VISITORS AT THE CABIN
When Jim and his company had disappeared from view up the rock-strewn
slope, the men left below remained in a group, to discuss not only the
marvellous advent of a genuine youngster in Borealis, but likewise the
fitness of old If-only Jim as a foster-parent.
"I wouldn't leave him raise a baby rattlesnake of mine," said Field,
whose watch had not been accepted by the foundling. "In fact, there
ain't but a few of us here into camp which knows the funderments of
motherhood, anyhow."
"I don't mind givin' Jim a few little pointers on the racket,"
responded Bone. "Never knew Jim yet to chuck out my advice.
"He's too lazy to chuck it," vouchsafed the teamster. "He just lets it
trickle out and drip."
"Well, we'll watch him, that's all," Field remarked, with a knowing
squint in his eyes, and employing a style he would not have dared to
parade in the hearing of Jim. "Borealis has come to her formaline
period, and she can't afford to leave this child be raised extraneous.
It's got to be done with honor and glory to the camp, even if we have
to take the kid away from Jim complete."
"He found the little skeezucks, all the same," the blacksmith reminded
them. "That counts for somethin'. He's got a right to keep him for a
while, at least, unless the mother should heave into town."
"Or the dad," added Lufkins.
"Shoot the dad!" answered Bone. "A dad which would let a little feller
small as him git lost in the brush don't deserve to git him back."
"Mysterious case, sure as lizards is insects," said an individual
heretofore silent. "I guess I'll go and tell Miss Doc Dennihan."
"'Ain't Miss Doc bin told--and her the only decent woman in the camp?"
inquired Field. "I'll go along and see you git it right."
"No Miss Doc in mine," said the smith.
"I'll git back and blow my fire up before she's plump dead out.
Fearful vinegar Miss Doc would make if ever she melted."
Miss Dennihan, sister of "Doc" Dennihan, was undeniably If-only Jim's
exact antithesis--a scrupulously tidy, exacting lady, so severe in her
virtues and so acrid in denunciations of the lack of down-east
circumspection that nearly every man in camp shied off from her abode
as he might have shied from a bath in nitric acid. Six months prior to
this time she had come to Borealis from the East, unexpectedly plumping
down upon her brother "Doc" with all her moral fixity of purpose, not
only to his great distress of mind, but also to that of all his
acquaintances as well. She had raided the ethical standing of miners,
teamsters, and men-about-town; she had outwardly and inwardly condemned
the loose and indecorous practices of the camp; she had made herself an
accusing hand, as it were, pointing out the road to perdition which all
and sundry of the citizens of Borealis, including "Doc," were
travelling. If-only Jim had promptly responded to her natural
antipathy to all that he represented, and the strained relations
between the pair had furnished much amusement for the male population
of the place.
It was now to this lady that Field and his friend proposed a visit.
The group of men broke up, and the news that each one had to tell of
the doings of Jim was widely spread; and the wonder increased till it
stretched to the farthest confines of the place. Then as fast as the
miners and other laborers, who were busy with work, could get away for
a time sufficiently long, they made the pilgrimage up the slope to the
cabin where the tiny foundling had domicile. They found the timid
little man seated, with his doll, on the floor, from which he watched
them gravely, in his baby way.
Half the honors of receiving the groups and showing off the quaint
little Skeezucks were assumed by Keno, with a grace that might have
been easy had he not been obliged to pull down his shirt-sleeves with
such exasperating frequency.
But Jim was the hero of the hour, as he very well knew. Time after
time, and ever with thrilling new detail and added incident, he
recounted the story of his find, gradually robbing even Tintoretto, the
pup, of such of the glory as he really had earned.
The pup, however, was recklessly indifferent. He could pile up fresh
glories every minute by bowling the little pilgrim on his back and
walking on his chest to lap his ear. This he proceeded to do, in his
clumsy way of being friendly, with a regularity only possible to an
enthusiast. And every time he did it anew, either Keno or Jim or a
visitor would shy something at him and call him names. This, however,
only served to incite him to livelier antics of licking everybody's
face, wagging himself against the furniture, and dragging the various
bombarding missiles between the legs of all the company.
There were men, who apparently had nothing else to do, who returned to
the cabin on the hill with every new visiting deputation. A series of
ownership in and familiarity with the grave little chap and his story
came upon them rapidly. Field, the father of Borealis, was the most
assiduous guide the camp afforded. By afternoon he knew more about the
child than even Jim himself.
For his part, the lanky Jim sat on a stool, looking wiser than Solomon
and Moses rolled in one, and greeted his wondering acquaintances with a
calm and dignity that his oneness in the great event was magnifying
hourly. That such an achievement as finding a lost little pilgrim in
the wilderness might be expected of his genius every day was firmly
impressed upon himself, if not on all who came.
"Speakin' of catfish, Jim thinks he's hoein' some potatoes." said Field
to a group of his friends. "If one of us real live spirits of Borealis
had bin in his place, it's ten to one we'd 'a' found a pair of twins."
All the remainder of the day, and even after dinner, and up to eight
o'clock in the evening, the new arrivals, or the old ones over again,
made the cabin on the hill their Mecca.
"Shut the door, Keno, and sit outside, and tell any more that come
along, the show is over for the day," instructed Jim, at last. "The
boy is goin' to bed."
"Did he bring a nightie?" said Keno.
"Forgot it, I reckon," answered Jim, as he took the tired little chap
in his arms. "If only I had the enterprise I'd make him one to-night."
But it never got made. The pretty little armful of a boy went to sleep
with all his baby garments on, the long "man's" trousers and all, and
Jim permitted all to remain in place, for the warmth thereof, he said.
Into the bunk went the tiny bundle of humanity, his doll tightly held
to his breast.
Then Jim sat down and watched the bunk, till Keno had come inside and
climbed in a bed and begun a serenade. At twelve o'clock the miner was
still awake. He went to his door, and, throwing it open, looked out at
the great, dark mountains and the brilliant sky.
"If only I had the steam I'd open up the claim and make the little
feller rich," he drawled to himself. Then he closed the door, and,
removing his clothing, got into the berth where his tiny guest was
sleeping, and knew no more till the morning came and a violent knocking
on his window prodded his senses into something that answered for
activity.
"Come in!" he called. "Come in, and don't waste all that noise."
The pup awoke and let out a bark.
In response to the miner's invitation the caller opened the door and
entered. Jim and Keno had their heads thrust out of their bunks, but
the two popped in abruptly at the sight of a tall female figure. She
was homely, a little sharp as to features, and a little near together
and piercing as to eyes. Her teeth were prominent, her mouth
unquestionably generous in dimensions, and a mole grew conspicuously
upon her chin. Nevertheless, she looked, as Jim had once confessed,
"remarkly human." On her head she wore a sun-bonnet. Her black alpaca
dress was as styleless and as shiny as a stovepipe. It was short,
moreover, and therefore permitted a view of a large, flat pair of shoes
on which polish for the stovepipe aforesaid had been lavishly coated.
It was Miss Doc Dennihan. Having duly heard of the advent of a quaint
little boy, found in the brush by the miner, she had come thus early in
the morning to gratify a certain hunger that her nature felt for the
sight of a child. But always one of the good woman's prides had been
concealment of her feelings, desires, and appetites. She had formed a
habit, likewise, of hiding not a few of her intentions. Instead of
inquiring now for what she sought, she glanced swiftly about the
interior of the cabin and said:
"Ain't you lazy-joints got up yet in this here cabin?"
"Been up and hoisted the sun and went back to bed," drawled Jim, while
Keno drew far back in his berth and fortified himself behind his
blankets. "Glad to see you, but sorry you've got to be goin' again so
soon."
"I 'ain't got to be goin'," corrected the visitor, with decision. "I
jest thought I'd call in and see if your clothin' and kitchen truck was
needin' a woman's hand. Breakfast over to our house is finished and
John has went to work, and everything has bin did up complete, so
'tain't as if I was takin' the time away from John; and this here place
is disgraceful dirty, as I could see with nuthin' but a store eye. Is
these here over-halls your'n?"
"When I'm in 'em I reckon they are," drawled Jim, in some disquietude
of mind. "But don't you touch 'em! Them pants is heirlooms. Wouldn't
have anybody fool with them for a million dollars."
"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," replied
Miss 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."