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 brass—all these and many another shining light of the camp could be counted in the modest assemblage gathered together to have a look at the "kid" just reported by Keno.
Surprise had been laid on double, in the town, by the news of what had occurred. In the first place, it was almost incredible that old "If-only" Jim had actually made his long-threatened pilgrimage to fetch his promised pup, but to have him back here, not only with the dog in question, but also with a tiny youngster found at the edge of the wilderness, was far too much to comprehend.
In a single bound, old Jim had been elevated to a starry firmament of importance, from wellnigh the lowest position of insignificance in the camp, attained by his general worthlessness and shiftlessness—of mind and demeanor—which qualities had passed into a proverb of the place. Procrastination, like a cuckoo, had made its nest in his pockets, where the hands of Jim would hatch its progeny. Labor and he abhorred each other mightily. He had never been known to strike a lick of work till larder and stomach were both of them empty and credit had taken to the hills. He drawled in his speech till the opening parts of the good resolutions he frequently uttered were old and forgotten before the remainders were spoken. He loitered in his walk, said the boys, till he clean forgot whether he was going up hill or down. "Hurry," he had always said, by way of a motto, "is an awful waste of time that a feller could go easy in."
Yet in his shambling, easy-going way, old Jim had drifted into nearly every heart in the camp. His townsmen knew he had once had a good education, for outcroppings thereof jutted from his personality even as his cheek-bones jutted out of his russet old countenance.
Not by any means consenting to permit old Jim to understand how astonishment was oozing from their every pore, the men brought forth by Keno's news could not, however, entirely mask their incredulity and interest. As Jim came deliberately down the trail, with the pale little foundling on his arm, he was greeted with every possible term of familiarity, to all of which he drawled a response in kind.
Not a few in the group of citizens pulled off their hats at the nearer approach of the child, then somewhat sheepishly put them on again. With stoical resolutions almost immediately upset, they gathered closely in about the miner and his tiny companion, crowding the red-headed Keno away from his place of honor next to the child.
The quaint little pilgrim, in his old, fur cap and long, "man's" trousers, looked at the men in a grave way of doubt and questioning.
"It's a sure enough kid, all the same," said one of the men, as if he had previously entertained some doubts of the matter. "And ain't he white!"
"Of course a white kid's white," answered the barkeep, scornfully.
"Awful cute little shaver," said another. "By cracky, Jim, you must have had him up yer sleeve for a week! He don't look more'n about one week old."
"Aw, listen to the man afraid to know anything about anything!" broke in the blacksmith. "One week! He's four or five months, or I'm a woodchuck."
"You kin tell by his teeth," suggested a leathery individual, stroking his bony jaw knowingly. "I used to be up on the game myself, but I'm a little out of practice jest at present."
"Shut up, you scare him, Shaky," admonished the teamster. "He's a pretty little chipmunk. Jim, wherever did you git him?"
Jim explained every detail of his trip to fetch the pup, stretching out his story of finding the child and bringing him hither, with pride in every item of his wonderful performance. His audience listened with profound attention, broken only by an occasional exclamation.
"Old If-only Jim! Old son-of-a-sea-cook!" repeated one, time after time.
Meanwhile the silent little man himself was clinging to the miner's flannel collar with all his baby strength. With shy little glances he scanned the members of the group, and held the tighter to the one safe anchorage in which he seemed to feel a confidence. A number of the rough men furtively attempted a bit of coquetry, to win the favor of a smile.
"You don't mean, Jim, you found him jest a-settin' right in the bresh, with them dead jack-rabbits lyin' all 'round?" insisted the carpenter.
"That's what," said Jim, and reluctantly he brought the tale to its final conclusion, adding his theory of the loss of the child by the Indians on their hunt, and bearing down hard on the one little speech that the tiny foundling had made just this morning.
The rough men were silenced by this. One by one they took off their hats again, smoothed their hair, and otherwise made themselves a trifle prettier to look upon.
"Well, what you goin' to do with him, Jim?" inquired Field, after a moment.
"Oh, I'll grow him up," said Jim. "And some day I'll send him to college."
"College be hanged!" said Field. "A lot of us best men in Borealis never went to college—and we're proud of it!"
"So the little feller said nobody wanted him, did he?" asked the blacksmith. "Well, I wouldn't mind his stayin' 'round the shop. Where do you s'pose he come from first? And painted like a little Piute Injun! No wonder he's a scared little tike."
"I ain't the one which scares him," announced a man whose hair, beard, and eyes all stuck out amazingly. "If I'd 'a' found him first he'd like me same as he takes to Jim."
"Speakin' of catfish, where the little feller come from original is what gits to me," said Field, the father of Borealis, reflectively. "You see, if he's four or five months old, why he's sure undergrowed. You could drink him up in a cupful of coffee and never even cough. And bein' undergrowed, why, how could he go on a rabbit-drive along with the Injuns? I'll bet you there's somethin' mysterious about his origin."
"Huh! Don't you jump onto no little shaver's origin when you 'ain't got any too much to speak of yourself," the blacksmith commanded. "He's as big as any little skeezucks of his size!"
"Kin he read an' write?" asked a person of thirty-six, who had "picked up" the mentioned accomplishments at the age of thirty-five.
"He's alive and smart as mustard!" put in Keno, a champion by right of prior acquaintance with the timid little man.
"Wal, that's all right, but mustard don't do no sums in 'rithmetic," said the bar-keep. "I'm kind of stuck, myself, on this here pup."
Tintoretto had been busily engaged making friends in any direction most handily presented. He wound sinuously out of the barkeep's reach, however, with pup-wise discrimination. The attention of the company was momentarily directed to the small dog, who came in for not a few of the camp's outspoken compliments.
"He's mebbe all right, but he's homely as Aunt Marier comin' through the thrashin'-machine," decided the teamster.
The carpenter added: "He's so all-fired awkward he can't keep step with hisself."
"Wal, he ain't so rank in his judgment as some I could indicate," drawled Jim, prepared to defend both pup and foundling to the last extent. "At least, he never thought he was smart, abscondin' with a little free sample of a brain."
"What kind of a mongrel is he, anyway?" inquired Bone.
"Thorough-breed," replied old Jim. "There ain't nothing in him but dog."
The blacksmith was still somewhat longingly regarding the pale little man who continued to cling to the miner's collar. "What's his name?" said he.
"Tintoretto," answered Jim, still on the subject of his yellowish pup.
"Tintoretto?" said the company, and they variously attacked the appropriateness of any such a "handle."
"What fer did you ever call him that?" asked Bone.
"Wal, I thought he deserved it," Jim confessed.
"Poor little kid—that's all I've got to say," replied the compassionate blacksmith.
"That ain't the kid's name," corrected Jim, with alacrity. "That's what I call the pup."
"That's worse," said Field. "For he's a dumb critter and can't say nothing back."
"But what's the little youngster's name?" inquired the smith, once again.
"Yes, what's the little shaver's name?" echoed the teamster. "If it's as long as the pup's, why, give us only a mile or two at first, and the rest to-morrow."
"I was goin' to name him 'Aborigineezer,'" Jim admitted, somewhat sheepishly. "But he ain't no Piute Injun, so I can't."
"Hard-hearted ole sea-serpent!" ejaculated Field. "No wonder he looks like cryin'."
"Oh, he ain't goin' to cry," said the blacksmith, roughly patting the frightened little pilgrim's cheek with his great, smutty hand. "What's he got to cry about, now he's here in Borealis?"
"Well, leave him cry, if he wants to," said the fat little Keno. "I 'ain't heard a baby cry fer six or seven years."
"Go off in a corner and cry in your pocket, and leave it come out as you want it," suggested Bone. "Jim, you said the little feller kin talk?"
"Like a greasy dictionary," said Jim, proudly.
"Well, start him off on somethin' stirrin'."
"You can't start a little youngster off a-talkin' when you want to, any more than you can start a turtle runnin' to a fire," drawled Jim, sagely.
"Then, kin he walk?" insisted the bar-keep.
Jim said, "What do you s'pose he's wearin' pants for, if he couldn't?"
"Put him down and leave us see him, then."
"This ain't no place for a child to be walkin' 'round loose," objected the gray old miner. "He'll walk some other time."
"Aw, put him down," coaxed the smith. "We'd like to see a little feller walk. There's never bin no such a sight in Borealis."
"Yes, put him down!" chorused the crowd.
"We'll give him plenty of elbow-room," added Webber. "Git back there, boys, and give him a show."
As the group could be satisfied with nothing less, and Jim was aware of their softer feelings, he disengaged the tiny hand that was closed on his collar and placed his tiny charge upon his feet in the road.
How very small, indeed, he looked in his quaint little trousers and his old fur cap!
Instantly he threw the one little arm not engaged with the furry doll about the big, dusty knee of his known protector, and buried his face in the folds of the rough, blue overalls.
"Aw, poor little tike!" said one of the men. "Take him back up, Jim. Anyway, you 'ain't yet told us his name, and how kin any little shaver walk which ain't got a name?"
Jim took the mere little toy of a man again in his arms and held him close against his heart.
"He 'ain't really got any name," he confessed. "If only I had the poetic vocabulary I'd give him a high-class out-and-outer."
"What's the matter with a good old home-made name like Si or Hank or
Zeke?" inquired Field, who had once been known as Hank himself.
"They ain't good enough," objected Jim. "If only I can git an inspiration I'll fit him out like a barn with a bran'-new coat of paint."
"Well, s'pose—" started Keno, but what he intended to say was never concluded.
"What's the fight?" interrupted a voice, and the men shuffled aside to give room to a well-dressed, dapper-looking man. It was Parky, the gambler. He was tall, and easy of carriage, and cultivated a curving black mustache. In his scarf he wore a diamond as large as a marble. At his heels a shivering little black-and-tan dog, with legs no larger than pencils and with a skull of secondary importance to its eyes, followed him mincingly into the circle and stood beside his feet with its tail curved in under its body.
"What have you got? Huh! Nothing but a kid!" said the gambler, in supreme contempt.
"And a pup!" said Keno, aggressively.
The gambler ignored the presence of the child, especially as Tintoretto bounded clumsily forward and bowled his own shaking effigy of a canine endways in one glad burst of friendship.
The black-and-tan let out a feeble yelp. With his boot the gambler threw Tintoretto six feet away, where he landed on his feet and turned about growling and barking in puppywise questioning of this sudden manoeuvre. With a few more staccato yelps, the shivering black-and-tan retreated behind the gambler's legs.
"Of all the ugly brutes I ever seen," said Parky, "that's the worst yellow flea-trap of the whole caboose."
"Wal, I don't know," drawled Jim, as he patted his timid little pilgrim on the back in a way of comfort. "All dogs look alike to a flea, and I reckon Tintoretto is as good flea-feed as the next. And, anyhow, I wouldn't have a dog the fleas had deserted. When the fleas desert a dog, it's the same as when the rats desert a ship. About that time a dog has lost his doghood, and then he ain't no better than a man who's lost his manhood."
"Aw, I'd thump you and the cur together if you didn't have that kid on deck," sneered the gambler.
"You couldn't thump a drum," answered Jim, easily. "Come back here, Tintoretto. Don't you touch that skinny little critter with the shakes. I wouldn't let you eat no such a sugar-coated insect."
The crowd was enjoying the set-to of words immensely. They now looked to Parky for something hot. But the man of card-skill had little wit of words.
"Don't git too funny, old boy," he cautioned. "I'd just as soon have you for breakfast as not."
"I wish the fleas could say as much for you or your imitation dog," retorted Jim. "There's just three things in Borealis that go around smellin' thick of perfume, and you and that little two-ounce package of dog-degeneration are maybe some worse than the other."
Parky made a belligerent motion, but Webber, the blacksmith, caught his arm in a powerful grip.
"Not to-day," he said. "The boys don't want no gun-play here this mornin'."
"You're a lot of old women and babies," said Parky, and pushing through the group he walked away, a certain graceful insolence in his bearing.
"Speakin' of catfish," said Field, "we ought to git up some kind of a celebration to welcome Jim's little skeezucks to the camp."
"That's the ticket," agreed Bone. "What's the matter with repeatin' the programme we had for the Fourth of July?"
"No, we want somethin' new," objected the smith. "It ought to be somethin' we never had before."
"Why not wait till Christmas and git good and ready?" said Jim.
The argument was that Christmas was something more than four weeks away.
"We've got to have a rousin' big Christmas fer little Skeezucks, anyhow," suggested Bone. "What sort of a celebration is there that we 'ain't never had in Borealis?"
"Church," said Keno, promptly.
This caused a silence for a moment.
"Guess that's so, but—who wants church?" inquired the teamster.
"We might git up somethin' worse," said a voice in the crowd.
"How?" demanded another.
"It wouldn't be so far off the mark for a little kid like him," tentatively asserted Field, the father of the camp, "S'pose we give it a shot?"
"Anything suits me," agreed the carpenter. "Church might be kind of decent, after all. Jim, what you got to say 'bout the subject?"
Jim was still patting the timid little foundling on the back with a comforting hand.
"Who'd be preacher?" said he.
They were stumped for a moment.
"Why—you," said Keno. "Didn't you find little Skeezucks?"
"Kerrect," said Bone. "Jim kin talk like a steam fire-engine squirtin' languages."
"If only I had the application," said Jim, modestly, "I might git up somethin' passable. Where could we have it?"
This was a stumper again. No building in the camp had ever been consecrated to the uses of religious worship.
Bone came to the rescue without delay.
"You kin have my saloon, and not a cent of cost," said he.
"Bully fer Bone!" said several of the men.
"Y-e-s, but would it be just the tip-toppest, tippe-bob-royal of a place?" inquired Field, a little cautiously.
"What's the matter with it?" said Bone. "When it's church it's church, and I guess it would know the way to behave! If there's anything better, trot it out."
"You can come to the shop if it suits any better," said the blacksmith. "It 'ain't got no floor of gold, and there ain't nothing like wings, exceptin' wheels, but the fire kin be kept all day to warm her up, and there's plenty of room fer all which wants to come."
"If I'm goin' to do the preachin',' I'd like the shop first rate," said
Jim. "What day is to-day?"
"Friday," replied the teamster.
"All right. Then we'll say on Sunday we celebrate with church in Webber's blacksmith shop," agreed old Jim, secretly delighted beyond expression. "We won't git gay with anything too high-falootin', but we'd ought to git Shorty Hobb to show up with his fiddle."
"Certain!" assented the barkeep. "You kin leave that part of the game to me."
"If we've got it all settled, I reckon I'll go back up to the shack," said Jim. "The little feller 'ain't had a chance yet to play with his doll."
"Is that a doll?" inquired the teamster, regarding the grave little pilgrim's bundle of fur in curiosity. "How does he know it's a doll?"
"He knows a good sight more than lots of older people," answered Jim. "And if only I've got the gumption I'll make him a whole slough of toys and things."
"Well, leave us say good-bye to him 'fore you go," said the blacksmith.
"Does he savvy shakin' hands?"
He gave a little grip to the tiny hand that held the doll, and all the others did the same. Little Skeezucks looked at them gravely, his quaint baby face playing havoc with their rough hearts.
"Softest little fingers I ever felt," said Webber. "I'd give twenty dollars if he'd laugh at me once."
"Awful nice little shaver," said another.
"I once had a mighty touchin' story happen to me, myself," said Keno, solemnly.
"What was it?" inquired a sympathetic miner.
"Couldn't bear to tell it—not this mornin'," said Keno. "Too touchin'."
"Good-bye fer just at present, little Skeezucks," said Field, and, suddenly divesting himself of his brazen watch and chain, he offered it up as a gift, with spontaneous generosity. "Want it, Skeezucks?" said he. "Don't you want to hear it go?"
The little man would relax neither his clutch on Jim's collar nor his hold of his doll, wherefore he had no hand with which to accept the present.
"Do you think he runs a pawn-shop, Field?" said the teamster. "Put it back."
The men all guffawed in their raucous way.
"Keeps mighty good time, all the same," said Field, and he re-swung the chain, like a hammock, from the parted wings of his vest, and dropped the huskily ticking guardian of the minutes back to its place in his pocket.
"Watches that don't keep perfect time," drawled Jim, "are scarcer than wimmin who tell their age on the square."
"Better come over, Jim, and have a drink," suggested the barkeep.
"You're sure one of the movin' spirits of Borealis."
"No, I don't think I'll start the little feller off with the drinkin' example," replied the miller. "You'll often notice that the men who git the name of bein' movin' spirits is them that move a good deal of whiskey into their interior department. I reckon we'll mosey home the way we are."
"I guess I'll join you up above," said the fat little Keno, pulling stoutly at his sleeves. "You'll need me, anyway, to cut some brush fer the fire."
With tiny Skeezucks gravely looking backward at the group of men all waving their hats in a rough farewell, old Jim started proudly up the trail that led to the Babylonian Glory claim, with Tintoretto romping awkwardly at his heels.
Suddenly, Webber, the blacksmith, left the groups and ran quickly after them up the slope.
"Say, Jim," he said. "I thought, perhaps, if you reckoned little Skeezucks ought to bunk down here in town—why—I wouldn't mind if you fetched him over to the house. There's plenty of room."
"Wal, not to-day I won't," said Jim. "But thank you, Webber, all the same."
"All right, but if you change your mind it won't be no trouble at all," and, not a little disappointed, the smith waved once more to the little pilgrim on the miner's arm and went back down the hill.
Then up spoke Keno.
"Bone and Lufkins both wanted me to tell you, Jim, if you happen to want a change fer little Skeezucks, you can fetch him down to them," he said. "But of course we ain't agoin' to let 'em have our little kid in no great shakes of a hurry."