We have lost count of time, and can only agree on the fact that
the date is somewhere near the end of November.
Our life has
settled down into serenity, and our singular and enforced
partnership is very pleasant. We might be three men living
together, but for the unvarying courtesy and consideration which
they show to me. Our work goes on like clockwork; the only
difficulty which ever arises is that the men do not like me to do
anything that they think hard or unsuitable, such as saddling a
horse or bringing in water. The days go very fast; it was 3:30
today before I knew that it was 1. It is a calm life without
worries. The men are so easy to live with; they never fuss, or
grumble, or sigh, or make a trouble of anything. It would amuse
you to come into our wretched little kitchen before our
disgracefully late breakfast, and find Mr. Kavan busy at the
stove frying venison, myself washing the supper dishes, and Mr.
Buchan drying them, or both the men busy at the stove while I
sweep the floor. Our food is a great object of interest to us,
and we are ravenously hungry now that we have only two meals a
day. About sundown each goes forth to his "chores" - Mr. K. to
chop wood, Mr. B. to haul water, I to wash the milk pans and
water the horses. On Saturday the men shot a deer, and on going
for it to-day they found nothing but the hind legs, and following
a track which they expected would lead them to a beast's hole,
they came quite carelessly upon a large mountain lion, which,
however, took itself out of their reach before they were
sufficiently recovered from their surprise to fire at it. These
lions, which are really a species of puma, are bloodthirsty as
well as cowardly. Lately one got into a sheepfold in the canyon
of the St. Vrain, and killed thirty sheep, sucking the blood from
their throats.
November ?
This has been a day of minor events, as well as a busy one. I
was so busy that I never sat down from 10:30 till 1:30. I had
washed my one change of raiment, and though I never iron my
clothes, I like to bleach them till they are as white as snow,
and they were whitening on the line when some furious gusts
came down from Long's Peak, against which I could not stand, and
when I did get out all my clothes were blown into strips from an
inch to four inches in width, literally destroyed! One learns
how very little is necessary either for comfort or happiness. I
made a four-pound spiced ginger cake, baked some bread, mended
my riding dress, cleaned up generally, wrote some letters with
the hope that some day they might be posted and took a
magnificent walk, reaching the cabin again in the melancholy
glory which now immediately precedes the darkness.
We were all busy getting our supper ready when the dogs began to
bark furiously, and we heard the noise of horses. "Evans at
last!" we exclaimed, but we were wrong. Mr. Kavan went out, and
returned saying that it was a young man who had come up with
Evans's wagon and team, and that the wagon had gone over into
a gulch seven miles from here. Mr. Kavan looked very grave.
"It's another mouth to feed," he said. They asked no questions,
and brought the lad in, a slangy, assured fellow of twenty, who,
having fallen into delicate health at a theological college, had
been sent up here by Evans to work for his board. The men were
too courteous to ask him what he was doing up here, but I boldly
asked him where he lived, and to our dismay he replied, "I've
come to live here." We discussed the food question gravely, as
it presented a real difficulty. We put him into a bed-closet
opening from the kitchen, and decided to see what he was fit for
before giving him work. We were very much amazed, in truth, at
his coming here. He is evidently a shallow, arrogant youth.
We have decided that to-day is November 26th; to-morrow is
Thanksgiving Day, and we are planning a feast, though Mr. K. said
to me again this morning, with a doleful face, "You see there's
another mouth to feed." This "mouth" has come up to try the
panacea of manual labor, but he is town bred, and I see that he
will do nothing. He is writing poetry, and while I was busy
to-day began to read it aloud to me, asking for my criticism. He
is just at the age when everything literary has a fascination,
and every literary person is a hero, specially Dr. Holland. Last
night was fearful from the lifting of the cabin and the breaking
of the mud from the roof. We sat with fine gravel driving in our
faces, and this morning I carried four shovelfuls of mud out of
my room. After breakfast, Mr. Kavan, Mr. Lyman, and I, with the
two wagon horses, rode the seven miles to the scene of
yesterday's disaster in a perfect gale of wind. I felt like a
servant going out for a day's "pleasuring," hurrying "through my
dishes," and leaving my room in disorder. The wagon lay half-way
down the side of a ravine, kept from destruction by having caught
on some trees.
It was too cold to hang about while the men hauled it up and
fixed it, so I went slowly back, encountering Mr. Nugent in a
most bitter mood - almost in an "ugly fit" - hating everybody, and
contrasting his own generosity and reckless kindness with the
selfishness and carefully-weighed kindnesses of others. People
do give him credit for having "as kind a heart as ever beat."
Lately a child in the other cabin was taken ill, and though there
were idle men and horses at hand, it was only the "desperado" who
rode sixty miles in "the shortest time ever made" to bring the
doctor.
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