rms, 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," smil