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 Pass. It really is a canyon: you remember I tried to explain to you what a canyon 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 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 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 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 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 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 grass blades stood up above it like little masts of ships 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.
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 you keep stock yourself, sir?" asked the Deacon.
"No, I've never been in the stock business myself," 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 hay, 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, rising 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 between those high rocks."
Even while he was passing, the rocks disappeared from view. Nelly looked at them with awe-stricken eyes.
"The Garden of the Gods, sir!" she said; "what does that mean? What gods? Do they worship heathen gods in this country?"
A lady 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 Nelly; "did they mean the old gods? My papa has told 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 place to see. You will be sure to go there, for all strangers 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 simply 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 red 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 Colorado," replied the lady. "It is the one thing which is always cured here. My own trouble was only a throat trouble."
"I am very 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 sorry for it. But here we are; good morning."
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.
"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 passengers 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 railway 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 only laughed and said:—
"They 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 wonder 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 Nelly, "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 village 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 beyond the last house, they entered the real pass. Now their surprises began. On each side of them were high walls 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 rushing 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. Nelly 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; they were all of a fine red color, or else of a yellowish brown; and they were full of sharp points, and deep lines were cut in them; and a beautiful green lichen grew on many of them. Sometimes they were heaped 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 some 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 beautiful 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!" 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 precipice. 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 drinking-cup in the other, began to climb up again. This was twice as hard 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 enjoyed it. "It's the sweetest water I ever tasted," said Mrs. Plummer.
"Yes," said Mrs. March, "it must be, in good part, melted snow water out of the mountains: that is always 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 Mayfield. This is some fun."
Mrs. March laughed, but she thought in her heart:
"I hope he'll 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 Nell, earnestly; "I like it better than any thing in all the world; but I don't think it's 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 any name for it. I don't know any."
Just at this moment, they 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 another 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 coming. 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 in 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' for it, mister, but you'll have to unharness your team. My mules'll stand; I'll help you."
So they took out Pumpkinseed and Fox, and Mr. March led them on ahead. Then Deacon Plummer and the mule-driver pushed the wagon backward down the 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 to 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 sha'n'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 sundown 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 sundown 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 precipice rose immediately behind it; and the brook seemed to be running under the house, it was so close to it. The 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 the 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 stop and ask."
A man was chopping wood a few steps from the house. Mr. March called to him.
"This isn't Garland's, is it?"
Instead of replying, the man laid down his axe, and 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 all."
"Oh, Lor', no," laughed the man. "This ain't Garland's; his place's two mile farther on. That ain't no great shakes of a place, either,—Garland's ain't; but 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 to raise any thing, for that matter," said Mr. March; "here it is the middle of the afternoon, by the clock, and past sundown 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 move 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 trying 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 pity '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 neighborly folks out'n this country. My wife she'll be glad to know there's some wimmen 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'll tell you," he said.
"What is it, papa?" said Rob.
"I suppose it is for a man to live all alone, without 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 he 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. Plummer, "how children always do 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'll pitch 'em down! I'm going up on to every one of the highest rocks I can find."
"Oh, Rob! you'll break your neck," said Mrs. March. "I shall not allow you to climb, unless your father is with you."
"Now, mamma"—Rob was beginning when, suddenly catching sight of a house, he exclaimed:—
"There 'tis! That's like the picture. And there's the barn! 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 photograph 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 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 all 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 appearance 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 my 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. I 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 any 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 had 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 bread at all. He had intended to make some soda biscuit for his own supper. "But she looks like jest one o' them kind that can't abide soda," thought poor Zeb to himself. "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! However, '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's 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 never seen it: an' I may as well tell you first as last, that I ain't no ways 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 got 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 he, "we can stay, somehow, can't we? We men can sleep 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."
It 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 hoss 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 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 your 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'll do that just's often's you'll 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 held up 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.
"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'll show you what he can do. I hain't taught him much yet; he's such a pup: but there's nothin' 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 you 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. They 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; mebbe 't'll 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 they 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 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 minutes; 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 they 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 they 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'll get some winter in good airnest. April 'n' May's our winter months. I've seen the snow a foot 'n' a half deep in this Pass in May."
"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'll melt snow's quick's a fire'll melt 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'll be putty muddy for a week or so; but's a general thing the roads are dry in a day; in fact, you'll often see the ground white with a little sprinkle of snow at eight o'clock in the morning, and by twelve you'll 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'll give it up!" said the Deacon; "near's I can make out, this country's a conundrum."
Mrs. March and Mrs. Plummer now set themselves to work in good earnest to put the little house in order. They had brought with them only what they 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 beautiful view down the Pass. These rooms had no plaster on the walls, and the boards were very rough; but the 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, industriously, 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 sorts 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," 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 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 you 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 to one side of the middle of the plank; it tipped; he lost his balance, and over 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'll I do?"
"That's a fact, Rob," said his mother. "You'll have to go to bed while these dry."
"Oh, dear!" said Rob; "that's too bad!" And he 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 you do no such a thing," cried Zeb; "you jest walk round a leetle lively, and your clothes'll 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 hailstones 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.
"Pon 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, 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 few minutes, as they were busily at 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'll 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 sawmill: 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 your supper! If ever ye see Pharaoh's lean kine, ye'll 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 bones stuck out like great ploughshares.
"What a shame!" exclaimed Mrs. March. "Husband, you 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 so run down. Ye'll see I'll have 'em 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,—they 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 allayed. 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 your 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' 'll 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 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 milking, they talked over their prospects. They were forced to acknowledge that there was small chance of making a living on this farm.
"We're took in: that's all there is on't," said the Deacon, cheerily; "but I reckon we can grub along for six months; we can live that long even if we don't 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 nature, 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 so ready to quit."
When the milkers went in with their pails of milk, they found a blazing fire on the hearth, and supper set 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:—
"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'll I do, mamma? it's worse than medicine!" he cried; and swallowed the whole mouthful at one gulp. "That can't be butter, mamma," he said. "You've made a mistake. It'll poison us: it's something 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 you say so once, Elizy, I've heard you say it a thousand times; 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 to make a meal go down," said Rob. "It like to have made mine come up just now."
"Rob, Rob!" said his mother, reprovingly; "you forget that we are at supper."
"Excuse me, mamma," said Rob, penitently; "but it was true."