Nelly's Silver Mine Part 45

Nelly laughed.

"If you watch closely, you can see what I tell by," she said. "It's in plain sight."

"Yes, plain sight! plain sight!" shouted Rob, to whom Nelly had pointed out the little red stones. "It's out of a story."

Mr. Scholfield and Mr. March and Billy all looked around, perplexed; but they could see nothing.

"Oh, tell us the secret, Guide," said Mr. March. "We are stupid: we can't find it out."

Then Nelly told them; and as soon as she pointed to the red stones they wondered very much that they had not noticed them before.

It seemed a very short way to the ravine, this time: Nelly had reached it before she thought of its being near.

"Why, here it is," she said; "I didn't think we were half way there."

Then she and Rob sat on the ground and watched the others. Rob was very quiet. He was a good deal overawed at the idea of a real silver mine all for their own.

"Do you suppose it's right here, right under our feet, Nell?" said he, stamping his foot on the ground.

"I dare say," said Nelly. "Perhaps it is all over round here: some of them are as big as a mile."

"I wonder if they'll let us go down as often as we want to," said Rob. "They'll have to, won't they, if it's our own mine?"

"That'll be for papa to say," answered Nelly, decidedly. "I've given it to him. It's his mine."

While the children was thus building their innocent air-castles in a small way, the brains of the older people were building no less actively, and on a larger scale. Both Billy and Mr. Scholfield were much excited. Billy ran from spot to spot, now hammering a stone in two with his hammer, now digging fiercely into the ground with his pick-axe. Mr. Scholfield went about picking up the black stones, and piling them together, till he had quite a monument of them.

"I declare," he said at last, "it beats me that this place hasn't ever been found before, much 's this country's been prospected over and over. I don't know what to make of it. But there isn't a sign of a claim here for miles: I know that."

"Well, I'll tell yer what I'm a thinkin'," said Billy. "I'm a thinkin' that 's fur back 's them fust prospectin' days there was a creek in here; 'n' thet's the reason there didn't n.o.body look here.

I've heern it said hundreds o' times in town thet there wan't no use lookin' along these ridges; they'd all been looked over thorough, 'n' there wan't nothin' in 'em. But we've struck a silver mine, sure: I hain't any doubt of it. Let's name her 'The Little Nelly.'"

Mr. March's face grew red. He did not like the idea of having a mine called after Nelly; but he did not want to hurt Billy's feelings.

Before he could speak, Mr. Scholfield cried out:--

"Good for you, Billy! That's what we'll call it! That's a name to bring good luck. 'The Little Nelly!' and may she turn out not so 'little,' after all; and the first bucketful of ore we draw up, Nelly, we'll drink your health, and christen the mine."

Nelly did not quite understand what all this meant.

"Did you mean that I am to name the mine, sir?" she said.

"No," said Mr. Scholfield: "we meant that we were going to name it for you, by your name. But you can name it, if you like. That would be luckier still. Don't you like to have it called by your name?"

Nelly hesitated.

"I think I would rather not have it named after me," she said: "some of the mines have such dreadful names. But I know a name I think would be a real pretty name."

"What's that?" said her father.

"The Good Luck," said Nelly.

Billy clapped his knee hard with his hand.

"By jingo!" said he, "that's the best name ever was given to a mine yet. 'The Good Luck' it shall be; and good luck it was to you, Nelly, the day you struck it. Old Pine he said, one day last spring, mebbe you'd find a mine, when I was a tellin' him how you 'n' Rob was allers lookin' for one."

"But I wasn't looking for this, Billy," said Nelly. "I gave up looking for one a long time ago, when we began to sell the eggs. It was just an accident that I happened to remember the black stones in here."

"That's the way some of the best mines have been found," said Mr.

Scholfield: "just by sheer accident. There was a man I knew, in California, had his mule run away from him one day: it was somewhere in that Tuolomne region; and if that mule didn't run straight down into a gulch that was just washed full of free gold,--and the fellow had been walking in it some time before he noticed it! There's a heap o' luck in this world."

"Yes," said Mr. March, "there's a great deal of luck; but there is a great deal which is set down to luck which isn't luck. Now, if my little girl here hadn't had the good-will and the energy to try to earn some money for her mother and me, she wouldn't have been searching for a short cut to Rosita over these hills, and would never have found this mine."

"That's so," said Mr. Scholfield, looking admiringly at Nelly.

"She's a most uncommon girl, that Nelly of yours. I think we ought to call the mine after her; it's hers."

"No," said Mr. March: "I like her name for it best. Let us call it 'The Good Luck.'"

Mrs. March was watching for her husband and children when they came down the lane. She had been much more excited about the silver mine than she had confessed to Mr. March. All day long she had been unable to keep it out of her mind. The prospect was too tempting.

"Why should it not have happened to us, as well as to so many people," she thought. "Oh! if we only could have just money enough to give Rob and Nelly a good education, I would not ask for any thing more. And, even if this is not very much of a mine, it might give us money enough for that." With such hopes and imaginations as these Mrs. March's mind had been full all day long; and, when she saw Mr. March and Rob and Nelly coming toward the house, she felt almost afraid to see them, lest she should see disappointment written on their faces.

Not at all. Rob and Nelly came bounding on ahead, and, as they drew near the door, they shouted out:--

"The Good Luck! The Good Luck! It is named 'The Good Luck.'"

"They wanted to call it 'The Little Nelly,' but Nelly wouldn't,"

said Rob. "I don't see why. If I'd found it, I'd have called it 'The Rob,' I know. They didn't ask me to let them call it for me. If they had, they might and welcome."

"It is really a mine, then?" said Mrs. March, looking at her husband.

"Yes, Sarah, I think it is," he replied. "If Scholfield and Billy know,--and they seem to be very sure,--there is good promise of silver there; and Nelly herself has named it 'The Good Luck.'"

"Oh, Nelly! did you, really?" exclaimed Mrs. March. "You dear child!" And she threw both arms around Nelly, and gave her a great hug. "That's a lovely name. I do believe it will bring luck."

"I didn't want it named after me," said Nelly. "It isn't as if it was a live thing--"

"Subjunctive mood, dear! 'as if it were,'" interrupted Mrs. March.

"As if it were," repeated Nelly, looking confused. "I wish they'd left the subjunctive mood out of the grammar. I sha'n't ever learn it! It isn't as if it were a live thing like a baby or a kitten. I wouldn't mind having such things called after me, but some of the mines have the awfullest names, mamma: real wicked names, that I shouldn't dare to say."

"Well, they'll call it after you, anyhow, Nell," cried Rob. "Billy said so, coming home."

"They won't either," said Nelly, "when it was my own mine, only I gave it to papa, and I asked them not to; I think it would be real mean."

"Oh, I don't mean Mr. Scholfield and Billy," said Rob: "they called it 'The Good Luck' as soon as you said so; but the men around town.

They'll hear it was you found it; and they'll call it 'The Nelly,'

always: you see if they don't."

"Rob, don't tease your sister so," said Mrs. March.