The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria | Page 4

dead, violet-brown colour, with the
green leaves about them, made a disagreeable combination seldom seen
in any of nature's pictures.
When she had completely filled her basket she turned to me and spoke:
"I am glad to see thee, Carlos, for it has been long since we have met,
and I began to think that thou hadst forgotten thy old friend, or, perhaps,
hadst learned all about flowers and herbs, so that she could teach thee
no more."
"No, Madre; I shall never know so much about them as you do. I can
learn their names and values only, while you put them all to so many
good uses," I answered. "What do you do with the leaves you have just
gathered? They are very poisonous, and you should wash your hands
well after touching them, and especially after getting the juice on your
fingers!"
"But thou knowest poison makes little difference with one like me, who
hath a charmed life," replied Madre Moreno, as she handed me the
basket to carry while she nimbly stepped from stone to stone and
climbed out of the hollow, here and there startling a snake or lizard that
lay in the sunshine.
"It is well done!" she abruptly said, and looking at me, burst into a fit of

laughter which was so spontaneous and hearty that I joined with her,
though I knew not at what I was laughing. My own laugh sounded
strangely, however, and seemed to me to echo with another tone from
the vine-covered walls as if some one were there, and like Madre
Moreno, were also laughing at me. I stopped suddenly, and I felt my
face change colour, and the same awe which I so often felt when about
the ruined house came upon me with a force I had never known before;
I trembled as I stood there beside this strange woman, who laughed
louder and louder, striking her little hands together in seeming ecstacy,
while the sounds echoed and re-echoed among the fig trees and heaps
of stones, yet seeming all the time less like echoes than like the voices
of innumerable, invisible creatures darting everywhere about the grove.
The place grew darker, for clouds just then obscured the sun and
covered the hills beyond Tamalpais. Madre Moreno came nearer to me
and touched my forehead. . . . . . . . . Suddenly the sun shown bright as
ever upon the fig and olive trees and gleamed from thousands of silver
drops hanging from every leaf; the snakes and lizards lay quietly upon
the steaming rocks and half burnt beams, while the rank vegetation sent
forth a sweet scent of green life.
"Why do you laugh at me, Madre?" I asked.
"Only, Carlos," she answered, "because it is so odd to see thee carrying
the old witch's basket with all the charms and thou knowing nothing
about it all; oh it is very odd!" and the Madre laughed again. "The
storm has gone over," she continued, "I feared it would last long, but
winter is almost gone, and it passed without much rain falling here."
"What storm?" I asked.
"The storm which has just passed, hast thou not noted it?"
"I saw no storm, you must be dreaming Madre, or trying some of your
spells upon me. There has been no storm for the sun has been shining
brightly, except when that cloud passed for a moment," I answered as I
handed her the basket.
"Whence came the drops of water which lie upon the leaves, Señor

Carlos, if not from the clouds which thou canst still see passing over
the hills toward San Anselmo? Thou knowest not all the power
Ambrosia Moreno, thy little madre, hath. So thou hast held the basket
with the flat green leaves."
"Oh! Madre Moreno, I can never understand you, but you must be
careful of the leaves you have just gathered, for they contain a most
powerful poison. I am more afraid, since the plant is rare or even
unknown in the Californias, that you do not know its power; you surely
can never have found it before, and how it came to be growing here is
incomprehensible to me."
The witch bent her head and looking into my face from under her
overhanging reboso, raised her finger and shook it before me saying as
she did so, "Thou art a learned señorito, Carlos Sotos, but although
Ambrosia Moreno hath never been in the college, she knows more of
the little flowers and bright leaves of this plant thou speakest of than all
the Jesuits or thy people shall ever learn. The very plant growing here
among these fallen stones is as old as thou art, Carlos Sotos, and that
almost to a year. It has ever grown on,