Part 5 (2/2)

”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.

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