Nelly's Silver Mine Part 16

At last the Deacon said to Mr. March:--

"Here's their stock runnin' out all winter, that we've heard so much on; but it appears to me, it's mighty poor-lookin' stock. I don't see how in natur' the poor things get a livin' off this dried gra.s.s, half buried up in snow."

"Ah, sir!" spoke up a man on the seat behind Mr. March; "you do not know how much sweeter the hay is, dried on the stalk, standing.

There is no such hay in the world as the winter gra.s.ses in Colorado."

"Do you keep stock yourself, sir?" asked the Deacon.

"No, I've never been in the stock business myself," the man replied; "but I have lived in this State five years, and I know it pretty well; and it's the greatest country for stock in the world, sir,--yes, the greatest in the world."

Deacon Plummer smiled, but did not ask any more questions. After this enthusiastic man had left the car, the Deacon said quietly, pointing to a poor, lean cow who was sniffing hungrily at some little tufts of yellow gra.s.s near the railroad track: "I'd rather have her opinion than his. If the critter could speak, I guess she'd say, 'Give me a manger full of good medder hay, in a Ma.s.sachusetts barn, in place of all this fine winter gra.s.s of Colorado.'"

Rob and Nelly laughed out at this idea of the cow's being called in as witness.

"I guess so too," said Rob; "don't she look hungry, though?"

Just before they reached the town of Colorado Springs, they suddenly saw, a short distance off, on the right-hand side of the railroad track, two enormous red rocks, rising like broken pieces of a high wall; they looked thin, like slabs. One of them was deep brick red, and the other was a sort of pink.

"Oh, mamma! look quick, look quick," exclaimed Nelly: "what can those red rocks be?"

"They are the Gates of the Garden of the G.o.ds," said the conductor, who was pa.s.sing at that moment; "the Garden lies just behind them, and you drive in between those high rocks."

Even while he was pa.s.sing, the rocks disappeared from view. Nelly looked at them with awe-stricken eyes.

"The Garden of the G.o.ds, sir!" she said; "what does that mean? What G.o.ds? Do they wors.h.i.+p heathen G.o.ds in this country?"

A lady who was sitting opposite Nelly laughed aloud at this question.

"I don't wonder you ask such a question," she said: "it is one of the most absurd names ever given to a place, and I cannot find out who gave it. Those high rocks that you saw are like a sort of gateway into a great field which is full of very queer-shaped rocks.

Most of them are red, like the gates; some of them have uncouth resemblances to animals or to human heads. There is one that looks like a seal, and another like a fish standing on its tail, and peering up over a rock. There are a good many cedar-trees and pines in this place, and in June a few flowers; but, for the most part, it is quite barren. The soil is of a red color, like the rocks; and the gra.s.s is very thin, so that the red color shows through; and you couldn't find a place in all Colorado that looks less like a garden."

"But why did they say 'G.o.ds'?" asked Nelly; "did they mean the old G.o.ds? My papa has told me about them,--Jupiter, and his wife, Juno.

Is this where they lived?"

The lady laughed again. "I can't tell you about that, dear," she said. "I think they thought the place was so grand that it looked as if it ought to belong to some beings greater than human beings: so they said 'G.o.ds.' I think myself it would have been a good name for it to call it the 'Fortress of the G.o.ds,' or 'The Tombs of the Giants;' but not the 'Garden of the G.o.ds.' I shouldn't want it even for my own garden; and I'm only a commonplace woman. But it is a very wonderful place to see. You will be sure to go there, for all strangers are taken to see it."

"Do you live in Colorado, madam?" asked Mrs. March.

"Oh, yes!" replied the lady: "Colorado Springs, the little town we are just coming to, is my home."

"Do you like it?" asked Mrs. March, anxiously.

"Like it!" replied the lady: "like is not a strong enough word. I love it. I love these mountains so that, whenever I go away from them, I miss them all the time; and I keep seeing them before me all the while, just as you see the face of a dear friend you are separated from. I should be very ungrateful, if I did not love the place; for it has simply made me over again. I came out here three years ago on a mattress, with my doctor and nurse, and thought it very doubtful if I lived to get here; and I have been perfectly well ever since."

"Did you have asthma?" asked Rob, turning very red as soon as he had asked the question. He was afraid it was improper. "My papa has the asthma."

"Oh, if that is your papa's trouble, he will be sure to be entirely well. n.o.body can have asthma in Colorado," replied the lady. "It is the one thing which is always cured here. My own trouble was only a throat trouble."

"I am very glad to hear you speak so confidently about the asthma,"

said Mrs. March: "my husband has been a great sufferer from it, and it is for that we have come."

"You have done the very wisest thing you could have done," said the lady "you will never be sorry for it. But here we are; good morning."

The train was already stopping in front of a little brown wooden building, and the brakeman called out: "Colorado Springs."

"What a pleasant lady!" said Nelly to her mother.

"Yes," said Mrs. March; "but it was partly because she told us such good news for papa."

As they stepped out on the platform, they were almost deafened by the shouts of two black men, who were calling out the names of two hotels: two omnibuses belonging to the different hotels were standing there, and each black man was trying to get the most pa.s.sengers for his hotel. Each man called out:--

"Free 'bus--this way to the free 'bus--only first-cla.s.s hotel in the city."

"Mercy on us!" exclaimed Mrs. March. "Let us go to the one who speaks the lowest, if there is any difference. They must think railroad travellers are all deaf! It makes no difference to which one we go just for a dinner. We shall drive home this afternoon."

So saying, she stepped into the nearest omnibus, and the rest of the party followed her. In a moment more, the driver cracked his whip, and the four horses set off on a full gallop up the hill which lies between the railway station and the town. As they drew near the hotel door, the driver turned such a sharp corner, all at full speed, that the omnibus swung round on the wheels of one side, and pitched so violently that it threw both Nelly and Rob off their seats into the laps of their father and mother who sat opposite.

"Hullo!" exclaimed Rob, picking himself up, "this is the way the G.o.ds drive, I suppose!"

His mother looked reprovingly at him; but he only laughed and said:--

"They call every thing after the G.o.ds, don't they? So I thought that pitch was the same sort."

After dinner, Deacon Plummer harnessed Fox and Pumpkinseed into the new wagon, and they set out for their new home. It was a beautiful afternoon; as warm and bright as a May day in New England. There was no snow to be seen except on the mountains, which rose like a great blue wall with white peaks to the west of the town.

"Now this feels something like," said the Deacon, as they set out; "this is like what they told us. I wonder if it's been this way all winter."

They drove five miles straight towards the mountains. Nelly had taken her picture of Pike's Peak out of the travelling-bag, and held it in her hand. Now she could look up from it to the real mountain itself, and see if the picture were true.

"I don't care for the picture any more, papa," said Nelly, "now I've got the mountain. The picture isn't half so beautiful." And Nelly hardly took her eyes from the s.h.i.+ning, snowy summit till they were so close to its base that it was nearly shut out from their sight by the lower hills.

They drove through the little village at the mouth of the Ute Pa.s.s.

Here they saw two large hotels, and half a dozen small houses and shops. This little village is called Manitou. The Indians named it so. Manitou means "Good Spirit," and they thought the Good Spirit had made the waters bubble up out of the rocks here to cure sick people. A few rods beyond the last house, they entered the real pa.s.s. Now their surprises began. On each side of them were high walls of rock: at the bottom of the right-hand wall was just room enough for the road; on the left hand they looked over a steep precipice down to a brook which was rus.h.i.+ng over great stones, and leaping down with much roar and foam from one basin to another; there was no fence along this left-hand side of the road, and as Mrs. March looked over she shuddered, and exclaimed:--

"Oh, Robert, let me get out! I never can drive up this road: let us all walk."

Mr. March himself thought it was dangerous; so he stopped the horses, and Mrs. March and Mrs. Plummer and the two children got out to walk. Nelly and Rob did not look where they were walking; they were all the while looking up at the great rocks over their heads, which jutted out above the road like great shelves: some rose up high in the air like towers; they were all of a fine red color, or else of a yellowish brown; and they were full of sharp points, and deep lines were cut in them; and a beautiful green lichen grew on many of them. Sometimes they were heaped up in piles, so that they looked as if they might tumble down any minute; sometimes they were hollowed out in places that looked as if they were made for niches for statues to stand in; on one high hill was a strange pile, built up so solid and round it looked like a pulpit. Mrs. March and Nelly and Rob were standing still, looking at this, when a man who pa.s.sed by, seeing they were strangers, called out:--

"That's Tim Bunker's Pulpit."

"Who's Tim Bunker?" cried Rob; but the man was riding so fast he did not hear him.

"Oh, Nell! if it isn't too far we'll climb up there some day: won't we?" said Rob. "Mamma, don't you suppose we're pretty near our house?"

"I think not, Rob," replied Mrs. March; "there cannot be any place for a house while the pa.s.s is so narrow."

"Oh, mamma! mamma! come here!" shouted Nelly. She had taken one step down from the road, and was looking over into the brook. "Here is the most beautiful little fall you ever saw!"