VI
Seen from a balloon, Moonstone would have looked
like a Noah's ark town set out in the sand and lightly
shaded by gray-green tamarisks and cottonwoods. A few
people were trying to make soft maples grow in their
turfed lawns, but the fashion of planting incongruous
trees from the North Atlantic States had not become gen-
eral then, and the frail, brightly painted desert town was
shaded by the light-reflecting, wind-loving trees of the
desert, whose roots are always seeking water and whose
leaves are always talking about it, making the sound of
rain. The long porous roots of the cottonwood are irre-
pressible. They break into the wells as rats do into grana-
ries, and thieve the water.
The long street which connected Moonstone with the
depot settlement traversed in its course a considerable
stretch of rough open country, staked out in lots but not
built up at all, a weedy hiatus between the town and the
railroad. When you set out along this street to go to the
station, you noticed that the houses became smaller and
farther apart, until they ceased altogether, and the board
sidewalk continued its uneven course through sunflower
patches, until you reached the solitary, new brick Catholic
Church. The church stood there because the land was
given to the parish by the man who owned the adjoining
waste lots, in the hope of making them more salable--
"Farrier's Addition," this patch of prairie was called in the
clerk's office. An eighth of a mile beyond the church was
a washout, a deep sand-gully, where the board sidewalk
became a bridge for perhaps fifty feet. Just beyond the
gully was old Uncle Billy Beemer's grove,--twelve town
lots set out in fine, well-grown cottonwood trees, delightful
to look upon, or to listen to, as they swayed and rippled in
the wind. Uncle Billy had been one of the most worthless
old drunkards who ever sat on a store box and told filthy
stories. One night he played hide-and-seek with a switch
engine and got his sodden brains knocked out. But his
grove, the one creditable thing he had ever done in his life,
rustled on. Beyond this grove the houses of the depot
settlement began, and the naked board walk, that had run
in out of the sunflowers, again became a link between
human dwellings.
One afternoon, late in the summer, Dr. Howard Archie
was fighting his way back to town along this walk through
a blinding sandstorm, a silk handkerchief tied over his
mouth. He had been to see a sick woman down in the depot
settlement, and he was walking because his ponies had
been out for a hard drive that morning.
As he passed the Catholic Church he came upon Thea
and Thor. Thea was sitting in a child's express wagon, her
feet out behind, kicking the wagon along and steering by
the tongue. Thor was on her lap and she held him with one
arm. He had grown to be a big cub of a baby, with a con-
stitutional grievance, and he had to be continually amused.
Thea took him philosophically, and tugged and pulled
him about, getting as much fun as she could under her
encumbrance. Her hair was blowing about her face, and
her eyes were squinting so intently at the uneven board
sidewalk in front of her that she did not see the doctor
until he spoke to her.
"Look out, Thea. You'll steer that youngster into the
ditch."
The wagon stopped. Thea released the tongue, wiped
her hot, sandy face, and pushed back her hair. "Oh, no,
I won't! I never ran off but once, and then he didn't get
anything but a bump. He likes this better than a baby-
buggy, and so do I."
"Are you going to kick that cart all the way home?"
"Of course. We take long trips; wherever there is a side-
walk. It's no good on the road."
"Looks to me like working pretty hard for your fun.
Are you going to be busy to-night? Want to make a call
with me? Spanish Johnny's come home again, all used up.
His wife sent me word this morning, and I said I'd go over
to see him to-night. He's an old chum of yours, isn't
he?"
"Oh, I'm glad. She's been crying her eyes out. When
did he come?"
"Last night, on Number Six. Paid his fare, they tell me.
Too sick to beat it. There'll come a time when that boy
won't get back, I'm afraid. Come around to my office about
eight o'clock,--and you needn't bring that!"
Thor seemed to understand that he had been insulted,
for he scowled and began to kick the side of the wagon,
shouting, "Go-go, go-go!" Thea leaned forward and
grabbed the wagon tongue. Dr. Archie stepped in front of
her and blocked the way. "Why don't you make him wait?
What do you let him boss you like that for?"
"If he gets mad he throws himself, and then I can't do
anything with him. When he's mad he's lots stronger than
me, aren't you, Thor?" Thea spoke with pride, and the
idol was appeased. He grunted approvingly as his sister
began to kick rapidly behind her, and the wagon rattled off
and soon disappeared in the flying currents of sand.
That evening Dr. Archie was seated in his office, his desk
chair tilted back, reading by the light of a hot coal-oil lamp.
All the windows were open, but the night was breathless
after the sandstorm, and his hair was moist where it hung
over his forehead. He was deeply engrossed in his book
and sometimes smiled thoughtfully as he read. When
Thea Kronborg entered quietly and slipped into a seat, he
nodded, finished his paragraph, inserted a bookmark, and
rose to put the book back into the case. It was one out of
the long row of uniform volumes on the top shelf.
"Nearly every time I come in, when you're alone, you're
reading one of those books," Thea remarked thoughtfully.
"They must be very nice."
The doctor dropped back into his swivel chair, the mot-
tled volume still in his hand. "They aren't exactly books,
Thea," he said seriously. "They're a city."
"A history, you mean?"
"Yes, and no. They're a history of a live city, not a
dead one. A Frenchman undertook to write about a whole
cityful of people, all the kinds he knew. And he got them
nearly all in, I guess. Yes, it's very interesting. You'll
like to read it some day, when you're grown up."
Thea leaned forward and made out the title on the back,
"A Distinguished Provincial in Paris."
"It doesn't sound very interesting."
"Perhaps not, but it is." The doctor scrutinized her
broad face, low enough to be in the direct light from under
the green lamp shade. "Yes," he went on with some sat-
isfaction, "I think you'll like them some day. You're
always curious about people, and I expect this man knew
more about people than anybody that ever lived."
"City people or country people?"
"Both. People are pretty much the same everywhere."
"Oh, no, they're not. The people who go through in the
dining-car aren't like us."
"What makes you think they aren't, my girl? Their
clothes?"
Thea shook her head. "No, it's something else. I don't
know." Her eyes shifted under the doctor's searching gaze
and she glanced up at the row of books. "How soon will
I be old enough to read them?"
"Soon enough, soon enough, little girl." The doctor
patted her hand and looked at her index finger. "The
nail's coming all right, isn't it? But I think that man
makes you practice too much. You have it on your mind
all the time." He had noticed that when she talked to him
she was always opening and shutting her hands. "It makes
you nervous."
"No, he don't," Thea replied stubbornly, watching Dr.
Archie return the book to its niche.
He took up a black leather case, put on his hat, and they
went down the dark stairs into the street. The summer
moon hung full in the sky. For the time being, it was the
great fact in the world. Beyond the edge of the town the
plain was so white that every clump of sage stood out dis-
tinct from the sand, and the dunes looked like a shining
lake. The doctor took off his straw hat and carried it in his
hand as they walked toward Mexican Town, across the
sand.
North of Pueblo, Mexican settlements were rare in
Colorado then. This one had come about accidentally.
Spanish Johnny was the first Mexican who came to Moon-
stone. He was a painter and decorator, and had been
working in Trinidad, when Ray Kennedy told him there
was a "boom" on in Moonstone, and a good many new
buildings were going up. A year after Johnny settled in
Moonstone, his cousin, Famos Serrenos, came to work in
the brickyard; then Serrenos' cousins came to help him.
During the strike, the master mechanic put a gang of
Mexicans to work in the roundhouse. The Mexicans had
arrived so quietly, with their blankets and musical instru-
ments, that before Moonstone was awake to the fact, there
was a Mexican quarter; a dozen families or more.
As Thea and the doctor approached the 'dobe houses,
they heard a guitar, and a rich barytone voice--that of
Famos Serrenos--singing "La Golandrina." All the
Mexican houses had neat little yards, with tamarisk hedges
and flowers, and walks bordered with shells or white-
washed stones. Johnny's house was dark. His wife, Mrs.
Tellamantez, was sitting on the doorstep, combing her
long, blue-black hair. (Mexican women are like the Spar-
tans; when they are in trouble, in love, under stress of any
kind, they comb and comb their hair.) She rose without
embarrassment or apology, comb in hand, and greeted the
doctor.
"Good-evening; will you go in?" she asked in a low,
musical voice. "He is in the back room. I will make a
light." She followed them indoors, lit a candle and handed
it to the doctor, pointing toward the bedroom. Then she
went back and sat down on her doorstep.
Dr. Archie and Thea went into the bedroom, which was
dark and quiet. There was a bed in the corner, and a man
was lying on the clean sheets. On the table beside him was
a glass pitcher, half-full of water. Spanish Johnny looked
younger than his wife, and when he was in health he was
very handsome: slender, gold-colored, with wavy black
hair, a round, smooth throat, white teeth, and burning
black eyes. His profile was strong and severe, like an
Indian's. What was termed his "wildness" showed itself
only in his feverish eyes and in the color that burned on his
tawny cheeks. That night he was a coppery green, and his
eyes were like black holes. He opened them when the doc-
tor held the candle before his face.
"MI TESTA!" he muttered, "MI TESTA, doctor. "LA
FIEBRE!" Seeing the doctor's companion at the foot of the bed, he
attempted a smile. "MUCHACHA!" he exclaimed deprecat-
ingly.
Dr. Archie stuck a thermometer into his mouth. "Now,
Thea, you can run outside and wait for me."
Thea slipped noiselessly through the dark house and
joined Mrs. Tellamantez. The somber Mexican woman
did not seem inclined to talk, but her nod was friendly.
Thea sat down on the warm sand, her back to the moon,
facing Mrs. Tellamantez on her doorstep, and began to
count the moonflowers on the vine that ran over the house.
Mrs. Tellamantez was always considered a very homely
woman. Her face was of a strongly marked type not sym-
pathetic to Americans. Such long, oval faces, with a full
chin, a large, mobile mouth, a high nose, are not uncom-
mon in Spain. Mrs. Tellamantez could not write her name,
and could read but little. Her strong nature lived upon
itself. She was chiefly known in Moonstone for her forbear-
ance with her incorrigible husband.
Nobody knew exactly what was the matter with Johnny,
and everybody liked him. His popularity would have been
unusual for a white man, for a Mexican it was unprece-
dented. His talents were his undoing. He had a high,
uncertain tenor voice, and he played the mandolin with
exceptional skill. Periodically he went crazy. There was
no other way to explain his behavior. He was a clever
workman, and, when he worked, as regular and faithful
as a burro. Then some night he would fall in with a crowd
at the saloon and begin to sing. He would go on until
he had no voice left, until he wheezed and rasped. Then
he would play his mandolin furiously, and drink until his
eyes sank back into his head. At last, when he was put
out of the saloon at closing time, and could get nobody
to listen to him, he would run away--along the railroad
track, straight across the desert. He always managed to
get aboard a freight somewhere. Once beyond Denver,
he played his way southward from saloon to saloon until
he got across the border. He never wrote to his wife; but
she would soon begin to get newspapers from La Junta,
Albuquerque, Chihuahua, with marked paragraphs an-
nouncing that Juan Tellamantez and his wonderful man-
dolin could be heard at the Jack Rabbit Grill, or the Pearl
of Cadiz Saloon. Mrs. Tellamantez waited and wept and
combed her hair. When he was completely wrung out and
burned up,--all but destroyed,--her Juan always came
back to her to be taken care of,--once with an ugly knife
wound in the neck, once with a finger missing from his
right hand,--but he played just as well with three fingers
as he had with four.
Public sentiment was lenient toward Johnny, but every-
body was disgusted with Mrs. Tellamantez for putting up
with him. She ought to discipline him, people said; she
ought to leave him; she had no self-respect. In short, Mrs.
Tellamantez got all the blame. Even Thea thought she
was much too humble. To-night, as she sat with her back
to the moon, looking at the moonflowers and Mrs. Tella-
mantez's somber face, she was thinking that there is noth-
ing so sad in the world as that kind of patience and resigna-
tion. It was much worse than Johnny's craziness. She even
wondered whether it did not help to make Johnny crazy.
People had no right to be so passive and resigned. She
would like to roll over and over in the sand and screech at
Mrs. Tellamantez. She was glad when the doctor came out.
The Mexican woman rose and stood respectful and ex-
pectant. The doctor held his hat in his hand and looked
kindly at her.
"Same old thing, Mrs. Tellamantez. He's no worse than
he's been before. I've left some medicine. Don't give him
anything but toast water until I see him again. You're a
good nurse; you'll get him out." Dr. Archie smiled en-
couragingly. He glanced about the little garden and
wrinkled his brows. "I can't see what makes him behave
so. He's killing himself, and he's not a rowdy sort of fel-
low. Can't you tie him up someway? Can't you tell when
these fits are coming on?"
Mrs. Tellamantez put her hand to her forehead. "The
saloon, doctor, the excitement; that is what makes him.
People listen to him, and it excites him."
The doctor shook his head. "Maybe. He's too much for
my calculations. I don't see what he gets out of it."
"He is always fooled,"--the Mexican woman spoke
rapidly and tremulously, her long under lip quivering.
"He is good at heart, but he has no head. He fools himself.
You do not understand in this country, you are progressive.
But he has no judgment, and he is fooled." She stooped
quickly, took up one of the white conch-shells that bordered
the walk, and, with an apologetic inclination of her head,
held it to Dr. Archie's ear. "Listen, doctor. You hear
something in there? You hear the sea; and yet the sea is
very far from here. You have judgment, and you know
that. But he is fooled. To him, it is the sea itself. A
little thing is big to him." She bent and placed the shell
in the white row, with its fellows. Thea took it up softly
and pressed it to her own ear. The sound in it startled
her; it was like something calling one. So that was why
Johnny ran away. There was something awe-inspiring
about Mrs. Tellamantez and her shell.
Thea caught Dr. Archie's hand and squeezed it hard
as she skipped along beside him back toward Moonstone.
She went home, and the doctor went back to his lamp
and his book. He never left his office until after midnight.
If he did not play whist or pool in the evening, he read.
It had become a habit with him to lose himself.
