Bruvver Jims Baby | Page 9

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 nobody 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 compassionate
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."
"Hard-hearted ole sea-serpent!" ejaculated Field. "No wonder he looks
like cryin'."
"Oh, he ain't goin' to cry," said the blacksmith, roughly patting the
frightened little pilgrim's cheek with his great, smutty hand. "What's he
got to cry about, now he's here in Borealis?"
"Well, leave him cry, if he wants to," said the fat little Keno. "I 'ain't
heard a baby cry fer six or seven years."
"Go off in a corner and cry in your pocket, and leave it come out as you
want it,"