I don't believe there was in all Colorado a happier family than went to sleep under Mr. March's roof that night. Everybody was entirely satisfied with the home and with everybody in it. Even Watch and Trotter sat in the low-arched doors of their new houses, and held their heads up, and looked around them with an air of contentment and pride. They had never had houses of their own before. They had slept on the great pile of sawdust by the old mill; but they walked straight into these little houses and took possession of them as naturally as possible. They almost made you think of people who, when they come into possession of things much finer than they have been accustomed to, try very hard to act as if they had had them all their lives.
CHAPTER IX
WET MOUNTAIN VALLEY
And now my story must skip over three whole years. There is so much to tell you about Nelly, and her life in Wet Mountain Valley, that, if I do not skip a good deal, the story will be much too long. The first year was a very happy and prosperous one. There were big crops of wheat and hay, and they were sold for good prices, so that Mr. March had more money than he needed to live on, and he was so pleased that he spent it all for new things,—some new books, some new furniture, and a nice new carriage much more comfortable for Mrs. March to drive in than the white-topped wagon. Mrs. March felt very sorry to have this money spent; she wanted it put away to keep; but, as I told you before, Mr. March always wanted to buy every thing he liked, and he thought that there would always be money enough.
"Why, Sarah!" he said; "here's the land! It can't run away! and we can always sell the hay and the wheat; and the cattle go on increasing every year. We shall have more and more money every year. By and by, when we get things comfortable around us, we can lay up money; but I really think we ought to make ourselves comfortable."
So Mr. March bought everything that Billy said he would like to have to work with on the farm, and he sent to Denver for books and for clothes for Rob and Nelly, and almost every month he added some new and pretty thing to the house. Thus it went on until at the end of the year, all the money which had been made off the farm was gone, and all their own little income had been spent too. Not a penny had been laid up in the house except by Billy and Lucinda. They had laid up two hundred and fifty dollars apiece. They had each had three hundred and had spent only fifty.
"Luce," said Billy, "one more such year's, this, an' we can take that little house down to Cobb's and farm it for ourselves."
"Yes," said Lucinda, hesitatingly, "but I'd a most rather stay's we are. I don't ever want to leave Mrs. March 'n' the children; and you 'n' I couldn't be together any more'n we are now."