Her old boat loaded with oranges,
Her baby tied on her breast,
Minorcan Dolores bends her oars,
Noting each reed
[833] on the swift-moving shores;
But the way is long and the inlet wide—
[834]Can two small hands overcome the tide
Sweeping up from the west?
Four little walls of conquina stone,
Rude thatch of palmetto leaves;
There
[835] they have nestled, like birds in a tree,
[836]From winter, and labor, and hunger free,
Taking from earth their small need, but no more;
No thought of the morrow,
[837] no laying in store.
No gathering patient sheaves.
Alone in their southern island home,
Through the year of summer days,
The two live on; and the bountiful beach
[838]Clusters its sea-food within his reach;
The two love on, and the tropical land
And life is a shining haze.
Luiz, Dolores, and baby brown,
With dreamy, passionate eyes—
Far in the past,
[839] lured by Saxon wiles,
A simple folk came from the Spanish sea-isles,
Now, tinged with the blood of the creole quadroon
Their children live idly along
[840] the lagoon,
Under the Florida skies.
[841]
Luiz, Dolores, and baby brown,
Ah! their blooming life of love!—
But fever falls, with its withering blight;
[842]Dolores keeps watch through the sultry night;
In vain
[843] her poor herbs, in vain
[844] her poor prayers,
Her Luiz is mounting the silver-winged stairs
That lead up
[845] to heaven above.
So, her old boat loaded with oranges,
Her baby tied on her breast,
Dolores rows off to the ancient town,
[846]Where the blue-eyed soldiers come marching down
From the far cold North;
[847] they are men who know—
Thus Dolores thinks—how to cure all
[848] woe;
Nay, their very touch is blest.
“Oranges! Oranges!”
[849] hear her cry,
Through the shaded plaza path;
But the Northern soldiers come marching in
Through the old Spanish city with stir and din;
And silent people
[850] stand sullen by,
To see the old flag mount
[851] again to the sky—
The flag they had trampled
[852] in wrath.
Ah! brown Dolores, will no one hear,
And buy thy little store?
Now north,
[853] now south,
[854] on the old sea-wall,
But her pitiful tones unheeded fall;
Now east,
[855] now west,
[856] through the angry town,
Patient she journeys up and down,
Nor misses one surly door.
Then, desperate, up
[857] to the dreaded ranks
She carries her passionate suit;
“I have no money,
[858] for none would buy;
But come,
[859] for God’s sake, or he will die!
Save him—my Luiz—he is so young,”
She pleads in her liquid Minorcan tongue,
And proffers
[860] her store of fruit.
But the Northern soldiers move steadily on,
[861]They hear not, nor understand;
The last blue rank has passed down the street,
[862]She sees but the dust of their marching feet;
[863]They have crossed the whole country,
[864] by night and by day,
And marked with their blood every step of the way,
To conquer
[865] this Southern land.
They are gone—O despair!
[866] she turns to the church,
[867]Half fainting, her fruit wet with tears;
“Perhaps de old Saint, who is always dere,
May wake up and take dem to pay for a prayer;
They are very sweet, as the saint will see,
If he would but wake up and listen to me.
But he sleeps, so he never hears.”
She enters;
[868] the church is filled
[869] with men,
The pallid men of the North;
Each dingy old pew
[870] is a sick man’s bed,
Each battered old bench
[871] holds a weary head,
The altar candles are swept away,
[872]For vials and knives in shining array,
And a new saint
[873] is stepping forth.
He must be a saint, for he comes from the shrine,
A saint of a Northern creed,
Clad in a uniform, army blue,
But surely the saints may wear any hue,
[874]Dolores thinks, as he takes her hand,
And hears all her story, and understands
The cry of her desperate need.
An orange he gives to each weary man,
[875]To freshen the fevered mouth,
Then forth
[876] they go down the old sea-wall,
And they hear
[877] in the dusk the pickets call,
And the row-boat is moored on the shadowy shore,
[878]The Northern saint can manage an oar,
And the boat glides fast
[879] to the south.
A healing touch and a holy drink,
A bright little heavenly knife,
And this Northern saint, who prays no prayers,
Brings back the soul from the spirit-winged stairs,
[880]And once more Minorcan Luiz’s dark eyes,
In whose depths the warmth of the tropics lies,
Rest calm
[881] on the awe-stricken wife.
“Oh! dear Nordern saint!
[882] a shrine will I build,
Wild roses I’ll bring from afar,
[883]De jasmine, orange flower, wood tulips bright,
And dose will I worship each morning and night.”
“Nay, nay!
[884] poor Dolores, I am but a man,
A surgeon, who binds up, with what skill he can,
The wounds of this heart-breaking man.
“See, build me no shrines, but take this small book,
[885]And teach the brown baby to read.”
He is gone, and Dolores is left on the shore,
She watches the boat
[886] till she sees it no more,
She hears
[887] the quick musketry all through the night,
She holds fast the book in her pine knot’s red light,
The book of the Northern creed.
* * * * *
The sad war is over, the dear peace has come,
The blue-coated soldiers depart.
[888]The brown baby reads the small book, and the three
Live on in their isle in the Florida sea,
The brown baby learns many things wise and strange,
But all
[889] his new English words never can change
The faith of Dolores’ fond heart.