is now little more than a child himself. What could you do if Rodrigo
and I should neither of us come back? No, no, the children must be in
shelter. They must be with their kindred. The arrangements are all made.
When my ship put in at Vigo for supplies, I took train to Santiago and
settled the whole matter with my sister and her husband. And be assured
that you, who have been so faithful, so devoted, will find warm welcome
under their roof. You can be very useful to my sister.”
“Toss that bone to another dog. An Andalusian to go into service in
Galicia! Take your wares to a better market. Is it at fifty years that
one becomes a vagabond and goes about the world, sucking the wind? _Ay
de mi!_ The wheel of fortune turns swifter than a mill-wheel. Ah, but
your heart, Don Carlos, is harder than a hazel-nut,--ay, as hard as your
head, for the head of an Aragonese pounds the nail better than a
hammer.”
“And your pride, my good Marta, is as big as a church. Why should you
not serve my sister as you have served me? There is sunshine on the wall
even in Galicia. And the children--how could they bear to lose you, too,
on this day when they must lose so much? And what would become of you,
if you were left behind?”
“The dear saints know. When one door shuts, another opens. Hammer away
with that Aragonese head of yours till the skies fall. You are hammering
on cold iron, Don Carlos. Whoever goes, Roxa and I stay here. You may
tear my little angels from me, if you will, but not one step, not one
inch of a step, does either foot of mine take toward Galicia.”
“Galicia? Who is going to Galicia?” called Rafael, appearing in the
doorway.
“Out with you!” bade Tia Marta, stamping angrily. “The secret of three
is nobody’s secret. Go wash your face, for the world is turned over
since you washed it last. And out with you, too, Don Carlos, if I am
ever to have a chance to get the chocolate ready.”
The chocolate, because of Tia Marta’s agitation or for some other
reason, did not taste right that morning. Even Rafael set his bowl down
half full. All was hurry and commotion. Rodrigo’s new knapsack and a bag
of extra clothing for the voyage were swung upon Shags, while Don
Quixote, who was beginning to wear a sleek and comfortable aspect that
belied his name, was laden with the hammock and a couple of valises that
the children, casting dismayed looks at each other, recognized as their
father’s. Then Rodrigo embraced Grandfather and, with a mischievous air
of gallantry, Tia Marta, who flung her arms about his neck and burst
into a storm of crying. At first she refused to touch the hand that Don
Carlos held out to her, but, suddenly relenting, snatched it to her lips
and rushed back into the house, thrusting the ends of her saffron
kerchief into her mouth to choke her sobs. Roxa, bristling and spitting,
retreated under the bench. But Grandfather sat serene, crooning to his
guitar:
“There is no song in all the world
That has not its refrain;
When our soldiers war in the Indies,
Our women weep in Spain.”
Half the dwellers on the Alhambra hill and a swarthy troop from the
gypsy caves flocked down to the railroad station with them. The English
consul tucked into Rodrigo’s pocket a tiny purse through whose silken
meshes came a yellow glint.
“My wife knit it last night for the finest lad we know,” he said. “If
she had had more time, it would have been larger; but it serves to hold
a little English gold, which is a good weapon everywhere.”
Arnaldo was in their following, and Leandro. Even Xarifa had a smile for
the young soldier, but when he waved his cap to Zinga with a blithe
compliment--“throwing flowers,” as the Spaniards say--the girl’s fierce
eyes misted over. At the station were Rodrigo’s professors all praising
him till his face was as red as a pomegranate blossom, and there,
puffing and wheezing, was the Geography Gentleman, with a little case of
medicine to ward off the Cuban fever, and there, just as the train was
about to start, was a clumsy young peasant, who all but dropped the jar
of honey he handed up to Rodrigo, and a gaunt woman, weeping like a
fountain as she pressed upon her son’s deliverer a package of
cheese-cakes made from milk of her one goat.
Both the children were so spell-bound by the cheering and the music, the
strange faces and the dramatic scenes that were being enacted all about
them, that they hardly realized what the moment meant when their father
lifted them up for the good-bye kisses to Rodrigo, who, boyish and
merry, stood squeezed in among his fellow-conscripts on the platform of
the car. The children cried a little, but their father hushed them with
a few grave words and drew them to one side, away from the press of
people about the train.
“Nobody will hurt Rodrigo?” asked Pilarica, with a sudden terror
knocking at her heart.
“No, my darling,” answered her father. “Nothing can hurt Rodrigo.”
“Is that because he is a hero?” queried Rafael, trying hard to get his
voice safely through the fog in his throat.
“Yes,” assented Don Carlos. “That is because he is a hero. He has won
his battle already.”
And with that the engine whistled, and the long train, packed close with
smiling, singing, wet-eyed lads, each young figure leaning forward to
wave a hand, to throw a kiss, to catch a rose, rumbled out of the
station, while all along the line there rose a tumult of farewells.
“Bravo! Bravo!”
“Oh, my son!”
“Till we meet again!”
“Go with God!”
Then Don Carlos led the bewildered children back to the corner where he
had left the donkeys in charge of a man who had been waiting there when
they first arrived. Pilarica and Rafael were sure that they had never
seen him before, for his was not a form to be forgotten, but Don Carlos
had greeted him familiarly as Pedrillo. The man stood now, his short
legs wide apart, grasping in one hand the bridles of Shags and Don
Quixote, who were trying to pull him on to the sidewalk, while with the
other he held the halter of a mule, whose ambition it was to cross the
road. Behind this mule stood, in single file, two more, each with
head-rope tied to the tail of the mule in front. All three were tall,
well-kept, handsome animals, but the man had such a squat, dwarfish body
that he looked to the children nearly as broad as he was long. The face
under the grey _sombrero_ had a nose so flat that it might about as well
have had no nose at all. The stranger was dressed almost as gaily as an
Andalusian in a grass-green jacket inset with yellow stripes and adorned
with rows of bell-buttons, red sash, russet trousers and brown gaiters.
And now Don Carlos set his face in sterner lines than ever and spoke to
the children briskly, as if there were no time to be lost.
“Your Uncle Manuel is a carrier, an expressman, as so many of the
Galicians are. He is thrifty and well-to-do and owns his own train of
mules. Among the muleteers who hire themselves out to him for trip after
trip there is no one whom he trusts as much as Pedrillo here, and so he
has sent Pedrillo to conduct you and Grandfather and Tia Marta, if she
will go--”
Pedrillo winked.
“To Cordova, where you will find your uncle, with the rest of his men
and mules, all ready for the return journey to Galicia, for you are to
have the pleasure of a long visit with your Aunt Barbara and Cousin
Dolores. But first will come wonderful weeks of travel, seeing Spain as
you could never see it from the windows of a railway car.”
Pedrillo nodded hard like a toadstool in the wind.
“When your visit is done, I will come for you, if that is God’s will,
but now I must take this train just drawing into the station, for I have
to join my ship at Cadiz to-morrow. Rafael, listen to me. You have many
things to do, my son. You must take care of your sister, now that you
are the only able-bodied man left at home, and look after Shags and Don
Quixote, who are going with you, and do what you can for Grandfather and
Tia Marta. And be sure to kiss the Sultana’s foot for me as soon as you
get back. I failed to pay her my parting respects and, besides, she may
have a message for you. And Pilarica, little daughter of my heart, don’t
forget to run out to the summer-house the minute you reach the garden.
Who knows what may be waiting for you there? Now I leave you with
Pedrillo, precious ones. Good-bye, good-bye, and Heaven bless you!”
But Rafael flung his arms wildly about his father, and would not let him
go.
“Oh, I wish--I wish--” sobbed the boy.
“Wish nothing for yourself nor for me but that we may do our duty,” said
Don Carlos, his voice, rich with caressing tones, as quiet as if they
were all guessing riddles together under the old olive tree. “Hush! I
will tell you one story, one short story, more. Will you give me a smile
for a story, my Pilarica? And will you remember it every word, my
Rafael, till I come again? The sun goes forth in the morning, on the
course that God has set him, and never halts nor turns. Yet three times
in the day he lifts his face and calls: ‘Lord, I am tired.’ And three
times God answers him out of heaven and says: ‘Follow thy path.’”
Then Rafael let fall his clasping arms, and Pilarica’s smile, her
mother’s smile, gleamed out through the tears, and their father’s look,
as he lifted his hat, rested lovingly on two brave children before he
turned and went swiftly out of their sight.
XI
UP AND AWAY
As the children, riding their donkeys, came in sight of the garden, Tia
Marta stood squinting over the gate. Her eyes were redder than ever, but
they saw all there was to see. They saw the little olive face of
Pilarica shining like the face of one who has looked upon a glory, for
the child’s soul had caught fire from her brother’s deed of sacrifice
and her father’s solemn words, from all the courage and the love of that
farewell scene at the station. She had not known before in her short
life that grief, as well as joy, is beautiful.
“It is the mother looks out of her eyes this day,” said the old woman,
addressing Don Quixote, who twitched a friendly ear. “The holy rose
loves the thorns amid which it grew.”
Pilarica understood this hardly better than the little white ass, though
he made a point of looking impressed, but she could not wait to
question, so eager was she to do her father’s bidding and explore the
summer-house.
Rafael’s face was flushed and there was something glittering on his
eyelashes that made him turn away from Tia Marta’s scrutiny. But his
chin was squarer than ever and, even before seeking comfort from his
fragmentary Sultana, he led away the donkeys with a new air of
responsibility.
Then Tia Marta’s glance, flashing into indignant comprehension, fell on
the queer figure that followed, leading the mules. If looks could kill,
Pedrillo would have dropped with a thump in the dust of the road. The
garden gate banged in his very face, but the Galician, nothing daunted,
began to sing in a curious, croaking voice:
“The reason the hedgehog has such sharp hair
--At least, so runs the rumor--
Is that God created that creature there
When God was out of humour.”
“I have no time to waste on vagabonds,” called Tia Marta over her
shoulder, as she retreated to her kitchen. “My day is as full as an egg.
So be off with you!”
“Ay, busy is the word, for we all start for Cordova at sun-up
to-morrow,” returned Pedrillo in his gruff tone and rude northern
accent.
“That lie is as big as a mountain,” cried Tia Marta, shaking her fist at
an astonished oleander.
“I have got an idea between eyebrow and eyebrow,” continued Pedrillo, as
unruffled as if Tia Marta had paid him a compliment. “I will put up Don
Manuel’s mules where the little gentleman stables the donkeys and then I
will come back and help you with the packing.”
“Huh! Break my head; then plaster it,” retorted Tia Marta. “I want no
help of him who has come to rob me. Put your ugly beasts where you will,
but get away with you!”
When the muleteer, a little later, sauntered through the garden, Tia
Marta was sitting on the bench, shelling the beans for dinner. She split
open the pods with angry motions and bit off the hard, black end of each
bean as spitefully as if she had a special grudge against it. Roxa was
curled up beside her and, uninvited, Pedrillo sat down on the farther
end of the bench.
“The cat is washing her face,” he remarked, “a sure sign that a guest
is coming. She expects me to eat most of those beans.”
“Humph!”
Pedrillo, undiscouraged, politely scratched Roxa’s head, and Roxa, in
return, very rudely scratched his finger from nail to knuckle.
“Good cat!” chuckled Tia Marta, as the muleteer raised that bleeding
member to his mouth.
The silence that ensued was broken only by a resentful _miaul_ from
Roxa, as Pedrillo, edging along the bench, pushed her off, until he
suddenly observed:
“Galicia is much pleasanter than Andalusia.”
Only such a preposterous statement as this could have surprised Tia
Marta out of her resolution not to speak another word to this grotesque
and insolent intruder.
“Far countries make long liars,” she gasped, nearly swallowing a whole
bean in her rage.
“But I like the prickly pear that abounds in these parts,” went on
Pedrillo, stealing a roguish glance at the woman beside him. And again
he gruffly intoned one of those Spanish _coplas_ of which he seemed to
have no less a store than Grandfather himself.
“Be careful, be careful how you awake
A certain bad little red little snake.
The sun strikes hot, but old and young
Stand more in dread of a bitter tongue.”
“I’ll ask you an Andalusian riddle,” jerked back Tia Marta revengefully,
the pan upon her knees trembling with her wrath until the beans rattled:
“I can sing; loud I can sing,
Though I hav’n’t hair nor wool nor wing.”
“We know that in Galicia, too,” replied Pedrillo, moving an inch nearer
his ungracious hostess. “Did you ever hear our story about the frog?
Once two Galicians were tramping the road from Leon, and one said to the
other: I’m going home to Galicia.’ ‘If God please,’ corrected his
comrade. ‘Nay, whether God please or not,’ the profane fellow gave
answer. ‘There’s only one stream now between me and my province, and I
can cross that without God’s help.’ So for his impiety the water pulled
him down and he was turned into a frog. Then for three years, what with
leeches, swans and, worst of all, small boys, he did penance enough. But
one day he heard a Galician about to cross the river say: ‘I am going
home,’ ‘If God please,’ croaked the frog, and all in an instant, in a
holy amen, he was a man once more and standing on good dry land in
Galicia. And so I tell you, as a Christian should, that we all start at
sun-up to-morrow for Cordova, if God please.”
Tia Marta tossed her head and squinted rebelliously at the twinkle-eyed
mannikin now close beside her, but after the simple dinner, where
Pedrillo, as good as his word, did the most of the eating, she knotted
up the few belongings of Grandfather and the children in bright
kerchiefs. They let her do as she thought best with their modest
wardrobes, but Grandfather fitted his guitar-case with a strap so that
it could be slung over his shoulders, while Pilarica gathered into
Rodrigo’s book-satchel her most precious possessions, the castanets, the
painted fan and--wonder of wonders!--a golden-haired doll in ravishing
pink frock and white kid slippers that had mysteriously made its way
from the shop-window in Granada to the summer-house. There she had found
it taking a siesta--for its eyelids shut with a snap whenever it was
laid upon its back--in the slender shadow cast by the lonely column.
Rafael disposed his chief treasures about his sturdy little person. The
small Geography was slipped inside his blouse, where it could be quickly
consulted in case they should lose their way. The red cap, of whose
magic he felt much in need, was on his head, and for the new silver
watch--no child’s toy this, but a trusty time-keeper that might last out
a lifetime--Tia Marta stitched a stout pocket under his belt. Nothing
could have cleared the mist from Rafael’s eyes like the finding of that
manly watch carefully looped by its chain about the shapely foot of his
Sultana.
And when Tia Marta, kneeling before the great, brass-clamped,
carven-footed chest in the inner room, raised its massive lid, she saw
on top of the familiar contents a little packet of money marked with her
name. Beating her breast, the old servant rocked herself to and fro. As
if she wanted wages for the care of Doña Catalina’s cherubs! And now
that she had gold and silver, she could go her own way. She could return
to Seville and enter into service there with civilized people, with
Andalusians, under the daily blessing of the Giralda. She was free to
choose. And being free to choose, Tia Marta from that moment began, with
all the zeal in the world, to make ready for the journey to Galicia. And
Pedrillo, whose arms were as long as his legs were short, worked with
her as naturally and effectively as one ox pulls with another.
“But this task is harder than the creation,” fretted Tia Marta and,
indeed, there was much to do. The chest had been originally rented by
Don Carlos with the house, and so had the large bed and the canvas cots
and, of course, the box-bed in the kitchen. The hinged leaf that, when
it was not serving as a table, hung against the wall, the stools, the
meal-box, the _brasero_, the garden-tools, all these must be left. Don
Francisco, taking over the place for his brother, who planned to make a
living out of the garden by keeping a stall for fruit and flowers at the
Alhambra entrance, had paid Don Carlos a few pesetas for them a week
ago. But every old cooking-pot and baking-tin wrung the heart of Tia
Marta. Not one horn spoon, not one wooden plate could she be persuaded
to abandon. The chocolate bowls, the gypsy-woven bread-baskets, the
pitchers and cups of tawny earthenware, the pair of great water-jars
she would not leave behind, but Pedrillo, a miracle of good-nature, was
so handy with his coils of rope and his rough pieces of duck and burlap
that he managed to make it possible for her to take what she wanted
most. In the confusion Pilarica, whose angel moods alternated with
others that could hardly be so described, laid hands on her grimy scrap
of embroidery and, making escape with it to the boxwood hedge in which
Rodrigo had clipped out his green menagerie, thrust it joyfully down the
throat of the largest lion,--a buried treasure for the little nieces of
Don Francisco to discover.
In one way or another, they were all busy as bees till the stars came
out, when the children, at least,--though Rafael slept on a wet
pillow--fell into such sound, sweet slumber that they wakened, with the
sense of adventure overbearing the sense of loss, as good as new in the
first freshness of the morning.
Early as it was, the dawn just silvering the edges of the east, Pedrillo
and Grandfather, who had been a famous horseman in his day, were busy
lading the mules, matching riddles meanwhile so merrily that Pilarica
and even Rafael could hardly swallow their chocolate for laughing.
“Some wrinkled old ladies,
Sure to appear
For Christmas feasting
And birthday cheer.”
piped Grandfather, handing over a box of Malaga raisins.
“Sons they are of the selfsame mother;
One goes to church and not the other,”
grunted Pedrillo, tucking a bottle of wine and a bottle of vinegar into
opposite corners of a striped saddle-bag already stuffed almost to
bursting.
Tia Marta, searching wildly about for any pet objects that might have
been overlooked, now came rushing forth with a scrubby palm-leaf broom.
Twisting a wry face, Pedrillo shoved it under the straps of one of the
loads, while Grandfather sang:
“Without an s I would weep,
Instead of making the hall
Ready for guests who’ll keep
Holiday one and all,
Feasting on frosted cake
Full of citron and plums,
While after they’re gone I take
Only a supper of crumbs.”
Meanwhile Pedrillo had come to grief. Setting his foot against the flank
of the mule he was loading, he pulled so vigorously on the cords that
cinched the pack as to burst two buttons off his trousers. As this
garment boasted only four, the dilemma was serious.
The dumpy little fellow held up those two iron buttons to Tia Marta with
a comical look, croaking:
“They are round as moons
And wear pantaloons.”
“But I’ve lost my scissors,” wailed the old woman. “They slipped out of
my hand just now when I was gathering up--_ay de mi!_--the last things
from the chest, and that room in there is darker than Jonah’s chamber in
the whale.”
“Hunt up a candle and look for them, can’t you?” begged Pedrillo of the
children.
It was Pilarica who found, under the bench, a stray inch of tallow-dip,
but it was Rafael who carried it through the house, holding it close to
the floor, while Grandfather quavered:
“In a little corner
Sits a little old man;
He wears his shirt inside his flesh;
That’s a queer plan;
And eats his shirt and eats his flesh
Fast as he can.”
When the scissors turned up, Pedrillo hailed them with a joyous couplet:
“Two friends out walking quite of a mind,
Their feet before and their eyes behind.”
The buttons were sewed on with Tia Marta’s stoutest thread, and so, with
song and jest, with bustle and stir and the excitement of trifling
mischances, the great departure was made. On each mule, already hung
with saddle-bags, Pedrillo had fitted a round stuffed frame, covering
the entire back. Over this he had spread a rainbow-hued cloth and roped
on baggage until the mules, in protest, swelled out their sides so that
the cords could not stretch over anything more. Then Pedrillo, after
vainly remonstrating with each animal in turn, had strapped another gay
_manta_ over the whole. On Peregrina, whose harness boasted a double
quantity of red tassels and strings of little bells, he had piled up the
baggage so cunningly as to afford a support for Tia Marta’s back, but
the Daughter of the Giralda, though undaunted by the loftiness of her
proposed throne, had made her own choice among the mules.
“This is mine,” she declared perversely, laying her hand on Capitana, a
meek-mannered beast that stood dolefully on three legs, her ears
drooping, her eyes half-closed, and her head laid pensively upon the
rump of the soot-colored Carbonera.
Pedrillo hesitated a moment, then grinned and helped Tia Marta scramble
up to her chosen perch, where she crooked her right knee about a
projection of the frame in front with an air that said she had been on
mule-back many a time before.
“Now give me Roxa,” she demanded. “Do you suppose I would leave my
gossip behind?”
But Roxa had her own views about that, and no sooner had Pedrillo,
catching puss up by the scruff of her neck, flung her into Tia Marta’s
arms, than she tore herself loose, bounded on to Capitana’s head and
off again to the ground, where she had shot out of sight under the
shrubbery in less time than Tia Marta could have said Bah. But Tia Marta
had no chance to say even that, for Capitana, insulted at the idea of
being ridden by a clawing cat, curled her upper lip, kicked out at Don
Quixote, snapped at the heels of Grandfather who was just clambering to
his station on the back of Carbonera, skipped to one side, dashed by the
other mules and, with a flourish of ears and tail, took the head of the
procession. Thus it was that, just as the full sunrise flushed the
summits of the Sierra Nevada, a lively cavalcade burst forth from the
garden gate. Capitana, utterly disdainful of Tia Marta’s frenzied tugs
on the rope reins, pranced on ahead, her bells in full jingle. Pedrillo,
dragging the reluctant Peregrina along by the bridle, ran after,
shouting lustily. Grandfather followed on Carbonera, and the children on
their donkeys brought up the rear. It was not a moment for tears.
Rafael, as the head of this disorderly family, was urging Shags forward
to the rescue of Tia Marta, and when Pilarica turned for a farewell
look, what she saw was Roxa atop of the garden wall,--Roxa serenely
washing her face and hoping that the new family would keep Lent all the
year, so that there might be plentiful scraps of fish.
XII
THE OPEN ROAD
Early as it was, the Alhambra children were out in force to bid their
playmates good-bye.
“A happy journey!” “Till we meet again!” called the better-nurtured boys
and girls, while the gypsy toddlers, Benito and Rosita, echoed with
gusto: “Eat again!”