Nelly's Silver Mine: A Story of Colorado Life

by Helen Hunt Jackson

"I told you, Elizy, it was four days and four nights," the Deacon always replied; "but I suppose you didn't sense it no more'n I did. Nobody couldn't believe the joltin' 'd be so wearin'. I feel's if my bones was all jelly in my skin," and the poor old man moved as if they were. He reeled when he walked; and, at each lurch the cars gave, he would catch hold of anything or anybody who happened to be near him. If it were a person, he would apologize most humbly: but if the car gave another lurch, even while he was apologizing, he would catch hold again, just as hard as before, at which the person would walk away quite offended; and very soon everybody in the car tried to keep out of the old man's way, they were so afraid of being violently laid hold of by him.

Rob and Nelly did not mind the jolting; did not mind the lurches the cars gave; did not mind the cinders, the dust, the noise. They were having the best time they ever had in their lives. For the first two days of their journey, they were in what is called "The drawing-room," in the sleeping-car. I wonder if I could make those of you who have never been in a sleeping-car understand about this little room. I will try.

Most of the sleeping-cars have merely shelves along the sides in the place where the seats are in the ordinary day-cars: curtains are hung in front of these shelves, and they are parted off from each other like the shelves in a long cupboard. In the daytime, these shelves are folded away and fastened up against the walls, and seats left below them. At night when people are ready to go to bed, the shelves are let down, and the curtains put up in front of them, and each person climbs up on his shelf, and undresses behind the curtain, and goes to bed. I forgot to say that a very good little bed is made up on each shelf. A man who has the care of the car, and who is called the porter, makes these beds. This is the way it is in nearly all the sleeping-cars. But there are some cars which have, besides these, a nice little room walled off at one end. It has seats for two people on each side; and these seats are made into comfortable beds at night. It has two windows which open on the outside of the car, and two which open on the narrow aisle of the car; these four windows are all your own, if you have hired the whole little room for yourself. You can have them either open or shut, just as you like, and nobody else has any right to say any thing about it, which is a great comfort; in the ordinary car, you know there is always somebody just behind you or just before you who is either too hot or too cold, and wants the windows shut when you want them open, or open when you want them shut. This little room has a door at each end of it. One opens into the car where the rest of the people are sitting. The other opens into a nice little closet where there is a washbowl and water, and you can take a bath comfortably. At night the porter comes and hangs up curtains across these doors, because they have glass in the tops of them; then he draws the curtains at your windows; then he lights a lamp which hangs in the middle of the ceiling in your room: and there you are shut up in as cunning a little bedroom as you would ever want to see; and almost as snug and private as you could be in your own bedroom. You can undress and go to bed comfortably; and, unless the jolting of the car keeps you awake, you can sleep all night as soundly as you would at home.

Rob and Nelly were delighted with this little room. So was Mrs. March. She hung up their cloaks and hats on the hooks, and took out their books and papers, and made the little room look like home. Nelly propped Mrs. Napoleon up in one corner of one of the red velvet arm-chairs, and took off her blue veils, for there seemed to be no dust at all.

"I wish I'd brought Pocahontas too," said Nelly: "there is so much room, and dolls do look so nice travelling like other people."

"People!" laughed Rob. "Dolls ain't people."

"They are too," said Nelly. "People are men and women, and there are boy dolls and girl dolls and women dolls and men dolls."

"Mamma, are dolls people?" asked Rob, vehemently. "Nell says they are, and I say they ain't. They ain't: are they?"

"Not live people," said Mrs. March: "Nell didn't mean that."

"Oh, no!" said Nelly; "but they're play people, and you can't be sure they don't know any thing just because they don't speak. I could go a whole year without speaking if I tried to."