Read Ebook: Harper's Round Table January 5 1897 by Various

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PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 1897. FIVE CENTS A COPY.

THE LITTLE BISHOP.

BY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN.

It was I who called him the Little Bishop. His name was Phillips Brooks Sanderson, but one seldom heard it at full length, since "Phil" was quite enough for an urchin just in his first trousers, and those assumed somewhat prematurely. He was "Phil," therefore, to the village, but always the dear lovable Little Bishop to me. His home was in Bonnie Eagle; it was only because of his mother's illness that he was spending the summer with his uncle and aunt in Pleasant River. I could see the little brown house from my window. The white road, with strips of tufted green between the wheel tracks, curled dustily up to the very door-step, and inside the wire screen-door was a wonderful drawn-in rug, shaped like half a pie, with "Welcome" in saffron letters on its gray surface. I liked the Bishop's aunt; I liked to see her shake the "Welcome" rug before breakfast, flinging the cheery word out into the summer sunshine like a bright greeting to the new day; I liked to see her go to the screen-door a dozen times a day; open it a crack, and chase an imaginary fly from the sacred precincts within; I liked to see her come up the cellar steps into the side garden, appearing mysteriously as from the bowels of the earth, carrying a shining pan of milk in both hands, and disappearing through the beds of hollyhocks and sunflowers to the pig-pen or the hen-house.

I had not yet grown fond of the uncle, and neither had Phil, for that matter; in fact Uncle Abner was rather a difficult person to grow fond of, with his fiery red beard, his freckled skin, and his gruff way of speaking--for there were no children in the brown house to smooth the creases from his forehead or the roughness from his voice.

I was sitting under the shade of the great maple one morning early when I first saw the Little Bishop. A tiny figure came down the grass-grown road leading a cow by a rope. If it had been a small boy and a small cow, a middle-sized boy and an ordinary cow, or a grown man and a big cow, I might not have noticed them; but it was the combination of an infinitesimal boy and a huge cow that attracted my attention. I could not guess the child's years; I only knew that he was small for his age, whatever it was. The cow was a dark red beast with a crumpled horn, a white star on her forehead, and a large surprised sort of eye. She had, of course, two eyes, and both were surprised, but the left one had an added hint of amazement in it by virtue of a few white hairs lurking accidentally in the centre of the eyebrow.

The boy had a thin sensitive face and curly brown hair, short trousers patched on both knees, and a ragged straw hat on the back of his head. He pattered along behind the cow, sometimes holding the rope with both hands, and getting over the ground in a jerky way, as the animal left him no time to think of a smooth path for bare feet. The Sanderson pasture was a good half-mile distant, I knew, and the cow seemed in no hurry to reach it; accordingly she forsook the road now and then, and rambled in the hollows, where the grass was sweeter, to her way of thinking. She started on one of these exploring expeditions just as she passed the great maple, and gave me time to call out to the little fellow, "Is that your cow?"

He blushed and smiled, tried to speak modestly, but there was a quiver of pride in his voice as he answered, suggestively, "It's--nearly my cow."

"How is that?" I asked.

"Why, when I drive her twenty-nine more times to pasture 'thout her gettin' her foot over the rope or 'thout my bein' afraid, she's goin' to be my truly cow, Uncle Abner says. Are you 'fraid of cows?"

"Ye-e-es," I confessed, "I am, just a little. You see, I am nothing but a grown-up woman, and boys can't understand how we feel about cows."

"Perfectly enormous! I've always thought a cow coming towards you one of the biggest things in the world."

"Yes; me too. Don't let's think about it. Do they hook people so very often?"

"No, indeed; in fact one scarcely ever hears of such a case."

"If they stepped on your bare foot they'd scrunch it, wouldn't they?"

"Yes, but you are the driver, you mustn't let them do that; you are a free-will boy, and they are nothing but cows."

"No, of course that would never do."

"Does all the cows where you live go down into the boggy places when you're drivin' 'em to pasture, or does some stay in the road?"

"There aren't any cows or any pastures where I live; that's what makes me so foolish. Why does yours need a rope?"

"She don't like to go to pasture, Uncle Abner says. Sometimes she'd druther stay to home, and so when she gets part way there she turns round and comes backwards."

"Dear me!" I thought, "what becomes of this boy mite if she has a spell of going backwards? Do you like to drive her?" I asked.

It was rather a feeble warning that he sounded, and the cow fed on, peacefully. The little fellow looked up at me confidingly, and then glanced back at the farm to see if Uncle Abner were watching the progress of events.

"What shall we do next?" he asked.

"What is her name?" I asked, sitting up straight in the hammock.

"Buttercup; but she don't seem to know it very well."

We did this; it worked to a charm, and I looked affectionately after my Little Bishop as the cow pulled him down Aunt Betty's hill.

The lovely June days wore on. I saw Phil frequently, but the cow was seldom present at our interviews, as he now drove her to the pasture very early in the morning, the journey thither being one of considerable length and her method of reaching the goal being exceedingly round-about. Uncle Abner had pointed out the necessity of getting her into the pasture at least a few minutes before she had to be taken out again, and though I didn't like Uncle Abner, I saw the common-sense of this remark. I sometimes caught a glimpse of them at sundown as they returned from the pasture to the twilight milking, Buttercup chewing her peaceful cud, her soft white bag of milk hanging full, her surprised eye rolling in its accustomed "fine frenzy." The frenzied roll did not mean anything, the Bishop and I used to assure each other; but if it didn't, it was an awful pity she had to do it, the Bishop thought, and I agreed. To have an expression of eye that means murder, and yet to be a perfectly virtuous and well-meaning animal, this is a calamity which, if fully realized, would injure a cow's milk-producing activities seriously, I should think.

I was looking at the sun one evening as it dropped like a ball of red fire into Wilkins's Woods, when the Little Bishop passed.

"It's the twenty-ninth night," he called, joyously.

"I am so glad," I answered, for I had often feared some accident might prevent his claiming the promised reward. "Then to-morrow Buttercup will be your own cow?"

"I guess so. That's what Uncle Abner said. He's off to Bonnie Eagle now, but he'll be home to-night, and mother's going to send my new hat by him. When Buttercup's my own cow I wish I could change her name and call her Red Rover, but p'r'aps her mother wouldn't like it. When she b'longs to me, mebbe I won't be so 'fraid of gettin' hooked and scrunched, because she'll know she's mine, and she'll go better. I haven't let her get snarled up in the rope one single time, and I don't show I'm afraid, do I?"

"I should never suspect it for an instant," I said, encouragingly. "I've often envied you your bold, brave look!"

He appeared distinctly pleased. "I haven't cried, either, when she's dragged me over the pasture bars and peeled my legs. Bill Jones's little brother Charlie says he ain't afraid of anything, not even bears. He says he would walk right up close and cuff 'em if they dared to yip; but I ain't like that!"

I told Aunt Betty that it was the Bishop's twenty-ninth night, and that the big red cow was to be his on the morrow.

"Well, I hope it'll turn out that way," she said. "But I ain't a mite sure that Abner Sanderson will give up that cow when it comes to the point. It won't be the first time he's tried to crawl out of a bargain with folks a good deal bigger than Phil, for he's close, Abner is! To be sure, Phil's father bought all his stock for him years ago, and set him up on the farm; perhaps that'll make some difference, now he's died, and left nothing to his widder. Abner has hired help in July and August, so he can get the cow to the pasture easy enough without Phil. I wish you'd go up there to-night, and ask Mis' Sanderson if she'll lend me half her yeast-cake, and I'll lend her half of mine a Saturday."

I was used to this errand, for the whole village of Pleasant River would sometimes be rocked to the very centre of its being by simultaneous desire for a yeast-cake. As the nearest repository was a mile and a half distant, as the yeast-cake was valued at two cents and wouldn't keep, as the demand was uncertain, being dependent entirely on a fluctuating desire for "riz bread," the Edgewood store-keeper refused to order more than three yeast-cakes a day at his own risk. Sometimes they remained on his hands a dead loss; sometimes eight or ten persons would "hitch up" and drive from distant farms for the coveted article, only to be met with the flat, "No, I'm all out o' yeast-cake; Mis' Simmons took the last; mebbe you can borry half o' hern, she hain't much of a bread-eater."

So I climbed the hill to Mrs. Sanderson's, knowing my daily bread depended on the successful issue of the call. As I passed by the corner of the barn, I paused behind a great clump of elderberry-bushes, for I heard the timid voice of the Little Bishop and Uncle Abner's gruff tone. I did not wish to interrupt nor overhear a family interview, and I thought they might walk on as they talked; but in a moment I heard Uncle Abner sit down on a stool by the grindstone as he said:

"Well, now, Phillips Brooks, we'll talk about the red cow. You say you've drove her a month, do ye? And the trade between us was that if you could drive her a month without her getting the rope over her foot and without bein' afraid, you was to have her. That's straight, ain't it?" The Bishop's face burned with excitement, his gingham shift rose and fell as if he were breathing hard, but he only nodded assent and said nothing. "Now," continued Uncle Abner, "have you made out to keep the rope from under her feet?"

"She 'ain't got t-t-tangled up one s-single time," said Phil, stuttering in his excitement, but looking up with some courage from his bare toes, with which he was assiduously ploughing the earth.

"So far, so good. Now 'bout bein' afraid. As you seem so certain of gettin' the cow, I suppose you hain't been a mite scared, hev you? Honor bright, now!"

"I--I--not but just a little mite. I--"

A long pause, then a faint "Yes."

"Where's your manners?"

"I mean yes sir."

"How often? If it hain't ben too many times mebbe I'll let ye off, though you're a reg'lar girl-boy, and'll be runnin' away from the cat bimeby. Has it ben--twice?"

"Yes," and the Little Bishop's voice was very faint now, and had a decided tear in it.

"Yes what?"

"Yes, sir."

"Has it ben four times?"

"Y-es, sir." More heaving of the gingham shirt.

"Well, you air a coward! How many times? Speak up now."

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