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Updated: June 22, 2025
"For there's nothin' so good," said the old man, "for a hot man or a hot hoss as a warm body-wash. It relaxes the muscles an' makes them come ag'in. An' the man that comes ag'in is the man the worl' wants." In the homes of the workers, too, he had baths placed, until it grew to be a saying of the good old man "that it was easier to take a bath in Cottontown than to take a drink."
"Now, I'm goin' to give this mill a chance to raise its own cotton, besides everything else its people needs to eat. I figger we can raise cotton cheaper than we can buy it, an' keep our folks healthy, too." Near Cottontown was an old cotton plantation of four thousand acres. It had been sadly neglected and run down.
In the midst of her perplexity there came to her Saturday afternoon a curiously worded note, from the old Cottontown preacher, telling her not to forget now that he had returned and that Sunday School lessons at Uncle Bisco's were in order.
Throughout the sermon she had not taken her eyes off the old man in the pulpit, and so interested was she, and so earnestly did she drink in all he said, that any one noticing could tell that, to her, the plain old man in the pulpit was more than a pastor. She sat off by herself. Not one of them in all Cottontown would come near her.
All Cottontown was there to see it burn, hushed, with set faces, some of anger, some of fear but all in stricken numbness, knowing that their living was gone. It was not long before Jud Carpenter was among them, stirring them with the story of how the old negro woman had burned it for he knew it was she.
The news had spread and a crowd had gathered to see the champion dog of the Tennessee Valley eat up a monkey. All the loafers and ne'er-do-wells of Cottontown were there. The village had known no such excitement since the big mill had been built. They came up and looked sorrowfully at the monkey, as they would look in the face of the dead.
There was not enough originality among the worked-to-death inhabitants of Cottontown to plant their gardens differently; for all of them had the same weedy turnip-patch on one side, straggling tomatoes on another, and half-dried mullein-stalks sentineling the corners. For years these cottages had not been painted, and now each wore the same tinge of sickly yellow paint.
When finally released, with lacerated hides and wounded feelings, they went rapidly homeward, and they told it in dog language, from Dan to Beersheba, that Cottontown was full of the terrible and the unexpected.
Help had come to Conway. On one side of him stood the old Cottontown preacher, his white hair reflecting back the light from the bonfires and torches in front lighting up a face which now seemed to have lost all of its kindly humor in the crisis that was there. He was unarmed, but he stood calm and with a courage that was more of sorrow than of anger.
But they recognized the shambling creature who followed him as Bud Billings, and they shouted with laughter when they saw he had a sponge and bucket! "Bud Billings a swipe!" Cottontown wanted to laugh, but it was too tired. It merely grinned and nudged one another. For Travis had given a half holiday and all Cottontown was there. The old man's outfit brought out the greatest laughter.
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