ed the good Mrs. Scruggs.

The Bishop looked the red-headed young candidate over solemnly. There
was a howl of protest from the lusty Scruggs.

"He's a Cam'elite," said the Bishop dryly--"ready to dispute
a'ready"--here the young Scruggs sent out a kick which caught the
Bishop in the mouth.

"With Baptis' propensities," added the Bishop. "Fetch the baptismal
fount."

"Please, pap," said little Appomattox Watts from the front bench,
"but Archie B. has drunk up all the baptismal water endurin' the
first prayer."

"I had to," spoke up Archie B., from the platform steps--"I et dried
mackerel for breakfas'."

"We'll postpone the baptism' till nex' Sunday," said the Bishop.

CHAPTER IX

THE RETURN

It was Sunday and Jack Bracken had been out all the afternoon,
hunting for Cap'n Tom--as he had been in the morning, when not at
church. Hitching up the old horse, the Bishop started out to hunt
also.

He did not go far on the road toward Westmoreland, for as Ben Butler
plodded sleepily along, he almost ran over a crowd of boys in the
public road, teasing what they took to be a tramp, because of his
unkempt beard, his tattered clothes, and his old army cap.

They had angered the man and with many gestures he was endeavoring to
expostulate with his tormentors, at the same time attempting
imprecations which could not be uttered and ended in a low pitiful
sound. He shook his fist at them--he made violent gestures, but from
his mouth came only a guttural sound which had no meaning.

At a word from the Bishop his tormentors vanished, and when he pulled
up before the uncouth figure he found him to be a man not yet in his
prime, with an open face, now blank and expressionless, overgrown
with a black, tangled, and untrimmed beard.

He was evidently a demented tramp.

But at a second look the Bishop started. It was the man's eyes which
startled him. There was in them something so familiar and yet so
unknown that the Bishop had to study a while before he could
remember.

Then there crept into his face a wave of pitying sorrow as he said to
himself:

"Cap'n Tom--Cap'n Tom's eyes."

And from that moment the homeless and demented tramp had a warm place
in the old man's heart.

The Bishop watched him closely. His tattered cap had fallen off,
showing a shock of heavy, uncut hair, streaked prematurely with gray.

"What yo' name?" asked the Bishop kindly.

The man, flushed and angered, still gesticulated and mut