Older men and more thoughtful came up at last, to look upon the little wonder and to read the story of this new volume fresh from the press. They looked long and silently. They were as gentle as lambs. Death had no terror to them, it was not half so solemn, so mysterious, as this birth in the heart of the Sierras. Life was there, then, as well as death. People would come and go there as elsewhere. The hand of God had stretched over the mountain, down into the awful gorge, and set down a little angel at their cabin doors. It was very, very welcome, and the old men bobbed their heads with delight.
At last all was still, and the little Judge felt that this was not an occasion to be lost. In fact, had there been a clergyman there to say a word, it had had more good effect than all the funeral sermons that the little red-faced man had pronounced in the camp. The occasion was a singular one, and the men's hearts were now as mellow as new-plowed land that had long lain fallow and waiting for the seed.
"This, my friends," began the little man, standing upon a stump, and extending his hands towards the baby, "this, my friends, shows us that the wonderful climate of Californy—" Just then some one poked the fat little fellow in the stomach with his pipe-stem, and he doubled up like a jack-knife and quietly got down, as if nothing had happened.
There was a lull then, and things began to look embarrassing. Sandy was now of course too proud, too happy, too much of a man to carouse, but he called the cinnamon-headed man to his side by a crook of his finger, and making the sign so well known in the Sierras, and so well understood by all who are thirsty, the parties divided—the camp to carouse to the little stranger in the Howling Wilderness, and Sandy to return to his "fam'ly."
"Here's to—to—to—here's to it! Here's to the Little Half-a-pint!" The men were standing in a row, their glasses high up, and dipping in every angle and to every point of the compass, but they did not know the baby's name; they did not even know its sex. And so in that moment, without stopping to think, and without any time to spare, they spoke of it as "it," and they named it Little Half-a-pint.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE QUESTION NONE COULD ANSWER.
How the Widow's heart had been beating all this time! How she waited, and waited, and listened, and how often she sent Captain Tommy to the door to tell her, if possible, how her baby fared among the half-wild men of the camp.
How glad she was when she saw Sandy enter, all flurry and delight, as if he had been the central figure in some great triumph. Then a bit of the old sadness and cast of care swept over her face, and she nestled down in the pillow and put up her two hands to hide a moment from the light.