"It was a long time before I could get the hang of things about yer,
for I was used to company and excitement. I couldn't get any woman to
help me, and a man I dursn't trust; but what with the Indians
hereabout, who'd do odd jobs for me, and having everything sent from
the North Fork, Jim and I managed to worry through. The Doctor would
run up from Sacramento once in a while. He'd ask to see 'Miggles's
baby' as he called Jim, and when he'd go away, he'd say, 'Miggles,
you're a trump,--God bless you,' and it didn't seem so lonely after
that. But the last time he was here he said, as he opened the door to
go, 'Do you know, Miggles, your baby will grow up to be a man yet and
an honor to his mother; but not here, Miggles, not here!' And I
thought he went away sad,--and--and"--and here Miggles's voice and
head were somehow both lost completely in the shadow.

"The folks about here are very kind," said Miggles, after a pause,
coming a little into the light again. "The men from the Fork used to
hang around here, until they found they wasn't wanted, and the women
are kind, and don't call. I was pretty lonely until I picked up
Joaquin in the woods yonder one day, when he wasn't so high, and
taught him to beg for his dinner; and then thar's Polly--that's the
magpie--she knows no end of tricks, and makes it quite sociable of
evenings with her talk, and so I don't feel like as I was the only
living being about the ranch. And Jim here," said Miggles, with her
old laugh again, and coming out quite into the firelight,--"Jim--Why,
boys, you would admire to see how much he knows for a man like him.
Sometimes I bring him flowers, and he looks at 'em just as natural as
if he knew 'em; and times, when we're sitting alone, I read him those
things on the wall. Why, Lord!" said Miggles, with her frank laugh,
"I've read him that whole side of the house this winter. There never