My friend’s excitement had reached a climax. Crossing himself, he continued: “By all that’s holy, that creature will kill me some day, if I become really angry. It’s fine doings, friend; a man to have a little daughter who has cost him so much sorrow, and then to have someone trying to make her hate the one that she best loves!”
My irascible friend was at the verge of a burst of tenderness, and I hastened to say to him, “Tell me the remedy you have found for the disease, for I can now see it is a serious thing.”
“Well, now you’ll see. Your mamma offered my wife the other day to have Salome sent to her for some weeks, so that the girl might learn fine needlework. That is just what Candelaria wanted. But we couldn’t do it then. I did not know you then as well as I do now.”
“Compadre!”
“For the truth Christ died. But that’s all past now. I wish your mamma would take the girl for some months. That scamp would not go down there to see her. Salome will get back her wits, and will be the very one to tell that fellow to go and be hanged. Don’t you think so?”
“Certainly. I will speak to my mother about it today. She and the girls will be much pleased. I promise you that all this shall be gotten over.”
“May God reward you! Well, I’ll manage it so that you can speak to Salome a bit today, as if you meant nothing. You can propose to her to go to your house, and tell her your mamma wants her. You will tell me what you see, and so we will come out as straight as a furrow. But if the girl opposes me, I swear I’ll tie her on one of my nags some fine day, and shut her up in the convent at Cali. Not so much as a fly can touch her there, and if she doesn’t come out ready to be married, I’ll keep her there till St. John crooks his finger.”
We were riding through the clearing recently bought by Custodio, and he said: “Don’t you see what good land it is, and how brown the underbrush is—the best sign of rich ground? The only thing lacking is water.”
“Why, my friend, you can lead in all of that you want.”
“Don’t make fun of me. If I could, I wouldn’t sell it for twice what I paid.”
“My father will let you have all you want from our pastures. I told him what you needed, and he was surprised that you hadn’t asked him before.”
“How thoughtful you are, little friend! Think of your waiting till now to tell me! Tell the master that I thank him with all my soul. He knows I am not without a heart, and that I am at his orders, with all I have. Candelaria will be delighted; water handy for her garden, for the still, for the cow-yard. You know that what flows by the house is but a little thread, and that is muddied by my neighbor Rudecindo’s pigs, which are all the while rooting and ruining my fences. The only clean water we can get in the house is by sending the stupid to the little Amaime to bring back gourdfuls on the mare. As for getting water from the Honda, it would be better to drink lye, it’s so full of copperas.”
“It comes from copper, my friend.”
“I suppose so.”
The news of my father’s permission to take water so cheered the farmer that he made the big colt show his paces.
“Whose colt is that? He has not your brand.”
“Do you like him? He belongs to Grandfather Somera.”
“How much is he worth?”
“To tell you the plain truth, Don Emigdio would not give four onzas. Yes, he is a mere hack. You ought to see my dark bay—the one I have already trained to the bit. He has a beautiful gait. But what a job it was to break him! This arm was in a sling for a whole week. There never was a more touchy and obstinate beast. He is getting fat now, for after the last dressing down I gave him his spirit was broken.”
We arrived at Custodio’s house, and he dug his heels into the colt to make him open the courtyard gate. Scarcely had this closed behind us with a creak and a bang that startled the sorrel colt, when my friend said to me, “Be alert and careful with Salome, to see what you can get out of her.”
“Never fear,” I replied, forcing my horse up to the corridor; he was frightened at the wash hanging there.
When I went to dismount, my friend had already covered the colt’s head with his cloak, and was holding my stirrup and bridle. After fastening the horses, he went in, shouting, “Candelaria! Salome!”
Nothing but the turkeys answered.
“What! not even the dogs,” continued my friend; “has the earth swallowed them all?”
“I am coming,” responded his wife from the kitchen.
“Stupidity! here’s friend Efraín.”
“Wait for me no time at all, little friend, for we are running out some brown sugar, and it will burn.”
“And Fermín, where has he hidden himself?” asked Custodio.
“He went with the dogs to look for the runaway pig,” replied Salome’s pleasing voice. She soon appeared at the kitchen door, while her father was helping me off with my leggings.
The farmer’s hut was thatched with straw. The floor was of hard earth, lately whitewashed, and very clean. As coffee-bushes, custard-apple trees, papaws, and other fruit-trees were all about the house, nothing was lacking but the thing which was to be supplied—clear, running water. The hut was furnished with chairs bottomed with undressed hide, a bench, a little table then covered with a
