Bruvver Jims Baby | Page 5

home.
Tintoretto, beholding his master preparing a fire to heat up some food,
delved at once into everything and every place where a wet little nose
could be thrust. Having snorted in the dusty corners, he trotted to the
bench whereon the water-bucket stood, and, standing on his hind legs,
gratefully lapped up a drink from the pail. His thirst appeased, he
clambered ambitiously into one of the bunks, discovered a nice pair of
boots, and, dragging one out on the floor, proceeded to carry it under
the table and to chew it as heartily as possible.
There was presently savory smoke, sufficient for an army, in the place,
while sounds of things sizzling made music for the hungry. The miner
laid bare a section of the table, which he set with cups, plates, and iron
tools for eating. He then dished up two huge supplies of steaming beans
and bacon, two monster cups of coffee, black as tar, and cut a giant pile
of dun-colored bread.
"Aborigineezer," he said, "the banquet waits."

Thereupon he fetched his weary little guest to the board and attempted
to seat him on a stool. The tiny man tried to open his eyes, but the
effort failed. Had he been awake and sitting erect on the seat provided
for his use, his head could hardly have come to the level of the supper.
"Can't you come to, long enough to eat?" inquired the much-concerned
miner. "No? Wal, that's too bad. Couldn't drink the coffee or go the
beans? H'm, I guess I can't take you down to show you off to the boys
to-night. You'll have to git to your downy couch." He returned the
slumbering child to the bunk, where he tucked him into the blankets.
Tintoretto did ample justice to the meal, however, and filled in so
thoroughly that his round little pod of a stomach was a burden to carry.
He therefore dropped himself down on the floor, breathed out a sigh of
contentment, and shut his two bright eyes.
Old Jim concluded a feast that made those steaming heaps of food
diminish to the point of vanishing. He sat there afterwards, leaning his
grizzled head upon his hand and looking towards the bunk where the
tiny little chap he had found was peacefully sleeping. The fire burned
low in the chimney; the candle sank down in its socket. On the floor the
pup was twitching in his dreams. Outside the peace, too vast to be
ruffled by puny man, had settled on all that tremendous expanse of
mountains.
When his candle was about to expire the miner deliberately prepared
himself for bed, and crawled in the bunk with his tiny guest, where he
slept like the pup and the child, so soundly that nothing could suffice to
disturb his dreams.
The arrows of the sun itself, flung from the ridge of the opposite hills,
alone dispelled the slumbers in the cabin.
The hardy old Jim arose from his blankets, and presently flung the door
wide open.
"Come in," he said to the day. "Come in."

The pup awoke, and, running out, barked in a crazy way of gladness.
His master washed his face and hands at a basin just outside the door,
and soon had breakfast piping hot. By then it was time to look to
Aborigineezer. To Jim's delight the little man was wide awake and
looking at him gravely from the blankets, his funny old cap still in
place on his head, pulled down over his ears.
"Time to wash for breakfast," announced the miner. "But I don't
guarantee the washin' will be the kind that mother used to give," and
taking his tiny foundling in his arms he carried him out to the basin by
the door.
For a moment he looked in doubt at the only apology for a wash-rag the
shanty afforded.
"Wal, it's an awful dirty cloth that you can't put a little more blackness
on, I reckon," he drawled, and dipping it into the water he rubbed it
vigorously across the gasping little fellow's face.
Then, indeed, the man was astounded. A wide streak, white as milk,
had appeared on the baby countenance.
"Pierce my pearls!" exclaimed the miner, "if ever I saw a rag in my
shack before that would leave a white mark on anything! Say!" And he
took off the youngster's old fur cap.
He was speechless for a moment, for the little fellow's hair was as
brown as a nut.
"I snum!" said Jim, wiping the wondering little face in a sort of fever of
discovery and taking off color at every daub with the rag. "White
kid--painted! Ain't an Injun by a thousand miles!"
And this was the truth. A timid little paleface, fair as dawn itself, but
smeared with