The sweetness and intimacy of an unknown life
surrounded her. She sang happily as she strode, lithe and strong and
throbbing with unfulfilled energies and potencies, through the
springtide of the woods.
But when she emerged upon the desert, she fell silent. A spaciousness as
of endless vistas enthralled and, a little, awed her. On all sides were
ranged the disordered ranks of the cacti, stricken into immobility in
the very act of reconstituting their columns, so that they gave the
effect of a discord checked on the verge of its resolution into form and
harmony, yet with a weird and distorted beauty of its own. From a little
distance, there came a murmur of love-words. Io moved softly forward,
peering curiously, and from the arc of a wide curving ocatilla two wild
doves sprang, leaving the branch all aquiver. Bolder than his companions
of the air, a cactus owl, perched upon the highest column of a great
green candelabrum, viewed her with a steady detachment, "sleepless, with
cold, commemorative eyes." The girl gave back look for look, into the
big, hard, unwavering circles.
"You're a funny little bird," said she. "Say something!"
Like his congener of the hortatory poem, the owl held his peace.
"Perhaps you're a stuffed little bird," said Io, "and this not a real
desert at all, but a National Park or something, full of educational
specimens.
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