Nelly's Silver Mine Part 22

After dinner, Zeb invited the whole family out to see his new water-works. They all looked on with interest and pleasure. Mr.

March had often looked at the old mill and wished he had money enough to put it in order.

"Well done, Zeb!" he said. "You've turned the old thing to some account, haven't you? That's a capital idea; we'll grind knives and axes now for anybody who comes along."

"Zeb," said Mrs. March, "can't you make it churn the b.u.t.ter for you?"

Zeb was struck by the idea.

"Lor, ma'am," he said; "I never heard o' such a thing! but I don't know why not. I'll try it, sure's my name's--" he stopped short, and gasped out "Zebulon Craig."

No one observed his agitation. They were all too busy watching the grindstone and water-wheel. The next day and the next, Zeb was seen steadily at work in the saw-mill. He would not let the children stay with him.

"Run away! run away!" he said. "I've got a job o' thinkin' to do: can't think with you youngsters a lookin' on."

Rob and Nelly were almost beside themselves with curiosity.

"Zeb's making a churn to go by water like the grindstone: I know he is," said Rob. "It's real mean for him not to let us see."

"But, Rob," said the wise Nelly, "he says he can't think if we're round. He'll show it to us's soon's it's done."

"I don't care," said Rob; "I want to see how he does it;" and Rob hovered round the mill perpetually, much to Zeb's vexation.

Late in the second afternoon, Zeb called out:--

"Rob, go fetch me the churn, will you?"

Rob was only too happy to be admitted into the partnership on any terms. The churn was quite heavy, but he rolled it and tugged it to the shed-door. Zeb lifted it over the threshold: and then Rob saw that there was a long slender beam fastened to the water-wheel, and reaching half way across the wall of the shed; an upright beam was fastened to this, a hole was cut in the shed wall, and another beam run through this hole, and fastened to the upright beam on the other side. When the water-wheel turned round and round, it made this upright beam go up and down. Zeb took the dasher of the churn and fastened it to this beam: up and down, up and down it went, faster than anybody could churn.

"Tain't quite long enough," said Zeb. "We'll have to stand the churn on something." Then he ran back to the house and asked Mrs. Plummer for some cream. She gave him about three gallons; he put it into the churn, raised the churn a little higher, and set the machinery in motion. In about ten minutes he looked in.

"It's comin'! it's comin'!" he cried. "Run, call all the folks, Rob."

Rob ran, and in a few minutes the whole family were looking on at this new mode of churning. It worked beautifully; in fifteen minutes more the b.u.t.ter was made.

"There!" said Zeb, as he drew up the dasher with great solid lumps of b.u.t.ter sticking to it. "If that ain't the easiest churned three gallons o' cream ever I see!"

"Yes, indeed, Zeb," said Mrs. March, "it is. We sha'n't dread churning-day any more."

Mr. March examined the machinery curiously. "Zeb," he said, "if we had two good iron wheels we could make shingles here, couldn't we? I believe it would pay to rig the old place up again."

"Yes, sir," said Zeb. "There's nothin' ye can't make with such a stream o' water's that if ye've got the machinery to put it to. It's only the machinery that's wantin'. We've got water power enough here to run a factory."

You would not have thought so to look at it; the water did not come right out of the brook; it came through a wooden pipe, high up on wooden posts. It was taken out of the brook a mile or two farther up the Pa.s.s, where the ground was a great deal higher than it was here at the mill. So it came running all the way down through this pipe, high up above the brook, and when it was let out it fell with great force. The pipe was quite old now, and it leaked in many places; in one place there was such a big leak it made a little waterfall; this water dripping and falling into the brook beneath made it sound like a shower, and all the bushes and green things along the edges of the brook were dripping wet all the time. There was a big pile of the old sawdust on the edge of the brook; this was of a bright yellow color: the old saw-mill had fallen so into decay that three sides of it were open, and it looked hardly safe to go into it. You had to step carefully from one beam to another: there was not much of the floor left. But it was a lovely, cool, shady place, and almost every day some of the teamsters who were driving heavy teams through the Pa.s.s would stop here to take their lunch at noon: often Rob and Nelly would go out and talk with them, and carry them milk to drink.

Zeb kept out of sight at such times. He was always in fear of being seen by somebody who had known him in the northern country.

As the summer came on, all sorts of beautiful flowers appeared along the edges of the brook, in the open clearings, and even in the crevices of the rocks. Nelly gathered great bunches of them every morning. She loved flowers almost as well as she loved mountains.

She used to go out late in the afternoon and gather a huge basketful of all the kinds she could find,--red and white, and yellow and blue,--then she would set the basket in the brook and let the water run through it all night, keeping the stems of the flowers very wet.

In the morning they would look as fresh as if she had just picked them. Remember this, all of you little children who love flowers and like to pick them. If you pick them in the morning, they will wither and never revive perfectly, no matter how much water you put them in. Pick them at sundown, and leave them in a great tub full of water out of doors all night, and in the morning you can arrange them in bouquets, and they will keep twice as long as they would if you had not left them out of doors all night. Nelly used to sit on the ground in the open s.p.a.ce west of the saw-mill and arrange her bouquets; sometimes she would tie up as many as eight or ten in one morning, and sometimes travellers driving past would call to her and ask her to sell them: but Nelly would not sell them; she always gave them away to anybody who loved flowers. Rob thought she was very foolish. "Nell, why didn't you take the money?" he would say. "It's just the same to sell flowers as milk: isn't it?"

"No," said Nelly, "I don't think it is. The flowers are not ours."

"Whose are they?" exclaimed Rob.

"G.o.d's," said Nelly, soberly. Rob could not appreciate Nelly's feeling.

"Well, what makes you steal 'em, then?" he asked, in a satirical tone.

"G.o.d likes to have us pick them: I know he does," said Nelly, earnestly. "He gives them all to us for every summer as long as we live."

"Oh, pshaw, Nell!" said Rob. "He don't do any such thing. They just grow: that's all."

"Well, papa says that G.o.d makes them grow on purpose for us to see how pretty they are. They aren't of any other use: they aren't the same as potatoes. And don't you know the little verse,--

"'G.o.d might have made the earth bring forth Enough for great and small; The oak tree and the cedar tree, Without a flower at all.'

"I'm always thinking of that. 'Twould be horrid here if we didn't have any thing but things to eat."

CHAPTER VII

A HUNT FOR A SILVER MINE

One morning, early in June, Nelly was sitting out by the old mill, with her lap full of blue anemones and white daisies: the anemones were hardly out of their gray cloaks. The anemones in Colorado come up out of the ground like crocuses; the buds are rolled up tight in the loveliest little furry coverings almost like chinchilla fur. I think this is to keep them warm, because they come very early in the spring, and often there are cold storms after they arrive, and the poor little anemones are all covered up in snow.

Nelly heard steps and voices and the trampling of hoofs. She sprang up, and saw that a large blue wagon, drawn by eight mules, had just turned in from the road, towards the brook, and the driver was making ready to camp. He came towards Nelly, and said, very pleasantly:--

"Little girl, do your folks live in yonder?" pointing to the house.

"Yes, sir," said Nelly.

"Do they ever keep folks?"

"What, sir?" said Nelly.

"Do they ever keep folks,--keep 'em to board?"

"Oh, no! never," replied Nelly.

The man looked disappointed. "Well," he said, "I've got to lie by here a day or two, anyhow. I was in hopes I could get took in. I'm clean beat out; but I can sleep in the wagon."

"My mamma will be glad to do all she can for you if you're sick, I'm sure," said Nelly; "but we haven't any spare room in our house."

The driver looked at Nelly again. He had once been a coachman in a gentleman's family at the East, and he knew by Nelly's voice and polite manner that she was not the child of any of the common farmers of the country.

"Have you lived here long?" he said.