Read Ebook: Nelly's Silver Mine: A Story of Colorado Life by Jackson Helen Hunt Richards Harriet Roosevelt Illustrator

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Ebook has 2679 lines and 105712 words, and 54 pages

Nelly laughed out loud. "I don't know why: we have as many eyes as boys have. I see lots more things in the woods than you do, always."

"Oh, not that sort of things," answered Rob; "not that kind of seeing; not with your eyes: I mean to see with your--well, I don't know what it is you see with, the kind I mean; but don't you know mamma often says to papa about something that's got to be done, 'don't you see? don't you see?' and she doesn't mean that he is to look with his eyes: that's the kind I mean. Now where is that Sarah?" he exclaimed suddenly, sitting bolt upright in bed in his excitement. "It's as cold as out-doors here, and there isn't a creature stirring in the house, and it's broad daylight."

"Oh, Rob, do lie down and cover yourself up," cried Nelly. "You're a naughty boy, and you'll have another sore throat as sure's you're alive. It isn't broad daylight nor any thing like it. I can't but just see the stockings."

"Can't but just see them!" said Rob. "Didn't I tell you girls couldn't see any thing? Why, I can see them just as plain, just as plain as if I was in 'em! Ain't they big, Nell? I know what's in yours, for one thing."

"Oh, Rob! do you? Tell me!" exclaimed Nell.

"I can't," replied Rob. "I promised mamma I wouldn't. But it's something you've wanted awfully."

"A doll, Rob! oh, is it a doll with eyes that can shut? oh, say, Rob!" pleaded Nelly. "It's long past the time I ought to have had it, if you hadn't been sick: you might tell me. I'll tell you what one of your things is if you will."

"I don't want to know, Nell," replied Rob, "and you needn't tease me, for I'll never tell you: not if they lie abed in this house all day. Dear me! where can Sarah be? I'm going to call mamma."

"You can't make her hear, Rob," answered Nelly. "They shut the doors ever so long ago. They were talking about something they didn't want us to hear."

"How do you know?" said Rob.

"Because I heard some of what they said, and I coughed so that they might know I was awake," replied Nelly. "Oh, Rob, it is awful!" and Nelly began to sob.

"What's awful? what is it, Nell? Tell me, can't you?" said Rob, in an excited tone.

"No, Rob I'm not going to tell you any thing about it," replied Nelly. "It wouldn't be fair, because they didn't want us to know. It'll be time enough when it comes."

"When what comes?" shouted Rob, thoroughly roused now. "I do say, Nell March, you're enough to try a saint. What did you tell me any thing about it for? I'll tell mamma the minute she comes in, and tell her you listened. Oh, shame, shame, shame on a listener!"

"Rob, you're just as mean as you can be," cried Nelly. "I didn't listen, and mamma knows very well I wouldn't do such a thing. Of course I couldn't help hearing when both doors were open, and I coughed out loud as soon as I thought about it that most likely they didn't mean we should know any thing about it. I heard papa say something about the children, and mamma said, 'we won't tell them till it is all settled,' and then I gave a great big cough, and she got up and shut both the doors; so now, Rob, you see I wasn't a listener. I wouldn't listen for any thing: mamma said once it was the very meanest kind of a lie in the whole world! Mamma knows I wouldn't do it, and you can just tell her what you like, you old hateful boy."

This was a very unhappy sort of talk for Christmas morning, was it not? But both Rob and Nelly were tired and cold, and their patience was all worn out. It really was a hard trial for two children only twelve years old to have to lie still in bed, hour after hour, Christmas morning, waiting for their presents; it grew slowly lighter and lighter; each moment they could see the big stockings plainer and plainer; they hung on the outside of the closet door on two big hooks, where were usually hung the children's school hats. One stocking was gray, and one was white. I must tell you about these stockings, for they were very droll. They were larger than the largest boots you ever saw, and would reach the whole length of a man's leg, way above his knee, as far up as they could go. They belonged to the children's grandfather March. He was one of the queerest old gentlemen that ever was known, I think. He lived in a city a great many miles away from the village where Mr. and Mrs. March lived, but he used to spend his winters with them. About six weeks before he arrived, big boxes used to begin to come. There was no railroad to this village: every thing had to come on coaches or big luggage wagons. Early in November, old Mr. March's boxes always began to arrive at his son's house. When Rob and Nelly saw Mr. Earle's big express wagon drive up to the back gate, they always exclaimed, "Oh, there are grandpa's things coming!" and they would run out to see them unloaded. You would have thought that old Mr. March supposed there was nothing to eat in all the village, to see what quantities of food he sent up. But the most peculiar thing about it was that he sent such queer things. He was as queer about his food as he was about every thing else, and he did not eat the things other people ate. For instance, he never ate butter; he ate fresh olive oil on everything; and he had a notion that no olive oil was brought to this country to sell which was fit to eat. He had an intimate friend who was an old sea captain, and used to sail to Smyrna; this sea captain used to bring over for him large boxes of bottles of olive oil every spring and autumn; and two or three of these boxes he would use up in the course of the winter. He never used more than half of the oil in a bottle: after it had been opened a few days, he did not like it; he would smell it very carefully each day, and, by the third or fourth day, he would shove the bottle from him, and say, "Bah! throw the stuff away! throw it away! it isn't fit to eat!" Mrs. March had great trouble in disposing of these half bottles of oil; everybody in the neighborhood took them, and very glad people were to get them too, for the oil was delicious; but there were enough for two or three villages of the size of Mayfield. These sweet-oil boxes had curious letters on them in scarlet and blue, and the bottles were all rolled up in a sort of shining silver paper, which Rob and Nelly used to keep to cover boxes with. It was very pretty, so they were always glad when they saw a big pile of the olive-oil boxes. Then there were also boxes full of bottles of pepper-sauce; this came in big black bottles, and the little peppers showed red through the glass; the smallest drop of this pepper-sauce made your mouth burn like fire, but this queer old gentleman used to pour it over every thing he ate. The big bottle of pepper-sauce and the big bottle of olive oil were always put by his plate, and he poured first from one and then from the other, until the food on his plate was nearly swimming in the strange mixture. Salt fish was another of his favorite dishes, and he brought up every autumn huge piles of them. They came in flat packages, tied up with coarse cord; when Mr. Earle threw them down to the ground from the top of his wagon a strong and disagreeable odor rose in the air, and Rob and Nelly used to exclaim, "Groans for the salt fish! groans for the salt fish! Why didn't you lose it off the wagon, Mr. Earle?"

"It wouldn't have made any odds, miss," Mr. Earle used to reply. "The old gentleman'd have made me go back for more." Besides the salt fish, there were little kegs full of what are called "tongues and sounds," put up in salt brine; these are the tongues and the intestines of fish; there were also jars of oysters and of clams, and a barrel of the sort of bread sailors eat at sea, which is called hard-tack. Now, after hearing about the extraordinary food this old gentleman used to bring for his own use, you will be prepared to believe what I have to tell you about his big stockings. He had just as queer notions about his bed and all his arrangements for sleeping, as he had about his food. No woman was ever allowed to make his bed. He always made it himself. Except in the very hottest weather, he would not have any sheets on it, only the very finest of flannel blankets, a great many of them; and he never wore any night-gown; he believed they were very unwholesome things.

"Why don't animals put on night-gowns to sleep in?" he used to say; one might very well have replied to him, "Animals don't crawl in between blankets either, and if you are going to be simply an animal, you must go without any clothes day and night both." However, he was a very irritable old gentleman, and nobody ever argued with him about any thing. Mr. and Mrs. March let him do in all ways exactly as he liked, and never contradicted him, for he loved them very much, in his way, and was very good to them.

Of all his queer ways and queer things, I think these big stockings were the queerest. As I said, he never wore any night-gown in bed, but he was over seventy years old, and, in spite of all his theories, his feet and legs would sometimes get cold: so he went to a tailor and got an exact pattern of a tight-fitting leg to a pair of trousers; then he took this to a woman who knit stockings to sell, and he unrolled his leg pattern before her, and said:--

"Do you see that leg, ma'am? Can you knit a stocking leg that shape and length?"

The woman did not know what to make of him.

"Why, sir," said she, "you'd never want a stocking-leg that long?"

"I didn't ask you what I wanted, ma'am," growled the old gentleman, "I asked you what you could do. Can you knit a stocking-leg that length and shape?"

"Why, yes, sir, I suppose I can," she replied, much cowed by his fierce manner.

"Well, then, knit me six pairs, three gray and three white. There's the pattern for the foot," and he threw down an old sock of his on the table, and was striding away.

The woman followed him.

"But, sir," she said timidly, "I couldn't knit these for the price of ordinary stockings. I'm afraid you wouldn't be willing to pay what they would cost. It would be like knitting a pair of pantaloons, sir,--indeed it would."

Old Mr. March always carried a big gold-headed cane; and, when he was angry, he lifted it from the ground and shook the gold knob as fast as he could right in people's faces. He lifted it now, and shook the gold knob so close in the woman's face, that she retreated rapidly toward the door.

"I didn't say any thing about money: did I, ma'am? Knit those stockings: I don't care what they cost," he cried.

"But I thought," she interrupted.

"I didn't ask you to think, did I?" said Mr. March, speaking louder and louder. "You'll never earn any money thinking. Knit those stockings, ma'am, and the sooner the better," and the old gentleman walked out of the house muttering.

"Dear me, what a very hasty old gentleman!" said the woman to herself. "I'll go over and ask Mrs. March, and make sure it's all right." So the next day she went to see Mrs. March, who explained to her all the old gentleman's whims about sleeping, and that he was quite willing and able to pay whatever the queer stockings would cost. In a very few weeks, the stockings were all done; and the old gentleman was so pleased with them that he gave the woman an extra five-dollar bill, besides the sum she had charged for knitting them. And this was the way that there came to be hanging up in Nelly's and Rob's chamber two such huge stockings on this Christmas morning of which I am telling you. They were splendid stockings for Christmas stockings! It did really seem as if you never would get to the bottom of them. The children used to lay them down on the floor, and run around them, and pull out thing after thing. Mrs. March sometimes wished they were not quite so large: it took a great deal to fill them: but, after having once used them, she had not the heart to go back to the ordinary-sized stocking, for it would have been such a disappointment to the children. She used them, first, one Christmas when Nelly's chief present was a big doll about two feet and a half tall, which wore real baby clothes like a live baby. This was so big it could not go into a common stocking, and Mrs. March happened then to think of her father's. The old gentleman was delighted to have them used for the purpose, and stood by laughing hard, while Mrs. March put the things in.

"Ha! ha!" he said, "the old stockings are good for more than one thing: aren't they?"

But we are leaving Nelly and Rob a long time in bed waiting for their Christmas presents. It grew lighter and lighter, and still there was no sound in the house, and the room grew no warmer. Rob was so thoroughly cross that he lay back on his pillow, with his eyes shut and his lips pouting out, and would not speak a word. In vain Nelly tried to comfort him, or to interest him. He would not speak. Even Nelly's patience was nearly worn out. At last the door of their mother's room opened, and she came out in her warm red wrapper.

"Why, you dear patient little children!" she exclaimed; "are you in bed yet? this is too bad. What does make your room so cold! Why, bless me!" she exclaimed, going to the register, "no heat is coming up here; what does this mean?"

"I don't think Sarah has gone down yet: I've been awake a long time, mamma," said Nelly.

"A thousand years, it is," exclaimed Rob, "or more, that we've been lying awake here waiting: Sarah's the meanest girl alive."

"Hush, hush, Rob!" said Mrs. March. "Don't speak so. Perhaps she is ill. I will go and see. But you may have your presents on the bed;" and, going to the closet, she took down first the gray stocking, which was for Rob, and carried it and laid it on his bed. Then she carried the white one, and laid it on Nelly's bed.

"Oh, goody, goody!" they both cried at once. "You're real good, mamma;" and in one second more all four of the little arms were plunging into the depths of the big stockings.

"You've earned your presents this time," said Mrs. March, as she pinned warm blankets round the children's shoulders. "I think you are really very brave little children to be quiet so many hours. It is after eight o'clock. I am afraid Sarah is ill."

Then she went upstairs and the children heard her knocking at Sarah's door, and calling, "Sarah! Sarah!" Presently she came down very quickly, and went into her room; in a few minutes, she went back again, and Mr. March went with her. Then the children heard more knocking, and their papa calling very loud, "Sarah! Sarah! open the door this moment." Then came a loud crash.

"Papa's smashed the door in," said Rob. "Good enough for her, lazy old thing, to sleep so Christmas morning! I hope mamma won't give her any present." Nelly did not speak. She had scarcely heard the knocking or the calls: she was so absorbed in looking at her new doll,--a wax doll with eyes that could open and shut. To have such a doll as this had been the great desire of Nelly's heart for years. There was also a beautiful little leather trunk full of clothes for the doll, and four little band-boxes, each with a hat or bonnet in it. There was a bedstead for her to sleep in, and a pretty red arm-chair for her to sit in, and a play piano, which could make a little real music. Then there were four beautiful new books, and ever so many pretty little paper boxes with different sorts of candy in them: all white candy; Mrs. March never gave her children any colored candies.

Rob had a beautiful kaleidoscope, mounted with a handle to turn it round by; it was about as long as Nelly's doll, and as he drew it out he couldn't imagine what it was. Then he had a geographical globe, and a paint-box, and four new volumes of Mayne Reid's stories, and the same number of boxes of candy which Nelly had.

You never saw two happier children than Rob and Nelly were for the next half-hour. They forgot all about the cold, about Sarah, and about having had to wait so long. For half an hour, all that was to be heard in the room were exclamations from one to the other, such as:--

"Oh, Nell! see this picture!"

"Oh, Rob! look at this lovely bonnet!"

"Nell, this is the splendidest one of all."

"This doll is bigger than Mary Pratt's: I know it is. Oh, Rob! don't you suppose it must have cost a lot of money?"

At last Mrs. March came back into their room, looking very much annoyed.

"Well, children," she said, "we're going to have a droll sort of Christmas. Sarah is so fast asleep we can't wake her up, and your papa thinks she must be drunk. We shall have to cook our Christmas dinner ourselves. How will you like that?"

"Oh, splendid, mamma, splendid! Let us get right up now," cried both the children, eagerly laying down their playthings.

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