“Those engineers who used the place just settled down to make themselves comfortable,” Christina explained. “They put in the water-pipes themselves, and I’ll never forget the day they brought up that tub, packed on a mule. He bucked it off once and it slid down the hill until it caught between two pine-trees.”
The enterprising former tenants had also introduced electricity from the power plant of the nearest mine, so that the two most difficult housekeeping problems of water and light were thus already solved. The heavy table and straight clumsy chairs must also have been brought there by their predecessors, and the bunks in the two little rooms under the roof must have been their work. The men had evidently slept on pine branches; but for the girls Sam brought mattresses from the house in the village and a comfortable bed for Aunt Anna.
“Now,” said Nancy at last, “we have everything we need except milk and eggs.”
“I believe,” said Christina, who was scrubbing the big table, “that over at John Herrick’s—he’s your nearest neighbor—they could spare you what milk and eggs you want. I know they have a cow and that his girl, Hester, makes a great deal of her chickens!”
Neighbors! Beatrice had forgotten that house, nearly hidden by the shoulder of the mountain, but visible from the trail below. There was a girl there, too, perhaps of their own age. She was eager to go and investigate at once and scarcely waited to hear how to find the way.
It was a long walk down to the road beyond the bars and then up the hill to the next house. Beatrice realized, as she tramped along, that distances are deceitful in high altitudes and that the presence of Buck would be a great convenience. The house, when she reached it, was even larger than she had thought—a long, low dwelling, with a row of sheds and stables and an enclosed corral! She had just reached the front steps when she saw the door fly open and a brown-haired girl, with very bright, dancing eyes, come running out in a flutter of dark curls and flying blue and white skirts.
“Oh, oh!” cried Hester Herrick, grasping Beatrice’s hand in her cordial brown one. “I thought there was smoke in your chimney and I couldn’t wait to know who was living in the cabin. To have neighbors—you can’t think what it means on this mountain! Come in, come in.”
To Beatrice, who had observed with some distaste the flimsy houses of the village, the sagging board walks and streets full of ruts and boulders, this place was a delightful surprise, with its air of spruce neatness and picturesque charm. She liked the outside of the building, the pointed gables and wide eaves; but, as Hester conducted her within, she gave a little gasp of wonder, for the house was really beautiful inside. Beauty in a house, to her, had always meant shining white woodwork, softly colored rugs, and polished mahogany, but there was nothing of all that here. The low room with its windows opening toward the distant mountains, was full of rich colors, the dull red of the unceiled pine walls and bookcases, the odd browns and yellows in the bearskin rugs, the clear flame-color of the bowl of wild lilies that stood on the broad window-sill. Hester seated her guest in the corner of a huge comfortable couch and sat down beside her with a smile of broad satisfaction.
It was difficult to bring up such a prosaic subject as milk and eggs in such pleasant surroundings; but when that had been disposed of, the two were soon chattering as though they had known each other for years.
“Yes,” commented Hester, nodding sagely, as she heard the tale of their departure for the cabin on the hill, “there is going to be real trouble in Ely, so Roddy says, and he won’t let me go down there just now. How glad I am that you didn’t go away!”