g you can think of.
Sour as a dough can you've went off an' left for a coupla weeks in July."

"Oh, yes; very explicit, I admit. But just what did he look like? Height,
weight, age and chief characteristics. I have," she explained, "a
very-good reason for wanting a description of him."

"What yuh want a description of him for? He's good an' dead now." You see,
Casey had reached the point of intimacy where he could argue with the
Little Woman quite in his everyday Irish spirit of contention.

The Little Woman had spirit of her own, but she was surprisingly meek with
Casey at times. "It struck me quite suddenly, to-day, that I may know
where that gold mine is; or about where it is," she said, with a hidden
excitement in her voice. "I've been thinking all day about it, and putting
two and two together. I merely need a fair description now of Injun Jim,
to feel tolerably certain that I do or do not know something about the
location of that mine."

"How'd _you_ come to know anything about it?" Casey stopped to move Babe
to his other shoulder. He had put in a long hard day in the tunnel, and
Babe was a husky youngster for four-and-a-half. Also she had developed a
burr-like quality toward Casey, and she liked so well to be carried home
from the mine that she would sit flat on the ground and rock her small
body and weep until she was picked, up and placed on Casey's shoulder.
"Set still, now, Babe, or Casey'll have to put yuh down an' make yuh walk
home. Le'go my ear! Yuh want Casey to go around lop-sided, with only one
ear?"

"Yes!" assented Babe eagerly, kicking Casey in the stomach. "Give me your
knife, Casey Wyan, so I can cut off one ear an' _make_ you lop-sided!"

"An' you'd do it, too!" Casey exclaimed admiringly.

"Baby Girl, you interrupted mother when mother was speaking of something
important. You make mother very sad."

Babe's mouth puckered, her eyelids puckered, and she give a small wail.
"Now Baby's sad! You hurt--my--_feelin's_ when you speak to me cross!"
She shook her yellow curls into her eyes and wept against them.

There was no hope of grown-ups talking about anything so foolish as a gold
mine when Babe was in that mood. So Casey cooked supper, washed the dishes
and helped Babe into her pyjamas; then he let her kneel restively in his
lap while she said her prayers, and told her a story while he rocked her
to sleep--it was a funny, Caseyish story about a bear, but we haven't time
for it now--before