[Through the kindness of John C. Winston & Co., publishers, of Philadelphia, Pa., we are permitted to give to our readers this treat, being one of the chapters from the forthcoming novel of John Trotwood Moore, entitled “The Bishop of Cottontown,” now in the Winston press, and which will be issued by them early in March. This novel has been pronounced truly great by many publishers’ readers. It deals with child labor in the Southern cotton mills and the Bishop is the kindly old preacher and ex-trainer of ante-bellum thoroughbreds, who is the hero of the book.—E. E. Sweetland, Business Manager.]
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 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 aswarmin’.”
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 Xantippe 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 eye-brows, 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 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’u’dn’t live, an’ some goodness or nobody else c’u’d 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, browbeaten 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 road-side,” 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.
Bud was now in the 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 ag’in 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 road-side. 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.
“Oh, 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”—and 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, ole man Galloway, had a thoroughbred filly that he named Kathleena for his daughter, an’ she c’u’d 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’ ’u’d 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 ’u’d help—kind o’ sissy pious folks—that jus’ do manage to miss all the fun in this 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 c’u’dn’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 fellow 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 sh’u’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 fergit how the night looked as I rode over after her, how the wildflowers 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 c’u’dn’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 c’u’dn’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’u’d only kiss her han’ befo’ I left—if I c’u’d 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) “‘HILLIARD 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 ’u’d 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 fur 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 Hilliard Watts, Wher-Ever Found.
“‘Come on home an’ fetch yo’ preacher. Can’t afford to lose the filly, an’ the gal has been off her feed ever since you left.
“‘JOBE GALLOWAY.’”
“Oh, Bud, I’ll never forgit that homecomin’ 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....
“Oh, 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 road-side an’ the mountain yonder an’ the world an’ the stars an’ the sun. An’ we’re mo’ than they be, Bud—even the tiniest 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.
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 and 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 ’u’d 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 only 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 thort 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 c’u’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!”