here's no help for it. If I don't stay and
grind away at the mill, there is no one to pay for this long journey.
Clover will have to do her best."

"And a very good best it will be you'll see," said Katy, consolingly.
"Does Dr. Hope tell you anything about the place?" she added, turning over
the letter which her father had handed her.

"Oh, he says the scenery is fine, and the mean rain-fall is this, and the
mean precipitation that, and that boarding-places can be had. That is
pretty much all. So far as climate goes, it is the right place, but I
presume the accommodations are poor enough. The children must go prepared
to rough it. The town was only settled ten or eleven years ago; there
hasn't been time to make things comfortable," remarked Dr. Carr, with a
truly Eastern ignorance of the rapid way in which things march in the far
West.

Clover's feelings when the decision was announced to her it would be hard
to explain in full. She was both confused and exhilarated by the sudden
weight of responsibility laid upon her. To leave everybody and everything
she had always been used to, and go away to such a distance alone with
Phil, made her gasp with a sense of dismay, while at the same time the
idea that for the first time in her life she was trusted with something
really important, roused her energies, and made her feel braced and
valiant, like a soldier to whom some difficult enterprise is intrusted on
the day of battle.

Many consultations followed as to what the travellers should carry with
them, by what route they would best go, and how prepare for the journey. A
great deal of contradictory advice was offered, as is usually the case
when people are starting on a voyage or a long railway ride. One friend
wrote to recommend that they should provide themselves with a week's
provisions in advance, and enclosed a list of crackers, jam, potted meats,
tea, fruit, and hardware, which would have made a heavy load for a donkey
or mule to carry. How were poor Clover and Phil to transport such a weight
of things? Another advised against umbrellas and water-proof cloaks,--what
was the use of such things where it never rained?--while a second letter,
received the same day, assured them that thunder and hail storms were
things for which travellers in Colorado must live in a state of continual
preparation. "Who shall decide when doctors disagree?" In the end Clover
concluded that it was best to follow the leadings of commonsense a