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Page 37
"Don't I?" said the undaunted doctor. "Wait till you see more of us out
here."
"Here's Poppy, at last," cried Mrs. Hope, as a girl came hurriedly up the
walk. "You're late, dear."
"Poppy," whose real name was Marian Chase, was the girl who had been asked
to meet them. She was a tall, rosy creature, to whom Clover took an
instant fancy, and seemed in perfect health; yet she told them that when
she came out to Colorado three years before, she had travelled on a
mattress, with a doctor and a trained nurse in attendance.
"Your brother will be as strong, or stronger than I at the end of a year,"
she said; "or if he doesn't get well as fast as he ought, you must take
him up to the Ute Valley. That's where I made my first gain."
"Where is the valley?"
"Thirty miles away to the northwest,--up there among the mountains. It is
a great deal higher than this, and such a lovely peaceful place. I hope
you'll go there."
"We shall, of course, if Phil needs it; but I like St. Helen's so much
that I would rather stay here if we can."
Dinner was now announced, and Mrs. Hope led the way into a pretty room
hung with engravings and old plates after the modern fashion, where a
white-spread table stood decorated with wild-flowers, candle-sticks with
little red-shaded tapers, and a pyramid of plums and apricots. There was
the usual succession of soup and fish and roast and salad which one looks
for at a dinner on the sea-level, winding up with ice-cream of a highly
civilized description, but Clover could scarcely eat for wondering how all
these things had come there so soon, so very soon. It seemed like
magic,--one minute the solemn peaks and passes, the prairie-dogs and the
thorny plain, the next all these porti�res and rugs and etchings and down
pillows and pretty devices in glass and china, as if some enchanter's wand
had tapped the wilderness, and hey, presto! modern civilization had sprung
up like Jonah's gourd all in a minute, or like the palace which Aladdin
summoned into being in a single night for the occupation of the Princess
of China, by the rubbing of his wonderful lamp. And then, just as the
fruit-plates were put on the table, came a call, and the doctor was out in
the hall, "holloing" and conducting with some distant patient one of those
mysterious telephonic conversations which to those who overhear seem all
replies and no questions. It was most remarkable, and quite unlike her
preconceived ideas of what was likely to take place at the base of the
Rocky Mountains.
A pleasant evening followed. "Poppy" played delightfully on the piano;
later came a rubber of whist. It was like home.
"Before these children go, let us settle about the drive," said Dr. Hope
to his wife.
"Oh, yes! Miss Carr--"
"Oh, please, won't you call me Clover?"
"Indeed I will,--Clover, then,--we want to take you for a good long drive
to-morrow, and show you something; but the trouble is, the doctor and I
are at variance as to what the something shall be. I want you to see
Odin's Garden; and the doctor insists that you ought to go to the Cheyenne
canyons first, because those are his favorites. Now, which shall it be? We
will leave it to you."
"But how can I choose? I don't know either of them. What a queer
name,--Odin's Garden!"
"I'll tell you how to settle it," cried Marian Chase, whose nickname it
seemed had been given her because when she first came to St. Helen's she
wore a bunch of poppies in her hat. "Take them to Cheyenne to-morrow; and
the next day--or Thursday--let me get up a picnic for Odin's Garden; just
a few of our special cronies,--the Allans and the Blanchards and Mary
Pelham and Will Amory. Will you, dear Mrs. Hope, and be our matron? That
would be lovely."
Mrs. Hope consented, and Clover walked home as if treading on air. Was
this the St. Helen's to which she had looked forward with so much
dread,--this gay, delightful place, where such pleasant things happened,
and people were so kind? How she wished that she could get at Katy and
papa for five minutes--on a wishing carpet or something--to tell them how
different everything was from what she had expected.
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