Page:Fantastics and other Fancies.djvu/178

 of dashing silver melody!—then long, liquid, passionate calls!—then a deep, rich ripple of caressing mellow notes, as of love languor oppressed that seeks to laugh. Men rose and went out under the moon to listen. There was something at once terribly and tenderly familiar to at least One in those sounds. "What in Christ's name is that?" whispered a miner, as the melody quivered far up the white street.

"It is a mockingbird," 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.