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Uncle Jim And Uncle Billy
by
Uncle Jim drew a huge log from beside the hearth and sat on the driest end of it, while their guest occupied the stool. The young man, without turning away from his discontented, peevish brooding over the fire, vaguely reached backward for the whiskey-bottle and Uncle Billy’s tin cup, to which he was assisted by the latter’s hospitable hand. But on setting down the cup his eye caught sight of the pill-box.
“Wot’s that?” he said, with gloomy scorn. “Rat poison?”
“Quinine pills–agin ager,” said Uncle Jim. “The newest thing out. Keeps out damp like Injin-rubber! Take one to follow yer whiskey. Me and Uncle Billy wouldn’t think o’ settin’ down, quiet like, in the evening arter work, without ’em. Take one–ye ‘r’ welcome! We keep ’em out here for the boys.”
Accustomed as the partners were to adopt and wear each other’s opinions before folks, as they did each other’s clothing, Uncle Billy was, nevertheless, astonished and delighted at Uncle Jim’s enthusiasm over HIS pills. The guest took one and swallowed it.
“Mighty bitter!” he said, glancing at his hosts with the quick Californian suspicion of some practical joke. But the honest faces of the partners reassured him.
“That bitterness ye taste,” said Uncle Jim quickly, “is whar the thing’s gittin’ in its work. Sorter sickenin’ the malaria–and kinder water-proofin’ the insides all to onct and at the same lick! Don’t yer see? Put another in yer vest pocket; you’ll be cryin’ for ’em like a child afore ye get home. Thar! Well, how’s things agoin’ on your claim, Dick? Boomin’, eh?”
The guest raised his head and turned it sufficiently to fling his answer back over his shoulder at his hosts. “I don’t know what YOU’D call’ boomin’,'” he said gloomily; “I suppose you two men sitting here comfortably by the fire, without caring whether school keeps or not, would call two feet of backwater over one’s claim ‘boomin’;’ I reckon YOU’D consider a hundred and fifty feet of sluicing carried away, and drifting to thunder down the South Fork, something in the way of advertising to your old camp! I suppose YOU’d think it was an inducement to investors! I shouldn’t wonder,” he added still more gloomily, as a sudden dash of rain down the wide-throated chimney dropped in his tin cup–“and it would be just like you two chaps, sittin’ there gormandizing over your quinine–if yer said this rain that’s lasted three weeks was something to be proud of!”
It was the cheerful and the satisfying custom of the rest of the camp, for no reason whatever, to hold Uncle Jim and Uncle Billy responsible for its present location, its vicissitudes, the weather, or any convulsion of nature; and it was equally the partners’ habit, for no reason whatever, to accept these animadversions and apologize.
“It’s a rain that’s soft and mellowin’,” said Uncle Billy gently, “and supplin’ to the sinews and muscles. Did ye ever notice, Jim”–ostentatiously to his partner–“did ye ever notice that you get inter a kind o’ sweaty lather workin’ in it? Sorter openin’ to the pores!”
“Fetches ’em every time,” said Uncle Billy. “Better nor fancy soap.”
Their guest laughed bitterly. “Well, I’m going to leave it to you. I reckon to cut the whole concern to-morrow, and ‘lite’ out for something new. It can’t be worse than this.”
The two partners looked grieved, albeit they were accustomed to these outbursts. Everybody who thought of going away from Cedar Camp used it first as a threat to these patient men, after the fashion of runaway nephews, or made an exemplary scene of their going.
“Better think twice afore ye go,” said Uncle Billy.
“I’ve seen worse weather afore ye came,” said Uncle Jim slowly. “Water all over the Bar; the mud so deep ye couldn’t get to Angel’s for a sack o’ flour, and we had to grub on pine nuts and jackass-rabbits. And yet–we stuck by the camp, and here we are!”
The mild answer apparently goaded their guest to fury. He rose from his seat, threw back his long dripping hair from his handsome but querulous face, and scattered a few drops on the partners. “Yes, that’s just it. That’s what gets me! Here you stick, and here you are! And here you’ll stick and rust until you starve or drown! Here you are,–two men who ought to be out in the world, playing your part as grown men,–stuck here like children ‘playing house’ in the woods; playing work in your wretched mud-pie ditches, and content. Two men not so old that you mightn’t be taking your part in the fun of the world, going to balls or theatres, or paying attention to girls, and yet old enough to have married and have your families around you, content to stay in this God-forsaken place; old bachelors, pigging together like poorhouse paupers. That’s what gets me! Say you LIKE it? Say you expect by hanging on to make a strike–and what does that amount to? What are YOUR chances? How many of us have made, or are making, more than grub wages? Say you’re willing to share and share alike as you do–have you got enough for two? Aren’t you actually living off each other? Aren’t you grinding each other down, choking each other’s struggles, as you sink together deeper and deeper in the mud of this cussed camp? And while you’re doing this, aren’t you, by your age and position here, holding out hopes to others that you know cannot be fulfilled?”