Their first spring and summer were a very happy time, of which Polly and Dan could relate a hundred noteworthy incidents. They rented a tiny cottage of three rooms in the unfashionable part of the town where rents were low. Here was a bit of ground all about, and a narrow porch that looked straight into the face of the splendid old Peak; and here they lived the merriest of lives on the smallest and most precarious of incomes; for they were determined to infringe as little as possible upon the slender capital, snugly stowed away in a Colorado bank.
Dan soon found employment in a livery-stable at fifty cents a day. His chief business was the agreeable one of delivering "teams" and saddle-horses to pleasure-seekers at the north end of the town, riding back to the stable again on a "led horse" provided for the purpose. If not a very ambitious calling, it was, at least, exceedingly good fun, and it also had the merit of conforming to the doctor's directions. "Don't let him get behind a counter or into any stuffy back-office," the doctor had said to Polly. "Whatever he does, let it keep him in the open air as much as possible." Had the very obvious wisdom of this advice required demonstration, Dan's rapid improvement would have been sufficient.
They did not shock the sensibilities of the sewing-circle by writing home exactly what the employment was that Dan had found, while, for themselves, Polly had her own little ways of embellishing the somewhat prosaic situation. She dubbed the young stable-boy Hercules, and always spoke of the establishment he served as "The Augæans." Nor did her invention fail when, a month or two later, Dan got a place at somewhat higher wages as druggist's messenger; for then he was promptly informed that his name was Mercury, and that there were wings on his heels, though he could not himself see them, by reason of their being turned back, and visible only when his feet were in rapid motion!
Meanwhile, Polly, too, was doing her part, though it had not yet proved very lucrative. When they first took the house, Dan painted a sign for her, bearing the following announcement:
But the spring and summer went by, and autumn came, and still the sign which had ornamented their house-front for so many months had as yet attracted the notice of only the impecunious class of customers their immediate neighbourhood afforded. Polly had gratefully taken coarse work at low prices, but she still hoped for better things. The street where their tiny cottage stood, though at the wrong end of the town, was a thoroughfare for pleasure parties driving to the great cañons, and Polly never saw the approach of a pretty turnout without a thrill of hope that the occupants might be attracted by her sign. She knew herself to be a quick and skilful needlewoman, and she thought that if only she might once get started in well-paid work, Dan, who was growing stronger every day, might go on with his education at the Colorado College Preparatory School. She had found out all about the college, of which she had formed a very high opinion, and she told herself proudly that Dan had such a good mind that he would not need to study too hard.