K. C.
Kid by the neck, wrenched his face around, and demanded: "Can that
stuff, Kid. If you don't like the new stunt you can beat it. This here
lady has got more nerve than ten transcontinental bums put
together--woman, lady like her, out battering for eats and pounding the
roads! She's the new boss, see? But old Uncle Crook is here with his
mits, too, see?"
The Kid winced as Crook's nails gouged his neck, and whimpered: "All
right, Crook. Gee! you don't need to get so sore about it."
Unconscious that there had been a crisis, Mother struck in, "Step lively
now, boys, and we'll clean the dishes while the water's hot."
With the incredulous gentry of leisure obeying her commands, Mother
scoured the dishes, picked up refuse, then penetrated the sleeping-shack
and was appalled by the filth on the floor and by the gunny-sacking
mattresses thrown in the crude wooden bunks.
"Now we'll tidy this up," she said, "and maybe I can fix up a corner for
Mr. Appleby and me--sort of partition it off like."
The usual evening meditations and geographical discussions of the
monastery of hoboes had been interrupted by collecting garbage and by a
quite useless cleaning of dishes that would only get dirty again. They
were recuperating, returning to their spiritual plane of perfect peace,
in picturesque attitudes by the fire. They scowled now. Again the K. C.
Kid raised his voice: "Aw, let the bunk-house alone! What d'yuh think
this is? A female cemetery?"
Crook McKusick glared, but Reddy joined the rebellion with: "I'm
through. I ain't no Chink laundryman."
The bunch turned their heads away from Mother, and pretended to ignore
her--and to ignore Crook's swaying shoulders and clenching fists. In low
but most impolite-sounding voices they began to curse the surprised and
unhappy Mother. Father ranged up beside her, protectingly. He was sure
there was going to be a fight, and he determined to do for some one,
anyway. He was trapped, desperate. Crook McKusick stood with them, too,
but his glance wavered from them to the group at the fire and back
again, and he was clearing his throat to speak when--
"Hands up!" came a voice from the shadows beyond the fire.
CHAPTER XV
While he was raising his arms so high that his cuffs were pulled
half-way down to his elbows, Father was conscious that the hoboes by the
fire, even the formidable Crook McKusick, were doing the same. Facing
them, in the woods border, was a farmer in a
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