II
First Sergeant Michael Joseph Farrel entered the orderly-room and salutedhis captain, who sat, with his chair tilted back, staring mournfully atthe opposite wall.
"I have to report, sir, that I have personally delivered the batteryrecords, correctly sorted, labeled, and securely crated, to thedemobilization office. The typewriter, field-desk, and stationery havebeen turned in, and here are the receipts."
The captain tucked the receipts in his blouse pocket.
"Well, Sergeant, I dare say that marks the completion of your duties--allbut the last formation." He glanced at his wrist-watch. "Fall in thebattery and call the roll. By that time, I will have organized myfarewell speech to the men. Hope I can deliver it without making a foolof myself."
"Very well, sir."
The first sergeant stepped out of the orderly-room and blew three longblasts on his whistle--his signal to the battery to "fall in." The mencame out of the demobilization-shacks with alacrity and formed within aminute; without command, they "dressed" to the right and straightened theline. Farrel stepped to the right of it, glanced down the long row ofsilent, eager men, and commanded,
"Front!"
Nearly two hundred heads described a quarter circle.
Farrel stepped lithely down the long front to the geometrical center ofthe formation, made a right-face, walked six paces, executed anabout-face, and announced complainingly:
"Well, I've barked at you for eighteen months--and finally you made itsnappy. On the last day of your service, you manage to fall in withinthe time-limit and dress the line perfectly. I congratulate you." Covertgrins greeted his ironical sally. He continued: "I'm going to saygood-by to those of you who think there are worse tops in the servicethan I. To those who did not take kindly to my methods, I have noapologies to offer. I gave everybody a square deal, and for theinformation of some half-dozen Hot-spurs who have vowed to give me thebeating of my life the day we should be demobilized, I take pleasure inannouncing that I will be the first man to be discharged, that there is anice clear space between these two demobilization-shacks and the groundis not too hard, that there will be no guards to interfere, and if anyman with the right to call himself 'Mister' desires to air his grievance,he can make his engagement now, and I shall be at his service at the hourstipulated. Does anybody make me an offer?" He stood there, balancednicely on the balls of his feet, cool, alert, glancing interestedly upand down the battery front. "What?" he bantered, "nobody bids? Well,I'm glad of that. I part friends with everybody. Call rolls!"
The section-chiefs called the rolls of their sections and reported thempresent. Farrel stepped to the door of the orderly-room.
"The men are waiting for the captain," he reported.
"Sergeant Farrel," that bedeviled individual replied frantically, "Ican't do it. You'll have to do it for me."
"Yes, sir; I understand."
Farrel returned to the battery, brought them to attention, and said:
"The skipper wants to say good-by, men, but he isn't up to the job. He'safraid to tackle it; so he has asked me to wish you light duty, heavypay, and double rations in civil life. He has asked me to say to youthat he loves you all and will not soon forget such soldiers as you haveproved yourselves to be."
"Three for the Skipper! Give him three and a tiger!" somebody pleaded,and the cheers were given with a hearty generosity which even the mostdisgruntled organization can develop on the day of demobilization.
The skipper came to the door of the orderly-room.
"Good-by, good luck, and God bless you, lads!" he shouted, and nod withthe discharges under his arm, while the battery "counted off," and, incommand of Farrel (the lieutenants had already been demobilized), marchedto the pay-tables. As they emerged from the paymaster's shack, theyscattered singly, in little groups, back to the demobilization-shacks.Presently, bearing straw suitcases, "tin" helmets, and gas-masks (theselatter articles presented to them by a paternal government as souvenirsof their service), they drifted out through the Presidio gate, where theworld swallowed them.
Although he had been the first man in the battery to receive hisdischarge, Farrel was the last man to leave the Presidio. He waiteduntil the captain, having distributed the discharges, came out of thepay-office and repaired again to his deserted orderly-room; whereupon theformer first sergeant followed him.
"I hesitate to obtrude, sir," he announced, as he entered the room, "butwhether the captain likes it or not, he'll have to say good-by to me. Ihave attended to everything I can think of, sir; so, unless the captainhas some further use for me, I shall be jogging along."
"Farrel," the captain declared, "if I had ever had a doubt as to why Imade you top cutter of B battery, that last remark of yours would havedissipated it. Please do not be in a hurry. Sit down and mourn with mefor a little while."
"Well, I'll sit down with you, sir, but I'll be hanged if I'll bemournful. I'm too happy in the knowledge that I'm going home."
"Where is your home, sergeant?"
"In San Marcos County, in the southern part of the state. After twoyears of Siberia and four days of this San Francisco fog, I'm fed up onlow temperatures, and, by the holy poker, I want to go home. It isn'tmuch of a home--just a quaint, old, crumbling adobe ruin, but it's home,and it's mine. Yes, sir; I'm going home and sleep in the bed mygreat-greatgrandfather was born in."
"If I had a bed that old, I'd fumigate it," the captain declared. Likeall regular army officers, he was a very devil of a fellow forsanitation. "Do you worship your ancestors, Farrel?"
"Well, come to think of it, I have rather a reverence for 'the ashes ofmy fathers and the temples of my gods.'"
"So have the Chinese. Among Americans, however, I thought all that sortof thing was confined to the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers."
"If I had an ancestor who had been a Pilgrim Father," Farrel declared,"I'd locate his grave and build a garbage-incinerator on it."
"What's your grouch against the Pilgrim Fathers?"
"They let their religion get on top of them, and they took all the joyout of life. My Catalonian ancestors, on the other hand, while takingtheir religion seriously, never permitted it to interfere with a_fiesta_. They were what might be called 'regular fellows.'"
"Your Catalonian ancestors? Why, I thought you were black Irish, Farrel?"
"The first of my line that I know anything about was a lieutenant in theforce that marched overland from Mexico to California under command ofDon Gaspar de Portola. Don Gaspar was accompanied by Fray JuniperoSerra. They carried a sword and a cross respectively, and arrived in SanDiego on July first, 1769. So, you see, I'm a real Californian."
"You mean Spanish-Californian."
"Well, hardly in the sense that most people use that term, sir. We havenever intermarried with Mexican or Indian, and until my grandfatherFarrel arrived at the ranch and refused to go away until my grandmotherNoriaga went with him, we were pure-bred Spanish blonds. My grandmotherhad red hair, brown eyes, and a skin as white as an old bleached-linennapkin. Grandfather Farrel is the fellow to whom I am indebted for mysaddle-colored complexion."
"Siberia has bleached you considerably. I should say you're an ordinarybrunet now."
Farrel removed his overseas cap and ran long fingers through his hair.
"If I had a strain of Indian in me, sir," he explained, "my hair would bestraight, thick, coarse, and blue-black. You will observe that it iswavy, a medium crop, of average fineness, and jet black."
The captain laughed at his frankness.
"Very well, Farrel; I'll admit you're clean-strain white. But tell me:How much of you is Latin and how much Farrel?"
It was Farrel's turn to chuckle now.
"Seriously, I cannot answer that question. My grandmother, as I havestated, was pure-bred Castilian or Catalonian, for I suppose they mixed.The original Michael Joseph Farrel (I am the third of the name) wasTipperary Irish, and could trace his ancestry back to the fairies--tohear him t
ell it. But one can never be quite certain how much Spanishthere is in an Irishman from the west, so I have always started with thepremise that the result of that marriage--my father--was three-fifthsLatin. Father married a Galvez, who was half Scotch; so I suppose I'm anAmerican."
"I should like to see you on your native heath, Farrel. Does your dadstill wear a conical-crowned sombrero, bell-shaped trousers, bolerojacket, and all that sort of thing?"
"No, sir. The original Mike insisted upon wearing regular trousers andhats. He had all of the prejudices of his race, and regarded folks whodid things differently from him as inferior people. He was a lieutenanton a British sloop-of-war that was wrecked on the coast of San MarcosCounty in the early 'Forties. All hands were drowned, with the exceptionof my grandfather, who was a very contrary man. He swam ashore andstrolled up to the hacienda of the Rancho Palomar, arriving just beforeluncheon. What with a twenty-mile hike in the sun, he was dry by thetime he arrived, and in his uniform, although somewhat bedraggled, helooked gay enough to make a hit with my great-grandfather Noriaga, whoinvited him to luncheon and begged him to stay a while. Michael Josephliked the place; so he stayed. You see, there were thousands of horseson the ranch and, like all sailors, he had equestrian ambitions."
"Great snakes! It must have been a sizable place."
"It was. The original Mexican grant was twenty leagues square."
"I take it, then, that the estate has dwindled in size."
"Oh, yes, certainly. My great-grandfather Noriaga, Michael Joseph I, andMichael Joseph II shot craps with it, and bet it on horse-races, and gaveit away for wedding-doweries, and, in general, did their little best toput the Farrel posterity out in the mesquite with the last of the MissionIndians."
"How much of this principality have you left?"
"I do not know. When I enlisted, we had a hundred thousand acres of thefinest valley and rolling grazing-land in California and the haciendathat was built in 1782. But I've been gone two years, and haven't heardfrom home for five months."
"Mortgaged?"
"Of course. The Farrels never worked while money could be raised at tenper cent. Neither did the Noriagas. You might as well attempt to yokean elk and teach him how to haul a cart."
"Oh, nonsense, Farrel! You're the hardest-working man I have ever known."
Farrel smiled boyishly.
"That was in Siberia, and I had to hustle to keep warm. But I know I'llnot be home six months before that delicious _manana_ spirit will settleover me again, like mildew on old boots."
The captain shook his head.
"Any man who can see so clearly the economic faults of his race andnevertheless sympathize with them is not one to be lulled to the ruinthat has overtaken practically all of the old native California families.That strain of Celt and Gael in you will triumph over the easy-goingLatin."
"Well, perhaps. And two years in the army has helped tremendously toeradicate an inherited tendency toward procrastination."
"I shall like to think that I had something to do with that," the officeranswered. "What are your plans?"
"Well, sir, this hungry world must be fed by the United States for thenext ten years, and I have an idea that the Rancho Palomar can pullitself out of the hole with beef cattle. My father has always raisedshort-legged, long-horned scrubs, descendants of the old Mexican breeds,and there is no money in that sort of stock. If I can induce him to turnthe ranch over to me, I'll try to raise sufficient money to buy a coupleof car-loads of pure-bred Hereford bulls and grade up that scrub stock;in four or five years I'll have steers that will weigh eighteen hundredto two thousand pounds on the hoof, instead of the littleeight-hundred-pounders that have swindled us for a hundred years."
"How many head of cattle can you run on your ranch?"
"About ten thousand--one to every ten acres. If I could develop waterfor irrigation in the San Gregorio valley, I could raise alfalfa andlot-feed a couple of thousand more."
"What is the ranch worth?"
"About eight per acre is the average price of good cattle-range nowadays.With plenty of water for irrigation, the valley-land would be worth fivehundred dollars an acre. It's as rich as cream, and will growanything--with water."
"Well, I hope your dad takes a back seat and gives you a free hand,Farrel. I think you'll make good with half a chance."
"I feel that way also," Farrel replied seriously.
"Are you going south to-night?"
"Oh, no. Indeed not! I don't want to go home in the dark, sir." Thecaptain was puzzled. "Because I love my California, and I haven't seenher for two years," Farrel replied, to the other's unspoken query. "It'sbeen so foggy since we landed in San Francisco I've had a hard job makingmy way round the Presidio. But if I take the eight-o'clock traintomorrow morning, I'll run out of the fog-belt in forty-five minutes andbe in the sunshine for the remainder of the journey. Yes, byJupiter--and for the remainder of my life!"
"You want to feast your eyes on the countryside, eh?"
"I do. It's April, and I want to see the Salinas valley with its oaks; Iwant to see the bench-lands with the grape-vines just budding; I want tosee some bald-faced cows clinging to the Santa Barbara hillsides, and Iwant to meet some fellow on the train who speaks the language of mytribe."
"Farrel, you're all Irish. You're romantic and poetical, and you feelthe call of kind to kind. That's distinctly a Celtic trait."
"_Quien sabe_? But I have a great yearning to speak Spanish withsomebody. It's my mother tongue."
"There must be another reason," the captain bantered him. "Sure thereisn't a girl somewhere along the right of way and you are fearful, if youtake the night-train, that the porter may fail to waken you in time towave to her as you go by her station?"
Farrel shook his head.
"There's another reason, but that isn't it. Captain, haven't you beenvisualizing every little detail of your home-coming?"
"You forget, Farrel, that I'm a regular-army man, and we poor devils getaccustomed to being uprooted. I've learned not to build castles inSpain, and I never believe I'm going to get a leave until the old manhands me the order. Even then, I'm always fearful of an order recallingit."
"You're missing a lot of happiness, sir. Why, I really believe I've hadmore fun out of the anticipation of my home-coming than I may get out ofthe realization. I've planned every detail for months, and, if anythingslips, I'm liable to sit right down and bawl like a kid."
"Let's listen to your plan of operations, Farrel," the captain suggested."I'll never have one myself, in all probability, but I'm child enough towant to listen to yours."
"Well, in the first place, I haven't communicated with my father sincelanding here. He doesn't know I'm back in California, and I do not wanthim to know until I drop in on him."
"And your mother, Farrel?"'
"Died when I was a little chap. No brothers or sisters. Well, if I hadwritten him or wired him when I first arrived, he would have had a weekof the most damnable suspense, because, owing to the uncertainty of theexact date of our demobilization, I could not have informed him of theexact time of my arrival home. Consequently, he'd have had old Carolina,our cook, dishing up nightly fearful quantities of the sort of grub I wasraised on. And that would be wasteful. Also, he'd sit under the catalpatree outside the western wall of the hacienda and never take his eyes offthe highway from El Toro or the trail from Sespe. And every night afterthe sun had set and I'd failed to show up, he'd go to bed heavy-hearted.Suspense is hard on an old man, sir."
"On young men, too. Go on."
"Well, I'll drop off the train to-morrow afternoon about four o'clock ata lonely little flag-station called Sespe. After the train leaves Sespe,it runs south-west for almost twenty miles to the coast, and turns southto El Toro. Nearly everybody enters the San Gregorio from El Toro, but,via the short-cut trail from Sespe, I can hike it home in three hours andarrive absolutely unannounced and unheralded.
"Now, as I pop up over the
mile-high ridge back of Sespe, I'll be lookingdown on the San Gregorio while the last of the sunlight still lingersthere. You see, sir, I'm only looking at an old picture I've alwaysloved. Tucked away down in the heart of the valley, there is an old ruinof a mission--the Mission de la Madre Dolorosa--the Mother of Sorrows.The light will be shining on its dirty white walls and red-tiled roof,and I'll sit me down in the shade of a manzanita bush and wait, becausethat's my valley and I know what's coming.
"Exactly at six o'clock, I shall see a figure come out on the roof of themission and stand in front of the old gallows-frame on which hang eightchimes that were carried in on mules from the City of Mexico whenJunipero Serra planted the cross of Catholicism at San Diego, in 1769.That distant figure will be Brother Flavio, of the Franciscan Order, andthe old boy is going to ramp up and down in front of those chimes with ahammer and give me a concert. He'll bang out 'Adeste Fideles' and'Gloria in Excelsis.' That's a cinch, because he's a creature of habit.Occasionally he plays 'Lead, Kindly Light' and 'Ave Maria'!"
Farrel paused, a faint smile of amusement fringing his handsome mouth.He rolled and lighted a cigarette and continued:
"My father wrote me that old Brother Flavio, after a terrible battle withhis own conscience and at the risk of being hove out of the valley by hisindignant superior, Father Dominic, was practising 'Hail, The ConqueringHero Comes!' against the day of my home-coming. I wrote father to tellBrother Flavio to cut that out and substitute 'In the Good OldSummertime' if he wanted to make a hit with me. Awfully good old hunks,Brother Flavio! He knows I like those old chimes, and, when I'm home, hemost certainly bangs them so the melody will carry clear up to thePalomar."
The captain was gazing with increasing amazement upon his former firstsergeant. After eighteen months, he had discovered a man he had notknown heretofore."
"And after the 'Angelus'--what?" he demanded.
Farrel's smug little smile of complacency had broadened.
"Well, sir, when Brother Flavio pegs out, I'll get up and run down to theMission, where Father Dominic, Father Andreas, Brother Flavio, BrotherAnthony, and Brother Benedict will all extend a welcome and muss me up,and we'll all talk at once and get nowhere with the conversation for thefirst five minutes. Brother Anthony is just a little bit--ah--nutty, butharmless. He'll want to know how many men I've killed, and I'll tell himtwo hundred and nineteen. He has a leaning toward odd numbers, astending more toward exactitude. Right away, he'll go into the chapel andpray for their souls, and while he's at this pious exercise, FatherDominic will dig up a bottle of old wine that's too good for a nut likeBrother Anthony, and we'll sit on a bench in the mission garden in theshade of the largest bougainvillea in the world and tuck away the wine.Between tucks, Father Dominic will inquire casually into the state of mysoul, and the information thus elicited will scandalize the old saint.The only way I can square myself is to go into the chapel with them andgive thanks for my escape from the Bolsheviki.
"By that time, it will be a quarter of seven and dark, so Father Dominicwill crank up a prehistoric little automobile my father gave him in orderthat he might spread himself over San Marcos County on Sundays and saytwo masses. I have a notion that the task of keeping that old car inrunning order has upset Brother Anthony's mental balance. He used to bea blacksmith's helper in El Toro in his youth, and therefore is supposedto be a mechanic in his old age."
"Then the old padre drives you home, eh?" the captain suggested.
"He does. Providentially, it is now the cool of the evening. The SanGregorio is warm enough, for all practical purposes, even on a day inApril, and, knowing this, I am grateful to myself for timing my arrivalafter the heat of the day. Father Dominic is grateful also. The old manwears thin sandals, and on hot days he suffers continuous martyrdom fromthe heat of that little motor. He is always begging Satan to fly awaywith that hot-foot accelerator.
"Well, arrived home, I greet my father alone in the patio. FatherDominic, meanwhile, sits outside in his flivver and permits the motor toroar, just to let my father know he's there, although not for moneyenough to restore his mission would he butt in on us at that moment.
"Well, my father will not be able to hear a word I say until PadreDominic shuts off his motor; so my father will yell at him and ask himwhat the devil he's doing out there and to come in, and be quick aboutit, or he'll throw his share of the dinner to the hogs. We always dineat seven; so we'll be in time for dinner. But before we go in to dinner,my dad will ring the bell in the compound, and the help will report.Amid loud cries of wonder and delight, I shall be welcomed by a mess ofmixed breeds of assorted sexes, and old Pablo, the majordomo, will beordered to pass out some wine to celebrate my arrival. It's against thelaw to give wine to an Indian, but then, as my father always remarks onsuch occasions: 'To hell with the law! They're my Indians, and there aredamned few of them left.'
"Padre Dominic, my father, and I will, in all probability, get just alittle bit jingled at dinner. After dinner, we'll sit on the porchflanking the patio and smoke cigars, and I'll smell the lemon verbena andheliotrope and other old-fashioned flowers modern gardeners haveforgotten how to grow. About midnight, Father Dominic's brain will havecleared, and he will be fit to be trusted with his accursed automobile;so he will snort home in the moonlight, and my father will then carefullylock the patio gate with a nine-inch key. Not that anybody ever stealsanything in our country, except a cow once in a while--and cows neverrange in our patio--but just because we're hell-benders for conforming tocustom. When I was a boy, Pablo Artelan, our majordomo, always sleptathwart that gate, like an old watchdog. I give you my word I've climbedthat patio wall a hundred times and dropped down on Pablo's stomachwithout wakening him. And, for a quarter of a century, to my personalknowledge, that patio gate has supported itself on a hinge and a half.Oh, we're a wonderful institution, we Farrels!"
"What did you say this Pablo was?"
"He used to be a majordomo. That is, he was the foreman of the ranchwhen we needed a foreman. We haven't needed Pablo for a long time, butit doesn't cost much to keep him on the pay-roll, except when hisrelatives come to visit him and stay a couple of weeks."
"And your father feeds them?"
"Certainly. Also, he houses them. It can't be helped. It's an oldcustom."
"How long has Pablo been a pensioner?"
"From birth. He's mostly Indian, and all the work he ever did never hurthim. But, then, he was never paid very much. He was born on the ranchand has never been more than twenty miles from it. And his wife is ourcook. She has relatives, too."
The captain burst out laughing.
"But surely this Pablo has some use," he suggested.
"Well he feeds the dogs, and in order to season his _frijoles_ with thesalt of honest labor, he saddles my father's horse and leads him round tothe house every morning. Throughout the remainder of the day, he sitsoutside the wall and, by following the sun, he manages to remain in theshade. He watches the road to proclaim the arrival of visitors, smokescigarettes, and delivers caustic criticisms on the younger generationwhen he can get anybody to listen to him."
"How old is your father, Farrel?"
"Seventy-eight."
"And he rides a horse!"
"He does worse than that." Farrel laughed. "He rides a horse that wouldpolice you, sir. On his seventieth birthday, at a rodeo, he won firstprize for roping and hog-tying a steer."
"I'd like to meet that father of yours, Farrel."
"You'd like him. Any time you want to spend a furlough on the Palomar,we'll make you mighty welcome. Better come in the fall for thequail-shooting." He glanced at his wrist-watch and sighed. "Well, Isuppose I'd do well to be toddling along. Is the captain going to remainin the service?"
The captain nodded.
"My people are hell-benders on conforming to custom, also," he added."We've all been field-artillerymen.
"I believe I thanked you for a favor you did me once, but to prove Imeant what I said, I'm go
ing to send you a horse, sir. He is a chestnutwith silver points, five years old, sixteen hands high, sound as aLiberty Bond, and bred in the purple. He is beautifully reined, game,full of ginger, but gentle and sensible. He'll weigh ten hundred incondition, and he's as active as a cat. You can win with him at anyhorse-show and at the head of a battery. _Dios_! He is every inch a_caballero_!"
"Sergeant, you're much too kind. Really--"
"The things we have been through together, sir--all that we have been toeach other--never can happen again. You will add greatly to my happinessif you will accept this animal as a souvenir of our very pleasantassociation."
"Oh, son, this is too much! You're giving me your own private mount.You love him. He loves you. Doubtless he'll know you the minute youenter the pasture."
Farrel's fine white teeth, flashed in a brilliant smile, "I do not desireto have the captain mounted on an inferior horse. We have many othergood horses on the Palomar. This one's name is Panchito; I will expresshim to you some day this week."
"Farrel, you quite overwhelm me. A thousand thanks! I'll treasurePanchito for your sake as well as his own."
The soldier extended his hand, and the captain grasped it.
"Good-by, Sergeant. Pleasant green fields!"
"Good-by, sir. Dry camps and quick promotion."
The descendant of a _conquistador_ picked up his straw suitcase, hishelmet, and gas-mask. At the door, he stood to attention, and saluted.The captain leaped to his feet and returned this salutation of warriors;the door opened and closed, and the officer stood staring at the space solately occupied by the man who, for eighteen months, had been his righthand.
"Strange man!" he muttered. "I didn't know they bred his kind any more.Why, he's a feudal baron!"