bright-blue
pinafore of the same color as her eyes, carrying her monstrous offspring
in her arms. Jack recognized her and instantly divined the situation.
"You haven't," he suggested kindly, "got another head at home--suthin'
left over," Mary shook her head sadly; even her prolific maternity was
not equal to the creation of children in detail. "Nor anythin' like
a head?" he persisted sympathetically. Mary's loving eyes filled with
tears. "No, nuffen!" "You couldn't," he continued thoughtfully, "use her
the other side up?--we might get a fine pair o' legs outer them irons,"
he added, touching the two prongs with artistic suggestion. "Now look
here"--he was about to tilt the doll over when a small cry of feminine
distress and a swift movement of a matronly little arm arrested the
evident indiscretion. "I see," he said gravely. "Well, you come here
tomorrow, and we'll fix up suthin' to work her." Jack was thoughtful the
rest of the day, more than usually impatient with certain stubborn mules
to be shod, and even knocked off work an hour earlier to walk to Big
Bend and a rival shop. But the next morning when the trustful and
anxious mother appeared at the forge she uttered a scream of delight.
Jack had neatly joined a hollow iron globe, taken from the newel post of
some old iron staircase railing, to the two prongs, and covered it
with a coat of red fireproof paint. It was true that its complexion was
rather high, that it was inclined to be top-heavy, and that in the long
run the other dolls suffered considerably by enforced association with
this unyielding and implacable head and shoulders, but this did not
diminish Mary's joy over her restored first-born. Even its utter absence
of features was no defect in a family where features were as evanescent
as in hers, and the most ordinary student of evolution could see
that the "Amplach" ninepins were in legitimate succession to the
globular-headed "Misery." For a time I think that Mary even preferred
her to the others. Howbeit it was a pretty sight to see her on a summer
afternoon sitting upon a wayside stump, her other children dutifully
ranged around her, and the hard, unfeeling head of Misery pressed deep
down into her loving little heart as she swayed from side to side,
crooning her plaintive lullaby. Small wonder that the bees took up the
song and droned a slumberous accompaniment, or that high above her head
the enormous pines, stirred through their depths by the soft Sierr