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And by the fire sat the old Cottontown preacher, his back turned to them and saying just loud enough to be heard: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, ... he restoreth my soul ... my cup runneth over...."
At his little cottage gate stood Bud Billings, the best slubber in the cotton mill. Bud never talked to any one except the Bishop; and his wife, who was the worst Xanthippe in Cottontown, declared she had lived with him six months straight and never heard him come nearer speaking than a grunt.
They walked away from Cottontown and past pretty houses. In a quiet street, with oaks and elms shading it, she entered a yard in which stood a pretty and nicely painted cottage. Lily clapped her hands with laughter when she found all her old things there even her pet dolls to welcome her all in the cunningest and quaintest room imaginable.
To this was afterwards added a Cottontown school for the younger children, who before had been slaves to the spinner and doffer carts.
The wheat crop was small, averaging less than ten bushels to the acre, but it was enough to keep all Cottontown in bread for a year, or until the next harvest time, and some, even, to sell. Behind the wheat, after it was mowed, came the clover, bringing in good dividends.
That little thing dividing honors with him in Cottontown? It was not to be endured for a moment! Bonaparte stood gazing in indignant wonder. He slowly arose and shambled along half drunkenly to see what it all meant. A crowd had gathered around the thing the insignificant thing which was attracting more attention in Cottontown than himself, the champion dog.
The crowd grew denser every moment. The people of Cottontown, hot and revengeful, now that their living was burned; hill dwellers who sympathized with them, and coming in, were eager for any excitement; the unlawful element which infests every town all were there, the idle, the ignorant, the vicious. And a little viciousness goes a long way.
In a few years, under this rotation, the farm produced all the cotton necessary to run The Model Mill, besides raising all its vegetables, fruit, and bread for all the families of Cottontown. But the most beautiful sight to the old man was to see the children every fall picking the cotton.
And now, five years after the great fire, there might be seen in Cottontown, besides two furnaces, whose blazing turrets lighted the valley with Prosperity's torch another cotton mill, erected by the old Bishop. Long and earnestly he thought on the subject before building the mill.
Down through a pretty part of the town, away from Cottontown, she led the little girl, laughing now and chatting by the old woman's side, a bird freed from a cage. "And you'll bring sister Helen, too?" asked Lily. "That I will, pet, she'll be home to-night." "Oh, Mammy, it's so good to have you again so good, and I thought you never would come."
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