CHAPTER 19 After leaving Father Gaspata's door, Alessandro Alessandro and Ramona rode slowly through the now deserted plaza and turned northward on the river road, leaving the old prosidio walls on their right. The river was low and they forded it without difficulty. I seen this river so high that there was no fording it for many days, said Alessandro, but that was in spring. Then it is well we came, not at that time, said Ramona. All the times have fallen out well for us, Alessandro, the dark nights and the streams low. But look! As I say it, there comes the moon. And she pointed to the fine thread-like arc of the new moon just visible in the sky. Not big enough to do us any harm, however, she added, but dear Alessandro, do you think we are safe now? I know not, Mahia, if ever we may be safe. But I hope so. I have been all day thinking I had gone foolish last night when I told Mrs. Hartzell that I was on my way to San Pasquale, but if men should come there asking for us, she would understand, I think, and keep a still tongue. She would keep harm from us if she could. They're away from San Diego to San Pasquale lay at first along a high mesa, or a table-land, covered with low shrub growths. After some ten or twelve miles of this, they descended among winding ridges into a narrow valley, the Poe Valley. It was here that the Mexicans made one of their few abortive efforts to repel the American forces. Here were some Americans killed in a fight with the Mexicans, Mahia, said Alessandro. I myself have a dozen bullets which I picked up in the ground about here. Many a time I have looked at them and thought, if there should come another war against the Americans, I would fire them again if I could. Descend you of Felipe, think that there is any likelihood that his people will rise against them any more. If they would, they would have all the Indians to help them now. It would be a mercy if they might be driven out of the land, Mahia. Yes, side Mahia, but there is no hope. I have heard the senoras speak of it with Felipe. There is no hope. They have power and great riches, she said. Money is all that they think of.  Every day there comes the news of their murdering each other for gold.  Indians also, replied Alessandro, never one Indian killed another yet for money. It is for vengeance always, for money, Mahia, they are dogs.  Trust in an American was henceforth to him impossible. The name was a synonym for fraud and cruelty. They cannot all be so bad, I think, Alessandro, said Ramona. There must be some that are honest. Do not think so. Where are they then, he cried fiercely. The ones who are good. Among my people there are always some that are bad, but they are in disgrace. My father punished them, the whole people punished them. If there are Americans who are good, who will not cheat and kill, why do they not send after these robbers and punish them? And how is it that they make laws which cheat? It was the American law which took Temecula away from us and gave it to those men. The law was on the side of the thieves. No, Mahia, it is a people that steals. That is their name, a people that steals and that kills for money. It's not that a good name for a great people to bear when they are like the sands and the sea, there are so many. That is what the senora says, answered Ramona. She says that they are all thieves, that she knows not each day, but that on the next will come more of them with new laws to take away more of her land. She wants more than twice what she has now, Alessandro. Yes, he replied, I know it. My father has told me. He was with Father Pedi at the place when General Moreno was alive. Then all was his to the sea. All the land we rode over the second night, Mahia. Yes, she said, all to the sea. That is what the senora is ever saying, to the sea. Oh, the beautiful sea. Can we behold it from San Pasquale, Alessandro? No, my Mahia, it is too far. San Pasquale is in the valley. It has hills all around it, like walls. But it is good. Mahia will love it, and I will build a house, Mahia. All the people will help me. That is the way with our people. In two days it will be done. But it will be a poor place for my Mahia, he said sadly. Alessandro's heart was ill at ease. Truly a strange bride's journey was this, but Ramona felt no fear. No place can be so poor that I do not choose it if you are there, rather than the most beautiful place in the world where you are not Alessandro, she said. But my Mahia loves things that are beautiful, said Alessandro. She has lived like a queen. Oh, Alessandro, merely laughter, Mona, how little you know of the way queens live. Nothing was fine at the Senora Morenos, only comfortable. In any house you will build, I can make as comfortable as that was. It is nothing but trouble to have one so large as the Senoras. Margarita used to be tired to death, sweeping all those rooms in which nobody lived except the blessed old San Luis Re Saints. Alessandro, if we could have had just one statue, either St. Francis or the Madonna, to bring back to our house. That is what I would like, better than all the other things in the world. It is beautiful to sleep with the Madonna, close to your bed. She speaks often to you in dreams. Alessandro, fixed serious, questioning eyes on Ramona as she uttered these words. When she spoke like this he felt indeed as if a being of some other sphere had come to dwell by his side. I cannot find how to feel towards the saints as you do, my Mahia, he said. I am afraid of them. It must be because they love you and do not love us. That is what I believe, Mahia. I believe they are displeased with us and no longer make mention of us in heaven. That is what the Fathers taught that the saints were ever doing, praying to God for us and to the Virgin and Jesus. It is not possible, you see, that they could have been praying for us and yet such things have happened as happened in Temecula. I do not know how it is my people have displeased them. I think Father Salviadero would say that it is a sin to be afraid of the saints, Alessandro, replied Ramona earnestly. He's often told me that it was a sin to be unhappy and that withheld me many times from being wretched because the Signora would not love me. And Alessandro, she went on, growing more and more fervent in tone. Even if nothing but misfortune comes to people that does not prove that the saints do not love them, for when the saints were on earth themselves, look what they suffered, martyrs they were, almost all of them. Look at what holy St. Catherine endured and the blessed St. Agnes. It is not by what happens to us here in this world that we can tell if the saints love us, or if we will see the blessed Virgin. How can we tell then, he asked? By what we feel in our hearts Alessandro, she replied, just as I knew all the time when you did not come, I knew that you loved me, I knew that in my heart, and I shall always know it, no matter what happens.  Yes, said Alessandro, reflectively, that is true, but Mahia is not possible to have the same thoughts about a saint as about a person that one has seen and heard the voice and touched the hand. No, not quite, said Ramona, not quite about a saint, but one can for the blessed Virgin Alessandro. I am sure of that. Her statue, in my room at the cenotes, has been always my mother. Ever since I was little I have told her all I did. It was she who helped me to plan what I should bring away with us. She reminded me of many things I had forgotten, except for her. Did you hear her speak, said Alessandro, Ostrigan? Not exactly in words, but just the same as in words, replied Ramona, confidently. You see when you sleep in the room with her it is very different from what it is if you only see her in a chapel. Oh, I could never be very unhappy with her in my room. I would almost go and steal it for you, Mahia, cried Alessandro, with sacrilegious warmth. Holy Virgin, cried Ramona, never speak such a word. You would be struck dead if you laid your hand on her. I fear even the thought was a sin. There was a small figure of her in the wall of our house, said Alessandro. It was from San Luis Frey. I do not know what became of it. If it were left behind or if they took it with my father's things to Pachanga. I did not see it there. When I go again I will look. Again, cried Ramona, what say you? You go again to Pachanga. You will not leave me, Alessandro. At the bare mention of Alessandro's leaving her, Ramona's courage always vanished. In a moment in the twinkling of an eye she was transformed from the dauntless, confident, sunny woman, who bore him up as it were on wings of hope and faith, to a timid, shrinking, despondent child crying out an alarm and clinging to the hand. After a time, dear Mahaya, when you are wonted to the place I must go, to fetch the wagon and the few things that were ours. There is the raw high bed, which was father Pides, and he gave to my father. Mahaya will like to lie on that. My father believed it had great virtue. Like that you made for Felipe, she asked. Yes, but it is not so large. In those days the cattle were not so large as they are now. This is not so broad as Senua Felipe's. There are chairs, too, from the mission, three of them, one almost as fine as those on your veranda at home. They were given to my father. And music books, beautiful parchment books. Oh, I hope those are not lost, Mahaya. If Jose had lived, he would have looked after it all. But in the confusion, all of the things belonging to the village were thrown into wagons together and no one knew where anything was. But all the people knew my father's chairs and the books of the music. If the Americans do not steal them, everything will be safe. My people do not steal. There was never but one thief in our village, and my father had him so whipped he ran away and never came back. I heard he was living in San Jacinto and was a thief yet, despite all of that whipping he had. I think if it is in the blood to be a thief, not even whipping will take it out, Mahaya. Like the Americans, she said, half laughing, but with tears in the voice, whipping would not cure them. It wanted yet more than an hour of dawn when they reached the crest of the hill from which they looked down on the San Pasquale Valley. Two such crests and valleys they had passed. This was the broadest of the three valleys, and the hills walling it were softer and rounder of contour than any they had yet seen. To the east and northeast lay ranges of high mountains, their tops lost in the clouds. The whole sky was overcast and gray. If it were spring, this would mean rain, said Alessandro, but it cannot rain I think now. No, laughed Ramona, not till we get our house done. Will it be of Adobe, Alessandro? Dearest Mahaya, not yet. At first it must be of the tool. They are very comfortable while it is warm, and before winter I will build one of Adobe. Two houses, wasteful Alessandro, if the tool house is good, I shall not let you, Alessandro, build another. Ramona's mirthful moments bewildered Alessandro. To his slower temperament and sadded nature they seemed pretranatural, and if she were all of a sudden changed into a bird or some gray creature outside the pale of human life, outside and above it. We speak as the birds sing, Mahaya, he said slowly. It was well to name you Maham, only the wood dove has not joined her voice as you have. She says only that she loves and waits. I say that too, Alessandro, replied Ramona, reaching out both her arms towards him. The horses were walking slowly and very close side by side. Boba and Benito were now such friends they liked to pace closely side by side, and Boba and Benito were by no means without instinctive recognitions of the sympathy between their riders. Already Benito knew Ramona's voice and answered it with pleasure, and Boba had long ago learned to stop when his mistress laid her hand on Alessandro's shoulder. He stopped now, and it was long minutes before he had the signal to go on again. Mahaya, Mahaya, cried Alessandro, as grasping both her hands in his, he held them to his cheeks, to his neck, to his mouth. If the saints would ask Alessandro to be a martyr for Mahaya's sake, like those she was telling of, then she would know if Alessandro loved her. But what can Alessandro do now? But a what? Mahaya gives all, Alessandro gives nothing, and he bowed his forehead on her hands before he put them back gently on Boba's neck. Tears filled Ramona's eyes. How should she win this sad end, man, this distrusting lover, to the joy which was his desert? Alessandro can do one thing, she said, insensibly falling into his mode of speaking. One thing for his Mahaya. Never, never say that he has nothing to give her. When he says that, he makes Mahaya a liar, for she has said that he is all the world to her.  But it was even now with an ecstasy, only half-joy, the other half-anguish, that Alessandro replied. Mahaya cannot lie. Mahaya is like the saints. Alessandro is hers. When they rode down into the valley, the whole village was a stir. The vintage time had nearly passed. Everywhere were to be seen large, flat baskets of grapes drying in the sun. Old women and children were turning these, or pounding acorns in the deep stone bowls. Others were beating the yucca stalks and putting them to soak in water. The oldest women were sitting on the ground, weaving baskets. There were not many men in the village now. Two large bands were away at work, one at the autumn sheep-sharing, and one working on a large irrigating ditch at San Bernardino. In different directions from the village, slow-moving herds of goats or of cattle could be seen, being driven to pasture on the hills. Some men were plowing. Several groups were at work, building houses of bundles of the tool-reads. These are some of the Temecula people, said Alessandro. They are building themselves new houses here. See those piles of bundles darker-colored than the rest. Those are their old roofs they brought from Temecula. There, there comes Isidro. He cried joyfully as a man, well-mountain, who had been riding from point to point in the village, came galloping towards them. As soon as Isidro recognized Alessandro, he flung himself from his horse. Alessandro did the same, and both running swiftly towards each other till they met. They embraced silently. Ramona, riding up, held out her hand, saying, as she did so, Isidro. Pleased yet surprised, at this confident and assured greeting, Isidro saluted her, and turning to Alessandro, said in their own tongue, Who is this woman whom you bring, that has heard my name? My wife answered Alessandro in the same tongue. We were married last night by Father Gasparra. She comes from the house of the Señora Moreno. We will live in San Pasquale, if you have land for me, as you have said. What astonishment Isidro felt? He showed none. Only a grave and courteous welcome was in his face and, in his words, as he said, It is well, there is room, you are welcome. So when he heard the soft Spanish syllables, in which Ramona spoke to Alessandro, and Alessandro, translating her words to him, said, Mahel speaks only in the Spanish tongue, but she will learn ours. A look of disquiet passed over his countenance. His heart feared for Alessandro, and he said, Is she then not Indian? Once got she the name of Mahel. A look of swift intelligence from Alessandro reassured him. Indian, on the mother's side, said Alessandro, and she belongs in heart to our people. She is alone, save for me. She is one blessed of the virgin Isidro. She will help us. The name Mahel I have given her, for she is like the wood dove, and she is glad to lay her old name down forever, to bear this new name in our tongue. And this was Ramona's introduction to the Indian village, this and her smile. Perhaps the smile did most. Even the little children were not afraid of her. The women, though shy, in the beginning, outside of her noble bearing and her clothes of a kind and quality they associated only with superiors, soon felt her friendliness and what was more, saw by her every word, tone, look, that she was Alessandro's. If Alessandro's, there's. She was one of them. Ramona would have been profoundly impressed and touched, could she have heard them speaking among themselves about her, wondering how it had come about that she, so beautiful and nurtured in the Moreno house of which they all knew, should be Alessandro's loving wife. It must be, they thought in their simplicity, that the saints had sent it as an omen of good to the Indian people. To her night they came, bringing in a hand-barrow, the most age woman in the village, to look at her. She wished to see the beautiful stranger before the sun went down, they said, because she was now so old, she believed each night that before morning her time would come to die. They also wished to hear the old woman's verdict on her. When Alessandro saw them coming, he understood and made haste to explain it to Ramona. While he was yet speaking, the procession arrived and the age woman in her strange litter was placed silently on the ground in front of Ramona, who was sitting under Isidro's great fig tree. Those who had borne her withdrew and seated themselves a few paces off. Alessandro spoke first. In a few words he told the old woman of Ramona's birth, of their marriage, and of her new name of adoption. Then he said, Take her hand, dear Mahaya, if you feel no fear. There was something scarcely human in the shriveled arm in hand, outstretched in greeting, but Ramona took it in hers with tender reverence. Say to her for me, Alessandro, she said, that I bow down to her great age with reverence and that I hope, if it is the will of God that I live on the earth so long as she has, I may be worthy of such reverence as these people all feel for her. Alessandro turned a grateful look on Ramona as he translated this speech, so in unison with Indian modes of thought and feeling. A murmur of pleasure rose from the group of women sitting by. The age woman made no reply.  Tell her, continued Ramona, that I ask if there is anything I can do for her. Say I will be her daughter if she will let me. It must be the virgin herself that is teaching Mahaya what to say, thought Alessandro, as he repeated this in the San Luiseno tongue. Again the woman murmured pleasure, but the old woman spoke not. And say that you will be her son, added Ramona. Alessandro said it. It was perhaps for this that the old woman had waited.  The winds of the valley shall love you and the grass shall dance when you come. The daughter looks on her mother's face each day. I will go. And making a sign to her bears, she was lifted and carried to her house. The scene affected Ramona deeply. The simplest acts of these people seemed to her marvelously profound in their meanings. She was not herself sufficiently educated or versed in life to know why she was so moved. To know that such utterances, such symbolisms as these, among primitive peoples, are thus impressive because they are truly and grandly dramatic. She was none the less stirred by them because she could not analyze or explain them. I will go and see her every day, she said. She shall be like my mother whom I never saw. We must both go each day, said Alessandro. What we have said is a solemn promise among my people. It would not be possible to break it. Isidro's home was in the center of the village on a slightly rising ground. It was a picturesque group of four small houses, three of tool reeds and one of adobe. The latter a comfortable little house of two rooms, with a floor and a shingled roof, both luxuries and San Pasquale. The great fig tree, whose luxuriance and size were noted far and nearer throughout the country, stood halfway down the slope, but its bow shaded all three of the tool houses. On one of its lower branches was fastened a dove coat, ingeniously made of willow wands, plastered with adobe, and containing so many rooms that the whole tree seemed sometimes a flutter with doves and dovelings. Here and there between the houses were huge baskets, larger than barrels, woven of twigs as the eagle weaves its nest. Only tighter and thicker. These were the outdoor granaries. In these were kept acorns, barley, wheat, and corn. Ramona thought them, as well she might, the prettiest things she ever saw. Are they hard to make, she asked. Can you make them, Alessandro? I shall want many.  We will go together to get the twigs. I can, I daresay, buy some in the village. It is only two days to make a large one. No, do not buy one, she exclaimed. I wish everything in our house to be made by ourselves. In which again Ramona was unconsciously striking one of the keynotes of pleasure in the primitive harmonies of existence. The tool-house which stood nearest to the dove-coat was, by a lucky chance, now empty, Isidro's brother Ramon, who had occupied it, having gone with his wife and baby to San Bernardino, for the winter to work. This house Isidro was but too happy to give Alessandro till his own should be done. It was a tiny place, though it was really two houses joined together by a roofed passageway. In this passageway the tidy Juana, Ramon's wife, kept her few pots and pans and a small stove. It looked to Ramona like a baby-house. Timurli Alessandro said, Can Mahea live in this small place for a time? It will not be very long. There are adobes already made. His countenance cleared as Ramona replied gleefully, I think it will be very comfortable, and I shall feel as if we were all doffs together in the dove-coat. Mahea exclaimed Alessandro, and that was all he said.  Ramona read the date, 1790, on its side, and heard that it was from the San Diego Mission Church, it had come. She felt a sense of protection in its presence. Think, Alessandro, she said, this bell, no doubt, has wrung many times for the Mass for the Holy Father, Junipero himself. It is a blessing to the village. I want to live where I can see it all the time. It will be like a saint statue in the house. With every illusion that Ramona made to the saint's statues, Alessandro's desire to procure one for her deepened. He said nothing, but he revolved it in his mind continually. He'd once gone with his shearers to San Fernando, and there he had seen in a room of the old Mission buildings a dozen statues of saints huddled in dusty confusion. The San Fernando church was in crumbled ruins, and such of the church properties as were left, there were in the keeping of a Mexican, not over-careful, and not in the least of out. It would not trouble him to part with the saint or two, Alessandro thought, and no irreverence to the saint either. On the contrary, the greatest irreverence, since the statue was to be taken from a place where no one cared for it, and brought into one where it would be tenderly cherished and worshipped every day. If only San Fernando were not so far away, and the wooden saints so heavy. However, it should come about yet. Maheya should have a saint, nor distance, nor difficulty, should keep Alessandro from procuring for his Mahem the few things that lay within his power. But he held his peace about it. It would be a sweeter gift if she did not know it beforehand. He pleased himself as subtly and secretly as if he had come of civilized generations, thinking how her eyes would dilate if she waked up some morning and saw the saint by her side, and how sure she would be to think at first it was a miracle. His dear Devout Maheya, who, with all her superior knowledge, was yet more credulous than he, all her education had not taught her to think as he, untaught, had learned in his solitude with nature. Before Alessandro had been two days in San Pasquale he had heard of a piece of good furniture which almost passed his belief and which startled him for once out of his usual impassive demeanor. You know I ever heard of cattle, of your fathers, and near a hundred sheep, said Isidro. Holy Virgin, cried Alessandro, you do not mean that. How is that? They told me all our stock was taken by the Americans. Yes, so it was. All that was in Temecula replied Isidro. But in the spring your father sent down to know if I would take a herd for him up into the mountains, with ours, as he feared the Temecula pasture would fall short, and the people there, who could not leave, must have their cattle near home. So he sent a herd over. I think near fifty had, and many of the cows have calved, and he sent also a little flock of sheep. A hundred, Ramon said, he heard of them, with ours all summer, and he left a man up there with them. They will be down next week, at his time they were sheared. Before he had finished speaking, Alessandro had vanished, bounding, like a deer. Isidro stared after him, but seeing him enter the doorway of the little tool hut, he understood, and a sad smile passed over his face. He was not yet persuaded that this merit of Alessandro's would turn out a blessing. What are a handful of sheep to her, he thought? Breathless, panting, Alessandro burst into Ramon's presence. Mahaya! My Mahaya! There are cattle! And sheep! he cried. The saints be praised. We are not like the beggars, as I said.  You do not wonder. You do not ask, he cried. Astonished at her calm, does Mahaya think that a sheep or a steer can come down from the skies? Nay, not as our eyes would see, she answered. But the holy ones, who live in the skies, can do anything they like on the earth. Saints came these cattle, and how are they ours? When he told her her face grew solemn. Do you remember that night in the willows, she said, when I was like one dying, because you would not bring me with you? You had no faith that there would be food, and I told you then that the saints never forsook those who love them, and that God would give food. And even at that moment, when you did not know it, there were your cattle and your sheep feeding the mountains in the keeping of God. Will my Alessandro believe after this? And she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. It is true, said Alessandro, I will believe after this that the saints love my Mahaya. But as he walked at a slower pace back to Isidro, he said to himself, Mahaya did not see Temecula. What would she have said about the saints, if she had seen that, and seen the people dying for want of food? It is only for her that the saints pray, they are displeased with my people. Chapter 20, Part 1 of Ramona, this is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Ramona, by Helen Hunt Jackson, Chapter 20, Part 1. One year and a half of another year had passed. Sheep shearing and vintages had been in Sampas Kehle, and Alessandro's new house, having been beaten on by the heavy spring rains, looked no longer new. It stood on the south side of the valley. Too far Ramona fell from the blessed bell, but there had not been land enough for wheat fields and inira, and she could see the chapel and the posts, and on a clear day, the bell itself. The house was small, small to hold so much joy, she said. When Alessandro first led her to it, and said depractantly, it is small, Marcella, too small, and he recollected bitterly, as he spoke, the size of Ramona's own home at the Senora's house. Too small, he repeated.  It looked like a place to the Sampas Kehle people, after Ramona had arranged the little possessions in it, and she herself felt rich, as she looked around her two small rooms. The old Senloire chairs and the raw-height beds that were there, and most precious of all the statuette of the Madonna. For this, Alessandro had built the niche in the wall, between the head of the bed and one window.  And Ramona kept constantly growing their walled cucumber plants, which fressed the rivressed niche till it looked like a boa. Below it hung a gold rosary and the ivory-christ, and many a woman in the village, when she came to see Ramona, asked permission to go into the bedroom and see her prayers there, so it finally came to be a sort of shrine for the whole village. A broad veranda, as broad as the Senora's, ran across the front of the little house. This was the only thing for which Ramona had asked. She could not quite spend her life without the veranda, and lennets in the setch. But the lennets had not yet come. In vain Ramona's truth food for them, and laid out little drains of crumbs to lure them inside the posts. They would not build nests inside. It was not the vain Sempe's cale. They lived in the cannons, but this part of the valley was too bare for trees for them. In a year or two more, when we have orchards, they will come, Alessandro said. With the money from that first sheep shearing and from the sale of part of his cattle, Alessandro had bought all he needed in the way of farming implements. A good wagon and harnesses and a blow. Beiber and Benito, at first rest if indignant, soon made up their minds to work. Ramona had talked to Beiber about it, as she would have talked to her brother. In fact, except for Ramona's help, it would have been a question that even Alessandro could have made Beiber work in harness. Good Beiber, Ramona said, as she slept piece after piece of the harness over his neck. Good Beiber, you must help us. We have so much work to do, and you are so strong. Good Beiber, do you love me? And with one hand in his mane and her cheek every few steps laid close to his, she laid Beiber up and down the first furrow she bled. My seniorita thought Alessandro to himself half in pain, half in pride. As running behind with the unevenly jerked blow, we watched her loving face and blowing hair. My seniorita. But Ramona would not run with her hand in Beiber's mane this winter. There was new work for her indoors. In a rustic cradle, which Alessandro had made under her directions of woven twigs, like the great outer air concreteries, even closer woven, and of an oval shape and lifted from the floor before uprights of metzantia stems. In this cradle, unsoft white wool fleeces covered with white homespun blankets lay Ramona's baby. Six months old, lust is strong and beautiful, as only children born of great love and under healthful conditions can be. This child was a girl. Alessandro's delight to Ramona's regret. So far as a loving mother can feel regret connected with her first born. Ramona had wished for an Alessandro, but the disappointed wish faded out of her thoughts hour by hour, as she gazed into her baby girl's blue eyes. Eyes so blue that their color was the first thing noticed by each person who looked at her. Eyes of the sky exclaimed Isidro when he first saw her. Like her mothers said Alessandro, on which Isidro turned an astonished look upon Ramona and saw for the first time that her eyes, too, were blue. Wonderful, he said. It is so. I never saw it. And he wondered in his heart what father it had been who had given eyes like those to one born of an Indian mother. Eyes of the sky became at once the baby's name in the village. And Alessandro and Ramona, before they knew it, had fallen into the way of so-calling her. But when it came to the christening, they demurred. The news was brought to the village one Saturday that father Gesperer would hold the services in the valley the next day. And they wished all the newborn babies to be brought for christening. Late into the night, Alessandro and Ramona sat by their sleeping baby and discussed what should be her name. Ramona wondered that Alessandro did not wish to name her Marcella. No, never but one Marcella, he said, in a tone which gave Ramona a sense of vague fear. It was so solemn. They discussed Ramona, Isabella, Alessandro suggested Camina. This had been his mother's name. At the mention of it, Ramona shuddered, recollecting the scene in a semi-cooled graveyard. Oh, no, no, not that, she cried. It is ill-fated, and Alessandro blamed himself for having forgotten her only association with the name. At last Alessandro said, the people have named her, I think, Marcella. Whatever name we give her in the chapel, she will never be called anything but eyes of the sky in the village. Let that be her true name, then. Said Ramona, and so it was settled. And when father Gesperer took the little one in his arms and made the sign of the cross on her brow, he pronounced it some difficult to the syllables of the Indian name, which meant blue eyes, or eyes of the sky. Here, too, for when father Gesperer had come to some basquele to say mass, he had slept at Lomax, the store in post office six miles away in the Bernardo Valley. But Ysidro, with great pride, had this time written to meet him, to say that his cousin Alessandro would come to live in the valley and had a good new abode house, back that the father would do him the honor to stay with him. And indeed, father added Ysidro, you will be far better lodged and fed than in the house of Lomax. My cousin's wife knows well how all should be done. Alessandro, Alessandro, said the father musingly, has he been long married? No, father, answered Ysidro, but little more than two years they were married by you on the way from Temecula here. Hey, hey, I remember, said father Gesperer, I will come. And it was with no small interest that he looked forward to meeting again the couple that had so strongly impressed him.  This was like the golden time, and as she visited herself with her cooking and other arrangement, the sort of father Selvidera was much in her mind. She could perhaps hear news of him from father Gesperer. It was she who had suggested the idea to Alessandro, and when he said, but where will you sleep yourself as the child Marcella, if you give a room to the father? I can lie on the floor outside, but you? I will go to Ysidro's and sleep with Joanna. She replied, for two nights it is no matter. And it is such shame to have the father sleep in the house of an American when we're for good bed like this. Seldom in his life had Alessandro experienced such a sense of gratification as he did when he led father Gesperer into his and Ramona's bedroom. The clean, white-washed walls, the bed neatly made, with broad lace on sheets and pillows, hung with curtains and a canopy of bright red calico and old carved chairs, the Madonna Shrine in its bower of green leaves, the shelves on the walls, the white curtained window. All made up in picture, such as father Gesperer had never before seen in his pilgrimages among the Indian villages. He could not restrain an ejaculation of surprise. Then his eye falling on the golden rosary he exclaimed, What got you there? It is my wife's, replied Alessandro proudly. It was given her by father Salvidera. Ah, said the father, he died the other day. Dad, father Salvidera, dad, cried Alessandro, that will be a horrible blow. Oh, father, I implore you not to speak of it in her presence. She must not know it till after the christening. It will make her heart heavy, so that she will have no joy. Father Gesperer was still scrutinizing the rosary and the crucifix, to be sure, to be sure, he said absently. I will say nothing of it, but this is a work of art, this crucifix. Do you know what you have here? And this, is this not an altar glass? He added, lifted up the beautiful wrought altar glass, which Ramona in honor of his coming had pinned on the wall below the Madonna Shrine. Yes, father, it was made for that. My wife made it. It was to be a present to father Salvidera, but she has not seen him to give it to him. It will take the light out of the sun for her, and she first hears that he is dead. Father Gesperer was about to ask another question, and Ramona appeared in the doorway, flushed with running. She had carried the baby over to Joanna's and left her there, that she might be free to serve the father's supper. I pray you tell her not, said Alessandro under his press, but it was too late. Seeing the father with her rosary in his hand, Ramona exclaimed, that father is my most sacred possession. It once belonged to father Peyre of St. Louis Ray, and he gave it to father Salvidera, who gave it to me. Know your father Salvidera? I was hoping to hear news of him through you. Yes, I knew him, not very well. It is a long time since I saw him, stammered father Gesperer. His hesitancy alone would not have told Ramona the truth. She would have said that down to the secular priests in the France or hostility to the Franciscan order. But looking at Alessandro, she saw terror and sadness in his face. No shadow there ever escaped her eye. But is it Alessandro, she exclaimed? Is it something about father Salvidera? Is he ill? Alessandro shook his head. He did not know what to say. Looking from one to the other, seeing the confused pain in both of their faces, Ramona, laying both her hands on her breast in an expressive gesture, she had learned from the Indian women, cried out in a piteous tone, you will not tell me, you do not speak. Then he is dead, and she sank on her knees. Yes, my daughter, he is dead. Said father Gesperer, more tenderly, than that brusque and warlike priest often spoke. He died a month ago at Santa Barbara. I am grieved to have brought you tidings to give you such sorrow, but you must not mourn him. He was very feeble and he longed to die, I heard. He could no longer work, and he did not wish to live.  The father's words were only a confused sound in her ears. She had heard nothing after the words a month ago. She remained silent and motionless for some moments. Then, rising, without speaking a word or looking at either of the men, she crossed the room and knelt down before the Madonna. By coming in pulsed, both Alessandro and father Gesperer silently left the room. As they stood together outside the door, the father said, I would go back to Lomax if it were not so late. I like not to be here when your wife is in such grief. That would but be another grief, fathers, the Alessandro. She has been full of happiness in making ready for you. She is very strong of soul. She is she who makes me strong often and not I who give strength to her. My face, but the man is right, said father Gesperer a half hour later. When with a calm face, Ramona summoned them to supper. He did not know, as Alessandro did, how that face had changed in the half hour. It was a look Alessandro had never seen upon it. Almost he tried to speak to her. When he walked by her side later in the evening, as she went across the valley to Fernando's house, he went to mention father Salvidiera's name. Ramona laid her hands on his lips. I cannot talk about him yet, dear. She said, I never believed that he would die without giving us his blessing. Do not speak of him till tomorrow is over. Ramona's saddened face smoked all the women's hearts as they met her the next morning. One by one they gazed, astonished, then turned away and spoke softly among themselves. They all laughed her and half referred her to, for her great kindness and readiness to teach and to help them. She had been like a sort of missionary in the valley ever since she came, and no one had ever seen her face without a smile. Now she smiled not. Yet there was the beautiful baby in its white dress ready to be Christianed, and the sun shone and the bell had been ringing for half an hour. And from every corner of the valley, the people were gathering and Father Gespeyre in his golden-green kessok was praying before the altar. It was a joyous day in San Pesquele. Why did Alessandro and Ramona kneel apart in a corner with such heart-stricken countenances, not even looking glad when their baby laughed and reached up with her hands? Gradually it was whispered about what had happened. Someone had got it from Antonio of Demicula, Alessandro's friend. Then all of the women's faces grow sad too. They all had heard of Father Salvidera and many of them had prayed to the ivory Christ in Ramona's room and knew that he had given it to her. As Ramona passed out of the chapel, some of them came up to her and, taking her hand in theirs, laid it on their hearts, speaking no word. The gesture was more than any speech could have been when Father Gespeyre was taking leave Ramona said with quivering lips, Father, if there is anything you know Father Salvidera's last hours, I would be grateful to you for telling me. I heard very little, replied the Father, except that he had been feeble for some weeks, yet he would persist in spending most of the night kneeling on the stone floor in the church praying. Yes, interrupted Ramona. That he always did. And the last morning continued the Father. The brothers found him there, still kneeling on the stone floor, but quite powerless to move. And they lifted him and carried him to his room and there they found to the horror that he had had no bed and had lain on the stones and then they took him to the superior's own room and laid him in the bed and he did not speak any more and yet known he died. Thank you very much Father, said Ramona, without lifting her eyes from the ground and in the same low, tremulous tone, I am glad they know that he is dead. It is strange what the whole those Franciscans have on those Indians, Newst Father Gespera, as he rode down the valley. There is none of them would look like that if I were dead, I warrant me. There, he exclaimed. I meant to have asked Alessandro who this wife of his is. I don't believe she's a thermic-cooler Indian. Next time I come, I will find out. She's had some schooling somewhere, that's plain. She's quite superior to the general run of them. Next time I come, I will find out about her. Next time, in what calendar, I have the records of those next times which never come. Long before Father Gespera visited Sambos Cale again, Alessandro and Ramona were five-way and strangers were living in their home. It seemed to Ramona in years after, as she looked back over this life, that the news of Father Salvedera's death was the first note of the Nail of the Happiness. It was but a few days afterward and Alessandro came in one noon with an expression on his face that terrified her. Sitting himself in a chair, he buried his face in his hands and she would neither look up nor speak, not until Ramona was near crying from his silence that he uttered a word. Then, looking at her with a ghastly face, he said in a hollow voice, it has begun and buried his face again. Finally, Ramona's tears sprang from him the following story. He said what it seemed had the previous year rented a cannon at the head of the valley to one Dr. Moran. It was simply as P. Pasteur that the doctor wanted it, he said. He had put his hives there and built a sort of hut for the man and he sent up to look after the honey. Isidro did not need the land and so did the good chance to make a little money. He had taken every precaution to make the transaction a safe one, had gone to San Diego and got Father Gesperer to act as interpreter for him in the interview with Moran. It had been a written agreement and the rent agreed upon had been punctually paid. Now the time of the lease having expired, Isidro had been to San Diego to ask the doctor if he wished to renew it for another year and the doctor had said the land was his and he was coming out there to build a house and to live. Isidro had gone to Father Gesperer for help and Father Gesperer had had an angry interview with Dr. Moran but it had done no good. The doctor said the land did not belong to Isidro at all but to the United States government and that he had paid the money for it to the agents in Los Angeles and they would soon come papers from Washington to show that it was his. Father Gesperer had gone with Isidro to a lawyer in San Diego and had shown to this lawyer Isidro's papers, the old one from the Mexican governor of California establishing the Pueblo of San Pescaler and saying how many leaks of land the Indians were to have. But the lawyer had only laughed at Father Gesperer for believing that such a paper as that was good for anything. He said that was all very well when the country belonged to Mexico but it was no good now that the Americans owned it now and everything was done by the American law now not by the Mexican law anymore. Then we do not own any land in San Pescaler at all Isidro said. Is that what it means? And the lawyer said he did not know how it would be with cultivated land and the village where houses were. He could not tell about that but he thought it all belonged to the man in Washington. Father Gesperer was in such rage Isidro said that he tore open his gown at his breast and smote himself and said he wished he were a soldier and no priest and that he might fight this accursed United States government. And the lawyer laughed at him and told him to look after souls. That was his business and let the Indian beggars alone.  Isidro told these beggars as it were at long intervals. His voice was choked. His whole frame shook. He was nearly beside himself his rage and despair. You see, it is as Isidro said. There is no safe place. We can do nothing. We might better be dead. It is a long way off that Kenyan, Dr. Morong had, said Ramona piteously it wouldn't do any harm his living there if no more came.  Said Isidro fiercely. Will there be one to comment not two? It is the beginning. Tomorrow may come 10 more with papers to show that the land is theirs. We can do nothing any more than the wild beasts. They are better than we. End of chapter 20 part one recording by Ellie July 2009. Chapter 20 part two of Ramona. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org recording by Ellie Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson. Chapter 20 part two. From this day, Alessandro was a changed man. Hope had died in his bosom. In all the village councils and there were many and long now for the little community had been plunged into great anxiety and distress by this Dr. Morong's affair. Alessandro said dump and gloomy to whatever was proposed. He had but one reply. It is of no use. We can do nothing. Eat your dinners today. Tomorrow we starve. He said one night, bitterly as the council broke up. When he said or proposed to him that they should turn into Los Angeles, where Father Gesperer had said the headquarters of the government offices were and where they could learn all about the new laws in regard of land, Alessandro laughed at him. What more is it then? Which you wish to know, my brother, about the American laws, he said. Is it not enough that you know they have made a law which will take the land from Indians, from us with only longer than any can remember? Land that our ancestors have buried in will take that land and give it to themselves and say it is theirs. Is it to hear this again, said in your face, and to see them and laugh or say it, like the lawyer in San Diego, that you will turn into Los Angeles? I will not go. And Ysidro went alone. Father Gesperer gave him a letter to a Los Angeles priest who went with him to the land office, patiently interpreted for him all he had to say and is patiently interpreted all that the official said to say in reply. They did not laugh as Alessandro in his bitterness had said. They were not inhuman and they felt sincere sympathy for this man, representative to 200 hard-working, industrious people in danger of being turned out of house and home. But they were very busy. They had to say curtly and in a few words, all there was to be said. The San Peskele district was certainly the property of the United States government and the lands were a market to be filed on and bought according to the Homestead Laws. These officials had no authority nor option in the matter. They were there simply to carry out the instructions and to obey orders. Ysidro understood the substance of all this so the details were beyond his comprehension. He did not regret having taken the journey. He had now made his last effort for his people. The Los Angeles priest had promised that he would himself write the letter to Washington to lay the case before the headman there and perhaps something would be done for their relief. It seemed incredible to Ysidro is writing a long day after day on his said homeward journey reflected on the subject. It seemed incredible to him that the government would permit such a village as theirs to be destroyed. He reached home just at sunset and looking down, Ysidro and Tremona had done on the morning of their arrival from the hill crests at the west end of the valley seeing the broad belt of cultivated fields and orchards, the peaceful little hamlet of houses he owned. If the people who made these laws could only see this village, they could never turn us out, never. They can't know what is being done. I am sure they can't know. What did I tell you? cried Elisandro, galloping up on Benito and training me in so sharply he reared and plunged. What did I tell you? I saw by your face and many faces back that you had come as you went, or worse. I have been watching for you these two days and other Americans has come in with moron in the canyon. We are making quarrels, they will keep stock. You will see how long we have any pasture lands in that end of the valley. I drive all my stock to San Diego next week. I will sell it for what it will bring, both the cattle and the sheep. It is no use, you will see. When Elisandro began to recount his interview with the land office authorities, Elisandro broke in fiercely. I wish to hear no more of it. Their names and their speeches are like smoke in my eyes and my nose. I think I shall go meet Elisandro. Go tell your story to the man who are waiting to hear it and who yet believe that the American may speak truth. Elisandro was as good as his word and the very next week he drove all his cattle and sheep to San Diego and sold them at great loss. It is better than nothing, he said. They will not now be sold by the sheriff like my father's in Temecula. The money he got took to Father Gesbara. Father, he said hastily. I have sold all my stock. I will not wait for the Americans to sell it for me and take the money. I have not got much, but it is better than nothing. It will make that we do not starve for one year. Will you keep it for me, father? I dare not have it in San Beskele. San Beskele will be like Temecula. It may be tomorrow. To the father's suggestion that he should put the money in a bank in San Diego, Elisandro cried. Sooner would I throw it in the sea yonder. I trust no man henceforth. Only to church I will trust. Keep it for me, father, I pray you. And the father could not refuse his imploring tone. What are your plans now? He asked. Plans? Repeated Elisandro. Plans, father? Why should I make plans? I will stay in my house as long as the Americans will let me. You saw a little house, father. His voice broke as he said this. I have large wheat fields. If I can get one more crop of them, it will be something. But my land is of the richest in the valley. And as soon as the Americans see it, they will want it. Farewell, father. I thank you for keeping my money and for all you said to deceive Morong. Yesidro told me, farewell. And he was gone and out of sight on the swift-galloping penito before a father gesperer bestowed himself. And I remembered not to ask who his wife was. I will look back at the record, said the father. Taking down the old volume, he ran his eye back over the year. Marriages were not so many in Father Gesperer's parish that the list took long to read. The entry of Elisandro's marriage was plotted. The father had been in haste at night. Elisandro's sis, Marcella Faye, no more could be read. The name meant nothing to Father Gesperer. Clearly an Indian name, he said to himself, yet she seemed superior in every way. I wonder where she got it. The winter wore along, quietly in San Beskele. The delicious soft rain set in early, promising a good grain year. It seemed a pity not to get in as much wheat as possible. And all the San Beskele people went early to plow in new fields. All but Elisandro, if I reap all I have, I will thank the saints, he said. I will blow no more land for the robbers. But after his fields were all planted and the beneficent rain still kept on and the hills all along the valley wall began to turn green earlier than ever before was known, he said to Ramona one morning. I think I will make one more field of wheat. There will be a great yield this year. Maybe we will be left amolested till after the harvest. Oh yes, and for many more harvest, dear Elisandro, said Ramona cheerily, you are always looking on the black side. There is no other but the black side, Marcella replied. Strain my eyes, SMA, on all sides, all is black. You will see, never any more harvest in San Beskele for us after this. If we get this, we are lucky. I've seen the white men riding up and down the valley and they found some of the cursed bits of wood with figures on them set up on my land the other day. They pulled them up and burned them to ashes. But I will blow one more field this week, though. I know not why this. My thoughts go against it even now, but I will do it. And I will not come home till night, Marcella, for the field is too far to go and come twice. I shall be the whole day blowing. So saying, he stooped and kissed the baby and then kissing Ramona went out. Ramona stood at the door and watched him as he hung his Benito and baby to the blow. He did not once look back at her. His face seemed full of thought, his hands acting as it were mechanically. After he had gone a few rods from the house, he stopped. Stood still for some minutes meditatingly and went on irresolutely, hauled it again, but finally went on and disappeared from sight among the low fortress to the east. Sighing deeply, Ramona turned back to her work. But her heart was too disquieted. She could not give back the tears. How changed is Alessandro, she thought. It terrifies me to see him thus. I will tell the blessed virgin about it. And kneeling before the shrine, she prayed fervently and long. She rose comforted and throwing the baby's cradle out into the veranda seated herself at her embroidery. Her skill with her needle had proved a not inconsiderable source of income. Her fine lace work being always taken by San Diego merchant and at fairly good prices. It seemed to her only a short time that she had been sitting thus. When glancing up at the sun, she saw it was near noon. At the same moment, she saw Alessandro approaching with the horses. In this may she thought, there is no dinner. He said he would not come. And springing up was about to run to meet him and she observed that he was not alone. A short, zigzag man was walking by his side. They were talking earnestly. It was a white man. What did it both? Presently they stopped. She saw Alessandro lift his hand and point to the house, then to the dual sheds in the rear. He seemed to be talking excitedly. The man also. They were both speaking at once. Ramona shivered with fear. Motionless she stood, straining eye and ear. She could hear nothing, but the gestures told much. Had it come, the thing Alessandro had said would come. Were they to be driven out? Driven out this very day, when the virgin had only just now seemed to promise her help and protection, the baby stirred, waked, began to cry. Catching her child up to her breast, she stilled her by convulsive caresses. Glasping her tight in her arms, she walked a few steps towards Alessandro, who, seeing her, made an imperative gesture to her to return. Sick at heart, she went back to the veranda and sat down to wait. In a few moments, she saw the white man counting up money into Alessandro's hand. Then he turned and walked away. Alessandro still standing as he floated to the spot, gazing into the palm of his hand, Benito and Beiber slowly walking away from him unnoticed. At last, he seemed to house himself as from a trance and picking up the horses' reins came slowly toward her. Again, she started to meet him. Again, he made the same authoritative gesture to her to return, and again she seated herself, trembling in every nerve of her body. Ramona was now sometimes afraid of Alessandro. When this fierce gloom seized him, she dreaded, she knew not what. He seemed no more the Alessandro she had left. Deliberately, lingeringly, he unharnessed the horses and put them in the quarrel. Then, still more deliberately, lingeringly, he walked to the house, without speaking, passed Ramona into the door. A lurid spot on each cheek showed burning red through the bronze of his skin. His eyes glittered. In silence, Ramona followed him and saw him throw out his pocket and a handful of gold pieces, flinging them on the table and burst into a laugh more terrible than any weeping.  Drawing them so close to his breast that the embrace hurt. "'No, I'm not mad, but I think I shall soon be. "'What is that gold, the price of this house, Marcella?' "'And of the fields. "'Of all that was ours in San Vescele. "'Tomorrow, we will go out into the world again. "'I will see if we can find a place "'the Americans do not want.'" It did not take many words to tell the story. Alessandro had not been blowing more than an hour when, hearing a strange sound, he looked up and saw a man unloading lumber, few rods off. Alessandro stopped between the furrow and watched him. The man also watched Alessandro. Presently, he came toward him and said roughly, "'Look here, be off, will you? "'This is my land. "'I'm going to build a house here.'" Alessandro had replied, "'This was my land yesterday. "'How comes it to us today?' "'Something in the wording of the answer "'or something in Alessandro's tone and bearing "'smart the man's conscience or heart.' "'Or what stood to him in the place "'of conscience and heart, and he said, "'Come, now, my good fellow. "'You look like a reasonable kind of a fellow. "'You just clear out, will you, "'and not make me any trouble. "'You see the land's mine. "'I've got all this land round here.' "'And he waved his arm, describing a circle. "'320 acres, me and my brother together, "'and we are coming in here to settle. "'We got our papers from Washington last week. "'It's all right, and you may just as well "'go peaceably as make a fuss about it. "'Don't you see?' "'Yes, Alessandro saw. "'He had been seeing this precise thing for months. "'Many times in his dreams and in his waking thoughts "'he had lived overseeing similar to this. "'And most, with the natural calm and wisdom, "'seem to be given him now. "'Yes, I see, Senor,' he said. "'I'm not surprised I knew it would come, "'but I hoped it would not be till after the harvest. "'I will not give you any troubles, Senor, "'because I cannot, if I could, I would. "'But I have heard all about the new land law, "'which gives all the Indians lands to the Americans. "'We cannot help ourselves, but it is very hard, Senor.' "'He paused. "'The man, confused and embarrassed, "'astonished beyond expression, "'at being met in this way by an Indian, "'did not find words come ready to his tongue. "'Of course, I know it does seem a little rough "'on fellows like you that are industrious "'and have done some work on the land. "'But you see, the land's in the market. "'I've paid my money for it. "'The Senor is going to build a house,' asked Alessandro. "'Yes,' answered the man. "'I've got the family in San Diego, "'and I want to get them settled as soon as I can. "'My wife won't feel comfortable "'till she's in her own house. "'We are from the States, "'and she's been used to having everything comfortable. "'I have a wife and child, Senor,' said Alessandro. "'Still in the same calm deliberate tone. "'And we have a very good house of two homes. "'It would save the Senor's building, if you would buy mine. "'How far is it?' said the man. "'I can't tell exactly where the boundaries of my land are, "'for the stakes we set have been pulled up. "'Yes, Senor, I pulled them up and burned them. "'They were on my land,' replied Alessandro. "'My house is farther west than your stakes, "'and I have large wheat fields there too. "'Many acres, Senor, all planted.' "'Here was a chance, indeed. "'The man's eyes gleamed. "'He would do a handsome thing. "'He would give this fellow something "'for his house and wheat crops. "'First, he would see the house, however, "'and it was for that purpose "'he had walked back with Alessandro. "'When he saw the need, whitewashed the boat, "'with its broad veranda, the sheds and quarrels, "'all in good order, he instantly resolved "'to get possession of them by fair means or foul. "'There will be $300 worth of wheat in July, Senor. "'You can see for yourself, "'and the house, the good estate, "'you cannot build for less than $100. "'What will you give me for them?' "'I suppose I can have them without paying you "'for them if I choose. "'Set the men insulently.' "'No, Senor,' replied Alessandro. "'But to hinder me then, I'd like to know, "'in a brutal sneer, you haven't got any rights here, "'but ever, according to law.' "'I shall hinder, Senor,' replied Alessandro.  "'What will you take?' said the men silently. "'$200,' replied Alessandro. "'Well, leave your blow in wagon, "'and I'll give it to you,' said the men. "'And the big fool, I'm too, well-loved and I'll be. "'Do you know it?' for buying out an Indian. "'The wagon, Senor, cost me $130 in San Diego. "'You cannot buy one so good for less. "'I will not sell it. "'I need it to take away my things in, "'the blow you may have. "'It is worth 20.' "'I'll do it,' said the men, "'and pulling out the heavy-buck skin pouch "'and count it out into Alessandro's hand "'$200 in gold. "'Is that all right?' he said as he put down the last piece. "'That is the sum he said, Senor,' replied Alessandro. "'Tomorrow at noon, you come into my house. "'Where will you go?' asked the men, "'again slightly touched by Alessandro's men. "'Why don't you stay around here? "'I expect you could get work enough. "'There are a lot of farmers coming in here. "'They'll want hands.' "'A fierce torrent of words sprang to Alessandro's lips, "'but he choked them back. "'I do not know where I shall go, "'but I will not stay here,' he said, "'and that ended the interview. "'I don't know as I blame him amite for feeling that way,' sought the men from the States, as he walked slowly back to his pile of lumber. "'I expect I should feel just so myself.'" Almost before Alessandro had finished his tale, he began to move about the room, taking down, folding up, opening and shutting lids. His restlessness was terrible to see. "'By sunrise, I would like to be off,' he said. "'It is like this, to be in the house "'which is no longer ours.'  She was like one stricken dumb. The shock was greater to her than to Alessandro. He had lived with it ever present in his thoughts for a year. She had always hoped. But far more dreadful than the loss of her home was the anguish of seeing, hearing the changed face, changed voice of Alessandro.  She obeyed him mechanically, working faster and faster as he grew more and more feverish in his haste. Before sundown, the little house was dismantled. Everything except the bed and the stove packed into the big wagon. "'Now we must cook food for the journey,' said Alessandro. "'Where are we going?' said the weeping Harmoner. "'Were, ejaculated Alessandro, so squandering "'that it sounded like impatience with Harmoner, "'and made her tears flow afresh. "'Were, and no, not Marcella. "'Into the mountains where the white man come not. "'At sunrise, we will start.' "'Harmoner wished to say goodbye to her friends. "'There were women in the village "'that she tenderly loved. "'But Alessandro was unwilling. "'They will be weeping and crying, Marcella. "'I pray you do not speak to one. "'Why should we have more tears? Let us disappear. "'I will say all to Isidro. He will tell them.' "'This was a sore grieve to Harmoner, "'and her heart she rebelled against it, "'as she had never yet rebelled against an act of Alessandros. "'But she could not distress him. "'Was not his burden heavy enough now?  "'Harmoner had baby in her arms in front, "'Alessandro walking. The load was heavy. "'Benito and baby walked slowly. "'Captain and happy, looking first at Harmoner's face, "'then at Alessandro's, walked his beardedly by their side. "'He knew all was wrong.' "'As Alessandro turned the horses "'into a faintly marked road, "'leading in the north-easterly direction, "'Harmoner said with his sword, "'but as this road lead Alessandro to San Jacinto, "'he said, San Jacinto Mountain. "'Do not look back, Marcella. Do not look back.' "'He cried as he saw Harmoner "'with streaming eyes gazing back toward San Vescale. "'Do not look back. It is gone. "'Pray to the saints now, Marcella. "'Pray, pray. End of Chapter 20, Part 2, "'recording by Ellie, July 2009." Chapter 21 of Ramona. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Ramona by Helen Hunt-Jackson. Chapter 21. The senora Moreno was dying. It had been a sad two years in the Moreno house. After the first excitement, following Ramona's departure, had died away, things had settled down in a surface similitude of their old routine. But nothing was really the same. No one was so happy as before. Juan Canito was heartbroken. There had been said over him, the very Mexican, who's coming to the place he had dreaded. The sheep had not done well. There had been a drought. Many had died of hunger. I think for which the new Mexican overseer was not to blame, though it pleased Juan to hold him so, and to say from morning till night that if his leg had not been broken, or if the lad Alessandro had been there, the wool crop would have been as big as ever. Not one of the servants liked this Mexican. He had had a sorry time of it, poor fellow. Each man and woman on the place had or fancied some reason for being said against him. Some from sympathy with Juan Can. Some from idleness and general impatience. Margarita, most of all, because he was not Alessandro. Margarita, between remorse about her young mistress and peak and disappointment about Alessandro, have become a very unhappy girl. And her mother, instead of comforting or soothing her, added to her misery by continually bemoaning Ramona's fate. The void that Ramona had left in the whole household seemed an irreparable one. Nothing came to fill it. There was no forgetting. Every day her name was mentioned by someone. Mentioned with baited breath, fearful conjecture, compassion, and regret. Where had she vanished? Had she indeed gone to the convent, as she said, or had she fled with Alessandro? Margarita would have given her right hand to know. Only Juan Can felt sure. Very well Juan Can knew that nobody but Alessandro had the wind in the power over Baba to lure him out of that corral. And never a rail out of its place. And the saddle too. Aye, the smart lad. He had done the best he could for the senorita, but holy virgin. Would it gotten to the senorita to run off like that with an Indian, even Alessandro? The fiends had bewitched her. Timelessly Juan Can questioned every traveler, every wandering herder he saw. No one knew anything of Alessandro, beyond the fact that all the Temecula Indians had been driven out of their village and that there was now not an Indian in the valley. There was a rumor that Alessandro and his father had both died, but no one knew anything, certainly. The Temecula Indians had disappeared. That was all there was of it. Disappeared like any wild creatures, foxes or coyotes, hunted down, driven out. The valley was rid of them, but the senorita, she was not with these fugitives. That could not be. Heaven forbid. If I had my legs, I'd go and see for myself, said Juan Can. It would be some comfort to know even the worst. Perdition, take the senora, who drove her to it. I drove her to it. That's what I say, Luigo. In some of his most venturesome, wrathy moments, he would say, there's none of you know the truth about the senorita but me. It's a hard hand the senoras reared her with from the first. She's a wonderful woman, our senora. She gets power over one. But the senora's power was shaken now. More changed than all else in the changed Moreno household was the relation between the senora Moreno and her son Felipe. On the morning after Ramona's disappearance, words had been spoken by each which neither would ever forget. In fact, the senora believed that it was of them she was dying and perhaps that was not far from the truth. The reason that forces could no longer rally in her to repel disease lie no doubt largely in the fact that to live seemed no longer to her desirable. Felipe had found the note Ramona had laid on his bed. Before it was yet dawn he had waked and tossing uneasily under the light covering had heard the rustle of the paper and knowing instinctively that it was from Ramona had risen instantly to make sure of it. Before his mother opened her window, he had read it. He felt like one bereft of his senses as he read.   Scales seemed to drop from Felipe's eyes as he lay motionless, thinking of it.  And he and his mother were the ones who had brought it on Ramona's head and on the house of Moreno. Felipe felt as if he had been under a spell all along not to have realized this. That's what I told my mother, he groaned, that it drove her to running away. Oh, my sweet Ramona, what will become of her? I will go after them and bring them back. And Felipe Rose and hastily, dressing himself, ran down the veranda steps to gain a little more time to think. He returned shortly to meet his mother staying in the doorway with pale, a frided face. Felipe, she cried, Ramona is not here. I know it, he replied in an angry tone. That is what I told you we should do. Drive her to running away with Alessandro. With Alessandro, interrupted the senora. Yes, continued Felipe. With Alessandro, the Indian, perhaps you think it is less disgrace to the names of Ortena and Moreno to have her run away with him than to be married to him here under our roof. I do not. Curse the day I say when I ever let myself to break in the girl's heart. I'm going after them to fetch them back. If the skies had opened and rained fire the senora had hardly less quailed and wondered than she did at these words. But even for fire from the skies she would not surrender till she must. I know you that it is with Alessandro, she said. Because she has written it here, cried Felipe, defiantly holding up his little note. She left this, her goodbye to me. Bless her, she writes like a saint to thank me for all my goodness to her.  The phrase my house smote the senora's ear like a note from some other sphere, which indeed it was, from the new world into which Felipe had been in an hour-born. Her cheeks flushed and she opened her lips to reply. But before she had uttered a word, Luigo came running round the corner, Juan Can hobbling after him at a miraculous pace on his crutches. Señor Felipe, señor Felipe, oh senora, they cried. Thieves have been here in the night. Baba is gone, Baba and the senorita saddle. A malicious smile broke over the senora's countenance and turning to Felipe she said in a tone, what a tone it was. Felipe felt as if he must put his hands to his ears to shut it out. Felipe would never forget. As you were saying, like a thief in the night. With a swifter and more energetic movement than any had ever before seen senora Felipe make, he stepped forward, saying in an undertone to his mother, for God's sake, mother, not a word before the men. What is that you say, Luigo? Baba gone, we must see to our corral. I will come down after breakfast and look at it. And turning his back on them, he drew his mother by a firm grasp she could not resist into the house.  I, mother, he said, you may well look thus in wonder. I've been no man to let my foster sister, I care not what blood were in her veins, be driven to this pass. I will set out this day and bring her back. The day you do that then, I lie in this house dead, retorted the senora at white heat. You may rear as many Indian families as you please under the marina roof. I will at least have my grave. In spite of her anger, grief convulsed her, and in another second she had burst into tears and sunk helpless and trembling into a chair. No counterfeiting now, no pretenses. The senora marina's heart broke within her when those words passed her lips to her adored Felipe. At the sight, Felipe flung himself on his knees before her. He kissed the aged hands as they lay trembling in her lap. Mother Mia, he cried, you will break my heart if you speak like that. Oh, why? Why do you command me to do what a man may not?  But how can I see my sister, a homeless wanderer in the wilderness? I suppose the man Alessandro is something he calls a home, said the senora, regaining herself a little. Had they no plans? Spoke she nod in her letter of what they would do? Only that they would go to father Salvia Vera first, he replied. Ah, the senora reflected. At first startled, her second thought was that this would be the best possible thing which could happen. Father Salvia Vera will counsel them what to do, she said. He could no doubt establish them as Santa Barbara in some way. My son, when you reflect, you will see the impossibility of bringing them here. Help them in any way you like, but do not bring them here. She paused. Not until I am dead, Felipe. It will not be long. Felipe bowed his head in his mother's lap. She laid her hands on his hair and stroked it with passionate tenderness. My Felipe, she said. It was a cruel fate to rob me of you at the last. Mother, mother, he cried in English. I am yours. Holy, devotedly yours. Why do you torture me thus? I will not torture you more, she said warily, in a feeble tone. I ask only one thing of you. Let me never hear again the name of that wretched girl who has brought all this well in our house. Let her name never be spoken on this place by man, woman, or child. Like a thief in the night. I, a horse thief. Felipe sprang to his feet. Mother, he said. Baba was Ramona's own. I myself gave him to her as soon as he was born. The senora made no reply. She had fainted. Calling the maids in terror and sorrow, Felipe bore her to her bed and she did not leave it for many days. She seemed to hover between life and death. Felipe watched over her as a lover might. Her great mournful eyes followed his every motion. She spoke little, partly because of physical weakness, partly from despair. The senora had got her death blow.  It would take long, yet she was dying and she knew it. Felipe did not know it. When he saw her going about again with a step only a little slower than before and with accountants not so much changed as he had feared, he thought she would be well again after a time. And now he would go in search of Ramona. How he hoped he should find them in Santa Barbara. He must leave them there or wherever he should find them. Never again would he for a moment contemplate the possibility of bringing them home with him. But he would see them, help them if need be. Ramona should not feel herself an outcast so long as he lived. When he said agitatedly to his mother one night, you are so strong now mother, I think I will take a journey. I will not be away long, not over a week. She understood and with a deep sigh replied, I am not strong, but I am as strong as I shall ever be. If the journey must be taken, it is as well done now. How was the senorita changed? It must be mother, said Felipe, or I will not leave you. I will set off before sunrise, so I will save her well tonight. But in the morning at his first step, his mother's window opened and there she stood, one speechless looking at him. You must go, my son, she asked at last. I must, mother. And Felipe threw his arms around her and kissed her again and again. Dearest mother, do smile, can you not? No, my son, I cannot. Farewell, the saints keep you, farewell. And she turned that she might not seem go. Felipe rode away with a sad heart, but his purpose did not falter. Following straight down the river-row to the sea, he then kept up along the coast, asking here and there cautiously if persons answering to the description of Alessandro and Ramona had been seen. No one had seen any such persons. When, on the night of the second day, he rode up to the Santa Barbara Mission, the first figure he saw was the venerable father, Saviadera, sitting in the corridor. As Felipe approached the old man's face being the pleasure, and he came forward, totteringly, leaning on his staff in each hand. Welcome, my son, he said. Are all well? You find me very feeble just now. My legs are failing me sorely this autumn. Dismay seized on Felipe at the father's first words. He would not have spoken thus had he seen Ramona. Barely replying to the greeting, Felipe exclaimed, Father, I come seeking Ramona. Has she not been with you? Father Saviadera's face was replied to the question. Ramona, he cried, seeking Ramona. What has befallen the blessed child? It was a bitter story for Felipe to tell, but he told it, sparing himself no shame. He would have suffered less in the telling had he known how well Father Saviadera understood his mother's character and her almost unlimited power over all persons around her. Father Saviadera was not shocked at the news of Ramona's attachment for Alessandro. He regretted it, but he did not think it shame, as the senora had done. As Felipe talked with him, he perceived even more clearly how bitter and unjust his mother had been to Alessandro. He is a noble young man, said Father Saviadera. His father was one of the most trusted of Father Perry's assistants. You must find them, Felipe. I wonder much they did not come to me. Perhaps they may yet come. When you find them, bear them my blessing and say that I wish they would come hither. I would like to give them my blessing before I die. Felipe, I shall never leave Santa Barbara again. My time draws nearer. Felipe was so full of impatience to continue his search that he hardly listened to the Father's words. I will not tarry, he said. I cannot rest till I find her. I will ride back as far as Ventura tonight. You will send me word by messenger when you find them, said the Father. God grant no harm as befalling them. I will pray for them, Felipe. And he tottered into the church. Felipe's thoughts as he retraced his road were full of bewilderment and pain. He was wholly at loss to conjecture what Corralesandro Ramona had taken, or what could have led them to abandon their intention of going to Father Saviadeira. Temecula seemed the only place now to look for them, and yet from Temecula Felipe had heard, only a few days before leaving home, that there was not an Indian left in the valley, but he could at least learn there where the Indians had gone. Poor as the clue seemed, it was all he had. Felipe Felipe urged his horse on his return journey. He grudged an hour's rest to himself or to the beast, and before he reached the head of the Temecula canon, the creature was near spent.  As he was toiling slowly up a narrow rocky pass, he suddenly saw an Indian's head peering over the ledge. He made signs to him to come down. The Indian turned his head and spoke to someone behind. One after another a score of figures rose. They made signs to Felipe to come up. Poor things, he thought. They are afraid. He shouted to them that his horse was too tired to climb that wall, but if they would come down he would give them money, holding up a gold piece. They consulted among themselves. Suddenly they began slowly descending, still halting in intervals and looking suspiciously at him. He held up the gold again and beckoned. As soon as they could see his face distinctly, they broke into a run. That was no enemy's face. Only one of the number could speak Spanish. On hearing this man's reply to Felipe's first question, a woman, who had listened sharply and caught the word Alessandro, came forward and spoke rapidly in the Indian tongue. "'This woman has seen Alessandro,' said the man. "'Where?' said Felipe, breathlessly. "'In Temecula, two weeks ago,' he said. "'Ask her if he had anyone with him,' said Felipe. "'No,' said the woman. He was alone.' A convulsion passed over Felipe's face. "'Alone? What does this mean?' he reflected. The woman watched. "'Is she sure he was alone?  It was Carmena, every nerve of her loyal nature, on the alert to baffle this pursuer of Alessandro and Ramona. Again Felipe reflected. Ask her if she saw him for any length of time. How long she saw him?' "'All night,' he answered. He spent the night where she did. Felipe dispaired. "'Does she know where he is now?' he asked. He was going to San Luis Obispo to go on a ship to Monterey. What to do?' She does not know. Did he say when he would come back? Yes. When?' Never. He said he would never set foot in Temecula again. "'Does she know him well?' As well as her own brother. What more could Felipe ask?' With a groan rung from the very depths of his heart he tossed the man a gold piece, another to the woman. "'I am sorry,' he said. Alessandro was my friend. I wanted to see him.' And he rode away, Carmena's eyes following him with a covert gleam of triumph. When these last words of his were interpreted to her she started, made as if she would run after him but checked herself. No, she thought, it may be a lie. He may be an enemy for all that. I will not tell. Alessandro wished not to be found. I will not tell.' And thus vanished the last chance of succor for Ramona, vanished in a moment, blown like a thistle down on a chanced breath, the breath of a loyal, loving friend speaking a lie to save her. Distraught with grief, Felipe returned home. Ramona had been very ill when she left home, had she died, and been buried by the lonely sorrowing Alessandro, and was that the reason Alessandro was going away to the north never to return? Fulfill that he was to a shrunk from speaking Ramona's name to the Indians. He would return and ask again.  But when Felipe entered his mother's presence his first look in her face told him he would not leave her side again until he had laid her at rest in the tomb. Thank God you have come, Felipe. She said in a feeble voice, I have begun to fear you would not come in time to save her well to me. I am going to leave you, my son. And the tears rolled down her cheeks. Though she no longer wished to live, neither did she wish to die. This poor, proud, passionate, defeated, bereft senora. All the consolations of her religion seemed to fail her. She had prayed incessantly but got no peace. She fixed her poor eyes on the virgin's face and on the saints, but all seemed to her to wear a forbidding look. If Father Salviadero would only come, she groaned. He could give me peace if only I could live till he comes again. When Felipe told her of the old man's feeble state and that he would never again make the journey she turned her face to the wall and wept. Not only for her own soul's help did she wish to see him, she wished to put into his hands the ortegna jewels. What would become of them? To whom should she transfer the charge? Was there a secular priest within reach that she could trust? When her sister had said, in her instructions, the church, she meant, as the senora Moreno well knew, the Franciscans. The senora dared not consult Felipe, yet she must. Day by day, these spreading anxieties and perplexities wasted her strength, and her fever grew higher and higher. She asked no questions as to the result of Felipe's journey, and he dared not mention Ramona's name. At last he could bear no longer. And one day, said, Mother, I found no trace of Ramona. I have not the least idea where she is. The father had not seen her or heard of her. I fear she is dead. Better so was the senora's sole reply, and she fell again into still deeper and more perplexed thought about the hidden treasure. Each day she resolved, tomorrow I will tell Felipe. And when tomorrow came, she put it off again. Finally she decided not to do it till she found herself dying. Father Salvia Deira might yet come once more, and then all would be well. With trembling hands she wrote him a letter imploring him to be brought to her and sent it by messenger, who was empowered to hire a litter and foreman to bring the father gently and carefully all the way. But when the messenger reached Santa Barbara, Father Salvia Deira was too feeble to be moved, too feeble even to write. He could write only by Emanuensis, and wrote therefore, guardedly, sending her his blessing and saying that he hoped her foster child might yet be restored to the keeping of her friends. The father had been in sore straits of mind. As month after month had passed without tidings of his blessed child. Soon after this came the news of the father was dead. This dealt the senora a terrible blow. She never left her bed after it. And so the year had worn on and Felipe, mourning over his sinking and failing mother and haunted by terrible fears about the lost Ramona, had been tortured indeed. But the end drew near now. The senora was plainly dying. The Ventura doctor had left off coming, saying that he could do no more. Nothing remained but to give her what ease was possible. In a day or two more all would be over. Felipe hardly left her bedside, rarely was mother so loved and nursed by son. No daughter could have shown more tenderness and devotion. In the close relation and affection of these last days the sense of alienation and antagonism faded from both of their hearts. My adorable Felipe, she would murmur, would a son has thou been? And my beloved mother, how shall I give you up?  So wasted now, so white, so weak. Those hands which had been cruel and strong little more than one short year ago. Ah, no one could refuse to forgive the senora now. The gentle Ramona, had she seen her, had wept tears of pity. Her eyes war-times a look almost of terror. It was the secret. How should she speak it? What would Felipe say? At last the moment came. She had been with difficulty roused from a long fainting. One more such would be the last she knew, knew even better than those around her. As she regained consciousness she gasped, Felipe, alone. He understood and waved the rest away. Alone, she said again, turning her eyes to the door. Leave the room, said Felipe, all, wait outside. Many closed the door on them. Even then the senora hesitated. Almost was she ready to go out of life, leaving the hidden treasure to its chance of discovery, rather than with her own lips revealed to Felipe what she saw now, saw with the terrible, relentless, clear-sightedness of death, would make him, even after she was in her grave, reproach her in his thoughts. But she dared not withhold it. That must be said. Pointing to the statue of St. Catherine, whose face seemed, she thought, to frown unforgiving upon her, she said, Felipe, behind that statue, look. Felipe thought her delirious and said tenderly, nothing is there, dearest mother, be calm, I am here. New terror seized the dying woman. Was she to be forced to carry the secret to the grave, to be denied this late avowal? No, no, Felipe, there is a door there, secret door, look, open, I must tell you. Hastily Felipe moved the statue. There was indeed the door, as she had said.  As he spoke he turned and saw with alarm his mother sitting upright in the bed.  Before a cry could pass his lips she had fallen back. The senora, Moreno, was dead. At Felipe's cry the women waiting in the hall hurried in, wailing aloud as their first glance showed them all was over. In the confusion Felipe with a pale, set face pushed the statue back into its place. Even then a premonition of horror swept over him. What was he, the son, to find behind that secret door, at sight of which his mother had died with that look of anguished terror in her eyes? All through the sad duties of the next four days Felipe was conscious of the undercurrent of this premonition. The funeral ceremonies were impressive. Little Chapel could not hold the quarter part of those who came, from far and nearer. Everybody wished to do honour to the senora Moreno. A priest from Ventura and one from San Luis Obispo were there. When all was done they bore the senora to the little graveyard on the hillside and laid her by the side of her husband and her children. And still at last the restless, passionate, proud, sad heart. When the night after the funeral the servant saw Senua Felipe going into his mother's room they shuddered and whispered, Oh, he must not. He will break his heart, Senua Felipe, how he loved her. Old Marta ventured to follow him and at the threshold said, Dear Senua Felipe, do not. It is not good to go there. Come away. But he put her gently by, saying, I would rather be here, good Marta, and went in and locked the door. It was past midnight when he came out. His face was stern. He had buried his mother again, while might the senora have dreaded to tell to Felipe the tale of the Ortega treasure, until he reached the bottom of the jewel box and found the senora Ortega's letter to his mother. He was an entire bewilderment at all he saw. After he had read this letter he sat motionless for a long time, his head buried in his hands, his soul was rung. And she thought that shame, and not this, he said bitterly. But one thing remained for Felipe now. If Ramona lived he would find her and restore to her this rightful property. If she were dead it must go to the Santa Barbara College. Surely my mother must have intended to give it to the church, he said. But why keep it all this time? It is this that has killed her. Oh, shame. Disgrace. From the grave in which Felipe had buried his mother now was no resurrection. Replacing everything as before in the safe hiding place, he sat down and wrote a letter to the superior of the Santa Barbara College, telling him of the existence of these valuables, which in certain contingencies would belong to the college. Early in the morning he gave this letter to Juan Canito, saying, I'm going away, Juan, on a journey. If anything happens to me and I do not return, send this letter by trusty messenger to Santa Barbara. Will you be long away, Senua Felipe? Asked the old man, piteously. I cannot tell Juan, replied Felipe. It may be only a short time. It may be long. I leave everything in your care. You will do all according to your best judgment, I know. I will say to all that I have left you in charge. Thanks, Senua Felipe. Thanks, exclaimed Juan. Have your evening been for two years. Indeed, you may trust me. From the time you were a boy till now I have had no thought except for your house.  Had she known the thoughts with which her Felipe galloped this morning out of the gateway through which only the day before he had walked weeping behind her body, born to burial. And she thought this no shame to the house of Moreno, he said. My God. End of chapter 21.