Читать книгу Folded Hills - Stewart Edward White - Страница 15

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Nevertheless Monterey was abuzz with one aspect of the Hijar-Padres incursion, the women perhaps more than the men, but men and women both. This aspect interested Andy not at all; nor could he see that it was of the slightest importance. For all that, it did have importance, for in essential it was a genuine revolution.

The Spanish had now been in California for sixty-odd years. These had been years of isolation from influences of the outside world, the changes in which had passed them by. They lived by a tradition that extended even to the little things of life. In all that time the costumes of both men and women had remained unchanged. Hijar had brought in new fashions! Calzoneras—the long trousers slit down the sides to expose white linen—took the place of the breeches of ceremonial wear; on horseback, it seemed, men were to wear botas that extended to the middle of the thigh, but which could be doubled over a garter below the knee when the rider dismounted. These botas could be made of particolored leather. They had a sole of rawhide, pointed, and led up and over the toes to protect the foot in the stirrup. A waistcoat should be worn under the jacket. High combs for the women’s hair were definitely endorsed. The hair itself must be differently dressed; the old square-cut bang and the cheek curls were out. Now it must be drawn smoothly to the back and twisted into a single braid, and tied above by a ribbon and below by a rosette or a bow. It was very ill-bred to expose the ears. The old narrower skirts—de medio paso—became flowing. There were a number of other things.

Andy was amused, and a little disdainful, at the interest in all this foofaraw. Just at first he did not think the girls looked nearly so well; but soon, after his eye had become accustomed, he began to change his opinion, so that it was not long before the few who had not changed to the new costumes looked somehow old-fashioned and queer. The Boston ships did a thriving trade in dress goods.

Left to himself he would never have dreamed of following the new fashion in his own case. This would have been sheer indifference, and no matter of stiff conservatism, as in the case of Don Sylvestre and a number of the older grandees, who clung to the old style for several years to come. But Carmel would have none of it, and Andy good-naturedly submitted to a fresh rigout, in which she admired him more than he admired himself. He thought the calzoneras a floppy nuisance with their easily soiled ruffles; though he acknowledged there was something to be said for the botas from a practical point of view. But as long as he was in the renovation business he added a touch of his own. He had his hair cut short. He had never liked the queue, either as foofaraw or as a matter of comfort. So much hair was hot, and it rubbed his collar, and every day Carmel had to braid and arrange it, which annoyed him. Nobody but the wife should have that privilege, she insisted. Carmel was at first sight horrified and almost inclined to weep. But Andy pointed out that Alvarado and Guadalupe Vallejo and Guerra and others of the leaders were already wearing their hair short. She looked at him with new eyes and ended by finding him distinguished-looking. When they returned to Folded Hills, nothing must do but that they must give a fiesta, ostensibly to celebrate the wine-pressing of the new vineyard’s first product; but actually, as Andy himself was shrewd enough to surmise, to furnish an opportunity to put it all over the neighbors with the latest from the great metropolis. Ramón, whose wedding was near at hand, was immensely tickled.

“She is one devil, that Carmelita,” he told Andy. “Now what must happen? Conchita must go to Monterey! And I? Zip!”—he slashed the flat of his hand sidewise—“I cut heem the hair! When I am young, a man who is in disgrace, they cut heem the hair and everybody point the finger at heem and say ‘See the bad man.’ Now!”—he shrugged his shoulders—“now, I think pretty soon we are all bad mens!”

It was a good fiesta. They built a platform and covered it with cleaned hides, and on it piled high the grapes. Then several thoroughly washed Indians clad only in loincloths were hoisted aloft to tread out the wine. The juices were caught in leather bags called coras, which were emptied into wooden tubs, and the liquid strewn with grape skins, thoroughly emptied so they would float, under cover of which the fermentation would take place. Everybody stood about with bared and bowed head while Father Seria, who had come from Soledad for the purpose, blessed the vintage.

Andy tried for a little serious conversation with Father Seria on the subject of the state of the missions; but he did not get far. Father Seria was an old man, a beautiful character compound of goodness, charity, and meekness, a profound scholar. He walked in humility and did not presume to raise his eyes. Doubtless these greater matters were astir, but they were not for him. They were in God’s hands—and in the hands of the august princes of the Church; and in due time their purposes would become apparent. Father Seria lived in profound faith and trust and acceptance. So they feasted and played music and rode afield to meriendas, and danced la zorrita, singing the tune very sweetly of:

“The little fox, she went up into the hills,

And because naughtily she went there for a lark

She came back shorn.”

Since at this fiesta the men were doing no hard work at rodeo or matanza, they took part in it fresh and joyous and were as ready as the girls to dance the night through. But in the women’s enjoyment was just a trace of the divided mind. They wanted to get home and set about the new fashions. And that, in California at large, became really the significance of Hijar.