The schoolmaster of Chestnut Ridge was interrupted in his after-school
solitude by the click of hoof and sound of voices on the little bridle
path that led to the scant clearing in which his schoolhouse stood. He
laid down his pen as the figures of a man and woman on horseback
passed the windows and dismounted before the porch. He recognized the
complacent, good-humored faces of Mr. and Mrs. Hoover, who owned a
neighboring ranch of some importance and who were accounted well to do
people by the community. Being a childless couple, however, while they
generously contributed to the support of the little school, they had
not added to its flock, and it was with some curiosity that the young
schoolmaster greeted them and awaited the purport of their visit. This
was protracted in delivery through a certain polite dalliance with the
real subject characteristic of the Southwestern pioneer.
“Well, Almiry,” said Mr. Hoover, turning to his wife after the first
greeting with the schoolmaster was over, “this makes me feel like
old times, you bet! Why, I ain't bin inside a schoolhouse since I was
knee-high to a grasshopper. Thar's the benches, and the desks, and the
books and all them 'a b, abs,' jest like the old days. Dear! Dear! But
the teacher in those days was ez old and grizzled ez I be--and some o'
the scholars--no offense to you, Mr. Brooks--was older and bigger nor
you. But times is changed: yet look, Almiry, if thar ain't a hunk o'
stale gingerbread in that desk jest as it uster be! Lord! how it all
comes back! Ez I was sayin' only t'other day, we can't be too grateful
to our parents for givin' us an eddication in our youth;” and Mr.
Hoover, with the air of recalling an alma mater of sequestered gloom and
cloistered erudition, gazed reverently around the new pine walls.
But Mrs. Hoover here intervened with a gracious appreciation of the
schoolmaster's youth after her usual kindly fashion. “And don't you
forget it, Hiram Hoover, that these young folks of to-day kin teach the
old schoolmasters of 'way back more'n you and I dream of. We've heard
of your book larnin', Mr. Brooks, afore this, and we're proud to hev you
here, even if the Lord has not pleased to give us the children to send
to ye. But we've always paid our share in keeping up the school
for others that was more favored, and now it looks as if He had not
forgotten us, and ez if”--with a significant, half-shy glance at her
husband and a corroborating nod from that gentleman--“ez if, reelly, we
might be reckonin' to send you a scholar ourselves.”
The young schoolmaster, sympathetic and sensitive, felt somewhat
embarrassed. The allusion to his extreme youth, mollified though it was
by the salve of praise from the tactful Mrs. Hoover, had annoyed him,
and perhaps added to his slight confusion over the information she
vouchsafed. He had not heard of any late addition to the Hoover family,
he would not have been likely to, in his secluded habits; and although
he was accustomed to the naive and direct simplicity of the pioneer,
he could scarcely believe that this good lady was announcing a maternal
expectation. He smiled vaguely and begged them to be seated.
“Ye see,” said Mr. Hoover, dropping upon a low bench, “the way the thing
pans out is this. Almiry's brother is a pow'ful preacher down the coast
at San Antonio and hez settled down thar with a big Free Will Baptist
Church congregation and a heap o' land got from them Mexicans. Thar's
a lot o' poor Spanish and Injin trash that belong to the land, and
Almiry's brother hez set about convertin' 'em, givin' 'em convickshion
and religion, though the most of 'em is Papists and followers of the
Scarlet Woman. Thar was an orphan, a little girl that he got outer the
hands o' them priests, kinder snatched as a brand from the burnin', and
he sent her to us to be brought up in the ways o' the Lord, knowin'
that we had no children of our own. But we thought she oughter get the
benefit o' schoolin' too, besides our own care, and we reckoned to bring
her here reg'lar to school.”
Relieved and pleased to help the good-natured couple in the care of the
homeless waif, albeit somewhat doubtful of their religious methods, the
schoolmaster said he would be delighted to number her among his little
flock. Had she already received any tuition?
“Only from them padres, ye know, things about saints, Virgin Marys,
visions, and miracles,” put in Mrs. Hoover; “and we kinder thought ez
you know Spanish you might be able to get rid o' them in exchange for
'conviction o' sins' and 'justification by faith,' ye know.”
“I'm afraid,” said Mr. Brooks, smiling at the thought of displacing the
Church's “mysteries” for certain corybantic displays and thaumaturgical
exhibitions he had witnessed at the Dissenters' camp meeting, “that I
must leave all that to you, and I must caution you to be careful
what you do lest you also shake her faith in the alphabet and the
multiplication table.”
“Mebbee you're right,” said Mrs. Hoover, mystified but good-natured;
“but thar's one thing more we oughter tell ye. She's--she's a trifle
dark complected.”
The schoolmaster smiled. “Well?” he said patiently.
“She isn't a nigger nor an Injin, ye know, but she's kinder a
half-Spanish, half-Mexican Injin, what they call 'mes--mes'”--
“Mestiza,” suggested Mr. Brooks; “a half-breed or mongrel.”
“I reckon. Now thar wouldn't be any objection to that, eh?” said Mr.
Hoover a little uneasily.
“Not by me,” returned the schoolmaster cheerfully. “And although this
school is state-aided it's not a 'public school' in the eye of the law,
so you have only the foolish prejudices of your neighbors to deal with.”
He had recognized the reason of their hesitation and knew the strong
racial antagonism held towards the negro and Indian by Mr. Hoover's
Southwestern compatriots, and he could not refrain from “rubbing it in.”
“They kin see,” interposed Mrs. Hoover, “that she's not a nigger, for
her hair don't 'kink,' and a furrin Injin, of course, is different from
one o' our own.”
“If they hear her speak Spanish, and you simply say she is a foreigner,
as she is, it will be all right,” said the schoolmaster smilingly. “Let
her come, I'll look after her.”
Much relieved, after a few more words the couple took their departure,
the schoolmaster promising to call the next afternoon at the Hoovers'
ranch and meet his new scholar. “Ye might give us a hint or two how she
oughter be fixed up afore she joins the school.”
The ranch was about four miles from the schoolhouse, and as Mr. Brooks
drew rein before the Hoovers' gate he appreciated the devotion of the
couple who were willing to send the child that distance twice a day.
The house, with its outbuildings, was on a more liberal scale than its
neighbors, and showed few of the makeshifts and half-hearted advances
towards permanent occupation common to the Southwestern pioneers, who
were more or less nomads in instinct and circumstance. He was ushered
into a well-furnished sitting room, whose glaring freshness was subdued
and repressed by black-framed engravings of scriptural subjects. As Mr.
Brooks glanced at them and recalled the schoolrooms of the old missions,
with their monastic shadows which half hid the gaudy, tinseled saints
and flaming or ensanguined hearts upon the walls, he feared that the
little waif of Mother Church had not gained any cheerfulness in the
exchange.
As she entered the room with Mrs. Hoover, her large dark eyes--the most
notable feature in her small face--seemed to sustain the schoolmaster's
fanciful fear in their half-frightened wonder. She was clinging closely
to Mrs. Hoover's side, as if recognizing the good woman's maternal
kindness even while doubtful of her purpose; but on the schoolmaster
addressing her in Spanish, a singular change took place in their
relative positions. A quick look of intelligence came into her
melancholy eyes, and with it a slight consciousness of superiority to
her protectors that was embarrassing to him. For the rest he observed
merely that she was small and slightly built, although her figure was
hidden in a long “check apron” or calico pinafore with sleeves--a local
garment--which was utterly incongruous with her originality. Her skin
was olive, inclining to yellow, or rather to that exquisite shade of
buff to be seen in the new bark of the madrono. Her face was oval, and
her mouth small and childlike, with little to suggest the aboriginal
type in her other features.
The master's questions elicited from the child the fact that she could
read and write, that she knew her “Hail Mary” and creed (happily the
Protestant Mrs. Hoover was unable to follow this questioning), but he
also elicited the more disturbing fact that her replies and confidences
suggested a certain familiarity and equality of condition which he could
only set down to his own youthfulness of appearance. He was apprehensive
that she might even make some remark regarding Mrs. Hoover, and was not
sorry that the latter did not understand Spanish. But before he left he
managed to speak with Mrs. Hoover alone and suggested a change in
the costume of the pupil when she came to school. “The better she is
dressed,” suggested the wily young diplomat, “the less likely is she to
awaken any suspicion of her race.”
“Now that's jest what's botherin' me, Mr. Brooks,” returned Mrs. Hoover,
with a troubled face, “for you see she is a growin' girl,” and she
concluded, with some embarrassment, “I can't quite make up my mind how
to dress her.”
“How old is she?” asked the master abruptly.
“Goin' on twelve, but,”--and Mrs. Hoover again hesitated.
“Why, two of my scholars, the Bromly girls, are over fourteen,” said the
master, “and you know how they are dressed;” but here he hesitated in
his turn. It had just occurred to him that the little waif was from the
extreme South, and the precocious maturity of the mixed races there was
well known. He even remembered, to his alarm, to have seen brides of
twelve and mothers of fourteen among the native villagers. This might
also account for the suggestion of equality in her manner, and even for
a slight coquettishness which he thought he had noticed in her when
he had addressed her playfully as a muchacha. “I should dress her in
something Spanish,” he said hurriedly, “something white, you know, with
plenty of flounces and a little black lace, or a black silk skirt and
a lace scarf, you know. She'll be all right if you don't make her look
like a servant or a dependent,” he added, with a show of confidence he
was far from feeling. “But you haven't told me her name,” he concluded.
“As we're reckonin' to adopt her,” said Mrs. Hoover gravely, “you'll
give her ours.”
“But I can't call her 'Miss Hoover,'” suggested the master; “what's her
first name?”
“We was thinkin' o' 'Serafina Ann,'” said Mrs. Hoover with more gravity.
“But what is her name?” persisted the master.
“Well,” returned Mrs. Hoover, with a troubled look, “me and Hiram
consider it's a heathenish sort of name for a young gal, but you'll find
it in my brother's letter.” She took a letter from under the lid of a
large Bible on the table and pointed to a passage in it.
“The child was christened 'Concepcion,'” read the master. “Why, that's
one of the Marys!”
“The which?” asked Mrs. Hoover severely.
“One of the titles of the Virgin Mary; 'Maria de la Concepcion,'” said
Mr. Brooks glibly.
“It don't sound much like anythin' so Christian and decent as 'Maria' or
'Mary,'” returned Mrs. Hoover suspiciously.
“But the abbreviation, 'Concha,' is very pretty. In fact it's just the
thing, it's so very Spanish,” returned the master decisively. “And
you know that the squaw who hangs about the mining camp is called
'Reservation Ann,' and old Mrs. Parkins's negro cook is called 'Aunt
Serafina,' so 'Serafina Ann' is too suggestive. 'Concha Hoover' 's the
name.”
“P'r'aps you're right,” said Mrs. Hoover meditatively.
“And dress her so she'll look like her name and you'll be all right,”
said the master gayly as he took his departure.
Nevertheless, it was with some anxiety the next morning he heard the
sound of hoofs on the rocky bridle path leading to the schoolhouse. He
had already informed his little flock of the probable addition to their
numbers and their breathless curiosity now accented the appearance
of Mr. Hoover riding past the window, followed by a little figure on
horseback, half hidden in the graceful folds of a serape. The next
moment they dismounted at the porch, the serape was cast aside, and the
new scholar entered.
A little alarmed even in his admiration, the master nevertheless thought
he had never seen a more dainty figure. Her heavily flounced white skirt
stopped short just above her white-stockinged ankles and little
feet, hidden in white satin, low-quartered slippers. Her black silk,
shell-like jacket half clasped her stayless bust clad in an under-bodice
of soft muslin that faintly outlined a contour which struck him as
already womanly. A black lace veil which had protected her head, she
had on entering slipped down to her shoulders with a graceful gesture,
leaving one end of it pinned to her hair by a rose above her little
yellow ear. The whole figure was so inconsistent with its present
setting that the master inwardly resolved to suggest a modification of
it to Mrs. Hoover as he, with great gravity, however, led the girl to
the seat he had prepared for her. Mr. Hoover, who had been assisting
discipline as he conscientiously believed by gazing with hushed,
reverent reminiscence on the walls, here whispered behind his large
hand that he would call for her at “four o'clock” and tiptoed out of the
schoolroom. The master, who felt that everything would depend upon
his repressing the children's exuberant curiosity and maintaining the
discipline of the school for the next few minutes, with supernatural
gravity addressed the young girl in Spanish and placed before her a
few slight elementary tasks. Perhaps the strangeness of the language,
perhaps the unwonted seriousness of the master, perhaps also the
impassibility of the young stranger herself, all contributed to arrest
the expanding smiles on little faces, to check their wandering eyes,
and hush their eager whispers. By degrees heads were again lowered
over their tasks, the scratching of pencils on slates, and the
far-off rapping of Woodpeckers again indicated the normal quiet of the
schoolroom, and the master knew he had triumphed, and the ordeal was
past.
But not as regarded himself, for although the new pupil had accepted his
instructions with childlike submissiveness, and even as it seemed to
him with childlike comprehension, he could not help noticing that
she occasionally glanced at him with a demure suggestion of some
understanding between them, or as if they were playing at master and
pupil. This naturally annoyed him and perhaps added a severer dignity to
his manner, which did not appear to be effective, however, and which
he fancied secretly amused her. Was she covertly laughing at him? Yet
against this, once or twice, as her big eyes wandered from her task over
the room, they encountered the curious gaze of the other children, and
he fancied he saw an exchange of that freemasonry of intelligence common
to children in the presence of their elders even when strangers to each
other. He looked forward to recess to see how she would get on with her
companions; he knew that this would settle her status in the school, and
perhaps elsewhere. Even her limited English vocabulary would not in any
way affect that instinctive, childlike test of superiority, but he was
surprised when the hour of recess came and he had explained to her in
Spanish and English its purpose, to see her quietly put her arm around
the waist of Matilda Bromly, the tallest girl in the school, as the two
whisked themselves off to the playground. She was a mere child after
all!
Other things seemed to confirm this opinion. Later, when the children
returned from recess, the young stranger had instantly become a popular
idol, and had evidently dispensed her favors and patronage generously.
The elder Bromly girl was wearing her lace veil, another had possession
of her handkerchief, and a third displayed the rose which had adorned
her left ear, things of which the master was obliged to take note with a
view of returning them to the prodigal little barbarian at the close of
school. Later he was, however, much perplexed by the mysterious passage
under the desks of some unknown object which apparently was making
the circuit of the school. With the annoyed consciousness that he was
perhaps unwittingly participating in some game, he finally “nailed it”
in the possession of Demosthenes Walker, aged six, to the spontaneous
outcry of “Cotched!” from the whole school. When produced from Master
Walker's desk in company with a horned toad and a piece of gingerbread,
it was found to be Concha's white satin slipper, the young girl herself,
meanwhile, bending demurely over her task with the bereft foot tucked up
like a bird's under her skirt. The master, reserving reproof of this
and other enormities until later, contented himself with commanding the
slipper to be brought to him, when he took it to her with the satirical
remark in Spanish that the schoolroom was not a dressing room--Camara
para vestirse. To his surprise, however, she smilingly held out the tiny
stockinged foot with a singular combination of the spoiled child and the
coquettish senorita, and remained with it extended as if waiting for him
to kneel and replace the slipper. But he laid it carefully on her desk.
“Put it on at once,” he said in English.
There was no mistaking the tone of his voice, whatever his language.
Concha darted a quick look at him like the momentary resentment of
an animal, but almost as quickly her eyes became suffused, and with a
hurried movement she put on the slipper.
“Please, sir, it dropped off and Jimmy Snyder passed it on,” said a
small explanatory voice among the benches.
“Silence!” said the master.
Nevertheless, he was glad to see that the school had not noticed the
girl's familiarity even though they thought him “hard.” He was not
sure upon reflection but that he had magnified her offense and had been
unnecessarily severe, and this feeling was augmented by his occasionally
finding her looking at him with the melancholy, wondering eyes of a
chidden animal. Later, as he was moving among the desks' overlooking
the tasks of the individual pupils, he observed from a distance that her
head was bent over her desk while her lips were moving as if repeating
to herself her lesson, and that afterwards, with a swift look around the
room to assure herself that she was unobserved, she made a hurried sign
of the cross. It occurred to him that this might have followed some
penitential prayer of the child, and remembering her tuition by the
padres it gave him an idea. He dismissed school a few moments earlier in
order that he might speak to her alone before Mr. Hoover arrived.
Referring to the slipper incident and receiving her assurances that
“she” (the slipper) was much too large and fell often “so,” a fact
really established by demonstration, he seized his opportunity. “But
tell me, when you were with the padre and your slipper fell off, you did
not expect him to put it on for you?”
Concha looked at him coyly and then said triumphantly, “Ah, no! but he
was a priest, and you are a young caballero.”
Yet even after this audacity Mr. Brooks found he could only recommend
to Mr. Hoover a change in the young girl's slippers, the absence of the
rose-pinned veil, and the substitution of a sunbonnet. For the rest
he must trust to circumstances. As Mr. Hoover--who with large paternal
optimism had professed to see already an improvement in her--helped her
into the saddle, the schoolmaster could not help noticing that she had
evidently expected him to perform that act of courtesy, and that she
looked correspondingly reproachful.
“The holy fathers used sometimes to let me ride with them on their
mules,” said Concha, leaning over her saddle towards the schoolmaster.
“Eh, what, missy?” said the Protestant Mr. Hoover, pricking up his ears.
“Now you just listen to Mr. Brooks's doctrines, and never mind them
Papists,” he added as he rode away, with the firm conviction that the
master had already commenced the task of her spiritual conversion.
The next day the master awoke to find his little school famous. Whatever
were the exaggerations or whatever the fancies carried home to their
parents by the children, the result was an overwhelming interest in the
proceedings and personnel of the school by the whole district. People
had already called at the Hoover ranch to see Mrs. Hoover's pretty
adopted daughter. The master, on his way to the schoolroom that morning,
had found a few woodmen and charcoal burners lounging on the bridle
path that led from the main road. Two or three parents accompanied
their children to school, asserting they had just dropped in to see how
“Aramanta” or “Tommy” were “gettin' on.” As the school began to assemble
several unfamiliar faces passed the windows or were boldly flattened
against the glass. The little schoolhouse had not seen such a gathering
since it had been borrowed for a political meeting in the previous
autumn. And the master noticed with some concern that many of the faces
were the same which he had seen uplifted to the glittering periods of
Colonel Starbottle, “the war horse of the Democracy.”
For he could not shut his eyes to the fact that they came from no
mere curiosity to see the novel and bizarre; no appreciation of
mere picturesqueness or beauty; and alas! from no enthusiasm for the
progression of education. He knew the people among whom he had lived,
and he realized the fatal question of “color” had been raised in some
mysterious way by those Southwestern emigrants who had carried into this
“free state” their inherited prejudices. A few words convinced him that
the unhappy children had variously described the complexion of their new
fellow pupil, and it was believed that the “No'th'n” schoolmaster, aided
and abetted by “capital” in the person of Hiram Hoover, had introduced
either a “nigger wench,” a “Chinese girl,” or an “Injin baby” to the
same educational privileges as the “pure whites,” and so contaminated
the sons of freemen in their very nests. He was able to reassure many
that the child was of Spanish origin, but a majority preferred the
evidence of their own senses, and lingered for that purpose. As the hour
for her appearance drew near and passed, he was seized with a sudden
fear that she might not come, that Mr. Hoover had been prevailed upon
by his compatriots, in view of the excitement, to withdraw her from the
school. But a faint cheer from the bridle path satisfied him, and the
next moment a little retinue swept by the window, and he understood.
The Hoovers had evidently determined to accent the Spanish character
of their little charge. Concha, with a black riding skirt over her
flounces, was now mounted on a handsome pinto mustang glittering with
silver trappings, accompanied by a vaquero in a velvet jacket, Mr.
Hoover bringing up the rear. He, as he informed the master, had
merely come to show the way to the vaquero, who hereafter would always
accompany the child to and from school. Whether or not he had been
induced to this display by the excitement did not transpire. Enough that
the effect was a success. The riding skirt and her mustang's fripperies
had added to Concha's piquancy, and if her origin was still doubted by
some, the child herself was accepted with enthusiasm. The parents who
were spectators were proud of this distinguished accession to their
children's playmates, and when she dismounted amid the acclaim of her
little companions, it was with the aplomb of a queen.
The master alone foresaw trouble in this encouragement of her precocious
manner. He received her quietly, and when she had removed her riding
skirt, glancing at her feet, said approvingly, “I am glad to see you
have changed your slippers; I hope they fit you more firmly than the
others.”
The child shrugged her shoulders. “Quien sabe. But Pedro (the vaquero)
will help me now on my horse when he comes for me.”
The master understood the characteristic non sequitur as an allusion
to his want of gallantry on the previous day, but took no notice of it.
Nevertheless, he was pleased to see during the day that she was paying
more attention to her studies, although they were generally rehearsed
with the languid indifference to all mental accomplishment which
belonged to her race. Once he thought to stimulate her activity through
her personal vanity.
“Why can you not learn as quickly as Matilda Bromly? She is only two
years older than you,” he suggested.
“Ah! Mother of God!--why does she then try to wear roses like me? And
with that hair. It becomes her not.”
The master became thus aware for the first time that the elder Bromly
girl, in “the sincerest form of flattery” to her idol, was wearing a
yellow rose in her tawny locks, and, further, that Master Bromly with
exquisite humor had burlesqued his sister's imitation with a very small
carrot stuck above his left ear. This the master promptly removed,
adding an additional sum to the humorist's already overflowing slate by
way of penance, and returned to Concha. “But wouldn't you like to be as
clever as she?--you can if you will only learn.”
“What for should I? Look you; she has a devotion for the tall one--the
boy Brown! Ah! I want him not.”
Yet, notwithstanding this lack of noble ambition, Concha seemed to have
absorbed the “devotion” of the boys, big and little, and as the master
presently discovered even that of many of the adult population. There
were always loungers on the bridle path at the opening and closing
of school, and the vaquero, who now always accompanied her, became an
object of envy. Possibly this caused the master to observe him closely.
He was tall and thin, with a smooth complexionless face, but to
the master's astonishment he had the blue gray eye of the higher or
Castilian type of native Californian. Further inquiry proved that he was
a son of one of the old impoverished Spanish grant holders whose leagues
and cattle had been mortgaged to the Hoovers, who now retained the son
to control the live stock “on shares.” “It looks kinder ez ef he might
hev an eye on that poorty little gal when she's an age to marry,”
suggested a jealous swain. For several days the girl submitted to her
school tasks with her usual languid indifference and did not again
transgress the ordinary rules. Nor did Mr. Brooks again refer to their
hopeless conversation. But one afternoon he noticed that in the silence
and preoccupation of the class she had substituted another volume for
her text-book and was perusing it with the articulating lips of the
unpracticed reader. He demanded it from her. With blazing eyes and
both hands thrust into her desk she refused and defied him. Mr.
Brooks slipped his arms around her waist, quietly lifted her from the
bench--feeling her little teeth pierce the back of his hand as he did
so, but secured the book. Two of the elder boys and girls had risen with
excited faces.
“Sit down!” said the master sternly.
They resumed their places with awed looks. The master examined the book.
It was a little Spanish prayer book. “You were reading this?” he said in
her own tongue.
“Yes. You shall not prevent me!” she burst out. “Mother of God! THEY
will not let me read it at the ranch. They would take it from me. And
now YOU!”
“You may read it when and where you like, except when you should be
studying your lessons,” returned the master quietly. “You may keep it
here in your desk and peruse it at recess. Come to me for it then. You
are not fit to read it now.”
The girl looked up with astounded eyes, which in the capriciousness of
her passionate nature the next moment filled with tears. Then dropping
on her knees she caught the master's bitten hand and covered it with
tears and kisses. But he quietly disengaged it and lifted her to her
seat. There was a sniffling sound among the benches, which, however,
quickly subsided as he glanced around the room, and the incident ended.
Regularly thereafter she took her prayer book back at recess and
disappeared with the children, finding, as he afterwards learned, a seat
under a secluded buckeye tree, where she was not disturbed by them until
her orisons were concluded. The children must have remained loyal to
some command of hers, for the incident and this custom were never told
out of school, and the master did not consider it his duty to inform Mr.
or Mrs. Hoover. If the child could recognize some check--even if it were
deemed by some a superstitious one--over her capricious and precocious
nature, why should he interfere?
One day at recess he presently became conscious of the ceasing of those
small voices in the woods around the schoolhouse, which were always
as familiar and pleasant to him in his seclusion as the song of their
playfellows--the birds themselves. The continued silence at last
awakened his concern and curiosity. He had seldom intruded upon or
participated in their games or amusements, remembering when a boy
himself the heavy incompatibility of the best intentioned adult intruder
to even the most hypocritically polite child at such a moment. A sense
of duty, however, impelled him to step beyond the schoolhouse, where to
his astonishment he found the adjacent woods empty and soundless. He was
relieved, however, after penetrating its recesses, to hear the distant
sound of small applause and the unmistakable choking gasps of Johnny
Stidger's pocket accordion. Following the sound he came at last upon a
little hollow among the sycamores, where the children were disposed in
a ring, in the centre of which, with a handkerchief in each hand, Concha
the melancholy!--Concha the devout!--was dancing that most extravagant
feat of the fandango--the audacious sembicuaca!
Yet, in spite of her rude and uncertain accompaniment, she was dancing
it with a grace, precision, and lightness that was wonderful; in spite
of its doubtful poses and seductive languors she was dancing it with the
artless gayety and innocence--perhaps from the suggestion of her tiny
figure--of a mere child among an audience of children. Dancing it alone
she assumed the parts of the man and woman; advancing, retreating,
coquetting, rejecting, coyly bewitching, and at last yielding as lightly
and as immaterially as the flickering shadows that fell upon them from
the waving trees overhead. The master was fascinated yet troubled.
What if there had been older spectators? Would the parents take the
performance as innocently as the performer and her little audience? He
thought it necessary later to suggest this delicately to the child. Her
temper rose, her eyes flashed.
“Ah, the slipper, she is forbidden. The prayer book--she must not. The
dance, it is not good. Truly, there is nothing.”
For several days she sulked. One morning she did not come to school,
nor the next. At the close of the third day the master called at the
Hoovers' ranch.
Mrs. Hoover met him embarrassedly in the hall. “I was sayin' to Hiram
he ought to tell ye, but he didn't like to till it was certain. Concha's
gone.”
“Gone?” echoed the master.
“Yes. Run off with Pedro. Married to him yesterday by the Popish priest
at the mission.”
“Married! That child?”
“She wasn't no child, Mr. Brooks. We were deceived. My brother was
a fool, and men don't understand these things. She was a grown
woman--accordin' to these folks' ways and ages--when she kem here. And
that's what bothered me.”
There was a week's excitement at Chestnut Ridge, but it pleased the
master to know that while the children grieved for the loss of Concha
they never seemed to understand why she had gone.