"Yes," she said, in answer to his inquiring look. "Yes. I have told the children all about it, and they are both wild to go, though Rob thinks the Himalayas would be a better place for you."
Mr. March burst into a loud laugh.
"The Himalayas!" he exclaimed. "Why, what do you know about the Himalayas, my boy?"
It was rather too bad to laugh at Rob so much about his idea of the Himalayas, I think; because almost any boy who had just been reading Captain Mayne Reid"s "Cliff Climbers," would think that there could be nothing in this life half so fine to do as to go to the Himalayas to live. Rob took it very good-naturedly this time, however.
"Not any thing, papa," he replied, "except what is in that book you gave me, the "Cliff Climbers;" but that says some of the mountains are five miles high, and I thought that would cure the asthma, to go up as high as that. Mamma says that"s what we are going to Colorado for, to get up high, to cure your asthma."
"Papa, we"re so glad to go if it will make you better," said Nelly, taking hold of her father"s hand with both of hers. Mr. March stooped over and kissed Nelly on her forehead.
"I know you are," he said: "you are papa"s own little comfort always."
Mr. March loved both of his children very dearly; but Nelly gave him more pleasure than Rob did. He often said to his wife when they were alone: "Nelly never gives me a moment"s anxiety. The child has all the traits which will make her a n.o.ble and a useful and a happy woman; but I am not so sure about Rob. I am afraid we shall have trouble with him." And Mrs. March always replied: "It is very true all you say about Nelly. She is a thoroughly good child; but you are quite mistaken about Rob. He is very hasty and impulsive; but he will come out all right. He has twice Nelly"s cleverness, though he is so backward about his books. You"ll see."
"I"m glad too, papa," cried Rob, "just as glad as any thing. It will be splendid to live on a farm. Shall you wear blue overalls like Uncle Alonzo? And will you let me help milk? And can"t I have a bull pup? I"m going to call him Caesar."
"Well, upon my word, young people," said Mr. March; and he looked at his wife when he spoke, "you seem to have got this thing pretty well settled between you. I don"t know that we are going to Colorado at all: after dinner we will all sit down together and talk it over.
I"ve got a letter here"--and he took a big envelope out of his pocket--"from a gentleman I wrote to in Colorado, and he has sent me some pictures of different places there, and of some of the strange rocks. We can"t have our sleigh-ride this afternoon; it is not going to stop snowing: so we may as well take a journey to Colorado on paper; perhaps it will be the only way we shall ever go."
Rob and Nelly could hardly eat their dinner: they were so eager to see the Colorado pictures and to hear all about the country.
As Mr. March looked at their eager faces, he sighed, and thought to himself:--
"Dear little souls! They have no idea of what is before them if we go to Colorado. It is as well they haven"t."
"What makes you look so sad, papa?" said Nelly.
"Did I look sad, Nelly?" replied Mr. March. "I didn"t mean to. I was thinking how delighted you and Rob seemed at the idea of going to Colorado, and thinking that you would probably find it very different from what you expect. You would not be so comfortable there as you are here."
"Isn"t there enough to eat out there?" asked Rob, anxiously.
"Oh, yes!" said Mr. March, laughing, "plenty to eat."
"Well, that"s all I care for," said Rob. "Oh, papa, do hurry! you never ate your dinner so slow before. I"ve been done ever so long.
Can"t I be excused, and go and read till you"re ready to show us the pictures?"
"Yes," said Mrs. March, "you may both go up into my room; and, as soon as papa and I have finished our dinner, we will come up there and have our talk."
Mrs. March wished to have a little conversation alone with her husband before their talk with the children. She told him about Nelly"s having accidentally overheard what they were saying in the night; "so I thought I would tell them all about it," she said.
"Certainly, certainly," said Mr. March. "There is no reason they should not know. Even if we do not go, no harm can come of it."
Then she told him of the obstinate notion Rob had taken into his head about the Himalayas, and how hard it had been to convince him that they ought not to set off for those mountains at once. Mr.
March was laughing very heartily over this as they went up the stairs, and, as they entered the room, Rob said:--
"What are you and mamma laughing so about, papa?"
Mrs. March gave her husband a meaning look, intended to warn him not to tell Rob that they were laughing at him; but Mr. March did not understand her glance.
"Laughing at your fierce desire to start off for the Himalayas, Rob," he said.
"I don"t care," said Rob: "I"m going there some day. You just read the "Cliff Climbers," and see if you don"t think so too. I"ll take you and mamma and Nell there when I"m a man and have money enough; see if I don"t."
"Well, well, Rob, we"ll go when that time comes, if we"re not too old when you"re rich enough to pay all that the journey costs. I"ve always thought I should like to go round the world," said Mr. March; "but now we"ll look at the Colorado pictures."
Then they sat down, Mr. and Mrs. March on the lounge in front of the fire, Nelly in her father"s lap, and Rob perched up on the back of the lounge behind his mother, so that he could look over her shoulder.
The first picture Mr. March took out of the envelope was one which looked like the picture of two gigantic legs and feet wrong side up.
"Oh, what big feet!" exclaimed Rob. "Do giants live in Colorado?"
Mr. March turned the picture the other side up.
"They are rocks, Rob," he said, "not feet; but they do look like feet, that"s a fact. These are some of the rocks in a place called Monument Park, because it is so full of these queer rocks. Here are some more of them: they are of very strange shapes. Here are some that look like women walking with big hoop-skirts on, and some like posts with round caps on their heads; and here is a picture of a place where so many of these rocks are scattered among the trees, that they look like people walking about. Here is one group which has been called the "Quaker Wedding.""
"Oh, let me see that! let me see that!" exclaimed Nelly. "How queer to call rocks Quakers!"
"I don"t see that they look very much like men and women, after all," added she as she studied the picture; "but they don"t look like any rocks I ever saw. I think I should be afraid of them. They look alive."
"Pooh!" said Rob, "I shouldn"t be. Rocks can"t stir. Show us some more, papa."
The next pictures were of beautiful waterfalls: there were three of them,--one of seven falls, one above the other, and one of a beautiful fall, very narrow, hemmed in between rocks, with tall pine-trees growing about it. The next was of a high mountain with snow half way down its sides, and a great many lower mountains all around it. This was called Pike"s Peak.
"Oh, papa!" said Nelly, "could we live where we could see that mountain all the time?"
"Perhaps so, Nell," answered her father, smiling at her eagerness: "would you like to?"
Nelly was looking at the picture intently, and did not reply for a moment. Then she said:--
"Papa, I think it would keep us good all the time to look at that mountain."
"Why, Nell," said her mother, "I didn"t know you cared so much for mountains. You never said so."
"I never saw a real mountain before," said Nelly. "This isn"t a bit like Mount Saycross."
The town of Mayfield was in one of the pleasantest counties in Ma.s.sachusetts. The region was very beautifully wooded and had several small rivers in it, and one range of low hills called the Saycross Hills; the highest of these was perhaps three thousand feet high, and Nelly had spent many a day on its top: but she had never seen any thing which gave her any idea of the grandeur of a high mountain till she saw this picture of Pike"s Peak. It seemed as if she could not take her eyes away from this picture: she looked at it as one looks at the picture of the face of a friend.
"Oh papa!" she exclaimed at last, "let me have this picture for my own: won"t you? I"ll be very, very careful of it."
"Yes, you may have it if you want it so much," replied Mr. March, "but be very sure not to lose it. I may want to show it to some one, any day."
"I won"t lose it, papa," said Nelly, in a tone of so much feeling that her father looked at her in surprise.
"Why, Nell," he said, "you must be a born mountaineer I think."
And so she was. From the day she first looked on this picture of Pike"s Peak till the day when she stood at the foot of the real mountain itself, it was seldom out of her mind. She kept the little card in the box with Mrs. Napoleon"s best bonnet and gown, and she talked so much about it that her father called her his "little Pike"s Peak girl."
The rest of the pictures were of some of the towns in Colorado, some ranches,--ranches is the word which the Coloradoans use instead of farm,--and some beautiful canyons. A canyon is either a narrow valley with very high steep sides to it, or a chasm between two rocky walls. The most beautiful and wonderful things in Colorado are the canyons; they all have streams of water running through them; in fact, the canyons may be said to be roads which rivers and creeks have made for themselves among the mountains. Sometimes the river has cut a road for itself right down through solid rock, twelve hundred feet deep. You can think how deep that must be, by looking at the walls of the room you are sitting in, as you read this story.