Читать книгу The Border Kid - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 6
Оглавление“Bring Him Back”
When it was decided by the family that Ricardo was to accompany the stranger, William Benn would have started at once, but arrangements are not easily made by simple people. For two days the household was in an uproar, getting together a packet of clothes for Ricardo, and preparing him in every way that they could for the great journey. In fact, they were troubled to learn that the rich merchant hardly could tell them where the journey would take Ricardo, for William Benn said that he was forced to be constantly on the road.
He gave them an address in the town of El Real, however, to which he said that they might write; and finally Ricardo was made ready for the trip, and on the second morning he started off. The magnificence of William Benn appeared particularly in this start of the journey. The muleteer had determined to give his favorite foster child a mule to ride off into his new life; but when the last morning came, a fine bay mare was found outside the house, with a magnificent new saddle on her back, and a complete accouterment. It was a gift from William Benn to his new “assistant,” for this was the title that he gave Ricardo to the family.
The Perez group poured into the street. The boys were very much affected; Antonio Perez allowed the tears to run down his face; only the mother retained her composure. She blessed Ricardo and embraced him. Then she said to William Benn: “This is not really my son, but I have given to him the work of my hands and the love of my heart. And who can tell? Heaven may have made him mine by that love and that work! If he should not seem at first what you expect him to be, have patience, kind señor. There are seeds planted in him, though it may take time for them to grow!”
William Benn listened to this sad little harangue with downward eyes and a nod, here and there. Secretly, he was in a fever to be gone from the town and the Perez family. Also, his first superstitious emotion had been somewhat dimmed by the passage of time, and he no longer was so sure that Ricardo of the flaming yellow hair might really be a pot of gold for him. However, what one commits himself to, one will not readily draw back from. William Benn said to himself, quietly: “The first hunch is the right one!”
So he stuck to his purpose.
He rode off down the street with Ricardo, who was so delighted with the fine new mare and with his own graceful horsemanship that he looked back only once to wave to those he left behind him, and so with Benn he turned the first winding corner of the way and disappeared from their eyes.
However, it is not right to follow them at once into the adventures which waited for Ricardo. We must turn back to the Perez family and see what happened to them after Ricardo departed.
For a few days, everything went as before, except that the house was more silent, and this was caused by the gloomy behavior of Antonio Perez. He was so sad and occupied with thought that his three real sons began to look to one another and say: “We are nothing to our father. He cares only for Ricardo, because he has a white skin, and blue eyes, and yellow hair, like a gringo!”
The wife of Antonio had the same thought, and after some time, she came on her husband and found him dictating a letter, which young Juan was writing down, for that was an art which the muleteer never had mastered.
The letter was somewhat as follows:
I send my greetings and my love to my dear son, Ricardo. Send us word of yourself as often as your duties allow you to write. Pedro and Vicente both have been given places on a ranch. Their pay is not much, but they are learning to be men. All goes well with us, except that there is a silence in the house!
Then the wife interrupted the muleteer and took him to one side.
“Why do you not love your own children?” she said. “They are truly yours. If you doubt it, look at Pedro! He has a face like a lion, but he has your eyes. Or look at Vicente. When one hears him, his voice is yours, except that it is smoother. Or there is Juan. I admit that he is not so much like you, but he has a hundred of your ways, and you can see if you care to look! But you care for Ricardo and for no one else!”
Then Antonio Perez answered her:
“Now I know what you are thinking; but it is not true!”
“Ah,” said the Navajo, “but you have not smiled since Ricardo left us!”
“Is that why you have such foolish ideas?” said her husband. He looked up to her and smiled indeed. But he was rather in awe of his wife, as he had been the first time that he saw her, standing tall and straight and beautiful in the cornfield, a sheaf in one arm, and a cutting knife in the other. In that manner she always appeared to his mind’s eye, and so she would always stand before him, in spite of time and wrinkles, to her death day; for love, after all, is the only true enchanter. So Antonio looked up to her now with a little awe and heard her say:
“Whatever you speak to me will be the truth.”
“It will,” he answered. “And this is what I am going to tell you. When we heard the voice on our threshold sixteen years ago and I opened the door and saw the golden head of Ricardo, I guessed that he was a treasure sent to us. You may remember that I would not let him be sent away to an orphanage, as you wanted to do!”
“Heaven forgive me,” said the woman. “I was a fool, but after all, I was afraid. We were poorer, then!”
“Exactly,” said Antonio. “We were poorer then, but I guessed in the first instant that Heaven had sent the boy to us to be our fortune. And he has been! Is it not true that the day after he came to us I was given a contract which kept me busy for six months, and out of which we made enough to clothe the entire family, fill the corncrib, and put away some coins, besides?”
She nodded, with a smile. Such times of plenty were memorable seasons!
“And we have gone on safely from that moment. None of our children have been seriously ill. We have had no great bills from the doctor, and we have not had to call in the priest!”
The Navajo crossed herself devoutly.
“But now,” said the father of the family: “Ricardo is gone, and I am afraid that our good fortune has gone away with him.”
“No, no!” she replied. “He has gone off to become rich. We shall have a shower of gold from him!”
“It may be,” said Antonio, “but give me the brandy bottle. I need a taste of it, because even to talk of these things has made my heart cold!”
He proved a false prophet for more than a month. Everything went on smoothly, though he was still so apprehensive that his wife often would say to him: “A watched window will crack!”
And then misfortune came. Juan grew ill. It was a high fever. The doctor had to come twice a day, and Antonio himself was taken on the seventh day, so that Vicente was called in from the ranch on which he worked. Vicente struggled to take care of the sick people—and he himself went down suddenly and lay sicker than all the rest.
When Pedro came in like the lion he was to help the rest, he found that his father and his mother and his two brothers all lay prostrate.
He was the head of the house, and he had to work night and day. No one of the neighbors would come in because the fever was so contagious. Even the doctor did not like to come near them, and when he did arrive, he stayed the shortest possible time. He had a disinfectant stuffed up his nose with cotton. He never spoke a word for fear of drawing in the infected air, but he would sit at the table and hastily scratch out instructions, all the while breathing noisily through his cotton.
Pedro had to keep the house clean, do the marketing and the cooking, and above all, care for the delirious patients. It was a dreadful time, and Pedro grew as thin as a rail.
Juan, the first to sink, was also the first to rise. He looked more like a fox than ever, with his great, massive forehead, and his face which pinched to a sharp point at the chin. He staggered about and helped his exhausted brother. With the spirit of Hercules they toiled together. But it was very hard. All the money in the house was gone. Dreadful necessity sent Pedro forth, and he stood in the piazza and held out his hand before him and, with a burning face, solicited charity!
On the first day he brought home a handful of coins. On the second day there were fewer. On the third day he received almost nothing. Men pay for a novelty but they detest a nuisance.
This terrible time passed and the whole family recovered, but they were so dreadfully in debt that even when the three mules were sold they could not satisfy the doctor. However, they all went cheerfully to work. Pedro and Vicente returned to the ranch which had employed them before; Juan got work in the shop of a shoemaker, and Antonio went to labor in the little flour mill by the river. He was perfectly willing to do anything; nevertheless, his pride had received a mortal blow. His three mules had been to him like three separate kingdoms, which he ruled gently but firmly, a benevolent despot.
By constant labor they paid off all the debts and they bought two more mules which, however, were not as good as the others had usually been. But a week after they were bought, a fire started in the shed and gutted it and stifled the two poor mules in the smoke.
The next day Antonio could not stand. His head was dizzy. The doctor was called and said that they must keep him in dark and quiet with special food. In a word, he must go to the hospital. His wife turned pale, but away he was sent
As she crouched by his bed, he said to her in a feeble whisper:
“You understand now that I was right. When we lost Ricardo, we lost the gift of Heaven! Send for him at once. Send one of our boys to bring him home again!”
