The Antidote

Cash was just picking him out of the pan when Bud came in with a load of
wood. Bud hastily dropped the wood, and without a word Cash handed Lovin
Child across the dead line, much as he would have handed over a wet
puppy. Without a word Bud took him, but the quirky smile hid at the
corners of his mouth, and under Cash's beard still lurked the grin.

"No, no, no!" Lovin Child kept repeating smugly, all the while Bud was
stripping off his wet clothes and chucking him into the undershirt he
wore for a nightgown, and trying a man's size pair of socks on his legs.

"I should say no-no-no! You doggone little rascal, I'd rather herd a
flea on a hot plate! I've a plumb good notion to hog-tie yuh for awhile.
Can't trust yuh a minute nowhere. Now look what you got to wear while
your clothes dry!"

"Ee? Ee?" invited Lovin Child, gleefully holding up a muffled little
foot lost in the depths of Bud's sock.

"Oh, I see, all right! I'll tell the world I see you're a doggone
nuisance! Now see if you can keep outa mischief till I get the wood
carried in." Bud set him down on the bunk, gave him a mail-order
catalogue to look at, and went out again into the storm. When he came
back, Lovin Child was sitting on the hearth with the socks off, and was
picking bits of charcoal from the ashes and crunching them like candy in
his small, white teeth. Cash was hurrying to finish his scrubbing before
the charcoal gave out, and was keeping an eye on the crunching to see
that Lovin Child did not get a hot ember.