filled the dishpan and set it
on the stove to heat. "Darn a dirty shack!" he muttered, half
apologetically, while he was taking the accumulation of ashes out of
the hearth.

For the rest of that day he was exceedingly busy, and he did not
attempt further explanations to himself. He overhauled the bunk
and spread the blankets out on the wild rose bushes to sun while
he cleaned the floor. Billy's way of cleaning the floor was
characteristic of the man, and calculated to be effectual in the main
without descending to petty details. All superfluous objects that
were small enough, he merely pushed as far as possible under the bunk.
Boxes and benches he piled on top; then he brought buckets of water
and sloshed it upon the worst places, sweeping and spreading it with
a broom. When the water grew quite black, he opened the door, swept
it outside and sloshed fresh water upon the grimy boards. While
he worked, his mind swung slowly back to normal, so that he sang
crooningly in an undertone; and the song was what he had sung for
months and years, until it was a part of him and had earned him his
nickname.

"Oh, where have you been, Billy boy, Billy boy?
Oh, where have you been, charming Billy?
I've been to see my wife,
She's the joy of my life,
She's a young thing and cannot leave her mother."

Certainly it was neither musical nor inspiring, but Billy had somehow
adopted the ditty and made it his own, so far as eternally singing
it could do so, and his comrades had found it not unpleasant; for
the voice of Billy was youthful, and had a melodious smoothness that
atoned for much in the way of imbecile words and monotonous tune.

He had washed all the dishes and had repeated the ditty fifteen times,
and was for the sixteenth time tunefully inquiring:

Can she make a punkin pie, charming Billy?

when he opened the door to throw out the dishwater, and narrowly escaped
landing it full upon the fur-coated form of his foreman.

CHAPTER IV.

_Canned._

The foreman came in, blinking at the sudden change from bright light
to half twilight, and Charming Billy took the opportunity to kick a
sardine can of stove-blacking under the stove where it would not be
seen. Some predecessor with domestic instincts had left behind
him half a package of "Rising Sun," and Billy had found it and was
intending to blacken the stove just as soon as he finished the dishes.
That he had left it as a crowning