Nelly's Silver Mine: A Story of Colorado Life

by Helen Hunt Jackson

When Mrs. March went back into the barn, she shouted aloud as soon as she saw Rob. He had crawled out of his hay bed. It was too warm: there he sat bolt upright, with his legs straight out in front of him. Nelly had drawn the white drawer legs out to their full length, and set Rob's shoes, toes up, in the hay at the end of them, so it looked as if his legs were all that length; then Mr. March's gray waistcoat came down nearly to his knees, and Billy's old brown coat hung on his shoulders as loosely as a blanket. He looked up at his mother with a perfectly grave face, and did not speak. Nelly was laughing hard. "Isn't he too funny, mamma?" said she.

"You can laugh now if you want to, mamma," said Rob politely. "I don't mind your laughing at papa's drawers and waistcoat and Billy's old coat. That's quite different from laughing at me."

"Thank you, dear," said Mrs. March: "you're very kind; but I can get along very comfortably without laughing at you now. You're not half so funny as you were when you were covered with the mud."

It took so long to dry Rob's clothes, that it was nearly dark when they got back to Rosita.

"Well, I reckoned you liked your house so well you weren't coming back to us at all," said the landlord, as they drove up.

"Oh, no, sir," cried Rob, "that wasn't it. I fell into the mud by the creek: I always fall into the water each new place we go to. I did it the first thing up in the Pass."

The landlord looked closely at him. "What! you been into the creek in them clothes?"

"Billy washed them," said Nelly; "they were all black as mud."

"Oh!" said the landlord. "Well, there ain't any thing under Heaven that Long Billy can't do: that's certain."

Mr. and Mrs. March thought so too, when one week later they drove down to take possession of their home. Billy had pleaded so earnestly to be allowed to do all the work himself that Mr. March had consented; and had even promised him that they would not come near the house until he invited them. Then Billy set to work in good earnest, and Miss Lucinda Harkiss set to work with him. This was the young woman to whom Billy was engaged. She was coming to be Mrs. March's servant. A very good time Lucinda and Billy had all that week. It was almost like going to housekeeping together for themselves. The first day Lucinda swept and scrubbed the floors, and washed the windows till they shone; then Billy stained all the floors dark brown, and painted the window-sashes and the door-frames brown; and this brown color was so pretty with the yellow of the pine, that it made the rough boarded rooms look almost handsome. While the paint was drying, Lucinda and Billy drove over to Pine's ranch at the foot of one of the Sangre di Christo mountains. They knew old Mr. Pine very well; and he was very glad to have them make him a visit. All one day Billy worked hard digging up young pine-trees, and Lucinda gathered a great quantity of kinnikinnick vines. Billy had told her how Mrs. March had had them nailed up on the walls in the other house. The next day they drove home early in the morning, and in the afternoon Billy set out a row of the little pine-trees all round the house. "Even if they don't grow, they'll look green for a spell," he said to Lucinda; "an' ye never see a woman hanker arter green stuff's Miss March does. There wan't a livin' thing growin' in the Ute Pass, but what she had it in a pitcher or a tumbler or a tin can, a settin' round in her house. And as for that Nelly, she'd bring in her arms full o' flowers every day o' her life. You'll like 'em all, Lucinda, see if you don't. They ain't like most o' the folks out here."