The presents were heaped on the floor in sight of the pale little Skeezucks, who clung unfailingly, through it all, to the funny makeshift of a doll that "Bruvver Jim" had placed in his keeping. He appeared not at all to comprehend the meaning of the gifts the men had brought, or to know their purpose. That never a genuinely happy Christmas had brightened his little, mysterious life, Miss Dennihan knew by a swift, keen process of womanly intuition.
"I wisht he wasn't so sad," she said, from time to time. "I expect he's maybe pinin'."
On the following day there came a change. The little fellow tossed in his bed with a fever that rose with every hour. With eyes now burning bright, he scanned the face of the gray old miner and begged for "Bruvver Jim."
"This is Bruvver Jim," the man assured him repeatedly. "What does baby want old Jim to do?"
"Bruv-ver—Jim," came the half-sobbed little answer. "Bruv-ver—Jim."
Jim took him up and held him fast in his arms. The weary little mind had gone to some tragic baby past.
"No-body—wants me—anywhere," he said.
The heart in old Jim was breaking. He crooned a hundred tender declarations of his foster-parenthood, of his care, of his wish to be a comfort and a "pard."
But something of the fever now had come between the tiny ears and any voice of tenderness.
"Bruv-ver—Jim; Bruv-ver—Jim," the little fellow called, time and time again.