that any one must be hard-hearted, who did not pity him. He was a very
old Indian; nobody knew how old; but he looked as if he must be a
hundred at least. Ever since he could remember, he had lived in a little
house in San Gabriel. The missionaries who first settled San Gabriel had
given a small piece of land to his father, and on it his father had
built this little house of rough bricks made of mud. Here Ysidro was
born, and here he had always lived. His father and mother had been dead
a long time. His brothers and sisters had all died or gone away to live
in some other place.
When he was a young man, he had married a girl named Carmena. She was
still living, almost as old as he; all their children had either died,
or married and gone away, and the two old people lived alone together in
the little mud house.
They were very poor; but they managed to earn just enough to keep from
starving. There was a little land around the house,--not more than an
acre; but it was as much as the old man could cultivate. He raised a few
vegetables, chiefly beans, and kept some hens.
Carmena had done fine washing for the San Gabriel people as long as her
strength held out; but she had not been able for some years to do that.
All she could do now was to embroider and make lace. She had to stay in
bed most of the time, for she had the rheumatism in her legs and feet so
she could but just hobble about; but there she sat day after day,
propped up in her bed, sewing. It was lucky that the rheumatism had not
gone into her hands, for the money she earned by making lace was the
chief part of their living.
Sometimes Ysidro earned a little by days' works in the fields or
gardens; but he was so old, people did not want him if they could get
anybody else, and nobody would pay him more than half wages.
When he could not get anything else to do, he made mats to sell. He made
them out of the stems of a plant called yucca; but he had to go a long
way to get these plants. It was slow, tedious work making the mats, and
the store-keepers gave him only seventy-five cents apiece for them; so
it was very little he could earn in that way.
Was not this a wretched life? Yet they seemed always cheerful, and they
were as much attached to this poor little mud hovel as any of you can
be to your own beautiful homes.
Would you think any one could have the heart to turn those two poor old
people out of their home? It would not seem as if a human being could be
found who would do such a thing. But there was. He was a lawyer; I could
tell you his true name, but I will not. He had a great deal to do with
all sorts of records and law papers, about land and titles and all such
things.
There has always been trouble about the ownership of land in California,
because first it belonged to Spain, and then it belonged to Mexico; and
then we fought with Mexico, and Mexico gave it to us. So you can easily
see that where lands are passed along in that way, through so many
hands, it might often be hard to tell to whom they justly belonged.
Of course this poor old Ysidro did not know anything about papers. He
could not read or write. The missionaries gave the land to his father
more than a hundred years ago, and his father gave it to him, and that
was all Ysidro knew about it.
Well, this lawyer was rummaging among papers and titles and maps of
estates in San Gabriel, and he found out that there was this little bit
of land near the church, which had been overlooked by everybody, and to
which nobody had any written title. He went over and looked at it, and
found Ysidro's house on it; and Ysidro told him he had always lived
there; but the lawyer did not care for that.
Land is worth a great deal of money now in San Gabriel. This little
place of Ysidro's was worth a good many hundred dollars; and this lawyer
was determined to have it. So he went to work in ways I cannot explain
to you, for I do not understand them myself; and you could not
understand them even if I could write them out exactly: but it was all
done according to law; and the lawyer got it decided by the courts and
the judges in San Francisco that this bit of land was his.
When this was all done, he had not quite boldness enough to come forward
himself, and turn the poor old Indians out. Even he had some sense of
shame; so he slyly sold the land to a man who did not know anything
about the Indians being there.
You see how cunning this was of him! When it came to the Indians being
turned out, and the land taken by the new owner, this lawyer's name
would not need to come out in the matter at all. But it did come out; so
that a few people knew what a mean, cruel thing he had done. Just for
the sake of the price of an acre of land, to turn two aged helpless
people out of house and home to starve! Do you think those dollars will
ever do that man any good as long as he lives? No, not if they had been
a million.
Well, Mr. Connor was one of the persons who had found out about this;
and he had at first thought he would help Ysidro fight, in the courts,
to keep his place; but he found there would be no use in that. The
lawyer had been cunning enough to make sure he was safe, before he went
on to steal the old Indian's farm. The law was on his side. Ysidro did
not really own the land, according to law, though he had lived on it all
his life, and it had been given to his father by the missionaries,
almost a hundred years ago.
Does it not seem strange that the law could do such a thing as that?
When the boys who read this story grow up to be men, I hope they will
do away with these bad laws, and make better ones.
The way Rea had found out about old Ysidro was this: when Jim went to
the post-office for the mail, in the mornings, he used generally to take
Anita and Rea in the wagon with him, and leave them at Anita's mother's
while he drove on to the post-office, which was a mile farther.
Rea liked this very much. Anita's mother had a big blue and green
parrot, that could talk in both Spanish and English; and Rea was never
tired of listening to her. She always carried her sugar; and she used to
cock her head on one side, and call out, "Señorita! señorita! Polly
likes sugar! sugar! sugar!" as soon as she saw Rea coming in at the
door. It was the only parrot Rea had ever seen, and it seemed to her the
most wonderful creature in the world.
Ysidro's house was next to Anita's mother's; and Rea often saw the old
man at work in his garden, or sitting on his door-step knitting lace,
with needles as fine as pins.
One day Anita took her into the house to see Carmena, who was sitting in
bed at work on her embroidery. When Carmena heard that Rea was Mr.
Connor's niece, she insisted upon giving her a beautiful piece of lace
which she had made. Anita did not wish to take it, but old Carmena
said,--
"You must take it. Mr. Connor has given us much money, and there was
never anything I could do for him. Now if his little señorita will take
this, it will be a pleasure."
So Rea carried the lace home, and showed it to her Uncle George, and he
said she might keep it; and it was only a few weeks after this that when
Anita and Rea went down to San Gabriel, one day, they found the old
couple in great distress, the news having come that they were going to
be turned out of their house.
And it was the night after this visit that Rea dreamed about the poor
old creatures all night, and the very next morning that she asked her
Uncle George if he would not build them a house in his cañon.
After lunch, Mr. Connor said to Rea,--
"I am going to drive this afternoon, Rea. Would you like to come with
me?"
His eyes twinkled as he said it, and Rea cried out,--
"Oh! oh! It is to see Ysidro and Carmena, I am sure!"
"Yes," said her uncle; "I am going down to tell them you are going to
build them a house."
"Uncle George, will you really, truly, do it?" said Rea. "I think you
are the kindest man in all the world!" and she ran for her hat, and was
down on the veranda waiting, long before the horses were ready.
They found old Ysidro sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall of
his house. He had his face covered up with both hands, his elbows
leaning on his knees.
"Oh, look at him! He is crying, Uncle George," said Rea.
"No, dear," replied Mr. Connor. "He is not crying. Indian men very
rarely cry. He is feeling all the worse that he will not let himself
cry, but shuts the tears all back."
"Yes, that is lots worse," said Rea.
"How do you know, pet?" laughingly said her uncle. "Did you ever try
it?"
"I've tried to try it," said Rea, "and it felt so much worse, I
couldn't."
It was not easy at first to make old Ysidro understand what Mr. Connor
meant. He could not believe that anybody would give him a house and home
for nothing. He thought Mr. Connor wanted to get him to come and work;
and, being an honest old fellow, he was afraid Mr. Connor did not know
how little strength he had; so he said,--
"Señor Connor, I am very old; I am sick too. I am not worth hiring to
work."
"Bless you!" said Mr. Connor. "I don't want you to work any more than
you do now. I am only offering you a place to live in. If you are
strong enough to do a day's work, now and then, I shall pay you for it,
just as I would pay anybody else."
Ysidro gazed earnestly in Mr. Connor's face, while he said this; he
gazed as if he were trying to read his very thoughts. Then he looked up
to the sky, and he said,--
"Señor, Ysidro has no words. He cannot speak. Will you come into the
house and tell Carmena? She will not believe if I tell it."
So Mr. Connor and Rea went into the house, and there sat Carmena in bed,
trying to sew; but the tears were running out of her eyes. When she saw
Mr. Connor and Rea coming in at the door, she threw up her hands and
burst out into loud crying.
"O señor! señor!" she said. "They drive us out of our house. Can you
help us? Can you speak for us to the wicked man?"
Ysidro went up to the bed and took hold of her hand, and, pointing with
his other hand to Mr. Connor, said,--
"He comes from God,--the señor. He will help us!"
"Can we stay?" cried Carmena.
Here Rea began to cry.
"Don't cry, Rea," said Mr. Connor. "That will make her feel worse."
Rea gulped down her sobs, enough to say,--
"But she doesn't want to come into the cañon! All she wants is to stay
here! She won't be glad of the new house."
"Yes, she will, by and by," whispered Mr. Connor. "Stop crying, that's
my good Rea."
But Rea could not. She stood close to the bed, looking into old
Carmena's distressed face; and the tears would come, spite of all her
efforts.
When Carmena finally understood that not even Mr. Connor, with all his
good will and all his money, could save them from leaving their home,
she cried again as hard as at first; and Ysidro felt ashamed of her, for
he was afraid Mr. Connor would think her ungrateful. But Mr. Connor
understood it very well.
"I have lived only two years in my house," he said to Rea, "and I would
not change it for one twice as good that anybody could offer me. Think
how any one must feel about a house he has lived in all his life."
"But it is a horrible little house, Uncle George," said Rea,--"the
dirtiest hovel I ever saw. It is worse than they are in Italy."
"I do not believe that makes much difference, dear," said Uncle George.
"It is their home, all the same, as if it were large and nice. It is
that one loves."
Just as Mr. Connor and Rea came out of the house, who should come riding
by, but the very man that had caused all this unhappiness,--the lawyer
who had taken Ysidro's land! He was with the man to whom he had sold it.
They were riding up and down in the valley, looking over all their
possessions, and planning what big vineyards and orchards they would
plant and how much money they would make.
When this man saw Mr. Connor, he turned as red as a turkey-cock's
throat. He knew very well what Mr. Connor thought of him; but he bowed
very low.
Mr. Connor returned his bow, but with such a stern and scornful look on
his face, that Rea exclaimed,--
"What is the matter, Uncle George? What makes you look so?"
"That man is a bad man, dear," he replied; "and has the kind of badness
I most despise." But he did not tell her that he was the man who was
responsible for the Indians being driven out of their home. He thought
it better for Rea not to know it.
"Are there different sorts of badness,--some badnesses worse than
others?" asked Rea.
"I don't know whether one kind is really any worse than another," said
Mr. Connor. "But there are some kinds which seem to me twice as bad as
others; and meanness and cruelty to helpless creatures seem to me the
very worst of all."
"To me too!" said Rea. "Like turning out poor Ysidro."
"Yes," said Mr. Connor. "That is just one of the sort I mean."
Just before they reached the beginning of the lands of Connorloa, they
crossed the grounds of a Mr. Finch, who had a pretty house and large
orange orchards. Mr. Finch had one son, Harry, about Jusy's age, and the
two boys were great cronies.
As Mr. Connor turned the horses' heads into these grounds, he saw Jusy
and Harry under the trees in the distance.
"Why, there is Jusy," he said.
"Yes," said Rea. "Harry came for him before lunch. He said he had
something to show him."
As soon as Jusy caught sight of the carriage, he came running towards
it, crying,--
"Oh, Uncle George, stop! Rea! come! I've found Snowball! Come, see him!"
Snowball had been missing for nearly a month, and nobody could imagine
what had become of him. They finally came to the conclusion that he must
have got killed in some way.
Mr. Connor stopped the horses; and Rea jumped out and ran after Jusy,
and Mr. Connor followed. They found the boys watching excitedly, one at
each end of a little bridge over the ditch, through which the water was
brought down for irrigating Mr. Finch's orchards. Harry's dogs were
there too, one at each end of the bridge, barking, yelping, watching as
excitedly as the boys. But no Snowball.
"Where is he?" cried Rea.
"In under there," exclaimed Jusy. "He's got a rabbit in there; he'll be
out presently."
Sure enough, there he was, plainly to be heard, scuffling and spitting
under the bridge.
The poor little rabbit ran first to one end of the bridge, then to the
other, trying to get out; but at each end he found a dog, barking to
drive him back.
Presently Snowball appeared with the dead rabbit in his teeth. Dropping
it on the ground, he looked up at the dogs, as much as to say, "There!
Can't I hunt rabbits as well as you do?" Then they all three, the two
dogs and he, fell to eating the rabbit in the friendliest manner.
"Don't you think!" cried Jusy. "He's been hunting this way, with these
dogs, all this time. You see they are so big they can't get in under the
bridge, and he can; so they drive the rabbits in under there, and he
goes in and gets them. Isn't he smart? Harry first saw him doing it two
weeks ago, he says. He didn't know it was our cat, and he wondered whose
it could be. But Snowball and the dogs are great friends. They go
together all the time; and wherever he is, if he hears them bark, he
knows they've started up something, and he comes flying! I think it is
just splendid!"
"Poor little thing!" said Rea, looking at the fast-disappearing rabbit.
"Why, you eat them yourself!" shouted Jusy. "You said it was as good as
chicken, the other day. It isn't any worse for cats and dogs to eat
them, than it is for us; is it, Uncle George?"
"I think Jusy has the best of the argument this time, pet," said Uncle
George, looking fondly at Jusy.
"Girls are always that way," said Harry politely. "My sisters are just
so. They can't bear to see anything killed."
After this day, Rea spent most of her time in the cañon, watching the
men at work on Ysidro's house.
The cañon was a wild place; it was a sort of split in the rocky sides of
the mountain; at the top it was not much more than two precipices joined
together, with just room enough for a brook to come down. You can see in
the picture where it was, though it looks there like little more than a
groove in the rocks. But it was really so big in some places that huge
sycamore trees grew in it, and there were little spaces of good earth,
where Mr. Connor had planted orchards.
It was near these, at the mouth of the cañon, that he put Ysidro's
house. It was built out of mud bricks, called adobe, as near as
possible like Ysidro's old house,--two small rooms, and a thatched roof
made of reeds, which grew in a swamp.
But Mr. Connor did not call it Ysidro's house. He called it Rea's house;
and the men called it "the señorita's house." It was to be her own, Mr.
Connor said,--her own to give as a present to Ysidro and Carmena.
When the day came for them to move in, Jim went down with the big wagon,
and a bed in the bottom, to bring old Carmena up. There was plenty of
room in the wagon, besides, for the few little bits of furniture they
had.
Mr. Connor and Jusy and Rea were at the house waiting, when they came.
The cook had made a good supper of meat and potato, and Rea had put it
on the table, all ready for them.
When they lifted Carmena out of the wagon, she held, tight clutched in
her hand, a small basket filled with earth; she seemed hardly willing to
let go of it for a moment.
"What is that?" said Jusy.
"A few handfuls of the earth that was ours," replied Ysidro. "We have
brought it with us, to keep it always. The man who has our home will not
miss it."
The tears came into Mr. Connor's eyes, and he turned away.
Rea did not understand. She looked puzzled; so did Jusy.
Jim explained. "The Indian women often do that," he said. "When they
have to move away from a home they love they carry a little of the earth
with them; sometimes they put it in a little bag, and wear it hanging on
their necks; sometimes they put it under their heads at night."
"Yes," said Carmena, who had listened to what Jim said. "One can sleep
better on the earth that one loves."
"I say, Rea!" cried Jusy. "It is a shame they had to come away!"
"I told you so, Jusy," said Rea gently. "But you didn't seem to care
then."
"Well, I do now!" he cried. "I didn't think how bad they'd feel. Now if
it were in Italy, I'd go and tell the King all about it. Who is there
to tell here?" he continued, turning to his Uncle George. "Who is there
here, to tell about such things? There must be somebody."
Mr. Connor smiled sadly. "The trouble is, there are too many," he said.
"Who is above all the rest?" persisted Jusy. "Isn't there somebody at
the top, as our King is in Italy?"
"Yes, there is one above all the rest," replied Mr. Connor. "We call him
the President."
"Well, why don't you write and tell him about Ysidro?" said Jusy. "I
wish I could see him, I'd tell him. It's a shame!"
"Even the President could not help this, Jusy," said Mr. Connor. "The
law was against poor Ysidro; there was no help; and there are thousands
and thousands of Indians in just the same condition he is."
"Doesn't the President make the laws?" said Jusy.
"No," said Mr. Connor. "Congress makes the laws."
"Oh," said Jusy, "like our Parliament."
"Yes," said Mr. Connor.
Jusy said no more; but he thought of little else all the afternoon; and
at bedtime he said to Rea,--
"Rea, I am real sorry I didn't care about those old Indians at first,
when you did. But I'm going to be good to them now, and help them all I
can; and I have made up my mind that when I am a man I shall not go to
Italy, as I said I would, to be an officer for the King. I shall stay
here, and be an officer for the American President, instead; and I shall
tell him about Ysidro, and about all the rest of the Indians."
* * * * *
There is nothing more to be told about the Hunter Cats. By degrees they
disappeared: some of them went to live at other houses in the San
Gabriel Valley; some of them ran off and lived a wild life in the
cañons; and some of them, I am afraid, must have died for want of food.
Rea was glad when they were all gone; but Jusy missed the fun of seeing
them hunt gophers and linnets.
Perhaps, some day, I shall write another story, and tell you more about
Jusy and Rea, and how they tried to help the Indians.
[Illustration: MATS MADE BY YSIDRO.--Page 126.]
End of Project Gutenberg's The Hunter Cats of Connorloa, by Helen Jackson