NELLY'S SILVER MINE
Nelly would not give any reason, but put the stone carefully back in her pocket. She was determined not to tell Rob any thing about it, unless she found the stones; and the more she racked her brains the more confused she became as to where it was she had seen them. All the way home she was in a brown study, trying to think where it could have been. She was in such a brown study that she was walking straight past Lucinda's door without seeing her, when Lucinda called her name aloud.
"Why, Nelly," she said, "ain't you going to stop long enough to speak?"
"She hasn't spoken a word all the way," said Rob, discontentedly. "I can't get any thing out of her. She's real cross."
"Oh, Rob! Rob! how can you!" cried Nelly: "I wasn't cross a bit."
"Then you're sulky," retorted Rob; "and mamma says that's worse."
"Tut, tut," said Lucinda: "Nelly doesn't look either sulky or cross. I guess you're mistaken, Rob."
Nelly felt a little conscience-stricken. She knew she had been thinking hard, all the last hour, about the black stones.
"Never mind, Rob!" she said: "I'll talk now." And she began to tell Lucinda all about the pictures they had seen at Mr. Kleesman's.
"Oh, yes!" said Lucinda: "I know all about those. My little sister's got one of them: Mr. Kleesman gave it to her. He's real fond of little girls. It's a picture he made of the black nurse he had for his little boy. She's got the baby in her arms."
"Why, has Mr. Kleesman got any children?" exclaimed Nelly, very much surprised.
"Oh, yes!" said Lucinda: "he's got a wife and two children over in Germany. That's what makes him so blue sometimes. His wife hates America, and won't come here."
"Then I should think he'd stay there," said Nelly.
"So should I," said Lucinda; "but they say it's awful hard to make a living over there; and he's a layin' up money here. He'll go back one of these days."
"Oh! I wish he'd take me with him," said Rob.
"Rob March! would you go away and leave papa and mamma and me?" said Nelly.
Rob hung his head. The longing of a born traveller was in his eyes.
"I should come back, Nell," he said. "I shouldn't stay: only just to see the places."
"Well," said Nelly, slowly, "I wouldn't go away from all of you, not to see the most beautiful things in all the world; not even to see the city of Constantinople."
Rob did not answer. He was afraid that there must be something wrong about him, to be so willing to do what seemed to Nelly such a dreadful thing. To see Constantinople, and hear the muezzins call out the hours for prayers from the mosques, Rob would have set off that very minute and walked all the way.
After Nelly went to bed that night, she lay awake a long time, still thinking about the black stones. She had put the little piece of stone on the bureau, and while she was undressing she hardly took her eyes off it. She recollected just how the place looked where she saw them. It was in a ravine: there were piles of stones in the bottom of the ravine, and a good many scattered all along the sides. There were pine trees and bushes too: it was quite a shady place.
"I should know it in a minute, if I saw it again," said Nelly to herself; "but where, oh! where was it!"
At last, all in one second, it flashed into her mind. It was one day when she had started for Rosita later than usual, and had thought she would take a short cut across the hills; but she had found it any thing but a short cut. As soon as she had climbed one hill she found another rising directly before her, and, between the two, a great ravine, down to the very bottom of which she must go before she could climb the other hill. She had crossed several of these ravines,—she did not remember how many,—and had come out at last on the top of the highest of all the hills above the town: a hill so steep that she had always wondered how the cows could keep on their feet when they were grazing high up on it. It was in one of these ravines that she had seen the black stones; but in which one she could not be sure. Neither could she recollect exactly where she had left the road and struck out to cross the hills.
"I might walk and walk all day," thought Nelly, "and never find it. How shall I ever manage?"
Fortune favored Nelly. The very next day, Billy came to the house to ask if Mrs. March could spare Nelly to go and stay two days with Lucinda, while he was away. He had an excellent chance to make some money by taking a party of gentlemen across the valley and up into one of the passes in the range, where they were going to fish. He would be at home the second night: Nelly need stay only over one night. Lucinda was not well, and Billy did not like to leave her alone.
Mrs. March said, "Certainly: Nelly could go."
As soon as she told Nelly of the plan, Nelly's heart seemed to leap in her bosom with the thought:—
"Now that's just the chance for me to look for the stones."
She set off very early, and reached Lucinda's house before eight o'clock. After she had unpacked her bag, and arranged all her things in the little room where she was to sleep, she asked Lucinda if there were any thing she could do to help her.
Lucinda was quilting a big bedquilt, which was stretched out on chairs and long wooden bars, and took up so much of the room in the kitchen it was hard to get about.
"Mercy, no, child!" said Lucinda. "I hain't got nothin' to do but this quilt, an' I expect you ain't much of a hand at quiltin'. 'Twan't my notion to have ye come,—not but what I'm always glad to see ye; ye know that,—but I wan't afraid to be alone. But Billy he's took it into his head 'tain't safe for me to be alone here nights. Now if there's any thing ye want to do, ye jest go 'n' do it."
"Would it make any difference to you if I were gone all day, so I am here to sleep?" said Nelly.
"Why, no," replied Lucinda; "not a bit. Did ye want to go into the town?"
"No," said Nelly; "but I wanted to find a place I saw once, on the way there. It was a real deep place, almost sunk down in the ground, full of pines and bushes: a real pretty place. But it wasn't on the road. I don't know 's I can find it; but I'd like to."
"All right," said Lucinda: "you go off. I'll give ye some lunch in case ye get hungry. Ye won't be lonesome, will ye, without Rob?"
"Oh, no!" said Nelly: "I like to be all alone out doors."
Then she bade Lucinda good-by, and set off. For a half mile or so, she walked in the road toward Rosita. She recollected that she had passed Lucinda's before she turned off from the road. But the more she tried to remember the precise spot where she had turned off the more confused she became. At last she sprang out of the road, on the left hand side, and began running as fast as she could.
"I may as well strike off in one place as another," she thought, "since I can't remember. It cannot be very far from here."
She climbed one steep hill, and ran down into the ravine beyond it; then another hill, and another ravine,—no black stones. The sun was by this time high, and very hot. Nelly had done some severe climbing.
"On the top of the next hill I'll eat my lunch," she thought.
The next hill was the steepest one yet. How Nelly did puff and pant before she reached the top; and when she reached it, there was not a single tree big enough to shade her!
"Oh, dear!" said Nelly; and looked up and down the ravine, to see if she could spy any shade anywhere. A long way off to the north, she saw a little clump of pines and oaks. She walked slowly in that direction, keeping her foothold with difficulty in the rolling gravel on the steep side of the hill. Just as she reached the first oak-bush, her foot slipped, and she clutched hard at the bush to save herself: the bush gave way, and she rolled down, bush and all, to the very bottom of the ravine. Luckily, it was soft, sandy gravel all the way, and she was not in the least hurt: only very dirty and a good deal frightened.
"I'll walk along now at the bottom, where it is level," said Nelly, "and not climb up till I come to where the trees are."
There had been at some time or other a little stream in this ravine, and it was in the stony bed of it that Nelly was walking. She looked very carefully at the stones. They were all light gray or reddish colored: not a black one among them. She had in her pocket the little piece Mr. Kleesman had given her: she took it out, and looked at it again. It was totally unlike all the stones she saw about her.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Nelly: "I expect I won't find it to-day. I'll come again to-morrow. At any rate, I'll go to that nice, shady place to eat my lunch."
It was further than she thought. In Colorado, every thing looks a great deal nearer to you than it really is: the air is so thin and light that mountains twenty miles away look as if they were not more than three or four; and there are a great many funny stories of the mistakes into which travellers are led by this peculiarity of the air. They set off before breakfast, perhaps, to walk to a hill which looks only a little way off; and, after they have walked an hour or two, there stands the hill, still seeming just as far off as ever. One of the funniest stories is of a man who had been cheated in this way so often that at last he didn't believe his eyes any longer as to whether a distance were long or short; and one day he was found taking off his shoes and stockings to wade through a little ditch that anybody could easily step over.
"Why, man alive!" said the people who stood by, "what are you about? You don't need to wade a little ditch like that! Step across it."
"Ha!" said he, "you needn't try to fool me any more. I expect that ditch is ten feet wide."
Nelly walked on and on in the narrow stony bed of the dried-up stream. The stones hurt her feet, but it was easier walking than on the rolling gravel of the steep sides above. She stopped thinking about the black stones. She was so hot and tired and hungry, all she thought of was getting to the trees to sit down. At last she reached the place just below them. They were much higher up on the hillside than she had supposed. She stood looking up at them.
"I expect I'll tumble before I get up there," she thought. It looked about as steep as the side of the roof to a house. But the shade was so cool and inviting that Nelly thought it worth trying for. Half-way up her feet slipped, and down she came on her knees. She scrambled up; and, as she looked down, what should she see, in the place where her knees pressed into the gravel, but a bit of the black stone! At first she thought it was the very piece she had had in her pocket; but she felt in her pocket, and there was her own piece all safe. She took it out, held the two together, looked at them, turned them over and over: yes! the stones were really, exactly the same color! Now she was so excited that she forgot all about the heat, and all about her hunger.
"This must be the very ravine!" she said, and began to look eagerly about her for more of the stones. Not another bit could she find! In her eager search, she did not observe that she was slowly working down the hill, till suddenly she found herself again at the bottom of the ravine, in the dried bed of the brook. Then she stood still, and looked around her, considering what to do. At last she decided to walk on up the ravine.
"The big pile of them was right in such a deep place as this," thought Nelly: "I guess it's farther up."
It was very hard walking, and Nelly was beginning to grow tired and discouraged again, when lo! right at her feet, in among the gray stones and the red ones, lay a small black one. She picked it up: it was of the same kind. A few steps farther on, another, and another: she began to stoop fast, picking them up, one by one. She had one hand full: then she looked ahead, and, only a little farther on, there she saw the very place she recollected so well,—the ravine full of bushes, and low pine trees, and piles of stones among them. She had found it! Can you imagine how Nelly felt? You see she believed that it was just the same thing as if she had found a great sum of money. How would you feel if you should suddenly find at your feet thousands and thousands of dollars, if your father and mother were very poor, and needed money very much? I think you would feel just as Nelly did. She sat straight down on the ground, and looked at the stones, and felt as if she should cry,—she was so glad! Then the thought came into her mind:—
"Perhaps this land belongs to somebody who won't sell it. Perhaps he knows there is a mine here!" She looked all about, but she could not see any stakes set up to show that it was owned by any one: so she hoped it was not.
There she saw the very place she recollected so well. Page 257.
Now that the excitement of the search was over, she began to feel very hungry again, and ate her lunch with a great relish. The thoughtful Lucinda had put in the basket a small bottle of milk. Nelly thought she had never tasted any thing so good in her life as that milk. When you are very thirsty, milk tastes much better than water. After Nelly had eaten her lunch, she filled her basket with the black stones, and set off for home. Presently she began to wonder if she could find her way back again to the spot.
"That would be too dreadful," thought she: "to lose it, now I've just found it." Then she recollected how, in the story of Hop o' My Thumb, it said that when he was carried off into the forest he slyly dropped beans all along the way, to mark the path, and thus found his way back, very easily by means of them. So she resolved to walk along in the bed of the stream, till it was time to climb up and strike off toward Lucinda's, and then to drop red stones all along the way she went, till she reached the beaten road. She took up the skirt of her gown in front, and filled it full with little red stones. Then she trudged along with as light a heart as ever any little girl had, scattering the stones along the way, like a farmer planting corn.
When she reached the road, she was surprised to see that she had come out the other side of Lucinda's house, full quarter of a mile nearer home.
"Now this isn't anywhere near where I left the road before," she said. "How'll I ever tell the place?"
At first she thought she would put a bush up in the crotch of a little pine-tree that stood just there.
"No, that won't do," she said: "the wind might blow it out."
Then she thought she would stick the bush in the sand; but she feared some horse or cow might munch it and pull it up. At last she decided to break down a small bough of the pine-tree, and leave it hanging.
"We can't make a mistake, then, possibly," she thought.
When she reached the house, Lucinda had cleared the bedquilt all away, and had the table set for supper, though it was only half-past four o'clock. Nelly was not hungry. It seemed to her only a few minutes since she ate her lunch.
"Did you find the place, Nelly?" said Lucinda.
"Yes," said Nelly.
"Was it as pretty as it was before?" Lucinda asked.
"Oh, yes!" said Nelly; "but it was awful steep getting down to it. I kept tumbling down."
"Well, you're the curiousest child ever was!" exclaimed Lucinda. "Anybody'd think you got walkin' enough in a week without trampin' off this way."
Nelly did not reply. She felt a little guilty at letting Lucinda think it was only to find a pretty place she had gone; but she was sure it would not be best to tell anybody about the black stones till she had told her father. She had hid them all in a pile near the pine-tree whose branch she had broken down; and she meant to pick them up on her way home the next night. In the morning it looked to Nelly as if it never would be night, she was in such a hurry to see her father.
"Oh, Lucinda," she said, "do give me something to do! I don't want to go off to-day. I want to stay with you." So Lucinda gave her some brown towels to hem, and also let her snap the chalked cord with which she marked off the pattern on her quilt; and, by help of these two occupations, Nelly contrived to get through the day, till four o'clock, when she set out for home. As good luck would have it, when she was within quarter of a mile from home she saw her father at work in a field. She jumped over the fence and ran to him.
"Papa! papa!" she said, breathless: "look here!" And she held up her basket of black stones. "This is the kind of stone that comes where the silver is. There is a mine underneath it always: Mr. Kleesman said so. And I've found a mine: I'll show you where it is."
Mr. March laughed very heartily.
"Why, my dear little girl!" he said, "what ever put such an idea into your head? I don't believe those stones are good for any thing."
Nelly set down her basket, and pulled her pocket-handkerchief out of her pocket: the little piece of black stone she had got from Mr. Kleesman was tied firmly in one corner.
"Look at that, papa," she said, "and see if the stones in the basket are not just like it." Then she told her father all about the man's coming into the assayer's office with a bag of stones like that one, and what Mr. Kleesman said to him.
"Don't you see, papa," she said, vehemently, "that it must be a mine? Why, there are piles of it: it has all slipped down into the bottom of this steep place; there used to be a brook down there. I know it's a mine, papa! And if I found it, it's ours: isn't it?"
Nelly's cheeks were red, and her words came so fast they almost choked her.
"Nelly, dear," said her father, "don't you recollect that once before you thought you had found silver ore, you and Rob, up in the Ute Pass?"
Nelly looked ashamed.
"Oh, papa," she said, "that was quite different. That was when we were little things. Papa, I know this is a mine. If you'd heard what Mr. Kleesman said, you'd think so too. He said in his country they had a proverb, that no mine was good for any thing unless it had a black hat on its head; and that meant that there were always black stones on top like this."
Mr. March turned the little bit of black stone over and over, and examined it carefully.
"I do not know much about minerals," he said. "I think I never saw a stone like this."
"Nor I either, papa," exclaimed Nelly: "except in this one place. I know it's a mine, and I'll give it to you all for your own. It's mine, isn't it, if I found it?"
"Yes, dear, it's yours, unless somebody else had found it before you."
"I don't believe anybody had," said Nelly; "for there weren't any stakes stuck down anywhere near; and all the claims have stakes stuck down round them. Oh, papa! isn't it splendid! now we can have all the money we want."
Mr. March smiled half sadly.
"My dear little daughter," he said, "there are a great many more people who have lost all the money they had in the world trying to get money out of a mine, than there are who have made fortunes in that way. You must not get so excited. Even if there is a mine in the place where you found these stones, I don't think I have money enough to open it and take out the ore. But I will show these stones to Mr. Scholfield. He knows a great deal about mines."
"Oh, do! do! papa," exclaimed Nelly. "I know it's a mine."
"I am going down there to-night," said Mr. March. "I will carry your stones, and see what he says. In the mean time, we will not say any thing about it to anybody. You and papa will just have a little secret."
When Nelly kissed her father for good-night, she nodded at him with a meaning glance, and he returned the nod with an equally meaning one.
"What are you two plotting?" cried Mrs. March. "I see mischief in both your eyes."
"Oh, it's a little secret we have, Nelly and I," said Mr. March. "It won't last long: we'll tell you to-morrow."
It turned out that Mrs. March did not have to wait till the next day before learning the secret. Mr. March got home about midnight from Mr. Scholfield's. Mrs. March had been sound asleep for two hours: the sound of Mr. March's steps wakened her.
"Is that you, Robert?" she called.
"Yes," he said. There was something in the tone of his voice which was so strange that it roused her instantly. She sat up straight in bed and exclaimed:—
"What is the matter?"
"Nothing," said Mr. March.
"Nonsense!" said Mrs. March: "you can't deceive me. Something has happened. Come in here this minute and tell me what it is."
Then Mr. March told her the whole story. He had taken Nelly's stones to Mr. Scholfield, who had said immediately that there was without doubt a mine in the place where that mineral was found; and, when Mr. March had told him as nearly as he could from Nelly's description where the spot was, he had said that no mines had yet been discovered very near that place, and no claims were staked out.
"Scholfield says we must go immediately and stake out our claim. He'll go shares with me in digging; and at any rate will see what's there," said Mr. March.
"Do you believe in it yourself, Robert?" asked Mrs. March. She was much afraid of new schemes for making money.
"Why, I can't say I'm very enthusiastic about it," replied Mr. March; "but then I don't know any thing about mines, you see. Scholfield was near wild over it. He says we've got silver there sure."
"Will you have to find money to begin with?" asked Mrs. March, anxiously.
"Well, Sarah, considering that we haven't got any money, I don't see how I can: do you?" laughed Mr. March. "But Scholfield says that if I will give him a third of the mine, he'll take another man in, and they two'll pay for the working it at first. That seems very fair: doesn't it?"
"I don't know," said Mrs. March. "If the mine really does turn out to be very valuable, it is giving him a good deal."
"That is true," replied Mr. March. "But, on the other hand, perhaps it is not worth any thing; and, in that case, Scholfield has the worst of the bargain. He says, though, he can tell very soon. He has been in mining a good deal; and he can make his own assays with the blow-pipe. We're to start very early in the morning, and take Nelly along to show us the way. The dear child was nearly beside herself last night."
"So that was your secret: was it?" said Mrs. March.
"Yes, and a very hard one it was for the child to keep too," said Mr. March. "She was half crazy to tell Rob."
"You'll take him along too: won't you?" asked Mrs. March.
"Oh, yes," said Mr. March: "no more secrets now; that is, not in this house. We won't have it talked round, if we can help it. Scholfield says that the minute it is known we've found silver there, those ravines will just swarm with men prospecting for more claims."
The next day, Mr. March and Mr. Scholfield and Rob and Nelly set out immediately after breakfast for the ravine. They stopped at Billy's house and took him with them. Mr. Scholfield had said to Mr. March, as they walked along:—
"If Long Billy'll go in with us, I'd rather have him than any man I know about here. He's as honest 's daylight; I don't think he's doing much this summer; I think he'll go to work digging right away."
Wasn't Nelly a proud little girl as she walked ahead of the party? She kept hold of Rob's hand, and every now and then they would run so fast that the older people had to run, too, to keep up with them.
"How do you know the way so well, Nelly?" said Mr. Scholfield.
Nelly laughed.
"If you watch closely, you can see what I tell by," she said. "It's in plain sight."
"Yes, plain sight! plain sight!" shouted Rob, to whom Nelly had pointed out the little red stones. "It's out of a story."
Mr. Scholfield and Mr. March and Billy all looked around, perplexed; but they could see nothing.
"Oh, tell us the secret, Guide," said Mr. March. "We are stupid: we can't find it out."
Then Nelly told them; and as soon as she pointed to the red stones they wondered very much that they had not noticed them before.
It seemed a very short way to the ravine, this time: Nelly had reached it before she thought of its being near.
"Why, here it is," she said; "I didn't think we were half way there."
Then she and Rob sat on the ground and watched the others. Rob was very quiet. He was a good deal overawed at the idea of a real silver mine all for their own.
"Do you suppose it's right here, right under our feet, Nell?" said he, stamping his foot on the ground.
"I dare say," said Nelly. "Perhaps it is all over round here: some of them are as big as a mile."
"I wonder if they'll let us go down as often as we want to," said Rob. "They'll have to, won't they, if it's our own mine?"
"That'll be for papa to say," answered Nelly, decidedly. "I've given it to him. It's his mine."
While the children was thus building their innocent air-castles in a small way, the brains of the older people were building no less actively, and on a larger scale. Both Billy and Mr. Scholfield were much excited. Billy ran from spot to spot, now hammering a stone in two with his hammer, now digging fiercely into the ground with his pick-axe. Mr. Scholfield went about picking up the black stones, and piling them together, till he had quite a monument of them.
"I declare," he said at last, "it beats me that this place hasn't ever been found before, much 's this country's been prospected over and over. I don't know what to make of it. But there isn't a sign of a claim here for miles: I know that."
"Well, I'll tell yer what I'm a thinkin'," said Billy. "I'm a thinkin' that 's fur back 's them fust prospectin' days there was a creek in here; 'n' thet's the reason there didn't nobody look here. I've heern it said hundreds o' times in town thet there wan't no use lookin' along these ridges; they'd all been looked over thorough, 'n' there wan't nothin' in 'em. But we've struck a silver mine, sure: I hain't any doubt of it. Let's name her 'The Little Nelly.'"
Mr. March's face grew red. He did not like the idea of having a mine called after Nelly; but he did not want to hurt Billy's feelings. Before he could speak, Mr. Scholfield cried out:—
"Good for you, Billy! That's what we'll call it! That's a name to bring good luck. 'The Little Nelly!' and may she turn out not so 'little,' after all; and the first bucketful of ore we draw up, Nelly, we'll drink your health, and christen the mine."
Nelly did not quite understand what all this meant.
"Did you mean that I am to name the mine, sir?" she said.
"No," said Mr. Scholfield: "we meant that we were going to name it for you, by your name. But you can name it, if you like. That would be luckier still. Don't you like to have it called by your name?"
Nelly hesitated.
"I think I would rather not have it named after me," she said: "some of the mines have such dreadful names. But I know a name I think would be a real pretty name."
"What's that?" said her father.
"The Good Luck," said Nelly.
Billy clapped his knee hard with his hand.
"By jingo!" said he, "that's the best name ever was given to a mine yet. 'The Good Luck' it shall be; and good luck it was to you, Nelly, the day you struck it. Old Pine he said, one day last spring, mebbe you'd find a mine, when I was a tellin' him how you 'n' Rob was allers lookin' for one."
"But I wasn't looking for this, Billy," said Nelly. "I gave up looking for one a long time ago, when we began to sell the eggs. It was just an accident that I happened to remember the black stones in here."
"That's the way some of the best mines have been found," said Mr. Scholfield: "just by sheer accident. There was a man I knew, in California, had his mule run away from him one day: it was somewhere in that Tuolomne region; and if that mule didn't run straight down into a gulch that was just washed full of free gold,—and the fellow had been walking in it some time before he noticed it! There's a heap o' luck in this world."
"Yes," said Mr. March, "there's a great deal of luck; but there is a great deal which is set down to luck which isn't luck. Now, if my little girl here hadn't had the good-will and the energy to try to earn some money for her mother and me, she wouldn't have been searching for a short cut to Rosita over these hills, and would never have found this mine."
"That's so," said Mr. Scholfield, looking admiringly at Nelly. "She's a most uncommon girl, that Nelly of yours. I think we ought to call the mine after her; it's hers."
"No," said Mr. March: "I like her name for it best. Let us call it 'The Good Luck.'"
Mrs. March was watching for her husband and children when they came down the lane. She had been much more excited about the silver mine than she had confessed to Mr. March. All day long she had been unable to keep it out of her mind. The prospect was too tempting. "Why should it not have happened to us, as well as to so many people," she thought. "Oh! if we only could have just money enough to give Rob and Nelly a good education, I would not ask for any thing more. And, even if this is not very much of a mine, it might give us money enough for that." With such hopes and imaginations as these Mrs. March's mind had been full all day long; and, when she saw Mr. March and Rob and Nelly coming toward the house, she felt almost afraid to see them, lest she should see disappointment written on their faces.
Not at all. Rob and Nelly came bounding on ahead, and, as they drew near the door, they shouted out:—
"The Good Luck! The Good Luck! It is named 'The Good Luck.'"
"They wanted to call it 'The Little Nelly,' but Nelly wouldn't," said Rob. "I don't see why. If I'd found it, I'd have called it 'The Rob,' I know. They didn't ask me to let them call it for me. If they had, they might and welcome."
"It is really a mine, then?" said Mrs. March, looking at her husband.
"Yes, Sarah, I think it is," he replied. "If Scholfield and Billy know,—and they seem to be very sure,—there is good promise of silver there; and Nelly herself has named it 'The Good Luck.'"
"Oh, Nelly! did you, really?" exclaimed Mrs. March. "You dear child!" And she threw both arms around Nelly, and gave her a great hug. "That's a lovely name. I do believe it will bring luck."
"I didn't want it named after me," said Nelly. "It isn't as if it was a live thing—"
"Subjunctive mood, dear! 'as if it were,'" interrupted Mrs. March.
"As if it were," repeated Nelly, looking confused. "I wish they'd left the subjunctive mood out of the grammar. I sha'n'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 around town. They'll hear it was you found it; and they'll 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, pretending to be very innocent. "I was only telling you what Billy said."
"I don't believe it," 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."
"Couldn't!" exclaimed Nelly: "what do you 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 apt to be only another word for 'wouldn't' with a little boy I know."
Rob laughed, and left off teasing Nelly about the name of her mine.