IV
IT was longer even than the Senora had thought it would be, beforeFather Salvierderra arrived. The old man had grown feeble during theyear that she had not seen him, and it was a very short day's journeythat he could make now without too great fatigue. It was not only hisbody that had failed. He had lost heart; and the miles which would havebeen nothing to him, had he walked in the companionship of hopeful andhappy thoughts, stretched out wearily as he brooded over sad memoriesand still sadder anticipations,--the downfall of the Missions, the lossof their vast estates, and the growing power of the ungodly in the land.The final decision of the United States Government in regard to theMission-lands had been a terrible blow to him. He had devoutly believedthat ultimate restoration of these great estates to the Church wasinevitable. In the long vigils which he always kept when at home at theFranciscan Monastery in Santa Barbara, kneeling on the stone pavementin the church, and praying ceaselessly from midnight till dawn, he hadoften had visions vouchsafed him of a new dispensation, in which theMission establishments should be reinstated in all their old splendorand prosperity, and their Indian converts again numbered by tens ofthousands.
Long after every one knew that this was impossible, he would narratethese visions with the faith of an old Bible seer, and declare that theymust come true, and that it was a sin to despond. But as year after yearhe 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 noblework of his order being rapidly swept away, his courage faltered, hisfaith 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 asFrancis of Assisi. To wear a shoe in place of a sandal, to take money ina purse for a journey, above all to lay aside the gray gown and cowl forany sort of secular garment, seemed to him wicked. To own comfortableclothes while there were others suffering for want of them--andthere were always such--seemed to him a sin for which one might notundeservedly be smitten with sudden and terrible punishment. In vain theBrothers again and again supplied him with a warm cloak; he gave it awayto the first beggar he met: and as for food, the refectory would havebeen left bare, and the whole brotherhood starving, if the supplies hadnot been carefully hidden and locked, so that Father Salvierderra couldnot give them all away. He was fast becoming that most tragic yet oftensublime sight, a man who has survived, not only his own time, butthe ideas and ideals of it. Earth holds no sharper loneliness: thebitterness of exile, the anguish of friendlessness at their utmost,are in it; and yet it is so much greater than they, that even they seemsmall part of it.
It was with thoughts such as these that Father Salvierderra drew nearthe home of the Senora Moreno late in the afternoon of one of thosemidsummer days of which Southern California has so many in spring. Thealmonds had bloomed and the blossoms fallen; the apricots also, and thepeaches and pears; on all the orchards of these fruits had come a filmytint 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 andglossy like laurel. The billowy hills on either side the valley werecovered with verdure and bloom,--myriads of low blossoming plants, soclose 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 eachother and blend into a changeful color.
The countless curves, hollows, and crests of the coast-hills in SouthernCalifornia heighten these chameleon effects of the spring verdure; theyare like nothing in nature except the glitter of a brilliant lizard inthe 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 himselfpermitted all decorations which could be made of flowers. He classedthem with his brothers and sisters, the sun, moon, and stars,--allmembers of the sacred choir praising God.
It was melancholy to see how, after each one of these pauses, each freshdrinking in of the beauty of the landscape and the balmy air, the oldman 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 theChurch,--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 thecountry,--farms opening, towns growing; the Americans pouring in, atall points, to reap the advantages of their new possessions. It wasthis which had made his journey heavy-hearted, and made him feel, inapproaching the Senora Moreno's, as if he were coming to one of the lastsure strongholds of the Catholic faith left in the country.
When he was within two miles of the house, he struck off from thehighway into a narrow path that he recollected led by a short-cutthrough the hills, and saved nearly a third of the distance. It wasmore than a year since he had trod this path, and as he found it growingfainter and fainter, and more and more overgrown with the wild mustard,he said to himself, "I think no one can have passed through here thisyear."
As he proceeded he found the mustard thicker and thicker. The wildmustard in Southern California is like that spoken of in the NewTestament, 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 findstarting-point in an inch, it darts up, a slender straight shoot, five,ten, twenty feet, with hundreds of fine feathery branches lockingand interlocking with all the other hundreds around it, till it is aninextricable network like lace. Then it bursts into yellow bloom stillfiner, more feathery and lacelike. The stems are so infinitesimallysmall, and of so dark a green, that at a short distance they do notshow, and the cloud of blossom seems floating in the air; at times itlooks like golden dust. With a clear blue sky behind it, as it is oftenseen, it looks like a golden snow-storm. The plant is a tyrant and anuisance,--the terror of the farmer; it takes riotous possession of awhole field in a season once in, never out; for one plant this year, amillion the next; but it is impossible to wish that the land were freedfrom it. Its gold is as distinct a value to the eye as the nugget goldis in the pocket.
Father Salvierderra soon found himself in a veritable thicket of thesedelicate branches, high above his head, and so interlaced that he couldmake headway only by slowly and patiently disentangling them, as onewould disentangle a skein of silk. It was a fantastic sort of dilemma,and not unpleasing. Except that the Father was in haste to reach hisjourney's end, he would have enjoyed threading his way throughthe golden meshes. Suddenly he heard faint notes of singing. Hepaused,--listened. It was the voice of a woman. It was slowly drawingnearer, apparently from the direction in which he was going. Atintervals it ceased abruptly, then began again; as if by a sudden butbrief interruption, like that made by question and answer. Then, peeringahead through the mustard blossoms, he saw them waving and bending, andheard sounds as if they were being broken. Evidently some one enteringon the path from the opposite end had been caught in the fragrantthicket as he was. The notes grew clearer, though still low and sweetas the twilight notes of the thrush; the mustard branches waved more andmore violently; light steps were now to be heard. Father Salvierderrastood still as one in a dream, his eyes straining forward into thegolden mist of blossoms. In a moment more came, distinct and clear tohis ear, the beautiful words of the second stanza of Saint Francis'sinimitable lyric, "The Canticle of the Sun:"
"Praise be to thee, O Lord, for all thy creatures, and especially forour brother the Sun,--who illuminates the day, and by his beauty andsplendor 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 ina swaying frame of the blossoms, as she parted them lightly to right andleft with her hands, and half crept, half danced through the loop-holeopenings thus made. Father Salvierderra was past eighty, but his bloodwas not too old to move quicker at th
e sight of this picture. A man mustbe dead not to thrill at it. Ramona's beauty was of the sort to be bestenhanced by the waving gold which now framed her face. She had justenough of olive tint in her complexion to underlie and enrich her skinwithout making it swarthy. Her hair was like her Indian mother's, heavyand black, but her eyes were like her father's, steel-blue. Only thosewho came very near to Ramona knew, however, that her eyes were blue, forthe heavy black eyebrows and long black lashes so shaded and shadowedthem that they looked black as night. At the same instant that FatherSalvierderra first caught sight of her face, Ramona also saw him, andcrying out joyfully, "Ah, Father, I knew you would come by this path,and something told me you were near!" she sprang forward, and sank onher knees before him, bowing her head for his blessing. In silence helaid his hands on her brow. It would not have been easy for him to speakto her at that first moment. She had looked to the devout old monk, asshe sprang through the cloud of golden flowers, the sun falling onher bared head, her cheeks flushed, her eyes shining, more like anapparition of an angel or saint, than like the flesh-and-blood maidenwhom 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 beensent for, and will be here tonight, and that was the reason I felt sosure you would come. I knew the Virgin would bring you in time for massin the chapel on the first morning."
The monk smiled half sadly. "Would there were more with such faith asyours, daughter," he said. "Are all well on the place?"
"Yes, Father, all well," she answered. "Felipe has been ill with afever; but he is out now, these ten days, and fretting for--for yourcoming."
Ramona had like to have said the literal truth,--"fretting for thesheep-shearing," but recollected herself in time.
"And the Senora?" said the Father.
"She is well," answered Ramona, gently, but with a slight change oftone,--so slight as to be almost imperceptible; but an acute observerwould have always detected it in the girl's tone whenever she spoke ofthe Senora Moreno. "And you,--are you well yourself, Father?" she askedaffectionately, noting with her quick, loving eye how feebly the oldman walked, and that he carried what she had never before seen in hishand,--a stout staff to steady his steps. "You must be very tired withthe long journey on foot."
"Ay, Ramona, I am tired," he replied. "Old age is conquering me. It willnot be many times more that I shall see this place."
"Oh, do not say that, Father," cried Ramona; "you can ride, when ittires you too much to walk. The Senora said, only the other day, thatshe wished you would let her give you a horse; that it was not right foryou to take these long journeys on foot. You know we have hundreds ofhorses. It is nothing, one horse," she added, seeing the Father slowlyshake his head.
"No;" he said, "it is not that. I could not refuse anything at the handsof the Senora. But it was the rule of our order to go on foot. Wemust deny the flesh. Look at our beloved master in this land, FatherJunipero, 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 menwould have taken to a bed, to be healed. It is a sinful fashion thatis coming in, for monks to take their ease doing God's work. I can nolonger walk swiftly, but I must walk all the more diligently."
While they were talking, they had been slowly moving forward, Ramonaslightly in advance, gracefully bending the mustard branches, andholding them down till the Father had followed in her steps. As theycame out from the thicket, she exclaimed, laughing, "There is Felipe, inthe 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 andthe Father approaching. Throwing down the knife with which he had beencutting 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 windblowing his hair loosely off his brow, his large brown eyes lifted ingentle reverence to the Father's face, and his face full of affectionatewelcome, Ramona thought to herself, as she had thought hundreds of timessince she became a woman, "How beautiful Felipe is! No wonder the Senoraloves him so much! If I had been beautiful like that she would haveliked me better." Never was a little child more unconscious of her ownbeauty than Ramona still was. All the admiration which was expressedto 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. Shecompared her straight, massive black eyebrows with Felipe's, arched anddelicately pencilled, and found her own ugly. The expression of gentlerepose which her countenance wore, seemed to her an expression ofstupidity. "Felipe looks so bright!" she thought, as she noted hismobile changing face, never for two successive seconds the same. "Thereis nobody like Felipe." And when his brown eyes were fixed on her, asthey so often were, in a long lingering gaze, she looked steadily backinto their velvet depths with an abstracted sort of intensity whichprofoundly puzzled Felipe. It was this look, more than any other onething, which had for two years held Felipe's tongue in leash, as itwere, and made it impossible for him to say to Ramona any of the lovingthings of which his heart had been full ever since he could remember.The boy had spoken them unhesitatingly, unconsciously; but the man foundhimself suddenly afraid. "What is it she thinks when she looks into myeyes so?" he wondered. If he had known that the thing she was usuallythinking 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 agirl who looked at a man thus, would be hard to win to look at him as alover. But being a lover, he could not see this. He saw only enough toperplex and deter him.
As they drew near the house, Ramona saw Margarita standing at the gateof the garden. She was holding something white in her hands, lookingdown at it, and crying piteously. As she perceived Ramona, she made aneager leap forward, and then shrank back again, making dumb signalsof distress to her. Her whole attitude was one of misery and entreaty.Margarita was, of all the maids, most beloved by Ramona. Though theywere nearly of the same age, it had been Margarita who first had chargeof Ramona; the nurse and her charge had played together, grown uptogether, become women together, and were now, although Margarita neverpresumed on the relation, or forgot to address Ramona as Senorita, morelike friends than like mistress and maid.
"Pardon me, Father," said Ramona. "I see that Margarita there is introuble. I will leave Felipe to go with you to the house. I will be withyou again in a few moments." And kissing his hand, she flew rather thanran across the field to the foot of the garden.
Before she reached the spot, Margarita had dropped on the ground andburied her face in her hands. A mass of crumpled and stained linen layat her feet.
"What is it? What has happened, Margarita mia?" cried Ramona, in theaffectionate Spanish phrase. For answer, Margarita removed one wet handfrom her eyes, and pointed with a gesture of despair to the crumpledlinen. Sobs choked her voice, and she buried her face again in herhands.
Ramona stooped, and lifted one corner of the linen. An involuntary cryof dismay broke from her, at which Margarita's sobs redoubled, andshe gasped out, "Yes, Senorita, it is totally ruined! It can never bemended, and it will be needed for the mass to-morrow morning. When I sawthe 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 clothwhich the Senora Moreno had with her own hands made into one solid frontof beautiful lace of the Mexican fashion, by drawing out part of thethreads and sewing the remainder into intricate patterns, thecloth which had always been on the altar, when mass was said, sinceMargarita'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 i
s the worst of it, Senorita!" sobbed the girl. "That is theworst of it! If it were not for that, I would not be so afraid. If ithad happened any other way, the Senora might have forgiven me; but shenever will. I would rather die than tell her;" and she shook from headto foot.
"Stop crying, Margarita!" said Ramona, firmly, "and tell me all aboutit. 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 firsttime. "Do you really think you can mend it, Senorita? If you will mendthat 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 keepingon your feet," she said merrily; at which Margarita laughed too, throughher tears. They were both young.
"Oh, but Senorita," Margarita began again in a tone of anguish, hertears flowing afresh, "there is not time! It must be washed and ironedto-night, for the mass to-morrow morning, and I have to help at thesupper. Anita and Rosa are both ill in bed, you know, and Maria has goneaway for a week. The Senora said if the Father came to-night I must helpmother, and must wait on table. It cannot be done. I was just goingto iron it now, and I found it--so--It was in the artichoke-patch, andCapitan, the beast, had been tossing it among the sharp pricks of theold last year's seeds."
"In the artichoke-patch!" ejaculated Ramona. "How under heavens did itget there?"
"Oh, that was what I meant, Senorita, when I said she never wouldforgive me. She has forbidden me many times to hang anything to dry onthe fence there; and if I had only washed it when she first told me, twodays 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 sunlies 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 morethan half an hour, just while I said a few words to Luigo, and therewas no wind; and I believe the saints must have fetched it down to theground 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 Ican, so that it will not show, for to-morrow, and then, after the Fatheris 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 thesun. "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 soonas it is partly dried. You will see it will not show that anything hashappened to it."
"Will the Senora know?" asked poor Margarita, calmed and reassured, butstill in mortal terror.
Ramona turned her steady glance full on Margarita's face. "You would notbe any happier if she were deceived, do you think?" she said gravely.
"O Senorita, after it is mended? If it really does not show?" pleadedthe 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 itis to have the Senora displeased with one."
"Nothing can be so bad as to be displeased with one's self," retortedRamona, as she walked swiftly away to her room with the linen rolled upunder 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 verandasteps, and had immediately closeted herself with him. She had much tosay to him,--much about which she wished his help and counsel, and muchwhich she wished to learn from him as to affairs in the Church and inthe country generally.
Felipe had gone off at once to find Juan Canito, to see if everythingwere ready for the sheep-shearing to begin on the next day, if theshearers arrived in time; and there was very good chance of their comingin by sundown this day, Felipe thought, for he had privately instructedhis messenger to make all possible haste, and to impress on the Indiansthe urgent need of their losing no time on the road.
It had been a great concession on the Senora's part to allow themessenger to be sent off before she had positive intelligence as to theFather's movements. But as day after day passed and no news came, evenshe perceived that it would not do to put off the sheep-shearing muchlonger, or, as Juan Canito said, "forever." The Father might have fallenill; and if that were so, it might very easily be weeks before theyheard of it, so scanty were the means of communication between theremote places on his route of visitation. The messenger had thereforebeen sent to summon the Temecula shearers, and Senora had resignedherself to the inevitable; piously praying, however, morning and night,and at odd moments in the day, that the Father might arrive before theIndians did. When she saw him coming up the garden-walk, leaning onthe arm of her Felipe, on the afternoon of the very day which was theearliest possible day for the Indians to arrive, it was not strange thatshe felt, mingled with the joy of her greeting to her long-loved friendand confessor, a triumphant exultation that the saints had heard herprayers.
In the kitchen all was bustle and stir. The coming of any guest into thehouse was a signal for unwonted activities there,--even the coming ofFather Salvierderra, who never knew whether the soup had force-meatballs in it or not, old Marda said; and that was to her the last extremeof 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 wasenlisted in setting forth as goodly an array of viands as her larderafforded, She grew suddenly fastidious over the size and color of thecabbages to go into the beef-pot, and threw away one whole saucepan fullof 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 alwaystwo onions?" she exclaimed. "It is the dish he most favors of all; andit is a pity too, old as he is. It makes him no blood. It is good beefhe should take now."
The dining-room was on the opposite side of the courtyard from thekitchen, and there was a perpetual procession of small messengers goingback and forth between the rooms. It was the highest ambition of eachchild to be allowed to fetch and carry dishes in the preparation ofthe meals at all times; but when by so doing they could perchance get aglimpse through the dining-room door, open on the veranda, of strangersand guests, their restless rivalry became unmanageable. Poor Margarita,between her own private anxieties and her multiplied duties of helpingin the kitchen, and setting the table, restraining and overseeing herarmy of infant volunteers, was nearly distraught; not so distraught,however, but that she remembered and found time to seize a lightedcandle in the kitchen, run and set it before the statue of Saint Francisof Paula in her bedroom, hurriedly whispering a prayer that the lacemight be made whole like new. Several times before the afternoon hadwaned she snatched a moment to fling herself down at the statue's feetand pray her foolish little prayer over again. We think we are quitesure that it is a foolish little prayer, when people pray to have tornlace made whole. But it would be hard to show the odds between askingthat, and asking that it may rain, or that the sick may get well. As thegrand 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 pitiedwho prays not. It was only the thought of that candle at Saint Francis'sfeet, which enabled Margarita to struggle through this anxious andunhappy afternoon and evening.
At last supper was ready,--a great dish of spiced beef and cabbage inthe centre of the table; a tureen of thick soup, with force-meat ballsand red peppers in it; two red earthen platters heaped, one with theboiled rice and onions, the other with the delicious frijoles (beans)so dear to all Mexican hearts; cut-glass dishes filled with hot stewedpears, or preserved quinces, or grape jelly; plates of frosted cakes ofvarious sorts; and a steaming silver teakettle, from which went up anaroma 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 sheentered the dining-room, "Margarita, go tell the Senorita that we arewaiting for her."
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Margarita started tremblingly, with flushed face, towards the door. Whatwould happen now! "O Saint Francis," she inwardly prayed, "help us thisonce!"
"Stay," said Felipe. "Do not call Senorita Ramona." Then, turning to hismother, "Ramona cannot come. She is not in the house. She has a duty toperform 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 amechanical way, and began, "But--" Felipe, seeing that questions were tofollow, interrupted her: "I have just spoken with her. It is impossiblefor her to come;" and turning to Father Salvierderra, he at once engagedhim in conversation, and left the baffled Senora to bear her unsatisfiedcuriosity 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. Seeinghim under her window, she had called cautiously to him, and said: "DearFelipe, do you think you can save me from having to come to supper? Adreadful accident has happened to the altar-cloth, and I must mend itand wash it, and there is barely time before dark. Don't let them callme; I shall be down at the brook, and they will not find me, and yourmother will be displeased."
This wise precaution of Ramona's was the salvation of everything, so faras the altar-cloth was concerned. The rents had proved far less seriousthan she had feared; the daylight held out till the last of them wasskilfully mended; and just as the red beams of the sinking sun camestreaming through the willow-trees at the foot of the garden, Ramona,darting down the garden, had reached the brook, and kneeling on thegrass, had dipped the linen into the water.
Her hurried working over the lace, and her anxiety, had made her cheeksscarlet. As she ran down the garden, her comb had loosened and her hairfallen to her waist. Stopping only to pick up the comb and thrust it inher pocket, she had sped on, as it would soon be too dark for her to seethe stains on the linen, and it was going to be no small trouble to getthem out without fraying the lace.
Her hair in disorder, her sleeves pinned loosely on her shoulders, herwhole face aglow with the earnestness of her task, she bent low overthe stones, rinsing the altar-cloth up and down in the water, anxiouslyscanning it, then plunging it in again.
The sunset beams played around her hair like a halo; the whole place wasaglow with red light, and her face was kindled into transcendent beauty.A sound arrested her attention. She looked up. Forms, dusky blackagainst the fiery western sky, were coming down the valley. It was theband of Indian shearers. They turned to the left, and went towards thesheep sheds and booths. But there was one of them that Ramona did notsee. He had been standing for some minutes concealed behind a largewillow-tree a few rods from the place where Ramona was kneeling. It wasAlessandro, son of Pablo Assis, captain of the shearing band. Walkingslowly along in advance of his men, he had felt a light, as from amirror held in the sun, smite his eyes. It was the red sunbeam on theglittering 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 hisdisappearance. Cautiously he moved a few steps nearer, into the shelterof a gnarled old willow, from behind which he could gaze unperceived onthe beautiful vision,--for so it seemed to him.
As he gazed, his senses seemed leaving him, and unconsciously he spokealoud; "Christ! What shall I do!"