The Pride of Palomar
CHAPTER XXIX
"We've been waiting for you, Miguel, to motor with us to El Toro," Kaygreeted him as he entered the patio.
"So sorry to have delayed you, Kay. I'm ready to start now, if youare."
"Father and mother are coming also. Where have you been? I askedPablo, but he didn't know."
"I've been over to Bill Conway's camp to tell him to quit work on thatdam."
The girl paled slightly and a look of apprehension crept into her eyes."And--and--he's--ceasing operations?" she almost quavered.
"He is not. He defied me, confound him, and in the end I had to lethim have his way."
El Mono, the butler, interrupted them by appearing on the porch toannounce that William waited in the car without. Mrs. Parker presentlyappeared, followed by her husband, and the four entered the waitingcar. Don Mike, satisfied that his old riding breeches and coat wereclean and presentable, had not bothered to change his clothes, anevidence of the democracy of his _ranchero_ caste, which was not lostupon his guests.
"I know another route to El Toro," he confided to the Parkers as thecar sped down the valley. "It's about twelve miles out of our way, butit is an inspiring drive. The road runs along the side of the highhills, with a parallel range of mountains to the east and the lowfoothills and flat farming lands sloping gradually west to the PacificOcean. At one point we can look down into La Questa Valley and it'sbeautiful."
"Let us try that route, by all means," John Parker suggested. "I havebeen curious to see La Questa Valley and observe the agriculturalmethods of the Japanese farmers there."
"I am desirous of seeing it again for the same reason, sir," Farrelreplied. "Five years ago there wasn't a Jap in that valley and now Iunderstand it is a little Japan."
"I understand," Kay struck in demurely, "that La Questa Valley suffereda slight loss in population a few weeks ago."
Both Farrel and her father favored her with brief, sharp, suspiciousglances. "Who was telling you?" the latter demanded.
"Senor Bill Conway."
"He ought to know better than to discuss the Japanese problem withyou," Farrel complained, and her father nodded vigorous assent. Kaytilted her adorable nose at them.
"How delightful to have one's intelligence underrated by mere men," sheretorted.
"Did Bill Conway indicate the direction of the tide of emigration fromLa Questa?" Farrel asked craftily, still unwilling to admit anything.The girl smiled at him, then leaning closer she crooned for his earalone:
He's sleeping in the valley, The valley, The valley, He's sleeping in the valley, And the mocking bird is singing where he lies.
"Are you glad?" he blurted eagerly. She nodded and thrilled as shenoted the smug little smile of approval and complete understanding thatcrept over his dark face like the shadow of clouds in the San Gregorio.Mrs. Parker was riding in the front seat with the chauffeur and Kay satbetween her father and Don Mike in the tonneau. His hand droppedcarelessly on her lap now, as he made a pretense of pulling the autorobe up around her; with quick stealth he caught her little finger andpressed it hurriedly, then dropped it as if the contact had burned him;whereat the girl realized that he was a man of few words, but--
"Dear old idiot," she thought. "If he ever falls in love he'll pay hiscourt like a schoolboy."
"By the way, sir," Farrel spoke suddenly, turning to John Parker, "Iwould like very much to have your advice in the matter of aninvestment. I will have about ninety thousand dollars on hand as soonas I sell these cattle I've rounded up, and until I can add to this sumsufficient to lift the mortgage you hold, it scarcely seems prudent topermit my funds to repose in the First National Bank of El Toro withoutdrawing interest."
"We'll give you two and one-half per cent. on the account, Farrel."
"Not enough. I want it to earn six or seven per cent. and it occurredto me that I might invest it in some good securities which I coulddispose of at a moment's notice, whenever I needed the money. Thepossibility of a profit on the deal has even occurred to me."
Parker smiled humorously. "And you come to me for advice? Why, boy,I'm your financial enemy."
"My dear Mr. Parker, I am unalterably opposed to you on the Japanesecolonization scheme and I shall do my best to rob you of the profit youplan to make at my expense, but personally I find you a singularlyagreeable man. I know you will never resign a business advantage, but,on the other hand, I think that if I ask you for advice as to aprofitable investment for my pitiful little fortune, you will not bebase enough to advise me to my financial detriment. I trust you. Am Inot banking with your bank?"
"Thank you, Farrel, for that vote of confidence. You possess a trulysporting attitude in business affairs and I like you for it; I like anyman who can take his beating and smile. Yes, I am willing to advise aninvestment. I know of a dozen splendid securities that I canconscientiously recommend as a safe investment, although, in the eventof the inevitable settlement that must follow the war and our nationalorgy of extravagance and high prices, I advise you frankly to waitawhile before taking on any securities. You cannot afford to absorbthe inevitable shrinkage in the values of all commodities when theshow-down comes. However, there is a new issue of South Coast PowerCompany first mortgage bonds that can be bought now to yield eight percent. and I should be very much inclined to take a chance on them,Farrel. The debentures of the power corporations in this state areabout the best I know of."
"I think you are quite right, sir," Farrel agreed. "Eventually theSouth Coast Company is bound to divide with the Pacific Company controlof the power business of the state. I dare say that in the fullness oftime the South Coast people will arrange a merger with the CentralCalifornia Power Company."
"Perhaps. The Central California Company is under-financed and notparticularly well managed, Farrel. I think it is, potentially, anexcellent property, but its bonds have been rather depressed for a longtime."
Farrel nodded his understanding. "Thank you for your advice, sir.When I am ready will your bank be good enough to arrange the purchaseof the South Coast bonds for me?"
"Certainly. Happy to oblige you, Farrel. But do not be in too great ahurry. You may lose more in the shrinkages of values if you buy nowthan you would make in interest."
"I shall be guided by your advice, sir. You are very kind."
"By the way," Parker continued, with a deprecatory smile, "I haven'tentered suit against you in the matter of that foreclosure. I didn'tdesire to annoy you while you were in hospital and you've been busy onthe range ever since. When can I induce you to submit to aprocess-server?"
"This afternoon will suit me, Mr. Parker."
"I'll gladly wait awhile longer, if you can give me any tangibleassurance of your ability to meet the mortgage."
"I cannot do that to-day, sir, although I may be able to do so if youwill defer action for three days."
Parker nodded and the conversation languished. The car had climbed outof the San Gregorio and was mounting swiftly along the route to LaQuesta, affording to the Parkers a panorama of mountain, hill, valleyand sea so startling in its vastness and its rugged beauty that DonMike realized his guests had been silenced as much by awe as by theirdesire to avoid a painful and unprofitable conversation.
Suddenly they swung wide around a turn and saw, two thousand feet belowthem, La Questa Valley. The chauffeur parked the car on the outside ofthe turn to give his passengers a long, unobstructed view.
"Looks like a green checker-board with tiny squares," Parker remarkedpresently.
"Little Japanese farms."
"There must be a thousand of them, Farrel."
"That means not less than five thousand Japanese, Mr. Parker. It meansthat literally a slice of Japan has been transplanted in La QuestaValley, perhaps the fairest and most fruitful valley in the fairest andmost fruitful state in the fairest and most fruitful country God evermade. And it is lost to white men!"
"Serves them right. Why didn't they retain their lands?"
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"Why doesn't water run up hill? A few Japs came in and leased orbought lands long before we Californians suspected a 'yellow peril.'They paid good prices to inefficient white farmers who were glad to getout at a price in excess of what any white man could afford to pay.After we passed our land law in 1913, white men continued to buy thelands for a corporation owned by Japanese with white dummy directors,or a majority of the stock of the corporation ostensibly owned by whitemen. Thousands of patriotic Californians have sold their farms toJapanese without knowing it. The law provides that a Japanese cannotlease land longer than three years, so when their leases expire theyconform to our foolish law by merely shifting the tenants from one farmto another. Eventually so many Japs settled in the valley that thatwhite farmers, unable to secure white labor, unable to trust Japaneselabor, unable to endure Japanese neighbors or to enter into Japanesesocial life weary of paying taxes to support schools for the educationof Japanese children, weary of daily contact with irritable, unreliableand unassimilable aliens, sold or leased their farms in order to escapeinto a white neighborhood. I presume, Mr. Parker, that nobody canrealize the impossibility of withstanding this yellow flood exceptthose who have been overwhelmed by it. We humanitarians of a later daygaze with gentle sympathy upon the spectacle of a noble and primevalrace like the Iroquois tribe of Indians dying before the advance of ourAnglo-Saxon civilization, but with characteristic Anglo-Saxoninconsistency and stupidity we are quite loth to feel sorry forourselves, doomed to death before the advance of a Mongoliancivilization unless we put a stop to it--forcibly and immediately!"
"Let us go down and see for ourselves," Mrs. Parker suggested.
Having reached the floor of the valley, at Farrel's suggestion theydrove up one side of it and down the other. Motor-truck aftermotor-truck, laden with crated vegetables, passed them on the road,each truck driven by a Japanese, some of them wearing the peculiarbamboo hats of the Japanese coolie class.
The valley was given over to vegetable farming and the fields weredotted with men, women and children, squatting on their heels betweenthe rows or bending over them in an attitude which they seemed able tomaintain indefinitely, but which would have broken the back of a whiteman.
"I know a white apologist for the Japanese who in a million pamphletsand from a thousand rostrums has cried that it is false that Japanesewomen labor in the fields," Farrel told his guests. "You have seen athousand of them laboring in this valley. Hundreds of them carrybabies on their backs or set them to sleep on a gunnysack between therows of vegetables. There is a sixteen-year-old girl struggling with aone-horse cultivator, while her sisters and her mother hold up theirend with five male Japs in the gentle art of hoeing potatoes."
"They live in wretched little houses," Kay ventured to remark.
"Anything that will shelter a horse or a chicken is a palace to a Jap,Kay. The furnishings of their houses are few and crude. They rise inthe morning, eat, labor, eat, and retire to sleep against another dayof toil. They are all growing rich in this valley, but have you seenone of these aliens building a decent home, or laying out a flowergarden? Do you see anything inspiring or elevating to our nation dueto the influence of such a race?"
"Yonder is a schoolhouse," Mrs. Parker suggested. "Let us visit it."
"The American flag floats over that little red school-house, at anyrate," Parker defended.
William halted the car in the schoolhouse yard and Farrel got out andwalked to the schoolhouse door. An American school-teacher, a girl ofperhaps twenty, came to the door and met him with an inquiring look."May we come in?" Farrel pleaded. "I have some Eastern people with meand I wanted to show them the sort of Americans you are hired to teach."
She smiled ruefully. "I am just about to let them out for recess," shereplied. "Your friends may remain in their car and draw their ownconclusions."
"Thank you." Don Mike returned to the car. "They're coming out forrecess," he confided. "Future American citizens and citizenesses.Count 'em."
Thirty-two little Japanese boys and girls, three Mexican or Indianchildren and four of undoubted white parentage trooped out into theyard and gathered around the car, gazing curiously. The school-teacherbade them run away and play and, in her role of hostess, approached thecar. "I am Miss Owens," she announced, "and I teach this schoolbecause I have to earn a living. It is scarcely a task over which onecan enthuse, although I must admit that Japanese children are notunintelligent and their parents dress them nicely and keep them clean."
"I suppose, Miss Owens," Farrel prompted her, having introduced himselfand the Parkers, "that you have to contend with the native Japaneseschools."
She pointed to a brown house half a mile away. Over it flew the flagof Japan. "They learn ancestor worship and how to kow-tow to theEmperor's picture down there, after they have attended school here,"she volunteered. "Poor little tots! Their heads must ache with theamount of instruction they receive. After they have learned here thatColumbus discovered America on October 12th, 1492, they proceed to thatJapanese school and are taught that the Mikado is a divinity and adirect descendant of the Sun God. And I suppose, also, they are taughtthat it is a fine, clean, manly thing to pack little, green, or decayedstrawberries at the bottom of a crate with nice big ones on top--indefiance of a state law. Our weights and measures law and a few othersare very onerous to our people in La Questa."
"Do you mean to tell me, Miss Owens," Parker asked, "that you despairof educating these little Japanese children to be useful Americancitizens?"
"I do. The Buddhist school over yonder is teaching them to be Japanesecitizens; under Japanese law all Japanese remain Japanese citizens atheart, even if they do occasionally vote here. The discipline of myschool is very lax," she continued. "It would be, of course, in viewof the total lack of parental support. In that other school, however,the discipline is excellent."
She continued to discourse with them, giving them an intimate pictureof life in this little Japan and interesting revelations upon the pointof view, family life and business ethics of the parents of her pupils,until it was time to "take up" school again, when she reluctantlyreturned to her poorly paid and unappreciated efforts.
"Well, of course, these people are impossible socially," John Parkeradmitted magnanimously, "but they do know how to make things grow.They are not afraid of hard work. Perhaps that is why they havesupplanted the white farmers."
"Indeed they do know how, Mr. Parker. And they can produce good cropsmore cheaply than a white farmer. A Japanese with a wife and twofairly well-grown daughters saves the wages of three hired men. Thushe is enabled to work his ground more thoroughly. When he leases landhe tries to acquire rich land, which he robs of its fertility in threeyears and then passes on to renew the outrage elsewhere. Where he ownsland, however, he increases fertility by proper fertilization."
"So you do not believe it possible for a white man to competeeconomically with these people, Farrel?"
"Would you, if you were a white farmer, care to compete with theJapanese farmers of this valley? Would you care to live in a roughboard shack, subsist largely on rice, labor from daylight to dark andforce your wife and daughter to labor with you in the fields? Wouldyou care to live in a kennel and never read a book or take an interestin public affairs or thrill at a sunset or consider that you reallyought to contribute a dollar toward starving childhood in Europe?Would you?"
"You paint a sorry picture, Farrel." Parker was evasive.
"I paint what I see before me," he answered doggedly. "This--in fiveyears. And if this be progress as we view progress--if this bedesirable industrial or agricultural evolution, then I'm out of tunewith my world and my times, and as soon as I am certain of it I'll blowmy brains out."
Parker chuckled at this outburst and Kay prodded him with her elbow--awarning prod. The conversation languished immediately. Don Mike satstaring out upon the little green farms and the little brown men andwomen who toiled on them.
"Angry, Don Mike?"
the girl asked presently. He bent upon her a glanceof infinite sadness.
"No, my dear girl, just feeling a little depressed. It's hard for aman who loves his country so well that he would gladly die a thousanddreadful deaths for it, to have to fight the disloyal thought thatperhaps, after all, it isn't really worth fighting for and dying for.If we only had the courage and the foresight and the firmness of theAustralians and New Zealanders! Why, Kay, those sane people will noteven permit an Indian prince--a British subject, forsooth--to entertheir country except under bond and then for six months only. When thesix months have expired--_heraus mit em_! You couldn't find a Jap inAustralia, with a search warrant. But do you hear any Japanese threatsof war against Australia for this alleged insult to her national honor?You do not. They save that bunkum for pussy-footing, peace-loving,backward-looking, dollar-worshiping Americans. As a nation we do notwish to be awakened from our complacency, and the old theory that aprophet is without honor in his own country is a true one. So perhapsit would be well if we discuss something else--luncheon, for instance.Attention! Silence in the ranks! Here we are at the Hotel De LasRosas."
Having dined his guests, Farrel excused himself, strolled over to therailroad station and arranged with the agent for cattle cars to bespotted in on the siding close to town three days later. From thestation he repaired to the office of his father's old attorney, wherehe was closeted some fifteen minutes, after which he returned to hisguests, awaiting his return on the wide hotel veranda.
"Have you completed your business?" Parker inquired.
"Yes, sir, I have. I have also completed some of yours. Coming awayfrom the office of my attorney, I noticed the office of your attorneyright across the hall, so I dropped in and accepted service of thecomplaint in action for the foreclosure of your confounded oldmortgage. This time your suit is going to stick! Furthermore, as Ijogged down Main Street, I met Judge Morton, of the Superior Court, andmade him promise that if the suit should be filed this afternoon hewould take it up on his calendar to-morrow morning and render ajudgment in your favor."
"By George," Parker declared, apparently puzzled, "one gathers theimpression that you relish parting with your patrimony when youactually speed the date of departure."
Mrs. Parker took Don Mike by the lapel of his coat. "You have asecret," she charged.
He shook his head.
"You have," Kay challenged. "The intuition of two women cannot begainsaid."
Farrel took each lady by the arm and with high, mincing steps,simulating the utmost caution in his advance, he led them a little waydown the veranda out of hearing of the husband and father.
"It isn't a secret," he whispered, "because a secret is something whichone has a strong desire to conceal. However, I do not in the leastmind telling you the cause of the O-be-joyful look that has arousedyour curiosity. Please lower your heads and incline your best earstoward me. . . . There! I rejoice because I have the shaggy old wolfof Wall Street, more familiarly known as John Parker, beaten at hisfavorite indoor sport of high and lofty finance. 'Tis sad, but true.The old boy's a gone fawn. _Le roi est mort_! _vive le roi_!"
Kay's eyes danced. "Really, Miguel?"
"Not really or actually, Kay, but--er--morally certain."
"Oh!" There was disappointment in her voice. Her mother was lookingat Don Mike sharply, shrewdly, but she said nothing, and Farrel had afeeling that his big moment had fallen rather flat.
"How soon will John be called upon to bow his head and take the blow?"Mrs. Parker finally asked. "Much as I sympathize with you, Miguel, Idislike the thought of John hanging in suspense, as it were."
"Oh, I haven't quite made up my mind," he replied. "I could do itwithin three days, I think, but why rush the execution? Three monthshence will be ample time. You see," he confided, "I like you all sowell that I plan to delay action for six months or a year, unless, ofcourse, you are anxious for an excuse to leave the ranch sooner. Ifyou really want to go as soon as possible, of course I'll get busy andcook Senor Parker's goose, but--"
"You're incorrigible!" the lady declared. "Procrastinate, by allmeans. It would be very lonely for you without us, I'm sure."
"Indeed, it would be. That portion of me which is Irish would picturemy old hacienda alive at night with ghosts and banshees."
Mrs. Parker was looking at him thoughtfully; seemingly she was notlistening. What she really was doing was saying to herself: "Whatmarvelous teeth he has and what an altogether debonair, captivatingyoung rascal he is, to be sure! I cannot understand why he doesn'tmelt John's business heart. Can it be that under that gay, smiling,lovable surface John sees something he doesn't quite like? I wonder."
As they entered the waiting automobile and started for home, Farrel,who occupied the front seat with the chauffeur, turned and faced theParkers. "From this day forward," he promised them, "we are all goingto devote ourselves to the serious task of enjoying life to the utmost.For my part, I am not going to talk business or Japanese immigrationany more. Are you all grateful?"
"We are," they cried in unison.
He thanked them with his mirthful eyes, faced around in his seat and,staring straight ahead, was soon lost in day dreams. John Parker andhis wife exchanged glances, then both looked at their daughter, seatedbetween them. She, too, was building castles in Spain!
When they alighted from the car before the hacienda, Mrs. Parkerlingered until the patio gate had closed on her daughter and Farrel;then she drew her husband down beside her on the bench under thecatalpa tree.
"John, Miguel Farrel says he has you beaten."
"I hope so, dear," he replied feelingly. "I know of but one way outfor that young man, and if he has discovered it so readily I'd be apoor sport indeed not to enjoy his victory."
"You never really meant to take his ranch away from him, did you, John?"
"I did, Kate. I do. If I win, my victory will prove to my entiresatisfaction that Don Miguel Jose Federico Noriaga Farrel is athrowback to the _Manana_ family, and in that event, my dear, we willnot want him in ours. We ought to improve our blood-lines, notdeteriorate them."
"Yet you would have sold this valley to that creature Okada."
"Farrel has convinced me of my error there. I have been anti-Jap sincethe day Farrel was thrown from his horse and almost killed--by a Jap."
"I'm sure Kay is in love with him, John."
"Propinquity," he grunted.
"Fiddlesticks! The man is perfectly charming."
"Perhaps. We'll decide that point later. Do you think Farrel isinterested in Kay?"
"I do not know, John," his better half declared hopelessly. "If he is,he possesses the ability to conceal it admirably."
"I'll bet he's a good poker-player. He has you guessing, old girl, andthe man who does that is a _rara avis_. However, Katie dear, if I wereyou I wouldn't worry about this--er--affair."
"John, I can't help it. Naturally, I'm curious to know the thoughts inthe back of that boy's head, but when he turns that smiling innocentface toward me, all I can see is old-fashioned deference and amiabilityand courtesy. I watch him when he's talking to Kay--when he cannotpossibly know I am snooping, and still, except for that frankfriendliness, his face is as communicative as this old adobe wall. Afew days ago he rode in from the range with a great cluster of wildtiger-lilies--and he presented them to me. Any other young man wouldhave presented them to my daughter."
"I give it up, Kate, and suggest that we turn this mystery over toFather Time. He'll solve it."
"But I don't want Kay to fall in love with Don Mike if he isn't goingto fall in love with her," she protested, in her earnestness raisingher voice, as was frequently her habit.
The patio gate latch clicked and Pablo Artelan stood in the aperture.
"_Senora_," he said gravely. "Ef I am you I don' worry very much aboutthose boy. Before hee's pretty parteecular. All those hightone'_senorita_ in El Toro she give eet the sweet look to Don Miguel, jus'the same like thees--"
Here Pablo relaxed his old body, permittedhis head to loll sideways and his lower jaw to hang slackly, the whilehis bloodshot eyes gazed amorously into the branches of the catalpatree. "But those boy he don' pay some attention. Hee's give beegsmile to thees _senorita_, beeg smile to thees one, beeg smile to thatone, beeg smile for all the mama, but for the _querida_ I tell to youDon Miguel hee's pretty parteecular. I theenk to myself--Carolina,too--'Look here, Pablo. What he ees the matter weeth those boy? Itheenk mebbeso those boy she's goin' be old bach. What's the matterhere? When I am twenty-eight _anos_ my oldes' boy already hee's bustone bronco'." Here Pablo paused to scratch his head. "But now," heresumed, "by the blood of those devil I know sometheeng!"
"What do you know, you squidgy-nosed old idol, you?" Parker demanded,with difficulty repressing his laughter.
"I am ol' man," Pablo answered with just the correct shade ofdeprecation, "but long time ago I have feel like my _corazon_--myheart--goin' make barbecue in my belly. I am in love. I know. Nobodycan fool me. An' those boy, Don Miguel, I tell you, _senor_, hee'scrazy for love weeth the Senorita Kay."
Parker crooked his finger, and in obedience to the summons Pabloapproached the bench.
"How do you know all this, Pablo?"
Let us here pause and consider. In the summer of 1769 a dashing,care-free Catalonian soldier in the company of Don Gaspar de Portola,while swashbuckling his way around the lonely shores of San Diego Bay,had encountered a comely young squaw. _Mira, senores_! Of the bloodthat flowed in the veins of Pablo Artelan, thirty-one-thirty-secondswas Indian, but the other one-thirty-second was composed of equal partsof Latin romance and conceit.
Pablo's great moment had arrived. Lowly peon that he was, he knewhimself at this moment to be a most important personage; death wouldhave been preferable to the weakness of having failed to take advantageof it.
"Why I know, Senor Parker?" Pablo laughed briefly, lightly,mirthlessly, his cacchination carefully designed to convey theimpression that he considered the question extremely superfluous. Withexasperating deliberation he drew forth his little bag of tobacco and abrown cigarette paper; he smiled as he dusted into the cigarette paperthe requisite amount of tobacco. With one hand he rolled thecigarette; while wetting the flap with his garrulous tongue, he gazedout upon the San Gregorio as one who looks beyond a lifted veil.
He answered his own question. "Well, _senor_--and you, _senora_! Itell you. _Por nada_--forgeeve; please, I speak the Spanish--fornotheeng, those boy he poke weeth hee's thumb the rib of me."
"No?" cried John Parker, feigning profound amazement.
"_Es verdad_. Eet ees true, _senor_. Those boy hee's happy, no? Eh?"
"Apparently."
"You bet you my life. Well, las' night those boy hee's peench weethhis thumb an' theese fingair--what you suppose?"
"I give it up, Pablo."
Pablo wiped away with a saddle-colored paw a benignant and paternalsmile. He wagged his head and scuffed his heel in the dirt. Hefeasted his soul on the sensation that was his.
"Those boy hee's peench--" a dramatic pause. Then:
"Eef you tell to Don Miguel those things I tol' you--_SantaMarias_--Hees cut my throat."
"We will respect your confidence, Pablo," Mrs. Parker hastened toassure the traitor.
"All right. Then I tol' to you what those boy peench--weeth hees thumban' thees fingair. _Mira_. Like thees."
"Cut out the pantomime and disgorge the information, for the love ofheaven," Parker pleaded.
"He peench"--Pablo's voice rose to a pseudo-feminine screech--"thecheek of"--he whirled upon Mrs. Parker and transfixed her with atobacco-stained index finger--"Senorita Parker, so help me, by Jimmy,eef I tell you some lies I hope I die pretty queeck."
Both the Parkers stared at the old man blankly. He continued:
"He peench--queeck--like that. He don' know hee's goin' forpeench--hees all time queeck like that--he don' theenk. But afterthose boy hee's peench the cheen of those girl, hee's got red in theface like black-bird's weeng. 'Oh,' he say, 'I am sky-blue eedete-ot,'an' he run away queeck before he forget heemself an' peench those girlsome more."
John Parker turned gravely to his wife. "Old hon," he murmured softly,"Don Mike Farrel is a pinch-bug. He pinched Kay's chin during a mentallapse; then he remembered he was still under my thumb and he cursedhimself for a sky-blue idiot."
"Oh, John, dear, I'm so glad." There were tears in Mrs. Parker's eyes."Aren't you, John?"
"No, I'm not," he replied savagely. "I think it's an outrage and I'dspeak to Farrel about it if it were not apparent nobody realizes morekeenly than does he the utter impossibility of permitting his fancy towander in that direction."
"John Parker, you're a hard-hearted man," she cried, and left him inhigh dudgeon, to disappear into the garden. As the gate closed behindher, John Parker drew forth his pocket book and abstracted from it ahundred-dollar bill, which he handed to Pablo Artelan.
"We have had our little differences, Pablo," he informed that astoundedindividual, "but we're gradually working around toward a true spirit ofbrotherly love. In the language of the classic, Pablo, I'm here totell the cock-eyed world that you're one good Indian."
Pablo swept his old _sombrero_ to the ground, "_Gracias, _senor_, millegracias_," he murmured, and shuffled away with his prize.
Verily, the ways of this Gringo were many and mysterious. To-day onehated him; to-morrow--
"There is no doubt about it," Pablo soliloquized, "it is better to bethe head of a mouse than the tail of a lion!"