The Wilmington daily Republican., 1895-08-06
SOFT BLACK EYES.

What trivial thing will color the whole
Of mans lifel How small an incident,
compared to the large future he has map
ped out for himself, may make OF mar It'll
learned all this and more one sultry May
day in Mexico five years ago.
had been sent to Mexico as chief Of O
surveying corps to establish the boundaries
of the Santa Anita grant, which lay along
the Rio Claro just outside the city Of Chi
huahua. 1t was o responsible position for
ayoung man, and held my head high.
1t was the day of La Fiesta dc San Qua
dalupe. The saint himself had been dead,
I understood, several hundred years. but
In Mexico that doesn't make any differ
ence. The longer folks are dead there the
more they seem to be thought Of and the
bigger a birthday party they have. Almost
every other week contains the feast day.
of some dead saint or saintess, and trade
and commerce are suspended to do the oc-
casion Justice. The natives Of Mexico are
the most perennially pious people on earth.
Why, have known them-men in my own
employ-to be SO enthused over the pos
thumous birthday of some long dead saint
that they would get up in the gray dawn
to go about celebrating 1t. This morning,
the morning Of Guadalupe's feast day, the
whole force Of poems under me had struck.
No chainmen, no fagmen, no axmen were
left me. Only Sims and Bailey. my two
American assistants, staid behind. When
began abusing them for the customs of
Mexico, they said while they did not care
even remotely for the saint to whom it
was dedicated, still they were glad it was
a holiday and they thought they would go
up stream and fish awhile. They were
only Indifferent laymen, without any re-
ligious feeling.
When 1 was left alone In camp, spent
a short time on my field notes, when IL
came over me that was wasting the day.
Just outside the chaparral the river was
laughing and mur,nuring in the open. 1t
seemed to ask me to walk beside 1t. The
adobe huts along its banks were tenant
less; their inmates had gone to the feast.
But, strange sight, there at the bend Of
the river where the waters were the mer-
riest was a solitary worker, and whatever
it was she was doing, she was doing 1t
with vim. A dark eyed, dark haired,
dark shawled daughter of Spain she
seemed to be, and yet she was working
and working hard-on "feast dayP' A
fit Of curiosity seized me to know what she
was doing and why she was doing 1t. I
approached her with the question on my
lips at what did she work, and por- kay Il
spell it as said it). Softly she raised
pair of melting orbs and sweetly and elo-
quently she answered me. From her reply,
in the most musical language in the world,
gathered that she would be at the feast,
but that she must cleanse the soiled linen
that lay around her on the sand, for the
owner Of 1t, a gentleman who was staying
at the United States hotel wanted it by
10 10
said this plaintively). If 1t were not done
by noon, she finished most pathetically,
she would get no diners, and that she
needed in the superlative degree. Dinerol
All, the next most potent thing In Mexico
to saints days is money!
AS her red lips told ME this, her great
black eyes wandered from the soiled
clothes at her feet to the spires of the CO.
thedral in the distance and the waving
foliage of the plaza where tho feastlng and
merrymaking were going on. There was
a look of sadness and longing in them as
she gazed. Being q tender hearted man,
asked her II there was aught could do for
her. In wonderful mixture of Anglo
Spanish, which invented while in Mex
leo, and which no one could ever master
but myself, assured her was at her serv-
ice II she SO desired and asked how could
assist her.
The black eyes flashed gratitude ere the
scarlet mouth said, in silyery sweet tones
Would you sit on a rock beside mo and rub
the shirts of the gentleman on large rock
with very small rockP"
Looking back now in the light of ma
turer wisdom, l can see that should have
declined that job on the grounds that it
was too untesthetic. Butt didn't. On
tho contrary, 1 accepted 1t efrusiyely.
There was touch of romance about it
that appealed to me-the day itself began
to appeal to me for the first time 1 began
to feel something of tho enthusiasm for
feast days that had taken my men out be-
fore daybreak. would not be SO hard on
them again, 1 thought, Truly 1t was u
very pretty custom, and l began to sympa-
thize with 1t and to understand 1t better
If San Guadalupe had not been so long in
TERED, in the gladness Of my heart would
have sent him bouquet. All this tried
to conade to Lucia. 1t touched her; it
sounded, she said, like stories she had read
in the convent.
Her name was poem in itself-Lucia
Eulalia Gracia y Valdez. And miner After
that poem 1t seemed common to say that
was plain Jack Biggs. But she anticipat-
ed me. She pointed to one Of my business
cards that had escaped my vest pocket
when threw it on the sand. "Meester
Beegs, que moi" she lisped, and 1t did not
sound at all badly from her lips
1t was pleasant to know she did not dis
like my name. This was one way of say
ing, as everybody knows, that its owner
was not d'sagreeable to her.
AS we talked we washed, and long be-
fore noon the gentleman's shirts were all
floating in the breeze from the low chapar-
raj along the river bank
Lucia Eulalia glanced gratefully and al
ternately at the snowy linenNand at me. My
natural thoughtfulness led me to suggest
that we might as well do the family wash
ing while we were about 1t. Her brother
Antonio, the sheep herder, whom she had
mentioned with sisterly affection-dld not
his things have need of waterP "There
is no time like the present" said; sit
may set in tomorrow and rain for months.
Who knowsfp
Lucia Eulalia looked at the oontradct-
ing blue of the skies and laughed at my
weather prophesies, but she ran to her
adobe dwelling a few rods away and
brought from 1t bundle Of Antonios
things" They had apparently been
waiting for me for years. His wardrobe
ranged from dingy bandannas to dingier
pyeralls As / warmed up to the ambi-