Palestine daily herald. [volume] (Palestine, Tex.) 1902-1949, 1908-10-09
An Old Don.

Along the road that leads TO the
Caves of Bellemar are ruins of once
fine old country houses. They stand
roofless and with vacant windows,
fronted by remnants of Greek and
Roman porticos, in the middle OF
weed-grown gardens, like desecrated
tombs in deserted churchyard. They
are the stones that mutely point the
way along which pitiless war has gone.
In the early morning l had climbed
the white road which skirts the cres-
cent bay, and winds above the pink
and-white cottages on its edge to the
mesa, where are the caves, and, re-
turning, had turned into this quiet
street
Ell Senior Don Carlos Valero, pot
in hand, was carefully watering row
of feeble plants in box at the end of
his porch 1 doubt if Uncle Toby"
ever put the last touches to redoubt
with more loving fingers than those
which picked off dead leaf here or
Strengthened bent stem there. There
was so much friendliness in his quick
glance that l ventured to salute him
In Indifferent Spanish, to which he re-
piled in plain enough English. must
stop-I must rest q Bit must have
a drink of water, he said, and taken by
his kindly old face and manner, I was
glad to accept. l noted him closely
as he returned with a tray bearing a
clay jug and glass, and felt sure he
must be part and parcel of the old
street.
He carried his sixty-odd years with q
slight stoop in the slender frame. His
linen clothes were patched, and worn
from many cleanings. The soft hat he
held in his hand had once been brown,
but had turned to the red of new ma
hogany When l took a closer look at
his face, smooth-shaven except for a
white mustache, brown as an old sad
die beneath the close-cropped white
hair, l saw that the clothes did not
proclaim the man-for there was not a
line nor furrow that had been traced
by any but the gentler feelings, except
those marks left by adversely.
He was indeed an old resident of the
"Avenida." This house, which was his
country place in an earlier time, had
been one of the first built. AS we sat
over coffee, later, In the big, airy din
ing room, looking out into the sunny
patio with Its stone well and arched
doorways, he spoke frankly and with
out bitterness OF the turns his for
tunes had taken.
His fathers father, he said, had been
an admiral in the Spanish navy-he
pointed to portrait on the wall of a
fine looking old warrior in full uniform
his grandfather, on his mothers
side, a colonel In the French army. He
had once owned two plantations, he
went on, but in the first war" they
had been swept away with everything
they contained. except the things he
had carried of in his, pockets and
hands. Nothing was left but this
empty old house. Here he had
brought his family, and from the roof
had watched the smoke rolling up
from the buildings he had been forced
to abandon.
His wife was an American woman,
plainly of good breeding, and late in
life the two had been made happy by
a little daughter, a bright little thing
about four years old, who led her old
father merry dance at her pleasure.
II she had demanded to be taken to
the moon, or some equally impossible
place, l believe that, from force of
habit, absently he would have taken
his stout stick from the corner and
looked about for his hat!
In his odd, mixed accent, dropping
French and Spanish Intersections every
now and then, he spoke of his favorite
books, and 1t was plain he had not
cared to wander very far outside the
fields Of the older classics He quoted
Byron and Dante at length; men
toned Sue and Hugo with profound
respect; but laughed till the tears
rolled down his cheeks at bits he re-
called from "Gil Bias" and at the
passages he read aloud in archaic
Spanish from Don Quixote.''
l wish l could set down in his own
words, with the feeling which swayed
him, his simple account of the at
tempt 70 bride the keeper of the be-
trayed Macmillan when the latter |
was held in Mexican prison under
sentence of death. 1t would go far
.oward showing his creed of life. AS
he old don concluded his tale, which |
ne had told with unconscious dra-
matte effect, of how the poor soldier
had sent back the signed check which |
lad been put in his hand to fill in |
my amount he cared to inscribe-
holding his honor above money-he |
paused moment refectively and |
added, with an absent stare in his |
mild eyes:
Il don't know what it ees dat keeps |
! man from doing an injury to hees
leighbor; dat keeps him from break
ng hees sacred word: or dat keeps
lin from being bought reeth money,
tut it ees something raised his
lead slowly, and turned it, with up
leld chin, from side to side as though
the world-'it is something
here" and his raised arm fell