There came a day—never to be forgotten in the annals of Borealis—when, to the ringing of the bar of steel, Parson Stowe, with his pretty little wife and the three little red-capped youngsters, rode once more into town to make their home with their big, rough friends.
Fifty awkward men of the mines roared lustily with cheering. Fifty great voices then combined in a sweet, old song that rang through the snow-clad hills:
"Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,Lead Thou me on.The night is dark, and I am far from home,Lead Thou me on."
And the first official acts of the wholesome young parson were conducted in the "church" that Bone had given to the town when the happy little Skeezucks was christened "Carson Boone" and the drawling old Jim and the fond Miss Doc were united as man and wife.
"If only I'd known what a heart she's got, I'd asked her before," the miner drawled. "But, boys, it's never too late to pray for sense."
The moment of it all, however, which the men would remember till the final call of the trumpet was that in which the three little girls, in their bright-red caps, came in at the door of the Dennihan home. They would never forget the look on the face of their motherless, quaint little waif as he held forth both his tiny arms to the vision and cried out:
"Bruvver Jim!"
End of Project Gutenberg's Bruvver Jim's Baby, by Philip Verrill Mighels