Ramona

RAMONA

By Helen Hunt Jackson

I

IT was sheep-shearing time in Southern California, but sheep-shearing

was late at the Senora Moreno's. The Fates had seemed to combine to

put it off. In the first place, Felipe Moreno had been ill. He was the

Senora's eldest son, and since his father's death had been at the head

of his mother's house. Without him, nothing could be done on the ranch,

the Senora thought. It had been always, “Ask Senor Felipe,” “Go to Senor

Felipe,” “Senor Felipe will attend to it,” ever since Felipe had had the

dawning of a beard on his handsome face.

In truth, it was not Felipe, but the Senora, who really decided all

questions from greatest to least, and managed everything on the place,

from the sheep-pastures to the artichoke-patch; but nobody except the

Senora herself knew this. An exceedingly clever woman for her day and

generation was Senora Gonzaga Moreno,--as for that matter, exceedingly

clever for any day and generation; but exceptionally clever for the day

and generation to which she belonged. Her life, the mere surface of it,

if it had been written, would have made a romance, to grow hot and

cold over: sixty years of the best of old Spain, and the wildest of New

Spain, Bay of Biscay, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Ocean,--the waves of them

all had tossed destinies for the Senora. The Holy Catholic Church had

had its arms round her from first to last; and that was what had brought

her safe through, she would have said, if she had ever said anything

about herself, which she never did,--one of her many wisdoms. So quiet,

so reserved, so gentle an exterior never was known to veil such an

imperious and passionate nature, brimful of storm, always passing

through stress; never thwarted, except at peril of those who did it;

adored and hated by turns, and each at the hottest. A tremendous force,

wherever she appeared, was Senora Moreno; but no stranger would suspect

it, to see her gliding about, in her scanty black gown, with her rosary

hanging at her side, her soft dark eyes cast down, and an expression of

mingled melancholy and devotion on her face. She looked simply like a

sad, spiritual-minded old lady, amiable and indolent, like her race, but

sweeter and more thoughtful than their wont. Her voice heightened this

mistaken impression. She was never heard to speak either loud or fast.

There was at times even a curious hesitancy in her speech, which came

near being a stammer, or suggested the measured care with which people

speak who have been cured of stammering. It made her often appear as if

she did not known her own mind; at which people sometimes took heart;

when, if they had only known the truth, they would have known that the

speech hesitated solely because the Senora knew her mind so exactly that

she was finding it hard to make the words convey it as she desired, or

in a way to best attain her ends.

About this very sheep-shearing there had been, between her and the head

shepherd, Juan Canito, called Juan Can for short, and to distinguish him

from Juan Jose, the upper herdsman of the cattle, some discussions which

would have been hot and angry ones in any other hands than the Senora's.

Juan Canito wanted the shearing to begin, even though Senor Felipe were

ill in bed, and though that lazy shepherd Luigo had not yet got back

with the flock that had been driven up the coast for pasture.

“There were plenty of sheep on the place to begin with,” he said one

morning,--“at least a thousand;” and by the time they were done, Luigo

would surely be back with the rest; and as for Senor Felipe's being in

bed, had not he, Juan Canito, stood at the packing-bag, and handled the

wool, when Senor Felipe was a boy? Why could he not do it again? The

Senora did not realize how time was going; there would be no shearers

to be hired presently, since the Senora was determined to have none

but Indians. Of course, if she would employ Mexicans, as all the other

ranches in the valley did, it would be different; but she was resolved

upon having Indians,--“God knows why,” he interpolated surlily, under

his breath.

“I do not quite understand you, Juan,” interrupted Senora Moreno at the

precise instant the last syllable of this disrespectful ejaculation had

escaped Juan's lips; “speak a little louder. I fear I am growing deaf in

my old age.”

What gentle, suave, courteous tones! and the calm dark eyes rested on

Juan Canito with a look to the fathoming of which he was as unequal

as one of his own sheep would have been. He could not have told why he

instantly and involuntarily said, “Beg your pardon, Senora.”

“Oh, you need not ask my pardon, Juan,” the Senora replied with

exquisite gentleness; “it is not you who are to blame, if I am deaf. I

have fancied for a year I did not hear quite as well as I once did.

But about the Indians, Juan; did not Senor Felipe tell you that he

had positively engaged the same band of shearers we had last autumn,

Alessandro's band from Temecula? They will wait until we are ready for

them. Senor Felipe will send a messenger for them. He thinks them the

best shearers in the country. He will be well enough in a week or two,

he thinks, and the poor sheep must bear their loads a few days longer.

Are they looking well, do you think, Juan? Will the crop be a good one?

General Moreno used to say that you could reckon up the wool-crop to a

pound, while it was on the sheep's backs.”

“Yes, Senora,” answered the mollified Juan; “the poor beasts look

wonderfully well considering the scant feed they have had all winter.

We'll not come many pounds short of our last year's crop, if any.

Though, to be sure, there is no telling in what case that--Luigo will

bring his flock back.”

The Senora smiled, in spite of herself, at the pause and gulp with which

Juan had filled in the hiatus where he had longed to set a contemptuous

epithet before Luigo's name.

This was another of the instances where the Senora's will and Juan

Canito's had clashed and he did not dream of it, having set it all down

as usual to the score of young Senor Felipe.

Encouraged by the Senora's smile, Juan proceeded: “Senor Felipe can see

no fault in Luigo, because they were boys together; but I can tell him,

he will rue it, one of these mornings, when he finds a flock of sheep

worse than dead on his hands, and no thanks to anybody but Luigo. While

I can have him under my eye, here in the valley, it is all very well;

but he is no more fit to take responsibility of a flock, than one of

the very lambs themselves. He'll drive them off their feet one day, and

starve them the next; and I've known him to forget to give them water.

When he's in his dreams, the Virgin only knows what he won't do.”

During this brief and almost unprecedented outburst of Juan's the

Senora's countenance had been slowly growing stern. Juan had not seen

it. His eyes had been turned away from her, looking down into the

upturned eager face of his favorite collie, who was leaping and

gambolling and barking at his feet.

“Down, Capitan, down!” he said in a fond tone, gently repulsing him;

“thou makest such a noise the Senora can hear nothing but thy voice.”

“I heard only too distinctly, Juan Canito,” said the Senora in a sweet

but icy tone. “It is not well for one servant to backbite another.

It gives me great grief to hear such words; and I hope when Father

Salvierderra comes, next month, you will not forget to confess this sin

of which you have been guilty in thus seeking to injure a fellow-being.

If Senor Felipe listens to you, the poor boy Luigo will be cast out

homeless on the world some day; and what sort of a deed would that be,

Juan Canito, for one Christian to do to another? I fear the Father will

give you penance, when he hears what you have said.”

“Senora, it is not to harm the lad,” Juan began, every fibre of his

faithful frame thrilling with a sense of the injustice of her reproach.

But the Senora had turned her back. Evidently she would hear no more

from him then. He stood watching her as she walked away, at her usual

slow pace, her head slightly bent forward, her rosary lifted in her left

hand, and the fingers of the right hand mechanically slipping the beads.

“Prayers, always prayers!” thought Juan to himself, as his eyes followed

her. “If they'll take one to heaven, the Senora'll go by the straight

road, that's sure! I'm sorry I vexed her. But what's a man to do, if

he's the interest of the place at heart, I'd like to know. Is he to

stand by, and see a lot of idle mooning louts run away with everything?

Ah, but it was an ill day for the estate when the General died,--an ill

day! an ill day! And they may scold me as much as they please, and set

me to confessing my sins to the Father; it's very well for them, they've

got me to look after matters. Senor Felipe will do well enough when he's

a man, maybe; but a boy like him! Bah!” And the old man stamped his

foot with a not wholly unreasonable irritation, at the false position in

which he felt himself put.

“Confess to Father Salvierderra, indeed!” he muttered aloud. “Ay, that

will I. He's a man of sense, if he is a priest,”--at which slip of the

tongue the pious Juan hastily crossed himself,--“and I'll ask him to

give me some good advice as to how I'm to manage between this young boy

at the head of everything, and a doting mother who thinks he has the

wisdom of a dozen grown men. The Father knew the place in the olden

time. He knows it's no child's play to look after the estate even now,

much smaller as it is! An ill day when the old General died, an ill

day indeed, the saints rest his soul!” Saying this, Juan shrugged his

shoulders, and whistling to Capitan, walked towards the sunny veranda of

the south side of the kitchen wing of the house, where it had been for

twenty odd years his habit to sit on the long bench and smoke his pipe

of a morning. Before he had got half-way across the court-yard, however,

a thought struck him. He halted so suddenly that Capitan, with the quick

sensitiveness of his breed, thought so sudden a change of purpose could

only come from something in connection with sheep; and, true to his

instinct of duty, pricked up his ears, poised himself for a full run,

and looked up in his master's face waiting for explanation and signal.

But Juan did not observe him.

“Ha!” he said, “Father Salvierderra comes next month, does he? Let's

see. To-day is the 25th. That's it. The sheep-shearing is not to come

off till the Father gets here. Then each morning it will be mass in the

chapel, and each night vespers; and the crowd will be here at least

two days longer to feed, for the time they will lose by that and by

the confessions. That's what Senor Felipe is up to. He's a pious lad.

I recollect now, it was the same way two years ago. Well, well, it is a

good thing for those poor Indian devils to get a bit of religion now and

then; and it's like old times to see the chapel full of them kneeling,

and more than can get in at the door; I doubt not it warms the Senora's

heart to see them all there, as if they belonged to the house, as

they used to: and now I know when it's to be, I have only to make my

arrangements accordingly. It is always in the first week of the month

the Father gets here. Yes; she said, 'Senor Felipe will be well enough

in a week or two, he thinks.' Ha! ha! It will be nearer two; ten days or

thereabouts. I'll begin the booths next week. A plague on that Luigo for

not being back here. He's the best hand I have to cut the willow boughs

for the roofs. He knows the difference between one year's growth and

another's; I'll say that much for him, spite of the silly dreaming head

he's got on his shoulders.”

Juan was so pleased with his clearing up in his mind as to Senor

Felipe's purpose about the time of the sheep-shearing, that it put him

in good humor for the day,--good humor with everybody, and himself most

of all. As he sat on the low bench, his head leaning back against the

whitewashed wall, his long legs stretched out nearly across the whole

width of the veranda, his pipe firm wedged in the extreme left corner

of his mouth, his hands in his pockets, he was the picture of placid

content. The troop of youngsters which still swarmed around the kitchen

quarters of Senora Moreno's house, almost as numerous and inexplicable

as in the grand old days of the General's time, ran back and forth

across Juan's legs, fell down between them, and picked themselves up by

help of clutches at his leather trousers, all unreproved by Juan, though

loudly scolded and warned by their respective mothers from the kitchen.

“What's come to Juan Can to be so good-natured to-day?” saucily asked

Margarita, the youngest and prettiest of the maids, popping her head out

of a window, and twitching Juan's hair. He was so gray and wrinkled

that the maids all felt at ease with him. He seemed to them as old as

Methuselah; but he was not really so old as they thought, nor they so

safe in their tricks. The old man had hot blood in his veins yet, as the

under-shepherds could testify.

“The sight of your pretty face, Senorita Margarita,” answered Juan

quickly, cocking his eye at her, rising to his feet, and making a mock

bow towards the window.

“He! he! Senorita, indeed!” chuckled Margarita's mother, old Marda the

cook. “Senor Juan Canito is pleased to be merry at the doors of his

betters;” and she flung a copper saucepan full of not over-clean water

so deftly past Juan's head, that not a drop touched him, and yet he had

the appearance of having been ducked. At which bit of sleight-of-hand

the whole court-yard, young and old, babies, cocks, hens, and turkeys,

all set up a shout and a cackle, and dispersed to the four corners of

the yard as if scattered by a volley of bird-shot. Hearing the racket,

the rest of the maids came running,--Anita and Maria, the twins, women

forty years old, born on the place the year after General Moreno brought

home his handsome young bride; their two daughters, Rosa and Anita the

Little, as she was still called, though she outweighed her mother; old

Juanita, the oldest woman in the household, of whom even the Senora was

said not to know the exact age or history; and she, poor thing, could

tell nothing, having been silly for ten years or more, good for nothing

except to shell beans: that she did as fast and well as ever, and was

never happy except she was at it. Luckily for her, beans are the one

crop never omitted or stinted on a Mexican estate; and for sake of old

Juanita they stored every year in the Moreno house, rooms full of beans

in the pod (tons of them, one would think), enough to feed an army. But

then, it was like a little army even now, the Senora's household; nobody

ever knew exactly how many women were in the kitchen, or how many men

in the fields. There were always women cousins, or brother's wives or

widows or daughters, who had come to stay, or men cousins, or sister's

husbands or sons, who were stopping on their way up or down the valley.

When it came to the pay-roll, Senor Felipe knew to whom he paid wages;

but who were fed and lodged under his roof, that was quite another

thing. It could not enter into the head of a Mexican gentleman to make

either count or account of that. It would be a disgraceful niggardly

thought.

To the Senora it seemed as if there were no longer any people about the

place. A beggarly handful, she would have said, hardly enough to do the

work of the house, or of the estate, sadly as the latter had dwindled.

In the General's day, it had been a free-handed boast of his that never

less than fifty persons, men, women and children, were fed within his

gates each day; how many more, he did not care, nor know. But that time

had indeed gone, gone forever; and though a stranger, seeing the sudden

rush and muster at door and window, which followed on old Marda's

letting fly the water at Juan's head, would have thought, “Good heavens,

do all those women, children, and babies belong in that one house!” the

Senora's sole thought, as she at that moment went past the gate, was,

“Poor things! how few there are left of them! I am afraid old Marda has

to work too hard. I must spare Margarita more from the house to help

her.” And she sighed deeply, and unconsciously held her rosary nearer to

her heart, as she went into the house and entered her son's bedroom. The

picture she saw there was one to thrill any mother's heart; and as it

met her eye, she paused on the threshold for a second,--only a second,

however; and nothing could have astonished Felipe Moreno so much as to

have been told that at the very moment when his mother's calm voice was

saying to him, “Good morning, my son, I hope you have slept well, and

are better,” there was welling up in her heart a passionate ejaculation,

“O my glorious son! The saints have sent me in him the face of his

father! He is fit for a kingdom!”

The truth is, Felipe Moreno was not fit for a kingdom at all. If he had

been, he would not have been so ruled by his mother without ever finding

it out. But so far as mere physical beauty goes, there never was a

king born, whose face, stature, and bearing would set off a crown or a

throne, or any of the things of which the outside of royalty is made up,

better than would Felipe Moreno's. And it was true, as the Senora said,

whether the saints had anything to do with it or not, that he had the

face of his father. So strong a likeness is seldom seen. When Felipe

once, on the occasion of a grand celebration and procession, put on the

gold-wrought velvet mantle, gayly embroidered short breeches fastened at

the knee with red ribbons, and gold-and-silver-trimmed sombrero, which

his father had worn twenty-five years before, the Senora fainted at her

first look at him,--fainted and fell; and when she opened her eyes, and

saw the same splendid, gayly arrayed, dark-bearded man, bending over her

in distress, with words of endearment and alarm, she fainted again.

“Mother, mother mia,” cried Felipe, “I will not wear them if it makes

you feel like this! Let me take them off. I will not go to their cursed

parade;” and he sprang to his feet, and began with trembling fingers to

unbuckle the sword-belt.

“No, no, Felipe,” faintly cried the Senora, from the ground. “It is my

wish that you wear them;” and staggering to her feet, with a burst of

tears, she rebuckled the old sword-belt, which her fingers had so many

times--never unkissed--buckled, in the days when her husband had bade

her farewell and gone forth to the uncertain fates of war. “Wear

them!” she cried, with gathering fire in her tones, and her eyes dry

of tears,--“wear them, and let the American hounds see what a Mexican

officer and gentleman looked like before they had set their base,

usurping feet on our necks!” And she followed him to the gate, and stood

erect, bravely waving her handkerchief as he galloped off, till he was

out of sight. Then with a changed face and a bent head she crept slowly

to her room, locked herself in, fell on her knees before the Madonna at

the head of her bed, and spent the greater part of the day praying that

she might be forgiven, and that all heretics might be discomfited. From

which part of these supplications she derived most comfort is easy to

imagine.

Juan Canito had been right in his sudden surmise that it was for Father

Salvierderra's coming that the sheep-shearing was being delayed, and not

in consequence of Senor Felipe's illness, or by the non-appearance of

Luigo and his flock of sheep. Juan would have chuckled to himself still

more at his perspicacity, had he overheard the conversation going on

between the Senora and her son, at the very time when he, half asleep

on the veranda, was, as he would have called it, putting two and two

together and convincing himself that old Juan was as smart as they were,

and not to be kept in the dark by all their reticence and equivocation.

“Juan Can is growing very impatient about the sheep-shearing,” said

the Senora. “I suppose you are still of the same mind about it,

Felipe,--that it is better to wait till Father Salvierderra comes? As

the only chance those Indians have of seeing him is here, it would seem

a Christian duty to so arrange it, if it be possible; but Juan is very

restive. He is getting old, and chafes a little, I fancy, under your

control. He cannot forget that you were a boy on his knee. Now I, for my

part, am like to forget that you were ever anything but a man for me to

lean on.”

Felipe turned his handsome face toward his mother with a beaming smile

of filial affection and gratified manly vanity. “Indeed, my mother, if

I can be sufficient for you to lean on, I will ask nothing more of the

saints;” and he took his mother's thin and wasted little hands, both at

once, in his own strong right hand, and carried them to his lips as a

lover might have done. “You will spoil me, mother,” he said, “you make

me so proud.”

“No, Felipe, it is I who am proud,” promptly replied the mother; “and I

do not call it being proud, only grateful to God for having given me

a son wise enough to take his father's place, and guide and protect me

through the few remaining years I have to live. I shall die content,

seeing you at the head of the estate, and living as a Mexican gentleman

should; that is, so far as now remains possible in this unfortunate

country. But about the sheep-shearing, Felipe. Do you wish to have it

begun before the Father is here? Of course, Alessandro is all ready

with his band. It is but two days' journey for a messenger to bring

him. Father Salvierderra cannot be here before the 10th of the month. He

leaves Santa Barbara on the 1st, and he will walk all the way,--a good

six days' journey, for he is old now and feeble; then he must stop

in Ventura for a Sunday, and a day at the Ortega's ranch, and at the

Lopez's,--there, there is a christening. Yes, the 10th is the very

earliest that he can be here,--near two weeks from now. So far as your

getting up is concerned, it might perhaps be next week. You will be

nearly well by that time.”

“Yes, indeed,” laughed Felipe, stretching himself out in the bed and

giving a kick to the bedclothes that made the high bedposts and the

fringed canopy roof shake and creak; “I am well now, if it were not for

this cursed weakness when I stand on my feet. I believe it would do me

good to get out of doors.”

In truth, Felipe had been hankering for the sheep-shearing himself. It

was a brisk, busy, holiday sort of time to him, hard as he worked in it;

and two weeks looked long to wait.

“It is always thus after a fever,” said his mother. “The weakness lasts

many weeks. I am not sure that you will be strong enough even in two

weeks to do the packing; but, as Juan Can said this morning, he stood

at the packing-bag when you were a boy, and there was no need of waiting

for you for that!”

“He said that, did he!” exclaimed Felipe, wrathfully. “The old man is

getting insolent. I'll tell him that nobody will pack the sacks but

myself, while I am master here; and I will have the sheep-shearing when

I please, and not before.”

“I suppose it would not be wise to say that it is not to take place till

the Father comes, would it?” asked the Senora, hesitatingly, as if the

thing were evenly balanced in her mind. “The Father has not that hold

on the younger men he used to have, and I have thought that even in

Juan himself I have detected a remissness. The spirit of unbelief is

spreading in the country since the Americans are running up and down

everywhere seeking money, like dogs with their noses to the ground! It

might vex Juan if he knew that you were waiting only for the Father.

What do you think?”

“I think it is enough for him to know that the sheep-shearing waits for

my pleasure,” answered Felipe, still wrathful, “and that is the end of

it.” And so it was; and, moreover, precisely the end which Senora Moreno

had had in her own mind from the beginning; but not even Juan Canito

himself suspected its being solely her purpose, and not her son's. As

for Felipe, if any person had suggested to him that it was his mother,

and not he, who had decided that the sheep-shearing would be better

deferred until the arrival of Father Salvierderra from Santa Barbara,

and that nothing should be said on the ranch about this being the real

reason of the postponing, Felipe would have stared in astonishment, and

have thought that person either crazy or a fool.

To attain one's ends in this way is the consummate triumph of art. Never

to appear as a factor in the situation; to be able to wield other men,

as instruments, with the same direct and implicit response to will that

one gets from a hand or a foot,--this is to triumph, indeed: to be as

nearly controller and conqueror of Fates as fate permits. There have

been men prominent in the world's affairs at one time and another, who

have sought and studied such a power and have acquired it to a

great degree. By it they have manipulated legislators, ambassadors,

sovereigns; and have grasped, held, and played with the destinies

of empires. But it is to be questioned whether even in these notable

instances there has ever been such marvellous completeness of success

as is sometimes seen in the case of a woman in whom the power is an

instinct and not an attainment; a passion rather than a purpose.

Between the two results, between the two processes, there is just that

difference which is always to be seen between the stroke of talent and

the stroke of genius.

Senora Moreno's was the stroke of genius.

II

THE Senora Moreno's house was one of the best specimens to be found

in California of the representative house of the half barbaric, half

elegant, wholly generous and free-handed life led there by Mexican men

and women of degree in the early part of this century, under the rule of

the Spanish and Mexican viceroys, when the laws of the Indies were still

the law of the land, and its old name, “New Spain,” was an ever-present

link and stimulus to the warmest memories and deepest patriotisms of its

people.

It was a picturesque life, with more of sentiment and gayety in it, more

also that was truly dramatic, more romance, than will ever be seen

again on those sunny shores. The aroma of it all lingers there still;

industries and inventions have not yet slain it; it will last out its

century,--in fact, it can never be quite lost, so long as there is left

standing one such house as the Senora Moreno's.

When the house was built, General Moreno owned all the land within a

radius of forty miles,--forty miles westward, down the valley to the

sea; forty miles eastward, into the San Fernando Mountains; and good

forty miles more or less along the coast. The boundaries were not very

strictly defined; there was no occasion, in those happy days, to reckon

land by inches. It might be asked, perhaps, just how General Moreno

owned all this land, and the question might not be easy to answer. It

was not and could not be answered to the satisfaction of the United

States Land Commission, which, after the surrender of California,

undertook to sift and adjust Mexican land titles; and that was the

way it had come about that the Senora Moreno now called herself a poor

woman. Tract after tract, her lands had been taken away from her; it

looked for a time as if nothing would be left. Every one of the claims

based on deeds of gift from Governor Pio Fico, her husband's most

intimate friend, was disallowed. They all went by the board in one

batch, and took away from the Senora in a day the greater part of

her best pasture-lands. They were lands which had belonged to the

Bonaventura Mission, and lay along the coast at the mouth of the valley

down which the little stream which ran past her house went to the sea;

and it had been a great pride and delight to the Senora, when she was

young, to ride that forty miles by her husband's side, all the way on

their own lands, straight from their house to their own strip of shore.

No wonder she believed the Americans thieves, and spoke of them always

as hounds. The people of the United States have never in the least

realized that the taking possession of California was not only a

conquering of Mexico, but a conquering of California as well; that the

real bitterness of the surrender was not so much to the empire which

gave up the country, as to the country itself which was given up.

Provinces passed back and forth in that way, helpless in the hands of

great powers, have all the ignominy and humiliation of defeat, with none

of the dignities or compensations of the transaction.

Mexico saved much by her treaty, spite of having to acknowledge herself

beaten; but California lost all. Words cannot tell the sting of such

a transfer. It is a marvel that a Mexican remained in the country;

probably none did, except those who were absolutely forced to it.

Luckily for the Senora Moreno, her title to the lands midway in the

valley was better than to those lying to the east and the west, which

had once belonged to the missions of San Fernando and Bonaventura;

and after all the claims, counter-claims, petitions, appeals, and

adjudications were ended, she still was left in undisputed possession of

what would have been thought by any new-comer into the country to be a

handsome estate, but which seemed to the despoiled and indignant Senora

a pitiful fragment of one. Moreover, she declared that she should never

feel secure of a foot of even this. Any day, she said, the United States

Government might send out a new Land Commission to examine the decrees

of the first, and revoke such as they saw fit. Once a thief, always a

thief. Nobody need feel himself safe under American rule. There was

no knowing what might happen any day; and year by year the lines of

sadness, resentment, anxiety, and antagonism deepened on the Senora's

fast aging face.

It gave her unspeakable satisfaction, when the Commissioners, laying out

a road down the valley, ran it at the back of her house instead of

past the front. “It is well,” she said. “Let their travel be where it

belongs, behind our kitchens; and no one have sight of the front doors

of our houses, except friends who have come to visit us.” Her enjoyment

of this never flagged. Whenever she saw, passing the place, wagons

or carriages belonging to the hated Americans, it gave her a distinct

thrill of pleasure to think that the house turned its back on them. She

would like always to be able to do the same herself; but whatever she,

by policy or in business, might be forced to do, the old house, at any

rate, would always keep the attitude of contempt,--its face turned away.

One other pleasure she provided herself with, soon after this road was

opened,--a pleasure in which religious devotion and race antagonism were

so closely blended that it would have puzzled the subtlest of priests to

decide whether her act were a sin or a virtue. She caused to be set

up, upon every one of the soft rounded hills which made the beautiful

rolling sides of that part of the valley, a large wooden cross; not a

hill in sight of her house left without the sacred emblem of her faith.

“That the heretics may know, when they go by, that they are on the

estate of a good Catholic,” she said, “and that the faithful may be

reminded to pray. There have been miracles of conversion wrought on the

most hardened by a sudden sight of the Blessed Cross.”

There they stood, summer and winter, rain and shine, the silent, solemn,

outstretched arms, and became landmarks to many a guideless traveller

who had been told that his way would be by the first turn to the left

or the right, after passing the last one of the Senora Moreno's crosses,

which he couldn't miss seeing. And who shall say that it did not

often happen that the crosses bore a sudden message to some idle

heart journeying by, and thus justified the pious half of the Senora's

impulse? Certain it is, that many a good Catholic halted and crossed

himself when he first beheld them, in the lonely places, standing out in

sudden relief against the blue sky; and if he said a swift short prayer

at the sight, was he not so much the better?

The house, was of adobe, low, with a wide veranda on the three sides of

the inner court, and a still broader one across the entire front, which

looked to the south. These verandas, especially those on the inner

court, were supplementary rooms to the house. The greater part of the

family life went on in them. Nobody stayed inside the walls, except when

it was necessary. All the kitchen work, except the actual cooking, was

done here, in front of the kitchen doors and windows. Babies slept,

were washed, sat in the dirt, and played, on the veranda. The women said

their prayers, took their naps, and wove their lace there. Old Juanita

shelled her beans there, and threw the pods down on the tile floor,

till towards night they were sometimes piled up high around her, like

corn-husks at a husking. The herdsmen and shepherds smoked there,

lounged there, trained their dogs there; there the young made love, and

the old dozed; the benches, which ran the entire length of the walls,

were worn into hollows, and shone like satin; the tiled floors also were

broken and sunk in places, making little wells, which filled up in times

of hard rains, and were then an invaluable addition to the children's

resources for amusement, and also to the comfort of the dogs, cats, and

fowls, who picked about among them, taking sips from each.

The arched veranda along the front was a delightsome place. It must

have been eighty feet long, at least, for the doors of five large rooms

opened on it. The two westernmost rooms had been added on, and made four

steps higher than the others; which gave to that end of the veranda the

look of a balcony, or loggia. Here the Senora kept her flowers; great

red water-jars, hand-made by the Indians of San Luis Obispo Mission,

stood in close rows against the walls, and in them were always growing

fine geraniums, carnations, and yellow-flowered musk. The Senora's

passion for musk she had inherited from her mother. It was so strong

that she sometimes wondered at it; and one day, as she sat with Father

Salvierderra in the veranda, she picked a handful of the blossoms, and

giving them to him, said, “I do not know why it is, but it seems to me

if I were dead I could be brought to life by the smell of musk.”

“It is in your blood, Senora,” the old monk replied. “When I was last in

your father's house in Seville, your mother sent for me to her room,

and under her window was a stone balcony full of growing musk, which so

filled the room with its odor that I was like to faint. But she said

it cured her of diseases, and without it she fell ill. You were a baby

then.”

“Yes,” cried the Senora, “but I recollect that balcony. I recollect

being lifted up to a window, and looking down into a bed of blooming

yellow flowers; but I did not know what they were. How strange!”

“No. Not strange, daughter,” replied Father Salvierderra. “It would have

been stranger if you had not acquired the taste, thus drawing it in with

the mother's milk. It would behoove mothers to remember this far more

than they do.”

Besides the geraniums and carnations and musk in the red jars, there

were many sorts of climbing vines,--some coming from the ground, and

twining around the pillars of the veranda; some growing in great bowls,

swung by cords from the roof of the veranda, or set on shelves against

the walls. These bowls were of gray stone, hollowed and polished,

shining smooth inside and out. They also had been made by the Indians,

nobody knew how many ages ago, scooped and polished by the patient

creatures, with only stones for tools.

Among these vines, singing from morning till night, hung the

Senora's canaries and finches, half a dozen of each, all of different

generations, raised by the Senora. She was never without a young

bird-family on hand; and all the way from Bonaventura to Monterey, it

was thought a piece of good luck to come into possession of a canary or

finch of Senora Moreno's 'raising.

Between the veranda and the river meadows, out on which it looked, all

was garden, orange grove, and almond orchard; the orange grove always

green, never without snowy bloom or golden fruit; the garden never

without flowers, summer or winter; and the almond orchard, in early

spring, a fluttering canopy of pink and white petals, which, seen from

the hills on the opposite side of the river, looked as if rosy sunrise

clouds had fallen, and become tangled in the tree-tops. On either hand

stretched away other orchards,--peach, apricot, pear, apple pomegranate;

and beyond these, vineyards. Nothing was to be seen but verdure or

bloom or fruit, at whatever time of year you sat on the Senora's south

veranda.

A wide straight walk shaded by a trellis so knotted and twisted with

grapevines that little was to be seen of the trellis wood-work, led

straight down from the veranda steps, through the middle of the garden,

to a little brook at the foot of it. Across this brook, in the shade

of a dozen gnarled old willow-trees, were set the broad flat stone

washboards on which was done all the family washing. No long dawdling,

and no running away from work on the part of the maids, thus close to

the eye of the Senora at the upper end of the garden; and if they had

known how picturesque they looked there, kneeling on the grass, lifting

the dripping linen out of the water, rubbing it back and forth on the

stones, sousing it, wringing it, splashing the clear water in each

other's faces, they would have been content to stay at the washing day

in and day out, for there was always somebody to look on from above.

Hardly a day passed that the Senora had not visitors. She was still

a person of note; her house the natural resting-place for all who

journeyed through the valley; and whoever came, spent all of his time,

when not eating, sleeping, or walking over the place, sitting with the

Senora on the sunny veranda. Few days in winter were cold enough, and

in summer the day must be hot indeed to drive the Senora and her friends

indoors. There stood on the veranda three carved oaken chairs, and a

carved bench, also of oak, which had been brought to the Senora for safe

keeping by the faithful old sacristan of San Luis Rey, at the time of

the occupation of that Mission by the United States troops, soon after

the conquest of California. Aghast at the sacrilegious acts of the

soldiers, who were quartered in the very church itself, and amused

themselves by making targets of the eyes and noses of the saints'

statues, the sacristan, stealthily, day by day and night after night,

bore out of the church all that he dared to remove, burying some

articles in cottonwood copses, hiding others in his own poor little

hovel, until he had wagon-loads of sacred treasures. Then, still more

stealthily, he carried them, a few at a time, concealed in the bottom of

a cart, under a load of hay or of brush, to the house of the Senora, who

felt herself deeply honored by his confidence, and received everything

as a sacred trust, to be given back into the hands of the Church again,

whenever the Missions should be restored, of which at that time all

Catholics had good hope. And so it had come about that no bedroom in the

Senora's house was without a picture or a statue of a saint or of the

Madonna; and some had two; and in the little chapel in the garden the

altar was surrounded by a really imposing row of holy and apostolic

figures, which had looked down on the splendid ceremonies of the San

Luis Rey Mission, in Father Peyri's time, no more benignly than they

now did on the humbler worship of the Senora's family in its diminished

estate. That one had lost an eye, another an arm, that the once

brilliant colors of the drapery were now faded and shabby, only enhanced

the tender reverence with which the Senora knelt before them, her eyes

filling with indignant tears at thought of the heretic hands which

had wrought such defilement. Even the crumbling wreaths which had been

placed on some of the statues' heads at the time of the last ceremonial

at which they had figured in the Mission, had been brought away with

them by the devout sacristan, and the Senora had replaced each one,

holding it only a degree less sacred than the statue itself.

This chapel was dearer to the Senora than her house. It had been built

by the General in the second year of their married life. In it her four

children had been christened, and from it all but one, her handsome

Felipe, had been buried while they were yet infants. In the General's

time, while the estate was at its best, and hundreds of Indians living

within its borders, there was many a Sunday when the scene to be

witnessed there was like the scenes at the Missions,--the chapel full of

kneeling men and women; those who could not find room inside kneeling

on the garden walks outside; Father Salvierderra, in gorgeous

vestments, coming, at close of the services, slowly down the aisle, the

close-packed rows of worshippers parting to right and left to let him

through, all looking up eagerly for his blessing, women giving him

offerings of fruit or flowers, and holding up their babies that he might

lay his hands on their heads. No one but Father Salvierderra had ever

officiated in the Moreno chapel, or heard the confession of a Moreno. He

was a Franciscan, one of the few now left in the country; so revered and

beloved by all who had come under his influence, that they would wait

long months without the offices of the Church, rather than confess

their sins or confide their perplexities to any one else. From this

deep-seated attachment on the part of the Indians and the older Mexican

families in the country to the Franciscan Order, there had grown up,

not unnaturally, some jealousy of them in the minds of the later-come

secular priests, and the position of the few monks left was not wholly a

pleasant one. It had even been rumored that they were to be forbidden

to continue longer their practice of going up and down the country,

ministering everywhere; were to be compelled to restrict their labors

to their own colleges at Santa Barbara and Santa Inez. When something

to this effect was one day said in the Senora Moreno's presence, two

scarlet spots sprang on her cheeks, and before she bethought herself,

she exclaimed, “That day, I burn down my chapel!”

Luckily, nobody but Felipe heard the rash threat, and his exclamation of

unbounded astonishment recalled the Senora to herself.

“I spoke rashly, my son,” she said. “The Church is to be obeyed always;

but the Franciscan Fathers are responsible to no one but the Superior of

their own order; and there is no one in this land who has the authority

to forbid their journeying and ministering to whoever desires their

offices. As for these Catalan priests who are coming in here, I cannot

abide them. No Catalan but has bad blood in his veins!”

There was every reason in the world why the Senora should be thus warmly

attached to the Franciscan Order. From her earliest recollections the

gray gown and cowl had been familiar to her eyes, and had represented

the things which she was taught to hold most sacred and dear. Father

Salvierderra himself had come from Mexico to Monterey in the same ship

which had brought her father to be the commandante of the Santa Barbara

Presidio; and her best-beloved uncle, her father's eldest brother, was

at that time the Superior of the Santa Barbara Mission. The sentiment

and romance of her youth were almost equally divided between the

gayeties, excitements, adornments of the life at the Presidio, and the

ceremonies and devotions of the life at the Mission. She was famed as

the most beautiful girl in the country. Men of the army, men of the

navy, and men of the Church, alike adored her. Her name was a toast

from Monterey to San Diego. When at last she was wooed and won by Felipe

Moreno, one of the most distinguished of the Mexican Generals, her

wedding ceremonies were the most splendid ever seen in the country.

The right tower of the Mission church at Santa Barbara had been just

completed, and it was arranged that the consecration of this tower

should take place at the time of her wedding, and that her wedding feast

should be spread in the long outside corridor of the Mission building.

The whole country, far and near, was bid. The feast lasted three days;

open tables to everybody; singing, dancing, eating, drinking, and making

merry. At that time there were long streets of Indian houses stretching

eastward from the Mission; before each of these houses was built a booth

of green boughs. The Indians, as well as the Fathers from all the other

Missions, were invited to come. The Indians came in bands, singing songs

and bringing gifts. As they appeared, the Santa Barbara Indians went

out to meet them, also singing, bearing gifts, and strewing seeds on

the ground, in token of welcome. The young Senora and her bridegroom,

splendidly clothed, were seen of all, and greeted, whenever they

appeared, by showers of seeds and grains and blossoms. On the third

day, still in their wedding attire, and bearing lighted candles in their

hands, they walked with the monks in a procession, round and round the

new tower, the monks chanting, and sprinkling incense and holy water

on its walls, the ceremony seeming to all devout beholders to give a

blessed consecration to the union of the young pair as well as to the

newly completed tower. After this they journeyed in state, accompanied

by several of the General's aids and officers, and by two Franciscan

Fathers, up to Monterey, stopping on their way at all the Missions, and

being warmly welcomed and entertained at each.

General Moreno was much beloved by both army and Church. In many of the

frequent clashings between the military and the ecclesiastical powers

he, being as devout and enthusiastic a Catholic as he was zealous and

enthusiastic a soldier, had had the good fortune to be of material

assistance to each party. The Indians also knew his name well, having

heard it many times mentioned with public thanksgivings in the Mission

churches, after some signal service he had rendered to the Fathers

either in Mexico or Monterey. And now, by taking as his bride the

daughter of a distinguished officer, and the niece of the Santa Barbara

Superior, he had linked himself anew to the two dominant powers and

interests of the country.

When they reached San Luis Obispo, the whole Indian population turned

out to meet them, the Padre walking at the head. As they approached the

Mission doors the Indians swarmed closer and closer and still closer,

took the General's horse by the head, and finally almost by actual force

compelled him to allow himself to be lifted into a blanket, held high

up by twenty strong men; and thus he was borne up the steps, across

the corridor, and into the Padre's room. It was a position ludicrously

undignified in itself, but the General submitted to it good-naturedly.

“Oh, let them do it, if they like,” he cried, laughingly, to Padre

Martinez, who was endeavoring to quiet the Indians and hold them back.

“Let them do it. It pleases the poor creatures.”

On the morning of their departure, the good Padre, having exhausted all

his resources for entertaining his distinguished guests, caused to

be driven past the corridors, for their inspection, all the poultry

belonging to the Mission. The procession took an hour to pass. For

music, there was the squeaking, cackling, hissing, gobbling, crowing,

quacking of the fowls, combined with the screaming, scolding, and

whip-cracking of the excited Indian marshals of the lines. First came

the turkeys, then the roosters, then the white hens, then the black, and

then the yellow, next the ducks, and at the tail of the spectacle

long files of geese, some strutting, some half flying and hissing in

resentment and terror at the unwonted coercions to which they were

subjected. The Indians had been hard at work all night capturing,

sorting, assorting, and guarding the rank and file of their novel

pageant. It would be safe to say that a droller sight never was seen,

and never will be, on the Pacific coast or any other. Before it was done

with, the General and his bride had nearly died with laughter; and the

General could never allude to it without laughing almost as heartily

again.

At Monterey they were more magnificently feted; at the Presidio, at the

Mission, on board Spanish, Mexican, and Russian ships lying in harbor,

balls, dances, bull-fights, dinners, all that the country knew of

festivity, was lavished on the beautiful and winning young bride. The

belles of the coast, from San Diego up, had all gathered at Monterey for

these gayeties, but not one of them could be for a moment compared to

her. This was the beginning of the Senora's life as a married woman.

She was then just twenty. A close observer would have seen even then,

underneath the joyous smile, the laughing eye, the merry voice, a look

thoughtful, tender, earnest, at times enthusiastic. This look was the

reflection of those qualities in her, then hardly aroused, which made

her, as years developed her character and stormy fates thickened around

her life, the unflinching comrade of her soldier husband, the passionate

adherent of the Church. Through wars, insurrections, revolutions,

downfalls, Spanish, Mexican, civil, ecclesiastical, her standpoint,

her poise, remained the same. She simply grew more and more proudly,

passionately, a Spaniard and a Moreno; more and more stanchly and

fierily a Catholic, and a lover of the Franciscans.

During the height of the despoiling and plundering of the Missions,

under the Secularization Act, she was for a few years almost beside

herself. More than once she journeyed alone, when the journey was by

no means without danger, to Monterey, to stir up the Prefect of

the Missions to more energetic action, to implore the governmental

authorities to interfere, and protect the Church's property. It

was largely in consequence of her eloquent entreaties that Governor

Micheltorena issued his bootless order, restoring to the Church all the

Missions south of San Luis Obispo. But this order cost Micheltorena his

political head, and General Moreno was severely wounded in one of the

skirmishes of the insurrection which drove Micheltorena out of the

country.

In silence and bitter humiliation the Senora nursed her husband back

to health again, and resolved to meddle no more in the affairs of her

unhappy country and still more unhappy Church. As year by year she

saw the ruin of the Missions steadily going on, their vast properties

melting away, like dew before the sun, in the hands of dishonest

administrators and politicians, the Church powerless to contend with the

unprincipled greed in high places, her beloved Franciscan Fathers driven

from the country or dying of starvation at their posts, she submitted

herself to what, she was forced to admit, seemed to be the inscrutable

will of God for the discipline and humiliation of the Church. In a sort

of bewildered resignation she waited to see what further sufferings

were to come, to fill up the measure of the punishment which, for some

mysterious purpose, the faithful must endure. But when close upon

all this discomfiture and humiliation of her Church followed the

discomfiture and humiliation of her country in war, and the near and

evident danger of an English-speaking people's possessing the land,

all the smothered fire of the Senora's nature broke out afresh. With

unfaltering hands she buckled on her husband's sword, and with dry eyes

saw him go forth to fight. She had but one regret, that she was not the

mother of sons to fight also.

“Would thou wert a man, Felipe,” she exclaimed again and again in tones

the child never forgot. “Would thou wert a man, that thou might go also

to fight these foreigners!”

Any race under the sun would have been to the Senora less hateful than

the American. She had scorned them in her girlhood, when they came

trading to post after post. She scorned them still. The idea of being

forced to wage a war with pedlers was to her too monstrous to be

believed. In the outset she had no doubt that the Mexicans would win in

the contest.

“What!” she cried, “shall we who won independence from Spain, be beaten

by these traders? It is impossible!”

When her husband was brought home to her dead, killed in the last fight

the Mexican forces made, she said icily, “He would have chosen to die

rather than to have been forced to see his country in the hands of

the enemy.” And she was almost frightened at herself to see how this

thought, as it dwelt in her mind, slew the grief in her heart. She had

believed she could not live if her husband were to be taken away from

her; but she found herself often glad that he was dead,--glad that he

was spared the sight and the knowledge of the things which happened;

and even the yearning tenderness with which her imagination pictured

him among the saints, was often turned into a fierce wondering whether

indignation did not fill his soul, even in heaven, at the way things

were going in the land for whose sake he had died.

Out of such throes as these had been born the second nature which made

Senora Moreno the silent, reserved, stern, implacable woman they knew,

who knew her first when she was sixty. Of the gay, tender, sentimental

girl, who danced and laughed with the officers, and prayed and confessed

with the Fathers, forty years before, there was small trace left now,

in the low-voiced, white-haired, aged woman, silent, unsmiling,

placid-faced, who manoeuvred with her son and her head shepherd alike,

to bring it about that a handful of Indians might once more confess

their sins to a Franciscan monk in the Moreno chapel.

III

JUAN CANITO and Senor Felipe were not the only members of the Senora's

family who were impatient for the sheep-shearing. There was also Ramona.

Ramona was, to the world at large, a far more important person than the

Senora herself. The Senora was of the past; Ramona was of the present.

For one eye that could see the significant, at times solemn, beauty of

the Senora's pale and shadowed countenance, there were a hundred that

flashed with eager pleasure at the barest glimpse of Ramona's face; the

shepherds, the herdsmen, the maids, the babies, the dogs, the poultry,

all loved the sight of Ramona; all loved her, except the Senora. The

Senora loved her not; never had loved her, never could love her; and

yet she had stood in the place of mother to the girl ever since her

childhood, and never once during the whole sixteen years of her life had

shown her any unkindness in act. She had promised to be a mother to her;

and with all the inalienable stanchness of her nature she fulfilled the

letter of her promise. More than the bond lay in the bond; but that was

not the Senora's fault.

The story of Ramona the Senora never told. To most of the Senora's

acquaintances now, Ramona was a mystery. They did not know--and no one

ever asked a prying question of the Senora Moreno--who Ramona's parents

were, whether they were living or dead, or why Ramona, her name not

being Moreno, lived always in the Senora's house as a daughter, tended

and attended equally with the adored Felipe. A few gray-haired men and

women here and there in the country could have told the strange story

of Ramona; but its beginning was more than a half-century back, and much

had happened since then. They seldom thought of the child. They knew she

was in the Senora Moreno's keeping, and that was enough. The affairs of

the generation just going out were not the business of the young people

coming in. They would have tragedies enough of their own presently; what

was the use of passing down the old ones? Yet the story was not one to

be forgotten; and now and then it was told in the twilight of a summer

evening, or in the shadows of vines on a lingering afternoon, and all

young men and maidens thrilled who heard it.

It was an elder sister of the Senora's,--a sister old enough to be wooed

and won while the Senora was yet at play,--who had been promised in

marriage to a young Scotchman named Angus Phail. She was a beautiful

woman; and Angus Phail, from the day that he first saw her standing in

the Presidio gate, became so madly her lover, that he was like a man

bereft of his senses. This was the only excuse ever to be made for

Ramona Gonzaga's deed. It could never be denied, by her bitterest

accusers, that, at the first, and indeed for many months, she told Angus

she did not love him, and could not marry him; and that it was only

after his stormy and ceaseless entreaties, that she did finally promise

to become his wife. Then, almost immediately, she went away to Monterey,

and Angus set sail for San Blas. He was the owner of the richest line

of ships which traded along the coast at that time; the richest stuffs,

carvings, woods, pearls, and jewels, which came into the country, came

in his ships. The arrival of one of them was always an event; and

Angus himself, having been well-born in Scotland, and being wonderfully

well-mannered for a seafaring man, was made welcome in all the best

houses, wherever his ships went into harbor, from Monterey to San Diego.

The Senorita Ramona Gonzaga sailed for Monterey the same day and hour

her lover sailed for San Blas. They stood on the decks waving signals to

each other as one sailed away to the south, the other to the north.

It was remembered afterward by those who were in the ship with the

Senorita, that she ceased to wave her signals, and had turned her face

away, long before her lover's ship was out of sight. But the men of the

“San Jose” said that Angus Phail stood immovable, gazing northward,

till nightfall shut from his sight even the horizon line at which the

Monterey ship had long before disappeared from view.

This was to be his last voyage. He went on this only because his honor

was pledged to do so. Also, he comforted himself by thinking that he

would bring back for his bride, and for the home he meant to give her,

treasures of all sorts, which none could select so well as he. Through

the long weeks of the voyage he sat on deck, gazing dreamily at the

waves, and letting his imagination feed on pictures of jewels, satins,

velvets, laces, which would best deck his wife's form and face. When

he could not longer bear the vivid fancies' heat in his blood, he would

pace the deck, swifter and swifter, till his steps were like those

of one flying in fear; at such times the men heard him muttering and

whispering to himself, “Ramona! Ramona!” Mad with love from the first

to the last was Angus Phail; and there were many who believed that if he

had ever seen the hour when he called Ramona Gonzaga his own, his reason

would have fled forever at that moment, and he would have killed either

her or himself, as men thus mad have been known to do. But that hour

never came. When, eight months later, the “San Jose” sailed into the

Santa Barbara harbor, and Angus Phail leaped breathless on shore, the

second man he met, no friend of his, looking him maliciously in

the face, said. “So, ho! You're just too late for the wedding! Your

sweetheart, the handsome Gonzaga girl, was married here, yesterday, to a

fine young officer of the Monterey Presidio!”

Angus reeled, struck the man a blow full in the face, and fell on the

ground, foaming at the mouth. He was lifted and carried into a house,

and, speedily recovering, burst with the strength of a giant from the

hands of those who were holding him, sprang out of the door, and ran

bareheaded up the road toward the Presidio. At the gate he was stopped

by the guard, who knew him.

“Is it true?” gasped Angus.

“Yes, Senor,” replied the man, who said afterward that his knees shook

under him with terror at the look on the Scotchman's face. He feared he

would strike him dead for his reply. But, instead, Angus burst into

a maudlin laugh, and, turning away, went staggering down the street,

singing and laughing.

The next that was known of him was in a low drinking-place, where he was

seen lying on the floor, dead drunk; and from that day he sank lower and

lower, till one of the commonest sights to be seen in Santa Barbara was

Angus Phail reeling about, tipsy, coarse, loud, profane, dangerous.

“See what the Senorita escaped!” said the thoughtless. “She was quite

right not to have married such a drunken wretch.”

In the rare intervals when he was partially sober, he sold all he

possessed,--ship after ship sold for a song, and the proceeds squandered

in drinking or worse. He never had a sight of his lost bride. He did not

seek it; and she, terrified, took every precaution to avoid it, and soon

returned with her husband to Monterey.

Finally Angus disappeared, and after a time the news came up from Los

Angeles that he was there, had gone out to the San Gabriel Mission,

and was living with the Indians. Some years later came the still more

surprising news that he had married a squaw,--a squaw with several

Indian children,--had been legally married by the priest in the San

Gabriel Mission Church. And that was the last that the faithless Ramona

Gonzaga ever heard of her lover, until twenty-five years after her

marriage, when one day he suddenly appeared in her presence. How he

had gained admittance to the house was never known; but there he stood

before her, bearing in his arms a beautiful babe, asleep. Drawing

himself up to the utmost of his six feet of height, and looking at her

sternly, with eyes blue like steel, he said: “Senora Ortegna, you once

did me a great wrong. You sinned, and the Lord has punished you. He has

denied you children. I also have done a wrong; I have sinned, and the

Lord has punished me. He has given me a child. I ask once more at your

hands a boon. Will you take this child of mine, and bring it up as a

child of yours, or of mine, ought to be brought up?”

The tears were rolling down the Senora Ortegna's cheeks. The Lord

had indeed punished her in more ways than Angus Phail knew. Her

childlessness, bitter as that had been, was the least of them.

Speechless, she rose, and stretched out her arms for the child. He

placed it in them. Still the child slept on, undisturbed.

“I do not know if I will be permitted,” she said falteringly; “my

husband--”

“Father Salvierderra will command it. I have seen him,” replied Angus.

The Senora's face brightened. “If that be so, I hope it can be as you

wish,” she said. Then a strange embarrassment came upon her, and looking

down upon the infant, she said inquiringly, “But the child's mother?”

Angus's face turned swarthy red. Perhaps, face to face with this gentle

and still lovely woman he had once so loved, he first realized to the

full how wickedly he had thrown away his life. With a quick wave of

his hand, which spoke volumes, he said: “That is nothing. She has other

children, of her own blood. This is mine, my only one, my daughter. I

wish her to be yours; otherwise, she will be taken by the Church.”

With each second that she felt the little warm body's tender weight in

her arms, Ramona Ortegna's heart had more and more yearned towards the

infant. At these words she bent her face down and kissed its cheek. “Oh,

no! not to the Church! I will love it as my own,” she said.

Angus Phail's face quivered. Feelings long dead within him stirred in

their graves. He gazed at the sad and altered face, once so beautiful,

so dear. “I should hardly have known you, Senora!” burst from him

involuntarily.

She smiled piteously, with no resentment. “That is not strange. I hardly

know myself,” she whispered. “Life has dealt very hardly with me.

I should not have known you either--Angus.” She pronounced his name

hesitatingly, half appealingly. At the sound of the familiar syllables,

so long unheard, the man's heart broke down. He buried his face in his

hands, and sobbed out: “O Ramona, forgive me! I brought the child here,

not wholly in love; partly in vengeance. But I am melted now. Are you

sure you wish to keep her? I will take her away if you are not.”

“Never, so long as I live, Angus,” replied Senora Ortegna. “Already I

feel that she is a mercy from the Lord. If my husband sees no offence in

her presence, she will be a joy in my life. Has she been christened?”

Angus cast his eyes down. A sudden fear smote him. “Before I had thought

of bringing her to you,” he stammered, “at first I had only the thought

of giving her to the Church. I had had her christened by”--the words

refused to leave his lips--“the name--Can you not guess, Senora, what

name she bears?”

The Senora knew. “My own?” she said.

Angus bowed his head. “The only woman's name that my lips ever spoke

with love,” he said, reassured, “was the name my daughter should bear.”

“It is well,” replied the Senora. Then a great silence fell between

them. Each studied the other's face, tenderly, bewilderedly. Then by a

simultaneous impulse they drew nearer. Angus stretched out both his arms

with a gesture of infinite love and despair, bent down and kissed the

hands which lovingly held his sleeping child.

“God bless you, Ramona! Farewell! You will never see me more,” he cried,

and was gone.

In a moment more he reappeared on the threshold of the door, but only to

say in a low tone, “There is no need to be alarmed if the child does not

wake for some hours yet. She has had a safe sleeping-potion given her.

It will not harm her.”

One more long lingering look into each other's faces, and the two

lovers, so strangely parted, still more strangely met, had parted again,

forever. The quarter of a century which had lain between them had been

bridged in both their hearts as if it were but a day. In the heart

of the man it was the old passionate adoring love reawakening;

a resurrection of the buried dead, to full life, with lineaments

unchanged. In the woman it was not that; there was no buried love to

come to such resurrection in her heart, for she had never loved Angus

Phail. But, long unloved, ill-treated, heartbroken, she woke at that

moment to the realization of what manner of love it had been which she

had thrown away in her youth; her whole being yearned for it now, and

Angus was avenged.

When Francis Ortegna, late that night, reeled, half-tipsy, into

his wife's room, he was suddenly sobered by the sight which met his

eyes,--his wife kneeling by the side of the cradle, in which lay,

smiling in its sleep, a beautiful infant.

“What in the devil's name,” he began; then recollecting, he muttered:

“Oh, the Indian brat! I see! I wish you joy, Senora Ortegna, of your

first child!” and with a mock bow, and cruel sneer, he staggered by,

giving the cradle an angry thrust with his foot as he passed.

The brutal taunt did not much wound the Senora. The time had long since

passed when unkind words from her husband could give her keen pain. But

it was a warning not lost upon her new-born mother instinct, and from

that day the little Ramona was carefully kept and tended in apartments

where there was no danger of her being seen by the man to whom the sight

of her baby face was only a signal for anger and indecency.

Hitherto Ramona Ortegna had, so far as was possible, carefully concealed

from her family the unhappiness of her married life. Ortegna's

character was indeed well known; his neglect of his wife, his shameful

dissipations of all sorts, were notorious in every port in the country.

But from the wife herself no one had even heard so much as a syllable of

complaint. She was a Gonzaga, and she knew how to suffer in silence, But

now she saw a reason for taking her sister into her confidence. It was

plain to her that she had not many years to live; and what then would

become of the child? Left to the tender mercies of Ortegna, it was only

too certain what would become of her. Long sad hours of perplexity the

lonely woman passed, with the little laughing babe in her arms, vainly

endeavoring to forecast her future. The near chance of her own death had

not occurred to her mind when she accepted the trust.

Before the little Ramona was a year old, Angus Phail died. An Indian

messenger from San Gabriel brought the news to Senora Ortegna. He

brought her also a box and a letter, given to him by Angus the day

before his death. The box contained jewels of value, of fashions a

quarter of a century old. They were the jewels which Angus had bought

for his bride. These alone remained of all his fortune. Even in the

lowest depths of his degradation, a certain sentiment had restrained him

from parting with them. The letter contained only these words: “I send

you all I have to leave my daughter. I meant to bring them myself this

year. I wished to kiss your hands and hers once more. But I am dying.

Farewell.”

After these jewels were in her possession, Senora Ortegna rested not

till she had persuaded Senora Moreno to journey to Monterey, and had

put the box into her keeping as a sacred trust. She also won from her a

solemn promise that at her own death she would adopt the little

Ramona. This promise came hard from Senora Moreno. Except for Father

Salvierderra's influence, she had not given it. She did not wish any

dealings with such alien and mongrel blood, “If the child were pure

Indian, I would like it better,” she said. “I like not these crosses. It

is the worst, and not the best of each, that remains.”

But the promise once given, Senora Ortegna was content. Well she knew

that her sister would not lie, nor evade a trust. The little Ramona's

future was assured. During the last years of the unhappy woman's life

the child was her only comfort. Ortegna's conduct had become so openly

and defiantly infamous, that he even flaunted his illegitimate relations

in his wife's presence; subjecting her to gross insults, spite of her

helpless invalidism. This last outrage was too much for the Gonzaga

blood to endure; the Senora never afterward left her apartment, or spoke

to her husband. Once more she sent for her sister to come; this time, to

see her die. Every valuable she possessed, jewels, laces, brocades, and

damasks, she gave into her sister's charge, to save them from falling

into the hands of the base creature that she knew only too well would

stand in her place as soon as the funeral services had been said over

her dead body.

Stealthily, as if she had been a thief, the sorrowing Senora Moreno

conveyed her sister's wardrobe, article by article, out of the house, to

be sent to her own home. It was the wardrobe of a princess. The Ortegnas

lavished money always on the women whose hearts they broke; and never

ceased to demand of them that they should sit superbly arrayed in their

lonely wretchedness.

One hour after the funeral, with a scant and icy ceremony of farewell

to her dead sister's husband, Senora Moreno, leading the little

four-year-old Ramona by the hand, left the house, and early the next

morning set sail for home.

When Ortegna discovered that his wife's jewels and valuables of all

kinds were gone, he fell into a great rage, and sent a messenger off,

post-haste, with an insulting letter to the Senora Moreno, demanding

their return. For answer, he got a copy of his wife's memoranda of

instructions to her sister, giving all the said valuables to her in

trust for Ramona; also a letter from Father Salvierderra, upon reading

which he sank into a fit of despondency that lasted a day or two, and

gave his infamous associates considerable alarm, lest they had lost

their comrade. But he soon shook off the influence, whatever it was, and

settled back into his old gait on the same old high-road to the devil.

Father Salvierderra could alarm him, but not save him.

And this was the mystery of Ramona. No wonder the Senora Moreno never

told the story. No wonder, perhaps, that she never loved the child. It

was a sad legacy, indissolubly linked with memories which had in them

nothing but bitterness, shame, and sorrow from first to last.

How much of all this the young Ramona knew or suspected, was locked in

her own breast. Her Indian blood had as much proud reserve in it as was

ever infused into the haughtiest Gonzaga's veins. While she was yet a

little child, she had one day said to the Senora Moreno, “Senora, why

did my mother give me to the Senora Ortegna?”

Taken unawares, the Senora replied hastily: “Your mother had nothing

whatever to do with it. It was your father.”

“Was my mother dead?” continued the child.

Too late the Senora saw her mistake. “I do not know,” she replied; which

was literally true, but had the spirit of a lie in it. “I never saw your

mother.”

“Did the Senora Ortegna ever see her?” persisted Ramona.

“No, never,” answered the Senora, coldly, the old wounds burning at the

innocent child's unconscious touch.

Ramona felt the chill, and was silent for a time, her face sad, and her

eyes tearful. At last she said, “I wish I knew if my mother was dead.”

“Why?” asked the Senora.

“Because if she is not dead I would ask her why she did not want me to

stay with her.”

The gentle piteousness of this reply smote the Senora's conscience.

Taking the child in her arms, she said, “Who has been talking to you of

these things, Ramona?”

“Juan Can,” she replied.

“What did he say?” asked the Senora, with a look in her eye which boded

no good to Juan Canito.

“It was not to me he said it, it was to Luigo; but I heard him,”

answered Ramona, speaking slowly, as if collecting her various

reminiscences on the subject. “Twice I heard him. He said that my mother

was no good, and that my father was bad too.” And the tears rolled down

the child's cheeks.

The Senora's sense of justice stood her well in place of tenderness,

now. Caressing the little orphan as she had never before done, she said,

with an earnestness which sank deep into the child's mind, “Ramona must

not believe any such thing as that. Juan Can is a bad man to say it.

He never saw either your father or your mother, and so he could know

nothing about them. I knew your father very well. He was not a bad man.

He was my friend, and the friend of the Senora Ortegna; and that was the

reason he gave you to the Senora Ortegna, because she had no child of

her own. And I think your mother had a good many.”

“Oh!” said Ramona, relieved, for the moment, at this new view of the

situation,--that the gift had been not as a charity to her, but to the

Senora Ortegna. “Did the Senora Ortegna want a little daughter very

much?”

“Yes, very much indeed,” said the Senora, heartily and with fervor. “She

had grieved many years because she had no child.”

Silence again for a brief space, during which the little lonely heart,

grappling with its vague instinct of loss and wrong, made wide thrusts

into the perplexities hedging it about, and presently electrified the

Senora by saying in a half-whisper, “Why did not my father bring me to

you first? Did he know you did not want any daughter?”

The Senora was dumb for a second; then recovering herself, she said:

“Your father was the Senora Ortegna's friend more than he was mine. I

was only a child, then.”

“Of course you did not need any daughter when you had Felipe,” continued

Ramona, pursuing her original line of inquiry and reflection without

noticing the Senora's reply. “A son is more than a daughter; but most

people have both,” eying the Senora keenly, to see what response this

would bring.

But the Senora was weary and uncomfortable with the talk. At the very

mention of Felipe, a swift flash of consciousness of her inability

to love Ramona had swept through her mind. “Ramona,” she said firmly,

“while you are a little girl, you cannot understand any of these things.

When you are a woman, I will tell you all that I know myself about your

father and your mother. It is very little. Your father died when you

were only two years old. All that you have to do is to be a good child,

and say your prayers, and when Father Salvierderra comes he will be

pleased with you. And he will not be pleased if you ask troublesome

questions. Don't ever speak to me again about this. When the proper time

comes I will tell you myself.”

This was when Ramona was ten. She was now nineteen. She had never again

asked the Senora a question bearing on the forbidden subject. She had

been a good child and said her prayers, and Father Salvierderra had been

always pleased with her, growing more and more deeply attached to her

year by year. But the proper time had not yet come for the Senora to

tell her anything more about her father and mother. There were few

mornings on which the girl did not think, “Perhaps it may be to-day

that she will tell me.” But she would not ask. Every word of that

conversation was as vivid in her mind as it had been the day it

occurred; and it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that during

every day of the whole nine years had deepened in her heart the

conviction which had prompted the child's question, “Did he know that

you did not want any daughter?”

A nature less gentle than Ramona's would have been embittered, or at

least hardened, by this consciousness. But Ramona's was not. She never

put it in words to herself. She accepted it, as those born deformed seem

sometimes to accept the pain and isolation caused by their deformity,

with an unquestioning acceptance, which is as far above resignation, as

resignation is above rebellious repining.

No one would have known, from Ramona's face, manner, or habitual

conduct, that she had ever experienced a sorrow or had a care. Her face

was sunny, she had a joyous voice, and never was seen to pass a human

being without a cheerful greeting, to highest and lowest the same. Her

industry was tireless. She had had two years at school, in the Convent

of the Sacred Heart at Los Angeles, where the Senora had placed her

at much personal sacrifice, during one of the hardest times the Moreno

estate had ever seen. Here she had won the affection of all the Sisters,

who spoke of her habitually as the “blessed child.” They had taught her

all the dainty arts of lace-weaving, embroidery, and simple fashions

of painting and drawing, which they knew; not overmuch learning out of

books, but enough to make her a passionate lover of verse and romance.

For serious study or for deep thought she had no vocation. She was a

simple, joyous, gentle, clinging, faithful nature, like a clear brook

rippling along in the sun,--a nature as unlike as possible to the

Senora's, with its mysterious depths and stormy, hidden currents.

Of these Ramona was dimly conscious, and at times had a tender,

sorrowful pity for the Senora, which she dared not show, and could only

express by renewed industry, and tireless endeavor to fulfil every duty

possible in the house. This gentle faithfulness was not wholly lost on

Senora Moreno, though its source she never suspected; and it won no new

recognition from her for Ramona, no increase of love.

But there was one on whom not an act, not a look, not a smile of all

this graciousness was thrown away. That one was Felipe. Daily more and

more he wondered at his mother's lack of affection for Ramona. Nobody

knew so well as he how far short she stopped of loving her. Felipe knew

what it meant, how it felt, to be loved by the Senora Moreno. But Felipe

had learned while he was a boy that one sure way to displease his mother

was to appear to be aware that she did not treat Ramona as she treated

him. And long before he had become a man he had acquired the habit of

keeping to himself most of the things he thought and felt about his

little playmate sister,--a dangerous habit, out of which were slowly

ripening bitter fruits for the Senora's gathering in later years.

IV

IT was longer even than the Senora had thought it would be, before

Father Salvierderra arrived. The old man had grown feeble during the

year that she had not seen him, and it was a very short day's journey

that he could make now without too great fatigue. It was not only his

body that had failed. He had lost heart; and the miles which would have

been nothing to him, had he walked in the companionship of hopeful and

happy thoughts, stretched out wearily as he brooded over sad memories

and still sadder anticipations,--the downfall of the Missions, the loss

of their vast estates, and the growing power of the ungodly in the land.

The final decision of the United States Government in regard to the

Mission-lands had been a terrible blow to him. He had devoutly believed

that ultimate restoration of these great estates to the Church was

inevitable. In the long vigils which he always kept when at home at the

Franciscan Monastery in Santa Barbara, kneeling on the stone pavement

in the church, and praying ceaselessly from midnight till dawn, he had

often had visions vouchsafed him of a new dispensation, in which the

Mission establishments should be reinstated in all their old splendor

and prosperity, and their Indian converts again numbered by tens of

thousands.

Long after every one knew that this was impossible, he would narrate

these visions with the faith of an old Bible seer, and declare that they

must come true, and that it was a sin to despond. But as year after year

he journeyed up and down the country, seeing, at Mission after Mission,

the buildings crumbling into ruin, the lands all taken, sold, resold,

and settled by greedy speculators; the Indian converts disappearing,

driven back to their original wildernesses, the last traces of the noble

work of his order being rapidly swept away, his courage faltered, his

faith died out. Changes in the manners and customs of his order itself,

also, were giving him deep pain. He was a Franciscan of the same type as

Francis of Assisi. To wear a shoe in place of a sandal, to take money in

a purse for a journey, above all to lay aside the gray gown and cowl for

any sort of secular garment, seemed to him wicked. To own comfortable

clothes while there were others suffering for want of them--and

there were always such--seemed to him a sin for which one might not

undeservedly be smitten with sudden and terrible punishment. In vain the

Brothers again and again supplied him with a warm cloak; he gave it away

to the first beggar he met: and as for food, the refectory would have

been left bare, and the whole brotherhood starving, if the supplies had

not been carefully hidden and locked, so that Father Salvierderra could

not give them all away. He was fast becoming that most tragic yet often

sublime sight, a man who has survived, not only his own time, but

the ideas and ideals of it. Earth holds no sharper loneliness: the

bitterness of exile, the anguish of friendlessness at their utmost,

are in it; and yet it is so much greater than they, that even they seem

small part of it.

It was with thoughts such as these that Father Salvierderra drew near

the home of the Senora Moreno late in the afternoon of one of those

midsummer days of which Southern California has so many in spring. The

almonds had bloomed and the blossoms fallen; the apricots also, and the

peaches and pears; on all the orchards of these fruits had come a filmy

tint of green, so light it was hardly more than a shadow on the gray.

The willows were vivid light green, and the orange groves dark and

glossy like laurel. The billowy hills on either side the valley were

covered with verdure and bloom,--myriads of low blossoming plants, so

close to the earth that their tints lapped and overlapped on each other,

and on the green of the grass, as feathers in fine plumage overlap each

other and blend into a changeful color.

The countless curves, hollows, and crests of the coast-hills in Southern

California heighten these chameleon effects of the spring verdure; they

are like nothing in nature except the glitter of a brilliant lizard in

the sun or the iridescent sheen of a peacock's neck.

Father Salvierderra paused many times to gaze at the beautiful picture.

Flowers were always dear to the Franciscans. Saint Francis himself

permitted all decorations which could be made of flowers. He classed

them with his brothers and sisters, the sun, moon, and stars,--all

members of the sacred choir praising God.

It was melancholy to see how, after each one of these pauses, each fresh

drinking in of the beauty of the landscape and the balmy air, the old

man resumed his slow pace, with a long sigh and his eyes cast down.

The fairer this beautiful land, the sadder to know it lost to the

Church,--alien hands reaping its fulness, establishing new customs,

new laws. All the way down the coast from Santa Barbara he had seen,

at every stopping-place, new tokens of the settling up of the

country,--farms opening, towns growing; the Americans pouring in, at

all points, to reap the advantages of their new possessions. It was

this which had made his journey heavy-hearted, and made him feel, in

approaching the Senora Moreno's, as if he were coming to one of the last

sure strongholds of the Catholic faith left in the country.

When he was within two miles of the house, he struck off from the

highway into a narrow path that he recollected led by a short-cut

through the hills, and saved nearly a third of the distance. It was

more than a year since he had trod this path, and as he found it growing

fainter and fainter, and more and more overgrown with the wild mustard,

he said to himself, “I think no one can have passed through here this

year.”

As he proceeded he found the mustard thicker and thicker. The wild

mustard in Southern California is like that spoken of in the New

Testament, in the branches of which the birds of the air may rest.

Coming up out of the earth, so slender a stem that dozens can find

starting-point in an inch, it darts up, a slender straight shoot, five,

ten, twenty feet, with hundreds of fine feathery branches locking

and interlocking with all the other hundreds around it, till it is an

inextricable network like lace. Then it bursts into yellow bloom still

finer, more feathery and lacelike. The stems are so infinitesimally

small, and of so dark a green, that at a short distance they do not

show, and the cloud of blossom seems floating in the air; at times it

looks like golden dust. With a clear blue sky behind it, as it is often

seen, it looks like a golden snow-storm. The plant is a tyrant and a

nuisance,--the terror of the farmer; it takes riotous possession of a

whole field in a season; once in, never out; for one plant this year, a

million the next; but it is impossible to wish that the land were freed

from it. Its gold is as distinct a value to the eye as the nugget gold

is in the pocket.

Father Salvierderra soon found himself in a veritable thicket of these

delicate branches, high above his head, and so interlaced that he could

make headway only by slowly and patiently disentangling them, as one

would disentangle a skein of silk. It was a fantastic sort of dilemma,

and not unpleasing. Except that the Father was in haste to reach his

journey's end, he would have enjoyed threading his way through

the golden meshes. Suddenly he heard faint notes of singing. He

paused,--listened. It was the voice of a woman. It was slowly drawing

nearer, apparently from the direction in which he was going. At

intervals it ceased abruptly, then began again; as if by a sudden but

brief interruption, like that made by question and answer. Then, peering

ahead through the mustard blossoms, he saw them waving and bending, and

heard sounds as if they were being broken. Evidently some one entering

on the path from the opposite end had been caught in the fragrant

thicket as he was. The notes grew clearer, though still low and sweet

as the twilight notes of the thrush; the mustard branches waved more and

more violently; light steps were now to be heard. Father Salvierderra

stood still as one in a dream, his eyes straining forward into the

golden mist of blossoms. In a moment more came, distinct and clear to

his ear, the beautiful words of the second stanza of Saint Francis's

inimitable lyric, “The Canticle of the Sun:”

“Praise be to thee, O Lord, for all thy creatures, and especially for

our brother the Sun,--who illuminates the day, and by his beauty and

splendor shadows forth unto us thine.”

“Ramona!” exclaimed the Father, his thin cheeks flushing with pleasure.

“The blessed child!” And as he spoke, her face came into sight, set in

a swaying frame of the blossoms, as she parted them lightly to right and

left with her hands, and half crept, half danced through the loop-hole

openings thus made. Father Salvierderra was past eighty, but his blood

was not too old to move quicker at the sight of this picture. A man must

be dead not to thrill at it. Ramona's beauty was of the sort to be best

enhanced by the waving gold which now framed her face. She had just

enough of olive tint in her complexion to underlie and enrich her skin

without making it swarthy. Her hair was like her Indian mother's, heavy

and black, but her eyes were like her father's, steel-blue. Only those

who came very near to Ramona knew, however, that her eyes were blue, for

the heavy black eyebrows and long black lashes so shaded and shadowed

them that they looked black as night. At the same instant that Father

Salvierderra first caught sight of her face, Ramona also saw him, and

crying out joyfully, “Ah, Father, I knew you would come by this path,

and something told me you were near!” she sprang forward, and sank on

her knees before him, bowing her head for his blessing. In silence he

laid his hands on her brow. It would not have been easy for him to speak

to her at that first moment. She had looked to the devout old monk, as

she sprang through the cloud of golden flowers, the sun falling on

her bared head, her cheeks flushed, her eyes shining, more like an

apparition of an angel or saint, than like the flesh-and-blood maiden

whom he had carried in his arms when she was a babe.

“We have been waiting, waiting, oh, so long for you, Father!” she said,

rising. “We began to fear that you might be ill. The shearers have been

sent for, and will be here tonight, and that was the reason I felt so

sure you would come. I knew the Virgin would bring you in time for mass

in the chapel on the first morning.”

The monk smiled half sadly. “Would there were more with such faith as

yours, daughter,” he said. “Are all well on the place?”

“Yes, Father, all well,” she answered. “Felipe has been ill with a

fever; but he is out now, these ten days, and fretting for--for your

coming.”

Ramona had like to have said the literal truth,--“fretting for the

sheep-shearing,” but recollected herself in time.

“And the Senora?” said the Father.

“She is well,” answered Ramona, gently, but with a slight change of

tone,--so slight as to be almost imperceptible; but an acute observer

would have always detected it in the girl's tone whenever she spoke of

the Senora Moreno. “And you,--are you well yourself, Father?” she asked

affectionately, noting with her quick, loving eye how feebly the old

man walked, and that he carried what she had never before seen in his

hand,--a stout staff to steady his steps. “You must be very tired with

the long journey on foot.”

“Ay, Ramona, I am tired,” he replied. “Old age is conquering me. It will

not be many times more that I shall see this place.”

“Oh, do not say that, Father,” cried Ramona; “you can ride, when it

tires you too much to walk. The Senora said, only the other day, that

she wished you would let her give you a horse; that it was not right for

you to take these long journeys on foot. You know we have hundreds of

horses. It is nothing, one horse,” she added, seeing the Father slowly

shake his head.

“No;” he said, “it is not that. I could not refuse anything at the hands

of the Senora. But it was the rule of our order to go on foot. We

must deny the flesh. Look at our beloved master in this land, Father

Junipero, when he was past eighty, walking from San Diego to Monterey,

and all the while a running ulcer in one of his legs, for which most men

would have taken to a bed, to be healed. It is a sinful fashion that

is coming in, for monks to take their ease doing God's work. I can no

longer walk swiftly, but I must walk all the more diligently.”

While they were talking, they had been slowly moving forward, Ramona

slightly in advance, gracefully bending the mustard branches, and

holding them down till the Father had followed in her steps. As they

came out from the thicket, she exclaimed, laughing, “There is Felipe, in

the willows. I told him I was coming to meet you, and he laughed at me.

Now he will see I was right.”

Astonished enough, Felipe, hearing voices, looked up, and saw Ramona and

the Father approaching. Throwing down the knife with which he had been

cutting the willows, he hastened to meet them, and dropped on his knees,

as Ramona had done, for the monk's blessing. As he knelt there, the wind

blowing his hair loosely off his brow, his large brown eyes lifted in

gentle reverence to the Father's face, and his face full of affectionate

welcome, Ramona thought to herself, as she had thought hundreds of times

since she became a woman, “How beautiful Felipe is! No wonder the Senora

loves him so much! If I had been beautiful like that she would have

liked me better.” Never was a little child more unconscious of her own

beauty than Ramona still was. All the admiration which was expressed

to her in word and look she took for simple kindness and good-will.

Her face, as she herself saw it in her glass, did not please her. She

compared her straight, massive black eyebrows with Felipe's, arched and

delicately pencilled, and found her own ugly. The expression of gentle

repose which her countenance wore, seemed to her an expression of

stupidity. “Felipe looks so bright!” she thought, as she noted his

mobile changing face, never for two successive seconds the same. “There

is nobody like Felipe.” And when his brown eyes were fixed on her, as

they so often were, in a long lingering gaze, she looked steadily back

into their velvet depths with an abstracted sort of intensity which

profoundly puzzled Felipe. It was this look, more than any other one

thing, which had for two years held Felipe's tongue in leash, as it

were, and made it impossible for him to say to Ramona any of the loving

things of which his heart had been full ever since he could remember.

The boy had spoken them unhesitatingly, unconsciously; but the man found

himself suddenly afraid. “What is it she thinks when she looks into my

eyes so?” he wondered. If he had known that the thing she was usually

thinking was simply, “How much handsomer brown eyes are than blue!

I wish my eyes were the color of Felipe's!” he would have perceived,

perhaps, what would have saved him sorrow, if he had known it, that a

girl who looked at a man thus, would be hard to win to look at him as a

lover. But being a lover, he could not see this. He saw only enough to

perplex and deter him.

As they drew near the house, Ramona saw Margarita standing at the gate

of the garden. She was holding something white in her hands, looking

down at it, and crying piteously. As she perceived Ramona, she made an

eager leap forward, and then shrank back again, making dumb signals

of distress to her. Her whole attitude was one of misery and entreaty.

Margarita was, of all the maids, most beloved by Ramona. Though they

were nearly of the same age, it had been Margarita who first had charge

of Ramona; the nurse and her charge had played together, grown up

together, become women together, and were now, although Margarita never

presumed on the relation, or forgot to address Ramona as Senorita, more

like friends than like mistress and maid.

“Pardon me, Father,” said Ramona. “I see that Margarita there is in

trouble. I will leave Felipe to go with you to the house. I will be with

you again in a few moments.” And kissing his hand, she flew rather than

ran across the field to the foot of the garden.

Before she reached the spot, Margarita had dropped on the ground and

buried her face in her hands. A mass of crumpled and stained linen lay

at her feet.

“What is it? What has happened, Margarita mia?” cried Ramona, in the

affectionate Spanish phrase. For answer, Margarita removed one wet hand

from her eyes, and pointed with a gesture of despair to the crumpled

linen. Sobs choked her voice, and she buried her face again in her

hands.

Ramona stooped, and lifted one corner of the linen. An involuntary cry

of dismay broke from her, at which Margarita's sobs redoubled, and

she gasped out, “Yes, Senorita, it is totally ruined! It can never be

mended, and it will be needed for the mass to-morrow morning. When I saw

the Father coming by your side, I prayed to the Virgin to let me die.

The Senora will never forgive me.”

It was indeed a sorry sight. The white linen altar-cloth, the cloth

which the Senora Moreno had with her own hands made into one solid front

of beautiful lace of the Mexican fashion, by drawing out part of the

threads and sewing the remainder into intricate patterns, the

cloth which had always been on the altar, when mass was said, since

Margarita's and Ramona's earliest recollections,--there it lay, torn,

stained, as if it had been dragged through muddy brambles. In silence,

aghast, Ramona opened it out and held it up. “How did it happen,

Margarita?” she whispered, glancing in terror up towards the house.

“Oh, that is the worst of it, Senorita!” sobbed the girl. “That is the

worst of it! If it were not for that, I would not be so afraid. If it

had happened any other way, the Senora might have forgiven me; but she

never will. I would rather die than tell her;” and she shook from head

to foot.

“Stop crying, Margarita!” said Ramona, firmly, “and tell me all about

it. It isn't so bad as it looks. I think I can mend it.”

“Oh, the saints bless you!” cried Margarita, looking up for the first

time. “Do you really think you can mend it, Senorita? If you will mend

that lace, I'll go on my knees for you all the rest of my life!”

Ramona laughed in spite of herself. “You'll serve me better by keeping

on your feet,” she said merrily; at which Margarita laughed too, through

her tears. They were both young.

“Oh, but Senorita,” Margarita began again in a tone of anguish, her

tears flowing afresh, “there is not time! It must be washed and ironed

to-night, for the mass to-morrow morning, and I have to help at the

supper. Anita and Rosa are both ill in bed, you know, and Maria has gone

away for a week. The Senora said if the Father came to-night I must help

mother, and must wait on table. It cannot be done. I was just going

to iron it now, and I found it--so--It was in the artichoke-patch, and

Capitan, the beast, had been tossing it among the sharp pricks of the

old last year's seeds.”

“In the artichoke-patch!” ejaculated Ramona. “How under heavens did it

get there?”

“Oh, that was what I meant, Senorita, when I said she never would

forgive me. She has forbidden me many times to hang anything to dry on

the fence there; and if I had only washed it when she first told me, two

days ago, all would have been well. But I forgot it till this afternoon,

and there was no sun in the court to dry it, and you know how the sun

lies on the artichoke-patch, and I put a strong cloth over the fence,

so that the wood should not pierce the lace, and I did not leave it more

than half an hour, just while I said a few words to Luigo, and there

was no wind; and I believe the saints must have fetched it down to the

ground to punish me for my disobedience.”

Ramona had been all this time carefully smoothing out the torn places,

“It is not so bad as it looks,” she said; “if it were not for the hurry,

there would be no trouble in mending it. But I will do it the best I

can, so that it will not show, for to-morrow, and then, after the Father

is gone, I can repair it at leisure, and make it just as good as new.

I think I can mend it and wash it before dark,” and she glanced at the

sun. “Oh, yes, there are good three hours of daylight yet. I can do it.

You put the irons on the fire, to have them hot, to iron it as soon

as it is partly dried. You will see it will not show that anything has

happened to it.”

“Will the Senora know?” asked poor Margarita, calmed and reassured, but

still in mortal terror.

Ramona turned her steady glance full on Margarita's face. “You would not

be any happier if she were deceived, do you think?” she said gravely.

“O Senorita, after it is mended? If it really does not show?” pleaded

the girl.

“I will tell her myself, and not till after it is mended,” said Ramona;

but she did not smile.

“Ah, Senorita,” said Margarita, deprecatingly, “you do not know what it

is to have the Senora displeased with one.”

“Nothing can be so bad as to be displeased with one's self,” retorted

Ramona, as she walked swiftly away to her room with the linen rolled up

under her arm. Luckily for Margarita's cause, she met no one on the way.

The Senora had welcomed Father Salvierderra at the foot of the veranda

steps, and had immediately closeted herself with him. She had much to

say to him,--much about which she wished his help and counsel, and much

which she wished to learn from him as to affairs in the Church and in

the country generally.

Felipe had gone off at once to find Juan Canito, to see if everything

were ready for the sheep-shearing to begin on the next day, if the

shearers arrived in time; and there was very good chance of their coming

in by sundown this day, Felipe thought, for he had privately instructed

his messenger to make all possible haste, and to impress on the Indians

the urgent need of their losing no time on the road.

It had been a great concession on the Senora's part to allow the

messenger to be sent off before she had positive intelligence as to the

Father's movements. But as day after day passed and no news came, even

she perceived that it would not do to put off the sheep-shearing much

longer, or, as Juan Canito said, “forever.” The Father might have fallen

ill; and if that were so, it might very easily be weeks before they

heard of it, so scanty were the means of communication between the

remote places on his route of visitation. The messenger had therefore

been sent to summon the Temecula shearers, and Senora had resigned

herself to the inevitable; piously praying, however, morning and night,

and at odd moments in the day, that the Father might arrive before the

Indians did. When she saw him coming up the garden-walk, leaning on

the arm of her Felipe, on the afternoon of the very day which was the

earliest possible day for the Indians to arrive, it was not strange that

she felt, mingled with the joy of her greeting to her long-loved friend

and confessor, a triumphant exultation that the saints had heard her

prayers.

In the kitchen all was bustle and stir. The coming of any guest into the

house was a signal for unwonted activities there,--even the coming of

Father Salvierderra, who never knew whether the soup had force-meat

balls in it or not, old Marda said; and that was to her the last extreme

of indifference to good things of the flesh. “But if he will not eat,

he can see,” she said; and her pride for herself and for the house was

enlisted in setting forth as goodly an array of viands as her larder

afforded, She grew suddenly fastidious over the size and color of the

cabbages to go into the beef-pot, and threw away one whole saucepan full

of rice, because Margarita had put only one onion in instead of two.

“Have I not told you again and again that for the Father it is always

two onions?” she exclaimed. “It is the dish he most favors of all; and

it is a pity too, old as he is. It makes him no blood. It is good beef

he should take now.”

The dining-room was on the opposite side of the courtyard from the

kitchen, and there was a perpetual procession of small messengers going

back and forth between the rooms. It was the highest ambition of each

child to be allowed to fetch and carry dishes in the preparation of

the meals at all times; but when by so doing they could perchance get a

glimpse through the dining-room door, open on the veranda, of strangers

and guests, their restless rivalry became unmanageable. Poor Margarita,

between her own private anxieties and her multiplied duties of helping

in the kitchen, and setting the table, restraining and overseeing her

army of infant volunteers, was nearly distraught; not so distraught,

however, but that she remembered and found time to seize a lighted

candle in the kitchen, run and set it before the statue of Saint Francis

of Paula in her bedroom, hurriedly whispering a prayer that the lace

might be made whole like new. Several times before the afternoon had

waned she snatched a moment to fling herself down at the statue's feet

and pray her foolish little prayer over again. We think we are quite

sure that it is a foolish little prayer, when people pray to have torn

lace made whole. But it would be hard to show the odds between asking

that, and asking that it may rain, or that the sick may get well. As the

grand old Russian says, what men usually ask for, when they pray to God,

is, that two and two may not make four. All the same he is to be pitied

who prays not. It was only the thought of that candle at Saint Francis's

feet, which enabled Margarita to struggle through this anxious and

unhappy afternoon and evening.

At last supper was ready,--a great dish of spiced beef and cabbage in

the centre of the table; a tureen of thick soup, with force-meat balls

and red peppers in it; two red earthen platters heaped, one with the

boiled rice and onions, the other with the delicious frijoles (beans)

so dear to all Mexican hearts; cut-glass dishes filled with hot stewed

pears, or preserved quinces, or grape jelly; plates of frosted cakes of

various sorts; and a steaming silver teakettle, from which went up an

aroma of tea such as had never been bought or sold in all California,

the Senora's one extravagance and passion.

“Where is Ramona?” asked the Senora, surprised and displeased, as she

entered the dining-room, “Margarita, go tell the Senorita that we are

waiting for her.”

Margarita started tremblingly, with flushed face, towards the door. What

would happen now! “O Saint Francis,” she inwardly prayed, “help us this

once!”

“Stay,” said Felipe. “Do not call Senorita Ramona.” Then, turning to his

mother, “Ramona cannot come. She is not in the house. She has a duty to

perform for to-morrow,” he said; and he looked meaningly at his mother,

adding, “we will not wait for her.”

Much bewildered, the Senora took her seat at the head of the table in a

mechanical way, and began, “But--” Felipe, seeing that questions were to

follow, interrupted her: “I have just spoken with her. It is impossible

for her to come;” and turning to Father Salvierderra, he at once engaged

him in conversation, and left the baffled Senora to bear her unsatisfied

curiosity as best she could.

Margarita looked at Felipe with an expression of profound gratitude,

which he did not observe, and would not in the least have understood;

for Ramona had not confided to him any details of the disaster. Seeing

him under her window, she had called cautiously to him, and said: “Dear

Felipe, do you think you can save me from having to come to supper? A

dreadful accident has happened to the altar-cloth, and I must mend it

and wash it, and there is barely time before dark. Don't let them call

me; I shall be down at the brook, and they will not find me, and your

mother will be displeased.”

This wise precaution of Ramona's was the salvation of everything, so far

as the altar-cloth was concerned. The rents had proved far less serious

than she had feared; the daylight held out till the last of them was

skilfully mended; and just as the red beams of the sinking sun came

streaming through the willow-trees at the foot of the garden, Ramona,

darting down the garden, had reached the brook, and kneeling on the

grass, had dipped the linen into the water.

Her hurried working over the lace, and her anxiety, had made her cheeks

scarlet. As she ran down the garden, her comb had loosened and her hair

fallen to her waist. Stopping only to pick up the comb and thrust it in

her pocket, she had sped on, as it would soon be too dark for her to see

the stains on the linen, and it was going to be no small trouble to get

them out without fraying the lace.

Her hair in disorder, her sleeves pinned loosely on her shoulders, her

whole face aglow with the earnestness of her task, she bent low over

the stones, rinsing the altar-cloth up and down in the water, anxiously

scanning it, then plunging it in again.

The sunset beams played around her hair like a halo; the whole place was

aglow with red light, and her face was kindled into transcendent beauty.

A sound arrested her attention. She looked up. Forms, dusky black

against the fiery western sky, were coming down the valley. It was the

band of Indian shearers. They turned to the left, and went towards the

sheep sheds and booths. But there was one of them that Ramona did not

see. He had been standing for some minutes concealed behind a large

willow-tree a few rods from the place where Ramona was kneeling. It was

Alessandro, son of Pablo Assis, captain of the shearing band. Walking

slowly along in advance of his men, he had felt a light, as from a

mirror held in the sun, smite his eyes. It was the red sunbeam on the

glittering water where Ramona knelt. In the same second he saw Ramona.

He halted, as wild creatures of the forest halt at a sound; gazed;

walked abruptly away from his men, who kept on, not noticing his

disappearance. Cautiously he moved a few steps nearer, into the shelter

of a gnarled old willow, from behind which he could gaze unperceived on

the beautiful vision,--for so it seemed to him.

As he gazed, his senses seemed leaving him, and unconsciously he spoke

aloud; “Christ! What shall I do!”

V

THE room in which Father Salvierderra always slept when at the Senora

Moreno's house was the southeast corner room. It had a window to the

south and one to the east. When the first glow of dawn came in the sky,

this eastern window was lit up as by a fire. The Father was always on

watch for it, having usually been at prayer for hours. As the first ray

reached the window, he would throw the casement wide open, and standing

there with bared head, strike up the melody of the sunrise hymn sung in

all devout Mexican families. It was a beautiful custom, not yet wholly

abandoned. At the first dawn of light, the oldest member of the family

arose, and began singing some hymn familiar to the household. It was the

duty of each person hearing it to immediately rise, or at least sit up

in bed, and join in the singing. In a few moments the whole family would

be singing, and the joyous sounds pouring out from the house like

the music of the birds in the fields at dawn. The hymns were usually

invocations to the Virgin, or to the saint of the day, and the melodies

were sweet and simple.

On this morning there was another watcher for the dawn besides Father

Salvierderra. It was Alessandro, who had been restlessly wandering about

since midnight, and had finally seated himself under the willow-trees by

the brook, at the spot where he had seen Ramona the evening before. He

recollected this custom of the sunrise hymn when he and his band were

at the Senora's the last year, and he had chanced then to learn that the

Father slept in the southeast room. From the spot where he sat, he could

see the south window of this room. He could also see the low eastern

horizon, at which a faint luminous line already showed. The sky was like

amber; a few stars still shone faintly in the zenith. There was not

a sound. It was one of those rare moments in which one can without

difficulty realize the noiseless spinning of the earth through space.

Alessandro knew nothing of this; he could not have been made to believe

that the earth was moving. He thought the sun was coming up apace,

and the earth was standing still,--a belief just as grand, just as

thrilling, so far as all that goes, as the other: men worshipped the sun

long before they found out that it stood still. Not the most reverent

astronomer, with the mathematics of the heavens at his tongue's end,

could have had more delight in the wondrous phenomenon of the dawn, than

did this simple-minded, unlearned man.

His eyes wandered from the horizon line of slowly increasing light, to

the windows of the house, yet dark and still. “Which window is hers?

Will she open it when the song begins?” he thought. “Is it on this side

of the house? Who can she be? She was not here last year. Saw the saints

ever so beautiful a creature!”

At last came the full red ray across the meadow. Alessandro sprang to

his feet. In the next second Father Salvierderra flung up his south

window, and leaning out, his cowl thrown off, his thin gray locks

streaming back, began in a feeble but not unmelodious voice to sing,--

“O beautiful Queen,

Princess of Heaven.”

Before he had finished the second line, a half-dozen voices had joined

in,--the Senora, from her room at the west end of the veranda, beyond

the flowers; Felipe, from the adjoining room; Ramona, from hers, the

next; and Margarita and other of the maids already astir in the wings of

the house. As the volume of melody swelled, the canaries waked, and the

finches and the linnets in the veranda roof. The tiles of this roof were

laid on bundles of tule reeds, in which the linnets delighted to build

their nests. The roof was alive with them,--scores and scores, nay

hundreds, tame as chickens; their tiny shrill twitter was like the

tuning of myriads of violins.

“Singers at dawn

From the heavens above

People all regions;

Gladly we too sing,”

continued the hymn, the birds corroborating the stanza. Then men's

voices joined in,--Juan and Luigo, and a dozen more, walking slowly up

from the sheepfolds. The hymn was a favorite one, known to all.

“Come, O sinners,

Come, and we will sing

Tender hymns

To our refuge,”

was the chorus, repeated after each of the five verses of the hymn.

Alessandro also knew the hymn well. His father, Chief Pablo, had been

the leader of the choir at the San Luis Rey Mission in the last years of

its splendor, and had brought away with him much of the old choir music.

Some of the books had been written by his own hand, on parchment. He not

only sang well, but was a good player on the violin. There was not at

any of the Missions so fine a band of performers on stringed instruments

as at San Luis Rey. Father Peyri was passionately fond of music, and

spared no pains in training all the neophytes under his charge who

showed any special talent in that direction. Chief Pablo, after the

breaking up of the Mission, had settled at Temecula, with a small band

of his Indians, and endeavored, so far as was in his power, to keep

up the old religious services. The music in the little chapel of the

Temecula Indians was a surprise to all who heard it.

Alessandro had inherited his father's love and talent for music, and

knew all the old Mission music by heart. This hymn to the

“Beautiful Queen,

Princess of Heaven,”

was one of his special favorites; and as he heard verse after verse

rising, he could not forbear striking in.

At the first notes of this rich new voice, Ramona's voice ceased in

surprise; and, throwing up her window, she leaned out, eagerly looking

in all directions to see who it could be. Alessandro saw her, and sang

no more.

“What could it have been? Did I dream it?” thought Ramona, drew in her

head, and began to sing again.

With the next stanza of the chorus, the same rich barytone notes. They

seemed to float in under all the rest, and bear them along, as a great

wave bears a boat. Ramona had never heard such a voice. Felipe had

a good tenor, and she liked to sing with him, or to hear him; but

this--this was from another world, this sound. Ramona felt every note of

it penetrating her consciousness with a subtle thrill almost like pain.

When the hymn ended, she listened eagerly, hoping Father Salvierderra

would strike up a second hymn, as he often did; but he did not this

morning; there was too much to be done; everybody was in a hurry to

be at work: windows shut, doors opened; the sounds of voices from all

directions, ordering, questioning, answering, began to be heard. The sun

rose and let a flood of work-a-day light on the whole place.

Margarita ran and unlocked the chapel door, putting up a heartfelt

thanksgiving to Saint Francis and the Senorita, as she saw the snowy

altar-cloth in its place, looking, from that distance at least, as good

as new.

The Indians and the shepherds, and laborers of all sorts, were coming

towards the chapel. The Senora, with her best black silk handkerchief

bound tight around her forehead, the ends hanging down each side of her

face, making her look like an Assyrian priestess, was descending the

veranda steps, Felipe at her side; and Father Salvierderra had already

entered the chapel before Ramona appeared, or Alessandro stirred from

his vantage-post of observation at the willows.

When Ramona came out from the door she bore in her hands a high silver

urn filled with ferns. She had been for many days gathering and hoarding

these. They were hard to find, growing only in one place in a rocky

canon, several miles away.

As she stepped from the veranda to the ground, Alessandro walked slowly

up the garden-walk, facing her. She met his eyes, and, without knowing

why, thought, “That must be the Indian who sang.” As she turned to the

right and entered the chapel, Alessandro followed her hurriedly, and

knelt on the stones close to the chapel door. He would be near when she

came out. As he looked in at the door, he saw her glide up the aisle,

place the ferns on the reading-desk, and then kneel down by Felipe in

front of the altar. Felipe turned towards her, smiling slightly, with a

look as of secret intelligence.

“Ah, Senor Felipe has married. She is his wife,” thought Alessandro, and

a strange pain seized him. He did not analyze it; hardly knew what it

meant. He was only twenty-one. He had not thought much about women. He

was a distant, cold boy, his own people of the Temecula village said.

It had come, they believed, of learning to read, which was always bad.

Chief Pablo had not done his son any good by trying to make him like

white men. If the Fathers could have stayed, and the life at the Mission

have gone on, why, Alessandro could have had work to do for the Fathers,

as his father had before him. Pablo had been Father Peyri's right-hand

man at the Mission; had kept all the accounts about the cattle; paid the

wages; handled thousands of dollars of gold every month. But that was

“in the time of the king;” it was very different now. The Americans

would not let an Indian do anything but plough and sow and herd cattle.

A man need not read and write, to do that.

Even Pablo sometimes doubted whether he had done wisely in teaching

Alessandro all he knew himself. Pablo was, for one of his race, wise and

far-seeing. He perceived the danger threatening his people on all sides.

Father Peyri, before he left the country, had said to him: “Pablo, your

people will be driven like sheep to the slaughter, unless you keep them

together. Knit firm bonds between them; band them into pueblos; make

them work; and above all, keep peace with the whites. It is your only

chance.”

Most strenuously Pablo had striven to obey Father Peyri's directions. He

had set his people the example of constant industry, working steadily in

his fields and caring well for his herds. He had built a chapel in his

little village, and kept up forms of religious service there. Whenever

there were troubles with the whites, or rumors of them, he went from

house to house, urging, persuading, commanding his people to keep the

peace. At one time when there was an insurrection of some of the Indian

tribes farther south, and for a few days it looked as if there would

be a general Indian war, he removed the greater part of his band, men,

women, and children driving their flocks and herds with them, to

Los Angeles, and camped there for several days, that they might be

identified with the whites in case hostilities became serious.

But his labors did not receive the reward that they deserved. With every

day that the intercourse between his people and the whites increased,

he saw the whites gaining, his people surely losing ground, and his

anxieties deepened. The Mexican owner of the Temecula valley, a friend

of Father Peyri's, and a good friend also of Pablo's, had returned

to Mexico in disgust with the state of affairs in California, and was

reported to be lying at the point of death. This man's promise to Pablo,

that he and his people should always live in the valley undisturbed,

was all the title Pablo had to the village lands. In the days when the

promise was given, it was all that was necessary. The lines marking off

the Indians' lands were surveyed, and put on the map of the estate. No

Mexican proprietor ever broke faith with an Indian family or village,

thus placed on his lands.

But Pablo had heard rumors, which greatly disquieted him, that such

pledges and surveyed lines as these were coming to be held as of no

value, not binding on purchasers of grants. He was intelligent enough

to see that if this were so, he and his people were ruined. All these

perplexities and fears he confided to Alessandro; long anxious hours the

father and son spent together, walking back and forth in the village, or

sitting in front of their little adobe house, discussing what could be

done. There was always the same ending to the discussion,--a long sigh,

and, “We must wait, we can do nothing.”

No wonder Alessandro seemed, to the more ignorant and thoughtless young

men and women of his village, a cold and distant lad. He was made old

before his time. He was carrying in his heart burdens of which they

knew nothing. So long as the wheat fields came up well, and there was

no drought, and the horses and sheep had good pasture, in plenty, on the

hills, the Temecula people could be merry, go day by day to their easy

work, play games at sunset, and sleep sound all night. But Alessandro

and his father looked beyond. And this was the one great reason why

Alessandro had not yet thought about women, in way of love; this,

and also the fact that even the little education he had received was

sufficient to raise a slight barrier, of which he was unconsciously

aware, between him and the maidens of the village. If a quick, warm

fancy for any one of them ever stirred in his veins, he found himself

soon, he knew not how, cured of it. For a dance, or a game, or a

friendly chat, for the trips into the mountains after acorns, or to the

marshes for grasses and reeds, he was their good comrade, and they were

his; but never had the desire to take one of them for his wife, entered

into Alessandro's mind. The vista of the future, for him, was filled

full by thoughts which left no room for love's dreaming; one purpose and

one fear filled it,--the purpose to be his father's worthy successor,

for Pablo was old now, and very feeble; the fear, that exile and ruin

were in store for them all.

It was of these things he had been thinking as be walked alone, in

advance of his men, on the previous night, when he first saw Ramona

kneeling at the brook. Between that moment and the present, it seemed

to Alessandro that some strange miracle must have happened to him. The

purposes and the fears had alike gone. A face replaced them; a vague

wonder, pain, joy, he knew not what, filled him so to overflowing that

he was bewildered. If he had been what the world calls a civilized man,

he would have known instantly and would have been capable of weighing,

analyzing, and reflecting on his sensations at leisure. But he was not

a civilized man; he had to bring to bear on his present situation only

simple, primitive, uneducated instincts and impulses. If Ramona had been

a maiden of his own people or race, he would have drawn near to her as

quickly as iron to the magnet. But now, if he had gone so far as to even

think of her in such a way, she would have been, to his view, as far

removed from him as was the morning star beneath whose radiance he had

that morning watched, hoping for sight of her at her window. He did not,

however, go so far as to thus think of her. Even that would have

been impossible. He only knelt on the stones outside the chapel door,

mechanically repeating the prayers with the rest, waiting for her to

reappear. He had no doubt, now, that she was Senor Felipe's wife; all

the same he wished to kneel there till she came out, that he might see

her face again. His vista of purpose, fear, hope, had narrowed now down

to that,--just one more sight of her. Ever so civilized, he could hardly

have worshipped a woman better. The mass seemed to him endlessly long.

Until near the last, he forgot to sing; then, in the closing of the

final hymn, he suddenly remembered, and the clear deep-toned voice

pealed out, as before, like the undertone of a great sea-wave, sweeping

along.

Ramona heard the first note, and felt again the same thrill. She was as

much a musician born as Alessandro himself. As she rose from her knees,

she whispered to Felipe: “Felipe, do find out which one of the Indians

it is has that superb voice. I never heard anything like it.”

“Oh, that is Alessandro,” replied Felipe, “old Pablo's son. He is a

splendid fellow. Don't you recollect his singing two years ago?”

“I was not here,” replied Ramona; “you forget.”

“Ah, yes, so you were away; I had forgotten,” said Felipe. “Well, he

was here. They made him captain of the shearing-band, though he was only

twenty, and he managed the men splendidly. They saved nearly all their

money to carry home, and I never knew them do such a thing before.

Father Salvierderra was here, which might have had something to do with

it; but I think it was quite as much Alessandro. He plays the violin

beautifully. I hope he has brought it along. He plays the old San Luis

Rey music. His father was band-master there.”

Ramona's eyes kindled with pleasure. “Does your mother like it, to have

him play?” she asked.

Felipe nodded. “We'll have him up on the veranda tonight,” he said.

While this whispered colloquy was going on, the chapel had emptied,

the Indians and Mexicans all hurrying out to set about the day's work.

Alessandro lingered at the doorway as long as he dared, till he was

sharply called by Juan Canito, looking back: “What are you gaping at

there, you Alessandro! Hurry, now, and get your men to work. After

waiting till near midsummer for this shearing, we'll make as quick work

of it as we can. Have you got your best shearers here?”

“Ay, that I have,” answered Alessandro; “not a man of them but can shear

his hundred in a day, There is not such a band as ours in all San Diego

County; and we don't turn out the sheep all bleeding, either; you'll see

scarce a scratch on their sides.”

“Humph.” retorted Juan Can. “'Tis a poor shearer, indeed, that draws

blood to speak of. I've sheared many a thousand sheep in my day, and

never a red stain on the shears. But the Mexicans have always been famed

for good shearers.”

Juan's invidious emphasis on the word “Mexicans” did not escape

Alessandro. “And we Indians also,” he answered, good-naturedly,

betraying no annoyance; “but as for these Americans, I saw one at work

the other day, that man Lomax, who settled near Temecula, and upon my

faith, Juan Can, I thought it was a slaughter-pen, and not a shearing.

The poor beasts limped off with the blood running.”

Juan did not see his way clear at the moment to any fitting rejoinder to

this easy assumption, on Alessandro's part, of the equal superiority

of Indians and Mexicans in the sheep-shearing art; so, much vexed, with

another “Humph!” he walked away; walked away so fast, that he lost the

sight of a smile on Alessandro's face, which would have vexed him still

further.

At the sheep-shearing sheds and pens all was stir and bustle. The

shearing shed was a huge caricature of a summerhouse,--a long, narrow

structure, sixty feet long by twenty or thirty wide, all roof and

pillars; no walls; the supports, slender rough posts, as far apart

as was safe, for the upholding of the roof, which was of rough planks

loosely laid from beam to beam. On three sides of this were the

sheep-pens filled with sheep and lambs.

A few rods away stood the booths in which the shearers' food was to be

cooked and the shearers fed. These were mere temporary affairs, roofed

only by willow boughs with the leaves left on. Near these, the Indians

had already arranged their camp; a hut or two of green boughs had

been built, but for the most part they would sleep rolled up in their

blankets, on the ground. There was a brisk wind, and the gay colored

wings of the windmill blew furiously round and round, pumping out into

the tank below a stream of water so swift and strong, that as the men

crowded around, wetting and sharpening their knives, they got well

spattered, and had much merriment, pushing and elbowing each other into

the spray.

A high four-posted frame stood close to the shed; in this, swung from

the four corners, hung one of the great sacking bags in which the

fleeces were to be packed. A big pile of bags lay on the ground at the

foot of the posts. Juan Can eyed them with a chuckle. “We'll fill more

than those before night, Senor Felipe,” he said. He was in his element,

Juan Can, at shearing times. Then came his reward for the somewhat

monotonous and stupid year's work. The world held no better feast for

his eyes than the sight of a long row of big bales of fleece, tied,

stamped with the Moreno brand, ready to be drawn away to the mills.

“Now, there is something substantial,” he thought; “no chance of wool

going amiss in market!”

If a year's crop were good, Juan's happiness was assured for the next

six months. If it proved poor, he turned devout immediately, and

spent the next six months calling on the saints for better luck, and

redoubling his exertions with the sheep.

On one of the posts of the shed short projecting slats were nailed, like

half-rounds of a ladder. Lightly as a rope-walker Felipe ran up these,

to the roof, and took his stand there, ready to take the fleeces and

pack them in the bag as fast as they should be tossed up from below.

Luigo, with a big leathern wallet fastened in front of him, filled with

five-cent pieces, took his stand in the centre of the shed. The thirty

shearers, running into the nearest pen, dragged each his sheep into

the shed, in a twinkling of an eye had the creature between his knees,

helpless, immovable, and the sharp sound of the shears set in. The

sheep-shearing had begun. No rest now. Not a second's silence from the

bleating, baa-ing, opening and shutting, clicking, sharpening of shears,

flying of fleeces through the air to the roof, pressing and stamping

them down in the bales; not a second's intermission, except the hour of

rest at noon, from sunrise till sunset, till the whole eight thousand

of the Senora Moreno's sheep were shorn. It was a dramatic spectacle. As

soon as a sheep was shorn, the shearer ran with the fleece in his

hand to Luigo, threw it down on a table, received his five-cent piece,

dropped it in his pocket, ran to the pen, dragged out another sheep, and

in less than five minutes was back again with a second fleece. The shorn

sheep, released, bounded off into another pen, where, light in the head

no doubt from being three to five pounds lighter on their legs, they

trotted round bewilderedly for a moment, then flung up their heels and

capered for joy.

It was warm work. The dust from the fleeces and the trampling feet

filled the air. As the sun rose higher in the sky the sweat poured off

the men's faces; and Felipe, standing without shelter on the roof, found

out very soon that he had by no means yet got back his full strength

since the fever. Long before noon, except for sheer pride, and for

the recollection of Juan Canito's speech, he would have come down and

yielded his place to the old man. But he was resolved not to give up,

and he worked on, though his face was purple and his head throbbing.

After the bag of fleeces is half full, the packer stands in it, jumping

with his full weight on the wool, as he throws in the fleeces, to

compress them as much as possible. When Felipe began to do this, he

found that he had indeed overrated his strength. As the first cloud of

the sickening dust came up, enveloping his head, choking his breath,

he turned suddenly dizzy, and calling faintly, “Juan, I am ill,” sank

helpless down in the wool. He had fainted. At Juan Canito's scream of

dismay, a great hubbub and outcry arose; all saw instantly what had

happened. Felipe's head was hanging limp over the edge of the bag, Juan

in vain endeavoring to get sufficient foothold by his side to lift him.

One after another the men rushed up the ladder, until they were all

standing, a helpless, excited crowd, on the roof, one proposing one

thing, one another. Only Luigo had had the presence of mind to run to

the house for help. The Senora was away from home. She had gone with

Father Salvierderra to a friend's house, a half-day's journey off.

But Ramona was there. Snatching all she could think of in way of

restoratives, she came flying back with Luigo, followed by every servant

of the establishment, all talking, groaning, gesticulating, suggesting,

wringing their hands,--as disheartening a Babel as ever made bad matters

worse.

Reaching the shed, Ramona looked up to the roof bewildered. “Where is

he?” she cried. The next instant she saw his head, held in Juan Canito's

arms, just above the edge of the wool-bag. She groaned, “Oh, how will he

ever be lifted out!”

“I will lift him, Senora,” cried Alessandro, coming to the front, “I am

very strong. Do not be afraid; I will bring him safe down.” And swinging

himself down the ladder, he ran swiftly to the camp, and returned,

bringing in his hands blankets. Springing quickly to the roof again,

he knotted the blankets firmly together, and tying them at the middle

around his waist, threw the ends to his men, telling them to hold him

firm. He spoke in the Indian tongue as he was hurriedly doing this,

and Ramona did not at first understand his plan. But when she saw

the Indians move a little back from the edge of the roof, holding the

blankets firm grasped, while Alessandro stepped out on one of the narrow

cross-beams from which the bag swung, she saw what he meant to do. She

held her breath. Felipe was a slender man; Alessandro was much heavier,

and many inches taller. Still, could any man carry such a burden safely

on that narrow beam! Ramona looked away, and shut her eyes, through

the silence which followed. It was only a few moments; but it seemed an

eternity before a glad murmur of voices told her that it was done, and

looking up, she saw Felipe lying on the roof, unconscious, his face

white, his eyes shut. At this sight, all the servants broke out afresh,

weeping and wailing, “He is dead! He is dead!”

Ramona stood motionless, her eyes fixed on Felipe's face. She, too,

believed him dead; but her thought was of the Senora.

“He is not dead,” cried Juan Canito, who had thrust his hand under

Felipe's shirt. “He is not dead. It is only a faint.”

At this the first tears rolled down Ramona's face. She looked piteously

at the ladder up and down which she had seen Alessandro run as if it

were an easy indoor staircase. “If I could only get up there!” she said,

looking from one to another. “I think I can;” and she put one foot on

the lower round.

“Holy Virgin!” cried Juan Can, seeing her movement. “Senorita! Senorita!

do not attempt it. It is not too easy for a man. You will break your

neck. He is fast coming to his senses.”

Alessandro caught the words. Spite of all the confusion and terror of

the scene, his heart heard the word, “Senorita.” Ramona was not the

wife of Felipe, or of any man. Yet Alessandro recollected that he had

addressed her as Senora, and she did not seem surprised. Coming to the

front of the group he said, bending forward, “Senorita!” There must

have been something in the tone which made Ramona start. The simple word

could not have done it. “Senorita,” said Alessandro, “it will be nothing

to bring Senor Felipe down the ladder. He is, in my arms, no more

than one of the lambs yonder. I will bring him down as soon as he is

recovered. He is better here till then. He will very soon be himself

again. It was only the heat.” Seeing that the expression of anxious

distress did not grow less on Ramona's face, he continued, in a tone

still more earnest, “Will not the Senorita trust me to bring him safe

down?”

Ramona smiled faintly through her tears. “Yes,” she said, “I will trust

you. You are Alessandro, are you not?”

“Yes, Senorita,” he answered, greatly surprised, “I am Alessandro.”

VI

A BAD beginning did not make a good ending of the Senora Moreno's

sheep-shearing this year. One as superstitiously prejudiced against

Roman Catholic rule as she was in favor of it, would have found, in the

way things fell out, ample reason for a belief that the Senora was

being punished for having let all the affairs of her place come to a

standstill, to await the coming of an old monk. But the pious Senora,

looking at the other side of the shield, was filled with gratitude

that, since all this ill luck was to befall her, she had the good Father

Salvierderra at her side to give her comfort and counsel.

It was not yet quite noon of the first day, when Felipe fainted and fell

in the wool; and it was only a little past noon of the third, when

Juan Canito, who, not without some secret exultation, had taken Senor

Felipe's place at the packing, fell from the cross-beam to the ground,

and broke his right leg,--a bad break near the knee; and Juan Canito's

bones were much too old for fresh knitting. He would never again be able

to do more than hobble about on crutches, dragging along the useless

leg. It was a cruel blow to the old man. He could not be resigned to

it. He lost faith in his saints, and privately indulged in blasphemous

beratings and reproaches of them, which would have filled the Senora

with terror, had she known that such blasphemies were being committed

under her roof.

“As many times as I have crossed that plank, in my day!” cried Juan;

“only the fiends themselves could have made me trip; and there was that

whole box of candles I paid for with my own money last month, and burned

to Saint Francis in the chapel for this very sheep-shearing! He may sit

in the dark, for all me, to the end of time! He is no saint at all! What

are they for, if not to keep us from harm when we pray to them? I'll

pray no more. I believe the Americans are right, who laugh at us.” From

morning till night, and nearly from night till morning, for the leg

ached so he slept little, poor Juan groaned and grumbled and swore, and

swore and grumbled and groaned. Taking care of him was enough, Margarita

said, to wear out the patience of the Madonna herself. There was no

pleasing him, whatever you did, and his tongue was never still a minute.

For her part, she believed that it must be as he said, that the fiends

had pushed him off the plank, and that the saints had had their reasons

for leaving him to his fate. A coldness and suspicion gradually grew up

in the minds of all the servants towards him. His own reckless language,

combined with Margarita's reports, gave the superstitious fair ground

for believing that something had gone mysteriously wrong, and that the

Devil was in a fair way to get his soul, which was very hard for the old

man, in addition to all the rest he had to bear. The only alleviation he

had for his torments, was in having his fellow-servants, men and women,

drop in, sit by his pallet, and chat with him, telling him all that was

going on; and when by degrees they dropped off, coming more and more

seldom, and one by one leaving off coming altogether, it was the one

drop that overflowed his cup of misery; and he turned his face to the

wall, left off grumbling, and spoke only when he must.

This phase frightened Margarita even more than the first. Now, she

thought, surely the dumb terror and remorse of one who belongs to the

Devil had seized him, and her hands trembled as she went through the

needful ministrations for him each day. Three months, at least, the

doctor, who had come from Ventura to set the leg, had said he must lie

still in bed and be thus tended. “Three months!” sighed Margarita. “If I

be not dead or gone crazy myself before the end of that be come!”

The Senora was too busy with Felipe to pay attention or to give thought

to Juan. Felipe's fainting had been the symptom and beginning of a

fierce relapse of the fever, and he was lying in his bed, tossing and

raving in delirium, always about the wool.

“Throw them faster, faster! That's a good fleece; five pounds more; a

round ton in those bales. Juan! Alessandro! Captain!--Jesus, how this

sun burns my head!”

Several times he had called “Alessandro” so earnestly, that Father

Salvierderra advised bringing Alessandro into the room, to see if by any

chance there might have been something in his mind that he wished to say

to him. But when Alessandro stood by the bedside, Felipe gazed at

him vacantly, as he did at all the others, still repeating, however,

“Alessandro! Alessandro!”

“I think perhaps he wants Alessandro to play on his violin,” sobbed out

Ramona. “He was telling me how beautifully Alessandro played, and said

he would have him up on the veranda in the evening to play to us.”

“We might try it,” said Father Salvierderra. “Have you your violin here,

Alessandro?”

“Alas, no, Father,” replied Alessandro, “I did not bring it.”

“Perhaps it would do him good it you were to sing, then,” said Ramona.

“He was speaking of your voice also.”

“Oh, try, try.” said the Senorita, turning to Alessandro. “Sing

something low and soft.”

Alessandro walked from the bed to the open window, and after thinking

for a moment, began a slow strain from one of the masses.

At the first note, Felipe became suddenly quiet, evidently listening. An

expression of pleasure spread over his feverish face. He turned his head

to one side, put his hand under his cheek and closed his eyes. The three

watching him looked at each other in astonishment.

“It is a miracle,” said Father Salvierderra. “He will sleep.”

“It was what he wanted!” whispered Ramona.

The Senora spoke not, but buried her face in the bedclothes for a

second; then lifting it, she gazed at Alessandro as if she were praying

to a saint. He, too, saw the change in Felipe, and sang lower and lower,

till the notes sounded as if they came from afar; lower and lower,

slower; finally they ceased, as if they died away lost in distance. As

they ceased, Felipe opened his eyes.

“Oh, go on, go on!” the Senora implored in a whisper shrill with

anxiety. “Do not stop!”

Alessandro repeated the strain, slow, solemn; his voice trembled; the

air in the room seemed stifling, spite of the open window; he felt

something like terror, as he saw Felipe evidently sinking to sleep by

reason of the notes of his voice. There had been nothing in Alessandro's

healthy outdoor experience to enable him to understand such a

phenomenon. Felipe breathed more and more slowly, softly, regularly;

soon he was in a deep sleep. The singing stopped; Felipe did not stir.

“Can I go?” whispered Alessandro.

“No, no.” replied the Senora, impatiently. “He may wake any minute.”

Alessandro looked troubled, but bowed his head submissively, and

remained standing by the window. Father Salvierderra was kneeling on

one side of the bed, the Senora at the other, Ramona at the foot,--all

praying; the silence was so great that the slight sounds of the rosary

beads slipping against each other seemed loud. In a niche in the wall,

at the head of the bed, stood a statue of the Madonna, on the other side

a picture of Santa Barbara. Candles were burning before each. The long

wicks smouldered and died down, sputtering, then flared up again as

the ends fell into the melted wax. The Senora's eyes were fixed on the

Madonna. The Father's were closed. Ramona gazed at Felipe with tears

streaming down her face as she mechanically told her beads.

“She is his betrothed, no doubt,” thought Alessandro. “The saints will

not let him die;” and Alessandro also prayed. But the oppression of the

scene was too much for him. Laying his hand on the low window-sill, he

vaulted over it, saying to Ramona, who turned her head at the sound,

“I will not go away, Senorita, I will be close under the window, if he

awakes.”

Once in the open air, he drew a long breath, and gazed bewilderedly

about him, like one just recovering consciousness after a faint. Then

he threw himself on the ground under the window, and lay looking up into

the sky. Capitan came up, and with a low whine stretched himself out at

full length by his side. The dog knew as well as any other one of the

house that danger and anguish were there.

One hour passed, two, three; still no sound from Felipe's room.

Alessandro rose, and looked in at the window. The Father and the Senora

had not changed their attitudes; their lips were yet moving in prayer.

But Ramona had yielded to her fatigue; slipped from her knees into a

sitting posture, with her head leaning against the post of the bedstead,

and fallen asleep. Her face was swollen and discolored by weeping, and

heavy circles under her eyes told how tired she was. For three days and

nights she had scarcely rested, so constant were the demands on her.

Between Felipe's illness and Juan Can's, there was not a moment without

something to be done, or some perplexing question to be settled, and

above all, and through all, the terrible sorrow. Ramona was broken down

with grief at the thought of Felipe's death. She had never known till

she saw him lying there delirious, and as she in her inexperience

thought, dying, how her whole life was entwined with his. But now, at

the very thought of what it would be to live without him, her heart

sickened. “When he is buried, I will ask Father Salvierderra to take

me away. I never can live here alone,” she said to herself, never for a

moment perceiving that the word “alone” was a strange one to have come

into her mind in the connection. The thought of the Senora did not enter

into her imaginations of the future which so smote her with terror. In

the Senora's presence, Ramona always felt herself alone.

Alessandro stood at the window, his arms folded, leaning on the sill,

his eyes fixed on Ramona's face and form. To any other than a lover's

eyes she had not looked beautiful now; but to Alessandro she looked more

beautiful than the picture of Santa Barbara on the wall beyond. With a

lover's instinct he knew the thoughts which had written such lines

on her face in the last three days. “It will kill her if he dies,”

he thought, “if these three days have made her look like that.” And

Alessandro threw himself on the ground again, his face down. He did not

know whether it were an hour or a day that he had lain there, when he

heard Father Salvierderra's voice speaking his name. He sprang up, to

see the old monk standing in the window, tears running down his cheeks.

“God be praised,” he said, “the Senor Felipe will get well. A sweat has

broken out on his skin; he still sleeps, but when he wakes he will be in

his right mind. The strength of the fever is broken. But, Alessandro, we

know not how to spare you. Can you not let the men go without you, and

remain here? The Senora would like to have you remain in Juan Can's

place till he is about. She will give you the same wages he had. Would

it not be a good thing for you, Alessandro? You cannot be sure of

earning so much as that for the next three months, can you?”

While the Father was speaking, a tumult had been going on in

Alessandro's breast. He did not know by name any of the impulses which

were warring there, tearing him in twain, as it were, by their pulling

in opposite directions; one saying “Stay!” and the other saying “Go!”

He would not have known what any one meant, who had said to him, “It

is danger to stay; it is safety to fly.” All the same, he felt as if he

could do neither.

“There is another shearing yet, Father,” he began, “at the Ortega's

ranch. I had promised to go to them as soon as I had finished here, and

they have been wroth enough with us for the delay already. It will not

do to break the promise, Father.”

Father Salvierderra's face fell. “No, my son, certainly not,” he said;

“but could no one else take your place with the band?”

Hearing these words, Ramona came to the window, and leaning out,

whispered, “Are you talking about Alessandro's staying? Let me come

and talk to him. He must not go.” And running swiftly through the hall,

across the veranda, and down the steps, she stood by Alessandro's side

in a moment. Looking up in his face pleadingly, she said: “We can't let

you go, Alessandro. The Senor will pay wages to some other to go in your

place with the shearers. We want you to stay here in Juan Can's place

till he is well. Don't say you can't stay! Felipe may need you to sing

again, and what would we do then? Can't you stay?”

“Yes, I can stay, Senorita,” answered Alessandro, gravely. “I will stay

so long as you need me.”

“Oh, thank you, Alessandro!” Ramona cried. “You are good, to stay. The

Senora will see that it is no loss to you;” and she flew back to the

house.

“It is not for the wages, Senorita,” Alessandro began; but Ramona

was gone. She did not hear him, and he turned away with a sense of

humiliation. “I don't want the Senorita to think that it was the money

kept me,” he said, turning to Father Salvierderra. “I would not leave

the band for money; it is to help, because they are in trouble, Father.”

“Yes, yes, son. I understand that,” replied the monk, who had known

Alessandro since he was a little fellow playing in the corridors of San

Luis Rey, the pet of all the Brothers there. “That is quite right of

you, and the Senora will not be insensible of it. It is not for such

things that money can pay. They are indeed in great trouble now, and

only the two women in the house; and I must soon be going on my way

North again.”

“Is it sure that Senor Felipe will get well?” asked Alessandro.

“I think so,” replied Father Salvierderra. “These relapses are always

worse than the first attack; but I have never known one to die, after

he had the natural sweat to break from the skin, and got good sleep. I

doubt not he will be in his bed, though, for many days, and there will

be much to be seen to. It was an ill luck to have Juan Can laid up,

too, just at this time. I must go and see him; I hear he is in most

rebellious frame of mind, and blasphemes impiously.”

“That does he!” said Alessandro. “He swears the saints gave him over to

the fiends to push him off the plank, and he'll have none of them from

this out! I told him to beware, or they might bring him to worse things

yet if he did not mend his speech of them.”

Sighing deeply as they walked along, the monk said: “It is but a sign

of the times. Blasphemers are on the highway. The people are being

corrupted. Keeps your father the worship in the chapel still, and does a

priest come often to the village?”

“Only twice a year,” replied Alessandro; “and sometimes for a funeral,

if there is money enough to pay for the mass. But my father has the

chapel open, and each Sunday we sing what we know of the mass; and the

people are often there praying.”

“Ay, ay! Ever for money!” groaned Father Salvierderra, not heeding the

latter part of the sentence. “Ever for money! It is a shame. But that it

were sure to be held as a trespass, I would go myself to Temecula once

in three months; but I may not. The priests do not love our order.”

“Oh, if you could, Father,” exclaimed Alessandro, “it would make my

father very glad! He speaks often to me of the difference he sees

between the words of the Church now and in the days of the Mission. He

is very sad, Father, and in great fear about our village. They say the

Americans, when they buy the Mexicans' lands, drive the Indians away as

if they were dogs; they say we have no right to our lands. Do you think

that can be so, Father, when we have always lived on them, and the

owners promised them to us forever?”

Father Salvierderra was silent a long time before replying, and

Alessandro watched his face anxiously. He seemed to be hesitating for

words to convey his meaning. At last he said: “Got your father any

notice, at any time since the Americans took the country,--notice to

appear before a court, or anything about a title to the land?”

“No, Father,” replied Alessandro.

“There has to be some such paper, as I understand their laws,” continued

the monk; “some notice, before any steps can be taken to remove Indians

from an estate. It must be done according to the law, in the courts. If

you have had no such notice, you are not in danger.”

“But, Father,” persisted Alessandro, “how could there be a law to take

away from us the land which the Senor Valdez gave us forever?”

“Gave he to you any paper, any writing to show it?”

“No, no paper; but it is marked in red lines on the map. It was marked

off by Jose Ramirez, of Los Angeles, when they marked all the boundaries

of Senor Valdez's estate. They had many instruments of brass and wood to

measure with, and a long chain, very heavy, which I helped them carry.

I myself saw it marked on the map. They all slept in my father's

house,--Senor Valdez, and Ramirez, and the man who made the measures. He

hired one of our men to carry his instruments, and I went to help, for I

wished to see how it was done; but I could understand nothing, and Jose

told me a man must study many years to learn the way of it. It seemed to

me our way, by the stones, was much better. But I know it is all marked

on the map, for it was with a red line; and my father understood it, and

Jose Ramirez and Senor Valdez both pointed to it with their finger, and

they said, 'All this here is your land, Pablo, always.' I do not think

my father need fear, do you?”

“I hope not,” replied Father Salvierderra, cautiously; “but since the

way that all the lands of the Missions have been taken away, I have

small faith in the honesty of the Americans. I think they will take all

that they can. The Church has suffered terrible loss at their hands.”

“That is what my father says,” replied Alessandro. “He says, 'Look at

San Luis Rey! Nothing but the garden and orchard left, of all their vast

lands where they used to pasture thirty thousand sheep. If the Church

and the Fathers could not keep their lands, what can we Indians do?'

That is what my father says.”

“True, true!” said the monk, as he turned into the door of the room

where Juan Can lay on his narrow bed, longing yet fearing to see Father

Salvierderra's face coming in. “We are all alike helpless in their

hands, Alessandro. They possess the country, and can make what laws they

please. We can only say, 'God's will be done,'” and he crossed himself

devoutly, repeating the words twice.

Alessandro did the same, and with a truly devout spirit, for he was full

of veneration for the Fathers and their teachings; but as he walked on

towards the shearing-shed he thought: “Then, again, how can it be God's

will that wrong be done? It cannot be God's will that one man should

steal from another all he has. That would make God no better than a

thief, it looks to me. But how can it happen, if it is not God's will?”

It does not need that one be educated, to see the logic in this formula.

Generations of the oppressed and despoiled, before Alessandro, had

grappled with the problem in one shape or another.

At the shearing-shed, Alessandro found his men in confusion and

ill-humor. The shearing had been over and done by ten in the morning,

and why were they not on their way to the Ortega's? Waiting all day,--it

was now near sunset,--with nothing to do, and still worse with not

much of anything to eat, had made them all cross; and no wonder. The

economical Juan Can, finding that the work would be done by ten, and

supposing they would be off before noon, had ordered only two sheep

killed for them the day before, and the mutton was all gone, and old

Marda, getting her cue from Juan, had cooked no more frijoles than the

family needed themselves; so the poor shearers had indeed had a sorry

day of it, in no wise alleviated either by the reports brought from time

to time that their captain was lying on the ground, face down, under

Senor Felipe's window, and must not be spoken to.

It was not a propitious moment for Alessandro to make the announcement

of his purpose to leave the band; but he made a clean breast of it in

few words, and diplomatically diverted all resentment from himself by

setting them immediately to voting for a new captain to take his place

for the remainder of the season.

“Very well!” they said hotly; “captain for this year, captain for next,

too!” It wasn't so easy to step out and in again of the captaincy of the

shearers!

“All right,” said Alessandro; “please yourselves! It is all the same

to me. But here I am going to stay for the present. Father Salvierderra

wishes it.”

“Oh, if the Father wishes it, that is different.” “Ah, that alters

the case!” “Alessandro is right!” came up in confused murmur from the

appeased crowd. They were all good Catholics, every one of the Temecula

men, and would never think of going against the Father's orders. But

when they understood that Alessandro's intention was to remain until

Juan Canito's leg should be well enough for him to go about again, fresh

grumblings began. That would not do. It would be all summer. Alessandro

must be at home for the Saint Juan's Day fete, in midsummer,--no doing

anything without Alessandro then. What was he thinking of? Not of the

midsummer fete, that was certain, when he promised to stay as long as

the Senorita Ramona should need him. Alessandro had remembered nothing

except the Senorita's voice, while she was speaking to him. If he had

had a hundred engagements for the summer, he would have forgotten

them all. Now that he was reminded of the midsummer fete, it must be

confessed he was for a moment dismayed at the recollection; for that was

a time, when, as he well knew, his father could not do without his help.

There were sometimes a thousand Indians at this fete, and disorderly

whites took advantage of the occasion to sell whisky and encourage all

sorts of license and disturbance. Yes, Alessandro's clear path of duty

lay at Temecula when that fete came off. That was certain.

“I will manage to be at home then,” he said. “If I am not through here

by that time, I will at least come for the fete. That you may depend

on.”

The voting for the new captain did not take long. There was, in fact,

but one man in the band fit for the office. That was Fernando, the only

old man in the band; all the rest were young men under thirty, or boys.

Fernando had been captain for several years, but had himself begged,

two years ago, that the band would elect Alessandro in his place. He was

getting old, and he did not like to have to sit up and walk about the

first half of every night, to see that the shearers were not gambling

away all their money at cards; he preferred to roll himself up in his

blanket at sunset and sleep till dawn the next morning. But just for

these few remaining weeks he had no objection to taking the office

again. And Alessandro was right, entirely right, in remaining; they

ought all to see that, Fernando said; and his word had great weight with

the men.

The Senora Moreno, he reminded them, had always been a good friend

of theirs, and had said that so long as she had sheep to shear, the

Temecula shearers should do it; and it would be very ungrateful now if

they did not do all they could to help her in her need.

The blankets were rolled up, the saddles collected, the ponies caught

and driven up to the shed, when Ramona and Margarita were seen coming at

full speed from the house.

“Alessandro! Alessandro!” cried Ramona, out of breath, “I have only just

now heard that the men have had no dinner to-day. I am ashamed; but you

know it would not have happened except for the sickness in the house.

Everybody thought they were going away this morning. Now they must have

a good supper before they go. It is already cooking. Tell them to wait.”

Those of the men who understood the Spanish language, in which Ramona

spoke, translated it to those who did not, and there was a cordial

outburst of thanks to the Senorita from all lips. All were only too

ready to wait for the supper. Their haste to begin on the Ortega

sheep-shearing had suddenly faded from their minds. Only Alessandro

hesitated.

“It is a good six hours' ride to Ortega's,” he said to the men. “You'll

be late in, if you do not start now.”

“Supper will be ready in an hour,” said Ramona. “Please let them stay;

one hour can't make any difference.”

Alessandro smiled. “It will take nearer two, Senorita, before they are

off,” he said; “but it shall be as you wish, and many thanks to you,

Senorita, for thinking of it.”

“Oh, I did not think of it myself,” said Ramona. “It was Margarita,

here, who came and told me. She knew we would be ashamed to have the

shearers go away hungry. I am afraid they are very hungry indeed,” she

added ruefully. “It must be dreadful to go a whole day without anything

to eat; they had their breakfast soon after sunrise, did they not?”

“Yes, Senorita,” answered Alessandro, “but that is not long; one can do

without food very well for one day. I often do.”

“Often.” exclaimed Ramona; “but why should you do that?” Then suddenly

bethinking herself, she said in her heart, “Oh, what a thoughtless

question! Can it be they are so poor as that?” And to save Alessandro

from replying, she set off on a run for the house, saying, “Come, come,

Margarita, we must go and help at the supper.”

“Will the Senorita let me help, too,” asked Alessandro, wondering at his

own boldness,--“if there is anything I can do?”

“Oh, no,” she cried, “there is not. Yes, there is, too. You can help

carry the things down to the booth; for we are short of hands now, with

Juan Can in bed, and Luigo gone to Ventura for the doctor. You and some

of your men might carry all the supper over. I'll call you when we are

ready.”

The men sat down in a group and waited contentedly, smoking, chatting,

and laughing. Alessandro walked up and down between the kitchen and

the shed. He could hear the sounds of rattling dishes, jingling spoons,

frying, pouring water. Savory smells began to be wafted out. Evidently

old Marda meant to atone for the shortcoming of the noon. Juan Can, in

his bed, also heard and smelled what was going on. “May the fiends get

me,” he growled, “if that wasteful old hussy isn't getting up a feast

for those beasts of Indians! There's mutton and onions, and peppers

stewing, and potatoes, I'll be bound, and God knows what else, for

beggars that are only too thankful to get a handful of roasted wheat or

a bowl of acorn porridge at home. Well, they'll have to say they

were well feasted at the Moreno's,--that's one comfort. I wonder if

Margarita'll think I am worthy of tasting that stew! San Jose! but it

smells well! Margarita! Margarita!” he called at top of his lungs; but

Margarita did not hear. She was absorbed in her duties in the kitchen;

and having already taken Juan at sundown a bowl of the good broth which

the doctor had said was the only sort of food he must eat for two weeks,

she had dismissed him from her mind for the night. Moreover, Margarita

was absent-minded to-night. She was more than half in love with the

handsome Alessandro, who, when he had been on the ranch the year

before, had danced with her, and said many a light pleasant word to her,

evenings, as a young man may; and what ailed him now, that he seemed,

when he saw her, as if she were no more than a transparent shade,

through which he stared at the sky behind her, she did not know. Senor

Felipe's illness, she thought, and the general misery and confusion,

had perhaps put everything else out of his head; but now he was going

to stay, and it would be good fun having him there, if only Senor Felipe

got well, which he seemed likely to do. And as Margarita flew about,

here, there, and everywhere, she cast frequent glances at the tall

straight figure pacing up and down in the dusk outside.

Alessandro did not see her. He did not see anything. He was looking off

at the sunset, and listening. Ramona had said, “I will call you when we

are ready.” But she did not do as she said. She told Margarita to call.

“Run, Margarita,” she said. “All is ready now; see if Alessandro is in

sight. Call him to come and take the things.”

So it was Margarita's voice, and not Ramona's, that called “Alessandro!

Alessandro! the supper is ready.”

But it was Ramona who, when Alessandro reached the doorway, stood there

holding in her arms a huge smoking platter of the stew which had so

roused poor Juan Can's longings; and it was Ramona who said, as she gave

it into Alessandro's hands, “Take care, Alessandro, it is very full. The

gravy will run over if you are not careful. You are not used to waiting

on table;” and as she said it, she smiled full into Alessandro's

eyes,--a little flitting, gentle, friendly smile, which went near to

making him drop the platter, mutton, gravy, and all, then and there, at

her feet.

The men ate fast and greedily, and it was not, after all, much more than

an hour, when, full fed and happy, they were mounting their horses to

set off. At the last moment Alessandro drew one of them aside. “Jose,”

he said, “whose horse is the faster, yours or Antonio's?”

“Mine,” promptly replied Jose. “Mine, by a great deal. I will run

Antonio any day he likes.”

Alessandro knew this as well before asking as after. But Alessandro was

learning a great many things in these days, among other things a little

diplomacy. He wanted a man to ride at the swiftest to Temecula and back.

He knew that Jose's pony could go like the wind. He also knew that there

was a perpetual feud of rivalry between him and Antonio, in matter of

the fleetness of their respective ponies. So, having chosen Jose for

his messenger, he went thus to work to make sure that he would urge his

horse to its utmost speed.

Whispering in Jose's ear a few words, he said, “Will you go? I will pay

you for the time, all you could earn at the shearing.”

“I will go,” said Jose, elated. “You will see me back tomorrow by

sundown.”

“Not earlier?” asked Alessandro. “I thought by noon.”

“Well, by noon be it, then,” said Jose. “The horse can do it.”

“Have great care!” said Alessandro.

“That will I,” replied Jose; and giving his horse's sides a sharp punch

with his knees, set off at full gallop westward.

“I have sent Jose with a message to Temecula,” said Alessandro, walking

up to Fernando. “He will be back here tomorrow noon, and join you at the

Ortega's the next morning.”

“Back here by noon to-morrow!” exclaimed Fernando. “Not unless he kills

his horse!”

“That was what he said,” replied Alessandro, nonchalantly.

“Easy enough, too!” cried Antonio, riding up on his little dun mare.

“I'd go in less time than that, on this mare. Jose's is no match for

her, and never was. Why did you not send me, Alessandro?”

“Is your horse really faster than Jose's?” said Alessandro. “Then I wish

I had sent you. I'll send you next time.”

VII

IT was strange to see how quickly and naturally Alessandro fitted into

his place in the household. How tangles straightened out, and rough

places became smooth, as he quietly took matters in hand. Luckily, old

Juan Can had always liked him, and felt a great sense of relief at the

news of his staying on. Not a wholly unselfish relief, perhaps, for

since his accident Juan had not been without fears that he might lose

his place altogether; there was a Mexican he knew, who had long

been scheming to get the situation, and had once openly boasted at

a fandango, where he was dancing with Anita, that as soon as that

superannuated old fool, Juan Canito, was out of the way, he meant to

be the Senora Moreno's head shepherd himself. To have seen this man in

authority on the place, would have driven Juan out of his mind.

But the gentle Alessandro, only an Indian,--and of course the Senora

would never think of putting an Indian permanently in so responsible a

position on the estate,--it was exactly as Juan would have wished; and

he fraternized with Alessandro heartily from the outset; kept him in

his room by the hour, giving him hundreds of long-winded directions and

explanations about things which, if only he had known it, Alessandro

understood far better than he did.

Alessandro's father had managed the Mission flocks and herds at San Luis

Rey for twenty years; few were as skilful as he; he himself owned nearly

as many sheep as the Senora Moreno; but this Juan did not know. Neither

did he realize that Alessandro, as Chief Pablo's son, had a position

of his own not without dignity and authority. To Juan, an Indian was

an Indian, and that was the end of it. The gentle courteousness of

Alessandro's manner, his quiet behavior, were all set down in Juan's

mind to the score of the boy's native amiability and sweetness. If Juan

had been told that the Senor Felipe himself had not been more carefully

trained in all precepts of kindliness, honorable dealing, and polite

usage, by the Senora, his mother, than had Alessandro by his father, he

would have opened his eyes wide. The standards of the two parents

were different, to be sure; but the advantage could not be shown to be

entirely on the Senora's side. There were many things that Felipe knew,

of which Alessandro was profoundly ignorant; but there were others

in which Alessandro could have taught Felipe; and when it came to the

things of the soul, and of honor, Alessandro's plane was the higher

of the two. Felipe was a fair-minded, honorable man, as men go; but

circumstances and opportunity would have a hold on him they could never

get on Alessandro. Alessandro would not lie; Felipe might. Alessandro

was by nature full of veneration and the religious instinct; Felipe had

been trained into being a good Catholic. But they were both singularly

pure-minded, open-hearted, generous-souled young men, and destined, by

the strange chance which had thus brought them into familiar relations,

to become strongly attached to each other. After the day on which

the madness of Felipe's fever had been so miraculously soothed and

controlled by Alessandro's singing, he was never again wildly delirious.

When he waked in the night from that first long sleep, he was, as Father

Salvierderra had predicted, in his right mind; knew every one, and asked

rational questions. But the over-heated and excited brain did not

for some time wholly resume normal action. At intervals he wandered,

especially when just arousing from sleep; and, strangely enough, it

was always for Alessandro that he called at these times, and it seemed

always to be music that he craved. He recollected Alessandro's having

sung to him that first night. “I was not so crazy as you all thought,”

he said. “I knew a great many of the things I said, but I couldn't help

saying them; and I heard Ramona ask Alessandro to sing; and when he

began, I remember I thought the Virgin had reached down and put her hand

on my head and cooled it.”

On the second evening, the first after the shearers had left,

Alessandro, seeing Ramona in the veranda, went to the foot of the steps,

and said, “Senorita, would Senor Felipe like to have me play on the

violin to him tonight?”

“Why, whose violin have you got?” exclaimed Ramona, astonished.

“My own, Senorita.”

“Your own! I thought you said you did not bring it.”

“Yes, Senorita, that is true; but I sent for it last night, and it is

here.”

“Sent to Temecula and back already!” cried Ramona.

“Yes, Senorita. Our ponies are swift and strong. They can go a hundred

miles in a day, and not suffer. It was Jose brought it, and he is at the

Ortega's by this time.”

Ramona's eyes glistened. “I wish I could have thanked him,” she said.

“You should have let me know. He ought to have been paid for going.”

“I paid him, Senorita; he went for me,” said Alessandro, with a shade of

wounded pride in the tone, which Ramona should have perceived, but did

not, and went on hurting the lover's heart still more.

“But it was for us that you sent for it, Alessandro; the Senora would

rather pay the messenger herself.”

“It is paid, Senorita. It is nothing. If the Senor Felipe wishes to hear

the violin, I will play;” and Alessandro walked slowly away.

Ramona gazed after him. For the first time, she looked at him with no

thought of his being an Indian,--a thought there had surely been no need

of her having, since his skin was not a shade darker than Felipe's;

but so strong was the race feeling, that never till that moment had she

forgotten it.

“What a superb head, and what a walk!” she thought. Then, looking more

observantly, she said: “He walks as if he were offended. He did not

like my offering to pay for the messenger. He wanted to do it for dear

Felipe. I will tell Felipe, and we will give him some present when he

goes away.”

“Isn't he splendid, Senorita?” came in a light laughing tone from

Margarita's lips close to her ear, in the fond freedom of their

relation. “Isn't he splendid? And oh, Senorita, you can't think how he

dances! Last year I danced with him every night; he has wings on his

feet, for all he is so tall and big.”

There was a coquettish consciousness in the girl's tone, that was

suddenly, for some unexplained reason, exceedingly displeasing to

Ramona. Drawing herself away, she spoke to Margarita in a tone she had

never before in her life used. “It is not fitting to speak like that

about young men. The Senora would be displeased if she heard you,” she

said, and walked swiftly away leaving poor Margarita as astounded as if

she had got a box on the ear.

She looked after Ramona's retreating figure, then after Alessandro's.

She had heard them talking together just before she came up. Thoroughly

bewildered and puzzled, she stood motionless for several seconds,

reflecting; then, shaking her head, she ran away, trying to dismiss the

harsh speech from her mind. “Alessandro must have vexed the Senorita,”

she thought, “to make her speak like that to me.” But the incident was

not so easily dismissed from Margarita's thoughts. Many times in the

day it recurred to her, still a bewilderment and a puzzle, as far from

solution as ever. It was a tiny seed, whose name she did not dream of;

but it was dropped in soil where it would grow some day,--forcing-house

soil, and a bitter seed; and when it blossomed, Ramona would have an

enemy.

All unconscious, equally of Margarita's heart and her own, Ramona

proceeded to Felipe's room. Felipe was sleeping, the Senora sitting by

his side, as she had sat for days and nights,--her dark face looking

thinner and more drawn each day; her hair looking even whiter, if that

could be; and her voice growing hollow from faintness and sorrow.

“Dear Senora,” whispered Ramona, “do go out for a few moments while he

sleeps, and let me watch,--just on the walk in front of the veranda. The

sun is still lying there, bright and warm. You will be ill if you do not

have air.”

The Senora shook her head. “My place is here,” she answered, speaking in

a dry, hard tone. Sympathy was hateful to the Senora Moreno; she wished

neither to give it nor take it. “I shall not leave him. I do not need

the air.”

Ramona had a cloth-of-gold rose in her hand. The veranda eaves were now

shaded with them, hanging down like a thick fringe of golden tassels. It

was the rose Felipe loved best. Stooping, she laid it on the bed, near

Felipe's head. “He will like to see it when he wakes,” she said.

The Senora seized it, and flung it far out in the room. “Take it away!

Flowers are poison when one is ill,” she said coldly. “Have I never told

you that?”

“No, Senora,” replied Ramona, meekly; and she glanced involuntarily at

the saucer of musk which the Senora kept on the table close to Felipe's

pillow.

“The musk is different,” said the Senora, seeing the glance. “Musk is a

medicine; it revives.”

Ramona knew, but she would have never dared to say, that Felipe hated

musk. Many times he had said to her how he hated the odor; but his

mother was so fond of it, that it must always be that the veranda and

the house would be full of it. Ramona hated it too. At times it made her

faint, with a deadly faintness. But neither she nor Felipe would have

confessed as much to the Senora; and if they had, she would have thought

it all a fancy.

“Shall I stay?” asked Ramona, gently.

“As you please,” replied the Senora. The simple presence of Ramona irked

her now with a feeling she did not pretend to analyze, and would

have been terrified at if she had. She would not have dared to say

to herself, in plain words: “Why is that girl well and strong, and my

Felipe lying here like to die! If Felipe dies, I cannot bear the sight

of her. What is she, to be preserved of the saints!”

But that, or something like it, was what she felt whenever Ramona

entered the room; still more, whenever she assisted in ministering to

Felipe. If it had been possible, the Senora would have had no hands but

her own do aught for her boy. Even tears from Ramona sometimes irritated

her. “What does she know about loving Felipe! He is nothing to her!”

thought the Senora, strangely mistaken, strangely blind, strangely

forgetting how feeble is the tie of blood in the veins by the side of

love in the heart.

If into this fiery soul of the Senora's could have been dropped one

second's knowledge of the relative positions she and Ramona already

occupied in Felipe's heart, she would, on the spot, have either died

herself or have slain Ramona, one or the other. But no such knowledge

was possible; no such idea could have found entrance into the Senora's

mind. A revelation from Heaven of it could hardly have reached even her

ears. So impenetrable are the veils which, fortunately for us all, are

forever held by viewless hands between us and the nearest and closest of

our daily companions.

At twilight of this day Felipe was restless and feverish again. He had

dozed at intervals all day long, but had had no refreshing sleep.

“Send for Alessandro,” he said. “Let him come and sing to me.”

“He has his violin now; he can play, if you would like that better,”

said Ramona; and she related what Alessandro had told her of the

messenger's having ridden to Temecula and back in a night and half a

day, to bring it.

“I wanted to pay the man,” she said; “I knew of course your mother would

wish to reward him. But I fancy Alessandro was offended. He answered me

shortly that it was paid, and it was nothing.”

“You couldn't have offended him more,” said Felipe. “What a pity! He is

as proud as Lucifer himself, that Alessandro. You know his father has

always been the head of their band; in fact, he has authority over

several bands; General, they call it now, since they got the title from

the Americans; they used to call it Chief., and until Father Peyri left

San Luis Rey, Pablo was in charge of all the sheep, and general steward

and paymaster. Father Peyri trusted him with everything; I've heard he

would leave boxes full of uncounted gold in Pablo's charge to pay off

the Indians. Pablo reads and writes, and is very well off; he has as

many sheep as we have, I fancy!”

“What!” exclaimed Ramona, astonished. “They all look as if they were

poor.”

“Oh, well, so they are,” replied Felipe, “compared with us; but one

reason is, they share everything with each other. Old Pablo feeds and

supports half his village, they say. So long as he has anything, he will

never see one of his Indians hungry.”

“How generous!” warmly exclaimed Ramona; “I think they are better than

we are, Felipe!”

“I think so, too,” said Felipe. “That's what I have always said. The

Indians are the most generous people in the world. Of course they have

learned it partly from us; but they were very much so when the Fathers

first came here. You ask Father Salvierderra some day. He has read

all Father Junipero's and Father Crespi's diaries, and he says it is

wonderful how the wild savages gave food to every one who came.”

“Felipe, you are talking too much,” said the Senora's voice, in the

doorway; and as she spoke she looked reproachfully at Ramona. If she

had said in words, “See how unfit you are to be trusted with Felipe. No

wonder I do not leave the room except when I must!” her meaning could

not have been plainer. Ramona felt it keenly, and not without some

misgiving that it was deserved.

“Oh, dear Felipe, has it hurt you?” she said timidly; and to the Senora,

“Indeed, Senora, he has been speaking but a very few moments, very low.”

“Go call Alessandro, Ramona, will you?” said Felipe. “Tell him to bring

his violin. I think I will go to sleep if he plays.”

A long search Ramona had for Alessandro. Everybody had seen him a few

minutes ago, but nobody knew where he was now. Kitchens, sheepfolds,

vineyards, orchards, Juan Can's bedchamber,--Ramona searched them all

in vain. At last, standing at the foot of the veranda steps, and looking

down the garden, she thought she saw figures moving under the willows by

the washing-stones.

“Can he be there?” she said. “What can he be doing there? Who is it with

him?” And she walked down the path, calling, “Alessandro! Alessandro!”

At the first sound, Alessandro sprang from the side of his companion,

and almost before the second syllables had been said, was standing face

to face with Ramona.

“Here I am, Senorita. Does Senor Felipe want me? I have my violin here.

I thought perhaps he would like to have me play to him in the twilight.”

“Yes,” replied Ramona, “he wishes to hear you. I have been looking

everywhere for you.” As she spoke, she was half unconsciously peering

beyond into the dusk, to see whose figure it was, slowly moving by the

brook.

Nothing escaped Alessandro's notice where Ramona was concerned. “It is

Margarita,” he said instantly. “Does the Senorita want her? Shall I run

and call her?”

“No,” said Ramona, again displeased, she knew not why, nor in fact knew

she was displeased; “no, I was not looking for her. What is she doing

there?”

“She is washing,” replied Alessandro, innocently.

“Washing at this time of day!” thought Ramona, severely. “A mere

pretext. I shall watch Margarita. The Senora would never allow this sort

of thing.” And as she walked back to the house by Alessandro's side,

she meditated whether or no she would herself speak to Margarita on the

subject in the morning.

Margarita, in the mean time, was also having her season of reflections

not the pleasantest. As she soused her aprons up and down in the water,

she said to herself, “I may as well finish them now I am here. How

provoking! I've no more than got a word with him, than she must come,

calling him away. And he flies as if he was shot on an arrow, at

the first word. I'd like to know what's come over the man, to be so

different. If I could ever get a good half-hour with him alone, I'd soon

find out. Oh, but his eyes go through me, through and through me! I

know he's an Indian, but what do I care for that. He's a million times

handsomer than Senor Felipe. And Juan Jose said the other day he'd make

enough better head shepherd than old Juan Can, if Senor Felipe'd only

see it; and why shouldn't he get to see it, if Alessandro's here

all summer?” And before the aprons were done, Margarita had a fine

air-castle up: herself and Alessandro married, a nice little house,

children playing in the sunshine below the artichoke-patch, she herself

still working for the Senora. “And the Senorita will perhaps marry Senor

Felipe,” she added, her thoughts moving more hesitatingly. “He worships

the ground she walks on. Anybody with quarter of a blind eye can see

that; but maybe the Senora would not let him. Anyhow, Senor Felipe is

sure to have a wife, and so and so.” It was an innocent, girlish castle,

built of sweet and natural longings, for which no maiden, high or

low, need blush; but its foundations were laid in sand, on which would

presently beat such winds and floods as poor little Margarita never

dreamed of.

The next day Margarita and Ramona both went about their day's business

with a secret purpose in their hearts. Margarita had made up her mind

that before night she would, by fair means or foul, have a good long

talk with Alessandro. “He was fond enough of me last year, I know,”

she said to herself, recalling some of the dances and the good-night

leave-takings at that time. “It's because he is so put upon by everybody

now. What with Juan Can in one bed sending for him to prate to him about

the sheep, and Senor Felipe in another sending for him to fiddle him to

sleep, and all the care of the sheep, it's a wonder he's not out of his

mind altogether. But I'll find a chance, or make one, before this day's

sun sets. If I can once get a half-hour with him, I'm not afraid after

that; I know the way it is with men!” said the confident Margarita,

who, truth being told, it must be admitted, did indeed know a great

deal about the way it is with men, and could be safely backed, in a fair

field, with a fair start, against any girl of her age and station in

the country. So much for Margarita's purpose, at the outset of a day

destined to be an eventful one in her life.

Ramona's purpose was no less clear. She had decided, after some

reflection, that she would not speak to the Senora about Margarita's

having been under the willows with Alessandro in the previous evening,

but would watch her carefully and see whether there were any farther

signs of her attempting to have clandestine interviews with him.

This course she adopted, she thought, chiefly because of her affection

for Margarita, and her unwillingness to expose her to the Senora's

displeasure, which would be great, and terrible to bear. She was also

aware of an unwillingness to bring anything to light which would reflect

ever so lightly upon Alessandro in the Senora's estimation. “And he is

not really to blame,” thought Ramona, “if a girl follows him about and

makes free with him. She must have seen him at the willows, and gone

down there on purpose to meet him, making a pretext of the washing. For

she never in this world would have gone to wash in the dark, as he must

have known, if he were not a fool. He is not the sort of person, it

seems to me, to be fooling with maids. He seems as full of grave thought

as Father Salvierderra. If I see anything amiss in Margarita to-day, I

shall speak to her myself, kindly but firmly, and tell her to conduct

herself more discreetly.”

Then, as the other maiden's had done, Ramona's thoughts, being

concentrated on Alessandro, altered a little from their first key, and

grew softer and more imaginative; strangely enough, taking some of the

phrases, as it were, out of the other maiden's mouth.

“I never saw such eyes as Alessandro has,” she said. “I wonder any girl

should make free with him. Even I myself, when he fixes his eyes on me,

feel a constraint. There is something in them like the eyes of a saint,

so solemn, yet so mild. I am sure he is very good.”

And so the day opened; and if there were abroad in the valley that day

a demon of mischief, let loose to tangle the skeins of human affairs,

things could not have fallen out better for his purpose than they did;

for it was not yet ten o'clock of the morning, when Ramona, sitting at

her embroidery in the veranda, half hid behind the vines, saw Alessandro

going with his pruning-knife in his hand towards the artichoke-patch at

the east of the garden, and joining the almond orchard. “I wonder

what he is going to do there,” she thought. “He can't be going to cut

willows;” and her eyes followed him till he disappeared among the trees.

Ramona was not the only one who saw this. Margarita, looking from the

east window of Father Salvierderra's room, saw the same thing. “Now's

my chance!” she said; and throwing a white reboso coquettishly over her

head, she slipped around the corner of the house. She ran swiftly in the

direction in which Alessandro had gone. The sound of her steps reached

Ramona, who, lifting her eyes, took in the whole situation at a glance.

There was no possible duty, no possible message, which would take

Margarita there. Ramona's cheeks blazed with a disproportionate

indignation. But she bethought herself, “Ah, the Senora may have sent

her to call Alessandro!” She rose, went to the door of Felipe's room,

and looked in. The Senora was sitting in the chair by Felipe's bed,

with her eyes closed. Felipe was dozing. The Senora opened her eyes, and

looked inquiringly at Ramona.

“Do you know where Margarita is?” said Ramona.

“In Father Salvierderra's room, or else in the kitchen helping Marda,”

replied the Senora, in a whisper. “I told her to help Marda with the

peppers this morning.”

Ramona nodded, returned to the veranda, and sat down to decide on

her course of action. Then she rose again, and going to Father

Salvierderra's room, looked in. The room was still in disorder.

Margarita had left her work there unfinished. The color deepened on

Ramona's cheeks. It was strange how accurately she divined each process

of the incident. “She saw him from this window,” said Ramona, “and has

run after him. It is shameful. I will go and call her back, and let her

see that I saw it all. It is high time that this was stopped.”

But once back in the veranda, Ramona halted, and seated herself in her

chair again. The idea of seeming to spy was revolting to her.

“I will wait here till she comes back,” she said, and took up her

embroidery. But she could not work. As the minutes went slowly by, she

sat with her eyes fixed on the almond orchard, where first Alessandro

and then Margarita had disappeared. At last she could bear it no longer.

It seemed to her already a very long time. It was not in reality very

long,--a half hour or so, perhaps; but it was long enough for Margarita

to have made great headway, as she thought, in her talk with Alessandro,

and for things to have reached just the worst possible crisis at which

they could have been surprised, when Ramona suddenly appeared at the

orchard gate, saying in a stern tone, “Margarita, you are wanted in the

house!” At a bad crisis, indeed, for everybody concerned. The picture

which Ramona had seen, as she reached the gate, was this: Alessandro,

standing with his back against the fence, his right hand hanging

listlessly down, with the pruning-knife in it, his left hand in the hand

of Margarita, who stood close to him, looking up in his face, with a

half-saucy, half-loving expression. What made bad matters worse, was,

that at the first sight of Ramona, Alessandro snatched his hand from

Margarita's, and tried to draw farther off from her, looking at her with

an expression which, even in her anger, Ramona could not help seeing was

one of disgust and repulsion. And if Ramona saw it, how much more did

Margarita! Saw it, as only a woman repulsed in presence of another woman

can see and feel. The whole thing was over in the twinkling of an eye;

the telling it takes double, treble the time of the happening. Before

Alessandro was fairly aware what had befallen, Ramona and Margarita

were disappearing from view under the garden trellis,--Ramona walking in

advance, stately, silent, and Margarita following, sulky, abject in her

gait, but with a raging whirlwind in her heart.

It had taken only the twinkling of an eye, but it had told Margarita the

truth. Alessandro too.

“My God.” he said, “the Senorita thought me making love to that girl.

May the fiends get her! The Senorita looked at me as if I were a dog. How

could she think a man would look at a woman after he had once seen her!

And I can never, never speak to her to tell her! Oh, this cannot be

borne!” And in his rage Alessandro threw his pruning-knife whirling

through the air so fiercely, it sank to the hilt in one of the old

olive-trees. He wished he were dead. He was minded to flee the place.

How could he ever look the Senorita in the face again!

“Perdition take that girl!” he said over and over in his helpless

despair. An ill outlook for Margarita after this; and the girl had not

deserved it.

In Margarita's heart the pain was more clearly defined. She had seen

Ramona a half-second before Alessandro had; and dreaming no special

harm, except a little confusion at being seen thus standing with

him,--for she would tell the Senorita all about it when matters had gone

a little farther,--had not let go of Alessandro's hand. But the next

second she had seen in his face a look; oh, she would never forget it,

never! That she should live to have had any man look at her like that!

At the first glimpse of the Senorita, all the blood in his body seemed

rushing into his face, and he had snatched his hand away,--for it was

Margarita herself that had taken his hand, not he hers,--had snatched

his hand away, and pushed her from him, till she had nearly fallen. All

this might have been borne, if it had been only a fear of the Senorita's

seeing them, which had made him do it. But Margarita knew a great deal

better than that. That one swift, anguished, shame-smitten, appealing,

worshipping look on Alessandro's face, as his eyes rested on Ramona, was

like a flash of light into Margarita's consciousness. Far better than

Alessandro himself, she now knew his secret. In her first rage she did

not realize either the gulf between herself and Ramona, or that between

Ramona and Alessandro. Her jealous rage was as entire as if they had

all been equals together. She lost her head altogether, and there was

embodied insolence in the tone in which she said presently, “Did the

Senorita want me?”

Turning swiftly on her, and looking her full in the eye, Ramona said:

“I saw you go to the orchard, Margarita, and I knew what you went for. I

knew that you were at the brook last night with Alessandro. All I wanted

of you was, to tell you that if I see anything more of this sort, I

shall speak to the Senora.”

“There is no harm,” muttered Margarita, sullenly. “I don't know what the

Senorita means.”

“You know very well, Margarita,” retorted Ramona. “You know that the

Senora permits nothing of the kind. Be careful, now, what you do.” And

with that the two separated, Ramona returning to the veranda and her

embroidery, and Margarita to her neglected duty of making the good

Father's bed. But each girl's heart was hot and unhappy; and Margarita's

would have been still hotter and unhappier, had she heard the words

which were being spoken on the veranda a little later.

After a few minutes of his blind rage at Margarita, himself, and fate

generally, Alessandro, recovering his senses, had ingeniously persuaded

himself that, as the Senora's; and also the Senorita's servant, for the

time being, he owed it to them to explain the situation in which he had

just been found. Just what he was to say he did not know; but no sooner

had the thought struck him, than he set off at full speed for the house,

hoping to find Ramona on the veranda, where he knew she spent all her

time when not with Senor Felipe.

When Ramona saw him coming, she lowered her eyes, and was absorbed in

her embroidery. She did not wish to look at him.

The footsteps stopped. She knew he was standing at the steps. She would

not look up. She thought if she did not, he would go away. She did not

know either the Indian or the lover nature. After a time, finding the

consciousness of the soundless presence intolerable, she looked up, and

surprised on Alessandro's face a gaze which had, in its long interval

of freedom from observation, been slowly gathering up into it all the

passion of the man's soul, as a burning-glass draws the fire of the

sun's rays. Involuntarily a low cry burst from Ramona's lips, and she

sprang to her feet.

“Ah! did I frighten the Senorita? Forgive. I have been waiting here a

long time to speak to her. I wished to say--”

Suddenly Alessandro discovered that he did not know what he wished to

say.

As suddenly, Ramona discovered that she knew all he wished to say. But

she spoke not, only looked at him searchingly.

“Senorita,” he began again, “I would never be unfaithful to my duty to

the Senora, and to you.”

“I believe you, Alessandro,” said Ramona. “It is not necessary to say

more.”

At these words a radiant joy spread over Alessandro's face. He had not

hoped for this. He felt, rather than heard, that Ramona understood him.

He felt, for the first time, a personal relation between himself and

her.

“It is well,” he said, in the brief phrase so frequent with his people.

“It is well.” And with a reverent inclination of his head, he walked

away. Margarita, still dawdling surlily over her work in Father

Salvierderra's room, heard Alessandro's voice, and running to discover

to whom he was speaking, caught these last, words. Peering from behind

a curtain, she saw the look with which he said them; saw also the

expression on Ramona's face as she listened.

Margarita clenched her hands. The seed had blossomed. Ramona had an

enemy.

“Oh, but I am glad Father Salvierderra has gone!” said the girl,

bitterly. “He'd have had this out of me, spite of everything. I haven't

got to confess for a year, maybe; and much can happen in that time.”

Much, indeed!

VIII

FELIPE gained but slowly. The relapse was indeed, as Father Salvierderra

had said, worse than the original attack. Day after day he lay with

little apparent change; no pain, but a weakness so great that it was

almost harder to bear than sharp suffering would have been. Nearly every

day Alessandro was sent for to play or sing to him. It seemed to be the

only thing that roused him from his half lethargic state. Sometimes he

would talk with Alessandro on matters relative to the estate, and show

for a few moments something like his old animation; but he was soon

tired, and would close his eyes, saying: “I will speak with you again

about this, Alessandro; I am going to sleep now. Sing.”

The Senora, seeing Felipe's enjoyment of Alessandro's presence, soon

came to have a warm feeling towards him herself; moreover, she greatly

liked his quiet reticence. There was hardly a surer road to the Senora's

favor, for man or woman, than to be chary of speech and reserved

in demeanor. She had an instinct of kinship to all that was silent,

self-contained, mysterious, in human nature. The more she observed

Alessandro, the more she trusted and approved him. Luckily for Juan Can,

he did not know how matters were working in his mistress's mind. If he

had, he would have been in a fever of apprehension, and would have got

at swords' points with Alessandro immediately. On the contrary, all

unaware of the real situation of affairs, and never quite sure that the

Mexican he dreaded might not any day hear of his misfortune, and appear,

asking for the place, he took every opportunity to praise Alessandro to

the Senora. She never visited his bedside that he had not something to

say in favor of the lad, as he called him.

“Truly, Senora,” he said again and again, “I do marvel where the lad

got so much knowledge, at his age. He is like an old hand at the sheep

business. He knows more than any shepherd I have,--a deal more; and it

is not only of sheep. He has had experience, too, in the handling of

cattle. Juan Jose has been beholden to him more than once, already, for

a remedy of which he knew not. And such modesty, withal. I knew not that

there were such Indians; surely there cannot be many such.”

“No, I fancy not,” the Senora would reply, absently. “His father is a

man of intelligence, and has trained his son well.”

“There is nothing he is not ready to do,” continued Alessandro's

eulogist. “He is as handy with tools as if he had been 'prenticed to a

carpenter. He has made me a new splint for my leg, which was a relief

like salve to a wound, so much easier was it than before. He is a good

lad,--a good lad.”

None of these sayings of Juan's were thrown away on the Senora. More and

more closely she watched Alessandro; and the very thing which Juan

had feared, and which he had thought to avert by having Alessandro his

temporary substitute, was slowly coming to pass. The idea was working

in the Senora's mind, that she might do a worse thing than engage this

young, strong, active, willing man to remain permanently in her employ.

The possibility of an Indian's being so born and placed that he would

hesitate about becoming permanently a servant even to the Senora Moreno,

did not occur to her. However, she would do nothing hastily. There would

be plenty of time before Juan Can's leg was well. She would study the

young man more. In the mean time, she would cause Felipe to think of the

idea, and propose it.

So one day she said to Felipe: “What a voice that Alessandro has,

Felipe. We shall miss his music sorely when he goes, shall we not?”

“He's not going!” exclaimed Felipe, startled.

“Oh, no, no; not at present. He agreed to stay till Juan Can was

about again; but that will be not more than six weeks now, or eight, I

suppose. You forget how time has flown while you have been lying here

ill, my son.”

“True, true!” said Felipe. “Is it really a month already?” and he

sighed.

“Juan Can tells me that the lad has a marvellous knowledge for one of

his years,” continued the Senora. “He says he is as skilled with cattle

as with sheep; knows more than any shepherd we have on the place. He

seems wonderfully quiet and well-mannered. I never saw an Indian who had

such behavior.”

“Old Pablo is just like him,” said Felipe. “It was natural enough,

living so long with Father Peyri. And I've seen other Indians, too, with

a good deal the same manner as Alessandro. It's born in them.”

“I can't bear the idea of Alessandro's going away. But by that time you

will be well and strong,” said the Senora; “you would not miss him then,

would you?”

“Yes, I would, too!” said Felipe, pettishly. He was still weak enough to

be childish. “I like him about me. He's worth a dozen times as much as

any man we've got. But I don't suppose money could hire him to stay on

any ranch.”

“Were you thinking of hiring him permanently?” asked the Senora, in a

surprised tone. “I don't doubt you could do so if you wished. They are

all poor, I suppose; he would not work with the shearers if he were not

poor.”

“Oh, it isn't that,” said Felipe, impatiently. “You can't understand,

because you've never been among them. But they are just as proud as we

are. Some of them, I mean; such men as old Pablo. They shear sheep for

money just as I sell wool for money. There isn't so much difference.

Alessandro's men in the band obey him, and all the men in the village

obey Pablo, just as implicitly as my men here obey me. Faith, much more

so!” added Felipe, laughing. “You can't understand it, mother, but it's

so. I am not at all sure I could offer Alessandro Assis money enough to

tempt him to stay here as my servant.”

The Senora's nostrils dilated in scorn. “No, I do not understand it,”

she said. “Most certainly I do not understand it. Of what is it that

these noble lords of villages are so proud? their ancestors,--naked

savages less than a hundred years ago? Naked savages they themselves

too, to-day, if we had not come here to teach and civilize them. The

race was never meant for anything but servants. That was all the Fathers

ever expected to make of them,--good, faithful Catholics, and contented

laborers in the fields. Of course there are always exceptional

instances, and I think, myself, Alessandro is one. I don't believe,

however, he is so exceptional, but that if you were to offer him, for

instance, the same wages you pay Juan Can, he would jump at the chance

of staying on the place.”

“Well, I shall think about it,” said Felipe. “I'd like nothing better

than to have him here always. He's a fellow I heartily like. I'll think

about it.”

Which was all the Senora wanted done at present.

Ramona had chanced to come in as this conversation was going on. Hearing

Alessandro's name she seated herself at the window, looking out, but

listening intently. The month had done much for Alessandro with

Ramona, though neither Alessandro nor Ramona knew it. It had done

this much,--that Ramona knew always when Alessandro was near, that she

trusted him, and that she had ceased to think of him as an Indian any

more than when she thought of Felipe, she thought of him as a Mexican.

Moreover, seeing the two men frequently together, she had admitted to

herself, as Margarita had done before her, that Alessandro was far the

handsomer man of the two. This Ramona did not like to admit, but she

could not help it.

“I wish Felipe were as tall and strong as Alessandro,” she said to

herself many a time. “I do not see why he could not have been. I wonder

if the Senora sees how much handsomer Alessandro is.”

When Felipe said that he did not believe he could offer Alessandro Assis

money enough to tempt him to stay on the place, Ramona opened her lips

suddenly, as if to speak, then changed her mind, and remained silent.

She had sometimes displeased the Senora by taking part in conversations

between her and her son.

Felipe saw the motion, but he also thought it wiser to wait till after

his mother had left the room, before he asked Ramona what she was on the

point of saying. As soon as the Senora went out, he said, “What was it,

Ramona, you were going to say just now?”

Ramona colored. She had decided not to say it.

“Tell me, Ramona,” persisted Felipe. “You were going to say something

about Alessandro's staying; I know you were.”

Ramona did not answer. For the first time in her life she found herself

embarrassed before Felipe.

“Don't you like Alessandro?” said Felipe.

“Oh, yes!” replied Ramona, with instant eagerness. “It was not that at

all. I like him very much;” But then she stopped.

“Well, what is it, then? Have you heard anything on the place about his

staying?”

“Oh, no, no; not a word!” said Ramona. “Everybody understands that he is

here only till Juan Can gets well. But you said you did not believe you

could offer him money enough to tempt him to stay.”

“Well,” said Felipe, inquiringly, “I do not. Do you?”

“I think he would like to stay,” said Ramona, hesitatingly. “That was

what I was going to say.”

“What makes you think so?” asked Felipe.

“I don't know,” Ramona said, still more hesitatingly. Now that she had

said it, she was sorry. Felipe looked curiously at her. Hesitancy like

this, doubts, uncertainty as to her impressions, were not characteristic

of Ramona. A flitting something which was far from being suspicion

or jealousy, and yet was of kin to them both, went through Felipe's

mind,--went through so swiftly that he was scarce conscious of it; if

he had been, he would have scorned himself. Jealous of an Indian

sheep-shearers Impossible! Nevertheless, the flitting something left a

trace, and prevented Felipe from forgetting the trivial incident; and

after this, it was certain that Felipe would observe Ramona more closely

than he had done; would weigh her words and actions; and if she should

seem by a shade altered in either, would watch still more closely.

Meshes were closing around Ramona. Three watchers of her every look and

act,--Alessandro in pure love, Margarita in jealous hate, Felipe in love

and perplexity. Only the Senora observed her not. If she had,

matters might have turned out very differently, for the Senora was

clear-sighted, rarely mistaken in her reading of people's motives, never

long deceived; but her observing and discriminating powers were not in

focus, so far as Ramona was concerned. The girl was curiously outside of

the Senora's real life. Shelter, food, clothes, all external needs, in

so far as her means allowed, the Senora would, without fail, provide for

the child her sister had left in her hands as a trust; but a personal

relation with her, a mother's affection, or even interest and

acquaintance, no. The Senora had not that to give. And if she had it

not, was she to blame? What could she do? Years ago Father Salvierderra

had left off remonstrating with her on this point. “Is there more I

should do for the child? Do you see aught lacking, aught amiss?” the

Senora would ask, conscientiously, but with pride. And the Father, thus

inquired of, could not point out a duty which had been neglected.

“You do not love her, my daughter,” he said.

“No.” Senora Moreno's truthfulness was of the adamantine order. “No, I

do not. I cannot. One cannot love by act of will.”

“That is true,” the Father would say sadly; “but affection may be

cultivated.”

“Yes, if it exists,” was the Senora's constant answer. “But in this case

it does not exist. I shall never love Ramona. Only at your command, and

to save my sister a sorrow, I took her. I will never fail in my duty to

her.”

It was of no use. As well say to the mountain, “Be cast into the sea,”

as try to turn the Senora's heart in any direction whither it did not of

itself tend. All that Father Salvierderra could do, was to love Ramona

the more himself, which he did heartily, and more and more each year,

and small marvel at it; for a gentler, sweeter maiden never drew breath

than this same Ramona, who had been all these years, save for Felipe,

lonely in the Senora Moreno's house.

Three watchers of Ramona now. If there had been a fourth, and that

fourth herself, matters might have turned out differently. But how

should Ramona watch? How should Ramona know? Except for her two years at

school with the nuns, she had never been away from the Senora's house.

Felipe was the only young man she had known,--Felipe, her brother since

she was five years old.

There were no gayeties in the Senora Moreno's home. Felipe, when he

needed them, went one day's journey, or two, or three, to get them; went

as often as he liked. Ramona never went. How many times she had longed

to go to Santa Barbara, or to Monterey, or Los Angeles; but to have

asked the Senora's permission to accompany her on some of her now

infrequent journeys to these places would have required more courage

than Ramona possessed. It was now three years since she left the convent

school, but she was still as fresh from the hands of the nuns as on the

day when, with loving tears, they had kissed her in farewell. The few

romances and tales and bits of verse she had read were of the most

innocent and old-fashioned kind, and left her hardly less childlike than

before. This childlikeness, combined with her happy temperament, had

kept her singularly contented in her monotonous life. She had fed the

birds, taken care of the flowers, kept the chapel in order, helped in

light household work, embroidered, sung, and, as the Senora eight

years before had bade her do, said her prayers and pleased Father

Salvierderra.

By processes strangely unlike, she and Alessandro had both been kept

strangely free from thoughts of love and of marriage,--he by living in

the shadow, and she by living in the sun; his heart and thoughts filled

with perplexities and fears, hers filled by a placid routine of light

and easy tasks, and the outdoor pleasures of a child.

As the days went on, and Felipe still remained feeble, Alessandro

meditated a bold stroke. Each time that he went to Felipe's room to sing

or to play, he felt himself oppressed by the air. An hour of it made him

uncomfortable. The room was large, and had two windows, and the door was

never shut; yet the air seemed to Alessandro stifling.

“I should be as ill as the Senor Felipe, if I had to stay in that room,

and a bed is a weakening thing, enough to pull the strongest man down,”

said Alessandro to Juan Can one day. “Do you think I should anger them

if I asked them to let me bring Senor Felipe out to the veranda and put

him on a bed of my making? I'd wager my head I'd put him on his feet in

a week.”

“And if you did that, you might ask the Senora for the half of the

estate, and get it, lad,” replied Juan, Seeing the hot blood darkening

in Alessandro's face at his words, he hastened to add, “Do not be so

hot-blooded. I meant not that you would ask any reward for doing it; I

was only thinking what joy it would be to the Senora to see Senor Felipe

on his feet again. It has often crossed my thoughts that if he did not

get up from this sickness the Senora would not be long behind him. It is

but for him that she lives. And who would have the estate in that case,

I have never been able to find out.”

“Would it not be the Senorita?” asked Alessandro.

Juan Can laughed an ugly laugh. “Ha, ha! Let the Senora hear you say

that!” he said. “Faith, it will be little the Senorita gets more

than enough for her bread, may be, out of the Moreno estate. Hark ye,

Alessandro; if you will not tell, I will tell you the story of the

Senorita. You know she is not of the Moreno blood; is no relation of

theirs.”

“Yes,” said Alessandro; “Margarita has said to me that the Senorita

Ramona was only the foster-child of the Senora Moreno.”

“Foster-child!” repeated Juan Can, contemptuously, “there is something

to the tale I know not, nor ever could find out; for when I was in

Monterey the Ortegna house was shut, and I could not get speech of any

of their people. But this much I know, that it was the Senora Ortegna

that had the girl first in keeping; and there was a scandalous tale

about her birth.”

If Juan Can's eyes had not been purblind with old age, he would have

seen that in Alessandro's face which would have made him choose his

words more carefully. But he went on: “It was after the Senora Ortegna

was buried, that our Senora returned, bringing this child with her; and

I do assure you, lad, I have seen the Senora look at her many a time as

if she wished her dead. And it is a shame, for she was always as fair

and good a child as the saints ever saw. But a stain on the blood, a

stain on the blood, lad, is a bitter thing in a house. This much I know,

her mother was an Indian. Once when I was in the chapel, behind the big

Saint Joseph there, I overheard the Senora say as much. She was talking

to Father Salvierderra, and she said, 'If the child had only the one

blood in her veins, it would be different. I like not these crosses with

Indians.'”

If Alessandro had been civilized, he would at this word “Indian” have

bounded to his feet. Being Alessandro, he stood if possible stiller than

before, and said in a low voice, “How know you it was the mother that

was the Indian?”

Juan laughed again, maliciously: “Ha, it is the Ortegna face she has;

and that Ortegna, why, he was the scandal byword of the whole coast.

There was not a decent woman would have spoken to him, except for his

wife's sake.”

“But did you not say that it was in the Senora Ortegna's keeping that

the child was?” asked Alessandro, breathing harder and faster each

moment now; stupid old Juan Can so absorbed in relish of his gossip,

that he noticed nothing.

“Ay, ay. So I said,” he went on; “and so it was. There be such saints,

you know; though the Lord knows if she had been minded to give shelter

to all her husband's bastards, she might have taken lease of a church to

hold them. But there was a story about a man's coming with this infant

and leaving it in the Senora's room; and she, poor lady, never having

had a child of her own, did warm to it at first sight, and kept it with

her to the last; and I wager me, a hard time she had to get our Senora

to take the child when she died; except that it was to spite Ortegna, I

think our Senora would as soon the child had been dead.”

“Has she not treated her kindly?” asked Alessandro, in a husky voice.

Juan Can's pride resented this question. “Do you suppose the Senora

Moreno would do an unkindness to one under her roof?” he asked loftily.

“The Senorita has been always, in all things, like Senor Felipe himself.

It was so that she promised the Senora Ortegna, I have heard.”

“Does the Senorita know all this?” asked Alessandro.

Juan Can crossed himself. “Saints save us, no!” he exclaimed. “I'll not

forget, to my longest day, what it cost me, once I spoke in her hearing,

when she was yet small. I did not know she heard; but she went to the

Senora, asking who was her mother. And she said I had said her mother

was no good, which in faith I did, and no wonder. And the Senora came to

me, and said she, 'Juan Canito, you have been a long time in our house;

but if ever I hear of your mentioning aught concerning the Senorita

Ramona, on this estate or anywhere else in the country, that day you

leave my service!'--And you'd not do me the ill-turn to speak of it,

Alessandro, now?” said the old man, anxiously. “My tongue runs away with

me, lying here on this cursed bed, with nothing to do,--an active man

like me.”

“No, I'll not speak of it, you may be assured,” said Alessandro, walking

away slowly.

“Here! Here!” called Juan. “What about that plan you had for making a

bed for Senor Felipe on the verandah Was it of raw-hide you meant?”

“Ah, I had forgotten,” said Alessandro, returning. “Yes, that was it.

There is great virtue in a raw-hide, tight stretched; my father says

that it is the only bed the Fathers would ever sleep on, in the Mission

days. I myself like the ground even better; but my father sleeps always

on the rawhide. He says it keeps him well. Do you think I might speak of

it to the Senora?”

“Speak of it to Senor Felipe himself,” said Juan. “It will be as he

says. He rules this place now, from beginning to end; and it is but

yesterday I held him on my knee. It is soon that the old are pushed to

the wall, Alessandro.”

“Nay, Juan Canito,” replied Alessandro, kindly. “It is not so. My father

is many years older than you are, and he rules our people to-day as

firmly as ever. I myself obey him, as if I were a lad still.”

“What else, then, but a lad do you call yourself, I wonder?” thought

Juan; but he answered, “It is not so with us. The old are not held in

such reverence.”

“That is not well,” replied Alessandro. “We have been taught

differently. There is an old man in our village who is many, many years

older than my father. He helped to carry the mortar at the building of

the San Diego Mission, I do not know how many years ago. He is long past

a hundred years of age. He is blind and childish, and cannot walk; but

he is cared for by every one. And we bring him in our arms to every

council, and set him by my father's side. He talks very foolishly

sometimes, but my father will not let him be interrupted. He says

it brings bad luck to affront the aged. We will presently be aged

ourselves.”

“Ay, ay!” said Juan, sadly. “We must all come to it. It is beginning to

look not so far off to me!”

Alessandro stared, no less astonished at Juan Can's unconscious

revelation of his standard of measurement of years than Juan had been

at his. “Faith, old man, what name dost give to yourself to-day!” he

thought; but went on with the topic of the raw-hide bed. “I may not so

soon get speech with Senor Felipe,” he said. “It is usually when he is

sleepy that I go to play for him or to sing. But it makes my heart heavy

to see him thus languishing day by day, and all for lack of the air and

the sun, I do believe, indeed, Juan.”

“Ask the Senorita, then,” said Juan. “She has his ear at all times.”

Alessandro made no answer. Why was it that it did not please him,--this

suggestion of speaking to Ramona of his plan for Felipe's welfare? He

could not have told; but he did not wish to speak of it to her.

“I will speak to the Senora,” he said; and as luck would have it, at

that moment the Senora stood in the doorway, come to ask after Juan

Can's health.

The suggestion of the raw-hide bed struck her favorably. She herself

had, in her youth, heard much of their virtues, and slept on them.

“Yes,” she said, “they are good. We will try it. It was only yesterday

that Senor Felipe was complaining of the bed he lies on; and when he

was well, he thought nothing could be so good; he brought it here, at a

great price, for me, but I could not lie on it. It seemed as if it would

throw me off as soon as I lay down; it is a cheating device, like all

these innovations the Americans have brought into the country. But Senor

Felipe till now thought it a luxury; now he tosses on it, and says it is

throwing him all the time.”

Alessandro smiled, in spite of his reverence for the Senora. “I once lay

down on one myself, Senora,” he said, “and that was what I said to my

father. It was like a wild horse under me, making himself ready to buck.

I thought perhaps the invention was of the saints, that men should not

sleep too long.”

“There is a pile of raw-hides,” said Juan, “well cured, but not too

stiff; Juan Jose was to have sent them off to-day to be sold; one of

those will be just right. It must not be too dry.”

“The fresher the better,” said Alessandro, “so it have no dampness.

Shall I make the bed, Senora?” he asked, “and will the Senora permit

that I make it on the veranda? I was just asking Juan Can if he thought

I might be so bold as to ask you to let me bring Senor Felipe into the

outer air. With us, it is thought death to be shut up in walls, as he

has been so long. Not till we are sure to die, do we go into the dark

like that.”

The Senora hesitated. She did not share Alessandro's prejudice in favor

of fresh air.

“Night and day both?” she said. “Surely it is not well to sleep out in

the night?”

“That is the best of all, Senora,” replied Alessandro, earnestly. “I beg

the Senora to try it. If Senor Felipe have not mended greatly after the

first night he had so slept, then Alessandro will be a liar.”

“No, only mistaken,” said the Senora, gently. She felt herself greatly

drawn to this young man by his devotion, as she thought, of Felipe.

“When I die and leave Felipe here,” she had more than once said to

herself, “it would be a great good to him to have such a servant as this

on the place.”

“Very well, Alessandro,” she replied; “make the bed, and we will try it

at once.”

This was early in the forenoon. The sun was still high in the west,

when Ramona, sitting as usual in the veranda, at her embroidery, saw

Alessandro coming, followed by two men, bearing the raw-hide bed.

“What can that be?” she said. “Some new invention of Alessandro's, but

for what?”

“A bed for the Senor Felipe, Senorita,” said Alessandro, running lightly

up the steps. “The Senora has given permission to place it here on the

veranda, and Senor Felipe is to lie here day and night; and it will be

a marvel in your eyes how he will gain strength. It is the close room

which is keeping him weak now; he has no illness.”

“I believe that is the truth, Alessandro,” exclaimed Ramona; “I have

been thinking the same thing. My head aches after I am in that room but

an hour, and when I come here I am well. But the nights too, Alessandro?

Is it not harmful to sleep out in the night air?”

“Why, Senorita?” asked Alessandro, simply.

And Ramona had no answer, except, “I do not know; I have always heard

so.”

“My people do not think so,” replied Alessandro; “unless it is cold,

we like it better. It is good, Senorita, to look up at the sky in the

night.”

“I should think it would be,” cried Ramona. “I never thought of it. I

should like to do it.”

Alessandro was busy, with his face bent down, arranging the bedstead in

a sheltered corner of the veranda. If his face had been lifted, Ramona

would have seen a look on it that would have startled her more than

the one she had surprised a few days previous, after the incident with

Margarita. All day there had been coming and going in Alessandro's brain

a confused procession of thoughts, vague yet intense. Put in words,

they would have been found to be little more than ringing changes on

this idea: “The Senorita Ramona has Indian blood in her veins. The

Senorita Ramona is alone. The Senora loves her not. Indian blood! Indian

blood!” These, or something like them, would have been the words; but

Alessandro did not put them in words. He only worked away on the rough

posts for Senor Felipe's bedstead, hammered, fitted, stretched the

raw-hide and made it tight and firm, driving every nail, striking every

blow, with a bounding sense of exultant strength, as if there were

suddenly all around him a new heaven and a new earth.

Now, when he heard Ramona say suddenly in her girlish, eager tone, “It

must be; I never thought of it; I should like to try it,” these vague

confused thoughts of the day, and the day's bounding sense of exultant

strength, combined in a quick vision before Alessandro's eyes,--a vision

of starry skies overhead, Ramona and himself together, looking up to

them. But when he raised his head, all he said was, “There, Senorita!

That is all firm, now. If Senor Felipe will let me lay him an this bed,

he will sleep as he has not slept since he fell ill.”

Ramona ran eagerly into Felipe's room, “The bed is all ready on the

veranda,” she exclaimed. “Shall Alessandro come in and carry you out?”

Felipe looked up, startled. The Senora turned on Ramona that expression

of gentle, resigned displeasure, which always hurt the girl's sensitive

nature far worse than anger. “I had not spoken to Felipe yet of the

change, Ramona,” she said. “I supposed that Alessandro would have

informed me when the bed was ready; I am sorry you came in so suddenly.

Felipe is still very weak, you see.”

“What is it? What is it?” exclaimed Felipe, impatiently.

As soon as it was explained to him, he was like a child in his haste to

be moved.

“That's just what I needed!” he exclaimed. “This cursed bed racks every

bone in my body, and I have longed for the sun more than ever a thirsty

man longed for water. Bless you, Alessandro,” he went on, seeing

Alessandro in the doorway. “Come here, and take me up in those long arms

of yours, and carry me quick. Already I feel myself better.”

Alessandro lifted him as if he were a baby; indeed, it was but a light

burden now, Felipe's wasted body, for a man much less strong than

Alessandro to lift.

Ramona, chilled and hurt, ran in advance, carrying pillows and blankets.

As she began to arrange them on the couch, the Senora took them from her

hands, saying, “I will arrange them myself;” and waved Ramona away.

It was a little thing. Ramona was well used to such. Ordinarily it would

have given her no pain she could not conceal. But the girl's nerves were

not now in equilibrium. She had had hard work to keep back her tears

at the first rebuff. This second was too much. She turned, and walked

swiftly away, the tears rolling down her cheeks.

Alessandro saw it; Felipe saw it.

To Felipe the sight was, though painful, not a surprise. He knew but

too well how often his mother hurt Ramona. All he thought now, in his

weakness, was, “Alas! what a pity my mother does not love Ramona!”

To Alessandro the sight was the one drop too much in the cup. As he

stooped to lay Felipe on the bed, he trembled so that Felipe looked up,

half afraid.

“Am I still so heavy, Alessandro?” he said smiling.

“It is not your weight, Senor Felipe,” answered Alessandro, off guard,

still trembling, his eyes following Ramona.

Felipe saw. In the next second, the eyes of the two young men met.

Alessandro's fell before Felipe's. Felipe gazed on, steadily, at

Alessandro.

“Ah!” he said; and as he said it, he closed his eyes, and let his head

sink back into the pillow.

“Is that comfortable? Is that right?” asked the Senora, who had seen

nothing.

“The first comfortable moment I have had, mother,” said Felipe. “Stay,

Alessandro, I want to speak to you as soon as I am rested. This move has

shaken me up a good deal. Wait.”

“Yes, Senor,” replied Alessandro, and seated himself on the veranda

steps.

“If you are to stay, Alessandro,” said the Senora, “I will go and look

after some matters that need my attention. I feel always at ease about

Senor Felipe when you are with him. You will stay till I come back?”

“Yes, Senora,” said Alessandro, in a tone cold as the Senora's own had

been to Ramona. He was no longer in heart the Senora Moreno's servant.

In fact, he was at that very moment revolving confusedly in his mind

whether there could be any possibility of his getting away before the

expiration of the time for which he had agreed to stay.

It was a long time before Felipe opened his eyes. Alessandro thought he

was asleep.

At last Felipe spoke. He had been watching Alessandro's face for some

minutes. “Alessandro,” he said.

Alessandro sprang to his feet, and walked swiftly to the bedside. He did

not know what the next word might be. He felt that the Senor Felipe had

seen straight into his heart in that one moment's look, and Alessandro

was preparing for anything.

“Alessandro,” said Felipe, “my mother has been speaking to me about your

remaining with us permanently. Juan Can is now very old, and after this

accident will go on crutches the rest of his days, poor soul! We are in

great need of some man who understands sheep, and the care of the place

generally.”

As he spoke, he watched Alessandro's face closely. Swift changing

expressions passed over it. Surprise predominated. Felipe misunderstood

the surprise. “I knew you would be surprised,” he said. “I told my

mother that you would not think of it; that you had stayed now only

because we were in trouble.”

Alessandro bowed his head gratefully. This recognition from Felipe gave

him pleasure.

“Yes, Senor,” he said, “that was it. I told Father Salvierderra it was

not for the wages. But my father and I have need of all the money we can

earn. Our people are very poor, Senor. I do not know whether my father

would think I ought to take the place you offer me, or not, Senor. It

would be as he said. I will ask him.”

“Then you would be willing to take it?” asked Felipe.

“Yes, Senor, if my father wished me to take it,” replied Alessandro,

looking steadily and gravely at Felipe; adding, after a second's

pause, “if you are sure that you desire it, Senor Felipe, it would be a

pleasure to me to be of help to you.”

And yet it was only a few moments ago that Alessandro had been turning

over in his mind the possibility of leaving the Senora Moreno's service

immediately. This change had not been a caprice, not been an impulse

of passionate desire to remain near Ramona; it had come from a sudden

consciousness that the Senor Felipe would be his friend. And Alessandro

was not mistaken.

IX

WHEN the Senora came back to the veranda, she found Felipe asleep,

Alessandro standing at the foot of the bed, with his arms crossed on his

breast, watching him. As the Senora drew near, Alessandro felt again the

same sense of dawning hatred which had seized him at her harsh speech to

Ramona. He lowered his eyes, and waited to be dismissed.

“You can go now, Alessandro,” said the Senora. “I will sit here. You

are quite sure that it will be safe for Senor Felipe to sleep here all

night?”

“It will cure him before many nights,” replied Alessandro, still without

raising his eyes, and turning to go.

“Stay,” said the Senora. Alessandro paused. “It will not do for him to

be alone here in the night, Alessandro.”

Alessandro had thought of this, and had remembered that if he lay on

the veranda floor by Senor Felipe's side, he would also lie under the

Senorita's window.

“No, Senora,” he replied. “I will lie here by his side. That was what I

had thought, if the Senora is willing.”

“Thank you, Alessandro,” said the Senora, in a tone which would have

surprised poor Ramona, still sitting alone in her room, with sad eyes.

She did not know the Senora could speak thus sweetly to any one but

Felipe. “Thank you! You are kind. I will have a bed made for you.”

“Oh, no.” cried Alessandro; “if the Senora will excuse me, I could not

lie on a bed. A raw-hide like Senor Felipe's, and my blanket, are all I

want. I could not lie on any bed.”

“To be sure,” thought the Senora; “what was I thinking of! How the

boy makes one forget he is an Indian! But the floor is harder than the

ground, Alessandro,” she said kindly.

“No, Senora,” he said, “it is all one; and to-night I will not sleep.

I will watch Senor Felipe, in case there should be a wind, or he should

wake and need something.”

“I will watch him myself till midnight,” said the Senora. “I should feel

easier to see how he sleeps at first.”

It was the balmiest of summer nights, and as still as if no living thing

were on the earth. There was a full moon, which shone on the garden, and

on the white front of the little chapel among the trees. Ramona, from

her window, saw Alessandro pacing up and down the walk. She had seen him

spread down the raw-hide by Felipe's bed, and had seen the Senora take

her place in one of the big carved chairs. She wondered if they were

both going to watch; she wondered why the Senora would never let her sit

up and watch with Felipe.

“I am not of any use to anybody,” she thought sadly. She dared not

go out and ask any questions about the arrangements for the night. At

supper the Senora had spoken to her only in the same cold and distant

manner which always made her dumb and afraid. She had not once seen

Felipe alone during the day. Margarita, who, in the former times,--ah,

how far away those former times looked now!--had been a greater comfort

to Ramona than she realized,--Margarita now was sulky and silent, never

came into Ramona's presence if she could help it, and looked at her

sometimes with an expression which made Ramona tremble, and say to

herself, “She hates me; She has always hated me since that morning.”

It had been a long, sad day to Ramona; and as she sat in her window

leaning her head against the sash, and looked at Alessandro pacing up

and down, she felt for the first time, and did not shrink from it nor in

any wise disavow or disguise it to herself, that she was glad he loved

her. More than this she did not think; beyond this she did not go.

Her mind was not like Margarita's, full of fancies bred of freedom in

intercourse with men. But distinctly, tenderly glad that Alessandro

loved her, and distinctly, tenderly aware how well he loved her, she

was, as she sat at her window this night, looking out into the moonlit

garden; after she had gone to bed, she could still hear his slow,

regular steps on the garden-walk, and the last thought she had, as she

fell asleep, was that she was glad Alessandro loved her.

The moon had been long set, and the garden, chapel-front, trees, vines,

were all wrapped in impenetrable darkness, when Ramona awoke, sat up in

her bed, and listened. All was so still that the sound of Felipe's low,

regular breathing came in through her open window. After hearkening to

it for a few moments, she rose noiselessly from her bed, and creeping to

the window parted the curtains and looked out; noiselessly, she thought;

but it was not noiselessly enough to escape Alessandro's quick ear;

without a sound, he sprang to his feet, and stood looking at Ramona's

window.

“I am here, Senorita,” he whispered. “Do you want anything?”

“Has he slept all night like this?” she whispered back.

“Yes, Senorita. He has not once moved.”

“How good!” said Ramona. “How good!”

Then she stood still; she wanted to speak again to Alessandro, to hear

him speak again, but she could think of no more to say. Because she

could not, she gave a little sigh.

Alessandro took one swift step towards the window. “May the saints bless

you, Senorita,” he whispered fervently.

“Thank you, Alessandro,” murmured Ramona, and glided back to her bed,

but not to sleep. It lacked not much of dawn; as the first faint light

filtered through the darkness, Ramona heard the Senora's window open.

“Surely she will not strike up the hymn and wake Felipe,” thought

Ramona; and she sprang again to the window to listen. A few low words

between the Senora and Alessandro, and then the Senora's window closed

again, and all was still.

“I thought she would not have the heart to wake him,” said Ramona to

herself. “The Virgin would have had no pleasure in our song, I am sure;

but I will say a prayer to her instead;” and she sank on her knees at

the head of her bed, and began saying a whispered prayer. The footfall

of a spider in Ramona's room had not been light enough to escape the

ear of that watching lover outside. Again Alessandro's tall figure arose

from the floor, turning towards Ramona's window; and now the darkness

was so far softened to dusk, that the outline of his form could be seen.

Ramona felt it rather than saw it, and stopped praying. Alessandro was

sure he had heard her voice.

“Did the Senorita speak?” he whispered, his face close at the curtain.

Ramona, startled, dropped her rosary, which rattled as it fell on the

wooden floor.

“No, no, Alessandro,” she said, “I did not speak.” And she trembled,

she knew not why. The sound of the beads on the floor explained to

Alessandro what had been the whispered words he heard.

“She was at her prayers,” he thought, ashamed and sorry. “Forgive me,”

he whispered, “I thought you called;” and he stepped back to the outer

edge of the veranda, and seated himself on the railing. He would lie

down no more. Ramona remained on her knees, gazing at the window.

Through the transparent muslin curtain the dawning light came slowly,

steadily, till at last she could see Alessandro distinctly. Forgetful

of all else, she knelt gazing at him. The rosary lay on the floor,

forgotten. Ramona would not finish that prayer, that day. But her heart

was full of thanksgiving and gratitude, and the Madonna had a better

prayer than any in the book.

The sun was up, and the canaries, finches, and linnets had made the

veranda ring with joyous racket, before Felipe opened his eyes. The

Senora had come and gone and come again, looking at him anxiously, but

he stirred not. Ramona had stolen timidly out, glancing at Alessandro

only long enough to give him one quick smile, and bent over Felipe's

bed, holding her breath, he lay so still.

“Ought he to sleep so long?” she whispered.

“Till the noon, it may be,” answered Alessandro; “and when he wakes, you

will see by his eye that he is another man.”

It was indeed so. When Felipe first looked about him, he laughed

outright with pure pleasure. Then catching sight of Alessandro at the

steps, he called, in a stronger voice than had yet been heard from him,

“Alessandro, you are a famous physician. Why couldn't that fool from

Ventura have known as much? With all his learning, he had had me in the

next world before many days, except for you. Now, Alessandro, breakfast!

I'm hungry. I had forgotten what the thought of food was like to a

hungry stomach. And plenty! plenty!” he called, as Alessandro ran toward

the kitchen. “Bring all they have.”

When the Senora saw Felipe bolstered up in the bed, his eye bright,

his color good, his voice clear, eating heartily like his old self,

she stood like a statue in the middle of the veranda for a moment; then

turning to Alessandro, she said chokingly, “May Heaven reward you!” and

disappeared abruptly in her own room. When she came out, her eyes

were red. All day she moved and spoke with a softness unwonted, indeed

inconceivable. She even spoke kindly and without constraint to Ramona.

She felt like one brought back from the dead.

After this, a new sort of life began for them all. Felipe's bed on

the veranda was the rallying point for everything and everybody.. The

servants came to look up at him, and wish him well, from the garden-walk

below. Juan Can, when he first hobbled out on the stout crutches

Alessandro had made him of manzanita wood, dragged himself all the way

round the house, to have a look at Senor Felipe and a word with him. The

Senora sat there, in the big carved chair, looking like a sibyl with her

black silk banded head-dress severely straight across her brow, and her

large dark eyes gazing out, past Felipe, into the far south sky. Ramona

lived there too, with her embroidery or her book, sitting on cushions on

the floor in a corner, or at the foot of Felipe's bed, always so placed,

however,--if anybody had noticed, but nobody did,--so placed that she

could look at Felipe without looking full at the Senora's chair, even if

the Senora were not in it.

Here also came Alessandro many times a day,--sometimes sent for,

sometimes of his own accord. He was freely welcome. When he played or

sang he sat on the upper step of the stairs leading down to the garden.

He also had a secret, which he thought all his own, in regard to the

positions he chose. He sat always, when Ramona was there, in the spot

which best commanded a view of her face. The secret was not all his own.

Felipe knew it. Nothing was escaping Felipe in these days. A bomb-shell

exploding at their feet would not have more astonished the different

members of this circle, the Senora, Ramona, Alessandro, than it would

to have been made suddenly aware of the thoughts which were going on in

Felipe's mind now, from day to day, as he lay there placidly looking at

them all.

It is probable that if Felipe had been in full health and strength when

the revelation suddenly came to him that Alessandro loved Ramona, and

that Ramona might love Alessandro, he would have been instantly filled

with jealous antagonism. But at the time when this revelation came, he

was prostrate, feeble, thinking many times a day that he must soon die;

it did not seem to Felipe that a man could be so weak as he was, and

ever again be strong and well. Side by side with these forebodings of

his own death, always came the thought of Ramona. What would become of

her, if he were gone? Only too well he knew that the girl's heart would

be broken; that she could not live on alone with his mother. Felipe

adored his mother; but he understood her feeling about Ramona.

With his feebleness had also come to Felipe, as is often the case in

long illnesses, a greater clearness of perception. Ramona had ceased to

puzzle him. He no longer asked himself what her long, steady look into

his eyes meant. He knew. He saw it mean that as a sister she loved him,

had always loved him, and could love him in no other way. He wondered a

little at himself that this gave him no more pain; only a sort of sweet,

mournful tenderness towards her. It must be because he was so soon going

out of the world, he thought. Presently he began to be aware that a new

quality was coming into his love for her. He himself was returning

to the brother love which he had had for her when they were children

together, and in which he had felt no change until he became a man and

Ramona a woman. It was strange what a peace fell upon Felipe when this

was finally clear and settled in his mind. No doubt he had had more

misgiving and fear about his mother in the matter than he had ever

admitted to himself; perhaps also the consciousness of Ramona's

unfortunate birth had rankled at times; but all this was past now.

Ramona was his sister. He was her brother. What course should he pursue

in the crisis which he saw drawing near? How could he best help Ramona?

What would be best for both her and Alessandro? Long before the thought

of any possible union between himself and Ramona had entered into

Alessandro's mind, still longer before it had entered into Ramona's to

think of Alessandro as a husband, Felipe had spent hours in forecasting,

plotting, and planning for them. For the first time in his life he felt

himself in the dark as to his mother's probable action. That any concern

as to Ramona's personal happiness or welfare would influence her, he

knew better than to think for a moment. So far as that was concerned,

Ramona might wander out the next hour, wife of a homeless beggar,

and his mother would feel no regret. But Ramona had been the adopted

daughter of the Senora Ortegna, bore the Ortegna name, and had lived as

foster-child in the house of the Morenos. Would the Senora permit such a

one to marry an Indian?

Felipe doubted. The longer he thought, the more he doubted. The more

he watched, the more he saw that the question might soon have to be

decided. Any hour might precipitate it. He made plan after plan for

forestalling trouble, for preparing his mother; but Felipe was by nature

indolent, and now he was, in addition, feeble. Day after day slipped by.

It was exceedingly pleasant on the veranda. Ramona was usually with him;

his mother was gentler, less sad, than he had ever seen her. Alessandro

was always at hand, ready for any service,--in the field, in the

house,--his music a delight, his strength and fidelity a repose, his

personal presence always agreeable. “If only my mother could think

it,” reflected Felipe, “it would be the best thing, all round, to have

Alessandro stay here as overseer of the place, and then they might be

married. Perhaps before the summer is over she will come to see it so.”

And the delicious, languid, semi-tropic summer came hovering over the

valley. The apricots turned golden, the peaches glowed, the grapes

filled and hardened, like opaque emeralds hung thick under the canopied

vines. The garden was a shade brown, and the roses had all fallen; but

there were lilies, and orange-blossoms, and poppies, and carnations, and

geraniums in the pots, and musk,--oh, yes, ever and always musk. It was

like an enchanter's spell, the knack the Senora had of forever keeping

relays of musk to bloom all the year; and it was still more like an

enchanter's spell, that Felipe would never confess that he hated it.'

But the bees liked it, and the humming-birds,--the butterflies also;

and the air was full of them. The veranda was a quieter place now as the

season's noon grew near. The linnets were all nesting, and the finches

and the canaries too; and the Senora spent hours, every day, tirelessly

feeding the mothers. The vines had all grown and spread out to their

thickest; no need any longer of the gay blanket Alessandro had pinned up

that first morning to keep the sun off Felipe's head.

What was the odds between a to-day and a to-morrow in such a spot

as this? “To-morrow,” said Felipe, “I will speak to my mother,” and

“to-morrow,” and “to-morrow;” but he did not.

There was one close observer of these pleasant veranda days that Felipe

knew nothing about. That was Margarita. As the girl came and went about

her household tasks, she was always on the watch for Alessandro, on the

watch for Ramona. She was biding her time. Just what shape her revenge

was going to take, she did not know. It was no use plotting. It must be

as it fell out; but that the hour and the way for her revenge would come

she never doubted.

When she saw the group on the veranda, as she often did, all listening

to Alessandro's violin, or to his singing, Alessandro himself now at his

ease and free in the circle, as if he had been there always, her anger

was almost beyond bounds.

“Oh, ho! like a member of the family; quite so!” she sneered. “It is new

times when a head shepherd spends his time with the ladies of the house,

and sits in their presence like a guest who is invited! We shall see; we

shall see what comes of all this!” And she knew not which she hated the

more of the two, Alessandro or Ramona.

Since the day of the scene at the artichoke-field she had never spoken

to Alessandro, and had avoided, so far as was possible, seeing him. At

first Alessandro was sorry for this, and tried to be friendly with her.

As soon as he felt assured that the incident had not hurt him at all in

the esteem of Ramona, he began to be sorry for Margarita. “A man should

not be rude to any maiden,” he thought; and he hated to remember how he

had pushed Margarita from him, and snatched his hand away, when he

had in the outset made no objection to her taking it. But Margarita's

resentment was not to be appeased. She understood only too clearly how

little Alessandro's gentle advances meant, and she would none of them.

“Let him go to his Senorita,” she said bitterly, mocking the reverential

tone in which she had overheard him pronounce the word. “She is fond

enough of him, if only the fool had eyes to see it. She'll be ready to

throw herself at his head before long, if this kind of thing keeps up.

'It is not well to speak thus freely of young men, Margarita!' Ha,

ha! Little I thought that day which way the wind set in my mistress's

temper! I'll wager she reproves me no more, under this roof or any

other! Curse her! What did she want of Alessandro, except to turn his

head, and then bid him go his way!”

To do Margarita justice, she never once dreamed of the possibility of

Ramona's wedding Alessandro. A clandestine affair, an intrigue of more

or less intensity, such as she herself might have carried on with any

one of the shepherds,--this was the utmost stretch of Margarita's angry

imaginations in regard to her young mistress's liking for Alessandro.

There was not, in her way of looking at things, any impossibility of

such a thing as that. But marriage! It might be questioned whether that

idea would have been any more startling to the Senora herself than to

Margarita.

Little had passed between Alessandro and Ramona which Margarita did not

know. The girl was always like a sprite,--here, there, everywhere, in

an hour, and with eyes which, as her mother often told her, saw on all

sides of her head. Now, fired by her new purpose, new passion, she moved

swifter than ever, and saw and heard even more, There were few hours of

any day when she did not know to a certainty where both Alessandro and

Ramona were; and there had been few meetings between them which she had

not either seen or surmised.

In the simple life of such a household as the Senora's, it was not

strange that this was possible; nevertheless, it argued and involved

untiring vigilance on Margarita's part. Even Felipe, who thought

himself, from his vantage-post of observation on the veranda, and from

his familiar relation with Ramona, well informed of most that happened,

would have been astonished to hear all that Margarita could have

told him. In the first days Ramona herself had guilelessly told him

much,--had told him how Alessandro, seeing her trying to sprinkle and

bathe and keep alive the green ferns with which she had decorated the

chapel for Father Salvierderra's coming, had said: “Oh, Senorita, they

are dead! Do not take trouble with them! I will bring you fresh ones;”

and the next morning she had found, lying at the chapel door, a pile of

such ferns as she had never before seen; tall ones, like ostrich-plumes,

six and eight feet high; the feathery maidenhair, and the gold fern, and

the silver, twice as large as she ever had found them. The chapel was

beautiful, like a conservatory, after she had arranged them in vases and

around the high candlesticks.

It was Alessandro, too, who had picked up in the artichoke-patch all

of the last year's seed-vessels which had not been trampled down by the

cattle, and bringing one to her, had asked shyly if she did not think

it prettier than flowers made out of paper. His people, he said, made

wreaths of them. And so they were, more beautiful than any paper flowers

which ever were made,--great soft round disks of fine straight threads

like silk, with a kind of saint's halo around them of sharp, stiff

points, glossy as satin, and of a lovely creamy color. It was the

strangest thing in the world nobody had ever noticed them as they lay

there on the ground. She had put a great wreath of them around Saint

Joseph's head, and a bunch in the Madonna's hand; and when the Senora

saw them, she exclaimed in admiration, and thought they must have been

made of silk and satin.

And Alessandro had brought her beautiful baskets, made by the Indian

women at Pala, and one which had come from the North, from the Tulare

country; it had gay feathers woven in with the reeds,--red and yellow,

in alternate rows, round and round. It was like a basket made out of a

bright-colored bird.

And a beautiful stone bowl Alessandro had brought her, glossy black,

that came all the way from Catalina Island; a friend of Alessandro's got

it. For the first few weeks it had seemed as if hardly a day passed

that there was not some new token to be chronicled of Alessandro's

thoughtfulness and good-will. Often, too, Ramona had much to tell that

Alessandro had said,--tales of the old Mission days that he had heard

from his father; stories of saints, and of the early Fathers, who were

more like saints than like men, Alessandro said,--Father Junipero, who

founded the first Missions, and Father Crespi, his friend. Alessandro's

grandfather had journeyed with Father Crespi as his servant, and many a

miracle he had with his own eyes seen Father Crespi perform. There was a

cup out of which the Father always took his chocolate for breakfast,--a

beautiful cup, which was carried in a box, the only luxury the Father

had; and one morning it was broken, and everybody was in terror and

despair. “Never mind, never mind,” said the Father; “I will make it

whole;” and taking the two pieces in his hands, he held them tight

together, and prayed over them, and they became one solid piece again,

and it was used all through the journey, just as before.

But now, Ramona never spoke voluntarily of Alessandro. To Felipe's

sometimes artfully put questions or allusions to him, she made brief

replies, and never continued the topic; and Felipe had observed another

thing: she now rarely looked at Alessandro. When he was speaking to

others she kept her eyes on the ground. If he addressed her, she

looked quickly up at him, but lowered her eyes after the first glance.

Alessandro also observed this, and was glad of it. He understood it. He

knew how differently she could look in his face in the rare moments when

they were alone together. He fondly thought he alone knew this; but he

was mistaken. Margarita knew. She had more than once seen it.

It had happened more than once that he had found Ramona at the willows

by the brook, and had talked with her there. The first time it happened,

it was a chance; after that never a chance again, for Alessandro went

often seeking the spot, hoping to find her. In Ramona's mind too, not

avowed, but half consciously, there was, if not the hope of seeing him

there, at least the memory that it was there they had met. It was a

pleasant spot,--cool and shady even at noon, and the running water

always full of music. Ramona often knelt there of a morning, washing out

a bit of lace or a handkerchief; and when Alessandro saw her, it went

hard with him to stay away. At such moments the vision returned to him

vividly of that first night when, for the first second, seeing her face

in the sunset glow, he had thought her scarce mortal. It was not that

he even now thought her less a saint; but ah, how well he knew her to

be human! He had gone alone in the dark to this spot many a time, and,

lying on the grass, put his hands into the running water, and played

with it dreamily, thinking, in his poetic Indian fashion, thoughts like

these: “Whither have gone the drops that passed beneath her hands, just

here? These drops will never find those in the sea; but I love this

water!”

Margarita had seen him thus lying, and without dreaming of the refined

sentiment which prompted his action, had yet groped blindly towards it,

thinking to herself: “He hopes his Senorita will come down to him there.

A nice place it is for a lady to meet her lover, at the washing-stones!

It will take swifter water than any in that brook, Senorita Ramona, to

wash you white in the Senora's eyes, if ever she come upon you there

with the head shepherd, making free with him, may be! Oh, but if that

could only happen, I'd die content!” And the more Margarita watched,

the more she thought it not unlikely that it might turn out so. It was

oftener at the willows than anywhere else that Ramona and Alessandro

met; and, as Margarita noticed with malicious satisfaction, they talked

each time longer, each time parted more lingeringly. Several times it

had happened to be near supper-time; and Margarita, with one eye on

the garden-walk, had hovered restlessly near the Senora, hoping to be

ordered to call the Senorita to supper.

“If but I could come on them of a sudden, and say to her as she did to

me, 'You are wanted in the house'! Oh, but it would do my soul good! I'd

say it so it would sting like a lash laid on both their faces! It will

come! It will come! It will be there that she'll be caught one of these

fine times she's having! I'll wait! It will come!”

X

IT came. And when it came, it fell out worse for Ramona than Margarita's

most malicious hopes had pictured; but Margarita had no hand in it. It

was the Senora herself.

Since Felipe had so far gained as to be able to be dressed, sit in his

chair on the veranda, and walk about the house and garden a little,

the Senora, at ease in her mind about him, had resumed her old habit of

long, lonely walks on the place. It had been well said by her servants,

that there was not a blade of grass on the estate that the Senora had

not seen. She knew every inch of her land. She had a special purpose

in walking over it now. She was carefully examining to see whether she

could afford to sell to the Ortegas a piece of pasture-land which they

greatly desired to buy, as it joined a pasturage tract of theirs. This

bit of land lay farther from the house than the Senora realized, and it

had taken more time than she thought it would, to go over it; and it was

already sunset on this eventful day, when, hurrying home, she turned

off from the highway into the same shortcut path in which Father

Salvierderra had met Ramona in the spring. There was no difficulty now

in getting through the mustard tangle. It was parched and dry, and had

been trampled by cattle. The Senora walked rapidly, but it was

dusky twilight when she reached the willows; so dusky that she saw

nothing--and she stepped so lightly on the smooth brown path that she

made no sound--until suddenly, face to face with a man and a woman

standing locked in each other's arms, she halted, stepped back a pace,

gave a cry of surprise, and, in the same second, recognized the faces of

the two, who, stricken dumb, stood apart, each gazing into her face with

terror.

Strangely enough, it was Ramona who spoke first. Terror for herself had

stricken her dumb; terror for Alessandro gave her a voice.

“Senora,” she began.

“Silence! Shameful creature!” cried the Senora. “Do not dare to speak!

Go to your room!”

Ramona did not move.

“As for you,” the Senora continued, turning to Alessandro, “you,”--she

was about to say, “You are discharged from my service from this hour,”

but recollecting herself in time, said,--“you will answer to Senor

Felipe. Out of my sight!” And the Senora Moreno actually, for once in

her life beside herself with rage, stamped her foot on the ground. “Out

of my sight!” she repeated.

Alessandro did not stir, except to turn towards Ramona with an inquiring

look. He would run no risk of doing what she did not wish. He had no

idea what she would think it best to do in this terrible dilemma.

“Go, Alessandro,” said Ramona, calmly, still looking the Senora full in

the eye. Alessandro obeyed; before the words had left her lips, he had

walked away.

Ramona's composure, and Alessandro's waiting for further orders than her

own before stirring from the spot, were too much for Senora Moreno. A

wrath, such as she had not felt since she was young, took possession of

her. As Ramona opened her lips again, saying, “Senora,” the Senora did a

shameful deed; she struck the girl on the mouth, a cruel blow.

“Speak not to me!” she cried again; and seizing her by the arm, she

pushed rather than dragged her up the garden-walk.

“Senora, you hurt my arm,” said Ramona, still in the same calm voice.

“You need not hold me. I will go with you. I am not afraid.”

Was this Ramona? The Senora, already ashamed, let go the arm, and

stared in the girl's face. Even in the twilight she could see upon it

an expression of transcendent peace, and a resolve of which no one would

have thought it capable. “What does this mean?” thought the Senora,

still weak, and trembling all over, from rage. “The hussy, the

hypocrite!” and she seized the arm again.

This time Ramona did not remonstrate, but submitted to being led like

a prisoner, pushed into her own room, the door slammed violently and

locked on the outside.

All of which Margarita saw. She had known for an hour that Ramona

and Alessandro were at the willows, and she had been consumed with

impatience at the Senora's prolonged absence. More than once she had

gone to Felipe, and asked with assumed interest if he were not hungry,

and if he and the Senorita would not have their supper.

“No, no, not till the Senora returns,” Felipe had answered. He, too,

happened this time to know where Ramona and Alessandro were. He knew

also where the Senora had gone, and that she would be late home; but he

did not know that there would be any chance of her returning by way of

the willows at the brook; if he had known it, he would have contrived to

summon Ramona.

When Margarita saw Ramona shoved into her room by the pale and trembling

Senora, saw the key turned, taken out, and dropped into the Senora's

pocket, she threw her apron over her head, and ran into the back porch.

Almost a remorse seized her. She remembered in a flash how often Ramona

had helped her in times gone by,--sheltered her from the Senora's

displeasure. She recollected the torn altar-cloth. “Holy Virgin! what

will be done to her now?” she exclaimed, under her breath. Margarita

had never conceived of such an extremity as this. Disgrace, and a sharp

reprimand, and a sundering of all relations with Alessandro,--this was

all Margarita had meant to draw down on Ramona's head. But the Senora

looked as if she might kill her.

“She always did hate her, in her heart,” reflected Margarita; “she

shan't starve her to death, anyhow. I'll never stand by and see that.

But it must have been something shameful the Senora saw, to have brought

her to such a pass as this;” and Margarita's jealousy again got the

better of her sympathy. “Good enough for her. No more than she deserved.

An honest fellow like Alessandro, that would make a good husband for any

girl!” Margarita's short-lived remorse was over. She was an enemy again.

It was an odd thing, how identical were Margarita's and the Senora's

view and interpretation of the situation. The Senora looking at it from

above, and Margarita looking at it from below, each was sure, and they

were both equally sure, that it could be nothing more nor less than a

disgraceful intrigue. Mistress and maid were alike incapable either of

conjecturing or of believing the truth.

As ill luck would have it,--or was it good luck?--Felipe also had

witnessed the scene in the garden-walk. Hearing voices, he had looked

out of his window, and, almost doubting the evidence of his senses, had

seen his mother violently dragging Ramona by the arm,--Ramona pale, but

strangely placid; his mother with rage and fury in her white face. The

sight told its own tale to Felipe. Smiting his forehead with his hand,

he groaned out: “Fool that I was, to let her be surprised; she has come

on them unawares; now she will never, never forgive it!” And Felipe

threw himself on his bed, to think what should be done. Presently he

heard his mother's voice, still agitated, calling his name. He remained

silent, sure she would soon seek him in his room. When she entered, and,

seeing him on the bed, came swiftly towards him, saying, “Felipe, dear,

are you ill?” he replied in a feeble voice, “No, mother, only tired a

little to-night;” and as she bent over him, anxious, alarmed, he threw

his arms around her neck and kissed her warmly. “Mother mia!” he said

passionately, “what should I do without you?” The caress, the loving

words, acted like oil on the troubled waters. They restored the Senora

as nothing else could. What mattered anything, so long as she had her

adoring and adorable son! And she would not speak to him, now that he

was so tired, of this disgraceful and vexing matter of Alessandro. It

could wait till morning. She would send him his supper in his room, and

he would not miss Ramona, perhaps.

“I will send your supper here, Felipe,” she said; “you must not

overdo; you have been walking too much. Lie still.” And kissing him

affectionately, she went to the dining-room, where Margarita, vainly

trying to look as if nothing had happened, was standing, ready to serve

supper. When the Senora entered, with her countenance composed, and in

her ordinary tones said, “Margarita, you can take Senor Felipe's supper

into his room; he is lying down, and will not get up; he is tired,”

Margarita was ready to doubt if she had not been in a nightmare dream.

Had she, or had she not, within the last half-hour, seen the Senora,

shaking and speechless with rage, push the Senorita Ramona into her

room, and lock her up there? She was so bewildered that she stood still

and gazed at the Senora, with her mouth wide open.

“What are you staring at, girl?” asked the Senora, so sharply that

Margarita jumped.

“Oh, nothing, nothing, Senora! And the Senorita, will she come to

supper? Shall I call her?” she said.

The Senora eyed her. Had she seen? Could she have seen? The Senora

Moreno was herself again. So long as Ramona was under her roof, no

matter what she herself might do or say to the girl, no servant should

treat her with disrespect, or know that aught was wrong.

“The Senorita is not well,” she said coldly. “She is in her room. I

myself will take her some supper later, if she wishes it. Do not disturb

her.” And the Senora returned to Felipe.

Margarita chuckled inwardly, and proceeded to clear the table she had

spread with such malicious punctuality two short hours before. In those

two short hours how much had happened!

“Small appetite for supper will our Senorita have, I reckon,” said the

bitter Margarita, “and the Senor Alessandro also! I'm curious to see how

he will carry himself.”

But her curiosity was not gratified. Alessandro came not to the kitchen.

The last of the herdsmen had eaten and gone; it was past nine o'clock,

and no Alessandro. Slyly Margarita ran out and searched in some of the

places where she knew he was in the habit of going; but Alessandro

was not to be found. Once she brushed so near his hiding-place that he

thought he was discovered, and was on the point of speaking, but

luckily held his peace, and she passed on. Alessandro was hid behind the

geranium clump at the chapel door; sitting on the ground, with his knees

drawn up to his chin, watching Ramona's window. He intended to stay

there all night. He felt that he might be needed: if Ramona wanted him,

she would either open her window and call, or would come out and go down

through the garden-walk to the willows. In either case, he would see her

from the hiding-place he had chosen. He was racked by his emotions; mad

with joy one minute, sick at heart with misgiving the next. Ramona loved

him. She had told him so. She had said she would go away with him and

be his wife. The words had but just passed her lips, at that dreadful

moment when the Senora appeared in their presence. As he lived the scene

over again, he re-experienced the joy and the terror equally.

What was not that terrible Senora capable of doing? Why did she look

at him and at Ramona with such loathing scorn? Since she knew that the

Senorita was half Indian, why should she think it so dreadful a thing

for her to marry an Indian man? It did not once enter into Alessandro's

mind, that the Senora could have had any other thought, seeing them as

she did, in each other's arms. And again what had he to give to Ramona?

Could she live in a house such as he must live in,--live as the Temecula

women lived? No! for her sake he must leave his people; must go to some

town, must do--he knew not what--something to earn more money. Anguish

seized him as he pictured to himself Ramona suffering deprivations. The

more he thought of the future in this light, the more his joy faded and

his fear grew. He had never had sufficient hope that she could be his,

to look forward thus to the practical details of life; he had only gone

on loving, and in a vague way dreaming and hoping; and now,--now, in

a moment, all had been changed; in a moment he had spoken, and she had

spoken, and such words once spoken, there was no going back; and he had

put his arms around her, and felt her head on his shoulder, and kissed

her! Yes, he, Alessandro, had kissed the Senorita Ramona, and she had

been glad of it, and had kissed him on the lips, as no maiden kisses a

man unless she will wed with him,--him, Alessandro! Oh, no wonder the

man's brain whirled, as he sat there in the silent darkness, wondering,

afraid, helpless; his love wrenched from him, in the very instant of

their first kiss,--wrenched from him, and he himself ordered, by one who

had the right to order him, to begone! What could an Indian do against a

Moreno!

Would Felipe help him? Ay, there was Felipe! That Felipe was his

friend, Alessandro knew with a knowledge as sure as the wild partridge's

instinct for the shelter of her brood; but could Felipe move the Senora?

Oh, that terrible Senora! What would become of them?

As in the instant of drowning, men are said to review in a second the

whole course of their lives, so in this supreme moment of Alessandro's

love there flashed through his mind vivid pictures of every word and act

of Ramona's since he first knew her. He recollected the tone in which

she had said, and the surprise with which he heard her say it, at the

time of Felipe's fall, “You are Alessandro, are you not?” He heard again

her soft-whispered prayers the first night Felipe slept on the veranda.

He recalled her tender distress because the shearers had had no dinner;

the evident terribleness to her of a person going one whole day without

food. “O God! will she always have food each day if she comes with me?”

he said. And at the bare thought he was ready to flee away from her

forever. Then he recalled her look and her words only a few hours ago,

when he first told her he loved her; and his heart took courage. She

had said, “I know you love me, Alessandro, and I am glad of it,” and had

lifted her eyes to his, with all the love that a woman's eyes can carry;

and when he threw his arms around her, she had of her own accord come

closer, and laid one hand on his shoulder, and turned her face to his.

Ah, what else mattered! There was the whole world; if she loved him like

this, nothing could make them wretched; his love would be enough for

her,--and for him hers was an empire.

It was indeed true, though neither the Senora nor Margarita would have

believed it, that this had been the first word of love ever spoken

between Alessandro and Ramona, the first caress ever given, the first

moment of unreserve. It had come about, as lovers' first words, first

caresses, are so apt to do, unexpectedly, with no more premonition, at

the instant, than there is of the instant of the opening of a flower.

Alessandro had been speaking to Ramona of the conversation Felipe had

held with him in regard to remaining on the place, and asked her if she

knew of the plan.

“Yes,” she said; “I heard the Senora talking about it with Felipe, some

days ago.”

“Was she against my staying?” asked Alessandro, quickly.

“I think not,” said Ramona, “but I am not sure. It is not easy to be

sure what the Senora wishes, till afterward. It was Felipe that proposed

it.”

This somewhat enigmatical statement as to the difficulty of knowing the

Senora's wishes was like Greek to Alessandro's mind.

“I do not understand, Senorita,” he said. “What do you mean by

'afterward'?”

“I mean,” replied Ramona, “that the Senora never says she wishes

anything; she says she leaves everything to Felipe to decide, or to

Father Salvierderra. But I think it is always decided as she wishes to

have it, after all. The Senora is wonderful, Alessandro; don't you think

so?”

“She loves Senor Felipe very much,” was Alessandro's evasive reply.

“Oh, yes,” exclaimed Ramona. “You do not begin to know how much. She

does not love any other human being. He takes it all. She hasn't any

left. If he had died, she would have died too. That is the reason she

likes you so much; she thinks you saved Felipe's life. I mean, that

is one reason,” added Ramona, smiling, and looking up confidingly at

Alessandro, who smiled back, not in vanity, but honest gratitude that

the Senorita was pleased to intimate that he was not unworthy of the

Senora's regard.

“I do not think she likes me,” he said. “I cannot tell why; but I do

not think she likes any one in the world. She is not like any one I ever

saw, Senorita.”

“No,” replied Ramona, thoughtfully. “She is not. I am, oh, so afraid of

her, Alessandro! I have always been, ever since I was a little girl. I

used to think she hated me; but now I think she does not care one way or

the other, if I keep out of her way.”

While Ramona spoke these words, her eyes were fixed on the running

water at her feet. If she had looked up, and seen the expression in

Alessandro's eyes as he listened, the thing which was drawing near would

have drawn near faster, would have arrived at that moment; but she did

not look up. She went on, little dreaming how hard she was making it for

Alessandro.

“Many's the time I've come down here, at night, to this brook, and

looked at it, and wished it was a big river, so I could throw myself

in, and be carried away out to the sea, dead. But it is a fearful sin,

Father Salvierderra says, to take one's own life; and always the next

morning, when the sun came out, and the birds sang, I've been glad

enough I had not done it. Were you ever so unhappy as that, Alessandro?”

“No, Senorita, never,” replied Alessandro; “and it is thought a great

disgrace, among us, to kill one's self. I think I could never do it.

But, oh, Senorita, it is a grief to think of your being unhappy. Will

you always be so? Must you always stay here?”

“Oh, but I am not always unhappy!” said Ramona, with her sunny little

laugh. “Indeed, I am generally very happy. Father Salvierderra says that

if one does no sin, one will be always happy, and that it is a sin not

to rejoice every hour of the day in the sun and the sky and the work

there is to do; and there is always plenty of that.” Then, her face

clouding, she continued: “I suppose I shall always stay here. I have no

other home; you know I was the Senora's sister's adopted child. She died

when I was little, and the Senora kindly took me. Father Salvierderra

says I must never forget to be grateful to her for all she has done for

me, and I try not to.”

Alessandro eyed her closely. The whole story, as Juan Can had told it to

him, of the girl's birth, was burning in his thoughts. How he longed to

cry out, “O my loved one, they have made you homeless in your home. They

despise you. The blood of my race is in your veins; come to me; come to

me! be surrounded with love!” But he dared not. How could he dare?

Some strange spell seemed to have unloosed Ramona's tongue to-night.

She had never before spoken to Alessandro of her own personal history or

burdens; but she went on: “The worst thing is, Alessandro, that she will

not tell me who my mother was; and I do not know if she is alive or not,

or anything about her. Once I asked the Senora, but she forbade me ever

to ask her again. She said she herself would tell me when it was proper

for me to know. But she never has.”

How the secret trembled on Alessandro's lips now. Ramona had never

seemed so near, so intimate, so trusting. What would happen if he were

to tell her the truth? Would the sudden knowledge draw her closer to

him, or repel her?

“Have you never asked her again?” he said.

Ramona looked up astonished. “No one ever disobeyed the Senora,” she

said quickly.

“I would!” exclaimed Alessandro.

“You may think so,” said Ramona, “but you couldn't. When you tried, you

would find you couldn't. I did ask Father Salvierderra once.”

“What did he say?” asked Alessandro, breathless.

“The same thing. He said I must not ask; I was not old enough. When the

time came, I would be told,” answered Ramona, sadly. “I don't see what

they can mean by the time's coming. What do you suppose they meant?”

“I do not know the ways of any people but my own, Senorita,” replied

Alessandro. “Many things that your people do, and still more that these

Americans do, are to me so strange, I know nothing what they mean.

Perhaps they do not know who was your mother?”

“I am sure they do,” answered Ramona, in a low tone, as if the words

were wrung from her. “But let us talk about something else, Alessandro;

not about sad things, about pleasant things. Let us talk about your

staying here.”

“Would it be truly a pleasure to the Senorita Ramona, if I stayed?” said

Alessandro.

“You know it would,” answered Ramona, frankly, yet with a tremor in her

voice, which Alessandro felt. “I do not see what we could any of us do

without you. Felipe says he shall not let you go.”

Alessandro's face glowed. “It must be as my father says, Senorita,” he

said. “A messenger came from him yesterday, and I sent him back with a

letter telling him what the Senor Felipe had proposed to me, and asking

him what I should do. My father is very old, Senorita, and I do not see

how he can well spare me. I am his only child, and my mother died years

ago. We live alone together in our house, and when I am away he is very

lonely. But he would like to have me earn the wages, I know, and I hope

he will think it best for me to stay. There are many things we want to

do for the village; most of our people are poor, and can do little more

than get what they need to eat day by day, and my father wishes to see

them better off before he dies. Now that the Americans are coming in all

around us, he is afraid and anxious all the time. He wants to get a big

fence built around our land, so as to show where it is; but the people

cannot take much time to work on the fence; they need all their time to

work for themselves and their families. Indians have a hard time to live

now, Senorita. Were you ever in Temecula?”

“No,” said Ramona. “Is it a large town?”

Alessandro sighed. “Dear Senorita, it is not a town; it is only a little

village not more than twenty houses in all, and some of those are built

only of tule. There is a chapel, and a graveyard. We built an adobe wall

around the graveyard last year. That my father said we would do, before

we built the fence round the village.”

“How many people are there in the village?” asked Ramona.

“Nearly two hundred, when they are all there; but many of them are away

most of the time. They must go where they can get work; they are

hired by the farmers, or to do work on the great ditches, or to go as

shepherds; and some of them take their wives and children with them. I

do not believe the Senorita has ever seen any very poor people.”

“Oh, yes, I have, Alessandro, at Santa Barbara. There were many poor

people there, and the Sisters used to give them food every week.”

“Indians?” said Alessandro.

Ramona colored. “Yes,” she said, “some of them were, but not like your

men, Alessandro. They were very different; miserable looking; they could

not read nor write, and they seemed to have no ambition.”

“That is the trouble,” said Alessandro, “with so many of them; it is

with my father's people, too. They say, 'What is the use?' My father

gets in despair with them, because they will not learn better. He gives

them a great deal, but they do not seem to be any better off for it.

There is only one other man in our village who can read and write,

besides my father and me, Senorita; and yet my father is all the time

begging them to come to his house and learn of him. But they say they

have no time; and indeed there is much truth in that, Senorita. You see

everybody has troubles, Senorita.”

Ramona had been listening with sorrowful face. All this was new to her.

Until to-night, neither she nor Alessandro had spoken of private and

personal matters.

“Ah, but these are real troubles,” she said. “I do not think mine were

real troubles at all. I wish I could do something for your people,

Alessandro. If the village were only near by, I could teach them, could

I not? I could teach them to read. The Sisters always said, that to

teach the ignorant and the poor was the noblest work one could do. I

wish I could teach your people. Have you any relatives there

besides your father? Is there any one in the village that you--love,

Alessandro?”

Alessandro was too much absorbed in thoughts of his people, to observe

the hesitating emphasis with which Ramona asked this question.

“Yes, Senorita, I love them all. They are like my brothers and sisters,

all of my father's people,” he said; “and I am unhappy about them all

the time.”

During the whole of this conversation Ramona had had an undercurrent of

thought going on, which was making her uneasy. The more Alessandro said

about his father and his people, the more she realized that he was held

to Temecula by bonds that would be hard to break, the more she feared

his father would not let him remain away from home for any length of

time. At the thought of his going away, her very heart sickened. Taking

a sudden step towards him, she said abruptly, “Alessandro, I am afraid

your father will not give his consent to your staying here.”

“So am I, Senorita,” he replied sadly.

“And you would not stay if he did not approve of it, of course,” she

said.

“How could I, Senorita?”

“No,” she said, “it would not be right;” but as she said these words,

the tears filled her eyes.

Alessandro saw them. The world changed in that second. “Senorita!

Senorita Ramona!” he cried, “tears have come in your eyes! O Senorita,

then you will not be angry if I say that I love you!” and Alessandro

trembled with the terror and delight of having said the words.

Hardly did he trust his palpitating senses to be telling him true the

words that followed, quick, firm, though only in a whisper,--“I know

that you love me, Alessandro, and I am glad of it!” Yes, this was

what the Senorita Ramona was saying! And when he stammered, “But you,

Senorita, you do not--you could not--” “Yes, Alessandro, I do--I love

you!” in the same clear, firm whisper; and the next minute Alessandro's

arms were around Ramona, and he had kissed her, sobbing rather than

saying, “O Senorita, do you mean that you will go with me? that you

are mine? Oh, no, beloved Senorita, you cannot mean that!” But he was

kissing her. He knew she did mean it; and Ramona, whispering, “Yes,

Alessandro, I do mean it; I will go with you,” clung to him with her

hands, and kissed him, and repeated it, “I will go with you, I love

you.” And then, just then, came the Senora's step, and her sharp cry

of amazement, and there she stood, no more than an arm's-length away,

looking at them with her indignant, terrible eyes.

What an hour this for Alessandro to be living over and over, as he

crouched in the darkness, watching! But the bewilderment of his emotions

did not dull his senses. As if stalking deer in a forest, he listened

for sounds from the house. It seemed strangely still. As the darkness

deepened, it seemed still stranger that no lamps were lit. Darkness in

the Senora's room, in the Senorita's; a faint light in the dining-room,

soon put out,--evidently no supper going on there. Only from under

Felipe's door streamed a faint radiance; and creeping close to the

veranda, Alessandro heard voices fitfully talking,--the Senora's and

Felipe's; no word from Ramona. Piteously he fixed his eyes on her

window; it was open, but the curtains tight drawn; no stir, no sound.

Where was she? What had been done to his love? Only the tireless caution

and infinite patience of his Indian blood kept Alessandro from going

to her window. But he would imperil nothing by acting on his own

responsibility. He would wait, if it were till daylight, till his

love made a sign. Certainly before long Senor Felipe would come to his

veranda bed, and then he could venture to speak to him. But it was near

midnight when the door of Felipe's room opened, and he and his mother

came out, still speaking in low tones. Felipe lay down on his couch; his

mother, bending over, kissed him, bade him good-night, and went into her

own room.

It had been some time now since Alessandro had left off sleeping on the

veranda floor by Felipe's side. Felipe was so well it was not needful.

But Felipe felt sure he would come to-night, and was not surprised

when, a few minutes after the Senora's door closed, he heard a low voice

through the vines, “Senor Felipe?”

“Hush, Alessandro,” whispered Felipe. “Do not make a sound. To-morrow

morning early I will see you, behind the little sheepfold. It is not

safe to talk here.”

“Where is the Senorita?” Alessandro breathed rather than said.

“In her room,” answered Felipe.

“Well?” said Alessandro.

“Yes,” said Felipe, hoping he was not lying; and this was all Alessandro

had to comfort himself with, through his long night of watching. No, not

all; one other thing comforted him,--the notes of two wood-doves, that

at intervals he heard, cooing to each other; just the two notes, the

call and the answer, “Love?” “Here.” “Love?” “Here,”--and long intervals

of silence between. Plain as if written on a page was the thing they

told.

“That is what my Ramona is like,” thought he, “the gentle wood-dove. If

she is my wife my people will call her Majel, the Wood-Dove.”

XI

WHEN the Senora bade Felipe good-night, she did not go to bed. After

closing her door, she sat down to think what should be done about

Ramona. It had been a hard task she had set herself, talking all the

evening with Felipe without alluding to the topic uppermost in her mind.

But Felipe was still nervous and irritable. She would not spoil his

night's rest, she thought, by talking of disagreeable things. Moreover,

she was not clear in her own mind what she wished to have done about

Alessandro. If Ramona were to be sent away to the nuns, which was the

only thing the Senora could think of as yet, there would be no reason

for discharging Alessandro. And with him the Senora was by no means

ready to part, though in her first anger she had been ready to dismiss

him on the spot. As she pursued her reflections, the whole situation

cleared itself in her mind; so easily do affairs fall into line, in the

plottings and plannings of an arbitrary person, who makes in his formula

no allowance for a human element which he cannot control.

Ramona should be sent in disgrace to the Sisters' School, to be a

servant there for the rest of her life. The Senora would wash her hands

of her forever. Even Father Salvierderra himself could not expect

her any longer to keep such a shameless creature under her roof. Her

sister's written instructions had provided for the possibility of just

such a contingency. Going to a secret closet in the wall, behind a

life-size statue of Saint Catharine, the Senora took out an iron box,

battered and rusty with age, and set it on the bed. The key turned with

difficulty in the lock. It was many years since the Senora had opened

this box. No one but herself knew of its existence. There had been many

times in the history of the Moreno house when the price of the contents

of that box would have averted loss and misfortune; but the Senora no

more thought of touching the treasure than if it had been guarded by

angels with fiery swords. There they lay, brilliant and shining even in

the dim light of the one candle,--rubies, emeralds, pearls, and yellow

diamonds. The Senora's lip curled as she looked at them. “Fine dowry,

truly, for a creature like this!” she said. “Well I knew in the

beginning no good would come of it; base begotten, base born, she has

but carried out the instincts of her nature. I suppose I may be grateful

that my own son was too pure to be her prey!” “To be given to my adopted

daughter, Ramona Ortegna, on her wedding day,”--so the instructions

ran,--“if she weds worthily and with your approval. Should such a

misfortune occur, which I do not anticipate, as that she should prove

unworthy, then these jewels, and all I have left to her of value, shall

be the property of the Church.”

“No mention as to what I am to do with the girl herself if she proves

unworthy,” thought the Senora, bitterly; “but the Church is the place

for her; no other keeping will save her from the lowest depths of

disgrace. I recollect my sister said that Angus had at first intended to

give the infant to the Church. Would to God he had done so, or left it

with its Indian mother!” and the Senora rose, and paced the floor. The

paper of her dead sister's handwriting fell at her feet. As she walked,

her long skirt swept it rustling to and fro. She stooped, picked it up,

read it again, with increasing bitterness. No softness at the memory of

her sister's love for the little child; no relenting. “Unworthy!” Yes,

that was a mild word to apply to Ramona, now. It was all settled;

and when the girl was once out of the house, the Senora would breathe

easier. She and Felipe would lead their lives together, and Felipe would

wed some day. Was there a woman fair enough, good enough, for Felipe to

wed? But he must wed; and the place would be gay with children's voices,

and Ramona would be forgotten.

The Senora did not know how late it was. “I will tell her to-night,” she

said. “I will lose no time; and now she shall hear who her mother was!”

It was a strange freak of just impulse in the Senora's angry soul, which

made her suddenly remember that Ramona had had no supper, and led her

to go to the kitchen, get a jug of milk and some bread, and take them

to the room. Turning the key cautiously, that Felipe might not hear, she

opened the door and glided in. No voice greeted her; she held her candle

high up; no Ramona in sight; the bed was empty. She glanced at the

window. It was open. A terror seized the Senora; fresh anger also. “She

has run off with Alessandro,” she thought, “What horrible disgrace.”

Standing motionless, she heard a faint, regular breathing from the other

side of the bed. Hastily crossing the room, she saw a sight which had

melted a heart that was only ice; but the Senora's was stone toward

Ramona. There lay Ramona on the floor, her head on a pillow at the feet

of the big Madonna which stood in the corner. Her left hand was under

her cheek, her right arm flung tight around the base of the statue. She

was sound asleep. Her face was wet with tears. Her whole attitude was

full of significance. Even helpless in sleep, she was one who had taken

refuge in sanctuary. This thought had been distinct in the girl's mind

when she found herself, spite of all her woe and terror, growing sleepy.

“She won't dare to hurt me at the Virgin's feet,” she had said; “and

the window is open. Felipe would hear if I called; and Alessandro will

watch.” And with a prayer on her lips she fell asleep.

It was Felipe's nearness more than the Madonna's, which saved her from

being roused to hear her doom. The Senora stood for some moments

looking at her, and at the open window. With a hot rush of disgraceful

suspicions, she noted what she had never before thought of, that

Alessandro, through all his watching with Felipe, had had close access

to Ramona's window. “Shameful creature!” she repeated to herself. “And

she can sleep! It is well she prayed, if the Virgin will hear such!” and

she turned away, first setting down the jug of milk and the bread on a

table. Then, with a sudden and still more curious mingling of justness

in her wrath, she returned, and lifting the coverlet from the bed,

spread it over Ramona, covering her carefully from head to foot. Then

she went out and again locked the door.

Felipe, from his bed, heard and divined all, but made no sound. “Thank

God, the poor child is asleep!” he said; “and my poor dear mother feared

to awake me by speaking to her! What will become of us all to-morrow!”

And Felipe tossed and turned, and had barely fallen into an uneasy

sleep, when his mother's window opened, and she sang the first line of

the sunrise hymn. Instantly Ramona joined, evidently awake and ready;

and no sooner did the watching Alessandro hear the first note of her

voice, than he struck in; and Margarita, who had been up for an hour,

prowling, listening, peering, wondering, her soul racked between her

jealousy and her fears,--even Margarita delayed not to unite; and

Felipe, too, sang feebly; and the volume of the song went up as rounded

and melodious as if all hearts were at peace and in harmony, instead of

being all full of sorrow, confusion, or hatred. But there was no one of

them all who was not the better for the singing; Ramona and Alessandro

most of all.

“The saints be praised,” said Alessandro. “There is my wood-dove's

voice. She can sing!” And, “Alessandro was near. He watched all night. I

am glad he loves me,” said Ramona.

“To hear those two voices.” said the Senora; “would one suppose they

could sing like that? Perhaps it is not so bad as I think.”

As soon as the song was done, Alessandro ran to the sheepfold, where

Felipe had said he would see him. The minutes would be like years to

Alessandro till he had seen Felipe.

Ramona, when she waked and found herself carefully covered, and bread

and milk standing on the table, felt much reassured. Only the Senora's

own hand had done this, she felt sure, for she had heard her the

previous evening turn the key in the lock, then violently take it out;

and Ramona knew well that the fact of her being thus a prisoner would be

known to none but the Senora herself. The Senora would not set servants

to gossiping. She ate her bread and milk thankfully, for she was very

hungry. Then she set her room in order, said her prayers, and sat down

to wait. For what? She could not imagine; in truth, she did not much

try. Ramona had passed now into a country where the Senora did not rule.

She felt little fear. Felipe would not see her harmed, and she was going

away presently with Alessandro. It was wonderful what peace and freedom

lay in the very thought. The radiance on her face of these two new-born

emotions was the first thing the Senora observed as she opened the door,

and slowly, very slowly, eyeing Ramona with a steady look, entered the

room. This joyous composure on Ramona's face angered the Senora, as it

had done before, when she was dragging her up the garden-walk. It seemed

to her like nothing less than brazen effrontery, and it changed the

whole tone and manner of her address.

Seating herself opposite Ramona, but at the farthest side of the room,

she said, in a tone scornful and insulting, “What have you to say for

yourself?”

Returning the Senora's gaze with one no less steady, Ramona spoke in the

same calm tone in which she had twice the evening before attempted to

stay the Senora's wrath. This time, she was not interrupted.

“Senora,” she said slowly, “I tried to tell you last night, but you

would not hear me. If you had listened, you would not have been so

angry. Neither Alessandro nor I have done anything wrong, and we were

not ashamed. We love each other, and we are going to be married, and go

away. I thank you, Senora, for all you have done for me; I am sure

you will be a great deal happier when I am away;” and Ramona looked

wistfully, with no shade of resentment, into the Senora's dark, shrunken

face. “You have been very good to do so much for a girl you did not

love. Thank you for the bread and milk last night. Perhaps I can go away

with Alessandro to-day. I do not know what he will wish. We had only

just that minute spoken of being married, when you found us last night.”

The Senora's face was a study during the few moments that it took to say

these words. She was dumb with amazement. Instantaneously, on the

first sense of relief that the disgrace had not been what she supposed,

followed a new wrath, if possible hotter than the first; not so much

scorn, but a bitterer anger. “Marry! Marry that Indian!” she cried, as

soon as she found voice. “You marry an Indian? Never! Are you mad? I

will never permit it.”

Ramona looked anxiously at her. “I have never disobeyed you, Senora,”

she said, “but this is different from all other things; you are not my

mother. I have promised to marry Alessandro.”

The girl's gentleness deceived the Senora.

“No,” she said icily, “I am not your mother; but I stand in a mother's

place to you. You were my sister's adopted child, and she gave you to

me. You cannot marry without my permission, and I forbid you ever to

speak again of marrying this Indian.”

The moment had come for the Senora Moreno to find out, to her surprise

and cost, of what stuff this girl was made,--this girl, who had

for fourteen years lived by her side, docile, gentle, sunny, and

uncomplaining in her loneliness. Springing to her feet, and walking

swiftly till she stood close face to face with the Senora, who, herself

startled by the girl's swift motion, had also risen to her feet, Ramona

said, in a louder, firmer voice: “Senora Moreno, you may forbid me

as much as you please. The whole world cannot keep me from marrying

Alessandro. I love him. I have promised, and I shall keep my word.” And

with her young lithe arms straight down at her sides, her head thrown

back, Ramona flashed full in the Senora's face a look of proud defiance.

It was the first free moment her soul had ever known. She felt herself

buoyed up as by wings in air. Her old terror of the Senora fell from her

like a garment thrown off.

“Pshaw!” said the Senora, contemptuously, half amused, in spite of her

wrath, by the girl's, as she thought, bootless vehemence, “you talk like

a fool. Do you not know that I can shut you up in the nunnery to-morrow,

if I choose?”

“No, you cannot!” replied Ramona.

“Who, then, is to hinder me.” said the Senora, insolently.

“Alessandro!” answered Ramona, proudly.

“Alessandro!” the Senora sneered. “Alessandro! Ha! a beggarly Indian, on

whom my servants will set the dogs, if I bid them! Ha, ha!”

The Senora's sneering tone but roused Ramona more. “You would never

dare!” she cried; “Felipe would not permit it!” A most unwise retort for

Ramona.

“Felipe!” cried the Senora, in a shrill voice. “How dare you pronounce

his name! He will none of you, from this hour! I forbid him to speak to

you. Indeed, he will never desire to set eyes on you when he hears the

truth.”

“You are mistaken, Senora,” answered Ramona, more gently. “Felipe is

Alessandro's friend, and--mine,” she added, after a second's pause.

“So, ho! the Senorita thinks she is all-powerful in the house of

Moreno!” cried the Senora. “We will see! we will see! Follow me,

Senorita Ramona!” And throwing open the door, the Senora strode out,

looking back over her shoulder.

“Follow me!” she cried again sharply, seeing that Ramona hesitated; and

Ramona went; across the passage-way leading to the dining-room, out into

the veranda, down the entire length of it, to the Senora's room,--the

Senora walking with a quick, agitated step, strangely unlike her usual

gait; Ramona walking far slower than was her habit, and with her eyes

bent on the ground. As they passed the dining-room door, Margarita,

standing just inside, shot at Ramona a vengeful, malignant glance.

“She would help the Senora against me in anything,” thought Ramona; and

she felt a thrill of fear, such as the Senora with all her threats had

not stirred.

The Senora's windows were open. She closed them both, and drew the

curtains tight. Then she locked the door, Ramona watching her every

movement.

“Sit down in that chair,” said the Senora, pointing to one near the

fireplace. A sudden nervous terror seized Ramona.

“I would rather stand, Senora,” she said.

“Do as I bid you.” said the Senora, in a husky tone; and Ramona obeyed.

It was a low, broad armchair, and as she sank back into it, her senses

seemed leaving her. She leaned her head against the back and closed

her eyes. The room swam. She was roused by the Senora's strong

smelling-salts held for her to breathe, and a mocking taunt from the

Senora's iciest voice: “The Senorita does not seem so over-strong as she

did a few moments back!”

Ramona tried to reason with herself; surely no ill could happen to her,

in this room, within call of the whole house. But an inexplicable terror

had got possession of her; and when the Senora, with a sneer on her

face, took hold of the Saint Catharine statue, and wheeling it half

around, brought into view a door in the wall, with a big iron key in the

keyhole, which she proceeded to turn, Ramona shook with fright. She had

read of persons who had been shut up alive in cells in the wall, and

starved to death. With dilating eyes she watched the Senora, who, all

unaware of her terror, was prolonging it and intensifying it by her

every act. First she took out the small iron box, and set it on a table.

Then, kneeling, she drew out from an inner recess in the closet a large

leather-covered box, and pulled it, grating and scraping along the

floor, till it stood in front of Ramona. All this time she spoke no

word, and the cruel expression of her countenance deepened each moment.

The fiends had possession of the Senora Moreno this morning, and no

mistake. A braver heart than Ramona's might have indeed been fearful, at

being locked up alone with a woman who looked like that.

Finally, she locked the door and wheeled the statue back into its place.

Ramona breathed freer. She was not, after all, to be thrust into

the wall closet and left to starve. She gazed with wonder at the old

battered boxes. What could it all mean?

“Senorita Ramona Ortegna,” began the Senora, drawing up a chair, and

seating herself by the table on which stood the iron box, “I will now

explain to you why you will not marry the Indian Alessandro.”

At these words, this name, Ramona was herself again,--not her old self,

her new self, Alessandro's promised wife. The very sound of his name,

even on an enemy's tongue, gave her strength. The terrors fled away.

She looked up, first at the Senora, then at the nearest window. She was

young and strong; at one bound, if worst came to worst, she could leap

through the window, and fly for her life, calling on Alessandro.

“I shall marry the Indian Alessandro, Senora Moreno,” she said, in a

tone as defiant, and now almost as insolent, as the Senora's own.

The Senora paid no heed to the words, except to say, “Do not interrupt

me again. I have much to tell you;” and opening the box, she lifted out

and placed on the table tray after tray of jewels. The sheet of written

paper lay at the bottom of the box.

“Do you see this paper, Senorita Ramona?” she asked, holding it up.

Ramona bowed her head. “This was written by my sister, the Senora

Ortegna, who adopted you and gave you her name. These were her final

instructions to me, in regard to the disposition to be made of the

property she left to you.”

Ramona's lips parted. She leaned forward, breathless, listening, while

the Senora read sentence after sentence. All the pent-up pain, wonder,

fear of her childhood and her girlhood, as to the mystery of her birth,

swept over her anew, now. Like one hearkening for life or death, she

listened. She forgot Alessandro. She did not look at the jewels. Her

eyes never left the Senora's face. At the close of the reading, the

Senora said sternly, “You see, now, that my sister left to me the entire

disposition of everything belonging to you.”

“But it hasn't said who was my mother,” cried Ramona. “Is that all there

is in the paper?”

The Senora looked stupefied. Was the girl feigning? Did she care nothing

that all these jewels, almost a little fortune, were to be lost to her

forever?

“Who was your mother?” she exclaimed, scornfully, “There was no need to

write that down. Your mother was an Indian. Everybody knew that!”

At the word “Indian,” Ramona gave a low cry.

The Senora misunderstood it. “Ay,” she said, “a low, common Indian. I

told my sister, when she took you, the Indian blood in your veins would

show some day; and now it has come true.”

Ramona's cheeks were scarlet. Her eyes flashed. “Yes, Senora Moreno,”

she said, springing to her feet; “the Indian blood in my veins shows

to-day. I understand many things I never understood before. Was it

because I was an Indian that you have always hated me?”

“You are not an Indian, and I have never hated you,” interrupted the

Senora.

Ramona heeded her not, but went on, more and more impetuously. “And if

I am an Indian, why do you object to my marrying Alessandro? Oh, I am

glad I am an Indian! I am of his people. He will be glad!” The words

poured like a torrent out of her lips. In her excitement she came closer

and closer to the Senora. “You are a cruel woman,” she said. “I did not

know it before; but now I do. If you knew I was an Indian, you had no

reason to treat me so shamefully as you did last night, when you saw me

with Alessandro. You have always hated me. Is my mother alive'? Where

does she live? Tell me; and I will go to her to-day. Tell me! She will

be glad that Alessandro loves me!”

It was a cruel look, indeed, and a crueller tone, with which the Senora

answered: “I have not the least idea who your mother was, or if she is

still alive, Nobody ever knew anything about her,--some low, vicious

creature, that your father married when he was out of his senses, as you

are now, when you talk of marrying Alessandro!”

“He married her, then?” asked Ramona, with emphasis. “How know you that,

Senora Moreno?”

“He told my sister so,” replied the Senora, reluctantly. She grudged the

girl even this much of consolation.

“What was his name?” asked Ramona.

“Phail; Angus Phail,” the Senora replied almost mechanically. She found

herself strangely constrained by Ramona's imperious earnestness, and she

chafed under it. The tables were being turned on her, she hardly knew

how. Ramona seemed to tower in stature, and to have the bearing of

the one in authority, as she stood before her pouring out passionate

question after question. The Senora turned to the larger box, and opened

it. With unsteady hands she lifted out the garments which for so many

years had rarely seen the light. Shawls and ribosos of damask, laces,

gowns of satin, of velvet. As the Senora flung one after another on the

chairs, it was a glittering pile of shining, costly stuffs. Ramona's

eyes rested on them dreamily.

“Did my adopted mother wear all these?” she asked, lifting in her hand a

fold of lace, and holding it up to the light, in evident admiration.

Again the Senora misconceived her. The girl seemed not insensible to the

value and beauty of this costly raiment. Perhaps she would be lured by

it.

“All these are yours, Ramona, you understand, on your wedding day, if

you marry worthily, with my permission,” said the Senora, in a voice

a shade less cold than had hitherto come from her lips. “Did you

understand what I read you?”

The girl did not answer. She had taken up in her hand a ragged, crimson

silk handkerchief, which, tied in many knots, lay in one corner of the

jewel-box.

“There are pearls in that,” said the Senora; “that came with the things

your father sent to my sister when he died.”

Ramona's eyes gleamed. She began untying the knots. The handkerchief was

old, the knots tied tight, and undisturbed for years. As she reached the

last knot, and felt the hard stones, she paused. “This was my father's,

then.” she said.

“Yes,” said the Senora, scornfully. She thought she had detected a new

baseness in the girl. She was going to set up a claim to all which had

been her father's property. “They were your father's, and all these

rubies, and these yellow diamonds;” and she pushed the tray towards her.

Ramona had untied the last knot. Holding the handkerchief carefully

above the tray, she shook the pearls out. A strange, spicy fragrance

came from the silk. The pearls fell in among the rubies, rolling right

and left, making the rubies look still redder by contrast with their

snowy whiteness.

“I will keep this handkerchief,” she said, thrusting it as she spoke,

by a swift resolute movement into her bosom. “I am very glad to have one

thing that belonged to my father. The jewels, Senora, you can give to

the Church, if Father Salvierderra thinks that is right. I shall marry

Alessandro;” and still keeping one hand in her bosom where she had

thrust the handkerchief, she walked away and seated herself again in her

chair.

Father Salvierderra! The name smote the Senora like a spear-thrust,

There could be no stronger evidence of the abnormal excitement under

which she had been laboring for the last twenty-four hours, than the

fact that she had not once, during all this time, thought to ask herself

what Father Salvierderra would say, or might command, in this crisis.

Her religion and the long habit of its outward bonds had alike gone from

her in her sudden wrath against Ramona. It was with a real terror that

she became conscious of this.

“Father Salvierderra?” she stammered; “he has nothing to do with it.”

But Ramona saw the change in the Senora's face, at the word, and

followed up her advantage. “Father Salvierderra has to do with

everything,” she said boldly. “He knows Alessandro, He will not forbid

me to marry him, and if he did--” Ramona stopped. She also was smitten

with a sudden terror at the vista opening before her,--of a disobedience

to Father Salvierderra.

“And if he did,” repeated the Senora, eyeing Ramona keenly, “would you

disobey him?”

“Yes,” said Ramona.

“I will tell Father Salvierderra what you say,” retorted the Senora,

sarcastically, “that he may spare himself the humiliation of laying any

commands on you, to be thus disobeyed.”

Ramona's lip quivered, and her eyes filled with the tears which no other

of the Senora's taunts had been strong enough to bring. Dearly she

loved the old monk; had loved him since her earliest recollection. His

displeasure would be far more dreadful to her than the Senora's. His

would give her grief; the Senora's, at utmost, only terror.

Clasping her hands, she said, “Oh, Senora, have mercy! Do not say that

to the Father!”

“It is my duty to tell the Father everything that happens in my family,”

answered the Senora, chillingly. “He will agree with me, that if you

persist in this disobedience you will deserve the severest punishment. I

shall tell him all;” and she began putting the trays back in the box.

“You will not tell him as it really is, Senora,” persisted Ramona. “I

will tell him myself.”

“You shall not see him! I will take care of that!” cried the Senora, so

vindictively that Ramona shuddered.

“I will give you one more chance,” said the Senora, pausing in the

act of folding up one of the damask gowns. “Will you obey me? Will you

promise to have nothing more to do with this Indian?”

“Never, Senora,” replied Ramona; “never!”

“Then the consequences be on your own head,” cried the Senora. “Go to

your room! And, hark! I forbid you to speak of all this to Senor Felipe.

Do you hear?”

Ramona bowed her head. “I hear,” she said; and gliding out of the room,

closed the door behind her, and instead of going to her room, sped like

a hunted creature down the veranda steps, across the garden, calling in

a low tone, “Felipe! Felipe! Where are you, Felipe?”

XII

THE little sheepfold, or corral, was beyond the artichoke-patch, on that

southern slope whose sunshine had proved so disastrous a temptation to

Margarita in the matter of drying the altar-cloth. It was almost like a

terrace, this long slope; and the sheepfold, being near the bottom,

was wholly out of sight of the house. This was the reason Felipe had

selected it as the safest spot for his talk with Alessandro.

When Ramona reached the end of the trellised walk in the garden, she

halted and looked to the right and left. No one was in sight. As she

entered the Senora's room an hour before, she had caught a glimpse of

some one, she felt almost positive it was Felipe, turning off in the

path to the left, leading down to the sheepfold. She stood irresolute

for a moment, gazing earnestly down this path. “If the saints would only

tell me where he is!” she said aloud. She trembled as she stood there,

fearing each second to hear the Senora's voice calling her. But fortune

was favoring Ramona, for once; even as the words passed her lips, she

saw Felipe coming slowly up the bank. She flew to meet him. “Oh, Felipe,

Felipe!” she began.

“Yes, dear, I know it all,” interrupted Felipe; “Alessandro has told

me.”

“She forbade me to speak to you, Felipe,” said Ramona, “but I could not

bear it. What are we to do? Where is Alessandro?”

“My mother forbade you to speak to me!” cried Felipe, in a tone of

terror. “Oh, Ramona, why did you disobey her? If she sees us talking,

she will be even more displeased. Fly back to your room. Leave it all to

me. I will do all that I can.”

“But, Felipe,” began Ramona, wringing her hands in distress.

“I know! I know!” said Felipe; “but you must not make my mother any more

angry. I don't know what she will do till I talk with her. Do go back to

your room! Did she not tell you to stay there?”

“Yes,” sobbed Ramona, “but I cannot. Oh, Felipe, I am so afraid! Do help

us! Do you think you can? You won't let her shut me up in the convent,

will you, Felipe? Where is Alessandro? Why can't I go away with him this

minute? Where is he? Dear Felipe, let me go now.”

Felipe's face was horror-stricken. “Shut you in the convent!” he gasped.

“Did she say that? Ramona, dear, fly back to your room. Let me talk

to her. Fly, I implore you. I can't do anything for you if she sees me

talking with you now;” and he turned away, and walked swiftly down the

terrace.

Ramona felt as if she were indeed alone in the world. How could she

go back into that house! Slowly she walked up the garden-path again,

meditating a hundred wild plans of escape. Where, where was Alessandro?

Why did he not appear for her rescue? Her heart failed her; and when

she entered her room, she sank on the floor in a paroxysm of hopeless

weeping. If she had known that Alessandro was already a good half-hour's

journey on his way to Temecula, galloping farther and farther away from

her each moment, she would have despaired indeed.

This was what Felipe, after hearing the whole story, had counselled him

to do. Alessandro had given him so vivid a description of the Senora's

face and tone, when she had ordered him out of her sight, that Felipe

was alarmed. He had never seen his mother angry like that. He could not

conceive why her wrath should have been so severe. The longer he talked

with Alessandro, the more he felt that it would be wiser for him to be

out of sight till the first force of her anger had been spent. “I will

say that I sent you,” said Felipe, “so she cannot feel that you have

committed any offence in going. Come back in four days, and by that time

it will be all settled what you shall do.”

It went hard with Alessandro to go without seeing Ramona; but it did not

need Felipe's exclamation of surprise, to convince him that it would be

foolhardy to attempt it. His own judgment had told him that it would be

out of the question.

“But you will tell her all, Senor Felipe? You will tell her that it is

for her sake I go?” the poor fellow said piteously, gazing into Felipe's

eyes as if he would read his inmost soul.

“I will, indeed, Alessandro; I will,” replied Felipe; and he held his

hand out to Alessandro, as to a friend and equal. “You may trust me to

do all I can do for Ramona and for you.”

“God bless you, Senor Felipe,” answered Alessandro, gravely, a slight

trembling of his voice alone showing how deeply he was moved.

“He's a noble fellow,” said Felipe to himself, as he watched Alessandro

leap on his horse, which had been tethered near the corral all

night,--“a noble fellow! There isn't a man among all my friends who

would have been manlier or franker than he has been in this whole

business. I don't in the least wonder that Ramona loves him. He's a

noble fellow! But what is to be done! What is to be done!”

Felipe was sorely perplexed. No sharp crisis of disagreement had ever

arisen between him and his mother, but he felt that one was coming

now. He was unaware of the extent of his influence over her. He doubted

whether he could move her very far. The threat of shutting Ramona up in

the convent terrified him more than he liked to admit to himself. Had

she power to do that? Felipe did not know. She must believe that she

had, or she would not have made the threat. Felipe's whole soul revolted

at the cruel injustice of the idea.

“As if it were a sin for the poor girl to love Alessandro!” he said.

“I'd help her to run away with him, if worse comes to worst. What can

make my mother feel so!” And Felipe paced back and forth till the sun

was high, and the sharp glare and heat reminded him that he must seek

shelter; then he threw himself down under the willows. He dreaded to

go into the house. His instinctive shrinking from the disagreeable, his

disposition to put off till another time, held him back, hour by hour.

The longer he thought the situation over, the less he knew how to broach

the subject to his mother; the more uncertain he felt whether it would

be wise for him to broach it at all. Suddenly he heard his name called.

It was Margarita, who had been sent to call him to dinner. “Good

heavens! dinner already!” he cried, springing to his feet.

“Yes, Senor,” replied Margarita, eyeing him observantly. She had seen

him talking with Alessandro, had seen Alessandro galloping away down

the river road. She had also gathered much from the Senora's look,

and Ramona's, as they passed the dining-room door together soon after

breakfast. Margarita could have given a tolerably connected account of

all that had happened within the last twenty-four hours to the chief

actors in this tragedy which had so suddenly begun in the Moreno

household. Not supposed to know anything, she yet knew nearly all; and

her every pulse was beating high with excited conjecture and wonder as

to what would come next.

Dinner was a silent and constrained meal,--Ramona absent, the fiction of

her illness still kept up; Felipe embarrassed, and unlike himself; the

Senora silent, full of angry perplexity. At her first glance in Felipe's

face, she thought to herself, “Ramona has spoken to him. When and how

did she do it?” For it had been only a few moments after Ramona had left

her presence, that she herself had followed, and, seeing the girl in her

own room, had locked the door as before, and had spent the rest of the

morning on the veranda within hands' reach of Ramona's window. How,

when, and where had she contrived to communicate with Felipe? The longer

the Senora studied over this, the angrier and more baffled she felt; to

be outwitted was even worse to her than to be disobeyed. Under her very

eyes, as it were, something evidently had happened, not only against

her will, but which she could not explain. Her anger even rippled out

towards Felipe, and was fed by the recollection of Ramona's unwise

retort, “Felipe would not let you!” What had Felipe done or said to make

the girl so sure that he would be on her side and Alessandro's? Was it

come to this, that she, the Senora Moreno, was to be defied in her own

house by children and servants!

It was with a tone of severe displeasure that she said to Felipe, as

she rose from the dinner-table, “My son, I would like to have some

conversation with you in my room, if you are at leisure.”

“Certainly, mother,” said Felipe, a load rolling off his mind at her

having thus taken the initiative, for which he lacked courage; and

walking swiftly towards her, he attempted to put his arm around her

waist, as it was his affectionate habit frequently to do. She repulsed

him gently, but bethinking herself, passed her hand through his arm,

and leaning on it heavily as she walked, said: “This is the most fitting

way, my son. I must lean more and more heavily on you each year now. Age

is telling on me fast. Do you not find me greatly changed, Felipe, in

the last year?”

“No, madre mia,” replied Felipe, “indeed I do not. I see not that you

have changed in the last ten years.” And he was honest in this. His

eyes did not note the changes so clear to others, and for the best of

reasons. The face he saw was one no one else ever beheld; it was kindled

by emotion, transfigured by love, whenever it was turned towards him.

The Senora sighed deeply as she answered: “That must be because you so

love me, Felipe. I myself see the changes even day by day. Troubles

tell on me as they did not when I was younger. Even within the last

twenty-four hours I seem to myself to have aged frightfully;” and she

looked keenly at Felipe as she seated herself in the arm-chair where

poor Ramona had swooned a few hours before. Felipe remained standing

before her, gazing, with a tender expression, upon her features, but

saying nothing.

“I see that Ramona has told you all!” she continued, her voice hardening

as she spoke. What a fortunate wording of her sentence!

“No, mother; it was not Ramona, it was Alessandro, who told me this

morning, early,” Felipe answered hastily, hurrying on, to draw the

conversation as far away from Ramona as possible. “He came and spoke to

me last night after I was in bed; but I told him to wait till morning,

and then I would hear all he had to say.”

“Ah!” said the Senora, relieved. Then, as Felipe remained silent, she

asked, “And what did he say?”

“He told me all that had happened.”

“All!” said the Senora, sneeringly. “Do you suppose that he told you

all?”

“He said that you had bidden him begone out of your sight,” said Felipe,

“and that he supposed he must go. So I told him to go at once. I thought

you would prefer not to see him again.”

“Ah!” said the Senora again, startled, gratified that Felipe had so

promptly seconded her action, but sorry that Alessandro had gone. “Ah, I

did not know whether you would think it best to discharge him at once

or not; I told him he must answer to you. I did not know but you might

devise some measures by which he could be retained on the estate.”

Felipe stared. Could he believe his ears? This did not sound like the

relentless displeasure he had expected. Could Ramona have been dreaming?

In his astonishment, he did not weigh his mother's words carefully; he

did not carry his conjecture far enough; he did not stop to make sure

that retaining Alessandro on the estate might not of necessity bode any

good to Ramona; but with his usual impetuous ardor, sanguine, at the

first glimpse of hope, that all was well, he exclaimed joyfully, “Ah,

dear mother, if that could only be done, all would be well;” and, never

noting the expression of his mother's face, nor pausing to take breath,

he poured out all he thought and felt on the subject.

“That is just what I have been hoping for ever since I saw that he and

Ramona were growing so fond of each other. He is a splendid fellow, and

the best hand we have ever had on the place. All the men like him; he

would make a capital overseer; and if we put him in charge of the whole

estate, there would not be any objection to his marrying Ramona. That

would give them a good living here with us.”

“Enough!” cried the Senora, in a voice which fell on Felipe's ears

like a voice from some other world,--so hollow, so strange. He stopped

speaking, and uttered an ejaculation of amazement. At the first words

he had uttered, the Senora had fixed her eyes on the floor,--a habit of

hers when she wished to listen with close attention. Lifting her eyes

now, fixing them full on Felipe, she regarded him with a look which not

all his filial reverence could bear without resentment. It was nearly as

scornful as that with which she had regarded Ramona. Felipe colored.

“Why do you look at me like that, mother?” he exclaimed. “What have I

done?”

The Senora waved her hand imperiously. “Enough!” she reiterated. “Do not

say any more. I wish to think for a few moments;” and she fixed her eyes

on the floor again.

Felipe studied her countenance. A more nearly rebellious feeling than

he had supposed himself capable of slowly arose in his heart. Now he for

the first time perceived what terror his mother must inspire in a girl

like Ramona.

“Poor little one!” he thought. “If my mother looked at her as she did at

me just now, I wonder she did not die.”

A great storm was going on in the Senora's bosom. Wrath against Ramona

was uppermost in it. In addition to all else, the girl had now been the

cause, or at least the occasion, of Felipe's having, for the first time

in his whole life, angered her beyond her control.

“As if I had not suffered enough by reason of that creature,” she

thought bitterly to herself, “without her coming between me and Felipe!”

But nothing could long come between the Senora and Felipe. Like a fresh

lava-stream flowing down close on the track of its predecessor, came the

rush of the mother's passionate love for her son close on the passionate

anger at his words.

When she lifted her eyes they were full of tears, which it smote Felipe

to see. As she gazed at him, they rolled down her cheeks, and she said

in trembling tones: “Forgive me, my child; I had not thought anything

could make me thus angry with you. That shameless creature is costing us

too dear. She must leave the house.”

Felipe's heart gave a bound; Ramona had not been mistaken, then. A

bitter shame seized him at his mother's cruelty. But her tears made him

tender; and it was in a gentle, even pleading voice that he replied:

“I do not see, mother, why you call Ramona shameless. There is nothing

wrong in her loving Alessandro.”

“I found her in his arms!” exclaimed the Senora.

“I know,” said Felipe; “Alessandro told me that he had just at that

instant told her he loved her, and she had said she loved him, and would

marry him, just as you came up.”

“Humph!” retorted the Senora; “do you think that Indian would have dared

to speak a word of love to the Senorita Ramona Ortegna, if she had not

conducted herself shamelessly? I wonder that he concerned himself to

speak about marriage to her at all.”

“Oh, mother! mother!” was all that Felipe could say to this. He was

aghast. He saw now, in a flash, the whole picture as it lay in his

mother's mind, and his heart sank within him. “Mother!” he repeated, in

a tone which spoke volumes.

“Ay,” she continued, “that is what I say. I see no reason why he

hesitated to take her, as he would take any Indian squaw, with small

ceremony of marrying.”

“Alessandro would not take any woman that way any quicker than I would,

mother,” said Felipe courageously; “you do him injustice.” He longed

to add, “And Ramona too,” but he feared to make bad matters worse by

pleading for her at present.

“No, I do not,” said the Senora; “I do Alessandro full justice. I

think very few men would have behaved as well as he has under the same

temptation. I do not hold him in the least responsible for all that has

happened. It is all Ramona's fault.”

Felipe's patience gave way. He had not known, till now, how very closely

this pure and gentle girl, whom he had loved as a sister in his boyhood,

and had come near loving as a lover in his manhood, had twined herself

around his heart. He could not remain silent another moment, and hear

her thus wickedly accused.

“Mother!” he exclaimed, in a tone which made the Senora look up at him

in sudden astonishment. “Mother, I cannot help it if I make you very

angry; I must speak; I can't bear to hear you say such things of Ramona.

I have seen for a long time that Alessandro loved the very ground under

her feet; and Ramona would not have been a woman if she had not seen it

too! She has seen it, and has felt it, and has come to love him with all

her soul, just as I hope some woman will love me one of these days. If I

am ever loved as well as she loves Alessandro, I shall be lucky. I think

they ought to be married; and I think we ought to take Alessandro on to

the estate, so that they can live here. I don't see anything disgraceful

in it, nor anything wrong, nor anything but what was perfectly natural.

You know, mother, it isn't as if Ramona really belonged to our family;

you know she is half Indian.” A scornful ejaculation from his mother

interrupted him here; but Felipe hurried on, partly because he was borne

out of himself at last by impetuous feeling, partly that he dreaded to

stop, because if he did, his mother would speak; and already he felt

a terror of what her next words might be. “I have often thought about

Ramona's future, mother. You know a great many men would not want to

marry her, just because she is half Indian. You, yourself, would never

have given your consent to my marrying her, if I had wanted to.” Again

an exclamation from the Senora, this time more of horror than of scorn.

But Felipe pressed on. “No, of course you would not, I always knew that;

except for that, I might have loved her myself, for a sweeter girl

never drew breath in this God's earth.” Felipe was reckless now; having

entered on this war, he would wage it with every weapon that lay within

his reach; if one did not tell, another might. “You have never loved

her. I don't know that you have ever even liked her; I don't think you

have. I know, as a little boy, I always used to see how much kinder you

were to me than to her, and I never could understand it. And you are

unjust to her now. I've been watching her all summer; I've seen her and

Alessandro together continually. You know yourself, mother, he has been

with us on the veranda, day after day, just as if he were one of the

family. I've watched them by the hour, when I lay there so sick; I

thought you must have seen it too. I don't believe Alessandro has ever

looked or said or done a thing I wouldn't have done in his place; and I

don't believe Ramona has ever looked, said, or done a thing I would not

be willing to have my own sister do!” Here Felipe paused. He had made

his charge; like a young impetuous general, massing all his forces at

the onset; he had no reserves. It is not the way to take Gibraltars.

When he paused, literally breathless, he had spoken so fast,--and even

yet Felipe was not quite strong, so sadly had the fever undermined his

constitution,--the Senora looked at him interrogatively, and said in

a now composed tone: “You do not believe that Ramona has done anything

that you would not be willing to have your own sister do? Would you be

willing that your own sister should marry Alessandro?”

Clever Senora Moreno! During the few moments that Felipe had been

speaking, she had perceived certain things which it would be beyond her

power to do; certain others that it would be impolitic to try to do.

Nothing could possibly compensate her for antagonizing Felipe. Nothing

could so deeply wound her, as to have him in a resentful mood towards

her; or so weaken her real control of him, as to have him feel that she

arbitrarily overruled his preference or his purpose. In presence of her

imperious will, even her wrath capitulated and surrendered. There would

be no hot words between her and her son. He should believe that he

determined the policy of the Moreno house, even in this desperate

crisis.

Felipe did not answer. A better thrust was never seen on any field than

the Senora's question. She repeated it, still more deliberately, in her

wonted gentle voice. The Senora was herself again, as she had not been

for a moment since she came upon Alessandro and Ramona at the brook.

How just and reasonable the question sounded, as she repeated it slowly,

with an expression in her eyes, of poising and weighing matters. “Would

you be willing that your own sister should marry Alessandro?”

Felipe was embarrassed. He saw whither he was being led. He could give

but one answer to this question. “No, mother,” he said, “I should not;

but--”

“Never mind buts,” interrupted his mother; “we have not got to those

yet;” and she smiled on Felipe,--an affectionate smile, but it somehow

gave him a feeling of dread. “Of course I knew you could make but one

answer to my question. If you had a sister, you would rather see her

dead than married to any one of these Indians.”

Felipe opened his lips eagerly, to speak. “Not so,” he said.

“Wait, dear!” exclaimed his mother. “One thing at a time, I see how full

your loving heart is, and I was never prouder of you as my son than when

listening just now to your eloquent defence of Ramona, Perhaps you

may be right and I wrong as to her character and conduct. We will not

discuss those points.” It was here that the Senora had perceived some

things that it would be out of her power to do. “We will not discuss

those, because they do not touch the real point at issue. What it is

our duty to do by Ramona, in such a matter as this, does not turn on

her worthiness or unworthiness. The question is, Is it right for you

to allow her to do what you would not allow your own sister to do?” The

Senora paused for a second, noted with secret satisfaction how puzzled

and unhappy Felipe looked; then, in a still gentler voice, she went on,

“You surely would not think that right, my son, would you?” And now the

Senora waited for an answer.

“No, mother,” came reluctantly from Felipe's lips. “I suppose not;

but--”

“I was sure my own son could make no other reply,” interrupted the

Senora. She did not wish Felipe at present to do more than reply to

her questions. “Of course it would not be right for us to let Ramona

do anything which we would not let her do if she were really of our own

blood. That is the way I have always looked at my obligation to her. My

sister intended to rear her as her own daughter. She had given her her

own name. When my sister died, she transferred to me all her right and

responsibility in and for the child. You do not suppose that if your

aunt had lived, she would have ever given her consent to her adopted

daughter's marrying an Indian, do you?”

Again the Senora paused for a reply, and again the reluctant Felipe

said, in a low tone, “No, I suppose she would not.”

“Very well. Then that lays a double obligation on us. It is not only

that we are not to permit Ramona to do a thing which we would consider

disgraceful to one of our own blood; we are not to betray the trust

reposed in us by the only person who had a right to control her, and who

transferred that trust to us. Is not that so?”

“Yes, mother,” said the unhappy Felipe.

He saw the meshes closing around him. He felt that there was a flaw

somewhere in his mother's reasoning, but he could not point it out;

in fact, he could hardly make it distinct to himself. His brain was

confused. Only one thing he saw clearly, and that was, that after all

had been said and done, Ramona would still marry Alessandro. But it was

evident that it would never be with his mother's consent. “Nor with mine

either, openly, the way she puts it. I don't see how it can be; and yet

I have promised Alessandro to do all I could for him. Curse the luck,

I wish he had never set foot on the place!” said Felipe in his heart,

growing unreasonable, and tired with the perplexity.

The Senora continued: “I shall always blame myself bitterly for having

failed to see what was going on. As you say, Alessandro has been with

us a great deal since your illness, with his music, and singing, and one

thing and another; but I can truly say that I never thought of Ramona's

being in danger of looking upon him in the light of a possible lover,

any more than of her looking thus upon Juan Canito, or Luigo, or any

other of the herdsmen or laborers. I regret it more than words can

express, and I do not know what we can do, now that it has happened.”

“That's it, mother! That's it!” broke in Felipe. “You see, you see it is

too late now.”

The Senora went on as if Felipe had not spoken. “I suppose you would

really very much regret to part with Alessandro, and your word is in a

way pledged to him, as you had asked him if he would stay on the place,

Of course, now that all this has happened, it would be very unpleasant

for Ramona to stay here, and see him continually--at least for a time,

until she gets over this strange passion she seems to have conceived

for him. It will not last. Such sudden passions never do.” The Senora

artfully interpolated, “What should you think, Felipe, of having her go

back to the Sisters' school for a time? She was very happy there.”

The Senora had strained a point too far. Felipe's self-control suddenly

gave way, and as impetuously as he had spoken in the beginning, he spoke

again now, nerved by the memory of Ramona's face and tone as she had

cried to him in the garden, “Oh, Felipe, you won't let her shut me up

in the convent, will you?” “Mother!” he cried, “you would never do that.

You would not shut the poor girl up in the convent!”

The Senora raised her eyebrows in astonishment. “Who spoke of shutting

up?” she said. “Ramona has already been there at school. She might go

again. She is not too old to learn. A change of scene and occupation is

the best possible cure for a girl who has a thing of this sort to get

over. Can you propose anything better, my son? What would you advise?”

And a third time the Senora paused for an answer.

These pauses and direct questions of the Senora's were like nothing

in life so much as like that stage in a spider's processes when,

withdrawing a little way from a half-entangled victim, which still

supposes himself free, it rests from its weaving, and watches the victim

flutter. Subtle questions like these, assuming, taking for granted as

settled, much which had never been settled at all, were among the best

weapons in the Senora's armory. They rarely failed her.

“Advise!” cried Felipe, excitedly. “Advise! This is what I advise--to

let Ramona and Alessandro marry. I can't help all you say about our

obligations. I dare say you're right; and it's a cursedly awkward

complication for us, anyhow, the way you put it.”

“Yes, awkward for you, as the head of our house,” interrupted the

Senora, sighing. “I don't quite see how you would face it.”

“Well, I don't propose to face it,” continued Felipe, testily. “I don't

propose to have anything to do with it, from first to last. Let her go

away with him, if she wants to.'

“Without our consent?” said the Senora, gently.

“Yes, without it, if she can't go with it; and I don't see, as you have

stated it, how we could exactly take any responsibility about marrying

her to Alessandro. But for heaven's sake, mother, let her go! She will

go, any way. You haven't the least idea how she loves Alessandro, or how

he loves her. Let her go!”

“Do you really think she would run away with him, if it came to that?”

asked the Senora, earnestly. “Run away and marry him, spite of our

refusing to consent to the marriage?”

“I do,” said Felipe.

“Then it is your opinion, is it, that the only thing left for us to do,

is to wash our hands of it altogether, and leave her free to do what she

pleases?”

“That's just what I do think, mother,” replied Felipe, his heart growing

lighter at her words. “That's just what I do think. We can't prevent

it, and it is of no use to try. Do let us tell them they can do as they

like.”

“Of course, Alessandro must leave us, then,” said the Senora. “They

could not stay here.”

“I don't see why!” said Felipe, anxiously.

“You will, my son, if you think a moment. Could we possibly give a

stronger indorsement to their marriage than by keeping them here? Don't

you see that would be so?”

Felipe's eyes fell. “Then I suppose they couldn't be married here,

either,” he said.

“What more could we do than that, for a marriage that we heartily

approved of, my son?”

“True, mother;” and Felipe clapped his hand to his forehead. “But then

we force them to run away!”

“Oh, no.” said the Senora, icily. “If they go, they will go of their

own accord. We hope they will never do anything so foolish and wrong. If

they do, I suppose we shall always be held in a measure responsible for

not having prevented it. But if you think it is not wise, or of no use

to attempt that, I do not see what there is to be done.”

Felipe did not speak. He felt discomfited; felt as if he had betrayed

his friend Alessandro, his sister Ramona; as if a strange complication,

network of circumstances, had forced him into a false position; he did

not see what more he could ask, what more could be asked, of his mother;

he did not see, either, that much less could have been granted to

Alessandro and Ramona; he was angry, wearied, perplexed.

The Senora studied his face. “You do not seem satisfied, Felipe dear,”

she said tenderly. “As, indeed, how could you be in this unfortunate

state of affairs? But can you think of anything different for us to do?”

“No,” said Felipe, bitterly. “I can't, that's the worst of it. It is

just turning Ramona out of the house, that's all.”

“Felipe! Felipe!” exclaimed the Senora, “how unjust you are to yourself!

You know you would never do that! You know that she has always had a

home here as if she were a daughter; and always will have, as long as

she wishes it. If she chooses to turn her back on it, and go away, is

it our fault? Do not let your pity for this misguided girl blind you to

what is just to yourself and to me. Turn Ramona out of the house! You

know I promised my sister to bring her up as my own child; and I have

always felt that my son would receive the trust from me, when I died.

Ramona has a home under the Moreno roof so long as she will accept it.

It is not just, Felipe, to say that we turn her out;” and tears stood in

the Senora's eyes.

“Forgive me, dear mother,” cried the unhappy Felipe. “Forgive me for

adding one burden to all you have to bear. Truth is, this miserable

business has so distraught my senses, I can't seem to see anything as it

is. Dear mother, it is very hard for you. I wish it were done with.”

“Thanks for your precious sympathy, my Felipe,” replied the Senora. “If

it were not for you, I should long ago have broken down beneath my cares

and burdens. But among them all, have been few so grievous as this. I

feel myself and our home dishonored. But we must submit. As you say,

Felipe, I wish it were done with. It would be as well, perhaps, to send

for Ramona at once, and tell her what we have decided. She is no doubt

in great anxiety; we will see her here.”

Felipe would have greatly preferred to see Ramona alone; but as he knew

not how to bring this about he assented to his mother's suggestion.

Opening her door, the Senora walked slowly down the passage-way,

unlocked Ramona's door, and said: “Ramona, be so good as to come to my

room. Felipe and I have something to say to you.”

Ramona followed, heavy-hearted. The words, “Felipe and I,” boded no

good.

“The Senora has made Felipe think just as she does herself,” thought

Ramona. “Oh, what will become of me!” and she stole a reproachful,

imploring look at Felipe. He smiled back in a way which reassured her;

but the reassurance did not last long.

“Senorita Ramona Ortegna,” began the Senora. Felipe shivered. He had had

no conception that his mother could speak in that way. The words seemed

to open a gulf between Ramona and all the rest of the world, so cold

and distant they sounded,--as the Senora might speak to an intruding

stranger.

“Senorita Ramona Ortegna,” she said, “my son and I have been discussing

what it is best for us to do in the mortifying and humiliating position

in which you place us by your relation with the Indian Alessandro. Of

course you know--or you ought to know--that it is utterly impossible

for us to give our consent to your making such a marriage; we should be

false to a trust, and dishonor our own family name, if we did that.”

Ramona's eyes dilated, her cheeks paled; she opened her lips, but no

sound came from them; she looked toward Felipe, and seeing him with

downcast eyes, and an expression of angry embarrassment on his face,

despair seized her. Felipe had deserted their cause. Oh, where, where

was Alessandro! Clasping her hands, she uttered a low cry,--a cry that

cut Felipe to the heart. He was finding out, in thus being witness of

Ramona's suffering, that she was far nearer and dearer to him than he

had realized. It would have taken very little, at such moments as these,

to have made Felipe her lover again; he felt now like springing to her

side, folding his arms around her, and bidding his mother defiance. It

took all the self-control he could gather, to remain silent, and trust

to Ramona's understanding him later.

Ramona's cry made no break in the smooth, icy flow of the Senora's

sentences. She gave no sign of having heard it, but continued: “My son

tells me that he thinks our forbidding it would make no difference; that

you would go away with the man all the same. I suppose he is right in

thinking so, as you yourself told me that even if Father Salvierderra

forbade it, you would disobey him. Of course, if this is your

determination, we are powerless. Even if I were to put you in the

keeping of the Church, which is what I am sure my sister, who adopted

you as her child, would do, if she were alive, you would devise some

means of escape, and thus bring a still greater and more public scandal

on the family. Felipe thinks that it is not worth while to attempt to

bring you to reason in that way; and we shall therefore do nothing. I

wish to impress it upon you that my son, as head of this house, and I,

as my sister's representative, consider you a member of our own family.

So long as we have a home for ourselves, that home is yours, as it

always has been. If you choose to leave it, and to disgrace yourself and

us by marrying an Indian, we cannot help ourselves.”

The Senora paused. Ramona did not speak. Her eyes were fixed on the

Senora's face, as if she would penetrate to her inmost soul; the girl

was beginning to recognize the Senora's true nature; her instincts and

her perceptions were sharpened by love.

“Have you anything to say to me or to my son?” asked the Senora.

“No, Senora,” replied Ramona; “I do not think of anything more to say

than I said this morning. Yes,” she added, “there is. Perhaps I shall

not speak with you again before I go away. I thank you once more for

the home you have given me for so many years. And you too, Felipe,” she

continued, turning towards Felipe, her face changing, all her pent-up

affection and sorrow looking out of her tearful eyes,--“you too, dear

Felipe. You have always been so good to me. I shall always love you as

long as I live;” and she held out both her hands to him. Felipe took

them in his, and was about to speak, when the Senora interrupted

him. She did not intend to have any more of this sort of affectionate

familiarity between her son and Ramona.

“Are we to understand that you are taking your leave now?” she said. “Is

it your purpose to go at once?”

“I do not know, Senora,” stammered Ramona; “I have not seen Alessandro;

I have not heard--” And she looked up in distress at Felipe, who

answered compassionately,--

“Alessandro has gone.”

“Gone!” shrieked Ramona. “Gone! not gone, Felipe!”

“Only for four days,” replied Felipe. “To Temecula. I thought it would

be better for him to be away for a day or two. He is to come back

immediately. Perhaps he will be back day after to-morrow.”

“Did he want to go? What did he go for? Why didn't you let me go with

him? Oh, why, why did he go?” cried Ramona.

“He went because my son told him to go,” broke in the Senora, impatient

of this scene, and of the sympathy she saw struggling in Felipe's

expressive features. “My son thought, and rightly, that the sight of him

would be more than I could bear just now; so he ordered him to go away,

and Alessandro obeyed.”

Like a wounded creature at bay, Ramona turned suddenly away from Felipe,

and facing the Senora, her eyes resolute and dauntless spite of the

streaming tears, exclaimed, lifting her right hand as she spoke, “You

have been cruel; God will punish you!” and without waiting to see what

effect her words had produced, without looking again at Felipe, she

walked swiftly out of the room.

“You see,” said the Senora, “you see she defies us.”

“She is desperate,” said Felipe. “I am sorry I sent Alessandro away.”

“No, my son,” replied the Senora, “you were wise, as you always are.

It may bring her to her senses, to have a few days' reflection in

solitude.”

“You do not mean to keep her locked up, mother, do you?” cried Felipe.

The Senora turned a look of apparently undisguised amazement on him.

“You would not think that best, would you? Did you not say that all we

could do, was simply not to interfere with her in any way? To wash our

hands, so far as is possible, of all responsibility about her?”

“Yes, yes,” said the baffled Felipe; “that was what I said. But,

mother--” He stopped. He did not know what he wanted to say.

The Senora looked tenderly at him, her face full of anxious inquiry.

“What is it, Felipe dear? Is there anything more you think I ought to

say or do?” she asked.

“What is it you are going to do, mother?” said Felipe. “I don't seem to

understand what you are going to do.”

“Nothing, Felipe! You have entirely convinced me that all effort would

be thrown away. I shall do nothing,” replied the Senora. “Nothing

whatever.”

“Then as long as Ramona is here, everything will be just as it always

has been?” said Felipe.

The Senora smiled sadly. “Dear Felipe, do you think that possible? A

girl who has announced her determination to disobey not only you and

me, but Father Salvierderra, who is going to bring disgrace both on the

Moreno and the Ortegna name,--we can't feel exactly the same towards her

as we did before, can we?”

Felipe made an impatient gesture. “No, of course not. But I mean, is

everything to be just the same, outwardly, as it was before?”

“I supposed so,” said the Senora. “Was not that your idea? We must try

to have it so, I think. Do not you?”

“Yes,” groaned Felipe, “if we can!”

XIII

THE Senora Moreno had never before been so discomfited as in this matter

of Ramona and Alessandro. It chafed her to think over her conversation

with Felipe; to recall how far the thing she finally attained was from

the thing she had in view when she began. To have Ramona sent to the

convent, Alessandro kept as overseer of the place, and the Ortegna

jewels turned into the treasury of the Church,--this was the plan she

had determined on in her own mind. Instead of this, Alessandro was not

to be overseer on the place; Ramona would not go to the convent: she

would be married to Alessandro, and they would go away together; and

the Ortegna jewels,--well, that was a thing to be decided in the future;

that should be left to Father Salvierderra to decide. Bold as the Senora

was, she had not quite the courage requisite to take that question

wholly into her own hands.

One thing was clear, Felipe must not be consulted in regard to them. He

had never known of them, and need not now. Felipe was far too much in

sympathy with Ramona to take a just view of the situation. He would be

sure to have a quixotic idea of Ramona's right of ownership. It was not

impossible that Father Salvierderra might have the same feeling. If so,

she must yield; but that would go harder with her than all the rest.

Almost the Senora would have been ready to keep the whole thing a secret

from the Father, if he had not been at the time of the Senora Ortegna's

death fully informed of all the particulars of her bequest to her

adopted child. At any rate, it would be nearly a year before the Father

came again, and in the mean time she would not risk writing about it.

The treasure was as safe in Saint Catharine's keeping as it had been all

these fourteen years; it should still lie hidden there. When Ramona went

away with Alessandro, she would write to Father Salvierderra, simply

stating the facts in her own way, and telling him that all further

questions must wait for decision until they met.

And so she plotted and planned, and mapped out the future in her

tireless weaving brain, till she was somewhat soothed for the partial

failure of her plans.

There is nothing so skilful in its own defence as imperious pride. It

has an ingenious system of its own, of reprisals,--a system so ingenious

that the defeat must be sore indeed, after which it cannot still

find some booty to bring off! And even greater than this ingenuity at

reprisals is its capacity for self-deception. In this regard, it outdoes

vanity a thousandfold. Wounded vanity knows when it is mortally hurt;

and limps off the field, piteous, all disguises thrown away. But pride

carries its banner to the last; and fast as it is driven from one field

unfurls it in another, never admitting that there is a shade less honor

in the second field than in the first, or in the third than in the

second; and so on till death. It is impossible not to have a certain

sort of admiration for this kind of pride. Cruel, those who have it, are

to all who come in their way; but they are equally cruel to themselves,

when pride demands the sacrifice. Such pride as this has led many a

forlorn hope, on the earth, when all other motives have died out of

men's breasts; has won many a crown, which has not been called by its

true name.

Before the afternoon was over, the Senora had her plan, her chart of

the future, as it were, all reconstructed; the sting of her discomfiture

soothed; the placid quiet of her manner restored; her habitual

occupations also, and little ways, all resumed. She was going to do

“nothing” in regard to Ramona. Only she herself knew how much that

meant; how bitterly much! She wished she were sure that Felipe also

would do “nothing;” but her mind still misgave her about Felipe.

Unpityingly she had led him on, and entangled him in his own words,

step by step, till she had brought him to the position she wished him to

take. Ostensibly, his position and hers were one, their action a unit;

all the same, she did not deceive herself as to his real feeling about

the affair. He loved Ramona. He liked Alessandro. Barring the question

of family pride, which he had hardly thought of till she suggested

it, and which he would not dwell on apart from her continuing to press

it,--barring this, he would have liked to have Alessandro marry Ramona

and remain on the place. All this would come uppermost in Felipe's

mind again when he was removed from the pressure of her influence.

Nevertheless, she did not intend to speak with him on the subject again,

or to permit him to speak to her. Her ends would be best attained

by taking and keeping the ground that the question of their

non-interference having been settled once for all, the painful topic

should never be renewed between them. In patient silence they must await

Ramona's action; must bear whatever of disgrace and pain she chose to

inflict on the family which had sheltered her from her infancy till now.

The details of the “nothing” she proposed to do, slowly arranged

themselves in her mind. There should be no apparent change in Ramona's

position in the house. She should come and go as freely as ever; no

watch on her movements; she should eat, sleep, rise up and sit down

with them, as before; there should be not a word, or act, that Felipe's

sympathetic sensitiveness could construe into any provocation to Ramona

to run away. Nevertheless, Ramona should be made to feel, every moment

of every hour, that she was in disgrace; that she was with them, but not

of them; that she had chosen an alien's position, and must abide by it.

How this was to be done, the Senora did not put in words to herself, but

she knew very well. If anything would bring the girl to her senses, this

would. There might still be a hope, the Senora believed, so little did

she know Ramona's nature, or the depth of her affection for Alessandro,

that she might be in this manner brought to see the enormity of the

offence she would commit if she persisted in her purpose. And if she did

perceive this, confess her wrong, and give up the marriage,--the Senora

grew almost generous and tolerant in her thoughts as she contemplated

this contingency,--if she did thus humble herself and return to her

rightful allegiance to the Moreno house, the Senora would forgive her,

and would do more for her than she had ever hitherto done. She would

take her to Los Angeles and to Monterey; would show her a little more

of the world; and it was by no means unlikely that there might thus come

about for her a satisfactory and honorable marriage. Felipe should see

that she was not disposed to deal unfairly by Ramona in any way, if

Ramona herself would behave properly.

Ramona's surprise, when the Senora entered her room just before supper,

and, in her ordinary tone, asked a question about the chili which was

drying on the veranda, was so great, that she could not avoid showing it

both in her voice and look.

The Senora recognized this immediately, but gave no sign of having done

so, continuing what she had to say about the chili, the hot sun, the

turning of the grapes, etc., precisely as she would have spoken to

Ramona a week previous. At least, this was what Ramona at first thought;

but before the sentences were finished, she had detected in the Senora's

eye and tone the weapons which were to be employed against her. The

emotion of half-grateful wonder with which she had heard the first words

changed quickly to heartsick misery before they were concluded; and

she said to herself: “That's the way she is going to break me down, she

thinks! But she can't do it. I can bear anything for four days; and the

minute Alessandro comes, I will go away with him.” This train of thought

in Ramona's mind was reflected in her face. The Senora saw it, and

hardened herself still more. It was to be war, then. No hope of

surrender. Very well. The girl had made her choice.

Margarita was now the most puzzled person in the household. She had

overheard snatches of the conversation between Felipe and his mother and

Ramona, having let her curiosity get so far the better of her discretion

as to creep to the door and listen. In fact, she narrowly escaped

being caught, having had barely time to begin her feint of sweeping the

passage-way, when Ramona, flinging the door wide open, came out,

after her final reply to the Senora, the words of which Margarita had

distinctly heard: “God will punish you.”

“Holy Virgin! how dare she say that to the Senora?” ejaculated

Margarita, under her breath; and the next second Ramona rushed by, not

even seeing her. But the Senora's vigilant eyes, following Ramona,

saw her; and the Senora's voice had a ring of suspicion in it, as she

called, “How comes it you are sweeping the passage-way at this hour of

the day, Margarita?”

It was surely the devil himself that put into Margarita's head the quick

lie which she instantaneously told. “There was early breakfast, Senora,

to be cooked for Alessandro, who was setting off in haste, and my mother

was not up, so I had it to cook.”

As Margarita said this, Felipe fixed his eyes steadily upon her. She

changed color. Felipe knew this was a lie. He had seen Margarita peering

about among the willows while he was talking with Alessandro at the

sheepfold; he had seen Alessandro halt for a moment and speak to her as

he rode past,--only for a moment; then, pricking his horse sharply, he

had galloped off down the valley road. No breakfast had Alessandro had

at Margarita's hands, or any other's, that morning. What could have been

Margarita's motive for telling this lie?

But Felipe had too many serious cares on his mind to busy himself long

with any thought of Margarita or her fibs. She had said the first thing

which came into her head, most likely, to shelter herself from the

Senora's displeasure; which was indeed very near the truth, only there

was added a spice of malice against Alessandro. A slight undercurrent of

jealous antagonism towards him had begun to grow up among the servants

of late; fostered, if not originated, by Margarita's sharp sayings as to

his being admitted to such strange intimacy with the family.

While Felipe continued ill, and was so soothed to rest by his music,

there was no room for cavil. It was natural that Alessandro came and

went as a physician might. But after Felipe had recovered, why should

this freedom and intimacy continue? More than once there had been sullen

mutterings of this kind on the north veranda, when all the laborers

and servants were gathered there of an evening, Alessandro alone being

absent from the group, and the sounds of his voice or his violin coming

from the south veranda, where the family sat.

“It would be a good thing if we too had a bit of music now and then,”

Juan Canito would grumble; “but the lad's chary enough of his bow on

this side the house.”

“Ho! we're not good enough for him to play to!” Margarita would reply;

“'Like master, like servant,' is a good proverb sometimes, but not

always. But there's a deal going on, on the veranda yonder, besides

fiddling!” and Margarita's lips would purse themselves up in an

expression of concentrated mystery and secret knowledge, well fitted to

draw from everybody a fire of questions, none of which, however, would

she answer. She knew better than to slander the Senorita Ramona, or to

say a word even reflecting upon her unfavorably. Not a man or a woman

there would have borne it. They all had loved Ramona ever since she came

among them as a toddling baby. They petted her then, and idolized her

now. Not one of them whom she had not done good offices for,--nursed

them, cheered them, remembered their birthdays and their saints'-days.

To no one but her mother had Margarita unbosomed what she knew, and what

she suspected; and old Marda, frightened at the bare pronouncing of such

words, had terrified Margarita into the solemnest of promises never,

under any circumstances whatever, to say such things to any other member

of the family. Marda did not believe them. She could not. She believed

that Margarita's jealousy had imagined all.

“And the Senora; she'd send you packing off this place in an hour,

and me too, long's I've lived here, if ever she was to know of you

blackening the Senorita. An Indian, too! You must be mad, Margarita!”

When Margarita, in triumph, had flown to tell her that the Senora had

just dragged the Senorita Ramona up the garden-walk, and shoved her into

her room and locked the door, and that it was because she had caught her

with Alessandro at the washing-stones, Marda first crossed herself in

sheer mechanical fashion at the shock of the story, and then cuffed

Margarita's ears for telling her.

“I'll take the head off your neck, if you say that aloud again!

Whatever's come to the Senora! Forty years I've lived under this roof,

and I never saw her lift a hand to a living creature yet. You're out of

your senses, child!” she said, all the time gazing fearfully towards the

room.

“You'll see whether I am out of my senses or not,” retorted Margarita,

and ran back to the dining-room. And after the dining-room door was

shut, and the unhappy pretence of a supper had begun, old Marda had

herself crept softly to the Senorita's door and listened, and heard

Ramona sobbing as if her heart would break. Then she knew that what

Margarita had said must be true, and her faithful soul was in sore

straits what to think. The Senorita misdemean herself! Never! Whatever

happened, it was not that! There was some horrible mistake somewhere.

Kneeling at the keyhole, she had called cautiously to Ramona, “Oh, my

lamb, what is it?” But Ramona had not heard her, and the danger was too

great of remaining; so scrambling up with difficulty from her rheumatic

knees, the old woman had hobbled back to the kitchen as much in the dark

as before, and, by a curiously illogical consequence, crosser than ever

to her daughter. All the next day she watched for herself, and could

not but see that all appearances bore out Margarita's statements.

Alessandro's sudden departure had been a tremendous corroboration of the

story. Not one of the men had had an inkling of it; Juan Canito, Luigo,

both alike astonished; no word left, no message sent; only Senor Felipe

had said carelessly to Juan Can, after breakfast: “You'll have to look

after things yourself for a few days, Juan. Alessandro has gone to

Temecula.”

“For a few days!” exclaimed Margarita, sarcastically, when this was

repeated to her. “That's easy said! If Alessandro Assis is seen here

again, I'll eat my head! He's played his last tune on the south veranda,

I wager you.”

But when at supper-time of this same eventful day the Senora was heard,

as she passed the Senorita's door, to say in her ordinary voice, “Are

you ready for supper, Ramona?” and Ramona was seen to come out and walk

by the Senora's side to the dining-room; silent, to be sure,--but then

that was no strange thing, the Senorita always was more silent in the

Senora's presence,--when Marda, standing in the court-yard, feigning to

be feeding her chickens, but keeping a close eye on the passage-ways,

saw this, she was relieved, and thought: “It's only a dispute there has

been. There will be disputes in families sometimes. It is none of our

affair. All is settled now.”

And Margarita, standing in the dining-room, when she saw them all

coming in as usual,--the Senora, Felipe, Ramona,--no change, even to

her scrutinizing eye, in anybody's face, was more surprised than she had

been for many a day; and began to think again, as she had more than

once since this tragedy began, that she must have dreamed much that she

remembered.

But surfaces are deceitful, and eyes see little. Considering its

complexity, the fineness and delicacy of its mechanism, the results

attainable by the human eye seem far from adequate to the expenditure

put upon it. We have flattered ourselves by inventing proverbs of

comparison in matter of blindness,--“blind as a bat,” for instance. It

would be safe to say that there cannot be found in the animal kingdom

a bat, or any other creature, so blind in its own range of circumstance

and connection, as the greater majority of human beings are in the

bosoms of their families. Tempers strain and recover, hearts break and

heal, strength falters, fails, and comes near to giving way altogether,

every day, without being noted by the closest lookers-on.

Before night of this second day since the trouble had burst like a

storm-cloud on the peaceful Moreno household, everything had so resumed

the ordinary expression and routine, that a shrewder observer and

reasoner than Margarita might well be excused for doubting if any

serious disaster could have occurred to any one. Senor Felipe sauntered

about in his usual fashion, smoking his cigarettes, or lay on his bed in

the veranda, dozing. The Senora went her usual rounds of inspection, fed

her birds, spoke to every one in her usual tone, sat in her carved chair

with her hands folded, gazing out on the southern sky. Ramona busied

herself with her usual duties, dusted the chapel, put fresh flowers

before all the Madonnas, and then sat down at her embroidery. Ramona had

been for a long time at work on a beautiful altar-cloth for the chapel.

It was to have been a present to the Senora. It was nearly done. As she

held up the frame in which it was stretched, and looked at the delicate

tracery of the pattern, she sighed. It had been with a mingled feeling

of interest and hopelessness that she had for months been at work on it,

often saying to herself, “She won't care much for it, beautiful as it

is, just because I did it; but Father Salvierderra will be pleased when

he sees it.”

Now, as she wove the fine threads in and out, she thought: “She will

never let it be used on the altar. I wonder if I could any way get it to

Father Salvierderra, at Santa Barbara. I would like to give it to him.

I will ask Alessandro. I'm sure the Senora would never use it, and it

would be a shame to leave it here. I shall take it with me.” But as she

thought these things, her face was unruffled. A strange composure had

settled on Ramona. “Only four days; only four days; I can bear anything

for four days!” these words were coming and going in her mind like

refrains of songs which haunt one's memory and will not be still. She

saw that Felipe looked anxiously at her, but she answered his inquiring

looks always with a gentle smile. It was evident that the Senora did

not intend that she and Felipe should have any private conversation;

but that did not so much matter. After all, there was not so much to be

said. Felipe knew all. She could tell him nothing; Felipe had acted for

the best, as he thought, in sending Alessandro away till the heat of the

Senora's anger should have spent itself.

After her first dismay at suddenly learning that Alessandro had gone,

had passed, she had reflected that it was just as well. He would come

back prepared to take her with him. How, or where, she did not know;

but she would go with no questions. Perhaps she would not even bid the

Senora good-by; she wondered how that would arrange itself, and how far

Alessandro would have to take her, to find a priest to marry them. It

was a terrible thing to have to do, to go out of a home in such a way:

no wedding--no wedding clothes--no friends--to go unmarried, and journey

to a priest's house, to have the ceremony performed; “but it is not my

fault,” said Ramona to herself; “it is hers. She drives me to do it. If

it is wrong, the blame will be hers. Father Salvierderra would gladly

come here and marry us, if she would send for him. I wish we could go to

him, Alessandro and I; perhaps we can. I would not be afraid to ride so

far; we could do it in two days.” The more Ramona thought of this, the

more it appeared to her the natural thing for them to do. “He will be on

our side, I know he will,” she thought. “He always liked Alessandro, and

he loves me.”

It was strange how little bitterness toward the Senora was in the girl's

mind; how comparatively little she thought of her. Her heart was too

full of Alessandro and of their future; and it had never been Ramona's

habit to dwell on the Senora in her thoughts. As from her childhood up

she had accepted the fact of the Senora's coldness toward her, so now

she accepted her injustice and opposition as part of the nature of

things, and not to be altered.

During all these hours, during the coming and going of these crowds

of fears, sorrows, memories, anticipations in Ramona's heart, all that

there was to be seen to the eye was simply a calm, quiet girl, sitting

on the veranda, diligently working at her lace-frame. Even Felipe was

deceived by her calmness, and wondered what it meant,--if it could be

that she was undergoing the change that his mother had thought possible,

and designated as coming “to her senses.” Even Felipe did not know the

steadfast fibre of the girl's nature; neither did he realize what a bond

had grown between her and Alessandro. In fact, he sometimes wondered of

what this bond had been made. He had himself seen the greater part

of their intercourse with each other; nothing could have been farther

removed from anything like love-making. There had been no crisis

of incident, or marked moments of experience such as in Felipe's

imaginations of love were essential to the fulness of its growth. This

is a common mistake on the part of those who have never felt love's true

bonds. Once in those chains, one perceives that they are not of the sort

full forged in a day. They are made as the great iron cables are made,

on which bridges are swung across the widest water-channels,--not of

single huge rods, or bars, which would be stronger, perhaps, to look

at, but of myriads of the finest wires, each one by itself so fine, so

frail, it would barely hold a child's kite in the wind: by hundreds,

hundreds of thousands of such, twisted, re-twisted together, are made

the mighty cables, which do not any more swerve from their place in the

air, under the weight and jar of the ceaseless traffic and tread of two

cities, than the solid earth swerves under the same ceaseless weight and

jar. Such cables do not break.

Even Ramona herself would have found it hard to tell why she thus loved

Alessandro; how it began, or by what it grew. It had not been a sudden

adoration, like his passion for her; it was, in the beginning, simply

a response; but now it was as strong a love as his,--as strong, and as

unchangeable. The Senora's harsh words had been like a forcing-house air

to it, and the sudden knowledge of the fact of her own Indian descent

seemed to her like a revelation, pointing out the path in which destiny

called her to walk. She thrilled with pleasure at the thought of the joy

with which Alessandro would hear this,--the joy and the surprise. She

imagined to herself, in hundreds of ways, the time, place, and phrase in

which she would tell him. She could not satisfy herself as to the best;

as to which would give keenest pleasure to him and to her. She would

tell him, as soon as she saw him; it should be her first word of

greeting. No! There would be too much of trouble and embarrassment then.

She would wait till they were far away, till they were alone, in the

wilderness; and then she would turn to him, and say, “Alessandro, my

people are your people!” Or she would wait, and keep her secret until

she had reached Temecula, and they had begun their life there, and

Alessandro had been astonished to see how readily and kindly she took

to all the ways of the Indian village; and then, when he expressed

some such emotion, she would quietly say, “But I too am an Indian,

Alessandro!”

Strange, sad bride's dreams these; but they made Ramona's heart beat

with happiness as she dreamed them.

XIV

THE first day had gone, it was near night of the second, and not a word

had passed between Felipe and Ramona, except in the presence of the

Senora. It would have been beautiful to see, if it had not been so cruel

a thing, the various and devious methods by which the Senora had brought

this about. Felipe, oddly enough, was more restive under it than Ramona.

She had her dreams. He had nothing but his restless consciousness that

he had not done for her what he hoped; that he must seem to her to have

been disloyal; this, and a continual wonder what she could be planning

or expecting which made her so placid, kept Felipe in a fever of unrest,

of which his mother noted every sign, and redoubled her vigilance.

Felipe thought perhaps he could speak to Ramona in the night, through

her window. But the August heats were fierce now; everybody slept with

wide-open windows; the Senora was always wakeful; if she should chance

to hear him thus holding secret converse with Ramona, it would indeed

make bad matters worse. Nevertheless, he decided to try it. At the first

sound of his footsteps on the veranda floor, “My son, are you ill? Can I

do anything?” came from the Senora's window. She had not been asleep at

all. It would take more courage than Felipe possessed, to try that plan

again; and he lay on his veranda bed, this afternoon, tossing about with

sheer impatience at his baffled purpose. Ramona sat at the foot of the

bed, taking the last stitches in the nearly completed altar-cloth. The

Senora sat in her usual seat, dozing, with her head thrown back. It

was very hot; a sultry south-wind, with dust from the desert, had been

blowing all day, and every living creature was more or less prostrated

by it.

As the Senora's eyes closed, a sudden thought struck Felipe. Taking

out a memorandum-book in which he kept his accounts, he began rapidly

writing. Looking up, and catching Ramona's eye, he made a sign to her

that it was for her. She glanced apprehensively at the Senora. She was

asleep. Presently Felipe, folding the note, and concealing it in his

hand, rose, and walked towards Ramona's window, Ramona terrifiedly

watching him; the sound of Felipe's steps roused the Senora, who sat

up instantly, and gazed about her with that indescribable expression

peculiar to people who hope they have not been asleep, but know they

have. “Have I been asleep?” she asked.

“About one minute, mother,” answered Felipe, who was leaning, as he

spoke, against Ramona's open window, his arms crossed behind him.

Stretching them out, and back and forth a few times, yawning idly, he

said, “This heat is intolerable!” Then he sauntered leisurely down the

veranda steps into the garden-walk, and seated himself on the bench

under the trellis there.

The note had been thrown into Ramona's room. She was hot and cold with

fear lest she might not be able to get it unobserved. What if the

Senora were to go first into the room! She hardly dared look at her. But

fortune is not always on the side of tyrants. The Senora was fast dozing

off again, relieved that Felipe was out of speaking distance of Ramona.

As soon as her eyes were again shut, Ramona rose to go. The Senora

opened her eyes. Ramona was crossing the threshold of the door; she was

going into the house. Good! Still farther away from Felipe.

“Are you going to your room, Ramona?” said the Senor.

“I was,” replied Ramona, alarmed. “Did you want me here?”

“No,” said the Senora; and she closed her eyes again.

In a second more the note was safe in Ramona's hands.

“Dear Ramona,” Felipe had written, “I am distracted because I cannot

speak with you alone. Can you think of any way? I want to explain things

to you. I am afraid you do not understand. Don't be unhappy. Alessandro

will surely be back in four days. I want to help you all I can, but you

saw I could not do much. Nobody will hinder your doing what you please;

but, dear, I wish you would not go away from us!”

Tearing the paper into small fragments, Ramona thrust them into her

bosom, to be destroyed later. Then looking out of the window, and seeing

that the Senora was now in a sound sleep, she ventured to write a reply

to Felipe, though when she would find a safe opportunity to give it to

him, there was no telling. “Thank you, dear Felipe. Don't be anxious. I

am not unhappy. I understand all about it. But I must go away as soon as

Alessandro comes.” Hiding this also safe in her bosom, she went back to

the veranda. Felipe rose, and walked toward the steps. Ramona, suddenly

bold, stooped, and laid her note on the second step. Again the tired

eyes of the Senora opened. They had not been shut five minutes; Ramona

was at her work; Felipe was coming up the steps from the garden. He

nodded laughingly to his mother, and laid his finger on his lips. All

was well. The Senora dozed again. Her nap had cost her more than she

would ever know. This one secret interchange between Felipe and Ramona

then, thus making, as it were, common cause with each other as against

her, and in fear of her, was a step never to be recalled,--a step whose

significance could scarcely be overestimated. Tyrants, great and

small, are apt to overlook such possibilities as this; to forget the

momentousness which the most trivial incident may assume when forced

into false proportions and relations. Tyranny can make liars and cheats

out of the honestest souls. It is done oftener than any except close

students of human nature realize. When kings and emperors do this, the

world cries out with sympathy, and holds the plotters more innocent than

the tyrant who provoked the plot. It is Russia that stands branded in

men's thoughts, and not Siberia.

The Senora had a Siberia of her own, and it was there that Ramona was

living in these days. The Senora would have been surprised to know how

little the girl felt the cold. To be sure, it was not as if she had ever

felt warmth in the Senora's presence; yet between the former chill and

this were many degrees, and except for her new life, and new love, and

hope in the thought of Alessandro, Ramona could not have borne it for a

day.

The fourth day came; it seemed strangely longer than the others had.

All day Ramona watched and listened. Felipe, too; for, knowing what

Alessandro's impatience would be, he had, in truth, looked for him on

the previous night. The horse he rode was a fleet one, and would have

made the journey with ease in half the time. But Felipe reflected that

there might be many things for Alessandro to arrange at Temecula. He

would doubtless return prepared to take Ramona back with him, in case

that proved the only alternative left them. Felipe grew wretched as

his fancy dwelt on the picture of Ramona's future. He had been in the

Temecula village. He knew its poverty; the thought of Ramona there was

monstrous, To the indolent, ease-loving Felipe it was incredible that a

girl reared as Ramona had been, could for a moment contemplate leading

the life of a poor laboring man's wife. He could not conceive of love's

making one undertake any such life. Felipe had much to learn of love.

Night came; no Alessandro. Till the darkness settled down, Ramona sat,

watching the willows. When she could no longer see, she listened. The

Senora, noting all, also listened. She was uneasy as to the next stage

of affairs, but she would not speak. Nothing should induce her to swerve

from the line of conduct on which she had determined. It was the full of

the moon. When the first broad beam of its light came over the hill, and

flooded the garden and the white front of the little chapel, just as it

had done on that first night when Alessandro watched with Felipe on the

veranda, Ramona pressed her face against the window-panes, and gazed out

into the garden. At each flickering, motion of the shadows she saw the

form of a man approaching. Again and again she saw it. Again and again

the breeze died, and the shadow ceased. It was near morning before,

weary, sad, she crept to bed; but not to sleep. With wide-open, anxious

eyes, she still watched and listened. Never had the thought once crossed

her mind that Alessandro might not come at the time Felipe had said. In

her childlike simplicity she had accepted this as unquestioningly as

she had accepted other facts in her life. Now that he did not come,

unreasoning and unfounded terror took possession of her, and she asked

herself continually, “Will he ever come! They sent him away; perhaps he

will be too proud to come back!” Then faith would return, and saying to

herself, “He would never, never forsake me; he knows I have no one in

the whole world but him; he knows how I love him,” she would regain

composure, and remind herself of the many detentions which might have

prevented his coming at the time set. Spite of all, however, she was

heavy at heart; and at breakfast her anxious eyes and absent look were

sad to see. They hurt Felipe. Too well he knew what it meant. He also

was anxious. The Senora saw it in his face, and it vexed her. The girl

might well pine, and be mortified if her lover did not appear. But why

should Felipe disquiet himself? The Senora disliked it. It was a bad

symptom. There might be trouble ahead yet. There was, indeed, trouble

ahead,--of a sort the Senora's imaginings had not pictured.

Another day passed; another night; another, and another. One week now

since Alessandro, as he leaped on his horse, had grasped Felipe's hand,

and said: “You will tell the Senorita; you will make sure that she

understands why I go; and in four days I will be back.” One week, and he

had not come. The three who were watching and wondering looked covertly

into each other's faces, each longing to know what the others thought.

Ramona was wan and haggard. She had scarcely slept. The idea had taken

possession of her that Alessandro was dead. On the sixth and seventh

days she had walked each afternoon far down the river road, by which he

would be sure to come; down the meadows, and by the cross-cut, out

to the highway; at each step straining her tearful eyes into the

distance,--the cruel, blank, silent distance. She had come back

after dark, whiter and more wan than she went out. As she sat at the

supper-table, silent, making no feint of eating, only drinking glass

after glass of milk, in thirsty haste, even Margarita pitied her. But

the Senora did not. She thought the best thing which could happen, would

be that the Indian should never come back. Ramona would recover from it

in a little while; the mortification would be the worst thing, but even

that, time would heal. She wondered that the girl had not more pride

than to let her wretchedness be so plainly seen. She herself would have

died before she would go about with such a woe-begone face, for a whole

household to see and gossip about.

On the morning of the eighth day, Ramona, desperate, waylaid Felipe, as

he was going down the veranda steps. The Senora was in the garden, and

saw them; but Ramona did not care. “Felipe!” she cried, “I must, I must

speak to you! Do you think Alessandro is dead? What else could keep him

from coming?” Her lips were dry, her cheeks scarlet, her voice husky.

A few more days of this, and she would be in a brain fever, Felipe

thought, as he looked compassionately at her.

“Oh, no, no, dear! Do not think that!” he replied. “A thousand things

might have kept him.”

“Ten thousand things would not! Nothing could!” said Ramona. “I know he

is dead. Can't you send a messenger, Felipe, and see?”

The Senora was walking toward them. She overheard the last words.

Looking toward Felipe, no more regarding Ramona than if she had not been

within sight or hearing, the Senora said, “It seems to me that would not

be quite consistent with dignity. How does it strike you, Felipe' If

you thought best, we might spare a man as soon as the vintage is done, I

suppose.”

Ramona walked away. The vintage would not be over for a week. There

were several vineyards yet which had not been touched; every hand on the

place was hard at work, picking the grapes, treading them out in tubs,

emptying the juice into stretched raw-hides swung from cross-beams in

a long shed. In the willow copse the brandy-still was in full blast; it

took one man to watch it; this was Juan Can's favorite work; for reasons

of his own he liked best to do it alone; and now that he could no longer

tread grapes in the tubs, he had a better chance for uninterrupted work

at the still. “No ill but has its good,” he thought sometimes, as he lay

comfortably stretched out in the shade, smoking his pipe day after day,

and breathing the fumes of the fiery brandy.

As Ramona disappeared in the doorway, the Senora, coming close to

Felipe, and laying her hand on his arm, said in a confidential tone,

nodding her head in the direction in which Ramona had vanished: “She

looks badly, Felipe. I don't know what we can do. We surely cannot send

to summon back a lover we do not wish her to marry, can we? It is very

perplexing. Most unfortunate, every way. What do you think, my son?”

There was almost a diabolical art in the manner in which the Senora

could, by a single phrase or question, plant in a person's mind the

precise idea she wished him to think he had originated himself.

“No; of course we can't send for him,” replied Felipe, angrily; “unless

it is to send him to marry her; I wish he had never set foot on the

place. I am sure I don't know what to do. Ramona's looks frighten me. I

believe she will die.”

“I cannot wish Alessandro had never set foot on the place,” said the

Senora, gently, “for I feel that I owe your life to him, my Felipe; and

he is not to blame for Ramona's conduct. You need not fear her dying,

She may be ill; but people do not die of love like hers for Alessandro.”

“Of what kind do they die, mother?” asked Felipe, impatiently.

The Senora looked reproachfully at him. “Not often of any,” she said;

“but certainly not of a sudden passion for a person in every way beneath

them, in position, in education, in all points which are essential to

congeniality of tastes or association of life.”

The Senora spoke calmly, with no excitement, as if she were discussing

an abstract case. Sometimes, when she spoke like this, Felipe for

the moment felt as if she were entirely right, as if it were really a

disgraceful thing in Ramona to have thus loved Alessandro. It could not

be gainsaid that there was this gulf, of which she spoke. Alessandro was

undeniably Ramona's inferior in position, education, in all the external

matters of life; but in nature, in true nobility of soul, no! Alessandro

was no man's inferior in these; and in capacity to love,--Felipe

sometimes wondered whether he had ever known Alessandro's equal in that.

This thought had occurred to him more than once, as from his sick-bed he

had, unobserved, studied the expression with which Alessandro gazed at

Ramona. But all this made no difference in the perplexity of the present

dilemma, in the embarrassment of his and his mother's position now. Send

a messenger to ask why Alessandro did not return! Not even if he had

been an accepted and publicly recognized lover, would Felipe do that!

Ramona ought to have more pride. She ought of herself to know that. And

when Felipe, later in the day, saw Ramona again, he said as much to her.

He said it as gently as he could; so gently that she did not at first

comprehend his idea. It was so foreign, so incompatible with her faith,

how could she?

When she did understand, she said slowly: “You mean that it will not do

to send to find out if Alessandro is dead, because it will look as if I

wished him to marry me whether he wished it or not?” and she fixed her

eyes on Felipe's, with an expression he could not fathom.

“Yes, dear,” he answered, “something like that, though you put it

harshly.”

“Is it not true,” she persisted, “that is what you mean?”

Reluctantly Felipe admitted that it was.

Ramona was silent for some moments; then she said, speaking still

more slowly, “If you feel like that, we had better never talk about

Alessandro again. I suppose it is not possible that you should know, as

I do, that nothing but his being dead would keep him from coming

back. Thanks, dear Felipe;” and after this she did not speak again of

Alessandro.

Days went by; a week. The vintage was over. The Senora wondered if

Ramona would now ask again for a messenger to go to Temecula. Almost

even the Senora relented, as she looked into the girl's white and wasted

face, as she sat silent, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes fixed on

the willows. The altar-cloth was done, folded and laid away. It would

never hang in the Moreno chapel. It was promised, in Ramona's mind, to

Father Salvierderra. She had resolved to go to him; if he, a feeble old

man, could walk all the way between Santa Barbara and their home, she

could surely do the same. She would not lose the way. There were not

many roads; she could ask. The convent, the bare thought of which

had been so terrible to Ramona fourteen days ago, when the Senora had

threatened her with it, now seemed a heavenly refuge, the only shelter

she craved. There was a school for orphans attached to the convent at

San Juan Bautista, she knew; she would ask the Father to let her go

there, and she would spend the rest of her life in prayer, and in

teaching the orphan girls. As hour after hour she sat revolving this

plan, her fancy projected itself so vividly into the future, that she

lived years of her life. She felt herself middle-aged, old. She saw the

procession of nuns, going to vespers, leading the children by the hand;

herself wrinkled and white-haired, walking between two of the little

ones. The picture gave her peace. As soon as she grew a little stronger,

she would set off on her journey to the Father; she could not go just

yet, she was too weak; her feet trembled if she did but walk to the foot

of the garden. Alessandro was dead; there could be no doubt of that.

He was buried in that little walled graveyard of which he had told

her. Sometimes she thought she would try to go there and see his grave,

perhaps see his father; if Alessandro had told him of her, the old man

would be glad to see her; perhaps, after all, her work might lie there,

among Alessandro's people. But this looked hard: she had not courage for

it; shelter and rest were what she wanted,--the sound of the Church's

prayers, and the Father's blessing every day. The convent was the best.

She thought she was sure that Alessandro was dead; but she was not, for

she still listened, still watched. Each day she walked out on the river

road, and sat waiting till dusk. At last came a day when she could not

go; her strength failed her. She lay all day on her bed. To the Senora,

who asked frigidly if she were ill, she answered: “No, Senora, I do not

think I am ill, I have no pain, but I cannot get up. I shall be better

to-morrow.”

“I will send you strong broth and a medicine,” the Senora said; and sent

her both by the hands of Margarita, whose hatred and jealousy broke down

at the first sight of Ramona's face on the pillow; it looked so much

thinner and sharper there than it had when she was sitting up. “Oh,

Senorita! Senorita!” she cried, in a tone of poignant grief, “are you

going to die? Forgive me, forgive me!”

“I have nothing to forgive you, Margarita,” replied Ramona, raising

herself on her elbow, and lifting her eyes kindly to the girl's face

as she took the broth from her hands. “I do not know why you ask me to

forgive you.”

Margarita flung herself on her knees by the bed, in a passion of

weeping. “Oh, but you do know, Senorita, you do know! Forgive me!”

“No, I know nothing,” replied Ramona; “but if you know anything, it is

all forgiven. I am not going to die, Margarita. I am going away,” she

added, after a second's pause. Her inmost instinct told her that she

could trust Margarita now. Alessandro being dead, Margarita would no

longer be her enemy, and Margarita could perhaps help her. “I am going

away, Margarita, as soon as I feel a little stronger. I am going to a

convent; but the Senora does not know. You will not tell?”

“No, Senorita!” whispered Margarita,--thinking in her heart, “Yes, she

is going away, but it will be with the angels.”--“No, Senorita, I will

not tell. I will do anything you want me to.”

“Thanks, Margarita mia,” replied Ramona. “I thought you would;” and she

lay back on her pillow, and closed her eyes, looking so much more like

death than like life that Margarita's tears flowed faster than before,

and she ran to her mother, sobbing out, “Mother, mother! the Senorita is

ill to death. I am sure she is. She has taken to her bed; and she is as

white as Senor Felipe was at the worst of the fever.”

“Ay,” said old Marda, who had seen all this for days back; “ay, she has

wasted away, this last week, like one in a fever, sure enough; I have

seen it. It must be she is starving herself to death.”

“Indeed, she has not eaten for ten days,--hardly since that day;”

and Margarita and her mother exchanged looks. It was not necessary to

further define the day.

“Juan Can says he thinks he will never be seen here again,” continued

Margarita.

“The saints grant it, then,” said Marda, hotly, “if it is he has cost

the Senorita all this! I am that turned about in my head with it all,

that I've no thoughts to think; but plain enough it is, he is mixed up

with whatever 'tis has gone wrong.”

“I could tell what it is,” said Margarita, her old pertness coming

uppermost for a moment; “but I've got no more to say, now the Senorita's

lying on her bed, with the face she's got. It's enough to break your

heart to look at her. I could just go down on my knees to her for all

I've said; and I will, and to Saint Francis too! She's going to be with

him before long; I know she is.”

“No,” said the wiser, older Marda. “She is not so ill as you think. She

is young. It's the heart's gone out of her; that's all. I've been that

way myself. People are, when they're young.”

“I'm young!” retorted Margarita. “I've never been that way.”

“There's many a mile to the end of the road, my girl,” said Marda,

significantly; “and 'It's ill boasting the first day out,' was a proverb

when I was your age!”

Marda had never been much more than half-way fond of this own child

of hers. Their natures were antagonistic. Traits which, in Margarita's

father, had embittered many a day of Marda's early married life, were

perpetually cropping out in Margarita, making between the mother and

daughter a barrier which even parental love was not always strong enough

to surmount. And, as was inevitable, this antagonism was constantly

leading to things which seemed to Margarita, and in fact were, unjust

and ill-founded.

“She's always flinging out at me, whatever I do,” thought Margarita.

“I know one thing; I'll never tell her what the Senorita's told me;

never,--not till after she's gone.”

A sudden suspicion flashed into Margarita's mind. She seated herself on

the bench outside the kitchen door, to wrestle with it. What if it were

not to a convent at all, but to Alessandro, that the Senorita meant to

go! No; that was preposterous. If it had been that, she would have gone

with him in the outset. Nobody who was plotting to run away with a lover

ever wore such a look as the Senorita wore now. Margarita dismissed the

thought; yet it left its trace. She would be more observant for having

had it; her resuscitated affection far her young mistress was not yet

so strong that it would resist the assaults of jealousy, if that passion

were to be again aroused in her fiery soul. Though she had never been

deeply in love with Alessandro herself, she had been enough so, and

she remembered him vividly enough, to feel yet a sharp emotion of

displeasure at the recollection of his devotion to the Senorita. Now

that the Senorita seemed to be deserted, unhappy, prostrated, she had no

room for anything but pity for her; but let Alessandro come on the stage

again, and all would be changed. The old hostility would return. It was

but a dubious sort of ally, after all, that Ramona had so unexpectedly

secured in Margarita. She might prove the sharpest of broken reeds.

It was sunset of the eighteenth day since Alessandro's departure. Ramona

had lain for four days well-nigh motionless on her bed. She herself

began to think she must be going to die. Her mind seemed to be vacant of

all thought. She did not even sorrow for Alessandro's death; she seemed

torpid, body and soul. Such prostrations as these are Nature's enforced

rests. It is often only by help of them that our bodies tide over

crises, strains, in which, if we continued to battle, we should be

slain.

As Ramona lay half unconscious,--neither awake nor yet asleep,--on this

evening, she was suddenly aware of a vivid impression produced upon her;

it was not sound, it was not sight. She was alone; the house was still

as death; the warm September twilight silence reigned outside, She sat

up in her bed, intent--half alarmed--half glad--bewildered--alive. What

had happened? Still there was no sound, no stir. The twilight was fast

deepening; not a breath of air moving. Gradually her bewildered senses

and faculties awoke from their long-dormant condition; she looked around

the room; even the walls seemed revivified; she clasped her hands, and

leaped from the bed. “Alessandro is not dead!” she said aloud; and she

laughed hysterically. “He is not dead!” she repeated. “He is not dead!

He is somewhere near!”

With quivering hands she dressed, and stole out of the house. After

the first few seconds she found herself strangely strong; she did not

tremble; her feet trod firm on the ground. “Oh, miracle!” she thought,

as she hastened down the garden-walk; “I am well again! Alessandro is

near!” So vivid was the impression, that when she reached the willows

and found the spot silent, vacant, as when she had last sat there,

hopeless, broken-hearted, she experienced a revulsion of disappointment.

“Not here!” she cried; “not here!” and a swift fear shook her. “Am I

mad? Is it this way, perhaps, people lose their senses, when they are as

I have been!”

But the young, strong blood was running swift in her veins. No! this

was no madness; rather a newly discovered power; a fulness of sense; a

revelation. Alessandro was near.

Swiftly she walked down the river road. The farther she went, the keener

grew her expectation, her sense of Alessandro's nearness. In her present

mood she would have walked on and on, even to Temecula itself, sure that

she was at each step drawing nearer to Alessandro.

As she approached the second willow copse, which lay perhaps a quarter

of a mile west of the first, she saw the figure of a man, standing,

leaning against one of the trees. She halted. It could not be

Alessandro. He would not have paused for a moment so near the house

where he was to find her. She was afraid to go on. It was late to meet

a stranger in this lonely spot. The figure was strangely still; so still

that, as she peered through the dusk, she half fancied it might be an

optical illusion. She advanced a few steps, hesitatingly, then stopped.

As she did so, the man advanced a few steps, then stopped. As he came

out from the shadows of the trees, she saw that he was of Alessandro's

height. She quickened her steps, then suddenly stopped again. What did

this mean? It could not be Alessandro. Ramona wrung her hands in agony

of suspense. An almost unconquerable instinct urged her forward; but

terror held her back. After standing irresolute for some minutes, she

turned to walk back to the house, saying, “I must not run the risk of

its being a stranger. If it is Alessandro, he will come.”

But her feet seemed to refuse to move in the opposite direction. Slower

and slower she walked for a few paces, then turned again. The man had

returned to his former place, and stood as at first, leaning against the

tree.

“It may be a messenger from him,” she said; “a messenger who has been

told not to come to the house until after dark.”

Her mind was made up. She quickened her pace to a run. A few moments

more brought her so near that she could see distinctly. It was--yes, it

was Alessandro. He did not see her. His face was turned partially away,

his head resting against the tree; he must be ill. Ramona flew, rather

than ran. In a moment more, Alessandro had heard the light steps,

turned, saw Ramona, and, with a cry, bounded forward, and they were

clasped in each other's arms before they had looked in each other's

faces. Ramona spoke first. Disengaging herself gently, and looking

up, she began: “Alessandro--” But at the first sight of his face she

shrieked. Was this Alessandro, this haggard, emaciated, speechless man,

who gazed at her with hollow eyes, full of misery, and no joy! “O God,”

cried Ramona, “You have been ill! you are ill! My God, Alessandro, what

is it?”

Alessandro passed his hand slowly over his forehead, as if trying to

collect his thoughts before speaking, all the while keeping his eyes

fixed on Ramona, with the same anguished look, convulsively holding both

her hands in his.

“Senorita,” he said, “my Senorita!” Then he stopped. His tongue seemed

to refuse him utterance; and this voice,--this strange, hard, unresonant

voice,--whose voice was it? Not Alessandro's.

“My Senorita,” he began again, “I could not go without one sight of your

face; but when I was here, I had not courage to go near the house. If

you had not come, I should have gone back without seeing you.”

Ramona heard these words in fast-deepening terror, What did they mean?

Her look seemed to suggest a new thought to Alessandro.

“Heavens, Senorita!” he cried, “have you not heard? Do you not know what

has happened?”

“I know nothing, love,” answered Ramona. “I have heard nothing since

you went away. For ten days I have been sure you were dead; but to-night

something told me that you were near, and I came to meet you.”

At the first words of Ramona's sentence, Alessandro threw his arms

around her again. As she said “love,” his whole frame shook with

emotion.

“My Senorita!” he whispered, “my Senorita! how shall I tell you! How

shall I tell you!”

“What is there to tell, Alessandro?” she said. “I am afraid of nothing,

now that you are here, and not dead, as I thought.”

But Alessandro did not speak. It seemed impossible. At last, straining

her closer to his breast, he cried: “Dearest Senorita! I feel as if

I should die when I tell you,--I have no home; my father is dead;

my people are driven out of their village. I am only a beggar now,

Senorita; like those you used to feed and pity in Los Angeles convent!”

As he spoke the last words, he reeled, and, supporting himself against

the tree, added: “I am not strong, Senorita; we have been starving.”

Ramona's face did not reassure him. Even in the dusk he could see its

look of incredulous horror. He misread it.

“I only came to look at you once more,” he continued. “I will go now.

May the saints bless you, my Senorita, always. I think the Virgin sent

you to me to-night. I should never have seen your face if you had not

come.”

While he was speaking, Ramona had buried her face in his bosom. Lifting

it now, she said, “Did you mean to leave me to think you were dead,

Alessandro?”

“I thought that the news about our village must have reached you,” he

said, “and that you would know I had no home, and could not come, to

seem to remind you of what you had said. Oh, Senorita, it was little

enough I had before to give you! I don't know how I dared to believe

that you could come to be with me; but I loved you so much, I had

thought of many things I could do; and--” lowering his voice and

speaking almost sullenly--“it is the saints, I believe, who have

punished me thus for having resolved to leave my people, and take all I

had for myself and you. Now they have left me nothing;” and he groaned.

“Who?” cried Ramona. “Was there a battle? Was your father killed?” She

was trembling with horror.

“No,” answered Alessandro. “There was no battle. There would have been,

if I had had my way; but my father implored me not to resist. He said it

would only make it worse for us in the end. The sheriff, too, he begged

me to let it all go on peaceably, and help him keep the people quiet. He

felt terribly to have to do it. It was Mr. Rothsaker, from San Diego. We

had often worked for him on his ranch. He knew all about us. Don't you

recollect, Senorita, I told you about him,--how fair he always was, and

kind too? He has the biggest wheat-ranch in Cajon; we've harvested miles

and miles of wheat for him. He said he would have rather died, almost,

than have had it to do; but if we resisted, he would have to order his

men to shoot. He had twenty men with him. They thought there would be

trouble; and well they might,--turning a whole village full of men and

women and children out of their houses, and driving them off like foxes.

If it had been any man but Mr. Rothsaker, I would have shot him dead,

if I had hung for it; but I knew if he thought we must go, there was no

help for us.”

“But, Alessandro,” interrupted Ramona, “I can't understand. Who was it

made Mr. Rothsaker do it? Who has the land now?”

“I don't know who they are,” Alessandro replied, his voice full of

anger and scorn. “They're Americans--eight or ten of them. They all got

together and brought a suit, they call it, up in San Francisco; and it

was decided in the court that they owned all our land. That was all Mr.

Rothsaker could tell about it. It was the law, he said, and nobody could

go against the law.”

“Oh,” said Ramona, “that's the way the Americans took so much of the

Senora's land away from her. It was in the court up in San Francisco;

and they decided that miles and miles of her land, which the General

had always had, was not hers at all. They said it belonged to the United

States Government.”

“They are a pack of thieves and liars, every one of them!” cried

Alessandro. “They are going to steal all the land in this country; we

might all just as well throw ourselves into the sea, and let them have

it. My father had been telling me this for years. He saw it coming; but

I did not believe him. I did not think men could be so wicked; but he

was right. I am glad he is dead. That is the only thing I have to be

thankful for now. One day I thought he was going to get well, and I

prayed to the Virgin not to let him. I did not want him to live. He

never knew anything clear after they took him out of his house. That was

before I got there. I found him sitting on the ground outside. They said

it was the sun that had turned him crazy; but it was not. It was his

heart breaking in his bosom. He would not come out of his house, and

the men lifted him up and carried him out by force, and threw him on the

ground; and then they threw out all the furniture we had; and when he

saw them doing that, he put his hands up to his head, and called out,

'Alessandro! Alessandro!' and I was not there! Senorita, they said it

was a voice to make the dead hear, that he called with; and nobody

could stop him. All that day and all the night he kept on calling. God!

Senorita, I wonder I did not die when they told me! When I got there,

some one had built up a little booth of tule over his head, to keep the

sun off. He did not call any more, only for water, water. That was what

made them think the sun had done it. They did all they could; but it was

such a dreadful time, nobody could do much; the sheriff's men were in

great hurry; they gave no time. They said the people must all be off in

two days. Everybody was running hither and thither. Everything out of

the houses in piles on the ground. The people took all the roofs off

their houses too. They were made of the tule reeds; so they would do

again. Oh, Senorita, don't ask me to tell you any more! It is like

death. I can't!”

Ramona was crying bitterly. She did not know what to say. What was love,

in face of such calamity? What had she to give to a man stricken like

this.'

“Don't weep, Senorita,” said Alessandro, drearily. “Tears kill one, and

do no good.”

“How long did your father live?” asked Ramona, clasping her arms closer

around his neck. They were sitting on the ground now, and Ramona,

yearning over Alessandro, as if she were the strong one and he the one

to be sheltered, had drawn his head to her bosom, caressing him as if

he had been hers for years. Nothing could have so clearly shown his

enfeebled and benumbed condition, as the manner in which he received

these caresses, which once would have made him beside himself with joy.

He leaned against her breast as a child might.

“He! He died only four days ago. I stayed to bury him, and then I came

away. I have been three days on the way; the horse, poor beast, is

almost weaker than I. The Americans took my horse,” Alessandro said.

“Took your horse!” cried Ramona, aghast. “Is that the law, too?”

“So Mr. Rothsaker told me. He said the judge had said he must take

enough of our cattle and horses to pay all it had cost for the suit up

in San Francisco. They didn't reckon the cattle at what they were worth,

I thought; but they said cattle were selling very low now. There were

not enough in all the village to pay it, so we had to make it up in

horses; and they took mine. I was not there the day they drove the

cattle away, or I would have put a ball into Benito's head before any

American should ever have had him to ride. But I was over in Pachanga

with my father. He would not stir a step for anybody but me; so I led

him all the way; and then after he got there he was so ill I never left

him a minute. He did not know me any more, nor know anything that had

happened. I built a little hut of tule, and he lay on the ground till he

died. When I put him in his grave, I was glad.”

“In Temecula?” asked Ramona.

“In Temecula.” exclaimed Alessandro, fiercely. “You don't seem to

understand, Senorita. We have no right in Temecula, not even to our

graveyard full of the dead. Mr. Rothsaker warned us all not to be

hanging about there; for he said the men who were coming in were a

rough set, and they would shoot any Indian at sight, if they saw him

trespassing on their property.”

“Their property!” ejaculated Ramona.

“Yes; it is theirs,” said Alessandro, doggedly. “That is the law.

They've got all the papers to show it. That is what my father always

said,--if the Senor Valdez had only given him a paper! But they never

did in those days. Nobody had papers. The American law is different.”

“It's a law of thieves!” cried Ramona.

“Yes, and of murderers too,” said Alessandro. “Don't you call my father

murdered just as much as if they had shot him? I do! and, O Senorita,

my Senorita, there was Jose! You recollect Jose, who went for my violin?

But, my beloved one, I am killing you with these terrible things! I will

speak no more.”

“No, no, Alessandro. Tell me all, all. You must have no grief I do not

share. Tell me about Jose,” cried Ramona, breathlessly.

“Senorita, it will break your heart to hear. Jose was married a year

ago. He had the best house in Temecula, next to my father's. It was the

only other one that had a shingled roof. And he had a barn too, and that

splendid horse he rode, and oxen, and a flock of sheep. He was at home

when the sheriff came. A great many of the men were away, grapepicking.

That made it worse. But Jose was at home; for his wife had a little baby

only a few weeks old, and the child seemed sickly and not like to live,

and Jose would not leave it. Jose was the first one that saw the sheriff

riding into the village, and the band of armed men behind him, and Jose

knew what it meant. He had often talked it over with me and with my

father, and now he saw that it had come; and he went crazy in one

minute, and fell on the ground all froth at his mouth. He had had a fit

like that once before; and the doctor said if he had another, he would

die. But he did not. They picked him up, and presently he was better;

and Mr. Rothsaker said nobody worked so well in the moving the first

day as Jose did. Most of the men would not lift a hand. They sat on the

ground with the women, and covered up their faces, and would not see.

But Jose worked; and, Senorita, one of the first things he did, was to

run with my father's violin to the store, to Mrs. Hartsel, and ask her

to hide it for us; Jose knew it was worth money. But before noon the

second day he had another fit, and died in it,--died right in his own

door, carrying out some of the things; and after Carmena--that's his

wife's name--saw he was dead, she never spoke, but sat rocking back

and forth on the ground, with the baby in her arms. She went over to

Pachanga at the same time I did with my father. It was a long procession

of us.”

“Where is Pachanga?” asked Ramona.

“About three miles from Temecula, a little sort of canon. I told

the people they'd better move over there; the land did not belong to

anybody, and perhaps they could make a living there. There isn't any

water; that's the worst of it.”

“No water!” cried Ramona.

“No running water. There is one little spring, and they dug a well by it

as soon as they got there; so there was water to drink, but that is all.

I saw Carmena could hardly keep up, and I carried the baby for her on

one arm, while I led my father with the other hand; but the baby cried,

so she took it back. I thought then it wouldn't live the day out; but

it did live till the morning of the day my father died. Just a few hours

before he died, Carmena came along with the baby rolled up in her shawl,

and sat down by me on the ground, and did not speak. When I said, 'How

is the little one?' she opened her shawl and showed it to me, dead.

'Good, Carmena!' said I. 'It is good! My father is dying too. We will

bury them together.' So she sat by me all that morning, and at night

she helped me dig the graves. I wanted to put the baby on my father's

breast; but she said, no, it must have a little grave. So she dug it

herself; and we put them in; and she never spoke, except that once. She

was sitting there by the grave when I came away. I made a cross of two

little trees with the boughs chopped off, and set it up by the graves.

So that is the way our new graveyard was begun,--my father and the

little baby; it is the very young and the very old that have the blessed

fortune to die. I cannot die, it seems!”

“Where did they bury Jose?” gasped Ramona.

“In Temecula,” said Alessandro. “Mr. Rothsaker made two of his men dig

a grave in our old graveyard for Jose. But I think Carmena will go at

night and bring his body away. I would! But, my Senorita, it is very

dark, I can hardly see your beloved eyes. I think you must not stay

longer. Can I go as far as the brook with you, safely, without being

seen? The saints bless you, beloved, for coming. I could not have lived,

I think, without one more sight of your face;” and, springing to his

feet, Alessandro stood waiting for Ramona to move. She remained

still. She was in a sore strait. Her heart held but one impulse, one

desire,--to go with Alessandro; nothing was apparently farther from

his thoughts than this. Could she offer to go? Should she risk laying a

burden on him greater than he could bear? If he were indeed a beggar, as

he said, would his life be hindered or helped by her? She felt herself

strong and able. Work had no terrors for her; privations she knew

nothing of, but she felt no fear of them.

“Alessandro!” she said, in a tone which startled him.

“My Senorita!” he said tenderly.

“You have never once called me Ramona.”

“I cannot, Senorita!” he replied.

“Why not?”

“I do not know. I sometimes think 'Ramona,'” he added faintly; “but not

often. If I think of you by any other name than as my Senorita, it is

usually by a name you never heard.”

“What is it?” exclaimed Ramona, wonderingly.

“An Indian word, my dearest one, the name of the bird you are like,--the

wood-dove. In the Luiseno tongue that is Majel; that was what I thought

my people would have called you, if you had come to dwell among us. It

is a beautiful name, Senorita, and is like you.”

Alessandro was still standing. Ramona rose; coming close to him, she

laid both her hands on his breast, and her head on her hands, and said:

“Alessandro, I have something to tell you. I am an Indian. I belong to

your people.”

Alessandro's silence astonished her. “You are surprised,” she said. “I

thought you would be glad.”

“The gladness of it came to me long ago, my Senorita,” he said. “I knew

it!”

“How?” cried Ramona. “And you never told me, Alessandro!”

“How could I?” he replied. “I dared not. Juan Canito, it was told me.”

“Juan Canito!” said Ramona, musingly. “How could he have known?” Then in

a few rapid words she told Alessandro all that the Senora had told her.

“Is that what Juan Can said?” she asked.

“All except the father's name,” stammered Alessandro.

“Who did he say was my father?” she asked.

Alessandro was silent.

“It matters not,” said Ramona. “He was wrong. The Senora, of course,

knew. He was a friend of hers, and of the Senora Ortegna, to whom he

gave me. But I think, Alessandro, I have more of my mother than of my

father.”

“Yes, you have, my Senorita,” replied Alessandro, tenderly. “After I

knew it, I then saw what it was in your face had always seemed to me

like the faces of my own people.”

“Are you not glad, Alessandro?”

“Yes, my Senorita.”

What more should Ramona say? Suddenly her heart gave way; and without

premeditation, without resolve, almost without consciousness of what

she was doing, she flung herself on Alessandro's breast, and cried: “Oh,

Alessandro, take me with you! take me with you! I would rather die than

have you leave me again!”

XV

ALESSANDRO'S first answer to this cry of Ramona's was a tightening of

his arms around her; closer and closer he held her, till it was almost

pain; she could hear the throbs of his heart, but he did not speak.

Then, letting his arms fall, taking her hand in his, he laid it on

his forehead reverently, and said, in a voice which was so husky and

trembling she could barely understand his words: “My Senorita knows that

my life is hers. She can ask me to go into the fire or into the sea, and

neither the fire nor the sea would frighten me; they would but make

me glad for her sake. But I cannot take my Senorita's life to throw it

away. She is tender; she would die; she cannot lie on the earth for a

bed, and have no food to eat. My Senorita does not know what she says.”

His solemn tone; this third-person designation, as if he were speaking

of her, not with her, almost as if he were thinking aloud to God rather

than speaking to her, merely calmed and strengthened, did not deter

Ramona. “I am strong; I can work too, Alessandro. You do not know. We

can both work. I am not afraid to lie on the earth; and God will give us

food,” she said.

“That was what I thought, my Senorita, until now. When I rode away

that morning, I had it in my thoughts, as you say, that if you were not

afraid, I would not be; and that there would at least always be food,

and I could make it that you should never suffer; but, Senorita, the

saints are displeased. They do not pray for us any more. It is as my

father said, they have forsaken us. These Americans will destroy us all.

I do not know but they will presently begin to shoot us and poison

us, to get us all out of the country, as they do the rabbits and the

gophers; it would not be any worse than what they have done. Would not

you rather be dead, Senorita, than be as I am to-day?”

Each word he spoke but intensified Ramona's determination to share

his lot. “Alessandro,” she interrupted, “there are many men among your

people who have wives, are there not?”

“Yes, Senorita!” replied Alessandro, wonderingly.

“Have their wives left them and gone away, now that this trouble has

come?”

“No, Senorita.” still more wonderingly; “how could they?”

“They are going to stay with them, help them to earn money, try to make

them happier, are they not?”

“Yes, Senorita.” Alessandro began to see whither these questions tended.

It was not unlike the Senora's tactics, the way in which Ramona narrowed

in her lines of interrogation.

“Do the women of your people love their husbands very much?”

“Very much, Senorita.” A pause. It was very dark now. Alessandro could

not see the hot currents running swift and red over Ramona's face; even

her neck changed color as she asked her last question. “Do you think any

one of them loves her husband more than I love you, Alessandro?”

Alessandro's arms were again around her, before the words were done.

Were not such words enough to make a dead man live? Almost; but not

enough to make such a love as Alessandro's selfish. Alessandro was

silent.

“You know there is not one!” said Ramona, impetuously.

“Oh, it is too much!” cried Alessandro, throwing his arms up wildly.

Then, drawing her to him again, he said, the words pouring out

breathless: “My Senorita, you take me to the door of heaven, but I dare

not go in. I know it would kill you, Senorita, to live the life we must

live. Let me go, dearest Senorita; let me go! It had been better if you

had never seen me.”

“Do you know what I was going to do, Alessandro, if you had not come?”

said Ramona. “I was going to run away from the Senora's house, all

alone, and walk all the way to Santa Barbara, to Father Salvierderra,

and ask him to put me in the convent at San Juan Bautista; and that is

what I will do now if you leave me!”

“Oh, no, no, Senorita, my Senorita, you will not do that! My beautiful

Senorita in the convent! No, no!” cried Alessandro, greatly agitated.

“Yes, if you do not let me come with you, I shall do it. I shall set out

to-morrow.”

Her words carried conviction to Alessandro's soul. He knew she would do

as she said. “Even that would not be so dreadful as to be hunted like a

wild beast, Senorita; as you may be, if you come with me.”

“When I thought you were dead, Alessandro, I did not think the convent

would be dreadful at all. I thought it would be peace; and I could do

good, teaching the children. But if I knew you were alive, I could never

have peace; not for one minute have peace, Alessandro! I would rather

die, than not be where you are. Oh, Alessandro, take me with you!”

Alessandro was conquered. “I will take you, my most beloved Senorita,”

he said gravely,--no lover's gladness in his tone, and his voice was

hollow; “I will take you. Perhaps the saints will have mercy on you,

even if they have forsaken me and my people!”

“Your people are my people, dearest; and the saints never forsake any

one who does not forsake them. You will be glad all our lives long,

Alessandro,” cried Ramona; and she laid her head on his breast in solemn

silence for a moment, as if registering a vow.

Well might Felipe have said that he would hold himself fortunate if any

woman ever loved him as Ramona loved Alessandro.

When she lifted her head, she said timidly, now that she was sure, “Then

you will take your Ramona with you, Alessandro?”

“I will take you with me till I die; and may the Madonna guard you, my

Ramona,” replied Alessandro, clasping her to his breast, and bowing

his head upon hers. But there were tears in his eyes, and they were not

tears of joy; and in his heart he said, as in his rapturous delight when

he first saw Ramona bending over the brook under the willows he had said

aloud, “My God! what shall I do!”

It was not easy to decide on the best plan of procedure now. Alessandro

wished to go boldly to the house, see Senor Felipe, and if need be the

Senora. Ramona quivered with terror at the bare mention of it. “You do

not know the Senora, Alessandro,” she cried, “or you would never think

of it. She has been terrible all this time. She hates me so that she

would kill me if she dared. She pretends that she will do nothing to

prevent my going away; but I believe at the last minute she would throw

me in the well in the court-yard, rather than have me go with you.”

“I would never let her harm you,” said Alessandro. “Neither would Senor

Felipe.”

“She turns Felipe round her finger as if he were soft wax,” answered

Ramona. “She makes him of a hundred minds in a minute, and he can't help

himself. Oh, I think she is in league with the fiends, Alessandro! Don't

dare to come near the house; I will come here as soon as every one is

asleep. We must go at once.”

Ramona's terrors overruled Alessandro's judgment, and he consented to

wait for her at the spot where they now stood. She turned back twice to

embrace him again. “Oh, my Alessandro, promise me that you will not stir

from this place till I come,” she said.

“I will be here when you come,” he said.

“It will not be more than two hours,” she said, “or three, at the

utmost. It must be nine o'clock now.”

She did not observe that Alessandro had evaded the promise not to leave

the spot. That promise Alessandro would not have given. He had something

to do in preparation for this unexpected flight of Ramona. In her

innocence, her absorption in her thoughts of Alessandro and of love, she

had never seemed to consider how she would make this long journey.

As Alessandro had ridden towards Temecula, eighteen days ago, he had

pictured himself riding back on his fleet, strong Benito, and bringing

Antonio's matchless little dun mare for Ramona to ride. Only eighteen

short days ago; and as he was dreaming that very dream, he had looked up

and seen Antonio on the little dun mare, galloping towards him like the

wind, the overridden creature's breath coming from her like pants of

a steam-engine, and her sides dripping blood, where Antonio, who loved

her, had not spared the cruel spurs; and Antonio, seeing him, had

uttered a cry, and flinging himself off, came with a bound to his side,

and with gasps between his words told him. Alessandro could not remember

the words, only that after them he set his teeth, and dropping the

bridle, laid his head down between Benito's ears, and whispered to him;

and Benito never stopped, but galloped on all that day, till he came

into Temecula; and there Alessandro saw the roofless houses, and

the wagons being loaded, and the people running about, the women and

children wailing; and then they showed him the place where his father

lay on the ground, under the tule, and jumping off Benito he let him go,

and that was the last he ever saw of him. Only eighteen days ago! And

now here he was, under the willows,--the same copse where he first

halted, at his first sight of Ramona; and it was night, dark night, and

Ramona had been there, in his arms; she was his; and she was going back

presently to go away with him,--where! He had no home in the wide world

to which to take her,--and this poor beast he had ridden from Temecula,

had it strength enough left to carry her? Alessandro doubted. He had

himself walked more than half the distance, to spare the creature, and

yet there had been good pasture all the way; but the animal had been too

long starved to recover quickly. In the Pachanga canon, where they had

found refuge, the grass was burned up by the sun, and the few horses

taken over there had suffered wretchedly; some had died. But Alessandro,

even while his arms were around Ramona, had revolved in his mind a

project he would not have dared to confide to her. If Baba, Ramona's own

horse, was still in the corral, Alessandro could without difficulty

lure him out. He thought it would be no sin. At any rate, if it were,

it could not be avoided. The Senorita must have a horse, and Baba had

always been her own; had followed her about like a dog ever since he

could run; in fact, the only taming he had ever had, had been done by

Ramona, with bread and honey. He was intractable to others; but Ramona

could guide him by a wisp of his silky mane. Alessandro also had nearly

as complete control over him; for it had been one of his greatest

pleasures, during the summer, when he could not see Ramona, to caress

and fondle her horse, till Baba knew and loved him next to his young

mistress. If only Baba were in the corral, all would be well. As soon as

the sound of Ramona's footsteps had died away, Alessandro followed with

quick but stealthy steps; keeping well down in the bottom, below the

willows, he skirted the terrace where the artichoke-patch and the

sheepfolds lay, and then turned up to approach the corral from the

farther side. There was no light in any of the herdsmen's huts. They

were all asleep. That was good. Well Alessandro knew how sound they

slept; many a night while he slept there with them he had walked twice

over their bodies as they lay stretched on skins on the floor,--out

and in without rousing them. If only Baba would not give a loud whinny.

leaning on the corral-fence, Alessandro gave a low, hardly audible

whistle. The horses were all in a group together at the farther end of

the corral. At the sound there was a slight movement in the group; and

one of them turned and came a pace or two toward Alessandro.

“I believe that is Baba himself,” thought Alessandro; and he made

another low sound. The horse quickened his steps; then halted, as if he

suspected some mischief.

“Baba,” whispered Alessandro. The horse knew his name as well as any

dog; knew Alessandro's voice too; but the sagacious creature seemed

instinctively to know that here was an occasion for secrecy and caution.

If Alessandro whispered, he, Baba, would whisper back; and it was little

more than a whispered whinny which he gave, as he trotted quickly to the

fence, and put his nose to Alessandro's face, rubbing and kissing and

giving soft whinnying sighs.

“Hush! hush! Baba,” whispered Alessandro, as if he were speaking to a

human being. “Hush!” and he proceeded cautiously to lift off the upper

rails and bushes of the fence. The horse understood instantly; and as

soon as the fence was a little lowered, leaped over it and stood still

by Alessandro's side, while he replaced the rails, smiling to himself,

spite of his grave anxiety, to think of Juan Can's wonder in the morning

as to how Baba had managed to get out of the corral.

This had taken only a few moments. It was better luck than Alessandro

had hoped for; emboldened by it, he began to wonder if he could not get

the saddle too. The saddles, harnesses, bridles, and all such things

hung on pegs in an open barn, such as is constantly to be seen in

Southern California; as significant a testimony, in matter of climate,

as any Signal Service Report could be,--a floor and a roof; no walls,

only corner posts to hold the roof. Nothing but summerhouses on a large

scale are the South California barns. Alessandro stood musing. The

longer he thought, the greater grew his desire for that saddle.

“Baba, if only you knew what I wanted of you, you'd lie down on the

ground here and wait while I got the saddle. But I dare not risk leaving

you. Come, Baba!” and he struck down the hill again, the horse following

him softly. When he got down below the terrace, he broke into a run,

with his hand in Baba's mane, as if it were a frolic; and in a few

moments they were safe in the willow copse, where Alessandro's poor pony

was tethered. Fastening Baba with the same lariat, Alessandro patted him

on the neck, pressed his face to his nose, and said aloud, “Good Baba,

stay here till the Senorita comes.” Baba whinnied.

“Why shouldn't he know the Senorita's name! I believe he does!” thought

Alessandro, as he turned and again ran swiftly back to the corral. He

felt strong now,--felt like a new man. Spite of all the terror, joy

thrilled him. When he reached the corral, all was yet still. The horses

had not moved from their former position. Throwing himself flat on the

ground, Alessandro crept on his breast from the corral to the barn,

several rods' distance. This was the most hazardous part of his

adventure; every other moment he paused, lay motionless for some

seconds, then crept a few paces more. As he neared the corner where

Ramona's saddle always hung, his heart beat. Sometimes, of a warm night,

Luigo slept on the barn floor. If he were there to-night, all was lost.

Groping in the darkness, Alessandro pulled himself up on the post, felt

for the saddle, found it, lifted it, and in a trice was flat on the

ground again, drawing the saddle along after him. Not a sound had he

made, that the most watchful of sheep-dogs could hear.

“Ha, old Capitan, caught you napping this time!” said Alessandro to

himself, as at last he got safe to the bottom of the terrace, and,

springing to his feet, bounded away with the saddle on his shoulders.

It was a weight for a starving man to carry, but he felt it not, for

the rejoicing he had in its possession. Now his Senorita would go in

comfort. To ride Baba was to be rocked in a cradle. If need be, Baba

would carry them both, and never know it; and it might come to that,

Alessandro thought, as he knelt by the side of his poor beast, which was

stretched out on the ground exhausted; Baba standing by, looking down in

scornful wonder at this strange new associate.

“The saints be praised!” thought Alessandro, as he seated himself to

wait. “This looks as if they would not desert my Senorita.”

Thoughts whirled in his brain. Where should they go first? What would be

best? Would they be pursued? Where could they hide? Where should he seek

a new home?

It was bootless thinking, until Ramona was by his side. He must lay

each plan before her. She must decide. The first thing was to get to

San Diego, to the priest, to be married. That would be three days' hard

ride; five for the exhausted Indian pony. What should they eat on

the ways Ah! Alessandro bethought him of the violin at Hartsel's. Mr.

Hartsel would give him money on that; perhaps buy it. Then Alessandro

remembered his own violin. He had not once thought of it before. It lay

in its case on a table in Senor Felipe's room when he came away, Was it

possible? No, of course it could not be possible that the Senorita would

think to bring it. What would she bring? She would be wise, Alessandro

was sure.

How long the hours seemed as he sat thus plotting and conjecturing; more

and more thankful, as each hour went by, to see the sky still clouded,

the darkness dense. “It must have been the saints, too, that brought me

on a night when there was no moon,” he thought; and then he said again,

devout and simple-minded man that he was. “They mean to protect my

Senorita; they will let me take care of her.”

Ramona was threading a perilous way, through great difficulties. She had

reached her room unobserved, so far as she could judge. Luckily for her,

Margarita was in bed with a terrible toothache, for which her mother had

given her a strong sleeping-draught. Margarita was disposed of. If she

had not been, Ramona would never have got away, for Margarita would have

known that she had been out of the house for two hours, and would have

watched to see what it meant.

Ramona came in through the court-yard; she dared not go by the veranda,

sure that Felipe and his mother were sitting there still, for it was not

late.

As she entered her room, she heard them talking. She closed one of her

windows, to let them know she was there. Then she knelt at the Madonna's

feet, and in an inaudible whisper told her all she was going to do, and

prayed that she would watch over her and Alessandro, and show them where

to go.

“I know she will! I am sure she will!” whispered Ramona to herself as

she rose from her knees.

Then she threw herself on her bed, to wait till the Senora and Felipe

should be asleep. Her brain was alert, clear. She knew exactly what she

wished to do. She had thought that all out, more than two weeks ago,

when she was looking for Alessandro hour by hour.

Early in the summer Alessandro had given to her, as curiosities, two

of the large nets which the Indian women use for carrying all sorts of

burdens. They are woven out of the fibres of a flax-like plant, and

are strong as iron. The meshes being large, they are very light; are

gathered at each end, and fastened to a band which goes around the

forehead. In these can be carried on the back, with comparative ease,

heavier loads than could be lifted in any other way. Until Ramona

recollected these, she had been perplexed to know how she should carry

the things which she had made up her mind it would be right for her to

take,--only a few; simply necessaries; one stuff gown and her shawls;

the new altar-cloth, and two changes of clothes; that would not be a

great deal; she had a right to so much, she thought, now that she

had seen the jewels in the Senora's keeping. “I will tell Father

Salvierderra exactly what I took,” she thought, “and ask him if it was

too much.” She did not like to think that all these clothes she must

take had been paid for with the Senora Moreno's money.

And Alessandro's violin. Whatever else she left, that must go. What

would life be to Alessandro without a violin! And if they went to Los

Angeles, he might earn money by playing at dances. Already Ramona had

devised several ways by which they could both earn money.

There must be also food for the journey. And it must be good food, too;

wine for Alessandro. Anguish filled her heart as she recalled how gaunt

he looked. “Starving,” he said they had been. Good God! Starving! And

she had sat down each day at loaded tables, and seen, each day, good

food thrown to the dogs to eat.

It was long before the Senora went to her room; and long after that

before Felipe's breathing had become so deep and regular that Ramona

dared feel sure that he was asleep. At last she ventured out. All was

dark; it was past midnight.

“The violin first!” she said; and creeping into the dining-room, and

through the inner door to Felipe's room, she brought it out, rolled it

in shawl after shawl, and put it in the net with her clothes. Then she

stole out, with this net on her back, “like a true Indian woman as I

am,” she said, almost gayly, to herself,--through the court-yard, around

the southeast corner of the house, past the garden, down to the willows,

where she laid down her load, and went back for the second.

This was harder. Wine she was resolved to have and bread and cold

meat. She did not know so well where to put her hand on old Marda's

possessions as on her own, and she dared not strike a light. She made

several journeys to the kitchen and pantry before she had completed her

store. Wine, luckily, she found in the dining-room,--two full bottles;

also milk, which she poured into a leathern flask which hung on the wall

in the veranda.

Now all was ready. She leaned from her window, and listened to Felipe's

breathing. “How can I go without bidding him good-by?” she said. “How

can I?” and she stood irresolute.

“Dear Felipe! Dear Felipe! He has always been so good to me! He has done

all he could for me. I wish I dared kiss him. I will leave a note for

him.”

Taking a pencil and paper, and a tiny wax taper, whose light

would hardly be seen across a room, she slipped once more into the

dining-room, knelt on the floor behind the door, lighted her taper, and

wrote:--

“DEAR FELIPE,--Alessandro has come, and I am going away with him

to-night. Don't let anything be done to us, if you can help it. I don't

know where we are going. I hope, to Father Salvierderra. I shall love

you always. Thank you, dear Felipe, for all your kindness.

“RAMONA.”

It had not taken a moment. She blew out her taper, and crept back into

her room. Felipe's bed was now moved close to the wall of the house.

From her window she could reach its foot. Slowly, cautiously, she

stretched out her arm and dropped the little paper on the coverlet, just

over Felipe's feet. There was a risk that the Senora would come out in

the morning, before Felipe awaked, and see the note first; but that risk

she would take.

“Farewell, dear Felipe!” she whispered, under her breath, as she turned

from the window.

The delay had cost her dear. The watchful Capitan, from his bed at the

upper end of the court, had half heard, half scented, something strange

going on. As Ramona stepped out, he gave one short, quick bark, and came

bounding down.

“Holy Virgin, I am lost!” thought Ramona; but, crouching on the ground,

she quickly opened her net, and as Capitan came towards her, gave him a

piece of meat, fondling and caressing him. While he ate it, wagging his

tail, and making great demonstrations of joy, she picked up her load

again, and still fondling him, said, “Come on, Capitan!” It was her last

chance. If he barked again, somebody would be waked; if he went by her

side quietly, she might escape. A cold sweat of terror burst on her

forehead as she took her first step cautiously. The dog followed. She

quickened her pace; he trotted along, still smelling the meat in the

net. When she reached the willows, she halted, debating whether she

should give him a large piece of meat, and try to run away while he was

eating it, or whether she should let him go quietly along. She decided

on the latter course; and, picking up her other net, walked on. She was

safe now. She turned, and looked back towards the house; all was dark

and still. She could hardly see its outline. A great wave of emotion

swept over her. It was the only home she had ever known. All she

had experienced of happiness, as well as of bitter pain, had been

there,--Felipe, Father Salvierderra, the servants, the birds, the

garden, the dear chapel! Ah, if she could have once more prayed in the