Nelly's Silver Mine Part 57

Ven you come back?"

"Early next summer," replied Nelly. "Mr. Cook always comes to Colorado in June."

Ulrica ran to the big oak-chest, and opening it took out the blue skirt and red bodice she had been making for Nelly.

"See! it are not done: that goot-for-not'ing Sachs he promise, promise, all de time promise to make b.u.t.tons."

"What is it, Ulrica?" asked Nelly.

"Oh, you not know? It are gown,--Swede gown for you: like mine child." And she ran for the picture-book of costumes, and pointed to one like it.

Nelly was much pleased.

"Oh! how good of you, Ulrica!" she said. "Mrs. Cook would love to see me put that dress on, I am sure. I will wear it sometimes in the house, when I am in New York, to remind me of you."

"I get b.u.t.tons to-day!" said Ulrica, fiercely. "I stay by dat Sachs till he cut dem. It are not work: he do it in five minnit. You come again to-night: it are done."

Mrs. Clapp and Mr. Kleesman were both very much pleased to hear that Nelly was going away with Mr. and Mrs. Cook. Mrs. Clapp kissed her, and said:--

"Good-by, dear! You are a brave little girl, and deserve to have a nice, long play-spell; and I am glad you are going to have one. Wait a minute, and I will give you something to wear on your journey."

Then she ran upstairs, and brought down a nice leather belt with a pretty little leather bag hanging from it, just big enough to hold a purse. "There, that is to keep your purse in, and your railroad ticket," she said, and fastened it around Nelly's waist.

Mr. Kleesman also kissed Nelly, and said he was glad she was going.

"You haf earn that you haf playtime," he said. "You haf vork all summer like von voman more as von little girl."

"I wonder why they all say such things to me," thought Nelly. "I am sure I don't know what I have done. If they mean selling the eggs, that was only fun."

"Do you mean selling the eggs, sir?" asked honest Nelly. "That was not work: it was just fun. Rob and I never had such a good time before. We would have liked to come every day."

Mr. Kleesman nodded.

"I know! I know!" he said. "You are not like American childs." Then he asked:--

"And vat do become of the Goot Luck mine? I not hear not'ing since."

"Oh!" said Nelly, "we have almost forgotten about the old mine. It wasn't 'good luck:' was it? But Mr. Scholfield keeps on working at it now. He will not give up that it is not good for any thing."

"I say not, it are wort not'ing," replied Mr. Kleesman: "I say it not pay to work it. It cost too much for so little silver as come out."

"Yes, sir; papa understood that," said Nelly; "and he was very much obliged to you indeed; and so we all were."

Then Mr. Kleesman said:--

"Come in! come in! Can you to vait von little? I make for you silver rose, that you carry viz you."

"Oh, thank you!" said Nelly; and followed him in, wondering much what he meant by a silver rose.

Then he took out of the gla.s.s box, where the bra.s.s scales were, a little saucer, full of tiny silver beads like pin-heads. These he folded up in a bit of paper, shaped like a little c.o.c.ked hat. This he put into one of the little clay cups, and set it in the glowing red-hot oven. Pretty soon Nelly looked in. The silver was boiling and bubbling in the little cup; the bubbles looked like shining silver eyes on the red; then there came beautiful rainbow colors all over it.

"See you it haf colors like rainbow?" said Mr. Kleesman: "ven dey come it are almost done."

In a second more he took out the cup: set it on the iron anvil: there was a fiery line of red around the silver b.u.t.ton: the b.u.t.ton was about the size of a three-cent piece.

"Vatch! vatch!" cried Mr. Kleesman: "in one second it burst."

Sure enough, in one second the round b.u.t.ton burst in the middle, and the hot silver gushed up like a little fairy fountain of water, not more than quarter of an inch high: in the same instant it fell, cooled, and there was a sort of flower, not unlike a rose, of frosted silver.

"Dere! ven you are in New York, you can take dis to jeweller, and he put pin on it; and you shall vear it, and tell to all peoples you haf seen it ven it vas made by old man in de Colorado mountains."

Nelly took the pretty thing in her hands and looked at it with delight. She had never had any thing so pretty, she thought; and she thanked Mr. Kleesman again and again, as she bade him good-by.

"Oh, I see you again: I see you ven you go in stage. I not say good-by to-day," he said, and looked after her lovingly as she ran down the steps.

Ulrica had a stormy time of it with Sachs, the tin-man, before she could get him to cut out the make-believe b.u.t.tons for Nelly's gown.

He was at work on a big boiler, and he did not want to stop.

Ulrica's broken English grew so much more broken when she was angry, that hardly any one could understand her; and William Sachs, who was a German, knew English very little better than Ulrica: so between them they made sad work of it.

"I stamp my foot at him," said Ulrica, telling Nelly the tale: "I stamp at him my foot, and I take out of his hand his big hammer vat he pound, pound viz all time dat I am speak, so dat he not hear my speak. I take out his hand, and I frow down on floor; and I say, 'I not stir till you my b.u.t.tons haf cut for mine child;' and ven he see I not stir, he take tools and he cut, cut, cut, and all the time he swear at me; he call me 'tam Swede woman;' but I not care. And here are gown: now you come in and put on."

So Nelly went in, and Ulrica helped her to undress. When she saw Nelly's white neck, she stooped down and kissed her, and said.--

"Mine child haf white skin: like your skin."

The red bodice fitted Nelly very well; and she looked lovely in it.

It had a low collar, all covered with the shining tin b.u.t.tons; and in the front there was a square s.p.a.ce of white muslin, and the tin b.u.t.tons were sewed on all round this. The blue petticoat was too long: it lay on the ground two inches or more. Ulrica looked at it dismayed.

"Ach!" she said: "ach! you haf not so tall I tink. I make him now in von little more as short." And down on the floor she sat, and hemmed up the skirt in a wonderfully quick time.

"Ach! if you vait till Jan see you in dis," she said, looking imploringly at Nelly, with tears running down her face. "You are mine child, mine child!"

But Nelly knew that Jan would not be at home till six o'clock, and she could not stay so long. So she took off the pretty costume, and kissed Ulrica, and thanked her many times over; and set off for home with all her presents safe-packed in her basket.

When Rob saw the presents, he said:--

"Oh, my! I wonder if they'd all have given me things too, if I'd gone up. Did they say any thing about me?"

"They asked why you didn't come," replied Nelly; "and I told them you meant to bid them good-by to-morrow, when we started on the journey."

"All right!" said Rob: "if they've got any thing for me they can give it to me then."

"I never thought of their giving me any thing," said Nelly: "I wonder what made them."

"Because they all know that you love them, Nelly," said her father: "don't you?"

"Yes, I think so," said Nelly, hesitatingly: "almost love them,--not quite, I guess: except Ulrica. I love her dearly."

"And Lucinda and Billy," added Rob. "I love them best of all. I don't love any of the rest. You can't love everybody."