 | Spring o' the Year |  |
Austin, Mary. "Spring o' the Year."
Century Magazine 75 (April 1908): 923-928.
Author of "Isidro"
WHEN Don Pedro Ruiz, owner of five hundred fat wethers and two hundred ewes, was a little bowed in the back and a little frosty about the temples, a sickness got abroad among his sheep and took a good half of them. The next year a bear stampeded the flock toward a forty-foot barranca over which two hundred pitched to destruction. After that Don Pedro went down to La Liebre and hired out as a herder. The superintendent thereupon gave him a lamb band, flock-wise, seasoned ewes, mostly with twin lambs; and because there was old kindness between him and the superintendent of La Liebre, and because he had by long usage established a right to much good pasture in the neighborhood of Wild Rose, Don Pedro was allowed to take the flock out in his own charge, with a couple of dogs, and no companion herder except to set him on his way.
Being master of his movements, he was able to spend much more time with his family than falls to the lot of the hired herder. This was important, for Don Pedro had at that time, besides the Sen~ora Ruiz, who was fat and comfortable, a daughter grown up as tall and slim as a moonbeam, with saint's eyes and a mouth as soft and scarlet as a crumpled pomegranate flower. She was of marriageable age and needed a father's care.
It was ten flock journeys from La Liebre to the meadow of Wild Rose, below Tres Pin~os, where Don Pedro had his house, the ramada of vines, a long, low two-walled hut, the fig-tree, the pomegranates, and the scarlet strings of chilis drying in the sun. That is, it was ten journeys, taken leisurely, when the grass was rank and the chili-cojote in bloom. It was barely seven in the fall of the year, with the feed scant and only one water-hole between the ranch-house and Wild Rose. Don Pedro would bring up the flock from the shearing, by which time the grazing would be in its prime; here he could feed for six weeks within sight of his own hearth smoke and candle.
Then he swung out desertward to little green oases and can~on floors that caught the run-off of the quick winter rains for other six weeks, by which time the meadow of Wild Rose would be grown again. Thus the old man had the more leisure for adoring his daughter of the saint's eyes.
He was not so good at that business, however, as Ruy Garcia, who had, besides a perfect rosary of adoring names for her, a most remarkably fine voice for singing them, and a very good guitar, which he brought out from Tres Pin~os twice in the week to strum in the ramada. He might have come oftener but that the old Don looked so sourly upon him, and the eyes of Felicita, misty and tender with music, had, so Ruy Garcia, who had expressive eyes himself and knew how to use them, assured himself, no spark in them for Ruy Garcia.
When matters were at this pass there came a winter of extraordinary rains, and Don Pedro contracted rheumatism. Then, since it would have been a blasphemy, as Heaven had sent him a daughter, to wish for a son, he thanked God that, being a daughter, Felicita was such as she was. She had been brought up with the sheep, of course; she had brought up the dogs herself by hand. If they served Don Pedro and the flock willingly, judge how they ran their feet off at the bidding of this tall, slim girl who went at the rounding-up as if it were a new and merry play invented expressly to give herd dogs an occasion for being proud of
It was reported that Ruy Garcia, when he was told that the Ruiz girl had turned herd-girl to her father's sheep, spending whole days in the open a flock journey from home, set spurs to his horse and never left off galloping until he had found her. But he could never win her consent to so much as being seen in her neighborhood unless Don Pedro was about. He succeeded so far in seeing her that when the rain came drumming on the broad leaves of the mallow, he sent the girl and the old man to the house, and he, Ruy Garcia, who despised sheep and thought a whole day out of the saddle misspent, kept the flock alone. Which proves that he was a very astute young man or that he really loved her. Don Pedro softened much toward young Garcia in those days, and the Sen~ora Ruiz made him toothsome enchiladas and chile relleno.
But there were times, and you may be sure the young man never heard of them, for Felicita was a modest girl and the pride of Pedro Ruiz was great, when she slept with the flock and warded them through the night. She would lie out there on the shadeless, turtle-backed hills sweeping girdlewise about Wild Rose, and bed the flock so as always to point the star of her mother's candle in the window of her home. Three times when the twilight-fire was lighted she made it to wink with the flare of burning greasewood, and in the morning sent smoke, tall and thin, of green sage. Then Pedro and his wife would understand that it was well with the flock, and bless the saints accordingly. The girl would put on her father's clothes for the work,—she was full as tall as he, though as slender and swaying as a stalk of mariposa,—and when she had strapped on an old horse-pistol, had a very pretty swagger that made her parents laugh with a choke in the throat and a "Santa Maria, was there ever such a child as ours!" No, never, Ruy Garcia could have told them. The girl came to no harm; indeed, there was none she could come to in the open wilderness. But she got a most glowing color, and her hair blew every way, like tendrils of the megarrhiza.
Don Pedro's ailment did not mend with the winter, and what with medicines, and the herder's wage being no more than a dollar a day, with food and tobacco, it seemed less than ever expedient to hire another man in his place. Besides, if the flock went down to the shearing at La Liebre without Ruiz, it was doubtful if ever he got another to tend. It was kindness only that won him this— kindness and a reputation for skill with lambs; for the band numbered less than a thousand, and it was cheaper to run three thousand in a bunch, with two men to handle them. So when the haze of spring began to brood over the land, and Pedro Ruiz had taken to his bed, it began to be also an anxious matter how the flock could be brought to the shearing. It would be two weeks going, for Ruiz was permitted to keep the flock at Wild Rose for lambing, and the lambs were tender, and ten days returning. All the way lay through open desert until the last, when it turned into the pass between the broad-headed oaks that kept the contours of the hills.
Pedro Ruiz and his wife lay awake in their bed far into the night discussing what was to be done about it; but Felicita on the hill-slope with the flock, had never but one opinion. She would go with the flock herself.
"Felicita mia," said her father, "you
"I will go as a boy," said Felicita. "Who is there to guess?" There was that in her father's eyes when he looked at her that said it would not be hard guessing.
"I am as tall as a boy," she said, merrily, "and I think I have a beard coming," presenting the minute velvet down of her cheek for inspection. Then she got down on her knees by his bed and had her arms around him. After that old Pedro blessed God for the gift of a child, and surrendered.
When it became necessary to take Ruy Garcia into confidence, he was scandalized.
"It is too hard for you. It is man's work," he said.
Felicita tossed her head. "But where is the man?"
"Felicita!"
The girl relented, seeing tears in his eyes.
"I know you would do it, Ruy; but we cannot afford to hire you, and cannot take it as a gift."
"But let me go with you, to make sure no harm comes to you," he pleaded.
"What harm could come? Would you rob me of my good name?"
"Garcia is a good name," said the boy, stoutly, though he blushed hotly all over to say it. "I would give it to you if I might go with you."
"No, no, Ruy. You are kind, but the best you can do is to get me some clothes. I cannot go into La Liebre with my father's things. Get me some clothes that will look as if they belonged to me. I am only a little smaller than you."
A very pretty boy she looked when she was properly dressed for it, but Ruy Garcia had another shock when he found all her lovely hair must come off. And with Felicita laughing, Sen~ora Ruiz snuffing, and old Pedro wiping his eyes in the bed, he dared not so much as hint at a wish for one of those thick, wavy locks.
"Why have you your blankets tied on your saddle, Ruy?" asked the girl. The boy kept his eyes on the ground.
"I go on a journey—to Posada. I have some work there. I shall be gone a month or six weeks."
"By which time," said Felicita, "I shall be back from La Liebre. Come and hear my adventures."
The boy looked at her very earnestly and tender-eyed, but with never a word.
A great many unpleasant things might have happened to Felicita going south with the flock along the foot of the Sierra wall; no rain fell to distress her, no wind arose to scatter the flock. Coyotes ringed her sheep with demoniac noises, but got none of the lambs, and the deadly milkweed did not spring about her trail. She saw no dust of other flocks; they had all gone south for the lambing two months before. Here and there about the washes were pleasant splashes of spring. One would say they had spilled over the mountain rim from the fulgent San Joaquin.
Rising at dawn, when the flock began to feed, Felicita made her breakfast of coffee and great lumps of bread. By mid-morning, when the sheep lay down or dozed upon their feet, huddled in an open space, she cooked a meal, and took her noon siesta under the sage. Then the flock fed, traveling south until moonrise, when the dogs bedded them, and the girl crept into her blankets with a lump of bread which she was often too tired to eat; and slept till the dogs waked her.
It was remarkable that the first night out Felicita had been nervous and wakeful and the dogs had barked; but by the second night she felt the friendly presence of the wilderness: it pervaded all her sleep. Felicita had never heard of any supernatural being but the saints and the blessed Personages; therefore she acknowledged their protection in her prayers, like the good girl she was.
At the eighteen-mile house she had dinner with teamsters who called her "bub," to her great satisfaction. The next day a prospector, passing, asked her for the makings of a cigarette. Ruy Garcia had provided her for that contingency. So by no greater hardship than the responsibility of the lambs involved, and with growing assurance of her boy's disguise, she came to the ranch-house of La Liebre, among the oaks. What she should do there had been agreed upon at home.
"Sen~or?"
The superintendent of La Liebre looked up from his tally-books to see a
"I am Pedro Ruiz, son of Pedro Ruiz, whom you know. I have brought my father's flock, also a letter." He took it forthwith out of his hat, showing a lovely head of rough-cropped, wavy hair. The letter was a most wordy and moving appeal to the Sen~or Superintendente to have regard for his past faithfulness and the excellent condition of the flock, and to return them in the charge of this, his most dutiful son; and in the meantime to keep the lad as much as possible under his eye, as he was somewhat ill furnished for the riot of shearings.
"I should think so," thought the superintendent, eying the lad all over. Young Pedro blushed the darker, and hung his head. A modest lad.
"And you brought the flock from Wild Rose yourself? You are young for the work."
"If you will but look," said the boy. "They are in good condition. One new lamb for every ewe, and over two hundred of those that had twins." All this being exactly as the letter had said, the superintendent approved the lad, had his blankets spread in the patio, kept him to run between the ranch-house and the shearing-pens. By this means young Pedro was able to avoid much that would have been difficult for a girl to bear; for the shearing is holiday-time, and wine goes freely about.
Pedro Ruiz had not been long a hired herder, and only one of those who drew in at La Liebre knew much of his affairs. That was Jules Giraud, as quizzing and gossipy an old rascal as ever wagged an unshaven chin. He came in late from the Sierra pastures, and was put to help at the sacking-frame. Here he had a glimpse of the slender lad who ran at the superintendent's word.
"A likely lad," said old Jules, "born to be a breaker of hearts; Pedro Ruiz, is he," he said, when he had asked, and been answered, "son of Don Pedro? Well, I have known the old man these ten years back, but I have heard of no son. A daughter he had who should have been about the age of this one—" Giraud broke off to look long and keenly after the boy. In the course of a day or two he made an opportunity to ask after Don Pedro's health, "and the rest of your brothers and sisters," said Jules.
"I am my father's only child," said the boy, carelessly, and then suddenly blushed a deep, painful red.
"Ho, ho!" said old Jules, under his breath. He kept what he thought to himself, for next day the parting of the flocks began, and Jules had already purposed going up along the desert at the foot of the Sierra wall.
Felicita was beyond everything glad to be upon the trail again. The hazardous week of the shearing past, the feed abundant, spring in the air, under foot, in the heart, every day shining as a jewel, she sang as she walked in the dust of the flock. The first day's travel lay through the shallow can~on of oaks, the evening wound up at the edge of the chaparral. Other fires winked at night in the tender twilight-haze; bells of the flocks carried far in the night. Felicita had no means of knowing that the nearest of the fires was of Jules Giraud, and slept, a sense of friendly presence all about her, as mindlessly as her own sheep.
The next day at the noon halt old Jules came up with her. The girl scented danger at once, became nervous and anxious-eyed. The horse-pistol was in the saddle-bag on the pack-burro that fed forward with the flock. She had forgotten there was such a thing as danger in the world. Jules was complimentary and insinuating and sentimental. He drew close, growing more assured, and enjoying her torment. He said of shepherding that it was a lonely life. One needed a companion now—for the lovely days, and the nights. Ah, the nights with the stars like fires! The knuckles of the girl's hand grasping the herder's staff were stretched white.
"For the trail one needs a companion, assuredly," said Jules, coming nearer; "for choice, a lovely maid, about your size. Curse me, but you have glorious eyes, boy; they go quite through me. Almost they might be a girl's. Do you know, if you were a girl, now, what I would do to you?" This!" He was about to snatch a kiss. Felicita struck at him fiercely with her staff, and burst into tears—and by the act stood confessed a
"Dog of a herder," it said, "shall I send you to the devil at once or save you to be hanged?" Jules, though he was half-stunned with astonishment, thought himself no fool. A personable and infuriated young man springing out upon you at the mere snatching of a kiss from a pretty girl in boy's clothes meant but one thing to Jules. He winked feebly as he lay supinely between Ruy Garcia's feet.
"My good fellow, I had no idea the girl was yours. 'Twas no more than a kiss I wanted."
Ruy Garcia left him, and went over to where the girl stood sobbing.
"Are you hurt, Felicita?" he faltered, not so much as daring to touch her. Jules sat up and regarded them.
"Go ahead, young man," he leered. "She'll not crack you with her staff, I'll warrant."
"If you say another word, I shall crack your head open," said Ruy, stoutly. "I am going to marry her."
He looked at Felicita anxiously, to see how she would take this. Felicita dried her eyes; whereupon Ruy Garcia put his arm around her. He turned to the herder.
"She did not know I had come," he said. "She came because her father was ill, and I followed to see that she met with no harm. It is the business of men to protect women, not to molest them."
Giraud was a Frenchman, therefore a sentimentalist. He gave them a very pretty blessing as he got upon his feet, and took himself to his own flock, but the young people did not hear him. There had occurred a miracle. Felicita trembled; the shock of her trembling passed to Ruy Garcia; his head swam. What shining of the saint's eyes, what glow along the burnt splendor of her cheek assured him, what tingling of the soft young palms that clung together, I know not. Quivering lip strayed to lip. Ah, a miracle!
Felicita spoke first, withdrawing with gentle dignity.
"Ruy, you have done wrongly."
"What, to knock over old Jules?" said the boy, aghast. Felicita's eyes swam with tears.
"For that I thank you, and my father will thank you better when I am home; but in following me you did wrong. It might have got me much mistaken."
"Did you think I would have let you go alone? Besides, what does it matter, if we are going to be married?" It was impossible for Felicita to be more rosy and dewy-eyed than she was, but she held him off gravely.
"For that there is the more reason nobody should breathe upon my name." It is the surpassing miracle of love that it rises superior to loving. Ruy Garcia was made to see that so long as the girl wandered abroad in boy's guise he must drop back into the silent, the unrewarded guardian of the trail; and adoring her as being no lower than the saints save perhaps in the matter of being kissable, content to have it so.
They went up, then, a week's journey toward Wild Rose. By day they sighted each other moving dimly in the mist of spring. By twilight their fires signaled in the dusk. By night, lying miles apart on the sentient earth, they thrilled to each other under the starry spaces. Gilias and lupins ran purple under foot; miles of burnt gold of poppies spread about the knees of the mountain. The new-shorn flock went whitely in the midst of rank pasture; bloom of the sky-blue larkspurs muffled the bells. They passed the eighteen-mile house, passed Red Butte, swung out to avoid the gulches about Coyote Holes, scrambled up the gorge of Black Rock, sighted the lazy, low-backed hills about Wild Rose. Day by day the horse of Ruy Garcia, obeying the heart of his master rather than the rein, edged toward the flock of Pedro Ruiz. The last day but one the two solemn young things went voiceless within hail. The last day saw them draw together at the meadow of Wild Rose.
There was an excellent excuse of a bunch of surpassing lilies which Ruy Garcia would give to Felicita. Such
They went on thus, hand in hand, until they sighted the roof under the fig-tree.
"Confess," said Ruy Garcia, "that you are glad I came."
"For the sake of what happened to Jules Giraud, yes," said Felicita.
"For nothing else?"
"What else?"
"This." Ruy Garcia's horse started as if it had heard an order to move on.
"Tell me," said Ruy, with his arm around her—"in all that two weeks going, did you not feel me near you, not once?"
"Better than that—I knew it."
"Knew it? But how?"
"I guessed it in the beginning, when I saw your blankets tied behind the saddle, and the woman at the eighteen-mile house told me you had passed that day. Besides, I knew—you would not leave me— "
"Oh, adorable one! Felicita mia!" said Ruy Garcia.
The flock, scenting the home pastures, jangled on hurriedly, the dogs upon their heels. The light fell low and struck sidelong through the hills. Little white gilias, musky and sweet, came out underfoot, and white stars overhead. The flock blethered at the home corral, and old Pedro Ruiz, hobbling out to let them in, stood a long time at the bars wondering what had become of Felicita.
| Spring o' the Year | |