 Chapter 1 of Ramona This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Ellie. Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson. Chapter 1 It was sheep shearing time in Southern California, but sheep shearing was late in Sidiora Moreno's. The fates had seemed to combine to put it off in first place Philippe Moreno had been ill. He was the Senora's eldest son, and since his father's death had been at the head of his mother's house, without him nothing could be done on the range, the Senora sought. It had always been. Ask Senora Philippe. Go to Senora Philippe. Senora Philippe will attend to it, ever since Philippe had had the dawning of a beard on his handsome face. In truth, it was not Philippe, but the Senora, who really decided all questions from greatest to least, and managed everything on the place, from the sheep pastures to the artichoke patch. But nobody except the Senora herself knew this. An exceedingly clever woman for her day and generation was Senora Gonzaga Moreno. As for that matter, exceedingly clever for any day and generation, but exceptionally clever for the day and generation to which she belonged. In her life, the mere surface of it, if it had been written, would have made a romance, to grow hot and cold over. Sixty years from the best of old Spain and the wildest of new Spain, Bay of Biscay, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Oceans, the waves of them all had tossed destinies for the Senora. The Holy Catholic Church had had its arms around her from first to last, and that was what had brought her safe through, she would have said, if she had ever said anything about herself, which she never did, one of her many wisdoms. So quiet, so reserved, so gentle and exterior, never was known to veil such an imperious and passionate nature, primful of storm, always passing through stress, never twaft except a peril of those who did it, adored and hated by turns, and each had the hottest. A tremendous force, wherever she appeared, was Senora Moreno. But no stranger would suspect it, to see her gliding about. In her scanty black gown, with her rosary hanging at her side, her soft dark eyes cast down and an expression of mingled melancholy and devotion on her face. She looked simply, like a sad, spiritual-minded old lady, amiable and indolent, like her race, but sweeter and more thoughtful than their want. Her voice heightened this mistaken impression. She was never heard to speak either loud or fast. There was at times even a curious hesitancy in her speech, which came near being a stammer, as suggested the measured care with which people speak who have been cured of stammering. It made her often appear as if she did not know her own mind, at which people sometimes took heart, when, if they had only known the truth, they would have known that the speech hesitated solely because the Senora knew her mind so exactly that she was finding it hard to make the words convey it as she desired, or, in a way, to best attain her ends. About this very sheep shearing the head-beam between her and the head shepherd, Juan Canito, called Juan Can for short, to distinguish him from Juan Jose, the upper herdsman of the kettle, some discussions, which would have been hot and angry ones in other hands than the Senoras. Juan Canito wanted the shearing to begin, even though Senora Felipe were ill in bed, and though that lazy shepherd Luigio had not yet got back with the flock that had been driven up the coast for pasture, there were plenty of sheep on the place to begin with. He said one morning, at least a thousand, and by the time they were done, Luigio would surely be back with the rest, and as Senora Felipe's being in bed, had not he, Juan Canito, stood at the backing-back and handled the wool when Senora Felipe was a mere boy? Why could he not do it again, that Senora did not realize how time was going? There would be no shearers to be hired presently, since the Senora was determined to have numbered Indians. Of course, if she would employ Mexicans, as all the other ranges in the valley did, it would be different, but she was resolved upon having Indians. God knows why, he interpolated surly under his breast. I do not quite understand, Juan, interrupted Senora Moreno at the precise instant the last syllable of his disrespectful ejaculation had escaped Juan's lips. Speak a little louder, I fear I am going deaf in my old age. What gentle, suave, courteous tones, and the calm, dark eyes rested on Juan Canito with a look to the phantoming of which he was as unequal as one of his own sheep would have been. He could not have told why he instantly and involuntarily said, Back your pardon, Senora. Oh, you need not ask my pardon, Juan, the Senora replied with exquisite gentleness. It is not you who are to blame if I am deaf. I have fancied for a year, I did not hear quite as well as I once did. But about the Indians, Juan, did not Senora Felipe tell you that he had positively engaged the same band of shearers we had last autumn? And the centros' band from Temecula? They will wait until we are ready for them. Senora Felipe will send a message for them. He thinks them the best shearers in the country. He will be well enough in a week or two, he thinks. And the poor sheep must bear their loads a few days longer. Are they looking well? Do you think Juan? Will the crop be a good one? General Moreno used to say that he will reckon up the wool crop to a pound while it was on the sheep's backs. Yes, Senora, answered the molly-fed one. The poor beasts look wonderfully well considering the scant feed they have had all winter. We will not have many pounds short of our last year's crop, if any. Though, to be sure, there is no telling in what case that which will bring his flock back. Senora smiled in spite of herself at the paws and gulps with which Juan had filled in the heathers where he longed to set a contemptuous epithet before Luigi's name. This was an utter of the instances where the Senora swirled and Juan Canito said clashed, and he did not dream of it, having set it all down as usual to the score of young Senora Felipe. Encouraged by the Senora's smile, Juan proceeded, Senora Felipe can see no fault in Luigi, because they were boys together, but I can tell him he will rue it. One of these mornings, when he finds a flock of sheep worse than dead on his hands and no thanks to anybody but Luigi. While I can have him under my eye, here in the valley, it is all very well, but he is no more fit to take responsibility of a flock than one of the very lambs themselves. He'll drive them off their feet one day and starve them next. I have known him to forget to give them water, and when he's in his dreams the virgin only knows what he want to. During this brief and almost unproceeded outburst of Juan's, the Senora's countenance had been slowly growing stern. Juan had not seen it. His eyes had been turned away from her, looking down into the upturned eager face of his favorite collie, oversleeping and gambling and barking at his feet. Down, Captain Down, he said in a fun tone, gently repulsing him. How makes such a noise to Senora can hear nothing but her voice. I heard only two distinctly. Juan can need to set the Senora in a very sweet but icy tone. It is not well for one servant to backbite another. It gives me great grief to hear such words, and I hope when Father Salvedera comes next month you will not forget to confess this sin of which you have been guilty in thus seeking to injure a fellow being. If Senora Felipe listens to you, the poor boy Luigi will be cast out homeless on the world someday, and what sort of deed would that be Juan can need to, for one Christian to do to another. I fear the Father will give you penance when he hears what you have said. Senora, it is not to harm the lad. Juan began every fire of his faithful frame straddling with a sense of injustice at her reproach. But the Senora had turned her back. Evidently she would hear no more from him then. He stood watching her as she walked away, at her usual slow pace, her head slightly bent forward. Her rosary lifted in her left hand and the fingers of the right hand mechanically slipping the beads. Prayers, always prayers, sought Juan to himself, as his eyes followed her. If they'll take one to heaven, the Senora will go by the straight road. That's sure, I'm sorry, Vexter. But what's a man to do if he's the interest of the place at heart I'd like to know? Is he to stand by and see a lot of idle moaning louts run away with everything? Ah, but it was an ill day for the estate when the general died, an ill day. And they may scold me as much as they please and set me to confessing my sins to the father. It is very well for them. They've got me to look after matters, since your Philippe will do well enough when he's a man. Maybe, but they boil like him. And the old man stamped his foot with a not-holy unreasonable irritation at the false position in which he felt himself put. Confess to Father Salvador indeed. He muttered aloud, ay, that I will. He's a man of sense, if he's a breeze, at which slip of tongue the pious one hastily crossed himself. And I'll ask him to give me some advice as to how I'm to manage between this young boy at the head of everything and the doting mother who thinks he's the wisdom of a dozen grown men. The father knew the place in olden time. He knows it's no child's play to look after the estate even now, much smaller as it is, an ill day when the old general died, an ill day indeed. The saints rest his soul. Saying this, Juan shrugged his shoulders and whistling to Captain walked towards the sunny veranda on the south side of the kitchen-wing of the house, where it had been for twenty-odd years his habit to sit on the long bench and smoke his pipe of a morning. Before he had got halfway across the courtyard, however, a sword struck him. He hold it so suddenly that Captain with the quick sensitiveness of his breath saw so suddenly a change of purpose could only come from something in connection with sheep and drew to his instinct of duty bricked up his ears, poised himself for full run and looked up in his master's face waiting for an explanation and signal. But Juan did not observe him. Ha! he said. Father Salvedera comes next month, does he? Let's see. Today is the twenty-fifth. That's it. The sheep shearing is not to come off till the father gets here. Then each morning it will be massed in a chapel and each night whispers and the crowd will be here just two days longer to feed for the time they will lose by that and by the confessions. That's what Senor Felipe is up to. He's a pious lad, I recollect now. It was the same way two years ago. Well, well, it is a good thing for those poor Indian devils to get a bit of religion now and then. And it's like old times to see the chapel full of them kneeling and more than can get in at the door. I doubt not it warms the Senor as hard to see them all there as if they belonged to the house as they used to. And now I know when it's to be. I have only to make my arrangements accordingly. It's always in the first week of the month the father gets here. Yes, she said Senor Felipe will be well enough in a week or two, he thinks. Ha! It will be nearer, too. Then days are there abouts. I'll begin the booth next week. A plague on that Luigi for not being back here. He's the best hand I have to cut the willow buds for the roof. It's the difference between one year's gross and then others. I'll say that much for him, despite of the silly dreaming head he's got on his shoulders. One was so pleased with his clearing up his mind as to Senor Felipe's purpose about the time of the sheep shearing that it put him in a good humor for the day. Good humor with everybody and himself most of all. As he sat on the low bench his head leaning back against the white washed wall, his long legs stretched out nearly across the pits of the veranda, his pipe firm wedged in the extreme left corner of his mouth, his hands in his pockets, he was the picture of placid content. The troupe of youngsters which still swarmed around the kitchen quarters of Senora Moreno's house almost as numerous and inexplicable as in the grand old days of the general's time ran back and forth across one's legs, fell down between them and picked themselves up by the help of witches at his leather trousers. All unreproved by Juan, so loudly scolded and warned by their respective mothers from the kitchen. What's come to Juan can to be so good-natured today. So silly asked Margarita, the youngest and prettiest of the maids, popping her head out the window and twitching Juan's hair. He seemed to them as old as Metusela but he was not really so old as they thought, not they so safe in their tricks. The old man swains yet as the undershepards could testify. The sight of your pretty face, Senorita Margarita, answered Juan quickly, cocking his eye at her, rising to his feet and making a mock bow towards the window. Hey, Senorita indeed chuckled Margarita's mother, or mothered a cook. Senor Juan Canito is pleased to be married at the doors of his bedders and she flung a copper saucepan full of not over clean water so deftly passed Juan's head that not the drop touched him and yet he had the appearance of having been ducked. At which bit of sleight of hand the whole courtyard, young and old, babies, cocks, hens and turkeys all set up a shout and a cackle and dispersed to all four corners of the yard as if scattered by a volley of bird shots. Hearing the racket, the rest of the maids came running, Anita and Maria, the twins, women of 40 years old, born on the place the year after General Moreno brought home his handsome young bride the two daughters, Rosa and Anita the little, as she was still cold so she outweighed her mother old Juanita, the oldest woman in the household, whom even the senora was said not to know the exact age or history and she, pushing, could tell nothing having been silly for 10 years or more, could for nothing except to shell beans that she did as fast and well as ever and was never happy except she was at it. Luckily for her, beans are the one crop never omitted or stinted on the Mexican estate and for the sake of old Juanita they stored every year in the Moreno's house rooms full of beans in a pot tons of them, one would think enough to feed an army but then it was like a little army even now, the senora's household nobody ever knew exactly how many women were in the kitchen how many men in the fields there were always women cousins or brothers' wives or widows or daughters who had come to stay or men cousins or sisters husbands or sons who were stopping on the way up or down the valley when it came down to the payroll senora Felipe knew to whom he paid wages but who were fed and lodged under his roof, that was quite another thing it could not enter into the head of a Mexican gentleman to make either count or account of that it would be a disgraceful niggardly sword to the senora it seemed as if there were no longer any people about the place a backerly handful, she would have said hardly enough to do the work of the house or the estate sadly as the latter had twindled in the generous day it had been a free-handed boast of his that nevertheless than 50 persons men, women and children were fed within his gates each day how many more he did not care or know but that time had indeed gone gone forever and though a stranger seen the sudden rush and mustered door and window which followed an old mother's letting fly the water at one's head he would have sought God heavens to all those women children and babies belong in that one house the senora's soul sought as she at that moment went past the gate was poor things how few there are left of them I'm afraid old mother has to work too hard I must spare my greater more from the house to help her and she sighed deeply and unconsciously held her rosary nearer to her heart as she went into the house and entered her son's bedroom the picture she saw there was one to thrill any mother's heart as it met her eye she paused on the threshold for a second only a second however and nothing could have astonished Felipe Moreno so much as to have been told that at the very moment when his mother's calm voice was saying to him good morning my son I hope you have slept well and are better there was a welling up in her heart of passionate ejaculation oh my glorious son the saints have sent me in him the face of his father he is fit for a kingdom the truth is Felipe Moreno was not fit for a kingdom at all if he had been he would not have been so ruled by his mother without ever finding it out but so far as near physical beauty goes however was a king born whose face stature and bearing would have set off a crown or a throne or any of the things of which the outside of reality is made up better than what Felipe Moreno's and it was true as the senora said whether the saints had anything to do with it or not that he had the face of his father so strong a likeness is seldom seen when Felipe once on the occasion of a grand celebration and procession put on a short velvet mantle gaily embroidered short breeches fastened at the knee with red ribbons and a gold and silver trimmed sombrero which his father had worn 25 years before the senora fainted at her first look at him fainted and fell and when she opened her eyes she saw the same splendid gaily arrayed dark bearded man bending over her in distress with words of endearment and alarm she fainted again mother, mother Mia said to Felipe, I will not wear them if it makes you feel like this let me take them off I will not go to the accursed parade and he sprang to his feet and began with trembling fingers to unbuckle the sword belt no no Felipe faintly cried the senora from the ground it is my wish that you wear them and staggering to her feet with the burst of tears she re-buckled the old sword belt which her fingers had so many times never unkissed her husband had bade her farewell and gone forth to the uncertain fates of war wear them she cried and gathering fire in her tones and her eyes dry of tears wear them and let the American hound see what the Mexican officer and gentleman looked like before they had set their base usurping feet on our necks and she followed him to the gate and to direct bravely waving her handkerchief as he galloped off till he was out of sight then with a changed face and a bent head she crept slowly to her room locked herself in and fell on her knees before the Madonna at the head of her bed and spent the greater part of the day praying that she might be forgiven and that all heretics might be discomfited from which part of these supplications she derived most comfort is easy to imagine Juan Canito had been right in his sudden surmise that it was for Father Salvador's coming that the sheep shearing was being delayed and not in consequence of Señor Felipe's illness or by the non-appearance of Luigio and his flock of sheep Juan would have chuckled to himself still more at his perspicacity had he overheard the conversation going on between the senora and her son at the very time when he half asleep on the veranda was as he would have called it putting two and two together and convincing himself that the old Juan was as smart as they were and not to be kept in the dark sense and equivocation Juan Can is growing very impatient about the sheep shearing said the senora I suppose you are still of the same mind about it Felipe that it is better to wait till Father Salvador comes as the only chance those Indians have of seeing him is here it would seem a Christian duty to so arrange it, if it be possible but Juan is very restive he is getting old and he cuffs a little a fancy under your control I cannot forget that you were a boy on his knee now I, for my part, am like to forget that you were ever anything but the man for me to lean on Felipe turns his handsome face towards his mother with a beaming smile of filial affection and gratified manly vanity indeed my mother if I can be sufficient for you to lean on I will ask nothing more of the saints and he took his mother's sin and wasted little hands both at once in his own strong right hand and carried them to his lips as a lover might have done you will spoil me mother he said, you make me so proud no Felipe, it is I who am proud promptly replied the mother and I do not call it being proud only grateful to God for having given me a son wise enough to take his father's place and guide and protect me through the few remaining years I have to live I shall die content seeing you at the head of the estate and living as a Mexican gentleman should that is, so far as now remains possible in this unfortunate country but about the sheep shearing Felipe do you wish to have it begun before the father is here? of course Alessandro is already with his band it is but two days journey for a messenger to bring him Father Salvidera cannot be here before the 10th of the month he leaves Santa Barbara on the 1st and he will walk all the way a good six days journey for his old now and feeble and tour for a Sunday and a day at the Ortegas ranch and at the Lopez there there is a Christianing yes the 10th is the very earliest that he can be here near two weeks from now so far as you are getting up is concerned it might perhaps be next week you will be nearly well by that time yes indeed, loved Felipe stretching himself out in the bed and giving a kick to the bed close that met the high bed posts of the Biroof Shaking Creek I am well now if it were not for this cursed weakness when I stand on my feet I believe it would do me good to get out of doors in truth Felipe had been hankering for the sheep shearing himself it was a brisk busy holiday sort of time for him hard as he worked in it and two weeks looked long to wait it's always tough after a fever said his mother the weakness lasts many weeks I am not sure that you will be strong enough even in two weeks to do the packing but as Juan can said this morning he stood at the packing bag when you were a boy and there was no need of waiting for you for that he said that did he exclaimed Felipe restfully the old man is getting insulant I'll tell him that nobody will pack the sex but myself while I am master here and I will have the sheep shearing when I please and not before I suppose it would not be wise to say that it is not to take place till the father comes would it as if this thing were evenly balanced in her mind the father has not that hold on the younger man he used to have and I have thought that even in Juan himself I have detected a remissness the spirit of unbelief is spreading in the country since the Americans running up and down everywhere seeking money like dogs with their noses to the ground it might wax Juan if he knew that you were waiting only for the father but do you think I think it's enough for him to know that the sheep shearing waits for my pleasure answered Felipe still restful and that is the end of it and so it was and moreover precisely the end which senora Moreno had had in her own mind from the beginning but not even Juan can need to himself suspected it's being solely her purpose and not her stance as for Felipe if any person had suggested to him that it was his mother who had decided that the sheep shearing would be better deferred until the arrival of Father Salvedera from Santa Barbara and that nothing should be said on the ranch about this being the real reason for the postponing Felipe would have stared in astonishment and have thought that person either crazy or full to attain one's end in this way is a consumer triumph of art never to appear as a factor in the situation to be able to wield other men as instruments same direct and implicit response to well that one gets from a hand or a foot this is to triumph indeed to be as nearly controller and conqueror of fates as fate permits there have been men prominent in worlds affairs at one time and another who have sought and studied such a power and have acquired it to a great degree by it they have manipulated legislators, ambassadors, sovereigns and have grasped, held and played with the destinies of empires but it is to be questioned whether even in these notable instances there has ever been such marvelous completeness of success as is sometimes seen in the case of a woman in whom the power is an instinct and not attainment a passion rather than a purpose between the two results between the two processes there is just a difference which is always to be seen between the stroke of talent and the stroke of genius this in your Amoreno's was a stroke of genius end of chapter 1 recording by Ellie made 2009 chapter 2 of Ramona this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Ellie Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson chapter 2 it is to be found in California of the representative house of the half-paparic, half-elegant holy generous and free-handed life led there by Mexican men and women of degree in the early part of the century under the rule of the Spanish and Mexican viceroy when the laws of the Indies were still the law of the land and its name, New Spain was an ever-present link and stimulus to the warmest memories and deepest patriotism of its people and its generous life with more of sentiment and deity in it more also that was truly traumatic more romance than will ever be seen again on those sunny shores the aroma of it all lingers there industries and inventions have not yet slain it it will last out its century in fact it can never be quite lost so long as there is left standing on such house as the Senora Moreno's when the house was built General Moreno owned all the land within a radius of 40 miles 40 miles westward down the valley to the sea 40 miles eastward into the San Fernando mountains and a good 40 miles more or less along the coast the boundaries were not very strictly defined there was no occasion in those happy days to reckon land by inches it might be asked perhaps how General Moreno owned all this land and the question might not be easy to answer it was not and could not be answered to the satisfaction of the United States Land Commission which after the surrender of California undertook to sift and adjust Mexican land titles and that was the way it had come about that the Senora Moreno now called herself a poor woman tracked after tracked her lands had been taken away from her it looked for a time as if nothing would be left every one of the claims based on the deeds of gift from Governor Pio Fico her husband's most intimate friend was disallowed they all belonged to the Bonaventura Mission and lay along the coast at the mouth of the valley down which at the little stream which ran past her house went to the sea and it had been a great pride and delight to the Senora and she was young to ride the 40 miles by her husband's side all the way on their own lands straight from the house to their own strip of shore no wonder she believed the American always as hounds the people of the United States have never in the least realized that taking possession of California was not only a conquering of Mexico but a conquering of California as well that the real bitterness of the surrender was not so much to the empire which gave up the country as to the country itself which was given up. Provences passed back and forth in that way held blessed in the hands of great powers have all the ignominy and humiliation of defeat with none of the dignities or compensation of the transaction Mexico saved much by her treaty despite of having to acknowledge herself beaten but California lost all. Words cannot tell the sting of such a transfer it is a marvel that the Mexicans remained in the country probably none did except for those who were absolutely forced to it. Luckily for the Senora Moreno her title to the lands between the valley was better than those lying to the West which had once belonged to the missions of San Fernando and Bonaventura and after all the claims counterclaims, petitions appeals and adjudications were ended she was left in undisputed possession of what would have been sought by any newcomer into the country to be a handsomestate but which seemed to the despoiled and indignant Senora a pitiful fragment of one. Moreover she declared that she should never feel secure of the foot of even this any day she said the United States government might send out a new land commission to examine the decrease of the first and revoke such as this of it once a thief always a thief nobody needed to feel himself safe under American rule there was no knowing what might happen any day and year by year the lines of sadness, resentment, anxiety and antagonism deepen on the Senora's fast aging face it gave her unspeakable satisfaction and the commissioners laying out the road down the valley ran it at the back of her house instead of past the front it is well she said let the address be where it belongs behind our kitchen and no one have sight of the front doors of our houses except friends who have come to visit us her enjoyment of this never flaked whenever she saw passing the place wagons or carriages belong to the hated Americans it gave her a distinct thrill of pleasure to think that the house turned its back on them she would like always to be able to do the same herself but whatever she by policy or in business might be forced to do the old house at any rate would always keep the attitude of contempt its face turned away one other pleasure she provided herself with soon after this road was opened a pleasure in which religious devotion and race antagonism were so closely blended that it would have puzzled the subtlest of priests to decide whether the act were a sin or a virtue she caused to be set up upon every one of the soft rounded hills which made the beautiful rolling sides of that part of the valley a large wooden cross not the hill inside of her house left without the sacred emblem of her face that the heretics may know when they go by that they are on the estate of a good Catholic she said and that the faithful may be reminded to pray for the life with miracles of conversion brought on the most hardened by a sudden sight of the blessed cross there they stood summer and winter rain and shine the silent solemn outstretched arms and became landmarks to many a guideless traveler who had been told that his way would be by the first turn to the left or the right after passing the last one of Senora Moreno's crosses which she couldn't miss seeing and who shall I say that it did not bore a sudden message to some idle heart churning by and thus justified the pious half to Senora's impulse certain it is that many a good Catholic halted and crossed himself when he first beheld them in the lonely places standing out in sudden relief against the blue sky and if he said a swift short prayer at the site was he not so much the better the house was of a boat low with a wide veranda on three sides of the inner court and the still broader one across the entire front which looked to the south these verandas especially those on the inner court supplementary rooms to the house the greater part of the family life and on in them nobody stayed inside the walls except when it was necessary all the kitchen work except the actual cooking was done here in front of the kitchen doors and windows babies slept were washed set in the dirt and played on the veranda women set the prayers took the naps and wolf their lace there all tournita shelled her beans there and threw the pots down on the tile floor till towards night there were sometimes piled up high around her like corn husks at husking the herdsmen and shepherd smoked there launched there trained the dogs there there the young maid laugh and the old those the benches which ran the entire length of the walls were worn into hollows and shown legs set in the tilted floors were also broken and sunk in places making little verse which filled up in times of hard rains and were then an invaluable addition to the children's resources for amusement and also the comfort for the dogs cats and foals who picked about among them taking tips from each the arched veranda along the front was a delight some place it must have been 80 feet long at least for the doors of five large rooms opened on it the two western most rooms had been added on and made four steps higher than the others which gave to that end of the veranda the look of a balcony or lodger here the senior kept her flowers great red water jars handmade by the Indians of San Luis Obispo Mission stood in close rows against the walls and in them were always growing fine geraniums carnations and yellow flowered mask the senior's passion for mask she had inherited from her mother it was so strong that she sometimes wandered at it and one day as she sat with father Salvador on the veranda she picked a handful of the blossoms and giving them to him said I do not know why it is but it seems to me if I were dead I could be brought to life by the smell of mask it is in your blood senior the old monk replied when I was last in your father's house in Seville your mother sent for me to her room and under her window was a stone balcony full of growing masks which so filled the room with its odor that I was like to faint and she said cured her of diseases and without it she fell ill you were a baby then yes the senior cried but I recollected balcony I recollect being lifted up to a window and looking down into a bed of blooming yellow flowers but I did not know what they were how strange no not strange daughter replied father Salvador it would have been stranger if you had not acquired the taste thus drawing it in with the mother's milk it would behoove mothers to remember this far more than they do besides the graniums and carnations and mask in the red jars there were many sorts of climbing vines some coming from the ground and twining around the pillars of the veranda some growing in great bowls swung by quartz from the roof of the veranda a set on shelves against the walls these bowls were of gray stone hollowed and polished shining smooth inside and out they also had been made by the Indians nobody knew how many ages ago scooped and polished by the patient creatures is only stones for tombs among these vines singing from morning till night on the senora's canaries and finishes half a dozen of each all in different generations raised by the senora she was never without the young bird family on hand and all the way from one event over to Monterey it was so the piece of good luck to come into possession of a canary of finch of senora moreno's raising between the veranda and the river matters out on which it looked all was garden, orange grove and elmond orchard the orange grove always green never without snowy bloom or golden fruit the garden never without flowers summer or winter and the elmond orchard in early spring a flattering canopy of pink and white petals which seen from the herds on the opposite side of the river looked as if rosy sunrise clouds had fallen and become tangled in the tree tops on either hand stretched away other orchards peach apricot pear apple pomegranate and beyond these vineyards nothing was to be seen but virtue or bloom of root at whatever time of year we sat on the senora's south surrender a wide straight walk shaded by trellis so knotted and twisted with grape coins that little was to be seen of the trellis woodwork let's trade down from the veranda steps to the middle of the garden to a little brook at the foot of it across this brook in the shade of a dozen narrowed old willow trees we sat the broad flat stone washboards on which was done all the family washing no dawdling and no running away from the work on the part of the maids thus close to the eye of the senora at the upper end of the garden and if they had known how to look there kneeling on the grass lifting the dripping linen out of the water rubbing it back and forth on the stones suzing it ringing it splashing the clear water in each other's faces they would have been content to stay at the washing day in day out for there was always somebody to look on from above hardly they passed that the senora had not visited us she was still a person of note her house the natural resting place for all her journey through the valley she came spent all his time and not eating sleeping or walking over the place sitting with the senora on the sunny veranda few days in winter were cold enough and in some of the days must be very hot indeed to drive the senora and her friends indoors there stood on the veranda three carved open chairs and a carved bench also of oak which had been brought to the senora for safekeeping by the faithful old sacristan of Saint Louis Ray at the time the completion of the mission by the united states true soon after the conquest of california aghast at the sacrilegious acts of the soldiers who were quartered in the very church itself and amuse themselves by making targets of the eyes and noses of the saint statues the sacristan star silly day by day and night after night were out of the church all that he dared to remove burying some articles in cotton wood corpses hiding others in his own poor little cover until he had weighing loads of sacred treasures then still more seriously he carried them a few at the time concealed in the bottom of a cart under a load of hay or of trash to the house of the senora who felt herself deeply honored by his confidence and received everything as a sacred trust to be given back into the hands of the church again whenever the missions should be restored of which at that time all Catholics had good hope and so came about that no bedroom in the Senora's house was without the picture or a statue of a saint or of the Madonna and some had too and in the little chapel in the garden the altar was surrounded by a really imposing row of holy and apostolic figures which had looked down on the splendid ceremonies of the San Luis Ray Mission and Father Perry's time no more benignly than they now did on the humble of worship of the Senora's family and its diminished estate they had lost an eye and other an arm that the once brilliant colors of the Trpery were now faded and shabby only enhanced the tender reverence with which the Senora knelt before them her eyes filling with indignant tears at the sword of the heretic hands which had wrought such defilement even the crumbling rest which had been placed on some of the statue's heads at the time of the last ceremonial at which they had figured in the mission had been brought away with them by the devout Senora had replaced each one holding it only a decree less sacred than the statue itself. This chapel was dearer to the Senora than her house it had been built by the General in the second year of their married life. In it all four children had been Christian and from it all but one her handsome Philippe had been buried while they were infants. The General's time while the estate was at its best and hundreds of Indians living within its borders there was many and the scene to be witnessed there was like the scenes at the missions. The chapel full of kneeling men and women those who could not find room inside kneeling in the garden walks outside Father Salvidera in gorgeous vestments coming at close of the service slowly down the aisle the close packed crowds of warshipers parting to right and to left to let him through all looking up eagerly for his blessing women giving him offerings of fruit or flowers giving up the babies that he might lay his hands on their heads. No one but Father Salvidera had ever officiated in the Moreno chapel or heard the confession of a Moreno. He was a Franciscan one of the few now left in the country so revered and beloved by all who had come under his influence that they would wait long months without the offices of a church rather than confess their sins or confide their complexities to anyone else. From this seated attachment on the part of the Indians and the older Mexican families in the country to the Franciscan order they had grown up but unnaturally some jealousy of them the minds of the later come secular priests and the position of the few monks left was not wholly a pleasant one. It had even been rumored that they were to be forbidden to continue longer their practice of going up and down the country ministering everywhere were to be compelled to restrict their labors to their own colleges at Santa Barbara and Santa Inés. When something to this effect was one day said in the Senora Moreno's presence two scarlet spots spring on her cheeks and before she besought herself she exclaimed that they had burned down my chapel. Luckily nobody but Felipe heard the trash's red and his exclamation of unbound astonishment recalled the Senora to herself. I spoke crashly my son, she said the church is to be obeyed always but the Franciscan fathers are responsible to no one but the superior of their own order. And there is no one in this land who has the authority to forbid them journeying and ministering to whoever desires their offices. As for these Catalan priests who are coming in here I cannot abide them. No Catalan has good blood in his veins. There was every reason in the world why the Senora should be thus warmly attached to the Franciscan order. From her earliest recollections the Greygown and Cole have been familiar to her eyes and had represented the things which she was taught to hold most sacred and dear. Father Salvedera himself had come from Mexico to Monterrey in the same ship which had brought her father to be the commandate of the Santa Barbara Presidio. And her best-beloved uncle, her father's eldest brother, was at that time superior of the Santa Barbara mission. The sentiment and romance of her use were almost equally divided between the gayities' excitements adornments of life at the Presidio and the ceremonies and devotions of the life at the mission. She was famed as the most beautiful girl in the country. Men of the army, men of the navy and men of the church alike adored her. Her name was a toast from Monterrey to San Diego. And at last she was wooed and won by Felipe Moreno, one of the most distinguished of the Mexican generals having ceremonies at the most splendid ever seen in the country. The ride-tower of the mission church at Santa Barbara had just been completed and it was arranged that the consecration of this tower should take place at the time of her wedding and that her wedding feast should be spread in the long outside corridor of the mission building. The whole country, far and near, was bit. The feast lasted three days, opened tables to everybody, singing, dancing, eating, drinking and making merry. At that time there were long streets of Indian houses stretching eastward from the mission before each of these houses was built of booths of green boards. The Indians, as well as the fathers from all the other missions, were invited to come. The Indians came in bands singing songs and bringing gifts as they appeared the Santa Barbara Indians and out to meet them also singing and bearing gifts and throwing seeds on the ground in token of welcome. The young senora and her bridegroom splendidly closed, were seen of all and greeted whenever they appeared by showers of seed and grains and blossoms. On the third day still in the wedding attire and bearing lighted candles in their hands they walked with the monks in the procession round and round the new tower and monks chanting and sprinkling incense and holy waters on its walls. The ceremony seemed to all devout beholders to give a blessed consecration to the union of the young pair, as well as the newly completed tower. After this they churned it in state accompanied by several of the general's aides and officers and by two Franciscan fathers up to Monterey stopping on their way at all the missions and being warmly welcomed and entertained at each. General Moreno was much beloved in both army and church. In many of the frequent clashings between the military and the ecclesiastical powers, he being as devout and enthusiastic a chesolic as he was cellars and enthusiastic a soldier had had the good fortune to be of material assistance to each party. The Indians also knew his name well, having heard it many times mentioned with public thanksgivings in the mission churches. After some signal service he had rendered to the fathers either in Mexico or Monterey and now, by taking as his pride the daughter of a distinguished officer and the niece of the Santa Barbara Superior he had linked himself anew to the two dominant powers in the interests of the country. When they reached, San Luis Obispo the whole Indian population turned out to meet him, the pattern walking at the head. As they approached the mission doors the Indians wound closer and closer and still closer, took the general's horse by the head and finally almost by actual force compelled him to allow himself to be lifted into a blanket held high up by twenty strong men and thus he was born up the steps across the corridor into the padre's room. It was a position ludicrously undignified in itself but the general submitted to it good-naturedly. Oh, let them do it if they like, he cried lovingly. As padre Martinez who was endeavouring to quiet the Indians and hold them back, let them do it please is the poor creatures. On the morning of their departure the good padre having exhausted all his resources of entertaining his distinguished guests caused to be driven past the corridors for the inspection, all the pollutry belonged to the mission. The procession took an hour to pass. From music there was the squeaking crackling, hissing, gobbling, growing cracking of the foals, combined with the screaming, scolding and whip cracking of the excited Indian marshals of the lines. First came the turkeys, then the roosters, then the white hands, then the black, then the yellow, next the ducks and at the tail of the spectacles long files of geese. Some strutting, somehow flying and hissing in resentment and terror at the unwanted coercions to which they were subjected. The Indians had been hard at work, all night capturing, sorting, assorting and guarding the rank and file of their novel pageant. It would be safe to say that the troller side never was seen and never will be on the Pacific coast or any other. Before it was done with, the general in this pride had nearly died with his laughter and the general could never elude to it without almost loving as heartily again. At Monterrey they were more magnificently defeated. At the Presidio, at the mission on board, Spanish, Mexican and Russian ships lying in harbour, balls, dances, bullfights, dinners, all that the country knew of festivity was lavished on the beautiful and winning young pride. The barrels of the coast from San Diego up had all gathered at Monterrey for not one of them could be for a moment compared to her. This was the beginning of the Senora's life as a married woman. She was then just 20. A close observer would have seen even then, underneath the joyous smile, the loving eye, the merry voice, a look thoughtful, tender, earnest, at times enthusiastic. This look was the reflection of those qualities in her, then hardly aroused, which made her, as years developed her character in Stormy Fates and around her life, the unflinching comrade of her soldier husband, the passionate deterrent to the church. Through her insurrections, revolutions, downfalls, Spanish, Mexican, civil, ecclesiastical, her standpoint, her pose remained the same. She simply grew more and more proudly, passionately, a Spaniard and a Moreno and more and more stensily and fireily, a Catholic and a lover of the Franciscans. Curing the height of the sprawling and blundering of the missions under the Secularization Act, she was for a few years almost beside herself. More than once, she churned it alone and the journey was by no means without danger to Monterey to stir up the prefect of the missions to more energetic actions, to employ the governmental authorities to interfere and protect the church's property. It was largely in consequence of her eloquent entreaties that Governor Michael Torino is to this bootless order restoring to the church all the missions south of St. Louis Obispo. But this order caused Michael Torino his political head and General Moreno was severely wounded in one of the skirmishes of the insurrection which drove Michael Torino out of the country. In silence and bitter humiliation the senior nurse her husband went back to her house again and resolved to meddle no more in the affairs of an unhappy country and still more unhappy church. Later she saw the ruin of the missions steadily going on, the vast property smelting away like dew before the sun. In the hands of dishonest administrators and politicians, the church powerless to contend with the unprincipled greed in high places, her beloved Franciscan fathers, driven from the country or dying of starvation at their posts, she submitted herself to what she was forced to admit. Seemed to be the inscrutable will of God for the discipline and courage. In a sort of bewildered resignation she waited to see what further sufferings were to come to fill up the measure of the punishment which for some mysterious purpose the faithful must endure. But when close upon all discomfort and humiliation of her church followed the discomfort and humiliation of her country in war and the near and evident danger of an English speaking peoples processing the land, all the smothered fire of the church broke out the fresh, with unfordering hands she buckled on her husband's sword and with dry eyes saw him go forth to fight. She had but one regret that she was not the mother of sons to fight also. Would thou wert the man, Philippe? She exclaimed again and again in tones the child never forgot. Would thou wert the man, that Thou might also go to fight this foreigners? Any race under the sun would have been to the American. She had scorned them in her girlhood and they came trading to post after post. She scorned them still. The idea of being forced to wage a war with peddlers was to her two monstrous to be believed. In the onset she had no doubt that the Mexicans would win the contest. What she cried, shall we who won independence from Spain be beaten by these traitors? It's impossible. When her husband was brought home to her dead, killed in the last Mexican forces made, she said easily, he would have chosen to die rather than have been forced to see his country in the hands of the enemy. And she was almost frightened at herself to see how this thought as it twirled on her mind, slew the grief in her heart. She had believed she could not live if her husband were to be taken away from her. But she found herself often glad that he was dead. Glad that he was spared the sight and the knowledge of the things which happened. Even the yearning tenderness which her imagination pictured him among the saints was often turned into a fierce wandering, where the indignation did not fill his soul even in heaven at the way things were going in the land for whose sake he had died. Out of such throes as these had been born the second nature which made Senora Moreno the silent, reserved, stern, implacable woman than you who knew her first when she was sixty. Of the gay, tender, sentimental girl who danced and laughed with the officers and prayed and confessed to the fathers forty years before there was small trace left now in the low-waste, white-haired, aged woman, silent and smiling, placid face, to maneuvered with her son and her head shepherd-alike to bring it about that the handful of Indians might once more confess their sins to a Franciscan monk in the Moreno chapter. End of chapter 2, recording by Ellie May 2009 Chapter 3 of Ramona This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org recording by Ellie. Ramona, by Helen Hunt Jackson Chapter 3 Juan Canito and Senora Felipe were not the only members of the Senora's family who were impatient for the sheep shearing. There was also Ramona. Ramona was to the world at large a far more important person than the woman herself. The Senora was of the past. Ramona was of the present. For one eye that could see the significant, at times solemn beauty of the Senora's pale and shattered countenance, there were a hundred that fleshed with eager flesh at the barest glimpse of Ramona's face. The shepherds, the herdsmen, the maids, the babies, the dogs and the poultry all laughed the sight of Ramona, all laughed her except the Senora. The Senora laughed her not. Never had laughed her, never could and yet she had stood in the place of a mother to the girl ever since her childhood and never once during the whole sixteen years of her life had shown her any unkindness in act. She had promised to be a mother to her and with all the inalienable stenceness of her nature she fulfilled the letter of her promise more than the bond lay in the bond but that was not the Senora's fault. The story of Ramona the Senora never told. To most of the Senora's acquaintances now Ramona was a mystery. They did not know and no one ever asked the prying question of the Senora Moreno. Who Ramona's parents were whether they were living or dead, or while Ramona, the name not being Moreno, lived always in the Senora's house as a daughter, tended and attended equally with the Edward Philippe. A few grey-haired men and women here and there in the country could have told the strange story of Ramona but its beginning was more than half a century back and much had happened since then. They seldom thought of the child. They knew she was in the Senora Moreno's keeping and that was enough. The affairs of the generation just going out were not the business of the young people coming in. They would have treated this enough of their own presently. What was the use of passing down the old ones? Yet the story was not one to be forgotten and now and then it was told in the twilight of a summer evening or in the shadows of wines on a afternoon and all the young men and maidens thrilled for her did. It was an elder sister of the Senora's, a sister old enough to be wooed and won while the Senora was yet at play, who had been promised a marriage to a young scotchman named Angus Fale. She was a beautiful woman and Angus Fale from the day that he first saw her standing in the procedure gate became so madly her lover that he was like a man bereft of his senses. That was the only use ever to be made for a Mona Gonzegas deed. It could never be denied by her bitterest accusers that at the first and indeed for many months she told Angus she did not love him and could not marry him and that it was only after his stormy and ceaseless entreaties that she finally did promise to become his wife. Then almost immediately she went away to Monterey and Angus said Fale for Samples. He was the owner of the richest line of ships located along the coast at that time. The richest staffs carvings, woods, pearls and chores which came into the country came in his ships. The arrival of one of them was always an event and Angus himself having been well-born in Scotland and being wonderfully well-mannered or a seafaring man was made welcome in all the best houses wherever his ships went into harbour from Monterey to San Diego. The senorita Ramona Gonzaga sailed the same day and hour her lover sailed for Samples. The student decks waving signals to each other as one sailed away to the south the other to the north. It was remembered afterward by those who were in their ship with the senorita that she ceased to wave her signals and had turned her face away long before her lover's ship was out of sight. But the man of the San Jose said that Angus Fale stood immovable, gazing northward till nightfall shut from his side to the horizon line at which the Monterey ship had long before disappeared from view. This was to be his last voyage. He went on this only because his honor was pledged to do so. Also, he comforted himself by thinking that he would bring back for his bride and for the home he meant to give her treasures of all sorts which none could select as well as he. Through the long weeks of the voyage he sat on deck, gazing dreamily at the waves and letting swell that slayses which would best deck his wife's form and face. When he could no longer be at vivid fancy's heat in his blood he would pace the deck, swifter and swifter, till his steps were like those of one flying in fear. At such times the man heard him muttering and whispering to himself Ramona, Ramona. Made his laugh from the first to the last as Angus Fale and there were many who believed that if he had ever seen the hour when he called Ramona Gonzaga his own, his reason would have fled forever at that moment and he would have killed either her or himself as men thus mad have been known to do, but that hour never came. When, eight months later, the San Jose sailed into the Santa Barbara harbour and Angus Fale le presles on shore the second man he met, no friend of his, looking him maliciously in the face said, Soho, you are just too late for the wedding, your sweet heart the handsome Gonzaga girl was married here yesterday to a fine young officer of the Monterey Presidio Angus reeled, struck the man a blow full in the face and fell on the ground, foaming at the mouse he was lifted and carried into a house and, speedily recovering burst with the strength of a giant from the hands of those who were holding him spring out of the door and rent bear headed up the road toward the presidio, at the gate he was stopped by the guard who knew him Is it true, Angus gasped Yes, senor, replied the man who said afterward that his knees shook under him with terror at the look of the scotch man's face he feared he would strike him dead for his reply but instead Angus burst into a muddle in love and turning away when staggering down the street singing and loving and the next that was known of him was in a low drinking place where he was seen lying on the floor dead drunk and from that day he sank low and lower till one of the commonest sites to be seen in Santa Barbara was Angus failed reeling about tipsy cause, loud, profane and dangerous see what the senora escaped said the swordless she was quite right not to have married such a drunk muretch in the rare intervals when he was partially sober he sold all he possessed ship after ship sold for a song and the proceeds squandered in drinking a verse he never had a sight of his lost pride he did not seek it and she terrified took every precaution to avoid it and soon returned with her husband to Monterrey finally Angus disappeared and after a time the news came from Los Angeles that he was there had gone out to the San Gabriel mission and was living with the Indians some years later came the still more surprising news that he had married a squore a squore with several Indian children had been legally married by a priest in the San Gabriel Mission Church and that was the last that the faceless Ramona Gonzaga ever heard of her lover until 25 years after her marriage when one day he suddenly appeared in her presence how he had gained admittance to the house was never known but there he stood before her hearing in his arms a beautiful baby sleep drawing himself up to the utmost of his six feet of height and looking at her sternly his eyes blue like steel he said senora a tager once did make great wrong you sinned and the Lord has punished you he has denied you children I also have done a wrong I have sinned and the Lord has punished me he has given me a child I ask once more at your hands a boon will you take this child of mine and bring it up as a child of yours or of mine ought to be brought up the tears were rolling down senora a tager's cheeks the Lord had indeed punished her in more ways than Angus fell new the childlessness bitter as that had been was the least of them speechless she rose and stretched out her hands for the child he placed it in them still the child slept on undisturbed I do not know if I will be permitted she said falteringly my husband Father Selvedere I will command it I have seen him replied Angus the Senora's face brightened if that be so I hope it can be as you wish she said and then a strange man came upon her and looking upon the infant she said inquiringly but the child's mother Angus' face turned swassy red perhaps face to face with this gentle and still lovely woman he had once so laughed he first realized to the full how wickedly he had thrown away his life with a quick wave of his hand which spoke volumes he said that is nothing she has other children of her own blood this is mine my only one my daughter I wish her to be yours otherwise she will be taken by the church with each second that she felt the little warm bodies tender weight in her arms her mono or taiga's heart had more and more yarn towards the infant at these words she bent her face down and kissed its cheeks oh no not the church I will love it as my own she said Angus' face quivered feelings long dead within him stirred in their graves he gazed at the sad and altered face you aren't so beautiful so dear I should hardly have known you senora burst from him involuntarily she smiled piteously with no resentment that is not strange I hardly know myself she whispered life has dealt very hardly with me I should not have known you either Angus she pronounced his name hesitantly half appealingly at the sound of the familiar syllables so long unheard the man's heart broke down he buried his face in his hands and sobbed out oh Ramona forgive me I brought the child here not wholly in love partly in vengeance but I melt it now are you sure you wish to keep her I'll take her away if you are not never so long as I live Angus replied senora a taiga already I feel that she's a mercy from the lord if my husband sees no offence in her presence she will be a joy in my life has she been Christian Angus cast his eyes down a sudden fear smote him before I had thought of bringing her to you he stammered at first I had only the thought of giving her to the church I had had her Christian by the words refused to leave his lips the name can you not guess senora what name she bears the senora knew my own she said Angus bowed his head the only woman's name that my lips ever spoke with love he said reassured was the name my daughter should be it is well replied the senora then a great silence fell between them each studied the other's face tenderly bewilderedly then by simultaneous impulse the trunera Angus stretched out both his arms with a gesture of infinite love and despair bent down and kissed the hands which lovingly held his sleeping child God bless you Ramona farewell you will never see me more he cried and was gone in a moment more he reappeared on the threshold of the door but only to say in a low tone there is no need to be alarmed if the child does not wake for hours yet she has had a safe sleeping potion given her it will not harm her one more lingering look into each other's faces and the two lovers so strangely parted still more strangely met had parted again forever the quarter of a century which had lain between them had been bridged in both their hearts as if it were but the day in the heart of the man it was the old passionate adoring love reawakening a resurrection of the buried dead to full life with linear man's unchanged in the woman it was not dead there was no buried love to come to such resurrection in her heart for she had never loved Angus fail but long and loved ill-treated heart broken she woke at that moment to the realization of what manner of love it had been which she had thrown away in her use the whole being yearn for it now and Angus was avenged when Francis Ortega late that night reeled half-tipsy into his wife's room he was suddenly sobered by the sight which met his eyes his wife kneeling by the side of the cradle in which lay smiling in its sleep a beautiful infant what in the devil's name he began then recollecting him uttered oh, the indian bread I see, I wish your choice and you are Ortega of your first child and the cruel sneer he staggered by giving the cradle an angry thrust with his foot as he passed the brutal taunt did not much wound the senora the time had long since passed when unkind words from her husband could give her keen pain but it was a warning not lost upon her new born mother instinct and from that day the little Ramona was carefully kept and tended in apartments where there was no danger of her being seen by the man to whom the sight of her baby face was only a signal for anger and indecency hit or two Ramona Ortega had as far as possible carefully concealed from her family the unhappiness of her married life Ortega's character was indeed well known his neglect of his wife his shameful dissipations of all sorts were notorious in every port in the country but from the wife herself no one had ever heard so much as the syllable of complaint she was a Gonzaga and she knew how to suffer in silence but now she saw a reason for taking her sister into her confidence it was plain to her that she had not many years to live and what would then become of the child left to the tender mercies of Ortega it was only too certain what would become of her long said hours of perplexity the lonely woman passed with the little loving babe in her arms really endeavouring to forecast her future a near chance of her own death had not occurred to her mind and she accepted the trust before the little Ramona was a year old Angus failed died an indian messenger from San Gabriel brought the news to senior Ortega he brought her also a box and a letter given to him by Angus the day before his death the box contained jewels of value of fashions a quarter of a century old there were the jewels which Angus had bought for his pride these alone remained of all his fortune even in the lowest steps tradition a certain sentiment had restrained him from parting with them the letter contained only these words I send you all I have to leave my daughter I meant to bring them myself this year I wish to kiss your hands and hers once more but I am dying farewell after these jewels when her possession senior Ortega rested not till she had persuaded senior Moreno to journey to Monterrey and to put the box into her keeping as a sacred trust she also won from her the solemn promise that at her own death she would adopt the little Ramona this promise came hard from senior Ortega Moreno except for father Salvedera's influence she had not given it she did not wish any dealings with such an alien and mongrel blood if the child were pure indian I would like it better she said I do not like these crosses it is the worst and not the best of each that remains but the promise once given senior Ortega was content well she knew that her sister could not lie nor evade the trust the little Ramona's future was assured during the last years of the unhappy woman's life the child was her only comfort Ortega's conduct had become so openly and defiantly infamous that he even flaunted his illegitimate relations in his wife's presence subjecting her to cross insults despite of her helpless invalidism this last outrage was too much for the Gonzaga blood to endure the senior never afterward left her apartment or spoke to her husband once more she sent for her sister to come this time to see her die every valuable she possessed chewers, laces, procades and the masks she gave into her sister's charge to save them from falling into the hands of the base creature that she knew only two world would stand in place as soon as the funeral service had been said over her dead body star Sally as if she had been the soaring Senora Moreno conveyed her sister's wardrobe article by article out of the house to be sent to her own home it was the wardrobe of a princess the Ortega's lavish money always on the woman whose heart they broke it never ceased to demand of them that they should sit a purple irate in their lonely wretchedness on our of the funeral was a scant and icy ceremony of farewell to her dead sister's husband Senora Moreno leading the little Emona by the hand left the house and early the next morning set sail for home when Senora Ortega discovered that his wife's jewels and valuables of all kinds were gone he fell into a great rage and sent the messenger off post haste with an insulting letter to the Senora Moreno demanding their return for answer he got the copy of his wife's memorandum of instructions to her sister giving all the said valuables to her and trust for Emona also a letter from father Selvidera upon reading which he sank into a fit of despondency that lasted a day or two and gave his infamous associates considerable alarm lest they had lost their comrade but he soon took off the influence whatever it was and settled back into his old gate on the same old high road to the devil father Selvidera could alarm him but not save him and this was the mystery of Emona no wonder the Senora Moreno never told her story no wonder perhaps that she never loved the child it was a sad legacy linked with memories which had in them nothing but bitterness shame and sorrow from first to last how much of this old and young Emona knew or suspected was locked in her own breast her indian blood had as much proud reserve in it as it had ever been infused into the heartiest consager's vein while she was yet a little child she had one day said to the Senora Moreno Senora why did my mother give me the Senora a tiger taking her nevres the Senora replied hastily your mother had nothing whatever to do with it it was your father was my mother dead? continued the child too late the Senora saw her mistake I do not know she replied which was literally true but had the spirit of aligning it I never saw your mother did the Senora a tiger ever see her persisted Emona? no never answered the Senora coldly the old wounds burning at the innocent child's unconscious touch Emona felt the cheer and was silent for a time her face said and her eyes tearful at last she said I wish she knew if my mother was dead why? asked the Senora because if she's not dead I would ask her why she did not want me to stay with her the gentle piteousness of this reply smothered the Senora's conscience taking the child in her arms she said who has been talking to you of these things Emona Juan Ken she replied what did he say? asked the Senora which voted no good to Juan Kenito it was not to me he said it it was to Luigi but I heard him answered Emona speaking slowly as if collecting her various reminiscences on the subject twice I heard him he said that my mother was no good and that my father was bad too and tears rolled down the child's cheeks the Senora's sense of justice stood her well in the place of tenderness now caressing the little orphan as she had never done before she said with an earnestness which sank deep into the child's mind Emona you must not believe any such thing as that Juan Ken is a bad man to say it he never saw either your father or your mother and so he could know nothing about them I knew your father very well and he was not the bad man he was my friend and the friend of the Senora at Tegre and that was the reason he gave you to the Senora at Tegre because she had no child of her own and I think your mother had a good many oh, said Emona relieved for the moment at this new view of the situation that the gift had not been a charity to her but to the Senora at Tegre did the Senora at Tegre want their little daughter very much yes, very much indeed said the Senora heartily and just further she had grieved many years because she had no child a silence again for a brief space during which the little lonely heart grappling in its vague instinct of loss and wrong made white thrusts into the complexities hedging it about and presently electrified the Senora by asking in the half whisper, why didn't my father bring me to you first? did he know you did not want any daughter? the Senora was dumb for a second then recovering herself she said your father was the Senora at Tegre's friends more than he was mine I was only a child then I did not need any daughter when you had Felipe continued Ramona pursuing her original line of inquiry and reflection is out noticing the Senora's reply a son is more than a daughter but most people have both I am the Senora keenly to see what response this would bring but the Senora was very uncomfortable with the talk at the mention of Felipe a swift flash of consciousness of her inability to laugh Ramona had swept through her mind while you are a little girl you cannot understand any of these things when you are a woman I will tell you all that I know myself about your father and your mother it is very little your father died when you were only two years old all that you have to do is to be a good child and say your prayers and when father Selvedera comes he will be pleased with you and he will not be pleased if you ask troublesome questions don't ever speak to me again about this and the proper time comes I will tell you myself this was when Ramona was 10 she was now 19 she had never again asked the Senora a question bearing on the forbidden subject she had been a good child and said her prayers and father Selvedera had always been pleased with her growing more and more deeply attached to her year by year but the proper time had not yet come for the Senora to tell her anything more about her father and mother there were a few mornings on which the girl did not think perhaps it may be today she will tell me but she would not ask every word of that conversation was as vivid in her mind as it had been the day it occurred and it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that during every day of the whole nine years the deepened in her heart the conviction which had prompted the child's question did he know that you did not want any daughter a nature less gentle than Ramona's would have been embedded or at least hardened by this consciousness but Ramona was not she never put it in words to herself she accepted it as those born deformed seemed sometimes to accept the pain and isolation caused by the deformity with an unquestioning acceptance which is far by resignation as resignation is about rebellious repining no one would have known from Ramona's face, manner or habitual conduct that she had ever experienced the sorrow ahead of care her face was sunny, she had a joyous voice and never was seen to pass from being without a cheerful greeting to highest and lowest the same her industry was tireless she had had two years at school in the convent of the Sacred Heart at Los Angeles where the senior had placed her at much personal sacrifice during one of the hardest times the Moreno estate had ever seen here she had won the affection of all the sisters who spoke of her habituality as the blessed child they had taught her all the dainty arts of lay-sweeping embroidery and simple fashions of painting and drawing which they knew not over much learning out of books but enough to make her passionate lover of verse and romance for serious study of a deep sword she had no vocation she was a simple joyous gentle clinging face for nature like a clear brook rippling along the sun a nature as unlike as possible to the senior's with its mysterious depths and stormy hidden currents of these Ramona was dimly conscious and at times had a tender sorrowful pity for the senior which she dared not show and could only express a renewed industry and tireless endeavor to fulfill every duty possible in the house this gentle facefulness was not wholly lost on senior Moreno though its flaws she never suspected and it was no new recognition from her for Ramona or increase of love but there was one on whom not a look, not a smile of all this graciousness was thrown away that one was Felipe daily more and more he wondered at his mother's lack of affection for Ramona nobody knew as well as he how far short she stopped of loving her Felipe knew what it meant how it felt to be loved by the senior Moreno but Felipe had learned while he was a boy that one sure way to displease his mother was to appear to be aware that she did not treat Ramona as she treated him and long before he had become a man he had acquired a habit of keeping to himself most of the things he saw and felt about his little playmate sister a dangerous habit out of which was slowly ripening with the fruits for the senior as scattering in later years End of Chapter 3 Recording by Ellie June 2009 Chapter 4 of Ramona This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Mary Ann Spiegel Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson Chapter 4 It was longer even than the senior had thought it would be before Father Salvador arrived The old man had grown feeble during the year that she had not seen him and it was a very short days journey that he could make now without too great fatigue It was not only his body that had failed he had lost heart and the miles which would have been nothing to him had he walked in the companionship of hopeful and happy thoughts stretched out wearily as he brooded over sad memories and still sadder anticipations the downfall of the missions the loss of their vast estates and the growing power of the ungodly in the land The final decision of the United States government in regard to the mission lands had been a terrible blow to him He had devoutly believed that ultimate restoration of these great estates to the church was inevitable In the long vigils which he always kept when he was at home at the Franciscan monastery in Santa Barbara kneeling on the stone pavement in the church and praying ceaselessly from midnight till dawn he had often had visions vouchsafed him of a new dispensation in which the mission establishments should be reinstated with their old splendor and prosperity and their Indian converts again numbered by tens of thousands long after he knew that this was impossible he would narrate these visions with the faith of an old bible seer and declare that they must come true and that it was a sin to despond but as year after year he journeyed up and down the country seeing at mission after mission the buildings crumbling into ruin the lands all taken sold resold and settled by greedy speculators the Indian converts disappearing driven back to their original wilderness and the last traces of the noble work of his order being rapidly swept away his courage faltered his faith died out changes in the manners and customs of his order itself also were giving him deep pain he was a Franciscan of the same type as Francis of Assisi to wear a shoe in place of a sandal to take money in a purse for a journey above all to lay aside the grey gown and cowl for any sort of secular garment seemed to him wicked to own comfortable clothes while there were others suffering for want of them and there were always such seemed to him a sin for which one might not undeservedly be smitten with sudden and terrible punishment in vain the brothers again and again supplied him with a warm cloak he gave it away to the first beggar he met and as for food the refectory would have been left bare and the whole brotherhood starving if the supplies had not been carefully hidden and locked so that father Salvador could not give them all away he was fast becoming that most tragic yet often sublime sight a man who has survived not only his own time and ideals of it even earth holds no sharper loneliness the bitterness of exile the anguish of friendlessness at their utmost are in it and yet it is so much greater than they that even they seem small part of it it was with thoughts such as these that father Silvadera drew near the home of senora Menreno late in the afternoon on one of those midsummer days of which southern California has so many in spring the almonds had bloomed and the blossoms fallen the apricots also and the peaches and pears on all the orchards of these fruits had come a filmy tint of green so light it was hardly more than a shadow on the gray the willows were vivid light green and the orange groves dark and glossy like laurel the billowy hills on either side of the valley were covered with fredera and bloom plants so close to the earth that their tints lapped and overlapped on each other and on the green of the grass as feathers in flying plumage overlap each other and blend into a change full color the countless curves hollows and crests of the coast hills in southern California heighten these chameleon effects of the spring verdeur they are like nothing in nature except the glitter of a brilliant lizard and the machine of a peacock's neck Father Salvedera paused many times to gaze at the beautiful picture flowers were always dear to the Franciscans Saint Francis himself permitted all decorations which could be made of flowers he clasped them with his brothers and sisters the sun, moon and stars all members of the sacred choir praising God it was melancholy to see how after each one of these pauses fresh drinking in of the beauty of the landscape and the balmy air the old man resumed his slow pace with a long sigh and his eyes cast down the fair of this beautiful land the sadder to know it was lost to the church alien hands reaping its fullness establishing new customs new laws all the way down the coast from Santa Barbara he had seen at every stopping place new tokens of the settling up of the country farms opening towns growing the Americans pouring in at all points to reap the advantages of their new possessions it was this which had made his journey heavy-hearted and made him feel in approaching the Senora Morenos as if he were coming to one of the last sure strongholds of the Catholic faith left in the country when he was within two miles of the house he struck off from the highway into a narrow path that he recollected by a shortcut through the hills and saved nearly a third of the distance it was more than a year since he had trod this path and as he found it growing fainter and fainter and more and more overgrown with the wild mustard he said to himself I think no one can have passed through here this year as he proceeded he found the mustard thicker and thicker the wild mustard in southern California is like that spoken of in the New Testament in the branches of which the birds of the air may rest coming up out of the earth so slender a stem that dozens can find starting point in an inch it darts up a slender straight chute 5, 10, 20 feet with hundreds of fine feathery branches locking and interlocking with all the other hundreds around it till it is an inextrable network like lace then it bursts into yellow bloom still finer and more feathery like the stems are so infinitesimally small that at a short distance they do not show and the cloud of the blossom seems floating in the air at times it looks like golden dust with a clear blue sky behind it as it is often seen it looks like a golden snowstorm the plant is a tyrant and a nuisance the terror of the farmer it takes riotous possession of a whole field in a season once in never out for one plant this year a million the next but it is impossible to wish that the land were freed from it its gold is as distinct a value to the eye as the nugget gold is in the pocket Father Salvador assume found himself in a veritable thicket of these delicate branches high above his head and so interlaced that he could make headway only by slowly and patiently disentangling them as one would disentangle a skein of silk it was a fantastic sort of dilemma and not unpleasing except that the father was in haste to reach his journey's end he would have enjoyed threading his way through the golden meshes suddenly he heard faint noises of singing he paused listened it was the voice of a woman it was slowly drawing nearer apparently from the direction in which he was going the intervals it seized abruptly then began again as if by a sudden the brief interruption like that made by a question an answer then peering ahead through the muster blossoms he saw them waving and bending and heard the sounds as if they were being broken evidently someone entering on the path from the opposite end had been caught in the fragment thicket as he was the notes grew clear though still low and sweet as the twilight notes of the thrush the muster branches waved more and more violently light steps were now to be heard father Salvadoras stood still as one in a dream his eyes straining forward into the golden mist of blossoms in a moment more came distinct and clear to his ear the beautiful words of the second stanza of st. Francis inimitable lyric the canticle of the sun praise be to thee O Lord for all thy creatures and especially for our brother the sun who illuminates the day and by his beauty and splendor shadows forth unto us thine Ramona exclaimed the father his thin cheeks flushing with pleasure the blessed child as he spoke her face came into sight set in a swaying frame of the blossoms as she parted them lightly to the left and right with her hands half crept, half danced through the loophole opening thus made father Salvadoras was past 80 but his blood was not too old to move quicker at the sight of this picture a man must be dead not to thrill at it Ramona's beauty was of the sort to be best enhanced by the waving gold which now framed her face she had just enough of olive tint in her complexion to underlie and enrich her skin without making it swarthy her hair was like her indian mothers heavy and black but her eyes were like her father's steel blue only those who came very near to Ramona knew however that her eyes were blue for the heavy black eyebrows and long black lashes so shaded and shadowed them that they looked black as night at the same instance that father Salvadoras first caught sight of her face Ramona also saw him and crying out joyfully ah father I knew you would come by this path and something told me you were near she sprang forward and sank on her knees before him bowing her head for his blessing in silence he laid his hands on her brow it would not have been easy for him to speak to her at the first moment she had looked to the devout old monk as she sprang through the cloud of golden flowers the sun falling on her beard head her cheeks flushed her eyes shining more like an apparition of an angel or saint than like the flesh and blood maiden whom he had carried in his arms when she was a babe we have been waiting waiting oh so long for you father she said rising we began to fear that you might be ill the shears have been sent for and will be here tonight and that was the reason I felt so sure you would come I knew the virgin would bring you in time to mass in the chapel on the first morning the monk smiled half sadly would there were more with such faith as your daughter he said are all well on the place yes father all well she answered Felipe has been ill with a fever but he is out now these ten days and fretting for for your coming Ramona had liked to have said the literal truth fretting for the sheep shearing but recollected herself in time and the senora said the father she is well answered Ramona gently but with a slight change of tone so slight as to be almost imperceptible but an acute observer would have always detected it in the girl's tone whenever she spoke of the senora moreno and you are you well yourself father she asked affectionately noting with her quick loving eye how feebly the old man walked and that he carried what she had never seen before in his hand a stout staff to steady his steps you must be very tired with the long journey on foot I Ramona I am tired he replied old age is conquering me it will not be many times more that I shall see this place oh do not say that father cried Ramona you can ride when it tires you too much to walk the senora said only the other day that she wished you would let her give you a horse that it is not right for you to take these long journeys on foot you know we have hundreds of horses it is nothing one horse she added seeing the father slowly shake his head no he said it is not that I could not refuse anything at the hands of the senora but it was the rule of our order to go on foot we must deny the flesh look at our beloved master in this land father Unipero when he was past 80 walking from San Diego to Monterey and all the while a running ulcer in one of his legs for which most men would have taken to bed to be healed it is a sinful fashion that is coming in for monks to taste their ease doing God's work I can no longer walk swiftly but I must walk all the more diligently while they were talking they had been slowly moving forward Ramona slightly in advance gracefully bending the mustard branches and holding them down till the father had followed in her steps as they came out from the thicket she exclaimed laughing there's Felipe in the willows I told him I was coming to meet you and he laughed at me now he will see I was right astonished enough Felipe hearing voices looked up and saw Ramona and the father approaching throwing down the knife with which he had been cutting his nose he hastened to meet them and dropped on his knees as Ramona had done for the monks blessing as he knelt there the wind blowing his hair loosely off his brow his large brown eyes lifted in gentle reverence to the father's face and his face full of affectionate welcome Ramona thought to herself as she thought hundreds of times since she became a woman how beautiful Felipe is no wonder the Senora loves him so much if I had been beautiful like that she would have liked me better never was a little child more unconscious of her own beauty than Ramona still was all the admiration which was expressed to her in word and look she took for simple kindness and goodwill her face as she herself saw it in the glass did not please her she compared her straight massive black eyebrows with Felipe's arched and delicately penciled and found her own ugly the expression of gentle repose which her countenance wore seemed to her an expression of stupidity Felipe looked so bright she thought as she noted his mobile changing face never for two successive seconds the same there is nobody like Felipe and when his brown eyes were fixed on her as they so often were in a long lingering gaze she looked steadily back into their velvet depths with an abstract sort of intensity which profoundly puzzled Felipe it was this look more than any other one thing which had for two years held Felipe's tongue in leash as it were and made it impossible for him to say to Ramona any of the loving things of which his heart had been full ever since he could remember the boy had spoken them unhesitatingly unconsciously but the man found himself suddenly afraid what is it she thinks when she looks into my eyes so he wondered if he had known that the thing she was usually thinking was simply how much handsomer brown eyes are than blue I wish my eyes were the color Felipe's he would have perceived perhaps what would have saved him sorrow if he had known it that a girl who looked at a man thus would be hard to win to look at him as a lover but being a lover he could not see this he saw only enough to perplex and deter him as they drew near the house Ramona saw Margarita standing at the gate of the garden she was holding something white in her hands looking down at it and crying piteously as she perceived Ramona she made an eager leap forward and then shrank back again making dumb signals of distress to her her whole attitude was one of misery and entreaty Margarita was of all the maids most beloved by Ramona though they were nearly of the same age it had been Margarita who had first the courage of Ramona the nurse and her charge had played together grown up together become women together and were now although Margarita never presumed on the relation or forgot to address Ramona as senorita more like friends than like mistress and maid pardon me father said Ramona I see that Margarita is in trouble I will leave Felipe to go with you to the house I will be with you again in a few moments and kissing his hand what is it what has happened Margarita Mía cried Ramona in the affectionate Spanish phrase for answer Margarita removed one wet hand from her eyes and pointed with a gesture of despair to the crumpled linen Sobs choked her voice and she buried her face against the ground and buried her face in her hands a mass of crumpled her voice and she buried her face again in her hands Ramona stooped and lifted one corner of the linen an involuntary cry of dismay broke from her at which Margarita Sobs redoubled and she gasped out yes senorita it is totally ruined it can never be mended and it will be needed for the mass tomorrow morning when I saw the father coming by your side I prayed to the virgin to let me die the senora will never forgive me it was indeed a sorry sight the white linen altar cloth the cloth which the senora Moreno had with her own hands made into one solid front a beautiful lace of the Mexican fashion by drawing out part of the threads and sewing the remainder into intricate patterns the cloth which had always been on the altar when mass was said since Margarita and Ramona's earliest recollections there it lay torn, stained dragged through muddy brambles in silence aghast Ramona opened it out and held it up how did it happen Margarita she whispered glancing in terror up to the house oh that is the worst of it senorita sob the girl that is the worst of it if it were not for that I would not be so afraid if it had happened any other way the senora might have forgiven me but she never will tell her and she shook from head to foot stop crying Margarita said Ramona firmly and tell me all about it it isn't so bad as it looks I think I can mend it oh the saints bless you cried Margarita looking up for the first time do you really think you can mend it senorita if you will mend the lace I'll go on my knees for you all the rest of my life Ramona laughed in spite of herself serve me better by keeping on your feet she said merrily at which Margarita laughed too through her tears they were both young oh but senorita Margarita began again in a tone of anguish her tears flowing afresh there is not time it must be washed and ironed tonight for the mass tomorrow morning and I have to help at the supper Anita and Rosa are both ill in bed you know and Maria has gone away for a week I must help mother and must wait on table it cannot be done I was just going to iron it now and found it so it was in the artichoke patch and Capitan the beast had been tossing it among the sharp pricks of the old last year's seeds in the artichoke patch ejaculated Ramona how under heavens did it get there oh that was what I meant senorita when I said she would never forgive me she has provided me many times to make anything to dry on the fence there and if I had only washed it when she first told me two days ago all would have been well but I forgot it till this afternoon and there was no sun in the court to dry it and you know how the sun lies on the artichoke patch and I put a strong cloth over the fence so that the wood should not pierce the lace and I did not leave it more than half an hour just while I said a few words to Luigo and there was no wind and I believe the saints fetched it down to the ground to punish me for my disobedience Ramona had been all this time carefully smoothing out the torn places it is not so bad as it looks she said if it were not for the hurry there would be no trouble in mending it but I will do the best I can so that it will not show for tomorrow and then after the father is gone I can repair it at leisure and make it just as good as new I think I can mend it and wash it before dark after the sun oh yes, there are good three hours of daylight yet I can do it you put the irons on the fire to have them hot to iron it as soon as it is partly dried you will see it will not show that anything has happened to it will the senora know? as poor Margarita calmed and reassured but still in mortal terror Ramona turned her steady glance full on Margarita's face you would not be any happier if she were deceived, do you think she said gravely oh, senorita, after it is mended if it really does not show pleaded the girl I will tell her myself and not till after it is mended, said Ramona but she did not smile ah, senorita said Margarita, depreciatingly you do not know what it is to have the senora displeased with one nothing can be so bad as to be displeased with one's self or toward a Ramona she went away to her room with the linen rolled up under her arm luckily for Margarita's cause she meant no one on the way the senora had welcomed father Salvadira at the foot of the veranda's steps and immediately closeted herself with him she had much to say to him much about which she wished his help and counsel and much wish she wished to learn from him as to affairs in the church and the country generally Felipe had gone off at once to find Juan Canito to see if everything were ready for the sheep shearing to begin on the next day if the shears arrived in time and there was very good chance of their coming in by sundown this day, Felipe thought for he had privately instructed his messenger to make all possible haste and to impress on the Indians the urgent need of their losing no time on the road it had been a great concession on the senora's part to allow the messenger to be sent off before she had positive intelligence as to the father's movements the day after day passed and no news came even she perceived that it would not do to put off the sheep shearing much longer or as Juan Canito said forever the father might have fallen ill and if that were so it might very easily be weeks before they heard of it so Scanti were the means of communication between the remote places on his route to visitation the messenger had therefore been sent to summon the Temocula shears and senora had resigned herself to the inevitable piously praying however morning and night and at odd moments in the day that the father might arrive before the Indians did when she saw him coming up the garden walk, leaning on the arm of her Felipe on the afternoon of the very day which was the earliest possible day for the Indians to arrive it was not strange that she felt mingled with the joy of her greeting to her long loved friend and confessor a triumphant exaltation that the saints had heard her prayers in the kitchen all was bustle and stir the coming of any guest into the house was a signal for unwanted activities there even the coming of Father Salvador who never knew whether the soup had forced meatballs in it or not Old Marta said and that was to her the last extreme of indifference to good things of the flesh but if he will not eat he can see she said and her pride for herself and for the house was enlisted in setting forth as goodly avians as her larder afforded she grew suddenly fastidious over the size and color of the cabbages to go into the beef pot and threw away one whole saucepan full of rice because Margarita had put only one onion in instead of two have I not told you again and again that for the father it is always two onions she exclaimed it is the dish he most favors of all and it is a pity to all this he is it makes him no blood beef he should take now the dining room was on the opposite side of the courtyard from the kitchen and there was a perpetual procession of small messengers going back and forth between the rooms it was the highest ambition of each child to be allowed to fetch and carry dishes in the preparation of the meals at all times but when by so doing they could perchance get a glimpse through the dining room door open on the veranda of strangers and guests their restless rivalry became unmanageable poor Margarita between her own private anxieties and her multiply duties of helping in the kitchen and setting the table restraining and overseeing her army of infant volunteers was nearly distraught not so distraught however but that she remembered and found time to seize a lighted candle in the kitchen run and set it before the statue of St. Francis of Paula in her bedroom hurly whispering a prayer that the lace might be made whole like new several times before the afternoon had waned she snatched a moment to fling herself down at the statue's feet and pray her foolish little prayer over again we think we are quite sure that it is a foolish little prayer when people pray to have torn lace made whole but it would be hard to show the odds between asking that and asking that it may rain or that the sick make it well as the grand old Russian says what man usually ask for when they pray to God is that two and two may not make four it is to be pitied who prays not it was only the thought of that candle at St. Francis' feet which enabled Margareta to struggle through the anxious and unhappy afternoon and evening at last supper was ready a great dish of spiced beef and cabbage in the center of the table a terrine of thick soup with force meat balls and red peppers in it two red earthen platters heaped one with the boiled rice and onions the other with delicious colas beans so dear to all Mexican hearts cut glass dishes filled with hot stewed pears or preserved quince or grape jelly plates of frosted cakes of various sorts and a steaming silver tea kettle from which went up an aroma of tea such as had never been bought or sold in all California the senora's one extravagance and passion where is Ramona? asked the senora surprised and displeased as she entered the dining room Margareta, go tell the senorita that we are waiting for her Margareta started tremblingly with flushed face toward the door what would happen now? oh St. Francis, she inwardly prayed help us this once stay, said Felipe do not call senorita Ramona then turning to his mother Ramona cannot come, she is not in the house she has a duty to perform for tomorrow he said thankfully at his mother adding we will not wait for her much bewildered the senora took her seat at the head of the table in a mechanical way and began but Felipe seeing that questions were to follow and erupted her I've just spoken with her it is impossible for her to come and turning to father Salvador he at once engaged him in conversation and left the baffled senora to bear her unsatisfied curiosity as best she could the senorita looked at Felipe with an expression of profound gratitude which he did not observe and would not in the least have understood for Ramona had not confided to him any of the details of the disaster seeing him under her window she had called cautiously to him and said dear Felipe do you think you can save me from having to come to supper a dreadful accident has happened to the altar cloth and I must mend it and wash it and there is barely time before dark don't let them call me down at the brook and they will not find me and your mother will be displeased this wise precaution of Ramona was the salvation of everything so far as the altar cloth was concerned the rents had proved far less serious than she had feared the daylight held out till the last of them was skillfully mended and just as the red beams of the sinking sun came streaming through the willow trees at the foot of the garden Ramona darting down the garden had reached the brook and kneeling on the grass she had dipped the linen into the water her hurried work over the lace and her anxiety had made her cheeks scarlet as she ran down the garden her comb had loosened and her hair fallen to her waist stopping only to pick up the comb and thrust it in her pocket she had sped on as it would soon be too dark for her to see the stains on the linen and it was going to be no small trouble to get them out without fraying the lace her hair in disorder her sleeves pin loosely on her shoulders the whole face aglow with the earnestness of her task she bent low over the stones rinsing the altar cloth up and down in the water anxiously scanning it then plunging it in again the sunset beams played around her hair like a halo the whole place was aglow with red light and her face was kindled into transcendent beauty a sound arrested her attention she looked up forms dusky black against the fiery western sky were coming down the valley it was the band of indian shears they turned to the left and went toward the sheepsheds and booze but there was one of them that Ramona did not see he had been standing for some minutes concealed behind a large willow tree a few rods from the place where Ramona was kneeling it was Alessandro, son of Pablo Assis captain of the shearing band walking slowly along in advance of his men he had fell to light as from a mirror held in the sun it was the red sun beam on the glittering water where Ramona knelt in the same second he saw Ramona he halted as wild creatures of the forest halt at a sound gazed walked abruptly away from his men who kept on not noticing his disappearance cautiously he moved a few steps near into the shelter of a gnarled old willow from behind which he could gaze unperceived on the beautiful vision for so it seemed to him as he gazed his senses seemed leaving him and unconsciously he spoke aloud Christ, what shall I do? End of chapter 4