Sunshine and singing
birds do not always bring delight to all. There is nothing so sad as
sadness at such a time.

CHAPTER XXIII.

ANOTHER WEDDING AT THE FORKS.

Limber Tim no longer wrestled with saplings or picket-fences, or even
his limber legs. He had other and graver matters on hand. The birds were
building their nests all about him, and he too wanted to gather moss.

At last the boy-man was happy. At least, he came one night very late to
"Sandy's," as the Widow's home was now called, and standing outside of
the house and backing up against the fence, and sticking his hands in
behind him, and twisting his left leg around the right, he called out to
Sandy in a voice that was wild and uncertain as a wind that is lost in
the trees.

Sandy laid it down tenderly, covered it up, and watching it a minute and
making sure that it was sound asleep and well, went out. Limber Tim was
writhing and twisting more than ever before. Sandy was glad, for he now
knew that he was perfectly well, and that he had got the great matter
settled, and that in a way perfectly satisfactory to himself.

And yet the two men were terribly embarrassed. What made the
embarrassment very much the worse was the fact that they were at least
half-a-mile from the nearest saloon. Fortunately it was very dark for a
Californian night, and the men could look each other in the face without
seeing each other.

There was a long and painful silence. Limber Tim wrestled with his right
leg with all his might, and would have thrown it time and again, but
from the fact that his two arms were thrust in behind and wound through
the palings, so that it was impossible for him to fall.

His mouth was open and his tongue was out, but he could not talk. At
last Sandy broke the prolonged and profound silence.

"Win her, Limber?"

"Won her, Sandy."

"Bully for Limber Tim!"

Then there was another painful silence, and Limber Tim twisted a paling
off the fence with his arms, and kicked half the bark off his right shin
with his left boot-heel.

"Sandy?"

"Limber."

Then Limber Tim reached out his tongue and spun it about as if it had
been a fish-line, and he was fishing in the darkness for words. At last
he jerked back as if he had got a bite, jerked and jerked as if his
throat was full of fish-hooks, and jerked till he jerked himself loose
from the fence; and poising on his heel before falling back into the
darkness, and twisting himself down the h