Short Fiction by O. Henry (librera reader txt) 📕

the goddess Nicotine. The moon made a glory in the eastern sky and spread a white shimmering glamour upon the black water of the bayou. A phantom tug crept down stream, leaving a ghostly, wavering silver wake, and a mysterious lapping and washing along the unseen shores. Mosquitoes hummed angrily about the borders of the hanging cloud of tobacco smoke. A dank fresh smell arose from bursting buds and wild flowers. We five sat in the chiaroscuro of the live oaks and cypresses, and babbled as most men and all women will when Night, the tongue loosener, succeeds the discrete Day.

Night should be held responsible for poets, breach of promise suits, betrayed secrets and dull stories. The man who will not tell more than he knows in the moonlight of a spring night is a rarity. Four of us were more or less hardened to moonlight and roses; one among us was young enough to note the soft effect of Luna’s kiss upon the dim tree tops, the aerial perspective of the drifting gulf clouds, and the dim white eyes of the dogwood blossoms peering out of the wooded darkness. He noted and spake his thoughts without stint of adjectives, while we world-worn passengers grunted in reply; puffed at our cigars and pipes, and refused to commit ourselves on such trifling matters.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” asked the young man. “The sky like the derne of some dream temple, the woods dark with mystery and the silence broken only by the faint breathing of nature.”

“It’s nice, and no mistake,” answered the insurance agent, “but let me tell you, I’ve known men to plant the seeds of incurable disease along this old bayou. Feel that dampness rising every minute? A fellow never knows what is going to happen. Especially a man with a family dependent on him should⁠—”

“Shut up,” snapped the druggist. “For talking shop, recommend me to a man in your line. This is a pleasure trip we are on, and I have to have it spoiled by ringing in business. Talk about your malaria, why, two bottles of my⁠—”

“There you go, just as bad,” said the lawyer. “You fellows have run in the same old rut so long you can’t get your minds on anything else. Put me on the witness stand, and I’ll swear that I never mention my own business outside of my office; if I don’t, kick me clean out of court.”

“This night,” said the sheep man, “reminds me of the night I was lost in the brush along the Frio. That was the night before the morning I seen the mi-ridge.”

“The⁠—ah⁠—oh! the mirage?” said the young man.

“No,” said the sheep man, “it wasn’t no mi-rosh; this was a mi-ridge, and the plainest one I ever seen. They happened somethin’ queer about this one, too, and I don’t often tell it, after seein’ that incredoolity generally waits upon the relatin’ of it.”

“Light up,” said the druggist, reaching for the tobacco sack, “and let us have your yarn. There are very few things a man can’t believe nowadays.”

“It was in the fall of ’80,” said the sheep man, “when I was runnin’ sheep in La Salle County. There came a norther that scattered my flock of 1500 muttons to thunderation. The shepherd couldn’t hold ’em and they split up right and left, through the chaparral. I got on my hoss and hunted all one day, and I rounded up the biggest part of ’em during the afternoon. I seen a Mexican ridin’ along what told me they was a big ’tajo of ’em down near the Palo Blanco crossin’ of the Frio. I rode over that way, and when sundown come I was down in a big mesquite flat, where I couldn’t see fifty yards before me any ways. Well, I got lost. For some four or five hours my pony stumbled around in the sacuista grass, windin’ about this way and that, without knowin’ any more than I did where he was at. ’Bout 12 o’clock I give it up, staked my pony and laid down under my saddle blanket to wait till mornin’. I was awful worried about my wife and the kid, who was by themselves on the ranch, for I knew they’d be scared half to death. There wasn’t much to be afraid of, but you know how women folks are when night comes, ’specially when they wasn’t any neighbor in ten miles of ’em.

“I was up at daylight, and soon as I’d got my bearin’s I knowed just where I was. Right where I was I seen the Fort Ewell road, and a big dead elm on one side that I knew. I was just eighteen miles from my ranch. I jumped in the saddle, when all at once, looking across the Frio towards home, I seen this mi-ridge. These mi-ridges are sure wonderful. I never seen but three or four. It was a kind of misty mornin’, with woolly gulf clouds a-flyin’ across, and the hollows was all hazy. I seen my ranch house, shearin’ pen, the fences with saddles hangin’ on ’em, the wood pile, with the ax stickin’ in a log, and everything about the yard as plain as if they was only 200 yards away, and I was lookin’ at ’em on a foggy mornin’. Everything looked somewhat ghostly like, and a little taller and bigger than it really was, but I could see even the white curtains at the windows and the pet sheep grazin’ ’round the corral. It made me feel funny to see everything so close, when I knew I was eighteen miles away.

“All to once I seen the door open, and wife come out with the kid in her arms. It was all I could do to keep from hollerin’ at her. You bet, I was glad to see her anyhow, and know they was all safe. Just then I seen somethin’ big and black a-movin’, and it growed plainer, like it had kinder come into