Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1907-12-07
VOICE OF THE CHIMES.


filled with sadness and her declining years
seemed darkened by threatening cloud
of fear. Donna Valesquez was not bitter,
only sad, and in her great struggle with
life her church had been her guiding star
She loved the goodspadres and they had
given her strength and courage.
Early left an orphan, she had gone to
them when the Gringos had invaded love-
~ San Jacinto valley, taking possession
of their beautiful ranch, the ancestral
home OF the Valesquez for many genera
tions.
They had been her refuge when her
younger sister had eloped with hated
Gringo, and again she had gone to them
for guidance when her sister returned
heart broken with her little daughter to
five i'll the love and forgiveness of Donna
Valesquez.
And when her sister had died, leaving
little Ramona to her care, she had gone
to them again for counsel and soace
Naturally reserved in disposition, her
growing sorrows only added to her desire
for seclusion.
After the death of her sister Donna
Valesquez, who was now the sole surviv-
or of the proud old house of Valesquez
bought littre cottage in the shadow of
tho mission and moved there, taking lit
tie Ramona with her.
To her neighbors she was sad, kind old
lady whom no one knew well, but whom
they all loved and whose desire for soli-
tude they seemed to understand, not
even knowing of the great sorrows that
had crowded the sunshine out of her life.
One day she sat in the mission garden
talking with the padre.
The church had been kind to her, she
said and she wanted to do something
for it.
The churches of the Gringo were going
up around them, overshadowing their
homey little adobe house of worship.
But somehow there was a holier at
nosphere about the little old church she
loved, only the congregation seemed fall
ing away.
She thought of many ways to rehabili-
tate the old place, but always there was
that glaring face that Spanish customs
ard religiou, like the Spanish race, were
fast being obliterated in California.
How can we save them I" she asked
the father
He shook his head and sighed, ALIAS,
daughter, we are poor people,
Donns Valesquez slowly found her way
home, anG when she reached the gate
leading through her garden she had
thought of plan. She thought of it till
well into the night. and when sleep final
ly closed the tired eyes, her mind had
been made up. When she went to the
mission again she told the padre of the
chimes. They would call their erring
people TO God, and perhaps the humble
little church would not be so deserted.
So the new chimes were donated by her
and placed in the steeple for Easter serv-
ices.
Little Ramona, now grown to woman
hood had come home from the convent
to live with Donna Valesquez, whom she
affeetionately called "Mammeto." RAJ
mona was graceful, charming, irradiat
ing leauty. Her eyes We're brown--a
soft, lazy, languid brown. Her nose was
impertinent and her mouth super-emo-
tional, and her general effect was pleas
ing, if not trife dangerous.
There was the vivacity of the Amer
lean and the coquetry of the Spanish,
and it was the combination that made
Donna Valesqucz shudder.
Already she mao rearranged the old
rose garden and had actually had the
TALL thick hedges that had shut out the
gaze OF passersby trimmed to fashion
abs height in spite of the protestations
of Mammeto.
She went eaily about changing every
thing and Frightening up the gray old
place, and when Donna Valesquez remon-
strated she would pout and in the end
would have her way.
The padre laughed at Donna when she
went to him with her fears and told her
it was young peoples way; but into her
heart crept a fear.
She was thinking of the Gringo father
whom Ramona had been taught was dead
and of the faint of his blood in her veins.
She prayed TO her favorite saint and
said many pater nosters that her little
Ramona might i,p spared that faint.
She had surrounded her with every en-
vironment calculated TO smother it, but
there it was surely as though it had been
fostered from her very birth.
The quaint old place took on a pretty
lively air, not altogether unpleasant to
look upon to any one save Donna Wales.
quez.
She had been happy there in her seelu
sion and she resented the invasion of
what had been to her her sanctum, and
she became more frequent visitor at
the mission and more strange and pathet-
ic to her neighbors.
But Ramona had become a favorite
with them and although she flirted CO.
quettishly with the men folk, she was
loved by the women for her sweet, wom-
anly ways,
Flirting and smiling were part of
her Inheritance, and as much her right as
was her beauty and will.
Donna yalesquez's nearest neighbors
were Americans, and their only son. a
tall, handsome youth, had only returned
from college in the east a few days when
he caught a glimpse of Ramona in the
garden cutting roses for the altar.
When he saw the slender, graceful ig
ure in the pink flounced froek moving
about daintily among the rose bushes
his heart gave jerk that sent the blood
at breakneck speed through his body.
Who was she, anyhow, he asked, as he