Bruvver Jim's Baby Part 5

"How?" demanded another.

"It wouldn't be so far off the mark for a little kid like him,"

tentatively a.s.serted Field, the father of the camp, "S'pose we give it a shot?"

"Anything suits me," agreed the carpenter. "Church might be kind of decent, after all. Jim, what you got to say 'bout the subject?"

Jim was still patting the timid little foundling on the back with a comforting hand.

"Who'd be preacher?" said he.

They were stumped for a moment.

"Why--you," said Keno. "Didn't you find little Skeezucks?"

"Kerrect," said Bone. "Jim kin talk like a steam fire-engine squirtin'

languages."

"If only I had the application," said Jim, modestly, "I might git up somethin' pa.s.sable. Where could we have it?"

This was a stumper again. No building in the camp had ever been consecrated to the uses of religious worship.

Bone came to the rescue without delay.

"You kin have my saloon, and not a cent of cost," said he.

"Bully fer Bone!" said several of the men.

"Y-e-s, but would it be just the tip-toppest, tippe-bob-royal of a place?" inquired Field, a little cautiously.

"What's the matter with it?" said Bone. "When it's church it's church, and I guess it would know the way to behave! If there's anything better, trot it out."

"You can come to the shop if it suits any better," said the blacksmith.

"It 'ain't got no floor of gold, and there ain't nothing like wings, exceptin' wheels, but the fire kin be kept all day to warm her up, and there's plenty of room fer all which wants to come."

"If I'm goin' to do the preachin',' I'd like the shop first rate," said Jim. "What day is to-day?"

"Friday," replied the teamster.

"All right. Then we'll say on Sunday we celebrate with church in Webber's blacksmith shop," agreed old Jim, secretly delighted beyond expression. "We won't git gay with anything too high-falootin', but we'd ought to git Shorty Hobb to show up with his fiddle."

"Certain!" a.s.sented the barkeep. "You kin leave that part of the game to me."

"If we've got it all settled, I reckon I'll go back up to the shack,"

said Jim. "The little feller 'ain't had a chance yet to play with his doll."

"Is that a doll?" inquired the teamster, regarding the grave little pilgrim's bundle of fur in curiosity. "How does he know it's a doll?"

"He knows a good sight more than lots of older people," answered Jim.

"And if only I've got the gumption I'll make him a whole slough of toys and things."

"Well, leave us say good-bye to him 'fore you go," said the blacksmith.

"Does he savvy shakin' hands?"

He gave a little grip to the tiny hand that held the doll, and all the others did the same. Little Skeezucks looked at them gravely, his quaint baby face playing havoc with their rough hearts.

"Softest little fingers I ever felt," said Webber. "I'd give twenty dollars if he'd laugh at me once."

"Awful nice little shaver," said another.

"I once had a mighty touchin' story happen to me, myself," said Keno, solemnly.

"What was it?" inquired a sympathetic miner.

"Couldn't bear to tell it--not this mornin'," said Keno. "Too touchin'."

"Good-bye fer just at present, little Skeezucks," said Field, and, suddenly divesting himself of his brazen watch and chain, he offered it up as a gift, with spontaneous generosity. "Want it, Skeezucks?" said he. "Don't you want to hear it go?"

The little man would relax neither his clutch on Jim's collar nor his hold of his doll, wherefore he had no hand with which to accept the present.

"Do you think he runs a p.a.w.n-shop, Field?" said the teamster. "Put it back."

The men all guffawed in their raucous way.

"Keeps mighty good time, all the same," said Field, and he re-swung the chain, like a hammock, from the parted wings of his vest, and dropped the huskily ticking guardian of the minutes back to its place in his pocket.

"Watches that don't keep perfect time," drawled Jim, "are scarcer than wimmin who tell their age on the square."

"Better come over, Jim, and have a drink," suggested the barkeep.

"You're sure one of the movin' spirits of Borealis."

"No, I don't think I'll start the little feller off with the drinkin'

example," replied the miller. "You'll often notice that the men who git the name of bein' movin' spirits is them that move a good deal of whiskey into their interior department. I reckon we'll mosey home the way we are."

"I guess I'll join you up above," said the fat little Keno, pulling stoutly at his sleeves. "You'll need me, anyway, to cut some brush fer the fire."

With tiny Skeezucks gravely looking backward at the group of men all waving their hats in a rough farewell, old Jim started proudly up the trail that led to the Babylonian Glory claim, with Tintoretto romping awkwardly at his heels.

Suddenly, Webber, the blacksmith, left the groups and ran quickly after them up the slope.

"Say, Jim," he said. "I thought, perhaps, if you reckoned little Skeezucks ought to bunk down here in town--why--I wouldn't mind if you fetched him over to the house. There's plenty of room."

"Wal, not to-day I won't," said Jim. "But thank you, Webber, all the same."

"All right, but if you change your mind it won't be no trouble at all,"

and, not a little disappointed, the smith waved once more to the little pilgrim on the miner's arm and went back down the hill.

Then up spoke Keno.

"Bone and Lufkins both wanted me to tell you, Jim, if you happen to want a change fer little Skeezucks, you can fetch him down to them," he said. "But of course we ain't agoin' to let 'em have our little kid in no great shakes of a hurry."