That night, when he had been given a bath in the little zinc tub they

used for washing clothes, and had been carefully buttoned inside a clean

undershirt of Bud's, for want of better raiment, Lovin Child missed

something out of his sleepytime cudding. He wanted Marie, and he did not

know how to make his want known to this big, tender, awkward man who had

befriended him and filled his thoughts till bedtime. He began to whimper

and look seekingly around the little cabin. The whimper grew to a cry

which Bud's rude rocking back and forth on the box before the fireplace

could not still.

"M'ee--take!" wailed Lovin Child, sitting up and listening. "M'ee

take--Uvin Chal!"

"Aw, now, you don't wanta go and act like that. Listen here, Boy. You

lay down here and go to sleep. You can search me for what it is you're

trying to say, but I guess you want your mama, maybe, or your bottle,

chances are. Aw, looky!" Bud pulled his watch from his pocket--a man's

infallible remedy for the weeping of infant charges--and dangled it

anxiously before Lovin Child.

With some difficulty he extracted the small hands from the long limp

tunnels of sleeves, and placed the watch in the eager fingers.

"Listen to the tick-tick! Aw, I wouldn't bite into it... oh, well, darn

it, if nothing else'll do yuh, why, eat it up!"

Lovin Child stopped crying and condescended to take a languid interest

in the watch--which had a picture of Marie pasted inside the back of the

case, by the way. "Ee?" he inquired, with a pitiful little catch in his

breath, and held it up for Bud to see the busy little second hand. "Ee?"

he smiled tearily and tried to show Cash, sitting aloof on his bench

beside the head of his bunk and staring into the fire. But Cash gave

no sign that he heard or saw anything save the visions his memory was

conjuring in the dancing flames.

"Lay down, now, like a good boy, and go to sleep," Bud wheedled. "You

can hold it if you want to--only don't drop it on the floor--here! Quit

kickin' your feet out like that! You wanta freeze? I'll tell the world

straight, it's plumb cold and snaky outside to-night, and you're pretty

darn lucky to be here instead of in some Injun camp where you'd have to

bed down with a mess of mangy dogs, most likely. Come on, now--lay down

like a good boy!"

"M'ee! M'ee take!" teased Lovin Child, and wept again; steadily,

insistently, with a monotonous vigor that rasped Bud's nerves and nagged

him with a vague memory of something familiar and unpleasant. He rocked

his body backward and forward, and frowned while he tried to lay hold of

the memory. It was the high-keyed wailing of this same man-child wanting

his bottle, but it eluded Bud completely. There was a tantalizing sense

of familiarity with the sound, but the lungs and the vocal chords of

Lovin Child had developed amazingly in two years, and he had lost the

small-infant wah-hah.




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