120 THE OLD SUGAR MILL. 
They were like the country itself, I was 
ready to say. But perhaps I misjudged 
both, seeing both, as I did, in the winter 
season. With the mercury at 80°, or there- 
about, it is hard for the Northern tourist 
to remember that he is looking at a winter 
landscape. He compares a Florida winter 
with a New England summer, and can 
hardly find words to tell you how barren 
and poverty-stricken the country looks. 
After this I went more than once to the 
sugar mill. Morning and afternoon I vis- 
ited it, but somehow I could never renew 
the joy of my first visit. Moods are not 
to be had for the asking, nor earned by a 
walk. The place was still interesting, the 
birds were there, the sunshine was pleasant, 
and the sea breeze fanned me. The orange 
blossoms were still sweet, and the bees still 
hummed about them; but it was another 
day, or I was another man. In memory, 
none the less, all my visits blend in one, 
and the ruined mill in the dying orchard re- 
mains one of the bright spots in that strange 
Southern world which, almost from the mo- 
ment I left it behind me, began to fade into 
indistinctness, like the landscape of a dream. 
