"My gosh-all-hemlock! I'm glad to see ye! Gimme that paw again. Come to the fire. This is Flaxie" (as though he had not had his eyes on her face all the time). "Be'n sick?"
Bert's hollow cough prompted this question.
"Yes. Had some kind of a fever down in Arizony. Oh, I'm all right now," he added in reply to an anxious look from Flaxen.
"An' this is—"
"Baby—Elsie," she replied, putting a finishing touch to the little one's dress, mother-like.
"Where's he?" he asked a little later.
Anson replied with a little gesture, which silenced Bert at the same time that it explained. And when Flaxen was busy a few moments later, Anson said:
"Gone up the spout."
At the table they grew quite gay, talking over old times, and Bert's pale face grew rosier, catching a reflection of the happy faces opposite.
"Say, Bert, do you remember the time you threw that pan o' biscuits I made out into the grass an' killed every dog in the township?" Then they roared.