The Portland daily press., 1895-07-29
SOFT BLACK EYES,

What a trivial thing will color the whole
of a mans life! How small an incident,
compared to the large future he has map
ped out for himself, may make or mar It'll
1 learned all this and more one sultry May
day in Mexico five years ago.
had been sent to Mexico as chief of a
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 responsible position for
young man, and held my head high.
1t was the day Of La Fiesta de 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 OF 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, I have known them-lnen 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 it. This morning.
the morning of GGadalupe'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
holiday and they thought they would &c
up stream and fish awhile. They were
only Indifferent laymen, without any re-
ngious feeling.
When was left alone in camp, I spent
a short time on my field notes. when ii
came over me that was wasting the day.
just outside the chaparral the river was
laughing and murmuring in the open. 1t
seemed to ask me to walk beside it. The
adobe huts along it's 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
REST was a solitary worker, and whatever
it was she was doing, she was doing it
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 day!" A
fit of curiosity seized me to know what she
was doing and why she was doing it.
approached her with tie question on my
lips at what did she work, and por-kay q
spell it as.I raid it,. Softly she raised
pai9 OF melasZlg orbs and sweetly and elo
quently she arGr7e1ed me. From her reply,
in the most m asical language in the world,
I 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 it, gentleman who was staying
+La T~i% %oI Io4a u l.
noon, and tomorrow would not do (she
said this plaintively). If itwere 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 soilsd
clothes at her feet to the spires of the ca
thedral in the distance and tho waving
foliage of the plaza where the feasting and
merrymaking were going on. There was
a look of sadness and longing in them as
she gazed. Being tender hearted man,
asked her if there was aught I 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, I assured her was at her serv-
ice if she SO desired and asked how could
assist her.
The black eyes flashed gratitude ere the
scarlet mouth said, in silvery sweet tones,
"Would you sit on rock beside ne an;7 rub
the shirts of the gentlema1 on a large rock
with very small rock?''
LooBsEssy hacS 1t4T in t'5 i;ghS of ma
turer wis4ss9- / q REQ iz.zni should have
fiPOl1nnN - ~ thA d. 4Io+
was too unasthetic. Butt didn't. On
the contrary, L accepted it effusively.
There was touch OF romance about it
that appealed to me-the day itself began
to appeal to me for the first time. I began
to feel something of the enthusiasm for
feast days that had taken my men out be-
fore daybreak. I would not be SO hard on
them again, 1 thought. Truly it was a
very pretty custom, and L began to sympa-
thize with it and to understand it 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 conhde 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 Graoia y Valdez. And mine? After
that poem it seemed common to say that I
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 nof'' she lisped, and it 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 disagreeable 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 linen and at me. Ny
natural thoughtfulness led me to suggest
that we might as well do the family wash
ing while We were about it. Her brother
Antonio, the sheep herder, whom she had
mentioned with sisteFly affection-did not
his things have need of water? "There
is no ti1=5 like the present, said; "it
may get in tcSuorrow and rain for months.
Who knows?"
LuciaSulalia looked at the contradict.
ing blue of the skies and laughed at my
weather prophesies, but she ran to her