Chapter VI: Part 6

“‘His loves I might compare
To plates of earthenware.
Break one, and Mother of Grace!
Another takes its place.’”

“A truce to your nonsense!” called Don Manuel, who had urged Coronela on to the crest of the long rise they had been slowly ascending. “Look! Look! Yonder is Santiago de Compostela.”

All gazed in silence upon the pilgrim city, set upon a hill in a circle of hills, its many groups of towers and spires tending upward on every side toward its crowning cathedral of St. James.

Don Manuel beamed upon the group of Andalusians.

“Will you not be happy here?” he asked, his iron face all quivering with joy and love, while the honest Hilario wept aloud and the other three carriers, even Bastiano, did not restrain their tears. “Listen! Where there are church bells, there is everything. Even at this distance I can hear them ringing,--the five-score and fourteen holy bells of Santiago.”

XX

THE TREE WITH TWELVE BRANCHES

“Here they are!” shouted Uncle Manuel, flinging himself off Coronela and running forward like a boy to embrace his wife and daughter, who had sighted the mule-train from the roof of their house and had come to the outskirts of the city to bid the travellers welcome.

Aunt Barbara, a short, dark, active woman, with a face whose expression was so sweet with gracious kindness that nobody could ever tell whether the features were beautiful or not, gathered the two children into her arms with a low, wordless cry of passionate tenderness. As she held them close, winning even Rafael’s shyness with eager, delicate caresses, they remembered what they had not known their memories held,--the lavishment of love that had cherished their babyhood.

“Mothers must be different from all the world,” thought Pilarica, and pressed, with a sudden yearning for something that her childish heart had lost, into the depths of that ardent tenderness.

Meanwhile Dolores, a merry-faced, cozy little body, in her festal array of wine-colored bodice with cuffs worked in gold thread, her petticoat as blue as a violet, her white kerchief starred with marvellous fruits and flowers, was giving the prettiest of greetings to Grandfather. And Tia Marta was met with a cordial gentleness that readily included Juanito.

“Of course we cannot keep him,” began Don Manuel.

“Wait and see!” laughed Dolores. “You know it will be just as Lady Mother and I say.” And then she flew back into her father’s arms to kiss away his very feeble effort at a rebuking frown.

At once the guests were hurried home to pottage. And such a pottage! Egg and chicken cut into small pieces, bits of ham, red peppers and green string beans! But they could not linger over their plates, for all the world was scurrying through the streets toward the cathedral to see the fireworks.

“Drops of water must run with the stream,” said Uncle Manuel, thrusting his dripping spoon behind his ear, like a pen, in his haste; but Grandfather was too weary for junketing, and Tia Marta could not be persuaded to leave Juanito.

“A Christian child is holier than fireworks,” she declared, standing in the doorway, under the carven cockleshell, with the sleepy baby fretting in her arms.

“And quite as noisy,” came back as a parting shot from Don Manuel, who might seem to have had enough to do, without that, in shepherding his party of women and children through the surging throng.

Although Rafael’s head, still sensitive from the bump, was aching hard when they all came home an hour before midnight, and Pilarica had to pull her hair and pinch herself to keep a certain pair of pansy eyes from drawing their silk curtains, yet both children loyally felt that they must do their best to make up to Tia Marta for the ravishing sights she had missed.

Much relieved that Doña Barbara left it for her to put her darlings to bed, Tia Marta listened demurely to all their drowsy wonder-tales of cascades of fire, showers of falling stars, flaming rivers flowing through the night, golden trees blossoming with rubies and emeralds and amethysts, the colossal lizard that sprang up with a crash, turning to a glistening green dragon that tried to chase the stars, and, best of all, a million-tinted Alhambra which changed, in one splendid instant, to lustrous silver, to an intense and awful white, and then vanished, with a series of deafening thunders, as a sign of Santiago’s victory over the Moors. Yes, Tia Marta listened to everything they could keep awake long enough to tell her, and never once confessed how she had seen all this, and more, from the roof of the house, with Pedrillo sitting close beside her, his hand over hers, to reassure her in case the explosions should be too loud for Andalusian nerves to bear.

The _fiesta_ lasted for several days. There were solemn ceremonies in the cathedral, stately processions through the streets, fairs, sports, open-air music and dancing. Pilarica’s height of rapture was reached when the King of Censers, the great, silver incense-burner of the Middle Ages, swung by a system of chains and pulleys from the vaulting of the central cupola, flashed its majestic curves through the cathedral, a tremendous fire-bird dipping and rising in a cloud of fragrance over the upturned faces of the vast, hushed congregation. But Rafael took a boy’s delight in the eight giants, hollow wicker images some twelve feet high, representing mediæval pilgrims, Moors, Turks and modern tourists, an absurd array that strutted at the head of the processions and even danced, to the music of pipe and tabor, before the High Altar. He was puzzled to understand how they were propelled until he saw peering out at him from the waistband of that chief booby, John Bull, the rueful face of Hilario. A teasing troop of dwarfs were trying to trip and upset this particularly clumsy giant, and Rafael struck in gallantly to the rescue, serving Hilario at cost of a bloody nose. He pelted the dwarfs with melon rinds, while Bastiano, concealed inside the British Matron, John Bull’s towering escort, gathered up his calico petticoats and pounded at them with his pasteboard head. Rafael described this, with high glee, at the supper table, but, remembering Don Juan Bolondron, was silent as to his own exploits.

In the motley assemblage of pilgrims the children came often upon their friends of the road. They were all conducting themselves most decorously now. The dreamy-eyed pilgrim was too deeply absorbed in his devotions for more than a dim smile at Pilarica, and even the wild peasant woman was doing a weary penance, dragging herself on her bruised knees up the long flight of stone steps to the great west doors and on over the worn pavement of the nave to where the enthroned statue of St. James welcomes his worshippers.

After the feast of Santiago there came, in the end of August, the wedding of Tia Marta. Pedrillo had decided, or, rather, she had decided for him, to give up the road and try to make a living out of the soil, whereat Don Manuel, who counted Pedrillo his right-hand man, was sorely vexed.

“Why not leave the world as it is?” urged the master-carrier. “Is not the woman better off under my roof, where she is made one of us and has her spoon in every dish, than living on a mud floor, with goat and pig, in that cabin of yours, munching a crust of bread and an onion? As for you, man, your feet will tingle to be on the tramp.”

Pedrillo scratched his bushy head.

“And Juanito?” he asked.

“Ah, Juanito! He is not so bad, that Juanito. He will amuse my wife while I am away. Now that the little rascal is getting fat on the good, rich milk of our Galician cows, he cries no more than a pigeon. He will soon be playing the screech-owl again on such fare as you can give him.”

“I have heard,” said Pedrillo, “that St. Peter, when he lived upon the earth, was anxious about the rearing of an orphan and told his trouble to our Lord Christ. The Master bade him turn over a heavy stone beside their path. So St. Peter, puffing a bit, rolled it over, and found under it all manner of grubs and slugs living in content. Then said Christ our Lord to Peter: ‘Shall not the care that provides even for such as these be trusted to nourish this dear child?’”

“Be that as it may,” replied Don Manuel stubbornly, “every man is the son of his deeds, and life has not made you a farmer.”

Grandfather who, through all the talk, had been smiling sagely and strumming on his guitar, now began to sing:

“Though many friends give counsel,
Take your own advice;
’Tis not by other people’s paths
One wins to Paradise.”

“Your Honor is as wise as Merlin,” exclaimed Pedrillo, beaming on the singer. “I invite you to my wedding.”

It was on a sunny morning, when the tassels of the maize were dancing in the sea-breeze, that Pedrillo and Tia Marta knelt before the priest in a small side-chapel of a neighboring church. The ceremony was brief. A white scarf was cast over Tia Marta’s head and over Pedrillo’s shoulder, and their necks were tied together with a white satin ribbon, called the yoke. When the ritual of the church had been spoken and the couple had given each other wedding rings, the priest handed to Pedrillo a tray on which were heaped thirteen silver dollars. These he passed to Tia Marta as a symbol of his worldly wealth wherewith he her endowed, and she prudently knotted the coins up in her handkerchief.

“No wedding without a tamborine,” said Don Manuel, who was bearing his defeat with a good grace. So the Andalusian bride, quietly dressed in black with a blue kerchief over her head, and the Galician bridegroom were made guests of honor in a house of loving faces, of music and of feasting. Rafael and Pilarica had strewn the rooms with rushes and wild flowers, and Doña Barbara and Dolores had prepared the wedding breakfast. The main dish, on which Doña Barbara prided herself not a little, was founded on rice boiled in olive oil, but to this she had added chicken, red peppers, peas, salt pork, sausage, clam and eel, and flavored it all with saffron, so that it was, as everybody said, fit for the King of Spain.

Then Pedrillo, putting a brave face on it, started off with Juanito, thrown like a sack of meal across his shoulder, but the baby cooed serenely and kicked out a pair of pink heels in disrespectful bye-bye to the great house of the cockle shell. For once, Tia Marta had no words, but kissed Doña Barbara and Dolores with lips that twitched and trembled.

Don Manuel shook her hand and wished her joy in his blunt fashion. He wanted to venture on a jocose remark, but although she seemed so meek just then, he still stood in awe of the tongue, by which he had been often worsted in their battles over Baby Bunting. “A scalded cat dreads cold water,” he mused, and discreetly held his peace.

Rafael and Pilarica escorted the new family to their home just outside the city. It was a cottage, to be sure, but with a vine-shaded porch, a maize-field of its own and a funny little stone barn standing up on six granite legs and wearing a gabled roof.

As the door was opened, the wind made a slight stir of dust in the empty house.

“Ah!” croaked Pedrillo joyously. “Good Santa Ana, by way of example to the housekeeper, is sweeping here.”

“And I will help her,” cried Pilarica, seizing a bundle of peacock feathers of faded jewel hues and brushing up the hearth. “We have two homes in Galicia now, Rafael.”

“And another uncle,” laughed Rafael, “Tio Pedrillo.”

“O-hoo!” crowed Juanito.

Then Tia Marta, gathering the three children into one indiscriminate hug, fell to crying with all her might, which proved that she was entirely happy.

Autumn came with its harvesting and all the joys of the vintage. Pedrillo, like his neighbors, made his own wine, and Rafael and Pilarica had glorious times stamping, in the lightest of attire, on the grapes in the vat and singing:

“Green I slept in my cradle;
Red at the ball danced I;
But now I’m purple you like me best
And laugh to see me die.”

The autumn found Dolores more than ever fond of finery. She would don her best cream-colored kerchief, starred with gold, only to visit her father’s sheep out in the heather. One early October evening, when the girl, with shining eyes, had slipped away to join one of the groups of leaping dancers that dotted the fields, Doña Barbara smiled and sighed, and sighed and smiled, saying as if to herself:

“There is no sun without its clouds and no lass without her lovers.”

“I heard that handsome sailor-lad of Vigo tell Dolores that she is so sweet the roses are envious of her,” piped up Pilarica.

“No sailor-lad shall ever enter my door,” growled Uncle Manuel, just back from another trip.

“No door can keep out love and death,” answered Aunt Barbara softly.

Pilarica began to wonder about love and death. People spoke those words in such strange, beautiful tones. And night after night she lay awake beside Dolores to hear a boyish voice, with the hoarse Galician note, singing under the window. At first the _coplas_ were light and playful.

“The stars of heaven
Are a thousand and seven.
Those eyes of thine
Make a thousand and nine.”

“Tiny and dainty, you please me well,
Down to my heart’s true pith.
You look to me like a little bell
Made by a silversmith.”

Then they grew so earnest that the young voice would sometimes break with feeling.

“Blest are the sheep that follow you
Across the meadows green,
For their shepherdess, in her mantle blue,
Is like the Heavenly Queen.”

“Until the singing shells
On the margin of the sea
Give me counsel to forget,
I will remember thee.”

For a while they waxed resentful.

“Don’t act as if you were the Queen
Putting on such airs.
I don’t choose to reach my Love
By a flight of stairs.”

But soon they were triumphant.

“I thought thee a proud, white castle;
I neared thee with alarm;
And I find thee a tender little girl
Who nestles in my arm.”

The winter was colder than the children had ever known, but it brought the same gleeful Christmas, with its almond soup and cinnamon cake, the blessing of the house with rosemary, the dancing before the mimic Bethlehem and the putting out of stubby little shoes on the balcony, a wisp of hay beside them for the camels, that the Three Kings might be pleased and leave some friendly token--a few figs wrapped in a green leaf or a tiny fish made of marchpane--of their mysterious passing in the night. And after the family Christmas--“Every man in his own house and God in the house of all”--there were gatherings of neighbors to sing scores on scores of Holy Eve carols, and then the splendid celebration in the cathedral.

Aunt Barbara, by gentle persuasions of which she alone possessed the secret, induced Uncle Manuel to let her give liberal store of food and linen to households in need, and Tia Marta, out in the granite cottage, held Juanito close as she crooned:

“Where her happy heart was beating
Mary tucked her darling in,
Singing softly: ‘O my sweeting,
Love the poor and pardon sin.’”

There followed dark, chill weeks when all the tiles took to crying:

“Ladies sitting on a roof; it is rainy weather;
Still the ladies sit there, weeping all together.”

And since the new conscription had taken the Vigo sailor-lad away to the war, Dolores, too, wept and wept until her girlish face had lost its dimples and its rosy color.

But Pilarica and Rafael, though they did their childish best to comfort Dolores, laughed the winter through. They searched the woods for flowers, bringing home violets in January and narcissus in March, while Dolores, whom they would coax out with them, bore back on her erect young head a burden of fragrant brush for the evening fire.

Then came Easter, with its springtide joys, and festal summer, bringing new troops of pilgrims to the shrine of Santiago.

“A tree with twelve branches;
Four nests on a bough;
In each nest seven thrushes;
Unriddle me now.”

So sang Aunt Barbara, and Pilarica, lifting her radiant little face for one more kiss, made answer:

“The months are the branches;
A week is a nest;
The days are the thrushes;
Each song is the best.”

XXI

WORK AND PLAY

Rafael still dreamed of his father, especially on gusty nights, and still, as he worked and played, tried to do what his father would approve. For there was plenty of work, as well as play. Work is the fashion in Galicia and neither Uncle Manuel nor Aunt Barbara could have conceived of a happy life without it. Rafael, though he had developed no liking for arithmetic, pegged faithfully away at the simple sums that his uncle delighted to set him and became, if not swift, tolerably sure.

“Dame Diligence is the mother of success,” Aunt Barbara would say cheerfully, when the lad’s face grew flushed over long columns, and presently a purple plum or a russet apple would be dropped upon the blurred and crumpled page. Another of Aunt Barbara’s quiet ways of helping was to divert Pilarica’s headlong rushes upon her brother to impart some news of burning importance,--how Bastiano had promised her a hat woven of rushes or how Don Quixote had slipped off the stepping-stones and splashed down into the brook. Aunt Barbara had only to whisper _Bat_ to send the little girl dancing away out of doors again, trilling like a penitent lark:

“Who is the student--hark, oh hark!--
Who studies best in the deepest dark?
Should you disturb his studies, beware!
This angry student will pull your hair.”

What the boy longed to do was to learn to write, that he might send a letter to his father, and a tall youth from the Institute, where Rafael was to go, his uncle said, when he was ten years old, came in twice a week to set copies in a free, flourishing script and make fun of his pupil’s painful scrawls.

“I don’t see why letters are so much harder to do than figures,” Rafael would groan, casting his pen to the floor in an Andalusian temper.

But Doña Barbara would pick it up and pat the ink-smeared hand into which she fitted it again with cool, comforting touches.

“Flowers black as night,
Field white as snow,
A plough and five oxen
To make it go,”

she would say in the dear voice that was a softer echo of his father’s, and the five sturdy little oxen would resolutely resume their labors with the plough.

As for play, he found the games of Santiago rougher than those to which he had been accustomed in Granada. He was surprised, at first, to see such big boys dancing in circles, while a lad on the outside would try to touch one of them above the waist, but he soon discovered that these were kicking circles where heels struck out behind so vigorously as to make it no easy matter to tag without receiving the return compliment of a kick.

The work element, too, entered into these Galician games. In the first one Rafael played, he received whispered orders from the leading lad, “the master,” to “be carpenter and gimlet.” After a few more directions, Rafael stooped over, his palms on his knees, and held this position while the other boys in turn took running leaps over him, resting their hands on his shoulders, but careful not to touch him with their legs. At the first jumping, every boy would say in the harsh Galician grumble, like so many leap-frogs at his ear:

“Here’s a new worker good and clever.
Man must work forever and ever.”

On the return jumping-trip, when Rafael’s back was beginning to ache, each asked:

“What do you do with your best endeavor?”

And he, as he had been instructed, made answer:

“I’m a carpenter good and clever.”

On the third leaping, each workman paused with his hands on Rafael’s shoulders to put a question to the master and, upon receiving a negative reply, vaulted as before.

“Have you saws that saw as sharp saws should?”
“Yes, my saws are very good.”
“Have you planes that plane as smooth planes should?”
“Yes, my planes are very good.”
“Have you hammers that pound as hammers should?”
“Yes, my hammers are very good.”
“Have you gimlets that bore as gimlets should?”
“No, my gimlets are not so good.”

At this the last questioner flung his arms about Rafael, pulling the doubled little figure upright, and all the boys dealt him friendly cuffs and tweaks as they dragged him to the master, chorusing:

“He needs a gimlet; that is true.
He needs a gimlet and he’ll take you.”

And then the game began all over again with another youngster secretly appointed by the master as “tinker and tongs.”

Pilarica frankly disdained the Galician games. It hurt the child’s sense of romance and poetry to find the same plays that had been robed in beautiful suggestion, as she romped through them with her Andalusian mates, given this queer, workaday, bread-and-butter flavor. How lovely it used to be when the children would choose Pilarica to lead the Morning-stars in their dancing advances nearer and nearer the deep shadow cast by the Alhambra wall! Within the mystery of dusk would lurk the lonely Moon, waiting her chance to spring and catch the first daring star who should venture to skip across the line dividing light from darkness! How the very words of the song twinkled and tempted!

“O the Moon and the Morning-stars!
O the Moon and the Morning-stars!
Who dares to tread--O
Within the shadow?”

And here was the same play in Galicia so degraded that Pilarica would never consent to play it. Instead of the Moon in the shadow, a beanseller sat in his stall, and instead of stars there were thieves who scampered over the forbidden border, shouting rudely:

“Ho! Old Uncle! Seller of Greens!
We are robbing you of your beans.”

On a certain sunshiny morning of her second autumn in Galicia, Pilarica was protesting to her schoolmates against the game of _Hunt the Rat_. For Pilarica went to school. The little girl had teased so to be taught that Uncle Manuel, to quiet her, was sending her, at a penny a week, to the dame-school kept in the porch of an old gray church. It was against the church wall that the children were seated in a close row, so that the rat, Pilarica’s shoe, could be hidden between the wall and the small of their backs. As the shoe was shuffled along from one to another, the seeker was teased with the song:

“Rat, rat! Can’t you find the rat?
Look in this hole and look in that.”

“It’s ugly,” pouted Pilarica. “I don’t want my shoe to be a rat. Why don’t you hunt a golden cup or a fairy or something else that is nice to think about?”

The other children stared and one tall, sullen-faced girl rudely threw the shoe back to Pilarica.

“Because we don’t have golden cups and fairies in Galicia to hunt,” she said, “and we do have rats. That’s sense, isn’t it? But take your old shoe. We don’t want it.”

“These are not old shoes, yet,” replied Pilarica with untroubled sweetness, “because their eyes are shut.”

“Do you mean anything by that?” demanded the sullen-faced girl.

Pilarica put on the rat-shoe, curling her toes with a shiver of disgust, stretched out her feet and sang:

“Two little brothers
Just of a size;
When they get to be old folks
They’ll open their eyes.”

“Mine are wide open,” lisped a midget beside her, tumbling over on his back that he might the better hold up his ragged footgear to the public gaze, but as most of the children were barefoot, the subject was allowed to lapse.

The morning session was half over, as you could see by looking down that row of child faces. Half of them had been washed, and the other half evidently not. Pilarica was one of some five, out of the fifty, that came clean and tidy from home. The teacher, a white-headed grandmother, with a poppy-red handkerchief twisted into a horn over each temple, now appeared scuffling around the corner of the church on her knees, with loud puffings and groanings. She had a hard vow to fulfil,--to go seventy times around the outside of the church on those rheumatic joints, and the gravel was cruel; but she tried to make one circuit every day. Bowing her white head and kissing the lowest step of the porch, she dragged herself up and, sitting down on the alabaster fragment of a long-since-shattered statue, clucked for her pupils to gather round her as a hen would call her chickens.

“We will leave the rest of the faces till afternoon,” she announced. “Some of you may rub my knees, and Pilarica may have her doll and drill you in the scales.”

The shrewd old mistress had discovered that Pilarica was possessed of a little musical knowledge, thanks to Grandfather and his guitar, and so allowed her to bring her doll, essential to the lesson, to school; but its Paris wardrobe and Granada countenance had suffered so much in Galician handling that dolly was now regularly placed, for safe keeping, between the jaws of a stone griffin above the porch. The biggest boy had the daily privilege of climbing up and depositing it there, and the old dame’s rod would knock it out again to be caught in Pilarica’s anxious arms. Battered and tattered as the doll had become under this severe educational process, it was dearer to Pilarica than ever, and she clasped it tight as, standing before the children, she sang in that clear, fresh voice which even the sullen-faced girl gladdened to hear:

“_Do_n’t pin-prick my darling dolly, _Do_
_Re_spect my domestic matters. _Re_
_Me_thinks she grows melancholy, _Mi_
_Fa_st as her sawdust scatters. _Fa_
_Sol_e rose of your mamma’s posy. _Sol_
_La_ugh at your mamma, so! _La_
_Se_al up your eyes all cozy. _Si_
_La Sol Fa Mi Re Do._”

After Pilarica and the doll had done their best for half an hour to inculcate a knowledge of the scales, the dame bade the children go and play _Kite_ in the churchyard; but one of them remained.

“Well?” asked the old woman apprehensively.

“Will you please teach me something?” pleaded Pilarica.

“Ay, child, to be sure I will,” and the wrinkled hand drew, from a crack in a wondrously carven pedestal beside her, all the library the school possessed,--a dilapidated primer and a few loose leaves from a prayer-book.

The mistress pored over these dubiously for a while and then her look brightened.

“This is _O_,” she said impressively, “and that is _M_.”

“But you teach me O and M every time,” remonstrated Pilarica, “and never anything else. Indeed, I know O and M quite well now.”

The old dame cocked her red horns petulantly and thrust back her library into the marble crevice.

“O and M are very good learning,” she insisted. “Go back under the doorway and say your prayer and don’t come to school again to-day.”

So Pilarica, the corners of her mouth drooping just a little, knelt under the Gothic portal and repeated:

“Mother Most Holy,
Thy servant kneels to say
That with thy kind permission
It is time to play.
Mother Most Holy,
My loving heart implores,
Bless this little sinner
Before she runs outdoors.”

XXII

THE PORCH OF PARADISE

Pilarica was quite at home, by this time, in the crooked, sombre streets of Santiago, whose stones are histories. There fell on her unconscious little figure, as she tripped along, the shadow of ancient buildings,--churches, convents, hospitals, with quaintly sculptured fronts. Over many of the massive, deeply recessed doors was graven the cockle shell of St. James, showing that these were once rest houses for the overflow of pilgrims, of whom thousands used to sleep on the floor of the cathedral. Over the rough granite slabs that paved the roads her little feet danced on to an inner music of her own, though all about her was the harsh uproar of a Spanish city,--children blowing penny whistles, blacksmiths beating their anvils, shopmen calling their wares. The screech of the file, the grating of the saw, the click of the chisel, added their discords to the braying of donkeys, the cracking of whips, the screaming of parrots, the clanging of mule-bells.

Pilarica was glad to come out from the hubbub of the streets into the comparative quiet of the great square from whose midst arises, a dark mass of fretted granite, the cathedral of St. James. About one of its fountains, carved in the shape of the pilgrim shell, were grouped a number of girls, Dolores among them, filling the slender water-buckets of Galicia and lifting them to their heads. They were singing _coplas_, as in autumns past, but now their songs were sorrowful instead of merry, for the brothers and lovers who had been drafted for the war did not return and slowly there had filtered through, even to Santiago, news of disaster and defeat.

One sad young voice after another made its moan, and Pilarica stood listening with her innocent smile undimmed. She knew these girls, Dolores’ friends, and to her childishness the pathos of their new songs was sweeter than their former _coplas_ of mirth.

It was Milagros who was singing when Pilarica came:

“Wherever the lads are thronging,
I see him, still their chief.
Oh, shadow of my longing!
Vain shadow of my grief!”

Then rose the shrill note of little Peligros:

“Oh, for a horse of air
To gallop down the skies,
And carry me swiftly where
My wounded lover lies!”

The bowed figure of a woman in middle life, moving toward the cathedral, had paused to hear the strains, and suddenly from her there broke a passionate contralto:

“My cabin has a window
That looks on sea and sky,
And all the day I sit and watch
Ships and clouds go by.
Sailor, sailor, climb the mast,
Ask wind and spray and sea
What they have done with a widow’s son
That the King’s fleet took from me.”

The widow passed slowly on into the church, and Pilarica heard a muffled tone, sounding like a sob, that she hardly recognized, at first, as coming from Dolores:

“Three names shall tell his story:
’Twas Vigo gave him breath,
Santiago gave him love,
And Cuba gave him death.”

Then soared the pure, clear voice of Consuelo:

“God has lifted my belovèd
To His fair blue world above;
I shall not see my belovèd,
Not again, till I see Love.”

Pilarica skipped over to Dolores and pulled at her skirt.

“Will you go for walnuts with dolly and me?” she entreated. “The mistress will not have me in the school again to-day, because I want to learn. We can stop at the cottage for luncheon.”

Dolores looked down at her eager little cousin with kind, listless eyes.

“I must take home my bucket,” she said, “but I will come back.”

When she came back, Rafael was with her. Pilarica had disappeared from the square, but they knew that they would find her in the cathedral, for the cathedral was everybody’s meeting-place, everybody’s resting-place and the playground of all the children of Santiago.

They found her before the so-called Porch of Paradise, or Gate of Glory, one of the supreme works of Christian art. Pilarica was never weary of gazing at it. What was once an outside portico, most richly and exquisitely chiselled, is now enclosed at the west end of the church. It represents Christ enthroned among the blest, a multitude of vivid saints whose faces glow with fullness of joy. On the central shaft of the pillars that support the arches of this celestial doorway is a curious group of slight dents in the agate, where, tradition says, Christ, descending from His bliss above, placed His wounded hand. Pilarica had been guiding an old blind peasant to this sacred column, helping the groping fingers find their way to that strange impress, for all Galicia believes that a prayer offered with the hand placed here is sure of answer. When the grateful peasant had been led, as he requested, to the nearest confessional, Pilarica ran back to see the hand of Dolores set against the shaft, while tears rained down the girl’s wan cheeks as she prayed for her lover of whose death in prison vague rumors had floated home.

“Let us ask for Father and Big Brother to come back,” blithely proposed Pilarica to Rafael. “God might listen better if we asked for one at a time. I’ll pray for Rodrigo and let you pray for Father.”

The boy’s dark eyes were deep with memory, but after Pilarica, standing on tiptoe, had fitted her small finger-tips to those five tiny hollows, worn by faith in the hard marble, his brown hand followed hers.

Rafael tried to pray: “Please, God, bring my Father home,” but a rich, tender voice rose from the past to check the words,--a voice that said: “Wish nothing for yourself nor for me but that we may do our duty.” “May my Father do his duty, dear God,” prayed the boy’s heart in its simple loyalty, and as he lifted his eyes to the saints in Paradise, their glad faces answered his wistful look with a strange, sweet fellowship.

Tia Marta gave them hospitable greeting at the cottage, where Grandfather, over whose mind the mists, dispelled for the time being by the excitement of the journey, were gradually drifting again, had of his own impulse taken up his abode. Both Pedrillo, doing unexpectedly well with the land, and Tia Marta, vastly flattered by Grandfather’s preference, made him gladly welcome. When Dolores and the children came in, he was rocking Juanito’s cradle and crooning over it broken lines of the riddles now fast melting from his memory.

As Pilarica caught up the chubby two-year-old, Dolores quietly drew the cradle out of Grandfather’s reach, for, as all Galicia knows, to rock an empty cradle is an omen of ill to the baby who is next put into it.

Pilarica was pinching, one by one, Juanito’s wriggling toes:

“What a family! One is tall;
Two are shorter than that;
And there is one that is weak and small,
And one exceeding fat.”

Then Baby Bunting had a chance to show off his accomplishments.

“Kill a Moor,” commanded Rafael, and the pudgy fist shot out straight at Rafael’s nose.

“How many gods are there?” catechised Pilarica, and one pink finger was raised with most orthodox energy.

Meanwhile Tia Marta, who had grown at least ten years younger, was bustling happily about, setting forth white bread and honey and crisp fried potatoes for her guests. Not until they had eaten, did she venture to ask Dolores if there was any word.

“No good word,” answered the girl, her eyes flooding with tears, “and it has been so long.”

“Tut, tut!” said Tia Marta. “God is not dead of old age. Your lover’s feet may be seeking you now. While there is God, there is mercy.”

“There is a buzzing in my ears,” spoke up Grandfather suddenly. “A leaf has fallen from the Tree of Life.”

“Never mind him,” snapped Tia Marta, carefully tucking her best shawl over his knees, “an old canary who doesn’t know what he sings. How Juanito looks up and laughs! He sees the cherubs at play. Be of good cheer, Dolores! Your sailor-lad may come back to you yet, and, if not, God, who gives the wound, will give the medicine.”

“Will Father and Big Brother come back, Tia Marta?” asked Pilarica.

“To be sure they will,” hastily answered the old nurse with a choke in her voice. “God never wounds with both hands. Doña Barbara has enough to bear in seeing Dolores waste away without having to weep for Don Carlos, too.”

And indeed Dolores was but a shadow of the plump, rosy girl who had sported with her cousins a year ago. So changed she was that a ragged wayfarer, resting in the walnut-grove, did not recognize her, although he had carried her face in his heart for many a yearning day. And the nutting party looked down on him and his no less gaunt companion with the easy compassion that views the misery of strangers. Spain had grown used to the wretched sight of sick and crippled soldiers from the West Indies and the Philippines creeping toward their homes. But Rodrigo knew his little sister.

“Pilarica!” he cried feebly, staggering to his feet, and clasping her in one loving arm--his other sleeve hung empty--while, after a long, wondering gaze, Dolores and her Vigo lover drew silently together.

Rodrigo freed his hand for his brother, whose questioning eyes searched that haggard face from which all trace of youth had disappeared.

“Rafael,” said the soldier, meeting the boy’s look steadily, “when the Yankees raised a Spanish battle-ship, that had gone down in gallant fight, they found in the engine-room the body of her Chief Engineer. His hand still gripped the lever. He had died at his post. He had done his duty.”

The lad stood erect, with folded arms, as he had stood by the Sultana Fountain on that April night that seemed so long ago.

“That is a beautiful story,” said Pilarica, who had not understood.

“All stories are beautiful if one has a magic cap,” answered Big Brother, smiling down into the winsome little face, but not with his old gay smile. Yet there was something sweeter in it than before.

“No,” corrected Pilarica, who was kissing the empty sleeve over and over. “It is Rafael who has the magic cap. It turns badnesses into gladnesses.”

“And it will turn this pain into splendor, my brother,” said Rodrigo, reeling from weakness and catching at Rafael’s shoulder with the one thin hand. “Have you a bit of chocolate about you, laddie? How tall you have grown! And how you have come to look like Father! That is his own courage I am seeing in your face.”

“I will run on ahead to Tia Marta, who will make you a feast,” cried Pilarica, so lost in rapture that still she did not catch the meaning of what Rodrigo had said.

“Bread and cheese will be feast enough, especially if Tia Marta adds her pinch of pepper,” replied Rodrigo, with a queer little ghost of a laugh. “The Geography Gentleman--Heaven reward him!--cared for me and a dozen more of us at Granada and gave me gold for the railroad journey north to you; but there were so many of my half-starved comrades on the train that the money was all gone before we had reached Leon and I have been walking and living on the charity of berry-bushes and walnut-trees ever since. But bide a wee, Caramel Heart! I have grand news for you. You are to go to school,--a real girls’ school. What do you think of that? It is in charge of a lady from over the sea, Doña Alicia, a lady who loves Spain and was kind to us poor fellows in the hospital. Father would, I know, be glad to have you go to her and learn.”

“It will be lovely to learn,” trilled Pilarica, the leaves rustling a song of their own under her tripping feet. “And when Father comes home, we’ll be just as happy under the sky as the angels are on top. Grandfather says they dance all night and sometimes they jostle down a star. And Father will come home soon, for the pillar prayers are always answered. Only see! Dolores’ prayer and mine are answered already.”

“Mine was answered first,” said Rafael, and his voice, though a sob broke through it, was proud,--the voice of a hero’s son.

LIST OF SPANISH WORDS, PRONOUNCED AND DEFINED

=Abdorman Murambil Xarif.= (Ab-dōr´-mahn Moor-ahm´-beel Xah-reef´.)

There is much reason to fear that this Moorish name was made up by Rafael.

=Adolfo.= (Ah-dŏl´-fo.)

Adolphus. Adolph. A boy’s name meaning Noble Wolf.

=Augustin.= (Ah-goos-teen´.)

Augustus. Austin. A boy’s name meaning August, Exalted, Imperial.

=Alameda.= (Ah-la-meh´-dah.)

A shaded walk, as through a park.

=Alfonsito.= (Al-fŏn-see´-to.)

Little Alfonso.

=Alfonso.= (Al-fŏn´-so.)

Alphonso. A boy’s name meaning Ready. The present king of Spain is Alfonso XIII.

=Alhambra.= (Al-hăm´-brah.)

The famous fortress and palace built by the Moors on a hilltop overlooking Granada. The name is Arabic and means Ruddy, perhaps from the color of the stone.

=Ana.= (Ah´-nah.)

Anna. Hannah. Anne. A girl’s name meaning Gracious. St. Anne, the mother of the Madonna, is much beloved in Spain.

=Angelito.= (An-hel-lee´-to.)

Little angel.

=Arnaldo.= (Ar-năl´-do.)

Arnold. A boy’s name meaning Strong as an Eagle.

=Arré.= (Ar´-ray.)

Gee. The shout of a Spanish driver in urging on his mule.

=Arriero.= (Ar-re-er´-o.)

Muleteer; carrier.

=Ay de mi.= (I´ day mee´.)

Alas, poor me!

=Bastiano.= (Bäs-te-ah´-no.)

Short for Sebastiano. Sebastian. A boy’s name meaning Reverend. St. Sebastian, a brave and beautiful young martyr shot all over with arrows, is a favorite saint in Spain and Italy.

=Bavieca.= (Bah-ve-ā´-ca.)

The name of the Cid’s horse, mentioned in almost every one of the hundred ballads of the Cid.

=Benito.= (Bā-nee´-to.)

Benedict. A boy’s name meaning Blessed.

=Bernardo del Carpio.= (Ber-nar´-do del Car´-pe-o.)

A Spanish warrior of the eighth or ninth century. The king long held the father of Bernardo in cruel imprisonment and when at last obliged to restore the captive, had him murdered in his dungeon, mounted the dead body, in full armor, on horseback, and sent that forth to the expectant son, who, in his grief and rage, went over to the Moors. See page 84.

=Blanco.= (Blan´-co.)

White. In this story, the name of a white mule.

=Bolondron.= (Bō-lon-drŏn´.)

A sonorous name fit for a braggart.

=Brasero.= (Brä-sā´-ro.)

Brasier. A pan for holding burning coals.

=Cadiz.= (Cä´deth. More often pronounced by the Andalusians Cä´-de.)

A fortified city on the southern coast of Spain.

=Capitana.= (Cah-pe-tah´-nah.)

Captainess. In this story, the name of a mule who insists on taking the lead.

=Carbonera.= (Car-bon-er´-ah.)

Derived from =carbon= (car-bone´), meaning charcoal. In this story, the name of a soot-colored mule.

=Carlos.= (Car´-los.)

Charles. A boy’s name meaning Noble of Spirit.

=Carmencita.= (Car-men-thee´-tah.)

Little Carmen. A girl’s name.

=Catalina.= (Cah-tah-lee´-nah.)

Catherine or Katharine.

=Celestino.= (Thel-es-tee´-no.)

Celestine. A boy’s name not uncommon in Spain.

=Cid.= (Pronounced in English, Sĭd; in Spanish, Thed.)

An Arabic word, meaning lord, given as a title of honor to Rodrigo (Ro-dree´-go) or Ruy (Roo´-e) Diaz (Dee´-ath) de Bivar (Be-var´), a Spanish hero of the eleventh century.

=Cigarron.= (Thie-gar-rón.)

The word, meaning a big cigar, appears in this story as a surname.

=Compostela.= (Com-po-stā´-lah.)

This word, derived from the Latin, =Campus Stellae=, the Field of the Star, keeps in the name of the City of St. James a memory of the bright star which, according to the legend, pointed out his burial place in Galicia.

=Consuelo.= (Con-soo-āl´-o.)

Consolation; comfort. Many a Spanish girl is called Consuelo, the full form being Maria (Mah-ree´-ah) del Consuelo, Mary of Comfort, one of the names of the Madonna.

=Copla.= (Co´-plah.)

A stanza, usually a couplet or quatrain.

=Coronela.= (Co-ro-nā´-lah.)

Derived from =corona= (co-rōn´-ah), meaning crown. In this story, a mule of crowning excellence.

=Cubilon.= (Coo-be-lōn´.)

See pages 235-236.

=Darro.= (Där´-ro.)

A deep-gorged river dividing the Alhambra hill from the hill where the gypsies of Granada live in caves.

=Diego.= (Dee-ā´-go.)

James. Jacob. A boy’s name meaning the Supplanter. St. James the Apostle was for centuries the Patron Saint of Spain.

=Dolores.= (Dō-lōr´-es.)

Sorrows. The full form of the name Dolores, common among Spanish girls, is Maria (Mah-ree´-ah) de los (lōs) Dolores, Mary of the Sorrows.

=Don.= (Dŏn.)

A title of respect for a man; Mr., but used only before the Christian name. See =Señor=.

=Doña.= (Dō-nyä.)

A title of respect for a woman; Mrs., but given to unmarried women as well as married, and used only before the Christian name.

=Ernesto.= (Er-nĕs´-to.)

Ernest. A boy’s name meaning Earnest.

=Estremadura.= (Es-trā-mah-doo´-rah.)

A tableland in the west of Spain, lying north of Andalusia and between New Castile and Portugal.

=Fiesta.= (Fe-es´-tah.)

Festival.

=Francisco.= (Frän-thēs´-co.)

A boy’s name, meaning Free, common in Roman Catholic countries, for there are at least five saints of this name. The dearest of them all is the gentle Italian, St. Francis of Assisi (As-see´-zee), who loved the poor so well it was said he had taken Lady Poverty for a bride, and who looked upon all beasts and birds as his own brothers and sisters.

=Giralda.= (He-rahl´-dah.)

The bell-tower of Seville cathedral. See page 58.

=Granada.= (Grah-nah´-dah.)

The meaning of the word is pomegranate, and this fruit is emblazoned in the arms of the Andalusian city of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain.

=Guilindon.= (Gee-lin-dōn´.)

See page 165.

=Hilario.= (E-lah´-ree-o.)

Hilary. A boy’s name meaning Merry.

=Isabel.= (E-sah-bel´.)

Isabel; Elizabeth; Betsy. A girl’s name meaning Consecrated to God.

=Isabelita.= (E-sah-bel-ee´-tah.)

Little Isabel.

=José.= (Hō-zay´.)

Joseph. A boy’s name meaning He Shall Aid. St. Joseph, the husband of the Madonna, is very popular in Spain and many boys bear his name. Girls are often called Josefa. (Hō-zāy´-fa.)

=Juan.= (Hoo-ahn´.)

John. A boy’s name meaning The Gracious Gift of God. In this story, it is on the Eve of St. John the Baptist, June 24, that Pilarica finds the baby, not on the Eve of St. John the Evangelist, which falls in the winter, December 27.

=Juanito.= (Hoo-ahn-ee´-to.)

Little John.

=Larán-larito.= (Lär-än´-lär-ee´-to.)

A musical group of syllables for a ringing refrain, as Tra-la-la or Trolly-lolly.

=Leandro.= (Lay-ahn´-dro.)

Leander. A boy’s name meaning Lion-Man.

=Leon.= (Lay-ōn´.)

The name of a province lying west of Old Castile and also of its capital city.

=Lobina.= (Lo-bee´-na.)

She-wolf. See pages 235-236.

=Lorenzo.= (Lo-rĕn´-zo.)

Laurence. A boy’s name meaning Crowned with Laurel. St. Laurence was a Spaniard and bore himself with true Spanish nonchalance even when suffering the martyrdom of being roasted on a gridiron. “I am done on this side,” he said. “Turn me over.”

=Lorito.= (Lō-ree´-to.)

A pet name from =loro= (lō´-ro), parrot, like our Polly. Parrots are very common pets in Spain, especially in Andalusia, where they sometimes mock the schoolboys by shrieking from their balcony perches:

“I hate to go to school.
Oh, oh, oh!
For I am such a fool,
And Master beats me so.”

=Madrid.= (Mah-dred´.)

The capital city of Spain, almost at the geographical centre of the Peninsula.

=Malaga.= (Mah´-lah-gah.)

A fine old seaport on the southern coast of Spain. Malaga grapes go the world over.

=Mambrú.= (Mahm-broo´.)

A folk-song name for a soldier.

=Manta.= (Mahn´-tah.)

A horse-cloth.

=Manuel.= (Mah-noo-āl´.)

Emanuel, Emmanuel. This sacred name, meaning God With Us, is often given to Spanish boys.

=Maria.= (Mah-ree´-ah.)

Mary. This beautiful name, variously interpreted as meaning Bitter, Rebellion, Star of the Sea, is a favorite for girls in all Christian lands, and in Spain, which believes itself under the special protection of the Madonna, is often given to boys as well, being in such cases one among the several names that a Spanish child usually carries. See page 89.

=Mariana.= (Mah-ree-ah´-nah.)

Marian, Marion. Another form of Mary.

=Marta.= (Mah´-tah.)

Martha. A girl’s name meaning The Ruler of the House; also, Melancholy.

=Melampo.= (May-lam´-po.)

See pages 235-236.

=Mercedes.= (Mer-thā´-des.)

Mercy. Not unusual among the names of Spanish girls.

=Milagros.= (Mee-lah´-grōs.)

Miracles. The full name would be Maria de los Milagros.

=Moreto y Hernandez.= (Mo-ray´-to ee Er-nahn´-deth.)

It is customary in Spain for one to keep, as here, the surnames of both father and mother, united by =y= meaning =and=. See page 89.

=Murillo.= (Moo-ree´-lyo.)

A famous Spanish painter of the seventeenth century. See page 168.

=Patio.= (Pah´-te-o.)

An open court. See pages 90 and 102.

=Pedrillo.= (Pay-dree´-lyo.)

Little Peter. From =Pedro= (Pay´-drō), Peter, meaning A Rock.

=Peligros.= (Pay-lee´-gros.)

Perils. The full name would be Maria de los Peligros.

=Pepito.= (Pay-pee´-to.)

Little Joe. A pet-name from =José=.

=Peregrina.= (Pay-ray-gree´-nah.)

Pilgrim. In this story, the name of a mule.

=Peseta.= (Pay-say´-tah.)

A silver Spanish coin, looking much like our quarter dollar, but worth only about twenty cents.

=Pilar.= (Pe-lar´.)

Pillar. Many Spanish girls are called Pilar, the full name being Maria del Pilar, after the Madonna of Saragossa. See pages 221-222.

=Pilarica.= (Pe-lah-ree´-kah.)

Little Pilar.

=Pinta.= (Pin´-ta.)

In the circle-dances, the name of a bird.

=Puchero.= (Poo-chay´-rō.)

A stew made up of beef or lamb, ham or bacon, chickpeas and other vegetables,--a standing dish in all Spanish countries. See page 173.

=Quixote.= (Ke-hō´-tā.)

Don Quixote is the hero of a celebrated Spanish romance by Cervantes (Ther-vän´-tes). See page 76. Our word quixotic is derived from Don Quixote.

=Rafael.= (Rah-fah-el´.)

Raphael. A name, meaning The Healing of God, often given to boys in Italy and Spain. Raphael the Archangel, deemed the guardian of all humanity and especially of the young and of travellers, is a saint of the church calendar.

=Rita.= (Ree´-tah.)

See page 3.

=Rodrigo.= (Ro-dree´-go.)

Roderick. A boy’s name meaning Rich in Fame,--a name famous in the early history of Spain.

=Rocinante.= (Rō´-the-nahn´-tay.)

A name, meaning a wornout old cab-horse, that Don Quixote gave to his gaunt steed.

=Rosita.= (Rō-see´-tah.)

Little Rose. A pet-name from =Rosa= (Rō-sah.)

=Roxa.= (Rō-xah.)

Roxana, meaning Dawn of Day. In this story, the name of a cat.

=San.= (Sahn.)

Saint. The feminine form is Santa (Sahn´-tah.)

=Sancho Panza.= (Sahn´-ko Pahn´-thah.)

The name, suggesting a round body set on spindle-shanks, is that of Don Quixote’s esquire. Don Quixote, the very soul of romance, arming himself in what seemed to everybody else a ridiculous fashion, rode forth on his lean nag to redress the wrongs of the world, and after him jogged Sancho Panza, on his donkey Dapple, a goblin of commonsense.

=Santiago.= (Sahn-te-ah´-gō.)

St. James; also the city called by his name. The full name of this Galician city is Santiago de Compostela.

=Señor.= (Say-nyōr´.)

Sir. Used as Mr. before the surname, not, like Don, before the Christian name. In this story, the children’s father would be addressed by friends as Don Carlos; by strangers as Señor Moreto.

=Señora.= (Say-nyor´-ah.)

Madame. Used as Mrs. before the surname, not, like Doña, before the Christian name.

=Señorito.= (Say-nyōr-ee´-to.)

Young sir.

=Serení.= (Say-ray-nee´.)

See pages 33-34.

=Sierra Nevada.= (Se-er´-rah Nay-vah´-dah.)

=Nevada= is an adjective from =nieve= (ne-ay´-vay), snow; the first meaning of =sierra= is saw; so that Snowy Saw is the literal name given to the white, keenly cleft mountain-range of southern Spain.

=Siesta.= (Se-es´-tah.)

The nap after the midday meal, in the heat of early afternoon.

=Sombrero.= (Som-bray´-ro.) Hat.

=Sultan.= (Sool-tahn´.)

In Moorish and Turkish lands, Sultan is the title given to the emperor.

=Sultana.= (Sool-tah´-nah.) Empress.

=Teresa.= (Tay-ray´-sah.)

Theresa. This name, which means Carrying Ears of Corn, is often given to Spanish girls, because of the sixteenth-century mystic and reformer, Santa Teresa, who was born in Castile.

=Tia.= (Tee´-ah.) Aunt.

=Titirinela.= (Te-te-re-nay´-lah.)

A group of singing syllables much like Hey diddle diddle.

=Toledo.= (To-lay´-dō.)

The oldest and most wonderful city of Castile. See page 186.

=Tenorio.= (Tay-nō´-re-oh.)

In this story, the name of a tall, thin muleteer.

=Ventera.= (Ven-tay´-rah.) The woman who keeps an inn. The =venta= (ven´-tah) in Spain is a poor tavern by the wayside, not so good as the =posada= (po-sah´-dah) and far inferior to the hotel.

=Vigo.= (Vee´-go.) A seaport of Galicia.

=Virgen.= (Veer´-hen.)

Virgin. The Madonna of Saragossa is known as Virgin del Pilar.

=Xarifa.= (Xah-ree´-fah.)

Xarifa is a Moorish name for a woman. It is used with fine musical effect in Lockhart’s ballad =The Bridal of Andalla=. There is nothing better than Lockhart’s =Spanish Ballads= to fill one’s mind with the romance of Spain.

=Zinga.= (Zin´-gah.) A general name for gypsies in Spain is =Zingari= (Zin´-gah-e). In this story, Zinga is the name of a gypsy-girl.

* * * * *

Typographical error corrected by the etext transcriber:

fragant air=> fragrant air {pg 102}