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 dawnFrom the heavens abovePeople 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 singTender hymnsTo 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 corning 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.”
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.”