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Updated: September 22, 2025
With all the little youngsters in their bright red caps waving their mittened hands and calling out good-bye, the awkward men, Miss Doc, old Jim, and tiny Skeezucks saw them drive away. Till they came to the bend of the road the children continued to wave, and then the great ravine received them as if to the arms of the mountains.
"It suits me down to the ground," said Jim, with whom all ultimate decision lay, by right of his foster-parenthood of little Skeezucks, "only I don't see so plain where we're goin' to git the tree. We're burnin' all the biggest brush around Borealis, and there ain't a genuine Christmas-tree in forty miles." The truth of this observation fell like a dampened blanket on all the company.
He sent a little youngster once to put a heartful of happiness into men, and He's sent this little skeezucks here to show us boys we ain't shut off from everything. He didn't send us no bonanza like they say they've got in Silver Treasury but I wouldn't trade the little kid for all the bullion they will ever melt.
Their earnestness over the child and the day was a beautiful thing to see. Never were presents more impressive as to weight. The men had made them splendidly strong. The gifts had been ticketed variously, many being marked "For Little Skeezucks," but by far the greatest number bore the inscription: "For Bruvver Jim's Baby Merry Christmas."
But after lunch no fewer than twenty of the men of Borealis climbed up the trail to get another look at the quiet little man who glorified the cabin. But the darkness had only begun to creep through the lowermost channels of the canyons when Skeezucks fell asleep. By then old Jim, the pup, and Keno were alone with the child.
By the time gray noon had come across the mountain desolation to the group of little shanties in the snow, old Jim was thoroughly alarmed. Little Skeezucks was helplessly lying in his arms, inert, breathing with difficulty, and now and again moaning, as only a sick little mite of humanity can. "We can't take him down," said the miner, at last. "He ought to have a woman's care."
They were stumped for a moment. "Why you," said Keno. "Didn't you find little Skeezucks?" "Kerrect," said Bone. "Jim kin talk like a steam fire-engine squirtin' languages." "If only I had the application," said Jim, modestly, "I might git up somethin' passable. Where could we have it?" This was a stumper again. No building in the camp had ever been consecrated to the uses of religious worship.
Keno had come to them, telling of the altered plans by which little Skeezucks had found his way to Miss Doc, but by special instruction he added that Jim was certain that improvement was coming already. "He told me that evenin' is the customary hour fer to have a tree, anyhow," concluded Keno, hopefully. "He says he was off when he said to turn it loose at noon."
"I have thought of where little Skeezucks has gone!" "Where?" cried Keno, suddenly aroused. "I'll go and kill the cuss that took him off!" "Miss Doc!" replied the miner. "Miss Doc!" "Miss Doc?" repeated Keno, weakly, pausing in the act of pulling on his boots. "By jinks! Say, I couldn't kill no woman, Jim. How do you know?"
And the first official acts of the wholesome young parson were conducted in the "church" that Bone had given to the town when the happy little Skeezucks was christened "Carson Boone" and the drawling old Jim and the fond Miss Doc were united as man and wife. "If only I'd known what a heart she's got, I'd asked her before," the miner drawled. "But, boys, it's never too late to pray for sense."
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