Nelly's Silver Mine: A Story of Colorado LifeJackson, Helen Hunt
History
Nelly's Silver Mine: A Story of Colorado Life
Jackson, Helen Hunt
Colorado -- History -- To 1876 -- Juvenile fiction
too wise to buy till they had tried it.
"No, no," he said; "we'll hire it for six months first, and see how
it works. It may be all true as you say about the cattle's grazin'
well up and down them rocks; but I'd rather hev medder land any day.
We'll hire, to begin with."
So they had rented the man's house and land for six months, and had
bought all his cows: the cows were still on the place. Then they
bought a nice wagon, with three seats and a white top to it, very
much like the butchers' carts you see going round with meat to sell
in country villages. All the farmers in Colorado drive in such
wagons. Then they had bought two horses. The horses and the wagon
were to go with them on the cars. I must tell you about the horses.
They had such queer names! One was a dark red, and he was called
"Fox." He had a narrow head and a sharp nose; and really his face
did look like a fox's face. The other horse was of a very queer
shade of reddish yellow, with a good deal of white about him; his
forefeet were white, and his mane was almost white; and, if you will
believe it, his name was "Pumpkinseed"! The man the Marches bought
him of did not know why he was called so. He himself had only owned
him a year; and, when he asked the man he bought him of how he came
to give the horse such a queer name, he said he "didn't know. The
old woman named him; mebbe she thought he was kind o' the color of
pumpkin-seed, sort o' streaked with yaller 'n' white." Rob was
delighted with this name. He kept singing it over and over:
"Pumpkinseed! Pumpkinseed! We've got a horse called
Pumpkinseed!"--till his mother begged him to stop.
The railroad which runs southward from Denver is the kind of
railroad called a narrow-gauge railroad. This means that the track
is only about two-thirds the width of ordinary railroad tracks; and
the cars and the engines are made small to match the track. You
can't think how droll a train of such little cars looks when you
first see it; it looks like a play train. A gentleman I know said a
funny thing the first time he saw a little narrow-gauge train
puffing along behind its little engine; he turned to his wife: "Look
here, wife," said he; "let's buy that and send it home to the
children to play with."
When Rob and Nelly first stepped into the little car, they
exclaimed, "What a funny car!" On one side the car there were double
seats in which two people could sit; on the other side were single
seats, rather tight even for one person. Nelly and Rob both ran to
get two of these little seats.
"Hurrah!" said Rob, as he sat down in this; "I'm going in a high
chair! Mamma, ain't this just like a baby's high chair?"
"Yes, just about, Rob," said Mr. March, who had taken his seat in
one, and found it too tight for comfort.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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