"I never saw a gold mine in my life; and now I'm going to see one,"
cried Lucy, skipping along in advance of the others. It was quite a
large party; the whole Dunlee family, with the two Sanfords,--Uncle
James and Aunt Vi,--making ten in all, counting Maggie, the maid. They
had alighted from the cars at a way-station, and were walking along the
platform toward the tallyho coach which was waiting for them. Lucy was
firmly impressed with the idea that they were starting for the gold
mines. The truth was, they were on their way to an old mining-town high
up in the Cuyamaca Mountains, called Castle Cliff; but there had been no
gold there for a great many years.
Mr. Dunlee was in rather poor health, and had been "ordered" to the
mountains. The others were perfectly well and had not been "ordered"
anywhere: they were going merely because they wanted to have a good
time.
"Papa would be so lonesome without us children," said Edith, "he needs
us all for company."
He was to have still more company. Mr. and Mrs. Hale were coming
to-morrow to join the party, bringing their little daughter Barbara,
Lucy's dearest friend. They could not come to-day; there would have been
hardly room for them in the tallyho. With all "the bonnie Dunlees,"--as
Uncle James called the children,--and all the boxes, baskets, and
bundles, the carriage was about as full as it could hold.
It was seldom that the driver used this tallyho. He was quite choice of
it, and generally drove an old stage, unless, as happened just now, he
was taking a large party. It was a very gay tallyho, as yellow as the
famous pumpkin coach of Cinderella, only that the spokes of the wheels
were striped off with scarlet. There were four white horses, and every
horse sported two tiny American flags, one in each ear.
"All aboard!" called out the driver, a brown-faced, broad-shouldered
man, with a twinkle in his eye.
"All aboard!" responded Mr. Sanford, echoed by Jimmy-boy.
Whereupon crack went the driver's long whip, round went the red and
yellow wheels, and off sped the white horses as freely as if they were
thinking of Lucy's gold mine and longing to show it to her, and didn't
care how many miles they had to travel to reach it. But this was all
Lucy's fancy. They were thinking of oats, not gold mines. These bright
horses knew they were not going very far up the mountain. They would
soon stop to rest in a good stable, and other horses not so handsome
would take their places. It was a very hard road, and grew harder and
harder, and the driver always changed horses twice before he got to the
end of the journey.
As the tallyho rattled along, the older people in it fell to talking;
and the children looked at the country they were passing, sang snatches
of songs, and gave little exclamations of delight. Edith threw one arm
around her older sister Katharine, saying:--
"O Kyzie, aren't you glad you live in California? How sweet the air is,
and how high the mountains look all around! When we were East last
summer didn't you pity the people? Only think, they never saw any lemons
and oranges growing! They don't know much about roses either; they only
have roses once a year."
"That's true," replied Kyzie. "Let me button your gloves, Edy, you'll be
dropping them off."
"See those butterflies! I'd be happy if Bab was only in here," murmured
a little voice from under Lucy's hat. "Bab didn't want to come with her
papa and mamma; she wanted to come with _me_!"
"Now, Lucy, don't be foolish," said Edith. "Where could we have put Bab?
There's not room enough in this coach, unless one of the rest of us had
got out. You'll see Bab to-morrow, and she'll be in Castle Cliff all
summer; so you needn't complain."
"_I_ wasn't complaining, no indeed! Only I don't want to go down in the
gold mine till Bab comes. I s'pose they'll put us down in a bucket,
won't they? I want Uncle James to go with us."
Jimmy-boy laughed and threw himself about in quite a gale. He often
found his little sister very amusing.
"Excuse me, Lucy," said he; "but I do think you're very ignorant! That
mine up there is all played out, and Uncle James has told us so ever so
many times. Didn't you hear him? The shaft is more than half full of
muddy water. I'd like to see you going down in a bucket!"
"Well, then, Jimmy Dunlee, what _shall_ we do at Castle Cliff?"
"We've brought a tent with us, and for one thing I'm going to camp out,"
replied Jimmy. "That's a grand thing, they say."
"Don't! There'll be something come and eat you up, sure as you live,"
said Lucy, who had a vague notion that camping out was connected in some
way with wild animals, such as coyotes and mountain lions.
"Poh! you don't know the least thing about Castle Cliff, Lucy! And Uncle
James has talked and talked! Tell me what he said, now do."
Uncle James was seated nearly opposite, for the two long seats of the
tallyho faced each other. Lucy spoke in a low tone, not wishing him to
overhear.
"He said we were going to board at a big house pretty near the old
mine."
"Yes, Mr. Templeton's."
"And he said somebody had a white Spanish rabbit with reddish brown eyes
and its mouth all a-quiver."
"Yes, I heard him say that about the rabbit. And what are those things
that come and walk on top of the house in the morning?"
"I know. They are woodpeckers. They tap on the roof, and the noise
sounds like 'Jacob, Jacob, wake up, Jacob!' Uncle James says when
strangers hear it they think somebody is calling, and they say, 'Oh,
yes, we're coming!' I shan't say that; I shall know it's woodpeckers.
Tell some more, Jimmy."
"Yes" said Eddo, leaving Maggie and wedging himself between Lucy and
Jimmy. "Tell some more, Jimmum!"
"Well, there's a post-office in town and there's a telephone, and Mr.
Templeton has lots of things brought up to Castle Cliff from the city;
so we shall have plenty to eat; chicken and ice-cream and things. That
makes me think, I'm hungry. Wouldn't they let us open a luncheon
basket?"
Kyzie thought not; so Jimmy went on telling Lucy what he knew of Castle
Cliff. "It's named for an air-castle there is up there; it's a thing
they _call_ an air-castle anyway. A man built it in the hollow of some
trees, away up, up, up. I'm going to climb up there to see it."
"So'm I," said Lucy.
"Ho, you can't climb worth a cent; you're only a girl!"
"But she has an older brother; and sometimes older brothers are kind
enough to help their little sisters," remarked Kyzie, with a meaning
smile toward Jimmy; but Jimmy was looking another way.
"Uncle James told a funny story about that air-castle," went on Kyzie.
"Did you hear him tell of sitting up there one day and seeing a little
toad help another toad--a lame one--up the trunk of the tree?"
"No, I didn't hear," said Lucy. "How did the toad do it?"
"I'll let you all guess."
"Pushed him?" said Edith.
"No."
"Took him up pickaback," suggested Lucy.
"Nothing of the sort. He just took his friend's lame foot in his mouth,
and the two toads hopped along together! Uncle James said it probably
wasn't the first time, for they kept step as if they were used to it."
"Wasn't that cunning?" said Edith. And Jimmy remarked after a pause, "If
Lucy wants to go up to that castle, maybe I could steady her along; only
there's Bab. She'd have to go too. And I don't believe it's any place
for girls!"
The ride was a long one, forty miles at least. The passengers had dinner
at a little inn, the elegant horses were placed in a stable; and the
tallyho started again at one o'clock with a black horse, a sorrel
horse, and two gray ones.
The afternoon wore on. The horses climbed upward at every step; and
though the journey was delightful, the passengers were growing rather
tired.
"Wish I could sit on the seat with the king-ductor," besought little
Eddo, moving about uneasily.
"That isn't a conductor, it's a driver. Conductors are the men that go
on the steam-cars,--the 'choo choo cars,'" explained Jimmum. Then in a
lower tone, "They don't have any cars up at Castle Cliff, and I'm glad
of it."
Lucy did not understand why he should be glad, and Jimmy added in a
lower tone:--
"Because--don't you remember how some little folks used to act about
steam-engines? They might do it again, you know."
"Yes, I 'member now. But that was a long time ago, Jimmy. He wouldn't
run after engines now."
"Who wouldn't?" inquired young Master Eddo, forgetting the "king-ductor"
and turning about to face his elder brother. "Who wouldn't run after the
engine, Jimmum?"
"Nobody--I mean _you_ wouldn't."
"No, no, not me," assented Eddo, shaking his flaxen head.
And there the matter would have ended, if Lucy had not added most
unluckily: "'Twas when you were only a baby that you did it, Eddo. You
said to the engine, 'Come here, little choo choo, Eddo won't hurt oo.'
_You_ didn't know any better."
"_'Course_ I knew better," said Eddo, shaking his head again, but this
time with an air of bewilderment. "_I_ didn't say, 'Come here, little
choo choo.' No, no, not me!"
"Oh, but you did, darling," persisted Lucy. "You were just a tiny bit
of a boy. You stood right on the track, and the engine was coming,
'puff, puff,' and you said, 'Come here, little choo choo, Eddo won't
hurt oo!'"
"I didn't! Oh! Oh! Oh! _When'd_ I say that? _Did_ the engine hurt me?
_Where_ did it hurt me? Say, Jimmum, where did the engine hurt me?"
putting his hand to his throat, to his ears, to his side.
The more he thought of it, the worse he felt; till appalled by the idea
of what he must have suffered he finally fell to sobbing in his mother's
arms, and she soothed his imaginary woes with kisses and cookies. For
the remainder of the journey he was in pretty good spirits and found
much diversion in watching the gambols of the two dogs following the
tallyho. One was a Castle Cliff dog, black and shaggy, named Slam; the
other, yellow and smooth, belonged to the "king-ductor" or driver, and
was called Bang. Slam and Bang often darted off for a race and Eddo
nearly gave them up for lost; but they always came back wagging their
tails and capering about as if to say:--
"Hello, Eddo, we ran away just to scare you, and we'll do it again if we
please!"
It was a great day for dogs. Ever so many dogs ran out to meet Slam and
Bang. They always bit their ears for a "How d'ye do?" and then trotted
along beside them just for company. Eddo found it quite exciting. One
was a Mexican dog, without a particle of hair, but he did not seem to be
in the least ashamed of his singular appearance.
Edith said it was an "empty country," and indeed there were few houses;
but there must have been more dogs than houses, for the whole journey
had a running accompaniment of "bow-wow-wows."
The farther up hill the road wound the steeper it grew; and Jimmy
exclaimed more than once:--
"This coach is standing up straight on its hind feet, papa! Just look!
'Twill spill us all out backward!"
But it did nothing of the sort. It took them straight to Castle Cliff,
"nearly six thousand feet above the level of the sea," and there it
stopped, before the front door of the hotel. It was about half-past five
o'clock in the afternoon, and Mr. Templeton, who had been looking out
for the tallyho, came down the steps to meet his guests.