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Updated: May 12, 2025
Miss Dennihan, sister of "Doc" Dennihan, was undeniably If-only Jim's exact antithesis a scrupulously tidy, exacting lady, so severe in her virtues and so acrid in denunciations of the lack of down-east circumspection that nearly every man in camp shied off from her abode as he might have shied from a bath in nitric acid.
That never a genuinely happy Christmas had brightened his little, mysterious life, Miss Dennihan knew by a swift, keen process of womanly intuition. "I wisht he wasn't so sad," she said, from time to time. "I expect he's maybe pinin'." On the following day there came a change. The little fellow tossed in his bed with a fever that rose with every hour.
But nine o'clock and ten went by, and only the storm outside came down from the hills to the house. Hour after hour the lamp was burning in the window as a beacon for the traveller; hour after hour Miss Dennihan watched the fever and the weary little fellow in its toils. At half-past ten the blacksmith, the carpenter, and Kew came, Tintoretto, the pup, coldly trembling, at their heels.
"My little boy!" said the miner "my little boy!" and taking both doll and little man in his arms he held them in passionate tenderness against his heart. "How da'st you come in my kitchen with your dirty boots?" demanded Miss Dennihan, in all her unabashed pugnacity.
"That sounds like scarin' up voters at a measly political rally." "Can you do it any better?" said the smith, and he offered his hammer. "Here comes Doc Dennihan," interrupted the barkeep. "Ask Doc how it's done. If he don't know, we'll have to wait for old If-only Jim hisself."
"Miss Doc may be home by now," objected Keno, apprehensively. "Well, then, sneak up and see if she has gone off real mad." "S'posen she 'ain't?" Keno promptly hedged. "S'posen she seen me?" "You've got all out-doors to skedaddle in, I reckon." Keno, however, had many objections to any manner of venture with the wily Miss Dennihan.
"Tell her maybe she kin some other time." "This ain't no regular elemercenary institution," added the teamster. "Why not now?" demanded Field. "Why can't she come?" "Becuz," said the smith, "this church ain't no place for a woman, anyhow." A general murmur of assent came from all the men save Field and Doc Dennihan himself. "Leave the show commence," said a voice. "Start her up," said another.
With ominous coupling of the gambler's name with rough and emphatic language, the ten men marched in a body down the street. The wind was howling, a door of some deserted shed was dully, incessantly slamming. Helplessly Miss Dennihan sat by the bed whereon the tiny pilgrim lay, now absolutely motionless. The fever had come to its final stage.
Perspiration oozed from the modest Jim afresh. "I never eat breakfast in the presence of ladies," said he. "Well, you needn't mind me. I'm jest a plain, sensible woman," replied Miss Dennihan. "I don't want to see no feller-critter starve." Jim writhed in the blankets. "I didn't s'pose you could stay all day," he ventured.
Them pants is heirlooms. Wouldn't have anybody fool with them for a million dollars." "They don't look worth no such a figger," said Miss Dennihan, as she held them up and scanned them with a critical eye. "They're wantin' a patch in the knee. It's lucky fer you I toted my bag. I kin always match overhalls, new or faded."
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