"What in the world are you about, children?"

"Getting up, mamma," answered Nelly. "We're going up to town real early, so as to get out of the way of the boys, and have a good long time at Mr. Kleesman's. It takes about three hours to do what he does to the ore. Can't we go?"

"I have no objection," replied Mrs. March; "but you must have some breakfast. I will get right up."

"Oh, no! no! please, dear mamma, don't!" cried Nelly. "It's only four o'clock by the clock downstairs: I've just been down. We can get plenty to eat without you. There is beautiful cream in the pantry; and a whole lot of cold potatoes."

Mrs. March laughed, and said:--

"I don't think cold potatoes are a very good breakfast."

"Why, mamma! mamma!" cried Rob, "cold potatoes are splendid. I like them best cold, with lots of salt. Please don't you get up."

Mrs. March was very sleepy; so she turned over in bed, and went sound to sleep. When Nelly was dressed, she peeped cautiously in at the door of her mother's room, which stood open.

"They're both sound asleep, Rob," she whispered: "let's take off our shoes."

"What fun!" whispered Rob; and the two children stole downstairs in their stocking-feet, like two little thieves; then they drank a good tumbler of cream, and ate the cold potatoes with salt, and some nice brown bread, and b.u.t.ter.

"I don't think a king need have a better breakfast than this," said Rob.

"I do!" said Nelly. "If I were a queen, I'd have a better one."

"What would you have, Nelly?" said Rob, earnestly.

"Cold roast turkey," said Nelly, "and bread and honey."

"Pooh!" said Rob, "I hate honey. It has such a tw.a.n.g to it. I'd have melted maple sugar always on my bread, if I were a king. I'd have maple sugar packed up in little houses, as they pack the ice in ice-houses, and just cut out great square junks, to melt up."

As the children went out of the house, the sky in the east was just beginning to be bright red. The sun was not up; but it was very light, and Pike's Peak shone against the red sky like a great mountain of alabaster. The peaks of the mountains in the west were rosy red; all their tops were covered with snow, and in the red light they looked like jewels.

"Oh, Rob, look! look!" cried Nelly: "isn't it perfectly lovely!

Let's always come early like this."

Rob looked at the mountains and the sky.

"Yes, 'twould be pretty if 'twould stay so," he said; "but 'twon't last a minute."

Even while he spoke, the red color faded; the mountains began to look blue; and, in a minute more, up came the sun over the Rosita hills, and flooded the whole valley with a yellow light. All along the sides of the road were beautiful flowers,--blue, pink, white, yellow, and red. It had rained in the night; and every flower was shining with rain-drops, and as bright as if it had just been painted.

"Oh, Rob," said Nelly, "I'll tell you what we'll do: we'll pick a perfectly splendid bouquet for Ulrica. I know she'd like it. That'll show her I'm sorry I didn't stop. You pick white and blue, and I'll pick red and yellow; and then we'll put them all together. Have you got any string?"

Rob had a big piece. So they picked a big bunch of flowers; and then they sat down on a log, and Nelly arranged them in a beautiful pyramid: the white ones in the middle, then the blue, then the yellow, and then the red. Last, she put a border of the fine, green young shoots of the fir around it, and it was really superb. Then with some stout twine she swung it on her neck, so that it hung down on her shoulders behind.

"There!" she said; "I don't feel the weight of it a bit, and that'll keep it out of the sun too."

When they reached Ulrica's house, not a window was open. Jan and Ulrica were still asleep. There had been a dance in Rosita the night before; and they had danced nearly all night, and were not likely to wake up very early after such a night as that.

"Nell, hang it on the door," said Rob, "so they'll find it when they first open the door."

"Somebody might steal it," replied Nelly.

"Pshaw!" said Rob: "who'd want it?"

"I'm sure anybody would," retorted Nelly: "it's perfectly splendid."

"You just tie it on," said Rob: "n.o.body'll touch it."

Nelly had run around to the back side of the house. A small window, which opened from a sort of closet where Ulrica kept milk, was open a little. Nelly squeezed the bouquet in, and ran back to Rob.

"I've thrown it in at the closet window," she said. "What do you suppose she'll think when she sees it? She'll think fairies brought it. Ulrica believes in fairies: she told me so."

"She don't, though: does she?" exclaimed Rob. "What a goose!"

"I think it would be nice to believe in them," replied Nelly. "I do, just a little, wee wee bit. I don't mean really believe, you know; but just a little bit. I guess there used to be fairies, ever so many, many years ago; oh! longer ago than our great, great, great grandmother: don't you?"

"No!" said Rob, very contemptuously: "there never could have been any such thing, not since the world began. It's just made-up stories for girls."

"Oh, Rob!" cried Nelly: "you used to like to hear the story about the singing tree, the talking bird, and the laughing water; don't you know?"

"That ain't a fairy story," said Rob: "it's a--a--I forget what mamma called it. Don't you recollect how she explained it all to us?--how it was all true?"

"Oh! you mean a parable," said Nelly. "That's what mamma said,--that it meant that we should all find singing trees and talking birds and laughing water, if we loved them enough. But it's a fairy story too, besides all that."

The children had a droll time going to people's houses so early.

n.o.body was up. At Mrs. Clapp's, they had to pound and pound before they could wake anybody. Then Mr. Clapp put his head out of a window to see what had happened.

"Goodness!" he said: "here are the children with the b.u.t.ter. How did they ever get up here so early?" And he ran down to open the door.

"Ask them to stay to breakfast," said Mrs. Clapp. "The poor little things must be faint."

Nelly and Rob thanked Mr. Clapp, but said they could not stop.

"We had a splendid breakfast at home," said Rob, triumphantly.

When Mr. Clapp went back to his room, he said to his wife:--

"Poor little things, indeed! You wouldn't have called them so, if you'd seen them. Their eyes shone like diamonds, and their cheeks were just like roses; and they looked as full of frolic as kittens.

I declare I do envy March those children. That Nelly's going to make a most beautiful woman."

Rob and Nelly reached Mr. Kleesman's door at eight o'clock. His curtains were down; no sign of life about the place.

"I say, Nell, aren't the Rosita people lazy!" exclaimed Rob.

"What'll we do now?"

"Sit down here on the step and wait," said Nelly. "He always comes out here, the first thing, and looks off down into the valley, and at the mountains. I used to see him when we were at the hotel."

How long it seemed before they heard steps inside the house; and then how much longer still before the door opened! When Mr. Kleesman saw the little figures sitting on his door-step he started.