Bruvver Jims Baby

Bruvver Jim's Baby

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bruvver Jim's Baby, by Philip Verrill
Mighels This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Bruvver Jim's Baby
Author: Philip Verrill Mighels
Release Date: August 27, 2005 [EBook #16608]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRUVVER
JIM'S BABY ***

Produced by Al Haines

BRUVVER JIM'S BABY
BY
PHILIP VERRILL MIGHELS

NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS
PUBLISHERS MCMIV

Copyright, 1904, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
Published May, 1904.

This Volume is
Dedicated, with much affection, to
My Mother

CONTENTS
I. A MIGHTY LITTLE HUNTER II. JIM MAKES DISCOVERIES III.
THE WAY TO MAKE A DOLL IV. PLANNING A NEW
CELEBRATION V. VISITORS AT THE CABIN VI. THE BELL FOR
CHURCH VII. THE SUNDAY HAPPENINGS VIII. OLD JIM
DISTRAUGHT IX. THE GUILTY MISS DOC X. PREPARATIONS
FOR CHRISTMAS XI. TROUBLES AND DISCOVERIES XII. THE
MAKING OF A CHRISTMAS-TREE XIII. THEIR
CHRISTMAS-DAY XIV. "IF ONLY I HAD THE RESOLUTION"
XV. THE GOLD IN BOREALIS XVI. ARRIVALS IN CAMP XVII.
SKEEZUCKS GETS A NAME XVIII. WHEN THE PARSON
DEPARTED XIX. OLD JIM'S RESOLUTION XX. IN THE TOILS
OF THE BLIZZARD XXI. A BED IN THE SNOW XXII.
CLEANING THEIR SLATE XXIII. A DAY OF JOY

BRUVVER JIM'S BABY
CHAPTER I
A MIGHTY LITTLE HUNTER
It all commenced that bright November day of the Indian rabbit drive
and hunt. The motley army of the Piute tribe was sweeping
tremendously across a sage-brush valley of Nevada, their force two
hundred braves in number. They marched abreast, some thirty yards
apart, and formed a line that was more than two miles long.
The spectacle presented was wonderful to see. Red, yellow, and indigo
in their blankets and trappings, the hunters dotted out a line of color as
far as sight could reach. Through the knee-high brush they swept ahead
like a firing-line of battle, their guns incessantly booming, their
advance never halted, their purpose as grim and inexorable as fate itself.
Indeed, Death, the Reaper, multiplied two-hundred-fold and mowing a
swath of incredible proportions, could scarcely have pillaged the land
of its conies more thoroughly.
Before the on-press of the two-mile wall of red men with their smoking
weapons, the panic-stricken rabbits scurried helplessly. Soon or late
they must double back to their burrows, soon or late they must
therefore die.
Behind the army, fully twenty Indian ponies, ridden by the
youngster-braves of the cavalcade, were bearing great white burdens of
the slaughtered hares.
The glint of gun-barrels, shining in the sun, flung back the light, from
end to end of the undulating column. Billows of smoke, out-puffing
unexpectedly, anywhere and everywhere along the line, marked down
the tragedies where desperate bunnies, scudding from cover and racing
up or down before the red men, were targets for fiercely biting hail of
lead from two or three or more of the guns at once.

And nearly as frightened as the helpless creatures of the brush was a
tiny little pony-rider, back of the army, mounted on a plodding horse
that was all but hidden by its load of furry game. He was riding double,
this odd little bit of a youngster, with a sturdy Indian boy who was on
in front. That such a timid little dot of manhood should have been
permitted to join the hunt was a wonder. He was apparently not more
than three years old at the most. With funny little trousers that reached
to his heels, with big brown eyes all eloquent of doubt, and with round,
little, copper-colored cheeks, impinged upon by an old fur cap he wore,
pulled down over forehead and ears, he appeared about as quaint a little
man as one could readily discover.
But he seemed distressed. And how he did hang on! The rabbits
secured upon the pony were crowding him backward most alarmingly.
At first he had clung to the back of his fellow-rider's shirt with all the
might and main of his tiny hands. As the burden of the rabbits had
increased, however, the Indian hunters had piled them in between the
timid little scamp and his sturdier companion, till now he was almost
out on the horse's tail. His alarm had, therefore, become overwhelming.
No fondness for the nice warm fur of the bunnies, no faith in the larger
boy in front, could suffice to drive from his tiny face the look of woe
unutterable, expressed by his eyes and his trembling little mouth.
The Indians, marching steadily onward, had come to the mountain that