"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
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