Hearts [antikvár]

I once knew an unimportant man who lived in a village near Kilimanjaro, where he sewed uniforms for the officers. He was a splendid tailor but he did not want to settle for that, so he spent his other hours pushing back the brush and the wait-a-minute thorns—so called because when one snared your jacket you had to stop and pull it out—searching for precious stones. When he finally found some stones one day, he fell to his knees and wept, because for the remainder of his life he would be rich and celebrated. But quickly the lions came and attacked his camp, thieves came and stole his gems, and enemies came to dispute his claims. Before a very short time had passed, his heart, as people say, broke. He died and was buried in the coffin of a tailor. I have no moral, only an observation: in the country of the unexplored, diligence can find the treasure, but only power can keep it. I drove west, then south and down from New York. Winter gray hung stubbornly to Pennsylvania, Virginia was softening with a haze of green not quite there but in the crisp air, Georgia and Mississippi, already ripe, pink and white with first cotton. Finally Texas and its Gulf Coast, 9