_Orizaba._
MY DEAR SALLY,
In the market place to-day I found such a bored old bear dancing for
a bored crowd. I've never seen anything quite so tired and patient as
his eyes. His little old master was half asleep but he whacked his
tambourine and whined his mournful song without a pause. I left Lupe
and the C.E. and went out and patted the bear and asked the man (I am
as handy as that with my Spanish!) how much he earned in a day. Less
than fifteen cents in our money! Well, I asked him if I could buy the
bear a week's vacation if I paid him three weeks' earnings in
advance. He accepted thankfully and I believe he will keep his word,
being just as bored as the bear. The old beast came down on his four
feet with a gusty sigh and they padded peacefully away. The crowd
thought me mildly mad and the C.E. was a little annoyed with me. He
said he would gladly have attended to it for me if I had asked him.
I answered him very impertinently--something Lupe had taught
me--"_Cuando tu vas, ya yo vengo!_" which means in crude English,
"By the time you get started I'll be on the way back!"
I purr with pleasure when I think of the bear!
JANE.
P.S. One hopes it isn't a habit with him ... being a little
annoyed....
_Cordoba._
Sally, dear, this isn't a comic opera country at all, but a land of
grim melodrama; stark tragedy.
We're here in the prettiest city, on the edge of the _tierra
caliente_, but it's been a horrid day. It started wrong. An
unsavory but beautiful cherub of eight or so, smoking a cigarette,
tried to sell me a baby lizard. You remember how I've always loved
lizards, but I couldn't take it on a day's sight-seeing so I gave him
a copper and refused. He said in liquid Spanish, "So, Your Grace will
not buy my little lizard? Very well! Behold!"--and before my
horrified eyes he held it to his cigarette and burned it to death
before I could jump out of the machine and get to him. I suppose I'm
tired out with all this rushing about, for I just went to pieces
over it, and when Lupe said sympathetically, "Oh, deed you _want_
it?" it made me turn on her. I made the rest go on the drive without
me and I sat down in the Plaza alone to think things over. There was
a little old fountain with a gurgling drip, and I rested in the
ragged shade of the banana trees and heard two hours tinkled from
the crumbling, creamy-colored cathedral, and came gradually to the
point of understanding that the boy was just as much an object of
pity as the lizard. I knew that Michael Daragh would
say--there--that's the first time, even to myself----
Well, I sat there, cooled and calmed, and presently I heard something
and looked up to see two soldiers on horseback bringing a prisoner.
His arms were bound behind him, and great, rough ropes ran from their
saddles to his neck and the skin was rubbed raw. The horses were
steaming; they must have come fast. Another soldier went on to report
or something and told them to wait there, and they were halted right
by me. The man's mouth was open and his swollen tongue hanging out
and he was panting just like a dog. He gasped, "_Agua! Por
Dios--agua!_" but his guards just laughed and shouted to the
_pulquería_ across the street, and a boy came out and brought them
drinks. Their backs were toward me, and I got up without making a
sound and crept to the fountain and filled the big iron cup to the
brim and held it till he'd drained every drop, and then let him have
a little more, and then I dipped my handkerchief in the water and
put it in his mouth. And just at that very moment--of course!--the
guards turned round and saw me, _and_ the Budders and the C.E. and
Lupe drove up!
My dear Sarah, they very nearly arrested _me_! The man is, they
claim, a dangerous revolutionist, and I was giving aid to him. Lupe
was shaking like a leaf and the C.E. was white as paper, but between
them they got me off.
I don't care! I'd do it again!
It seems the whole country is simmering and seething in revolution;
old Diaz' throne is tottering under him. Lupe was tearful over a
wailing letter from her Emilio, begging her to return, and the C.E.
is recalled to his mine, and the Budders are a little nervous and
anxious to hurry northward, so we're off for Guanajuato to-morrow,
but I'm not very keen about it.
I'm not very keen about anything.
Drearily,
J.
_Two Hours Later._
P.S. We took a little _paseo_ in the moonlight and things looked
brighter in the dark! The only reason the C.E. gets a little annoyed
is that he cannot bear to see me in distress or danger. He was very
nice about promising to help me smooth the path for _Romeo_ and
_Juliet_.
We pass through Guadalajara and I'll run in to see Dolores Tristeza.
J.
_On the Train to Guanajuato._
Sally, she came running to meet me and flung herself into my arms!
The sister says she's never done that to any one before, and she told
me the child had talked of me constantly. They're going to let me
take her out for a whole day when we come back. She called "_Hasta
la vista!_"--and threw me a kiss. She has quite wiped out the
lizard and the _insurrecto_.
_Later._
This is the most fascinating place yet! I'm glad the C.E. lives here,
rather than in the cloying prettiness of the _tierra caliente_. It's
great fun, arriving at a new place after dark. The town is high in
the hills above the station and we came up in a mule car, rattling
through the twisting, narrow streets. I sat near the driver, only
his soft, bright eyes showing between his high-wrapped _serape_ and
his low-drawn _sombrero_, and he told me that his mules were named
Constantino and The Pine Tree, faithful animals both of whom he
tenderly loved. The few pedestrians scuttled into doorways or
flattened themselves against the walls as we caromed past, and from
time to time he blew a deafening blast on a crumpled horn.
We stepped from the car straight into the office of the hotel, and
then the C.E. and I set out with Lupe to escort her to her uncle's
house, but at the first dark turning she gave a smothered little
scream and melted into the arms of a dusky cavalier. Emilio, when
he could spare the time to be introduced, proved something of a
landscape,--large for a Mexican, very much the patrician with his
slim hands and feet and correct Castilian manner. Guanajuato is
rather old-fashioned and he wears the high class, native costume,
and when Lupe is at home here, she always wears a _reboso_ instead
of a hat.
He is the son of so many revolutions, it must make him dizzy to
remember them, but I like him and I mean to help him win his pearl
maiden. He discreetly left us before we reached Lupe's house and
delivered her over to a very impressive Blue-beardish sort of person
who was very gracious to us and asked me to visit Lupe. I shall,--it
fits in perfectly with my plans! I go there to-morrow.
Meanwhile, I go to sleep!
Drowsily,
JANE.
_At Señor Don Diego's Palacio._
Sally, _mía_, how you'd adore this house! The floors are of dull-red
tiles and they are massaged three times a day, and the whole thing
is medieval in flavor,--a flock of velvet-voiced, dove-eyed servants
who adore Lupe and are pledged to her cause. Old Cristina, who was
her mother's nurse, is to be our stoutest ally.
Every night for an hour Emilio stands under her balcony "playing the
bear." Lupe, her face shrouded in her _reboso_, leans over and
whispers. I hover in the background like _Juliet's_ nurse. Afterward
the C.E., having ridden in from his mine, comes for me, and we sally
forth in the night like the Caliph and walk slowly up and down the
Street of Sad Children, where the music comes daintily to us,
filtered through the trees. Sometimes "Emily," as the C.E. wickedly
calls him, joins us, to talk of his two loves,--Lupe, and Mexico.
Sally, never laugh again at the Mexican revolutions,--they're not
funny, only pitiful.
My chief task now is to infuse a quality of hope and--_ginger_--into
these little lovers. Sometimes their attitude of _Dios no lo
quiso_--heaven wills otherwise--makes me want to shake them, but
slowly and surely I'm rousing them to action.
To-day we visited the prison here ... not the show model of Mexico
City. This one is a hold-over from the Dark Ages. Young and old,
gentle and simple, murderers and thieving children--all herded in
together. In the huge court, before pillars with chains, a _peon_
was mopping up some dark stains.... Ugh! This is the broken heart of
Mexico where tears and blood are brewing.
JANE.
_One Momentous Morning!_
All our little plans are perfected, Sally! We have to act quickly for
Lupe's Tio Diego is more irate than usual, and "Emily's" papa
languishes in prison, and there is a plot on foot to rescue him and
make him Governor or something.
The Budders find the situation singularly lacking in thrill, and feel
they would enjoy the safe and uneventful streets of San Francisco,
and we start north day after to-morrow night. They are interested in
my pretty _novios_ and will timidly help us.
It is all very simple. In the afternoon Lupe and I will stroll to the
little church where she was baptized and where the gentle old priest
is a friend of "Emily's" family. Emilio and the C.E. will be waiting.
Two of us are expeditiously wed. Lupe and I stroll back alone,
halting to take a cup of chocolate with cinnamon in the _dulcería_;
dine sedately with Tio Diego. Then I, reminding him that I am about
to return to the States with my relatives, take farewell of him,
thanking him (feeling a good deal of the viper that bites the hand
that feeds it) for his hospitality. Lupe and I then repair to her
rooms for a last chat. Presently Emilio and the C.E. arrive beneath
the balcony. I emerge, join the C.E., and go briskly with him
through the dusk to the street car and thence to the station where
the Budders are waiting and leave for Silao on the nine-o'clock
train.
Only, as the intelligent reader will have gathered, it will be Lupe
who melts into the distance in my frock and cloak, with my thickest
chiffon veil over her face, and Emilio who strides at her side in the
C.E.'s suit and overcoat and hat and the big, dark goggles he's been
diligently wearing lately, and a scarf about his neck against the
menace of the night air, while the C.E. in actuality, in _caballero_
costume, gazes adoringly up at me on Lupe's _Juliet_ balcony! Rather
neat, what?
We hold the pose, the C.E. and I, until we hear the heartening
whistle of the train, when he slips away to change his clothes and I,
escorted by old Cristina, go back to the hotel and follow the Budders
to Guadalajara in the morning. I don't see how it can possibly fail.
Emilio's family owns large _ranchos_ up in Durango, where the
elopers will be quite safe in a mountain fastness, and they will
arrive there by craft, not buying through tickets, doubling now and
then.
This is much more fun than eloping myself!
Excitedly,
JANE.
P.S. Speaking of which, the C.E. thinks it high time his case came up
for hearing, and I've promised to give it serious consideration as
soon as E. and L. are on their train. He had a quaint idea that the
old priest might as well make it a double wedding!
_The Next Night._
Only think, Sally dear, this time to-morrow night it will all be
accomplished! I've never been so thrilled in all my days.
And there's another reason for it beside my pussy willow maid's
romance! (No, not that! Not yet, at any rate!) It was this evening,
early, when she and I were walking, and they were playing _La
Golondrina_. Lupe was silent, deep in her own rosy thoughts. We
passed the entrance to the "Street of Sad Children" and the name and
the mournful magic of the music conjured up Dolores Tristeza for me,
and the thought that I should soon see her again, but only to say
good-by.
Then, quite suddenly and serenely, with no bothering doubts or
"if's," I knew. I knew the thing I am going to do. I'm going to take
her, to have her and keep her always. I'm twenty-eight years old,
sound body and sane mind, with a steadily fattening income; I defy
them to say I'm not the fittest adopter they ever saw. I know she'll
want to come with me, and I know I couldn't leave Mexico heart-whole
without her. Just as I arrived at this satisfying conclusion I
glanced up; we were passing a little _pulquería_ whose
name--painted gorgeously--was "The Orphan's Tear!" Wasn't that
fitting?
I can't wait to see her and tell her!
JANE.
_The Afternoon._
SALLY DEAREST,
We are just home from the wedding and I wish you could see Lupe's
dewy-eyed joy. I ache with tenderness for her. I know now why mothers
always weep at weddings--I very nearly did myself, and I know I shall
in ten years or so, when I see my Dolores Tristeza, standing like
that, star-eyed, quivering-lipped.
When she slips away in the dusk to-night I shall put a period to my
thought of María de Guadalupe Rosalía Merced Castello. I want to keep
this fragrant memory of her.
"Yet, ah, that spring should vanish with the rose!
That youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!"
I refuse to fancy my pussy-willow girl, my pearl maiden, in ten
years, with a mustache and no corsets and eight weak-coffee-colored
babies! _Adíos, Lupe mía!_ Go with God!
Everything is in readiness. The dear old Budders, trembling with
excitement, will be waiting at the train. As for me--as for my own
little affair--I'm pushing that away, until my _novios_ are safe.
I'm pushing away that moment on the balcony, when we hear the train
whistle. Sally, I don't _know_! This lovely, lazy, ardent land works
moon magic on staid professional women!
Mistily,
JANE.
_Guadalajara,
Two Days Later._
SALLY DEAREST,
It was mean to make you wait for the next thrilling installment of my
Mexican best-seller, but this is the first moment when I've thought I
could put down, coherently and cohesively, what happened. Happened is
a palely inadequate word;--burst,--exploded--erupted, would be
better!
It worked like a charm. They got away. I leaned from Lupe's balcony
in the fragrant dusk and listened to their footfalls dying away. The
C.E., shrouded to his eyes, looked up and whispered that "Emily's"
_charro_ trousers had nearly ruined everything at the last moment;
he had needed vaseline and a shoehorn and a special supplication to
St. James to get them on. We giggled like sixteen-year-olds. The
C.E. said--
"Lettice, Lettice, let down your golden hair,
That I may climb by a golden stair!"
I was so pleased with him for remembering his fairy-tales. I was so
pleased with him and so fond of him and so happy over my _novios_
that I couldn't keep my beautiful plan a secret any longer. I told
him what I had decided about Dolores Tristeza.
My dear! I wish you could have heard him! He was another person
entirely. He said it was the maddest, wildest, most sickly
sentimental, impractical thing he'd ever heard! He raved on and on,
always coming back to the point of her clouded parentage. I told him
he was perfectly mid-Victorian,--that any one living in the present
century knows that there are no illegitimate _children_--just
illegitimate fathers and mothers! But it never budged him. He was,
for the first time, a most uncivil engineer. "Besides," I said,
"beauty and wit is the love child's portion!"
It must have been funny, really, raging at each other in whispers. He
began to burble about heredity and I told him I was planning an
environment that would bleach out the heredity of the Piper Family,
and he said that it couldn't be done, and I said that he was a
pagan-suckled-in-a-creed-outworn, and just then the train
whistled--the signal for what was to have been our melting moment,
and we were both so mad we were fairly jibbering! And at that very
instant old Cristina came running to tell us to fly at once, as Don
Diego had decided to have Emilio arrested!
Before we could spread a wing, a little guard of opera bouffe
soldiers was rounding the corner. I just whispered--"Stick! They'd
stop them at Silao!" when they were upon him. He was a brick, I must
admit. He just hitched the _serape_ higher and pulled the _sombrero_
lower and trudged away in somber silence. It seemed the only decent
and sporting thing for me to stick, too, so I flung on Lupe's cape
and covered my face with a _mantilla_ and fled after them. The C.E.
was furious and tried his frantic best to make me go back, but I
wouldn't and I whispered to him that I'd never forgive him as long
as I lived if he told and spoiled everything. My dear, they took us
to that horrible prison ... with the bloodstains on the floor! The
man at the desk was nearly asleep. He scribbled something in his
Dream Book and produced a key three feet long at least, unlocked a
door, pushed us in, and clanged it shut behind us. We were in the
main court with the murderers and the newsboys and the sodden
drunkards.... A guard with a gun showed us two cells opening off the
court. We crouched on stools in the back of one of them and the C.E.
said between his teeth, "Keep that thing over your face and keep
_still_!"
Then I stopped admiring myself and realized what I had done and where
I was ... a Gringo woman in a Guanajuato prison at night.... But
every hour that I stayed there saw my _novios_ nearer to safety,
and the Budders wouldn't know and wouldn't worry. Sally, I'm glad I
had a firm Vermont Scriptural upbringing! I can always find
something, ready to my hand,--a staff to lean on. I thought of a
funny one I've always loved--one of the Proverbs, I think----
"_The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth
into it and is safe._"
I wasn't very sure I was "a righteous" but I tried valiantly to
remember all the worthy actions I had done, and I don't mind telling
you they rather piled up,--from Lupe to the bored old bear. I
runneth-ed into my tower and felt a good deal safer, I make no doubt,
than my poor C.E.
There was a nameless age of black silence, and then there was a
crowded hour of glorious life. When I heard the shouts and then the
shots I tried to remember Sydney Carton and the French aristocrats
taking snuff on the steps of the guillotine, and I tried to think of
something handsome and dressy in the way of a farewell speech, in
case it might ever be reported in the States. The C.E. was splendid,
only, when the great doors clanged open and the mob streamed in
calling wildly for Emilio Hernandez, he very naturally failed to hold
up his hand and say "Present." We both thought that his hour had
struck and you may imagine my horror and remorse. Well, they began a
cell-to-cell canvass, but when they flashed the lantern on us they
shouted with joyful triumph. They were not executioners but rescuers!
They were revolutionists, come to save Emilio and his papa, the
General. That gentleman arrived on the run, panting, demanding his
son. Alarums and excursions! Explanations. I think the bitterest
moment of the whole hideous time for the poor C.E. was when "Emily's"
papa kissed him!
Sally, I'm running down like a mechanical toy,--I can hardly write
another word. I was escorted to my hotel and thence to a dawn train
for Guadalajara. The meek C.E. renewed his suit; he said I could
adopt the whole _hospicio_ if I wanted to, but I said "_Adios_" and
I think in his head, if not his heart, he was rather relieved. Poor,
dear, extremely civil engineer! His tastes are simple and his wants
are few,--just a limp, lovely lady in the background of his life,
waiting prettily for him to come home and tell her what to think.
That man doesn't want a help-meet; he wants a _harîm_.
They are unwinding several thousand miles of red tape, but at the
end, like the pot of gold and the rainbow, I shall find my Dolores
Tristeza, and there will be one pair of mournful eyes the less in
this land of smiles and sobs.
_Adíos_, poor, pretty, passionate, shrugging Mexico! Go with God!
I'm coming _home_, Sally _mía_!
J.
P.S. The C.E.'s days before he knew me were just a string of wooden
beads; afterward, they were a string of fire-crackers!
P.S. II. Michael Daragh is going to be frightfully pleased with me
for wiping the orphan's tear; but he'll make me see that there's just
as much poetry and more punch in wiping the orphan's nose!