Mariposilla Part 14

Her present schemes were charitable. The Episcopal church needed an organ, and Ethel had determined that the necessary money should be raised. Her artistic and really poetic nature had found an outlet in the existing emergencies of her church, and she boldly originated a grand rose pageant. Each day she grew more enthusiastic over her prospects of success.

All the youth and beauty of Pasadena had been pressed into the carnival.

The opera-house had been generously donated by the owner; while the papers each day keyed to the highest pitch the expectations of the public, by promising the most ravishing display of beauty and flowers ever gathered upon the celebrated Pacific Coast.

Even the Dona Maria had been beguiled into loaning treasures from the sacred green chest. But, best of all, she had generously consented to allow Mariposilla to dance, when Ethel explained, in her pretty way, that everyone was taking part, for the glory of Pasadena, if not for the church.

"Will you believe it?" she said; "I have had scarcely any opposition. My dances are all full, and I have two magnificent marches composed of beauties, whose scrupulous parents can't quite go the tripping, but are delighted to allow their consciences a const.i.tutional walk."

The rehearsals were, of course, an interesting excuse to go to Pasadena; and each week we drove over with Mariposilla. At home she was continually practicing her steps, and the clicking of castanets soon grew familiar. She was alive with enthusiasm and expectation; while her costume to be worn upon the eventful night became a matter for our united thoughts, before it was at last satisfactorily designed.

It was all that the Dona Maria could do to restrain her restless child through the long, religious hours of Good Friday. When they knelt together in the old church, Mariposilla listened not to the solemn prayers. Sternly her mother rebuked her inattention; but the girl's eyes were flooded with happy dreams, and she forgot over and over again the c.r.a.pe-draped cross. The pictures of the stern, gloomy saints failed to frighten her into a state of contrition. Only to the Virgin did she sometimes lift her wandering eyes to implore protection for the lover now absent from her side.

When the sun rose gloriously upon the last day of the penitential season, Mariposilla's spirits rose too. Nothing could restrain her.

"I am most tired of prayers!" she cried, innocently joyous in her emanc.i.p.ation, as we went together, at the request of the Dona Maria, for lilies.

Like a field of snow in the sunshine the tall, pure flowers bloomed in symbolic beauty, for the world's glad festival. Our offering to the sweet Mother and the holy Child was a thousand--and on Easter day they would make glorious the old church.

For years the Dona Maria had dressed the ancient Mission for Easter, and for several seasons her daughter had also a.s.sisted. Now for the first time the girl plead excuses.

She wanted to go to Pasadena with Sidney and Mrs. Sanderson, as there was to be a rehearsal of her dance in the afternoon and Ethel had urged them to drive over early and lunch at Crown Hill.

Sadly the Dona Maria turned from the basket of white roses she had just gathered.

"What!" she exclaimed, "does my child refuse to honor the sweet Mother and the holy Child? Never before has she thought it other than joy to arrange the holy altar."

"Forgive Mariposilla, dear Dona Maria," I said. "Let me a.s.sist this year, and later, when the work is completed, I will drive the child myself to the rehearsal."

To this arrangement the mother agreed, and in consequence we had gone for the lilies early, reaching the old church in advance of other workers.

As we drove through the long, shaded roads of San Gabriel, the waysides seemed lined with devotees. Everyone was going to some church with flowers. Wagon-loads of lilies and roses were soon a common, though not less beautiful spectacle. Loveliest of all were the little children, hastening eagerly upon their sweet errand, with arms almost hidden beneath fragrant burdens.

We met one small child carrying in proud distinction a cross of violets.

Another bore a crown of golden poppies, smiling with the light of the foothills.

When we approached the Mission, groups of Mexican children, many of them in their bare feet, thronged about us with funny little offerings, composed of flowers whose astonishing tones were often a mad blending of orange and deep pink.

The near advent of the happy festival had awakened in these humble b.r.e.a.s.t.s and uncultivated natures a G.o.d-given love for the beautiful.

Each arrangement of flowers told a touching story. In every bunch was hidden the angel of the child who gathered it.

When we halted with our fresh burden, Father Ramirez, who was standing in the doorway of the ancient church, hastened with courtly consideration to a.s.sist us. The old priest commanded the staring children (in Spanish) to carry the flowers into the church, as he gallantly hitched our horse.

Once free from the wagon, I found it impossible to resist the picturesque old stone stairway, which leads from the ground to the choir above. Stealing a moment from my duties, I ran up the rough, time-worn steps, and from a little overhanging balcony caught the morning vision of the valley, stretching peacefully beyond.

"Some time I must come here in the moonlight," I said, as I descended and entered the chilly old church. "Surely I would learn sweet secrets which the sun each day effaces."

CHAPTER XVIII.

It had been an eventful day for Ethel Walton. Now but a brief half hour remained to determine the creditable success of the rose pageant.

With a sandwich in her hand, she had slipped into the rear pa.s.sage leading to the door of Mrs. Sanderson's box.

"No, I can't come in," she replied to her friend's entreaty to enter. "I want just one little peep at the audience, while I eat my supper. I must feel particularly inspired in this last dreadful moment. And the house is grand," she exclaimed, triumphantly. "'Delightful to the ravished sense,'" she hummed, enveloping herself gleefully in the folds of a sheltering portiere.

"What a relief, after all these weeks! Sister has just come from the front, where they are actually speculating on the tickets. It sounds too good to be true. I hear the distant strains of the new organ!" she cried, dramatically. "If only we can postpone the murder of the calcium light man by our bloodthirsty Professor Tiptoe success is ours!"

She flew gaily from the box to attend to the last few arrangements that prefaced the overture.

Pasadena's handsome opera house had been, possibly, the supremest blessing of the great boom. At the time it was built, few doubted the absolute necessity of a rival city for the south of the State.

Fortunately for beautiful Pasadena, the men with visions were ruthlessly awakened to find Los Angeles still the acknowledged commercial center of the valley. In the meantime, her aristocratic suburb had an opera house and a number of other delightful conveniences that might have been delayed in the absence of a boom.

The audience a.s.sembled upon the night of the pageant indicated a.s.sured prosperity. The sight was an opulent surprise for the uninstructed stranger. Not a vacant seat was visible. The upper galleries were crowded to the wall; many were standing in the aisles.

From our box we rejoiced for Ethel in the finished brilliancy of the scene.

"Every one in the set is here but the Prince of Wales," Mrs. Sanderson remarked, jestingly, as she surveyed with honest astonishment the elaborate equipments of the evening.

Extending completely around the balcony, across the proscenium, and encircling both upper and lower boxes, bloomed a variegated band of exquisite roses, four feet in width.

Here and there the luxurious band turned from a knot of glorious d.u.c.h.esse into a stretch of Marechal Neil, which farther on caught hold of the vivid Henrietta. Touching close the pure French rose-color, the simple, unaffected La Marque lay like a field of snow between voluptuous meadows--for next beyond, almost throbbing, scintillating with every change of the lights, shone the Gold of Ophir.

In its distinctive beauty, it seemed to steal from the wonderful galaxy of bloom the composite glory of all.

Last in the wonderful band, the Jacqueminot imparted its dark beauty, also its rich odor of high-born culture that lingers in the petals long after their color has fled.

Although the general scheme of the pageant had been a secret, it was soon understood that the roses used in the decoration of the auditorium were sympathetic representatives of those personified upon the stage.

Each dance was to be an idealization of a particular rose. In the audience, personal preferences were quite noticeable; for favorite dances were boldly championed, not only in corsage bunch and boutonnieres, but by superb bouquets of enormous size.

It is doubtful if more beautiful floral decorations were ever seen.

Viewed from the stage, the dress circle and parquet appeared a huge garden of beauty; the boxes, fairy bowers, twined with their representative roses.

Those attending, almost without exception, were in full evening dress.

Gay parties of visitors from the various hotels waited eagerly for the rise of the curtain, satisfied that the decorations of the house justified great expectations for the performance. Anon, were heard surprised confessions from the provincial Easterner, who had for the first time discovered the existence of a civilized West.

Mrs. Wilbur laughingly owned that her only opportunity for enjoying a peep at the notorious "wild and woolly" was one afternoon when she had gone into Los Angeles to a wild and woolly show from New York. The show pretended to represent the common peculiarities of the West, whereas she blushed to acknowledge it an embarra.s.sing portrayal of Eastern conceit and prejudices.

Mariposilla was to dance in the Spanish dance. She was to personify the Gold of Ophir rose--their subtile charms would mingle at last.

It is hardly necessary to relate that our box bloomed with her chosen rose; that we ourselves heralded our devotion by wearing no rose but the Gold of Ophir.

As the overture died away, the curtain lifted upon a scene at once familiar with local beauty. The time of year was supposed to be November; and at the foot of the protecting Sierra Madre, whose tops stretched away in the distance, we beheld the old garden of Las Flores.

The gray haze of summer still hung about the peaks, for the Silver Harlequin, the son of the mighty Rain G.o.d, had not come.