Page:Hopkinson Smith--Tom Grogan.djvu/70

 the sergeant is. I'll unload every pound of that coal, if I do it for nothin', and if that sneak in striped trousers bothers me or you, I'll pull him apart an' stamp on him!'”

Through all her talk there was a triumphant good humor, a joyousness, a glow and breeziness, which completely fascinated Babcock. Although she had been up half the night, she was as sweet and fresh and rosy as a child. Her vitality, her strength, her indomitable energy, impressed him as no woman's had ever done before.

When she had finished her story she suddenly caught Patsy out of her father's arms and dropped with him into a chair, all the mother-hunger in her still unsatisfied. She smothered him with kisses and hugged him to her breast, holding his pinched face against her ruddy cheek. Then she smoothed his forehead with her well-shaped hand, and rocked him back and forth. By and by she told him of the stone that the Big Gray had got in his hoof down at the fort that morning, and how lame he had been, and how Cully had taken it out with—a—great—big—spike!—dwelling on the last words as if they belonged to some wonderful fairy-tale.