“You can't git me into a automobile an' I'm afeard to walk. I'd git run over. I'll jus' hang aroun'.”
Another telegram was brought in.
“Runnin' easy an' winnin' in a walk,” said the Pope. “It's a cinch. You can open anything else that comes while I'm asleep.”
The judge himself had not slept well on the train; so he took off his boots, put his yarn-stockinged feet in one chair, and sitting up in another took a nap. An hour later the Pope called for him. The last telegram reported that he was so far ahead that none others would be sent until the committee started to count ballots.
“I've made you an executor in my will, judge,” he said, “an' I want you to see that some things are done yourself.” The judge nodded.
“I want you to have a new church built in Happy Valley. I want you to give St. Hilda and that settlement school five thousand a year. An'”—he paused—“you know ole Bill Maddox cut me out an' married Sally Ann Spurlock—how many children they got now, judge?”
“Ten—oldest, sixteen.”
“Well, I want you to see that every gol-durned one of 'em gits the chance to go to school.”
Now, old Bill Maddox was running against the Pope, and was fighting him hard, and the judge hated old Bill Maddox; so he said nothing. The Pope too was silent a long while.
“Judge, I got all my money out o' the mountain folks. I robbed 'em right and left.”