Rob did not know whether his father were laughing at him or not. He suspected he might be.
"I don't know what you mean, papa," he said: "you like crullers, anyhow."
"Fair hit, Rob!" said Mrs. March. "Fair hit, papa!"
The journey to Rosita took six days: they had to go very slowly on account of the cattle. The weather was perfect; and every night they slept on the ground, in a tent which Mr. March had bought in Colorado Springs. Rob rode on Pumpkinseed's back a good part of the way, like a little postilion. Before the end of the journey, they were all so burnt by the sun that they looked, Mrs. March said, "a great deal more like Indians than like white people." They drove into Rosita just at sunset. I wish I could tell you how beautiful the whole place looked to them. You go down a steep hill, just as you come into the town of Rosita. On the top of this hill, Mr. March called out to his wife to stop. She was driving Fox and Pumpkinseed; and he was following behind with the mules. He jumped out, and came up to the side of her wagon.
"There, Sarah!" he said, "did you ever see any thing in your life so beautiful as this?"
Mrs. March did not speak; both she and Nelly and even Rob were struck dumb by the beauty of the picture. They looked right down into the little village. It was cuddled in the ravine as if it had gone to sleep there. The sides of the hills were dotted with pine-trees; and most of the little houses were built of bright yellow pine boards: they shone in the sun. Just beyond the village they could see a bit of a most beautiful green valley; and, beyond that, great high mountains, half covered with snow.
"That is the valley," said Mr. March; "that bit of bright green, way down there to the west."
Nelly was the first to speak.
"Papa," said she, "it looks just like a beautiful green bottom to a deep well: doesn't it?"
"Yes, this little bit that you see of it from here, does," said Mr. March: "but, after you get into it, it doesn't look so. It is thirty miles long; and so level you would think you were on the plains. And oh, Nell! you can see your dear Pike's Peak grandly there! It looks twice as high here as it does from any place I have seen it."