The Little Spanish Dancer Part 10

"Oh, Pepe!" cried Pilar. "When did you get back?"

All summer Pepe had been away on a journey. Now here he was home again to follow and annoy Pilar.

Pepe liked to make believe that he was a cavalier. He liked to imitate his older brothers. For in Spain a man courts his lady in a very romantic way. He stands outside her window at night, and sometimes he sings love songs to her.

This funny, stout little Pepe often met Pilar at school and walked home with her. Once he had even tried to sing under her window. But a neighbor thought it was a tomcat howling and threw a bucket of water on his head.

Today Pilar was in no mood to be followed about. Today was a bitter day in her life. For this time there was no more hope of keeping the castanets. She knew that at last she must really give them up to Juan.

She started to walk on ahead of Pepe. But he followed her.

He puffed as he jogged along behind her, calling out, "Wait for me, Pilar. I have much to tell you. I have been to far-away places. Ho!

Listen, Pilar. I have been to Algeciras ([)a]l'j[+e]-s[=e]'r[.a]s) and to the Rock of Gibraltar."

Pilar thought Pepe himself looked like the Rock of Gibraltar. She had seen pictures of the great, solid rock. It belongs to England, and just across Gibraltar Bay is the lazy little Spanish seaport town of Algeciras.

Pilar usually liked to listen to Pepe's tales of his travels. The boy's father often took him away to places where they saw interesting and curious sights.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GIBRALTAR]

But today it was impossible to pay attention. She tried to get away from Pepe and walked faster and faster.

He followed doggedly, breaking into a gallop and crying out in little gasps, "Hi! But listen, Pilar."

And so eager was he to reach her that he did not notice where he was going, and all of a sudden--pff! bang! He had crashed into a man wearing what looked like a ballet skirt of tin cans. They were milk cans.

They shot in all directions. The man began to scold Pepe and to wave his arms about. A crowd gathered, and in the noise and excitement, Pilar escaped from her stout little sweetheart.

Seville's great cathedral was just across the street--a ma.s.sive giant, squatting in the sun. Pilar went inside. It was cool and peaceful there.

Works of art filled the vast church--paintings, fine carvings, and the stately tomb of Christopher Columbus.

Pilar knelt before the altar, where a curious ceremony takes place every year. This ceremony is called "The Dance of the Six Boys."

Pilar prayed, her eyes closed, her lips moving. And clasped to her heart were the castanets--the magic castanets, about which another legend was woven--a legend around this very Dance of the Six.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALHAMBRA]

CHAPTER XI

DANCE OF THE SIX

(A LEGEND OF THE CASTANETS)

The chorus had been sung, and now they were dancing to the steady, clicking rhythm of their castanets. It was a dignified dance, done by young boys wearing silken pages' costumes and wide, plumed hats.

Everybody felt the solemn beauty of the ceremony, and a hushed reverence had fallen over the cathedral. Two old people, a woman with a black shawl thrown over her head and an old man with a tanned, leathery face, sat silently weeping.

Fernando, their son, moved among those graceful figures beneath the altar. He was a part of the royal Dance of the Six, called the Sevillana.

How proud were these old people of their son Fernando! How happy to know that, each year, he would take his place in this age-old ceremony of their forefathers, in the dance which had been performed for centuries in Seville's cathedral!

For in the far distant past, the Pope, hearing about the Sevillana, wished to see for himself what sort of dance it was. In those days, it would have been considered shocking for girls to dance before the Pope.

So six boys were taught the steps of the Sevillana and taken to the Vatican in Rome.

Here they danced, dressed in their beautiful silken costumes. The Pope was so well pleased that he granted permission to use this dance during certain ceremonies at the cathedral. But the privilege was to last only so long as the boys' costumes lasted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DANCE OF THE SIX, SEVILLE CATHEDRAL]

Today these costumes are still in use. But what a deal of patching and mending must have taken place during those hundreds of years!

When the dance was over, Fernando went into his room and pulled off his quaint, plumed hat. The reverent little dancer had changed to a furious, red-faced youth. He threw the hat down on the floor in a fit of anger.

"Never!" he cried. "Never will I dance it again!"

His sister Maria stood trembling at the door.

"Do not say that, Fernando," she begged. "Think of our parents. You would break their hearts were you never to dance in the cathedral again.

These past three days have been for them the happiest of their lives."

"I shall never dance again," repeated Fernando firmly. "It is girls'

work, and I am a boy. I shall run away and work with men--and be a man!"

Fernando picked up his castanets, which had fallen to the floor.

"Miguel will take my place in the chorus," he said. "I shall have no more use for these castanets, and so I shall give them--"

"No! No!" cried Fernando's sister. She ran over to him and caught him by the arm. "You must never give away those castanets. Surely you have heard about their magic power and the legends attached to them. Ill luck to him who loses or gives away--"

"Nonsense!" scoffed Fernando. "I do not believe such tales. They are old women's twaddle!"

"Perhaps," agreed his sister. "Yet remember what our grandmother once told us. She said that the castanets have always been a power for good. And whenever we do things which we should not do, they bring misfortune to us and to our family."

Then she recited:

"_Castanets, with magic spell, Never lose or give or sell; If you do, then grief and strife Will follow you through all your life._"

"Yes, I know," said Fernando shortly. "But," and he grinned, "I shall change that verse to:

'_Castanets, you have no spell; If I lose or give or sell, I shall live in manly strife, Not be a sissy all my life!_'"

One night many years later, this same Fernando, now a man, glided along in a boat on a river near the border of France. With him were several other men, and all of them were smugglers.

Fernando had long lived in the Pyrenees (p[)i]r'[+e]-n[=e]z) Mountains.

He had joined a band of people who secretly smuggled forbidden goods from Spain to France in the dead of night. They led a dangerous life and were always in fear of the customs men.