In Sunny Spain with Pilarica and Rafael

“The most powerful nation in America,” replied Don Carlos, “a nation that threatens to go to war with us, if the trouble in Cuba continues much longer.”

“They must be very wicked people,” declared Rafael with flashing eyes.

“No, my son; they are much like the rest of the world,” answered his father, quietly. “I have met a few of them, but not to know them well, for they did not understand Spanish.”

“Not understand Spanish!” exclaimed Pilarica. “Then at least they must be very stupid, for Spanish even the donkeys understand!”

This reproach set the Geography Gentleman off again, and his sides were still shaking as he pointed out Cuba on the globe.

And now all Pilarica’s gathering suspicions of the science of geography were confirmed.

“But if Cuba belongs to Spain, who put it there close to America?” she asked. “Did the Yankees make that globe and put it there themselves?”

And once more the Geography Gentleman laughed till the close-fitting cap fell off and showed his shining bald head.

“ ‘Honey is not for the mouth of an ass,’ ” he quoted, “ ‘and learning is not for women.’ But what a pity, Don Carlos, that this child is only a girl! Her wits run bright as the quicksilver fountain that used to sparkle in the royal garden of Seville.”

“She is like Rodrigo, keen as a Toledo blade,” assented Don Carlos. “It is this youngster,” drawing Rafael closer to him, “who has the slow brains of his father.”

“Slow and sure often wins the race,” said the old teacher, turning kind eyes on Rafael. “He will make a scholar when the time comes, and it should come soon now. Will you not enter him in the lower school next year? He may not be the mathematical wonder that his brother is, taking prizes as naturally as other lads bite off ripe mulberries, but if his father’s steadfastness of purpose has descended to him with his father’s chin, he will do well in the world. Character is better than talent. But this rosebud brings back to me her mother, who used to coax and coax me, when she was the merest midget, to teach her to read my books. Her parents spent several summers in Granada and, if they had consented, I would have liked to see what a girl’s head could do. But of course they would not hear of it. She was taught to dance and to embroider, only that. Her mind went hungry. But bless my heart! Such talk as this is not meal for chickens. A penny for your thoughts, my sober little man!”

“I was thinking about Spain,” answered Rafael, who all this time had been glowering at the globe. “How did we lose what was ours? Were there no more great kings after Ferdinand?”

“Yes,” said Don Carlos. “Spain has had strong kings and weak kings, wise and foolish, but even the best of them blundered at times. Ferdinand and Isabella themselves made mistakes. So some thirty years ago, when I was a boy, Spain tried to be a republic and get on without any king at all, but she did not prosper so.”

“King Alfonsito is not much older than I am,” murmured Rafael, with a wondering look in his great dark eyes.

“And a gallant child it is! A right royal child!” chirruped the Geography Gentleman.

“God bless him and grant him a long and righteous reign!” added Don Carlos, so solemnly that Pilarica clasped her hands as if she were saying her prayers.

“His father, King Alfonso XII, had a great heart,” the Geography Gentleman said musingly, “but his heart was wrung to breaking by sore troubles. I was in Madrid when the young Queen Mercedes died. Woe is me! What a grief was his!”

“Pilarica knows a song about that,” observed Rafael.

“Ah, to be sure! Spanish babies all over the Peninsula dance to that sorrow,” nodded the Geography Gentleman. “Come back into the patio, where the fountain will sing with her, and let us have it.”

So in the fragrant air of the patio, where an awning had been drawn to shut off the direct rays of the sun, Pilarica, dancing with strange, slow movements of feet and hands, sang childhood’s lament for the girl-queen.

“ ‘Whither away, young King Alfonso?
(Oh, for pity!) Whither away?’
‘I go seeking my queen Mercedes,
For I have not seen her since yesterday.’

“ ‘But we have seen your queen Mercedes,
Seen the queen, though her eyes were hid,
While four dukes all gently bore her
Through the streets of sad Madrid.’

“ ‘Oh, how her face was calm as heaven!
Oh, how her hands were ivory white!
Oh, how she wore the satin slippers
You had kissed on the bridal night!

“ ‘Dark are the lamps of the lonely palace;
Black are the suits the nobles don;
In letters of gold on the wall ’tis written:
Her Majesty is dead and gone.’

“He fainted to hear us, young Alfonso,
Drooped like an eagle with broken wing;
But the cannon thundered: ‘Valor, valor!’
And the people shouted: ‘Long live the king!’ ”

“And now we must be taking our leave, with a thousand thanks for a red-letter day,” said Don Carlos.

“But no, no, no!” cried the Geography Gentleman. “Not until you have tasted a little light refreshment to wing your feet for the Alhambra hill. We will go up to the balcony and see Lorito – the wasteful rumple-poll that he is – enjoy his bread and butter.”

It was very pleasant on the balcony, with its pots of sweet basil, its earthen jar of fresh water and its caged cricket “singing the song of the heat.” The gentlemen were regaled with wine and biscuit, the children with candied nectarines and tarts, and to Lorito the maid respectfully handed a great slice of bread, thickly buttered. The square was quiet again, though from the Alameda came confused sounds, as of an angry crowd, cut by shrill outcries. A few beggars were gathered beneath the balcony, waiting for the bread which Lorito, after scraping off every least bit of the butter with his crooked beak, tore into strips and threw down to them, dancing on his perch and screaming with excitement to see them scramble for it.

This amused the children so much that they could hardly recall the proper Andalusian phrases for farewell. But their host, loving the ripple of their laughter, found nothing lacking in their courtesy and, at parting, slipped into Pilarica’s hand a dainty white Andalusian fan, painted with birds and flowers, and into Rafael’s a small geography, written by himself. Rafael was deeply impressed at receiving this, the first book he had ever owned, from its author, and carried it, on their homeward walk, in such a way that no learned person who might meet them could fail to see what it was.

“Of course nobody would give a geography to a girl,” he remarked.

“Maybe your geography isn’t true,” retorted Pilarica, flirting her fan. “But look, look! There is Grandfather with the donkeys, and Rodrigo is waiting for us, too.”

Don Carlos, who had his own reasons for wishing to see what Don Quixote was able to do, placed both the children on the white donkey’s back, leaving Shags for Grandfather to ride, and Don Quixote acquitted himself so well that he, with his double burden, was the first to arrive at the garden gate. Shags, trotting for sheer surprise, was close behind, but it was half an hour later before Don Carlos and Rodrigo came slowly up the road, the father’s arm thrown lightly over the lad’s shoulders.

IX

CHOSEN FOR THE KING

THE next morning, as Don Carlos was starting off, as usual, with Rodrigo, Rafael clung to his father’s hand.

The officer who, since that first unhappy night, seemed to have a complete understanding of the boy, hesitated.

“But I may walk all the way into Granada with your brother to-day and may not come back until afternoon. You know how tired you were yesterday by the time we reached the Gate of the Pomegranates.”

Rafael’s black eyes looked wistfully into his father’s.

“I would rather go with you and be tired than not go with you and not be tired,” he said.

Don Carlos smiled so tenderly that Rafael had a queer feeling as if his heart were growing too big for his jacket.

“You may come, my son,” decided the father, and then his glance fell doubtfully on Pilarica. “No, the city will be in tumult; no place for a little girl. But you may walk a bit of the way with us, Sweetheart.”

It seemed such a very wee bit that, when her father kissed her and bade her run back, the tears stood in Pilarica’s eyes like dew on pansies.