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Page 31
"I suppose it _is_ better," admitted Mm Watson; but when they gained the
top of the hill, and a picturesque, many-gabled, many-balconied structure
was pointed out as the Shoshone, her regrets returned, and she began again
to murmur that very often the most expensive places turned out the
cheapest in the end, and that it stood to reason that they must be the
best. Dr. Hope rather encouraged this view, and proposed that she should
stop and look at some rooms; but no, she could not desert her young
charges and would go on, though at the same time she must say that her
opinion as an older person who had seen more of the world was--She was
used to being consulted. Why, Addy Phillips wouldn't order that crushed
strawberry bengaline of hers till Mrs. Watson saw the sample, and--But
girls had their own ideas, and were bound to carry them out, Ellen always
said so, and for her part she knew her duty and meant to do it!
Dr. Hope flashed one rapid, comical look at Clover. Western life sharpens
the wits, if it does nothing else, and Westerners as a general thing
become pretty good judges of character. It had not taken ten minutes for
the keen-witted little doctor to fathom the peculiarities of Clover's
"chaperone," and he would most willingly have planted her in the congenial
soil of the Shoshone House, which would have provided a wider field for
her restlessness and self-occupation, and many more people to listen to
her narratives and sympathize with her complaints. But it was no use. She
was resolved to abide by the fortunes of her "young friends."
While this discussion was proceeding, the carriage had been rolling down a
wide street running along the edge of the plateau, opposite the mountain
range. Pretty houses stood on either side in green, shaded door-yards,
with roses and vine-hung piazzas and nicely-cut grass.
"Why, it looks like a New England town," said Glover, amazed; "I thought
there were no trees here."
"Yes, I know," said Dr. Hope smiling. "You came, like most Eastern people,
prepared to find us sitting in the middle of a sandy waste, on cactus
pincushions, picking our teeth with bowie-knives, and with no neighbors
but Indians and grizzly bears. Well; sixteen years ago we could have
filled the bill pretty well. Then there was not a single house in St.
Helen's,--not even a tent, and not one of the trees that you see here had
been planted. Now we have three railroads meeting at our depot, a
population of nearly seven thousand, electric lights, telephones, a good
opera-house, a system of works which brings first-rate spring water into
the town from six miles away,--in short, pretty much all the modern
conveniences."
"But what _has_ made the place grow so fast?" asked Clover.
"If I may be allowed a professional pun, it is built up on coughings. It
is a town for invalids. Half the people here came out for the benefit of
their lungs."
"Isn't that rather depressing?"
"It would be more so if most of them did not look so well that no one
would suspect them of being ill. Here we are."
Clover looked out eagerly. There was nothing picturesque about the house
at whose gate the carriage had stopped. It was a large shabby structure,
with a piazza above as well as below, and on these piazzas various people
were sitting who looked unmistakably ill. The front of the house, however,
commanded the fine mountain view.
"You see," explained Dr. Hope, drawing Clover aside, "boarding-places that
are both comfortable and reasonable are rather scarce at St. Helen's. I
know all about the table here and the drainage; and the view is desirable,
and Mrs. Marsh, who keeps the house, is one of the best women we have.
She's from down your way too,--Barnstable, Mass., I think."
Clover privately wondered how Barnstable, Mass., could be classed as
"down" the same way with Burnet, not having learned as yet that to the
soaring Western mind that insignificant fraction of the whole country
known as "the East," means anywhere from Maine to Michigan, and that such
trivial geographical differences as exist between the different sections
seem scarcely worth consideration when compared with the vast spaces
which lie beyond toward the setting sun. But perhaps Dr. Hope was only
trying to tease her, for he twinkled amusedly at her puzzled face as he
went on,--
"I think you can make yourselves comfortable here. It was the best I could
do. But your old lady would be much better suited at the Shoshone, and I
wish she'd go there."
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