Esculapius has but one shortcoming—he is not a poet. I never wound him by appearing to notice this defect, so I sat down on the dry burr-clover and made no reply.
"You think it is still," he went on in a mannish, instructive way, "but in fact there are a thousand sounds. At night, when it is really quiet, you will hear the roar of the ocean ten miles away. Hark!"
Our host was singing far down in the corn. He was a minister, a deep-toned Methodist, brimming over with vocal piety.
"Nearer the great white throne,
Nearer the jasper sea,"—
came to us in slow, rich cadences.
The fern-like branches above us stirred softly against the blue. Little aromatic whiffs came from the grove of pale eucalyptus-trees near the house. Esculapius diluted the intoxicating air with tobacco smoke and remained sane, but as for me the sunshine went to my head, and whirled and eddied there like some Eastern drug.
"My love," I said wildly, "if we stay here very long and nothing happens, I shall do something rash."
The next morning a huge derrick frowned in the dooryard, and a picturesque group of workmen lounged under the acacias. The well had ceased to flow.
Esculapius called me to a corner of the piazza, and spoke in low, hurried tones.
"Something has happened," he said; "the well has stopped. I thought it might relieve your feelings to get off that quotation about the golden bowl and the wheel, and the pitcher, and the fountain, etc.; then, if it is safe to leave you, I would like to go hunting."