"H'm!" said the Deacon, as he watched them. "If this is the result of your fine winter grazin', I don't want any thing to do with it.

It's just slow starvation to my way o' thinking. Look at them udders! There ain't a quart apiece in 'em. Our milkin' 'll be soon over, Parson."

"The sooner the better for me, Deacon," laughed Mr. March. "I never did like to milk."

"Oh! let me milk! let me milk, papa! please do!" cried Rob, who had returned from his ten minutes' run on the road, as dry as ever.

"And me, too! me too!" said Nelly, who was close behind.

"Not to-night, children. It is late, and we are in a hurry," said Mr. March. Just as he spoke, the sun sank behind the hill. Almost instantly, a chill fell on the air.

"Bless me," said Mr. March, "here we have winter again. Run in, children; it is growing too cold for you to be out. What a climate this is, to be sure! one can't keep up with it."

While Deacon Plummer and Mr. March were milking, they talked over their prospects. They were forced to acknowledge that there was small chance of making a living on this farm.

"We're took in: that's all there is on't," said the Deacon, cheerily; "but I reckon we can grub along for six months; we can live that long even if we don't make a cent; and now we're here, we can look about for ourselves, and see what we're gettin' before we make another move."

"Yes," said Mr. March. "That's the only way to do. I confess I am disappointed. Mr. Garland seemed such a fair man."

The Deacon laughed. "Ye don't know human nature, Parson, the way we men do that's knockin' round all the time among folks. Ye see folks always comes to you when they're in trouble, or else when they're joyful,--bein' married, or a baptizin' their babies,--or somethin'

o' ruther that's out o' the common line; so you don't never see 'em jest exactly's they are. Now I kinder mistrusted that Garland from the fust. He was too anxious to sell, to suit me. When a man's got a first-rate berth, he ain't generally so ready to quit."

When the milkers went in with their pails of milk, they found a blazing fire on the hearth, and supper set out on a red pine table without any table-cloth. Mrs. March had made Graham biscuit and white biscuit, and had baked some apples which she had left in her lunch-basket. When she saw the milk, she exclaimed:--

"Now, if this isn't a supper fit for a king!--bread and milk and baked apples!"

"Ain't there any b.u.t.ter?" called out Rob.

"Yes, there is some b.u.t.ter; but I doubt if you will eat it," said Mrs. March. "Zeb is going to buy some better b.u.t.ter at Manitou."

Rob put some of the b.u.t.ter on his bread, and put a mouthful of the bread in his mouth. In less than a second, he had clapped his hand over his mouth with an expression of horror.

"Oh, what'll I do, mamma? it's worse than medicine!" he cried; and swallowed the whole mouthful at one gulp. "That can't be b.u.t.ter, mamma," he said. "You've made a mistake. It'll poison us: it's something else."

"Little you know about bad b.u.t.ter, don't you, Rob?" said Deacon Plummer, calmly b.u.t.tering his biscuit, and eating it. "I've eaten much worse b.u.t.ter than this."

Rob's eyes grew big. "What'd you eat it for?" he said, earnestly.

"Sure enough," said Mrs. Plummer. "That's what I've always said about b.u.t.ter. If there's any thing else set before folks that's bad, why they just leave it alone. There isn't any need ever of eating what you don't like. But when it comes to b.u.t.ter, folks seem to think they've got to eat it, good, bad, or indifferent."

"That's so," said the Deacon; "and if I've heard you say so once, Elizy, I've heard you say it a thousand times; I don't know how 'tis, but it does seem as if you had to have somethin' in shape o'

b.u.t.ter, if it's ever so bad, to make a meal go down."

"I don't see how bad b.u.t.ter helps to make a meal go down," said Rob.

"It like to have made mine come up just now."

"Rob, Rob!" said his mother, reprovingly; "you forget that we are at supper."

"Excuse me, mamma," said Rob, penitently; "but it was true."

CHAPTER VI

LIFE AT GARLAND'S

This was the first night of the Marches and Plummers in their strange new home in Colorado. When they waked up the next morning, Mr. March and Deacon Plummer rolled up in buffalo robes on the hay in the barn, Mrs. March and Nelly in one bed in one little bedroom, Mrs. Plummer in another opening out of it, and Rob on an old black leather sofa in the kitchen, they could hardly believe their eyes as they looked around them. They all got up very early, and now their new life had begun in good earnest. Immediately after breakfast, Mr.

March drove away in the big wagon with Fox and Pumpkinseed. He would not tell his wife where he was going, nor take any one with him. The truth was, that in the night Mr. March had taken two resolutions: one was that he would get a servant for Mrs. March; the other was that he would buy furniture enough to make the house pleasant and comfortable, and china enough to make their table look a little like their old home table. But he knew if he told Mrs. March what he meant to do, she would think they ought not to spend the money. All their own pretty china which they had used at home, she had packed up and left behind them, saying: "We shall not want any thing of that kind in Colorado." Mrs. March did not care about such things half so much as Mr. March and Nelly did; that is, she could do without them more easily. She liked pretty things very much, but she could do without them very well if it were necessary. She watched Mr. March driving off down the road this morning with an uneasy feeling.

"I don't know what Mr. March's got in his head," she said to Mrs.

Plummer; "but I think he is going to do something rash. He looks as children do when they are in some secret mischief."

"Why, what could it be?" said good Mrs. Plummer. "I don't see what there is for him to do."

"Well, we shall see," said Mrs. March. "I wish I'd made him take me along."

"Made him!" exclaimed Mrs. Plummer. "Can you make him do any thing he's sot not to? I hain't never been able to do that with Mr.

Plummer, not once in all the thirty years I've lived with him. It's always seemed to me that men was the obstinatest critters made, even the best on 'em; an' I'm sure Mr. Plummer's as good a man's ever was born; but I don't no more think o' movin' him if his mind's made up, than I should think o' movin' that rock up there," pointing to a huge rock which was at the top of one of the hills to the southwest of the house.

The day flew by quickly in putting their new home in order. Both Mrs. March and Mrs. Plummer worked very hard, and Rob and Nelly helped them. They swept and washed floors; they washed windows; they washed even the chairs and tables,--which sadly needed it, it must be owned. Rob and Nelly enjoyed it all as a frolic.

"This is like last Christmas, when Sarah was drunk: isn't it, mamma?" said Rob. "It's real fun."

"Don't you wish Sarah was here to help you, mamma?" said Nelly.

"No, dear," replied Mrs. March, "I do not. I would rather do all the work ourselves, and save the money."

"Are we very, very, very poor, mamma?" said Nelly, with a distressed face.

"Oh, no, dear! not so bad as that," laughed Mrs. March; "but papa's salary has all stopped now, as I explained to you; and that was the greater part of our income: and, till we have more money coming in regularly from something out here, we must spend just as little as possible."

Just before dinner, Rob came in with a big armful of kindling-wood, and on the top of the wood he carried a long piece of a beautiful green vine.

"Oh, Rob, Rob, let me see that! Where did you find it?" said his mother.

"Upon the hills, mamma, back of the saw-mill. There's oceans of it up there."

"There _is_ oceans, Rob?" said his mother.

"There _are_ oceans, then! You knew what I meant. It's just like a carpet; and you can pull up great, long pieces of it: it comes up just as easy as any thing."

Mrs. March turned the vine over and over in her hands. It had a small glossy leaf, like the leaf of the box. Some of the long, slender tendrils of it were bright red.

"The leaf is so thick I think it would keep a long time," said Mrs.

March. "I wish you and Nelly would bring me several armfuls of it.

I'll tack it up all round the room: the walls won't look so bare, then."