Bruvver Jim's Baby Part 10

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 att.i.tude!

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 repet.i.tions, 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 att.i.tude 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 b.u.t.tons, 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 b.u.t.tons," 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 pa.s.s 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 ma.s.sive 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 way To 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 sh.o.r.e; In the sweet by-and-by, We shall meet on that beautiful sh.o.r.e.'"

They followed this with what they knew of "Home, Sweet Home," and so at last strolled out into the suns.h.i.+ne 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.