“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: