We
hemstitched all the tablecloths and pillow-cases, and some of the sheets.
Old Mrs. Shimerda knit yards and yards of lace for her underclothes. Tony
told me just how she meant to have everything in her house. She'd even
bought silver spoons and forks, and kept them in her trunk. She was always
coaxing brother to go to the post-office. Her young man did write her real
often, from the different towns along his run.
"The first thing that troubled her was when he wrote that his run had been
changed, and they would likely have to live in Denver. 'I'm a country
girl,' she said, 'and I doubt if I'll be able to manage so well for him in
a city. I was counting on keeping chickens, and maybe a cow.' She soon
cheered up, though.
"At last she got the letter telling her when to come. She was shaken by
it; she broke the seal and read it in this room. I suspected then that
she'd begun to get faint-hearted, waiting; though she'd never let me see
it.
"Then there was a great time of packing. It was in March, if I remember
rightly, and a terrible muddy, raw spell, with the roads bad for hauling
her things to town. And here let me say, Ambrosch did the right thing. He
went to Black Hawk and bought her a set of plated silver in a purple
velvet box, good enough for her station. He gave her three hundred dollars
in money; I saw the check. He'd collected her wages all those first years
she worked out, and it was but right.
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