The Secret Valley, page 3
“May I help rock the cradle?” asked Frank.
“Yes,” said the man, “if you are here tomorrow. We’re going to start taking the dirt out of the stream-bed.”
“I’ll be here,” said Frank.
Early in the morning Mr. Davis and the other men were at the dam. Frank was there, too.
Some of the men dug the dirt. Others washed it out. Mr. Davis rocked the cradle, and Frank helped him.
All morning they worked. The men looked in the pans and shook their heads. Mr. Davis looked in the bottom of the cradle and said, “No gold.”
They found no gold that day or the next or the next.
At first the men had laughed and talked at their work. But after four days, they were quiet. They never laughed.
The day came when a cold wind blew. Rain began to fall.
One of the men threw down his shovel. “There’s no gold here,” he said. “I quit.”
Another one said, “We worked hard here. Who is going to pay us?”
“Won’t you try a little longer?” asked Mr. Davis.
“No,” said the men. “We quit. We want our pay.”
Frank said to his father, “We can sell the nugget I found. That will give us enough to pay them.”
“Come to my tent tonight,” Mr. Davis told the men. “I’ll give you your pay.”
The men went away. Frank and his father were left alone in the rain.
They stood under a tree.
“I thought we would find gold here,” said Frank.
“So did I,” said his father, “but your nugget must have been the only piece of gold in the stream.”
“Are we going to dig here any more?” asked Frank.
“No,” said Mr. Davis. “We’ve lost everything we worked for. We’re back where we started. Let’s go, Frank. Tomorrow we’ll start all over again.”
I’ll Make You a Map
IX
The Map
Day after day it rained. Water ran down the streets. It leaked into the tent.
Mr. Davis tried to stop the leaks. Frank and Ellen sat with a blanket over them to keep the water off their heads. Mrs. Davis tried to cook and keep the fire going.
One day the rain stopped.
“I’d like to go outside,” said Frank.
“So would I,” said Ellen.
“In all this mud and water?” said their mother.
“We can walk on the rocks and jump over the water,” said Frank. “We’re tired of staying in the tent.”
“I know you are,” said Mrs. Davis. “Run along, but don’t go far.”
Frank and Ellen walked until they came to the river.
“It’s raining again,” said Ellen.
Frank took her hand. “Run! Run for Father John’s house!”
They ran toward the little house. “Please let us in!” cried Ellen. “It’s raining on us!”
Father John opened the door. “Bless me!” he said. “Come in!”
They nearly fell into the house. He shut the door after them.
There was only one room in the little house. There was only one chair. Frank and Ellen sat on the bed.
The room was dry and warm. There was a fireplace, and a kettle sang over the fire.
“What have you been doing all day?” asked Father John.
“Sitting in the tent,” said Ellen.
“Our father wants to go out and dig for gold,” said Frank, “but he is waiting for the rain to stop.”
“He hasn’t had very good luck, has he?” said Father John.
“No,” said Frank. “He has had bad luck.”
“Why does he stay here?” asked Father John.
“Where could he go?” asked Frank.
Father John sat down at his little table. He began to draw on a piece of paper. Frank and Ellen watched him, but they could not tell what he was making.
“Is it a house?” asked Ellen.
“Is it a tree?” asked Frank.
“It isn’t a house and it isn’t a tree,” said Father John. “See? Here is a city. Here is a river. Here are mountains.”
“I know,” said Frank. “It’s a map.”
“Yes, it’s a map.” Father John made a mark with his pencil. “This is the tent city where we are now.” He made a long line. “This is a trail. There are hills at the end of it.” He made a dot with the pencil.
“What is that?” asked Ellen.
“That is a little, green valley. I call it Secret Valley, because it is hidden in the hills. Tell your father about it. In Secret Valley I think you’ll find all the things you want.”
When it was time for Frank and Ellen to go, it was still raining. Father John gave them an old coat. They held it over their heads and ran home through the rain.
Frank had the map in his pocket. He took it out and gave it to his father.
“This is the way to Secret Valley,” he said. “Father John told us to go there.”
Mr. Davis looked at the map. “It’s a long way. It would take a long time to get there.”
“Are we going?” asked Mrs. Davis.
“No,” said Mr. Davis. “Other men have found gold here. I will, too.”
“Some men have found enough gold here to make them rich,” said Mrs. Davis. “Others have found only a little gold, and some have found no gold at all.”
“We’ll be rich yet,” said Mr. Davis. “When this rain stops, we’ll go out and dig up more gold than we ever saw. Won’t we, Frank?”
“We can try,” said Frank.
Looking for a Letter
X
A Letter to Miss Polly
All winter long, more people came to the tent city. They came in wagons and on horseback. They came on foot. The tent city was a crowded, noisy place.
The people next door to the Davis tent moved away.
“Now I won’t have Ruth to play with any more,” said Ellen.
“I wish we could go away, too,” said Mrs. Davis.
“So do I,” said Ellen. “This tent is always wet and cold.”
“And when we have a little gold, it all goes to buy food and clothes,” said Mrs. Davis. “Your father says if he doesn’t find more gold soon, we will go away.”
Ellen told Frank, “Father says we may go away from here.”
“I hope we go soon,” said Frank, “and I hope we go to Secret Valley.”
Ellen looked worried. “What about our cat?”
“What about him?” asked Frank.
“If we go away, Miss Polly won’t know where to send him.”
“She told us we could have him back when we wanted him,” said Frank. “Let’s write her a letter.”
They found a paper bag and cut it in two. Ellen made an envelope of one half. Frank wrote on the other half.
Dear Miss Polly:
Will you please send back our cat, Nugget? We may go away from here, and we want to take him with us.
Your friends,
FRANK & ELLEN DAVIS
They mailed the letter in the post office at the store.
They waited a week. After that they went to the store every day. They asked the man at the post office, “Do you have a letter for us? Has our cat come from San Francisco?”
Always the man said no.
“Maybe Miss Polly didn’t get our letter,” said Ellen.
“Maybe she went away and took Nugget with her,” said Frank.
While they waited, the days grew warmer. The snow on the mountains began to melt.
Mrs. Davis said one day, “Can’t we move our tent? Every time we go outside we step in the mud.”
“Yes, and horses and mules run up and down the street,” said Ellen. “Yesterday a horse put his head into our tent when I was eating my dinner. He made me drop my dish.”
“I know a place just outside the city,” said Mr. Davis. “It’s close to the river. We can set up our tent on the sand.”
They moved the tent. They made new beds of pine branches.
“This is better,” said Mrs. Davis.
They went to bed early. The sound of the river put them to sleep.
In the middle of the night Frank woke up. His feet were cold and wet. He put his hand outside the bed. There was water all over the floor, and more was running into the tent.
“Get up, get up!” he shouted. “It’s a flood!”
They all jumped up. They bumped into each other in the dark. They ran outside.
“Let’s save all we can!” said Mrs. Davis.
They splashed through the water and took nearly everything out of the tent. They took down the tent. They carried everything to a high place.
“What made the water come up?” asked Frank.
“I think it was the snow melting in the mountains,” said Mrs. Davis. She sat down on a rock and told Frank and Ellen to sit by her. “We’ll keep each other warm,” she said.
Mr. Davis sat down on the rock, too. His clothes were wet. There was water in his boots.
“I’m ready to leave this place,” he said. “Who wants to go with me?”
“I do,” said Mrs. Davis.
“I do, too,” said Ellen.
“So do I,” said Frank.
“Then we’ll go,” said Mr. Davis. “We’ll go in the morning.”
When the sun came up they went to the stables. The wagon was there. The mules were there, too.
“Where are we going?” asked Frank.
“To Father John’s valley,” said Mr. Davis. “Maybe our luck will be better there.”
“We want to say good-by to Father John,” said Ellen.
“Go over to his house, then,” said Mr. Davis, “while I hitch Spud and Spike to the wagon.”
Frank and Ellen went to Father John’s house.
“We came to say good-by,” said Ellen.
“We’re going to Secret Valley,” said Frank.
“Bless me!” said Father John. “I’ll miss you, but I’m glad you are going to Secret Valley.”
“I wish you were going, too,” said Ellen.
“Maybe some day I will go,” he said. “If I do, I hope I’ll see you there.”
“We hope so, too,” said Ellen. “And Father John, if Miss Polly sends our cat back, will you take care of him for us?”
“I’ll be glad to,” said Father John.
He said good-by. Frank and Ellen said good-by. The last they saw of him, he was in front of his little house, waving to them.
In the middle of the tent city, Ellen stopped. “Let’s go to the post office. Maybe there is a letter from Miss Polly.”
They went to the post office. “We are going away today,” Ellen told the man. “We would like to have a letter before we go.”
“There’s no letter for you,” said the man.
They went back to the stables. Spud and Spike were hitched to the wagon.
Frank and Ellen sat in the back. Their father and mother sat in the front. They rode away.
Just outside the tent city, Frank and Ellen saw a man riding a horse down the road. He was coming fast. He had a box under his arm.
“Are you Frank and Ellen Davis?” he called.
“Yes, sir,” they said.
“I have a box for you. It just came on the stagecoach. They told me at the post office that you were going away, and I came to catch you.” The man gave them the box. He turned his horse around and rode back toward the tent city.
Frank and Ellen looked at the box. It was a pretty box made of wood and painted red and black. There were holes in the top.
“Shall we open it?” asked Ellen.
“He said it was for us,” said Frank.
They opened the box.
“Oh!” cried Ellen.
Out jumped something big and soft and yellow.
“It’s a cat!” cried Frank. “It’s Nugget!”
“Meow!” said the cat.
“Miss Polly did get our letter! She did send you back!” said Ellen.
“Don’t be afraid, Nugget,” said Frank.
“You don’t have to ride in a box any more.” Ellen put the box out of sight in the wagon.
“He knows us now,” said Frank.
“Of course, he does. This is like the day we left the cabin in Missouri. Do you remember, Frank? We rode in the back of the wagon with Nugget.”
“Only he was a kitten then. Now he is a big cat. Aren’t you, Nugget?”
And Nugget curled up between them and began to purr.
The Deer
XI
The Secret Valley
They drove south, through woods and across streams. Every night they looked at Father John’s map. Every day they came a little nearer to Secret Valley.
At last they could see the hills Father John had marked on his map. A trail led into the hills.
They followed the trail. They climbed higher and higher.
Mr. Davis called back to Frank and Ellen, “We are nearly to the top.”
Frank and Ellen went to the front of the wagon.
“Whoa!” said Mr. Davis, and the mules stopped on top of the hill.
Far below was Secret Valley. It was green with grass and trees. Flowers were in bloom on the hills. A stream ran out of the hills and across the valley, and the water was bright as silver.
“Isn’t it beautiful!” said Ellen.
They went down into the valley. They drank from the stream. The mules drank, too. Nugget jumped out of the wagon and rolled on the grass.
“It’s quiet here,” said Frank.
It was so quiet they could hear birds singing a long way off. They could hear water running over the rocks.
Frank and his father put up the tent. When night came, Mrs. Davis said, “It’s time to go to bed.”
But no one wanted to go to bed. They sat outside the tent and looked at the moon and stars. The moon had never looked so big to them before. The stars had never looked so bright.
A deer came out of the woods. He came so close they could see his soft, dark eyes. He stood and looked at the sky, then he went quietly away.
“Wasn’t he beautiful!” said Ellen.
“Everything is beautiful here,” said her mother.
They went to bed late, but they got up early in the morning.
“Come, Frank,” said Mr. Davis, “let’s see how much gold we can find.”
They took the pick, shovel, and pan to the stream. They worked all day and washed out pan after pan of dirt. They found only rocks and sand.
The next day they tried again. Frank and his father worked up and down the stream. Again they found no gold.
The third day, while they worked, a man came across the valley. He was leading a mule with a pack on its back. He called to Mr. Davis and Frank, “What are you doing there?”
“Looking for gold,” said Mr. Davis.
“Gold?” said the man. “There’s no gold here.”
“How do you know?” asked Mr. Davis.
“Lots of men have looked, and nobody ever found gold here,” said the man. “I am on my way up north. That’s where the gold is.”
He went away. Mr. Davis sat with his head in his hands.
“We came all the way to this valley,” he said, “and there’s no gold.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Frank.
“What is there to do,” said his father, “but go back to the tent city?”
We Found Gold
XII
Gold in California
Frank and his father went to the tent. They put down the pick, shovel and pan.
“What’s the matter?” asked Mrs. Davis.
“There’s no gold here,” said Mr. Davis.
Ellen was under the trees, playing with Nugget. When she saw her father and Frank, she came to the tent. “Did you find gold?” she asked.
“There’s no gold here,” said Frank.
“But Father John told us to come here,” said Ellen. “We aren’t going away, are we?”
“You want to find gold, don’t you?” asked Mr. Davis.
“Yes,” said Ellen, “but I wish we could find it here.”
“So do I.” Mr. Davis went to the wagon. “We’ll get ready, so we can go in the morning.”
“Where are we going?” asked Mrs. Davis.
“Back to the gold country.” Mr. Davis took the mules’ harness out of the wagon. A red and black box came out with it.
“Miss Polly sent our cat back in that box,” said Frank. He took the box.
“Isn’t it pretty?” said Ellen. “We never had a good look at it before.”
Frank shook the box. “There’s something in it.”
He set it down. He and Ellen looked inside it.
“Here is a little leather bag!” cried Ellen.
“With a letter tied to it!” said Frank.
He opened the letter. It was from Miss Polly. He read it to his sister.
Dear Frank and Ellen:
I am sending Nugget back, as you asked me to do. He is a fine cat. He has kept the rats and mice away. My little sister is well now. She played with Nugget every day. I am sending a gift to show how thankful I am.
Ellen opened the leather bag. “I see something bright,” she said. “It looks like gold!”
It was gold. There were little nuggets. There was gold dust. Mr. Davis poured some of it into his hand, and it sparkled in the sun.
“What are you going to do with this gold?” he asked.
“Is there enough to buy some land?” asked Frank.
“Yes,” said his father.
“Would there be enough land for me to have a garden?” asked Ellen.
“Yes,” said her father.
“And we could have a house on the land,” said Mrs. Davis. “We could have it here in this valley.”
“Yes!” said Frank.
“Yes!” said Ellen. “Here in this valley!”
“Maybe Father John was right,” said Mr. Davis. “He said if we came here we could find what we want. I thought he meant gold. Now I think he meant something better than gold.”
