He stayed about the Patriarch most of the time, bothering him with appeals for one of his blessings.

But Uncle John, though a good man, had been gifted by Heaven with slight imagination, and Tom Potwin would doubtless have had to go without this luxury but for a chance visitor to the house one day.
This was no less a person than Bishop Snow, he who had once been Tom Potwin's rival for the hand of her who was now the second Mrs.Rae.

With his portly figure, his full, florid face with its massive jaw, and his heavy locks of curling white hair, the good Bishop seemed indeed to have deserved the title put upon him years ago by the Church Poet,--The Entablature of Truth.
He alighted from his wagon and greeted Uncle John, busy with the writing of his blessings in the cool shade just outside the door.
"Good for you, Uncle John! Be a fountain of living waters to the thirsty in Zion.

Say, who's that ?" and he pointed to Tom Potwin who had been wistfully watching the pen of the Patriarch as it ran over his paper.
Uncle John regarded the Bishop shrewdly.
"You ought to know, Brother Snow.

'Tain't so long since you and him were together." The Bishop looked closely again, and the boy now returned his gaze with his own weakly foolish look.
"Well! If it ain't that Tom Potwin.