The Pearl-John Steinbeck- Chapter 2

The town lay on a broad estuary, its old yellow plastered buildings hugging the beach.

Although the morning was young, the hazy mirage was up.

It is the bulwark againsst starvation.

She gathered some brown seaweed and made a flat damp poultice of it, and this she applied to the baby's swollen shoulder, which was as good a remedy as any and probably better than the doctor could have done.

She had not prayed directly for the recovery of the baby--she had prayed that they might find a pearl with which to hire the doctor to cure the baby, for the minds of people are as unsubstantial as the mirage of the Gulf.

Above, the surface of the water was an undulating mirror of brightness, and he could see the bottoms of the canoes sticking through it.

But in the song there was a secret little inner song, hardly perceptible, but always there, sweet and secret and clinging, almost hiding in the counter-melody, and this was the Song of the Pearl That Might Be, for every shell thrown in the basket might contain a pearl.

It captured the light and refined it and gave it back in silver incandescence.

And to Kino the secret melody of the maybe pearl broke clear and beautiful, rich and warm and lovely, glowing and gloating and triumphant.

...glowing and gloating and triumphant.