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قراءة كتاب Peak and Prairie From a Colorado Sketch-book
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
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Note.—Of the thirteen sketches included in this volume six have previously appeared in periodicals, as follows:
A Pilgrim in the Far West in Harper's Weekly; Brian Boru in Worthington's Magazine; Jake Stanwood's Gal and At the Keith Ranch in The Century Magazine; The Rumpety Case in Lippincott's Magazine; and An Amateur Gamble in Scribner's Magazine. They were, however, all prepared with reference to their final use as a consecutive series.
A. F.
Illustrations
| "The Peak was Superb that Morning, Big and Strong and Glittering with Snow." | Frontispiece |
| "A Handful of Cottonwood trees Clustered About the House." | 24 |
| "The Vast Sea of the Prairie." | 46 |
| "Between his Cabin Door and 'The Range' Stretched Twenty Miles of Arid Prairie." | 61 |
| The Keith Ranch. | 104 |
| "A Half-Hearted Stream Known as 'The Creek.'" | 124 |
| "The Great Dome of Snow Towered in All its Grandeur." | 142 |
| "A Town of Rude Frame Huts had Sprung Up in the Hollow Below." | 156 |
| "On the Edge of a Dead Forest." | 212 |
| "It's a Kind of Double Back-Action Slant we've Got to Tackle this Time." | 228 |
| Pine Bluff. | 258 |
| "They Looked out at the Peak." | 288 |
| "The Brook, which Came Dashing Down from the Cañon, still Rioting on its Way." | 324 |
| "The Ranch Gate, which had Swung Half to on its Hinges." | 360 |
| "The Wild and Beautiful Gorge." | 378 |
| A Golden Vista. | 388 |
PEAK AND PRAIRIE
The Peak was superb that morning, big and strong, and glittering with snow. Little Mrs. Nancy Tarbell turned, after shutting and locking the door of her cottage, and looked down the street, at the end of which the friendly giant stood out against a clear blue sky. The cottonwood trees on either side of the road were just coming into leaf, and their extended branches framed in her mighty neighbor in a most becoming manner. The water in the irrigating ditch beneath the trees was running merrily. The sound of it brought a wistful look into the cheerful old face. It made Mrs. Nancy think of the gay little brook in the pasture behind the house at home—at home, in far New England.
Surely it must have been a strange wind of destiny that wafted this unadventurous little woman across half a continent to the very foot of the Rocky Mountains—a long and weary journey for the young and vigorous. Yet it was something no stranger than a mother's love for her only child. For "Willie's" sake the widow Tarbell had turned her back upon the dear New England woods and meadows, upon the tidy village where every man and woman was her friend; for his sake she had come to dwell among strangers in a strange and barren land. The old homestead had been sold, and with the meagre proceeds she had paid their way across the prairies, and had bought a little house and a lot of land on the outskirts of Springtown, while Willie looked about him for something to do. But the enemy before whom they had fled followed them to the high pure altitude it loves not, and before poor Willie had found anything to do, he had been "called up higher." This was the phrase the minister used at Willie's funeral, and it had been peculiarly comforting to the bereaved mother. She had known well that her boy needed higher air, for that she had come to live six thousand feet above the level of the New England pastures. But the Lord saw that she, with her