"Well, I reckoned you liked your house so well you weren't coming back to us at all," said the landlord, as they drove up.

"Oh, no, sir," cried Rob, "that wasn't it. I fell into the mud by the creek: I always fall into the water each new place we go to. I did it the first thing up in the Pa.s.s."

The landlord looked closely at him. "What! you been into the creek in them clothes?"

"Billy washed them," said Nelly; "they were all black as mud."

"Oh!" said the landlord. "Well, there ain't any thing under Heaven that Long Billy can't do: that's certain."

Mr. and Mrs. March thought so too, when one week later they drove down to take possession of their home. Billy had pleaded so earnestly to be allowed to do all the work himself that Mr. March had consented; and had even promised him that they would not come near the house until he invited them. Then Billy set to work in good earnest, and Miss Lucinda Harkiss set to work with him. This was the young woman to whom Billy was engaged. She was coming to be Mrs.

March's servant. A very good time Lucinda and Billy had all that week. It was almost like going to housekeeping together for themselves. The first day Lucinda swept and scrubbed the floors, and washed the windows till they shone; then Billy stained all the floors dark brown, and painted the window-sashes and the door-frames brown; and this brown color was so pretty with the yellow of the pine, that it made the rough boarded rooms look almost handsome.

While the paint was drying, Lucinda and Billy drove over to Pine's ranch at the foot of one of the Sangre di Christo mountains. They knew old Mr. Pine very well; and he was very glad to have them make him a visit. All one day Billy worked hard digging up young pine-trees, and Lucinda gathered a great quant.i.ty of kinnikinnick vines. Billy had told her how Mrs. March had had them nailed up on the walls in the other house. The next day they drove home early in the morning, and in the afternoon Billy set out a row of the little pine-trees all round the house. "Even if they don't grow, they'll look green for a spell," he said to Lucinda; "an' ye never see a woman hanker arter green stuff's Miss March does. There wan't a livin' thing growin' in the Ute Pa.s.s, but what she had it in a pitcher or a tumbler or a tin can, a settin' round in her house. And as for that Nelly, she'd bring in her arms full o' flowers every day o' her life. You'll like 'em all, Lucinda, see if you don't. They ain't like most o' the folks out here."

Lucinda had a good many fears about coming to live with Mrs. March.

She had never been a servant; but she wanted to be married to Billy as much as he wanted to be married to her, and she thought if she could earn good wages and lay all the money up, they could be married sooner.

"I shall like them well enough, I dare say," said Lucinda; "but I don't know how I'll stand being ordered round."

"Ordered round!" said Billy, in a scornful tone. "I tell you they ain't the orderin' round kind; they're the reel genuwine fust-cla.s.s folks; an' genuwine fust-cla.s.s folks don't never order n.o.body to do nothing: I tell you I shouldn't stand no orderin' any more'n you would. Mr. March he always sez to me, 'We'd better do so and so,' if there's anything he wants done; 'n' he works 's hard as I do, any day, 'n' Miss March she's jest like him. You'll see how 'twill be. I ain't a mite afeared."

After the paint was dry, they nailed up the vines; and Billy added to them some pine boughs with great cl.u.s.ters of green cones on them which were beautiful. Then they unpacked the boxes of furniture; and Billy showed Lucinda how to put up the chintz curtains in the sitting-room, and the white ones in the bedrooms, and, when it was all done, it looked so pretty that Billy could not help saying:--

"Don't you wish it was our house, Luce?" He always called her Luce for short. "Can't take time for no three-storied names 'n this country," said Billy; "two's too many."

Lucinda blushed a little, and said:--

"We can make ours just as pretty some day, Billy."

"That's so, Luce," said Billy: "you'll get lots o' idees out o' Miss March. She's what I call a reel home-y woman. I hain't never seen n.o.body I've took to so since I left hum."

When everything was ready, the house and the barns and sheds all in order, and the whole enclosure raked over and made as tidy as possible, Billy said:--

"Now, we'll jest keep 'em waitn' one more day. You make up a lot o'

your best bread, and churn some b.u.t.ter; 'n' I'll go over to Pine's and pick two or three gallons o' raspberries. They're just ripe to pick now, 'n' this is the last chance I'll get. Then you 'n' Miss March can preserve 'em. I know she wants some. I heard her say so when we was a comin' up Hardscrabble Canyon."

Something besides raspberries Billy brought back from Pine's ranch that night,--something that he never dreamed of getting, something which pleased him so greatly he fairly snapped his fingers with delight,--it was a little pet fawn. "Old-man Pine" had had it for several months; it had strayed down out of the woods, when it was too young to find its way back; he had found it early one morning lapping milk out of the milk-pan he kept outside his cabin-door for his dog Spotty. He had caught it without difficulty, and tamed it, so that it followed him about like a puppy. Sometimes it would disappear for a few days, but always came back again. It was a lovely little creature, almost white under its belly, and on the under side of its legs; but all the rest of a beautiful bright red.

When Billy told old Mr. Pine about the March family, and about the twin brother and sister, who were such nice children, the old man said:--

"Don't you think they'd like to have the fawn? It's a pesky little thing, for all it's so pretty, an' I'm tired on't. There was a man offered me seven dollars for it, a while ago, but I thought I didn't want to let it go; but ye may have it for them children if ye want it. Ye can tell 'em I sent it to 'em; an' I'm the oldest settler in this valley, tell 'em. Yer must bring 'em over to see me some time."

Billy promised to do so.

"They'll go clean out o' their heads when they see the critter," he added. "They've been a talkin' about deer ever since they come: deer an' silver are the two things they're full of. They've pretty near walked their little feet off by this time, I expect, lookin' fur a mine. They took the idee's soon's they see the wagon-load o' ore I was haulin' through the Ute Pa.s.s: that's when I fust knew 'em; an' I declare to you, the youngsters hain't never let go on't, 'n' I dunno's they ever will."

"Mebbe, then, they'll find a mine yet," said old Pine. "There's one o' the best mines in all Californy was found by a little feller not more'n ten years old. He jest hauled up a bush with solid gold a stickin' in the roots.

"You don't say so!" said Billy. "Well, there ain't no such free gold's that in this country; but I wouldn't like any thing much better, next to findin' a mine myself, than to have Mr. March's folks find one. They're the sort o' folks ought to have money."

Billy worked very late that night fencing a little bit of the green meadow nearest the house, to keep the fawn in. The little creature seemed shy and frightened; and, when Billy drove away in the morning to bring the family down, he charged Lucinda to go out often and speak to it and feed it with sugar.

"I'd like to have it get over its scare before Nelly sees it," he said; "for, if it don't seem to be happy, she's just the gal to go on the sly and let the critter out, so it could go where it wants to."

Billy was much disappointed, when he reached the hotel, to learn that Mr. and Mrs. March and the children were out. They had gone to one of the mines, and would not be back till dinner-time; for they were going down into the mine.

"I never see any thing in all my life like that little chap," said the landlord. "He don't rest a minute. I believe he 'n' his sister have walked over every foot o' ground within five miles o' this house; 'n' there ain't a workin' mine in all these gulches that he don't know by name; 'n' he'll tell you who's the foreman 'n' how many workmen are on; 'n' he's got about a wheelbarrow full o'

specimens o' one sort 'n' another, for his museum, 's he calls it.

The little girl she seems a kind o' nurse to him, she's so steady; but they say they're twins: you wouldn't ever think it."

"No, that you wouldn't," replied Billy; "but they are. I like the gal best myself. She don't say much; but there ain't nothin' escapes her, 'n' she's just the sweetest-tempered little thing that was ever born. She's too good: that's the worst on't. I don't like to see youngsters always doin' right; 't don't look healthy."

Poor Lucinda's nice dinner was almost spoiled,--it had to wait so long before the family came. Billy had not once thought of the possibility of his not finding them at home, and had called out to Lucinda, as he drove off:--

"Now, mind, Luce, you have all ready at one, sharp. We'll be here before that time."

So, when Billy drove into the yard, at half-past two o'clock, he felt quite crestfallen, and half afraid to see Lucinda's face in the doorway. But she smiled pleasantly, and only said:--

"How punctual you are, to be sure! Dinner won't be very good."

"Never mind, Lucinda," said Mrs. March. "We were not at home. It wasn't Billy's fault. He has been worrying about you for an hour. It will taste very good to us all, for we are hungry."

Mrs. March praised every thing in the house, till Billy's face and Lucinda's grew red with pleasure; and Mr. March also praised everything out of doors.

"Didn't I tell you, Luce," said Billy, at the first chance he found to whisper in her ear, "didn't I tell you they was nice folks to work for? They don't let you slave yourself to death for 'em like some folks, 'n' never say so much 's a thank you."

The delight of Rob and Nelly in the fawn was greater than could be told in words. They ran round and round the enclosure, to see it upon all sides; they fed it, till it would not eat another mouthful; they stood still, gazing at it with almost unbelief in their faces.

"Oh, is it really our own? Will it always stay?" they cried. "It is too good to be true."

I don't believe there was in all Colorado a happier family than went to sleep under Mr. March's roof that night. Everybody was entirely satisfied with the home and with everybody in it. Even Watch and Trotter sat in the low-arched doors of their new houses, and held their heads up, and looked around them with an air of contentment and pride. They had never had houses of their own before. They had slept on the great pile of sawdust by the old mill; but they walked straight into these little houses and took possession of them as naturally as possible. They almost made you think of people who, when they come into possession of things much finer than they have been accustomed to, try very hard to act as if they had had them all their lives.

CHAPTER IX

WET MOUNTAIN VALLEY

And now my story must skip over three whole years. There is so much to tell you about Nelly, and her life in Wet Mountain Valley, that, if I do not skip a good deal, the story will be much too long. The first year was a very happy and prosperous one. There were big crops of wheat and hay, and they were sold for good prices, so that Mr.

March had more money than he needed to live on, and he was so pleased that he spent it all for new things,--some new books, some new furniture, and a nice new carriage much more comfortable for Mrs. March to drive in than the white-topped wagon. Mrs. March felt very sorry to have this money spent; she wanted it put away to keep; but, as I told you before, Mr. March always wanted to buy every thing he liked, and he thought that there would always be money enough.

"Why, Sarah!" he said; "here's the land! It can't run away! and we can always sell the hay and the wheat; and the cattle go on increasing every year. We shall have more and more money every year.

By and by, when we get things comfortable around us, we can lay up money; but I really think we ought to make ourselves comfortable."

So Mr. March bought everything that Billy said he would like to have to work with on the farm, and he sent to Denver for books and for clothes for Rob and Nelly, and almost every month he added some new and pretty thing to the house. Thus it went on until at the end of the year, all the money which had been made off the farm was gone, and all their own little income had been spent too. Not a penny had been laid up in the house except by Billy and Lucinda. They had laid up two hundred and fifty dollars apiece. They had each had three hundred and had spent only fifty.

"Luce," said Billy, "one more such year's this, an' we can take that little house down to Cobb's and farm it for ourselves."

"Yes," said Lucinda, hesitatingly, "but I'd a most rather stay's we are. I don't ever want to leave Mrs. March 'n' the children; and you 'n' I couldn't be together any more'n we are now."