The Four Corners Abroad

"Perhaps we shall be able to. Now, we will wander about a while to see the people and the booths before the dancing begins."

"Why, it's just like a fair," remarked Mary Lee. And indeed, to see the stands where cakes, beer and wine were offered for sale, to see the women squatting on the ground in front of baskets of nuts or fruit, to see the merry-go-round and the merry crowd made one think that it might be anything but a religious occasion.

"The dancing has begun," cried Mercedes. "You must come." She urged the girls forward to where upon the grass two lines had formed, the men opposite the girls. A man with a violin and a woman with a drum were beginning the music of the jota, and presently Nan found herself opposite Don Antonio while Mary Lee had Mercedes for her vis-à-vis. Don Antonio was a tall, serious-looking lad of nineteen, but when with arms aloft, he snapped his fingers, and took graceful steps, he seemed quite a different person from the grave young man who had ventured but a few remarks to the American girls. Nan soon caught the spirit of the dance, while Mary Lee, under the teaching of Mercedes, was presently snapping her fingers and taking her steps with the best. It was energetic exercise and they were rather tired when the last notes of the jota ended.

"Now let us go and have some cider and cakes," proposed Mercedes.

"Cider? Do you have cider here?" asked Nan.

"Oh, yes," was the reply. "In Asturias we raise many apples, and cider is a favorite drink. I see Antonio has supplied us with cakes. We will go over there under the trees and have our feast and then we will walk down by the sea."

"I am so glad to see so many in peasant dress. Why don't the men wear it?" Mary Lee put the question.

"So few young men are here. Most of them have gone away and will come back Americanos when they have made money."

"Americanos?"

"Yes. They go to Buenos Ayres, to Mexico, to Venezuela, and when they come back they do not wear any more the aldeana dress, and they are always called Americanos."

"And what are we?" Nan put the question, a little puzzled to know how she and her sister would be distinguished. If they were not Americans what could they be?

"Oh, you are Inglesas," Mercedes told her.

"Because we speak English, I suppose." Nan was not quite sure that she liked this method of classification.

"Oh, yes, that is why, certainly," returned Mercedes. "See there is a man over there wearing the Asturian cap, the old man with a long peaked cap which hangs down one side."

"And so you don't call us Americanos," Mary Lee returned to the subject, after looking at the man with the peaked cap.

Mercedes smiled and shook her head.

"I always forget there is any America but the United States," said Mary Lee, "but of course South Americans have just as much right to be called so as we have. Dear me, do see that poor deformed creature, and there is another." She stood appalled and again Mercedes smiled.

"They always come to the fiestas, and they are not so deformed as they appear though they must be truly so, and must show that they are else they might be taken for impostors." She stopped to give each of the supplicants a copper coin. "The big coppers are perronos or the big dogs," she explained, "the little ones, perrinas, or little dogs," and each of the Corner girls took a perrono from her purse to put into the outstretched hands.

"Ah, there are the Gallegos; you will like them." And Mercedes hurried them forward to join a crowd gathered around two women, one with a guitar, the other with a tambourine. They were saucy, mirthful looking creatures who turned knowing eyes upon the strangers and after whispering to one or two of the nearest bystanders, broke forth into a fresh song which caused much amusement.

"What are they saying?" asked Nan, as she saw all eyes turned in her direction.

Mercedes laughed. "They are singing about you. They say you are like a clavel with your pink cheeks, and that Mary Lee is a golden bird. They say you should be in the queen's court and that your husbands will be sure to occupy high places."

"Oh, dear!" Nan looked this way and that, feeling very conscious, to the delight of the audience. To be made the subject of improvisation seemed to the girls a very unusual experience, but presently they realized that it was a very common thing here in Spain, that it was meant as a compliment, so when the tambourine was passed around each girl dropped in her offering and the Gallegos smilingly started in a new direction.

More dancing and more feasting. The grass was trodden into the dust; the piles of cakes were perceptibly diminished; more people were arriving. The train brought numbers from the nearest towns and villages; carriages drove up with occupants dressed in their best. There were two sets of couples for the next jota in which even small children in the aldeana dress joined, all being perfectly familiar with the step.

An Andalusian with a sweet worn voice trolled out his ballads in a minor key at one end of the grounds; at the other end a blind violinist drew his bow raspingly and in cracked tones sang a wild Asturian melody. The lame beggars hopped hither and thither, the paralyzed ones crawled nearer, the maimed accosted each newcomer.

Soon the bright daylight began to fade. Long shadows crept across the grass, the ancient church, ten centuries old, grew grayer in the failing light. "One more look at the sea and then we go," said Mercedes. So they wandered down to the rocky shore where great crags rose on every side. Beyond these sparkled the Cantabrian sea which, softening the air, made it possible for chestnuts and orange trees, palms and apple trees, to live in neighborly fashion.

"We have flowers in our garden the year around," Mercedes told them, "and even when there is snow on the mountains it is not so very cold here."

"I know it is perfectly beautiful now," responded Nan. "August and no great heat, the sea so near and no sharp winds. It is perfect. The kind of weather that is just right, and that you don't have to think about one way or the other."

"What wonderful caves there seem to be about here," said Mary Lee looking off toward the rocks.

"There are a great many, and the old folks tell you that they are inhabited by fairy folk, the inxanos, we call them, tiny little people who live underground and build these rocky houses for themselves."

"Oh, I'd love to hear about them." The subject appealed to Nan's fancy. "Do people really think there are such fairies?"

"Some of the peasants do, and they have great tales to tell. Then there are the xanos who are water fairies and live in the streams and fountains. You must see the great caves near our village. I will take you to them to-morrow. We must go up the mountain, too, and there is a place not so very far away, from which you can see a great distance. We shall drive home to-day and you can see the Peaks of Europe, our highest peaks anywhere about."

The Corners never did forget the drive home over the best of hard roads, above mountain streams and green valleys, the great Peaks of Europe glistening far off, and the nearer mountains bathed in sunset glory. They encountered a band of gipsies with their donkeys, traveling along the white road which wound around a high hill, and these seemed more than ever picturesque, the orange and red of their costumes showing vividly against the gray background of rock.

There were more fiestas after this, but none that gave the girls greater enjoyment. They saw later the quaint little town of Ribadasella decked in the Spanish colors, and they enjoyed the procession of blossom-adorned boats when Santa Marina took place. They saw, too, the feast of "Our Lady of the Hay" when the great hay harvest was over and honor was done to the Virgin of a little chapel in the woods. There was a long day spent at Llanes which was very gay upon this feast of San Roque. It ended with a dance which kept up till very late. To this the girls did not go, though, at different times during the night, they heard revelers returning home.

Mary Lee and Nan had picked up a little Spanish when they were in California, and now continued to add constantly to their stock of words. In consequence they were soon able to carry on conversations, haltingly, to be sure, with Doña Teresa and Don Antonio, and managed to understand something of what was said to them.

"I wish you had been here for our day of San Juan," Mercedes said to them.

"What did you do then?" asked Mary Lee.

"We had a fiesta at the house of our good doctor whose name is Juan. As it was his feast day we went very early to hang garlands about the gateway and the windows. We set up a tree in his patio, and many persons from far and near brought presents to him. He provided cakes and other things for the feast and we danced till dark in front of the house. From all the neighboring villages the young people came dancing the dance of San Juan all the way, singing as they came. It was very pretty."

"Oh, what awfully nice things you do here," said Nan. "I think it is lovely to celebrate days like that."

Mercedes nodded. "Yes, we think it is. We enjoy our fiestas and we have many of them. If you were to be here you would see. I think you should stay a year that you might understand what goes on at every season. Could you not stay a year?"

"Dear me!" Nan smiled. "What a darling thing you are, Mercedes. We'd love to stay but we must study. We go to Germany in the fall."

"Oh, you could study here with the English governess and you could learn Spanish. Would it not do as well as German?"

Nan gave her a hug. "I should love to do it, but we must do as our mother says."

"Of course. I understand that, but I should like you to stay and so would mother, my brother also."

"It is perfectly lovely for you to say so, but I suppose we must be thankful to have as much as a month here, and as we speak French all the time I am losing none of my knowledge of that language, while I am also learning a little Spanish. I hope some day you will come to our country and then you will visit us in our home."

"I should like much to do that. My cousin Dolores says I shall come if my mother permits, and my mother says when I have learned to speak English it will be time enough to talk of going, so I shall work very hard, and when you see me in your country I shall be saying more than 'E ahm very glad to zee you.'" She laughed merrily.

"You will come, of course you will. I shall speak often to Miss Dolores about it so she will remember to write to your mother so often that she will not forget about it."

"We shall have to do all we can to have you see our Asturias, as much as is possible, while you are here for this short month." And with this intention to be carried out it was to be expected that the days did not hang heavily. If there was not a fiesta or a feria there was an excursion to the seashore, or to some neighboring town; there was maybe a fishing party or a long drive to some mountain village, and the longer they stayed the more attached did the girls become to sweet Mercedes, and the more interesting did they find the beautiful province of Asturias.

CHAPTER VI

SPANISH HOSPITALITY

The great caves which stood each side the little beach to which the girls often went were remarkable for more than one reason. They served as bath houses, they were unique in construction and they suggested tales of folk-lore in which Nan delighted. Through one of these caverns, as through an arched passage, one could go to get a better view of the stretch of sea beyond, while from the rocky hill above a still better view was to be had. The way to the sea was rather rough, and only the younger ones of the household cared to travel it often. Mr. Pinckney declared it was too great an effort for his portly person, and Doña Teresa said it was out of the question for her to attempt it, so often but the three girls, Nan, Mary Lee and Mercedes, would find their way there. They must first pass through one of the winding streets, or roads, of the little village, then over a stony way leading past the small chapel of Nuestra Señora del Henar, in the woods, and on through shady paths till the sea was at hand.