"What in Christ's name is that?" whispered a miner, as the melody quivered far up the white street.
"It is a mocking-bird," answered another who had lived in lands of palmetto and palm.
And as the engineer listened, there seemed to float to him the flower-odors of a sunnier land;—the Western hills faded as clouds fade out of the sky; and before him lay once more the fair streets of a far city, glimmering with the Mexican silver of Southern moonlight;—again he saw the rigging of masts making cobweb lines across the faces of stars and white steamers sleeping in ranks along the river's crescent-curve, and cottages vine-garlanded or banana-shadowed, and woods in their dreamy drapery of Spanish moss.
"Got something for you this time," said the United States mail-carrier, riding in weeks later with his bronzed face made lurid by the sanguine glow of sunset. He did not say "Cap" this time; neither did he smile. The envelope was larger than usual. The handwriting was the handwriting of a man. It contained only these words:
DEAR—, Hortense is dead. It happened very suddenly on the night of the 24th. Come home at once.
S—
THE TALE OF A FAN[27]
Pah! it is too devilishly hot to write anything about anything practical and serious—let us dream dreams.
. . . . . . . . .