Nelly's Silver Mine: A Story of Colorado Life

by Helen Hunt Jackson

He would ring out such a "jodel", that the people would stop and look up amazed. Page 132.

"Yo-ho! yo-ho! yo-ho!" The syllables are pronounced one after the other just as fast as you can, in a high shrill tone, and there is a sort of tune to it which I could not describe; but perhaps you know some traveller who has been in Switzerland, who can describe it to you. Rob used to "jodel" beautifully; and many a time when he was on a high rock, way up above the road, and saw people riding or driving below him, he would ring out such a "jodel," that the people would stop and look up amazed. They could not believe they were in America. Rob was fast growing as strong and well as Nelly. He never had sore throats here: and Mr. and Mrs. March often said that they would be glad they had come to Colorado, if it were for nothing except that it had made Rob so well. As he grew stronger, he grew to be a much better boy. He was not selfish nor cross as he used to be at home; and he was as full of fun as a squirrel, all day long. One thing he very much enjoyed doing, was taking Fox and Pumpkinseed up to the tops of the high hills to graze. The best grass grew very high up on the hills; but neither Fox nor Pumpkinseed had ever been used to such steep hills, and they both hated to climb them. Deacon Plummer was very droll about it. "Don't blame 'em," said he, "don't blame 'em a mite. Who'd want to be for ever climbing up garret to get a mouthful of something to eat?" However, since the food was chiefly "up garret," as the Deacon called it, "up garret" the horses must go; and it was somebody's duty every morning to lead them up. Often, in the course of the day, they would ramble slowly down: then they would have to be taken up again; and Rob was always on the lookout for a chance to do this. He always took Fox; he was easier to lead than Pumpkinseed. You had to lead only one: the other would follow; and it was a funny sight to see Rob way up on the steep hill, tugging away at Fox's halter, and Fox half holding back, half going along, and Pumpkinseed behind, following on slowly with a most disgusted expression, every now and then stopping short and looking up at Rob and Fox, as much as to say, "Oh, dear! why will you drag us up this horrible hill?"

The hill opposite the house was so high that when Rob was at the very top of it with the horses, he didn't look bigger than a "Hop-o'-my-thumb," and the horses looked like goats. After he got them fairly up, and saw them grazing contentedly, Rob would run down the hill at full speed. At first he got many a tumble flat on his nose doing this; but after a while he learned how to slant his body backwards, and then he did not tumble.

But while Rob and Nelly were growing well and strong, and having such a good time that they never wanted to go back to Mayfield, I am sorry to say that the grown people were not so contented. In the first place, good old Mrs. Plummer could not sleep. Her cough was all gone; and if she could only have slept, she would have been as well as anybody; but her heart beat too fast all the time, and kept her awake at night. She did not know that she had any trouble with her heart when she was at home; and nobody had told them that people with heart-trouble could not live in Colorado: but that is the case; the air which is so pure and dry is also so light that it makes your pulse beat a good many times more a minute, and it takes a good strong heart to bear this. You know your heart is nothing but a pump that pumps blood to go through your veins, just as water goes through pipes all over a house; and the pump has to be very strong to pump so many strokes a minute as it does in Colorado. So poor Mrs. Plummer, instead of growing better, was growing worse; and this made them all unhappy.

Then Deacon Plummer and Mr. March had to acknowledge that they were paying out more money than they took in, and this worried them both.

"We've got to get out on't somehow, that's clear and sartin," said the Deacon. "It won't take very long at this rate to clear us both out. I hate to give up. I'm sure there must be better places in the country somewhere for stock raisin' than this is; but we won't stir till warm weather sets in. Then we'll look round."

The last week in April and the first in May were hard weeks. Snow-storm after snow-storm fell. At one time, all travel through the Pass was cut off for two days. The snow lay in great drifts in the narrowest places. In such weather as this, all the cattle had to be kept in the barns and yards, and fed; hay was very dear; and as Deacon Plummer said, "It don't take a critter very long to eat his own head off, and after it's eaten it off six times over, its head's on all the same for you to keep a feedin'."

When June came in, matters brightened. The cows had plenty of grass, gave good milk, and Mrs. March and Mrs. Plummer made a good many pounds of butter each week, which they sold at Manitou without difficulty. Here at last was a regular source of income; but it was small: "a mere drop in the bucket," Mrs. March said when she was talking over matters with Mrs. Plummer. I must tell you how this butter was made, because it was such a pleasure to Rob and Nelly to watch it. It was made in a little shed which joined on to the old saw-mill, and the old saw-mill wheel did the churning. Wasn't that a funny way? We must give Zeb the credit of this. He was turning the grindstone one day for Deacon Plummer to sharpen up his axes. It is very hard work to turn a grindstone, and Zeb was very tired before the axes were half ground. Suddenly the thought popped into his head, "Why shouldn't I make that old water-wheel turn this grindstone for us?" After dinner he went up to the saw-mill and looked at it. There was the old wooden wheel as good as ever; the gate which had shut the water off and let it on was gone; "but that's easy fixed," said Zeb, and to work he went; and before sundown, he had the water-wheel bobbing round again as fast as need be. The next day he took the grindstone and sunk it in between two old timbers in a broken place in the floor, just back of the wheel; then he put a strap round the grindstone and fastened it to the water-wheel; then he pulled up the little gate, and let the water in the water-wheel. Hurrah! round went the water-wheel, and round went the grindstone keeping exact pace with it! Zeb clapped his knee, which was the same thing as if he had patted himself on the shoulder. "Good for you, Abe Mack!" he said. Then he looked around frightened, to see if anybody had heard him. No one was near. He drew a long breath. "Lord!" he said; "to think o' my saying that name out loud after all this time!" and he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "I'd better be more keerful than that," he said. "I'll get tracked yet, if I don't look out." Two years before, in a fight in a mining town a great many miles north of his present home, Zeb had had the misfortune to kill a man. He never intended to do such a thing. He really drew his pistol in self-defence; but he could not prove this, and he had fled for his life, and had been ever since living hidden away on this lonely farm in the mountains. He had intended to go still farther away where there would be no possibility of his ever being seen by any of the men who had known him before, but he had fallen so in love with these hills he could not tear himself away from them. But he had never told his true name to any one, and when he pronounced it now the sound of it frightened him almost as if it had been a sheriff who was calling him by it.

After dinner, Zeb invited the whole family out to see his new water-works. They all looked on with interest and pleasure. Mr. March had often looked at the old mill and wished he had money enough to put it in order.

"Well done, Zeb!" he said. "You've turned the old thing to some account, haven't you? That's a capital idea; we'll grind knives and axes now for anybody who comes along."