The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1901-08-23
The Street Car
To TopoChico
WHY PATRICIA ROBBED
THE DRIVER.
BY JOHN H. RAFFERTY,.

VVWVVVVSSHSVV VVWVVVVVVVVH
-Four miles above Monterey toward
Topo Chico, Hplifted from the dust and
dead heat of the plain, lies the haci-
enda of Jose del Casa, the alcalde.
His white home sits enshrined in
wilderness of green, encinctured by
5000 acres of vines and corn lands
and billowing meadows that reach
from edge to edge of the steep walled
table fountain of which his estate is
the crown and glory
Patricia, his only child, 10, with sloe
black eyes, hair like a stormcloud and
the oval, luminous face of a Botticelli
Madonna, had spent three years with
the Ladies of the Sacred Heart in
Paris. She had seen the boulevards
and shifted from afar the gallantry and
gayety of the French capital There
fore she yearned and moped amid the
desolate splendor of her Mexican
home.
Have you ever seen the queer little
street car line with it's tandem of small
brown mules that runs, or, rather,
creeps between the Hotel Hidalgo, on
the plaza in Monterey, down through
the narrow streets, away across the
dry and gray, cover the rising plateaus
with desolate monotony; out past the
beetling buttes of Casas Hacienda,
which tower red and hot in the sun, to
the uprising canyon that leads to Topo
Chico, the boiling spring, the health
giving waters in whose fountain pool
Aztec and Indian, peon and patrician,
have sought and found health for a
thousand years? This Topo Chico Is
the terminus of the little narrow gauge
street car line that starts in Monterey.
Its single car, with open seats running
across the width Of it, are seldom
crowded. In the morning few tour
lists bound for the baths smoke and
idle through the tedious trip, but in
the evening, when the summer sun
sinks behind the green, cool shoulders
of Del Casas, the lone car is always
empty except for the driver or an err
rant shepherd returning from market
in Monterey.
1t was at this time in the evening
that Patricia chose for little jaunt on
that queer little street car. With an
cient Madre Anselma, her nurse when
she was romping child, her govern
ess, maid and duenna by turns as the
girl grew to womanhood, Patricia
would ramble down the long stone
stairway and in the purple shadow of
the roadside thicket wait for that emp
ty car to come droning out of the haze.
Anselma neither spoke nor understood
English, and so it was her wont to sit
in the rear seat while the beautiful Pa
tricia, her mantilla now fallen from
before her radiant face, would sit on
the front seat near the driver and urge
or bride him to send the little mules
gallopng.
The driver was a great, yellow haired
giant, with blue eyes and laughing
mouth. For Patricia he would speed
his queer little team till the car swayed
like boat on running pillows and her
delighted laughter fell upon his will
ing ears like the music of tinkling man
dolns. AS for Anselma, so long as the
car was empty but for themselves she
was content to sit in the rear seat,
black. motionless, but alert, smoking
her cigarettes, as Mexican women must
md wondering what Patricia could
have said to the big fair Gringo to
make him drive his mules so fast, 10
make him smile so benignantly.
Every summer evening till the cha.
parral lost its luster and the willows in
the river bed began to scatter cracking
leaves across the sands Patricia and
her chaperon stole away to this clan
destine frolic on the street car till it
became the event Of the gay child's
days and habit even with the with,
cred woman who watched the harm
less frolic.
One night as the blond American car
driver was laughing and thrashing over
the road with the laughing senorita at
his elbow a horseman with his rife
presented doomed across the narrow
road. The mules hesitated. stopped,
backed up in their trace chains. The
driver put down brake and ceased to
smile. He seized the switch bar. babe
Patricia lie down, faced the enemy.
Money or your life" commanded the
outlaw in good English.
You can have the box" roared the
driver. but If you rob the woman you
must fight"
The robber dismounted boarded the
car, and while Patricia and the old
woman looked Oh he smashed in the
money box with the butt of his rifle
and pocketed the few prlful centavos
that jngled in the bottom. If Patricia
had left the car, or drawn up her lace
mantilla. or even turned her face away.
the robber might not have seen the
diamond brooch glistening at her
throat. But the sight was too much
for him. The big American saw the
flash Of his eyes as he ieyeled his rifle.
and at the same moment the switch
bar swung above his head. The rifle
cracked, the driver lurched over and
fell in the dust by the road and the
robber held out his hand to the woman.
"Give me the damondsr' lie bel
lowed
She gave them without a word, then
her watch and her ring, while the old
woman, screaming like a harry, dung
TO his rifle and cursed and prayed in
incoherent Spanish But the robber
had no notion of harming them. He
1t nlr