One morning, early in June, Nelly was sitting out by the old mill, with her lap full of blue anemones and white daisies: the anemones were hardly out of their gray cloaks. The anemones in Colorado come up out of the ground like crocuses; the buds are rolled up tight in the loveliest little furry coverings almost like chinchilla fur. I think this is to keep them warm, because they come very early in the spring, and often there are cold storms after they arrive, and the poor little anemones are all covered up in snow. Nelly heard steps and voices and the trampling of hoofs. She sprang up, and saw that a large blue wagon, drawn by eight mules, had just turned in from the road, towards the brook, and the driver was making ready to camp. He came towards Nelly, and said, very pleasantly:-- "Little girl, do your folks live in yonder?" pointing to the house. "Yes, sir," said Nelly. "Do they ever keep folks?" "What, sir?" said Nelly. "Do they ever keep folks,--keep 'em to board?" "Oh, no! never," replied Nelly. The man looked disappointed. "Well," he said, "I've got to lie by here a day or two, anyhow. I was in hopes I could get took in. I'm clean beat out; but I can sleep in the wagon." "My mamma will be glad to do all she can for you if you're sick, I'm sure," said Nelly; "but we haven't any spare room in our house." The driver looked at Nelly again. He had once been a coachman in a gentleman's family at the East, and he knew by Nelly's voice and polite manner that she was not the child of any of the common farmers of the country. "Have you lived here long?" he said. "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.