“Why, Larkins—Jim—what’s the trouble—what’s the matter?” he asked, a thousand thoughts fluttering within his breast. “I wouldn’t feel so bad.”
With a desperate effort Larkins, his face twitching perceptibly, the lines about his eyes deepening, struggled to control himself. At last, after taking in the astonished faces about him, he plunged into his tale of woe.
“Say, boys, I’m homesick—I’m broke—and what’s more, I don’t care who knows it.” He paused, his fingers opening and closing spasmodically, and for a moment it seemed as if he could not continue—a moment of silence in which the Minstrel began to pick gently on his banjo the air of Old Dog Tray.
“I want to go home!” suddenly burst from the unfortunate man’s lips. “I’m tired o’ drillin’ rocks; I want to be in the fields again; I want to see the grain growin’; I want the dirt in the furrows at home; I want old Pensylvanny; I want my folks; I’m done, boys, I’m done, I’m done...!” And with these words he buried his face in his hands.
“Oh, mother, an-gel mother, are you waitin’—”
sang the Minstrel, dolefully.
Men looked at one another and were distressingly affected; The Polka had never witnessed a more painful episode. Throwing a coin at the Minstrel, Sonora stopped him with an impatient gesture; the latter nodded understandingly at the same time that Nick, apparently indifferent to Larkin’s collapse, began to dance a jig behind the bar. A look of scowling reproach instantly appeared on Sonora’s face. It was uncalled-for since, far from being heartless and indifferent to the man’s misfortunes, the little barkeeper had taken this means to distract the miners’ attention from the pitiful sight.
“Boys, Jim Larkins ’lows he’s goin’ back East,” announced Sonora. “Chip in every mother’s son o’ you.”
Immediately every man at the faro table demanded cash from The Sidney Duck; a moment later they, as well as the men who were not playing cards, threw their money into the hat which Sonora passed around. It was indeed a well-filled hat that Sonora held out to the weeping man.