Читать книгу The Rose Dawn - Stewart Edward White - Страница 7

The Grove was a-buzz with life. The huge barbecued joints had been dug up from the pit and now lay before Benito and his assistants, who sliced them deftly with long, keen knives and laid the slices on plates. These were quickly snatched away by waiting laughing girls who took them in precarious piles to the tables. There waited the guests, cracking walnuts, eating raisins and oranges, making vast inroads on the supposedly ornamental desserts while awaiting the substantials. The volunteer waitresses darted here and there. They were girls of the country, both American and Spanish born. The former were magnificent figures cast on heroic lines; tall, full bosomed, large limbed, tawny and gold, true California products; the latter smaller, with high insteps, small bones, powdered faces, beautiful eyes. All alike were very starched and very busy. Men followed them with galvanized pails containing the celebrated sauce—composed mainly of onions, tomatoes, and chilis cunningly blended; or pans with potatoes or tomales or stuffed onions. One stout old California woman dressed in oldstyle rebozo and mantilla, her round face shining with heat and pleasure, carried a long platter heaped high with tortillas which she urged on everyone.

"Da pancak' of old time," she cried. "Eet is veray goot. Try him."

Another group were close gathered at the short table that had been erected in front of the wine kegs. Here José and a number of helpers worked busily filling tin cups that were continually thrust at their attention. At this table there seemed little need for the help of the tripping laughing young waitresses. Everyone appeared willing and able to help himself. The wine ​was of the country, and light in content, yet already its effects could be noticed in the loosening of tongue, the relaxing of the bucolic stiffness that had in certain quarters inaugurated the party. Young chaps besought the flitting girls to stop for but a moment's chat, or flung out an amusing impertinence that caught some damsel on the fly. There was a great deal of laughter. A Spanish orchestra back in the trees twanged away on its guitars, and even though unheeded, furnished a background to the noise.

An abatement of this noise suddenly took place. Rapid admonitions found their way to the groups and individuals who still talked or laughed on. Shortly silence reigned. The Colonel and Mrs. Peyton were leading their especial guests into the Grove.

There ensued a few moments of well-bred confusion while places were found. Then the Colonel straightened himself and faced the assembly.

"You are welcome, friends," he said. "It is pleasant to greet you here once more. This occasion is always one near my heart, and my wish is that it may continue for many years to come." He raised a wine glass to the light. "I will ask you to drink with me to the fiesta of her who makes this rancho what it is—many happy returns——" He turned and bowed low to Mrs. Peyton. The people all over the Grove struggled to their feet—no easy matter from the stationary benches. The air cried with the shouts in English and Spanish. And the spirits of the trees—which, though friendly spirits are shy—must have plucked up heart against the noise and drawn nearer to that composite glow of good feeling.

All reseated themselves, and attacked with appetite the good things offered. The food at the Colonel's tables was exactly that of the others—the juicy barbecued meat with the fiery sauce, the tomales and tortillas, the beans and soda biscuits, all brought around in pails and pans and served with dippers. But it was very good. The only difference was in the silver, the glass, the napkins and the wines. Of the latter the Colonel was proud. The white wines had been carefully chilled in the spring house: the red wines turned in the sun by ​the Colonel's own hand. Sing Toy and two younger replicas had charge of serving them.

At the Colonel's right sat Allie, for was she not the guest of honour? At his left billowed Mrs. Judge Crosby. Mrs. Doctor Wallace was across the way, and so the Colonel found himself surrounded with dignity, substantial importance, and what would have been certain stodginess had it not been for his own inexhaustible and genuine desire that everyone have a good time. He plied them with courtesy, with food, with drink, with rather elaborate old compliments, pretending to believe that remote yesterdays were but just around the corner. And every few moments he would remark with an air of discovery on the excellence of some dish, and would send for the cook thereof.

"These are real camp soda biscuits," he told Mrs. Crosby. "Just the kind you will get on rodeo. I wonder who made them? Who made these biscuits, Ynez?" he asked a Spanish girl who passed. "Find out, and ask the one who cooked them to stop here a moment. You won't mind, will you?" he flattered Mrs. Judge. "So you made these soda biscuits!" he said a moment later, as a lazy, awkward American cowboy stood before him twisting his broad hat. "Well, you are an artist, and I wanted Mrs. Peyton to see you and tell you so."

"Indeed, they are delicious. Better than I could do myself. And you know I am quite a cook," said Mrs. Peyton briskly.

"Yes, ma'am," said the cowboy. "You'd do a heap better always if you use a Dutch oven 'stead of a stove."

He retired hot with embarrassment, outwardly stolid, and inwardly "tickled to death."

In like manner a farmer's wife was complimented on her jelly—though in her case the Colonel gallantly hunted her up to tell her so. Indeed the Colonel was always popping up and moving about to exchange a few words with his guests at the other tables. But also some things had been contributed by those sitting at the Colonel's own table.

"Mrs. Mainwaring," the Colonel called down the line to a little middle-aged Southern woman. "Nobody north of the Mason and Dixon can make beaten biscuits. That has been ​proved to-day. Without your kindness we should have missed one of our most delicate gastronomic treats."

As the meat was passed he remarked loudly, so that all could hear:

"You must remember to take plenty of the sauce. The barbecue is nothing without it. None can make the pepper flavour that goes into it unless one has lived in the old days. Is it not so, Doña Paredis?"

But the great moment was when, the serving over, Benito was summoned to receive his compliment, for in the final analysis his had been the responsibility for the gastronomies of the party; and his was now the glory. It was fairly a ceremony, with courtly little speeches on both sides. Benito bore himself with dignity, and acquitted himself loftily. One would have said a knight errant acknowledging due praise from his liege.

But all was not on as high a plane. There was a good deal of noise at the Colonel's tables as well as in the Grove at large. Corbell and his half dozen boon companions had preëmpted an end of the other table, where they were having close-corporation jokes among themselves and accumulating an extraordinary number of longnecked bottles. Kenneth Boyd was still with the group of pretty girls. The other two young men proved to be rather harmless local nonentities; but the damsels were at once pretty, stylish, and lively. Kenneth possessed certain advantages, such as a New York address, a jeweled fraternity pin, a preposterously long-visored cap with tangled college insignia embroidered on the front, a small knack with a guitar, a varied repertoire of perfectly killing college songs of a humorous trend, a half dozen jingles that turned most daringly on kissing, and a tiny gold ring with enamel forget-me-nots that looked as though it might have been given him by some girl. It must not be forgotten that he was young and goodlooking and not at all shy. Of course he could not deploy all these advantages at once, nor is the above claimed to be a complete catalogue; but enough has been suggested. If the reader has even been young he—or she—can see at once that the party was here going to be a success. Indeed, soon after the cool, sliced tomatoes had been served, the whole lot of them by common consent left the tables and seated ​themselves on the grass at some distance. Kenneth had borrowed a guitar from the musicians. He was surrounded by fluffy gay nymphs of different types, but all young and charming. Two negligible males had been supplied by Providence as witnesses. He teased and was teased. He sang his little songs dealing with naughty maidens of the bold black eye, or fishermen who sailed out of Billingsgate. He recited his little verses, notably one that ended to the effect that "the hint with all its sweetness her lover did discern, he flung his arms around her neck and glued his lips to hern." This elicited shrieks and writhings. The crass vulgarity and bad taste made a piquant contrast to the elegance of the relations between such cultured young people. The girls liked it, but it made them shudder—like the juice of the sweet lemon. Kenneth had a what-cares-he-for-conventions feeling, like the young devil he was. Dora Stanley and Myra Welch, and Isabelle Carson played up especially well. Dora was the vivid roguish type, Myra the languid, dark beautiful type, and Isabelle the plump sentimental type, which was of course why they were always together. Martin Stanley and Winchester Carson felt a vast secret contempt, but they could not think of a thing to do about it.

Boyd and the banker were still together, and had seated themselves near the middle of the long table. Over the Colonel's rye and bourbon they had fallen in with a number of delightful young-old men, and they were having rather a loud good time. Already Boyd had agreed to go riding with them and to play poker with them. They had a fund of dry humour, considerable native shrewdness, and a deliberate intention to have a good time. Four of them were staying at the Fremont for the winter; the other three owned places in the town where they had retired after stormy nor them business careers in the turbulent 'seventies. They were after Boyd's own heart; and he after theirs.

But one other group among all the Colonel's guests requires especial mention as having to do with the story. These were three: an elderly Spanish gentleman and his wife, and their daughter. They had driven up rather grandly in a victoria with a broad-hatted coachman at the ribbons, and had greeted the Colonel with a great deal of ceremony. Don Vincente ​Cazadero was rather stout with tufted side whiskers and a clean-shaven chin. He was of course swarthy, but possessed a transparent skin and haughty eyes. His dress differed in no way from that of the Americans except that in its small details it went to a refinement, a precious meticularity that found its ultimate expression in his small, tight, exquisite varnished boots. As he was a little below the average height, and a little above the average weight he carried himself with the utmost dignity. His wife was also stout. She was placid, unruffled, a little stupid, but evidently of noble race. The daughter was pretty and amiable but rather insipid, with soft eyes and long lashes. Both women were, as was the custom of their people, over-powdered. Their gowns were of wonderful heavy China silk, and their jewels of the first water. This family paid its devoirs to the Colonel in most punctilious style, greeted sundry acquaintances, and then drew aside. Don Vincente was the owner of Las Flores rancho, which bounded Del Monte on the north.

But by now the people began rising here and there from the tables. The girls ceased to flit to and fro, and seated themselves at a side table. This was the chance for which some of the young men had waited; and they hastened to supply the damsels with food and drink. Many of the diners straggled down from the knoll in the direction of the whitewashed corrals where the vaqueros were already beginning the sports. Some of the younger couples were trying to dance to the music of the guitars. Couples strayed away up the cañon.

Kenneth was one of the first at the corrals. He had never seen cowboy games, and proved most eager. The idea did not at all meet with the approval of his companions. The girls had no liking to expose their fresh toilettes to the dust, nor their fresh complexions to the burning sun and heat; the two young men pretended to be bored with such things. They preferred to remain in the shade with the guitar, so they trailed along back to the lawn under the Cathedral Oaks with the rest of the Colonel's "quality" guests. The Colonel himself went to the corrals. It was part of his hospitable duty to show there, he told Mrs. Judge Crosby with apparent regret; and then he ​scuttled away like a dear old boy afraid that already he might have missed something. He made his way through the dense packed crowd, shaking a hand here and there, exchanging remarks and greetings.

"What has been done, Manuelo?" he asked in Spanish, when he had gained the fairway outside the ropes where a little group on foot were gathered. The audience were crowded along the lines, they perched on the top rails of all the corrals, and some of the youngest and most active had climbed to the roofs. Inside the ropes, beside the officials mentioned, lounged a number of horsemen, vaqueros, and cowboys awaiting their turns at the games. The Spaniards were dressed in old-time costumes exhumed for the occasion from brass-studded heirloom, chests, with the high-crowned hat heavy with silver; the short jacket and sash; the wide-legged pantaloons bound at the knee and split down the calf; the soft leather boots; the heavy silver inlaid spurs. The American cowboys were not so picturesque in their own persons; but they vied with the others in perfection of equipment. All of the heavy stock saddles were rich with carving; many of them had silver corners, or even silver pommels or cantles. They carried braided rawhide riatas; their horses champed with relish the copper rollers of spade bits whose broad sides were solid engraved silver; their bridles were of cunningly braided and knotted rawhide or horsehair coloured and woven in patterns. The riders sat with graceful ease far to one side, elbow on knee, smoking brown paper cigarettes.

"Nothing yet has been done." Manuelo answered the Colonel's question reproachfully. "It could not be thought of that we should begin without your presence, señor."

"That is good! that is good!" cried the Colonel, delighted. "Well, here I am. Let us start!"

"Will the señor ride Caliente and judge the games?"

"The señor will not," rejoined the Colonel emphatically. "You are a lazy fellow, Manuelo. I shall watch the games, and you will act as judge."

"It is good," agreed Manuelo, and swung himself into the saddle of a magnificent pinto standing near.

The Colonel retreated to the corral fence, already as full as a ​tree of blackbirds. However, at his approach a place magically became vacant, while all the bystanders stoutly maintained that that particular point had never had an occupant but had accidentally remained empty for the Colonel. So after some talk he mounted the fence and sat there, his heels hooked over a rail, his long legs tucked up, his black frock coat dangling, his hat on the back of his head, his fine old face alight with enthusiasm.

Kenneth Boyd was also atop the corrals, and he happened to be next the Colonel. On his other side perched a long-legged demure child dressed in a bright dress. She looked to be about twelve or thirteen years old, which was of course beneath the particular notice of a man like Kenneth. He glanced at her, thought she was rather an attractive looking kid, and gave his attention to his surroundings.

By now the sun was getting strong. Dust rose in the heated air. People were packed in close together. The sun and the crowding and the food and the red wine combined to turn faces red, to wilt collars and starched toilets; but nobody minded.

"Great fun, great fun, my boy!" cried the Colonel to Kenneth, whom of course he did not remember. "Hello, Puss!" he cried across at the child. "Why aren't you out there on the palomino?"

"I am getting much too big for such things," replied Daphne, composedly.

"So, ho!" cried the Colonel, delighted. "Getting to be a young lady, are we? Do you know," he said to Kenneth, "this very grown-up young person is one of the best riders we have. This is the first merienda for two years at which she has not ridden. The people will shout for you, niña," he told Daphne.

"They will not get me," she replied.

Kenneth, thus led by this cross conversation to observe again his neighbour, smiled upon her the smile appropriate from one of his age and station.

"I should have liked very much to see you ride," he said kindly. "Have you a pony of your own?"

But she did not reply. Kenneth looked at her sharply. He could not for a moment determine whether this chit had de​liberately ignored him or whether her whole interest was centred on a group of horsemen at which she seemed to be gazing.

"Now you will see the California sports as they were in the old days," the Colonel was saying. "See, there they go now!"

The horsemen had come to life and were swooping gracefully back and forth like swallows. It was an exhibition only. Men "turned on a ten cent piece"; charged at full speed only to pull to a stand in a plunge and a slide; reined their horses to the perpendicular and half-turned in mid air; described figure eights at full speed. It was a gay scene of animation. Then little by little the movement died, leaving the horsemen grouped at one end of the course.

Manuelo now rode to a middle point directing the activities of two men with shovels. They dug a small hole and buried something mysterious in the loosened light earth.

"Why it's a chicken!" cried Kenneth.

The fowl had been buried all but its head, which was extended anxiously in a most comical manner. But now one of the riders detached himself from the others and came flying down the course at full speed. When within ten feet of the buried chicken he seized his saddle horn with his left hand and leaned from the saddle in a long graceful dipping swoop. The long spur slid up to the cantle and clung there. With his right hand he reached for the neck of the half buried fowl. But at the last instant, as he left the saddle, his horse shied ever so slightly away from that suspicious object on the ground. Jose's clutching fingers missed by inches, and he swept grandly by and lightly up into his saddle again empty handed.

"That looks to be quite a trick, anyhow," observed Kenneth with respect.

"It's a knack," agreed the Colonel, "a beginner is likely to go off on his head. Isn't he, Puss?"

"Can you do that?" Kenneth asked.

"Of course," replied Daphne blandly. "Can't you?"

Kenneth was spared the necessity of reply. Another contestant had managed to illustrate the Colonel's remark, and had gone off on his head; a little too long a reach, a trifle too much weight on the bent knee, the least possible hesitation in the ​pendulum-like swoop. His misfortune was greeted by laughter and ironic cheers. Several mounted men shook loose their riatas and loped away after his horse.

But the chicken's good luck was at an end. The next contestant caught it by the neck and rode down the course swinging it triumphantly.

"That is what I do not like," said Daphne, unexpectedly. "Poor chicken."

"The shock breaks its neck," said the Colonel, "and José will have gallina to-night."

"I know: but I do not like it," insisted Daphne.

The next event should have pleased her better. Here horsemen armed with long and slender lances tilted at rings suspended and swaying in the light breeze. The audience, however, evinced but a languid interest in this graceful sport. It woke up for the next event, which was a race between a man afoot and a man horseback, twenty-five yards and back. This was very exciting. The man had the advantage of his quick start and quick turn; the horse of course possessed the speed. Anybody could try who wished; and there were a number of young men who confidently matched their legs or those of their horses against the other fellow. Here was a chance to bet; and the crowd took advantage of it. Then followed, of course, horse races—mere dashes of a hundred yards or so; the roping of very lively goats, that dodged fairly under the horse's legs or into the crowd which scattered laughing; and roping and tying calves against time.

"We used to have bronco riding, and bull-dogging steers," observed the Colonel regretfully, "but that is a little rough and dangerous unless you can get the people behind fences or some sort of protection. It is better at the roundup."

"What is bull-dogging?" asked Kenneth.

"The man rides up alongside the steer, seizes him by the horns and throws him."

"I don't see how he stays on——"

"His horse? He doesn't. He leaves the saddle, and lets his horse go."

"And wrestles down a full grown steer by main strength?" cried Kenneth, incredulously.

​"That's it. But it is a knack very largely."

"I certainly should like to see that."

"You shall, you shall!" cried the Colonel, heartily. "We'll get up a little rough riding one of these days and invite all the people like yourself who have not seen any of it. Let me see, you are out here for the winter?"

"Yes sir, my name is Boyd. I am staying with my father at the hotel."

"I shall remember that. And now," announced the Colonel, regretfully, "I suppose I must leave. Some of our guests will be going soon, and I would displease Mrs. Peyton if I were not there to say good-bye."

He sprang down as lightly as a boy, arranged his frock coat and his hat, and made his way slowly through the crowd, a tall and commanding figure amongst even these sturdy sons and daughters of the open. Kenneth turned to say something to his companion on the other side; but she, too, had disappeared.