Page:A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879).djvu/242

 is so clean that one might eat off it. The table is clean and abundant, and the mother and daughters, though they do all the work, look as trim as if they did none, and actually laugh heartily. The ranch-man neither allows drink to be brought into the house nor to be drunk outside, and on this condition only he "keeps travellers." The freighters come in to supper quite well washed, and though twelve of them slept in the kitchen, by nine o'clock there was not a sound. This freighting business is most profitable. I think that the charge is three cents per pound from Denver to South Park, and there much of the freight is transferred to "pack-jacks" and carried up to the mines. A railroad, however, is contemplated. I breakfasted with the family after the freight train left, and instead of sitting down to gobble up the remains of a meal, they had a fresh tablecloth and hot food. The buckets are all polished oak, with polished brass bands; the kitchen utensils are bright as rubbing can make them; and, more wonderful still, the girls black their boots. Blacking usually is an unused luxury, and frequently is not kept in houses. My boots have only been blacked once during the last two months.

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I could not make out whether the superiority of the Deer Valley settlers extended beyond material things, but a teamster I met in the evening said it "made him