There were pines, but they were not our pines, these feathery,
dark-stemmed trees; there were oaks, but neither our golden water oaks
nor our great, green-and-silver live-oaks. Little, pale flowers bloomed
everywhere, shadows only of our bright blossoms of the South; and the
rare birds I saw were gray and small, and chary of song, as though the
stillness that slept in this Northern forest was a danger not to be
awakened. Loneliness fell on me; my shoulders bent and my head hung
heavily. Isene, my mare, paced the soft forest-road without a sound, so
quietly that the squatting rabbit leaped from between her forelegs, and
the slim, striped, squirrel-like creatures crouched paralyzed as we
passed ere they burst into their shrill chatter of fright or anger, I
know not which.
Had I a night to spend in this wilderness I should not know where to
find a palmetto-fan for a torch, where to seek light-wood for splinter.
It was all new to me; signs read riddles; tracks were sealed books; the
east winds brought rain, where at home they bring heaven's own balm to
us of the Spanish grants on the seaboard; the northwest winds that we
dread turn these Northern skies to sapphire, and set bees a-humming on
every bud.
There was no salt in the air, no citrus scent in the breeze, no heavy
incense of the great magnolia bloom perfuming the wilderness like a
cathedral aisle where a young bride passes, clouded in lace.
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