I speak favorably of the climate or resources of any
other country, he regards it as a slur on Colorado.

They have one hundred and sixty acres of land, a "Squatter's claim,"
and an invaluable water power. He is a lumberer, and has a saw-mill of
a very primitive kind. I notice that every day something goes wrong
with it, and this is the case throughout. If he wants to haul timber
down, one or other of the oxen cannot be found; or if the timber is
actually under way, a wheel or a part of the harness gives way, and the
whole affair is at a standstill for days. The cabin is hardly a
shelter, but is allowed to remain in ruins because the foundation of a
frame house was once dug. A horse is always sure to be lame for want
of a shoe nail, or a saddle to be useless from a broken buckle, and the
wagon and harness are a marvel of temporary shifts, patchings, and
insecure linkings with strands of rope. Nothing is ever ready or whole
when it is wanted. Yet Chalmers is a frugal, sober, hard-working man,
and he, his eldest son, and a "hired man" "Rise early," "going forth to
their work and labor till the evening"; and if they do not "late take
rest," they truly "eat the bread of carefulness." It is hardly
surprising that nine years of persevering shiftlessness should have
resulted in nothing but the ability to procure the bare necessaries of
life.

Of Mrs. C. I can say less. She looks like one of the English poor
women of our childhood--lean, clean, toothless, and speaks, like some
of them, in a piping, discontented voice, which seems to convey a
personal reproach. All her waking hours are spent in a large
sun-bonnet. She is never idle for one minute, is severe and hard, and
despises everything but work. I think she suffers from her husband's
shiftlessness. She always speaks of me as "This" or "that woman." The
family consists of a grown-up son, a shiftless, melancholy-looking
youth, who possibly pines for a wider life; a girl of sixteen, a sour,
repellent-looking creature, with as much manners as a pig; and three
hard, un-child-like younger children. By the whole family all courtesy
and gentleness of act or speech seem regarded as "works of the flesh,"
if not of "the devil." They knock over all one's things without
apologizing or picking them up, and when I thank them for anything they
look grimly amazed. I feel that they think it sinful that I do not
work as hard as they do. I wish I could show them "a more exce