CHAPTER VII.IN SAMONA.
If Miss Hansford could have seen the Rectory in Samona she would hardly have likened it to bedlam. It was a small wooden structure without much architectural symmetry, but with its coat of white paint, its green blinds and its well-kept plot of ground around it, it looked very homelike and cozy, and was regarded as one of the finest houses in the little mountain town. The gate was not off the hinges, nor was there any unsightly object obtruding from a broken window, as had been the case in the Potter House in Ridgefield. Indoors there was perfect neatness and order, notwithstanding that four active boys were constantly running in and out, making a great deal of work, and care, too, for the delicate mother and Elithe, on the latter of whom the most of the burden fell. As Roger had written to his aunt, Elithe was the right hand and left hand and both hands of the family,—the one to whom he went for counsel and comfort, just as the boys went to her for help in every emergency, from the mending of a kite or ball to the mastering of a lesson hard to be learned.Between Elithe and her mother the natural relations seemed to be reversed. Elithe was the mother and Lucy the child. A very dainty, pretty child, whom her husband loved as devotedly as he had done when, in the face of bitter opposition, he had made her his wife. He had been told that she was not a helpmeet for a poor clergyman,—that she would be sickly and inefficient, and as the years went by and she proved the truth of all this he gave no sign that he knew it, and bore his lot uncomplainingly. Indeed, he was very happy in his Western home. The miners, to whom he preached every four weeks in Deep Gulch, and with whom he often came in contact, worshiped him. He was hail fellow well met with them at times, talking and laughing familiarly with them, eating their coarse fare and joining in whatever interested them most. Again, he was their pastor and spiritual teacher, dignified as became his office, sympathizing with them in their joys and sorrows, reproving them when they deserved it, and striving to lead them up to a higher life and nobler manhood than is common in mining districts.
If he were popular, Elithe was more so. In fine weather she often rode with her father to Deep Gulch when he officiated there. Horses in that vicinity were not very plenty, and as Mr. Hansford had but one, Elithe at first rode behind him in their excursions to the mines.
“It is a shame for our parson’s daughter to come to visit us this way. Can’t we club together and get her a pony?” Bill Stokes, one of the leading miners, said to his comrades, with the result that when, a few weeks after, Elithe rode into the camp behind her father, she found a beautiful chestnut pony, saddled and bridled, and tied to a young sapling, awaiting her.
This Bill Stokes was to present with a speech, which hadcost him a great deal of thought and labor and been rehearsed many times to his comrades, each one of whom had some suggestion or criticism both as to his words, his manner of delivering them and the way he stood and held his head and used his hands. After many trials and changes, the speech, which commenced with, “To her gracious highness, our Queen of the Gulch, we, her worshipful admirers, filled with a deep sense of her kindness to us, and the frailties and shortness of life, do hereby give and bequeath,” and so on, was pronounced as perfect in composition as it well could be. A few objected to the “shortness and frailties of life” as sounding like a funeral, while others thought the “give and bequeath” too much like a will. On the whole, however, it had quite a learned sound, and could not be improved, and in their Sunday clothes, with shaven faces and clean hands and sober heads, for it was a point of honor with them not to touch a drop when the parson and Miss Elithe were in the camp, they waited for Mr. Hansford and his daughter.
“Oh, what a beauty!” Elithe cried, springing from her father’s horse and going up to the pony, who, accustomed to be petted, rubbed his head against her sleeve, and gave a little whinny of welcome. “Where did he come from, and whose is he?” she said to Bill Stokes, whose face was on a broad grin.
“Like him?” he asked, and Elithe replied. “Like him! I reckon I do. But whose is he? Is there a lady here?”
She looked around for the owner of the pony, while Bill, forgetting his speech, which he held in his hand, said to her: “He’s yours; we all chipped in and bought him of a trader from Butte, and we give him to you with—with—yours respectfully,” he added, with a gasp, remembering that this was what he was to say last. He had forgotten hisspeech entirely, and stood mortified and aghast at the jeers and groans of his companions. “The speech, Stokes! the speech! Don’t cheat us out of that,” they yelled, while Elithe drew near to her father in alarm, and the pony, frightened at the din, began to snort and pull at his bridle.
The speech was quite too fine a piece of composition to be lost. Too many had had a hand in it and were waiting to hear how their ideas sounded to be satisfied without it, and after the confusion had subsided and Mr. Hansford began to comprehend the meaning of the hubbub, he suggested that Bill should be given a chance to deliver it as if nothing had occurred, and, mounted on a barrel, Bill delivered it with a great many flourishes of hands and arms and in a voice which one of the miners said reminded him of a leader in the Salvation Army when he wanted to be heard half a mile away. The pony, Bill said, was called Sunshine, because the beautiful lady who was to be his mistress was the sunshine of the camp, the Aurora of the day, who brought the brightness of the morning with her when she came, and left darkness and rain when she went away.
This allusion to Aurora and darkness and rain was thought the mostfetchingpart of the speech, and was the combined effort of the three brainiest men in the camp, one of whom had seen a picture of Aurora in the East. It was received with thunders of applause, during which Elithe began to cry, while the pony broke from the sapling and went curveting around in circles. The men had expected Elithe to cry, and when through her tears she thanked them in the sweet, gracious way natural to her, they were fully satisfied, and felt that their Sunshine was a success. He was soon caught, and, Elithe on his back, galloped several times before her delighted audience, whocomplimented her by saying she rode as well as a circus rider.
Nearly every four weeks after that while the fine weather lasted Elithe went with her father to Deep Gulch, where she led the singing for the service and played the melodeon which had been bought in Helena and sent to the Gulch for her use. One Sunday morning, about the middle of April, Roger was too ill to rise. He was subject to headache, and a severer one than usual made it almost impossible for him to open his eyes, much less to sit up.
“I am so sorry,” he said, “for the men at the mines will be disappointed. They were anticipating to-day, because I was to take them that music for the Magnificat. I hope they won’t get into mischief. It is three weeks since I was there.”
Elithe, who was bathing his forehead, was silent a moment, and then said: “I’ll take the music and play it for them. Rob can go with me on your horse. I shall be a poor substitute for you, but better than nothing. Shall I go?”
Mr. Hansford hesitated a moment, and then, knowing that she would be just as safe with those rough men as if each were her brother, consented.
“Aren’t you at all afraid?” her mother asked, and Elithe answered, laughingly: “Afraid? No. Why should I be? If I were in a great danger I would go to the miners sooner than to any one else, and then Mrs. Stokes and her mother are there now.”
She was soon ready, looking, as her brother Rob said, “very swell” in her gown of blue flannel and a fanciful little riding cap, trimmed with gilt cord and tassel. It had come in a missionary box the fall previous, and was so becoming to her well-shaped head and short curls that shealways wore it to the mines, where the men said she looked like a daisy. It was a glorious day, for the spring was early that year, and both Elithe and Rob felt the exhilaration of the pure mountain air and the fine scenery as they made their way over wild wastes of plains and then struck into the gorge which led to the Deep Gulch, the terminus of their journey.