An Early Customer
IT was the last day of June, and the promise for July was for fine
weather and sunshine.
Camp’s Gulch was in a state of bustle and activity, which bespoke great
business activity. There was a row of ugly little huts for miners on the
side of the depot farthest from the Settlement road. Some of the miners
had their wives and children with them now, and this increase of
population necessitated a school-house here as well as at the
Settlement.
So a wooden shed, brown and unpainted, with a shingled roof, had been
hastily run up, and Gertrude had applied for and obtained the post of
teacher. She had fortunately taken her certificate at Nine Springs,
before becoming a telegraph operator, so there had been no difficulty
regarding her fitness for the post, and as she was on the spot, everyone
regarded her as the most suitable for the position.
Mrs. Lorimer had slipped out of life during the first days of March. Her
sufferings had been so great that those who watched her could feel only
thankfulness that the hour of her release had come.
Her children mourned her truly, but in the months of her helplessness
they had learned to do without her, and so they could not be said to
miss her as much as if she had been cut down in rude health.
With the coming of more women to Camp’s Gulch, some parts of Nell’s
business had grown less, for where men had their wives to keep house for
them, they did not need to go and buy cooked food. But she had made up
the lack with other things, until her little kitchen had come to look
like a regular store.
On that last day of June, Nell had an inspiration, and, according to her
wont, she acted upon it promptly.
“Do you know, Gertrude, I am disposed to think we might take a summer
boarder, perhaps two, if they were willing to share one room,” she said,
as they sat resting in low chairs out in the garden, after the day’s
work was done.
“Is it necessary, dear? You have such heaps to do already,” Gertrude
said, a little doubtfully, for Nell worked so hard that it scarcely
seemed possible she could do more.
“It would be very pleasant to have a city-dweller with us for a few
weeks, and might save us from becoming too hopelessly countryfied,” Nell
answered, with a laugh; then added in a more serious tone, “The fact is,
I heard of one to-day, and that is what made me decide, all in a great
hurry, that a summer boarder is the one thing needed to make my
happiness complete.”
“But where would you put the individual to sleep, Nell?” asked Flossie,
who lay in a hammock stretched between the wall of the house and a
straight young cedar, which by a happy chance had escaped the
destruction when the ground was cleared.
“I fear we should have to turn Gertrude out. But if we offered her the
hospitality of our loft, perhaps she wouldn’t mind very much,” Nell
replied, with a low laugh. Her mood was very happy to-night, and the
others quickly caught the infection of her good spirits.
“Oh, I love to sleep in the loft, only I hope you won’t put my bed close
to the stove-pipe, if the weather is very warm. But where did you hear
of your boarder, Nell?”
“Mrs. Peters came over this afternoon while you were in school. She had
just had a letter from a lady living in Victoria, over in Vancouver, a
Miss Alfreton, who wanted to know if she could be accommodated at Camp’s
Gulch, because she said that her nephew, who was here last summer, had
told her it was the loveliest place on earth.”
“Poor lady, how disappointed she will be!” murmured Gertrude, thinking
of the bare little school-house and the ugly houses of the miners.
“The trees and the hills are beautiful, anyway,” broke in Flossie, in a
tone of protest, not choosing to hear Camp’s Gulch despised even by
insinuation.
“And the view from my kitchen window is not to be surpassed, of that I
am positive,” said Nell, with a laugh. “Miss Alfreton may or may not be
accompanied by her sister. Now, shall we take them or not?”
“Would they board with us?” asked Gertrude, doubtfully still.
“They must. I for one shall not consent to give up our only sitting-room
and take my meals in the wood-shed. Besides, I fear there is so much of
the Yankee independence about me still, that I should not choose to have
people here who wished to eat at a separate table, because we were not
fine enough in our manners, or sufficiently solid in our finances, to
eat with them,” Nell replied, with a toss of her head.
Gertrude’s brow cleared. “Oh, if they are to come on terms of equality,
just paying for their board, that is a different matter. It is sinful to
be so proud, especially when one is poor, but I just hated the thought
of people lodging in the house, and having to be waited on by you, poor
overworked dear!”
“I’m not overworked, so dismiss the idea at once and for ever,” said
Nell, with a wave of her hand. “But if we could make a little money in
that way this summer, we should be able to get Patsey into that school
for electrical engineers next fall, without any more trouble, and once
he is there, I am confident he will make his own way all right.”
“You are always thinking of us, Nell, never of yourself!” exclaimed
Gertrude. And now there was almost a reproachful inflection in her
voice, as if unselfishness were a matter for regret.
“Well, you need not be so ready to remind me that I am only adopted, and
not the real thing,” said Nell, with a strained laugh as she rose
hastily and went indoors, saying that there was something in the kitchen
which she must do before bedtime.
“There, now you have hurt her feelings,” said Flossie, in low-voiced
reproach.
“I did not mean to,” said Gertrude, humbly. “But it fairly frightens me
sometimes to think of how much we owe to Nell that we can never, never
pay. Why, to one dollar that I earn, she earns or saves ten, and she
works twice as hard as I do every day in the week.”
“I know all that,” replied Flossie, with a contented laugh. “But there
is another side to it, what Dr. Russell calls the other point of view,
and that is that, while there is only one Nell to love us, there are
five of us to love Nell, and that, as she reckons wealth, makes the
balance even.”
“I wonder very often how we could ever have got through last winter
without her,” Gertrude said, with a little sigh, as her thoughts went
back to those days of pain and strain, when Nell had been the only
breadwinner.
“I suppose we could not possibly have done without her, and that was why
God sent her to us,” said Flossie, with such a thrill of confidence in
her tones that Gertrude was comforted in spite of herself.
“Dear old Nell, she does deserve to be happy!” she murmured.
“Nell is happy, except for a slight pang now and then when you drop out
allusions to her being only our adopted sister. The rest of us never
hurt her in that way, because we never remember about her not being our
own sister, unless some one reminds us. I’m going indoors now to see
what she is doing, and if I find her weeping in the back entry, I shall
come out and pinch you for having made her cry,” said Flossie, with a
laugh, as she slipped out of her hammock and stole softly into the
unlighted house to discover what Nell was doing.
Gertrude sat on in the gloaming, thinking her own thoughts and smiling
over them. She was very tired with her day’s work, and rest was welcome.
It was pleasant, too, to have a brief space in which to sit with folded
hands while visions of the future stretched before her, tinted with a
rosy light of happiness.
Back in the sad days of last winter Dr. Russell had asked her to let him
share the burdens which had descended upon her, and although she would
not let him do it then, it had brought comfort and happiness to her to
know that he cared enough to be willing to take her and her family too.
But it was only common prudence to wait, for the doctor was earning
little more than sufficed to keep Sonny and himself in food and clothes,
although the increase of population in the neighbourhood would doubtless
bring him more patients in course of time.
Gertrude could not stand alone and organize a career as Nell had done,
she was formed on such entirely different lines. But she possessed a
fund of enduring patience, and could bear great burdens if only she had
some one to take the initiative for her.
Her thoughts to-night, resolved into plain speech, meant that if Patsey
could be got into the school of electrical engineers next fall, it would
clear the way considerably for herself and the doctor. Teddy and little
Abe would require little more than food and clothes for some years to
come, and could be brought up easily with Sonny Russell, for boys, like
colts and calves, always do better in groups than singly, while Flossie
belonged so entirely to Nell that no one would dream of parting them.
“Are you coming to bed to-night, or do you intend staying out there?”
asked the brisk voice of Nell from the door, and then Gertrude’s dream
visions fled, leaving her in the world of actualities once more.
“What a pity it is to be obliged to go to bed on a night like this,” she
said regretfully, as she paused on the threshold.
“It would be a still greater pity if we could get no chance for sleep
and forgetfulness, before the work of to-morrow began,” said practical
Nell. “Come in and shut the door, Gertrude; you look just like a ghost.”
“I feel like one,” Gertrude answered dreamily. Then she said abruptly,
“I have got a sensation about me that change is impending, and that we
shall somehow be different to-morrow.”
“That follows as a matter of course, and to-morrow is always in advance
of to-day. But I am too sleepy for moralizing, so let us go to bed,”
Nell said, with a shiver, as she drew Gertrude in, and bolted the door.
Patsey and the two boys were already in bed and asleep. The three girls
made haste to be ready for slumber also, and soon sleep and darkness
held the little household in a profound hush until the coming of dawn.
Nell was early astir next morning. She made it a rule always to get her
housework done before the cooking for the day began, and as she had
mapped out an extra amount of housework for this particular morning, it
behoved her to be up early to get it out of the way.
If Miss Alfreton were really coming, the room she would occupy must be
scrubbed out, and put into fresh order for her arrival, so as soon as
Gertrude could be persuaded out of bed Nell attacked the task with
tremendous energy, turned almost all of the furniture out of doors into
the cool shade thrown by the cedar, then scrubbed the floor and the
wooden walls until the little chamber was redolent of cleanliness. Her
housewifely instincts were very strong, and every part of her small
domain must be as spotless as her hands could make it.
By the time the cleaning was done she had to start work in the kitchen,
and was hard at work getting her first batch of pies baked, when a small
boy of uncertain age appeared at the open door of the kitchen, and stood
there as if not sure about entering.
He was a complete stranger to Nell, who knew most of the people, old and
young, in the neighbourhood. He might have been merely nine or ten,
judging by his size; or if one reckoned his age from the expression of
his face, he would at once have been taken for fifteen or sixteen.
“Come in,” said Nell, pleasantly; then, seeing that he still hesitated,
she asked, “What do you want?”
“I want a pie if you please, ma’am,” he said, with a true Yankee drawl.
“But they are not made yet. At least they are not baked,” said Nell, as
she stooped to put another tin filled with pies into the oven, and shut
the door, after having carefully tested the heat with her bare elbow,
which was the only thermometer she possessed.
“How long to wait?” demanded the boy, in a laconic fashion.
“Half an hour, more or less. Where do you come from?” inquired Nell,
turning from the oven to the table, and starting on a fresh batch of
pies, her quick fingers turning, twisting, and moulding with an ease and
skill delightful to witness, or at least the boy appeared to think so,
as he crept into the room, and stood by the table, watching her
operations with a look of absorbed interest.
At the question, he shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, as if
hesitating about his answer; then, lifting his head with a defiant jerk,
he replied—
“From Goat’s Gulch.”
“Goat’s Gulch?” repeated Nell, wondering why the name seemed so
familiar, and at the same time brought with it such disagreeable
sensations. Then suddenly she started, remembering that it was the place
from which the man unknown had said that he brought the Chinaman’s
coffin on that eventful evening in last September. “That is a long way
from here, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes, about six or seven miles, perhaps, and such a road!” said the boy,
rolling up his eyes until only the whites showed, as if to express its
badness.
“Did you come all that way, just to buy a pie?” asked Nell, in surprise.
He nodded, then became more explicit. “I’ve got to take two, one for
myself, don’t you see, for dad said I shouldn’t be picking and pulling
at the one for old Doss if I’d got one of my own.”
Nell’s hand trembled suddenly, and there was a great clattering among
the crockery which she was handling, but her tone was quite steady when
she asked—
“Who is old Doss?”
“Oh, he’s our lodger, and he’s been sick a good while back. Off his feed
he is too, and so thin you could pretty nearly count every bone in his
body. So dad he said I was to come over and buy him a pie from the
cook-shop close to Camp’s Gulch depot, and as there ain’t no other
cook-shop than this, I guess I’ve hit the place right plump in the
middle of the bulls-eye,” the boy said, with great complacency.
“But pies are not good for sick folk; they should have broths, and
jellies, eggs, gruel, and that sort of thing,” expostulated Nell, in a
shocked tone, for the thought of giving new pastry to an invalid did
appear rather dreadful to her.
“Dad ’as made him broth and gruel, but he just tastes it and turns his
head away, as if he hadn’t any relish for it. Then dad thought of your
pies, and said he guessed the sight and smell of one of them would make
old Doss eat, if anything could.”
Nell had grown very white; it had not taken her long to decide that
probably the old man of whom the boy spoke was her grandfather, and she
with equal quickness made up her mind what was her duty concerning him.
“I think I should like to come and see your sick man. How can I find my
way from the Settlement to Goat’s Gulch?” she asked.
“You don’t want to go to the Settlement at all; there’s a nearer way
over the hills. But you’d never find out where we lived, not alone,”
said the boy, with a chuckle.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because we live in a cart—me, and dad, and old Doss, and if we didn’t
want our location spied upon, why we should just move on round the next
corner, don’t you see,” the boy answered, with another chuckle.
“But you can’t live in the cart in winter,” objected Nell.
“We did last winter, and the winter before too. We backed the cart under
a bluff, made a platform with a bit of sheet iron across the shafts,
lifted the stove up on to that, and was just as cosy as chipmunks, I can
tell you,” said the boy, who was eagerly eyeing Nell’s cooking
operations.
“As you say I couldn’t find this place where you live without help, will
you let me walk back with you, because I want to see your sick man?” she
asked, rather anxiously.
The boy stared at her in undisguised amazement. “Do you mean you are
wanting to tramp all the way to Goat’s Gulch, just to see whether old
Doss is fit to eat one of your pies?” he demanded.
“I should not like him to have one unless he is fit for it,” Nell said,
with a smile. “But if you are willing to let me go with you and will do
an errand for me first, I will give you a nice pie to eat when the
errand is done, and a big glass of lemonade to drink with it.”
“I’ll take you, though I ain’t, so to speak, much given to walking out
with young ladies. What is the errand?” He smacked his lips
appreciatively as he looked at the pies; then stuffed his hands deeper
in his pockets as he waited to know what was really required of him.
Nell scribbled a few words on a piece of paper, and asked him to carry
it across to Mrs. Peters, the station-master’s wife, and wait for an
answer.
When the boy had gone on his errand she hurried to get her morning’s
baking done, and to arrange matters so that she could leave for a few
hours.
The answer sent back by Mrs. Peters was brief and to the point, for she
had simply turned Nell’s piece of paper over, and written on the other
side in very big letters, “I’ll be there.”
Nell put a big pie on a plate, poured out a glass of lemonade, and bade
the boy sit down on the doorstep to eat his lunch.
“I shall be ready in just one hour,” she said. “So get a good rest, for
I am a fast walker, and I shall expect you to keep up with me.”
The boy grinned as his sharp teeth closed on the first mouthful of that
toothsome pie, but he was too busily occupied to discuss the question of
his walking powers just then.
Never had Nell found an hour slip by at a quicker rate than this. There
was the baking to finish, the kitchen to clear up, dinner to get ready
for Gertrude and the children, and the furniture to restore to the room
she had so carefully cleaned in the early morning.
But all the time she was darting to and fro in her endeavours to
compress the work of two hours into one, there kept ringing in her mind
Gertrude’s words of yesterday, “We shall somehow be different
to-morrow.”
“If it is really granfer, I must not let him slip out of sight again,
poor old man,” she murmured to herself. “I must take care of him
somehow. Perhaps Joey and Mrs. Trip could board him; but I shall know
better when I have seen him—poor granfer!”