“Hey?––Uh! By––James! Well, if that ain’t a picture now! These sure are mighty fine little glasses, ma’am. I can see ’em plain as day.”
“Them?––you say ‘them,’ Daddy?” cried Isobel.
“Sure. Come and look for yourself. Guess Lafe is fixing Mr. Blake’s leg.––Which reminds me, honey, that before we left the ranch, Mrs. Blake had me send for that lunger sawbones that’s come to live at Stockchute. He’ll be here, I figure, before or soon after the boys get Mr. Blake up into God’s sunshine.”
“Brother Tom, Daddy––you mean my Brother Tom!” joyfully corrected the girl as she took the glasses.
“Well, you’ve got to give me time to chew on it, honey. It’s come too sudden for me to take it all in.” He stood up and gazed gravely at the smiling mother and her comforted baby. “Hum-m-m. Then that yearling is my Chuckie’s own blood nephew. Well, ma’am, what do you think of it, if I may ask?” 383
“Can’t you make it ‘Jenny,’ Uncle Wes?” asked Genevieve.
He stared at her blankly. “But I didn’t adopt him, ma’am––only her.”
“He is the brother of your dear daughter, and I am his wife. Come now,” she coaxed, “you must admit that brings me near enough to call you ‘Uncle Wes.’”
“You’ve got me, ma’am––Jenny. I give in, I throw up the fight. That irrigation project now––Chuckie’s brother can have anything of mine he asks for. Only there’s one thing––you’ve got to make that yearling say ‘Granddad’ when he talks to me.”
“O-oh!” cooed Genevieve. “To think you feel that way towards him! Of course he shall say it. And I––Will you not allow me to make it ‘Daddy’?”