292 TEXAS AND ARIZONA 



earth she was so long in coming; the mocker 

 across the field (one of no more than half a dozen 

 that I saw about Tucson ! ) was bringing out of 

 his treasury things new and old (a great bird 

 that, always with another shot in his locker) ; 

 the Lucy warbler, daintiest of the dainty, sang 

 softly amid the willow catkins, a chorus of bees 

 accompanying ; the black cap of the pileolated 

 warbler was not in the blossoming quince-bush 

 hedge (that was a pity) ; the desert-loving spar- 

 row hawk sat at the top of a giant cactus, as if 

 its thorns were nothing but a cushion ; the happy 

 little Mexican boy, who lived in one corner of the 

 old mill, came down the road with his usual smile 

 of welcome (we were almost old friends by this 

 time) and a glance into the trees, meaning to 

 say, what he could not express in English, nor I 

 understand in Spanish, " I know what you are 

 doing ; " and then, as I rounded the bend, under 

 the beetling crags, the same canyon wren, my first 

 one, not dreaming what a favor he was confer- 

 ring upon the man he had so often chided as a tres- 

 passer, let fall a few measures of his lovely song. 

 How sweet and cool the notes were ! Unless it 

 was the sound of the brook in the Sabino Canyon, 

 I believe I heard nothing else so good in Arizona. 

 But at San Antonio, on my way homeward, I 

 heard notes not to be called musical, in the 



