Even This Was
Not Enough To Make Me Face The Awful Sight Of Margarita Dead; The Very
Thought Of It Was An Intolerable Weight On My Heart; But It Was Not
Grief That Gave Me This Sensation, Much As I Grieved; It Was Solely My
Fear Of Death.
CHAPTER IV
THE PLANTATION
Living with trees - Winter violets - The house is made habitable - Red
willow - Scissor-tail and carrion-hawk - Lombardy poplars-Black acacia -
Other trees - The foss or moat - Rats - A trial of strength with an
armadillo - Opossums living with a snake - Alfalfa field and butterflies
- Cane brake - -Weeds and fennel - Peach trees in blossom - Paroquets -
Singing of a field finch - Concert-singing in birds - Old John - Cow-
birds' singing - Arrival of summer migrants.
I remember - better than any orchard, grove, or wood I have ever
entered or seen, do I remember that shady oasis of trees at my new
home on the illimitable grassy plain. Up till now I had never lived
with trees excepting those twenty-five I have told about and that
other one which was called _el arbol_ because it was the only tree of
its kind in all the land. Here there were hundreds, thousands of
trees, and to my childish unaccustomed eyes it was like a great
unexplored forest. There were no pines, firs, nor eucalyptus (unknown
in the country then), nor evergreens of any kind; the trees being all
deciduous were leafless now in mid-winter, but even so it was to me a
wonderful experience to be among them, to feel and smell their rough
moist bark stained green with moss, and to look up at the blue sky
through the network of interlacing twigs.
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