Nelly's Silver Mine Part 15

"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'll 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 Rob was in the habit of speaking, "mamma, give me all Mrs. Napoleon's clothes. The sick lady'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 Nelly 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 package 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'll see, mamma. I'll bet you 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 all 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, addressed 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. Napoleon's clothes. A note from Mrs. Williams to Mrs. March was pinned on the outside of the package. She said:--

"MY DEAR MRS. MARCH,--Will you allow me to give this doll to your dear, sweet little daughter, to supply the place of the lost Mrs. Napoleon. If you knew how great a pleasure it is to me to do this, I am sure you would not refuse it. Your little girl reminds me so strongly of my own little Elly, who died two years ago, that 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, as she read this note.

"See, Robert, what a beautiful doll has come for Nelly from that invalid lady she went to drive with this afternoon. Rob said she had bought it for Nelly, but I didn't believe it. I don't exactly like to take such a valuable present from a stranger."

Mr. March was reading the note.

"But we could not refuse," he said. "It would be cruel, when she wants to give it to Nelly because she 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 I 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."

Later in the evening, Deacon and Mrs. Plummer arrived; and the next day was very much taken up in discussing plans with them, and making arrangements for going on their journey; and it was late in the afternoon 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 landlord 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 stayed 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."

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, called the Ute Pa.s.s. It really is a canyon: you remember I tried to explain to you what a canyon is like. This canyon is called the Ute Pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s, 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 foothold. It looks like a little, worn track which sheep or goats might have made; you would never believe, to look at it, that great bands of Indians on ponies used to travel over it. One thing they used to 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 pa.s.s, 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 canyon 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 abundance, and climbs up the trees, and seems to be tying them all up in knots together; the hop blossoms look like green ta.s.sels 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 man 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 they had tried it.

"No, no," he said; "we'll hire it for six months first, and see how it works. It may be all true as you say about the cattle's grazin'

well up and down them rocks; but I'd rather hev medder land any day.

We'll hire, to begin with."

So they had rented the man's house and land for six months, and had bought all his cows: the cows were 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 year; 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 him 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 you 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 to 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 they 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 you 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.

Nelly and Rob sat sidewise in their seats with their faces close to the window, all the way. They had never seen such a country. Every mile new mountain tops came in sight, and new and wonderful rocks.

Some of the rocks looked like great castles, with towers to them.

More than once Rob called out:--

"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 they were merely rocks. Old Deacon and 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 gra.s.s blades stood up above it like little masts of s.h.i.+ps under water. Everywhere he looked he saw cattle walking about. They 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.