Nelly's Silver Mine Part 32

"Oh, no, Billy, thank you!" said Nelly. "It isn't too far. I've often and often walked up to the hill where you look right into the streets. And I want to go; I wouldn't miss it for any thing."

"Well, I'm goin' along with yer, anyhow," said Billy. "Luce, you get me that flour-sack." And, as Lucinda went into the closet to get it, he followed her in and shut the door.

"Ain't that a shame, Luce," he said, "to have that little thing go round sellin' eggs? I expect they're awful hard up, or they wouldn't ever have done it. I tell you it jest cuts me. Mr. March don't know them miners 's well's I do. I shall tell him it ain't no place for gals."

"You're jest off all wrong now, Billy," replied Lucinda. "It's you that don't know miners. There wouldn't a man in Rosita say a rough word before Nelly no sooner'n you would. They'll jest all take to her: you see if they don't. And it's a real sensible thing for the children to do. I've been thinking o' doing the same thing myself.

There's lots o' money to be made off eggs."

Billy was unconvinced; but he was too wise to say so.

"Well, well," he said, "we shall see. I'll go up with her to-day, and tell her which houses are the best houses to go to. If she's going to do it regular, she'd better have regular houses, and not be a gaddin' all about town, knockin' at doors. Oh, I tell you, Luce, it just cuts me! I can't stand it."

"Well, I don't see nothin' so very dreadful in it," replied Lucinda.

"The gal's got the sense of a woman: she'll look out for herself as well as if she was twenty; and there's lots o' money to be made off eggs; I tell you that."

Nelly trudged along by Billy's side as cheery as a lark. She showed him a little brown silk bag she had to bring home the money in; it was in a pocket in her petticoat, and she had to lift up her gown to get at it.

"Mamma put that in yesterday," she said: "I asked her to. I saw a lady in the cars once, Mrs. Williams: such a beautiful lady,--she gave me that big wax doll. She carried all her money in a pocket in her petticoat, under her gown; because, she said, n.o.body could get at that to steal it."

Billy laughed immoderately. The idea of a little girl's pocket being picked on the road from Rosita down into Wet Mountain Valley was very droll.

"Well, Nelly," he said, "you've got a long head o' your own; but I reckon you took a little more pains than you needed to, that time.

n.o.body's goin' to think o' such a thing as pickin' your pocket here."

"Mamma thought it was a very good plan," said Nelly, with an air of dignity; "and I think so too. Men can't tell about women's pockets: pockets in trousers are much harder to get at." At which Billy only laughed the harder; and at night, when he went home and told Lucinda, he had another fit of laughter over it.

"To think o' that little mite standin' out to me that I couldn't jedge about women's pockets, pockets in trousers was so different!

Oh, Lord!" said Billy, stretching his long legs out on the wooden settee: "I thought I should ha' died. You was right though, Luce, about the men. I'll own up. That child can go from eend to eend o'

thet town safe's if she was one o' the Lord's angels in white,--if that's what they wear,--an' wings on her shoulders: only I never did believe much in the wings. But you oughter've seen how the men looked at her. You know she's got a different look about her somehow from most gals: she ain't pretty, but you can't take your eyes off her; an' she's so pretty spoken: that does it, more'n her looks.

When we come by the stamp-mill, at noon, the men was all pourin'

out; and afore I knew it we was right in the midst on 'em: a runnin'

an' cuffin' and tumblin' each other, and not choosin' their words much. Nelly she took right hold o' my hand, but she never said nothin'.

"'Hullo, sis,' sez Jake Billings; and he pushed her little sun-bonnet back off her head. I declare I'd a notion to knock him over; but Nelly she looked up at him an' jest laughed a little, and sez she:--

"'Oh, please, sir, don't: you'll make me drop my eggs.' And he looked as ashamed as I ever see a man. And he put her bonnet right back on her head agin, and sez he:--

"'Let me carry 'em: won't ye, sis?'

"Ye see she wouldn't let me so much's touch the basket all the way, though I kept askin'. She said she was goin' to carry it always, an'

she might as well begin; an' it wan't heavy; but I know 'twas, for all her sayin' 'twan't, heavy, that is, for her little pipes o'

arms.

"'No, thank you,' said she to Jake: 'Billy wanted to carry them for me; but I wouldn't let him. I like to carry them all the way myself, to see if I can. I'm going to come every week, perhaps twice a week.'

"'Be ye?' said Jake. 'Whose little gal are ye, and where do ye live?'

"Then I told him all about her folks; and all the rest o' the men they walked along with us 's quiet and steady you wouldn't ha' known 'em; and Jake he took her right into that Swede's house, you know: Jan, the one that boards some o' the hands."

"Oh, yes!" said Lucinda; "and Ulrica, his wife's the nicest woman among the whole set."

"Well," continued Billy, "Jake he took her right in there. 'Jan'll buy all your eggs,' sez he: 'he's allers wantin' eggs.' I followed on: Nelly she was goin' with Jake, jest as if she'd ha' known him all her life; but she looked back, an' sez, in that little voice o'

hern, jest like the sweetest fiddle I ever heard:--

"'Come along, Billy,' sez she, 'and see if I can't sell eggs.'

"An' as soon as she got inter the house, she walked right up to Ulrica, and held out her basket, and sez:--

"'Would you like to buy some eggs to-day, ma'am? I'm selling 'em for my papa and mamma: and they're thirty cents a dozen.'

"Ulrica don't understand English much, and Nelly's words didn't sound like the English she was used to; an' she couldn't make her out: but Jan he stepped up, and explained to her; and then Ulrica took hold o' Nelly's long braids o' hair, and lifted 'em up, and said something to Jan in their own language; an' he nodded his head, an' looked at Nelly real loving: and sez to me, in a whisper like:--

"'The wife thinks she looks like our little Ulrica: and she ain't unlike her, that's true; though she's bigger'n our little girl when she died.'

"All this time Nelly was a lookin' from one to the other on 'em with her steady eyes, an' makin' 'em out. They took all her eggs; but the b.u.t.ter they said she'd better take up to Mr. Clapp's, the owner o'

the Black Bull Mine. Mis Clapp was very particular about her b.u.t.ter, an' 'd give a good price for it. So we went up to his house; and just as soon as Mis Clapp sot her eyes on Nelly, I could see how she took to her, by the way she spoke: an' she took the b.u.t.ter an' paid her the eighty cents; and you'd oughter seen Nelly a liftin' up her caliker gown to get to her petticoat, and drawin' out her little silk bag, an' putting in the money,--countin' it all as keerful as any old woman. Mis Clapp she laughed, and sez she:--

"'You're a real little business woman: ain't you?'

"'Yes'm,' sez Nelly, as grave as a jedge, 'I'm goin' to be. Would you like some more b.u.t.ter next week? I can bring some on Sat.u.r.day.'

"Then Mis Clapp she jest engaged three pounds a week regular: an'

Nelly thought that'd be all they could spare now."

"Pshaw!" interrupted Lucinda: "Mis March ain't no hand to skimp: but they might spare four's well's not."

"Well," said Billy, "I guess they will when they see the money a comin' in so easy. That'll be one dollar and sixty cents a week; and the eggs'll be say one dollar an' eighty more: that'll putty nigh keep 'em in meat 'n' flour. I'm real glad they thought on't. But I expect it goes agin Mr. March dreadful. That gal's the apple o' his eye: that's what she is."

"Well, he might go hisself, then," said Lucinda, scornfully, "if he thinks it's too lowerin' for his gal: I don't see nothin' to be ashamed on in't myself. If sellin' is honorable business for men, I don't see why it ain't for women 'n' gals."

"Now, Luce," exclaimed Billy, "don't be contrary. You know's well's I do what I mean. There's plenty o' things you don't want gals to do that's honorable enough, so fur's thet goes. But I must tell ye what Ulrica did 's we were comin' out o' town. There she stood waitin'

in her door. She'd been watchin' for us all the arternoon; an' 's soon's she see us, she began a beckonin and a callin'; an' we crossed over, 'n' there she hed a little picture o' their gal that was dead; an' sez she, holdin' it up to me an' pointin' to Nelly:--

"'Is it not the same face? Do you not see she haf the same face as mine child?' And then she gave Nelly such a hug and kiss, and Nelly she kissed her back just as kind's could be, and sez she:--

"'I am glad I look like your little girl; but you mustn't cry, or I shall not come again.'

"'Oh, yes, yes, come again: all days come again!' sez Ulrica: and she was cryin' too all the time. Then she gave Nelly a paper bag full of queer little square cakes with a picture stamped on 'em.

They have 'em at Christmas, she said, in her country. Nelly wan't fur takin' 'em; but I nudged her, 'n' told her to take 'em,--Ulrica'd be hurt if she didn't. After we got away from the house, Nelly sez to me, kind o' solemn, sez she:--

"'Billy, I don't like to look like so many dead little girls. Isn't it queer? That was what Mrs. Williams said,--that nice lady: she used to cry, and say I looked like her little girl that was dead; and now it's a little girl way off in Sweden. Isn't it queer?"

"But I tried to put it out of her head; but she kept talking about it all the way. I think people needn't say such things to children; it jest makes 'em gloomy for nothing."

The account Nelly gave to her father and mother of her day in Rosita was almost as graphic as Billy's. She had thoroughly enjoyed the day. She was pretty tired; but not too much so to have a fine scamper with Rob and the pet deer in the paddock after tea. And the air castles that she and Rob built that night after they had gone to bed were many stories high. Nelly was sure that if her mother would only make b.u.t.ter enough, and her father would buy some more hens, she could earn all the money they needed to have.

"Why, Rob," she said, "you see I had more than two dollars to-day; and the basket wasn't a bit heavy: I could have carried twice as much. If I could make four dollars each day, don't you see how soon it would be hundreds of dollars? hundreds, Rob!"

"Yes," said Rob; "and I could make as much more by the trout: and there would be hundreds and hundreds. And strawberries, Nell!