"'Ain't we all laughed at them things enough to suit you yit?" inquired
Bone. "Some people would want you to laugh at their funeral, I reckon."
"Wal, laughin' ain't everything there is worth the havin'," Jim drawled. "Some people's laughin' has made me ashamed, and some has made me walk with a limp, and some has made me fightin' mad. When little Skeezucks starts it off—I reckon it's goin' to make me a boy again, goin' in swimmin' and eatin' bread-and-molasses."
For the next few days, however, Jim and the others were content to see the signs of returning baby strength that came to little Skeezucks. That the clearing away of the leaden clouds, and the coming of beauty and sunshine, pure and dazzling, had a magical effect upon the tiny chap, as well as on themselves, the men were all convinced. And the camp, one afternoon, underwent a wholly novel and unexpected sensation of delight.
A man, with his sweet, young wife and three small, bright-faced children, came driving to Borealis. With two big horses steaming in the crystal air and blowing great, white clouds of mist from their nostrils, with wheels rimmed deeply by the snow between the spokes, with colored wraps and mittened hands, and three red worsted caps upon the children's heads, the vision coming up the one straight street was quite enough to warm up every heart in town.
The rig drew up in front of the blacksmith-shop, and twenty men came walking there to give it welcome.
"Howdy, stranger?" said the blacksmith, as he came from his forge, bareheaded, his leathern apron tied about his waist, his sleeves rolled up, and his big, hairy arms akimbo. "Pleasant day. You're needin' somethin' fixed, I see," and he nodded quietly towards a road-side job of mending at the doubletree, which was roughly wrapped about with rope.
"Yes. Good-morning," said the driver of the rig, a clear-eyed, wholesome-looking man of clerical appearance. "We had a little accident. We've come from Bullionville. How long do you think it will take you to put us in shape?"
The smith was looking at the children.
Such a trio of blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked, unalarmed little girls had never before been seen in Borealis; and they all looked back at him and the others with the most engaging frankness.
"Well, about how far you goin'?" said the smith, by way of answer.