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For it would jest break his heart, arter all he's gone through to get her here!" said Brewster significantly. "Onless he DID know it and it was that what made him so sorrowful when they first came. B'gosh! I never thought o' that," said Wynbrook, with one of his characteristic sudden illuminations.
Nothin' new-fangled or fancy, but the reg'lar old-fashioned mother we was used to when we was boys!" The speaker struck a well-worn chord rather the worse for wear, and one that had jangled falsely ere now, but which still produced its effect. The men were silent. Thus encouraged, Wynbrook proceeded: "Think o' comin' home from the gulch a night like this and findin' yer old mother a-waitin' ye!
In the impulsive logic of the camp, conduct such as this, in the face of that superior woman his mother could only imply that her presence was distasteful to him; that he was either ashamed of their noticing his inferiority to her, or ashamed of THEM! Wild and hasty as was their deduction, it was, nevertheless, voiced by Joe Wynbrook in a tone of impartial and even reluctant conviction.
"Ye've only to keep him up to his work and he'll be the widder's joy agin," said Cyrus Brewster. Certainly he was so far encouraged that he had a long conversation with Mrs. Pottinger that night, with the result that the next morning Joe Wynbrook, Cyrus Brewster, Hank Mann, and Kentucky Ike were invited to spend the evening at the new house.
"I don't mean that," said Joe Wynbrook, settling himself comfortably back in his chair; "it's the family hearth I'm talkin' of. The soothin' influence, ye know the tidiness of the women folks."
"Supposin' we go in." In spite of the camp's curiosity, for the next few days they delicately withheld their usual evening visits to Prossy's mother. "They'll be wantin' to talk o' old times, and we don't wanter be too previous," suggested Wynbrook. But their verdict, when they at last met the new cousin, was unanimous, and their praises extravagant.
Nevertheless, this awkwardness was quickly overcome by the privilege and example given them, and with, a glass of whiskey and water before them, the men were speedily at their ease. Nor did Mrs. Pottinger disdain to mingle in their desultory talk. "Now you speak o' that, ma'am," said the ingenuous Wynbrook, "there's a good deal o' Prossy in that yarn o' his father's; same kind o' keerless grit!
A few days later the sentimentalist Joe Wynbrook walked into the Wild Cat saloon, where his comrades were drinking, and laid a letter down on the bar with every expression of astonishment and disgust. "Look," he said, "if that don't beat all!
But here the mercurial Wynbrook interposed on behalf of amity and the camp's esprit de corps. "Why, Lord! ma'am, he's jest bin longin' for ye! Times and times agin he's talked about ye; sayin' how ef he could only get ye out of yer Fifth Avenue saloon to share his humble lot with him here, he'd die happy! YOU'VE heard him talk, Brewster?" "Frequent," replied the accommodating Brewster.
"I'm sure he oughter to be thankful to ye, ma'am," said Joe Wynbrook quickly, "for makin' a break to come here to live, jest ez we're thankful speakin' for the rest of this camp for yer lightin' us up ez you're doin'! I reckon I'm speakin' for the crowd," he added, looking round him.
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