Some years ago a friend of mine, waking up one morning, was saluted by her cook with the news that the kitchen floor was so wet that she could not prepare the breakfast. The water came over the poor woman's rubber shoes. My friend thought she could manage to boil a cup of coffee and make toast by the fire in the parlor; but later in the day Joe and Frank, her sons, found it great fun to march about the wet kitchen on stilts. They made the fire in the range, and, under Mary's directions, produced omelet, broiled steak, and other things, so that the family did not starve during the rainy day.
If any of you have met with adventures during the freshet, I shall expect to hear all about them.
Lincoln, Nebraska.
School begins next week, and I would like to tell you about my first vacation. In June I went to Indiana to visit my cousins. When I came home I crossed the Mississippi and Missouri rivers for the fourteenth time. In two weeks papa and mamma and I started for Denver. We left Lincoln at noon, and the next morning I saw the mountains for the first time. How strange to see snow in July! We spent a few days in Denver, and then such a wild ride as we had through the mountains to Georgetown, where I can't tell you half of the fun I had. I fed the fish, and had a lovely row on Green Lake. I went one-third of a mile into the Colorado Mine in a little car, then down a shaft 250 feet, in a bucket with a miner, to see the men at work; but I did not buy a mine like the other little "tenderfoot" I read about in Harper's. But it was the most fun to ride on a burro. There were ten children and seven burros, and we had a fine ride on the mountain, and then had our pictures taken. The cutest picture was a burro with four children on his back.
We went to Central over a queer railroad that runs almost up to the town at the foot of the mountain, then makes a loop and runs back a mile on the side of the mountain over the tops of the houses, then turns again and runs into the town—oh, ever so high up! And we went to the Bobtail Mine, and into the mill where they crush the ore and wash the gold out of it. It was very interesting. I had a nice play with a little new friend, Ethel S., whose papa owns lots of mines.
And now I must tell you about our going up Pike's Peak. We left Manitou at seven in the morning on horses, and such a wild, beautiful ride I never had before. We had to go on a narrow path just wide enough for a horse to go, very carefully winding around the mountain-side, and we could hardly ever see to the top, and not to the bottom, it was so far down. The bright little creek that came splashing down through the rocks made the sweetest music that mamma ever heard. The flowers, too, were very bright. When we were near the top, papa let me pass him, and I was the first to get there. Then we had coffee made from the snow-bank near the house. But the going down! So tired we were, we were fit to fall.
And now I am too tired to tell you about the Garden of the Gods, the Cave of the Winds, and the Denver Exposition. I am eight years old.
Joy W.
P. S.—It is twelve miles to the top of Pike's Peak.
I really felt, little Joy, as I read your letter, that some time or other I too must climb those great mountains, and venture into those mines, and maybe even ride on a burro, as, you did. But very likely the burro would not care about carrying even a lady like me, unless, perhaps, I could find the little fellow that had four on his back at once. And what would become of the Post-office Box while I was climbing the steep mountains? For the present I suppose I must be content to view the snow-clad peaks through your bright eyes. Thanks, dear child, for the lovely pressed flowers so prettily arranged.