Chapter 40

Chapter 15 AND BUD NEVER GUESSED

That night, when he had been given a bath in the little zinc tub they used for washing clothes, and had been carefully buttoned inside a clean undershirt of Bud's, for want of better raiment, Lovin Child missed something out of his sleepytime cudding. He wanted Marie, and he did not know how to make his want known to this big, tender, awkward man who had befriended him and filled his thoughts till bedtime. He began to whimper and look seekingly around the little cabin. The whimper grew to a cry which Bud's rude rocking back and forth on the box before the fireplace could not still.

"M'ee—take!" wailed Lovin Child, sitting up and listening. "M'ee take—Uvin Chal!"

"Aw, now, you don't wanta go and act like that. Listen here, Boy. You lay down here ……