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.