Produced by Al Haines
BRUVVER JIM'S BABY
BY
PHILIP VERRILL MIGHELS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS
PUBLISHERS MCMIV
Copyright, 1904, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
Published May, 1904.
This Volume is
Dedicated, with much affection, to
My Mother
CONTENTS
I. A MIGHTY LITTLE HUNTER
II. JIM MAKES DISCOVERIES
III. THE WAY TO MAKE A DOLL
IV. PLANNING A NEW CELEBRATION
V. VISITORS AT THE CABIN
VI. THE BELL FOR CHURCH
VII. THE SUNDAY HAPPENINGS
VIII. OLD JIM DISTRAUGHT
IX. THE GUILTY MISS DOC
X. PREPARATIONS FOR CHRISTMAS
XI. TROUBLES AND DISCOVERIES
XII. THE MAKING OF A CHRISTMAS-TREE
XIII. THEIR CHRISTMAS-DAY
XIV. "IF ONLY I HAD THE RESOLUTION"
XV. THE GOLD IN BOREALIS
XVI. ARRIVALS IN CAMP
XVII. SKEEZUCKS GETS A NAME
XVIII. WHEN THE PARSON DEPARTED
XIX. OLD JIM'S RESOLUTION
XX. IN THE TOILS OF THE BLIZZARD
XXI. A BED IN THE SNOW
XXII. CLEANING THEIR SLATE
XXIII. A DAY OF JOY
BRUVVER JIM'S BABY
CHAPTER I
A MIGHTY LITTLE HUNTER
It all commenced that bright November day of the Indian rabbit drive
and hunt. The motley army of the Piute tribe was sweeping tremendously
across a sage-brush valley of Nevada, their force two hundred braves in
number. They marched abreast, some thirty yards apart, and formed a
line that was more than two miles long.
The spectacle presented was wonderful to see. Red, yellow, and indigo
in their blankets and trappings, the hunters dotted out a line of color
as far as sight could reach. Through the knee-high brush they swept
ahead like a firing-line of battle, their guns incessantly booming,
their advance never halted, their purpose as grim and inexorable as
fate itself. Indeed, Death, the Reaper, multiplied two-hundred-fold
and mowing a swath of incredible proportions, could scarcely have
pillaged the land of its conies more thoroughly.
Before the on-press of the two-mile wall of red men with their smoking
weapons, the panic-stricken rabbits scurried helplessly. Soon or late
they must double back to their burrows, soon or late they must
therefore die.
Behind the army, fully twenty Indian ponies, ridden by the
youngster-braves of the cavalcade, were bearing great white burdens of
the slaughtered hares.
The glint of gun-barrels, shining in the sun, flung back the light,
from end to end of the undulating column. Billows of smoke,
out-puffing unexpectedly, anywhere and everywhere along the line,
marked down the tragedies where desperate bunnies, scudding from cover
and racing up or down before the red men, were targets for fiercely
biting hail of lead from two or three or more of the guns at once.
And nearly as frightened as the helpless creatures of the brush was a
tiny little pony-rider, back of the army, mounted on a plodding horse
that was all but hidden by its load of furry game. He was riding
double, this odd little bit of a youngster, with a sturdy Indian boy
who was on in front. That such a timid little dot of manhood should
have been permitted to join the hunt was a wonder. He was apparently
not more than three years old at the most. With funny little trousers
that reached to his heels, with big brown eyes all eloquent of doubt,
and with round, little, copper-colored cheeks, impinged upon by an old
fur cap he wore, pulled down over forehead and ears, he appeared about
as quaint a little man as one could readily discover.
But he seemed distressed. And how he did hang on! The rabbits secured
upon the pony were crowding him backward most alarmingly. At first he
had clung to the back of his fellow-rider's shirt with all the might
and main of his tiny hands. As the burden of the rabbits had
increased, however, the Indian hunters had piled them in between the
timid little scamp and his sturdier companion, till now he was almost
out on the horse's tail. His alarm had, therefore, become
overwhelming. No fondness for the nice warm fur of the bunnies, no
faith in the larger boy in front, could suffice to drive from his tiny
face the look of woe unutterable, expressed by his eyes and his
trembling little mouth.
The Indians, marching steadily onward, had come to the mountain that
bounded the plain. Already a score were across the road that led to
the mining-camp of Borealis, and were swarming up the sandy slope to
complete the mighty swing of the army, deploying anew to sweep far
westward through the farther half of the valley, and so at length
backward whence they came.
The tiny chap of a game-bearer, gripping the long, velvet ears of one
of the jack-rabbits tied to his horse, felt a horrid new sensation of
sliding backward when the pony began to follow the hunters up the hill.
Not only did the animal's rump seem to sink beneath him as they took
the slope, but perspiration had made it amazingly smooth and insecure.
The big fat rabbits rolled against the desperate little man in a
ponderous heap. The feet of one fell plump in his face, and seemed to
kick, with the motion of the horse. Then a buckskin thong abruptly
snapped in twain, somewhere deep in the bundle, and instantly the ears
to which the tiny man was clinging, together with the head and body of
that particular rabbit, and those of several others as well, parted
company with the pony. Gracefully they slid across the tail of the
much-relieved creature, and, pushing the tiny rider from his seat, they
landed with him plump upon the earth, and were left behind.
Unhurt, but nearly buried by the four or five rabbits thus pulled from
the load by his sudden descent from his perch, the dazed little fellow
sat up in the sand and solemnly noted the rapid departure of the Indian
army--pony, companion, and all.
Not only had his fall been unobserved by the marching braves, but the
boy with whom he had just been riding was blissfully unaware of the
fact that something behind had dismounted. The whole vast line of
Piute braves pressed swiftly on. The shots boomed and clattered, as
the hill-sides were startled by the echoes. Red, yellow, indigo--the
blankets and trappings were momentarily growing less and less distinct.
More distant became the firing. Onward, ever onward, swung the great,
long column of the hunters. Dully, then even faintly, came the noise
of the guns.
At last the firing could be heard no more. The two hundred warriors,
the ponies, the boys that rode--all were gone. Even the rabbits, that
an hour before had scampered here and there in the brush with their
furry feet, would never again go pattering through the sand. The sun
shone warmly down. The great world of valley and mountains, gray,
severe, unpeopled, was profoundly still, in that wonderful way of the
dying year, when even the crickets and locusts have ceased to sing.
Clinging in silence to the long, soft ears of his motionless bunny, the
timid little game-bearer sat there alone, big-eyed and dumb with wonder
and childish alarm. He could see not far, unless it might be up the
hill, for the sage-brush grew above his head and circumscribed his
view. Miles and miles away, however, the mountains, in majesty of rock
and snow, were sharply lifting upward into blue so deep and cloudless
that its intimate proximity to the infinite was impressively manifest.
The day was sweet of the ripeness of the year, and virginal as all that
mighty land itself.
With two of the rabbits across his lap, the tiny hunter made no effort
to rise. It was certainly secure to be sitting here in the sand, for
at least a fellow could fall no farther, and the good, big mountain was
not so impetuous or nervous as the pony.
An hour went by and the mere little mite of a man had scarcely moved.
The sun was slanting towards the southwest corner of the universe. A
flock of geese, in a great changing V, flew slowly over the valley,
their wings beating gold from the sunlight, their honk! honk! honk! the
note of the end of the year.
How soon they were gone! Then indeed all the earth was abandoned to
the quiet little youngster and his still more quiet company of rabbits.
There was no particular reason for moving. Where should he go, and how
could he go, did he wish to leave? To carry his bunny would be quite
beyond his strength; to leave him here would be equally beyond his
courage.
But the sun was edging swiftly towards its hiding place; the frost of
the mountain air was quietly sharpening its teeth. Already the long,
gray shadow of the sage-brush fell like a cooling film across the
little fellow's form and face.
Homeless, unmissed, and deserted, the tiny man could do nothing but sit
there and wait. The day would go, the twilight come, and the night
descend--the night with its darkness, its whispered mysteries, its
wailing coyotes, cruising in solitary melancholy hither and thither in
their search for food.
But the sun was still wheeling, like a brazen disk, on the rim of the
hills, when something occurred. A tall, lanky man, something over
forty years of age, as thin as a hammer and dusty as the road itself--a
man with a beard and a long, gray, drooping mustache, and with drooping
clothes--a man selected by shiftlessness to be its sign and mark--a
miner in boots and overalls and great slouch hat--came tramping down a
trail of the mountain. He was holding in his dusty arms a yellowish
pup, that squirmed and wriggled and tried to lap his face, and
comported himself in pup-wise antics, till his master was presently
obliged to put him down in self-defence.
The pup knew his duty, as to racing about, bumping into bushes,
snorting in places where game might abide, and thumping everything he
touched with his super-active tail. Almost immediately he scented
mysteries in plenty, for Indian ponies and hunters had left a fine,
large assortment of trails in the sand, that no wise pup could consent
to ignore.
With yelps of gladness and appreciation, the pup went awkwardly
knocking through the brush, and presently halted--bracing abruptly with
his clumsy paws--amazed and confounded by the sight of a frightened
little red-man, sitting with his rabbits in the sand.
For a second the dog was voiceless. Then he let out a bark that made
things jump, especially the tiny man and himself.
"Here, come here, Tintoretto," drawlingly called the man from the
trail. "Come back here, you young tenderfoot."
But Tintoretto answered that he wouldn't. He also said, in the
language of puppy barks, that important discoveries demanded not only
his but his master's attention where he was, forthwith.
There was nothing else for it; the mountain was obliged to come to
Mohammed--or the man to the pup. Then the miner, no less than
Tintoretto, was astonished.
To ward off the barking, the red little hunter had raised his arm
across his face, but his big brown eyes were visible above his hand,
and their childish seriousness appealed to the man at once.
"Well, cut my diamonds if it ain't a kid!" drawled he. "Injun
pappoose, or I'm an elk! Young feller, where'd you come from, hey?
What in mischief do you think you're doin' here?"
The tiny "Injun" made no reply. Tintoretto tried some puppy addresses.
He gave a little growl of friendship, and, clambering over rabbits and
all, began to lick the helpless child on the face and hands with
unmistakable cordiality. One of the rabbits fell and rolled over.
Tintoretto bounded backward in consternation, only to gather his
courage almost instantly upon him and bark with lusty defiance.
"Shut up, you anermated disturbance," commanded his owner, mildly.
"You're enough to scare the hair off an elephant," and, squatting in
front of the wondering child, he looked at him pleasantly. "What you
up to, young feller, sittin' here by yourself?" he inquired. "Scared?
Needn't be scared of brother Jim, I reckon. Say, you 'ain't been left
here for good? I saw the gang of Injuns, clean across the country,
from up on the ridge. It must be the last of their drives. That it?
And you got left?"
The little chap looked up at him seriously and winked his big, brown
eyes, but he shut his tiny mouth perhaps a trifle tighter than before.
As a matter of fact, the miner expected some such stoical silence.
The pup, for his part, was making advances of friendship towards the
motionless rabbits.
"Wal, say, Piute," added Jim, after scanning the country with his
kindly eyes, "I reckon you'd better go home with me to Borealis. The
Injuns wouldn't look to find you now, and you can't go on settin' here
a waitin' for pudding and gravy to pass up the road for dinner. What
do you say? Want to come with me and ride on the outside seat to
Borealis?"
Considerably to the man's amazement the youngster nodded a timid
affirmative.
"By honky, Tintoretto, I'll bet he savvies English as well as you,"
said Jim. "All right, Borealis or bust! I reckon a man who travels
twenty miles to git him a pup, and comes back home with you and this
here young Piute, is as good as elected to office. Injun, what's your
name?"
The tiny man apparently had nothing to impart by way of an answer.
"'Ain't got any, maybe," commented Jim. "What's the matter with me
namin' you, hey? Suppose I call you Aborigineezer? All in favor, ay!
Contrary minded? Carried unanimously and the motion prevails."
The child, for some unaccountable reason, seemed appalled.
"We can't freight all them rabbits," decided the miner. "And,
Tintoretto, you are way-billed to do some walkin'."
He took up the child, who continued to cling to the ears of his one
particular hare. As all the jacks were tied together, all were lifted
and were dangling down against the miner's legs.
"Huh! you can tell what some people want by the way they hang right
on," said Jim. "Wal, no harm in lettin' you stick to one. We can eat
him for dinner to-morrow, I guess, and save his hide in the bargain."
He therefore cut the buckskin thong and all but one of the rabbits fell
to the earth, on top of Tintoretto, who thought he was climbed upon by
half a dozen bears. He let out a yowp that scared himself half into
fits, and, scooting from under the danger, turned about and flung a
fearful challenge of barking at the prostrate enemy.
"Come on, unlettered ignoramus," said his master, and, holding the
wondering little foundling on his arm, with his rabbit still clutched
by the ears, he proceeded down to the roadway, scored like a narrow
gray streak through the brush, and plodded onward towards the
mining-camp of Borealis.