He has not been able to lie down in bed for almost a year now; ever since early last summer."
"Not lie down!" exclaimed Nelly, "why, what does he do, mamma? How does he sleep?"
"He sleeps propped up with pillows, dear, almost as straight as he would be in a chair," replied Mrs. March.
"Oh, dear," cried Rob, "isn"t that awful! Why didn"t you ever tell us, mamma? Isn"t he awful tired? What makes people not have asthma in Colorado, anyhow?"
"Which question first, Rob?" said Mrs. March. "I haven"t told you, because papa dislikes very much to have any thing said about it.
Yes: he is very tired all the time. He never feels rested in the morning as you do. I don"t know why people never have asthma in Colorado; but I think it must be because the air is so very dry there. They never have any rain there from October to April, and the country is very high; some of the towns where people live are twice as high as the highest mountains you ever saw."
"Mamma!" exclaimed Rob, with so loud and earnest a voice that both Mrs. March and Nelly gave a little jump. "Mamma, if it"s the being so high up that does the good, why couldn"t we go to the Himalayas instead? Oh, it"s perfectly splendid there! just let me read you about it," and Rob ran back to the table for his "Cliff Climbers,"
and was about to begin to read aloud from it. Mrs. March could not help laughing: and Nelly laughed too; for Nelly, although she was no older than Rob, was very much ahead of him in her studies at school, and she knew very well where the Himalaya mountains were, and that there would be no way of living there comfortably even if it were not quite too far to go.
"But, Rob,--" began Mrs. March.
"You just wait till I read you, mamma," interrupted Rob; "you haven"t read the "Cliff Climbers," and you don"t know any thing about it. Perhaps the doctors don"t know how many good things grow there; and the mountains are five miles high, some of them. I"m sure papa couldn"t have the asthma as high up as that: could he?"
"My dear little boy," said Mrs. March, putting her hand on the book and shutting it up, "you are always too hasty: you must stop and listen. n.o.body could live five miles up in the air. That would be as much too high as this is too low; and things which sound very fine to read about would be very inconvenient in real life."
"Yes," interrupted Rob, "an elephant tore down their cabin one night,--just tramped right over it, and smashed it all flat as we would an ant-hill. That wouldn"t be very nice: but we needn"t live where the elephants come; we could just go out to hunt them in the summer."
Rob"s eyes were dark blue, and when he was eager and excited they seemed to turn black, and to be twice their usual size. He was so eager now that his eyes were fairly dancing in his head. He was possessed of this idea about going to live in the Himalaya mountains, and nothing could stop him.
"They"re all heathen there too, mamma, and wouldn"t papa like that?
He could preach to them, don"t you know? Oh, it would be splendid!
and I could collect seeds just like these cliff climbers, and stuff birds, and make lots of money sending them back to this country."
"Oh, Rob!" exclaimed Nelly, at last; "do stop talking, and let mamma talk: she hasn"t half told us yet. It"s all nonsense about the Himalayas. We couldn"t go there; n.o.body goes there. I"ll just show you on your new globe where it is, and you can see for yourself." So saying, Nelly ran for the globe, and was proceeding to show Rob what a long journey round the world it would be to reach the Himalayas; but Rob pushed the globe away.
"I don"t care any thing about the old globe," he said; "people do go there, for Mayne Reid"s books are all true; he says they are, and it isn"t all nonsense about the Himalayas; is it, mamma? Couldn"t we go there?"
Rob was fast growing angry.
"No, Rob," said Mrs. March: "we cannot go to the Himalayas to live; that is very certain. One of these days, when you"re a man, I hope you will be able to go all about the world and see all these countries you are so fond of reading about: you will have to wait till then for the Himalayas. If we go away from home at all, we must go to Colorado. That is quite far enough: it will take us four whole days and five nights, going just as fast as the cars can go, to get there."
"I don"t care where we go, if we can"t go to the Himalayas," said Rob, sulkily. "I think it"s real mean if we"ve got to go away not to go there. I know it would be real good for papa."
Mrs. March laughed again very heartily.
"Rob," she said, "you are a very queer little boy. Mamma can"t understand how you get so excited over things in such a short time.
A few minutes ago you had never thought of such a thing as going to the Himalayas; and here you are already sure that it would be good for papa to go there. Why, even the doctors are not sure what would be good for papa! It is very hard to tell."
"Does it really take four whole days and five nights to get to Colorado?" asked Rob. He had already given up the idea of the Himalayas, and was beginning to think about Colorado. Rob"s mind moved from one thing to another as quickly as a weatherc.o.c.k when the wind is shifting.
"Yes: four whole days and five nights," said Mrs. March; "or else four nights and five days, according to the time you start."
"Five days! days! Let"s start so as to make it come five days; so as to see all we can," exclaimed Rob. "That"s splendid! When will we start, mamma?"
"It isn"t really sure, is it, mamma, that we are to go?" asked Nelly, who had hardly had a chance yet to speak a word: Rob had been talking so fast. "Does papa want to go?"
You see how much more thoughtful Nelly was for other people than for herself. All Rob was thinking of was what good times might come of this journey; but Nelly was thinking how hard it was for her papa and mamma to break up their pleasant home, and how sad it might be for all of them to go to live among strangers.
"No, dear," said Mrs. March. "Papa does not want to go at all. It is very hard for him to make up his mind to do it. And I do not want to go either, except on papa"s account: but we would go anywhere in the world that would make papa well; wouldn"t we?"
"Yes, indeed," said Nelly, earnestly.
"Why doesn"t papa want to go?" cried Rob. "There"ll be plenty of people there to preach to: won"t there? And that"s all papa cares for."
"Papa doesn"t like to leave all these people here that he has preached to for so many years: he loves them all very much," replied Mrs. March; "and he does not expect to preach any more if he goes to Colorado. There are not a great many villages there; it is chiefly a wild new country: people live on great farms and keep large herds of sheep or of cows; and the doctor wants papa to be a farmer and work out of doors, and not live in his study among his books any more."
"Be a farmer like Uncle Alonzo?" exclaimed Nelly. "Oh, mamma, wouldn"t that be nice? and wouldn"t papa like that? He always has a good time when he goes to Uncle Alonzo"s. He says it makes him feel as if he was a boy again. And oh, mamma, the cows are beautiful.
Don"t you like cows, mamma?"
Nelly was now almost as excited as Rob. She had been several times to make a visit at her Uncle Alonzo"s house. He was a rich farmer, and had big barns, and fields full of raspberries and huckleberries, and a beautiful pine grove close to the house; and he had nearly a hundred cows, and used to make b.u.t.ter and cheese to sell, and both Nelly and Rob thought there was nothing so delightful in the whole world as to stay at Uncle Alonzo"s.
"No, dear," said Mrs. March. "I can"t honestly say I do like cows. I am so silly as to be afraid of them. But I like your Uncle Alonzo"s farm very much."
"Oh, mamma, how can you be afraid of a cow!" cried Rob. "They never hurt you."
"I suppose it"s because I am a coward, Rob," answered Mrs. March; "but I can"t help it. I was chased by a bull once when I was a girl; and, ever since then, I have been afraid of any thing which has horns on its head."
"Is that what the word coward comes from, mamma?" asked Rob: "does it mean to be afraid of a cow?"
"I guess not, Rob," said Mrs. March, laughing. "Don"t begin to make puns, Rob: it is a bad habit."
"Puns!" said Rob, much surprised; "what is a pun?"
Then Mrs. March tried to explain to Rob what a pun was, but it was very hard work; and I don"t think Rob understood, after all her explanations, so I shall not try to explain it to you here; but I dare say a great many of you understand what a pun is, and, if you do, you will see that Rob had accidentally made rather a good pun, for a little boy only twelve years old, when he asked if a coward was a person afraid of a cow.
Presently the dinner-bell rang.
"Why, mamma," exclaimed both the children, "it isn"t dinner-time, is it?"
"Yes, it really is," said Mrs. March, looking at her watch: "I had no idea it was so late. Where has the morning gone to?"
"Gone to Colorado," exclaimed Rob, running downstairs, "gone to Colorado! Hurrah for Colorado."
"By way of the Himalayas," said Nelly behind him, as they ran downstairs.
"Be still, Nell, can"t you," said Rob, half vexed, half laughing. "I haven"t been in Geography half so long as you have. We haven"t come to the Himalayas yet."
Mr. March was just coming in at the front-door. He was so covered with snow that he looked like a snow-man; and as he stamped his feet on the door-mat, and shook off the snow from his overcoat and hat and beard, there seemed to be quite a snow-storm in the hall.
"Hurrah for Colorado," he repeated. "What does that mean? Who is going to Colorado?"
"All of us, papa; all of us, papa," cried Rob. "Mamma"s told us all about it, so you can"t keep it a secret any longer."
Mr. March looked up inquiringly at Mrs. March, who was coming down the stairs behind Nelly and Rob.