Nelly's Silver Mine Part 23

"Oh, no!" replied Nelly: "only since last spring. We came because my papa was sick. He has the asthma."

"Oh!" said the man: "I thought so."

Nelly wondered why the man should have thought her papa had the asthma; but she did not ask him what he meant. In a few minutes, the man lay down in his wagon and fell fast asleep, and Nelly went into the house. After dinner, she told Rob about the man, and they went out together to see him. They peeped into the wagon. It was loaded full of small bits of gray rock: the man was rolled up in a buffalo robe, lying on top of the stones, still fast asleep. His face was very red, and he breathed loud.

"Oh, dear!" said Nelly, "how uncomfortable he must be! He looks real sick."

"I bet he's drunk!" said Rob, who had unluckily seen a good deal of that sort of sickness since he had lived on a thoroughfare for mule-wagons.

"Is he?" said Nelly, horror-stricken. "No, Rob, he can't be, because he talked with me real nice this morning. Let's go and tell mamma."

Mr. March went out, looked at the man, and woke him up. He found that he was indeed ill, and not drunk. The poor fellow had been five days on the road, with a very heavy cold; and had taken more cold every night, sleeping in the open air. Walking all day long in the hot sun had also made him worse, and he was suffering severely.

"Come right into the house with me, my man," said Mr. March; "my wife'll make you a cup of hot tea."

"Oh, thank you!" said the man. "I've been thinkin' I'd give all the ore in this 'ere wagon for a first-rate cup of tea. I don't never carry tea: only coffee; but I've turned against coffee these last two days;" and he followed Mr. March into the house.

"What'd you say you had in your wagon?" asked Rob, who had been standing by.

"Ore," said the man.

The only word Rob knew which had that sound was "oar."

"Oar!" he said. "Why, I didn't see any thing but rocks."

Mr. March and the man both laughed.

"Not 'oar,' to row with, Rob," said Mr. March; "but 'ore,' to make money out of."

"Silver ore, I suppose," he added, turning to the man.

"Yes," he said; "from the Moose mine, up on Mount Lincoln."

Rob's eyes grew big. "Oh! tell me about it," he said. And Nelly, coming up closer, exclaimed, in a tone unusually eager for her, "And me too. Is the mountain made of silver, like the mountains in fairy stories?"

The man was drinking his tea, and did not answer. He drank it in great mouthfuls, though it was scalding hot.

"Oh, ma'am," he said, "I haven't tasted any thing that went right to the spot's that does, for months; if it wouldn't trouble ye too much, I'd like one more cup." He drank the second cup as quickly as he had the first; then he leaned his head back in the chair, and said: "I feel like a new man now. I guess that was the medicine I needed. I reckon I can go on this afternoon."

"No," said Mr. March: "you ought to stay here till to-morrow. There is an old leather-covered settee in the barn you're welcome to sleep on. It will be better than the ground; and we'll doctor you with hot tea, night and morning."

"You're very kind," said the man: "I don't know but I'd better stay."

"Oh, do! do!" said Rob; and "do do!" said Nelly. "Stay and tell us all about the mountain of silver and the Moose; does the Moose draw out the silver?"

You see Rob and Nelly couldn't get it out of their heads that it was all like a fairy tale. And so it is when you think of it, more wonderful than almost any fairy tale, to think how great mountains are full of silver and of gold, and men can burrow deep down into them, and get out all the silver and gold they need.

"Oh, there isn't any real Moose," said the man. "That's only the name of the mine. I don't know why they called the mine the Moose mine. They give mines the queerest kind o' names."

"What is a mine, anyhow?" asked Rob.

"Oh," said the man, "I forgot you didn't know that. A mine's a hole in the ground, or in the side of a mountain, where they dig out gold or silver. There's mines that's miles and miles big, underground, with pa.s.sages running every way like streets."

"How do they see down there?" said Rob.

"They carry lanterns, and there are lanterns fastened up in the walls."

"Is your wagon all full of silver?" asked Nelly, in a low tone.

"Not exactly all silver yet," the man said, laughing; "there's a good deal of silver in it: it's very good ore."

"It looked just like gray rock," said Rob.

"Well, that's what it is," replied the man; "it's gray rock. It's got to be all pounded up fine in a mill, and then it's got to be roasted with salt in a great oven, and then it's got to be mixed with chemicals and things. I don't rightly know just what it is they do to it; it's a heap of work I know, before it ever gets to be the pure silver."

"Some day I will take you, Rob," said his father, "where you can see all this done: I want to see it myself. Run out, now, you and Nelly, and play, and let the driver rest. He is too tired to talk any more."

Rob and Nelly went back to the wagon. All Nelly's anemones and daisies were lying on the ground, withered. Even this one short hour of hot sun had been enough to kill them.

"Oh, my poor, dear flowers!" said Nelly, picking them up. "How could I forget you!" and she looked at them as sorrowfully as if they were little babies she had neglected.

"Pooh, Nell," cried Rob. "They're no good now. Throw them in the brook, and come look at the silver."

They both climbed up on the tongue of the wagon and looked in at the front.

"I can't see any silver about it," said Nelly; "it don't look like any thing but little gray stones, all broken up into bits."

"No," said Rob: "it don't s.h.i.+ne much;" and he picked up a bit and held it out in the sun.

"Oh, take care! take care, Rob!" cried Nelly. "Don't lose it; it might be as much as a quarter of a dollar, that bit."

"Nell," said Rob, earnestly, "don't you wish papa had a mine, and we could dig up all the money we wanted? oh, my!" and Rob drew in his breath in a long whistle.

"Yes," said Nelly: "I mean to look for one. Do you find the holes already dug, do you suppose? Perhaps that place where old Molly tumbled in was a mine."

Old Molly was one of their cows, who had tumbled one day into a hole made by a slide of earth; and Zeb had had to go down and tie ropes around her to pull her up.

"Yes," said Rob: "I bet you any thing it is. Let's go right up there now, and see if we can find some rock like this. I'll carry this piece in my pocket to tell by. I'll only borrow it: I'll put it back."

"Let me carry it then," said Nelly. "I'm so afraid you'll lose it."

So Nelly tied the little bit of gray rock in a corner of her pocket-handkerchief, and then crammed her handkerchief down tight in her pocket, and they set off at a swift pace, towards the ravine where Molly had had her unlucky fall.

When dinner-time came, the children were nowhere to be found. Zeb went up and down the brook for a mile, looking and calling aloud.

Watch and Trotter had both disappeared also.

"Ye needn't worry so long's the dogs is along, ma'am," said Zeb, when he returned from his bootless search. "If they get into any trouble, Watch'll come home and let us know. He's got more sense'n most men, that dog has."