“Miriam would have a garden,” Dr. Minturn said when the greetings were over and Beatrice had admired the flowers. “Almost everything in it is just what runs wild over the mountains, but she prefers them behind a fence. I think she dreams at night of how to make those big, wild forget-me-nots look like the little cultivated ones.”
“The doctor likes to make fun of my garden,” Mrs. Minturn said in her pleasant soft voice. “But it is not very different from what he has done with the whole mountain-side. It was as bare as your hand when we came here, and he has planted every one of the little pines himself and has nursed each tree as though it were a baby. We call it Christmas-tree Hill. But come in, my dear; you must rest and wash that cut on your cheek.”
She led Beatrice to the house and, in taking it quite for granted that her guest was to spend the night, conducted her to what the girl thought was the smallest and cleanest bedroom she had ever seen. Here Mrs. Minturn insisted that she must lie down and be tucked up under the patchwork quilt and “go to sleep for an hour if she could.” Beatrice did not sleep, but lay very peacefully, staring at the rough plastered walls of the tiny room or, through the window, at the myriad little trees stepping in their straight, decorous rows across the side of the hill. Long before the hour was over she was beginning to feel quite rested and herself again, and when her hostess came to announce that supper was ready she was sitting at the window, gazing out at the sunset light on the white peaks of the range opposite.
After they had eaten, Dr. Minturn insisted that she make a tour of the place and, “Go on, my dear, I don’t need any help with the dishes,” Mrs. Minturn said when her guest wished to stay and assist her. “It isn’t often that the doctor has a chance to show things off to a new person, so don’t deny him the pleasure.”
Beatrice accordingly saw everything: the horses, the contented cows, even the cheerful pig grunting happily to himself in his spotless sty. The chickens occupied a substantial residence on account of the owls, coyotes, martens, and other wild animals that lent difficulty and excitement to poultry raising in the Rocky Mountains. Then the doctor led Beatrice beyond the garden and the clump of willows to where she could see the whole sweep of the mountain and the shadows flooding the valley as darkness crept up the hill.