Jane Journeys On Part 21

Something, which is to say, some_body_, may turn up at any moment.

Yours, Micawber-ing,

J.

P.S. I trust you won't expect to glean any useful information or statistics about Mexico from these chronicles? The Budders are deep in histories and guidebooks but I know not whether the _Chichimecs_ were people or pottery and I hope I never shall!

P.S. II. Cousin Dudley, having just returned from the smoker, reports chatting with a most interesting young civil engineer----

_December 9th._

We are now so late, Sally dear, that we have lost all social standing; we slink into sidings and wait in shame for prompt and proper trains to bustle by. But I don't mind. At this rate I shall be able to converse rippingly in Spanish by the time we reach Guadalajara. Cousin Dudley knows a professor person there who will help us to plan our trip.

Spanish is deliciously easy. It seems rather silly to make it a regular study in our schools.

I adore the stations, especially at night,--black velvet darkness studded with lanterns and torches and little leaping fires; old blind minstrels whining their ballads; the mournful voices of the sweetmeat venders chanting--"_Dulce de Morelia!_"--"_Cajeta de Celaya!_" These candies, by the way, are the most----

_December 11th._

Alas, _muy_ Sally _mia_, when I meant to add a few paragraphs to this letter diary every day! I was interrupted just there by Cousin Dudley who came in with his civil engineer, and there hasn't seemed to be any spare time since. (How is that for a demonstration of Mr.

Burroughs' well-known theory about folding your hands and waiting and having your own come to you?)

He is an _extremely_ civil engineer and very easy to look at. He has close-cropped, bronzy brown hair and gentian-blue eyes and his skin is burned to a glowing copper l.u.s.ter. He is just idling about, slaying time during a vacation too brief to warrant his going home to Virginia, and he shows strong symptoms of willingness to act as guide, philosopher and friend to wandering Touri. We are actually going to reach Guadalajara tomorrow! Some one must be giving us a tow.

_Adios, muy amiga mia!_

JUANA.

P.S. The C.E. is going to hear my Spanish lesson now.

P.S. II. Isn't NETZAHUALCOYOTL a cunning word?

_Guadalajara, December 12th._

QUERIDA SARITA,

We sight-saw all morning in this lovely, languid, ladylike city, and this afternoon we called on Cousin Dudley's friend, Professor Morales and his family. They were expecting us and as our _coche_ drew up at the curb, the door flew open and _el profesor_ flew out, seized Cousin Ada's hand, held it high, and led her into the house, minuet fas.h.i.+on. The _senora_, a mountainous lady with a rather striking mustache and the bosom of her black gown sprinkled with a snow fall of powder which couldn't find even standing room on her face, conducted Cousin Dudley in the same manner, and I fell to the lot of a beautiful youth.

The _sala_ was crazy with what-nots and knick-knacks and bamboo furniture and running over with people--plump, furrily powdered _senoritas_ with young mustaches, cherubs with gazelle eyes and weak-coffee-colored skin, and the oldest woman ever seen out of a pyramid.

There was an agonizing time getting us all introduced and a still more agonizing time of stage wait afterward. Then Cousin Dudley (I thirsted for his gore) said chirpily, "My niece has learned to speak Spanish, you know."

My dear, it made the Tower of Babel seem like "going into the silence." Everybody in that room talked to me at once. In my frantic boast and foolish word about the easiness of Spanish it had never occurred to me that people would talk to _me_! If the fiends had only held their tongues and let _me_ ask _them_ to have the kindness to do me the favor to show me which way was the cathedral, or whether it was the silk handkerchief of the rich Frenchman which the young lady's old sick father required, all would have been well, but instead--a madhouse!

Then came rescue. The sweetest, softest p.u.s.s.y willow of a girl with a delicious accent said, "So deed I also feel, in the conevent, when they all at once spik _ingles_!" She was in pearl gray, no powder, no mustache, slim as a reed. Her gentle name is Maria de Guadalupe Rosalia Merced Castello, but they call her "Lupe" ("Loopie," Sally, not Loop!) She is a penniless orphan, just visiting her kin at present, but lives with an uncle in Guanajuato (where delves my C.E.

at his mine) and she is in disgrace because of an undesirable love affair, so the _senora_ told Cousin Ada. They are taking us to the _Plaza_ to-night, and meanwhile we sup.

Delightedly,

JANE.

P.S. 11.30 P.M. The _Plaza_ is still the parlor in Guadalajara and it's enchanting! The staid background of the chaperones in _coches_, the slow procession of youths and maidens, two and two, boys in one line, girls in another, the eager, forward looks, the whisper at pa.s.sing, the note slipped from hand to hand, the backward glances, all cla.s.ses, and over all, through all, the pleading, pulsing call of the music.

Sarah, never did you make melody like that, decent New Englander that you are! It's so poignantly searching-sweet, so _sin verguenza_ (without shame!) _El profesor_ had them play _La Golondrina_, their national anthem, really, which means merely The Swallow, to start with, but everything else a hungry heart can pack into it. Lupe and I walked together and she was pouring out her dewy young confidences before we'd been twice round the circle. Montagues and Capulets! The rich uncle who has reared her is the bitterest enemy of her Emilo's papa who is a general of revolutionary tendencies. "Me," she said with a shrug, "I can never marry! _Vestire los santos!_" (Which means, "I shall dress the saints!" Old maids having unlimited time for church work!)

_Buenas noches_,

J.

_December 14th._

DEAREST SALLY,

The loveliest idea came and sat on my chest in the pearly dawn! I'm going to take Maria de Guadalupe Rosalia Merced Castello with me on this tour as Spanish teacher! She accepted with tears of joy and the Morales family bore up bravely. They will be frankly glad of a few nights' sleep,--Lupe's gallants come nightly to "make a serenade,"--not a lone guitar but the tenor from the opera house and a piano trundled through the streets. The more costly the musical ingredients, the greater the swain's devotion!

To-day we went with various members of the Morales clan to visit the _Hospicio_ (see the Budders for dates and data!). I only remember a girl of twelve who sat by herself in the playground, the small, cameo, clear face with its sorrowing eyes, the pathetic arrogance in the lift of the chin, her withdrawal from the other noisy little orphans. I knew she must have a story, and when I asked the pretty sister in charge, she burst into eager narrative.

Twelve years ago, approximately, a young physician was called at night to the _peon_ quarter, and to his amazement found that his patient was a lady, a girl whose patrician manner was proof against all her terror and suffering. She utterly refused to look at her child and threatened to smother it if he left it within her reach.

He took it to the _Hospicio_ to be cared for temporarily, and a few days later, going as usual to attend the young mother, he found her vanished. There was a lavish fee left for him, and a note, bidding him insolently to banish the whole matter from his memory. The neighbors knew only that they had heard a _coche_ in the dead of night. The child, whom they named in their mournful fas.h.i.+on Dolores Tristeza--sorrows and sadness--was always the doctor's protegee. One day he came in great excitement to tell the pretty sister the sequel. He had been summoned the night before to the bedside of a dying man,--one of the great names of the city. The family was grouped about the father and among the weeping daughters he espied his mysterious patient! Afterward, when he was leaving, she looked him squarely in the eye and said, "You are a newcomer in Guadalajara? You must be, for _I have never seen you before_!" He told no one but the sister at the _Hospicio_ and not even to her did he divulge the name, but two days later, in a lonely suburb of the city, he was shot and killed.

Sarah, doesn't that make your scalp creep? Dolores Tristeza! "Sorrows and Sadness!" I dashed out and bought her a gorgeous doll and she gave me a gracious smile but she was not at all overcome. She clearly feels her quality. Loads of people have wanted to adopt her but she would never go with them.

And to-morrow we are off to Queretaro to drop a silent tear on Maximilian's dressy little tomb, the Budders, Lupe, the C.E. and I.

We are gathering as we roll!

_Adios, querida mia!_

J.

_Queretaro._

I've paid proper tribute to that poor p.a.w.n of Empire who lived so poorly and who died so well, but the real zest of this journey is Lupe! Fresh every hour! Her mental processes are delicious. I was lamenting her frank delight in bull-fights and she said, "Oh, the firs' time I see horse keel,' I am ver' seek. _Now_ they keel four, seven, eleven horse,' I like ver' moach!" When I tried to make her realize the enormity of her taste, she turned on me like a flash--"But you American girl, you go see you' brawther get keel' in football game!"

"p.u.s.s.y willow," I said, "it's not a parallel case. Our brothers are free agents,--they adore doing it. They're toiling and sweating and praying for the chance--perhaps for years,--and they're heroes, and thousands are making the welkin ring with their names!"

She shrugged. "Oh--_eef_ you care more for some ol' horse than you'

_brawther_----"

The C.E. (although he could dispense with her society very cheerfully) helps me to understand her, and through her, Mexico, this sad, bad, pitiful, charming, lovable, hateful land!

Lupe's Emilio is by way of being a poet, it seems, and he has sent her a little song, which we have translated, and I put it into rhyme, and the C.E.--who has a very decorative voice indeed--hums it to a lonesome little tune distantly related to La Golondrina. Here it is:

"Thro' the uncolored years before I knew you My days were just a string of wooden beads; I told them dully off, a weary number ...

The silly cares, the foolish little needs.