"No, we want somethin' new," objected the smith. "It ought to be
somethin' we never had before."

"Why not wait till Christmas and git good and ready?" said Jim.

The argument was that Christmas was something more than four weeks away.

"We've got to have a rousin' big Christmas fer little Skeezucks,
anyhow," suggested Bone. "What sort of a celebration is there that we
'ain't never had in Borealis?"

"Church," said Keno, promptly.

This caused a silence for a moment.

"Guess that's so, but--who wants church?" inquired the teamster.

"We might git up somethin' worse," said a voice in the crowd.

"How?" demanded another.

"It wouldn't be so far off the mark for a little kid like him,"
tentatively asserted Field, the father of the camp, "S'pose we give it
a shot?"

"Anything suits me," agreed the carpenter. "Church might be kind of
decent, after all. Jim, what you got to say 'bout the subject?"

Jim was still patting the timid little foundling on the back with a
comforting hand.