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 had cost 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 his speech 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 most
_fetching_ part 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, who complimented 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 she
always 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.