CHAPTER XIX
OLD JIM'S RESOLUTION
All that day little Skeezucks and the pup were waiting, listening, expecting the door to open and the three small girls to reappear. They went to the window time after time and searched the landscape of mountains and snow, Tintoretto standing on his hind-legs for the purpose, and emitting little sounds of puppy-wise worry at the long delay of their three little friends.
A number of the men of the camp came to visit there again that evening.
"We thought little Skeezucks might be lonesome," they explained.
So often as the door was opened, the pup and the grave little pilgrim—clothed these days in the little white frock Miss Dennihan had made—looked up, ever in the hope, of espying again those three red caps. The men saw the wistfulness increase in the baby's face.
"We've got to keep him amused," said Field.
The awkward fellows, therefore, began the games, and romped about, and rode the lonely little foundling in the wagon, to the great delight of poor Miss Doc, who felt, as much as the pup or Skeezucks, the singular emptiness of her house.
Having learned to laugh, little Carson tried to repeat the delights of a mirthful emotion. The faint baby smile that resulted made the men all quiet and sober.
"He's tired, that's what the matter," the blacksmith explained. "We'd better be goin', boys, and come to see him to-morrow."
"Of course he must be tired," agreed the teamster.
But Jim, sitting silently watching, and the fond Miss Doc, whom nothing concerning the child escaped, knew better. It was not, however, till the boys were gone and silence had settled on the house that even Jim was made aware of the all that the tiny mite of a man was undergoing. Miss Doc had gone to the kitchen. Jim, Tintoretto, and little Skeezucks were alone. The little fellow and the pup were standing in the centre of the floor, intently listening. Together they went to the door. There little Carson stretched his tiny arms across the panels in baby appeal.
"Bruv-ver—Jim," he begged. "Bruv-ver—Jim."
Then, at last, the gray old miner understood the whole significance of the baby words. "Bruvver Jim" meant more than just himself; it meant the three little girls—associates—children—all that is dear to a childish heart—all that is indispensable to baby happiness—all that a lonely little heart must have or starve.
Jim groaned, for the utmost he could do was done when he took the sobbing little fellow in his arms and murmured him words of comfort as he carried him up and down the room.
The day that followed, and the day after that, served only to deepen the longing in the childish breast. The worried men of Borealis played on the floor in desperation. They fashioned new wagons, sleds, and dolls; they exhausted every device their natures prompted; but beyond a sad little smile and the call for "Bruvver Jim" they received no answer from the baby heart,
At the end of a week the little fellow smiled no more, not even in his faint, sweet way of yearning. His heart was starving; his grave, baby thought was far away, with the small red caps and the laughing voices of children.
The fond Miss Doc and the gray old Jim alone knew what the end must be, inevitably, unless some change should speedily come to pass.
Meantime, Keno had quietly opened up a mighty ledge of gold-bearing ore on the hill. It lay between walls of slate and granite. Its hugeness was assured. That the camp would boom in the spring was foreordained. And that ledge all belonged to Jim. But he heard them excitedly tell what the find would do for him and the camp as one in a dream. He could not care while his tiny waif was starving in his lonely little way.
"Boys," he said at last, one night, when the smith and Bone had called to see the tiny man, who had sadly gone to sleep—"boys, he's pinin'. He's goin' to die if he don't have little kids for company. I've made up my mind. I'm goin' to take him to Fremont right away."
Miss Doc, who was knitting a tiny pair of mittens and planning a tiny red cap and woollen leggings, dropped a stitch and lost a shade of color from her face.
"Ain't there no other way?" inquired the blacksmith, a poignant regret already at his heart. "You don't really think he'd up and die?"
"Children have got to be happy," Jim replied. "If they don't get their fun when they're little, why, when is it ever goin' to come? I know he'll die, all alone with us old cusses, and I ain't a-goin' to wait."
"But the claim is goin' to be a fortune," said Bone. "Couldn't you hold on jest a week or two and see if he won't get over thinkin' 'bout the little gals?"
"If I kept him here and he died, like that—just pinin' away for other little kids—I couldn't look fortune in the face," answered Jim, to which, in a moment, he added, slowly, "Boys, he's more to me than all the claims in Nevada."
"But—you'll bring him back in the spring, of course?" said the blacksmith, with a worried look about his eyes. "We'd miss him, Jim, almost as much as you."
"By that time," supplemented Bone, "the camp's agoin' to be boomin'. Probably we'll have lots of wimmen and kids and schools and everything, fer the gold up yonder is goin' to make Borealis some consid'rable shakes."
"I'll bring him back in the spring, all right," said the miner; "but none of you boys would want to see me keep him here and have him die."
Miss Doc had been a silent listener to all their conversation. She was knitting again, with doubled speed.
"Jim, how you goin'?" she now inquired.
"I want to get a horse," answered Jim. "We could ride there horseback quicker than any other way. If only I can get the horse."
"It may be stormin' in the mornin'," Webber suggested. "A few clouds is comin' up from the West. What about the horse, Jim, if it starts to snow?"
"Riding in a saddle, I can git through," said the miner. "If it snows at all, it won't storm bad. Storms that come up sudden never last very long, and it's been good and bright all day. I'll start unless it's snowin' feather-beds."
Miss Doc had been feeling, since the subject first was broached, that something in her heart would snap. But she worked on, her emotions, yearnings, and fears all rigorously knitted into the tiny mittens.
"You'll let me wrap him up real warm?" she said.
Jim knew her thoughts were all on little Skeezucks.
"If you didn't do it, who would?" he asked, in a kindness of heart that set her pulse to faster beating.
"But—s'pose you don't git any job in Fremont," Bone inquired. "Will you let us know?"
"I'll git it, don't you fear," said Jim. "I know there ain't no one so blind as the feller who's always lookin' for a job, but the little kid has fetched me a sort of second sight."
"Well, if anything was goin' hard, we'd like for to know," insisted Bone. "I guess we'd better start along, though, now, if we're goin' to scare up a bronch to-night."
He and the blacksmith departed. Jim and the lorn Miss Doc sat silently together in the warm little house. Jim looked at her quietly, and saw many phases of womanly beauty in her homely face.
"Wal," he drawled, at last, "I'll go up home, on the hill." He hesitated for a moment, and then added, quietly, "Miss Doc, you've been awful kind to the little boy—and me."
"It wasn't nuthin'," she said.
They stood there together, beside the table.
"Yes, it was," said Jim, "and it's set me to thinkin' a heap." He was silent for a moment, as before, and then, somewhat shyly for him, he said, "When we come back home here, in the spring, Miss Doc, I'm thinkin' the little feller ought to have a mother. Do you think you could put up with him—and with me?"
"Jim," she said, in a voice that shook with emotion, "do you think I'm a kind enough woman?"
"Too kind—for such as me," said Jim, thickly. He took her hand in his own, and with something of a courtliness and grace, reminiscent of his youth, he raised it to his lips. "Good-night," he said. "Good-night, Miss Doc."
"Good-night, Jim," she answered, and he saw in her eyes the beauty that
God in his wisdom gives alone to mother-kind.
And when he had gone she sat there long, forgetting to keep up the fire, forgetting that Doc himself would come home early in the morning from his night-employment, forgetting everything personal save the words old Jim had spoken, as she knitted and knitted, to finish that tiny pair of mittens.
The night was spent, and her heart was at once glad and sore when, at last, she concluded her labor of love. Nevertheless, in the morning she was up in time to prepare a luncheon for Jim to take along, and to delve in her trunk for precious wraps and woollens in which to bundle the grave little pilgrim, long before old Jim or the horse he would ride had appeared before the house.
Little Skeezucks was early awake and dressed. A score of times Miss Doc caught him up in her hungering arms, to hold him in fervor to her heart and to kiss his baby cheek. If she cried a little, she made it sound and look like laughter to the child. He patted her face with his tiny hand, even as he begged for "Bruvver Jim."
"You're goin' to find Bruvver Jim," she said. "You're goin' away from fussy old me to where you'll be right happy."
At least a dozen men of the camp came plodding along behind the horse, that arrived at the same time Jim, the pup, and Keno appeared at the Dennihan home.
Doc Dennihan had cut off his customary period of rest and sleep, to say good-bye, with the others, to the pilgrims about to depart.
Jim was dressed about as usual for the ride, save that he wore an extra pair of trousers beneath his overalls and a great blanket-coat upon his back. He was hardy, and he looked it, big as he was and solidly planted in his wrinkled boots.
The sky, despite Webber's predictions of a storm, was practically free from clouds, but a breeze was sweeping through the gorge with increasing strength. It was cold, and the men who stood about in groups kept their hands in their pockets and their feet on the move for the sake of the slight degree of warmth thereby afforded.
As their spokesman, Webber, the blacksmith, took the miner aside.
"Jim," said he, producing a buckskin bag, which he dropped in the miner's pocket, "the boys can't do nuthin' fer little Skeezucks when he's 'way off up to Fremont, so they've chipped in a little and wanted you to have it in case of need."
"But, Webber—" started Jim.
"Ain't no buts," interrupted the smith. "You'll hurt their feelin's if you go to buttin' and gittin' ornary."
Wherefore the heavy little bag of coins remained where Webber had placed it.
There were sober words of caution and advice, modest requests for a line now and then, and many an evidence of the hold old Jim had secured on their hearts before the miner finally received the grave and carefully bundled little Carson from the arms of Miss Doc and came to the gate to mount his horse and ride away.
"Jest buckle this strap around me and the little boy," instructed Jim, as he gave a wide leather belt to the teamster; "then if I happen for to need both hands, he won't be able to git a fall."
The strap was adjusted about the two in the manner suggested.
"Good scheme," commented Field, and the others agreed that it was.
Then all the rough and awkward big fellows soberly shook the pretty little pilgrim's hand in its mitten, and said good-bye to the tiny chap, who was clinging, as always, to his doll.
"What you goin' to do with Tinterretter?" inquired the teamster as he looked at the pup, while Jim, with an active swing, mounted to the saddle.
"Take him along," said Jim. "I'll put him in the sack I've got, and tie him on behind the saddle when he gits too much of runnin' on foot. He wouldn't like it to be left behind and Skeezucks gone."
"Guess that's kerrect," agreed the teamster. "He's a bully pup, you bet."
Poor Miss Doc remained inside the gate. Her one mad impulse was to run to Jim, clasp him and the grave little waif in her arms, and beg to be taken on the horse. But repression had long been her habit of life. She smiled, and did not even speak, though the eyes of the fond little pilgrim were turned upon her in baby affection.
"Well—you'll git there all right," said the blacksmith, voicing the hope that swelled in his heart. "So long, and let us know how the little feller makes it with the children."
"By jinks!—so long," said Keno, striving tremendously to keep down his rising emotions. "So long. I'll stay by the claim."
"And give our love to them three little gals," said Bone. "So long."
One after another they wrung the big, rough hand, and said "So long" in their easy way.
"Bye, Miss Doc," said Jim, at the last. "Skeezucks—say good-bye—to
Miss Doc—and all the boys. Say good-bye."
The little fellow had heard "good-bye" when the three little caps of red departed. It came as a word that hurt his tiny heart. But, obediently, he looked about at all his friends.
"Dood-bye," he said, in baby accents. "Dood-bye."