The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria | Page 4

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, Se?or 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 se?orito, 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, season after season, and shall live until its duty is performed, then let it wither when it shall no longer be needed here. Thou must come down and see me, Carlos," she continued in an altered voice, "for I have some new flowers which thou shalt have; come for I am lonely and like young company, though I be