"Watcha think you are--a fire-eater, for gosh
sake?"
Cash bent his head low--it may have been to hide a chuckle.
Bud was having his hands full with the kid, and he was trying to
be stern against the handicap of a growing worship of Lovin Child
and all his little ways. Now Lovin Child was all over ashes, and
the clean undershirt was clean no longer, after having much
charcoal rubbed into its texture. Bud was not overstocked with
clothes; much traveling had formed the habit of buying as he
needed for immediate use. With Lovin Child held firmly under one
arm, where he would he sure of him, he emptied his "war-bag" on
the bunk and hunted out another shirt
Lovin Child got a bath, that time, because of the ashes he had
managed to gather on his feet and his hands and his head. Bud was
patient, and Lovin Child was delightedly unrepentant--until he
was buttoned into another shirt of Bud's, and the socks were tied
on him.
"Now, doggone yuh, I'm goin' to stake you out, or hobble yuh,
or some darn thing, till I get that wood in!" he thundered, with
his eyes laughing. "You want to freeze? Hey? Now you're goin' to
stay right on this bunk till I get through, because I'm goin' to
tie yuh on. You may holler--but you little son of a gun,
you'll stay safe!"
So Bud tied him, with a necktie around his body for a belt, and
a strap fastened to that and to a stout nail in the wall over the
bunk.
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