"Come right on, Miss Hildy," shouted the Angel. "I got ever"thing cleaned up. Come on an" look in the _furthest_ corners!"
St. Hilda went on, but ten minutes later she had to pa.s.s that way again and she did look in. Nothing had been done. The stable was in confusion and a pitchfork lay p.r.o.ngs upward midway of the barn door.
"How"s this, Ephraim?" she asked, mystified. Ephraim was a fourteen-year-old boy who did the strenuous work of the barn.
"Why, Miss Hildy, I jes" hain"t had time to clean up yit."
"_You_ haven"t had time?" she echoed in more mystery. "That isn"t your work--it"s Willie"s." It was Ephraim"s turn for mystery.
"Why, Miss Hildy, Willie told me more"n a week ago that you said fer me to do _all_ the cleanin" up."
"Do you mean to say that you"ve been doing this work for over a week?
What"s Willie been doing?"
"Not a lick--jes" settin" aroun" studyin" an" whistlin"."
St. Hilda went swiftly down the hill, herself in deep study, and she summoned the Angel to the bar of her judgment. The Angel writhed and wormed, but it was no use, and at last with smile, violet eyes, and halo the Angel spoke the truth. Then a great light dawned for St. Hilda, and she played its searching rays on the Angel"s past and he spoke more truth, leaving her gasping and aghast.
"Why--why did you say all that about your poor little brother?"
The Angel"s answer was prompt. "Why, I figgered that you _couldn"t_ ketch Jeems Henery an" _wouldn"t_ ketch me. An"," the Angel added dreamily, "it come might" nigh bein" that-a-way if I just had----"
"You"re a horrid, wicked little boy," St. Hilda cried, but the Angel would not be perturbed, for he was a practical moralist.
"Jeems Henery," he called into s.p.a.ce, "come hyeh!" And out of s.p.a.ce James Henry came, as though around the corner he had been waiting the summons.
"Jeems Henery, who was the gamblin"est, cussin"est, lyin"est boy on Viper?"
"My big brother Bill!" shouted Jeems Henery proudly.
"Who stopped gamblin", cussin", an" lyin"?"
"My big brother Bill!"
"Who stopped all these young uns o" Miss Hildy"s from cussin" an"
gamblin"?" And Jeems Henery shouted: "My big brother Bill!" The Angel, well pleased, turned to St. Hilda.
"Thar now," he said triumphantly, and seeing that he had reduced St. Hilda to helpless pulp he waved his hand.
"Git back to yo" work, Jeems Henery." But St. Hilda was not yet all pulp.
"Willie," she asked warily, "when did _you_ stop lying?"
"Why, jes" now!" There was in the Angel"s face a trace of wonder at St. Hilda"s lack of understanding.
"How did James Henry know?" The mild wonder persisted.
"Jeems Henery knows _me_!" St. Hilda was all pulp now, but it was late afternoon, and birds were singing in the woods, and her little people were singing as they worked in fields; and her heart was full. She spoke gently.
"Go on back to work, Willie," she was about to say, but the Angel had gone a-dreaming and his face was sad, and she said instead:
"What is it, Willie?"
"I know whut"s been the matter with me, Miss Hildy--I hain"t been the same since my mother died six year ago." For a moment St. Hilda took a little silence to gain self-control.
"You mean," she said sternly, ""come _might" nigh_ dyin"," Willie, and _two_ years ago."
"Well, Miss Hildy, hit "pears like six." Her brain whirled at the working of his, but his eyes, his smile, and the halo, glorified just then by a bar of sunlight, were too much for St. Hilda, and she gathered him into her arms.
"Oh, Willie, Willie," she half-sobbed; "I don"t know what to do with you!"
And then, to comfort her, the Angel spoke gently:
"Miss Hildy, jes" don"t do--nothin"."
THE POPE OF THE BIG SANDY
He entered a log cabin in the Kentucky hills. An old woman with a pair of scissors cut the tie that bound him to his mother and put him in swaddling-clothes of homespun. Now, in silk pajamas, with three doctors and two nurses to make his going easy, he was on his way out of a suite of rooms ten stories above the splendor of Fifth Avenue.
It was early morning. A taxi swung into the paved circle in front of the hotel below and a little man in slouch-hat and black frock coat, and with his trousers in his boots, stepped gingerly out. He took off the hat with one hand, dropped his saddle-pockets from the other, and mopped his forehead with a bandanna handkerchief.
"My G.o.d, brother," he said to the grinning driver, "I tol" ye to hurry, but I didn"t "low you"d _fly_! How much d" I owe ye an" how do I git in hyeh?"
A giant in a gold-braided uniform had picked up the saddle-pockets when the little man turned.
"Well, now, that"s clever of ye," he said, thrusting out his hand, "I reckon you air the proprietor--how"s the Pope?"
"Sure, I dunno, sor--this way, sor." The astonished giant pointed to the swinging door and turned for light to the taxi man who, doubled with laughter over his wheel, tapped his forehead. At the desk the little man pushed his hat back and put both elbows down.
"Whar"s the Pope?"
"The Pope!" From behind, the giant was making frantic signs, but the clerk"s brow cleared. "Oh, yes--front!"
The little man gasped and swayed as the elevator shot upward, but a moment later the little judge of Happy Valley and the Pope of the Big Sandy were hand in hand.
"How"re yo" folks, judge?"
"Stirrin"--how"re you, Jim?"
"Ain"t stirrin" at all."
"Shucks, you"ll be up an" aroun" in no time."
"I ain"t goin" to git up again."