X
SPANISH JOHNNY had no shop of his own, but he
kept a table and an order-book in one corner of the
drug store where paints and wall-paper were sold, and he
was sometimes to be found there for an hour or so about
noon. Thea had gone into the drug store to have a friendly
chat with the proprietor, who used to lend her books from
his shelves. She found Johnny there, trimming rolls of
wall-paper for the parlor of Banker Smith's new house.
She sat down on the top of his table and watched him.
"Johnny," she said suddenly, "I want you to write
down the words of that Mexican serenade you used to sing;
you know, `ROSA DE NOCHE.' It's an unusual song. I'm
going to study it. I know enough Spanish for that."
Johnny looked up from his roller with his bright, affable
smile. "SI, but it is low for you, I think; VOZ CONTRALTO.
It is low for me."
"Nonsense. I can do more with my low voice than I
used to. I'll show you. Sit down and write it out for
me, please." Thea beckoned him with the short yellow
pencil tied to his order-book.
Johnny ran his fingers through his curly black hair.
"If you wish. I do not know if that SERENATA all right for
young ladies. Down there it is more for married ladies.
They sing it for husbands--or somebody else, may-bee."
Johnny's eyes twinkled and he apologized gracefully with
his shoulders. He sat down at the table, and while Thea
looked over his arm, began to write the song down in a
long, slanting script, with highly ornamental capitals.
Presently he looked up. "This-a song not exactly Mexi-
can," he said thoughtfully. "It come from farther down;
Brazil, Venezuela, may-bee. I learn it from some fellow
down there, and he learn it from another fellow. It is-a
most like Mexican, but not quite." Thea did not release
him, but pointed to the paper. There were three verses
of the song in all, and when Johnny had written them
down, he sat looking at them meditatively, his head on
one side. "I don' think for a high voice, SENORITA," he
objected with polite persistence. "How you accompany
with piano?"
"Oh, that will be easy enough."
"For you, may-bee!" Johnny smiled and drummed on
the table with the tips of his agile brown fingers. "You
know something? Listen, I tell you." He rose and sat
down on the table beside her, putting his foot on the chair.
He loved to talk at the hour of noon. "When you was a
little girl, no bigger than that, you come to my house one
day 'bout noon, like this, and I was in the door, playing
guitar. You was barehead, barefoot; you run away from
home. You stand there and make a frown at me an' listen.
By 'n by you say for me to sing. I sing some lil' ting, and
then I say for you to sing with me. You don' know no
words, of course, but you take the air and you sing it just-
a beauti-ful! I never see a child do that, outside Mexico.
You was, oh, I do' know--seven year, may-bee. By 'n
by the preacher come look for you and begin for scold. I
say, `Don' scold, Meester Kronborg. She come for hear
guitar. She gotta some music in her, that child. Where
she get?' Then he tell me 'bout your gran'papa play
oboe in the old country. I never forgetta that time."
Johnny chuckled softly.
Thea nodded. "I remember that day, too. I liked your
music better than the church music. When are you going
to have a dance over there, Johnny?"
Johnny tilted his head. "Well, Saturday night the
Spanish boys have a lil' party, some DANZA. You know
Miguel Ramas? He have some young cousins, two boys,
very nice-a, come from Torreon. They going to Salt Lake
for some job-a, and stay off with him two-three days, and
he mus' have a party. You like to come?"
That was how Thea came to go to the Mexican ball.
Mexican Town had been increased by half a dozen new
families during the last few years, and the Mexicans had
put up an adobe dance-hall, that looked exactly like one
of their own dwellings, except that it was a little longer,
and was so unpretentious that nobody in Moonstone knew
of its existence. The "Spanish boys" are reticent about
their own affairs. Ray Kennedy used to know about all
their little doings, but since his death there was no one
whom the Mexicans considered SIMPATICO.
On Saturday evening after supper Thea told her mother
that she was going over to Mrs. Tellamantez's to watch
the Mexicans dance for a while, and that Johnny would
bring her home.
Mrs. Kronborg smiled. She noticed that Thea had put
on a white dress and had done her hair up with unusual
care, and that she carried her best blue scarf. "Maybe
you'll take a turn yourself, eh? I wouldn't mind watching
them Mexicans. They're lovely dancers."
Thea made a feeble suggestion that her mother might
go with her, but Mrs. Kronborg was too wise for that. She
knew that Thea would have a better time if she went alone,
and she watched her daughter go out of the gate and down
the sidewalk that led to the depot.
Thea walked slowly. It was a soft, rosy evening. The
sand hills were lavender. The sun had gone down a glow-
ing copper disk, and the fleecy clouds in the east were a
burning rose-color, flecked with gold. Thea passed the
cottonwood grove and then the depot, where she left the
sidewalk and took the sandy path toward Mexican Town.
She could hear the scraping of violins being tuned, the
tinkle of mandolins, and the growl of a double bass. Where
had they got a double bass? She did not know there was
one in Moonstone. She found later that it was the pro-
perty of one of Ramas's young cousins, who was taking it
to Utah with him to cheer him at his "job-a."
The Mexicans never wait until it is dark to begin to
dance, and Thea had no difficulty in finding the new hall,
because every other house in the town was deserted. Even
the babies had gone to the ball; a neighbor was always
willing to hold the baby while the mother danced. Mrs.
Tellamantez came out to meet Thea and led her in. Johnny
bowed to her from the platform at the end of the room,
where he was playing the mandolin along with two fiddles
and the bass. The hall was a long low room, with white-
washed walls, a fairly tight plank floor, wooden benches
along the sides, and a few bracket lamps screwed to the
frame timbers. There must have been fifty people there,
counting the children. The Mexican dances were very
much family affairs. The fathers always danced again
and again with their little daughters, as well as with their
wives. One of the girls came up to greet Thea, her dark
cheeks glowing with pleasure and cordiality, and intro-
duced her brother, with whom she had just been dancing.
"You better take him every time he asks you," she whis-
pered. "He's the best dancer here, except Johnny."
Thea soon decided that the poorest dancer was herself.
Even Mrs. Tellamantez, who always held her shoulders
so stiffly, danced better than she did. The musicians did
not remain long at their post. When one of them felt like
dancing, he called some other boy to take his instrument,
put on his coat, and went down on the floor. Johnny, who
wore a blousy white silk shirt, did not even put on his coat.
The dances the railroad men gave in Firemen's Hall
were the only dances Thea had ever been allowed to go to,
and they were very different from this. The boys played
rough jokes and thought it smart to be clumsy and to run
into each other on the floor. For the square dances there
was always the bawling voice of the caller, who was also
the county auctioneer.
This Mexican dance was soft and quiet. There was no
calling, the conversation was very low, the rhythm of the
music was smooth and engaging, the men were graceful
and courteous. Some of them Thea had never before seen
out of their working clothes, smeared with grease from the
round-house or clay from the brickyard. Sometimes, when
the music happened to be a popular Mexican waltz song,
the dancers sang it softly as they moved. There were three
little girls under twelve, in their first communion dresses,
and one of them had an orange marigold in her black hair,
just over her ear. They danced with the men and with
each other. There was an atmosphere of ease and friendly
pleasure in the low, dimly lit room, and Thea could not
help wondering whether the Mexicans had no jealousies
or neighborly grudges as the people in Moonstone had.
There was no constraint of any kind there to-night, but a
kind of natural harmony about their movements, their
greetings, their low conversation, their smiles.
Ramas brought up his two young cousins, Silvo and
Felipe, and presented them. They were handsome, smil-
ing youths, of eighteen and twenty, with pale-gold skins,
smooth cheeks, aquiline features, and wavy black hair,
like Johnny's. They were dressed alike, in black velvet
jackets and soft silk shirts, with opal shirt-buttons and
flowing black ties looped through gold rings. They had
charming manners, and low, guitar-like voices. They
knew almost no English, but a Mexican boy can pay a
great many compliments with a very limited vocabulary.
The Ramas boys thought Thea dazzlingly beautiful. They
had never seen a Scandinavian girl before, and her hair
and fair skin bewitched them. "BLANCO Y ORO, SEMEJANTE LA
PASCUA!" (White and gold, like Easter!) they exclaimed
to each other. Silvo, the younger, declared that he
could never go on to Utah; that he and his double
bass had reached their ultimate destination. The elder
was more crafty; he asked Miguel Ramas whether there
would be "plenty more girls like that _A_ Salt Lake, may-
bee?"
Silvo, overhearing, gave his brother a contemptuous
glance. "Plenty more A PARAISO may-bee!" he retorted.
When they were not dancing with her, their eyes followed
her, over the coiffures of their other partners. That was
not difficult; one blonde head moving among so many dark
ones.
Thea had not meant to dance much, but the Ramas
boys danced so well and were so handsome and adoring
that she yielded to their entreaties. When she sat out a
dance with them, they talked to her about their family
at home, and told her how their mother had once punned
upon their name. RAMA, in Spanish, meant a branch, they
explained. Once when they were little lads their mother
took them along when she went to help the women deco-
rate the church for Easter. Some one asked her whether
she had brought any flowers, and she replied that she had
brought her "ramas." This was evidently a cherished
family story.
When it was nearly midnight, Johnny announced that
every one was going to his house to have "some lil' ice-
cream and some lil' MUSICA." He began to put out the
lights and Mrs. Tellamantez led the way across the square
to her CASA. The Ramas brothers escorted Thea, and as
they stepped out of the door, Silvo exclaimed, "HACE
FRIO!" and threw his velvet coat about her shoulders.
Most of the company followed Mrs. Tellamantez, and
they sat about on the gravel in her little yard while she
and Johnny and Mrs. Miguel Ramas served the ice-cream.
Thea sat on Felipe's coat, since Silvo's was already about
her shoulders. The youths lay down on the shining gravel
beside her, one on her right and one on her left. Johnny
already called them "LOS ACOLITOS," the altar-boys. The
talk all about them was low, and indolent. One of the
girls was playing on Johnny's guitar, another was picking
lightly at a mandolin. The moonlight was so bright that
one could see every glance and smile, and the flash of
their teeth. The moonflowers over Mrs. Tellamantez's
door were wide open and of an unearthly white. The
moon itself looked like a great pale flower in the sky.
After all the ice-cream was gone, Johnny approached
Thea, his guitar under his arm, and the elder Ramas boy
politely gave up his place. Johnny sat down, took a long
breath, struck a fierce chord, and then hushed it with his
other hand. "Now we have some lil' SERENATA, eh? You
wan' a try?"
When Thea began to sing, instant silence fell upon the
company. She felt all those dark eyes fix themselves upon
her intently. She could see them shine. The faces came
out of the shadow like the white flowers over the door.
Felipe leaned his head upon his hand. Silvo dropped
on his back and lay looking at the moon, under the
impression that he was still looking at Thea. When
she finished the first verse, Thea whispered to Johnny,
"Again, I can do it better than that."
She had sung for churches and funerals and teachers, but
she had never before sung for a really musical people, and
this was the first time she had ever felt the response that
such a people can give. They turned themselves and all
they had over to her. For the moment they cared about
nothing in the world but what she was doing. Their faces
confronted her, open, eager, unprotected. She felt as if
all these warm-blooded people debouched into her. Mrs.
Tellamantez's fateful resignation, Johnny's madness, the
adoration of the boy who lay still in the sand; in an instant
these things seemed to be within her instead of without,
as if they had come from her in the first place.
When she finished, her listeners broke into excited mur-
mur. The men began hunting feverishly for cigarettes.
Famos Serranos the barytone bricklayer, touched Johnny's
arm, gave him a questioning look, then heaved a deep
sigh. Johnny dropped on his elbow, wiping his face and
neck and hands with his handkerchief. "SENORITA," he
panted, "if you sing like that once in the City of Mexico,
they just-a go crazy. In the City of Mexico they ain't-a
sit like stumps when they hear that, not-a much! When
they like, they just-a give you the town."
Thea laughed. She, too, was excited. "Think so,
Johnny? Come, sing something with me. EL PARRENO; I
haven't sung that for a long time."
Johnny laughed and hugged his guitar. "You not-a
forget him?" He began teasing his strings. "Come!" He
threw back his head, "ANOCHE-E-E--"
"ANOCHE ME CONFESSE
CON UN PADRE CARMELITE,
Y ME DIO PENITENCIA
QUE BESARAS TU BOQUITA."
(Last night I made confession
With a Carmelite father,
And he gave me absolution
For the kisses you imprinted.)
Johnny had almost every fault that a tenor can have.
His voice was thin, unsteady, husky in the middle tones.
But it was distinctly a voice, and sometimes he managed
to get something very sweet out of it. Certainly it made
him happy to sing. Thea kept glancing down at him as he
lay there on his elbow. His eyes seemed twice as large as
usual and had lights in them like those the moonlight
makes on black, running water. Thea remembered the
old stories about his "spells." She had never seen him
when his madness was on him, but she felt something to-
night at her elbow that gave her an idea of what it might
be like. For the first time she fully understood the cryptic
explanation that Mrs. Tellamantez had made to Dr.
Archie, long ago. There were the same shells along the
walk; she believed she could pick out the very one. There
was the same moon up yonder, and panting at her elbow
was the same Johnny--fooled by the same old things!
When they had finished, Famos, the barytone, mur-
mured something to Johnny; who replied, "Sure we can
sing `Trovatore.' We have no alto, but all the girls can
sing alto and make some noise."
The women laughed. Mexican women of the poorer
class do not sing like the men. Perhaps they are too in-
dolent. In the evening, when the men are singing their
throats dry on the doorstep, or around the camp-fire be-
side the work-train, the women usually sit and comb their
hair.
While Johnny was gesticulating and telling everybody
what to sing and how to sing it, Thea put out her foot and
touched the corpse of Silvo with the toe of her slipper.
"Aren't you going to sing, Silvo?" she asked teasingly.
The boy turned on his side and raised himself on his
elbow for a moment. "Not this night, SENORITA," he pleaded
softly, "not this night!" He dropped back again, and lay
with his cheek on his right arm, the hand lying passive
on the sand above his head.
"How does he flatten himself into the ground like that?"
Thea asked herself. "I wish I knew. It's very effective,
somehow."
Across the gulch the Kohlers' little house slept among
its trees, a dark spot on the white face of the desert. The
windows of their upstairs bedroom were open, and Paulina
had listened to the dance music for a long while before she
drowsed off. She was a light sleeper, and when she woke
again, after midnight, Johnny's concert was at its height.
She lay still until she could bear it no longer. Then she
wakened Fritz and they went over to the window and
leaned out. They could hear clearly there.
"DIE THEA," whispered Mrs. Kohler; "it must be. ACH,
WUNDERSCHON!"
Fritz was not so wide awake as his wife. He grunted and
scratched on the floor with his bare foot. They were lis-
tening to a Mexican part-song; the tenor, then the soprano,
then both together; the barytone joins them, rages, is
extinguished; the tenor expires in sobs, and the soprano
finishes alone. When the soprano's last note died away,
Fritz nodded to his wife. "JA," he said; "SCHON."
There was silence for a few moments. Then the guitar
sounded fiercely, and several male voices began the sextette
from "Lucia." Johnny's reedy tenor they knew well, and
the bricklayer's big, opaque barytone; the others might be
anybody over there--just Mexican voices. Then at the
appointed, at the acute, moment, the soprano voice, like
a fountain jet, shot up into the light. "HORCH! HORCH!" the
old people whispered, both at once. How it leaped from
among those dusky male voices! How it played in and
about and around and over them, like a goldfish darting
among creek minnows, like a yellow butterfly soaring above
a swarm of dark ones. "Ah," said Mrs. Kohler softly, "the
dear man; if he could hear her now!"
