“I don’t want anything cheap!” said Wully, “We’ll take this.”
Chirstie stood examining it inside and out. She was wondering what her father would say to such a coat.
She wore the nobby coat away. Wully carried the old garment. He had been gay, almost hilarious all the morning, ever since selling the prairie chickens so well. And now as he looked at his stunning wife, walking demurely along in such grandeur, his spirits rose higher. He watched people look at her. He chuckled to see them.
They walked down the busy little street. He left the old coat at the hotel. She saw a shawl she admired, and he wanted to buy it for her. But she was thinking how nice it would be for his mother, a little soft fine shawl like that. He wondered that he hadn’t thought of that himself. They bought the shawl, and went on down the street. They came to a place where tintypes were taken. It came over him like a flash.
“We’ll go in and have our pictures taken!” he exclaimed.
“Oh,” she said hesitating. “How much will it cost?”
“Oh, nothing much!” he exclaimed. He made her go in with him. There was a picture, was there, he was thinking, that made Wee Johnnie look like the son of that snake? Well, there should soon be another that made him look like another man’s son. Chirstie had never had her likeness taken. But Wully had had his made in St. Louis, to be sent to his mother. He knew how to walk in and have the thing done grandly.
He sat down in a chair, and put the baby on one knee, paternally. On the other knee he spread out a great hand. Chirstie took her place behind him, her hand on his shoulder, her feather curling down over her hat, her new sixteen-dollar coat, her wine-colored skirts showing bravely. And when that was done, he made her sit down with the baby on her knee, for a picture of just the mother and son. And then a further happy thought came to him. He sat down and took the baby, and cuddled his face right up against his own, and demanded a picture.
“It ain’t usual,” the photographer protested. “I can’t take a picture like that! It ain’t usual!”
“This ain’t no usual baby!” Wully replied chuckling. Who could have made a statement more paternal than that? “I want his face against mine!” And he got the picture taken that way, in the end.