“Yes; come along, Loney; ve vassen’t long gone, but it vos long enough.”
Then the long-deferred “treat” was brought up for discussion, and Bennie hurried his pretty little Dora—his now—and Loney, and they went happily up the steps, leaving the father alone in the dim shop, with a heavy load of—was it joy or sorrow—in his heart? He scarcely knew himself.
CHAPTER IV.
“Vell,” sighed the shoemaker, taking up the heavily-spiked shoes, and preparing to mend them, “now, vouldn’t dem shoes pe awful to stamp on anoder feller’s corns? It’s going to pe awful lonesome, but I pe glat dot Dora vill haf a goot husband, like de Bennie. I guess ve fix it mit a pigger place. I’ll vistle or sing till dey comes pack.”
Saying those philosophical words, Morris began to whistle, but the effort brought tears to his eyes. Then he tried to sing, but the words became a husky rattle, and, with a rueful face, he said:
“Vell, ve haf vork und dot is petter as medicine for a sick heart.”
Scarcely had he uttered these words when the doorway was darkened by a form, and a big man, who looked still larger in his full cowboy costume, came clattering down the steps to the little shop. The shoemaker looked at him in dumb wonder. The cowboy costume was one he had never seen before, and he looked at it, from the wide, flapping sombrero to the spurred boots, not missing the hairy “chaps,” or leggins, and belt which, to Morris’ excited eyes, seemed stuck full of pistols and knives, although, really, the only two pistols were carried in the man’s hands. Plainly, the man was intoxicated and at a dangerous stage. He fired a shot into one corner and then another in rapid succession, while he shouted:
“Ee—you—Ee—you! I’m a wild and woolly catamount. Ee—you! I’m a bald eagle and I’m flying high. Ee—you! Hip! Hip! I’m lookin’ for blood, and I’m thirsty. Whoop-ee, whoop-ee!”
The frightened shoemaker, if he thought anything, imagined that this was some new kind of Cossack sent to massacre, as in Russia, and he fell backward over his bench, nearly fainting, yet managed to say:
“De slaughter-house, dot’s ofer in Jersey, de odder site of de river.”