Nelly's Silver Mine: A Story of Colorado Life

by Helen Hunt Jackson

"Rob, go fetch me the churn, will you?"

Rob was only too happy to be admitted into the partnership on any terms. The churn was quite heavy, but he rolled it and tugged it to the shed-door. Zeb lifted it over the threshold: and then Rob saw that there was a long slender beam fastened to the water-wheel, and reaching half way across the wall of the shed; an upright beam was fastened to this, a hole was cut in the shed wall, and another beam run through this hole, and fastened to the upright beam on the other side. When the water-wheel turned round and round, it made this upright beam go up and down. Zeb took the dasher of the churn and fastened it to this beam: up and down, up and down it went, faster than anybody could churn.

"Tain't quite long enough," said Zeb. "We'll have to stand the churn on something." Then he ran back to the house and asked Mrs. Plummer for some cream. She gave him about three gallons; he put it into the churn, raised the churn a little higher, and set the machinery in motion. In about ten minutes he looked in.

"It's comin'! it's comin'!" he cried. "Run, call all the folks, Rob."

Rob ran, and in a few minutes the whole family were looking on at this new mode of churning. It worked beautifully; in fifteen minutes more the butter was made.

"There!" said Zeb, as he drew up the dasher with great solid lumps of butter sticking to it. "If that ain't the easiest churned three gallons o' cream ever I see!"

"Yes, indeed, Zeb," said Mrs. March, "it is. We sha'n't dread churning-day any more."

Mr. March examined the machinery curiously. "Zeb," he said, "if we had two good iron wheels we could make shingles here, couldn't we? I believe it would pay to rig the old place up again."

"Yes, sir," said Zeb. "There's nothin' ye can't make with such a stream o' water's that if ye've got the machinery to put it to. It's only the machinery that's wantin'. We've got water power enough here to run a factory."

You would not have thought so to look at it; the water did not come right out of the brook; it came through a wooden pipe, high up on wooden posts. It was taken out of the brook a mile or two farther up the Pass, where the ground was a great deal higher than it was here at the mill. So it came running all the way down through this pipe, high up above the brook, and when it was let out it fell with great force. The pipe was quite old now, and it leaked in many places; in one place there was such a big leak it made a little waterfall; this water dripping and falling into the brook beneath made it sound like a shower, and all the bushes and green things along the edges of the brook were dripping wet all the time. There was a big pile of the old sawdust on the edge of the brook; this was of a bright yellow color: the old saw-mill had fallen so into decay that three sides of it were open, and it looked hardly safe to go into it. You had to step carefully from one beam to another: there was not much of the floor left. But it was a lovely, cool, shady place, and almost every day some of the teamsters who were driving heavy teams through the Pass would stop here to take their lunch at noon: often Rob and Nelly would go out and talk with them, and carry them milk to drink. Zeb kept out of sight at such times. He was always in fear of being seen by somebody who had known him in the northern country.