We Did Not Breakfast Till
9:30, Then The Men Went Out, And I Never Sat Down Till Two.
I
cleaned the living room and the kitchen, swept a path through the
rubbish in the passage room, washed
Up, made and baked a batch of
rolls and four pounds of sweet biscuits, cleaned some tins and
pans, washed some clothes, and gave things generally a "redding
up." There is a little thick buttermilk, fully six weeks old, at
the bottom of a churn, which I use for raising the rolls; but Mr.
Kavan, who makes "lovely" bread, puts some flour and water to
turn sour near the stove, and this succeeds admirably.
I also made a most unsatisfactory investigation into the state of
my apparel. I came to Colorado now nearly three months ago, with
a small carpet-bag containing clothes, none of them new; and
these, by legitimate wear, the depredations of calves, and the
necessity of tearing some of them up for dish-cloths, are reduced
to a single change! I have a solitary pocket handkerchief and
one pair of stockings, such a mass of darns that hardly a trace
of the original wool remains. Owing to my inability to get money
in Denver I am almost without shoes, have nothing but a pair of
slippers and some "arctics." For outer garments - well, I have a
trained black silk dress, with a black silk polonaise! and
nothing else but my old flannel riding suit, which is quite
threadbare, and requires such frequent mending that I am
sometimes obliged to "dress" for supper, and patch and darn it
during the evening. You will laugh, but it is singular that one
can face the bitter winds with the mercury at zero and below it,
in exactly the same clothing which I wore in the tropics! It is
only the extreme dryness of the air which renders it possible to
live in such clothing. We have arranged the work better. Mr.
Buchan was doing too much, and it was hard for him, as he is very
delicate. You will wonder how three people here in the
wilderness can have much to do. There are the horses which we
keep in the corral to feed on sheaf oats and take to water twice
a day, the fowls and dogs to feed, the cow to milk, the bread to
make, and to keep a general knowledge of the whereabouts of the
stock in the event of a severe snow-storm coming on. Then there
is all the wood to cut, as there is no wood pile, and we burn a
great deal, and besides the cooking, washing, and mending, which
each one does, the men must hunt and fish for their living. Then
two sick cows have had to be attended to.
We were with one when it died yesterday. It suffered terribly,
and looked at us with the pathetically pleading eyes of a
creature "made subject to vanity." The disposal of its carcass
was a difficulty.
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