Half an hour later, as Sara and I were strolling near the far point of the island, we caught through the trees a glimpse of Iris seated in the low, crooked bough of a live-oak, and at her feet John Hoffman, reclining on the white tufted moss that covered the ground. “Absurd!” I said, angrily.
“Why absurd? Is she not good and fair? To me there is something very bewitching about Iris Carew. She is the most graceful little creature; look at her attitude now, swinging in that bough! and when she walks there is a willowy suppleness about her that makes the rest of us look like grenadiers. Then what arch dark eyes she has, what a lovely brunette skin, the real brune! Pretty, graceful little Iris, she is always picturesque, whatever she does.”
“But she is a child, Sara, while he—”
“Is John Hoffman,” replied Sara, with a little curl of her lip. “Come, Martha, I want to show you some Arcadians.”
“Arcadians?”
“Yes. Not the people who found the tomb in the forest, but some real practical Arcadians, who enjoy life as Nature intended.”
“Who knows what she intended? I am sure I don’t,” I said, crossly.
Near the ruins of the mansion we found the Arcadians, a young man with his wife and child, living in a small out-building which might have been a cow-house. It was not more than ten feet square, the roof had fallen in, and was replaced by a rude thatch of palmetto leaves; there was no window of any kind, no floor save the sand, and for a door only an old coverlet hung up and tied back like a curtain. Within we could see a low settle-bed with some ragged coverings, a stool, powder, shot, and fishing tackle hung up on one side, and an old calico dress on the other; without was a table under a tree, a cupboard hung on the outside of the house, containing a few dishes, and the ashes of the family fire near at hand. Two thin dogs and a forlorn calf (oh, the cadaverous cattle of Florida!) completed the stock of this model farm.
“They eat and cook out-of-doors all the year round, I suppose. What a home! Did any one ever see such poverty,” I said, “and such indolence? They do not even take the trouble to make a door.”
“What do they want of a door? There is nothing to keep out but Nature. And as for poverty, they seem happy enough,” replied Sara.