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Page 38
The two children laughed a little weak laugh, turned each other
bashfully around, and then looked up shyly at Yuba Bill and said,
"Yeth."
"Do you know where you are goin'?" asked Starbuck, in a constrained
voice.
It was the little girl who answered quickly and eagerly:--
"Yes, to Krissmass and Sandy Claus."
"To what?" asked Starbuck.
Here the boy interposed with a superior air:--
"Thee meanth Couthin Dick. He'th got Krithmath."
"Where's your mother?"
"Dead."
"And your father?"
"In orthpittal."
There was a laugh somewhere on the outskirts of the crowd. Every
one faced angrily in that direction, but the laugher had disappeared.
Yuba Bill, however, sent his voice after him. "Yes, in hospital!
Funny, ain't it?--amoosin' place! Try it. Step over here, and in
five minutes, by the living Hoky, I'll qualify you for admission,
and not charge you a cent!" He stopped, gave a sweeping glance of
dissatisfaction around him, and then, leaning back against the bar,
beckoned to some one near the door, and said in a disgusted tone,
"You tell these galoots how it happened, Bracy. They make me sick!"
Thus appealed to, Bracy, the express messenger, stepped forward in
Yuba Bill's place.
"It's nothing particular, gentlemen," he said, with a laugh, "only
it seems that some man called Spindler, who lives about here, sent
an invitation to the father of these children to bring his family
to a Christmas party. It wasn't a bad sort of thing for Spindler
to do, considering that they were his poor relations, though they
didn't know him from Adam,--was it?" He paused; several of the
bystanders cleared their throats, but said nothing. "At least,"
resumed Bracy, "that's what the boys up at Red Hill, Oregon,
thought, when they heard of it. Well, as the father was in
hospital with a broken leg, and the mother only a few weeks dead,
the boys thought it mighty rough on these poor kids if they were
done out of their fun because they had no one to bring them. The
boys couldn't afford to go themselves, but they got a little money
together, and then got the idea of sendin' 'em by express. Our
agent at Red Hill tumbled to the idea at once; but he wouldn't take
any money in advance, and said he would send 'em 'C. O. D.' like
any other package. And he did, and here they are! That's all!
And now, gentlemen, as I've got to deliver them personally to this
Spindler, and get his receipt and take off their checks, I reckon
we must toddle. Come, Bill, help take 'em up!"
"Hold on!" said a dozen voices. A dozen hands were thrust into a
dozen pockets; I grieve to say some were regretfully withdrawn
empty, for it was a hard season in Rough and Ready. But the
expressman stepped before them, with warning, uplifted hand.
"Not a cent, boys,--not a cent! Wells, Fargo's Express Company
don't undertake to carry bullion with those kids, at least on the
same contract!" He laughed, and then looking around him, said
confidentially in a lower voice, which, however, was quite audible
to the children, "There's as much as three bags of silver in
quarter and half dollars in my treasure box in the coach that has
been poured, yes, just showered upon them, ever since they started,
and have been passed over from agent to agent and messenger to
messenger,--enough to pay their passage from here to China! It's
time to say quits now. But bet your life, they are not going to
that Christmas party poor!"
He caught up the boy, as Yuba Bill lifted the little girl to his
shoulder, and both passed out. Then one by one the loungers in the
bar-room silently and awkwardly followed, and when the barkeeper
turned back from putting away his decanters and glasses, to his
astonishment the room was empty.
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