The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-01-10
THE DONA YSOBEL

IL Was oil OIu house anu du OlQ gar
den and an old Christmas Eve; and
frank and unconventional observer
might say that the Dona Ysobel was
an old lady. No observer, however
would call her an old woman. Pure
Castillian blood flowed beneath her
dark and ruffed skin in her knotted
and painfully obvious veins; and even
in what she chose to consider the
essentially degenerate days of the
twentieth century, she bore herself
with the grace and dignity becoming
in a daughter of the proud house of
the acknowledgements. True, she
had never Toasted her eyes with a
vision of her ancestral Spain; true, she
had been born in California as her
mother was born before her; true, her
long life had dragged itself unevent-
fully out in the shadow of the hills
that guard the inland pueblo of San
Ramon; true, the broad acres of the
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. had dwindled
pitifully in the course of the years;
true, she was barely known to the
Aou6AIy vi Op0AASA 4OO4AALy
that even today in the midst of San
Francisco preserve themselves I'M
spotted of vulgar gringo city; but for
all that the Dona Ysobel possessed the
pride of ancestry, the consciousness of
birth. In the obscure San Ramon
valley she walked like queen.
She could recall time when the
valley was alive and glad, when Pa
checo was not the crumbling hamlet it
is today, when the waters Tapped
against it's piers and smart schoOners
sailed down from the Carquinez straits
for cargoes of the valley grain. She
could recall a time when Christmas
Eve was Christmas Eve indeed, when
the blithe young people would come to
the hacienda from Pacheco and Mar.
tinez and even from the glorious city
of Benicia and make merry in this very
garden, now, alas, so tawdry and Sc
old. She could recall time when she
| loved the touch of silken things and
the fragrance of the rose, when her
laugh was as the music of silver bells
aswing, when in that distant corner
of the garden, now overgrown with
dusty thistles, she had bowed he1
flushed face as the dashing Don Diego
had whispered the sweet story of his
love.
And now? Well-and the Dons
Ysobel frowned her stately frown-the
good God doubtless had changed it all
It was not her fault that the waters
had left Pacheco high and dry; it was
not her fault that the old Spanish
families had died out and the vile
Americans with their haste and greed
had come; it was not her fault thai
Don Diego lay in the little cemetery
over the hill and that the wealth O
the Arguello-y- Mascarenas had tricklet
from her aristocratic hand; it was no
her fault that the locomotive and the
motor-car screeched where once thu
guitar had tinkled and the castane
made syncopated melody. Yes, it wal
the good God.
1 Dona Ysobel sighed The late rains
had mellowed the russell OF the sun
baked hills and touched with fain
and evanescent green the hollows 0
the rolling plain. Unblinking sh
faced the almost level rays of the sink
ing sun. All, was not the sun Away
sinking for her? Life itself was sci
ting, and in sadness. Not without res
son did Mount Diablo, black and SIMS
ter, dominate the valley.
Down the winding road came tn
rural delivery cart, little puffs of dus
rising from the horses hoofs. TIL
first rains never could settle that Coz
ira Costa dust. The cart stopped q
the gate. The driver clicked open tn
zinc mail box, deposited some parcel
at the gatepost, touched his hat an
. drove on.
Then came a patter Of little feet O
the veranda behind her, and the Don
Ysobel turned partly about. Again sh
frowned.
"Of course, it is you, Chubbeens
she said. "You know always whe
there is something for you"
i But, Grandma, it is Christmas Eve