Years passed. The nine days’ feast of the Blessed Virgin, one of the
most charming of all the year, was being celebrated with unusual pomp in
the church at Tres Hermanos. Since the death of Padre Francisco, no
priest had been regularly stationed there; but at the expense of Doña
Isabel, one had been sent there to remain through the nine days sacred
to Mary, and the people gave their whole time to devotional exercises,
much to the neglect of the usual hacienda work. The crops in the fields
were untended, while the men crowded to Mass in the morning, and spent
their afternoons at the tavern-shop playing monté and drinking pulque;
while the women and children streamed in and out of the church,—the
women to witness the offering of flowers upon the altar, the children to
lay them there, happy once in the year to be chief in the service of the
beautiful Queen of Heaven. For though the image above the altar was
blackened by time and defaced by many a scar, the robes were brilliant,
and glittered with variously colored jewels of glass; the crown was
untarnished, and the little yellow babe in the mother’s arms appealed to
the strong maternal sentiment which lies deep in the heart of every
Mexican woman.
Upon the first day of the feast not one female child of the many who
lived within the hacienda limits was absent from the church; and they
were so many that the proud mothers, who had spent no little of their
time and substance in arraying them, were fain to crowd the aisles and
doorways, or stand craning their necks without, hoping to catch a
glimpse of the high altar, as the crowd surged to and fro, making way
for the tiny representatives of womanhood, who claimed right of entrance
from their very powerlessness and innocence. Quaint and ludicrous looked
these little creatures, mincing daintily into the church, their
wide-spread crinolines expanding skirts stiffly starched, and rustling
audibly under brilliant tunics of flowered muslin or purple and green
stuffs. These dresses were an exact imitation in material and style of
the gala attire of the mothers. The full skirts swept the ground, and
over the curiously embroidered linen chemise which formed the bodice was
thrown the ever-present reboso, or scarf of shimmering tints. The
well-oiled black locks of these miniature _rancheras_ were drawn back
tightly from the low foreheads,—the long, smooth braids fastened and
adorned by knots of bright ribbon, and crowned with flowers of domestic
manufacture, their glaring hues and fantastic shapes contrasting
strangely with the masses of beauty and fragrance that each child
clasped to her bosom. In spite of its incongruities, a fantastic and
pleasant sight was offered; and Doña Rita, looking around her with the
eye of a devotee, doubted whether any more pleasing could be devised for
God or man.
Within the sacred walls of her temple at least, the Church of Rome is
consistent in declaring that in her eyes her children are all equal; and
upon that springtime afternoon at Tres Hermanos, among a throng of
plebeian children from the village, knelt the daughters of the
administrador; and side by side were Doña Rita and a woman from whose
contact, as she met her on the court the day before, she had drawn back
her skirt, lest it should be polluted by the mere touch of so foul a
creature.
Rosario and Chata (as Florentina was so constantly called that her
baptismal name was almost unknown) had already laid their wreaths of
pink Castillian roses upon the altar, and were demurely telling their
beads, when a startling vision passed them.
It was Chinita, literally begarlanded with flowers,—wild-roses, pale and
delicate, long tendrils of jessamine, and masses of faint yellow cups of
the cactus, and scarlet verbenas, dusty and coarse, yet offering a
dazzling contrast of color to the snowy pyramid of lily-shaped blossoms,
hacked from the summit of a palm, which she bore proudly upon one
shoulder; while from the other hung her blue reboso in the guise of a
bag filled with ferns and grasses brought from coverts few others knew
of. The flowers made a glorious display as they were laid about the
altar, for there was not room for half upon it. The breath of the fields
and woodlands rushed over the church, almost overpowering the smell of
the incense, and there were smiles on many faces and wide-eyed glances
of admiration and surprise as Chinita descended to take her place among
the congregation.
Five Mays had come and gone since she had stood under the fateful tree,
and given the jet amulet to the cavalier who had so roused and
fascinated her imagination; but whatever may have been its effect upon
its new possessor, its loss had certainly wrought no ill upon Chinita.
Though not yet fourteen years of age, she was fast attaining the
development of womanhood, and her mind as well as person showed a rare
precocity even in that land where the change from childhood to womanhood
seems almost instantaneous. But there was no coyness, as there was no
assumption of womanly ways in this tall, straight young creature, whose
only toil was to carry the water-jar from the fountain to Florencia’s
hut, perhaps twice in the day,—and who did it sometimes laughingly,
sometimes grudgingly as the humor seized her, but always spilling half
the burden with which she left the fountain before she lifted it from
her shoulder and set it in the hollow worn in the mud floor of the hut,
escaping with a laugh from Florencia’s scolding, and hurrying out to her
old pursuits, now grown more various, more daring, more perplexing, more
vexatious to all with whom she came in contact.
A thousand times had it been upon the lips of Doña Rita to forbid the
entrance in her house of the foundling to distract the minds of Rosario
and Chata by her wild pranks; but aside from the fact that Doña Rita was
of a constitutionally indolent nature, averse even to the use of many
words and still more to energetic action, the child was a constant
source of interest. She carried into the quiet rooms a sense of freedom
and expansion, as though she brought with her the breezes and sunlight
in which she delighted to wander. She had too a powerful ally in Doña
Feliz, who kept a watchful eye upon her; and though she never, like her
daughter-in-law or the children, made a pet and plaything of the waif,
yet she was always the first to notice if she looked less well than
usual, or to set Pedro on his guard if her wanderings were too far
afield, or her absences too long.
Upon this day as Chinita turned from the altar, while others smiled, a
frown contracted the brow of Doña Feliz, as for the first time perhaps
she realized that this gypsy-like child was in physique a woman. She had
chosen to wear a dress of bright green woollen stuff,—far from becoming
to the olive tint of her skin, but by some accident cut to fit the lithe
figure which already outlined, though imperfectly, the graces of early
womanhood. The short armless jacket was fashioned after the child’s own
fancy, and opened over a chemise which was a mass of drawn work and
embroidery; her skirts outspread all others, yet the flowing drapery
could not wholly conceal the small brown feet which, as the custom was,
were stockingless and cased in heelless slippers of some fine black
stuff,—more an ornament than a protection. But Chinita’s crowning glory
were the rows of many-colored worthless glass beads, mingled with
strings of corals and dark and irregular pearls, that hung around her
neck and festooned the front of her jacket. This dazzling vision, with
the inevitable soiled reboso thrown lightly over one shoulder, came down
from the altar and through the aisle of the church, smiling in supreme
content, not because of the glorious tribute of flowers she had plucked
and offered, nor with pride at her own appearance, gorgeous as she
believed it to be, but because of the delightful effect she supposed
both would leave on her aristocratic playmates; and much amazed was she
as she neared them to see Chata’s expressive nose assume an elevation of
unapproachable dignity, while Rosario’s indignation took the form of an
aggressive pinch, so deftly given that Chinita’s shrill interjection
seemed as unaccountable as the glory of her apparel.
Chinita in some consternation sank on her knees, her green skirt rising
in folds around her, reminding Chata irresistibly of a huge butterfly
which she had that very morning seen settle upon a verdant pomegranate
bush. How she longed to extinguish Chinita’s glories as she had done
those of the insect, by a cast of her reboso. There was no malice in her
thought, though perhaps a trifle of envy, for she too loved brilliant
colors. She could not restrain a titter as she thought what Chinita’s
vexation would be; and with a face glowing with anger and eyes filled
with reproach, Pedro’s foster-child sailed haughtily past the sisters
while the untrained choir were singing hymns of rejoicing, with that
inimitable undertone of pathos natural in the voices of the Aztecs, and
the censers of incense were still swinging, and left the church,—longing
to rush back and to trample under foot the flowers she had so joyously
gathered, longing to tear off the fine clothes and adornments she had so
proudly donned. She pushed angrily past a peasant boy in tattered cotton
garments and coarse sombrero of woven grass, who was the slave of her
caprices, who had toiled in her service all day and upon whom she had
smiled when she entered the church, yet whom she now thrust aside in
rage as she left it, with a “Out of my way, stupid! What art thou
staring at? Thou art like blind Tomas, with his eyes open all day long,
yet seeing nothing.”
“A pretty one thou,” cried the boy, angrily. “Dost suppose I am a
rabbit, to care for nothing but green? Bah! thou art uglier in thy gay
skirts than in thy old ones of red-and-white flannel!”
But the girl had not lingered to listen to his taunts. She flew rather
than ran to her hut, which on account of the service in the church was
deserted. A crowd of ragged urchins who had taken up the cry of her
flouted swain, followed her, jeering and hooting, to the door which she
slammed in their faces. Not that they bore her any ill will; but the
sight of Chinita in her fine clothes, ruffling and fluttering like an
enraged peacock, was irresistibly exciting to the youths whom her lofty
disdain usually held in the cowed and submissive state of awe-stricken
admiration.
Chinita, scarcely understanding her own miserable disappointment and
anger, began to disembarrass herself of her finery, flinging each
article from her with contempt, until she stood in the coarse red
white-spotted skirt, with a broad band of light green above the
hips,—which formed her ordinary apparel. As she stood panting, two great
tears rolling down her cheeks and two others as large hanging upon her
long, black lashes, she saw the door gently pushed open and before, with
an angry exclamation, she could reach it, a little brown head was thrust
in.
“Go away!” cried Chinita, imperatively. “Thou hast been told not to come
here. Thy mother will have thee whipped, and I shall be glad, and I will
laugh! yes, I will laugh and laugh!” and she proceeded to do so
sardonically on the instant, gazing down with a glance of contemptuous
fury, which for the moment was tragically genuine, upon the little brown
countenance lifted to her own somewhat apprehensively, yet with a
mischievous daring in the dark eyes that lighted it.
Chinita, with a child’s freedom and in the forgetfulness of anger, had
used the “thou” of equality in addressing her visitor; yet so natural
and irresistible are class distinctions in Mexico, that she held open
the door with some deference for the daughter of the administrador to
enter, and caught up her scarf to throw over her head and bare
shoulders, as was but seemly in the presence of a superior however
young. That done, however, they were but two children together, two
wilful playmates for the moment at variance.
“Now, then! Be not angry, Chinita!” laughed Chata, looking around her
with great satisfaction. “What good fortune that thou art here alone! I
slipped by the gate when Pedro was busy talking, and Rosario was making
my mother and _mamagrande_ to fear dying of laughter by mimicking thee,
Chinita; and so they never missed me when I darted away to seek thee,
Sanchica.”
“And thou hadst better go back,” cried Chinita, grimly, more piqued at
being the cause of laughter than pleased at Chata’s penetration; for in
choosing her green gown she had had in her mind the habit of green cloth
sent by the Duchess to Sancho Panza’s rustic daughter, and had teased
and wheedled Pedro into buying her holiday dress of that color,—because
when they were reading the story together Chata had called her Sanchica
and herself the Duchess, and for many a day they had acted together such
a little comedy as even Cervantes never dreamed of, in which they had
seemed to live in quite another world than that actually around them.
The tale of the “Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance” was a strange
text-book for children; yet in it they had contrived to put together the
letters learned in the breviary, and with their two heads close bent
over the page, these two, as years passed on, had spelled out first the
story, then later an inkling of the wit, the fancy, the philosophy which
lay deep between the two leathern covers that inclosed the entire
secular literature that the house of Don Rafael afforded.
There were, indeed, shelves of quaint volumes in the darkened rooms into
which Chata sometimes peeped when Doña Feliz left a door ajar; but so
great was her awe that she would not have disturbed an atom of dust, and
scarce dared to breathe lest the deep stillness of those dusky rooms
should be broken by ghostly voices. But Chinita, less scrupulous, had
more than once, quite unsuspected, passed what were to her delightful
though grewsome hours in those echoing shades, and with the bare data of
a few names had repeopled them in imagination with those long dead and
gone, as well as with the figure of that stately Doña Isabel, who still
lived in some far-off city,—mourning rebelliously, it was whispered,
over the beautiful daughter shut from her sight by the walls of a
convent, yet who with seemingly pitiless indifference had consigned the
equally beautiful younger Carmen to a loveless marriage; for the latter
had married an elderly widower, and who could believe it might be from
choice? Chinita heard perhaps more of these things than any one, for she
was free to run in and out of every hut, as well as the house of the
administrador; and with her quick intelligence, her lively imagination,
and that faculty which with one drop of Indian blood seems to pervade
the entire being,—the faculty of astute and silent assimilation of every
glance and hint,—she was in her apparent ignorance and childishness
storing thoughts and preparing deductions, which lay as deep from any
human eye as the volcanic fires that in the depths of some vine-clad
mountain may at any moment burst forth, to amaze and terrify and
overwhelm.
But Chinita was brooding over no secret thoughts as she began to smile,
though unwillingly and half wrathfully, as Chata eagerly declared how
well the green dress had transformed her into a veritable Sanchica, and
how stupid she herself had been not to guess from the first what her
clever playmate had meant; then she laughed again as she thought of the
billowy green in which Chinita had knelt, and the half-appeased
masquerader was vexed anew, and sat sullenly on the edge of the adobe
shelf that served as a bedstead, and tugged viciously at the knots of
ribbon in the rebellious hair which she had vainly striven to confine in
seemly tresses. She shook back the wild locks, which once free sprang
into a thousand rings and tendrils, and looking at Chata irefully from
between them, exclaimed,—
“You laugh at me always! You are a baby; you read in the book, and yet
you know nothing. If I were rich like you, I would not be silent and
puny and weak as you are. I would be strong and beautiful, and a woman
as Rosario is; and I would know everything,—yes, as much as the Padre
Comacho, and more; and I would be great and proud, as they say the
Señora Doña Isabel is!”
“But,” cried Chata, flushing with astonishment and some anger, “how can
I be beautiful and strong and like a grown woman at will? My grandmother
says it is well I am still a child, while Rosario is almost a woman; and
I do not mind being little, no, nor even that my nose turns back to run
away, as you say, from my mouth every time I open it; but it is growing
more courageous, I know,”—and she gave the doubtful member an
encouraging pull. “I do not mind all this in the least, while my father
and my grandmother love me; but my mother and you and every one else
look only at Rosario, and talk only of her—” and her lip trembled.
“But do I talk _to_ Rosario?” asked Chinita, much mollified. “Do I ever
tell her my dreams, and all the fine things I see and hear, when I
wander off in the fields and by the river, and up into the dark cañons
of the hills? And,” she added in an eager whisper, “shall I ever tell
her about the American’s ghost when I see him?”
“Bah! you will never see him,” ejaculated Chata, contemptuously, though
she glanced over her shoulder with a sudden start. “There is no such
thing. I asked my grandmother about it yesterday, and she says it is all
wicked nonsense. There could have been no American to be murdered, for
she remembers nothing about it.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Chinita, significantly, and she laughed. “Then it is no
use for me to tell you where he is buried. If there was no American, he
could not have a grave.”
“Yet you have found it!” cried Chata, in intense excitement, for the
story, more or less veracious, that had often been told her of the
murder of the American years before, and the return of his ghost from
time to time to haunt the spot accursed by his unavenged blood, had
taken a strong hold upon her imagination. “Oh, Chinita! did you go, as
you said you would, among the graves on the hillside? Did you go?”
“Why, yes, I did go,” answered Chinita, slowly, winding her arms around
her knees, as she leaned from her high perch, her brown face almost
touching that of the smaller child, who still stood before her. “But I
sha’n’t tell you anything more, so you may as well go home. Ah, I think
I hear them calling you,” and she straightened herself up as if to
listen.
“No! no! no!” cried Chata in an agony of impatience, “I will not go till
you tell me. I _will_ know! Oh, Chinita, if I were but like you, and
could run about at will, over the fields and up the hills!” The tears
rose to her eyes as she spoke,—poor little captive, in her stolen moment
of liberty feeling in her soul the iron of bondage to custom or
necessity.
“Well, then,” said Chinita, deliberately, prolonging the impatience of
her supplicant, while the tears in the dark gray eyes lifted to her own
moved her, “I went through the cornfield. I drove Pepé back when he
wanted to go with me. Oh, how afraid that big boy is of me! Yes, I went
through the corn,—oh, it is so high, so high, I thought it was the very
wood where Don Quixote and Sancho Panza met the robbers; but I was not
afraid. And then I came to the beanfield, and oh, _niña_! I meant to go
again this very day, and bring an armful of the sweet blossoms to Our
Lady, and I forgot it!” clasping her hands penitently.
“And well for thee that thou didst,” exclaimed Chata, “or a pretty
rating my father would have given thee! He says it is enough to make the
Blessed Virgin vexed for a year to see the good food-blossoms wasted,
when there are millions of flowers God only meant for her and the bees.
But, Chinita, I would I were a bee, to make thee cry as I wish! Thou art
slower than ever to-day. Tell me, tell me, what didst thou next?”
“Well, did I not tell you I came to the beanfield,—what should I do but
go through it?” remonstrated Chinita; “and then I walked under the
willows. Ah, if you could only once walk under the willows, _niña_! it
is like heaven in the green shade by the clear water, and there are
great brakes of rushes, with the birds skimming over them. I saw among
them a stork standing on one leg, and he had in his mouth a little
striped snake, yellow and scarlet and black, which so wriggled and
twisted! Ah, and I saw, besides, little fish in the shallow water, and—”
Chata sighed. She had unconsciously sunk upon the mud floor; her eyes
opened wide, as if in imagination she saw all those things of which,
though she was set in the very heart of Nature, her bodily eyes had
caught no glimpse. How in her heart of hearts the sheltered, cloistered
daughter of the administrador envied the wild foster-child of the
gate-keeper, who was so free, and from whom the woods and fields could
keep no secrets! “Go on!” she whispered, and Chinita said, in a sort of
recitative,—
“Yes, I went on and on, not very long by the water’s edge, though I
loved it, but up the little path through the stones and the thorny
cacti. Oh, but they were full of yellow blossoms, and they smelled so
sweet; but they were full of prickles too, and as I went up the steep
hillside they caught my reboso every minute, and when I stood among the
graves my hands were tingling and smarting, and I was half blind and
stumbling. I was so tired, oh, so tired! and I sat down and rubbed my
hands in the sand. It was very still there; it seemed to me that a
little wind was always singing, but perhaps it was the dry grass
rustling; but as I bent down to listen, I fell asleep, and when I woke
up the sun was no higher in the sky than the width of my hand, and I had
no time to look for anything.”
“Ah, stupid creature!” cried Chata, after a moment’s silent
disappointment. “Why did you not tell me so before? I must be missed. I
shall be scolded,” and in a sudden panic she rose to her feet and turned
to the door.
“Stay! stay!” cried Chinita, eager to give her news, as she saw Chata
about to fly. “Though I did not look, I found something. Oh, yes, in
black letters, so big and clear!”
Chata returned precipitately. “Letters—what letters?” she cried.
“Big black letters, J and U and A and N; and the letters for the
American name—how do they say it? Ash— Yes, Ashley—it is not hard—and
that he was born in the United States, and murdered here in May,—yes, I
forget the figures, but I counted up; it was just fourteen years ago,
upon the 13th of this very month. It was all written out upon a little
wooden cross, which had fallen face down upon the grave I fell asleep
upon. I might have looked for it a hundred years and not have found it,
but I had scraped away the sand from it to rub my hands. It is thick and
heavy; I could scarcely turn it over to read the words,—but they are
there. You may tell Doña Feliz there was an American.”
“No, I shall say nothing,” said Chata, dreamily. “She likes not to hear
of murder or of ghosts. Ah, the poor American! why does his spirit stay
here? This is not purgatory. Ah, can it be he cannot rest because he
died upon the 13th?—the unlucky number, my mother says.”
“Let us make it lucky,” said Chinita, daringly. “Let us say thirteen
Aves and thirteen Pater Nosters for his soul.”
But Chata shook her head doubtfully, and started violently as a servant
maid, grimy and ragged like all her clan, and panting with haste, thrust
open the door, exclaiming,—
“_Niña_ of my soul, your lady mother declares you are dead. Doña Feliz
has searched all the house, and is wringing her hands with grief. Don
Rafael has seized Pedro by the collar, and is mad with rage because he
swears you have not passed the gate; and here I find you, with your
white frock all stained with dirt, and that beggar brat filling your
ears with her mad tales. The Saints defend us! Sometime the witch will
fly off—as she came—no one knows where. But you, _niña_, come, come
away!” and the excited woman dragged the truant reluctantly away; while
Chinita, thrusting her tongue into her cheek, received the epithets of
“beggar brat” and “witch” with a contempt which the gesture only, rather
than any words, fluent as she was in plebeian repartee, could at that
moment adequately express.