Mariposilla Part 2

To me, the fifteen remaining acres appeared most desirable, for I was not then versed in the matter of fruit culture. I did not understand that orange trees differ one from another in point of perfection as widely as do people.

It was some time before I learned that in the early settlement of the valley disastrous experiments had been made. Many of the first trees planted had yielded an inferior variety of fruit, not lucrative in a market each year growing more critical, as the country became settled by determined agriculturists, who possessed, not only cash capital, but brains stimulated by college education and practical experience. Such men soon discovered that it was unprofitable to irrigate or nurture for long a tree that was not all that a tree of its kind should be.

Consequently there had been frequent upheavals of earth; many old orchards were regarded by the experienced as worthless, the owners preferring to replant with the best varieties of budded trees, even though a considerable time must elapse before a revenue would result.

Unfortunately, the orange ranch of the Dona Maria Del Valle was a poor one. It was planted with a flavorless variety of seedling, which yielded an income quite insufficient for the demands of the family. From an aesthetic point of view the grove appeared the Garden of the Hesperides.

The staunch, far-reaching limbs of the old trees drooped opulently beneath the golden b.a.l.l.s that invited the "Forty Thieves," who, happening to be "tenderfeet," ate with wry faces and discourteous exclamations the fruit that a native would have scorned to touch. For in California oranges are not ripe in December. Not until the late spring, when the sun has used persistently his winsome inducements, does the fruit consent to a.s.sume its luscious perfection.

Turning from the highway, the ranch of the Dona Maria Del Valle was entered from between two mammoth century plants, whose giant spears made formidable the approach to the long avenue leading to the house. The drive was shaded by gnarled old pepper trees, uniting from each side their fantastic branches to form an elfin tunnel of lacy shade. On the ground, thickly scattered, lay dartlike leaves, and scarlet berries shading from rich to pale, until a long oriental rug seemed spread for the court of an expected princess.

At the end of the Avenue stood the low adobe, covered with ivy and the famous Gold of Ophir rose, which at Easter illuminated the veranda and roof with the lights and shadows of forty thousand blooms. Not far from the house two giant palms--honored patriarchs of the valley--reared their trembling feathers to the sky. Like grim sentinels, true to a trust, they guarded in dumb eloquence the story of the past.

Before reaching the house the drive divided, encircling within the arms of its curve a soft oval cushion of Bermuda gra.s.s that in December is brown and unpromising, but in the spring grows green remaining so through the long summer, making no imperative demand for water, and being at all seasons as soft to the feet as the most luxurious rug. It is the gra.s.s created for the invalid. He alone appreciates the thick, delicious mat, which h.o.a.rds for his bloodless feet thousands of warm sunbeams that cheat his physician into the belief that he is eminent, when he discovers his patient escaping his professional clutches.

Added to the tropical effect of full-grown palms and riotous shrubbery, the guardian Sierra Madre was ever flashing rich shadows and tender patches of light, that, in the clear, prismatic air, reflected countless expressions into the hearts of the flowers and onto the surface of the leaves.

Such was the home of the Dona Maria Del Valle. Here Mariposilla had been born, sixteen years before, five months after the death of her father, Don Arturo.

CHAPTER V.

Each year, when the Gold of Ophir illuminates the valley with its pa.s.sionate bloom, I think of Mariposilla. Under the spell of the transient radiance of the rose, her beauty comes to me like a lovely dream. The flashing lights and subtile shades of the marvelous flower seem to communicate a wild sensation of the child's presence; for ever since I first beheld her close to the rose, there has been in my mind a fancy that between these two children of the valley there existed a bond, an almost supernatural kinship, that betrayed itself with each quiver of the atmosphere.

So impressed I became with the idea, that I unconsciously sought for Mariposilla's mood in the changing color of the rose. During the eventful weeks of which I shall write, when the rose and the girl began and finished their one exciting drama, bursting together into fullest perfection, I found myself a.s.sociating them constantly in my thoughts.

So essential each appeared to the other, that when Mariposilla stood beneath the Gold of Ophir she seemed to absorb its every tint, while at the same time its golden sprays glowed with the effulgence of her glorious proximity. Their harmony appeared perfect, their united beauty the personification of carnal and ethereal blending. When the sun shone early, with no rebuff from the occasional fog, thousands of buds and blossoms bloomed upon the somber adobe, and even while one looked, indescribable tones of gold, and pink, and yellow appeared to creep from the pa.s.sionate hearts of the buds onto the glorified edges of the full-blown flowers. Then, too, Mariposilla dazzled. Her very being flashed with a phosph.o.r.escence akin to nothing human, but so like the l.u.s.ter of the rose that each must have been created that the other might bloom. Both seemed children of the sun, entrusted with opalescent secrets that nothing but his rays could reveal; for, if the day grew chill, both Mariposilla and the Gold of Ophir paled. The fire left the edges of the rose petals, and the blood retreated from the surface of the girl's creamy flesh. Her great luminous eyes grew dull, as she sought listlessly her neglected lace frame, drawing silently the threads of the linen, ignoring the whining questions of her old grandmother, completely lost in the indifference of her mood.

Or perhaps, disregarding the commands of her mother, she tossed aside the lace frame and crept into a silent corner of the room to play upon her guitar wild, turbulent music, until the Dona Maria, angry and impatient, commanded her to finish at once the altar cloth ordered months before by the lady from Pasadena. At the same time she bade her mind with care to cross herself at the little Jesus st.i.tch, else a curse would come upon them all.

Even yet I dread to think of this strange child out of the sunshine. I would always have kept her under the influence of soothing warmth.

Mariposilla--little b.u.t.terfly--how well she idealized her name. Born of the sun and for the sun, no real b.u.t.terfly ever rivaled her. Why could I not protect her pa.s.sionate, capricious young heart, as the flowers enfold at night the dazzling, thoughtless beauties of a summer's day?

Alas! destiny seemed kinder to the insect than to the child.

Viewing in retrospect the girl's rapid and eventful development, I now remember vividly each incident in her little history. When she came into my life like a picturesque plaything, I failed to realize that she was other than a beautiful child. I was then totally ignorant from experience of the premature blooming of Spanish girls. From history I knew that they developed young; but history is easily forgotten. It was natural to expect Mariposilla to pursue the same pace that once upon a time I had taken myself. We are all miserable egotists, without realizing the weakness; and I fell at once into the fallacy of believing that all girls develop in the same way. Mariposilla was only sixteen, and at sixteen most girls are children. I recalled my own blushes, as I remembered drawing-room miseries to which I was at that age subjected.

When my grown brothers insisted upon presenting me to college chums, I flew at my earliest opportunity from the ordeal, cheered by the thought of a toboggan slide with my nice boy beau. Yes, I had a boy beau, who was truly delightful. It was only when he went away to college that I ceased to care for him, and bestowed my smiles upon a new flame across the way, who was yet a boy. At sixteen I regarded men as formidable creatures, to be encountered when school days were over, and childhood had come to an end. When I heard later that my gay Freshman smoked! and was engaged to a young woman of his college town, six years his senior, I wondered how I had ever consented to sit upon a sled with such a monster. At sixteen my ideas of love were as vague as they were wholesome. In my young healthiness I doubted seriously if any girl ever died for love outside of a book. Thus recalling my own girlhood, I at first felt no misgivings in exposing Mariposilla to the apparently innocent attentions of Mr. Sidney Sanderson, especially as his mother and myself were always about. It seemed only sensible to believe that the Spanish child would receive real benefit from her new a.s.sociations.

I did not realize the narrow boundaries of her young life, nor did I then understand how she adored Americans, whom she regarded as models of refinement and wisdom. When the Dona Maria told me of her grandnephew's love for her daughter I felt it an outrage that so young a girl should have been spoken to about marriage.

I was secretly glad that Mariposilla had repulsed her second cousin, and I could not cease to wonder why the Dona Maria, so sensible in most respects, should desire her only child to accept at sixteen the only man she had ever known. It delighted me to believe that Mariposilla found full enjoyment in the society of Marjorie. They were great friends, and at times Marjorie seemed almost as mature as the older girl. Each day they played with the hounds upon the Bermuda gra.s.s, as happy and free from responsibility as the dogs. Thus time slipped away. Peace and contentment filled our lives, while my child and her Spanish playmate rivaled each day in healthy beauty the roses, now responding to the first welcome rains.

CHAPTER VI.

As Christmas approached, I found myself antic.i.p.ating the festal time with a restored interest as keen as the feigned enthusiasms of the previous holiday season had been unbearable. But three weeks remained of the old year, and already the new one seemed full of promises.

As I watched Marjorie and Mariposilla romp like kittens upon the Bermuda gra.s.s, I wondered if my heart could ever ache again with the old, tiresome pain. The morning was glorious, and I felt myself buoyed above my most ardent hopes. Our new life was an elixir, that drove away sad thoughts, while it invited pleasant memories. Nature had aroused once more my sluggish sympathies, until I complied eagerly with all of her coaxing demands. When her trees swayed, their quiet motion lulled me. If her birds talked, I understood their pleasant a.s.surances. With the sun rose my heart. When it sank slowly to rest, I waited for its good-night promise upon the mountains, and when they flushed rosiest, I, too, glowed with a rapturous trust.

With Marjorie asleep in my arms, I heard my father calling dear names to his own little girl. I felt my mother braid my hair, and saw her smile at my fresh blue ribbons. Two handsome brothers teased me about the new lover, who had driven away the other beaux. And then I felt again upon my lips this lover's first true kiss. When my child laughed in her sleep I laid her gently down, and lived once more the short, sweet romance of my life.

Each day I was learning to go alone, gradually attaining the composure of one who has survived a shock, realizing at last the odds of destiny, and the necessity of making much of comfortable opportunities.

I am describing my feelings, not that I wish to write about myself, but in order that I may be pardoned if later some may blame me for lack of perception. If I was beguiled into unsuspiciousness by the peace of my new life, I should be forgiven, for at that time G.o.d's whole creation seemed as good as in the beginning.

Christmas was coming, I have said, and Marjorie was wild with expectation. I could hear her merry treble entreating Mariposilla to tell how Santa Claus could ever come to California, where there was no snow, except upon the tops of the mountains.

When the Spanish girl failed to explain, the child grew flushed and excited. Marjorie's vivid imagination was tempered by a rational appreciation of consistency, and she declared indignantly that Santa Claus always traveled in a sleigh. Without snow the reindeer would have a difficult time, and she was pathetically certain that her stocking would be quite empty upon Christmas morning. The little girl was a stubborn logician. The form of her infantile dictum was often mixed, but her mother generally perceived her difficulties, and drew from sadly-muddled premises conclusions that were entirely satisfactory to both. In the existing case she had foreseen the burst of skepticism that was now distressing the child, and was well prepared to confute her troublesome doubts. "Listen," she said, "and I will explain.

"Mariposilla ought to know that when Santa Claus comes to Southern California he always lives upon the top of 'Old Baldy.' The beautiful valley is too warm for him. So each year he builds a snow house upon the mountain, and, with his pipe and reindeer for company, he works merrily at the toys which he so skillfully fashions for the children of the far West. When his loving labor is completed, he packs the wonderful presents into a huge sleigh, and at twelve o'clock of the night before Christmas, he feeds his reindeer, and hitches them to the great sledge.

When the children of the peaceful valleys are fast asleep, the dear old Saint drives gaily down the steep, white side of the great mountain. At its foot he blows a long, shrill whistle, and from the many canons of the range come the fairies. The happy little people dearly love to be useful. They have the greatest affection for Santa Claus, and they tell him truthfully about all of his boys and girls; reporting both good and naughty ones. But most tenderly do the fairies tell of the little sick children who have come from faraway homes in the East to seek for health in the land of sunshine. When the kind Saint is sure that no child has been forgotten, he commands the fairies to finish his loving work. He can go no farther with the reindeer, and so he intrusts his beautiful gifts to the willing little helpers, who have swarmed at his call. And now, at the bidding of the Fairy Queen, thousands of lily chariots, drawn by dashing teams of b.u.mblebees, form in long lines upon the foothills. The white chariots, with their yellow daisy wheels, are a wonderful sight in the early daylight.

"Each one has a fairy driver, dressed in a Christmas suit, made from the petals of a Marechal Neil rose. When the chariots are at last loaded to their fullest capacity with the precious toys, old Santa Claus gives the signal to start. Then the happy drivers spring upon their high, yellow seats in the center of the chariots. Gripping firmly a long lash of blue gra.s.s, each little fellow waves farewell to dear Santa Claus, who has already started up the mountain, satisfied and happy that his holiday work is done. Not until another Christmas will the valleys feel the loving presence of the kind old Saint, for when the sun and the birds have awakened his children he will be far away. But his beautiful gifts will be hanging upon the great, white rose-trees--the Christmas trees of our summer land."

When I had finished Marjorie clapped her hands and exclaimed with delight, but Mariposilla said nothing. She was silently eloquent for several moments, until, suddenly remembering that she ought to acknowledge genius, she kissed me gently upon the cheek, much as she would have kissed the wooden image of the Virgin that stood in the Dona Maria's bedroom. Looking down into my face with her great, beautiful eyes, she said, almost reverently: "The Senora knows much; she is a great and wise Americana; I love her with great love."

Mariposilla had never before addressed me in the quaint, affectionate style of her anglicized tongue, and as I caught her in my arms, laughing at the sweet, sober compliment, I told her how I would always treasure it for her sake--the most delightful praise I had ever received.

I remember it was about this time that I first became aware of the girl's rare beauty. Suddenly she seemed to have commenced to mature, and her radiance startled me. I wondered then if such ravishing charms were to be desired, for it seemed hardly possible that she would be contented with her available destiny.

I had already seen that her thoughts were not with her countryman and kinsman, Arturo, but remote, engaged with intangible dreams of she knew not what. I could not refuse to see, at times, in her restless, unsatisfied expression, that she had outgrown the customs and a.s.sociations of her race. I saw that she was consumed with admiration for Americans, attempting their fashions and manners with a determination almost pathetic.

When the Sandersons came to the ranch, and we sat upon the veranda chatting in the effervescent style of our Republic, Mariposilla listened like a charmed bird, especially if Mrs. Sanderson chanced to relate a story replete with inimitable shades and mannerisms. I am certain that the lady herself realized and exerted unduly her magnetism upon the unsophisticated girl. I often noticed her regarding with complacent amus.e.m.e.nt the worshipful expression upon Mariposilla's face. Sometimes she would abruptly summon her to her side, while she touched the dark head with her beautiful jeweled hand. Perhaps she called her a pretty name; or possibly joked her about her faith in the good stories of the great Americanos, until the child's cheeks grew opalescent with happy embarra.s.sment. Then, before the lovely tints had paled, she would send her away for a gla.s.s of water from the deep red olla, or for a rose from a bush indicated by her fancy.

I remember that upon this particular morning I was troubling indirectly about Mariposilla, thinking that perhaps her daily a.s.sociation with Sidney might not be for the best. I had not then dreamed of inhuman exertions on the part of the Sandersons to entrap the child. I simply wondered if we were wise to expose the beautiful, immature girl to the constant, flattering attentions of an impossible young man.

I remember that I decided to tell her, at my earliest opportunity, that Sidney was destined to marry a New York heiress. However, as soon as the thought had taken shape in my mind, I felt indignant for imagining possibilities disagreeable enough to disturb the peace of our pleasant social conditions. I said to myself that Mariposilla was still a child, often the satisfied playmate of Marjorie. It would be easy, I was sure, to observe the slightest vibration in the direction of a love affair.

The Dona Maria had a.s.sured me that her child was hard of heart, ever scorning the devotion of lovers. Altogether I felt a ridiculous prude when the gay trap of the Sandersons suddenly dashed into the avenue.

Sidney was driving the spirited team, with his mother behind him, luxuriously wrapped for the December morning.

At the first sound of the horses' hoofs upon the driveway, Mariposilla vanished. I could see at a glance, upon her return, that she had been before the little mirror in her bedroom, for the betumbled appearance occasioned by her romp with Marjorie had disappeared; likewise she had embellished her scarlet frock with a little black velvet girdle that emphasized the costume with an irresistible touch of Spain.

I perceived that Sidney was unmistakably pleased with the child's appearance; but I could not consistently blame him for our common crime, for never before had I been so impressed with the superb type of Mariposilla's beauty.

Mrs. Sanderson was most winning. She had come, she said, in search of good company for a drive. She was going to Pasadena for two yards of yellow ribbon. Was it not absolutely delightful to drive eight miles for a couple of yards of ribbon? Such irresponsible pleasure made one scorn philanthropy. Why should one desire to reconcile happy Hottentots to Parisian costume? Why be perpetually annoyed with grave and difficult questions, when all could be easily dismissed in a drive after ribbon?

She lamented that she had not come to San Gabriel years ago, before there was so little to prolong. She was sure native Californians were born without nerves. It rested her more than a whole year at a sanitarium to look at Mariposilla. What a perfect beauty she was, this minute, in her red frock. She must gain at once the Dona Maria's consent and come for a drive. All must make haste, for it was criminal to lose one moment of the morning.

Mariposilla, as usual, had stood unconsciously enthralled by Mrs.

Sanderson's wonderful personality. The child had not understood the lady's ironic sallies, but the invitation to drive had been plain.

Instantly the absent, incomprehensible look fled from her eyes; they seemed suddenly bathed in lambent joy, while an emotional radiance enveloped her form. Resembling the beautiful little creature after which she had been named, she appeared to dart through the sunshine, then to vanish in the doorway of the somber adobe, like a lost meteor. Her marvelous, unstudied motions seemed the reflection of fickle twilight.

"Will she come back? or has she flown forever into an old legend of Spain?" Mrs. Sanderson demanded, tragically. "She will return as demure as a novitiate," I replied.

A few moments later the truth of the statement was verified. The girl's first intense emotions had been forcibly quieted by her desire to be thought conventional. When she reappeared, prepared for the drive, she walked slowly, almost stiffly--"like a lady," the Sisters at the Convent would have said.