The Hunter Cats of Connorloa Part 5

[Ill.u.s.tration: JIM AND THE CATS HUNTING LINNETS.--Page 111.]

Jusy liked to go with Jim on these hunting expeditions. But Rea would never go. She used to sit sorrowfully at home, and listen for the gunshots; and at every shot she heard, she would exclaim to Anita, "Oh, dear! Oh, dear! There's another dear little linnet dead. I think Jusy is a cruel, cruel boy! I wouldn't see them shot for anything, and I don't like the cats any more."

"But," said Anita, "my little senorita did not mind having the gophers killed. It does not hurt the linnets half so much to be shot dead in one second, as it does the gophers to be caught in the cats' claws, and torn to pieces sometimes while they are yet alive. The shot-gun kills in a second."

"I don't care," said Rea. "It seems different; the linnets are so pretty."

"That is not a reason for pitying them any more," said Anita gravely.

"You did not find those old Indians you saw yesterday pretty. On the contrary, they were frightful to look at; yet you pitied them so much that you shed tears."

"Oh, yes!" cried Rea, "I should think I did; and, Anita, I dreamed about them all night long. I am going to ask Uncle George to build a little house for them up in the canon. There is plenty of room there he does not want; and then n.o.body could drive them out of that place as long as they live; and I could carry them their dinner every day. Don't you think he will?"

"Bless your kind little heart!" said Anita. "That would be asking a great deal of your Uncle George, but he is so kind, perhaps he will. If somebody does not take compa.s.sion on the poor things, they will starve, that is certain."

"I shall ask him the minute he comes in," said Rea. "I am going down on the piazza now to watch for him." And taking Fairy in her arms, Rea hurried downstairs, went out on the veranda, and, climbing up into the hammock, was sound asleep in ten minutes.

She was waked up by feeling herself violently swung from side to side, and opening her eyes, saw Jusy standing by her side, his face flushed with the heat, his eyes sparkling.

"O Rea!" he said. "We have had a splendid hunt! What do you think! Jim has shot twenty linnets in this one morning! and that Skipper, he's eaten five of them! He's as good as a regular hunting dog."

"Where's Uncle George?" asked Rea sleepily, rubbing her eyes. "I want Uncle George! I don't want you to tell me anything about the cats'

eating the linnets. I hate them! They're cruel!"

"'Tisn't cruel either!" retorted Jusy. "They've got to be killed. All people that have orchards have to kill birds."

"I won't, when I have an orchard," said Rea.

"Then you won't have any orchard. That will be all," said Jusy. "At least, you won't have any fruit orchard. You'll have just a tree orchard."

"Well, a tree orchard is good enough for anybody," replied Rea half crossly. She was not yet quite wide awake. "There is plenty of fruit in stores, to buy. We could buy our fruit."

"Are you talking in your sleep, Rea?" cried Jusy, looking hard at her.

"I do believe you are! What ails you? The men that have the fruit to sell, had to kill all the linnets and things, just the same way, or else they wouldn't have had any fruit. Can't you see?"

No, Rea could not see; and what was more, she did not want to see; and as the proverb says, "There are none so blind as those who won't see."

"Don't talk any more about it, Jusy," she said. "Do you think Uncle George would build a little house up the canon for poor old Ysidro?"

"Who!" exclaimed Jusy.

"Oh, you cruel boy!" cried Rea. "You don't think of anything but killing linnets, and such cruel things; I think you are real wicked. Don't you know those poor old Indians we saw yesterday?--the ones that are going to be turned out of their house, down in San Gabriel by the church. I have been thinking about them ever since; and I dreamed last night that Uncle George built them a house. I'm going to ask him to."

"I bet you anything he won't, then," said Jusy. "The horrid old beggars!

He wouldn't have such looking things round!"

Rea was wide awake now. She fixed her lovely blue eyes on Jusy's face with a look which made him ashamed. "Jusy," she said, "I can't help it if you are older than I am; I must say, I think you are cruel. You like to kill linnets; and now you won't be sorry for these poor old Indians, just because they are dirty and horrid-looking. You'd look just as bad yourself, if your skin was black, and you were a hundred years old, and hadn't got a penny in the world. You are real hard-hearted, Jusy, I do think you are!" and the tears came into Rea's eyes.

"What is all this?" said Uncle George, coming up the steps. "Not quarrelling, my little people!"

"Oh, no! no!" cried both the children eagerly.

"I never quarrel with Rea," added Jusy proudly. "I hope I am old enough to know better than that."

"I'm only two years the youngest," said Rea, in a mortified tone. "I think I am old enough to be quarrelled with; and I do think you're cruel, Jusy."

This made Uncle George smile. "Look out!" he said. "You will be in a quarrel yet, if you are not careful. What is it, Rea?"

While Rea was collecting her thoughts to reply, Jusy took the words out of her mouth.

"She thinks I am cruel, because I said I didn't believe you would build a house for Indians up in your canon."

"It was not that!" cried Rea. "You are real mean, Jusy!"

And so I think, myself, he was. He had done just the thing which is so often done in this world,--one of the unfairest and most provoking of things; he had told the truth in such a way as to give a wrong impression, which is not so very far different, in my opinion, from telling a lie.

"A home for Indians up in the canon!" exclaimed Uncle George, drawing Rea to him, and seating her on his knee. "Did my little tender-hearted Rea want me to do that? It would take a very big house, girlie, for all the poor Indians around here;" and Uncle George looked lovingly at Rea, and kissed her hair, as she nestled her head into his neck. "Just like her mother," he thought. "She would have turned every house into an asylum if she could."

"Oh, not for all the Indians, Uncle George," said Rea, encouraged by his kind smile,--"I am not such a fool as Jusy thinks,--only for those two old ones that are going to be turned out of their home they've always lived in. You know the ones I mean."

"Ah, yes,--old Ysidro and his wife. Well, Rea, I had already thought of that myself. So you were not so much ahead of me."

"There!" exclaimed Rea triumphantly, turning to Jusy. "What do you say now?"

Jusy did not know exactly what to say, he was so astonished; and as he saw Jim and the cats coming up the road at that minute, he gladly took the opportunity to spring down from the veranda and run to meet them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: decorative panel]*

IV.

The story of old Ysidro was indeed a sad one; and I think, with Rea, that any one must be hard-hearted, who did not pity him. He was a very old Indian; n.o.body knew how old; but he looked as if he must be a hundred at least. Ever since he could remember, he had lived in a little house in San Gabriel. The missionaries who first settled San Gabriel had given a small piece of land to his father, and on it his father had built this little house of rough bricks made of mud. Here Ysidro was born, and here he had always lived. His father and mother had been dead a long time. His brothers and sisters had all died or gone away to live in some other place.

When he was a young man, he had married a girl named Carmena. She was still living, almost as old as he; all their children had either died, or married and gone away, and the two old people lived alone together in the little mud house.

They were very poor; but they managed to earn just enough to keep from starving. There was a little land around the house,--not more than an acre; but it was as much as the old man could cultivate. He raised a few vegetables, chiefly beans, and kept some hens.

Carmena had done fine was.h.i.+ng for the San Gabriel people as long as her strength held out; but she had not been able for some years to do that.

All she could do now was to embroider and make lace. She had to stay in bed most of the time, for she had the rheumatism in her legs and feet so she could but just hobble about; but there she sat day after day, propped up in her bed, sewing. It was lucky that the rheumatism had not gone into her hands, for the money she earned by making lace was the chief part of their living.

Sometimes Ysidro earned a little by days' works in the fields or gardens; but he was so old, people did not want him if they could get anybody else, and n.o.body would pay him more than half wages.

When he could not get anything else to do, he made mats to sell. He made them out of the stems of a plant called yucca; but he had to go a long way to get these plants. It was slow, tedious work making the mats, and the store-keepers gave him only seventy-five cents apiece for them; so it was very little he could earn in that way.

Was not this a wretched life? Yet they seemed always cheerful, and they were as much attached to this poor little mud hovel as any of you can be to your own beautiful homes.