THE SUNDAY HAPPENINGS
But to open the service when quiet reigned again and expectation was
once more concentrated upon him afforded something of a poser still to
the lanky old Jim, elected to perform the offices of leading.
"Where's Shorty Hobb with his fiddle?" said he.
"Parky wouldn't leave him come," answered Bone. "He loaned him money
on his vierlin, and he says he owns it and won't leave him play in no
church that ever got invented."
"Parky, hey?" said Jim, drawlingly. "Wal, bless his little home'pathic
pill of a soul!"
"He says he's fed more poor and done more fer charity than any man in
town," informed a voice.
"Does, hey?" said the miner. "I'll bet his belly's the only poor thing
he feeds regular. His hand ain't got callous cutting bread for the
orphans. But he ain't a subject for church. If only I'd 'a' known
what he was agoin' to do I'd made a harp. But let it go. We'll start
off with roll-call and follow that up with a song."
He therefore began with the name of Webber, who responded "Here," and
proceeding to note who was present, he drawled the name or familiar
sobriquet of each in turn, till all had admitted they were personally
in attendance.
"Ahem," said Jim, at the end of this impressive ceremony. "Now we'll
sing a hymn. What hymn do you fellows prefer?"
There was not a great confusion of replies; in fact, the confusion
resulted from a lack thereof.
"As no one indicates a preference," announced the miner, "we'll tackle
'Darling, I am growing old.' Are there any objections? All in
favor?--contrary minded?--the motion prevails. Now, then, all
together--'Darling--'Why don't you all git in?"
"How does she go?" inquired Webber.
"She goes like this," Jim replied, clearing his throat:
"'Darling, I am growing o-old,
Silver bars among the gold;
Shine upon--te dum te dumpty--
Far from the old folks at home.'"
"Don't know it," said a voice.
"Neither do I."
"Nor I."
"Nor I."
The sheep of the flock all followed in a chorus of "Nor I's."
"What's the matter with 'Swing Low, Sweet Cheery O'?" inquired Lufkins.
"Suits me," Jim replied. "Steam up."
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 attitude!
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
repetitions, 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 attitude 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 God 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 God
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 buttons, 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 buttons," 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
pass 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 massive 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 shore;
In the sweet by-and-by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.'"
They followed this with what they knew of "Home, Sweet Home," and so at
last strolled out into the sunshine 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.
"Anyway," he concluded, "Doc has maybe went on shift by this time.
He's workin' nights this week again."
Jim, however, prevailed. "You don't get another bite of grub in this
shack, nor another look at the little boy, if you don't come ahead and
do your share."
Therefore they presently departed, shutting Tintoretto in the cabin to
"watch."
In half an hour, having interviewed Doc Dennihan himself on the
hill-side quite removed from his cabin, the two worthies came climbing
up towards their home once again, Jim most carefully holding in his
hands a large tin cup with half an inch of goat's milk at the bottom.
While still a hundred yards from the house, they were suddenly startled
by the mad descent upon them of the pup they had recently left behind.
"Huh! you young galoot," said Jim. "You got out, I see!"
When he entered the cabin it was dark. Keno lighted the candle and Jim
put his cup on the table. Then he went to the berth to awaken the tiny
foundling and give him a supper of bread and milk.
Keno heard him make a sound as of one in terrible pain.
The miner turned a face, deadly white, towards the table.
"Keno," he cried, "he's gone!"