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Page 3
He was on his way to attack with his bare brown hands some of the weeds
which were spilling over into the walk which led through the garden and
to the priest's house. As a matter of fact he had awakened with this
purpose in mind, had gone his lazy way all day fully purposing to give
it his attention, and had at last arrived upon the scene. The front
gate had finally broken, the upper hinge worn out; Ignacio carefully
set the ramshackly wooden affair back against the fence, thinking how
one of these days he would repair it. Then he went between the bigger
pear-tree and the _lluvia de oro_ which his own hands had planted
here, and stood with legs well apart considering the three bells upon
the easterly arch.
"_Que hay, amigos_?" he greeted them. "Do you know what I am going to
do for you some fine day? I will build a little roof over you that
runs down both ways to shut out the water when it rains. It will make
you hoarse, too much wet."
That was one of the few dreams of Ignacio's life; one day he was going
to make a little roof over each arch. But to-day he merely regarded
affectionately the Captain . . . that was the biggest of the
bells . . . the Dancer, second in size, and Lolita, the smallest upon
this arch. Then he sighed and turned toward the other arch across the
garden to see how it was with the Little One, La Golondrina, and
Ignacio Chavez. For it was only fair that at least one of the six
should bear his name.
Changing his direction thus, moving directly toward the dropping sun,
he shifted his hat well over his eyes and so was constrained to note
how the weeds were asserting themselves with renewed insolence. He
muttered a soft "_maldito_!" at them which might have been mistaken
for a caress and determined upon a merciless campaign of extermination
just as soon as he could have fitted a new handle to his hoe. Then he
paused in front of the Mission steps and lifted his hat, made an
elegant bow, and smiled in his own inimitable, remarkably fascinating
way. For, under the ragged brim, his eyes had caught a glimpse of a
pretty pair of patent-leather slippers, a prettier pair of
black-stockinged ankles, and the hem of a white starched skirt.
Nowhere are there eyes like the eyes of old Mexico. Deep and soft and
soulful, though the man himself may have a soul like a bit of charred
leather; velvety and tender, though they may belong to an out-and-out
cutthroat; expressive, eloquent even, though they are the eyes of a
peon with no mind to speak of; night-black, and like the night filled
with mystery. Ignacio Chavez lifted such eyes to the eyes of the girl
who had been watching him and spontaneously gave her the last iota of
his ready admiration.
"It is a fine day, se�orita," he told her, displaying two glistening
rows of superb teeth friendliwise. "And the garden . . . _Ah, que hay
m�s bonito en todo el mundo_? You like it, no?"
It was slow music when Ignacio Chavez spoke, all liquid sounds and
tender cadences. When he had cursed the weeds it was like love-making.
A _d_ in his mouth became a softened _th_; from the lips of such as
the bell-ringer of San Juan the snapping Gringo oath comes
metamorphosed into a gentle "Gah-tham!" The girl, to whom the speech
of Chavez was something as new and strange as the face of the earth
about her, regarded him with grave, curious eyes.
She was seated against the Mission wall upon the little bench which no
one but Ignacio guessed was to be painted green one of these fine days,
a bronze-haired, gray-eyed girl in white skirt and waist, and with a
wide panama hat caught between her clasped hands and her knee. For a
moment she was perhaps wondering how to take him; then with a
suddenness that had been all unheralded in her former gravity, she
smiled. With lips and eyes together as though she accepted his
friendship. Ignacio's own smile broadened and he nodded his delight.
"It is truly beautiful here," she admitted, and had Ignacio possessed a
tithe of that sympathetic comprehension which his eyes lied about he
would have detected a little note of eagerness in her voice, would have
guessed that she was lonely and craved human companionship. "I have
been sitting here an hour or two. You are not going to send me away,
are you?"
Ignacio looked properly horrified.
"If I saw an angel here in the garden, se�orita," he exclaimed, "would
I say _zape_ to it? No, no, se�orita; here you shall stay a thousand
years if you wish. I swear it."
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