Colin, fully attired in shirt, trousers, and moccasins, was presently dismissed over the plank. He lingered on the shore, shouting opprobrious epithets to his elder, still in captivity. At the same time the baby was dressed in the smallest pair of long pants ever made. He was as bow-legged as a bulldog. Jack leaned back, roaring with laughter at the figure of gravity he made. Gibbie didn't mind. He could walk, but he preferred to sit. He continued to sit cross-legged on the end of the barge, and to stare.
Next, Andy was seated on the box, while Mary, kneeling behind him, produced her scissors.
"If you don't sit still you'll get the top of your cars cut off!" she said severely.
But sitting still was difficult under the taunts from ashore.
"Jutht you wait till I git aholt of you," lisped the toothless one, proving that the language of unregenerate youth is much the same on the far-off Spirit River as it is on the Bowery.
Jack returned to the raft and unstrapped the banjo case. "Be a good boy and I'll sing you a song," he said, presumably to Andy, but looking at Mary meanwhile.
At the sound of the tuning-up the infant Buddha in long pants gravely arose stern foremost, and reseated himself at the edge of the barge, where he could get a better view of the player.
Jack chose another rollicking air, but a new tone had crept into his deep voice. He sang softly, for he had no desire to bring others down the bank to interrupt his further talk with Mary.
"Oh, the pretty, pretty creature!
When I next do meet her
No more like a clown will I face her frown,
But gallantly will I treat her,
But gallantly will I treat her,
Oh, the pretty, pretty creature!"
The infant Buddha condescended to smile, and to bounce once or twice on his fundament by way of applause. Andy sat as still as a surprised chipmunk. Colin was sorry now that he had cut himself off from the barge. As for the boy's big sister, she kept her eyes veiled, and plied the scissors with slightly languorous motions of the hands. Even a merry song may work a deal of sentimental damage under certain conditions. And the sun shone, and the bright river moved down.