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She came carrying the tin of water in both little hands, and, lifting it very carefully, she tried to hold it to his lips. Neither she nor McWha was quite successful in this, however. While they were fumbling over it, Jimmy Brackett hurried in, followed by the Boss, and Rosy-Lilly's nursing was superseded.
And Rosy-Lilly began to feel a little aggrieved at the inadequate attention which she was now receiving from all but Jimmy Brackett and the ever-faithful Johnson. She began to forgive McWha, and once more to try her baby wiles upon him. But McWha was as coldly unconscious as a stone. One day, however, Fate concluded to range herself on Rosy-Lilly's side.
This guest-bunk the Boss at once allotted to Rosy-Lilly, but on the strict condition that Johnson should continue to act as nurse and superintend Rosy-Lilly's nightly toilet. Rosy-Lilly had not been in the camp a week before McWha's "ugliness" to her had aroused even the Boss's resentment, and the Boss was a just man.
Nevertheless, it came about that, without a word said by any one, from the hour of Rosy-Lilly's arrival in camp, all the indecent "chanteys" were dropped, as if into oblivion, from the woodsmen's repertoire. During the songs, the smoking, and the lazy fun, Rosy-Lilly would slip from one big woodsman to another, an inconspicuous little figure in the smoke-gloomed light of the two oil-lamps.
"Only I want it understood, right now, I ain't no guardeen, an' won't be, to nawthin' that walks in petticoats! What I'm thinkin' of is the old cow out yonder, an' them hens o' Joe's what I seen a-roostin' over the cowstall." "Them's all Rosy-Lilly's, an' goes with us an' her to camp to-morrer," answered Johnson with decision.
She would not uncover her eyes, however, for any one, and her heart-broken wailing was not hushed till Brackett thrust his way through the crowd, growling inarticulate blasphemies at them all, and bore her back to her room. When he emerged twenty minutes later no one asked him about Rosy-Lilly's prayers.
I so sorry!" and slowly shaking her head and lightly patting the big, limp hand where it lay outside the blanket. McWha half opened his eyes, and their faint glance fell on the top of Rosy-Lilly's head as she bent over his hand. With a wry smile he shut them again, but to his surprise, he felt rather gratified. Then Jimmy Brackett came in and whisked the child away.
Johnson fixed him with his disconcerting eye, and retorted witheringly "Ye thinks ye knows a pile about women, Bird Pigeon. But the kind ye knows about ain't the kind Rosy-Lilly's agoin' to be!" Nearly a week went by before Rosy-Lilly saw another chance to assail McWha's forbidding defences.
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