I continued writing. “That’s all I can think of.”
Bundled to the ears I stepped gingerly out into the snow and with mincing steps started to the barn, passing the schoolhouse and a small shack across the trail. A blond, pink-cheeked woman was slowly walking back and forth. Possibly one of the Finns of our community, I thought, and smiling, said, “Good morning.” She didn’t answer but drew her head deeper into the collar of her coat. I couldn’t tell whether she did not understand English or was a shy newcomer. Possibly she felt I was intruding.
The barn was only a short distance away. The doors were open showing five clean horse stalls along each side. In a cubby near the door, feet propped high on the iron belt of a pot-bellied stove, a man sat nodding drowsily but, hearing me approach, jumped to his feet, smiled, and said, “Howdee do.”
“How do you do? I’m Mrs. Backus. My husband works at the Japan Flora and we’ve just moved into the teacher’s house. I was told you would let me use your telephone.”
“Certainly, Mrs. Backus. Everyone uses it. I’m Fred Diener, the stableman for Rodgers Brothers. You came up with one of our drivers yesterday. He went back early this morning.” He pointed to a bewildering telephone on the wall. “You ring five times to get central and,” laughing, “sometimes she’s slow answering.”
On tiptoe I stretched to wind the knob at one side of the box and evoked a timid, tin-panny jingle. After a long wait, I gave the store number. After a longer wait the answer came and my voice sounded strange ordering all that food from my list. With that done I turned to thank Fred and instantly sensed that he was a “diamond in the rough.” My first impression proved correct. He was truly a gentleman, honorable, and a sincere friend to everyone. To have known him was a privilege.
The bald crown of his head shone through a scraggly fringe of sorrel-colored hair framing ruddy cheeks and clear blue eyes of a round, happy face. A moustache, thick and drooping at both corners of his mouth, exactly matched in color his fringe.
Old shapeless clothes, dirty and food stained, reeked of the stable. This tiny room containing the huge telephone was his entire abode: parlor, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. In one corner stood an old chair and a small table crowded with used dishes. His meals were cooked on the pot-bellied stove which now was hot with burning coal. The ash container was chock-full and spilling on the floor. On a box in the corner was an old tin basin for washing everything, including Fred. Suspended from the wall by two heavy chains was a replica of an upper Pullman berth, but it never was entirely closed because a mess of faded, worn rags that once had been blankets continually hung down the side of this bunk. As the saying goes, “clothes don’t always make the man,” neither in this case did his surroundings have any bearing on the fine personality of Fred Diener. This thought I carried back with me to our “spacious” two-room hut with its high-peaked roof, a blot like all the other shacks on the limitless white purity of the world about.
The storm of yesterday was spent and the sun on the snow was dazzling. Confident now that I could keep my feet on the trail, I quickened my pace to a point where the whole, vast expanse was a natural amphitheatre. In geological terms, it is called a cirque, formed by the sheer walls of the San Miguel mountains, a spur of the mighty San Juan Range that I surveyed from eleven thousand five hundred feet above sea level.
Without a break in its crest, it curved like a horseshoe from southwest to northeast, two thousand feet above our settlement, an unlimited, smooth-appearing backdrop of blazing white and sparkling as if sprinkled with diamond dust.
The road leading down to Telluride was obliterated by the snow, but I could trace it by the curves of the mountain round which we had ascended. Far beyond spread the lowlands, a vista in white.
My long skirts swishing through the snow, I went slowly home and found the place cheery, the fire still burning. A few minutes later, there was a knock and I opened the door for a lady, carrying a blanket-wrapped baby in her arms.
“I am Mrs. Batcheller,” she announced. Her voice, smile, and manner were charming. “I remember how I felt when we arrived here a year ago, so I came to help you in any way I can.”
“Please come in,” I said, eager to welcome her. “Thank you for coming. I’ll be grateful for your help. I know so little about anything up here that I don’t know how to start. I can’t even cook. Do let me see your baby.”
Only six weeks old, he still seemed very tiny and his face looked thin and pinched. She was nursing him but her abundant milk was not nourishing and she kept in constant communication, she said, with Dr. Edgar Hadley, the leading physician in Telluride who had attended her at Billy’s birth.
Beth BatcheLler skiing on the roof of her house at Tomboy Mine. (Photo courtesy of Telluride Historical Museum, all rights reserved.)
My new friend’s large, beautiful brown eyes and face glowed with health and happiness. She was a picture of loveliness: olive skin, pink cheeks, well-shaped nose, attractive mouth with even white teeth, dark-brown hair piled high on her head. Her capable, graceful hands were used expressively.
We talked about cooking and baking with the handicap of the high altitude, and about Billy, her great joy and concern.
“Come to see me often, won’t you?” she invited. “We’re just across the trail and I won’t get out much until Billy gains a good deal because he must not catch cold.”
I promised, delighted with finding a friendship that was to endure throughout our lives, and eager to tell George about her. He brought work home—many reports that had been neglected during our honeymoon, and since I had taken mathematics and chemistry in college and had some knowledge of chemical terminology, I helped check his figures. He wiped dishes for me. Then we sat at the table checking his reports. (This partnership arrangement lasted throughout the years.)
Suddenly my ear was cocked at the sound of tin pans rattling and banging. As the noise came nearer and louder we laid aside the papers and pencils, wondering what it was so close to our little house. Then in the middle of the ding-donging and rat-atatting came a heavy banging on the house. George opened the door.
“Come right in,” he said. “We’re glad to see you.”
It was a two-man shivaree staged with the noise of an army squad by Johnny Midwinter, the foreman of the Japan Flora, a stubby blond and genial Cornishman, and the mine carpenter, Ole Oleson. They exclaimed over the hot chocolate and toast I served, and I thoroughly enjoyed the mountain tales of these two typical men of the mines, rugged and sincere, artlessly punctuating every sentence with vehement “damns,” “hells,” and “Gods.”
The next day again was sunny. The snow had begun to settle and frost crackled in the crisp air. Some of the chill was gone from my bones. I was working happily about the house and life was all aglow until suddenly, a loud roar shook the place. The roof must be caving in! For one terrified moment my world shattered. I fell limply on the bed, too weak to stand. Instantly the cataclysm was over and I slowly began to realize what had happened. The heavy snow pack on both sides of our steep roof, warmed by the sun and the fire within, had let go with a crash heard far beyond the trail. I understood then why Bill Langley so greatly feared an avalanche!
I was still unnerved and shaking when George came home and suggested taking a walk. I went gladly.
The teacher’s house was the only one on a level area known as “The Flat,” built up by tailings from a mill above that had been discarded. Across the trail, scattered hit-and-miss, were several shacks which had never known paint. Rooted to the ground by small wooden blocks they squatted like setting hens as the deepening snow, even this early in winter, mounted almost to their windows.
Two hundred feet beyond and above the tailings was a level bench on which stood four houses fifty feet apart. A tree standing near one house distinguished it from every other in the Basin.
“All this,” said George, “belongs to the Tomboy. It is one of the richest gold mines in North America. The