The Bishop and the Boogerman

by Joel Chandler Harris

He had several long talks with Mr. Sanders, during which he never once mentioned business nor anything relating thereto. Instead, he seemed to be very much interested in Adelaide and her personality, her nature and individuality. On this subject Mr. Sanders was eloquent. He could discourse on it for hours, and was only humorous when he wanted to make people believe he was in earnest. He told Somers all about Cally-Lou, and asked the young man what he thought about the child that was a little more than make-believe, and yet remained on the very verge of visibility. Now, the young man was very practical; circumstances had made him so. His spirit had had so little exercise, his dreams remained so persistently on the hither side of concrete things, he was so completely invested with the cold and critical views that were the result of his education, that his mind never ventured much beyond his material interests, and he never tried to peep around the many corners that life presents to a curious and sincere observer. Consequently, he was all at sea, as the saying is, when Mr. Sanders told him about Cally-Lou. He thought it was some form of a new joke, and he would have had a hearty laugh had the old philosopher given him the wink.

But the wink was not forthcoming. On the contrary, much to the young man's surprise, Mr. Sanders appeared to be very serious. But the young man was as frank as it is possible for a youngster to be. "I'll be honest with you, Mr. Sanders," he said. "I don't know a thing about such matters. If I were not in Shady Dale, where everything seems to be so different, I would say at once that you are talking nonsense—that you are trying to play some kind of a practical joke—but, as it is, I don't know what to think."

When the young man said that everything is different in Shady Dale, he meant that Adelaide was different, and Mr. Sanders knew it; so he said, "When you git so that you kin mighty nigh see Cally-Lou, you'll be wuth lookin' at twice."

Somers took this more seriously than he would have taken it twenty-four hours previously—and he carried it to the tavern with him, and thought it over a long time; and then, as if that were not sufficient, he carried it to the Bowden place in the dusk of the evening, and worried with it until he had no difficulty in discovering where his grandfather had walked, and where his mother had hid herself when her feelings were hurt, and where she had played with her dolls.

The experience helped him in many ways, so much that when Adelaide saw him only a few hours later she exclaimed, "Why, how well you are looking! Our climate must be fine to make such a change in you." And Mr. Sanders—"Well, well! ef you stay here long, you'll turn out to be a purty nice lookin' chap. The home air is mighty good for folks, so I've been told." And, somehow or other, without further explanation, the young fellow knew what Mr. Sanders had meant by his talk about the "royal straight flush." When he called on old Jonas, he went as the grandson of Judge Bowden, and not as the agent of the promoter of the new railway, and endeavoured to learn everything that the old man knew about his grandfather.

Mr. Sanders joined the two before they had been conversing very long, and he was surprised, as well as pleased, to find how completely old Jonas had thawed out. There was not a frown on his face, and, on occasion, he laughed heartily over some incident that his memory drew from the past. And, presently, Adelaide glided in from the innermost recesses of the house, and sat near her uncle. She was a charming addition, and a most interesting one, for she was able to remind old Jonas of many things he had told her about the dead judge. Mr. Sanders, not to be outdone, contributed some of his own reminiscences, so that the evening became a sort of memorial of a good man who had long passed away.

When the visitors were going away, Adelaide accompanied them to the door, and went with them on the veranda. Before Mr. Sanders could say good-bye, she caught him by his sleeve—"Do you remember what I told you the other day? Well, she has returned."

"What did she say?" he inquired, his finger on his chin. Adelaide blushed, but no one could see her embarrassment. "Why, she says that everything looks a great deal better by lamplight."

Young Somers heard the conversation, but kept on moving away. "Did you hear that?" inquired Mr. Sanders, as he overtook the other. "She was talking about Cally-Lou. It seems she run away the day you showed your face here, and now she's come back." And further than that, the Sage of Shady Dale said not a word. But the next day, he met the young fellow on the street, and gave him a congratulatory slap on the back. "You showed up purty strong, sonny; an' now that you've diskiver'd for yourself that thar's a whole lot of ingineerin' that's nuther civil nor mechanical, an' that aint got a thing in the world to do wi' figgers, you'll manage to git along ruther better than you thought—in fact, mighty nigh fustrate.

"But don't fergit Cally-Lou!"