She had always been an impulsive young woman, and now she forgot that Lovin Child had not seen her for six months or so, and that baby memories are short.

She rushed in and snatched him off the ground and kissed him and squeezed him and cried aloud upon her God and her baby, and buried her wet face against his fat little neck.
Cash, trundling a wheelbarrow of ore out to the tunnel's mouth, heard a howl and broke into a run with his load, bursting out into the sunlight with a clatter and upsetting the barrow ten feet short of the regular dumping place.

Marie was frantically trying to untie the rope, and was having trouble because Lovin Child was in one of his worst kicking-and-squirming tantrums.

Cash rushed in and snatched the child from her.
"Here! What you doing to that kid?
You're scaring him to death--and you've got no right!" "I have got a right! I have too got a right!" Marie was clawing like a wildcat at Cash's grimy hands.

"He's my baby! He's mine! You ought to be hung for stealing him away from me.