Arising, Jim started at once towards his home, leaving his pick on the
hill-side a rod or two below.
"What is it?" he called, as he neared the house.
"Calamerty!" yelled Keno, and he disappeared within the door.
Jim almost made haste.
"What kind of a calamity?" said he, as he entered the room. "What's
went wrong?"
"The lemon-pie!" said Keno, whose face was a study in the art of
expressing consternation.
"Oh," said Jim, instantly relieved, "is that all?"
"All?" echoed Keno. "By jinks! I can't make another before it's
Christmas, to save my neck, and I used all the sugar and nearly all the
flour we had."
"Is it a hopeless case?" inquired Jim.
"Some might not think so," poor Keno replied. "I scoured out the old
Dutch oven and I've got her in a-bakin', but--"
"Well, maybe she ain't so worse."
"Jim," answered Keno, tragically, "I didn't find out till I had her
bakin' fine. Then I looked at the bottle I thought was the lemon
extract, and, by jinks! what do you think?"
"I don't feel up to the arts of creatin' lemon-pies," confessed the
miner, warming himself before the fire. "What happened?"
"You have to have lemon extract--you know that?" said Keno.
"All right."
"Well, by jinks, Jim, it wasn't lemon extract after all! It was
hair-oil!"
A terrible moment of silence ensued.
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