On the Frontier. Bret HarteЧитать онлайн книгу.
he a long moustache and a sad, sweet smile, and a voice so gentle and yet so strong that you felt he ordered you to do things with out saying it? And did his eye read your thoughts?—that very thought that you must obey him?”
“Saints preserve thee, Pancho! Of whom dost thou speak?”
“Listen, Juanita. It was a year ago, the eve of Natividad, he was in the church when I sang. Look where I would, I always met his eye. When the canticle was sung and I was slipping into the sacristy, he was beside me. He spoke kindly, but I understood him not. He put into my hand gold for an aguinaldo. I pretended I understood not that also, and put it into the box for the poor. He smiled and went away. Often have I seen him since, and last night, when I left the Mission, he was there again with Father Pedro.”
“And Father Pedro, what said he of him?” asked Juanita.
“Nothing.” The boy hesitated. “Perhaps—because I said nothing of the stranger.”
Juanita laughed. “So thou canst keep a secret from the good father when thou carest. But why dost thou think this stranger is my new guardian?”
“Dost thou not see, little sister? he was even then seeking thee,” said the boy with joyous excitement. “Doubtless he knew we were friends and playmates—may be the good father has told him thy secret. For it is no idle tale of the alcalde, believe me. I see it all! It is true!”
“Then thou wilt let him take me away,” exclaimed the girl bitterly, withdrawing the little hand he had clasped in his excitement.
“Alas, Juanita, what avails it now? I am sent to San Jose, charged with a letter to the Father Superior, who will give me further orders. What they are, or how long I must stay, I know not. But I know this: the good Father Pedro's eyes were troubled when he gave me his blessing, and he held me long in his embrace. Pray Heaven I have committed no fault. Still it may be that the reputation of my gift hath reached the Father Superior, and he would advance me.” And Francisco's eyes lit up with youthful pride at the thought.
Not so Juanita. Her black eyes snapped suddenly with suspicion, she drew in her breath, and closed her little mouth firmly. Then she began a crescendo.
Mother of God! was that all? Was he a child, to be sent away for such time or for such purpose as best pleased the fathers? Was he to know no more than that? With such gifts as God had given him, was he not at least to have some word in disposing of them? Ah! SHE would not stand it.
The boy gazed admiringly at the piquant energy of the little figure before him, and envied her courage. “It is the mestizo blood,” he murmured to himself. Then aloud, “Thou shouldst have been a man, 'Nita.”
“And thou a woman.”
“Or a priest. Eh, what is that?”
They had both risen, Juanita defiantly, her black braids flying as she wheeled and suddenly faced the thicket, Francisco clinging to her with trembling hands and whitened lips. A stone, loosened from the hillside, had rolled to their feet; there was a crackling in the alders on the slope above them.
“Is it a bear, or a brigand?” whispered Francisco, hurriedly, sounding the uttermost depths of his terror in the two words.
“It is an eavesdropper,” said Juanita, impetuously; “and who and why, I intend to know,” and she started towards the thicket.
“Do not leave me, good Juanita,” said the young acolyte, grasping the girl's skirt.
“Nay; run to the hacienda quickly, and leave me to search the thicket. Run!”
The boy did not wait for a second injunction, but scuttled away, his long coat catching in the brambles, while Juanita darted like a kitten into the bushes. Her search was fruitless, however, and she was returning impatiently when her quick eye fell upon a letter lying amidst the dried grass where she and Francisco had been seated the moment before. It had evidently fallen from his breast when he had risen suddenly, and been overlooked in his alarm. It was Father Pedro's letter to the Father Superior of San Jose.
In an instant she had pounced upon it as viciously as if it had been the interloper she was seeking. She knew that she held in her fingers the secret of Francisco's sudden banishment. She felt instinctively that this yellowish envelope, with its red string and its blotch of red seal, was his sentence and her own. The little mestiza had not been brought up to respect the integrity of either locks or seals, both being unknown in the patriarchal life of the hacienda. Yet with a certain feminine instinct she looked furtively around her, and even managed to dislodge the clumsy wax without marring the pretty effigy of the crossed keys impressed upon it. Then she opened the letter and read.
Suddenly she stopped and put back her hair from her brown temples. Then a succession of burning blushes followed each other in waves from her neck up, and died in drops of moisture in her eyes. This continued until she was fairly crying, dropping the letter from her hands and rocking to and fro. In the midst of this she quickly stopped again; the clouds broke, a sunshine of laughter started from her eyes, she laughed shyly, she laughed loudly, she laughed hysterically. Then she stopped again as suddenly, knitted her brows, swooped down once more upon the letter, and turned to fly. But at the same moment the letter was quietly but firmly taken from her hand, and Mr. Jack Cranch stood beside her.
Juanita was crimson, but unconquered. She mechanically held out her hand for the letter; the American took her little fingers, kissed them, and said:—
“How are you again?”
“The letter,” replied Juanita, with a strong disposition to stamp her foot.
“But,” said Cranch, with business directness, “you've read enough to know it isn't for you.”
“Nor for you either,” responded Juanita.
“True. It is for the Reverend Father Superior of San Jose Mission. I'll give it to him.”
Juanita was becoming alarmed, first at this prospect, second at the power the stranger seemed to be gaining over her. She recalled Francisco's description of him with something like superstitious awe.
“But it concerns Francisco. It contains a secret he should know.”
“Then you can tell him it. Perhaps it would come easier from you.”
Juanita blushed again. “Why?” she asked, half dreading his reply.
“Because,” said the American, quietly, “you are old playmates; you are attached to each other.”
Juanita bit her lips. “Why don't you read it yourself?” she asked bluntly.
“Because I don't read other people's letters, and if it concerns me you'll tell me.”
“What if I don't?”
“Then the Father Superior will.”
“I believe you know Francisco's secret already,” said the girl, boldly.
“Perhaps.”
“Then, Mother of God! Senor Crancho, what do you want?”
“I do not want to separate two such good friends as you and Francisco.”
“Perhaps you'd like to claim us both,” said the girl, with a sneer that was not devoid of coquetry.
“I should be delighted.”
“Then here is your occasion, Senor, for here comes my adopted father, Don Juan, and your friend, Senor Br—r—own, the American alcalde.”
Two men appeared in the garden path below them. The stiff, glazed, broad-brimmed black hat, surmounting a dark face of Quixotic gravity and romantic rectitude, indicated Don Juan Briones. His companion, lazy, specious, and red-faced, was Senor Brown, the American alcalde.
“Well, I reckon we kin about call the thing fixed,” said Senor Brown, with a large wave of the hand, suggesting a sweeping away