In Sunny Spain with Pilarica and Rafael

“And so do I,” cut in Tia Marta. “The boy is the only man among you. As to that Pedrillo, Don Manuel, I tell you once for all that we will not journey in his care. I would not trust him with a sack of scorpions.”

“Tut, tut!” protested Don Manuel. “One can accomplish more with a spoonful of honey than with a quart of vinegar. But if not Pedrillo, then who? The railroad is dangerous at the best, and there are several changes to be made from train to train and from train to diligence. I cannot send you on by yourselves and I can not go with you. Besides, it would be wasteful. The mules and donkeys are already provided, but the railroad will cost much money, – the railroad that has so hurt the business of us Galician carriers.”

“We are well enough off as we are,” said Tia Marta curtly, “if only we need not have speech with these sons of perdition.”

So Uncle Manuel arranged the order of march with care. He was to lead the way on Coronela, and the string of pack mules, fastened, as usual, muzzle to tail, would follow, with Tenorio, Bastiano and Hilario on the tramp beside them. The necessity of detaching, every now and then, one or another of the mules that might be carrying packages for some hamlet off the main route, made so large a number of men necessary. At a considerable distance, in order to avoid the dust kicked up by those forty hoofs, Grandfather, Tia Marta and the children were to follow, and Pedrillo was to act as rear-guard for the entire cavalcade.

The second detachment gave the first so good a start that the mule-train was quite out of sight, when our little troop rode in single file, under a pelting shower, through those narrow Moorish streets. Pedrillo paused at a mat-shop, where the prentices and their master, all squatted on the floor, were weaving the red, brown and yellow fibres of the reeds, to bargain for flexible strips of matting to wrap about Tia Marta and Pilarica, but Tia Marta haughtily declined the attention, although the rain had already run the green and scarlet hues of her umbrella into an unwholesome looking blend. Neither would she accept, for herself, his suggestion that they take refuge, till the shower be past, in the famous Moorish mosque, but she let him hurry Grandfather and Pilarica through the Court of Oranges, whose feathery palms and ancient orange trees were almost as dripping wet as the five sacred fountains, and into the strangest building of all Spain. On this gloomy morning the interior was dimmer than ever and in that weird half-light the marvellous forest of pillars, – hundreds of columns, granite, serpentine, porphyry, jasper, marbles of every kind and color, – seemed to be dreaming of those pagan temples, in Rome, in Athens, in Carthage, from which, in the days of Arab splendor, they had been pilfered by the victorious Caliphs of Cordova.

Rafael had manfully chosen to stay by Tia Marta and, when the others came out, the little fellow was having his hands full with the two donkeys and the two mules left in his charge, while Capitana, who, jealous of Coronela’s honors, had been vixenish from the start, was backing into a pottery shop and threatening with destruction a whole floorful of ruddy water-pitchers, green-glazed pots, buff plates and amber pipkins. Pedrillo sprang to her bridle and dragged her out again before she had done more damage than crush that unlucky umbrella against the lintel, so that rivulets of green and scarlet trickled freely over Tia Marta’s face, which still, despite this gallant rescue, had not the least flicker of a smile for poor Pedrillo.

And so it was day after day as the mule-train, leaving behind luxuriant Andalusia, crept across the rolling pasture lands of Estremadura, Don Quixote’s province, and the sunburnt steppes of Castile. Tia Marta regarded Pedrillo no more than if he were one of the infrequent figures they met on those lonely plains, – an elf-haired shepherd clad in the woolly skins of his own sheep, an old crone with a basket of turnips on her head, a milkmaid balancing on either shoulder a jar wrapped in leaves, a bare-legged peasant with a gaudy handkerchief twisted about his forehead and streaming down the back of his neck. To these she would, indeed, say “Good day” or “God be with you,” in response to the grave courtesy of their Castilian greetings, but Pedrillo might as well have been a gargoyle on a Gothic cathedral for all the heed she paid to his hangdog blandishments.

With Grandfather often asleep, Tia Marta always cross and Pedrillo in the dumps, the children found the advance guard more amusing. Rafael liked to push Shags forward and ride with Uncle Manuel, although, to tell the truth, he did not care much for his uncle’s talk. The practical-minded Galician was not interested in the heroes of Spain and only shrugged his shoulders when told of Rodrigo’s impulsive self-sacrifice. Rafael, on the other hand, was soon bored by details of profit and loss and by tirades against the railroads, fast doing away as they were with the time-honored mule-express. Though now and then some special business would take Don Manuel to one of the larger cities, as to Cordova, in general he served only those remote districts which the railroad had not yet invaded. Rafael would pore over his little Geography and then look off wistfully to the east, till the tawny waste was lost in the hazy blur, and dream of Toledo crowning the black cliff’s above the yellow Tagus, – Toledo, of which his father had told him so much, the ghost-city, now a mere white wraith of its once imperial self. And he was not to see Madrid, either, nor have a chance of taking off his red cap to the boy king. Still, it was grand to ride at the head of the procession and it was only when Uncle Manuel would begin to beguile the way by setting Rafael sums in arithmetic, that Shags was allowed to fall back to a more humble station.

As for Pilarica, she was the pet of the caravan and as happy as the day was long. A yellow butterfly on a scarlet poppy was enough to set her blithe heart dancing. Where Tia Marta saw nothing but endless leagues of arid, barren soil, Pilarica would find, in dips and dimples of that parched tableland, patches of sage and rosemary, wild thyme and lavender, that, trodden under foot and hoof, sent up a cloud of mingled fragrances. The carriers vied with one another in coaxing the child to ride beside them. There was not a mule in the train on whose back she had not been perched, sitting crosslegged like a little Turk between the two big bales. Tenorio would tempt her by gifts. Whenever they passed through a village, and now the poorest hamlet was a welcome sight, with its doorways full of gossiping groups, and its laughing girls, water-jar on head, clustered about the fountain, his lank figure was to be seen stooping over stall or garden-hedge buying sweeties made of almonds and honey, a red carnation or, were there nothing better to be had, a bright green beetle in a paper cage. The shabby Hilario hunted through his ginger-colored blouse and trousers all in vain for one loose copper, but his head was better stored than his pockets and he could allure both the children by starting up a droning chant of some old ballad, as this:

“The Cid was sleeping in his chair with all his knights around;
The cry went forth along the hall that the lion was unbound.

“They pressed around the ivory throne to shield their lord from harm,
Till the good Cid woke and rose, our Cid, who never knew alarm;
He went to meet the lion, with his mantle on his arm.”

As for the cunning Bastiano, he had only to crack his whip high above Blanco’s untroubled head, and a plump white donkey would charge down upon him, bearing Pilarica to the rescue.

So one blue summer day followed another until – something happened.

It was at the edge of evening, when the still heated air was musical with slow chimes from far-off convent-belfries, whose gilded crosses stood out against the sky. Uncle Manuel was rebuking Rafael for having failed to provide water enough for the needs of the day. Early in the journey – too early, in Rafael’s opinion – Don Manuel had equipped Shags with a wicker frame into which could be fitted four large water-jars, two on a side. As the caravan traversed that central plateau where water is scarce, Rafael was expected to fill the jars at every spring, well or fountain, and give the travellers, especially the tramping muleteers, drink as it was called for. At first the new responsibility pleased him, but he soon grew tired of trudging along beside Shags, who had enough to do with carrying the jars, or of begging a ride on mule-back, and of late he had grown so negligent that more than once the supply of water had been exhausted long before the lodging for the night was reached.

Under his uncle’s reprimand, Rafael flushed, but answered haughtily:

“I’m no donkey-boy.”

“Ah! You were born in a silver cradle, perhaps?” Uncle Manuel asked with quiet but stinging irony. “Are you one of those whom God created too good for honest work?”

“A kid-gloved cat
Catches no rat,”

sneered Bastiano, who had come up for a draught of water only to find one tantalizing jar after another as dry as his own throat.

Rafael, knowing himself in the wrong, could not retort, but turned abruptly, drew from the mouths of the jars the four fresh lemons he was ingeniously using as corks, handed one to Uncle Manuel, another to Bastiano and, with Shags trotting at his heels like a dog, ploughed back through the deep dust along the train. He, too, was thirsty, – how thirsty nobody should ever know; he was ashamed and wanted comfort. He would join Pilarica who, only a girl though she was, had her values in hours like this. She could always find excuses for him when he could find none for himself. Sisters were made for that. But his clouded look was lifted to mule after mule in vain. She was not with the “cavalry,” for neither Tenorio nor Hilario, who accepted the remaining two lemons as a matter of course, had seen her, as they complained, since the nooning.

Rafael was too warm and weary for extra walking and he waited for the riding party to come up, but when it came, though Grandfather, singing softly to himself, and Tia Marta, in the act of repelling Pedrillo’s humble efforts to ease her seat with the offering of a cinnamon pillow, were there, he saw no Pilarica. Don Quixote, with empty saddle, was plodding along demurely a few rods behind the rest, but when asked what had become of his little mistress, he twitched his white ears with the most non-committal air in the world.

XV

THE EVE OF ST. JOHN

WHILE the caravan halted, all in consternation over the loss of Pilarica, that glad-hearted little maiden was, as ever, on the best of terms with life. To be sure, the nooning had not been quite as pleasant as usual. Though the morning route had led past fields softly golden with the early summer harvest, where reapers in wide hats were wielding shining sickles, the travellers had found themselves by midday on a parched upland, neither shade nor water to be had. After their frugal luncheon of bread and cheese, flavored with onions for the muleteers and with figs for the children, everybody but Pilarica had gone to sleep in such scanty shelter from the sun as the pack-mules afforded. Pilarica had loyally stayed by Don Quixote, who, though his sides were now well rounded out, cast hardly a larger scrap of shadow than the birds of prey hovering in the burning blue, so that the child, too hot to fall asleep, had taken her doll and strolled a little away from the train. Suddenly she saw stretched out at her feet a shabby cloak, propped up a trifle by dry stalks and broken bits of brush, the brown of the cloak so like the brown of the earth that it would hardly be noticed three yards off. Under this homely tent was – of all wonders! – a baby, a really truly baby wrapped in a little white kid-skin, a baby who blinked his black eyes and gurgled drowsily as Pilarica and her doll cuddled down beside him. And there they all three slept so soundly that the bustle attendant on getting the train under way did not rouse them, while Grandfather, supposing that Pilarica was riding with her uncle on Coronela or had been tossed up by one of the muleteers to a pack-throne, himself untied the rope that bound Don Quixote’s forelegs together and chirruped to the donkey to follow Carbonera.

When Pilarica, so exhausted by the heat that her siesta lasted twice as long as usual, finally awoke, a strange, wild-looking figure was squatted close by, – a figure so tanned from the mat of shaggy hair to the naked arms and legs that it looked as if it were only a queer shape of the sunburnt soil. Pilarica, fearlessly creeping out from under the cloak and sitting upright, saw at some distance beyond this unkempt watcher a flock of goats.

The goatherd was devouring a piece of black bread which he dipped, between bites, into a cow’s-horn half full of olive oil. He jumped back as the little girl appeared and stared at her with stupid, frightened eyes.

“Good-day, sir,” said Pilarica, who knew no reason why one should not be as polite to a goatherd as to a grandee.

Scared peasant though he was, he had Castilian manners.

“Will your Grace eat?” he stammered, offering his humble fare.

Pilarica declined with a courteous gesture of her little hand, now almost as brown as his own, and the customary Spanish phrase:

“May it do you good!”

He started again at the sound of her voice, but gulped down the rest of his bread, corked the cow’s-horn, thrust it into his rough leather wallet and then went to his flock, soon returning with warm milk in a bottle. Not daring, apparently, to reach across Pilarica, he pointed to the baby.

“Oh, may I!” exclaimed the little girl in ecstasy and, gathering that kid-skin bundle into her lap, she administered the milk as best she could, singing meanwhile, over and over, one of Grandfather’s lullabies:

“Recotín, recotón!
The bells of Saint John!
There’s a festival on!
Recotín, recotín, recotón!”

The goatherd, to whom Pilarica’s sweet treble had an unearthly sound, crossed himself and backed still further away.

“What is the darling’s name?” she asked, too much engrossed in her new, delightful occupation to notice the peasant’s fright.

The Child of Hunger,” replied the goatherd. He had a few words, at the best, and was, besides, more and more terrified in the presence of one whom he took to be a fairy. For he was but a simple-minded fellow, believing all the tales that he had heard from wandering shepherds on the windy waste or from old wives in rough-hewn chimney-corners. Whenever a lizard glided across his path, he saluted the little green creature with his best bow, for he believed that the lizard is itself so courteous that it will not go to sleep on a sunny wall without descending first to kiss the earth. When his eyes were hurting him, he would watch the swallows in their wheeling flight, for he believed that swallows know of a secret herb that cures sore eyes and that they pluck off its leaves to carry to their nestlings. He always trembled and crossed himself when he came upon even the prettiest little striped snake, for he believed that snakes never die, but when they see Death walking over the plain, looking for them, slip out of their skins and run away, growing into huge serpents with the years and becoming, in the centuries, scaly dragons that devour the flocks. This, he knew, was St. John’s Eve, when, as he had heard since childhood, from every fountain springs forth a fairy princess to spread her linen, white as snow and fine as cobwebs, out to dry in the dew. His young wife had perished of the fever a few weeks before and he could not leave their baby alone in the poor little hut of their brief happiness. So he had, while tending his flock, carried the child about with him, but the little one did not thrive. It would be better to give him to this gentle princess, who, perhaps, had come so far from her fountain to seek a playmate for that tiny fairy-baby with the golden hair and the bright blue eyes that never once winked as they looked out straight upon the western sun. What if the princess were waiting for a herd of elfin goats to bring that dainty creature milk? It would be as well for his honest Christian goats not to meet them. No harm could come to the child in the shining diamond grotto under the fountain, for the christening dews upon the little head would guard it from all evil. So the goatherd slyly picked up his coarse brown cloak and stealthily moved away with his flock, somewhat troubled in mind, for he thought Saint John might better have sent an angel than a fairy to their need, and missing so much the accustomed weight, lighter with every week, upon his arm, that he picked up a young kid and carried this for comfort.

Only the doll watched him as he went, – a high-minded doll that, as the afternoon wore by, showed no signs of jealousy, though Pilarica was utterly absorbed in her new plaything. The baby was almost as good as the doll, sleeping, or cooing, or kicking with its scrawny little legs. Once its wandering claw of a hand discovered an ear and did its best to pull that curious object off to put into the button mouth for proper investigation. It was this failure to detach its ear that finally roused the infant to wrath and it bleated as lustily as if it had been born the tenant of a kid-skin.

“Dear me!” sighed Pilarica, suddenly aware that she was weary and that a great red moon was climbing up over the edge of the world. “Where has the hairy man gone with his goats? Why didn’t he leave us some milk for supper? And when will somebody be coming for me?”

For Pilarica had the wisdom of experience. She knew that somebody always came for a little girl who was lost. For one moment a homesick thought fleeted back to her father and Big Brother and the rustling newspaper doll, and in the next she heard, not at all to her surprise, the trot-trot of Don Quixote’s hoofs and beheld that gallant ass, with Pedrillo running alongside, making over the plain toward the nooning place.

“Cry louder, Baby!” she admonished, with a little shake to which Baby instantly responded. It was really marvellous what a roar went forth upon the air, as if the kid had been transformed into a lion-cub. Clear and shrill above this remarkable accompaniment soared the ringing call of Pilarica. Don Quixote frisked his ears and tail and turned his course toward her of his own impulse; Pedrillo gave a shout of joy, and behind Pedrillo rose the halloo of Bastiano, and behind Bastiano clanged the great copper bell of Coronela.

There was a festival of greeting for Pilarica, but Baby Bunting, howling his worst, had a welcome only from Tia Marta. She gathered the brown bantling into her arms with a torrent of tender endearments and from that hour constituted herself his nurse and champion.

As the days went by, many and sharp were her quarrels with Don Manuel, who was determined that the foundling should be left at the first refuge that offered.

“Do you hope to carry this ugly tadpole on to Santiago?” he demanded at last. “Then let me tell you once for all that I will not receive it into my house. My house,” he added, not remembering to be consistent in the matter of Natural History, “is no nest for screech-owls.”

“Yah-ee!” protested the baby.

“Where’s Herod?” asked Hilario, winking at Tenorio and Bastiano, who mischievously repeated, one after the other: