She rushed in and snatched him off the ground and kissed
him and squeezed him and cried aloud upon her God and her baby,
and buried her wet face against his fat little neck.
Cash, trundling a wheelbarrow of ore out to the tunnel's mouth,
heard a howl and broke into a run with his load, bursting out
into the sunlight with a clatter and upsetting the barrow ten
feet short of the regular dumping place. Marie was frantically
trying to untie the rope, and was having trouble because Lovin
Child was in one of his worst kicking-and-squirming tantrums.
Cash rushed in and snatched the child from her.
"Here! What you doing to that kid? You're scaring him to death
--and you've got no right!"
"I have got a right! I have too got a right!" Marie was clawing
like a wildcat at Cash's grimy hands. "He's my baby! He's mine!
You ought to be hung for stealing him away from me. Let go--
he's mine, I tell you. Lovin! Lovin Child! Don't you know Marie?
Marie's sweet, pitty man, he is! Come to Marie, boy baby!"
"Tell a worl' no, no, no!" yelled Lovin Child, clinging to
Cash.
"Aw--come to Marie, sweetheart! Marie's own lovin' little
man baby! You let him go, or I'll--I'll kill you. You big
brute!"
Cash let go, but it was not because she commanded.
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