Bruvver Jim's Baby Part 2

"A white little kid--that n.o.body wants--but me and Tintoretto," he mused, aloud, but to himself. "Where did you come from, pardner, anyhow?"

The tiny foundling made no reply. He simply looked at the thin, kindly face of his big protector in his quaint, baby way, but kept his solemn little mouth peculiarly closed.

The miner tried a score of questions, tenderly, coaxingly, but never a thing save that confident clinging to his hand and a nod or a shake of the head resulted.

By some means, quite his own, the man appeared to realize that the grave little fellow had never prattled as children usually do, and that what he had said had been spoken with difficulties, only overcome by stress of emotion. The mystery of whence a bit of a boy so tiny could have come, and who he was, especially after his baby statement that n.o.body wanted him, anywhere, remained unbroken, after all the miner's queries. Jim was at length obliged to give it up.

"Do you like that little dog?" he said, as Tintoretto renewed his overtures of companions.h.i.+p. "Do you like old brother Jim and the pup?"

Solemnly the little pilgrim nodded.

"Want some breakfast, all pretty, in our own little house?"

Once more the quaint and grave little nod was forthcoming.

"All right. We'll have it bustin' hot in the shake of a crockery animal's tail," announced the miner.

He carried the mite of a man inside and placed him again in the bunk, where the little fellow found his rabbit and drew it into his arms.

The banquet proved to be a repet.i.tion of the supper of the night before, except that two great flapjacks were added to the menu, greased with fat from the bacon and sprinkled a half-inch thick with soft brown sugar.

When the cook fetched his hungry little guest to the board the rabbit came as well.

"You ought to have a dolly," decided Jim, with a knowing nod. "If only I had the ingenuity I could make one, sure," and throughout the meal he was planning the manufacture of something that should beat the whole wide world for cleverness.

The result of his cogitation was that he took no time for was.h.i.+ng the dishes after breakfast, but went to work at once to make a doll. The initial step was to take the hide from the rabbit. Sadly but unresistingly the little pilgrim resigned his pet, and never expected again to possess the comfort of its fur against his face.

With the skin presently rolled up in a nice light form, however, the miner was back in the cabin, looking for something of which to fas.h.i.+on a body and head for the lady-to-be. There seemed to be nothing handy, till he thought of a peeled potato for the lady's head and a big metal powder-flask to supply the body.

Unfortunately, as potatoes were costly, the only tuber they had in the house was a weazened old thing that parted with its wrinkled skin reluctantly and was not very white when partially peeled. However, Jim pared off enough of its surface on which to make a countenance, and left the darker hide above to form the dolly's hair. He bored two eyes, a nose, and a mouth in the toughened substance, and blackened them vividly with soot from the chimney. After this he bored a larger hole, beneath the chin, and pushed the head thus created upon the metal spout of the flask, where it certainly stuck with firmness.

With a bit of cord the skin of the rabbit was now secured about the neck and body of the lady's form, and her beauty was complete. That certain particles of powder rattled lightly about in her graceful interior only served to render her manners more animated and her person more like good, lively company, for Jim so decided himself.

"There you are. That's the prettiest dolly you ever saw anywhere,"

said he, as he handed it over to the willing little chap. "And she all belongs to you."

The mite of a boy took her hungrily to his arms, and Jim was peculiarly affected.

"Do you want to give her a name?" he said.

Slowly the quaint little pilgrim shook his head.

"Have you got a name?" the miner inquired, as he had a dozen times before.

This time a timid nod was forthcoming.

"Oh," said Jim, in suppressed delight. "What is your nice little name?"

For a moment coyness overtook the tiny man. Then he faintly replied, "Nu-thans."

"Nuisance?" repeated the miner, and again he saw the timid little nod.

"But that ain't a name," said Jim. "Is 'Nuisance' all the name the baby's got?"

His bit of a guest seemed to think very hard, but at last he nodded as before.

"Well, string my pearls," said the miner to himself, "if somebody 'ain't been mean and low!" He added, cheerfully, "Wal, it's easier to live down a poor name than it is to live up to a fine one, any day, but we'll name you somethin' else, I reckon, right away. And ain't that dolly nice?"

The two were in the midst of appreciating the charms of her ladys.h.i.+p when the cabin door was abruptly opened and in came a coatless, fat, little, red-headed man, puffing like a bellows and pulling down his s.h.i.+rtsleeves with a great expenditure of energy, only to have them immediately crawl back to his elbows.

"Hullo, Keno," drawled the lanky Jim. "I thought you was mad and gone away and died."

"Me? Not me!" puffed the visitor.

"What's that?" and he nodded himself nearly off his balance towards the tiny guest he saw upon a stool.

With a somewhat belated bark, Tintoretto suddenly came out from his boot-chewing contest underneath the table and gave the new-comer an apoplectic start.

"Hey!" he cried. "Hey! By jinks! a whole menajry!"

"That's the pup," said Jim. "And, Keno, here's a poor little skeezucks that I found a-sittin' in the brush, 'way over to Coyote Valley. I fetched him home last night, and I was just about to take him down to camp and show him to the boys."

"By jinks!" said Keno. "Alive!"

"Alive and smart as mustard," said the suddenly proud possessor of a genuine surprise. "You bet he's smart! I've often noticed how there never yet was any other kind of a baby. That's one consolation left to every fool man livin'--he was once the smartest baby in the world,"

"Alive!" repeated Keno, as before. "I'm goin' right down and tell the camp!"

He bolted out at the door like a shot, and ran down the hill to Borealis with all his might.

Aware that the news would be spread like a sprinkle of rain, the lanky Jim put on his hat with a certain jaunty air of importance, and taking the grave little man on his arm, with the new-made doll and the pup for company, he followed, where Keno had just disappeared from view, down the slope.

A moment later the town was in sight, and groups of flannel-s.h.i.+rted, dusty-booted, slouchily attired citizens were discernible coming out of buildings everywhere.

Running up the hill again, puffing with added explosiveness, Keno could hardly contain his excitement.

"I've told em!" he panted. "They know he's alive and smart as mustard!"

CHAPTER IV

PLANNING A NEW CELEBRATION

The cream, as it were, of the population of the mining-camp were ready to receive the group from up on the hill. There were nearly twenty men in the delegation, representing every shade of inelegance. Indeed, they demonstrated beyond all argument that the ways of looking rough and unkempt are infinite. There were tall and short who were rough, bearded and shaved who were rougher, and washed and unwashed who were roughest. And there were still many denizens of Borealis not then on exhibition.

Webber, the blacksmith; Lufkins, the teamster; Bone, the "barkeep"; Dunn, the carpenter, and Field, who had first discovered precious ore at Borealis, and sold out his claims for a gold watch and chain--which subsequently proved to be bra.s.s--all these and many another s.h.i.+ning light of the camp could be counted in the modest a.s.semblage gathered together to have a look at the "kid" just reported by Keno.