The Cactus Page: 390
[24], 305-400, [72] p., 2 leaves of plates : ill. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this prose (fiction).
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with a heavy sigh, sul'silded from his regular,
bris k trot into a slow compilace'nt walk.
'They w(ere winding up an easy slope covered
with brush lten or txx(,lxiv fi'i't high.
"I say noiw, AIex," demurred Sam, "this
here won't do. I know you're plumb tired
out, hut wei got ter git along. Oh, ,ordy,
ain't there i no IO' houses in the worldly"
IIe gave Iexico a smart kick with his
heels.
hMexico' gave a i rotesting grunt as if to say:
" iWhat's tilhe use' of that, now\ we're so near'?"
11e quickened his gait into a languid trot.
Iloundini g a great cluimp) of black lhalparral,
he stopped short. Sam dropped the' bridle
riiis andl sat, looking into the hack door of
his own house, not ten yards away.
.liarthy, srene and comfortable, sat in
her rcking-chair before the' door in the shade
of lhe house, with her feet 'resting luxuriously
upon the steps. iandy, who was playing
with a pair of spurs on the ground, looked up
for a i momenitt at his father and went on spin-
ning the rowels and singing a little song.
larith turned her headr lazily against the
Iack of the chair and considered the arrivals
with elmotionless e('es. Se held a book in
her lap with hir finger holding the lplae.
Sam shook himself queerly, like a man
cominixg ou)t of ia dream, and slowly dcis-
mounted. 1ih moistened his dry lips.
"I see you are still ia-s ttin'," he said,
"a-readlin' of them hilly-h-dclam yaller-back
novils."
Sam hadl traveled round the circle and
was himself again.
THE C:('TI S.
By SIDNEY: POITEI.
T IIE IFmost notable thing about Time
is that it is so purely relative. A
large( a amount of reminiscence is, by
common clonsenlt, concededli to the drownlling
ian; andl i it is not past belief that one may
revi an 'ientiiire courtship while removing
oine's gloves.
That is what Trydaile was doing, stand-
ing by a table in his Ibachelor apartments.
()n the table stood ai singular-looking green
pllant d n a red earthen jar. The plant waEs
one lof the species of eacti, and was iproided
wiith hIlong, tenitacular leaves that perpetualy
sw;yed w ith tihe sliglhtesit breeze with a ple-
culiar he'koning motion.
Trsdale's friend, the brother of' the bride,
stood ;i at i sidiehoalrd complaining at being
allowed to drink alone. Both men were inevening dress. White favors like stars upon
their coats shone through the gloom of the
apartment.
As he slowly unbuttoned his gloves, there
passed through Trysdale's mind a swift,
searifging rehtos)pect of the last few hour.
It seemed that in his nostrils was still th,-
scent of the flowers that had been banked in
o(dorous masses aboul the church, and in hii
ears the low-lpitched hum of a thousand well-
bred voices, thel rustle of crisp garments, and,
most insistently recurring, the draxilin
words, of the minister irrevocably binding
hcer to another.
From this last, hopeless point of view he
still strove, as if it had become a habit of his
mind, to reach some conjecture as to why
and how he had lost her. Shaken rudely
by the uncompromising fact, he had suddenly
found himself confronted iby a thing he hadii
never before faced--his own innermost, un-
mitigatcd and unbedeelked self. He saw all
the garbs of pretense and egoismn that he hal
worn now turn to rags of folly. lie shud-
deredl at the thought that to others, befoi:i
now, the garments of his soul must hail
appeared sorry and threadbare. Vanivi
and conceit! These were the joints in hixl
armor. And how free from either she haii
always been ! But why--
As she had slowly n]oved up the aisle to-
ward the altar he had felt an iixunworthy, sul-
len exultation that hadl served to support
him. HIe had told himself that her paleness
was from thoughts of another than the man
to xwhom she was about to giv , herself. iBut
even that poor consolation had been
wrenchedl from him. For, when he saw that
sw ift, limpid, upward look that she gav the
man when he took her hand, he know himself
to be forgotten. Once that same look had
been raised to him, and he had gauged its
meaning. Indeed, his conceit had crumbled;
its last prop was gone. Why had it ended
thus? "There had been no quarrel lbeiex iin
them, nothing-
For the thousandth time he remarshalled
in ]is mind the events of those last few cldays
before the tide had so sud'denlly turned.
She had always insisted upon pla'cing hint
upon a pedestal, and l e had (l cclptedl her'
homage with roal grandeur. It hald Icen
a very sweet incense that she had turned ho'-
fore him; so modest (he told himselfii , so
childlike and worshipful, and (he wulid
once have s orn) so sincere. She h' in-
vested him with an almost supelrnatura1 :-II
II - I I I Ill
EVEIYHOI)Y'S 1AGLAZI :'lN1'.
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Henry, O., 1862-1910. The Cactus, prose (fiction), October 1902; New York. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth139464/m1/3/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Austin History Center, Austin Public Library.