He Is A Perfect Plague With His Ignorance
And SELF-Sufficiency.
The first day after he came while I was
washing up the breakfast things he told me that he intended to do
all the dirty work, so I left the knives and forks in the tub and
asked him to wipe and lay them aside.
Two hours afterwards I
found them untouched. Again the men went out hunting, and he
said he would chop the wood for several days' use, and after a
few strokes, which were only successful in chipping off some
shavings, he came in and strummed on the harmonium, leaving me
without any wood with which to make the fire for supper. He
talked about his skill with the lasso, but could not even catch
one of our quietest horses. Worse than all, he does not know one
cow from another. Two days ago he lost our milch cow in driving
her in to be milked, and Mr. Kavan lost hours of valuable time in
hunting for her without success. To-day he told us triumphantly
that he had found her, and he was sent out to milk her. After
two hours he returned with a rueful face and a few drops of
whitish fluid in the milk pail, saying that that was all he could
get. On Mr. K. going out, he found, instead of our "calico" cow,
a brindled one that had been dry since the spring! Our cow has
gone off to the wild cattle, and we are looking very grim at
Lyman, who says that he expected he should live on milk. I told
him to fill up the four-gallon kettle, and an hour afterwards
found it red-hot on the stove. Nothing can be kept from him
unless it is hidden in my room. He has eaten two pounds of dried
cherries from the shelf, half of my second four-pound spice loaf
before it was cold, licked up my custard sauce in the night, and
privately devoured the pudding which was to be for supper. He
confesses to it all, and says, "I suppose you think me a cure."
Mr. K. says that the first thing he said to him this morning was,
"Will Miss B. make us a nice pudding to-day?" This is all
harmless, but the plagiarism and want of honor are disgusting,
and quite out of keeping with his profession of being a
theological student.
This life is in some respects like being on board ship - there are
no mails, and one knows nothing beyond one's little world, a very
little one in this case. We find each other true, and have
learnt to esteem and trust each other. I should, for instance,
go out of this room leaving this book open on the table, knowing
that the men would not read my letter. They are discreet,
reticent, observant, and on many subjects well informed, but they
are of a type which has no antitype at home. All women work in
this region, so there is no fuss about my working, or saying,
"Oh, you mustn't do that," or "Oh, let me do that."
November 30.
We sat up till eleven last night, so confident were we that
Edwards would leave Denver the day after Thanksgiving and get up
here. This morning we came to the resolution that we must break
up. Tea, coffee, and sugar are done, the venison is turning
sour, and the men have only one month left for the hunting on
which their winter living depends. I cannot leave the Territory
till I get money, but I can go to Longmount for the mail and hear
whether the panic is abating. Yesterday I was alone all day, and
after riding to the base of Long's Peak, made two roly-poly
puddings for supper, having nothing else. The men, however, came
back perfectly loaded with trout, and we had a feast. Epicures
at home would have envied us. Mr. Kavan kept the frying pan with
boiling butter on the stove, butter enough thoroughly to cover
the trout, rolled them in coarse corn meal, plunged them into the
butter, turned them once, and took them out, thoroughly done,
fizzing, and lemon colored. For once young Lyman was satisfied,
for the dish was replenished as often as it was emptied. They
caught 40 lbs., and have packed them in ice until they can be
sent to Denver for sale. The winter fishing is very rich. In
the hardest frost, men who fish not for sport, but gain, take
their axes and camping blankets, and go up to the hard-frozen
waters which lie in fifty places round the park, and choosing a
likely spot, a little sheltered from the wind, hack a hole in the
ice, and fastening a foot-link to a cotton-wood tree, bait the
hook with maggots or bits of easily-gotten fresh meat. Often the
trout are caught as fast as the hook can be baited, and looking
through the ice hole in the track of a sunbeam, you see a mass of
tails, silver fins, bright eyes, and crimson spots, a perfect
shoal of fish, and truly beautiful the crimson-spotted creatures
look, lying still and dead on the blue ice under the sunshine.
Sometimes two men bring home 60 lbs. of trout as the result of
one day's winter fishing. It is a cold and silent sport,
however.
How a cook at home would despise our scanty appliances, with
which we turn out luxuries. We have only a cooking-stove, which
requires incessant feeding with wood, a kettle, a frying pan, a
six-gallon brass pan, and a bottle for a rolling pin. The cold
has been very severe, but I do not suffer from it even in my
insufficient clothing. I take a piece of granite made very hot
to bed, draw the blankets over my head and sleep eight hours,
though the snow often covers me.
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