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+
+
+
+Produced by David Reed
+
+
+
+
+
+RAMONA
+
+By Helen Hunt Jackson
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+IT was sheep-shearing time in Southern California, but sheep-shearing
+was late at the Senora Moreno's. The Fates had seemed to combine to
+put it off. In the first place, Felipe Moreno had been ill. He was the
+Senora's eldest son, and since his father's death had been at the head
+of his mother's house. Without him, nothing could be done on the ranch,
+the Senora thought. It had been always, "Ask Senor Felipe," "Go to Senor
+Felipe," "Senor Felipe will attend to it," ever since Felipe had had the
+dawning of a beard on his handsome face.
+
+In truth, it was not Felipe, but the Senora, who really decided all
+questions from greatest to least, and managed everything on the place,
+from the sheep-pastures to the artichoke-patch; but nobody except the
+Senora herself knew this. An exceedingly clever woman for her day and
+generation was Senora Gonzaga Moreno,--as for that matter, exceedingly
+clever for any day and generation; but exceptionally clever for the day
+and generation to which she belonged. Her life, the mere surface of it,
+if it had been written, would have made a romance, to grow hot and
+cold over: sixty years of the best of old Spain, and the wildest of New
+Spain, Bay of Biscay, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Ocean,--the waves of them
+all had tossed destinies for the Senora. The Holy Catholic Church had
+had its arms round her from first to last; and that was what had brought
+her safe through, she would have said, if she had ever said anything
+about herself, which she never did,--one of her many wisdoms. So quiet,
+so reserved, so gentle an exterior never was known to veil such an
+imperious and passionate nature, brimful of storm, always passing
+through stress; never thwarted, except at peril of those who did it;
+adored and hated by turns, and each at the hottest. A tremendous force,
+wherever she appeared, was Senora Moreno; but no stranger would suspect
+it, to see her gliding about, in her scanty black gown, with her rosary
+hanging at her side, her soft dark eyes cast down, and an expression of
+mingled melancholy and devotion on her face. She looked simply like a
+sad, spiritual-minded old lady, amiable and indolent, like her race, but
+sweeter and more thoughtful than their wont. Her voice heightened this
+mistaken impression. She was never heard to speak either loud or fast.
+There was at times even a curious hesitancy in her speech, which came
+near being a stammer, or suggested the measured care with which people
+speak who have been cured of stammering. It made her often appear as if
+she did not known her own mind; at which people sometimes took heart;
+when, if they had only known the truth, they would have known that the
+speech hesitated solely because the Senora knew her mind so exactly that
+she was finding it hard to make the words convey it as she desired, or
+in a way to best attain her ends.
+
+About this very sheep-shearing there had been, between her and the head
+shepherd, Juan Canito, called Juan Can for short, and to distinguish him
+from Juan Jose, the upper herdsman of the cattle, some discussions which
+would have been hot and angry ones in any other hands than the Senora's.
+
+Juan Canito wanted the shearing to begin, even though Senor Felipe were
+ill in bed, and though that lazy shepherd Luigo had not yet got back
+with the flock that had been driven up the coast for pasture.
+"There were plenty of sheep on the place to begin with," he said one
+morning,--"at least a thousand;" and by the time they were done, Luigo
+would surely be back with the rest; and as for Senor Felipe's being in
+bed, had not he, Juan Canito, stood at the packing-bag, and handled the
+wool, when Senor Felipe was a boy? Why could he not do it again? The
+Senora did not realize how time was going; there would be no shearers
+to be hired presently, since the Senora was determined to have none
+but Indians. Of course, if she would employ Mexicans, as all the other
+ranches in the valley did, it would be different; but she was resolved
+upon having Indians,--"God knows why," he interpolated surlily, under
+his breath.
+
+"I do not quite understand you, Juan," interrupted Senora Moreno at the
+precise instant the last syllable of this disrespectful ejaculation had
+escaped Juan's lips; "speak a little louder. I fear I am growing deaf in
+my old age."
+
+What gentle, suave, courteous tones! and the calm dark eyes rested on
+Juan Canito with a look to the fathoming of which he was as unequal
+as one of his own sheep would have been. He could not have told why he
+instantly and involuntarily said, "Beg your pardon, Senora."
+
+"Oh, you need not ask my pardon, Juan," the Senora replied with
+exquisite gentleness; "it is not you who are to blame, if I am deaf. I
+have fancied for a year I did not hear quite as well as I once did.
+But about the Indians, Juan; did not Senor Felipe tell you that he
+had positively engaged the same band of shearers we had last autumn,
+Alessandro's band from Temecula? They will wait until we are ready for
+them. Senor Felipe will send a messenger for them. He thinks them the
+best shearers in the country. He will be well enough in a week or two,
+he thinks, and the poor sheep must bear their loads a few days longer.
+Are they looking well, do you think, Juan? Will the crop be a good one?
+General Moreno used to say that you could reckon up the wool-crop to a
+pound, while it was on the sheep's backs."
+
+"Yes, Senora," answered the mollified Juan; "the poor beasts look
+wonderfully well considering the scant feed they have had all winter.
+We'll not come many pounds short of our last year's crop, if any.
+Though, to be sure, there is no telling in what case that--Luigo will
+bring his flock back."
+
+The Senora smiled, in spite of herself, at the pause and gulp with which
+Juan had filled in the hiatus where he had longed to set a contemptuous
+epithet before Luigo's name.
+
+This was another of the instances where the Senora's will and Juan
+Canito's had clashed and he did not dream of it, having set it all down
+as usual to the score of young Senor Felipe.
+
+Encouraged by the Senora's smile, Juan proceeded: "Senor Felipe can see
+no fault in Luigo, because they were boys together; but I can tell him,
+he will rue it, one of these mornings, when he finds a flock of sheep
+worse than dead on his hands, and no thanks to anybody but Luigo. While
+I can have him under my eye, here in the valley, it is all very well;
+but he is no more fit to take responsibility of a flock, than one of
+the very lambs themselves. He'll drive them off their feet one day, and
+starve them the next; and I've known him to forget to give them water.
+When he's in his dreams, the Virgin only knows what he won't do."
+
+During this brief and almost unprecedented outburst of Juan's the
+Senora's countenance had been slowly growing stern. Juan had not seen
+it. His eyes had been turned away from her, looking down into the
+upturned eager face of his favorite collie, who was leaping and
+gambolling and barking at his feet.
+
+"Down, Capitan, down!" he said in a fond tone, gently repulsing him;
+"thou makest such a noise the Senora can hear nothing but thy voice."
+
+"I heard only too distinctly, Juan Canito," said the Senora in a sweet
+but icy tone. "It is not well for one servant to backbite another.
+It gives me great grief to hear such words; and I hope when Father
+Salvierderra comes, next month, you will not forget to confess this sin
+of which you have been guilty in thus seeking to injure a fellow-being.
+If Senor Felipe listens to you, the poor boy Luigo will be cast out
+homeless on the world some day; and what sort of a deed would that be,
+Juan Canito, for one Christian to do to another? I fear the Father will
+give you penance, when he hears what you have said."
+
+"Senora, it is not to harm the lad," Juan began, every fibre of his
+faithful frame thrilling with a sense of the injustice of her reproach.
+
+But the Senora had turned her back. Evidently she would hear no more
+from him then. He stood watching her as she walked away, at her usual
+slow pace, her head slightly bent forward, her rosary lifted in her left
+hand, and the fingers of the right hand mechanically slipping the beads.
+
+"Prayers, always prayers!" thought Juan to himself, as his eyes followed
+her. "If they'll take one to heaven, the Senora'll go by the straight
+road, that's sure! I'm sorry I vexed her. But what's a man to do, if
+he's the interest of the place at heart, I'd like to know. Is he to
+stand by, and see a lot of idle mooning louts run away with everything?
+Ah, but it was an ill day for the estate when the General died,--an ill
+day! an ill day! And they may scold me as much as they please, and set
+me to confessing my sins to the Father; it's very well for them, they've
+got me to look after matters. Senor Felipe will do well enough when he's
+a man, maybe; but a boy like him! Bah!" And the old man stamped his
+foot with a not wholly unreasonable irritation, at the false position in
+which he felt himself put.
+
+"Confess to Father Salvierderra, indeed!" he muttered aloud. "Ay, that
+will I. He's a man of sense, if he is a priest,"--at which slip of the
+tongue the pious Juan hastily crossed himself,--"and I'll ask him to
+give me some good advice as to how I'm to manage between this young boy
+at the head of everything, and a doting mother who thinks he has the
+wisdom of a dozen grown men. The Father knew the place in the olden
+time. He knows it's no child's play to look after the estate even now,
+much smaller as it is! An ill day when the old General died, an ill
+day indeed, the saints rest his soul!" Saying this, Juan shrugged his
+shoulders, and whistling to Capitan, walked towards the sunny veranda of
+the south side of the kitchen wing of the house, where it had been for
+twenty odd years his habit to sit on the long bench and smoke his pipe
+of a morning. Before he had got half-way across the court-yard, however,
+a thought struck him. He halted so suddenly that Capitan, with the quick
+sensitiveness of his breed, thought so sudden a change of purpose could
+only come from something in connection with sheep; and, true to his
+instinct of duty, pricked up his ears, poised himself for a full run,
+and looked up in his master's face waiting for explanation and signal.
+But Juan did not observe him.
+
+"Ha!" he said, "Father Salvierderra comes next month, does he? Let's
+see. To-day is the 25th. That's it. The sheep-shearing is not to come
+off till the Father gets here. Then each morning it will be mass in the
+chapel, and each night vespers; and the crowd will be here at least
+two days longer to feed, for the time they will lose by that and by
+the confessions. That's what Senor Felipe is up to. He's a pious lad.
+I recollect now, it was the same way two years ago. Well, well, it is a
+good thing for those poor Indian devils to get a bit of religion now and
+then; and it's like old times to see the chapel full of them kneeling,
+and more than can get in at the door; I doubt not it warms the Senora's
+heart to see them all there, as if they belonged to the house, as
+they used to: and now I know when it's to be, I have only to make my
+arrangements accordingly. It is always in the first week of the month
+the Father gets here. Yes; she said, 'Senor Felipe will be well enough
+in a week or two, he thinks.' Ha! ha! It will be nearer two; ten days or
+thereabouts. I'll begin the booths next week. A plague on that Luigo for
+not being back here. He's the best hand I have to cut the willow boughs
+for the roofs. He knows the difference between one year's growth and
+another's; I'll say that much for him, spite of the silly dreaming head
+he's got on his shoulders."
+
+Juan was so pleased with his clearing up in his mind as to Senor
+Felipe's purpose about the time of the sheep-shearing, that it put him
+in good humor for the day,--good humor with everybody, and himself most
+of all. As he sat on the low bench, his head leaning back against the
+whitewashed wall, his long legs stretched out nearly across the whole
+width of the veranda, his pipe firm wedged in the extreme left corner
+of his mouth, his hands in his pockets, he was the picture of placid
+content. The troop of youngsters which still swarmed around the kitchen
+quarters of Senora Moreno's house, almost as numerous and inexplicable
+as in the grand old days of the General's time, ran back and forth
+across Juan's legs, fell down between them, and picked themselves up by
+help of clutches at his leather trousers, all unreproved by Juan, though
+loudly scolded and warned by their respective mothers from the kitchen.
+
+"What's come to Juan Can to be so good-natured to-day?" saucily asked
+Margarita, the youngest and prettiest of the maids, popping her head out
+of a window, and twitching Juan's hair. He was so gray and wrinkled
+that the maids all felt at ease with him. He seemed to them as old as
+Methuselah; but he was not really so old as they thought, nor they so
+safe in their tricks. The old man had hot blood in his veins yet, as the
+under-shepherds could testify.
+
+"The sight of your pretty face, Senorita Margarita," answered Juan
+quickly, cocking his eye at her, rising to his feet, and making a mock
+bow towards the window.
+
+"He! he! Senorita, indeed!" chuckled Margarita's mother, old Marda the
+cook. "Senor Juan Canito is pleased to be merry at the doors of his
+betters;" and she flung a copper saucepan full of not over-clean water
+so deftly past Juan's head, that not a drop touched him, and yet he had
+the appearance of having been ducked. At which bit of sleight-of-hand
+the whole court-yard, young and old, babies, cocks, hens, and turkeys,
+all set up a shout and a cackle, and dispersed to the four corners of
+the yard as if scattered by a volley of bird-shot. Hearing the racket,
+the rest of the maids came running,--Anita and Maria, the twins, women
+forty years old, born on the place the year after General Moreno brought
+home his handsome young bride; their two daughters, Rosa and Anita the
+Little, as she was still called, though she outweighed her mother; old
+Juanita, the oldest woman in the household, of whom even the Senora was
+said not to know the exact age or history; and she, poor thing, could
+tell nothing, having been silly for ten years or more, good for nothing
+except to shell beans: that she did as fast and well as ever, and was
+never happy except she was at it. Luckily for her, beans are the one
+crop never omitted or stinted on a Mexican estate; and for sake of old
+Juanita they stored every year in the Moreno house, rooms full of beans
+in the pod (tons of them, one would think), enough to feed an army. But
+then, it was like a little army even now, the Senora's household; nobody
+ever knew exactly how many women were in the kitchen, or how many men
+in the fields. There were always women cousins, or brother's wives or
+widows or daughters, who had come to stay, or men cousins, or sister's
+husbands or sons, who were stopping on their way up or down the valley.
+When it came to the pay-roll, Senor Felipe knew to whom he paid wages;
+but who were fed and lodged under his roof, that was quite another
+thing. It could not enter into the head of a Mexican gentleman to make
+either count or account of that. It would be a disgraceful niggardly
+thought.
+
+To the Senora it seemed as if there were no longer any people about the
+place. A beggarly handful, she would have said, hardly enough to do the
+work of the house, or of the estate, sadly as the latter had dwindled.
+In the General's day, it had been a free-handed boast of his that never
+less than fifty persons, men, women and children, were fed within his
+gates each day; how many more, he did not care, nor know. But that time
+had indeed gone, gone forever; and though a stranger, seeing the sudden
+rush and muster at door and window, which followed on old Marda's
+letting fly the water at Juan's head, would have thought, "Good heavens,
+do all those women, children, and babies belong in that one house!" the
+Senora's sole thought, as she at that moment went past the gate, was,
+"Poor things! how few there are left of them! I am afraid old Marda has
+to work too hard. I must spare Margarita more from the house to help
+her." And she sighed deeply, and unconsciously held her rosary nearer to
+her heart, as she went into the house and entered her son's bedroom. The
+picture she saw there was one to thrill any mother's heart; and as it
+met her eye, she paused on the threshold for a second,--only a second,
+however; and nothing could have astonished Felipe Moreno so much as to
+have been told that at the very moment when his mother's calm voice was
+saying to him, "Good morning, my son, I hope you have slept well, and
+are better," there was welling up in her heart a passionate ejaculation,
+"O my glorious son! The saints have sent me in him the face of his
+father! He is fit for a kingdom!"
+
+The truth is, Felipe Moreno was not fit for a kingdom at all. If he had
+been, he would not have been so ruled by his mother without ever finding
+it out. But so far as mere physical beauty goes, there never was a
+king born, whose face, stature, and bearing would set off a crown or a
+throne, or any of the things of which the outside of royalty is made up,
+better than would Felipe Moreno's. And it was true, as the Senora said,
+whether the saints had anything to do with it or not, that he had the
+face of his father. So strong a likeness is seldom seen. When Felipe
+once, on the occasion of a grand celebration and procession, put on the
+gold-wrought velvet mantle, gayly embroidered short breeches fastened at
+the knee with red ribbons, and gold-and-silver-trimmed sombrero, which
+his father had worn twenty-five years before, the Senora fainted at her
+first look at him,--fainted and fell; and when she opened her eyes, and
+saw the same splendid, gayly arrayed, dark-bearded man, bending over her
+in distress, with words of endearment and alarm, she fainted again.
+
+"Mother, mother mia," cried Felipe, "I will not wear them if it makes
+you feel like this! Let me take them off. I will not go to their cursed
+parade;" and he sprang to his feet, and began with trembling fingers to
+unbuckle the sword-belt.
+
+"No, no, Felipe," faintly cried the Senora, from the ground. "It is my
+wish that you wear them;" and staggering to her feet, with a burst of
+tears, she rebuckled the old sword-belt, which her fingers had so many
+times--never unkissed--buckled, in the days when her husband had bade
+her farewell and gone forth to the uncertain fates of war. "Wear
+them!" she cried, with gathering fire in her tones, and her eyes dry
+of tears,--"wear them, and let the American hounds see what a Mexican
+officer and gentleman looked like before they had set their base,
+usurping feet on our necks!" And she followed him to the gate, and stood
+erect, bravely waving her handkerchief as he galloped off, till he was
+out of sight. Then with a changed face and a bent head she crept slowly
+to her room, locked herself in, fell on her knees before the Madonna at
+the head of her bed, and spent the greater part of the day praying that
+she might be forgiven, and that all heretics might be discomfited. From
+which part of these supplications she derived most comfort is easy to
+imagine.
+
+Juan Canito had been right in his sudden surmise that it was for Father
+Salvierderra's coming that the sheep-shearing was being delayed, and not
+in consequence of Senor Felipe's illness, or by the non-appearance of
+Luigo and his flock of sheep. Juan would have chuckled to himself still
+more at his perspicacity, had he overheard the conversation going on
+between the Senora and her son, at the very time when he, half asleep
+on the veranda, was, as he would have called it, putting two and two
+together and convincing himself that old Juan was as smart as they were,
+and not to be kept in the dark by all their reticence and equivocation.
+
+"Juan Can is growing very impatient about the sheep-shearing," said
+the Senora. "I suppose you are still of the same mind about it,
+Felipe,--that it is better to wait till Father Salvierderra comes? As
+the only chance those Indians have of seeing him is here, it would seem
+a Christian duty to so arrange it, if it be possible; but Juan is very
+restive. He is getting old, and chafes a little, I fancy, under your
+control. He cannot forget that you were a boy on his knee. Now I, for my
+part, am like to forget that you were ever anything but a man for me to
+lean on."
+
+Felipe turned his handsome face toward his mother with a beaming smile
+of filial affection and gratified manly vanity. "Indeed, my mother, if
+I can be sufficient for you to lean on, I will ask nothing more of the
+saints;" and he took his mother's thin and wasted little hands, both at
+once, in his own strong right hand, and carried them to his lips as a
+lover might have done. "You will spoil me, mother," he said, "you make
+me so proud."
+
+"No, Felipe, it is I who am proud," promptly replied the mother; "and I
+do not call it being proud, only grateful to God for having given me
+a son wise enough to take his father's place, and guide and protect me
+through the few remaining years I have to live. I shall die content,
+seeing you at the head of the estate, and living as a Mexican gentleman
+should; that is, so far as now remains possible in this unfortunate
+country. But about the sheep-shearing, Felipe. Do you wish to have it
+begun before the Father is here? Of course, Alessandro is all ready
+with his band. It is but two days' journey for a messenger to bring
+him. Father Salvierderra cannot be here before the 10th of the month. He
+leaves Santa Barbara on the 1st, and he will walk all the way,--a good
+six days' journey, for he is old now and feeble; then he must stop
+in Ventura for a Sunday, and a day at the Ortega's ranch, and at the
+Lopez's,--there, there is a christening. Yes, the 10th is the very
+earliest that he can be here,--near two weeks from now. So far as your
+getting up is concerned, it might perhaps be next week. You will be
+nearly well by that time."
+
+"Yes, indeed," laughed Felipe, stretching himself out in the bed and
+giving a kick to the bedclothes that made the high bedposts and the
+fringed canopy roof shake and creak; "I am well now, if it were not for
+this cursed weakness when I stand on my feet. I believe it would do me
+good to get out of doors."
+
+In truth, Felipe had been hankering for the sheep-shearing himself. It
+was a brisk, busy, holiday sort of time to him, hard as he worked in it;
+and two weeks looked long to wait.
+
+"It is always thus after a fever," said his mother. "The weakness lasts
+many weeks. I am not sure that you will be strong enough even in two
+weeks to do the packing; but, as Juan Can said this morning, he stood
+at the packing-bag when you were a boy, and there was no need of waiting
+for you for that!"
+
+"He said that, did he!" exclaimed Felipe, wrathfully. "The old man is
+getting insolent. I'll tell him that nobody will pack the sacks but
+myself, while I am master here; and I will have the sheep-shearing when
+I please, and not before."
+
+"I suppose it would not be wise to say that it is not to take place till
+the Father comes, would it?" asked the Senora, hesitatingly, as if the
+thing were evenly balanced in her mind. "The Father has not that hold
+on the younger men he used to have, and I have thought that even in
+Juan himself I have detected a remissness. The spirit of unbelief is
+spreading in the country since the Americans are running up and down
+everywhere seeking money, like dogs with their noses to the ground! It
+might vex Juan if he knew that you were waiting only for the Father.
+What do you think?"
+
+"I think it is enough for him to know that the sheep-shearing waits for
+my pleasure," answered Felipe, still wrathful, "and that is the end of
+it." And so it was; and, moreover, precisely the end which Senora Moreno
+had had in her own mind from the beginning; but not even Juan Canito
+himself suspected its being solely her purpose, and not her son's. As
+for Felipe, if any person had suggested to him that it was his mother,
+and not he, who had decided that the sheep-shearing would be better
+deferred until the arrival of Father Salvierderra from Santa Barbara,
+and that nothing should be said on the ranch about this being the real
+reason of the postponing, Felipe would have stared in astonishment, and
+have thought that person either crazy or a fool.
+
+To attain one's ends in this way is the consummate triumph of art. Never
+to appear as a factor in the situation; to be able to wield other men,
+as instruments, with the same direct and implicit response to will that
+one gets from a hand or a foot,--this is to triumph, indeed: to be as
+nearly controller and conqueror of Fates as fate permits. There have
+been men prominent in the world's affairs at one time and another, who
+have sought and studied such a power and have acquired it to a
+great degree. By it they have manipulated legislators, ambassadors,
+sovereigns; and have grasped, held, and played with the destinies
+of empires. But it is to be questioned whether even in these notable
+instances there has ever been such marvellous completeness of success
+as is sometimes seen in the case of a woman in whom the power is an
+instinct and not an attainment; a passion rather than a purpose.
+Between the two results, between the two processes, there is just that
+difference which is always to be seen between the stroke of talent and
+the stroke of genius.
+
+Senora Moreno's was the stroke of genius.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE Senora Moreno's house was one of the best specimens to be found
+in California of the representative house of the half barbaric, half
+elegant, wholly generous and free-handed life led there by Mexican men
+and women of degree in the early part of this century, under the rule of
+the Spanish and Mexican viceroys, when the laws of the Indies were still
+the law of the land, and its old name, "New Spain," was an ever-present
+link and stimulus to the warmest memories and deepest patriotisms of its
+people.
+
+It was a picturesque life, with more of sentiment and gayety in it, more
+also that was truly dramatic, more romance, than will ever be seen
+again on those sunny shores. The aroma of it all lingers there still;
+industries and inventions have not yet slain it; it will last out its
+century,--in fact, it can never be quite lost, so long as there is left
+standing one such house as the Senora Moreno's.
+
+When the house was built, General Moreno owned all the land within a
+radius of forty miles,--forty miles westward, down the valley to the
+sea; forty miles eastward, into the San Fernando Mountains; and good
+forty miles more or less along the coast. The boundaries were not very
+strictly defined; there was no occasion, in those happy days, to reckon
+land by inches. It might be asked, perhaps, just how General Moreno
+owned all this land, and the question might not be easy to answer. It
+was not and could not be answered to the satisfaction of the United
+States Land Commission, which, after the surrender of California,
+undertook to sift and adjust Mexican land titles; and that was the
+way it had come about that the Senora Moreno now called herself a poor
+woman. Tract after tract, her lands had been taken away from her; it
+looked for a time as if nothing would be left. Every one of the claims
+based on deeds of gift from Governor Pio Fico, her husband's most
+intimate friend, was disallowed. They all went by the board in one
+batch, and took away from the Senora in a day the greater part of
+her best pasture-lands. They were lands which had belonged to the
+Bonaventura Mission, and lay along the coast at the mouth of the valley
+down which the little stream which ran past her house went to the sea;
+and it had been a great pride and delight to the Senora, when she was
+young, to ride that forty miles by her husband's side, all the way on
+their own lands, straight from their house to their own strip of shore.
+No wonder she believed the Americans thieves, and spoke of them always
+as hounds. The people of the United States have never in the least
+realized that the taking possession of California was not only a
+conquering of Mexico, but a conquering of California as well; that the
+real bitterness of the surrender was not so much to the empire which
+gave up the country, as to the country itself which was given up.
+Provinces passed back and forth in that way, helpless in the hands of
+great powers, have all the ignominy and humiliation of defeat, with none
+of the dignities or compensations of the transaction.
+
+Mexico saved much by her treaty, spite of having to acknowledge herself
+beaten; but California lost all. Words cannot tell the sting of such
+a transfer. It is a marvel that a Mexican remained in the country;
+probably none did, except those who were absolutely forced to it.
+
+Luckily for the Senora Moreno, her title to the lands midway in the
+valley was better than to those lying to the east and the west, which
+had once belonged to the missions of San Fernando and Bonaventura;
+and after all the claims, counter-claims, petitions, appeals, and
+adjudications were ended, she still was left in undisputed possession of
+what would have been thought by any new-comer into the country to be a
+handsome estate, but which seemed to the despoiled and indignant Senora
+a pitiful fragment of one. Moreover, she declared that she should never
+feel secure of a foot of even this. Any day, she said, the United States
+Government might send out a new Land Commission to examine the decrees
+of the first, and revoke such as they saw fit. Once a thief, always a
+thief. Nobody need feel himself safe under American rule. There was
+no knowing what might happen any day; and year by year the lines of
+sadness, resentment, anxiety, and antagonism deepened on the Senora's
+fast aging face.
+
+It gave her unspeakable satisfaction, when the Commissioners, laying out
+a road down the valley, ran it at the back of her house instead of
+past the front. "It is well," she said. "Let their travel be where it
+belongs, behind our kitchens; and no one have sight of the front doors
+of our houses, except friends who have come to visit us." Her enjoyment
+of this never flagged. Whenever she saw, passing the place, wagons
+or carriages belonging to the hated Americans, it gave her a distinct
+thrill of pleasure to think that the house turned its back on them. She
+would like always to be able to do the same herself; but whatever she,
+by policy or in business, might be forced to do, the old house, at any
+rate, would always keep the attitude of contempt,--its face turned away.
+
+One other pleasure she provided herself with, soon after this road was
+opened,--a pleasure in which religious devotion and race antagonism were
+so closely blended that it would have puzzled the subtlest of priests to
+decide whether her act were a sin or a virtue. She caused to be set
+up, upon every one of the soft rounded hills which made the beautiful
+rolling sides of that part of the valley, a large wooden cross; not a
+hill in sight of her house left without the sacred emblem of her faith.
+"That the heretics may know, when they go by, that they are on the
+estate of a good Catholic," she said, "and that the faithful may be
+reminded to pray. There have been miracles of conversion wrought on the
+most hardened by a sudden sight of the Blessed Cross."
+
+There they stood, summer and winter, rain and shine, the silent, solemn,
+outstretched arms, and became landmarks to many a guideless traveller
+who had been told that his way would be by the first turn to the left
+or the right, after passing the last one of the Senora Moreno's crosses,
+which he couldn't miss seeing. And who shall say that it did not
+often happen that the crosses bore a sudden message to some idle
+heart journeying by, and thus justified the pious half of the Senora's
+impulse? Certain it is, that many a good Catholic halted and crossed
+himself when he first beheld them, in the lonely places, standing out in
+sudden relief against the blue sky; and if he said a swift short prayer
+at the sight, was he not so much the better?
+
+The house, was of adobe, low, with a wide veranda on the three sides of
+the inner court, and a still broader one across the entire front, which
+looked to the south. These verandas, especially those on the inner
+court, were supplementary rooms to the house. The greater part of the
+family life went on in them. Nobody stayed inside the walls, except when
+it was necessary. All the kitchen work, except the actual cooking, was
+done here, in front of the kitchen doors and windows. Babies slept,
+were washed, sat in the dirt, and played, on the veranda. The women said
+their prayers, took their naps, and wove their lace there. Old Juanita
+shelled her beans there, and threw the pods down on the tile floor,
+till towards night they were sometimes piled up high around her, like
+corn-husks at a husking. The herdsmen and shepherds smoked there,
+lounged there, trained their dogs there; there the young made love, and
+the old dozed; the benches, which ran the entire length of the walls,
+were worn into hollows, and shone like satin; the tiled floors also were
+broken and sunk in places, making little wells, which filled up in times
+of hard rains, and were then an invaluable addition to the children's
+resources for amusement, and also to the comfort of the dogs, cats, and
+fowls, who picked about among them, taking sips from each.
+
+The arched veranda along the front was a delightsome place. It must
+have been eighty feet long, at least, for the doors of five large rooms
+opened on it. The two westernmost rooms had been added on, and made four
+steps higher than the others; which gave to that end of the veranda the
+look of a balcony, or loggia. Here the Senora kept her flowers; great
+red water-jars, hand-made by the Indians of San Luis Obispo Mission,
+stood in close rows against the walls, and in them were always growing
+fine geraniums, carnations, and yellow-flowered musk. The Senora's
+passion for musk she had inherited from her mother. It was so strong
+that she sometimes wondered at it; and one day, as she sat with Father
+Salvierderra in the veranda, she picked a handful of the blossoms, and
+giving them to him, said, "I do not know why it is, but it seems to me
+if I were dead I could be brought to life by the smell of musk."
+
+"It is in your blood, Senora," the old monk replied. "When I was last in
+your father's house in Seville, your mother sent for me to her room,
+and under her window was a stone balcony full of growing musk, which so
+filled the room with its odor that I was like to faint. But she said
+it cured her of diseases, and without it she fell ill. You were a baby
+then."
+
+"Yes," cried the Senora, "but I recollect that balcony. I recollect
+being lifted up to a window, and looking down into a bed of blooming
+yellow flowers; but I did not know what they were. How strange!"
+
+"No. Not strange, daughter," replied Father Salvierderra. "It would have
+been stranger if you had not acquired the taste, thus drawing it in with
+the mother's milk. It would behoove mothers to remember this far more
+than they do."
+
+Besides the geraniums and carnations and musk in the red jars, there
+were many sorts of climbing vines,--some coming from the ground, and
+twining around the pillars of the veranda; some growing in great bowls,
+swung by cords from the roof of the veranda, or set on shelves against
+the walls. These bowls were of gray stone, hollowed and polished,
+shining smooth inside and out. They also had been made by the Indians,
+nobody knew how many ages ago, scooped and polished by the patient
+creatures, with only stones for tools.
+
+Among these vines, singing from morning till night, hung the
+Senora's canaries and finches, half a dozen of each, all of different
+generations, raised by the Senora. She was never without a young
+bird-family on hand; and all the way from Bonaventura to Monterey, it
+was thought a piece of good luck to come into possession of a canary or
+finch of Senora Moreno's 'raising.
+
+Between the veranda and the river meadows, out on which it looked, all
+was garden, orange grove, and almond orchard; the orange grove always
+green, never without snowy bloom or golden fruit; the garden never
+without flowers, summer or winter; and the almond orchard, in early
+spring, a fluttering canopy of pink and white petals, which, seen from
+the hills on the opposite side of the river, looked as if rosy sunrise
+clouds had fallen, and become tangled in the tree-tops. On either hand
+stretched away other orchards,--peach, apricot, pear, apple pomegranate;
+and beyond these, vineyards. Nothing was to be seen but verdure or
+bloom or fruit, at whatever time of year you sat on the Senora's south
+veranda.
+
+A wide straight walk shaded by a trellis so knotted and twisted with
+grapevines that little was to be seen of the trellis wood-work, led
+straight down from the veranda steps, through the middle of the garden,
+to a little brook at the foot of it. Across this brook, in the shade
+of a dozen gnarled old willow-trees, were set the broad flat stone
+washboards on which was done all the family washing. No long dawdling,
+and no running away from work on the part of the maids, thus close to
+the eye of the Senora at the upper end of the garden; and if they had
+known how picturesque they looked there, kneeling on the grass, lifting
+the dripping linen out of the water, rubbing it back and forth on the
+stones, sousing it, wringing it, splashing the clear water in each
+other's faces, they would have been content to stay at the washing day
+in and day out, for there was always somebody to look on from above.
+Hardly a day passed that the Senora had not visitors. She was still
+a person of note; her house the natural resting-place for all who
+journeyed through the valley; and whoever came, spent all of his time,
+when not eating, sleeping, or walking over the place, sitting with the
+Senora on the sunny veranda. Few days in winter were cold enough, and
+in summer the day must be hot indeed to drive the Senora and her friends
+indoors. There stood on the veranda three carved oaken chairs, and a
+carved bench, also of oak, which had been brought to the Senora for safe
+keeping by the faithful old sacristan of San Luis Rey, at the time of
+the occupation of that Mission by the United States troops, soon after
+the conquest of California. Aghast at the sacrilegious acts of the
+soldiers, who were quartered in the very church itself, and amused
+themselves by making targets of the eyes and noses of the saints'
+statues, the sacristan, stealthily, day by day and night after night,
+bore out of the church all that he dared to remove, burying some
+articles in cottonwood copses, hiding others in his own poor little
+hovel, until he had wagon-loads of sacred treasures. Then, still more
+stealthily, he carried them, a few at a time, concealed in the bottom of
+a cart, under a load of hay or of brush, to the house of the Senora, who
+felt herself deeply honored by his confidence, and received everything
+as a sacred trust, to be given back into the hands of the Church again,
+whenever the Missions should be restored, of which at that time all
+Catholics had good hope. And so it had come about that no bedroom in the
+Senora's house was without a picture or a statue of a saint or of the
+Madonna; and some had two; and in the little chapel in the garden the
+altar was surrounded by a really imposing row of holy and apostolic
+figures, which had looked down on the splendid ceremonies of the San
+Luis Rey Mission, in Father Peyri's time, no more benignly than they
+now did on the humbler worship of the Senora's family in its diminished
+estate. That one had lost an eye, another an arm, that the once
+brilliant colors of the drapery were now faded and shabby, only enhanced
+the tender reverence with which the Senora knelt before them, her eyes
+filling with indignant tears at thought of the heretic hands which
+had wrought such defilement. Even the crumbling wreaths which had been
+placed on some of the statues' heads at the time of the last ceremonial
+at which they had figured in the Mission, had been brought away with
+them by the devout sacristan, and the Senora had replaced each one,
+holding it only a degree less sacred than the statue itself.
+
+This chapel was dearer to the Senora than her house. It had been built
+by the General in the second year of their married life. In it her four
+children had been christened, and from it all but one, her handsome
+Felipe, had been buried while they were yet infants. In the General's
+time, while the estate was at its best, and hundreds of Indians living
+within its borders, there was many a Sunday when the scene to be
+witnessed there was like the scenes at the Missions,--the chapel full of
+kneeling men and women; those who could not find room inside kneeling
+on the garden walks outside; Father Salvierderra, in gorgeous
+vestments, coming, at close of the services, slowly down the aisle, the
+close-packed rows of worshippers parting to right and left to let him
+through, all looking up eagerly for his blessing, women giving him
+offerings of fruit or flowers, and holding up their babies that he might
+lay his hands on their heads. No one but Father Salvierderra had ever
+officiated in the Moreno chapel, or heard the confession of a Moreno. He
+was a Franciscan, one of the few now left in the country; so revered and
+beloved by all who had come under his influence, that they would wait
+long months without the offices of the Church, rather than confess
+their sins or confide their perplexities to any one else. From this
+deep-seated attachment on the part of the Indians and the older Mexican
+families in the country to the Franciscan Order, there had grown up,
+not unnaturally, some jealousy of them in the minds of the later-come
+secular priests, and the position of the few monks left was not wholly a
+pleasant one. It had even been rumored that they were to be forbidden
+to continue longer their practice of going up and down the country,
+ministering everywhere; were to be compelled to restrict their labors
+to their own colleges at Santa Barbara and Santa Inez. When something
+to this effect was one day said in the Senora Moreno's presence, two
+scarlet spots sprang on her cheeks, and before she bethought herself,
+she exclaimed, "That day, I burn down my chapel!"
+
+Luckily, nobody but Felipe heard the rash threat, and his exclamation of
+unbounded astonishment recalled the Senora to herself.
+
+"I spoke rashly, my son," she said. "The Church is to be obeyed always;
+but the Franciscan Fathers are responsible to no one but the Superior of
+their own order; and there is no one in this land who has the authority
+to forbid their journeying and ministering to whoever desires their
+offices. As for these Catalan priests who are coming in here, I cannot
+abide them. No Catalan but has bad blood in his veins!"
+
+There was every reason in the world why the Senora should be thus warmly
+attached to the Franciscan Order. From her earliest recollections the
+gray gown and cowl had been familiar to her eyes, and had represented
+the things which she was taught to hold most sacred and dear. Father
+Salvierderra himself had come from Mexico to Monterey in the same ship
+which had brought her father to be the commandante of the Santa Barbara
+Presidio; and her best-beloved uncle, her father's eldest brother, was
+at that time the Superior of the Santa Barbara Mission. The sentiment
+and romance of her youth were almost equally divided between the
+gayeties, excitements, adornments of the life at the Presidio, and the
+ceremonies and devotions of the life at the Mission. She was famed as
+the most beautiful girl in the country. Men of the army, men of the
+navy, and men of the Church, alike adored her. Her name was a toast
+from Monterey to San Diego. When at last she was wooed and won by Felipe
+Moreno, one of the most distinguished of the Mexican Generals, her
+wedding ceremonies were the most splendid ever seen in the country.
+The right tower of the Mission church at Santa Barbara had been just
+completed, and it was arranged that the consecration of this tower
+should take place at the time of her wedding, and that her wedding feast
+should be spread in the long outside corridor of the Mission building.
+The whole country, far and near, was bid. The feast lasted three days;
+open tables to everybody; singing, dancing, eating, drinking, and making
+merry. At that time there were long streets of Indian houses stretching
+eastward from the Mission; before each of these houses was built a booth
+of green boughs. The Indians, as well as the Fathers from all the other
+Missions, were invited to come. The Indians came in bands, singing songs
+and bringing gifts. As they appeared, the Santa Barbara Indians went
+out to meet them, also singing, bearing gifts, and strewing seeds on
+the ground, in token of welcome. The young Senora and her bridegroom,
+splendidly clothed, were seen of all, and greeted, whenever they
+appeared, by showers of seeds and grains and blossoms. On the third
+day, still in their wedding attire, and bearing lighted candles in their
+hands, they walked with the monks in a procession, round and round the
+new tower, the monks chanting, and sprinkling incense and holy water
+on its walls, the ceremony seeming to all devout beholders to give a
+blessed consecration to the union of the young pair as well as to the
+newly completed tower. After this they journeyed in state, accompanied
+by several of the General's aids and officers, and by two Franciscan
+Fathers, up to Monterey, stopping on their way at all the Missions, and
+being warmly welcomed and entertained at each.
+
+General Moreno was much beloved by both army and Church. In many of the
+frequent clashings between the military and the ecclesiastical powers
+he, being as devout and enthusiastic a Catholic as he was zealous and
+enthusiastic a soldier, had had the good fortune to be of material
+assistance to each party. The Indians also knew his name well, having
+heard it many times mentioned with public thanksgivings in the Mission
+churches, after some signal service he had rendered to the Fathers
+either in Mexico or Monterey. And now, by taking as his bride the
+daughter of a distinguished officer, and the niece of the Santa Barbara
+Superior, he had linked himself anew to the two dominant powers and
+interests of the country.
+
+When they reached San Luis Obispo, the whole Indian population turned
+out to meet them, the Padre walking at the head. As they approached the
+Mission doors the Indians swarmed closer and closer and still closer,
+took the General's horse by the head, and finally almost by actual force
+compelled him to allow himself to be lifted into a blanket, held high
+up by twenty strong men; and thus he was borne up the steps, across
+the corridor, and into the Padre's room. It was a position ludicrously
+undignified in itself, but the General submitted to it good-naturedly.
+
+"Oh, let them do it, if they like," he cried, laughingly, to Padre
+Martinez, who was endeavoring to quiet the Indians and hold them back.
+"Let them do it. It pleases the poor creatures."
+
+On the morning of their departure, the good Padre, having exhausted all
+his resources for entertaining his distinguished guests, caused to
+be driven past the corridors, for their inspection, all the poultry
+belonging to the Mission. The procession took an hour to pass. For
+music, there was the squeaking, cackling, hissing, gobbling, crowing,
+quacking of the fowls, combined with the screaming, scolding, and
+whip-cracking of the excited Indian marshals of the lines. First came
+the turkeys, then the roosters, then the white hens, then the black, and
+then the yellow, next the ducks, and at the tail of the spectacle
+long files of geese, some strutting, some half flying and hissing in
+resentment and terror at the unwonted coercions to which they were
+subjected. The Indians had been hard at work all night capturing,
+sorting, assorting, and guarding the rank and file of their novel
+pageant. It would be safe to say that a droller sight never was seen,
+and never will be, on the Pacific coast or any other. Before it was done
+with, the General and his bride had nearly died with laughter; and the
+General could never allude to it without laughing almost as heartily
+again.
+
+At Monterey they were more magnificently feted; at the Presidio, at the
+Mission, on board Spanish, Mexican, and Russian ships lying in harbor,
+balls, dances, bull-fights, dinners, all that the country knew of
+festivity, was lavished on the beautiful and winning young bride. The
+belles of the coast, from San Diego up, had all gathered at Monterey for
+these gayeties, but not one of them could be for a moment compared to
+her. This was the beginning of the Senora's life as a married woman.
+She was then just twenty. A close observer would have seen even then,
+underneath the joyous smile, the laughing eye, the merry voice, a look
+thoughtful, tender, earnest, at times enthusiastic. This look was the
+reflection of those qualities in her, then hardly aroused, which made
+her, as years developed her character and stormy fates thickened around
+her life, the unflinching comrade of her soldier husband, the passionate
+adherent of the Church. Through wars, insurrections, revolutions,
+downfalls, Spanish, Mexican, civil, ecclesiastical, her standpoint,
+her poise, remained the same. She simply grew more and more proudly,
+passionately, a Spaniard and a Moreno; more and more stanchly and
+fierily a Catholic, and a lover of the Franciscans.
+
+During the height of the despoiling and plundering of the Missions,
+under the Secularization Act, she was for a few years almost beside
+herself. More than once she journeyed alone, when the journey was by
+no means without danger, to Monterey, to stir up the Prefect of
+the Missions to more energetic action, to implore the governmental
+authorities to interfere, and protect the Church's property. It
+was largely in consequence of her eloquent entreaties that Governor
+Micheltorena issued his bootless order, restoring to the Church all the
+Missions south of San Luis Obispo. But this order cost Micheltorena his
+political head, and General Moreno was severely wounded in one of the
+skirmishes of the insurrection which drove Micheltorena out of the
+country.
+
+In silence and bitter humiliation the Senora nursed her husband back
+to health again, and resolved to meddle no more in the affairs of her
+unhappy country and still more unhappy Church. As year by year she
+saw the ruin of the Missions steadily going on, their vast properties
+melting away, like dew before the sun, in the hands of dishonest
+administrators and politicians, the Church powerless to contend with the
+unprincipled greed in high places, her beloved Franciscan Fathers driven
+from the country or dying of starvation at their posts, she submitted
+herself to what, she was forced to admit, seemed to be the inscrutable
+will of God for the discipline and humiliation of the Church. In a sort
+of bewildered resignation she waited to see what further sufferings
+were to come, to fill up the measure of the punishment which, for some
+mysterious purpose, the faithful must endure. But when close upon
+all this discomfiture and humiliation of her Church followed the
+discomfiture and humiliation of her country in war, and the near and
+evident danger of an English-speaking people's possessing the land,
+all the smothered fire of the Senora's nature broke out afresh. With
+unfaltering hands she buckled on her husband's sword, and with dry eyes
+saw him go forth to fight. She had but one regret, that she was not the
+mother of sons to fight also.
+
+"Would thou wert a man, Felipe," she exclaimed again and again in tones
+the child never forgot. "Would thou wert a man, that thou might go also
+to fight these foreigners!"
+
+Any race under the sun would have been to the Senora less hateful than
+the American. She had scorned them in her girlhood, when they came
+trading to post after post. She scorned them still. The idea of being
+forced to wage a war with pedlers was to her too monstrous to be
+believed. In the outset she had no doubt that the Mexicans would win in
+the contest.
+
+"What!" she cried, "shall we who won independence from Spain, be beaten
+by these traders? It is impossible!"
+
+When her husband was brought home to her dead, killed in the last fight
+the Mexican forces made, she said icily, "He would have chosen to die
+rather than to have been forced to see his country in the hands of
+the enemy." And she was almost frightened at herself to see how this
+thought, as it dwelt in her mind, slew the grief in her heart. She had
+believed she could not live if her husband were to be taken away from
+her; but she found herself often glad that he was dead,--glad that he
+was spared the sight and the knowledge of the things which happened;
+and even the yearning tenderness with which her imagination pictured
+him among the saints, was often turned into a fierce wondering whether
+indignation did not fill his soul, even in heaven, at the way things
+were going in the land for whose sake he had died.
+
+Out of such throes as these had been born the second nature which made
+Senora Moreno the silent, reserved, stern, implacable woman they knew,
+who knew her first when she was sixty. Of the gay, tender, sentimental
+girl, who danced and laughed with the officers, and prayed and confessed
+with the Fathers, forty years before, there was small trace left now,
+in the low-voiced, white-haired, aged woman, silent, unsmiling,
+placid-faced, who manoeuvred with her son and her head shepherd alike,
+to bring it about that a handful of Indians might once more confess
+their sins to a Franciscan monk in the Moreno chapel.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+JUAN CANITO and Senor Felipe were not the only members of the Senora's
+family who were impatient for the sheep-shearing. There was also Ramona.
+Ramona was, to the world at large, a far more important person than the
+Senora herself. The Senora was of the past; Ramona was of the present.
+For one eye that could see the significant, at times solemn, beauty of
+the Senora's pale and shadowed countenance, there were a hundred that
+flashed with eager pleasure at the barest glimpse of Ramona's face; the
+shepherds, the herdsmen, the maids, the babies, the dogs, the poultry,
+all loved the sight of Ramona; all loved her, except the Senora. The
+Senora loved her not; never had loved her, never could love her; and
+yet she had stood in the place of mother to the girl ever since her
+childhood, and never once during the whole sixteen years of her life had
+shown her any unkindness in act. She had promised to be a mother to her;
+and with all the inalienable stanchness of her nature she fulfilled the
+letter of her promise. More than the bond lay in the bond; but that was
+not the Senora's fault.
+
+The story of Ramona the Senora never told. To most of the Senora's
+acquaintances now, Ramona was a mystery. They did not know--and no one
+ever asked a prying question of the Senora Moreno--who Ramona's parents
+were, whether they were living or dead, or why Ramona, her name not
+being Moreno, lived always in the Senora's house as a daughter, tended
+and attended equally with the adored Felipe. A few gray-haired men and
+women here and there in the country could have told the strange story
+of Ramona; but its beginning was more than a half-century back, and much
+had happened since then. They seldom thought of the child. They knew she
+was in the Senora Moreno's keeping, and that was enough. The affairs of
+the generation just going out were not the business of the young people
+coming in. They would have tragedies enough of their own presently; what
+was the use of passing down the old ones? Yet the story was not one to
+be forgotten; and now and then it was told in the twilight of a summer
+evening, or in the shadows of vines on a lingering afternoon, and all
+young men and maidens thrilled who heard it.
+
+It was an elder sister of the Senora's,--a sister old enough to be wooed
+and won while the Senora was yet at play,--who had been promised in
+marriage to a young Scotchman named Angus Phail. She was a beautiful
+woman; and Angus Phail, from the day that he first saw her standing in
+the Presidio gate, became so madly her lover, that he was like a man
+bereft of his senses. This was the only excuse ever to be made for
+Ramona Gonzaga's deed. It could never be denied, by her bitterest
+accusers, that, at the first, and indeed for many months, she told Angus
+she did not love him, and could not marry him; and that it was only
+after his stormy and ceaseless entreaties, that she did finally promise
+to become his wife. Then, almost immediately, she went away to Monterey,
+and Angus set sail for San Blas. He was the owner of the richest line
+of ships which traded along the coast at that time; the richest stuffs,
+carvings, woods, pearls, and jewels, which came into the country, came
+in his ships. The arrival of one of them was always an event; and
+Angus himself, having been well-born in Scotland, and being wonderfully
+well-mannered for a seafaring man, was made welcome in all the best
+houses, wherever his ships went into harbor, from Monterey to San Diego.
+
+The Senorita Ramona Gonzaga sailed for Monterey the same day and hour
+her lover sailed for San Blas. They stood on the decks waving signals to
+each other as one sailed away to the south, the other to the north.
+It was remembered afterward by those who were in the ship with the
+Senorita, that she ceased to wave her signals, and had turned her face
+away, long before her lover's ship was out of sight. But the men of the
+"San Jose" said that Angus Phail stood immovable, gazing northward,
+till nightfall shut from his sight even the horizon line at which the
+Monterey ship had long before disappeared from view.
+
+This was to be his last voyage. He went on this only because his honor
+was pledged to do so. Also, he comforted himself by thinking that he
+would bring back for his bride, and for the home he meant to give her,
+treasures of all sorts, which none could select so well as he. Through
+the long weeks of the voyage he sat on deck, gazing dreamily at the
+waves, and letting his imagination feed on pictures of jewels, satins,
+velvets, laces, which would best deck his wife's form and face. When
+he could not longer bear the vivid fancies' heat in his blood, he would
+pace the deck, swifter and swifter, till his steps were like those
+of one flying in fear; at such times the men heard him muttering and
+whispering to himself, "Ramona! Ramona!" Mad with love from the first
+to the last was Angus Phail; and there were many who believed that if he
+had ever seen the hour when he called Ramona Gonzaga his own, his reason
+would have fled forever at that moment, and he would have killed either
+her or himself, as men thus mad have been known to do. But that hour
+never came. When, eight months later, the "San Jose" sailed into the
+Santa Barbara harbor, and Angus Phail leaped breathless on shore, the
+second man he met, no friend of his, looking him maliciously in
+the face, said. "So, ho! You're just too late for the wedding! Your
+sweetheart, the handsome Gonzaga girl, was married here, yesterday, to a
+fine young officer of the Monterey Presidio!"
+
+Angus reeled, struck the man a blow full in the face, and fell on the
+ground, foaming at the mouth. He was lifted and carried into a house,
+and, speedily recovering, burst with the strength of a giant from the
+hands of those who were holding him, sprang out of the door, and ran
+bareheaded up the road toward the Presidio. At the gate he was stopped
+by the guard, who knew him.
+
+"Is it true?" gasped Angus.
+
+"Yes, Senor," replied the man, who said afterward that his knees shook
+under him with terror at the look on the Scotchman's face. He feared he
+would strike him dead for his reply. But, instead, Angus burst into
+a maudlin laugh, and, turning away, went staggering down the street,
+singing and laughing.
+
+The next that was known of him was in a low drinking-place, where he was
+seen lying on the floor, dead drunk; and from that day he sank lower and
+lower, till one of the commonest sights to be seen in Santa Barbara was
+Angus Phail reeling about, tipsy, coarse, loud, profane, dangerous.
+
+"See what the Senorita escaped!" said the thoughtless. "She was quite
+right not to have married such a drunken wretch."
+
+In the rare intervals when he was partially sober, he sold all he
+possessed,--ship after ship sold for a song, and the proceeds squandered
+in drinking or worse. He never had a sight of his lost bride. He did not
+seek it; and she, terrified, took every precaution to avoid it, and soon
+returned with her husband to Monterey.
+
+Finally Angus disappeared, and after a time the news came up from Los
+Angeles that he was there, had gone out to the San Gabriel Mission,
+and was living with the Indians. Some years later came the still more
+surprising news that he had married a squaw,--a squaw with several
+Indian children,--had been legally married by the priest in the San
+Gabriel Mission Church. And that was the last that the faithless Ramona
+Gonzaga ever heard of her lover, until twenty-five years after her
+marriage, when one day he suddenly appeared in her presence. How he
+had gained admittance to the house was never known; but there he stood
+before her, bearing in his arms a beautiful babe, asleep. Drawing
+himself up to the utmost of his six feet of height, and looking at her
+sternly, with eyes blue like steel, he said: "Senora Ortegna, you once
+did me a great wrong. You sinned, and the Lord has punished you. He has
+denied you children. I also have done a wrong; I have sinned, and the
+Lord has punished me. He has given me a child. I ask once more at your
+hands a boon. Will you take this child of mine, and bring it up as a
+child of yours, or of mine, ought to be brought up?"
+
+The tears were rolling down the Senora Ortegna's cheeks. The Lord
+had indeed punished her in more ways than Angus Phail knew. Her
+childlessness, bitter as that had been, was the least of them.
+Speechless, she rose, and stretched out her arms for the child. He
+placed it in them. Still the child slept on, undisturbed.
+
+"I do not know if I will be permitted," she said falteringly; "my
+husband--"
+
+"Father Salvierderra will command it. I have seen him," replied Angus.
+
+The Senora's face brightened. "If that be so, I hope it can be as you
+wish," she said. Then a strange embarrassment came upon her, and looking
+down upon the infant, she said inquiringly, "But the child's mother?"
+
+Angus's face turned swarthy red. Perhaps, face to face with this gentle
+and still lovely woman he had once so loved, he first realized to the
+full how wickedly he had thrown away his life. With a quick wave of
+his hand, which spoke volumes, he said: "That is nothing. She has other
+children, of her own blood. This is mine, my only one, my daughter. I
+wish her to be yours; otherwise, she will be taken by the Church."
+
+With each second that she felt the little warm body's tender weight in
+her arms, Ramona Ortegna's heart had more and more yearned towards the
+infant. At these words she bent her face down and kissed its cheek. "Oh,
+no! not to the Church! I will love it as my own," she said.
+
+Angus Phail's face quivered. Feelings long dead within him stirred in
+their graves. He gazed at the sad and altered face, once so beautiful,
+so dear. "I should hardly have known you, Senora!" burst from him
+involuntarily.
+
+She smiled piteously, with no resentment. "That is not strange. I hardly
+know myself," she whispered. "Life has dealt very hardly with me.
+I should not have known you either--Angus." She pronounced his name
+hesitatingly, half appealingly. At the sound of the familiar syllables,
+so long unheard, the man's heart broke down. He buried his face in his
+hands, and sobbed out: "O Ramona, forgive me! I brought the child here,
+not wholly in love; partly in vengeance. But I am melted now. Are you
+sure you wish to keep her? I will take her away if you are not."
+
+"Never, so long as I live, Angus," replied Senora Ortegna. "Already I
+feel that she is a mercy from the Lord. If my husband sees no offence in
+her presence, she will be a joy in my life. Has she been christened?"
+
+Angus cast his eyes down. A sudden fear smote him. "Before I had thought
+of bringing her to you," he stammered, "at first I had only the thought
+of giving her to the Church. I had had her christened by"--the words
+refused to leave his lips--"the name--Can you not guess, Senora, what
+name she bears?"
+
+The Senora knew. "My own?" she said.
+
+Angus bowed his head. "The only woman's name that my lips ever spoke
+with love," he said, reassured, "was the name my daughter should bear."
+
+"It is well," replied the Senora. Then a great silence fell between
+them. Each studied the other's face, tenderly, bewilderedly. Then by a
+simultaneous impulse they drew nearer. Angus stretched out both his arms
+with a gesture of infinite love and despair, bent down and kissed the
+hands which lovingly held his sleeping child.
+
+"God bless you, Ramona! Farewell! You will never see me more," he cried,
+and was gone.
+
+In a moment more he reappeared on the threshold of the door, but only to
+say in a low tone, "There is no need to be alarmed if the child does not
+wake for some hours yet. She has had a safe sleeping-potion given her.
+It will not harm her."
+
+One more long lingering look into each other's faces, and the two
+lovers, so strangely parted, still more strangely met, had parted again,
+forever. The quarter of a century which had lain between them had been
+bridged in both their hearts as if it were but a day. In the heart
+of the man it was the old passionate adoring love reawakening;
+a resurrection of the buried dead, to full life, with lineaments
+unchanged. In the woman it was not that; there was no buried love to
+come to such resurrection in her heart, for she had never loved Angus
+Phail. But, long unloved, ill-treated, heartbroken, she woke at that
+moment to the realization of what manner of love it had been which she
+had thrown away in her youth; her whole being yearned for it now, and
+Angus was avenged.
+
+When Francis Ortegna, late that night, reeled, half-tipsy, into
+his wife's room, he was suddenly sobered by the sight which met his
+eyes,--his wife kneeling by the side of the cradle, in which lay,
+smiling in its sleep, a beautiful infant.
+
+"What in the devil's name," he began; then recollecting, he muttered:
+"Oh, the Indian brat! I see! I wish you joy, Senora Ortegna, of your
+first child!" and with a mock bow, and cruel sneer, he staggered by,
+giving the cradle an angry thrust with his foot as he passed.
+
+The brutal taunt did not much wound the Senora. The time had long since
+passed when unkind words from her husband could give her keen pain. But
+it was a warning not lost upon her new-born mother instinct, and from
+that day the little Ramona was carefully kept and tended in apartments
+where there was no danger of her being seen by the man to whom the sight
+of her baby face was only a signal for anger and indecency.
+
+Hitherto Ramona Ortegna had, so far as was possible, carefully concealed
+from her family the unhappiness of her married life. Ortegna's
+character was indeed well known; his neglect of his wife, his shameful
+dissipations of all sorts, were notorious in every port in the country.
+But from the wife herself no one had even heard so much as a syllable of
+complaint. She was a Gonzaga, and she knew how to suffer in silence, But
+now she saw a reason for taking her sister into her confidence. It was
+plain to her that she had not many years to live; and what then would
+become of the child? Left to the tender mercies of Ortegna, it was only
+too certain what would become of her. Long sad hours of perplexity the
+lonely woman passed, with the little laughing babe in her arms, vainly
+endeavoring to forecast her future. The near chance of her own death had
+not occurred to her mind when she accepted the trust.
+
+Before the little Ramona was a year old, Angus Phail died. An Indian
+messenger from San Gabriel brought the news to Senora Ortegna. He
+brought her also a box and a letter, given to him by Angus the day
+before his death. The box contained jewels of value, of fashions a
+quarter of a century old. They were the jewels which Angus had bought
+for his bride. These alone remained of all his fortune. Even in the
+lowest depths of his degradation, a certain sentiment had restrained him
+from parting with them. The letter contained only these words: "I send
+you all I have to leave my daughter. I meant to bring them myself this
+year. I wished to kiss your hands and hers once more. But I am dying.
+Farewell."
+
+After these jewels were in her possession, Senora Ortegna rested not
+till she had persuaded Senora Moreno to journey to Monterey, and had
+put the box into her keeping as a sacred trust. She also won from her a
+solemn promise that at her own death she would adopt the little
+Ramona. This promise came hard from Senora Moreno. Except for Father
+Salvierderra's influence, she had not given it. She did not wish any
+dealings with such alien and mongrel blood, "If the child were pure
+Indian, I would like it better," she said. "I like not these crosses. It
+is the worst, and not the best of each, that remains."
+
+But the promise once given, Senora Ortegna was content. Well she knew
+that her sister would not lie, nor evade a trust. The little Ramona's
+future was assured. During the last years of the unhappy woman's life
+the child was her only comfort. Ortegna's conduct had become so openly
+and defiantly infamous, that he even flaunted his illegitimate relations
+in his wife's presence; subjecting her to gross insults, spite of her
+helpless invalidism. This last outrage was too much for the Gonzaga
+blood to endure; the Senora never afterward left her apartment, or spoke
+to her husband. Once more she sent for her sister to come; this time, to
+see her die. Every valuable she possessed, jewels, laces, brocades, and
+damasks, she gave into her sister's charge, to save them from falling
+into the hands of the base creature that she knew only too well would
+stand in her place as soon as the funeral services had been said over
+her dead body.
+
+Stealthily, as if she had been a thief, the sorrowing Senora Moreno
+conveyed her sister's wardrobe, article by article, out of the house, to
+be sent to her own home. It was the wardrobe of a princess. The Ortegnas
+lavished money always on the women whose hearts they broke; and never
+ceased to demand of them that they should sit superbly arrayed in their
+lonely wretchedness.
+
+One hour after the funeral, with a scant and icy ceremony of farewell
+to her dead sister's husband, Senora Moreno, leading the little
+four-year-old Ramona by the hand, left the house, and early the next
+morning set sail for home.
+
+When Ortegna discovered that his wife's jewels and valuables of all
+kinds were gone, he fell into a great rage, and sent a messenger off,
+post-haste, with an insulting letter to the Senora Moreno, demanding
+their return. For answer, he got a copy of his wife's memoranda of
+instructions to her sister, giving all the said valuables to her in
+trust for Ramona; also a letter from Father Salvierderra, upon reading
+which he sank into a fit of despondency that lasted a day or two, and
+gave his infamous associates considerable alarm, lest they had lost
+their comrade. But he soon shook off the influence, whatever it was, and
+settled back into his old gait on the same old high-road to the devil.
+Father Salvierderra could alarm him, but not save him.
+
+And this was the mystery of Ramona. No wonder the Senora Moreno never
+told the story. No wonder, perhaps, that she never loved the child. It
+was a sad legacy, indissolubly linked with memories which had in them
+nothing but bitterness, shame, and sorrow from first to last.
+
+How much of all this the young Ramona knew or suspected, was locked in
+her own breast. Her Indian blood had as much proud reserve in it as was
+ever infused into the haughtiest Gonzaga's veins. While she was yet a
+little child, she had one day said to the Senora Moreno, "Senora, why
+did my mother give me to the Senora Ortegna?"
+
+Taken unawares, the Senora replied hastily: "Your mother had nothing
+whatever to do with it. It was your father."
+
+"Was my mother dead?" continued the child.
+
+Too late the Senora saw her mistake. "I do not know," she replied; which
+was literally true, but had the spirit of a lie in it. "I never saw your
+mother."
+
+"Did the Senora Ortegna ever see her?" persisted Ramona.
+
+"No, never," answered the Senora, coldly, the old wounds burning at the
+innocent child's unconscious touch.
+
+Ramona felt the chill, and was silent for a time, her face sad, and her
+eyes tearful. At last she said, "I wish I knew if my mother was dead."
+
+"Why?" asked the Senora.
+
+"Because if she is not dead I would ask her why she did not want me to
+stay with her."
+
+The gentle piteousness of this reply smote the Senora's conscience.
+Taking the child in her arms, she said, "Who has been talking to you of
+these things, Ramona?"
+
+"Juan Can," she replied.
+
+"What did he say?" asked the Senora, with a look in her eye which boded
+no good to Juan Canito.
+
+"It was not to me he said it, it was to Luigo; but I heard him,"
+answered Ramona, speaking slowly, as if collecting her various
+reminiscences on the subject. "Twice I heard him. He said that my mother
+was no good, and that my father was bad too." And the tears rolled down
+the child's cheeks.
+
+The Senora's sense of justice stood her well in place of tenderness,
+now. Caressing the little orphan as she had never before done, she said,
+with an earnestness which sank deep into the child's mind, "Ramona must
+not believe any such thing as that. Juan Can is a bad man to say it.
+He never saw either your father or your mother, and so he could know
+nothing about them. I knew your father very well. He was not a bad man.
+He was my friend, and the friend of the Senora Ortegna; and that was the
+reason he gave you to the Senora Ortegna, because she had no child of
+her own. And I think your mother had a good many."
+
+"Oh!" said Ramona, relieved, for the moment, at this new view of the
+situation,--that the gift had been not as a charity to her, but to the
+Senora Ortegna. "Did the Senora Ortegna want a little daughter very
+much?"
+
+"Yes, very much indeed," said the Senora, heartily and with fervor. "She
+had grieved many years because she had no child."
+
+Silence again for a brief space, during which the little lonely heart,
+grappling with its vague instinct of loss and wrong, made wide thrusts
+into the perplexities hedging it about, and presently electrified the
+Senora by saying in a half-whisper, "Why did not my father bring me to
+you first? Did he know you did not want any daughter?"
+
+The Senora was dumb for a second; then recovering herself, she said:
+"Your father was the Senora Ortegna's friend more than he was mine. I
+was only a child, then."
+
+"Of course you did not need any daughter when you had Felipe," continued
+Ramona, pursuing her original line of inquiry and reflection without
+noticing the Senora's reply. "A son is more than a daughter; but most
+people have both," eying the Senora keenly, to see what response this
+would bring.
+
+But the Senora was weary and uncomfortable with the talk. At the very
+mention of Felipe, a swift flash of consciousness of her inability
+to love Ramona had swept through her mind. "Ramona," she said firmly,
+"while you are a little girl, you cannot understand any of these things.
+When you are a woman, I will tell you all that I know myself about your
+father and your mother. It is very little. Your father died when you
+were only two years old. All that you have to do is to be a good child,
+and say your prayers, and when Father Salvierderra comes he will be
+pleased with you. And he will not be pleased if you ask troublesome
+questions. Don't ever speak to me again about this. When the proper time
+comes I will tell you myself."
+
+This was when Ramona was ten. She was now nineteen. She had never again
+asked the Senora a question bearing on the forbidden subject. She had
+been a good child and said her prayers, and Father Salvierderra had been
+always pleased with her, growing more and more deeply attached to her
+year by year. But the proper time had not yet come for the Senora to
+tell her anything more about her father and mother. There were few
+mornings on which the girl did not think, "Perhaps it may be to-day
+that she will tell me." But she would not ask. Every word of that
+conversation was as vivid in her mind as it had been the day it
+occurred; and it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that during
+every day of the whole nine years had deepened in her heart the
+conviction which had prompted the child's question, "Did he know that
+you did not want any daughter?"
+
+A nature less gentle than Ramona's would have been embittered, or at
+least hardened, by this consciousness. But Ramona's was not. She never
+put it in words to herself. She accepted it, as those born deformed seem
+sometimes to accept the pain and isolation caused by their deformity,
+with an unquestioning acceptance, which is as far above resignation, as
+resignation is above rebellious repining.
+
+No one would have known, from Ramona's face, manner, or habitual
+conduct, that she had ever experienced a sorrow or had a care. Her face
+was sunny, she had a joyous voice, and never was seen to pass a human
+being without a cheerful greeting, to highest and lowest the same. Her
+industry was tireless. She had had two years at school, in the Convent
+of the Sacred Heart at Los Angeles, where the Senora had placed her
+at much personal sacrifice, during one of the hardest times the Moreno
+estate had ever seen. Here she had won the affection of all the Sisters,
+who spoke of her habitually as the "blessed child." They had taught her
+all the dainty arts of lace-weaving, embroidery, and simple fashions
+of painting and drawing, which they knew; not overmuch learning out of
+books, but enough to make her a passionate lover of verse and romance.
+For serious study or for deep thought she had no vocation. She was a
+simple, joyous, gentle, clinging, faithful nature, like a clear brook
+rippling along in the sun,--a nature as unlike as possible to the
+Senora's, with its mysterious depths and stormy, hidden currents.
+
+Of these Ramona was dimly conscious, and at times had a tender,
+sorrowful pity for the Senora, which she dared not show, and could only
+express by renewed industry, and tireless endeavor to fulfil every duty
+possible in the house. This gentle faithfulness was not wholly lost on
+Senora Moreno, though its source she never suspected; and it won no new
+recognition from her for Ramona, no increase of love.
+
+But there was one on whom not an act, not a look, not a smile of all
+this graciousness was thrown away. That one was Felipe. Daily more and
+more he wondered at his mother's lack of affection for Ramona. Nobody
+knew so well as he how far short she stopped of loving her. Felipe knew
+what it meant, how it felt, to be loved by the Senora Moreno. But Felipe
+had learned while he was a boy that one sure way to displease his mother
+was to appear to be aware that she did not treat Ramona as she treated
+him. And long before he had become a man he had acquired the habit of
+keeping to himself most of the things he thought and felt about his
+little playmate sister,--a dangerous habit, out of which were slowly
+ripening bitter fruits for the Senora's gathering in later years.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+IT was longer even than the Senora had thought it would be, before
+Father Salvierderra arrived. The old man had grown feeble during the
+year that she had not seen him, and it was a very short day's journey
+that he could make now without too great fatigue. It was not only his
+body that had failed. He had lost heart; and the miles which would have
+been nothing to him, had he walked in the companionship of hopeful and
+happy thoughts, stretched out wearily as he brooded over sad memories
+and still sadder anticipations,--the downfall of the Missions, the loss
+of their vast estates, and the growing power of the ungodly in the land.
+The final decision of the United States Government in regard to the
+Mission-lands had been a terrible blow to him. He had devoutly believed
+that ultimate restoration of these great estates to the Church was
+inevitable. In the long vigils which he always kept when at home at the
+Franciscan Monastery in Santa Barbara, kneeling on the stone pavement
+in the church, and praying ceaselessly from midnight till dawn, he had
+often had visions vouchsafed him of a new dispensation, in which the
+Mission establishments should be reinstated in all their old splendor
+and prosperity, and their Indian converts again numbered by tens of
+thousands.
+
+Long after every one knew that this was impossible, he would narrate
+these visions with the faith of an old Bible seer, and declare that they
+must come true, and that it was a sin to despond. But as year after year
+he journeyed up and down the country, seeing, at Mission after Mission,
+the buildings crumbling into ruin, the lands all taken, sold, resold,
+and settled by greedy speculators; the Indian converts disappearing,
+driven back to their original wildernesses, the last traces of the noble
+work of his order being rapidly swept away, his courage faltered, his
+faith died out. Changes in the manners and customs of his order itself,
+also, were giving him deep pain. He was a Franciscan of the same type as
+Francis of Assisi. To wear a shoe in place of a sandal, to take money in
+a purse for a journey, above all to lay aside the gray gown and cowl for
+any sort of secular garment, seemed to him wicked. To own comfortable
+clothes while there were others suffering for want of them--and
+there were always such--seemed to him a sin for which one might not
+undeservedly be smitten with sudden and terrible punishment. In vain the
+Brothers again and again supplied him with a warm cloak; he gave it away
+to the first beggar he met: and as for food, the refectory would have
+been left bare, and the whole brotherhood starving, if the supplies had
+not been carefully hidden and locked, so that Father Salvierderra could
+not give them all away. He was fast becoming that most tragic yet often
+sublime sight, a man who has survived, not only his own time, but
+the ideas and ideals of it. Earth holds no sharper loneliness: the
+bitterness of exile, the anguish of friendlessness at their utmost,
+are in it; and yet it is so much greater than they, that even they seem
+small part of it.
+
+It was with thoughts such as these that Father Salvierderra drew near
+the home of the Senora Moreno late in the afternoon of one of those
+midsummer days of which Southern California has so many in spring. The
+almonds had bloomed and the blossoms fallen; the apricots also, and the
+peaches and pears; on all the orchards of these fruits had come a filmy
+tint of green, so light it was hardly more than a shadow on the gray.
+The willows were vivid light green, and the orange groves dark and
+glossy like laurel. The billowy hills on either side the valley were
+covered with verdure and bloom,--myriads of low blossoming plants, so
+close to the earth that their tints lapped and overlapped on each other,
+and on the green of the grass, as feathers in fine plumage overlap each
+other and blend into a changeful color.
+
+The countless curves, hollows, and crests of the coast-hills in Southern
+California heighten these chameleon effects of the spring verdure; they
+are like nothing in nature except the glitter of a brilliant lizard in
+the sun or the iridescent sheen of a peacock's neck.
+
+Father Salvierderra paused many times to gaze at the beautiful picture.
+Flowers were always dear to the Franciscans. Saint Francis himself
+permitted all decorations which could be made of flowers. He classed
+them with his brothers and sisters, the sun, moon, and stars,--all
+members of the sacred choir praising God.
+
+It was melancholy to see how, after each one of these pauses, each fresh
+drinking in of the beauty of the landscape and the balmy air, the old
+man resumed his slow pace, with a long sigh and his eyes cast down.
+The fairer this beautiful land, the sadder to know it lost to the
+Church,--alien hands reaping its fulness, establishing new customs,
+new laws. All the way down the coast from Santa Barbara he had seen,
+at every stopping-place, new tokens of the settling up of the
+country,--farms opening, towns growing; the Americans pouring in, at
+all points, to reap the advantages of their new possessions. It was
+this which had made his journey heavy-hearted, and made him feel, in
+approaching the Senora Moreno's, as if he were coming to one of the last
+sure strongholds of the Catholic faith left in the country.
+
+When he was within two miles of the house, he struck off from the
+highway into a narrow path that he recollected led by a short-cut
+through the hills, and saved nearly a third of the distance. It was
+more than a year since he had trod this path, and as he found it growing
+fainter and fainter, and more and more overgrown with the wild mustard,
+he said to himself, "I think no one can have passed through here this
+year."
+
+As he proceeded he found the mustard thicker and thicker. The wild
+mustard in Southern California is like that spoken of in the New
+Testament, in the branches of which the birds of the air may rest.
+Coming up out of the earth, so slender a stem that dozens can find
+starting-point in an inch, it darts up, a slender straight shoot, five,
+ten, twenty feet, with hundreds of fine feathery branches locking
+and interlocking with all the other hundreds around it, till it is an
+inextricable network like lace. Then it bursts into yellow bloom still
+finer, more feathery and lacelike. The stems are so infinitesimally
+small, and of so dark a green, that at a short distance they do not
+show, and the cloud of blossom seems floating in the air; at times it
+looks like golden dust. With a clear blue sky behind it, as it is often
+seen, it looks like a golden snow-storm. The plant is a tyrant and a
+nuisance,--the terror of the farmer; it takes riotous possession of a
+whole field in a season; once in, never out; for one plant this year, a
+million the next; but it is impossible to wish that the land were freed
+from it. Its gold is as distinct a value to the eye as the nugget gold
+is in the pocket.
+
+Father Salvierderra soon found himself in a veritable thicket of these
+delicate branches, high above his head, and so interlaced that he could
+make headway only by slowly and patiently disentangling them, as one
+would disentangle a skein of silk. It was a fantastic sort of dilemma,
+and not unpleasing. Except that the Father was in haste to reach his
+journey's end, he would have enjoyed threading his way through
+the golden meshes. Suddenly he heard faint notes of singing. He
+paused,--listened. It was the voice of a woman. It was slowly drawing
+nearer, apparently from the direction in which he was going. At
+intervals it ceased abruptly, then began again; as if by a sudden but
+brief interruption, like that made by question and answer. Then, peering
+ahead through the mustard blossoms, he saw them waving and bending, and
+heard sounds as if they were being broken. Evidently some one entering
+on the path from the opposite end had been caught in the fragrant
+thicket as he was. The notes grew clearer, though still low and sweet
+as the twilight notes of the thrush; the mustard branches waved more and
+more violently; light steps were now to be heard. Father Salvierderra
+stood still as one in a dream, his eyes straining forward into the
+golden mist of blossoms. In a moment more came, distinct and clear to
+his ear, the beautiful words of the second stanza of Saint Francis's
+inimitable lyric, "The Canticle of the Sun:"
+
+"Praise be to thee, O Lord, for all thy creatures, and especially for
+our brother the Sun,--who illuminates the day, and by his beauty and
+splendor shadows forth unto us thine."
+
+"Ramona!" exclaimed the Father, his thin cheeks flushing with pleasure.
+"The blessed child!" And as he spoke, her face came into sight, set in
+a swaying frame of the blossoms, as she parted them lightly to right and
+left with her hands, and half crept, half danced through the loop-hole
+openings thus made. Father Salvierderra was past eighty, but his blood
+was not too old to move quicker at the sight of this picture. A man must
+be dead not to thrill at it. Ramona's beauty was of the sort to be best
+enhanced by the waving gold which now framed her face. She had just
+enough of olive tint in her complexion to underlie and enrich her skin
+without making it swarthy. Her hair was like her Indian mother's, heavy
+and black, but her eyes were like her father's, steel-blue. Only those
+who came very near to Ramona knew, however, that her eyes were blue, for
+the heavy black eyebrows and long black lashes so shaded and shadowed
+them that they looked black as night. At the same instant that Father
+Salvierderra first caught sight of her face, Ramona also saw him, and
+crying out joyfully, "Ah, Father, I knew you would come by this path,
+and something told me you were near!" she sprang forward, and sank on
+her knees before him, bowing her head for his blessing. In silence he
+laid his hands on her brow. It would not have been easy for him to speak
+to her at that first moment. She had looked to the devout old monk, as
+she sprang through the cloud of golden flowers, the sun falling on
+her bared head, her cheeks flushed, her eyes shining, more like an
+apparition of an angel or saint, than like the flesh-and-blood maiden
+whom he had carried in his arms when she was a babe.
+
+"We have been waiting, waiting, oh, so long for you, Father!" she said,
+rising. "We began to fear that you might be ill. The shearers have been
+sent for, and will be here tonight, and that was the reason I felt so
+sure you would come. I knew the Virgin would bring you in time for mass
+in the chapel on the first morning."
+
+The monk smiled half sadly. "Would there were more with such faith as
+yours, daughter," he said. "Are all well on the place?"
+
+"Yes, Father, all well," she answered. "Felipe has been ill with a
+fever; but he is out now, these ten days, and fretting for--for your
+coming."
+
+Ramona had like to have said the literal truth,--"fretting for the
+sheep-shearing," but recollected herself in time.
+
+"And the Senora?" said the Father.
+
+"She is well," answered Ramona, gently, but with a slight change of
+tone,--so slight as to be almost imperceptible; but an acute observer
+would have always detected it in the girl's tone whenever she spoke of
+the Senora Moreno. "And you,--are you well yourself, Father?" she asked
+affectionately, noting with her quick, loving eye how feebly the old
+man walked, and that he carried what she had never before seen in his
+hand,--a stout staff to steady his steps. "You must be very tired with
+the long journey on foot."
+
+"Ay, Ramona, I am tired," he replied. "Old age is conquering me. It will
+not be many times more that I shall see this place."
+
+"Oh, do not say that, Father," cried Ramona; "you can ride, when it
+tires you too much to walk. The Senora said, only the other day, that
+she wished you would let her give you a horse; that it was not right for
+you to take these long journeys on foot. You know we have hundreds of
+horses. It is nothing, one horse," she added, seeing the Father slowly
+shake his head.
+
+"No;" he said, "it is not that. I could not refuse anything at the hands
+of the Senora. But it was the rule of our order to go on foot. We
+must deny the flesh. Look at our beloved master in this land, Father
+Junipero, when he was past eighty, walking from San Diego to Monterey,
+and all the while a running ulcer in one of his legs, for which most men
+would have taken to a bed, to be healed. It is a sinful fashion that
+is coming in, for monks to take their ease doing God's work. I can no
+longer walk swiftly, but I must walk all the more diligently."
+
+While they were talking, they had been slowly moving forward, Ramona
+slightly in advance, gracefully bending the mustard branches, and
+holding them down till the Father had followed in her steps. As they
+came out from the thicket, she exclaimed, laughing, "There is Felipe, in
+the willows. I told him I was coming to meet you, and he laughed at me.
+Now he will see I was right."
+
+Astonished enough, Felipe, hearing voices, looked up, and saw Ramona and
+the Father approaching. Throwing down the knife with which he had been
+cutting the willows, he hastened to meet them, and dropped on his knees,
+as Ramona had done, for the monk's blessing. As he knelt there, the wind
+blowing his hair loosely off his brow, his large brown eyes lifted in
+gentle reverence to the Father's face, and his face full of affectionate
+welcome, Ramona thought to herself, as she had thought hundreds of times
+since she became a woman, "How beautiful Felipe is! No wonder the Senora
+loves him so much! If I had been beautiful like that she would have
+liked me better." Never was a little child more unconscious of her own
+beauty than Ramona still was. All the admiration which was expressed
+to her in word and look she took for simple kindness and good-will.
+Her face, as she herself saw it in her glass, did not please her. She
+compared her straight, massive black eyebrows with Felipe's, arched and
+delicately pencilled, and found her own ugly. The expression of gentle
+repose which her countenance wore, seemed to her an expression of
+stupidity. "Felipe looks so bright!" she thought, as she noted his
+mobile changing face, never for two successive seconds the same. "There
+is nobody like Felipe." And when his brown eyes were fixed on her, as
+they so often were, in a long lingering gaze, she looked steadily back
+into their velvet depths with an abstracted sort of intensity which
+profoundly puzzled Felipe. It was this look, more than any other one
+thing, which had for two years held Felipe's tongue in leash, as it
+were, and made it impossible for him to say to Ramona any of the loving
+things of which his heart had been full ever since he could remember.
+The boy had spoken them unhesitatingly, unconsciously; but the man found
+himself suddenly afraid. "What is it she thinks when she looks into my
+eyes so?" he wondered. If he had known that the thing she was usually
+thinking was simply, "How much handsomer brown eyes are than blue!
+I wish my eyes were the color of Felipe's!" he would have perceived,
+perhaps, what would have saved him sorrow, if he had known it, that a
+girl who looked at a man thus, would be hard to win to look at him as a
+lover. But being a lover, he could not see this. He saw only enough to
+perplex and deter him.
+
+As they drew near the house, Ramona saw Margarita standing at the gate
+of the garden. She was holding something white in her hands, looking
+down at it, and crying piteously. As she perceived Ramona, she made an
+eager leap forward, and then shrank back again, making dumb signals
+of distress to her. Her whole attitude was one of misery and entreaty.
+Margarita was, of all the maids, most beloved by Ramona. Though they
+were nearly of the same age, it had been Margarita who first had charge
+of Ramona; the nurse and her charge had played together, grown up
+together, become women together, and were now, although Margarita never
+presumed on the relation, or forgot to address Ramona as Senorita, more
+like friends than like mistress and maid.
+
+"Pardon me, Father," said Ramona. "I see that Margarita there is in
+trouble. I will leave Felipe to go with you to the house. I will be with
+you again in a few moments." And kissing his hand, she flew rather than
+ran across the field to the foot of the garden.
+
+Before she reached the spot, Margarita had dropped on the ground and
+buried her face in her hands. A mass of crumpled and stained linen lay
+at her feet.
+
+"What is it? What has happened, Margarita mia?" cried Ramona, in the
+affectionate Spanish phrase. For answer, Margarita removed one wet hand
+from her eyes, and pointed with a gesture of despair to the crumpled
+linen. Sobs choked her voice, and she buried her face again in her
+hands.
+
+Ramona stooped, and lifted one corner of the linen. An involuntary cry
+of dismay broke from her, at which Margarita's sobs redoubled, and
+she gasped out, "Yes, Senorita, it is totally ruined! It can never be
+mended, and it will be needed for the mass to-morrow morning. When I saw
+the Father coming by your side, I prayed to the Virgin to let me die.
+The Senora will never forgive me."
+
+It was indeed a sorry sight. The white linen altar-cloth, the cloth
+which the Senora Moreno had with her own hands made into one solid front
+of beautiful lace of the Mexican fashion, by drawing out part of the
+threads and sewing the remainder into intricate patterns, the
+cloth which had always been on the altar, when mass was said, since
+Margarita's and Ramona's earliest recollections,--there it lay, torn,
+stained, as if it had been dragged through muddy brambles. In silence,
+aghast, Ramona opened it out and held it up. "How did it happen,
+Margarita?" she whispered, glancing in terror up towards the house.
+
+"Oh, that is the worst of it, Senorita!" sobbed the girl. "That is the
+worst of it! If it were not for that, I would not be so afraid. If it
+had happened any other way, the Senora might have forgiven me; but she
+never will. I would rather die than tell her;" and she shook from head
+to foot.
+
+"Stop crying, Margarita!" said Ramona, firmly, "and tell me all about
+it. It isn't so bad as it looks. I think I can mend it."
+
+"Oh, the saints bless you!" cried Margarita, looking up for the first
+time. "Do you really think you can mend it, Senorita? If you will mend
+that lace, I'll go on my knees for you all the rest of my life!"
+
+Ramona laughed in spite of herself. "You'll serve me better by keeping
+on your feet," she said merrily; at which Margarita laughed too, through
+her tears. They were both young.
+
+"Oh, but Senorita," Margarita began again in a tone of anguish, her
+tears flowing afresh, "there is not time! It must be washed and ironed
+to-night, for the mass to-morrow morning, and I have to help at the
+supper. Anita and Rosa are both ill in bed, you know, and Maria has gone
+away for a week. The Senora said if the Father came to-night I must help
+mother, and must wait on table. It cannot be done. I was just going
+to iron it now, and I found it--so--It was in the artichoke-patch, and
+Capitan, the beast, had been tossing it among the sharp pricks of the
+old last year's seeds."
+
+"In the artichoke-patch!" ejaculated Ramona. "How under heavens did it
+get there?"
+
+"Oh, that was what I meant, Senorita, when I said she never would
+forgive me. She has forbidden me many times to hang anything to dry on
+the fence there; and if I had only washed it when she first told me, two
+days ago, all would have been well. But I forgot it till this afternoon,
+and there was no sun in the court to dry it, and you know how the sun
+lies on the artichoke-patch, and I put a strong cloth over the fence,
+so that the wood should not pierce the lace, and I did not leave it more
+than half an hour, just while I said a few words to Luigo, and there
+was no wind; and I believe the saints must have fetched it down to the
+ground to punish me for my disobedience."
+
+Ramona had been all this time carefully smoothing out the torn places,
+"It is not so bad as it looks," she said; "if it were not for the hurry,
+there would be no trouble in mending it. But I will do it the best I
+can, so that it will not show, for to-morrow, and then, after the Father
+is gone, I can repair it at leisure, and make it just as good as new.
+I think I can mend it and wash it before dark," and she glanced at the
+sun. "Oh, yes, there are good three hours of daylight yet. I can do it.
+You put the irons on the fire, to have them hot, to iron it as soon
+as it is partly dried. You will see it will not show that anything has
+happened to it."
+
+"Will the Senora know?" asked poor Margarita, calmed and reassured, but
+still in mortal terror.
+
+Ramona turned her steady glance full on Margarita's face. "You would not
+be any happier if she were deceived, do you think?" she said gravely.
+
+"O Senorita, after it is mended? If it really does not show?" pleaded
+the girl.
+
+"I will tell her myself, and not till after it is mended," said Ramona;
+but she did not smile.
+
+"Ah, Senorita," said Margarita, deprecatingly, "you do not know what it
+is to have the Senora displeased with one."
+
+"Nothing can be so bad as to be displeased with one's self," retorted
+Ramona, as she walked swiftly away to her room with the linen rolled up
+under her arm. Luckily for Margarita's cause, she met no one on the way.
+The Senora had welcomed Father Salvierderra at the foot of the veranda
+steps, and had immediately closeted herself with him. She had much to
+say to him,--much about which she wished his help and counsel, and much
+which she wished to learn from him as to affairs in the Church and in
+the country generally.
+
+Felipe had gone off at once to find Juan Canito, to see if everything
+were ready for the sheep-shearing to begin on the next day, if the
+shearers arrived in time; and there was very good chance of their coming
+in by sundown this day, Felipe thought, for he had privately instructed
+his messenger to make all possible haste, and to impress on the Indians
+the urgent need of their losing no time on the road.
+
+It had been a great concession on the Senora's part to allow the
+messenger to be sent off before she had positive intelligence as to the
+Father's movements. But as day after day passed and no news came, even
+she perceived that it would not do to put off the sheep-shearing much
+longer, or, as Juan Canito said, "forever." The Father might have fallen
+ill; and if that were so, it might very easily be weeks before they
+heard of it, so scanty were the means of communication between the
+remote places on his route of visitation. The messenger had therefore
+been sent to summon the Temecula shearers, and Senora had resigned
+herself to the inevitable; piously praying, however, morning and night,
+and at odd moments in the day, that the Father might arrive before the
+Indians did. When she saw him coming up the garden-walk, leaning on
+the arm of her Felipe, on the afternoon of the very day which was the
+earliest possible day for the Indians to arrive, it was not strange that
+she felt, mingled with the joy of her greeting to her long-loved friend
+and confessor, a triumphant exultation that the saints had heard her
+prayers.
+
+In the kitchen all was bustle and stir. The coming of any guest into the
+house was a signal for unwonted activities there,--even the coming of
+Father Salvierderra, who never knew whether the soup had force-meat
+balls in it or not, old Marda said; and that was to her the last extreme
+of indifference to good things of the flesh. "But if he will not eat,
+he can see," she said; and her pride for herself and for the house was
+enlisted in setting forth as goodly an array of viands as her larder
+afforded, She grew suddenly fastidious over the size and color of the
+cabbages to go into the beef-pot, and threw away one whole saucepan full
+of rice, because Margarita had put only one onion in instead of two.
+
+"Have I not told you again and again that for the Father it is always
+two onions?" she exclaimed. "It is the dish he most favors of all; and
+it is a pity too, old as he is. It makes him no blood. It is good beef
+he should take now."
+
+The dining-room was on the opposite side of the courtyard from the
+kitchen, and there was a perpetual procession of small messengers going
+back and forth between the rooms. It was the highest ambition of each
+child to be allowed to fetch and carry dishes in the preparation of
+the meals at all times; but when by so doing they could perchance get a
+glimpse through the dining-room door, open on the veranda, of strangers
+and guests, their restless rivalry became unmanageable. Poor Margarita,
+between her own private anxieties and her multiplied duties of helping
+in the kitchen, and setting the table, restraining and overseeing her
+army of infant volunteers, was nearly distraught; not so distraught,
+however, but that she remembered and found time to seize a lighted
+candle in the kitchen, run and set it before the statue of Saint Francis
+of Paula in her bedroom, hurriedly whispering a prayer that the lace
+might be made whole like new. Several times before the afternoon had
+waned she snatched a moment to fling herself down at the statue's feet
+and pray her foolish little prayer over again. We think we are quite
+sure that it is a foolish little prayer, when people pray to have torn
+lace made whole. But it would be hard to show the odds between asking
+that, and asking that it may rain, or that the sick may get well. As the
+grand old Russian says, what men usually ask for, when they pray to God,
+is, that two and two may not make four. All the same he is to be pitied
+who prays not. It was only the thought of that candle at Saint Francis's
+feet, which enabled Margarita to struggle through this anxious and
+unhappy afternoon and evening.
+
+At last supper was ready,--a great dish of spiced beef and cabbage in
+the centre of the table; a tureen of thick soup, with force-meat balls
+and red peppers in it; two red earthen platters heaped, one with the
+boiled rice and onions, the other with the delicious frijoles (beans)
+so dear to all Mexican hearts; cut-glass dishes filled with hot stewed
+pears, or preserved quinces, or grape jelly; plates of frosted cakes of
+various sorts; and a steaming silver teakettle, from which went up an
+aroma of tea such as had never been bought or sold in all California,
+the Senora's one extravagance and passion.
+
+"Where is Ramona?" asked the Senora, surprised and displeased, as she
+entered the dining-room, "Margarita, go tell the Senorita that we are
+waiting for her."
+
+Margarita started tremblingly, with flushed face, towards the door. What
+would happen now! "O Saint Francis," she inwardly prayed, "help us this
+once!"
+
+"Stay," said Felipe. "Do not call Senorita Ramona." Then, turning to his
+mother, "Ramona cannot come. She is not in the house. She has a duty to
+perform for to-morrow," he said; and he looked meaningly at his mother,
+adding, "we will not wait for her."
+
+Much bewildered, the Senora took her seat at the head of the table in a
+mechanical way, and began, "But--" Felipe, seeing that questions were to
+follow, interrupted her: "I have just spoken with her. It is impossible
+for her to come;" and turning to Father Salvierderra, he at once engaged
+him in conversation, and left the baffled Senora to bear her unsatisfied
+curiosity as best she could.
+
+Margarita looked at Felipe with an expression of profound gratitude,
+which he did not observe, and would not in the least have understood;
+for Ramona had not confided to him any details of the disaster. Seeing
+him under her window, she had called cautiously to him, and said: "Dear
+Felipe, do you think you can save me from having to come to supper? A
+dreadful accident has happened to the altar-cloth, and I must mend it
+and wash it, and there is barely time before dark. Don't let them call
+me; I shall be down at the brook, and they will not find me, and your
+mother will be displeased."
+
+This wise precaution of Ramona's was the salvation of everything, so far
+as the altar-cloth was concerned. The rents had proved far less serious
+than she had feared; the daylight held out till the last of them was
+skilfully mended; and just as the red beams of the sinking sun came
+streaming through the willow-trees at the foot of the garden, Ramona,
+darting down the garden, had reached the brook, and kneeling on the
+grass, had dipped the linen into the water.
+
+Her hurried working over the lace, and her anxiety, had made her cheeks
+scarlet. As she ran down the garden, her comb had loosened and her hair
+fallen to her waist. Stopping only to pick up the comb and thrust it in
+her pocket, she had sped on, as it would soon be too dark for her to see
+the stains on the linen, and it was going to be no small trouble to get
+them out without fraying the lace.
+
+Her hair in disorder, her sleeves pinned loosely on her shoulders, her
+whole face aglow with the earnestness of her task, she bent low over
+the stones, rinsing the altar-cloth up and down in the water, anxiously
+scanning it, then plunging it in again.
+
+The sunset beams played around her hair like a halo; the whole place was
+aglow with red light, and her face was kindled into transcendent beauty.
+A sound arrested her attention. She looked up. Forms, dusky black
+against the fiery western sky, were coming down the valley. It was the
+band of Indian shearers. They turned to the left, and went towards the
+sheep sheds and booths. But there was one of them that Ramona did not
+see. He had been standing for some minutes concealed behind a large
+willow-tree a few rods from the place where Ramona was kneeling. It was
+Alessandro, son of Pablo Assis, captain of the shearing band. Walking
+slowly along in advance of his men, he had felt a light, as from a
+mirror held in the sun, smite his eyes. It was the red sunbeam on the
+glittering water where Ramona knelt. In the same second he saw Ramona.
+
+He halted, as wild creatures of the forest halt at a sound; gazed;
+walked abruptly away from his men, who kept on, not noticing his
+disappearance. Cautiously he moved a few steps nearer, into the shelter
+of a gnarled old willow, from behind which he could gaze unperceived on
+the beautiful vision,--for so it seemed to him.
+
+As he gazed, his senses seemed leaving him, and unconsciously he spoke
+aloud; "Christ! What shall I do!"
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE room in which Father Salvierderra always slept when at the Senora
+Moreno's house was the southeast corner room. It had a window to the
+south and one to the east. When the first glow of dawn came in the sky,
+this eastern window was lit up as by a fire. The Father was always on
+watch for it, having usually been at prayer for hours. As the first ray
+reached the window, he would throw the casement wide open, and standing
+there with bared head, strike up the melody of the sunrise hymn sung in
+all devout Mexican families. It was a beautiful custom, not yet wholly
+abandoned. At the first dawn of light, the oldest member of the family
+arose, and began singing some hymn familiar to the household. It was the
+duty of each person hearing it to immediately rise, or at least sit up
+in bed, and join in the singing. In a few moments the whole family would
+be singing, and the joyous sounds pouring out from the house like
+the music of the birds in the fields at dawn. The hymns were usually
+invocations to the Virgin, or to the saint of the day, and the melodies
+were sweet and simple.
+
+On this morning there was another watcher for the dawn besides Father
+Salvierderra. It was Alessandro, who had been restlessly wandering about
+since midnight, and had finally seated himself under the willow-trees by
+the brook, at the spot where he had seen Ramona the evening before. He
+recollected this custom of the sunrise hymn when he and his band were
+at the Senora's the last year, and he had chanced then to learn that the
+Father slept in the southeast room. From the spot where he sat, he could
+see the south window of this room. He could also see the low eastern
+horizon, at which a faint luminous line already showed. The sky was like
+amber; a few stars still shone faintly in the zenith. There was not
+a sound. It was one of those rare moments in which one can without
+difficulty realize the noiseless spinning of the earth through space.
+Alessandro knew nothing of this; he could not have been made to believe
+that the earth was moving. He thought the sun was coming up apace,
+and the earth was standing still,--a belief just as grand, just as
+thrilling, so far as all that goes, as the other: men worshipped the sun
+long before they found out that it stood still. Not the most reverent
+astronomer, with the mathematics of the heavens at his tongue's end,
+could have had more delight in the wondrous phenomenon of the dawn, than
+did this simple-minded, unlearned man.
+
+His eyes wandered from the horizon line of slowly increasing light, to
+the windows of the house, yet dark and still. "Which window is hers?
+Will she open it when the song begins?" he thought. "Is it on this side
+of the house? Who can she be? She was not here last year. Saw the saints
+ever so beautiful a creature!"
+
+At last came the full red ray across the meadow. Alessandro sprang to
+his feet. In the next second Father Salvierderra flung up his south
+window, and leaning out, his cowl thrown off, his thin gray locks
+streaming back, began in a feeble but not unmelodious voice to sing,--
+
+     "O beautiful Queen,
+     Princess of Heaven."
+
+Before he had finished the second line, a half-dozen voices had joined
+in,--the Senora, from her room at the west end of the veranda, beyond
+the flowers; Felipe, from the adjoining room; Ramona, from hers, the
+next; and Margarita and other of the maids already astir in the wings of
+the house. As the volume of melody swelled, the canaries waked, and the
+finches and the linnets in the veranda roof. The tiles of this roof were
+laid on bundles of tule reeds, in which the linnets delighted to build
+their nests. The roof was alive with them,--scores and scores, nay
+hundreds, tame as chickens; their tiny shrill twitter was like the
+tuning of myriads of violins.
+
+     "Singers at dawn
+     From the heavens above
+     People all regions;
+     Gladly we too sing,"
+
+continued the hymn, the birds corroborating the stanza. Then men's
+voices joined in,--Juan and Luigo, and a dozen more, walking slowly up
+from the sheepfolds. The hymn was a favorite one, known to all.
+
+     "Come, O sinners,
+     Come, and we will sing
+     Tender hymns
+     To our refuge,"
+
+was the chorus, repeated after each of the five verses of the hymn.
+
+Alessandro also knew the hymn well. His father, Chief Pablo, had been
+the leader of the choir at the San Luis Rey Mission in the last years of
+its splendor, and had brought away with him much of the old choir music.
+Some of the books had been written by his own hand, on parchment. He not
+only sang well, but was a good player on the violin. There was not at
+any of the Missions so fine a band of performers on stringed instruments
+as at San Luis Rey. Father Peyri was passionately fond of music, and
+spared no pains in training all the neophytes under his charge who
+showed any special talent in that direction. Chief Pablo, after the
+breaking up of the Mission, had settled at Temecula, with a small band
+of his Indians, and endeavored, so far as was in his power, to keep
+up the old religious services. The music in the little chapel of the
+Temecula Indians was a surprise to all who heard it.
+
+Alessandro had inherited his father's love and talent for music, and
+knew all the old Mission music by heart. This hymn to the
+
+     "Beautiful Queen,
+     Princess of Heaven,"
+
+was one of his special favorites; and as he heard verse after verse
+rising, he could not forbear striking in.
+
+At the first notes of this rich new voice, Ramona's voice ceased in
+surprise; and, throwing up her window, she leaned out, eagerly looking
+in all directions to see who it could be. Alessandro saw her, and sang
+no more.
+
+"What could it have been? Did I dream it?" thought Ramona, drew in her
+head, and began to sing again.
+
+With the next stanza of the chorus, the same rich barytone notes. They
+seemed to float in under all the rest, and bear them along, as a great
+wave bears a boat. Ramona had never heard such a voice. Felipe had
+a good tenor, and she liked to sing with him, or to hear him; but
+this--this was from another world, this sound. Ramona felt every note of
+it penetrating her consciousness with a subtle thrill almost like pain.
+When the hymn ended, she listened eagerly, hoping Father Salvierderra
+would strike up a second hymn, as he often did; but he did not this
+morning; there was too much to be done; everybody was in a hurry to
+be at work: windows shut, doors opened; the sounds of voices from all
+directions, ordering, questioning, answering, began to be heard. The sun
+rose and let a flood of work-a-day light on the whole place.
+
+Margarita ran and unlocked the chapel door, putting up a heartfelt
+thanksgiving to Saint Francis and the Senorita, as she saw the snowy
+altar-cloth in its place, looking, from that distance at least, as good
+as new.
+
+The Indians and the shepherds, and laborers of all sorts, were coming
+towards the chapel. The Senora, with her best black silk handkerchief
+bound tight around her forehead, the ends hanging down each side of her
+face, making her look like an Assyrian priestess, was descending the
+veranda steps, Felipe at her side; and Father Salvierderra had already
+entered the chapel before Ramona appeared, or Alessandro stirred from
+his vantage-post of observation at the willows.
+
+When Ramona came out from the door she bore in her hands a high silver
+urn filled with ferns. She had been for many days gathering and hoarding
+these. They were hard to find, growing only in one place in a rocky
+canon, several miles away.
+
+As she stepped from the veranda to the ground, Alessandro walked slowly
+up the garden-walk, facing her. She met his eyes, and, without knowing
+why, thought, "That must be the Indian who sang." As she turned to the
+right and entered the chapel, Alessandro followed her hurriedly, and
+knelt on the stones close to the chapel door. He would be near when she
+came out. As he looked in at the door, he saw her glide up the aisle,
+place the ferns on the reading-desk, and then kneel down by Felipe in
+front of the altar. Felipe turned towards her, smiling slightly, with a
+look as of secret intelligence.
+
+"Ah, Senor Felipe has married. She is his wife," thought Alessandro, and
+a strange pain seized him. He did not analyze it; hardly knew what it
+meant. He was only twenty-one. He had not thought much about women. He
+was a distant, cold boy, his own people of the Temecula village said.
+It had come, they believed, of learning to read, which was always bad.
+Chief Pablo had not done his son any good by trying to make him like
+white men. If the Fathers could have stayed, and the life at the Mission
+have gone on, why, Alessandro could have had work to do for the Fathers,
+as his father had before him. Pablo had been Father Peyri's right-hand
+man at the Mission; had kept all the accounts about the cattle; paid the
+wages; handled thousands of dollars of gold every month. But that was
+"in the time of the king;" it was very different now. The Americans
+would not let an Indian do anything but plough and sow and herd cattle.
+A man need not read and write, to do that.
+
+Even Pablo sometimes doubted whether he had done wisely in teaching
+Alessandro all he knew himself. Pablo was, for one of his race, wise and
+far-seeing. He perceived the danger threatening his people on all sides.
+Father Peyri, before he left the country, had said to him: "Pablo, your
+people will be driven like sheep to the slaughter, unless you keep them
+together. Knit firm bonds between them; band them into pueblos; make
+them work; and above all, keep peace with the whites. It is your only
+chance."
+
+Most strenuously Pablo had striven to obey Father Peyri's directions. He
+had set his people the example of constant industry, working steadily in
+his fields and caring well for his herds. He had built a chapel in his
+little village, and kept up forms of religious service there. Whenever
+there were troubles with the whites, or rumors of them, he went from
+house to house, urging, persuading, commanding his people to keep the
+peace. At one time when there was an insurrection of some of the Indian
+tribes farther south, and for a few days it looked as if there would
+be a general Indian war, he removed the greater part of his band, men,
+women, and children driving their flocks and herds with them, to
+Los Angeles, and camped there for several days, that they might be
+identified with the whites in case hostilities became serious.
+
+But his labors did not receive the reward that they deserved. With every
+day that the intercourse between his people and the whites increased,
+he saw the whites gaining, his people surely losing ground, and his
+anxieties deepened. The Mexican owner of the Temecula valley, a friend
+of Father Peyri's, and a good friend also of Pablo's, had returned
+to Mexico in disgust with the state of affairs in California, and was
+reported to be lying at the point of death. This man's promise to Pablo,
+that he and his people should always live in the valley undisturbed,
+was all the title Pablo had to the village lands. In the days when the
+promise was given, it was all that was necessary. The lines marking off
+the Indians' lands were surveyed, and put on the map of the estate. No
+Mexican proprietor ever broke faith with an Indian family or village,
+thus placed on his lands.
+
+But Pablo had heard rumors, which greatly disquieted him, that such
+pledges and surveyed lines as these were corning to be held as of no
+value, not binding on purchasers of grants. He was intelligent enough
+to see that if this were so, he and his people were ruined. All these
+perplexities and fears he confided to Alessandro; long anxious hours the
+father and son spent together, walking back and forth in the village, or
+sitting in front of their little adobe house, discussing what could be
+done. There was always the same ending to the discussion,--a long sigh,
+and, "We must wait, we can do nothing."
+
+No wonder Alessandro seemed, to the more ignorant and thoughtless young
+men and women of his village, a cold and distant lad. He was made old
+before his time. He was carrying in his heart burdens of which they
+knew nothing. So long as the wheat fields came up well, and there was
+no drought, and the horses and sheep had good pasture, in plenty, on the
+hills, the Temecula people could be merry, go day by day to their easy
+work, play games at sunset, and sleep sound all night. But Alessandro
+and his father looked beyond. And this was the one great reason why
+Alessandro had not yet thought about women, in way of love; this,
+and also the fact that even the little education he had received was
+sufficient to raise a slight barrier, of which he was unconsciously
+aware, between him and the maidens of the village. If a quick, warm
+fancy for any one of them ever stirred in his veins, he found himself
+soon, he knew not how, cured of it. For a dance, or a game, or a
+friendly chat, for the trips into the mountains after acorns, or to the
+marshes for grasses and reeds, he was their good comrade, and they were
+his; but never had the desire to take one of them for his wife, entered
+into Alessandro's mind. The vista of the future, for him, was filled
+full by thoughts which left no room for love's dreaming; one purpose and
+one fear filled it,--the purpose to be his father's worthy successor,
+for Pablo was old now, and very feeble; the fear, that exile and ruin
+were in store for them all.
+
+It was of these things he had been thinking as be walked alone, in
+advance of his men, on the previous night, when he first saw Ramona
+kneeling at the brook. Between that moment and the present, it seemed
+to Alessandro that some strange miracle must have happened to him. The
+purposes and the fears had alike gone. A face replaced them; a vague
+wonder, pain, joy, he knew not what, filled him so to overflowing that
+he was bewildered. If he had been what the world calls a civilized man,
+he would have known instantly and would have been capable of weighing,
+analyzing, and reflecting on his sensations at leisure. But he was not
+a civilized man; he had to bring to bear on his present situation only
+simple, primitive, uneducated instincts and impulses. If Ramona had been
+a maiden of his own people or race, he would have drawn near to her as
+quickly as iron to the magnet. But now, if he had gone so far as to even
+think of her in such a way, she would have been, to his view, as far
+removed from him as was the morning star beneath whose radiance he had
+that morning watched, hoping for sight of her at her window. He did not,
+however, go so far as to thus think of her. Even that would have
+been impossible. He only knelt on the stones outside the chapel door,
+mechanically repeating the prayers with the rest, waiting for her to
+reappear. He had no doubt, now, that she was Senor Felipe's wife; all
+the same he wished to kneel there till she came out, that he might see
+her face again. His vista of purpose, fear, hope, had narrowed now down
+to that,--just one more sight of her. Ever so civilized, he could hardly
+have worshipped a woman better. The mass seemed to him endlessly long.
+Until near the last, he forgot to sing; then, in the closing of the
+final hymn, he suddenly remembered, and the clear deep-toned voice
+pealed out, as before, like the undertone of a great sea-wave, sweeping
+along.
+
+Ramona heard the first note, and felt again the same thrill. She was as
+much a musician born as Alessandro himself. As she rose from her knees,
+she whispered to Felipe: "Felipe, do find out which one of the Indians
+it is has that superb voice. I never heard anything like it."
+
+"Oh, that is Alessandro," replied Felipe, "old Pablo's son. He is a
+splendid fellow. Don't you recollect his singing two years ago?"
+
+"I was not here," replied Ramona; "you forget."
+
+"Ah, yes, so you were away; I had forgotten," said Felipe. "Well, he
+was here. They made him captain of the shearing-band, though he was only
+twenty, and he managed the men splendidly. They saved nearly all their
+money to carry home, and I never knew them do such a thing before.
+Father Salvierderra was here, which might have had something to do with
+it; but I think it was quite as much Alessandro. He plays the violin
+beautifully. I hope he has brought it along. He plays the old San Luis
+Rey music. His father was band-master there."
+
+Ramona's eyes kindled with pleasure. "Does your mother like it, to have
+him play?" she asked.
+
+Felipe nodded. "We'll have him up on the veranda tonight," he said.
+
+While this whispered colloquy was going on, the chapel had emptied,
+the Indians and Mexicans all hurrying out to set about the day's work.
+Alessandro lingered at the doorway as long as he dared, till he was
+sharply called by Juan Canito, looking back: "What are you gaping at
+there, you Alessandro! Hurry, now, and get your men to work. After
+waiting till near midsummer for this shearing, we'll make as quick work
+of it as we can. Have you got your best shearers here?"
+
+"Ay, that I have," answered Alessandro; "not a man of them but can shear
+his hundred in a day, There is not such a band as ours in all San Diego
+County; and we don't turn out the sheep all bleeding, either; you'll see
+scarce a scratch on their sides."
+
+"Humph." retorted Juan Can. "'Tis a poor shearer, indeed, that draws
+blood to speak of. I've sheared many a thousand sheep in my day, and
+never a red stain on the shears. But the Mexicans have always been famed
+for good shearers."
+
+Juan's invidious emphasis on the word "Mexicans" did not escape
+Alessandro. "And we Indians also," he answered, good-naturedly,
+betraying no annoyance; "but as for these Americans, I saw one at work
+the other day, that man Lomax, who settled near Temecula, and upon my
+faith, Juan Can, I thought it was a slaughter-pen, and not a shearing.
+The poor beasts limped off with the blood running."
+
+Juan did not see his way clear at the moment to any fitting rejoinder to
+this easy assumption, on Alessandro's part, of the equal superiority
+of Indians and Mexicans in the sheep-shearing art; so, much vexed, with
+another "Humph!" he walked away; walked away so fast, that he lost the
+sight of a smile on Alessandro's face, which would have vexed him still
+further.
+
+At the sheep-shearing sheds and pens all was stir and bustle. The
+shearing shed was a huge caricature of a summerhouse,--a long, narrow
+structure, sixty feet long by twenty or thirty wide, all roof and
+pillars; no walls; the supports, slender rough posts, as far apart
+as was safe, for the upholding of the roof, which was of rough planks
+loosely laid from beam to beam. On three sides of this were the
+sheep-pens filled with sheep and lambs.
+
+A few rods away stood the booths in which the shearers' food was to be
+cooked and the shearers fed. These were mere temporary affairs, roofed
+only by willow boughs with the leaves left on. Near these, the Indians
+had already arranged their camp; a hut or two of green boughs had
+been built, but for the most part they would sleep rolled up in their
+blankets, on the ground. There was a brisk wind, and the gay 
+wings of the windmill blew furiously round and round, pumping out into
+the tank below a stream of water so swift and strong, that as the men
+crowded around, wetting and sharpening their knives, they got well
+spattered, and had much merriment, pushing and elbowing each other into
+the spray.
+
+A high four-posted frame stood close to the shed; in this, swung from
+the four corners, hung one of the great sacking bags in which the
+fleeces were to be packed. A big pile of bags lay on the ground at the
+foot of the posts. Juan Can eyed them with a chuckle. "We'll fill more
+than those before night, Senor Felipe," he said. He was in his element,
+Juan Can, at shearing times. Then came his reward for the somewhat
+monotonous and stupid year's work. The world held no better feast for
+his eyes than the sight of a long row of big bales of fleece, tied,
+stamped with the Moreno brand, ready to be drawn away to the mills.
+"Now, there is something substantial," he thought; "no chance of wool
+going amiss in market!"
+
+If a year's crop were good, Juan's happiness was assured for the next
+six months. If it proved poor, he turned devout immediately, and
+spent the next six months calling on the saints for better luck, and
+redoubling his exertions with the sheep.
+
+On one of the posts of the shed short projecting slats were nailed, like
+half-rounds of a ladder. Lightly as a rope-walker Felipe ran up these,
+to the roof, and took his stand there, ready to take the fleeces and
+pack them in the bag as fast as they should be tossed up from below.
+Luigo, with a big leathern wallet fastened in front of him, filled with
+five-cent pieces, took his stand in the centre of the shed. The thirty
+shearers, running into the nearest pen, dragged each his sheep into
+the shed, in a twinkling of an eye had the creature between his knees,
+helpless, immovable, and the sharp sound of the shears set in. The
+sheep-shearing had begun. No rest now. Not a second's silence from the
+bleating, baa-ing, opening and shutting, clicking, sharpening of shears,
+flying of fleeces through the air to the roof, pressing and stamping
+them down in the bales; not a second's intermission, except the hour of
+rest at noon, from sunrise till sunset, till the whole eight thousand
+of the Senora Moreno's sheep were shorn. It was a dramatic spectacle. As
+soon as a sheep was shorn, the shearer ran with the fleece in his
+hand to Luigo, threw it down on a table, received his five-cent piece,
+dropped it in his pocket, ran to the pen, dragged out another sheep, and
+in less than five minutes was back again with a second fleece. The shorn
+sheep, released, bounded off into another pen, where, light in the head
+no doubt from being three to five pounds lighter on their legs, they
+trotted round bewilderedly for a moment, then flung up their heels and
+capered for joy.
+
+It was warm work. The dust from the fleeces and the trampling feet
+filled the air. As the sun rose higher in the sky the sweat poured off
+the men's faces; and Felipe, standing without shelter on the roof, found
+out very soon that he had by no means yet got back his full strength
+since the fever. Long before noon, except for sheer pride, and for
+the recollection of Juan Canito's speech, he would have come down and
+yielded his place to the old man. But he was resolved not to give up,
+and he worked on, though his face was purple and his head throbbing.
+After the bag of fleeces is half full, the packer stands in it, jumping
+with his full weight on the wool, as he throws in the fleeces, to
+compress them as much as possible. When Felipe began to do this, he
+found that he had indeed overrated his strength. As the first cloud of
+the sickening dust came up, enveloping his head, choking his breath,
+he turned suddenly dizzy, and calling faintly, "Juan, I am ill," sank
+helpless down in the wool. He had fainted. At Juan Canito's scream of
+dismay, a great hubbub and outcry arose; all saw instantly what had
+happened. Felipe's head was hanging limp over the edge of the bag, Juan
+in vain endeavoring to get sufficient foothold by his side to lift him.
+One after another the men rushed up the ladder, until they were all
+standing, a helpless, excited crowd, on the roof, one proposing one
+thing, one another. Only Luigo had had the presence of mind to run to
+the house for help. The Senora was away from home. She had gone with
+Father Salvierderra to a friend's house, a half-day's journey off.
+But Ramona was there. Snatching all she could think of in way of
+restoratives, she came flying back with Luigo, followed by every servant
+of the establishment, all talking, groaning, gesticulating, suggesting,
+wringing their hands,--as disheartening a Babel as ever made bad matters
+worse.
+
+Reaching the shed, Ramona looked up to the roof bewildered. "Where is
+he?" she cried. The next instant she saw his head, held in Juan Canito's
+arms, just above the edge of the wool-bag. She groaned, "Oh, how will he
+ever be lifted out!"
+
+"I will lift him, Senora," cried Alessandro, coming to the front, "I am
+very strong. Do not be afraid; I will bring him safe down." And swinging
+himself down the ladder, he ran swiftly to the camp, and returned,
+bringing in his hands blankets. Springing quickly to the roof again,
+he knotted the blankets firmly together, and tying them at the middle
+around his waist, threw the ends to his men, telling them to hold him
+firm. He spoke in the Indian tongue as he was hurriedly doing this,
+and Ramona did not at first understand his plan. But when she saw
+the Indians move a little back from the edge of the roof, holding the
+blankets firm grasped, while Alessandro stepped out on one of the narrow
+cross-beams from which the bag swung, she saw what he meant to do. She
+held her breath. Felipe was a slender man; Alessandro was much heavier,
+and many inches taller. Still, could any man carry such a burden safely
+on that narrow beam! Ramona looked away, and shut her eyes, through
+the silence which followed. It was only a few moments; but it seemed an
+eternity before a glad murmur of voices told her that it was done, and
+looking up, she saw Felipe lying on the roof, unconscious, his face
+white, his eyes shut. At this sight, all the servants broke out afresh,
+weeping and wailing, "He is dead! He is dead!"
+
+Ramona stood motionless, her eyes fixed on Felipe's face. She, too,
+believed him dead; but her thought was of the Senora.
+
+"He is not dead," cried Juan Canito, who had thrust his hand under
+Felipe's shirt. "He is not dead. It is only a faint."
+
+At this the first tears rolled down Ramona's face. She looked piteously
+at the ladder up and down which she had seen Alessandro run as if it
+were an easy indoor staircase. "If I could only get up there!" she said,
+looking from one to another. "I think I can;" and she put one foot on
+the lower round.
+
+"Holy Virgin!" cried Juan Can, seeing her movement. "Senorita! Senorita!
+do not attempt it. It is not too easy for a man. You will break your
+neck. He is fast coming to his senses."
+
+Alessandro caught the words. Spite of all the confusion and terror of
+the scene, his heart heard the word, "Senorita." Ramona was not the
+wife of Felipe, or of any man. Yet Alessandro recollected that he had
+addressed her as Senora, and she did not seem surprised. Coming to the
+front of the group he said, bending forward, "Senorita!" There must
+have been something in the tone which made Ramona start. The simple word
+could not have done it. "Senorita," said Alessandro, "it will be nothing
+to bring Senor Felipe down the ladder. He is, in my arms, no more
+than one of the lambs yonder. I will bring him down as soon as he is
+recovered. He is better here till then. He will very soon be himself
+again. It was only the heat." Seeing that the expression of anxious
+distress did not grow less on Ramona's face, he continued, in a tone
+still more earnest, "Will not the Senorita trust me to bring him safe
+down?"
+
+Ramona smiled faintly through her tears. "Yes," she said, "I will trust
+you. You are Alessandro, are you not?"
+
+"Yes, Senorita," he answered, greatly surprised, "I am Alessandro."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+A BAD beginning did not make a good ending of the Senora Moreno's
+sheep-shearing this year. One as superstitiously prejudiced against
+Roman Catholic rule as she was in favor of it, would have found, in the
+way things fell out, ample reason for a belief that the Senora was
+being punished for having let all the affairs of her place come to a
+standstill, to await the coming of an old monk. But the pious Senora,
+looking at the other side of the shield, was filled with gratitude
+that, since all this ill luck was to befall her, she had the good Father
+Salvierderra at her side to give her comfort and counsel.
+
+It was not yet quite noon of the first day, when Felipe fainted and fell
+in the wool; and it was only a little past noon of the third, when
+Juan Canito, who, not without some secret exultation, had taken Senor
+Felipe's place at the packing, fell from the cross-beam to the ground,
+and broke his right leg,--a bad break near the knee; and Juan Canito's
+bones were much too old for fresh knitting. He would never again be able
+to do more than hobble about on crutches, dragging along the useless
+leg. It was a cruel blow to the old man. He could not be resigned to
+it. He lost faith in his saints, and privately indulged in blasphemous
+beratings and reproaches of them, which would have filled the Senora
+with terror, had she known that such blasphemies were being committed
+under her roof.
+
+"As many times as I have crossed that plank, in my day!" cried Juan;
+"only the fiends themselves could have made me trip; and there was that
+whole box of candles I paid for with my own money last month, and burned
+to Saint Francis in the chapel for this very sheep-shearing! He may sit
+in the dark, for all me, to the end of time! He is no saint at all! What
+are they for, if not to keep us from harm when we pray to them? I'll
+pray no more. I believe the Americans are right, who laugh at us." From
+morning till night, and nearly from night till morning, for the leg
+ached so he slept little, poor Juan groaned and grumbled and swore, and
+swore and grumbled and groaned. Taking care of him was enough, Margarita
+said, to wear out the patience of the Madonna herself. There was no
+pleasing him, whatever you did, and his tongue was never still a minute.
+For her part, she believed that it must be as he said, that the fiends
+had pushed him off the plank, and that the saints had had their reasons
+for leaving him to his fate. A coldness and suspicion gradually grew up
+in the minds of all the servants towards him. His own reckless language,
+combined with Margarita's reports, gave the superstitious fair ground
+for believing that something had gone mysteriously wrong, and that the
+Devil was in a fair way to get his soul, which was very hard for the old
+man, in addition to all the rest he had to bear. The only alleviation he
+had for his torments, was in having his fellow-servants, men and women,
+drop in, sit by his pallet, and chat with him, telling him all that was
+going on; and when by degrees they dropped off, coming more and more
+seldom, and one by one leaving off coming altogether, it was the one
+drop that overflowed his cup of misery; and he turned his face to the
+wall, left off grumbling, and spoke only when he must.
+
+This phase frightened Margarita even more than the first. Now, she
+thought, surely the dumb terror and remorse of one who belongs to the
+Devil had seized him, and her hands trembled as she went through the
+needful ministrations for him each day. Three months, at least, the
+doctor, who had come from Ventura to set the leg, had said he must lie
+still in bed and be thus tended. "Three months!" sighed Margarita. "If I
+be not dead or gone crazy myself before the end of that be come!"
+
+The Senora was too busy with Felipe to pay attention or to give thought
+to Juan. Felipe's fainting had been the symptom and beginning of a
+fierce relapse of the fever, and he was lying in his bed, tossing and
+raving in delirium, always about the wool.
+
+"Throw them faster, faster! That's a good fleece; five pounds more; a
+round ton in those bales. Juan! Alessandro! Captain!--Jesus, how this
+sun burns my head!"
+
+Several times he had called "Alessandro" so earnestly, that Father
+Salvierderra advised bringing Alessandro into the room, to see if by any
+chance there might have been something in his mind that he wished to say
+to him. But when Alessandro stood by the bedside, Felipe gazed at
+him vacantly, as he did at all the others, still repeating, however,
+"Alessandro! Alessandro!"
+
+"I think perhaps he wants Alessandro to play on his violin," sobbed out
+Ramona. "He was telling me how beautifully Alessandro played, and said
+he would have him up on the veranda in the evening to play to us."
+
+"We might try it," said Father Salvierderra. "Have you your violin here,
+Alessandro?"
+
+"Alas, no, Father," replied Alessandro, "I did not bring it."
+
+"Perhaps it would do him good it you were to sing, then," said Ramona.
+"He was speaking of your voice also."
+
+"Oh, try, try." said the Senorita, turning to Alessandro. "Sing
+something low and soft."
+
+Alessandro walked from the bed to the open window, and after thinking
+for a moment, began a slow strain from one of the masses.
+
+At the first note, Felipe became suddenly quiet, evidently listening. An
+expression of pleasure spread over his feverish face. He turned his head
+to one side, put his hand under his cheek and closed his eyes. The three
+watching him looked at each other in astonishment.
+
+"It is a miracle," said Father Salvierderra. "He will sleep."
+
+"It was what he wanted!" whispered Ramona.
+
+The Senora spoke not, but buried her face in the bedclothes for a
+second; then lifting it, she gazed at Alessandro as if she were praying
+to a saint. He, too, saw the change in Felipe, and sang lower and lower,
+till the notes sounded as if they came from afar; lower and lower,
+slower; finally they ceased, as if they died away lost in distance. As
+they ceased, Felipe opened his eyes.
+
+"Oh, go on, go on!" the Senora implored in a whisper shrill with
+anxiety. "Do not stop!"
+
+Alessandro repeated the strain, slow, solemn; his voice trembled; the
+air in the room seemed stifling, spite of the open window; he felt
+something like terror, as he saw Felipe evidently sinking to sleep by
+reason of the notes of his voice. There had been nothing in Alessandro's
+healthy outdoor experience to enable him to understand such a
+phenomenon. Felipe breathed more and more slowly, softly, regularly;
+soon he was in a deep sleep. The singing stopped; Felipe did not stir.
+
+"Can I go?" whispered Alessandro.
+
+"No, no." replied the Senora, impatiently. "He may wake any minute."
+
+Alessandro looked troubled, but bowed his head submissively, and
+remained standing by the window. Father Salvierderra was kneeling on
+one side of the bed, the Senora at the other, Ramona at the foot,--all
+praying; the silence was so great that the slight sounds of the rosary
+beads slipping against each other seemed loud. In a niche in the wall,
+at the head of the bed, stood a statue of the Madonna, on the other side
+a picture of Santa Barbara. Candles were burning before each. The long
+wicks smouldered and died down, sputtering, then flared up again as
+the ends fell into the melted wax. The Senora's eyes were fixed on the
+Madonna. The Father's were closed. Ramona gazed at Felipe with tears
+streaming down her face as she mechanically told her beads.
+
+"She is his betrothed, no doubt," thought Alessandro. "The saints will
+not let him die;" and Alessandro also prayed. But the oppression of the
+scene was too much for him. Laying his hand on the low window-sill, he
+vaulted over it, saying to Ramona, who turned her head at the sound,
+"I will not go away, Senorita, I will be close under the window, if he
+awakes."
+
+Once in the open air, he drew a long breath, and gazed bewilderedly
+about him, like one just recovering consciousness after a faint. Then
+he threw himself on the ground under the window, and lay looking up into
+the sky. Capitan came up, and with a low whine stretched himself out at
+full length by his side. The dog knew as well as any other one of the
+house that danger and anguish were there.
+
+One hour passed, two, three; still no sound from Felipe's room.
+Alessandro rose, and looked in at the window. The Father and the Senora
+had not changed their attitudes; their lips were yet moving in prayer.
+But Ramona had yielded to her fatigue; slipped from her knees into a
+sitting posture, with her head leaning against the post of the bedstead,
+and fallen asleep. Her face was swollen and discolored by weeping, and
+heavy circles under her eyes told how tired she was. For three days and
+nights she had scarcely rested, so constant were the demands on her.
+Between Felipe's illness and Juan Can's, there was not a moment without
+something to be done, or some perplexing question to be settled, and
+above all, and through all, the terrible sorrow. Ramona was broken down
+with grief at the thought of Felipe's death. She had never known till
+she saw him lying there delirious, and as she in her inexperience
+thought, dying, how her whole life was entwined with his. But now, at
+the very thought of what it would be to live without him, her heart
+sickened. "When he is buried, I will ask Father Salvierderra to take
+me away. I never can live here alone," she said to herself, never for a
+moment perceiving that the word "alone" was a strange one to have come
+into her mind in the connection. The thought of the Senora did not enter
+into her imaginations of the future which so smote her with terror. In
+the Senora's presence, Ramona always felt herself alone.
+
+Alessandro stood at the window, his arms folded, leaning on the sill,
+his eyes fixed on Ramona's face and form. To any other than a lover's
+eyes she had not looked beautiful now; but to Alessandro she looked more
+beautiful than the picture of Santa Barbara on the wall beyond. With a
+lover's instinct he knew the thoughts which had written such lines
+on her face in the last three days. "It will kill her if he dies,"
+he thought, "if these three days have made her look like that." And
+Alessandro threw himself on the ground again, his face down. He did not
+know whether it were an hour or a day that he had lain there, when he
+heard Father Salvierderra's voice speaking his name. He sprang up, to
+see the old monk standing in the window, tears running down his cheeks.
+"God be praised," he said, "the Senor Felipe will get well. A sweat has
+broken out on his skin; he still sleeps, but when he wakes he will be in
+his right mind. The strength of the fever is broken. But, Alessandro, we
+know not how to spare you. Can you not let the men go without you, and
+remain here? The Senora would like to have you remain in Juan Can's
+place till he is about. She will give you the same wages he had. Would
+it not be a good thing for you, Alessandro? You cannot be sure of
+earning so much as that for the next three months, can you?"
+
+While the Father was speaking, a tumult had been going on in
+Alessandro's breast. He did not know by name any of the impulses which
+were warring there, tearing him in twain, as it were, by their pulling
+in opposite directions; one saying "Stay!" and the other saying "Go!"
+He would not have known what any one meant, who had said to him, "It
+is danger to stay; it is safety to fly." All the same, he felt as if he
+could do neither.
+
+"There is another shearing yet, Father," he began, "at the Ortega's
+ranch. I had promised to go to them as soon as I had finished here, and
+they have been wroth enough with us for the delay already. It will not
+do to break the promise, Father."
+
+Father Salvierderra's face fell. "No, my son, certainly not," he said;
+"but could no one else take your place with the band?"
+
+Hearing these words, Ramona came to the window, and leaning out,
+whispered, "Are you talking about Alessandro's staying? Let me come
+and talk to him. He must not go." And running swiftly through the hall,
+across the veranda, and down the steps, she stood by Alessandro's side
+in a moment. Looking up in his face pleadingly, she said: "We can't let
+you go, Alessandro. The Senor will pay wages to some other to go in your
+place with the shearers. We want you to stay here in Juan Can's place
+till he is well. Don't say you can't stay! Felipe may need you to sing
+again, and what would we do then? Can't you stay?"
+
+"Yes, I can stay, Senorita," answered Alessandro, gravely. "I will stay
+so long as you need me."
+
+"Oh, thank you, Alessandro!" Ramona cried. "You are good, to stay. The
+Senora will see that it is no loss to you;" and she flew back to the
+house.
+
+"It is not for the wages, Senorita," Alessandro began; but Ramona
+was gone. She did not hear him, and he turned away with a sense of
+humiliation. "I don't want the Senorita to think that it was the money
+kept me," he said, turning to Father Salvierderra. "I would not leave
+the band for money; it is to help, because they are in trouble, Father."
+
+"Yes, yes, son. I understand that," replied the monk, who had known
+Alessandro since he was a little fellow playing in the corridors of San
+Luis Rey, the pet of all the Brothers there. "That is quite right of
+you, and the Senora will not be insensible of it. It is not for such
+things that money can pay. They are indeed in great trouble now, and
+only the two women in the house; and I must soon be going on my way
+North again."
+
+"Is it sure that Senor Felipe will get well?" asked Alessandro.
+
+"I think so," replied Father Salvierderra. "These relapses are always
+worse than the first attack; but I have never known one to die, after
+he had the natural sweat to break from the skin, and got good sleep. I
+doubt not he will be in his bed, though, for many days, and there will
+be much to be seen to. It was an ill luck to have Juan Can laid up,
+too, just at this time. I must go and see him; I hear he is in most
+rebellious frame of mind, and blasphemes impiously."
+
+"That does he!" said Alessandro. "He swears the saints gave him over to
+the fiends to push him off the plank, and he'll have none of them from
+this out! I told him to beware, or they might bring him to worse things
+yet if he did not mend his speech of them."
+
+Sighing deeply as they walked along, the monk said: "It is but a sign
+of the times. Blasphemers are on the highway. The people are being
+corrupted. Keeps your father the worship in the chapel still, and does a
+priest come often to the village?"
+
+"Only twice a year," replied Alessandro; "and sometimes for a funeral,
+if there is money enough to pay for the mass. But my father has the
+chapel open, and each Sunday we sing what we know of the mass; and the
+people are often there praying."
+
+"Ay, ay! Ever for money!" groaned Father Salvierderra, not heeding the
+latter part of the sentence. "Ever for money! It is a shame. But that it
+were sure to be held as a trespass, I would go myself to Temecula once
+in three months; but I may not. The priests do not love our order."
+
+"Oh, if you could, Father," exclaimed Alessandro, "it would make my
+father very glad! He speaks often to me of the difference he sees
+between the words of the Church now and in the days of the Mission. He
+is very sad, Father, and in great fear about our village. They say the
+Americans, when they buy the Mexicans' lands, drive the Indians away as
+if they were dogs; they say we have no right to our lands. Do you think
+that can be so, Father, when we have always lived on them, and the
+owners promised them to us forever?"
+
+Father Salvierderra was silent a long time before replying, and
+Alessandro watched his face anxiously. He seemed to be hesitating for
+words to convey his meaning. At last he said: "Got your father any
+notice, at any time since the Americans took the country,--notice to
+appear before a court, or anything about a title to the land?"
+
+"No, Father," replied Alessandro.
+
+"There has to be some such paper, as I understand their laws," continued
+the monk; "some notice, before any steps can be taken to remove Indians
+from an estate. It must be done according to the law, in the courts. If
+you have had no such notice, you are not in danger."
+
+"But, Father," persisted Alessandro, "how could there be a law to take
+away from us the land which the Senor Valdez gave us forever?"
+
+"Gave he to you any paper, any writing to show it?"
+
+"No, no paper; but it is marked in red lines on the map. It was marked
+off by Jose Ramirez, of Los Angeles, when they marked all the boundaries
+of Senor Valdez's estate. They had many instruments of brass and wood to
+measure with, and a long chain, very heavy, which I helped them carry.
+I myself saw it marked on the map. They all slept in my father's
+house,--Senor Valdez, and Ramirez, and the man who made the measures. He
+hired one of our men to carry his instruments, and I went to help, for I
+wished to see how it was done; but I could understand nothing, and Jose
+told me a man must study many years to learn the way of it. It seemed to
+me our way, by the stones, was much better. But I know it is all marked
+on the map, for it was with a red line; and my father understood it, and
+Jose Ramirez and Senor Valdez both pointed to it with their finger, and
+they said, 'All this here is your land, Pablo, always.' I do not think
+my father need fear, do you?"
+
+"I hope not," replied Father Salvierderra, cautiously; "but since the
+way that all the lands of the Missions have been taken away, I have
+small faith in the honesty of the Americans. I think they will take all
+that they can. The Church has suffered terrible loss at their hands."
+
+"That is what my father says," replied Alessandro. "He says, 'Look at
+San Luis Rey! Nothing but the garden and orchard left, of all their vast
+lands where they used to pasture thirty thousand sheep. If the Church
+and the Fathers could not keep their lands, what can we Indians do?'
+That is what my father says."
+
+"True, true!" said the monk, as he turned into the door of the room
+where Juan Can lay on his narrow bed, longing yet fearing to see Father
+Salvierderra's face coming in. "We are all alike helpless in their
+hands, Alessandro. They possess the country, and can make what laws they
+please. We can only say, 'God's will be done,'" and he crossed himself
+devoutly, repeating the words twice.
+
+Alessandro did the same, and with a truly devout spirit, for he was full
+of veneration for the Fathers and their teachings; but as he walked on
+towards the shearing-shed he thought: "Then, again, how can it be God's
+will that wrong be done? It cannot be God's will that one man should
+steal from another all he has. That would make God no better than a
+thief, it looks to me. But how can it happen, if it is not God's will?"
+
+It does not need that one be educated, to see the logic in this formula.
+Generations of the oppressed and despoiled, before Alessandro, had
+grappled with the problem in one shape or another.
+
+At the shearing-shed, Alessandro found his men in confusion and
+ill-humor. The shearing had been over and done by ten in the morning,
+and why were they not on their way to the Ortega's? Waiting all day,--it
+was now near sunset,--with nothing to do, and still worse with not
+much of anything to eat, had made them all cross; and no wonder. The
+economical Juan Can, finding that the work would be done by ten, and
+supposing they would be off before noon, had ordered only two sheep
+killed for them the day before, and the mutton was all gone, and old
+Marda, getting her cue from Juan, had cooked no more frijoles than the
+family needed themselves; so the poor shearers had indeed had a sorry
+day of it, in no wise alleviated either by the reports brought from time
+to time that their captain was lying on the ground, face down, under
+Senor Felipe's window, and must not be spoken to.
+
+It was not a propitious moment for Alessandro to make the announcement
+of his purpose to leave the band; but he made a clean breast of it in
+few words, and diplomatically diverted all resentment from himself by
+setting them immediately to voting for a new captain to take his place
+for the remainder of the season.
+
+"Very well!" they said hotly; "captain for this year, captain for next,
+too!" It wasn't so easy to step out and in again of the captaincy of the
+shearers!
+
+"All right," said Alessandro; "please yourselves! It is all the same
+to me. But here I am going to stay for the present. Father Salvierderra
+wishes it."
+
+"Oh, if the Father wishes it, that is different." "Ah, that alters
+the case!" "Alessandro is right!" came up in confused murmur from the
+appeased crowd. They were all good Catholics, every one of the Temecula
+men, and would never think of going against the Father's orders. But
+when they understood that Alessandro's intention was to remain until
+Juan Canito's leg should be well enough for him to go about again, fresh
+grumblings began. That would not do. It would be all summer. Alessandro
+must be at home for the Saint Juan's Day fete, in midsummer,--no doing
+anything without Alessandro then. What was he thinking of? Not of the
+midsummer fete, that was certain, when he promised to stay as long as
+the Senorita Ramona should need him. Alessandro had remembered nothing
+except the Senorita's voice, while she was speaking to him. If he had
+had a hundred engagements for the summer, he would have forgotten
+them all. Now that he was reminded of the midsummer fete, it must be
+confessed he was for a moment dismayed at the recollection; for that was
+a time, when, as he well knew, his father could not do without his help.
+There were sometimes a thousand Indians at this fete, and disorderly
+whites took advantage of the occasion to sell whisky and encourage all
+sorts of license and disturbance. Yes, Alessandro's clear path of duty
+lay at Temecula when that fete came off. That was certain.
+
+"I will manage to be at home then," he said. "If I am not through here
+by that time, I will at least come for the fete. That you may depend
+on."
+
+The voting for the new captain did not take long. There was, in fact,
+but one man in the band fit for the office. That was Fernando, the only
+old man in the band; all the rest were young men under thirty, or boys.
+Fernando had been captain for several years, but had himself begged,
+two years ago, that the band would elect Alessandro in his place. He was
+getting old, and he did not like to have to sit up and walk about the
+first half of every night, to see that the shearers were not gambling
+away all their money at cards; he preferred to roll himself up in his
+blanket at sunset and sleep till dawn the next morning. But just for
+these few remaining weeks he had no objection to taking the office
+again. And Alessandro was right, entirely right, in remaining; they
+ought all to see that, Fernando said; and his word had great weight with
+the men.
+
+The Senora Moreno, he reminded them, had always been a good friend
+of theirs, and had said that so long as she had sheep to shear, the
+Temecula shearers should do it; and it would be very ungrateful now if
+they did not do all they could to help her in her need.
+
+The blankets were rolled up, the saddles collected, the ponies caught
+and driven up to the shed, when Ramona and Margarita were seen coming at
+full speed from the house.
+
+"Alessandro! Alessandro!" cried Ramona, out of breath, "I have only just
+now heard that the men have had no dinner to-day. I am ashamed; but you
+know it would not have happened except for the sickness in the house.
+Everybody thought they were going away this morning. Now they must have
+a good supper before they go. It is already cooking. Tell them to wait."
+
+Those of the men who understood the Spanish language, in which Ramona
+spoke, translated it to those who did not, and there was a cordial
+outburst of thanks to the Senorita from all lips. All were only too
+ready to wait for the supper. Their haste to begin on the Ortega
+sheep-shearing had suddenly faded from their minds. Only Alessandro
+hesitated.
+
+"It is a good six hours' ride to Ortega's," he said to the men. "You'll
+be late in, if you do not start now."
+
+"Supper will be ready in an hour," said Ramona. "Please let them stay;
+one hour can't make any difference."
+
+Alessandro smiled. "It will take nearer two, Senorita, before they are
+off," he said; "but it shall be as you wish, and many thanks to you,
+Senorita, for thinking of it."
+
+"Oh, I did not think of it myself," said Ramona. "It was Margarita,
+here, who came and told me. She knew we would be ashamed to have the
+shearers go away hungry. I am afraid they are very hungry indeed," she
+added ruefully. "It must be dreadful to go a whole day without anything
+to eat; they had their breakfast soon after sunrise, did they not?"
+
+"Yes, Senorita," answered Alessandro, "but that is not long; one can do
+without food very well for one day. I often do."
+
+"Often." exclaimed Ramona; "but why should you do that?" Then suddenly
+bethinking herself, she said in her heart, "Oh, what a thoughtless
+question! Can it be they are so poor as that?" And to save Alessandro
+from replying, she set off on a run for the house, saying, "Come, come,
+Margarita, we must go and help at the supper."
+
+"Will the Senorita let me help, too," asked Alessandro, wondering at his
+own boldness,--"if there is anything I can do?"
+
+"Oh, no," she cried, "there is not. Yes, there is, too. You can help
+carry the things down to the booth; for we are short of hands now, with
+Juan Can in bed, and Luigo gone to Ventura for the doctor. You and some
+of your men might carry all the supper over. I'll call you when we are
+ready."
+
+The men sat down in a group and waited contentedly, smoking, chatting,
+and laughing. Alessandro walked up and down between the kitchen and
+the shed. He could hear the sounds of rattling dishes, jingling spoons,
+frying, pouring water. Savory smells began to be wafted out. Evidently
+old Marda meant to atone for the shortcoming of the noon. Juan Can, in
+his bed, also heard and smelled what was going on. "May the fiends get
+me," he growled, "if that wasteful old hussy isn't getting up a feast
+for those beasts of Indians! There's mutton and onions, and peppers
+stewing, and potatoes, I'll be bound, and God knows what else, for
+beggars that are only too thankful to get a handful of roasted wheat or
+a bowl of acorn porridge at home. Well, they'll have to say they
+were well feasted at the Moreno's,--that's one comfort. I wonder if
+Margarita'll think I am worthy of tasting that stew! San Jose! but it
+smells well! Margarita! Margarita!" he called at top of his lungs; but
+Margarita did not hear. She was absorbed in her duties in the kitchen;
+and having already taken Juan at sundown a bowl of the good broth which
+the doctor had said was the only sort of food he must eat for two weeks,
+she had dismissed him from her mind for the night. Moreover, Margarita
+was absent-minded to-night. She was more than half in love with the
+handsome Alessandro, who, when he had been on the ranch the year
+before, had danced with her, and said many a light pleasant word to her,
+evenings, as a young man may; and what ailed him now, that he seemed,
+when he saw her, as if she were no more than a transparent shade,
+through which he stared at the sky behind her, she did not know. Senor
+Felipe's illness, she thought, and the general misery and confusion,
+had perhaps put everything else out of his head; but now he was going
+to stay, and it would be good fun having him there, if only Senor Felipe
+got well, which he seemed likely to do. And as Margarita flew about,
+here, there, and everywhere, she cast frequent glances at the tall
+straight figure pacing up and down in the dusk outside.
+
+Alessandro did not see her. He did not see anything. He was looking off
+at the sunset, and listening. Ramona had said, "I will call you when we
+are ready." But she did not do as she said. She told Margarita to call.
+
+"Run, Margarita," she said. "All is ready now; see if Alessandro is in
+sight. Call him to come and take the things."
+
+So it was Margarita's voice, and not Ramona's, that called "Alessandro!
+Alessandro! the supper is ready."
+
+But it was Ramona who, when Alessandro reached the doorway, stood there
+holding in her arms a huge smoking platter of the stew which had so
+roused poor Juan Can's longings; and it was Ramona who said, as she gave
+it into Alessandro's hands, "Take care, Alessandro, it is very full. The
+gravy will run over if you are not careful. You are not used to waiting
+on table;" and as she said it, she smiled full into Alessandro's
+eyes,--a little flitting, gentle, friendly smile, which went near to
+making him drop the platter, mutton, gravy, and all, then and there, at
+her feet.
+
+The men ate fast and greedily, and it was not, after all, much more than
+an hour, when, full fed and happy, they were mounting their horses to
+set off. At the last moment Alessandro drew one of them aside. "Jose,"
+he said, "whose horse is the faster, yours or Antonio's?"
+
+"Mine," promptly replied Jose. "Mine, by a great deal. I will run
+Antonio any day he likes."
+
+Alessandro knew this as well before asking as after. But Alessandro was
+learning a great many things in these days, among other things a little
+diplomacy. He wanted a man to ride at the swiftest to Temecula and back.
+He knew that Jose's pony could go like the wind. He also knew that there
+was a perpetual feud of rivalry between him and Antonio, in matter of
+the fleetness of their respective ponies. So, having chosen Jose for
+his messenger, he went thus to work to make sure that he would urge his
+horse to its utmost speed.
+
+Whispering in Jose's ear a few words, he said, "Will you go? I will pay
+you for the time, all you could earn at the shearing."
+
+"I will go," said Jose, elated. "You will see me back tomorrow by
+sundown."
+
+"Not earlier?" asked Alessandro. "I thought by noon."
+
+"Well, by noon be it, then," said Jose. "The horse can do it."
+
+"Have great care!" said Alessandro.
+
+"That will I," replied Jose; and giving his horse's sides a sharp punch
+with his knees, set off at full gallop westward.
+
+"I have sent Jose with a message to Temecula," said Alessandro, walking
+up to Fernando. "He will be back here tomorrow noon, and join you at the
+Ortega's the next morning."
+
+"Back here by noon to-morrow!" exclaimed Fernando. "Not unless he kills
+his horse!"
+
+"That was what he said," replied Alessandro, nonchalantly.
+
+"Easy enough, too!" cried Antonio, riding up on his little dun mare.
+"I'd go in less time than that, on this mare. Jose's is no match for
+her, and never was. Why did you not send me, Alessandro?"
+
+"Is your horse really faster than Jose's?" said Alessandro. "Then I wish
+I had sent you. I'll send you next time."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+IT was strange to see how quickly and naturally Alessandro fitted into
+his place in the household. How tangles straightened out, and rough
+places became smooth, as he quietly took matters in hand. Luckily, old
+Juan Can had always liked him, and felt a great sense of relief at the
+news of his staying on. Not a wholly unselfish relief, perhaps, for
+since his accident Juan had not been without fears that he might lose
+his place altogether; there was a Mexican he knew, who had long
+been scheming to get the situation, and had once openly boasted at
+a fandango, where he was dancing with Anita, that as soon as that
+superannuated old fool, Juan Canito, was out of the way, he meant to
+be the Senora Moreno's head shepherd himself. To have seen this man in
+authority on the place, would have driven Juan out of his mind.
+
+But the gentle Alessandro, only an Indian,--and of course the Senora
+would never think of putting an Indian permanently in so responsible a
+position on the estate,--it was exactly as Juan would have wished; and
+he fraternized with Alessandro heartily from the outset; kept him in
+his room by the hour, giving him hundreds of long-winded directions and
+explanations about things which, if only he had known it, Alessandro
+understood far better than he did.
+
+Alessandro's father had managed the Mission flocks and herds at San Luis
+Rey for twenty years; few were as skilful as he; he himself owned nearly
+as many sheep as the Senora Moreno; but this Juan did not know. Neither
+did he realize that Alessandro, as Chief Pablo's son, had a position
+of his own not without dignity and authority. To Juan, an Indian was
+an Indian, and that was the end of it. The gentle courteousness of
+Alessandro's manner, his quiet behavior, were all set down in Juan's
+mind to the score of the boy's native amiability and sweetness. If Juan
+had been told that the Senor Felipe himself had not been more carefully
+trained in all precepts of kindliness, honorable dealing, and polite
+usage, by the Senora, his mother, than had Alessandro by his father, he
+would have opened his eyes wide. The standards of the two parents
+were different, to be sure; but the advantage could not be shown to be
+entirely on the Senora's side. There were many things that Felipe knew,
+of which Alessandro was profoundly ignorant; but there were others
+in which Alessandro could have taught Felipe; and when it came to the
+things of the soul, and of honor, Alessandro's plane was the higher
+of the two. Felipe was a fair-minded, honorable man, as men go; but
+circumstances and opportunity would have a hold on him they could never
+get on Alessandro. Alessandro would not lie; Felipe might. Alessandro
+was by nature full of veneration and the religious instinct; Felipe had
+been trained into being a good Catholic. But they were both singularly
+pure-minded, open-hearted, generous-souled young men, and destined, by
+the strange chance which had thus brought them into familiar relations,
+to become strongly attached to each other. After the day on which
+the madness of Felipe's fever had been so miraculously soothed and
+controlled by Alessandro's singing, he was never again wildly delirious.
+When he waked in the night from that first long sleep, he was, as Father
+Salvierderra had predicted, in his right mind; knew every one, and asked
+rational questions. But the over-heated and excited brain did not
+for some time wholly resume normal action. At intervals he wandered,
+especially when just arousing from sleep; and, strangely enough, it
+was always for Alessandro that he called at these times, and it seemed
+always to be music that he craved. He recollected Alessandro's having
+sung to him that first night. "I was not so crazy as you all thought,"
+he said. "I knew a great many of the things I said, but I couldn't help
+saying them; and I heard Ramona ask Alessandro to sing; and when he
+began, I remember I thought the Virgin had reached down and put her hand
+on my head and cooled it."
+
+On the second evening, the first after the shearers had left,
+Alessandro, seeing Ramona in the veranda, went to the foot of the steps,
+and said, "Senorita, would Senor Felipe like to have me play on the
+violin to him tonight?"
+
+"Why, whose violin have you got?" exclaimed Ramona, astonished.
+
+"My own, Senorita."
+
+"Your own! I thought you said you did not bring it."
+
+"Yes, Senorita, that is true; but I sent for it last night, and it is
+here."
+
+"Sent to Temecula and back already!" cried Ramona.
+
+"Yes, Senorita. Our ponies are swift and strong. They can go a hundred
+miles in a day, and not suffer. It was Jose brought it, and he is at the
+Ortega's by this time."
+
+Ramona's eyes glistened. "I wish I could have thanked him," she said.
+"You should have let me know. He ought to have been paid for going."
+
+"I paid him, Senorita; he went for me," said Alessandro, with a shade of
+wounded pride in the tone, which Ramona should have perceived, but did
+not, and went on hurting the lover's heart still more.
+
+"But it was for us that you sent for it, Alessandro; the Senora would
+rather pay the messenger herself."
+
+"It is paid, Senorita. It is nothing. If the Senor Felipe wishes to hear
+the violin, I will play;" and Alessandro walked slowly away.
+
+Ramona gazed after him. For the first time, she looked at him with no
+thought of his being an Indian,--a thought there had surely been no need
+of her having, since his skin was not a shade darker than Felipe's;
+but so strong was the race feeling, that never till that moment had she
+forgotten it.
+
+"What a superb head, and what a walk!" she thought. Then, looking more
+observantly, she said: "He walks as if he were offended. He did not
+like my offering to pay for the messenger. He wanted to do it for dear
+Felipe. I will tell Felipe, and we will give him some present when he
+goes away."
+
+"Isn't he splendid, Senorita?" came in a light laughing tone from
+Margarita's lips close to her ear, in the fond freedom of their
+relation. "Isn't he splendid? And oh, Senorita, you can't think how he
+dances! Last year I danced with him every night; he has wings on his
+feet, for all he is so tall and big."
+
+There was a coquettish consciousness in the girl's tone, that was
+suddenly, for some unexplained reason, exceedingly displeasing to
+Ramona. Drawing herself away, she spoke to Margarita in a tone she had
+never before in her life used. "It is not fitting to speak like that
+about young men. The Senora would be displeased if she heard you," she
+said, and walked swiftly away leaving poor Margarita as astounded as if
+she had got a box on the ear.
+
+She looked after Ramona's retreating figure, then after Alessandro's.
+She had heard them talking together just before she came up. Thoroughly
+bewildered and puzzled, she stood motionless for several seconds,
+reflecting; then, shaking her head, she ran away, trying to dismiss the
+harsh speech from her mind. "Alessandro must have vexed the Senorita,"
+she thought, "to make her speak like that to me." But the incident was
+not so easily dismissed from Margarita's thoughts. Many times in the
+day it recurred to her, still a bewilderment and a puzzle, as far from
+solution as ever. It was a tiny seed, whose name she did not dream of;
+but it was dropped in soil where it would grow some day,--forcing-house
+soil, and a bitter seed; and when it blossomed, Ramona would have an
+enemy.
+
+All unconscious, equally of Margarita's heart and her own, Ramona
+proceeded to Felipe's room. Felipe was sleeping, the Senora sitting by
+his side, as she had sat for days and nights,--her dark face looking
+thinner and more drawn each day; her hair looking even whiter, if that
+could be; and her voice growing hollow from faintness and sorrow.
+
+"Dear Senora," whispered Ramona, "do go out for a few moments while he
+sleeps, and let me watch,--just on the walk in front of the veranda. The
+sun is still lying there, bright and warm. You will be ill if you do not
+have air."
+
+The Senora shook her head. "My place is here," she answered, speaking in
+a dry, hard tone. Sympathy was hateful to the Senora Moreno; she wished
+neither to give it nor take it. "I shall not leave him. I do not need
+the air."
+
+Ramona had a cloth-of-gold rose in her hand. The veranda eaves were now
+shaded with them, hanging down like a thick fringe of golden tassels. It
+was the rose Felipe loved best. Stooping, she laid it on the bed, near
+Felipe's head. "He will like to see it when he wakes," she said.
+
+The Senora seized it, and flung it far out in the room. "Take it away!
+Flowers are poison when one is ill," she said coldly. "Have I never told
+you that?"
+
+"No, Senora," replied Ramona, meekly; and she glanced involuntarily at
+the saucer of musk which the Senora kept on the table close to Felipe's
+pillow.
+
+"The musk is different," said the Senora, seeing the glance. "Musk is a
+medicine; it revives."
+
+Ramona knew, but she would have never dared to say, that Felipe hated
+musk. Many times he had said to her how he hated the odor; but his
+mother was so fond of it, that it must always be that the veranda and
+the house would be full of it. Ramona hated it too. At times it made her
+faint, with a deadly faintness. But neither she nor Felipe would have
+confessed as much to the Senora; and if they had, she would have thought
+it all a fancy.
+
+"Shall I stay?" asked Ramona, gently.
+
+"As you please," replied the Senora. The simple presence of Ramona irked
+her now with a feeling she did not pretend to analyze, and would
+have been terrified at if she had. She would not have dared to say
+to herself, in plain words: "Why is that girl well and strong, and my
+Felipe lying here like to die! If Felipe dies, I cannot bear the sight
+of her. What is she, to be preserved of the saints!"
+
+But that, or something like it, was what she felt whenever Ramona
+entered the room; still more, whenever she assisted in ministering to
+Felipe. If it had been possible, the Senora would have had no hands but
+her own do aught for her boy. Even tears from Ramona sometimes irritated
+her. "What does she know about loving Felipe! He is nothing to her!"
+thought the Senora, strangely mistaken, strangely blind, strangely
+forgetting how feeble is the tie of blood in the veins by the side of
+love in the heart.
+
+If into this fiery soul of the Senora's could have been dropped one
+second's knowledge of the relative positions she and Ramona already
+occupied in Felipe's heart, she would, on the spot, have either died
+herself or have slain Ramona, one or the other. But no such knowledge
+was possible; no such idea could have found entrance into the Senora's
+mind. A revelation from Heaven of it could hardly have reached even her
+ears. So impenetrable are the veils which, fortunately for us all, are
+forever held by viewless hands between us and the nearest and closest of
+our daily companions.
+
+At twilight of this day Felipe was restless and feverish again. He had
+dozed at intervals all day long, but had had no refreshing sleep.
+
+"Send for Alessandro," he said. "Let him come and sing to me."
+
+"He has his violin now; he can play, if you would like that better,"
+said Ramona; and she related what Alessandro had told her of the
+messenger's having ridden to Temecula and back in a night and half a
+day, to bring it.
+
+"I wanted to pay the man," she said; "I knew of course your mother would
+wish to reward him. But I fancy Alessandro was offended. He answered me
+shortly that it was paid, and it was nothing."
+
+"You couldn't have offended him more," said Felipe. "What a pity! He is
+as proud as Lucifer himself, that Alessandro. You know his father has
+always been the head of their band; in fact, he has authority over
+several bands; General, they call it now, since they got the title from
+the Americans; they used to call it Chief., and until Father Peyri left
+San Luis Rey, Pablo was in charge of all the sheep, and general steward
+and paymaster. Father Peyri trusted him with everything; I've heard he
+would leave boxes full of uncounted gold in Pablo's charge to pay off
+the Indians. Pablo reads and writes, and is very well off; he has as
+many sheep as we have, I fancy!"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Ramona, astonished. "They all look as if they were
+poor."
+
+"Oh, well, so they are," replied Felipe, "compared with us; but one
+reason is, they share everything with each other. Old Pablo feeds and
+supports half his village, they say. So long as he has anything, he will
+never see one of his Indians hungry."
+
+"How generous!" warmly exclaimed Ramona; "I think they are better than
+we are, Felipe!"
+
+"I think so, too," said Felipe. "That's what I have always said. The
+Indians are the most generous people in the world. Of course they have
+learned it partly from us; but they were very much so when the Fathers
+first came here. You ask Father Salvierderra some day. He has read
+all Father Junipero's and Father Crespi's diaries, and he says it is
+wonderful how the wild savages gave food to every one who came."
+
+"Felipe, you are talking too much," said the Senora's voice, in the
+doorway; and as she spoke she looked reproachfully at Ramona. If she
+had said in words, "See how unfit you are to be trusted with Felipe. No
+wonder I do not leave the room except when I must!" her meaning could
+not have been plainer. Ramona felt it keenly, and not without some
+misgiving that it was deserved.
+
+"Oh, dear Felipe, has it hurt you?" she said timidly; and to the Senora,
+"Indeed, Senora, he has been speaking but a very few moments, very low."
+
+"Go call Alessandro, Ramona, will you?" said Felipe. "Tell him to bring
+his violin. I think I will go to sleep if he plays."
+
+A long search Ramona had for Alessandro. Everybody had seen him a few
+minutes ago, but nobody knew where he was now. Kitchens, sheepfolds,
+vineyards, orchards, Juan Can's bedchamber,--Ramona searched them all
+in vain. At last, standing at the foot of the veranda steps, and looking
+down the garden, she thought she saw figures moving under the willows by
+the washing-stones.
+
+"Can he be there?" she said. "What can he be doing there? Who is it with
+him?" And she walked down the path, calling, "Alessandro! Alessandro!"
+
+At the first sound, Alessandro sprang from the side of his companion,
+and almost before the second syllables had been said, was standing face
+to face with Ramona.
+
+"Here I am, Senorita. Does Senor Felipe want me? I have my violin here.
+I thought perhaps he would like to have me play to him in the twilight."
+
+"Yes," replied Ramona, "he wishes to hear you. I have been looking
+everywhere for you." As she spoke, she was half unconsciously peering
+beyond into the dusk, to see whose figure it was, slowly moving by the
+brook.
+
+Nothing escaped Alessandro's notice where Ramona was concerned. "It is
+Margarita," he said instantly. "Does the Senorita want her? Shall I run
+and call her?"
+
+"No," said Ramona, again displeased, she knew not why, nor in fact knew
+she was displeased; "no, I was not looking for her. What is she doing
+there?"
+
+"She is washing," replied Alessandro, innocently.
+
+"Washing at this time of day!" thought Ramona, severely. "A mere
+pretext. I shall watch Margarita. The Senora would never allow this sort
+of thing." And as she walked back to the house by Alessandro's side,
+she meditated whether or no she would herself speak to Margarita on the
+subject in the morning.
+
+Margarita, in the mean time, was also having her season of reflections
+not the pleasantest. As she soused her aprons up and down in the water,
+she said to herself, "I may as well finish them now I am here. How
+provoking! I've no more than got a word with him, than she must come,
+calling him away. And he flies as if he was shot on an arrow, at
+the first word. I'd like to know what's come over the man, to be so
+different. If I could ever get a good half-hour with him alone, I'd soon
+find out. Oh, but his eyes go through me, through and through me! I
+know he's an Indian, but what do I care for that. He's a million times
+handsomer than Senor Felipe. And Juan Jose said the other day he'd make
+enough better head shepherd than old Juan Can, if Senor Felipe'd only
+see it; and why shouldn't he get to see it, if Alessandro's here
+all summer?" And before the aprons were done, Margarita had a fine
+air-castle up: herself and Alessandro married, a nice little house,
+children playing in the sunshine below the artichoke-patch, she herself
+still working for the Senora. "And the Senorita will perhaps marry Senor
+Felipe," she added, her thoughts moving more hesitatingly. "He worships
+the ground she walks on. Anybody with quarter of a blind eye can see
+that; but maybe the Senora would not let him. Anyhow, Senor Felipe is
+sure to have a wife, and so and so." It was an innocent, girlish castle,
+built of sweet and natural longings, for which no maiden, high or
+low, need blush; but its foundations were laid in sand, on which would
+presently beat such winds and floods as poor little Margarita never
+dreamed of.
+
+The next day Margarita and Ramona both went about their day's business
+with a secret purpose in their hearts. Margarita had made up her mind
+that before night she would, by fair means or foul, have a good long
+talk with Alessandro. "He was fond enough of me last year, I know,"
+she said to herself, recalling some of the dances and the good-night
+leave-takings at that time. "It's because he is so put upon by everybody
+now. What with Juan Can in one bed sending for him to prate to him about
+the sheep, and Senor Felipe in another sending for him to fiddle him to
+sleep, and all the care of the sheep, it's a wonder he's not out of his
+mind altogether. But I'll find a chance, or make one, before this day's
+sun sets. If I can once get a half-hour with him, I'm not afraid after
+that; I know the way it is with men!" said the confident Margarita,
+who, truth being told, it must be admitted, did indeed know a great
+deal about the way it is with men, and could be safely backed, in a fair
+field, with a fair start, against any girl of her age and station in
+the country. So much for Margarita's purpose, at the outset of a day
+destined to be an eventful one in her life.
+
+Ramona's purpose was no less clear. She had decided, after some
+reflection, that she would not speak to the Senora about Margarita's
+having been under the willows with Alessandro in the previous evening,
+but would watch her carefully and see whether there were any farther
+signs of her attempting to have clandestine interviews with him.
+
+This course she adopted, she thought, chiefly because of her affection
+for Margarita, and her unwillingness to expose her to the Senora's
+displeasure, which would be great, and terrible to bear. She was also
+aware of an unwillingness to bring anything to light which would reflect
+ever so lightly upon Alessandro in the Senora's estimation. "And he is
+not really to blame," thought Ramona, "if a girl follows him about and
+makes free with him. She must have seen him at the willows, and gone
+down there on purpose to meet him, making a pretext of the washing. For
+she never in this world would have gone to wash in the dark, as he must
+have known, if he were not a fool. He is not the sort of person, it
+seems to me, to be fooling with maids. He seems as full of grave thought
+as Father Salvierderra. If I see anything amiss in Margarita to-day, I
+shall speak to her myself, kindly but firmly, and tell her to conduct
+herself more discreetly."
+
+Then, as the other maiden's had done, Ramona's thoughts, being
+concentrated on Alessandro, altered a little from their first key, and
+grew softer and more imaginative; strangely enough, taking some of the
+phrases, as it were, out of the other maiden's mouth.
+
+"I never saw such eyes as Alessandro has," she said. "I wonder any girl
+should make free with him. Even I myself, when he fixes his eyes on me,
+feel a constraint. There is something in them like the eyes of a saint,
+so solemn, yet so mild. I am sure he is very good."
+
+And so the day opened; and if there were abroad in the valley that day
+a demon of mischief, let loose to tangle the skeins of human affairs,
+things could not have fallen out better for his purpose than they did;
+for it was not yet ten o'clock of the morning, when Ramona, sitting at
+her embroidery in the veranda, half hid behind the vines, saw Alessandro
+going with his pruning-knife in his hand towards the artichoke-patch at
+the east of the garden, and joining the almond orchard. "I wonder
+what he is going to do there," she thought. "He can't be going to cut
+willows;" and her eyes followed him till he disappeared among the trees.
+
+Ramona was not the only one who saw this. Margarita, looking from the
+east window of Father Salvierderra's room, saw the same thing. "Now's
+my chance!" she said; and throwing a white reboso coquettishly over her
+head, she slipped around the corner of the house. She ran swiftly in the
+direction in which Alessandro had gone. The sound of her steps reached
+Ramona, who, lifting her eyes, took in the whole situation at a glance.
+There was no possible duty, no possible message, which would take
+Margarita there. Ramona's cheeks blazed with a disproportionate
+indignation. But she bethought herself, "Ah, the Senora may have sent
+her to call Alessandro!" She rose, went to the door of Felipe's room,
+and looked in. The Senora was sitting in the chair by Felipe's bed,
+with her eyes closed. Felipe was dozing. The Senora opened her eyes, and
+looked inquiringly at Ramona.
+
+"Do you know where Margarita is?" said Ramona.
+
+"In Father Salvierderra's room, or else in the kitchen helping Marda,"
+replied the Senora, in a whisper. "I told her to help Marda with the
+peppers this morning."
+
+Ramona nodded, returned to the veranda, and sat down to decide on
+her course of action. Then she rose again, and going to Father
+Salvierderra's room, looked in. The room was still in disorder.
+Margarita had left her work there unfinished. The color deepened on
+Ramona's cheeks. It was strange how accurately she divined each process
+of the incident. "She saw him from this window," said Ramona, "and has
+run after him. It is shameful. I will go and call her back, and let her
+see that I saw it all. It is high time that this was stopped."
+
+But once back in the veranda, Ramona halted, and seated herself in her
+chair again. The idea of seeming to spy was revolting to her.
+
+"I will wait here till she comes back," she said, and took up her
+embroidery. But she could not work. As the minutes went slowly by, she
+sat with her eyes fixed on the almond orchard, where first Alessandro
+and then Margarita had disappeared. At last she could bear it no longer.
+It seemed to her already a very long time. It was not in reality very
+long,--a half hour or so, perhaps; but it was long enough for Margarita
+to have made great headway, as she thought, in her talk with Alessandro,
+and for things to have reached just the worst possible crisis at which
+they could have been surprised, when Ramona suddenly appeared at the
+orchard gate, saying in a stern tone, "Margarita, you are wanted in the
+house!" At a bad crisis, indeed, for everybody concerned. The picture
+which Ramona had seen, as she reached the gate, was this: Alessandro,
+standing with his back against the fence, his right hand hanging
+listlessly down, with the pruning-knife in it, his left hand in the hand
+of Margarita, who stood close to him, looking up in his face, with a
+half-saucy, half-loving expression. What made bad matters worse, was,
+that at the first sight of Ramona, Alessandro snatched his hand from
+Margarita's, and tried to draw farther off from her, looking at her with
+an expression which, even in her anger, Ramona could not help seeing was
+one of disgust and repulsion. And if Ramona saw it, how much more did
+Margarita! Saw it, as only a woman repulsed in presence of another woman
+can see and feel. The whole thing was over in the twinkling of an eye;
+the telling it takes double, treble the time of the happening. Before
+Alessandro was fairly aware what had befallen, Ramona and Margarita
+were disappearing from view under the garden trellis,--Ramona walking in
+advance, stately, silent, and Margarita following, sulky, abject in her
+gait, but with a raging whirlwind in her heart.
+
+It had taken only the twinkling of an eye, but it had told Margarita the
+truth. Alessandro too.
+
+"My God." he said, "the Senorita thought me making love to that girl.
+May the fiends get her! The Senorita looked at me as if I were a dog. How
+could she think a man would look at a woman after he had once seen her!
+And I can never, never speak to her to tell her! Oh, this cannot be
+borne!" And in his rage Alessandro threw his pruning-knife whirling
+through the air so fiercely, it sank to the hilt in one of the old
+olive-trees. He wished he were dead. He was minded to flee the place.
+How could he ever look the Senorita in the face again!
+
+"Perdition take that girl!" he said over and over in his helpless
+despair. An ill outlook for Margarita after this; and the girl had not
+deserved it.
+
+In Margarita's heart the pain was more clearly defined. She had seen
+Ramona a half-second before Alessandro had; and dreaming no special
+harm, except a little confusion at being seen thus standing with
+him,--for she would tell the Senorita all about it when matters had gone
+a little farther,--had not let go of Alessandro's hand. But the next
+second she had seen in his face a look; oh, she would never forget it,
+never! That she should live to have had any man look at her like that!
+At the first glimpse of the Senorita, all the blood in his body seemed
+rushing into his face, and he had snatched his hand away,--for it was
+Margarita herself that had taken his hand, not he hers,--had snatched
+his hand away, and pushed her from him, till she had nearly fallen. All
+this might have been borne, if it had been only a fear of the Senorita's
+seeing them, which had made him do it. But Margarita knew a great deal
+better than that. That one swift, anguished, shame-smitten, appealing,
+worshipping look on Alessandro's face, as his eyes rested on Ramona, was
+like a flash of light into Margarita's consciousness. Far better than
+Alessandro himself, she now knew his secret. In her first rage she did
+not realize either the gulf between herself and Ramona, or that between
+Ramona and Alessandro. Her jealous rage was as entire as if they had
+all been equals together. She lost her head altogether, and there was
+embodied insolence in the tone in which she said presently, "Did the
+Senorita want me?"
+
+Turning swiftly on her, and looking her full in the eye, Ramona said:
+"I saw you go to the orchard, Margarita, and I knew what you went for. I
+knew that you were at the brook last night with Alessandro. All I wanted
+of you was, to tell you that if I see anything more of this sort, I
+shall speak to the Senora."
+
+"There is no harm," muttered Margarita, sullenly. "I don't know what the
+Senorita means."
+
+"You know very well, Margarita," retorted Ramona. "You know that the
+Senora permits nothing of the kind. Be careful, now, what you do." And
+with that the two separated, Ramona returning to the veranda and her
+embroidery, and Margarita to her neglected duty of making the good
+Father's bed. But each girl's heart was hot and unhappy; and Margarita's
+would have been still hotter and unhappier, had she heard the words
+which were being spoken on the veranda a little later.
+
+After a few minutes of his blind rage at Margarita, himself, and fate
+generally, Alessandro, recovering his senses, had ingeniously persuaded
+himself that, as the Senora's; and also the Senorita's servant, for the
+time being, he owed it to them to explain the situation in which he had
+just been found. Just what he was to say he did not know; but no sooner
+had the thought struck him, than he set off at full speed for the house,
+hoping to find Ramona on the veranda, where he knew she spent all her
+time when not with Senor Felipe.
+
+When Ramona saw him coming, she lowered her eyes, and was absorbed in
+her embroidery. She did not wish to look at him.
+
+The footsteps stopped. She knew he was standing at the steps. She would
+not look up. She thought if she did not, he would go away. She did not
+know either the Indian or the lover nature. After a time, finding the
+consciousness of the soundless presence intolerable, she looked up, and
+surprised on Alessandro's face a gaze which had, in its long interval
+of freedom from observation, been slowly gathering up into it all the
+passion of the man's soul, as a burning-glass draws the fire of the
+sun's rays. Involuntarily a low cry burst from Ramona's lips, and she
+sprang to her feet.
+
+"Ah! did I frighten the Senorita? Forgive. I have been waiting here a
+long time to speak to her. I wished to say--"
+
+Suddenly Alessandro discovered that he did not know what he wished to
+say.
+
+As suddenly, Ramona discovered that she knew all he wished to say. But
+she spoke not, only looked at him searchingly.
+
+"Senorita," he began again, "I would never be unfaithful to my duty to
+the Senora, and to you."
+
+"I believe you, Alessandro," said Ramona. "It is not necessary to say
+more."
+
+At these words a radiant joy spread over Alessandro's face. He had not
+hoped for this. He felt, rather than heard, that Ramona understood him.
+He felt, for the first time, a personal relation between himself and
+her.
+
+"It is well," he said, in the brief phrase so frequent with his people.
+"It is well." And with a reverent inclination of his head, he walked
+away. Margarita, still dawdling surlily over her work in Father
+Salvierderra's room, heard Alessandro's voice, and running to discover
+to whom he was speaking, caught these last, words. Peering from behind
+a curtain, she saw the look with which he said them; saw also the
+expression on Ramona's face as she listened.
+
+Margarita clenched her hands. The seed had blossomed. Ramona had an
+enemy.
+
+"Oh, but I am glad Father Salvierderra has gone!" said the girl,
+bitterly. "He'd have had this out of me, spite of everything. I haven't
+got to confess for a year, maybe; and much can happen in that time."
+
+Much, indeed!
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+FELIPE gained but slowly. The relapse was indeed, as Father Salvierderra
+had said, worse than the original attack. Day after day he lay with
+little apparent change; no pain, but a weakness so great that it was
+almost harder to bear than sharp suffering would have been. Nearly every
+day Alessandro was sent for to play or sing to him. It seemed to be the
+only thing that roused him from his half lethargic state. Sometimes he
+would talk with Alessandro on matters relative to the estate, and show
+for a few moments something like his old animation; but he was soon
+tired, and would close his eyes, saying: "I will speak with you again
+about this, Alessandro; I am going to sleep now. Sing."
+
+The Senora, seeing Felipe's enjoyment of Alessandro's presence, soon
+came to have a warm feeling towards him herself; moreover, she greatly
+liked his quiet reticence. There was hardly a surer road to the Senora's
+favor, for man or woman, than to be chary of speech and reserved
+in demeanor. She had an instinct of kinship to all that was silent,
+self-contained, mysterious, in human nature. The more she observed
+Alessandro, the more she trusted and approved him. Luckily for Juan Can,
+he did not know how matters were working in his mistress's mind. If he
+had, he would have been in a fever of apprehension, and would have got
+at swords' points with Alessandro immediately. On the contrary, all
+unaware of the real situation of affairs, and never quite sure that the
+Mexican he dreaded might not any day hear of his misfortune, and appear,
+asking for the place, he took every opportunity to praise Alessandro to
+the Senora. She never visited his bedside that he had not something to
+say in favor of the lad, as he called him.
+
+"Truly, Senora," he said again and again, "I do marvel where the lad
+got so much knowledge, at his age. He is like an old hand at the sheep
+business. He knows more than any shepherd I have,--a deal more; and it
+is not only of sheep. He has had experience, too, in the handling of
+cattle. Juan Jose has been beholden to him more than once, already, for
+a remedy of which he knew not. And such modesty, withal. I knew not that
+there were such Indians; surely there cannot be many such."
+
+"No, I fancy not," the Senora would reply, absently. "His father is a
+man of intelligence, and has trained his son well."
+
+"There is nothing he is not ready to do," continued Alessandro's
+eulogist. "He is as handy with tools as if he had been 'prenticed to a
+carpenter. He has made me a new splint for my leg, which was a relief
+like salve to a wound, so much easier was it than before. He is a good
+lad,--a good lad."
+
+None of these sayings of Juan's were thrown away on the Senora. More and
+more closely she watched Alessandro; and the very thing which Juan
+had feared, and which he had thought to avert by having Alessandro his
+temporary substitute, was slowly coming to pass. The idea was working
+in the Senora's mind, that she might do a worse thing than engage this
+young, strong, active, willing man to remain permanently in her employ.
+The possibility of an Indian's being so born and placed that he would
+hesitate about becoming permanently a servant even to the Senora Moreno,
+did not occur to her. However, she would do nothing hastily. There would
+be plenty of time before Juan Can's leg was well. She would study the
+young man more. In the mean time, she would cause Felipe to think of the
+idea, and propose it.
+
+So one day she said to Felipe: "What a voice that Alessandro has,
+Felipe. We shall miss his music sorely when he goes, shall we not?"
+
+"He's not going!" exclaimed Felipe, startled.
+
+"Oh, no, no; not at present. He agreed to stay till Juan Can was
+about again; but that will be not more than six weeks now, or eight, I
+suppose. You forget how time has flown while you have been lying here
+ill, my son."
+
+"True, true!" said Felipe. "Is it really a month already?" and he
+sighed.
+
+"Juan Can tells me that the lad has a marvellous knowledge for one of
+his years," continued the Senora. "He says he is as skilled with cattle
+as with sheep; knows more than any shepherd we have on the place. He
+seems wonderfully quiet and well-mannered. I never saw an Indian who had
+such behavior."
+
+"Old Pablo is just like him," said Felipe. "It was natural enough,
+living so long with Father Peyri. And I've seen other Indians, too, with
+a good deal the same manner as Alessandro. It's born in them."
+
+"I can't bear the idea of Alessandro's going away. But by that time you
+will be well and strong," said the Senora; "you would not miss him then,
+would you?"
+
+"Yes, I would, too!" said Felipe, pettishly. He was still weak enough to
+be childish. "I like him about me. He's worth a dozen times as much as
+any man we've got. But I don't suppose money could hire him to stay on
+any ranch."
+
+"Were you thinking of hiring him permanently?" asked the Senora, in a
+surprised tone. "I don't doubt you could do so if you wished. They are
+all poor, I suppose; he would not work with the shearers if he were not
+poor."
+
+"Oh, it isn't that," said Felipe, impatiently. "You can't understand,
+because you've never been among them. But they are just as proud as we
+are. Some of them, I mean; such men as old Pablo. They shear sheep for
+money just as I sell wool for money. There isn't so much difference.
+Alessandro's men in the band obey him, and all the men in the village
+obey Pablo, just as implicitly as my men here obey me. Faith, much more
+so!" added Felipe, laughing. "You can't understand it, mother, but it's
+so. I am not at all sure I could offer Alessandro Assis money enough to
+tempt him to stay here as my servant."
+
+The Senora's nostrils dilated in scorn. "No, I do not understand it,"
+she said. "Most certainly I do not understand it. Of what is it that
+these noble lords of villages are so proud? their ancestors,--naked
+savages less than a hundred years ago? Naked savages they themselves
+too, to-day, if we had not come here to teach and civilize them. The
+race was never meant for anything but servants. That was all the Fathers
+ever expected to make of them,--good, faithful Catholics, and contented
+laborers in the fields. Of course there are always exceptional
+instances, and I think, myself, Alessandro is one. I don't believe,
+however, he is so exceptional, but that if you were to offer him, for
+instance, the same wages you pay Juan Can, he would jump at the chance
+of staying on the place."
+
+"Well, I shall think about it," said Felipe. "I'd like nothing better
+than to have him here always. He's a fellow I heartily like. I'll think
+about it."
+
+Which was all the Senora wanted done at present.
+
+Ramona had chanced to come in as this conversation was going on. Hearing
+Alessandro's name she seated herself at the window, looking out, but
+listening intently. The month had done much for Alessandro with
+Ramona, though neither Alessandro nor Ramona knew it. It had done
+this much,--that Ramona knew always when Alessandro was near, that she
+trusted him, and that she had ceased to think of him as an Indian any
+more than when she thought of Felipe, she thought of him as a Mexican.
+Moreover, seeing the two men frequently together, she had admitted to
+herself, as Margarita had done before her, that Alessandro was far the
+handsomer man of the two. This Ramona did not like to admit, but she
+could not help it.
+
+"I wish Felipe were as tall and strong as Alessandro," she said to
+herself many a time. "I do not see why he could not have been. I wonder
+if the Senora sees how much handsomer Alessandro is."
+
+When Felipe said that he did not believe he could offer Alessandro Assis
+money enough to tempt him to stay on the place, Ramona opened her lips
+suddenly, as if to speak, then changed her mind, and remained silent.
+She had sometimes displeased the Senora by taking part in conversations
+between her and her son.
+
+Felipe saw the motion, but he also thought it wiser to wait till after
+his mother had left the room, before he asked Ramona what she was on the
+point of saying. As soon as the Senora went out, he said, "What was it,
+Ramona, you were going to say just now?"
+
+Ramona . She had decided not to say it.
+
+"Tell me, Ramona," persisted Felipe. "You were going to say something
+about Alessandro's staying; I know you were."
+
+Ramona did not answer. For the first time in her life she found herself
+embarrassed before Felipe.
+
+"Don't you like Alessandro?" said Felipe.
+
+"Oh, yes!" replied Ramona, with instant eagerness. "It was not that at
+all. I like him very much;" But then she stopped.
+
+"Well, what is it, then? Have you heard anything on the place about his
+staying?"
+
+"Oh, no, no; not a word!" said Ramona. "Everybody understands that he is
+here only till Juan Can gets well. But you said you did not believe you
+could offer him money enough to tempt him to stay."
+
+"Well," said Felipe, inquiringly, "I do not. Do you?"
+
+"I think he would like to stay," said Ramona, hesitatingly. "That was
+what I was going to say."
+
+"What makes you think so?" asked Felipe.
+
+"I don't know," Ramona said, still more hesitatingly. Now that she had
+said it, she was sorry. Felipe looked curiously at her. Hesitancy like
+this, doubts, uncertainty as to her impressions, were not characteristic
+of Ramona. A flitting something which was far from being suspicion
+or jealousy, and yet was of kin to them both, went through Felipe's
+mind,--went through so swiftly that he was scarce conscious of it; if
+he had been, he would have scorned himself. Jealous of an Indian
+sheep-shearers Impossible! Nevertheless, the flitting something left a
+trace, and prevented Felipe from forgetting the trivial incident; and
+after this, it was certain that Felipe would observe Ramona more closely
+than he had done; would weigh her words and actions; and if she should
+seem by a shade altered in either, would watch still more closely.
+Meshes were closing around Ramona. Three watchers of her every look and
+act,--Alessandro in pure love, Margarita in jealous hate, Felipe in love
+and perplexity. Only the Senora observed her not. If she had,
+matters might have turned out very differently, for the Senora was
+clear-sighted, rarely mistaken in her reading of people's motives, never
+long deceived; but her observing and discriminating powers were not in
+focus, so far as Ramona was concerned. The girl was curiously outside of
+the Senora's real life. Shelter, food, clothes, all external needs, in
+so far as her means allowed, the Senora would, without fail, provide for
+the child her sister had left in her hands as a trust; but a personal
+relation with her, a mother's affection, or even interest and
+acquaintance, no. The Senora had not that to give. And if she had it
+not, was she to blame? What could she do? Years ago Father Salvierderra
+had left off remonstrating with her on this point. "Is there more I
+should do for the child? Do you see aught lacking, aught amiss?" the
+Senora would ask, conscientiously, but with pride. And the Father, thus
+inquired of, could not point out a duty which had been neglected.
+
+"You do not love her, my daughter," he said.
+
+"No." Senora Moreno's truthfulness was of the adamantine order. "No, I
+do not. I cannot. One cannot love by act of will."
+
+"That is true," the Father would say sadly; "but affection may be
+cultivated."
+
+"Yes, if it exists," was the Senora's constant answer. "But in this case
+it does not exist. I shall never love Ramona. Only at your command, and
+to save my sister a sorrow, I took her. I will never fail in my duty to
+her."
+
+It was of no use. As well say to the mountain, "Be cast into the sea,"
+as try to turn the Senora's heart in any direction whither it did not of
+itself tend. All that Father Salvierderra could do, was to love Ramona
+the more himself, which he did heartily, and more and more each year,
+and small marvel at it; for a gentler, sweeter maiden never drew breath
+than this same Ramona, who had been all these years, save for Felipe,
+lonely in the Senora Moreno's house.
+
+Three watchers of Ramona now. If there had been a fourth, and that
+fourth herself, matters might have turned out differently. But how
+should Ramona watch? How should Ramona know? Except for her two years at
+school with the nuns, she had never been away from the Senora's house.
+Felipe was the only young man she had known,--Felipe, her brother since
+she was five years old.
+
+There were no gayeties in the Senora Moreno's home. Felipe, when he
+needed them, went one day's journey, or two, or three, to get them; went
+as often as he liked. Ramona never went. How many times she had longed
+to go to Santa Barbara, or to Monterey, or Los Angeles; but to have
+asked the Senora's permission to accompany her on some of her now
+infrequent journeys to these places would have required more courage
+than Ramona possessed. It was now three years since she left the convent
+school, but she was still as fresh from the hands of the nuns as on the
+day when, with loving tears, they had kissed her in farewell. The few
+romances and tales and bits of verse she had read were of the most
+innocent and old-fashioned kind, and left her hardly less childlike than
+before. This childlikeness, combined with her happy temperament, had
+kept her singularly contented in her monotonous life. She had fed the
+birds, taken care of the flowers, kept the chapel in order, helped in
+light household work, embroidered, sung, and, as the Senora eight
+years before had bade her do, said her prayers and pleased Father
+Salvierderra.
+
+By processes strangely unlike, she and Alessandro had both been kept
+strangely free from thoughts of love and of marriage,--he by living in
+the shadow, and she by living in the sun; his heart and thoughts filled
+with perplexities and fears, hers filled by a placid routine of light
+and easy tasks, and the outdoor pleasures of a child.
+
+As the days went on, and Felipe still remained feeble, Alessandro
+meditated a bold stroke. Each time that he went to Felipe's room to sing
+or to play, he felt himself oppressed by the air. An hour of it made him
+uncomfortable. The room was large, and had two windows, and the door was
+never shut; yet the air seemed to Alessandro stifling.
+
+"I should be as ill as the Senor Felipe, if I had to stay in that room,
+and a bed is a weakening thing, enough to pull the strongest man down,"
+said Alessandro to Juan Can one day. "Do you think I should anger them
+if I asked them to let me bring Senor Felipe out to the veranda and put
+him on a bed of my making? I'd wager my head I'd put him on his feet in
+a week."
+
+"And if you did that, you might ask the Senora for the half of the
+estate, and get it, lad," replied Juan, Seeing the hot blood darkening
+in Alessandro's face at his words, he hastened to add, "Do not be so
+hot-blooded. I meant not that you would ask any reward for doing it; I
+was only thinking what joy it would be to the Senora to see Senor Felipe
+on his feet again. It has often crossed my thoughts that if he did not
+get up from this sickness the Senora would not be long behind him. It is
+but for him that she lives. And who would have the estate in that case,
+I have never been able to find out."
+
+"Would it not be the Senorita?" asked Alessandro.
+
+Juan Can laughed an ugly laugh. "Ha, ha! Let the Senora hear you say
+that!" he said. "Faith, it will be little the Senorita gets more
+than enough for her bread, may be, out of the Moreno estate. Hark ye,
+Alessandro; if you will not tell, I will tell you the story of the
+Senorita. You know she is not of the Moreno blood; is no relation of
+theirs."
+
+"Yes," said Alessandro; "Margarita has said to me that the Senorita
+Ramona was only the foster-child of the Senora Moreno."
+
+"Foster-child!" repeated Juan Can, contemptuously, "there is something
+to the tale I know not, nor ever could find out; for when I was in
+Monterey the Ortegna house was shut, and I could not get speech of any
+of their people. But this much I know, that it was the Senora Ortegna
+that had the girl first in keeping; and there was a scandalous tale
+about her birth."
+
+If Juan Can's eyes had not been purblind with old age, he would have
+seen that in Alessandro's face which would have made him choose his
+words more carefully. But he went on: "It was after the Senora Ortegna
+was buried, that our Senora returned, bringing this child with her; and
+I do assure you, lad, I have seen the Senora look at her many a time as
+if she wished her dead. And it is a shame, for she was always as fair
+and good a child as the saints ever saw. But a stain on the blood, a
+stain on the blood, lad, is a bitter thing in a house. This much I know,
+her mother was an Indian. Once when I was in the chapel, behind the big
+Saint Joseph there, I overheard the Senora say as much. She was talking
+to Father Salvierderra, and she said, 'If the child had only the one
+blood in her veins, it would be different. I like not these crosses with
+Indians.'"
+
+If Alessandro had been civilized, he would at this word "Indian" have
+bounded to his feet. Being Alessandro, he stood if possible stiller than
+before, and said in a low voice, "How know you it was the mother that
+was the Indian?"
+
+Juan laughed again, maliciously: "Ha, it is the Ortegna face she has;
+and that Ortegna, why, he was the scandal byword of the whole coast.
+There was not a decent woman would have spoken to him, except for his
+wife's sake."
+
+"But did you not say that it was in the Senora Ortegna's keeping that
+the child was?" asked Alessandro, breathing harder and faster each
+moment now; stupid old Juan Can so absorbed in relish of his gossip,
+that he noticed nothing.
+
+"Ay, ay. So I said," he went on; "and so it was. There be such saints,
+you know; though the Lord knows if she had been minded to give shelter
+to all her husband's bastards, she might have taken lease of a church to
+hold them. But there was a story about a man's coming with this infant
+and leaving it in the Senora's room; and she, poor lady, never having
+had a child of her own, did warm to it at first sight, and kept it with
+her to the last; and I wager me, a hard time she had to get our Senora
+to take the child when she died; except that it was to spite Ortegna, I
+think our Senora would as soon the child had been dead."
+
+"Has she not treated her kindly?" asked Alessandro, in a husky voice.
+
+Juan Can's pride resented this question. "Do you suppose the Senora
+Moreno would do an unkindness to one under her roof?" he asked loftily.
+"The Senorita has been always, in all things, like Senor Felipe himself.
+It was so that she promised the Senora Ortegna, I have heard."
+
+"Does the Senorita know all this?" asked Alessandro.
+
+Juan Can crossed himself. "Saints save us, no!" he exclaimed. "I'll not
+forget, to my longest day, what it cost me, once I spoke in her hearing,
+when she was yet small. I did not know she heard; but she went to the
+Senora, asking who was her mother. And she said I had said her mother
+was no good, which in faith I did, and no wonder. And the Senora came to
+me, and said she, 'Juan Canito, you have been a long time in our house;
+but if ever I hear of your mentioning aught concerning the Senorita
+Ramona, on this estate or anywhere else in the country, that day you
+leave my service!'--And you'd not do me the ill-turn to speak of it,
+Alessandro, now?" said the old man, anxiously. "My tongue runs away with
+me, lying here on this cursed bed, with nothing to do,--an active man
+like me."
+
+"No, I'll not speak of it, you may be assured," said Alessandro, walking
+away slowly.
+
+"Here! Here!" called Juan. "What about that plan you had for making a
+bed for Senor Felipe on the verandah Was it of raw-hide you meant?"
+
+"Ah, I had forgotten," said Alessandro, returning. "Yes, that was it.
+There is great virtue in a raw-hide, tight stretched; my father says
+that it is the only bed the Fathers would ever sleep on, in the Mission
+days. I myself like the ground even better; but my father sleeps always
+on the rawhide. He says it keeps him well. Do you think I might speak of
+it to the Senora?"
+
+"Speak of it to Senor Felipe himself," said Juan. "It will be as he
+says. He rules this place now, from beginning to end; and it is but
+yesterday I held him on my knee. It is soon that the old are pushed to
+the wall, Alessandro."
+
+"Nay, Juan Canito," replied Alessandro, kindly. "It is not so. My father
+is many years older than you are, and he rules our people to-day as
+firmly as ever. I myself obey him, as if I were a lad still."
+
+"What else, then, but a lad do you call yourself, I wonder?" thought
+Juan; but he answered, "It is not so with us. The old are not held in
+such reverence."
+
+"That is not well," replied Alessandro. "We have been taught
+differently. There is an old man in our village who is many, many years
+older than my father. He helped to carry the mortar at the building of
+the San Diego Mission, I do not know how many years ago. He is long past
+a hundred years of age. He is blind and childish, and cannot walk; but
+he is cared for by every one. And we bring him in our arms to every
+council, and set him by my father's side. He talks very foolishly
+sometimes, but my father will not let him be interrupted. He says
+it brings bad luck to affront the aged. We will presently be aged
+ourselves."
+
+"Ay, ay!" said Juan, sadly. "We must all come to it. It is beginning to
+look not so far off to me!"
+
+Alessandro stared, no less astonished at Juan Can's unconscious
+revelation of his standard of measurement of years than Juan had been
+at his. "Faith, old man, what name dost give to yourself to-day!" he
+thought; but went on with the topic of the raw-hide bed. "I may not so
+soon get speech with Senor Felipe," he said. "It is usually when he is
+sleepy that I go to play for him or to sing. But it makes my heart heavy
+to see him thus languishing day by day, and all for lack of the air and
+the sun, I do believe, indeed, Juan."
+
+"Ask the Senorita, then," said Juan. "She has his ear at all times."
+
+Alessandro made no answer. Why was it that it did not please him,--this
+suggestion of speaking to Ramona of his plan for Felipe's welfare? He
+could not have told; but he did not wish to speak of it to her.
+
+"I will speak to the Senora," he said; and as luck would have it, at
+that moment the Senora stood in the doorway, come to ask after Juan
+Can's health.
+
+The suggestion of the raw-hide bed struck her favorably. She herself
+had, in her youth, heard much of their virtues, and slept on them.
+"Yes," she said, "they are good. We will try it. It was only yesterday
+that Senor Felipe was complaining of the bed he lies on; and when he
+was well, he thought nothing could be so good; he brought it here, at a
+great price, for me, but I could not lie on it. It seemed as if it would
+throw me off as soon as I lay down; it is a cheating device, like all
+these innovations the Americans have brought into the country. But Senor
+Felipe till now thought it a luxury; now he tosses on it, and says it is
+throwing him all the time."
+
+Alessandro smiled, in spite of his reverence for the Senora. "I once lay
+down on one myself, Senora," he said, "and that was what I said to my
+father. It was like a wild horse under me, making himself ready to buck.
+I thought perhaps the invention was of the saints, that men should not
+sleep too long."
+
+"There is a pile of raw-hides," said Juan, "well cured, but not too
+stiff; Juan Jose was to have sent them off to-day to be sold; one of
+those will be just right. It must not be too dry."
+
+"The fresher the better," said Alessandro, "so it have no dampness.
+Shall I make the bed, Senora?" he asked, "and will the Senora permit
+that I make it on the veranda? I was just asking Juan Can if he thought
+I might be so bold as to ask you to let me bring Senor Felipe into the
+outer air. With us, it is thought death to be shut up in walls, as he
+has been so long. Not till we are sure to die, do we go into the dark
+like that."
+
+The Senora hesitated. She did not share Alessandro's prejudice in favor
+of fresh air.
+
+"Night and day both?" she said. "Surely it is not well to sleep out in
+the night?"
+
+"That is the best of all, Senora," replied Alessandro, earnestly. "I beg
+the Senora to try it. If Senor Felipe have not mended greatly after the
+first night he had so slept, then Alessandro will be a liar."
+
+"No, only mistaken," said the Senora, gently. She felt herself greatly
+drawn to this young man by his devotion, as she thought, of Felipe.
+"When I die and leave Felipe here," she had more than once said to
+herself, "it would be a great good to him to have such a servant as this
+on the place."
+
+"Very well, Alessandro," she replied; "make the bed, and we will try it
+at once."
+
+This was early in the forenoon. The sun was still high in the west,
+when Ramona, sitting as usual in the veranda, at her embroidery, saw
+Alessandro coming, followed by two men, bearing the raw-hide bed.
+
+"What can that be?" she said. "Some new invention of Alessandro's, but
+for what?"
+
+"A bed for the Senor Felipe, Senorita," said Alessandro, running lightly
+up the steps. "The Senora has given permission to place it here on the
+veranda, and Senor Felipe is to lie here day and night; and it will be
+a marvel in your eyes how he will gain strength. It is the close room
+which is keeping him weak now; he has no illness."
+
+"I believe that is the truth, Alessandro," exclaimed Ramona; "I have
+been thinking the same thing. My head aches after I am in that room but
+an hour, and when I come here I am well. But the nights too, Alessandro?
+Is it not harmful to sleep out in the night air?"
+
+"Why, Senorita?" asked Alessandro, simply.
+
+And Ramona had no answer, except, "I do not know; I have always heard
+so."
+
+"My people do not think so," replied Alessandro; "unless it is cold,
+we like it better. It is good, Senorita, to look up at the sky in the
+night."
+
+"I should think it would be," cried Ramona. "I never thought of it. I
+should like to do it."
+
+Alessandro was busy, with his face bent down, arranging the bedstead in
+a sheltered corner of the veranda. If his face had been lifted, Ramona
+would have seen a look on it that would have startled her more than
+the one she had surprised a few days previous, after the incident with
+Margarita. All day there had been coming and going in Alessandro's brain
+a confused procession of thoughts, vague yet intense. Put in words,
+they would have been found to be little more than ringing changes on
+this idea: "The Senorita Ramona has Indian blood in her veins. The
+Senorita Ramona is alone. The Senora loves her not. Indian blood! Indian
+blood!" These, or something like them, would have been the words; but
+Alessandro did not put them in words. He only worked away on the rough
+posts for Senor Felipe's bedstead, hammered, fitted, stretched the
+raw-hide and made it tight and firm, driving every nail, striking every
+blow, with a bounding sense of exultant strength, as if there were
+suddenly all around him a new heaven and a new earth.
+
+Now, when he heard Ramona say suddenly in her girlish, eager tone, "It
+must be; I never thought of it; I should like to try it," these vague
+confused thoughts of the day, and the day's bounding sense of exultant
+strength, combined in a quick vision before Alessandro's eyes,--a vision
+of starry skies overhead, Ramona and himself together, looking up to
+them. But when he raised his head, all he said was, "There, Senorita!
+That is all firm, now. If Senor Felipe will let me lay him an this bed,
+he will sleep as he has not slept since he fell ill."
+
+Ramona ran eagerly into Felipe's room, "The bed is all ready on the
+veranda," she exclaimed. "Shall Alessandro come in and carry you out?"
+
+Felipe looked up, startled. The Senora turned on Ramona that expression
+of gentle, resigned displeasure, which always hurt the girl's sensitive
+nature far worse than anger. "I had not spoken to Felipe yet of the
+change, Ramona," she said. "I supposed that Alessandro would have
+informed me when the bed was ready; I am sorry you came in so suddenly.
+Felipe is still very weak, you see."
+
+"What is it? What is it?" exclaimed Felipe, impatiently.
+
+As soon as it was explained to him, he was like a child in his haste to
+be moved.
+
+"That's just what I needed!" he exclaimed. "This cursed bed racks every
+bone in my body, and I have longed for the sun more than ever a thirsty
+man longed for water. Bless you, Alessandro," he went on, seeing
+Alessandro in the doorway. "Come here, and take me up in those long arms
+of yours, and carry me quick. Already I feel myself better."
+
+Alessandro lifted him as if he were a baby; indeed, it was but a light
+burden now, Felipe's wasted body, for a man much less strong than
+Alessandro to lift.
+
+Ramona, chilled and hurt, ran in advance, carrying pillows and blankets.
+As she began to arrange them on the couch, the Senora took them from her
+hands, saying, "I will arrange them myself;" and waved Ramona away.
+
+It was a little thing. Ramona was well used to such. Ordinarily it would
+have given her no pain she could not conceal. But the girl's nerves were
+not now in equilibrium. She had had hard work to keep back her tears
+at the first rebuff. This second was too much. She turned, and walked
+swiftly away, the tears rolling down her cheeks.
+
+Alessandro saw it; Felipe saw it.
+
+To Felipe the sight was, though painful, not a surprise. He knew but
+too well how often his mother hurt Ramona. All he thought now, in his
+weakness, was, "Alas! what a pity my mother does not love Ramona!"
+
+To Alessandro the sight was the one drop too much in the cup. As he
+stooped to lay Felipe on the bed, he trembled so that Felipe looked up,
+half afraid.
+
+"Am I still so heavy, Alessandro?" he said smiling.
+
+"It is not your weight, Senor Felipe," answered Alessandro, off guard,
+still trembling, his eyes following Ramona.
+
+Felipe saw. In the next second, the eyes of the two young men met.
+Alessandro's fell before Felipe's. Felipe gazed on, steadily, at
+Alessandro.
+
+"Ah!" he said; and as he said it, he closed his eyes, and let his head
+sink back into the pillow.
+
+"Is that comfortable? Is that right?" asked the Senora, who had seen
+nothing.
+
+"The first comfortable moment I have had, mother," said Felipe. "Stay,
+Alessandro, I want to speak to you as soon as I am rested. This move has
+shaken me up a good deal. Wait."
+
+"Yes, Senor," replied Alessandro, and seated himself on the veranda
+steps.
+
+"If you are to stay, Alessandro," said the Senora, "I will go and look
+after some matters that need my attention. I feel always at ease about
+Senor Felipe when you are with him. You will stay till I come back?"
+
+"Yes, Senora," said Alessandro, in a tone cold as the Senora's own had
+been to Ramona. He was no longer in heart the Senora Moreno's servant.
+In fact, he was at that very moment revolving confusedly in his mind
+whether there could be any possibility of his getting away before the
+expiration of the time for which he had agreed to stay.
+
+It was a long time before Felipe opened his eyes. Alessandro thought he
+was asleep.
+
+At last Felipe spoke. He had been watching Alessandro's face for some
+minutes. "Alessandro," he said.
+
+Alessandro sprang to his feet, and walked swiftly to the bedside. He did
+not know what the next word might be. He felt that the Senor Felipe had
+seen straight into his heart in that one moment's look, and Alessandro
+was preparing for anything.
+
+"Alessandro," said Felipe, "my mother has been speaking to me about your
+remaining with us permanently. Juan Can is now very old, and after this
+accident will go on crutches the rest of his days, poor soul! We are in
+great need of some man who understands sheep, and the care of the place
+generally."
+
+As he spoke, he watched Alessandro's face closely. Swift changing
+expressions passed over it. Surprise predominated. Felipe misunderstood
+the surprise. "I knew you would be surprised," he said. "I told my
+mother that you would not think of it; that you had stayed now only
+because we were in trouble."
+
+Alessandro bowed his head gratefully. This recognition from Felipe gave
+him pleasure.
+
+"Yes, Senor," he said, "that was it. I told Father Salvierderra it was
+not for the wages. But my father and I have need of all the money we can
+earn. Our people are very poor, Senor. I do not know whether my father
+would think I ought to take the place you offer me, or not, Senor. It
+would be as he said. I will ask him."
+
+"Then you would be willing to take it?" asked Felipe.
+
+"Yes, Senor, if my father wished me to take it," replied Alessandro,
+looking steadily and gravely at Felipe; adding, after a second's
+pause, "if you are sure that you desire it, Senor Felipe, it would be a
+pleasure to me to be of help to you."
+
+And yet it was only a few moments ago that Alessandro had been turning
+over in his mind the possibility of leaving the Senora Moreno's service
+immediately. This change had not been a caprice, not been an impulse
+of passionate desire to remain near Ramona; it had come from a sudden
+consciousness that the Senor Felipe would be his friend. And Alessandro
+was not mistaken.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+WHEN the Senora came back to the veranda, she found Felipe asleep,
+Alessandro standing at the foot of the bed, with his arms crossed on his
+breast, watching him. As the Senora drew near, Alessandro felt again the
+same sense of dawning hatred which had seized him at her harsh speech to
+Ramona. He lowered his eyes, and waited to be dismissed.
+
+"You can go now, Alessandro," said the Senora. "I will sit here. You
+are quite sure that it will be safe for Senor Felipe to sleep here all
+night?"
+
+"It will cure him before many nights," replied Alessandro, still without
+raising his eyes, and turning to go.
+
+"Stay," said the Senora. Alessandro paused. "It will not do for him to
+be alone here in the night, Alessandro."
+
+Alessandro had thought of this, and had remembered that if he lay on
+the veranda floor by Senor Felipe's side, he would also lie under the
+Senorita's window.
+
+"No, Senora," he replied. "I will lie here by his side. That was what I
+had thought, if the Senora is willing."
+
+"Thank you, Alessandro," said the Senora, in a tone which would have
+surprised poor Ramona, still sitting alone in her room, with sad eyes.
+She did not know the Senora could speak thus sweetly to any one but
+Felipe. "Thank you! You are kind. I will have a bed made for you."
+
+"Oh, no." cried Alessandro; "if the Senora will excuse me, I could not
+lie on a bed. A raw-hide like Senor Felipe's, and my blanket, are all I
+want. I could not lie on any bed."
+
+"To be sure," thought the Senora; "what was I thinking of! How the
+boy makes one forget he is an Indian! But the floor is harder than the
+ground, Alessandro," she said kindly.
+
+"No, Senora," he said, "it is all one; and to-night I will not sleep.
+I will watch Senor Felipe, in case there should be a wind, or he should
+wake and need something."
+
+"I will watch him myself till midnight," said the Senora. "I should feel
+easier to see how he sleeps at first."
+
+It was the balmiest of summer nights, and as still as if no living thing
+were on the earth. There was a full moon, which shone on the garden, and
+on the white front of the little chapel among the trees. Ramona, from
+her window, saw Alessandro pacing up and down the walk. She had seen him
+spread down the raw-hide by Felipe's bed, and had seen the Senora take
+her place in one of the big carved chairs. She wondered if they were
+both going to watch; she wondered why the Senora would never let her sit
+up and watch with Felipe.
+
+"I am not of any use to anybody," she thought sadly. She dared not
+go out and ask any questions about the arrangements for the night. At
+supper the Senora had spoken to her only in the same cold and distant
+manner which always made her dumb and afraid. She had not once seen
+Felipe alone during the day. Margarita, who, in the former times,--ah,
+how far away those former times looked now!--had been a greater comfort
+to Ramona than she realized,--Margarita now was sulky and silent, never
+came into Ramona's presence if she could help it, and looked at her
+sometimes with an expression which made Ramona tremble, and say to
+herself, "She hates me; She has always hated me since that morning."
+
+It had been a long, sad day to Ramona; and as she sat in her window
+leaning her head against the sash, and looked at Alessandro pacing up
+and down, she felt for the first time, and did not shrink from it nor in
+any wise disavow or disguise it to herself, that she was glad he loved
+her. More than this she did not think; beyond this she did not go.
+Her mind was not like Margarita's, full of fancies bred of freedom in
+intercourse with men. But distinctly, tenderly glad that Alessandro
+loved her, and distinctly, tenderly aware how well he loved her, she
+was, as she sat at her window this night, looking out into the moonlit
+garden; after she had gone to bed, she could still hear his slow,
+regular steps on the garden-walk, and the last thought she had, as she
+fell asleep, was that she was glad Alessandro loved her.
+
+The moon had been long set, and the garden, chapel-front, trees, vines,
+were all wrapped in impenetrable darkness, when Ramona awoke, sat up in
+her bed, and listened. All was so still that the sound of Felipe's low,
+regular breathing came in through her open window. After hearkening to
+it for a few moments, she rose noiselessly from her bed, and creeping to
+the window parted the curtains and looked out; noiselessly, she thought;
+but it was not noiselessly enough to escape Alessandro's quick ear;
+without a sound, he sprang to his feet, and stood looking at Ramona's
+window.
+
+"I am here, Senorita," he whispered. "Do you want anything?"
+
+"Has he slept all night like this?" she whispered back.
+
+"Yes, Senorita. He has not once moved."
+
+"How good!" said Ramona. "How good!"
+
+Then she stood still; she wanted to speak again to Alessandro, to hear
+him speak again, but she could think of no more to say. Because she
+could not, she gave a little sigh.
+
+Alessandro took one swift step towards the window. "May the saints bless
+you, Senorita," he whispered fervently.
+
+"Thank you, Alessandro," murmured Ramona, and glided back to her bed,
+but not to sleep. It lacked not much of dawn; as the first faint light
+filtered through the darkness, Ramona heard the Senora's window open.
+
+"Surely she will not strike up the hymn and wake Felipe," thought
+Ramona; and she sprang again to the window to listen. A few low words
+between the Senora and Alessandro, and then the Senora's window closed
+again, and all was still.
+
+"I thought she would not have the heart to wake him," said Ramona to
+herself. "The Virgin would have had no pleasure in our song, I am sure;
+but I will say a prayer to her instead;" and she sank on her knees at
+the head of her bed, and began saying a whispered prayer. The footfall
+of a spider in Ramona's room had not been light enough to escape the
+ear of that watching lover outside. Again Alessandro's tall figure arose
+from the floor, turning towards Ramona's window; and now the darkness
+was so far softened to dusk, that the outline of his form could be seen.
+Ramona felt it rather than saw it, and stopped praying. Alessandro was
+sure he had heard her voice.
+
+"Did the Senorita speak?" he whispered, his face close at the curtain.
+Ramona, startled, dropped her rosary, which rattled as it fell on the
+wooden floor.
+
+"No, no, Alessandro," she said, "I did not speak." And she trembled,
+she knew not why. The sound of the beads on the floor explained to
+Alessandro what had been the whispered words he heard.
+
+"She was at her prayers," he thought, ashamed and sorry. "Forgive me,"
+he whispered, "I thought you called;" and he stepped back to the outer
+edge of the veranda, and seated himself on the railing. He would lie
+down no more. Ramona remained on her knees, gazing at the window.
+Through the transparent muslin curtain the dawning light came slowly,
+steadily, till at last she could see Alessandro distinctly. Forgetful
+of all else, she knelt gazing at him. The rosary lay on the floor,
+forgotten. Ramona would not finish that prayer, that day. But her heart
+was full of thanksgiving and gratitude, and the Madonna had a better
+prayer than any in the book.
+
+The sun was up, and the canaries, finches, and linnets had made the
+veranda ring with joyous racket, before Felipe opened his eyes. The
+Senora had come and gone and come again, looking at him anxiously, but
+he stirred not. Ramona had stolen timidly out, glancing at Alessandro
+only long enough to give him one quick smile, and bent over Felipe's
+bed, holding her breath, he lay so still.
+
+"Ought he to sleep so long?" she whispered.
+
+"Till the noon, it may be," answered Alessandro; "and when he wakes, you
+will see by his eye that he is another man."
+
+It was indeed so. When Felipe first looked about him, he laughed
+outright with pure pleasure. Then catching sight of Alessandro at the
+steps, he called, in a stronger voice than had yet been heard from him,
+"Alessandro, you are a famous physician. Why couldn't that fool from
+Ventura have known as much? With all his learning, he had had me in the
+next world before many days, except for you. Now, Alessandro, breakfast!
+I'm hungry. I had forgotten what the thought of food was like to a
+hungry stomach. And plenty! plenty!" he called, as Alessandro ran toward
+the kitchen. "Bring all they have."
+
+When the Senora saw Felipe bolstered up in the bed, his eye bright,
+his color good, his voice clear, eating heartily like his old self,
+she stood like a statue in the middle of the veranda for a moment; then
+turning to Alessandro, she said chokingly, "May Heaven reward you!" and
+disappeared abruptly in her own room. When she came out, her eyes
+were red. All day she moved and spoke with a softness unwonted, indeed
+inconceivable. She even spoke kindly and without constraint to Ramona.
+She felt like one brought back from the dead.
+
+After this, a new sort of life began for them all. Felipe's bed on
+the veranda was the rallying point for everything and everybody.. The
+servants came to look up at him, and wish him well, from the garden-walk
+below. Juan Can, when he first hobbled out on the stout crutches
+Alessandro had made him of manzanita wood, dragged himself all the way
+round the house, to have a look at Senor Felipe and a word with him. The
+Senora sat there, in the big carved chair, looking like a sibyl with her
+black silk banded head-dress severely straight across her brow, and her
+large dark eyes gazing out, past Felipe, into the far south sky. Ramona
+lived there too, with her embroidery or her book, sitting on cushions on
+the floor in a corner, or at the foot of Felipe's bed, always so placed,
+however,--if anybody had noticed, but nobody did,--so placed that she
+could look at Felipe without looking full at the Senora's chair, even if
+the Senora were not in it.
+
+Here also came Alessandro many times a day,--sometimes sent for,
+sometimes of his own accord. He was freely welcome. When he played or
+sang he sat on the upper step of the stairs leading down to the garden.
+He also had a secret, which he thought all his own, in regard to the
+positions he chose. He sat always, when Ramona was there, in the spot
+which best commanded a view of her face. The secret was not all his own.
+Felipe knew it. Nothing was escaping Felipe in these days. A bomb-shell
+exploding at their feet would not have more astonished the different
+members of this circle, the Senora, Ramona, Alessandro, than it would
+to have been made suddenly aware of the thoughts which were going on in
+Felipe's mind now, from day to day, as he lay there placidly looking at
+them all.
+
+It is probable that if Felipe had been in full health and strength when
+the revelation suddenly came to him that Alessandro loved Ramona, and
+that Ramona might love Alessandro, he would have been instantly filled
+with jealous antagonism. But at the time when this revelation came, he
+was prostrate, feeble, thinking many times a day that he must soon die;
+it did not seem to Felipe that a man could be so weak as he was, and
+ever again be strong and well. Side by side with these forebodings of
+his own death, always came the thought of Ramona. What would become of
+her, if he were gone? Only too well he knew that the girl's heart would
+be broken; that she could not live on alone with his mother. Felipe
+adored his mother; but he understood her feeling about Ramona.
+
+With his feebleness had also come to Felipe, as is often the case in
+long illnesses, a greater clearness of perception. Ramona had ceased to
+puzzle him. He no longer asked himself what her long, steady look into
+his eyes meant. He knew. He saw it mean that as a sister she loved him,
+had always loved him, and could love him in no other way. He wondered a
+little at himself that this gave him no more pain; only a sort of sweet,
+mournful tenderness towards her. It must be because he was so soon going
+out of the world, he thought. Presently he began to be aware that a new
+quality was coming into his love for her. He himself was returning
+to the brother love which he had had for her when they were children
+together, and in which he had felt no change until he became a man and
+Ramona a woman. It was strange what a peace fell upon Felipe when this
+was finally clear and settled in his mind. No doubt he had had more
+misgiving and fear about his mother in the matter than he had ever
+admitted to himself; perhaps also the consciousness of Ramona's
+unfortunate birth had rankled at times; but all this was past now.
+Ramona was his sister. He was her brother. What course should he pursue
+in the crisis which he saw drawing near? How could he best help Ramona?
+What would be best for both her and Alessandro? Long before the thought
+of any possible union between himself and Ramona had entered into
+Alessandro's mind, still longer before it had entered into Ramona's to
+think of Alessandro as a husband, Felipe had spent hours in forecasting,
+plotting, and planning for them. For the first time in his life he felt
+himself in the dark as to his mother's probable action. That any concern
+as to Ramona's personal happiness or welfare would influence her, he
+knew better than to think for a moment. So far as that was concerned,
+Ramona might wander out the next hour, wife of a homeless beggar,
+and his mother would feel no regret. But Ramona had been the adopted
+daughter of the Senora Ortegna, bore the Ortegna name, and had lived as
+foster-child in the house of the Morenos. Would the Senora permit such a
+one to marry an Indian?
+
+Felipe doubted. The longer he thought, the more he doubted. The more
+he watched, the more he saw that the question might soon have to be
+decided. Any hour might precipitate it. He made plan after plan for
+forestalling trouble, for preparing his mother; but Felipe was by nature
+indolent, and now he was, in addition, feeble. Day after day slipped by.
+It was exceedingly pleasant on the veranda. Ramona was usually with him;
+his mother was gentler, less sad, than he had ever seen her. Alessandro
+was always at hand, ready for any service,--in the field, in the
+house,--his music a delight, his strength and fidelity a repose, his
+personal presence always agreeable. "If only my mother could think
+it," reflected Felipe, "it would be the best thing, all round, to have
+Alessandro stay here as overseer of the place, and then they might be
+married. Perhaps before the summer is over she will come to see it so."
+
+And the delicious, languid, semi-tropic summer came hovering over the
+valley. The apricots turned golden, the peaches glowed, the grapes
+filled and hardened, like opaque emeralds hung thick under the canopied
+vines. The garden was a shade brown, and the roses had all fallen; but
+there were lilies, and orange-blossoms, and poppies, and carnations, and
+geraniums in the pots, and musk,--oh, yes, ever and always musk. It was
+like an enchanter's spell, the knack the Senora had of forever keeping
+relays of musk to bloom all the year; and it was still more like an
+enchanter's spell, that Felipe would never confess that he hated it.'
+But the bees liked it, and the humming-birds,--the butterflies also;
+and the air was full of them. The veranda was a quieter place now as the
+season's noon grew near. The linnets were all nesting, and the finches
+and the canaries too; and the Senora spent hours, every day, tirelessly
+feeding the mothers. The vines had all grown and spread out to their
+thickest; no need any longer of the gay blanket Alessandro had pinned up
+that first morning to keep the sun off Felipe's head.
+
+What was the odds between a to-day and a to-morrow in such a spot
+as this? "To-morrow," said Felipe, "I will speak to my mother," and
+"to-morrow," and "to-morrow;" but he did not.
+
+There was one close observer of these pleasant veranda days that Felipe
+knew nothing about. That was Margarita. As the girl came and went about
+her household tasks, she was always on the watch for Alessandro, on the
+watch for Ramona. She was biding her time. Just what shape her revenge
+was going to take, she did not know. It was no use plotting. It must be
+as it fell out; but that the hour and the way for her revenge would come
+she never doubted.
+
+When she saw the group on the veranda, as she often did, all listening
+to Alessandro's violin, or to his singing, Alessandro himself now at his
+ease and free in the circle, as if he had been there always, her anger
+was almost beyond bounds.
+
+"Oh, ho! like a member of the family; quite so!" she sneered. "It is new
+times when a head shepherd spends his time with the ladies of the house,
+and sits in their presence like a guest who is invited! We shall see; we
+shall see what comes of all this!" And she knew not which she hated the
+more of the two, Alessandro or Ramona.
+
+Since the day of the scene at the artichoke-field she had never spoken
+to Alessandro, and had avoided, so far as was possible, seeing him. At
+first Alessandro was sorry for this, and tried to be friendly with her.
+As soon as he felt assured that the incident had not hurt him at all in
+the esteem of Ramona, he began to be sorry for Margarita. "A man should
+not be rude to any maiden," he thought; and he hated to remember how he
+had pushed Margarita from him, and snatched his hand away, when he
+had in the outset made no objection to her taking it. But Margarita's
+resentment was not to be appeased. She understood only too clearly how
+little Alessandro's gentle advances meant, and she would none of them.
+"Let him go to his Senorita," she said bitterly, mocking the reverential
+tone in which she had overheard him pronounce the word. "She is fond
+enough of him, if only the fool had eyes to see it. She'll be ready to
+throw herself at his head before long, if this kind of thing keeps up.
+'It is not well to speak thus freely of young men, Margarita!' Ha,
+ha! Little I thought that day which way the wind set in my mistress's
+temper! I'll wager she reproves me no more, under this roof or any
+other! Curse her! What did she want of Alessandro, except to turn his
+head, and then bid him go his way!"
+
+To do Margarita justice, she never once dreamed of the possibility of
+Ramona's wedding Alessandro. A clandestine affair, an intrigue of more
+or less intensity, such as she herself might have carried on with any
+one of the shepherds,--this was the utmost stretch of Margarita's angry
+imaginations in regard to her young mistress's liking for Alessandro.
+There was not, in her way of looking at things, any impossibility of
+such a thing as that. But marriage! It might be questioned whether that
+idea would have been any more startling to the Senora herself than to
+Margarita.
+
+Little had passed between Alessandro and Ramona which Margarita did not
+know. The girl was always like a sprite,--here, there, everywhere, in
+an hour, and with eyes which, as her mother often told her, saw on all
+sides of her head. Now, fired by her new purpose, new passion, she moved
+swifter than ever, and saw and heard even more, There were few hours of
+any day when she did not know to a certainty where both Alessandro and
+Ramona were; and there had been few meetings between them which she had
+not either seen or surmised.
+
+In the simple life of such a household as the Senora's, it was not
+strange that this was possible; nevertheless, it argued and involved
+untiring vigilance on Margarita's part. Even Felipe, who thought
+himself, from his vantage-post of observation on the veranda, and from
+his familiar relation with Ramona, well informed of most that happened,
+would have been astonished to hear all that Margarita could have
+told him. In the first days Ramona herself had guilelessly told him
+much,--had told him how Alessandro, seeing her trying to sprinkle and
+bathe and keep alive the green ferns with which she had decorated the
+chapel for Father Salvierderra's coming, had said: "Oh, Senorita, they
+are dead! Do not take trouble with them! I will bring you fresh ones;"
+and the next morning she had found, lying at the chapel door, a pile of
+such ferns as she had never before seen; tall ones, like ostrich-plumes,
+six and eight feet high; the feathery maidenhair, and the gold fern, and
+the silver, twice as large as she ever had found them. The chapel was
+beautiful, like a conservatory, after she had arranged them in vases and
+around the high candlesticks.
+
+It was Alessandro, too, who had picked up in the artichoke-patch all
+of the last year's seed-vessels which had not been trampled down by the
+cattle, and bringing one to her, had asked shyly if she did not think
+it prettier than flowers made out of paper. His people, he said, made
+wreaths of them. And so they were, more beautiful than any paper flowers
+which ever were made,--great soft round disks of fine straight threads
+like silk, with a kind of saint's halo around them of sharp, stiff
+points, glossy as satin, and of a lovely creamy color. It was the
+strangest thing in the world nobody had ever noticed them as they lay
+there on the ground. She had put a great wreath of them around Saint
+Joseph's head, and a bunch in the Madonna's hand; and when the Senora
+saw them, she exclaimed in admiration, and thought they must have been
+made of silk and satin.
+
+And Alessandro had brought her beautiful baskets, made by the Indian
+women at Pala, and one which had come from the North, from the Tulare
+country; it had gay feathers woven in with the reeds,--red and yellow,
+in alternate rows, round and round. It was like a basket made out of a
+bright- bird.
+
+And a beautiful stone bowl Alessandro had brought her, glossy black,
+that came all the way from Catalina Island; a friend of Alessandro's got
+it. For the first few weeks it had seemed as if hardly a day passed
+that there was not some new token to be chronicled of Alessandro's
+thoughtfulness and good-will. Often, too, Ramona had much to tell that
+Alessandro had said,--tales of the old Mission days that he had heard
+from his father; stories of saints, and of the early Fathers, who were
+more like saints than like men, Alessandro said,--Father Junipero, who
+founded the first Missions, and Father Crespi, his friend. Alessandro's
+grandfather had journeyed with Father Crespi as his servant, and many a
+miracle he had with his own eyes seen Father Crespi perform. There was a
+cup out of which the Father always took his chocolate for breakfast,--a
+beautiful cup, which was carried in a box, the only luxury the Father
+had; and one morning it was broken, and everybody was in terror and
+despair. "Never mind, never mind," said the Father; "I will make it
+whole;" and taking the two pieces in his hands, he held them tight
+together, and prayed over them, and they became one solid piece again,
+and it was used all through the journey, just as before.
+
+But now, Ramona never spoke voluntarily of Alessandro. To Felipe's
+sometimes artfully put questions or allusions to him, she made brief
+replies, and never continued the topic; and Felipe had observed another
+thing: she now rarely looked at Alessandro. When he was speaking to
+others she kept her eyes on the ground. If he addressed her, she
+looked quickly up at him, but lowered her eyes after the first glance.
+Alessandro also observed this, and was glad of it. He understood it. He
+knew how differently she could look in his face in the rare moments when
+they were alone together. He fondly thought he alone knew this; but he
+was mistaken. Margarita knew. She had more than once seen it.
+
+It had happened more than once that he had found Ramona at the willows
+by the brook, and had talked with her there. The first time it happened,
+it was a chance; after that never a chance again, for Alessandro went
+often seeking the spot, hoping to find her. In Ramona's mind too, not
+avowed, but half consciously, there was, if not the hope of seeing him
+there, at least the memory that it was there they had met. It was a
+pleasant spot,--cool and shady even at noon, and the running water
+always full of music. Ramona often knelt there of a morning, washing out
+a bit of lace or a handkerchief; and when Alessandro saw her, it went
+hard with him to stay away. At such moments the vision returned to him
+vividly of that first night when, for the first second, seeing her face
+in the sunset glow, he had thought her scarce mortal. It was not that
+he even now thought her less a saint; but ah, how well he knew her to
+be human! He had gone alone in the dark to this spot many a time, and,
+lying on the grass, put his hands into the running water, and played
+with it dreamily, thinking, in his poetic Indian fashion, thoughts like
+these: "Whither have gone the drops that passed beneath her hands, just
+here? These drops will never find those in the sea; but I love this
+water!"
+
+Margarita had seen him thus lying, and without dreaming of the refined
+sentiment which prompted his action, had yet groped blindly towards it,
+thinking to herself: "He hopes his Senorita will come down to him there.
+A nice place it is for a lady to meet her lover, at the washing-stones!
+It will take swifter water than any in that brook, Senorita Ramona, to
+wash you white in the Senora's eyes, if ever she come upon you there
+with the head shepherd, making free with him, may be! Oh, but if that
+could only happen, I'd die content!" And the more Margarita watched,
+the more she thought it not unlikely that it might turn out so. It was
+oftener at the willows than anywhere else that Ramona and Alessandro
+met; and, as Margarita noticed with malicious satisfaction, they talked
+each time longer, each time parted more lingeringly. Several times it
+had happened to be near supper-time; and Margarita, with one eye on
+the garden-walk, had hovered restlessly near the Senora, hoping to be
+ordered to call the Senorita to supper.
+
+"If but I could come on them of a sudden, and say to her as she did to
+me, 'You are wanted in the house'! Oh, but it would do my soul good! I'd
+say it so it would sting like a lash laid on both their faces! It will
+come! It will come! It will be there that she'll be caught one of these
+fine times she's having! I'll wait! It will come!"
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+IT came. And when it came, it fell out worse for Ramona than Margarita's
+most malicious hopes had pictured; but Margarita had no hand in it. It
+was the Senora herself.
+
+Since Felipe had so far gained as to be able to be dressed, sit in his
+chair on the veranda, and walk about the house and garden a little,
+the Senora, at ease in her mind about him, had resumed her old habit of
+long, lonely walks on the place. It had been well said by her servants,
+that there was not a blade of grass on the estate that the Senora had
+not seen. She knew every inch of her land. She had a special purpose
+in walking over it now. She was carefully examining to see whether she
+could afford to sell to the Ortegas a piece of pasture-land which they
+greatly desired to buy, as it joined a pasturage tract of theirs. This
+bit of land lay farther from the house than the Senora realized, and it
+had taken more time than she thought it would, to go over it; and it was
+already sunset on this eventful day, when, hurrying home, she turned
+off from the highway into the same shortcut path in which Father
+Salvierderra had met Ramona in the spring. There was no difficulty now
+in getting through the mustard tangle. It was parched and dry, and had
+been trampled by cattle. The Senora walked rapidly, but it was
+dusky twilight when she reached the willows; so dusky that she saw
+nothing--and she stepped so lightly on the smooth brown path that she
+made no sound--until suddenly, face to face with a man and a woman
+standing locked in each other's arms, she halted, stepped back a pace,
+gave a cry of surprise, and, in the same second, recognized the faces of
+the two, who, stricken dumb, stood apart, each gazing into her face with
+terror.
+
+Strangely enough, it was Ramona who spoke first. Terror for herself had
+stricken her dumb; terror for Alessandro gave her a voice.
+
+"Senora," she began.
+
+"Silence! Shameful creature!" cried the Senora. "Do not dare to speak!
+Go to your room!"
+
+Ramona did not move.
+
+"As for you," the Senora continued, turning to Alessandro, "you,"--she
+was about to say, "You are discharged from my service from this hour,"
+but recollecting herself in time, said,--"you will answer to Senor
+Felipe. Out of my sight!" And the Senora Moreno actually, for once in
+her life beside herself with rage, stamped her foot on the ground. "Out
+of my sight!" she repeated.
+
+Alessandro did not stir, except to turn towards Ramona with an inquiring
+look. He would run no risk of doing what she did not wish. He had no
+idea what she would think it best to do in this terrible dilemma.
+
+"Go, Alessandro," said Ramona, calmly, still looking the Senora full in
+the eye. Alessandro obeyed; before the words had left her lips, he had
+walked away.
+
+Ramona's composure, and Alessandro's waiting for further orders than her
+own before stirring from the spot, were too much for Senora Moreno. A
+wrath, such as she had not felt since she was young, took possession of
+her. As Ramona opened her lips again, saying, "Senora," the Senora did a
+shameful deed; she struck the girl on the mouth, a cruel blow.
+
+"Speak not to me!" she cried again; and seizing her by the arm, she
+pushed rather than dragged her up the garden-walk.
+
+"Senora, you hurt my arm," said Ramona, still in the same calm voice.
+"You need not hold me. I will go with you. I am not afraid."
+
+Was this Ramona? The Senora, already ashamed, let go the arm, and
+stared in the girl's face. Even in the twilight she could see upon it
+an expression of transcendent peace, and a resolve of which no one would
+have thought it capable. "What does this mean?" thought the Senora,
+still weak, and trembling all over, from rage. "The hussy, the
+hypocrite!" and she seized the arm again.
+
+This time Ramona did not remonstrate, but submitted to being led like
+a prisoner, pushed into her own room, the door slammed violently and
+locked on the outside.
+
+All of which Margarita saw. She had known for an hour that Ramona
+and Alessandro were at the willows, and she had been consumed with
+impatience at the Senora's prolonged absence. More than once she had
+gone to Felipe, and asked with assumed interest if he were not hungry,
+and if he and the Senorita would not have their supper.
+
+"No, no, not till the Senora returns," Felipe had answered. He, too,
+happened this time to know where Ramona and Alessandro were. He knew
+also where the Senora had gone, and that she would be late home; but he
+did not know that there would be any chance of her returning by way of
+the willows at the brook; if he had known it, he would have contrived to
+summon Ramona.
+
+When Margarita saw Ramona shoved into her room by the pale and trembling
+Senora, saw the key turned, taken out, and dropped into the Senora's
+pocket, she threw her apron over her head, and ran into the back porch.
+Almost a remorse seized her. She remembered in a flash how often Ramona
+had helped her in times gone by,--sheltered her from the Senora's
+displeasure. She recollected the torn altar-cloth. "Holy Virgin! what
+will be done to her now?" she exclaimed, under her breath. Margarita
+had never conceived of such an extremity as this. Disgrace, and a sharp
+reprimand, and a sundering of all relations with Alessandro,--this was
+all Margarita had meant to draw down on Ramona's head. But the Senora
+looked as if she might kill her.
+
+"She always did hate her, in her heart," reflected Margarita; "she
+shan't starve her to death, anyhow. I'll never stand by and see that.
+But it must have been something shameful the Senora saw, to have brought
+her to such a pass as this;" and Margarita's jealousy again got the
+better of her sympathy. "Good enough for her. No more than she deserved.
+An honest fellow like Alessandro, that would make a good husband for any
+girl!" Margarita's short-lived remorse was over. She was an enemy again.
+
+It was an odd thing, how identical were Margarita's and the Senora's
+view and interpretation of the situation. The Senora looking at it from
+above, and Margarita looking at it from below, each was sure, and they
+were both equally sure, that it could be nothing more nor less than a
+disgraceful intrigue. Mistress and maid were alike incapable either of
+conjecturing or of believing the truth.
+
+As ill luck would have it,--or was it good luck?--Felipe also had
+witnessed the scene in the garden-walk. Hearing voices, he had looked
+out of his window, and, almost doubting the evidence of his senses, had
+seen his mother violently dragging Ramona by the arm,--Ramona pale, but
+strangely placid; his mother with rage and fury in her white face. The
+sight told its own tale to Felipe. Smiting his forehead with his hand,
+he groaned out: "Fool that I was, to let her be surprised; she has come
+on them unawares; now she will never, never forgive it!" And Felipe
+threw himself on his bed, to think what should be done. Presently he
+heard his mother's voice, still agitated, calling his name. He remained
+silent, sure she would soon seek him in his room. When she entered, and,
+seeing him on the bed, came swiftly towards him, saying, "Felipe, dear,
+are you ill?" he replied in a feeble voice, "No, mother, only tired a
+little to-night;" and as she bent over him, anxious, alarmed, he threw
+his arms around her neck and kissed her warmly. "Mother mia!" he said
+passionately, "what should I do without you?" The caress, the loving
+words, acted like oil on the troubled waters. They restored the Senora
+as nothing else could. What mattered anything, so long as she had her
+adoring and adorable son! And she would not speak to him, now that he
+was so tired, of this disgraceful and vexing matter of Alessandro. It
+could wait till morning. She would send him his supper in his room, and
+he would not miss Ramona, perhaps.
+
+"I will send your supper here, Felipe," she said; "you must not
+overdo; you have been walking too much. Lie still." And kissing him
+affectionately, she went to the dining-room, where Margarita, vainly
+trying to look as if nothing had happened, was standing, ready to serve
+supper. When the Senora entered, with her countenance composed, and in
+her ordinary tones said, "Margarita, you can take Senor Felipe's supper
+into his room; he is lying down, and will not get up; he is tired,"
+Margarita was ready to doubt if she had not been in a nightmare dream.
+Had she, or had she not, within the last half-hour, seen the Senora,
+shaking and speechless with rage, push the Senorita Ramona into her
+room, and lock her up there? She was so bewildered that she stood still
+and gazed at the Senora, with her mouth wide open.
+
+"What are you staring at, girl?" asked the Senora, so sharply that
+Margarita jumped.
+
+"Oh, nothing, nothing, Senora! And the Senorita, will she come to
+supper? Shall I call her?" she said.
+
+The Senora eyed her. Had she seen? Could she have seen? The Senora
+Moreno was herself again. So long as Ramona was under her roof, no
+matter what she herself might do or say to the girl, no servant should
+treat her with disrespect, or know that aught was wrong.
+
+"The Senorita is not well," she said coldly. "She is in her room. I
+myself will take her some supper later, if she wishes it. Do not disturb
+her." And the Senora returned to Felipe.
+
+Margarita chuckled inwardly, and proceeded to clear the table she had
+spread with such malicious punctuality two short hours before. In those
+two short hours how much had happened!
+
+"Small appetite for supper will our Senorita have, I reckon," said the
+bitter Margarita, "and the Senor Alessandro also! I'm curious to see how
+he will carry himself."
+
+But her curiosity was not gratified. Alessandro came not to the kitchen.
+The last of the herdsmen had eaten and gone; it was past nine o'clock,
+and no Alessandro. Slyly Margarita ran out and searched in some of the
+places where she knew he was in the habit of going; but Alessandro
+was not to be found. Once she brushed so near his hiding-place that he
+thought he was discovered, and was on the point of speaking, but
+luckily held his peace, and she passed on. Alessandro was hid behind the
+geranium clump at the chapel door; sitting on the ground, with his knees
+drawn up to his chin, watching Ramona's window. He intended to stay
+there all night. He felt that he might be needed: if Ramona wanted him,
+she would either open her window and call, or would come out and go down
+through the garden-walk to the willows. In either case, he would see her
+from the hiding-place he had chosen. He was racked by his emotions; mad
+with joy one minute, sick at heart with misgiving the next. Ramona loved
+him. She had told him so. She had said she would go away with him and
+be his wife. The words had but just passed her lips, at that dreadful
+moment when the Senora appeared in their presence. As he lived the scene
+over again, he re-experienced the joy and the terror equally.
+
+What was not that terrible Senora capable of doing? Why did she look
+at him and at Ramona with such loathing scorn? Since she knew that the
+Senorita was half Indian, why should she think it so dreadful a thing
+for her to marry an Indian man? It did not once enter into Alessandro's
+mind, that the Senora could have had any other thought, seeing them as
+she did, in each other's arms. And again what had he to give to Ramona?
+Could she live in a house such as he must live in,--live as the Temecula
+women lived? No! for her sake he must leave his people; must go to some
+town, must do--he knew not what--something to earn more money. Anguish
+seized him as he pictured to himself Ramona suffering deprivations. The
+more he thought of the future in this light, the more his joy faded and
+his fear grew. He had never had sufficient hope that she could be his,
+to look forward thus to the practical details of life; he had only gone
+on loving, and in a vague way dreaming and hoping; and now,--now, in
+a moment, all had been changed; in a moment he had spoken, and she had
+spoken, and such words once spoken, there was no going back; and he had
+put his arms around her, and felt her head on his shoulder, and kissed
+her! Yes, he, Alessandro, had kissed the Senorita Ramona, and she had
+been glad of it, and had kissed him on the lips, as no maiden kisses a
+man unless she will wed with him,--him, Alessandro! Oh, no wonder the
+man's brain whirled, as he sat there in the silent darkness, wondering,
+afraid, helpless; his love wrenched from him, in the very instant of
+their first kiss,--wrenched from him, and he himself ordered, by one who
+had the right to order him, to begone! What could an Indian do against a
+Moreno!
+
+Would Felipe help him? Ay, there was Felipe! That Felipe was his
+friend, Alessandro knew with a knowledge as sure as the wild partridge's
+instinct for the shelter of her brood; but could Felipe move the Senora?
+Oh, that terrible Senora! What would become of them?
+
+As in the instant of drowning, men are said to review in a second the
+whole course of their lives, so in this supreme moment of Alessandro's
+love there flashed through his mind vivid pictures of every word and act
+of Ramona's since he first knew her. He recollected the tone in which
+she had said, and the surprise with which he heard her say it, at the
+time of Felipe's fall, "You are Alessandro, are you not?" He heard again
+her soft-whispered prayers the first night Felipe slept on the veranda.
+He recalled her tender distress because the shearers had had no dinner;
+the evident terribleness to her of a person going one whole day without
+food. "O God! will she always have food each day if she comes with me?"
+he said. And at the bare thought he was ready to flee away from her
+forever. Then he recalled her look and her words only a few hours ago,
+when he first told her he loved her; and his heart took courage. She
+had said, "I know you love me, Alessandro, and I am glad of it," and had
+lifted her eyes to his, with all the love that a woman's eyes can carry;
+and when he threw his arms around her, she had of her own accord come
+closer, and laid one hand on his shoulder, and turned her face to his.
+Ah, what else mattered! There was the whole world; if she loved him like
+this, nothing could make them wretched; his love would be enough for
+her,--and for him hers was an empire.
+
+It was indeed true, though neither the Senora nor Margarita would have
+believed it, that this had been the first word of love ever spoken
+between Alessandro and Ramona, the first caress ever given, the first
+moment of unreserve. It had come about, as lovers' first words, first
+caresses, are so apt to do, unexpectedly, with no more premonition, at
+the instant, than there is of the instant of the opening of a flower.
+Alessandro had been speaking to Ramona of the conversation Felipe had
+held with him in regard to remaining on the place, and asked her if she
+knew of the plan.
+
+"Yes," she said; "I heard the Senora talking about it with Felipe, some
+days ago."
+
+"Was she against my staying?" asked Alessandro, quickly.
+
+"I think not," said Ramona, "but I am not sure. It is not easy to be
+sure what the Senora wishes, till afterward. It was Felipe that proposed
+it."
+
+This somewhat enigmatical statement as to the difficulty of knowing the
+Senora's wishes was like Greek to Alessandro's mind.
+
+"I do not understand, Senorita," he said. "What do you mean by
+'afterward'?"
+
+"I mean," replied Ramona, "that the Senora never says she wishes
+anything; she says she leaves everything to Felipe to decide, or to
+Father Salvierderra. But I think it is always decided as she wishes to
+have it, after all. The Senora is wonderful, Alessandro; don't you think
+so?"
+
+"She loves Senor Felipe very much," was Alessandro's evasive reply.
+
+"Oh, yes," exclaimed Ramona. "You do not begin to know how much. She
+does not love any other human being. He takes it all. She hasn't any
+left. If he had died, she would have died too. That is the reason she
+likes you so much; she thinks you saved Felipe's life. I mean, that
+is one reason," added Ramona, smiling, and looking up confidingly at
+Alessandro, who smiled back, not in vanity, but honest gratitude that
+the Senorita was pleased to intimate that he was not unworthy of the
+Senora's regard.
+
+"I do not think she likes me," he said. "I cannot tell why; but I do
+not think she likes any one in the world. She is not like any one I ever
+saw, Senorita."
+
+"No," replied Ramona, thoughtfully. "She is not. I am, oh, so afraid of
+her, Alessandro! I have always been, ever since I was a little girl. I
+used to think she hated me; but now I think she does not care one way or
+the other, if I keep out of her way."
+
+While Ramona spoke these words, her eyes were fixed on the running
+water at her feet. If she had looked up, and seen the expression in
+Alessandro's eyes as he listened, the thing which was drawing near would
+have drawn near faster, would have arrived at that moment; but she did
+not look up. She went on, little dreaming how hard she was making it for
+Alessandro.
+
+"Many's the time I've come down here, at night, to this brook, and
+looked at it, and wished it was a big river, so I could throw myself
+in, and be carried away out to the sea, dead. But it is a fearful sin,
+Father Salvierderra says, to take one's own life; and always the next
+morning, when the sun came out, and the birds sang, I've been glad
+enough I had not done it. Were you ever so unhappy as that, Alessandro?"
+
+"No, Senorita, never," replied Alessandro; "and it is thought a great
+disgrace, among us, to kill one's self. I think I could never do it.
+But, oh, Senorita, it is a grief to think of your being unhappy. Will
+you always be so? Must you always stay here?"
+
+"Oh, but I am not always unhappy!" said Ramona, with her sunny little
+laugh. "Indeed, I am generally very happy. Father Salvierderra says that
+if one does no sin, one will be always happy, and that it is a sin not
+to rejoice every hour of the day in the sun and the sky and the work
+there is to do; and there is always plenty of that." Then, her face
+clouding, she continued: "I suppose I shall always stay here. I have no
+other home; you know I was the Senora's sister's adopted child. She died
+when I was little, and the Senora kindly took me. Father Salvierderra
+says I must never forget to be grateful to her for all she has done for
+me, and I try not to."
+
+Alessandro eyed her closely. The whole story, as Juan Can had told it to
+him, of the girl's birth, was burning in his thoughts. How he longed to
+cry out, "O my loved one, they have made you homeless in your home. They
+despise you. The blood of my race is in your veins; come to me; come to
+me! be surrounded with love!" But he dared not. How could he dare?
+
+Some strange spell seemed to have unloosed Ramona's tongue to-night.
+She had never before spoken to Alessandro of her own personal history or
+burdens; but she went on: "The worst thing is, Alessandro, that she will
+not tell me who my mother was; and I do not know if she is alive or not,
+or anything about her. Once I asked the Senora, but she forbade me ever
+to ask her again. She said she herself would tell me when it was proper
+for me to know. But she never has."
+
+How the secret trembled on Alessandro's lips now. Ramona had never
+seemed so near, so intimate, so trusting. What would happen if he were
+to tell her the truth? Would the sudden knowledge draw her closer to
+him, or repel her?
+
+"Have you never asked her again?" he said.
+
+Ramona looked up astonished. "No one ever disobeyed the Senora," she
+said quickly.
+
+"I would!" exclaimed Alessandro.
+
+"You may think so," said Ramona, "but you couldn't. When you tried, you
+would find you couldn't. I did ask Father Salvierderra once."
+
+"What did he say?" asked Alessandro, breathless.
+
+"The same thing. He said I must not ask; I was not old enough. When the
+time came, I would be told," answered Ramona, sadly. "I don't see what
+they can mean by the time's coming. What do you suppose they meant?"
+
+"I do not know the ways of any people but my own, Senorita," replied
+Alessandro. "Many things that your people do, and still more that these
+Americans do, are to me so strange, I know nothing what they mean.
+Perhaps they do not know who was your mother?"
+
+"I am sure they do," answered Ramona, in a low tone, as if the words
+were wrung from her. "But let us talk about something else, Alessandro;
+not about sad things, about pleasant things. Let us talk about your
+staying here."
+
+"Would it be truly a pleasure to the Senorita Ramona, if I stayed?" said
+Alessandro.
+
+"You know it would," answered Ramona, frankly, yet with a tremor in her
+voice, which Alessandro felt. "I do not see what we could any of us do
+without you. Felipe says he shall not let you go."
+
+Alessandro's face glowed. "It must be as my father says, Senorita," he
+said. "A messenger came from him yesterday, and I sent him back with a
+letter telling him what the Senor Felipe had proposed to me, and asking
+him what I should do. My father is very old, Senorita, and I do not see
+how he can well spare me. I am his only child, and my mother died years
+ago. We live alone together in our house, and when I am away he is very
+lonely. But he would like to have me earn the wages, I know, and I hope
+he will think it best for me to stay. There are many things we want to
+do for the village; most of our people are poor, and can do little more
+than get what they need to eat day by day, and my father wishes to see
+them better off before he dies. Now that the Americans are coming in all
+around us, he is afraid and anxious all the time. He wants to get a big
+fence built around our land, so as to show where it is; but the people
+cannot take much time to work on the fence; they need all their time to
+work for themselves and their families. Indians have a hard time to live
+now, Senorita. Were you ever in Temecula?"
+
+"No," said Ramona. "Is it a large town?"
+
+Alessandro sighed. "Dear Senorita, it is not a town; it is only a little
+village not more than twenty houses in all, and some of those are built
+only of tule. There is a chapel, and a graveyard. We built an adobe wall
+around the graveyard last year. That my father said we would do, before
+we built the fence round the village."
+
+"How many people are there in the village?" asked Ramona.
+
+"Nearly two hundred, when they are all there; but many of them are away
+most of the time. They must go where they can get work; they are
+hired by the farmers, or to do work on the great ditches, or to go as
+shepherds; and some of them take their wives and children with them. I
+do not believe the Senorita has ever seen any very poor people."
+
+"Oh, yes, I have, Alessandro, at Santa Barbara. There were many poor
+people there, and the Sisters used to give them food every week."
+
+"Indians?" said Alessandro.
+
+Ramona . "Yes," she said, "some of them were, but not like your
+men, Alessandro. They were very different; miserable looking; they could
+not read nor write, and they seemed to have no ambition."
+
+"That is the trouble," said Alessandro, "with so many of them; it is
+with my father's people, too. They say, 'What is the use?' My father
+gets in despair with them, because they will not learn better. He gives
+them a great deal, but they do not seem to be any better off for it.
+There is only one other man in our village who can read and write,
+besides my father and me, Senorita; and yet my father is all the time
+begging them to come to his house and learn of him. But they say they
+have no time; and indeed there is much truth in that, Senorita. You see
+everybody has troubles, Senorita."
+
+Ramona had been listening with sorrowful face. All this was new to her.
+Until to-night, neither she nor Alessandro had spoken of private and
+personal matters.
+
+"Ah, but these are real troubles," she said. "I do not think mine were
+real troubles at all. I wish I could do something for your people,
+Alessandro. If the village were only near by, I could teach them, could
+I not? I could teach them to read. The Sisters always said, that to
+teach the ignorant and the poor was the noblest work one could do. I
+wish I could teach your people. Have you any relatives there
+besides your father? Is there any one in the village that you--love,
+Alessandro?"
+
+Alessandro was too much absorbed in thoughts of his people, to observe
+the hesitating emphasis with which Ramona asked this question.
+
+"Yes, Senorita, I love them all. They are like my brothers and sisters,
+all of my father's people," he said; "and I am unhappy about them all
+the time."
+
+During the whole of this conversation Ramona had had an undercurrent of
+thought going on, which was making her uneasy. The more Alessandro said
+about his father and his people, the more she realized that he was held
+to Temecula by bonds that would be hard to break, the more she feared
+his father would not let him remain away from home for any length of
+time. At the thought of his going away, her very heart sickened. Taking
+a sudden step towards him, she said abruptly, "Alessandro, I am afraid
+your father will not give his consent to your staying here."
+
+"So am I, Senorita," he replied sadly.
+
+"And you would not stay if he did not approve of it, of course," she
+said.
+
+"How could I, Senorita?"
+
+"No," she said, "it would not be right;" but as she said these words,
+the tears filled her eyes.
+
+Alessandro saw them. The world changed in that second. "Senorita!
+Senorita Ramona!" he cried, "tears have come in your eyes! O Senorita,
+then you will not be angry if I say that I love you!" and Alessandro
+trembled with the terror and delight of having said the words.
+
+Hardly did he trust his palpitating senses to be telling him true the
+words that followed, quick, firm, though only in a whisper,--"I know
+that you love me, Alessandro, and I am glad of it!" Yes, this was
+what the Senorita Ramona was saying! And when he stammered, "But you,
+Senorita, you do not--you could not--" "Yes, Alessandro, I do--I love
+you!" in the same clear, firm whisper; and the next minute Alessandro's
+arms were around Ramona, and he had kissed her, sobbing rather than
+saying, "O Senorita, do you mean that you will go with me? that you
+are mine? Oh, no, beloved Senorita, you cannot mean that!" But he was
+kissing her. He knew she did mean it; and Ramona, whispering, "Yes,
+Alessandro, I do mean it; I will go with you," clung to him with her
+hands, and kissed him, and repeated it, "I will go with you, I love
+you." And then, just then, came the Senora's step, and her sharp cry
+of amazement, and there she stood, no more than an arm's-length away,
+looking at them with her indignant, terrible eyes.
+
+What an hour this for Alessandro to be living over and over, as he
+crouched in the darkness, watching! But the bewilderment of his emotions
+did not dull his senses. As if stalking deer in a forest, he listened
+for sounds from the house. It seemed strangely still. As the darkness
+deepened, it seemed still stranger that no lamps were lit. Darkness in
+the Senora's room, in the Senorita's; a faint light in the dining-room,
+soon put out,--evidently no supper going on there. Only from under
+Felipe's door streamed a faint radiance; and creeping close to the
+veranda, Alessandro heard voices fitfully talking,--the Senora's and
+Felipe's; no word from Ramona. Piteously he fixed his eyes on her
+window; it was open, but the curtains tight drawn; no stir, no sound.
+Where was she? What had been done to his love? Only the tireless caution
+and infinite patience of his Indian blood kept Alessandro from going
+to her window. But he would imperil nothing by acting on his own
+responsibility. He would wait, if it were till daylight, till his
+love made a sign. Certainly before long Senor Felipe would come to his
+veranda bed, and then he could venture to speak to him. But it was near
+midnight when the door of Felipe's room opened, and he and his mother
+came out, still speaking in low tones. Felipe lay down on his couch; his
+mother, bending over, kissed him, bade him good-night, and went into her
+own room.
+
+It had been some time now since Alessandro had left off sleeping on the
+veranda floor by Felipe's side. Felipe was so well it was not needful.
+But Felipe felt sure he would come to-night, and was not surprised
+when, a few minutes after the Senora's door closed, he heard a low voice
+through the vines, "Senor Felipe?"
+
+"Hush, Alessandro," whispered Felipe. "Do not make a sound. To-morrow
+morning early I will see you, behind the little sheepfold. It is not
+safe to talk here."
+
+"Where is the Senorita?" Alessandro breathed rather than said.
+
+"In her room," answered Felipe.
+
+"Well?" said Alessandro.
+
+"Yes," said Felipe, hoping he was not lying; and this was all Alessandro
+had to comfort himself with, through his long night of watching. No, not
+all; one other thing comforted him,--the notes of two wood-doves, that
+at intervals he heard, cooing to each other; just the two notes, the
+call and the answer, "Love?" "Here." "Love?" "Here,"--and long intervals
+of silence between. Plain as if written on a page was the thing they
+told.
+
+"That is what my Ramona is like," thought he, "the gentle wood-dove. If
+she is my wife my people will call her Majel, the Wood-Dove."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+WHEN the Senora bade Felipe good-night, she did not go to bed. After
+closing her door, she sat down to think what should be done about
+Ramona. It had been a hard task she had set herself, talking all the
+evening with Felipe without alluding to the topic uppermost in her mind.
+But Felipe was still nervous and irritable. She would not spoil his
+night's rest, she thought, by talking of disagreeable things. Moreover,
+she was not clear in her own mind what she wished to have done about
+Alessandro. If Ramona were to be sent away to the nuns, which was the
+only thing the Senora could think of as yet, there would be no reason
+for discharging Alessandro. And with him the Senora was by no means
+ready to part, though in her first anger she had been ready to dismiss
+him on the spot. As she pursued her reflections, the whole situation
+cleared itself in her mind; so easily do affairs fall into line, in the
+plottings and plannings of an arbitrary person, who makes in his formula
+no allowance for a human element which he cannot control.
+
+Ramona should be sent in disgrace to the Sisters' School, to be a
+servant there for the rest of her life. The Senora would wash her hands
+of her forever. Even Father Salvierderra himself could not expect
+her any longer to keep such a shameless creature under her roof. Her
+sister's written instructions had provided for the possibility of just
+such a contingency. Going to a secret closet in the wall, behind a
+life-size statue of Saint Catharine, the Senora took out an iron box,
+battered and rusty with age, and set it on the bed. The key turned with
+difficulty in the lock. It was many years since the Senora had opened
+this box. No one but herself knew of its existence. There had been many
+times in the history of the Moreno house when the price of the contents
+of that box would have averted loss and misfortune; but the Senora no
+more thought of touching the treasure than if it had been guarded by
+angels with fiery swords. There they lay, brilliant and shining even in
+the dim light of the one candle,--rubies, emeralds, pearls, and yellow
+diamonds. The Senora's lip curled as she looked at them. "Fine dowry,
+truly, for a creature like this!" she said. "Well I knew in the
+beginning no good would come of it; base begotten, base born, she has
+but carried out the instincts of her nature. I suppose I may be grateful
+that my own son was too pure to be her prey!" "To be given to my adopted
+daughter, Ramona Ortegna, on her wedding day,"--so the instructions
+ran,--"if she weds worthily and with your approval. Should such a
+misfortune occur, which I do not anticipate, as that she should prove
+unworthy, then these jewels, and all I have left to her of value, shall
+be the property of the Church."
+
+"No mention as to what I am to do with the girl herself if she proves
+unworthy," thought the Senora, bitterly; "but the Church is the place
+for her; no other keeping will save her from the lowest depths of
+disgrace. I recollect my sister said that Angus had at first intended to
+give the infant to the Church. Would to God he had done so, or left it
+with its Indian mother!" and the Senora rose, and paced the floor. The
+paper of her dead sister's handwriting fell at her feet. As she walked,
+her long skirt swept it rustling to and fro. She stooped, picked it up,
+read it again, with increasing bitterness. No softness at the memory of
+her sister's love for the little child; no relenting. "Unworthy!" Yes,
+that was a mild word to apply to Ramona, now. It was all settled;
+and when the girl was once out of the house, the Senora would breathe
+easier. She and Felipe would lead their lives together, and Felipe would
+wed some day. Was there a woman fair enough, good enough, for Felipe to
+wed? But he must wed; and the place would be gay with children's voices,
+and Ramona would be forgotten.
+
+The Senora did not know how late it was. "I will tell her to-night," she
+said. "I will lose no time; and now she shall hear who her mother was!"
+
+It was a strange freak of just impulse in the Senora's angry soul, which
+made her suddenly remember that Ramona had had no supper, and led her
+to go to the kitchen, get a jug of milk and some bread, and take them
+to the room. Turning the key cautiously, that Felipe might not hear, she
+opened the door and glided in. No voice greeted her; she held her candle
+high up; no Ramona in sight; the bed was empty. She glanced at the
+window. It was open. A terror seized the Senora; fresh anger also. "She
+has run off with Alessandro," she thought, "What horrible disgrace."
+Standing motionless, she heard a faint, regular breathing from the other
+side of the bed. Hastily crossing the room, she saw a sight which had
+melted a heart that was only ice; but the Senora's was stone toward
+Ramona. There lay Ramona on the floor, her head on a pillow at the feet
+of the big Madonna which stood in the corner. Her left hand was under
+her cheek, her right arm flung tight around the base of the statue. She
+was sound asleep. Her face was wet with tears. Her whole attitude was
+full of significance. Even helpless in sleep, she was one who had taken
+refuge in sanctuary. This thought had been distinct in the girl's mind
+when she found herself, spite of all her woe and terror, growing sleepy.
+"She won't dare to hurt me at the Virgin's feet," she had said; "and
+the window is open. Felipe would hear if I called; and Alessandro will
+watch." And with a prayer on her lips she fell asleep.
+
+It was Felipe's nearness more than the Madonna's, which saved her from
+being roused to hear her doom. The Senora stood for some moments
+looking at her, and at the open window. With a hot rush of disgraceful
+suspicions, she noted what she had never before thought of, that
+Alessandro, through all his watching with Felipe, had had close access
+to Ramona's window. "Shameful creature!" she repeated to herself. "And
+she can sleep! It is well she prayed, if the Virgin will hear such!" and
+she turned away, first setting down the jug of milk and the bread on a
+table. Then, with a sudden and still more curious mingling of justness
+in her wrath, she returned, and lifting the coverlet from the bed,
+spread it over Ramona, covering her carefully from head to foot. Then
+she went out and again locked the door.
+
+Felipe, from his bed, heard and divined all, but made no sound. "Thank
+God, the poor child is asleep!" he said; "and my poor dear mother feared
+to awake me by speaking to her! What will become of us all to-morrow!"
+And Felipe tossed and turned, and had barely fallen into an uneasy
+sleep, when his mother's window opened, and she sang the first line of
+the sunrise hymn. Instantly Ramona joined, evidently awake and ready;
+and no sooner did the watching Alessandro hear the first note of her
+voice, than he struck in; and Margarita, who had been up for an hour,
+prowling, listening, peering, wondering, her soul racked between her
+jealousy and her fears,--even Margarita delayed not to unite; and
+Felipe, too, sang feebly; and the volume of the song went up as rounded
+and melodious as if all hearts were at peace and in harmony, instead of
+being all full of sorrow, confusion, or hatred. But there was no one of
+them all who was not the better for the singing; Ramona and Alessandro
+most of all.
+
+"The saints be praised," said Alessandro. "There is my wood-dove's
+voice. She can sing!" And, "Alessandro was near. He watched all night. I
+am glad he loves me," said Ramona.
+
+"To hear those two voices." said the Senora; "would one suppose they
+could sing like that? Perhaps it is not so bad as I think."
+
+As soon as the song was done, Alessandro ran to the sheepfold, where
+Felipe had said he would see him. The minutes would be like years to
+Alessandro till he had seen Felipe.
+
+Ramona, when she waked and found herself carefully covered, and bread
+and milk standing on the table, felt much reassured. Only the Senora's
+own hand had done this, she felt sure, for she had heard her the
+previous evening turn the key in the lock, then violently take it out;
+and Ramona knew well that the fact of her being thus a prisoner would be
+known to none but the Senora herself. The Senora would not set servants
+to gossiping. She ate her bread and milk thankfully, for she was very
+hungry. Then she set her room in order, said her prayers, and sat down
+to wait. For what? She could not imagine; in truth, she did not much
+try. Ramona had passed now into a country where the Senora did not rule.
+She felt little fear. Felipe would not see her harmed, and she was going
+away presently with Alessandro. It was wonderful what peace and freedom
+lay in the very thought. The radiance on her face of these two new-born
+emotions was the first thing the Senora observed as she opened the door,
+and slowly, very slowly, eyeing Ramona with a steady look, entered the
+room. This joyous composure on Ramona's face angered the Senora, as it
+had done before, when she was dragging her up the garden-walk. It seemed
+to her like nothing less than brazen effrontery, and it changed the
+whole tone and manner of her address.
+
+Seating herself opposite Ramona, but at the farthest side of the room,
+she said, in a tone scornful and insulting, "What have you to say for
+yourself?"
+
+Returning the Senora's gaze with one no less steady, Ramona spoke in the
+same calm tone in which she had twice the evening before attempted to
+stay the Senora's wrath. This time, she was not interrupted.
+
+"Senora," she said slowly, "I tried to tell you last night, but you
+would not hear me. If you had listened, you would not have been so
+angry. Neither Alessandro nor I have done anything wrong, and we were
+not ashamed. We love each other, and we are going to be married, and go
+away. I thank you, Senora, for all you have done for me; I am sure
+you will be a great deal happier when I am away;" and Ramona looked
+wistfully, with no shade of resentment, into the Senora's dark, shrunken
+face. "You have been very good to do so much for a girl you did not
+love. Thank you for the bread and milk last night. Perhaps I can go away
+with Alessandro to-day. I do not know what he will wish. We had only
+just that minute spoken of being married, when you found us last night."
+
+The Senora's face was a study during the few moments that it took to say
+these words. She was dumb with amazement. Instantaneously, on the
+first sense of relief that the disgrace had not been what she supposed,
+followed a new wrath, if possible hotter than the first; not so much
+scorn, but a bitterer anger. "Marry! Marry that Indian!" she cried, as
+soon as she found voice. "You marry an Indian? Never! Are you mad? I
+will never permit it."
+
+Ramona looked anxiously at her. "I have never disobeyed you, Senora,"
+she said, "but this is different from all other things; you are not my
+mother. I have promised to marry Alessandro."
+
+The girl's gentleness deceived the Senora.
+
+"No," she said icily, "I am not your mother; but I stand in a mother's
+place to you. You were my sister's adopted child, and she gave you to
+me. You cannot marry without my permission, and I forbid you ever to
+speak again of marrying this Indian."
+
+The moment had come for the Senora Moreno to find out, to her surprise
+and cost, of what stuff this girl was made,--this girl, who had
+for fourteen years lived by her side, docile, gentle, sunny, and
+uncomplaining in her loneliness. Springing to her feet, and walking
+swiftly till she stood close face to face with the Senora, who, herself
+startled by the girl's swift motion, had also risen to her feet, Ramona
+said, in a louder, firmer voice: "Senora Moreno, you may forbid me
+as much as you please. The whole world cannot keep me from marrying
+Alessandro. I love him. I have promised, and I shall keep my word." And
+with her young lithe arms straight down at her sides, her head thrown
+back, Ramona flashed full in the Senora's face a look of proud defiance.
+It was the first free moment her soul had ever known. She felt herself
+buoyed up as by wings in air. Her old terror of the Senora fell from her
+like a garment thrown off.
+
+"Pshaw!" said the Senora, contemptuously, half amused, in spite of her
+wrath, by the girl's, as she thought, bootless vehemence, "you talk like
+a fool. Do you not know that I can shut you up in the nunnery to-morrow,
+if I choose?"
+
+"No, you cannot!" replied Ramona.
+
+"Who, then, is to hinder me." said the Senora, insolently.
+
+"Alessandro!" answered Ramona, proudly.
+
+"Alessandro!" the Senora sneered. "Alessandro! Ha! a beggarly Indian, on
+whom my servants will set the dogs, if I bid them! Ha, ha!"
+
+The Senora's sneering tone but roused Ramona more. "You would never
+dare!" she cried; "Felipe would not permit it!" A most unwise retort for
+Ramona.
+
+"Felipe!" cried the Senora, in a shrill voice. "How dare you pronounce
+his name! He will none of you, from this hour! I forbid him to speak to
+you. Indeed, he will never desire to set eyes on you when he hears the
+truth."
+
+"You are mistaken, Senora," answered Ramona, more gently. "Felipe is
+Alessandro's friend, and--mine," she added, after a second's pause.
+
+"So, ho! the Senorita thinks she is all-powerful in the house of
+Moreno!" cried the Senora. "We will see! we will see! Follow me,
+Senorita Ramona!" And throwing open the door, the Senora strode out,
+looking back over her shoulder.
+
+"Follow me!" she cried again sharply, seeing that Ramona hesitated; and
+Ramona went; across the passage-way leading to the dining-room, out into
+the veranda, down the entire length of it, to the Senora's room,--the
+Senora walking with a quick, agitated step, strangely unlike her usual
+gait; Ramona walking far slower than was her habit, and with her eyes
+bent on the ground. As they passed the dining-room door, Margarita,
+standing just inside, shot at Ramona a vengeful, malignant glance.
+
+"She would help the Senora against me in anything," thought Ramona; and
+she felt a thrill of fear, such as the Senora with all her threats had
+not stirred.
+
+The Senora's windows were open. She closed them both, and drew the
+curtains tight. Then she locked the door, Ramona watching her every
+movement.
+
+"Sit down in that chair," said the Senora, pointing to one near the
+fireplace. A sudden nervous terror seized Ramona.
+
+"I would rather stand, Senora," she said.
+
+"Do as I bid you." said the Senora, in a husky tone; and Ramona obeyed.
+It was a low, broad armchair, and as she sank back into it, her senses
+seemed leaving her. She leaned her head against the back and closed
+her eyes. The room swam. She was roused by the Senora's strong
+smelling-salts held for her to breathe, and a mocking taunt from the
+Senora's iciest voice: "The Senorita does not seem so over-strong as she
+did a few moments back!"
+
+Ramona tried to reason with herself; surely no ill could happen to her,
+in this room, within call of the whole house. But an inexplicable terror
+had got possession of her; and when the Senora, with a sneer on her
+face, took hold of the Saint Catharine statue, and wheeling it half
+around, brought into view a door in the wall, with a big iron key in the
+keyhole, which she proceeded to turn, Ramona shook with fright. She had
+read of persons who had been shut up alive in cells in the wall, and
+starved to death. With dilating eyes she watched the Senora, who, all
+unaware of her terror, was prolonging it and intensifying it by her
+every act. First she took out the small iron box, and set it on a table.
+Then, kneeling, she drew out from an inner recess in the closet a large
+leather-covered box, and pulled it, grating and scraping along the
+floor, till it stood in front of Ramona. All this time she spoke no
+word, and the cruel expression of her countenance deepened each moment.
+The fiends had possession of the Senora Moreno this morning, and no
+mistake. A braver heart than Ramona's might have indeed been fearful, at
+being locked up alone with a woman who looked like that.
+
+Finally, she locked the door and wheeled the statue back into its place.
+Ramona breathed freer. She was not, after all, to be thrust into
+the wall closet and left to starve. She gazed with wonder at the old
+battered boxes. What could it all mean?
+
+"Senorita Ramona Ortegna," began the Senora, drawing up a chair, and
+seating herself by the table on which stood the iron box, "I will now
+explain to you why you will not marry the Indian Alessandro."
+
+At these words, this name, Ramona was herself again,--not her old self,
+her new self, Alessandro's promised wife. The very sound of his name,
+even on an enemy's tongue, gave her strength. The terrors fled away.
+She looked up, first at the Senora, then at the nearest window. She was
+young and strong; at one bound, if worst came to worst, she could leap
+through the window, and fly for her life, calling on Alessandro.
+
+"I shall marry the Indian Alessandro, Senora Moreno," she said, in a
+tone as defiant, and now almost as insolent, as the Senora's own.
+
+The Senora paid no heed to the words, except to say, "Do not interrupt
+me again. I have much to tell you;" and opening the box, she lifted out
+and placed on the table tray after tray of jewels. The sheet of written
+paper lay at the bottom of the box.
+
+"Do you see this paper, Senorita Ramona?" she asked, holding it up.
+Ramona bowed her head. "This was written by my sister, the Senora
+Ortegna, who adopted you and gave you her name. These were her final
+instructions to me, in regard to the disposition to be made of the
+property she left to you."
+
+Ramona's lips parted. She leaned forward, breathless, listening, while
+the Senora read sentence after sentence. All the pent-up pain, wonder,
+fear of her childhood and her girlhood, as to the mystery of her birth,
+swept over her anew, now. Like one hearkening for life or death, she
+listened. She forgot Alessandro. She did not look at the jewels. Her
+eyes never left the Senora's face. At the close of the reading, the
+Senora said sternly, "You see, now, that my sister left to me the entire
+disposition of everything belonging to you."
+
+"But it hasn't said who was my mother," cried Ramona. "Is that all there
+is in the paper?"
+
+The Senora looked stupefied. Was the girl feigning? Did she care nothing
+that all these jewels, almost a little fortune, were to be lost to her
+forever?
+
+"Who was your mother?" she exclaimed, scornfully, "There was no need to
+write that down. Your mother was an Indian. Everybody knew that!"
+
+At the word "Indian," Ramona gave a low cry.
+
+The Senora misunderstood it. "Ay," she said, "a low, common Indian. I
+told my sister, when she took you, the Indian blood in your veins would
+show some day; and now it has come true."
+
+Ramona's cheeks were scarlet. Her eyes flashed. "Yes, Senora Moreno,"
+she said, springing to her feet; "the Indian blood in my veins shows
+to-day. I understand many things I never understood before. Was it
+because I was an Indian that you have always hated me?"
+
+"You are not an Indian, and I have never hated you," interrupted the
+Senora.
+
+Ramona heeded her not, but went on, more and more impetuously. "And if
+I am an Indian, why do you object to my marrying Alessandro? Oh, I am
+glad I am an Indian! I am of his people. He will be glad!" The words
+poured like a torrent out of her lips. In her excitement she came closer
+and closer to the Senora. "You are a cruel woman," she said. "I did not
+know it before; but now I do. If you knew I was an Indian, you had no
+reason to treat me so shamefully as you did last night, when you saw me
+with Alessandro. You have always hated me. Is my mother alive'? Where
+does she live? Tell me; and I will go to her to-day. Tell me! She will
+be glad that Alessandro loves me!"
+
+It was a cruel look, indeed, and a crueller tone, with which the Senora
+answered: "I have not the least idea who your mother was, or if she is
+still alive, Nobody ever knew anything about her,--some low, vicious
+creature, that your father married when he was out of his senses, as you
+are now, when you talk of marrying Alessandro!"
+
+"He married her, then?" asked Ramona, with emphasis. "How know you that,
+Senora Moreno?"
+
+"He told my sister so," replied the Senora, reluctantly. She grudged the
+girl even this much of consolation.
+
+"What was his name?" asked Ramona.
+
+"Phail; Angus Phail," the Senora replied almost mechanically. She found
+herself strangely constrained by Ramona's imperious earnestness, and she
+chafed under it. The tables were being turned on her, she hardly knew
+how. Ramona seemed to tower in stature, and to have the bearing of
+the one in authority, as she stood before her pouring out passionate
+question after question. The Senora turned to the larger box, and opened
+it. With unsteady hands she lifted out the garments which for so many
+years had rarely seen the light. Shawls and ribosos of damask, laces,
+gowns of satin, of velvet. As the Senora flung one after another on the
+chairs, it was a glittering pile of shining, costly stuffs. Ramona's
+eyes rested on them dreamily.
+
+"Did my adopted mother wear all these?" she asked, lifting in her hand a
+fold of lace, and holding it up to the light, in evident admiration.
+
+Again the Senora misconceived her. The girl seemed not insensible to the
+value and beauty of this costly raiment. Perhaps she would be lured by
+it.
+
+"All these are yours, Ramona, you understand, on your wedding day, if
+you marry worthily, with my permission," said the Senora, in a voice
+a shade less cold than had hitherto come from her lips. "Did you
+understand what I read you?"
+
+The girl did not answer. She had taken up in her hand a ragged, crimson
+silk handkerchief, which, tied in many knots, lay in one corner of the
+jewel-box.
+
+"There are pearls in that," said the Senora; "that came with the things
+your father sent to my sister when he died."
+
+Ramona's eyes gleamed. She began untying the knots. The handkerchief was
+old, the knots tied tight, and undisturbed for years. As she reached the
+last knot, and felt the hard stones, she paused. "This was my father's,
+then." she said.
+
+"Yes," said the Senora, scornfully. She thought she had detected a new
+baseness in the girl. She was going to set up a claim to all which had
+been her father's property. "They were your father's, and all these
+rubies, and these yellow diamonds;" and she pushed the tray towards her.
+
+Ramona had untied the last knot. Holding the handkerchief carefully
+above the tray, she shook the pearls out. A strange, spicy fragrance
+came from the silk. The pearls fell in among the rubies, rolling right
+and left, making the rubies look still redder by contrast with their
+snowy whiteness.
+
+"I will keep this handkerchief," she said, thrusting it as she spoke,
+by a swift resolute movement into her bosom. "I am very glad to have one
+thing that belonged to my father. The jewels, Senora, you can give to
+the Church, if Father Salvierderra thinks that is right. I shall marry
+Alessandro;" and still keeping one hand in her bosom where she had
+thrust the handkerchief, she walked away and seated herself again in her
+chair.
+
+Father Salvierderra! The name smote the Senora like a spear-thrust,
+There could be no stronger evidence of the abnormal excitement under
+which she had been laboring for the last twenty-four hours, than the
+fact that she had not once, during all this time, thought to ask herself
+what Father Salvierderra would say, or might command, in this crisis.
+Her religion and the long habit of its outward bonds had alike gone from
+her in her sudden wrath against Ramona. It was with a real terror that
+she became conscious of this.
+
+"Father Salvierderra?" she stammered; "he has nothing to do with it."
+
+But Ramona saw the change in the Senora's face, at the word, and
+followed up her advantage. "Father Salvierderra has to do with
+everything," she said boldly. "He knows Alessandro, He will not forbid
+me to marry him, and if he did--" Ramona stopped. She also was smitten
+with a sudden terror at the vista opening before her,--of a disobedience
+to Father Salvierderra.
+
+"And if he did," repeated the Senora, eyeing Ramona keenly, "would you
+disobey him?"
+
+"Yes," said Ramona.
+
+"I will tell Father Salvierderra what you say," retorted the Senora,
+sarcastically, "that he may spare himself the humiliation of laying any
+commands on you, to be thus disobeyed."
+
+Ramona's lip quivered, and her eyes filled with the tears which no other
+of the Senora's taunts had been strong enough to bring. Dearly she
+loved the old monk; had loved him since her earliest recollection. His
+displeasure would be far more dreadful to her than the Senora's. His
+would give her grief; the Senora's, at utmost, only terror.
+
+Clasping her hands, she said, "Oh, Senora, have mercy! Do not say that
+to the Father!"
+
+"It is my duty to tell the Father everything that happens in my family,"
+answered the Senora, chillingly. "He will agree with me, that if you
+persist in this disobedience you will deserve the severest punishment. I
+shall tell him all;" and she began putting the trays back in the box.
+
+"You will not tell him as it really is, Senora," persisted Ramona. "I
+will tell him myself."
+
+"You shall not see him! I will take care of that!" cried the Senora, so
+vindictively that Ramona shuddered.
+
+"I will give you one more chance," said the Senora, pausing in the
+act of folding up one of the damask gowns. "Will you obey me? Will you
+promise to have nothing more to do with this Indian?"
+
+"Never, Senora," replied Ramona; "never!"
+
+"Then the consequences be on your own head," cried the Senora. "Go to
+your room! And, hark! I forbid you to speak of all this to Senor Felipe.
+Do you hear?"
+
+Ramona bowed her head. "I hear," she said; and gliding out of the room,
+closed the door behind her, and instead of going to her room, sped like
+a hunted creature down the veranda steps, across the garden, calling in
+a low tone, "Felipe! Felipe! Where are you, Felipe?"
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE little sheepfold, or corral, was beyond the artichoke-patch, on that
+southern <DW72> whose sunshine had proved so disastrous a temptation to
+Margarita in the matter of drying the altar-cloth. It was almost like a
+terrace, this long <DW72>; and the sheepfold, being near the bottom,
+was wholly out of sight of the house. This was the reason Felipe had
+selected it as the safest spot for his talk with Alessandro.
+
+When Ramona reached the end of the trellised walk in the garden, she
+halted and looked to the right and left. No one was in sight. As she
+entered the Senora's room an hour before, she had caught a glimpse of
+some one, she felt almost positive it was Felipe, turning off in the
+path to the left, leading down to the sheepfold. She stood irresolute
+for a moment, gazing earnestly down this path. "If the saints would only
+tell me where he is!" she said aloud. She trembled as she stood there,
+fearing each second to hear the Senora's voice calling her. But fortune
+was favoring Ramona, for once; even as the words passed her lips, she
+saw Felipe coming slowly up the bank. She flew to meet him. "Oh, Felipe,
+Felipe!" she began.
+
+"Yes, dear, I know it all," interrupted Felipe; "Alessandro has told
+me."
+
+"She forbade me to speak to you, Felipe," said Ramona, "but I could not
+bear it. What are we to do? Where is Alessandro?"
+
+"My mother forbade you to speak to me!" cried Felipe, in a tone of
+terror. "Oh, Ramona, why did you disobey her? If she sees us talking,
+she will be even more displeased. Fly back to your room. Leave it all to
+me. I will do all that I can."
+
+"But, Felipe," began Ramona, wringing her hands in distress.
+
+"I know! I know!" said Felipe; "but you must not make my mother any more
+angry. I don't know what she will do till I talk with her. Do go back to
+your room! Did she not tell you to stay there?"
+
+"Yes," sobbed Ramona, "but I cannot. Oh, Felipe, I am so afraid! Do help
+us! Do you think you can? You won't let her shut me up in the convent,
+will you, Felipe? Where is Alessandro? Why can't I go away with him this
+minute? Where is he? Dear Felipe, let me go now."
+
+Felipe's face was horror-stricken. "Shut you in the convent!" he gasped.
+"Did she say that? Ramona, dear, fly back to your room. Let me talk
+to her. Fly, I implore you. I can't do anything for you if she sees me
+talking with you now;" and he turned away, and walked swiftly down the
+terrace.
+
+Ramona felt as if she were indeed alone in the world. How could she
+go back into that house! Slowly she walked up the garden-path again,
+meditating a hundred wild plans of escape. Where, where was Alessandro?
+Why did he not appear for her rescue? Her heart failed her; and when
+she entered her room, she sank on the floor in a paroxysm of hopeless
+weeping. If she had known that Alessandro was already a good half-hour's
+journey on his way to Temecula, galloping farther and farther away from
+her each moment, she would have despaired indeed.
+
+This was what Felipe, after hearing the whole story, had counselled him
+to do. Alessandro had given him so vivid a description of the Senora's
+face and tone, when she had ordered him out of her sight, that Felipe
+was alarmed. He had never seen his mother angry like that. He could not
+conceive why her wrath should have been so severe. The longer he talked
+with Alessandro, the more he felt that it would be wiser for him to be
+out of sight till the first force of her anger had been spent. "I will
+say that I sent you," said Felipe, "so she cannot feel that you have
+committed any offence in going. Come back in four days, and by that time
+it will be all settled what you shall do."
+
+It went hard with Alessandro to go without seeing Ramona; but it did not
+need Felipe's exclamation of surprise, to convince him that it would be
+foolhardy to attempt it. His own judgment had told him that it would be
+out of the question.
+
+"But you will tell her all, Senor Felipe? You will tell her that it is
+for her sake I go?" the poor fellow said piteously, gazing into Felipe's
+eyes as if he would read his inmost soul.
+
+"I will, indeed, Alessandro; I will," replied Felipe; and he held his
+hand out to Alessandro, as to a friend and equal. "You may trust me to
+do all I can do for Ramona and for you."
+
+"God bless you, Senor Felipe," answered Alessandro, gravely, a slight
+trembling of his voice alone showing how deeply he was moved.
+
+"He's a noble fellow," said Felipe to himself, as he watched Alessandro
+leap on his horse, which had been tethered near the corral all
+night,--"a noble fellow! There isn't a man among all my friends who
+would have been manlier or franker than he has been in this whole
+business. I don't in the least wonder that Ramona loves him. He's a
+noble fellow! But what is to be done! What is to be done!"
+
+Felipe was sorely perplexed. No sharp crisis of disagreement had ever
+arisen between him and his mother, but he felt that one was coming
+now. He was unaware of the extent of his influence over her. He doubted
+whether he could move her very far. The threat of shutting Ramona up in
+the convent terrified him more than he liked to admit to himself. Had
+she power to do that? Felipe did not know. She must believe that she
+had, or she would not have made the threat. Felipe's whole soul revolted
+at the cruel injustice of the idea.
+
+"As if it were a sin for the poor girl to love Alessandro!" he said.
+"I'd help her to run away with him, if worse comes to worst. What can
+make my mother feel so!" And Felipe paced back and forth till the sun
+was high, and the sharp glare and heat reminded him that he must seek
+shelter; then he threw himself down under the willows. He dreaded to
+go into the house. His instinctive shrinking from the disagreeable, his
+disposition to put off till another time, held him back, hour by hour.
+The longer he thought the situation over, the less he knew how to broach
+the subject to his mother; the more uncertain he felt whether it would
+be wise for him to broach it at all. Suddenly he heard his name called.
+It was Margarita, who had been sent to call him to dinner. "Good
+heavens! dinner already!" he cried, springing to his feet.
+
+"Yes, Senor," replied Margarita, eyeing him observantly. She had seen
+him talking with Alessandro, had seen Alessandro galloping away down
+the river road. She had also gathered much from the Senora's look,
+and Ramona's, as they passed the dining-room door together soon after
+breakfast. Margarita could have given a tolerably connected account of
+all that had happened within the last twenty-four hours to the chief
+actors in this tragedy which had so suddenly begun in the Moreno
+household. Not supposed to know anything, she yet knew nearly all; and
+her every pulse was beating high with excited conjecture and wonder as
+to what would come next.
+
+Dinner was a silent and constrained meal,--Ramona absent, the fiction of
+her illness still kept up; Felipe embarrassed, and unlike himself; the
+Senora silent, full of angry perplexity. At her first glance in Felipe's
+face, she thought to herself, "Ramona has spoken to him. When and how
+did she do it?" For it had been only a few moments after Ramona had left
+her presence, that she herself had followed, and, seeing the girl in her
+own room, had locked the door as before, and had spent the rest of the
+morning on the veranda within hands' reach of Ramona's window. How,
+when, and where had she contrived to communicate with Felipe? The longer
+the Senora studied over this, the angrier and more baffled she felt; to
+be outwitted was even worse to her than to be disobeyed. Under her very
+eyes, as it were, something evidently had happened, not only against
+her will, but which she could not explain. Her anger even rippled out
+towards Felipe, and was fed by the recollection of Ramona's unwise
+retort, "Felipe would not let you!" What had Felipe done or said to make
+the girl so sure that he would be on her side and Alessandro's? Was it
+come to this, that she, the Senora Moreno, was to be defied in her own
+house by children and servants!
+
+It was with a tone of severe displeasure that she said to Felipe, as
+she rose from the dinner-table, "My son, I would like to have some
+conversation with you in my room, if you are at leisure."
+
+"Certainly, mother," said Felipe, a load rolling off his mind at her
+having thus taken the initiative, for which he lacked courage; and
+walking swiftly towards her, he attempted to put his arm around her
+waist, as it was his affectionate habit frequently to do. She repulsed
+him gently, but bethinking herself, passed her hand through his arm,
+and leaning on it heavily as she walked, said: "This is the most fitting
+way, my son. I must lean more and more heavily on you each year now. Age
+is telling on me fast. Do you not find me greatly changed, Felipe, in
+the last year?"
+
+"No, madre mia," replied Felipe, "indeed I do not. I see not that you
+have changed in the last ten years." And he was honest in this. His
+eyes did not note the changes so clear to others, and for the best of
+reasons. The face he saw was one no one else ever beheld; it was kindled
+by emotion, transfigured by love, whenever it was turned towards him.
+
+The Senora sighed deeply as she answered: "That must be because you so
+love me, Felipe. I myself see the changes even day by day. Troubles
+tell on me as they did not when I was younger. Even within the last
+twenty-four hours I seem to myself to have aged frightfully;" and she
+looked keenly at Felipe as she seated herself in the arm-chair where
+poor Ramona had swooned a few hours before. Felipe remained standing
+before her, gazing, with a tender expression, upon her features, but
+saying nothing.
+
+"I see that Ramona has told you all!" she continued, her voice hardening
+as she spoke. What a fortunate wording of her sentence!
+
+"No, mother; it was not Ramona, it was Alessandro, who told me this
+morning, early," Felipe answered hastily, hurrying on, to draw the
+conversation as far away from Ramona as possible. "He came and spoke to
+me last night after I was in bed; but I told him to wait till morning,
+and then I would hear all he had to say."
+
+"Ah!" said the Senora, relieved. Then, as Felipe remained silent, she
+asked, "And what did he say?"
+
+"He told me all that had happened."
+
+"All!" said the Senora, sneeringly. "Do you suppose that he told you
+all?"
+
+"He said that you had bidden him begone out of your sight," said Felipe,
+"and that he supposed he must go. So I told him to go at once. I thought
+you would prefer not to see him again."
+
+"Ah!" said the Senora again, startled, gratified that Felipe had so
+promptly seconded her action, but sorry that Alessandro had gone. "Ah, I
+did not know whether you would think it best to discharge him at once
+or not; I told him he must answer to you. I did not know but you might
+devise some measures by which he could be retained on the estate."
+
+Felipe stared. Could he believe his ears? This did not sound like the
+relentless displeasure he had expected. Could Ramona have been dreaming?
+In his astonishment, he did not weigh his mother's words carefully; he
+did not carry his conjecture far enough; he did not stop to make sure
+that retaining Alessandro on the estate might not of necessity bode any
+good to Ramona; but with his usual impetuous ardor, sanguine, at the
+first glimpse of hope, that all was well, he exclaimed joyfully, "Ah,
+dear mother, if that could only be done, all would be well;" and, never
+noting the expression of his mother's face, nor pausing to take breath,
+he poured out all he thought and felt on the subject.
+
+"That is just what I have been hoping for ever since I saw that he and
+Ramona were growing so fond of each other. He is a splendid fellow, and
+the best hand we have ever had on the place. All the men like him; he
+would make a capital overseer; and if we put him in charge of the whole
+estate, there would not be any objection to his marrying Ramona. That
+would give them a good living here with us."
+
+"Enough!" cried the Senora, in a voice which fell on Felipe's ears
+like a voice from some other world,--so hollow, so strange. He stopped
+speaking, and uttered an ejaculation of amazement. At the first words
+he had uttered, the Senora had fixed her eyes on the floor,--a habit of
+hers when she wished to listen with close attention. Lifting her eyes
+now, fixing them full on Felipe, she regarded him with a look which not
+all his filial reverence could bear without resentment. It was nearly as
+scornful as that with which she had regarded Ramona. Felipe .
+
+"Why do you look at me like that, mother?" he exclaimed. "What have I
+done?"
+
+The Senora waved her hand imperiously. "Enough!" she reiterated. "Do not
+say any more. I wish to think for a few moments;" and she fixed her eyes
+on the floor again.
+
+Felipe studied her countenance. A more nearly rebellious feeling than
+he had supposed himself capable of slowly arose in his heart. Now he for
+the first time perceived what terror his mother must inspire in a girl
+like Ramona.
+
+"Poor little one!" he thought. "If my mother looked at her as she did at
+me just now, I wonder she did not die."
+
+A great storm was going on in the Senora's bosom. Wrath against Ramona
+was uppermost in it. In addition to all else, the girl had now been the
+cause, or at least the occasion, of Felipe's having, for the first time
+in his whole life, angered her beyond her control.
+
+"As if I had not suffered enough by reason of that creature," she
+thought bitterly to herself, "without her coming between me and Felipe!"
+
+But nothing could long come between the Senora and Felipe. Like a fresh
+lava-stream flowing down close on the track of its predecessor, came the
+rush of the mother's passionate love for her son close on the passionate
+anger at his words.
+
+When she lifted her eyes they were full of tears, which it smote Felipe
+to see. As she gazed at him, they rolled down her cheeks, and she said
+in trembling tones: "Forgive me, my child; I had not thought anything
+could make me thus angry with you. That shameless creature is costing us
+too dear. She must leave the house."
+
+Felipe's heart gave a bound; Ramona had not been mistaken, then. A
+bitter shame seized him at his mother's cruelty. But her tears made him
+tender; and it was in a gentle, even pleading voice that he replied:
+"I do not see, mother, why you call Ramona shameless. There is nothing
+wrong in her loving Alessandro."
+
+"I found her in his arms!" exclaimed the Senora.
+
+"I know," said Felipe; "Alessandro told me that he had just at that
+instant told her he loved her, and she had said she loved him, and would
+marry him, just as you came up."
+
+"Humph!" retorted the Senora; "do you think that Indian would have dared
+to speak a word of love to the Senorita Ramona Ortegna, if she had not
+conducted herself shamelessly? I wonder that he concerned himself to
+speak about marriage to her at all."
+
+"Oh, mother! mother!" was all that Felipe could say to this. He was
+aghast. He saw now, in a flash, the whole picture as it lay in his
+mother's mind, and his heart sank within him. "Mother!" he repeated, in
+a tone which spoke volumes.
+
+"Ay," she continued, "that is what I say. I see no reason why he
+hesitated to take her, as he would take any Indian squaw, with small
+ceremony of marrying."
+
+"Alessandro would not take any woman that way any quicker than I would,
+mother," said Felipe courageously; "you do him injustice." He longed
+to add, "And Ramona too," but he feared to make bad matters worse by
+pleading for her at present.
+
+"No, I do not," said the Senora; "I do Alessandro full justice. I
+think very few men would have behaved as well as he has under the same
+temptation. I do not hold him in the least responsible for all that has
+happened. It is all Ramona's fault."
+
+Felipe's patience gave way. He had not known, till now, how very closely
+this pure and gentle girl, whom he had loved as a sister in his boyhood,
+and had come near loving as a lover in his manhood, had twined herself
+around his heart. He could not remain silent another moment, and hear
+her thus wickedly accused.
+
+"Mother!" he exclaimed, in a tone which made the Senora look up at him
+in sudden astonishment. "Mother, I cannot help it if I make you very
+angry; I must speak; I can't bear to hear you say such things of Ramona.
+I have seen for a long time that Alessandro loved the very ground under
+her feet; and Ramona would not have been a woman if she had not seen it
+too! She has seen it, and has felt it, and has come to love him with all
+her soul, just as I hope some woman will love me one of these days. If I
+am ever loved as well as she loves Alessandro, I shall be lucky. I think
+they ought to be married; and I think we ought to take Alessandro on to
+the estate, so that they can live here. I don't see anything disgraceful
+in it, nor anything wrong, nor anything but what was perfectly natural.
+You know, mother, it isn't as if Ramona really belonged to our family;
+you know she is half Indian." A scornful ejaculation from his mother
+interrupted him here; but Felipe hurried on, partly because he was borne
+out of himself at last by impetuous feeling, partly that he dreaded to
+stop, because if he did, his mother would speak; and already he felt
+a terror of what her next words might be. "I have often thought about
+Ramona's future, mother. You know a great many men would not want to
+marry her, just because she is half Indian. You, yourself, would never
+have given your consent to my marrying her, if I had wanted to." Again
+an exclamation from the Senora, this time more of horror than of scorn.
+But Felipe pressed on. "No, of course you would not, I always knew that;
+except for that, I might have loved her myself, for a sweeter girl
+never drew breath in this God's earth." Felipe was reckless now; having
+entered on this war, he would wage it with every weapon that lay within
+his reach; if one did not tell, another might. "You have never loved
+her. I don't know that you have ever even liked her; I don't think you
+have. I know, as a little boy, I always used to see how much kinder you
+were to me than to her, and I never could understand it. And you are
+unjust to her now. I've been watching her all summer; I've seen her and
+Alessandro together continually. You know yourself, mother, he has been
+with us on the veranda, day after day, just as if he were one of the
+family. I've watched them by the hour, when I lay there so sick; I
+thought you must have seen it too. I don't believe Alessandro has ever
+looked or said or done a thing I wouldn't have done in his place; and I
+don't believe Ramona has ever looked, said, or done a thing I would not
+be willing to have my own sister do!" Here Felipe paused. He had made
+his charge; like a young impetuous general, massing all his forces at
+the onset; he had no reserves. It is not the way to take Gibraltars.
+
+When he paused, literally breathless, he had spoken so fast,--and even
+yet Felipe was not quite strong, so sadly had the fever undermined his
+constitution,--the Senora looked at him interrogatively, and said in
+a now composed tone: "You do not believe that Ramona has done anything
+that you would not be willing to have your own sister do? Would you be
+willing that your own sister should marry Alessandro?"
+
+Clever Senora Moreno! During the few moments that Felipe had been
+speaking, she had perceived certain things which it would be beyond her
+power to do; certain others that it would be impolitic to try to do.
+Nothing could possibly compensate her for antagonizing Felipe. Nothing
+could so deeply wound her, as to have him in a resentful mood towards
+her; or so weaken her real control of him, as to have him feel that she
+arbitrarily overruled his preference or his purpose. In presence of her
+imperious will, even her wrath capitulated and surrendered. There would
+be no hot words between her and her son. He should believe that he
+determined the policy of the Moreno house, even in this desperate
+crisis.
+
+Felipe did not answer. A better thrust was never seen on any field than
+the Senora's question. She repeated it, still more deliberately, in her
+wonted gentle voice. The Senora was herself again, as she had not been
+for a moment since she came upon Alessandro and Ramona at the brook.
+How just and reasonable the question sounded, as she repeated it slowly,
+with an expression in her eyes, of poising and weighing matters. "Would
+you be willing that your own sister should marry Alessandro?"
+
+Felipe was embarrassed. He saw whither he was being led. He could give
+but one answer to this question. "No, mother," he said, "I should not;
+but--"
+
+"Never mind buts," interrupted his mother; "we have not got to those
+yet;" and she smiled on Felipe,--an affectionate smile, but it somehow
+gave him a feeling of dread. "Of course I knew you could make but one
+answer to my question. If you had a sister, you would rather see her
+dead than married to any one of these Indians."
+
+Felipe opened his lips eagerly, to speak. "Not so," he said.
+
+"Wait, dear!" exclaimed his mother. "One thing at a time, I see how full
+your loving heart is, and I was never prouder of you as my son than when
+listening just now to your eloquent defence of Ramona, Perhaps you
+may be right and I wrong as to her character and conduct. We will not
+discuss those points." It was here that the Senora had perceived some
+things that it would be out of her power to do. "We will not discuss
+those, because they do not touch the real point at issue. What it is
+our duty to do by Ramona, in such a matter as this, does not turn on
+her worthiness or unworthiness. The question is, Is it right for you
+to allow her to do what you would not allow your own sister to do?" The
+Senora paused for a second, noted with secret satisfaction how puzzled
+and unhappy Felipe looked; then, in a still gentler voice, she went on,
+"You surely would not think that right, my son, would you?" And now the
+Senora waited for an answer.
+
+"No, mother," came reluctantly from Felipe's lips. "I suppose not;
+but--"
+
+"I was sure my own son could make no other reply," interrupted the
+Senora. She did not wish Felipe at present to do more than reply to
+her questions. "Of course it would not be right for us to let Ramona
+do anything which we would not let her do if she were really of our own
+blood. That is the way I have always looked at my obligation to her. My
+sister intended to rear her as her own daughter. She had given her her
+own name. When my sister died, she transferred to me all her right and
+responsibility in and for the child. You do not suppose that if your
+aunt had lived, she would have ever given her consent to her adopted
+daughter's marrying an Indian, do you?"
+
+Again the Senora paused for a reply, and again the reluctant Felipe
+said, in a low tone, "No, I suppose she would not."
+
+"Very well. Then that lays a double obligation on us. It is not only
+that we are not to permit Ramona to do a thing which we would consider
+disgraceful to one of our own blood; we are not to betray the trust
+reposed in us by the only person who had a right to control her, and who
+transferred that trust to us. Is not that so?"
+
+"Yes, mother," said the unhappy Felipe.
+
+He saw the meshes closing around him. He felt that there was a flaw
+somewhere in his mother's reasoning, but he could not point it out;
+in fact, he could hardly make it distinct to himself. His brain was
+confused. Only one thing he saw clearly, and that was, that after all
+had been said and done, Ramona would still marry Alessandro. But it was
+evident that it would never be with his mother's consent. "Nor with mine
+either, openly, the way she puts it. I don't see how it can be; and yet
+I have promised Alessandro to do all I could for him. Curse the luck,
+I wish he had never set foot on the place!" said Felipe in his heart,
+growing unreasonable, and tired with the perplexity.
+
+The Senora continued: "I shall always blame myself bitterly for having
+failed to see what was going on. As you say, Alessandro has been with
+us a great deal since your illness, with his music, and singing, and one
+thing and another; but I can truly say that I never thought of Ramona's
+being in danger of looking upon him in the light of a possible lover,
+any more than of her looking thus upon Juan Canito, or Luigo, or any
+other of the herdsmen or laborers. I regret it more than words can
+express, and I do not know what we can do, now that it has happened."
+
+"That's it, mother! That's it!" broke in Felipe. "You see, you see it is
+too late now."
+
+The Senora went on as if Felipe had not spoken. "I suppose you would
+really very much regret to part with Alessandro, and your word is in a
+way pledged to him, as you had asked him if he would stay on the place,
+Of course, now that all this has happened, it would be very unpleasant
+for Ramona to stay here, and see him continually--at least for a time,
+until she gets over this strange passion she seems to have conceived
+for him. It will not last. Such sudden passions never do." The Senora
+artfully interpolated, "What should you think, Felipe, of having her go
+back to the Sisters' school for a time? She was very happy there."
+
+The Senora had strained a point too far. Felipe's self-control suddenly
+gave way, and as impetuously as he had spoken in the beginning, he spoke
+again now, nerved by the memory of Ramona's face and tone as she had
+cried to him in the garden, "Oh, Felipe, you won't let her shut me up
+in the convent, will you?" "Mother!" he cried, "you would never do that.
+You would not shut the poor girl up in the convent!"
+
+The Senora raised her eyebrows in astonishment. "Who spoke of shutting
+up?" she said. "Ramona has already been there at school. She might go
+again. She is not too old to learn. A change of scene and occupation is
+the best possible cure for a girl who has a thing of this sort to get
+over. Can you propose anything better, my son? What would you advise?"
+And a third time the Senora paused for an answer.
+
+These pauses and direct questions of the Senora's were like nothing
+in life so much as like that stage in a spider's processes when,
+withdrawing a little way from a half-entangled victim, which still
+supposes himself free, it rests from its weaving, and watches the victim
+flutter. Subtle questions like these, assuming, taking for granted as
+settled, much which had never been settled at all, were among the best
+weapons in the Senora's armory. They rarely failed her.
+
+"Advise!" cried Felipe, excitedly. "Advise! This is what I advise--to
+let Ramona and Alessandro marry. I can't help all you say about our
+obligations. I dare say you're right; and it's a cursedly awkward
+complication for us, anyhow, the way you put it."
+
+"Yes, awkward for you, as the head of our house," interrupted the
+Senora, sighing. "I don't quite see how you would face it."
+
+"Well, I don't propose to face it," continued Felipe, testily. "I don't
+propose to have anything to do with it, from first to last. Let her go
+away with him, if she wants to.'
+
+"Without our consent?" said the Senora, gently.
+
+"Yes, without it, if she can't go with it; and I don't see, as you have
+stated it, how we could exactly take any responsibility about marrying
+her to Alessandro. But for heaven's sake, mother, let her go! She will
+go, any way. You haven't the least idea how she loves Alessandro, or how
+he loves her. Let her go!"
+
+"Do you really think she would run away with him, if it came to that?"
+asked the Senora, earnestly. "Run away and marry him, spite of our
+refusing to consent to the marriage?"
+
+"I do," said Felipe.
+
+"Then it is your opinion, is it, that the only thing left for us to do,
+is to wash our hands of it altogether, and leave her free to do what she
+pleases?"
+
+"That's just what I do think, mother," replied Felipe, his heart growing
+lighter at her words. "That's just what I do think. We can't prevent
+it, and it is of no use to try. Do let us tell them they can do as they
+like."
+
+"Of course, Alessandro must leave us, then," said the Senora. "They
+could not stay here."
+
+"I don't see why!" said Felipe, anxiously.
+
+"You will, my son, if you think a moment. Could we possibly give a
+stronger indorsement to their marriage than by keeping them here? Don't
+you see that would be so?"
+
+Felipe's eyes fell. "Then I suppose they couldn't be married here,
+either," he said.
+
+"What more could we do than that, for a marriage that we heartily
+approved of, my son?"
+
+"True, mother;" and Felipe clapped his hand to his forehead. "But then
+we force them to run away!"
+
+"Oh, no." said the Senora, icily. "If they go, they will go of their
+own accord. We hope they will never do anything so foolish and wrong. If
+they do, I suppose we shall always be held in a measure responsible for
+not having prevented it. But if you think it is not wise, or of no use
+to attempt that, I do not see what there is to be done."
+
+Felipe did not speak. He felt discomfited; felt as if he had betrayed
+his friend Alessandro, his sister Ramona; as if a strange complication,
+network of circumstances, had forced him into a false position; he did
+not see what more he could ask, what more could be asked, of his mother;
+he did not see, either, that much less could have been granted to
+Alessandro and Ramona; he was angry, wearied, perplexed.
+
+The Senora studied his face. "You do not seem satisfied, Felipe dear,"
+she said tenderly. "As, indeed, how could you be in this unfortunate
+state of affairs? But can you think of anything different for us to do?"
+
+"No," said Felipe, bitterly. "I can't, that's the worst of it. It is
+just turning Ramona out of the house, that's all."
+
+"Felipe! Felipe!" exclaimed the Senora, "how unjust you are to yourself!
+You know you would never do that! You know that she has always had a
+home here as if she were a daughter; and always will have, as long as
+she wishes it. If she chooses to turn her back on it, and go away, is
+it our fault? Do not let your pity for this misguided girl blind you to
+what is just to yourself and to me. Turn Ramona out of the house! You
+know I promised my sister to bring her up as my own child; and I have
+always felt that my son would receive the trust from me, when I died.
+Ramona has a home under the Moreno roof so long as she will accept it.
+It is not just, Felipe, to say that we turn her out;" and tears stood in
+the Senora's eyes.
+
+"Forgive me, dear mother," cried the unhappy Felipe. "Forgive me for
+adding one burden to all you have to bear. Truth is, this miserable
+business has so distraught my senses, I can't seem to see anything as it
+is. Dear mother, it is very hard for you. I wish it were done with."
+
+"Thanks for your precious sympathy, my Felipe," replied the Senora. "If
+it were not for you, I should long ago have broken down beneath my cares
+and burdens. But among them all, have been few so grievous as this. I
+feel myself and our home dishonored. But we must submit. As you say,
+Felipe, I wish it were done with. It would be as well, perhaps, to send
+for Ramona at once, and tell her what we have decided. She is no doubt
+in great anxiety; we will see her here."
+
+Felipe would have greatly preferred to see Ramona alone; but as he knew
+not how to bring this about he assented to his mother's suggestion.
+
+Opening her door, the Senora walked slowly down the passage-way,
+unlocked Ramona's door, and said: "Ramona, be so good as to come to my
+room. Felipe and I have something to say to you."
+
+Ramona followed, heavy-hearted. The words, "Felipe and I," boded no
+good.
+
+"The Senora has made Felipe think just as she does herself," thought
+Ramona. "Oh, what will become of me!" and she stole a reproachful,
+imploring look at Felipe. He smiled back in a way which reassured her;
+but the reassurance did not last long.
+
+"Senorita Ramona Ortegna," began the Senora. Felipe shivered. He had had
+no conception that his mother could speak in that way. The words seemed
+to open a gulf between Ramona and all the rest of the world, so cold
+and distant they sounded,--as the Senora might speak to an intruding
+stranger.
+
+"Senorita Ramona Ortegna," she said, "my son and I have been discussing
+what it is best for us to do in the mortifying and humiliating position
+in which you place us by your relation with the Indian Alessandro. Of
+course you know--or you ought to know--that it is utterly impossible
+for us to give our consent to your making such a marriage; we should be
+false to a trust, and dishonor our own family name, if we did that."
+
+Ramona's eyes dilated, her cheeks paled; she opened her lips, but no
+sound came from them; she looked toward Felipe, and seeing him with
+downcast eyes, and an expression of angry embarrassment on his face,
+despair seized her. Felipe had deserted their cause. Oh, where, where
+was Alessandro! Clasping her hands, she uttered a low cry,--a cry that
+cut Felipe to the heart. He was finding out, in thus being witness of
+Ramona's suffering, that she was far nearer and dearer to him than he
+had realized. It would have taken very little, at such moments as these,
+to have made Felipe her lover again; he felt now like springing to her
+side, folding his arms around her, and bidding his mother defiance. It
+took all the self-control he could gather, to remain silent, and trust
+to Ramona's understanding him later.
+
+Ramona's cry made no break in the smooth, icy flow of the Senora's
+sentences. She gave no sign of having heard it, but continued: "My son
+tells me that he thinks our forbidding it would make no difference; that
+you would go away with the man all the same. I suppose he is right in
+thinking so, as you yourself told me that even if Father Salvierderra
+forbade it, you would disobey him. Of course, if this is your
+determination, we are powerless. Even if I were to put you in the
+keeping of the Church, which is what I am sure my sister, who adopted
+you as her child, would do, if she were alive, you would devise some
+means of escape, and thus bring a still greater and more public scandal
+on the family. Felipe thinks that it is not worth while to attempt to
+bring you to reason in that way; and we shall therefore do nothing. I
+wish to impress it upon you that my son, as head of this house, and I,
+as my sister's representative, consider you a member of our own family.
+So long as we have a home for ourselves, that home is yours, as it
+always has been. If you choose to leave it, and to disgrace yourself and
+us by marrying an Indian, we cannot help ourselves."
+
+The Senora paused. Ramona did not speak. Her eyes were fixed on the
+Senora's face, as if she would penetrate to her inmost soul; the girl
+was beginning to recognize the Senora's true nature; her instincts and
+her perceptions were sharpened by love.
+
+"Have you anything to say to me or to my son?" asked the Senora.
+
+"No, Senora," replied Ramona; "I do not think of anything more to say
+than I said this morning. Yes," she added, "there is. Perhaps I shall
+not speak with you again before I go away. I thank you once more for
+the home you have given me for so many years. And you too, Felipe," she
+continued, turning towards Felipe, her face changing, all her pent-up
+affection and sorrow looking out of her tearful eyes,--"you too, dear
+Felipe. You have always been so good to me. I shall always love you as
+long as I live;" and she held out both her hands to him. Felipe took
+them in his, and was about to speak, when the Senora interrupted
+him. She did not intend to have any more of this sort of affectionate
+familiarity between her son and Ramona.
+
+"Are we to understand that you are taking your leave now?" she said. "Is
+it your purpose to go at once?"
+
+"I do not know, Senora," stammered Ramona; "I have not seen Alessandro;
+I have not heard--" And she looked up in distress at Felipe, who
+answered compassionately,--
+
+"Alessandro has gone."
+
+"Gone!" shrieked Ramona. "Gone! not gone, Felipe!"
+
+"Only for four days," replied Felipe. "To Temecula. I thought it would
+be better for him to be away for a day or two. He is to come back
+immediately. Perhaps he will be back day after to-morrow."
+
+"Did he want to go? What did he go for? Why didn't you let me go with
+him? Oh, why, why did he go?" cried Ramona.
+
+"He went because my son told him to go," broke in the Senora, impatient
+of this scene, and of the sympathy she saw struggling in Felipe's
+expressive features. "My son thought, and rightly, that the sight of him
+would be more than I could bear just now; so he ordered him to go away,
+and Alessandro obeyed."
+
+Like a wounded creature at bay, Ramona turned suddenly away from Felipe,
+and facing the Senora, her eyes resolute and dauntless spite of the
+streaming tears, exclaimed, lifting her right hand as she spoke, "You
+have been cruel; God will punish you!" and without waiting to see what
+effect her words had produced, without looking again at Felipe, she
+walked swiftly out of the room.
+
+"You see," said the Senora, "you see she defies us."
+
+"She is desperate," said Felipe. "I am sorry I sent Alessandro away."
+
+"No, my son," replied the Senora, "you were wise, as you always are.
+It may bring her to her senses, to have a few days' reflection in
+solitude."
+
+"You do not mean to keep her locked up, mother, do you?" cried Felipe.
+
+The Senora turned a look of apparently undisguised amazement on him.
+"You would not think that best, would you? Did you not say that all we
+could do, was simply not to interfere with her in any way? To wash our
+hands, so far as is possible, of all responsibility about her?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said the baffled Felipe; "that was what I said. But,
+mother--" He stopped. He did not know what he wanted to say.
+
+The Senora looked tenderly at him, her face full of anxious inquiry.
+
+"What is it, Felipe dear? Is there anything more you think I ought to
+say or do?" she asked.
+
+"What is it you are going to do, mother?" said Felipe. "I don't seem to
+understand what you are going to do."
+
+"Nothing, Felipe! You have entirely convinced me that all effort would
+be thrown away. I shall do nothing," replied the Senora. "Nothing
+whatever."
+
+"Then as long as Ramona is here, everything will be just as it always
+has been?" said Felipe.
+
+The Senora smiled sadly. "Dear Felipe, do you think that possible? A
+girl who has announced her determination to disobey not only you and
+me, but Father Salvierderra, who is going to bring disgrace both on the
+Moreno and the Ortegna name,--we can't feel exactly the same towards her
+as we did before, can we?"
+
+Felipe made an impatient gesture. "No, of course not. But I mean, is
+everything to be just the same, outwardly, as it was before?"
+
+"I supposed so," said the Senora. "Was not that your idea? We must try
+to have it so, I think. Do not you?"
+
+"Yes," groaned Felipe, "if we can!"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE Senora Moreno had never before been so discomfited as in this matter
+of Ramona and Alessandro. It chafed her to think over her conversation
+with Felipe; to recall how far the thing she finally attained was from
+the thing she had in view when she began. To have Ramona sent to the
+convent, Alessandro kept as overseer of the place, and the Ortegna
+jewels turned into the treasury of the Church,--this was the plan she
+had determined on in her own mind. Instead of this, Alessandro was not
+to be overseer on the place; Ramona would not go to the convent: she
+would be married to Alessandro, and they would go away together; and
+the Ortegna jewels,--well, that was a thing to be decided in the future;
+that should be left to Father Salvierderra to decide. Bold as the Senora
+was, she had not quite the courage requisite to take that question
+wholly into her own hands.
+
+One thing was clear, Felipe must not be consulted in regard to them. He
+had never known of them, and need not now. Felipe was far too much in
+sympathy with Ramona to take a just view of the situation. He would be
+sure to have a quixotic idea of Ramona's right of ownership. It was not
+impossible that Father Salvierderra might have the same feeling. If so,
+she must yield; but that would go harder with her than all the rest.
+Almost the Senora would have been ready to keep the whole thing a secret
+from the Father, if he had not been at the time of the Senora Ortegna's
+death fully informed of all the particulars of her bequest to her
+adopted child. At any rate, it would be nearly a year before the Father
+came again, and in the mean time she would not risk writing about it.
+The treasure was as safe in Saint Catharine's keeping as it had been all
+these fourteen years; it should still lie hidden there. When Ramona went
+away with Alessandro, she would write to Father Salvierderra, simply
+stating the facts in her own way, and telling him that all further
+questions must wait for decision until they met.
+
+And so she plotted and planned, and mapped out the future in her
+tireless weaving brain, till she was somewhat soothed for the partial
+failure of her plans.
+
+There is nothing so skilful in its own defence as imperious pride. It
+has an ingenious system of its own, of reprisals,--a system so ingenious
+that the defeat must be sore indeed, after which it cannot still
+find some booty to bring off! And even greater than this ingenuity at
+reprisals is its capacity for self-deception. In this regard, it outdoes
+vanity a thousandfold. Wounded vanity knows when it is mortally hurt;
+and limps off the field, piteous, all disguises thrown away. But pride
+carries its banner to the last; and fast as it is driven from one field
+unfurls it in another, never admitting that there is a shade less honor
+in the second field than in the first, or in the third than in the
+second; and so on till death. It is impossible not to have a certain
+sort of admiration for this kind of pride. Cruel, those who have it, are
+to all who come in their way; but they are equally cruel to themselves,
+when pride demands the sacrifice. Such pride as this has led many a
+forlorn hope, on the earth, when all other motives have died out of
+men's breasts; has won many a crown, which has not been called by its
+true name.
+
+Before the afternoon was over, the Senora had her plan, her chart of
+the future, as it were, all reconstructed; the sting of her discomfiture
+soothed; the placid quiet of her manner restored; her habitual
+occupations also, and little ways, all resumed. She was going to do
+"nothing" in regard to Ramona. Only she herself knew how much that
+meant; how bitterly much! She wished she were sure that Felipe also
+would do "nothing;" but her mind still misgave her about Felipe.
+Unpityingly she had led him on, and entangled him in his own words,
+step by step, till she had brought him to the position she wished him to
+take. Ostensibly, his position and hers were one, their action a unit;
+all the same, she did not deceive herself as to his real feeling about
+the affair. He loved Ramona. He liked Alessandro. Barring the question
+of family pride, which he had hardly thought of till she suggested
+it, and which he would not dwell on apart from her continuing to press
+it,--barring this, he would have liked to have Alessandro marry Ramona
+and remain on the place. All this would come uppermost in Felipe's
+mind again when he was removed from the pressure of her influence.
+Nevertheless, she did not intend to speak with him on the subject again,
+or to permit him to speak to her. Her ends would be best attained
+by taking and keeping the ground that the question of their
+non-interference having been settled once for all, the painful topic
+should never be renewed between them. In patient silence they must await
+Ramona's action; must bear whatever of disgrace and pain she chose to
+inflict on the family which had sheltered her from her infancy till now.
+
+The details of the "nothing" she proposed to do, slowly arranged
+themselves in her mind. There should be no apparent change in Ramona's
+position in the house. She should come and go as freely as ever; no
+watch on her movements; she should eat, sleep, rise up and sit down
+with them, as before; there should be not a word, or act, that Felipe's
+sympathetic sensitiveness could construe into any provocation to Ramona
+to run away. Nevertheless, Ramona should be made to feel, every moment
+of every hour, that she was in disgrace; that she was with them, but not
+of them; that she had chosen an alien's position, and must abide by it.
+How this was to be done, the Senora did not put in words to herself, but
+she knew very well. If anything would bring the girl to her senses, this
+would. There might still be a hope, the Senora believed, so little did
+she know Ramona's nature, or the depth of her affection for Alessandro,
+that she might be in this manner brought to see the enormity of the
+offence she would commit if she persisted in her purpose. And if she did
+perceive this, confess her wrong, and give up the marriage,--the Senora
+grew almost generous and tolerant in her thoughts as she contemplated
+this contingency,--if she did thus humble herself and return to her
+rightful allegiance to the Moreno house, the Senora would forgive her,
+and would do more for her than she had ever hitherto done. She would
+take her to Los Angeles and to Monterey; would show her a little more
+of the world; and it was by no means unlikely that there might thus come
+about for her a satisfactory and honorable marriage. Felipe should see
+that she was not disposed to deal unfairly by Ramona in any way, if
+Ramona herself would behave properly.
+
+Ramona's surprise, when the Senora entered her room just before supper,
+and, in her ordinary tone, asked a question about the chili which was
+drying on the veranda, was so great, that she could not avoid showing it
+both in her voice and look.
+
+The Senora recognized this immediately, but gave no sign of having done
+so, continuing what she had to say about the chili, the hot sun, the
+turning of the grapes, etc., precisely as she would have spoken to
+Ramona a week previous. At least, this was what Ramona at first thought;
+but before the sentences were finished, she had detected in the Senora's
+eye and tone the weapons which were to be employed against her. The
+emotion of half-grateful wonder with which she had heard the first words
+changed quickly to heartsick misery before they were concluded; and
+she said to herself: "That's the way she is going to break me down, she
+thinks! But she can't do it. I can bear anything for four days; and the
+minute Alessandro comes, I will go away with him." This train of thought
+in Ramona's mind was reflected in her face. The Senora saw it, and
+hardened herself still more. It was to be war, then. No hope of
+surrender. Very well. The girl had made her choice.
+
+Margarita was now the most puzzled person in the household. She had
+overheard snatches of the conversation between Felipe and his mother and
+Ramona, having let her curiosity get so far the better of her discretion
+as to creep to the door and listen. In fact, she narrowly escaped
+being caught, having had barely time to begin her feint of sweeping the
+passage-way, when Ramona, flinging the door wide open, came out,
+after her final reply to the Senora, the words of which Margarita had
+distinctly heard: "God will punish you."
+
+"Holy Virgin! how dare she say that to the Senora?" ejaculated
+Margarita, under her breath; and the next second Ramona rushed by, not
+even seeing her. But the Senora's vigilant eyes, following Ramona,
+saw her; and the Senora's voice had a ring of suspicion in it, as she
+called, "How comes it you are sweeping the passage-way at this hour of
+the day, Margarita?"
+
+It was surely the devil himself that put into Margarita's head the quick
+lie which she instantaneously told. "There was early breakfast, Senora,
+to be cooked for Alessandro, who was setting off in haste, and my mother
+was not up, so I had it to cook."
+
+As Margarita said this, Felipe fixed his eyes steadily upon her. She
+changed color. Felipe knew this was a lie. He had seen Margarita peering
+about among the willows while he was talking with Alessandro at the
+sheepfold; he had seen Alessandro halt for a moment and speak to her as
+he rode past,--only for a moment; then, pricking his horse sharply, he
+had galloped off down the valley road. No breakfast had Alessandro had
+at Margarita's hands, or any other's, that morning. What could have been
+Margarita's motive for telling this lie?
+
+But Felipe had too many serious cares on his mind to busy himself long
+with any thought of Margarita or her fibs. She had said the first thing
+which came into her head, most likely, to shelter herself from the
+Senora's displeasure; which was indeed very near the truth, only there
+was added a spice of malice against Alessandro. A slight undercurrent of
+jealous antagonism towards him had begun to grow up among the servants
+of late; fostered, if not originated, by Margarita's sharp sayings as to
+his being admitted to such strange intimacy with the family.
+
+While Felipe continued ill, and was so soothed to rest by his music,
+there was no room for cavil. It was natural that Alessandro came and
+went as a physician might. But after Felipe had recovered, why should
+this freedom and intimacy continue? More than once there had been sullen
+mutterings of this kind on the north veranda, when all the laborers
+and servants were gathered there of an evening, Alessandro alone being
+absent from the group, and the sounds of his voice or his violin coming
+from the south veranda, where the family sat.
+
+"It would be a good thing if we too had a bit of music now and then,"
+Juan Canito would grumble; "but the lad's chary enough of his bow on
+this side the house."
+
+"Ho! we're not good enough for him to play to!" Margarita would reply;
+"'Like master, like servant,' is a good proverb sometimes, but not
+always. But there's a deal going on, on the veranda yonder, besides
+fiddling!" and Margarita's lips would purse themselves up in an
+expression of concentrated mystery and secret knowledge, well fitted to
+draw from everybody a fire of questions, none of which, however, would
+she answer. She knew better than to slander the Senorita Ramona, or to
+say a word even reflecting upon her unfavorably. Not a man or a woman
+there would have borne it. They all had loved Ramona ever since she came
+among them as a toddling baby. They petted her then, and idolized her
+now. Not one of them whom she had not done good offices for,--nursed
+them, cheered them, remembered their birthdays and their saints'-days.
+To no one but her mother had Margarita unbosomed what she knew, and what
+she suspected; and old Marda, frightened at the bare pronouncing of such
+words, had terrified Margarita into the solemnest of promises never,
+under any circumstances whatever, to say such things to any other member
+of the family. Marda did not believe them. She could not. She believed
+that Margarita's jealousy had imagined all.
+
+"And the Senora; she'd send you packing off this place in an hour,
+and me too, long's I've lived here, if ever she was to know of you
+blackening the Senorita. An Indian, too! You must be mad, Margarita!"
+
+When Margarita, in triumph, had flown to tell her that the Senora had
+just dragged the Senorita Ramona up the garden-walk, and shoved her into
+her room and locked the door, and that it was because she had caught her
+with Alessandro at the washing-stones, Marda first crossed herself in
+sheer mechanical fashion at the shock of the story, and then cuffed
+Margarita's ears for telling her.
+
+"I'll take the head off your neck, if you say that aloud again!
+Whatever's come to the Senora! Forty years I've lived under this roof,
+and I never saw her lift a hand to a living creature yet. You're out of
+your senses, child!" she said, all the time gazing fearfully towards the
+room.
+
+"You'll see whether I am out of my senses or not," retorted Margarita,
+and ran back to the dining-room. And after the dining-room door was
+shut, and the unhappy pretence of a supper had begun, old Marda had
+herself crept softly to the Senorita's door and listened, and heard
+Ramona sobbing as if her heart would break. Then she knew that what
+Margarita had said must be true, and her faithful soul was in sore
+straits what to think. The Senorita misdemean herself! Never! Whatever
+happened, it was not that! There was some horrible mistake somewhere.
+Kneeling at the keyhole, she had called cautiously to Ramona, "Oh, my
+lamb, what is it?" But Ramona had not heard her, and the danger was too
+great of remaining; so scrambling up with difficulty from her rheumatic
+knees, the old woman had hobbled back to the kitchen as much in the dark
+as before, and, by a curiously illogical consequence, crosser than ever
+to her daughter. All the next day she watched for herself, and could
+not but see that all appearances bore out Margarita's statements.
+Alessandro's sudden departure had been a tremendous corroboration of the
+story. Not one of the men had had an inkling of it; Juan Canito, Luigo,
+both alike astonished; no word left, no message sent; only Senor Felipe
+had said carelessly to Juan Can, after breakfast: "You'll have to look
+after things yourself for a few days, Juan. Alessandro has gone to
+Temecula."
+
+"For a few days!" exclaimed Margarita, sarcastically, when this was
+repeated to her. "That's easy said! If Alessandro Assis is seen here
+again, I'll eat my head! He's played his last tune on the south veranda,
+I wager you."
+
+But when at supper-time of this same eventful day the Senora was heard,
+as she passed the Senorita's door, to say in her ordinary voice, "Are
+you ready for supper, Ramona?" and Ramona was seen to come out and walk
+by the Senora's side to the dining-room; silent, to be sure,--but then
+that was no strange thing, the Senorita always was more silent in the
+Senora's presence,--when Marda, standing in the court-yard, feigning to
+be feeding her chickens, but keeping a close eye on the passage-ways,
+saw this, she was relieved, and thought: "It's only a dispute there has
+been. There will be disputes in families sometimes. It is none of our
+affair. All is settled now."
+
+And Margarita, standing in the dining-room, when she saw them all
+coming in as usual,--the Senora, Felipe, Ramona,--no change, even to
+her scrutinizing eye, in anybody's face, was more surprised than she had
+been for many a day; and began to think again, as she had more than
+once since this tragedy began, that she must have dreamed much that she
+remembered.
+
+But surfaces are deceitful, and eyes see little. Considering its
+complexity, the fineness and delicacy of its mechanism, the results
+attainable by the human eye seem far from adequate to the expenditure
+put upon it. We have flattered ourselves by inventing proverbs of
+comparison in matter of blindness,--"blind as a bat," for instance. It
+would be safe to say that there cannot be found in the animal kingdom
+a bat, or any other creature, so blind in its own range of circumstance
+and connection, as the greater majority of human beings are in the
+bosoms of their families. Tempers strain and recover, hearts break and
+heal, strength falters, fails, and comes near to giving way altogether,
+every day, without being noted by the closest lookers-on.
+
+Before night of this second day since the trouble had burst like a
+storm-cloud on the peaceful Moreno household, everything had so resumed
+the ordinary expression and routine, that a shrewder observer and
+reasoner than Margarita might well be excused for doubting if any
+serious disaster could have occurred to any one. Senor Felipe sauntered
+about in his usual fashion, smoking his cigarettes, or lay on his bed in
+the veranda, dozing. The Senora went her usual rounds of inspection, fed
+her birds, spoke to every one in her usual tone, sat in her carved chair
+with her hands folded, gazing out on the southern sky. Ramona busied
+herself with her usual duties, dusted the chapel, put fresh flowers
+before all the Madonnas, and then sat down at her embroidery. Ramona had
+been for a long time at work on a beautiful altar-cloth for the chapel.
+It was to have been a present to the Senora. It was nearly done. As she
+held up the frame in which it was stretched, and looked at the delicate
+tracery of the pattern, she sighed. It had been with a mingled feeling
+of interest and hopelessness that she had for months been at work on it,
+often saying to herself, "She won't care much for it, beautiful as it
+is, just because I did it; but Father Salvierderra will be pleased when
+he sees it."
+
+Now, as she wove the fine threads in and out, she thought: "She will
+never let it be used on the altar. I wonder if I could any way get it to
+Father Salvierderra, at Santa Barbara. I would like to give it to him.
+I will ask Alessandro. I'm sure the Senora would never use it, and it
+would be a shame to leave it here. I shall take it with me." But as she
+thought these things, her face was unruffled. A strange composure had
+settled on Ramona. "Only four days; only four days; I can bear anything
+for four days!" these words were coming and going in her mind like
+refrains of songs which haunt one's memory and will not be still. She
+saw that Felipe looked anxiously at her, but she answered his inquiring
+looks always with a gentle smile. It was evident that the Senora did
+not intend that she and Felipe should have any private conversation;
+but that did not so much matter. After all, there was not so much to be
+said. Felipe knew all. She could tell him nothing; Felipe had acted for
+the best, as he thought, in sending Alessandro away till the heat of the
+Senora's anger should have spent itself.
+
+After her first dismay at suddenly learning that Alessandro had gone,
+had passed, she had reflected that it was just as well. He would come
+back prepared to take her with him. How, or where, she did not know;
+but she would go with no questions. Perhaps she would not even bid the
+Senora good-by; she wondered how that would arrange itself, and how far
+Alessandro would have to take her, to find a priest to marry them. It
+was a terrible thing to have to do, to go out of a home in such a way:
+no wedding--no wedding clothes--no friends--to go unmarried, and journey
+to a priest's house, to have the ceremony performed; "but it is not my
+fault," said Ramona to herself; "it is hers. She drives me to do it. If
+it is wrong, the blame will be hers. Father Salvierderra would gladly
+come here and marry us, if she would send for him. I wish we could go to
+him, Alessandro and I; perhaps we can. I would not be afraid to ride so
+far; we could do it in two days." The more Ramona thought of this, the
+more it appeared to her the natural thing for them to do. "He will be on
+our side, I know he will," she thought. "He always liked Alessandro, and
+he loves me."
+
+It was strange how little bitterness toward the Senora was in the girl's
+mind; how comparatively little she thought of her. Her heart was too
+full of Alessandro and of their future; and it had never been Ramona's
+habit to dwell on the Senora in her thoughts. As from her childhood up
+she had accepted the fact of the Senora's coldness toward her, so now
+she accepted her injustice and opposition as part of the nature of
+things, and not to be altered.
+
+During all these hours, during the coming and going of these crowds
+of fears, sorrows, memories, anticipations in Ramona's heart, all that
+there was to be seen to the eye was simply a calm, quiet girl, sitting
+on the veranda, diligently working at her lace-frame. Even Felipe was
+deceived by her calmness, and wondered what it meant,--if it could be
+that she was undergoing the change that his mother had thought possible,
+and designated as coming "to her senses." Even Felipe did not know the
+steadfast fibre of the girl's nature; neither did he realize what a bond
+had grown between her and Alessandro. In fact, he sometimes wondered of
+what this bond had been made. He had himself seen the greater part
+of their intercourse with each other; nothing could have been farther
+removed from anything like love-making. There had been no crisis
+of incident, or marked moments of experience such as in Felipe's
+imaginations of love were essential to the fulness of its growth. This
+is a common mistake on the part of those who have never felt love's true
+bonds. Once in those chains, one perceives that they are not of the sort
+full forged in a day. They are made as the great iron cables are made,
+on which bridges are swung across the widest water-channels,--not of
+single huge rods, or bars, which would be stronger, perhaps, to look
+at, but of myriads of the finest wires, each one by itself so fine, so
+frail, it would barely hold a child's kite in the wind: by hundreds,
+hundreds of thousands of such, twisted, re-twisted together, are made
+the mighty cables, which do not any more swerve from their place in the
+air, under the weight and jar of the ceaseless traffic and tread of two
+cities, than the solid earth swerves under the same ceaseless weight and
+jar. Such cables do not break.
+
+Even Ramona herself would have found it hard to tell why she thus loved
+Alessandro; how it began, or by what it grew. It had not been a sudden
+adoration, like his passion for her; it was, in the beginning, simply
+a response; but now it was as strong a love as his,--as strong, and as
+unchangeable. The Senora's harsh words had been like a forcing-house air
+to it, and the sudden knowledge of the fact of her own Indian descent
+seemed to her like a revelation, pointing out the path in which destiny
+called her to walk. She thrilled with pleasure at the thought of the joy
+with which Alessandro would hear this,--the joy and the surprise. She
+imagined to herself, in hundreds of ways, the time, place, and phrase in
+which she would tell him. She could not satisfy herself as to the best;
+as to which would give keenest pleasure to him and to her. She would
+tell him, as soon as she saw him; it should be her first word of
+greeting. No! There would be too much of trouble and embarrassment then.
+She would wait till they were far away, till they were alone, in the
+wilderness; and then she would turn to him, and say, "Alessandro, my
+people are your people!" Or she would wait, and keep her secret until
+she had reached Temecula, and they had begun their life there, and
+Alessandro had been astonished to see how readily and kindly she took
+to all the ways of the Indian village; and then, when he expressed
+some such emotion, she would quietly say, "But I too am an Indian,
+Alessandro!"
+
+Strange, sad bride's dreams these; but they made Ramona's heart beat
+with happiness as she dreamed them.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE first day had gone, it was near night of the second, and not a word
+had passed between Felipe and Ramona, except in the presence of the
+Senora. It would have been beautiful to see, if it had not been so cruel
+a thing, the various and devious methods by which the Senora had brought
+this about. Felipe, oddly enough, was more restive under it than Ramona.
+She had her dreams. He had nothing but his restless consciousness that
+he had not done for her what he hoped; that he must seem to her to have
+been disloyal; this, and a continual wonder what she could be planning
+or expecting which made her so placid, kept Felipe in a fever of unrest,
+of which his mother noted every sign, and redoubled her vigilance.
+
+Felipe thought perhaps he could speak to Ramona in the night, through
+her window. But the August heats were fierce now; everybody slept with
+wide-open windows; the Senora was always wakeful; if she should chance
+to hear him thus holding secret converse with Ramona, it would indeed
+make bad matters worse. Nevertheless, he decided to try it. At the first
+sound of his footsteps on the veranda floor, "My son, are you ill? Can I
+do anything?" came from the Senora's window. She had not been asleep at
+all. It would take more courage than Felipe possessed, to try that plan
+again; and he lay on his veranda bed, this afternoon, tossing about with
+sheer impatience at his baffled purpose. Ramona sat at the foot of the
+bed, taking the last stitches in the nearly completed altar-cloth. The
+Senora sat in her usual seat, dozing, with her head thrown back. It
+was very hot; a sultry south-wind, with dust from the desert, had been
+blowing all day, and every living creature was more or less prostrated
+by it.
+
+As the Senora's eyes closed, a sudden thought struck Felipe. Taking
+out a memorandum-book in which he kept his accounts, he began rapidly
+writing. Looking up, and catching Ramona's eye, he made a sign to her
+that it was for her. She glanced apprehensively at the Senora. She was
+asleep. Presently Felipe, folding the note, and concealing it in his
+hand, rose, and walked towards Ramona's window, Ramona terrifiedly
+watching him; the sound of Felipe's steps roused the Senora, who sat
+up instantly, and gazed about her with that indescribable expression
+peculiar to people who hope they have not been asleep, but know they
+have. "Have I been asleep?" she asked.
+
+"About one minute, mother," answered Felipe, who was leaning, as he
+spoke, against Ramona's open window, his arms crossed behind him.
+Stretching them out, and back and forth a few times, yawning idly, he
+said, "This heat is intolerable!" Then he sauntered leisurely down the
+veranda steps into the garden-walk, and seated himself on the bench
+under the trellis there.
+
+The note had been thrown into Ramona's room. She was hot and cold with
+fear lest she might not be able to get it unobserved. What if the
+Senora were to go first into the room! She hardly dared look at her. But
+fortune is not always on the side of tyrants. The Senora was fast dozing
+off again, relieved that Felipe was out of speaking distance of Ramona.
+As soon as her eyes were again shut, Ramona rose to go. The Senora
+opened her eyes. Ramona was crossing the threshold of the door; she was
+going into the house. Good! Still farther away from Felipe.
+
+"Are you going to your room, Ramona?" said the Senor.
+
+"I was," replied Ramona, alarmed. "Did you want me here?"
+
+"No," said the Senora; and she closed her eyes again.
+
+In a second more the note was safe in Ramona's hands.
+
+"Dear Ramona," Felipe had written, "I am distracted because I cannot
+speak with you alone. Can you think of any way? I want to explain things
+to you. I am afraid you do not understand. Don't be unhappy. Alessandro
+will surely be back in four days. I want to help you all I can, but you
+saw I could not do much. Nobody will hinder your doing what you please;
+but, dear, I wish you would not go away from us!"
+
+Tearing the paper into small fragments, Ramona thrust them into her
+bosom, to be destroyed later. Then looking out of the window, and seeing
+that the Senora was now in a sound sleep, she ventured to write a reply
+to Felipe, though when she would find a safe opportunity to give it to
+him, there was no telling. "Thank you, dear Felipe. Don't be anxious. I
+am not unhappy. I understand all about it. But I must go away as soon as
+Alessandro comes." Hiding this also safe in her bosom, she went back to
+the veranda. Felipe rose, and walked toward the steps. Ramona, suddenly
+bold, stooped, and laid her note on the second step. Again the tired
+eyes of the Senora opened. They had not been shut five minutes; Ramona
+was at her work; Felipe was coming up the steps from the garden. He
+nodded laughingly to his mother, and laid his finger on his lips. All
+was well. The Senora dozed again. Her nap had cost her more than she
+would ever know. This one secret interchange between Felipe and Ramona
+then, thus making, as it were, common cause with each other as against
+her, and in fear of her, was a step never to be recalled,--a step whose
+significance could scarcely be overestimated. Tyrants, great and
+small, are apt to overlook such possibilities as this; to forget the
+momentousness which the most trivial incident may assume when forced
+into false proportions and relations. Tyranny can make liars and cheats
+out of the honestest souls. It is done oftener than any except close
+students of human nature realize. When kings and emperors do this, the
+world cries out with sympathy, and holds the plotters more innocent than
+the tyrant who provoked the plot. It is Russia that stands branded in
+men's thoughts, and not Siberia.
+
+The Senora had a Siberia of her own, and it was there that Ramona was
+living in these days. The Senora would have been surprised to know how
+little the girl felt the cold. To be sure, it was not as if she had ever
+felt warmth in the Senora's presence; yet between the former chill and
+this were many degrees, and except for her new life, and new love, and
+hope in the thought of Alessandro, Ramona could not have borne it for a
+day.
+
+The fourth day came; it seemed strangely longer than the others had.
+All day Ramona watched and listened. Felipe, too; for, knowing what
+Alessandro's impatience would be, he had, in truth, looked for him on
+the previous night. The horse he rode was a fleet one, and would have
+made the journey with ease in half the time. But Felipe reflected that
+there might be many things for Alessandro to arrange at Temecula. He
+would doubtless return prepared to take Ramona back with him, in case
+that proved the only alternative left them. Felipe grew wretched as
+his fancy dwelt on the picture of Ramona's future. He had been in the
+Temecula village. He knew its poverty; the thought of Ramona there was
+monstrous, To the indolent, ease-loving Felipe it was incredible that a
+girl reared as Ramona had been, could for a moment contemplate leading
+the life of a poor laboring man's wife. He could not conceive of love's
+making one undertake any such life. Felipe had much to learn of love.
+Night came; no Alessandro. Till the darkness settled down, Ramona sat,
+watching the willows. When she could no longer see, she listened. The
+Senora, noting all, also listened. She was uneasy as to the next stage
+of affairs, but she would not speak. Nothing should induce her to swerve
+from the line of conduct on which she had determined. It was the full of
+the moon. When the first broad beam of its light came over the hill, and
+flooded the garden and the white front of the little chapel, just as it
+had done on that first night when Alessandro watched with Felipe on the
+veranda, Ramona pressed her face against the window-panes, and gazed out
+into the garden. At each flickering, motion of the shadows she saw the
+form of a man approaching. Again and again she saw it. Again and again
+the breeze died, and the shadow ceased. It was near morning before,
+weary, sad, she crept to bed; but not to sleep. With wide-open, anxious
+eyes, she still watched and listened. Never had the thought once crossed
+her mind that Alessandro might not come at the time Felipe had said. In
+her childlike simplicity she had accepted this as unquestioningly as
+she had accepted other facts in her life. Now that he did not come,
+unreasoning and unfounded terror took possession of her, and she asked
+herself continually, "Will he ever come! They sent him away; perhaps he
+will be too proud to come back!" Then faith would return, and saying to
+herself, "He would never, never forsake me; he knows I have no one in
+the whole world but him; he knows how I love him," she would regain
+composure, and remind herself of the many detentions which might have
+prevented his coming at the time set. Spite of all, however, she was
+heavy at heart; and at breakfast her anxious eyes and absent look were
+sad to see. They hurt Felipe. Too well he knew what it meant. He also
+was anxious. The Senora saw it in his face, and it vexed her. The girl
+might well pine, and be mortified if her lover did not appear. But why
+should Felipe disquiet himself? The Senora disliked it. It was a bad
+symptom. There might be trouble ahead yet. There was, indeed, trouble
+ahead,--of a sort the Senora's imaginings had not pictured.
+
+Another day passed; another night; another, and another. One week now
+since Alessandro, as he leaped on his horse, had grasped Felipe's hand,
+and said: "You will tell the Senorita; you will make sure that she
+understands why I go; and in four days I will be back." One week, and he
+had not come. The three who were watching and wondering looked covertly
+into each other's faces, each longing to know what the others thought.
+
+Ramona was wan and haggard. She had scarcely slept. The idea had taken
+possession of her that Alessandro was dead. On the sixth and seventh
+days she had walked each afternoon far down the river road, by which he
+would be sure to come; down the meadows, and by the cross-cut, out
+to the highway; at each step straining her tearful eyes into the
+distance,--the cruel, blank, silent distance. She had come back
+after dark, whiter and more wan than she went out. As she sat at the
+supper-table, silent, making no feint of eating, only drinking glass
+after glass of milk, in thirsty haste, even Margarita pitied her. But
+the Senora did not. She thought the best thing which could happen, would
+be that the Indian should never come back. Ramona would recover from it
+in a little while; the mortification would be the worst thing, but even
+that, time would heal. She wondered that the girl had not more pride
+than to let her wretchedness be so plainly seen. She herself would have
+died before she would go about with such a woe-begone face, for a whole
+household to see and gossip about.
+
+On the morning of the eighth day, Ramona, desperate, waylaid Felipe, as
+he was going down the veranda steps. The Senora was in the garden, and
+saw them; but Ramona did not care. "Felipe!" she cried, "I must, I must
+speak to you! Do you think Alessandro is dead? What else could keep him
+from coming?" Her lips were dry, her cheeks scarlet, her voice husky.
+A few more days of this, and she would be in a brain fever, Felipe
+thought, as he looked compassionately at her.
+
+"Oh, no, no, dear! Do not think that!" he replied. "A thousand things
+might have kept him."
+
+"Ten thousand things would not! Nothing could!" said Ramona. "I know he
+is dead. Can't you send a messenger, Felipe, and see?"
+
+The Senora was walking toward them. She overheard the last words.
+Looking toward Felipe, no more regarding Ramona than if she had not been
+within sight or hearing, the Senora said, "It seems to me that would not
+be quite consistent with dignity. How does it strike you, Felipe' If
+you thought best, we might spare a man as soon as the vintage is done, I
+suppose."
+
+Ramona walked away. The vintage would not be over for a week. There
+were several vineyards yet which had not been touched; every hand on the
+place was hard at work, picking the grapes, treading them out in tubs,
+emptying the juice into stretched raw-hides swung from cross-beams in
+a long shed. In the willow copse the brandy-still was in full blast; it
+took one man to watch it; this was Juan Can's favorite work; for reasons
+of his own he liked best to do it alone; and now that he could no longer
+tread grapes in the tubs, he had a better chance for uninterrupted work
+at the still. "No ill but has its good," he thought sometimes, as he lay
+comfortably stretched out in the shade, smoking his pipe day after day,
+and breathing the fumes of the fiery brandy.
+
+As Ramona disappeared in the doorway, the Senora, coming close to
+Felipe, and laying her hand on his arm, said in a confidential tone,
+nodding her head in the direction in which Ramona had vanished: "She
+looks badly, Felipe. I don't know what we can do. We surely cannot send
+to summon back a lover we do not wish her to marry, can we? It is very
+perplexing. Most unfortunate, every way. What do you think, my son?"
+There was almost a diabolical art in the manner in which the Senora
+could, by a single phrase or question, plant in a person's mind the
+precise idea she wished him to think he had originated himself.
+
+"No; of course we can't send for him," replied Felipe, angrily; "unless
+it is to send him to marry her; I wish he had never set foot on the
+place. I am sure I don't know what to do. Ramona's looks frighten me. I
+believe she will die."
+
+"I cannot wish Alessandro had never set foot on the place," said the
+Senora, gently, "for I feel that I owe your life to him, my Felipe; and
+he is not to blame for Ramona's conduct. You need not fear her dying,
+She may be ill; but people do not die of love like hers for Alessandro."
+
+"Of what kind do they die, mother?" asked Felipe, impatiently.
+
+The Senora looked reproachfully at him. "Not often of any," she said;
+"but certainly not of a sudden passion for a person in every way beneath
+them, in position, in education, in all points which are essential to
+congeniality of tastes or association of life."
+
+The Senora spoke calmly, with no excitement, as if she were discussing
+an abstract case. Sometimes, when she spoke like this, Felipe for
+the moment felt as if she were entirely right, as if it were really a
+disgraceful thing in Ramona to have thus loved Alessandro. It could not
+be gainsaid that there was this gulf, of which she spoke. Alessandro was
+undeniably Ramona's inferior in position, education, in all the external
+matters of life; but in nature, in true nobility of soul, no! Alessandro
+was no man's inferior in these; and in capacity to love,--Felipe
+sometimes wondered whether he had ever known Alessandro's equal in that.
+This thought had occurred to him more than once, as from his sick-bed he
+had, unobserved, studied the expression with which Alessandro gazed at
+Ramona. But all this made no difference in the perplexity of the present
+dilemma, in the embarrassment of his and his mother's position now. Send
+a messenger to ask why Alessandro did not return! Not even if he had
+been an accepted and publicly recognized lover, would Felipe do that!
+Ramona ought to have more pride. She ought of herself to know that. And
+when Felipe, later in the day, saw Ramona again, he said as much to her.
+He said it as gently as he could; so gently that she did not at first
+comprehend his idea. It was so foreign, so incompatible with her faith,
+how could she?
+
+When she did understand, she said slowly: "You mean that it will not do
+to send to find out if Alessandro is dead, because it will look as if I
+wished him to marry me whether he wished it or not?" and she fixed her
+eyes on Felipe's, with an expression he could not fathom.
+
+"Yes, dear," he answered, "something like that, though you put it
+harshly."
+
+"Is it not true," she persisted, "that is what you mean?"
+
+Reluctantly Felipe admitted that it was.
+
+Ramona was silent for some moments; then she said, speaking still
+more slowly, "If you feel like that, we had better never talk about
+Alessandro again. I suppose it is not possible that you should know, as
+I do, that nothing but his being dead would keep him from coming
+back. Thanks, dear Felipe;" and after this she did not speak again of
+Alessandro.
+
+Days went by; a week. The vintage was over. The Senora wondered if
+Ramona would now ask again for a messenger to go to Temecula. Almost
+even the Senora relented, as she looked into the girl's white and wasted
+face, as she sat silent, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes fixed on
+the willows. The altar-cloth was done, folded and laid away. It would
+never hang in the Moreno chapel. It was promised, in Ramona's mind, to
+Father Salvierderra. She had resolved to go to him; if he, a feeble old
+man, could walk all the way between Santa Barbara and their home, she
+could surely do the same. She would not lose the way. There were not
+many roads; she could ask. The convent, the bare thought of which
+had been so terrible to Ramona fourteen days ago, when the Senora had
+threatened her with it, now seemed a heavenly refuge, the only shelter
+she craved. There was a school for orphans attached to the convent at
+San Juan Bautista, she knew; she would ask the Father to let her go
+there, and she would spend the rest of her life in prayer, and in
+teaching the orphan girls. As hour after hour she sat revolving this
+plan, her fancy projected itself so vividly into the future, that she
+lived years of her life. She felt herself middle-aged, old. She saw the
+procession of nuns, going to vespers, leading the children by the hand;
+herself wrinkled and white-haired, walking between two of the little
+ones. The picture gave her peace. As soon as she grew a little stronger,
+she would set off on her journey to the Father; she could not go just
+yet, she was too weak; her feet trembled if she did but walk to the foot
+of the garden. Alessandro was dead; there could be no doubt of that.
+He was buried in that little walled graveyard of which he had told
+her. Sometimes she thought she would try to go there and see his grave,
+perhaps see his father; if Alessandro had told him of her, the old man
+would be glad to see her; perhaps, after all, her work might lie there,
+among Alessandro's people. But this looked hard: she had not courage for
+it; shelter and rest were what she wanted,--the sound of the Church's
+prayers, and the Father's blessing every day. The convent was the best.
+
+She thought she was sure that Alessandro was dead; but she was not, for
+she still listened, still watched. Each day she walked out on the river
+road, and sat waiting till dusk. At last came a day when she could not
+go; her strength failed her. She lay all day on her bed. To the Senora,
+who asked frigidly if she were ill, she answered: "No, Senora, I do not
+think I am ill, I have no pain, but I cannot get up. I shall be better
+to-morrow."
+
+"I will send you strong broth and a medicine," the Senora said; and sent
+her both by the hands of Margarita, whose hatred and jealousy broke down
+at the first sight of Ramona's face on the pillow; it looked so much
+thinner and sharper there than it had when she was sitting up. "Oh,
+Senorita! Senorita!" she cried, in a tone of poignant grief, "are you
+going to die? Forgive me, forgive me!"
+
+"I have nothing to forgive you, Margarita," replied Ramona, raising
+herself on her elbow, and lifting her eyes kindly to the girl's face
+as she took the broth from her hands. "I do not know why you ask me to
+forgive you."
+
+Margarita flung herself on her knees by the bed, in a passion of
+weeping. "Oh, but you do know, Senorita, you do know! Forgive me!"
+
+"No, I know nothing," replied Ramona; "but if you know anything, it is
+all forgiven. I am not going to die, Margarita. I am going away," she
+added, after a second's pause. Her inmost instinct told her that she
+could trust Margarita now. Alessandro being dead, Margarita would no
+longer be her enemy, and Margarita could perhaps help her. "I am going
+away, Margarita, as soon as I feel a little stronger. I am going to a
+convent; but the Senora does not know. You will not tell?"
+
+"No, Senorita!" whispered Margarita,--thinking in her heart, "Yes, she
+is going away, but it will be with the angels."--"No, Senorita, I will
+not tell. I will do anything you want me to."
+
+"Thanks, Margarita mia," replied Ramona. "I thought you would;" and she
+lay back on her pillow, and closed her eyes, looking so much more like
+death than like life that Margarita's tears flowed faster than before,
+and she ran to her mother, sobbing out, "Mother, mother! the Senorita is
+ill to death. I am sure she is. She has taken to her bed; and she is as
+white as Senor Felipe was at the worst of the fever."
+
+"Ay," said old Marda, who had seen all this for days back; "ay, she has
+wasted away, this last week, like one in a fever, sure enough; I have
+seen it. It must be she is starving herself to death."
+
+"Indeed, she has not eaten for ten days,--hardly since that day;"
+and Margarita and her mother exchanged looks. It was not necessary to
+further define the day.
+
+"Juan Can says he thinks he will never be seen here again," continued
+Margarita.
+
+"The saints grant it, then," said Marda, hotly, "if it is he has cost
+the Senorita all this! I am that turned about in my head with it all,
+that I've no thoughts to think; but plain enough it is, he is mixed up
+with whatever 'tis has gone wrong."
+
+"I could tell what it is," said Margarita, her old pertness coming
+uppermost for a moment; "but I've got no more to say, now the Senorita's
+lying on her bed, with the face she's got. It's enough to break your
+heart to look at her. I could just go down on my knees to her for all
+I've said; and I will, and to Saint Francis too! She's going to be with
+him before long; I know she is."
+
+"No," said the wiser, older Marda. "She is not so ill as you think. She
+is young. It's the heart's gone out of her; that's all. I've been that
+way myself. People are, when they're young."
+
+"I'm young!" retorted Margarita. "I've never been that way."
+
+"There's many a mile to the end of the road, my girl," said Marda,
+significantly; "and 'It's ill boasting the first day out,' was a proverb
+when I was your age!"
+
+Marda had never been much more than half-way fond of this own child
+of hers. Their natures were antagonistic. Traits which, in Margarita's
+father, had embittered many a day of Marda's early married life, were
+perpetually cropping out in Margarita, making between the mother and
+daughter a barrier which even parental love was not always strong enough
+to surmount. And, as was inevitable, this antagonism was constantly
+leading to things which seemed to Margarita, and in fact were, unjust
+and ill-founded.
+
+"She's always flinging out at me, whatever I do," thought Margarita.
+"I know one thing; I'll never tell her what the Senorita's told me;
+never,--not till after she's gone."
+
+A sudden suspicion flashed into Margarita's mind. She seated herself on
+the bench outside the kitchen door, to wrestle with it. What if it were
+not to a convent at all, but to Alessandro, that the Senorita meant to
+go! No; that was preposterous. If it had been that, she would have gone
+with him in the outset. Nobody who was plotting to run away with a lover
+ever wore such a look as the Senorita wore now. Margarita dismissed the
+thought; yet it left its trace. She would be more observant for having
+had it; her resuscitated affection far her young mistress was not yet
+so strong that it would resist the assaults of jealousy, if that passion
+were to be again aroused in her fiery soul. Though she had never been
+deeply in love with Alessandro herself, she had been enough so, and
+she remembered him vividly enough, to feel yet a sharp emotion of
+displeasure at the recollection of his devotion to the Senorita. Now
+that the Senorita seemed to be deserted, unhappy, prostrated, she had no
+room for anything but pity for her; but let Alessandro come on the stage
+again, and all would be changed. The old hostility would return. It was
+but a dubious sort of ally, after all, that Ramona had so unexpectedly
+secured in Margarita. She might prove the sharpest of broken reeds.
+
+It was sunset of the eighteenth day since Alessandro's departure. Ramona
+had lain for four days well-nigh motionless on her bed. She herself
+began to think she must be going to die. Her mind seemed to be vacant of
+all thought. She did not even sorrow for Alessandro's death; she seemed
+torpid, body and soul. Such prostrations as these are Nature's enforced
+rests. It is often only by help of them that our bodies tide over
+crises, strains, in which, if we continued to battle, we should be
+slain.
+
+As Ramona lay half unconscious,--neither awake nor yet asleep,--on this
+evening, she was suddenly aware of a vivid impression produced upon her;
+it was not sound, it was not sight. She was alone; the house was still
+as death; the warm September twilight silence reigned outside, She sat
+up in her bed, intent--half alarmed--half glad--bewildered--alive. What
+had happened? Still there was no sound, no stir. The twilight was fast
+deepening; not a breath of air moving. Gradually her bewildered senses
+and faculties awoke from their long-dormant condition; she looked around
+the room; even the walls seemed revivified; she clasped her hands, and
+leaped from the bed. "Alessandro is not dead!" she said aloud; and she
+laughed hysterically. "He is not dead!" she repeated. "He is not dead!
+He is somewhere near!"
+
+With quivering hands she dressed, and stole out of the house. After
+the first few seconds she found herself strangely strong; she did not
+tremble; her feet trod firm on the ground. "Oh, miracle!" she thought,
+as she hastened down the garden-walk; "I am well again! Alessandro is
+near!" So vivid was the impression, that when she reached the willows
+and found the spot silent, vacant, as when she had last sat there,
+hopeless, broken-hearted, she experienced a revulsion of disappointment.
+"Not here!" she cried; "not here!" and a swift fear shook her. "Am I
+mad? Is it this way, perhaps, people lose their senses, when they are as
+I have been!"
+
+But the young, strong blood was running swift in her veins. No! this
+was no madness; rather a newly discovered power; a fulness of sense; a
+revelation. Alessandro was near.
+
+Swiftly she walked down the river road. The farther she went, the keener
+grew her expectation, her sense of Alessandro's nearness. In her present
+mood she would have walked on and on, even to Temecula itself, sure that
+she was at each step drawing nearer to Alessandro.
+
+As she approached the second willow copse, which lay perhaps a quarter
+of a mile west of the first, she saw the figure of a man, standing,
+leaning against one of the trees. She halted. It could not be
+Alessandro. He would not have paused for a moment so near the house
+where he was to find her. She was afraid to go on. It was late to meet
+a stranger in this lonely spot. The figure was strangely still; so still
+that, as she peered through the dusk, she half fancied it might be an
+optical illusion. She advanced a few steps, hesitatingly, then stopped.
+As she did so, the man advanced a few steps, then stopped. As he came
+out from the shadows of the trees, she saw that he was of Alessandro's
+height. She quickened her steps, then suddenly stopped again. What did
+this mean? It could not be Alessandro. Ramona wrung her hands in agony
+of suspense. An almost unconquerable instinct urged her forward; but
+terror held her back. After standing irresolute for some minutes, she
+turned to walk back to the house, saying, "I must not run the risk of
+its being a stranger. If it is Alessandro, he will come."
+
+But her feet seemed to refuse to move in the opposite direction. Slower
+and slower she walked for a few paces, then turned again. The man had
+returned to his former place, and stood as at first, leaning against the
+tree.
+
+"It may be a messenger from him," she said; "a messenger who has been
+told not to come to the house until after dark."
+
+Her mind was made up. She quickened her pace to a run. A few moments
+more brought her so near that she could see distinctly. It was--yes, it
+was Alessandro. He did not see her. His face was turned partially away,
+his head resting against the tree; he must be ill. Ramona flew, rather
+than ran. In a moment more, Alessandro had heard the light steps,
+turned, saw Ramona, and, with a cry, bounded forward, and they were
+clasped in each other's arms before they had looked in each other's
+faces. Ramona spoke first. Disengaging herself gently, and looking
+up, she began: "Alessandro--" But at the first sight of his face she
+shrieked. Was this Alessandro, this haggard, emaciated, speechless man,
+who gazed at her with hollow eyes, full of misery, and no joy! "O God,"
+cried Ramona, "You have been ill! you are ill! My God, Alessandro, what
+is it?"
+
+Alessandro passed his hand slowly over his forehead, as if trying to
+collect his thoughts before speaking, all the while keeping his eyes
+fixed on Ramona, with the same anguished look, convulsively holding both
+her hands in his.
+
+"Senorita," he said, "my Senorita!" Then he stopped. His tongue seemed
+to refuse him utterance; and this voice,--this strange, hard, unresonant
+voice,--whose voice was it? Not Alessandro's.
+
+"My Senorita," he began again, "I could not go without one sight of your
+face; but when I was here, I had not courage to go near the house. If
+you had not come, I should have gone back without seeing you."
+
+Ramona heard these words in fast-deepening terror, What did they mean?
+Her look seemed to suggest a new thought to Alessandro.
+
+"Heavens, Senorita!" he cried, "have you not heard? Do you not know what
+has happened?"
+
+"I know nothing, love," answered Ramona. "I have heard nothing since
+you went away. For ten days I have been sure you were dead; but to-night
+something told me that you were near, and I came to meet you."
+
+At the first words of Ramona's sentence, Alessandro threw his arms
+around her again. As she said "love," his whole frame shook with
+emotion.
+
+"My Senorita!" he whispered, "my Senorita! how shall I tell you! How
+shall I tell you!"
+
+"What is there to tell, Alessandro?" she said. "I am afraid of nothing,
+now that you are here, and not dead, as I thought."
+
+But Alessandro did not speak. It seemed impossible. At last, straining
+her closer to his breast, he cried: "Dearest Senorita! I feel as if
+I should die when I tell you,--I have no home; my father is dead;
+my people are driven out of their village. I am only a beggar now,
+Senorita; like those you used to feed and pity in Los Angeles convent!"
+As he spoke the last words, he reeled, and, supporting himself against
+the tree, added: "I am not strong, Senorita; we have been starving."
+
+Ramona's face did not reassure him. Even in the dusk he could see its
+look of incredulous horror. He misread it.
+
+"I only came to look at you once more," he continued. "I will go now.
+May the saints bless you, my Senorita, always. I think the Virgin sent
+you to me to-night. I should never have seen your face if you had not
+come."
+
+While he was speaking, Ramona had buried her face in his bosom. Lifting
+it now, she said, "Did you mean to leave me to think you were dead,
+Alessandro?"
+
+"I thought that the news about our village must have reached you," he
+said, "and that you would know I had no home, and could not come, to
+seem to remind you of what you had said. Oh, Senorita, it was little
+enough I had before to give you! I don't know how I dared to believe
+that you could come to be with me; but I loved you so much, I had
+thought of many things I could do; and--" lowering his voice and
+speaking almost sullenly--"it is the saints, I believe, who have
+punished me thus for having resolved to leave my people, and take all I
+had for myself and you. Now they have left me nothing;" and he groaned.
+
+"Who?" cried Ramona. "Was there a battle? Was your father killed?" She
+was trembling with horror.
+
+"No," answered Alessandro. "There was no battle. There would have been,
+if I had had my way; but my father implored me not to resist. He said it
+would only make it worse for us in the end. The sheriff, too, he begged
+me to let it all go on peaceably, and help him keep the people quiet. He
+felt terribly to have to do it. It was Mr. Rothsaker, from San Diego. We
+had often worked for him on his ranch. He knew all about us. Don't you
+recollect, Senorita, I told you about him,--how fair he always was, and
+kind too? He has the biggest wheat-ranch in Cajon; we've harvested miles
+and miles of wheat for him. He said he would have rather died, almost,
+than have had it to do; but if we resisted, he would have to order his
+men to shoot. He had twenty men with him. They thought there would be
+trouble; and well they might,--turning a whole village full of men and
+women and children out of their houses, and driving them off like foxes.
+If it had been any man but Mr. Rothsaker, I would have shot him dead,
+if I had hung for it; but I knew if he thought we must go, there was no
+help for us."
+
+"But, Alessandro," interrupted Ramona, "I can't understand. Who was it
+made Mr. Rothsaker do it? Who has the land now?"
+
+"I don't know who they are," Alessandro replied, his voice full of
+anger and scorn. "They're Americans--eight or ten of them. They all got
+together and brought a suit, they call it, up in San Francisco; and it
+was decided in the court that they owned all our land. That was all Mr.
+Rothsaker could tell about it. It was the law, he said, and nobody could
+go against the law."
+
+"Oh," said Ramona, "that's the way the Americans took so much of the
+Senora's land away from her. It was in the court up in San Francisco;
+and they decided that miles and miles of her land, which the General
+had always had, was not hers at all. They said it belonged to the United
+States Government."
+
+"They are a pack of thieves and liars, every one of them!" cried
+Alessandro. "They are going to steal all the land in this country; we
+might all just as well throw ourselves into the sea, and let them have
+it. My father had been telling me this for years. He saw it coming; but
+I did not believe him. I did not think men could be so wicked; but he
+was right. I am glad he is dead. That is the only thing I have to be
+thankful for now. One day I thought he was going to get well, and I
+prayed to the Virgin not to let him. I did not want him to live. He
+never knew anything clear after they took him out of his house. That was
+before I got there. I found him sitting on the ground outside. They said
+it was the sun that had turned him crazy; but it was not. It was his
+heart breaking in his bosom. He would not come out of his house, and
+the men lifted him up and carried him out by force, and threw him on the
+ground; and then they threw out all the furniture we had; and when he
+saw them doing that, he put his hands up to his head, and called out,
+'Alessandro! Alessandro!' and I was not there! Senorita, they said it
+was a voice to make the dead hear, that he called with; and nobody
+could stop him. All that day and all the night he kept on calling. God!
+Senorita, I wonder I did not die when they told me! When I got there,
+some one had built up a little booth of tule over his head, to keep the
+sun off. He did not call any more, only for water, water. That was what
+made them think the sun had done it. They did all they could; but it was
+such a dreadful time, nobody could do much; the sheriff's men were in
+great hurry; they gave no time. They said the people must all be off in
+two days. Everybody was running hither and thither. Everything out of
+the houses in piles on the ground. The people took all the roofs off
+their houses too. They were made of the tule reeds; so they would do
+again. Oh, Senorita, don't ask me to tell you any more! It is like
+death. I can't!"
+
+Ramona was crying bitterly. She did not know what to say. What was love,
+in face of such calamity? What had she to give to a man stricken like
+this.'
+
+"Don't weep, Senorita," said Alessandro, drearily. "Tears kill one, and
+do no good."
+
+"How long did your father live?" asked Ramona, clasping her arms closer
+around his neck. They were sitting on the ground now, and Ramona,
+yearning over Alessandro, as if she were the strong one and he the one
+to be sheltered, had drawn his head to her bosom, caressing him as if
+he had been hers for years. Nothing could have so clearly shown his
+enfeebled and benumbed condition, as the manner in which he received
+these caresses, which once would have made him beside himself with joy.
+He leaned against her breast as a child might.
+
+"He! He died only four days ago. I stayed to bury him, and then I came
+away. I have been three days on the way; the horse, poor beast, is
+almost weaker than I. The Americans took my horse," Alessandro said.
+
+"Took your horse!" cried Ramona, aghast. "Is that the law, too?"
+
+"So Mr. Rothsaker told me. He said the judge had said he must take
+enough of our cattle and horses to pay all it had cost for the suit up
+in San Francisco. They didn't reckon the cattle at what they were worth,
+I thought; but they said cattle were selling very low now. There were
+not enough in all the village to pay it, so we had to make it up in
+horses; and they took mine. I was not there the day they drove the
+cattle away, or I would have put a ball into Benito's head before any
+American should ever have had him to ride. But I was over in Pachanga
+with my father. He would not stir a step for anybody but me; so I led
+him all the way; and then after he got there he was so ill I never left
+him a minute. He did not know me any more, nor know anything that had
+happened. I built a little hut of tule, and he lay on the ground till he
+died. When I put him in his grave, I was glad."
+
+"In Temecula?" asked Ramona.
+
+"In Temecula." exclaimed Alessandro, fiercely. "You don't seem to
+understand, Senorita. We have no right in Temecula, not even to our
+graveyard full of the dead. Mr. Rothsaker warned us all not to be
+hanging about there; for he said the men who were coming in were a
+rough set, and they would shoot any Indian at sight, if they saw him
+trespassing on their property."
+
+"Their property!" ejaculated Ramona.
+
+"Yes; it is theirs," said Alessandro, doggedly. "That is the law.
+They've got all the papers to show it. That is what my father always
+said,--if the Senor Valdez had only given him a paper! But they never
+did in those days. Nobody had papers. The American law is different."
+
+"It's a law of thieves!" cried Ramona.
+
+"Yes, and of murderers too," said Alessandro. "Don't you call my father
+murdered just as much as if they had shot him? I do! and, O Senorita,
+my Senorita, there was Jose! You recollect Jose, who went for my violin?
+But, my beloved one, I am killing you with these terrible things! I will
+speak no more."
+
+"No, no, Alessandro. Tell me all, all. You must have no grief I do not
+share. Tell me about Jose," cried Ramona, breathlessly.
+
+"Senorita, it will break your heart to hear. Jose was married a year
+ago. He had the best house in Temecula, next to my father's. It was the
+only other one that had a shingled roof. And he had a barn too, and that
+splendid horse he rode, and oxen, and a flock of sheep. He was at home
+when the sheriff came. A great many of the men were away, grapepicking.
+That made it worse. But Jose was at home; for his wife had a little baby
+only a few weeks old, and the child seemed sickly and not like to live,
+and Jose would not leave it. Jose was the first one that saw the sheriff
+riding into the village, and the band of armed men behind him, and Jose
+knew what it meant. He had often talked it over with me and with my
+father, and now he saw that it had come; and he went crazy in one
+minute, and fell on the ground all froth at his mouth. He had had a fit
+like that once before; and the doctor said if he had another, he would
+die. But he did not. They picked him up, and presently he was better;
+and Mr. Rothsaker said nobody worked so well in the moving the first
+day as Jose did. Most of the men would not lift a hand. They sat on the
+ground with the women, and covered up their faces, and would not see.
+But Jose worked; and, Senorita, one of the first things he did, was to
+run with my father's violin to the store, to Mrs. Hartsel, and ask her
+to hide it for us; Jose knew it was worth money. But before noon the
+second day he had another fit, and died in it,--died right in his own
+door, carrying out some of the things; and after Carmena--that's his
+wife's name--saw he was dead, she never spoke, but sat rocking back
+and forth on the ground, with the baby in her arms. She went over to
+Pachanga at the same time I did with my father. It was a long procession
+of us."
+
+"Where is Pachanga?" asked Ramona.
+
+"About three miles from Temecula, a little sort of canon. I told
+the people they'd better move over there; the land did not belong to
+anybody, and perhaps they could make a living there. There isn't any
+water; that's the worst of it."
+
+"No water!" cried Ramona.
+
+"No running water. There is one little spring, and they dug a well by it
+as soon as they got there; so there was water to drink, but that is all.
+I saw Carmena could hardly keep up, and I carried the baby for her on
+one arm, while I led my father with the other hand; but the baby cried,
+so she took it back. I thought then it wouldn't live the day out; but
+it did live till the morning of the day my father died. Just a few hours
+before he died, Carmena came along with the baby rolled up in her shawl,
+and sat down by me on the ground, and did not speak. When I said, 'How
+is the little one?' she opened her shawl and showed it to me, dead.
+'Good, Carmena!' said I. 'It is good! My father is dying too. We will
+bury them together.' So she sat by me all that morning, and at night
+she helped me dig the graves. I wanted to put the baby on my father's
+breast; but she said, no, it must have a little grave. So she dug it
+herself; and we put them in; and she never spoke, except that once. She
+was sitting there by the grave when I came away. I made a cross of two
+little trees with the boughs chopped off, and set it up by the graves.
+So that is the way our new graveyard was begun,--my father and the
+little baby; it is the very young and the very old that have the blessed
+fortune to die. I cannot die, it seems!"
+
+"Where did they bury Jose?" gasped Ramona.
+
+"In Temecula," said Alessandro. "Mr. Rothsaker made two of his men dig
+a grave in our old graveyard for Jose. But I think Carmena will go at
+night and bring his body away. I would! But, my Senorita, it is very
+dark, I can hardly see your beloved eyes. I think you must not stay
+longer. Can I go as far as the brook with you, safely, without being
+seen? The saints bless you, beloved, for coming. I could not have lived,
+I think, without one more sight of your face;" and, springing to his
+feet, Alessandro stood waiting for Ramona to move. She remained
+still. She was in a sore strait. Her heart held but one impulse, one
+desire,--to go with Alessandro; nothing was apparently farther from
+his thoughts than this. Could she offer to go? Should she risk laying a
+burden on him greater than he could bear? If he were indeed a beggar, as
+he said, would his life be hindered or helped by her? She felt herself
+strong and able. Work had no terrors for her; privations she knew
+nothing of, but she felt no fear of them.
+
+"Alessandro!" she said, in a tone which startled him.
+
+"My Senorita!" he said tenderly.
+
+"You have never once called me Ramona."
+
+"I cannot, Senorita!" he replied.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I do not know. I sometimes think 'Ramona,'" he added faintly; "but not
+often. If I think of you by any other name than as my Senorita, it is
+usually by a name you never heard."
+
+"What is it?" exclaimed Ramona, wonderingly.
+
+"An Indian word, my dearest one, the name of the bird you are like,--the
+wood-dove. In the Luiseno tongue that is Majel; that was what I thought
+my people would have called you, if you had come to dwell among us. It
+is a beautiful name, Senorita, and is like you."
+
+Alessandro was still standing. Ramona rose; coming close to him, she
+laid both her hands on his breast, and her head on her hands, and said:
+"Alessandro, I have something to tell you. I am an Indian. I belong to
+your people."
+
+Alessandro's silence astonished her. "You are surprised," she said. "I
+thought you would be glad."
+
+"The gladness of it came to me long ago, my Senorita," he said. "I knew
+it!"
+
+"How?" cried Ramona. "And you never told me, Alessandro!"
+
+"How could I?" he replied. "I dared not. Juan Canito, it was told me."
+
+"Juan Canito!" said Ramona, musingly. "How could he have known?" Then in
+a few rapid words she told Alessandro all that the Senora had told her.
+"Is that what Juan Can said?" she asked.
+
+"All except the father's name," stammered Alessandro.
+
+"Who did he say was my father?" she asked.
+
+Alessandro was silent.
+
+"It matters not," said Ramona. "He was wrong. The Senora, of course,
+knew. He was a friend of hers, and of the Senora Ortegna, to whom he
+gave me. But I think, Alessandro, I have more of my mother than of my
+father."
+
+"Yes, you have, my Senorita," replied Alessandro, tenderly. "After I
+knew it, I then saw what it was in your face had always seemed to me
+like the faces of my own people."
+
+"Are you not glad, Alessandro?"
+
+"Yes, my Senorita."
+
+What more should Ramona say? Suddenly her heart gave way; and without
+premeditation, without resolve, almost without consciousness of what
+she was doing, she flung herself on Alessandro's breast, and cried: "Oh,
+Alessandro, take me with you! take me with you! I would rather die than
+have you leave me again!"
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+ALESSANDRO'S first answer to this cry of Ramona's was a tightening of
+his arms around her; closer and closer he held her, till it was almost
+pain; she could hear the throbs of his heart, but he did not speak.
+Then, letting his arms fall, taking her hand in his, he laid it on
+his forehead reverently, and said, in a voice which was so husky and
+trembling she could barely understand his words: "My Senorita knows that
+my life is hers. She can ask me to go into the fire or into the sea, and
+neither the fire nor the sea would frighten me; they would but make
+me glad for her sake. But I cannot take my Senorita's life to throw it
+away. She is tender; she would die; she cannot lie on the earth for a
+bed, and have no food to eat. My Senorita does not know what she says."
+
+His solemn tone; this third-person designation, as if he were speaking
+of her, not with her, almost as if he were thinking aloud to God rather
+than speaking to her, merely calmed and strengthened, did not deter
+Ramona. "I am strong; I can work too, Alessandro. You do not know. We
+can both work. I am not afraid to lie on the earth; and God will give us
+food," she said.
+
+"That was what I thought, my Senorita, until now. When I rode away
+that morning, I had it in my thoughts, as you say, that if you were not
+afraid, I would not be; and that there would at least always be food,
+and I could make it that you should never suffer; but, Senorita, the
+saints are displeased. They do not pray for us any more. It is as my
+father said, they have forsaken us. These Americans will destroy us all.
+I do not know but they will presently begin to shoot us and poison
+us, to get us all out of the country, as they do the rabbits and the
+gophers; it would not be any worse than what they have done. Would not
+you rather be dead, Senorita, than be as I am to-day?"
+
+Each word he spoke but intensified Ramona's determination to share
+his lot. "Alessandro," she interrupted, "there are many men among your
+people who have wives, are there not?"
+
+"Yes, Senorita!" replied Alessandro, wonderingly.
+
+"Have their wives left them and gone away, now that this trouble has
+come?"
+
+"No, Senorita." still more wonderingly; "how could they?"
+
+"They are going to stay with them, help them to earn money, try to make
+them happier, are they not?"
+
+"Yes, Senorita." Alessandro began to see whither these questions tended.
+It was not unlike the Senora's tactics, the way in which Ramona narrowed
+in her lines of interrogation.
+
+"Do the women of your people love their husbands very much?"
+
+"Very much, Senorita." A pause. It was very dark now. Alessandro could
+not see the hot currents running swift and red over Ramona's face; even
+her neck changed color as she asked her last question. "Do you think any
+one of them loves her husband more than I love you, Alessandro?"
+
+Alessandro's arms were again around her, before the words were done.
+Were not such words enough to make a dead man live? Almost; but not
+enough to make such a love as Alessandro's selfish. Alessandro was
+silent.
+
+"You know there is not one!" said Ramona, impetuously.
+
+"Oh, it is too much!" cried Alessandro, throwing his arms up wildly.
+Then, drawing her to him again, he said, the words pouring out
+breathless: "My Senorita, you take me to the door of heaven, but I dare
+not go in. I know it would kill you, Senorita, to live the life we must
+live. Let me go, dearest Senorita; let me go! It had been better if you
+had never seen me."
+
+"Do you know what I was going to do, Alessandro, if you had not come?"
+said Ramona. "I was going to run away from the Senora's house, all
+alone, and walk all the way to Santa Barbara, to Father Salvierderra,
+and ask him to put me in the convent at San Juan Bautista; and that is
+what I will do now if you leave me!"
+
+"Oh, no, no, Senorita, my Senorita, you will not do that! My beautiful
+Senorita in the convent! No, no!" cried Alessandro, greatly agitated.
+
+"Yes, if you do not let me come with you, I shall do it. I shall set out
+to-morrow."
+
+Her words carried conviction to Alessandro's soul. He knew she would do
+as she said. "Even that would not be so dreadful as to be hunted like a
+wild beast, Senorita; as you may be, if you come with me."
+
+"When I thought you were dead, Alessandro, I did not think the convent
+would be dreadful at all. I thought it would be peace; and I could do
+good, teaching the children. But if I knew you were alive, I could never
+have peace; not for one minute have peace, Alessandro! I would rather
+die, than not be where you are. Oh, Alessandro, take me with you!"
+
+Alessandro was conquered. "I will take you, my most beloved Senorita,"
+he said gravely,--no lover's gladness in his tone, and his voice was
+hollow; "I will take you. Perhaps the saints will have mercy on you,
+even if they have forsaken me and my people!"
+
+"Your people are my people, dearest; and the saints never forsake any
+one who does not forsake them. You will be glad all our lives long,
+Alessandro," cried Ramona; and she laid her head on his breast in solemn
+silence for a moment, as if registering a vow.
+
+Well might Felipe have said that he would hold himself fortunate if any
+woman ever loved him as Ramona loved Alessandro.
+
+When she lifted her head, she said timidly, now that she was sure, "Then
+you will take your Ramona with you, Alessandro?"
+
+"I will take you with me till I die; and may the Madonna guard you, my
+Ramona," replied Alessandro, clasping her to his breast, and bowing
+his head upon hers. But there were tears in his eyes, and they were not
+tears of joy; and in his heart he said, as in his rapturous delight when
+he first saw Ramona bending over the brook under the willows he had said
+aloud, "My God! what shall I do!"
+
+It was not easy to decide on the best plan of procedure now. Alessandro
+wished to go boldly to the house, see Senor Felipe, and if need be the
+Senora. Ramona quivered with terror at the bare mention of it. "You do
+not know the Senora, Alessandro," she cried, "or you would never think
+of it. She has been terrible all this time. She hates me so that she
+would kill me if she dared. She pretends that she will do nothing to
+prevent my going away; but I believe at the last minute she would throw
+me in the well in the court-yard, rather than have me go with you."
+
+"I would never let her harm you," said Alessandro. "Neither would Senor
+Felipe."
+
+"She turns Felipe round her finger as if he were soft wax," answered
+Ramona. "She makes him of a hundred minds in a minute, and he can't help
+himself. Oh, I think she is in league with the fiends, Alessandro! Don't
+dare to come near the house; I will come here as soon as every one is
+asleep. We must go at once."
+
+Ramona's terrors overruled Alessandro's judgment, and he consented to
+wait for her at the spot where they now stood. She turned back twice to
+embrace him again. "Oh, my Alessandro, promise me that you will not stir
+from this place till I come," she said.
+
+"I will be here when you come," he said.
+
+"It will not be more than two hours," she said, "or three, at the
+utmost. It must be nine o'clock now."
+
+She did not observe that Alessandro had evaded the promise not to leave
+the spot. That promise Alessandro would not have given. He had something
+to do in preparation for this unexpected flight of Ramona. In her
+innocence, her absorption in her thoughts of Alessandro and of love, she
+had never seemed to consider how she would make this long journey.
+As Alessandro had ridden towards Temecula, eighteen days ago, he had
+pictured himself riding back on his fleet, strong Benito, and bringing
+Antonio's matchless little dun mare for Ramona to ride. Only eighteen
+short days ago; and as he was dreaming that very dream, he had looked up
+and seen Antonio on the little dun mare, galloping towards him like the
+wind, the overridden creature's breath coming from her like pants of
+a steam-engine, and her sides dripping blood, where Antonio, who loved
+her, had not spared the cruel spurs; and Antonio, seeing him, had
+uttered a cry, and flinging himself off, came with a bound to his side,
+and with gasps between his words told him. Alessandro could not remember
+the words, only that after them he set his teeth, and dropping the
+bridle, laid his head down between Benito's ears, and whispered to him;
+and Benito never stopped, but galloped on all that day, till he came
+into Temecula; and there Alessandro saw the roofless houses, and
+the wagons being loaded, and the people running about, the women and
+children wailing; and then they showed him the place where his father
+lay on the ground, under the tule, and jumping off Benito he let him go,
+and that was the last he ever saw of him. Only eighteen days ago! And
+now here he was, under the willows,--the same copse where he first
+halted, at his first sight of Ramona; and it was night, dark night, and
+Ramona had been there, in his arms; she was his; and she was going back
+presently to go away with him,--where! He had no home in the wide world
+to which to take her,--and this poor beast he had ridden from Temecula,
+had it strength enough left to carry her? Alessandro doubted. He had
+himself walked more than half the distance, to spare the creature, and
+yet there had been good pasture all the way; but the animal had been too
+long starved to recover quickly. In the Pachanga canon, where they had
+found refuge, the grass was burned up by the sun, and the few horses
+taken over there had suffered wretchedly; some had died. But Alessandro,
+even while his arms were around Ramona, had revolved in his mind a
+project he would not have dared to confide to her. If Baba, Ramona's own
+horse, was still in the corral, Alessandro could without difficulty
+lure him out. He thought it would be no sin. At any rate, if it were,
+it could not be avoided. The Senorita must have a horse, and Baba had
+always been her own; had followed her about like a dog ever since he
+could run; in fact, the only taming he had ever had, had been done by
+Ramona, with bread and honey. He was intractable to others; but Ramona
+could guide him by a wisp of his silky mane. Alessandro also had nearly
+as complete control over him; for it had been one of his greatest
+pleasures, during the summer, when he could not see Ramona, to caress
+and fondle her horse, till Baba knew and loved him next to his young
+mistress. If only Baba were in the corral, all would be well. As soon as
+the sound of Ramona's footsteps had died away, Alessandro followed with
+quick but stealthy steps; keeping well down in the bottom, below the
+willows, he skirted the terrace where the artichoke-patch and the
+sheepfolds lay, and then turned up to approach the corral from the
+farther side. There was no light in any of the herdsmen's huts. They
+were all asleep. That was good. Well Alessandro knew how sound they
+slept; many a night while he slept there with them he had walked twice
+over their bodies as they lay stretched on skins on the floor,--out
+and in without rousing them. If only Baba would not give a loud whinny.
+leaning on the corral-fence, Alessandro gave a low, hardly audible
+whistle. The horses were all in a group together at the farther end of
+the corral. At the sound there was a slight movement in the group; and
+one of them turned and came a pace or two toward Alessandro.
+
+"I believe that is Baba himself," thought Alessandro; and he made
+another low sound. The horse quickened his steps; then halted, as if he
+suspected some mischief.
+
+"Baba," whispered Alessandro. The horse knew his name as well as any
+dog; knew Alessandro's voice too; but the sagacious creature seemed
+instinctively to know that here was an occasion for secrecy and caution.
+If Alessandro whispered, he, Baba, would whisper back; and it was little
+more than a whispered whinny which he gave, as he trotted quickly to the
+fence, and put his nose to Alessandro's face, rubbing and kissing and
+giving soft whinnying sighs.
+
+"Hush! hush! Baba," whispered Alessandro, as if he were speaking to a
+human being. "Hush!" and he proceeded cautiously to lift off the upper
+rails and bushes of the fence. The horse understood instantly; and as
+soon as the fence was a little lowered, leaped over it and stood still
+by Alessandro's side, while he replaced the rails, smiling to himself,
+spite of his grave anxiety, to think of Juan Can's wonder in the morning
+as to how Baba had managed to get out of the corral.
+
+This had taken only a few moments. It was better luck than Alessandro
+had hoped for; emboldened by it, he began to wonder if he could not get
+the saddle too. The saddles, harnesses, bridles, and all such things
+hung on pegs in an open barn, such as is constantly to be seen in
+Southern California; as significant a testimony, in matter of climate,
+as any Signal Service Report could be,--a floor and a roof; no walls,
+only corner posts to hold the roof. Nothing but summerhouses on a large
+scale are the South California barns. Alessandro stood musing. The
+longer he thought, the greater grew his desire for that saddle.
+
+"Baba, if only you knew what I wanted of you, you'd lie down on the
+ground here and wait while I got the saddle. But I dare not risk leaving
+you. Come, Baba!" and he struck down the hill again, the horse following
+him softly. When he got down below the terrace, he broke into a run,
+with his hand in Baba's mane, as if it were a frolic; and in a few
+moments they were safe in the willow copse, where Alessandro's poor pony
+was tethered. Fastening Baba with the same lariat, Alessandro patted him
+on the neck, pressed his face to his nose, and said aloud, "Good Baba,
+stay here till the Senorita comes." Baba whinnied.
+
+"Why shouldn't he know the Senorita's name! I believe he does!" thought
+Alessandro, as he turned and again ran swiftly back to the corral. He
+felt strong now,--felt like a new man. Spite of all the terror, joy
+thrilled him. When he reached the corral, all was yet still. The horses
+had not moved from their former position. Throwing himself flat on the
+ground, Alessandro crept on his breast from the corral to the barn,
+several rods' distance. This was the most hazardous part of his
+adventure; every other moment he paused, lay motionless for some
+seconds, then crept a few paces more. As he neared the corner where
+Ramona's saddle always hung, his heart beat. Sometimes, of a warm night,
+Luigo slept on the barn floor. If he were there to-night, all was lost.
+Groping in the darkness, Alessandro pulled himself up on the post, felt
+for the saddle, found it, lifted it, and in a trice was flat on the
+ground again, drawing the saddle along after him. Not a sound had he
+made, that the most watchful of sheep-dogs could hear.
+
+"Ha, old Capitan, caught you napping this time!" said Alessandro to
+himself, as at last he got safe to the bottom of the terrace, and,
+springing to his feet, bounded away with the saddle on his shoulders.
+It was a weight for a starving man to carry, but he felt it not, for
+the rejoicing he had in its possession. Now his Senorita would go in
+comfort. To ride Baba was to be rocked in a cradle. If need be, Baba
+would carry them both, and never know it; and it might come to that,
+Alessandro thought, as he knelt by the side of his poor beast, which was
+stretched out on the ground exhausted; Baba standing by, looking down in
+scornful wonder at this strange new associate.
+
+"The saints be praised!" thought Alessandro, as he seated himself to
+wait. "This looks as if they would not desert my Senorita."
+
+Thoughts whirled in his brain. Where should they go first? What would be
+best? Would they be pursued? Where could they hide? Where should he seek
+a new home?
+
+It was bootless thinking, until Ramona was by his side. He must lay
+each plan before her. She must decide. The first thing was to get to
+San Diego, to the priest, to be married. That would be three days' hard
+ride; five for the exhausted Indian pony. What should they eat on
+the ways Ah! Alessandro bethought him of the violin at Hartsel's. Mr.
+Hartsel would give him money on that; perhaps buy it. Then Alessandro
+remembered his own violin. He had not once thought of it before. It lay
+in its case on a table in Senor Felipe's room when he came away, Was it
+possible? No, of course it could not be possible that the Senorita would
+think to bring it. What would she bring? She would be wise, Alessandro
+was sure.
+
+How long the hours seemed as he sat thus plotting and conjecturing; more
+and more thankful, as each hour went by, to see the sky still clouded,
+the darkness dense. "It must have been the saints, too, that brought me
+on a night when there was no moon," he thought; and then he said again,
+devout and simple-minded man that he was. "They mean to protect my
+Senorita; they will let me take care of her."
+
+Ramona was threading a perilous way, through great difficulties. She had
+reached her room unobserved, so far as she could judge. Luckily for her,
+Margarita was in bed with a terrible toothache, for which her mother had
+given her a strong sleeping-draught. Margarita was disposed of. If she
+had not been, Ramona would never have got away, for Margarita would have
+known that she had been out of the house for two hours, and would have
+watched to see what it meant.
+
+Ramona came in through the court-yard; she dared not go by the veranda,
+sure that Felipe and his mother were sitting there still, for it was not
+late.
+
+As she entered her room, she heard them talking. She closed one of her
+windows, to let them know she was there. Then she knelt at the Madonna's
+feet, and in an inaudible whisper told her all she was going to do, and
+prayed that she would watch over her and Alessandro, and show them where
+to go.
+
+"I know she will! I am sure she will!" whispered Ramona to herself as
+she rose from her knees.
+
+Then she threw herself on her bed, to wait till the Senora and Felipe
+should be asleep. Her brain was alert, clear. She knew exactly what she
+wished to do. She had thought that all out, more than two weeks ago,
+when she was looking for Alessandro hour by hour.
+
+Early in the summer Alessandro had given to her, as curiosities, two
+of the large nets which the Indian women use for carrying all sorts of
+burdens. They are woven out of the fibres of a flax-like plant, and
+are strong as iron. The meshes being large, they are very light; are
+gathered at each end, and fastened to a band which goes around the
+forehead. In these can be carried on the back, with comparative ease,
+heavier loads than could be lifted in any other way. Until Ramona
+recollected these, she had been perplexed to know how she should carry
+the things which she had made up her mind it would be right for her to
+take,--only a few; simply necessaries; one stuff gown and her shawls;
+the new altar-cloth, and two changes of clothes; that would not be a
+great deal; she had a right to so much, she thought, now that she
+had seen the jewels in the Senora's keeping. "I will tell Father
+Salvierderra exactly what I took," she thought, "and ask him if it was
+too much." She did not like to think that all these clothes she must
+take had been paid for with the Senora Moreno's money.
+
+And Alessandro's violin. Whatever else she left, that must go. What
+would life be to Alessandro without a violin! And if they went to Los
+Angeles, he might earn money by playing at dances. Already Ramona had
+devised several ways by which they could both earn money.
+
+There must be also food for the journey. And it must be good food, too;
+wine for Alessandro. Anguish filled her heart as she recalled how gaunt
+he looked. "Starving," he said they had been. Good God! Starving! And
+she had sat down each day at loaded tables, and seen, each day, good
+food thrown to the dogs to eat.
+
+It was long before the Senora went to her room; and long after that
+before Felipe's breathing had become so deep and regular that Ramona
+dared feel sure that he was asleep. At last she ventured out. All was
+dark; it was past midnight.
+
+"The violin first!" she said; and creeping into the dining-room, and
+through the inner door to Felipe's room, she brought it out, rolled it
+in shawl after shawl, and put it in the net with her clothes. Then she
+stole out, with this net on her back, "like a true Indian woman as I
+am," she said, almost gayly, to herself,--through the court-yard, around
+the southeast corner of the house, past the garden, down to the willows,
+where she laid down her load, and went back for the second.
+
+This was harder. Wine she was resolved to have and bread and cold
+meat. She did not know so well where to put her hand on old Marda's
+possessions as on her own, and she dared not strike a light. She made
+several journeys to the kitchen and pantry before she had completed her
+store. Wine, luckily, she found in the dining-room,--two full bottles;
+also milk, which she poured into a leathern flask which hung on the wall
+in the veranda.
+
+Now all was ready. She leaned from her window, and listened to Felipe's
+breathing. "How can I go without bidding him good-by?" she said. "How
+can I?" and she stood irresolute.
+
+"Dear Felipe! Dear Felipe! He has always been so good to me! He has done
+all he could for me. I wish I dared kiss him. I will leave a note for
+him."
+
+Taking a pencil and paper, and a tiny wax taper, whose light
+would hardly be seen across a room, she slipped once more into the
+dining-room, knelt on the floor behind the door, lighted her taper, and
+wrote:--
+
+"DEAR FELIPE,--Alessandro has come, and I am going away with him
+to-night. Don't let anything be done to us, if you can help it. I don't
+know where we are going. I hope, to Father Salvierderra. I shall love
+you always. Thank you, dear Felipe, for all your kindness.
+
+"RAMONA."
+
+It had not taken a moment. She blew out her taper, and crept back into
+her room. Felipe's bed was now moved close to the wall of the house.
+From her window she could reach its foot. Slowly, cautiously, she
+stretched out her arm and dropped the little paper on the coverlet, just
+over Felipe's feet. There was a risk that the Senora would come out in
+the morning, before Felipe awaked, and see the note first; but that risk
+she would take.
+
+"Farewell, dear Felipe!" she whispered, under her breath, as she turned
+from the window.
+
+The delay had cost her dear. The watchful Capitan, from his bed at the
+upper end of the court, had half heard, half scented, something strange
+going on. As Ramona stepped out, he gave one short, quick bark, and came
+bounding down.
+
+"Holy Virgin, I am lost!" thought Ramona; but, crouching on the ground,
+she quickly opened her net, and as Capitan came towards her, gave him a
+piece of meat, fondling and caressing him. While he ate it, wagging his
+tail, and making great demonstrations of joy, she picked up her load
+again, and still fondling him, said, "Come on, Capitan!" It was her last
+chance. If he barked again, somebody would be waked; if he went by her
+side quietly, she might escape. A cold sweat of terror burst on her
+forehead as she took her first step cautiously. The dog followed. She
+quickened her pace; he trotted along, still smelling the meat in the
+net. When she reached the willows, she halted, debating whether she
+should give him a large piece of meat, and try to run away while he was
+eating it, or whether she should let him go quietly along. She decided
+on the latter course; and, picking up her other net, walked on. She was
+safe now. She turned, and looked back towards the house; all was dark
+and still. She could hardly see its outline. A great wave of emotion
+swept over her. It was the only home she had ever known. All she
+had experienced of happiness, as well as of bitter pain, had been
+there,--Felipe, Father Salvierderra, the servants, the birds, the
+garden, the dear chapel! Ah, if she could have once more prayed in the
+chapel! Who would put fresh flowers and ferns in the chapel now? How
+Felipe would miss her, when he knelt before the altar! For fourteen
+years she had knelt by his side. And the Senora,--the hard, cold Senora!
+She would alone be glad. Everybody else would be sorry. "They will all
+be sorry I have gone,--all but the Senora! I wish it had been so that I
+could have bidden them all good-by, and had them all bid me good-by, and
+wish us good fortune!" thought the gentle, loving girl, as she drew a
+long sigh, and, turning her back on her home, went forward in the path
+she had chosen.
+
+She stooped and patted Capitan on the head. "Will you come with me,
+Capitan?" she said; and Capitan leaped up joyfully, giving two or three
+short, sharp notes of delight. "Good Capitan, come! They will not
+miss him out of so many," she thought, "and it will always seem like
+something from home, as long as I have Capitan."
+
+When Alessandro first saw Ramona's figure dimly in the gloom, drawing
+slowly nearer, he did not recognize it, and he was full of apprehension
+at the sight. What stranger could it be, abroad in these lonely meadows
+at this hour of the night? Hastily he led the horses farther back into
+the copse, and hid himself behind a tree, to watch. In a few moments
+more he thought he recognized Capitan, bounding by the side of this
+bent and slow-moving figure. Yet this was surely an Indian woman toiling
+along under a heavy load. But what Indian woman would have so superb a
+collie as Capitan? Alessandro strained his eyes through the darkness.
+Presently he saw the figure halt,--drop part of its burden.
+
+"Alessandro!" came in a sweet, low call.
+
+He bounded like a deer, crying, "My Senorita! my Senorita! Can that be
+you? To think that you have brought these heavy loads!"
+
+Ramona laughed. "Do you remember the day you showed me how the Indian
+women carried so much on their backs, in these nets? I did not think
+then I would use it so soon. But it hurts my forehead, Alessandro. It
+isn't the weight, but the strings cut. I couldn't have carried them much
+farther!"
+
+"Ah, you had no basket to cover the head," replied Alessandro, as he
+threw up the two nets on his shoulders as if they had been feathers. In
+doing so, he felt the violin-case.
+
+"Is it the violin?" he cried. "My blessed one, where did you get it?"
+
+"Off the table in Felipe's room," she answered. "I knew you would rather
+have it than anything else. I brought very little, Alessandro; it seemed
+nothing while I was getting it; but it is very heavy to carry. Will
+it be too much for the poor tired horse? You and I can walk. And see,
+Alessandro, here is Capitan. He waked up, and I had to bring him, to
+keep him still. Can't he go with us?"
+
+Capitan was leaping up, putting his paws on Alessandro's breast,
+licking his face, yelping, doing all a dog could do, to show welcome and
+affection.
+
+Alessandro laughed aloud. Ramona had not more than two or three times
+heard him do this. It frightened her. "Why do you laugh, Alessandro?"
+she said.
+
+"To think what I have to show you, my Senorita," he said. "Look here;"
+and turning towards the willows, he gave two or three low whistles, at
+the first note of which Baba came trotting out of the copse to the end
+of his lariat, and began to snort and whinny with delight as soon as he
+perceived Ramona.
+
+Ramona burst into tears. The surprise was too great.
+
+"Are you not glad, Senorita?" cried Alessandro, aghast. "Is it not your
+own horse? If you do not wish to take him, I will lead him back. My pony
+can carry you, if we journey very slowly. But I thought it would be joy
+to you to have Baba."
+
+"Oh, it is! it is!" sobbed Ramona, with her head on Baba's neck. "It is
+a miracle,--a miracle. How did he come here? And, the saddle too!" she
+cried, for the first time observing that. "Alessandro," in an awe-struck
+whisper, "did the saints send him? Did you find him here?" It would have
+seemed to Ramona's faith no strange thing, had this been so.
+
+"I think the saints helped me to bring him," answered Alessandro,
+seriously, "or else I had not done it so easily. I did but call, near
+the corral-fence, and he came to my hand, and leaped over the rails at
+my word, as quickly as Capitan might have done. He is yours, Senorita.
+It is no harm to take him?"
+
+"Oh, no!" answered Ramona. "He is more mine than anything else I had;
+for it was Felipe gave him to me when he could but just stand on his
+legs; he was only two days old; and I have fed him out of my hand every
+day till now; and now he is five. Dear Baba, we will never be parted,
+never!" and she took his head in both her hands, and laid her cheek
+against it lovingly.
+
+Alessandro was busy, fastening the two nets on either side of the
+saddle. "Baba will never know he has a load at all; they are not so
+heavy as my Senorita thought," he said. "It was the weight on the
+forehead, with nothing to keep the strings from the skin, which gave her
+pain."
+
+Alessandro was making all haste. His hands trembled. "We must make all
+the speed we can, dearest Senorita," he said, "for a few hours. Then we
+will rest. Before light, we will be in a spot where we can hide safely
+all day. We will journey only by night, lest they pursue us."
+
+"They will not," said Ramona. "There is no danger. The Senora said she
+should do nothing. 'Nothing!'" she repeated, in a bitter tone. "That is
+what she made Felipe say, too. Felipe wanted to help us. He would have
+liked to have you stay with us; but all he could get was, that she would
+do 'nothing!' But they will not follow us. They will wish never to hear
+of me again. I mean, the Senora will wish never to hear of me. Felipe
+will be sorry. Felipe is very good, Alessandro."
+
+They were all ready now,--Ramona on Baba, the two packed nets swinging
+from her saddle, one on either side. Alessandro, walking, led his tired
+pony. It was a sad sort of procession for one going to be wed, but
+Ramona's heart was full of joy.
+
+"I don't know why it is, Alessandro," she said; "I should think I
+would be afraid, but I have not the least fear,--not the least; not of
+anything that can come, Alessandro," she reiterated with emphasis. "Is
+it not strange?"
+
+"Yes, Senorita," he replied solemnly, laying his hand on hers as he
+walked close at her side. "It is strange. I am afraid,--afraid for you,
+my Senorita! But it is done, and we will not go back; and perhaps the
+saints will help you, and will let me take care of you. They must love
+you, Senorita; but they do not love me, nor my people."
+
+"Are you never going to call me by my name?" asked Ramona. "I hate your
+calling me Senorita. That was what the Senora always called me when she
+was displeased."
+
+"I will never speak the word again!" cried Alessandro. "The saints
+forbid I should speak to you in the words of that woman!"
+
+"Can't you say Ramona?" she asked.
+
+Alessandro hesitated. He could not have told why it seemed to him
+difficult to say Ramona.
+
+"What was that other name, you said you always thought of me by?" she
+continued. "The Indian name,--the name of the dove?"
+
+"Majel," he said. "It is by that name I have oftenest thought of you
+since the night I watched all night for you, after you had kissed me,
+and two wood-doves were calling and answering each other in the dark;
+and I said to myself, that is what my love is like, the wood-dove: the
+wood-dove's voice is low like hers, and sweeter than any other sound in
+the earth; and the wood-dove is true to one mate always--" He stopped.
+
+"As I to you, Alessandro," said Ramona, leaning from her horse, and
+resting her hand on Alessandro's shoulder.
+
+Baba stopped. He was used to knowing by the most trivial signs what his
+mistress wanted; he did not understand this new situation; no one had
+ever before, when Ramona was riding him, walked by his side so close
+that he touched his shoulders, and rested his hand in his mane. If it
+had been anybody else than Alessandro, Baba would not have permitted it
+even now. But it must be all right, since Ramona was quiet; and now she
+had stretched out her hand and rested it on Alessandro's shoulder.
+Did that mean halt for a moment? Baba thought it might, and acted
+accordingly; turning his head round to the right, and looking back to
+see what came of it.
+
+Alessandro's arms around Ramona, her head bent down to his, their lips
+together,--what could Baba think? As mischievously as if he had been
+a human being or an elf, Baba bounded to one side and tore the lovers
+apart. They both laughed, and cantered on,--Alessandro running; the poor
+Indian pony feeling the contagion, and loping as it had not done for
+many a day.
+
+"Majel is my name, then," said Ramona, "is it? It is a sweet sound, but
+I would like it better Majella. Call me Majella."
+
+"That will be good," replied Alessandro, "for the reason that never
+before had any one the same name. It will not be hard for me to say
+Majella. I know not why your name of Ramona has always been hard to my
+tongue."
+
+"Because it was to be that you should call me Majella," said Ramona.
+"Remember, I am Ramona no longer. That also was the name the Senora
+called me by--and dear Felipe too," she added thoughtfully. "He would
+not know me by my new name. I would like to have him always call
+me Ramona. But for all the rest of the world I am Majella,
+now,--Alessandro's Majel!"
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+AFTER they reached the highway, and had trotted briskly on for a mile,
+Alessandro suddenly put out his hand, and taking Baba by the rein, began
+turning him round and round in the road.
+
+"We will not go any farther in the road," he said, "but I must conceal
+our tracks here. We will go backwards for a few paces." The obedient
+Baba backed slowly, half dancing, as if he understood the trick; the
+Indian pony, too, curvetted awkwardly, then by a sudden bound under
+Alessandro's skilful guidance, leaped over a rock to the right, and
+stood waiting further orders. Baba followed, and Capitan; and there was
+no trail to show where they had left the road.
+
+After trotting the pony round and round again in ever-widening circles,
+cantering off in one direction after another, then backing over the
+tracks for a few moments, Ramona docilely following, though much
+bewildered as to what it all meant, Alessandro said: "I think now they
+will never discover where we left the road. They will ride along, seeing
+our tracks plain, and then they will be so sure that we would have kept
+straight on, that they will not notice for a time; and when they do,
+they will never be able to see where the trail ended. And now my Majella
+has a very hard ride before her. Will she be afraid?"
+
+"Afraid." laughed Ramona. "Afraid,--on Baba, and with you!"
+
+But it was indeed a hard ride. Alessandro had decided to hide for
+the day in a canon he knew, from which a narrow trail led direct to
+Temecula,--a trail which was known to none but Indians. Once in this
+canon, they would be safe from all possible pursuit. Alessandro did not
+in the least share Ramona's confidence that no effort would be made to
+overtake them. To his mind, it appeared certain that the Senora would
+never accept the situation without making an attempt to recover at least
+the horse and the dog. "She can say, if she chooses, that I have stolen
+one of her horses," he thought to himself bitterly; "and everybody would
+believe her. Nobody would believe us, if we said it was the Senorita's
+own horse."
+
+The head of the canon was only a couple of miles from the road; but it
+was in a nearly impenetrable thicket of chaparral, where young oaks had
+grown up so high that their tops made, as it were, a second stratum of
+thicket. Alessandro had never ridden through it; he had come up on foot
+once from the other side, and, forcing his way through the tangle had
+found, to his surprise, that he was near the highway. It was from this
+canon that he had brought the ferns which it had so delighted Ramona
+to arrange for the decoration of the chapel. The place was filled with
+them, growing almost in tropical luxuriance; but this was a mile or so
+farther down, and to reach that spot from above, Alessandro had had to
+let himself down a sheer wall of stone. The canon at its head was little
+more than a rift in the rocks, and the stream which had its rise in
+it was only a trickling spring at the beginning. It was this precious
+water, as well as the inaccessibility of the spot, which had decided
+Alessandro to gain the place at all hazards and costs. But a wall of
+granite would not have seemed a much more insuperable obstacle than did
+this wall of chaparral, along which they rode, vainly searching for a
+break in it. It appeared to Alessandro to have thickened and knit even
+since the last spring. At last they made their way down a small side
+canon,--a sort of wing to the main canon; a very few rods down this, and
+they were as hidden from view from above as if the earth had swallowed
+them. The first red tints of the dawn were coming. From the eastern
+horizon to the zenith, the whole sky was like a dappled crimson fleece.
+
+"Oh, what a lovely place." exclaimed Ramona. "I am sure this was not a
+hard ride at all, Alessandro! Is this where we are to stay?"
+
+Alessandro turned a compassionate look upon her. "How little does the
+wood-dove know of rough places!" he said. "This is only the beginning;
+hardly is it even the beginning."
+
+Fastening his pony to a bush, he reconnoitred the place, disappearing
+from sight the moment he entered the chaparral in any direction.
+Returning at last, with a grave face, he said, "Will Majella let me
+leave her here for a little time? There is a way, but I can find it only
+on foot. I will not be gone long. I know it is near."
+
+Tears came into Ramona's eyes. The only thing she dreaded was the losing
+sight of Alessandro. He gazed at her anxiously. "I must go, Majella," he
+said with emphasis. "We are in danger here."
+
+"Go! go! Alessandro," she cried. "But, oh, do not be long!"
+
+As he disappeared in the thicket, the tough boughs crackling and
+snapping before him, it seemed to Ramona that she was again alone in the
+world. Capitan, too, bounded after Alessandro, and did not return at her
+call. All was still. Ramona laid her head on Baba's neck. The moments
+seemed hours. At last, just as the yellow light streamed across the
+sky, and the crimson fleeces turned in one second to gold, she heard
+Alessandro's steps, the next moment saw his face. It was aglow with joy.
+
+"I have found the trail!" he exclaimed; "but we must climb up again out
+of this; and it is too light. I like it not."
+
+With fear and trembling they urged their horses up and out into the open
+again, and galloped a half-mile farther west, still keeping as close
+to the chaparral thicket as possible. Here Alessandro, who led the way,
+suddenly turned into the very thicket itself; no apparent opening; but
+the boughs parted and closed, and his head appeared above them;
+still the little pony was trotting bravely along. Baba snorted
+with displeasure as he plunged into the same bristling pathway. The
+thick-set, thorny branches smote Ramona's cheeks. What was worse, they
+caught the nets swung on Baba's sides; presently these were held fast,
+and Baba began to rear and kick. Here was a real difficulty. Alessandro
+dismounted, cut the strings, and put both the packages securely on the
+back of his own pony. "I will walk," he said. "It was only a little way
+longer I would have ridden. I shall lead Baba, where it is narrow."
+
+"Narrow," indeed. It was from sheer terror, soon, that Ramona shut her
+eyes. A path, it seemed to her only a hand's-breadth wide,--a stony,
+crumbling path,--on the side of a precipice, down which the stones
+rolled, and rolled, and rolled, echoing, far out of sight, as they
+passed; at each step the beasts took, the stones rolled and fell. Only
+the yucca-plants, with their sharp bayonet-leaves, had made shift to
+keep foothold on this precipice. Of these there were thousands; and
+their tall flower-stalks, fifteen, twenty feet high, set thick with the
+shining, smooth seed-cups, glistened like satin chalices in the sun.
+Below--hundreds of feet below--lay the canon bottom, a solid bed of
+chaparral, looking soft and even as a bed of moss. Giant sycamore-trees
+lifted their heads, at intervals, above this; and far out in the plain
+glistened the loops of the river, whose sources, unknown to the world,
+seen of but few human eyes, were to be waters of comfort to these
+fugitives this day.
+
+Alessandro was cheered. The trail was child's play to him. At the first
+tread of Baba's dainty steps on the rolling stones, he saw that the
+horse was as sure-footed as an Indian pony. In a few short hours, now,
+they would be all at rest. He knew where, under a sycamore-clump, there
+was running water, clear as crystal, and cold,--almost colder than one
+could drink,--and green grass too; plenty for two days' feed for the
+horses, or even three; and all California might be searched over in vain
+for them, once they were down this trail. His heart full of joy at these
+thoughts, he turned, to see Ramona pallid, her lips parted, her eyes
+full of terror. He had forgotten that her riding had hitherto been
+only on the smooth ways of the valley and the plain, There she was so
+fearless, that he had had no misgiving about her nerves here; but she
+had dropped the reins, was clutching Baba's mane with both hands, and
+sitting unsteadily in her saddle. She had been too proud to cry out; but
+she was nearly beside herself with fright. Alessandro halted so suddenly
+that Baba, whose nose was nearly on his shoulder, came to so sharp a
+stop that Ramona uttered a cry. She thought he had lost his footing.
+
+Alessandro looked at her in dismay. To dismount on that perilous trail
+was impossible; moreover, to walk there would take more nerve than to
+ride. Yet she looked as if she could not much longer keep her seat.
+
+"Carita," he cried, "I was stupid not to have told you how narrow the
+way is; but it is safe. I can run in it. I ran all this way with the
+ferns on my back I brought for you."
+
+"Oh, did you?" gasped Ramona, diverted, for the moment, from her
+contemplation of the abyss, and more reassured by that change of her
+thoughts than she could have been by anything else. "Did you? It is
+frightful, Alessandro. I never heard of such a trail. I feel as if I
+were on a rope in the air. If I could get down and go on my hands and
+knees, I think I would like it better. Could I?"
+
+"I would not dare to have you get off, just here, Majella," answered
+Alessandro, sorrowfully. "It is dreadful to me to see you suffer so; I
+will go very slowly. Indeed, it is safe; we all came up here, the whole
+band, for the sheep-shearing,--old Fernando on his horse all the way."
+
+"Really," said Ramona, taking comfort at each word, "I will try not to
+be so silly. Is it far, dearest Alessandro?"
+
+"Not much more as steep as this, dear, nor so narrow; but it will be an
+hour yet before we stop."
+
+But the worst was over for Ramona now, and long before they reached the
+bottom of the precipice she was ready to laugh at her fears; only,
+as she looked back at the zigzag lines of the path over which she had
+come,--little more than a brown thread, they seemed, flung along the
+rock,--she shuddered.
+
+Down in the bottom of the canon it was still the dusky gloaming when
+they arrived. Day came late to this fairy spot. Only at high noon did
+the sun fairly shine in. As Ramona looked around her, she uttered an
+exclamation of delight, which satisfied Alessandro. "Yes," he said,
+"when I came here for the ferns, I wished to myself many times that you
+could see it. There is not in all this country so beautiful a place.
+This is our first home, my Majella," he added, in a tone almost solemn;
+and throwing his arms around her, he drew her to his breast, with the
+first feeling of joy he had experienced.
+
+"I wish we could live here always," cried Ramona.
+
+"Would Majella be content?" said Alessandro.
+
+"Very," she answered.
+
+He sighed. "There would not be land enough, to live here," he said.
+"If there were, I too would like to stay here till I died, Majella, and
+never see the face of a white man again!" Already the instinct of the
+hunted and wounded animal to seek hiding, was striving in Alessandro's
+blood. "But there would be no food. We could not live here." Ramona's
+exclamation had set Alessandro to thinking, however. "Would Majella be
+content to stay here three days now?" he asked. "There is grass enough
+for the horses for that time. We should be very safe here; and I fear
+very much we should not be safe on any road. I think, Majella, the
+Senora will send men after Baba."
+
+"Baba!" cried Ramona, aghast at the idea. "My own horse! She would not
+dare to call it stealing a horse, to take my own Baba!" But even as
+she spoke, her heart misgave her. The Senora would dare anything; would
+misrepresent anything; only too well Ramona knew what the very mention
+of the phrase "horse-stealing" meant all through the country. She looked
+piteously at Alessandro. He read her thoughts.
+
+"Yes, that is it, Majella," he said. "If she sent men after Baba, there
+is no knowing what they might do. It would not do any good for you to
+say he was yours. They would not believe you; and they might take me
+too, if the Senora had told them to, and put me into Ventura jail."
+
+"She's just wicked enough to do it!" cried Ramona. "Let us not stir out
+of this spot, Alessandro,--not for a week! Couldn't we stay a week? By
+that time she would have given over looking for us."
+
+"I am afraid not a week. There is not feed for the horses; and I do not
+know what we could eat. I have my gun, but there is not much, now, to
+kill."
+
+"But I have brought meat and bread, Alessandro," said Ramona, earnestly,
+"and we could eat very little each day, and make it last!" She was like
+a child, in her simplicity and eagerness. Every other thought was for
+the time being driven out of her mind by the terror of being pursued.
+Pursuit of her, she knew, would not be in the Senora's plan; but the
+reclaiming of Baba and Capitan, that was another thing. The more Ramona
+thought of it, the more it seemed to her a form of vengeance which would
+be likely to commend itself to the Senora's mind. Felipe might possibly
+prevent it. It was he who had given Baba to her. He would feel that
+it would be shameful to recall or deny the gift. Only in Felipe lay
+Ramona's hope.
+
+If she had thought to tell Alessandro that in her farewell note
+to Felipe she had said that she supposed they were going to Father
+Salvierderra, it would have saved both her and Alessandro much
+disquietude. Alessandro would have known that men pursuing them, on that
+supposition, would have gone straight down the river road to the sea,
+and struck northward along the coast. But it did not occur to Ramona to
+mention this; in fact, she hardly recollected it after the first day.
+Alessandro had explained to her his plan, which was to go by way of
+Temecula to San Diego, to be married there by Father Gaspara, the priest
+of that parish, and then go to the village or pueblo of San Pasquale,
+about fifteen miles northwest of San Diego. A cousin of Alessandro's
+was the head man of this village, and had many times begged him to come
+there to live; but Alessandro had steadily refused, believing it to
+be his duty to remain at Temecula with his father. San Pasquale was
+a regularly established pueblo, founded by a number of the Indian
+neophytes of the San Luis Rey Mission at the time of the breaking up
+of that Mission. It was established by a decree of the Governor of
+California, and the lands of the San Pasquale Valley given to it. A
+paper recording this establishment and gift, signed by the Governor's
+own hand, was given to the Indian who was the first Alcalde of the
+pueblo. He was Chief Pablo's brother. At his death the authority passed
+into the hands of his son, Ysidro, the cousin of whom Alessandro had
+spoken.
+
+"Ysidro has that paper still," Alessandro said, "and he thinks it
+will keep them their village. Perhaps it will; but the Americans are
+beginning to come in at the head of the valley, and I do not believe,
+Majella, there is any safety anywhere. Still, for a few years we can
+perhaps stay there. There are nearly two hundred Indians in the valley;
+it is much better than Temecula, and Ysidro's people are much better off
+than ours were. They have splendid herds of cattle and horses, and large
+wheat-fields. Ysidro's house stands under a great fig-tree; they say it
+is the largest fig-tree in the country."
+
+"But, Alessandro," cried Ramona, "why do you think it is not safe there,
+if Ysidro has the paper? I thought a paper made it all right."
+
+"I don't know," replied Alessandro. "Perhaps it may be; but I have got
+the feeling now that nothing will be of any use against the Americans. I
+don't believe they will mind the paper."
+
+"They didn't mind the papers the Senora had for all that land of hers
+they took away," said Ramona, thoughtfully. "But Felipe said that was
+because Pio Pico was a bad man, and gave away lands he had no right to
+give away."
+
+"That's just it," said Alessandro. "Can't they say that same thing about
+any governor, especially if he has given lands to us? If the Senora
+couldn't keep hers, with Senor Felipe to help her, and he knows all
+about the law, and can speak the American language, what chance is there
+for us? We can't take care of ourselves any better than the wild beasts
+can, my Majella. Oh, why, why did you come with me? Why did I let you?"
+
+After such words as these, Alessandro would throw himself on the ground,
+and for a few moments not even Ramona's voice would make him look up. It
+was strange that the gentle girl, unused to hardship, or to the thought
+of danger, did not find herself terrified by these fierce glooms and
+apprehensions of her lover. But she was appalled by nothing. Saved from
+the only thing in life she had dreaded, sure that Alessandro lived, and
+that he would not leave her, she had no fears. This was partly from
+her inexperience, from her utter inability to conceive of the things
+Alessandro's imagination painted in colors only too true; but it was
+also largely due to the inalienable loyalty and quenchless courage of
+her soul,--qualities in her nature never yet tested; qualities of
+which she hardly knew so much as the name, but which were to bear her
+steadfast and buoyant through many sorrowful years.
+
+Before nightfall of this their first day in the wilderness, Alessandro
+had prepared for Ramona a bed of finely broken twigs of the manzanita
+and ceanothus, both of which grew in abundance all through the canon.
+Above these he spread layers of glossy ferns, five and six feet long;
+when it was done, it was a couch no queen need have scorned. As Ramona
+seated herself on it, she exclaimed: "Now I shall see how it feels to
+lie and look up at the stars at night! Do you recollect, Alessandro,
+the night you put Felipe's bed on the veranda, when you told me how
+beautiful it was to lie at night out of doors and look up at the stars?"
+
+Indeed did Alessandro remember that night,--the first moment he had ever
+dared to dream of the Senorita Ramona as his own. "Yes, I remember it,
+my Majella," he answered slowly; and in a moment more added, "That was
+the day Juan Can had told me that your mother was of my people; and that
+was the night I first dared in my thoughts to say that perhaps you might
+some day love me."
+
+"But where are you going to sleep, Alessandro?" said Ramona, seeing that
+he spread no more boughs. "You have made yourself no bed."
+
+Alessandro laughed. "I need no bed," he said. "We think it is on our
+mother's lap we lie, when we lie on the ground. It is not hard, Majella.
+It is soft, and rests one better than beds. But to-night I shall not
+sleep. I will sit by this tree and watch."
+
+"Why, what are you afraid of?" asked Ramona.
+
+"It may grow so cold that I must make a fire for Majella," he answered.
+"It sometimes gets very cold before morning in these canons; so I shall
+feel safer to watch to-night."
+
+This he said, not to alarm Ramona. His real reason for watching was,
+that he had seen on the edge of the stream tracks which gave him
+uneasiness. They were faint and evidently old; but they looked like the
+tracks of a mountain lion. As soon as it was dark enough to prevent the
+curl of smoke from being seen from below, he would light a fire, and
+keep it blazing all night, and watch, gun in hand, lest the beast
+return.
+
+"But you will be dead, Alessandro, if you do not sleep. You are not
+strong," said Ramona, anxiously.
+
+"I am strong now, Majella," answered Alessandro. And indeed he did
+already look like a renewed man, spite of all his fatigue and anxiety.
+"I am no longer weak; and to-morrow I will sleep, and you shall watch."
+
+"Will you lie on the fern-bed then?" asked Ramona, gleefully.
+
+"I would like the ground better," said honest Alessandro.
+
+Ramona looked disappointed. "That is very strange," she said. "It is
+not so soft, this bed of boughs, that one need fear to be made tender by
+lying on it," she continued, throwing herself down; "but oh, how sweet,
+how sweet it smells!"
+
+"Yes, there is spice-wood in it," he answered. "I put it in at the head,
+for Majella's pillow."
+
+Ramona was very tired, and she was happy. All night long she slept
+like a child. She did not hear Alessandro's steps. She did not hear
+the crackling of the fire he lighted. She did not hear the barking of
+Capitan, who more than once, spite of all Alessandro could do to quiet
+him, made the canon echo with sharp, quick notes of warning, as he heard
+the stealthy steps of wild creatures in the chaparral. Hour after hour
+she slept on. And hour after hour Alessandro sat leaning against a huge
+sycamore-trunk, and watched her. As the fitful firelight played over her
+face, he thought he had never seen it so beautiful, Its expression of
+calm repose insensibly soothed and strengthened him. She looked like a
+saint, he thought; perhaps it was as a saint of help and guidance, the
+Virgin was sending her to him and his people. The darkness deepened,
+became blackness; only the red gleams from the fire broke it, in swaying
+rifts, as the wind makes rifts in black storm-clouds in the heavens.
+With the darkness, the stillness also deepened. Nothing broke that,
+except an occasional motion of Baba or the pony, or an alert signal from
+Capitan; then all seemed stiller than ever. Alessandro felt as if God
+himself were in the canon. Countless times in his life before he had
+lain in lonely places under the sky and watched the night through, but
+he never felt like this. It was ecstasy, and yet it was pain. What was
+to come on the morrow, and the next morrow, and the next, and the next,
+all through the coming years? What was to come to this beloved and
+loving woman who lay there sleeping, so confident, so trustful, guarded
+only by him,--by him, Alessandro, the exile, fugitive, homeless man?
+
+Before the dawn, wood-doves began their calling. The canon was full
+of them, no two notes quite alike, it seemed to Alessandro's sharpened
+sense; pair after pair, he fancied that he recognized, speaking and
+replying, as did the pair whose voices had so comforted him the night he
+watched under the geranium hedge by the Moreno chapel,--"Love?" "Here!"
+"Love?" "Here!" They comforted him still more now. "They too have only
+each other," he thought, as he bent his eyes lovingly on Ramona's face.
+
+It was dawn, and past dawn, on the plains, before it was yet morning
+twilight in the canon; but the birds in the upper boughs' of the
+sycamores caught the tokens of the coming day, and began to twitter in
+the dusk. Their notes fell on Ramona's sleeping ear, like the familiar
+sound of the linnets in the veranda-thatch at home, and waked her
+instantly. Sitting up bewildered, and looking about her, she exclaimed,
+"Oh, is it morning already, and so dark? The birds can see more sky than
+we! Sing, Alessandro," and she began the hymn:--
+
+"'Singers at dawn From the heavens above People all regions; Gladly we
+too sing.'"
+
+Never went up truer invocation, from sweeter spot.
+
+"Sing not so loud, my Majel," whispered Alessandro, as her voice went
+carolling like a lark's in the pure ether. "There might be hunters near
+who would hear;" and he joined in with low and muffled tones.
+
+As she dropped her voice at this caution, it seemed even sweeter than
+before:--
+
+     "'Come, O sinners,
+     Come, and we will sing
+     Tender hymns
+     To our refuge,'"
+
+"Ah, Majella, there is no sinner here, except me!" said Alessandro. "My
+Majella is like one of the Virgin's own saints." And indeed he might
+have been forgiven the thought as he gazed at Ramona, sitting there in
+the shimmering light, her face thrown out into relief by the gray wall
+of fern-draped rock behind her; her splendid hair, unbound, falling in
+tangled masses to her waist; her cheeks flushed, her face radiant with
+devout and fervent supplication, her eyes uplifted to the narrow belt of
+sky overhead, where filmy vapors were turning to gold, touched by a sun
+she could not see.
+
+"Hush, my love," she breathed rather than said. "That would be a sin, if
+you really thought it.
+
+     'O beautiful Queen,
+     Princess of Heaven,'"
+
+she continued, repeating the first lines of the song; and then, sinking
+on her knees, reached out one hand for Alessandro's, and glided, almost
+without a break in the melodious sound, into a low recitative of the
+morning-prayers. Her rosary was of fine-chased gold beads, with an ivory
+crucifix; a rare and precious relic of the Missions' olden times. It
+had belonged to Father Peyri himself, was given by him to Father
+Salvierderra, and by Father Salvierderra to the "blessed child," Ramona,
+at her confirmation. A warmer token of his love and trust he could not
+have bestowed upon her, and to Ramona's religious and affectionate
+heart it had always seemed a bond and an assurance, not only of Father
+Salvierderra's love, but of the love and protection of the now sainted
+Peyri.
+
+As she pronounced the last words of her trusting prayer, and slipped the
+last of the golden beads along on its string, a thread of sunlight
+shot into the canon through a deep narrow gap in its rocky eastern
+crest,--shot in for a second, no more; fell aslant the rosary, lighted
+it; by a flash as if of fire, across the fine-cut facets of the beads,
+on Ramona's hands, and on the white face of the ivory Christ. Only a
+flash, and it was gone! To both Ramona and Alessandro it came like an
+omen,--like a message straight from the Virgin. Could she choose better
+messenger,--she, the compassionate one, the loving woman in heaven;
+mother of the Christ to whom they prayed, through her,--mother, for
+whose sake He would regard their least cry,--could she choose better
+messenger, or swifter, than the sunbeam, to say that she heard and would
+help them in these sore straits.
+
+Perhaps there were not, in the whole great world, at that moment to be
+found, two souls who were experiencing so vivid a happiness as thrilled
+the veins of these two friendless ones, on their knees, alone in the
+wilderness, gazing half awe-stricken at the shining rosary.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+BEFORE the end of their second day in the canon, the place had become to
+Ramona so like a friendly home, that she dreaded to leave its shelter.
+Nothing is stronger proof of the original intent of Nature to do more
+for man than the civilization in its arrogance will long permit her to
+do, than the quick and sure way in which she reclaims his affection,
+when by weariness, idle chance, or disaster, he is returned, for an
+interval, to her arms. How soon he rejects the miserable subterfuges of
+what he had called habits; sheds the still more miserable pretences of
+superiority, makeshifts of adornment, and chains of custom! "Whom the
+gods love, die young," has been too long carelessly said. It is not
+true, in the sense in which men use the words. Whom the gods love, dwell
+with nature; if they are ever lured away, return to her before they are
+old. Then, however long they live before they die, they die young. Whom
+the gods love, live young--forever.
+
+With the insight of a lover added to the instinct of the Indian,
+Alessandro saw how, hour by hour, there grew in Ramona's eyes the wonted
+look of one at home; how she watched the shadows, and knew what they
+meant.
+
+"If we lived here, the walls would be sun-dials for us, would they not?"
+she said, in a tone of pleasure. "I see that yon tall yucca has gone in
+shadow sooner than it did yesterday."
+
+And, "What millions of things grow here, Alessandro! I did not know
+there were so many. Have they all names? The nuns taught us some names;
+but they were hard, and I forgot them, We might name them for ourselves,
+if we lived here. They would be our relations."
+
+And, "For one year I should lie and look up at the sky, my Alessandro,
+and do nothing else. It hardly seems as if it would be a sin to do
+nothing for a year, if one gazed steadily at the sky all the while."
+
+And, "Now I know what it is I have always seen in your face, Alessandro.
+It is the look from the sky. One must be always serious and not unhappy,
+but never too glad, I think, when he lives with nothing between him and
+the sky, and the saints can see him every minute."
+
+And, "I cannot believe that it is but two days I have lived in the
+air, Alessandro. This seems to me the first home I have ever had. Is it
+because I am Indian, Alessandro, that it gives me such joy?"
+
+It was strange how many more words Ramona spoke than Alessandro, yet how
+full she felt their intercourse to be. His silence was more than silent;
+it was taciturn. Yet she always felt herself answered. A monosyllable
+of Alessandro's, nay, a look, told what other men took long sentences to
+say, and said less eloquently.
+
+After long thinking over this, she exclaimed, "You speak as the trees
+speak, and like the rock yonder, and the flowers, without saying
+anything!"
+
+This delighted Alessandro's very heart. "And you, Majella," he
+exclaimed; "when you say that, you speak in the language of our people;
+you are as we are."
+
+And Ramona, in her turn, was made happy by his words,--happier than she
+would have been made by any other praise or fondness.
+
+Alessandro found himself regaining all his strength as if by a miracle.
+The gaunt look had left his face. Almost it seemed that its contour was
+already fuller. There is a beautiful old Gaelic legend of a Fairy who
+wooed a Prince, came again and again to him, and, herself invisible to
+all but the Prince, hovered in the air, sang loving songs to draw him
+away from the crowd of his indignant nobles, who heard her voice and
+summoned magicians to rout her by all spells and enchantments at their
+command. Finally they succeeded in silencing her and driving her off;
+but as she vanished from the Prince's sight she threw him an apple,--a
+magic golden apple. Once having tasted of this, he refused all other
+food. Day after day, night after night, he ate only this golden apple;
+and yet, morning after morning, evening after evening, there lay the
+golden fruit, still whole and shining, as if he had not fed upon it;
+and when the Fairy came the next time, the Prince leaped into her magic
+boat, sailed away with her, and never was seen in his kingdom again. It
+was only an allegory, this legend,--a beautiful allegory, and true,--of
+love and lovers. The food on which Alessandro was, hour by hour, now
+growing strong, was as magic and invisible as Prince Connla's apple, and
+just as strength-giving.
+
+"My Alessandro, how is it you look so well, so soon?" said Ramona,
+studying his countenance with loving care. "I thought that night you
+would die. Now you look nearly strong as ever; your eyes shine, and your
+hand is not hot! It is the blessed air; it has cured you, as it cured
+Felipe of the fever."
+
+"If the air could keep me well, I had not been ill, Majella," replied
+Alessandro. "I had been under no roof except the tule-shed, till I saw
+you. It is not the air;" and he looked at her with a gaze that said the
+rest.
+
+At twilight of the third day, when Ramona saw Alessandro leading up
+Baba, saddled ready for the journey, the tears filled her eyes. At noon
+Alessandro had said to her: "To-night, Majella, we must go. There is not
+grass enough for another day. We must go while the horses are strong. I
+dare not lead them any farther down the canon to graze, for there is
+a ranch only a few miles lower. To-day I found one of the man's cows
+feeding near Baba."
+
+Ramona made no remonstrance. The necessity was too evident; but the
+look on her face gave Alessandro a new pang. He, too, felt as if exiled
+afresh in leaving the spot. And now, as he led the horses slowly up, and
+saw Ramona sitting in a dejected attitude beside the nets in which were
+again carefully packed their small stores, his heart ached anew. Again
+the sense of his homeless and destitute condition settled like an
+unbearable burden on his soul. Whither and to what was he leading his
+Majella?
+
+But once in the saddle, Ramona recovered cheerfulness. Baba was in
+such gay heart, she could not be wholly sad. The horse seemed fairly
+rollicking with satisfaction at being once more on the move. Capitan,
+too, was gay. He had found the canon dull, spite of its refreshing
+shade and cool water. He longed for sheep. He did not understand this
+inactivity. The puzzled look on his face had made Ramona laugh more than
+once, as he would come and stand before her, wagging his tail and fixing
+his eyes intently on her face, as if he said in so many words, "What
+in the world are you about in this canon, and do not you ever intend to
+return home? Or if you will stay here, why not keep sheep? Do you not
+see that I have nothing to do?"
+
+"We must ride all night, Majella," said Alessandro, "and lose no time.
+It is a long way to the place where we shall stay to-morrow."
+
+"Is it a canon?" asked Ramona, hopefully.
+
+"No," he replied, "not a canon; but there are beautiful oak-trees. It
+is where we get our acorns for the winter. It is on the top of a high
+hill."
+
+"Will it be safe there?" she asked.
+
+"I think so," he replied; "though not so safe as here. There is no such
+place as this in all the country."
+
+"And then where shall we go next?" she asked.
+
+"That is very near Temecula," he said. "We must go into Temecula, dear
+Majella. I must go to Mr. Hartsel's. He is friendly. He will give me
+money for my father's violin. If it were not for that, I would never go
+near the place again."
+
+"I would like to see it, Alessandro," she said gently.
+
+"Oh, no, no, Majella!" he cried; "you would not. It is terrible; the
+houses all unroofed,--all but my father's and Jose's. They were
+shingled roofs; they will be just the same; all the rest are only walls.
+Antonio's mother threw hers down; I don't know how the old woman ever
+had the strength; they said she was like a fury. She said nobody should
+ever live in those walls again; and she took a pole, and made a great
+hole in one side, and then she ran Antonio's wagon against it with all
+her might, till it fell in. No, Majella. It will be dreadful."
+
+"Wouldn't you like to go into the graveyard again, Alessandro?" she said
+timidly.
+
+"The saints forbid!" he said solemnly. "I think it would make me a
+murderer to stand in that graveyard! If I had not you, my Majel, I
+should kill some white man when I came out. Oh, do not speak of it!" he
+added, after a moment's silence; "it takes the strength all out of my
+blood again, Majella. It feels as if I should die!"
+
+And the word "Temecula" was not mentioned between them again until dusk
+the next day, when, as they were riding slowly along between low, wooded
+hills, they suddenly came to an opening, a green, marshy place, with
+a little thread of trickling water, at which their horses stopped, and
+drank thirstily; and Ramona, looking ahead, saw lights twinkling in the
+distance. "Lights, Alessandro, lights!" she exclaimed, pointing to them.
+
+"Yes, Majella," he replied, "it is Temecula," and springing off his pony
+he came to her side, and putting both his hands on hers, said: "I have
+been thinking, for a long way back, Carita, what is to be done here. I
+do not know. What does Majella think will be wise? If men have been sent
+out to pursue us, they may be at Hartsel's. His store is the place where
+everybody stops, everybody goes. I dare not have you go there, Majella;
+yet I must go. The only way I can get any money is from Mr. Hartsel."
+
+"I must wait somewhere while you go!" said Ramona, her heart beating as
+she gazed ahead into the blackness of the great plain. It looked vast as
+the sea. "That is the only safe thing, Alessandro."
+
+"I think so too," he said; "but, oh, I am afraid for you; and will not
+you be afraid?"
+
+"Yes," she replied, "I am afraid. But it is not so dangerous as the
+other."
+
+"If anything were to happen to me, and I could not come back to you,
+Majella, if you give Baba his reins he will take you safe home,--he and
+Capitan."
+
+Ramona shrieked aloud. She had not thought of this possibility.
+Alessandro had thought of everything. "What could happen?" she cried.
+
+"I mean if the men were there, and if they took me for stealing the
+horse," he said.
+
+"But you would not have the horse with you," she said. "How could they
+take you?"
+
+"That mightn't make any difference," replied Alessandro. "They might
+take me, to make me tell where the horse was."
+
+"Oh, Alessandro," sobbed Ramona, "what shall we do!" Then in another
+second, gathering her courage, she exclaimed, "Alessandro, I know what
+I will do. I will stay in the graveyard. No one will come there. Shall I
+not be safest there?"
+
+"Holy Virgin! would my Majel stay there?" exclaimed Alessandro.
+
+"Why not?" she said. "It is not the dead that will harm us. They would
+all help us if they could. I have no fear. I will wait there while you
+go; and if you do not come in an hour, I will come to Mr. Hartsel's
+after you. If there are men of the Senora's there, they will know me;
+they will not dare to touch me. They will know that Felipe would punish
+them. I will not be afraid. And if they are ordered to take Baba, they
+can have him; we can walk when the pony is tired."
+
+Her confidence was contagious. "My wood-dove has in her breast the heart
+of the lion," said Alessandro, fondly. "We will do as she says. She
+is wise;" and he turned their horses' heads in the direction of the
+graveyard. It was surrounded by a low adobe wall, with one small gate
+of wooden paling. As they reached it, Alessandro exclaimed, "The thieves
+have taken the gate!"
+
+"What could they have wanted with that?" said Ramona
+
+"To burn," he said doggedly, "It was wood; but it was very little. They
+might have left the graves safe from wild beasts and cattle!"
+
+As they entered the enclosure, a dark figure rose from one of the
+graves. Ramona started.
+
+"Fear nothing," whispered Alessandro. "It must be one of our people. I
+am glad; now you will not be alone. It is Carmena, I am sure. That was
+the corner where they buried Jose. I will speak to her;" and leaving
+Ramona at the gate, he went slowly on, saying in a low voice, in
+the Luiseno language, "Carmena, is that you? Have no fear. It is I,
+Alessandro!"
+
+It was Carmena. The poor creature, nearly crazed with grief, was
+spending her days by her baby's grave in Pachanga, and her nights by her
+husband's in Temecula. She dared not come to Temecula by day, for the
+Americans were there, and she feared them. After a short talk with her,
+Alessandro returned, leading her along. Bringing her to Ramona's side,
+he laid her feverish hand in Ramona's, and said: "Majella, I have told
+her all. She cannot speak a word of Spanish, but she is very glad, she
+says, that you have come with me, and she will stay close by your side
+till I come back."
+
+Ramona's tender heart ached with desire to comfort the girl; but all
+she could do was to press her hand in silence. Even in the darkness she
+could see the hollow, mournful eyes and the wasted cheek. Words are less
+needful to sorrow than to joy. Carmena felt in every fibre how Ramona
+was pitying her. Presently she made a gentle motion, as if to draw her
+from the saddle. Ramona bent down and looked inquiringly into her face.
+Again she drew her gently with one hand, and with the other pointed to
+the corner from which she had come. Ramona understood. "She wants to
+show me her husband's grave," she thought. "She does not like to be away
+from it. I will go with her."
+
+Dismounting, and taking Baba's bridle over her arm, she bowed her head
+assentingly, and still keeping firm hold of Carmena's hand, followed
+her. The graves were thick, and irregularly placed, each mound marked
+by a small wooden cross. Carmena led with the swift step of one who knew
+each inch of the way by heart. More than once Ramona stumbled and nearly
+fell, and Baba was impatient and restive at the strange inequalities
+under his feet. When they reached the corner, Ramona saw the fresh-piled
+earth of the new grave. Uttering a wailing cry, Carmena, drawing Ramona
+to the edge of it, pointing down with her right hand, then laid both
+hands on her heart, and gazed at Ramona piteously. Ramona burst into
+weeping, and again clasping Carmena's hand, laid it on her own breast,
+to show her sympathy. Carmena did not weep. She was long past that;
+and she felt for the moment lifted out of herself by the sweet, sudden
+sympathy of this stranger,--this girl like herself, yet so different,
+so wonderful, so beautiful, Carmena was sure she must be. Had the saints
+sent her from heaven to Alessandro? What did it mean? Carmena's bosom
+was heaving with the things she longed to say and to ask; but all she
+could do was to press Ramona's hand again and again, and occasionally
+lay her soft cheek upon it.
+
+"Now, was it not the saints that put it into my head to come to the
+graveyard?" thought Ramona. "What a comfort to this poor heart-broken
+thing to see Alessandro! And she keeps me from all fear. Holy Virgin!
+but I had died of terror here all alone. Not that the dead would harm
+me; but simply from the vast, silent plain, and the gloom."
+
+Soon Carmena made signs to Ramona that they would return to the gate.
+Considerate and thoughtful, she remembered that Alessandro would expect
+to find them there. But it was a long and weary watch they had, waiting
+for Alessandro to come.
+
+After leaving them, and tethering his pony, he had struck off at a
+quick run for Hartsel's, which was perhaps an eighth of a mile from the
+graveyard. His own old home lay a little to the right. As he drew near,
+he saw a light in its windows. He stopped as if shot. "A light in our
+house!" he exclaimed; and he clenched his hands. "Those cursed robbers
+have gone into it to live already!" His blood seemed turning to fire.
+Ramona would not have recognized the face of her Alessandro now. It was
+full of implacable vengeance. Involuntarily he felt for his knife. It
+was gone. His gun he had left inside the graveyard, leaning against the
+wall. Ah! in the graveyard! Yes, and there also was Ramona waiting for
+him. Thoughts of vengeance fled. The world held now but one work, one
+hope, one passion, for him. But he would at least see who were these
+dwellers in his father's house. A fierce desire to see their faces
+burned within him. Why should he thus torture himself? Why, indeed? But
+he must. He would see the new home-life already begun on the grave of
+his. Stealthily creeping under the window from which the light shone, he
+listened. He heard children's voices; a woman's voice; at intervals the
+voice of a man, gruff and surly; various household sounds also. It was
+evidently the supper-hour. Cautiously raising himself till his eyes were
+on a level with the lowest panes in the window, he looked in.
+
+A table was set in the middle of the floor, and there were sitting at it
+a man, woman, and two children. The youngest, little more than a baby,
+sat in its high chair, drumming with a spoon on the table, impatient for
+its supper. The room was in great confusion,--beds made on the floor,
+open boxes half unpacked, saddles and harness thrown down in the
+corners; evidently there were new-comers into the house. The window
+was open by an inch. It had warped, and would not shut down. Bitterly
+Alessandro recollected how he had put off from day to day the planing
+of that window to make it shut tight. Now, thanks to the crack, he could
+hear all that was said. The woman looked weary and worn. Her face was a
+sensitive one, and her voice kindly; but the man had the countenance
+of a brute,--of a human brute. Why do we malign the so-called brute
+creation, making their names a unit of comparison for base traits which
+never one of them possessed?
+
+"It seems as if I never should get to rights in this world!" said the
+woman. Alessandro understood enough English to gather the meaning of
+what she said. He listened eagerly. "When will the next wagon get here?"
+
+"I don't know," growled her husband. "There's been a slide in that
+cursed canon, and blocked the road. They won't be here for several days
+yet. Hain't you got stuff enough round now? If you'd clear up what's
+here now, then 'twould be time enough to grumble because you hadn't got
+everything."
+
+"But, John," she replied, "I can't clear up till the bureau comes, to
+put the things away in, and the bedstead. I can't seem to do anything."
+
+"You can grumble, I take notice," he answered. "That's about all you
+women are good for, anyhow. There was a first-rate raw-hide bedstead
+in here. If Rothsaker hadn't been such a fool's to let those dogs of
+Indians carry off all their truck, we might have had that!"
+
+The woman looked at him reproachfully, but did not speak for a moment.
+Then her cheeks flushed, and seeming unable to repress the speech, she
+exclaimed, "Well, I'm thankful enough he did let the poor things take
+their furniture. I'd never have slept a wink an that bedstead, I know,
+if it had ha' been left here. It's bad enough to take their houses this
+way!"
+
+"Oh, you shut up your head for a blamed fool, will you!" cried the man.
+He was half drunk, his worst and most dangerous state. She glanced at
+him half timorously, half indignantly, and turning to the children,
+began feeding the baby. At that second the other child looked up, and
+catching sight of the outline of Alessandro's head, cried out, "There's
+a man there! There, at the window!"
+
+Alessandro threw himself flat on the ground, and held his breath. Had
+he imperilled all, brought danger on himself and Ramona, by yielding to
+this mad impulse to look once more inside the walls of his home? With
+a fearful oath, the half-drunken man exclaimed, "One of those damned
+Indians, I expect. I've seen several hangin' round to-day. We'll have to
+shoot two or three of 'em yet, before we're rid of 'em!" and he took his
+gun down from the pegs above the fireplace, and went to the door with it
+in his hand.
+
+"Oh, don't fire, father, don't." cried the woman. "They'll come and
+murder us all in our sleep if you do! Don't fire!" and she pulled him
+back by the sleeve.
+
+Shaking her off, with another oath, he stepped across the threshold, and
+stood listening, and peering into the darkness. Alessandro's heart beat
+like a hammer in his breast. Except for the thought of Ramona, he would
+have sprung on the man, seized his gun, and killed him.
+
+"I don't believe it was anybody, after all, father," persisted the
+woman. "Bud's always seein' things. I don't believe there was anybody
+there. Come in; supper's gettin' all cold."
+
+"Well, I'll jest fire, to let 'em know there's powder 'n shot round
+here," said the fiend. "If it hits any on 'em roamin' round, he won't
+know what hurt him;" and levelling his gun at random, with his drunken,
+unsteady hand he fired. The bullet whistled away harmlessly into
+the empty darkness. Hearkening a few moments, and hearing no cry, he
+hiccuped, "Mi-i-issed him that time," and went in to his supper.
+
+Alessandro did not dare to stir for a long time. How he cursed his own
+folly in having brought himself into this plight! What needless pain of
+waiting he was inflicting on the faithful one, watching for him in that
+desolate and fearful place of graves! At last he ventured,--sliding
+along on his belly a few inches at a time, till, several rods from the
+house, he dared at last to spring to his feet and bound away at full
+speed for Hartsel's.
+
+Hartsel's was one of those mongrel establishments to be seen nowhere
+except in Southern California. Half shop, half farm, half tavern, it
+gathered up to itself all the threads of the life of the whole region.
+Indians, ranchmen, travellers of all sorts, traded at Hartsel's, drank
+at Hartsel's, slept at Hartsel's. It was the only place of its kind
+within a radius of twenty miles; and it was the least bad place of its
+kind within a much wider radius.
+
+Hartsel was by no means a bad fellow--when he was sober; but as that
+condition was not so frequent as it should have been, he sometimes came
+near being a very bad fellow indeed. At such times everybody was afraid
+of him,--wife, children, travellers, ranchmen, and all. "It was only a
+question of time and occasion," they said, "Hartsel's killing somebody
+sooner or later;" and it looked as if the time were drawing near
+fast. But, out of his cups, Hartsel was kindly, and fairly truthful;
+entertaining, too, to a degree which held many a wayfarer chained to his
+chair till small hours of the morning, listening to his landlord's talk.
+How he had drifted from Alsace to San Diego County, he could hardly have
+told in minute detail himself, there had been so many stages and phases
+of the strange journey; but he had come to his last halt now. Here, in
+this Temecula, he would lay his bones. He liked the country. He liked
+the wild life, and, for a wonder, he liked the Indians. Many a good word
+he spoke for them to travellers who believed no good of the race, and
+evidently listened with polite incredulity when he would say, as he
+often did: "I've never lost a dollar off these Indians yet. They do all
+their trading with me. There's some of them I trust as high's a hundred
+dollars. If they can't pay this year, they'll pay next; and if they die,
+their relations will pay their debts for them, a little at a time, till
+they've got it all paid off. They'll pay in wheat, or bring a steer,
+maybe, or baskets or mats the women make; but they'll pay. They're
+honester 'n the general run of Mexicans about paying; I mean Mexicans
+that are as poor's they are."
+
+Hartsel's dwelling-house was a long, low adobe building, with still
+lower flanking additions, in which were bedrooms for travellers, the
+kitchen, and storerooms. The shop was a separate building, of rough
+planks, a story and a half high, the loft of which was one great
+dormitory well provided with beds on the floor, but with no other
+article of bedroom furniture. They who slept in this loft had no
+fastidious standards of personal luxury. These two buildings, with some
+half-dozen out-houses of one sort and another, stood in an enclosure
+surrounded by a low white picket fence, which gave to the place a
+certain home-like look, spite of the neglected condition of the ground,
+which was bare sand, or sparsely tufted with weeds and wild grass. A few
+plants, parched and straggling, stood in pots and tin cans around the
+door of the dwelling-house. One hardly knew whether they made the place
+look less desolate or more so. But they were token of a woman's
+hand, and of a nature which craved something more than the unredeemed
+wilderness around her afforded.
+
+A dull and lurid light streamed out from the wide-open door of the
+store. Alessandro drew cautiously near. The place was full of men, and
+he heard loud laughing and talking. He dared not go in. Stealing around
+to the rear, he leaped the fence, and went to the other house and opened
+the kitchen door. Here he was not afraid. Mrs. Hartsel had never any but
+Indian servants in her employ. The kitchen was lighted only by one
+dim candle. On the stove were sputtering and hissing all the pots and
+frying-pans it would hold. Much cooking was evidently going on for the
+men who were noisily rollicking in the other house.
+
+Seating himself by the fire, Alessandro waited. In a few moments Mrs.
+Hartsel came hurrying back to her work. It was no uncommon experience to
+find an Indian quietly sitting by her fire. In the dim light she did not
+recognize Alessandro, but mistook him, as he sat bowed over, his head in
+his hands, for old Ramon, who was a sort of recognized hanger-on of the
+place, earning his living there by odd jobs of fetching and carrying,
+and anything else he could do.
+
+"Run, Ramon," she said, "and bring me more wood; this cotton wood is so
+dry, it burns out like rotten punk; I'm off my feet to-night, with all
+these men to cook for;" then turning to the table, she began cutting
+her bread, and did not see how tall and unlike Ramon was the man who
+silently rose and went out to do her bidding. When, a few moments later,
+Alessandro re-entered, bringing a huge armful of wood, which it would
+have cost poor old Ramon three journeys at least to bring, and throwing
+it down, on the hearth, said, "Will that be enough, Mrs. Hartsel?"
+she gave a scream of surprise, and dropped her knife. "Why, who--" she
+began; then, seeing his face, her own lighting up with pleasure, she
+continued, "Alessandro! Is it you? Why, I took you in the dark for old
+Ramon! I thought you were in Pachanga."
+
+"In Pachanga!" Then as yet no one had come from the Senora Moreno's to
+Hartsel's in search of him and the Senorita Ramona! Alessandro's heart
+felt almost light in his bosom, From the one immediate danger he had
+dreaded, they were safe; but no trace of emotion showed on his face, and
+he did not raise his eyes as he replied; "I have been in Pachanga. My
+father is dead. I have buried him there."
+
+"Oh, Alessandro! Did he die?" cried the kindly woman, coming closer to
+Alessandro, and laying her hand on his shoulder. "I heard he was sick."
+She paused; she did not know what to say. She had suffered so at the
+time of the ejectment of the Indians, that it had made her ill. For two
+days she had kept her doors shut and her windows close curtained, that
+she need not see the terrible sights. She was not a woman of many words.
+She was a Mexican, but there were those who said that some Indian blood
+ran in her veins. This was not improbable; and it seemed more than ever
+probable now, as she stood still by Alessandro's side, her hand on his
+shoulder, her eyes fixed in distress on his face. How he had altered!
+How well she recollected his lithe figure, his alert motion, his superb
+bearing, his handsome face, when she last saw him in the spring!
+
+"You were away all summer, Alessandro?" she said at last, turning back
+to her work.
+
+"Yes," he said: "at the Senora Moreno's."
+
+"So I heard," she said. "That is a fine great place, is it not? Is her
+son grown a fine man? He was a lad when I saw him. He went through here
+with a drove of sheep once."
+
+"Ay, he is a man now," said Alessandro, and buried his face in his hands
+again.
+
+"Poor fellow! I don't wonder he does not want to speak," thought Mrs.
+Hartsel. "I'll just let him alone;" and she spoke no more for some
+moments.
+
+Alessandro sat still by the fire. A strange apathy seemed to have seized
+him; at last he said wearily: "I must be going now. I wanted to see Mr.
+Hartsel a minute, but he seems to be busy in the store."
+
+"Yes," she said, "a lot of San Francisco men; they belong to the company
+that's coming in here in the valley; they've been here two days. Oh,
+Alessandro," she continued, bethinking herself, "Jim's got your violin
+here; Jose brought it."
+
+"Yes, I know it," answered Alessandro. "Jose told me; and that was one
+thing I stopped for."
+
+"I'll run and get it," she exclaimed.
+
+"No," said Alessandro, in a slow, husky voice. "I do not want it. I
+thought Mr. Hartsel might buy it. I want some money. It was not mine; it
+was my father's. It is a great deal better than mine. My father said it
+would bring a great deal of money. It is very old."
+
+"Indeed it is," she replied; "one of those men in there was looking at
+it last night. He was astonished at it, and he would not believe Jim
+when he told him about its having come from the Mission."
+
+"Does he play? Will he buy it?" cried Alessandro.
+
+"I don't know; I'll call Jim," she said; and running out she looked in
+at the other door, saying, "Jim! Jim!"
+
+Alas, Jim was in no condition to reply. At her first glance in his face,
+her countenance hardened into an expression of disgust and defiance.
+Returning to the kitchen, she said scornfully, disdaining all disguises,
+"Jim's drunk. No use your talking to him to-night. Wait till morning."
+
+"Till morning!" A groan escaped from Alessandro, in spite of himself. "I
+can't!" he cried. "I must go on to-night."
+
+"Why, what for?" exclaimed Mrs. Hartsel, much astonished. For one brief
+second Alessandro revolved in his mind the idea of confiding everything
+to her; only for a second, however. No; the fewer knew his secret and
+Ramona's, the better.
+
+"I must be in San Diego to-morrow," he said.
+
+"Got work there?" she said.
+
+"Yes; that is, in San Pasquale," he said; "and I ought to have been
+there three days ago."
+
+Mrs. Hartsel mused. "Jim can't do anything to-night," she said; "that's
+certain. You might see the man yourself, and ask him if he'd buy it."
+
+Alessandro shook his head. An invincible repugnance withheld him.
+He could not face one of these Americans who were "coming in" to his
+valley. Mrs. Hartsel understood.
+
+"I'll tell you, Alessandro," said the kindly woman, "I'll give you what
+money you need to-night, and then, if you say so, Jim'll sell the violin
+to-morrow, if the man wants it, and you can pay me back out of that, and
+when you're along this way again you can have the rest. Jim'll make as
+good a trade for you's he can. He's a real good friend to all of you,
+Alessandro, when he's himself."
+
+"I know it, Mrs. Hartsel. I'd trust Mr. Hartsel more than any other man
+in this country," said Alessandro. "He's about the only white man I do
+trust!"
+
+Mrs. Hartsel was fumbling in a deep pocket in her under-petticoat.
+Gold-piece after gold-piece she drew out. "Humph! Got more'n I thought
+I had," she said. "I've kept all that's been paid in here to-day, for I
+knew Jim'd be drunk before night."
+
+Alessandro's eyes fastened on the gold. How he longed for an abundance
+of those little shining pieces for his Majella! He sighed as Mrs.
+Hartsel counted them out on the table,--one, two, three, four, bright
+five-dollar pieces.
+
+"That is as much as I dare take," said Alessandro, when she put down
+the fourth. "Will you trust me for so much?" he added sadly. "You know I
+have nothing left now. Mrs. Hartsel, I am only a beggar, till I get some
+work to do."
+
+The tears came into Mrs. Hartsel's eyes. "It's a shame!" she said,--"a
+shame, Alessandro! Jim and I haven't thought of anything else, since it
+happened. Jim says they'll never prosper, never. Trust you? Yes, indeed.
+Jim and I'd trust you, or your father, the last day of our lives."
+
+"I'm glad he is dead," said Alessandro, as he knotted the gold into
+his handkerchief and put it into his bosom. "But he was murdered, Mrs.
+Hartsel,--murdered, just as much as if they had fired a bullet into
+him."
+
+"That's true." she exclaimed vehemently. "I say so too; and so was Jose.
+That's just what I said at the time,--that bullets would not be half so
+inhuman!"
+
+The words had hardly left her lips, when the door from the dining-room
+burst open, and a dozen men, headed by the drunken Jim, came stumbling,
+laughing, reeling into the kitchen.
+
+"Where's supper! Give us our supper! What are you about with your Indian
+here? I'll teach you how to cook ham!" stammered Jim, making a lurch
+towards the stove. The men behind caught him and saved him. Eyeing the
+group with scorn, Mrs. Hartsel, who had not a cowardly nerve in her
+body, said: "Gentlemen, if you will take your seats at the table, I will
+bring in your supper immediately. It is all ready."
+
+One or two of the soberer ones, shamed by her tone, led the rest back
+into the dining-room, where, seating themselves, they began to pound the
+table and swing the chairs, swearing, and singing ribald songs.
+
+"Get off as quick as you can, Alessandro," whispered Mrs. Hartsel, as
+she passed by him, standing like a statue, his eyes, full of hatred and
+contempt, fixed on the tipsy group. "You'd better go. There's no knowing
+what they'll do next."
+
+"Are you not afraid?" he said in a low tone.
+
+"No!" she said. "I'm used to it. I can always manage Jim. And Ramon's
+round somewhere,--he and the bull-pups; if worse comes to worse, I can
+call the dogs. These San Francisco fellows are always the worst to get
+drunk. But you'd better get out of the way!"
+
+"And these are the men that have stolen our lands, and killed my father,
+and Jose, and Carmena's baby!" thought Alessandro, as he ran swiftly
+back towards the graveyard. "And Father Salvierderra says, God is good.
+It must be the saints no longer pray to Him for us!"
+
+But Alessandro's heart was too full of other thoughts, now, to dwell
+long on past wrongs, however bitter. The present called him too
+loudly. Putting his hand in his bosom, and feeling the soft, knotted
+handkerchief, he thought: "Twenty dollars! It is not much! But it will
+buy food for many days for my Majella and for Baba!"
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+EXCEPT for the reassuring help of Carmena's presence by her side, Ramona
+would never have had courage to remain during this long hour in the
+graveyard. As it was, she twice resolved to bear the suspense no longer,
+and made a movement to go. The chance of Alessandro's encountering at
+Hartsel's the men sent in pursuit of him and of Baba, loomed in her
+thoughts into a more and more frightful danger each moment she reflected
+upon it. It was a most unfortunate suggestion for Alessandro to have
+made. Her excited fancy went on and on, picturing the possible scenes
+which might be going on almost within stone's-throw of where she was
+sitting, helpless, in the midnight darkness,--Alessandro seized, tied,
+treated as a thief, and she, Ramona, not there to vindicate him, to
+terrify the men into letting him go. She could not bear it; she would
+ride boldly to Hartsel's door. But when she made a motion as if she
+would go, and said in the soft Spanish, of which Carmena knew no word,
+but which yet somehow conveyed Ramona's meaning, "I must go! It is too
+long! I cannot wait here!" Carmena had clasped her hand tighter, and
+said in the San Luiseno tongue, of which Ramona knew no word, but which
+yet somehow conveyed Carmena's meaning, "O beloved lady, you must not
+go! Waiting is the only safe thing. Alessandro said, to wait here. He
+will come." The word "Alessandro" was plain. Yes, Alessandro had said,
+wait; Carmena was right. She would obey, but it was a fearful ordeal. It
+was strange how Ramona, who felt herself preternaturally brave, afraid
+of nothing, so long as Alessandro was by her side, became timorous and
+wretched the instant he was lost to her sight. When she first heard his
+steps coming, she quivered with terror lest they might not be his. The
+next second she knew; and with a glad cry, "Alessandro! Alessandro!" she
+bounded to him, dropping Baba's reins.
+
+Sighing gently, Carmena picked up the reins, and stood still, holding
+the horse, while the lovers clasped each other with breathless words.
+"How she loves Alessandro!" thought the widowed Carmena. "Will they
+leave him alive to stay with her? It is better not to love!" But there
+was no bitter envy in her mind for the two who were thus blest while she
+went desolate. All of Pablo's people had great affection for Alessandro.
+They had looked forward to his being over them in his father's place.
+They knew his goodness, and were proud of his superiority to themselves.
+
+"Majella, you tremble," said Alessandro, as he threw his arms around
+her. "You have feared! Yet you were not alone." He glanced at Carmena's
+motionless figure, standing by Baba.
+
+"No, not alone, dear Alessandro, but it was so long!" replied Ramona;
+"and I feared the men had taken you, as you feared. Was there any one
+there?"
+
+"No! No one has heard anything. All was well. They thought I had just
+come from Pachanga," he answered.
+
+"Except for Carmena, I should have ridden after you half an hour ago,"
+continued Ramona. "But she told me to wait."
+
+"She told you!" repeated Alessandro. "How did you understand her
+speech?"
+
+"I do not know. Was it not a strange thing?" replied Ramona. "She spoke
+in your tongue, but I thought I understood her, Ask her if she did not
+say that I must not go; that it was safer to wait; that you had so said,
+and you would soon come."
+
+Alessandro repeated the words to Carmena. "Did you say that?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," answered Carmena.
+
+"You see, then, she has understood the Luiseno words," he said
+delightedly. "She is one of us."
+
+"Yes," said Carmena, gravely, "she is one of us." Then, taking Ramona's
+hand in both of her own for farewell, she repeated, in a tone as of dire
+prophecy, "One of us, Alessandro! one of us!" And as she gazed after
+their retreating forms, almost immediately swallowed and lost in the
+darkness, she repeated the words again to herself,--"One of us! one of
+us! Sorrow came to me; she rides to meet it!" and she crept back to her
+husband's grave, and threw herself down, to watch till the dawn.
+
+The road which Alessandro would naturally have taken would carry them
+directly by Hartsel's again. But, wishing to avoid all risk of meeting
+or being seen by any of the men on the place, he struck well out to
+the north, to make a wide circuit around it. This brought them past
+the place where Antonio's house had stood. Here Alessandro halted, and
+putting his hand on Baba's rein, walked the horses close to the pile of
+ruined walls. "This was Antonio's house, Majella," he whispered. "I wish
+every house in the valley had been pulled down like this. Old Juana was
+right. The Americans are living in my father's house, Majella," he went
+on, his whisper growing thick with rage. "That was what kept me so long.
+I was looking in at the window at them eating their supper. I thought I
+should go mad, Majella. If I had had my gun, I should have shot them all
+dead!"
+
+An almost inarticulate gasp was Ramona's first reply to this. "Living in
+your house!" she said. "You saw them?"
+
+"Yes," he said; "the man, and his wife, and two little children; and the
+man came out, with his gun, on the doorstep, and fired it. They thought
+they heard something moving, and it might be an Indian; so he fired.
+That was what kept me so long."
+
+Just at this moment Baba tripped over some small object on the ground.
+A few steps farther, and he tripped again. "There is something caught
+round his foot, Alessandro," said Ramona. "It keeps moving."
+
+Alessandro jumped off his horse, and kneeling down, exclaimed, "It's a
+stake,--and the lariat fastened to it. Holy Virgin! what--" The rest of
+his ejaculation was inaudible. The next Ramona knew, he had run swiftly
+on, a rod or two. Baba had followed, and Capitan and the pony; and there
+stood a splendid black horse, as big as Baba, and Alessandro talking
+under his breath to him, and clapping both his hands over the horse's
+nose, to stop him, as often as he began whinnying; and it seemed hardly
+a second more before he had his saddle off the poor little Indian pony,
+and striking it sharply on its sides had turned it free, had saddled
+the black horse, and leaping on his back, said, with almost a sob in his
+voice: "My Majella, it is Benito, my own Benito. Now the saints indeed
+have helped us! Oh, the ass, the idiot, to stake out Benito with such a
+stake as that! A jack rabbit had pulled it up. Now, my Majella, we will
+gallop! Faster! faster! I will not breathe easy till we are out of this
+cursed valley. When we are once in the Santa Margarita Canon, I know a
+trail they will never find!"
+
+Like the wind galloped Benito,--Alessandro half lying on his back,
+stroking his forehead, whispering to him, the horse snorting with joy:
+which were gladder of the two, horse or man, could not be said. And
+neck by neck with Benito came Baba. How the ground flew away under their
+feet! This was companionship, indeed, worthy of Baba's best powers.
+Not in all the California herds could be found two superber horses
+than Benito and Baba. A wild, almost reckless joy took possession of
+Alessandro. Ramona was half terrified as she heard him still talking,
+talking to Benito. For an hour they did not draw rein. Both Benito
+and Alessandro knew every inch of the ground. Then, just as they had
+descended into the deepest part of the canon, Alessandro suddenly reined
+sharply to the left, and began climbing the precipitous wall. "Can you
+follow, dearest Majella?" he cried.
+
+"Do you suppose Benito can do anything that Baba cannot?" she retorted,
+pressing on closely.
+
+But Baba did not like it. Except for the stimulus of Benito ahead, he
+would have given Ramona trouble.
+
+"There is only a little, rough like this, dear," called Alessandro, as
+he leaped a fallen tree, and halted to see how Baba took it. "Good!" he
+cried, as Baba jumped it like a deer. "Good! Majella! We have got the
+two best horses in the country. You'll see they are alike, when daylight
+comes. I have often wondered they were so much alike. They would go
+together splendidly."
+
+After a few rods of this steep climbing they came out on the top of
+the canon's south wall, in a dense oak forest comparatively free from
+underbrush. "Now," said Alessandro, "I can go from here to San Diego by
+paths that no white man knows. We will be near there before daylight."
+
+Already the keen salt air of the ocean smote their faces. Ramona drank
+it in with delight. "I taste salt in the air, Alessandro," she cried.
+
+"Yes, it is the sea," he said. "This canon leads straight to the sea. I
+wish we could go by the shore, Majella. It is beautiful there. When it
+is still, the waves come as gently to the land as if they were in play;
+and you can ride along with your horse's feet in the water, and the
+green cliffs almost over your head; and the air off the water is like
+wine in one's head."
+
+"Cannot we go there?" she said longingly. "Would it not be safe?"
+
+"I dare not," he answered regretfully. "Not now, Majella; for on the
+shore-way, at all times, there are people going and coming."
+
+"Some other time, Alessandro, we can come, after we are married, and
+there is no danger?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, Majella," he replied; but as he spoke the words, he thought, "Will
+a time ever come when there will be no danger?"
+
+The shore of the Pacific Ocean for many miles north of San Diego is a
+succession of rounding promontories, walling the mouths of canons, down
+many of which small streams make to the sea. These canons are green and
+rich at bottom, and filled with trees, chiefly oak. Beginning as little
+more than rifts in the ground, they deepen and widen, till at their
+mouths they have a beautiful crescent of shining beach from an eighth to
+a quarter of a mile long, The one which Alessandro hoped to reach
+before morning was not a dozen miles from the old town of San Diego, and
+commanded a fine view of the outer harbor. When he was last in it, he
+had found it a nearly impenetrable thicket of young oak-trees. Here, he
+believed, they could hide safely all day, and after nightfall ride into
+San Diego, be married at the priest's house, and push on to San Pasquale
+that same night. "All day, in that canon, Majella can look at the sea,"
+he thought; "but I will not tell her now, for it may be the trees have
+been cut down, and we cannot be so close to the shore."
+
+It was near sunrise when they reached the place. The trees had not been
+cut down. Their tops, seen from above, looked like a solid bed of moss
+filling in the canon bottom. The sky and the sea were both red. As
+Ramona looked down into this soft green pathway, it seemed, leading out
+to the wide and sparkling sea, she thought Alessandro had brought her
+into a fairy-land.
+
+"What a beautiful world!" she cried; and riding up so close to Benito
+that she could lay her hand on Alessandro's, she said solemnly: "Do you
+not think we ought to be very happy, Alessandro, in such a beautiful
+world as this? Do you think we might sing our sunrise hymn here?"
+
+Alessandro glanced around. They were alone on the breezy open; it was
+not yet full dawn; great masses of crimson vapor were floating upward
+from the hills behind San Diego. The light was still burning in the
+light-house on the promontory walling the inner harbor, but in a few
+moments more it would be day. "No, Majella, not here." he said. "We must
+not stay. As soon as the sun rises, a man or a horse may be seen on this
+upper coast-line as far as eye can reach. We must be among the trees
+with all the speed we can make."
+
+It was like a house with a high, thick roof of oak tree-tops, the
+shelter they found. No sun penetrated it; a tiny trickle of water still
+remained, and some grass along its rims was still green, spite of the
+long drought,--a scanty meal for Baba and Benito, but they ate it with
+relish in each other's company.
+
+"They like each other, those two," said Ramona, laughing, as she watched
+them. "They will be friends."
+
+"Ay," said Alessandro, also smiling. "Horses are friends, like men, and
+can hate each other, like men, too. Benito would never see Antonio's
+mare, the little yellow one, that he did not let fly his heels at her;
+and she was as afraid, at sight of him, as a cat is at a dog. Many a
+time I have laughed to see it."
+
+"Know you the priest at San Diego?" asked Ramona.
+
+"Not well," replied Alessandro. "He came seldom to Temecula when I was
+there; but he is a friend of Indians. I know he came with the men from
+San Diego at the time when there was fighting, and the whites were in
+great terror; and they said, except for Father Gaspara's words, there
+would not have been a white man left alive in Pala. My father had sent
+all his people away before that fight began. He knew it was coming, but
+he would have nothing to do with it. He said the Indians were all crazy.
+It was no use. They would only be killed themselves. That is the worst
+thing, my Majella. The stupid Indians fight and kill, and then what can
+we do? The white men think we are all the same. Father Gaspara has never
+been to Pala, I heard, since that time. There goes there now the
+San Juan Capistrano priest. He is a bad man. He takes money from the
+starving poor."
+
+"A priest!" ejaculated Ramona, horror-stricken.
+
+"Ay! a priest!" replied Alessandro. "They are not all good,--not like
+Father Salvierderra."
+
+"Oh, if we could but have gone to Father Salvierderra!" exclaimed
+Ramona, involuntarily.
+
+Alessandro looked distressed. "It would have been much more danger,
+Majella," he said, "and I had no knowledge of work I could do there."
+
+His look made Ramona remorseful at once. How cruel to lay one
+feather-weight of additional burden on this loving man. "Oh, this is
+much better, really," she said. "I did not mean what I said. It is only
+because I have always loved Father Salvierderra so. And the Senora will
+tell him what is not true. Could we not send him a letter, Alessandro?"
+
+"There is a Santa Inez Indian I know," replied Alessandro, "who comes
+down with nets to sell, sometimes, to Temecula. I know not if he goes
+to San Diego. If I could get speech with him, he would go up from Santa
+Inez to Santa Barbara for me, I am sure; for once he lay in my father's
+house, sick for many weeks, and I nursed him, and since then he is
+always begging me to take a net from him, whenever he comes. It is not
+two days from Santa Inez to Santa Barbara."
+
+"I wish it were the olden time now, Alessandro," sighed Ramona, "when
+the men like Father Salvierderra had all the country. Then there would
+be work for all, at the Missions. The Senora says the Missions were like
+palaces, and that there were thousands of Indians in every one of them;
+thousands and thousands, all working so happy and peaceful."
+
+"The Senora does not know all that happened at the Missions," replied
+Alessandro. "My father says that at some of them were dreadful things,
+when bad men had power. Never any such things at San Luis Rey. Father
+Peyri was like a father to all his Indians. My father says that they
+would all of them lie down in a fire for him, if he had commanded it.
+And when he went away, to leave the country, when his heart was broken,
+and the Mission all ruined, he had to fly by night, Majella, just as you
+and I have done; for if the Indians had known it, they would have risen
+up to keep him. There was a ship here in San Diego harbor, to sail for
+Mexico, and the Father made up his mind to go in it; and it was over
+this same road we have come, my Majella, that he rode, and by night; and
+my father was the only one he trusted to know it. My father came with
+him; they took the swiftest horses, and they rode all night, and my
+father carried in front of him, on the horse, a box of the sacred things
+of the altar, very heavy. And many a time my father has told me the
+story, how they got to San Diego at daybreak, and the Father was rowed
+out to the ship in a little boat; and not much more than on board was
+he, my father standing like one dead on the shore, watching, he loved
+him so, when, lo! he heard a great crying, and shouting, and trampling
+of horses' feet, and there came galloping down to the water's edge three
+hundred of the Indians from San Luis Rey, who had found out that the
+Father had gone to San Diego to take ship, and they had ridden all night
+on his track, to fetch him back. And when my father pointed to the ship,
+and told them he was already on board, they set up a cry fit to bring
+the very sky down; and some of them flung themselves into the sea, and
+swam out to the ship, and cried and begged to be taken on board and go
+with him. And Father Peyri stood on the deck, blessing them, and
+saying farewell, with the tears running on his face; and one of the
+Indians--how they never knew--made shift to climb up on the chains
+and ropes, and got into the ship itself; and they let him stay, and
+he sailed away with the Father. And my father said he was all his life
+sorry that he himself had not thought to do the same thing; but he
+was like one dumb and deaf and with no head, he was so unhappy at the
+Father's going."
+
+"Was it here, in this very harbor?" asked Ramona, in breathless
+interest, pointing out towards the blue water of which they could see a
+broad belt framed by their leafy foreground arch of oak tops.
+
+"Ay, just there he sailed,--as that ship goes now," he exclaimed, as a
+white-sailed schooner sailed swiftly by, going out to sea. "But the ship
+lay at first inside the bar; you cannot see the inside harbor from here.
+It is the most beautiful water I have ever seen, Majella. The two high
+lands come out like two arms to hold it and keep it safe, as if they
+loved it."
+
+"But, Alessandro," continued Ramona, "were there really bad men at the
+other Missions? Surely not the Franciscan Fathers?"
+
+"Perhaps not the Fathers themselves, but the men under them. It was
+too much power, Majella. When my father has told me how it was, it has
+seemed to me I should not have liked to be as he was. It is not right
+that one man should have so much power. There was one at the San Gabriel
+Mission; he was an Indian. He had been set over the rest; and when a
+whole band of them ran away one time, and went back into the mountains,
+he went after them; and he brought back a piece of each man's ear; the
+pieces were strung on a string; and he laughed, and said that was to
+know them by again,--by their clipped ears. An old woman, a Gabrieleno,
+who came over to Temecula, told me she saw that. She lived at the
+Mission herself. The Indians did not all want to come to the Missions;
+some of them preferred to stay in the woods, and live as they always
+had lived; and I think they had a right to do that if they preferred,
+Majella. It was stupid of them to stay and be like beasts, and not know
+anything; but do you not think they had the right?"
+
+"It is the command to preach the gospel to every creature," replied the
+pious Ramona. "That is what Father Salvierderra said was the reason
+the Franciscans came here. I think they ought to have made the Indians
+listen. But that was dreadful about the ears, Alessandro. Do you believe
+it?"
+
+"The old woman laughed when she told it," he answered. "She said it was
+a joke; so I think it was true. I know I would have killed the man who
+tried to crop my ears that way."
+
+"Did you ever tell that to Father Salvierderra?" asked Ramona.
+
+"No, Majella. It would not be polite," said Alessandro.
+
+"Well, I don't believe it," replied Ramona, in a relieved tone. "I don't
+believe any Franciscan ever could have permitted such things."
+
+The great red light in the light-house tower had again blazed out,
+and had been some time burning before Alessandro thought it prudent to
+resume their journey. The road on which they must go into old San Diego,
+where Father Gaspara lived, was the public road from San Diego to San
+Luis Rey, and they were almost sure to meet travellers on it.
+
+But their fleet horses bore them so well, that it was not late when they
+reached the town. Father Gaspara's house was at the end of a long, low
+adobe building, which had served no mean purpose in the old Presidio
+days, but was now fallen into decay; and all its rooms except those
+occupied by the Father, had been long uninhabited. On the opposite
+side of the way, in a neglected, weedy open, stood his chapel,--a
+poverty-stricken little place, its walls imperfectly whitewashed,
+decorated by a few coarse pictures and by broken sconces of
+looking-glass, rescued in their dilapidated condition from the
+Mission buildings, now gone utterly to ruin. In these had been put
+handle-holders of common tin, in which a few cheap candles dimly lighted
+the room. Everything about it was in unison with the atmosphere of the
+place,--the most profoundly melancholy in all Southern California. Here
+was the spot where that grand old Franciscan, Padre Junipero Serra,
+began his work, full of the devout and ardent purpose to reclaim the
+wilderness and its peoples to his country and his Church; on this very
+beach he went up and down for those first terrible weeks, nursing
+the sick, praying with the dying, and burying the dead, from the
+pestilence-stricken Mexican ships lying in the harbor. Here he baptized
+his first Indian converts, and founded his first Mission. And the only
+traces now remaining of his heroic labors and hard-won successes were a
+pile of crumbling ruins, a few old olive-trees and palms; in less than
+another century even these would be gone; returned into the keeping of
+that mother, the earth, who puts no head-stones at the sacredest of her
+graves.
+
+Father Gaspara had been for many years at San Diego. Although not a
+Franciscan, having, indeed, no especial love for the order, he had been
+from the first deeply impressed by the holy associations of the place.
+He had a nature at once fiery and poetic; there were but three things he
+could have been,--a soldier, a poet, or a priest. Circumstances had made
+him a priest; and the fire and the poetry which would have wielded the
+sword or kindled the verse, had he found himself set either to fight or
+to sing, had all gathered into added force in his priestly vocation.
+The look of a soldier he had never quite lost,--neither the look nor the
+tread; and his flashing dark eyes, heavy black hair and beard, and
+quick elastic step, seemed sometimes strangely out of harmony with his
+priest's gown. And it was the sensitive soul of the poet in him which
+had made him withdraw within himself more and more, year after year, as
+he found himself comparatively powerless to do anything for the hundreds
+of Indians that he would fain have seen gathered once more, as of old,
+into the keeping of the Church. He had made frequent visits to them in
+their shifting refuges, following up family after family, band after
+band, that he knew; he had written bootless letter after letter to the
+Government officials of one sort and another, at Washington. He had made
+equally bootless efforts to win some justice, some protection for them,
+from officials nearer home; he had endeavored to stir the Church itself
+to greater efficiency in their behalf. Finally, weary, disheartened,
+and indignant with that intense, suppressed indignation which the poetic
+temperament alone can feel, he had ceased,--had said, "It is of no use;
+I will speak no word; I am done; I can bear no more!" and settling down
+into the routine of his parochial duties to the little Mexican and Irish
+congregation of his charge in San Diego, he had abandoned all effort to
+do more for the Indians than visit their chief settlements once or twice
+a year, to administer the sacraments. When fresh outrages were brought
+to his notice, he paced his room, plucked fiercely at his black beard,
+with ejaculations, it is to be feared, savoring more of the camp than
+the altar; but he made no effort to do anything. Lighting his pipe, he
+would sit down on the old bench in his tile-paved veranda, and smoke
+by the hour, gazing out on the placid water of the deserted harbor,
+brooding, ever brooding, over the wrongs he could not redress.
+
+A few paces off from his door stood the just begun walls of a fine
+brick church, which it had been the dream and pride of his heart to
+see builded, and full of worshippers. This, too, had failed. With San
+Diego's repeatedly vanishing hopes and dreams of prosperity had gone
+this hope and dream of Father Gaspara's. It looked, now, as if it
+would be indeed a waste of money to build a costly church on this site.
+Sentiment, however sacred and loving towards the dead, must yield to
+the demands of the living. To build a church on the ground where Father
+Junipero first trod and labored, would be a work to which no Catholic
+could be indifferent; but there were other and more pressing claims to
+be met first. This was right. Yet the sight of these silent walls, only
+a few feet high, was a sore one to Father Gaspara,--a daily cross, which
+he did not find grow lighter as he paced up and down his veranda, year
+in and year out, in the balmy winter and cool summer of that magic
+climate.
+
+"Majella, the chapel is lighted; but that is good!" exclaimed
+Alessandro, as they rode into the silent plaza. "Father Gaspara must
+be there;" and jumping off his horse, he peered in at the uncurtained
+window. "A marriage, Majella,--a marriage!" he cried, hastily returning.
+"This, too, is good fortune. We need not to wait long."
+
+When the sacristan whispered to Father Gaspara that an Indian couple had
+just come in, wishing to be married, the Father frowned. His supper was
+waiting; he had been out all day, over at the old Mission olive-orchard,
+where he had not found things to his mind; the Indian man and wife whom
+he hired to take care of the few acres the Church yet owned there had
+been neglecting the Church lands and trees, to look after their own. The
+Father was vexed, tired, and hungry, and the expression with which he
+regarded Alessandro and Ramona, as they came towards him, was one of the
+least prepossessing of which his dark face was capable. Ramona, who had
+never knelt to any priest save the gentle Father Salvierderra, and who
+had supposed that all priests must look, at least, friendly, was shocked
+at the sight of the impatient visage confronting her. But, as his first
+glance fell on Ramona, Father Gaspara's expression changed.
+
+"What is all this!" he thought; and as quick as he thought it, he
+exclaimed, in a severe tone, looking at Ramona, "Woman, are you an
+Indian?"
+
+"Yes, Father," answered Ramona, gently. "My mother was an Indian."
+
+"Ah! half-breed!" thought Father Gaspara. "It is strange how sometimes
+one of the types will conquer, and sometimes another! But this is no
+common creature;" and it was with a look of new interest and sympathy
+on his face that he proceeded with the ceremony,--the other couple, a
+middle-aged Irishman, with his more than middle-aged bride, standing
+quietly by, and looking on with a vague sort of wonder in their ugly,
+impassive faces, as if it struck them oddly that Indians should marry.
+
+The book of the marriage-records was kept in Father Gaspara's own rooms,
+locked up and hidden even from his old housekeeper. He had had bitter
+reason to take this precaution. It had been for more than one man's
+interest to cut leaves out of this old record, which dated back to 1769,
+and had many pages written full in the hand of Father Junipero himself.
+
+As they came out of the chapel, Father Gaspara leading the way, the
+Irish couple shambling along shamefacedly apart from each other,
+Alessandro, still holding Ramona's hand in his, said, "Will you ride,
+dear? It is but a step."
+
+"No, thanks, dear Alessandro, I would rather walk," she replied; and
+Alessandro slipping the bridles of the two horses over his left arm,
+they walked on. Father Gaspara heard the question and answer, and was
+still more puzzled.
+
+"He speaks as a gentleman speaks to a lady," he mused. "What does it
+mean? Who are they?"
+
+Father Gaspara was a well-born man, and in his home in Spain had been
+used to associations far superior to any which he had known in his
+Californian life, A gentle courtesy of tone and speech, such as that
+with which Alessandro had addressed Ramona, was not often heard in
+his parish. When they entered his house, he again regarded them both
+attentively. Ramona wore on her head the usual black shawl of the
+Mexican women. There was nothing distinctive, to the Father's eye, in
+her figure or face. In the dim light of the one candle,--Father Gaspara
+allowed himself no luxuries,--the exquisite coloring of her skin and the
+deep blue of her eyes were not to be seen. Alessandro's tall figure
+and dignified bearing were not uncommon. The Father had seen many as
+fine-looking Indian men. But his voice was remarkable, and he spoke
+better Spanish than was wont to be heard from Indians.
+
+"Where are you from?" said the Father, as he held his pen poised in
+hand, ready to write their names in the old raw-hide-bound book.
+
+"Temecula, Father," replied Alessandro.
+
+Father Gaspara dropped his pen. "The village the Americans drove out the
+other day?" he cried.
+
+"Yes, Father."
+
+Father Gaspara sprang from his chair, took refuge from his excitement,
+as usual, in pacing the floor. "Go! go! I'm done with you! It's all
+over," he said fiercely to the Irish bride and groom, who had given him
+their names and their fee, but were still hanging about irresolute, not
+knowing if all were ended or not. "A burning shame! The most dastardly
+thing I have seen yet in this land forsaken of God!" cried the Father.
+"I saw the particulars of it in the San Diego paper yesterday." Then,
+coming to a halt in front of Alessandro, he exclaimed: "The paper said
+that the Indians were compelled to pay all the costs of the suit; that
+the sheriff took their cattle to do it. Was that true?"
+
+"Yes, Father," replied Alessandro.
+
+The Father strode up and down again, plucking at his beard. "What are
+you going to do?" he said. "Where have you all gone? There were two
+hundred in your village the last time I was there."
+
+"Some have gone over into Pachanga," replied Alessandro, "some to San
+Pasquale, and the rest to San Bernardino."
+
+"Body of Jesus! man! But you take it with philosophy!" stormed Father
+Gaspara.
+
+Alessandro did not understand the word "philosophy," but he knew what
+the Father meant. "Yes, Father," he said doggedly. "It is now twenty-one
+days ago. I was not so at first. There is nothing to be done."
+
+Ramona held tight to Alessandro's hand. She was afraid of this fierce,
+black-bearded priest, who dashed back and forth, pouring out angry
+invectives.
+
+"The United States Government will suffer for it!" he continued. "It is
+a Government of thieves and robbers! God will punish them. You will see;
+they will be visited with a curse,--a curse in their borders; their sons
+and their daughters shall be desolate! But why do I prate in these vain
+words? My son, tell me your names again;" and he seated himself once
+more at the table where the ancient marriage-record lay open.
+
+After writing Alessandro's name, he turned to Ramona. "And the woman's?"
+he said.
+
+Alessandro looked at Ramona. In the chapel he had said simply,
+"Majella." What name should he give more?
+
+Without a second's hesitation, Ramona answered, "Majella. Majella Phail
+is my name."
+
+She pronounced the word "Phail," slowly. It was new to her. She had
+never seen it written; as it lingered on her lips, the Father, to
+whom also it was a new word, misunderstood it, took it to be in two
+syllables, and so wrote it.
+
+The last step was taken in the disappearance of Ramona. How should any
+one, searching in after years, find any trace of Ramona Ortegna, in the
+woman married under the name of "Majella Fayeel"?
+
+"No, no! Put up your money, son," said Father Gaspara, as Alessandro
+began to undo the knots of the handkerchief in which his gold was tied.
+"Put up your money. I'll take no money from a Temecula Indian. I would
+the Church had money to give you. Where are you going now?"
+
+"To San Pasquale, Father."
+
+"Ah! San Pasquale! The head man there has the old pueblo paper," said
+Father Gaspara. "He was showing it to me the other day. That will, it
+may be, save you there. But do not trust to it, son. Buy yourself a
+piece of land as the white man buys his. Trust to nothing."
+
+Alessandro looked anxiously in the Father's face. "How is that, Father?"
+he said. "I do not know."
+
+"Well, their rules be thick as the crabs here on the beach," replied
+Father Gaspara; "and, faith, they appear to me to be backwards of motion
+also, like the crabs: but the lawyers understand. When you have picked
+out your land, and have the money, come to me, and I will go with you
+and see that you are not cheated in the buying, so far as I can tell;
+but I myself am at my wit's ends with their devices. Farewell, son!
+Farewell, daughter!" he said, rising from his chair. Hunger was again
+getting the better of sympathy in Father Gaspara, and as he sat down
+to his long-deferred supper, the Indian couple faded from his mind; but
+after supper was over, as he sat smoking his pipe on the veranda, they
+returned again, and lingered in his thoughts,--lingered strangely, it
+seemed to him; he could not shake off the impression that there was
+something unusual about the woman. "I shall hear of them again, some
+day," he thought. And he thought rightly.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+AFTER leaving Father Gaspara's door, Alessandro and Ramona rode slowly
+through the now deserted plaza, and turned northward, on the river road,
+leaving the old Presidio walls on their right. The river was low, and
+they forded it without difficulty.
+
+"I have seen this river so high that there was no fording it for many
+days," said Alessandro; "but that was in spring."
+
+"Then it is well we came not at that time," said Ramona, "All the times
+have fallen out well for us, Alessandro,--the dark nights, and the
+streams low; but look! as I say it, there comes the moon!" and she
+pointed to the fine threadlike arc of the new moon, just visible in the
+sky. "Not big enough to do us any harm, however," she added. "But, dear
+Alessandro, do you not think we are safe now?"
+
+"I know not, Majella, if ever we may be safe; but I hope so. I have been
+all day thinking I had gone foolish last night, when I told Mrs. Hartsel
+that I was on my way to San Pasquale. But if men should come there
+asking for us, she would understand, I think, and keep a still tongue.
+She would keep harm from us if she could."
+
+Their way from San Diego to San Pasquale lay at first along a high mesa,
+or table-land, covered with low shrub growths; after some ten or twelve
+miles of this, they descended among winding ridges, into a narrow
+valley,--the Poway valley. It was here that the Mexicans made one of
+their few abortive efforts to repel the American forces.
+
+"Here were some Americans killed, in a fight with the Mexicans,
+Majella," said Alessandro. "I myself have a dozen bullets which I picked
+up in the ground about here. Many a time I have looked at them and
+thought if there should come another war against the Americans, I
+would fire them again, if I could. Does Senor Felipe think there is
+any likelihood that his people will rise against them any more? If they
+would, they would have all the Indians to help them, now. It would be a
+mercy if they might be driven out of the land, Majella."
+
+"Yes," sighed Majella. "But there is no hope. I have heard the Senora
+speak of it with Felipe. There is no hope. They have power, and great
+riches, she said. Money is all that they think of. To get money, they
+will commit any crime, even murder. Every day there comes the news of
+their murdering each other for gold. Mexicans kill each other only for
+hate, Alessandro,--for hate, or in anger; never for gold."
+
+"Indians, also," replied Alessandro. "Never one Indian killed another,
+yet, for money. It is for vengeance, always. For money! Bah! Majella,
+they are dogs!"
+
+Rarely did Alessandro speak with such vehemence; but this last outrage
+on his people had kindled in his veins a fire of scorn and hatred
+which would never die out. Trust in an American was henceforth to him
+impossible. The name was a synonym for fraud and cruelty.
+
+"They cannot all be so bad, I think, Alessandro," said Ramona. "There
+must be some that are honest; do you not think so?"
+
+"Where are they, then," he cried fiercely,--"the ones who are good?
+Among my people there are always some that are bad; but they are in
+disgrace. My father punished them, the whole people punished them. If
+there are Americans who are good, who will not cheat and kill, why do
+they not send after these robbers and punish them? And how is it that
+they make laws which cheat? It was the American law which took Temecula
+away from us, and gave it to those men! The law was on the side of the
+thieves. No, Majella, it is a people that steals! That is their name,--a
+people that steals, and that kills for money. Is not that a good name
+for a great people to bear, when they are like the sands in the sea,
+they are so many?"
+
+"That is what the Senora says," answered Ramona. "She says they are all
+thieves; that she knows not, each day, but that on the next will come
+more of them, with new laws, to take away more of her land. She had once
+more than twice what she has now, Alessandro."
+
+"Yes," he replied; "I know it. My father has told me. He was with Father
+Peyri at the place, when General Moreno was alive. Then all was his to
+the sea,--all that land we rode over the second night, Majella."
+
+"Yes," she said, "all to the sea! That is what the Senora is ever
+saying: 'To the sea!' Oh, the beautiful sea! Can we behold it from San
+Pasquale, Alessandro?"
+
+"No, my Majella, it is too far. San Pasquale is in the valley; it has
+hills all around it like walls. But it is good. Majella will love it;
+and I will build a house, Majella. All the people will help me. That is
+the way with our people. In two days it will be done. But it will be a
+poor place for my Majella," he said sadly. Alessandro's heart was ill at
+ease. Truly a strange bride's journey was this; but Ramona felt no fear.
+
+"No place can be so poor that I do not choose it, if you are there,
+rather than the most beautiful place in the world where you are not,
+Alessandro," she said.
+
+"But my Majella loves things that are beautiful," said Alessandro. "She
+has lived like a queen."
+
+"Oh, Alessandro," merrily laughed Ramona, "how little you know of
+the way queens live! Nothing was fine at the Senora Moreno's, only
+comfortable; and any house you will build, I can make as comfortable
+as that was; it is nothing but trouble to have one so large as the
+Senora's. Margarita used to be tired to death, sweeping all those
+rooms in which nobody lived except the blessed old San Luis Rey saints.
+Alessandro, if we could have had just one statue, either Saint Francis
+or the Madonna, to bring back to our house! That is what I would like
+better than all other things in the world. It is beautiful to sleep with
+the Madonna close to your bed. She speaks often to you in dreams."
+
+Alessandro fixed serious, questioning eyes on Ramona as she uttered
+these words. When she spoke like this, he felt indeed as if a being of
+some other sphere had come to dwell by his side. "I cannot find how to
+feel towards the saints as you do, my Majella," he said. "I am afraid of
+them. It must be because they love you, and do not love us. That is what
+I believe, Majella. I believe they are displeased with us, and no longer
+make mention of us in heaven. That is what the Fathers taught that the
+saints were ever doing,--praying to God for us, and to the Virgin and
+Jesus. It is not possible, you see, that they could have been praying
+for us, and yet such things have happened, as happened in Temecula. I do
+not know how it is my people have displeased them."
+
+"I think Father Salvierderra would say that it is a sin to be afraid of
+the saints, Alessandro," replied Ramona, earnestly. "He has often told
+me that it was a sin to be unhappy; and that withheld me many times from
+being wretched because the Senora would not love me. And, Alessandro,"
+she went on, growing more and more fervent in tone, "even if nothing but
+misfortune comes to people, that does not prove that the saints do not
+love them; for when the saints were on earth themselves, look what they
+suffered: martyrs they were, almost all of them. Look at what holy
+Saint Catharine endured, and the blessed Saint Agnes. It is not by what
+happens to us here in this world that we can tell if the saints love us,
+or if we will see the Blessed Virgin."
+
+"How can we tell, then?" he asked.
+
+"By what we feel in our hearts, Alessandro," she replied; "just as I
+knew all the time, when you did not come,--I knew that you loved me.
+I knew that in my heart; and I shall always know it, no matter what
+happens. If you are dead, I shall know that you love me. And you,--you
+will know that I love you, the same."
+
+"Yes," said Alessandro, reflectively, "that is true. But, Majella, it is
+not possible to have the same thoughts about a saint as about a person
+that one has seen, and heard the voice, and touched the hand."
+
+"No, not quite," said Ramona; "not quite, about a saint; but one can
+for the Blessed Virgin, Alessandro! I am sure of that. Her statue, in my
+room at the Senora's, has been always my mother. Ever since I was little
+I have told her all I did. It was she helped me to plan what I should
+bring away with us. She reminded me of many things I had forgotten,
+except for her."
+
+"Did you hear her speak?" said Alessandro, awe-stricken.
+
+"Not exactly in words; but just the same as in words," replied Ramona,
+confidently. "You see when you sleep in the room with her, it is very
+different from what it is if you only see her in a chapel. Oh, I could
+never be very unhappy with her in my room!"
+
+"I would almost go and steal it for you, Majella," cried Alessandro,
+with sacrilegious warmth.
+
+"Holy Virgin!" cried Ramona, "never speak such a word. You would be
+struck dead if you laid your hand on her! I fear even the thought was a
+sin."
+
+"There was a small figure of her in the wall of our house," said
+Alessandro. "It was from San Luis Rey. I do not know what became of
+it,--if it were left behind, or if they took it with my father's things
+to Pachanga. I did not see it there. When I go again, I will look."
+
+"Again!" cried Ramona. "What say you? You go again to Pachanga? You will
+not leave me, Alessandro?"
+
+At the bare mention of Alessandro's leaving her, Ramona's courage always
+vanished. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, she was transformed
+from the dauntless, confident, sunny woman, who bore him up as it were
+on wings of hope and faith, to a timid, shrinking, despondent child,
+crying out in alarm, and clinging to the hand.
+
+"After a time, dear Majella, when you are wonted to the place, I must
+go, to fetch the wagon and the few things that were ours. There is the
+raw-hide bed which was Father Peyri's, and he gave to my father. Majella
+will like to lie on that. My father believed it had great virtue."
+
+"Like that you made for Felipe?" she asked.
+
+"Yes; but it is not so large. In those days the cattle were not so
+large as they are now: this is not so broad as Senor Felipe's. There
+are chairs, too, from the Mission, three of them, one almost as fine
+as those on your veranda at home. They were given to my father. And
+music-books,--beautiful parchment books! Oh, I hope those are not lost,
+Majella! If Jose had lived, he would have looked after it all. But in
+the confusion, all the things belonging to the village were thrown into
+wagons together, and no one knew where anything was. But all the people
+knew my father's chairs and the books of the music. If the Americans did
+not steal them, everything will be safe. My people do not steal.
+There was never but one thief in our village, and my father had him so
+whipped, he ran away and never came back. I heard he was living in San
+Jacinto, and was a thief yet, spite of all that whipping he had. I think
+if it is in the blood to be a thief, not even whipping will take it out,
+Majella."
+
+"Like the Americans," she said, half laughing, but with tears in the
+voice. "Whipping would not cure them."
+
+It wanted yet more than an hour of dawn when they reached the crest of
+the hill from which they looked down on the San Pasquale valley. Two
+such crests and valleys they had passed; this was the broadest of the
+three valleys, and the hills walling it were softer and rounder of
+contour than any they had yet seen. To the east and northeast lay ranges
+of high mountains, their tops lost in the clouds. The whole sky was
+overcast and gray.
+
+"If it were spring, this would mean rain," said Alessandro; "but it
+cannot rain, I think, now."
+
+"No!" laughed Ramona, "not till we get our house done. Will it be of
+adobe, Alessandro?"
+
+"Dearest Majella, not yet! At first it must be of the tule. They are
+very comfortable while it is warm, and before winter I will build one of
+adobe."
+
+"Two houses! Wasteful Alessandro! If the tule house is good, I shall not
+let you, Alessandro, build another."
+
+Ramona's mirthful moments bewildered Alessandro. To his slower
+temperament and saddened nature they seemed preternatural; as if she
+were all of a sudden changed into a bird, or some gay creature outside
+the pale of human life,--outside and above it.
+
+"You speak as the birds sing, my Majella," he said slowly. "It was well
+to name you Majel; only the wood-dove has not joy in her voice, as you
+have. She says only that she loves and waits."
+
+"I say that, too, Alessandro!" replied Ramona, reaching out both her
+arms towards him.
+
+The horses were walking slowly, and very close side by side. Baba and
+Benito were now such friends they liked to pace closely side by side;
+and Baba and Benito were by no means without instinctive recognitions of
+the sympathy between their riders. Already Benito knew Ramona's voice,
+and answered it with pleasure; and Baba had long ago learned to stop
+when his mistress laid her hand on Alessandro's shoulder. He stopped
+now, and it was long minutes before he had the signal to go on again.
+
+"Majella! Majella!" cried Alessandro, as, grasping both her hands in
+his, he held them to his cheeks, to his neck, to his mouth, "if the
+saints would ask Alessandro to be a martyr for Majella's sake, like
+those she was telling of, then she would know if Alessandro loved her!
+But what can Alessandro do now? What, oh, what? Majella gives all;
+Alessandro gives nothing!" and he bowed his forehead on her hands,
+before he put them back gently on Baba's neck.
+
+Tears filled Ramona's eyes. How should she win this saddened man, this
+distrusting lover, to the joy which was his desert? "Alessandro can
+do one thing," she said, insensibly falling into his mode of
+speaking,--"one thing for his Majella: never, never say that he has
+nothing to give her. When he says that, he makes Majella a liar; for
+she has said that he is all the world to her,--he himself all the world
+which she desires. Is Majella a liar?"
+
+But it was even now with an ecstasy only half joy, the other half
+anguish, that Alessandro replied: "Majella cannot lie. Majella is like
+the saints. Alessandro is hers."
+
+When they rode down into the valley, the whole village was astir. The
+vintage-time had nearly passed; everywhere were to be seen large, flat
+baskets of grapes drying in the sun. Old women and children were turning
+these, or pounding acorns in the deep stone bowls; others were beating
+the yucca-stalks, and putting them to soak in water; the oldest women
+were sitting on the ground, weaving baskets. There were not many men in
+the village now; two large bands were away at work,--one at the autumn
+sheep-shearing, and one working on a large irrigating ditch at San
+Bernardino.
+
+In different directions from the village slow-moving herds of goats or
+of cattle could be seen, being driven to pasture on the hills; some men
+were ploughing; several groups were at work building houses of bundles
+of the tule reeds.
+
+"These are some of the Temecula people," said Alessandro; "they
+are building themselves new houses here. See those piles of bundles
+darker- than the rest. Those are their old roofs they brought
+from Temecula. There, there comes Ysidro!" he cried joyfully, as a man,
+well-mounted, who had been riding from point to point in the village,
+came galloping towards them. As soon as Ysidro recognized Alessandro, he
+flung himself from his horse. Alessandro did the same, and both running
+swiftly towards each other till they met, they embraced silently.
+Ramona, riding up, held out her hand, saying, as she did so, "Ysidro?"
+
+Pleased, yet surprised, at this confident and assured greeting, Ysidro
+saluted her, and turning to Alessandro, said in their own tongue, "Who
+is this woman whom you bring, that has heard my name?"
+
+"My wife!" answered Alessandro, in the same tongue. "We were married
+last night by Father Gaspara. She comes from the house of the Senora
+Moreno. We will live in San Pasquale, if you have land for me, as you
+have said."
+
+What astonishment Ysidro felt, he showed none. Only a grave and
+courteous welcome was in his face and in his words as he said, "It
+is well. There is room. You are welcome." But when he heard the soft
+Spanish syllables in which Ramona spoke to Alessandro, and Alessandro,
+translating her words to him, said, "Majel speaks only in the Spanish
+tongue, but she will learn ours," a look of disquiet passed over his
+countenance. His heart feared for Alessandro, and he said, "Is she,
+then, not Indian? Whence got she the name of Majel?"
+
+A look of swift intelligence from Alessandro reassured him. "Indian on
+the mother's side!" said Alessandro, "and she belongs in heart to our
+people. She is alone, save for me. She is one blessed of the Virgin,
+Ysidro. She will help us. The name Majel I have given her, for she is
+like the wood-dove; and she is glad to lay her old name down forever, to
+bear this new name in our tongue."
+
+And this was Ramona's introduction to the Indian village,--this and her
+smile; perhaps the smile did most. Even the little children were not
+afraid of her. The women, though shy, in the beginning, at sight of her
+noble bearing, and her clothes of a kind and quality they associated
+only with superiors, soon felt her friendliness, and, what was more,
+saw by her every word, tone, look, that she was Alessandro's. If
+Alessandro's, theirs. She was one of them. Ramona would have been
+profoundly impressed and touched, could she have heard them speaking
+among themselves about her; wondering how it had come about that she,
+so beautiful, and nurtured in the Moreno house, of which they all knew,
+should be Alessandro's loving wife. It must be, they thought in their
+simplicity, that the saints had sent it as an omen of good to the Indian
+people. Toward night they came, bringing in a hand-barrow the most aged
+woman in the village to look at her. She wished to see the beautiful
+stranger before the sun went down, they said, because she was now so old
+she believed each night that before morning her time would come to die.
+They also wished to hear the old woman's verdict on her. When Alessandro
+saw them coming, he understood, and made haste to explain it to Ramona.
+While he was yet speaking, the procession arrived, and the aged woman in
+her strange litter was placed silently on the ground in front of Ramona,
+who was sitting under Ysidro's great fig-tree. Those who had borne her
+withdrew, and seated themselves a few paces off. Alessandro spoke
+first. In a few words he told the old woman of Ramona's birth, of their
+marriage, and of her new name of adoption; then he said, "Take her hand,
+dear Majella, if you feel no fear."
+
+There was something scarcely human in the shrivelled arm and hand
+outstretched in greeting; but Ramona took it in hers with tender
+reverence: "Say to her for me, Alessandro," she said, "that I bow down
+to her great age with reverence, and that I hope, if it is the will of
+God that I live on the earth so long as she has, I may be worthy of such
+reverence as these people all feel for her."
+
+Alessandro turned a grateful look on Ramona as he translated this
+speech, so in unison with Indian modes of thought and feeling. A murmur
+of pleasure rose from the group of women sitting by. The aged woman made
+no reply; her eyes still studied Ramona's face, and she still held her
+hand.
+
+"Tell her," continued Ramona, "that I ask if there is anything I can do
+for her. Say I will be her daughter if she will let me."
+
+"It must be the Virgin herself that is teaching Majella what to say,"
+thought Alessandro, as he repeated this in the San Luiseno tongue.
+
+Again the women murmured pleasure, but the old woman spoke not. "And say
+that you will be her son," added Ramona.
+
+Alessandro said it. It was perhaps for this that the old woman had
+waited. Lifting up her arm, like a sibyl, she said: "It is well; I am
+your mother. The winds of the valley shall love you, and the grass shall
+dance when you come. The daughter looks on her mother's face each day. I
+will go;" and making a sign to her bearers, she was lifted, and carried
+to her house.
+
+The scene affected Ramona deeply. The simplest acts of these people
+seemed to her marvellously profound in their meanings. She was not
+herself sufficiently educated or versed in life to know why she was so
+moved,--to know that such utterances, such symbolisms as these, among
+primitive peoples, are thus impressive because they are truly and
+grandly dramatic; but she was none the less stirred by them, because she
+could not analyze or explain them.
+
+"I will go and see her every day," she said; "she shall be like my
+mother, whom I never saw."
+
+"We must both go each day," said Alessandro. "What we have said is a
+solemn promise among my people; it would not be possible to break it."
+
+Ysidro's home was in the centre of the village, on a slightly rising
+ground; it was a picturesque group of four small houses, three of tule
+reeds and one of adobe,--the latter a comfortable little house of two
+rooms, with a floor and a shingled roof, both luxuries in San Pasquale.
+The great fig-tree, whose luxuriance and size were noted far and near
+throughout the country, stood half-way down the <DW72>; but its boughs
+shaded all three of the tule houses. On one of its lower branches was
+fastened a dove-cote, ingeniously made of willow wands, plastered with
+adobe, and containing so many rooms that the whole tree seemed sometimes
+a-flutter with doves and dovelings. Here and there, between the houses,
+were huge baskets, larger than barrels, woven of twigs, as the eagle
+weaves its nest, only tighter and thicker. These were the outdoor
+granaries; in these were kept acorns, barley, wheat, and corn. Ramona
+thought them, as well she might, the prettiest things she ever saw.
+
+"Are they hard to make?" she asked. "Can you make them, Alessandro? I
+shall want many."
+
+"All you want, my Majella," replied Alessandro. "We will go together to
+get the twigs; I can, I dare say, buy some in the village. It is only
+two days to make a large one."
+
+"No. Do not buy one," she exclaimed. "I wish everything in our house
+to be made by ourselves." In which, again, Ramona was unconsciously
+striking one of the keynotes of pleasure in the primitive harmonies of
+existence.
+
+The tule house which stood nearest to the dove-cote was, by a lucky
+chance, now empty. Ysidro's brother Ramon, who had occupied it, having
+gone with his wife and baby to San Bernardino, for the winter, to work;
+this house Ysidro was but too happy to give to Alessandro till his own
+should be done. It was a tiny place, though it was really two houses
+joined together by a roofed passage-way. In this passage-way the tidy
+Juana, Ramon's wife, kept her few pots and pans, and a small stove.
+It looked to Ramona like a baby-house. Timidly Alessandro said: "Can
+Majella live in this small place for a time? It will not be very long;
+there are adobes already made."
+
+His countenance cleared as Ramona replied gleefully, "I think it will be
+very comfortable, and I shall feel as if we were all doves together in
+the dove-cote!"
+
+"Majel!" exclaimed Alessandro; and that was all he said.
+
+Only a few rods off stood the little chapel; in front of it swung on
+a cross-bar from two slanting posts an old bronze bell which had once
+belonged to the San Diego Mission. When Ramona read the date, "1790," on
+its side, and heard that it was from the San Diego Mission church it had
+come, she felt a sense of protection in its presence.
+
+"Think, Alessandro," she said; "this bell, no doubt, has rung many times
+for the mass for the holy Father Junipero himself. It is a blessing to
+the village. I want to live where I can see it all the time. It will be
+like a saint's statue in the house."
+
+With every allusion that Ramona made to the saints' statues,
+Alessandro's desire to procure one for her deepened. He said nothing;
+but he revolved it in his mind continually. He had once gone with his
+shearers to San Fernando, and there he had seen in a room of the old
+Mission buildings a dozen statues of saints huddled in dusty confusion.
+The San Fernando church was in crumbled ruins, and such of the church
+properties as were left there were in the keeping of a Mexican not
+over-careful, and not in the least devout. It would not trouble him to
+part with a saint or two, Alessandro thought, and no irreverence to
+the saint either; on the contrary, the greatest of reverence, since
+the statue was to be taken from a place where no one cared for it, and
+brought into one where it would be tenderly cherished, and worshipped
+every day. If only San Fernando were not so far away, and the wooden
+saints so heavy! However, it should come about yet. Majella should
+have a saint; nor distance nor difficulty should keep Alessandro from
+procuring for his Majel the few things that lay within his power. But he
+held his peace about it. It would be a sweeter gift, if she did not know
+it beforehand. He pleased himself as subtly and secretly as if he had
+come of civilized generations, thinking how her eyes would dilate, if
+she waked up some morning and saw the saint by her bedside; and how sure
+she would be to think, at first, it was a miracle,--his dear, devout
+Majella, who, with all her superior knowledge, was yet more credulous
+than he. All her education had not taught her to think, as he, untaught,
+had learned, in his solitude with nature.
+
+Before Alessandro had been two days in San Pasquale, he had heard of a
+piece of good-fortune which almost passed his belief, and which startled
+him for once out of his usual impassive demeanor.
+
+"You know I have a herd of cattle of your father's, and near a hundred
+sheep?" said Ysidro.
+
+"Holy Virgin!" cried Alessandro, "you do not mean that! How is that?
+They told me all our stock was taken by the Americans."
+
+"Yes, so it was, all that was in Temecula," replied Ysidro; "but in the
+spring your father sent down to know if I would take a herd for him up
+into the mountains, with ours, as he feared the Temecula pasture would
+fall short, and the people there, who could not leave, must have their
+cattle near home; so he sent a herd over,--I think, near fifty head;
+and many of the cows have calved; and he sent, also, a little flock of
+sheep,--a hundred, Ramon said; he herded them with ours all summer, and
+he left a man up there with them. They will be down next week. It is
+time they were sheared."
+
+Before he had finished speaking, Alessandro had vanished, bounding like
+a deer. Ysidro stared after him; but seeing him enter the doorway of the
+little tule hut, he understood, and a sad smile passed over his face. He
+was not yet persuaded that this marriage of Alessandro's would turn out
+a blessing. "What are a handful of sheep to her!" he thought.
+
+Breathless, panting, Alessandro burst into Ramona's presence. "Majella!
+my Majella! There are cattle--and sheep," he cried. "The saints be
+praised! We are not like the beggars, as I said."
+
+"I told you that God would give us food, dear Alessandro," replied
+Ramona, gently.
+
+"You do not wonder! You do not ask!" he cried, astonished at her calm.
+"Does Majella think that a sheep or a steer can come down from the
+skies?"
+
+"Nay, not as our eyes would see," she answered; "but the holy ones who
+live in the skies can do anything they like on the earth. Whence came
+these cattle, and how are they ours?"
+
+When he told her, her face grew solemn. "Do you remember that night in
+the willows," she said, "when I was like one dying, because you would
+not bring me with you? You had no faith that there would be food. And
+I told you then that the saints never forsook those who loved them, and
+that God would give food. And even at that moment, when you did not know
+it, there were your cattle and your sheep feeding in the mountains,
+in the keeping of God! Will my Alessandro believe after this?" and she
+threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.
+
+"It is true," said Alessandro. "I will believe, after this, that the
+saints love my Majella."
+
+But as he walked at a slower pace back to Ysidro, he said to himself:
+"Majella did not see Temecula. What would she have said about the
+saints, if she had seen that, and seen the people dying for want of
+food? It is only for her that the saints pray. They are displeased with
+my people."
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+ONE year, and a half of another year, had passed. Sheep-shearings and
+vintages had been in San Pasquale; and Alessandro's new house, having
+been beaten on by the heavy spring rains, looked no longer new. It stood
+on the south side of the valley,--too far, Ramona felt, from the blessed
+bell; but there had not been land enough for wheat-fields any nearer,
+and she could see the chapel, and the posts, and, on a clear day, the
+bell itself. The house was small. "Small to hold so much joy," she said,
+when Alessandro first led her to it, and said, deprecatingly, "It is
+small, Majella,--too small;" and he recollected bitterly, as he spoke,
+the size of Ramona's own room at the Senora's house. "Too small," he
+repeated.
+
+"Very small to hold so much joy, my Alessandro," she laughed; "but quite
+large enough to hold two persons."
+
+It looked like a palace to the San Pasquale people, after Ramona had
+arranged their little possessions in it; and she herself felt rich as
+she looked around her two small rooms. The old San Luis Rey chairs
+and the raw-hide bedstead were there, and, most precious of all, the
+statuette of the Madonna. For this Alessandro had built a niche in the
+wall, between the head of the bed and the one window. The niche was deep
+enough to hold small pots in front of the statuette; and Ramona kept
+constantly growing there wild-cucumber plants, which wreathed and
+re-wreathed the niche till it looked like a bower. Below it hung her
+gold rosary and the ivory Christ; and many a woman of the village, when
+she came to see Ramona, asked permission to go into the bedroom and say
+her prayers there; so that it finally came to be a sort of shrine for
+the whole village.
+
+A broad veranda, as broad as the Senora's, ran across the front of the
+little house. This was the only thing for which Ramona had asked. She
+could not quite fancy life without a veranda, and linnets in the thatch.
+But the linnets had not yet come. In vain Ramona strewed food for them,
+and laid little trains of crumbs to lure them inside the posts; they
+would not build nests inside. It was not their way in San Pasquale. They
+lived in the canons, but this part of the valley was too bare of trees
+for them. "In a year or two more, when we have orchards, they will
+come," Alessandro said.
+
+With the money from that first sheep-shearing, and from the sale of part
+of his cattle, Alessandro had bought all he needed in the way of farming
+implements,--a good wagon and harnesses, and a plough. Baba and Benito,
+at first restive and indignant, soon made up their minds to work. Ramona
+had talked to Baba about it as she would have talked to a brother. In
+fact, except for Ramona's help, it would have been a question whether
+even Alessandro could have made Baba work in harness. "Good Baba!"
+Ramona said, as she slipped piece after piece of the harness over his
+neck,--"Good Baba, you must help us; we have so much work to do, and
+you are so strong! Good Baba, do you love me?" and with one hand in his
+mane, and her cheek, every few steps, laid close to his, she led Baba up
+and down the first furrows he ploughed.
+
+"My Senorita!" thought Alessandro to himself, half in pain, half in
+pride, as, running behind with the unevenly jerked plough, he watched
+her laughing face and blowing hair,--"my Senorita!"
+
+But Ramona would not run with her hand in Baba's mane this winter. There
+was a new work for her, indoors. In a rustic cradle, which Alessandro
+had made, under her directions, of the woven twigs, like the great
+outdoor acorn-granaries, only closer woven, and of an oval shape, and
+lifted from the floor by four uprights of red manzanita stems,--in
+this cradle, on soft white wool fleeces, covered with white homespun
+blankets, lay Ramona's baby, six months old, lusty, strong, and
+beautiful, as only children born of great love and under healthful
+conditions can be. This child was a girl, to Alessandro's delight; to
+Ramona's regret,--so far as a loving mother can feel regret connected
+with her firstborn. Ramona had wished for an Alessandro; but the
+disappointed wish faded out of her thoughts, hour by hour, as she gazed
+into her baby-girl's blue eyes,--eyes so blue that their color was the
+first thing noticed by each person who looked at her.
+
+"Eyes of the sky," exclaimed Ysidro, when he first saw her.
+
+"Like the mother's," said Alessandro; on which Ysidro turned an
+astonished look upon Ramona, and saw for the first time that her eyes,
+too, were blue.
+
+"Wonderful!" he said. "It is so. I never saw it;" and he wondered in his
+heart what father it had been, who had given eyes like those to one born
+of an Indian mother.
+
+"Eyes of the sky," became at once the baby's name in the village; and
+Alessandro and Ramona, before they knew it, had fallen into the way of
+so calling her. But when it came to the christening, they demurred. The
+news was brought to the village, one Saturday, that Father Gaspara would
+hold services in the valley the next day, and that he wished all the
+new-born babes to be brought for christening. Late into the night,
+Alessandro and Ramona sat by their sleeping baby and discussed what
+should be her name. Ramona wondered that Alessandro did not wish to name
+her Majella.
+
+"No! Never but one Majella," he said, in a tone which gave Ramona a
+sense of vague fear, it was so solemn.
+
+They discussed "Ramona," "Isabella." Alessandro suggested Carmena. This
+had been his mother's name.
+
+At the mention of it Ramona shuddered, recollecting the scene in
+the Temecula graveyard. "Oh, no, no! Not that!" she cried. "It is
+ill-fated;" and Alessandro blamed himself for having forgotten her only
+association with the name.
+
+At last Alessandro said: "The people have named her, I think, Majella.
+Whatever name we give her in the chapel, she will never be called
+anything but 'Eyes of the Sky,' in the village."
+
+"Let that name be her true one, then," said Ramona. And so it was
+settled; and when Father Gaspara took the little one in his arms,
+and made the sign of the cross on her brow, he pronounced with some
+difficulty the syllables of the Indian name, which meant "Blue Eyes," or
+"Eyes of the Sky."
+
+Heretofore, when Father Gaspara had come to San Pasquale to say mass, he
+had slept at Lomax's, the store and post-office, six miles away, in the
+Bernardo valley. But Ysidro, with great pride, had this time ridden to
+meet him, to say that his cousin Alessandro, who had come to live in the
+valley, and had a good new adobe house, begged that the Father would do
+him the honor to stay with him.
+
+"And indeed, Father," added Ysidro, "you will be far better lodged and
+fed than in the house of Lomax. My cousin's wife knows well how all
+should be done."
+
+"Alessandro! Alessandro!" said the Father, musingly. "Has he been long
+married?"
+
+"No, Father," answered Ysidro. "But little more than two years. They
+were married by you, on their way from Temecula here."
+
+"Ay, ay. I remember," said Father Gaspara. "I will come;" and it was
+with no small interest that he looked forward to meeting again the
+couple that had so strongly impressed him.
+
+Ramona was full of eager interest in her preparations for entertaining
+the priest. This was like the olden time; and as she busied herself with
+her cooking and other arrangements, the thought of Father Salvierderra
+was much in her mind. She could, perhaps, hear news of him from Father
+Gaspara. It was she who had suggested the idea to Alessandro; and when
+he said, "But where will you sleep yourself, with the child, Majella,
+if we give our room to the Father? I can lie on the floor outside; but
+you?"--"I will go to Ysidro's, and sleep with Juana," she replied. "For
+two nights, it is no matter; and it is such shame to have the Father
+sleep in the house of an American, when we have a good bed like this!"
+
+Seldom in his life had Alessandro experienced such a sense of
+gratification as he did when he led Father Gaspara into his and Ramona's
+bedroom. The clean whitewashed walls, the bed neatly made, with broad
+lace on sheets and pillows, hung with curtains and a canopy of bright
+red calico, the old carved chairs, the Madonna shrine in its bower of
+green leaves, the shelves on the walls, the white-curtained window,--all
+made up a picture such as Father Gaspara had never before seen in
+his pilgrimages among the Indian villages. He could not restrain an
+ejaculation of surprise. Then his eye falling on the golden rosary, he
+exclaimed, "Where got you that?"
+
+"It is my wife's," replied Alessandro, proudly. "It was given to her by
+Father Salvierderra."
+
+"Ah!" said the Father. "He died the other day."
+
+"Dead! Father Salvierderra dead!" cried Alessandro. "That will be a
+terrible blow. Oh, Father, I implore you not to speak of it in her
+presence. She must not know it till after the christening. It will make
+her heart heavy, so that she will have no joy."
+
+Father Gaspara was still scrutinizing the rosary and crucifix. "To be
+sure, to be sure," he said absently; "I will say nothing of it; but this
+is a work of art, this crucifix; do you know what you have here? And
+this,--is this not an altar-cloth?" he added, lifting up the beautiful
+wrought altar-cloth, which Ramona, in honor of his coming, had pinned on
+the wall below the Madonna's shrine.
+
+"Yes, Father, it was made for that. My wife made it. It was to be a
+present to Father Salvierderra; but she has not seen him, to give it to
+him. It will take the light out of the sun for her, when first she hears
+that he is dead."
+
+Father Gaspara was about to ask another question, when Ramona appeared
+in the doorway, flushed with running. She had carried the baby over to
+Juana's and left her there, that she might be free to serve the Father's
+supper.
+
+"I pray you tell her not," said Alessandro, under his breath; but it
+was too late. Seeing the Father with her rosary in his hand, Ramona
+exclaimed:--
+
+"That, Father, is my most sacred possession. It once belonged to Father
+Peyri, of San Luis Rey, and he gave it to Father Salvierderra, who gave
+it to me, Know you Father Salvierderra? I was hoping to hear news of him
+through you."
+
+"Yes, I knew him,--not very well; it is long since I saw him," stammered
+Father Gaspara. His hesitancy alone would not have told Ramona
+the truth; she would have set that down to the secular priest's
+indifference, or hostility, to the Franciscan order; but looking at
+Alessandro, she saw terror and sadness on his face. No shadow there
+ever escaped her eye. "What is it, Alessandro?" she exclaimed. "Is it
+something about Father Salvierderra? Is he ill?"
+
+Alessandro shook his head. He did not know what to say. Looking from
+one to the other, seeing the confused pain in both their faces, Ramona,
+laying both her hands on her breast, in the expressive gesture she had
+learned from the Indian women, cried out in a piteous tone: "You will
+not tell me! You do not speak! Then he is dead!" and she sank on her
+knees.
+
+"Yes, my daughter, he is dead," said Father Gaspara, more tenderly than
+that brusque and warlike priest often spoke. "He died a month ago, at
+Santa Barbara. I am grieved to have brought you tidings to give you
+such sorrow. But you must not mourn for him. He was very feeble, and he
+longed to die, I heard. He could no longer work, and he did not wish to
+live."
+
+Ramona had buried her face in her hands. The Father's words were only
+a confused sound in her ears. She had heard nothing after the words, "a
+month ago." She remained silent and motionless for some moments; then
+rising, without speaking a word, or looking at either of the men, she
+crossed the room and knelt down before the Madonna. By a common impulse,
+both Alessandro and Father Gaspara silently left the room. As they stood
+together outside the door, the Father said, "I would go back to Lomax's
+if it were not so late. I like not to be here when your wife is in such
+grief."
+
+"That would but be another grief, Father," said Alessandro. "She has
+been full of happiness in making ready for you. She is very strong of
+soul. It is she who makes me strong often, and not I who give strength
+to her."
+
+"My faith, but the man is right," thought Father Gaspara, a half-hour
+later, when, with a calm face, Ramona summoned them to supper. He did
+not know, as Alessandro did, how that face had changed in the half-hour.
+It wore a look Alessandro had never seen upon it. Almost he dreaded to
+speak to her.
+
+When he walked by her side, later in the evening, as she went across the
+valley to Fernando's house, he ventured to mention Father Salvierderra's
+name. Ramona laid her hand on his lips. "I cannot talk about him yet,
+dear," she said. "I never believed that he would die without giving us
+his blessing. Do not speak of him till to-morrow is over."
+
+Ramona's saddened face smote on all the women's hearts as they met her
+the next morning. One by one they gazed, astonished, then turned away,
+and spoke softly among themselves. They all loved her, and half revered
+her too, for her great kindness, and readiness to teach and to help
+them. She had been like a sort of missionary in the valley ever since
+she came, and no one had ever seen her face without a smile. Now she
+smiled not. Yet there was the beautiful baby in its white dress, ready
+to be christened; and the sun shone, and the bell had been ringing
+for half an hour, and from every corner of the valley the people were
+gathering, and Father Gaspara, in his gold and green cassock, was
+praying before the altar; it was a joyous day in San Pasquale. Why did
+Alessandro and Ramona kneel apart in a corner, with such heart-stricken
+countenances, not even looking glad when their baby laughed, and reached
+up her hands? Gradually it was whispered about what had happened. Some
+one had got it from Antonio, of Temecula, Alessandro's friend. Then
+all the women's faces grew sad too. They all had heard of Father
+Salvierderra, and many of them had prayed to the ivory Christ in
+Ramona's room, and knew that he had given it to her.
+
+As Ramona passed out of the chapel, some of them came up to her, and
+taking her hand in theirs, laid it on their hearts, speaking no word.
+The gesture was more than any speech could have been.
+
+When Father Gaspara was taking leave, Ramona said, with quivering lips,
+"Father, if there is anything you know of Father Salvierderra's last
+hours, I would be grateful to you for telling me."
+
+"I heard very little," replied the Father, "except that he had been
+feeble for some weeks; yet he would persist in spending most of the
+night kneeling on the stone floor in the church, praying."
+
+"Yes," interrupted Ramona; "that he always did."
+
+"And the last morning," continued the Father, "the Brothers found him
+there, still kneeling on the stone floor, but quite powerless to move;
+and they lifted him, and carried him to his room, and there they found,
+to their horror, that he had had no bed; he had lain on the stones; and
+then they took him to the Superior's own room, and laid him in the bed,
+and he did not speak any more, and at noon he died."
+
+"Thank you very much, Father," said Ramona, without lifting her eyes
+from the ground; and in the same low, tremulous tone, "I am glad that I
+know that he is dead."
+
+"Strange what a hold those Franciscans got on these Indians!" mused
+Father Gaspara, as he rode down the valley. "There's none of them would
+look like that if I were dead, I warrant me! There," he exclaimed, "I
+meant to have asked Alessandro who this wife of his is! I don't believe
+she is a Temecula Indian. Next time I come, I will find out. She's had
+some schooling somewhere, that's plain. She's quite superior to the
+general run of them. Next time I come, I will find out about her."
+
+"Next time!" In what calendar are kept the records of those next times
+which never come? Long before Father Gaspara visited San Pasquale again,
+Alessandro and Ramona were far away, and strangers were living in their
+home.
+
+It seemed to Ramona in after years, as she looked back over this life,
+that the news of Father Salvierderra's death was the first note of
+the knell of their happiness. It was but a few days afterward, when
+Alessandro came in one noon with an expression on his face that
+terrified her; seating himself in a chair, he buried his face in his
+hands, and would neither look up nor speak; not until Ramona was near
+crying from his silence, did he utter a word. Then, looking at her with
+a ghastly face, he said in a hollow voice, "It has begun!" and buried
+his face again. Finally Ramona's tears wrung from him the following
+story:
+
+Ysidro, it seemed, had the previous year rented a canon, at the head of
+the valley, to one Doctor Morong. It was simply as bee-pasture that the
+Doctor wanted it, he said. He put his hives there, and built a sort of
+hut for the man whom he sent up to look after the honey. Ysidro did not
+need the land, and thought it a good chance to make a little money. He
+had taken every precaution to make the transaction a safe one; had gone
+to San Diego, and got Father Gaspara to act as interpreter for him, in
+the interview with Morong; it had been a written agreement, and the rent
+agreed upon had been punctually paid. Now, the time of the lease having
+expired, Ysidro had been to San Diego to ask the Doctor if he wished
+to renew it for another year; and the Doctor had said that the land was
+his, and he was coming out there to build a house, and live.
+
+Ysidro had gone to Father Gaspara for help, and Father Gaspara had had
+an angry interview with Doctor Morong; but it had done no good. The
+Doctor said the land did not belong to Ysidro at all, but to the United
+States Government; and that he had paid the money for it to the agents
+in Los Angeles, and there would very soon come papers from Washington,
+to show that it was his. Father Gaspara had gone with Ysidro to a lawyer
+in San Diego, and had shown to his lawyer Ysidro's paper,--the old one
+from the Mexican Governor of California, establishing the pueblo of San
+Pasquale, and saying how many leagues of land the Indians were to have;
+but the lawyer had only laughed at Father Gaspara for believing that
+such a paper as that was good for anything. He said that was all very
+well when the country belonged to Mexico, but it was no good now; that
+the Americans owned it now; and everything was done by the American law
+now, not by the Mexican law any more.
+
+"Then we do not own any land in San Pasquale at all," said Ysidro. "Is
+that what it means?"
+
+And the lawyer had said, he did not know how it would be with the
+cultivated land, and the village where the houses were,--he could
+not tell about that; but he thought it all belonged to the men at
+Washington.
+
+Father Gaspara was in such rage, Ysidro said, that he tore open his gown
+on his breast, and he smote himself, and he said he wished he were a
+soldier, and no priest, that he might fight this accursed United States
+Government; and the lawyer laughed at him, and told him to look after
+souls,--that was his business,--and let the Indian beggars alone! "Yes,
+that was what he said,--'the Indian beggars!' and so they would be all
+beggars, presently."
+
+Alessandro told this by gasps, as it were; at long intervals. His voice
+was choked; his whole frame shook. He was nearly beside himself with
+rage and despair.
+
+"You see, it is as I said, Majella. There is no place safe. We can do
+nothing! We might better be dead!"
+
+"It is a long way off, that canon Doctor Morong had," said Ramona,
+piteously. "It wouldn't do any harm, his living there, if no more came."
+
+"Majella talks like a dove, and not like a woman," said Alessandro,
+fiercely. "Will there be one to come, and not two? It is the beginning.
+To-morrow may come ten more, with papers to show that the land is
+theirs. We can do nothing, any more than the wild beasts. They are
+better than we."
+
+From this day Alessandro was a changed man. Hope had died in his bosom.
+In all the village councils,--and they were many and long now, for the
+little community had been plunged into great anxiety and distress
+by this Doctor Morong's affair,--Alessandro sat dumb and gloomy. To
+whatever was proposed, he had but one reply: "It is of no use. We can do
+nothing."
+
+"Eat your dinners to-day, to-morrow we starve," he said one night,
+bitterly, as the council broke up. When Ysidro proposed to him that
+they should journey to Los Angeles, where Father Gaspara had said the
+headquarters of the Government officers were, and where they could learn
+all about the new laws in regard to land, Alessandro laughed at him.
+"What more is it, then, which you wish to know, my brother, about the
+American laws?" he said. "Is it not enough that you know they have made
+a law which will take the land from Indians; from us who have owned
+it longer than any can remember; land that our ancestors are buried
+in,--will take that land and give it to themselves, and say it is
+theirs? Is it to hear this again said in your face, and to see the man
+laugh who says it, like the lawyer in San Diego, that you will journey
+to Los Angeles? I will not go!"
+
+And Ysidro went alone. Father Gaspara gave him a letter to the Los
+Angeles priest, who went with him to the land-office, patiently
+interpreted for him all he had to say, and as patiently interpreted
+all that the officials had to say in reply. They did not laugh, as
+Alessandro in his bitterness had said. They were not inhuman, and
+they felt sincere sympathy for this man, representative of two hundred
+hard-working, industrious people, in danger of being turned out of house
+and home. But they were very busy; they had to say curtly, and in few
+words, all there was to be said: the San Pasquale district was certainly
+the property of the United States Government, and the lands were in
+market, to be filed on, and bought, according to the homestead laws,
+These officials had neither authority nor option in the matter. They
+were there simply to carry out instructions, and obey orders.
+
+Ysidro understood the substance of all this, though the details were
+beyond his comprehension. But he did not regret having taken the
+journey; he had now made his last effort for his people. The Los Angeles
+priest had promised that he would himself write a letter to Washington,
+to lay the case before the head man there, and perhaps something would
+be done for their relief. It seemed incredible to Ysidro, as, riding
+along day after day, on his sad homeward journey, he reflected on the
+subject,--it seemed incredible to him that the Government would permit
+such a village as theirs to be destroyed. He reached home just at
+sunset; and looking down, as Alessandro and Ramona had done on the
+morning of their arrival, from the hillcrests at the west end of the
+valley, seeing the broad belt of cultivated fields and orchards, the
+peaceful little hamlet of houses, he groaned. "If the people who make
+these laws could only see this village, they would never turn us out,
+never! They can't know what is being done. I am sure they can't know."
+
+"What did I tell you?" cried Alessandro, galloping up on Benito, and
+reining him in so sharply he reared and plunged. "What did I tell you?
+I saw by your face, many paces back, that you had come as you went, or
+worse! I have been watching for you these two days. Another American
+has come in with Morong in the canon; they are making corrals; they will
+keep stock. You will see how long we have any pasture-lands in that end
+of the valley. I drive all my stock to San Diego next week. I will sell
+it for what it will bring,--both the cattle and the sheep. It is no use.
+You will see."
+
+When Ysidro began to recount his interview with the land-office
+authorities, Alessandro broke in fiercely: "I wish to hear no more of
+it. Their names and their speech are like smoke in my eyes and my nose.
+I think I shall go mad, Ysidro. Go tell your story to the men who are
+waiting to hear it, and who yet believe that an American may speak
+truth!"
+
+Alessandro was as good as his word. The very next week he drove all
+his cattle and sheep to San Diego, and sold them at great loss. "It
+is better than nothing," he said. "They will not now be sold by the
+sheriff, like my father's in Temecula." The money he got, he took to
+Father Gaspara. "Father," he said huskily. "I have sold all my stock. I
+would not wait for the Americans to sell it for me, and take the money.
+I have not got much, but it is better than nothing. It will make that we
+do not starve for one year. Will you keep it for me, Father? I dare not
+have it in San Pasquale. San Pasquale will be like Temecula,--it may be
+to-morrow."
+
+To the Father's suggestion that he should put the money in a bank in San
+Diego, Alessandro cried: "Sooner would I throw it in the sea yonder! I
+trust no man, henceforth; only the Church I will trust. Keep it for me,
+Father, I pray you," and the Father could not refuse his imploring tone.
+
+"What are your plans now?" he asked.
+
+"Plans!" repeated Alessandro,--"plans, Father! Why should I make plans?
+I will stay in my house so long as the Americans will let me. You saw
+our little house, Father!" His voice broke as he said this. "I have
+large wheat-fields; if I can get one more crop off them, it will be
+something; but my land is of the richest in the valley, and as soon as
+the Americans see it, they will want it. Farewell, Father. I thank you
+for keeping my money, and for all you said to the thief Morong. Ysidro
+told me. Farewell." And he was gone, and out of sight on the swift
+galloping Benito, before Father Gaspara bethought himself.
+
+"And I remembered not to ask who his wife was. I will look back at the
+record," said the Father. Taking down the old volume, he ran his eye
+back over the year. Marriages were not so many in Father Gaspara's
+parish, that the list took long to read. The entry of Alessandro's
+marriage was blotted. The Father had been in haste that night.
+"Alessandro Assis. Majella Fa--" No more could be read. The name meant
+nothing to Father Gaspara. "Clearly an Indian name," he said to himself;
+"yet she seemed superior in every way. I wonder where she got it."
+
+The winter wore along quietly in San Pasquale. The delicious soft rains
+set in early, promising a good grain year. It seemed a pity not to get
+in as much wheat as possible; and all the San Pasquale people went early
+to ploughing new fields,--all but Alessandro.
+
+"If I reap all I have, I will thank the saints," he said. "I will plough
+no more land for the robbers." But after his fields were all planted,
+and the beneficent rains still kept on, and the hills all along the
+valley wall began to turn green earlier than ever before was known,
+he said to Ramona one morning, "I think I will make one more field of
+wheat. There will be a great yield this year. Maybe we will be left
+unmolested till the harvest is over."
+
+"Oh, yes, and for many more harvests, dear Alessandro!" said Ramona,
+cheerily. "You are always looking on the black side."
+
+"There is no other but the black side, Majella," he replied. "Strain my
+eyes as I may, on all sides all is black. You will see. Never any more
+harvests in San Pasquale for us, after this. If we get this, we are
+lucky. I have seen the white men riding up and down in the valley, and
+I found some of their cursed bits of wood with figures on them set up
+on my land the other day; and I pulled them up and burned them to ashes.
+But I will plough one more field this week; though, I know not why it
+is, my thoughts go against it even now. But I will do it; and I will not
+come home till night, Majella, for the field is too far to go and come
+twice. I shall be the whole day ploughing." So saying, he stooped and
+kissed the baby, and then kissing Ramona, went out.
+
+Ramona stood at the door and watched him as he harnessed Benito and Baba
+to the plough. He did not once look back at her; his face seemed full of
+thought, his hands acting as it were mechanically. After he had gone
+a few rods from the house, he stopped, stood still for some minutes
+meditatingly, then went on irresolutely, halted again, but finally went
+on, and disappeared from sight among the low foothills to the east.
+Sighing deeply, Ramona turned back to her work. But her heart was too
+disquieted. She could not keep back the tears.
+
+"How changed is Alessandro!" she thought. "It terrifies me to see him
+thus. I will tell the Blessed Virgin about it;" and kneeling before the
+shrine, she prayed fervently and long. She rose comforted, and
+drawing the baby's cradle out into the veranda, seated herself at her
+embroidery. Her skill with her needle had proved a not inconsiderable
+source of income, her fine lace-work being always taken by San Diego
+merchants, and at fairly good prices.
+
+It seemed to her only a short time that she had been sitting thus, when,
+glancing up at the sun, she saw it was near noon; at the same moment
+she saw Alessandro approaching, with the horses. In dismay, she thought,
+"There is no dinner! He said he would not come!" and springing up, was
+about to run to meet him, when she observed that he was not alone.
+A short, thick-set man was walking by his side; they were talking
+earnestly. It was a white man. What did it bode? Presently they stopped.
+She saw Alessandro lift his hand and point to the house, then to the
+tule sheds in the rear. He seemed to be talking excitedly; the white
+man also; they were both speaking at once. Ramona shivered with fear.
+Motionless she stood, straining eye and ear; she could hear nothing,
+but the gestures told much. Had it come,--the thing Alessandro had said
+would come? Were they to be driven out,--driven out this very day, when
+the Virgin had only just now seemed to promise her help and protection?
+
+The baby stirred, waked, began to cry. Catching the child up to her
+breast, she stilled her by convulsive caresses. Clasping her tight in
+her arms, she walked a few steps towards Alessandro, who, seeing her,
+made an imperative gesture to her to return. Sick at heart, she went
+back to the veranda and sat down to wait.
+
+In a few moments she saw the white man counting out money into
+Alessandro's hand; then he turned and walked away, Alessandro still
+standing as if rooted to the spot, gazing into the palm of his hand,
+Benito and Baba slowly walking away from him unnoticed; at last he
+seemed to rouse himself as from a trance, and picking up the horses'
+reins, came slowly toward her. Again she started to meet him; again
+he made the same authoritative gesture to her to return; and again she
+seated herself, trembling in every nerve of her body. Ramona was now
+sometimes afraid of Alessandro. When these fierce glooms seized him,
+she dreaded, she knew not what. He seemed no more the Alessandro she had
+loved.
+
+Deliberately, lingeringly, he unharnessed the horses and put them in
+the corral. Then still more deliberately, lingeringly, he walked to the
+house; walked, without speaking, past Ramona, into the door. A lurid
+spot on each cheek showed burning red through the bronze of his skin.
+His eyes glittered. In silence Ramona followed him, and saw him draw
+from his pocket a handful of gold-pieces, fling them on the table, and
+burst into a laugh more terrible than any weeping,--a laugh which wrung
+from her instantly, involuntarily, the cry, "Oh, my Alessandro! my
+Alessandro! What is it? Are you mad?"
+
+"No, my sweet Majel," he exclaimed, turning to her, and flinging his
+arms round her and the child together, drawing them so close to his
+breast that the embrace hurt,--"no, I am not mad; but I think I shall
+soon be! What is that gold? The price of this house, Majel, and of the
+fields,--of all that was ours in San Pasquale! To-morrow we will go out
+into the world again. I will see if I can find a place the Americans do
+not want!"
+
+It did not take many words to tell the story. Alessandro had not been
+ploughing more than an hour, when, hearing a strange sound, he looked
+up and saw a man unloading lumber a few rods off'. Alessandro stopped
+midway in the furrow and watched him. The man also watched Alessandro.
+Presently he came toward him, and said roughly, "Look here! Be off, will
+you? This is my land. I'm going to build a house here."
+
+Alessandro had replied, "This was my land yesterday. How comes it yours
+to-day?"
+
+Something in the wording of this answer, or something in Alessandro's
+tone and bearing, smote the man's conscience, or heart, or what stood
+to him in the place of conscience and heart, and he said: "Come, now, my
+good fellow, you look like a reasonable kind of a fellow; you just clear
+out, will you, and not make me any trouble. You see the land's mine.
+I've got all this land round here;" and he waved his arm, describing a
+circle; "three hundred and twenty acres, me and my brother together, and
+we're coming in here to settle. We got our papers from Washington last
+week. It's all right, and you may just as well go peaceably, as make a
+fuss about it. Don't you see?"
+
+Yes, Alessandro saw. He had been seeing this precise thing for months.
+Many times, in his dreams and in his waking thoughts, he had lived over
+scenes similar to this. An almost preternatural calm and wisdom seemed
+to be given him now.
+
+"Yes, I see, Senor," he said. "I am not surprised. I knew it would come;
+but I hoped it would not be till after harvest. I will not give you any
+trouble, Senor, because I cannot. If I could, I would. But I have
+heard all about the new law which gives all the Indians' lands to the
+Americans. We cannot help ourselves. But it is very hard, Senor." He
+paused.
+
+The man, confused and embarrassed, astonished beyond expression at
+being met in this way by an Indian, did not find words come ready to his
+tongue. "Of course, I know it does seem a little rough on fellows like
+you, that are industrious, and have done some work on the land. But you
+see the land's in the market; I've paid my money for it."
+
+"The Senor is going to build a house?" asked Alessandro.
+
+"Yes," the man answered. "I've got my family in San Diego, and I want to
+get them settled as soon as I can. My wife won't feel comfortable till
+she's in her own house. We're from the States, and she's been used to
+having everything comfortable."
+
+"I have a wife and child, Senor," said Alessandro, still in the same
+calm, deliberate tone; "and we have a very good house of two rooms. It
+would save the Senor's building, if he would buy mine."
+
+"How far is it?" said the man. "I can't tell exactly where the
+boundaries of my land are, for the stakes we set have been pulled up."
+
+"Yes, Senor, I pulled them up and burned them. They were on my land,"
+replied Alessandro. "My house is farther west than your stakes; and I
+have large wheat-fields there, too,--many acres, Senor, all planted."
+
+Here was a chance, indeed. The man's eyes gleamed. He would do the
+handsome thing. He would give this fellow something for his house and
+wheat-crops. First he would see the house, however; and it was for
+that purpose he had walked back with Alessandro, When he saw the neat
+whitewashed adobe, with its broad veranda, the sheds and corrals all
+in good order, he instantly resolved to get possession of them by fair
+means or foul.
+
+"There will be three hundred dollars' worth of wheat in July, Senor, you
+can see for yourself; and a house so good as that, you cannot build for
+less than one hundred dollars. What will you give me for them?"
+
+"I suppose I can have them without paying you for them, if I choose,"
+said the man, insolently.
+
+"No, Senor," replied Alessandro.
+
+"What's to hinder, then, I'd like to know!" in a brutal sneer. "You
+haven't got any rights here, whatever, according to law."
+
+"I shall hinder, Senor," replied Alessandro. "I shall burn down the
+sheds and corrals, tear down the house; and before a blade of the wheat
+is reaped, I will burn that." Still in the same calm tone.
+
+"What'll you take?" said the man, sullenly.
+
+"Two hundred dollars," replied Alessandro.
+
+"Well, leave your plough and wagon, and I'll give it to you," said the
+man; "and a big fool I am, too. Well laughed at, I'll be, do you know
+it, for buying out an Indian!"
+
+"The wagon, Senor, cost me one hundred and thirty dollars in San Diego.
+You cannot buy one so good for less. I will not sell it. I need it to
+take away my things in. The plough you may have. That is worth twenty."
+
+"I'll do it," said the man; and pulling out a heavy buckskin pouch, he
+counted out into Alessandro's hand two hundred dollars in gold.
+
+"Is that all right?" he said, as he put down the last piece.
+
+"That is the sum I said, Senor," replied Alessandro. "Tomorrow, at noon,
+you can come into the house."
+
+"Where will you go?" asked the man, again slightly touched by
+Alessandro's manner. "Why don't you stay round here? I expect you could
+get work enough; there are a lot of farmers coming in here; they'll want
+hands."
+
+A fierce torrent of words sprang to Alessandro's lips, but he choked
+them back. "I do not know where I shall go, but I will not stay here,"
+he said; and that ended the interview.
+
+"I don't know as I blame him a mite for feeling that way," thought the
+man from the States, as he walked slowly back to his pile of lumber. "I
+expect I should feel just so myself."
+
+Almost before Alessandro had finished this tale, he began to move
+about the room, taking down, folding up, opening and shutting lids; his
+restlessness was terrible to see. "By sunrise, I would like to be off,"
+he said. "It is like death, to be in the house which is no longer ours."
+Ramona had spoken no words since her first cry on hearing that terrible
+laugh. She was like one stricken dumb. The shock was greater to her than
+to Alessandro. He had lived with it ever present in his thoughts for a
+year. She had always hoped. But far more dreadful than the loss of her
+home, was the anguish of seeing, hearing, the changed face, changed
+voice, of Alessandro. Almost this swallowed up the other. She obeyed
+him mechanically, working faster and faster as he grew more and more
+feverish in his haste. Before sundown the little house was dismantled;
+everything, except the bed and the stove, packed in the big wagon.
+
+"Now, we must cook food for the journey," said Alessandro.
+
+"Where are we going?" said the weeping Ramona.
+
+"Where?" ejaculated Alessandro, so scornfully that it sounded like
+impatience with Ramona, and made her tears flow afresh. "Where? I know
+not, Majella! Into the mountains, where the white men come not! At
+sunrise we will start."
+
+Ramona wished to say good-by to their friends. There were women in the
+village that she tenderly loved. But Alessandro was unwilling. "There
+will be weeping and crying, Majella; I pray you do not speak to one. Why
+should we have more tears? Let us disappear. I will say all to Ysidro.
+He will tell them."
+
+This was a sore grief to Ramona. In her heart she rebelled against it,
+as she had never yet rebelled against an act of Alessandro's; but she
+could not distress him. Was not his burden heavy enough now?
+
+Without a word of farewell to any one, they set off in the gray dawn,
+before a creature was stirring in the village,--the wagon piled high;
+Ramona, her baby in her arms, in front; Alessandro walking. The load was
+heavy. Benito and Baba walked slowly. Capitan, unhappy, looking first at
+Ramona's face, then at Alessandro's, walked dispiritedly by their side.
+He knew all was wrong.
+
+As Alessandro turned the horses into a faintly marked road leading in a
+northeasterly direction, Ramona said with a sob, "Where does this road
+lead, Alessandro?"
+
+"To San Jacinto," he said. "San Jacinto Mountain. Do not look back,
+Majella! Do not look back!" he cried, as he saw Ramona, with streaming
+eyes, gazing back towards San Pasquale. "Do not look back! It is gone!
+Pray to the saints now, Majella! Pray! Pray!"
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+THE Senora Moreno was dying. It had been a sad two years in the Moreno
+house. After the first excitement following Ramona's departure had
+died away, things had settled down in a surface similitude of their old
+routine. But nothing was really the same. No one was so happy as before.
+Juan Canito was heart-broken. There had been set over him the very
+Mexican whose coming to the place he had dreaded. The sheep had not done
+well; there had been a drought; many had died of hunger,--a thing for
+which the new Mexican overseer was not to blame, though it pleased Juan
+to hold him so, and to say from morning till night that if his leg had
+not been broken, or if the lad Alessandro had been there, the wool-crop
+would have been as big as ever. Not one of the servants liked this
+Mexican; he had a sorry time of it, poor fellow; each man and woman on
+the place had or fancied some reason for being set against him; some
+from sympathy with Juan Can, some from idleness and general impatience;
+Margarita, most of all, because he was not Alessandro. Margarita,
+between remorse about her young mistress and pique and disappointment
+about Alessandro, had become a very unhappy girl; and her mother,
+instead of comforting or soothing her, added to her misery by
+continually bemoaning Ramona's fate. The void that Ramona had left in
+the whole household seemed an irreparable one; nothing came to fill it;
+there was no forgetting; every day her name was mentioned by some one;
+mentioned with bated breath, fearful conjecture, compassion, and regret.
+Where had she vanished? Had she indeed gone to the convent, as she said,
+or had she fled with Alessandro?
+
+Margarita would have given her right hand to know. Only Juan Can felt
+sure. Very well Juan Can knew that nobody but Alessandro had the wit and
+the power over Baba to lure him out of that corral, "and never a rail
+out of its place." And the saddle, too! Ay, the smart lad! He had done
+the best he could for the Senorita; but, Holy Virgin! what had got into
+the Senorita to run off like that, with an Indian,--even Alessandro!
+The fiends had bewitched her. Tirelessly Juan Can questioned every
+traveller, every wandering herder he saw. No one knew anything of
+Alessandro, beyond the fact that all the Temecula Indians had been
+driven out of their village, and that there was now not an Indian in the
+valley. There was a rumor that Alessandro and his father had both
+died; but no one knew anything certainly. The Temecula Indians had
+disappeared, that was all there was of it,--disappeared, like any wild
+creatures, foxes or coyotes, hunted down, driven out; the valley was rid
+of them. But the Senorita! She was not with these fugitives. That could
+not be! Heaven forbid!
+
+"If I'd my legs, I'd go and see for myself." said Juan Can. "It would
+be some comfort to know even the worst. Perdition take the Senora, who
+drove her to it! Ay, drove her to it! That's what I say, Luigo." In some
+of his most venturesome wrathy moments he would say: "There's none
+of you know the truth about the Senorita but me! It's a hard hand the
+Senora's reared her with, from the first. She's a wonderful woman, our
+Senora! She gets power over one."
+
+But the Senora's power was shaken now. More changed than all else in the
+changed Moreno household, was the relation between the Senora Moreno and
+her son Felipe. On the morning after Ramona's disappearance, words had
+been spoken by each which neither would ever forget. In fact, the Senora
+believed that it was of them she was dying, and perhaps that was not far
+from the truth; the reason that forces could no longer rally in her to
+repel disease, lying no doubt largely in the fact that to live seemed no
+longer to her desirable.
+
+Felipe had found the note Ramona had laid on his bed. Before it was yet
+dawn he had waked, and tossing uneasily under the light covering had
+heard the rustle of the paper, and knowing instinctively that it was
+from Ramona, had risen instantly to make sure of it. Before his mother
+opened her window, he had read it. He felt like one bereft of his senses
+as he read. Gone! Gone with Alessandro! Stolen away like a thief in the
+night, his dear, sweet little sister! Ah, what a cruel shame! Scales
+seemed to drop from Felipe's eyes as he lay motionless, thinking of
+it. A shame! a cruel shame! And he and his mother were the ones who had
+brought it on Ramona's head, and on the house of Moreno. Felipe felt
+as if he had been under a spell all along, not to have realized this.
+"That's what I told my mother!" he groaned,--"that it drove her to
+running away! Oh, my sweet Ramona! what will become of her? I will go
+after them, and bring them back;" and Felipe rose, and hastily dressing
+himself, ran down the veranda steps, to gain a little more time to
+think. He returned shortly, to meet his mother standing in the doorway,
+with pale, affrighted face.
+
+"Felipe!" she cried, "Ramona is not here."
+
+"I know it," he replied in an angry tone. "That is what I told you we
+should do,--drive her to running away with Alessandro!"
+
+"With Alessandro!" interrupted the Senora.
+
+"Yes," continued Felipe,--"with Alessandro, the Indian! Perhaps you
+think it is less disgrace to the names of Ortegna and Moreno to have her
+run away with him, than to be married to him here under our roof! I
+do not! Curse the day, I say, when I ever lent myself to breaking the
+girl's heart! I am going after them, to fetch them back!"
+
+If the skies had opened and rained fire, the Senora had hardly less
+quailed and wondered than she did at these words; but even for fire from
+the skies she would not surrender till she must.
+
+"How know you that it is with Alessandro?" she said.
+
+"Because she has written it here!" cried Felipe, defiantly holding
+up his little note. "She left this, her good-by to me. Bless her! She
+writes like a saint, to thank me for all my goodness to her,--I, who
+drove her to steal out of my house like a thief!"
+
+The phrase, "my house," smote the Senora's ear like a note from some
+other sphere, which indeed it was,--from the new world into which Felipe
+had been in an hour born. Her cheeks flushed, and she opened her lips to
+reply; but before she had uttered a word, Luigo came running round
+the corner, Juan Can hobbling after him at a miraculous pace on his
+crutches. "Senor Felipe! Senor Felipe! Oh, Senora!" they cried. "Thieves
+have been here in the night! Baba is gone,--Baba, and the Senorita's
+saddle."
+
+A malicious smile broke over the Senora's countenance, and turning to
+Felipe, she said in a tone--what a tone it was! Felipe felt as if
+he must put his hands to his ears to shut it out; Felipe would never
+forget,--"As you were saying, like a thief in the night!"
+
+With a swifter and more energetic movement than any had ever before seen
+Senor Felipe make, he stepped forward, saying in an undertone to his
+mother, "For God's sake, mother, not a word before the men!--What is
+that you say, Luigo? Baba gone? We must see to our corral. I will come
+down, after breakfast, and look at it;" and turning his back on them, he
+drew his mother by a firm grasp, she could not resist, into the house.
+
+She gazed at him in sheer, dumb wonder.
+
+"Ay, mother," he said, "you may well look thus in wonder; I have been no
+man, to let my foster-sister, I care not what blood were in her veins,
+be driven to this pass! I will set out this day, and bring her back."
+
+"The day you do that, then, I lie in this house dead!" retorted the
+Senora, at white heat. "You may rear as many Indian families as you
+please under the Moreno roof, I will at least have my grave!" In spite
+of her anger, grief convulsed her; and in another second she had
+burst into tears, and sunk helpless and trembling into a chair. No
+counterfeiting now. No pretences. The Senora Moreno's heart broke within
+her, when those words passed her lips to her adored Felipe. At the
+sight, Felipe flung himself on his knees before her; he kissed the aged
+hands as they lay trembling in her lap. "Mother mia," he cried, "you
+will break my heart if you speak like that! Oh, why, why do you command
+me to do what a man may not? I would die for you, my mother; but how can
+I see my sister a homeless wanderer in the wilderness?"
+
+"I suppose the man Alessandro has something he calls a home," said the
+Senora, regaining herself a little. "Had they no plans? Spoke she not in
+her letter of what they would do?"
+
+"Only that they would go to Father Salvierderra first," he replied.
+
+"Ah!" The Senora reflected. At first startled, her second thought was
+that this would be the best possible thing which could happen. "Father
+Salvierderra will counsel them what to do," she said. "He could no doubt
+establish them in Santa Barbara in some way. My son, when you reflect,
+you will see the impossibility of bringing them here. Help them in any
+way you like, but do not bring them here." She paused. "Not until I am
+dead, Felipe! It will not be long."
+
+Felipe bowed his head in his mother's lap. She laid her hands on his
+hair, and stroked it with passionate tenderness. "My Felipe!" she said.
+"It was a cruel fate to rob me of you at the last!"
+
+"Mother! mother!" he cried in anguish. "I am yours,--wholly, devotedly
+yours! Why do you torture me thus?"
+
+"I will not torture you more," she said wearily, in a feeble tone. "I
+ask only one thing of you; let me never hear again the name of that
+wretched girl, who has brought all this woe on our house; let her name
+never be spoken on this place by man, woman, or child. Like a thief in
+the night! Ay, a horse-thief!"
+
+Felipe sprang to his feet.
+
+"Mother." he said, "Baba was Ramona's own; I myself gave him to her as
+soon as he was born!"
+
+The Senora made no reply. She had fainted. Calling the maids, in terror
+and sorrow Felipe bore her to her bed, and she did not leave it for many
+days. She seemed hovering between life and death. Felipe watched over
+her as a lover might; her great mournful eyes followed his every motion.
+She spoke little, partly because of physical weakness, partly from
+despair. The Senora had got her death-blow. She would die hard. It would
+take long. Yet she was dying, and she knew it.
+
+Felipe did not know it. When he saw her going about again, with a step
+only a little slower than before, and with a countenance not so much
+changed as he had feared, he thought she would be well again, after a
+time. And now he would go in search of Ramona. How he hoped he should
+find them in Santa Barbara! He must leave them there, or wherever he
+should find them; never again would he for a moment contemplate the
+possibility of bringing them home with him. But he would see them; help
+them, if need be. Ramona should not feel herself an outcast, so long as
+he lived.
+
+When he said, agitatedly, to his mother, one night, "You are so
+strong now, mother, I think I will take a journey; I will not be away
+long,--not over a week," she understood, and with a deep sigh replied:
+"I am not strong; but I am as strong as I shall ever be. If the journey
+must be taken, it is as well done now."
+
+How was the Senora changed!
+
+"It must be, mother," said Felipe, "or I would not leave you. I will set
+off before sunrise, so I will say farewell tonight."
+
+But in the morning, at his first step, his mother's window opened, and
+there she stood, wan, speechless, looking at him. "You must go, my son?"
+she asked at last.
+
+"I must, mother!" and Felipe threw his arms around her, and kissed her
+again and again. "Dearest mother! Do smile! Can you not?"
+
+"No, my son, I cannot. Farewell. The saints keep you. Farewell." And she
+turned, that she might not see him go.
+
+Felipe rode away with a sad heart, but his purpose did not falter.
+Following straight down the river road to the sea, he then kept up along
+the coast, asking here and there, cautiously, if persons answering to
+the description of Alessandro and Ramona had been seen. No one had seen
+any such persons.
+
+When, on the night of the second day, he rode up to the Santa Barbara
+Mission, the first figure he saw was the venerable Father Salvierderra
+sitting in the corridor. As Felipe approached, the old man's face beamed
+with pleasure, and he came forward totteringly, leaning on a staff in
+each hand. "Welcome, my son!" he said. "Are all well? You find me very
+feeble just now; my legs are failing me sorely this autumn."
+
+Dismay seized on Felipe at the Father's first words. He would not have
+spoken thus, had he seen Ramona. Barely replying to the greeting, Felipe
+exclaimed: "Father, I come seeking Ramona. Has she not been with you?"
+
+Father Salvierderra's face was reply to the question. "Ramona!" he
+cried. "Seeking Ramona! What has befallen the blessed child?"
+
+It was a bitter story for Felipe to tell; but he told it, sparing
+himself no shame. He would have suffered less in the telling, had he
+known how well Father Salvierderra understood his mother's character,
+and her almost unlimited power over all persons around her. Father
+Salvierderra was not shocked at the news of Ramona's attachment for
+Alessandro. He regretted it, but he did not think it shame, as the
+Senora had done. As Felipe talked with him, he perceived even more
+clearly how bitter and unjust his mother had been to Alessandro.
+
+"He is a noble young man," said Father Salvierderra. "His father was one
+of the most trusted of Father Peyri's assistants. You must find them,
+Felipe. I wonder much they did not come to me. Perhaps they may yet
+come. When you find them, bear them my blessing, and say that I wish
+they would come hither. I would like to give them my blessing before
+I die. Felipe, I shall never leave Santa Barbara again. My time draws
+near."
+
+Felipe was so full of impatience to continue his search, that he hardly
+listened to the Father's words. "I will not tarry," he said. "I cannot
+rest till I find her. I will ride back as far as Ventura to-night."
+
+"You will send me word by a messenger, when you find them," said the
+Father. "God grant no harm has befallen them. I will pray for them,
+Felipe;" and he tottered into the church.
+
+Felipe's thoughts, as he retraced his road, were full of bewilderment
+and pain. He was wholly at loss to conjecture what course Alessandro and
+Ramona had taken, or what could have led them to abandon their intention
+of going to Father Salvierderra. Temecula seemed the only place, now, to
+look for them; and yet from Temecula Felipe had heard, only a few days
+before leaving home, that there was not an Indian left in the valley.
+But he could at least learn there where the Indians had gone. Poor as
+the clew seemed, it was all he had. Cruelly Felipe urged his horse
+on his return journey. He grudged an hour's rest to himself or to the
+beast; and before he reached the head of the Temecula canon the creature
+was near spent. At the steepest part he jumped off and walked, to save
+her strength. As he was toiling slowly up a narrow, rocky pass, he
+suddenly saw an Indian's head peering over the ledge. He made signs
+to him to come down. The Indian turned his head, and spoke to some one
+behind; one after another a score of figures rose. They made signs to
+Felipe to come up. "Poor things!" he thought; "they are afraid." He
+shouted to them that his horse was too tired to climb that wall; but if
+they would come down, he would give them money, holding up a gold-piece.
+They consulted among themselves; presently they began slowly descending,
+still halting at intervals, and looking suspiciously at him. He held
+up the gold again, and beckoned. As soon as they could see his face
+distinctly, they broke into a run. That was no enemy's face.
+
+Only one of the number could speak Spanish. On hearing this man's reply
+to Felipe's first question, a woman, who had listened sharply and caught
+the word Alessandro, came forward, and spoke rapidly in the Indian
+tongue.
+
+"This woman has seen Alessandro," said the man.
+
+"Where?" said Felipe, breathlessly.
+
+"In Temecula, two weeks ago," he said.
+
+"Ask her if he had any one with him," said Felipe.
+
+"No," said the woman. "He was alone."
+
+A convulsion passed over Felipe's face. "Alone!" What did this mean! He
+reflected. The woman watched him. "Is she sure he was alone; there was
+no one with him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Was he riding a big black horse?"
+
+"No, a white horse," answered the woman, promptly. "A small white
+horse."
+
+It was Carmena, every nerve of her loyal nature on the alert to baffle
+this pursuer of Alessandro and Ramona. Again Felipe reflected. "Ask her
+if she saw him for any length of time; how long she saw him."
+
+"All night," he answered. "He spent the night where she did."
+
+Felipe despaired. "Does she know where he is now?" he asked.
+
+"He was going to San Luis Obispo, to go in a ship to Monterey."
+
+"What to do?"
+
+"She does not know."
+
+"Did he say when he would come back?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Never! He said he would never set foot in Temecula again."
+
+"Does she know him well?"
+
+"As well as her own brother."
+
+What more could Felipe ask? With a groan, wrung from the very depths of
+his heart, he tossed the man a gold-piece; another to the woman. "I am
+sorry," he said. "Alessandro was my friend. I wanted to see him;" and he
+rode away, Carmena's eyes following him with a covert gleam of triumph.
+
+When these last words of his were interpreted to her, she started, made
+as if she would run after him, but checked herself. "No," she thought.
+"It may be a lie. He may be an enemy, for all that. I will not tell.
+Alessandro wished not to be found. I will not tell."
+
+And thus vanished the last chance of succor for Ramona; vanished in a
+moment; blown like a thistledown on a chance breath,--the breath of a
+loyal, loving friend, speaking a lie to save her.
+
+Distraught with grief, Felipe returned home. Ramona had been very
+ill when she left home. Had she died, and been buried by the lonely,
+sorrowing Alessandro? And was that the reason Alessandro was going away
+to the North, never to return? Fool that he was, to have shrunk from
+speaking Ramona's name to the Indians! He would return, and ask again.
+As soon as he had seen his mother, he would set off again, and never
+cease searching till he had found either Ramona or her grave. But when
+Felipe entered his mother's presence, his first look in her face told
+him that he would not leave her side again until he had laid her at rest
+in the tomb.
+
+"Thank God! you have come, Felipe," she said in a feeble voice. "I had
+begun to fear you would not come in time to say farewell to me. I am
+going to leave you, my son;" and the tears rolled down her cheeks.
+
+Though she no longer wished to live, neither did she wish to die,--this
+poor, proud, passionate, defeated, bereft Senora. All the consolations
+of her religion seemed to fail her. She had prayed incessantly, but got
+no peace. She fixed her imploring eyes on the Virgin's face and on the
+saints; but all seemed to her to wear a forbidding look. "If Father
+Salvierderra would only come!" she groaned. "He could give me peace. If
+only I can live till he comes again!"
+
+When Felipe told her of the old man's feeble state, and that he would
+never again make the journey, she turned her face to the wall and wept.
+Not only for her own soul's help did she wish to see him: she wished
+to put into his hands the Ortegna jewels. What would become of them? To
+whom should she transfer the charge? Was there a secular priest
+within reach that she could trust? When her sister had said, in her
+instructions, "the Church," she meant, as the Senora Moreno well knew,
+the Franciscans. The Senora dared not consult Felipe; yet she must. Day
+by day these fretting anxieties and perplexities wasted her strength,
+and her fever grew higher and higher. She asked no questions as to the
+result of Felipe's journey, and he dared not mention Ramona's name. At
+last he could bear it no longer, and one day said, "Mother, I found no
+trace of Ramona. I have not the least idea where she is. The Father had
+not seen her or heard of her. I fear she is dead."
+
+"Better so," was the Senora's sole reply; and she fell again into still
+deeper, more perplexed thought about the hidden treasure. Each day she
+resolved, "To-morrow I will tell Felipe;" and when to-morrow came,
+she put it off again. Finally she decided not to do it till she found
+herself dying. Father Salvierderra might yet come once more, and
+then all would be well. With trembling hands she wrote him a letter,
+imploring him to be brought to her, and sent it by messenger, who was
+empowered to hire a litter and four men to bring the Father gently and
+carefully all the way. But when the messenger reached Santa Barbara,
+Father Salvierderra was too feeble to be moved; too feeble even
+to write. He could write only by amanuensis, and wrote, therefore,
+guardedly, sending her his blessing, and saying that he hoped her
+foster-child might yet be restored to the keeping of her friends. The
+Father had been in sore straits of mind, as month after month had passed
+without tidings of his "blessed child."
+
+Soon after this came the news that the Father was dead. This dealt the
+Senora a terrible blow. She never left her bed after it. And so the year
+had worn on; and Felipe, mourning over his sinking and failing mother,
+and haunted by terrible fears about the lost Ramona, had been tortured
+indeed.
+
+But the end drew near, now. The Senora was plainly dying. The Ventura
+doctor had left off coming, saying that he could do no more; nothing
+remained but to give her what ease was possible; in a day or two more
+all would be over. Felipe hardly left her bedside. Rarely was mother so
+loved and nursed by son. No daughter could have shown more tenderness
+and devotion. In the close relation and affection of these last days,
+the sense of alienation and antagonism faded from both their hearts.
+
+"My adorable Felipe!" she would murmur. "What a son hast thou been!"
+And, "My beloved mother! How shall I give you up?" Felipe would reply,
+bowing his head on her hands,--so wasted now, so white, so weak; those
+hands which had been cruel and strong little more than one short year
+ago. Ah, no one could refuse to forgive the Senora now! The gentle
+Ramona, had she seen her, had wept tears of pity. Her eyes wore at times
+a look almost of terror. It was the secret. How should she speak it?
+What would Felipe say? At last the moment came. She had been with
+difficulty roused from a long fainting; one more such would be the
+last, she knew,--knew even better than those around her. As she regained
+consciousness, she gasped, "Felipe! Alone!"
+
+He understood, and waved the rest away.
+
+"Alone!" she said again, turning her eyes to the door.
+
+"Leave the room," said Felipe; "all--wait outside;" and he closed the
+door on them. Even then the Senora hesitated. Almost was she ready to
+go out of life leaving the hidden treasure to its chance of discovery,
+rather than with her own lips reveal to Felipe what she saw now, saw
+with the terrible, relentless clear-sightedness of death, would make
+him, even after she was in her grave, reproach her in his thoughts.
+
+But she dared not withhold it. It must be said. Pointing to the statue
+of Saint Catharine, whose face seemed, she thought, to frown unforgiving
+upon her, she said, "Felipe--behind that statue--look!"
+
+Felipe thought her delirious, and said tenderly, "Nothing is there,
+dearest mother. Be calm. I am here."
+
+New terror seized the dying woman. Was she to be forced to carry
+the secret to the grave? to be denied this late avowal? "No! no!
+Felipe--there is a door there--secret door. Look! Open! I must tell
+you!"
+
+Hastily Felipe moved the statue. There was indeed the door, as she had
+said.
+
+"Do not tell me now, mother dear. Wait till you are stronger," he said.
+As he spoke, he turned, and saw, with alarm, his mother sitting upright
+in the bed, her right arm outstretched, her hand pointing to the door,
+her eyes in a glassy stare, her face convulsed. Before a cry could pass
+his lips, she had fallen back. The Senora Moreno was dead.
+
+At Felipe's cry, the women waiting in the hall hurried in, wailing
+aloud as their first glance showed them all was over. In the confusion,
+Felipe, with a pale, set face, pushed the statue back into its place.
+Even then a premonition of horror swept over him. What was he, the son,
+to find behind that secret door, at sight of which his mother had died
+with that look of anguished terror in her eyes? All through the sad
+duties of the next four days Felipe was conscious of the undercurrent
+of this premonition. The funeral ceremonies were impressive. The little
+chapel could not hold the quarter part of those who came, from far and
+near. Everybody wished to do honor to the Senora Moreno. A priest from
+Ventura and one from San Luis Obispo were there. When all was done, they
+bore the Senora to the little graveyard on the hillside, and laid her by
+the side of her husband and her children; silent and still at last,
+the restless, passionate, proud, sad heart! When, the night after the
+funeral, the servants saw Senor Felipe going into his mother's room,
+they shuddered, and whispered, "Oh, he must not! He will break his
+heart, Senor Felipe! How he loved her!"
+
+Old Marda ventured to follow him, and at the threshold said: "Dear Senor
+Felipe, do not! It is not good to go there! Come away!"
+
+But he put her gently by, saying, "I would rather be here, good Marda;"
+and went in and locked the door.
+
+It was past midnight when he came out. His face was stern. He had buried
+his mother again. Well might the Senora have dreaded to tell to Felipe
+the tale of the Ortegna treasure. Until he reached the bottom of the
+jewel-box, and found the Senora Ortegna's letter to his mother, he was
+in entire bewilderment at all he saw. After he had read this letter, he
+sat motionless for a long time, his head buried in his hands. His soul
+was wrung.
+
+"And she thought that shame, and not this!" he said bitterly.
+
+But one thing remained for Felipe now, If Ramona lived, he would find
+her, and restore to her this her rightful property. If she were dead, it
+must go to the Santa Barbara College.
+
+"Surely my mother must have intended to give it to the Church," he said.
+"But why keep it all this time? It is this that has killed her. Oh,
+shame! oh, disgrace!" From the grave in which Felipe had buried his
+mother now, was no resurrection.
+
+Replacing everything as before in the safe hiding-place, he sat down and
+wrote a letter to the Superior of the Santa Barbara College, telling
+him of the existence of these valuables, which in certain contingencies
+would belong to the College. Early in the morning he gave this letter to
+Juan Canito, saying: "I am going away, Juan, on a journey. If anything
+happens to me, and I do not return, send this letter by trusty messenger
+to Santa Barbara."
+
+"Will you be long away, Senor Felipe?" asked the old man, piteously.
+
+"I cannot tell, Juan," replied Felipe. "It may be only a short time; it
+may be long. I leave everything in your care. You will do all according
+to your best judgment, I know. I will say to all that I have left you in
+charge."
+
+"Thanks, Senor Felipe! Thanks!" exclaimed Juan, happier than he had been
+for two years. "Indeed, you may trust me! From the time you were a boy
+till now, I have had no thought except for your house."
+
+Even in heaven the Senora Moreno had felt woe as if in hell, had she
+known the thoughts with which her Felipe galloped this morning out of
+the gateway through which, only the day before, he had walked weeping
+behind her body borne to burial.
+
+"And she thought this no shame to the house of Moreno!" he said. "My
+God!"
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+DURING the first day of Ramona's and Alessandro's sad journey they
+scarcely spoke. Alessandro walked at the horses' heads, his face sunk on
+his breast, his eyes fixed on the ground. Ramona watched him in anxious
+fear. Even the baby's voice and cooing laugh won from him no response.
+After they were camped for the night, she said, "Dear Alessandro, will
+you not tell me where we are going?"
+
+In spite of her gentleness, there was a shade of wounded feeling in her
+tone. Alessandro flung himself on his knees before her, and cried: "My
+Majella! my Majella! it seems to me I am going mad! I cannot tell what
+to do. I do not know what I think; all my thoughts seem whirling round
+as leaves do in brooks in the time of the spring rains. Do you think I
+can be going mad? It was enough to make me!"
+
+Ramona, her own heart wrung with fear, soothed him as best she could.
+"Dear Alessandro," she said, "let us go to Los Angeles, and not live
+with the Indians any more. You could get work there. You could play at
+dances sometimes; there must be plenty of work. I could get more sewing
+to do, too. It would be better, I think."
+
+He looked horror-stricken at the thought. "Go live among the white
+people!" he cried. "What does Majella think would become of one Indian,
+or two, alone among whites? If they will come to our villages and drive
+us out a hundred at a time, what would they do to one man alone? Oh,
+Majella is foolish!"
+
+"But there are many of your people at work for whites at San Bernardino
+and other places," she persisted. "Why could not we do as they do?"
+
+"Yes," he said bitterly, "at work for whites; so they are, Majella has
+not seen. No man will pay an Indian but half wages; even long ago, when
+the Fathers were not all gone, and tried to help the Indians, my father
+has told me that it was the way only to pay an Indian one-half that a
+white man or a Mexican had. It was the Mexicans, too, did that, Majella.
+And now they pay the Indians in money sometimes, half wages; sometimes
+in bad flour, or things he does not want; sometimes in whiskey; and if
+he will not take it, and asks for his money, they laugh, and tell him to
+go, then. One man in San Bernardino last year, when an Indian would not
+take a bottle of sour wine for pay for a day's work, shot him in the
+cheek with his pistol, and told him to mind how he was insolent any
+more! Oh, Majella, do not ask me to go work in the towns! I should kill
+some man, Majella, if I saw things like that."
+
+Ramona shuddered, and was silent. Alessandro continued: "If Majella
+would not be afraid, I know a place, high up on the mountain, where
+no white man has ever been, or ever will be. I found it when I was
+following a bear. The beast led me up. It was his home; and I said then,
+it was a fit hiding-place for a man. There is water, and a little green
+valley. We could live there; but it would be no more than to live,, it
+is very small, the valley. Majella would be afraid?"
+
+"Yes, Alessandro, I would be afraid, all alone on a high mountain. Oh,
+do not let us go there! Try something else first, Alessandro. Is there
+no other Indian village you know?"
+
+"There is Saboba," he said, "at foot of the San Jacinto Mountain; I had
+thought of that. Some of my people went there from Temecula; but it is
+a poor little village, Majella. Majella would not like to live in it.
+Neither do I believe it will long be any safer than San Pasquale. There
+was a kind, good old man who owned all that valley,--Senor Ravallo; he
+found the village of Saboba there when he came to the country. It is one
+of the very oldest of all; he was good to all Indians, and he said they
+should never be disturbed, never. He is dead; but his three sons have
+the estate yet, and I think they would keep their father's promise to
+the Indians. But you see, to-morrow, Majella, they may die, or go back
+to Mexico, as Senor Valdez did, and then the Americans will get it, as
+they did Temecula. And there are already white men living in the valley.
+We will go that way, Majella. Majella shall see. If she says stay, we
+will stay."
+
+It was in the early afternoon that they entered the broad valley of San
+Jacinto. They entered it from the west. As they came in, though the sky
+over their heads was overcast and gray, the eastern and northeastern
+part of the valley was flooded with a strange light, at once ruddy and
+golden. It was a glorious sight. The jagged top and spurs of San Jacinto
+Mountain shone like the turrets and posterns of a citadel built of
+rubies. The glow seemed preternatural.
+
+"Behold San Jacinto!" cried Alessandro.
+
+Ramona exclaimed in delight. "It is an omen!" she said. "We are going
+into the sunlight, out of the shadow;" and she glanced back at the west,
+which was of a slaty blackness.
+
+"I like it not!" said Alessandro. "The shadow follows too fast!"
+
+Indeed it did. Even as he spoke, a fierce wind blew from the north, and
+tearing off fleeces from the black cloud, sent them in scurrying masses
+across the sky. In a moment more, snow-flakes began to fall.
+
+"Holy Virgin!" cried Alessandro. Too well he knew what it meant. He
+urged the horses, running fast beside them. It was of no use. Too much
+even for Baba and Benito to make any haste, with the heavily loaded
+wagon.
+
+"There is an old sheep-corral and a hut not over a mile farther, if we
+could but reach it!" groaned Alessandro. "Majella, you and the child
+will freeze."
+
+"She is warm on my breast," said Ramona; "but, Alessandro, what ice in
+this wind! It is like a knife at my back!"
+
+Alessandro uttered another ejaculation of dismay. The snow was fast
+thickening; already the track was covered. The wind lessened.
+
+"Thank God, that wind no longer cuts as it did," said Ramona, her teeth
+chattering, clasping the baby closer and closer.
+
+"I would rather it blew than not," said Alessandro; "it will carry the
+snow before it. A little more of this, and we cannot see, any more than
+in the night."
+
+Still thicker and faster fell the snow; the air was dense; it was, as
+Alessandro had said, worse than the darkness of night,--this strange
+opaque whiteness, thick, choking, freezing one's breath. Presently
+the rough jolting of the wagon showed that they were off the road. The
+horses stopped; refused to go on.
+
+"We are lost, if we stay here!" cried Alessandro. "Come, my Benito,
+come!" and he took him by the head, and pulled him by main force back
+into the road, and led him along. It was terrible. Ramona's heart sank
+within her. She felt her arms growing numb; how much longer could she
+hold the baby safe? She called to Alessandro. He did not hear her; the
+wind had risen again; the snow was being blown in masses; it was like
+making headway among whirling snow-drifts.
+
+"We will die," thought Ramona. "Perhaps it is as well!" And that was the
+last she knew, till she heard a shouting, and found herself being shaken
+and beaten, and heard a strange voice saying, "Sorry ter handle yer so
+rough, ma'am, but we've got ter git yer out ter the fire!"
+
+"Fire!" Were there such things as fire and warmth? Mechanically she put
+the baby into the unknown arms that were reaching up to her, and tried
+to rise from her seat; but she could not move.
+
+"Set still! set still!" said the strange voice. "I'll jest carry the
+baby ter my wife, an' come back fur you. I allowed yer couldn't git up
+on yer feet;" and the tall form disappeared. The baby, thus vigorously
+disturbed from her warm sleep, began to cry.
+
+"Thank God!" said Alessandro, at the plunging horses' heads. "The child
+is alive! Majella!" he called.
+
+"Yes, Alessandro," she answered faintly, the gusts sweeping her voice
+like a distant echo past him.
+
+It was a marvellous rescue. They had been nearer the old sheep-corral
+than Alessandro had thought; but except that other storm-beaten
+travellers had reached it before them, Alessandro had never found it.
+Just as he felt his strength failing him, and had thought to himself,
+in almost the same despairing words as Ramona, "This will end all our
+troubles," he saw a faint light to the left. Instantly he had turned the
+horses' heads towards it. The ground was rough and broken, and more than
+once he had been in danger of overturning the wagon; but he had pressed
+on, shouting at intervals for help. At last his call was answered, and
+another light appeared; this time a swinging one, coming slowly towards
+him,--a lantern, in the hand of a man, whose first words, "Wall,
+stranger, I allow yer inter trouble," were as intelligible to Alessandro
+as if they had been spoken in the purest San Luiseno dialect.
+
+Not so, to the stranger, Alessandro's grateful reply in Spanish.
+
+"Another o' these no-'count Mexicans, by thunder!" thought Jeff Hyer to
+himself. "Blamed ef I'd lived in a country all my life, ef I wouldn't
+know better'n to git caught out in such weather's this!" And as he put
+the crying babe into his wife's arms, he said half impatiently, "Ef I'd
+knowed 't wuz Mexicans, Ri, I wouldn't ev' gone out ter 'um. They're
+more ter hum 'n I am, 'n these yer tropicks."
+
+"Naow, Jeff, yer know yer wouldn't let ennythin' in shape ev a human
+creetur go perishin' past aour fire sech weather's this," replied the
+woman, as she took the baby, which recognized the motherly hand at its
+first touch, and ceased crying.
+
+"Why, yer pooty, blue-eyed little thing!" she exclaimed, as she looked
+into the baby's face. "I declar, Jos, think o' sech a mite's this bein'
+aout'n this weather. I'll jest warm up some milk for it this minnit."
+
+"Better see't th' mother fust, Ri," said Jeff, leading, half carrying,
+Ramona into the hut. "She's nigh abaout froze stiff!"
+
+But the sight of her baby safe and smiling was a better restorative for
+Ramona than anything else, and in a few moments she had fully recovered.
+It was in a strange group she found herself. On a mattress, in the
+corner of the hut, lay a young man apparently about twenty-five, whose
+bright eyes and flushed cheeks told but too plainly the story of his
+disease. The woman, tall, ungainly, her face gaunt, her hands hardened
+and wrinkled, gown ragged, shoes ragged, her dry and broken light hair
+wound in a careless, straggling knot in her neck, wisps of it flying
+over her forehead, was certainly not a prepossessing figure. Yet spite
+of her careless, unkempt condition, there was a certain gentle dignity
+in her bearing, and a kindliness in her glance, which won trust and
+warmed hearts at once. Her pale blue eyes were still keen-sighted; and
+as she fixed them on Ramona, she thought to herself, "This ain't no
+common Mexican, no how." "Be ye movers?" she said.
+
+Ramona stared. In the little English she knew, that word was not
+included. "Ah, Senora," she said regretfully, "I cannot talk in the
+English speech; only in Spanish."
+
+"Spanish, eh? Yer mean Mexican? Jos, hyar, he kin talk thet. He can't
+talk much, though; 'tain't good fur him; his lungs is out er kilter.
+Thet's what we're bringin' him hyar fur,--fur warm climate! 'pears
+like it, don't it?" and she chuckled grimly, but with a side glance of
+ineffable tenderness at the sick man. "Ask her who they be, Jos," she
+added.
+
+Jos lifted himself on his elbow, and fixing his shining eyes on Ramona,
+said in Spanish, "My mother asks if you are travellers?"
+
+"Yes," said Ramona. "We have come all the way from San Diego. We are
+Indians."
+
+"Injuns!" ejaculated Jos's mother. "Lord save us, Jos! Hev we reelly
+took in Injuns? What on airth--Well, well, she's fond uv her baby's enny
+white woman! I kin see thet; an', Injun or no Injun, they've got to stay
+naow. Yer couldn't turn a dog out 'n sech weather's this. I bet thet
+baby's father wuz white, then. Look at them blue eyes."
+
+Ramona listened and looked intently, but could understand nothing.
+Almost she doubted if the woman were really speaking English. She had
+never before heard so many English sentences without being able to
+understand one word. The Tennessee drawl so altered even the commonest
+words, that she did not recognize them. Turning to Jos, she said gently,
+"I know very little English. I am so sorry I cannot understand. Will it
+tire you to interpret to me what your mother said?"
+
+Jos was as full of humor as his mother. "She wants me to tell her what
+you wuz sayin'," he said, "I allow, I'll only tell her the part on't
+she'll like best.--My mother says you can stay here with us till the
+storm is over," he said to Ramona.
+
+Swifter than lightning, Ramona had seized the woman's hand and carried
+it to her heart, with an expressive gesture of gratitude and emotion.
+"Thanks! thanks! Senora!" she cried.
+
+"What is it she calls me, Jos?" asked his mother.
+
+"Senora," he replied. "It only means the same as lady."
+
+"Shaw, Jos! You tell her I ain't any lady. Tell her everybody round
+where we live calls me 'Aunt Ri,' or 'Mis Hyer;' she kin call me
+whichever she's a mind to. She's reel sweet-spoken."
+
+With some difficulty Jos explained his mother's disclaimer of the title
+of Senora, and the choice of names she offered to Ramona.
+
+Ramona, with smiles which won both mother and son, repeated after him
+both names, getting neither exactly right at first trial, and finally
+said, "I like 'Aunt Ri' best; she is so kind, like aunt, to every one."
+
+"Naow, ain't thet queer, Jos," said Aunt Ri, "aout here 'n thes
+wilderness to ketch sumbody sayin' thet,--jest what they all say ter
+hum? I donno's I'm enny kinder'n ennybody else. I don't want ter see
+ennybody put upon, nor noways sufferin', ef so be's I kin help; but thet
+ain't ennythin' stronary, ez I know. I donno how ennybody could feel
+enny different."
+
+"There's lots doos, mammy," replied Jos, affectionately. "Yer'd find out
+fast enuf, ef yer went raound more. There's mighty few's good's you air
+ter everybody."
+
+Ramona was crouching in the corner by the fire, her baby held close to
+her breast. The place which at first had seemed a haven of warmth, she
+now saw was indeed but a poor shelter against the fearful storm which
+raged outside. It was only a hut of rough boards, carelessly knocked
+together for a shepherd's temporary home. It had been long unused, and
+many of the boards were loose and broken. Through these crevices, at
+every blast of the wind, the fine snow swirled. On the hearth were
+burning a few sticks of wood, dead cottonwood branches, which Jef Hyer
+had hastily collected before the storm reached its height. A few more
+sticks lay by the hearth. Aunt Ri glanced at them anxiously. A poor
+provision for a night in the snow. "Be ye warm, Jos?" she asked.
+
+"Not very, mammy," he said; "but I ain't cold, nuther; an' thet's
+somethin'."
+
+It was the way in the Hyer family to make the best of things; they had
+always possessed this virtue to such an extent, that they suffered
+from it as from a vice. There was hardly to be found in all Southern
+Tennessee a more contented, shiftless, ill-bestead family than theirs.
+But there was no grumbling. Whatever went wrong, whatever was lacking,
+it was "jest like aour luck," they said, and did nothing, or next to
+nothing, about it. Good-natured, affectionate, humorous people; after
+all, they got more comfort out of life than many a family whose surface
+conditions were incomparably better than theirs. When Jos, their oldest
+child and only son, broke down, had hemorrhage after hemorrhage, and
+the doctor said the only thing that could save him was to go across the
+plains in a wagon to California, they said, "What good luck 'Lizy was
+married last year! Now there ain't nuthin' ter hinder sellin' the farm
+'n goin' right off." And they sold their little place for half it was
+worth, traded cattle for a pair of horses and a covered wagon, and set
+off, half beggared, with their sick boy on a bed in the bottom of the
+wagon, as cheery as if they were rich people on a pleasure-trip. A pair
+of steers "to spell" the horses, and a cow to give milk for Jos, they
+drove before them; and so they had come by slow stages, sometimes
+camping for a week at a time, all the way from Tennessee to the San
+Jacinto Valley. They were rewarded. Jos was getting well. Another six
+months, they thought, would see him cured; and it would have gone hard
+with any one who had tried to persuade either Jefferson or Maria Hyer
+that they were not as lucky a couple as could be found. Had they not
+saved Joshua, their son?
+
+Nicknames among this class of poor whites in the South seem singularly
+like those in vogue in New England. From totally opposite motives, the
+lazy, easy-going Tennesseean and the hurry-driven Vermonter cut down all
+their family names to the shortest. To speak three syllables where one
+will answer, seems to the Vermonter a waste of time; to the Tennesseean,
+quite too much trouble. Mrs. Hyer could hardly recollect ever having
+heard her name, "Maria," in full; as a child, and until she was married,
+she was simply "Ri;" and as soon as she had a house of her own, to
+become a centre of hospitality and help, she was adopted by common
+consent of the neighborhood, in a sort of titular and universal
+aunt-hood, which really was a much greater tribute and honor than she
+dreamed. Not a man, woman, or child, within her reach, that did not call
+her or know of her as "Aunt Ri."
+
+"I donno whether I'd best make enny more fire naow or not," she said
+reflectively; "ef this storm's goin' to last till mornin', we'll come
+short o' wood, thet's clear." As she spoke, the door of the hut burst
+open, and her husband staggered in, followed by Alessandro, both covered
+with snow, their arms full of wood. Alessandro, luckily, knew of a
+little clump of young cottonwood-trees in a ravine, only a few rods from
+the house; and the first thing he had thought of, after tethering the
+horses in shelter between the hut and the wagons, was to get wood. Jeff,
+seeing him take a hatchet from the wagon, had understood, got his own,
+and followed; and now there lay on the ground enough to keep them warm
+for hours. As soon as Alessandro had thrown down his load, he darted to
+Ramona, and kneeling down, looked anxiously into the baby's face, then
+into hers; then he said devoutly, "The saints be praised, my Majella! It
+is a miracle!"
+
+Jos listened in dismay to this ejaculation. "Ef they ain't Catholics!"
+he thought. "What kind o' Injuns be they I wonder. I won't tell mammy
+they're Catholics; she'd feel wuss'n ever. I don't care what they be.
+Thet gal's got the sweetest eyes'n her head ever I saw sence I wuz
+born."
+
+By help of Jos's interpreting, the two families soon became well
+acquainted with each other's condition and plans; and a feeling of
+friendliness, surprising under the circumstances, grew up between them.
+
+"Jeff," said Aunt Ri,--"Jeff, they can't understand a word we say,
+so't's no harm done, I s'pose, to speak afore 'em, though't don't seem
+hardly fair to take advantage o' their not knowin' any language but
+their own; but I jest tell you thet I've got a lesson'n the subjeck uv
+Injuns. I've always hed a reel mean feelin' about 'em; I didn't want ter
+come nigh 'em, nor ter hev 'em come nigh me. This woman, here, she's ez
+sweet a creetur's ever I see; 'n' ez bound up 'n thet baby's yer could
+ask enny woman to be; 'n' 's fur thet man, can't yer see, Jeff, he jest
+worships the ground she walks on? Thet's a fact, Jeff. I donno's ever I
+see a white man think so much uv a woman; come, naow, Jeff, d' yer think
+yer ever did yerself?"
+
+Aunt Ri was excited. The experience was, to her, almost incredible. Her
+ideas of Indians had been drawn from newspapers, and from a book or two
+of narratives of massacres, and from an occasional sight of vagabond
+bands or families they had encountered in their journey across the
+plains. Here she found herself sitting side by side in friendly
+intercourse with an Indian man and Indian woman, whose appearance and
+behavior were attractive; towards whom she felt herself singularly
+drawn.
+
+"I'm free to confess, Jos," she said, "I wouldn't ha' bleeved it. I
+hain't seen nobody, black, white, or gray, sence we left hum, I've took
+to like these yere folks. An' they're real dark; 's dark's any <DW65> in
+Tennessee; 'n' he's pewer Injun; her father wuz white, she sez, but she
+don't call herself nothin' but an Injun, the same's he is. D' yer
+notice the way she looks at him, Jos? Don't she jest set a store by thet
+feller? 'N' I don't blame her."
+
+Indeed, Jos had noticed. No man was likely to see Ramona with Alessandro
+without perceiving the rare quality of her devotion to him. And now
+there was added to this devotion an element of indefinable anxiety which
+made its vigilance unceasing. Ramona feared for Alessandro's reason.
+She had hardly put it into words to herself, but the terrible fear dwelt
+with her. She felt that another blow would be more than he could bear.
+
+The storm lasted only a few hours. When it cleared, the valley was a
+solid expanse of white, and the stars shone out as if in an Arctic sky.
+
+"It will be all gone by noon to-morrow," said Alessandro to Jos, who was
+dreading the next day.
+
+"Not really!" he said.
+
+"You will see," said Alessandro. "I have often known it thus. It is like
+death while it lasts; but it is never long."
+
+The Hyers were on their way to some hot springs on the north side of the
+valley. Here they proposed to camp for three months, to try the waters
+for Jos. They had a tent, and all that was necessary for living in their
+primitive fashion. Aunt Ri was looking forward to the rest with great
+anticipation; she was heartily tired of being on the move. Her husband's
+anticipations were of a more stirring nature. He had heard that there
+was good hunting on San Jacinto Mountain. When he found that Alessandro
+knew the region thoroughly, and had been thinking of settling there, he
+was rejoiced, and proposed to him to become his companion and guide
+in hunting expeditions. Ramona grasped eagerly at the suggestion;
+companionship, she was sure, would do Alessandro good,--companionship,
+the outdoor life, and the excitement of hunting, of which he was fond.
+This hot-spring canon was only a short distance from the Saboba village,
+of which they had spoken as a possible home; which she had from the
+first desired to try. She no longer had repugnance to the thought of an
+Indian village; she already felt a sense of kinship and shelter with any
+Indian people. She had become, as Carmena had said, "one of them."
+
+A few days saw the two families settled,--the Hyers in their tent and
+wagon, at the hot springs, and Alessandro and Ramona, with the baby, in
+a little adobe house in the Saboba village. The house belonged to an
+old Indian woman who, her husband having died, had gone to live with
+a daughter, and was very glad to get a few dollars by renting her own
+house. It was a wretched place; one small room, walled with poorly made
+adobe bricks, thatched with tule, no floor, and only one window. When
+Alessandro heard Ramona say cheerily, "Oh, this will do very well, when
+it is repaired a little," his face was convulsed, and he turned away;
+but he said nothing. It was the only house to be had in the village,
+and there were few better. Two months later, no one would have known it.
+Alessandro had had good luck in hunting. Two fine deerskins covered the
+earth floor; a third was spread over the bedstead; and the horns, hung
+on the walls, served for hooks to hang clothes upon. The scarlet calico
+canopy was again set up over the bed, and the woven cradle, on its red
+manzanita frame, stood near. A small window in the door, and one more
+cut in the walls, let in light and air. On a shelf near one of these
+windows stood the little Madonna, again wreathed with vines as in San
+Pasquale.
+
+When Aunt Ri first saw the room, after it was thus arranged, she put
+both arms akimbo, and stood in the doorway, her mouth wide open, her
+eyes full of wonder. Finally her wonder framed itself in an ejaculation:
+"Wall, I allow yer air fixed up!"
+
+Aunt Ri, at her best estate, had never possessed a room which had
+the expression of this poor little mud hut of Ramona's. She could not
+understand it. The more she studied the place, the less she understood
+it. On returning to the tent, she said to Jos: "It beats all ever I
+see, the way thet Injun woman's got fixed up out er nothin'. It ain't no
+more'n a hovel, a mud hovel, Jos, not much bigger'n this yer tent, fur
+all three on 'em, an' the bed an' the stove an' everythin'; an' I vow,
+Jos, she's fixed it so't looks jest like a parlor! It beats me, it does.
+I'd jest like you to see it."
+
+And when Jos saw it, and Jeff, they were as full of wonder as Aunt Ri
+had been. Dimly they recognized the existence of a principle here which
+had never entered into their life. They did not know it by name, and
+it could not have been either taught, transferred, or explained to the
+good-hearted wife and mother who had been so many years the affectionate
+disorderly genius of their home. But they felt its charm; and when,
+one day, after the return of Alessandro and Jeff from a particularly
+successful hunt, the two families had sat down together to a supper
+of Ramona's cooking,--stewed venison and artichokes, and frijoles with
+chili,--their wonder was still greater.
+
+"Ask her if this is Injun style of cooking, Jos," said Aunt Ri. "I never
+thought nothin' o' beans; but these air good, 'n' no mistake!"
+
+Ramona laughed. "No; it is Mexican," she said. "I learned to cook from
+an old Mexican woman."
+
+"Wall, I'd like the receipt on't; but I allow I shouldn't never git the
+time to fuss with it," said Aunt Ri; "but I may's well git the rule,
+naow I'm here."
+
+Alessandro began to lose some of his gloom. He had earned money. He
+had been lifted out of himself by kindly companionship; he saw Ramona
+cheerful, the little one sunny; the sense of home, the strongest passion
+Alessandro possessed, next to his love for Ramona, began again to awake
+in him. He began to talk about building a house. He had found things in
+the village better than he feared. It was but a poverty-stricken little
+handful, to be sure; still, they were unmolested; the valley was large;
+their stock ran free; the few white settlers, one at the upper end and
+two or three on the south side, had manifested no disposition to crowd
+the Indians; the Ravallo brothers were living on the estate still,
+and there was protection in that, Alessandro thought. And Majella was
+content. Majella had found friends. Something, not quite hope, but akin
+to it, began to stir in Alessandro's heart. He would build a house;
+Majella should no longer live in this mud hut. But to his surprise, when
+he spoke of it, Ramona said no; they had all they needed, now. Was not
+Alessandro comfortable? She was. It would be wise to wait longer before
+building.
+
+Ramona knew many things that Alessandro did not. While he had been away
+on his hunts, she had had speech with many a one he never saw. She had
+gone to the store and post-office several times, to exchange baskets or
+lace for flour, and she had heard talk there which disquieted her. She
+did not believe that Saboba was safe. One day she had heard a man say,
+"If there is a drought we shall have the devil to pay with our stock
+before winter is over." "Yes," said another; "and look at those damned
+Indians over there in Saboba, with water running all the time in their
+village! It's a shame they should have that spring!"
+
+Not for worlds would Ramona have told this to Alessandro. She kept it
+locked in her own breast, but it rankled there like a ceaseless warning
+and prophecy. When she reached home that day she went down to the spring
+in the centre of the village, and stood a long time looking at the
+bubbling water. It was indeed a priceless treasure; a long irrigating
+ditch led from it down into the bottom, where lay the cultivated
+fields,--many acres in wheat, barley, and vegetables. Alessandro himself
+had fields there from which they would harvest all they needed for the
+horses and their cow all winter, in case pasturage failed. If the whites
+took away this water, Saboba would be ruined. However, as the spring
+began in the very heart of the village, they could not take it without
+destroying the village. "And the Ravallos would surely never let that be
+done," thought Ramona. "While they live, it will not happen."
+
+It was a sad day for Ramona and Alessandro when the kindly Hyers pulled
+up their tent-stakes and left the valley. Their intended three months
+had stretched into six, they had so enjoyed the climate, and the waters
+had seemed to do such good to Jos. But, "We ain't rich folks, yer know,
+not by a long ways, we ain't," said Aunt Ri; "an' we've got pretty nigh
+down to where Jeff an' me's got to begin airnin' suthin'. Ef we kin git
+settled 'n some o' these towns where there's carpenterin' to be done.
+Jeff, he's a master hand to thet kind o' work, though yer mightn't
+think it; 'n I kin airn right smart at weavin'; jest give me a good
+carpet-loom, 'n I won't be beholden to nobody for vittles. I jest du
+love weavin'. I donno how I've contented myself this hull year, or nigh
+about a year, without a loom. Jeff, he sez to me once, sez he, 'Ri, do
+yer think yer'd be contented in heaven without yer loom?' an' I was free
+to say I didn't know's I should."
+
+"Is it hard?" cried Ramona. "Could I learn to do it?" It was wonderful
+what progress in understanding and speaking English Ramona had made in
+these six months. She now understood nearly all that was said directly
+to her, though she could not follow general and confused conversation.
+
+"Wall, 'tis, an' 'tain't," said Aunt Ri. "I don't s'pose I'm much of a
+jedge; fur I can't remember when I fust learned it. I know I set in
+the loom to weave when my feet couldn't reach the floor; an' I don't
+remember nothin' about fust learnin' to spool 'n' warp. I've tried to
+teach lots of folks; an' sum learns quick, an' some don't never learn;
+it's jest 's 't strikes 'em. I should think, naow, thet you wuz one o'
+the kind could turn yer hands to anythin'. When we get settled in San
+Bernardino, if yer'll come down thar, I'll teach yer all I know, 'n' be
+glad ter. I donno's 't 's goin' to be much uv a place for carpet-weavin'
+though, anywheres raound 'n this yer country; not but what thar's plenty
+o' rags, but folks seems to be wearin' 'em; pooty gen'ral wear, I sh'd
+say. I've seen more cloes on folks' backs hyar, thet wan't no more'n fit
+for carpet-rags, than any place ever I struck. They're drefful sheftless
+lot, these yere Mexicans; 'n' the Injuns is wuss. Naow when I say
+Injuns, I don't never mean yeow, yer know thet. Yer ain't ever seemed to
+me one mite like an Injun."
+
+"Most of our people haven't had any chance," said Ramona. "You wouldn't
+believe if I were to tell you what things have been done to them; how
+they are robbed, and cheated, and turned out of their homes."
+
+Then she told the story of Temecula, and of San Pasquale, in Spanish, to
+Jos, who translated it with no loss in the telling. Aunt Ri was aghast;
+she found no words to express her indignation.
+
+"I don't bleeve the Guvvermunt knows anything about it." she said. "Why,
+they take folks up, n'n penetentiarize 'em fur life, back 'n Tennessee,
+fur things thet ain't so bad's thet! Somebody ought ter be sent ter tell
+'em 't Washington what's goin' on hyar."
+
+"I think it's the people in Washington that have done it," said Ramona,
+sadly. "Is it not in Washington all the laws are made?"
+
+"I bleeve so!" said Aunt Ri, "Ain't it, Jos? It's Congress ain't 't,
+makes the laws?"
+
+"I bleeve so." said Jos. "They make some, at any rate. I donno's they
+make 'em all."
+
+"It is all done by the American law," said Ramona, "all these things;
+nobody can help himself; for if anybody goes against the law he has to
+be killed or put in prison; that was what the sheriff told Alessandro,
+at Temecula. He felt very sorry for the Temecula people, the sheriff
+did; but he had to obey the law himself. Alessandro says there isn't any
+help."
+
+Aunt Ri shook her head. She was not convinced. "I sh'll make a business
+o' findin' out abaout this thing yit," she said. "I think yer hain't got
+the rights on't yit. There's cheatin' somewhere!"
+
+"It's all cheating." said Ramona; "but there isn't any help for it, Aunt
+Ri. The Americans think it is no shame to cheat for money."
+
+"I'm an Ummeriken!" cried Aunt Ri; "an' Jeff Hyer, and Jos! We're
+Ummerikens! 'n' we wouldn't cheat nobody, not ef we knowed it, not
+out er a doller. We're pore, an' I allus expect to be, but we're above
+cheatin'; an' I tell you, naow, the Ummeriken people don't want any o'
+this cheatin' done, naow! I'm going to ask Jeff haow 'tis. Why, it's a
+burnin' shame to any country! So 'tis! I think something oughter be done
+abaout it! I wouldn't mind goin' myself, ef thar wan't anybody else!"
+
+A seed had been sown in Aunt Ri's mind which was not destined to die for
+want of soil. She was hot with shame and anger, and full of impulse to
+do something. "I ain't nobody," she said; "I know thet well enough,--I
+ain't nobody nor nothin'; but I allow I've got suthin' to say abaout the
+country I live in, 'n' the way things hed oughter be; or 't least Jeff
+hez; 'n' thet's the same thing. I tell yer, Jos, I ain't goin' to rest,
+nor ter give yeou 'n' yer father no rest nuther, till yeou find aout
+what all this yere means she's been tellin' us."
+
+But sharper and closer anxieties than any connected with rights to lands
+and homes were pressing upon Alessandro and Ramona. All summer the baby
+had been slowly drooping; so slowly that it was each day possible for
+Ramona to deceive herself, thinking that there had been since yesterday
+no loss, perhaps a little gain; but looking back from the autumn to the
+spring, and now from the winter to the autumn, there was no doubt that
+she had been steadily going down. From the day of that terrible chill
+in the snow-storm, she had never been quite well, Ramona thought. Before
+that, she was strong, always strong, always beautiful and merry, Now her
+pinched little face was sad to see, and sometimes for hours she made a
+feeble wailing cry without any apparent cause. All the simple remedies
+that Aunt Ri had known, had failed to touch her disease; in fact,
+Aunt Ri from the first had been baffled in her own mind by the child's
+symptoms. Day after day Alessandro knelt by the cradle, his hands
+clasped, his face set. Hour after hour, night and day, indoors and out,
+he bore her in his arms, trying to give her relief. Prayer after prayer
+to the Virgin, to the saints, Ramona had said; and candles by the dozen,
+though money was now scant, she had burned before the Madonna; all in
+vain. At last she implored Alessandro to go to San Bernardino and see a
+doctor. "Find Aunt Ri," she said; "she will go with you, with Jos, and
+talk to him; she can make him understand. Tell Aunt Ri she seems just as
+she did when they were here, only weaker and thinner."
+
+Alessandro found Aunt Ri in a sort of shanty on the outskirts of San
+Bernardino. "Not to rights yit," she said,--as if she ever would be.
+Jeff had found work; and Jos, too, had been able to do a little on
+pleasant days. He had made a loom and put up a loom-house for his
+mother,--a floor just large enough to hold the loom, rough walls, and
+a roof; one small square window,--that was all; but if Aunt Ri had
+been presented with a palace, she would not have been so well pleased.
+Already she had woven a rag carpet for herself, was at work on one for
+a neighbor, and had promised as many more as she could do before spring;
+the news of the arrival of a rag-carpet weaver having gone with despatch
+all through the lower walks of San Bernardino life. "I wouldn't hev
+bleeved they hed so many rags besides what they're wearin'," said Aunt
+Ri, as sack after sack appeared at her door. Already, too, Aunt Ri
+had gathered up the threads of the village life; in her friendly,
+impressionable way she had come into relation with scores of people, and
+knew who was who, and what was what, and why, among them all, far better
+than many an old resident of the town.
+
+When she saw Benito galloping up to her door, she sprang down from
+her high stool at the loom, and ran bareheaded to the gate, and before
+Alessandro had dismounted, cried: "Ye're jest the man I wanted; I've
+been tryin' to 'range it so's we could go down 'n' see yer, but Jeff
+couldn't leave the job he's got; an' I'm druv nigh abaout off my feet,
+'n' I donno when we'd hev fetched it. How's all? Why didn't yer come in
+ther wagon 'n' fetch 'em 'long? I've got heaps ter tell yer. I allowed
+yer hadn't got the rights o' all them things. The Guvvermunt ain't on
+the side o' the thieves, as yer said. I knowed they couldn't be,' an'
+they've jest sent out a man a purpose to look after things fur yer,--to
+take keer o' the Injuns 'n' nothin' else. That's what he's here fur. He
+come last month; he's a reel nice man. I seen him 'n' talked with him a
+spell, last week; I'm gwine to make his wife a rag carpet. 'N' there's
+a doctor, too, to 'tend ter yer when ye're sick, 'n' the Guvvermunt pays
+him; yer don't hev to pay nothin'; 'n' I tell yeow, thet's a heap o'
+savin', to git yer docterin' fur nuthin'!"
+
+Aunt Ri was out of breath. Alessandro had not understood half she said.
+He looked about helplessly for Jos. Jos was away. In his broken English
+he tried to explain what Ramona had wished her to do.
+
+"Doctor! Thet's jest what I'm tellin' yer! There is one here's paid by
+the Guvvermunt to 'tend to the Injuns thet's sick. I'll go 'n' show yer
+ter his house. I kin tell him jest how the baby is. P'r'aps he'll drive
+down 'n' see her!"
+
+Ah! if he would! What would Majella say, should she see him enter the
+door bringing a doctor!
+
+Luckily Jos returned in time to go with them to the doctor's house as
+interpreter. Alessandro was bewildered. He could not understand this new
+phase of affairs, Could it be true? As they walked along, he listened
+with trembling, half-incredulous hope to Jos's interpretation of Aunt
+Ri's voluble narrative.
+
+The doctor was in his office. To Aunt Ri's statement of Alessandro's
+errand he listened indifferently, and then said, "Is he an Agency
+Indian?"
+
+"A what?" exclaimed Aunt Ri.
+
+"Does he belong to the Agency? Is his name on the Agency books?"
+
+"No," said she; "he never heern uv any Agency till I wuz tellin' him,
+jest naow. We knoo him, him 'n' her, over 'n San Jacinto. He lives in
+Saboba. He's never been to San Bernardino sence the Agent come aout."
+
+"Well, is he going to put his name down on the books?" said the doctor,
+impatiently. "You ought to have taken him to the Agent first."
+
+"Ain't you the Guvvermunt doctor for all Injuns?" asked Aunt Ri,
+wrathfully. "Thet's what I heerd."
+
+"Well, my good woman, you hear a great deal, I expect, that isn't true;"
+and the doctor laughed coarsely but not ill-naturedly, Alessandro all
+the time studying his face with the scrutiny of one awaiting life and
+death; "I am the Agency physician, and I suppose all the Indians will
+sooner or later come in and report themselves to the Agent; you'd better
+take this man over there. What does he want now?"
+
+Aunt Ri began to explain the baby's case. Cutting her short, the doctor
+said, "Yes, yes, I understand. I'll give him something that will
+help her;" and going into an inner room, he brought out a bottle of
+dark- liquid, wrote a few lines of prescription, and handed it to
+Alessandro, saying, "That will do her good, I guess."
+
+"Thanks, Senor, thanks," said Alessandro.
+
+The doctor stared. "That's the first Indian's said 'Thank you' in this
+office," he said. "You tell the Agent you've brought him a rara avis."
+
+"What's that, Jos?" said Aunt Ri, as they went out.
+
+"Donno!" said Jos. "I don't like thet man, anyhow, mammy. He's no good."
+
+Alessandro looked at the bottle of medicine like one in a dream. Would
+it make the baby well? Had it indeed been given to him by that great
+Government in Washington? Was he to be protected now? Could this man,
+who had been sent out to take care of Indians, get back his San Pasquale
+farm for him? Alessandro's brain was in a whirl.
+
+From the doctor's office they went to the Agent's house. Here, Aunt Ri
+felt herself more at home.
+
+"I've brought ye thet Injun I wuz tellin' ye uv," she said, with a wave
+of her hand toward Alessandro. "We've ben ter ther doctor's to git some
+metcen fur his baby. She's reel sick, I'm afeerd."
+
+The Agent sat down at his desk, opened a large ledger, saying as he did
+so, "The man's never been here before, has he?"
+
+"No," said Aunt Ri.
+
+"What is his name?"
+
+Jos gave it, and the Agent began to write it in the book. "Stop him."
+cried Alessandro, agitatedly to Jos. "Don't let him write, till I know
+what he puts my name in his book for!"
+
+"Wait," said Jos. "He doesn't want you to write his name in that book.
+He wants to know what it's put there for."
+
+Wheeling his chair with a look of suppressed impatience, yet trying
+to speak kindly, the Agent said: "There's no making these Indians
+understand anything. They seem to think if I have their names in my
+book, it gives me some power over them."
+
+"Wall, don't it?" said the direct-minded Aunt Ri. "Hain't yer got any
+power over 'em? If yer hain't got it over them, who have yer got it
+over? What yer goin' to do for 'em?"
+
+The Agent laughed in spite of himself. "Well, Aunt Ri,"--she was already
+"Aunt Ri" to the Agent's boys,--"that's just the trouble with this
+Agency. It is very different from what it would be if I had all my
+Indians on a reservation."
+
+Alessandro understood the words "my Indians." He had heard them before.
+
+"What does he mean by his Indians, Jos?" he asked fiercely. "I will not
+have my name in his book if it makes me his."
+
+When Jos reluctantly interpreted this, the Agent lost his temper.
+"That's all the use there is trying to do anything with them! Let him
+go, then, if he doesn't want any help from the Government!"
+
+"Oh, no, no." cried Aunt Ri. "Yeow jest explain it to Jos, an' he'll
+make him understand."
+
+Alessandro's face had darkened. All this seemed to him exceedingly
+suspicious. Could it be possible that Aunt Ri and Jos, the first whites
+except Mr. Hartsel he had ever trusted, were deceiving him? No; that was
+impossible. But they themselves might be deceived. That they were simple
+and ignorant, Alessandro well knew. "Let us go!" he said. "I do not wish
+to sign any paper."
+
+"Naow don't be a fool, will yeow? Yeow ain't signin' a thing!" said Aunt
+Ri. "Jos, yeow tell him I say there ain't anythin' a bindin' him, hevin'
+his name 'n' thet book, It's only so the Agent kin know what Injuns
+wants help, 'n' where they air. Ain't thet so?" she added, turning to
+the Agent. "Tell him he can't hev the Agency doctor, ef he ain't on the
+Agency books."
+
+Not have the doctor? Give up this precious medicine which might save his
+baby's life? No! he could not do that. Majella would say, let the name
+be written, rather than that.
+
+"Let him write the name, then," said Alessandro, doggedly; but he went
+out of the room feeling as if he had put a chain around his neck.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE medicine did the baby no good. In fact, it did her harm. She was too
+feeble for violent remedies. In a week, Alessandro appeared again at the
+Agency doctor's door. This time he had come with a request which to
+his mind seemed not unreasonable. He had brought Baba for the doctor to
+ride. Could the doctor then refuse to go to Saboba? Baba would carry
+him there in three hours, and it would be like a cradle all the way.
+Alessandro's name was in the Agency books. It was for this he had
+written it,--for this and nothing else,--to save the baby's life. Having
+thus enrolled himself as one of the Agency Indians, he had a claim on
+this the Agency doctor. And that his application might be all in due
+form, he took with him the Agency interpreter. He had had a misgiving,
+before, that Aunt Ri's kindly volubility had not been well timed. Not
+one unnecessary word, was Alessandro's motto.
+
+To say that the Agency doctor was astonished at being requested to ride
+thirty miles to prescribe for an ailing Indian baby, would be a mild
+statement of the doctor's emotion. He could hardly keep from laughing,
+when it was made clear to him that this was what the Indian father
+expected.
+
+"Good Lord!" he said, turning to a crony who chanced to be lounging in
+the office. "Listen to that beggar, will you? I wonder what he thinks
+the Government pays me a year for doctoring Indians!"
+
+Alessandro listened so closely it attracted the doctor's attention. "Do
+you understand English?" he asked sharply.
+
+"A very little, Senor," replied Alessandro.
+
+The doctor would be more careful in his speech, then. But he made it
+most emphatically clear that the thing Alessandro had asked was not
+only out of the question, but preposterous. Alessandro pleaded. For the
+child's sake he could do it. The horse was at the door; there was no
+such horse in San Bernardino County; he went like the wind, and one
+would not know he was in motion, it was so easy. Would not the doctor
+come down and look at the horse? Then he would see what it would be like
+to ride him.
+
+"Oh, I've seen plenty of your Indian ponies," said the doctor. "I know
+they can run."
+
+Alessandro lingered. He could not give up this last hope. The tears came
+into his eyes. "It is our only child, Senor," he said. "It will take you
+but six hours in all. My wife counts the moments till you come! If the
+child dies, she will die."
+
+"No! no!" The doctor was weary of being importuned. "Tell the man it
+is impossible! I'd soon have my hands full, if I began to go about the
+country this way. They'd be sending for me down to Agua Caliente next,
+and bringing up their ponies to carry me."
+
+"He will not go?" asked Alessandro.
+
+The interpreter shook his head. "He cannot," he said.
+
+Without a word Alessandro left the room. Presently he returned. "Ask him
+if he will come for money?" he said. "I have gold at home. I will pay
+him, what the white men pay him."
+
+"Tell him no man of any color could pay me for going sixty miles!" said
+the doctor.
+
+And Alessandro departed again, walking so slowly, however, that he heard
+the coarse laugh, and the words, "Gold! Looked like it, didn't he?"
+which followed his departure from the room.
+
+When Ramona saw him returning alone, she wrung her hands. Her heart
+seemed breaking. The baby had lain in a sort of stupor since noon;
+she was plainly worse, and Ramona had been going from the door to the
+cradle, from the cradle to the door, for an hour, looking each moment
+for the hoped-for aid. It had not once crossed her mind that the doctor
+would not come. She had accepted in much fuller faith than Alessandro
+the account of the appointment by the Government of these two men to
+look after the Indians' interests. What else could their coming mean,
+except that, at last, the Indians were to have justice? She thought,
+in her simplicity, that the doctor must have died, since Alessandro was
+riding home alone.
+
+"He would not come!" said Alessandro, as he threw himself off his horse,
+wearily.
+
+"Would not!" cried Ramona. "Would not! Did you not say the Government
+had sent him to be the doctor for Indians?"
+
+"That was what they said," he replied. "You see it is a lie, like the
+rest! But I offered him gold, and he would not come then. The child must
+die, Majella!"
+
+"She shall not die!" cried Ramona. "We will carry her to him!" The
+thought struck them both as an inspiration. Why had they not thought of
+it before? "You can fasten the cradle on Baba's back, and he will go so
+gently, she will think it is but play; and I will walk by her side, or
+you, all the way!" she continued. "And we can sleep at Aunt Ri's house.
+Oh, why, why did we not do it before? Early in the morning we will
+start."
+
+All through the night they sat watching the little creature. If they had
+ever seen death, they would have known that there was no hope for the
+child. But how should Ramona and Alessandro know?
+
+The sun rose bright and warm. Before it was up, the cradle was ready,
+ingeniously strapped on Baba's back. When the baby was placed in it, she
+smiled. "The first smile she has given for days," cried Ramona. "Oh, the
+air itself will do good to her! Let me walk by her first! Come, Baba!
+Dear Baba!" and Ramona stepped almost joyfully by the horse's side,
+Alessandro riding Benito. As they paced along, their eyes never leaving
+the baby's face, Ramona said, in a low tone, "Alessandro, I am almost
+afraid to tell you what I have done. I took the little Jesus out of the
+Madonna's arms and hid it! Did you never hear, that if you do that, the
+Madonna will grant you anything, to get him back again in her arms' Did
+you ever hear of it?"
+
+"Never!" exclaimed Alessandro, with horror in his tone. "Never, Majella!
+How dared you?"
+
+"I dare anything now!" said Ramona. "I have been thinking to do it for
+some days, and to tell her she could not have him any more till she gave
+me back the baby well and strong; but I knew I could not have courage to
+sit and look at her all lonely without him in her arms, so I did not do
+it. But now we are to be away, I thought, that is the time; and I told
+her, 'When we come back with our baby well, you shall have your little
+Jesus again, too; now, Holy Mother, you go with us, and make the doctor
+cure our baby!' Oh, I have heard, many times, women tell the Senora they
+had done this, and always they got what they wanted. Never will she let
+the Jesus be out of her arms more than three weeks before she will
+grant any prayer one can make. It was that way she brought you to me,
+Alessandro. I never before told you. I was afraid. I think she had
+brought you sooner, but I could keep the little Jesus hid from her only
+at night. In the day I could not, because the Senora would see. So she
+did not miss him so much; else she had brought you quicker."
+
+"But, Majella," said the logical Alessandro, "it was because I could not
+leave my father that I did not come. As soon as he was buried, I came."
+
+"If it had not been for the Virgin, you would never have come at all,"
+said Ramona, confidently.
+
+For the first hour of this sad journey it seemed as if the child were
+really rallying; the air, the sunlight, the novel motion, the smiling
+mother by her side, the big black horses she had already learned to
+love, all roused her to an animation she had not shown for days. But
+it was only the last flicker of the expiring flame. The eyes drooped,
+closed; a strange pallor came over the face. Alessandro saw it first.
+He was now walking, Ramona riding Benito. "Majella!" he cried, in a tone
+which told her all.
+
+In a second she was at the baby's side, with a cry which smote the
+dying child's consciousness. Once more the eyelids lifted; she knew her
+mother; a swift spasm shook the little frame; a convulsion as of
+agony swept over the face, then it was at peace. Ramona's shrieks were
+heart-rending. Fiercely she put Alessandro away from her, as he strove
+to caress her. She stretched her arms up towards the sky. "I have killed
+her! I have killed her!" she cried. "Oh, let me die!"
+
+Slowly Alessandro turned Baba's head homeward again.
+
+"Oh, give her to me! Let her lie on my breast! I will hold her warm!"
+gasped Ramona.
+
+Silently Alessandro laid the body in her arms. He had not spoken since
+his first cry of alarm, If Ramona had looked at him, she would have
+forgotten her grief for her dead child. Alessandro's face seemed turned
+to stone.
+
+When they reached the house, Ramona, laying the child on the bed, ran
+hastily to a corner of the room, and lifting the deerskin, drew from its
+hiding-place the little wooden Jesus. With tears streaming, she laid it
+again in the Madonna's arms, and flinging herself on her knees, sobbed
+out prayers for forgiveness. Alessandro stood at the foot of the bed,
+his arms folded, his eyes riveted on the child. Soon he went out, still
+without speaking. Presently Ramona heard the sound of a saw. She groaned
+aloud, and her tears flowed faster: Alessandro was making the baby's
+coffin. Mechanically she rose, and, moving like one half paralyzed,
+she dressed the little one in fresh white clothes for the burial; then
+laying her in the cradle, she spread over it the beautiful lace-wrought
+altar-cloth. As she adjusted its folds, her mind was carried back to the
+time when she embroidered it, sitting on the Senora's veranda; the song
+of the finches, the linnets; the voice and smile of Felipe; Alessandro
+sitting on the steps, drawing divine music from his violin. Was that
+she,--that girl who sat there weaving the fine threads in the beautiful
+altar-cloth? Was it a hundred years ago? Was it another world? Was it
+Alessandro yonder, driving those nails into a coffin? How the blows
+rang, louder and louder! The air seemed deafening full of sound. With
+her hands pressed to her temples, Ramona sank to the floor. A merciful
+unconsciousness set her free, for an interval, from her anguish.
+
+When she opened her eyes, she was lying on the bed. Alessandro had
+lifted her and laid her there, making no effort to rouse her. He thought
+she would die too; and even that thought did not stir him from his
+lethargy. When she opened her eyes, and looked at him, he did not speak.
+She closed them. He did not move. Presently she opened them again. "I
+heard you out there," she said.
+
+"Yes," he replied. "It is done." And he pointed to a little box of rough
+boards by the side of the cradle.
+
+"Is Majella ready to go to the mountain now?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, Alessandro, I am ready," she said.
+
+"We will hide forever," he said.
+
+"It makes no difference," she replied.
+
+The Saboba women did not know what to think of Ramona now. She had never
+come into sympathetic relations with them, as she had with the women of
+San Pasquale. Her intimacy with the Hyers had been a barrier the Saboba
+people could not surmount. No one could be on such terms with whites,
+and be at heart an Indian, they thought; so they held aloof from Ramona.
+But now in her bereavement they gathered round her. They wept at sight
+of the dead baby's face, lying in its tiny white coffin. Ramona had
+covered the box with white cloth, and the lace altar-cloth thrown over
+it fell in folds to the floor. "Why does not this mother weep? Is she
+like the whites, who have no heart?" said the Saboba mothers among
+themselves; and they were embarrassed before her, and knew not what
+to say. Ramona perceived it, but had no life in her to speak to them.
+Benumbing terrors, which were worse than her grief, were crowding
+Ramona's heart now. She had offended the Virgin; she had committed a
+blasphemy: in one short hour the Virgin had punished her, had smitten
+her child dead before her eyes. And now Alessandro was going mad; hour
+by hour Ramona fancied she saw changes in him. What form would the
+Virgin's vengeance take next? Would she let Alessandro become a raging
+madman, and finally kill both himself and her? That seemed to Ramona
+the most probable fate in store for them. When the funeral was over, and
+they returned to their desolate home, at the sight of the empty cradle
+Ramona broke down.
+
+"Oh, take me away, Alessandro! Anywhere! I don't care where! anywhere,
+so it is not here!" she cried.
+
+"Would Majella be afraid, now, on the high mountain, the place I told
+her of?" he said.
+
+"No!" she replied earnestly. "No! I am afraid of nothing! Only take me
+away!"
+
+A gleam of wild delight flitted across Alessandro's face. "It is well,"
+he said. "My Majella, we will go to the mountain; we will be safe
+there."
+
+The same fierce restlessness which took possession of him at San
+Pasquale again showed itself in his every act. His mind was unceasingly
+at work, planning the details of their move and of the new life. He
+mentioned them one after another to Ramona. They could not take both
+horses; feed would be scanty there, and there would be no need of two
+horses. The cow also they must give up. Alessandro would kill her, and
+the meat, dried, would last them for a long time. The wagon he hoped
+he could sell; and he would buy a few sheep; sheep and goats could live
+well in these heights to which they were going. Safe at last! Oh, yes,
+very safe; not only against whites, who, because the little valley was
+so small and bare, would not desire it, but against Indians also. For
+the Indians, silly things, had a terror of the upper heights of San
+Jacinto; they believed the Devil lived there, and money would not hire
+one of the Saboba Indians to go so high as this valley which Alessandro
+had discovered. Fiercely he gloated over each one of these features
+of safety in their hiding-place. "The first time I saw it, Majella,--I
+believe the saints led me there,--I said, it is a hiding-place. And
+then I never thought I would be in want of such,--of a place to keep my
+Majella safe! safe! Oh, my Majel!" And he clasped her to his breast with
+a terrifying passion.
+
+For an Indian to sell a horse and wagon in the San Jacinto valley was
+not an easy thing, unless he would give them away. Alessandro had hard
+work to give civil answers to the men who wished to buy Benito and the
+wagon for quarter of their value. He knew they would not have dared to
+so much as name such prices to a white man. Finally Ramona, who had felt
+unconquerable misgivings as to the wisdom of thus irrevocably parting
+from their most valuable possessions, persuaded him to take both horses
+and wagon to San Bernardino, and offer them to the Hyers to use for the
+winter.
+
+It would be just the work for Jos, to keep him in the open air, if
+he could get teaming to do; she was sure he would be thankful for the
+chance. "He is as fond of the horses as we are ourselves, Alessandro,"
+she said. "They would be well cared for; and then, if we did not like
+living on the mountain, we could have the horses and wagon again when we
+came down, or Jos could sell them for us in San Bernardino. Nobody could
+see Benito and Baba working together, and not want them."
+
+"Majella is wiser than the dove!" cried Alessandro. "She has seen what
+is the best thing to do. I will take them."
+
+When he was ready to set off, he implored Ramona to go with him; but
+with a look of horror she refused. "Never," she cried, "one step on that
+accursed road! I will never go on that road again unless it is to be
+carried, as we brought her, dead."
+
+Neither did Ramona wish to see Aunt Ri. Her sympathy would be
+intolerable, spite of all its affectionate kindliness. "Tell her I love
+her," she said, "but I do not want to see a human being yet; next year
+perhaps we will go down,--if there is any other way besides that road."
+
+Aunt Ri was deeply grieved. She could not understand Ramona's feeling.
+It rankled deep. "I allow I'd never hev bleeved it uv her, never," she
+said. "I shan't never think she wuz quite right 'n her head, to do 't!
+I allow we shan't never set eyes on ter her, Jos. I've got jest thet
+feelin' abaout it. 'Pears like she'd gone klar out 'er this yer world
+inter anuther."
+
+The majestic bulwark of San Jacinto Mountain looms in the southern
+horizon of the San Bernardino valley. It was in full sight from the door
+of the little shanty in which Aunt Ri's carpet-loom stood. As she sat
+there hour after hour, sometimes seven hours to the day, working the
+heavy treadle, and slipping the shuttle back and forth, she gazed with
+tender yearnings at the solemn, shining summit. When sunset colors smote
+it, it glowed like fire; on cloudy days, it was lost in the clouds.
+
+"'Pears like 'twas next door to heaven, up there, Jos," Aunt Ri would
+say. "I can't tell yer the feelin' 't comes over me, to look up 't it,
+ever sence I knowed she wuz there. 'T shines enuf to put yer eyes aout,
+sometimes; I allow 'tain't so light's thet when you air into 't; 't
+can't be; ther couldn't nobody stan' it, ef 't wuz. I allow 't must be
+like bein' dead, Jos, don't yer think so, to be livin' thar? He sed ther
+couldn't nobody git to 'em. Nobody ever seed the place but hisself. He
+found it a huntin'. Thar's water thar, 'n' thet's abaout all thar is,
+fur's I cud make aout; I allow we shan't never see her agin."
+
+The horses and the wagon were indeed a godsend to Jos. It was the very
+thing he had been longing for; the only sort of work he was as yet
+strong enough to do, and there was plenty of it to be had in San
+Bernardino. But the purchase of a wagon suitable for the purpose was at
+present out of their power; the utmost Aunt Ri had hoped to accomplish
+was to have, at the end of a year, a sufficient sum laid up to buy one.
+They had tried in vain to exchange their heavy emigrant-wagon for one
+suitable for light work. "'Pears like I'd die o' shame," said Aunt Ri,
+"sometimes when I ketch myself er thinkin' what luck et's ben to Jos, er
+gettin' thet Injun's hosses an' waggin. But ef Jos keeps on, airnin' ez
+much ez he hez so fur, he's goin' ter pay the Injun part on 't, when he
+cums. I allow ter Jos 'tain't no more'n fair. Why, them hosses, they'll
+dew good tew days' work'n one. I never see sech hosses; 'n' they're jest
+like kittens; they've ben drefful pets, I allow. I know she set all the
+world, 'n' more tew, by thet nigh one. He wuz hern, ever sence she wuz a
+child. Pore thing,--'pears like she hedn't hed no chance!"
+
+Alessandro had put off, from day to day, the killing of the cow. It went
+hard with him to slaughter the faithful creature, who knew him, and came
+towards him at the first sound of his voice. He had pastured her, since
+the baby died, in a canon about three miles northeast of the village,--a
+lovely green canon with oak-trees and a running brook. It was here that
+he had thought of building his house if they had stayed in Saboba. But
+Alessandro laughed bitterly to himself now, as he recalled that dream.
+Already the news had come to Saboba that a company had been formed for
+the settling up of the San Jacinto valley; the Ravallo brothers had sold
+to this company a large grant of land. The white ranchmen in the valley
+were all fencing in their lands; no more free running of stock. The
+Saboba people were too poor to build miles of fencing; they must soon
+give up keeping stock; and the next thing would be that they would be
+driven out, like the people of Temecula. It was none too soon that he
+had persuaded Majella to flee to the mountain. There, at least, they
+could live and die in peace,--a poverty-stricken life, and the loneliest
+of deaths; but they would have each other. It was well the baby had
+died; she was saved all this misery. By the time she had grown to be
+a woman, if she had lived, there would be no place in all the country
+where an Indian could find refuge. Brooding over such thoughts as
+these, Alessandro went up into the canon one morning. It must be done.
+Everything was ready for their move; it would take many days to carry
+even their few possessions up the steep mountain trail to their new
+home; the pony which had replaced Benito and Baba could not carry a
+heavy load. While this was being done, Ramona would dry the beef which
+would be their supply of meat for many months. Then they would go.
+
+At noon he came down with the first load of the meat, and Ramona began
+cutting it into long strips, as is the Mexican fashion of drying.
+Alessandro returned for the remainder. Early in the afternoon, as Ramona
+went to and fro about her work, she saw a group of horsemen riding from
+house to house, in the upper part of the village; women came running out
+excitedly from each house as the horsemen left it; finally one of them
+darted swiftly up the hill to Ramona. "Hide it! hide it!" she cried,
+breathless; "hide the meat! It is Merrill's men, from the end of the
+valley. They have lost a steer, and they say we stole it. They found the
+place, with blood on it, where it was killed; and they say we did it.
+Oh, hide the meat! They took all that Fernando had; and it was his own,
+that he bought; he did not know anything about their steer!"
+
+"I shall not hide it!" cried Ramona, indignantly. "It is our own cow.
+Alessandro killed it to-day."
+
+"They won't believe you!" said the woman, in distress. "They'll take it
+all away. Oh, hide some of it!" And she dragged a part of it across the
+floor, and threw it under the bed, Ramona standing by, stupefied.
+
+Before she had spoken again, the forms of the galloping riders darkened
+the doorway; the foremost of them, leaping off his horse, exclaimed:
+"By God! here's the rest of it. If they ain't the damnedest impudent
+thieves! Look at this woman, cutting it up! Put that down, will you?
+We'll save you the trouble of dryin' our meat for us, besides killin'
+it! Fork over, now, every bit you've got, you--" And he called Ramona by
+a vile epithet.
+
+Every drop of blood left Ramona's face. Her eyes blazed, and she came
+forward with the knife uplifted in her hand. "Out of my house, you dogs
+of the white color!" she said. "This meat is our own; my husband killed
+the creature but this morning."
+
+Her tone and bearing surprised them. There were six of the men, and they
+had all swarmed into the little room.
+
+"I say, Merrill," said one of them, "hold on; the squaw says her husband
+only jest killed it to-day. It might be theirs."
+
+Ramona turned on him like lightning. "Are you liars, you all," she
+cried, "that you think I lie? I tell you the meat is ours; and there is
+not an Indian in this village would steal cattle!"
+
+A derisive shout of laughter from all the men greeted this speech; and
+at that second, the leader, seeing the mark of blood where the Indian
+woman had dragged the meat across the ground, sprang to the bed, and
+lifting the deerskin, pointed with a sneer to the beef hidden there.
+"Perhaps, when you know Injun's well's I do," he said, "you won't be for
+believin' all they say! What's she got it hid under the bed for, if it
+was their own cow?" and he stooped to drag the meat out. "Give us a hand
+here, Jake!"
+
+"If you touch it, I will kill you!" cried Ramona, beside herself with
+rage; and she sprang between the men, her uplifted knife gleaming.
+
+"Hoity-toity!" cried Jake, stepping back; "that's a handsome squaw when
+she's mad! Say, boys, let's leave her some of the meat. She wasn't to
+blame; of course, she believes what her husband told her."
+
+"You go to grass for a soft-head, you Jake!" muttered Merrill, as he
+dragged the meat out from beneath the bed.
+
+"What is all this?" said a deep voice in the door; and Ramona, turning,
+with a glad cry, saw Alessandro standing there, looking on, with an
+expression which, even in her own terror and indignation, gave her a
+sense of dread, it was so icily defiant. He had his hand on his gun.
+"What is all this?" he repeated. He knew very well.
+
+"It's that Temecula man," said one of the men, in a low tone, to
+Merrill. "If I'd known 't was his house, I wouldn't have let you come
+here. You're up the wrong tree, sure!"
+
+Merrill dropped the meat he was dragging over the floor, and turned to
+confront Alessandro's eyes. His countenance fell. Even he saw that
+he had made a mistake. He began to speak. Alessandro interrupted him.
+Alessandro could speak forcibly in Spanish. Pointing to his pony, which
+stood at the door with a package on its back, the remainder of the meat
+rolled in the hide, he said: "There is the remainder of the beef.
+I killed the creature this morning, in the canon. I will take Senor
+Merrill to the place, if he wishes it. Senor Merrill's steer was killed
+down in the willows yonder, yesterday."
+
+"That's so!" cried the men, gathering around him. "How did you know? Who
+did it?"
+
+Alessandro made no reply. He was looking at Ramona. She had flung her
+shawl over her head, as the other woman had done, and the two were
+cowering in the corner, their faces turned away. Ramona dared not look
+on; she felt sure Alessandro would kill some one. But this was not the
+type of outrage that roused Alessandro to dangerous wrath. He even felt
+a certain enjoyment in the discomfiture of the self-constituted posse
+of searchers for stolen goods. To all their questions in regard to the
+stolen steer, he maintained silence. He would not open his lips. At
+last, angry, ashamed, with a volley of coarse oaths at him for his
+obstinacy, they rode away. Alessandro went to Ramona's side. She was
+trembling. Her hands were like ice.
+
+"Let us go to the mountain to-night!" she gasped. "Take me where I need
+never see a white face again!"
+
+A melancholy joy gleamed in Alessandro's eyes. Ramona, at last, felt as
+he did.
+
+"I would not dare to leave Majella there alone, while there is no
+house," he said; "and I must go and come many times, before all the
+things can be carried."
+
+"It will be less danger there than here, Alessandro," said Ramona,
+bursting into violent weeping as she recalled the insolent leer with
+which the man Jake had looked at her. "Oh! I cannot stay here!"
+
+"It will not be many days, my Majel. I will borrow Fernando's pony, to
+take double at once; then we can go sooner."
+
+"Who was it stole that man's steer?" said Ramona. "Why did you not tell
+them? They looked as if they would kill you."
+
+"It was that Mexican that lives in the bottom, Jose Castro. I myself
+came on him, cutting the steer up. He said it was his; but I knew very
+well, by the way he spoke, he was lying. But why should I tell? They
+think only Indians will steal cattle. I can tell them, the Mexicans
+steal more."
+
+"I told them there was not an Indian in this village would steal
+cattle," said Ramona, indignantly.
+
+"That was not true, Majella," replied Alessandro, sadly. "When they
+are very hungry, they will steal a heifer or steer. They lose many
+themselves, and they say it is not so much harm to take one when they
+can get it. This man Merrill, they say, branded twenty steers for his
+own, last spring, when he knew they were Saboba cattle!"
+
+"Why did they not make him give them up?" cried Ramona.
+
+"Did not Majella see to-day why they can do nothing? There is no help
+for us, Majella, only to hide; that is all we can do!"
+
+A new terror had entered into Ramona's life; she dared not tell it to
+Alessandro; she hardly put it into words in her thoughts. But she was
+haunted by the face of the man Jake, as by a vision of evil, and on one
+pretext and another she contrived to secure the presence of some one of
+the Indian women in her house whenever Alessandro was away. Every day
+she saw the man riding past. Once he had galloped up to the open door,
+looked in, spoken in a friendly way to her, and ridden on. Ramona's
+instinct was right. Jake was merely biding his time. He had made up his
+mind to settle in the San Jacinto valley, at least for a few years, and
+he wished to have an Indian woman come to live with him and keep his
+house. Over in Santa Ysabel, his brother had lived in that way with an
+Indian mistress for three years; and when he sold out, and left Santa
+Ysabel, he had given the woman a hundred dollars and a little house for
+herself and her child. And she was not only satisfied, but held herself,
+in consequence of this temporary connection with a white man, much above
+her Indian relatives and friends. When an Indian man had wished to marry
+her, she had replied scornfully that she would never marry an Indian;
+she might marry another white man, but an Indian,--never. Nobody had
+held his brother in any less esteem for this connection; it was quite
+the way in the country. And if Jake could induce this handsomest squaw
+he had ever seen, to come and live with him in a smaller fashion, he
+would consider himself a lucky man, and also think he was doing a good
+thing for the squaw. It was all very clear and simple in his mind;
+and when, seeing Ramona walking alone in the village one morning, he
+overtook her, and walking by her side began to sound her on the
+subject, he had small misgivings as to the result. Ramona trembled as he
+approached her. She walked faster, and would not look at him; but he, in
+his ignorance, misinterpreted these signs egregiously.
+
+"Are you married to your husband?" he finally said. "It is but a poor
+place he gives you to live in. If you will come and live with me, you
+shall have the best house in the valley, as good as the Ravallos';
+and--" Jake did not finish his sentence. With a cry which haunted
+his memory for years, Ramona sprang from his side as if to run; then,
+halting suddenly, she faced him, her eyes like javelins, her breath
+coming fast. "Beast!" she said, and spat towards him; then turned and
+fled to the nearest house, where she sank on the floor and burst into
+tears, saying that the man below there in the road had been rude to her.
+Yes, the women said, he was a bad man; they all knew it. Of this Ramona
+said no word to Alessandro. She dared not; she believed he would kill
+Jake.
+
+When the furious Jake confided to his friend Merrill his repulse, and
+the indignity accompanying it, Merrill only laughed at him, and said: "I
+could have told you better than to try that woman. She's married, fast
+enough. There's plenty you can get, though, if you want 'em. They're
+first-rate about a house, and jest's faithful's dogs. You can trust 'em
+with every dollar you've got."
+
+From this day, Ramona never knew an instant's peace or rest till she
+stood on the rim of the refuge valley, high on San Jacinto. Then, gazing
+around, looking up at the lofty pinnacles above, which seemed to pierce
+the sky, looking down upon the world,--it seemed the whole world,
+so limitless it stretched away at her feet,--feeling that infinite
+unspeakable sense of nearness to Heaven, remoteness from earth which
+comes only on mountain heights, she drew in a long breath of delight,
+and cried: "At last! at last, Alessandro! Here we are safe! This is
+freedom! This is joy!"
+
+"Can Majella be content?" he asked.
+
+"I can almost be glad, Alessandro!" she cried, inspired by the glorious
+scene. "I dreamed not it was like this!"
+
+It was a wondrous valley. The mountain seemed to have been cleft to
+make it. It lay near midway to the top, and ran transversely on the
+mountain's side, its western or southwestern end being many feet lower
+than the eastern. Both the upper and lower ends were closed by piles of
+rocks and tangled fallen trees; the rocky summit of the mountain itself
+made the southern wall; the northern was a spur, or ridge, nearly
+vertical, and covered thick with pine-trees. A man might roam years
+on the mountain and not find this cleft. At the upper end gushed out
+a crystal spring, which trickled rather than ran, in a bed of marshy
+green, the entire length of the valley, disappeared in the rocks at the
+lower end, and came out no more; many times Alessandro had searched for
+it lower down, but could find no trace of it. During the summer, when
+he was hunting with Jeff, he had several times climbed the wall and
+descended it on the inner side, to see if the rivulet still ran; and, to
+his joy, had found it the same in July as in January. Drought could not
+harm it, then. What salvation in such a spring! And the water was pure
+and sweet as if it came from the skies.
+
+A short distance off was another ridge or spur of the mountain, widening
+out into almost a plateau. This was covered with acorn-bearing oaks; and
+under them were flat stones worn into hollows, where bygone generations
+of Indians had ground the nuts into meal. Generations long bygone
+indeed, for it was not in the memory of the oldest now living, that
+Indians had ventured so high up as this on San Jacinto. It was held to
+be certain death to climb to its summit, and foolhardy in the extreme to
+go far up its sides.
+
+There was exhilaration in the place. It brought healing to both
+Alessandro and Ramona. Even the bitter grief for the baby's death was
+soothed. She did not seem so far off, since they had come so much nearer
+to the sky. They lived at first in a tent; no time to build a house,
+till the wheat and vegetables were planted. Alessandro was surprised,
+when he came to the ploughing, to see how much good land he had. The
+valley thrust itself, in inlets and coves, into the very rocks of its
+southern wall; lovely sheltered nooks these were, where he hated to
+wound the soft, flower-filled sward with his plough. As soon as the
+planting was done, he began to fell trees for the house. No mournful
+gray adobe this time, but walls of hewn pine, with half the bark left
+on; alternate yellow and brown, as gay as if glad hearts had devised it.
+The roof, of thatch, tule, and yucca-stalks, double laid and thick,
+was carried out several feet in front of the house, making a sort of
+bower-like veranda, supported by young fir-tree stems, left rough. Once
+more Ramona would sit under a thatch with birds'-nests in it. A little
+corral for the sheep, and a rough shed for the pony, and the home was
+complete: far the prettiest home they had ever had. And here, in the
+sunny veranda, when autumn came, sat Ramona, plaiting out of fragrant
+willow twigs a cradle. The one over which she had wept such bitter tears
+in the valley, they had burned the night before they left their Saboba
+home. It was in early autumn she sat plaiting this cradle. The ground
+around was strewn with wild grapes drying; the bees were feasting on
+them in such clouds that Ramona rose frequently from her work to drive
+them away, saying, as she did so, "Good bees, make our honey from
+something else; we gain nothing if you drain our grapes for it; we want
+these grapes for the winter;" and as she spoke, her imagination sped
+fleetly forward to the winter, The Virgin must have forgiven her, to
+give her again the joy of a child in her arms. Ay, a joy! Spite of
+poverty, spite of danger, spite of all that cruelty and oppression could
+do, it would still be a joy to hold her child in her arms.
+
+The baby was born before winter came. An old Indian woman, the same
+whose house they had hired in Saboba, had come up to live with Ramona.
+She was friendless now, her daughter having died, and she thankfully
+came to be as a mother to Ramona. She was ignorant and feeble but Ramona
+saw in her always the picture of what her own mother might perchance
+be, wandering, suffering, she knew not what or where; and her yearning,
+filial instinct found sad pleasure in caring for this lonely, childless,
+aged one.
+
+Ramona was alone with her on the mountain at the time of the baby's
+birth. Alessandro had gone to the valley, to be gone two days; but
+Ramona felt no fear. When Alessandro returned, and she laid the child in
+his arms, she said with a smile, radiant once more, like the old smiles,
+"See, beloved! The Virgin has forgiven me; she has given us a daughter
+again!"
+
+But Alessandro did not smile. Looking scrutinizingly into the baby's
+face, he sighed, and said, "Alas, Majella, her eyes are like mine, not
+yours!"
+
+"I am glad of it," cried Ramona. "I was glad the first minute I saw it."
+
+He shook his head. "It is an ill fate to have the eyes of Alessandro,"
+he said. "They look ever on woe;" and he laid the baby back on Ramona's
+breast, and stood gazing sadly at her.
+
+"Dear Alessandro," said Ramona, "it is a sin to always mourn. Father
+Salvierderra said if we repined under our crosses, then a heavier cross
+would be laid on us. Worse things would come."
+
+"Yes," he said. "That is true. Worse things will come." And he walked
+away, with his head sunk deep on his breast.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+THERE was no real healing for Alessandro. His hurts had gone too deep.
+His passionate heart, ever secretly brooding on the wrongs he had borne,
+the hopeless outlook for his people in the future, and most of all on
+the probable destitution and suffering in store for Ramona, consumed
+itself as by hidden fires. Speech, complaint, active antagonism, might
+have saved him; but all these were foreign to his self-contained,
+reticent, repressed nature. Slowly, so slowly that Ramona could not tell
+on what hour or what day her terrible fears first changed to an even
+more terrible certainty, his brain gave way, and the thing, in dread
+of which he had cried out the morning they left San Pasquale, came upon
+him. Strangely enough, and mercifully, now that it had really come,
+he did not know it. He knew that he suddenly came to his consciousness
+sometimes, and discovered himself in strange and unexplained situations;
+had no recollection of what had happened for an interval of time, longer
+or shorter. But he thought it was only a sort of sickness; he did not
+know that during those intervals his acts were the acts of a madman;
+never violent, aggressive, or harmful to any one; never destructive.
+It was piteous to see how in these intervals his delusions were always
+shaped by the bitterest experiences of his life. Sometimes he fancied
+that the Americans were pursuing him, or that they were carrying off
+Ramona, and he was pursuing them. At such times he would run with maniac
+swiftness for hours, till he fell exhausted on the ground, and slowly
+regained true consciousness by exhaustion. At other times he believed
+he owned vast flocks and herds; would enter any enclosure he saw, where
+there were sheep or cattle, go about among them, speaking of them to
+passers-by as his own. Sometimes he would try to drive them away; but on
+being remonstrated with, would bewilderedly give up the attempt. Once he
+suddenly found himself in the road driving a small flock of goats, whose
+he knew not, nor whence he got them. Sitting down by the roadside, he
+buried his head in his hands. "What has happened to my memory?" he said.
+"I must be ill of a fever!" As he sat there, the goats, of their own
+accord, turned and trotted back into a corral near by, the owner of
+which stood, laughing, on his doorsill; and when Alessandro came up,
+said goodnaturedly, "All right, Alessandro! I saw you driving off my
+goats, but I thought you'd bring 'em back."
+
+Everybody in the valley knew him, and knew his condition. It did not
+interfere with his capacity as a worker, for the greater part of
+the time. He was one of the best shearers in the region, the best
+horse-breaker; and his services were always in demand, spite of the risk
+there was of his having at any time one of these attacks of wandering.
+His absences were a great grief to Ramona, not only from the loneliness
+in which it left her, but from the anxiety she felt lest his mental
+disorder might at any time take a more violent and dangerous shape. This
+anxiety was all the more harrowing because she must keep it locked in
+her own breast, her wise and loving instinct telling her that nothing
+could be more fatal to him than the knowledge of his real condition.
+More than once he reached home, breathless, panting, the sweat rolling
+off his face, crying aloud, "The Americans have found us out, Majella!
+They were on the trail! I baffled them. I came up another way." At such
+times she would soothe him like a child; persuade him to lie down and
+rest; and when he waked and wondered why he was so tired, she would say,
+"You were all out of breath when you came in, dear. You must not climb
+so fast; it is foolish to tire one's self so."
+
+In these days Ramona began to think earnestly of Felipe. She believed
+Alessandro might be cured. A wise doctor could surely do something for
+him. If Felipe knew what sore straits she was in, Felipe would help her.
+But how could she reach Felipe without the Senora's knowing it? And,
+still more, how could she send a letter to Felipe without Alessandro's
+knowing what she had written? Ramona was as helpless in her freedom on
+this mountain eyrie as if she had been chained hand and foot.
+
+And so the winter wore away, and the spring. What wheat grew in their
+fields in this upper air! Wild oats, too, in every nook and corner.
+The goats frisked and fattened, and their hair grew long and silky; the
+sheep were already heavy again with wool, and it was not yet midsummer.
+The spring rains had been good; the stream was full, and flowers grew
+along its edges thick as in beds.
+
+The baby had thrived; as placid, laughing a little thing as if its
+mother had never known sorrow. "One would think she had suckled pain,"
+thought Ramona, "so constantly have I grieved this year; but the Virgin
+has kept her well."
+
+If prayers could compass it, that would surely have been so; for night
+and day the devout, trusting, and contrite Ramona had knelt before the
+Madonna and told her golden beads, till they were wellnigh worn smooth
+of all their delicate chasing.
+
+At midsummer was to be a fete in the Saboba village, and the San
+Bernardino priest would come there. This would be the time to take the
+baby down to be christened; this also would be the time to send the
+letter to Felipe, enclosed in one to Aunt Ri, who would send it for her
+from San Bernardino. Ramona felt half guilty as she sat plotting what
+she should say and how she should send it,--she, who had never had in
+her loyal, transparent breast one thought secret from Alessandro since
+they were wedded. But it was all for his sake. When he was well, he
+would thank her.
+
+She wrote the letter with much study and deliberation; her dread of its
+being read by the Senora was so great, that it almost paralyzed her pen
+as she wrote. More than once she destroyed pages, as being too sacred a
+confidence for unloving eyes to read. At last, the day before the fete,
+it was done, and safely hidden away. The baby's white robe, finely
+wrought in open-work, was also done, and freshly washed and ironed.
+No baby would there be at the fete so daintily wrapped as hers; and
+Alessandro had at last given his consent that the name should be
+Majella. It was a reluctant consent, yielded finally only to please
+Ramona; and, contrary to her wont, she had been willing in this instance
+to have her own wish fulfilled rather than his. Her heart was set upon
+having the seal of baptism added to the name she so loved; and, "If I
+were to die," she thought, "how glad Alessandro would be, to have still
+a Majella!"
+
+All her preparations were completed, and it was yet not noon. She seated
+herself on the veranda to watch for Alessandro, who had been two days
+away, and was to have returned the previous evening, to make ready for
+the trip to Saboba. She was disquieted at his failure to return at the
+appointed time. As the hours crept on and he did not come, her anxiety
+increased. The sun had gone more than an hour past the midheavens before
+he came. He had ridden fast; she had heard the quick strokes of the
+horse's hoofs on the ground before she saw him. "Why comes he riding
+like that?" she thought, and ran to meet him. As he drew near, she saw
+to her surprise that he was riding a new horse. "Why, Alessandro!" she
+cried. "What horse is this?"
+
+He looked at her bewilderedly, then at the horse. True; it was not his
+own horse! He struck his hand on his forehead, endeavoring to collect
+his thoughts. "Where is my horse, then?" he said.
+
+"My God! Alessandro," cried Ramona. "Take the horse back instantly. They
+will say you stole it."
+
+"But I left my pony there in the corral," he said. "They will know I
+did not mean to steal it. How could I ever have made the mistake? I
+recollect nothing, Majella. I must have had one of the sicknesses."
+
+Ramona's heart was cold with fear. Only too well she knew what summary
+punishment was dealt in that region to horse-thieves. "Oh, let me take
+it back, dear!" she cried, "Let me go down with it. They will believe
+me."
+
+"Majella!" he exclaimed, "think you I would send you into the fold of
+the wolf? My wood-dove! It is in Jim Farrar's corral I left my pony. I
+was there last night, to see about his sheep-shearing in the autumn. And
+that is the last I know. I will ride back as soon as I have rested. I am
+heavy with sleep."
+
+Thinking it safer to let him sleep for an hour, as his brain was
+evidently still confused, Ramona assented to this, though a sense of
+danger oppressed her. Getting fresh hay from the corral, she with her
+own hands rubbed the horse down. It was a fine, powerful black horse;
+Alessandro had evidently urged him cruelly up the steep trail, for
+his sides were steaming, his nostrils white with foam. Tears stood
+in Ramona's eyes as she did what she could for him. He recognized her
+good-will, and put his nose to her face. "It must be because he was
+black like Benito, that Alessandro took him," she thought. "Oh, Mary
+Mother, help us to get the creature safe back!" she said.
+
+When she went into the house, Alessandro was asleep. Ramona glanced
+at the sun. It was already in the western sky. By no possibility could
+Alessandro go to Farrar's and back before dark. She was on the point
+of waking him, when a furious barking from Capitan and the other dogs
+roused him instantly from his sleep, and springing to his feet, he ran
+out to see what it meant. In a moment more Ramona followed,--only a
+moment, hardly a moment; but when she reached the threshold, it was to
+hear a gun-shot, to see Alessandro fall to the ground, to see, in the
+same second, a ruffianly man leap from his horse, and standing over
+Alessandro's body, fire his pistol again, once, twice, into the
+forehead, cheek. Then with a volley of oaths, each word of which seemed
+to Ramona's reeling senses to fill the air with a sound like thunder, he
+untied the black horse from the post where Ramona had fastened him, and
+leaping into his saddle again, galloped away, leading the horse. As he
+rode away, he shook his fist at Ramona, who was kneeling on the ground,
+striving to lift Alessandro's head, and to stanch the blood flowing
+from the ghastly wounds. "That'll teach you damned Indians to leave
+off stealing our horses!" he cried, and with another volley of terrible
+oaths was out of sight.
+
+With a calmness which was more dreadful than any wild outcry of grief,
+Ramona sat on the ground by Alessandro's body, and held his hands in
+hers. There was nothing to be done for him. The first shot had been
+fatal, close to his heart,--the murderer aimed well; the after-shots,
+with the pistol, were from mere wanton brutality. After a few seconds
+Ramona rose, went into the house, brought out the white altar-cloth, and
+laid it over the mutilated face. As she did this, she recalled words
+she had heard Father Salvierderra quote as having been said by Father
+Junipero, when one of the Franciscan Fathers had been massacred by the
+Indians, at San Diego. "Thank God." he said, "the ground is now watered
+by the blood of a martyr!"
+
+"The blood of a martyr!" The words seemed to float in the air; to
+cleanse it from the foul blasphemies the murderer had spoken. "My
+Alessandro!" she said. "Gone to be with the saints; one of the blessed
+martyrs; they will listen to what a martyr says." His hands were warm.
+She laid them in her bosom, kissed them again and again. Stretching
+herself on the ground by his side, she threw one arm over him, and
+whispered in his ear, "My love, my Alessandro! Oh, speak once to
+Majella! Why do I not grieve more? My Alessandro! Is he not blest
+already? And soon we will be with him! The burdens were too great. He
+could not bear them!" Then waves of grief broke over her, and she sobbed
+convulsively; but still she shed no tears. Suddenly she sprang to her
+feet, and looked wildly around. The sun was not many hours high. Whither
+should she go for help? The old Indian woman had gone away with the
+sheep, and would not be back till dark. Alessandro must not lie there
+on the ground. To whom should she go? To walk to Saboba was out of the
+question. There was another Indian village nearer,--the village of the
+Cahuillas, on one of the high plateaus of San Jacinto. She had once been
+there. Could she find that trail now? She must try. There was no human
+help nearer.
+
+Taking the baby in her arms, she knelt by Alessandro, and kissing him,
+whispered, "Farewell, my beloved. I will not be long gone. I go to bring
+friends." As she set off, swiftly running, Capitan, who had been lying
+by Alessandro's side, uttering heart-rending howls, bounded to his feet
+to follow her. "No, Capitan," she said; and leading him back to the
+body, she took his head in her hands, looked into his eyes, and said,
+"Capitan, watch here." With a whimpering cry, he licked her hands, and
+stretched himself on the ground. He understood, and would obey; but his
+eyes followed her wistfully till she disappeared from sight.
+
+The trail was rough, and hard to find. More than once Ramona stopped,
+baffled, among the rocky ridges and precipices. Her clothes were torn,
+her face bleeding, from the thorny shrubs; her feet seemed leaden, she
+made her way so slowly. It was dark in the ravines; as she climbed spur
+after spur, and still saw nothing but pine forests or bleak opens, her
+heart sank within her. The way had not seemed so long before. Alessandro
+had been with her; it was a joyous, bright day, and they had lingered
+wherever they liked, and yet the way had seemed short. Fear seized her
+that she was lost. If that were so, before morning she would be with
+Alessandro; for fierce beasts roamed San Jacinto by night. But for the
+baby's sake, she must not die. Feverishly she pressed on. At last, just
+as it had grown so dark she could see only a few hand-breadths before
+her, and was panting more from terror than from running, lights suddenly
+gleamed out, only a few rods ahead. It was the Cahuilla village. In a
+few moments she was there.
+
+It is a poverty-stricken little place, the Cahuilla village,--a cluster
+of tule and adobe huts, on a narrow bit of bleak and broken ground,
+on San Jacinto Mountain; the people are very poor, but are proud
+and high-spirited,--veritable mountaineers in nature, fierce and
+independent.
+
+Alessandro had warm friends among them, and the news that he had been
+murdered, and that his wife had run all the way down the mountain, with
+her baby in her arms, for help, went like wild-fire through the place.
+The people gathered in an excited group around the house where Ramona
+had taken refuge. She was lying, half unconscious, on a bed. As soon
+as she had gasped out her terrible story, she had fallen forward on the
+floor, fainting, and the baby had been snatched from her arms just in
+time to save it. She did not seem to miss the child; had not asked for
+it, or noticed it when it was brought to the bed. A merciful oblivion
+seemed to be fast stealing over her senses. But she had spoken words
+enough to set the village in a blaze of excitement. It ran higher and
+higher. Men were everywhere mounting their horses,--some to go up and
+bring Alessandro's body down; some organizing a party to go at once to
+Jim Farrar's house and shoot him: these were the younger men, friends of
+Alessandro. Earnestly the aged Capitan of the village implored them to
+refrain from such violence.
+
+"Why should ten be dead instead of one, my sons?" he said. "Will you
+leave your wives and your children like his? The whites will kill us all
+if you lay hands on the man. Perhaps they themselves will punish him."
+
+A derisive laugh rose from the group. Never yet within their experience
+had a white man been punished for shooting an Indian. The Capitan knew
+that as well as they did. Why did he command them to sit still like
+women, and do nothing, when a friend was murdered?
+
+"Because I am old, and you are young. I have seen that we fight in
+vain," said the wise old man. "It is not sweet to me, any more than to
+you. It is a fire in my veins; but I am old. I have seen. I forbid you
+to go."
+
+The women added their entreaties to his, and the young men abandoned
+their project. But it was with sullen reluctance; and mutterings were
+to be heard, on all sides, that the time would come yet. There was more
+than one way of killing a man. Farrar would not be long seen in the
+valley. Alessandro should be avenged.
+
+As Farrar rode slowly down the mountain, leading his recovered horse, he
+revolved in his thoughts what course to pursue. A few years before, he
+would have gone home, no more disquieted at having killed an Indian than
+if he had killed a fox or a wolf. But things were different now. This
+Agent, that the Government had taken it into its head to send out to
+look after the Indians, had made it hot, the other day, for some fellows
+in San Bernardino who had maltreated an Indian; he had even gone so
+far as to arrest several liquor-dealers for simply selling whiskey to
+Indians. If he were to take this case of Alessandro's in hand, it might
+be troublesome. Farrar concluded that his wisest course would be to make
+a show of good conscience and fair-dealing by delivering himself up
+at once to the nearest justice of the peace, as having killed a man
+in self-defence, Accordingly he rode straight to the house of a Judge
+Wells, a few miles below Saboba, and said that he wished to surrender
+himself as having committed "justifiable homicide" on an Indian, or
+Mexican, he did net know which, who had stolen his horse. He told a
+plausible story. He professed not to know the man, or the place; but did
+not explain how it was, that, knowing neither, he had gone so direct to
+the spot.
+
+He said: "I followed the trail for some time, but when I reached a turn,
+I came into a sort of blind trail, where I lost the track. I think the
+horse had been led up on hard sod, to mislead any one on the track. I
+pushed on, crossed the creek, and soon found the tracks again in soft
+ground. This part of the mountain was perfectly unknown to me, and very
+wild. Finally I came to a ridge, from which I looked down on a little
+ranch. As I came near the house, the dogs began to bark, just as I
+discovered my horse tied to a tree. Hearing the dogs, an Indian, or
+Mexican, I could not tell which, came out of the house, flourishing a
+large knife. I called out to him, 'Whose horse is that?' He answered
+in Spanish, 'It is mine.' 'Where did you get it?' I asked. 'In San
+Jacinto,' was his reply. As he still came towards me, brandishing the
+knife, I drew my gun, and said, 'Stop, or I'll shoot!' He did not stop,
+and I fired; still he did not stop, so I fired again; and as he did not
+fall, I knocked him down with the butt of my gun. After he was down, I
+shot him twice with my pistol."
+
+The duty of a justice in such a case as this was clear. Taking the
+prisoner into custody, he sent out messengers to summon a jury of six
+men to hold inquest on the body of said Indian, or Mexican; and early
+the next morning, led by Farrar, they set out for the mountain. When
+they reached the ranch, the body had been removed; the house was
+locked; no signs left of the tragedy of the day before, except a few
+blood-stains on the ground, where Alessandro had fallen. Farrar seemed
+greatly relieved at this unexpected phase of affairs. However, when he
+found that Judge Wells, instead of attempting to return to the valley
+that night, proposed to pass the night at a ranch only a few miles
+from the Cahuilla village, he became almost hysterical with fright.
+He declared that the Cahuillas would surely come and murder him in the
+night, and begged piteously that the men would all stay with him to
+guard him.
+
+At midnight Judge Wells was roused by the arrival of the Capitan and
+head men of the Cahuilla village. They had heard of his arrival with his
+jury, and they had come to lead them to their village, where the body of
+the murdered man lay. They were greatly distressed on learning that they
+ought not to have removed the body from the spot where the death had
+taken place, and that now no inquest could be held.
+
+Judge Wells himself, however, went back with them, saw the body, and
+heard the full account of the murder as given by Ramona on her first
+arrival. Nothing more could now be learned from her, as she was in high
+fever and delirium; knew no one, not even her baby when they laid it
+on her breast. She lay restlessly tossing from side to side, talking
+incessantly, clasping her rosary in her hands, and constantly mingling
+snatches of prayers with cries for Alessandro and Felipe; the only token
+of consciousness she gave was to clutch the rosary wildly, and sometimes
+hide it in her bosom, if they attempted to take it from her.
+
+Judge Wells was a frontiersman, and by no means sentimentally inclined;
+but the tears stood in his eyes as he looked at the unconscious Ramona.
+
+Farrar had pleaded that the preliminary hearing might take place
+immediately; but after this visit to the village, the judge refused his
+request, and appointed the trial a week from that day, to give time
+for Ramona to recover, and appear as a witness. He impressed upon the
+Indians as strongly as he could the importance of having her appear. It
+was evident that Farrar's account of the affair was false from first to
+last. Alessandro had no knife. He had not had time to go many steps from
+the door; the volley of oaths, and the two shots almost simultaneously,
+were what Ramona heard as she ran to the door. Alessandro could not have
+spoken many words.
+
+The day for the hearing came. Farrar had been, during the interval, in a
+merely nominal custody; having been allowed to go about his business,
+on his own personal guarantee of appearing in time for the trial. It
+was with a strange mixture of regret and relief that Judge Wells saw the
+hour of the trial arrive, and not a witness on the ground except Farrar
+himself. That Farrar was a brutal ruffian, the whole country knew. This
+last outrage was only one of a long series; the judge would have been
+glad to have committed him for trial, and have seen him get his deserts.
+But San Jacinto Valley, wild, sparsely settled as it was, had yet as
+fixed standards and criterions of popularity as the most civilized of
+communities could show; and to betray sympathy with Indians was more
+than any man's political head was worth. The word "justice" had lost its
+meaning, if indeed it ever had any, so far as they were concerned. The
+valley was a unit on that question, however divided it might be upon
+others. On the whole, the judge was relieved, though it was not without
+a bitter twinge, as of one accessory after the deed, and unfaithful to
+a friend; for he had known Alessandro well. Yet, on the whole, he was
+relieved when he was forced to accede to the motion made by Farrar's
+counsel, that "the prisoner be discharged on ground of justifiable
+homicide, no witnesses having appeared against him."
+
+He comforted himself by thinking--what was no doubt true--that even if
+the case had been brought to a jury trial, the result would have been
+the same; for there would never have been found a San Diego County jury
+that would convict a white man of murder for killing an Indian, if
+there were no witnesses to the occurrence except the Indian wife. But he
+derived small comfort from this. Alessandro's face haunted him, and also
+the memory of Ramona's, as she lay tossing and moaning in the wretched
+Cahuilla hovel. He knew that only her continued illness, or her death,
+could explain her not having come to the trial. The Indians would have
+brought her in their arms all the way, if she had been alive and in
+possession of her senses.
+
+During the summer that she and Alessandro had lived in Saboba he had
+seen her many times, and had been impressed by her rare quality. His
+children knew her and loved her; had often been in her house; his wife
+had bought her embroidery. Alessandro also had worked for him; and no
+one knew better than Judge Wells that Alessandro in his senses was as
+incapable of stealing a horse as any white man in the valley. Farrar
+knew it; everybody knew it. Everybody knew, also, about his strange fits
+of wandering mind; and that when these half-crazed fits came on him,
+he was wholly irresponsible. Farrar knew this. The only explanation of
+Farrar's deed was, that on seeing his horse spent and exhausted from
+having been forced up that terrible trail, he was seized by ungovernable
+rage, and fired on the second, without knowing what he did. "But he
+wouldn't have done it, if it hadn't been an Indian!" mused the judge.
+"He'd ha' thought twice before he shot any white man down, that way."
+
+Day after day such thoughts as these pursued the judge, and he could not
+shake them off. An uneasy sense that he owed something to Ramona, or, if
+Ramona were dead, to the little child she had left, haunted him. There
+might in some such way be a sort of atonement made to the murdered,
+unavenged Alessandro. He might even take the child, and bring it up in
+his own house. That was by no means an uncommon thing in the valley. The
+longer he thought, the more he felt himself eased in his mind by this
+purpose; and he decided that as soon as he could find leisure he would
+go to the Cahuilla village and see what could be done.
+
+But it was not destined that stranger hands should bring succor to
+Ramona. Felipe had at last found trace of her. Felipe was on the way.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+EFFECTUALLY misled by the faithful Carmena, Felipe had begun his search
+for Alessandro by going direct to Monterey. He found few Indians in the
+place, and not one had ever heard Alessandro's name. Six miles from the
+town was a little settlement of them, in hiding, in the bottoms of the
+San Carlos River, near the old Mission. The Catholic priest advised him
+to search there; sometimes, he said, fugitives of one sort and another
+took refuge in this settlement, lived there for a few months, then
+disappeared as noiselessly as they had come. Felipe searched there also;
+equally in vain.
+
+He questioned all the sailors in port; all the shippers. No one had
+heard of an Indian shipping on board any vessel; in fact, a captain
+would have to be in straits before he would take an Indian in his crew.
+
+"But this was an exceptionally good worker, this Indian; he could turn
+his hand to anything; he might have gone as ship's carpenter."
+
+"That might be," they said; "nobody had ever heard of any such thing,
+however;" and very much they all wondered what it was that made the
+handsome, sad Mexican gentleman so anxious to find this Indian.
+
+Felipe wasted weeks in Monterey. Long after he had ceased to hope, he
+lingered. He felt as if he would like to stay till every ship that had
+sailed out of Monterey in the last three years had returned. Whenever he
+heard of one coming into harbor, he hastened to the shore, and closely
+watched the disembarking. His melancholy countenance, with its eager,
+searching look, became a familiar sight to every one; even the children
+knew that the pale gentleman was looking for some one he could not find.
+Women pitied him, and gazed at him tenderly, wondering if a man could
+look like that for anything save the loss of a sweetheart. Felipe made
+no confidences. He simply asked, day after day, of every one he met, for
+an Indian named Alessandro Assis.
+
+Finally he shook himself free from the dreamy spell of the place,
+and turned his face southward again. He went by the route which the
+Franciscan Fathers used to take, when the only road on the California
+coast was the one leading from Mission to Mission. Felipe had heard
+Father Salvierderra say that there were in the neighborhood of each of
+the old Missions Indian villages, or families still living. He thought
+it not improbable that, from Alessandro's father's long connection with
+the San Luis Rey Mission, Alessandro might be known to some of these
+Indians. He would leave no stone unturned; no Indian village unsearched;
+no Indian unquestioned.
+
+San Juan Bautista came first; then Soledad, San Antonio, San Miguel, San
+Luis Obispo, Santa Inez; and that brought him to Santa Barbara. He
+had spent two months on the journey. At each of these places he found
+Indians; miserable, half-starved creatures, most of them. Felipe's heart
+ached, and he was hot with shame, at their condition. The ruins of the
+old Mission buildings were sad to see, but the human ruins were sadder.
+Now Felipe understood why Father Salvierderra's heart had broken, and
+why his mother had been full of such fierce indignation against the
+heretic usurpers and despoilers of the estates which the Franciscans
+once held. He could not understand why the Church had submitted,
+without fighting, to such indignities and robberies. At every one of the
+Missions he heard harrowing tales of the sufferings of those Fathers who
+had clung to their congregations to the last, and died at their posts.
+At Soledad an old Indian, weeping, showed him the grave of Father
+Sarria, who had died there of starvation. "He gave us all he had, to the
+last," said the old man. "He lay on a raw-hide on the ground, as we did;
+and one morning, before he had finished the mass, he fell forward at the
+altar and was dead. And when we put him in the grave, his body was only
+bones, and no flesh; he had gone so long without food, to give it to
+us."
+
+At all these Missions Felipe asked in vain for Alessandro. They knew
+very little, these northern Indians, about those in the south, they
+said. It was seldom one from the southern tribes came northward. They
+did not understand each other's speech. The more Felipe inquired, and
+the longer he reflected, the more he doubted Alessandro's having ever
+gone to Monterey. At Santa Barbara he made a long stay. The Brothers
+at the College welcomed him hospitably. They had heard from Father
+Salvierderra the sad story of Ramona, and were distressed, with Felipe,
+that no traces had been found of her. It grieved Father Salvierderra to
+the last, they said; he prayed for her daily, but said he could not get
+any certainty in his spirit of his prayers being heard. Only the day
+before he died, he had said this to Father Francis, a young Brazilian
+monk, to whom he was greatly attached.
+
+In Felipe's overwrought frame of mind this seemed to him a terrible
+omen; and he set out on his journey with a still heavier heart
+than before. He believed Ramona was dead, buried in some unknown,
+unconsecrated spot, never to be found; yet he would not give up the
+search. As he journeyed southward, he began to find persons who had
+known of Alessandro; and still more, those who had known his father, old
+Pablo. But no one had heard anything of Alessandro's whereabouts since
+the driving out of his people from Temecula; there was no knowing where
+any of those Temecula people were now. They had scattered "like a flock
+of ducks," one Indian said,--"like a flock of ducks after they are
+fired into. You'd never see all those ducks in any one place again. The
+Temecula people were here, there, and everywhere, all through San Diego
+County. There was one Temecula man at San Juan Capistrano, however. The
+Senor would better see him. He no doubt knew about Alessandro. He was
+living in a room in the old Mission building. The priest had given it
+to him for taking care of the chapel and the priest's room, and a little
+rent besides. He was a hard man, the San Juan Capistrano priest; he
+would take the last dollar from a poor man."
+
+It was late at night when Felipe reached San Juan Capistrano; but he
+could not sleep till he had seen this man. Here was the first clew he
+had gained. He found the man, with his wife and children, in a large
+corner room opening on the inner court of the Mission quadrangle. The
+room was dark and damp as a cellar; a fire smouldered in the enormous
+fireplace; a few skins and rags were piled near the hearth, and on these
+lay the woman, evidently ill. The sunken tile floor was icy cold to the
+feet; the wind swept in at a dozen broken places in the corridor side
+of the wall; there was not an article of furniture. "Heavens!" thought
+Felipe, as he entered, "a priest of our Church take rent for such a hole
+as this!"
+
+There was no light in the place, except the little which came from the
+fire. "I am sorry I have no candle, Senor," said the man, as he came
+forward. "My wife is sick, and we are very poor."
+
+"No matter," said Felipe, his hand already at his purse. "I only want to
+ask you a few questions. You are from Temecula, they tell me."
+
+"Yes, Senor," the man replied in a dogged tone,--no man of Temecula
+could yet hear the word without a pang,--"I was of Temecula."
+
+"I want to find one Alessandro Assis who lived there. You knew him, I
+suppose," said Felipe, eagerly.
+
+At this moment a brand broke in the smouldering fire, and for one second
+a bright blaze shot up; only for a second, then all was dark again. But
+the swift blaze had fallen on Felipe's face, and with a start which
+he could not control, but which Felipe did not see, the Indian had
+recognized him. "Ha, ha!" he thought to himself. "Senor Felipe Moreno,
+you come to the wrong house asking for news of Alessandro Assis!"
+
+It was Antonio,--Antonio, who had been at the Moreno sheep-shearing;
+Antonio, who knew even more than Carmena had known, for he knew what a
+marvel and miracle it seemed that the beautiful Senorita from the Moreno
+house should have loved Alessandro, and wedded him; and he knew that on
+the night she went away with him, Alessandro had lured out of the corral
+a beautiful horse for her to ride. Alessandro had told him all about
+it,--Baba, fiery, splendid Baba, black as night, with a white star in
+his forehead. Saints! but it was a bold thing to do, to steal such a
+horse as that, with a star for a mark; and no wonder that even now,
+though near three years afterwards, Senor Felipe was in search of him.
+Of course it could be only the horse he wanted. Ha! much help might he
+get from Antonio!
+
+"Yes, Senor, I knew him," he replied.
+
+"Do you know where he is now?"
+
+"No, Senor."
+
+"Do you know where he went, from Temecula?"
+
+"No, Senor."
+
+"A woman told me he went to Monterey. I have been there looking for
+him."
+
+"I heard, too, he had gone to Monterey."
+
+"Where did you see him last?"
+
+"In Temecula."
+
+"Was he alone?"
+
+"Yes, Senor."
+
+"Did you ever hear of his being married?"
+
+"No, Senor."
+
+"Where are the greater part of the Temecula people now?"
+
+"Like this, Senor," with a bitter gesture, pointing to his wife. "Most
+of us are beggars. A few here, a few there. Some have gone to Capitan
+Grande, some way down into Lower California."
+
+Wearily Felipe continued his bootless questioning. No suspicion that the
+man was deceiving him crossed his mind. At last, with a sigh, he
+said, "I hoped to have found Alessandro by your means. I am greatly
+disappointed.
+
+"I doubt not that, Senor Felipe Moreno," thought Antonio. "I am sorry,
+Senor," he said.
+
+It smote his conscience when Felipe laid in his hand a generous
+gold-piece, and said, "Here is a bit of money for you. I am sorry to see
+you so poorly off."
+
+The thanks which he spoke sounded hesitating and gruff, so remorseful
+did he feel. Senor Felipe had always been kind to them. How well they
+had fared always in his house! It was a shame to lie to him; yet the
+first duty was to Alessandro. It could not be avoided. And thus a second
+time help drifted away from Ramona.
+
+At Temecula, from Mrs. Hartsel, Felipe got the first true intelligence
+of Alessandro's movements; but at first it only confirmed his worst
+forebodings. Alessandro had been at Mrs. Hartsel's house; he had been
+alone, and on foot; he was going to walk all the way to San Pasquale,
+where he had the promise of work.
+
+How sure the kindly woman was that she was telling the exact truth.
+After long ransacking of her memory and comparing of events, she fixed
+the time so nearly to the true date, that it was to Felipe's mind a
+terrible corroboration of his fears. It was, he thought, about a week
+after Ramona's flight from home that Alessandro had appeared thus,
+alone, on foot, at Mrs. Hartsel's. In great destitution, she said; and
+she had lent him money on the expectation of selling his violin; but
+they had never sold it; there it was yet. And that Alessandro was dead,
+she had no more doubt than that she herself was alive; for else, he
+would have come back to pay her what he owed. The honestest fellow that
+ever lived, was Alessandro. Did not the Senor Moreno think so? Had he
+not found him so always? There were not many such Indians as Alessandro
+and his father. If there had been, it would have been better for their
+people. "If they'd all been like Alessandro, I tell you," she said, "it
+would have taken more than any San Diego sheriff to have put them out of
+their homes here."
+
+"But what could they do to help themselves, Mrs. Hartsel?" asked Felipe.
+"The law was against them. We can't any of us go against that. I myself
+have lost half my estate in the same way."
+
+"Well, at any rate they wouldn't have gone without fighting!" she said.
+"'If Alessandro had been here!' they all said."
+
+Felipe asked to see the violin. "But that is not Alessandro's," he
+exclaimed. "I have seen his."
+
+"No!" she said. "Did I say it was his? It was his father's. One of the
+Indians brought it in here to hide it with us at the time they were
+driven out. It is very old, they say, and worth a great deal of money,
+if you could find the right man to buy it. But he has not come along
+yet. He will, though. I am not a bit afraid but that we'll get our money
+back on it. If Alessandro was alive, he'd have been here long before
+this."
+
+Finding Mrs. Hartsel thus friendly, Felipe suddenly decided to tell
+her the whole story. Surprise and incredulity almost overpowered her at
+first. She sat buried in thought for some minutes; then she sprang
+to her feet, and cried: "If he's got that girl with him, he's hiding
+somewhere. There's nothing like an Indian to hide; and if he is hiding,
+every other Indian knows it, and you just waste your breath asking any
+questions of any of them. They will die before they will tell you one
+thing. They are as secret as the grave. And they, every one of them,
+worshipped Alessandro. You see they thought he would be over them, after
+Pablo, and they were all proud of him because he could read and
+write, and knew more than most of them. If I were in your place," she
+continued, "I would not give it up yet. I should go to San Pasquale. Now
+it might just be that she was along with him that night he stopped here,
+hid somewhere, while he came in to get the money. I know I urged him to
+stay all night, and he said he could not do it. I don't know, though,
+where he could possibly have left her while he came here."
+
+Never in all her life had Mrs. Hartsel been so puzzled and so astonished
+as now. But her sympathy, and her confident belief that Alessandro might
+yet be found, gave unspeakable cheer to Felipe.
+
+"If I find them, I shall take them home with me, Mrs. Hartsel," he said
+as he rode away; "and we will come by this road and stop to see you."
+And the very speaking of the words cheered him all the way to San
+Pasquale.
+
+But before he had been in San Pasquale an hour, he was plunged into a
+perplexity and disappointment deeper than he had yet felt. He found the
+village in disorder, the fields neglected, many houses deserted, the
+remainder of the people preparing to move away. In the house of Ysidro,
+Alessandro's kinsman, was living a white family,--the family of a man
+who had pre-empted the greater part of the land on which the village
+stood. Ysidro, profiting by Alessandro's example, when he found
+that there was no help, that the American had his papers from the
+land-office, in all due form, certifying that the land was his, had
+given the man his option of paying for the house or having it burned
+down. The man had bought the house; and it was only the week before
+Felipe arrived, that Ysidro had set off, with all his goods and
+chattels, for Mesa Grande. He might possibly have told the Senor more,
+the people said, than any one now in the village could; but even Ysidro
+did not know where Alessandro intended to settle. He told no one. He
+went to the north. That was all they knew.
+
+To the north! That north which Felipe thought he had thoroughly
+searched. He sighed at the word. The Senor could, if he liked, see the
+house in which Alessandro had lived. There it was, on the south side of
+the valley, just in the edge of the foothills; some Americans lived in
+it now. Such a good ranch Alessandro had; the best wheat in the valley.
+The American had paid Alessandro something for it,--they did not know
+how much; but Alessandro was very lucky to get anything. If only they
+had listened to him. He was always telling them this would come. Now it
+was too late for most of them to get anything for their farms. One man
+had taken the whole of the village lands, and he had bought Ysidro's
+house because it was the best; and so they would not get anything. They
+were utterly disheartened, broken-spirited.
+
+In his sympathy for them, Felipe almost forgot his own distresses.
+"Where are you going?" he asked of several.
+
+"Who knows, Senor?" was their reply. "Where can we go? There is no
+place."
+
+When, in reply to his questions in regard to Alessandro's wife, Felipe
+heard her spoken of as "Majella," his perplexity deepened. Finally he
+asked if no one had ever heard the name Ramona.
+
+"Never."
+
+What could it mean? Could it be possible that this was another
+Alessandro than the one of whom he was in search? Felipe bethought
+himself of a possible marriage-record. Did they know where Alessandro
+had married this wife of his, of whom every word they spoke seemed both
+like and unlike Ramona?
+
+Yes. It was in San Diego they had been married, by Father Gaspara.
+
+Hoping against hope, the baffled Felipe rode on to San Diego; and here,
+as ill-luck would have it, he found, not Father Gaspara, who would at
+his first word have understood all, but a young Irish priest, who had
+only just come to be Father Gaspara's assistant. Father Gaspara was
+away in the mountains, at Santa Ysabel. But the young assistant would do
+equally well, to examine the records. He was courteous and kind; brought
+out the tattered old book, and, looking over his shoulder, his breath
+coming fast with excitement and fear, there Felipe read, in Father
+Gaspara's hasty and blotted characters, the fatal entry of the names,
+"Alessandro Assis and Majella Fa--"
+
+Heart-sick, Felipe went away. Most certainly Ramona would never have
+been married under any but her own name. Who, then, was this woman whom
+Alessandro Assis had married in less than ten days from the night on
+which Ramona had left her home? Some Indian woman for whom he felt
+compassion, or to whom he was bound by previous ties? And where, in what
+lonely, forever hidden spot, was the grave of Ramona?
+
+Now at last Felipe felt sure that she was dead. It was useless searching
+farther. Yet, after he reached home, his restless conjectures took one
+more turn, and he sat down and wrote a letter to every priest between
+San Diego and Monterey, asking if there were on his books a record of
+the marriage of one Alessandro Assis and Ramona Ortegna.
+
+It was not impossible that there might be, after all, another Alessandro
+Assis, The old Fathers, in baptizing their tens of thousands of Indian
+converts, were sore put to it to make out names enough. There might
+have been another Assis besides old Pablo, and of Alessandros there were
+dozens everywhere.
+
+This last faint hope also failed. No record anywhere of an Alessandro
+Assis, except in Father Gaspara's book.
+
+As Felipe was riding out of San Pasquale, he had seen an Indian man and
+woman walking by the side of mules heavily laden. Two little children,
+two young or too feeble to walk, were so packed in among the bundles
+that their faces were the only part of them in sight. The woman was
+crying bitterly. "More of these exiles. God help the poor creatures!"
+thought Felipe; and he pulled out his purse, and gave the woman a piece
+of gold. She looked up in as great astonishment as if the money had
+fallen from the skies. "Thanks! Thanks, Senor!" she exclaimed; and the
+man coming up to Felipe said also, "God reward you, Senor! That is more
+money than I had in the world! Does the Senor know of any place where I
+could get work?"
+
+Felipe longed to say, "Yes, come to my estate; there you shall have
+work!" In the olden time he would have done it without a second thought,
+for both the man and the woman had good faces,--were young and strong.
+But the pay-roll of the Moreno estate was even now too long for
+its dwindled fortunes. "No, my man, I am sorry to say I do not," he
+answered. "I live a long way from here. Where were you thinking of
+going?"
+
+"Somewhere in San Jacinto," said the man. "They say the Americans have
+not come in there much yet. I have a brother living there. Thanks,
+Senor; may the saints reward you!"
+
+"San Jacinto!" After Felipe returned home, the name haunted his
+thoughts. The grand mountain-top bearing that name he had known well
+in many a distant horizon. "Juan Can," he said one day, "are there many
+Indians in San Jacinto?"
+
+"The mountain?" said Juan Can.
+
+"Ay, I suppose, the mountain," said Felipe. "What else is there?"
+
+"The valley, too," replied Juan. "The San Jacinto Valley is a fine,
+broad valley, though the river is not much to be counted on. It is
+mostly dry sand a good part of the year. But there is good grazing.
+There is one village of Indians I know in the valley; some of the
+San Luis Rey Indians came from there; and up on the mountain is a big
+village; the wildest Indians in all the country live there. Oh, they are
+fierce, Senor!"
+
+The next morning Felipe set out for San Jacinto. Why had no one
+mentioned, why had he not himself known, of these villages? Perhaps
+there were yet others he had not heard of. Hope sprang in Felipe's
+impressionable nature as easily as it died. An hour, a moment, might see
+him both lifted up and cast down. When he rode into the sleepy little
+village street of San Bernardino, and saw, in the near horizon, against
+the southern sky, a superb mountain-peak, changing in the sunset lights
+from turquoise to ruby, and from ruby to turquoise again, he said to
+himself, "She is there! I have found her!"
+
+The sight of the mountain affected him, as it had always affected Aunt
+Ri, with an indefinable, solemn sense of something revealed, yet hidden.
+"San Jacinto?" he said to a bystander, pointing to it with his whip.
+
+"Yes, Senor," replied the man. As he spoke, a pair of black horses came
+whirling round the corner, and he sprang to one side, narrowly escaping
+being knocked down. "That Tennessee fellow'll run over somebody yet,
+with those black devils of his, if he don't look out," he muttered, as
+he recovered his balance.
+
+Felipe glanced at the horses, then driving his spurs deep into his
+horse's sides, galloped after them. "Baba! by God!" he cried aloud in
+his excitement and forgetful of everything, he urged his horse faster,
+shouting as he rode, "Stop that man! Stop that man with the black
+horses!"
+
+Jos, hearing his name called on all sides, reined in Benito and Baba
+as soon as he could, and looked around in bewilderment to see what had
+happened. Before he had time to ask any questions, Felipe had overtaken
+him, and riding straight to Baba's head, had flung himself from his own
+horse and taken Baba by the rein, crying, "Baba! Baba!" Baba knew his
+voice, and began to whinny and plunge. Felipe was nearly unmanned. For
+the second, he forgot everything. A crowd was gathering around them. It
+had never been quite clear to the San Bernardino mind that Jos's title
+to Benito and Baba would bear looking into; and it was no surprise,
+therefore, to some of the on-lookers, to hear Felipe cry in a loud
+voice, looking suspiciously at Jos, "How did you get him?"
+
+Jos was a wag, and Jos was never hurried. The man did not live, nor
+could the occasion arrive, which would quicken his constitutional drawl.
+Before even beginning his answer he crossed one leg over the other and
+took a long, observant look at Felipe; then in a pleasant voice he said:
+"Wall, Senor,--I allow yer air a Senor by yer color,--it would take
+right smart uv time tew tell yeow haow I cum by thet hoss, 'n' by the
+other one tew. They ain't mine, neither one on 'em."
+
+Jos's speech was as unintelligible to Felipe as it had been to Ramona,
+Jos saw it, and chuckled.
+
+"Mebbe 't would holp yer tew understand me ef I wuz tew talk Mexican,"
+he said, and proceeded to repeat in tolerably good Spanish the sum and
+substance of what he had just said, adding: "They belong to an Indian
+over on San Jacinto; at least, the off one does; the nigh one's his
+wife's; he wouldn't ever call thet one anything but hers. It had been
+hers ever sence she was a girl, they said, I never saw people think so
+much of hosses as they did."
+
+Before Jos had finished speaking, Felipe had bounded into the wagon,
+throwing his horse's reins to a boy in the crowd, and crying, "Follow
+along with my horse, will you? I must speak to this man."
+
+Found! Found,--the saints be praised,--at last! How should he tell this
+man fast enough? How should he thank him enough?
+
+Laying his hand on Jos's knee, he cried: "I can't explain to you; I
+can't tell you. Bless you forever,--forever! It must be the saints led
+you here!"
+
+"Oh, Lawd!" thought Jos; "another o' them 'saint' fellers! I allow not,
+Senor," he said, relapsing into Tennesseean. "It wur Tom Wurmsee led me;
+I wuz gwine ter move his truck fur him this arternoon."
+
+"Take me home with you to your house," said Felipe, still trembling with
+excitement; "we cannot talk here in the street. I want to hear all
+you can tell me about them. I have been searching for them all over
+California."
+
+Jos's face lighted up. This meant good fortune for that gentle, sweet
+Ramona, he was sure. "I'll take you straight there," he said; "but first
+I must stop at Tom's. He will be waiting for me."
+
+The crowd dispersed, disappointed; cheated out of their anticipated
+scene of an arrest for horse-stealing. "Good for you, Tennessee!" and,
+"Fork over that black horse, Jos!" echoed from the departing groups.
+Sensations were not so common in San Bernardino that they could afford
+to slight so notable an occasion as this.
+
+As Jos turned the corner into the street where he lived, he saw his
+mother coming at a rapid run towards them, her sun-bonnet half off her
+head, her spectacles pushed up in her hair.
+
+"Why, thar's mammy!" he exclaimed. "What ever hez gone wrong naow?"
+
+Before he finished speaking, she saw the black horses, and snatching
+her bonnet from her head waved it wildly, crying, "Yeow Jos! Jos, hyar!
+Stop! I wuz er comin' ter hunt yer!"
+
+Breathlessly she continued talking, her words half lost in the sound
+of the wheels. Apparently she did not see the stranger sitting by Jos's
+side. "Oh, Jos, thar's the terriblest news come! Thet Injun Alessandro's
+got killed; murdered; jest murdered, I say; 'tain't no less. Thar wuz an
+Injun come down from ther mounting with a letter to the Agent."
+
+"Good God! Alessandro killed!" burst from Felipe's lips in a
+heart-rending voice.
+
+Jos looked bewilderedly from his mother to Felipe; the complication was
+almost beyond him. "Oh, Lawd!" he gasped. Turning to Felipe, "Thet's
+mammy," he said. "She wuz real fond o' both on 'em." Turning to his
+mother, "This hyar's her brother," he said. "He jest knowed me by Baba,
+hyar on ther street. He's been huntin' 'em everywhar."
+
+Aunt Ri grasped the situation instantly. Wiping her streaming eyes, she
+sobbed out: "Wall, I'll allow, arter this, thar is sech a thing ez a
+Providence, ez they call it. 'Pears like ther couldn't ennythin' less
+brung yer hyar jest naow. I know who yer be; ye're her brother Feeleepy,
+ain't yer? Menny's ther time she's tolt me about yer! Oh, Lawd! How air
+we ever goin' to git ter her? I allow she's dead! I allow she'd never
+live arter seein' him shot down dead! He tolt me thar couldn't nobody
+git up thar whar they'd gone; no white folks, I mean. Oh, Lawd, Lawd!"
+
+Felipe stood paralyzed, horror-stricken. He turned in despair to Jos.
+"Tell me in Spanish," he said. "I cannot understand."
+
+As Jos gradually drew out the whole story from his mother's excited and
+incoherent speech, and translated it, Felipe groaned aloud, "Too late!
+Too late!" He too felt, as Aunt Ri had, that Ramona never could have
+survived the shock of seeing her husband murdered. "Too late! Too late!"
+he cried, as he staggered into the house. "She has surely died of the
+sight."
+
+"I allow she didn't die, nuther," said Jos; "not ser long ez she hed
+thet young un to look arter!"
+
+"Yer air right, Jos!" said Aunt Ri. "I allow yer air right. Thar
+couldn't nothin' kill her, short er wild beasts, ef she hed ther baby
+'n her arms! She ain't dead, not ef the baby ez erlive, I allow. Thet's
+some comfort."
+
+Felipe sat with his face buried in his hands. Suddenly looking up, he
+said, "How far is it?"
+
+"Thirty miles 'n' more inter the valley, where we wuz," said Jos; "'n'
+the Lawd knows how fur 'tis up on ter the mounting, where they wuz
+livin'. It's like goin' up the wall uv a house, goin' up San Jacinto
+Mounting, daddy sez. He wuz thar huntin' all summer with Alessandro."
+
+How strange, how incredible it seemed, to hear Alessandro's name thus
+familiarly spoken,--spoken by persons who had known him so recently, and
+who were grieving, grieving as friends, to hear of his terrible death!
+Felipe felt as if he were in a trance. Rousing himself, he said, "We
+must go. We must start at once. You will let me have the horses?"
+
+"Wall, I allow yer've got more right ter 'em 'n--" began Jos,
+energetically, forgetting himself; then, dropping Tennesseean, he
+completed in Spanish his cordial assurances that the horses were at
+Felipe's command.
+
+"Jos! He's got ter take me!" cried Aunt Ri. "I allow I ain't never gwine
+ter set still hyar, 'n' thet girl inter sech trouble; 'n' if so be
+ez she is reely dead, thar's the baby. He hadn't orter go alone by
+hisself."
+
+Felipe was thankful, indeed, for Aunt Ri's companionship, and expressed
+himself in phrases so warm, that she was embarrassed.
+
+"Yeow tell him, Jos," she said, "I can't never git used ter bein' called
+Senory. Yeow tell him his' sister allers called me Aunt Ri, 'n' I jest
+wish he would. I allow me 'n' him'll git along all right. 'Pears like
+I'd known him all my days, jest ez 't did with her, arter the fust.
+I'm free to confess I take more ter these Mexicans than I do ter these
+low-down, driven Yankees, ennyhow,--a heap more; but I can't stand
+bein' Senory'd! Yeow tell him, Jos. I s'pose thar's a word for 'aunt' in
+Mexican, ain't there? 'Pears like thar couldn't be no langwedge 'thout
+sech a word! He'll know what it means! I'd go off with him a heap easier
+ef he'd call me jest plain Aunt Ri, ez I'm used ter, or Mis Hyer, either
+un on 'em; but Aunt Ri's the nateralest."
+
+Jos had some anxiety about his mother's memory of the way to San
+Jacinto. She laughed.
+
+"Don't yeow be a mite oneasy," she said. "I bet yeow I'd go clean back
+ter the States ther way we cum. I allow I've got every mile on 't 'n
+my hed plain's a turnpike. Yeow nor yer dad, neiry one on yer, couldn't
+begin to do 't. But what we air gwine ter do, fur gettin' up the
+mounting, thet's another thing. Thet's more 'n I dew know. But thar'll
+be a way pervided, Jos, sure's yeow're bawn. The Lawd ain't gwine to get
+hisself hindered er holpin' Ramony this time; I ain't a mite afeerd."
+
+Felipe could not have found a better ally. The comparative silence
+enforced between them by reason of lack of a common vehicle for their
+thoughts was on the whole less of a disadvantage than would have at
+first appeared. They understood each other well enough for practical
+purposes, and their unity in aim, and in affection for Ramona, made a
+bond so strong, it could not have been enhanced by words.
+
+It was past sundown when they left San Bernardino, but a full moon made
+the night as good as day for their journey. When it first shone out,
+Aunt Ri, pointing to it, said curtly, "Thet's lucky."
+
+"Yes," replied Felipe, who did not know either of the words she had
+spoken, "it is good. It shows to us the way."
+
+"Thar, naow, say he can't understand English!" thought Aunt Ri.
+
+Benito and Baba travelled as if they knew the errand on which they were
+hurrying. Good forty miles they had gone without flagging once, when
+Aunt Ri, pointing to a house on the right hand of the road, the only one
+they had seen for many miles, said: "We'll hev to sleep hyar. I donno
+the road beyant this. I allow they're gone ter bed; but they'll hev to
+git up 'n' take us in. They're used ter doin' it. They dew consid'able
+business keepin' movers. I know 'em. They're reel friendly fur the kind
+o' people they air. They're druv to death. It can't be far frum their
+time to git up, ennyhow. They're up every mornin' uv thar lives long
+afore daylight, a feedin' their stock, an' gittin' ready fur the day's
+work. I used ter hear 'em 'n' see 'em, when we wuz campin' here. The
+fust I saw uv it, I thought somebody wuz sick in the house, to git 'em
+up thet time o' night; but arterwards we found out 't wan't nothin' but
+thar reggerlar way. When I told dad, sez I, 'Dad, did ever yer hear
+sech a thing uz gittin' up afore light to feed stock?' 'n' ter feed
+theirselves tew. They'd their own breakfast all clared away, 'n' dishes
+washed, too, afore light; 'n' prayers said beside; they're Methodys,
+terrible pious. I used ter tell dad they talked a heap about believin'
+in God; I don't allow but what they dew believe in God, tew, but
+they don't worship Him so much's they worship work; not nigh so much.
+Believin' 'n' worshippin' 's tew things. Yeow wouldn't see no sech
+doin's in Tennessee. I allow the Lawd meant some time fur sleepin'; 'n'
+I'm satisfied with his times o' lightin' up. But these Merrills air reel
+nice folks, fur all this I've ben tellin' yer!--Lawd! I don't believe
+he's understood a word I've said, naow!" thought Aunt Ri to herself,
+suddenly becoming aware of the hopeless bewilderment on Felipe's face.
+"'Tain't much use sayin' anything more'n plain yes 'n' no, between folks
+thet can't understand each other's langwedge; 'n' s' fur's thet goes, I
+allow thar ain't any gret use'n the biggest part o' what's sed between
+folks thet doos!"
+
+When the Merrill family learned Felipe's purpose of going up the
+mountain to the Cahuilla village, they attempted to dissuade him from
+taking his own horses. He would kill them both, high-spirited horses
+like those, they said, if he took them over that road. It was a cruel
+road. They pointed out to him the line where it wound, doubling and
+tacking on the sides of precipices, like a path for a goat or chamois.
+Aunt Ri shuddered at the sight, but said nothing.
+
+"I'm gwine whar he goes," she said grimly to herself. "I ain't a gwine
+ter back daown naow; but I dew jest wish Jeff Hyer wuz along."
+
+Felipe himself disliked what he saw and heard of the grade. The road
+had been built for bringing down lumber, and for six miles it was at
+perilous angles. After this it wound along on ridges and in ravines till
+it reached the heart of a great pine forest, where stood a saw-mill.
+Passing this, it plunged into still darker, denser woods, some fifteen
+miles farther on, and then came out among vast opens, meadows, and
+grassy foot-hills, still on the majestic mountain's northern or eastern
+<DW72>s. From these, another steep road, little more than a trail, led
+south, and up to the Cahuilla village. A day and a half's hard journey,
+at the shortest, it was from Merrill's; and no one unfamiliar with the
+country could find the last part of the way without a guide. Finally
+it was arranged that one of the younger Merrills should go in this
+capacity, and should also take two of his strongest horses, accustomed
+to the road. By the help of these the terrible ascent was made without
+difficulty, though Baba at first snorted, plunged, and resented the
+humiliation of being harnessed with his head at another horse's tail.
+
+Except for their sad errand, both Felipe and Aunt Ri would have
+experienced a keen delight in this ascent. With each fresh lift on the
+precipitous terraces, the view off to the south and west broadened,
+until the whole San Jacinto Valley lay unrolled at their feet. The pines
+were grand; standing, they seemed shapely columns; fallen, the upper
+curve of their huge yellow disks came above a man's head, so massive was
+their size. On many of them the bark had been riddled from root to top,
+as by myriads of bullet-holes. In each hole had been cunningly stored
+away an acorn,--the woodpeckers' granaries.
+
+"Look at thet, naow!" exclaimed the observant Aunt Ri; "an' thar's
+folk's thet sez dumb critters ain't got brains. They ain't noways dumb
+to each other, I notice; an' we air dumb aourselves when we air ketched
+with furriners. I allow I'm next door to dumb myself with this hyar
+Mexican I'm er travellin' with."
+
+"That's so!" replied Sam Merrill. "When we fust got here, I thought I'd
+ha' gone clean out o' my head tryin' to make these Mexicans sense my
+meanin'; my tongue was plaguy little use to me. But now I can talk their
+lingo fust-rate; but pa, he can't talk to 'em nohow; he hain't learned
+the fust word; 'n' he's ben here goin' on two years longer'n we have."
+
+The miles seemed leagues to Felipe. Aunt Ri's drawling tones, as she
+chatted volubly with young Merrill, chafed him. How could she chatter!
+But when he thought this, it would chance that in a few moments more he
+would see her clandestinely wiping away tears, and his heart would warm
+to her again.
+
+They slept at a miserable cabin in one of the clearings, and at early
+dawn pushed on, reaching the Cahuilla village before noon. As their
+carriage came in sight, a great running to and fro of people was to be
+seen. Such an event as the arrival of a comfortable carriage drawn by
+four horses had never before taken place in the village. The agitation
+into which the people had been thrown by the murder of Alessandro had
+by no means subsided; they were all on the alert, suspicious of each new
+occurrence. The news had only just reached the village that Farrar had
+been set at liberty, and would not be punished for his crime, and the
+flames of indignation and desire for vengeance, which the aged Capitan
+had so much difficulty in allaying in the outset, were bursting forth
+again this morning. It was therefore a crowd of hostile and lowering
+faces which gathered around the carriage as it stopped in front of the
+Capitan's house.
+
+Aunt Ri's face was a ludicrous study of mingled terror, defiance, and
+contempt. "Uv all ther low-down, no-'count, beggarly trash ever I laid
+eyes on," she said in a low tone to Merrill, "I allow these yere air the
+wust! But I allow they'd flatten us all aout in jest abaout a minnit,
+if they wuz to set aout tew! Ef she ain't hyar, we air in a scrape, I
+allow."
+
+"Oh, they're friendly enough," laughed Merrill. "They're all stirred
+up, now, about the killin' o' that Injun; that's what makes 'em look
+so fierce. I don't wonder! 'Twas a derned mean thing Jim Farrar did, a
+firin' into the man after he was dead. I don't blame him for killin'
+the cuss, not a bit; I'd have shot any man livin' that 'ad taken a good
+horse o' mine up that trail. That's the only law we stock men've got
+out in this country. We've got to protect ourselves. But it was a mean,
+low-lived trick to blow the feller's face to pieces after he was dead;
+but Jim's a rough feller, 'n' I expect he was so mad, when he see his
+horse, that he didn't know what he did."
+
+Aunt Ri was half paralyzed with astonishment at this speech. Felipe had
+leaped out of the carriage, and after a few words with the old Capitan,
+had hurried with him into his house. Felipe had evidently forgotten that
+she was still in the carriage. His going into the house looked as if
+Ramona was there. Aunt Ri, in all her indignation and astonishment, was
+conscious of this train of thought running through her mind; but not
+even the near prospect of seeing Ramona could bridle her tongue now,
+or make her defer replying to the extraordinary statements she had just
+heard. The words seemed to choke her as she began. "Young man," she
+said, "I donno much abaout yeour raisin'. I've heered yeour folks wuz
+great on religion. Naow, we ain't, Jeff 'n' me; we warn't raised thet
+way; but I allow ef I wuz ter hear my boy, Jos,--he's jest abaout yeour
+age, 'n' make tew, though he's narrerer chested,--ef I should hear him
+say what yeou've jest said, I allow I sh'd expect to see him struck by
+lightnin'; 'n' I sh'dn't think he hed got more 'n his deserts, I allow I
+sh'dn't!"
+
+What more Aunt Ri would have said to the astounded Merrill was never
+known, for at that instant the old Capitan, returning to the door,
+beckoned to her; and springing from her seat to the ground, sternly
+rejecting Sam's offered hand, she hastily entered the house. As she
+crossed the threshold, Felipe turned an anguished face toward her, and
+said, "Come, speak to her." He was on his knees by a wretched pallet on
+the floor. Was that Ramona,--that prostrate form; hair dishevelled, eyes
+glittering, cheeks scarlet, hands playing meaninglessly, like the hands
+of one crazed, with a rosary of gold beads? Yes, it was Ramona; and
+it was like this she had lain there now ten days; and the people had
+exhausted all their simple skill for her in vain.
+
+Aunt Ri burst into tears. "Oh, Lawd!" she said. "Ef I had some 'old man'
+hyar, I'd bring her aout er thet fever! I dew bleeve I seed some on 't
+growin' not more'n er mile back." And without a second look, or another
+word, she ran out of the door, and springing into the carriage, said,
+speaking faster than she had been heard to speak for thirty years: "Yeow
+jest turn raound 'n' drive me back a piece, the way we come. I allow
+I'll git a weed thet'll break thet fever. Faster, faster! Run yer
+hosses. 'Tain't above er mile back, whar I seed it," she cried, leaning
+out, eagerly scrutinizing each inch of the barren ground. "Stop! Here
+'tis!" she cried. "I knowed I smelt the bitter on 't somewhars along
+hyar;" and in a few minutes more she had a mass of the soft, shining,
+gray, feathery leaves in her hands, and was urging the horses fiercely
+on their way back. "This'll cure her, ef ennything will," she said, as
+she entered the room again; but her heart sank as she saw Ramona's eyes
+roving restlessly over Felipe's face, no sign of recognition in them.
+"She's bad," she said, her lips trembling; "but, 'never say die!' ez
+allers our motto; 'tain't never tew late fur ennything but oncet, 'n'
+yer can't tell when thet time's come till it's past 'n' gone."
+
+Steaming bowls of the bitterly odorous infusion she held at Ramona's
+nostrils; with infinite patience she forced drop after drop of it
+between the unconscious lips; she bathed the hands and head, her own
+hands blistered by the heat. It was a fight with death; but love and
+life won. Before night Ramona was asleep.
+
+Felipe and Aunt Ri sat by her, strange but not uncongenial watchers,
+each taking heart from the other's devotion. All night long Ramona
+slept. As Felipe watched her, he remembered his own fever, and how she
+had knelt by his bed and prayed there. He glanced around the room. In a
+niche in the mud wall was a cheap print of the Madonna, one candle just
+smouldering out before it. The village people had drawn heavily on their
+poverty-stricken stores, keeping candles burning for Alessandro and
+Ramona during the past ten days. The rosary had slipped from Ramona's
+hold; taking it cautiously in his hand, Felipe went to the Madonna's
+picture, and falling on his knees, began to pray as simply as if he were
+alone. The Indians, standing on the doorway, also fell on their knees,
+and a low-whispered murmur was heard.
+
+For a moment Aunt Ri looked at the kneeling figures with contempt. "Oh,
+Lawd!" she thought, "the pore heathen, prayin' ter a picter!" Then a
+sudden revulsion seized her. "I allow I ain't gwine ter be the unly one
+out er the hull number thet don't seem to hev nothin' ter pray ter; I
+allow I'll jine in prayer, tew, but I shan't say mine ter no picter!"
+And Aunt Ri fell on her knees; and when a young Indian woman by her side
+slipped a rosary into her hand, Aunt Ri did not repulse it, but hid it
+in the folds of her gown till the prayers were done. It was a moment and
+a lesson Aunt Ri never forgot.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE Capitan's house faced the east. Just as day broke, and the light
+streamed in at the open door, Ramona's eyes unclosed. Felipe and Aunt
+Ri were both by her side. With a look of bewildered terror, she gazed at
+them.
+
+"Thar, thar, naow! Yer jest shet yer eyes 'n' go right off ter sleep
+agin, honey," said Aunt Ri, composedly, laying her hand on Ramona's
+eyelids, and compelling them down. "We air hyar, Feeleepy 'n' me, 'n'
+we air goin' ter stay. I allow yer needn't be afeerd o' nothin'. Go ter
+sleep, honey."
+
+The eyelids quivered beneath Aunt Ri's fingers. Tears forced their way,
+and rolled slowly down the cheeks. The lips trembled; the voice strove
+to speak, but it was only like the ghost of a whisper, the faint
+question that came,--"Felipe?"
+
+"Yes, dear! I am here, too," breathed Felipe; "go to sleep. We will not
+leave you!"
+
+And again Ramona sank away into the merciful sleep which was saving her
+life.
+
+"Ther longer she kin sleep, ther better," said Aunt Ri, with a sigh,
+deep-drawn like a groan. "I allow I dread ter see her reely come to.
+'T'll be wus'n the fust; she'll hev ter live it all over again!"
+
+But Aunt Ri did not know what forces of fortitude had been gathering
+in Ramona's soul during these last bitter years. Out of her gentle
+constancy had been woven the heroic fibre of which martyrs are made;
+this, and her inextinguishable faith, had made her strong, as were
+those of old, who "had trial of cruel mocking, wandering about, being
+destitute, afflicted, tormented, wandered in deserts and in mountains,
+and in dens and caves of the earth."
+
+When she waked the second time, it was with a calm, almost beatific
+smile that she gazed on Felipe, and whispered, "How did you find me,
+dear Felipe?" It was rather by the motions of her lips than by any
+sound that he knew the words. She had not yet strength enough to make an
+audible sound. When they laid her baby on her breast, she smiled again,
+and tried to embrace her, but was too weak. Pointing to the baby's eyes,
+she whispered, gazing earnestly at Felipe, "Alessandro." A convulsion
+passed over her face as she spoke the word, and the tears flowed.
+
+Felipe could not speak. He glanced helplessly at Aunt Ri, who promptly
+responded: "Naow, honey, don't yeow talk. 'Tain't good fur ye; 'n'
+Feeleepy 'n' me, we air in a powerful hurry ter git yer strong 'n'
+well, 'n' tote ye out er this--" Aunt Ri stopped. No substantive in her
+vocabulary answered her need at that moment. "I allow ye kin go 'n a
+week, ef nothin' don't go agin ye more'n I see naow; but ef yer git ter
+talkin', thar's no tellin' when yer'll git up. Yeow jest shet up, honey.
+We'll look arter everythin'."
+
+Feebly Ramona turned her grateful, inquiring eyes on Felipe. Her lips
+framed the words, "With you?"
+
+"Yes, dear, home with me," said Felipe, clasping her hand in his. "I
+have been searching for you all this time."
+
+An anxious look came into the sweet face. Felipe knew what it meant. How
+often he had seen it in the olden time. He feared to shock her by the
+sudden mention of the Senora's death; yet that would harm her less than
+continued anxiety. "I am alone, dear Ramona," he whispered. "There is no
+one now but you, my sister, to take care of me. My mother has been dead
+a year."
+
+The eyes dilated, then filled with sympathetic tears. "Dear Felipe!"
+she sighed; but her heart took courage. Felipe's phrase was like one
+inspired; another duty, another work, another loyalty, waiting for
+Ramona. Not only her child to live for, but to "take care of Felipe"!
+Ramona would not die! Youth, a mother's love, a sister's affection and
+duty, on the side of life,--the battle was won, and won quickly, too.
+
+To the simple Cahuillas it seemed like a miracle; and they looked on
+Aunt Ri's weather-beaten face with something akin to a superstitious
+reverence. They themselves were not ignorant of the value of the herb
+by means of which she had wrought the marvellous cure; but they had made
+repeated experiments with it upon Ramona, without success. It must be
+that there had been some potent spell in Aunt Ri's handling. They would
+hardly believe her when, in answer to their persistent questioning, she
+reiterated the assertion that she had used nothing except the hot water
+and "old man," which was her name for the wild wormwood; and which,
+when explained to them, impressed them greatly, as having no doubt some
+significance in connection with the results of her preparation of the
+leaves.
+
+Rumors about Felipe ran swiftly throughout the region. The presence in
+the Cahuilla village of a rich Mexican gentleman who spent gold like
+water, and kept mounted men riding day and night, after everything,
+anything, he wanted for his sick sister, was an event which in the
+atmosphere of that lonely country loomed into colossal proportions. He
+had travelled all over California, with four horses, in search of her.
+He was only waiting till she was well, to take her to his home in the
+south; and then he was going to arrest the man who had murdered her
+husband, and have him hanged,--yes, hanged! Small doubt about that;
+or, if the law cleared him, there was still the bullet. This rich Senor
+would see him shot, if rope were not to be had. Jim Farrar heard these
+tales, and quaked in his guilty soul. The rope he had small fear of, for
+well he knew the temper of San Diego County juries and judges; but the
+bullet, that was another thing; and these Mexicans were like Indians in
+their vengeance. Time did not tire them, and their memories were long.
+Farrar cursed the day he had let his temper get the better of him on
+that lonely mountainside; how much the better, nobody but he himself
+knew,--nobody but he and Ramona: and even Ramona did not know the bitter
+whole. She knew that Alessandro had no knife, and had gone forward with
+no hostile intent; but she knew nothing beyond that. Only the murderer
+himself knew that the dialogue which he had reported to the judge and
+jury, to justify his act, was an entire fabrication of his own, and
+that, instead of it, had been spoken but four words by Alessandro, and
+those were, "Senor, I will explain;" and that even after the first shot
+had pierced his lungs, and the blood was choking in his throat, he had
+still run a step or two farther, with his hand uplifted deprecatingly,
+and made one more effort to speak before he fell to the ground dead.
+Callous as Farrar was, and clear as it was in his mind that killing an
+Indian was no harm, he had not liked to recall the pleading anguish in
+Alessandro's tone and in his face as he fell. He had not liked to recall
+this, even before he heard of this rich Mexican brother-in-law who
+had appeared on the scene; and now, he found the memories still more
+unpleasant. Fear is a wonderful goad to remorse. There was another
+thing, too, which to his great wonder had been apparently overlooked by
+everybody; at least, nothing had been said about it; but the bearing of
+it on his case, if the case were brought up a second time and minutely
+investigated, would be most unfortunate. And this was, that the only
+clew he had to the fact of Alessandro's having taken his horse, was that
+the poor, half-crazed fellow had left his own well-known gray pony in
+the corral in place of the horse he took. A strange thing, surely, for a
+horse-thief to do! Cold sweat burst out on Farrar's forehead, more
+than once, as he realized how this, coupled with the well-known fact
+of Alessandro's liability to attacks of insanity, might be made to tell
+against him, if he should be brought to trial for the murder. He was
+as cowardly as he was cruel: never yet were the two traits separate
+in human nature; and after a few days of this torturing suspense and
+apprehension, he suddenly resolved to leave the country, if not forever,
+at least for a few years, till this brother-in-law should be out of the
+way. He lost no time in carrying out his resolution; and it was well
+he did not, for it was only three days after he had disappeared, that
+Felipe walked into Judge Wells's office, one morning, to make inquiries
+relative to the preliminary hearing which had been held there in the
+matter of the murder of the Indian, Alessandro Assis, by James Farrar.
+And when the judge, taking down his books, read to Felipe his notes of
+the case, and went on to say, "If Farrar's testimony is true, Ramona's,
+the wife's, must be false," and "at any rate, her testimony would not be
+worth a straw with any jury," Felipe sprang to his feet, and cried, "She
+of whom you speak is my foster-sister; and, by God, Senor, if I can find
+that man, I will shoot him as I would a dog! And I'll see, then, if a
+San Diego County jury will hang me for ridding the country of such a
+brute!" and Felipe would have been as good as his word. It was a wise
+thing Farrar had done in making his escape.
+
+When Aunt Ri heard that Farrar had fled the country, she pushed up
+her spectacles and looked reflectively at her informant. It was young
+Merrill. "Fled ther country, hez he?" she said. "Wall, he kin flee ez
+many countries ez he likes, an' 't won't dew him no good. I know yeow
+folks hyar don't seem ter think killin' an Injun's enny murder, but I
+say 'tis; an' yeow'll all git it brung home ter yer afore yer die: ef
+'tain't brung one way, 't'll be anuther; yeow jest mind what I say, 'n'
+don't yeow furgit it. Naow this miser'ble murderer, this Farrar, thet's
+lighted out er hyar, he's nothin' more'n a skunk, but he's got the Lawd
+arter him, naow. It's jest's well he's gawn; I never did b'leeve in
+hangin'. I never could. It's jest tew men dead 'stead o' one. I don't
+want to see no man hung, no marter what he's done, 'n' I don't want to
+see no man shot down, nuther, no marter what he's done; 'n' this hyar
+Feeleepy, he's thet highstrung, he'd ha' shot thet Farrar, any minnit,
+quicker'n lightnin', ef he'd ketched him; so it's better all raound
+he's lit aout. But I tell yeow, naow, he hain't made much by goin'! Thet
+Injun he murdered 'll foller him night 'n' day, till he dies, 'n' long
+arter; he'll wish he wuz dead afore he doos die, I allow he will, naow.
+He'll be jest like a man I knowed back in Tennessee. I wa'n't but a
+mite then, but I never forgot it. 'Tis a great country fur gourds, East
+Tennessee is, whar I wuz raised; 'n' thar wuz two houses, 'n' a fence
+between 'em, 'n' these gourds a runnin' all over the fence; 'n' one o'
+ther childun picked one o' them gourds, an' they fit abaout it; 'n' then
+the women took it up,--ther childun's mothers, yer know,--'n' they got
+fightin' abaout it; 'n' then 't the last the men took it up, 'n' they
+fit; 'n' Rowell he got his butcher-knife, 'n' he ground it up, 'n' he
+picked a querril with Claiborne, 'n' he cut him inter pieces. They hed
+him up for 't, 'n' somehow they clared him. I don't see how they ever
+did, but they put 't off, 'n' put 't off, 'n' 't last they got him free;
+'n' he lived on thar a spell, but he couldn't stan' it; 'peared like
+he never hed no peace; 'n' he came over ter our 'us, 'n' sed he,
+'Jake,'--they allers called daddy 'Jake,' or 'Uncle Jake,'--'Jake,' sed
+he, 'I can't stan' it, livin' hyar.' 'Why,' sez daddy, 'the law o' the
+country's clar'd ye.' 'Yes,' sez he, 'but the law o' God hain't; 'n'
+I've got Claiborne allers with me. Thar ain't any path so narrer, but
+he's a walkin' in it, by my side, all day; 'n' come night, I sleep with
+him ter one side, 'n' my wife 't other; 'n' I can't stan' it.' Them's
+ther very words I heered him say, 'n' I wuzn't ennythin' but a mite, but
+I didn't furgit it. Wall, sir, he went West, way aout hyar to Californy,
+'n' he couldn't stay thar nuther, 'n' he came back hum agin; 'n' I wuz
+bigger then, a gal grown, 'n' daddy sez to him,--I heern him,--'Wal,'
+sez he, 'did Claiborne foller yer?' 'Yes,' sez he, 'he follered me. I'll
+never git shet o' him in this world. He's allers clost to me everywhar.'
+Yer see, 'twas jest his conscience er whippin' him. Thet's all 't wuz.
+'T least, thet's all I think 't wuz; though thar wuz those thet said
+'t wuz Claiborne's ghost. 'N' thet'll be the way 't 'll be with this
+miser'ble Farrar. He'll live ter wish he'd let hisself be hanged er
+shot, er erry which way, ter git out er his misery."
+
+Young Merrill listened with unwonted gravity to Aunt Ri's earnest words.
+They reached a depth in his nature which had been long untouched; a
+stratum, so to speak, which lay far beneath the surface. The character
+of the Western frontiersman is often a singular accumulation of such
+strata,--the training and beliefs of his earliest days overlain by
+successions of unrelated and violent experiences, like geological
+deposits. Underneath the exterior crust of the most hardened and
+ruffianly nature often remains--its forms not yet quite fossilized--a
+realm full of the devout customs, doctrines, religious influences, which
+the boy knew, and the man remembers, By sudden upheaval, in some great
+catastrophe or struggle in his mature life, these all come again into
+the light. Assembly Catechism definitions, which he learned in his
+childhood, and has not thought of since, ring in his ears, and he is
+thrown into all manner of confusions and inconsistencies of feeling and
+speech by this clashing of the old and new man within him. It was much
+in this way that Aunt Ri's words smote upon young Merrill. He was not
+many years removed from the sound of a preaching of the straitest New
+England Calvinism. The wild frontier life had drawn him in and under, as
+in a whirlpool; but he was New Englander yet at heart.
+
+"That's so, Aunt Ri!" he exclaimed. "That's so! I don't s'pose a man
+that's committed murder 'll ever have any peace in this world, nor in
+the next nuther, without he repents; but ye see this horse-stealin'
+business is different. 'Tain't murder to kill a hoss-thief, any way you
+can fix it; everybody admits that. A feller that's caught horse-stealin'
+had ought to be shot; and he will be, too, I tell you, in this country!"
+
+A look of impatient despair spread over Aunt Ri's face. "I hain't no
+patience left with yer," she said, "er talkin' abaout stealin' hosses ez
+ef hosses wuz more'n human bein's! But lettin' thet all go, this Injun,
+he wuz crazy. Yer all knowed it. Thet Farrar knowed it. D'yer think ef
+he'd ben stealin' the hoss, he'd er left his own hoss in the corral,
+same ez, yer might say, leavin' his kyerd to say 't wuz he done it; 'n'
+the hoss er tied in plain sight 'n front uv his house fur ennybody ter
+see?"
+
+"Left his own horse, so he did!" retorted Merrill. "A poor, miserable,
+knock-kneed old pony, that wa'n't worth twenty dollars; 'n' Jim's horse
+was worth two hundred, 'n' cheap at that."
+
+"Thet ain't nuther here nor thar in what we air sayin'," persisted Aunt
+Ri. "I ain't a speakin' on 't ez a swap er hosses. What I say is, he
+wa'n't tryin' to cover 't up thet he'd tuk the hoss. We air sum used ter
+hoss-thieves in Tennessee; but I never heered o' one yit thet left
+his name fur a refference berhind him, ter show which road he tuk, 'n'
+fastened ther stolen critter ter his front gate when he got hum! I allow
+me 'n' yeow hedn't better say anythin' much more on ther subjeck, fur I
+allow we air bound to querril ef we dew;" and nothing that Merrill said
+could draw another word out of Aunt Ri in regard to Alessandro's death.
+But there was another subject on which she was tireless, and her speech
+eloquent. It was the kindness and goodness of the Cahuilla people. The
+last vestige of her prejudice against Indians had melted and gone, in
+the presence of their simple-hearted friendliness. "I'll never hear a
+word said agin 'em, never, ter my longest day," she said. "The way the
+pore things hed jest stripped theirselves, to git things fur Ramony,
+beat all ever I see among white folks, 'n' I've ben raound more'n most.
+'N' they wa'n't lookin' fur no pay, nuther; fur they didn't know, till
+Feeleepy 'n' me cum, thet she had any folks ennywhar, 'n' they'd ha'
+taken care on her till she died, jest the same. The sick allers ez took
+care on among them, they sed, 's long uz enny on em hez got a thing
+left. Thet's ther way they air raised; I allow white folks might take a
+lesson on 'em, in thet; 'n' in heaps uv other things tew. Oh, I'm done
+talkin' again Injuns, naow, don't yeow furgit it! But I know, fur all
+thet, 't won't make any difference; 'pears like there cuddn't nobody
+b'leeve ennythin' 'n this world 'thout seein' 't theirselves. I wuz thet
+way tew; I allow I hain't got no call ter talk; but I jest wish the hull
+world could see what I've seen! Thet's all!"
+
+It was a sad day in the village when Ramona and her friends departed.
+Heartily as the kindly people rejoiced in her having found such a
+protector for herself and her child, and deeply as they felt Felipe's
+and Aunt Ri's good-will and gratitude towards them, they were yet
+conscious of a loss,--of a void. The gulf between them and the rest of
+the world seemed defined anew, their sense of isolation deepened, their
+hopeless poverty emphasized. Ramona, wife of Alessandro, had been as
+their sister,--one of them; as such, she would have had share in all
+their life had to offer. But its utmost was nothing, was but hardship
+and deprivation; and she was being borne away from it, like one rescued,
+not so much from death, as from a life worse than death.
+
+The tears streamed down Ramona's face as she bade them farewell. She
+embraced again and again the young mother who had for so many days
+suckled her child, even, it was said, depriving her own hardier babe
+that Ramona's should not suffer. "Sister, you have given me my child,"
+she cried; "I can never thank you; I will pray for you all my life."
+
+She made no inquiries as to Felipe's plans. Unquestioningly, like a
+little child, she resigned herself into his hands. A power greater than
+hers was ordering her way; Felipe was its instrument. No other voice
+spoke to guide her. The same old simplicity of acceptance which had
+characterized her daily life in her girlhood, and kept her serene
+and sunny then,--serene under trials, sunny in her routine of little
+duties,--had kept her serene through all the afflictions, and calm,
+if not sunny, under all the burdens of her later life; and it did not
+desert her even now.
+
+Aunt Ri gazed at her with a sentiment as near to veneration as her dry,
+humorous, practical nature was capable of feeling. "I allow I donno but
+I sh'd cum ter believin' in saints tew," she said, "ef I wuz ter live
+'long side er thet gal. 'Pears like she wuz suthin' more 'n human. 'T
+beats me plum out, ther way she takes her troubles. Thar's sum would
+say she hedn't no feelin'; but I allow she hez more 'n most folks. I kin
+see, 'tain't thet. I allow I didn't never expect ter think 's well uv
+prayin' to picters, 'n' strings er beads, 'n' sech; but ef 't 's thet
+keeps her up ther way she's kept up, I allow thar's more in it 'n
+it's hed credit fur. I ain't gwine ter say enny more agin it' nor agin
+Injuns. 'Pears like I'm gittin' heaps er new idears inter my head, these
+days. I'll turn Injun, mebbe, afore I git through!"
+
+The farewell to Aunt Ri was hardest of all. Ramona clung to her as to a
+mother. At times she felt that she would rather stay by her side than go
+home with Felipe; then she reproached herself for the thought, as for a
+treason and ingratitude. Felipe saw the feeling, and did not wonder at
+it. "Dear girl," he thought; "it is the nearest she has ever come to
+knowing what a mother's love is like!" And he lingered in San Bernardino
+week after week, on the pretence that Ramona was not yet strong enough
+to bear the journey home, when in reality his sole motive for staying
+was his reluctance to deprive her of Aunt Ri's wholesome and cheering
+companionship.
+
+Aunt Ri was busily at work on a rag carpet for the Indian Agent's wife.
+She had just begun it, had woven only a few inches, on that dreadful
+morning when the news of Alessandro's death reached her. It was of her
+favorite pattern, the "hit-er-miss" pattern, as she called it; no set
+stripes or regular alternation of colors, but ball after ball of the
+indiscriminately mixed tints, woven back and forth, on a warp of a
+single color. The constant variety in it, the unexpectedly harmonious
+blending of the colors, gave her delight, and afforded her a subject,
+too, of not unphilosophical reflection.
+
+"Wall," she said, "it's called ther 'hit-er-miss' pattren; but it's
+'hit' oftener'n 'tis 'miss.' Thar ain't enny accountin' fur ther way
+ther breadths'll come, sometimes; 'pears like 't wuz kind er magic, when
+they air sewed tergether; 'n' I allow thet's ther way it's gwine ter
+be with heaps er things in this life. It's jest a kind er 'hit-er-miss'
+pattren we air all on us livin' on; 'tain't much use tryin' ter reckon
+how 't 'll come aout; but the breadths doos fit heaps better 'n yer'd
+think; come ter sew 'em, 'tain't never no sech colors ez yer thought
+'t wuz gwine ter be; but it's allers pooty, allers; never see a
+'hit-er-miss' pattren 'n my life yit, thet wa'n't pooty. 'N' ther wa'n't
+never nobody fetched me rags, 'n' hed 'em all planned aout, 'n' jest
+ther way they wanted ther warp, 'n' jest haow ther stripes wuz ter come,
+'n' all, thet they wa'n't orful diserpynted when they cum ter see 't
+done. It don't never look's they thought 't would, never! I larned thet
+lesson airly; 'n' I allers make 'em write aout on a paper, jest ther
+wedth er every stripe, 'n' each er ther colors, so's they kin see it's
+what they ordered; 'r else they'd allers say I hedn't wove 't's I wuz
+told ter. I got ketched thet way oncet! I allow ennybody's a bawn fool
+gits ketched twice runnin' ther same way. But fur me, I'll take ther
+'hit-er-miss' pattren, every time, sir, straight along."
+
+When the carpet was done, Aunt Ri took the roll in her own independent
+arms, and strode with it to the Agent's house. She had been biding the
+time when she should have this excuse for going there. Her mind was
+burdened with questions she wished to ask, information she wished to
+give, and she chose an hour when she knew she would find the Agent
+himself at home.
+
+"I allow yer heered why I wuz behind time with this yere carpet," she
+said; "I wuz up ter San Jacinto Mounting, where thet Injun wuz murdered.
+We brung his widder 'n' ther baby daown with us, me 'n' her brother.
+He's tuk her home ter his house ter live. He's reel well off."
+
+Yes, the Agent had heard this; he had wondered why the widow did not
+come to see him; he had expected to hear from her.
+
+"Wall, I did hent ter her thet p'raps yer could dew something, ef she
+wuz ter tell yer all abaout it; but she allowed thar wa'n't enny use in
+talkin'. Ther jedge, he sed her witnessin' wouldn't be wuth nuthin' to
+no jury; 'n' thet wuz what I wuz a wantin' to ask yeow, ef thet wuz so."
+
+"Yes, that is what the lawyers here told me," said the Agent. "I was
+going to have the man arrested, but they said it would be folly to bring
+the case to trial. The woman's testimony would not be believed."
+
+"Yeow've got power ter git a man punished fur sellin' whiskey to Injuns,
+I notice," broke in Aunt Ri; "hain't yer? I see yeour man 'n' the
+marshal here arrestin' 'em pooty lively last month; they sed 'twas yeour
+doin'; yeow was a gwine ter prossacute every livin' son o' hell--them
+wuz thar words--thet sold whiskey ter Injuns."
+
+"That's so!" said the Agent. "So I am; I am determined to break up this
+vile business of selling whiskey to Indians. It is no use trying to do
+anything for them while they are made drunk in this way; it's a sin and
+a shame."
+
+"Thet's so, I allow ter yeow," said Aunt Ri. "Thar ain't any gainsayin'
+thet. But ef yeow've got power ter git a man put in jail fur sellin'
+whiskey 't 'n Injun, 'n' hain't got power to git him punished ef he goes
+'n' kills thet Injun, 't sems ter me thar's suthin' cur'us abaout thet."
+
+"That is just the trouble in my position here, Aunt Ri," he said. "I
+have no real power over my Indians, as I ought to have."
+
+"What makes yer call 'em yeour Injuns?" broke in Aunt Ri.
+
+The Agent . Aunt Ri was a privileged character, but her logical
+method of questioning was inconvenient.
+
+"I only mean that they are under my charge," he said. "I don't mean that
+they belong to me in any way."
+
+"Wall, I allow not," retorted Aunt Ri, "enny more 'n I dew. They air
+airnin' their livin', sech 's 'tis, ef yer kin call it a livin'. I've
+been 'mongst 'em, naow, they hyar last tew weeks, 'n' I allow I've had
+my eyes opened ter some things. What's thet docter er yourn, him thet
+they call the Agency doctor,--what's he got ter do?"
+
+"To attend to the Indians of this Agency when they are sick," replied
+the Agent, promptly.
+
+"Wall, thet's what I heern; thet's what yeow sed afore, 'n' thet's why
+Alessandro, the Injun thet wuz murdered,--thet's why he put his name
+down 'n yeour books, though 't went agin him orful ter do it. He wuz
+high-spereted, 'n' 'd allers took keer er hisself; but he'd ben druv out
+er fust one place 'n' then another, tell he'd got clar down, 'n' pore;
+'n' he jest begged thet doctor er yourn to go to see his little gal, 'n'
+the docter wouldn't; 'n' more'n thet, he laughed at him fur askin.' 'N'
+they set the little thing on the hoss ter bring her here, 'n' she died
+afore they'd come a mile with her; 'n' 't wuz thet, on top er all the
+rest druv Alessandro crazy. He never hed none er them wandrin' spells
+till arter thet. Naow I allow thet wa'n't right eh thet docter. I
+wouldn't hev no sech docter's thet raound my Agency, ef I wuz yeow.
+Pr'aps yer never heered uv thet. I told Ramony I didn't bleeve yer
+knowed it, or ye'd hev made him go."
+
+"No, Aunt Ri," said the Agent; "I could not have done that; he is only
+required to doctor such Indians as come here."
+
+"I allow, then, thar ain't any gret use en hevin' him at all," said Aunt
+Ri; "'pears like thar ain't more'n a harndful uv Injuns raound here. I
+expect he gits well paid?" and she paused for an answer. None came. The
+Agent did not feel himself obliged to reveal to Aunt Ri what salary
+the Government paid the San Bernardino doctor for sending haphazard
+prescriptions to Indians he never saw.
+
+After a pause Aunt Ri resumed: "Ef it ain't enny offence ter yeow, I
+allow I'd like ter know jest what 'tis yeow air here ter dew fur these
+Injuns. I've got my feelin's considdable stirred up, bein' among 'em
+'n' knowing this hyar one, thet's ben murdered. Hev ye got enny power to
+giv' 'em ennything,--food or sech? They air powerful pore, most on 'em."
+
+"I have had a little fund for buying supplies for them in times
+of special suffering;" replied the Agent, "a very little; and the
+Department has appropriated some money for wagons and ploughs; not
+enough, however, to supply every village; you see these Indians are in
+the main self-supporting."
+
+"Thet's jest it," persisted Aunt Ri. "Thet's what I've ben seein'; 'n'
+thet's why I want so bad ter git at what 'tis the Guvvermunt means ter
+hev yeow dew fur 'em. I allow ef yeow ain't ter feed 'em, an' ef yer
+can't put folks inter jail fur robbin' 'n' cheatin' 'em, not ter say
+killin' 'em,--ef yer can't dew ennythin' more 'n keep 'em from gettin'
+whiskey, wall, I'm free ter say--" Aunt Ri paused; she did not wish to
+seem to reflect on the Agent's usefulness, and so concluded her sentence
+very differently from her first impulse,--"I'm free ter say I shouldn't
+like ter stan' in yer shoes."
+
+"You may very well say that, Aunt Ri," laughed the Agent, complacently.
+"It is the most troublesome Agency in the whole list, and the least
+satisfactory."
+
+"Wall, I allow it mought be the least satisfyin'," rejoined the
+indefatigable Aunt Ri; "but I donno whar the trouble comes in, ef so
+be's thar's no more kin be done than yer wuz er tellin'." And she looked
+honestly puzzled.
+
+"Look there, Aunt Ri!" said he, triumphantly, pointing to a pile of
+books and papers. "All those to be gone through with, and a report to be
+made out every month, and a voucher to be sent for every lead-pencil I
+buy. I tell you I work harder than I ever did in my life before, and for
+less pay."
+
+"I allow yer hev hed easy times afore, then," retorted Aunt Ri,
+good-naturedly satirical, "ef yeow air plum tired doin' thet!" And she
+took her leave, not a whit clearer in her mind as to the real nature and
+function of the Indian Agency than she was in the beginning.
+
+Through all of Ramona's journey home she seemed to herself to be in a
+dream. Her baby in her arms; the faithful creatures, Baba and Benito,
+gayly trotting along at a pace so swift that the carriage seemed
+gliding; Felipe by her side,--the dear Felipe,--his eyes wearing the
+same bright and loving look as of old,--what strange thing was it which
+had happened to her to make it all seem unreal? Even the little one
+in her arms,--she too, seemed unreal! Ramona did not know it, but
+her nerves were still partially paralyzed. Nature sends merciful
+anaesthetics in the shocks which almost kill us. In the very sharpness
+of the blow sometimes lies its own first healing. It would be long
+before Ramona would fully realize that Alessandro was dead. Her worst
+anguish was yet to come.
+
+Felipe did not know and could not have understood this; and it was with
+a marvelling gratitude that he saw Ramona, day after day, placid,
+always ready with a smile when he spoke to her. Her gratitude for each
+thoughtfulness of his smote him like a reproach; all the more that he
+knew her gentle heart had never held a thought of reproach in it towards
+him. "Grateful to me!" he thought. "To me, who might have spared her all
+this woe if I had been strong!"
+
+Never would Felipe forgive himself,--no, not to the day of his death.
+His whole life should be devoted to her and her child; but what a
+pitiful thing was that to render!
+
+As they drew near home, he saw Ramona often try to conceal from him that
+she had shed tears. At last he said to her: "Dearest Ramona, do not fear
+to weep before me. I would not be any constraint on you. It is better
+for you to let the tears come freely, my sister. They are healing to
+wounds."
+
+"I do not think so, Felipe," replied Ramona. "Tears are only selfish and
+weak. They are like a cry because we are hurt. It is not possible always
+to keep them back; but I am ashamed when I have wept, and think also
+that I have sinned, because I have given a sad sight to others. Father
+Salvierderra always said that it was a duty to look happy, no matter how
+much we might be suffering."
+
+"That is more than human power can do!" said Felipe.
+
+"I think not," replied Ramona. "If it were, Father Salvierderra would
+not have commanded it. And do you not recollect, Felipe, what a smile
+his face always wore? and his heart had been broken for many, many years
+before he died. Alone, in the night, when he prayed, he used to weep,
+from the great wrestling he had with God, he told me; but we never
+saw him except with a smile. When one thinks in the wilderness, alone,
+Felipe, many things become clear. I have been learning, all these years
+in the wilderness, as if I had had a teacher. Sometimes I almost thought
+that the spirit of Father Salvierderra was by my side putting thoughts
+into my mind. I hope I can tell them to my child when she is old enough.
+She will understand them quicker than I did, for she has Alessandro's
+soul; you can see that by her eyes. And all these things of which I
+speak were in his heart from his childhood. They belong to the air and
+the sky and the sun, and all trees know them."
+
+When Ramona spoke thus of Alessandro, Felipe marvelled in silence. He
+himself had been afraid to mention Alessandro's name; but Ramona spoke
+it as if he were yet by her side. Felipe could not fathom this. There
+were to be many things yet which Felipe could not fathom in this lovely,
+sorrowing, sunny sister of his.
+
+When they reached the house, the servants, who had been on the watch
+for days, were all gathered in the court-yard, old Marda and Juan Can
+heading the group; only two absent,--Margarita and Luigo. They had been
+married some months before, and were living at the Ortegas ranch, where
+Luigo, to Juan Can's scornful amusement, had been made head shepherd.
+
+On all sides were beaming faces, smiles, and glad cries of greeting.
+Underneath these were affectionate hearts quaking with fear lest the
+home-coming be but a sad one after all. Vaguely they knew a little of
+what their dear Senorita had been through since she left them; it seemed
+that she must be sadly altered by so much sorrow, and that it would
+be terrible to her to come back to the place so full of painful
+associations. "And the Senora gone, too," said one of the outdoor hands,
+as they were talking it over; "it's not the same place at all that it
+was when the Senora was here."
+
+"Humph!" muttered Juan Can, more consequential and overbearing than
+ever, for this year of absolute control of the estate. "Humph! that's
+all you know. A good thing the Senora died when she did, I can tell you!
+We'd never have seen the Senorita back here else; I can tell you that,
+my man! And for my part, I'd much rather be under Senor Felipe and the
+Senorita than under the Senora, peace to her ashes! She had her day.
+They can have theirs now."
+
+When these loving and excited retainers saw Ramona--pale, but with her
+own old smile on her face--coming towards them with her babe in her
+arms, they broke into wild cheering, and there was not a dry eye in the
+group.
+
+Singling out old Marda by a glance, Ramona held out the baby towards
+her, and said in her old gentle, affectionate voice, "I am sure you will
+love my baby, Marda!"
+
+"Senorita! Senorita! God bless you, Senorita!" they cried; and closed
+up their ranks around the baby, touching her, praising her, handing her
+from one to another.
+
+Ramona stood for a few seconds watching them; then she said, "Give her
+to me, Marda. I will myself carry her into the house;" and she moved
+toward the inner door.
+
+"This way, dear; this way," cried Felipe. "It is Father Salvierderra's
+room I ordered to be prepared for you, because it is so sunny for the
+baby!"
+
+"Thanks, kind Felipe!" cried Ramona, and her eyes said more than her
+words. She knew he had divined the one thing she had most dreaded in
+returning,--the crossing again the threshold of her own room. It would
+be long now before she would enter that room. Perhaps she would never
+enter it. How tender and wise of Felipe!
+
+Yes; Felipe was both tender and wise, now. How long would the wisdom
+hold the tenderness in leash, as he day after day looked upon the face
+of this beautiful woman,--so much more beautiful now than she had been
+before her marriage, that Felipe sometimes, as he gazed at her, thought
+her changed even in feature? But in this very change lay a spell which
+would for a long time surround her, and set her as apart from lover's
+thoughts as if she were guarded by a cordon of viewless spirits. There
+was a rapt look of holy communion on her face, which made itself felt by
+the dullest perception, and sometimes overawed even where it attracted.
+It was the same thing which Aunt Ri had felt, and formulated in her own
+humorous fashion. But old Marda put it better, when, one day, in reply
+to a half-terrified, low-whispered suggestion of Juan Can, to the effect
+that it was "a great pity that Senor Felipe hadn't married the Senorita
+years ago,--what if he were to do it yet?" she said, also under her
+breath. "It is my opinion he'd as soon think of Saint Catharine herself!
+Not but that it would be a great thing if it could be!"
+
+And now the thing that the Senora had imagined to herself so often
+had come about,--the presence of a little child in her house, on the
+veranda, in the garden, everywhere; the sunny, joyous, blest presence.
+But how differently had it come! Not Felipe's child, as she proudly
+had pictured, but the child of Ramona: the friendless, banished
+Ramona returned now into full honor and peace as the daughter of the
+house,--Ramona, widow of Alessandro. If the child had been Felipe's own,
+he could not have felt for it a greater love. From the first, the little
+thing had clung to him as only second to her mother. She slept hours in
+his arms, one little hand hid in his dark beard, close to his lips,
+and kissed again and again when no one saw. Next to Ramona herself in
+Felipe's heart came Ramona's child; and on the child he could lavish the
+fondness he felt that he could never dare to show to the mother, Month
+by month it grew clearer to Felipe that the mainsprings of Ramona's
+life were no longer of this earth; that she walked as one in constant
+fellowship with one unseen. Her frequent and calm mention of Alessandro
+did not deceive him. It did not mean a lessening grief: it meant an
+unchanged relation.
+
+One thing weighed heavily on Felipe's mind,--the concealed treasure. A
+sense of humiliation withheld him, day after day, from speaking of
+it. But he could have no peace until Ramona knew it. Each hour that he
+delayed the revelation he felt himself almost as guilty as he had held
+his mother to be. At last he spoke. He had not said many words, before
+Ramona interrupted him. "Oh, yes!" she said. "I knew about those things;
+your mother told me. When we were in such trouble, I used to wish
+sometimes we could have had a few of the jewels. But they were all given
+to the Church. That was what the Senora Ortegna said must be done with
+them if I married against your mother's wishes."
+
+It was with a shame-stricken voice that Felipe replied: "Dear Ramona,
+they were not given to the Church. You know Father Salvierderra died;
+and I suppose my mother did not know what to do with them. She told me
+about them just as she was dying."
+
+"But why did you not give them to the Church, dear?" asked Ramona,
+simply.
+
+"Why?" cried Felipe. "Because I hold them to be yours, and yours only.
+I would never have given them to the Church, until I had sure proof that
+you were dead and had left no children."
+
+Ramona's eyes were fixed earnestly on Felipe's face. "You have not read
+the Senora Ortegna's letter?" she said.
+
+"Yes, I have," he replied, "every word of it."
+
+"But that said I was not to have any of the things if I married against
+the Senora Moreno's will."
+
+Felipe groaned. Had his mother lied? "No, dear," he said, "that was not
+the word. It was, if you married unworthily."
+
+Ramona reflected. "I never recollected the words," she said. "I was
+too frightened; but I thought that was what it meant. I did not marry
+unworthily. Do you feel sure, Felipe, that it would be honest for me to
+take them for my child?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Felipe.
+
+"Do you think Father Salvierderra would say I ought to keep them?"
+
+"I am sure of it, dear."
+
+"I will think about it, Felipe. I cannot decide hastily. Your mother did
+not think I had any right to them, if I married Alessandro. That was
+why she showed them to me. I never knew of them till then. I took one
+thing,--a handkerchief of my father's. I was very glad to have it;
+but it got lost when we went from San Pasquale. Alessandro rode back a
+half-day's journey to find it for me; but it had blown away. I grieved
+sorely for it."
+
+The next day Ramona said to Felipe: "Dear Felipe, I have thought it all
+over about those jewels. I believe it will be right for my daughter to
+have them. Can there be some kind of a paper written for me to sign, to
+say that if she dies they are all to be given to the Church,--to Father
+Salvierderra's College, in Santa Barbara? That is where I would rather
+have them go."
+
+"Yes, dear," said Felipe; "and then we will put them in some safer
+place. I will take them to Los Angeles when I go. It is wonderful no one
+has stolen them all these years!"
+
+And so a second time the Ortegna jewels were passed on, by a written
+bequest, into the keeping of that mysterious, certain, uncertain thing
+we call the future, and delude our selves with the fancy that we
+can have much to do with its shaping.
+
+          *****
+
+Life ran smoothly in the Moreno household,--smoothly to the eye. Nothing
+could be more peaceful, fairer to see, than the routine of its days,
+with the simple pleasures, light tasks, and easy diligence of all.
+Summer and winter were alike sunny, and had each its own joys. There was
+not an antagonistic or jarring element; and, flitting back and forth,
+from veranda to veranda, garden to garden, room to room, equally at
+home and equally welcome everywhere, there went perpetually, running,
+frisking, laughing, rejoicing, the little child that had so strangely
+drifted into this happy shelter,--the little Ramona. As unconscious of
+aught sad or fateful in her destiny as the blossoms with which it was
+her delight to play, she sometimes seemed to her mother to have been
+from the first in some mysterious way disconnected from it, removed, set
+free from all that could ever by any possibility link her to sorrow.
+
+Ramona herself bore no impress of sorrow; rather her face had now an
+added radiance. There had been a period, soon after her return, when
+she felt that she for the first time waked to the realization of her
+bereavement; when every sight, sound, and place seemed to cry out,
+mocking her with the name and the memory of Alessandro. But she wrestled
+with this absorbing grief as with a sin; setting her will steadfastly
+to the purposes of each day's duty, and, most of all, to the duty of
+joyfulness. She repeated to herself Father Salvierderra's sayings, till
+she more than knew them by heart; and she spent long hours of the night
+in prayer, as it had been his wont to do.
+
+No one but Felipe dreamed of these vigils and wrestlings. He knew them;
+and he knew, too, when they ceased, and the new light of a new
+victory diffused itself over Ramona's face: but neither did the first
+dishearten, nor the latter encourage him. Felipe was a clearer-sighted
+lover now than he had been in his earlier youth. He knew that into the
+world where Ramona really lived he did not so much as enter; yet her
+every act, word, look, was full of loving thoughtfulness of and for
+him, loving happiness in his companionship. And while this was so, all
+Felipe's unrest could not make him unhappy.
+
+There were other causes entering into this unrest besides his yearning
+desire to win Ramona for his wife. Year by year the conditions of life
+in California were growing more distasteful to him. The methods, aims,
+standards of the fast incoming Americans were to him odious. Their
+boasted successes, the crowding of colonies, schemes of settlement and
+development,--all were disagreeable and irritating. The passion for
+money and reckless spending of it, the great fortunes made in one hour,
+thrown away in another, savored to Felipe's mind more of brigandage and
+gambling than of the occupations of gentlemen. He loathed them. Life
+under the new government grew more and more intolerable to him; both his
+hereditary instincts and prejudices, and his temperament, revolted.
+He found himself more and more alone in the country. Even the Spanish
+tongue was less and less spoken. He was beginning to yearn for
+Mexico,--for Mexico, which he had never seen, yet yearned for like an
+exile. There he might yet live among men of his own race and degree,
+and of congenial beliefs and occupations. Whenever he thought of this
+change, always came the quick memory of Ramona. Would she be willing
+to go? Could it be that she felt a bond to this land, in which she had
+known nothing but sufferings.
+
+At last he asked her. To his unutterable surprise, Ramona cried:
+"Felipe! The saints be praised! I should never have told you. I did not
+think that you could wish to leave this estate. But my most beautiful
+dream for Ramona would be, that she should grow up in Mexico."
+
+And as she spoke, Felipe understood by a lightning intuition, and
+wondered that he had not foreknown it, that she would spare her daughter
+the burden she had gladly, heroically borne herself, in the bond of
+race.
+
+The question was settled. With gladness of heart almost more than he
+could have believed possible, Felipe at once communicated with some rich
+American proprietors who had desired to buy the Moreno estate. Land in
+the valley had so greatly advanced in value, that the sum he received
+for it was larger than he had dared to hope; was ample for the
+realization of all his plans for the new life in Mexico. From the hour
+that this was determined, and the time for their sailing fixed, a new
+expression came into Ramona's face. Her imagination was kindled. An
+untried future beckoned,--a future which she would embrace and conquer
+for her daughter. Felipe saw the look, felt the change, and for the
+first time hoped. It would be a new world, a new life; why not a new
+love? She could not always be blind to his devotion; and when she saw
+it, could she refuse to reward it? He would be very patient, and wait
+long, he thought. Surely, since he had been patient so long without
+hope, he could be still more patient now that hope had dawned! But
+patience is not hope's province in breasts of lovers. From the day when
+Felipe first thought to himself, "She will yet be mine," it grew harder,
+and not easier, for him to refrain from pouring out his love in words.
+Her tender sisterliness, which had been such balm and comfort to him,
+grew at times intolerable; and again and again her gentle spirit
+was deeply disquieted with the fear that she had displeased him, so
+strangely did he conduct himself.
+
+He had resolved that nothing should tempt him to disclose to her his
+passion and its dreams, until they had reached their new home. But there
+came a moment which mastered him, and he spoke.
+
+It was in Monterey. They were to sail on the morrow; and had been on
+board the ship to complete the last arrangements. They were rowed back
+to shore in a little boat. A full moon shone. Ramona sat bareheaded in
+the end of the boat, and the silver radiance from the water seemed to
+float up around her, and invest her as with a myriad halos. Felipe gazed
+at her till his senses swam; and when, on stepping from the boat, she
+put her hand in his, and said, as she had said hundreds of times before,
+"Dear Felipe, how good you are!" he clasped her hands wildly, and cried,
+"Ramona, my love! Oh, can you not love me?"
+
+The moonlight was bright as day. They were alone on the shore. Ramona
+gazed at him for one second, in surprise. Only for a second; then she
+knew all. "Felipe! My brother!" she cried, and stretched out her hands
+as if in warning.
+
+"No! I am not your brother!" he cried. "I will not be your brother! I
+would rather die!"
+
+"Felipe!" cried Ramona again. This time her voice recalled him to
+himself. It was a voice of terror and of pain.
+
+"Forgive me, my sweet one!" he exclaimed. "I will never say it again.
+But I have loved you so long--so long!"
+
+Ramona's head had fallen forward on her breast, her eyes fixed on the
+shining sands; the waves rose and fell, rose and fell, at her feet
+gently as sighs. A great revelation had come to Ramona. In this supreme
+moment of Felipe's abandonment of all disguises, she saw his whole
+past life in a new light. Remorse smote her. "Dear Felipe," she said,
+clasping her hands, "I have been very selfish. I did not know--"
+
+"Of course you did not, love," said Felipe. "How could you? But I have
+never loved any one else. I have always loved you. Can you not learn to
+love me? I did not mean to tell you for a long time yet. But now I have
+spoken; I cannot hide it any more."
+
+Ramona drew nearer to him, still with her hands clasped. "I have always
+loved you," she said. "I love no other living man; but, Felipe,"--her
+voice sank to a solemn whisper,--"do you not know, Felipe, that part of
+me is dead,--dead? can never live again? You could not want me for your
+wife, Felipe, when part of me is dead!"
+
+Felipe threw his arms around her. He was beside himself with joy. "You
+would not say that if you did not think you could be my wife," he cried.
+"Only give yourself to me, my love, I care not whether you call yourself
+dead or alive!"
+
+Ramona stood quietly in his arms. Ah, well for Felipe that he did not
+know, never could know, the Ramona that Alessandro had known. This
+gentle, faithful, grateful Ramona, asking herself fervently now if she
+would do her brother a wrong, yielding up to him what seemed to her only
+the broken fragment of a life; weighing his words, not in the light of
+passion, but of calmest, most unselfish action,--ah, how unlike was she
+to that Ramona who flung herself on Alessandro's breast, crying, "Take
+me with you! I would rather die than have you leave me!"
+
+Ramona had spoken truth. Part of her was dead. But Ramona saw now, with
+infallible intuition, that even as she had loved Alessandro, so Felipe
+loved her. Could she refuse to give Felipe happiness, when he had saved
+her, saved her child? What else now remained for them, these words
+having been spoken? "I will be your wife, dear Felipe," she said,
+speaking solemnly, slowly, "if you are sure it will make you happy, and
+if you think it is right."
+
+"Right!" ejaculated Felipe, mad with the joy unlooked for so soon.
+"Nothing else would be right! My Ramona, I will love you so, you will
+forget you ever said that part of you was dead!"
+
+A strange look which startled Felipe swept across Ramona's face; it
+might have been a moonbeam. It passed. Felipe never saw it again.
+
+General Moreno's name was still held in warm remembrance in the city of
+Mexico, and Felipe found himself at once among friends. On the day after
+their arrival he and Ramona were married in the cathedral, old Marda
+and Juan Can, with his crutches, kneeling in proud joy behind them.
+The story of the romance of their lives, being widely rumored, greatly
+enhanced the interest with which they were welcomed. The beautiful young
+Senora Moreno was the theme of the city; and Felipe's bosom thrilled
+with pride to see the gentle dignity of demeanor by which she was
+distinguished in all assemblages. It was indeed a new world, a new life.
+Ramona might well doubt her own identity. But undying memories stood
+like sentinels in her breast. When the notes of doves, calling to each
+other, fell on her ear, her eyes sought the sky, and she heard a voice
+saying, "Majella!" This was the only secret her loyal, loving heart had
+kept from Felipe. A loyal, loving heart indeed it was,--loyal, loving,
+serene. Few husbands so blest as the Senor Felipe Moreno.
+
+Sons and daughters came to bear his name. The daughters were all
+beautiful; but the most beautiful of them all, and, it was said, the
+most beloved by both father and mother, was the eldest one: the one
+who bore the mother's name, and was only step-daughter to the
+Senor,--Ramona,--Ramona, daughter of Alessandro the Indian.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ramona, by Helen Hunt Jackson
+
+*** 
\ No newline at end of file