Only his soul went forth to meet The final call at his Master's feet. So it is that to-day, alone, In a white-washed cottage at Torreon, A brown-skinned woman with sad, dark eyes Looks on her child at his play, and sighs, Knowing well she will hark in vain For her husband's step at the door again. Or watch, as the trains steam back and forth, For his mogul engine out of the North. So it is that when evening falls, Draping the dull adobe walls Fold on fold in its tender mist, Purple and blue and amethyst, And Nacozari kneels down to pray At the vesper call from the chapel gray, Many an orison of love Is wafted up to the stars above For the peace of Jesus Garcia's soul; He who had saved the village whole By the utmost gift which a man can give-- Life, that his fellow men might live. A CHRISTMAS LETTER |Dear miss: For this pink stationery Forgive me; it's all I could find In Buck Dalton's store at the Ferry, So I took it--I hope you won't mind. For it's Christmas good wishes I'm sending, Though in words not the best ever slung, To you, where the Tiber is wending. From me, on the banks of the Tongue. Perhaps you've forgotten the morning When your car of the Overland Mail Broke loose on a curve, without warning, And was ditched by the spread of a rail? I was herding near by in the valley, And I pulled out your father and you, And I found that your name, Miss, was Sallie, And--well, I remember. Do you? You were there for five hours at least, Miss, Then the whistle, a smile, a last word, And you rolled away to the East, Miss, While I galloped back to the herd. You back to your world and its beauties. New York, Paris, Rome, and all those, I, back to a cowboy's rough duties In sunshine and rainstorm and snows. But to-night I'm alone in the shack here On my quarter-square Government claim, While coyotes are yelping out back here-- You'd be scared, Miss, I guess, by the same. The moonlight is white on the river, And the long, frozen miles of the plain Seem to shrink in the north wind and shiver And wish it was summer again. It's different where you are, I reckon, Leastways from the books it must be, Where the green hills of Italy beckon And the Tiber sings down to the sea; Where the red roses always are climbing And the air smells of olives and pines, And at evening the vesper bells' chiming Floats up toward the far Apennines. You like it, no doubt, and you'd never See beauties that nature can hold Where the snow lies in drifts on the river And the prairies are empty and cold. But somehow I wouldn't forego it For all of those soft, southern lands. I breathe it and feel it and know it; It grips me as if it had hands. The stars in the night, how they glisten! The plains in the day, how they spread!