"This is a first-rate feller I"ve hired with: he does the square thing by everybody, I tell you. There"s nothin" narrer about him; he"s the least like a parson of any parson ye ever see,"--they accepted Billy"s word for it all, and met Mr. March with a friendliness which would not usually have been shown to a newcomer.
The next morning after they reached Rosita, Long Billy proposed to take Mr. March out and introduce him to some of the people he knew.
When Mr. March came downstairs, he was dressed in a good suit of black, and wore a white collar; on the journey, he had worn his rough working-clothes, and a flannel shirt. Long Billy looked him up and down, from head to foot, with an expression of great dissatisfaction; but did not say anything. Then he walked out on the piazza of the hotel, and stood still for some minutes, in deep thought. Then he said to himself:--
"Hang it all! I"ll have to speak to him. What"d he want to go "n"
spruce hisself all up like that for? "T"ll jest ruin him in this town, oncet for all! I"ll have to speak to him. I"d rather be scotch-wolloped."
What scotch-wolloped means I do not know: but it was a favorite expression of Long Billy"s. So he walked back into the hotel, and beckoned Mr. March out on the piazza.
"Look here, Parson," he said, speaking very fast, and looking very much embarra.s.sed,--which was an odd thing for Billy,--"look here, Parson, you ain"t goin" to preach to-day, be yer?"
"Why, no, Billy," said Mr. March; "why did you ask?"
"Ain"t these yer preachin" clo"es?" replied Billy, pointing to the black coat.
Mr. March laughed.
"Why, yes, I have preached in them, Billy; but I do not expect ever to again. I must wear them out, though."
"Not in these parts, Parson," said Billy, solemnly, shaking his head. "Yer don"t know minin" towns so well"s I do. Ef I was to take you down town in that rig, there wouldn"t one o" the fellers open his head to yer. They"d shet up jest like snappin" turtles. Ye jest go upstairs "n" put on the clo"es ye allers wears won"t ye?" said Billy, almost pleadingly.
"Why, certainly, Billy, if you really think it would make any difference about my making friends with the people. I don"t want to offend anybody. These are pretty old clothes, though, Billy, if they only knew it. It was to save my others that I put them on. But I"ll change them, if you say so." And Mr. March ran upstairs much amused.
When he came down in his rough suit and his blue flannel shirt, Billy smiled with pleasure.
"There," he said, "you look like a man in them clo"es, Parson.
Excuse my bein" so free; but I allers did think that the parsons"
clo"es had a good deal to do with fellers despisin" "em"s they do.
They allers call "em "Tender-feet.""
"Tender-feet!" exclaimed Mr. March; "what does that mean, Billy?"
Billy did not answer immediately. He was puzzled to think of any definition of "Tender-feet."
"Well," he said at last, "don"no" as I can say exactly what it does mean; but "tain"t because I don"t know. Any feller that"s over-particular about his clo"es, "n" his way o" livin", "n" can"t rough it like the generality o" folks in Colorado, gets called a "Tender-foot"! Lord, I"d rather be called a thief, any day!"
Mr. March laughed heartily.
"I see! I see!" he said. "Well now, Billy, you don"t think there"d be any danger of my ever being called a "Tender-foot" do you?"
"Not a bit of it, Parson," said Billy, emphatically, "when a feller came to live with yer; but to see yer jest a walkin" round in them black clo"es o" yourn, you"d get took for one. Yer would: that"s a fact. I should take yer for one myself. Yer may"s well give that suit up, oncet for all, Parson, for this country, I tell ye," added Billy, thinking he would make sure that the danger did not occur again. "Thet is," he continued, "except Sundays. I don"t suppose "twould do ye any harm to be seen in it Sundays, or to a dance."
"I don"t go to dances, Billy," said Mr. March; "perhaps I"ll give the suit away: that"ll save all trouble."
As they left the hotel, they saw Rob and Nelly walking hand in hand up the steep road down which they had come the night before, entering the village.
"Where can the children be going?" said Mr. March. "Rob! Nelly!" he called. They both turned and said:
"What, papa?" but did not come towards him.
"Where are you going?" he said.
"Oh, only a little way up this road," replied Rob.
"Don"t you want to come with me?" said Mr. March. The children hesitated.
"Do you want us, papa?" said Nelly.
"Why, no, certainly not," replied Mr. March, "unless you want to come. I thought you would like to see the town: that"s all."
"We"d rather go up on the hill, papa," said Rob. "Mamma said we might, if we wouldn"t go out of sight of the hotel. Good-by!"
"Good-by, papa!" called Nelly. And they both trudged off with a most business-like air.
Long Billy laughed.
"Them youngsters got silver on the brain," he said. "Thet"s what"s the matter with them. I"ve seen plenty o" grown folks jest the same way in this country: a walkin", walkin" by the month to a time, a pokin" into every hole, "n" a hammerin" every stone,--jest wild after gold "n" silver. There"s plenty on "em"s jest wasted time enough on"t to ha" made a considerable money, if they"d stuck to some kind o" regular work. That little chap o" yourn, he"s a driver; he hain"t never let go the idee of findin" a silver mine, sence the day they hauled all them mica stuns down, back there"n the Pa.s.s.
They"re a rare couple, he "n" Nelly: they are."
"Yes, they are good children," said Mr. March: "good children; but I don"t want them to get possessed with this desire for money." And he looked anxiously up the hill, where he could see Rob and Nelly striking off from the road, and picking their way across the rough ground towards a great pile of gray ore, which had been thrown out of one of the mines.
Long Billy also looked up at them.
"The little sarpents!" he said. "They"re a makin" for the Pocahontas mine, straight. Rob, he was askin" me all about the piles o" ore "n"
the engines in the mines, yesterday."
"Is there any danger of their being hurt?" said Mr. March.
"Oh, no! I reckon not. That Nelly, she"s jest the same"s a grown woman. I allers notice her a holdin" the little feller back. She won"t go into any resky places no more"n her ma would. She"s got a heap o" sense, that little gal has."
While Mr. March and the children were away, Mrs. March sat at the west window of her room, looking off into the beautiful valley. I wish I could make you see just how it looked from her window; however, no picture can show it, and I suppose no words can tell it; but if you really want to try to imagine how it looked just ask somebody who is with you while you are reading this page, to explain to you how high a thousand feet would seem to you. If you can see the spire of the church, and can know just how high that is, that will help you get an idea of a thousand feet. Then you can imagine that you are looking off between two high hills, right down into a bit of green valley one thousand feet lower down than you are. Then try to imagine that this bit of green valley looked very small; and that, beyond it, there were grand high mountains, half covered with snow. The lower half of the mountains looked blue: on a sunny day, mountains always look blue in the distance; and the upper half was dazzling white. This is the best I can do towards making you see the picture which Mrs. March saw as she sat at her western window. After all, I think Nelly"s sentence was worth more than all mine, when she said, "Oh, papa, it looks like a beautiful green bottom to a deep well." The picture was so beautiful that Mrs. March did not want to do anything but sit and look at it, and when her husband returned from his walk in the village, she was really astonished to find that she had sat at the window two whole hours without moving. The children did not come home until noon. Their faces were red and their eyes shone with excitement: they had had a fine time; they had rambled on from one mine to another on the hill; wherever they saw a pile of the gray ore, and a yellow pine building near it, they had gone into the building and looked into the shaft down which the miners went into the ground. They had found kind men everywhere who had answered all their questions; and Rob had both his pockets full of pieces of stone with beautiful colors, like a peac.o.c.k"s neck. Rob had forgotten the name of the stone: so had Nelly.
"It sounded something like prophets," said Nelly, "but it couldn"t have been that"; she handed a bit of the stone to Long Billy.
"Oh," said he, glancing at it carelessly, "that"s nothing but pyrites; that"s no account; they"ll give you all you want of that."
"I don"t care:" said Rob, "it"s splendid. I"m going to make a museum, and I shall have the shelves full of it. But, mamma," he said sadly, "there isn"t any use in our looking for a mine. When I told one of the men that we were going to see if we couldn"t find a mine, he just laughed, and he said that every inch of the ground all round here belonged to people that thought they"d got mines. All those little bits of piles of stones, with just a stick stuck up by them, every one of those means that a man"s been digging there to find silver; and they"re just as thick! why, you can"t go ten steps without coming on one! They call them "claims.""
"That"s so," said Long Billy; "and I"ll tell ye what I call "em. I call "em gravestones, them little sticks stuck up on stone heaps: that"s what most on "em are, graves where some poor feller"s buried a lot o" hope and some money."
Nelly turned her great dark eyes full on Long Billy when he said this. Her face grew very sad: she understood exactly what he meant.
Rob did not understand. He looked only puzzled.
"Graves!" exclaimed he. "Why, what do you call them graves for, Billy? There isn"t any thing buried in them."
Billy looked a little ashamed of his speech; he did not often indulge in anything so much like a flight of fancy as this.
"Oh, nothin"!" he said. "That"s only a silly way o" puttin" it."