“pike’s peak or bust!” was the chosen motto of those early pilgrims who, thirty-odd years ago, crossed the continent in a “prairie schooner,” escorted by a cavalry guard to keep indian marauders at a respectful distance; and “pike’s peak or bust!” was the motto chosen by polly and dan, our two young modern pilgrims, as they journeyed with greater ease, but with no less courage and venturesomeness, across the two thousand miles intervening between quiet fieldham and their goal.
“pike’s peak or bust!” no one looking into the bright young faces turned so bravely westward ho! could have had any doubt as to which of the two alternatives hinted at in that picturesque motto 153 would be fulfilled for them. on they journeyed, on and on, past populous cities, across great rivers, over vast plains brown with last year’s stubble or white with newly fallen snow, till at last there came a morning when they awoke in the tingling dawn, and, looking forth across miles of shadowy prairie, beheld a great white dome cut clear against a sapphire sky. on the train rushed, on and on, straight toward that snowy dome, and, as they drew nearer, other mountains began to define themselves on either side the central peak, and presently a town revealed itself, and they knew that it could be no other than colorado springs, sleeping there at the foot of the great range, all unconscious of the two young pilgrims, coming so confidingly to seek their fortunes within its borders.
their first spring and summer were a very happy time, of which polly and dan could relate a hundred noteworthy incidents. they rented a tiny cottage of three rooms in the unfashionable part of the town where rents were low. here 154 was a bit of ground all about, and a narrow porch that looked straight into the face of the splendid old peak; and here they lived the merriest of lives on the smallest and most precarious of incomes; for they were determined to infringe as little as possible upon the slender capital, snugly stowed away in a colorado bank.
dan soon found employment in a livery-stable at fifty cents a day. his chief business was the agreeable one of delivering “teams” and saddle-horses to pleasure-seekers at the north end of the town, riding back to the stable again on a “led horse” provided for the purpose. if not a very ambitious calling, it was, at least, exceedingly good fun, and it also had the merit of conforming to the doctor’s directions. “don’t let him get behind a counter or into any stuffy back-office,” the doctor had said to polly. “whatever he does, let it keep him in the open air as much as possible.” had the very obvious wisdom of this advice required demonstration, dan’s rapid improvement would have been sufficient. 155
they did not shock the sensibilities of the sewing-circle by writing home exactly what the employment was that dan had found, while, for themselves, polly had her own little ways of embellishing the somewhat prosaic situation. she dubbed the young stable-boy hercules, and always spoke of the establishment he served as “the aug?ans.” nor did her invention fail when, a month or two later, dan got a place at somewhat higher wages as druggist’s messenger; for then he was promptly informed that his name was mercury, and that there were wings on his heels, though he could not himself see them, by reason of their being turned back, and visible only when his feet were in rapid motion!
meanwhile, polly, too, was doing her part, though it had not yet proved very lucrative. when they first took the house, dan painted a sign for her, bearing the following announcement:
fine needlework and embroidery to order.
but the spring and summer went by, and autumn came, and still the sign which 156 had ornamented their house-front for so many months had as yet attracted the notice of only the impecunious class of customers their immediate neighbourhood afforded. polly had gratefully taken coarse work at low prices, but she still hoped for better things. the street where their tiny cottage stood, though at the wrong end of the town, was a thoroughfare for pleasure parties driving to the great ca?ons, and polly never saw the approach of a pretty turnout without a thrill of hope that the occupants might be attracted by her sign. she knew herself to be a quick and skilful needlewoman, and she thought that if only she might once get started in well-paid work, dan, who was growing stronger every day, might go on with his education at the colorado college preparatory school. she had found out all about the college, of which she had formed a very high opinion, and she told herself proudly that dan had such a good mind that he would not need to study too hard.
one evening in september they were 157 clearing the supper table, preparatory to washing up the dishes, which ceremony was one of the numerous “larks” by which brother and sister found life diversified and enlivened.
“mercury, i have an idea!” polly suddenly cried.
“never saw the time you hadn’t, polly.”
“but this is a great idea, a really great one, because it includes all the little ones, like milton’s universe in the crescent moon; don’t you remember?”
“my goody, polly! but it must be a corker!”—and dan was all attention.
now polly, it is needless to repeat, was a young person of ideas; that was her strong point, and dan at least considered her a marvel of ingenuity and invention. their tiny sitting-room, where dan slept, was a witness to her taste and originality. there were picturesque shelves which dan had made in accordance with her directions; there were cheesecloth window-curtains, with rustic boughs in place of poles; there were barrels standing bottom 158 upward for tables, draped with ancient “duds”—a changeable-silk skirt of her mother’s over one, a moth-eaten camel’s-hair shawl over another. the crack in the only mirror which a munificent landlord had provided was concealed by a kinikinick vine; a piece of turkey-red at five cents a yard, their one bit of extravagance, converted dan’s cot-bed into a canopy of state. and having heard dan chant the praises of her “ideas” with gratifying persistence for a month past, polly had begun to wonder whether they might not be turned to account.
“what’s the latest idea, polly?” dan asked, seizing a dripping handful of what they were pleased to call their “family plate.”
“well, dan, i want you to paint something more on my sign. only two words; it won’t take you long.”
“what two words?”
“also ideas!”
dan reflected a moment, and then he proceeded to dance a jig of delight, wildly waving his dish-cloth about polly’s head. 159
“polly, you beat the world!” he cried.
a house-painter lived next door, from whom dan borrowed paint and brushes, and before they slept the old sign was further decorated with two magic words done in brilliant scarlet. the inscription now read:
fine needlework and embroidery to order.
also ideas
there was something positively dazzling about those two words in flaming scarlet, and polly and dan stepped out twice in the course of their early breakfast to have a look at them.
“don’t you feel scared, polly?” asked dan, as he left her at her dish-washing.
“scared? not i!” and she walked down the path with him, drying her hands on a dish-towel.
it was a delicious morning in late september; the air dry and sparkling as a jewel, the mountains baring their shoulders to the morning sun. the peak had already a dash of winter on his crown, but the barren slope of rock below looked like 160 an impregnable fortress. polly and dan were never tired of wondering at the changing moods that played so gloriously upon that steadfast front.
“seems as if they must almost see him from fieldham this morning, he’s so bright,” said polly.
“that’s so,” dan agreed. “i say, polly, isn’t he enjoying himself, though?”
“course he is!” polly answered. “isn’t everybody?”
then polly went back to her splashing water and flopping dish-towels, and was busy for an hour about the house. by and bye she sat herself down in the little porch and proceeded to put good honest stitches into a child’s frock, for the making of which she was to receive twenty-five cents. not very good pay for a day’s work, but “twenty-five-hundred-million per cent. better than nothing,” as she had assured the doubtful dan.
life looked very different to her since those two bright words had been added to the sign. not that it had looked otherwise than pleasant before; but there was 161 so little originality in the idea of doing needlework that it had scarcely merited success, while this,—of course it must succeed!
in truth, she had sat there hardly an hour, when she distinctly heard the occupant of a yellow buckboard read the sign, and then turn to her companion with a word of comment. polly had always had an idea that one of those yellow buckboards would be the making of her fortune yet. the one in question was drawn by a pretty pair of ponies, and two young girls were in possession of it.
“i have an idea they’ll notice it again, when they come back this way,” polly surmised. “but if they’re going up the ca?on they won’t come back till just as i’m getting dinner.”
and, sure enough, the mutton stew was just beginning to simmer, when there came a rap at the door.
the front door opened directly into the little sitting-room, and was never closed in pleasant weather. as polly emerged from the kitchen, her face very red from 162 hobnobbing with the stove, she found one of the girls of the yellow buckboard standing in the doorway.
“good morning, miss––”
“fitch. my name is polly fitch.”
“what a jolly name!” the visitor exclaimed. “i think you must be the one with ideas.”
“yes,” said polly, “do you want one? come in and take a seat.”
“i do want an idea most dreadfully,” the young lady rejoined, taking the proffered chair. “i want something for a booby prize for a backgammon tournament. i don’t suppose anybody ever heard of a backgammon tournament before, but it’s going to be great fun. we are doing it to take the conceit out of a young man we know, who declares that there’s nothing in backgammon that he didn’t learn the first time he played it with his grandfather.”
“and you want a booby prize?” polly looked thoughtful for the space of sixteen seconds. then she cried; “oh, i have an idea! get somebody to whittle you a 163 couple of wooden dice; then paint them white and mark them with black sixes on each of the six sides of each die. you could call it ‘a booby pair-o’-dice’ if you don’t object to puns!”
“what a good idea! it’s simply perfect! i wonder whom i could get to do it for me?”
“why, dan could do it with his jackknife, just as well as not. if you’ll come to-morrow morning you shall have them.”
accordingly, the next morning, the young lady appeared, and was enchanted with her prize.
“and how much will they be?” she asked.
“well, i had thought of charging twenty-five cents for an idea, and the dice didn’t cost us anything and only took a few minutes to make.”
“supposing we call it a dollar. would that be fair?”
“i don’t believe they are worth a dollar.”
“yes, they are; i should be ashamed to take them for less. what a splendid 164 idea that was of yours, to put out that sign!”
“i should think it was, if i could get any more customers like you!”
“i’ll send them to you,—never you fear!”
miss beatrice compton returned to her buckboard a captive to polly.
“she’s the sweetest thing,” she told her mother, who chanced to be her passenger on this occasion. “she’s got eyes and hair exactly of a colour, a sort of reddish brown, and her eyes twinkle at you in the dearest way, and she wears her hair in the quaintest pug, just in the right place on her head, sort of up in the air; and she’s a lady, too; anybody can see that. i wonder who ‘dan’ is; you don’t suppose she’s married, do you?”
“you can’t tell,” mrs. compton replied. “persons in that walk of life marry very young.”
“but, mamma, she isn’t a ‘person,’ and she doesn’t belong to ‘that walk of life.’ she’s a lady.”
miss beatrice was as good as her word, 165 and three days had not passed when a horseman stopped before the little cottage, sprang from his horse, and looked about for a place to tie; there was no hitching-post near by. polly was sitting in the porch making buttonholes.
“if you were coming in here, you’d better lead him right up the walk,” she said, “and tie him to the porch-post.”
“that’s a good idea!” the young man replied, promptly acting upon the advice. “you are miss polly fitch, are you not?”
“yes.”
“i knew you the minute i saw you, because miss compton described you to me.” this was meant to be very flattering, but polly, who seldom missed a point, was quite unconscious that one had been made.
“have you come for an idea?” she asked, quite innocently, and mr. reginald axton, who was rather sensitive, wondered whether she “meant anything.” on second thoughts he concluded that she did not, and he began again:
“i got that booby prize you made.”
“did you?” cried polly, with animation. 166 “oh, i wonder whether you were the one—” she paused.
“the one that what?” he asked hastily.
“the one that thought there wasn’t anything in the game.”
“well, yes, i was. and the others had all the luck, and so of course i got beaten.”
“of course!” said polly, with a twinkle of delight.
“i see you’re on their side, but all the same i want you to help me to pay them back. you see i wanted to do something about it, and i thought of sending miss compton some flowers with a verse, and i thought perhaps you could do the verse.”
“did you expect me to furnish the idea, too?”
“why, of course! that’s why i came to you. i thought, if you were so awfully bright, perhaps you could make verses.”
polly looked thoughtful.
“i should charge you quite a lot for it,” she said,—“much as a dollar perhaps; for you know writing verses is quite an accomplishment.” 167
“i’ll pay a dollar a line for it! i know a fellow that gets more than that from the magazines. and i’m sure that it will be good if you do it.”
“my gracious! that’s great pay!” cried polly, with sparkling eyes, ignoring the compliment, but enchanted to hear what a price verses brought. “i’ll send it to you by mail.”
“no, i guess i’ll look in every once in a while and see how you’re getting on!”
“dear me!” said polly, “you don’t expect me to spend a week over it, do you? that isn’t why you offered such high pay?”
“oh, no; the quicker you got it done the more i should be willing to pay for it.” he paused a moment. “and, miss fitch,” he went on, “i don’t care if you make it a little,—well,—a little soft. she deserves it, she’s such a tease! her name’s beatrice,” he added. “we call her trix, if that’ll help you any.”
polly understood mr. reginald perfectly, and she dismissed him with a twinkle which promised well. then polly 168 proceeded to cudgel her brain, while the needle went in and out, and a buttonhole formed itself in the firm, narrow line that makes of a buttonhole a work of art.
“i wish i could rhyme words as well as i can stitches,” polly thought to herself, as she held up a completed buttonhole, with the honest pride of a good workman. “sixes,—trixes! that heart were trix’s! that ought to be made to go. a double rhyme, too! i don’t believe he expects a double rhyme.” and in and out and in and out her thoughts plied themselves round and about the two words, and her cheeks got quite hot with the pleasurable excitement of this new mental exercise.
at last she tossed down her work, and, fetching a piece of brown wrapping-paper, proceeded, with many erasures and tinkerings, to inscribe upon it the following verse:
were hearts the dice and love the game,
of no avail were double sixes;
on every heart is but one name,
we nought could throw but double-trixes!
“rather neat,” said polly to herself, 169 “rather neat! now if he were to send it with two bunches of roses of six each, i think it could not fail to make an impression. i should rather hate to pay another person to make love for me, though,” she went on, with a little toss of the head; and then she picked up her work and began again to “rhyme buttonholes.”
when dan came home to supper he had much to learn. he was lost in wonder over the rhyme which polly repeated to him, but still more impressed by the four great silver dollars she had to show; for her impatient customer had already called for the verses.
“jiminy!” cried dan; “that’s most a week’s earnings for some of us!”
“yes,” polly replied, demurely; “that’s what mrs. o’toole would have paid me for sixteen baby-dresses. things even themselves out in the long run, don’t they, dan?” as though polly knew anything about the long run, by the way!
before christmas polly was driving a pretty trade, not only in ideas but in 170 sewing. she had in all ten dozen pocket handkerchiefs to mark for christmas customers, besides towels and table-linen, sheets and pillow-cases. people had found her out, and she had to refuse more than one good order for lack of time. but needlework alone, quick as she was in doing it, would have given her but a meagre income, had she not been able to furnish “also ideas.”
one lady, for instance, came to ask her for an “idea” for a thanksgiving dinner, and polly not only suggested the idea, but carried it out for her. she went about with a big basket to all the markets and collected perfect specimens of vegetables with which to make a centrepiece for the dinner table. the dinner was given in a house where the round dining table would seat twenty-four guests. in this ample centre she erected a pyramid of fruits of the earth. there were crimson beets, pale yellow squashes, scarlet tomatoes, and the long, thin fingers of the string-bean; potatoes furnished a comfortable brown, which, together with the soft 171 bronze of the onion, harmonized discordant colours; and, crowning all, the silken tassel of the red-eared corn raised its graceful crest.
the hostess was delighted with her table, and more delighted still with the pretty decorator. polly’s fame flew from one to another throughout that kindly and prosperous community, and she found herself accumulating a goodly hoard. as christmas drew near, many a perplexed shopper came to her for “ideas,” and all went away content. she had long since discovered that the colorado shops were treasure-houses of pretty things. she never passed a jeweller’s window without taking note of his latest novelties; she kept an eye upon mexican and indian bazaars, and chinese bric-à-brac collections; she made a study of colorado gems, and knew where the prizes lay hidden; she ran through the books in the bookstores; she was alert for new inventions in harness decoration and bridle trimmings; she gave hints for fancy-work of divers kinds. 172
mercury, meanwhile, sped about the town, dispensing healing, as polly often reminded him, and “getting more than i dispense, polly,” he would declare in return. “i feel so well that everything is a regular lark!”
and so dan made a “lark” of his work, and trotted all day in his capacity of mercury, little dreaming of the wealth that was accumulating for his use; while polly went on with her hoarding, of which she made a great secret, and thought of a still better time coming.
