'And to see the mother and her baby handle the miners!
'Oh, it was all beautiful beyond words! I shall never forget the shock
I got one night when I found "Old Ricketts" nursing the baby. A drunken
old beast he was; but there he was sitting, sober enough, making
extraordinary faces at the baby, who was grabbing at his nose and
whiskers and cooing in blissful delight. Poor "Old Ricketts" looked as
if he had been caught stealing, and muttering something about having to
go, gazed wildly round for some place in which to lay the baby, when in
came the mother, saying in her own sweet, frank way: "O Mr. Ricketts"
(she didn't find out till afterwards his name was Shaw), "would you mind
keeping her just a little longer?--I shall be back in a few minutes."
And "Old Ricketts" guessed he could wait.
'But in six months mother and baby, between them, transformed "Old
Ricketts" into Mr. Shaw, fire-boss of the mines. And then in the
evenings, when she would be singing her baby to sleep, the little shop
would be full of miners, listening in dead silence to the baby-songs,
and the English songs, and the Scotch songs she poured forth without
stint, for she sang more for them than for her baby.
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