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