"It is nothing but a mirage," Nelson
said. "There is no water there and no trees. It comes and goes in this
part of the desert according to the state of the atmosphere, and it has
been the cause of many a poor fellow's end." How treacherous, Mamma! How
cruel of Nature to treat her children so! And then he put his head back
and pulled his hat over his eyes.
"A mirage," he said, like one dreaming. "Guess it's often like
life." And then he told me of the curious effect it had had upon his
imagination the first time he had seen it, when alone with his burros,
prospecting; how it seemed to say to him to make a reality of green
and prosperity out of the parched world, and how his thoughts always
returned there when he had successes, and he dreamed of a day when he
should rest a little by just such a lake. "To rest my soul," he said,
"if I have any; to rest it with someone I should love."
And, as once before, the Senator broke in upon us with his cheery,
charming voice, "Guess you two are talking like high-flown poet coons,"
he said, "and there is breakfast to be thought of, and happy things like
that." And then as Nelson went in front he stepped back and put his kind
hand under my chin, and raised it and looked straight into my eyes.
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