Bruvver Jim's Baby Part 3

Surprise had been laid on double, in the town, by the news of what had occurred. In the first place, it was almost incredible that old "If-only" Jim had actually made his long-threatened pilgrimage to fetch his promised pup, but to have him back here, not only with the dog in question, but also with a tiny youngster found at the edge of the wilderness, was far too much to comprehend.

In a single bound, old Jim had been elevated to a starry firmament of importance, from wellnigh the lowest position of insignificance in the camp, attained by his general worthlessness and shiftlessness--of mind and demeanor--which qualities had pa.s.sed into a proverb of the place.

Procrastination, like a cuckoo, had made its nest in his pockets, where the hands of Jim would hatch its progeny. Labor and he abhorred each other mightily. He had never been known to strike a lick of work till larder and stomach were both of them empty and credit had taken to the hills. He drawled in his speech till the opening parts of the good resolutions he frequently uttered were old and forgotten before the remainders were spoken. He loitered in his walk, said the boys, till he clean forgot whether he was going up hill or down. "Hurry," he had always said, by way of a motto, "is an awful waste of time that a feller could go easy in."

Yet in his shambling, easy-going way, old Jim had drifted into nearly every heart in the camp. His townsmen knew he had once had a good education, for outcroppings thereof jutted from his personality even as his cheek-bones jutted out of his russet old countenance.

Not by any means consenting to permit old Jim to understand how astonishment was oozing from their every pore, the men brought forth by Keno's news could not, however, entirely mask their incredulity and interest. As Jim came deliberately down the trail, with the pale little foundling on his arm, he was greeted with every possible term of familiarity, to all of which he drawled a response in kind.

Not a few in the group of citizens pulled off their hats at the nearer approach of the child, then somewhat sheepishly put them on again.

With stoical resolutions almost immediately upset, they gathered closely in about the miner and his tiny companion, crowding the red-headed Keno away from his place of honor next to the child.

The quaint little pilgrim, in his old, fur cap and long, "man's"

trousers, looked at the men in a grave way of doubt and questioning.

"It's a sure enough kid, all the same," said one of the men, as if he had previously entertained some doubts of the matter. "And ain't he white!"

"Of course a white kid's white," answered the barkeep, scornfully.

"Awful cute little shaver," said another. "By cracky, Jim, you must have had him up yer sleeve for a week! He don't look more'n about one week old."

"Aw, listen to the man afraid to know anything about anything!" broke in the blacksmith. "One week! He's four or five months, or I'm a woodchuck."

"You kin tell by his teeth," suggested a leathery individual, stroking his bony jaw knowingly. "I used to be up on the game myself, but I'm a little out of practice jest at present."

"Shut up, you scare him, Shaky," admonished the teamster. "He's a pretty little chipmunk. Jim, wherever did you git him?"

Jim explained every detail of his trip to fetch the pup, stretching out his story of finding the child and bringing him hither, with pride in every item of his wonderful performance. His audience listened with profound attention, broken only by an occasional exclamation.

"Old If-only Jim! Old son-of-a-sea-cook!" repeated one, time after time.

Meanwhile the silent little man himself was clinging to the miner's flannel collar with all his baby strength. With shy little glances he scanned the members of the group, and held the tighter to the one safe anchorage in which he seemed to feel a confidence. A number of the rough men furtively attempted a bit of coquetry, to win the favor of a smile.

"You don't mean, Jim, you found him jest a-settin' right in the bresh, with them dead jack-rabbits lyin' all 'round?" insisted the carpenter.

"That's what," said Jim, and reluctantly he brought the tale to its final conclusion, adding his theory of the loss of the child by the Indians on their hunt, and bearing down hard on the one little speech that the tiny foundling had made just this morning.

The rough men were silenced by this. One by one they took off their hats again, smoothed their hair, and otherwise made themselves a trifle prettier to look upon.

"Well, what you goin' to do with him, Jim?" inquired Field, after a moment.

"Oh, I'll grow him up," said Jim. "And some day I'll send him to college."

"College be hanged!" said Field. "A lot of us best men in Borealis never went to college--and we're proud of it!"

"So the little feller said n.o.body wanted him, did he?" asked the blacksmith. "Well, I wouldn't mind his stayin' 'round the shop. Where do you s'pose he come from first? And painted like a little Piute Injun! No wonder he's a scared little tike."

"I ain't the one which scares him," announced a man whose hair, beard, and eyes all stuck out amazingly. "If I'd 'a' found him first he'd like me same as he takes to Jim."

"Speakin' of catfish, where the little feller come from original is what gits to me," said Field, the father of Borealis, reflectively.

"You see, if he's four or five months old, why he's sure undergrowed.

You could drink him up in a cupful of coffee and never even cough. And bein' undergrowed, why, how could he go on a rabbit-drive along with the Injuns? I'll bet you there's somethin' mysterious about his origin."

"Huh! Don't you jump onto no little shaver's origin when you 'ain't got any too much to speak of yourself," the blacksmith commanded.

"He's as big as any little skeezucks of his size!"

"Kin he read an' write?" asked a person of thirty-six, who had "picked up" the mentioned accomplishments at the age of thirty-five.

"He's alive and smart as mustard!" put in Keno, a champion by right of prior acquaintance with the timid little man.

"Wal, that's all right, but mustard don't do no sums in 'rithmetic,"

said the bar-keep. "I'm kind of stuck, myself, on this here pup."

Tintoretto had been busily engaged making friends in any direction most handily presented. He wound sinuously out of the barkeep's reach, however, with pup-wise discrimination. The attention of the company was momentarily directed to the small dog, who came in for not a few of the camp's outspoken compliments.

"He's mebbe all right, but he's homely as Aunt Marier comin' through the thrashin'-machine," decided the teamster.

The carpenter added: "He's so all-fired awkward he can't keep step with hisself."

"Wal, he ain't so rank in his judgment as some I could indicate,"

drawled Jim, prepared to defend both pup and foundling to the last extent. "At least, he never thought he was smart, abscondin' with a little free sample of a brain."

"What kind of a mongrel is he, anyway?" inquired Bone.

"Thorough-breed," replied old Jim. "There ain't nothing in him but dog."

The blacksmith was still somewhat longingly regarding the pale little man who continued to cling to the miner's collar. "What's his name?"

said he.

"Tintoretto," answered Jim, still on the subject of his yellowish pup.

"Tintoretto?" said the company, and they variously attacked the appropriateness of any such a "handle."

"What fer did you ever call him that?" asked Bone.

"Wal, I thought he deserved it," Jim confessed.

"Poor little kid--that's all I've got to say," replied the compa.s.sionate blacksmith.

"That ain't the kid's name," corrected Jim, with alacrity. "That's what I call the pup."

"That's worse," said Field. "For he's a dumb critter and can't say nothing back."

"But what's the little youngster's name?" inquired the smith, once again.

"Yes, what's the little shaver's name?" echoed the teamster. "If it's as long as the pup's, why, give us only a mile or two at first, and the rest to-morrow."

"I was goin' to name him 'Aborigineezer,'" Jim admitted, somewhat sheepishly. "But he ain't no Piute Injun, so I can't."