Bruvver Jims Baby | Page 7

a big metal
powder-flask to supply the body.
Unfortunately, as potatoes were costly, the only tuber they had in the
house was a weazened old thing that parted with its wrinkled skin
reluctantly and was not very white when partially peeled. However, Jim
pared off enough of its surface on which to make a countenance, and
left the darker hide above to form the dolly's hair. He bored two eyes, a
nose, and a mouth in the toughened substance, and blackened them
vividly with soot from the chimney. After this he bored a larger hole,
beneath the chin, and pushed the head thus created upon the metal
spout of the flask, where it certainly stuck with firmness.
With a bit of cord the skin of the rabbit was now secured about the neck
and body of the lady's form, and her beauty was complete. That certain
particles of powder rattled lightly about in her graceful interior only
served to render her manners more animated and her person more like
good, lively company, for Jim so decided himself.

"There you are. That's the prettiest dolly you ever saw anywhere," said
he, as he handed it over to the willing little chap. "And she all belongs
to you."
The mite of a boy took her hungrily to his arms, and Jim was peculiarly
affected.
"Do you want to give her a name?" he said.
Slowly the quaint little pilgrim shook his head.
"Have you got a name?" the miner inquired, as he had a dozen times
before.
This time a timid nod was forthcoming.
"Oh," said Jim, in suppressed delight. "What is your nice little name?"
For a moment coyness overtook the tiny man. Then he faintly replied,
"Nu-thans."
"Nuisance?" repeated the miner, and again he saw the timid little nod.
"But that ain't a name," said Jim. "Is 'Nuisance' all the name the baby's
got?"
His bit of a guest seemed to think very hard, but at last he nodded as
before.
"Well, string my pearls," said the miner to himself, "if somebody 'ain't
been mean and low!" He added, cheerfully, "Wal, it's easier to live
down a poor name than it is to live up to a fine one, any day, but we'll
name you somethin' else, I reckon, right away. And ain't that dolly
nice?"
The two were in the midst of appreciating the charms of her ladyship
when the cabin door was abruptly opened and in came a coatless, fat,
little, red-headed man, puffing like a bellows and pulling down his
shirtsleeves with a great expenditure of energy, only to have them

immediately crawl back to his elbows.
"Hullo, Keno," drawled the lanky Jim. "I thought you was mad and
gone away and died."
"Me? Not me!" puffed the visitor.
"What's that?" and he nodded himself nearly off his balance towards
the tiny guest he saw upon a stool.
With a somewhat belated bark, Tintoretto suddenly came out from his
boot-chewing contest underneath the table and gave the new-comer an
apoplectic start.
"Hey!" he cried. "Hey! By jinks! a whole menajry!"
"That's the pup," said Jim. "And, Keno, here's a poor little skeezucks
that I found a-sittin' in the brush, 'way over to Coyote Valley. I fetched
him home last night, and I was just about to take him down to camp
and show him to the boys."
"By jinks!" said Keno. "Alive!"
"Alive and smart as mustard," said the suddenly proud possessor of a
genuine surprise. "You bet he's smart! I've often noticed how there
never yet was any other kind of a baby. That's one consolation left to
every fool man livin'--he was once the smartest baby in the world,"
"Alive!" repeated Keno, as before. "I'm goin' right down and tell the
camp!"
He bolted out at the door like a shot, and ran down the hill to Borealis
with all his might.
Aware that the news would be spread like a sprinkle of rain, the lanky
Jim put on his hat with a certain jaunty air of importance, and taking
the grave little man on his arm, with the new-made doll and the pup for
company, he followed, where Keno had just disappeared from view,
down the slope.

A moment later the town was in sight, and groups of flannel-shirted,
dusty-booted, slouchily attired citizens were discernible coming out of
buildings everywhere.
Running up the hill again, puffing with added explosiveness, Keno
could hardly contain his excitement.
"I've told em!" he panted. "They know he's alive and smart as
mustard!"
CHAPTER IV
PLANNING A NEW CELEBRATION
The cream, as it were, of the population of the mining-camp were ready
to receive the group from up on the hill. There were nearly twenty men
in the delegation, representing every shade of inelegance. Indeed, they
demonstrated beyond all argument that the