Part 17 (1/2)
”Well, then,” demanded Tuttle, ”what is the first thing to do for a little kid like him?”
”The first thing?” answered Barney. ”The first thing is--Do you think I'm going to tell you lop-eared galoots all I know about a baby? What I want to know is if he's had a bite to eat?”
”What did you think we'd feed him?” asked Slivers. ”Do we look like his mother?”
”Git away, you venomous sc.u.m, and let me have him!” demanded Barney.
”Hold on,” interrupted Tuttle. ”The first day he goes to the feller he picks out himself, only you come last, bein' the challenger. We'll arrange things alphabetical. Adams, you git first shot, to find out if you're popular with the little skeesicks.”
Adams turned redder than usual, which is saying much.
”Ah--I don't know nuthin' about kids,” he confessed. ”Catherwood--see what he can do.”
Catherwood also proved to be modest. After him Farnham and Lane waived their alphabetical privilege.
Moody, as nervous as a girl, approached the dumb little man on the floor, and twisting the corner of his coat, inquired in a trembling voice, ”Does Bunny love old Goo-goo?”
The child looked up with a frightened little query in his eyes.
”I'd hate to scare him,” Moody added. ”I don't mind seein' how he takes to Barney.”
”Yes, give Barney a show,” said Wooster.
Something had been happening to the cook. The tenseness had gone from his usually wiry little body; his eyes were milder; a curve was softening his mouth. Kneeling before the child, he held forth his arms.
”Baby want to go by-by?” he said, and tenderly lifting the little man, he bore him away, while the men looked on in silence.
Half an hour later the man who peeked through the keyhole reported that Barney was singing the youngster to sleep. The words of the song are not readily conveyed, but they sounded like--
”Allonsum sum-sum bill-din, Allonsum sum-sum bill-din, Allonsum sum-sum bill-din,”
repeated times without number. Barney called it an Indian lullaby. As sung it was equally good Cherokee, Chinese, or Russian, being Barney's clearest recollection and interpretation of a song which his mother once had droned.
On the third day following, Slivers, Tuttle, and others held a council of war.
”Barney's goin' to clean up the whole works of us,” said the mule-driver, ”unless we can manage to work some better combination.”
”What can we do?” inquired Tuttle. ”The kid sure likes him best.”
”That wasn't the point. It's a game of how much we all know about a young un as against little Barney. Now, Moody, on the square, do you think you know as much as him?”
”He knows more than you'd think,” confessed Moody. ”The--the only little kid I ever had--she died--ten months old.”
”Oh.”
”Well--that was h.e.l.l, sure.”
Some of the men puckered their lips as if to whistle, but made no sound.
”If only we could paint Barney's face an Irish green, or do something so's the kid would be scared to see him, we might win out yet, perhaps,” resumed Slivers, presently. ”Got any ideas?”
”I don't think Barney could scare him if he tried,” answered Wooster.