The puppy lay down instantly and rolled over and over. "Faster!"
said Zeb.
Trotter rolled faster. "Faster! faster! fast as you can!" cried Zeb; and Trotter rolled so fast that you could hardly see his legs or his tail; he looked like a round ball of yellow hair, with two bright eyes in it.
Nelly and Rob shouted with laughter, and even Mr. March and Deacon Plummer laughed hard. They had been so busy that they had not observed that it was growing dark. Suddenly Zeb looked up, and said:--
"Ye"d better run in: it"s going to be a snow flurry."
"A snow flurry!" exclaimed Mrs. March, looking up at the bright blue sky overhead. "Where"s the snow to come from?"
"Out o" that cloud, mum," replied Zeb, pointing to a black cloud just coming up over the top of the hill to the west. ""T"ll be here in less than five minutes; mebbe "t"ll be hail: reckon "t will."
Sure enough, in less than five minutes the cloud had spread over their heads, and the hail began to fall. They all stood at the windows and watched it. Rattle, rattle, it came on the roof and against the west windows, and the hailstones bounded off from every place they hit, and rolled about on the ground like marbles. At first they were very small: not bigger than pins" heads; but larger and larger ones came every minute, until they were as big as large plums. Rob and Nelly had never seen such hailstones; they were half frightened, and yet the sight was so beautiful to watch, that they enjoyed it. The storm did not last more than ten minutes; the hailstones grew smaller again, just as they had grown larger; and then they came slower and slower, till they stopped altogether, and the great black cloud rolled off toward the south and left the sky clear blue above their heads, just as it was before; and the sun shone out, and every thing glistened like silver from the boughs of the trees down to the blades of gra.s.s. The great hailstones were piled up in all the hollow places of the ground, but the hot sun shining on them began to melt them immediately; and, except where they were in the shadow of rocks or trees or piles of boards, they did not last long. Nelly picked up a tin pan and ran out and filled it in a minute: then she pa.s.sed them round to everybody, saying: "Won"t you have some sugared almonds?" and they all ate them and pretended they were candy; and Rob and Nelly rolled them away from the doorstep and made Trotter run after them. In less than ten minutes after the storm had pa.s.sed, it was so warm that they were all standing in the open doorway, or walking about out of doors.
"Upon my word, what a country this is!" said Mr. March. "Ten minutes ago it was winter; now it is spring."
"Yes," said Zeb. "That"s jest the way "tis all through the winter; but next month ye"ll get some winter in good airnest. April "n"
May"s our winter months. I"ve seen the snow a foot "n" a half deep in this Pa.s.s in May."
"What!" exclaimed Mr. March, now really excited. "A foot and a half of snow! What becomes of the cattle then?"
"Oh!" said Zeb, "it never lays long: not over a day or two. This sun"ll melt snow"s quick"s a fire"ll melt grease, "n" quicker."
"Then I suppose it is very muddy," said Mrs. March.
"No, mum, never no mud to speak of; sometimes a little stretch of what they call adobe land"ll be putty muddy for a week or so; but"s a general thing the roads are dry in a day; in fact, you"ll often see the ground white with a little sprinkle of snow at eight o"clock in the morning, and by twelve you"ll see the roads dry, except along the edges: the snow jest kind o" goes off in the air here; it don"t seem"s if it melted into water at all."
"Well, I"ll give it up!" said the Deacon; "near"s I can make out, this country"s a conundrum."
Mrs. March and Mrs. Plummer now set themselves to work in good earnest to put the little house in order. They had brought with them only what they could carry in valises and hand-bags: all their boxes and trunks were to come in a big wagon the next day; so there was not much unpacking to be done. The house had only five rooms in it: one large room, which was to be used as the kitchen and dining-room and living-room; three small rooms which were for bedrooms; and another room which had been used as a lumber-room. As soon as Mrs.
March looked into this room, she resolved to make it into a little sitting-room by and by. It had one window to the east, which looked out on the brook, and one to the south, which had a most beautiful view down the Pa.s.s. These rooms had no plaster on the walls, and the boards were very rough; but the Colorado pine is such a lovely shade of yellow that rooms built of bare boards are really prettier than most of the rooms you see which have paper on them.
Poor Mrs. Plummer thought these bare boards were dreadful. She worked on, industriously, helping Mrs. March do all she could; but every few minutes she would give a great sigh, and look up at the walls, or down at the floor, and say:--
"Well, Mrs. March! I never did expect to see you come to this."
Mr. March also wore rather a long face as he stood in the doorway and watched his wife.
"Oh, Sarah!" he said, at last, "I can"t bear to have you work like this. I didn"t realize it was going to be just such a place. I shall go to the Springs to-morrow and get a servant for you."
"You won"t do any such thing, Robert," said Mrs. March. "There"s no room for a servant to sleep in; and I don"t want one, any way. Mrs.
Plummer will give me all the help I need; and Rob and Nelly will help too. Look at Rob now!" At that minute, Rob came puffing and panting in at the door, with his arms full of crooked sticks, stems of vines, and all sorts of odds and ends of drift-wood, which he had picked up on the edge of the brook.
"Here"s kindling wood, mamma; lots of it. Zeb told me where to get it. There"s lots and lots all along the brook." And he threw down his armful on the hearth, and was going back for more.
"Dear boy! here is enough, and more than enough," said Mrs. March.
"You can bring me some water next; we dip it out of the brook, I suppose."
"Now, mamma, that"s just all you know about it," replied Rob, with a most exultant air of superiority; "there"s just the nicest spring, right across the brook, only a little bit of ways. Zeb showed me; you come and see,--there"s a bridge."
Mrs. March followed him. Sure enough, there was a nice, fresh spring, bubbling up out of the ground, among the bushes; it was walled around with boards a few feet high, so that the cattle should not trample too close to it; a narrow plank was laid across the brook just opposite it; and it was twenty steps from the house.
"See, mamma," said Rob, as he dipped in the pail, and drew it out dripping full, "see how nice this is. I can bring you all the water you want."
"Take care! take care, Rob!" shouted his father, as Rob stepped back on the plank. He was too late. Rob in his excitement had stepped a little to one side of the middle of the plank; it tipped; he lost his balance, and over he went, pail of water and all, into the brook. The brook was not deep, and he scrambled out again in less than a minute,--much mortified and very wet. Mrs. March could not help laughing.
"Well, you helped fill the brook instead of my pail; didn"t you?"
she said.
"But, mamma, I haven"t got any dry clothes," said poor Rob: "what"ll I do?"
"That"s a fact, Rob," said his mother. "You"ll have to go to bed while these dry."
"Oh, dear!" said Rob; "that"s too bad!" And he walked very disconsolately toward the house. Zeb was just riding off, with two empty sacks hanging from his saddle pommel.
"Zeb," called Rob; "I tumbled in the brook; and I"ve got to go to bed till my clothes are dry."
"Don"t you do no such a thing," cried Zeb; "you jest walk round a leetle lively, and your clothes"ll be dry afore ye know it. Water don"t wet ye much in this country."
"Come, now, Zeb," said the Deacon, "let"s draw a line somewhere!
That"s a little too big a story. I can believe ye about the snow"s not making mud, because I"ve seen these hailstones just melt away into nothin" in half an hour; but when it comes to water"s not wettin", I can"t go that."
"Well, you just feel of me now!" shouted Rob; "I"m half dry already!"
The Deacon and Mrs. March both felt Rob"s arms and shoulders.
""Pon my word, they ain"t so very wet," said the Deacon; "was it only just now you tumbled in?"
"Not five minutes ago," said Mrs. March.
"It is certainly the queerest thing I ever saw," she continued, feeling Rob from his shoulders to his ankles: "he is really, as he says, half dry. I"ll try Zeb"s advice. Rob, run up and down the road as hard as you can for ten minutes; don"t you stand still at all."
Rob raced away, with Watch at his heels, and Mr. and Mrs. March walked into the house, Mr. March carrying the pail filled once more with the nice spring water. In a few minutes, as they were busily at work, they heard a sound at the door: they looked up; there stood a white cow, looking in on them with a mild expression of surprise.
"Oh!" said Mr. March, "Zeb said the cows"d be coming home pretty soon. The Deacon and I"ll have to milk."
"Yes, they"re a comin"," called out the Deacon, peering over the back of the white cow, and pushing her gently to one side, so that he could enter the door; "they"re a comin" down the road, and down the hill up there back o" the sawmill: I jest wish ye"d come and look at "em. Don"t know as ye"d better, either, if ye want to have a good appet.i.te for your supper! If ever ye see Pharaoh"s lean kine, ye"ll see "em now."
Mr. and Mrs. March and Mrs. Plummer all ran out and stood in front of the house, looking up the road. There came the cows, one, two, three, all in single file, down the hill, now and then stopping to take a nibble by the way; in the road there were half a dozen more, walking straight on, neither turning to the right nor the left.
"That"s right, ye poor things: make for the barn; I would if I was you. Perhaps I won"t feed you a good feed o" hay "n" corn-meal to-night, sure"s my name"s Plummer!" The cows were indeed lean: you could count every rib on their bodies, and their hip bones stuck out like great ploughshares.
"What a shame!" exclaimed Mrs. March. "Husband, you were imposed upon. These cows are not worth any thing."
"Oh, yes they be; they"re first-rate stock," said the Deacon; "first-rate stock, only they"re so run down. Ye"ll see I"ll have "em so fat in four weeks ye won"t know "em."
The cows gathered together in a little group between the two barns, and looked very hard at these strangers they had never seen before.
They knew very well that something had happened,--they missed Zeb,--and began to low uneasily; but when Deacon Plummer came out of the barn with a big pitchfork full of hay, and threw it down before them, all their anxieties were allayed. These were good friends who had come: there was no doubt of that. Nine times the Deacon brought out his pitchfork full of hay, and threw it on the ground, one for each cow: and didn"t they fall to and eat!