SORROW IN SUNLIGHT
I
Looking gloriously bored, Miss Miami Mouth gaped up into the boughs of a giant silk-cotton-tree. In the lethargic noontide nothing stirred: all was so still, indeed, that the sound of someone snoring was clearly audible among the cane-fields far away.
“After dose yams an’ pods an’ de white falernum, I dats way sleepy too,” she murmured, fixing heavy, somnolent, eyes upon the prospect that lay before her.
Through the sun-tinged greenery shone the sea, like a floor of silver glass strewn with white sails.
Somewhere out there, fishing, must be her boy, Bamboo!
And, inconsequently, her thoughts wandered from the numerous shark-casualties of late to the mundane proclivities of her mother; for to quit the little village of Mediavilla for the capital was that dame’s fixed obsession.
Leave Mediavilla, leave Bamboo! The young negress fetched a sigh.