
+
+Shiloh was too small to see, to know; but had she looked to the right
+as she entered, she had seen a sight which would have caused a stone
+man to flush with pity. It was Byrd Boyle, one of the mill hands who
+ran a slubbing machine, and he held in his arms (because they were
+too young to walk so far) twins, a boy and a girl. And they looked
+like half made up dolls left out on the grass, weather-beaten by
+summer rains. They were too small to know where their places were in
+the room, and as their father sat them down, in their proper places,
+it took the two together to run one side of a spinner, and the tiny
+little workers could scarcely reach to their whirling bobbins.
+
+To the credit of Richard Travis, this working of children under
+twelve years of age in the mills was done over his protest. Not so
+with Kingsley and his wife, who were experienced mill people from New
+England and knew the harm of it--morally, physically. Travis had even
+made strict regulations on the subject, only to be overruled by the
+combined disapproval of Kingsley and the directors and, strange to
+say, of the parents of the children themselves. His determination
+that only children of twelve years and over should work in the mill
+came to naught, more from the opposition of the parents themselves
+than that of Kingsley. These, to earn a little more for the family,
+did not hesitate to bring a child of eight to the mill and swear it
+was twelve. This and the ruling of the directors,--and worse than
+all, the lack of any state law on the subject,--had brought about the
+pitiful condition which prevailed then as now in Southern cotton
+mills.
+
+There was no talking inside the mill. Only the Big Thing was
+permitted to talk. No singing--for songs come from the happy heart of
+labor, unshackled. No noise of childhood, though the children were
+there. They were flung into an arena for a long day's fight against a
+thing of steel and steam, and there was no time for anything save
+work, work, work--walk, walk, walk--watch, forever watch,--the
+interminable flying whirl of spindle and spool.
+
+Early as it was, the children were late, and were soundly rebuffed by
+the foreman.
+
+The scolding hurt only Shiloh--it made her tremble and cry. The
+others were hardened--insensible--and took it with about the same
+degree of indifference with which caged and starved mice look at the
+man who pours over their wire traps the hot water which scalds them
+to death.
+
+The fight between steel, steam and child-flesh was on.
+
+Shiloh, Appomattox and Atlanta were spinners.
+
+Spinners are small girls who walk up and down an aisle before a
+spinning-frame and piece up the threads which are forever breaking.
+There were over a hundred spindles on each side of the frame, each
+revolving with the rapidity of an incipient cyclone and snapping
+every now and then the delicate white thread that was spun out like
+spiders' web from the rollers and the cylinders, making a
+balloon-like gown of cotton thread, which settled continuously around
+the bobbin.
+
+All day long and into the night, they must walk up and down, between
+these two rows of spinning-frames, amid the whirling spindles,
+piecing the broken threads which were forever breaking.
+
+It did not require strength, but a certain skill, which,
+unfortunately, childhood possessed more than the adult. Not power,
+but dexterity, watchfulness, quickness and the ability to walk--as
+children walk--and watch--as age should watch.
+
+No wonder that in a few months the child becomes, not the flesh and
+blood of its heredity, but the steel and wood of its environment.
+
+Bull Run and Seven Days were doffers, and confined to the same set of
+frames. They followed their sisters, taking off the full bobbins and
+throwing them into a cart and thrusting an empty bobbin into its
+place. This requires an eye of lightning and a hand with the
+quickness of its stroke.
+
+For it must be done between the pulsings of the Big Thing's heart--a
+flash, a snap, a snarl of broken thread--up in the left hand flies
+the bobbin from its disentanglement of thread and skein, and down
+over the buzzing point of steel spindles settles the empty bobbin,
+thrust over the spindle by the right.
+
+It is all done with two quick movements--a flash and a jerk of one
+hand up, and the other down, the eye riveted to the nicety of a
+hair's breadth, the stroke downward gauged to the cup of a thimble,
+to settle over the point of the spindle's end; for the missing of a
+thread's breadth would send a spindle blade through the hand, or
+tangle and snap a thread which was turning with a thousand
+revolutions in a minute.
+
+_Snap--bang! Snap--bang!_ One hundred and twenty
+times--_Snap--bang!_ and back again, went the deft little workers
+pushing their cart before them.
+
+Full at last, their cart is whirled away with flying heels to another
+machine.
+
+It was a steady, lightning, endless track. Their little trained
+fingers betook of their surroundings and worked like fingers of
+steel. Their legs seemed made of India rubber. Their eyes shot out
+right and left, left and right, looking for the broken threads on the
+whirling bobbins as hawks sweep over the marsh grass looking for
+mice, and the steel claws, which swooped down on the bobbins when
+they found it, made the simile not unsuitable.
+
+Young as she was, Shiloh managed one of these harnessed, fiery lines
+of dancing witches, pirouetting on boards of hardened oak or hickory.
+Up and down she walked--up and down, watching these endless whirling
+figures, her bare fingers pitted against theirs of brass, her bare
+feet against theirs shod with iron, her little head against theirs
+insensate and unpitying, her little heart against theirs of flame
+which throbbed in the boiler's bosom and drove its thousand steeds
+with a whip of fire.
+
+In the bloodiest and cruelest days of the Roman Empire, man was
+matched against wild beasts. But in the man's hand was the blade of
+his ancestors and over his breast the steel ribs which had helped his
+people to conquer the world.
+
+And in the Beast's body was a heart!
+
+Ay, and the man was a man--a trained gladiator--and he was nerved by
+the cheers of thousands of sympathizing spectators.
+
+And now, centuries after, and in the age of so-called kindness, comes
+this battle to be fought over. And the fight, now as then, is for
+bread and life.
+
+But how cruelly unfair is the fight of to-day, when the weak and
+helpless child is made the gladiator, and the fight is for bread, and
+the Beast is of steel and steam, and is soulless and heartless.
+Steel--that by which the old gladiator conquered--that is the heart
+of the Thing the little one must fight. And the cheers--the glamour
+of it is lacking, for the little one cannot hear even the sound of
+its own voice--in the roar of the thousand-throated Thing which
+drives the Steel Beast on.
+
+Seven o'clock--eight o'clock--Shiloh's head swam--her shoulders
+ached, her ears quivered with sensitiveness, and seemed not to catch
+sounds any more, but sharp and shooting pains. She was dazed already
+and weak; but still the Steam Thing cheered its steel legions on.
+
+Up and down, up and down she walked, her baby thoughts coming to her
+as through the roar of a Niagara, through pain and sensitiveness,
+through aches and a dull, never-ending sameness.
+
+Nine o'clock! Oh, she was so tired of it all!
+
+Hark, she thought she heard a bird sing in a far off, dreamy way, and
+for a moment she made mud pies in the back yard of the hut on the
+mountain, under the black-oak in the yard, with the glint of soft
+sunshine over everything and the murmur of green leaves in the trees
+above, as the wind from off the mountain went through them, and the
+anemone, and bellworts, and daisies grew beneath and around. Was it a
+bluebird? She had never seen but one and it had built its nest in a
+hole in a hollow tree, the summer before she went into the mill to
+work.
+
+She listened again--yes, it did sound something like a bluebird,
+peeping in a distant far off way, such as she had heard in the cabin
+on the mountain before she had ever heard the voice of the Big Thing
+at the mill. She listened, and a wave of disappointment swept over
+her baby face; for, listening closely, she found it was an unoiled
+separator, that peeped in a bluebird way now and then, above the
+staccato of some rusty spindle.
+
+But in the song of that bluebird and the glory of an imaginary mud
+pie, all the disappointment of what she had missed swept over her.
+
+Ten o'clock--the little fingers throbbed and burned, the tiny legs
+were stiff and tired, the little head seemed as a block of wood, but
+still the Steam Thing took no thought of rest.
+
+Eleven o'clock--oh, but to rest awhile! To rest under the trees in
+the yard, for the sunshine looked so warm and bright out under the
+mill-windows, and the memory of that bluebird's song, though but an
+imitation, still echoed in her ear. And those mud pies!--she saw them
+all around her and in such lovely bits of old broken crockery
+and--....
+
+She felt a rude punch in the side. It was Jud Carpenter standing over
+her and pointing to where a frowzled broken thread was tangling
+itself around a separator. She had dreamed but a minute--half a dozen
+threads had broken.
+
+It was a rude punch and it hurt her side and frightened her. With a
+snarl and a glare he passed on while Shiloh flew to her bobbin.
+
+This fright made her work the next hour with less fatigue. But she
+could not forget the song of the bluebird, and once, when Appomattox
+looked at her, she was working her mouth in a song,--a Sunday School
+song she had picked up at the Bishop's church. Appomattox could not
+hear it--no one had a license to hear a song in the Beast Thing's
+Den--nothing was ever privileged to sing but it,--but she knew from
+the way her mouth was working that Shiloh was singing.
+
+Oh, the instinct of happiness in the human heart! To sing through
+noises and aches and tired feet and stunned, blocky heads. To sing
+with no hope before her and the theft of her very childhood--ay, her
+life--going on by the Beast Thing and his men.
+
+God intended us to be happy, else He had never put so strong an
+instinct there.
+
+Twelve o'clock. The Steam Beast gave a triumphant scream heard above
+the roar of shuttle and steel. It was a loud, defiant, victorious
+roar which drowned all others.
+
+Then it purred and paused for breath--purred softer and softer
+and--slept at last.
+
+It was noon.
+
+The silence now was almost as painful to Shiloh as the noise had
+been. The sudden stopping of shuttle and wheel and belt and beam did
+not stop the noise in her head. It throbbed and buzzed there in an
+echoing ache, as if all the previous sounds had been fire-waves and
+these the scorched furrows of its touch. Wherever she turned, the
+echo of the morning's misery sounded in her ears.
+
+And now they had forty minutes for noon recess.
+
+They sat in a circle, these five children--and ate their lunch of cold
+soda biscuits and fat bacon.
+
+Not a word did they say--not a laugh nor a sound to show they were
+children,--not even a sigh to show they were human.
+
+Silently, like wooden things they choked it down and then--O men and
+women who love your own little ones--look!
+
+Huddled together on the great, greasy, dirty floor of this mill, in all
+the attitudes of tired-out, exhausted childhood, they slept. Shiloh
+slept bolt upright, her little head against the spinning-frame, where
+all the morning she had chased the bobbins up and down the long aisle.
+Appomattox and Atlanta were grouped against her. Bull Run slept at her
+feet and Seven Days lay, half way over on his bobbin cart, so tired that
+he went to sleep as he tried to climb into it.
+
+In other parts of the mill, other little ones slept and even large girls
+and boys, after eating, dozed or chatted. Spoolers, weavers, slubbers,
+warpers, nearly grown but all hard-faced, listless--and many of them
+slept on shawls and battings of cotton.
+
+They were awakened by the big whistle at twenty minutes to one o'clock.
+At the same time, Jud Carpenter, the foreman, passed down the aisles and
+dashed cold water in the sleeping faces. Half laughingly he did it, but
+the little ones arose instantly, and with stooped forms, and tired,
+cowed eyes, in which the Anglo-Saxon spirit of resentment had been
+killed by the Yankee spirit of greed, they looked at the foreman, and
+then began their long six hours' battle with the bobbins.
+
+Three o'clock! The warm afternoon's sun poured on the low flat tin roof
+of the mill and warmed the interior to a temperature which was
+uncomfortable.
+
+Shiloh grew sleepy--she dragged her stumbling little feet along, and had
+she stopped but a moment, she had paid the debt that childhood owes to
+fairy-land. The air was close--stifling. Her shoulders ached--her head
+seemed a stuffy thing of wood and wooly lint.
+
+As it was she nodded as she walked, and again the song of the bluebird
+peeped dreamily from out the unoiled spindle. She tried to sing to keep
+awake, and then there came a strange phantasy to mix with it all, and
+out of the half-awake world in which she now staggered along she caught
+sight of something which made her open her eyes and laugh outright.
+
+_Was it--could it be? In very truth it was--_
+
+_Dolls!_
+
+_And oh, so many! And all in a row dressed in matchless gowns of snowy
+white. She would count them up to ten--as far as she had learned to
+count.... But there were ten,--yes, and many more than ten-- ... and
+just to think of whole rows of them-- ... all there-- ... and waiting
+for her to reach out and fondle and caress._
+
+_And she--never in her life before had she been so fortunate as to own
+one...._
+
+A smile lit up her dreaming eyes. _Rows upon rows of dolls.... And not
+even Appomattox and Atlanta had ever seen so many before; and now how
+funny they acted, dancing around and around and bobbing their quaint
+bodies and winking and nodding at her.... It was Mayday with them and
+down the long line of spindles these cotton dolls were dancing around
+their May Queen, and beckoning Shiloh to join them...._
+
+_It was too cute--too cunning--! they were dancing and drawing her
+in--they were actually singing-- ... humming and chanting a May
+song...._
+
+_O lovely--lovely dolls!..._
+
+Jud Carpenter found her asleep in the greasy aisle, her head resting
+on her arm, a smile on her little face--a hand clasping a rounded
+well-threaded doll-like bobbin to her breast.
+
+It is useless to try to speak in a room in which the Steam Beast's
+voice drowns all other voices. It is useless to try to awaken one by
+calling. One might as well stand under Niagara Falls and whistle to
+the little fishes. No other voice can be heard while the Steam Beast
+speaks.
+
+Shiloh was awakened by a dash of cold water and a rough kick from the
+big boot of that other beast who called himself the overseer. He did
+not intend to jostle her hard, but Shiloh was such a little thing
+that the kick she got in the side accompanied by the dash of water
+shocked and frightened her instantly to her feet, and with scared
+eyes and blanched face she darted down to the long line of bobbins,
+mending the threads.
+
+If, in the great Mystic Unknown,--the Eden of Balance,--there lies no
+retributive Cause to right the injustice of that cruel Effect, let us
+hope there is no Here-after; that we all die and rot like dogs, who
+know no justice; that what little kindness and sweetness and right,
+man, through his happier dreams, his hopeful, cheerful idealism, has
+tried to establish in the world, may no longer stand as mockery to
+the Sweet Philosopher who long ago said: "_Suffer the little children
+to come unto me._..."
+
+They were more dead than alive when, at seven o'clock, the Steam
+Beast uttered the last volcanic howl which said they might go home.
+
+Outside the stars were shining and the cool night air struck into
+them with a suddenness which made them shiver. They were children,
+and so they were thoughtless and did not know the risk they ran by
+coming out of a warm mill, hot and exhausted, into the cool air of an
+Autumn night. Shiloh was so tired and sleepy that Bull Run and Seven
+Days had to carry her between them.
+
+Everybody passed out of the mill--a speechless, haggard, over-worked
+procession. Byrd Boyle, with a face and form which seemed to belong
+to a slave age, carried his twins in his arms.
+
+Their heads lay on his shoulders. They were asleep.
+
+Scarcely had the children eaten their supper of biscuit and bacon,
+augmented with dandelion salad, ere they, too, were asleep--all but
+Shiloh.
+
+She could not sleep--now that she wanted to--and she lay in her
+grandfather's lap with flushed face and hot, over-worked heart. The
+strain was beginning to tell, and the old man grew uneasy, as he
+watched the flush on her cheeks and the unusual brightness in her
+eyes.
+
+"Better give her five draps of tub'bentine an' put her to bed," said
+Mrs. Watts as she came by. "She'll be fittin' an' good by mornin'."
+
+The old man did not reply--he only sang a low melody and smoothed her
+forehead.
+
+It was ten o'clock, and now she lay on the old man's lap asleep from
+exhaustion. A cricket began chirping in the fireplace, under a
+hearth-brick.
+
+"What's that, Pap?" asked Shiloh half asleep.
+
+"That's a cricket, Pet," smiled the old man.
+
+She listened a while with a half-amused smile on her lips:
+
+"Well, don't you think his spindles need oilin', Pap?"
+
+There was little but machinery in her life.
+
+Another hour found the old man tired, but still holding the sleeping
+child in his arms:
+
+"If I move her she'll wake," he said to himself. "Po' little Shiloh."
+
+He was silent a while and thoughtful. Then he looked up at the shadow
+of Sand Mountain, falling half way down the valley in the moonlight.
+
+"The shadow of that mountain across that valley," he said, "is like
+the shadow of the greed of gain across the world. An' why should it
+be? What is it worth? Who is happier for any money more than he needs
+in life?"
+
+He bowed his head over the sleeping Shiloh.
+
+"Oh, God," he prayed--"You, who made the world an' said it might
+have a childhood--remember what it means to have it filched away.
+It's like stealin' the bud from the rose-bush, the dew from the
+grass, hope from the heart of man. Take our manhood--O God--it is
+strong enough to stand it--an' it has been took from many a strong
+man who has died with a smile on his lips. Take our old age--O
+God--for it's jus' a memory of Has Beens. But let them not steal that
+from any life that makes all the res' of it beautiful with dreams of
+it. If, by some inscrutable law which we po' things can't see
+through, stealin' in traffic an' trade must go on in the world, O
+God, let them steal our purses, but not our childhood. Amen."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+UNCLE DAVE'S WILL
+
+
+The whistle of the mill had scarcely awakened Cottontown the next
+morning before Archie B., hatless and full of excitement, came over
+to the Bishop with a message from his mother. No one was astir but
+Mrs. Watts, and she was sweeping vigorously.
+
+"What's the matter, Archie B.?" asked the old man when he came out.
+
+"Uncle Dave Dickey is dyin' an' maw told me to run over an' tell you
+to hurry quick if you wanted to see the old man die."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Dave is dyin', is he? Well, we'll go, Archie B., just as
+soon as Ben Butler can be hooked up. I've got some more calls to make
+anyway."
+
+Ben Butler was ready by the time the children started for the mill.
+Little Shiloh brought up the rear, her tiny legs bravely following
+the others. Archie B. looked at them curiously as the small
+wage-earners filed past him for work.
+
+"Say, you little mill-birds," he said, "why don't you chaps come over
+to see me sometimes an' lem'me show you things outdoors that's made
+for boys an' girls?"
+
+"Is they very pretty?" asked Shiloh, stopping and all ears at once.
+"Oh, tell me 'bout 'em! I am jus' hungry to see 'em. I've learned
+the names of three birds myself an' I saw a gray squirrel onct."
+
+"Three birds--shucks!" said Archie B., "I could sho' you forty, but
+I'll tell you what's crackin' good fun an' it'll test you mor'n
+knowin' the birds--that's easy. But the hard thing is to find their
+nests an' then to tell by the eggs what bird it is. That's the
+cracker-jack trick."
+
+Shiloh's eyes opened wide: "Why, do they lay eggs, Archie B.? Real
+eggs like a hen or a duck?"
+
+Archie B. laughed: "Well, I should say so--an' away up in a tree, an'
+in the funniest little baskets you ever saw. An' some of the eggs is
+white, an' some blue, and some green, an' some speckled an' oh, so
+many kind. But I'll tell you a thing right now that'll help you to
+remember--mighty nigh every bird lays a egg that's mighty nigh like
+the bird herself. The cat bird's eggs is sorter blue--an' the
+wood-pecker's is white, like his wing, an' the thrasher's is mottled
+like his breast."
+
+Ben Butler was hitched to the old buggy and the Bishop drove up. He
+had a bunch of wild flowers for Shiloh and he gave it with a kiss.
+"Run along now, Baby, an' I'll fetch you another when I come back."
+
+They saw her run to catch up with the others and breathlessly tell
+them of the wonderful things Archie B. had related. And all through
+the day, in the dust and the lint, the thunder and rumble of the
+Steam Thing's war, Shiloh saw white and blue and mottled eggs, in
+tiny baskets, with homes up in the trees where the winds rocked the
+cradles when the little birds came; and young as she was, into her
+head there crept a thought that something was wrong in man's
+management of things when little birds were free and little children
+must work.
+
+As she ran off she waved her hand to her grandfather.
+
+"I'll fetch you another bunch when I come back, Pet," he called.
+
+"You'd better fetch her somethin' to eat, instead of prayin' aroun'
+with old fools that's always dyin'," called Mrs. Watts to him from
+the kitchen door where she was scrubbing the cans.
+
+"The Lord will always provide, Tabitha--he has never failed me yet."
+
+She watched him drive slowly over the hill: "That means I had better
+get a move on me an' go to furagin'," she said to herself.
+
+"Hillard Watts has mistuck me for the Almighty mighty nigh all his
+life. It's about time the blackberries was a gittin' ripe anyway."
+
+The Bishop found the greatest distress at Uncle Dave Dickey's. Aunt
+Sally Dickey, his wife, was weeping on the front porch, while Tilly,
+Uncle Dave's pretty grown daughter, her calico dress tucked up for
+the morning's work, showing feet and ankles that would grace a
+duchess, was lamenting loudly on the back porch. A coon dog of
+uncertain lineage and intellectual development, tuned to the howling
+pitch, doubtless, by the music of Tilly's sobs, joined in the chorus.
+
+"Po' Davy is gwine--he's most gone--boo--boo-oo!" sobbed Aunt Sally.
+
+"Pap--Pap--don't leave us," echoed Tilly from the back porch.
+
+"Ow--wow--oo--oo," howled the dog.
+
+The Bishop went in sad and subdued, expecting to find Uncle Davy
+breathing his last. Instead, he found him sitting bolt upright in
+bed, and sobbing even more lustily than his wife and daughter. He
+stretched out his hands pitiably as his old friend went in.
+
+"Most gone"--he sobbed--"Hillard--the old man is most gone. You've
+come jus' in time to see your old friend breathe his las' an' to
+witness his will," and he broke out sobbing afresh, in which Aunt
+Sally and Tilly and the dog, all of whom had followed the Bishop in,
+joined.
+
+The Bishop took in the situation at a glance. Then he broke into a
+smile that gradually settled all over his kindly face.
+
+"Look aheah, Davy, you ain't no mo' dyin' than I am."
+
+"What--what?" said Uncle Davy between his sobs--"I ain't a dyin',
+Hillard? Oh, yes, I be. Sally and Tilly both say so."
+
+"Now, look aheah, Davy, it ain't so. I've seed hundreds die--yes,
+hundreds--strong men, babes--women and little tots, strong ones, and
+weak and frail ones, given to tears, but I've never seed one die yet
+sheddin' a single tear, let alone blubberin' like a calf. It's agin
+nature. Davy, dyin' men don't weep. It's always all right with 'em.
+It's the one moment of all their lives, often, that everything is all
+right, seein' as they do, that all life has been a dream--all back of
+death jes' a beginnin' to live, an' so they die contented. No--no,
+Davy, if they've lived right they want to smile, not weep."
+
+There was an immediate snuffing and drying of tears all around. Uncle
+Davy looked sheepishly at Aunt Sally, she passed the same look on to
+Tilly, and Tilly passed it to the coon dog. Here it rested in its
+birthplace.
+
+"Come to think of it, Hillard," said Uncle Dave after a while, "but I
+believe you are right."
+
+Tilly came back, and she and Aunt Sally nodded their heads: "Yes,
+Hillard, you're right," went on Uncle Davy, "Tilly and Sally both say
+so."
+
+"How come you to think you was dyin' anyway?" asked the Bishop.
+
+"Hillard,--you kno', Hillard--the old man's been thinkin' he'd go
+sudden-like a long time." He raised his eyes to heaven: "Yes, Lord,
+thy servant is even ready."
+
+"Last night I felt a kind o' flutterin' of my heart an' I cudn't
+breathe good. I thought it was death--death,--Hillard, on the back of
+his pale horse. Tilly and Sally both thought so."
+
+The Bishop laughed. "That warn't death on the back of a horse,
+Davy--that was jus' wind on the stomach of an ass."
+
+This was too much for Uncle Davy--especially when Tilly and Sally
+made it unanimous by giggling outright.
+
+"You et cabbages for supper," said the Bishop.
+
+Uncle Davy nodded, sheepishly.
+
+"Then I sed my will an' Tilly writ it down an', oh, Hillard,
+I am so anxious to hear you read it. I wanter see how it'ull
+feel fer a man to have his will read after he is dead--an'--an'
+how his widder takes it," he added, glancing at Aunt Sally--"an'
+his friends. I wanter heah you read it, Hillard, in that deep
+organ way of yours,--like you read the Old Testament. In that
+_In-the-Beginning-God-Created-the-Heaven-an'-the-Earth-Kinder_ voice!
+Drap your voice low like a organ, an' let the old man hear it befo' he
+goes. I fixed it when I thought I was a-dyin'."
+
+"Makin' yo' will ain't no sign you're dyin'," said the Bishop.
+
+"But Tilly an' Aunt Sally both said so," said Uncle Davy, earnestly.
+
+"All yo' needs," said the Bishop going to his saddle bags, "is a good
+straight whiskey. I keep a little--a very, very little bit in my
+saddle bags, for jes' sech occasions as these. It's twenty years
+old," he said, "an' genuwine old Lincoln County. I keep it only for
+folks that's dyin'," he winked, "an' sometimes, Davy, I feel mighty
+like I'm about to pass away myself."
+
+He poured out a very small medicine glass of it, shining and
+shimmering in the morning light like a big ruby,--and handed it to
+Uncle Davy.
+
+"You say that's twenty years old, Hillard?" asked Uncle Davy as he
+wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and again held the little
+glass out entreatingly:
+
+"Hillard, ain't it mighty small for its age--'pears to me it orter be
+twins to make it the regulation size. Don't you think so?"
+
+The Bishop gave him another and took one himself, remarking as he did
+so, "I was pow'ful flustrated when I heard you was dyin' again, Davy,
+an' I need it to stiddy my nerves. Now, fetch out yo' will, Davy," he
+added.
+
+As he took it the Bishop adjusted his big spectacles, buttoned up his
+coat, and drew himself up as he did in the pulpit. He blew his nose
+to get a clear sonorous note:
+
+"I've got a verse of poetry that I allers tunes my voice up to the
+occasion with," he said. "I do it sorter like a fiddler tunes up his
+fiddle. It's a great poem an' I'll put it agin anything in the Queen's
+English for real thunder music an' a sentiment that Shakespeare an'
+Milton nor none of 'em cud a writ. It stirs me like our park of
+artillery at Shiloh, an' it puts me in tune with the great dead of
+all eternity. It makes me think of Cap'n Tom an' Albert Sidney
+Johnston."
+
+Then in a deep voice he repeated:
+
+    "'The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
+          The soldier's last tattoo--
+     No more on earth's parade shall meet
+          That brave and fallen few.
+     On Fame's eternal camping ground
+          Their silent tents are spread
+     And glory guards with solemn sound
+          The Bivouac of the Dead.'"
+
+"Now give me yo' will."
+
+Uncle Davy sat up solemnly, keenly, expectantly. Tilly and Aunt Sally
+sat subdued and sad, with that air of solemn importance and respect
+which might be expected of a dutiful daughter and bereaved widow on
+such an occasion. It was too solemn for Uncle Davy. He began to
+whimper again: "I didn't think I would ever live to see the day when
+I'd hear my own will read after I was dead, an' Hillard a-readin' it
+around my own corpse. It's Tilly's handwrite," he explained, as he saw
+the Bishop scrutinizing the testament closely. "I can't write, as you
+kno', but I've made my mark at the end, an' I want you to witness
+it."
+
+Pitching his voice to organ depths, the Bishop read:
+
+"_'In the name of God, amen: I, Davy Dickey, of the County of ----,
+and State of Alabama, being of sound mind and retentive memory, but
+knowing the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death, do hereby
+make and ordain this--my last will and testamen--_'"
+
+Uncle Davy had lain back, his eyes closed, his hands clasped,
+drinking it all in.
+
+"O, Hillard--Hillard, read it agin--it makes me so happy! It does me
+so much good. It sounds like the first chapter of Genesis, an' Daniel
+Webster's reply to Hayne an' the 19th Psalm all put together."
+
+The Bishop read it again.
+
+"So happy--so happy--" sobbed Uncle Davy, in which Aunt Sally and
+Tilly and the coon dog joined.
+
+"_'First,'_" read on the Bishop, following closely Tilly's pretty
+penmanship; "_'Concerning that part of me called the soul or spirit
+which is immortal, I will it back again to its Maker, leaving it to
+Him to do as He pleases with, without asking any impertinent
+questions or making any fool requests.'_"
+
+The Bishop paused. "That's a good idea, Davy--Givin' it back to its
+Maker without asking any impert'n'ent questions."
+
+"_'Second,'_" read the Bishop, "_'I wills to be buried alongside of
+Dan'l Tubbs, on the Chestnut Knob, the same enclosed with a rock
+wall, forever set aside for me an' Dan'l and running west twenty
+yards to a black jack, then east to a cedar stump three rods, then
+south to a stake twenty yards and thence west back to me an' Dan'l. I
+wills the fence to be built horse high, bull strong and pig tight, so
+as to keep out the Widow Simmon's old brindle cow; the said cow
+having pestered us nigh to death in life, I don't want her to worry
+us back to life after death._
+
+"_'Third. All the rest of the place except that occupied as aforesaid
+by me an' Dan'l, and consisting of twenty acres, more or less, I will
+to go to my dutiful wife, Sally Ann Dickey, providing, of course,
+that she do not marry again.'_"
+
+"David?" put in Aunt Sallie, promptly, wiping her eyes, "I think that
+last thing mout be left out."
+
+"Well, I don't kno'," said Uncle Davy--"you sho'ly ain't got no
+notion of marryin' agin, have you, Sally?"
+
+"No--no--" said Aunt Sallie, thoughtfully, "but there aint no tellin'
+what a po' widder mout have to do if pushed to the wall."
+
+"Well," sagely remarked Uncle Davy, "we'll jes' let it stan' as it
+is. It's like a dose of calomel for disorder of the stomach--if you
+need it it'll cure you, an' if you don't it won't hurt you. This
+thing of old folks fallin' in love ain't nothin' but a disorder of
+the stomach anyhow."
+
+Aunt Sally again protested a poor widow was often pushed to the wall
+and had to take advantage of circumstances, but Uncle Davy told the
+Bishop to read on.
+
+At this point Tilly got up and left the room.
+
+"_'Fourth. I give and bequeath to my devoted daughter, Tilly, and her
+husband, Charles C. Biggers, all my personal property, including the
+crib up in the loft, the razor my grandfather left me, the old mare
+and her colt, the best bed in the parlor, and--'_"
+
+The Bishop stopped and looked serious.
+
+"Davy, ain't you a trifle previous in this?" he asked.
+
+"Not for a will," he said. "You see this is supposed to happen and be
+read after you're dead. You see Charles has been to see her twice and
+writ a poem on her eyes."
+
+The Bishop frowned: "You'll have to watch that Biggers boy--he is a
+wild reckless rake an' not in Tilly's class in anything."
+
+"He's pow'ful sweet on Tilly," said Aunt Sallie.
+
+"Has he asked her to marry him?" asked the Bishop astonished.
+
+"S-h-h--not yet," said Uncle Davy, "but he's comin' to it as fast as
+a lean hound to a meat block. He's got the firs' tech now--silly an'
+poetic. After a while he'll get silly an' desperate, an' jes' 'fo' he
+kills hisse'l Tilly'll fix him all right an' tie him up for life. The
+good Lord makes every man crazy when he is ripe for matrimony, so he
+can mate him off befo' he comes to."
+
+The Bishop shook his head: "I am glad I came out here to-day--if for
+nothin' else to warn you to let that Biggers boy alone. He don't
+study nothin' but fast horses an' devilment."
+
+"I never seed a man have a wuss'r case," said Aunt Sally. "Won't
+Tilly be proud of herse'f as the daughter of Old Judge Biggers? An'
+me--jes' think of me as the grandmother of Biggerses--the riches' an'
+fines' family in the land."
+
+"An' me?--I'll be the gran'pap of 'em--won't I, Sally?"
+
+"You forgit, Davy," said Aunt Sally--"this is yo' will--you'll be
+dead."
+
+"I did forgit," said Uncle Davy sadly--"but I'd sho' love to live an'
+take one of them little Biggerses on my knees an' think his gran'pap
+had bred up to this. Me an' old Judge Biggers--gran'paws of the same
+kids! Now, you see, Hillard, he met Tilly at a party an' he tuck her
+in to supper. The next day he writ her a poem, an' I think it's a
+pretty good start on the gran'pap business."
+
+The Bishop smiled: "It does look like he loves her," he added, dryly.
+"If I was the devil an' wanted to ketch a woman I'd write a poem to
+her every day an' lie between heats. Love lives on lies."
+
+"Now, I've ca'culated them things out," said Uncle Davy, "an' it'll
+be this away: Tilly is as pretty as a peach an' Charlie is gittin'
+stuck wus'n wus'n every day. By the time I am dead they will be
+married good an' hard. I am almost gone as it is, the ole man he's
+liable to drap off any time--yea, Lord, thy servant is ready to
+go--but I do hope that the good master will let me live long enough
+to hold one of my Biggers grandboys on my knees."
+
+"All I've got to say," said the Bishop, "is jus' to watch yo'
+son-in-law. Every son-in-law will stan' watchin' after the ceremony,
+but yours will stan' it all the time."
+
+"_'Lastly,'_" read the Bishop, "_'I wills it that things be left just
+as they be on the place--no moving around of nothing, especially the
+well, it being eighty foot deep, and with good cool water; and
+finally I leave anything else I've got, mostly my good will, to the
+tender mercies of the lawyers and courts.'_"
+
+The Bishop witnessed it, gave Uncle Davy another toddy, and, after
+again cautioning him to watch young Biggers closely, rode away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+EDWARD CONWAY
+
+
+Across the hill the old man rode to Millwood, and as he rode his head
+was bent forward in troubled thought.
+
+He had heard that Edward Conway had come to the sorest need--even to
+where he would place his daughters in the mill. None knew better than
+Hillard Watts what this would mean socially for the granddaughters of
+Governor Conway.
+
+Besides, the old preacher had begun to hate the mill and its infamous
+system of child labor with a hatred born of righteousness. Every
+month he saw its degradation, its slavery, its death.
+
+He preached, he talked against it. He began to be pointed out as the
+man who was against the mill. Ominous rumors had come to his ears,
+and threats. It was whispered to him that he had better be silent,
+and some of the people he preached to--some of those who had children
+in the mill and were supported in their laziness by the life blood of
+their little ones--these were his bitterest enemies.
+
+To-day, the drunken proprietor of Millwood sat in his accustomed
+place on the front balcony, his cob-pipe in his mouth and ruin all
+around him.
+
+Like others, he had a great respect for the Bishop--a man who had
+been both his own and his father's friend. Often as a lad he had
+hunted, fished, and trapped with the preacher-overseer, who lived
+near his father's plantation. He had broken all of the stubborn colts
+in the overseer's care; he had ridden them even in some of their
+fiercest, hardest races, and he had felt the thrill of victory at the
+wire and known the great pride which comes to one who knows he has
+the confidence of a brave and honest man.
+
+The old trainer's influence over Edward Conway had always been great.
+
+To-day, as he saw the Bishop ride up, he thought of his boyhood days,
+and of Tom Travis. How often had they gone with the old man hunting
+and fishing! How he reverenced the memory of his gentleness and
+kindness!
+
+The greatest desire of Hillard Watts had been to reform Edward
+Conway. He had prayed for him, worked for him. In spite of his
+drunkenness the old man believed in him.
+
+"God'll save him yet," he would say. "I've prayed for it an' I kno'
+it--tho' it may be by the crushing of him. Some men repent to God's
+smile, some to His frown, and some to His fist. I'm afraid it will
+take a blow to save Ned, po' boy."
+
+For Ned was always a boy to him.
+
+Conway was drunker than usual to-day. Things grew worse daily, and he
+drank deeper.
+
+It is one of the strangest curses of whiskey that as it daily drags a
+man down, deeper and deeper, it makes him believe he must cling to
+his Red God the closer.
+
+He met the old overseer cordially, in a half drunken endeavor to be
+natural. The old man glanced sadly up at the bloated, boastful face,
+and thought of the beautiful one it once had been. He thought of the
+fine, brilliant mind and marveled that with ten years of drunkenness
+it still retained its strength. And the Bishop remembered that in
+spite of his drinking no one had ever accused Edward Conway of doing
+a dishonorable thing. "How strong is that man's character rooted for
+good," he thought, "when even whiskey cannot undermine it."
+
+"Where are the babies, Ned?" he asked, after he was seated.
+
+The father called and the two girls came running out.
+
+The old man was struck with the developing beauty of Helen--he had
+not seen her for a year. Lily hunted in his pockets for candy, as she
+had always done--and found it--and Helen--though eighteen and grown,
+sat thoughtful and sad, on a stool by his side.
+
+The old man did not wonder at her sadness.
+
+"Ned," he said, as he stroked Helen's hand, "this girl looks mo' like
+her mother every day, an' you know she was the handsomest woman that
+ever was raised in the Valley."
+
+Conway took his pipe out of his mouth. He dropped his head and looked
+toward the distant blue hills. What Memory and Remorse were
+whispering to him the old man could only guess. Silently--nodding--he
+sat and looked and spoke not.
+
+"She ain't gwineter be a bit prettier than my little Lil, when she
+gits grown," said a voice behind them.
+
+It was Mammy Maria who, as usual, having dressed the little girl as
+daintily as she could, stood nearby to see that no harm befell her.
+
+"Wal, Aunt Maria," drawled the Bishop. "Whar did you come from? I
+declar' it looks like ole times to see you agin'."
+
+There is something peculiar in this, that those unlettered, having
+once associated closely with negroes, drop into their dialect when
+speaking to them. Perhaps it may be explained by some law of
+language--some rule of euphony, now unknown. The Bishop unconsciously
+did this; and, from dialect alone, one could not tell which was white
+and which was black.
+
+Aunt Maria had always been very religious, and the Bishop arose and
+shook her hand gravely.
+
+"Pow'ful glad to see you," said the old woman.
+
+"How's religion--Aunt Maria," he asked.
+
+"Mighty po'ly--mighty po'ly"--she sighed. "It looks lak the Cedars of
+Lebanon is dwarfed to the scrub pine. The old time religin' is
+passin' away, an' I'm all that's lef' of Zion."
+
+The Bishop smiled.
+
+"Yes, you see befo' you all that's lef' of Zion. I'se been longin' to
+see you an' have a talk with you--thinkin' maybe you cud he'p me out.
+You kno' me and you is Hard-shells."
+
+The Bishop nodded.
+
+"We 'blieves in repentince an' fallin' from grace, an' backslidin'
+an' all that," she went on. "Well, they've lopped them good ole
+things off one by one an' they don't 'bleeve in nothin' now but jes'
+jin'in'. They think jes' jin'in' fixes 'em--that it gives 'em a free
+pass into the pearly gates. So of all ole Zion Church up at the
+hill, sah, they've jes' jined an' jined around, fust one church an'
+then another, till of all the ole Zion Church that me an' you loved
+so much, they ain't none lef' but Parson Shadrack, the preacher,
+sister Tilly, an' me--We wus Zion."
+
+"Pow'ful bad, pow'ful bad," said the Bishop--"and you three made
+Zion."
+
+"We _wus_," said Aunt Maria, sadly--"but now there ain't but one
+lef'. _I'm Zion._ It's t'arrable, but it's true. As it wus in the
+days of Lot, so it is to-day in Sodom."
+
+"Why, how did that happen?" asked the Bishop.
+
+Aunt Maria's eyes kindled: "It's t'arrable, but it's true--last week
+Parson Shadrack deserts his own wife an' runs off with Sis Tilly. It
+looked lak he mouter tuck me, too, an' kept the fold together as
+Abraham did when he went into the Land of the Philistines. But thank
+God, if I am all that's lef', one thing is mighty consolin'--I can
+have a meetin' of Zion wherever I is. If I sets down in a cheer to
+meditate I sez to myself--'Be keerful, Maria, for the church is in
+session.' When I drink, it is communion--when I bathes, it is
+baptism, when I walks, I sez to myself: 'Keep a straight gait, Maria,
+you are carryin' the tabbernackle of all goodness.' Aunt Tilly got
+the preacher, but thank God, I got Zion."
+
+"But I mus' go. Come on, Lily," she said to the little girl,--"let
+ole Zion fix up yo' curls."
+
+She took her charge and curtsied out, and the Bishop knew she would
+die either for Zion or the little girl.
+
+The old man sat thinking--Helen had gone in and was practising a love
+song.
+
+"Ned," said the Bishop, "I tell you a man ain't altogether friendless
+when he's got in his home a creature as faithful as she is. She'd die
+for that child. That one ole faithful 'oman makes me feel like
+liftin' my hat to the whole nigger race. I tell you when I get to
+heaven an' fail to see ole Mammy settin' around the River of Life,
+I'll think somethin' is wrong."
+
+The Bishop was silent a while, and then he asked: "Ned, it can't be
+true that you are goin' to put them girls in the factory?"
+
+"It's all I can do," said Conway, surlily--"I'll be turned out of
+home soon--out in the public road. Everything I've got has been sold.
+I've no'where to go, an' but for Carpenter's offer from the Company
+of the cottage, I'd not have even a home for them. The only condition
+I could go on was that--"
+
+"That you sell your daughters into slavery," said the Bishop quietly.
+
+"You don't seem to think it hurts your's," said Conway bluntly.
+
+"If I had my way they'd not work there a day,"--the old man replied
+hastily. "But it's different with me, an' you know it. My people take
+to it naturally. I am a po' white, an underling by breedin' an'
+birth, an' if my people build, they must build up. But you--you are
+tearing down when you do that. Po' as I am, I'd rather starve than to
+see little children worked to death in that trap, but Tabitha sees it
+different, and she is the one bein' in the world I don't cross--the
+General"--he smiled--"she don't understand, she's built different."
+
+He was silent a while. Then he said: "I am old an' have nothin'."
+
+He stopped again. He did not say that what little he did have went to
+the poor and the sorrow-stricken of the neighborhood. He did not add
+that in his home, besides its poverty and hardness, he faced daily
+the problem of far greater things.
+
+"If I only had my health," said Conway, "but this cursed rheumatism!"
+
+"Some of us has been so used to benefits," said the old man, "that
+it's only when they've withdrawn that we miss 'em. We're always ready
+to blame God for what we lose, but fail to remember what He gives us.
+We kno' what diseases an' misfortunes we have had, we never know, by
+God's mercy, what we have escaped. Death is around us daily--in the
+very air we breathe--and yet we live.
+
+"I'll talk square with you, Ned--though you may hate me for it. Every
+misfortune you have, from rheumatism to loss of property, is due to
+whiskey. Let it alone. Be a man. There's greatness in you yet. You'd
+have no chance if you was a scrub. But no man can estimate the value
+of good blood in man or hoss--it's the unknown quantity that makes him
+ready to come again. For do the best we can, at last we're in the
+hands of God an' our pedigree."
+
+"Do you think I've got a show yet?" asked Conway, looking up.
+
+"Do I? Every man has a chance who trusts God an' prays. You can't
+down that man. Your people were men--brave an' honest men. They
+conquered themselves first, an' all this fair valley afterwards. They
+overcame greater obstacles than you ever had, an' in bringin' you
+into the world they gave you, by the very laws of heredity, the power
+to overcome, too. Why do you grasp at the shadow an' shy at the form?
+You keep these hound dogs here, because your father rode to hounds.
+But he rode for pleasure, in the lap of plenty, that he had made by
+hard licks. You ride, from habit, in poverty. He rode his hobbies--it
+was all right. Your hobbies ride you. He fought chickens for an
+hour's pastime, in the fullness of the red blood of life. You fight
+them for the blood of the thing--as the bred-out Spaniards fight
+bulls. He took his cocktails as a gentleman--you as a drunkard."
+
+The old man was excited, indignant, fearless.
+
+Conway looked at him in wonder akin to fear. Even as the idolaters of
+old looked at Jeremiah and Isaiah.
+
+"Why--why is it"--went on the old man earnestly, rising and shaking
+his finger ominously--"that two generations of cocktails will breed
+cock-fighters, and two generations of whiskey will breed a scrub? Do
+you know where you'll end? In bein' a scrub? No, no--you will be dead
+an' the worms will have et you--but"--he pointed to the house--"you
+are fixin' to make scrubs of them--they will breed back.
+
+"Go back to the plough--quit this whiskey and be the man your people
+was. If you do not," he said rising to go--"God will crush you--not
+kill you, but mangle you in the killin'."
+
+"He has done that already," said Conway bitterly. "He has turned the
+back of His hand on me."
+
+"Not yet"--said the Bishop--"but it will fall and fall there." He
+pointed to Helen, whose queenly head could be seen in the old parlor
+as she trummed out a sad love song.
+
+Conway blanched and his hand shook. He felt a nameless fear--never
+felt before. He looked around, but the old man was gone. Afterwards,
+as he remembered that afternoon, he wondered if, grown as the old man
+had in faith, God had not also endowed him with the gift of
+prophecy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+HELEN'S DESPAIR
+
+
+An hour afterward, the old nurse found Helen at the piano, her head
+bowed low over the old yellow keys. "It's gittin' t'wards dinner
+time, chile," she said tenderly, "an' time I was dressin' my queen
+gal for dinner an sendin' her out to get roses in her cheeks."
+
+"Oh, Mammy, don't--don't dress me that way any more. I am--I am to
+be--after this--just a mill girl, you know?"
+
+There was a sob and her head sank lower over the piano.
+
+"You may be for a while, but you'll always be a Conway"--and the old
+woman struck an attitude with her arms akimbo and stood looking at
+the portraits which hung on the parlor wall.
+
+"That--that--makes it worse, Mammy." She wiped away her tears and
+stood up, and her eyes took on a look Aunt Maria had not seen since
+the old Governor had died. She thought of ghosts and grew nervous
+before it.
+
+"If my father sends me to work in that place--if he does--" she cried
+with flaming eyes--"I shall feel that I am disgraced. I cannot hold
+my head up again. Then you need not be surprised at anything I do."
+
+"It ain't registered that you're gwine there yet," and Mammy Maria
+stroked her head. "But if you does--it won't make no difference whar
+you are nor what you have to do, you'll always be a Conway an' a
+lady."
+
+An hour afterwards, dressed as only Mammy Maria could dress her,
+Helen had walked out again to the rock under the wild grape vine.
+
+How sweet and peaceful it was, and yet how changed since but a short
+time ago she had sat there watching for Harry!
+
+"Harry"--she pulled out the crumpled, tear-stained note from her
+bosom and read it again. And the reading surprised her. She expected
+to weep, but instead when she had finished she sat straight up on the
+mossy rock and from her eyes gleamed again the light before which the
+political enemies of the old dead Governor had so often quailed.
+
+Nor did it change in intensity, when, at the sound of wheels and the
+clatter of hoofs, she instinctively dropped down on the moss behind
+the rock and saw through the grape leaves one of Richard Travis's
+horses, steaming hot, and stepping,--right up to its limit--a
+clipping gait down the road.
+
+She had dropped instinctively because she guessed it was Harry. And
+instinctively, too, she knew the girl with the loud boisterous laugh
+beside him was Nellie.
+
+The buggy was wheeled so rapidly past that she heard only broken
+notes of laughter and talk. Then she sat again upon her rock, with
+the deep flush in her eyes, and said:
+
+"I hate--him--I hate him--and oh--to think--"
+
+She tore his note into fragments, twisted and rolled them into a ball
+and shot it, as a marble, into the gulch below.
+
+Then, suddenly she remembered, and reaching over she looked into a
+scarred crevice in the rock. Twice that summer had Clay Westmore left
+her a quaint love note in this little rock-lined post-office. Quaint
+indeed, and they made her smile, for they had been queer mixtures of
+geology and love. But they were honest--and they had made her flush
+despite the fact that she did not love him.
+
+Still she would read them two or three times and sigh and say: "Poor
+Clay--" after every reading.
+
+"Surely there will be one this afternoon," she thought as she peeped
+over.
+
+But there was not, and it surprised her to know how much she was
+disappointed.
+
+"Even Clay has forgotten me," she said as she arose hastily to go.
+
+A big sob sprang up into her throat and the Conway light of defiance,
+that had blazed but a few moments before in her eyes, died in the
+depths of the cloud of tears which poured between it and the open.
+
+A cruel, dangerous mood came over her. It enveloped her soul in its
+sombre hues and the steel of it struck deep.
+
+She scarcely remembered her dead mother--only her eyes. But when
+these moods came upon Helen Conway--and her life had been one wherein
+they had fallen often--the memory of her mother's eyes came to her
+and stood out in the air before her, and they were sombre and sad,
+and full, too, of the bitterness of hopes unfulfilled.
+
+All her life she had fought these moods when they came. But now--now
+she yielded to the subtle charm of them--the wild pleasure of their
+very sinfulness.
+
+"And why not," she cried to herself when the consciousness of it came
+over her, and like a morphine fiend carrying the drug to his lips,
+she knew that she also was pressing there the solace of her misery.
+
+"Why should I not dissipate in the misery of it, since so much of it
+has fallen upon me at once?
+
+"Mother?--I never knew one--only the eyes of one, and they were the
+eyes of Sorrow. Father?"--she waved her hand toward the old
+home--"drunk-wrecked--he would sell me for a quart of whiskey.
+
+"Then I loved--loved an image which is--mud--mud"--she fairly spat it
+out. "One poor friend I had--I scorned him, and he has forgotten me,
+too. But I did know that I had social standing--that my name was an
+honored one until--now."
+
+"Now!"--she gulped it down. "Now I am a common mill girl."
+
+She had been walking rapidly down the road toward the house. So
+rapidly that she did not know how flushed and beautiful she had
+become. She was swinging her hat impatiently in her hand, her fine
+hair half falling and loose behind, shadowing her face as rosy sunset
+clouds the temple on Mt. Ida. A face of more classic beauty, a skin
+of more exquisite fairness, flushed with the bloom of youth, Richard
+Travis had never before seen.
+
+And so, long before she reached him, he reined in his trotters and
+sat silently watching her come. What a graceful step she had--what a
+neck and head and hair--half bent over with eyes on the ground,
+unconscious of the beauty and grace of their own loveliness.
+
+She almost ran into his buggy--she stopped with a little start of
+surprise, only to look into his clean-cut face, smiling half
+patronizingly, half humorously, and with a look of command too, and
+of patronage withal, of half-gallant heart-undoing.
+
+It was the look of the sharp-shinned hawk hovering for an instant, in
+sheer intellectual abandon and physical exuberance, above the
+unconscious oriole bent upon its morning bath.
+
+He was smiling down into her eyes and repeating half humorously, half
+gallantly, and altogether beautifully, she thought, Keats' lines:
+
+    "A thing of beauty is a joy forever;
+     Its loveliness increases; it will never
+     Pass into nothingness; but will keep
+     A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
+     Full of sweet dreams and health and
+     Quiet breathing...."
+
+Even Helen could not tell how it was done nor why she had
+consented....
+
+"No--no--you are hot and tired and you shall not walk.... I will give
+you just a little spin before Mammy Maria calls you to dinner....
+Yes, Lizzette and Sadie B. always do their best when a pretty girl is
+behind them."
+
+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.
+
+"It's bad," he sighed--"a man cu'd do so much mo' in life if he
+didn't hafter waste so much time arguin' with fools. Well, I'm here
+fur the day an' I'll learn somethin'. Now, I wanter know if one
+squirrel er two squirrels stays in the same hole in winter. Then
+there's the wild-duck. I wanter kno' when the mallards go south."
+
+In a few minutes he had hid himself behind a tree in a clump of
+brush. He was silent for ten minutes, so silent that only the falling
+leaves could be heard. Then very cautiously he imitated the call of
+the gray squirrel--once, twice, and still again. He had not long to
+wait. In a hole high up in a hickory a little gray head popped
+out--then a squirrel came out cautiously--first its head, then half
+of its body, and each time it moved looking and listening, with its
+cunning, bright eyes, taking in everything. Then it frisked out with
+a flirt of its tail, and sat on a limb nearby. It was followed by
+another and another. Archie B. watched them for a half hour, a
+satisfied smile playing around his lips. He was studying squirrel. He
+saw them run into the hole again and bring out each a nut and sit on
+a nearby limb and eat it.
+
+"That settles that," he said to himself. "I thought they kept their
+nuts in the same hole."
+
+There was the sound of voices behind him and the squirrels vanished.
+Archie B. stood up and saw an old man and some children gathering
+nuts.
+
+"It's the Bishop an' the little mill-mites. I'll bet they've brought
+their dinner."
+
+This was the one thing Archie B. needed to make his day in the woods
+complete.
+
+"Hello," he shouted, coming up to them.
+
+"Why, it's Archie B.," said Shiloh, delighted.
+
+"Why, it is," said her grandfather. "What you doin', Archie B.?"
+
+"Studyin' squirrels right now. What you all doin'?"
+
+"I've tuck the kids out of the mill an' I'm givin' 'em their fus' day
+in the woods. Shiloh, there, has been mighty sick and is weak yet, so
+we're goin' slow. Mighty glad to run upon you, Archie B. Can't you
+sho' Shiloh the squirrels? She's never seed one yet, have you, pet?"
+
+"No," said Shiloh thoughtfully. "Is they like them little jorees that
+say _Wake-up, pet! Wake-up, pet?_ Oh, do sho' me the squirrel!
+Mattox, ain't this jes' fine, bein' out of the mill?"
+
+Archie B.'s keen glance took in the well-filled lunch basket. At once
+he became brilliantly entertaining. In a few minutes he had Shiloh
+enraptured at the wood-lore he told her,--even Bull Run and Seven
+Days, Atlanta and Appomattox were listening in amazement, so
+interesting becomes nature's story when it finds a reader.
+
+And so all the morning Archie B. went with them, and never had they
+seen so much and enjoyed a day as they had this one.
+
+And the lunch--how good it tasted! It was a new life to them.
+Shiloh's color came in the healthful exercise, and even Bull Run
+began to look out keenly from his dull eyes.
+
+After lunch Shiloh went to sleep on a soft carpet of Bermuda grass
+with the old man's coat for a blanket, while the other children waded
+in the branch, and gathered nuts till time to go back home.
+
+It was nearly sun-down when they reached the gate of the little hut
+on the mountain.
+
+"We must do this often, Archie B.," said the Bishop, as the children
+went in, tired and hungry, leaving him and Archie B. at the gate.
+"I've never seed the little 'uns have sech a time, an' it mighty nigh
+made me young ag'in."
+
+All afternoon Archie B. had been thinking. All day he had felt the
+lumpy, solid thing in the innermost depths of his jeans pocket, which
+told him one hundred dollars in gold lay there, and that it would
+need an explanation when he reached home or he was in for the worst
+whipping he ever had. Knowing this, he had not been thinking all the
+afternoon for nothing. The old man bade him good-night, but still
+Archie B. lingered, hesitated, hung around the gate.
+
+"Won't you come in, Archie B.?"
+
+"No-o--thank you, Bishop, but I'd--I'd like to, really tho', jes' to
+git a little spirt'ul g'idance"--a phrase he had heard his father use
+so often.
+
+"Why, what's the matter, Archie B.?"
+
+Archie B. rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I'm--I'm--thinkin' of
+j'inin' the church, Bishop."
+
+"Bless yo' h'art--that's right. I know'd you'd quit yo' mischeev'us
+ways an' come in--an' I honor you fur it, Archie B.--praise the
+Lord!"
+
+Archie B. still stood pensive and sobered:
+
+"But a thing happened to-day, Bishop, an' it's worryin' me very much.
+It makes me think, perhaps--I--ain't--ain't worthy of--the bestowal
+of--the grace--you know, the kind I heard you speak of?"
+
+"Tell me, Archie B., lad--an' I'll try to enlighten you in my po'
+way."
+
+"Well, now; it's this--jes' suppose you wus goin' along now--say to
+school, an' seed a dorg, say his name was Bonaparte, wantin' to eat
+up a little monkey; an' a lot of fellers, say like Jud Carpenter an'
+Billy Buch, a-bettin' he cu'd do it in ten minutes an' a-sickin' him
+on the po' little monkey--this big savage dorg. An' suppose now you
+feel sorry for the monkey an' somethin'--you can't tell what--but
+somethin' mighty plain tells you the Lord wus on the monkey's
+side--so plain you cu'd read it--like it told David--an' the dorg
+wus as mean an' bostful as Goliath wus--"
+
+"Archie B., my son, I'd a been fur the monkey, I sho' would," said
+the Bishop impressively.
+
+Archie B. smiled: "Bishop, you've called my hand--I _wus_ for that
+monkey."
+
+The old man smiled approvingly: "Good--good--Archie B."
+
+"Now, what happened? I'm mighty inter'sted--oh, that is good. I'm
+bettin' the monkey downed him, the Lord bein' on his side."
+
+"But, s'pose furst," went on Archie B. argumentatively, "that you
+wanted to give some money fur a little church that you wanted to
+j'ine--up on the mountain side, a little po'-fo'k church, that
+depended on charity--"
+
+"I understan's, I understan's, Archie B., that wus the Lord's
+doin's,--ten to one on the monkey, Archie--ten to one!"
+
+"An' that you had ten dollars in gold around yo' neck in a little
+bag, given you by your ole Granny when she died--an' knowin' how the
+Lord wus for the monkey, an' it bein' a dead cinch, an' all that--an'
+these fellers blowin' an' offerin' to bet ten to one--an' seein' you
+c'ud pick it up in the road--all for the little church, mind you,
+Bishop--"
+
+"Archie B.," exclaimed the old man excitedly, "them bein' the facts
+an' the thing at stake, with that ole dorg an' Jud Carpenter at the
+bottom of it, I'd a put it up on the monkey, son--fur charity, you
+know, an' fur the principle of it,--I'd a put it up, Archie B., if
+I'd lost ever' cent!"
+
+"Exactly, Bishop, an' I did--at ten to one--think of the odds! Ten to
+one, mighty nigh as great as wus ag'in David."
+
+"An' you won, of course, Archie B., you won in a walk?" said the old
+man breathlessly. "God was fur you an' the monkey."
+
+Archie B. smiled triumphantly and pulled out his handful of gold. The
+old man sat down on a log, dazed.
+
+"Archie B., sho'ly, sho'ly, not all that? An' licked the dorg, an'
+that gang, an' cleaned 'em up?"
+
+Archie B. told him the story with all the quaint histrionic talent of
+his exuberant nature.
+
+The Bishop sat and laughed till the tears came.
+
+"An' Bonaparte went down the road with the monkey holt his tail--the
+champion dorg--an' you won all that?"
+
+"All fur charity, Bishop, except, you know, part fur keeps as a
+kinder nes' egg."
+
+"Of co-u-r-se--Archie B., of--course, no harm in the
+worl'--if--if--my son--_if you carry out your original ideas_, or
+promise, ruther; it won't work if you go back on yo' promise to God.
+'God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform,'" added the
+Bishop solemnly.
+
+Archie B. slipped fifty of his dollars into the old man's hands.
+
+"Do you know, Archie B., I prayed for this las' night? Now you tell
+me God don't answer prayers?"
+
+He was silent, touched. Seldom before had a prayer of his been
+answered so directly.
+
+"Fur charity, Archie B., fur charity. I'll take it, an' little you
+know what this may mean."
+
+Archie B. was silent. So far so good, but it was plain from his still
+thoughtful looks that he had only half won out yet. He had heard the
+old man speak, and there had been a huskiness about his voice.
+
+"Now there is paw, Bishop--you know he ain't jes like you--he don't
+see so far. He might not understan' it. Would you mind jes' droppin'
+him a line, you know? I'll take it to him--in case he looks at the
+thing differently, you know, fur whut you write will go a long way
+with him."
+
+The old man smiled: "Of course, Archie B.--he must understan' it. Of
+course, it 'ud never do to have him spile as good a thing as
+that--an' fur charity, all fur the Lord--"
+
+"An' why I didn't go to school, helpin' you all in the woods," put in
+Archie B.
+
+"Of course, Archie B., why of course, my son; I'll fix it right."
+
+And he scribbled a few lines on the fly leaf of his note book for
+Archie B. to take home:
+
+"God bless you, my son, good-night."
+
+Archie B. struck out across the fields jingling his remaining gold
+and whistling. At home it was as he expected. Patsy met him at the
+gate. One look into her expectant face showed him that she was
+delighted at the prospect of his punishment. It was her hope
+deferred, now long unfulfilled. He had always gotten out before, but
+now--
+
+"Walk in, Mister Gambler, Mr. Hookey--walk in--paw is waitin' fur
+you," she said, smirking.
+
+The Deacon stood in the door, silent, grim, determined. In his hand
+were well-seasoned hickories. By him stood his wife more silent, more
+grim, more determined.
+
+"Pull off yo' coat, Archie B.," said the Deacon, "I'm gwinter lick
+you fur gamblin'."
+
+"Pull off yo' coat, Archie B.," said his mother, "I'm goin' to lick
+you fur playin' hookey."
+
+"Pull it off, Archie B.," said his sister bossily, "I'm goin' to
+stan' by an' see."
+
+Archie B. pulled off his coat deliberately.
+
+"That's all right," he said, "Many a man has been licked befo' fur
+bein' on the Lord's side."
+
+"You mean to tell me, Archie B. Butts, you bet on a dorg fight sho'
+nuff," said his father, nervously handling his hickories.
+
+"An' played hookey?" chimed in his mother.
+
+"Tell it, Archie B., tell the truth an' shame the devil," mocked
+Patsy.
+
+"Yes, I done all that--fur charity," he said boldly, and with a
+victorious ring in his voice.
+
+"Did you put up that ten dollars yo' Granny lef' you?" screamed his
+mother.
+
+"Did you dare, Archie B.," said Patsy.
+
+His father paled at the thought of it: "An' lost it, Archie B., lost
+it, my son. Oh, I mus' teach you how sinful it is to gamble."
+
+Archie B. replied by running his hand deep down into his pocket and
+bringing up a handful of gold--five eagles!
+
+His father dropped the switches and stared. His mother sat down
+suddenly in a chair and Patsy reached out, took it and counted it
+deliberately:--
+
+"One--two--three--fo'--five--an' all gold--my gracious, Maw!"
+
+"That's jes' ha'f of it," said Archie B. indifferently. "I gave the
+old Bishop five of 'em--fur--charity. Here's his note."
+
+The Deacon read it and rubbed his chin thoughtfully: "That's a
+different thing," he said after a while. "Entirely different
+proposition, my son."
+
+"Yes, it 'pears to be," said his mother counting the gold again.
+"We'll jes' keep three of 'em, Archie B. They'll come in handy this
+winter."
+
+"Put on yo' coat, my son," said the Deacon gently.
+
+"Patsy, fetch him in the hot waffles an' syrup--the lad 'pears to be
+a leetle tired," said his mother.
+
+"How many whippings did you git, Archie B.?" whispered his brother as
+Archie B., after entertaining the family for an hour, all about the
+great fight, crawled into bed: "I got three," went on Ozzie B.
+"Triggers fust, then paw, then maw."
+
+"None," said Archie B., as he put his two pieces of gold under his
+pillow.
+
+"I can't see why that was," wailed Ozzie B. "I done nothin'
+an'--an'--got all--all--the--lickin'!"
+
+"You jes' reaped my whirlwind," sneered his brother--"All fools do!"
+
+But later he felt so sorry for poor Ozzie B. because he could not lie
+on his back at all, that he gave him one of his beautiful coins to go
+to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+BEN BUTLER'S LAST RACE
+
+
+It was the last afternoon of the fair, and the great race was to come
+off at three o'clock.
+
+There is nothing so typical as a fair in the Tennessee Valley. It is
+the one time in the year when everybody meets everybody else. Besides
+being the harvest time of crops, of friendships, of happy interchange
+of thought and feeling, it is also the harvest time of perfected
+horseflesh.
+
+The forenoon had been given to social intercourse, the display of
+livestock, the exhibits of deft women fingers, of housewife skill, of
+the tradesman, of the merchant, of cotton--cotton, in every form and
+shape.
+
+At noon, under the trees, lunch had been spread--a bountiful lunch,
+spreading as it did from the soft grass of one tree to that of
+another--as family after family spread their linen--an almost
+unbroken line of fried chicken, flanked with pickles and salad, and
+all the rich profusion of the country wife's pantry.
+
+And now, after lunch, the grand stand had been quickly filled, for
+the fame of the great race had spread up and down the valley, and the
+valley dearly loved a horse-race.
+
+Five hundred dollars was considered a large purse, but this race was
+three thousand!
+
+Three thousand! It would buy a farm. It would buy thirty mules, and
+twice that many steers. It would make a family independent for life.
+
+And to-day it was given to see which one, of three rich men, owned
+the best horse.
+
+No wonder that everybody for miles around was there.
+
+Sturdy farmers with fat daughters, jaded wives, and lusty sons who
+stepped awkwardly on everything on the promenade, and in trying to
+get off stepped on themselves. They went about, with broad, strong,
+stooping shoulders, and short coats that sagged in the middle,
+dropping under-jaws, and eyes that were kindly and shrewd.
+
+The town people were better dressed and fed than the country people,
+and but only half way in fashion between the city and country, yet
+knowing it not.
+
+The infield around the judges' stand, and in front of the
+grand-stand, was thronged with surreys and buggies, and filled with
+ladies and their beaux. A ripple of excitement had gone up when
+Richard Travis drove up in a tally-ho. It was filled with gay gowns
+and alive with merriment and laughter, and though Alice Westmore was
+supposed to be on the driver's box with the owner, she was not there.
+
+Tennesseans were there in force to back Flecker's gelding--Trumps,
+and they played freely and made much noise. Col. Troup's
+mare--Trombine--had her partisans who were also vociferous. But
+Travis's entry, Lizzette, was a favorite, and, when he appeared on
+the track to warm up, the valley shouted itself hoarse.
+
+Then Flecker shot out of the draw-gate and spun merrily around the
+track, and Col. Troup joined him with Trombine, and the audience
+watched the three trotters warm up and shouted or applauded each as
+it spun past the grand-stand.
+
+Then the starting-judge held up a silk bag in the center of the wire.
+It held three thousand dollars in gold, and it swung around and then
+settled, to a shining, shimmering silken sack, swaying the wire as it
+flashed in the sun.
+
+The starting-judge clanged his bell, but the drivers, being
+gentlemen, were heedless of rules and drove on around still warming
+up.
+
+The starting-judge was about to clang again--this time more
+positively--when there appeared at the draw-gate a new comer, the
+sight of whose horse and appointments set the grand-stand into a wild
+roar of mingled laughter and applause.
+
+As he drove demurely on the track, he lifted quaintly and stiffly his
+old hat and smiled.
+
+He was followed by the village blacksmith, whose very looks told that
+they meant business and were out for blood. The audience did not like
+the looks of this blacksmith--he was too stern for the fun they were
+having. But they recognized the shambling creature who followed him
+as Bud Billings, and they shouted with laughter when they saw he had
+a sponge and bucket!
+
+"Bud Billings a swipe!"
+
+Cottontown wanted to laugh, but it was too tired. It merely grinned
+and nudged one another. For Travis had given a half holiday and all
+Cottontown was there.
+
+The old man's outfit brought out the greatest laughter. The cart was
+a big cheap thing, new and brightly repainted, and it rattled
+frightfully. The harness was a combination--the saddle was made of
+soft sheep skin, the wool next to the horse, as were also the
+head-stall of the bridle, the breast-strap and the breeching. The
+rest of it was undressed leather, and the old man had evidently made
+it himself.
+
+But Ben Butler--never had he looked so fine. Blind, cat-hammed and
+pacing along,--but his sides were slick and hard, his quarters
+rubber.
+
+The old man had not been training him on the sandy stretches of Sand
+Mountain for nothing.
+
+A man with half an eye could have seen it, but the funny people in
+the grand-stand saw only the harness, and the blind sunken eyes of
+the old horse. So they shouted and cat-called and jeered. The outfit
+ambled up to the starting judge, and the old driver handed him fifty
+dollars.
+
+The starter laughed as he recovered himself, and winking at the
+others, asked:
+
+"What's this for, old man?"
+
+"Oh, jes' thought I'd j'ine in--" smiling.
+
+"Why, you can't do it. What's your authority?"
+
+The Bishop ran his hand in his pocket, while Bud held Ben Butler's
+head and kept saying with comical seriousness: "Whoa--whoa, sah!"
+
+Pending it all, and seeing that more talk was coming, Ben Butler
+promptly went to sleep. Finally the old man brought out a faded
+poster. It was Travis's challenge and conditions.
+
+"Jes' read it," said the old driver, "an' see if I ain't under the
+conditions."
+
+The starting judge read: "_Open to the Tennessee Valley--trot or
+pace. Parties entering, other than the match makers, to pay fifty
+dollars at the wire._"
+
+"Phew!" said the starting judge, as he scratched his head. Then he
+stroked his chin and re-read the conditions, looking humorously down
+over his glasses at the queer combination before him.
+
+The audience took it in and began to shout: "Let him in! Let him in!
+It's fair!"
+
+But others felt outraged and shouted back: "No--put him out! Put him
+out!"
+
+The starting judge clanged his bell again, and the other three
+starters came up.
+
+Flecker, good-natured and fat, his horse in a warming-up foam,
+laughed till he swayed in the sulky. Col. Troup, dignified and
+reserved, said nothing. But Travis swore.
+
+"It's preposterous!--it will make the race a farce. We're out for
+blood and that purse. This is no comedy," he said.
+
+The old man only smiled and said: "I'm sorry to spile the sport of
+gentlemen, but bein' gentlemen, I know they will stan' by their own
+rules."
+
+"It's here in black and white, Travis," said the starter, "You made
+it yourself."
+
+"Oh, hell," said Travis hotly, "that was mere form and to satisfy the
+Valley. I thought the entrance fee would bar any outsider."
+
+"But it didn't," said the Judge, "and you know the rules."
+
+"Let him start, let the Hill-Billy start!" shouted the crowd, and
+then there was a tumult of hisses, groans and cat-calls.
+
+Then it was passed from mouth to mouth that it was the old Cottontown
+preacher, and the excitement grew intense.
+
+It was the most comical, most splendid joke ever played in the
+Valley. Travis was not popular, neither was the dignified Col. Troup.
+Up to this time the crowd had not cared who won the purse; nor had
+they cared which of the pretty trotters received the crown. It meant
+only a little more swagger and show and money to throw away.
+
+But here was something human, pathetic. Here was a touch of the stuff
+that made the grand-stand kin to the old man. The disreputable cart,
+the lifeless, blind old pacer, the home-made harness, the seediness
+of it all--the pathos.
+
+Here was the quaint old man, who, all his life, had given for others,
+here was the ex-overseer and the ex-trainer of the Travis stables,
+trying to win the purse from gentlemen.
+
+"Ten to one," said a prosperous looking man, as he looked quietly
+on--"the Bishop wants it for charity or another church. Like as not
+he knows of some poverty-stricken family he's going to feed."
+
+"If that's so," shouted two young fellows who were listening, and who
+were partisans of Flecker of Tennessee, "if that's the way of it,
+we'll go over and take a hand in seeing that he has fair play."
+
+They arose hastily, each shifting a pistol in his pocket, and butted
+through the crowd which was thronged around the Judge's stand, where
+the old man sat quietly smiling from his cart, and Travis and Troup
+were talking earnestly.
+
+"Damned if I let Trombine start against such a combination as that,
+sah. I'll drive off the track now, sah--damned if I don't, sah!"
+
+But the two young men had spoken to big fat Flecker of Tennessee, and
+he arose in his sulky-seat and said: "Now, gentlemen, clear the track
+and let us race. We will let the old man start. Say, old man," he
+laughed, "you won't feel bad if we shut you out the fust heat, eh?"
+
+"No," smiled the Bishop--"an' I 'spec you will. Why, the old hoss
+ain't raced in ten years."
+
+"Oh, say, I thought you were going to say twenty," laughed Flecker.
+
+Some rowdy had crowded around the old cart and attempted to unscrew
+the axle tap. But some one reached over the head of the crowd and
+gripped him where his shoulder and arm met, and pulled him forward
+and twirled him around like a top.
+
+It was enough. It was ten minutes before he could lift up his arm at
+all; it felt dead.
+
+"Don't hurt nobody, Jack," whispered the old man, "be keerful."
+
+The crowd were for the old man. They still shouted--"Fair play, fair
+play--let him start," and they came thronging and crowding on the
+track.
+
+"Clear the track," cried the starting-judge to a deputy sheriff in
+charge--"I'll let him start."
+
+This set the crowd in a roar.
+
+"Square man," they yelled--"Square man!"
+
+Travis bit his lips and swore.
+
+"Why, damn him," he said, "we'll lose him the first heat. I'll shut
+him out myself."
+
+"We will, sah, we will!" said Col. Troup. "But if that rattling
+contraption skeers my mare, I'll appeal to the National Association,
+sah. I'll appeal--sah," and he drove off up the stretch, hotter than
+his mare.
+
+And now the track was cleared--the grand stand hummed and buzzed with
+excitement.
+
+It was indeed the greatest joke ever played in the Tennessee Valley.
+Not that there was going to be any change in the race, not that the
+old preacher had any chance, driving as he did this bundle of ribs
+and ugliness, and hitched to such a cart--but that he dared try it at
+all, and against the swells of horsedom. There would be one heat of
+desperate fun and then--
+
+A good-natured, spasmodic gulp of laughter ran clear through the
+grand-stand, and along with it, from excited groups, from the
+promenade, from the track and infield and stables, even, came such
+expressions as these:
+
+"Worth ten dollars to see it!"
+
+"Wouldn't take a hoss for the sight!"
+
+"If he _did_ happen to beat that trio of sports!"
+
+"Boss, it's gwinter to be a hoss race from wire to wire!"
+
+"Oh, pshaw! one heat of fun--they'll shut him out!"
+
+In heart, the sympathy of the crowd was all with the old preacher.
+
+The old man had a habit when keyed to high pitch, emotionally, of
+talking to himself. He seemed to regard himself as a third person,
+and this is the way he told it, heat by heat:
+
+"Fus' heat, Ben Butler--Now if we can manage to save our distance
+an' leave the flag a few yards, we'll be doin' mighty well. Long
+time since you stretched them ole muscles of yo's in a race--long
+time--an' they're tied up and sore. Ever' heat'll be a wuck out
+to you till you git hot. If I kin only stay in till you git
+hot--(_Clang--clang--clang_). That's the starter's bell. Yes--we'll
+score now--the fus' heat'll be our wuss. They've got it in fur us--they'll
+set the pace an' try to shet us out an', likely es not, do it. God
+he'p us--Shiloh--Cap'n Tom--it's only for them, Ben Butler--fur them.
+(_Clang!--Clang!_) Slow there--heh--heh--Steady--ah-h!"
+
+_Clang--clang-clang!_ vigorously. The starter was calling them back.
+
+They had scored down for the first time, but the hot-heads had been
+too fast for the old ambler. In their desire to shut him out, they
+rushed away like a whirlwind. The old pacer followed, rocking and
+rolling in his lazy way. He wiggled, shuffled, skipped, and when the
+strain told on the sore old muscles, he winced, and was left at the
+wire!
+
+The crowd jeered and roared with laughter.
+
+"He'll never get off!"
+
+"He's screwed there--fetch a screw driver!"
+
+"Pad his head, he'll fall on it nex'!"
+
+"Go back, gentlemen, go back," shouted the starter, "and try again.
+The old pacer was on a break"--_Clang--clang--clang!_ and he jerked
+his bell vigorously.
+
+Travis was furious as he drove slowly back. "I had to pull my mare
+double to stop her," he called to the starter. "We were all aligned
+but the old pacer--why didn't you let us go?"
+
+"Because I am starting these horses by the rules, Mr. Travis. I know
+my business," said the starter hotly.
+
+Col. Troup was blue in the face with rage.
+
+Flecker laughed.
+
+They all turned again and came down, the numbers on the drivers' arms
+showing 1, 2, 3, 4--Travis, Troup, Flecker, and the old Bishop,
+respectively.
+
+"Ben Butler, ole hoss, this ain't no joke--you mus' go this time. We
+ain't goin' to meetin'--Stretch them ole legs as you did!--oh, that's
+better--ef we could only score a few more times--look!--ah!"
+
+_Clang--clang--clang!_
+
+This time it was Col. Troup's mare. She broke just at the wire.
+
+"She saved us that time, Ben Butler. We wus two rods behind--"
+
+They came down the third time. "Now, thank God, he's jes' beginnin'
+to unlimber," chuckled the old man as the old pacer, catching on to
+the game and warming to his work, was only a length behind at the
+wire, as they scored the fourth time, when Flecker's mare flew up in
+the air and again the bell clanged.
+
+The crowd grew impatient. The starter warned them that time was up
+and that he'd start them the next time they came down if he had the
+ghost of a chance.
+
+Again they aligned and came thundering down. The old man was pale and
+silent, and Ben Butler felt the lines telegraphing nervous messages
+to his bitted mouth; but all he heard was: "_Shiloh--Cap'n
+Tom--Steady, old hoss!_"
+
+"Go!"
+
+It sounded like a gun-shot in the old man's ears. There was a whirr
+of wheels, a patter of feet grappling with dirt and throwing it all
+over him--another whirr and flutter and buzz as of a covey flushed,
+and the field was off, leaving him trailing.
+
+"Whew, Ben Butler, we're in fur it now--the Lord 'a-mussy on our
+souls! Take the pole--s'artenly,--it's all yowin, since you're
+behin'! Steady ole hoss, there's one consolation,--they're breakin'
+the wind for you, an' thank God!--yes Ben Butler, look! they're after
+one other,--they're racin' like Tam O'Shanter an' cookin' each other
+to a gnat's heel--Oh, Lord what fools! It'll tell on 'em--if we can
+only save our distance--this heat--jes' save our distance--Wh-o-p,
+sah! Oh, my Lord, told you so--Troup's mare's up an' dancin' like a
+swamp rabbit by moonlight. Who-op, sah, steady ole hoss--there now
+we've passed him--Trombine and Lizette ahead--steady--let 'em go, big
+devil, little devil, an' pumpin' each other--Go now, go old hoss,
+now's the time to save our distance--go old hoss, step lively
+now--'tain't no meetin', no Sunday School--it's life, bread and a
+chance for Cap'n Tom! Oh, but you ain't forgot entirely,
+no-no,--ain't forgot that you come in answer to prayer, ain't forgot
+that half in one-one, ain't forgot yo' pious raisin', yo' pedigree.
+Ain't forgot you're racin' for humanity an' a chance, ain't
+forgot--there! the flag--my God and safe!"
+
+He had passed the flag. Lizzette and Trombine were already at the
+wire, but poor Troup--his mare had never been able to settle after
+her wild break, and she caught the flag square in the face.
+
+The crowd met the old pacer with a yell of delight. He had not been
+shut out--marvel of marvels!
+
+It was getting interesting indeed.
+
+Bud and Jack met him with water and a blanket. How proud they were!
+But the heavy old cart had told on Ben Butler. He panted like a
+hound, he staggered and was distressed.
+
+"He'll get over that," said the old driver cheerily to Bud's tearful
+gaze--"he ain't used to it yet--ten years, think of it," and Jack led
+Ben Butler blanketed away.
+
+The old man looked at the summary the judges had hung up. It was:
+
+_1st Heat:_ _Trumps, 1st_; _Lizzette, 2nd_; _Ben Butler, 3rd_;
+_Trombine distanced._ _Time_, 2:17-1/2.
+
+Then he heard a man swearing elegantly. It was Col. Troup. He was
+sitting in his sulky in front of the grand stand and talking to
+Travis and the genial Flecker:
+
+"A most unprofessional thing, gentlemen,--damned unprofessional,
+sah, to shut me out. Yes, sah, to shut out a gentleman, sah, an' the
+first heat, sah, with his horse on a break."
+
+"What!" said Flecker excitedly--"you, Col'nel? Shut out--why, I
+thought it was the old pacer."
+
+"I swear I did, too, Colonel," said Travis apologetically. "I heard
+something rattling and galloping along--I thought it was the old
+pacer and I drove like the devil to shut him out!"
+
+"It was me, sah, me! damned unprofessional, sah; my mare throwed a
+boot!"
+
+He walked around and swore for ten minutes. Then he quieted down and
+began to think. He was shut out--his money was gone. But--"By gad,
+sah," he said cracking his whip--"By gad I'll do it!"
+
+Ten minutes later as Ben Butler, cooled and calm, was being led out
+for the second heat, Col. Troup puffed boisterously up to the Bishop:
+"Old man, by gad, sah, I want you to use my sulky and harness. It's a
+hundred pounds lighter than that old ox-cart you've got. I'm goin' to
+he'p you, sah, beat that pair of short dogs that shets out a
+gentleman with his horse on a break, sah!"
+
+And that was how the old man drew first blood and came out in a new
+sulky and harness.
+
+How proud Ben Butler seemed to feel! How much lighter and how
+smoothly it ran!
+
+They got the word at the first score, Trumps and Lizzette going at it
+hammer and tongs--Ben Butler, as usual, trailing.
+
+The old man sat pale and ashy, but driving like the born reinsman
+that he was.
+
+"Steady, old hoss, steady agin'--jes' save our distance, that's
+all--they've done forgot us--done forgot us--don't know we're here.
+They'll burn up each other an' then, oh, Ben Butler, God he'p us!
+Cap'n Tom, Cap'n Tom an' Shiloh! Steady, whoa there!--Lord, how
+you're lar'nin'! How the old clip is comin' agin! Ho--hi--there ole
+hoss--here we are--what a bresh of speed he's got--hi--ho!"
+
+And the grand-stand was cheering again, and as the old man rode up
+the judges hung out:
+
+_2nd Heat:_ _Trumps, 1st_; _Lizzette, 2nd_; _Ben Butler, 3rd._
+_Time_, 2:15-1/2.
+
+The old man looked at it in wonder: "Two fifteen an' not shet out,
+Ben Butler? Only five lengths behind? My God, can we make it--can we
+make it?"
+
+His heart beat wildly. For the first time he began to hope.
+
+Trumps now had two heats. As the race was best three out of five, one
+more heat meant that Flecker of Tennessee would win the race and the
+purse. But when the old man glanced at Trumps, his experienced eye
+told him the gallant gelding was all out--he was distressed
+greatly--in a paroxyism of thumps. He glanced at Lizzette. She was
+breathing freely and was fresh. His heart fell.
+
+"Trumps is done fur, Ben Butler, but Lizzette--what will Travis
+do?--Ah, ole hoss, we're up ag'in it!"
+
+It was too true, as the next heat proved. Away Trumps and Lizzette
+went, forgetful of all else, while the old man trailed behind,
+talking to, soothing, coaxing the old horse and driving him as only a
+master could.
+
+"They're at it ag'in--ole hoss, what fools! Whoa--steady there!
+Trumps is done fur, an' you'll see--No sand left in his crops,
+cooked--watch an' see, oh, my, Ben Butler--there--he's up now--up an'
+done fur--Go now--move some--hi--"
+
+Trumps and Lizzette had raced it out to the head of the stretch. But
+Trumps was not equal to the clip which Travis had made cyclonic,
+knowing the horse was sadly distressed. Trumps stood it as long as
+flesh and blood could, and then jumped into the air, in a
+heart-broken, tired break. It was then that the old man began to
+drive, and moving like well-balanced machinery, the old pacer caught
+again the spirit of his youth, as the old time speed came back, and
+leaving Trumps behind he even butted his bull-dog nose into the seat
+of Lizzette's sulky, and clung determinedly there, right up to the
+wire, beaten only by a length.
+
+Lizzette had won the heat. The judge hung out:
+
+_3rd Heat:_ _Lizzette, 1st_; _Ben Butler, 2nd_; _Trumps distanced._
+_Time_, 2:20.
+
+Lizzette had won, but the crowd had begun to see.
+
+"The old pacer--the old pacer!"--they yelled.
+
+Travis bit his lip--"what did it all mean? He had won the heat.
+Trumps was shut out, and there they were yelling for the old pacer!"
+
+The Bishop was pale to the roots of his hair when he got out of the
+sulky.
+
+"Great hoss! great! great!" yelled Bud as he trotted along bringing
+the blanket.
+
+The old man bowed his head in the sulky-seat, a moment, amid the
+crash of the band and the noise of the crowd:
+
+"Dear God--my Father--I thank Thee. Not for me--not for Ben
+Butler--but for life--life--for Shiloh--and Cap'n Tom. Help us--old
+and blind--help us! O God--"
+
+Col. Troup grasped his hand. The Tennesseans, followers of Flecker,
+flocked around him. Flecker, too, was there--chagrined, maddened--he
+too had joined his forces with the old Bishop.
+
+"Great Scott, old man, how you do drive! We've hedged on you--me and
+the Colonel--we've put up a thousand each that you'll win. We've
+cooked ourselves good and hard. Now drive from hell to breakfast next
+heat, and Travis is yo' meat! Fools that we were! We've cut each
+other to pieces like a pair of cats tied by the tails. Travis is at
+your mercy."
+
+"Yes, sah, Flecker is right. Travis is yo' meat, sah," said the
+Colonel, solemnly.
+
+The old man walked around with his lips moving silently, and a great
+pulsing, bursting, gripping pain in his heart--a pain which was half
+a hope and half despair.
+
+The crowd was on tip-toe. Never before had such a race been paced in
+the Tennessee Valley. Could he take the next heat from Lizzette? If
+he could, he had her at his mercy.
+
+Grimly they scored down. Travis sullen that he had to fight the old
+pacer, but confident of shutting him out this time. Confident and
+maddened. The old man, as was his wont in great emergencies, had put
+a bullet in his mouth to clinch his teeth on. He had learned it from
+Col. Jeremiah Travis, who said Jackson did it when he killed
+Dickinson, and at Tallapoosa, and at New Orleans.
+
+"GO!"
+
+And he heard Travis whirl away with a bitter curse that floated back.
+Then the old man shot out in the long, stealing, time-eating stride
+the old pacer had, and coming up just behind Lizzette's sulky he hung
+there in a death struggle.
+
+One quarter, half, three-quarters, and still they swung
+around--locked--Travis bitter with hot oaths and the old man pale
+with prayer. He could see Travis's eyes flashing lightning hatred
+across the narrow space between them--hatred, curses, but the old man
+prayed on.
+
+"The flag--now--ole hoss--for Jesus' sake!--"
+
+He reached out in the old way, lifted his horse by sheer great force
+and fairly flung him ahead!--
+
+"Flu-r-r-r!" it was Lizzette's breath as he went by her. He shot his
+eyes quickly sideways as she flailed the air with her forefeet within
+a foot of his head. Her eyes glowed, sunken,--beat--in their sockets;
+with mouth wide open, collapsed, frantic, in heart-broken dismay, she
+wabbled, staggered and quit!
+
+"Oh, God bless you, Ben Butler!--"
+
+But that instant in the air with her mouth wide open within a foot of
+the old man's head her lower teeth exposed, the old driver saw she
+was only four years old. Why had he noticed it? What mental telepathy
+in great crises cause us to see the trifles on which often the
+destiny of our life hangs?
+
+Ben Butler, stubborn, flying, was shaking his game old head in a
+bull-dog way as he went under the wire. It maddened him to be pulled
+up.
+
+"So, softly, softly old fellow! We've got 'em licked, you've got
+religin' in yo' heels, too. Ain't been goin' to church for ten years
+for nothin'!"
+
+The old man wanted to shout, and yet he was actually shedding tears,
+talking hysterically and trembling all over. He heard in a dazed way
+the yells and thunder from the grand-stand. But he was faint and
+dizzy, and worst of all, as he laughed to himself and said: "Kinder
+sissy an' soft in spots."
+
+Jack and Bud had Ben Butler and were gone. No wonder the grand-stand
+pulsed with human emotion. Never before had anything been done like
+this. The old, blind pacer,--the quaint old preacher--the thing they
+were going to shut out,--the pathos, the splendor of it all,--shook
+them as humanity will ever be shaken when the rejected stone comes up
+in the beauty of purest marble. Here it was:
+
+_4th Heat:_ _Ben Butler, 1st_; _Lizzette, 2nd._ _Time_, 2:19-1/2.
+
+What a record it was for the old pacer! Starting barely able to save
+his distance, he had grown in speed and strength and now had the mare
+at his mercy--the two more heats he had yet to win would be a walk
+around for him.
+
+Oh, it was glorious--glorious!
+
+"Oh, by gad, sah," shouted Col. Troup, pompously. "I guess I've
+hedged all right. Travis will pay my thousand. He'll know how to shet
+out gentlemen the nex' time. Oh, by gad, sah!"
+
+Flecker and the Tennesseans took drinks and shouted themselves
+hoarse.
+
+Then the old preacher did something, but why he never could explain.
+It seemed intuition when he thought of it afterwards. Calling Col.
+Troup to him he said: "I'm kinder silly an' groggy, Col'nel, but I
+wish you'd go an' look in her mouth an' see how old Lizzette is."
+
+The Colonel looked at him, puzzled.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh, I dunno, Col'nel--but when a thing comes on me that away, maybe
+it's because I'm so nervous an' upsot, but somehow I seem to have a
+second sight when I git in this fix. I wanted you to tell me."
+
+"What's it got to do with the race, sah! There is no bar to age. Have
+you any susp--"
+
+"Oh, no--no--Col'nel, it's jes' a warnin', an intuition. I've had 'em
+often, it's always from God. I b'leeve it's Him tellin' me to watch,
+watch an' pray. I had it when Ben Butler come, thar, come in answer
+to prayer--"
+
+Colonel Troup smiled and walked off. In a short while he sauntered
+carelessly back:
+
+"Fo' sah, she was fo' years old this last spring."
+
+"Thank ye, Col'nel!"
+
+The Colonel smiled and whispered: "Oh, how cooked she is! Dead on her
+feet, dead. Don't drive yo' ole pacer hard--jes' walk around him,
+sah. Do as you please, you've earned the privilege. It's yo' walk
+over an' yo' money."
+
+The fifth heat was almost a repetition of the fourth, the old pacer
+beating the tired mare cruelly, pacing her to a standstill. It was
+all over with Lizzette, anyone could see that. The judges hung out:
+
+_5th Heat:_ _Ben Butler, 1st_; _Lizzette, 2nd._ _Time_, 2:24.
+
+Travis's face was set, set in pain and disappointment when he went to
+the stable. He looked away off, he saw no one. He smoked. He walked
+over to the stall where they were cooling Lizzette out.
+
+"Take the full twenty minutes to cool her, Jim."
+
+In the next stall stood Sadie B. She had been driven around by Jud
+Carpenter, between heats, to exercise her, he had said. She was
+warmed up, and ready for speed.
+
+Travis stood watching Lizzette cool out. Jud came up and stood
+looking searchingly at him. There was but a glance and a nod, and
+Travis walked over to the grand-stand, light-hearted and even jolly,
+where he stood in a group of society folks.
+
+He was met by a protest of feminine raillery: "Oh, our gloves, our
+candy! Oh, Mr. Travis, to get beat that way!"
+
+He laughed: "I'll pay all you ladies lose. I was just playing with
+the old pacer. Bet more gloves and candy on the next heat!"
+
+"Oh--oh," they laughed. "No--no-o! We've seen enough!"
+
+Travis smiled and walked off. He turned at the gate and threw them
+back a bantering kiss.
+
+"You'll see--" was all he said.
+
+The old man spent the twenty minutes helping to rub off Ben Butler.
+
+"It does me good--kinder unkeys me," he said to Bud and Jack. He put
+his ear to the old horses' flank--it pulsed strong and true.
+
+Then he laughed to himself. It vexed him, for it was half hysterical
+and he kept saying over to himself:
+
+    "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty--
+     All Thy works shall praise Thy name, in earth and sky and sea;
+     Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty--"
+
+Some one touched his arm. It was Jack: "Bishop, Bishop, time's up!
+We're ready. Do you hear the bell clanging?"
+
+The Bishop nodded, dazed:
+
+"Here, you're kinder feeble, weak an', an' sorter silly. Why, Bishop,
+you're recitin' poetry--" said Jack apologetically. "A man's gone
+when he does that--here!"
+
+He had gone to the old man's saddle bags, and brought out his ancient
+flask.
+
+"Jes' a swaller or two, Bishop," he said coaxingly, as one talking to
+a child--"Quick, now, you're not yo'self exactly--you've dropped into
+poetry."
+
+"I guess I am a little teched, Jack, but I don't need that when I can
+get poetry, sech poetry as is now in me. Jack, do you want to hear
+the gran'est verse ever writ in poetry?"
+
+"No--no, Bishop, don't! Jack Bracken's yo' friend, he'll freeze to
+you. You'll be all right soon. It's jes' a little spell. Brace up an'
+drop that stuff."
+
+The old man smiled sadly as if he pitied Jack. Then he repeated
+slowly:
+
+    "Holy, holy, holy, all the saints adore Thee
+     Castin' down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
+     Cherubim an' Seraphim, fallin' down before Thee
+     Which wert an' art, an' ever more shall be."
+
+Feebly he leaned on Jack, the tears ran down his cheek: "'Tain't
+weakness, Jack, 'tain't that--it's joy, it's love of God, Whose done
+so much for me. It's the glory, glory of them lines--Oh, God--what a
+line of poetry!"
+
+    "Castin' down their golden crowns around the glassy sea!"
+
+Ben Butler stood ready, the bell clanged again. Jack helped him into
+the sulky; never had he seen the old man so feeble. Travis was
+already at the post.
+
+They got the word immediately, but to the old man's dismay, Travis's
+mare shot away like a scared doe, trotting as frictionless as a
+glazed emery wheel.
+
+The old man shook up Ben Butler and wondered why he seemed to stand
+so still. The old horse did his best, he paced as he never had
+before, but the flying thing like a red demon flitted always just
+before him, a thing with tendons of steel and feet of fire.
+
+"Oh, God, Ben Butler, what is it--what? Have you quit on me, ole
+hoss?--you, Ben Butler, you that come in answer to prayer? My God,
+Cap'n Tom, Shiloh!"
+
+And still before him flew the red thing with wings.
+
+At the half, at the three-quarters: "Now ole hoss!" And the old horse
+responded gamely, grandly. He thundered like a cyclone bursting
+through a river-bed. Foot by foot, inch by inch, he came up to
+Travis's mare. Nose to nose they flew along. There was a savage
+yell--a loud cracking of Travis' whip in the blind horse's ears.
+Never had the sightless old horse had such a fright! He could not
+see--he could only hear the terrible, savage yell. Frightened, he
+forgot, he dodged, he wavered--
+
+"Steady, Ben Butler, don't--oh--"
+
+It was a small trick of Travis', for though the old pacer came with a
+rush that swept everything before it, the drive had been made too
+late. Travis had the heat won already.
+
+Still there was no rule against it. He could yell and crack his whip
+and make all the noise he wished, and if the other horse was
+frightened, it was the fault of his nerves. Everybody who knew
+anything of racing knew that.
+
+A perfect tornado of hisses met Travis at the grand-stand.
+
+But he had won the heat! What did he care? He could scarcely stop his
+mare. She seemed like a bird and as fresh. He pulled her double to
+make her turn and come back after winning, and as she came she still
+fought the bit.
+
+As he turned, he almost ran into the old pacer jogging,
+broken-hearted behind. The mare's mouth was wide open, and the
+Bishop's trained eye fell on the long tusk-like lower teeth, flashing
+in the sun.
+
+Startled, he quivered from head to foot. He would not believe his own
+eyes. He looked closely again. There was no doubt of it--she was
+eight years old!
+
+In an instant he knew--his heart sank, "We're robbed, Cap'n
+Tom--Shiloh--my God!"
+
+Travis drove smilingly back, amid hisses and cheers and the
+fluttering of ladies' handkerchiefs in the boxes.
+
+"How about the gloves and candy now?" he called to them with his cap
+in his hand.
+
+Above the judges had hung out:
+
+_6th Heat:_ _Lizzette, 1st_; _Ben Butler, 2nd._ _Time_, 2:14.
+
+When Flecker of Tennessee saw the time hung out, he jumped from his
+seat exclaiming: "Six heats and the last heat the fastest? Who ever
+heard of a tired mare cutting ten seconds off that way? By the
+eternal, but something's wrong there."
+
+"Six heats an' the last one the fastest--By gad, sah," said Col.
+Troup. "It is strange. That mare Lizzette is a wonder, an' by gad,
+sah, didn't the old pacer come? By gad, but if he'd begun that drive
+jus' fifty yards sooner--our money"--
+
+Flecker groaned: "We're gone, Colonel--one thousand we put up and the
+one we hedged with."
+
+"By gad, sah, but, Flecker, don't you think Lizzette went smoother
+that last heat? She had a different stride, a different gait."
+
+Flecker had not noticed it. "But it was a small thing," he said--"to
+frighten the old horse. No rule against it, but a gentleman--"
+
+The Colonel smiled: "Damn such gentlemen, sah. They're a new breed to
+me."
+
+The old man went slowly back to the stable. He said nothing. He
+walked dazed, pale, trembling, heart-broken. But never before had he
+thought so keenly.
+
+Should he expose Travis?--Ruin him, ruin him--here? Then there passed
+quickly thoughts of Cap'n Tom--of Miss Alice. What a chance to
+straighten every thing out, right every wrong--to act for Justice,
+Justice long betrayed--for God. For God? And had not, perhaps, God
+given him this opportunity for this very purpose? Was not God,--God,
+the ever merciful but ever just, behind it all? Was it not He who
+caused him to look at the open mouth of the first mare? Was it not He
+giving him a chance to right a wrong so long, so long delayed? If he
+failed to speak out would he not be doing every man in the race a
+wrong, and Cap'n Tom and Shiloh, and even Miss Alice, so soon to
+marry this man--how it went through him!--even God--even God a wrong!
+
+He trembled; he could not walk. He sat down; Jack and Bud had the
+horse, the outlaw's eyes flashing fire as he led him away. But Bud,
+poor Bud, he was following, broken-hearted, blubbering and still
+saying between his sobs: "Great--hoss--he skeered him!"
+
+The grand-stand sat stupefied, charged to the explosive point with
+suppressed excitement. Six terrible heats and no horse had won three.
+But now Lizzette and Ben Butler had two each--who would win the next,
+the decisive heat. God help the old preacher, for he had no chance.
+Not after the speed that mare showed.
+
+Colonel Troup came up: "By gad, sah, Bishop--don't give up--you've
+got one mo' chance. Be as game as the ole hoss."
+
+"We are game, sir--but--but, will you do as I tell you an' swear to
+me on yo' honor as a gentleman never to speak till I say the word?
+Will you swear to keep sacred what I show you, until I let you tell?"
+
+The Colonel turned red: "What do you mean, sah?"
+
+"Swear it, swear it, on yo' honor as a gentleman--"
+
+"On my honor as a gentleman, sah? I swear it."
+
+"Go," said the old man quickly, "an' look in the mouth of the mare
+they are jes' bringin' in--the mare that won that heat. Go, an'
+remember yo' honor pledged. Go an' don't excite suspicion."
+
+The old man sat down and, as he waited, he thought. Never before had
+he thought so hard. Never had such a burden been put upon him. When
+he looked up Colonel Troup stood pale and silent before him--pale
+with close-drawn lips and a hot, fierce, fighting gleam in his eyes.
+
+"You've explained it, sah--" he said. Then he fumbled his pistol in
+his pocket. "Now--now, give me back my promise, my word. I have two
+thousand dollars at stake, and--and clean sport, sah,--clean sport.
+Give me back my word."
+
+"Sit down," said the old man quietly.
+
+The Colonel sat down so still that it was painful. He was calm but
+the Bishop saw how hard the fight was.
+
+Then the old man broke out: "I can't--O God, I can't! I can't _make_
+a character, why should I _take_ one? It's so easy to take a word--a
+nod--it is gone! And if left maybe it 'ud come agin. Richard
+Travis--it looks bad--he may be bad--but think what he may do yet--if
+God but touch him? No man's so bad but that God can't touch
+him--change him. We may live to see him do grand and noble
+things--an' God will touch him," said the old man hotly, "he will
+yet."
+
+"If you are through with me," said Colonel Troup, coolly, "and will
+give me back my promise, I'll go and touch him--yes, damn him, I'll
+shoot him as he should be."
+
+"But I ain't gwine to give it back," smiled the old man.
+
+Colonel Troup flushed: "What'll you do, then? Let him rob you an' me,
+sah? Steal my two thousand, and Flecker's? Your purse that you've
+already won--yours--yours, right this minute? Rob the public in a
+fake race, sah? You've won the purse, it is yours, sah. He forfeited
+it when he brought out that other mare. Think what you are doing,
+sah!"
+
+"Cap'n Tom an' Shiloh, too"--winced the old man. "But I forgot--you
+don't kno'--yes"--and he smiled triumphantly. "Yes, Col'nel, I'll
+let him do all that if--if God'll let it be. But God won't let it
+be!"
+
+Colonel Troup arose disgusted--hot. "What do you mean, old man. Are
+you crazy, sah? Give me back my word--"
+
+"Wait--no--no," said the Bishop. "Col'nel, you're a man of yo'
+word--wait!"
+
+And he arose and was gone.
+
+The Colonel swore soundly. He walked around and damned everything in
+sight. He fumbled his pistol in his pocket, and wondered how he could
+break his word and yet keep it.
+
+There was no way, and he went off to take a drink.
+
+Bud, the tears running down his cheeks--was rubbing Ben Butler down,
+and saying: "Great hoss--great hoss!"
+
+Of all, he and the Bishop had not given up.
+
+"I'm afeard we'll have to give it up, Bishop," said Jack.
+
+"Me, me give it up, Jack? Me an' Ben Butler quit like yeller dogs?
+Why, we're jes' beginnin' to fight--with God's help."
+
+Then he thought a moment: "Fetch me some cotton."
+
+He took it and carefully packed it in the old horse's ears.
+
+"It was a small trick, that yellin' and frightening the ole hoss,"
+said Jack.
+
+"Ben Butler," said the old man, as he stepped back and looked at the
+horse, "Ben Butler, I've got you now where God's got me--you can't
+see an' you can't hear. You've got to go by faith, by the lines of
+faith. But I'll be guidin' 'em, ole hoss, as God guides me--by
+faith."
+
+The audience sat numbed and nerveless when they scored for the last
+heat. The old pacer's gallant fight had won them all--and now--now
+after winning two heats, with only one more to win--now to lose at
+last. For he could not win--not over a mare as fresh and full of
+speed as that mare now seemed to be. And she, too, had but one heat
+to win.
+
+But Col. Troup had been thinking and he stopped the old man as he
+drove out on the track.
+
+"Been thinkin', parson, 'bout that promise, an' I'll strike a bargain
+with you, sah. You say God ain't goin' to let him win this heat an'
+race an' so forth, sah."
+
+The Bishop smiled: "I ain't give up, Col'nel--not yet."
+
+"Well, sah, if God does let Travis win, I take it from yo' reasoning,
+sah, that he's a sorry sort of a God to stand in with a fraud an'
+I'll have nothin' to do with Him. I'll tell all about it."
+
+"If that's the way you think--yes," said the old man,
+solemnly--"yes--tell it--but God will never stan' in with fraud."
+
+"We'll see," said the Colonel. "I'll keep my word if--if--you win!"
+
+Off they went as before, the old pacer hugging the mare's sulky
+wheels like a demon. Even Travis had time to notice that the old man
+had done something to steady the pacer, for how like a steadied ship
+did he fly along!
+
+Driving, driving, driving--they flew--they fought it out. Not a
+muscle moved in the old man's body. Like a marble statue he sat and
+drove. Only his lips kept moving as if talking to his horse, so close
+that Travis heard him: "It's God's way, Ben Butler, God's
+way--faith,--the lines of faith--'He leadeth me--He leadeth me'!"
+
+Up--up--came the pacer fearless with frictionless gait, pacing like a
+wild mustang-king of the desert, gleaming in sweat, white covered
+with dust, rolling like a cloud of fire. The old man sang soft and
+low:
+
+    "He leadeth me, O blessed thought,
+      O word with heavenly comfort fraught,
+      Whate'er I do, whate'er I be,
+      Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me."
+
+Inch by inch he came up. And now the home stretch, and the old pacer
+well up, collaring the flying mare and pacing her neck to neck.
+
+Travis smiled hard and cruel as he drew out his whip and circling it
+around his head, uttered again, amid fierce crackling, his Indian
+yell: "Hi--hi--there--ho--ha--ho--hi--hi--e--e!"
+
+But the old pacer swerved not a line, and Travis, white and
+frightened now with a terrible, bitter fear that tightened around his
+heart and flashed in his eyes like the first swift crackle of
+lightning before the blow of thunder, brought his whip down on his
+own mare, welting her from withers to rump in a last desperate
+chance.
+
+Gamely she responded and forged ahead--the old pacer was beaten!
+
+They thundered along, Travis whipping his mare at every stride. She
+stood it like the standard-bred she was, and never winced, then she
+forged ahead farther, and farther, and held the old pacer anchored at
+her wheels, and the wire not fifty feet away!
+
+There was nothing left for the old man to do--with tears streaming
+down his cheeks he shouted--"Ben Butler, Ben Butler--it's God's
+way--the chastening rod--" and his whip fell like a blade of fire on
+the old horse's flank.
+
+It stung him to madness. The Bishop striking him, the old man he
+loved, and who never struck! He shook his great ugly head like a
+maddened bull and sprang savagely at the wire, where the silken thing
+flaunted in his face in a burst of speed that left all behind. Nor
+could the old man stop him after he shot past it, for his flank
+fluttered like a cyclone of fire and presently he went down on his
+knees--gently, gently, then--he rolled over!
+
+His driver jumped to the ground. It was all he knew except he heard
+Bud weeping as he knelt on the ground where the old horse lay, and
+saying: "_Great hoss--great hoss!_"
+
+Then he remembered saying: "Now, Bud, don't cry--if he does die,
+won't it be glorious, to die in harness, giving his life for
+others--Cap'n Tom--Shiloh? Think of it, Bud, to die at the wire, his
+race won, his work finished, the crown his! O Bud, who would not
+love to go like Ben Butler?"
+
+But he could not talk any more, for he saw Jack Bracken spring
+forward, and then the gleam of a whiskey flask gleamed above Ben
+Butler's fluttering nostrils and Jack's terrible gruff voice said:
+"Wait till he's dead fust. Stand back, give him air," and his great
+hat fluttered like a windmill as he fanned the gasping nostrils of
+the struggling horse.
+
+The old man turned with an hysterical sob in his throat that was half
+a shout of joy.
+
+Travis stood by him watching the struggles of the old horse for
+breath.
+
+"Well, I've killed him," he said, laconically.
+
+There was a grip like a vise on his shoulders. He turned and looked
+into the eyes of the old man and saw a tragic light there he had
+never seen before.
+
+"Don't--for God's sake don't, Richard Travis, don't tempt me here,
+wait till I pray, till this devil goes out of my heart."
+
+And then in his terrible, steel-gripping way, he pulled Richard
+Travis, with a sudden jerk up against his own pulsing heart, as if
+the owner of The Gaffs had been a child, burying his great hardened
+fingers in the man's arm and fairly hissing in a whisper these words:
+"If he dies--Richard Travis--remember he died for you ... it tuck
+both yo' mares to kill him--no--no--don't start--don't turn pale ...
+you are safe ... I made Col'nel Troup give me his word ... he'd not
+expose you ... if Ben Butler won an' he saved his money. I knew what
+it 'ud mean ... that last heat ... that it 'ud kill him ... but I
+drove it to save you ... to keep Troup from exposin' yo' ... I've got
+his word. An' then I was sure ... as I live, I knew that God will
+touch you yet ... an' his touch will be as quickening fire to the
+dead honor that is in you.... Go! Richard Travis.... Go ... don't
+tempt me agin...."
+
+He remembered later feeling very queer because he held so much gold
+in a bag, and it was his. Then he became painfully acute to the funny
+thing that happened, so funny that he had to sit down and laugh. It
+was on seeing Ben Butler rising slowly to his feet and shaking
+himself with that long powerful shake he had seen so often after
+wallowing. And the funniest thing!--two balls of cotton flew out of
+his ears, one hitting Flecker of Tennessee on the nose, the other
+Colonel Troup in the eye.
+
+"By Gad, sah," drawled Colonel Troup, "but now, I see. I thought he
+cudn't ah been made of flesh an' blood, sah, why damme he's made of
+cotton! An' you saved my money, old man, an' that damned rascal's
+name by that trick? Well, you kno' what I said, sah, a gentleman an'
+his word--but--but--" he turned quickly on the old man--excitedly,
+"ah, here--I'll give you the thousand dollars I hedged now ... if
+you'll give me back my promise--damned if I don't! Won't do it? No?
+Well, it's yo' privilege. I admire yo' charity, it's not of this
+world."
+
+And then he remembered seeing Bud sitting in the old cart driving Ben
+Butler home and telling everybody what they now knew: "_Great
+hoss--G-r-e-a-t hoss!_"
+
+And the old horse shuffled and crow-hopped along, and Jack followed
+the Bishop carrying the gold.
+
+And then such a funny thing: Ben Butler, frightened at a mule braying
+in his ear, ran away and threw Bud out!
+
+When the old man heard it he sat down and laughed and cried--to his
+own disgust--"like a fool, sissy man," he said, "a sissy man that
+ain't got no nerve. But, Lord, who'd done that but Ben Butler?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+YOU'LL COME BACK A MAN
+
+
+It was after dark when the old man, pale, and his knees still shaking
+with the terrible strain and excitement of it all, reached his cabin
+on the mountain. The cheers of the grand-stand still echoed in his
+ears, and, shut his eyes as he would, he still saw Ben Butler,
+stretched out on the track struggling for the little breath that was
+in him.
+
+Jack Bracken walked in behind the old man carrying a silken sack
+which sagged and looked heavy.
+
+The grandfather caught up Shiloh first and kissed her. Then he sat
+down with the frail form in his arms and looked earnestly at her with
+his deep piercing eyes.
+
+"Where's the ole hoss," began his wife, her eyes beginning to snap.
+"You've traded him off an' I'll bet you got soaked, Hillard Watts--I
+can tell it by that pesky, sheepish look in yo' eyes. You never cu'd
+trade horses an' I've allers warned you not to trade the ole roan."
+
+"Wal, yes," said the Bishop. "I've traded him for this--" and his
+voice grew husky with emotion--"for this, Tabitha, an', Jack, jes'
+pour it out on the table there."
+
+It came out, yellow waves of gold. The light shone on them, and as
+the tired eyes of little Shiloh peeped curiously at them, each one
+seemed to throw to her a kiss of hope, golden tipped and resplendent.
+
+The old woman stood dazed, and gazing sillily. Then she took up one
+of the coins and bit it gingerly.
+
+"In God's name, Hillard Watts, what does all this mean? Why, it's
+genuwine gold."
+
+"It means," said the old man cheerily, "that Shiloh an' the chillun
+will never go into that mill ag'in--that old Ben Butler has give 'em
+back their childhood an' a chance to live. It means," he said
+triumphantly, "that Cap'n Tom's gwinter have the chance he's been
+entitled to all these years--an' that means that God'll begin to
+unravel the tangle that man in his meanness has wound up. It means,
+Tabitha, that you'll not have to wuck anymo' yo'self--no mo', as long
+as you live--"
+
+The old woman clutched at the bed-post: "Me?--not wuck anymo'? Not
+hunt 'sang an' spatterdock an' clean up an' wash an' scour an' cook
+an'--"
+
+"No, why not, Tabitha? We've got a plenty to--"
+
+He saw her clutch again at the bed-post and go down in a heap,
+saying:--
+
+"Lemme die--now, if I can't wuck no mo'."
+
+They lifted her on the bed and bathed her face. It was ten minutes
+before she came around and said feebly:
+
+"I'm dyin', Hillard, it's kilt me to think I'll not have to wuck any
+mo'."
+
+"Oh, no, Tabitha, I wouldn't die fur that," he said soothingly. "It's
+terrible suddent like, I kno', an' hard fur you to stan', but try to
+bear it, honey, fur our sakes. It's hard to be stricken suddent like
+with riches, an' I've never seed a patient get over it, it is true.
+You'll be wantin' to change our cabin into an ole Colonial home,
+honey, an' have a carriage an' a pair of roached mules, an' a wantin'
+me to start a cotton factory an' jine a whis'-club, whilst you
+entertain the Cottontown Pettico't Club with high-noon teas, an' cut
+up a lot o' didoes that'll make the res' of the town laugh. But you
+mus' fight ag'in it, Tabitha, honey. We'll jes' try to live as we've
+allers lived an' not spend our money so as to have people talk about
+how we're throwin' it at the ducks. You can get up befo' day as usual
+an' hunt 'sang on the mountain side, and do all the other things
+you've l'arnt to do befo' breakfast."
+
+This was most reassuring, and the old woman felt much better. But the
+next morning she complained bitterly:
+
+"I tested ever' one o' them yaller coins las' night, they mout a put
+a counterfeit in the lot, an' see heah, Hillard--" she grinned
+showing her teeth--"I wore my teeth to the quick a testin' 'em!"
+
+The next week, as the train took the Bishop away, he stood on the
+rear platform to cry good-bye to Shiloh and Jack Bracken who were
+down to see him off. By his side was a stooped figure and as the old
+man jingled some gold in his pocket he said, patting the figure on
+the back:
+
+"You'll come back a man, Cap'n Tom--thank God! a man ag'in!"
+
+
+
+
+PART FIFTH.--THE LOOM
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A NEW MILL GIRL
+
+
+The autumn had deepened--the cotton had been picked. The dry stalks,
+sentinelling the seared ground, waved their tattered remnants of
+unpicked bolls to and fro--summer's battle flags which had not yet
+fallen.
+
+Millwood was astir early that morning--what there was of it. One by
+one the lean hounds had arisen from their beds of dry leaves under
+the beeches, and, shaking themselves with that hound-shake which
+began at their noses and ended in a circular twist of their skeleton
+tails, had begun to hunt for stray eggs and garbage. Yet their master
+was already up and astir.
+
+He came out and took a long drink from the jug behind the door. He
+drank from the jug's mouth, and the gurgling echo sounded down the
+empty hall: _Guggle--guggle--gone! Guggle--guggle--gone!_ It said to
+Edward Conway as plainly as if it had a voice.
+
+"Yes, you've gone--that's the last of you. Everything is gone," he
+said.
+
+He sat down on his favorite chair, propped his feet upon the rotten
+balcony's rim and began to smoke.
+
+Within, he heard Lily sobbing. Helen was trying to comfort her.
+
+Conway glanced into the room. The oldest sister was dressed in a
+plain blue cotton gown--for to-day she would begin work at the mill.
+Conway remembered it. He winced, but smoked on and said nothing.
+
+"'Tain't no use--'tain't no use," sobbed the little one--"My mammy's
+gone--gone!"
+
+Such indeed was the fact. Mammy Maria had gone. All that any of them
+knew was that only an hour before another black mammy had come to
+serve them, and all she would say was that she had come to take Mammy
+Maria's place--gone, and she knew not where.
+
+Conway winced again and then swore under his breath. At first he had
+not believed it, none of them had. But as the morning went on and
+Mammy Maria failed to appear, he accepted it, saying: "Jus' like a
+niggah--who ever heard of any of them havin' any gratitude!"
+
+Helen was too deeply numbed by the thought of the mill to appreciate
+fully her new sorrow. All she knew--all she seemed to feel--was, that
+go to the mill she must--go--go--and Lily might cry and the world
+might go utterly to ruin--as her own life was going:
+
+"I want my mammy--I want my mammy," sobbed the little one.
+
+Then the mother instinct of Helen--that latent motherhood which is in
+every one of her sex, however young--however old--asserted itself for
+the first time.
+
+She soothed the younger child: "Never mind, Lily, I am going to the
+mill only to learn my lesson this week--next week you shall go with
+me. We will not be separated after that."
+
+"I want my mammy--oh, I want my mammy," was all Lily could say.
+
+Breakfast was soon over and then the hour came--the hour when Helen
+Conway would begin her new life. This thought--and this only--burned
+into her soul: To-day her disgrace began. She was no longer a Conway.
+The very barriers of her birth, that which had been thrown around her
+to distinguish her from the common people, had been broken down. The
+foundation of her faith was shattered with it.
+
+For the last time, as a Conway, she looked at the fields of
+Millwood--at the grim peak of Sunset Rock above--the shadowed wood
+below. Until then she did not know it made such a difference in the
+way she looked at things. But now she saw it and with it the ruin,
+the abandonment of every hope, every ambition of her life. As she
+stood upon the old porch before starting for the mill, she felt that
+she was without a creed and without a principle.
+
+"I would do anything," she cried bitterly--"I care for nothing. If I
+am tempted I shall steal, I know I shall--I know I shall"--she
+repeated.
+
+It is a dangerous thing to change environments for the worse. It is
+more dangerous still to break down the moral barrier, however frail
+it may be, which our conscience has built between the good and the
+evil in us. Some, reared under laws that are loose, may withstand
+this barrier breaking and be no worse for the change; but in the case
+of those with whom this barrier of their moral belief stands securely
+between conscience and forbidden paths, let it fall, and all the best
+of them will fall with it.
+
+For with them there are no degrees in degradation--no caste in the
+world of sin. Headlong they rush to moral ruin. And there are those
+like Helen Conway, too blinded by the environment of birth to know
+that work is not degradation. To them it is the lowering of every
+standard of their lives, standards which idleness has erected. And
+idleness builds strange standards.
+
+If it had occurred to Helen Conway--if she had been reared to know
+that to work honestly for an honest living was the noblest thing in
+life, how different would it all have been!
+
+And so at last what is right and what is wrong depend more upon what
+has gone before than what follows after. It is more a question of
+pedigree and environment than of trials and temptations.
+
+"I shall steal," she repeated--"oh, I know I shall."
+
+And yet, as her father drove her in the old shambling buggy across
+the hill road to the town, there stood out in her mind one other
+picture which lingered there all day and for many days. She could not
+forget it nor cast it from her, and in spite of all her sorrow it
+uplifted her as she had been uplifted at times before when, reading
+the country newspaper, there had blossomed among its dry pages the
+perfume of a stray poem, whose incense entered into her soul of
+souls.
+
+It was a young man in his shirt sleeves, his face flushed with work,
+his throat bare, plowing on the slope of the hillside for the fall
+sowing of wheat.
+
+What a splendid picture he was, silhouetted in the rising sun against
+the pink and purple background of sunbeams!
+
+It was Clay Westmore, and he waved his hand in his slow, calm
+forceful way as he saw her go by.
+
+It was a little thing, but it comforted her. She remembered it long.
+
+The mill had been running several hours when Kingsley looked up, and
+saw standing before him at his office window a girl of such stately
+beauty that he stood looking sillily at her, and wondering.
+
+He did not remember very clearly afterwards anything except this
+first impression; that her hair was plaited in two rich coils upon
+her head, and that never before had he seen so much beauty in a
+gingham dress.
+
+He remembered, too, that her eyes, which held him spellbound, wore
+more an expression of despair and even desperation than of youthful
+hope. He could not understand why they looked that way, forerunners
+as they were of such a face and hair.
+
+And so he stood, sillily smiling, until Richard Travis arose from his
+desk and came forward to meet her.
+
+She nodded at him and tried to smile, but Kingsley noticed that it
+died away into drawn, hard lines around her pretty mouth.
+
+"It is Miss Conway," he said to Kingsley, taking her hand familiarly
+and holding it until she withdrew it with a conscious touch of
+embarrassment.
+
+"She is one of my neighbors, and, by the way, Kingsley, she must have
+the best place in the mill."
+
+Kingsley continued to look sillily at her. He had not heard of
+Helen--he did not understand.
+
+"A place in the mill--ah, let me see," he said thoughtfully.
+
+"I've been thinking it out," went on Travis, "and there is a
+drawing-in machine ready for her. I understand Maggie is going to
+quit on account of her health."
+
+"I, ah--" began Kingsley--"Er--well, I never heard of a beginner
+starting on a drawing-in machine."
+
+"I have instructed Maggie to teach her," said Travis shortly. Then he
+beckoned to Helen: "Come."
+
+She followed Richard Travis through the mill. He watched her as she
+stepped in among the common herd of people--the way at first in which
+she threw up her head in splendid scorn. Never had he seen her so
+beautiful. Never had he desired to own her so much as then.
+
+"The exquisite, grand thing," he muttered. "And I shall--she shall be
+mine."
+
+Then her head sank again with a little crushed smile of helpless pity
+and resignation. It touched even Travis, and he said, consolingly, to
+her:
+
+"You are too beautiful to have to do this and you shall not--for
+long. You were born to be queen of--well, The Gaffs, eh?"
+
+He laughed and then he touched boldly her hair which lay splendidly
+around her temples.
+
+She looked at him resignedly, then she flushed to her eyes and
+followed him.
+
+The drawer-in is to the loom what the architect is to the building.
+And more--it is both architect and foundation, for as the threads are
+drawn in so must the cloth be.
+
+The work is tedious and requires skill, patience, quickness, and that
+nicety of judgment which comes with intellect of a higher order than
+is commonly found in the mill. For that reason the drawer-in is
+removed from the noise of the main room--she sits with another
+drawer-in in a quiet, little room nearby, and, with her trained
+fingers, she draws in through the eyelets the threads, which set the
+warp.
+
+Maggie was busy, but she greeted him with a quaint, friendly little
+smile. Helen noticed two things about her at once: that there was a
+queer bright light in her eyes, and that beneath them glowed two
+bright red spots, which, when Travis approached, deepened quickly.
+
+"Yes, I am going to leave the mill," she said, after Travis had left
+them together. "I jus' can't stan' it any longer. Mother is dead, you
+know, an' father is an invalid. I've five little brothers and sisters
+at home. I couldn't bear to see them die in here. It's awful on
+children, you know. So I've managed to keep 'em a-goin'
+until--well--I've saved enough an' with the help
+of--a--a--friend--you see--a very near friend--I've managed to get us
+a little farm. We're all goin' to it next week. Oh, yes, of course,
+I'll be glad to teach you."
+
+She glanced at Helen's hands and smiled: "Yo' hands don't look like
+they're used to work. They're so white and beautiful."
+
+Helen was pleased. Her fingers were tapering and beautiful, and she
+knew her hands were the hands of many generations of ladies.
+
+"I have to make a living for myself now," she said with a dash of
+bitterness.
+
+"If I looked like you," said Maggie, slyly and yet frankly, "I'd do
+something in keeping with my place. I can't bear to think of anybody
+like you bein' here."
+
+Helen was silent and Maggie saw that the tears were ready to start.
+She saw her half sob and she patted her cheek in a motherly way as
+she said:
+
+"Oh, but I didn't mean to hurt you so. Only I do hate so to see--oh,
+I am silly, I suppose, because I am going to get out of this
+terrible, terrible grind."
+
+Her pale face flushed and she coughed, as she bent over her work to
+show Helen how to draw in the threads.
+
+"Now, I'm a good drawer-in, an' he said onct"--she nodded at the door
+from which Travis had gone out--"that I was the best in the worl';
+the whole worl'." She blushed slightly. "But, well--I've made no
+fortune yet--an' somehow, in yo' case now--you see--somehow I feel
+sorter 'fraid--about you--like somethin' awful was goin' to happen to
+you."
+
+"Why--what--" began Helen, surprised.
+
+"Oh, it ain't nothin'," she said trying to be cheerful--"I'll soon
+get over this ... out in the air. I'm weak now and I think it makes
+me nervous an' skeery.... I'll throw it off that quick," she snapped
+her fingers--"out in the open air again--out on the little farm." She
+was silent, as if trying to turn the subject, but she went back to it
+again. "You don't know how I've longed for this--to get away from the
+mill. It's day in an' day out here an' shut up like a convict. It
+ain't natural--it can't be--it ain't nature. If anybody thinks it is,
+let 'em look at them little things over on the other side," and she
+nodded toward the main room. "Why, them little tots work twelve hours
+a day an' sometimes mo'. Who ever heard of children workin' at all
+befo' these things come into the country? Now, I've no objection to
+'em, only that they ought to work grown folks an' not children. They
+may kill me if they can," she laughed,--"I am grown, an' can stan'
+it, but I can't bear to think of 'em killin' my little brothers an'
+sisters--they're entitled to live until they get grown anyway."
+
+She stopped to cough and to show Helen how to untangle some threads.
+
+"Oh, but they can't hurt me," she laughed, as if ashamed of her
+cough; "this is bothersome, but it won't last long after I get out on
+the little farm."
+
+She stopped talking and fell to her work, and for two hours she
+showed Helen just how to draw the threads through, to shift the
+machine, to untangle the tangled threads.
+
+It was nearly time to go home when Travis came to see how Helen was
+progressing. He came up behind the two girls and stood looking at
+them work. When they looked up Maggie started and reddened and Helen
+saw her tighten her thin lips in a peculiar way while the blood flew
+from them, leaving a thin white oval ring in the red that flushed her
+face.
+
+"You are doing finely," he said to Helen--"you will make a swift
+drawer-in." He stooped over and whispered: "Such fingers and hands
+would draw in anything--even hearts."
+
+Helen blushed and looked quickly at Maggie, over whose face the
+pinched look had come again, but Maggie was busy at her machine.
+
+"I remember when I came here five years ago," went on Maggie after
+Travis had left, "I was so proud an' happy. I was healthy an' well
+an' so happy to think I cu'd make a livin' for the home-folks--for
+daddy an' the little ones. Oh, they would put them in the mill, but I
+said no, I'll work my fingers off first. Let 'em play an' grow. Yes,
+they've lived on what I have made for five years--daddy down on his
+back, too, an' the children jus' growin', an' now they are big enough
+and strong enough to he'p me run the little farm--instead"--she said
+after a pause--"instead of bein' dead an' buried, killed in the mill.
+That was five years ago--five years"--she coughed and looked out of
+the window reflectively.
+
+"Daddy--poor daddy--he couldn't help the tree fallin' on his back an'
+cripplin' him; an' little Buddy, well, he was born weakly, so I done
+it all. Oh, I am not braggin' an' I ain't complainin', I'm so proud
+to do it."
+
+Helen was silent, her own bitterness softened by the story Maggie was
+telling, and for a while she forgot herself and her sorrow.
+
+It is so always. When we would weep we have only to look around and
+see others who would wail.
+
+"When I come I was as rosy as you," Maggie went on; "not so pretty
+now, mind you--nobody could be as pretty as you."
+
+She said it simply, but it touched Helen.
+
+"But I'll get my color back on the little farm--I'll be well again."
+She was silent a while. "I kno' you are wonderin' how I saved and got
+it." Helen saw her face sparkle and the spots deepen. "Mr. Travis
+has been so kind to me in--in other ways--but that's a big secret,"
+she laughed, "I'm to tell you some day, or rather you'll see yo'self,
+an' then, oh--every thing will be all right an' I'll be ever so much
+happier than I am now."
+
+She jumped up impulsively and stood before Helen.
+
+"Mightn't I kiss you once,--you're so pretty an' fresh?" And she
+kissed the pretty girl half timidly on the cheek.
+
+"It makes me so happy to think of it," she went on excitedly, "to
+think of owning a little farm all by ourselves, to go out into the
+air every day whenever you feel like it and not have to work in the
+mill, nor ask anybody if you may, but jus' go out an' see things
+grow--an' hear the birds sing and set under the pretty green trees
+an' gather wild flowers if you want to. To keep house an' to clean up
+an' cook instead of forever drawin'-in, an' to have a real flower
+garden of yo' own--yo' very own."
+
+They worked for hours, Maggie talking as a child who had found at
+last a sympathetic listener. Twilight came and then a clang of bells
+and the shaft above them began to turn slower and slower. Helen
+looked up wondering why it had all stopped so suddenly. She met the
+eyes of Travis looking at her.
+
+"I am to take you home," he said to her, "the trotters are at the
+door. Oh," as he looked at her work--"why, you have done first rate
+for the day."
+
+"It's Maggie's," she whispered.
+
+He had not seen Maggie and he stood looking at Helen with such
+passionate, patronizing, commanding, masterful eyes, that she shrank
+for a moment, sideways.
+
+Then he laughed: "How beautiful you are! There are queens born and
+queens made--I shall call you the queen of the mill, eh?"
+
+He reached out and tried to take her hand, but she shrank behind the
+machine and then--
+
+"Oh, Maggie!" she exclaimed--for the girl's face was now white and
+she stood with a strained mouth as if ready to sob.
+
+"Oh, Maggie's a good little girl," said Travis, catching her hand.
+
+"Oh, please don't--please"--said Maggie.
+
+Then she walked out, drawing her thin shawl around her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+IN THE DEPTHS
+
+
+All the week the two girls worked together at the mill; a week which
+was to Helen one long nightmare, filled, as it was, with the hum and
+roar of machinery, the hot breath of the mill, and worst of all, the
+seared and deadening thought that she was disgraced.
+
+In the morning she entered the mill hoping it might fall on and
+destroy her. At night she went home to a drunken father and a little
+sister who needed, in her childish sorrow, all the pity and care of
+the elder one.
+
+And one night her father, being more brutal than ever, had called out
+as Helen came in: "Come in, my mill-girl!"
+
+Richard Travis always drove her home, and each night he became more
+familiar and more masterful. She felt,--she knew--that she was
+falling under his fascinating influence.
+
+And worse than all, she knew she did not care.
+
+There is a depth deeper even than the sin--the depth where the doer
+ceases to care.
+
+Indeed, she was beginning to make herself believe that she loved
+him--as he said he wished her to do--and as he loved her, he said;
+and with what he said and what he hinted she dreamed beautiful,
+desperate dreams of the future.
+
+She did not wonder, then, that on one drive she had permitted him to
+hold her hand in his. What a strong hand it was, and how could so
+weak a hand as her's resist it? And all the time he had talked so
+beautifully and had quoted Browning and Keats. And finally he had
+told her that she had only to say the word, and leave the mill with
+him forever.
+
+But where, she did not even care--only to get away from the mill,
+from her disgrace, from her drunken father, from her wretched life.
+
+And another night, when he had helped her out of the buggy, and while
+she was close to him and looking downward, he had bent over her and
+kissed her on the neck, where her hair had been gathered up and had
+left it white and fair and unprotected. And it sent a hot flame of
+shame to the depths of her brain, but she could only look up and
+say--"Oh, please don't--please don't, Mr. Travis," and then dart
+quickly into the old gate and run to her home.
+
+But within it was only to meet the taunts and sneers of her father
+that brought again the hot Conway blood in defying anger to her face,
+and then she had turned and rushed back to the gate which Travis had
+just left, crying:
+
+"Take me now--anywhere--anywhere. Carry me away from here."
+
+But she heard only the sound of his trotters' feet up the road, and
+overcome with the reflective anguish of it all, she had tottered and
+dropped beneath the tree upon the grass--dropped to weep.
+
+After a while she sat up, and going down the long path to the old
+spring, she bathed her face and hands in its cool depths. Then she
+sat upon a rock which jutted out into the water. It calmed her to sit
+there and feel the rush of the air from below, upon her hot cheeks
+and her swollen eyes.
+
+The moon shone brightly, lighting up the water, the rocks which held
+the spring pool within their fortress of gray, and the long green
+path of water-cresses, stretching away and showing where the spring
+branch ran to the pasture.
+
+Glancing down, she saw her own image in the water, and she smiled to
+see how beautiful it was. There was her hair hanging splendidly down
+her back, and in the mirror of water beneath she saw it was tinged
+with that divine color which had set the Roman world afire in
+Cleopatra's days. But then, there was her dress--her mill dress.
+
+She sighed--she looked up at the stars. They always filled her with
+great waves of wonder and reverence.
+
+"Is mother in one of you?" she asked. "Oh, mother, why were you taken
+from your two little girls? and if the dead are immortal, can they
+forget us of earth? Can they be indifferent to our fate? How could
+they be happy if they knew--" She stopped and looking up, picked out
+a single star that shone brighter than the others, clinging so close
+to the top of Sunset Rock as to appear a setting to his crown.
+
+"I will imagine she is there"--she whispered--"in that world--O
+mother--mother--will you--cannot you help me?"
+
+She was weeping and had to bathe her face again. Then another impulse
+seized her--an impulse of childhood. Pulling off her stockings, she
+dipped her feet in the cool water and splashed them around in sheer
+delight.
+
+The moonbeams falling on them under the water turned the pink into
+white, and she smiled to see how like the pictures of Diana her
+ankles looked.
+
+She had forgotten that the old spring was near the public road and
+that the rail fence was old and fallen. Her revery was interrupted by
+a bantering, half drunken, jolly laugh:
+
+"Well, I must say I never saw anything quite so pretty!"
+
+She sprang up in shame. Leaning on the old fence, she saw Harry
+Travis, a roguish smile on his face. She thought she would run, then
+she remembered her bare feet and she sat down on the grass, covering
+her ankles with her skirt. At first she wanted to cry, then she grew
+indignant as he came tipsily toward her and sat down by her side.
+
+She was used to the smell of whiskey on the breath. Its slightest
+odor she knew instantly. To her it was the smell of death.
+
+"Got to the Gov'nor's private bottle to-night," he said familiarly,
+"and took a couple of cocktails. Going over to see Nellie, but
+couldn't resist such beauties as"--he pointed to her feet.
+
+"It was mean of you to slip upon me as you did," she said. Then she
+turned the scorn of her eyes on him and coolly looked him over, the
+weak face, the boyish, half funny smile, the cynical eyes,--trying to
+be a man of the world and too weak to know what it all meant.
+
+The Conway spirit had come to her--it always did in a critical
+moment. She no longer blushed or even feared him.
+
+"How, how," she said slowly and looking him steadily over, "did I
+ever love such a thing as you?"
+
+He moved up closer. "You will have to kiss me for that," he said
+angrily. "I've kissed you so often I know just how to do it," and he
+made an attempt to throw his arms around her.
+
+She sprang away from him into the spring branch, standing knee deep
+in the water and among the water-cresses.
+
+He arose hot with insolence: "Oh, you think you are too good for me
+now--now that the Gov'nor has set his heart on you. Damn him--you
+were mine before you were his. He may have you, but he will take you
+with Cassius' kisses on your lips."
+
+He sprang forward, reached over the rock and seized her by the arm.
+But she jerked away from him and sprang back into the deeper water of
+the spring. She did not scream, but it seemed that her heart would
+burst with shame and anger. She thought of Ophelia, and as she looked
+down into the water she wiped away indifferently and silently the
+cool drops which had splashed up into her face, and she wondered if
+she might not be able to drop down flat and drown herself there, and
+thus end it all.
+
+He had come to the edge of the rock and stood leering drunkenly down
+on her.
+
+"I love you," he laughed ironically.
+
+"I hate you," she said, looking up steadily into his eyes and moving
+back out of his reach.
+
+The water had wet her dress, and she stooped and dipped some of it up
+and bathed her hot cheeks.
+
+"I'll kiss you if I have to wade into that spring."
+
+"If I had a brother,--oh, if I even had a father," she said, looking
+at him with a flash of Conway fire in her eyes--"and you did--you
+would not live till morning--you know you wouldn't."
+
+She stood now knee-deep in water. Above her the half-drunken boy,
+standing on the rock which projected into the spring, emboldened with
+drink and maddened by the thought that she had so easily given him
+up, had reached out and seized her around the neck. He was rough, and
+it choked her as he drew her to him.
+
+She screamed for the first time--for she thought she heard hoof beats
+coming down the road; then she heard a horseman clear the low fence
+and spur into the spring branch. The water from the horse's feet
+splashed over her. She remembered it only faintly--the big
+glasses--the old straw hat,--the leathern bag of samples around his
+shoulders.
+
+"Most unusual," she heard him say, with more calmness it seemed to
+Helen than ever: "Quite unusual--insultingly so!"
+
+Instinctively she held up her arms and he stooped in the saddle and
+lifted her up and set her on the stone curbing on the side farthest
+from Harry Travis.
+
+Then he turned and very deliberately reached over and seized Harry
+Travis, who stood on the rock, nearly on a line with the pommel of
+the saddle. But the hand that gripped the back of Harry's neck was
+anything but gentle. It closed around the neck at the base of the
+brain, burying its fingers in the back muscles with paralyzing pain
+and jerked him face downward across the saddle with a motion so swift
+that he was there before he knew it. Then another hand seized him and
+rammed his mouth, as he lay across the pommel of the saddle, into the
+sweaty shoulders below the horse's withers, and he felt the horse
+move out and into the road and up to the crossing of the ways just as
+a buggy and two fast bay mares came around the corner.
+
+The driver of the bays stopped as he saw his cousin thrown like a pig
+over the pommel and held there kicking and cursing.
+
+"I was looking for him," said Richard Travis quietly, "but I would
+like to know what it all means."
+
+The big glasses shone in kindly humor. They did not reflect any
+excitement in the eyes behind them.
+
+"I am afraid it means that he is drunk. Perhaps he will tell you
+about it. Quite unusual, I must say--he seemed to be trying to drown
+a young lady in a spring."
+
+He eased his burden over the saddle and dropped him into the road.
+
+Richard Travis took it in instantly, and as Clay rode away he heard
+the cousin say: "You damned yellow cur--to bear the name of Travis."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+WORK IN A NEW LIGHT
+
+
+It was an hour before Clay Westmore rode back to Millwood. He had
+been too busy plowing that day to get, sooner, a specimen of the rock
+he had seen out-cropping on Sand Mountain. At night, after supper, he
+had ridden over for it.
+
+And now by moonlight he had found it!
+
+He flushed with the strength of it all as he put it in his
+satchel--the strength of knowing that not even poverty, nor work, nor
+night could keep him from accomplishing his purpose.
+
+Then he rode back, stopping at Millwood. For he thought, too, that he
+might see Helen, and while he had resolved not to force himself on
+her after what she had said when he last saw her, still he wished
+very much to see her now and then.
+
+For somehow, it never got out of his deductive head that some day she
+would learn to love him. Had he known the temptation, the despair
+that was hers, he would not have been so quietly deliberate. But she
+had never told him. In fact, he had loved her from a distance all his
+life in his quiet way, though now, by her decree, they were scarcely
+more than the best of friends. Some day, after he had earned enough,
+he would tell her just how much he loved her. At present he could
+not, for was he not too poor, and were not his mother and sister
+dependent upon him?
+
+He knew that Harry Travis loved her in a way--a love he was certain
+would not last, and in the fullness and depths of his sincere nature,
+he felt as sure of ultimately winning her, by sheer force of
+strength, of consistency and devotion, as he was that every great
+thing in life had been done by the same force and would be to the end
+of time.
+
+As sure as that, by this same force, he, himself, would one day
+discover the vein of coal which lay somewhere in the beautiful valley
+of the Tennessee.
+
+And so he waited his time with the easy assurance of the philosopher
+which he was, and with that firm faith which minds of his strength
+always have in themselves and their ultimate success.
+
+It surprised him, it is true--hurt him--when he found to what extent
+Harry Travis had succeeded in winning the love of Helen. He was hurt
+because he expected--hoped--she would see further into things than
+she had. And counting all the poverty and hardships of his life, the
+Sunday afternoon when he had left her in the arbor, after she had
+told him she was engaged to Harry Travis, he could not remember when
+anything had been so hard for him to bear. Later he had heard how she
+had gone to work in the mill, and he knew that it meant an end of her
+love affair with Harry.
+
+To-night something told him it was time to see her again, not to tell
+her of his own love, and how it would never change, whether she was
+mill girl or the mistress of Millwood, but to encourage her in the
+misery of it all.
+
+Work--and did not he himself love to work? Was it not the noblest
+thing of life?
+
+He would tell her it was.
+
+He was surprised when he saw what had just happened; but all his life
+he had controlled himself to such a degree that in critical moments
+he was coolest; and so what with another might have been a serious
+affair, he had turned into half retributive fun, but the deadliest
+punishment, as it afterwards turned out, that he could have inflicted
+on a temperament and nature such as Harry Travis'. For that young
+man, unable to stand the gibes of the neighborhood and the sarcasm of
+his uncle when it all became known, accepted a position in another
+town and never came back again.
+
+To have been shot or floored in true melodramatic style by his rival,
+as he stood on a rock with a helpless girl in his clutch, would have
+been more to his liking than to be picked up bodily, by the nape of
+his neck, and taken from the scene of his exploits like a pig across
+a saddle.
+
+That kind of a combat did not meet his ideas of chivalry.
+
+Helen was dressed in her prettiest gown when Clay rode back to
+Millwood, after securing the samples he had started for. She knew he
+was coming and so she tied a white scarf over her head and went again
+to her favorite seat beneath the trees.
+
+"I don't know how to thank you, Clay," she said, as he swung down
+from his saddle and threw his leathern bag on the grass.
+
+"Now, you look more like yourself," he smiled admiringly, as he
+looked down on her white dress and auburn hair, drooping low over her
+neck and shoulders.
+
+"Tell me about yourself and how you like it at the mill," he went on
+as he sat down.
+
+"Oh, you will not be willing to speak to me now--now that I am a
+mill-girl," she added. "Do you know? Clay--"
+
+"I know that, aside from being beautiful, you have just begun to be
+truly womanly in my sight."
+
+"Oh, Clay, do you really think that? It is the first good word that
+has been spoken to me since--since my--disgrace."
+
+He turned quickly: "Your disgrace! Do you call it disgrace to
+work--to make an honest living--to be independent and self-reliant?"
+
+He picked up his bag of samples and she saw that his hands had become
+hard and sunburnt from the plow handles.
+
+"Helen," he went on earnestly, "that is one of the hide-bound
+tyrannies that must be banished from our Southland--banished as that
+other tyranny, slavery, has been banished--a sin, which, with no
+fault of our own, we inherited from the centuries. We shall never be
+truly great--as God intended we should be great--until we learn to
+work. We have the noblest and sunniest of lands, with more resources
+than man now dreams of, a greater future than we know of if we will
+only work--work and develop them. You have set an example for every
+girl in the South who has been thrown upon her own resources. Never
+before in my life have I cared--so--much--for you."
+
+And he blushed as he said it, and fumbled his samples.
+
+"Then you do care some for me?" she asked pleadingly. She was
+heart-sick for sympathy and did not know just what she said.
+
+He flushed and started to speak. He looked at her, and his big
+glasses quivered with the suppressed emotions which lay behind them
+in his eyes.
+
+But he saw that she did not love him, that she was begging for
+sympathy and not for love. Besides, what right had he to plan to
+bring another to share his poverty?
+
+He mounted his horse as one afraid to trust himself to stay longer.
+But he touched her hair in his awkward, funny way, before he swung
+himself into the saddle, and Helen, as she went into the desolate
+home, felt uplifted as never before.
+
+Never before had she seen work in that light--nor love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MAGGIE
+
+
+It was Maggie's last day at the mill, and she had been unusually
+thoughtful. Her face was more pinched, Helen thought, and the sadness
+in her eyes had increased.
+
+Helen had proved to be an apt pupil, and Maggie declared that
+thereafter she would be able to run her machine without assistance.
+
+It was Saturday noon and Maggie was ready to go, though the mill did
+not shut down until six that day. And so she found herself standing
+and looking with tearful eyes at the machine she had learned to love,
+at the little room in which she had worked so long, supporting her
+invalid father and her little ones--as she motherly called the
+children. It had been hard--so hard, and the years had been long and
+she was so weak now, compared to what she had been. How happy she had
+thought the moment of her leaving would be; and yet now that it had
+come--now--she was weeping.
+
+"I didn't think," she said to Helen--"I didn't think I'd--I'd care so
+to leave it--when--when--the time--came."
+
+She turned and brushed away her tears in time to see Travis come
+smiling up.
+
+"Why, Maggie," he said playfully flipping the tip of her ear as he
+passed her. "I thought you left us yesterday afternoon. You'll not be
+forgetting us now that you will not see us again, will you?"
+
+She flushed and Helen heard her say: "Forget you--ever? Oh, please,
+Mr. Travis--" and her voice trembled.
+
+"Oh, tut," he said, frowning quickly--"nothing like that here. Of
+course, you will hate to leave the old mill and the old machine.
+Come, Maggie, you needn't wait--you're a good girl--we all know
+that."
+
+He turned to Helen and watched her as she drew in the threads. Her
+head was bent over, and her great coil of hair sat upon it like a
+queen on a throne.
+
+What a neck and throat she had--what a beautiful queenly manner!
+
+Travis smiled an amused smile when he thought of it--an ironical
+sneering smile; but he felt, as he stood there, that the girl had
+fascinated him in a strange way, and now that she was in his power,
+"now that Fate, or God has combined to throw her into my arms--almost
+unasked for--is it possible that I am beginning to fall in love with
+her?"
+
+He had forgotten Maggie and stood looking at Helen. And in that look
+Maggie saw it all. He heard her sit down suddenly.
+
+"I would go if I were you, Maggie--you are a good girl and we shall
+not forget you."
+
+"May I stay a little while longer?" she asked. "I won't ever come
+back any more, you know."
+
+Travis turned quickly and walked off. He came back and spoke to
+Helen.
+
+"Remember, I am to take you home to-night. But it will be later than
+usual, on account of the pay-roll."
+
+As he shut the door Maggie turned, and her heart being too full to
+speak, she came forward and dropped on her knees, burying her face in
+Helen's lap. "You must not notice me," she said--"don't--don't--oh,
+don't look at me."
+
+Helen stroked her cheek and finally she was quiet.
+
+Then she looked into Helen's face. "Do you know--oh, will you mind if
+I speak to you--or perhaps I shouldn't--but--but--don't you see that
+he loves you?"
+
+Helen reddened to her ears.
+
+"I am foolish--sick--nervous--I know I am silly an' yet I don't see
+how he could help it--you are so queenly--beautiful--so different
+from any that are here. He--he--has forgotten me--"
+
+Helen looked at her quickly.
+
+"Why, I don't understand," she said.
+
+"I mean," she stammered, "he used to notice us common girls--me and
+the others--"
+
+"I don't understand you," said Helen, half indignantly.
+
+"Oh, don't pay no 'tention to me," she said. "I, I fear I am sick,
+you know--sicker than I thought," and she coughed violently.
+
+She lay with her head in Helen's lap. "Please," she said timidly,
+looking up into Helen's face at last--"please let me stay this way a
+while. I never knew a mother--nobody has ever let me do this befo',
+an' I am so happy for it."
+
+Helen stroked her face and hair anew, and Maggie kneeled looking up
+at her eagerly, earnestly, hungrily, scanning every feature of the
+prettier girl with worshipping eyes.
+
+"How could he he'p it--how could he he'p it," she said
+softly--"yes--yes--you are his equal and so beautiful."
+
+"I don't understand you, Maggie--indeed I do not."
+
+Maggie arose quickly: "Good-bye--let me kiss you once mo'--I feel
+like I'll never see you again--an'--an'--I've learned to love you
+so!"
+
+Helen raised her head and kissed her.
+
+Then Maggie passed quickly out, and with her eyes only did she look
+back and utter a farewell which carried with it both a kiss and a
+tear. And something else which was a warning.
+
+And Helen never forgot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PAY-DAY
+
+
+It was Saturday afternoon and pay-day, and the mill shut down at six
+o'clock.
+
+When Helen went in Kingsley sat at the Superintendent's desk, issuing
+orders on the Secretary and Treasurer, Richard Travis, who sat at his
+desk near by and paid the wages in silver.
+
+Connected with the mill was a large commissary or store--a cheap
+modern structure which stood in another part of the town, filled with
+the necessaries of life as well as the flimsy gewgaws which delight
+the heart of the average mill hand. In establishing this store, the
+directors followed the usual custom of cotton-mills in smaller towns
+of the South; paying their employees part in money and part in
+warrants on the store. It is needless to add that the prices paid for
+the goods were, in most cases, high enough to cut the wages to the
+proper margin. If there was any balance at the end of the month, it
+was paid in money.
+
+Kingsley personally supervised this store, and his annual report to
+the directors was one of the strong financial things of his
+administration.
+
+A crowd of factory hands stood around his desk, and the
+Superintendent was busy issuing orders on the store, or striking a
+balance for the Secretary and Treasurer to pay in silver.
+
+They stood around tired, wretched, lint- and dust-covered, but
+expectant. Few were there compared with the number employed; for the
+wages of the minors went to their parents, and as minors included
+girls under eighteen and boys under twenty-one, their parents were
+there to receive their wages for them.
+
+These children belonged to them as mercilessly as if they had been
+slaves, and despite the ties of blood, no master ever more
+relentlessly collected and appropriated the wages of his slaves than
+did the parents the pitiful wages of their children.
+
+There are two great whippers-in in the child slavery of the
+South--the mills which employ the children and the parents who permit
+it--encourage it. Of these two the parents are often the worse, for,
+since the late enactment of child labor laws, they do not hesitate to
+stultify themselves by false affidavits as to the child's real age.
+
+Kingsley had often noticed how promptly and even proudly the girls,
+after reaching eighteen, and the boys twenty-one, had told him
+hereafter to place their wages to their own credit, and not to the
+parent's. They seemed to take a new lease on life. Decrepit,
+drawn-faced, hump-shouldered and dried up before their time, the few
+who reached the age when the law made them their own masters, looked
+not like men and women who stand on the threshold of life, but rather
+like over-worked middle-aged beings of another period.
+
+Yet that day their faces put on a brighter look.
+
+They stood around the office desk, awaiting their turn. The big
+engine had ceased to throb and the shuttles to clatter and whirl. The
+mill was so quiet that those who had, year in and year out, listened
+to its clatter and hum, seemed to think some overhanging calamity was
+about to drop out of the sky of terrible calm.
+
+"Janette Smith," called out Kingsley.
+
+She came forward, a bony, stoop-shouldered woman of thirty-five years
+who had been a spooler since she was fifteen.
+
+"Seventy-seven hours for the week"--he went on mechanically, studying
+the time book, "making six dollars and sixteen cents. Rent deducted
+two dollars. Wood thirty-five cents. Due commissary for goods
+furnished--here, Mr. Kidd," he said to the book-keeper, "let me see
+Miss Smith's account." It was shoved to him across the desk. Kingsley
+elevated his glasses. Then he adjusted them with a peculiar lilt--it
+was his way of being ironical:
+
+"Oh, you don't owe the store anything, Miss Smith--just eleven
+dollars and eighty cents."
+
+The woman stood stoically--not a muscle moved in her face, and not
+even by the change of an eye did she indicate that such a thing as
+the ordinary human emotions of disappointment and fear had a home in
+the heart.
+
+"Mother was sick all last month," she said at last in a voice that
+came out in the same indifferent, unvarying tone. "I had to
+overdraw."
+
+Kingsley gave his eye-glasses another lilt. They said as plainly as
+eye-glasses could: "Well, of course, I made her sick." Then he added
+abruptly: "We will advance you two dollars this week--an' that will
+be all."
+
+"I hoped to get some little thing that she could eat--some relish,"
+she began.
+
+"Not our business, Miss Smith--sorry--very sorry--but try to be more
+economical. Economy is the great objective haven of life. Emerson
+says so. And Browning in a most beautiful line of poetry says the
+same thing," he added.
+
+"The way to begin economy is to begin it--Emerson is so helpful to
+me--he always comes in at the right time."
+
+"And it's only to be two dollars," she added.
+
+"That's all," and he pushed her the order. She took it, cashed it and
+went hurriedly out, her poke bonnet pulled over her face. But there
+were hot tears and a sob under her bonnet.
+
+And so it went on for two hours--some drawing nothing, but remaining
+to beg for an order on the store to keep them running until next
+week.
+
+One man with six children in the mill next came forward and drew
+eighteen dollars. He smiled complacently as he drew it and chucked
+the silver into his pocket. This gave Jud Carpenter, standing near, a
+chance to get in his mill talk.
+
+"I tell you, Joe Hopper," he said, slapping the man on the back,
+"that mill is a great thing for the mothers an' fathers of this
+little settlement. What 'ud we do if it warn't for our chillun?"
+
+"You're talkin now--" said Joe hopefully.
+
+"It useter be," said Jud, looking around at his crowd, "that the
+parents spoiled the kids, but now it is the kids spoilin' the
+parents."
+
+His audience met this with smiles and laughter.
+
+"I never did know before," went on Jud, "what that old sayin' really
+meant: 'A fool for luck an' a po' man for chillun.'"
+
+Another crackling laugh.
+
+"How much did Joe Hopper's chillun fetch 'im in this week?"
+
+Joe jingled his silver in his pocket and spat importantly on the
+floor.
+
+"I tell you, when I married," said Jud, "I seed nothin' but poverty
+an' the multiplication of my part of the earth ahead of me--poverty,
+I tell you, starvation an' every new chile addin' to it. But since
+you started this mill, Mister Kingsley (Kingsley smiled and bowed
+across the desk at him), I've turned what everybody said 'ud starve
+us into ready cash. And now I say to the young folks: 'Marry an'
+multiply an' the cash will be forthcomin'.'"
+
+This was followed by loud laughs, especially from those who were
+blessed with children, and they filed up to get their wages.
+
+Jim Stallings, who had four in the mill, was counted out eleven
+dollars. As he pocketed it he looked at Jud and said:
+
+"Oh, no, Jud; it don't pay to raise chillun. I wish I had the chance
+old Sollerman had. I'd soon make old Vanderbilt look like shin
+plaster."
+
+He joined in the laughter which followed.
+
+In the doorway he cut a pigeon-wing in which his thin, bowed legs
+looked comically humorous.
+
+Jud Carpenter was a power in the mill, standing as he did so near to
+the management. To the poor, ignorant ones around him he was the
+mouth-piece of the mill, and they feared him even more than they did
+Kingsley himself, Kingsley with his ironical ways and lilting
+eye-glasses. With them Jud's nod alone was sufficient.
+
+They were still grouped around the office awaiting their turn. In the
+faces of some were shrewdness, cunning, hypocrisy. Some looked out
+through dull eyes, humbled and brow-beaten and unfeeling. But all of
+them when they spoke to Jud Carpenter--Jud Carpenter who stood in
+with the managers of the mill--became at once the grinning, fawning
+framework of a human being.
+
+"Yes, boys," said Jud patronizingly as Stallings went out, "this here
+mill is a god-send to us po' folks who've got chillun to burn. They
+ain't a day we ortenter git down on our knees an' thank Mr. Kingsley
+an' Mister Travis there. You know I done took down that sign I useter
+have hangin' up in my house in the hall--that sign which said, _God
+bless our home_? I've put up another one now."
+
+"What you done put up now, Jud?" grinned a tall weaver with that
+blank look of expectancy which settles over the face of the middle
+man in a negro minstrel troupe when he passes the stale question to
+the end man, knowing the joke which was coming.
+
+"Why, I've put up," said Jud brutally, "'_Suffer Little Children to
+Come Unto Me_.' That's scriptural authority for cotton mills, ain't
+it?"
+
+The paying went on, after the uproarious laughter had subsided, and
+down the long row only the clinking of silver was heard, intermingled
+now and then with the shrill voice of some creature disputing with
+Kingsley about her account. Generally it ran thus: "_It cyant be thet
+away. Sixty hours at five cents an hour--wal, but didn't the chillun
+wuck no longer than that? I cyant--I cyant--I jes' cyant live on that
+little bit._"
+
+Such it was, and it floated down the line to Helen like the wail of a
+lost soul. When her time came Kingsley met her with a smile. Then he
+gave her an order and Travis handed her a bright crisp ten-dollar
+bill.
+
+She looked at him in astonishment. "But--but," she said. "Surely, I
+didn't earn all this, did I? Maggie--you had to pay Maggie for
+teaching me this week. It was she who earned it. I cannot take it."
+
+Kingsley smiled: "If you must know--though we promised her we would
+not tell you," he said--"no, Miss Conway, you did not earn but five
+dollars this week. The other five is Maggie's gift to you--she left
+it here for you."
+
+She looked at him stupidly--in dazed gratitude. Travis came forward:
+
+"I've ordered Jim to take you home to-night. I cannot leave now."
+
+And he led her out to where the trotters stood. He lifted her in,
+pressing her hand as he did so--but she did not know it--she burned
+with a strange fullness in her throat as she clutched her money, the
+first she had ever earned, and thought of Maggie--Maggie, dying and
+unselfish.
+
+Work--it had opened a new life to her. Work--and never before had she
+known the sweetness of it.
+
+"Oh, father," she said when she reached home, "I have made some
+money--I can support you and Lily now."
+
+When Travis returned Jud Carpenter met him at the door.
+
+"I had a mess o' trouble gittin' that gal into the mill. Huh! but
+ain't she a beaut! I guess you 'orter tip me for throwin' sech a
+peach as that into yo' arms. Oh, you're a sly one--" he went on
+whisperingly--"the smoothest one with women I ever seed. But you'll
+have to thank me for that queen. Guess I'll go down an' take a dram.
+I want to git the lint out of my throat."
+
+"I'll be down later," said Travis as he looked at his watch. "Charley
+Biggers and I. It's our night to have a little fun with the boys."
+
+"I'll see you there," said Jud.
+
+The clinking of silver, questions, answers, and expostulations went
+on. In the midst of it there was the sudden shrill wail of an angry
+child.
+
+"I wants some of my money, Paw--I wants to buy a ginger man."
+
+Then came a cruel slap which was heard all over the room, and the boy
+of ten, a wild-eyed and unkempt thing, staggered and grasped his face
+where the blow fell.
+
+"Take that, you sassy meddling up-start--you belong to me till you
+are twenty-one years old. What 'ud you do with a ginger man 'cept to
+eat it?" He cuffed the boy through the door and sent him flying home.
+
+It was Joe Sykes, the wages of whose children kept him in active
+drunkenness and chronic inertia. He was the champion loafer of the
+town.
+
+In a short time he had drawn a pocketful of silver, and going out
+soon overtook Jud Carpenter.
+
+"I tell you, Jud, we mus' hold these kids down--we heads of the
+family. I've mighty nigh broke myself down this week a controllin'
+mine. Goin' down to take a drink or two? Same to you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE PLOT
+
+
+A village bar-room is a village hell.
+
+Jud Carpenter and Joe Hopper were soon there, and the silver their
+children had earned at the mill began to go for drinks.
+
+The drinks made them feel good. They resolved to feel better, so they
+drank again. As they drank the talk grew louder. They were joined by
+others from the town--ne'er-do-wells, who hung around the bar--and
+others from the mill.
+
+And so they drank and sang and danced and played cards and drank
+again, and threw dice for more drinks.
+
+It was nearly nine o'clock before the Bacchanal laugh began to ring
+out at intervals--so easily distinguished from the sober laugh, in
+that it carries in its closing tones the queer ring of the maniac's.
+
+Only the mill men had any cash. The village loafers drank at their
+expense, and on credit.
+
+"And why should we not drink if we wish," said one of them. "Our
+children earned the money and do we not own the children?"
+
+Twice only were they interrupted. Once by the wife of a weaver who
+came in and pleaded with her husband for part of their children's
+money. Her tears touched the big-hearted Billy Buch, and as her
+husband was too drunk to know what he was doing, Billy took what
+money he had left and gave it to the wife. She had a sick child, she
+told Billy Buch, and what money she had would not even buy the
+medicine.
+
+Billy squinted the corner of one eye and looked solemnly at the
+husband: "He ha'f ten drinks in him ag'in, already. I vill gif you
+pay for eet all for the child. An' here ees one dollar mo' from Billy
+Buch. Now go, goot voman."
+
+The other interruption was the redoubtable Mrs. Billings; her
+brother, also a slubber, had arrived early, but had scarcely taken
+two delightful, exquisite drinks before she came on the scene, her
+eyes flashing, her hair disheveled, and her hand playing familiarly
+with something under her apron.
+
+Her presence threw them into a panic.
+
+"Mine Gott!" said Billy, turning pale. "Eet es Meeses Billings an'
+her crockery."
+
+Half a dozen jubilants pointed out a long-haired man at a center
+table talking proudly of his physical strength and bravery.
+
+"Cris Ham?" beckoned Mrs. Billings, feeling nervously under her
+apron. "Come with me!"
+
+"I'll be along t'orectly, sis."
+
+"You will come now," she said, and her hands began to move ominously
+beneath her apron.
+
+"To be sho'," he said as he walked out with her. "I didn't know you
+felt that away about it, sis."
+
+It was after ten o'clock when the quick roll of a buggy came up to
+the door, and Richard Travis and Charley Biggers alighted.
+
+They had both been drinking. Slowly, surely, Travis was going down in
+the scale of degeneracy. Slowly the loose life he was leading was
+lowering him to the level of the common herd. A few years ago he
+would not have thought of drinking with his own mill hands. To-night
+he was there, the most reckless of them all. Analyzed, it was for the
+most part conceit with him; the low conceit of the superior intellect
+which would mingle in infamy with the lowest to gain its ignorant
+homage. For Intellect must have homage if it has to drag it from the
+slums.
+
+Charley Biggers was short and boyish, with a fat, round face. When he
+laughed he showed a fine set of big, sensual teeth. His eyes were
+jolly, flighty, insincere. Weakness was written all over him, from a
+derby hat sitting back rakishly on his forehead to the small,
+effeminate boot that fitted so neatly his small effeminate foot. He
+had a small hand and his little sensual face had not a rough feature
+on it. It was set off by a pudgy, half-formed dab of a nose that let
+his breath in and out when his mouth happened to be shut. His eyes
+were the eyes of one who sees no wrong in anything.
+
+They came in and pulled off their gloves, daintily. They threw their
+overcoats on a chair. Travis glanced around the circle of the four or
+five who were left and said pompously:
+
+"Come up, gentlemen, and have something at my expense." Then he
+walked up to the bar.
+
+They came. They considered it both a pleasure and an honor, as Jud
+Carpenter expressed it, to drink with him.
+
+"It is a good idea to mingle with them now and then," whispered
+Travis to Charley. "It keeps me solid with them--health, gentlemen!"
+
+Charley Biggers showed his good-natured teeth:
+
+"Health, gentlemen," he grinned.
+
+Then he hiccoughed through his weak little nose.
+
+"Joe Hopper can't rise, gentlemen, Joe is drunk, an'--an' a widderer,
+besides," hiccoughed Joe from below.
+
+Joe had been a widower for a year. His wife, after being the mother
+of eleven children, who now supported Joe in his drunkenness, had
+passed away.
+
+Then Joe burst into tears.
+
+"What's up, Joe?" asked Jud kindly.
+
+"Liza's dead," he wailed.
+
+"Why, she's been dead a year," said Jud.
+
+"Don't keer, Jud--I'm jes'--jes' beginnin' to feel it now"--and he
+wept afresh.
+
+It was too much for Charley Biggers, and he also wept. Travis looked
+fixedly at the ceiling and recited portions of the Episcopal burial
+service. Then Jud wept. They all wept.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Travis solemnly, "let us drink to the health of the
+departed Mrs. Hopper. Here's to her!"
+
+This cheered all except Joe Hopper--he refused to be comforted. They
+tried to console him, but he only wept the more. They went on
+drinking and left him out, but this did not tend to diminish his
+tears.
+
+"Oh, Mister Hopper, shet up," said Jud peremptorily--"close up--I've
+arranged for you to marry a grass-widder."
+
+This cheered him greatly.
+
+"O Jud--Jud--if I marry a grass-widder whut--whut'll I be then?"
+
+"Why? a grasshopper, sure," said Travis.
+
+They all roared. Then Jud winked at Travis and Travis winked at the
+others. Then they sat around a table, all winking except poor Joe,
+who continued to weep at the thought of being a grasshopper. He did
+not quite understand how it was, but he knew that in some way he was
+to be changed into a grasshopper, with long green wings and legs to
+match.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Jud seriously--"it is our duty to help out po' Joe.
+Now, Joe, we've arranged it for you to marry Miss Kate Galloway--the
+grass-widder."
+
+"Not Miss Kate," said Travis with becoming seriousness.
+
+"Why not her, Mr. Travis?" asked Jud, winking.
+
+"Because his children will be Katydids," said Travis.
+
+This brought on thundering roars of laughter and drinks all around.
+Only Joe wept--wept to think his children would be katydids.
+
+"Now, Joe, it's this way. I've talked it all over and arranged it.
+That's what we've met for to-night--ain't it, gents?" said Jud.
+
+"Sure--sure," they all exclaimed.
+
+"Now, Joe, you mus' dry yo' tears an' become reconciled--we've got a
+nice scheme fixed for you."
+
+"I'll never be reconciled--never," wailed Joe. "Liza's dead an'--I'm
+a grasshopper."
+
+"Now, wait till I explain to you--but, dear, devoted friend,
+everything is ready. The widder's been seen an' all you've got to do
+is to come with us and get her."
+
+"She's a mighty handsome 'oman," said Jud, winking his eye.
+"Dear--dear frien's--all--I'm feelin' reconciled already"--said Joe.
+
+They all joined in the roar. Jud winked. They all winked. Jud went
+on:
+
+"Joe, dear, dear Joe--we have had thy welfare at heart, as the books
+say. We wanted thee to become a millionaire. Thou hast eleven
+children to begin with. They pay you--"
+
+"Eighteen dollars a week, clear,"--said Joe proudly.
+
+"Well, now, Joe--it's all arranged--you marry the widder an' in the
+course of time you'll have eleven mo'. That's another eighteen
+dollars--or thirty-six dollars a week clear in the mills."
+
+"Now, but I hadn't thought of that," said Joe
+enthusiastically--"that's a fact. When--when did you say the
+ceremony'd be performed?"
+
+"Hold on," said Jud, "now, we've studied this thing all out for you.
+You're a Mormon--the only one of us that is a Mormon--openly."
+
+They all laughed.
+
+"Openly--" he went on--"you've j'ined the Mormon church here up in
+the mountains."
+
+"But we don't practise polygamy--now"--said Joe.
+
+"That's only on account of the Grand Jury and the law--not yo'
+religion. You see--you'll marry an' go to Utah--but--es the kids come
+you'll sen' 'em all down here to the mills--every one a kinder livin'
+coupon. All any man's got to do in this country to git rich is to
+marry enough wives."
+
+"Can I do that--do the marryin' in Utah an' keep sendin' the--the
+chilluns down to the mill?" His eyes glittered.
+
+"Sart'inly"--said Jud--"sure!"
+
+"Then there's Miss Carewe"--he went on--"you haf'ter cal'clate on
+feedin' several wives in one, with her. But say eleven mo' by her.
+That's thirty-seven mo'."
+
+Joe jumped up.
+
+"Is she willin'?"
+
+"Done seen her," said Jud; "she say come on."
+
+"Hold on," said Travis with feigned anger. "Hold on. Joe is fixin' to
+start a cotton-mill of his own. That'll interfere with the Acme.
+No--no--we must vote it down. We mustn't let Joe do it."
+
+Joe had already attempted to rise and start after his wives. But in
+the roar of laughter that followed he sat down and began to weep
+again for Liza.
+
+It was nearly midnight. Only Travis, Charley Biggers and Jud remained
+sober enough to talk. Charley was telling of Tilly and her wondrous
+beauty.
+
+"Now--it's this way," he hiccoughed--"I've got to go off to
+school--but--but--I've thought of a plan to marry her first, with a
+bogus license and preacher."
+
+There was a whispered conversation among them, ending in a shout of
+applause.
+
+"What's the matter with you takin' yo' queen at the same time?" asked
+Jud of Travis.
+
+Travis, drunk as he was, winced to think that he would ever permit
+Jud Carpenter to suggest what he had intended should only be known to
+himself. His tongue was thick, his brain whirled, and there were gaps
+in his thoughts; but through the thickness and heaviness he thought
+how low he had fallen. Lower yet when, despite all his vanishing
+reserve, all his dignity and exclusiveness, he laughed sillily and
+said:
+
+"Just what I had decided to do--two queens and an ace."
+
+They all cheered drunkenly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+MRS. WESTMORE TAKES A HAND
+
+
+"What are you playing, Alice?"
+
+The daughter arose from the piano and kissed her mother, holding for
+a moment the pretty face, crowned with white hair, between her two
+palms.
+
+"It--it is an old song which Tom and I used to love to sing."
+
+The last of the sentence came so slowly that it sank almost into
+silence, as of one beginning a sentence and becoming so absorbed in
+the subject as to forget the speech. Then she turned again to the
+piano, as if to hide from her mother the sorrow which had crept into
+her face.
+
+"You should cease to think of that. Such things are dreams--at
+present we are confronted by very disagreeable realities."
+
+"Dreams--ah, mother mine"--she answered with forced cheeriness--"but
+what would life be without them?"
+
+"For one thing, Alice"--and she took the daughter's place at the
+piano and began to play snatches of an old waltz tune--"it would be
+free from all the morbid unnaturalness, the silliness, the froth of
+things. There is too much hardness in every life--in the world--in
+the very laws of life, for such things ever to have been part of the
+original plan. For my part, I think they are the product of man and
+wine or women or morphine or some other narcotic."
+
+"We make the dreams of life, but the realities of it make us," she
+added.
+
+"Oh, no, mother. 'Tis the dreams that make the realities. Not a great
+established fact exists but it was once the vision of a dreamer. Our
+dreams to-day become the realities of to-morrow."
+
+"Do you believe Tom is not dead--that he will one day come back?"
+asked her mother abruptly.
+
+It was twilight and the fire flickered, lighting up the library. But
+in the flash of it Mrs. Westmore saw Alice's cheek whiten in a
+hopeless, helpless, stricken way.
+
+Then she walked to the window and looked out on the darkness fast
+closing in on the lawn, clustering denser around the evergreens and
+creeping ghostlike toward the dim sky line which shone clear in the
+open.
+
+The very helplessness of her step, her silence, her numbed, yearning
+look across the lawn told Mrs. Westmore of the death of all hope
+there.
+
+She followed her daughter and put her arms impulsively around her.
+
+"I should not have hurt you so, Alice. I only wanted to show you how
+worse than useless it is ... but to change the subject, I do wish to
+speak to you of--our condition."
+
+Alice was used to her mother's ways--her brilliancy--her pointed
+manner of going at things--her quick change of thought--of mood, and
+even of temperament. An outsider would have judged Mrs. Westmore to
+be fickle with a strong vein of selfishness and even of egotism.
+Alice only knew that she was her mother; who had suffered much; who
+had been reduced by poverty to a condition straitened even to
+hardships. To help her the daughter knew that she was willing to make
+any sacrifice. Unselfish, devoted, clear as noonday in her own ideas
+of right and wrong, Alice's one weakness was her blind devotion to
+those she loved. A weakness beautiful and even magnificent, since it
+might mean a sacrifice of her heart for another. The woman who gives
+her time, her money, her life, even, to another gives but a small
+part of her real self. But there is something truly heroic when she
+throws in her heart also. For when a woman has given that she has
+given all; and because she has thrown it in cold and dead--a lifeless
+thing--matters not; in the poignancy of the giving it is gone from
+her forever and she may not recall it even with the opportunity of
+bringing it back to life.
+
+She who gives her all, but keeps her heart, is as a priest reading
+mechanically the Sermon on the Mount from the Bible. But she who
+gives her heart never to take it back again gives as the Christ dying
+on the Cross.
+
+"Now, here is the legal paper about"--
+
+Her voice failed and she did not finish the sentence.
+
+Alice took the paper and glanced at it. She flushed and thrust it
+into her pocket. They were silent a while and Mrs. Westmore sat
+thinking of the past. Alice knew it by the great reminiscent light
+which gleamed in her eyes. She thought of the time when she had
+servants, money, friends unlimited--of the wealth and influence of
+her husband--of the glory of Westmoreland.
+
+Every one has some secret ambition kept from the eyes of every living
+soul--often even to die in its keeper's breast. It is oftenest a mean
+ambition of which one is ashamed and so hides it from the world. It
+is often the one weakness. Alice never knew what was her mother's.
+She did not indeed know that she had one, for this one thing Mrs.
+Westmore had kept inviolately secret. But in her heart there had
+always rankled a secret jealousy when she thought of The Gaffs. It
+had been there since she could remember--a feeling cherished
+secretly, too, by her husband: for in everything their one idea had
+been that Westmoreland should surpass The Gaffs,--that it should be
+handsomer, better kept, more prosperous, more famous.
+
+Now, Westmoreland was gone--this meant the last of it. It would be
+sold, even the last hundred acres of it, with the old home on it.
+Gone--gone--all her former glory--all her family tradition, her
+memories, her very name.
+
+Gone, and The Gaffs remained!
+
+Remained in all its intactness--its beauty--its well equipped barns
+with all the splendor of its former days. For so great was the
+respect of Schofield's army for the character of Colonel Jeremiah
+Travis that his home escaped the torch when it was applied to many
+others in the Tennessee Valley. And Richard Travis had been shrewd
+enough after the war to hold his own. Joining the party of the negro
+after the war, he had been its political ruler in the county. And the
+Honorable Richard Travis had been offered anything he wanted. At
+present he was State Senator. He with others called himself a
+Republican--one of the great party of Lincoln to which the negroes
+after their enfranchisement united themselves. It was a fearful
+misnomer. The Republican party in the South, composed of ninety-nine
+ignorant negroes to one renegade white, about as truly represented
+the progressive party of Lincoln as a black vampire the ornithology
+of all lands. Indeed, since the war, there has never been in the
+South either a Republican or a Democratic party. The party line is
+not drawn on belief but on race and color. The white men, believing
+everything they please from free trade to protection, vote a ticket
+which they call Democratic. The negroes, and a few whites who allied
+themselves with them for the spoils of office, vote the other ticket.
+Neither of them represent anything but a race issue.
+
+To this negro party belonged Richard Travis--and the price of his
+infamy had been _Honorable_ before his name.
+
+But Mrs. Westmore cared nothing for this. She only knew that he was a
+leader of men, was handsome, well reared and educated, and that he
+owned The Gaffs, her old rival. And that there it stood, a fortune--a
+refuge--a rock--offered to her and her daughter, offered by a man
+who, whatever his other faults, was brave and dashing, sincere in his
+idolatrous love for her daughter. That he would make Alice happy she
+did not doubt; for Mrs. Westmore's idea of happiness was in having
+wealth and position and a splendid name. Having no real heart, how
+was it possible for her to know, as Alice could know, the happiness
+of love?
+
+An eyeless fish in the river of Mammoth Cave might as well try to
+understand what light meant.
+
+He would make Alice happy, of course he would; he would make her happy
+by devotion, which he was eager to give her with an unstinted hand.
+Alice needed it, she herself needed it. It was common sense to accept
+it,--business sense. It was opportunity--fate. It was the reward of a
+life--the triumph of it--to have her old rival--enemy--bound and
+presented to her.
+
+And nothing stood between her and the accomplishment of it all but the
+foolish romance of her daughter's youth.
+
+And so she sat building her castles and thinking:
+
+"With The Gaffs, with Richard Travis and his money would come all I
+wish, both for her and for me. Once more I would hold the social
+position I once held: once more I would be something in the world.
+And Alice, of course, she would be happy; for her's is one of those
+trusting natures which finds first where her duty points and then
+makes her heart follow."
+
+But Mrs. Westmore wisely kept silent. She did not think aloud. She
+knew too well that Alice's sympathetic, unselfish, obedient spirit
+was thinking it over.
+
+She sat down by her mother and took up a pet kitten which had come
+purring in, begging for sympathy. She stroked it thoughtfully.
+
+Mrs. Westmore read her daughter's thoughts:
+
+"So many people," the mother said after a while, "have false ideas of
+love and marriage. Like ignorant people when they get religion, they
+think a great and sudden change must come over them--changing their
+very lives."
+
+She laughed her ringing little laugh: "I told you of your father's
+and my love affair. Why, I was engaged to three other men at the same
+time--positively I was. And I would have been just as happy with any
+of them."
+
+"Why did you marry father, then?"
+
+Her mother laughed and tapped the toe of her shoe playfully against
+the fender: "It was a silly reason; he swam the Tennessee River on
+his horse to see me one day, when the ferry-boat was a wreck. I
+married him."
+
+"Would not the others have done as well?"
+
+"Yes, but I knew your father was brave. You cannot love a coward--no
+woman can. But let a man be brave--no matter what his faults are--the
+rest is all a question of time. You would soon learn to love him as I
+did your father."
+
+Mrs. Westmore was wise. She changed the subject.
+
+"Have you noticed Uncle Bisco lately, mother?" asked Alice after a
+while.
+
+"Why, yes; I intended to ask you about him."
+
+"He says there are threats against his life--his and Aunt Charity's.
+He had a terrible dream last night, and he would have me to interpret
+it."
+
+"Quite Biblical," laughed her mother. "What was it?"
+
+"They have been very unhappy all day--you know the negroes have been
+surly and revengeful since the election of Governor Houston--they
+believe they will be put back into slavery and they know that Uncle
+Bisco voted with his white friends. It is folly, of course--but they
+beat Captain Roland's old body servant nearly to death because he
+voted with his old master. And Uncle Bisco has heard threats that he
+and Aunt Charity will be visited in a like manner. I think it will
+soon blow over, though at times I confess I am often worried about
+them, living alone so far off from us, in the cabin in the wood."
+
+"What was Uncle Bisco's dream?" asked Mrs. Westmore.
+
+"Why, he said an angel had brought him water to drink from a
+Castellonian Spring. Now, I don't know what a Castellonian Spring is,
+but that was the word he used, and that he was turned into a live-oak
+tree, old and moss-grown. Then he stood in the forest surrounded by
+scrub-oaks and towering over them and other mean trees when suddenly
+they all fell upon him and cut him down. Now, he says, these
+scrub-oaks are the radical negroes who wish to kill him for voting
+with the whites. You will laugh at my interpretation," she went on.
+"I told him that the small black oaks were years that still stood
+around him, but that finally they would overpower him and he would
+sink to sleep beneath them, as we must all eventually do. I think it
+reassured him--but, mamma, I am uneasy about the two old people."
+
+"If the Bishop were here--"
+
+"He would sleep in the house with a shotgun, I fear," laughed Alice.
+
+They were silent at last: "When did you say Richard was coming again,
+Alice?"
+
+"To-morrow night--and--and--I hear Clay in his laboratory. I will go
+and talk to him before bed time."
+
+She stooped and kissed her mother. To her surprise, she found her
+mother's arms around her neck and heard her whisper brokenly:
+
+"Alice--Alice--you could solve it all if you would.
+Think--think--what it would mean to me--to all of us--oh, I can stand
+this poverty no longer--this fight against that which we cannot
+overcome."
+
+She burst into a flood of tears. Never before had Alice seen her show
+her emotions over their condition, and it hurt her, stabbed her to
+the vital spot of all obedience and love.
+
+With moistened eyes she went into her brother's room.
+
+And Mrs. Westmore wrote a note to Richard Travis. It did not say so
+in words but it meant: "_Come and be bold--you have won._"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A QUESTION BROUGHT HOME
+
+
+"I shall go to Boston next week to meet the directors of the mill and
+give in my annual report."
+
+The three had been sitting in Westmoreland library this Sunday
+night--for Richard Travis came regularly every Sunday night, and he
+had been talking about the progress of the mill and the great work it
+was doing for the poor whites of the valley. "I imagine," he added,
+"that they will be pleased with the report this year."
+
+"But are you altogether pleased with it in all its features?" asked
+Alice thoughtfully.
+
+"Why, what do you mean, Alice?" asked her mother, surprised.
+
+"Just this, mother, and I have been thinking of talking to Richard
+about it for some time."
+
+Travis took his cigar out of his mouth and looked at her quizzically.
+
+She flushed under his gaze and added: "If I wasn't saying what I am
+for humanity's sake I would be willing to admit that it was
+impertinent on my part. But are you satisfied with the way you work
+little children in that mill, Richard, and are you willing to let it
+go on without a protest before your directors? You have such a fine
+opportunity for good there," she added in all her old beautiful
+earnestness.
+
+"Oh, Alice, my dear, that is none of our affair. Now I should not
+answer her, Richard," and Mrs. Westmore tapped him playfully on the
+arm.
+
+"Frankly, I am not," he said to Alice. "I think it is a horrible
+thing. But how are we to remedy it? There is no law on the subject at
+all in Alabama--"
+
+"Except the broader, unwritten law," she added.
+
+Travis laughed: "You will find that it cuts a small figure with
+directors when it comes in conflict with the dividends of a
+corporation."
+
+"But how is it there?" she asked,--"in New England?"
+
+"They have seen the evils of it and they have a law against child
+labor. The age is restricted to twelve years, and every other year
+they must go to a public school before they may be taken back into
+the mill. But even with all that, the law is openly violated, as it
+is in England, where they have been making efforts to throttle the
+child-labor problem for nearly a century, and after whose law the New
+England law was patterned."
+
+"Why, by the parents of the children falsely swearing to their age."
+
+Alice looked at him in astonishment.
+
+"Do you really mean it?" she asked.
+
+"Why, certainly--and it would be the same here. If we had a law the
+lazy parents of many of them would swear falsely to their children's
+ages."
+
+"There could be some way found to stop that," she said.
+
+"It has not been found yet," he added. "What is to prevent two
+designing parents swearing that an eight year old child is
+twelve--and these little poor whites," he added with a laugh, "all
+look alike from eight to sixteen--scrawny--hard and half-starved. In
+many cases no living man could swear whether they are six or twelve."
+
+"If you really should make it a rule to refuse all children under
+twelve," she added, "tell me how many would go out of your mill."
+
+"In other words, how many under twelve do we work there?" he asked.
+
+She nodded.
+
+He thought a while and then said: "About one hundred and
+twenty-five."
+
+She started: "That is terrible--terrible! Couldn't you--couldn't you
+bring the subject up before the directors for--for--"
+
+"Your sake--yes"--he said, admiringly.
+
+"Humanity's--God's--Right's--helpless, ignorant, dying children!"
+
+"Do you know," he added quickly, "how many idle parents these hundred
+and twenty-five children support--actually support? Why, about fifty.
+Now do you see? The whole influence of these fifty people will be to
+violate the law--to swear the children are twelve or over. Yes, I am
+opposed to it--so is Kingsley--but we are powerless."
+
+"My enthusiasm has been aroused, of late, on the subject," Alice
+went on, "by the talks and preaching of my old friend, Mr. Watts."
+
+Travis frowned: "The old Bishop of Cottontown," he added
+ironically--"and he had better stop it--he will get into trouble
+yet."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he is doing the mill harm."
+
+"And I don't suppose one should do a corporation harm," she said
+quickly,--"even to do humanity good?"
+
+"Oh, Alice, let us drop so disagreeable a subject," said her mother.
+"Come, Richard and I want some music."
+
+"Any way," said Alice, rising, "I do very much hope you will bring
+the subject up in your visit to the directors. It has grown on me
+under the talks of the old Bishop and what I have seen myself--it has
+become a nightmare to me."
+
+"I don't think it is any of our business at all," spoke up Mrs.
+Westmore quickly.
+
+Alice turned her big, earnest eyes and beautiful face on her mother.
+
+"Do you remember when I was six years old?" she asked.
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"Suppose--suppose--that our poverty had come to us then, and you and
+papa had died and left brother and me alone and friendless. Then
+suppose we had been put into that mill to work fourteen hours a
+day--we--your own little ones--brother and I"--
+
+Mrs. Westmore sprang up with a little shriek and put her hands over
+her daughter's mouth.
+
+Richard Travis shrugged his shoulders: "I had not thought of it that
+way myself," he said. "That goes home to one."
+
+Richard Travis was always uplifted in the presence of Alice. It was
+wonderful to him what a difference in his feelings, his behavior, his
+ideas, her simple presence exerted. As he looked at her he thought of
+last night's debauch--the bar-room--the baseness and vileness of it
+all. He thought of his many amours. He saw the purity and grandeur of
+her in this contrast--all her queenliness and beauty and simplicity.
+He even thought of Maggie and said to himself: "Suppose Alice should
+know all this.... My God! I would have no more chance of winning her
+than of plucking a star from the sky!"
+
+He thought of Helen and it made him serious. Helen's was a different
+problem from Maggie's. Maggie was a mill girl--poor, with a
+bed-ridden father. She was nameless. But Helen--she was of the same
+blood and caste of this beautiful woman before him, whom he fully
+expected to make his wife. There was danger in Helen--he must act
+boldly, but decisively--he must take her away with him--out of the
+State, the South even. Distance would be his protection, and her
+pride and shame would prevent her ever letting her whereabouts or her
+fate be known.
+
+Cold-bloodedly, boldly, and with clear-cut reasoning, all this ran
+through his mind as he stood looking at Alice Westmore.
+
+We are strangely made--the best of us. Men have looked on the Madonna
+and wondered why the artist had not put more humanity there--had not
+given her a sensual lip, perhaps. And on the Cross, the Christ was
+thinking of a thief.
+
+Two hours later he was bidding her good-bye.
+
+"Next Sunday, do you remember--Alice--next Sunday night you are to
+tell me--to fix the day, Sweet?"
+
+"Did mother tell you that?" she asked. "She should let me speak for
+myself."
+
+But somehow he felt that she would. Indeed he knew it as he kissed
+her hand and bade her good-night.
+
+Richard Travis had ridden over to Westmoreland that Sunday night, and
+as he rode back, some two miles away, and within the shadows of a
+dense clump of oaks which bordered the road, he was stopped by two
+dusky figures. They stood just on the edge of the forest and came out
+so suddenly that the spirited saddle mare stopped and attempted to
+wheel and bolt. But Travis, controlling her with one hand and,
+suspecting robbers, had drawn his revolver with the other, when one
+of them said:
+
+"Friends, don't shoot."
+
+"Give the countersign," said Travis with ill-concealed irritation.
+
+"Union League, sir. I am Silos, sir."
+
+Travis put his revolver back into his overcoat pocket and quieted his
+mare.
+
+The two men, one a negro and the other a mulatto, came up to his
+saddle-skirt and stood waiting respectfully.
+
+"You should have awaited me at The Gaffs, Silos."
+
+"We did, sir," said the mulatto, "but the boys are all out here in
+the woods, and we wanted to hold them together. We didn't know when
+you would come home."
+
+"Oh, it's all right," said Travis pettishly--"only you came near
+catching one of my bullets by mistake. I thought you were Jack
+Bracken and his gang."
+
+The mulatto smiled and apologized. He was a bright fellow and the
+barber of the town.
+
+"We wanted to know, sir, if you were willing for us to do the work
+to-night, sir?"
+
+"Why bother me about it--no need for me to know, Silos, but one thing
+I must insist upon. You may whip them--frighten them, but nothing
+else, mind you, nothing else."
+
+"But you are the commander of the League--we wanted your consent."
+
+Travis bent low over the saddle and talked earnestly to the man a
+while. It was evidently satisfactory to the other, for he soon
+beckoned his companion and started off into the woods.
+
+"Have you representatives from each camp present, Silos?"
+
+The mulatto turned and came back.
+
+"Yes--but the toughest we could get. I'll not stay myself to see it.
+I don't like such work, sir--only some one has to do it for the
+cause--the cause of freedom, sir."
+
+"Of course--why of course," said Travis. "Old Bisco and his kind are
+liable to get all you negroes put back into slavery--if the Democrats
+succeed again as they have just done. Give them a good scare."
+
+"We'll fix him to-night, boss," said the black one, grinning good
+naturedly. Then he added to himself: "Yes, I'll whip 'em--to death."
+
+"I heard a good deal of talk among the boys, to-night, sir," said the
+mulatto. "They all want you for Congress next time."
+
+"Well, we'll talk about that, Silos, later. I must hurry on."
+
+He started, then wheeled suddenly:
+
+"Oh, say, Silos--"
+
+The latter came back.
+
+"Do your work quietly to-night--Just a good scare--If you
+disturb"--he pointed to the roof of Westmoreland in the distance
+showing above the beech tops. "You know how foolish they are about
+old Bisco and his wife--"
+
+"They'll never hear anything." He walked off, saying to himself: "A
+nigger who is a traitor to his race ought to be shot, but for fear of
+a noise and disturbin' the ladies--I'll hang 'em both,--never fear."
+
+Travis touched his mare with the spur and galloped off.
+
+Uncle Bisco and his wife were rudely awakened. It was nearly midnight
+when the door of their old cabin was broken open by a dozen black,
+ignorant negroes, who seized and bound the old couple before they
+could cry out. Bisco was taken out into the yard under a tree, while
+his wife, pleading and begging for her husband's life, was tied to
+another tree.
+
+"Bisco," said the leader, "we cum heah to pay you back fur de blood
+you drawed frum our backs whilst you hilt de whip ob slabery an'
+oberseed fur white fo'ks. An' fur ebry lick you giv' us, we gwi' giv'
+you er dozen on your naked back, an' es fur dis ole witch," said the
+brute, pointing to old Aunt Charity, "we got de plain docyments on
+her fur witchin' Br'er Moses' little gal--de same dat she mek hab
+fits, an' we gwi' hang her to a lim'."
+
+The old man drew himself up. In every respect--intelligence, physical
+and moral bravery--he was superior to the crowd around him. Raised
+with the best class of whites, he had absorbed many of their virtues,
+while in those around him were many who were but a few generations
+removed from the cowardice of darkest Africa.
+
+"I nurver hit you a lick you didn't deserve, suh, I nurver had you
+whipped but once an' dat wus for stealin' a horg which you sed
+yo'se'f you stole. You ken do wid me es you please," he went on, "you
+am menny an' kin do it, an' I am ole an' weak. But ef you hes got
+enny soul, spare de po' ole 'oman who ain't nurver dun nothin' but
+kindness all her life. De berry chile you say she witched hes hed
+'leptis fits all its life an' Cheerity ain't dun nuffin' but take it
+medicine to kwore it. Don't hurt de po' ole 'oman," he exclaimed.
+
+"Let 'em do whut dey please wid me, Bisco," she said: "Dey can't do
+nuffin' to dis po' ole body but sen' de tired soul on dat journey
+wher de buterful room is already fix fur it, es you read dis berry
+night. But spare de ole man, spare 'im fur de secun' blessin' which
+Gord dun promised us, an' which boun' ter cum bekase Gord can't lie.
+O Lord," she said suddenly, "remember thy po' ole servants dis
+night."
+
+But her appeals were fruitless. Already the "witch council" of the
+blacks was being formed to decide their fate. And it was an uncanny
+scene that the moon looked down on that night, under the big trees on
+the banks of the Tennessee. They formed in a circle around the "Witch
+Finder," an old negro whose head was as white as snow, and who was so
+ignorant he could scarcely speak even negro dialect.
+
+Both his father and mother were imported from Africa, and the former
+was "Witch Finder" for his tribe there. The negroes said the African
+Witch Finder had imparted his secret only to his son, and that it had
+thus been handed down in one family for many generations.
+
+The old negro now sat upon the ground in the center of the circle. He
+was a small, bent up, wiry-looking black, with a physiognomy closely
+resembling a dog's, which he took pains to cultivate by drawing the
+plaits of his hair down like the ears of a hound, while he shaped his
+few straggling strands of beard into the under jaw of the same
+animal. Three big negroes had led him, blind-folded, into the circle,
+chanting a peculiar song, the music of which was weird and uncanny.
+And now as he sat on the ground the others regarded him with the
+greatest reverence and awe. It was in one of the most dismal portions
+of the swamp, a hundred yards or two from the road that led to the
+ferry at the river. Here the old people had been brought from their
+homes and tied to this spot where the witch council was to be held.
+Before seating himself the Witch Finder had drawn three rings within
+a circle on the ground with the thigh bone of a dog. Then,
+unbuttoning his red flannel shirt, he took from his bosom, suspended
+around his neck, a kind of purse, made from the raw-hide of a calf,
+with white hair on one side and red on the other, and from this bag
+he proceeded to take out things which would have given Shakespeare
+ideas for his witch scene in Macbeth. A little black ring, made of
+the legs of the black spider and bound together with black horse
+hair; a black thimble-like cup, not much longer than the cup of an
+acorn, made of the black switch of a mule containing the liver of a
+scorpion. The horny head and neck of the huge black beetle, commonly
+known to negroes as the black Betsy Bug; the rattle and button of a
+rattlesnake; the fang-tooth of a cotton-mouth moccasin, the left hind
+foot of a frog, seeds of the stinging nettle, and pods of peculiar
+plants, all incased in a little sack made of a mole's hide. These
+were all given sufficient charm by a small round cotton yarn, in the
+center of which was a drop of human blood. They were placed on the
+ground around him, but he held the ball of cotton yarn in his hand,
+and ordered that the child be brought into the ring. The poor thing
+was frightened nearly to death at sight of the Witch Finder, and when
+he began slowly to unwind his ball of cotton thread and chant his
+monotonous funeral song, she screamed in terror. At a signal from the
+"Witch Finder," Aunt Charity was dragged into the ring, her hands
+tied behind her. The sight of such brutality was too much for the
+child, and she promptly had another fit. No other evidence was
+needed, and the Witch Finder declared that Aunt Charity was Queen of
+Witches. The council retired, and in a few minutes their decision was
+made: Uncle Bisco was to be beaten to death with hickory flails and
+his old wife hung to the nearest tree. Their verdict being made, two
+stout negroes came forward to bind the old man to a tree with his
+arms around it. At sight of these ruffians the old woman broke out
+into triumphant song:
+
+    "O we mos' to de home whar we all gwi' res',
+         Cum, dear Lord, cum soon!
+     An' take de ole weary ones unto yo' bres',
+         Cum, dear Lord, cum soon!
+     Fur we ole an' we tired an' we hungry fur yo' sight,
+     An' our lim's dey am weary, fur we fou't er good fight,
+     An' we longin' fur de lan' ob lub an' light--
+         Cum, dear Lord, cum soon."
+
+And it was well that she sang that song, for it stopped three
+horsemen just as they forded the creek and turned their horses' heads
+into the lane that led to the cabin. One who was tall and with square
+shoulders sat his horse as if born in the saddle. Above, his dark
+hair was streaked with white, but the face was calm and sad, though
+lit up now with two keen and kindly eyes which glowed with suppressed
+excitement. It was the face of splendid resolve and noble purpose,
+and the horse he rode was John Paul Jones. The other was the village
+blacksmith. A negro followed them, mounted on a raw-bone pony, and
+carrying his master's Enfield rifle.
+
+The first horseman was just saying: "Things look mighty natural at
+the old place, Eph; I wonder if the old folks will know us? It seems
+to me--"
+
+He pulled up his horse with a jerk. He heard singing just over to his
+left in the wood. Both horsemen sat listening:
+
+    O we mos' to de do' ob our Father's home--
+        Lead, dear Lord, lead on!
+    An' we'll nurver mo' sorrer an' nurver mo' roam--
+        Lead, dear Lord, lead on!
+    An' we'll meet wid de lam's dat's gohn on befo'
+    An' we lie in de shade ob de good shepherd's do',
+    An' he'll wipe away all ob our tears as dey flow--
+        Lead, dear Lord, lead on!
+
+"Do you know that voice, Eph?" cried the man in front to his body
+servant. "We must hurry"; and he touched the splendid horse with the
+heel of his riding boot.
+
+But the young negro had already plunged two spurs into his pony's
+flanks and was galloping toward the cabin.
+
+It was all over when the white rider came up. Two brutes had been
+knocked over with the short heavy barrel of an Enfield rifle. There
+was wild scattering of others through the wood. An old man was
+clinging in silent prayer to his son's knees and an old woman was
+clinging around his neck, and saying:
+
+"Praise God--who nurver lies--it's little Ephrum--come home ag'in."
+
+Then they looked up and the old man raised his hands in a pitiful
+tumult of joy and fear and reverence as he said:
+
+"An' Marse Tom, so help me God--a-ridin' John Paul Jones!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE PEDIGREE OF ACHIEVEMENT
+
+
+Man may breed up all animals but himself. Strive as he may, the laws
+of heredity are hidden. "Like produces like or the likeness of an
+ancestor" is the unalterable law of the lower animal. Not so with
+man--he is a strange anomaly. Breed him up--up--and then from his
+high breeding will come reversion. From pedigrees and plumed hats and
+ruffled shirts come not men, but pygmies--things which in the real
+fight of life are but mice to the eagles which have come up from the
+soil with the grit of it in their craws and the strength of it in
+their talons.
+
+We stop in wonder--balked. Then we see that we cannot breed men--they
+are born; not in castles, but in cabins.
+
+And why in cabins? For therein must be the solution. And the solution
+is plain: It is work--work that does it.
+
+We cannot breed men unless work--achievement--goes with it.
+
+From the loins of great horses come greater horses; for the pedigree
+of work--achievement--is there. Unlike man, the race-horse is kept
+from degeneracy by work. Each colt that comes must add achievement
+to pedigree when he faces the starter, or he goes to the shambles or
+the surgeon.
+
+Why may not man learn this simple lesson--the lesson of work--of
+pedigree, but the pedigree of achievement?
+
+The son who would surpass his father must do more than his father
+did. Two generations of idleness will beget nonentities, and three,
+degenerates.
+
+The preacher, the philosopher, the poet, the ruler--it matters not
+what his name--he who first solves the problem of how to keep mankind
+achieving will solve the problem of humanity.
+
+And now to Helen Conway for the first time in her life this simple
+thing was happening--she was working--she was earning--she was
+supporting herself and Lily and her father. Not only that, but
+gradually she was learning to know what the love of one like Clay
+meant--unselfish, devoted, true.
+
+If to every tempted woman in the world could be given work, and to
+work achievement, and to achievement independence, there would be few
+fallen ones.
+
+All the next week Helen went to the mill early--she wanted to go. She
+wanted to earn more money and keep Lily out of the mill. And she went
+with a light heart, because for the first time in her life since she
+could remember, her father was sober. Helen's earnings changed even
+him. There was something so noble in her efforts that it uplifted
+even the drunkard. In mingled shame and pride he thought it out:
+Supported by his daughter--in a mill and such a daughter! He arose
+from it all white-lipped with resolve: "_I will be a Conway again!_"
+He said it over and over. He swore it.
+
+It is true he was not entirely free from that sickening, sour,
+accursed smell with which she had associated him all her life. But
+that he was himself, that he was making an earnest effort, she knew
+by his neatly brushed clothes, his clean linen, his freshly shaved
+face, his whole attire which betokened the former gentleman.
+
+"How handsome he must have been when he was once a Conway!" thought
+Helen.
+
+He kissed his daughters at the breakfast table. He chatted with them,
+and though he said nothing about it, even Lily knew that he had
+resolved to reform.
+
+After breakfast Helen left him, with Lily sitting on her father's
+lap, her face bright with the sunshine of it:
+
+"If papa would always be like this"--and she patted his cheek.
+
+Conway started. The very intonation of her voice, her gesture, was of
+the long dead mother.
+
+Tears came to his eyes. He kissed her: "Never again, little daughter,
+will I take another drop."
+
+She looked at him seriously: "Say with God's help--" she said simply.
+"Mammy Maria said it won't count unless you say that."
+
+Conway smiled. "I will do it my own self."
+
+But Lily only shook her head in a motherly, scolding way.
+
+"With God's help, then," he said.
+
+Never was an Autumn morning more beautiful to Helen as she walked
+across the fields to the mill. She had learned a nearer way, one
+which lay across hill and field. The path ran through farms, chiefly
+The Gaffs, and cut across the hills and meadow land. Through little
+dells, amid fragrant groves of sweet gum and maples, their beautiful
+many-colored leaves now scattered in rich profusion around. Then down
+little hollows where the brooks sputtered and frothed and foamed
+along, the sun all the time darting in and out, as the waters ran
+first in sunshine and then in shadow. And above, the winds were so
+still, that the jumping of the squirrel in the hickories made the
+only noise among the leaves which still clung to the boughs.
+
+All so beautiful, and never had Helen been so happy.
+
+She was earning a living--she was saving Lily from the mill and her
+father from temptation.
+
+Her path wound along an old field and plunged into scrub cedar and
+glady rocks. A covey of quail sprang up before her and she screamed,
+frightened at the sudden thunder of their wings.
+
+Then the path ran through a sedge field, white with the tall silvered
+panicled-leaves of the life-everlasting.
+
+Beyond her she saw the smoke-stack of the mill, and a short cut
+through a meadow of The Gaffs would soon take her there.
+
+She failed to see a warning on the fence which said: _Keep
+out--Danger._
+
+Through the bars she went, intent only on soon reaching the mill
+beyond and glorying in the strong rich smell of autumn in leaf and
+grass and air.
+
+"What a beautiful horse that is in the pasture," she thought, and
+then her attention went to a meadow lark flushed and exultant. She
+heard shouts, and now--why was Jim, the stable boy, running toward
+her so fast, carrying a pitchfork in his hands and shouting:
+"Whoa--there, Antar--Antar,--you, sir!"
+
+And the horse! One look was enough. With ears laid back, and mouth
+wide open, with eyes blazing with the fire of fury he was plunging
+straight at her.
+
+Helpless, she turned in sickening doubt, to feel that her limbs were
+limp in the agony of fear. She heard the thunder of the man-eating
+stallion's hoofs just behind her and she butted blindly, as she sank
+down, into some one who held bravely her hand as she fell, and the
+next instant she heard a thundering report and smelt a foul blast of
+gunpowder. She looked up in time to see the great horse pitch back on
+his haunches, rear, quiver a moment and strike desperately at the air
+with his front feet and fall almost upon her.
+
+When she revived, the stable boy stood near by the dead stallion,
+pale with fright and wonder. A half-grown boy stood by her, holding
+her hand.
+
+"You are all right now," he said quietly as he helped her to arise.
+In his right hand he held a pistol and the foul smoke still oozed up
+from the nipple where the exploded cap lay shattered, under the
+hammer.
+
+He was perfectly cool--even haughtily so. He scarcely looked at Helen
+nor at Jim, who kept saying nervously:
+
+"You've killed him--you've killed him--what will Mr. Travis say?"
+
+The boy laughed an ironical laugh. Then he walked up and examined the
+shot he had made. Squarely between the great eyes the ball had gone,
+and scarcely had the glaring, frenzied eye-balls of the man-eater
+been fixed in the rigid stare of death. He put his fingers on it, and
+turning, said:
+
+"A good shot, running--and at twenty paces!"
+
+Then he stood up proudly, and his blue eyes flashed defiance as he
+said:
+
+"And what will Mr. Travis say? Well, tell him first of all that this
+man-eating stallion of his caught the bullet I had intended for his
+woman-eating master--this being my birth-day. And tell him, if he
+asks you who I am, that last week I was James Adams, but now I am
+James Travis. He will understand."
+
+He came over to Helen gallantly--his blue eyes shining through a
+smile which now lurked in them:
+
+"This is Miss Conway, isn't it? I will see you out of this."
+
+Then, taking her hand as if she had been his big sister, he led her
+along the path to the road and to safety.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MARRIED IN GOD'S SIGHT
+
+
+Night--for night and death, are they not one? A farm cabin in a
+little valley beyond the mountain. An Indian Summer night in
+November, but a little fire is pleasant, throwing its cheerful light
+on a room rough from puncheon floor to axe-hewn rafters, but
+cleanly-tidy in its very roughness. It looked sinewy, strong, honest,
+good-natured. There was roughness, but it was the roughness of
+strength. Knots of character told of the suffering, struggles and
+privations of the sturdy trees in the forest, of seams twisted by the
+tempests; rifts from the mountain rocks; fibre, steel-chilled by the
+terrible, silent cold of winter stars.
+
+And now plank and beam and rafter and roof made into a home, humble
+and honest, and giving it all back again under the warm light of the
+hearth-stone.
+
+On a bed, white and beautifully clean, lay a fragile creature,
+terribly white herself, save where red live coals gleamed in her
+cheeks beneath the bright, blazing, fever-fire burning in her eyes
+above.
+
+She coughed and smiled and lay still, smiling.
+
+She smiled because a little one--a tiny, sickly little girl--had come
+up to the bed and patted her cheek and said: "Little mother--little
+mother!"
+
+There were four other children in the room, and they sat around in
+all the solemn, awe-stricken sorrow of death, seen for the first
+time.
+
+Then a man in an invalid chair, helpless and with a broken spine,
+spoke, as if thinking aloud:
+
+"She's all the mother the little 'uns ever had, Bishop--'pears like
+it's cruel for God to take her from them."
+
+"God's cruelty is our crown," said the old man--"we'll understand it
+by and by."
+
+Then the beautiful woman who had come over the mountain arose from
+the seat by the fireside, and came to the bed. She took the little
+one in her arms and petted and soothed her.
+
+The child looked at her timidly in childish astonishment. She was not
+used to such a beautiful woman holding her--so proud and fine--from a
+world that she knew was not her world.
+
+"May I give you some nourishment now, Maggie?"
+
+The girl shook her head.
+
+"No--no--Miss Alice," and then she smiled so brightly and cheerfully
+that the little one in Alice Westmore's arms clapped her hands and
+laughed: "Little mother--be up, well, to-morrow."
+
+Little Mother turned her eyes on the child quickly, smiled and nodded
+approval. But there were tears--tears which the little one did not
+understand.
+
+An hour went by--the wind had ceased, and with it the rain. The
+children were asleep in bed; the father in his chair.
+
+A cold sweat had broken out on the dying girl's forehead and she
+breathed with a terrible effort. And in it all the two watchers
+beside the bed saw that there was an agony there but not the fear of
+death. She kept trying to bite her nails nervously and saying:
+
+"There is only-- ... one thing-- ... one ... thing...."
+
+"Tell me, Maggie," said the old man, bending low and soothing her
+forehead with his hands, "tell us what's pesterin' you--maybe it
+hadn't oughter be. You mustn't worry now--God'll make everything
+right--to them that loves him even to the happy death. You'll die
+happy an' be happy with him forever. The little 'uns an' the father,
+you know they're fixed here--in this nice home an' the farm--so don't
+worry."
+
+"That's it!.... Oh, that's it!.... I got it that way-- ... all for
+them ... but it's that that hurts now...."
+
+He bent down over her: "Tell us, child--me an' Miss Alice--tell us
+what's pesterin' you. You mustn't die this way--you who've got such a
+right to be happy."
+
+The hectic spark burned to white heat in her cheek. She bit her nails,
+she picked at the cover, she looked toward the bed and asked feebly:
+"Are they asleep? Can I talk to you two?"
+
+The old man nodded. Alice soothed her brow.
+
+Then she beckoned to the old preacher, who knelt by her side, and he
+put his arms around her neck and raised her on the pillow. And his
+ear was close to her lips, for she could scarcely talk, and Alice
+Westmore knelt and listened, too. She listened, but with a griping,
+strained heartache,--listened to a dying confession from the pale
+lips, and the truth for the first time came to Alice Westmore, and
+kneeling, she could not rise, but bent again her head and heard the
+pitiful, dying confession. As she listened to the broken, gasping
+words, heard the heart-breaking secret come out of the ruins of its
+wrecked home, her love, her temptation, her ignorance in wondering if
+she were really married by the laws of love, and then the great
+martyrdom of it all--giving her life, her all, that the others might
+live--a terrible tightening gathered around Alice Westmore's heart,
+her head fell with the flooding tears and she knelt sobbing, her
+bloodless fingers clutching the bed of the dying girl.
+
+"Don't cry," said Maggie. "I should be the one to weep, ... only I am so
+happy ... to think ... I am loved by the noblest, best, of men, ... an'
+I love him so, ... only he ain't here; ... but I wouldn't have him see
+me die. Now--now ... what I want to know, Bishop, ..." she tried to
+rise. She seemed to be passing away. The old man caught her and held her
+in his arms.
+
+Her eyes opened: "I--is--" she went on, in the agony of it all with the
+same breath, "am ... am I married ... in God's sight ... as well as
+his--"
+
+The old man held her tenderly as if she were a child. He smiled calmly,
+sweetly, into her eyes as he said:
+
+"You believed it an' you loved only him, Maggie--poor chile!"
+
+"Oh, yes--yes--" she smiled, "an' now--even now I love him up--right
+up--as you see ... to the door, ... to the shadow, ... to the valley
+of the shadow...."
+
+"And it went for these, for these"--he said looking around at the
+room.
+
+"For them--my little ones--they had no mother, you kno'--an' Daddy's
+back. Oh, I didn't mind the work, ... the mill that has killed ...
+killed me, ... but, ... but was I"--her voice rose to a shrill cry of
+agony--"am I married in God's sight?"
+
+Alice quivered in the beauty of the answer which came back from the old
+man's lips:
+
+"As sure as God lives, you were--there now--sleep and rest; it is all
+right, child."
+
+Then a sweet calmness settled over her face, and with it a smile of
+exquisite happiness.
+
+She fell back on her pillow: "In God's sight ... married ... married ...
+my--Oh, I have never said it before ... but now, ... can't I?"
+
+The Bishop nodded, smiling.
+
+"My husband, ... my husband, ... dear heart, ... Good-bye...."
+
+She tried to reach under her pillow to draw out something, and then
+she smiled and died.
+
+When Alice Westmore dressed her for burial an hour afterwards, her
+heart was shaken with a bitterness it had never known before--a
+bitterness which in a man would have been a vengeance. For there was
+the smile still on the dead face, carried into the presence of God.
+
+Under the dead girl's pillow lay the picture of Richard Travis.
+
+The next day Alice sent the picture to Richard Travis, and with it a
+note.
+
+"_It is your's_," she wrote calmly, terribly calm--"_from the girl
+who died believing she was your wife. I am helping bury her to-day.
+And you need not come to Westmoreland to-morrow night, nor next week,
+nor ever again._"
+
+And Richard Travis, when he read it, turned white to his hard,
+bitter, cruel lips, the first time in all his life.
+
+For he knew that now he had no more chance to recall the living than
+he had to recall the dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE QUEEN IS DEAD--LONG LIVE THE QUEEN
+
+
+All that week at the mill, Richard Travis had been making
+preparations for his trip to Boston. Regularly twice, and often three
+times a year, he had made the same journey, where his report to the
+directors was received and discussed. After that, there were always
+two weeks of theatres, operas, wine-suppers and dissipations of other
+kinds--though never of the grossest sort--for even in sin there is
+refinement, and Richard Travis was by instinct and inheritance
+refined.
+
+He was not conscious--and who of his class ever are?--of the effects
+of the life he was leading--the tightening of this chain of immoral
+habits, the searing of what conscience he had, the freezing of all
+that was generous and good within him.
+
+Once his nature had been as a lake in midsummer, its surface
+shimmering in the sunlight, reflecting something of the beauty that
+came to it. Now, cold, sordid, callous, it lay incased in winter ice
+and neither could the sunlight go in nor its reflection go out. It
+slept on in coarse opaqueness, covered with an impenetrable crust
+which he himself did not understand.
+
+"But," said the old Bishop more than once, "God can touch him and he
+will thaw like a spring day. There is somethin' great in Richard
+Travis if he can only be touched."
+
+But vice cannot reason. Immorality cannot deduce. Only the moral
+ponders deeply and knows both the premises and the conclusions,
+because only the moral thinks.
+
+Vice, like the poisonous talons of a bird of prey, while it buries
+its nails in the flesh of its victim, carries also the narcotic which
+soothes as it kills.
+
+And Richard Travis had arrived at this stage. At first it had been
+with him any woman, so there was a romance--and hence Maggie. But he
+had tired of these, and now it was the woman beautiful as Helen, or
+the woman pure and lovely as Alice Westmore.
+
+What a tribute to purity, that impurity worships it the more as
+itself sinks lower in the slime of things. It is the poignancy of the
+meteorite, which, falling from a star, hisses out its life in the
+mud.
+
+The woman pure--Alice--the very thought of her sent him farther into
+the mud, knowing she could not be his. She alone whom he had wanted
+to wed all his life, the goal of his love's ambition, the one woman
+in the world he had never doubted would one day be his wife.
+
+Her note to him--"_Never ... never ... again_"--he kept reading it
+over, stunned, and pale, with the truth of it. In his blindness it
+had never occurred to him that Alice Westmore and Maggie would ever
+meet. In his blindness--for Wrong, daring as a snake, which, however
+alert and far-seeing it may be in the hey-day of its spring, sees
+less clearly as the Summer advances, until, in the August of its
+infamy, it ceases to see altogether and becomes an easy victim for
+all things with hoofs.
+
+Then, the poignant reawakening. Now he lay in the mud and above him
+still shone the star.
+
+The star--his star! And how it hurt him! It was the breaking of a
+link in the chain of his life.
+
+Twice had he written to her. But each time his notes came back
+unopened. Twice had he gone to Westmoreland to see her. Mrs. Westmore
+met him at the door, cordial, sympathetic, but with a nervous jerk in
+the little metallic laugh. His first glance at her told him she knew
+everything--and yet, knew nothing. Alice was locked in her room and
+would not see him.
+
+"But, oh, Richard," and again she laughed her little insincere,
+unstable, society laugh, beginning with brave frankness in one corner
+of her mouth and ending in a hypocritical wave of forgetfulness
+before it had time to finish the circle, but fluttering out into a
+cynical twitching of a thing which might have been a smile or a
+sneer--
+
+"True love--you know--dear Richard--you must remember the old
+saying."
+
+She pressed his hand sympathetically. The mouth said nothing, but the
+hand said plainly: "Do not despair--I am working for a home at The
+Gaffs."
+
+He pitied her, for there was misery in her eyes and in her laugh and
+in the very touch of her hand. Misery and insincerity, and that
+terrible mental state when weakness is roped up between the two and
+knows, for once in its life, that it has no strength at all.
+
+And she pitied him, for never before on any human face had she seen
+the terrible irony of agony. Agony she had often seen--but not this
+irony of it--this agony that saw all its life's happiness blasted and
+knew it deserved it.
+
+Richard Travis, when he left Westmoreland, knew that he left it
+forever.
+
+"The Queen is dead--long live the Queen," he said bitterly.
+
+And then there happened what always happens to the thing in the
+mud--he sank deeper--desperately deeper.
+
+Now--now he would have Helen Conway. He would have her and own her,
+body and soul. He would take her away--as he had planned, and keep
+her away. That was easy, too--too far away for the whisper of it ever
+to come back. If he failed in that he would marry her. She was
+beautiful--and with a little more age and education she would grace
+The Gaffs. So he might marry her and set her up, a queen over their
+heads.
+
+This was his determination when he went to the mill the first of the
+week. All the week he watched her, talked with her, was pleasant,
+gallant and agreeable. But he soon saw that Helen was not the same.
+There was not the dull wistful resignation in her look, and despair
+had given way to a cheerfulness he could not understand. There was a
+brightness in her eyes which made her more beautiful.
+
+The unconscious grip which the shamelessness of it all had over him
+was evidenced in what he did. He confided his plans to Jud Carpenter,
+and set him to work to discover the cause.
+
+"See what's wrong," he said significantly. "I am going to take that
+girl North with me, and away from here. After that it is no affair of
+yours."
+
+"Anything wrong?" He had reached the point of his moral degradation
+when right for Helen meant wrong for him.
+
+Jud, with a characteristic shrewdness, put his finger quickly on the
+spot.
+
+Edward Conway was sober. Clay saw her daily.
+
+"But jes' wait till I see him ag'in--down there. I'll make him drunk
+enough. Then you'll see a change in the Queen--hey?"
+
+And he laughed knowingly. With a little more bitterness she would go
+to the end of the world with him.
+
+It was that day he held her hands in the old familiar way, but when
+he would kiss her at the gate she still fled, crimson, away.
+
+The next morning Clay Westmore walked with her to the mill, and
+Travis lilted his eyebrows haughtily:
+
+"If anything of that kind happens," he said to himself, "nothing can
+save me."
+
+He watched her closely--how beautiful she looked that day--how
+regally beautiful! She had come wearing the blue silk gown, with the
+lace and beads which had been her mother's. In sheer delight Travis
+kept slipping to the drawing-in room door to watch her work. Her
+posture, beautifully Greek, before the machine, so natural that it
+looked not unlike a harp in her hand; her half-bent head and graceful
+neck, the flushed face and eyes, the whole picture was like a Titian,
+rich in color and life.
+
+And she saw him and looked up smiling.
+
+It was not the smile of happiness. He did not know it because, being
+blind, he could not know. It was the happiness of work--achievement.
+
+He came in smiling. "Why are you so much happier than last week?"
+
+"Would you really like to know?" she said, looking him frankly in the
+eyes.
+
+He touched her hair playfully. She moved her head and shook it
+warningly.
+
+"It is because I am at work and father is trying so hard to reform."
+
+"I thought maybe it was because you had found out how much I love
+you."
+
+It was his old, stereotyped, brazen way, but she did not know it and
+blushed prettily.
+
+"You are kind, Mr. Travis, but--but that mustn't be thought of.
+Please, but I wish you wouldn't talk that way."
+
+"Why, it is true, my queen--of The Gaffs?" he said smiling.
+
+She began to work again.
+
+He came over to her and bent low:
+
+"You know I am to take you Monday night"--
+
+Her hands flew very rapidly--her cheeks mantled into a rich glow. One
+of the threads snapped. She stopped, confused.
+
+Travis glanced around. No one was near. He bent and kissed her hair:
+
+"My queen," he whispered, "my beautiful queen."
+
+Then he walked quickly out. He went to his office, but he still saw
+the beautiful picture. It thrilled him and then there swept up over
+him another picture, and he cried savagely to himself:
+
+"I'll make her sorry. She shall bow to that fine thing yet--my
+queen."
+
+Nor would it leave him that day, and into the night he dreamed of
+her, and it was the same Titian picture in a background of red
+sunset. And her machine was a harp she was playing. He wakened and
+smiled:
+
+"Am I falling in love with that girl? That will spoil it all."
+
+He watched her closely the next day, for it puzzled him to know why
+she had changed so rapidly in her manner toward him. He had ridden to
+Millwood to bring her to the mill, himself; and he had some exquisite
+roses for her--clipped in the hot-house by his own hands. It was with
+an unmistakable twitch of jealousy that he learned that Clay Westmore
+had already come by and gone with her.
+
+"I know what it is now," he said to Jud Carpenter at the mill that
+morning; "she is half in love with that slow, studious fellow."
+
+Jud laughed: "Say, excuse me, sah--but hanged if you ain't got all
+the symptoms, y'self, boss?"
+
+Travis flushed:
+
+"Oh, when I start out to do a thing I want to do it--and I'm going to
+take her with me, or die trying."
+
+Jud laughed again: "Leave it to me--I'll fix the goggle-eyed fellow."
+
+That night when the door bell rang at Westmoreland, Jud Carpenter was
+ushered into Clay's workshop. He sat down and looked through his
+shaggy eyebrows at the lint and dust and specimens of ore. Then he
+spat on the floor disgustedly.
+
+"Sorry to disturb you, but be you a surveyor also?"
+
+The big bowed glasses looked at him quietly and nodded affirmatively.
+
+"Wal, then," went on Jud, "I come to git you to do a job of surveying
+for the mill. It's a lot of timber land on the other side of the
+mountain--some twenty miles off. The Company's bought five thousand
+acres of wood and they want it surveyed. What'll you charge?"
+
+Clay thought a moment: "Going and coming, on horse-back--it will take
+me a week," said Clay thoughtfully. "I shall charge a hundred
+dollars."
+
+"An' will you go right away--to-morrow mornin'?"
+
+Clay nodded.
+
+"Here's fifty of it," said Jud--"the Company is in a hurry. We want
+the survey by this day week. Let me see, this is Sat'dy--I'll come
+next Sat'dy night."
+
+Clay's face flushed. Never before had he made a hundred dollars in a
+week.
+
+"I'll go at once."
+
+"To-morrow at daylight?" asked Jud, rising.
+
+Clay looked at him curiously. There was something in the tone of the
+man that struck him as peculiar, but Jud went on in an easy way.
+
+"You see we must have it quick. All our winter wood to run the mill
+is there an' we can't start into cordin' till it's surveyed an' the
+deed's passed. Sorry to hurry you"--
+
+Clay promised to start at daylight and Jud left.
+
+He looked at his watch. It was late. He would like to tell Helen
+about it--he said aloud: "Making a hundred dollars a week. If I could
+only keep up that--I'd--I'd--"
+
+He blushed. And then he turned quietly and went to bed. And that was
+why Helen wondered the next day and the next, and all the next week
+why she did not see Clay, why he did not come, nor write, nor send
+her a message. And wondering the pang of it went into her hardening
+heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+IN THYSELF THERE IS WEAKNESS
+
+
+It was the middle of Saturday afternoon, and all the week Edward
+Conway had fought against the terrible thirst which was in him. Not
+since Monday morning had he touched whiskey at all, and now he walked
+the streets of the little town saying over and over to himself: "I am
+a Conway again."
+
+He had come to town to see Jud Carpenter about the house which had
+been promised him--for he could not expect to hold Millwood much
+longer. With his soberness some of his old dignity and manhood
+returned, and when Carpenter saw him, the Whipper-in knew
+instinctively what had happened.
+
+He watched Edward Conway closely--the clear eye, the haughty turn of
+his head, the quiet, commanding way of the man sober; and the
+Whipper-in frowned as he said to himself:
+
+"If he keeps this up I'll have it to do all over."
+
+And yet, as he looked at him, Jud Carpenter took it all in--the
+weakness that was still there, the terrible, restless thirst which
+now made him nervous, irritable, and turned his soul into a very
+tumult of dissatisfaction.
+
+Carpenter, even as he talked to him, could see the fight which was
+going on; and now and then, in spite of it and his determination, he
+saw that the reformed drunkard was looking wistfully toward the
+bar-room of Billy Buch.
+
+And so, as Jud talked to Edward Conway about the house, he led him
+along toward the bar-room. All the time he was complimenting him on
+his improved health, and telling how, with help from the mill, he
+would soon be on his feet again.
+
+At the bar door he halted:
+
+"Let us set down here an' res', Majah, sah, it's a good place on this
+little porch. Have somethin'? Billy's got a mighty fine bran' of old
+Tennessee whiskey in there."
+
+Jud watched him as he spoke and saw the fire of expectancy burn in
+his despairing eyes.
+
+"No--no--Carpenter--no--I am obliged to you--but I have sworn never
+to touch another drop of it. I'll just rest here with you." He threw
+up his head and Jud Carpenter saw how eagerly he inhaled the odor
+which came out of the door. He saw the quivering lips, the tense
+straining of the throat, the wavering eyes which told how sorely he
+was tempted.
+
+It was cool, but the sweat stood in drops on Edward Conway's temple.
+He gulped, but swallowed only a dry lump, which immediately sprang
+back into his throat again and burned as a ball of fire.
+
+"No--no--Carpenter," he kept saying in a dazed, abstracted
+way--"no--no--not any more for me. I've promised--I've promised."
+
+And yet even while saying it his eyes were saying: "For God's
+sake--bring it to me--quick--quick."
+
+Jud arose and went into the bar and whispered to Billy Buch. Then he
+came back and sat down and talked of other things. But all the time
+he was watching Edward Conway--the yearning look--turned half
+pleadingly to the bar--the gulpings which swallowed nothing.
+
+Presently Jud looked up. He heard the tinkle of glasses, and Billy
+Buch stood before them with two long toddies on a silver waiter. The
+ice tinkled and glittered in the deep glasses--the cherries and
+pineapple gleamed amid it and the whiskey--the rich red whiskey!
+
+"My treat--an' no charges, gentlemen! Compliments of Billy Buch."
+
+Conway looked at the tempting glass for a moment in the terrible
+agony of indecision. Then remorse, fear, shame, frenzy, seized him:
+
+"No--no--I've sworn off, Billy--I'll swear I have. My God, but I'm a
+Conway again"--and before the words were fairly out of his mouth he
+had seized the glass and swallowed the contents.
+
+It was nearly dark when Helen, quitting the mill immediately on its
+closing, slipped out of a side door to escape Richard Travis and
+almost ran home across the fields. Never had she been so full of her
+life, her plans for the future, her hopes, her pride to think her
+father would be himself again.
+
+"For if he will," she whispered, "all else good will follow."
+
+Just at the gate she stopped and almost fell in the agony of it all.
+Her father lay on the dry grass by the roadside, unable to walk.
+
+She knelt by his side and wept. Her heart then and there gave up--her
+soul quit in the fight she was making.
+
+With bitterness which was desperate she went to the spring and
+brought water and bathed his face. Then when he was sufficiently
+himself to walk, she led him, staggering, in, and up the steps.
+
+Jud Carpenter reached the mill an hour after dark: He sought out
+Richard Travis and chuckled, saying nothing.
+
+Travis was busy with his books, and when he had finished he turned
+and smiled at the man.
+
+"Tell me what it is?"
+
+"Oh, I fixed him, that's all."
+
+Then he laughed:
+
+"He was sober this morning an' was in a fair way to knock our plans
+sky high--as to the gal, you kno'. Reformed this mornin', but you'll
+find him good and drunk to-night."
+
+"Oh," said Travis, knitting his brows thoughtfully.
+
+"Did you notice how much brighter, an' sech, she's been for a day or
+two?" asked Jud.
+
+"I notice that she has shunned me all day"--said Travis--"as if I
+were poison."
+
+"She'll not shun you to-morrow," laughed Jud. "She is your's--for a
+woman desperate is a woman lost--" and he chuckled again as he went
+out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+HIMSELF AGAIN
+
+
+Never had the two old servants been so happy as they were that night
+after their rescue. At first they looked on it as a miracle, in which
+the spirits of their young master and his body-servant, their only
+son, had come back to earth to rescue them, and for a while their
+prayers and exhortations took on the uncanny tone of superstition.
+But after they had heard them talk in the old natural way and seen
+Captain Tom walking in the living flesh, they became satisfied that
+it was indeed their young master whom they had supposed to be dead.
+
+Jack Bracken, with all the tenderness of one speaking to little
+children, explained it all to them--how he had himself carried
+Captain Tom off the battle-field of Franklin; how he had cared for
+him since--even to the present time; how Ephraim would not desert his
+young master, but had stayed with them, as cook and house boy. And
+how Captain Tom had now become well again.
+
+Jack was careful not to go too much into details--especially Ephraim
+having lived for two years within a few miles of his parents and not
+making himself known! The truth was, as Jack knew, Ephraim had become
+infatuated with the free-booting life of Jack Bracken. He had gone
+with him on many a raid, and gold came too easy that way to dig it
+out of the soil, as in a cotton field.
+
+The old people supposed all this happened far away, and in another
+country, and that they had all come home as soon as they could.
+
+With this they were happy.
+
+"And now," added Jack, "we are going to hide with you a week or so,
+until Captain Tom can lay his plans."
+
+"Thank God--thank God!"--said Uncle Bisco, and he would feel of his
+young master and say: "Jes' lak he allus wus, only his hair is a
+leetle gray. An' in the same uniform he rid off in--the same gran'
+clothes."
+
+Captain Tom laughed: "No, not the same, but like them. You see, I
+reported at Washington and explained it to the Secretary of War,
+Jack. It seems that Mr. Lincoln had been kind enough to write a
+personal letter about me to my grandfather,--they were old friends.
+It was a peculiar scene--my interview with the Secretary. My
+grandfather had filed this letter at the War Department before he
+died, and my return to life was a matter of interest and wonder to
+them. And so I am still Captain of Artillery," he smiled.
+
+In the little cabin the old servants gave him the best room, cleanly
+and sweet with an old-fashioned feather-bed and counterpane. Jack
+Bracken had a cot by his bed, and on the wall was a picture of Miss
+Alice.
+
+Long into the night they talked, the young man asking them many
+questions and chief of all, of Alice. They could see that he was
+thinking of her, and often he would stop before the picture and look
+at it and fall into a reverie.
+
+"It seems to me but yesterday," he said, "since I left her and went
+off to the war. She is not to know that I am here--not yet. You must
+hide me if she runs in," he smiled. "I must see her first in my own
+way."
+
+He noticed Jack Bracken's cot by his bedside and smiled.
+
+"You see, I have been takin' keer of you so long," said Jack after
+the old servants had left them to themselves, "that I can't git out
+of the habit. I thought you wus never comin' home."
+
+"It's good we came when we did, Jack."
+
+"You ought to have let me shoot."
+
+The young Captain shook his head: "O Jack--Jack, I've seen murder
+enough--it seems but yesterday since I was at Franklin."
+
+"Do you know who's at the head of all this?" asked Jack. "It's
+Richard Travis."
+
+"The Bishop told me all, Jack--and about my grandfather's will. But I
+shall divide it with him--it is not fair."
+
+Jack watched the strong, tall man, as he walked to and fro in the
+room, and a proud smile spread over the outlaw's face.
+
+"What a man you are--what a man you are, Cap'n Tom!"
+
+"It's good to be one's self again, Jack. How can I ever repay you for
+what you have done for me?"
+
+"You've paid it long ago--long ago. Where would Jack Bracken have
+been if you hadn't risked yo' life to cut me down, when the rope"--
+
+Captain Tom put his hand on Jack's shoulder affectionately: "We'll
+forget all those horrible things--and that war, which was hell,
+indeed. Jack--Jack--there is a new life ahead for us both," he said,
+smiling happily.
+
+"For you--yes--but not for me"--and he shook his head.
+
+"Do you remember little Jack, Cap'n Tom--him that died? I seem to
+think mo' of him now than ever--"
+
+"It is strange, Jack--but I do distinctly; an' our home in the cave,
+an' the beautiful room we had, an' the rock portico overlaid with
+wild honeysuckle and Jackson vines overlooking the grand river."
+
+"Jack, do you know we must go there this week and see it again? I
+have plans to carry out before making my identity known."
+
+An hour afterwards the old servants heard Captain Tom step out into
+the yard. It was then past midnight--the most memorable night of all
+their lives. Neither of the old servants could sleep, for hearing
+Ephraim talk, and that lusty darkey had sadly mixed his imagination
+and his facts.
+
+The old man went out: "Don't be uneasy," said Captain Tom. "I am
+going to saddle John Paul Jones and ride over the scenes of my youth.
+They might see me by daylight, and the moonlight is so beautiful
+to-night. I long to see The Gaffs, and Westmoreland, my grandfather's
+grave," and then in a tenderer tone--"and my father's; he lies buried
+in the flag I love."
+
+He smiled sadly and went out.
+
+John Paul Jones had been comfortably housed in the little stable
+nearby. He nickered affectionately as his master came up and led him
+out.
+
+The young officer stood a few moments looking at the splendid horse,
+and with the look came a flood of memories so painful that he bowed
+his head in the saddle.
+
+When he looked up Jack Bracken stood by his side: "I don't much like
+this, Cap'n Tom. Not to-night, after all we've done to them. They've
+got out spies now--I know them; a lot of negroes calling themselves
+Union League, but secretly waylaying, burning and killing all who
+differ with them in politics. They've made the Klu-Klux a necessity.
+Now, I don't want you to turn me into a Klu-Klux to-night."
+
+"Ah, they would not harm me, Jack, not me, after all I have suffered.
+It has all been so hazy," he went on, as if trying to recall it all,
+"so hazy until now. Now, how clear it all is! Here is the creek,
+yonder the mountain, and over beyond that the village. And yonder is
+Westmoreland. I remember it all--so distinctly. And after Franklin,
+my God, it was so hazy, with something pressing me down as if I were
+under a house which had fallen on me and pinned me to the ground. But
+now, O God, I thank Thee that I am a man again!"
+
+Jack went back into the cabin.
+
+Captain Tom stood drinking it all in--the moonlight, on the roof of
+Westmoreland, shining through the trees. Then he thought of what the
+old Bishop had told him of Alice, the great pressure brought to bear
+on her to marry Richard Travis, and of her devotion to the memory of
+her first love.
+
+"And for her love and her constancy, oh, God, I thank Thee most of
+all," he said, looking upward at the stars.
+
+He mounted his horse and rode slowly out into the night, a commanding
+figure, for the horse and rider were one, and John Paul Jones tossed
+his head as if to show his joy, tossed his head proudly and was in
+for a gallop.
+
+Captain Tom's pistols were buckled to his side, for he had had
+experience enough in the early part of the night to show him the
+unsettled state of affairs still existing in the country under negro
+domination.
+
+There were no lights at Westmoreland, but he knew which was Alice's
+room, and in the shadow of a tree he stopped and looked long at the
+window. Oh, to tear down the barriers which separated him from her! To
+see her once more--she the beautiful and true--her hair--her eyes, and
+to place again the kiss of a new betrothal on her lips, the memory of
+which, in all his sorrows and afflictions, had never left him. And now
+they told him she was more beautiful than ever. Twelve years--twelve
+years out of his life--years of forgetfulness--and yet it seemed but a
+few months since he had bade Alice good-bye--here--here under the
+crepe-myrtle tree where he now stood. He knelt and kissed the holy sod.
+A wave of triumphant happiness came over him. He arose and threw
+passionate kisses toward her window. Then he mounted and rode off.
+
+At The Gaffs he looked long and earnestly. He imagined he saw the old
+Colonel, his grandfather, sitting in his accustomed place on the front
+porch, his feet propped on the balcony, his favorite hound by his side.
+Long he gazed, looking at every familiar place of his youth. He knew now
+that every foot of it would be his. He had no bitterness in his heart.
+Not he, for in the love and constancy of Alice Westmore all such things
+seemed unspeakable insignificance to the glory of that.
+
+In the old family cemetery, which lay hid among the cedars on the hill,
+he stood bare-headed before the grave of his grandsire and silently the
+tears fell:
+
+"My noble old grandsire," he murmured, "if the spirits of the dead
+look down on the living, tell me I have not proved unworthy. It was
+his flag--my father's, and he lies by you wrapped in it. Tell me I
+have not been unworthy the same, for I have suffered."
+
+And from the silent stars, as he looked up, there fell on him a
+benediction of peace.
+
+Then he drew himself up proudly and gave each grave a military
+salute, mounted and rode away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE JOY OF THE MORNING
+
+
+All the week, since the scene at Maggie's deathbed, Alice Westmore
+had remained at home, while strange, bitter feelings, such as she had
+never felt before, surged in her heart. Her brother was away, and
+this gave her more freedom to do as she wished--to remain in her
+room--and her mother's presence now was not altogether the solace her
+heart craved.
+
+Of the utmost purity of thought herself, Alice Westmore had never
+even permitted herself to harbor anything reflecting on the character
+of those she trusted; and in the generosity of her nature, she
+considered all her friends trustworthy. Thinking no evil, she knew
+none; nor would she permit any idle gossip to be repeated before her.
+In her case her unsuspecting nature was strengthened by her
+environment, living as she was with her mother and brother only.
+
+It is true that she had heard faint rumors of Richard Travis's life;
+but the full impurity of it had never been realized by her until she
+saw Maggie die. Then Richard Travis went, not only out of her life,
+but out of her very thoughts. She remembered him only as she did some
+evil character read of in fiction or history. Perhaps in this she was
+more severe than necessary--since the pendulum of anger swings
+always farthest in the first full stroke of indignation. And then the
+surprise of it--the shock of it! Never had she gone through a week so
+full of unhappiness, since it had come to her, years before, that Tom
+Travis had been killed at Franklin.
+
+Her mother's entreaties--tears, even--affected her now no more than
+the cries of a spoiled child.
+
+"Oh, Alice," she said one night when she had been explaining and
+apologizing for Richard Travis--"you should know now, child, really,
+you ought to know by now, that all men may not have been created
+alike, but they are all alike."
+
+"I do not believe it," said Alice with feeling--"I never want to
+believe it--I never shall believe it."
+
+"My darling," said the mother, laying her face against Alice's, "I
+have reared you too far from the world."
+
+But for once in her life Mrs. Westmore knew that her daughter, who
+had heretofore been willing to sacrifice everything for her mother's
+comfort, now halted before such a chasm as this, as stubborn and
+instinctively as a wild doe in her flight before a precipice.
+
+Twice Alice knew that Richard Travis had called; and she went to her
+room and locked the door. She did not wish even to think of him; for
+when she did it was not Richard Travis she saw, but Maggie dying,
+with the picture of him under her pillow.
+
+She devised many plans for herself, but go away she must, perhaps to
+teach.
+
+In the midst of her perplexity there came to her Saturday afternoon
+a curiously worded note, from the old Cottontown preacher, telling
+her not to forget now that he had returned and that Sunday School
+lessons at Uncle Bisco's were in order. He closed with a remark
+which, read between the lines, she saw was intended to warn and
+prepare her for something unexpected, the greatest good news, as he
+said, of her life. Then he quoted:
+
+"_And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea
+returned to his strength when the morning appeared._"
+
+There was but one great good news that Alice Westmore cared for, and,
+strange to say, all the week she had been thinking of it. It came
+about involuntarily, as she compared men with one another.
+
+It came as the tide comes back to the ocean, as the stars come with
+the night. She tried to smother it, but it would not be smothered. At
+last she resigned herself to the wretchedness of it--as one when,
+despairing of throwing off a mood, gives way to it and lets it eat
+its own heart out.
+
+She could scarcely wait until night. Her heart beat at intervals, in
+agitated fierceness, and flushes of red went through her cheek all
+the afternoon, at the thought in her heart that at times choked her.
+
+Then came the kindly old man himself, his face radiant with a look
+she had not seen on a face for many weeks. After the week she had
+been through, this itself was a comfort. She met him with feigned
+calmness and a little laugh.
+
+"You promised to tell me where you had been, Bishop, all these
+weeks. It must have made you very, very happy."
+
+"I'll tell you down at the cabin, if you'll dress yo' very pretties'.
+There's friends of yo's down there you ain't seen in a long
+time--that's mighty anxious to see you."
+
+"Oh, I do indeed feel ashamed of myself for having neglected the old
+servants so long; but you cannot know what has been on my mind. Yes,
+I will go with you directly."
+
+The old man looked at her admiringly when she was ready to go--at the
+dainty gown of white, the splendid hair of dark auburn crowning her
+head, the big wistful eyes, the refined face. Upon him had devolved
+the duty of preparing Alice Westmore for what she would see in the
+cabin, and never did he enter more fully into the sacredness of such
+an occasion.
+
+And now, when she was ready and stood before him in all her superb
+womanhood, a basket of dainties on her arm for the old servants, he
+spoke very solemnly as he handed her an ambrotype set in a large gold
+breast-pin.
+
+"You'll need this to set you off--around yo' neck."
+
+At sight of it all the color left her cheeks.
+
+"Why, it is mine--I gave it to--to--Tom. He took it to the war with
+him. Where"--A sob leaped into her throat and stopped her.
+
+"On my journey," said the old man quickly, "I heard somethin' of
+Cap'n Tom. You must prepare yo'se'f for good news."
+
+Her heart jumped and the blood surged back again, and she grew weak,
+but the old man laughed his cheery laugh, and, pretending to clap her
+playfully on the shoulder, he held her firmly with his great iron
+hand, as he saw the blood go out of her cheeks, leaving them as white
+as white roses:
+
+"Down there," he added, "I'll tell you all. But God is good--God is
+good."
+
+Bewildered, pale, and with throbbing heart, she let him take her
+basket and lead her down the well-beaten path. She could not speak,
+for something, somehow, said to her that Captain Tom Travis was alive
+and that she would see him--next week perhaps--next month or year--it
+mattered not so that she would see him. And yet--and yet--O all these
+years--all these years! She kept saying over the words of the old
+Bishop, as one numbed, and unable to think, keeps repeating the last
+thing that enters the mind. Trembling, white, her knees weak beneath
+her, she followed saying:
+
+"God is good--oh, Bishop--tell me--why--why--why--"
+
+"Because Cap'n Tom is not dead, Miss Alice, he is alive and well."
+
+They had reached the large oak which shadowed the little cabin. She
+stopped suddenly in the agony of happiness, and the strong old man,
+who had been watching her, turned and caught her with a firm grasp,
+while the stars danced frantically above her. And half-unconscious
+she felt another one come to his aid, one who took her in his arms
+and kissed her lips and her eyes ... and carried her into the bright
+fire-lighted cabin, ... carried her in strength and happiness that
+made her lay her cheek against his, ... and there were tears on it,
+and somehow she lay as if she were a child in his arms, ... a child
+again and she was happy, ... and there were silence and sweet dreams
+and the long-dead smell of the crepe-myrtle.... She did not remember
+again until she sat up on the cot in the clean little cabin, and Tom
+Travis, tall and in the splendor of manhood, sat holding her hands
+and stroking her hair and whispering: "_Alice, my darling--it is all
+well--and I have come back for you, at last!_"
+
+And the old servants stood around smiling and happy, but so silent
+and composed that she knew that they had been schooled to it, and a
+big man, who seemed to watch Captain Tom as a big dog would his
+master, kept blowing his nose and walking around the room. And by the
+fire sat the old Cottontown preacher, his back turned to them and
+saying just loud enough to be heard: "_The Lord is my shepherd, I
+shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, ... he
+restoreth my soul-- ... my cup runneth over...._"
+
+And then sillily, as Alice thought, she threw her arms around the
+neck of the man she loved and burst into the tears which brought the
+sweetness of assurance, the calmness of a reality that meant
+happiness.
+
+And for an hour she sobbed, her arms there, and he holding her tight
+to his breast and talking in the old way, natural and soothing and
+reassuring and taking from her heart all fear and the shock of it,
+until at last it all seemed natural and not a dream, ... and the
+sweetness of it all was like the light which cometh with the joy of
+the morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE TOUCH OF GOD
+
+
+The news of Captain Tom's return spread quickly. By noon it was known
+throughout the Tennessee Valley.
+
+The sensational features of it required prompt action on his and
+Alice's part, and their decision was quickly made: they would be
+married that Sunday afternoon in the little church on the mountain
+side and by the old man who had done so much to make their happiness
+possible.
+
+For once in its history the little church could not hold the people
+who came to witness this romantic marriage, and far down the mountain
+side they stood to see the bride and groom pass by. Many remembered
+the groom, all had heard of him,--his devotion to his country's flag;
+to the memory of his father; his gallantry, his heroism, his
+martyrdom, dying (as they supposed) rather than turn his guns on his
+brave old grandsire. And now to come back to life again--to win the
+woman he loved and who had loved him all these years! Besides, there
+was no one in the Tennessee Valley considered more beautiful than the
+bride, and they loved her as if she had been an angel of light.
+
+And never had she appeared more lovely.
+
+A stillness swept over the crowd when the carriage drove up to the
+little church, and when the tall, handsome man in the uniform of a
+captain of artillery lifted Alice out with the tenderness of all
+lovers in his touch and the strength of a strong lover, with a lily
+in his hand, the crowd, knowing his history, could not refrain from
+cheering. He lifted his cap and threw back his iron-gray hair,
+showing a head proud and tender and on his face such a smile as
+lovers only wear. Then he led her in,--pale and tearful.
+
+The little church had been prettily decorated that Sabbath morning,
+and when the old preacher came forward and called them to him, he
+said the simple words which made them man and wife, and as he blessed
+them, praying, a mocking-bird, perched on a limb near the window,
+sang a soft low melody as if one singer wished to compliment another.
+
+They went out hand in hand, and when they reached the door, the sun
+which had been hid burst out as a benediction upon them.
+
+Among the guests one man had stepped in unnoticed and unseen. Why he
+came he could not tell, for never before did he have any desire to go
+to the little church.
+
+It was midnight when the news came to him that Tom Travis had
+returned as from the dead. It was Jud Carpenter who had awakened him
+that Saturday night to whisper at the bedside the startling news.
+
+But Travis only yawned from his sleep and said: "I've been expecting
+it all the time--go somewhere and go to bed."
+
+After Carpenter had gone, he arose, stricken with a feeling he could
+not describe, but had often seen in race horses running desperately
+until within fifty yards of the wire, and then suddenly--quitting. He
+had almost reached his goal--but now one week had done all this.
+Alice--gone, and The Gaffs--he must divide that with his cousin--for
+his grandfather had left no will.
+
+Divide The Gaffs with Tom Travis?--He would as soon think of dividing
+Alice's love with him. In the soul of Richard Travis there was no
+such word as division.
+
+In the selfishness of his life, it had ever been all or nothing.
+
+All night he thought, he walked the halls of the old house, he ran
+over a hundred solutions of it in his mind. And still there was no
+solution that satisfied him, that seemed natural. It seemed that his
+mind, which had heretofore worked so unerringly, deducing things so
+naturally, now balked before an abyss that was bridgeless. Heretofore
+he had looked into the future with the bold, true sweep of an eagle
+peering from its mountain home above the clouds into the far
+distance, his eyes unclouded by the mist, which cut off the vision of
+mortals below. But now he was the blindest of the blind. He seemed to
+stop as before a wall--a chasm which ended everything--a chasm, on
+the opposite wall of which was printed: Thus far and no farther.
+
+Think as he would, he could not think beyond it. His life seemed to
+stop there. After it, he was nothing.
+
+Our minds, our souls--are like the sun, which shines very plainly as
+it moves across the sky of our life of things--showing them in all
+distinctness and clearness; so that we see things as they happen to
+us with our eyes of daylight. But as the sun throws its dim twilight
+shadows even beyond our earth, so do the souls of men of great mind
+and imagination see, faintly, beyond their own lives, and into the
+shadow of things.
+
+To-night that mysterious sight came to Richard Travis, as it comes in
+the great crises of life and death, to every strong man, and he saw
+dimly, ghostily, into the shadow; and the shadow stopped at the
+terrible abyss which now barred his ken; and he felt, with the keen
+insight of the dying eagle on the peak, that the thing was death.
+
+In the first streak of light, he was rudely awakened to it. For there
+on the rug, as naturally as if asleep, lay the only thing he now
+loved in the world, the old setter, whose life had passed out in
+slumber.
+
+All animals have the dying instinct. Man, the highest, has it the
+clearest. And Travis remembered that the old dog had come to his bed,
+in the middle of the night, and laid his large beautiful head on his
+master's breast, and in the dim light of the smouldering fire had
+said good-bye to Richard Travis as plainly as ever human being said
+it. And now on the rug, before the dead gray ashes of the night, he
+had found the old dog forever asleep, naturally and in great peace.
+
+His heart sank as he thought of the farewell of the night before, and
+bitterness came, and sitting down on the rug by the side of the dead
+dog he stroked for the last time the grand old silken head, so calm
+and poised, for the little world it had been bred for, and ran his
+palm over the long strong nose that had never lied to the scent of
+the covey. His lips tightened and he said: "O God, I am dying myself,
+and there is not a living being whom I can crawl up to, and lay my
+head on its breast and know it loves and pities me, as I love you,
+old friend."
+
+The thought gripped his throat, and as he thought of the sweetness
+and nobility of this dumb thing, his gentleness, faithfulness and
+devotion, the sureness of his life in filling the mission he came
+for, he wept tears so strange to his cheek that they scalded as they
+flowed, and he bowed his head and said: "Gladstone, Gladstone,
+good-bye--true to your breeding, you were what your master never
+was--a gentleman."
+
+And the old housekeeper found this strong man, who had never wept in
+his life, crying over the old dead setter on the rug.
+
+And the same feeling, the second sight--the presentiment--the
+terrible balking of his mind that had always seen so clearly, ever
+into the future, held him as in a vise all the morning and moved him
+in a strange mysterious way to go to the church and see the woman he
+had loved all his life, the being whose very look uplifted him, and
+whose smile could make him a hero or a martyr, married to the man who
+came home to take her, and half of his all.
+
+Numbed, hardened, speechless, and yet with that terrible presentiment
+of the abyss before him, he had stood and seen Alice Westmore made
+the wife of another.
+
+He remembered first how quickly he had caught the text of the old
+man; indeed, it seemed to him now that everything he heard struck
+into him like a brand of fire--for never had life appeared to him as
+it did to-day.
+
+"_For the hand of God hath touched me--_" he kept repeating over and
+over--repeating and then cursing himself for repeating it--for
+remembering it.
+
+And still it stayed there all day--the unbidden ghost-guest of his
+soul.
+
+And everything the old preacher said went searing into his quivering
+soul, and all the time he kept looking--looking at the woman he loved
+and seeing her giving her love, her life, with a happy smile, to
+another. And all the time he stood wondering why he came to see it,
+why he felt as he did, why things hurt him that way, why he acted so
+weakly, why his conscience had awakened at last, why life hurt him
+so--life that he had played with as an edged tool--why he could not
+get away from himself and his memory, but ran always into it, and why
+at last with a shudder, why did nothing seem to be beyond the wall?
+
+He saw her go off, the wife of another. He saw their
+happiness--unconscious even that he lived, and he cursed himself and
+kept saying: "_The hand of God hath touched me._"
+
+Then he laughed at himself for being silly.
+
+He rode home, but it was not home. Nothing was itself--not even he.
+In the watches of one night his life had been changed and the light
+had gone out.
+
+When night came it was worse. He mounted his horse and rode--where?
+And he could no more help it than he could cease to breathe.
+
+He did not guide the saddle mare, she went herself through wood
+sombre and dark with shadows, through cedar trees, dwarfed, and
+making pungent the night air with aromatic breath; through old sedge
+fields, garish in the faint light; up, up the mountain, over it; and
+at last the mare stopped and stood silently by a newly made grave,
+while Richard Travis, with strained hard mouth and wet eyes, knelt
+and, knowing that no hand in the world cared to feel his repentant
+face in it, he buried it in the new made sod as he cried:
+"Maggie--Maggie--forgive me, for the hand of God hath touched me!"
+
+And it soothed him, for he knew that if she were alive he might have
+lain his head there--on her breast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MAMMY MARIA
+
+
+That Monday was a memorable day for Helen Conway. She went to the
+mill with less bitterness than ever before--the sting of it all was
+gone--for she felt that she was helpless to the fate that was
+hers--that she was powerless in the hands of Richard Travis:
+
+"_I will come for you Monday night. I will take you away from here.
+You shall belong to me forever--My Queen!_"
+
+These words had rung in her ears all Saturday night, when, after
+coming home, she had found her father fallen by the wayside.
+
+In the night she had lain awake and wondered. She did not know where
+she was going--she did not care. She did not even blush at the
+thought of it. She was hardened, steeled. She knew not whether it
+meant wife or mistress. She knew only that, as she supposed, God had
+placed upon her more than she could bear.
+
+"If my life is wrecked," she said as she lay awake that Sunday
+night--"God himself will do it. Who took my mother before I knew her
+influence? Who made me as I am and gave me poverty with this fatal
+beauty--poverty and a drunken father and this terrible temptation?"
+
+"Oh, if I only had her, Mammy--negro that she is."
+
+Lily was asleep with one arm around her sister's neck.
+
+"What will become of Lily, in the mill, too?" She bent and kissed
+her, and she saw that the little one, though asleep, had tears in her
+own eyes.
+
+Young as she was, Helen's mind was maturer than might have been
+supposed. And the problem which confronted her she saw very clearly,
+although she was unable to solve it. The problem was not new, indeed,
+it has been Despair's conundrum since the world began: Whose fault
+that my life has been as it is? In her despair, doubting, she cried:
+
+"Is there really a God, as Mammy Maria told me? Does He interpose in
+our lives, or are we rushed along by the great moral and physical
+laws, which govern the universe; and if by chance we fail to
+harmonize with them, be crushed for our ignorance--our ignorance
+which is not of our own making?"
+
+"By chance--by chance," she repeated, "but if there be great fixed
+laws, how can there be any--chance?"
+
+The thought was hopeless. She turned in her despair and hid her face.
+And then out of the darkness came the strong fine face of Clay
+Westmore--and his words: "We must all work--it is life's badge of
+nobility."
+
+How clearly and calmly they came to her. And then her heart
+fluttered. Suppose Clay loved her--suppose this was her solution? He
+had never pressed his love on her. Did he think a woman could be
+loved that way--scientifically--as coal and iron are discovered?
+
+She finally slept, her arms around her little sister. But the last
+recollection she had was Clay's fine face smiling at her through the
+darkness and saying: "We must all work--it is life's badge of
+nobility."
+
+It was Monday morning, and she would take Lily with her to the mill;
+for the child's work at the spinning frames was to begin that day.
+There was no alternative. Again the great unknown law rushed her
+along. Her father had signed them both, and in a few days their home
+would be sold.
+
+They were late at the mill, but the little one, as she trudged along
+by the side of her sister, was happier than she had been since her
+old nurse had left. It was great fun for her, this going to the mill
+with her big sister.
+
+The mill had been throbbing and humming long before they reached it.
+Helen turned Lily over to the floor manager, after kissing her
+good-bye, and bade her do as she was told. Twice again she kissed
+her, and then with a sob hurried away to her own room.
+
+Travis was awaiting her in the hall. She turned pale and then crimson
+when she saw him. And yet, when she ventured to look at him as she
+was passing, she was stopped with the change which lay on his face.
+It was a sad smile he gave her, sad but determined. And in the
+courtly bow was such a look of tenderness that with fluttering heart
+and a strange new feeling of upliftedness--a confidence in him for
+the first time, she stopped and gave him her hand with a grateful
+smile. It was a simple act and so pretty that the sadness went from
+Travis' face as he said:
+
+"I was not going to stop you--this is kind of you. Saturday, I
+thought you feared me."
+
+"Yes," she smiled, "but not now--not when you look like that."
+
+"Have I changed so much since then?" and he looked at her curiously.
+
+"There is something in your face I never saw before. It made me
+stop."
+
+"I am glad it was there, then," he said simply, "for I wished you to
+stop, though I did not want to say so."
+
+"Saturday you would have said so," she replied with simple frankness.
+
+He came closer to her with equal frankness, and yet with a tenderness
+which thrilled her he said:
+
+"Perhaps I was not so sure Saturday of many things that I am positive
+of to-day."
+
+"Of what?" she asked flushing.
+
+He smiled again, but it was not the old smile which had set her to
+trembling with a flurry of doubt and shame. It was the smile of
+respect. Then it left him, and in its stead flashed instantly the old
+conquering light when he said:
+
+"To-night, you know, you will be mine!"
+
+The change of it all, the shock of it, numbed her. She tried to
+smile, but it was the lifeless curl of her lips instead--and the look
+she gave him--of resignation, of acquiescence, of despair--he had
+seen it once before, in the beautiful eyes of the first young doe
+that fell to his rifle. She was not dead when he bounded to the spot
+where she lay--and she gave him that look.
+
+Edward Conway watched his two daughters go out of the gate on their
+way to the mill, sitting with his feet propped up, and drunker than
+he had been for weeks. But indistinct as things were, the poignancy
+of it went through him, and he groaned. In a dazed sort of way he
+knew it was the last of all his dreams of respectability, that from
+now on there was nothing for him and his but degradation and a lower
+place in life. To do him justice, he did not care so much for
+himself; already he felt that he himself was doomed, that he could
+never expect to shake off the terrible habit which had grown to be
+part of his life,--unless, he thought, unless, as the Bishop had
+said--by the blow of God. He paled to think what that might mean. God
+had so many ways of striking blows unknown to man. But for his
+daughters--he loved them, drunkard though he was. He was proud of
+their breeding, their beauty, their name. If he could only go and
+give them a chance--if the blow would only fall and take him!
+
+The sun was warm. He grew sleepy. He remembered afterwards that he
+fell out of his chair and that he could not arise.... It was a nice
+place to sleep anyway.... A staggering hound, with scurviness and
+sores, came up the steps, then on the porch, and licked his face....
+
+When he awoke some one was bathing his face with cold water from the
+spring. He was perfectly sober and he knew it was nearly noon. Then
+he heard the person say: "I guess you are all right now, Marse Ned,
+an' I'm thinkin' it's the last drink you'll ever take outen that
+jug."
+
+His astonishment in recognizing that the voice was the voice of Mammy
+Maria did not keep him from looking up regretfully at sight of the
+precious broken jug and the strong odor of whiskey pervading the air.
+
+How delightful the odor was!
+
+He sat up amazed, blinking stupidly.
+
+"Aunt Maria--in heaven's name--where?"
+
+"Never mind, Marse Ned--jes' you git into the buggy now an' I'll take
+you home. You see, I've moved everything this mohnin' whilst you
+slept. The last load is gone to our new home."
+
+"What?" he exclaimed--"where?" He looked around--the home was empty.
+
+"I thort it time to wake you up," she went on, "an' besides I wanter
+talk to you about my babies.
+
+"You'll onderstan' all that when you see the home I've bought for
+us"--she said simply. "We're gwine to it now. Git in the buggy"--and
+she helped him to arise.
+
+Then Edward Conway guessed, and he was silent, and without a word the
+old woman drove him out of the dilapidated gate of Millwood toward
+the town.
+
+"Mammy," he began as if he were a boy again--"Mammy," and then he
+burst into tears.
+
+"Don't cry, chile," said the old woman--"it's all behind us now. I
+saved the money years ago, when we all wus flush--an' you gave me so
+much when you had an' wus so kind to me, Marse Ned. I saved it. We're
+gwine to reform now an' quit drinkin'. We'se gwine to remove to
+another spot in the garden of the Lord, but the Lord is gwine with us
+an' He is the tower of strength--the tower of strength to them that
+trust Him--Amen. But I must have my babies--that's part of the
+barg'in. No mill for them--oh, Marse Ned, to think that whilst I was
+off, fixin' our home so nice to s'prize you all--wuckin' my fingers
+off to git the home ready--you let them devils get my babies! Git up
+heah"--and she rapped the horse down the back with the lines. "Hurry
+up--I'm gwine after 'em es soon es I git home."
+
+Conway could only bow his head and weep.
+
+It was nearly noon when a large coal-black woman, her head tied up
+with an immaculately white handkerchief, with a white apron to match
+over her new calico gown, walked into the mill door. She passed
+through Kingsley's office, without giving him the courtesy of a nod,
+holding her head high and looking straight before her. A black
+thunder-cloud of indignation sat upon her brow, and her large black
+eyes were lit up with a sarcastic light.
+
+Before Kingsley could collect his thoughts she had passed into the
+big door of the main room, amid the whirl and hum of the machinery,
+and walking straight to one of the spinning frames, she stooped and
+gathered into her arms the beautiful, fair-skinned little girl who
+was trying in vain to learn the tiresome lesson of piecing the
+ever-breaking threads of the bewildering, whirling bobbins.
+
+The child was taken so by surprise that she screamed in fright--not
+being able to hear the footfall or the voice of her who had so
+suddenly folded her in her arms and showered kisses on her face and
+hair. Then, seeing the face, she shouted:
+
+"It's Mammy Maria--oh, it's my mammy!" and she threw her arms around
+the old woman's neck and clung there.
+
+"Mammy's baby--did you think old Mammy dun run off an' lef' her
+baby?"
+
+But Lily could only sob for joy.
+
+Then the floor manager came hurriedly over--for the entire force of
+the mill had ceased to work, gazing at the strange scene. In vain he
+gesticulated his protests--the big fat colored woman walked proudly
+past him with Lily in her arms.
+
+In Kingsley's office she stopped to get Lily's bonnet, while the
+little girl still clung to her neck, sobbing.
+
+Kingsley stood taking in the scene in astonishment. He adjusted his
+eye glasses several times, lilting them with the most pronounced
+sarcastic lilt of which he was capable.
+
+He stepped around and around the desk in agitated briskness.
+
+He cleared his throat and jerked his pant legs up and down. And all
+the time the fat old woman stood looking at him, with the
+thunder-cloud on her brow and unexpressed scorn struggling for speech
+in her eyes.
+
+"Ah-hem--ah-ha--Aunt Maria" for Kingsley had caught on to the better
+class of Southern ways--"inform me--ah, what does all this mean?"
+
+The old woman drew herself up proudly and replied with freezing
+politeness:
+
+"I beg yo' pardon, sah--but I was not awares that I had any nephew
+in the mill, or was related to anybody in here, sah. I hav'nt my
+visitin' cyard with me, but if I had 'em heah you'd find my
+entitlements, on readin', was somethin' lak this: _Miss Maria Conway,
+of Zion!_"
+
+Kingsley flushed, rebuked. Then he adjusted his glasses again with
+agitated nervous attempts at a lilt. Then he struck his level and
+fell back on his natural instinct, unmixed, with attempts at being
+what he was not:
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Conway"--
+
+"Git my entitlements right, please sah. I'm the only old maid lady of
+color you ever seed or ever will see again. Niggahs, these days, lak
+birds, all git 'em a mate some way--but I'm Miss Conway of Zion."
+
+"Ah, beg pardon, Miss Conway--Miss Conway of Zion. And where, pray,
+is that city, Miss Conway? I may have to have an officer communicate
+with you."
+
+"With pleasure, sah--It's a pleasure for me to he'p people find a
+place dey'd never find without help--no--not whilst they're a-workin'
+the life out of innocent tots an' babes--"
+
+Kingsley flushed hot, angered:
+
+"What do you mean, old woman?"
+
+"The ole woman means," she said, looking him steadily in the eye,
+"that you are dealin' in chile slavery, law or no law; that you're
+down heah preachin' one thing for niggahs an' practisin' another for
+yo' own race; that yo' hair frizzles on yo' head at tho'rt of niggah
+slavery, whilst all the time you are enslavin' the po' little whites
+that's got yo' own blood in their veins. An' now you wanter know what
+I come for? I come for my chile!"
+
+Kingsley was too dumfounded to speak. In all his life never had his
+hypocrisy been knocked to pieces so completely.
+
+"What does all this mean?" asked Jud Carpenter rushing hastily into
+the room.
+
+"Come on baby," said the old woman as she started toward the door.
+"I've got a home for us, an' whilst old mammy can take in washin'
+you'll not wuck yo' life out with these people."
+
+Jud broke in harshly: "Come, ole 'oman,--you put that child down.
+You've got nothin' to support her with."
+
+She turned on him quickly: "I've got mo' silver tied up in ole socks
+that the Conways give me in slavery days when they had it by the
+bushel, than sech as you ever seed. Got nothin'? Jus' you come over
+and see the little home I've got fixed up for Marse Ned an' the
+babies. Got nothin'? See these arms? Do you think they have forgot
+how to cook an' wash? Come on, baby--we'll be gwine home--Miss
+Helen'll come later."
+
+"Put her down, old woman," said Carpenter sternly. "You can't take
+her--she's bound to the mill."
+
+"Oh, I can't?" said the old woman as she walked out with Lily--"Can't
+take her. Well, jes' look at me an' see. This is what I calls Zion,
+an' the Lam' an' the wolves had better stay right where they are,"
+she remarked dryly, as she walked off carrying Lily in her arms.
+
+Down through a pretty part of the town, away from Cottontown, she led
+the little girl, laughing now and chatting by the old woman's side,
+a bird freed from a cage.
+
+"And you'll bring sister Helen, too?" asked Lily.
+
+"That I will, pet,--she'll be home to-night."
+
+"Oh, Mammy, it's so good to have you again--so good, and I thought
+you never would come."
+
+They walked away from Cottontown and past pretty houses. In a quiet
+street, with oaks and elms shading it, she entered a yard in which
+stood a pretty and nicely painted cottage. Lily clapped her hands
+with laughter when she found all her old things there--even her pet
+dolls to welcome her--all in the cunningest and quaintest room
+imaginable. The next room was her father's, and Mammy's room was next
+to hers and Helen's. She ran out only to run into her father's arms.
+Small as she was, she saw that he was sober. He took her on his lap
+and kissed her.
+
+"My little one," he said--"my little one"--
+
+"Mammy," asked the little girl as the old woman came out--"how did
+you get all this?"
+
+"Been savin' it all my life, chile--all the money yo' blessed mother
+give me an' all I earned sence I was free. I laid it up for a rainy
+day an' now, bless God, it's not only rainin' but sleetin' an' cold
+an' snowin' besides, an' so I went to the old socks. It's you all's,
+an' all paid fur, an' old mammy to wait on you. I'm gwine to go after
+Miss Helen before the mill closes, else she'll be gwine back to
+Millwood, knowin' nothin' of all this surprise for her. No,
+sah,--nary one of yo' mother's chillun shall ever wuck in a mill."
+
+Conway bowed his head. Then he drew Lily to him as he knelt and
+said: "Oh, God help me--make me a man, make me a Conway again."
+
+It was his first prayer in years--the beginning of his reformation.
+And every reformation began with a prayer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE DOUBLE THAT DIED
+
+
+Two hours before the mill closed Richard Travis came hurriedly into
+the mill office. There had been business engagements to be attended
+to in the town before leaving that night for the North, and he had
+been absent from the mill all day. Now everything was ready even to
+his packed trunk--all except Helen.
+
+"He's come for her," said Jud to himself as he walked over to the
+superintendent's desk.
+
+Then amid the hum and the roar of the mill he bent his head and the
+two whispered low and earnestly together. As Jud talked in excited
+whispers, Travis lit a cigar and listened coolly--to Jud's
+astonishment--even cynically.
+
+"An' what you reckin' she done--the ole 'oman? Tuck the little gyrl
+right out of my han's an' kerried her home--marched off as proud as
+ole Queen Victory."
+
+"Home? What home?" asked Travis.
+
+"An' that's the mischief of it," went on Jud. "I thort she was lyin'
+about the home, an' I stepped down there at noon an' I hope I may die
+to-night if she ain't got 'em all fixed up as snug as can be, an' the
+Major is there as sober es a jedge, an' lookin' like a gentleman an'
+actin' like a Conway. Say, but you watch yo' han'. That's blood that
+won't stan' monkeyin' with when it's in its right mind. An' the
+little home the ole 'oman's got, she bought it with her own money,
+been savin' it all her life an' now"--
+
+"What did you say to her this morning?" asked Travis.
+
+"Oh, I cussed her out good--the old black"--
+
+A peculiar light flashed in Richard Travis' eyes. Never before had
+the Whipper-in seen it. It was as if he had looked up and seen a halo
+around the moon.
+
+"To do grand things--to do grand things--like that--negro that she
+is! No--no--of course you did not understand. Our moral sense is
+gone--we mill people. It is atrophied--yours and mine and all of
+us--the soul has gone and mine? My God, why did you give it back to
+me now--this ghost soul that has come to me with burning breath?"
+
+Jud Carpenter listened in amazement and looked at him suspiciously.
+He came closer to see if he could smell whiskey on his breath, but
+Travis looked at him calmly as he went on: "Why, yes, of course you
+cursed her--how could you understand? How could you know--you, born
+soulless, know that you had witnessed something which, what does the
+old preacher call him--the man Jesus Christ--something He would have
+stopped and blessed her for. A slave and she saved it for her master.
+A negro and she loved little children where we people of much
+intellect and a higher civilization and Christianity--eh, Jud,
+Christians"--and he laughed so strangely that Jud took a turn around
+the room watching Travis out of the corner of his eyes.
+
+"Oh--and you cursed her!"
+
+Jud nodded. "An' to-morrow I'll go an' fetch the little 'un back. Why
+she's signed--she's our'n for five years."
+
+Travis turned quickly and Jud dodged under the same strange light
+that showed again in his eyes. Then he laid his hand on Jud's arm and
+said simply: "No--no--you will not!"
+
+Jud looked at him in open astonishment.
+
+Travis puffed at his cigar as he said:
+
+"Don't study me too closely. Things have happened--have happened, I
+tell you--my God! we are all double--that is if we are anything--two
+halves to us--and my half--my other half, got lost till the other
+night and left this aching, pitiful, womanly thing behind, that
+bleeds to the touch and has tears. Why, man, I am either an angel, a
+devil, or both. Don't you go there and touch that little child, nor
+thrust your damned moral Caliban monstrosity into that sweet isle,
+nor break up with your seared conscience the glory of that unselfish
+act. If you do I'll kill you, Jud Carpenter--I'll kill you!"
+
+Jud turned and walked to the water bucket, took a drink and squirted
+it through his teeth.
+
+He was working for thinking time: "He's crazy--he's sho' crazy--" he
+said to himself. Coming back, he said:
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Travis--but the oldes' gyrl--what--what about her,
+you know?"
+
+"She's mine, isn't she? I've won her--outgeneraled the others--by
+brains and courage. She should belong to my harem--to my band--as
+the stallion of the plains when he beats off with tooth and hoof and
+neck of thunder his rival, and takes his mares."
+
+Jud nodded, looking at him quizzically.
+
+"Well, what about it?" asked Travis.
+
+"Nothin'--only this"--then he lowered his voice as he came
+nearer--"the ole 'oman will be after her in an hour--an' she'll take
+her--tell her all. Maybe you'll see somethin' to remind you of Jesus
+Christ in that."
+
+Travis smiled.
+
+"Well," went on Jud, "you'd better take her now--while the whole
+thing has played into yo' hands; but she--the oldes' gyrl--she don't
+know the ole 'oman's come back an' made her a home; that her father
+is sober an' there with her little sister, that Clay is away an'
+ain't deserted her. She don't know anything, an' when you set her out
+in that empty house, deserted, her folks all deserted her, as she'll
+think, don't you know she'll go to the end of the worl' with you?"
+
+"Well?" asked Travis as he smiled calmly.
+
+"Well, take her and thank Jud Carpenter for the Queen of the
+Valley--eh?" and he laughed and tried to nudge Travis familiarly, but
+the latter moved away.
+
+"I'll take her," at last he said.
+
+"She'll go to The Gaffs with you"--went on Jud. "There she's safe.
+Then to-night you can drive her to the train at Lenox, as we told
+Biggers."
+
+He came over and whispered in Travis's ear.
+
+"That worked out beautifully," said Travis after a while, "but I'll
+not trust her to you or to Charley Biggers. I'll take her
+myself--she's mine--Richard Travis's--mine--mine! I who have been
+buffeted and abused by Fate, given all on earth I do not want, and
+denied the one thing I'd die for; I'll show them who they are up
+against. I'll take her, and they may talk and rave and shoot and be
+damned!"
+
+His old bitterness was returning. His face flushed:
+
+"That's the way you love to hear me talk, isn't it--to go on and say
+I'll take her and do as I please with her, and if it pleases me to
+marry her I'll set her up over them all--heh?"
+
+Jud nodded.
+
+"That's one of me," said Travis--"the old one. This is the new." And
+he opened the back of his watch where a tiny lock of Alice Westmore's
+auburn hair lay: "Oh, if I were only worthy to kiss it!"
+
+He walked into the mill and down to the little room where Helen sat.
+He stood a while at the door and watched her--the poise of the
+beautiful head, the cheeks flushed with the good working blood that
+now flowed through them, the hair falling with slight disorder, a
+stray lock of it dashed across her forehead and setting off the rest
+of it, darker and deeper, as a cloudlet, inlaid with gold, the sunset
+of her cheeks.
+
+His were the eyes of a connoisseur when it came to women, and as he
+looked he knew that every line of her was faultless; the hands
+slender and beautifully high-born; the fingers tapering with that
+artistic slope of the tips, all so plainly visible now that they were
+at work. One foot was thrust out, slender with curved and high
+instep. He flushed with pride of her--his eyes brightened and he
+smiled in the old ironical way, a smile of dare-doing, of victory.
+
+He walked in briskly and with a business-like, forward alertness. She
+looked up, paled, then flushed.
+
+"Oh, I was hoping so you had forgotten," she said tremblingly.
+
+He smiled kindly: "I never forget."
+
+She put up one hand to her cheek and rested her head on it a moment
+in thought.
+
+He came up and stood deferentially by her side, looking down on her,
+on her beautiful head. She half crouched, expecting to hear something
+banteringly complimentary; bold, commonplace--to feel even the touch
+of his sensual hand on her hair, on her cheek and _My Queen--my
+Queen!_
+
+After a while she looked up, surprised. The excitement in her
+eyes--the half-doubting--half-yielding fight there, of ambition, and
+doubt, and the stubborn wrong of it all, of her hard lot and bitter
+life, of the hidden splendor that might lie beyond, and yet the
+terrible doubt, the fear that it might end in a living death--these,
+fighting there, lit up her eyes as candles at an altar of love. Then
+the very difference of his attitude, as he stood there, struck
+her,--the beautiful dignity of his face, his smile. She saw in an
+instant that sensualism had vanished--there was something spiritual
+which she had never seen before. A wave of trust, in her utter
+helplessness, a feeling of respect, of admiration, swept over her.
+She arose quickly, wondering at her own decision.
+
+He bowed low, and there was a ringing sweetness in his voice as he
+said: "I have come for you, Helen--if you wish to go."
+
+"I will go, Richard Travis, for I know now you will do me no harm."
+
+"Do you think you could learn to love me?"
+
+She met his eyes steadily, bravely: "That was never in the bargain.
+That is another thing. This is barter and trade--the last ditch
+rather than starvation, death. This is the surrender of the earthen
+fort, the other the glory of the ladder leading to the skies.
+Understand me, you have not asked for that--it is with me and God,
+who made me and gave it. Let it stay there and go back to him. You
+offer me bread"--
+
+"But may it not turn into a stone, an exquisite, pure diamond?" he
+asked.
+
+She looked at him sadly. She shook her head.
+
+"Diamonds are not made in a day."
+
+The light Jud Carpenter saw flashed in his eyes: "I have read of one
+somewhere who turned water into wine--and that was as difficult."
+
+"If--if--" she said gently--"if you had always been this--if you
+would always be this"--
+
+"A woman knows a man as a rose knows light," he said simply--"as a
+star knows the sun. But we men--being the sun and the star, we are
+blinded by our own light. Come, you may trust me, Sweet Rose."
+
+She put her hand in his. He took it half way to his mouth.
+
+"Don't," she said--"please--that is the old way."
+
+He lowered it gently, reverently, and they walked out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE DYING LION
+
+
+"Lily has been taken home," he said as she walked out with him. "She
+is safe and will be cared for--so will be your father. I will explain
+it to you as we drive to Millwood."
+
+She wondered, but her cheeks now burned so that all her thoughts
+began to flow back upon herself as a tide, flowing inland, and
+forgetting the sea of things. Her heart beat faster--she felt
+guilty--of what, she could not say.
+
+Perhaps the guilt of the sea for being found on the land.
+
+The common mill girls--were they not all looking at her, were they
+not all wondering, did they not all despise her, her who by birth and
+breeding should be above them? Her lips tightened at the thought--she
+who was above them--now--now--they to be above her--poor-born and
+common as they were--if--if--he betrayed her.
+
+He handed her quietly--reverently even, into the buggy, and the
+trotters whirled her away; but not before she thought she saw the
+mill girls peeping at her through the windows, and nodding their
+heads at each other, and some of them smiling disdainfully. And yet
+when she looked closely there was no one at the windows.
+
+The wind blew cool. Travis glanced at her dress, her poorly protected
+shoulders.
+
+"I am afraid you will be too cold after coming from a warm mill and
+going with the speed we go."
+
+He reached under the seat and drew out a light overcoat. He threw it
+gently over her shoulders, driving, in his masterful way, with the
+reins in one hand.
+
+He did not speak again until he reached Millwood.
+
+The gate was down, bits of strewn paper, straw and all the debris of
+things having been moved, were there. The house was dark and empty,
+and Helen uttered a surprised cry:
+
+"Why, what does all this mean? Oh, has anything happened to them?"
+
+She clung in pallor to Travis's arm.
+
+"Be calm," he said, "I will explain. They are all safe. They have
+moved. Let us go in, a moment."
+
+He drew the mares under a shed and hitched them, throwing blankets
+over them and unchecking their heads. Then he lifted her out. How
+strong he was, and how like a limp lily she felt in the grasp of his
+hands.
+
+The moon flashed out now and then from clouds scurrying fast, adding
+a ghostliness to the fading light, in which the deserted house stood
+out amid shadowy trees and weeds tall and dried. The rotten steps and
+balcony, even the broken bottles and pieces of crockery shone bright
+in the fading light. Tears started to her eyes:
+
+"Nothing is here--nothing!"
+
+Travis caught her hand in the dark and she clung to him. A hound
+stepped out from under the steps and licked her other hand. She
+jumped and gave a little shriek. Then, when she understood, she
+stroked the poor thing's head, its eyes staring hungrily in the dim
+light.
+
+She followed Travis up the steps. Within, he struck a match, and she
+saw the emptiness of it all--the broken plastering and the paper torn
+off in spots, a dirty, littered floor, and an old sofa and a few
+other things left, too worthless to be moved.
+
+She held up bravely, but tears were running down her cheeks. Travis
+struck another match to light a lamp which had been forgotten and
+left on the mantel. He attempted to light it, but something huge and
+black swept by and extinguished it. Helen shrieked again, and coming
+up timidly seized his arm in the dark. He could feel her heart
+beating excitedly against it.
+
+He struck another match.
+
+"Don't be uneasy, it is nothing but an owl."
+
+The light was turned up and showed an owl sitting on the top of an
+old tester that had formerly been the canopy of her grandmother's
+bed.
+
+The owl stared stupidly at them--turning its head solemnly.
+
+Helen laughed hysterically.
+
+"Now, sit down on the old sofa," he said. "There is much to say to
+you. We are now on the verge of a tragedy or a farce, or--"
+
+"Sometimes plays end well, where all are happy, do they not?" she
+asked, smiling hysterically and sitting by him, but looking at the
+uncanny owl beyond. She was silent, then:
+
+"Oh, I--I--don't you think I am entitled now--to have something end
+happily--now--once--in my life?"
+
+He pitied her and was silent.
+
+"Tell me," she said after a while, "you have moved father and Lily
+to--to--one of the Cottontown cottages?"
+
+He arose: "In a little while I will tell you, but now we must have
+something to eat first--you see I had this lunch fixed for our
+journey." He went out, over to his lap-robe and cushion, and brought
+a basket and placed it on an old table.
+
+"You may begin now and be my housekeeper," he smiled. "Isn't it time
+you were learning? I daresay I'll not find you a novice, though."
+
+She flushed and smiled. She arose gracefully, and her pretty hands
+soon had the lunch spread, Travis helping her awkwardly.
+
+It was a pretty picture, he thought--her flushed girlish face, yet
+matronly ways. He watched her slyly, with a sad joyousness in his
+eyes, drinking it in, as one who had hungered long for contentment
+and peace, such as this.
+
+She had forgotten everything else in the housekeeping. She even
+laughed some at his awkwardness and scolded him playfully, for,
+man-like, forgetting a knife and fork. It was growing chilly, and
+while she set the lunch he went out and brought in some wood. Soon a
+fine oak fire burned in the fireplace.
+
+They sat at the old table at last, side by side, and ate the
+delightful lunch. Under the influence of the bottle of claret, from
+The Gaffs cellar, her courage came and her animation was beautiful to
+him--something that seemed more of girlhood than womanhood. He drank
+it all in--hungry--heart-hungry for comfort and love; and she saw and
+understood.
+
+Never had he enjoyed a lunch so much. Never had he seen so beautiful
+a picture!
+
+When it was over he lit a cigar, and the fine odor filled the old
+room.
+
+Then very quietly he told her the story of Mammy Maria's return, of
+the little home she had prepared for them; of her coming that day to
+the mill and taking Lily, and that even now, doubtless, she was there
+looking for the elder sister.
+
+She did not show any surprise--only tears came slowly: "Do you know
+that I felt that something of this kind would happen? Dear
+Mammy--dear, dear Mammy Maria! She will care for Lily and father."
+
+She could stand it no longer. She burst into childish tears and,
+kneeling, she put her beautiful head on Travis's lap as innocently as
+if it were her old nurse's, and she, a child, seeking consolation.
+
+He stroked her hair, her cheek, gently. He felt his lids grow moist
+and a tenderness he never had known came over him.
+
+"I have told you this for a purpose," he whispered in her ear--"I
+will take you to them, now."
+
+She raised her wet eyes--flushed. He watched her closely to see signs
+of any battle there. And then his heart gave a great leap and surged
+madly as she said calmly: "No--no--it is too late--too late--now.
+I--could--never explain. I will go with you, Richard Travis, to the
+end of the world."
+
+He sat very still and looked at her kneeling there as a child would,
+both hands clasped around his knee, and looking into his eyes with
+hers, gray-brown and gloriously bright. They were calm--so calm, and
+determined and innocent. They thrilled him with their trust and the
+royal beauty of her faith. There came to him an upliftedness that
+shook him.
+
+"To the end of the world," he said--"ah, you have said so much--so
+much more than I could ever deserve."
+
+"I have stood it all as long as I could. My father's drunkenness, I
+could stand that, and Mammy's forsaking us, as I thought--that, too.
+When the glory of work, of earning my own living opened itself to
+me,--Oh, I grasped it and was happy to think that I could support
+them! That's why your temptation--why--I--"
+
+He winced and was silent.
+
+"They were nothing," she went on, "but to be forgotten, forsaken
+by--by--"
+
+"Clay?" he helped her say.
+
+"Oh," she flushed--"yes,--that was part of it, and then to see--to
+see--you so different--with this strange look on you--something which
+says so plainly to me that--that--oh, forgive me, but do you know I
+seem to see you dying--dying all the time, and now you are so
+changed--indeed--oh please understand me--I feel differently toward
+you--as I would toward one dying for sympathy and love."
+
+She hid her face again. He felt his face grow hot. He sat perfectly
+still, listening. At last she said:
+
+"When I came here to-night and saw it all--empty--I thought: 'This
+means I am deserted by all--he has brought me here to see it--to know
+it. What can I do but go with him? It is all that is left. Did I make
+myself? Did I give myself this fatal beauty--for you say I am
+beautiful. And did I make you with your strength--your conquering
+strength, and--Oh, could I overcome my environment?' But now--now--it
+is different--and if I am lost, Richard Travis--it will be your
+fault--yours and God's."
+
+He stroked her hair. He was pale and that strange light which Jud
+Carpenter had seen in his eyes that afternoon blazed now with a
+nervous flash.
+
+"That is my story," she cried. "It is now too late even for God to
+come and tell me through you--now since we--you and I--oh, how can I
+say it--you have taken me this way--you, so strong and brave
+and--grand--"
+
+He flushed hot with shame. He put his hand gently over her mouth.
+
+"Hush--hush--child--my God--you hurt me--shame me--you know not what
+you say."
+
+"I can understand all--but one thing," she went on after a while.
+"Why have you brought me to this--here--at night alone with you--to
+tell me this--to make me--me--oh, change in my feelings--to you? Oh,
+must I say it?" she cried--"tell you the truth--that--that--now since
+I see you as you are--I--I,--I am willing to go!"
+
+"Hush, Helen, my child, my God--don't crush me--don't--listen,
+child--listen! I am a villain--a doubly-dyed, infamous one--when you
+hear"--
+
+She shook her head and put one of her pretty hands over his mouth.
+
+"Let me tell you all, first. Let me finish. After all this, why have
+you brought me here to tell me this, when all you had to do was to
+keep silent a few more hours--take me on to the station, as you
+said--and--and--"
+
+"I will tell you," he said gently. "Yes, you have asked the question
+needed to be explained. Now hear from my own lips my infamy--not all
+of it, God knows--that would take the night; but this peculiar part
+of it. Do you know why I love to stroke your hair, why I love to
+touch it, to touch you, to look into your eyes; why I should love,
+next to one thing of all earth, to take you in my arms and smother
+you--kill you with kisses--your hair, your eyes, your mouth?"
+
+She hid her face, crimson.
+
+"Did no one tell you, ever tell you--how much you look like your
+cousin"--he stopped--he could not say the word, but she guessed.
+White with shame, she sprang up from him, startled, hurt. Her heart
+tightened into a painful thing which pricked her.
+
+"Then--then--it is not I--but my Cousin Alice--oh--I--yes--I did
+hear--I should have known"--it came from her slowly and with a
+quivering tremor.
+
+He seized her hands and drew her back down by him on the sofa.
+
+"When I started into this with you I was dead--dead. My soul was
+withered within me. All women were my playthings--all but one. She
+was my Queen--my wife that was to be. I was dead, my God--how dead I
+was! I now see with a clearness that is killing me; a clearness as of
+one waking from sleep and feeling, in the first wave of conscience,
+that inconceivable tenderness which hurts so--hurts because it is
+tender and before the old hard consciousness of material things come
+again to toughen. How dead I was, you may know when I say that all
+this web now around you--from your entrance into the mill till
+now--here to-night--in my power--body and soul--that it was all to
+gratify this dead sea fruit of my soul, this thing in me I cannot
+understand, making me conquer women all my life for--oh, as a lion
+would, to kill, though not hungry, and then lie by them, dying, and
+watch them,--dead! Then this same God--if any there be--He who you
+say put more on you than you could bear--He struck me, as,
+well--no--He did not strike--but ground me, ground me into dust--took
+her out of my life and then laid my soul before me so naked that the
+very sunlight scorches it. What was it the old preacher said--that
+'touch of God' business? 'Touch--'" he laughed, "not touch, but blow,
+I say--a blow that ground me into star-dust and flung me into space,
+my heart a burning comet and my soul the tail of it, dissolving
+before my very eyes. What then can I, a lion, dying, care for the doe
+that crosses my path? The beautiful doe, beautiful even as you are.
+Do you understand me, child?"
+
+She scarcely knew what she did. She remembered only the terrible
+empty room. The owl uncannily turning its head here and there and
+staring at her with its eyes, yellow in the firelight.
+
+She dropped on the floor by him and clung again to his knees, her
+head in his lap in pity for him.
+
+"That is the story of the dying lion," he said after a while. "The
+lion who worked all his cunning and skill and courage to get the
+beautiful doe in his power, only to find he was dying--dying and
+could not eat. Could you love a dying lion, child?" he asked
+abruptly--"tell me truly, for as you speak so will I act--would make
+you queen of all the desert."
+
+She raised her eyes to his. They were wet with tears. He had touched
+the pity in them. She saw him as she had never seen him before. All
+her fear of him vanished, and she was held by the cords of a strange
+fascination. She knew not what she did. The owl looked at her
+queerly, and she almost sobbed it out, hysterically:
+
+"Oh, I could--love--you--you--who are so strong and who
+suffer--suffer so"--
+
+"You could love me?" he asked. "Then, then I would marry you
+to-night--now--if--if--that uncovering--that touch--had not been put
+upon me to do nobler things than to gratify my own passion, had not
+shown me the other half which all these years has been dead--my
+double." He was silent.
+
+"And so I sent to-day," he began after a while, "for a friend of
+yours, one with whom you can be happier than--the dying lion. He has
+been out of the county--sent out--it was part of the plan, part of
+the snare of the lion and his whelp. And so I sent for him this
+morning, feeling the death blow, you know. I sent him an urgent
+message, to meet you here at nine." He glanced at his watch. "It is
+past that now, but he had far to ride. He will come, I hope--ah,
+listen!"
+
+They heard the steps of a rider coming up the gravel walk.
+
+"It is he," said Travis calmly--"Clay."
+
+She sprang up quickly, half defiantly. The old Conway spirit flashed
+in her eyes and she came to him tall and splendid and with half a
+look of protest, half command, and yet in it begging, pleading,
+yearning for--she knew not what.
+
+"Why--why--did you? Oh, you do not know! You do not
+understand--love--love--can it be won this way--apprenticed,
+bargained--given away?"
+
+"You must go with him, he loves you. He will make you happy. I am
+dying--is not part of me already dead?"
+
+For answer she came to him, closer, and stood by him as one who in
+war stands by a comrade shot through and ready to fall.
+
+He put his arms around her and drew her to him closer, and she did
+not resist--but as a child would, hers also she wound around his neck
+and whispered:
+
+"My lion! Oh, kill me--kill me--let me die with you!"
+
+"Child--my precious one--my--oh, God, and you--forgive me this. But
+let me kiss you once and dream--dream it is she"--
+
+She felt his kisses on her hair, her eyes.
+
+"Good-bye--Alice--Alice--good-bye--forever--"
+
+He released her, but she clung to him sobbing. Her head lay on his
+breast, and she shook in the agony of it all.
+
+"You will forgive me, some day--when you know--how I loved her," he
+gasped, white and with a bitter light in his face.
+
+She looked up: "I would die," she said simply, "for a love like
+that."
+
+They heard the steps of a man approaching the house. She sat down on
+the old sofa pale, trembling and with bitterness in her heart.
+
+Travis walked to the door and opened it:
+
+"Come in, Clay," he said quietly. "I am glad that my man found you.
+We have been waiting for you."
+
+"I finished that survey and came as fast as I could. Your man rode on
+to The Gaffs, but I came here as you wrote me to do," and Clay came
+in quietly, speaking as he walked to the fire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH
+
+
+He came in as naturally as if the house were still inhabited, though
+he saw the emptiness of it all, and guessed the cause. But when he
+saw Helen, a flushed surprise beamed through his eyes and he gave her
+his hand.
+
+"Helen!--why, this is unexpected--quite unusual, I must say."
+
+She did not speak, as she gave him her hand, but smiled sadly. It
+meant: "Mr. Travis will tell you all. I know nothing. It is all his
+planning."
+
+Clay sat down in an old chair by the fire and warmed his hands,
+looking thoughtfully at the two, now and then, and wonderingly. He
+was not surprised when Travis said:
+
+"I sent for you hurriedly, as one who I knew was a friend of Miss
+Conway. A crisis has arisen in her affairs to-day in which it is
+necessary for her friends to act."
+
+"Why, yes, I suppose I can guess," said Clay thoughtfully and
+watching Helen closely all the while as he glanced around the empty
+room. "I was only waiting. Why, you see--"
+
+Helen flushed scarlet and looked appealingly at Travis. But he broke
+in on Clay without noticing her.
+
+"Yes, I knew you were only waiting. I think I understand you, but you
+know the trouble with nearly every good intention is that it waits
+too long."
+
+Clay reddened.
+
+Helen arose and, coming over, stood by Travis, her face pale, her
+eyes shining. "I beg--I entreat--please, say no more. Clay," she said
+turning on him with flushed face, "I did not know you were coming. I
+did not know where you were. Like all the others, I supposed you too
+had--had deserted me."
+
+"Why, I was sent off in a hurry to--" he started.
+
+"Mr. Travis told me to-night," she interrupted. "I understand now.
+But really, it makes no difference to me now. Since--since--"
+
+"Now look here," broke in Travis with feigned lightness,--"I am not
+going to let you two lovers misunderstand each other. I have planned
+it all out and I want you both to make me happy by listening to one
+older, one who admires you both and sincerely wishes to see you
+happy. Things have happened at your house," he said addressing
+Clay--"things which will surprise you when you reach home--things
+that affect you and me and Miss Conway. Now I know that you love her,
+and have loved her a long time, and that only--"
+
+"Only our poverty," said Clay thankfully to Travis for breaking the
+ice for him.
+
+Helen stood up quickly--a smile on her lips: "Don't you both think
+that before this bargain and sale goes further you had better get the
+consent of the one to be sold?" She turned to Clay.
+
+"Don't you think you have queer ideas of love--of winning a woman's
+love--in this way? And you"--she said turning to Travis--"Oh you
+_know_ better."
+
+Travis arose with a smile half joyous, half serious, and Clay was so
+embarrassed that he mopped his brow as if he were plowing in the sun.
+
+"Why, really, Helen--I--you know--I have spoken to you--you know, and
+but for my--"
+
+"Poverty"--said Helen taking up the word--"And what were poverty to
+me, if I loved a man? I'd love him the more for it. If he were dying
+broken-hearted, wrecked--even in disgrace,--"
+
+Travis flushed and looked at her admiringly, while the joyous light
+flashed yet deeper in his eyes.
+
+"Come," he said. "I have arranged all. I am not going to give you
+young people an excuse to defer your happiness longer." He turned to
+Clay: "I shall show you something which you have been on the track of
+for some time. I have my lantern in the buggy, and we will have to
+walk a mile or more. But it is pleasant to-night, and the walk will
+do us all good. Come."
+
+They both arose wonderingly--Helen came over and put her hand on his
+arm: "I will go," she whispered, "if there be no more of that talk."
+
+He smiled. "You must do as I say. Am I not now your guardian? Bring
+your leathern sack with your hammer and geological tools," he
+remarked to Clay.
+
+Clay arose hastily, and they went out of the old house and across the
+fields. Past the boundaries of Millwood they walked, Travis silently
+leading, and Clay following with Helen, who could not speak, so
+momentous it all seemed. She saw only Travis's fine square
+shoulders, and erect, sinewy form, going before them, into the night
+of shadows, of trees, of rocks, of the great peak of the mountain,
+silent and dark.
+
+He did not speak. He walked in silent thought. They passed the
+boundary line of Millwood, and then down a slight ravine he led them
+to the ragged, flinty hill, on which the old preacher's cabin stood
+on their right.
+
+"Now," he said stopping--"if I am correct, Clay, this hill is the old
+Bishop's," pointing to his right where the cabin stood, "and over
+here is what is left of Westmoreland. This gulch divides them. This
+range really runs into Westmoreland," he said with a sweep of his
+hand toward it. "Get your bearings," he smiled to Clay, "for I want
+you to tell whose fortune this is."
+
+He lit his lantern and walking forward struck away some weeds and
+vines which partially concealed the mouth of a small opening in the
+hillside caused by a landslide. It was difficult going at first, but
+as they went further the opening grew larger, and as the light
+flashed on its walls, Clay stopped in admiration and shouted:
+
+"Look--look--there it is!"
+
+Before them running right and left--for the cave had split it in two,
+lay the solid vein of coal, shining in the light, and throwing back
+splinters of ebony, to Clay more beautiful than gold.
+
+Travis watched him with an amused smile as he hastily took off his
+satchel and struck a piece off the ledge. Helen stood wondering,
+looking not at Clay, but at Travis, and her eyes shone brilliantly
+and full of proud splendor.
+
+Clay forgot that they were there. He measured the ledge. He chipped
+off piece after piece and examined it closely. "I never dreamed it
+would be here, in this shape," he said at last. "Look!--and fully
+eight feet, solid. This hill is full of it. The old preacher will
+find it hard to spend his wealth."
+
+"But that is not all," said Travis; "see how the dip runs--see the
+vein--this way." He pointed to the left.
+
+Clay paled: "That means--it is remarkable--very remarkable. Why, this
+vein should not have been here. It is too low to be in the
+Carboniferous." He suddenly stopped: "But here it is--contrary to all
+my data and--and--why really it takes the low range of the poor land
+of Westmoreland. It--it--will make me rich."
+
+"You haven't seen all," said Travis--"look!" He turned and walked to
+another part of the small cave, where the bank had broken, and there
+gleamed, not the black, but the red--the earth full of rich ore.
+
+Clay picked up one eagerly.
+
+"The finest iron ore!--who--who--ever heard of such a freak of
+nature?"
+
+"And the lime rock is all over the valley," said Travis, "and that
+means, coal, iron and lime--"
+
+"Furnaces--why, of course--furnaces and wealth. Helen, I--I--it will
+make Westmoreland rich. Now, in all earnestness--in all sincerity I
+can tell you--"
+
+"Do not tell me anything, Clay--please do not. You do not
+understand. You can never understand." Her eyes were following
+Travis, who had walked off pretending to be examining the cave. Then
+she gave a shriek which sounded frightfully intense as it echoed
+around.
+
+Travis turned quickly and saw standing between him and them a gaunt,
+savage thing, with froth in its mouth and saliva-dripping lips. At
+first he thought it was a panther, so low it crouched to spring; but
+almost instantly he recognized Jud Carpenter's dog. Then it began to
+creep uncertainly, staggeringly forward, toward Clay and Helen, its
+neck drawn and contracted in the paroxysms of rabies; its deadly
+eyes, staring, unearthly yellow in the lantern light. Within two
+yards of Clay, who stood helpless with fear and uncertainty, it
+crouched to spring, growling and snapping at its own sides, and Helen
+screamed again as she saw Travis's quick, lithe figure spring forward
+and, grasping the dog by the throat from behind, fling himself with
+crushing force on the brute, choking it as he fell.
+
+Total darkness--for in his rush Travis threw aside his lantern--and
+it seemed an age to Helen as she heard the terrible fight for life
+going on at her feet, the struggles and howls of the dog, the
+snapping of the huge teeth, the stinging sand thrown up into her
+face. Then after a while all was still, and then very quietly from
+Travis:
+
+"A match, Clay--light the lantern! I have choked him to death."
+
+Under the light he arose, his clothes torn with tooth and fang of the
+gaunt dog, which lay silent. He stood up hot and flushed, and then
+turned pallid, and for a moment staggered as he saw the blood
+trickling from his left arm.
+
+Helen stood by him terror-eyed, trembling, crushed,--with a terrible
+sickening fear.
+
+"He was mad," said Travis gently, "and I fear he has bitten me,
+though I managed to jump on him before he bit you two."
+
+He took off his coat--blood was on his shirt sleeve and had run down
+his arm. Helen, pale and with a great sob in her throat, rolled up
+the sleeve, Travis submitting, with a strange pallor in his face and
+the new light in his eyes.
+
+His bare arm came up strong and white. Above the elbow, near the
+shoulder, the blood still flowed where the fangs had sunk.
+
+"There is only one chance to save me," he said quietly, "and that, a
+slim one. It bleeds--if I could only get my lips to it--"
+
+He tried to expostulate, to push her off, as he felt her lips against
+his naked arm. But she clung there sucking out the virus. He felt her
+tears fall on his arm. He heard her murmur:
+
+"My dying lion--my dying lion!"
+
+He bent and whispered: "You are risking your own life for me, Helen!
+Life for life--death for death!"
+
+It was too much even for his great strength, and when he recovered
+himself he was sitting on the sand of the little cave. How long she
+had clung to his arm he did not know, but it had ceased to pain him
+and her own handkerchief was tied around it.
+
+He staggered out, a terrible pallor on his face, as he said: "Not
+this way--not to go this way. Oh, God, your blow--I care not for
+death, but, oh, not this death?"
+
+"Clay," he said after a while--"Take her--take her to your mother and
+sister to-night. I must bid you both good-night, ay, and good-bye.
+See, you walk only across the field there--that is Westmoreland."
+
+He turned, but he felt some one clinging to his hand, in the dark. He
+looked down at her, at the white, drawn face, beautiful with a
+terrible pain: "Take me--take me," she begged--"with you--to the end
+of the world--oh, I love you and I care not who knows."
+
+"Child--child"--he whispered sadly--"You know not what you say. I am
+dying. I shall be mad--unless--unless what you have done--"
+
+"Take me," she pleaded--"my lion. I am yours."
+
+He stooped and kissed her and then walked quickly away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE ANGEL WITH THE FLAMING SWORD
+
+
+It was nearly time for the mill to close when Mammy Maria, her big
+honest face beaming with satisfaction at the surprise she had in
+store for Helen, began to wind her red silk bandana around her head.
+She had several bandanas, but when Lily saw her put on the red silk
+one, the little girl knew she was going out--"dressin' fur
+prom'nade"--as the old lady termed it.
+
+"You are going after Helen," said the little girl, clapping her
+hands.
+
+She sat on her father's lap: "And we want you to hurry up, Mammy
+Maria," he said, "I want all my family here. I am going to work
+to-morrow. I'll redeem Millwood before my two years expire or I am
+not a Conway again."
+
+Mammy Maria was agitated enough. She had been so busy that she had
+failed to notice how late it was. In her efforts to surprise Helen
+she had forgotten time, and now she feared the mill might close and
+Helen, not knowing they had moved, would go back to Millwood. This
+meant a two mile tramp and delay. She had plenty of time, she knew,
+before the mill closed; but the more she thought of the morning's
+scene at the mill and of Jud Carpenter, the greater her misgivings.
+For Mammy Maria was instinctive--a trait her people have. It is
+always Nature's substitute when much intellect is wanting.
+
+All afternoon she had chuckled to herself. All afternoon, the three
+of them,--for even Major Conway joined in, and helped work and
+arrange things--talked it over as they planned. His face was clear
+now, and calm, as in the old days. Even the old servant could see he
+had determined to win in the fight.
+
+"Marse Ned's hisse'f ag'in," she would say to him
+encouragingly--"Marse Ned's hisse'f--an' Zion's by his side, yea,
+Lord, the Ark of the Tabbernackle!"
+
+For the last time she surveyed the little rooms of the cottage. How
+clean and fresh it all was, and how the old mahogany of Millwood set
+them off! And now all was ready.
+
+It was nearly dark when she reached the mill. It had not yet closed
+down, and lights began to blaze first from one window, then another.
+She could hear the steam and the coughing of the exhaust pipe.
+
+This was all the old woman had hoped--to be in time for Helen when
+the mill closed.
+
+But one thing was in her way, or she had taken her as she did Lily:
+She did not know where Helen's room was in the mill. There was no
+fear in the old nurse's heart. She had taken Lily, she would take
+Helen. She would show the whole tribe of them that she would! But in
+which room was the elder sister?
+
+So she walked again into the main office, fearless, and with her head
+up. For was she not Zion, the Lord's chosen, the sanctified one, and
+the powers of hell were naught?
+
+No one was in the office but Jud Carpenter, and to her surprise he
+treated her with the utmost courtesy. Indeed, his courtesy was so
+intense that any one but Zion, who, being black, knew little of irony
+and less of sarcasm, might have seen that Jud's courtesy was strongly
+savored of the two.
+
+"Be seated, Madam," he said with a profound bow. "Be seated, Upholder
+of Heaven, Chief-cook-an'-bottle-washer in the Kingdom to come! An'
+what may have sent the angel of the Lord to honor us with another
+visit?"
+
+The old woman's fighting feathers arose instantly:--
+
+"The same that sent 'em to Sodom an' Gomarrer, suh," she replied.
+
+"Ah," said Jud apologetically, "an' I hope we won't smell any
+brimstone to-night."
+
+"If you don't smell it to-night, you'll smell it befo' long. And now
+look aheah, Mister White Man, no use for you an' me to set here
+a-jawin' an' 'spu'tin'. I've come after my other gyrl an' you know
+I'm gwine have her!"
+
+"Oh, she'll be out 'torectly, Mrs. Zion! Jes' keep yo' robes on an'
+hol' yo' throne down a little while. She'll be out 'torectly."
+
+There was a motive in this lie, as there was in all others Jud
+Carpenter told.
+
+It was soon apparent. For scarcely had the old woman seated herself
+with a significant toss of her head when the mill began to cease to
+hum and roar.
+
+She sat watching the door keenly as they came out. What creatures
+they were, lint-and-dust-covered to their very eyes. The yellow,
+hard, emotionless faces of the men, the haggard, weary ones of the
+girls and women and little children! Never had she seen such white
+people before, such hollow eyes, with dark, bloodless rings beneath
+them, sunken cheeks, tanned to the color of oiled hickory, much used.
+Dazed, listless, they stumbled out past her with relaxed under-jaws
+and faces gloomy, expressionless--so long bent over looms, they had
+taken on the very looks of them--the shapes of them, moving, walking,
+working, mechanically. Women, smileless, and so tired and numbed that
+they had forgotten the strongest instinct of humanity--the romance of
+sex; for many of them wore the dirty, chopped-off jackets of men,
+their slouched black hats, their coarse shoes, and talked even in the
+vulgar, hard irony of the male in despair.
+
+They all passed out--one by one--for in them was not even the
+instinct of the companionship of misery.
+
+Every moment the old nurse expected Helen to walk out, to walk out in
+her queenly way, with her beautiful face and manners, so different
+from those around her.
+
+Jud Carpenter sat at his desk quietly cutting plug tobacco to fill
+his pipe-bowl, and watching the old woman slyly.
+
+"Oh, she'll be 'long 'torectly--you see the drawer-in bein' in the
+far room comes out last."
+
+The last one passed out. The mill became silent, and yet Helen did
+not appear.
+
+The old nurse arose impatiently: "I reck'n I'll go find her," she
+said to Carpenter.
+
+"I'd better sho' you the way, old 'oman," he said, lazily shuffling
+off the stool he was sitting on pretending to be reading a
+paper--"you'll never fin' the room by yo'self."
+
+He led her along through the main room, hot, lint-filled and
+evil-smelling. It was quite dark. Then to the rear, where the mill
+jutted on the side of a hill, he stopped in front of a door and said:
+"This is her room; she's in there, I reckin--she's gen'ly late."
+
+With quickening heart the old woman entered and, almost immediately,
+she heard the door behind her shut and the key turn in the bolt. The
+room was empty and she sprang back to the door, only to find it
+securely locked, and to hear Jud Carpenter's jeers from without. She
+ran to the two small windows. They were high and looked out over a
+ravine.
+
+She did not utter a word. Reared as she had been among the Conways,
+she was too well bred to act the coward, and beg and plead in
+undignified tones for relief. At first she thought it was only a
+cruel joke of the Whipper-in, but when he spoke, she saw it was not.
+
+"Got you where I want you, Mother of Zion," he said through the key
+hole. "I guess you are safe there till mornin' unless the Angel of
+the Lord opens the do' as they say he has a way of doin' for
+Saints--ha--ha--ha!"
+
+No word from within.
+
+"Wanter kno' what I shet you up for, Mother of all Holiness? Well,
+listen: It's to keep you there till to-morrow--that's good reason,
+ain't it? You'll find a lot of cotton in the fur corner--a mighty
+good thing for a bed. Can't you talk? How do you like it? I guess you
+ain't so independent now."
+
+There was a pause. The old woman sat numbly in Helen's chair. She saw
+a bunch of violets in her frame, and the odor brought back memories
+of her old home. A great fear began to creep over her--not for
+herself, but for Helen, and she fell on her knees by the frame and
+prayed silently.
+
+Jud's voice came again: "Want to kno' now why you'll stay there till
+mornin'? Well, I'll tell you--it'll make you pass a com'f'table
+night--you'll never see Miss Helen ag'in--"
+
+The old nurse sprang to her feet. She lost control of herself, for
+all day she had felt this queer presentiment, and now was it really
+true? She blamed herself for not taking Helen that morning.
+
+She threw herself against the door. It was strong and secure.
+
+Jud met it with a jeering laugh.
+
+"Oh, you're safe an' you'll never see her agin. I don't mind tellin'
+you she has run off with Richard Travis--they'll go North to-night.
+You'll find other folks can walk off with yo' gals--'specially the
+han'sum ones--besides yo'se'f."
+
+The old nurse was stricken with weakness. Her limbs shook so she sat
+down in a heap at the door and said pleadingly:--"Are you lyin' to
+me, white man? Will--will he marry her or--"
+
+"Did you ever hear of him marryin' anybody?" came back with a laugh.
+"No, he's only took a deserted young 'oman in out of the cold--he'll
+take care of her, but he ain't the marryin' kind, is he?"
+
+The reputation of Richard Travis was as well known to Mammy Maria as
+it was to anyone. She did not know whether to believe Jud or not, but
+one thing she knew--something--something dreadful was happening to
+Helen. The old nurse called to mind instantly things that had
+happened before she herself had left Millwood--things Helen had
+said--her grief, her despair, her horror of the mill, her belief that
+she was already disgraced. It all came to the old nurse now so
+plainly. Tempted as she was, young as she was, deserted and forsaken
+as she thought she was, might not indeed the temptation be too much
+for her?
+
+She groaned as she heard Jud laugh and walk off.
+
+"O my baby, my beautiful baby!" she wept, falling on her knees again.
+
+The mill grew strangely silent and dark. On a pile of loose cotton
+she fell, praying after the manner of her race.
+
+An hour passed. The darkness, the loneliness, the horror of it all
+crept into her superstitious soul, and she became frantic with
+religious fervor and despair.
+
+Pacing the room, she sang and prayed in a frenzy of emotional tumult.
+But she heard only the echo of her own voice, and only the wailings
+of her own songs came back. Negro that she was, she was intelligent
+enough to know that Jud Carpenter spoke the truth--that not for his
+life would he have dared to say this if it had not had some truth in
+it. What?--she did not know--she only knew that harm was coming to
+Helen.
+
+She called aloud for help--for Edward Conway. But the mill was closed
+tight--the windows nailed.
+
+Another hour passed. It began to tell on the old creature's mind.
+Negroes are simple, religious, superstitious folks, easily unbalanced
+by grief or wrong.
+
+She began to see visions in this frenzy of religious excitement, as
+so many of her race do under the nervous strain of religious feeling.
+She fell into a trance.
+
+It was most real to her. Who that has ever heard a negro give in his
+religious experience but recognizes it? She was carried on the wings
+of the morning down to the gates of hell. The Devil himself met her,
+tempting her always, conducting her through the region of darkness
+and showing her the lakes of fire and threatening her with all his
+punishment if she did not cease to believe. She overcame him only by
+constant prayer. She fled from him, he followed her, but could not
+approach her while she prayed.... She was rescued by an angel--an
+angel from heaven ... an angel with a flaming sword. Through all the
+glories of heaven this angel conducted her, praised her, and bidding
+her farewell at the gate, told her to go back to earth and take this:
+_It was a torch of fire!_
+
+"_Burn! burn!_" said the angel--"_for I shall make the governors of
+Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire on
+a sheaf. And they shall devour all the people around about, on the right
+hand and the left; and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own
+place, even in Jerusalem._"
+
+She came out of the trance in a glory of religious fervor: "Jerusalem
+shall be inhabited ag'in!--the Angel has told me--told me--Burn--burn,"
+she cried. "Oh Lord--you have spoken and Zion has ears to hear--Amen."
+
+Quickly she gathered up the loose cotton and placed it at the door,
+piling it up to the very bolt. She struck a match, swaying and rocking
+and chanting: "Yea, Lord, thy servant hath heard--thy servant hath
+heard!"
+
+The flames leaped up quickly enveloping the door. The room began to fill
+with smoke, but she retreated to a far corner and fell on her knees in
+prayer. The panels of the door caught first and the flames spreading
+upward soon heated the lock around which the wood blazed and crackled.
+It burned through. She sprang up, rushed through the blinding smoke,
+struck the door as it blazed, in a broken mass, and rushed out. Down the
+long main room she ran to a low window, burst it, and stepped out on the
+ground:
+
+"Jerusalem shall be inhabited again," she shouted as she ran
+breathless toward home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE GREAT FIRE
+
+
+Edward Conway sat on the little porch till the stars came out,
+wondering why the old nurse did not return. Sober as he was and knew
+he would ever be, it seemed that a keen sensitiveness came with it,
+and a feeling of impending calamity.
+
+"Oh, it's the cursed whiskey," he said to himself--"it always leaves
+you keyed up like a fiddle or a woman. I'll get over it after a while
+or I'll die trying," and he closed his teeth upon each other with a
+nervous twist that belied his efforts at calmness.
+
+But even Lily grew alarmed, and to quiet her he took her into the
+house and they ate their supper in silence.
+
+Again he came out on the porch and sat with the little girl in his
+lap. But Lily gave him no rest, for she kept saying, as the hours
+passed: "Where is she, father--oh, do go and see!"
+
+"She has gone to Millwood through mistake," he kept telling her, "and
+Mammy Maria has doubtless gone after her. Mammy will bring her back.
+We will wait awhile longer--if I had some one to leave you with," he
+said gently, "I'd go myself. But she will be home directly."
+
+And Lily went to sleep in his lap, waiting.
+
+The moon came up, and Conway wrapped Lily in a shawl, but still held
+her in his arms. And as he sat holding her and waiting with a
+fast-beating heart for the old nurse, all his wasted life passed
+before him.
+
+He saw himself as he had not for years--his life a failure, his
+fortune gone. He wondered how he had escaped as he had, and as he
+thought of the old Bishop's words, he wondered why God had been as
+good to him as He had, and again he uttered a silent prayer of
+thankfulness and for strength. And with it the strength came, and he
+knew he could never more be the drunkard he had been. There was
+something in him stronger than himself.
+
+He was a strong man spiritually--it had been his inheritance, and the
+very thought of anything happening to Helen blanched his cheek. In
+spite of the faults of his past, no man loved his children more than
+he, when he was himself. Like all keen, sensitive natures, his was
+filled to overflowing with paternal love.
+
+"My God," he thought, "suppose--suppose she has gone back to
+Millwood, found none of us there, thinks she had been deserted,
+and--and--"
+
+The thought was unbearable. He slipped in with the sleeping Lily in
+his arms and began to put her in bed without awakening her,
+determined to mount his horse and go for Helen himself.
+
+But just then the old nurse, frantic, breathless and in a delirium of
+religious excitement, came in and fell fainting on the porch.
+
+He revived her with cold water, and when she could talk she could
+only pronounce Helen's name, and say they had run off with her.
+
+"Who?"--shouted Conway, his heart stopping in the staggering shock of
+it.
+
+The old woman tried to tell Jud Carpenter's tale, and Conway heard
+enough. He did not wait to hear it all--he did not know the mill was
+now slowly burning.
+
+"Take care of Lily"--he said, as he went into his room and came out
+with his pistol buckled around his waist.
+
+Then he mounted his horse and rode swiftly to Millwood.
+
+He was astonished to find a fire in the hearth, a lamp burning, and
+one of Helen's gloves lying on the table.
+
+By it was another pair. He picked them up and looked closely. Within,
+in red ink, were the initials: _R. T._
+
+He bit his lips till the blood came. He bowed his head in his hands.
+
+Sometimes there comes to us that peculiar mental condition in which
+we are vaguely conscious that once before we have been in the same
+place, amid the same conditions and surroundings which now confront
+us. We seem to be living again a brief moment of our past life, where
+Time himself has turned back everything. It came that instant to
+Edward Conway.
+
+"It was here--and what was it? Oh, yes:--'Some men repent to God's
+smile, some to His frown, and some to His fist?'"--He groaned:--"This
+is His fist. Never--never before in all the history of the Conway
+family has one of its women--"
+
+He sat down on the old sofa and buried, again, his face in his hands.
+
+Edward Conway was sober, but he still had the instincts of the
+drunkard--it never occurred to him that he had done anything to cause
+it. Drunkenness was nothing--a weakness--a fault which was now behind
+him. But this--this--the first of all the Conway women--and his
+daughter--his child--the _beautiful one_. He sat still, and then he
+grew very calm. It was the calmness of the old Conway spirit
+returning. "Richard Travis," he said to himself, "knows as well what
+this act of his means in the South,--in the unwritten law of our
+land--as I do. He has taken his chance of life or death. I'll see
+that it is death. This is the last of me and my house. But in the
+fall I'll see that this Philistine of Philistines dies under its
+ruins."
+
+He arose and started out. He saw the lap robe in the hall, and this
+put him to investigating. The mares and buggy he found under the
+shed. It was all a mystery to him, but of one thing he was sure: "He
+will soon come back for them. I can wait."
+
+Choosing a spot in the shadow of a great tree, he sat down with his
+pistol across his knees. The moon had arisen and cast ghostly shadows
+over everything. It was a time for repentance, for thoughts of the
+past with him, and as he sat there, that terrible hour, with murder
+in his heart, bitterness and repentance were his.
+
+He was a changed man. Never again could he be the old self. "But the
+blow--the blow," he kept saying, "I thought it would fall on me--not
+on her--my beautiful one--not on a Conway woman's chastity--not my
+wife's daughter--"
+
+He heard steps coming down the path. His heart ceased a moment, it
+seemed to him, and then beat wildly. He drew a long breath to relieve
+it--to calm it with cool oxygen, and then he cocked the five chambered
+pistol and waited as full of the joy of killing as if the man who was
+now walking down the path was a wolf or a mad dog--down the path and
+right into the muzzle of the pistol, backed by the arm which could kill.
+
+He saw Richard Travis coming, slowly, painfully, his left arm tied up,
+and his step, once so quick and active, so full of strength and life,
+now was as if the blight of old age had come upon it.
+
+In spite of his bitter determination Conway noticed the great change,
+and instinct, which acts even through anger and hatred and revenge and
+the maddening fury of murder,--instinct, the ever present--whispered its
+warning to his innermost ear.
+
+Still, he could not resist. Rising, he threw his pistol up within a few
+yards of Richard Travis's breast, his hand upon the trigger. But he
+could not fire, although Travis stood quietly under its muzzle and
+looked without surprise into his face.
+
+Conway glanced along the barrel of his weapon and into the face of
+Richard Travis. And then he brought his pistol down with a quick
+movement.
+
+The face before him was begging him to shoot!
+
+"Why don't you shoot?" said Travis at last, breaking the silence and
+in a tone of disappointment.
+
+"Because you are not guilty," said Conway--"not with that look in
+your face."
+
+"I am sorry you saw my face, then," he smiled sadly--"for it had been
+such a happy solution for it all--if you had only fired."
+
+"Where is my child?"
+
+"Do you think you have any right to ask--having treated her as you
+have?"
+
+Conway trembled, at first with rage, then in shame:
+
+"No,"--he said finally. "No, you are right--I haven't."
+
+"That is the only reply you could have made me that would make it
+obligatory on my part to answer your question. In that reply I see
+there is hope for you. So I will tell you she is safe, unharmed,
+unhurt."
+
+"I felt it," said Conway, quietly, "for I knew it, Richard Travis, as
+soon as I saw your face. But tell me all."
+
+"There is little to tell. I had made up my mind to run off with her,
+marry her, perhaps, since she had neither home nor a father, and was
+a beautiful young thing which any man might be proud of. But things
+have come up--no, not come up, fallen, fallen and crushed. It has
+been a crisis all around--so I sent for Clay--a fine young fellow and
+he loves her--I had him meet me here and--well, he has taken her to
+Westmoreland to-night. You know she is safe there. She will come to
+you to-morrow as pure as she left, though God knows you do not
+deserve it."
+
+Something sprang into Edward Conway's throat--something kin to a
+joyous shout. He could not speak. He could only look at the strange,
+calm, sad man before him in a gratitude that uplifted him. He stared
+with eyes that were blinded with tears.
+
+"Dick--Dick," he said, "we have been estranged, since the war. I
+misjudged you. I see I never knew you. I came to kill, but here--" He
+thrust the grip of his pistol toward Travis--"here, Dick, kill
+me--shoot me--I am not fit to live--but, O God, how clearly I see
+now; and, Dick--Dick--you shall see--the world shall see that from
+now on, with God's help, as Lily makes me say--Dick, I'll be a Conway
+again."
+
+The other man pressed his hand: "Ned, I believe it--I believe it. Go
+back to your little home to-night. Your daughter is safe. To-morrow
+you may begin all over again. To-morrow--"
+
+"And you, Dick--I have heard--I can guess, but why may not you,
+to-morrow--"
+
+"There will be no to-morrow for me," he said sadly. "Things stop
+suddenly before me to-night as before an abyss--"
+
+He turned quickly and looked toward the low lying range of mountains.
+A great red flush as of a rising sun glowed even beyond the rim of
+them, and then out of it shot tinges of flame.
+
+Conway saw it at the same instant:
+
+"It's the mill--the mill's afire," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A CONWAY AGAIN
+
+
+It was a great fire the mill made, lighting the valley for miles. All
+Cottontown was there to see it burn, hushed, with set faces, some of
+anger, some of fear--but all in stricken numbness, knowing that their
+living was gone.
+
+It was not long before Jud Carpenter was among them, stirring them
+with the story of how the old negro woman had burned it--for he knew
+it was she. Indeed, he was soon fully substantiated by others who
+heard her when she had run home heaping her maledictions on the mill.
+
+Soon among them began the whisper of lynching. As it grew they became
+bolder and began to shout it: _Lynch her!_
+
+Jud Carpenter, half drunk and wholly reckless, stood on a stump, and
+after telling his day's experience with Mammy Maria, her defiance of
+the mill's laws, her arrogance, her burning of the mill, he shouted
+that he himself would lead them.
+
+"Lynch her!" they shouted. "Lead us, Jud Carpenter! We will lynch
+her."
+
+Some wanted to wait until daylight, but "Lynch her--lynch her now,"
+was the shout.
+
+The crowd grew denser every moment.
+
+The people of Cottontown, hot and revengeful, now that their living
+was burned; hill dwellers who sympathized with them, and coming in,
+were eager for any excitement; the unlawful element which infests
+every town--all were there, the idle, the ignorant, the vicious.
+
+And a little viciousness goes a long way.
+
+There had been so many lynchings in the South that it had ceased to
+be a crime--for crime, the weed, cultivated--grows into a flower to
+those who do the tending.
+
+Many of the lynchings, it is true, were honest--the frenzy of
+outraged humanity to avenge a terrible crime which the law, in its
+delay, often had let go unpunished. The laxity of the law, the
+unscrupulousness of its lawyers, their shrewdness in clearing
+criminals if the fee was forthcoming, the hundreds of technicalities
+thrown around criminals, the narrowness of supreme courts in
+reversing on these technicalities. All these had thrown the law back
+to its source--the people. And they had taken it in their own hands.
+In violent hands, but deadly sure and retributory.
+
+If there was ever an excuse for lynching, the South was entitled to
+it. For the crime was the result of the sudden emancipation of
+ignorant slaves, who, backed by the bayonets of their liberators, and
+attributing a far greater importance to their elevation than was
+warranted, perpetuated an unnameable crime as part of their system of
+revenge for years of slavery. And the South arose to the terribleness
+of the crime and met it with the rifle, the torch and the rope.
+
+Why should it be wondered at? Why should the South be singled out
+for blame? Is it not a fact that for years in every newly settled
+western state lynch-law has been the unchallenged, unanimous verdict
+for a horse thief? And is not the honor of a white woman more than
+the hide of a broncho?
+
+But from an honest, well intentioned frenzy of justice outraged to
+any pretext is an easy step. From the quick lynching of the rapist
+and murderer--to be sure that the lawyers and courts did not acquit
+them--was one step. To hang a half crazy old woman for burning a mill
+was another, and the natural consequence of the first.
+
+And so these people flocked to the burning--they who had helped lynch
+before--the negro-haters, who had never owned a negro and had no
+sympathy--no sentiment for them. It is they who lynch in the South,
+who lynch and defy the law.
+
+The great mill was in ruins--its tall black smokestacks alone stood
+amid its smoking, twisted mass of steel and ashes--a rough,
+blackened, but fitting monument of its own infamy.
+
+They gathered around it--the disorderly, the vicious, the lynchers of
+the Tennessee Valley.
+
+Fitful flashes of flame now and then burst out amid the ruins,
+silhouetting the shadows of the lynchers into fierce giant forms with
+frenzied faces from which came first murmurs and finally shouts of:
+
+"_Lynch her! Lynch her!_"
+
+Above, in the still air of the night, yet hung the pall of the black
+smoke-cloud, from whose heart had come the torch which had cost capital
+its money, and the mill people their living.
+
+They were not long acting. Mammy Maria had flown to the little
+cottage--a crazy, hysterical creature--a wreck of herself--over-worked
+in body and mind, and frenzied between the deed and the promptings of a
+blind superstitious religion.
+
+Lily hung to her neck sobbing, and the old woman in her pitiful fright
+was brought back partly to reason in the great love of her life for the
+little child. Even in her feebleness she was soothing her pet.
+
+There were oaths, curses and trampling of many feet as they rushed in
+and seized her. Lily, screaming, was held by rough arms while they
+dragged the old nurse away.
+
+Into a wood nearby they took her, the rope was thrown over a limb, the
+noose placed around her neck.
+
+"Pray, you old witch--we will give you five minutes to pray."
+
+The old woman fell on her knees, but instead of praying for herself,
+she prayed for her executioners.
+
+They jeered--they laughed. One struck her with a stick, but she only
+prayed for them the more.
+
+"String her up," they shouted--"her time's up!"
+
+"Stand back there!"
+
+The words rang out even above the noise of the crowd. Then a man,
+with the long blue deadly barrel of the Colt forty-four, pushed his
+way through them--his face pale, his fine mouth set firm and close,
+and the splendid courage of many generations of Conways shining in
+his eyes.
+
+"_Stand back!_--" and he said it in the old commanding way--the old
+way which courage has ever had in the crises of the world.
+
+"O Marse Ned!--I knowed you'd come!"
+
+He had cut the rope and the old woman sat on the ground clasping his
+feet.
+
+For a moment he stood over her, his pale calm face showing the
+splendor of determination in the glory of his manhood restored. For a
+moment the very beauty of it stopped them--this man, this former sot
+and drunkard, this old soldier arising from the ashes of his buried
+past, a beautiful statue of courage cut out of the marble of manhood.
+The moral beauty of it--this man defending with his life the old
+negro--struck even through the swine of them.
+
+They ceased, and a silence fell, so painful that it hurt in its very
+uncanniness.
+
+Then Edward Conway said very clearly, very slowly, but with a fitful
+nervous ring in his voice: "Go back to your homes! Would you hang
+this poor old woman without a trial? Can you not see that she has
+lost her mind and is not responsible for her acts? Let the law
+decide. Shall not her life of unselfishness and good deeds be put
+against this one insane act of her old age? Go back to your homes!
+Some of you are my friends, some my neighbors--I ask you for her but
+a fair trial before the law."
+
+They listened for a moment and then burst into jeers, hoots, and
+hisses:
+
+"Hang her, now! That's the way all lawyers talk!"
+
+And one shouted above the rest: "He's put up a plea of insanity
+a-ready. Hang her, now!"
+
+Edward Conway flashed hot through his paleness and he placed himself
+before the bowed and moaning form while the crowd in front of him
+surged and shouted and called for a rope.
+
+He felt some one touch his arm and turned to find the sheriff by his
+side--one of those disreputables who infested the South after the
+war, holding office by the votes of the negroes.
+
+"Better let 'em have her,--it ain't worth the while. You'll hafter
+kill, or be killed."
+
+"You scallawag!" said Conway, now purple with anger--"is that the way
+you respect your sworn oath? And you have been here and seen all this
+and not raised your hand?"
+
+"Do you think I'm fool enuff to tackle that crowd of hillbillies?
+They've got the devil in them--fur they've got a devil leadin'
+'em--Jud Carpenter. Better let 'em have her--they'll kill you. We've
+got a good excuse--overpowered--don't you see?"
+
+"Overpowered? That's the way all cowards talk," said Conway. "Do one
+thing for me," he said quickly--"tell them you have appointed me your
+deputy. If you do not--I'll fall back on the law of riots and appoint
+myself."
+
+"Gentlemen," said the sheriff, turning to the crowd, and speaking
+half-shamedly--"Gentlemen, it's better an' I hopes you all will go
+home. We don't wanter hurt nobody. I app'ints Major Conway my deputy
+to take the prisoner to jail. Now the blood be on yo' own heads.
+I've sed my say."
+
+A perfect storm of jeers met this. They surged forward to seize her,
+while the sheriff half frightened, half undecided, got behind Conway
+and said:--"It's up to you--I've done all I cu'd."
+
+"Go back to your homes, men"--shouted Conway--"I am the sheriff here
+now, and I swear to you by the living God it means I am a Conway
+again, and the man who lays a hand on this old woman is as good as
+dead in his tracks!"
+
+For an instant they surged around him cursing and shouting; but he
+stood up straight and terribly silent; only his keen grey eyes
+glanced down to the barrel of his pistol and he stood nervously
+fingering the small blue hammer with his thumb and measuring the
+distance between himself and the nearest ruffian who stood on the
+outskirts of the mob shaking a pistol in Conway's face and shouting:
+"Come on, men, we'll lynch her anyway!"
+
+Then Conway acted quickly. He spoke a few words to the old nurse, and
+as she backed off into the nearby wood, he covered the retreat. To
+his relief he saw that the sheriff, now thoroughly ashamed, had hold
+of the prisoner and was helping her along.
+
+In the edge of the wood he felt safe--with the trees at his back.
+And he took courage as he heard the sheriff say:
+
+"If you kin hold 'em a little longer I'll soon have my buggy here and
+we'll beat 'em to the jail."
+
+But the mob guessed his plans, and the man who had been most
+insolent in the front of the mob--a long-haired, narrow-chested
+mountaineer--rushed up viciously.
+
+Conway saw the gleam of his pistol as the man aimed and fired at the
+prisoner. Instinctively he struck at the weapon and the ball intended
+for the prisoner crushed spitefully into his left shoulder. He reeled
+and the grim light of an aroused Conway flashed in his eyes as he
+recovered himself, for a moment, shocked, blinded. Then he heard some
+one say, as he felt the blood trickling down his arm and hand:
+
+"Marse Ned! Oh, an' for po' ole Zion! Don't risk yo' life--let 'em
+take me!"
+
+Dimly he saw the mob rushing up; vaguely it came to him that it was
+kill or be killed. Vaguely, too, that it was the law--his law--and
+every other man's law--against lawlessness. Hazily, that he was the
+law--its representative, its defender, and then clear as the blue
+barrel in his hand,--all the dimness and uncertainty gone,--it came
+to him, that thing that made him say: "I am a Conway again!"
+
+Then his pistol leaped from the shadow by his side to the gray light
+in front, and the man who had fired and was again taking aim at the
+old woman died in his tracks with his mouth twisted forever into the
+shape of an unspoken curse.
+
+It was enough. Stricken, paralyzed, they fell back before such
+courage--and Conway found himself backing off into the woods,
+covering the retreat of the prisoner. Then afterward he felt the
+motion of buggy wheels, and of a galloping drive, and the jail, and
+he in the sheriff's room, the old prisoner safe for the time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+DIED FOR THE LAW
+
+
+And thus was begun that historical lynching in the Tennessee
+Valley--a tragedy which well might have remained unwritten had it not
+fallen into the woof of this story.
+
+A white man had been killed for a negro--that was enough.
+
+It is true the man was attempting to commit murder in the face of the
+law of the land; and in attempting it had shot the representative of
+the law. It is true, also, that he had no grievance, being one of
+several hundred law-breakers bent on murder. This, too, made no
+difference; they neither thought nor cared;--for mobs, being
+headless, do not think; and being soulless, do not suffer.
+
+They had failed only for lack of a leader.
+
+But now they had a leader, and a mob with a leader is a dangerous
+thing.
+
+That leader was Richard Travis.
+
+It was after midnight when he rode up on the scene. Before he
+arrived, Jud Carpenter had aroused the mob to do its first fury, and
+still held them, now doubly vengeful and shouting to be led against
+the jail. But to storm a jail they needed a braver man than Jud
+Carpenter. And they found him in Richard Travis--especially Richard
+Travis in the terrible mood, the black despair which had come upon
+him that night.
+
+Why did he come? He could not say. In him had surged two great forces
+that night--the force of evil and the force of good. Twice had the
+good overcome--now it was the evil's turn, and like one hypnotized,
+he was led on.
+
+He sat his horse among them, pale and calm, but with a cruel instinct
+flashing in his eyes. At least, so Jud Carpenter interpreted the mood
+which lay upon him; but no one knew the secret workings of this man's
+heart, save God.
+
+He had come to them haggard and blanched and with a nameless dread,
+his arm tied up where the dog's fang had been buried in his flesh,
+his heart bitter in the thought of the death that was his. Already he
+felt the deadly virus pulsing through his veins. A hundred times in
+the short hour that had passed he suffered death--death beginning
+with the gripping throat, the shortened breath, the foaming mouth,
+the spasm!
+
+He jerked in the saddle--that spasmodic chill of the nerves,--and he
+grew white and terribly silent at the thought of it--the death that
+was his!
+
+Was his! And then he thought: "No, there shall be another and quicker
+way to die. A braver way--like a Travis--with my boots on--my boots
+on--and not like a mad-dog tied to a stake.
+
+"Besides--Alice--Alice!"
+
+She had gone out of his life. Could such a thing be and he live to
+tell it? Alice--love--ambition--the future--life! Alice, hazel-eyed
+and glorious, with hair the smell of which filled his soul with
+perfume as from the stars. She who alone uplifted him--she another's,
+and that other Tom Travis!
+
+Tom Travis--returned and idealized--with him, the joint heir of The
+Gaffs.
+
+And that mad-dog--that damned mad-dog! And if perchance he was
+saved--if that virus was sucked out of his veins, it was she--Helen!
+
+"This is the place to die," he said grimly--"here with my boots on.
+To die like a Travis and unravel this thing called life. Unravel it
+to the end of the thread and know if it ends there, is snapped, is
+broken or--
+
+"Or--my God," he cried aloud, "I never knew what those two little
+letters meant before--not till I face them this way, on the Edge of
+Things!"
+
+He gathered the mob together and led them against the jail--with
+hoots and shouts and curses; with flaming torches, and crow-bars,
+with axes and old guns.
+
+"Lynch her--lynch the old witch! and hang that devil Conway with
+her!" was the shout.
+
+In front of the jail they stopped, for a man stood at the door. His
+left arm was in a sling, but in his right hand gleamed something that
+had proved very deadly before. And he stood there as he had stood in
+the edge of the wood, and the bonfires and torches of the mob lit up
+more clearly the deadly pale face, set and more determined than
+before.
+
+For as he stood, pale and silent, the shaft of a terrible
+pain,--of broken bone and lacerated muscle--twinged and twitched
+his arm, and to smother it and keep from crying out he gripped
+bloodlessly--nervously--the stock of his pistol saying over and over:
+
+"I am a Conway again--a man again!"
+
+And so standing he defied them and they halted, like sheep at the
+door of the shambles. The sheriff had flown, and Conway alone stood
+between the frenzied mob and the old woman who had given her all for
+him.
+
+He could hear her praying within--an uncanny mixture of faith and
+miracle--of faith which saw as Paul saw, and which expected angels to
+come and break down her prison doors. And after praying she would
+break out into a song, the words of which nerved the lone man who
+stood between her and death:
+
+    "'I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger,
+      I can tarry, I can tarry but a night.
+      Do not detain me, for I am going
+      To where the streamlets are ever flowing.
+      I'm a pilgrim--and I'm a stranger
+      I can tarry--I can tarry but a night.'"
+
+And now the bonfire burned brighter, lighting up the scene--the
+shambling stores around the jail on the public square, the better
+citizens making appeals in vain for law and order, the shouting,
+fool-hardy mob, waiting for Richard Travis to say the word, and he
+sitting among them pale, and terribly silent with something in his
+face they had never seen there before.
+
+Nor would he give the command. He had nothing against Edward
+Conway--he did not wish to see him killed.
+
+And the mob did not attack, although they cursed and bluffed, because
+each one of them knew it meant death--death to some one of them, and
+that one might be--I!
+
+Between life and death "I" is a bridge that means it all.
+
+A stone wall ran around the front of the jail. A small gate opened
+into the jail-yard. At the jail door, covering that opening, stood
+Edward Conway.
+
+They tried parleying with him, but he would have none of it.
+
+"Go back--" he said, "I am the sheriff here--I am the law. The man
+who comes first into that gate will be the first to die."
+
+In ten minutes they made their attack despite the commands of their
+leader, who still sat his horse on the public square, pale and with a
+bitter conflict raging in his breast.
+
+With shouts and curses and a headlong rush they went. Pistol bullets
+flew around Conway's head and scattered brick dust and mortar over
+him. Torches gleamed through the dark crowd as stars amid fast flying
+clouds in a March night. But through it all every man of them heard
+the ringing warning words:
+
+"Stop at the gateway--stop at the dead line!"
+
+Right at it they rushed and crowded into it like cattle--shooting,
+cursing, throwing stones.
+
+Then two fell dead, blocking the gateway. Two more, wounded, with
+screams of pain which threw the others into that indescribable panic
+which comes to all mobs in the death-pinch, staggered back carrying
+the mob with them.
+
+Safe from the bullets, they became frenzied.
+
+The town trembled with their fury.
+
+All order was at an end.
+
+And Edward Conway stood, behind a row of cotton bales, in the
+jail-yard, covering still the little gateway, and the biting pain in
+his shoulder had a companion pain in his side, where a pistol ball
+had ploughed through, but he forgot it as he slipped fresh cartridges
+into the chambers of his pistol and heard again the chant which came
+from out the jail window, like a ghost-voice from the clouds:
+
+    "Of that City, to which I journey,
+     My Redeemer, my Redeemer is the light.
+     There is no sorrow, nor any sighing,
+     Nor any tears there, nor any dying...,
+     I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger,
+     I can tarry--I can tarry but a night."
+
+At a long distance they shot at Conway,--they hooted, jeered, cursed
+him, but dared not come closer, for he had breast-worked himself
+behind some cotton-bales in the yard, and they knew he could still
+shoot.
+
+Then they decided to batter down the stone wall first--to make an
+opening they could rush through, and not be blocked in the deadly
+gateway.
+
+An hour passed, and torches gleamed everywhere. Attacking the wall
+farther down, they soon had it torn away. They could now get to him.
+It was a perilous position, and Conway knew it. Help--he must have
+it--help to protect his flank while he shot in front. If not, he
+would die soon, and the law with him.
+
+He looked around him--but there was no solution. Then he felt that
+death was near, for the mob now hated him more than they did the
+prisoner. They seemed to have forgotten her, for all their cry now
+was:
+
+"_Kill Conway! Kill the man who murdered our people!_"
+
+In ten minutes they were ready to attack again, but looking up they
+saw a strange sight.
+
+Help had come to Conway. On one side of him stood the old Cottontown
+preacher, his white hair reflecting back the light from the bonfires
+and torches in front--lighting up a face which now seemed to have
+lost all of its kindly humor in the crisis that was there. He was
+unarmed, but he stood calm and with a courage that was more of sorrow
+than of anger.
+
+By him stood the village blacksmith, a man with the wild light of an
+old, untamed joy gleaming in his eyes--a cruel, dangerous light--the
+eyes of a caged tiger turned loose at last, and yearning for the
+blood of the thing which had caged him.
+
+And by him in quiet bravery, commanding, directing, stood the tall
+figure of the Captain of Artillery.
+
+When Richard Travis saw him, a cruel smile deepened in his eyes. "I
+am dying myself," it said--"why not kill him?"
+
+Then he shuddered with the hatred of the terrible thing that had come
+into his heart--the thing that made him do its bidding, as if he
+were a puppet, and overthrew all the good he had gathered there, that
+terrible night, as the angels were driven from Paradise. And yet, how
+it ruled him, how it drove him on!
+
+"Jim--Jim," he whispered as he bent over his horse's neck--"Jim--my
+repeating rifle over the library door--quick--it carries true and far!"
+
+As Jim sped away his master was silent again. He thought of the nobility
+of the things he had done that night--the touch of God that had come
+over him in making him save Helen--the beautiful dreams he had had. He
+thought of it all--and then--here--now--murdering the man whose life
+carried with it the life, the love of--
+
+He looked up at the stars, and the old wonder and doubt came back to
+him--the old doubt which made him say to himself: "It is nothing--it is
+the end. Dust thou art, and unto dust--dust--dust--dust--" he bit his
+tongue to keep from saying it again--"Dust--to be blown away and mingle
+with the elements--dust! And yet, I stand here--now--blood--flesh--a
+thinking man--tempted--terribly--cruelly--poignantly--dying--of a poison
+in my veins--of sorrow in my heart--sorrow and death. Who would not take
+the dust--gladly take it--the dust and the--forgetting."
+
+He remembered and repeated:
+
+    "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,
+     The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
+     Hath had elsewhere its setting
+     And cometh from afar--"
+
+"'And cometh from afar,'" he whispered--"My God--suppose it does--and
+that I am mistaken in it all?--Dust--and then maybe something after
+dust."
+
+With his rifle in his hand, it all vanished and he began to train it on
+the tall figure while the mob prepared to storm the jail again--and his
+shot would be the signal--this time in desperate determination to take
+it or die.
+
+In the mob near Richard Travis stood a boy, careless and cool, and
+holding in his hand an old pistol. Richard Travis noticed the boy
+because he felt that the boy's eyes were always on him--always. When he
+looked down into them he was touched and sighed, and a dream of the
+long-ago swept over him--of a mountain cabin and a maiden fair to look
+upon. He bit his lip to keep back the tenderness--bit his lip and rode
+away--out of reach of the boy's eyes.
+
+But the boy, watching him, knew, and he said in his quiet, revengeful
+way: "Twice have I failed to kill you--but to-night--my Honorable
+father--to-night in the death that will be here, I shall put this bullet
+through your heart."
+
+Travis turned to the mob: "Men, when I fire this rifle--it will mean for
+you to charge!"
+
+A hush fell over the crowd as they watched him. He looked at his
+rifle closely. He sprang the breech and threw out a shell or two to
+see that it worked properly.
+
+"Stay where you are, men," came that same voice they had heard so
+plainly before that night. "We are now four and well armed and sworn
+to uphold the law and protect the prisoner, and if you cross the dead
+line you will die."
+
+There was a silence, and then that old voice again, the voice that
+roused the mob to fury:
+
+    "I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger,
+     I can tarry--I can tarry but a night--"
+
+"Lead us on--give the signal, Richard Travis," they shouted.
+
+Again the silence fell as Richard Travis raised his rifle and aimed
+at the tall figure outlined closely and with magnified distinctness
+in the glare of bonfire and torch. How splendidly cool and brave he
+looked--that tall figure standing there, giving orders as calmly as
+he gave them at Shiloh and Franklin, and so forgetful of himself and
+his own safety!
+
+Richard Travis brought his rifle down--it shook so--brought it down
+saying to himself with a nervous laugh: "It is not Tom--not Tom
+Travis I am going to kill--it's--it's Alice's husband of only two
+days--her lover--"
+
+"Shoot! Why don't you shoot?" they shouted. "We are waiting to
+rush--"
+
+Even where he stood, Richard Travis could see the old calm, quiet and
+now triumphant smile lighting up Tom Travis's face, and he knew he
+was thinking of Alice--Alice, his bride.
+
+And then that same nervous, uncanny chill ran into the very marrow of
+Richard Travis and brought his gun down with an oath on his lips as
+he said pitifully--"I am poisoned--it is that!"
+
+The crowd shouted and urged him to shoot, but he sat shaking to his
+very soul. And when it passed there came the old half humorous, half
+bitter, cynical laugh as he said: "Alice--Alice a widow--"
+
+It passed, and again there leaped into his eyes the great light Jud
+Carpenter had seen there that morning, and slipping the cartridges
+out of the barrel's breech, he looked up peacefully with the halo of
+a holy light around his eyes as he said: "Oh, God, and I thank
+Thee--for this--this touch again! Hold the little spark in my
+heart--hold it, oh, God, but for a little while till the temptation
+is gone, and I shall rest--I shall rest."
+
+"Shoot--Richard Travis--why the devil don't you shoot?" they shouted.
+
+He raised his rifle again, this time with a flourish which made some
+of the mob think he was taking unnecessary risk to attract the
+attention of the grim blacksmith who stood, pistol in hand, his
+piercing eyes scanning the crowd. He stood by the side of Tom Travis,
+his bodyguard to the last.
+
+"Jack--Jack--" kept whispering to him the old preacher, "don't shoot
+till you're obleeged to,--maybe God'll open a way, maybe you won't
+have to spill blood. 'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord."
+
+Jack smiled. It was a strange smile--of joy, in the risking glory of
+the old life--the glory of blood-letting, of killing, of death. And
+sorrow--sorrow in the new.
+
+"Stand pat, stand pat, Bishop," he said; "you all know the trade. Let
+me who have defied the law so long, let me now stand for it--die for
+it. It's my atonement--ain't that the word? Ain't that what you said
+about that there Jesus Christ, the man you said wouldn't flicker even
+on the Cross, an' wouldn't let us flicker if we loved Him--Hol' him
+to His promise, now, Bishop. It's time for us to stand pat. No--I'll
+not shoot unless I see some on 'em makin' a too hasty movement of
+gun-arm toward Cap'n--"
+
+Had Richard Travis looked from his horse down into the crowd he had
+seen another sight. Man can think and do but one thing at a time, but
+oh, the myrmidons of God's legions of Cause and Effect!
+
+Below him stood a boy, his face white in the terrible tragedy of his
+determination. And as Richard Travis threw up his empty rifle, the
+octagonal barrel of the pistol in the boy's hand leaped up and came
+straight to the line of Richard Travis's heart. But before the boy
+could fire Travis saw the hawk-like flutter of the blacksmith's
+pistol arm, as it measured the distance with the old quick training
+of a bloody experience, and Richard Travis smiled, as he saw the
+flash from the outlaw's pistol and felt that uncanny chill starting
+in his marrow again, leap into a white heat to the shock of the ball,
+and he pitched limply forward, slipped from his horse and went down
+on the ground murmuring, "Tom--Tom--safe, and Alice--he shot at
+last--and--thank God for the touch again!"
+
+He lay quiet, feeling the life blood go out of him. But with it came
+an exhalation he had never felt before--a glory that, instead of
+taking, seemed to give him life.
+
+The mob rushed wildly at the jail at the flash of Jack Bracken's
+pistol, all but one, a boy--whose old dueling pistol still pointed at
+the space in the air, where Richard Travis had sat a moment
+before--its holder nerveless--rigid--as if turned into stone.
+
+He saw Richard Travis pitch forward off his horse and slide limply to
+the ground. He saw him totter and waver and then sit down in a
+helpless, pitiful way,--then lie down as if it were sweet to rest.
+
+And still the boy stood holding his pistol, stunned, frigid,
+numbed--pointing at the stars.
+
+Silently he brought his arm and weapon down. He heard only shouts of
+the mob as they rushed against the jail, and then, high above it, the
+words of the blacksmith, whom he loved so well: "Stand back--all;
+Me--me alone, shoot--me! I who have so often killed the law, let me
+die for it."
+
+And then came to the boy's ears the terrible staccato cough of the
+two Colts pistols whose very fire he had learned to know so well. And
+he knew that the blacksmith alone was shooting--the blacksmith he
+loved so--the marksman he worshipped--the man who had saved his
+life--the man who had just shot his father.
+
+Richard Travis sat up with an effort and looked at the boy standing
+by him--looked at him with frank, kindly eyes,--eyes which begged
+forgiveness, and the boy saw himself there--in Richard Travis, and
+felt a hurtful, pitying sorrow for him, and then an uncontrolled, hot
+anger at the man who had shot him out of the saddle. His eyes
+twitched wildly, his heart jumped in smothering beats, a dry sob
+choked him, and he sprang forward crying: "My father--oh, God--my
+poor father!"
+
+Richard Travis looked up and smiled at him.
+
+"You shoot well, my son," he said, "but not quick enough."
+
+The boy, weeping, saw. Shamed,--burning--he knelt and tried to
+staunch the wound with a handkerchief. Travis shook his head: "Let it
+out, my son--let it out--it is poison! Let it out!"
+
+Then he lay down again on the ground. It felt sweet to rest.
+
+The boy saw his blood on the ground and he shouted: "Blood,--my
+father--blood is thicker than water."
+
+Then the hatred that had burned in his heart for his father, the
+father who had begot him into the world, disgraced, forsaken--the
+father who had ruined and abandoned his mother, was turned into a
+blaze of fury against the blacksmith, the blacksmith whom he had
+loved.
+
+Wheeling, he rushed toward the jail, but met the mob pouring
+panic-stricken back with white faces, blanched with fear.
+
+Jack Bracken stood alone on the barricade, shoving more cartridges
+into his pistol chambers.
+
+The boy, blinded, weeping, hot with a burning revenge, stumbled and
+fell twice over dead men lying near the gateway. Then he crawled
+along over them under cover of the fence, and kneeling within twenty
+feet of the gate, fired at the great calm figure who had driven the
+mob back, and now stood reloading.
+
+Jack did not see the boy till he felt the ball crush into his side.
+Then all the old, desperate, revengeful instinct of the outlaw
+leaped into his eyes as he quickly turned his unerring pistol on the
+object from whence the flash came. Never had he aimed so accurately,
+so carefully, for he felt his own life going out, and this--this was
+his last shot--to kill.
+
+But the object kneeling among the dead arose with a smile of
+revengeful triumph and stood up calmly under the aim of the great
+pistol, his fair hair flung back, his face lit up with the bravery of
+all the Travises as he shouted:
+
+"Take that--damn you--from a Travis!"
+
+And when Jack saw and understood, a smile broke through his
+bloodshot, vengeful eyes as starlight falls on muddy waters, and he
+turned away his death-seeking aim, and his mouth trembled as he said:
+
+"Why--it's--it's the Little 'Un! I cudn't kill him--" and he clutched
+at the cotton-bale as he went down, falling--and Captain Tom grasped
+him, letting him down gently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE ATONEMENT
+
+
+And now no one stood between the prisoner and death but the old
+preacher and the tall man in the uniform of a Captain of Artillery.
+And death it meant to all of them, defenders as well as prisoners,
+for the mob had increased in numbers as in fury. Friends, kindred,
+brothers, fathers--even mothers and sisters of the dead were there,
+bitter in the thought that their dead had been murdered--white men,
+for one old negress.
+
+In their fury they did not think it was the law they themselves were
+murdering. The very name of the law was now hateful to them--the law
+that had killed their people.
+
+Slowly, surely, but with grim deadliness they laid their plans--this
+time to run no risk of failure.
+
+There was a stillness solemn and all-pervading. And from the window
+of the jail came again in wailing uncanny notes:--
+
+     "I'm a pilgrim and I'm a stranger,
+    I can tarry, I can tarry but a night--"
+
+It swept over the mob, frenzied now to the stillness of a white heat,
+like a challenge to battle, like the flaunt of a red flag. Their
+dead lay all about the gate of the rock fence, stark and still. Their
+wounded were few--for Jack Bracken did not wound. They saw them
+all--dead--lying out there dead--and they were willing to die
+themselves for the blood of the old woman--a negro for whom white men
+had been killed.
+
+But their wrath now took another form. It was the wrath of coolness.
+They had had enough of the other kind. To rush again on those bales
+of cotton doubly protected behind a rock fence, through one small
+gate, commanded by the fire of such marksmen as lay there, was not to
+be thought of.
+
+They would burn the jail over the heads of its defenders and kill
+them as they were uncovered. A hundred men would fire the jail from
+the rear, a hundred more with guns would shoot in front.
+
+It was Jud Carpenter who planned it, and soon oil and saturated paper
+and torches were prepared.
+
+"We are in for it, Bishop," said Captain Tom, as he saw the
+preparation; "this is worse than Franklin, because there we could
+protect our rear."
+
+He leaped up on his barricade, tall and splendid, and called to them
+quietly and with deadly calm:
+
+"Go to your homes, men--go! But if you will come, know that I fought
+for my country's laws from Shiloh to Franklin, and I can die for them
+here!"
+
+Then he took from over his heart a small silken flag, spangled with
+stars and the blood-splotches of his father who fell in Mexico, and
+he shook it out and flung it over his barricade, saying cheerily: "I
+am all right for a fight now, Bishop. But oh, for just one of my
+guns--just one of my old Parrots that I had last week at Franklin!"
+
+The old man, praying on his knees behind his barricade, said:
+
+"Twelve years ago, Cap'n Tom, twelve years. Not last week."
+
+The mob had left Richard Travis for dead, and in the fury of their
+defeat had thought no more of him. But now, the loss of blood, the cool
+night air revived him. He sat up, weak, and looked around. Everywhere
+bonfires burned. Men were running about. He heard their talk and he knew
+all. He was shot through the left lung, so near to his heart that, as he
+felt it, he wondered how he had escaped.
+
+He knew it by the labored breathing, by the blood that ran down and half
+filled his left boot. But his was a constitution of steel--an athlete, a
+hunter, a horseman, a man of the open. The bitterness of it all came
+back to him when he found he was not dead as he had hoped--as he had
+made Jack Bracken shoot to do.
+
+"To die in bed at last," he said, "like a monk with liver complaint--or
+worse still--my God, like a mad dog, unless--unless--her lips--Helen!"
+
+He lay quite still on the soft grass and looked up at the stars. How
+comfortable he was! He felt around.
+
+A boy's overcoat was under him--a little round-about, wadded up, was his
+pillow.
+
+He smiled--touched: "What a man he will make--the brave little devil!
+Oh, if I can live to tell him he is mine, that I married his mother
+secretly--that I broke her heart with my faithlessness--that she died
+and the other is--is her sister."
+
+He heard the clamor and the talk behind him. The mob, cool now, were
+laying their plans only on revenge,--revenge with the torch and the
+bullet.
+
+Jud Carpenter was the leader, and Travis could hear him giving his
+orders. How he now loathed the man--for somehow, as he thought, Jud
+Carpenter stood for all the seared, blighted, dead life behind
+him--all the old disbelief, all the old infamy, all the old doubt and
+shame. But now, dying, he saw things differently. Yonder above him
+shone the stars and in his heart the glory of that touch of God--the
+thing that made him wish rather to die than have it leave him again
+to live in his old way.
+
+He heard the mob talking. He heard their plans. He knew that Jud
+Carpenter, hating the old preacher as he did, would rather kill him
+than any wolf of the forest. He knew that neither Tom Travis nor the
+old preacher could ever hope to come out alive.
+
+The torches were ready--the men were aligned in front with deadly
+shotguns.
+
+"When the fire gets hot," he heard Jud Carpenter say, "they'll hafter
+come out--then shoot--shoot an' shoot to kill. See our own dead!"
+
+They answered him with groans, with curses, with shouts of "_Lead us
+on, Jud Carpenter!_"
+
+"When the jail is fired from the rear," shouted Carpenter, "stay
+where you are and shoot; they've no chance at all. It's fire or
+bullet."
+
+Richard Travis heard it and his heart leaped--but only for one
+tempting moment, when a vision of loveliness in widow's weeds swept
+through that soul of his inner sight, which sees into the future.
+Then the new light came back uplifting him with a wave of joyous
+strength that was sweetly calm in its destiny--glad that he had
+lived, glad that this test had come, glad for the death that was
+coming.
+
+It was all well with him.
+
+He forgot himself, he forgot his deadly wound, the bitterness of his
+life, the dog's bite--all--in the glory of this feeling, the new
+feeling which now would go with him into eternity.
+
+For, as he lay there, he had seen the bell's turret above the jail
+and his mind was quick to act.
+
+He smiled faintly--a happy smile--the smile of the old Roman ere he
+leaped into the chasm before the walls of Rome--leaped and saved his
+countrymen. He loved to do difficult things--to conquer and overcome
+where others would quit. This always had been his glory--he
+understood that. But this new thing--this wanting to save men who
+were doomed behind their barricade--this wanting to give what was
+left of his life for them--his enemies--this was the thing he could
+not understand. He only knew it was the call of something within him,
+stronger than himself and kin to the stars, which, clear and sweet
+above his head, seemed to be all that stood between him and that
+clear Sweet Thing out, far out, in the pale blue Silence of Things.
+
+He reached out and found his rifle. In his coat pocket were
+cartridges. His arms were still strong--he sprang the magazine and
+filled it.
+
+Then slowly, painfully, he began to crawl off toward the jail,
+pulling his rifle along. No one saw him but, God! how it hurt!...
+that star falling ... scattering splinters of light everywhere ... so
+he lay on his face and slept awhile....
+
+When he awoke he flushed with the shame of it: "Fainted--me--like a
+girl!" And he spat out the blood that boiled out of his lips.
+
+Crawling--crawling--and dragging the heavy rifle. It seemed he would
+never strike the rock fence. Once--twice, and yet a third time he had
+to sink flat on the grass and spit out the troublesome blood....
+
+The fence at last, and following it he was soon in the rear of the
+jail. He knew where the back stair was and crawled to it. Slowly,
+step by step, and every step splotched with his blood, he went up. At
+the top he pushed up the trap-door with his head and, crawling
+through, fell fainting.
+
+But, oh, the glory of that feeling that was his now! That feeling
+that now--now he would atone for it all--now he would be brother to
+the stars and that Sweeter Thing out, far out, in the pale blue
+Silence of Things.
+
+Then the old Travis spirit came to him and he smiled:
+"_Dominecker--oh, my old grandsire, will you think I am a Dominecker
+now? I found your will--in the old life--and tore it up. But it's
+Tom's now--Tom's anyway--Dominecker! Wipe it out--wipe it out! If I
+do not this night honor your blood, strike me from the roll of
+Travis._"
+
+Around him was the belfry railing, waist high and sheeted with metal
+save four holes, for air, at the base, where he could thrust his
+rifle through as he lay flat.
+
+He was in a bullet proof turret, and he smiled: "I hold the fort!"
+
+Slowly he pulled himself up, painfully he stood erect and looked
+down. Just below him was the barricade of cotton bales, its two
+defenders, grim and silent behind them--the two wounded ones lying
+still and so quiet--so quiet it looked like death, and Richard Travis
+prayed that it was not.
+
+One of them had given him his death wound, but he held no bitterness
+for him--only that upliftedness, only the glory of that feeling
+within him he knew not what.
+
+He called gently to them. In astonishment they looked up. Thirty feet
+above their heads they saw him and heard him say painfully, slowly,
+but oh, so bravely: "_I am Richard Travis, Tom, and I'll back you to
+the death.... They are to burn you out ... but I command the jail,
+both front and rear. Stay where you both are ... be careful ... do
+not expose yourselves, for while I live you are safe ... and the law
+is safe._"
+
+And then came back to him clear and with all sweetness the earnest
+words of the old preacher:
+
+"God bless you, Richard Travis, for He has sent you jus' in time. I
+knew that He would, that He'd touch yo' heart, that there was
+greatness in you--all in His own time, an' His own good way. Praise
+God!"
+
+Travis wished to warn the mob, but his voice was nearly gone. He
+could only sink down and wait.
+
+He heard shouts. They had formed in the rear, and now men with
+torches came to fire the jail. Their companions in front, hearing
+them, shouted back their approval.
+
+Richard Travis thrust his rifle barrel through the air hole and aimed
+carefully. The torches they carried made it all so plain and so easy.
+
+Then two long, spiteful flashes of flame leaped out of the belfry
+tower and the arm of the first incendiary, shot through and
+through--holding his blazing torch, leaped like a rabbit in a sack,
+and the torch went down and out. The torch of the second one was shot
+out of its bearer's hand.
+
+Panic-stricken, they looked up, saw, and fled. Those in front also
+saw and bombarded the belfry with shot and pistol ball. And then, on
+their side of the belfry, the same downward, spiteful flashes leaped
+out, and two men, shot through the shoulder and the arm, cried out in
+dismay, and they all fell back, stampeded, at the deadliness of the
+spiteful thing in the tower, the gun that carried so true and so
+far--so much farther than their own cheap guns.
+
+They rushed out of its range, gathered in knots and cursed and
+wondered who it was. But they dared not come nearer. Travis lay
+still. He could not speak now, for the blood choked him when he
+opened his mouth, and the stars which had once been above him now
+wheeled and floated below, and around him. And that Sweeter Thing
+that had been behind the stars now seemed to surround him as a halo,
+a halo of silence which seemed to fit the silence of his own soul and
+become part of him forever. It was all around him, as he had often
+seen it around the summer moon; only now he felt it where he only
+saw it before. And now, too, it was in his heart and filled it with a
+sweet sadness, a sadness that hurt, it was so sweet, and which came
+with an odor, the smell of the warm rain falling on the dust of a
+summer of long ago.
+
+And all his life passed before him--he lived it again--even more than
+he had remembered before--even the memory of his mother whom he never
+knew; but now he knew her and he reached up his arms--for he was in a
+cradle and she bent over him--he reached up his arms and said: "_Oh,
+mother, now I know what eternity is--it's remembering before and
+after!_"
+
+Visions, too--and Alice Westmore--Alice, pitying and smiling
+approval--smiling,--and then a burning passionate kiss, and when he
+would kiss again it was Helen's lips he met.
+
+And through it all the great uplifting joy, and something which made
+him try to shout and say: "The atonement--the atonement--"
+
+Clear now and things around him seemed miles away.
+
+He knew he was sinking and he kicked one foot savagely against the
+turret to feel again the sensation of life in his limb. Then he struck
+himself in his breast with his right fist to feel it there. But in spite
+of all he saw a cloud of darkness form beyond the rim of the starlit
+horizon and come sweeping over him, coming in black waves that would
+rush forward and then stop--forward, and stop--forward and stop.... And
+the stops kept time exactly with his heart, and he knew the last stop of
+the wave meant the last beat of his heart--then forward ... for the last
+time.... "Oh, God, not yet!... Look!"
+
+His heart rallied at the sight and beat faster, making the black waves
+pulse, in the flow and ebb of it.... The thing was below him ... a man
+... a ghostly, vengeful thing, whose face was fierce in hatred ...
+crawling, crawling, up to the rock fence--a snake with the face ... the
+eyes of Jud Carpenter....
+
+And the black wave coming in ... and he did so want to live ... just a
+little ... just a while longer....
+
+He pushed the wave back, as he gripped for the last time his rifle's
+stock, and he knew not whether it was only visions such as he had been
+seeing ... or Jud Carpenter really crouching low behind the rock fence,
+his double-barrel shotgun aimed ... drawing so fine a bead on both the
+unconscious defenders ... going to shoot, and only twenty paces, and now
+it rose up, aiming: "_God, it is--it is Jud Carpenter ...
+back--back--black wave!" he cried, "and God have mercy on your soul, Jud
+Carpenter...._"
+
+And, oh, the nightmare of it!--trying to pull the trigger that would not
+be pulled, trying to grip a stock that had grown so large it was now a
+tree--a huge tree--flowing red blood instead of sap, red blood over
+things, ... and then at last ... thank God ... the trigger ... and the
+flash and report ... the flash so far off ... and the report that was
+like thunder among the stars ... the stars.... Among the stars ... all
+around him ... and Alice on one star throwing him a kiss ... and
+saying: "_You saved his life, oh, Richard, and I love you for it!_" A
+kiss and forgiveness ... and the two walking out with him ... out into
+the dim, blue, Sweet Silence of Things, hand in hand with him, beyond
+even the black wave, beyond even the rim of the rainbow that came down
+over all ... out--out with music, quaint, sweet, weird music--that
+filled his soul so, fitted him ... was he ...
+
+    "_I'm ... a pilgrim ... I'm a stranger,
+     I can tarry--I can tarry but a night._"
+
+In the early dawn, a local company of State troops, called out by the
+governor, had the jail safe.
+
+It was a gruesome sight in front of the stone wall where the deadly
+fire from Jack Bracken's pistols had swept. Thirteen dead men lay,
+and the back-bone of lynching had been broken forever in Alabama.
+
+It was the governor himself, bluff and rugged, who grasped Jack
+Bracken's hand as he lay dying, wrapped up, on a bale of cotton, and
+Margaret Adams, pale, weeping beside him: "Live for me, Jack--I love
+you. I have always loved you!"
+
+"And for me, Jack," said the old governor, touched at the scene--"for
+the state, to teach mobs how to respect the law. In the glory of what
+you've done, I pardon you for all the past."
+
+"It is fitten," said Jack, simply; "fitten that I should die for the
+law--I who have been so lawless."
+
+He turned to Margaret Adams: "You are lookin' somethin' you want to
+say--I can tell by yo' eyes."
+
+She faltered, then slowly: "Jack, he was not my son--my poor
+sister--I could not see her die disgraced."
+
+Jack drew her down and kissed her.
+
+And as his eyes grew dim, a figure, tall and in military clothes,
+stood before him, shaken with grief and saying, "Jack--Jack, my poor
+friend--"
+
+Jack's mind was wandering, but a great smile lit up his face as he
+said: "_Bishop--Bishop--is--is--it Cap'n Tom, or--or--Jesus Christ?_"
+And so he passed out.
+
+And up above them all in the belfry, lying prone, but still gripping
+his rifle's stock which, sweeping the jail with its deadly protruding
+barrel, had held back hundreds of men, they found Richard Travis, a
+softened smile on his lips as if he had just entered into the glory
+of the great Sweet Silence of Things. And by him sat the old
+preacher, where he had sat since Richard Travis's last shot had saved
+the jail and the defenders; sat and bound up his wound and gave him
+the last of his old whiskey out of the little flask, and stopped the
+flow of blood and saved the life which had nearly bubbled out.
+
+And as they brought the desperately wounded man down to the surgeon
+and to life, the old governor raised his hat and said: "The Travis
+blood--the Irish Gray--when it's wrong it is hell--when it's right it
+is heaven."
+
+But the old preacher smiled as he helped carry him tenderly down and
+said: "He is right, forever right, now, Gov'nor. God has made him so.
+See that smile on his lips! He has laughed before--that was from the
+body. He is smiling now--that is from the soul. His soul is born
+again."
+
+The old governor smiled and turned. Edward Conway, wounded, was
+sitting up. The governor grasped his hand: "Ned, my boy, I've
+appointed you sheriff of this county in place of that scallawag who
+deserted his post. Stand pat, for you're a Conway--no doubt about
+that. Stand pat."
+
+Under the rock wall, they found a man, dead on his knees, leaning
+against the wall; his gun, still cocked and deadly, was resting
+against his shoulder and needing only the movement of a finger to
+sweep with deadly hail the cotton-bales. His scraggy hair topped the
+rock fence and his staring eyes peeped over, each its own way. And
+one of them looked forward into a future which was Silence, and the
+other looked backward into a past which was Sin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE SHADOWS AND THE CLOUDS
+
+
+When Richard Travis came to himself after that terrible night, they
+told him that for weeks he had lain with only a breath between him
+and death.
+
+"It was not my skill that has saved you," said the old surgeon who
+had been through two wars and who knew wounds as he did maps of
+battlefields he had fought on. "No," he said, shaking his head, "no,
+it was not I--it was something beyond me. That you miraculously live
+is proof of it."
+
+He was in his room at The Gaffs, and everything looked so natural. It
+was sweet to live again, for he was yet young and life now meant so
+much more than it ever had. Then his eyes fell on the rug, wearily,
+and he remembered the old setter.
+
+"The dog--and that other one?"
+
+He sat up nervously in bed, trembling with the thought. The old
+surgeon guessed and bade him be quiet.
+
+"You need not fear that," he said, touching his arm. "The time has
+passed for fear. You were saved by the shadow of death and--the blood
+letting you had--and, well, a woman's lips, as many a man has been
+saved before you. You'd better sleep again now...."
+
+He slept, but there were visions as there had been all along. And two
+persons came in now and then. One was Tom Travis, serious and quiet
+and very much in earnest that the patient might get well.
+
+Another was Tom's wife, Alice, who arranged the wounded man's pillows
+with a gentleness and deftness as only she could, and who gave quiet
+orders to the old cook in a way that made Richard Travis feel that
+things were all right, though he could not speak, nor even open his
+eyes long enough to see distinctly.
+
+A month afterward Richard Travis was sitting up. His strength came
+very fast. For a week he had sat by the fire and thought--thought.
+But no man knew what was in his mind until one day, after he had been
+able to walk over the place, he said:
+
+"Tom, you and Alice have been kinder to me--far kinder--than I have
+deserved. I am going away forever, next week--to the Northwest--and
+begin life over. But there is something I wish to say to you first."
+
+"Dick," said his cousin, and he arose, tall and splendid, before the
+firelight--"there is something I wish to say to you first. Our lives
+have been far apart and very different, but blood is blood and you
+have proved it, else I had not been here to-night to tell it."
+
+He came over and put his hand affectionately on the other's shoulder.
+At its touch Richard Travis softened almost to tears.
+
+"Dick, we two are the only grandsons that bear his name, and we
+divide this between us. Alice and I have planned it. You are to
+retain the house and half the land. We have our own and more than
+enough. You will do it, Dick?"
+
+Richard Travis arose, strangely moved. He grasped his cousin's hand.
+"No, no, Tom, it is not fair. No Travis was ever a welcher. It is all
+yours--you do not understand--I saw the will--I do not want it. I am
+going away forever. My life must lead now in other paths. But--"
+
+The other turned quickly and looked deep into Richard Travis's eyes.
+"I can see there is no use of my trying to change your mind, Dick,
+though I had hoped--"
+
+The other shook his head. It meant a Travis decision, and his cousin
+knew it.
+
+"But as I started to say, Tom, and there is no need of my mincing
+words, if you'll raise that boy of mine--" he was silent awhile, then
+smiling: "He is mine and more of a Travis to-day than his father ever
+was. If you can help him and his aunt--"
+
+"He shall have the half of it, Dick, and an education, under our
+care. We will make a man of him, Alice and I."
+
+Richard Travis said no more.
+
+The week before he left, one beautiful afternoon, he walked over to
+Millwood for the last time. For Edward Conway was now sheriff of the
+county, and with the assistance of the old bishop, whose fortune now
+was secured, he had redeemed his home and was in a fair way to pay
+back every dollar of it.
+
+A new servant ushered Travis in, for the good old nurse had passed
+away, the strain of that terrible night being too much, first, for
+her reason, and afterwards, her life.
+
+Edward Conway was away, but Helen came in presently, and greeted him
+with such a splendid high-born way, so simple and so unaffected that
+he marveled at her self-control, feeling his own heart pulsing
+strangely at sight of her. In the few months that had elapsed how
+changed she was and how beautiful! This was not the romantic, yet
+buffeted, beautiful girl who had come so near being the tragedy of
+his old life? How womanly she now was, and how calm and at her ease!
+Could independence and the change from poverty and worry, the strong,
+free feeling of being one's self again and in one's sphere, make so
+great a difference in so short a while? He wondered at himself for
+not seeing farther ahead. He had come to bid her good-bye and offer
+again--this time in all earnestness and sincerity, to take her with
+him--to share his life--but the words died in his mouth.
+
+He could no more have said them than he could have profanely touched
+her.
+
+When he left she walked with him to the parting of the ways.
+
+The blue line of tremulous mountain was scrolled along a horizon that
+flamed crimson in the setting sun. A flock of twilight clouds--flamingos
+of the sky--floated toward the sunset as if going to roost. Beyond was
+the great river, its bosom as wan, where it lay in the shadow of the
+mountain, as Richard Travis's own cheek; but where the sunset fell on it
+the reflected light turned it to pink which to him looked like Helen's.
+
+The wind came down cool from the frost-tinctured mountain side, and the
+fine sweet odor of life everlasting floated in it--frost-bitten--and
+bringing a wave of youth and rabbit hunts and of a life of dreams and
+the sweet unclouded far-off hope of things beautiful and immortal. And
+the flow of it hurt Richard Travis--hurt him with a tenderness that
+bled.
+
+The girl stopped and drank in the beauty of it all, and he stood looking
+at her, "the picture for the frame"--as he said to himself.
+
+It had rained and the clouds were scattered, yet so full that they
+caught entirely the sunset rays and held them as he would that moment
+have loved to hold her. Something in her--something about her thrilled
+him strangely, as he had often been thrilled when looking at the great
+pictures in the galleries of the old world. He repeated softly to her,
+as she stood looking forward--to him--into the future:
+
+    "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."
+
+She turned and held out her hand.
+
+"I must bid you good-bye now and I wish you all happiness--so much
+more than you have ever had in all your life."
+
+He took it, but he could not speak. Something shook him strangely. He
+knew nothing to say. Had he spoken, he knew he had stammered and
+blundered.
+
+Never had the Richard Travis of old done such a thing.
+
+"Helen--Helen--if--if--you know once I asked you to go with
+me--once--in the old, awful life. Now, in the new--the new life which
+you can make sweet--"
+
+She came up close to him. The sun had set and the valley lay in
+silence. When he saw her eyes there were tears in them--tears so full
+and deep that they hurt him when she said:
+
+"It can never--never be--now. You made me love you when you could not
+love; and love born of despair is mateless ever; it would die in its
+realization. Mine, for you, was that--" She pointed to the sunset.
+"It breathed and burned. I saw it only because of clouds, of shadow.
+But were the clouds, the shadows, gone--"
+
+"There would be no life, no burning, no love," he said. "Ah, I think
+I understand," and his heart sank with pain. What--why--he could not
+say, only he knew it hurt him, and he began to wonder.
+
+"You do not blame me," she said as she still held his hand and looked
+up into his eyes in the old way he had seen, that terrible night at
+Millwood.
+
+For reply he held her hand in both of his and then laid it over his
+heart. She felt his tears fall on it, tears, which even death could
+not bring, had come to Richard Travis at last, and he wondered. In
+the old life he never wondered--he always knew; but in this--this new
+life--it was all so strange, so new that he feared even himself. Like
+a sailor lost, he could only look up, by day, helplessly at the sun,
+and, by night, helplessly at the stars.
+
+"Helen--Helen," he said at last, strangely shaken in it all,--"if I
+could tell you now that I do--that I could love--"
+
+She put her hand over his mouth in the old playful way and shook her
+head, smiling through her tears: "Do not try to mate my love with a
+thing that balks."
+
+It was simply said, and forceful. It was enough. Richard Travis
+blushed for very shame.
+
+"Do you not see," she said, "how hopeless it is? Do you not know that
+I was terribly tempted--weak--maddened--deserted that night? That now
+I know what Clay's love has been? Oh, why do we not learn early in
+life that fire will burn, that death will kill, that we are the deed
+of all we think and feel--the wish of all we will to be?"
+
+Travis turned quickly: "Is that true? Then let me wish--as I do,
+Helen; let me wish that I might love you as you deserve."
+
+She saddened: "Oh, but you have wished--you have willed--too
+often--too differently. It can never be now."
+
+"I understand you," he said. "It is natural--I should say it is
+nature--nature, the never-lying. I but reap my own folly, and now
+good-bye forever, Helen, and may God bless you and bring you that
+happiness you have deserved."
+
+"Do you know," she said calmly, "that I have thought of all that,
+too. There are so many of us in the world, and so little happiness
+that like flowers it cannot go around--some must go without."
+
+She held his hand tightly as if she did not want him to go.
+
+"My child, I must go out of your life--go--and stay. I see--I
+see--and I only make you wretched. And I have no right to. It is
+ignoble. It is I who should bear this burden of sorrow--not you. You
+who have never sinned, who are so young and so beautiful. In time you
+will love a nobler man--Clay--"
+
+She looked at him, but said nothing. She knew for the first time the
+solution of her love's problem. She was silent, holding his hand.
+
+"Child," he said again. "Helen, you must do as I say. There is
+happiness for you yet when I am gone--when I am out of your life and
+the memory and the pain of it cease. Then you will marry Clay--"
+
+"Do you really think so? Oh, and he has loved me so and is so
+splendid and true."
+
+Travis was silent, waiting.
+
+"Now let me go," she said--"let me forget all my madness and folly in
+learning to love one whose love was made for mine. In time I shall
+love him as he deserves. Good-bye."
+
+Then she broke impulsively away, and he watched her walk back through
+the shadows and under the clouds.
+
+At the turning of the path across the meadow, he saw another shadow
+join her. It was Clay, and the two went through the twilight
+together.
+
+Travis turned. "It is right--it is the solution--he alone deserves
+her. I must reap my past, reap it and see my harvest blighted and
+bound with rotten twine. But, oh, to know it when it is too late--to
+know that I might love her and could be happy--then to have to give
+it up--now--now--when I need it most. The Deed," he said--"we are the
+deed of all we think and feel."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE MODEL MILL
+
+
+The discovery of coal and iron made both the old Bishop and
+Westmoreland rich. Captain Tom sent James Travis to West Point and
+Archie B. to Annapolis, and their records were worthy of their names.
+
+And now, five years after the great fire, there might be seen in
+Cottontown, besides two furnaces, whose blazing turrets lighted the
+valley with Prosperity's torch--another cotton mill, erected by the
+old Bishop.
+
+Long and earnestly he thought on the subject before building the
+mill. Indeed, he first prayed over it and then preached on the
+subject, and this is the sermon he preached to his people the Sunday
+before he began the erection of The Model Cotton Mill:
+
+"Now, it's this way, my brethren: God made cotton for a mill. You
+can't get aroun' that; and the mill is to give people wuck an' this
+wuck is to clothe the worl'. That's all plain an' all good, because
+it's from God. Man made the bad of it--child labor, and overwuck and
+poor pay and the terrible everlastin' grind and foul air an' dirt an'
+squaller an' death.
+
+"The trouble with the worl' to-day is that it don't carry God into
+business. Why should we not be kinder an' mo' liberal with each other
+in business matters? We are unselfish in everything but business.
+All social life is based on unselfishness. To charity we give of our
+tears an' our money. For the welfare of mankind an' the advancement
+of humanity you can always count us on the right side. Even to those
+whose characters are rotten an' whose very shadows leave dark places
+in life, we pass the courtesies of the hour or the palaverin'
+compliments of the day. But let the struggler for the bread of life
+come along and ask us to share our profits with him, let the dollar
+be the thing involved an' business shrewdness the principle at stake,
+an' then all charity is forgotten, every man for himse'f, an' the
+chief aim of man seems to be to get mo' out of the trade than his
+brother.
+
+"Now the soul of trade is Selfishness, an' Charity never is invited
+over her doorway.
+
+"I have known men with tears in their eyes to give to the poor one
+day an' rob them the nex' in usurious interest an' rent, as cheerful
+as they gave the day befo'. I have known men to open their purses as
+wide as the gates of hades for some church charity, an' then close
+them the nex' day, in a business transaction, as they called it--with
+some helpless debtor or unexperienced widder. The graveyard is full
+of unselfish, devoted fathers an' husbands who worked themselves to
+death for the comfort an' support of their own families, yet spendin'
+their days on earth tryin' to beat their neighbors in the same game.
+
+"It's funny how we're livin'. It's amusin', it is--our ethics of
+Christianity. We've baptised everything but business. We give to the
+church an' rob the poor. We weep over misfortune an' steal from the
+unfortunate. We give a robe to Charity one day and filch it the
+nex'. We lay gifts at the altar of the Temple of Kindness for the
+Virgin therein, but if we caught her out on the highways of trade an'
+commerce we'd steal her an' sell her into slavery. An' after she was
+dead we'd go deep into our pockets to put up a monument over her!
+
+"We weep an' rob, an' smile an' steal, an' laugh an' knife, an' wring
+the hand of friendship while we step on her toes with our brogans of
+business. Can't we be hones' without bein' selfish, fair without
+graspin', make a profit without wantin' it all? Is it possible that
+Christ's religion has gone into every nook an' corner of the worl'
+an' yet missed the great highway of business, the everyday road of
+dollars an' cents, profit an' loss!
+
+"So I am goin' to build the mill an' run it like God intended it
+should be run, an' I am goin' to put, for once, the plan of salvation
+into business, if it busts me an' the plan too! For if it can't stand
+a business test it ought to bust!"
+
+He planned it all himself, and, aided by Captain Tom, and Alice, the
+beautiful structure went up. Strong and airy and with every comfort
+for the workers. "For it strikes me," said the old man, "that the
+people who wuck need mo' comforts than them that don't--at least the
+comforts of bein' clean. The fust thing I learned in geography was
+that God made three times as much water on the surface of the earth
+as he did dirt. But you wouldn't think so to look at the human race.
+It takes us a long time to take a hint."
+
+The big mountain spring settled the point, and when the mill was
+finished there were hot and cold baths in it for the tired workers.
+"For there's nothin' so good," said the old man, "for a hot man or a
+hot hoss as a warm body-wash. It relaxes the muscles an' makes them
+come ag'in. An' the man that comes ag'in is the man the worl' wants."
+
+In the homes of the workers, too, he had baths placed, until it grew
+to be a saying of the good old man "that it was easier to take a bath
+in Cottontown than to take a drink."
+
+The main building was lofty between floor and ceiling, letting in all
+the light and air possible, and the floors were of hard-wood and
+clean. As the greatest curse of the cotton lint was dust, atomizers
+for spraying the air were invented by Captain Tom. These were
+attached to the machinery and could be turned off or on as the
+operators desired. It was most comfortable now to work in the mill,
+and tired and hot employees, instead of lounging through their noon,
+bathed in the cool spring water which came down from the mountain
+side and flowed into the baths, not only in the mill, but through
+every cottage owned by the mill. And as the bath is the greatest
+civilizer known to man, a marked difference was soon noticed in every
+inhabitant of Cottontown. They were cleanly, and cleanliness begets a
+long list of other virtues, beginning with cleaner and better clothes
+and ending with ambition and godliness.
+
+But it was the old Bishop's policy for the wage-earners, which put
+the ambition there--a system never heard of before in the ranks of
+capital, and first tested and proved in his Model Cotton Mill.
+
+"There are two things in the worl'," said the Bishop, "that is as
+plain as God could write them without tellin' it Himself from the
+clouds. The first is that the money of the worl' was intended for all
+the worl' that reaches out a hand an' works for it.
+
+"The other is that every man who works is entitled to a home.
+
+"It was never intended for one man, or one corporation or one trust
+or one king or one anything else, to own more than his share of the
+money of the worl', no matter how they get it. Every man who piles up
+mo' money than he needs--actually needs--in life, robs every other
+man or woman or child in the worl' that pinches and slaves and
+starves for it in vain. Every man who makes a big fortune leaves just
+that many wrecked homes in his path."
+
+In carrying out this idea the old bishop had the mill incorporated at
+one hundred thousand dollars, which included all his fortune, except
+enough to live on and educate his grandchildren; for he never changed
+his home, and the only luxury he indulged in was a stable for Ben
+Butler.
+
+The stock was divided into shares of ten dollars each, which could be
+acquired only by those who worked in the mill, to be held only during
+life-time, and earned only in part payment for labor, given according
+to proficiency and work done, and credited on wages. In this way
+every employee of the mill became a stockholder--a partner in the
+mill, receiving dividends on his stock in addition to his regular
+wages, and every year he worked in the mill added both to his stock
+and dividends. At death it reverted again to The Model Cotton Mill
+Company, to be obtained again, in turn, by other mill workers coming
+on up the line. This made every mill worker a partner in the mill and
+spurred them on to do their best.
+
+But the home idea of the bishop was the more original one, and a far
+greater boon to the people. Instead of paying rent to the mill for
+their homes, as they had before, every married mill worker was deeded
+a home in the beginning, a certain per cent of his wages being
+appropriated each month in part payment; in addition, ten per cent of
+the stock acquired, as above, by each individual home owner, went to
+the payment of the home, and the whole was so worked out and adjusted
+that by the time a faithful worker had arrived at middle age, the
+home, as paid for, was absolutely his and his children's, and when he
+arrived at old age the dividends of the stock acquired were
+sufficient to support him the balance of his life.
+
+In this way the mill was virtually resolved into a corporation or
+community of interests, running perpetually for the maintenance and
+support of those who worked in it. The only property actually
+acquired by the individual was a home, his savings in wages, and the
+dividends on his stock acquired by long service and work.
+
+Some wanted the old man to run a general store on the same plan of
+community of interest, the goods and necessities of life to be bought
+at first cost and only the actual expenses of keeping the store
+added. But he wisely shook his head, saying: "No, that will not do;
+that's forming a trust ag'in the tillers of the earth an' the workers
+in every other occupation. That's cuttin' in on hones' competition,
+an' if carried out everywhere would shut off the rest of the worl'
+from a livin'. We're makin' our livin'--let them make theirs."
+
+The old bishop was proud of the men he selected to carry out his
+plans. Captain Tom was manager of the Model Mill.
+
+"Now," said the old man, after the mill had run two years and
+declared a semi-annual dividend, both years, of eight per cent each,
+"now you all see what it means to run even business by the Golden
+Rule. Here is this big fortune that I accidentally stumbled on, as
+everybody does who makes one--put out like God intended it sh'ud,
+belonging to nobody and standing there, year after year, makin' a
+livin' an' a home an' life an' happiness for over fo' hundred people,
+year in an' year out, an' let us pray God, forever. It was not mine
+to begin with--it belonged to the worl'. God put the coal and iron in
+the ground, not for me, but for everybody. An' so I've given it to
+everybody. Because I happened to own the lan' didn't make the
+treasure God put there mine, any mo' than the same land will be mine
+after I've passed away. We're only trustees for humanity for all we
+make mo' than we need, jus' as we're only tenants of God while we
+live on the earth."
+
+As for children, the bishop settled that quickly and effectively. His
+rule was that no boy or girl under sixteen should be permitted to
+work in the mill, and to save any parents, weakly inclined, from the
+temptation, he established a physical standard in weight, height and
+health.
+
+He found afterwards there was really small need of his stringent
+rule, for under this system of management the temptations of child
+labor were removed.
+
+Among the good features of the mill, established by Alice Travis, was
+a library, a pretty little building in the heart of Cottontown. It
+was maintained yearly by the mill, together with donations, and
+proved to be the greatest educational and refining influence of the
+mill. It was kept, for one week at a time, by each girl in the mill
+over twenty, the privilege always being given by the mill's physician
+to the girl who seemed most in need of a week's rest. It came to be a
+great social feature also, and any pretty afternoon, and all Saturday
+afternoon,--for the mill never ran then--could be seen there the
+young girls and boys of Cottontown.
+
+To this was afterwards added a Cottontown school for the younger
+children, who before had been slaves to the spinner and doffer carts.
+
+And so it ran on several years, but still the Bishop could see that
+something was lacking--that there was too much sickness, that in
+spite of only eight hours his people, year in and year out, grew
+tired and weak and disheartened, and with his great good sense he put
+his finger on it.
+
+"Now, it's this away," he said to his directors, "God never intended
+for any people to work all the time between walls an' floors. Tilling
+the soil is the natural work of man, an' there is somethin' in the
+very touch of the ground to our feet that puts new life in our
+bodies.
+
+"The farmin' instinct is so natural in us that you can't stop it by
+flood or drought or failure. Year in an' year out the farmer will
+plant an' work his crop in spite of failure, hopin' every year to
+hit it the nex' time. Would a merchant or manufacturer or anybody
+else do that? No, they'd make an assignment the second year of
+failure. But not so with the farmer, and it shows God intended he
+shu'd keep at it.
+
+"Now, I'm goin' to give this mill a chance to raise its own cotton,
+besides everything else its people needs to eat. I figger we can
+raise cotton cheaper than we can buy it, an' keep our folks healthy,
+too."
+
+Near Cottontown was an old cotton plantation of four thousand acres.
+It had been sadly neglected and run down. This the bishop purchased
+for the company for only ten dollars an acre, and divided it into
+tracts of twenty acres each, building a neat cottage, dairy and barn,
+and other outhouses on each tract--but all arranged for a family of
+four or five, and thus sprang up in a year a new settlement of two
+hundred families around Cottontown. It was no trouble to get them,
+for the fame of The Model Mill had spread, and far more applied
+yearly for employment than could be accommodated. This large farm,
+when equipped fully, represented fifty thousand dollars more, or an
+investment of ninety thousand dollars, and immediately became a
+valuable asset of the mill.
+
+It was divided into four parts, each under the supervision of a manager,
+a practical and experienced cotton farmer of the valley, and the tenants
+were selected every year from among all the workers of the mill,
+preference always being given to the families who needed the outdoor
+work most, and those physically weak from long work in the mill. It was
+so arranged that only fifty families, or one-fourth of the mill, went
+out each year, staying four years each on the farm. And thus every four
+years were two hundred families given the chance in the open to get in
+touch with nature, the great physician, and come again. After four years
+they went back to the mill, sunburnt, swarthy, and full of health, and
+what is greater than health,--cheerfulness--the cheerfulness that comes
+with change.
+
+On the farm they received the same wages as when in the mill, and each
+family was furnished with a mule, a cow, and poultry, and with a good
+garden.
+
+To reclaim this land and build up the soil was now the chief work of the
+old man; but having been overseer on a large cotton plantation, he knew
+his business, and set to work at it with all the zeal and good sense of
+his nature.
+
+He knew that cotton was one of the least exhaustive crops of the world,
+taking nearly all its sustenance from the air, and that it was also one
+of the most easily raised, requiring none of the complicated and
+expensive machinery necessary for wheat and other smaller grains. He
+knew, too, that under the thorough preparation of the soil necessary for
+cotton, wheat did best after it, and with clover sown on the wheat, he
+would soon have nature's remedy for reclaiming the soil. He also knew
+that the most expensive feature of cotton raising was the picking--the
+gathering of the crop--and in the children of Cottontown, he saw at once
+that he had a quick solution--one which solved the picking problem and
+yet gave to each growing boy and girl three months, in the cool,
+delightful fall, of healthful work, with pay more than equal to a year
+of the old cheap labor behind the spinners. For,--as it proved, at
+seventy-five cents per hundred pounds for the seed cotton picked,--these
+children earned from seventy-five cents to a dollar and a half a day.
+The first year, only half of the land was put in cotton, attention being
+given to reclaiming the other half. But even this proved a surprise for
+all, for nearly one thousand bales of cotton were ginned, at a total
+cost to the mill of only four cents per pound, while Cottontown had been
+fed during summer with all the vegetables and melons needed--all raised
+on the farm.
+
+That fall, the land, under the clean and constant plowing necessary
+to raise the cotton, was ready to sow in wheat, which in February was
+followed with clover--nature's great fertilizer--the clover being
+sown broadcast on the wheat, behind a light harrow run over the
+wheat. The wheat crop was small, averaging less than ten bushels to
+the acre, but it was enough to keep all Cottontown in bread for a
+year, or until the next harvest time, and some, even, to sell. Behind
+the wheat, after it was mowed, came the clover, bringing in good
+dividends. After two years, it was turned under, and then it was that
+the two thousand acres of land produced fifteen hundred bales of
+cotton at a total cost of four cents per pound, or twenty dollars per
+bale. And this included everything, even the interest on the money
+and the paying of seventy-five cents per hundred pounds to the
+Cottontown children for picking and storing the crop.
+
+In a few years, under this rotation, the farm produced all the cotton
+necessary to run The Model Mill, besides raising all its vegetables,
+fruit, and bread for all the families of Cottontown.
+
+But the most beautiful sight to the old man was to see the children
+every fall picking the cotton. Little boys and girls, who before had
+worked twelve hours a day in the old, hot, stifling, ill-smelling
+mill, now stood out in the sunshine and in the frosty air of the
+mornings, each with sack to side, waist deep in pure white cotton,
+flooded in sunshine and health and sweetness.
+
+They were deft with their fingers--the old mill had taught many of
+them that--and their pay, daily, ran from seventy-five cents to a
+dollar and a half--as much as some of them had earned in a week of
+the old way. And, oh, the health of it, the glory of air and sky and
+sunshine, the smell of dew on the bruised cotton-heads, the rustle of
+the mountain breeze cooling the heated cheeks; the healthy hunger,
+and the lunches in the shade by the cool spring; the shadows of
+evening creeping down from the mountains, the healthy fatigue--and
+the sweet home-going in the twilight, riding beneath the silent stars
+on wagons of snowy seed cotton, burrowing in bed of down and purest
+white--this snow of a Southern summer--with the happy laughter of
+childhood and the hunger of home-coming, and the glory and freedom of
+it all!
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Bishop of Cottontown, by John Trotwood Moore
+
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