The Collected Works of Susan Coolidge: 7 Novels, 35+ Short Stories, Essays & Poems (Illustrated). Susan Coolidge

me that repoussé fruit-knife there in my bag—Oh, it’s in my other bag! Never mind; I’ll show it to you some other time—solid silver, you know. Bigelow and Kennard—their things always good, though expensive; and my son-in-law he said, ‘You’re going to a fruit country, and—’ Mrs. Peters doesn’t think there is so much fruit, though. All sent on from California, as I wrote,—and I guess Ellen and Henry were surprised to hear it.”

      Katy held serious counsel with herself that night as to what she should do about this extraordinary “guide, philosopher, and friend” whom the Fates had provided for Clover. She saw that her father, from very over-anxiety, had made a mistake, and complicated Clover’s inevitable cares with a most undesirable companion, who would add to rather than relieve them. She could not decide what was best to do; and in fact the time was short for doing anything, for the next evening would bring them to Denver, and poor Clover must be left to face the situation by herself as best she might.

      Katy finally concluded to write her father plainly how things stood, and beg him to set Clover’s mind quite at rest as to any responsibility for Mrs. Watson, and also to have a talk with that lady herself, and explain matters as clearly as she could. It seemed all that was in her power.

      Next day the party woke to a wonderful sense of lightness and exhilaration which no one could account for till the conductor told them that the apparently level plain over which they were speeding was more than four thousand feet above the sea. It seemed impossible to believe it. Hour by hour they climbed; but the climb was imperceptible. Now four thousand six hundred feet of elevation was reported, now four thousand eight hundred, at last above five thousand; and still there seemed about them nothing but a vast expanse of flat levels,—the table-lands of Nebraska. There was little that was beautiful in the landscape, which was principally made up of wide reaches of sand, dotted with cactus and grease-wood and with the droll cone-shaped burrows of the prairie-dogs, who could be seen gravely sitting on the roofs of their houses, or turning sudden somersaults in at the holes on top as the train whizzed by. They passed and repassed long links of a broad shallow river which the maps showed to be the Platte, and which seemed to be made of two-thirds sand to one-third water. Now and again mounted horsemen appeared in the distance whom Mr. Dayton said were “cow-boys;” but no cows were visible, and the rapidly moving figures were neither as picturesque nor as formidable as they had expected them to be.

      Flowers were still abundant, and their splendid masses gave the charm of color to the rather arid landscape. Soon after noon dim blue outlines came into view, which grew rapidly bolder and more distinct, and revealed themselves as the Rocky Mountains,—the “backbone of the American Continent,” of which we have all heard so much in geographies and the newspapers. It was delightful, in spite of dust and glare, to sit with that sweep of magnificent air rushing into their lungs, and watch the great ranges grow and grow and deepen in hue, till they seemed close at hand. To Katy they were like enchanted land. Somewhere on the other side of them, on the dim Pacific coast, her husband was waiting for her to come, and the wheels seemed to revolve with a regular rhythmic beat to the cadence of the old Scotch song,—

      “And will I see his face again;

       And will I hear him speak?”

      But to Clover the wheels sang something less jubilant, and she studied the mountains on her little travelling-map, and measured their distance from Burnet with a sigh. They were the walls of what seemed to her a sort of prison, as she realized that presently she should be left alone among them, Katy and Polly gone, and these new friends whom she had learned to like so much,—left alone with Phil and, what was worse, with Mrs. Watson! There was a comic side to the latter situation, undoubtedly, but at the moment she could not enjoy it.

      Katy carried out her intention. She made a long call on Mrs. Watson in her section, and listened patiently to her bemoanings over the noise of the car which had kept her from sleeping; the “lady in gray over there” who had taken such a long time to dress in the morning that she—Mrs. Watson—could not get into the toilet-room at the precise moment that she wished; the newspaper boy who would not let her “just glance over” the Denver “Republican” unless she bought and paid for it (“and I only wanted to see the Washington news, my dear, and something about a tin wedding in East Dedham. My mother came from there, and I recognized one of the names and—But he took it away quite rudely; and when I complained, the conductor wouldn’t attend to what I—”); and the bad piece of beefsteak which had been brought for her breakfast at the eating-station. Katy soothed and comforted to the best of her ability, and then plunged into her subject, explaining Phil’s very delicate condition and the necessity for constant watchfulness on the part of Clover, and saying most distinctly and in the plainest of English that Mrs. Watson must not expect Clover to take care of her too. The old lady was not in the least offended; but her replies were so incoherent that Katy was not sure that she understood the matter any better for the explanation.

      “Certainly, my dear, certainly. Your brother doesn’t appear so very sick; but he must be looked after, of course. Boys always ought to be. I’ll remind your sister if she seems to be forgetting anything. I hope I shall keep well myself, so as not to be a worry to her. And we can take little excursions together, I dare say—Girls always like to go, and of course an older person—Oh, no, your brother won’t need her so much as you think. He seems pretty strong to me, and—You mustn’t worry about them, Mrs. Worthing—We shall all get on very well, I’m sure, provided I don’t break down, and I guess I sha’n’t, though they say almost every one does in this air. Why, we shall be as high up as the top of Mount Washington.”

      Katy went back to Forty-seven in despair, to comfort herself with a long confidential chat with Clover in which she exhorted her not to let herself be imposed upon.

      “Be good to her, and make her as happy as you can, but don’t feel bound to wait on her, and run her errands. I am sure papa would not wish it; and it will half kill you if you attempt it. Phil, till he gets stronger, is all you can manage. You not only have to nurse him, you know, but to keep him happy. It’s so bad for him to mope. You want all your time to read with him, and take walks and drives; that is, if there are any carriages at St. Helen’s. Don’t let Mrs. Watson seize upon you, Clover. I’m awfully afraid that she means to, and I can see that she is a real old woman of the sea. Once she gets on your back you will never be able to throw her off.”

      “She shall not get on my back,” said Clover, straightening her small figure; “but doesn’t it seem unnecessary that I should have an old woman of the sea to grapple with as well as Phil?”

      “Provoking things are apt to seem unnecessary, I fancy. You mustn’t let yourself get worried, dear Clovy. The old lady means kindly enough, I think, only she’s naturally tiresome, and has become helpless from habit. Be nice to her, but hold your own. Self-preservation is the first law of Nature.”

      Just at dusk the train reached Denver, and the dreaded moment of parting came. There were kisses and tearful good-byes, but not much time was allowed for either. The last glimpse that Clover had of Katy was as the train moved away, when she put her head far out of the window of Car Forty-seven to kiss her hand once more, and call back, in a tone oracular and solemn enough to suit King Charles the First, his own admonitory word, “Remember!”