THE BROKEN THREAD
For the first time in years, the next Sunday the little church on the mountain side was closed, and all Cottontown wondered. Never before had the old man missed a Sabbath afternoon since the church had been built. This was to have been Baptist day, and that part of his congregation was sorely disappointed.
For an hour Bud Billings had stood by the little gate looking down the big stretch of sandy road, expecting to see the familiar shuffling, blind old roan coming:
“Sum'pins happened to Ben Butler,” said Bud at last—and at thought of such a calamity, he sat down and shed tears.
His simple heart yearned for pity, and feeling something purring against him he picked up the cat and coddled it.
“You seem to be cultivatin' that cat again, Bud Billings,” came a sharp voice from the cabin window.
Bud dropped the animal quickly and struck out across the mountain for the Bishop's cabin.
But he was not prepared for the shock that came to his simple heart: Shiloh was dying—the Bishop himself told him so—the Bishop with a strange, set, hard look in his eyes—a look which Bud had never seen there before, for it was sorrow mingled with defiance—in that a great wrong had been done and done over his protest. It was culpable sorrow too, somewhat, in that he had not prevented it, and a heart-hardening sorrow in that it took the best that he loved.
“She jes' collapsed, Bud—sudden't like—wilted like a vi'let that's stepped on, an' the Doctor says she's got no sho' at all, ther' bein' nothin' to build on. She don't kno' nothin'—ain't knowed nothin' since last night, an' she thinks she's in the mill—my God, it's awful! The little thing keeps reaching out in her delirium an' tryin' to piece the broken threads, an' then she falls back pantin' on her pillow an' says, pitful like—'the thread—the thread is broken!' an' that's jes' it, Bud—the thread is broken!”