Nelly's Silver Mine Part 42

"Sh! sh! make not noise," whispered Ulrica. "She haf sleep. She haf tire in the sun."

"We got up before four o'clock," whispered Rob: "but I ain't sleepy a mite."

"Dat iss, that you are man and not girl," said Ulrica; which pleased Rob immensely.

After Ulrica had laid Nelly on the bed, she went to the big chest in the corner, and took out a fine red woollen blanket, with bright blue figures in the corners. This she spread over Nelly; and then she stood looking at her for some minutes. Nelly's face, when she was asleep, looked much older than it really was. Her eyes were large, and her mouth was large, and her cheek-bones were high.

"Mine child! mine child!" muttered Ulrica, under her breath, and brushed the tears out of her eyes with the back of her hard hand, as she went back to her work.

When Nelly waked up, dinner was all ready; and Jan and Ulrica were discussing whether they should wake Nelly or not.

"Oh!" exclaimed Nelly, sitting up and rubbing her eyes, "how came I here? Where's Rob?"

Ulrica sprang to her, and took her little hand in hers.

"Mine child, you haf sleep in chair. I bring you in mine arms here.

Haf you rest? Come eat." And she picked her up again, and ran laughing back and forth two or three times across the room with her in her arms.

"She is like baby in arms: she is so light," said Ulrica to Jan in Swedish. "She has too much work."

"No, no," said Jan: "she is all right. She is at the age to be thin." But Ulrica shook her head.

How good that dinner was, and how nice it looked! There was no cloth on the table; but the wood was white as pine wood could be. On one end stood Nelly's pyramid of bright flowers; and, on the other, the great platter of stewed chicken, with the red cranberries floating in the white gravy. Then there was a big plate of rye cakes, baked in the ashes; and two pitchers of milk, one of cow's and one of goat's. Jan always bowed his head down and said a short blessing in Swedish, before they began to eat; and Nelly and Rob liked this, because, as Nelly said:--

"It makes you feel as if Jan were just as good as papa: doesn't it, Rob?"

And Rob said, "Yes;" but in a minute afterward he added: "Don't you suppose any bad men say grace, Nell?"

"No," said Nelly; "not real grace, real earnest, like papa and Jan.

Perhaps they make believe say grace."

After dinner, Nelly showed Ulrica and Jan her little card on which Mr. Kleesman had written her name in Malay. As she took it out of her pocket, the black stone fell out and rolled away on the floor.

She sprang to catch it.

"What's that?" said Rob.

"A piece of black stone," replied Nell.

"What's it for?" said Rob.

"Oh, I just wanted it," said Nelly.

"But what did you want it for, Nell?" persisted Rob.

CHAPTER XII

NELLY'S SILVER MINE

Nelly would not give any reason, but put the stone carefully back in her pocket. She was determined not to tell Rob any thing about it, unless she found the stones; and the more she racked her brains the more confused she became as to where it was she had seen them. All the way home she was in a brown study, trying to think where it could have been. She was in such a brown study that she was walking straight past Lucinda's door without seeing her, when Lucinda called her name aloud.

"Why, Nelly," she said, "ain't you going to stop long enough to speak?"

"She hasn't spoken a word all the way," said Rob, discontentedly. "I can't get any thing out of her. She's real cross."

"Oh, Rob! Rob! how can you!" cried Nelly: "I wasn't cross a bit."

"Then you're sulky," retorted Rob; "and mamma says that's worse."

"Tut, tut," said Lucinda: "Nelly doesn't look either sulky or cross.

I guess you're mistaken, Rob."

Nelly felt a little conscience-stricken. She knew she had been thinking hard, all the last hour, about the black stones.

"Never mind, Rob!" she said: "I'll talk now." And she began to tell Lucinda all about the pictures they had seen at Mr. Kleesman's.

"Oh, yes!" said Lucinda: "I know all about those. My little sister's got one of them: Mr. Kleesman gave it to her. He's real fond of little girls. It's a picture he made of the black nurse he had for his little boy. She's got the baby in her arms."

"Why, has Mr. Kleesman got any children?" exclaimed Nelly, very much surprised.

"Oh, yes!" said Lucinda: "he's got a wife and two children over in Germany. That's what makes him so blue sometimes. His wife hates America, and won't come here."

"Then I should think he'd stay there," said Nelly.

"So should I," said Lucinda; "but they say it's awful hard to make a living over there; and he's a layin' up money here. He'll go back one of these days."

"Oh! I wish he'd take me with him," said Rob.

"Rob March! would you go away and leave papa and mamma and me?" said Nelly.

Rob hung his head. The longing of a born traveller was in his eyes.

"I should come back, Nell," he said. "I shouldn't stay: only just to see the places."

"Well," said Nelly, slowly, "I wouldn't go away from all of you, not to see the most beautiful things in all the world; not even to see the city of Constantinople."

Rob did not answer. He was afraid that there must be something wrong about him, to be so willing to do what seemed to Nelly such a dreadful thing. To see Constantinople, and hear the muezzins call out the hours for prayers from the mosques, Rob would have set off that very minute and walked all the way.

After Nelly went to bed that night, she lay awake a long time, still thinking about the black stones. She had put the little piece of stone on the bureau, and while she was undressing she hardly took her eyes off it. She recollected just how the place looked where she saw them. It was in a ravine: there were piles of stones in the bottom of the ravine, and a good many scattered all along the sides.

There were pine trees and bushes too: it was quite a shady place.

"I should know it in a minute, if I saw it again," said Nelly to herself; "but where, oh! where was it!"

At last, all in one second, it flashed into her mind. It was one day when she had started for Rosita later than usual, and had thought she would take a short cut across the hills; but she had found it any thing but a short cut. As soon as she had climbed one hill she found another rising directly before her, and, between the two, a great ravine, down to the very bottom of which she must go before she could climb the other hill. She had crossed several of these ravines,--she did not remember how many,--and had come out at last on the top of the highest of all the hills above the town: a hill so steep that she had always wondered how the cows could keep on their feet when they were grazing high up on it. It was in one of these ravines that she had seen the black stones; but in which one she could not be sure. Neither could she recollect exactly where she had left the road and struck out to cross the hills.