OUR NEIGHBOR OVER THE WAY.
Mandarin, May 14, 1872.
UR neighbor over the way is not, to be sure, quite so near or so observable as if one lived on Fifth Avenue or Broadway.
Between us and his cottage lie five good miles of molten silver in the shape of the St. John's River, outspread this morning in all its quivering sheen, glancing, dimpling, and sparkling, dotted with sail-boats, and occasionally ploughed by steamboats gliding like white swans back and forth across the distance.
Far over on the other side, where the wooded shores melt into pearly blue outlines, gleams out in the morning sun a white, glimmering spot about as big as a ninepence, which shows us where his cottage stands. Thither we are going to make a morning visit. Our water-coach is now approaching the little wharf front of our house: and we sally forth equipped with our sun-umbrellas; for the middle of May here is like the middle of August at the North. The water-coach, or rather omnibus, is a little thimble of a steamer, built for pleasuring on the St. John's, called "The Mary Draper." She is a tiny shell of a thing, but with a nice, pretty cabin, and capable of carrying comfortably thirty or forty passengers. During the height of the travelling-season "The Mary Draper" is let out to parties of tourists, who choose thus at their leisure to explore the river, sailing, landing, rambling, exploring, hunting, fishing, and perhaps inevitably flirting among the flowery nooks and palmetto-hammocks of the shore. We have seen her many a time coming gayly back from an excursion, with the voice of singing, and laugh of youths and maidens, resounding from her deck, flower-wreathed and flower-laden like some fabled bark from the fairy isles. But now, in the middle of May, the tourists are few; and so "The Mary Draper" has been turned into a sort of errand-boat, plying up and down the river to serve the needs and convenience of the permanent inhabitants. A flag shown upon our wharf brings her in at our need; and we step gayly on board, to be carried across to our neighbors.
We take our seats at the shaded end of the boat, and watch the retreating shore, with its gigantic live-oaks rising like a dome above the orange-orchards, its clouds of pink oleander-trees that seem every week to blossom fuller than the last; and for a little moment we can catch the snow-white glimmer of the great Cape jessamine-shrub that bends beneath the weight of flowers at the end of our veranda. Our little cottage looks like a rabbit's nest beside the monster oaks that shade it; but it is cosey to see them all out on the low veranda,—the Professor with his newspapers, the ladies with their worsteds and baskets, in fact the whole of our large family,—all reading, writing, working, in the shady covert of the orange-trees.
From time to time a handkerchief is waved on their part, and the signal returned on ours; and they follow our receding motions with a spyglass. Our life is so still and lonely here, that even so small an event as our crossing the river for a visit is all-absorbing.
But, after a little, our craft melts off into the distance, "The Mary Draper" looks to our friends no larger than a hazel-nut, and the trees of the other side loom up strong and tall in our eyes, and grow clearer and clearer; while our home, with its great live-oaks and its orange-groves, has all melted into a soft woolly haze of distance. Our next neighbor's great whitewashed barn is the only sign of habitation remaining; and that flashes out a mere shining speck in the distance.
Now the boat comes up to Mr. ——'s wharf; and he is there to meet and welcome us.