m ROB AND NELLY. NELLY'S SILVER MINE. A STORY OF COLORADO LIFE. BY H. H., AUTHOR OF " BITS OF TRAVEL," " BITS OP TRAVEL AT HOME," ** BITS OF TALK ABOUT HOME MATTERS," " BITS OF TALK FOR YOUNG FOLKS," " VERSES." BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1898. Copyright, BY ROBERTS BROTHBHU. 1878. Snibtrsttg fregg: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. CHKISTMAS-DAY IN NELLY'S NEW-ENGLAND HOME & II. A TALK ABOUT LEAVING MAYFIELD . . 24 III. OFF FOR COLORADO 58 IV. A NIGHT IN A SLEEPING-CAR 84 V. FIRST GLIMPSES OF COLORADO AND A NEW HOME . . 112 VI. LIFE AT GARLAND'S . . 145 VII. A HUNT FOR A SILVER MINE 164 VIII. THE MARCHES LEAVE GARLAND'S . . . 181 IX. WET MOUNTAIN VALLEY 216 X. ROB AND NELLY GO INTO BUSINESS . . 240 XI. How TO FIND A SILVER MINE .... 261 XII. NELLY'S SILVER MINE .... . . 287 XIII. " THE GOOD LUCK " 309 XIV. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE 333 XV. CHANGES IN PROSPECT 354 XVI " GOOT-BY AND GOOT LUCK " 368 2225830 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. CHAPTER I. CHRISTMAS-DAY IN KELLY'S NEW-ENGLAND HOME. IT was Christmas morning ; and Nelly March and her brother Rob were lying wide awake in their beds, wondering if it would do for them to get up and look in their stockings to see what Santa Glaus had brought them. Nelly and Rob were twins ; but you would never have thought so, when you looked at them, for Nelly was half a head taller than Rob, and a good deal heavier. She had always been well ; but Rob had alwa3 r s been a delicate child. He was ill now with a bad sore throat, and had been shut up in the house for ten days. This was the reason that he and Nelly were in bed at six o'clock this Christmas morning, instead of scampering all about the house, and waking everybody up with their shouts of delight over their presents, When they went to bed the night before, Mrs. March had said : " Now, Rob, you must promise me not to get out of bed till it is broad daylight, and the house is thoroughly warm. You will certainly take cold, if you get up in the cold room." "Mamma," said Nelly, " I needn't stay in bed just because Rob has to, need I ? I can take his presents out of the stocking, and carry them to him." 6 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. "You shan't, either," said Rob, fretfully. " I want to take them out myself ; and you 're real mean not to wait for me, Nell. 'Tisn't half so much fun for just one. Shan't she stay in bed too, mamma, as long as I have to?" Mrs. March looked at Nelly, and smiled. She knew Nelly had not thought Rob would care any thing about her getting up first, or she would never have proposed it. Nelly was always ready to give up to Rob, much more so than was for his good. " Nelly can do as she pleases, Rob," she answered. " I don't think it would be fair for me to compel her to stay in bed because }'ou have a sore throat : do 3~ou ? " But Rob did not answer. He was not a very gen- erous boy, and all he was thinking of now was his own pleasure. "Say, Nell," he cried, "you won't get up, will you, till I can? Don't : I '11 think you 're real unkind if you do." "No, no, Rob," said Nelby. "Indeed I won't. I don't care. It will be all the longer to think about it, and that's almost the best part of it." And Nelly threw her arms around Rob's neck and kissed him. "It's too bad, 3 r ou darling," she said, "you have to be sick on Christmas-day. I won't have any pudding, either, if you don't want me to." Mrs. March was an Englishwoman, and had lived in England till she was married, and she always had on Christmas-day a real English plum-pudding with brandy turned over it, and set on fire just before the pudding was brought to the table, so that when it came in the blue and red and yellow flames were all blazing up high NELLY'S NEW-ENGLAND HOME. 7 over it, and the waitress had to turn her head away not to breathe the heat from the flames. You would have thought it would have made Rob ashamed to have Nelly propose to go without pudding because he could not eat any, but I don't think it did, All he said was, " Don't be a goose, Nell. That 's quite different." Just before they went to sleep, Sarah, the cook, went past their door, and Nell} 7 called to her : " Sarah, mamma says we mustn't get up to-morrow morning till the house is very warm. Couldn't you get up very early and start the furnace fire ? " " Why, 3 r es, Miss Nelly, I can do that easy enough, sure ; but where '11 you be sleeping ? " "Just where we always do, Sarah," replied Nelly, much surprised at this question. "Well, miss, I'll be up long before light and get the house as warm as toast by the time you can see to tell the toes from the heels of your stockings," said Sarah. " Good-night, Miss Nelly. Good-night, Mas- ter Rob." " What could she have meant asking where we'd be sleeping ? " said Rob. ''I'm sure I ion't know," said Nelly; "it's very queer. We 've never slept anywhere but in these two beds since we were babies. I don't know what 's got into her head. It's the queerest thing I ever knew. I guess she was sleepy," and in a few moments both the children were fast asleep. Rob was the first to wake up. It was not much past midnight. " Nelly," he whispered. No answer. 8 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. Twice he called : still no answer. There was not a sound to be heard except the loud ticking of the high clock at the head of the stab's. Presently there came a rustle and quick low steps, and his mother stood by his bed. " What do you want, my dear little boy ? " she said. " Is your throat worse?" " No ; isn't it time to get up?" said Rob. " Hasn't Sarah made the fire ? " "Oh, mercy!" exclaimed Mrs. March. "Is that all? Why Rob ! it isn't anywhere near morning. You must go to sleep again, child ; it is a terribly cold night," and she tucked the bed-clothes tight around him, and ran back to her own room. "I don't care," said Rob. "I'll just stay awake. I don't believe it '11 be very long ; " but before he knew it he was fast asleep again. The next time he waked, it had begun to be light, or rather a little less dark. He could see the outline of the window at the foot of his bed, and he could see Nelly's bedstead, which was on the opposite side of the room. " Nelly," he called again. "I'm awake," said Nelly. " Why didn't you speak? " said Rob. " I was thinking," replied Nelly. " Sarah hasn't gone down yet." "Pshaw," said Rob, "she must have. She said she 'd go long before light. She went before you were awake." "It's awful cold," whispered Nelly, "I can't keep even my hands out of bed. I'm going to jump up and 8ee if any hot air comes in at the register." So saying. NELLY'S NEW-ENGLAND HOME. 9 she jumped out of bed, ran to the register, and held her hands above it. " Cold as Greenland, Rob," she said, "Sarah can't nave made the fire. I don't believe she is up." " Oh, dear," said Rob, " every thing all goes wrong when I 'm sick. I think it 's too mean I have to be the sick one just because we 're twins. I heard a lady say once to mamma, she didn't think I heard but I did, ' Weren't you very sorry, Mrs. March, to have twins? You know they can't ever both be stiong. Your Rob, now, he looks very sickly.' Civil, that was, to mamma, wasn't it? I was so mad I could have flung my ball at her old wise head. But I think it must be true, because mamma answered her real gentle, but with her voice all trembly, and she said, ' Yes, I know that is usually said to be so ; but we hope to prove the contrary. Rob grows stronger every year, and he and his sister take so much comfort together, I can never regret that they were born twins.' But I do : I think it 's a shame to make a fellow sick all his life that way. I say, Nell, I don't believe you 'd mind it half as much as I do. Girls are different from boys. I think it would have been better for you to be the sick one than me. Don't you? Say, Nell!" This was a hard question for poor Nelly. "Oh, Rob!" she said, "I don't want to be selfish about it. I 'd be willing to take turns and be sick half the times ; or some more than half, I guess three-quar- ters : but I think you ought to have a little." " But don't you see, Nell, it can't be that way," in- terrupted Rob ; " it can't be that way with twins. It's got to be one sick one and one strong one. That's 10 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. what that lady said, and mamma said she 'd heard so too ; and I think it 's just as mean as any thing. They might have let us be born as much as three days apart, or a week : that wouldn't have made an}- difference in the fun ; we could have pkiyed just as well, and, be- sides, we 'd have had two birthdays to keep then, don't you see ? " "I don't think that would be so nice, Rob," said Nelly, ' ' as to have one together. That would be like my getting up now, before }'ou do, and having iny stocking all to nryself, and you didn't want me to do that." "Pshaw, Nell," replied Rob, impatiently as before: " that's quite different ; but girls never see things." Nelly laughed out loud. "I don't know why : we have as many e}-es as boys have. I see lots more things in the woods than }'ou do, always." " Oh, not that sort of things," answered Rob ; " not that kind of seeing ; not with your e}*es : I mean to see with j'our well, I don't know what it is you see with, the kind I mean ; but don't you know mamma often says to papa about something that's got to be done, ' don't you see? don't 3-011 see?' and she doesn't mean that he is to look with his eyes : that 's the kind I mean. Now where is that Sarah?" he exclaimed suddenly, sitting bolt upright in bed in his excitement. " It's as cold as out-doors here, and there isn't a creature stirring in the house, and it 's broad daj-light." "Oh, Rob, do lie down and cover yourself up," cried Nelly. "You're a naughty boj', and you'll have an- other sore throat as sure 's you 're alive. It isn't broad daylight nor any thing like it. I can't but just see the storking " NELLY'S NEW-ENGLAND HOME 11 "Can't but just see them!" said Rob. "Didn't 1 tell you girls couldn't see any thing ? Why I can see them just as plain, just as plain as if I was in 'em ! Ain't they big, Nell? I know what's in yours, for one thing." " Oh, Rob ! do you? TeU me ! " exclaimed Nell. "I can't," replied Rob. "I promised mamma 1 wouldn't. But it's something you've wanted awfully." ' ' A doll, Rob ! oh, is it a doll with eyes that can slmt? oh, say, Rob ! " pleaded Nelly. "It's long past the time I ought to have had it, if you hadn't been sick : you might tell me. I '11 tell you what one of your things is if you will." "I don't want to know, Nell," replied Rob, "and you needn't tease me, for I '11 never tell you : not if they lie abed in this house all day. Dear me ! where can Sarah be? I 'm going to call mamma." "You can't make her hear, Rob," answered Nelly. " They shut the doors ever so long ago. They were talking about something they didn't want us to hear." " How do you know?" said Rob. "Because I heard some of what they said, and I coughed so that they might know I was awake," re- plied Nelly. " Oh, Rob, it is awful ! " and Nelly began to sob. "What's awful? what is it, Nell? Tell me, can't you?" said Rob, in an excited tone. " No, Rob, I'm not going to tell you any thing about it," replied Nelly. " It wouldn't be fair, because they didn't want us to know. It '11 be time enough when it comes." "When what comes?" shouted Rob, thoroughly 12 NELLY'S SILVER MINB. roused now. " I do say, Nell March, you're enough to try a saint. What did you tell me any thing about it for? I '11 tell mamma the minute she comes in, and tell her you listened. Oh, shame, shame, shame on a listener ! " "Rob, you're just as mean as yon can be," cried Nelly. " I didn't listen, and mamma knows very well J wouldn't do such a thing. Of course I couldn't help hearing when both doors were open, and I coughed out loud as soon as I thought about it that most likely they didn't mean we should know any thing about it. I heard papa say something about the children, and mamma said, ' we won't tell them till it is all settled,' and then I gave a great big cough, and she got up and shut both the doors ; so now, Rob, you see I wasn't a listener. I wouldn't listen for any thing : mamma said once it was the very meanest kind of a lie in the whole world ! Mamma knows I wouldn't do it, and you can just tell her what you like, you old hateful boy." This was a very unhappy sort of talk for Christinas morning, was it not? But both Rob and Nelly were tired and cold, and their patience was all worn out. It really was a hard trial for two children only twelve years old to have to lie still in bed, hour after hour, Christinas morning, waiting for their presents ; it grew slowly lighter and lighter ; each moment the}' could see the big 'stockings plainer and plainer ; they hung on the outside of the closet door on two big hooks, where were usually hung the children's school hats. One stocking was gray, and one was white. I must tell you about these stockings, for they were very droll. The}- were arger than the largest boots you ever saw, and would NELLY'S NEW-ENGLAND HOME. 13 reach the whole length of a man's leg, way above hia knee, as far up as they could go. They belonged to the children's grandfather March. He was one of the queerest old gentlemen that ever was known, I think. He lived in a city a great many miles away from the village where Mr. and Mrs. March lived, but he used to spend his winters with them. About six weeks before he arrived, big boxes used to begin to come. There was no railroad to this village : every thing had to come on coaches or big luggage wagons. Earl}* in November, old Mr. March's boxes alwaj-s began to arrive at his son's house. When Rob and Nelly saw Mr. Earle's big express wagon drive up to the back gate, they al- ways exclaimed, "Oh, there are grandpa's things com- ing ! " and they would run out to see them unloaded. You would have thought that old Mr. March supposed there was nothing to eat in all the village, to see what quantities of food he sent up. But the most peculiar thing about it was that he sent such queer things. He was as queer about his food as he was about every thing else, and he did not eat the things other people ate. For instance, he never ate butter; he ate fresh olive oil on everj r thing ; and he had a notion that no oh' ve oil was brought to this country to sell which was fit to eat. He had an intimate friend who was an old sea captain, and used to sail to Smyrna ; this sea captain used to bring over for him large boxes of bottles of oh' ve oil every spring and autumn ; aud two or three of these boxes he would use up in the course of the winter. He never used more than half of the oil in a bottle : after it had been opened a few days, he did not like it ; he would smell it very carefully each day, and, 14 NELLY'S SILVER by the third or fourth day, he -would shove the bottle from him, and say, "Bah! throw the stuff away! throw it away ! it isn't fit to eat ! " Mrs. March had great trouble in disposing of these half bottles of oil ; ever}-body in the neighborhood took them, and very glad people were to get them too, for the oil was deli- cious ; but there were enough for two or three villages of the size of Mayfield. These sweet-oil boxes had curious letters on them in scarlet and blue, and the bottles were all rolled up in a sort of shining silver paper, which Rob and Nelly used to keep to cover boxes with. It was very pretty, so they were always glad when they saw a big pile of the olive-oil boxes. Then there were also boxes full of bottles of pepper- sauce ; this came in big black bottles, and the little peppers showed red through the glass ; the smallest drop of this pepper-sauce made your mouth burn like fire, but this queer old gentleman used to pour it over every thing he ate. The big bottle of pepper-sauce and the big bottle of olive oil were always put by his plate, and he poured first from one and then from the other, until the food on his plate was nearly swimming in the strange mixture. Salt fish was another of his favorite dishes, and he brought up every autumn huge piles of them. They came in flat packages, tied up with coarse cord ; when Mr. Earle threw them down to the ground from the top of his wagon a strong and dis- agreeable odor rose in the air, and Rob and Nelly used to exclaim, "Groans for the salt fish! groans for the salt fish ! Why didn't you lose it oft* the wagon, Mr. Earle?" " It wouldn't have made any odds, miss," Mr. Earle NELLY'S NEW-ENGLAND HOME. 15 used to reply. " The old gentleman 'd have made me go back for more." Besides the salt fish ; there -were little kegs full of what are called " tongues and sounds," put up in salt brine ; these are the tongues and the intestines of fish ; there were also jars of oysters and of clams, and a barrel of the sort of bread sailors eat at sea, which is called hard-tack. Now, after hearing about the extraordinary food this old gentleman used to bring for his own use, you will be prepared to believe tfhat I have to tell you about his big stockings. He had just as queer notions about his bed and all his arrangements for sleeping, as he had about his food. No woman was ever allowed to make his bed. He always made it himself. Except in the very hottest weather, he would not have any sheets on it, only the very finest of flannel blankets ; a great many of them ; and he never wore any night-gown ; he believed they were very unwholesome things. "Why don't animals put on night-gowns to sleep in?" he used to say; one might very well have re- plied to him, "Animals don't crawl in between blankets either, and if you are going to be simply an animal, you must go without any clothes day and night both." However, he was a very irritable old gentleman, and nobody ever argued with him about any thing. Mr. and Mrs. March let him do in all ways exactly as he liked, and never contradicted him, for he loved them very much, in his way, and was very good to them. Of all his queer ways and queer things, I think these big stockings were the queerest. As I said, he never wore any night-gown in bed, but he was over seventy years old, and, in spite of all his theories, his feet and 16 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. legs would sometimes get cold : so he went to a tailor and got an exact pattern of a tight-fitting leg to a pair of trousers ; then he took this to a woman who knit stockings to sell, and he unrolLd his leg pattern befoie her, and said : " Do you see that leg, ma'am? Can you knit a stock ing leg that shape and length ? " The woman did not know what to make of him "Why sir," said she, "you'd never want a stociang- leg that long?" " I didn't ask you what 1 wanted, ma'am," growled the old gentleman, "I asked }*ou what you could do. Can 3*ou knit a stocking-leg that length and shape ? " "Why, yes, sir, I suppose I can," she replied, much cowed by his fierce manner. " Well, then, knit me six pairs, three gray and three white. There 's the pattern for the foot," and he threw down an old sock of his on the table, and was striding away. The woman followed him. "But, sir," she said timidly, "I couldn't knit these for the price of ordinary stockings. I'm afraid you wouldn't be willing to pay what they would cost. It would be like knitting a pair of pantaloons, sir, in- deed it would." Old Mr. March always carried a big gold-headed t'&ne ; and, when he was angry, he lifted it from the ground and shook the gold knob as fast as he could right in people's faces. He lifted it now, and shook the gold knob so close in the woman's face, that she re- treated rapidly toward the door. " I didn't say any thing about money : did I, ma'am? NELLY'S NEW-EN GLANU nuME. 17 Knit those stockings : I don't care what they cost," he cried. " But I thought," she interrupted. " I didn't ask you to think, did I?" said Mr. March, speaking louder and louder. "You'll never earn any money thinking. Knit those stockings, ma'am, and the sooner the better," and the old gentleman walked out of the house muttering. " Dear me, what a very hasty old gentleman ! " said the woman to herself. "I'll go over and ask Mrs. March, and make sure it's all right." So the next day she went to see Mrs. March, who explained to her all the old gentleman's whims about sleeping, and that he was quite willing and able to pay whatever the queer stockings would cost. In a very few weeks, the stock- ings were all done ; and the old gentleman was so pleased with them that he gave the woman an extra five-dollar bill, besides the sum she had charged for knitting them. And this was the way that there came to be hanging up in Nelly's and Rob's chamber two such huge stockings on this Christmas morning of which I am telling you. They were splendid stockings for Christmas stockings ! It did really seem as if you never would get to the bottom of them. The children used to lay them down on the floor, and run around them, and pull out thing after thing. Mrs. March sometimes wished they were not quite so large ; it took great deal to fill them : but, after having once used them, she had not the heart to go back to the ordinary- sized stocking, for it would have been such a disap- pointment to the children. She used them, first, one Christmas when Nelly's chief present was a big doll 2 18 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. about two feet and a half tall, which wore real baby clothes like a live baby. This was so big it could not go into a common stocking, and Mrs. March happened then to think of her father's. The old gentleman was delighted to have them used for the purpose, and stood by laughing hard, while Mrs. March put the things in. "Ha! ha!" he said, "the old stockings are good for more than one thing : aren't they ? " But we are leaving Nelly and Rob a long time in bed waiting for their Christmas presents. It grew lighter and lighter, and still there was no sound in the house, and the room grew no warmer. Rob was so thoroughly cross that he lay back on his pillow, with his eyes shut and his lips pouting out, and would not speak a word. In vain Nelly tried to comfort him, or to interest him. He would not speak. Even Nelly's patience was nearly worn out. At last the door of their mother's room opened, and she came out in her warm red wrapper. "Why, you dear patient little children!" she ex- claimed ; " are you in bed yet? this is too bad. What does make your room ' so cold ! " " Why, bless me ! ' she exclaimed, going to the register, " no heat is coming up here ; what does this mean ? " " I don't think Sarah has gone down yet : I 've been *wake a long time, mamma," said Nelly. 14 A thousand years, it is," exclaimed Rob, " or more, that we 've been lying awake here waiting : Sarah 's the meanest girl alive." "Hush, hush, Rob!" said Mrs. March. "Don't speak so. Perhaps she is ill. I will go and see. But you may have your presents on the bed ;" and, going to NELLY'S NEW-ENGLAND HOME. 19 the closet, she took down first the gray stocking, which was for Rob, and earned it and laid it on his bed. Then she carried the white one, and laid it on Nelly's bed. "Oh, goody, good}'!" they both cried at once. "You 're real good mamma ; " and in one second more all four of the little arms were plunging into the depths of the big stockings. " You've earned your presents this time," said Mrs. March, as she pinned warm blankets round the children's shoulders. " I think you are really very brave little children to be quiet so many hours. It is after eight o'clock. I am afraid Sarah is ill." Then she went upstairs and the children heard her knocking at Sarah's door, and calling, " Sarah ! Sarah ! " Presently she came down very quickly, and went into her room ; in a few minutes, she went back again, and Mr. March went with her. Then the children heard more knocking, and their papa calling ver} r loud, " Sarah ! Sarah ! open the door this moment." Then came a loud crash. "Papa's smashed the door in," said Rob. "Good enough for her, lazy old thing, to sleep so Christmas morning ! I hope mamma won't give her any present." Nelly did not speak. She had scarcely heard the knocking or the calls: she was so absorbed in looking at her new doll, a wax doll with eyes that could open and shut. To have such a doll as this had been the great desire of Nelly's heart for years. There was also a beautiful little leather trunk full of clothes for the doll, and four little band-boxes, each with a hat or bonnet in it. There was a bedstead for her to sleep in, 20 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. and a pretty red arm-chair for her to sit in, and a play piano, which could make a little real music. Then there were four beautiful new books, and ever so many pretty little paper boxes with different sorts of candy in them : all white candy ; Mrs. March never gave iier children any colored candies. Rob had a beautiful kaleidoscope, mounted with a handle to turn it round by ; it was about as long as Nelly's doll, and as he drew it out he couldn't imagine what it was. Then he had a geographical globe, and a paint-box, and four new volumes of Mayne Reid's stories, and the same number of boxes of candy which Nelly had. You never saw two happier children than Rob and Nelly were for the next half-hour. They forgot all about the cold, about Sarah, and about having had to wait so long. For half an hour, all that was to be heard in the room were exclamations from one to the other, such as : " Oh, Nell ! see this picture ! " " Oh, Rob ! look at this lovely bonnet ! " " Nell, this is the splendidest one of all." "This doll is bigger than Mary Pratt's: I suow it is. Oh, Rob ! don't you suppose it must have cost a lot of money?" At last Mrs. March came back into their room, look- ing very much annoyed. "Well, children," she said, "we're going to have a droll sort of Christmas. Sarah is so fast asleep we can't wake her up, and your papa thinks she must be drunk. We shall have to cook our Christmas iinnei ourselves. How will you like that v " NELLY'S NEW-ENGLAND HOME. 21 "Oh, splendid, mamma, splendid! Let us get right up now," cried both the children, eagerly laying down their playthings. "No," said Mrs. March. "Rob must not get up yet : it is too cold ; but you may get up, Nell, and help me get breakfast. Can you leave your new dolly?" "Oh, yes, mamma!" cried Nelly, "indeed I can." And laying the dolly carefully between the bed-clothos with her head on the pillow, she kissed her, and said, " Good-by, dear Josephine Harriet: you won't be very long alone. I will come back soon." Rob burst out laughing. " What a name ! " he said, mimicking Nelly. " Josephine Harriet ! whoever heard such a name ? " " I think it's a real pretty name, Rob," replied Nelly. " Boys don't know any thing about dolls' names. Be- sides, she is named for two people : Josephine is for that poor, dear, beautiful Empress that mamma told us about ; I 've always thought since then if ever I had a doll handsome enough, I'd name her after her. And Harriet is after Hatty Pratt. I love Hatty dearly, and she 's named two dolls after me." "Well, I shall call the doll the Empress, then," said Rob, in a tone intended to be very sarcastic. "Yes; so shall I," replied Nelly: "I thought of that. It will sound very nice." Rob looked a little disappointed. He thought it would tease Nelly to have her doll called "The Em press." " No : I think I'll call her Mrs. Napoleon," said ne. "Well," said Nelly, "I suppose that would do," Nelly had not the least idea that Rob was making fun 2-2 NELLY'S SILVER MfNE. of her, " but I don't believe they ever called the real Empress so. I don't remember it in the story. I '11 ask mamma. I think Mrs. Napoleon is a beautiful name : don't you, Rob ? " By this time Rob was too deep in the ' ' Cliff Climb ers" one of his new books to answer; and Nelly was all dressed ready to go downstairs. As she loll the room, Rob called out : " I say, Nell, tell mamma I don't want any break- fast. I 'd rather stay in bed and read this story." It was a very droll Christmas-day, but the children always said it was one of the very pleasantest the}- ever spent. It turned out that the cook was really in a heavy drunken sleep. She had been parti}' under the influence of liquor when she went to bed the night be- fore. That was the reason she had asked Nelly where they would be sleeping in the morning. She did not know what she was saying when she said that. Mr. March went and brought a doctor to look at her in her sleep, for they were afraid it might be apoplexy ; but the doctor only laughed, and said : "Pshaw! The woman's drunk. Let her alone. She '11 wake up by noon." Mr. and Mrs. March felt very unhappy about this, for Sarah had lived with them two 3'ears, and had never done such a thing before. She did not wake up by noon, as the doctor had said. She did not wake up till nearly night ; and, when she went downstairs, there were Mrs. March and Nelly and Rob in the kitchen, all at work. Mrs. March and Nelly were washing the dishes, and Rob was cleaning the knives. They hal cooked the dinner and eaten it, and cleared everv NELLY'S NEW-ENGLAND HOME. 23 thing away. Sarah dropped into a chair, and looked from one to the other without speaking. " Hullo ! " said Rob, "you cooked us a nice Christ- inas dinner : didn't you ? We 'd have never had any if we 'd waited for you." " Do you feel sick now, Sarah?" said good-hearted little Nelly. Sarah did not speak. Her brain was not yet cleai. She looked helplessly from Mrs. March to the children, and from the children to Mrs. March. Then she rose and walked unsteadily to the table, and tried to take the towel out of Nelly's hands. "Lit me wipe the dishes," she said: "my head's better now." "No, Sarah," said Mrs. March, sternly. " Go back to your room. You 're not yet fit to be on your feet." The children wondered very much that their mamma, who was usually so kind, should speak so sternly to Sarah ; but they asked no questions. They were too Aill of the excitement of doing all the work, and look- ing at their presents, and talking about them. The hours flew by so quickly that it was dark before they knew it ; and, when they went to bed, they both ex- claimed together : " Oh, Nell ! " and " Oh, Rob ! hasn't it been a splen- did Christmas ! " They remembered it for a great many years, for it was the last Christmas they spent in their pleasant IK me at Mayfield. 24 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. CHAPTER H. A TALK ABOUT LEAVING MAYPIEL1J. THE next day a big snow fell. It was one of those snows which fall so thick and fast and fine, that when you look out of the windows it seems as if great white sheets were being let down from the skies. When Rob first waked and saw this snow falling, he ex- claimed : "Hurrah! here's a bully snow-storm! Now we'll get some snow-balhng. Say, Nell, won't you help me build a real big snow-fort with high walls that we can stand behind, and fire snow-balls at the boys ? " " Oh, Rob ! " said Nelly, " I 'm afraid mamma won't let you play in the snow yet : your throat isn't well enough ; but by next week I think it will be. We '11 have snow right along now all winter." " Oh, dear ! " said Rob, fretfully : " there it is again. I can't ever do any thing I want to." "Why, Rob," replied Nelly, "aren't you ashamed of yourself, with that lovely kaleidoscope and all those books ? I shouldn't think yon 'd want to go out to-duy. I 'm sure I don't. I 'd rather stay at home with Mrs. Napoleon and the rest of my dolls all day than go any- where, that is, unless it was to take a sleigh-ride. A TALK ABOUT LEAVING MAYFIELD. 25 Mamma said perhaps, if it stopped snowing, papa might take us on a sleigh-ride this afternoon." "Did she?" exclaimed Rob; "oh, bully!" "But then I suppose I can't go," he added, in a quite altered tone. " Oh, 3 T es ! you can," answered Nelly, " mamma said so. I heard her tell papa it would do you good to go well wrapped up." " I hate to be bundled up so," said Rob. " It 's as hot as fury ; and, besides, it makes the boys laugh ; last tune I went out so, Ned Saunders he stood on his father's store steps, when we stopped there, mamma wanted to buy a broom, and Ned called out, ' Ity-by, baby bunting, where 's your little rabbit skin ? ' I shan't go if mamma makes me wear that red shawl, so ! " and Rob's face was the picture of misery. Nelly's cheeks flushed at the thought of the insulting taunt to Rob which was conveyed in that quotation from Mother Goose : but she was a very wise and clear- headed little girl, as you have no doubt discovered before this time, and she knew much better than to let Rob think she felt as he did about it ; so all she said was, "I don't care: I shouldn't mind. If Ned Saunders had the sore throat, he 'd have to be wrapped up just the same way. Boys are a great deal hatefuller than girls. No girl would ever say such a thing as that to a girl if she was sick, or to a boy either." "No, I don't suppose they would," said Rob, reflec- tively. " Girls are nicer than boys some ways : that's a fact." In the excitement of the Christmas presents, and the getting of the Christmas dinner, and all the housework 26 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. which had to be done afterward, Nelly had forgotten about the conversation which she had overheard in the night between her father and mother. But in the quiet of this stormy morning it all came back to her. She and Rob were spending the forenoon in the place which they liked best in ah 1 the house, their mother's room. It was a beautiful sunny chamber, with two big bay- windows in it, one looking to the south, and one to the west ; the south window looked out on the garden, and the west window looked out on a great pine grove which was only a few rods away from the house ; on the east side of the room was the fire- place with a low grate set in it ; the fire burned better in this fire-place than in any other in the house, the children thought. That was because they had a nice time every night, sitting down a while in front of this fire and talking with their mother. This was the time when they told her things they didn't quite like to tell in the daytime ; and this was the time she alwa} r s took to tell them things she was anxious they should remem- ber. They associated all their talks with the bright open fire ; and, whenever they saw the flames of soft coal leaping up and shining, they remembered a great many things their mother had said to them. There was a large old-fashioned mahogany table on one side of this room, which Mrs. March used for cut- ting out work, and which the children liked better than any thing in the room. It had droll twisted legs which ended in knobs and castors, and it had big leaves fast- ened on with brass hinges which opened and shut; when these leaves were open the table was so big that both Rob and Nelly could Le up on it at once, and have A TALK ABOUT LEAVING MAYFIELD. 27 plenty of room for their things. This morning their mother had let them open it out to its full size, and push it close up in one corner of the room, so that the walls made a fine back for them to lean against. Nelly sat on one side, with all her dolls ranged in a row against the wall, Mrs. Napoleon at the head. In front of her, she had all their clothes in one great pile, and was sorting and arranging them in the little bureau and trunk and boxes in which she kept them. Rob sat opposite her with his feet on a blanket shawl, so that they would not scratch the mahogany ; he was reading the " Cliff Climbers," and every few minutes he would break out with : " This is the most splendid story of all yet." "Nell, look at this picture of them going up over the cliff by ropes. Oh, don't I just wish I could go to some such place ! " After a while, Nell} 7 leaned her head back against the wall, and stopped playing with her dolls. She looked at the snow-storm outside, and the bright fire in the grate, and exclaimed, "Oh, maunna! isn't it nice here?" There was something in Nelly's tone which made her mother look up surprised. "Why, yes, dear; of course it is nice here; it is always nice here ; what made you think of it just now ? " Nelly March was one of the honestest little girls that ever lived. Nothing seemed to her so dreadful as a lie ; but she came very near telling one now. " I don't know, mamma," she said; but, almost be- fore the words were out of her mouth, she added : 28 NELLY'S SILVER MINK. "Yes, I do know, top; I meant I didn't want to tell." "Why not? my little daughter," said Mrs. March, looking much puzzled. " Surely it cannot be any thing you do not want mamma to know." "Oh, no, mamma! it is something you didn't want me to know," said Nelly hastily, turning very red. " Something I didn't want you to know, Nell," she said. "What do you mean? And how did you know it then?" "She listened, she listened," cried Rob, throwing down his book, " and she wouldn't tell me a thing either, and she was real mean." The tears came into Nelly's eyes, and Mrs. March looked very sternly at Rob. " Rob," she said, " telling tales is as mean as listen- Ing : I 'm ashamed of you. Nell, what does he mean ? " Poor Nelly was almost crying. "Indeed, mamma," she exclaimed, "I didn't listen; and I told Rob then I didn't ; he 's told a lie, a wicked lie, and he ought to be punished, mamma ; he knows it's a lie." " It ain't either," shouted Rob, " if you didn't listen how'd you hear? She did listen, mamma, and now she's told a lie too." Mrs. March threw down her sewing, and walked quickly across the room to the table where the children were sitting. She put one hand on Nelly's head, and one on Rob's. "My dear children," she said, "you shock me. Do think what you are saying : this is a bad beginning for the new year." A TALK ABOUT LEAVING MAYFIELD. 29 "'Tain't New Year yet for a week," muttered Rob. ' This needn't count." Mrs. March laughed in spite of herself. " Eveij thing counts, Eob, which we do, whether it is the beginning of a New Year or not. Mamma ought not to have spoken as if that made any odds. But you must not accuse each other of lying. That is a most dreadful thing. I know neither of you would tell a lie." " Course we wouldn't," cried both the children. " Neither would Nelly listen, Rob, in any such sense as you meant," continued Mrs. March. " Sometimes we overhear things when we do not mean to." "That's just the way it was, mamma," interrupted Nelly eagerly ; " and I told Rob so : it was in the night, night before last, and you and papa were talking, and I was awake, and I could not help hearing, and I coughed as loud as I could for you to hear." "Oh," said Mrs. March, " that is it, is it? I remem- ber you coughed, and I shut the door. I did not think you were awake, but I was afraid we should waken you. We were talking about going away from this place." " Yes, mamma," said Nelly, in a sad tone. "Going away! Oh, mamma, are we really going away? oh, where? say where, mamma, say quick!" cried Rob, throwing down his "Cliff Climbers," and springing from the table to the floor at one bound. " Gently, gently, wild boy," said Mrs. March, catch- ing Rob by one arm and drawing him into her lap. In spite of all Rob's ill temper and selfishness, I think Mrs. March loved him a little better than she loved Nell} . Neither Nelly nor Rob dreamed of this, and 50 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. perhaps Mrs. March never was conscious of it herself; but other people could see it. "Why, Rob," she said, "would you be glad to gc away from this house, and the grove, and the pond, and from all your friends, and go to live in a strange place where you didn't know anybody ? " Rob's face sobered. " To stay, mamma?" he said, " to stay always?" Nelly did not speak. She knew more about this matter than Rob did. She watched her mother's face very earnestly and sadly, and tears filled her eyes when Mrs. March answered : " I am afraid so, Rob : if we go I do not believe we shall ever come back. I didn't mean to let }"ou know any thing about it till it was all settled. But, since you have heard something about it, I will tell you all I know myself. Come here, Nelly ; both of you sit down now at my feet, and I will talk to you about it." Nelly and Rob sat down on two low crickets by their mother's knee, and looked up in her face without speak- ing. They felt that something very serious was coming. Before Mrs. March began to speak, she kissed them both several times, then she said : "There is one thing I am very sure of: both my little children will be brave and good, if hard times come." "Oh, mamma! tell us quick; don't bother," inter- rupted impatient Rob, "let's know what it is quick, mamma. Are we going to be awful poor, like the people in story books ? I don't care if we are, if that 'a all. Let 's have it over." Mrs. March lausrhed again : one reason she loved A TALK ABOUT LEAVING MATFIELD. 31 Rob so much was that his temper was so much like her own. It had been very hard for her herself to learn to be patient, and to be sufficiently moderate in her speech and even now there was nothing in the world she dis- liked so much as suspense of any kind. She could make up her mind to endure almost any thing, if only it wore fixed and settled. So when Rob burst out with impatient speeches like this one, she knew exactly how he felt. And sometimes when Nelly took things quietly and calmly, and was so deliberate in all her movements, Mrs. March misunderstood her, and thought she did not really care about any thing half as much as Rob did. But the truth was, Nelly really cared a great deal more about almost every thing, than he did. He for- got things in a day, or an hour even ; sad things, pleasant things, all alike : they blew away from Rob's memory and Rob's heart like leaves in a great wind, and he never thought much more about any thing than just whether he liked it or disliked it at the moment. The phrase he used to his mother just now was very often on his lips, " Oh, don't bother ! " Especially he used to say this to Nelly whenever she tried to reason with him about something which she thought not quite right or not quite safe. You would have thought to hear them talk that Nelly was at least five years older than he : she talked to him like a little mother. At this moment, when Rob was hurrying his mother so impatiently, Nelly exclaimed, " Oh, hush, Rob ! do let mamma tell it as she wants to ; " and Nelly drew up close to her mother's side, and laid her cheek down on her mother's hand. Nelly's heart was as full as it could be of sym- pathy: she knew that her mother felt very unhappy 32 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. about going away, and Nelly's way of showing her sympathy was to be very loving and tender and quiet ; but, strange as it may seem, this did not comfort and help Mrs. March so much as Rob's off-hand and impa- tient way. ' " Well, but she's so slow: ain't you slow, mamma? And it 's horrid to wait," replied Rob. "Yes, Rob," laughed Mrs. March. " I am rather slow, and it is horrid to wait ; but I won't be slow any longer : this is what papa and I were talking about the other night, about going out to Colorado to live." "Colorado! where 's that? Is it anywhere near the Himalayas? " cried Rob. "If it is, I 'd like to go ; oh, T 'd like to go ever so much." Mrs. March laughed out loud. " Oh you droll Rob," she said. "No, it's nowhere near the Himalayas; but there are mountains there about as high as the Himalayas, higher than any other mountains in America." "Are there elephants?" said Rob. "I wouldn't mind about any thing if there are only elephants." " Rob, how can you ! " burst out Nelly, with a vehe- mence very unusual in her. "How can you! It's because papa's sick that we are going." " Why, what's the matter with papa?" said Rob, wonderingly. Mr. March had been a sufferer from asthma for so many years that no one any longer thought of him as an invalid. He was very rarely confined to the house, s*nd, except in the summer, his asthma did not give him A great deal of trouble ; but in the summer it was so lad that for weeks he was not able to preach at all : I A TALK ABOUT LEAVING MAYFIELD. 33 believe I have forgotten all this time to tell you that he was a minister. I have been so busy talking about NTelly and Rob, that I have hardly told you any thing ibout their papa and mamma. Mr. March had been settled in this village of May- fleld for fifteen years, and the people loved him so much that they would not hear of having any other ministei . When his asthma was so bad that he could not preach, they hired some one else ; always in the summer they sjave him a two-months' vacation ; and, whenever any stranger said any thing unkind about his asthmatic voice, they always replied, " If Mr. March couldn't preach in any thing more than a whisper, we 'd rather hear him than any other man living." The truth was, that they had grown so accustomed to the asthmatic, wheezy tone, that they did not notice it. It really was very unpleasant to a stranger's ear, and everybody won- dered how a whole congregation of people could endure it. But it is wonderful how much love can do to recon- cile us to disagreeable things in the people we love ; and not only to reconcile us to them, but to make us forget them entirely. Nelly and Rob never thought but that their father's voice was as pleasant as anybody's : when his breath came very short and quick, they knew he was suffering, but at other times they did not remember any thing about his having asthma ; this was the reason that Rob said so wonderingly now : " Why, what is the matter with papa?" Mrs. March's voice was very sad as she replied : " Only his asthma, dear, which he has had so many years, but it is growing much worse ; and we have seen a gentleman lately who has just come from Colorado, 2 34 NELLY'S SILVER M1XE. and he says that people nover have asthma at all there, and the doctor says if papa does not go to some such climate to live, he will get worse and worse, so that he will not be able to do any thing. You don't know how much poor papa suffers, even here. He has not been ab.e to lie down in bed for almost a year now ; ever since early last summer." " Not lie down ! " exclaimed Nelly, " why, what does he do, mamma ? How does he sleep ? " "He sleeps propped up with pillows, dear, almost as straight as he would be in a chair," replied Mrs. March. "Oh, dear," cried Kob, "isn't that awful! Why didn't you ever tell us, mamma? Isn't he awful tired? What makes people not have asthma in Colorado, any- how?" "Which question first, Rob?" said Mrs. March. "I haven't told you, because papa dislikes very much to have any thing said about it. Yes : he is very tired all the time. He never feels rested in the morning as you do. I don't know why people never have asthma in Colorado ; but I think it must be because the air is so very dry there. They never have any rain there from October to April, and the country is very high ; some of the towns where people live are twice as high AS the highest mountains you ever saw." "Mamma!" exclaimed Rob, with so loud and ear- nest a voice that both Mrs. March and Nelly gave a little jump. " Mamma, if it's the being so high up that does the good, why couldn't we go to the Himalayas instead? Oh, it 's perfectly splendid there ! just let me read you about it," and Rob ran back to the table for his " Cliff A TALK ABOUT LEAVING MAYFIELD. 35 Climbers," and was about to begin to read aloud from it. Mrs. March could not help laughing : and Nell}' laughed too ; for Nelly, although she was no older than Rob, was very much ahead of him in her studies at school, and she knew very well where the Himalaya mountains were, and that there would be no way of living there comfortably even if it were not quite too far to go. " But, Eob, " began Mrs. March. " You just wait till I read you, mamma," interrupted Rob ; "you haven't read the 'Cliff Climbers,' and you dou't know any thing about it. Perhaps the doctors don't know how many good things grow there ; and the mountains are five miles high, some of them. I 'm sure papa couldn't have the asthma as high up as that : juldhe?" " My dear little boy," said Mrs. March, putting her hand on the book and shutting it up, " you are always too hasty: you must stop and listen. Nobody could live five miles up in the air. That would be as much too high as this is too low ; and things which sound very fine to read about would be very inconvenient in real life." "Yes;" interrupted Rob, "an elephant tore dowp their cabin one night, just tramped right over it, and smashed it all flat as we would an ant-hill. Thai wouldn't be very nice : but we needn't live where the elephants come ; we could just go out to hunt them in the summer." Rob's eyes were dark blue, and when he was eager and excited they seemed to turn black, and to be twice their usual size. He was so eager now that his eye? were fairly dancing in his head. He was possessed of 36 NELLY'S SILVER MINh. this idea about going to live in the Himalaya moun- tains, and nothing could stop him. " They 're all heathen there too, mamma, and wouldn't papa like that? He could preach to them don't 3'ou know ? Oh, it would be splendid ! and I could collect seeds just like these cliff climbers, and stuff birds, and make lots of money sending them back to this countiy." "Oh, Rob!" exclaimed Nelly, at last; "do stop talking, and let mamma talk : she hasn't half told us yet. It 's all nonsense about the Himalayas. We couldn't go there ; nobody goes there. I '11 just show you on your new globe where it is, and you can see for yourself." So saying, Nelly ran for the globe, and was proceeding to show Rob what a long journey round the world it would be to reach the Himalayas ; but Rob pushed the globe away. " I don't care any thing about the old globe," he said ; " people do go there, for Maj-ne Reid's books are all true ; he says they are, and it isn't all nonsense about the Himalayas ; is it, mamma? Couldn't we go there?" Rob was fast growing angiy. " No, Rob," said Mrs. March : " we cannot go to the Himalayas to live ; that is very certain. One of these days, when you 're a man, I hope you will be able to go all about the world and see all these countries yon are BO fond of reading about : you will have to wait till then for the Himalaj'as. If we go away from home at all, we must go to Colorado. That is quite far enough : it will take us four whole days and five nights, going just as fast as the cars can go, to get there." " I don't care where we go, if we can't go to the Himalayas," said Rob, sulkily. " I think it 'a real A TALK ABOUT LEAVING MAYFIELD. 37 mean if we 've got to go away not to go there. I knotr it would be real good for papa." Mrs. March laughed again very heartily. "Rob," she said, "you are a very queer little boy. Mamma can't understand how you get so excited over things in such a short time. A few minutes ago you had never thought of such a thing as going to the Himalayas ; and here you are already sure that it would be good for papa to go there. Why, even the doctors are not sure what would be good for papa ! It is very hard to tell." " Does it really take four whole days and five nights to get to Colorado ? " asked Rob. He had already given up the idea of the Himalayas, and was beginning to think about Colorado. Rob's mind moved from one thing to another as quickly as a weathercock when the wind is shifting. "Yes: four whole days and five nights," said Mrs. March; " or else four nights and five days, according to the time you start." "Five da} T s! day si Let's start so as to make it come five days ; so as to see all we can," exclaimed Rob. "That's splendid! When will we start, mamma ? " " It isn't really sure, is it, mamma, that we are to go," asked Nelly, who had hardly had a chance yet to speak a word: Rob had been talking so fast. "Does papa want to go ? " You see how much more thoughtful Nelly was for other people than for herself. All Rob was thinking of was what good times might come of this journey ; but Nelly was thinking how hard it was for her papa and 38 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. mamma to break up their pleasant home, and how sad it might be for all of them to go to live among strangers. " No, dear," said Mrs. March. " Papa does not want to go at all. It is very hard for him to make up his mind to do it. And I do not want to go either, except on papa's account : but we would go anywhere in the world that would make papa well ; wouldn't we ? " " Yes, indeed," said Nelly, earnestly. "Why doesn't papa want to go?" cried Rob. " There '11 be plenty of people there to preach to : won't there? And that's all papa cares for." " Papa doesn't like to leave all these people here that he has preached to for so many years : he loves them all very much," replied Mrs. March ; " and he does not expect to preach any more if he goes to Colorado. There are not a great many villages there ; it is chiefly a wild new country : people live on great farms and keep large herds of sheep or of cows ; and the doctor wants papa to be a fanner and work out of doors, and not live in his study among his books any more." " Be a farmer like Uncle Alonzo? " exclaimed Nelly "Oh, mamma, wouldn't that be nice? and wouldn't papa like that ? He always has a good time when he goes to Uncle Alonzo's. He sa} T s it makes him feel as if he was a boy again. And oh, mamma, the cows are beautiful. Don't you like cows, mamma?" Nelly was now almost as excited as Rob. She had been several times to make a visit at her Uncle Alonzo's house. He was a rich farmer, and had big barns, and fields full of raspberries and huckleberries, and a beau- tiful pine grove close to the house ; and he had nearly A TALK ABOUT LEAVING MAYFIELD. 39 a hundred cows, and used to make butter and cheese to sell, and both Nelly and Rob thought there was nothing so delightful in the whole world as to stay at Uncle Alonzo's. "No, dear," said Mrs. March. "I can't honestly 3ay I do like cows. I am so silly as to be afraid of them. But I like your Uncle Alonzo's farm very much." "Oh, mamma, how can you be afraid of a cow!" cried Rob. " They never hurt you." "I suppose it's because I am a coward, Rob," answered Mrs. March; "but I can't help it. I was chased by a bull once when I was a girl ; and, ever since then, I have been afraid of any thing which has horns on its head." " Is that what the word coward comes from, mamma ?" asked Rob : " does it mean to be afraid of a cow?" "I guess not, Rob," said Mrs. March, laughing. " Don't begin to make puns, Rob : it is a bad habit." "Puns!" said Rob, much surprised: "what is a pun?" Then Mrs. March tried to explain to Rob what a pun was, but it was very hard work ; and I don't think Rob understood, after all her explanations, so I shall not try to explain it to you. here ; but I dare say a great many of you understand what a pun is, and, if you do, you will see that Rob had accidentally made rather a good pun, for a little boy only twelve years old, when he asked if a coward was a person afraid of a cow. Presently the dinner-bell rang. "Why, mamma," exclaimed both the children, "it isn't dinner-time, is it?" 40 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. "Yes, it really is," said Mrs. March, looking at her watch : " I had no idea it was so late. Where has the morning gone to ? " " Gone to Colorado," exclaimed Rob, running down- stairs, " gone to Colorado ! Hurrah for Colorado." ne of them by the shoulder and giving her a shove. No sooner had the words passed his lips than he felt him- self lifted by the nape of his neck as if he had been a little puppy : he was in the hands of a great red-faced German, who looked like a scarlet giant to poor Rob, as he gazed up in his face. This was the father of the two little girls ; he had seen the shove that Rob gave his little Wilhelmina, and he was in a great rage ; he shook Rob back and forth, and cuffed his ears, all the time talking very loud in German. All he said was : " You are a good-for-nothing : I will teach }*ou man- ners, that you do not push little girls who are doing }'ou no harm ; " but it sounded in the German language like something veiy dreadful. Poor Nelly clung to him with one hand, and tried to stop his beating Rob. " Oh, please don't whip my brother, sir ! " she cried. 41 He did not mean to hurt the little gill. She was going to snatch my doll away from me." But the angry German shook Nelly off as if she had been ajittle fly that lighted on his arm. Rob did not cry out, nor speak a word. He was horribly frightened, but he was too angry to cry. He said afterwards : " I thought he was going to kill me ; but I just made up my mind I wouldn't speak a single word if he did." All this that I have been telling you didn't take much more than a minute ; but it seemed to poor Nelly a 68 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. thousand years. She was crying, and the little German girls were crying too: they did not mean to do any harm, and they did not want the little boy whipped. Some rough men and women who were looking on be- gan to laugh, and one man called out : "Go it, Dutchy, go it!" Mr. March, who was just walking up the platform, heard the noise ; and, when he looked up to see what it meant, what should he see but his own Rob held away up in the air, in the powerful grip of this tall man, and being soundly cuffed about the ears. Mr. March sprang forward, and, taking hold of Rob with one hand, caught the angry man's uplifted arm in the other. " Stop, sir," he said ; " this is my little bo}-. What has he done? Leave him to me. What has he done ?' "Nothing, papa," called poor Rob, the tears coming into his eyes at the sight of a protector ; ' ' nothing ex- cept push that ugly little yellow-haired girl : I guess she is his ; she was going to snatch Nell's doll." The German set Rob down ; and, turning towards Mr. March, began to pour out a torrent of words. Luckily, Mr. March understood most of what he said, and could speak to him in his own language. So he explained to him that his little daughters had tried to take Nelly's doll away from her, and that Rob had only intended to protect his sister, as was quite right and proper he should do. As soon as the man understood this, he turned at once to his little girls who stood by crying, and asked them a short question in German. They sobbed out, " ja, ja" (that means "yes, yes"). In less than a minute he caught up first the elder one, just as he had caught up Rob, and boxed her ears ; OFF FOR COLORADO. 69 then the smaller one, and cuffed her also ; and set them both down on the ground, as if he were used co swing- ing children up in the air and boxing their ears every day. Then he turned to Rob, and, taking him by the hand, said to Mr. March, ' ' Explain to your little boy that I ask his pardon He was doing .the right thing : he is a gentleman ; and I ask that he accept this horn from me and from my very bad little girls." So saying, he took out of a great wallet that hung across his back a beautiful little powder horn. It was a horn of the chamois, the beautiful wild deer that lives in the mountains in Switzerland. It was as black as ebony, and had a fine pattern cut on it, like a border round the top ; then it had a scarlet cord and silver buckles, to fasten it across the shoulders. Rob's eyes glistened with delight as he stretched out his hand for it. " Oh, thank you, thank }*ou ! " he said. " Oh, papa ! please thank him, and tell him I don't mind the whip- ping a bit now. And," he added. " please tell him, too, that I didn't mean to shove his little girl hard, only just to keep her off Nell." Mr. March interpreted Rob's speech to the German, who nodded pleasantly and walked off, leading his two little sobbing children by the hand. He was so tall that the little girls looked like little elves by his side, and he looked Eke the picture of the Giant with his seven- league boots on. When Rob turned to show his beau- tiful powder horn to Nelly, she was nowhere to be seen. "Why, where is Nell, papa?" he exclaimed. Mr. March looked around anxiously, but could see 70 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. nothing of her. They hurried back into the -waiting- room, and there to their great relief the}' saw Nelly sitting by her mother's side. Rob rushed up to her, holding up his powder horn, and exclaiming, " Why, Nell, what made you come away? That old thrasher was a splendid fellow : see what he gave me, as soon as papa made him understand ; *and he cuffed those girls well, I tell you, most as hard as he did me. Why, Nell, what 's the matter ? " Rob suddenly observed that Nelly was crying. "Don't talk to Nelly just now," said Mrs. March: " she is in trouble." And she-put her arm round Nelly tenderly. " But what is it, mamma? " exclaimed Rob ; " tell me. Is she hurt?" " What is it, Sarah? " said Mr. March. By this time Nelly was sobbing hard, and her head was buried on her mother's shoulder. Mrs. March pointed to Nelly's lap : there lay a shapeless and dirt}' little bundle, which Nelly held grasped feebly in one hand. It was the remains of Mrs. Napoleon. The blue waterproof was all torn and grimed with dirt ; a broken wax arm hung out at one side ; and when Rob cautiously lifted a fold of the waterproof, there came into view a shocking sight : poor Mrs. Napoleon's face, or rather what had been her face, without a single feature to be seen in it, just a round ball of dirty, crumbling wax, with the pretty yellow curls all matted in it. Mr. March could not help smiling at the sight : luckily, Nelly did not see him. " Why, how did that happen? " he said. "What a shame!" exclaimed Rob. "Say. Nell, you shall have my powder horn ; " and he thrust c into OFF FOR COLORADO. 71 her hand. Nelly shook her head and pushed it away, but did not speak. Her heart was too full. Then Mrs. March told them in a low tone how it had happened. When Nelly caught hold of the Geiman's arm, trying to stop his beating Rob, she had forgotten aP about Mrs. Napoleon, and let her fall to the ground Nobody saw her, and, in the general scuffle, the doll had been trampled under foot. Really, if one had not been so sorry for Nell}', one could not help laughing at the spectacle. The scarlet feather and the bright blue cloak, and the golden curls, and the dark blue veils, and the red and white wax, all mixed up together so that you would have hardly known that it was a doll at all, except that one blue eye was left whole, with a little bit of the red cheek under it. This made the whole wreck Took still worse. " Our first railroad accident," said Mrs. March, laughingl}'. Nelly sobbed harder than ever. " Hush," said Mr. March, in a low tone to his wife. *' Don't make light of it." " Nelly, dear," he said, taking hold of the doll gently, " shall not papa throw the poor dolly away? You don't want to look at her anj* more." " Oh, no, no ! " said Nelly, lifting up the bundle, and hugging it tighter. "Very well, dear," replied her father, "you shal] keep it as long as you like. But let me pin poor dolly up tight, so that nobody can see how she is hurt." Nelly gave the doll up without a word, and her kind papa rolled the little waterproof cloak tight round the body and arms ; then he doubled up the blue veil and pinned it mauj thicknesses thick all round the head ; 72 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. and then he took a clean dark-blue and white silk hand- kerchief of his own and put outside all the veil, and made it into a snug little parcel, that nobody would have known was a dolly at all. '' There, Nelly," he said, putting it in her lap, " there is dolly, all rolled up, so that nobody can look at her." Nelly took the sad little bundle, and laid it across her knees. " Can she ever be mended, papa?" she said. " No, dear, I think not," said Mr. March ; " I think the sooner you put her out of your sight the better ; but now we must go into the cars." Poor Nelly ! she walked slowly along, canying the blue and white package as if it were a coffin, as in- deed it was, a kind of coffin, for a very dead doll}'. As they were going into the car, Mr. March said to his wife : " There is no drawing-room in the sleeping-car which goes through to-day. I have had to take two sections." Mrs. March had never travelled in a sleeping-car be- fore, and she did not know how much nicer the little room was than the ' ' sections." So she replied : ' ' They '11 do just as well, won't they ? " " I think you will not like them quite so well," replied Mr. March; "you cannot be by yourself with the chil dren. But it is only for one night ; we will make tht best of it. There are our sections, one right opposite the other; so you will not have strangers opposite you." They put their lunch-basket and bags and bundles down on the floor, and sat down on the two sofas, facing each other. Nelly put her blue and white parcel in one OFF FOR COLORADO. 73 corner of the sofa, lay down with her head on it, and was soon fast asleep. There were tears on her cheeks. " Poor child ! " said Mr. March ; " this is her first real grief." " I 'm glad I ain't a girl," said Rob, bluntly ; " I don't believe in dolls, do you, papa ? " Mr. March answered Rob's question by another. " Do you believe in babies, Rob?" "Why, of course, papa! What a funny question! I think babies are real nice. They 're alive, 3-011 know." " Yes," said his father ; " but dolls are just the same to little girls that babies are to grown-up women. Nelly felt just like a mother to Mrs. Napoleon. She was a -very good little mother too." "Yes," said Mrs. March; "she was. I am very sorry for her." "I'm real glad Deacon Plummer and Mrs. Plummer weren't here," said Rob. "Why, why, Rob?" said his mother. (Deacon and Mrs. Plummer had left the train at Quincy to spend a week with a son of theirs who lived there. They were to join the Marches later, in Denver. ) "Oh, because she 'd have said : 'This is cough cough providential.' What does providential mean, anyhow, papa ? You never say it. Does it make you cough and sneeze ? Mrs. Plummer is always sajing it about every thing." Mr. and Mrs. March laughed so hard at this they could not speak for some minutes. Then Mr. March said : " You must not speak so, Rob ; " but, before he M NELLY'S SILVER MINE. finished his sentence, he had to stop again, and laugh Harder than before. "Deacon and Mrs. Plummer are oing to be the greatest help to us, and they are as good and kind as they can be." "Yes, I like her crullers first-rate," said Rob. " What loes providential mean, papa?" Mr. March looked puzzled. " I hardly know how to tell you, Rob. Mrs. Plummer means by it that God made the thing happen, whatever it is that she is speaking of, on purpose for her accom- modation : that is one way of using the word. I do not believe that doctrine : so I never use the word, because it would be understood to mean something I don't be- lieve in." " I should think God'd be too busy," said Rob, as if he were thinking very hard; "he couldn't remember everybody, could he ? " " Not in that way, I think," said Mr. March ; " but in another way I think it is true that he never forgets anybody. It is something like my garden, Rob. You know I 've got parsnips, and carrots, and beets, and po- tatoes, oh! a dozen of things, all growing together. Now I never forget my garden. I know when it is time to have the corn hoed ; and I know, when there hasn't been any rain for a long time, that I must water it. But I don't think about each particular carrot or parsnip in the bed : I could hardly count them if I tried. Yet T mean to take very good care of my garden, and never let them suffer for an}' thing ; and if any one of my vegetables were to be thirst}', if it could speak, it ought to ask me to give it some water." I am afraid Rob did not listen attentively to this long OFF FOR COLORADO. 75 explanation. He never thought of any one thing very long, as 3'ou know. And he was busy now watching all the people pour into the car. There was a little girl, only about Nelly's age, who had to be carried on a little mattress. She could not walk. Something was the matter with her spine. Her father and mother were with her. And there was a lady with a sweet face, who was too ill to sit up at all. The sofas in her " section" were made up into a bed as soon as she came in ; she had a doctor and a nurse with her. Then there were several couples, who had two or three children with them ; and one poor lady who was travel- ling all alone with five children, and the largest only twelve years old ; and there were some Englishmen with guns and fishing-rods and spy-glasses and almost every thing you could think of that could be cased in leather and carried on a journey, one of them even had a bath-tub, a big, round bath-tub, in addition to every thing else. He had a man-servant with him who carried all these things, or else he never could have got on at all. The man's name was Felix. That is a Latin word which means " happy," but I don't think this poor fellow was happy at all. He was a Frenchman. I don't know how he came to be an Englishman's servant, but I sup- pose the Englishman had lived a great while in France, and had found him there. Felix's master always talked French with him ; so Felix had not learned much Eng- lish, and it would have made you laugh to see him clap his hand to his head when anybody said any thing he could not understand. He would pound his head as if he could drive the meaning in that way ; and then he would pull his thin hair ; and then sometimes he would 76 NELLY'S SILVER MINE turn round and round as fast as a top two or three time? When he came into the cars loaded down with the gun? and the rods and the bundles and the bath-tub, his mas- ter would tell him to put them down in the corner ; then the porter would come along and say : ' ' Look here ! you can't have all these things in here ; " und then Felix would say : " Vat dat you say, sare?" Then the porter would repeat it ; and Felix would say again : " Vat dat you say, sare?" And then the porter would get angry, and pick up some of the things, and lay them on Felix's back, and tell him to carry them off; and there Felix would stand stock-still, with the things on his back, till his master appeared. Then he would pour out all his story of his troubles in French, and the Englishman would be very angry with the porter, and say that he would have his things where he pleased ; and the porter would say he should not. He must put them under his berth or in the baggage car ; and poor Felix would stand all the while looking first in the porter's face and then in his master's, just like a dog that is waiting for his master to tell him which way to run for a thing. Great drops of perspi- ration would stand on his forehead, and his face would be as red as if it were August : he was so worried and confused. Poor Felix ! he was one of the drollest sights in the whole journey. The people kept pouring in. "Mamma, where are they all to sleep?" whispered Rob. "I'm sure I don't know, Rob," she answered. OFF FOR COLORADO 77 At last, tiio r the night." At noon the vain stopped for the passengers to take their dinner at a little station. More than half the people in the car went out. Then the porter the new porter's name W4S Ben brought in little tables and put them up betos een the seats for the people who had their own lunch-b iskets and did not want to go out to dinner. In the next section to the Marches were a man and his wife with vJiree children. They had a big coffee- pot full of coffee, and one tin cup to drink it from. The}* had loaves of brown bread, a big cheese, and a bunch of onions. As soon as they opened their basket, the smell of the onions and the cheese filled the car. " Ugh ! " said Rob ; " where does this horrible smell come from ? " Luckily the people who owned the cheese and the onions did not hear him, and before he had time to saj 78 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. any more, his mother whispered to him to be quiet ; but Rob's face was one of such disgust, that nobody could have looked at him without seeing that he was very uncomfortable. Mrs. March felt as uncomfortable as Rob did : but she knew that those people had just the same right to have cheese and onions on theii table that she had to have chocolate and orange marmalade on hers ; so she opened one of the windows wide to let in fresh air, and went on with her dinner. As soon as the spirit-lamp began to burn, the children in the next section exclaimed aloud: "Oh, what is that? what is that?" They had never seen any thing of the kind before. The two eldest, who were boys, jumped down from their seat, each carrying a big piece of bread and of cheese, and came crowding around Mrs. March to look at the lamp. Mrs. March was a very gentle and polite woman, but she could not help being vexed at these ill-mannered children. " Go away, little boys," she said : "I am very busy now. I am afraid you will upset the lamp, and get burned." Then she looked at the father and mother, hoping they would call their children back. But they took no notice of them : they went on eating their bread and cheese and onions ; and, at every fresh onion they sliced, a fresh whiif of the strong, disagreeable odor wenl through the car. Mr. March had been out to the eat- ing-house, to get some milk. Mrs. March had brought a big square glass bottle, which held three pints ; and, whenever they stopped at an eating-house, Mr. March bought fresh milk to fill it, and this was a great addi- tion to their bill of fare. He came into the car at tUi OFF FOR COLORADO. 79 moment, bringing the milk bottle, and as soon as he >pened the car door, he exclaimed, as Rob had done : " Ugh ! " but in a second more he saw what had made the odor, and he said no more. As he handed the milk to his wife, she said in a low tone : "Could we go anywhere else to eat our dinner, Robert?" Mr. March looked all around the car and shook hia head. "No," he said; " every seat is taken, and at any moment the people may come back. It is nearly time now for the train to start. We will make a hasty meal ; perhaps we can do better at night." Rob and Nelly were very quiet. They did not like the two strange boys who stood close to their seat staring at them, and at every thing which was on the table. Rob whispered to Nelly : " 'Tain't half so nice as it was in the little room : is it, Nell?" " No," said Nelly. "Shouldn't you think they'd be ashamed to stare so ? " continued Rob, making a gesture over his shoulder towards their uninvited guests. " Yes," said Nelly. " It 's real rude." Still the boys stood immovable at Mrs. March's Knee. At last one of them lifted his head, and, sajing " What keeps that thing on there?" pointed to the saucepan standing on the little tripod of the lamp. Just at thai moment, his brother accidentally hit his arm and made his hand go farther than he meant : it hit the saucepan and knocked it over ; down went the spirit-lamp, all the alcohol ran out and took fire,, and for a few minute* 80 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. there was a great hubbub I assure you. Mr. March seized their heavy woollen lap-robe, and threw it on the floor above the burning alcohol, and stamped out the flames ; and nobod}' was burned. But the nice choco- late was all lost ; it went running down a little muddy stream, way out to the door; and the tumbler which had the butter in it fell to the floor and was broken ; and the nice slices of white bread which Mrs. March had just cut were all soaked in alcohol and spoiled ; and altogether it was a wretched mess, and all because two little boys had not been taught how to behave properly. The} 7 ran off as hard as they could go, you may be sure, back into their own seat, as soon as the mischief was done ; and, if you will believe it, their father and mother never even looked round or took an}' notice of all the confusion that was going on. They sat and munched their onions and brown bread and cheese as if they were in their own house all alone. One sees very queer and disagreeable people in travelling. B}' the time Mr. and Mrs. March had put out the fire, and picked up all the things and wiped up the chocolate as well as they could with a newspaper, the people who had gone out to get their dinners, all came pouring back, and the cars began to move. " Oh, dear me ! " said Mrs. March : " we shall have to go without our lunch now till tea-time. Here, chil- dren, just drink this milk, and eat a piece of bread, and at tea-time, perhaps, we '11 have better luck." " I don't care," said Rob ; " I ain't hungry a bit : it 's all so horrid in here." " Neither am I," said Nelly. " Can't we have a little room all to ourselves to-morrow, papa ? " OFF FOR COLORADO. 81 "No, Nell," said her father: "no more little room for us on this journey ; this car goes through to Denver. We can't change. But it is only one night and one day : we can stand it." "I 'm glad part of it is night," said Nelly; "we'll be by ourselves when we 're in bed." "Yes," said Mrs. March. "You are to sleep with me, and Rob with papa ; and we '11 be all shut in behind the curtains. I think that will be quite comfortable." When the train stopped for the passengers to take supper, Mr. and Mrs. March decided that they would go out too, and not try any more experiments with the spirit-lamp while they had such dangerous and disagree- able companions in the next seat. Nelly and Rob clung to their father's hand as they entered the eating-room. There were four long tables, all filled with people eating as fast as they could eat. Nearly all the men had their hats on their heads, and the noise of the knives and forks sounded like the clat- ter of machinery. The train was to stop only twenty minutes, and everybody was trying to eat all he could in so short a time. Mr. and Mrs. March, being very gentle and quiet people, did not hurry the waiters as the other people did ; and so it happened that their supper was not brought to them for some time. Nelly had eaten only a few mouthfuls of her bread and milk when there was a general rush from all the tables, and the room was emptied in a minute. The conductor of the train was sitting at the table with the Marches, and he said kindly to them : " Don't hurry ; there is plenty of tune ; five mmutea vet." 6 82 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. "Five minutes!" said Rob, scornfully: "I couldn't take five mouthfuls in five minutes. I 'm going to carry mine into tho cars." And he began spreading bread and butter. " A good idea, Rob," said his mother. And she did the same thing; and, as the conductor called "All aboard ! " the March family entered the car, each carry- ing two slices of bread and butter. " Not much better luck with our supper than with our dinner, Sarah," said Mr. March ; "I think you '11 have to open your lunch-basket, after all." "Oh, don't ask me to! "said Mrs. March. "The children have had a good drink of milk. We can ge^ along till morning. I would rather go hungry than take out the things with all those people looking on. We can go to bed early : that will be a comfort." Mistaken Mrs. March ! They sat on the steps of the cars for half an hour to watch the sunset. The brake- man had found out that Mr. March was so careful and Nelly and Rob were such good children that he let them sit there as often as they liked. Nelly loved dearly to sit between her father's knees on the upper step and look down at the ground as it seemed to fly awaj r so swiftly under the wheels. Sometimes they went so fast that the ground did not look like ground at all. It looked like a smooth, striped sheet of brown and green paper being drawn swiftly under the car wheels. It seemed to Rob and Nelly as if they must be going out over the edge of the world. All they could see was sky and ground. "This is the way it looks when you are out in the middle of the ocean, Nell," said her father; "just the OFF FOR COLORADO. 83 great round sky over your head, and the great flat sea underneath : only the sea is never still, as the ground is ; that is the only difference." "Still!" ciied Rob. "You don't call this ground under us still, do you ? It 's going as fast as lightning all the time." "No, Rob! it is we who are going; the ground is still," said his mother ; " but it does look just as if the ground were flying one way and we the other. It makes me almost dizzy to look down." Pretty soon the moon came up in the east. It was almost full, and, as it came up slowly in sight, it looked like a great circle of fire. Rob and Nelly both cried out, when they first saw it : " Oh, mamma ! oh, papa ! see that fire ! " In a very few minutes it was up in full sight, and then they saw what it was. " Dear me ! only the moon, after all," said Rob ; " I hoped it was a big fire." 84 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. CHAPTER IV. A NIGHT IN A SLEEPING-CAB. THE moonlight was so beautiful that Mrs. March did not like to go back into the car ; and Rot and Nelly begged so hard to sit up, that she let them stay long past their bed-time. At last she exclaimed : " Come, come ! this won't do ! "We must go to bed," and she opened the car door. As soon as she looked in she started back, so that she nearly knocked Mr. March and Nelly off the platform. " Why, what has happened?" she said. Mr. March laughed. " Oh, nothing," he said : " this is the way a sleeping- car always looks at night." Curtains were let down on each side the aisle its whole length. It was very dark, and the aisle looked very narrow. Not a human being was in sight. "Where are our sections?" said Mrs. March. " These are ours, I think," said Mr. March, pulling open a curtain on the left. " Let my curtain alone," called somebody from in- side. " Go away." Mr. March had opened the wrong curtain. "Oh, I beg your pardon, madam," he said, much mortified that he should have broken open a lady's bed- room. A NIGHT IN A SLEEPING-CAR. 8,1 Mrs. March and Rob and Nell}' stood close together in the middle of the aisle, at their wits' end. They did not dare to open another curtain, for fear it should be somebody's else bedroom, and not their own. " I '11 call Ben," said Mr. March ; " he '11 know." But Ben was nowhere to be found. At last they found him sound asleep in a little state-room at the end of the car. "Ben, come show us which are our sections," said Mr. March. Ben was very sleepy. He came stumbling down the aisle, rubbing his eyes. ' ' Reckon there is your berths ; I made 'em up all ready for you," said Ben, and pulled open the very cur- tain Mr. March had opened before. " Oh ! don't open that one ; there 's a lady in there," cried Mrs. March ; but she was too late. Ben had thrown the curtains wide open. The same angry voice as before called out : " I wish j'ou 'd let my curtain alone. What are you about?" "Done made a mistake this time, sure," said Ben, composedly drawing the curtains together again ; but not before Mrs. March and Nelly and Rob had had time to see into the bed, and had seen that it was the mother with five children. There they all lay as snug as you please : the three little ones packed like herrings in a box, across the foot of the bed, and the two others on the inside ; and the mother lying on the outer edge almost in the aisle. As Ben pushed back the curtains, she muttered : " There ain't any room to spare in this berth, if that 'a what you 're looking for,' 86 NELLY'S SILVER MINk. Rob and Nelly gave a smothered laugh at this. "Hush, children!" whispered Mrs. March. "You wouldn't like to be laughed at." "Oh, mamma, it's so funny!" said Rob. "We can't help it." Mrs. March did not think it funny at all. She began to be in despair about the night. The very next section to the one with the five chil- dren was one of Mr. March's, and luckily those were the next curtains Ben opened. "Here you are! you're all right!" he said, cheer- fully. "Here's all your things: I done piled 'em up first-rate for } r ou." Piled up they were indeed. The lunch-basket, the strapped bundle of blankets, the overcoats, the water- proofs, the leather bags, all one above the other on one bed. "Where are we to sleep, mamma?" exclaimed Nelly. "On top," said Rob. "Hurrah! hurrah!" and he was about to jump on the top of the pile. "Be quiet, Rob," said his father: "we must go to bed as quietly as we can, and not wake people up. We ought to have come earlier. Almost everybody is asleep, I think." At this point, rose two great snores, so close that Mrs. March started. "Mercy!" she exclaimed. "How that frightened me!" Snore ! snore ! snore ! The sounds came as regu- larly as the striking of a clock : they were most un- commonly loud snores. Mr. March looked at his wife A NIGHT IN A SLEEPING-CAR. 87 and smiled. Mrs. March did not smile in return : she did not like this state of things at all. At las' they had sorted out the things they needed, and the rest of the things they pushed under then* berths, all but the big lunch-basket : Mr. March had to carry that out to the end of the car, and set it by the stove. Then Mr. March and Rob climbed into their bed, and shut the curtains ; and Mrs. March and Nelly climbed into theirs, and shut their curtains, and began to undress. Presently, Mr. March called across in a whisper : " Wife, what shall I do with Rob's clothes?" Mrs. March was at that moment trying to find some- place to put Nelly's and hers. "I'm sure I don't know," she replied. "There isn't a sign of a hook here to hang any thing on." "Nor here," replied Mr. March: "I'll leave them all in a pile on the foot of the bed." " That'll do very well for a man's clothes," thought Mrs. March; "but I must hang up our gowns and skirts." At last, she had a bright thought. She stood up on the edge of the bed, and hooked the skirts over the rod the curtains were swung from. It was all she could do to reach it ; and, just as she was hooking the last skirt on, the car gave a lurch, and out she fell, out into the aisle, and across it, through the curtains of Mr. March's berth, right on to his bed. " Goodness alive, Sarah ! is this you? " he exclaimed, jumping up, frightened. He was just falling asleep. " Well, I believe so," she said : " I 'm not sure." "Oh, mamma, did it hurt you?" called Nelly, anx iously 88 NELLY'S SILVLtt Ml ML, " No, no, dear," replied her mother. " I 'm com ing right back." But, before she went, she whispered in her husband's ear : " Robert March, I think a sleeping-car is the most detestable place I ever got into in my life. Suppose I 'd tumbled into some stranger's berth, as I did into yours just now." Mr. March only laughed, and Mrs. March heard him laughing to himself after she had gone back, and it did not make her feel any pleasanter to hear this. At last she and Nell}' were both undressed and in bed. Their clothes and dressing-cases and travelling-bags were piled up on their feet. " You mustn't kick, Nelly," said Mrs. March. " If you do, you '11 upset all the things out on the floor." " I 'm afraid I always kick, mamma," replied honest Nelly. "I won't while I'm awake; but when I'm asleep I don't know." Nelly was fast asleep in two minutes ; but Mrs. March could not sleep. The air in the car was so close and hot it made her head ache. She had pinned her cur- tains tight together before she lay down, so that no- body could look in on her as she had on the poor lady with five children. Now she sat up in bed and unpinned >v iem, and looked out into the aisle. It was dark : the .ir was dashing along at a tremendous rate ; the air was most disagreeable, and there were at least six people snoring different snores. " I can't stand this. I must open the window at the foot of the berth," said Mrs. March. So she crept down and tried to open it. She had not observed in the day-time how the windows were fastened : she fum- A NIGHT IN A SLEEPING-VAtt. 89 bled about in the dark till she found the fastening ; she could not move it ; she took the skin off her knuckles ; she wrenched her shoulder ; all this time sitting cross- legged on the bed. At last she gave a shove with all her strength, and the window flew up : in one second, an icy blast blew in full of smoke and cinders. " Tliia won't do, either," said Mrs. March ; and she tried lo get the window down. This took longer than to get it up ; finally, in despair, she propped it open about two inches with one of her boots ; then she sank back ex- hausted, and came down hard on her watch and broke the crystal : then she had a difficult time picking up all the little bits of glass in the dark, and then, after she had picked them up, she did not know what to do with them. There was some stiff paper in her travelling-bag, if she could only get at it ; at last she found it, but, in draw- ing it out, she knocked the cork out of the hartshorn bottle, and over went the bottle in the bag, all the harts- horn poured out, and such a strong smell of hartshorn filled the berth it waked Nelly up. "Oh, mamma! what is it? what smells so?" she said, sleepily. "Only hartshorn, dear," said her mother, in a de- spairing tone. "I've upset it all over every thing. Go to sleep, dear : it won't smell so ver} r long." Nelly dozed off again, saying: "I'm going to g# up just as soon as it 's light. I hate this bed : don' 1 you, mamma?" " Yes, Nell, I do," said Mrs. March ; " I would rather have sat up all night : but I am so tired and sleepy now I shall go to sleep, I think." When Nelly waked, it was just beginning to be light 90 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. Hei mother was sound asleep. Nelly leaned over her, and looked out into the aisle. Nobody was up except Ben, who was blacking boots at the end of the aisle. "I'll get up as still as I can, and get all dressed be- fore mamma wakes up," thought Nelly. "Poor mamma ! What a time she had last night ! " At that moment, as Nelly turned her head, she saw sight which so frightened her that, in spite of herself, she screamed. " What is it, Nell?" asked her mother, waking instantly. Nelly could not speak, but pointed to the wall at the back of their berth. Mrs. March sat upright in bed, and gazed with astonishment and alarm almost as great as Nelly's. What could it mean ? There, in the smooth panel of black walnut, which was almost as shining as a looking-glass, was the reflection of a man's face. It was the face of the man who had been eating the cheese and brown bread and onions. He had a red handkerchief tied about his head for a nightcap ; and he was sound asleep, with his mouth wide open. While Mrs. March and Nell}* sat gazing breathlessly at this unaccountable sight, the head slowl}' turned on the pillow, and a hand came up and rubbed one eye. Nelly nearly screamed again. Her mother put her hand qiiickly over her mouth. " Hush, Nell ! " she said ; " do not be frightened. 1 sec how it is." The partitions which separated the sleeping-berths one from the other did not come up close to the wall of the oar. There was room to put your hand through between. The black walnut lining of the car was so polished that it reflected like a looking-glass ; so each person could see, in the back of his berth, the face of the person who was bying in the berth next before his. A NIGHT IN A SLEEPING-CAR. 91 "Goodness ! " exclaimed Mrs. March ; " if we can see into that berth, they can see into this one ; '" and she seized one of the pillows, and set it up against the crack. Then she looked down, and saw a similar opening at the foot of the berth. This one she stopped up with another pillow. " There, Nell," she said, " now we can dress without being overlooked." Nelly did not quite understand how these shining black walnut panels could have acted like looking-glasses, and she was a little afraid still that the queer, shaggy face with the red silk nightcap would glare out at her again ; but she hurried on her clothes, and in a few minutes was ready to go to the little wash-room which was provided for ladies at the end of the car. "We are so early," said Mrs. March, "that I think we will be the first ones there." Ah, how mistaken she was ! When they reached the little room, there stood two women waiting for their turn at the wash-stand ; a third was washing her face. As Mrs. March and Nelly appeared, one of those who were waiting called out : " Come in. Don't go away. If you do, you'll lose your turn : there '11 be lots more here directly." " Thank you," said Mrs. March : " my daughter and I will wait there, just outside the door. We will not in- trude upon you." At this, all three of the women laughed, and one said : " H'm ! there ain't much question of intrudin' in these sleepin'-cars. It's just a kind o' big bedroom, that's all." Mrs. March smiled, and said: "Yes, I think so;* 92 NELLY'S SILVER MINE and the women went on talking. The} 7 were relating their experiences in the night. One of them said : " Well, I got along very well till somebody opened a window, and then I thought I should ha' froze to death ; but my husband he called the conductor up, and they shut all the ventilators up ; but I just shivered all night. Real good soap this is : ain't it ? " Mrs. March looked warningly at Nelly, who was just about to speak. " Keep quiet, Nell," she said. But Nelly whispered : ' ' Do you suppose that was our win- dow, mamma ? " "I dare say," answered Mrs. March, in a still lower whisper: "keep still, Nell." " Well, I wa'n't too cold," said the woman at the wash-bowl. She had her false teeth in her hand, and was washing them under the little slow stream running from the faucet : so she could not speak very distinctly. " Well, I wa'n't too cold," she said, "but I'll tell you what did happen to me. In the middle o' the night I felt some thin' against my head, right on the very top on 't ; and what do you think it was ? 'Twas the feet of the man in the next section to our 'n. ' Well,' says I, ' this is more 'n I can stand ; ' and I gave 'em a real shove. I reckon he waked up, for I didn't feel 'em no more." At this Nelly had to run away. She could not keep the laugh back any longer. And Mrs. March thought it better to let her go, for she did not know what might be coming next in the conversation of these women. At the other end of the car, Nelly saw Rob, carrying some- thing done up in newspaper in his hand. She ran after him. He put his finger on his lips as she drew near him, A NIGHT IN A SLEEPING-CAR. 93 and made signs to her not to speak. She could riot im- agine what he was carrying. He went very fast to the outside door of the car, opened it, and threw the parcel out. " What was it, Rob?" said Nell, eagerly. " I won't tell you," said Rob : " you '11 tell." " Oh ! I won't ; I won't ; indeed I won't," said Nell " Honest Indian?" said Rob. " Honest Indian," said Nelly. This was the strongest form of pledge which Rob ana Nelly ever gave. It was like a sort of oath among the children in May field. If a child broke his promise after he had said "Honest Indian," there was nothing too bad for him. "Well," said Rob, coming very close to Nelly, and speaking in a low whisper, " it was those people's string of onions ! " " Why, Rob ! " cried Nelty, in a horrified tone, " why Rob ! that 's stealing. How could you? " '"Tain't stealing either, Nell March," said Rob, stoutly ; " I haven't got 'em. Stealing is taking things. I haven't got them. I didn't want the old, horrid things. I just threw them away. That ain't taking." Nelly still looked distressed. "Papa wouldn't like it," she said, " nor mamma either. They were all those people had to eat, except bread and cheese. Oh, Rob ! I think it was awful mean in you." "I don't care: I wish I hadn't told you. I don't think it was mean. It was good enough for them for making such a smell in the cars. I heard some of the gentlemen saying they hadn't any business with onions in the car, that the conductor ought to make them 94 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. throw them away. Anyhow, Nell, you promised not U tell." "Yes," said Nell, "but I never once thought of its being such a thing as this. What do you suppose they '11 do ? They might have you took up and put in prison, Rob." Rob looked a little disturbed, but he replied bravely : " Oh, pshaw ! I don't know whose onions they were anyhow. I just found them rolling round on the floor, and I picked them up : they weren't anybody's when they were out loose in the car. I don't care : we won't have such a horrid smell here to-day." Nelly walked away, looking very unhappy. She dis- liked the smell of onions as much as Rob did ; but she would rather have had the string of onions in her lap all day than have had Rob do such a thing as this ; and she felt sure it would all be known, somehow, before the day came to an end, as you will see that it was. After everybody had got up, and the beds and pillows and blankets were all packed away in the little cup- boards overhead, and the car was put in order for the day, the people who had lunch-baskets began to eat their breakfasts. Nelly sat very still in her seat, and watched to see what would happen when the onions were found to be missing. Rob had walked away, and stood at the farther door of the car. He seemed to be very busy looking out at the scenery. Mrs. March had a good little breakfast of boiled eggs and bread and butter and tea and milk, all ready on the table. " Call Rob," she said to Nelly. Nelly walked to the end of the car, and said : A MIGHT 1JV A SLEEPING-CAR. 95 " Conic, Rob. Mamma 's got breakfast all ready." Without looking round, Rob whispered : " Have they missed 'em?" " I don't know : I haven't heard any thing," answered Nelly, in the same low tone. And they walked back together, Nelly looking much more anxious than Rob did. Mrs. March noticed their grave faces as they took their seats, and she said : " You are tired : aren't you, children? " "Oh, no, mamma!" they both exclaimed; "we aren't a bit tired ! " But their faces did not brighten. If the whole truth were told, it must be owned that they were both very unhappy. The more Rob thought about those onions, the more he felt afraid that it was stealing to have thrown them away ; and this made him wretched enough. And the more Nelly thought about it, the surer she felt that Rob was going to get into trouble before the thing was done with. Neither of them ate much break- fast ; they were both listening to what was going on in the next section. They could hear such sentences as : " I know I left 'em here last night." "Perhaps they went out of the window." ' ' They couldn't : they were on the floor." " That black rascal 's got 'em, you may be sure." At this last sentence, Nelly gave Rob a push under the table with her foot, and his face turned very red. In a moment more, Ben entered the car ; as he was passing the Marches' table, the angry man from the next section called out, in a very rude way : " Here, you nigger, what 'd you do with my onions?" 96 NELLY'S SILVER AflJME. Ben stood stock-still, he was so astonished. "Ungyuns!" he exclaimed; "I never seed no ungyuns." " Yes, you did ! You must have : 3~ou 've stowed 'em away somewhere. Now jest you pass 'em out, or I '11 report you." Ben had never been accused of stealing before. He looked the man full in the face, and said : ' You can do all the reportin' yer want to, mister. I never seed your ungyuns." And he was about to pass on ; but the man was so angry, and so sure that Ben must have taken his onions, that he stood in the middle of the aisle, right in Ben's way, and would not let him pass. " Hand 'em over now," he said, in the most insulting tone ; " hand 'em over." Mr. March, who had been watching the scene with some amusement, was very much astonished, on looking at Rob at this moment, to see his cheeks flushed, his lips parted as if he were about to speak. " Why, Rob," he said, " do you know where the onions are ? " " No," said Rob. Nelly gave an involuntary gasp, under her breath, "Oh!" Mr. March looked at her in still greater surprise. " Do you, Nell? " he said. Nelly did not reply, but looked at Rob, who said : " I don't know where they are now." But his ex- pression was a very guilty one. " Rob ! " said his father, sternly, "you know some- *ii about those onions : tell me this moment." A NIGHT IN A SLEEPING-CAR. 97 Nelly clasped her hands tight, and gave a little cry, " Oh, Rob ! " Now that the final moment had come, Rob spoke up like a man. "Papa, I threw them out of the car door, they made such a smell. I found them close to our berth when I first got up, and they smelled so horrid I threw them away. Perhaps they weren't this man's onions,*" said poor Rob, clutching at a last hope. Mr. March could hardly believe his ears. " You ! You took what did not belong to you, and then threw it away ! Why, Rob ! I am ashamed of you ! Why, Rob, I wouldn't have believed it ! " ex- claimed Mr. March. "You will pay for those onions out of your allowance." And he looked at Rob more sternly than he had ever done in his life. "Come, now, immediately," he continued, "and apologize to the man." And he took Rob by the hand and led him to the next seat. " I am very sorry to tell you, sir," he said, " that my little boy here took your onions and threw them away. He shall buy some for you at the very first station where we can." "What'd yer throw 'em away for?" said the man, looking curiously and not unkindly at Rob, whose face was enough to make anybody sorry for him. "Because I hate the smell of them so," said Rob, sturdily; "and my mamma hates them too; and I found them rolling round on the floor, by our berth ; and I just picked them up and threw them away. I didn't think about their being anybody's, rat until 7 98 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. afterwards," he added ; " and I 'm very sorry, sir. I *1J buy 3 T ou some more out of my own money." Mr. March smiled at this little explanation : he saw that Rob had not really intended to do wrong. "No, no, my boy, you needn't do that," said th* man ; "we 're going to get off before dinner time ; an ; we 've got a bin full o' onions at home. I expect thej do smell kind o' strong to folks that ain't used to 'em , but they 're mighty healthy." Rob walked back to his seat somewhat relieved, but still very much ashamed. He glanced up in his mother's face. She looked mortified ; still there was a twinkle in her eyes : in the bottom of her heart, she sympa- thized with Rob's impulse to be rid of the onions at any cost. "Oh, Rob!" she said, "how could you do such a tning? You knew they must belong to somebody." "Well, I did afterwards, after I told Nell ; but, when I picked them up, I didn't think any thing except how they smelt. It was a good riddance anyhow." The sick lady, who had had to lie down all the way, was in the section next but one to Mr. March's. She had looked much amused during all this conversation, which she could not help hearing. Mrs. March noticed her pleasant smile, and thought she would like to dc something for her. So she gave Nelly a nice cup of hot tea to take over to her. The lady was very grateful. "Oh!" she said, "this is the first good tea I have tasted since I left home." Then she made Nelly sit down on the bed beside her, and talked to her so sweetly that Nelly felt as if she A NIGHT IN A SLEEPING-CAR. 99 had known her all her life ; and pretty soon she told her all about Mrs. Napoleon. " Bring her here. Let me see her," said the lady. " Oh, I can't bear to have anybody see her! " said Nelly: "she looks awful." "Nevermind: we'll draw the curtains, and nobody else shall see." So she called her nurse, who was sitting near ; and, as soon as Nelly had climbed up into the berth, the nurse drew the curtains tight and shut them in to- gether. It seemed to Mrs. March a long time before Nelly came out. When she came she had two small parcels in her hands. They were both in nice white tissue paper, tied up with pink ribbon. Nelly looked as if she had been crying, but yet she looked happy ; and the sick lady had a most beautiful smile on her face. Nelly gave one of the parcels to her mother, and said : "Mamma, will }-ou please pack this in the bag? It is the Empress's clothes. Perhaps I may have another doll some day that they will fit." Then she handed the other parcel to her father, and said : " Please throw this out of the window, papa?" " What is it, Nell?" he said, surprised. Nelly's voice trembled a little ; but she answered bravety. "Mrs. Napoleon, papa. That nice lady looked at her, and said she never could be mended ; and if she were me, she 'd throw her right away. She says I '11 feel better as soon as she is out of my sight." Mr. March looked over at the sick lady and bowoi and smiled. 100 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. " She is quite right, Nell. You '11 forget all about it much quicker. Good-by, Mrs. Napoleon," he said, and threw the white parcel with its pink ribbons as far as he could throw it. " I don't want to forget about it, papa," replied Nelly, aud pressed her face close against the window-pane, so as not to lose the last glimpses of the package. Never were people gladder to reach any place than Mr. and Mrs. March and Nelly and Rob were to reach Denver. They were so tired that they went right to bed as soon as they entered the hotel. The}' did not want any supper. The next morning, however, they were up early, all rested and ready to look at every thing. The first thing the}' saw as the}' walked out of the hotel door, was a long range of high mountains to the south. They looked down the long street on which the hotel stood, and saw these mountains rising up like a great wall across the end of the street. They were covered with snow two-thirds of the way down. The lower part which was not covered with snow was of a very dark blue color ; and the upper part, where the snow lay, shone in the sun so dazzling bright that it made their eyes ache to look at it. The sky was as blue as blue could be, and had not a cloud in it ; and some of the sharp peaks of the mountains looked as if they were really cutting through the sky. Mr. and Mrs. March and Nelly and Rob all stood still in the middle of the street looking at the beautiful sight. Several carriages and wagons came very near running over them, but they hardly observed it. No one of them spoke for some minutes : even Rob was overawed by the grandeur of the mountains. But his overawed A NIGHT Iff A SLEEPING-CAR. 101 silence did not last long. In a few minutes, he broko out with : ' ' Bully mountains ! ain't they ? Come on ! " Mr. and Mrs. March laughed. "Well, Rob," said his father, "you've brought us to our senses : haven't you? But I do wish you wouM n't talk slang." "No, Rob," said his mother. "How many times have I asked you not to say ' bully ' ? " "I know it, mother," replied Rob; "but you don't tell me any other word to say instead of it. A fellow must say something ; and ' bully ' 's such a bull}" word. I don't believe there 's any other word that 's good for any thing when things are ' bully.' " " Oh, dear Rob ! dear Rob ! Three times in one sentence ! What shall we do to you ? We will really have to hire you to leave off that word, as grandpa hired you to drink cold water, at so much a week." "Mamma," said Rob, solemnly, "you couldn't hire me to leave off saying ' bully.' Money wouldn't pay me : I try not to say it often, because you hate it so ; but I don't expect to leave it off till I 'm a man. I just have to say it sometimes." "Oh, Rob, you don't 'have' to say it!" exclaimed Nell. " Nobody ' has to say' any thing." "Girls don't," said Rob, patronizingly: "but girls are different ; I 'm always telling you that girls don't need words like boys. It 's just like whistling : girls needn't whistle ; but a boy why, a boy 'd die if he couldn't whistle." " I can whistle," said Nell. " I can whistle most as well as you." J02 NELLY'S til^SER MINE. "You can't, Nell," exclaimed Rob, utterly aston- ished. For reply, Nelly quietly whistled a bar of /ankee Doodle. Rob stared at her. "Why, so you can!" said he. "I didn't know girls ever whistled : I thought they were made so they couldn't." " Oh, no ! " said Mrs. March ; " I used to be a great whistler when I was a girl ; but I never let anj'body hear me, if I could help it. And Nelly knows that it is not Iad3'like for a girl to whistle. She likes to whistle as well as you like to say ' bully,' however ; so you might leave off that as well as she can leave off whis- tling." " But you used to whistle all alone by yourself," persisted Rob; "and it is just as good fun to whis- tle all alone as with other people ; but it wouldn't be any fun to go off all alone, and say ' bully ! bully ! oully ! ' " Mrs. March put her hands over her ears, and ex- claimed: "Oh, Rob! Rob! That makes six times! That dreadful word!" "Oh!" said Rob, pretending to be very innocent, * ' do you mind my saying it that way ? That wasn't saying it really : only talking about it," and Rob gave his mother a mischievous look. The streets were thronged with people ; everybodj seemed in a hurry ; the shop windows were full of just such things as one sees in shop windows at the East ; through street after street they walked, growing more and more surprised every moment. " Why, Robert," said Mrs. March, " except for the A KIGHT IN A SLEEPING-CAR. 103 bustling and excited air of the people, I should not know that I was not in an Eastern city." " Nor I," said Mr. March : "I am greatly astonished to see such a civilized- looking place." Just then an open carriage rolled past them. It was a beautiful carriage, lined with red satin. " Oh, mamma ! there is the nice lady who was in the cars," said Nelly : "let me go and speak to her." The lady saw them and stopped her carriage : she was very glad to see their faces ; she felt so lonely in this strange place. She was all alone with her doctor and nurse ; and already she was so homesick she was almost ready to turn about and go home. " Oh ! do let your little girl jump in and take a drive with me," she said. " It will be a great favor to me if you will." " Oh, mamma ! let me ; let me," cried Nelly ; and, al- most before her mother had fully pronounced the words giving her permission, she was climbing up the carriage steps. As she took her seat by the lady's side, she looked wistfully back at Rob. Mrs. Williams (that was the lady's name) observed the glance, and said : " Won't you let the little boy come too ? Would you like to come, dear?" "No, thank you," said Rob: "I'd rather walk. I can see better." " Oh, Rob ! how can you?" exclaimed Nelly, but the driver touched his horses with the whip, and they were off. What a drive that was for Nelly ! She never forgot it. It was her first sight of the grand Rocky Moun- tains. The city of Denver lies on a great plain ; about 104 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. thirty miles away stands the mountain range ; between the city and the mountains runs a river, the Platte River, which has green trees along it a bank. Mrs. Williams took Nelly out on high ground to the east, from which she could look over the whole city, and the river, and out to the beautiful mountains. Some of the peaks were as solid white as white clouds, and looked almost like clouds suddenly made to stand still in the skies. Mrs. Williams loved mountains very much ; and, as she looked at Nelly's face, she saw that Nelly loved them too. Nelly said very little ; but she kept hold of Mrs. Williams's hand, and, whenever they came to a particu- larly beautiful view, she would press it so hard that onc or twice Mrs. Williams cried out: "Dear child, you hurt me : don't squeeze so tight ; " upon which Nelly, very much ashamed, would let go of her hand for a few minutes, but presentl}*, in her excitement, would be hold- ing it again as tight as ever. Mrs. Williams was a widow lady : she had lost her husband and her only child a little girl about Nelly's age only two years befoie, and she had been an invalid ever since. As soon as she saw Nelly's face in the cars, she had fancied that she looked like her little girl who was dead. Her name was Ellen too. and she had always been called Elly ; so that Nelly's name had a familiar sound to her. Mrs. Williams was a very rich lady ; and, if Nelly's father and mother had been poor people, she would have asked them at once to give Nelly to her. But, of course, she knew that that would be out of the question ; so all she could do was to try to make Nelly have a good time as long as she was with her. After they had driven all about the city, and had seen all there was to see, she said to the driver A NIGHT IN A 6 LEE PING-CAR. 105 " Now go to the best toy store in the city." ISelly did not hear this direction : she was absorbed in looking at the mountains. So she was much surprised when they stopped at the shop, and Mrs. Williams said : " Now, Nelly dear, I want you to go in and buy some- thing for me : will you? I can't get out of the carriage myself." "Yes indeed," exclaimed Nelly, " if I can; but I never went into a shop alone in my life. Mamma al- ways goes with me. Can't I bring what you want out here for yon to look at ? " Mrs. Williams laughed. "You'll be a better judge of it than I, Nell," she said. "It is a wax doll I want for a young friend of mine, just about such an one as you had in the cars." Wasn't Nelly a very simple little girl never to think that Mrs. Williams meant to buy it for her? She never so much as thought of it. " Oh ! " said she, " how glad she '11 be ! I hope she '11 have better luck with it than I had. You tell her not to take her on any journeys. Is it 3'our own little girl ? " Then Nelly saw the tears come in Mrs. Williams's eyes : her lips quivered, and she said : " My own little girl is in heaven ; but this doll is foi a little girl I love very much, who looks like my little girl. Run in, dear, and see what you can find." The shopkeeper looked quite surprised to see such a little girl coming up to the counter, and asking if he had any big wax dolls with e3'es which would open. "Yes, sis," he said, "we have two; but they cost too much money for you, I reckon." Nelly did uot like being called " sis." 106 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. " My name is not sis," she said, " and the doll is lor a sick lady out in the carriage. Won't you please bring them out for her to look at?" and Nelly turned, and walked out of the shop. " Hoity toity ! " said the man. " What airs we pnl on, don't we, for small fry ! Eastern folks, I reckon ; " but he went to a drawer, and took out his two wax dolls, and carried them to the carriage. Each doll was in a box by itself. One was dressed in pink satin, and one in white muslin. " Which is the prettiest, Nell}*?" said Mrs. Williams. "Oh, the one in white muslin, ever so much the prettiest ! My mamma says satin is very silly on dolls, and I think so too. Mrs. Napoleon had a blue satin dress, and I gave it to Mabel Martin. She never wore it but once, the day she came ; she had it on when she was in the stocking ; but I hated it on her." "In the stocking!" said Mrs. Williams ; "that big doll never went into a stocking. What do you mean ? " "Oh, not into a common stocking ! " said Nelly ; " into one of my grandpa's stockings. Mamma always hangs his stockings up for us at Christmas." Mrs. Williams was still more perplexed. " Why, child," she said, "how big is your grandpa? Is he a giant?" "Oh, no!" laughed Nelly, "he isn't very big; but these are great stockings he had made to sleep in. They come all the way up his legs, both parts of his leg, way up above his knee, as far as his legs go, so as to keep him warm when he's asleep. He doesn't sleep in any night-gown." Mrs. .Villiams laughed heartily at this and was about A NIGHT IN A SLEEPING-CAK. 1Q7 to ask Nelly some other questions, when the shopkeeper .nterrupted her with : "Can't stand here all day, mum. Do ye want the dolls or not : say quick." Mrs. Williams was not accustomed to be spoken to in this manner, and she looked at him in surprise. " Oh ! " he said, in answer to her look, " you ain't in the East, you '11 find out. We Western men 've got too much to do to dangle round all day on a single trade. Do ye want the doUs? If not, I '11 take 'em back." "I am sorry you are in such a hurry all the time, sir," said Mrs. Williams, slowly : "it must be very dis- agreeable. I will take one of these dolls as soon as this little girl has decided which one is the prettiest." "Oh, the white-muslin-gown one, ever so much," exclaimed Nelly. " Very well. You may put it up for me," said Mrs. Williams, taking out her purse. "How much does it cost?" " Ten dollars," said the man. " Oh, oh! " exclaimed Nelly, "mine was only five, and it was just as big as this one." The man looked a little embarrassed. The doll did not really cost ten dollars : it had only cost five ; but he thought Mrs. Williams looked like a rich lady, and he might as well ask all he could get. "Well, this cost me six dollars in New York," he said; "but there isn't much sale for them here : you can have it for seven." Mrs. Williams paid him the seven dollars, and they drove away with the box with the doll in it, lying in Nelly's lap Presently Nelly said : 108 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. "Oh, Mrs. Williams, won't you let me send all Mrs. Napoleon's clothes to the li ttle girl this doll}' 's for ? 1 think they 'd fit this dolly : don't you ? " " You dear little thing ! " exclaimed Mrs. Williams ; "would j'ou really send all those pretty clothes to a little girl you don't know?" " But you know her," said Nelly, " and you said yon loved her ; so I ; d like to have her have them. Be- sides. I don't believe I '11 ever have another doll} like Mrs. Napoleon : at any rate, not for a great man}' years." "Very well, dear," replied Mrs. Williams: "I will take them. She will be all the more pleased to get so many extra suits. When we stop at the hotel, you can give them to me." "The waterproof is torn some," said Nelly: "I guess mamma '11 mend it." "Oh, never mind!" said Mrs. Williams. "This little girl's mamma is a very kind mamma: she can mend it." When they stopped at the hotel, Nelly raced upstairs and burst into her mother's room. " Mamma ! " she exclaimed almost as breathlessly as Hob was in the habit of speaking, "mamma, give me all Mrs. Napoleon's clothes. The sick lad} 7 's bought a beautiful wax doll just Mrs. Napoleon's size her name 's Mrs. Williams I asked her and she 's going to send it to a little girl she loves very much her own little girl 's dead and I want her to have those clothes too, because Mrs. Williams is so kind ; oh, she 's the sweetest lady ! Give me the clothes, quick ! " Mrs. March was looking in a trunk for them while A NIGHT IN A SLEEPING- CAR 109 Nell}- ran on. She smiled as she handed them to Nelly. " Are you sure you will not want them yourself, Nell?" she said; "you might have a doll that they'd just fit." "I don't believe I ever will, mamma," said Nelly, *' and even if I do, I 'd rather give these clothes away. Mrs. Williams is such a sweet lady you don't know, mamma ! " And Nelly ran downstairs with the pack- age in her hand. As she left the room, Rob said to his mother : "Mamma, I bet she's bought the doll for Nell! Wouldn't that be fun ? Nell 's such a goose she 'd never suspect any thing ! " " Hush, Rob ! " said Mrs. March ; " don't put such an idea into Nell's head. It isn't at all likely." " Well, you 11 see, mamma. I '11 bet 3^ou any thing." "Ladies don't 'bet,' Rob; and you know mamma hates to hear you say the word." "Oh, dear, mamma!" groaned Rob, "you hate ah* the nice words ! I wish ladies were just like boys ! " Late that evening, after Rob and Nelly were fast asleep, a large parcel was brought to their rooms, ad- dressed to Mrs. March. She opened it, and found inside sure enough, as Rob had said the beautiful wax doll which Nelly had told them about ; and, in the box with the doll, the little bundle of all Mrs. Napo- leon's clothes. A note from Mrs. Williams to Mrs. March was pinned on the outside of the package. She said : HO NELLY'S SILVER MINE. " MY DEAR MRS. MARCH, Will you allow me to riive this doll to your dear, sweet little daughter, to suppJy the place of the lost Mrs. Napoleon. If you knew hov< great a pleasure it is to me to do this, I am sure yc >\\ would not refuse it. Your little girl reminds me s<: strongly of my own little Elly, who died two years ago, thai I only wish I could have her always with me " Truly your friend, although a stranger, " ISABELLA WILLIAMS."' "Well, Rob was right!" exclaimed Mrs. March, ts> she read this note. " See, Robert, what a beautiful doll has come for Nelly from that invalid lady she wort to drive with this afternoon. Rob said she had bought it for Nelly, but I didn't believe it. I don't exactly lilri to take such a valuable present from a stranger." Mr. March was reading the note. " But we could not refuse," he said. " It would "bs cruel, when she wants to give it to Nelly because L.he looks so like her little child that is dead." "No," said Mrs. March; "of course we could not refuse." " She had one of the sweetest and saddest faces 1 ever saw," said Mr. March. " I do not think she will live long. I wish we could do something for her." " I will go and see her to-morrow morning, and thank her for the doll," said Mrs. March; "and then I will find out whether we can do any thing for her or not. I shall not let Nelly know any thing about the doll till we are all settled. I will pack it away in my trunk." "Yes, that will be much wiser," said Mr. March: " we won't have a second Mrs. Napoleon disaster." A NIGHT IN A SLEEPING-CAR. j [ 1 Later in the evening, Deacon and Mrs. Plummer arrived ; and the next da} T was very much taken up in discussing plans with them, and making arrangements for going on their journey ; and it was late in the after- noon before Mrs. March found time to go to the hotel where Mrs. Williams was staying. She found, to her great sorrow, that Mrs. Williams had left town at noon. She had gone, the landlord said, to Idaho Springs ; where he believed she was to take the hot baths. Mrs. March wrote a note to her immediately, and the land- lord said he would forward it ; but he was not sure of her address, and Mrs. March was very much afraid it would never reach her. The Marches sta3 T ed in Denver a week, but they did not hear a word from Mrs. Williams, and Mrs. March reproached herself very much for not having gone to see her early the next morning after the doll came. "It is evident," she said, " that she never got my note ; and what must she have thought of us for not acknowledging such a beautiful present. It will worry me always, as often as I see the doll." 112 A'ELLY'S SILVER MINE. CHAPTER V. FIRST GLIMPSES OF COLORADO AND A NEW HOME. JUST one week from the day they had reached Denver, they set out again on their journey southward. They were going to a beautiful place in the mountains, Balled the Ute Pass. It really is a canyon : you remem- ber I tried to explain to you what a canj-on is like. This canyon is called the Ute Pass because a tribe of Indians named the Utes used to come and go through it when they were journeying from one hunting ground to another. A little stream comes down through this pass, which is called the Fountain Creek. It leaps and tumbles from rock to rock, and is always in a foam. A great many years ago, some Frenchmen who were here named it " The fountain that boils." Part of the canyon is very narrow, and the rocky walls are very high. There is a good road through it now, close beside the brook ; but when the Indians used to go through it there was no road : they had a little narrow path ; some parts of it are still to be seen, high up on the ledges of the rock, wherever there is room enough for a pony to get foot- hold. It looks like a little, worn track which sheep or goats might have made ; you would never be- lieve, to look at it, that great bands of Indians on ponies used to travel over it. One thing they used to tIRST GLIMPSED OF COLORADO. 118 come down for was to drink the waters of some springs which bubble up out of the rocks at the mouth of the canyon. These are very strange. They bubble up so fast that they look as if they were boiling : this is why the Frenchmen called the brook "The fountain that boils." But they are not any hotter than the water in the brook. The Indians found out that this water would cure people who were ill : so they used to wrap their sick people up in blankets, and bring them on ponies over this little narrow path through the pass, and then build their wigwams close to the springs, and stay there for weeks, drinking the water, and bathing in it. The last part of the can} T on is not narrow : it widens out ; and has little fields and meadows and groves in it. The road through it is lined almost all the way with green trees and bushes of different kinds ; and there is a beautiful wild-hop vine which grows in great abun dance, and climbs up the trees, and seems to be tying them all up in knots together ; the hop blossoms look like green tassels at every knot. Does not this sound like a lovely place to live in ? Mr. and Mrs. March thought so ; they had seen several pictures of it ; and a mau who had lived two years there told them about it, and tried to persuade them to buy his house and land. But old Deacon Plummer was too wise to buy till the}' had tried it. " No, no," he said ; " we '11 hire it for six months first, and see how it works. It may be all true as you Bay about the cattle's grazin' well up and down them rocks ; but I 'd rather hev medder land any day. We '11 hire, to begin with." So they had rented the man's house and land for sir 8 114 NELLY'S SILVER M1NL. months, and had bought all his cows : the cows wer* still on the place. Then they bought a nice wagon, with three seats and a white top to it, very much like the butchers' carts you see going round with meat to sell in country villages. All the farmers in Colorado drive in such wagons. Then they had bought two horses. The horses and the wagon were to go with them on the cars. I must tell you about the horses. They had such queer names ! One was a dark red, and he was called "Fox." He had a narrow head and a sharp nose ; and really his face did look like a fox's face. The other horse was of a very queer shade of reddish yellow, with a good deal of white about him ; his forefeet were white, and his mane was almost white ; and, if you will believe it, his name was " Pumpkinseed " ! The man the Marches bought him of did not know why he was called so. He himself had only owned him a 3 r ear ; and, when he asked the man he bought him of how he came to give the horse such a queer name, he said he "didn't know. The old woman named him; mebbe she thought he was kind o' the color of pumpkin- seed, sort o' streaked with yaller 'n' white." Rob was delighted with this name. He kept singing it over and over: "Pumpkinseed! Pumpkinseed! We Ve got a horse called Pumpkinseed ! " till his mother begged bun to stop. The railroad which runs southward from Denver is the kind of railroad called a narrow-gauge railroad. This means that the track is only about two-thirds the width of ordinary railroad tracks ; and the cars and the engines are made small to match the track. You can't think how droll a train of such little cars looks when t'lRST GLIMPSES OF COLORADO. lib 7011 first see it ; it looks like a play train. A gentleman I know said a funny thing the first time he saw a little narrow-gauge train puffing along behind its little engine ; he turned to his wife: "Look here, wife," said he; "let's buy that and send it home to the children ** play with." When Rob and Nelly first stepped into the little car, they exclaimed, "What a funny car!" On one side the car there were double seats in which two people could sit ; on the other side were single seats, rather tight even for one person. Nelly and Rob both ran to get two of these little seats. " Hurrah ! " said Rob, as he sat down in this ; " I 'm going in a high chair ! Mamma, ain't this just like a baby's high chair ? " "Yes, just about, Rob," said Mr. March, who had taken his seat in one, and found it too tight for comfort. But the}' soon ceased to wonder at the little seats, for they found so much to look at out of the car windows. The journey from Denver to the town of Colorado Springs, where they were to leave the cars, takes four hours and a half: the road lies all the way on the plains, but runs near the lower hills of the mountain ranges on the right ; about half way, it crosses what is called the "Divide." That is a high ridge of land, with great pine groves on it, and a beautiful little lake at the top. This is over eight thousand feet high. Down the south side of this, the cars run swiftly by their own weight, just as }'ou go down hill on a sled : the engine does not have to draw them at all. In fact, they have to turn the brakes down some of the time to keep the cars from going too fast. U6 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. Neliy and Rob sat side wise in their seats, with their faces close to the window, all the way. The}' had never seen such a country. Every mile new mountain tops came in sight, and new and wonderful rocks. Some of file rocks looked like great castles, with towers to them. More than once Rob called out : u There, mamma ! that one is a castle : I know it is. It can't possibly be a rock." And it was hard even for the grown people to believe that the} r were merely rocks. Old Deacon anil Mrs. Plummer were almost as much excited as Rob and Nelly. The Deacon, however, was looking with a farmer's eye at the country. He did not like to find so much snow : as far as he could see in all directions, there was a thin coating of snow over the ground. The yellow grass blades stood up above it like little masts of ships under water. Everywhere he looked he saw cattle walking about. The}' did not look as if they were contented ; and they were so thin, you could see their bones when they came close to the cars. At last the Deacon said to Mr. March : " Here 's their stock runnin' out all winter, that we 've heard so much on ; but it appears to me, it 's mighty poor-lookin' stock. I don't see how in natur' the poor things get a livin' off this dried grass, half buried up in snow." " Ah, sir ! " spoke up a man on the seat behind Mr. March; "you do not know how much sweeter the hay is, dried on the stalk, standing. There is no such hay in the world as the winter grasses in Colorado." " Do 3'ou keep stock yourself, sir ? " asked the Deacon. " No, I've never been in the stock business myself," FIRST GLIMPSES OF COLORADO. 117 the man replied; "but I have lived in this State five years, and I know it pretty well ; and it 's the greatest country for stock in the world, sir, yes, the greatest in the world." Deacon Plummer smiled, but did not ask any more questions. After this enthusiastic man had left the car, the Deacon said quietly, pointing to a poor, lean cow who was sniffing hungrily at some little tufts of yellow grass near the railroad track: "I'd rather have her opinion than his. If the critter could speak, I guess she 'd say, ' Give me a manger full of good medder ha}', in a Massachusetts barn, in place of all this fine winter grass of Colorado.' " Rob and Nelly laughed out at this idea of the cow's being called in as witness. " I guess so too," said Rob ; " don't she look hungry, though?" Just before they reached the town of Colorado Springs, they suddenly saw, a short distance off, on the right-hand side of the railroad track, two enormous red rocks, ris- ing like broken pieces of a high wall ; they looked thin, like slabs. One of them was deep brick red, and the other was a sort of pink. "Oh, mamma! look quick, look quick," exclaimed Nelly : ' ' what can those red rocks be ? " "They are the Gates of the Garden of the Gods,' said the conductor, who was passing at that moment ; " the Garden lies just behind them, and you drive in be- tween those high rocks." Even while he was passing, the rocks disappeared from view. Nelly looked at them with awe-stricken e} T es. "The Garden of the Gods, sir! "she said; "what 118 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. does that mean? What gods? Do the}' worship hea- then gods in this country ? " A lad}' who was sitting opposite Nelly laughed aloud at this question. "I don't wonder you ask such a question," she said: "it is one of the most absurd names ever given to a place, and I cannot find out who gave it. Those high rocks that you saw are like a sort of gateway into a great field which is full of very queer-shaped rocks. Most of them are red, like the gates ; some of them have uncouth resemblances to animals or to human heads. There is one that looks like a seal, and another like a fish standing on its tail, and peering up over a rock. There are a good many cedar-trees and pines in this place, and in June a few flowers ; but, for the most part, it is quite barren. The soil is of a red color, like the rocks ; and the grass is very thin, so that the red color shows through ; and you couldn't find a place in all Colorado that looks less like a garden." " But why did they say ' gods ' ? " asked Nell}' ; " did they mean the old gods ? My papa has read me about them, Jupiter, and his wife, Juno. Is this where they lived?" The lady laughed again. " I can't tell you about that, dear," she said. " I think they thought the place was so grand that it looked as if it ought to belong to some beings greater than human beings : so they said ' gods.' I think myself it would have been a good name for it to call it the ' Fortress of the Gods,' or ' The Tombs of the Giants ; ' but not the ' Garden of the Gods.' I shouldn't want it even for my own garden ; and I 'm only a commonplace woman But it is a very wonderful phice FIRST GLIMPSES OF COLORADO. Hy to see. You will be sure to go there, for all straugers are taken to see it." "Do you live in Colorado, madam?" asked Mrs. March. " Oh, yes ! " replied the lady : " Colorado Springs, the little town we are just coming to, is my home." " Do you like it?" asked Mrs. March, anxiously. "Like it!" replied the lady; "like is not a strong enough word. I love it. I love these mountains so that, whenever I go away from them, I miss them all the time ; and I keep seeing them before me all the while, just as you see the face of a dear friend you are separated from. I should be very ungrateful, if I did not love the place ; for it has simpty made me over again. I came out here three years ago on a mattress, with my doctor and nurse, and thought it very doubtful if I lived to get here ; and I have been perfectly well ever since." "Did you have asthma?" asked Rob, turning very led as soon as he had asked the question. He was afraid it was improper. " My papa has the asthma." " Oh, if that is your papa's trouble, he will be sure to be entirely well. Nobody can have asthma in Col- orado," replied the lady. " It is the one thing which is always cured here. My own trouble was only a throat trouble." "I am ver} r glad to hear you speak so confidently about the asthma," said Mrs. March: "my husband has been a great sufferer from it, and it is for that we have come." ' ' You have done the very wisest thing you could have done," said the lady: " you will never be sonj for it. But here we are ; good morning." 120 NELLY'S SILVER MIXE. The train was already stopping in front of a little brown wooden building, and the brakeman called out : " Colorado Springs." ' ' What a pleasant lady ! " said Nelly to her mother. u Yes," said Mrs. March ; but it was partly because she told us such good news for papa. As they stepped out on the platform, they were almost deafened by the shouts of two black men, who were calling out the names of two hotels : two omnibuses belonging to the different hotels were standing there, and each black man was trying to get the most passen- ger for his hotel. Each man called out : ' ' Free 'bus this way to the free 'bus only first- class hotel in the city." " Mercy on us ! " exclaimed Mrs. March. " Let us go to the one who speaks the lowest, if there is any difference. They must think railroad travellers are all deaf ! It makes no difference to which one we go just for a dinner. We shall drive home this afternoon." So saying, she stepped into the nearest omnibus, and the rest of the party followed her. In a moment more, the driver cracked his whip, and the four horses set off on a full gallop up the hill which lies between the rail- way station and the town. As they drew near the hotel door, the driver turned such a sharp corner, all at full speed, that the omnibus swung round on the wheels of one side, and pitched so violently that it threw both Nelly and Rob off their seats into the laps of their father and mother who sat opposite. " Hullo ! " exclaimed Rob, picking himself up, " this is the way the gods drive, I suppose ! " His mother looked reprovingly at him ; but he oiilv laughed and said: THE UTE PASS. PAGE 121. FIRST GLIMPSES OF COLORADO. 12J " Tliey call every thing after the gods, don't they ? So I thought that pitch was the same sort." After dinner, Deacon Plummer harnessed Fox and Pumpkinseed into the new wagon, and they set out for their new home. It was a beautiful afternoon ; as warm and bright as a May day in New England. There was no snow to be seen except on the mountains, which rose like a great blue wall with white peaks to the west of the town. " Now this feels something like," said the Deacon, as they set out ; " this is like what they told us. I won- der if it 's been this way all winter." They drove five miles straight towards the mountains. Nelly had taken her picture of Pike's Peak out of the travelling-bag, and held it in her hand. Now she could look up from it to the real mountain itself, and see if the picture were true. "I don't care for the picture any more, papa," said Nell}', " now I 've got the mountain. The picture isn't half so beautiful." And Nelly hardly took her eyes from the shining, snowy summit till they were so close to its base that it was nearly shut out from their sight by the lower hills. They drove through the little village at the mouth of the Ute Pass. Here they saw two large hotels, and half a dozen small houses and shops. This little vil- lage is called Manitou. The Indians named it so. Manitou means " Good Spirit," and they thought the Good Spirit had made the waters bubble up out of the rocks here to cure sick people. A few rods bej-ond the last house, they entered the real pass. Now theif surprises began. On each side of them were high walls 122 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. of rock : at the bottom of the right-hand wall was just room enough for the road ; on the left hand they looked over a steep precipice down to a brook which was rush- ing over great stones, and leaping down with much roar and foam from one basin to another ; there was no fence along this left-hand side of the road, and as Mrs. March looked over she shuddered, and exclaimed : " Oh, Robert, let me get out ! I never can drive up this road ; let us all walk." Mr. March himself thought it was dangerous ; so he stopped the horses, and Mrs. March and Mrs. Plummer and the two children got out to walk. Nell}' and Rob did not look where they were walking ; they were all the while looking up at the great rocks over their heads, which jutted out above the road like great shelves : some rose up high in the air like towers ; the}* were all of a fine red color, or else of a yellowish brown ; and they were full of sharp points, and deep lines cut in them ; and a beautiful green lichen grew on man}' of them. Sometimes they were piled up in piles, so that they looked as if they might tumble down any minute ; sometimes they were hollowed out in places that looked as if they were made for niches for statues to stand in ; on one high hill was a strange pile, built up so solid and round it looked like a pulpit. Mrs. March and Nelly and Rob were standing still, looking at this : when a man who passed by, seeing they were strangers, called out : " That 's Tim Bunker's Pulpit." " Who 's Tim Bunker?" cried Rob ; but the man was riding so fast he did not hear him. "Oh, Nell! if it isn't too far we'll climb up there FIRST GLIMPSES OF TOLORADO. 123 gome day: won't we?" said Rob. "Mamma, don't you suppose we 're pretty near our house ? " "I think not, Rob," replied Mrs. March; "there cannot be any place for a house while the pass is so narrow." "Oh, mamma ! mamma ! come here ! " shouted Nelly. She had taken one step down from the road, and was looking over into the brook. " Here is the most beau- tiful little fall you ever saw ! " They all climbed carefully down on the broad stone where Nelly was standing, and looked over. It was indeed a beautiful fall : not very high, but all one white foam from top to bottom ; and the water fell into a small pool, where the spray had frozen into a great round rim : it looked like frosted silver. " That 's a pretty silver bowl to catch the water in , ain't it, now?" said Mrs. Plummer. " I 'd like a drink of it." " What a queer country this is I" said Mrs. March , "here we are walking without any outside wraps on, and almost too warm in the sun ; and here is ice all round this pool ; and I have seen little thin rims of ice here and there on the brook all the way up." "It's just bully," cried Rob. "Say, mamma, I'm going down to drink out of that bowl;" and, before they could stop him, Rob was half way down the preci- pice. He found it rougher than he thought ; and he had more than one good tumble before he got down to the bed of the brook : but he reached it, dipped his drinking- cup into the pool, broke off a big piece of the frozen spray, and with that in one hand, and his drinkiiig-cup in the other, began to climb up again. This was twice 12-1 NELLY'S SILVER MINK. as bard as to go down, it made Rob puff and pant, and he lost his piece of ice before he had gone many steps, but he managed to carry the water up, and very much they all enjoj'ed it. "It's the sweetest water I ever tasted," said Mrs. Plummer. " Yes," said Mrs. March, " it must be, m good part, melted snow water out of the mountains : that is alwaj s sweet. This is the brook, no doubt, which runs past our house. You know they said it was close to the brook." " Oh, splendid ! " cried Rob ; " oh, mamma, isn't this a gay country ? so much nicer than an old village with streets in it, like Maj-field. This is some fun." Mrs. March laughed, but she thought in her heart : " I hope he '11 always find it fun." " I don't think it's fun, Rob," said Nelly, slowly. " Why not, Nell?" exclaimed Rob ; " why don't you like it?" " I do like it," said Nelly, earnestly ; "I like it bet- ter than any thing in all the world ; but I don't think it 'tt fun. It's lots better than fun." " Well, what 'd you call it, if you don't call it fun? " said Rob, in a vexed tone. Nelly did not answer. " Why don't you say ? " cried Rob. "I'm thinking," replied Nelly : " I guess there isn't an}* name for it. I don't know any." Just at this moment, the}' heard the tinkle of bells ahead, and in a second more loud shouts and cries. They walked faster. The wagon had been out of their sight for some time. As they turned a sharp bend in the road now, they saw it ; and they saw also anothe: FIRST GLIMPSES (Jb COLORADO. 125 wagon brought to a dead halt in front of it. The wagon which was coming down was loaded high with packages of shingles. It was drawn by six mules. They had bells on their necks, so as to warn people when they were coining. Mr. March and Deacon Plummer had heard these bells, but they had not known what they meant : if they had, they would have drawn off into one of the wider bends in the road, and waited. Now here the two wagons were, face to face, in one of the very worst places of the road, just where it seemed barely wide enough for one wagon alone. The rock rose up straight on one side, and the precipice fell off sharp on the other. To make matters worse, Pumpkinseed, who hated the very sight of a mule, and who did not like the shining of the bright, yellow shingles, began to rear and to plunge. The driver of the mule team sat still, and looked at Mr. March and the Deacon surlily without speaking. Mr. March and the Deacon looked at him helplessly, and said : " What are we going to do now?" " Didn't yer hear me a-coming?" growled the man. " No, sir," said Mr. March, pleasantly : "we are strangers here, and did not know what the bells meant." At this the man jumped down : he was not so angry, when he found out that they were strangers. He walked down the road a little way, and looked, and shook his head ; then he walked back in the direction he had come from ; then he came back, and said : "There's nothin' foi it, mister, but you'll have to unharness your team. My mules '11 stand ; I '11 help you." So they took out Pumpkinseed and Fox, and Mr 126 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. March led them on ahead. Then Deacon Plummer and the mule-driver pushed the wagon backward down th road till they came to a place where there was a curve in the road, and they could push it up so close to the rock that there was room for another wagon to pass. There the mule-driver drove his wagon by; and then Mr. March led Fox and Pumpkinseed down, and harnessed them to the wagon again : all this time Mrs. March and Mrs. Plummer and Rob and Nelly stood on the edge of the precipice, wherever they could find a secure place, and holding on by each other. As the mule team started on, the driver called back : " There 's three or four more behind me : you 'd better keep a sharp lookout, mister." "I should think so," exclaimed Deacon Plummer, " this is the perkiest place for teams to pass in thet ever I got into. I don't much like the thought o' comin' up and down here with all our teamin'." "No," said Mrs. March, "I'll never drive down here as long as I live." " Never 's a long word, wife," laughed Mr. March. " If we're going to live in this pass, I don't doubt we shall get so used to this road, we shan't think any thing about it." The road wound like a snake, turning first one way and then the other, and crossing the brook every few minutes. Sometimes they would be in dark shadow, when they were close to the left-hand hill ; and then, in a minute, they would come out again into full sunlight. "It's just like going right back again from after sun- down to the middle of the afternoon : isn't it, mamma? " said Nelly. " How queer it feels ! " " Yes," said Mrs March, " and I do not like the sun- FIRST GLIMPSES OF COLORADO. 127 down part. I hope our house is not in such a narrow part of the pass as this." Presently they saw a white house a little way ahead, on the right-hand side of the road. A high, rocky prec- ipice rose immediately behind it ; and the brook seemtul to be running under the house, it was so close to it. Tie house was surrounded by tall pine and fir trees ; and, on the opposite side of the road, the hill was so steep and high that already, although it was only three o'clock in jhe afternoon, the sun had gone down out of sight, and the house was dark and cold. The whole party looked anxiously at this house. " That can't be it, can it?" said Mrs. March. "Oh, no!" said Mr. March; "it isn't in the least such a house as the photograph showed : but I will step and ask." A man was chopping wood a few steps from tho house Mr. March called to him. " This isn't Garland's, is it?" Instead of replying, the man laid down his axe, at.J walked slowly out to the road, staring very hard at them all. " Be you the folks that 's comin' to live to Garland's ?" he said. " Yes," said the Deacon ; " and we hope this isn't the place ; if 'tis, we hain't been told the truth, that's aD."* " Oh, Lor*, no," laughed the man. " This ain't Gar- land's ; his place 's two mile farther on. That ain't no great shakes of a place, either, Garland's ain't; oit he 's got more land 'n we have. There ain't land enough here to raise a ground mole in. I 'm sick on 't." "You don't get daylight enough here to raise any 128 NELLY'S alLVER MINE. thing, for that matter," said Mr. March; "here it is the middle of the afternoon, by the clock, and past sun- down for you." " I know it," said the man ; " but there 's something in the air here which kind o' makes up for every thing. I don't know how 'tis, but we 've had our healths first rate ever since we've lived here. But I'm going to mot e down to the Springs : it 's too lonesome up here, and there ain't nothin' to do. Be you goin' into stock?" "Not much," said Mr. March. " We are only try- ing an experiment here : we have bought all Garland's cows." "Have ye?" said the man. "Well, Garland had some first-rate cattle ; but they 're pretty well peaked out now. Cattle gets dreadful poor here, along in March and April : ye 'd reelly pit}* 'em. But it 's amazin' how they pick up 's soon 's the grass comes in June. It don't seem to hurt 'em none to be kinder starved all winter. Come and see us : we 're neigh- borly folks out 'n this country. M}- wife she '11 be glad to know there 's some wimrnen folks in the Pass. She 's been the only woman here for a year. Garland he bached it : he hadn't no wife." Rob and Nelly had listened silently with wide-open eyes and ears to this conversation ; but at this last statement Rob's curiosity got the better of him. " What is baching it?" said he, as they drove off. The man laughed. " Ask your father : he '11 tell you," he said. 4 ' What is it, papa?" said Rob. " I suppose it is for a man to live all alone, without FIRST GLIMPSES OF COLORADO. 12i> any wife. You know they call unmarried men 'old bachelors,' after they get to be thirty or thirty-five. But I never heard the word before." " Oh ! " said Rob ; " is that all? I thought 'twas a trade lie had, or something he sold or made." " Well," said the Deacon ; " any man that could live up here in this stone gully, without his wife along, I don't think much of. It 's the lonesomest place, for an out-doors place, that ever I saw." " Oh, I think it's splendid ! " said Rob. " So do I," said Nelly. " It 's perfectly beautiful ! " "Ain't it a comfort, Mrs. March," said Mrs. Plum- mer, " how children always does take to new places?" " We don't either," cried Rob ; "I hate some places I've seen. But this is splendid. Just you look at those rocks : you bet I '11 pitch 'em down ! I 'm going up on to every one of the highest rocks I can find." " Oh, Rob ! you '11 break your neck," said Mrs. March. " I shall not allow you to climb, unless your father is with 3 T ou." "Now, mamma" Rob was beginning when, sud- denly catching sight of a house, he exclaimed : " There 'tis ! That 's like the picture. And there 's the bam ! I saw it first ! Oh, hurry ! hurry ! " And in his excitement Rob stood up in the wagon. Yes, there it was. It had looked better in the photo- graph which Mr. Garland had showed to Mr. March than it did in reality. It was a small, unpainted pine house ; without any piazza or blinds. The windows were small ; the front door was very small ; there was no fence between it and the road ; and all the ground 9 130 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. around it had been left wild. It was really a desolate- looking place. " Why. there isn't any yard ! " exclaimed Nelly. "Yard!" said her mother; "why, it is all yard, child. As far as you can see in every direction, it is al 1 our yard." Mrs. March's heart had really sunk within her at the sight of the place. The house was nothing more than she would have called a shanty at home ; but she was resolved, no matter what happened to them, never to let her husband see that she found any thing hard. So she spoke cheerfully about the yard ; and, as they were getting out of the wagon, she said : " How nice and open it is here ! See, Robert, the sun is still an hour high, I should think. This is a lovely place." Mr. March shook his head. He did not like the ap- pearance of things. Mrs. Plummer had bustled ahead into the house. In a moment she came back, followed by a man. This was the man who had been left by Mr. Garland in charge of the house, and who was to stay and work for Mr. March. " Bless ray eyes ! " he exclaimed ; " you Ve took me by surprise. I hain't had no letter from Garland. He said he 'd write and let me know when you 'd be up. [ calculated to have spruced up considerable before you come in. We 've bached it here so long 'tain't much of a place for wimmen folks to come to." " Oh, never mind ! " said Mrs. March ; " Mr." she hesitated for a name : " I don't think I 've heard your name " " Zeb, ma'am ; Zeb 's my name. Don't go by anj FIRST GLIMPSES OF COLORADO. 131 other name since I 've been in these mountains," said the man, pulling off his old woollen cap, and making an awkward bow to Mrs. March, whose pleasant smile and voice had won his liking at once. " Never mind, then, Zeb," Mrs. March continued : " we have not come expecting to find things as we La I them at home. We shall call it a picnic all the time." " Well, that 's about what it is, mum, most generally in this country 's fur 's I 've seen it," said Zeb, thinking at that moment, with a dreadful misgiving, that he had no meat in the house, except salt pork ; and no breai* at all. He had intended to make some soda biscuit fo his own supper. " But she looks like jest one o' then, kind that can't abide soda," thought poor Zeb to him self. " An' where in thunder be they all to sleep?" he continued ; " Garland might ha' known better than to let six folks come down on me, this way, without any warnin'. 'Twas mighty unconsiderate of him ! How- ever, 'tain't none o' my business. I don't keep no hotel." While Zeb was pursuing this uncomfortable train of thought, he was helping Deacon Plummer and Mr. _ March unharness the horses ; he seemed silent, and, Mr. March thought, surly ; but it was in reality only his distress at not being able to make the family more comfortable. Finally he spoke. " Did Garland tell you he 'd written?" " Oh, yes ! " said Mr. March ; " he said he 'd written, and you would be looking out for us." " Well, perhaps he wrote, and perhaps he didn't. It 'a as likely as not he didn't. At any rate, if he did, the letter's down in that Manitou post-office. I hain't 132 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. never seen it: an' I may as well tell you first as 'ast, that I ain't no waj's ready for ye. There ain't but two beds in the whole house. I was a calculatin' to bring up one more from the Springs next week ; an' I hain't g^t much in the way of provisions, either, except for the hosses. There 's plenty of oats, an' that 's about all there is plenty of." Deacon Plummer and Mr. March were standing in the barn door : the Deacon thrust his hands deep down in his pockets and whistled. Mr. March looked at Zeb's face. The more he studied it, the better he liked it. "Zeb," said b.p, *'we {an stay, somehow, can't we? We men can eleep on the hay for a few nights, if the sleeping 's all. What have you really got in the way of food ? That 's the main thing." ll pleased Zeb to have Mr. March say "we men." " I guess he 's got some stuff in him, if he is a parson," thought Zeb ; and his face brightened as he replied. "Well, if you can sleep on the hay, it's all right about the sleepin' ; but I didn't reckon you could. But that 's only part o' the trouble. However, I can jump on to a boss and ride down to Manitou and pick up suthin', if the wimmen folks think they can get along." " Get along ! of course we can get along ! " exclaimed Mrs. March, who had just come out in search of her husband. " There is an iron pot and a tea-kettle and a frying-pan and a barrel of flour and a firkin of Graham meal ; what more do we want ? " and she laughed merrily. "Hens, mamma, hens ! There are lots of hens here ! " shouted Rob, coming up at full speed ; " and see this FIRST GLIMPSES OF COLORADO. 133 splendid shepherd dog ! He knows me already ! See ! he follows me ! " and Rob held his hand high up in the air to a beautiful black and white shepherd dog who was running close behind him. "Yes; "Watch, he's real friendly with everybody," said Zeb. "He's lots o' company, Watch is. He knows more 'n most folks. Here, Watch ! give us yonr paw ? " The dog lifted one paw and held it out. " No, not that one the white one ! " said Zeb. Watch dropped the black paw and held up the white one instantly. " He '11 do that just 's often 's you '11 ask him," said Zeb ; "an' it 's a mighty queer thing for a dog to know black from white." " Oh ! let me try him ? " said Rob. ' Here, Watch ! Watch ! " Watch ran to Rob at once. " He does take to you, that 's a fact," said Zeb. "Give your paw, Watch, your white paw," said Rob. Watch put his white paw in Rob's hand. " Now your black paw," said Rob. Watch put down his white paw and lifted the other. "White, black! white, black!" said Rob, as fast as he could pronounce the words ; and, just as fast as he said them, the dog changed his paws. At this moment, Nelly appeared, her cheeks very red, carrying a little yellow and white puppy in her arms. "Oh ! see this dear little puppy ! " she said ; "doesn't he just match Pumpkinseed ? " "We might call him Pumpkin Blossom," said Mrs, March. 134 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. " His name 's Trotter," said Zeb. " He 's jest got it learned : I guess you can't change it very easy. Put him down, miss, and I '11 show you what he can do. 1 hain't taught him much yet ; he 's such a pup : but there 's nothiu' he can't learn. Trotter, roll over ! " The puppy lay down instantly and rolled over and over. " Faster ! " said Zeb. Trotter rolled faster. "Faster! faster! fast as you can ! " cried Zeb ; and Trotter rolled so fast that }-ou could hardly see his legs or his tail ; he looked like a round ball of yellow hair, with two bright eyes in it. Nelly and Rob shouted with laughter, and even Mr. March and Deacon Plummer laughed hard. The}- had been so busy that they had not observed that it was growing dark. Suddenly Zeb looked up, and said : " Ye 'd better run in : it 's going to be a snow flurry." "A snow flurry!" exclaimed Mrs. March, looking up at the bright blue sky overhead. "Where's the snow to come from?" "Out o' that cloud, mum," replied Zeb, pointing to a black cloud just coming up over the top of the hill to the west. "'T'll be here in less than five minutes; inebbe 't '11 be hail : reckon 't will." Sure enough, in less than five minutes the cloud had spread over their heads, and the hail began to fall. They all stood at the windows and watched it. Rattle rattle, it came on the roof and against the west windows, and the hailstones bounded off from every place thej hit, and rolled about on the ground like marbles. At first they were very small : not bigger than pins' heads ; but larger and larger ones came every minute, until they were as big as large plums. Rob and Nelly had FIRST GLIMPSES OF COLORADO. 135 never seen such hailstones ; they were half frightened, and yet the sight was so beautiful to watch, that they enjoyed it. The storm did not last more than ten min- utes ; the hailstones grew smaller again, just as they had grown larger ; and then they came slower and slower, till they stopped altogether, and the great black cloud rolled off toward the south, and left the sky clear blue above their heads, just as it was before ; and the sun shone out, and every thing glistened like silver from the boughs of the trees down to the blades of grass. The great hailstones were piled up in all the hollow places of the ground, but the hot sun shining on them began to melt them immediately; and, except where the}* were in the shadow of rocks or trees or piles of boards, they did not last long. Nelly picked up a tin pan and ran out and filled it in a minute : then she passed them round to everybody, saying: "Won't you have some sugared almonds?" and they all ate them and pretended they were candy ; and Rob and Nelly rolled them away from the doorstep and made Trotter run after them. In less than ten minutes after the storm had passed, it was so warm that the}* were all standing in the open doorway, or walking about out of doors. " Upon my word, what a country this is ! " said Mr. March. "Ten minutes ago it was winter; now it is spring." "Yes," said Zeb. "That's jest the way 'tis all through the winter ; but next month ye '11 get some winter in good airnest. April 'n' May's our winter months. I 've seen the snow a foot V a half deep in this Pass in May." 136 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. " What ! " exclaimed Mr. March, now really excited. " A foot and a half of snow ! What becomes of the cattle then?" " Oh ! " said Zeb, " it never lays long : not over a day or two. This sun '11 melt snow 's quick 's a fire '11 mel' grease, 'n quicker." " Then I suppose it is very muddy," said Mrs. March " No, mum, never no mud to speak of; sometimes a little stretch of what they call adobe land '11 be putty muddy for a week or so ; but 's a general thing the roads are dry in a day ; in fact, you '11 often see the ground white with a little sprinkle of snow at eight o'clock in the morning, and by twelve you '11 see the roads dry, except along the edges : the snow jest kind o' goes off in the air here ; it don't seem 's if it melted into water at all." " Well, I '11 give it up ! " said the Deacon ; " near 's, I can make out, this country 's a conundrum." Mrs. March and Mrs. Plurnmer now set themselves to work in good earnest to put the little house in order. They had brought with them only what the}- could carry in valises and hand-bags : all their boxes and trunks were to come in a big wagon the next day ; so there was not much unpacking to be done. The house had only five rooms in it : one large room, which was to be used as the kitchen and dining-room and living-room ; three small rooms which were for bedrooms ; and another room which had been used as a lumber-room. As soon as Mrs. March looked into this room, she resolved to make it into a little sitting-room by and by. It had one window to the east, which looked out on the brook, and one to the south, which had a most beautifm f'IRST GLIMPSES OF COLORADO. 137 view down the Pass. These rooms had no plaster on the walls, and the boards were very rough ; but th Colorado pine is such a lovely shade of yellow that rooms built of bare boards are really prettier than most of the rooms you see which have paper on them. Poor Mrs. Plummer thought these bare boards were dreadful. She worked on, industriousby, helping Mrs, March do all she could ; but every few minutes she would give a great sigh, and look up at the walls, or down at the floor, and say : "Well, Mrs. March! I never did expect to see you come to this." Mr. March also wore rather a long face as he stood in the doorway and watched his wife. " Oh, Sarah ! " he said, at last, " I can't bear to have you work like this. I didn't realize it was going to be just such a place. I shall go to the Springs to-morrow and get a servant for you." "You won't do any such thing, Robert," said Mrs March. " There 's no room for a servant to sleep in ; and I don't want one, any way. Mrs. Plummer will give me all the help I need ; and Rob and Nelly will help too. Look at Rob now ! " At that minute, Rob came puffing and panting in at the door, with his arms full of crooked sticks, stems of vines, and all soita of odds and ends of drift-wood, which he had picked up on the edge of the brook. "Here's kindling wood, mamma; lots of it. Zeb told me where to get it. There 's lots and lots all along the brook." And he threw down his armful on the hearth, and was going back for more. " Dear boy ! here is enough, and more than enough,* 138 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. said Mrs. March. "You can bring me some water next ; we dip it out of the brook, I suppose." "Now, mamma, that's just all you know about it," replied Rob, with a most exultant air of superiority ; " there 's just the nicest spring, right across the brook, only a little bit of ways. Zeb showed me ; you come and see, there 's a bridge." Mrs. March followed him. Sure enough, there was a nice, fresh spring, bubbling up out of the ground, among the bushes ; it was walled around with boards a few feet high, so that the cattle should not trample too close to it ; a narrow plank was laid across the brook just opposite it ; and it was not twenty steps from the house. " See, mamma," said Rob, as he dipped in the pail, and drew it out dripping full, " see how nice this is. I can bring you all the water 3 r ou want." " Take care ! take care, Rob ! " shouted his father, as Rob stepped back on the plank. He was too late. Rob in his excitement had stepped a little on one side of the middle of the plank : it tipped ; he lost his balance, and in he went, pail of water and all, into the brook. The brook was not deep, and he scrambled out again in less than a minute, much mortified and very wet. Mrs. March could not help laughing. " Well, you helped fill the brook instead of my pail; didn't you?" she said. "But, mamma, I haven't got any dry clothes," said poor Rob : " what '11 I do? " "That's a fact, Rob," said his mother. "You'll have to go to bed while these clr}-." " Oh, iear ! " said Rob ; " that 's too bad ! " And h FIRST GLIMPSES OF COLORADO 139 walked very disconsolately toward the house. Zeb was just riding off, with two empty sacks hanging from his saddle pommel. " Zeb," called Rob ; " I tumbled in the brook ; and I've got to go to bed till my clothes are dry." " Don't 3*6 do no such a thing," cried Zeb ; " you jest walk round a leetle livel}*, and your clothes '11 be dry afore ye know it. Water don't wet ye much in this country." " Come, now, Zeb," said the Deacon, " let's draw a line somewhere ! That 's a little too big a story. I can believe ye about the snow's not making mud, because I 've seen these hail-stones just melt away into nothin' in half an hour; but when it comes to water's not wettin', I can't go that." "Well, you just feel of me now!" shouted Rob; " I 'm half dry already ! " The Deacon and Mrs. March both felt Rob's arms and shoulders. " Ton my word, they ain't so very wet," said the Deacon ; " was it only just now you tumbled in? " " Not five minutes ago," said Mrs. March. "It is certainly the queerest thing I ever saw," she continued, feeling Rob from his shoulders to his ankles: "he is really, as he says, half dry. I'll try Zeb's advice. Rob, you run up and down the road as hard as you can for ten minutes ; don't you stand still at all." Rob raced away, with Watch at his heels, and Mr. and Mrs. March walked into the house, Mr. March carrying the pail filled once more with the nice spring water. In a ftw minutes, as they were all busily at 140 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. work, they heard a sound at the door : they looked up ; there stood a white cow, looking in on them with a mild expression of surprise. " Oh ! " said Mr. March. " Zeb said the cows 'd be coming home pretty soon. The Deacon and I '11 have to milk." "Yes, they're a comin'," called out the Deacon, peering over the back of the white cow, and pushing her gently to one side, so that he could enter the door ; " they 're a comin' down the road, and down the hill up there back o' the saw-mill : I jest wish ye 'd come and look at 'em. Don't know as ye 'd better, either, if ye want to have a good appetite for 3~our supper ! If ever ye see Pharaoh's lean kine, ye '11 see 'em now." Mr. and Mrs. March and Mrs. Plummer all ran out and stood in front of the house, looking up the road. There came the cows, one, two, three, all in single file, down the hill, now and then stopping to take a nibble by the way ; in the road there were half a dozen more, walking straight on, neither turning to the right nor the left. " That 's right, ye poor things: make for the barn; I would if I was you. Perhaps I won't feed you a good feed o' hay 'n' corn-meal to-night, sure 's my name 's Plummer ! " The cows were indeed lean : you could count every rib on their bodies, and their hip bonee stuck out like great ploughshares. "What a shame!" exclaimed Mrs. March. "Hus- band, 3*ou were imposed upon. These cows are not worth any thing." " Oh, yes they be ; they 're first-rate stock," said the Deacon; "first-rate stock, only they 're sj run down. FIRST GLIMPSES OF COLORADO. 141 Ye '11 see I '11 have 'ein so fat in four weeks ye won't know "em." The cows gathered together in a little group between the two barns, and looked very hard at these strangers they had never seen before. They knew very well that something had happened, the}' missed Zeb, and began to low uneasily ; but when Deacon Plummer came out of the barn with a big pitchfork full of hay, and threw it down before them, all their anxieties were alla3 r ed. These were good friends who had come : there was no doubt of that. Nine times the Deacon brought out his pitchfork full of hay, and threw it on the ground, one for each cow : and didn't they fall to and eat ! "H'm!" said the Deacon, as he watched them. " If this is the result of j'our fine winter grazin', I don't want any thing to do with it. It 's just slow starvation to my way o' thinking. Look at them udders ! There ain't a quart apiece in 'em. Our milkin' '11 be soon over, Parson." "The sooner the better for me, Deacon," laughed Mr. March. " I never did like to milk." " Oh ! let me milk ! let me milk, papa ! please do ! " cried Rob, who had returned from his ten minutes' run on the road, as dry as ever. " And me, too ! me too ! " said Nelly, who was close behind. "Not to-night, children. It is late, and we are in a hurry," said Mr. March. Just as he spoke, the sun sank behind the hill. Almost instantly, a chill fell on the air. "Bless me," said Mr. March, "here we have winter again. Run in, children ; it is growing too cold for you 142 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. to be out. What a climate this is, to be sure ! one can't keep up with it." While Deacon Plummer and Mr. March were milk- ing, they talked over their prospects. They were forced to acknowledge that there was small chance of makiucr a living on this farm. ' We're took in: that's all there is on 't," said tin Deacon, cheerily ; " but I reckon we can grub along foi six months ; we can live that long even if we don'1 make a cent ; and now we 're here, we can look about for ourselves, and see what we 're gettin' before we make another move." "Yes," said Mr. March. "That's the only way to do. I confess I am disappointed. Mr. Garland seemed such a fair man." The Deacon laughed. "Ye don't know human na- ture, Parson, the way we men do that's knockin' round all the time among folks. Ye see folks always comes to you when they're in trouble, or else when they're joyful, bein' married, or a baptizin' their babies, or somethin' o' ruther that 's out o' the common line ; so you don't never see 'em jest exactly 's they are. Now I kinder mistrusted that Garland from the fust. He was too anxious to sell, to suit me When a man 's got a first-rate berth, he ain't generally sc ready to quit." When the milkers went in with their pails of milk they found a blazing fire on the hearth, and supper sel out on a red pine table without any table-cloth. Mrs. March had made Graham biscuit and white biscuit, and had baked some apples which she had left in her lunch- basket. When she saw the milk, she exclaimed : FIRST GLIMPSES OF COLORADO. 143 " Now, if this isn't a supper fit for a king ! bread and milk and baked apples ! " " Ain't there any butter?" called out Rob. " Yes, there is some butter ; but I doubt if you will eat it," said Mrs. March. " Zeb is going to buy some better butter at Manitou." Rob put some of the butter on his bread, and put a mouthful of the bread in his mouth. In less than a second, he had clapped his hand over his mouth with an expression of horror. "Oh! what '11 1 do, mamma? it's worse than medi- cine ! " he cried ; and swallowed the whole mouthful at one gulp. "That can't be butter, mamma," he said. " You 've made a mistake. It '11 poison us : it 's some- thing else." " Little you know about bad butter, don't you, Rob? " said Deacon Plummer, calmly buttering his biscuit, and eating it. "I 've eaten much worse butter than this." Rob's eyes grew big. " What 'd you eat it for ? " he said, earnestly. " Sure enough," said Mrs. Plummer. " That 's what I Ve always said about butter. If there 's any thing else set before folks that 's bad, why they just leave it alone. There isn't any need ever of eating what you don't like. But when it comes to butter, folks seem to think they 've got to eat it, good, bad, or indifferent." "That's so," said the Deacon; "and if I've heard 3'ou saj" so once, Elizy, I 've heard you say it a thousand tiiiies ; I don't know how 'tis, but it does seem as if you had to have somethin' in shape o' butter, if it 's ever so bad, to make a meal go down." " I don't see how bad butter helps make a meal go 144 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. down," said Rob. " It like to have made mine come up just now." "Rob! Rob I" said his mother, reprovingly; "you forget that we are at supper." "Excuse me, mamma," said Rob, penitently; "but it was true." LIFE AT GARLAND'S. 145 CHAPTER VI. LIFE AT GARLAND'S. THIS was the first night of the Marches and Plun mers in their strange new home in Colorado. When the}' waked up the next morning, Mr. March and Deacon Plummer rolled up in buffalo robes on the hay in the barn, Mrs. March and Nelly in one bed in one little bedroom, Mrs. Plummer in another opening out of it, and Rob on an old black leather sofa in the kitchen, they could hardly believe their eyes as they looked around them. They all got up very early, and now their new life had begun in good earnest. Immediately after breakfast, Mr. March drove away in the big wagon with Fox and Pumpkinseed. He would not tell his wife where he was going, nor take any one with him. The truth was, that in the night Mr. March had taken two resolutions : one was that he would get a servant for Mrs. March ; the other was that he would buy fur- niture enough to make the house pleasant and comforta- ble, and china enough to make their table look a little like their old home table. But he knew if he told Mrs. March what he meant to do, she would think they ought not to spend the money. All their own pretty china which they had used at home, she had packed up and left behind them, saying: " TVe shall not want any thing of that kind in Colorado." Mrs. March did not 10 146 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. care about such things half so much as Mr. March and Nelly did ; that is, she could do without them more easily. She liked pretty things very much, but she could do without them very well if it were necessary. She watched Mr. March driving off down the road this morning with an uneasy feeling. " I don't know what Mr. March 's got in his head," she said to Mrs. Plummer ; " but I think he is going to do something rash. He looks as children do when they are in some secret mischief." " Why, what could it be?" said good Mrs. Plummer " I don't see what there is for him to do." "Well, we shall see," said Mrs. March. "I wish T 'd made him take me along." "Made him!" exclaimed Mrs. Plummer. "Can you make him do any thing he 's sot not to ? I hain't never been able to do that with Mr. Plummer, not once in all the thirty years I 've lived with him. It 's always peemed to me that men was the obstinatest critters made, even the best on 'em ; an' I 'm sure Mr. Plum- mer 's as good a man 's ever was born ; but I don't no more think o' movin' him if his mind 's made up, than I should think o' movin' that rock up there," pointing to a huge rock which was at the top of one of the hills to the south-west of the house. The day flew by quickly in putting their new home in Older. Both Mrs. March and Mrs. Plummer worked very hard, and Rob and Nelly helped them. Tliey swept and washed floors ; they washed windows ; they washed even the chairs and tables, which sadly needed it, it must be owned. Rob and Nelly enjoyed it all as a frolic. AT OAKLAND'S. 147 " This is like last Christmas, when Sarah was drunk : isn't it, mamma? " said Rob. " It 's real fun." " Don't you wish Sarah was here to help you, mam- ma?" said Nelly. "No, dear," replied Mrs. March, "I do not. J would rather do all the work ourselves, and save the money." " Are we \ery, very, very poor, mamma?" said Nel- ly, with a distressed face. "Oh, no, dear! not so bad as that," laughed Mrs. March; "but papa's salary has all stopped now, as I explained to }'ou ; and that was the greater part of our income: and, till we have more money coining in regu- larly from something out here, we must spend just a3 little as possible." Just before dinner, Rob came in with a big armful of kindling-wood, and on the top of the wood he carried a long piece of a beautiful green vine. "Oh, Rob, Rob, let me see that! Where did you find it ? " said his mother. "Upon the hills, mamma, back of the saw-mill. There 's oceans of it up there." " There is oceans, Rob?" said his mother. " There are oceans, then ! You knew what I meant. It 's just like a carpet ; and you can pull up great, long pieces of it : it comes up just as easy as any thing." Mrs. March turned the vine over and over in her hands. It had a small glossy leaf, like the leaf of the box. Some of the long, slender tendrils of it were bright red. " The leaf is so thick I think it would keep a long time," said Mrs. March. " I wish 3 - ou and Nelly would 148 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. oring me several armfuls of it. I '11 tack it up all round the room : the walls won't look so bare, then." "Oh, good}*!" said the children; "that's just like Christmas." And they ran off as fast as they could go. In an hour they had heaped the whole floor with piles of the vine. The more they brought, the more beautiful it looked : the leaves shone like satin, and there were great mats of it nearly two }*ards long. Mrs. March had never seen it before, and did not know its name. Afterward she found out that it was the kinnikinnick vine, and that the Indians used it to smoke in their pipes. Some of the branches had beautiful little red berries like wintergreen berries on it. Nelly sorted these all out by themselves ; then Mrs. March stood up on a chair, and some of the time on a table, and nailed a thick border of these vines all round the top of the room ; then she took the branches which had red berries on them ; and, wherever there was an upright beam in the wall, she nailed on one of these boughs with the red berries, and let it hang down just as it would. Then she trimmed the fireplace and the door and the win- dows. It took her about two hours to do it. When it was all done, you would hardly have known the room. It looked lovely : the yellow pine boards looked much prettier with the green of the vines than an}' paper in the \\orld could have looked. Rob and Nelly fairly danced with delight. " Oh, mamma ! mamma ! it 's prettier than any Christ mas we ever had : isn't it ? " "Yes," said Mrs. March; "if the vines will only last, it is all we need to keep our walls pretty till sum- mer time." LIFE AT GARLAND'S. 149 "Well, I never!" said Zeb, who came iu at that moment. " If wimmen folks don't beat all! Why, mum, 3'e look 's if you was goin' to have an ice-cream festival." Zeb's only experience of rooms decorated with green vines had been when he had attended ice-cream fes- tivals, given by churches to raise money. " Well, we'll have one some day, Zeb," said Mrs. March, laughing ; ' ' and we won't charge you any thing. I can make very good ice-cream." ' ' Oh, to-night ! to-night ! mamma," exclaimed the children. " Can't to-night," Mrs. March said ; "for the freezer 'a in the big box with all the other kitchen things." " I might make some crullers," said Mrs. Plummer. "Do! do! do!" cried Rob. "Mrs. Plummer 's famous for crullers ! " And he ran off, singing " Plummer ! Cruller ! Plummer ! Cruller ! " at the top of his lungs. It was nearly dark before Mr. March returned. Eob was the first to spy him. ' ' Why, there 's Pumpkinseed ! " he exclaimed. "And what in the world 's papa got in the wagon?" And he ran down the road to meet him. All the others ran too. The wagon did indeed present a very singular appearance. Four red wooden legs stuck far out in front ; Mr. March was wedged in between them ; high above his head bulged out a great roll of bolsters and pillows ; and as far as you could see, away back in the 150 NEL^jr S SILVER MINE. wagon, there seemed to be nothing but bed-ticking, and legs of furniture. ''Mercy on us!" exclaimed Mrs. March; "What did I tell 3'ou, Mrs. Plummer? That's what he went off for, to buy furniture. Mr. March always must have things just right. Dear me ! I wish he hadn't done it." But, as I told you long ago, it was Mrs. March's way always to make the best of what couldn't be helped. So she went forward to welcome her husband as pleas- antly as if she were delighted to see all this new fur- niture. "Ah, Robert," she said, "now I know why you wouldn't take me. You wanted to surprise us ah 1 ." "Yes," said Mr. March, his face beaming all over with satisfaction, " I didn't mean you should spend another night in such a desolate hole. There 's another wagon load behind." At this Mrs. March could not help groaning. "Oh, Robert! Robert!" she said, "what did you buy so much for ? " " Oh, part of the other load is feed for the cattle," said Mr. March. "That I'm responsible to Deacon Plummer for. Those were his orders." When the two wagons were unloaded, the space in front of the little house looked like an auction. Rob and Nelly ran from one thing to another, exclaiming and shouting. Mr. March had indeed furnished the whole house. He had bought two prett}' little single bedsteads for Rob and Nelly, and a fine large bedstead for himself and Mrs. March ; he had bought mattresses and pillows and Dolsters and blanktts ; a whole piece LIFE AT GARLAND'S. 151 of pretty rag-carpet, in gray and red stripes ; two large rocking-chairs with arms, two without, and two small low chairs ; a work-table with drawers, two bu- reaus, a wardrobe, and two sets of book-shelves to hang on the walls ; two student lamps, and a table with leaves that could open out. Then he had bought a whole piece of pretty chintz in stripes of black and green. "There, wife," he said, as he showed her this, last of all, " now we can make a decent little home out of it, after a few days." As he spoke, he stepped into the kitchen : he started back with surprise. " Why, how perfectly lovely ! " he exclaimed ; "where did 3 T ou get it? And what is it? I never saw a place so transformed. Why, it looks even elegant." "I thought you would like it," said Mrs. March, much pleased. " Perhaps if you had seen it so before you went away, you wouldn't have bought so many new things." " Why, Sarah, I haven't bought a thing that wasn't absolutely necessary," said Mr. March. "The}" are all very nice, dear," replied Mrs. March; " and of course we shall be much more comfortable with them. It was very kind of you. But haven't you spent a great deal of money ? " she asked anxiously. "Oh, no!" said Mr. March, "I think not; though things are much higher here than at home. I didn't get the bills ; but I don't believe it 's over two hundred dollars." This seemed a great deal to Mrs. March ; but she said no more. And the next day, when all the things 152 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. were arranged, a square of the rag-carpet laid on the floor, and the pretty chintz curtains at the window, she could not help admitting to herself that life looked much easier and pleasauter than it had before. "And I ought to be thankful that he did not buy more," she thought ; " and that he could not find a ser vant to bring out here." On inquiring after servants, Mr. March had found that it was almost impossible to get any good ones ; and their wages were so high, he had at once given up all idea of hiring one now. " I '11 let you try it, Sarah, for the present," he said , "but, if I see you in the least breaking down, I shall have a servant, if I have to send home for one." " I won't break down," said Mrs. March ; "I never felt so well in nay life. I am never tired. I suppose it is the air." "Yes," said Mr. March; "it must be. I, too, feel like another man. I can draw such full, long breaths ; I shouldn't know there was such a thing as asthma in the world." As day after day went on, they all came to like their new home better and better. The h'ttle room which had been a lumber room was made into a sitting-room, and trimmed all round with the kinnikinnick vines ; the big table with leaves stood in the centre, and the book- shelves hung on the walls. Zeb and Deacon Plummer built pine shelves across one end of the room, way to the top : these were filled with Mr. March's books. There were two small school-desks by the east window ; and at these Rob and Nelly sat for two hours ever} morning, and studied and recited their lessons to Mr, LIFE AT GARLAND'S. 153 March. In the afternoon, they pla} r ed out of doors ; they climbed the hills and the rocks ; and, at four o'clock, they went after the cows. This was something they were never tired of, because they never knew just where they should find the cows : they rambled into so many little nooks and corners among the hills ; but three of the cows had bells on their necks, and the rest never went far from them. Watch always went with Rob and Nelly, and he seemed to have a wonder- ful instinct to tell where to look for a cow. Whenever it stormed too much for the children to be out, Zeb went. Sometimes Watch went all alone. He could bring the cows home as well as anybody. But Nelly and Rob never liked to miss it. It was the great pleasure of their day ; and the out-door air and the exercise were making them brown and strong. They looked like little Italian peasant children : wherever they went the}' sang up hill and down, and on the tops of the highest rocks, their merry voices rang out. Felix that Frenchman I told you about that they saw in the cars, the one who was servant to the English gentleman had taught Rob how to make the cry which the Swiss hunt- ers make in the Alps. It is called the " Joclel" and it sounds very fine among high hill- tops. It is some- thing like this : "Yo-ho! yo-ho ! yo-ho!" The syllat.es are pro- nounced one after the other just as fast as you can, in a high shrill tone, and there is a sort of tune to it which I could not describe ; but perhaps you know some trav- eller who has been in Switzerland, who can describe it to you. Rob used to " jodel" beautifully ; and many a time when he was on a high rock, way up above the 154 NELLY'S SILVER MINE road, and saw people riding or driving below him, he would ring out such a " jodel," that the people would stop and look up amazed. They could not believe they were in America. Rob was fast growing as strong and well as Nelly. He never had sore throats here: and Mr. and Mrs. March often said that they would be glad they had come to Colorado, if it were for nothing ex- cept that it had made Rob so well. As he grew stronger, he grew to be a much better boy. He was not selfish nor cross as he used to be at home ; and he was as full of fun as a squirrel, all day long. One thing he very much enjoyed doing, was taking Fox and Pumpkinseed up to the tops of the high hills to graze. The best grass grew very high up on the hills ; but neither Fox nor Pumpkinseed had ever been used to such steep hills, and they both hated to climb them. Deacon Plum- mer was very droll about it. " Don't blame 'em," said he, " don't blame 'em a mite. Who 'd want to be for ever climbing up garret to get a mouthful of something to eat?" However, since the food was chiefly "up garret," as the deacon called it, " up garret" the horses must go ; and it was somebody's duty every morning to lead them up. Often, in the course of the day, they would ramble slowly down : then they would have to be taken up again ; and Rob was always on the lookout for a chance to do this. He always took Fox ; he was easier to lead than Pumpkinseed. You had to lead only one : the other would follow ; and it was a funny sight to see Rob way up on the steep hill, tugging away at Fox's halter, and Fox half holding back, half going along, and Pumpkinseed behind, following on slowly with a most disgusted expression, every now and then One thing he very much enjoyed doing, was taking Fox and Pumpkin- seed up to the tops of the high hills to graze." - PAGE 154. LIFE AT GARLAND'S. 15a stopping short and looking up at Rob and Fox , as much as to say, "Oh, dear! why will you drag us up this horrible hill ? " The hill opposite the house was so high that when Rob was at the very top of it with the horses, he didn't look bigger than a " Hop-o'-my-thumb," and the horses looked like goats. After he got them fairly up, and saw them grazing contentedly, Rob would run down the hill at full speed. At first he got many a tumble flat on his nose doing this ; but after a while he learned how to slant his body backwards, and then he did not tumble. But while Rob and Nelly were growing well and strong, and having such a good time that they never wanted to go back to Maj'field, I am sorry to say that the grown people were not so contented. In the first place, good old Mrs. Plummer could not sleep. Her cough was all gone ; and if she could only have slept, she would have been as well as anybody ; but her heart beat too fast all the time, and kept her awake at night. She did not know that she had any trouble with her heart when she was at home ; and nobody had told them that people with heart-trouble could not live in Colo- rado : but that is the case ; the air which is so pure and dry is also so light, that it makes your pulse beat a good many tunes more a minute, and it takes a good strong heart to bear this. You know your heart is nothing but a pump that pumps blood to go through your veins, just as water goes through pipes ah 1 over a house ; and the pump has to be very strong to pump so many strokes a minute as it does in Colorado. So poor Mrs. Plummer, instead of growing better, waf growing worse ; and this made them all unhappy 156 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. Then Deacon Plummet and Mr. Maren hau to ac knowledge that they were paying out more money than they took in, and this worried them both. "We've got to get out on't somehow, that's .leai and sartin/' said'the deacon. " It won't take very iong at this rate to clear us both out. I hate to gh e up I 'm sure there must be better places in the couutrj somewhere for stock raisin' than this is ; but we won't stir till warm weather sets in. Then we '11 look round." The lat week in April and the first in May were hard weeks. Snow-storm after snow-storm fell. At one time, all travel through the pass was cut off for two days. The snow lay in great drifts in the narrow- est places. In such weather as this, all the cattle had to be kept in the barns and yards, and fed ; hay was very dear; and as Deacon Plummer said, "It don't take a critter very long to eat its own head off, and after it 's eaten it off six times over, its head 's on all the same for you to keep a feedinV When June came in, matters brightened. The cows had plenty of grass, gave good milk, and Mrs. March and Mrs. Plummer made a good many pounds of butter each week, which they sold at Manitou without diffi- culty. Here at last was a regular source of income , but it was small : "a mere drop in the bucket," Mrs. March said when she was talking over matters with Mrs. Plummer. I must tell you how this butter was made, because it was such a pleasure to Rob and Nelly to watch it. It was made in a little shed which joined on to the old saw-mill, and the old saw-mill wheel did the churning. Wasn't that a funny way? We must give Zeb the credit of this. He was tinning the grindstone LlfE AT GARLAND'S. 157 one day for Deacon Plummer to sharpen up the sixes. It is very hard work to turn a grindstone, and Zeb was very tired before the axes were half ground. Suddenly the thought popped into his head, "Why shouldn't I make that old water-wheel turn this grindstone for us ? " After dinner he went up to the saw-mill and looked at it. There was the old wooden wheel as good as ever ; the gate which had shut the water off and let it on was gone ; "but that's easy fixed," said Zeb, and to work he went ; and before sundown, he had the water-wheel bobbing round again as fast as need be. The next day he took the grindstone and sunk it in between two old timbers in a broken place in the floor, just back of the wheel ; then he put a strap round the grindstone and fastened it to the water-wheel ; then he pulled up the little gate, and let the water on the water-wheel. Hur- rah ! round went the water-wheel, and round went the grindstone keeping exact pace with it ! Zeb clapped his knee, which was the same thing as if he had patted himself on the shoulder. " Good for 3'ou, Abe Mack ! " he said. Then he looked around frightened, to see if anybody had heard him. No one was near. He drew a long breath. "Lord!" he said; "to think o' my sa3'ing that name out loud after all this time ! " and he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. " I 'd better be more keerful than that," he said. " I '11 get fracked yet, if I don't look out." Two years before, in a fight in a mining town a great many miles north of his present home, Zeb had had the misfortune to kill a man. He never intended to do such a thing. Ho really drew his pistol in self-defence ; but he could not prove this, and he had fled for his life, and had becu 158 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. ever since living hidden away on this lonely farm in che mountains. He had intended to go still farther away where there would be no possibility of his ever being seen by any of the men who had known him before, but he had fallen so in love with these hills he could not tear himself away from them. But he had never told his true name to any one, and when he pronounced it now the sound of it frightened him almost as if it had been a sheriff who was calling him by it. After dinner, Zeb invited the whole family out to see his new water-works. They all looked on with interest and pleasure. Mr. March had often looked at the old mill and wished he had money enough to put it in order. "Well done, Zeb!" he said. "You've turned the old thing to some account, haven't you ? That 's a capital idea ; we '11 grind knives and axes now for any- body who comes along." " Zeb," said Mrs. March, " can't you make it churn the butter for you ? " Zeb was struck by the idea. "Lor, ma'am," he said; "I never heard o' such a thing ! but I don't know why not. I '11 try it, sure 's my name 's " he stopped short, and gasped out "Zebu- Ion Craig." Nc one observed his agitation. They were all too busy watching the grindstone and the water-wheel. The next day and the next, Zeb was seen steadily at. work in the saw-mill. He would not let the children stay with him. " Run away ! run away ! " he said. " I Ve got a job o' thinkin' to do : can't think with you youngsters a lookin' on." LIFE AT GARLAND'S. 158 Rob and Nelly were almost beside themselves with curiosity. " Zeb 's making a churn to go by water like the grind- stone : I know he is," said Rob. "It's real mean for him not to let us see." " But, Rob," said the wise Nelly, " he says he can't think if we 're round. He '11 show it to us 's soon 'a it's done." "I don't care," said Rob; " I want to see how he does it ; " and Rob hovered round the mill perpetually, much to Zeb's vexation. Late in the second afternoon, Zeb called out : " Rob, go fetch me the churn, will 3 r ou?" Rob was only too happy to be admitted into the part- nership on any terms. The churn was quite heavy, but he rolled it and tugged it to the shed-door. Zeb lifted it over the threshold : and then Rob saw that there was a long slender beam fastened to the water- wheel, and reaching half way across the wall of the shed ; an upright beam was fastened to this, a hole was cut in the shed wall, and another beam run through this hole, and fastened to the upright beam on the other side. When the water-wheel turned round and round, it made this upright beam go up and down. Zeb took the dasher of the churn and fastened it to this beam : up and down, up and down it went, faster than anybody could churn. "'Tain't quite long enough," said Zeb. "We'll have to stand the churn on something." Then he ran back to the house and asked Mrs. Plummer for some cream. She gave him about three gallons ; he put it into the churn, raised the churn a little higher, and se* 160 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. the machinery in motion. In about ten minutes he looked in. "It's comin' ! it's comin' ! " he cried. "Run, call all the folks, Rob." Rob ran, and in a few minutes the whole family were looking on at this new mode of churning. It worked beautifully ; in fifteen minutes more the butter was made. "There ! " said Zeb, as he drew up the dasher with great solid lumps of butter sticking to it. " If that ain't the easiest churned three gallons o' cream ever I see ! " "Yes, indeed, Zeb," said Mrs. March, "it is. "NVe shan't dread churning-da}' any more." Mr. March examined the macumery curiously. " Zeb," he said, "if we had two good iron wheels we could make shingles here, couldn't we? I believe it would pay to rig the old place up again." "Yes, sir," said Zeb. "There's nothin' ye can't make with such a stream o' water 's that if ye 've got the machinery to put it to. It 's only the machinery that 's wantin'. We 've got water power enough here to run a factory." You would not have thought so to look at it ; the water did not come right up out of the brook ; it came through a wooden pipe, high up on wooden posts. It was taken out of the brook a mile or two farther up the Pass, where the ground was a great deal higher than it was here at the mill. So it came running all the way down through this pipe, high up above the brook, and when it was let out it fell with great force. The pipe was quite old now, and it leaked in many places ; in LIFE AT GARLAND'S. 161 one place there was such a big leak it made a little waterfall ; this water dripping and falling into the brook beneath made it sound like a shower, and all the bushes and green things along the edges of the brook were drip- ping wet all the time. There was a big pile of the old sawdust on the edge of the brook ; this was of a bright j'ellow color : the old saw-mill had fallen so into decay that three sides of it were open, and it looked hardly safe to go into it. You had to step carefully from one beam to another : there was not much of the floor left. But it was a lovely, cool, shady place, and almost every da} r some of the teamsters who were driving heavy teams through the Pass would stop here to take their iunch at noon : often Rob and Nelly would go out and talk with them, and carry them milk to drink. Zeb kept out of sight at such times. He was always in fear of being seen b} r somebody who had known him in the northern country. As the summer came on, all sorts of beautiful flowers appeared along the edges of the brook, in the open clearings, and even in the crevices of the rocks. Nelly gathered great bunches of them every morning. She loved flowers almost as well as she loved mountains. She used to go out late in the afternoon and gather a huge basketful of all the kinds she could find, red and white, and yellow and blue, then she would set the basket in the brook and let the water run through it all night, keeping the stems of the flowers very wet. In the morning they would look as fresh as if she had just picked them. Remember this, all of you little chil- dren who love flowers and like to pick them. If you pi ok them in the morning, they will wither and never 11 162 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. revive perfectly, no matter how much water 3 r ou put them in. Pick them at sundown, and leave them in a great tub full of water out of doors all night, and in the morning you can arrange them in bouquets, and they will keep twice as long as they would if you had not left them out of doors all night. Nelly used to sit on the ground in the open space west of the saw-mill and arrange her bouquets ; sometimes she would tie up a& many as eight or ten in one morning, and sometimes travellers driving past would call to her and ask her to sell them : but Nelly would not sell them ; she always gave them away to anybody who loved flowers. Rob thought she was very foolish. " Nell, why didn't you take the money?" he would say. "It's just the same to sell flowers as milk : isn't it ? " " No," said Nelly, " I don't think it is. The flowers are not ours." "Whose are they?" exclaimed Rob. " God's," said Nelly, soberly. Rob could not appre- ciate Nelly's feeling. "Well, what makes you steal 'em, then?" he asked, in a satirical tone. " God likes to have us pick them : I know he does," said Nelly, earnestly. " He gives them all to us for every summer as long as we live." 'Oh, pshaw, Nell!" said Rob. "He don't do any such thing. They just grow : that 's all." "Well, papa says that God makes them grow on purpose for us to see how pretty they are. They aren't of any other use : they aren't the same as potatoes And don't you know the little verse, LIFE AT GARLAND b. 163 "'God might have made the earth bring forth Enough for great and small ; The oak tree and the cedar tree, Without a flower at all.' I 'm always thinking of that. 'Twould be horrid how .f we didn't have any thing but things to eat." 164 NELLY'S SILVER MINL. CHAPTER VH. A HUNT FOR A. SILVER MINE. ONE morning, early in June, Nelly was sitting ou by the old mill, with her lap full of blue anemones and white daisies : the anemones were hardly out of their gray cloaks. The anemones in Colorado come up out of the ground like crocuses ; the buds are rolled up tight in the loveliest little furry coverings almost like chinchilla fur. I think this is to keep them warm, be- cause they come very early in the spring, and often there are cold storms after they arrive, and the poor little anemones are all covered up in snow. Nelly heard steps and voices and the trampling of hoofs. She sprang up, and saw that a large blue wagon, drawn by eight mules, had just turned in from the road, towards the brook, and the driver was making ready to camp. He came towards Nelly, and said, very pleas- antly : " Little girl, do your folks live in yonder?" pointing to the house. " Yes, sir," said Nelly. " Do they ever keep folks?" "What, sir?" said Nelly. " Do they ever keep folks, keep 'em to board? u Oh, no! never," replied Nelly. The man looked disappointed. " Well," he said, A HUNT FOR A SILVER MINE. 16a " I Ve got to lie by here a day or two, anyhow. I waa in hopes I could get took in. I 'm clean beat out ; but I can sleep in the wagon." " My mamma will be glad to do all she can for you if you're sick, sir, I'm sure," said Nelly; "but we haven't any spare room in our house." The driver looked at Nelly again. He had once been a coachman in a gentleman's family at the East, and he knew by Nelly's voice and polite manner that she was not the child of any of the common farmers of the country. " Have you lived here long?" he said. "Oh, no!" replied N"elly: " only since last spring. We came because my papa was sick. He has the asthma." " Oh ! " said the man : " I thought so." Nelly wondered why the man should have thought her papa had the asthma ; but she did not ask him what he meant. In a few minutes, the man lay down in his wagon and fell fast asleep, and Nelly went into the house. After dinner, she told Rob about the man, and they went out together to see him. They peeped into the wagon. It was loaded full of small bits of gray rock: the man was rolled up in a buffalo robe, lying on top of the stones, still fast asleep. His face was very red, and he breathed loud. "Oh, dear!" said Nelly, "how uncomfortable he must be ! He looks real sick." "I bet he's drunk!" said Rob, who had unluckily seen a good deal of that sort of sickness since he had lived on a thoroughfare for mule- wagons. "Is he?" said Nelly, horror-stricken. "No, Rob, 166 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. he can't be, because he talked with me real nice thia morning. Let 's go and tell mamma." Mr. March went out, looked at the man, and woke him up. He found that he was indeed ill, and not drunk. The poor fellow had been five days on the road, with a very heavy cold ; and had taken more cold every night, sleeping in the open air. Walking all da} long in the hot sun had also made him worse, anil he was suffering severely. " Come right into the house with me, my man," said Mr. March ; " my wife '11 make you a cup of hot tea." " Oh, thank you ! " said the man. " I 've been think- in' I 'd give all the ore in this 'ere wagon for a first-rate cup of tea. I don't never carry tea : only coffee ; but I 've turned against coffee these last two days ; " and he followed Mr. March into the house. " "What 'd you say you had in your wagon?" asked Rob, who had been standing by. *' Ore," said the man. The only word Rob knew which had that sound was " oar." " Oar ! " he said. " Why, I didn't see any thing but rocks." Mr. March and the man both laughed. "Not 'oar,' to row with, Rob," said Mr. March; " but ' ore,' to make money out of." " Silver ore, I suppose," he added, turning to the man. "Yes," he said; "from the Moose mine, np on Mount Lincoln." Rob's eyes grew big. "Oh! tell me about it," lie said. And Nelly, coming up closer, exclaimed, in a A HUNT FOR A SILVER MINE. 167 tone unusually eager for her, "And me too. Is the mountain made of silver, like the mountains in fairy stories ? " The man was drinking his tea, and did not answer. He drank it in great mouthfuls, though it was scalding hot. " Oh, ina /m," he said, " I haven't tasted any thing that went right to the spot 's that does, for months ; if it wouldn't trouble ye too much, I 'd like one more cup." He drank the second cup as quickly as he had the first ; then he leaned his head back in the chair, and said : ' ' I feel like a new man now. I guess that was the medicine I needed. I reckon I can go on this after- noon." "No," said Mr. March: "you ought to stay here till to-morrow. There is an old leather-covered settee in the barn you're welcome to sleep on. It will be better than the ground ; and we '11 doctor you with hot tea, night and morning." " You 're very kind," said the man : " I don't know but I 'd better stay." "Oh, do! do!" said Rob; and "do! do!" said Nelty. " Stay and tell us all about the mountain of silver and the Moose ; does the Moose draw out the silver?" You see Rob and Nelly couldn't get it out of their heads that it was all like a fairy tale. And so it is when you think of it, more wonderful than almost any fairy tale, to think how great mountains are full of sil- ver and of gold, and men can burrow deep down into them, and get out all the silver and gold they need. "Oh. there isn't anv real Moose," said the man 16 NELLY'S SILVER MlfrE. " That 's only the name of the mine. I don't kno* why they called the mine the Moose mine. They giv mines the queerest kind o' names." " What is a mine, anyhow?" asked Rob. " Oh," said the man, "I forgot you didn't know that. A mine 's a hole in the ground, or in the side of a moun- tain, where the}* dig out gold or silver. There 's mines that 's miles and miles big, underground, with passages running every way like streets." " How do they see down there? " said Rob. "They carry lanterns, and there are lanterns fas- tened up in the walls." "Is your wagon all full of silver?" asked Nelly, in a low tone. " Not exactly all silver yet," the man said, laughing ; "there's a good deal of silver in it: it's very gooG ore." " It looked just like gray rock," said Rob. "Well, that's what it is," replied the man; "it's gray rock. It 's got to be all pounded up fine in a mill, and then it 's got to be roasted with salt in a great oven, and then it's got to be mixed with chemicals and things. I don't rightly know just what it is they do do to it ; it 's a heap of work I know, before it ever gets to be tho pure silver." " Some da}* I will take }*ou, Rob," said his father, " where you can see all this done : I want to see it myself. Run out, now, you and Nelly, and pla}*, and let the driver rest. He is too tired to talk any more." Rob and Nelly went back to the wagon. All Nelly's anemones and daisies were l}*ing on the ground, with- ered. Even this one short hour of hot sun had been enough to kill them. A HUNT FOR A SILVER MINE. i69 " Oh, my poor, dear flowers ! '' said Nelly, picking them up. " How could I forget you ! " and she looked at them as sorrowfully as if they were little babies she had neglected. "Pooh, Nell," cried Rob. "They're no good now. Throw them in the brook, and come look at the silver." They both climbed up on the tongue of the wagon and looked in at the front. "I can't see any silver about it," said Nelly; "it don't look like any thing but little gray stones, all broken up into bits." "No," said Rob: "it don't shine much;" and ho picked up a bit and held it out in the sun. "Oh, take care! take care, Rob!" cried Nelly. " Don't lose it ; it might be as much as a quarter of a dollar, that bit." "Nell," said Rob, earnestly, "don't 3 r ou wish papa had a mine, and we could dig up all the money we wanted ? oh, my ! " and Rob drew in his breath in a long whistle. "Yes," said Nelly: "I mean to look for one. Do you find the holes already dug, do you suppose ? Per- haps that place where old Molly tumbled in was a mine." Old Molly was one of their cows, who had tumbled one da} 7 into a hole made by a slide of earth . and Zeb had had to go down and tie ropes around her to pull her up. " Yes," said Rob : " I bet you any thing it is. Let, 's go right up there now, and see if we can find some rocb like this. I '11 carry this piece in my pocket to telJ bv* I '11 only borrow it : I '11 put it back." 170 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. " Let me carry it then," said Nelly " I 'm so afraia you '11 lose it." So Nelly tied the little bit of gra}' rock in a corner of her pocket-handkerchief, and then crammed her handkerchief down tight in her pocket, and they set off at a swift pace, towards the ravine where Molly had had her unlucky fall. When dinner-time came, the children were nowhere to be found. Zeb went up and down the brook for a mile, looking and calling aloud. Watch and Trotter had both disappeared also. "Ye needn't worry so long's the dogs is along, ma'am," said Zeb, when he returned from his bootless search. " If they get into any trouble, Watch '11 come home and let us know. He 's got more sense 'n most men, that dog has." But Mrs. March could not help wonying. Never since they had lived in the Pass had Nelly and Rob gone away for any long walk without coming and bid- ding her good-by, and telling her where they were going. The truth was, that this time they had entirely forgot- ten it : they were so excited by the hopes of finding a mine. They had walked nearly a mile when Nelly sud- denly exclaimed: "Oh, Rob! we didn't say gocd-by to mamma ! She won't know where we are." " So we didn't ! " said Rob. " What a shame ! But we can't go back now, Nell : it 's too late ; we 've come miles and miles ; we 'd better keep on ; she 'II know we 're all right ; we always are. We 're most there now." It was the middle of the afternoon before Rob and Nelly got home. Mrs. March had been walking up A HUNT FOR A SILVER MINK. \1\ and down the road anxiously for an hour, when she saw the two little figures coming down the very steepest of the hills. They walked very slowly ; so slowly that she felt sure one of them must be hurt. The dogs were bounding along before them. As soon as the children saw their mother, Rob took off his hat, and Nell}' her sun-bonnet, and waved them in the air. This relieved Mrs. March's fears, and the tears came into her e}'es, she was so glad. " Oh, Robert, there they are ! " she exclaimed to Mr. March, who had just joined her. " See ! there they are, way up on that steep hill. Thank God, they are safe!" Mr. and Mrs. March both stood in the road, shading their eyes with their hands, and looking up at the chil- dren. As they drew nearer, Mrs. March exclaimed : "Why, what are they canying ? " Mr. March burst out laughing, and said : " The}- look like little pack mules." In a few minutes, the hot, tired, dusty little wanderers reached the road, and ran breathlessly up to their father and mother : "Oh, mamma ! " cried Rob ; and "Oh, papa ! " cried Nelly. "We've found a mine; we've got lots of ore ; now we can get all the money we want. You see if this isn't almost exactly like the stuff in the man's wagon ! " and Nelly emptied her apron on the ground, and Rob emptied his jacket ; he had taken it off and carried it by the sleeves so as to make a big sack of it Mr. and Mrs. March could hardly keep from laughing at the sight : there were the two piles of little bits of stone, and the children with red and dirty faces and the perspiration rolling down their cheeks, getting down on their knees to pick out their choicest specimens. Nelly 172 NELLY'S SIT,VER MINE. was fumbling deep down in her pocket ; presently she drew out her handkerchief all knotted in a wisp, and out of the last knot she took the little bit of ore which thej- had borrowed from the wagon for a sample. This she laid in her father's hand : " There, papa," she said, ' that 's the man's : we borrowed it to carry along to tell by." " They don't look so much like it as they did," she added, turning sorrowfully back to the poor little pile of stones. Rob was gazing at them too, with a crest- fallen face. "Why, they don't shine a bit now," he said; "up there they shone like every thing." Mr. March picked up a bit of the stone and looked closely at it. "Ah, Rob," he said, "the reason it doesn't shine now, is because the sun has gone under a cloud. There are little points of mica in these stones, and mica shines in the sun ; but there isn't any silver here, dear. Did you really think you had made all our fortunes ? " Rob did not speak. He had hard work to keep from crying. He stood still, slowly kicking the pile of stones with one foot. His father pitied him very much. " Never mind, Rob," he said ; " you 're not the first fellow that has thought he had found a mine, and been mistaken." Rob stooped down and picked up two big handfuls of the stones and threw them as far as he could throw them. "Old cheats!" he said. " Yes, real old cheats ! " said Nelly ; and she began to scatter the stones with her foot. " And they were awful heavy. Oh, mamma, I 'm so hungry ! " A HUNT FOR A SILVER MINE. 173 " So 'm I," said Rob. " Isn't it dinner-tune ? " " Dinner-time ! " exclaimed their mother. "Did you really not have any more idea of the time than that ! Why, it is three o'clock ! Where have you been ? " * minute. ROD AND NELLY GO INTO BUSINESS. 247 "Why, Nell," he said, "I did not know what you were. I thought }*ou were some new kind of animal, with horns growing out lengthwise from your shoulders." " So we are ! so we are ! " shouted Rob, running up o fast that the pails on the rods of his }-oke swung back and forth high up in the air. " We are the four-armed boy and girl of Rosita. They '11 want us for a show. Four arms on a boy are as wonderful as two heads on a calf." How Mr. March did laugh ! The children's fun was contagious. He seized Rob's yoke, and tried to put it on his own shoulders ; but it was as much too small for him as Nelly's had been for her mother. Then he sat down on the fence, and examined the yokes carefully. They were beautifully made out of very slender young aspen-trees, which could be easily bent into place. The wood was almost white, and shone like satin : Jan had rubbed it so long. ' ' He says when the white gets dirty he will paint them for us," said Nelly: "all bright colors, as they have them in Sweden. But while they keep clean they are prettier white." Ulrica had put a soft cushion of red cloth at the place where the yoke rested on the neck behind ; also, on each rod just where the hands grasped them. Mrs. March examined them carefully. " This is beautiful cloth," she said : " I wonder where the woman got it." ' ' Oh ! she has a big roll of it in a chest," said Nelly. "I saw it; and a big piece of beautiful blue, too. It was made in Sweden, she says ; and she has a queer gown, which was her little girl's that is dead, all made 248 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. of this red and blue cloth, with oh ! millions of .ittle silver buttons sewed on it, all down the front. She wanted me to try it on ; but I did not like to. It was too small, too : not too short ; I think it would have come down to my feet. Do little girls in Sweden wear long gowns, like grown-up ladies, mamma?" " I don't know, dear," said Mrs. March. " She has some of the little girl's hair in the same chest ; and she took it out, and held it close to mine." " Yes," said Rob : " I didn't want her to. How did we know she was clean ? " "Oh, for shame, Rob! "cried Nelly: "they're all as clean as pins ; you know they are. But I didn't like her to do it, because it made her cry." After supper they had a great time deciding where to keep the yokes. Rob wanted them hung up on the wall. " They look just as pretty as the antlers old Mr. Pine has upon the wall in his house," said Rob ; " and we can't ever have any antlers, unless we shoot a deer our- selves. Mr. Pine said a man offered him fifty dollars for them ; but he wouldn't take it. I think our yokes look just about as pretty." "Oh, Rob !" exclaimed Nelly, "how can you talk so ? They are not pretty a bit ; and you know it ! " "I don't either!" said Rob: "I do think they're pretty ; honest, I do." While they spoke. Mrs. March was hanging one of the yokes up on the wall, by a bit of bright red tape, tied in the middle. She hung it quite low, between the door and the south window. Then she hung Nelly's sun-bonnet on the nail above it, and Nelly's little red shawl over one end of the yoke. ROB AND NELLY GO INTO BUSINESS 249 "There," she said, "you are right, Rob. It makes quite a pretty hat-rack." " So it does," said Mr. March. " Now we '11 put the other one np the other side the door ; and that shall be Rob's, to hang his coat and jacket on." "My jacket isn't pretty, though, like Nell's shawl," st'.id Rob, wistfully. " Why don't men wear red jackets in this country? In that book of Jan's ever so many of the men have red jackets on, with silver buttons ; and they 're splendid. Jan has one too in the chest ; but he doesn't wear it here, because it would make the folks laugh, he says : it is so different from our clothes here. He put it on for us while Ulrica was showing Nelly the little girl's gown. It did look queer ; it came down most to his knees, and had great flaps on the side, and big silver buttons on the front, as big as dollars. But it was splendid : a great deal handsomer than the uniform the May field guards wore." When Billy came home from Mr. Pine's, Lucinda told him about the yokes which Jan had made for the chil- dren to wear, to carry their baskets and pails on. Billy listened with a disturbed face. " Miss March '11 never let 'em wear 'em : will she? " "I donno," said Lucinda: "Miss March's got heaps o' sense ; an' the children was jest tickled tc death with them. They come racin' down the hiT with 'em on, 's proud as militia-men on trainin'-day. But how 'twill be about wearin' 'em round town 1 donno." "It'll never do in the world," said Billy. "The boys '11 all follow 'em, and hoot and halloo ; and Rob '11 be fightin' right an' left, the fust thing you know 250 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. It 's a bad business, bad business. I donno what pu 1 it into that pesky Swede's head, anyhow." "Oh! jest to help the children," said Lucinda. ' From what the children say, Jan an' his wile both seem to have kind o' adopted 'em. You know how six takes on over Nelly, 'cause she looks so like her OWE little gal." " I know it," said Billy. " Blamed if I don't wish ] hadn't taken 'em there. You 'U see they can't wear the things in Rosita." This time Billy was right. He had been mistaken in thinking that the miners would treat Nelly roughly ; but he was right now about the boys. The next time Nelly and Rob went up to Rosita, they entered the town a little before nine o'clock : it was just the time when all the children were on their way to school. As soon as Rob and Nelly appeared with their little yokes on their shoulders, and a basket and pail swinging from each rod, the boys on the street set up a loud shout, and all rushed towards them. " Hullo, bub ! what kind o' harness 've you got on?" " Did your pa cut down his ox-3'oke to fit ye ? " "Oh, my! look at the gal wearin' one too," they cried ; and some of the rudest of the boys pressed up close, and tried to take off the covers of the baskets and pails. In less than a second, Rob had slipped his yoke off his shoulders, and thrown it on the ground, baskets and all ; and sprung in front of Nelly, doubling up his fists, and pushing the boys back, crying : " You let us alone, now : you 'd better ! " "Hush! hush! Rob," said Nelly, who was quite tvhite with terror. ' ' Come right into this store : the " In less than a second, Rob had slipped his yoke off his shoulders, and sprung in front of Nelly." PAGE 250. ROB AND NELLY GO INTO BUSINESS. 251 gentleman that keeps the store won't let them touch us." And Nelly slipped into the store, and as quick as lightning took off her yoke and put it on the floor ; and, saying to the astonished storekeeper, ' ' Please let my things stay there a minute ; the boys are tormenting my brother," she ran back into the centre of the crowd, snatched up both Rob's baskets of trout, and, pushing Rob before her, came back into the store. The crowd of boys followed on, and were coming up the store steps ; but the storekeeper ordered them back. "Go away !" he said: "you ought to be ashamed of yourselves, tormenting these children so. I 'd like to thrash every one of you ! Go away ! " The boys shrank away, ashamed ; and the store- keeper went up to Nelly, who was sitting down on a nail-keg, trembling with excitement. "What is this thing, anyhow?" said he, taking up the yoke. " Oh ! I see, to carry your pails on." " Yes, sir," said Nell}' ; " and it's a great help. We have to walk so far the baskets feel real heavy before we get here. Jan, the Swede man, made them for us. It is too bad the boys won't let us wear them." "Are you Mr. March's little girl?" said the shop- keeper. " Yes," said Nelly ; " and that's my brother," point- ing to Rob, who was still standing on the steps, shaking his fists at the retreating boys and calling after them. "He'd better let 'em alone," said the shopkeeper. " The more notice ye take of 'em, the more they '11 pes- ter ye. But I reckon ye can't wear the yokes any more ; I wouldn't if I was you. You tell your father that 252 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. Mr. Martin told ye to leave 'em off. Ye can leave 'em here, if 3-6 're a mind to. Some time when }-our father 'a a drivin' in he can stop and get 'ern." " Yes," said Nelly : "I hadn't any thought of wear- ing them again. All I wanted was to get in here and be safe, so they shouldn't break my eggs : I 've got four dozen eggs in one pail. I think it is real cruel in the bo}-s to plague us so." And Nelly began to cry. " There, there, don't ye cry about it ; 'taint any use. Here 's a stick of candy for ye," said the kind-hearted Mr. Martin. " The Rosita boys are a terrible rough set." " We might take care not to get into town till after they're in school," said Nelly, taking the candy and breaking it in two, and handing half of it to Rob. ' ' Thank you for the candy, sir. I 'm soriy I cried : I guess it was because I was so frightened. Oh ! there 's Ulrica now ! " And she ran to the door, and called, "Ulrica! Ulrica!" Ulrica came running as fast as possible, soon as she heard Nelly's voice. She looked surprised enough when she saw the two yokes lying on the floor, and Nelly's face all wet with tears, and Rob's deep-red with anger. When NeUy told her what the matter was, she said some very loud words in Swedish, which I am much afraid were oaths. Then she turned to Mr. Martin, and said : " Now, is not that shame that two children like this will not be to be let alone in these the streets ? I carry the j-okes myself. Come to mine house." So saying, Ulrica lifted both the yokes up on her strong shoulders, and, taking Nelly's biggest pail in on hand, strode away with long steps, lion AND NELLY GO INTO BUSINESS. 253 "Come on mit me," she said; "come straight. I like to see the boy that shall dare you touch." And as she passed the boys, who had gathered sullenly in a little knot on the sidewalk, she shook her head at them, and began to say something to them in her rroken English ; but, finding the English come too slow, she broke into Swedish, and talked louder and faster. But the boys only laughed at her, and cried : "Go it, oldSwedy!" "Oh, Ulrica! don't let 's speak to them," whispered Nell}'. "Be quiet, Eob ! " And she dragged Rob along with a firm hand. " Now I goes mit you to the houses mineself," said Ulrica. " It shall be no more that the good-for-nothings have room that to }'ou they one word speak." So Ulrica put on her best gown, and a clean white handkerchief over her head, and her Sunday shoes, which had soles almost two inches thick ; then she took one of the baskets and one of the pails, and, giving the others to Nelly and Rob, she set off with them to walk up to Mrs. Clapp's, where the butter and trout were to be left. Mrs. Clapp was astonished to see Ulrica with the children. Ulrica tried to tell her the story of the yokes ; but Mrs. Clapp could not under- stand Ulrica's English, and Nelly had to finish the story. " It was too bad," said Mrs. Clapp : " but my advi( a to you is, to give up the yokes. It would never be quite safe for you to wear them here : the boys in this town are a prett} T lawless set." "Oh, no, ma'am!" replied Nelly, "I haven't the least idea of wearing them again. It would be very 254 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. silly. But it is a dreadful pity : the}' did help so niuchj and Jan took so much trouble to make them fcr us." Rob hardly spoke. He was boiling over with rage and mortification. " I say, Nell," he began, as soon as they got outside Mrs. Clapp's gate : " you might have let me thrash tnat boy that spoke last, the one that called out at you. I '11 die if I don't do something to him. And I 'm going to wear my yoke : so there ! They may 's well get used to it. I '11 never give up this way ! " "You'll have to, Rob," answered Nelly. "I hate it as much as you do ; but there 's no use going against boys, that is, such boys as these. The Mayfield boj's 'd never do so. They 'd run and stare, perhaps : I expected any boys would stare at our }-okes ; but they 'd never hoot and halloo, and scare you so. We '11 have to give the yokes up, Rob." "I won't," said Rob. "I'm going to wear mine home, and ask papa. I know he '11 say not to give up." " No, he won't, Rob," persisted Nelly. " I shaU tell him what the kind shopkeeper said, and Mrs. Clapj too. You might know better yourself than to go against them all. The}- know better than we do." " I don't care," said Rob. " It 's none of their busi- ness. I shall wear my yoke if I 've a mind to. At any rate, I '11 wear it once more, just to show them." 4 'Papa won't let you," said Nelly, quietly, with a I me so earnest and full of certainty that it made Rob afraid she must be right. When Mrs. March saw the children coming hcime without their yokes, she wondered what could have happened. But almost before she had opened her lips ROB AND NELLY GO INTO BUSINESS. 255 to ask, Hob and Nelly both began to tell the story of then adventures. ' l Gently ! gently ! one at a time," cried Mrs. March ; but it was impossible for the children to obey her, they were both so excited. At last Mrs. March said : " Rob, let Nelly speak first : ladies before gentlemeu. alwa3's." And the impatient Rob reluctantly kept silent while Nelly told the tale. Mrs. March's face grew sad as the storj* went on. It was a terrible thing to her to think of her little daughter attacked in the street in that way by rude boys. " Now, oughtn't I to have thrashed them, mamma?" cried Rob, encouraged by the indignation in his mother's face : ' ' oughtn't I to ? But Nell she just pulled me into the store b}* main force ; and I felt so mean. I felt as if I looked just like Trotter when he puts his tail between his legs and runs awa} r from a big dog. I don't care : I '11 thrash that ugly black-eyed boy yet, the one that spoke to Nelly ; sha'n't I, mamma ? Wouldn't you? I know you would! And mayn't I wear the }'oke again, just to show them I ain't afraid ? " " Keep cool, Rob," said Mrs. March ; " keep cool ! " " I can't keep cool, mamma," said Rob, almost cry- ing ; "and you couldn't, either, you know you couldn't ! " " Perhaps not, dear ; but I 'd try," replied his mother. " Nothing else does any good ever." " Well, mayn't I wear the yoke, anyhow?" said Rob. " I won't go into Rosita ever again unless I can ! " "Rob," said his mother, earnestly, " if you were going across a field where there was a bull, } r ou wouldn't wear a red cloak : would you? It would be very silly wouldn't it?" 256 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. "Yes," said Rob, slowly and very reluctantly. He saw what his mother meant. "That's just what I said," interrupted Nelly: "I said it would be very sill}* to wear them any more. The boys would never let us alone if we did." "Nelly is right," said Mrs. March: "it would be just as silly as to carry a piece of red cloth and flourish it in the eyes of the bull, when } T OU know that the sight of red cloth alwaj's makes bulls angry." "I don't care if it does make them all set on me," said Rob : " after I've thrashed them once, they'll let me alone. Am-how, I won't go unless I can wear it ; I know that much : I 'd feel such a sneak." " Of course 3*ou '11 do as you like about that, my dear boy," replied Mrs. March: " }'ou never need go up to Rosita, if yon would rather not. You know it was all your own plan, yours and Nelly's, going up there to sell things. Your papa and I would never have thought of it." " Well," said Rob, half crying, "but there's all the money I make : we 'd lose all that, if I don't go. Nell couldn't cany the trout besides all the butter and eggs." " I know it," replied his mother ; " but that isn't any reason for your doing what you feel would make you seem like a sneak. We wouldn't have you feel like that for any thing." Poor Rob was very unhappy. He didn't see any way out of his dilemma. He wished he hadn't said he would not go up into Rosita without his yoke. " Anyhow, I '11 ask papa," he said. "Yes," replied his mother, " of course you will talk it all over with him ; and perhaps you '11 feel differently HUH AXD XELLY GO INTO BUSINESS. 257 about it after that. Let it all go now, and try to for- get it." " I 'm not going to think any more about it," said Nelly. " I don't care for those boys : they 're too rude for any thing. I sha'n't ever look at one of them ; but you wouldn't catch me wearing that yoke again, I tell you!" " That's because you 're a girl," said Rob. " If you were a boy, }'ou 'd feel just exactly as I do. Oh, good ness! don't I wish you had been a boy, Nell? If j'ou had, we two together could thrash that whole crowd quicker 'n wink ! " " I shouldn't fight, if I were a boy," said Nelly : " I think it is beneath a boy to fight. It 's just like dogs and cats : they fight with their teeth and claws ; and boys Gght with their fists." " Teeth, too," said Rob, grimly. " Do they?" cried Nelly, in a tone of horror. " DC the}- really? Oh, Rob ! did you ever bite a boy ? " " Not many times," said Rob ; " but sometimes you have to." " Well, I 'm glad I 'm not a boy," said Nelly : "that 'a all I 've got to saj'. The idea of biting ! " To Mrs. March's great surprire, she found, when she talked the affair over with her husband, that he was inclined to sympathize with Rob's feeling. " 1 don't like to have the boy give it up," said Mr. March. " You don't know boys as well as I do, Sarah. They '11 taunt him ever}* time he goes through the street. I half wish Nelly hadn't hindered him from giving one of them a good, sound thrashing. He could do it." "Why, Robert!" exclaimed Mrs. March: "you 17 258 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. don't mean to tell me that you would be willing to have your son engage in a street fight ? " " Well, no," laughed Mr. March : " not exactly that ; but there might be circumstances under which I should knock a man down : if he insulted }'ou, for instance ; and there might come times in a boy's life when I should think it praiseworthy in him to give another boy a thrashing, and I think this was one of them." " Well, for merc} T 's sake, don't tell Rob so," said Mrs. March : " he's hot-headed enough now ; and, if he had a free permission beforehand from you to knock boya down, 1 don't know where he 'd stop." While Mr. and Mrs. March were talking, Bilby came in. He had heard the story of the morning's adven- tures from a teamster who had been on the street when it happened ; and Bill}' had walked all the wa}- in from Pine's ranch, to as he said in his clums}*, affectionate way "see ef I couldn't talk the youngsters out o their notion about them yokes." " 'Tain't no use," he said : " an' ye won't find a man on the street but '11 tell ye the same thing. 'Tain't no use flyin' in the face o' natur' with bo}"s ; and the Rosita boys, I will say for 'em, is the worst I ever did see. Their fathers is away from hum all the time, and wimmen hain't much hold on boys after the}* get to be 1< n[$ from twelve an' up'ards ; an' the schools in Rosita ain't no great things, either. 'S soon 's I heard about tnem yokes, I told Luce the children couldn't never wear 'em : the boys 'n the street 'd plague their lives out on 'em. I don't know as I blame 'em so much, either, though they might be decent enough to let a little gal alone ; but them yokes is awful cur'us-lookin' things. HOB AND NELLY GO INTO BUSINESS. 259 I never see a man a haulin' water with 'em, without laughin' : they make a man look like a doubled-up kind o' critter, with more arms 'n he 's any right to. You can't deny yourself, sir, thet they're queer-lookin'. Why, I 've seen horses scare at 'em lots o' times." Billy's conversation produced a strong impression on Mr. March's mind. Almost as reluctantly as Rob him- self, he admitted that it was the part of wisdom to give up the yokes. "It's no giving up for Nelly," said Mrs. March: " she said herself that nothing would induce her to wear it in again." " And I think Rob would better not go in for a little while, till the boys have forgotten about it," said Mrs. March. "And not at all, unless he himself proposes it," added Mr. March. "I have never wholly liked the plan, much as we have been helped by the money." "I've got an idee in my head," said Billy, "thet I think '11 help 'em more 'n the yokes, a sight more. I mean to make 'em a little light wagon. Don't tell 'em an}' thing about it, because it '11 take me some little time yet. I 've got to stay up to Pine's a week longer ; an' I can't work on't there. But I '11 have it ready in two weeks, or three to the farthest." " Thank you, Billy," said Mr. March : " that is very kind of you. And a wagon will be much better than the yokes were: it will save them fatigue almost as much, and not attract any attention at all. You were Very good to think of it." " Nothin' good about me," said Billy, gruffly : " never was. But I do think a heap o' your youngsters, specially 260 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. Nelly, Mr. March. It seems to me the Lord don't often send just sech a gal 's Nell}' is." " I think so too, Billy," replied Mr. March. " I hare never seen a child like Nelly. I 'm afraid sometimes we shall spoil her." "No danger! no danger!" said Bill}-: "she ain't the kind that spoils." " Now, you be sure an' not let on about the wagon : won't you, sir," he added, looking back over his shoul- der, as he walked away fast on his great long legs which looked almost like stilts, they were so long. " Oh, yes ! you may trust me, Billy," called Mr March. "I won't tell. Good-byl" BOW TO FIND A SILVER MINE. 261 CHAPTER XI. HOW TO FIND A SILVER MINE. WHEN Nelly set off on her next trip to Rosita , she felt a little sad and a little afraid. It had been decided that it would not be best for Rob to go at pres- ent, even if he had wished to ; that it would be better to wait until the boys had forgotten the fight about the yokes before he was seen in town again. Rob walked with Nell}' as far as Billy's cabin. Here they waited awhile for Nelly to rest, and to make sure that she did not get into town till after nine o'clock, after the boys were all safe inside the school-house. In the bottom of her heart, Nelly was really afraid of seeing them again. She would not own, even to herself, that she felt fear ; but she could not help wondering all the time what the bo}'s would do, if the}" would say any thing when they saw her walking along all alone, and without her yoke on her shoulders. Rob was to spend the day with Lu- cinda, and be ready to walk home with her in the after- noon. He too felt very uncomfortable about being left behind ; and there were two sad little faces which looked wistfully into each other, as the good-byes were being said. " I '11 come part way and meet you," said Rob. " It 'a too mean ! " 262 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. " No, don't ! " said Nelly : " the sun will be so hot ; and perhaps I sha'n't come till late. Good-by ! "~ Nelly wore on her head a man's hat, with a brim so broad you could hardly see her face at all. She had had to wear this ever since the summer weather began : the sun is so hot in Colorado that no one can beat it ou his head or face in the summer. On Nelly's arm swung her neat white sun-bonnet, tied by its strings, and pinned up in paper. When she reached the last hill before entering the town, she always took off her hat, and hid it in a hollow place she had found in the root of a great pine-tree ; then she wore her sun-bonnet into town, and people sometimes said to her : "Why, Nelly, how do you keep your sun-bonnet so clean, after this long, dust}' walk ? " But Nelly never told her secret. She was afraid some boy might hear it, and go and find the hiding- place of her hat. There wasn't a boy to be seen when Nelly entered the town this morning. How relieved her heart was you can imagine. She just drew a long breath, and said to herself, "Oh! but I'm thankful. Poor Rob ! he might as well have come as not." Then she ran on to Ulrica's house. Ulrica was very busy ironing some fine white clothes for a young lady who was visiting in Rosita : Ulrica was the only nice washerwoman in the town. Nelly stood by the ironing- board, watching Ulrica flute the pretty lace ruffles Presently she sighed, and said : " Mamma has ever so man}' pretty things like these put away in a trunk. I used to wear such ruffles on my aprons and in my neck every day at home. But hOW TO FIND A SILVER MINE. 263 mamma doec all our washing now, and it is too much trouble to iron them. So we don't wear them any more." "Ah, the dear child!" exclaimed Ulrica. "Bring to Ulrica : she wih 1 them do ; it are not trouble ; look how quick can fly the scissors." And in five minutes she had fluted the whole of one neck-ruffle. " Oh ! would you really, Ulrica? " said Nelly. " "We could pay you in the eggs." "Pay! pay!" said Ulrica, angrily: "who did say to be paid ? No pay ! no pay ! Ulrica will do for you : not'ing pay. You are mine child." " I 'm afraid mamma would not h'ke to have you do them without pay," said Nelly. " She would not think it was right to take your time." " It is not'ing ; it is not time : bring them to Ulrica," was all Ulrica would say. And Nelly ran on, resolving to ask her mother, that very night, for some of the old ruffles she used to wear in the necks of her gowns. After she had left the butter and eggs for Mrs. Clapp, and had sold the rest of her eggs at another house near by, she walked slowly down the hill past the hotel. Just below the hotel was a little one-story wooden building, which had a sign up over the door "WILHELM KLEESMAN, " ASSAYEK." While the Marches were staying at the hotel, Nelly had often seen old Mr. Kleesman sitting on the steps of his little house, and smoking a big brown pipe. The bowl of the pipe had carved on it a man's head, with a 264 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. long, flowing beard. Mr. Kleesman himself had a long, flowing beard, as white as snow, and his face did not look unlike the face on the pipe ; and the first time Rob saw him smoking, he had run to call Nelly, saj'ing : "Come here, Nell! come quick! There's a man 5iit there smoking, with his own portrait on his pipe." Mr. March had explained to Nelly and Rob that " Assayer" meant a man who could take a stone and find out whether there were really any silver and gold in it or not. This seemed very wonderful to the chil- dren ; and, as they looked at the old gentleman sitting on his door-step every evening, smoking, they thought he looked like a magician, or like Aladdin who had the wonderful lamp. Rob said he meant to go and show him some of his stones, and see if there were not silver in some of them ; but his father told him that it took a great deal of time and trouble to find out whether a stone had silver in it or not, and that everybody who had it done had to pay Mr. Kleesman three dollars for doing it. " Whew ! " said Rob : " supposing there shouldn't be any silver at all in their stone, what then ? " " They have to pay three dollars all the same," said his father; "and it is much cheaper to find out that way, than it is to go on digging and digging, and spend- ing time and money getting stones out of the earth which are not good for any thing." After that, Rob and Nelly used to watch the faces of all the men they saw coming out of Mr. Kleesman'a office, and try to guess whether their stones had turned out good or not. If the man looked sad and disap- pointed, Nelly would say : hOW TO FIND A SILVER MINE. 265 " Ob ! see that poor man : his hasn't turned out good, I know." And, whenever some one came out with a quick step and a smiling face, Rob would say : "Look! look! Nell. That man 's got silver. He's got it : I know he has." As Nelly walked by Mr. Kleesman's house this morn- ing, she saw lying on the ground a queer little round cup. It was about half as big as a small, old-fashioned teacup ; it was made of a rough sort of clay, like that which flower-pots are made of; the outside was white, and the inside was all smooth and shining, and of a most beautiful green color. " Oh, what a pretty little cup ! " thought Nelly, pick- ing it up, and looking at it closel}*. " I wonder how it came here ! Somebody must have lost it ; some little girl, I guess. How sorry she will be ! " At that minute, old Mr. Kleesman came to his door. When he saw Nelly looking at- the cup, he called out to her: " Vould you like more as dat? I haf plenty ; dey iss goot for little girls." Mr. Kleesman was a German, and spoke \ery broken English. Nelly looked up at him, and said : "Thank you, sir. I should like some more \er\ much. They are cunning little cups. I thought some- bod}' had lost this one." Mr. Kleesman laughed, and stroked LiS long, white beard with his hand. " Ach ! I throw dem away each day. Little girls come often to mine room for dem : I have vary goot 266 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. customers in little girls. Couie in ! come in I you shall "iave so many that you want." And he led Nell}' int a small back room, where, in a corner on the floor, was a great pile of these little cups : some broken ones ; some, like the one Nelly had, green on the inside ; some brown, some 3'ellow, some dark-red. Nelly was de- lighted. She knelt down on the floor, and began to look over the pile. " May I really have all I want?" she said. "Are they not of any use?" "Only to little girls," said Mr. Kleesman : " some- times to a boy ; but not often a boy ; mostly it is for little girls ; they are nay goot customers." Nelly picked out six. She did not like to take more, though she would have liked the whole pile. Mr. Klees- man stood watching her. " Vy not you take more as dem? " he said. " I am afraid there will not be enough for the other little girls," replied Nelly. Mr. Kleesman laughed and shook till his white beard went up and down. "Look you here," he said, and pointed behind the door. There was another pile, twice as big as the one which Nelly was examining. "Oh, my ! " said Nelly : " what a lot ! I '11 take a few more, I guess." " I gif you myself. You haf too modest," said the old gentleman. And he picked up two big handfuls c.f the cups, and threw them into Nelly's basket. Then he sprang to a big brick stove which there was in the room, and opened its iron door and looked in, A fiery heat filled the room, as he opened the door. HOW rO FIND A SILVER MINE. SILVER MINE. 307 " I wish they 'd left the subjunctive mood out of the grammar. I shan't ever learn it ! It isn't as if it were a live thing, like a baby or a kitten. I wouldn't mind having such things called after me, but some of the mines have the awfullest names, mamma : real wicked names, that I shouldn't dare to say." " "Well, they'll call it after you, anyhow, Nell," cried Rob. " Billy said so, coming home." "They won't either," said Nelly, "when it was my own mine, only I gave it to papa, and I asked them not to ; I think it would be real mean." "Oh, I don't mean Mr. Scholfield and Billy," said Rob : " they called it ' The Good Luck ' as soon as you said so ; but the men round town. They '11 hear it was you found it ; and they '11 call it ' The Nelly,' always : you see if they don't." " Rob, don't tease your sister so," said Mrs. March. " Why, does that tease you, Nell?" asked Rob, pre- tending to be very innocent. " I was only telling you what Billy said." " I don't believe it, anyway," said Nelly : "do you, papa ? " " No," replied Mr. March. " I do not see why they should give it any other name than the one the owners give it." "Well, you'll see," said Rob. " There are ever so many mines that go by two or three different names. There 's one way off in the north somewhere, where Billy used to haul ore, is called ' Bobtail,' some of the time, and ' Miss Lucy,' some of the time. They tried to change ' Bobtail ' into ' Miss Lucy,' and they couldn't." 308 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. " Couldn't ! " exclaimed Nelly : " what do } T OU mean by that?" "Why, the people wouldn't," said Rob, saucily: 'that's all." "'That's all' about a great many things in this world, Rob," laughed his mother. " ' Couldn't' is very pt to be only another word for ' wouldn't ' with a little 003' I know." Rob laughed, and left off teasing Nelly about the name of her mine. "THE GOOD LUCK." 309 CHAPTEK XHL "THE GOOD LUCK.'" BILLY went to work the very next day at "The Good Luck." First, he put up a little hut, which looked more like an Indian wigwam than any thing else. This was for him and Mr. Scholfield to sleep in. "We can't take time to go home nights till we get this thing started," said Billy. " If we 've got ore here, the sooner we get some on 't out the better ; an' if we hain't got ore here, the sooner we find that out the better." All day long, day after day, Billy and Mr. Scholfield dug, till they had a big hole, as deep as a well, dug in the ground. Then they put a windlass at the top, with a long rope fastened to it, and a bucket on the end of the rope. This bucket they lowered down into the hole, just as you lower a water-bucket down into a well ; then they filled it full of the stones which they thought had silver in them, and then turned the windlass and drew it up. Mr. Scholfield pounded some of these stones very fine, and melted it with his blow-pipe, and got quite big buttons of silver out of it. He gave some of these to Mr. March. When he showed these to Nelly, she ex- claimed : " Oh ! these are a great deal bigger than any I sa* 310 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. in Mr. Kleesman's office. Our mine must be a good one." Mr. Scholfield was in great glee. He made the most extravagant statements, and talked very foolishly about the mine : said he would not take half a million of dol- lars for his third of it ; and so on, till old, experienced miners shook their heads and said he was crazy. But, when the}' saw the round buttons of shining silver which he had extracted from the stones, they stopped shaking their heads, and thought perhaps he was right. The fame of " The Good Luck " spread all over town ; and, as Billy had said there would be, there were many who persisted in calling the mine " The Nelly." Almost everybody in Rosita knew Nelly by sight by this time ; and it gave the mine much greater interest in their eyes that it had been found by this good, industrious little girl, whom everybody liked. Whenever Nell}' went to town now, people asked her about her mine. She al- ways answered : " It isn't my mine : it is my papa's." ' But you found it," they would say. " I found the black hat it wore on its head," was Nelly's usual reply: "that is all. Mr. Scholfield and Bill}* found' the silver." It happened that it was nearly three weeks before Rob and Nelly went to Mr. Kleesman's house again They had now a new interest, which made them liurr} through with all they had to do in Rosita, so as to have time on their way home to stop at " The Good Luck," and watch Billy and Mr. Scholfield at work. It waa an endless delight to them to see the windlass wind, wind, wind, and watch the heavy bucket of stone slowly "THE GOOD LUCK" 311 coining up to the mouth of the hole. Then Bill}- would let Rob take the bucket and empty it on the pile of shining gray ore which grew higher and higher every day. Sometimes the children stayed here so late that it was after dark when the}' reached home ; and at last Mrs. March told them that they must not go to the mine every time they went to Rosita : it made their walk too long. She said they might go only every other time. " Let 's go Tuesdays," said Rob. "Why? "said Nelly. ' ' It never seems half so long from Tuesday till Fri- day as it does from Friday to Tuesday," said Rob. " Why, why not?" asked Nelly. "Oh, I don't know," said Rob. "Sunday's twice as long as any other da}' : I guess that 's it." "But you've got the Sunday each week," exclaimed Nell}' : " it isn't any shorter from Tuesday to Tuesday than from Friday to Friday : what a silly boy ! The Sunday comes in all the same. Don't you see ? " Rob looked puzzled. "I don't care," he said: "it seems ever so much shorter." The first day that they were not to go to the mine, Rob said : "See here, Nell: if we can't go to the mine, let's go and see old Mr. Kleesman. His furnace must be done by this time. Perhaps he '11 be making an assay to-day." "Oh, good ! " said Nelly. " I declare I 'd almost for- gotten all about him : hadn't you?" " No, indeed ! " said Rob : " I liked the mine better j but let 's go there to-day." 312 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. "And we'll go and eat our lunch at Ulrica's too," said Nelly. "We haven't taken it there for ever so long : she said so Tuesday. We '11 go to-day." "So we will," said Rob. " Perhaps she '11 have stewed chicken." " Oh, for shame, Rob ! " said Nelly. "What for?" said Rob: "I don't see any shame. Where 's the shame ? " " Shame to think about something to eat when you go to see people," replied Nelly. "Now, Nell March, didn't you think of it, honest Indian ? " said Rob. "Well, it's worse to say it," stammered Nelly. "Perhaps I did think of it, just a little, little bit; but I always try not to." "Ha! ha! Miss Nell ! I've caught you this time; and I don't think it 's a bit worse to say it : so, there ! Stewed chicken ! stewed chicken ! " And Rob danced along in front of Nelly, shouting the words in her very face. Nelly could not help laughing, though she was "Rob," she said, "you can be the worst torment I ever saw." "That's only because you haven't had any other torment but me," cried Rob, still dancing along back- wards in front of Nelly. " Hullo ! huJo ! " said a loud, gruff voice just behind him: "don't run me down, young man! Which side of the way will you have, or will } T OU have both ? " Ver} r much confused, Rob turned and found himself nearly in the arms of an old man with rough clothes on, but with such a nice, benevolent face that Rob knew he was not going to be angry with him. "THE GOOD LUCK" 313 "I beg your pardon, sir," lie said. "I didn't see you." " Natural!}' you didn't, since you have no eyes in the back of your head," said the old man. " Do you al- ways walk backwards, or is it only when you are teasing your sister ? " Nelly hastened to defend Rob. " Oh, sir," she said, " he was not really teasing nie . he was only in fun." The old man smiled and nodded. " That 's right ! that 's right ! " he said. They had just now reached Mr. Kleesman's steps. Rob sprang up, two steps at a time. " What ! " said the old man, " are you going in here f So am I." And they all went in together. Mr. Kleesman was very glad to see Nelly. " I haf miss you for many days," he said. " Vy is it you not come more to see assay ? " " We have been very busy," said Nelly : " and have not stayed in town any longer than we needed to sell our things." " I know ! I know ! " said Mr. Kleesman : " you haf been at the Goot Luck mine ! " "Why, who told you about it?" exclaimed Rob. "Ach!" said Mr. Kleesman, "you tiiik dat mines be to be hid in dis town ? Not von but knows of l Goot Luck,' dat the little maid-child haf found ; " and lie looked at Nelly and smiled affectionately. "And not von but iss glad," he added, patting her on the head. Then he turned to the old man who had come in with the children, and said, politely : " Vat can I do for you, sir?" 314 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. The man took off his hat and sat down, and pulled out of his pocket a little bag of stones, and threw it on the table. " Tell me if that 's worth any thing," he said. Mr. Kleesman took a small stone out of the ")ag, and called : "Franz! Franz!" Franz was Mr. Kleesman's sen-ant. He tended the fires, and pounded up the stones fine in an iron mortar, and did all Mr. Kleesman's errands. Franz came running ; and Mr. Kleesman gave him the stone, and said something to him in German. Franz took the stone, and disappeared in the back room. " After he haf make it fine," said Mr. Kleesman, " I shall assay it for you." Then, turning to Nelly and Rob, he said : "Can you stay? I make three assay now in three cups." "Yes, indeed, we can!" said Nelly: "thank you! That is what we came for. We thought the furnace must be mended by this time." While Franz was pounding the stone, the old man told Mr. Kleesman about his mine. Nelly listened with attentive ears to all he said : but Rob was busy study- ing the pretty little brass scales in the glass box. The man said that he and two other men had been at work for some months at this mine. The other two men were sure the ore was good ; one of them had tried it with the blow-pipe, he said, and got plenty of silver. " But I just made up my mind," said the man, " that, before I put any more money in there, I 'd come to somebody that knew. I ain't such a sodhead as to "THE GOOD LUCK:' 315 think I can tell so well about things as a man that 's studied 'em all his life ; and I asked all about, and they all said, ' Kleesmau 's the man : he 'd give you an honest assay of his own mind if he could get at it and weigh it.'" Mr. Kleesman laughed heartily. He was much pleased at this compliment to his honesty. " Yes, I tell you all true," he said. " If it be bad, or if it be good, I tell true." "That's what I want," said the man. Then Franz came in with the fine-powdered stone in a paper. Mr. Kleesman took some of it and weighed it in the little brass scales. Then he took some fine- powdered lead and weighed that. Then he mixed the fine lead and the powdered stone together with a knife. " I take twelve times as much lead as there iss of the stone," he said. " What is the lead for ? " asked Nelly. " The lead he will draw out of the stone all that are bad : you will see." Then he put the powdered stone and the lead he had mixed together into a little clay cup, and covered it over with more of the fine-powdered lead. Then he put in a little borax. " He helps it to melt," he said. Then he went through into the back room, carrying tlLs cup and two others which were standing on the ta~ 1 ' ilvoa^y filled with powder ready to be baked. Rob and Nelly and the old man followed him. He opened the door of the little oven and looked in : it was glowing red hot. Then he took up each cup in tongs, and set it in the oven. When all three were iu, 516 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. he took some burning coals from the fire above, and put them in the mouth of the oven, in front of the cups. " Dat iss dat cold air from door do not touch dem," lie said. Then he shut the door tight, and said : " Now ve go back. Ve vait fifteen minute." He held his watch in his hand, so as not to make a mistake. When the fifteen minutes were over, he opened the oven-door to let a current of cool air blow above the little cups. Nelly stood on a box, as she had before, and looked in through the queer board with holes in it for the eyes. The metal in the little cups was bubbling and as red as fire. Rob tried to look, but the heat hurt his eyes so he could not bear it. " Ven de cold air strike the cups," said Mr. Klees- man, "then the slag are formed." " Oh, what is slag?" cried Rob. " All that are bad go into the slag," said Mr. Klees- man. Then he put on a pair of thick gloves, and a hat on his head, and went close up to the fiery oven door, and took out the cups, and emptied them into little hollow places in a sheet of zinc. The instant the hot metal touched the cool zinc, it spread out into a fiery red rose. " Oh, how lovely ! " cried Nelly. " By jingo ! " said Rob. Even while they were speaking, the bright red rose turned dark, hardened, and there lay three shining buttons, flat and round. Their rims looked like dark glass ; and in their centres was a bright, silvery spot. Mr. Kleesman took a hammer and pounded off all this dark, shining rim. Then he pounded the "THE GOOD LUCK." 317 silvery buttons which were left into the right shape to fit into some tiny little clay cups he had there. They were shaped like a flower-pot, but only about an inch high. " Now these must bake one-half hour again," he said ; and put them into the oven. Pretty soon he opened the oven-door to let the cold air in again, as he hud done before. That would make all the lead go off, he said : it would melt into the little cups, and leave notb- ing but the pure silver behind. "Now vatch ! vatch ! " he said to Nelly. "Invou minute you shall see a flash in de cups, like lightning, just one second : it are de last of de lead driven avay ; den all is done." Nelly watched with all her might. Sure enough, flash ! flash ! flash ! in all three of the cups it went ; the cups were fiery red ; as Mr. Kleesman took them out, they turned yellow ; they looked like the yolk of a hard-boiled egg hollowed out, and there, in the bot- tom of each, lay a tiny, tiny silver button ! Mr. Klees- man carried them into the front room and weighed them. Two of them were heavy enough to more than weigh down the little button which was always kept in the left-hand scale. That showed that the ore had silver enough in it to make it worth while to work it. The third one was so small you could hardly see it That was the one which belonged to the old man. "Your ore are not wort not'ing," said Mr. Klees man to him. Nelly looked sorrowfully at the old man's face ; but he only smiled, and said : "Well, that's just what I've suspicioned all along. I didn't believe much in all that blow-pipe work I 'nt 318 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. out about a hundred dollars, that 's all, not oountip my time any thing. It 's the time I grudge more 'n the money. Much obliged to ye, sir." And the philo- eophica. old fellow handed out his five dollars to pay for the assay, and walked off as composedly as if he had had good news instead of bad. Nelly looked very grave. She was thinking of what her father had said about Mr. Scholfield's blow-pipe. " Perhaps Mr. Scholfield was all wrong too, just like this other man. Perhaps our mine isn't good for any thing." Nelly's face was so long that kind-hearted Mr. Klees- man noticed it, and said : " You haf tired : it are too long that you look at too many t'ings. You shall sit here and be quiet." " Oh, no, thank you," said Nelly : " I am not tired. I was only thinking." Mr. Kleesman really loved Nelly, and it distressed him to see her look troubled. He wanted to know what troubled her ; but he did not like to ask. He looked at her very sympathizingly, and did not say any thing. " Is not a blow-pipe good for any thing to tell about silver?" said Nelly, presently. " Oh, ho ! " thought Mr. Kleesman to himself: " now I know what the little wise maiden is thinking : it is her father's mine. It did not escape her one word which this man said." But he replied to her question as if he had not thought any thing farther. " Not very much : the blow-pipe cannot tell true. It tell part true : not all true." Nelly sighed, and said : "THE GOOD LUCK." 319 " Come, Rob : it is time for us to go. We are very much obliged to you for letting us see the assay. It is the most wonderful thing I ever saw. It is just like a fa : .iy story. Come, Rob." Rob also thanked Mr. Kleesman ; and they went slowly down the steps. "Stay! stay!" said Mr. Kleesman. "Little one, vail you not ask your father that he send me some of the ore from the Goot Luck mine ? I shall assay it for you, and I vill tell you true how much silver there should come from each ton, that you are not cheated at the mill vere dey take your ore to make in de silver brick." Nelly ran back to Mr. Kleesman, and took his hand in hers. " Oh, thank you ! thank you ! " she said : " that was what I was thinking about. I was thinking what if our mine should turn out like that man's that was here this morning." "Oh, no: I t'ink not. Every von say it iss goot, very goot," said Mr. Kleesman. " But I like to make assay. You tell } r our father I make it for not'ing: I make it for you." "I will tell him," said Nelly; "and I am sure he will !>e very glad to have you do it. I will bring some of the ore next time. Good-bj" ! " And she and Rob ran off very fast, for it was past Ulrica's dinner-time. AVhen they reached the house, it was shut up : the curtains down, and the door locked. Ulrica had gone away foi the day, to do washing at somebody's house ; and Jan had taken his dinner to the mill. The children sat on the doorstep and ate their lunch, much disip- 320 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. pointed. Then they tried to think of some way to let Ulrica know they had been there. "If we only had a card such as ladies used to leave for mamma when she was away," said Rob, " that would be nice." " I '11 tell you," said Nelly : "we '11 prick our names on two of the cottonwood leaves in the top of your hat : they '11 do for cards." Rob always put a few green leaves in the top of his hat, to make his head cool. It keeps out the heat of the sun wonderfull}'. One variety of the cottonwood leaf is a smooth, shining leaf, about as large as a lilac leaf, and much like it in shape. This was the kind Rob had in his hat. Nelly picked out the two biggest ones, and then with a pin she slowly pricked ' ' Nelly " on one and "Rob" on the other. "There!" she said, when they were done: "aren't those nice cards ? Now I '11 pin them on the door, close above the handle, so that Ulrica can't open the door without seeing them." "What fun!" said Rob. "I say, Nell, you're a capital hand to think of things." Nell}' laughed. " Why, Rob," she said, " sometimes you find fault with me just because I do ' think of things,' as you call it." "Oh, those are different things," said Rob. "You know what I mean : bothers. Such things as these cards are fun." When Ulrica came home at night from her washing, she was very tired ; and she put her hand on the handle of her door and turned it almost without looking, and "THE GOOD LUCK." 32i did not at first see the green leaves. But, as the door swung in, she saw them. " Ah, den ! vat is dat? " she exclaimed. " Dem boys at deir mischiefs again ! " And she was about to tear the leaves down angrity, when she caught sight of the fino-pricked letters. She looked closer, and made out the word " Nelly ; " then on the other one " Rob." : 'Ach! mine child ! mine child!" she exclaimed. ' ' She haf been here : she make that the green leaf say her name to me. Mine blessed child ! " And Ulrica took the leaves and laid them away in a little yellow carved box, in the shape of a tub, which she had brought from Sweden. "When Jan sat down at his supper, she took them out, and laid them by his plate, and told him where she found them. Jan was much pleased, and looked a long time curiously at the pricked letters. Then he laid the leaves back in the box, and said to Ulrica : " Why do you not make for the child a gown, such as the Swede child wears, of the blue and the red? Think you. not it would please her?" "Not to wear," said Ulrica. "She would not like that every one should gaze." " Oh, no, not to wear for people to see," said Jan ; ' ' but to keep because it is strange and different from the dress of this country. The rich people that did come travelling to Sweden did all buy clothes like the Swede clothes, to take home to keep and to show." "Yes! yes! I will!" exclaimed Ulrica, much de- lighted at the thought ; " but it shall have no buttons : we cannot find buttons." " Wilhelm Sachs will make them for me out of tin: 21 322 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. that will do very well, just for a show," said Jan. " It is not for mone3 r ; but only that they shine and bo round." So after supper Ulrica took the roll of blue cloth out of the chest, and began to measure off the breadths. " How tell you that it is right? " said Jan. "By my heart," said the loving Ulrica: "I know mine child her size by my heart. It vill be right." But for all that it turned out that she cut the breadths too long, and had to hem a deep hem at the bottom ; which wasted some of the cloth, and vexed Ulrica's economical soul. But we have not come to that }'et. We must go home with Nelly and Rob. Nelly had made up her mind not to tell her father any thing about Mr. Kleesman's proposal to make the assay until she could see him all alone ; but she forgot to tell Rob not to speak of it ; and they had hardly taken their seats at the tea-table when Rob exclaimed : " Papa ! don't you think Mr. Kleesman says a blow- pipe isn't good for any thing to tell about silver with. And there was a man there to-day, with ore out of his mine, and it hadn't any silver at all in it, not an} T to speak of, and he thought it was splendid : he and two other men ; they had tried it with a blow-pipe." Mr. Scholfield was taking tea with the Marches this night. He listened with a smile to ah 1 Rob said. Then he said: " That 's just like Kleesman. He thinks nobody but he can tell any thing. It 's the money he 's after. I see through him. Now I know I can make as good an assay with my blow-pipe as he can with all his littfo cups and saucers and gimcracks, any day." "THE GOOD LUCK." 323 Nelly grew very red. She did not like to hear Mr. Kleesman so spoken of. She opened her mouth to speak : then bit her lips, and remained quiet. " What is it, Nelly?" said her father. "Nothing, sir," replied Nelly: " only I don't think Mr. Kleesman is like that. He is very kind." "Oh, yes, he's kind enough," said Mr. Scholfield: " he 's a good-natured fellow. But it's all moonshine about his being the only one who can make assays. There 's a plenty of mines working here to-day that haven't ever had any assay made except by the blow- pipe. There 's no use in paying a fellow three or four or five dollars for doing what you can do yourself." " But that man said " began Rob. " Be quiet now, Rob," said Mr. March. " We won't talk any more about it now." After Mr. Scholfield had gone away, Mr. March called Nelly out of the room. " Come walk up and down in the lane with me, Nell," he said, " and tell me all about what happened at Mr. Kleesman's." Then Nelly told her father all about it, from begin- ning to end. " Upon my word, Nell," he said, " you seem to have studied the thing carefully. I should think 3 r ou could almost make an assay yourself." " I guess I could if I had the cups and things," said Nelly: "I recollect every thing he did. But, papa, won't you let him take some ore from our mine, and let him see if it is good by his way? He won't ask us any thing : he said he was doing it every day, and he could put in one more cup as well as not. Oh, do, papa ! " 324 KELLY'S SILVER MINE. " I '11 think about it," said Mr. March. That night he talked it over with Mrs. March, and she was as anxious as Nellj' that he should let Mr. Kleesman make the assay. This decided Mr. March ; and the next morning he said to Nell}' : " Well, Nell}', you shall have your way, you and mamma. I will take some of the ore to your old friend. I shall go up with 3'ou to-morrow myself, and carry it. I do not like to send it by you." u Oh, good ! good ! " cried Nelly, and jumped up and down, and ran away to find Rob and tell him that their father would walk into town with them the next day. When Nelly walked into Mr. Kleesman's room, hold- ing her father by the hand, she felt very proud. She had always thought her father handsomer and nicer to look at than any other man in the world ; and, when she said to Mr. Kleesman, " Here is my father, sir," this pride was so evident in her face that it made Mr. Kleesman laugh. It did not make him love Nell}' any less, however. It only made him think sadly of the little girl way off in German} r , who would have just as much pride in his face as Nelly did in her father's. Mr. Kleesman's love for Nelly made him treat Mr. March like an old friend. " I am glad to see you here," he said. " I haf for your little girl von great friendship : she iss so goot. I say often to myself, she haf goot father, goot mother. She iss not like American childs I haf seen." Mr. March was glad to have Nelly liked ; but he did not wish to have her praised in this open way. So he i*ud, very quickly : 44 Yes, Nelly is a good girl. I have come to talk JQ "THE GOOD LUCK." 325 you, Mr. Kleesman, about our mine : perhaps you have heard of it, ' The Good Luck.' " " Yes : I hear it is goot mine, very goot," replied Mr. Kleesman. " I ask the child to bring me ore. I assay it for you. It vill be pleasure to me." " That is what I was going to ask you to do," said Mr. March. "I would like to know the exact truth about it before I go any farther. Scholfield is pressing me to put in machinery ; but I do not like to spend money on it till I am sure." " Dat iss right," said Mr. Kleesman. " Vait ! vait ! It is always safe to vait. Haf you brought with you the ore ? " " Yes, I have it here," replied Mr. March, and took a small bag of it from his pocket. Mr. Kleesman ex- amined it very carefully. His face did not look cheer ful. He took piece after piece out of the bag, and, after examining them, tossed them on the table with a dissatisfied air. " Is it all as dis? " he said. " Yes, about like that," replied Mr. March. Nelly watched Mr. Kleesman's face breathlessly. " I know he don't think it is good," she whispered to Rob. " I cannot tell till I make assay," said Mr. Kleesman. "But I t'ink it not so very good. To-morrow I vill know. To-day I cannot do. I send you vord." " Oh, no, yx>u need not take that trouble," said Mr. March. " The children will be in day after to-morrow. They can call." "No, I send you vord," repeated Mr. Kleesman. ** I send you vord. Dere are plenty vays. I send you 326 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. vord to-morrow night. Alvays men go past my door down to vallej*. I send 3*011 vord." " What do you suppose is the reason he did not want us to call for it?" said Rob, as they walked down street "I know," said Nelly. "What?" said Rob, sulkily. His pride was a it lie touched at Mr. Kleesman's having so evidently preferred to send the message by some one else rather than by them. " Because," said Nelly, "he is so kind he doesn't want to tell us to our face the mine isn't good." "Oh, Nell!" exclaimed Rob, in a tone of distress, " do you think it 's that? " " I know it 's that," said Nelly, calmry. " It couldn't be any thing else : you '11 see. He doesn't believe that ore 's good for any thing. I know b}* his face he doesn't. I 've seen him look so at ore before now." " Oh, Nell ! " cried Rob, " what '11 we do if it turns out not to be good for any thing ? " " Do ! " said Nelly ; " why, we shall do just what we did before. But I 'm awful sorry I ever told papa about the old thing. It 's too mean ! " " We haven't spent any money on it : that's one good thing," said Rob. " Yes," said Nelly ; " and it 's lucky we happened in at Mr. Kleesman's just when we did : there was some good luck in that, if there isn't an}* in the mine." "But I don't see why you're so sure, Nell," cried Rob: "Mr. Kleesman said he couldn't tell till he tried it." " Well, I am sure," said Nelly : "just as sure s any thing. I know Mr. Kleesman thinks it isn't iood foi "THE GOOD LUCK." 327 any thing ; and if he thinks so just by looking at the stone, won't he think so a great deal more when he has burnt all the bad stuff away ? " " Well, anj'how, I shan't give up till he sends ' vord,' as he calls it," said Rob. " I guess it '11 be good for a little if it isn't for much. Everybody says Mr. Schol- field knows all about mines." ' ' You '11 see ! " was all Nelly replied ; and she trudged along with a very grave and set look on her face. Mr. March was to stay in town later, to see some farmers who were coming in from the country : so the children had a lonely walk home. They stopped only a moment at Ulrica's and at Lucinda's ; and both Ulrica and Lucinda saw that something was wrong. But Nelly had cautioned Rob to say nothing about the ore, and she herself said nothing about it ; and so the two faith- ful hearts that loved them could only wonder what had happened to cloud the usually bright little faces. When 'it drew near to sunset, the time at which the farmers who had been up into Rosita usually returned into the valley, Rob and Nelly went down the lane to the gate, to watch for the messenger from Mr. Klees- man. The sun set, and the twilight deepened into dusk, and no messenger came. Several farm wagons passed ; and, as each one approached, the children's hearts began to beat quicker, thinking that the wagon would stop, and the man would hand out a letter ; but wagon after wagon passed, and no letter. At last Nelly said : "It is so dark we really must go in, Rob. I don't believe it 's coming to-night." " Perhaps his furnace is broken again, and he couldn't do it to-day," said Rob. 828 NELLY'S SILVER MINX. "Perhaps so," said Nelly, drearity. "Oh, dear! I wish the old mine was in Guinea. Weren't we happier without it, Rob?" " Yes, lots ! " said Rob ; " and we're making a good lot of money off the butter and eggs and trout. I don't care about the old mine." "I do!" said Nelly: "if it was a good mine if it were a good mine, I mean, because then we could all have every thing we want, and papa wouldn't have to work. But I know this mine isn't a good one, and I ain't ever going to look for another's long as I live. Nor I won't tell of one, if I find it, either ! " "Pshaw, Nell ! don't be a goose," said Rob. " If this one isn't good for any thing, it don't prove that the next one won't be. I '11 find all I can, and try 'em one after the other." " Well, you may : I won't ! " said Nelly. Bedtime came : still no letter. All through the even- ing, the children were listening so closely for the sound of wheels, that they could not attend to any thing else. Even Mr. March found it rather hard to keep Ma thoughts from wandering down the lane in expectation of the message from Rosita. But it did not come ; and the whole family finally went to bed with their suspense unrelieved. The next morning, while they were sitting at break- fast, and not thinking about the message at all, a man knocked at the door and handed in a letter. He had brought it from Rosita the night before, but had for- gotten all about it, he said, till he was a mile past the house ; and he thought as he would be going in again early in the morning, it would do as well to bring it then. "THE GOOD LUCK." 329 "Oh, certainly, certainly!" said Mr. March: "it was not on any pressing business. Much obliged to you, sir. Sit down and have some breakfast with us : won't you ? " The man was an old bachelor, a Mr. Bangs, who lived alone on a farm some six miles north of Mr. March's. He looked longingly at the nice breakfast, and said to Mrs. March : " Well. I had what I called a breakfast before I left home ; but your coffee does smell so tempting, I think I '11 take a cup, since you 're so kind." Then he drew up a chair and sat down, and began to eat and drink as if he had just come starved from a shipwreck. Mr. March laid the letter down by his plate, and went on talking with Mr. Bangs as politely as if he had nothing else to do. Rob and Nelly looked at the letter; then at each other ; then at their father and mother : Rob fidgeted on his chair. Finally, Nelly put down her knife and fork, and said she did not want any more breakfast. Mrs. March could hardly keep from laughing to see the children's impatience, though she felt nearly as impatient herself. At last she said to the children : "You may be excused, children. Run out into the barn and see if you can find any eggs ! " Rob and Nelly darted off, only too glad to be free. "Did you ever see sucn a pig!" exclaimed Rob. "He'd had his breakfast at home? I don't see what made papa ask him ! " "He ate as if he were half starved," said Nelly. " I guess old bachelors don't cook much that's goal. Oh ! I dp wish he 'd hurry." 330 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. Mr. Bangs had no idea of hurrying. It was a long time since he had tasted good home- made bread and butter and coffee, and he knew it would be a still longer time before he tasted them again. He almost wished he had two stomachs, like a camel, and could fill them both. At last, when he really could eat no more, and Mrs. March had poured out for him the last drop out of the coffee-pot, he went away. The children were watching in the barn to see him go. As soon as he had passed the barn-door, they scampered back to the house. Their father had the open letter under his hand, ou the table. He was looking at their mother, and there were tears in her eyes. He turned fo the children, and said, in a voice which he tried hard to make cheerful : " Well, Nelly, are you ready for bad news?" "Oh, yes!" interrupted Nelly, "indeed I am, all ready. I knew it would be bad news ! I knew it when we were at Mr. Kleesman's." "Pshaw!" said Rob, and sat down in a chair, and twirled his hat over and over between his knees: "I don't care ! I 'm going fishing." And he jumped up suddenby, and ran out of the room. Mrs. March laughed in spite of herself. "That is to hide how badly he feels," she said, "Let's all go fishing." Nelly did not laugh. She stood still by the table, leaning on it. "It's all my fault," she said. "If I hadn't found the mine, we shouldn't have had all this trouble." " Why, child, this isn't trouble," exclaimed her father? " THE GOOD LUCK." 331 * don't feel so. Of course we 're all a little disap- pointed." " A good deal ! " interrupted Mrs. March, smiling. " Yes, a good deal," he continued ; " but we won't be unhappy long about it. We 're no worse off than we were before. And there's one thing: we are very lucky to have got out of it so soon, before we had put any money into it." "What does Mr. Kleesman say?" asked Nelly. " He says that there is a little silver in the ore, but not enough to make it pay to work the mine," replied her father ; " and he sa3~s that he is more sorry to say this than he has ever been before in his life to say that ore was not good. I will read you the letter." Then Mr. March read the whole letter aloud to Nelly. The last sentence was a droll one. Mr. Kleesman said : ' ' I have for your little girl so great love that I do wish she may never have more sorrow as this." "What does he mean, papa?" asked Nelly. " Why, he means that he hopes this disappointment j.bout the mine will be the most serious sorrow you will ever know : that nothing worse will ever happen to you," replied Mr. March. "Oh," said Nelly, "is that it? I couldn't make it mean any thing. Well, I hope so too." " So do I," said Mrs. March. " And 1," said Mr. March. " And if nothing worse ever does happen to us than to think for a few weeks we have found a fortune, and then to find that we haven't, we shall be very lucky people." So they all tried to comfort each other, and to con- 332 NELL I 'S SILVER MINE. ceal how much disappointed they really were ; but all the time, each one of them was very unhappy, and knew perfectly well that all the rest were too. Mr. March was the unhappiest of the four. He had made such fine plans for the future : how he would send Rob and Nelly to school at the East ; build a pretty new house ; have a nice, comfortable carriage ; have Billy and Lucinda come back to live with them ; buy all the books he wanted. Poor Mr. March ! it was a very hard thing to have so many air-castles tumble down all in one minute ! Mrs. March did not mind it so much, because she had never from the beginning had very firm faith in the mine. And for Rob and Nelly it was not nearly so hard, for they had not made any definite plans of what they would like to do ; and they were so young that each day brought them new pleasures in their simple life. Still it was a great disappointment even to them, and I presume would have made them seem less cheer- ful and contented for a long time, if something had not happened the very next day to divert their minds and give them plenty to think about. OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 338 CHAPTER XIV. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. EVER since they had lived in the valley, it had been Nelly's habit, when she got up in the morning, to go at once to the eastern window in her room and look out at Pike's Peak. She loved the mountain now just as much as she had when she first saw it ; and her first thought in the morning alwaj's was : " I wonder if Pike is clear." The next morning after Mr. Kleesman's letter came, Nelty slept late. She had been out all the day before with Rob, who had fished far down the creek, and led her a long, hard chase through the grape thickets and wet meadows. They had caught two basketsful of trout, which were pretty heavy to lug home ; and both Rob and Nelly were so tired that the}' went to bed the minute they had eaten supper, and hardly spoke while they were undressing. When Nelly waked, she knew by the light in her room that it must be late. She sprang up and ran to the window. As soon as she looked out, she exclaimed "Why!" and rubbed her eyes and looked again. She could not believe what she saw. " Rob ! Rob ! " she called. But Rob was fast asleep, and did not hear her. She slipped her feet into hei 834 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. slippers, and ran into his room (he slept in a tiny room opening out of hers : it was not much bigger than a closet, and only held a little narrow bed and one chair) . "Rob! Rob!" she said, shaking him, "get up! Come look out of the window." " You let me be," said Rob, sleepily : " what is it? " " Tents ! Rob, tents ! Four splendid great tents, right close to the wheat-barn. Do get up ! Who do you suppose it is ? " " Tents !" cried Rob, as wide awake in one second as if the house were on fire, "tents! hurrah! I hope it's those men with instruments that came last summer. I 'm going right down to see." And Rob bounced out of bed, and began to toss his clothes on at a furious rate. Nelly also made great haste ; and, in less time than you would have thought possible, the two children were dressed and out in the lane, walking toward the tents. When they got there, they had had their walk for their pains : the tents were all closed up tight, not a sign of life about one of them. Rob and Nelly walked round and round, like two little spies, trying to find out some sign by which they could tell what sort of people had come into their territory ; but they could not. " I know one thing," said Rob : " they 've got splen- did wagons and horses." There were six fine hcrses grazing in the field ; and there was a nice covered car- riage, besides the heavy white-topped wagon. "What do you suppose the other two horses are for ? " said Nelly. ' ' They don't have four to draw the wagon : do they ? " AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 335 "I guess they're horses to ride," said Eob : *'one of them isn't much bigger than a pony. Oh, dear ! I think they 're real lazy people not to get up." And Rob and Nelly walked back to the house quite discon- tented. Whrn they told their mother about the tents, she said : ' ; Oh, }*es, 1 know it. The party came late last night, after you had gone to bed. They sent up to the house for milk ; they were very tired ; they had come ah 1 the way from Canyon City. There 's a little lame boy in the party ; and the motion of the carriage hurts him. He was quite sick last night, the nurse said." " Oh ! " said Nelly : ' ' poor little fellow ! That 's the reason they weren't up, then. I 'm real sorry for him. Can't we go down there, by and by, and see him?" " Yes, I think so," said her mother : " this afternoon, perhaps." Rob and Nelly sat down on the barn-doorsteps, and watched the tents. It seemed a long time before any- body stirred. At last, a man came out of the tent which was nearest the barn. He stood still for a min- ute, looking up and down the valley. Then he gave a great stretch and yawned very loud, and walked ofl towards the field where the horses were. " That 's their man," said Rob : " he 's going to watei the horses. I mean to go and talk to him." " Oh, no, don't ! " said Nelly : "let 's see who comes out next." In a few minutes more, there came out of the next tent a stout woman, with a white cap on her head. The cap had thick fluted raffles all round the front. " Oh ! what a funny cap ! " said Rob, " That must be the little boy's mother." 336 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. " No," said Nelly, " I don't think so. I think that 's the nurse. Mamma said there was a nurse." " Oh, yes ! " said Rob ; " she must be the nurse." The nurse stood looking, just as the man had, up and down the valley. Nobod} r could see that beautiful view without wanting to stand still and look at it. " She 's looking at Pike now," said Nelly. " I won- der if she ever saw such a mountain before." The woman stood a long time without moving : then she turned and walked slowly back to the tent. As she walked she kept looking back over her shoulder at the mountains. " Ah ! ah ! " said Nelly ; " see how she looks at the mountains ! " " I should think she would," said Rob. " But I wish the boy 'd come out." The nurse went into the tent ; and presently came out, bringing a chair all folded up into a flat shape : this she set down on the ground in the shadow of the tent, and unfolded it, and kept on unfolding it, till it was about as long as a lounge. " Hullo ! " said Rob, " what sort of a chair is that? " "For the sick boy, I guess," said Nelly. "It's a kind of bed." Then the nurse brought out pillows and blankets, and put them in it, and then she brought out two pretty bnght rugs, and spread them down, one in front of the chair and one at its side. Next she brought out a little tablo,, and set it close to the chair. On this she spread a white cloth. " I guess he 's going to have his breakfast on that," said Nelly. AN. OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 337 Then the woman went into the tent, and did not come back again. In a few minutes another man came out of the tent out of which the first man had come. This man did not look about him at all. He ran to the place where the stove stood, and began making a fire in A great hurry. "Oh, ho!" cried Rob: "two men! I say, Nell, they must be awfully rich folks. They Ve got a cook, and a driver, besides the nurse I wish that boy 'd come out." "I guess if he's sick he won't get up early," said Nell}'. "Don't you remember how you used to have to lie in bed when we were at home, Rob?" "Oh, my! I guess I do !" said Rob. "Wasn't it horrid ! I 'd as lieve die as be like that again. I haven't been sick once since we came to Colorado: have I, Nell?" " No," said Nelly. " Don't you remember you used to saj- 1 ought to be sick half the time : it wasn't fair for me not to be sick any and for you to be sick all the time?" "Did I?" said Rob: "that was real mean of me. I wouldn't say so now." While they were talking, they suddenly saw the nurse come out again, and call the cook. He went into the tent with her, and, in a moment more, they came out again, bringing in their arms a little boy about Rob's size. "Oh, goodness!" cried Rob: "can't he walk? Pshaw ! I hoped he 'd go fishing with me ! He won't be any fun." "Why, Rot March!*' exclaimed Nelly: "you're a 22 838 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. selfish thing. How 'd you like to be lame like that and not have anybody sorry for you ? " " Why, Nell, I am real sorry for him : I mean I ex- pect I should be if I knew him ; but I did hope he VI go round some with me. I haven't had a boy since w< came to Colorado." Nelly looked hurt. " I 'm sure I go everywhere that you do," she said *' You don't ever have to be alone." " I know it, Nell," replied Rob, meekly : " you 're as good as any girl can be, lots better than most girl ; but a boy 's different. You 'd like a girl sometimes yourself: you know you would." "I wouldn't either," retorted Nelly: "I'd rathei have you than any girl in the whole world." The little sick boy had sharper eyes than the nurse had. She had not seen the two children sitting on the barn-doorsteps : but the boy spied them in a minute, and said to his nurse : " There are a boy and a girl sitting in that barn-door. Give me my opera-glass : I want to see what they 're like." Then Nelly and Rob saw the boy lift up a round thing to his eyes, and point it at them. "He's looking at us, Rob," said Nelly, "through that thing : I saw a gentleman have one in the cars. I shall go away : I don't want him to look at us." ',' Stop ! " said Rob : " he 's put it down. He 'a talk- ing to his nurse." This is what the boy was saying : "Flora, please go across there and ask that boy to come here : I want to see him. Tell him I 'm sick. 1 AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. ^39 want to ask him if there are any birds here, if h can't get me a lark." " Now, Master Arthur," the nurse replied, " you just wait till 3'our mamma gets up, and ask her. Perhaps she wouldn't want you to have that boy play with you." " You go along this minute," said Arthur, beginning to cry : " if 3-011 don't I '11 cry. You know the doctor said I was not to be crossed in any thing. You go along quick ! Stay ! you tell them both to come here." The nurse walked away, muttering under her breath : " And a fine life ye '11 lead them, if 3-6 get them under your thumb, to be sure ! It 's a thousand pities 3~ou ever heard that speech of the doctor's, 3'ou poor thing.'" " She 's coming over here, Eob," said Nell3', as she saw the woman walking in their direction: "what do you suppose she wants ? " " Milk or eggs, I guess," said Rob. " I can get her some splendid fresh eggs right behind this door. Old Spotty 's got her nest in there now. The weasels got into her old nest and she won't lay there an3' more." When the nurse reached the door, she said very po- litely 7 to the children : " Good morning, children. Do 3*ou live here?" " No, ma'am," said Rob, gravel3 r . Nelty looked at him indignant^. k% Wli3 r , Rob ! " she began. But Rob went on : " Our oxen and cows and hens live here : we live in the house over 3 T onder." Nelly laughed out, and so did the nurse. "You have a droll tongue in your head, my boy," she said. " I came to ask 3-0 u if you wouldn't come over to the tent there and see Master Arthur. He 's in the chair there : see him ? He 's lame : he can't walk." 340 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. ' What 's the matter with him ? " asked Nelly. ' ' Was he always lame?" ' Oh, no ! " said the nurse : "he got a fall when he was about six years old, and he 's been lame ever since : he 's twelve now. But I must go right back : he don't like to be alone a minute. Will you come across ? " Rob looked at Nelly. " Mamma said we might go this afternoon," he said : *' do you think she 'd care if we went now?" "We'd better go and ask her," answered Nelly. *' You tell the little boy we 've gone to ask our mother if we may come," she said to the nurse, and ran off with Rob to the house as fast as feet could go. The nurse looked after them, and sighed. " Well, those are well-brought-up children, whos- ever they are, to be found out in this wilderness. Oh, but I 'd like to see Master Arthur run like that." Flora had been little Arthur's nurse ever since he was a baby ; and, though she was often out of patience with him, she loved him dearly. When she went back and told him what the children said, he muttered fretfully : "Oh, dear! they needn't have gone to ask. Can't they go two steps without getting leave? I should think they were babies. They looked as old as I am." " They 're older, Master Arthur," replied Flora. " 1 think thej are as much as thirteen : the girl is, at any late." " Is the boy nice? " asked Arthur. Flora laughed. "He's funny," she replied. And then she told Ar- thur what Rob had said when she asked him if he and his sister lived there. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 341 Arthur smiled faintly : he hardly ever laughed. His back ached all the time, so that he could very seldom forget it ; and this constant pain made him very nervous and irritable. ' ' You go up to the house and ask their mothei to lei them come," he said. "Well, dear," Flora replied, "I will, if they don't come in a few minutes. But I 'm sure they '11 come, for they said their mother had told them they might come this afternoon ; and I 'm sure she '11 let them come now instead." " They can come in the afternoon too," said Arthur. " I want them all the time." " Well, well : I dare say they '11 like to stay with you, and read your books, and see your things, very much," said Flora. "I'll show them my microscope," said Arthur, "that's the only thing I've got that's good for any thing. The books are no good." Just now the cook came up, bringing Arthur's break- fast on a tray. It looked very nice : milk-toast, and baked apples, and poached eggs, and a cup of nice cocoa. It was wonderful what good things Ralph used to cook, in that little bit of a camp stove, out of doors. Ralph had lived in the family as long as Flora, and loved poor Arthur just as well as she did. It was into the area in front of the basement that Arthur had fallen when he got his terrible hurt ; and Ralph had picked him up and carried him in his arms upstairs, thinking all the way that he was dead. Ralph often said that he 'd never forget that time, not if he should live to be a thousand years old ! He often told the story to 342 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. people they met on their journeys. Everybody took an interest in poor Arthur, and wanted to know how he came to be so lame ; but nobody liked to ask his father or mother : so thej- would ask Flora or Ralph. Ralph was an Englishman, and he had a very queer pronuncia- tion of all words beginning with h. He dropped the ^'s off such words, and he put it on to other words ; which made his sentences sound very queer indeed. " It was just about height o'clock," he would say, " an' 1 'd just in my 'and the 'ot water for the master's shaving ; an' Thomas 'ee was a takin' hof it out o' my 'and, when we 'ears such a screech, such a screech, and the missus she come a flyin' hover the stairs, I 'm blessed hif 'er feet so much as lighted hon 'em, an' she screechin', screechin', an' 'ollerin' ; an' the same minute I 'ears a noise to the front o' the 'ouse, an' a perliceman a knock- in' at the aiiy door, an' the missus she got to 't fust ; an' if it wan't a meracle wat was it, for 'er to 'ave come down two flights o' 'igh stairs in less time than I could 'urry across the 'all? An' I takes Master Harthur out o' the peiiiceman's 'ands ; an' 'is little 'ead a 'anging down 's if 't V been snapped off. Oh ! if it seemed one minute afore I got 'im hup to the nursery it seemed a 'underd years ; an' the missus she was never 'erself again, not till she died. She allers said as 'ow she 'd killed 'im 'erself. You see 'ee was all alone with 'er in 'er bedroom, an' she never noticed that 'ee 'ad gone to the window. She was never 'erself again, never : she 'd sit an' look at 'im, an' look at 'im, an' the tears 'd run down 'er face faster 'n rain. But she couldn't 'old a candle to this missus, in no respects : not to my way o' thinkin'. It 's a 'ard thing to say of 'er, beiii' she 'fl AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 343 dead ; but it 's my 'onest opinion that she 's better in 'eaven than hearth, an' all parties better suited." This was Ralph's story of the accident, and he told it wherever the}' went. Every one was much surprised to hear that Mrs. Cook was not Arthur's own mother ; for no own mother could have shown more patience and love than she did. She had never left Arthur for a whole day or a whole night since she became his mother ; and it seemed as if she really thought of little else ex- cept how to invent some new thing to amuse him, and keep him from remembering his pain. Just as Arthur had begun to eat his breakfast, he looked up and saw Rob and Nelly coming out of the door of the house. He pushed away his plate, and cried : " Take it away ! take it away ! I won't eat another mouthful. That boy and girl are coming. Take it away ! " " Oh, Master Arthur," said Flora : " indeed you must eat some more. You '11 never get well if you don't eat." " I won't ! I won't ! I tell you take it away," screamed Arthur. ' ' I am not hungry. I hate it ! " Poor Arthur never was really hungry. " Your mamma will be ver} r unhappj- when she comes out if you have not eaten any thing," said Flora. Arthur's face fell. "Well, give me the cocoa, then, quick! "he said: "I'll drink that, just to please mamma: that's all. She don't make me eat when I don't want to." At that moment Mrs. Cook came out of her tent, and hurried to Arthur's chair. "My darling," she said, "mamma was a lazy main- 844 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. ma, wasn't she, this morning? Have you had a nice breakfast? Papa will be out in a minute." "Mamma! mamma!" cried Arthur, "see that boy and girl, the other side of the fence : the}* 're coming over to see me. I sent Flora after them. I wish they 'd hurry. Don't the}* walk slow ? " Mrs. Cook looked inquiringly at Flora, who explained that Master Arthur had spied the children sitting in the barn-door, and that nothing would do but she must go over and ask them to come and see him. " They seem to be most uncommon nice-spoken chil- dren for these parts, ma'am," said Flora; "and the little girl she wouldn't come, nor let her brother come, till she 'd gone into the house and asked leave of their mother." Mrs. Cook was gazing very earnestly at the children, as they walked slowly towards the tent. In a moment more she sprang to her feet, and took two or three steps forward, and exclaimed, "Why, it is! it is my little Nelly ! " and, to Arthur's great astonishment, he saw his mother run very fast to meet the children, and throw her arms round the little girl's neck, and kiss her over and over again. Nelly was so astonished and bewildered she did not know what to do. She could not see the face of the lady who was kissing her, for she held her so tight she could not look up ; and, when she did look up, she did not at first know who the lady was. " Why, Nelly, Nelly ! " she cried ; " have you forgot- ten me? Don't you remember I came on in the same car with }*ou? Why! I've been looking for you and asking for you all over Colorado." AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 345 Then Nelly remembered ; but still she looked bewil tiered. "Oh, yes! Mrs. Williams. I remember you very, very well," she said ; " but you don't look a bit as you used to." " Come here ! come here ! " shouted Arthur ; " come right here, all of you ! Mamma, who is this girl, and what makes you kiss her?" Arthur had been so long used to being the only child, and having all his mother's affection showered upon him, that he really felt uncomfortable to see her kiss another child. "Why, Arthur! Arthur!" exclaimed his mother, leading Nell}' and Rob towards him ; " don't speak so. These nre old friends of Mamma's, that she knew before she ever saw you. Don't you recollect my telling you about the little boy in the cars, that threw away the onions, and the little girl that had the nice wax doll all broken in the crowd? These are those very same chil- dren ; and isn't it wonderful that we should have found them here? I am very glad to see them: Nelly, Rob, this is my little boj T , Arthur, and he will be more glad to know you than you can possibly imagine ; for he can't run about as you do. He has to lie in this chair all day." While she was speaking, Arthur had been looking very steadily at Rob. He did not take much notice of Nelly. As soon as his mother stopped speaking, Arthur said to Rob : ' ' How do you do ? Mamma told me all about youf throwing away the man's onions ever so long ago, and I used to make her tell me over and over and over again, 346 NELLX'S SILVER MINE. till she said it was almost as bad as having onions in the house. Didn't you have fun when yon did it?" and Ar- thur laughed harder than he had been seen to laugh for a long time. " Why, no ! " said Rob ; " I don't think it was much fun. I don't remember much about it now ; but I know I felt awfully mean : you see I felt like a thief when the man began to look for his onions." Nelly was standing still, close to her new-found friend. She was thoroughly bewildered ; she looked from Mrs. Williams to Arthur, and from Arthur to Mrs. Williams, and did not know what to make of it all : and no won- der. When Mrs. Williams bade Nelly good-by in Den ver three years before, she was a thin, pale lad}*, dressed in the deepest black, and with a face so sad it madej'ou feel like crying to look at her. She wore a widow's cap close around her face, and a long, black veil ; and she was all alone with her nurse ; and she had no little boy. Now she was a stout, rosy-faced lady ; and she wore a bright, dark-blue cloth gown, looped up over a scarlet petticoat ; and on her head she wore a broad-brimmed straw hat with scarlet poppies and blue bachelor's but- tons round the crown. At last Nelly could not contain her perplexity any longer. "Oh! Mrs. Williams," she exclaimed; "what does make 3-011 so pretty now ? " " That isn't my mamma's name," cried Arthur ; " her name is Mrs. Cook. Wasn't she pre-ttj- when you saw her in the cars? She 's always pretty now." Mrs. AVilliams laughed very hard, and told Nelly she did not wonder that she was surprised to see her look so diflerently. AJ\ OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 347 " I often think, when I look in the glass now," she said, " that I shouldn't know my own self, if I hadn't seen myself since three }'ears ago." Then she led Nelly to one side, and explained to her that she had met Arthur and his papa up at Idaho Springs, where she had gone immediately after leaving Nelly in Denver. Mr. Cook had taken Arthur there, to see if the water in the Idaho Springs would not cure his lameness. They had all lived in the same hotel at Idaho all winter, and in the spring Mrs. Williams had been married to Mr. Cook, and had thus become Arthur's mother. Mr. Cook's home was in New York ; but they had come to Colorado ever}' summer for Arthur's sake. He always was much better in Colorado. While they were talking, Mr. Cook came out of his tent ; and sur- prised enough he looked to see his wife sitting on the ground with a little stranger girl in her lap, and Arthur in eager conversation with a boy he had never seen be- fore. He stood still on the threshold of the tent for a moment, looking in astonishment at the scene. "Oh, Edward! Edward!" exclaimed Mrs. Cook, "this is my little friend! Think of our having found her at last, way down in this valley ! " "Is it possible ! " said Mr. Cook. " Why, I am as glad to see you, my little girl, as if I were your own uncle. I didn't know but I should have to go journey- ing all about the world, like my famous ancestor, Cap- tain Cook, to find you ; for my wife has never given up talking about you since I have known her." Mr. Cook was so tall and so big Nelly felt half afraid of him. He was as tall as Long Bill}', and twice aa big : he Lad a long, thick beard, of a beautiful brown 848 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. color, and his eyes were as blue as the sky. Nelly thought he looked like one of the pictures, in a picture- book Rob had, of " Three Giant Kings from the North who came Over the Sea." But when he smiled you did not feel afraid of him ; and his voice was so good and true and kind that everybody trusted him and liked him as soon as he spoke. ' ' "Was Captain Cook really an ancestor of yours ? " asked Nelly, eagerly. " Oh ! " cried Rob, bounding away from Arthur, and looking up with reverence into this tall man's face, " are you a relation of Captain Cook ? Have you got any of his things ? Did you know him ? Did he ever tell you about his voyages ? "We 've got the book about them I know everywhere he went." Mr. Cook lifted Rob up in his arms, and tossed him over his shoulders, and whirled round with him, and set him down on the ground again, before he answered. This was a thing Mr. Cook loved to do to bo}~s of Rob's size. Boys of that age are not used to being picked up and tossed like babies ; but Mr. Cook was so strong he could toss a big boy as easily as you or I could a little baby. "No, sir, I am not a relative of Captain Cook's, so far as I know, nor of any other Cook, except of all good cooks : I am a first cousin and great friend and lover of all good cooks," shouted this jolly, tall man, whose very presence seemed like sunshine. "Ralph, you cook of cooks and for all the Cooks, is our break- fast ready?" Ralph chuckled with inward laughter as he tried to answer with a quiet propriety. Long as he had lived AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 349 mth Mr. Cook, he had never grown accustomed to his droll ways. Rob and Nelly looked on with amazement. This was a sort of man they had never seen. "Oh, I wish papa was like this," thought Rob : in the next second he was ashamed and sorry for the thought. But from that moment he had a loving ad- miration for Mr. Cook, which was about as strong as his love for his own father. As soon as Mr. and Mrs. Cook had eaten their break fast, they walked up to the house with Nell}-. Rob sta}-ed behind with Arthur, entirely absorbed in the microscope. Nelly's feet seemed hardly to touch the ground : she was so excited in the thought of taking Mrs. Cook to see her mother. She utterly forgot all the changes which the three years had brought to them : she forgot how poor they were, and that her mother was at that moment hard at work churning butter. She forgot every thing except that she had found her old friend, and was about to give her mother a great surprise. She opened the door into the sitting-room, and, crying, "Mamma! mamma! who do you think is here?" she ran on into the kitchen, turning back to Mr. and Mrs. Cook and crying, " Come out here ! Here she is ! " Mrs. March looked up from her churning, much as- tonished at the inteiTuption, and still more astonished to see two strangers standing in her kitchen doorwaj-, and evidently on such intimate terms with Nelly. Mrs. March had on a stout tow-cloth apron which reached from her neck to her ankles ; this was splashed all over with cream. On her head she had a white handker- chief, bound tight like a turban. Altogether she looked 350 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. as unlike the Mrs. March whom Mrs. Cook had seen in the cars as Mrs. Cook looked unlike the Mrs. Williams. But Mrs. Cook's smile was one nobody ever forgot. As soon as she smiled, Mrs. March exclaimed : ' ' Why, Mrs* Williams ! how glad I am to see you again. Pray excuse me a minute, till I can take myself out of this buttery apron : walk back into the sitting- room." " No, no ! " laughed Mr. Cook, " I know a great deal better than that ! I was brought up on a farm. You can't leave that butter ! Here ! give me the apron, and let me churn it : it 's twenty-five years since I 've churned ; but I believe I can do it." And, without giving Mrs. March time to object, he fair!}* took the apron away from her, and tied it around his own neck, and began to churn furiously. " Now you two go in and sit down," he said, " and leave this little girl and me to attend to this butter. You '11 see how soon I '11 ' bring ' it ! " And indeed he did. His powerful arms worked as if they were driven by steam ; and in less than a quarte* of an hour the butter was firm and hard, and Nelly and Mr. Cook had become good friends. He liked the quiet, grave little girl very much ; but, after all, his heart warmed most to Rob, and the greater part of his talk with Nelly was about her brother. In the mean time, Mrs. Cook and Mrs. March were having a full talk about all that had happened. There was something about Mrs. Cook which made people tell her all their affairs. She never asked questions or pried in any wa} r , but she was brimful of sympathy and kindly intent ; and to such persons everybody goe/f AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 351 fcr comfort and advice. Mrs. March had always remem- bered her with affectionate gratitude for her goodness to Nell}', and she was glad of the opportunity, even three years late, to thank her for that beautiful wax doll. " It is as good as new now," she said. " Nclty keeps it rolled in tissue paper, in the box. She does not play with dolls any more, but it is still her chief treasure." " Not play with dolls ! " exclaimed Mrs. Cook : "why, she is not fifteen." "I know it," replied Mrs. March, "but our hard- working life here has made both the children old for their years : especially Nelly. She was naturally a thoughtful, care-taking child. Hob is of a more mirth- ful, adventurous temperament. He has taken the jolly side of the life here ; but Nelly has grown almost too sober and wise. She is a blessed child." " Yes, indeed, she is," replied Mrs. Cook ; " and she was so when I first knew her. I never could forget her earnest face. I want }*ou to let her and Rob too be with us just as much as possible while we are here. We shall stay a month : perhaps six weeks, if it does not grow too cold. We find it is much better for Arthur to stay quietly in one place than it is to move about. He gains much more. Travelling tires him dreadfully." ' ' I shall be more than glad to have the children with rou as much as possible," replied Mrs. March; "but that will not be so much as I could wish : for we are all working very hard now; and two days each week the children go to Rosita, to sell eggs and butter. That it. the greater part of our income this summer." Mrs. March said this in a cheerful tone, and as if it were nothing worth dwelling upon, and Mrs Cook