The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California

“Ay, but the years go quick!” said Mariquita, as she flapped a piece of linen after taking it from the water.  “I wonder do all towns sleep like this.  Who can believe that once it is so gay?  The balls!  The grand caballeros!  The serenades!  The meriendas!  No more!  No more!  Almost I forget the excitement when the Americanos coming.  I no am young any more.  Ay, yi!”

“Poor Faquita, she just died of old age,” said a woman who had been young with Mariquita, spreading an article of underwear on a bush.  “Her life just drop out like her teeth.  No one of the old women that taught us to wash is here now, Mariquita.  We are the old ones now, and we teach the young, ay, yi!”

“Well, it is a comfort that the great grow old like the low people.  High birth cannot keep the skin white and the body slim.  Ay, look!  Who can think she is so beautiful before?”

A woman was coming down the road from the town.  A woman, whom passing years had browned, although leaving the fine strong features uncoarsened.  She was dressed simply in black, and wore a small American bonnet.  The figure had not lost the slimness of its youth, but the walk was stiff and precise.  The carriage evinced a determined will.

“Ay, who can think that once she sway like the tule!” said Mariquita, with a sigh.  “Well, when she come to-day I have some news.  A letter, we used to call it, dost thou remember, Brígida?  Who care for the wash-tub mail now?  These Americanos never hear of it, and our people—­triste de mi—­have no more the interest in anything.”

“Tell us thy news,” cried many voices.  The older women had never lost their interest in La Tulita.  The younger ones had heard her story many times, and rarely passed the wall before her house without looking at the tall rose-bush which had all the pride of a young tree.

“No, you can hear when she come.  She will come to-day.  Six months ago to-day she come.  Ay, yi, to think she come once in six months all these years!  And never until to-day has the wash-tub mail a letter for her.”

“Very strange she did not forget a Gringo and marry with a caballero,” said one of the girls, scornfully.  “They say the caballeros were so beautiful, so magnificent.  The Americans have all the money now, but she been rich for a little while.”

“All women are not alike.  Sometimes I think she is more happy with the memory.”  And Mariquita, who had a fat lazy husband and a swarm of brown children, sighed heavily.  “She live happy in the old house and is not so poor.  And always she have the rose-bush.  She smile, now, sometimes, when she water it.”

“Well, it is many years,” said the girl, philosophically.  “Here she come.”

La Tulita, or Doña Herminia, as she now was called, walked briskly across the meadow and sat down on the stone which had come to be called for her.  She spoke to each in turn, but did not ask for news.  She had ceased long since to do that.  She still came because the habit held her, and because she liked the women.

“Ah, Mariquita,” she said, “the linen is not as fine as when we were young.  And thou art glad to get the shirts of the Americans now.  My poor Faquita!”

“Coarse things,” said Mariquita, disdainfully.  Then a silence fell, so sudden and so suggestive that Doña Herminia felt it and turned instinctively to Mariquita.

“What is it?” she asked rapidly.  “Is there news to-day?  Of what?”

Mariquita’s honest face was grave and important.

“There is news, señorita,” she said.

“What is it?”

The washing-women had dropped back from the tubs and were listening intently.

“Ay!” The oracle drew a long breath.  “There is war over there, you know, señorita,” she said, making a vague gesture toward the Atlantic states.

“Yes, I know.  Is it decided?  Is the North or the South victorious?  I am glad that the wash-tub mail has not—­”

“It is not that, señorita.”

“Then what?”

“The Lieutenant—­he is a great general now.”

“Ay!”

“He has won a great battle—­And—­they speak of his wife, señorita.”

Doña Herminia closed her eyes for a moment.  Then she opened them and glanced slowly about her.  The blue bay, the solemn pines, the golden atmosphere, the cemetery on the hill, the women washing at the stone tubs—­all was unchanged.  Only the flimsy wooden houses of the Americans scattered among the adobes of the town and the aging faces of the women who had been young in her brief girlhood marked the lapse of years.  There was a smile on her lips.  Her monotonous life must have given her insanity or infinite peace, and peace had been her portion.  In a few minutes she said good-by to the women and went home.  She never went to the tubs again.