"Ay, ay. So I said," he went on; "and so it was. There be such saints, you know; though the Lord knows if she had been minded to give shelter to all her husband's bastards, she might have taken lease of a church to hold them. But there was a story about a man's coming with this infant and leaving it in the Senora's room; and she, poor lady, never having had a child of her own, did warm to it at first sight, and kept it with her to the last; and I wager me, a hard time she had to get our Senora to take the child when she died; except that it was to spite Ortegna, I think our Senora would as soon the child had been dead."
"Has she not treated her kindly?" asked Alessandro, in a husky voice.
Juan Can's pride resented this question. "Do you suppose the Senora Moreno would do an unkindness to one under her roof?" he asked loftily. "The Senorita has been always, in all things, like Senor Felipe himself. It was so that she promised the Senora Ortegna, I have heard."
"Does the Senorita know all this?" asked Alessandro.
Juan Can crossed himself. "Saints save us, no!" he exclaimed. "I'll not forget, to my longest day, what it cost me, once I spoke in her hearing, when she was yet small. I did not know she heard; but she went to the Senora, asking who was her mother. And she said I had said her mother was no good, which in faith I did, and no wonder.
And the Senora came to me, and said she, 'Juan Canito, you have been a long time in our house; but if ever I hear of your mentioning aught concerning the Senorita Ramona, on this estate or anywhere else in the country, that day you leave my service!'-- And you'd not do me the ill-turn to speak of it, Alessandro, now?" said the old man, anxiously. "My tongue runs away with me, lying here on this cursed bed, with nothing to do,-- an active man like me."
"No, I'll not speak of it, you may be assured," said Alessandro, walking away slowly.
"Here! Here!" called Juan. "What about that plan you had for ****** a bed for Senor Felipe on the verandah Was it of raw-hide you meant?"
"Ah, I had forgotten," said Alessandro, returning. "Yes, that was it.
There is great virtue in a raw-hide, tight stretched; my father says that it is the only bed the Fathers would ever sleep on, in the Mission days. I myself like the ground even better; but my father sleeps always on the rawhide. He says it keeps him well. Do you think I might speak of it to the Senora?"
"Speak of it to Senor Felipe himself," said Juan. "It will be as he says. He rules this place now, from beginning to end; and it is but yesterday I held him on my knee. It is soon that the old are pushed to the wall, Alessandro."
"Nay, Juan Canito," replied Alessandro, kindly. "It is not so. My father is many years older than you are, and he rules our people to-day as firmly as ever. I myself obey him, as if I were a lad still."
"What else, then, but a lad do you call yourself, I wonder?" thought Juan; but he answered, "It is not so with us. The old are not held in such reverence."
"That is not well," replied Alessandro. "We have been taught differently. There is an old man in our village who is many, many years older than my father. He helped to carry the mortar at the building of the San Diego Mission, I do not know how many years ago. He is long past a hundred years of age. He is blind and childish, and cannot walk; but he is cared for by every one. And we bring him in our arms to every council, and set him by my father's side. He talks very foolishly sometimes, but my father will not let him be interrupted. He says it brings bad luck to affront the aged. We will presently be aged ourselves."
"Ay, ay!" said Juan, sadly. "We must all come to it. It is beginning to look not so far off to me!"
Alessandro stared, no less astonished at Juan Can's unconscious revelation of his standard of measurement of years than Juan had been at his. "Faith, old man, what name dost give to yourself to-day!" he thought; but went on with the topic of the raw-hide bed. "I may not so soon get speech with Senor Felipe," he said. "It is usually when he is sleepy that I go to play for him or to sing. But it makes my heart heavy to see him thus languishing day by day, and all for lack of the air and the sun, I do believe, indeed, Juan."
"Ask the Senorita, then," said Juan. "She has his ear at all times."
Alessandro made no answer. Why was it that it did not please him,-- this suggestion of speaking to Ramona of his plan for Felipe's welfare? He could not have told; but he did not wish to speak of it to her.
"I will speak to the Senora," he said; and as luck would have it, at that moment the Senora stood in the doorway, come to ask after Juan Can's health.
The suggestion of the raw-hide bed struck her favorably. She herself had, in her youth, heard much of their virtues, and slept on them. "Yes," she said, "they are good. We will try it. It was only yesterday that Senor Felipe was complaining of the bed he lies on; and when he was well, he thought nothing could be so good; he brought it here, at a great price, for me, but I could not lie on it. It seemed as if it would throw me off as soon as I lay down; it is a cheating device, like all these innovations the Americans have brought into the country. But Senor Felipe till now thought it a luxury; now he tosses on it, and says it is throwing him all the time."
Alessandro smiled, in spite of his reverence for the Senora. "I once lay down on one myself, Senora," he said, "and that was what I said to my father. It was like a wild horse under me, ****** himself ready to buck. I thought perhaps the invention was of the saints, that men should not sleep too long."
"There is a pile of raw-hides," said Juan, "well cured, but not too stiff; Juan Jose was to have sent them off to-day to be sold; one of those will be just right. It must not be too dry."
"The fresher the better," said Alessandro, "so it have no dampness.
