Nelly's Silver Mine Part 38

When Nelly set off on her next trip to Rosita, she felt a little sad and a little afraid. It had been decided that it would not be best for Rob to go at present, even if he had wished to; that it would be better to wait until the boys had forgotten the fight about the yokes before he was seen in town again. Rob walked with Nelly as far as Billy's cabin. Here they waited awhile for Nelly to rest, and to make sure that she did not get into town till nine o'clock, after the boys were all safe inside the school-house. In the bottom of her heart, Nelly was really afraid of seeing them again. She would not own, even to herself, that she felt fear; but she could not help wondering all the time what the boys would do,--if they would say any thing when they saw her walking along all alone, and without her yoke on her shoulders. Rob was to spend the day with Lucinda, and be ready to walk home with her in the afternoon. He too felt very uncomfortable about being left behind; and there were two sad little faces which looked wistfully into each other, as the good-bys were being said.

"I'll come part way and meet you," said Rob. "It's too mean!"

"No, don't!" said Nelly: "the sun will be so hot; and perhaps I sha'n't come till late. Good-by!"

Nelly wore on her head a man's hat, with a brim so broad you could hardly see her face at all. She had had to wear this ever since the summer weather began: the sun is so hot in Colorado that no one can bear it on his head or face in the summer. On Nelly's arm swung her neat white sun-bonnet, tied by its strings, and pinned up in paper.

When she reached the last hill before entering the town, she always took off her hat, and hid it in a hollow place she had found in the root of a great pine-tree; then she wore her sun-bonnet into town, and people sometimes said to her:--

"Why, Nelly, how do you keep your sun-bonnet so clean, after this long, dusty walk?"

But Nelly never told her secret. She was afraid some boy might hear it, and go and find the hiding-place of her hat.

There wasn't a boy to be seen when Nelly entered the town this morning. How relieved her heart was you can imagine. She just drew a long breath, and said to herself, "Oh! but I'm thankful. Poor Rob!

he might as well have come as not."

Then she ran on to Ulrica's house. Ulrica was very busy ironing some fine white clothes for a young lady who was visiting in Rosita: Ulrica was the only nice washerwoman in the town. Nelly stood by the ironing-board, watching Ulrica flute the pretty lace ruffles.

Presently she sighed, and said:--

"Mamma has ever so many pretty things like these put away in a trunk. I used to wear such ruffles on my ap.r.o.ns and in my neck every day at home. But mamma does all our washing now, and it is too much trouble to iron them. So we don't wear them any more."

"Ah, the dear child!" exclaimed Ulrica. "Bring to Ulrica: she will them do; it are not trouble; look how quick can fly the scissors."

And in five minutes she had fluted the whole of one neck-ruffle.

"Oh! would you really, Ulrica?" said Nelly. "We could pay you in eggs."

"Pay! pay!" said Ulrica, angrily: "who did say to be paid? No pay!

no pay! Ulrica will do for you: not'ing pay. You are mine child."

"I'm afraid mamma would not like to have you do them without pay,"

said Nelly. "She would not think it was right to take your time."

"It is not'ing; it is not time: bring them to Ulrica," was all Ulrica would say. And Nelly ran on, resolving to ask her mother, that very night, for some of the old ruffles she used to wear in the necks of her gowns. After she had left the b.u.t.ter and eggs for Mrs.

Clapp, and had sold the rest of her eggs at another house near by, she walked slowly down the hill past the hotel. Just below the hotel was a little one-story wooden building, which had a sign up over the door--

"WILHELM KLEESMAN, "a.s.sAYER."

While the Marches were staying at the hotel, Nelly had often seen old Mr. Kleesman sitting on the steps of his little house, and smoking a big brown pipe. The bowl of the pipe had carved on it a man's head, with a long, flowing beard. Mr. Kleesman himself had a long, flowing beard, as white as snow, and his face did not look unlike the face on the pipe; and the first time Rob saw him smoking, he had run to call Nelly, saying:--

"Come here, Nell! come quick! There's a man out there smoking, with his own portrait on his pipe."

Mr. March had explained to Nelly and Rob that "a.s.sayer" meant a man who could take a stone and find out whether there were really any silver and gold in it or not. This seemed very wonderful to the children; and, as they looked at the old gentleman sitting on his door-step every evening, smoking, they thought he looked like a magician, or like Aladdin who had the wonderful lamp. Rob said he meant to go and show him some of his stones, and see if there were not silver in some of them; but his father told him that it took a great deal of time and trouble to find out whether a stone had silver in it or not, and that everybody who had it done had to pay Mr. Kleesman three dollars for doing it.

"Whew!" said Rob: "supposing there shouldn't be any silver at all in their stone, what then?"

"They have to pay three dollars all the same," said his father; "and it is much cheaper to find out that way, than it is to go on digging and digging, and spending time and money getting stones out of the earth which are not good for any thing."

After that, Rob and Nelly used to watch the faces of all the men they saw coming out of Mr. Kleesman's office, and try to guess whether their stones had turned out good or not. If the man looked sad and disappointed, Nelly would say:--

"Oh, see that poor man: his hasn't turned out good, I know."

And, whenever some one came out with a quick step and a smiling face, Rob would say:--

"Look! look! Nell. That man's got silver. He's got it: I know he has."

As Nelly walked by Mr. Kleesman's house this morning, she saw lying on the ground a queer little round cup. It was about half as big as a small, old-fashioned teacup; it was made of a rough sort of clay, like that which flower-pots are made of; the outside was white, and the inside was all smooth and shining, and of a most beautiful green color.

"Oh, what a pretty little cup!" thought Nelly, picking it up, and looking at it closely. "I wonder how it came here! Somebody must have lost it; some little girl, I guess. How sorry she will be!"

At that minute, old Mr. Kleesman came to his door. When he saw Nelly looking at the cup, he called out to her:--

"Vould you like more as dat? I haf plenty; dey iss goot for little girls."

Mr. Kleesman was a German, and spoke very broken English.

Nelly looked up at him, and said:--

"Thank you, sir. I should like some more very much. They are cunning little cups. I thought somebody had lost this one."

Mr. Kleesman laughed, and stroked his long, white beard with his hand.

"Ach! I throw dem away each day. Little girls come often to mine room for dem: I have vary goot customers in little girls. Come in!

come in! you shall have so many that you want." And he led Nelly into a small back room, where, in a corner on the floor, was a great pile of these little cups: some broken ones; some, like the one Nelly had, green on the inside; some brown, some yellow, some dark-red. Nelly was delighted. She knelt down on the floor, and began to look over the pile.

"May I really have all I want?" she said. "Are they not of any use?"

"Only to little girls," said Mr. Kleesman: "sometimes to a boy; but not often a boy; mostly it is for little girls; they are my goot customers."

Nelly picked out six. She did not like to take more, though she would have liked the whole pile. Mr. Kleesman stood watching her.

"Vy not you take more as dem?" he said.

"I am afraid there will not be enough for the other little girls,"

replied Nelly.

Mr. Kleesman laughed and shook till his white beard went up and down.

"Look you here," he said, and pointed behind the door. There was another pile, twice as big as the one which Nelly was examining.

"Oh, my!" said Nelly: "what a lot! I'll take a few more, I guess."

"I gif you myself. You haf too modest," said the old gentleman. And he picked up two big handfuls of the cups, and threw them into Nelly's basket. Then he sprang to a big brick stove which there was in the room, and opened its iron door and looked in. A fiery heat filled the room, as he opened the door.

"Oh!" said Nelly, "I wondered what made it so hot in here. Why do you have a fire in such hot weather?" she said.

"To make mine a.s.says," replied Mr. Kleesman. "I haf made three to-day already. I shall make three more. I haf big fire all day. You can look in if you like. Do you like?"

"Very much," said Nelly. Mr. Kleesman lifted her up on a block of wood, so that her face came directly opposite the door into the furnace. Then he gave her a piece of wood shaped like a shovel, with two round holes in it. He told her to hold this up in front of her face, so to keep off the heat, and then to look through the two holes into the furnace. Nelly did so; and, as soon as she looked into the fiery furnace, she gave a little scream. The fire was one ma.s.s of glowing red coals. In the centre, on a stand, stood three little cups, the same size as those she had. In these cups was something which was red hot, and bubbling in little bubbles.