THE KID OF APACHE TEJU

Baby, my babe,
What waits you yonder,
Out in the world?
Dear little feet,
There must they wander,
Out in the world?
Soft little hands,
What shall they do there,
Out in the world?
Baby, my babe,
What fate must you dare,
Out in the world?


All around Apache Teju for miles and miles lies the gray,
cactus-dotted, heat-devoured plain, weird and fascinating, with its
placid, tree-fringed lakes, that are not; its barren, jagged,
turquoise-tinted mountain-peaks, born here and there of the horizon and
the desert; its whirling, dancing columns of sand, which mount to
mid-sky; its lying distances and deceiving levels; its silence and its
fierce, white, unclouded sunshine.

And when you draw rein under the cottonwoods at Apache Teju, uncurl the
wrinkles of your eyelids in the welcome shade, and cool your eyes in
the vivid green of the alfalfa field, it suddenly comes to you that
never before did you understand what blessedness there is in a bit of