The Bishop and the Boogerman

by Joel Chandler Harris

"I don't think I know what you mean," said the young man, with some show of embarrassment.

"Maybe not," replied Mr. Sanders, "but I leave it to you ef that's my fault; I've dealt you the hand, an' ef you dunno how to play it, you can't blame me. I see Tidwell across yander, an' I want to have a talk wi' him; maybe he'll loan me his pocket-han'kcher. So-long!"

Young Somers went to his room in the tavern and pondered long over the problem that Mr. Sanders had presented with confident smiles. He tried to think it out, but, somehow, he could think of nothing but a laughing face, dimpled and sweet, blue eyes and golden hair, and lovely white hands lifted in eloquent gesture. He could concentrate all the powers of his mind on these, and he could think a little, just a little, of the wonderful personality of Mr. Sanders, who had persisted in remaining a boy, in spite of his years and large experience, but so far as puzzles and problems were concerned, his mind refused to work.

It was the same the next day, and the next. He walked about the little town by way of recreation, but by far the largest part of his time was spent in his room at the tavern. On the morning of the third day of his stay in Shady Dale, he concluded to visit the old place where his grandfather had lived, and where his mother was born. Of the whereabouts of the place he had not the slightest idea, though he knew it was about a mile from the centre of the town. While he was debating whether or no he should wander about and try to find it for himself, or whether he should make inquiries as to the direction, he heard the rustle of skirts behind him. Turning he beheld his vision of blue eyes and golden hair. This, however, was the reality. The young fellow had a queer notion, momentary but vivid, that somewhere or somehow, in some dim, mysterious region under the stars, he had come suddenly upon this same experience, under precisely the same conditions—and the thought gave him a thrill the like of which he had never felt before—the kind of thrill that, as Mr. Sanders once suggested, makes you think that you've clerked in a dry-goods store in some other world.

Blue eyes and dimples were very gracious. "You left too soon the other day," they declared; "Uncle Jonas came in shortly after you went away, and you were hardly out of the house before one of your mother's old servants came in to see you. It was Mammy Lucindy, our cook, and she was very much disappointed to find you had gone."

"I'm sorry," the young fellow said, and he was so emphatic, and so serious, that Adelaide laughed. "I have heard my mother speak of Lucindy and her son Randall."

"When Uncle Jonas came in," remarked Adelaide, "I told him you had called. He frowned and said he supposed you wanted to see him on business; but I suggested that perhaps you had called because you were Judge Bowden's grandson. He declared you had never thought of such a thing; but the possibility that you might have had such a thought pleased him greatly. I don't know when I have seen him in such high good humour."

They were walking along as they talked, and the young man made a mental note of old Jonas's pleasure. The sun was shining brightly, the air was fresh and cool, the jay-birds in the China trees were hilarious, and, somehow or other, the two young people felt very happy as they walked along. They had no particular reason for their happiness, but they seemed to be in the atmosphere in which happiness arises like the sparkling dew of early morning. A deaf old lady sitting on her piazza, on the opposite side of the street, smiled sweetly at Adelaide, and held her trumpet to her ear, as if, by means of its echoing depths, she could hear what the laughing young woman was saying. Adelaide did have something to say, evidently—something that an ear-trumpet could not interpret across the wide street, for she made a little gesture with her head, which her companion failed to see, and she sent some signal whirling through the air by means of a fluttering white hand. This signal he did see, but he was unfamiliar with the code that prevails among women-kind the world over: yet he had no difficulty in taking it to be an ordinary salutation, especially as the smiling old lady waved the trumpet around her head with an air of triumph. Still there was something in it all that seemed to be a trifle beyond him—and from the feminine point of view it was a neat and pretty piece of work.

He had small opportunity to give the matter any thought, for Adelaide, laughing, turned toward him, and began to speak of the affection her Uncle Jonas had felt for Judge Bowden, and the high esteem in which he held the judge's memory. She acknowledged that it was very queer that a man long dead should play a living part in her uncle's thoughts, but she explained that people had wrong ideas about her uncle. "They seem to think," she declared, "that Uncle Jonas is very mean and stingy, and hard-hearted; but if they knew him as well as I do, they would think differently."

The young fellow would have protested, but Adelaide stopped him with a dignified wave of her versatile white hand. "I know what people say," she insisted. "Mr. Sanders tells me, and so does Randall, whose life was saved by your mother; they tell me everything that is said about Uncle Jonas. And I always tell him about it, but he doesn't seem to care; he laughs as if it were a good joke, and declares that people have more sense than he has been willing to credit them with. Really, I believe he likes it, but it is not at all agreeable to me."