The House of the Sun [pp. 454-461]

THIE HOUSE OF THE SUN.
The family had moved back here from
Oatman's Flat, where they had given
Sam his Indian scare on our way out.
Once in the house, I no longer wondered how she had discovered the ambulance, with no windows, and the door
closed. The walls had not been "chinked," so that between the logs was admitted as much light and air as the most
fastidious could desire. All around were
the signs of busy preparation: it was
near Christmas, and they were expecting company for the holidays. A family
moving from Texas to California had
sent word, by some vehicle swifter than
their ox-teams, that they would be with
them by Christmas-day.
Beyond the half-fenced clearing, the
willows and cotton-wood grew close by
the river, and the mild December sun of
Arizona, lying on the rude homestead,
seemed to give promise of future peace
and well-doing to those who had planted their roof-tree on the banks of the
Gila.
Some days later, arriving at Gila
Bend, I got out of the ambulance there,
and stopped to admire a brood of little
chicks, just out of the shell.
"How pretty they are," said I, looking up into George's honest face.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, his eyes lighting up, "but go inside, to Dora."
He led the way to the room; and
there, in a little cradle, lay a sweet,
pretty girl-baby-the first White child,
so far as history records, that was ever
born at Gila Bend.
THE HOUSE OF THE SUN.
Y Hawaiian oracle, Kah6l6, hav ing posed himself in compact
and chubby grace, awaited his golden
opportunity, which was not long a-coming. I sat on the steps of L's veranda, and yawned frightfully, because
life was growing tedious, and I did not
know exactly what to do next. L's
house was set in the nicest kind of climate, at the foot of a great mountain,
just at that altitude where the hot air
stopped dancing, though it was never
cool enough to shut a door or to think
of wearing a hat for any other purpose
than to keep the sun out of one's eyes.
L's veranda ran out into vacancy as
blank as cloudless sky and shadowless
sea could make it; in fact, all that the eye
found to rest upon was the low hill jutting off from one corner of the house;
beyond, a jasmine in blossom, and under the hill a flat-sailed schooner rocking in a calm. I think there was noth
ing else down the slope of the mountain but tangled yellow grass, that grew
brown and scant as it crept into the torrid zone, a thousand feet below us, and
there it had not the courage to come out
of the earth at all; so the picture ended
in a blazing beach, with warm waves
sliding up and down it, backed by bluewatery and blue-airy space for thousands
and thousands of miles.
Why should not a fellow yawn over
the situation, especially as L was
busy and could not talk much, and
L's books were as old as the hills
and a good deal drier!
Having yawned, I turned toward Kahbl6, and gnashed my teeth. The little
rascal looked knowing; his hour had
come. He fired off in broken English,
and the effect was something like this:
"Suppose we sleep in House of the
Sun-we make plenty good sceneries?"
"And where is that?" quoth I.
[Nov.
454