The dairy work is very profitable. Either the cream is sent away and sold to butter and cheese factories established for that purpose in ranch localities, or such are manufactured at home, and sent to the market-town for sale. But it will readily be conceived that milking thirty to forty cows, and the dairy-work in all its shapes, gives plenty of work.
I was convinced, after a little experience, that my two sons, alone, could not do all necessary, and as it does not pay to hire labour in the States (wages are so high), and as the cost of the Water Ranch was more than I could afford to give in its entirety to my sons, after my return to England I sold to two young gentlemen the half-interest on the condition that they should at once go out and work there. This they did, and there are thus now four partners with equal interests in the Water Ranch, and working there together.
I think the reader can now, in a measure, appreciate what sort of existence ranch-life is. Early to bed and early to rise, the latter four a.m. in the summer, breakfast at seven, dinner at one, tea at six; work of some kind or the other all day, but not as a rule hard manual work; many interests, absence of care, good food and sound sleep. It is a placid, if not a very intellectual existence; the charms of society, the ameliorating influence of woman, are wanting, but on the principle some hold, though unjustly, that "she" is at the bottom of all calamities, to such, at least, this latter want is not much felt! Civilization, society, has many charms, but their absence is not an unmixed evil. The freedom entailed thereby, the non-existence of social restrictions, are at least advantages ensured.
I had intended to make my home with my sons on the ranch. The roughness of the life in no way disgusted me, for I am accustomed to such, having experienced it in many countries, and in various occupations. But the want of intellectual pursuits, the absence of society, the lack of woman's influence, and the many charms connected therewith, wearied me sadly. In two words I found I was too old for the life, and that I could not, at my age, adapt myself to such great and violent changes. I was happy while there, but I felt it would not do as a continuance, and thus determined, having started my sons and provided for them, to return to Europe.
"Colorado Springs," the great health resort of Western America, is some twenty-five miles only from the Water Ranch. It is, in many respects, an unique Sanitarium, and should therefore be better known than it is to Europeans. Its climatic and soil advantages (the latter no mean factor), as a cure-place for consumption, asthma, bronchitis, and all pulmonary diseases, are perhaps exceptional, for I doubt if any spot on the earth's surface, owing to weather, temperature, elevation, locality, and soil, possesses so dry an air.[8] When we consider how many thousands of young lives, often the flowers of the household flock, here in England alone, succumb to these maladies, how neither age nor sex is spared, it is surely well that such an exceptional cure-place as Colorado Springs existing should be made known far and wide.
I should be quite incompetent myself, from lack of medical knowledge, to dilate on this point satisfactorily, were it not that during a visit of a week to the place, I made the acquaintance of an English physician there of high repute, Doctor S. Edwin Solly, who went there years ago to seek relief himself from some pulmonary complaint (I forget what), found it, and eventually settled there. He gave me a book descriptive of Colorado Springs and Manitou (the latter is the spot, five miles distant, where the medical springs are), which is in two parts. The first is a prize essay by a Mrs. Dunbar, a resident at Colorado Springs, and deals with the climatic, social, and scenic conditions of the Sanitarium as set out in the following notice to her work:—
"In the spring of 1883 a prize of one hundred dollars was offered by a committee of the citizens of Colorado Springs and Manitou for the best article upon these two towns as places of residence and health resorts. Numerous articles were presented and several were of marked merit. Rev. Willis Lord, D. D., and Rev. James B. Gregg, the examining committee, adjudged the prize to Mrs. Simeon J. Dunbar, a resident of Colorado Springs for the past two years, and a correspondent of the Boston press. Mrs. Dunbar has sought to prepare such a statement of facts as she would have welcomed (and believes others desire) when she contemplated making a home in the New West; in this endeavour she has been eminently successful. It is believed that this is the most complete, compact and accurate body of practical information in print concerning these two places, which are becoming more popular every year; and that it will be of great and permanent value to all persons seeking a change of climate or proposing to visit or settle in Colorado."
The second part is written by my friend, Doctor Solly, and treats of the place from a medical point of view. I can, therefore, by giving extracts from the said book, state with very good authority all that is necessary to tell, in the author's own words.
But before I do so, I would, in gratitude to the said Doctor Solly and another, say a few words. My sons, previous to joining me in California, had been several times at Colorado Springs, staying with a Mrs. Garstin, an English lady I had known in London, who has now finally taken up her abode there. Her kindness to my poor boys (who were living a hard life, working as common labourers for ranch and farm owners in the neighbourhood, and who, it goes without saying, had no spare cash) was excessive. She was as a mother to them, and being far from rich herself the doing so often entailed personal privations. Both my sons, while with her, fell ill, and at her kind instance Dr. Solly attended them gratis. This was no exceptional case, he is one of those "who do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame." When, therefore, I went from the Water Ranch to Colorado Springs, partly to see the place, partly to get cured of a sprained back which some farm work had entailed, I went straight to Doctor Solly, both for medical aid, and to thank him for his kindness to my boys. I was, indeed, pleased to make his and Mrs. Solly's acquaintance, and they both, thinking I must be dull all alone at the hotel, insisted on my dining with them daily during my stay. The doctor soon put me all right, and I spent a happy week wandering in the neighbourhood, climbing the Rocky Mountains, and enjoying society at his house in the evening. Surely one may dilate, even in print, on the qualities of individuals of the fair sex if it be all praise. Mrs. Solly is an American lady, and her, among others, I had in my mind when I dilated on the intellectual and broad views, with charitable tendencies, of the best class of our transatlantic sisters. With a high order of intellect, and a capacity for appreciation such as is granted to few women, Mrs. Solly was, in two words, one of the most charming companions I have ever met. On dit, and the idea is a nice one, that in many married lives the wife strives to, and often attains the husband's level. Sometimes, more rarely, it is the other way, and the woman's intellect soars above the man's, while he may, or may not, try and climb so high. In either case, if even perfect success is not attained, the intercourse between the two benefits the weaker vessel, be that male or female. But the above theory did not, in either form, hold good in those I wish to portray. Both were highly intellectual, yet were they quite different. Their individuality had not been affected, as far as I could judge, by marriage. Perhaps the companionship begotten thus is the most charming of any in marital life, but it is rare.
Of the daughter I need only say that she was a fit daughter for such parents, and seemed to me to partake of the individual excellences of both, while the English ideas received from the father, the American from the mother, made a very charming diversity in her individual character.