"They don't look worth no such a figger," said Miss Dennihan, as she held them up and scanned them with a critical eye. "They're wantin' a patch in the knee. It's lucky fer you I toted my bag. I kin always match overhalls, new or faded."
Keno slyly ventured to put forth his head, but instantly drew it back again.
Jim, in his bunk, was beginning to sweat. He held his little foundling by the hand and piled up a barrier of blankets before them. That many another of the male residents of Borealis had been honored by similar visitations on the part of Miss Doc was quite the opposite of reassuring. That the lady generally came as a matter of curiosity, and remained in response to a passion for making things glisten with cleanliness, he had heard from a score of her victims. He knew she was here to get her eyes on the grave little chap he was cuddling from sight, but he had no intention of sharing the tiny pilgrim with any one whose attentions would, he deemed, afford a trial to the nerves.
"Seems to me the last time I saw old Doc his shirt needed stitchin' in the sleeve," he said. "How about that, Keno?"
Keno was dumb as a clam.
"You never seen nuthin' of the sort," corrected Miss Doc, with asperity, and, removing her bonnet, she sat down on a stool, Jim's overalls in hand and her bag in her lap. "John's mended regular, all but his hair, and if soap-suds and bear's-grease would patch his top he wouldn't be bald another day."
"He ain't exactly bald," drawled the uncomfortable miner. "His hair was parted down the middle by a stroke of lightnin'. Or maybe you combed it yourself."
"Don't you try to git comical with me!" she answered. "I didn't come here for triflin'."
Her back being turned towards the end of the room wherein the redheaded Keno was ensconced, that diffident individual furtively put forth his hand and clutched up his boots and trousers from the floor. The latter he managed to adjust as he wormed about in the berth. Then silently, stealthily, trembling with excitement, he put out his feet, and suddenly bolting for the door, with his boots in hand, let out a yell and shot from the house like a demon, the pup at his heels, loudly barking.
"Keno! Keno! come back here and stand your share!" bawled Jim, lustily, but to no avail.
"Mercy in us!" Miss Doc exclaimed. "That man must be crazy."
Jim sank back in his bunk hopelessly.
"It's only his clothes makes him look foolish," he answered. "He's saner than I am, plain as day."
"Then it's lucky I came," decided the visitor, vigorously sewing at the trousers. "The looks of this house is enough to drive any man insane. You're an ornary, shiftless pack of lazy-joints as ever I seen. Why don't you git up and cook your breakfast?"
Perspiration oozed from the modest Jim afresh.
"I never eat breakfast in the presence of ladies," said he.
"Well, you needn't mind me. I'm jest a plain, sensible woman," repliedMiss Dennihan. "I don't want to see no feller-critter starve."
Jim writhed in the blankets. "I didn't s'pose you could stay all day," he ventured.
"I kin stay till I mend all your garmints and tidy up this here cabin," she announced, calmly. "So let your mind rest easy." She meant to see that child if it took till evening to do so.
"Maybe I can go to sleep again and dream I'm dead," said Jim, in growing despair.
"If you kin, and me around, you can beat brother John all to cream," she responded, smoothing out the mended overalls and laying them down on a stool. "Now you kin give me your shirt."
Jim galvanically gathered the blankets in a tightened noose about his neck.
"Hold on!" he said. "Hold on! This shirt is a bran'-new article, and you'd spoil it if you come within twenty-five yards of it with a needle."
"Where's your old one?" she demanded, atilt for something more to repair. Her gaze searched the bunks swiftly, and Jim was sure she was looking for the little man behind him. "Where's your old one went?" she repeated.
"I turned it over on a friend of mine," drawled Jim, who meant he had deftly reversed it on himself. "It's a poor shirt that won't work both ways."
"Ain't there nuthin' more I kin mend?" she asked.
"Not unless it's somethin' of Doc's down to your lovely little home."
"Oh, I ain't agoin' to go, if that's what you're drivin' at," she answered, as she swiftly assembled the soiled utensils of the cuisine. "I'll tidy up this here pig-pen if it takes a week, and you kin hop up and come down easy."
"I wouldn't have you go for nothing," drawled Jim, squirming with abnormal impatience to be up and doing. "Angel's visits are comin' fewer and fewer in a box every day."
"That's bogus," answered the lady. "I sense your oilin' me over. You git up and go and git a fresh pail of water."
"I'd like to," Jim said, convincingly, "but the only time I ever broke my arm was when I went out for a bucket of water before breakfast."
"You ain't agoin' is what you mean, with all them come-a-long-way-round excuses," she conjectured. "You've got the name of bein' the laziest-jointed, mos' shiftless man into camp."
"Wal," drawled the helpless miner, "a town without a horrible example is deader than the spikes in Adam's coffin. And the next best thing to being a livin' example is to hang around the house where one of 'em stays in his bunk all mornin'."
"If that's another of them underhanded hints of your'n, you might as well save your breath," she replied. "I'll go and git the water myself, fer them dishes is goin' to git cleaned."
She took up the bucket at once. Outside, the sounds of some one scooting rapidly away brought to Jim a thought of Keno's recently demonstrated presence of mind.
Cautiously sitting up in the berth, so soon as Miss Doc had disappeared with the pail, he hurriedly drew on his boots. A sound of returning footsteps came to his startled ears. He leaped back up in the bunk, boots and all, and covered himself with the blanket, to the startlement of the timid little chap, who was sitting there to watch developments. Both drew down as Miss Doc reappeared in the door.
"I might as well tote a kettleful, too," she said, and taking that soot-plated article from its hook in the chimney she once more started for the spring.
This time, like a guilty burglar, old Jim crept out to the door. Then with one quick resolve he caught up his trousers, and snatching his pale little guest from the berth, flung a blanket about them, sneaked swiftly out of the cabin, stole around to its rear, and ran with long-legged awkwardness down through a shallow ravine to the cover of a huge heap of bowlders, where he paused to finish his toilet.
"Hoot! Hoot!" sounded furtively from somewhere near. Then Keno came ducking towards him from below, with Tintoretto in his wake, so rampantly glad in his puppy heart that he instantly climbed on the timid little Skeezucks, sitting for convenience on the earth, and bowled him head over heels.
"Here, pup, you abate yourself," said Jim. "Be solemnly glad and let it go at that." And he took up the gasping little chap, whose doll was, as ever, clasped fondly to his heart.
"How'd you make it?" inquired Keno. "Has she gone for good?"
"No, she's gone for water," answered the miner, ruefully. "She's set on cleanin' up the cabin. I'll bet when she's finished we'll have to pan the gravel mighty careful to find even a color of our once happy home."
"Well, you got away, anyhow," said Keno, consolingly. "You can't have your cake and eat it too."
"No, that's the one nasty thing about cake," said Jim. He sat on a rock and addressed the wondering little pilgrim, who was watching his face with baby gravity. "Did she scare the boy?" he asked. "Is he gittin' hungry? Does pardner want some breakfast?"
The little fellow nodded.
"What would little Skeezucks like old brother Jim to make for breakfast?"
The quaint bit of a man drew a trifle closer to the rough old coat and timidly answered:
"Bwead—an'—milk."
The two men started mildly.
"By jinks!" said the awe-smitten Keno. "By jinks!—talkin'!"
"I told you so," said Jim, suppressing his excitement. "Bread and milk?" he repeated. "Just bread and milk. You poor little shaver! Wal, that's as easy as oyster stew or apple-dumplin'. Baby want anything else?"
The small boy shook a negative.
"By jinks!" said Keno, as before. "Look at him go it!"
"I'll make some bread to-day, if ever we git back into Eden," said Jim. "And I'll make him a lot of things. If only I had the stuff in me I'd make him a Noah's ark and a train of cars and a fat mince-pie. Would little Skeezucks like a train of cars?"
Again the little pilgrim shook his head.
"Then what more would the baby like?" coaxed the miner.
Again with his shy little cuddling up the wee man answered,"Moey—bwead—an'—milk."
"By jinks!" repeated the flabbergasted Keno, and he pulled at his sleeves with all his strength.
"Say, Keno," said Jim, "go find Miss Doc's goat and milk him for the boy."
"Miss Doc may be home by now," objected Keno, apprehensively.
"Well, then, sneak up and see if she has gone off real mad."
"S'posen she 'ain't?" Keno promptly hedged. "S'posen she seen me?"
"You've got all out-doors to skedaddle in, I reckon."
Keno, however, had many objections to any manner of venture with the wily Miss Dennihan. It took nearly half an hour of argument to get him up to the brow of the slope. Then, to his uncontainable delight, he beheld the disgusted and somewhat defeated Miss Doc more than half-way down the trail to Borealis, and making shoe-tracks with assuring rapidity.
"Hoot! Hoot!" he called, in a cautious utterance. "She's went, and the cabin looks just the same—from here."
But Jim, when he came there, with his tiny guest upon his arm, looked long at the well-scrubbed floor and the tidy array of pots, pans, plates, and cups.
"We'll never find the salt, or nothin', for a week," he drawled. "It does take some people an awful long time to learn not to meddle with the divine order of things."
What with telling little Skeezucks of all the things he meant to make, and fondling the grave bit of babyhood, and trying to work out the story of how he came to be utterly unsought for, deserted, and parentless, Jim had hardly more than time enough remaining, that day, in which to entertain the visiting men, who continued to climb the hill to the house.
Throughout that Saturday there was never more than fifteen minutes when some of the big, rough citizens of Borealis were not on hand, attempting always to get the solemn little foundling to answer some word to their efforts at baby conversation. But neither to them, for the strange array of presents they offered, nor to Jim himself, for all his gentle coaxing, would the tiny chap vouchsafe the slightest hint of who he was or whence he had come.
It is doubtful if he knew. By the hour he sat where they placed him, holding his doll with something more deep and hungry than affection, and looking at Jim or the visitors in his pretty, baby way of gravity and questioning.
When he sat on old Jim's knee, however, he leaned in confidence against him, and sighed with a sweet little sound of contentment, as poignant to reinspire a certain ecstasy of sadness in the miner's breast as it was to excite an envy in the hearts of the others.
Next to Jim, he loved Tintoretto—that joyous, irresponsible bit of pup-wise gladness whose tail was so utterly inadequate to express his enthusiasm that he wagged his whole fuzzy self in the manner of an awkward fish. Never was the tiny man seated with his doll on the floor that the pup failed to pounce upon him and push him over, half a dozen times. Never did this happen that one of the men, or Jim himself, did not at once haul Tintoretto, growling, away by the tail or the ear and restore their tiny guest to his upright position. Never did such a good Samaritan fail to raise his hand for a cuff at the pup, nor ever did one of them actually strike. It ended nearly always in the pup's attack on the hand in question, which he chewed and pawed at and otherwise befriended as only a pup, in his freedom from worries and cares, can do.
With absolutely nothing prepared, and with nothing but promises made and forgotten, old Jim beheld the glory of Sunday morning come, with the bite and crystalline sunshine of the season in the mountain air.
God's thoughts must be made in Nevada, so lofty and flawless is the azure sky, so utterly transparent is the atmosphere, so huge, gray, and passionless the mighty reach of mountains!
Man's little thought was expressed in the camp of Borealis, which appeared like a herd of small, brown houses, pitifully insignificant in all that immensity, and gathered together as if for company, trustfully nestling in the hand of the earth-mother, known to be so gentle with her children. On the hill-sides, smaller mining houses stood, each one emphasized by the blue-gray heap of earth and granite—the dump—formed by the labors of the restless men who burrowed in the rock for precious metal. The road, which seemed to have no ending-place, was blazed through the brush and through the hills in either direction across the miles and miles of this land without a people. The houses of Borealis stood to right and left of this path through the wilderness, as if by common consent to let it through.
Meagre, unknown, unimportant Borealis, with her threescore men and one decent woman, shared, like the weightiest empire, in the smile, the care, the yearning of the ever All-Pitiful, greeting the earth with another perfect day.
Intelligence of what could be expected, in the way of a celebration at the blacksmith-shop of Webber, had been more than merely spread; it had almost been flooded over town. Long before the hour of ten, scheduled by common consent for church to commence, Webber was sweeping sundry parings of horse-hoof and scraps of iron to either side of his hard earth floor, and sprinkling the dust with water that he flirted from his barrel. He likewise wiped off the anvil with his leathern apron, and making a fire in the forge to take off the chill, thrust in a huge hunk of iron to irradiate the heat.
Many of the denizens of Borealis came and laid siege to the barber-shop as early as six in the morning. Hardly a man in the place, except Parky, the gambler, had been dressed in extravagance so imposing since the 4th of July as was early apparent in the street. Bright new shirts, red, blue, and even white, came proudly to the front. Trousers were dropped outside of boots, and the boots themselves were polished. A run on bear's-grease and hair-oil lent a shining halo to nearly every head the camp could boast. Then the groups began to gather near the open shop of the smith.
"We'd ought to have a bell," suggested Lufkins, the teamster. "Churches always ring the bell to let the parson know it's time he was showin' up to start the ball."
"Well, I'll string up a bar of steel," said Webber. "You can get a crackin' fine lot of noise out of that."
He strung it up in a framework just outside the door, ordinarily employed for hoisting heavy wagons from the earth. Then with a hammer he struck it sharply.
The clear, ringing tone that vibrated all through the hills was a stirring note indeed. So the bell-ringer struck his steel again.
"That ain't the way to do the job," objected Field. "That sounds like scarin' up voters at a measly political rally."
"Can you do it any better?" said the smith, and he offered his hammer.
"Here comes Doc Dennihan," interrupted the barkeep. "Ask Doc how it's done. If he don't know, we'll have to wait for old If-only Jim hisself."
The brother of the tall Miss Doc was a small man with outstanding ears, the palest gray eyes, and the quietest of manners. He was not a doctor of anything, hence his title. Perhaps the fact that the year before he had quietly shot all six of the bullets of his Colt revolver into the body of a murderous assailant before that distinguished person could fall to the earth had invested his townsmen and admirers with a modest desire to do him a titular honor. Howsoever that might have been, he had always subsequently found himself addressed with sincere respect, while his counsel had been sought on every topic, possible, impossible, and otherwise, mooted in all Borealis. The fact that his sister was the "boss of his shack," and that he, indeed, was a henpecked man, was never, by any slip of courtesy, conversationally paraded, especially in his hearing.
Appealed to now concerning the method of ringing the bar of steel for worshipful purposes, he took a bite at his nails before replying. Then he said:
"Well, I'd ring it a little bit faster than you would for a funeral and a little bit slower than you would for a fire."
"That's the stuff!" said Field. "I knowed that Doc would know."
But Doc refused them, nevertheless, when they asked if he would deign to do the ringing himself. Consequently Field, the father of the camp, made a gallant attempt at the work, only to miss the "bell" with his hammer and strike himself on the knee, after which he limped to a seat, declaring they didn't need a bell-ringing anyhow. Upon the blacksmith the duty devolved by natural selection.
He rang a lusty summons from the steel, that fetched all the dressed-up congregation of the town hastening to the scene. Still, old Jim, the faithful Keno, little Skeezucks, and Tintoretto failed to appear. A deputation was therefore sent up the hill, where Jim was found informing his household that if only he had the celerity of action he would certainly make a Sunday suit of clothing for the tiny little man. For himself, he had washed and re-turned his shirt, combed his hair, and put on a better pair of boots, which the pup had been chewing to occupy his leisure time.
The small but impressive procession came slowly down the trail at last,Jim in the lead, with the grave little foundling on his arm.
"Boys," said he, as at last he entered the dingy shop and sat his quaint bit of a man on the anvil, over which he had thoughtfully thrown his coat—"boys, if only I'd had about fifteen minutes more of time I'd have thought up all the tricks you ever saw in a church."
The men filed in, awkwardly taking off their hats, and began to seat themselves as best they could, on anything they found available. Webber, the smith, went stoutly at his bellows, and blew up a fire that flamed two feet above the forge, fountaining fiercely with sparks of the iron in the coal, and tossing a ruddy light to the darkest corners of the place. The incense of labor—that homely fragrance of the smithy all over the world—spread fresh and new to the very door itself. Old Jim edged closer to the anvil and placed his hand on the somewhat frightened little foundling, sitting there so gravely, and clasping his doll in fondness to his heart.
Outside, it was noted, Field had halted the red-headed Keno for a moment's whispered conversation. Keno nodded knowingly. Then he came inside, and, addressing them all, but principally Jim, he said:
"Say, before we open up, Miss Doc would like to know if she kin come."
A silence fell on all the men. Webber went hurriedly and closed the ponderous door.
"Wal, she wouldn't be apt to like it till we get a little practised up," said the diplomatic Jim, who knew the tenor of his auditors. "Tell her maybe she kin—some other time."
"This ain't no regular elemercenary institution," added the teamster.
"Why not now?" demanded Field. "Why can't she come?"
"Becuz," said the smith, "this church ain't no place for a woman, anyhow."
A general murmur of assent came from all the men save Field and DocDennihan himself.
"Leave the show commence," said a voice.
"Start her up," said another.
"Wal, now," drawled Jim, as he nervously stroked his beard, "let's take it easy. Which opening do all you fellers prefer?"
No one answered.
One man finally inquired. "How many kinds is there?"
Jim said, "Wal, there's the Methodist, the Baptist, the Graeco-Roman,Episcopalian, and—the catch-as-catch-can."
"Give us the ketch-and-kin-ketch-as-you-kin," responded the spokesman.
"Mebbe we ought to begin with Sunday-school," suggested the blacksmith."That would sort of get us ready for the real she-bang."
"How do you do it?" inquired Lufkins, the teamster.
"Oh, it's just mostly catechism," Jim imparted, sagely.
"And what's catechism?" said Bone.
"Catechism," drawled the miner, "is where you ask a lot of questions that only the children can answer."
"I know," responded the blacksmith, squatting down before the anvil."Little Skeezucks, who made you?"
The quaint little fellow looked at the brawny man timidly. How pale, how wee he appeared in all that company, as he sat on the great lump of iron, solemnly winking his big, brown eyes and clinging to his make-shift of a doll!
"Aw, say, give him something easy," said Lufkins.
"That's what they used to bang at me," said the smith, defending his position. "But I'll ask him the easiest one of the lot. Baby boy," he said, in a gentle way of his own, "who is it makes everything?—who makes all the lovely things in the world?"
Shyly the tiny man leaned back on the arm he felt he knew, and gravely, to the utter astonishment of the big, rough men, in his sweet baby utterance, he said:
"Bruv-ver—Jim."
A roar of laughter instantly followed, giving the youngster a start that almost shook him from his seat.
"By jinks!" said Keno. "That's all right. You bet he knows."
But the Sunday-school programme was not again attempted. When something like calm had settled once more on the audience, If-only Jim remarked that he guessed they would have to quit their fooling and get down to the business of church.
But to open the service when quiet reigned again and expectation was once more concentrated upon him afforded something of a poser still to the lanky old Jim, elected to perform the offices of leading.
"Where's Shorty Hobb with his fiddle?" said he.
"Parky wouldn't leave him come," answered Bone. "He loaned him money on his vierlin, and he says he owns it and won't leave him play in no church that ever got invented."
"Parky, hey?" said Jim, drawlingly. "Wal, bless his little home'pathic pill of a soul!"
"He says he's fed more poor and done more fer charity than any man in town," informed a voice.
"Does, hey?" said the miner. "I'll bet his belly's the only poor thing he feeds regular. His hand ain't got callous cutting bread for the orphans. But he ain't a subject for church. If only I'd 'a' known what he was agoin' to do I'd made a harp. But let it go. We'll start off with roll-call and follow that up with a song."
He therefore began with the name of Webber, who responded "Here," and proceeding to note who was present, he drawled the name or familiar sobriquet of each in turn, till all had admitted they were personally in attendance.
"Ahem," said Jim, at the end of this impressive ceremony. "Now we'll sing a hymn. What hymn do you fellows prefer?"
There was not a great confusion of replies; in fact, the confusion resulted from a lack thereof.
"As no one indicates a preference," announced the miner, "we'll tackle 'Darling, I am growing old.' Are there any objections? All in favor?—contrary minded?—the motion prevails. Now, then, all together—'Darling—'Why don't you all git in?"
"How does she go?" inquired Webber.
"She goes like this," Jim replied, clearing his throat:
"'Darling, I am growing o-old,Silver bars among the gold;Shine upon—te dum te dumpty—Far from the old folks at home.'"
"Don't know it," said a voice.
"Neither do I."
"Nor I."
"Nor I."
The sheep of the flock all followed in a chorus of "Nor I's."
"What's the matter with 'Swing Low, Sweet Cheery O'?" inquired Lufkins.
"Suits me," Jim replied. "Steam up."
He and the teamster, in duet, joined very soon by all the congregation, sang over and over the only lines they could conjure back to memory, and even these came forth in remarkable variety. For the greater part, however, the rough men were fairly well united on the simple version:
"'Swing low, sweet cheery O,Comin' for to carry me home;Swing low, sweet cheery O,Comin' for to carry me home.'"
This was sung no less than seven times, when Jim at length lifted his hand for the end.
"We'll follow this up with the Lord's Prayer," he said.
Laying his big, freckled hand on the shoulder of the wondering little pilgrim, seated so quietly upon the anvil, he closed his eyes and bowed his head. How thin, but kindly, was his rugged face as the lines were softened by his attitude!
He began with hesitation. The prayer, indeed, was a stumbling towards the long-forgotten—the wellnigh unattainable.
"'Our Father which art in heaven . . .Our Father which art in heaven—'
"Now, hold on, just a minute," and he paused to think before resuming and wiped his suddenly sweating brow.
"'Our Father which art in heaven—If I should die before I wake . . .Give us our daily bread. Amen.'"
The men all sat in silence. Then Keno whispered, so loudly that every one could hear;
"By jinks! I didn't think he could do it!"
"We'll now have another hymn," announced the leader, "There used to be one that went on something about, 'I'm lost and far away from the shack, and it's dark, and lead me—somewhere—kindly light.' Any one remember the words all straight?"
"I don't," replied the blacksmith, "but I might come in on the chorus."
"Seems to me," said Bone, "a candle or just a plain, unvarnished light, would 'a' went out. It must have bin a lantern."
"Objection well taken," responded Jim, gravely. "I reckon I got it turned 'round a minute ago. It was more like:
"'Lead me on, kindly lantern,For I am far from home,And the night is dark.'"
"It don't sound like a song—not exactly," ventured Lufkins. "Why not give 'em 'Down on the Swanee River'?"
"All right," agreed the "parson," and therefore they were all presently singing at the one perennial "hymn" of the heart, universal in its application, sweetly religious in its humanism. They sang it with a woful lack of its own original lines; they put in string on string of "dum te dums," but it came from their better natures and it sanctified the dingy shop.
When it was ended, which was not until it had gone through persistent repetitions, old Jim was prepared for almost anything.
"I s'pose you boys want a regular sermon," said he, "and if only I'd 'a' had the time—wal, I won't say what a torch-light procession of a sermon you'd have got, but I'll do the best I can."
He cleared his throat, struck an attitude inseparable from American elocution, and began:
"Fellow-citizens—and ladies and gentlemen—we—we're an ornary lot of backwoods fellers, livin' away out here in the mountains and the brush, but God Almighty 'ain't forgot us, all the same. He sent a little youngster once to put a heartful of happiness into men, and He's sent this little skeezucks here to show us boys we ain't shut off from everything. He didn't send us no bonanza—like they say they've got in Silver Treasury—but I wouldn't trade the little kid for all the bullion they will ever melt. We ain't the prettiest lot of ducks I ever saw, and we maybe blow the ten commandants all over the camp with giant powder once in a while, lookin' 'round for gold, but, boys, we ain't throwed out complete. We've got the love and pity of God Almighty, sure, when he gives us, all to ourselves, a little helpless feller for to raise. I know you boys all want me to thank the Father of us all, and that's what I do. And I hope He'll let us know the way to give the little kid a good square show, for Christ's sake. Amen."
The men would have listened to more. They expected more, indeed, and waited to hear old Jim resume.
"That's about all," he said, as no one spoke, "except, of course, we'll sing some more of the hymns and take up collection. I guess we'd better take collection first."
The congregation stirred. Big hands went down into pockets.
"Who gets the collection?" queried Field.
Jim drawled, "When it ain't buttons, it goes to the parson; when it is, the parson's wife gits in."
"You 'ain't got no wife," objected Bone.
"That's why there ain't goin' to be no buttons," sagely answered the miner. "On the square, though, boys, this is all for the little skeezucks, to buy some genuine milk, from Miss Doc Dennihan's goat."
"What we goin' to put our offerings into?" asked the blacksmith, as the boys made ready with their contributions. "They used to hand around a pie-plate when I was a boy."
"We'll try to get along with a hat," responded Jim, "and Keno here can pass it 'round. I've often observed that a hat is a handy thing to collect things in, especially brains."
So the hat went quickly from one to another, sagging more and more in the crown as it travelled.
The men had come forward to surround the anvil, with the tiny little chap upon its massive top, and not one in all the groups was there who did not feel that, left alone with the timid bit of a pilgrim, he could get him to talking and laughing in the briefest of moments.
The hymns with which old Jim had promised the meeting should conclude were all but forgotten. Two or three miners, whose hunger for song was not to be readily appeased, kept bringing the subject to the fore again, however, till at length they were heard.
"We're scarin' little Skeezucks, anyhow," said the brawny smith, once more reviving the fire in the forge.
"Let's sing 'In the Sweet By-and-By,' if all of us know it," suggested a young fellow scarcely more than a lad. "It's awful easy."
"Wal, you start her bilin'," replied the teamster.
The young fellow blushed, but he nerved himself to the point and sang out, nervously at first, and then, when his confidence increased, in a clear, ringing tenor of remarkable purity, recalling the old-time words that once were so widely known and treasured:
"'There's a land that is fairer than day,And by faith we can see it afar,For the Father waits over the wayTo prepare us a dwelling-place there.'"
Then the chorus of voices, husky from neglect and crude from lack of culture, joined in the chorus, with a heartiness that shook the dingy building:
"'In the sweet by-and-by,We shall meet on that beautiful shore;In the sweet by-and-by,We shall meet on that beautiful shore.'"
They followed this with what they knew of "Home, Sweet Home," and so at last strolled out into the sunshine of the street, and surrounded the quaint little foundling, as he looked from one to another in baby gravity and sat in his timid way on the arm of "Bruvver Jim."
"I'll tell you what," said the blacksmith, "now that we've found that we can do the job all right, we'll get up a Christmas for little Skeezucks that will lift the mountains clean up off the earth!"
"Good suggestion," Jim agreed. "But the little feller feels tired now.I am goin' to take him home."
And this he did. But after lunch no fewer than twenty of the men of Borealis climbed up the trail to get another look at the quiet little man who glorified the cabin.
But the darkness had only begun to creep through the lowermost channels of the canyons when Skeezucks fell asleep. By then old Jim, the pup, and Keno were alone with the child.
"Keno, I reckon I'll wander quietly down and see if Doc will let me buy a little milk," said Jim. "You'd better come along to see that his sister don't interfere."
Keno expressed his doubts immediately, not only as to the excellence of goat's milk generally, but likewise as to any good that he could do by joining Jim in the enterprise suggested.
"Anyway," he concluded, "Doc has maybe went on shift by this time.He's workin' nights this week again."
Jim, however, prevailed. "You don't get another bite of grub in this shack, nor another look at the little boy, if you don't come ahead and do your share."
Therefore they presently departed, shutting Tintoretto in the cabin to "watch."
In half an hour, having interviewed Doc Dennihan himself on the hill-side quite removed from his cabin, the two worthies came climbing up towards their home once again, Jim most carefully holding in his hands a large tin cup with half an inch of goat's milk at the bottom.
While still a hundred yards from the house, they were suddenly startled by the mad descent upon them of the pup they had recently left behind.
"Huh! you young galoot," said Jim. "You got out, I see!"
When he entered the cabin it was dark. Keno lighted the candle and Jim put his cup on the table. Then he went to the berth to awaken the tiny foundling and give him a supper of bread and milk.
Keno heard him make a sound as of one in terrible pain.
The miner turned a face, deadly white, towards the table.
"Keno," he cried, "he's gone!"
For a moment Keno failed to comprehend. Then for a second after that he refused to believe. He ran to the bunk where Jim was desperately turning down the blankets and made a quick examination of that as well as of the other beds.
They were empty.
Hastening across the cabin, the two men searched in the berths at the farther end with parental eagerness, but all in vain, the pup meantime dodging between their legs and chewing at their trousers.
"Tintoretto!" said Jim, in a flash of deduction. "He must have got out when somebody opened the door. Somebody's been here and stole my little boy!"
"By jinks!" said Keno, hauling at his sleeves in excess of emotion."But who?"
"Come on," answered Jim, distraught and wild. "Come down to camp!Somebody's playin' us a trick!"
Again they shut the pup inside, and then they fairly ran down the trail, through the darkness, to the town below.
A number of men were standing in the street, among them the teamster and Field, the father of Borealis. They were joking, laughing, wasting time.
"Boys," cried Jim, as he hastened towards the group, "has any one seen little Skeezucks? Some one's played a trick and took him off! Somebody's been to the cabin and stole my little boy!"
"Stole him?" said Field. "Why, where was you and Keno?"
"Down to Doc's to get some milk. He wanted bread and milk," Jim explained, in evident anguish. "You fellows might have seen, if any one fetched him down the trail. You're foolin'. Some of you took him for a joke!"
"It wouldn't be no joke," answered Lufkins, the teamster. "We 'ain't got him, Jim, on the square."
"Of course we 'ain't got him. We 'ain't took him for no joke," saidField. "Nobody'd take him away like that."
"Why don't we ring the bar of steel we used for a bell," suggested one of the miners. "That would fetch the men—all who 'ain't gone back on shift."
"Good idea," said Field. "But I ought to get back home and eat some dinner."
He did not, however, depart. That Jim was in a fever of excitement and despair they could all of them see. He hastened ahead of the group to the shop of Webber. and taking a short length of iron chain, which he found on the earth, he slashed and beat at the bar of steel with frantic strength.
The sharp, metallic notes rang out with every stroke. The bar was swaying like a pendulum. Blow after blow the man delivered, filling all the hollows of the hills with wild alarm.
Out of saloons and houses men came sauntering, or running, according to the tension of their nerves. Many thought some house must be afire. At least thirty men were presently gathered at the place of summons. With five or six informers to tell the news of Jim's bereavement, all were soon aware of what was making the trouble. But none had seen the tiny foundling since they bade him good-bye in the charge of Jim himself.
"Are you plum dead sure he's went?" said Webber, the smith. "Did you look all over the cabin?"
"Everywhere," said Jim. "He's gone!"
"Wal, maybe some mystery got him," suggested Bone. "Jim, you don't suppose his father, or some one who lost him, come and nabbed him while you was gone?"
They saw old Jim turn pale in the light that came from across the street.
Keno broke in with an answer.
"By jinks! Jim was his mother! Jim had more good rights to the little feller than anybody, livin' or dead!"
"You bet!" agreed a voice.
Jim spoke with difficulty.
"If any one did that"—he faltered—"why, boys, he never should have let me find him in the brush."
"Are you plum dead sure he's went?" insisted the blacksmith, whom the news had somewhat stunned.
"I thought perhaps you fellows might have played a joke—taken him off to see me run around," said Jim, with a faint attempt at a smile. "'Ain't you got him, boys—all the time?"
"Aw, no, he'd be too scared," said Bone. "We know he'd be scared of any one of us."
"It ain't so much that," said Field, "but I shouldn't wonder if his father, or some other feller just as good, came and took him off."
"Of course his father would have the right," said Jim, haltingly, "but—I wish he hadn't let me find him first. You fellows are sure you ain't a-foolin'?"
"We couldn't have done it—not on Sunday—after church," said Lufkins."No, Jim, we wouldn't fool that way."
"You don't s'pose that Parky might have took him, out of spite?" saidJim, eager for hope in any direction whatsoever.
"No! He hates kids worse than pizen," said the barkeep, decisively."He's been a-gamblin' since four this afternoon, dealin' faro-bank."
"We could go and search every shack in camp," suggested a listener.
"What would be the good of that?" inquired Field. "If the father came and took the little shaver, do you think he'd hide him 'round here in somebody's cabin?"
The blacksmith said: "It don't seem as if you could have looked all over the house. He's such a little bit of a skeezucks."
Keno told him how they had searched in every bunk, and how the milk was waiting on the table, and how the pup had escaped when some one opened the door.
The men all volunteered to go up on the hill with torches and lanterns, to see if the trail of the some one who had done this deed might not be discovered. Accordingly, the lights were secured and the party climbed the slope. All of them entered the cabin and heard the explanation of exactly how old Jim had found that the little chap was gone.
Webber was one of the number. To satisfy his incredulous mind, he searched every possible and impossible lurking-place where an object as small as a ball could be concealed.
"I guess he's went," he agreed, at last.
Then out on the hill-side went the crowd, and breaking up in groups, each with its lanterns and torches, they searched the rock-strewn slope In every direction. The wavering lights went hither and yon, revealing now the faces of the anxious men, and then prodigious features of a clump of granite bowlders, jewelled with mica, sparkling in the light.
Intensely the darkness hedged the groups about. The sounds of their voices and of rocks that crunched beneath their boots alone disturbed the great, eternal calm; but the search was vain. The searchers had known it could be of no avail, for the puny foot of man could have made no track upon the slanted floor of granite fragments that constituted the hill-side. It was something to do for Jim, and that was all.
At length, about midnight, it came to an end. They lingered on the slope, however, to offer their theories, invariably hopeful, and to say that Monday morning would accomplish miracles in the way of setting everything aright.
Many were supperless when all save Jim and little Keno had again returned to Borealis and left the two alone at the cabin.
"We'll save the milk in case he might come home by any chance," said the gray old miner, and he placed the cup on a shelf against the wall.
In silence he cooked the humble dinner, which he placed on the table in front of his equally voiceless companion. Keno and the pup went at the meal with unpoetic vigor, but Jim could do no eating. He went to the door from time to time to listen. Then he once more searched the blankets in the bunks.
"Wal, anyway," said he, at last, "he took his doll."
That Keno and Tintoretto should sleep was inevitable, after the way they had eaten. Old Jim then took his lantern and went out alone. Perhaps his tiny foundling had wandered away by himself, he thought. Searching and searching, up hill and down, lighting his way through the brush, the miner went on and on, to leave no spot unvisited. He was out all night, wandering here and climbing there on the hillside, pausing now and again to listen and to look about, almost expectantly, where naught could be seen save the mighty procession of the stars, and naught could be heard save the ringing of the inter-stellar silence as the earth swung steadily onward in her course.
Hour after hour of the darkness went by and found him searching still. With the coming of the morning he suddenly grasped at a startling thought.
Miss Doc!—Miss Dennihan! She must have stolen his foundling!
Her recent climb to his cabin, her protracted stay, her baffled curiosity—these were ample explanation for the trick she must have played! How easily she might have watched the place, slipped in the moment the cabin was left unguarded, and carried off the little pilgrim!
Jim knew she would glory in such a revenge. She probably cared not a whit for the child, but to score against himself, for defeating her purpose when she called, she would doubtless have gone to any possible length.
The miner was enraged, but a second later a great gush of thankfulness and relief surged upward in his heart. At least, the little man would not have been out all night in the hills! Then growing sick in turn, he thought this explanation would be too good to be true. It was madness—only a hope! He clung to it tenaciously, however, then gave it up, only to snatch it back again in desperation as he hastened home to his cabin.
"Keno, wake up," he cried to his lodger, shaking him briskly by the shoulder. "Keno! Keno!"
"What's the matter? Time for breakfast?" asked Keno, drowsily, risking only half an eye with which to look about. "Why not call me gently?"
"Get up!" commanded Jim. "I have thought of where little Skeezucks has gone!"
"Where?" cried Keno, suddenly aroused. "I'll go and kill the cuss that took him off!"
"Miss Doc!" replied the miner. "Miss Doc!"
"Miss Doc?" repeated Keno, weakly, pausing in the act of pulling on his boots. "By jinks! Say, I couldn't kill no woman, Jim. How do you know?"
"Stands to reason," Jim replied, and explaining his premises rapidly and clearly, he punched poor Keno into something almost as good as activity.
"By jinks! I can't believe it," said Keno, who did believe it with fearful thoroughness. "Jim, she wouldn't dare, an' us two fellers liable to bust her house to pieces."
"Don't you know she'd be dead sure to play a trick like that?" said Jim, who could not bear to listen to a doubt. "Don't you see she couldn't do anything else, bein' a woman?"
"Maybe—maybe," answered Keno, with a sort of acquiescence that is deadlier than an out-and-out denial. "But—I wouldn't want to see you disappointed, Jim—I wouldn't want to see it."
"Wal, you come on, that's all," said Jim. "If it ain't so—I want to know it early in the day!"
"But—what can I do?" still objected Keno. "Wouldn't you rather I'd stay home and git the breakfast?"
"We don't want any breakfast if she 'ain't got the little boy. You come on!"
Keno came; so did Tintoretto. The three went down the slope as the sun looked over the rim of the mountains. The chill and crispness of the air seemed a part of those early rays of light.
In sight of the home of Doc and Miss Dennihan, they paused and stepped behind a fence, for the door of the neat little house was open and the lady herself was sweeping off the steps, with the briskness inseparable from her character.
She presently disappeared, but the door, to Jim's relief, was left standing open. He proceeded boldly on his course.
"Now, I'll stay outside and hold the pup," said Keno.
"If anything goes wrong, you let the pup go loose," instructed Jim."He might distract her attention."
Thereupon he went in at the creaking little garden gate, and, leaving it open, knocked on the door and entered the house. He had hardly more than come within the room when Miss Doc appeared from her kitchen.
"Mercy in us, if you ain't up before your breakfast!" she said. "Whatever do you want in my house at this time of mornin', you Jim lazy-joints?"
"You know what I came for," said Jim. "I want my little boy."
"Your little boy?" she echoed. "I never knowed you had no little boy.You never said nuthin' 'bout no little boy when I was up to your cabin."
Jim's heart, despite his utmost efforts to be hopeful, was sinking.
"You know I found a little kid," he said, less aggressively. "And some one's taken him off—stole him—that's what they've done, and I'll bet a bit it's you!"
"Wal, if I ever!" cried Miss Doc, her eyes lighting up dangerously. "Did you come down here to tell me right to my face I stole from your dirty little shanty?"
"I want my little boy," said Jim.
"Wal, you git out of my house," commanded Miss Doc. "If John was up you'd never dare to stay here another minute. You clear out! A-callin' me a thief!"
Jim's hope collapsed in his bosom. The taking of the child he could gladly have forgiven. Any excuse would have satisfied his anger—anything was bearable, save to know that he had come on a false belief.
"Miss Doc," he said, "I only want the little kid. Don't say he ain't here."
"Tellin' me I'd steal!" she said, in her indignation. "You shiftless, good-for-nothin'—" But she left her string of epithets incompleted, all on account of an interruption in the shape of Tintoretto.
Keno had made up his mind that everything was going wrong, and he had loosed the pup.
Bounding in at the door, that enthusiastic bit of awkwardness and good intentions jumped on the front of Miss Doc's dress, gave a lick at her hand, scooted back to his master, and wagged himself against the tables, chairs, and walls with clumsy dexterity. Sniffing and bumping his nose on the carpet, he pranced through the door to the kitchen.
Almost immediately Jim heard the sound of something being bowled over on the floor—something being licked—something vainly striving with the over-affectionate pup, and then there came a coo of joy.
"There he is!" cried Jim, and before Miss Doc could lift so much as hand or voice to restrain him, he had followed Tintoretto and fallen on his knees by the side of his lost little foundling, who was helplessly straddled by the pup, and who, for the first time, dropped his doll as he held out his tiny arms to be taken.
"My little boy!" said the miner—"my little boy!" and taking both doll and little man in his arms he held them in passionate tenderness against his heart.
"How da'st you come in my kitchen with your dirty boots?" demanded MissDennihan, in all her unabashed pugnacity.
"It's all right, little Skeezucks," said Jim to the timid little pilgrim, who was clinging to his collar with all the strength of a baby's new confidence and hope. "Did you think old brother Jim was lost? Did you want to go home and get some bread and milk?"
"He ain't a bit hungry. He didn't want nuthin' to eat," said Miss Doc, in self-defence. "And you ain't no more fit to have that there child than a—"
"Goin' to have him all the same," old Jim interrupted, starting for the door. "You stole him—that's what you did!"
"I didn't do no sech thing," said the housewife. "I jest nachelly borrowed him—jest for over night. And now you've got him, I hope you're satisfied. And you kin jest clear out o' my house, do you hear? And I can't scrub and sweep too soon where your lazy, dirty old boots has been on the floor!"
"Wal," drawled Jim, "I can't throw away these boots any too soon, neither. I wouldn't wear a pair of boots which had stepped on any floor of yours."
He therefore left the house at once, even as the lady began her violent sweeping. Interrupting Keno's mad chortles of joy at sight of little Skeezucks, Jim gave him the tiny man for a moment's keeping, and, taking off his boots, threw them down before Miss Dennihan's gate in extravagant pride.
Then once more he took his little man on his arm and started away. But when he had walked a half-dozen rods, on the rocks that indented the tender soles of his stockinged feet, he was stepping with gingerly uncertainty. He presently came to a halt. The ground was not only lumpy, it was cold.
"I'll tell you what," he slowly drawled, "in this little world there's about one chance in a million for a man to make a President of himself, and about nine hundred and ninety-nine chances in a thousand for him to make a fool of himself."
"That's what I thought," said Keno.
"All the same, if only I had the resolution I'd leave them boots there forever!"
"What for?" said Keno.
"Wal," drawled Jim, "a man can't always tell he comes of a proud family by the cut of his clothes. But, Keno, you ain't troubled with pride, so you go back and fetch me the boots."
Then, when he presently drew his cowhide casings on, he sat for a moment enjoying the comfort of those soles beneath his feet. For the time that they halted where they were, he held his rescued little boy to his heart in an ecstasy such as he never had dreamed could be given to a man.
When the word spread 'round that Jim and the quaint little foundling were once more united, the story of the episode at Miss Doc's home necessarily followed to make the tale complete. Immensely relieved and grateful, to know that no dire calamity had befallen the camp's first and only child, the rough men nevertheless lost no time in conceiving the outcome to be fairly amusing.
"You kin bet that Doc was awake all the time, and listenin', as long as Jim was there," said Bone, "but six yoke of oxen couldn't 'a' dragged his two eyes open, or him out of bed, to mingle in the ceremonies."
To prevent a recurrence of similar descents upon his household, Jim arranged his plans in such a manner that the timid little Skeezucks should never again be left alone. Indeed, the gray old miner hardly ever permitted the little chap to be out of his sight. Hour by hour, day by day, he remained at his cabin, playing with the child, telling him stories, asking him questions, making him promises of all the wonderful toys and playthings he would manufacture soon.
Once in a while the little fellow spoke. That utterance came with difficulty to his lips was obvious. He must always have been a silent, backward little fellow, and sad, as children rarely become at an age so tender. Of who or what he was he gave no clew. He seemed to have no real name, to remember no parents, to feel no confidence in anything save "Bruvver Jim" and Tintoretto.
In the course of a week a number of names had been suggested for the tiny bit of a stranger, but none could suit the taste of Jim. He waited still for a truant inspiration, and meanwhile "Skeezucks" came daily more and more into use among the men of Borealis.
It was during this time that a parcel arrived at the cabin from the home of Miss Doc. It was fetched to the hill by Doc himself, who said it was sent by his sister. He departed at once, to avoid the discussion which he felt its contents might occasion.
On tearing it open old Jim was not a little amazed to discover a lot of little garments, fashioned to the size of tiny Skeezucks, with all the skill which lies—at nature's second thought—in the hand of woman. Neat little undergarments, white little frocks, a something that the miner felt by instinct was a "nightie," and two pairs of the smallest of stockings rewarded the overhauling of the package, and left Jim momentarily speechless.
"By jinks!" said Keno, pulling down his sleeves, "them are awful small fer us!"
"If only I had the time," drawled Jim, "I'd take 'em back to Miss Doc and throw them in her yard. We don't need anybody sewin' for little Skeezucks. I was meanin' to make him somethin' better than these myself."
"Oh!" said Keno. "Well, we could give 'em to the pup. He'd like to play with them little duds."
"No; I'll try 'em on the little boy tonight," reflected Jim, "and then, if we find they ain't a fit, why, I'll either send 'em back or cut 'em apart and sew 'em all over and make 'em do."
But once he had tried them on, their fate was sealed. They remained as much a part of the tiny man as did his furry doll. Indeed, they were presently almost forgotten, for December being well advanced, the one great topic of conversation now was the Christmas celebration to be held for the camp's one little child.
Ten of the big, rough citizens had come one evening to the cabin on the hill, to settle on some of the details of what they should do. The tiny pilgrim, whom they all regarded so fondly, had gone to sleep and Jim had placed him in his bunk. In the chimney a glowing fire drove away the chill of the wintry air.
"Speakin' of catfish, of course we'll hang up his stockin'," saidField. "Christmas wouldn't be no Christmas without a stockin'."
"Stockin'!" echoed the blacksmith. "We'll have to hang up a minin'-shaft, I reckon, for to hold all the things."
"I'm goin' to make him a kind of kaliderscope myself, or maybe two or three," said one modest individual, stroking his chin.
Dunn, the most unworkman-like carpenter that ever built a crooked house, declared it was his intention to fashion a whole set of alphabetical blocks of prodigious size and unearthly beauty.
"Well, I can't make so much in the way of fancy fixin's, but you jest wait and see," said another.
The blacksmith darkly hinted at wonders evolving beneath the curly abundance of his hair, and Lufkins likewise kept his purposes to himself.
"I s'pose we'd ought to have a tree," said Jim. "We could make a Christmas-tree look like the Garden of Eden before Mrs. Adam began to eat the ornaments."
"That's the ticket," Webber agreed. "That's sure the boss racket of them all."
"We couldn't git no tree into this shanty," objected Field. "This place ain't big enough to hold a Christmas puddin'."
"Of course it is," said the carpenter. "It's ten foot ten by eighteen foot six inches, or I can't do no guessin'."
"That 'mount of space couldn't hold jest me, on Christmas," estimated the teamster.
"And the whole camp sure will want to come," added another.
"'Ceptin' Miss Doc," suggested Webber.
"'Ceptin' Miss Doc," agreed the previous speaker.
"Then why not have the tree down yonder, into Webber's shop, same as church?" asked Field. "We could git the whole camp in there."
This was acclaimed a thought of genius.
"It suits me down to the ground," said Jim, with whom all ultimate decision lay, by right of his foster-parenthood of little Skeezucks, "only I don't see so plain where we're goin' to git the tree. We're burnin' all the biggest brush around Borealis, and there ain't a genuine Christmas-tree in forty miles."
The truth of this observation fell like a dampened blanket on all the company.
"That's so," said Webber. "That's just the luck!"
"There's a bunch of willers and alders by the spring," suggested a hopeful person.
"You pore, pitiful cuss," said Field. "You couldn't have seen noChristmas-tree in all your infancy."
"If only I had the time," drawled Jim, "I'd go across to the Pinyon mountains and git a tree. Perhaps I can do that yet."
"If you'd do that, Jim, that would be the biggest present of the lot," said Webber. "You wouldn't have to do nuthin' more."'
"Wal, I'm goin' to make a Noah's ark full of animals, anyway," said Jim. "Also a few cars and boats and a big tin horn—if only I've got the activity."
"But we'll reckon on you for the tree," insisted the blacksmith."Then, of course, we want a great big Christmas dinner."
"What are you goin' to do fer a turkey?" inquired Field.
"And rich brown gravy?" added the carpenter.
"And cranberry sauce and mince-pie?" supplemented Lufkins.
"Well, maybe we could git a rabbit for the turkey," answered the smith.
"And, by jinks! I kin make a lemon-pie that tastes like a chunk dropped out of heaven," volunteered Keno, pulling at his sleeves.
"But what about that rich brown gravy?" queried the carpenter.
"Smoky White can dish up the slickest dough-nuts you ever slapped your lip onto," informed the modest individual who stroked his chin.
"We can have pertatoes and beans and slapjacks on the side," a hopeful miner reminded the company.
"You bet. Don't you worry; we can trot out a regular banquet," Field assured them, optimistically. "S'posen we don't have turkey and cranberry sauce and a big mince-pie?"
"I'd like that rich brown gravy," murmured the carpenter—"good and thick and rich and brown."
"We could rig up a big, long table in the shop," planned the blacksmith, "and put a hundred candles everywhere, and have the tree all blazin' with lights, and you bet things would be gorgeous."
"If we git the tree," said Lufkins.
"And the rabbit fer a turkey," added a friend.
"Well, by jinks! you'll git the lemon-pie all right, if you don't git nuthin' else," declared little Keno.
"If only I can plan it out I'll fetch the tree," said Jim. "I'd like to do that for the little boy."
"Jim's an awful clever ole cuss," said Field, trusting to work some benefit by a judicious application of flattery. "It ain't every man which knows the kind of a tree to chop. Not all trees is Christmas-trees. But ole Jim is a clever ole duck, you bet."
"Wal," drawled Jim, "I never suspect my own intelligence till a man begins to tell me I'm a clever old duck. Still, I reckon I ain't over-likely to cut no cherry-trees over to the Pinyon hills."
"The celebration's comin' to a head in bully style, that's the main concern," said the teamster. "I s'pose we'd better begin to invite all the boys?"
"If all of 'em come," suggested a listener, "that one jack-rabbit settin' up playin' turkey will look awful sick."
"I'd hate to git left on the gravy," added the carpenter—"if there's goin' to be any gravy."
"Aw, we'll have buckets of grub," said the smith. "We'll ask 'em all to 'please bring refreshments,' same as they do in families where they never git a good square meal except at surprise-parties and birthday blow-outs. Don't you fear about the feed."
"Well, we ought to git the jig to goin'," suggested Field. "Lots of the boys needs a good fair warnin' when they're goin' to tackle cookin' grub for a Christmas dinner. I vote we git out of here and go down hill and talk the racket up."
This motion was carried at once. The boys filed out with hearty good-nights, and wended their way down the slope, with the bite of the frosted air at their ears.
Then Jim, at the very thought of travelling forty miles to fetch a tree for Christmas gayeties, sat down before his fire to take a rest.