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 IN SUNNY SPAIN 
 
 Katherine Lee Bates 
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 Padraic Colum- 
 
 THE LAIRD OF GLENTYRE 
 
 Emma M. Green 
 ELSBETH 
 
 Margarethe Miiller 
 GENEVIEVE 
 
 Laura Spencer Portor 
 
 KATRINKA: The Story of a Rus- 
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 Helen E. Haskell 
 
 TREASURE FLOWER: A Child of 
 Japan 
 
 Ruth Gaines
 
 THE VILLAGE SHIELD
 
 THE 
 VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 A STORY OF MEXICO 
 
 BY 
 
 RUTH GAINES 
 
 AND 
 
 GEORGIA WILLIS READ 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, 1917 
 BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The full-page illustrations for this book have 
 been taken from three famous books of travel, 
 written in each case by men of science, viz.: 
 Six Months Residence and Travels in Mexico, 
 by W. Bullock, London, 1824; Mitla, Travels 
 in Mexico and Guatemala, by G. F. von Temp- 
 sky, London, 1858; and Mexico, Landscapes 
 and Popular Sketches, by C. Sartorius, Lon- 
 don, 1859. The two former authors made 
 their own sketches; the latter had the good 
 fortune to secure those of the no less famous 
 artist, Moritz Rugendas. 
 
 The tailpieces and line drawings have been 
 redrawn from the beautiful picture-writings 
 of the Indians. Some of these antedate, and 
 others are contemporaneous with, the Span- 
 ish Conquest. 
 
 It is felt, by the authors, and the publishers,
 
 PREFACE 
 
 that the veracious delineations here reproduced 
 represent as truly now as when they were first 
 drawn, the life of Mexico. In addition, they 
 possess unusual historic and artistic interest, 
 which should render them of permanent value 
 to all students of that wonderful land. 
 
 viii
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 PART I THE VILLAGE .15 
 
 PART II LEY FUGA - 9 1 
 
 PART III A SONG IN THE NIGHT . . .179 
 NOTES i 257
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 I The Market (Colored} . . . Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 II Colima's Smoky Plume 21 
 
 III In the Time of Don Felipe (Colored) . . 28 
 
 IV La Hacienda de los Pajaritos Santos (Col- 
 
 ored) 44 
 
 V San Juan de Uloa 108 
 
 VI The Region of the Pines 136 
 
 VII Huitzitzilin 180 
 
 VIII The Ruins Which Dot Our Land (Col- 
 ored) 188 
 
 IX Porfiria's Mother 194 
 
 X Tezpi and Nahua 201 
 
 XI At the Close of the War 241 
 
 XII The End (Symbolic Design) . . . .252 
 
 TAILPIECES AND MEDALLIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I Design from the "Mantle of the Five 
 
 Roses" Title page 
 
 II Place-name : A Village by the Water 
 
 Half-title, Part I 
 
 III A Conquistador 25 
 
 IV A Goose 36 
 
 V One of Cortes's Ships 47 
 
 VI A Spanish Priest 6l 
 
 VII A Fisherman 73
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 VIII A Maguey in Flower 87 
 
 IX Place-name of the Home of the Taras- 
 
 cos: Michoacan . . Half-title, Part II 
 
 X Symbolic Design of a Temple . . . 104 
 
 XI Drinking Scene 118 
 
 XII Place-name: A Battleaxe on a Mountain 133 
 
 XIII A Hunter 145 
 
 XIV Design from the "Mantle of the Tiger" 162 
 XV The God of Flowers 176 
 
 XVI Place-name : Huitzitzilin Half-title, Part III 
 
 XVII Place-name: The Island of Aztlan . . 190 
 
 XVIII A Rabbit . 202 
 
 XIX An Indian Portrait 215 
 
 XX A Girl Weaving 226 
 
 XXI An Armadillo 239 
 
 XXII Place-name : Chapultepec, the Hill of the 
 
 Grasshopper 264
 
 THE VILLAGE SHIELD
 
 A LETTER TO THE ONE WHO 
 READS THIS BOOK 
 
 Dear Schoolmate: 
 
 This is a story of real Mexicans; not the 
 fierce and noisy men who are fighting and quar- 
 reling among themselves and sometimes with 
 us, to decide who shall govern their nation, 
 but the Indians of pure blood, the descendants 
 or successors of the Aztec people whom the 
 Spaniards found in Mexico when Fernando 
 Cortes invaded the country in 1520. There 
 are about one hundred and fifty of these Indian 
 tribes, and four-fifths of the people of Mexico 
 have some Indian blood in their veins. When 
 you read the adventures of Porfiria and Ramon, 
 you may find it hard to believe that these gentle, 
 courteous, cleanly, honorable people are in any 
 way connected with the excitable, untidy, and 
 often untrustworthy natives of whom we read 
 in the newspapers; or that the pretty village 
 
 3
 
 4 A LETTER 
 
 by the lake, and the beautiful valley with its 
 delightful cave can be a part of that dry, hot, 
 treeless land which our soldier-boys know as 
 Mexico. But such authorities as Sartorius, 1 
 the German naturalist, and Mme. Calderon de 
 la Barca, 2 the English wife of the Spanish am- 
 bassador, give us in their famous books on 
 Mexico glimpses of the Indians which show 
 that their native courtliness and dignity can 
 scarcely be overdrawn. Of these, the Taras- 
 cos, Porfiria's Indian tribe, are descendants of 
 an early people who rivaled the Aztecs in civili- 
 zation and power, and are even now noted for 
 their orators and the songs of their women. 
 As for the cave, which seems so like a fairy 
 place, there are many others in Mexico, more 
 fairy-like, as you may read some day; and the 
 valley is so real that it waits, perhaps for your 
 exploration, in a cleft of the Sierra Madre. 
 
 1 C. Sartorius : "Mexico, Landscapes and Popular 
 Sketches," Triibner and Co., London, 1859. 
 
 2 Mme. Calderon de la Barca : "Life in Mexico," 
 Boston and London, 1843.
 
 A LETTER 5 
 
 But no story of modern Mexico could be true 
 which did not tell us something of the misery 
 of the people, the poverty, the cruel oppression, 
 the unending civil war ; and all these things you 
 will find in the story of the Village Shield. 
 Still, the story pictures for us more happiness 
 than horror, more peace than war. In its 
 pages you can see what a useful, joyful life the 
 Mexican Indians might all be leading to-day, 
 if all the white men in Mexico were as kind and 
 wise as Don Luis and his wife, and if all the 
 priests were as loving and good as the Padre 
 who took care of Porfiria and Ramon and little 
 Felix. The priests in Mexico have not all been 
 so devoted to the Indians and so willing to lift 
 them out of their poverty and ignorance, but 
 there are two priests whom the grateful Mex- 
 icans will never forget. In the sixteenth cen- 
 tury Bishop Quiroga took the part of the na- 
 tives of the province of Michoacan against the 
 Spanish rulers, who burned their Indian chief 
 to death because he would not obey them ; and 
 in 1810 the Padre Miguel Hidalgo, a parish
 
 6 A LETTER 
 
 priest in a little town called Dolores, near the 
 city of Guanajuato, led the first actual upris- 
 ing of the Mexicans in their long struggle for 
 independence. Padre Hidalgo was captured 
 by the Spanish authorities and shot in prison 
 at Chihuahua, on July 31, 1811, but the torch 
 of liberty which he carried so bravely was 
 handed on to other patriots. 
 
 And as there have been some good priests 
 in Mexico, so too there have been kind white 
 men, like Porfiria's Don Luis; men who have 
 looked out for the welfare of the peones on the 
 great estates and in the mines. But, in gen- 
 eral, the white men who have gone to Mexico 
 in the last fifty years, from England, France, 
 Germany, Belgium, Japan, the United States, 
 have been chiefly concerned with making 
 money out of Mexico and using the riches of 
 the country, the fertile soil and the mines, 
 to increase their own power and fill their own 
 pockets. They have thought of themselves 
 first and of Mexico afterwards. And we all 
 know that the man or woman, or boy or girl,
 
 A LETTER 7 
 
 who thinks of himself first, has not usually 
 much thought left over for other people. The 
 good neighbor is one who stands ready to give 
 a helping hand to the man next door, not to go 
 in and rob his pantry. And Mexico is our 
 neighbor. 
 
 Of course, it is natural for the energetic, 
 educated business men from northern coun- 
 tries, who invest money in Mexico, to be im- 
 patient with the slow and primitive methods 
 of the Indians and Meztizos, or half-breeds, 
 and to want to take everything into their own 
 hands and "speed up" Mexico. But one of the 
 things which neighbors have to learn is not 
 to meddle. To help without meddling is some- 
 thing that very few nations, or individuals, 
 have learned to do, to-day. We cannot always 
 be sure that "the way we do it at home" is the 
 best way to do it next door. We cannot be 
 sure that the Mexican Indians will never make 
 for themselves a peaceable, efficient govern- 
 ment, merely because they haven't done it yet. 
 The Spaniards and Meztizos have been trying
 
 8 A LETTER 
 
 for four hundred years to conquer the Indian, 
 and the result has been a see-saw of revolu- 
 tion and tyranny, but the Indian is still cling- 
 ing to his mountains and fighting for his lands. 
 And you must not think of him as always 
 an ignorant peon wrapped in a bright, hand- 
 woven blanket. Many lawyers and profes- 
 sional men of eminence in Mexico have been 
 Indians of pure blood. Mexico's greatest 
 president, Benito Juarez, was a Zapoteca In- 
 dian, and the story of his life is even more 
 romantic than anything you will find in the 
 story of Porfiria and Ramon. His father and 
 mother were both Indians of the Zapoteca 
 tribe, and they lived on the shores of a moun- 
 tain tarn called the Enchanted Lake, near the 
 city of Oaxaca. Little Benito was born in 
 March, 1806, in an adobe hut with a thatched 
 roof. His father and mother died when he 
 was three years old, and he lived until he was 
 twelve with his grandmother, and knew no 
 language but the Zapoteca dialect. But his 
 tribe were known for their industry and hon-
 
 A LETTER 9 
 
 esty, and the city people were glad to take the 
 children to train as house servants; so when 
 Benito was twelve years old he set out for 
 Oaxaca, some forty miles away, and there he 
 was taken into the house of a good, religious 
 man, a bookbinder, who taught him reading, 
 writing, arithmetic, and Spanish grammar, be- 
 sides all the other things, such as good man- 
 ners, which an ignorant little Indian boy would 
 need to know. When he was fifteen he went 
 to a church school where he was taught Medi- 
 eval Latin, canon law, dogmatic theology and 
 philosophy, queer studies for a young boy, 
 we should think now-a-days. His guardian, 
 the bookbinder, must have grown to love him 
 and believe in him, for he wanted to educate 
 him to be a priest; but the boy chose to be a 
 lawyer instead, and he received the degree of 
 Bachelor of Laws, and later the degree of 
 Doctor of Civil Law, from the University of 
 Oaxaca. In 1834, when he was not yet twenty- 
 eight years old, he was admitted to the Bar. 
 The story of Benito Juarez's life is too long
 
 10 A LETTER 
 
 to tell here; but you can read it in Mexico's 
 history, if you will. The little Indian boy be- 
 came Governor of Oaxaca; he prepared and 
 proclaimed a civil and criminal code for the 
 State, "the first code of laws ever published in 
 Mexico." He was exiled for political reasons 
 in 1855, and lived for a while in New Orleans, 
 where he used well his opportunity to study the 
 political institutions of the United States. In 
 1859, the United States "recognized Juarez as 
 the legitimate constitutional ruler of Mexico," 
 and to-day he is revered in memory as a great 
 President. In the midst of his presidency the 
 French people set up another government in 
 Mexico and made Maximilian, the Austrian, 
 Emperor of the country ; but the United States 
 stood by Mexico in disapproving of this change, 
 and in 1865, Juarez came into power again and 
 put Maximilian to death. It may seem to us 
 now a great pity that he should have done this, 
 but he honestly thought he was right at the 
 time. 
 
 We are told by Mr. Enock, who has written
 
 A LETTER 11 
 
 a sketch of him, that Juarez had "A somewhat 
 stoical temperament, a reserve in matters of 
 public importance, coolness and self-possession 
 in the face of danger, patient endurance of ad- 
 versity, dignified courtesy at all times." Men 
 called him "The President in the Black Coat," 
 because in a day when diplomats and military 
 men were fond of wearing their brilliant cos- 
 tumes and uniforms, he wore always the plain 
 black clothes of the Mexican student or pro- 
 fessional man. He died in 1872, but to-day 
 his influence still lives in his unhappy country, 
 for Carranza's promise to his countrymen and 
 to the United States is that he will carry out 
 the Reforms of Juarez, Mexico's greatest son. 
 When you have read the story of Porfiria 
 and Ramon you may want to know more of 
 these Southern neighbors of ours. Their his- 
 tory, in the days when Cortes entered the land 
 of the Aztecs and conquered their king, 
 Moctezuma, is as strange and wild as the most 
 unreal of romances; and their later struggles 
 against their Spanish rulers are only less ex-
 
 12 A LETTER 
 
 citing. This neighbor who has suffered so 
 much from outside oppression and robbery, as 
 well as from the men of her own household, 
 needs our sympathy and our unselfish help. 
 Shall we not try to understand her and really 
 be neighborly? 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 FLORENCE CONVERSE.
 
 PART I 
 THE VILLAGE
 
 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MY earliest recollections have to do with 
 the sound of rippling water, with the 
 lapping lake on the shore of which our humble 
 hamlet stood, and the tinkling rills that ran 
 thereto down the center of each cobbled, tree- 
 arched lane. The source of these rills was to 
 be found on the slope above the village in two 
 springs that gushed from beneath the roots of 
 a gigantic fig tree. One hot and of a pleasing 
 softness, the other cold as the Colima l snows, 
 they formed our village's sole and sufficient 
 wealth. 
 
 Thither, in the fresh dawn, herdsboys drove 
 the goats to water on their way to upland pas- 
 tures ; there the maidens, climbing in single file 
 through the dewy milpa, 2 filled their water 
 
 is
 
 16 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 jars for household needs, and there at shallow 
 tanks, daylong, the village mothers washed and 
 talked. Many well-built sluices from this cen- 
 tral source irrigated our cornfields, our patches 
 of vegetables on the confines of the hamlet, and 
 the tiny orchards embowering each home. The 
 small domain, which thus girdled the village 
 with pasture, tilth and shore, was common 
 land, and was called the Village Shield. 
 
 Where the outer rim of our Shield rested on 
 the blue expanse of lake, stood the cottage of 
 my grandparents. Raised on piles, it was 
 reached by a narrow causeway. Beneath it 
 the glancing water was always in motion, al- 
 ways playing with shifting lights through open 
 door and window, and even through the wat- 
 tled walls. The thatched roof was over- 
 shadowed by a trellised trumpet vine, and by 
 the massive green of an ancient mango tree. 
 This last comprised our orchard. At the door 
 of the cottage in fair weather our fishing boat 
 was moored. 
 
 There were only four of us, my grandfa-
 
 THE VILLAGE 17 
 
 ther and grandmother, my foster brother Ra- 
 mon, and myself. Ramon was a good four 
 years older than I, tall and strong for his age. 
 Yet our christening day, as you will see, was 
 the same. 
 
 It happened, early one morning, when my 
 grandfather and Ramon were out as usual 
 fishing for pescados blancos? and my grand- 
 mother, water jar on shoulder, had gone to the 
 springs, that I was awakened by a prolonged 
 and unfamiliar buzzing among the flowers of 
 the trumpet vine. The short, quick strokes of 
 the humming-birds that frequented our arbor 
 were different from this continuous, not to say 
 excited, uproar. I sprang from my bed. A 
 scattering cone of insects which centered their 
 flight on a darker apex of struggling, black 
 bodies, buzzed about the roof-tree. It was a 
 swarm of bees. 
 
 Young as I was, perhaps in my seventh year, 
 I was aware that we were very poor. Grand- 
 father often shook his white head at the small 
 catch of fish, and complained in a quavering
 
 i8 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 voice that the pescados blancos were not as 
 plentiful as they used to be when he was young. 
 And Grandmother sometimes sighed over the 
 heavy pounding of cornmeal for tortillas* 
 Then Ramon and I would slip away to our tiny 
 plot of peppers and beans, and weed and water 
 the plants, wishing the while that we might 
 suddenly grow bigger, so that we could help 
 our dear grandparents more. This too was 
 the burden of my prayer to the Virgin each 
 night and morning as I knelt before her image 
 in the gable of our hut. 
 
 The bees, therefore, appeared to me to be 
 the Virgin's answer. I went quietly to work 
 to make them mine. From within I brought 
 Grandfather's coat and trousers of white 
 manta* cloth, and laid them, as smoothly as I 
 could, on the ground. Then, from one of our 
 two petates? I fashioned a rude skep. 7 It was 
 not a hard task to climb the trellis, nor to cut 
 the vine to which the mass of bees had clung. 
 With a soft thud, they fell to the cloth below. 
 For a few minutes the little creatures went
 
 THE VILLAGE 19 
 
 wild, but gradually they settled, reconnoitered, 
 and, to my unspeakable joy, moved into their 
 new home. 
 
 Grandmother must have found the gossip at 
 the fountain more to her liking than usual that 
 morning. The sun was near midheaven when 
 at last she came in sight, hot and tired. I ran 
 to meet her. 
 
 "Grandmother," I cried, "the Blessed Virgin 
 has sent us a swarm of honey bees." 
 
 In our simple lives the rising and setting 
 sun, the tasseling maize, the winds even that 
 ruffled the lake, were events. How much more 
 the unlocked for arrival of the bees! 
 
 Soon it was noised abroad in the whole vil- 
 lage that Porfiria, the fisherman's daughter, 
 had succeeded in hiving a swarm. "And such 
 a swarm," continued the chief goatherd's wife, 
 who had come with the rest to see them, 
 "They are golden-banded and altogether 
 larger than any I have ever seen." 
 
 "Are they bees, then?" asked Grandmother 
 dubiously, when our neighbors had gone away.
 
 20 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 "Without doubt," answered Grandfather, 
 who with Ramon had returned with the day's 
 catch in the midst of the excitement. "But 
 also they do not belong to us." 
 
 I listened incredulous. My mind flew with 
 the swiftness of the bees to each possible 
 owner, the cacique, 8 the goatherd, the mule- 
 teer, the charcoal burner, all those whose lives 
 were bounded by the dun-colored hills or the 
 silvery shore of the Shield. 
 
 "But they do, they do," I cried. "The good 
 God gave them to me." Thereupon like a tem- 
 pest came my tears. 
 
 Grandfather's arms were around me in a 
 moment. "Child of my child, child of my 
 heart," he crooned, rocking me softly until my 
 sobbing ceased. "Listen, pobrecita," 9 he said, 
 presently. "All the world is not our little 
 hamlet, nor the fields, nor the lake shore you 
 know so well, though now alas ! this is all of the 
 world that this tribe of Tarascos 10 owns. The 
 lake which by day holds its mirror to the 
 mighty sun, and by night cherishes the stars;
 
 THE VILLAGE 21 
 
 the palest blue mountain peaks of the horizon, 
 fiery Colima yonder, whose smoky plume you 
 see, east, west, north and south, these were 
 but a part of our fathers' vast empire." 
 
 The fires of his eyes, suddenly kindled like 
 those of the volcano, went out as suddenly. 
 "What I mean, little one, is this. Have you 
 forgotten that over beyond the village lands, 
 farther away than you can see, stretch those 
 of Don Luis ? He is a great and rich man, the 
 son, from generation to generation, of our con- 
 querors. In truth, it is only by the sufferance 
 of his ancestors, who made a treaty with our 
 fathers, that our free village remains. From 
 his hives, methinks, these honey bees have 
 strayed." 
 
 Silence fell upon us for a space, I pondering 
 over the huge world thus thrust upon me, 
 Grandfather wrapped in the past. 
 
 "Then, Grandfather," broke in Ramon, "if 
 Don Luis is so rich, surely he will not be- 
 grudge Porfiria her bees, especially as she 
 caught them."
 
 22 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 "Perhaps, perhaps not. Who can say?" re- 
 plied Grandfather. "To-morrow we will go 
 and see." 
 
 But in fact it was several days later that 
 Grandfather, Ramon and I set out for the 
 Casa Grande n where Don Luis lived. Very 
 early, by the light of the Day Star, we started. 
 The pattering flocks of goats and the herdsboys 
 kept us company till they found pasturage in 
 the folds of the brown hills, where in spite of 
 winter drouth, the short grass was still green. 
 A shower the night before presaged the sum- 
 mer rains. The ground, made firm and dust- 
 less for walking, was grateful to our feet. 
 The air came fresh and fragrant on the dawn 
 wind. Sometimes we stopped to rest, some- 
 times Ramon carried me on his strong back. 
 At length the sun rose, yellow as the masses of 
 oranges which covered the trees on the hill- 
 sides about us, and out of which it seemed to 
 bloom. To me, who had never been so far 
 afield, the world spread limitless. 
 
 To my eyes, it was a strangely ordered world
 
 THE VILLAGE 23 
 
 as well. Instead of growing in haphazard pro- 
 fusion as in our tiny orchards, orange groves 
 gave place to bananas, and these in turn to 
 limes. Ranks of pomegranates stood in scar- 
 let flower. Even the tuna, 12 that wild fruit of 
 the desert, was here set out in rows. Over- 
 looking the whole vast orchard, which as my 
 grandfather told me comprised only a section 
 of Don Luis's estate, was the Casa Grande, 
 a massive building with walls of blinding 
 white. 
 
 We soon presented ourselves at the court- 
 yard gate. There was much running to and 
 fro within, and it seemed like a great while 
 before we were admitted to the presence of 
 Don Luis. But he, as I afterwards learned, 
 was always punctilious in according audience 
 to any one, even the humblest of his peones. 13 
 He was at breakfast when we were ushered 
 in. 
 
 Now the cacique of our village was an old 
 man with white hair. So were his council- 
 ors, men wise with years, like my grandfa-
 
 24 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 ther, who was one of them. But Don Luis 
 was young. The rich, all-powerful ruler of 
 ten square leagues of land and a hundred vil- 
 lages, as I later knew him to be, was at this 
 time barely twenty years of age. His youth, 
 his engaging smile as he welcomed us, made 
 nothing of our difference in rank. 
 
 Salutations over, Grandfather explained our 
 errand, I holding fast to his hand the while. 
 Would the judge consider me a culprit for 
 stopping and seizing his bees? Under the 
 gaze of Don Luis's keen eyes, I felt myself 
 most miserable. 
 
 At the conclusion of the narrative, during 
 which his expression had become more and 
 more grave, he called me and Ramon to his 
 side. 
 
 "My children," said he, placing a hand on 
 each of our heads, "you love your grandpar- 
 ents?" 
 
 "Yes," we said in chorus. 
 
 "Honor them as well. Truth and honesty 
 will be your heritage."
 
 THE VILLAGE 25 
 
 He turned to Grandfather. "To you, who 
 have given up your day to this long journey, 
 may your new-found bees make some return." 
 
 "May God reward you a thousandfold, Don 
 Luis." 
 
 "God be with you." So ended the inter- 
 view.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BY another summer, our bees had stored 
 enough honey from the ever-blooming 
 flowers to form a welcome addition to our 
 fare. Grandmother spread our tortillas oc- 
 casionally with the fragrant sweet, and what 
 she saved she was able to exchange in a small 
 way for our neighbor's produce. This was the 
 more fortunate as Grandfather was becoming 
 crippled by rheumatism, and could no longer 
 compete with the younger fishermen. He and 
 Ramon still supplied fish for our own needs, 
 but for purposes of barter we had only our 
 little store of honey and the fruit from our 
 mango tree. Yet, although very poor, we 
 managed to exist without calling upon our 
 neighbors for assistance, and rude as Grand- 
 mother's household arrangements were, outf 
 little home was always trim and clean. 
 
 What with helping our grandparents in this 
 26
 
 THE VILLAGE 27 
 
 brave and never-ending struggle, Ramon and 
 I had little time to play. Nor did we, in truth, 
 see much of the other children of the village 
 except as we met them at the springs or in the 
 fields of the Shield. 
 
 Our days ran as uneventfully as the tinkling 
 rivulets until the second great event of my life, 
 which had to do with the marriage of Don Luis 
 and the opening of our church. 
 
 This church, which in my grandfather's boy- 
 hood had been the center of the village life, 
 was closed and almost in ruins. Its two slen- 
 der spires were still the landmark of the fish- 
 ermen in sailing home across the lake. But 
 the bells no longer rang out over the water, and 
 even the door was fastened shut by the tendrils 
 of a luxuriant vine. 
 
 Fiesta 14 days, such as that of Corpus 
 Christi, 15 All Souls and Christmas, were still 
 celebrated among us. At these times the vil- 
 lage was half deserted, all who could, men, 
 women and children, making a pilgrimage of 
 many miles across mountains and through
 
 28 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 steep barrancas 16 to the distant city of Lerma. 
 They took with them on these occasions fresh 
 vegetables, fruits, turkeys and cheeses as well 
 as baskets and mats, to sell in the great fairs 
 which they told us were held at the very doors 
 of the cathedral. They brought back alas! 
 very little, because most of their money was 
 spent for drink, mescal, 17 tequila 18 and agu- 
 ardiente. 19 For days after their return from 
 such expeditions, flaming torches, music, danc- 
 ing and drunken revelry made hideous our usu- 
 ally placid shore. 
 
 On account of these fiestas, Grandfather 
 told me, the Casa Grande no longer held with 
 the Church. In the time of Don Luis's fa- 
 ther a feud between two villages had culmi- 
 nated one Christmas day in a drunken mas- 
 sacre in the churches themselves. Old Don 
 Felipe heard of this in Mexico City whither 
 he had driven in great state for the holidays. 
 On his return, hastened by this catastrophe, 
 he banished from his domains the priests, 
 whom he held responsible for the outbreak,
 
 THE VILLAGE 29 
 
 with the exception of one who resided at the 
 Casa Grande to minister to the needs of his 
 own family. At the same time, he forbade the 
 manufacture of or traffic in all liquor, and rode 
 about in person directing the destruction of 
 every maguey, from which the worst of these 
 fiery brandies are made. Thus it came about 
 that in place of these terrible plants flourished 
 the spreading orchards of which I have already 
 spoken. 
 
 Though there were murmurings, of course, 
 at Don Felipe's restrictions, the villages all 
 flourished because of them. Ours, which had 
 been sodden in poverty, became self-support- 
 ing under the Master's patriarchal care. What 
 work he required from the villagers, he paid 
 for justly; what produce they raised was now, 
 without church tithes, their own, and since it 
 was not squandered for drink, sufficed to keep 
 them in comfort. At intervals the priest who 
 ministered to the family at the Casa Grande 
 came to give them the consolations of religion. 
 For the rest, they were free to call upon Don
 
 30 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 Felipe to share their joys and their sorrows. 
 And when the old temptation to drink came too 
 strongly upon them, he overlooked the short- 
 comings of those whom he regarded as chil- 
 dren. To this beneficent rule had succeeded 
 Don Luis. 
 
 Owing to his youth, and to the fact that he 
 was in Paris, being educated, at the time of 
 his father's death, the actual management of 
 the hacienda 21 passed into the hands of an 
 administrador 22 Only recently had Don Luis 
 himself taken charge, and he was as yet un- 
 married and without family ties. To this, my 
 grandfather thought, was due the fact that no 
 priest now lived at the Casa Grande. Within 
 my memory, none had visited us. 
 
 There was, therefore, unusual excitement at 
 the washing pools one morning, when Fruc- 
 tosa, the cheese-maker, on her way back from 
 taking cheeses to the Casa, announced that the 
 young master (as even we free villagers called 
 him) had been married in Mexico City and 
 was bringing home his bride.
 
 THE VILLAGE 31 
 
 "A city lady, then !" 
 
 "No indeed, from across the water ; Habana, 
 I think they call it." 
 
 "Not a Mexicana!" 
 
 "No, an Andalusian, they say, though she 
 is proud, too, of her Aztec blood; they say 
 that a daughter of the Emperor Moctezuma 23 
 was one of her ancestors." 
 
 Question and reply followed swiftly, until 
 Fructosa's small store of knowledge was ex- 
 hausted. The Sefiorita was very rich, very 
 beautiful, very pious, and very young. It was 
 in this way that I first heard of our gracious 
 Lady, whom God, in loving kindness, sent to us. 
 
 The few days remaining before the home- 
 coming of the bridal couple the villages em- 
 ployed in making preparations for their wel- 
 come. To this end messengers passed from 
 one cacique to another, allotting to each village 
 its proper part in the celebration. As we were 
 nearest the Casa, it fell to us to repair the 
 road for a league beyond the gate. Other vil- 
 lages along the route took up the work where
 
 32 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 we left it, and carried it to the confines of the 
 estate. An arch of flowers hid the gateway 
 of the mansion. In the kitchen the special del- 
 icacies of each locality were made ready for 
 the feast. 
 
 At length a hard-riding courier, flecked with 
 foam, galloped into the courtyard with the 
 news that the bride and groom had alighted 
 from the train, and were even then half way 
 home. We of the villages poured forth to 
 line the road. Foremost went the caciques 
 and their councilors, Grandfather among 
 them, their white shirts and trousers whiter 
 than their hairs. Then came the younger men 
 in new-washed suits and the women in clean 
 chemises, their black hair braided with lilies. 
 A laughing horde, we children followed with 
 arms heaped high with flowers. 
 
 Down the road a whirl of dust resolved it- 
 self into a thundering coach. The driver's 
 whip cracked in great swirls above the backs 
 of six straining mules ; the postilions shouted 
 At a signal from Ramon, who had constituted
 
 THE VILLAGE 33 
 
 himself our leader, we threw our garlands on 
 the highway. Over them the coach rolled, and 
 on into the courtyard. So Don Luis brought 
 Dona Marina home. 
 
 Perhaps a month later, Grandmother and I, 
 busy with our work, were startled by the sight 
 of a strange boat coming close inshore along 
 the lake. It contained three people, besides 
 the rowers, who gesticulated freely as they 
 scanned the water front. Presently the prow 
 was turned, and the boat came alongside our 
 tiny wharf. From it stepped Don Luis, Dona 
 Marina, and an older gentleman in a flowing 
 brown garb. My grandmother immediately 
 knelt, pulling me down beside her, and the 
 stranger, making the sign of the cross, placed 
 a hand on our heads and spoke a few words I 
 could not understand. Then with many bows 
 of deference, Grandmother dusted off the 
 seats beneath our arbor for the unexpected 
 guests. Dona Marina looked about her with 
 evident delight. There could have been noth- 
 ing, from the rude bee-hive to the dried pep-
 
 34 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 pers hanging in the gable, that escaped her 
 glancing eyes. When she looked at me and 
 smiled, I thought that even the Virgin was not 
 so beautiful as she. 
 
 But the Priest our sainted Padre Fran- 
 cisco, who w r as in truth to become a father to 
 us fatherless waifs called me to him. 
 
 "Ninita, 24 come and tell me, when is your 
 name day," he said in his kindly voice. 
 
 "I have none, sir," I replied. 
 
 "But that is not possible; every one has a 
 name day. How many years old are you ?" 
 
 I dug my bare toes hard on the ground. "I 
 do not know," I said. 
 
 "What, then, are you called?" he continued. 
 
 "Porfiria." 25 
 
 "Porfiria," the Sefiorita, who had been fol- 
 lowing the conversation with interest, repeated. 
 "It is a name that belongs fitly to autumn, the 
 loveliest season of the year." 
 
 "You are right," said the Padre. "Her 
 name-day would fall in this month." 
 
 Don Luis whispered to his wife, and the
 
 THE VILLAGE 35 
 
 three rose to go. But when the Senorita held 
 out her hand to me, I took it shyly and walked 
 with them along the beach to the church. 
 
 From what I heard then, as they broke away 
 the vines, turned the rusty key in the lock, and 
 entered the bare building, I was not surprised 
 at the word that flew about our little plaza that 
 evening. "There will be mass next Sunday. 
 All children should be brought and christened. 
 Don Luis and Dona Marina will stand god- 
 father and godmother to all." 
 
 That Saturday there was not a moment, 
 from dawn to dusk, when the washing pools 
 were free. Those who could not get to the hot 
 tank used the cold. Clothes were washed and 
 dried; the long black hair of our women was 
 cleansed and combed, and in laughing bevies 
 the children were stripped and bathed. 
 
 On Sunday, for the first time in our lives, 
 Ramon and I went to church. The bells rang 
 out joyously over the lake, and at last ceased 
 their jangling; the worshipers, overflowing the 
 church into the courtyard, knelt with up-
 
 36 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 stretched arms. Within, the Bishop of Lerma, 
 aided by Padre Francisco, intoned the mass. 
 Afterwards, in groups of twenty-five or fifty, 
 with the lighting of candles and the laying on 
 of hands, the christening was performed. In 
 some cases, so long was it since a priest had 
 visited us, whole families received the rite to- 
 gether. As the cross was placed on my fore- 
 head and Padre Francisco baptized me, record- 
 ing, as it were, my name in heaven, I looked up 
 to Dona Marina. Beautiful, compassionate, 
 like the Madonna, she looked down and blessed 
 me. From that moment a profound emotion 
 took possession of me. I worshiped her who 
 stood thus the sponsor of my soul.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MY foster-brother Ramon was not of our 
 village, a circumstance which I have al- 
 ways thought accounted for his dexterity in 
 wood carving and joinery. We, as a village, 
 possessing scanty woodlands, had small op- 
 portunity of acquiring such skill. Be that as 
 it may, my grandfather told how my father 
 had found Ramon, almost drowned, in a skiff 
 on the lake after a storm, and had brought him 
 home for my mother to add to her already 
 large family. The smallpox which visited the 
 village shortly afterward carried away all my 
 family except my grandparents and myself. 
 As a matter of course, my grandfather and 
 grandmother made a home for both Ramon 
 and me. 
 
 Ramon had, from their first arrival, taken 
 a great interest in our bees. From the bee- 
 
 37
 
 38 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 keeper at the Casa Grande, he learned all he 
 could of their habits and proper care. What- 
 ever time he had which was very little, he 
 spent in the apiary, noting how the empty 
 boxes were prepared for the hives, and the 
 full combs taken out. Whenever the bee- 
 keeper allowed, he helped in the work. It nat- 
 urally resulted that he looked with increasing 
 disfavor on my poor petate skep. He deter- 
 mined to make a hive of wood ready for the 
 season's swarm. 
 
 Many an evening, after the day's work was 
 done, Grandfather, Grandmother and I sat 
 and watched him fashion it from the packing 
 boxes the kind-hearted bee-keeper had allowed 
 him to use. He had no tools but a knife and 
 a hatchet, but his clever fingers made the most 
 of these. 
 
 "Ay de mi!" 26 Grandfather sometimes 
 sighed, looking with admiration on the 
 smoothed surfaces and the well doweled sides 
 which the boy's patient labor produced, "would 
 that I were a younger man, my son. Then I
 
 THE VILLAGE 39 
 
 could spare you to be taught a trade, and so 
 you would not live to be a poor old fisherman 
 like me!" 
 
 Ramon laughed, a bright, courageous laugh, 
 as if, I thought, he could do anything. Then 
 he wrapped Grandfather's worn sarape 27 
 closer to protect him from the night wind, and 
 bent to kiss Grandmother on each cheek. 
 
 Our gloamings were brief, and there was lit- 
 tle time between daylight and starlight for 
 work. But the month of October that year 
 was unusual in that Colima became suddenly 
 active. By day heavy funnels of smoke curled 
 upward above the horizon; by night the glow 
 of her hidden furnaces turned them to pillars 
 of fire. Used, as we were, to occasional erup- 
 tions, we did not feel much fear. Ramon 
 called the fiery cone his torch, and worked 
 late in the weird glow. 
 
 Yet a shimmering heat seemed to pervade 
 the air, very different from the fresh clearness 
 which by right belongs to this season. So 
 pronounced was this one morning that it was
 
 40 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 with an undefined foreboding that I set out 
 with Ramon for the springs from which we 
 were now old enough and strong enough to 
 bring the water for the household, thus reliev- 
 ing dear Grandmother somewhat. I remem- 
 ber looking back as we went up the village 
 street, to catch one more, glimpse of our cot- 
 tage, and of Grandmother in the doorway, be- 
 fore the trunk of the mango tree hid them from 
 my sight. 
 
 As we filled our jars at the springs, the as- 
 pect of the day became more terrible. From 
 here could be seen the actual belching forth 
 from the volcano of the great clouds of smoke. 
 The light of the sun spread over the heavens 
 like a dome of brass. Beneath it, the earth 
 seemed to melt with heat into a flaming lake. 
 Terrified by the spectacle, Ramon and I turned 
 to run back to the shore. The girls drawing 
 water had the same impulse. "To the hills, 
 to the hills," they cried, thinking to rouse the 
 unconscious village to its danger. But their 
 weak voices at best could not have reached its
 
 THE VILLAGE 41 
 
 outskirts; a horrible rumbling drowned them. 
 "El temblor, 28 el temblor," some one shrieked. 
 Earth and sky heaved together and bereft us of 
 consciousness. 
 
 When I came to myself again, Ramon still 
 lay senseless beside me. I struggled to the 
 edge of the spring and dipped in my jar to 
 bring him water. But I drew it up empty. 
 The springs were dry! Gradually Ramon re- 
 turned to consciousness, and together we made 
 our way to the village. The confusion there 
 was terrible. We ran through the cluttered 
 streets almost unseeing, our thoughts busy 
 with what we would find on the shore. At 
 length the top of the mango tree came into 
 sight. A few steps more, and we would know 
 whether the hut still stood. Ramon, who was 
 in the lead, stopped suddenly, shading his eyes 
 with his hand. The lake water lapped angrily 
 at our very feet; as we looked, we could see 
 the towers of the church and the tree-top rising 
 above it. But the cottage had been engulfed. 
 
 By the time Don Luis and Padre Francisco
 
 42 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 could reach our stricken village, the lake had 
 receded, and the springs had resumed their 
 flow. So sudden and so brief was our catas- 
 trophe. But to others besides Ramon and me 
 it was also most complete. The evidences of it 
 were on every side, trees cleft asunder, houses 
 thrown down ; women and children crying, and 
 others dry-eyed, still looking up and down the 
 lake for the fishermen who would never re- 
 turn. 
 
 Among all our neighbors, however, we were 
 the most bereft, orphaned for a second time, 
 and homeless. In spite of their own distress, 
 they did not forget us, but tried to comfort us 
 with food and shelter. Yet I can remember 
 nothing clearly until Dona Marina came. It 
 pleased her to be particularly touched by our 
 misfortunes, so much so that she insisted upon 
 riding down herself from the hacienda, and 
 taking us home with her. 
 
 Ramon and I were both too dazed to wonder 
 much at this temporary solution of our diffi- 
 culties. Our gracious Senorita took entire
 
 THE VILLAGE 43 
 
 charge of us, and when bedtime came tucked 
 us, with her own hands, into such beds as we 
 had never dreamed of. Then softly she said 
 the Pater Noster and many other prayers. 
 The tones of her voice, her presence, which 
 seemed to us to belong to that heaven to which 
 our beloved grandparents had been snatched, 
 soothed our sorrows. Listening, we fell asleep. 
 The following Sunday Padre Francisco per- 
 formed mass for the souls of all those who had 
 met with sudden death. As the church had 
 been rendered unsafe, this service was held on 
 the shore. There, within a stone's throw of the 
 spot from which our grandparents had been 
 swept away, Ramon and I listened to their re- 
 quiem. The lake smiled and rippled at our feet, 
 but it never gave up its dead. At the close of 
 the mass, the cacique and others who had been 
 our friends from generation to generation, as 
 they put it, came up one by one to offer testi- 
 mony to the simple goodness of my grandfather 
 and grandmother. I began to understand what 
 Don Luis meant on the day when Grandfather
 
 44 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 first took us to the Casa to return the swarm- 
 ing bees. In truth, though penniless, we had 
 a goodly heritage. 
 
 Life at the Casa, with its diverse interests, 
 ere long dulled the loneliness of our hearts. 
 Ramon was given regular work in the bee- 
 yard, and I too had my daily task, in the 
 Senorita's flower garden, the weeding and 
 watering of which became my care. In the 
 cool of morning and evening she used often to 
 sit or stroll there, sometimes calling me to her 
 side, sometimes talking with the Padre as they 
 paced the fragrant paths. Don Luis, always 
 busy, always, as I remember him, on horse- 
 back galloping to the inspection of some part 
 of the hacienda, was little at home. The man- 
 agement of the portion of his estate imme- 
 diately surrounding the Casa, as even I could 
 see, was left chiefly in the hands of his trusted 
 administrador. 
 
 Grizzle-haired, keen-eyed, half Indian, half 
 Spanish, Lucio Almonte seemed fitted by birth 
 and experience for his position. Yet his smile
 
 THE VILLAGE 45 
 
 to me hid something sinister, like the smiling 
 lake. I always pictured him as I became used 
 to seeing him on the nights when the hands 
 were paid off. The flare of candles fell on 
 piles of silver coin heaped up on the deal table 
 behind which he sat, leaving his face in shadow. 
 One by one the white-clad workers, with their 
 steeple hats in their hands, came forward from 
 the long line in the courtyard, at his call. 
 
 "Anastasio!" The vaquero ** stepped up. 
 
 "Five days you have worked, being drunk 
 the day after the fiesta of San Juan. You also 
 bought of me two mangoes. This leaves one 
 peso 30 and ninety-five centavos 31 due you." 
 
 The money clinked into Anastasio's hand 
 and he moved aside to count it. So through 
 the long line the administrador went, never at 
 fault for a name or a reckoning. 
 
 One morning in the Christmas holidays, 
 when Don Luis and Dona Marina were absent 
 in the city and the house seemed intolerably 
 lonely, I followed Ramon into the apiary. The 
 orange trees under which the hives were placed
 
 46 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 were in flower. As I watched the tiny honey 
 gatherers, and the bright-colored humming- 
 birds which flitted with them about the fra- 
 grant trees, my mind went back to our home 
 on the lake shore where bees and birds to- 
 gether used to hover about the trumpet vine. 
 
 "Ramon," said I suddenly, "do you remem- 
 ber the story the Padre told us yesterday about 
 San Francisco and the blessed birds ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Ramon. "He was explaining 
 why Don Luis's ancestor named this estate 
 the Hacienda de los Pajaritos Santos, 32 and 
 why we must be kind to his birds." 
 
 "Yes," I persisted, "but did he not say the 
 birds have souls?" 
 
 "I think so." 
 
 "Then why do not the bees, so intelligent, so 
 industrious, also have souls?" 
 
 "Perhaps they may have, little sister, who 
 knows ?" 
 
 The next time Padre Francisco walked in the 
 garden, I made bold to ask him.
 
 THE VILLAGE 47 
 
 He stopped abruptly. "Why do you ask, 
 ninita?" 
 
 "Because of our poor bees who were 
 drowned. They worked like us. Sometimes 
 I think of them as a village like ours. And 
 just as our workers came home from the fields 
 and the pastures that day, so they too came 
 home to find themselves homeless and their 
 kindred dead." 
 
 Padre Francisco looked at me quite a long 
 time in silence. "Of one thing, Porfiria, we 
 may at least be sure," he replied at length, 
 "that our Father, who made them, fulfills in 
 them his purpose. And his purpose toward 
 all his creatures is love."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 AT the Hacienda de los Pajaritos Santos, 
 as the days went by, it became increas- 
 ingly easy to believe in a law of love. Love 
 tempered with justice, perhaps, as personified 
 in the strictness of Lucio Almonte, but love 
 overflowing in compassion from the heart of 
 Senorita Marina and bearing fruit in good 
 works. It became more and more the habit 
 of Padre Francisco to accompany Don Luis in 
 his rides about the estate. In the evening, on 
 the cool balcony or in the garden, his voice 
 could be heard in earnest conversation inter- 
 mingled with the voices of Dona Marina and 
 Don Luis. Lola, the Sefiorita's Cuban maid, 
 passing noiselessly about the house in her bare 
 feet, brought reports of wonderful plans under 
 discussion for the betterment of the villages, 
 
 teachers, schools, doctors and agricultural 
 
 48
 
 THE VILLAGE 49 
 
 improvements. All this for the benefit of the 
 peones, who were Don Luis's property; as 
 much his property as the oxen, the sheep, the 
 horses and the vast lands he owned. 
 
 "But why?" questioned the cook. "For 
 what purpose, for whose profit, is this to be 
 done?" 
 
 Lola shrugged her shoulders. "The Padre 
 says it is for the love of God; the Sefiorita 
 says it is for the love of the people, and Don 
 Luis Name of God! how he loves her! He 
 said last night he was willing to spend up to 
 a million pesos. A million pesos, think of it, 
 to please her!" 
 
 A beginning, indeed, of these improvements 
 we could see in our own village, over which, in 
 spite of its freedom, the hacendado 33 had al- 
 ways exercised a more or less kindly care. It 
 was from Don Luis's coffers that the repairs 
 to the church after the earthquake were made, 
 and his endowment of it that defrayed the ex- 
 penses of marriages, baptisms, and deaths. 
 How great a benefaction this alone was, I only
 
 50 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 came to know lately, in hearing of the many, 
 many estates where my poor Indian kindred 
 lived and died without these sacraments, sim- 
 ply for lack of the tithe that Holy Church re- 
 quires. The rebuilding of the church was fol- 
 lowed by the erection of an adobe schoolhouse 
 adjoining it. The festivities of Easter, for 
 which the Bishop of the diocese again came 
 among us, culminated in the opening of this 
 school. For the first time in the history of 
 the village, its children were to be taught ! 
 
 It had doubtless been the purpose of the 
 Sefiorita, when she took us to the Casa, to re- 
 turn us ultimately to our natural place in the 
 village. The school, the church, the stirring 
 ambition of the hamlet, which already showed 
 itself in doing away with cockfights, and in less 
 frequent carousals, would have made her con- 
 science easy on our account. But a most 
 propitious event delayed the carrying out of 
 this plan. In the early summer, her little son 
 was born. 
 
 The rejoicing at the Casa was reflected in
 
 THE VILLAGE 51 
 
 the village, where an impromptu fiesta was 
 held. To this Ramon and I, and such others 
 of the household as could be spared, went 
 down, carrying with us on burros 34 Don Luis's 
 contribution to our merrymaking in the shape 
 of a generous sack of tobacco and a cask of 
 wine. A pretty sight greeted us as we wound 
 down the hill. Around the edge of the plaza, 
 in the shade of the pepper trees, the older folks 
 and the children sat in an irregular circle, while 
 the center was filled with dancers. The music 
 of flute and violin reached us tantalizingly. 
 Breathless with excitement, we joined the 
 merriment. 
 
 The cacique's son led the men, the goat- 
 herd's daughter the maidens. Backward and 
 forward the two lines swayed to the music, 
 now fast, now slow. Occasionally an old man 
 leaned forward to prompt the leaders sharply, 
 for this was the ancient dance of our people, 
 handed down "from the time of the gods." 
 With bows and gestures and the dovetailing 
 of partners, the figures melted one into
 
 52 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 another, till the rhythm was caught by the 
 spectators, who swayed and clapped their 
 hands. Suddenly each maiden broke over the 
 head of her partner a colored egg, which she 
 had concealed in her hand. A bright shower 
 of confetti fell with the broken shells. In- 
 stantly the dance resolved itself into a general 
 romp of flying egg shells and dodging heads. 
 The dance was succeeded by fire-crackers, 
 and they, in the evening, by fireworks. These 
 last the farrier and the carpenter had been 
 months in devising, in anticipation of the great 
 event. As an ornamental frame, bound in 
 variegated tissue paper, their handiwork had 
 already formed the pivot of the dance. A 
 touch of the match transformed it. It became 
 a pine tree, with needles of fire; it rained 
 rockets ; it suffused village and lake with lights 
 like the breast of a humming-bird. For half 
 an hour, without mischance, it was a dream of 
 beauty. And when at last it flickered out, it 
 gave place to an even lovelier and more lasting 
 picture, the church, illuminated with pitch
 
 THE VILLAGE 53 
 
 pine torches' from the ground to the apex of 
 each tower. In some such way, in every 
 village on Don Luis's land, the birth of the 
 master's heir was hailed. 
 
 Several days later I was summoned by Lola, 
 somewhat sourly, into the Senorita's chamber. 
 
 "Mind you that you step lightly and say 
 nothing," she admonished me as she led the 
 way, muttering all the while at the Senorita's 
 strange fancy in sending for me. 
 
 The Senorita lay in ripples of rich lace and 
 ribbons. Smiling, she drew aside the cover- 
 let till I could see the soft dark hair and the 
 long motionless lashes of the baby asleep 
 against her arm. From that moment, the 
 picture of my Madonna was complete. I knelt 
 and kissed her hand. 
 
 Little Felix was happily named; a sunnier 
 baby never lived. He soon took an immense 
 delight in everything, with gurgles and shouts 
 of joy. As he grew, his toddling feet carried 
 him everywhere, into the garden among the 
 flowers, into the kitchen, and into the court-
 
 54 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 yard, where he was in real danger of being 
 trampled by restless horses and mules. Lola 
 was his nurse, but he seemed to have no great 
 attachment for her. To his mind, perhaps, 
 she constituted an authority from which he 
 took every opportunity of running away. 
 With me, on the contrary, he spent hour after 
 hour, or rode about the bee-yard on Ramon's 
 shoulder, as gracious a little tyrant as ever 
 owned two very willing slaves. Those were 
 perfect days; we had found our place in the 
 world and there seemed no more thought of 
 returning us to the village. Don Luis and 
 Dona Marina looked with approval on our 
 devotion. But Lola showed her jealousy in 
 many spiteful ways. 
 
 Out of her spite grew my separation from 
 my beloved brother Ramon. It was not to be 
 supposed that his work in the apiary would 
 wean him away from his passion for whittling 
 anything in the shape of wood on which he 
 could lay his hands. The making of flutes and
 
 THE VILLAGE 55 
 
 shepherds' pipes interested him more than the 
 making of hives; and the bee-keeper, who 
 came from our village, humored him in his 
 bent. 
 
 One morning, instead of going the rounds 
 of the hives, Ramon yielded to the sudden 
 temptation of carving a wooden doll for the 
 little master, with which to surprise him when 
 he should appear. I heard him stirring at 
 dawn, and hurried into my clothes to join him. 
 He worked with quick, sure strokes, and I, 
 who entered with zest into the plan, sat beside 
 him and sewed on the tiny pantalones 35 and 
 jacket which were to adorn our caballero 3e 
 when done. 
 
 We were startled by Lola's voice. "See for 
 yourself; there they are, the shameless ones." 
 
 The administrador was behind her. 'This 
 is what comes of spoiling the peasants," said 
 he angrily. "And now who do you suppose, 
 my fine gentleman, is going to pay for the three 
 hives of Don Luis's bees that have swarmed
 
 56 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 this morning gone pouf like that." He 
 puffed out his ugly lips and made an airy 
 gesture toward the lake. 
 
 Ramon was dumbfounded. "But it is yet 
 early," he protested. "I worked while I 
 waited for the bell." 
 
 "Early bell," repeated Senor Almonte, in 
 concentrated scorn. "The sun dial stands at 
 eleven. Liar!" And with that he haled 
 Ramon away. A few minutes later he jangled 
 across the courtyard with a bunch of heavy 
 keys. 
 
 Ramon had been put in prison. I could 
 hardly believe such a thing possible, nor under- 
 stand why I, equally guilty, was still at large. 
 I looked all about the flower garden, in which 
 we had been sitting, but saw no trace of Lola, 
 our accuser. In fact, when I did meet her 
 later in the day, she seemed quite as usual, 
 neither more nor less disagreeable. I gathered 
 up the poor doll and Ramon's knife and the 
 scraps of cotton cloth which I had been sewing, 
 and hid them in my room.
 
 THE VILLAGE 57 
 
 Naturally, nothing went well with me that 
 day. Don Luis, Dona Marina and the Padre 
 were all away. Lola kept Felix with her on 
 the balcony. From the garden, where I up- 
 rooted as many flowers as weeds, I could hear 
 him fretting, calling, now for 'Firia, and now 
 for his Ramon. Once I heard Lola slap him. 
 The sound of his crying made me sick. 
 
 At length Lola became alarmed and came to 
 get me. But by that time, Felix had worried 
 himself into a fever, and could not be quieted. 
 He wrung my heart with his pitiful pleadings 
 for Ramon. Ramon knew where the water 
 was cold, and Ramon would play for him. 
 Where was Ramon? 
 
 Such was the state of affairs when Dona 
 Marina came home. Attracted by the un- 
 usual crying of the child, she ran directly up- 
 stairs. 
 
 "Felix, Lola, what is the matter?" 
 
 Felix stretched out his arms, and she 
 gathered him quickly to her. 
 
 "Tell me, Lola, what is it? The child is
 
 58 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 sick." She passed her hand over his hot head 
 and felt his uneven pulse. 
 
 "Of course he is sick," Lola flung back. 
 "What can you expect when you trust him to 
 such children? I found Porfiria here feeding 
 him with unripe grapes. That's what is the 
 matter." And she flounced out of the room. 
 
 The impudence of Lola's manner, as well 
 as her speech, must have been lost on Dona 
 Marina, who in truth was well-nigh distracted. 
 She turned on me a look that struck me dumb. 
 I could neither have denied nor affirmed any- 
 thing; like a trapped thing, I in turn looked at 
 her. 
 
 Then from a far-off place, I heard Don 
 Luis's voice. "Tell me, Porfiria, is that 
 true?" 
 
 Something in the quality of his tone, quiet 
 and reasonable, seemed to unlock my gaze. I 
 raised my eyes to his. "It is not true," I said. 
 
 By this time Felix had resumed his moaning, 
 repeating over and over again the name of 
 Ramon.
 
 THE VILLAGE 59 
 
 "Can you answer me very quietly, child?" 
 continued Don Luis. "Where is Ramon?" 
 
 I could be quiet; my misery was too deep 
 for tears. "He is in prison," I said. 
 
 "In prison! Why?" 
 
 So the whole wretched story came out. 
 
 When I had finished, Don Luis left the 
 room without a word. But in a few min- 
 utes he reappeared, and with him came Ra- 
 mon. 
 
 After supper, while Felix was being hushed 
 to sleep with the crooning lullabies that Ramon 
 loved to sing, Don Luis asked me to fetch the 
 doll. He and Dona Marina had a friend with 
 them in the sala* 7 besides the Padre, a stranger 
 from the city of Lerma, I understood. This 
 gentleman took a particularly keen interest in 
 Ramon's carving. 
 
 "Is this the boy's first work?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh, no," I answered. "He makes bee- 
 hives." 
 
 "Nothing else?" 
 
 "Flutes," I said hesitantly, remembering of
 
 60 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 a sudden that Ramon had sworn me to secrecy 
 on this point, ". . . and shepherds' pipes." 
 
 "Bring them." 
 
 One after another, the stranger tried them, 
 noting by the carefully inserted plugs, how 
 the errors in scale had been corrected. The 
 mellow wood notes rang out through the room. 
 
 Presently he laid them all down with a bang 
 on the table. "For Dios, 58 that boy is a genius. 
 Hives indeed! Don Luis, you must give the 
 lad to me." 
 
 Then it transpired that the stranger was a 
 maker of music, and of musical instruments 
 as well. He wished to take Ramon and teach 
 him the secrets of that master-craft. Ramon 
 was summoned, looking, I thought, very 
 straightforward and handsome as he modestly 
 answered Don Luis's questions. It was 
 quickly arranged that he should accompany 
 Senor Perez to Lerma on the latter's return 
 from the hunting trip on which he was then 
 bound.
 
 THE VILLAGE 
 
 61 
 
 Ramon was in heaven with happiness. But 
 I after the many surprises of the day, it was 
 impossible for me to feel more.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 LOLA'S spite perpetuated itself not alone 
 in Ramon's good fortune, but in another 
 change, equally momentous for me. She was 
 dismissed and I became little Felix's nurse in 
 her stead. It was only the sweet care of him, 
 I think, that kept me from dying of grief after 
 Ramon went away. Felix was then two years 
 old, that most charming age of childhood when 
 a baby's heart wakes to conscious love, and his 
 little hands cling like delicate tendrils about 
 their chosen support. So Felix clung to me. 
 
 My relations with the family in this way 
 became much more intimate. Felix would 
 scarcely let me out of his sight. Though his 
 affections went out to everybody, I was his 
 little mother and his playmate as well. I had 
 a double incentive then to make the most of the 
 
 opportunity for improvement given to me. 
 
 62
 
 THE VILLAGE 63 
 
 Each morning, as Felix's sweet prattle woke 
 me, and each night as he said his little prayers, 
 I prayed also to be made worthy of him and 
 of Ramon. 
 
 The Padre took a great interest in me from 
 this time on, instructing me in many things. 
 Every day at Felix's nap time I had my lessons 
 with him. Thus I learned to read and write 
 and count. I became proficient in the lives of 
 the Saints, and in the doctrines of Holy 
 Church. In secular history also I was 
 instructed, particularly in that which imme- 
 diately affected our unhappy country. For in 
 Padre Francisco's unworldly eyes, our country 
 was equally unhappy whether under the rule of 
 the Spanish vireyes 89 who for over four 
 hundred years enriched themselves and the 
 mother country at our expense, or under the 
 latest so-called republican government of our 
 President, Porfirio Diaz. 
 
 "Look you," said he, "even in this favored 
 Hacienda de los Pajaritos Santos, at the con- 
 dition of your kindred. Do they, who used
 
 64 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 to own the soil, reap what they sow? 
 Churches they have, and schools, and a kind 
 overlord in Don Luis. But when you are older 
 and have seen, as I have, the terrible abuses 
 on other haciendas, the pitiful wages, the 
 uncared for ignorance, the stores of the 
 hacendados where the wretched peones are 
 actually encouraged to spend what little they 
 have for pulque and worse, then you will 
 see that the system is wrong. The good will 
 of a hundred like Don Luis and alas, I know 
 of none other can never make it right. It is 
 a system of privilege, the enslaving of a nation 
 for the enriching of its alien conquerors. 
 
 "It matters not whether these conquerors 
 were the Spaniards who first seized your lands, 
 or the latest American, English or German 
 investors whose money, they say, has built the 
 railways, the mighty power works, and the 
 mills which are developing the country. 
 Developing it for whom? You, or them- 
 selves? I tell you it is you, peones, burden- 
 bearers, serfs, who have paid for your develop-
 
 THE VILLAGE 65 
 
 ment with the sweat of agony, and with your 
 immortal souls. 
 
 "The remedy," Padre Francisco continued 
 more quietly, "lies in your own hands. More 
 than a hundred years ago, the sainted priest 
 Hidalgo voiced it at Dolores among his poor 
 parishioners. The bells had rung for mass, 
 and by the light of candles the peones were 
 assembled in the church. But Padre Hidalgo 
 did not celebrate mass that morning. The 
 words he spoke from the altar instead have 
 been the battle cry of your liberties in the 
 almost continuous warfares of four genera- 
 tions. Their inspiration, as ever, came from 
 the oppression of the poor. 
 
 " 'My children/ said Padre Hidalgo to his 
 kneeling Indians, 'this day comes to us a new 
 dispensation. Are you ready to receive it? 
 Will you be free? Will you make the effort 
 to recover the lands stolen from your fathers 
 three hundred years ago ?' 
 
 "In these words the patriot-priest voiced the 
 Grito de Dolores; in truth a cry of sorrows,
 
 66 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 which echoed, and still echoes, through the 
 land. 
 
 "Hidalgo led his untrained peasants from 
 victory to victory, only to become at last a 
 fugitive and to die a traitor's death. Many, 
 some false prophets and some true, have 
 followed in his footsteps, each to his untimely 
 end. But at least one enormous evil their 
 blood has washed away; the Church, which 
 should have been your savior, no longer cor- 
 rupts in the high places nor battens in luxu- 
 rious livings on your miseries and shames. 
 Over fifty years have passed since it was dis- 
 established, and its holdings confiscated by the 
 State. True, its disestablishment, which 
 should have gone to enrich your people, has 
 enriched only the Government that in the name 
 of liberty continues to oppress you. But, 
 mark well my words, Porfiria, this Govern- 
 ment, which seems so firmly established, it also 
 will fall." 
 
 It is not to be supposed that I understood 
 all that Padre Francisco said. Indeed at times
 
 THE VILLAGE 67 
 
 he talked more to himself than to me, as if he 
 found relief for his pent up convictions in 
 words as well as in deeds. But the fire of his 
 eloquence stirred to life those more ancient 
 fires in my blood which my grandfather had 
 fostered in his lifetime. They gave me a con- 
 ception of patriotism which extended beyond 
 our village, beyond our tribe, to embrace all 
 the downtrodden Indian races in one vast 
 brotherhood. Alas! had our forefathers felt 
 this kinship, the Spaniards would never have 
 conquered us ! It was a bitter lesson to learn 
 from Padre Francisco that Hernando Cortes, 
 the Conquistador, 41 made use of the hatred of 
 one tribe against another, so that we ourselves 
 became the tools of our destruction. Only in 
 this way, by our help, were his victories won, 
 and the mighty empires of Moctezuma and his 
 allies given to the King of Spain. And it was 
 a bitterer lesson to learn also that the same 
 spirit of dissension, of self interest, and pro- 
 vincialism had betrayed us again and again into 
 the hands of now this conquistador and now
 
 68 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 that in the political wars of the last hundred 
 years. 
 
 Porfirio Diaz, our latest ruler, had been, like 
 most of the others, the hope of the Indians. 
 Himself one of the common people, Indian 
 blood ran in his veins. He promised fairly, 
 and he had already in the thirty years of his 
 power raised Mexico from bankruptcy to a 
 place of honor among the nations, but he left 
 his brothers still landless, ignorant and abused. 
 Now in his old age, it was said that his coun- 
 cilors, hoodwinking him, sought only to enrich 
 themselves. Year after year, the empty form 
 of a popular election returned them, and him, 
 to power. His political opponents were ban- 
 ished or perchance killed, or, as had happened 
 to a certain Sefior Madero who had tried to 
 stand for election recently, thrust into jail. 
 Darker charges than these were whispered 
 against our President, even in our remote 
 hacienda; charges which I lived to see cruelly 
 verified. 
 
 Still, as Padre Francisco himself pointed
 
 THE VILLAGE 69 
 
 out, peace in itself was a great boon ; and peace 
 President Diaz had maintained with the strong 
 help of the army and of his mounted police. 
 Where the rights of the peones to decent living 
 were respected as on our hacienda under Don 
 Luis, happiness was added to peace. With 
 Padre Francisco going from village to village, 
 carrying out the Rules of his Order to succor 
 the poor, oh, how different from those of 
 some other Orders professing to follow Our 
 Lord! the Hacienda de los Pajaritos Santos 
 seemed an earthly paradise. 
 
 Into this paradise the serpent entered. 
 Senior Almonte, the administrador, was in the 
 habit of going with more or less frequency to 
 the city of Lerma, on business connected with 
 the marketing of Don Luis's crops. In this 
 way, though to be sure very grudgingly, he 
 enabled us to keep in touch with Ramon. He 
 was, in fact, Don Luis's most constant avenue 
 of communication with the outside world. 
 Often he brought back with him, from the 
 city, guests of his own who were never seen in
 
 70 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 the Master's sala. For the administrador, 
 brief of speech by nature, softened under the 
 genial influence of wine, and, I have reason to 
 believe, was very popular in his own particular 
 set. On one occasion, I could have sworn that 
 I saw Lola emerging with the other visitors 
 from his quarters, but the glimpse I had of her 
 was very brief, and I dismissed the matter 
 from my mind. 
 
 The visitor I have most cause to remember 
 came in the spring of 1911. The tuna crop 
 that year was very heavy, and owing to its 
 perishable nature, and to the fact that the wild 
 cacti also had brought forth with unusual 
 abundance, the administrador had difficulty in 
 disposing of it to his satisfaction. The 
 stranger, who gave himself out to be a manu- 
 facturer of a refreshing drink made of this 
 fruit, came to bid in the entire yield. His 
 errand gave him access to all corners of the 
 hacienda. 
 
 Felix was by this time four years old, and 
 I twelve. The Senorita's confidence in me, and
 
 THE VILLAGE 71 
 
 the tranquillity of the estate, made it possible 
 for me to take him with me on little expedi- 
 tions away from the Casa. On the particular 
 morning I have in mind, we had gone to the 
 village springs. There, with watching the 
 coming and going of women and children, 
 talking with them, and receiving the little 
 attentions they bestowed on him, Felix was 
 endlessly amused. Tired out at last, he had 
 just fallen asleep in my lap when I noticed the 
 administrador and the stranger coming through 
 the corn fields. They were talking together 
 very earnestly, the stranger pausing frequently 
 to emphasize what he had to say with point- 
 ings and gestures in our direction. 
 
 "What are they doing here?" I thought as 
 they approached. "We have no fwwo-pears 
 for sale." 
 
 "Here they are," I heard the administrador 
 say, as they paused under the shade of the fig 
 tree. "Ah, good morning, how are you, 
 Sefiorita Molina?" to one of the village 
 matrons all aflutter with such a salutation.
 
 72 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 "Yes, a cup of water, if you please; we are 
 very thirsty. Hot work, this walking. A 
 thousand thanks for your trouble !" 
 
 That was another suspicious circumstance; 
 they were walking, instead of riding as usual. 
 
 The stranger completed the circuit of the 
 two springs, expressing his views, whatever 
 they were, in short grunts and the squinting 
 together of heavy eyebrows over small, pig- 
 like eyes. He made no pretense of drinking 
 beyond tasting both the hot spring and the 
 cold, and then spat the water out on the 
 ground. 
 
 "Que hombre!" 42 I almost said aloud, but 
 checked myself, and kept my head well down, 
 hiding my own face and Felix as best I could. 
 
 "What a fool!" the stranger muttered at 
 length, advancing nearer and taking in the 
 nestling village, the shore, and the lake in a 
 rapid sweep of the eyes. "And you, too, 
 Almonte, are a fool for not seeing to this 
 before. However, the hare's loss is the 
 hound's gain, though of course we will pull
 
 THE VILLAGE 
 
 73 
 
 it off together, as you say. This site is mag- 
 nificent ; couldn't be better ; a hotel . . ." 
 
 "Cuidado!" 43 interrupted the administrador ', 
 laying a hand upon his friend's arm. "You 
 forget; these Indians of Don Luis's are edu- 
 cated Indians, not like those on your estate. 
 They understand altogether too much." His 
 laugh was not pleasant to hear. Suddenly I 
 saw beneath it the abysses that I had always 
 feared in his smiles, treacherous like those of 
 the smiling lake.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THAT night, after I put little Felix to bed, 
 I slipped down into the garden. In that 
 quiet, fragrant spot troubles and worries had 
 a way of growing lighter. The moon was 
 full, and I strolled slowly along the flowery 
 terraces, watching its broad rippling path 
 across the lake. Suddenly a sheet of flame 
 flared from the cone of Colima, a red and 
 angry glare that colored even the radiant 
 moonlight. My thoughts were like it, trou- 
 bling the peaceful scene around me. I 
 determined to go to Padre Francisco and lay 
 my suspicions before him. 
 
 I found him in the sala with the Sefiorita 
 and Don Luis, Don Luis smoking, the Sefiorita 
 idly pulling a rose to pieces, and both listening 
 to him. He paced the room as he talked. 
 
 "No, no, I tell you you are wrong, Sefior," 
 he was saying. "This agitation of Madero's 
 
 74
 
 THE VILLAGE 75 
 
 is of a different color from those President 
 Diaz has been in the habit of putting aside so 
 lightly. In the first place, Madero is working 
 a boca llena; 44 a bad sign for the President 
 and a good one for the people. He is no 
 military revolutionist, but one who sought the 
 Presidency in accordance with the Constitu- 
 tion, by peaceful votes. You will find that the 
 people themselves are being aroused by this 
 man." 
 
 Don Luis blew the ashes from his cigarette. 
 "The old story, I presume; land for the land- 
 less. And his family are the owners of an 
 entire state !" 
 
 "But you must remember that the peones 
 are not reasoning creatures, mi amigo.* 5 Last 
 year I myself heard him address a street crowd 
 in Lerma. What pleased the audience even 
 more than the promise of lands, were he 
 elected to the Presidency, was his equally 
 impassioned promise that they should exchange 
 their laborers' trousers for the gentlemen's 
 pantalones. That was something concrete,
 
 76 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 within the range of their experience. The 
 cheering would have been absurd, if it had 
 not been so pitiful." 
 
 "What the Padre says is certainly true to 
 this extent, Luis," broke in Dona Marina, 
 "that Madero has had the courage to head the 
 first political party in opposition to President 
 Diaz at the polls. All the other agitators I 
 can remember have tried to seize the Govern- 
 ment by force." 
 
 "That is true. And it would certainly have 
 been an interesting experiment had Diaz 
 allowed the election to be held, instead of 
 throwing Madero into jail. I admit that." 
 
 "Not only interesting, but essential, in the 
 awakened state of the country. The Presi- 
 dent is too old a man to realize that the method 
 of sham elections by which he has remained in 
 power these thirty years will no longer suffice. 
 But what have we here?" The Padre noticed 
 my presence for the first time, and broke off 
 abruptly. 
 
 "Felix, is he ill?" questioned the Sefiorita,
 
 THE VILLAGE 77 
 
 noticing, I suppose, the anxiety I could not 
 conceal. 
 
 "No, Senorita, do not agitate yourself. He 
 is well. But, with your permission, I feel that 
 I should tell you of something that came to my 
 notice to-day. It may be nothing, that is for 
 you to judge." Briefly then I related what 
 had happened at the springs. 
 
 "Do you know this man, this manufacturer, 
 Father ?" Don Luis asked when I had finished. 
 
 "Well, I should judge from the description," 
 the Padre answered briefly. "And so should 
 you." 
 
 The two men exchanged a long, silent glance, 
 seeming to understand each other without 
 further words. 
 
 Don Luis stepped to the door and clapped 
 his hands. A mozo 46 came running in answer 
 to the summons, his bare feet echoing on the 
 tiled corridor long before he himself appeared. 
 
 "Tell the administrador I wish to see him." 
 
 When Senor Almonte came, it was evident 
 that he had been drinking; the flushed face,
 
 78 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 insolent smile, and unsteady gait told the story 
 all too well. 
 
 "At your feet, Senorita," said he, saluting 
 Dona Marina's hand with a resounding kiss. 
 "Your servant, gentlemen. Con permiso." 4T 
 He drew up a chair noisily and sat down. 
 
 Don Luis looked at him in disgust and 
 amazement. He had never seen the adminis- 
 trador in this condition before. Dona Marina 
 half rose to leave the room, but evidently 
 thought better of it, and remained, standing 
 beside Don Luis. 
 
 "Almonte," Don Luis regarded the culprit 
 steadily, "I had better tell you at once that you 
 and your friend were both seen and heard 
 to-day at the springs." 
 
 "Oho, so; then that she-fox has been around 
 again." His eyes glared sidelong at me. 
 
 "Have a care !" exclaimed Don Luis, "or by 
 Heaven Who is this friend of yours?" 
 
 The words struck the fuddled brain of the 
 administrador like a thunder-clap. "He is the 
 jefe politico!" 
 
 48
 
 THE VILLAGE 79 
 
 "I thought as much. Now, what is your 
 game?" 
 
 "Game, game?" repeated the administrador 
 stupidly. "I do not understand." 
 
 "Perhaps I can help you then. As my 
 trusted overseer, and my father's before me, 
 you are well acquainted with the legal status of 
 the Village of the Shield. You know, in fact, 
 that these villagers have no legal status, hold- 
 ing their lands simply by an ancient treaty 
 with my ancestors, which is in truth covered 
 by our Constitution, but is not covered by our 
 laws." 
 
 "Pardon me, you are wrong there." The 
 course of reasoning outlined by Don Luis 
 probably recalled that of the jefe in urging his 
 evil scheme, thus producing the reaction on 
 which Don Luis had counted. "They are 
 covered, well covered. All unrecorded lands 
 belong, by that very fact, to the State. 
 Caramba! 49 What have you to say to that?" 
 He leered up into his master's face. 
 
 "I see, it is as I thought." Don Luis, ignor-
 
 8o THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 ing the drunken fool, spoke to the Padre. 
 "And the State is here represented by its col- 
 lector of taxes, its scavenger, its spy, the jefe 
 politico. As to you," he turned to the admin- 
 istrador, "you may go. In the morning, if 
 you are sober, I may have somewhat more to 
 say." 
 
 The bleared eyes of the administrador 
 followed, against their will, the hand that 
 pointed to the door. He rose and stumbled 
 from the room. 
 
 Don Luis knew that night that he was a 
 ruined man ; ruined, that is, unless he connived 
 at the ruin of his defenseless villagers. Such 
 a thought, I feel sure, never crossed his mind. 
 There was no recourse in law; in truth, there 
 never had been. 50 To have recorded the 
 village lands earlier, as required by law, would 
 only have brought them the sooner to the atten- 
 tion of the jefe who, here, as in every district 
 in Mexico, was the direct representative of the 
 Federal Government and responsible only to 
 it. Not even the powerful protection of Don
 
 THE VILLAGE 81 
 
 Luis could have saved them from the spec- 
 ulator's greed. Nor could he follow his 
 impulse to buy off the bargainers. The lands, 
 he had no doubt, were already recorded by the 
 jefe in the name of the Government. A 
 private citizen, setting himself against such a 
 Government, takes the wall. 
 
 His surmise was correct. In the morning 
 the administrador could not be found. He 
 had gone to join his accomplices in the city. 
 The Village Shield was doomed. Yet the 
 menace which hung over us was not immediate, 
 in the judgment of Don Luis and the Padre. 
 The dictatorship of President Diaz, as they 
 knew, was tottering to its fall. Already 
 Madero, escaping from prison, was rallying 
 an army in the North, and the Federal troops 
 were being rushed to meet the rebel force. If 
 the jefe's hands were kept sufficiently full, he 
 would not strike yet. And if not soon, he 
 might no longer have the power to harm us. 
 The fate of the Shield thus hung upon that of 
 the country.
 
 82 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 Ugly rumors began to be bruited abroad. 
 There were uprisings to the west and to the 
 south. Bandits, unleashed by Diaz's slack- 
 ened power, infested the mountains once more, 
 and came down to terrorize unprotected farms 
 and traveling merchants. Men were killed 
 for their gold, and women carried away. We 
 heard of trains that were stalled and sacked, 
 and even wrecked with no regard for the lives 
 of the passengers. Yet, so far, Lerma and 
 its vicinity had escaped violence, and I had 
 from time to time the great joy of hearing that 
 Ramon also was safe. 
 
 We of the Casa Grande, however, kept 
 closely within its boundaries. As the revolu- 
 tion increased in violence, Don Luis and the 
 Padre had many an anxious conference. At 
 one time, it was almost decided between them 
 that Dona Marina should be sent with Felix to 
 her home in Cuba, until the country should 
 become safe again. But to this she would not 
 hear, saying that where Don Luis was, was 
 her only home, and that in spite of her foreign
 
 THE VILLAGE 83 
 
 birth, Mexico was her country. This, of 
 course, was literally true, since through the 
 Dukes of Monteleone, she traced her lineage 
 back to Moctezuma, our Emperor; and I have 
 always believed that it was because of her 
 feeling of kinship, as well as because of her 
 gracious character, that she took such an 
 interest in us Indians. The reward of her 
 piety came to her now in the loyalty and devo- 
 tion manifest everywhere on the estate. 
 
 Nowhere was this more true than in the 
 Village of the Shield. Don Luis had thought 
 best to call together the councilors of the 
 village and acquaint them with the menace to 
 their property, and of the impossibility of any 
 appeal save through arms. He explained 
 from time to time, at various places on the 
 estate, the course of the revolution, hoping 
 thus to forestall agitation by hired agents of 
 this faction or that, whose business it was to 
 recruit the armies with discontented peones. 
 He went so far as to issue a manifesto of his 
 own, in which he counseled his laborers to keep
 
 84 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 out of the conflict and to attend to their duties, 
 promising that in return he would abide by the 
 decision of the Revolution, even if it should 
 mean the portioning out of his estate. By this 
 means, and also through the faithful teachers 
 in his schools, a fairly intelligent public opin- 
 ion was created in favor of peace. 
 
 Thus, for two months, the Hacienda de los 
 Pajaritos Santos, like the vortex of a whirl- 
 wind, remained calm. President Diaz fled the 
 country, and the Revolutionists took over the 
 Government. We all breathed easier for the 
 news. In our tiny corner of the Republic, it 
 seemed to mean that the Shield was safe. If 
 it meant also that Don Luis would be forced 
 to knock down his heritage, as it were, to his 
 Indian serfs, he could at least retire with 
 honor, and even with wealth, to Cuba. The 
 outlook in the sola was cheerful and the 
 hacienda throve. 
 
 Then, from a totally unexpected quarter, the 
 blow fell. It was on Christmas morning, and 
 the villagers, as usual, were preparing to go
 
 THE VILLAGE 85 
 
 to mass. I had risen, without waking Felix, 
 and slipped down to the village in the early 
 dawn. There it was the custom of our women 
 to keep vigil with the Holy Virgin. We had 
 lighted our candles and begun the processional, 
 whose cadences of "Madre mia, 51 Madre mia," 
 ring even now in my ears, when a most horrible 
 commotion broke forth. It came from the 
 lake, shrouded in mist, and from the shore, and 
 was caught up by yet other shouts and cries in 
 the direction of the Casa Grande. 
 
 "The bandits! 52 Run for your life!" I 
 heard in a prolonged answering shriek. 
 Crushing my candle out against my dress, I 
 did run, as fast as I could, to the Casa. The 
 lake mist served to hide me, and the route I 
 took by instinct, up the bottom of a little 
 ravine, was less used than that through the 
 cornfields. My one idea was to save Felix. 
 But it was a full league to the house, and the 
 stones of the dry stream-bed were very rough 
 to my feet. When I arrived at the walls of the 
 Casa, I knew that I was too late.
 
 86 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 No one molested me as I entered a postern- 
 gate and stole through the vineyard. In fact, 
 in the whole course of the foray, I saw only 
 one of the outlaws. Dead silence had settled 
 over the place. I passed through the garden, 
 where the Virgin's Mantles 53 were just open- 
 ing to the sun, and on into the house. But why 
 should I revive the horrors that I found there, 
 the evidences of violence and desperate 
 resistance? Enough to say that the house 
 was deserted, and Felix's little crib empty, 
 though still warm with the imprint of his body. 
 He was gone, who only a few moments before 
 had been there, safe and well. Nowhere 
 did I find a single servant or come across a 
 corpse that might give some clew to the myste- 
 rious disappearance of the family. Whoever 
 the bandits were, they had been in sufficient 
 force to take their dead and wounded with 
 them. To aid them in their flight, they had 
 levied the Master's horses ; not one was left. 
 
 I went out on the balcony and scoured the 
 country with my eyes. To the north, a spiral
 
 THE VILLAGE 87 
 
 of dust traveling swiftly along the road to 
 Lerma, showed the bandits' trail. But my 
 eye was caught away from this by a nearer 
 evidence of their presence. The village, and 
 even the fields about it, were in flames! Nor 
 were the butchers through with their bloody 
 work there, as shrieks and the sound of pistol 
 shots borne up to me by the wind, bore witness. 
 At that terrible spectacle, the horror of the 
 whole catastrophe broke over me. I ran, I 
 know not how, nor whither, until I lost 
 consciousness.
 
 PART II 
 LEY FUGA
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE cool dews of night must have revived 
 me. I woke at length to hear the 
 familiar lapping of the lake on the shore. But 
 as I sat up and looked about me, I saw that it 
 was a part of the shore with which I was 
 entirely unfamiliar. No lights shone from 
 any habitation; even the stars seemed hostile, 
 gleaming like daggers in the breast of the dark 
 waters. I lay chilled, hungry and utterly 
 desolate, until dawn. Something in the stir of 
 the dawn wind woke me once more to life. 
 
 Like a panorama, the events of the day 
 before passed through my mind. There must 
 have been two attacking parties, I decided, one 
 from the shore and one from the lake. Their 
 motive at the hacienda was probably robbery, 
 and they had carried off their victims to 
 extract money by torture. I shuddered as I 
 
 91
 
 92 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 thought of the terrible tales of just such forays 
 to which I had so often listened of late. But 
 why had they taken the time and the pains to 
 visit their wrath on my poor and peaceful 
 village? Suddenly the face of the one bandit 
 I had seen again confronted me; the bleared 
 eyes, the snarling mouth, the grizzled hair. 
 As plainly as if he stood there before me, I saw 
 Lucio Almonte, the administrador. 
 
 This, then, explained the mystery of the 
 well planned attacks. How neatly, with no 
 blame attached, the Village Shield had fallen 
 into his hands! By the time the Government 
 took cognizance of the outrages, if it ever did, 
 What evidence would there be to connect him 
 or his friend, the jefe, with the matter? In 
 the unsettled state of the country, the attacks 
 might be laid to any one of a half dozen 
 mountain cutthroats, or even to the strag- 
 gling armies of the Government itself. 
 
 This theory of the administrador' s com- 
 plicity in our destruction, though modified by 
 later events to include a darker villainy, served
 
 LEY FUGA 93 
 
 to quicken me to action. The robbers of the 
 hacienda had gone to Lerma ; to Lerma I also 
 would go, and find out through Ramon, if 
 possible, the fate of my mistress and master, 
 and of my little darling, Felix. His baby 
 hands I saw continually stretched to me in sup- 
 plication, and his moans reached across the 
 mountains to echo in my heart. But first I 
 determined to revisit the village. Some there 
 might be, wounded or dying, in need of succor. 
 By this time I was faint with hunger and 
 thirst. The margin of the lake here was 
 swampy, and as I made my way down to the 
 water, snakes uncoiled themselves from the 
 low-growing bushes, and dropped beside my 
 feet. With only a hasty drink, I was glad to 
 regain firmer ground. A clump of trees 
 draped in vines, on which a countless number 
 of birds were feeding, gave me hope that I too 
 might find a breakfast there. I was not dis- 
 appointed; the vines still held clusters of wild 
 grapes, overripe, but deliciously cooling to my 
 parched throat.
 
 94 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 From the vantage of the trees, I was able to 
 get my bearings better, and all day followed on 
 the higher ground the curving shore of the 
 lake. By nightfall, I had reached the 
 vicinity of the village once more. Here I hid 
 until I could determine whether any of the 
 robbers were still about. All was silent ; there 
 was no light. The quickly burning fires of 
 yesterday had left no taint of smoke in the air. 
 As I watched the dimly seen shore, and the two 
 church towers that still outlined themselves in 
 white against the lake, I could have fancied my 
 village was only sleeping, and not dead. 
 
 Cautiously I descended, past the springs, 
 through the burned milpa, and into the ruins. 
 I had only the light of the stars to guide me, 
 and in this way was spared part of the horror 
 which must otherwise have overwhelmed me. 
 Those whom I found were dead and unrecog- 
 nizable in the dim light, and were mostly men 
 and children. The women, where were they? 
 "Mary, Mother," I found myself repeating, 
 "have mercy on them." So I came to the gap-
 
 LEY FUGA 95 
 
 ing doors of the church. A light still burned 
 there, before the Virgin's shrine. Beneath it, 
 I saw the blurred outline of a body. I felt it. 
 The heart beat faintly ! It was the first living 
 thing I had found in all my search. Without 
 considering whether it were friend or foe, I 
 turned the face to the light. What was my 
 thankfulness to discover Padre Francisco, sore 
 wounded, doubtless, but still alive ! 
 
 There must be no time lost if he and I 
 were to be saved; at any moment the lurking 
 bandits might return. I had hoped, as I 
 skirted the hills on my way back, that I might 
 find some boat at the village which the brigands 
 had overlooked. An old fishing boat, hidden 
 in a clump of willow trees where Carlos, its 
 owner, was in the habit of mooring it, not more 
 than twenty varas 54 down the beach, rewarded 
 my search. It was already equipped, as our 
 fishing boats always were, with a brazier, a 
 supply of charcoal, jarros, 56 and a small quan- 
 tity of provisions, besides the fishing nets. 
 Back of the mast, a thatched cover made a tiny
 
 96 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 cabin, and it was my plan to place Padre 
 Francisco there. 
 
 By tying together some half charred bam- 
 boos, I made a rude litter on which I dragged 
 him down to the beach and at last got him on 
 board. I cast off, poled until I caught the off- 
 shore breeze, and hoisted the lateen sail. As 
 our boat began to move more swiftly through 
 the water, the ripples beneath the prow were 
 indeed a grateful sound to me. Lashing the 
 stern oar in place, I gave my attention to the 
 poor Padre. There was not much I could do 
 for him until daylight, for I dared not strike 
 a match. But I disposed him as comfortably 
 as I could under the little thatched roof, and 
 moistened his head and lips with water. With 
 this and with the shifting of the rudder oar 
 to keep our course down the lake, I was busy 
 until dawn ; but not too busy to think with con- 
 cern on my circumstances, and to wonder what 
 I should do were the Padre to die. 
 
 Daylight found us well out from either 
 shore. I hauled down the sail, and made a
 
 LEY FUGA 97 
 
 fire on the brazier. With warm water I 
 washed the ugly machete 56 wound on the 
 Padre's shoulder, and bound it up as well as I 
 could. Then I made corn gruel and poured 
 it between his lips. His torpor continued, 
 only an occasional moan showing me that he 
 still lived. All day we drifted, one of perhaps 
 half a dozen boats on the broad lake, exciting 
 no suspicion from them or from the shores. At 
 night I again hoisted the sail, and we sped away. 
 The following morning, when I awakened, 
 the Padre's eyes were open, and he knew me. 
 From that time on, he mended steadily. His 
 weakness, oh, how fortunately for us both! 
 had come chiefly through loss of blood and the 
 nervous shock of his heavy fall when he was 
 struck down. As he grew better, I told him 
 bit by bit what had happened, and what my 
 plan was in going to Lerma. The necessity 
 for hastening his recovery, instead of agitating 
 him, served as a tonic. Two weeks later 
 found us nearing the end of our strange cruise 
 in the upper reaches of the lake, from which a
 
 98 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 mountainous, but comparatively short, trail, 
 known to Padre Francisco, led to the city of 
 Lerma. 
 
 In a thicket, similar to the one in which I 
 had found it, we moored our boat, and set 
 forth on our march. Our provisions were 
 now of the scantiest, only a bundle of dried 
 fish, and an olla 57 of water which I carried on 
 my head. Naturally, our progress was slow, 
 the Padre suffering greatly from his wound, 
 and I always on the lookout to avoid the char- 
 coal burners and the herdmen's huts which we 
 occasionally saw. Had it not been for the 
 Padre's cassock, we might have showed our- 
 selves without danger of discovery. The Vir- 
 gin herself, I have always believed, aided me 
 in overcoming this difficulty. 
 
 One evening we espied a hamlet in a little 
 valley beneath us. I decided to go down to 
 the wells after water, * for this was our great- 
 est need. By the pools, as I neared them, I 
 could see the washings hung to dry. No one 
 seemed to be watching them for the moment.
 
 LEY FUGA 99 
 
 I filled my olla quickly, and snatched from the 
 mesquites 58 two laborers' trousers and coats. 
 
 Would the Padre be angry with me for my 
 thefts, I wondered? I showed them to him 
 with some fear of a rebuke. 
 
 But as he looked at them and at me, a won- 
 derful light of comprehension shone in his 
 eyes. 
 
 "Ninita" he said, "surely our Father hath 
 guided you in all that you have done. I thank 
 God daily for your brave heart and ready wits. 
 As for the poor peasants yonder, may his 
 blessing make up to them their loss, a loss of 
 what they would gladly give could they know 
 our need." 
 
 With his knife, the Padre helped me to cut 
 and fashion one of the suits to my size. He 
 also sheared my long hair with the same dull 
 tool. Our appearance thus altered, we were 
 able to go more openly and comfortably, to the 
 Padre's great relief. We now approached the 
 city, in sight of whose domes and towers we 
 had already traveled for a week. As I watched
 
 loo THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 the Padre striding on ahead of me, his tonsure 
 overgrown with hair, and further hidden by 
 a battered hat, his face bearded, the cotton 
 trousers flapping on his bare legs, I could my- 
 self scarcely believe that he was indeed the 
 courtly Father I had known. 
 
 A similar thought was doubtless in his mind, 
 as he turned to look as me, plodding along be- 
 hind him. 
 
 "Andale, muchacho" 59 he called back, not 
 for my benefit, but for that of a company of 
 horsemen who were passing us at the time. 
 
 As I came up, he motioned to a seat on the 
 bank beside him, and looked me over, from 
 my hair, bobbed to shoulder length and wound, 
 after the fashion of the boys of my tribe, with 
 a cotton rag, to my unsandaled feet. 
 
 "My child," said he, "let us sit here a few 
 moments and rest. We are now about to en- 
 ter on the most dangerous part of our quest. 
 You, who have been so brave and so wise 
 hitherto, will you also be equal to the strain 
 in the great city, where all is strange to you ?"
 
 LEY FUGA 101 
 
 "With your help, Father, and that of the 
 Blessed Mary," I answered humbly, looking 
 across the hot, treeless plain which seemed to 
 bring the city almost within touch. "Besides, 
 it will not be all strange to me. Ramon will 
 be there." 
 
 The Padre made no response for some time. 
 "When you last heard from Ramon, he said 
 that his Master had been drawn into the 
 Madero faction, and had become a captain in 
 the cavalry, did he not?" 
 
 "Yes, and Ramon himself is a soldier, and 
 has a black horse to ride!" 
 
 "Precisely," said the Padre. "And it may 
 be very dangerous for us to discover ourselves 
 to him. Had you considered that?" 
 
 "To Ramon? Oh, no, my father, you do 
 him an injustice. But of course you do not 
 know Ramon as I do. Only let me find him, 
 and all will be well." 
 
 "It may be," he answered, "and it may be 
 that he will be able to help us the more for his 
 political connections. But it will behoove us
 
 102 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 to exercise the greatest care, and to remember 
 always what is at stake." 
 
 We now entered the city, Padre Francisco 
 stalking ahead, looking the part of the Indian 
 even to the sarape, made out of his brown 
 habit, and now folded across his shoulder. I 
 trudged along at his heels. The wide streets, 
 the solid buildings, and the continuous passing 
 of people on foot and in carriages confused 
 me inexpressibly. I had all I could do to re- 
 frain from clinging to his hand. Trams 
 clanged past us; and as darkness fell and the 
 electric lights flashed out, each plaza that we 
 passed became vocal with military bands. 
 The promenading people, the music, the lights, 
 would have made it impossible for me to real- 
 ize that here too, only a few weeks before, the 
 revolution had raged, had not Padre Francisco 
 pointed out its ravages in occasional fallen 
 cornices and riddled houses. 
 
 At length, in a quiet, older portion of the 
 city, we came to the zaguan 60 of the house 
 where Ramon's master lived. Padre Fran-
 
 LEY FUGA 103 
 
 cisco, who knew the street well, looked about 
 and drew me after him into the patio. Q1 We 
 had no sooner entered, however, than a troop 
 of horsemen clattered down the street, and 
 rode through the open gate. 
 
 "What have we here ?" cried one of the com- 
 pany, looking at us sharply from under his cap, 
 and apparently on the point of ordering us 
 away in no very civil fashion. 
 
 My heart leaped at the sound of his voice. 
 It seemed to me no time to hesitate. "Ra- 
 mon, Ramon!" I cried. 
 
 His quickness saved us. "What, Carlito, 
 from my native village!" He turned to the 
 leader of the troop. "Capitan, I hope you will 
 pardon the lad his lack of city manners." 
 
 The Padre and I, following his cue, made 
 our salutations awkwardly to the Captain, in 
 whom we recognized Ramon's master, and 
 then passed on to the kitchen to which Ramon 
 directed us, saying briefly, "I am indeed glad 
 that you have come." 
 
 Perhaps half an hour later he joined us, not
 
 1O4 
 
 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 in the kitchen, but in the study to which a mozo 
 had come to conduct us. A table was laid 
 there with a white cloth, and on it was bread, 
 white as the cloth, and generous bottles of 
 wine. 
 
 Ramon, our Ramon, knelt and kissed the 
 Padre's hands. But me he did not kiss, only 
 folded my fingers in his, and looked at me in 
 a sort of dumb wonder, and I looked at him.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE excitements of the revolution in 
 Lerma, and the duplicity of the admin- 
 istrador, who, with the jefe, was now high in 
 the counsels of the winning side, had prevented 
 Ramon from hearing anything of our dread- 
 ful fate. 
 
 "Maldidon de Dios!" he exclaimed, rising 
 and digging his nails into the quick flesh of 
 his clenched hands, as the terrible story was 
 unfolded. "The scoundrels, the murderers! 
 It is only this morning that Almonte stopped 
 me and told me that Don Luis and the Sefiorita 
 had sent me their remembrances ! How did he 
 dare ? But that explains why he has suddenly 
 become so civil. May God reward him !" and 
 Ramon cursed the administrador. 
 
 "Restrain yourself, Ramon," the Padre 
 
 counseled, motioning him to his seat. "To 
 
 105
 
 io6 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 you, too, the horror will become familiar. We 
 rely upon you to help us find our dear friends 
 who, God willing, are still alive. We must in 
 particular, effect the rescue of the Senorita 
 and little Felix." 
 
 Ramon understood the necessity, even bet- 
 ter than we. With an iron will that molded 
 his boyish face like a mask, he controlled his 
 passion, and sat long with the Padre at the 
 table, discussing the political situation and per- 
 fecting our plans. 
 
 To me, only a girl, and worn with the re- 
 sponsibilities and dangers of our long flight, 
 it was very sweet to give over the planning to 
 those two who knew so well the strange ways 
 of the great world into which our tragedies 
 had plunged us. I listened till my tired head 
 sank lower and lower, and I fell asleep. 
 
 Hours later, through the deep slumber that 
 held me, I felt Ramon's arms about me as he 
 carried me to bed. "Sleep well, little sister," 
 I heard him say. He stooped to seal my eye- 
 lids with kisses that seemed to weight them
 
 LEY FUGA 107 
 
 still more heavily, and left me to my dreams, 
 dreams of dancing water, of our wattled hut, 
 of Grandfather, Grandmother, and Ramon. 
 
 I woke to a freshly whitewashed room, and 
 to sunlight sifting through closed shutters 
 upon a cool, tiled floor. At first, it seemed to 
 me I was back at the Casa Grande, and in- 
 voluntarily I reached out for Felix's crib. My 
 hand instead touched the coarse cloth of a 
 clean little cotton suit, laid across the chair be- 
 side me. The sight of it recalled me to the 
 present, and to the heartache that seemed the 
 more unbearable after my happy dreams. 
 
 But at least I had found Ramon. Even as 
 I realized this, he tapped at the door, and told 
 me that he had prepared my bath. It seemed 
 so natural that he should take care of me that 
 I did not realize until long afterward his 
 thoughtfulness, nor the risk he ran in thus 
 secreting us two fugitives in his Master's 
 house. With his own hands he served our 
 breakfast of rolls and chocolate, before he 
 mounted his horse and rode away.
 
 io8 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 The plans of the previous evening bore 
 speedy fruit. The next night found the Padre 
 and myself settled in poor and noisy lodgings 
 in the street that ran opposite the Plaza of the 
 Penitenciaria. In this gloomy building, Ra- 
 mon surmised, Don Luis might now be im- 
 prisoned. The charge against him was sure 
 to be a political one, preferred by Almonte or 
 the jefe or both, and he would therefore be held 
 incommunicado. 62 If a trial had taken place, 
 he might be already in the loathsome dungeons 
 of San Juan de Uloa, hundreds of miles away, 
 in the harbor of Vera Cruz. Or, he might be 
 dead. Ramon had little hope of finding out 
 what had become of him. But about a woman 
 and a child, there was sure to be some talk. 
 
 In the plaza, in front of the Penitenciaria, 
 was held each morning a flourishing market. 
 Here, later on, with money furnished by Ra- 
 mon, the Padre purchased the privilege of a 
 booth. Our stock in trade consisted of bright- 
 hued petates and baskets which I colored and 
 wove in the patterns used by our village, and
 
 LEY FUGA 109 
 
 handed down, I suppose, from the times of our 
 ancestors. It would have been safer, perhaps, 
 could I have changed these patterns ; for many 
 times, when the administrador or the jefe 
 passed by on their way to the jail, I shrank 
 back fearing that they might notice something 
 familiar in the gay mats and baskets which, 
 by their very novelty, attracted an unusual 
 amount of attention. But it is doubtless true 
 that a man's eyes do not see trifles like a 
 woman's. To Lucio Almonte, moreover, we 
 were dead, and our ghosts did not trouble him. 
 The rest of the market about us was taken 
 up with the usual displays of fruit and vege- 
 tables, chickens and eggs. There were be- 
 sides, the flocks of turkeys which made their 
 headquarters here, but were driven through 
 the streets to the kitchens of their purchasers. 
 There were booths draped with homespun cot- 
 ton cloths, or machine-made laces from los 
 Estados Unidos de America and others 
 where the fine, banded potteries of Lerma were 
 displayed. At still others, molders of clay
 
 no THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 or carvers of wood offered to make your por- 
 trait while you waited, at twenty-five centavos 
 per head. Under the portales 64 at the north- 
 ern end, leather dealers hung ill-smelling shoes 
 and saddles. A%f-makers, 85 flower-girls, 
 and candy-venders threaded the narrow aisles 
 between the booths, crying their wares. About 
 the fountain, in the center of the market, the 
 hubbub was always at its highest and gossip 
 most to be heard. 
 
 Back and forth to this fountain I passed 
 many times a day, saying little, but seeing 
 much. Here came the guards from the Peni- 
 tenciaria, to loiter with the blue-shawled In- 
 dian girls who also came to fill their ollas, and 
 here the relatives or friends of those im- 
 prisoned often lingered, while waiting for ad- 
 mission, in the cool shade of the flowering 
 orange trees. Both the custodians and the 
 friends of the victims took this opportunity 
 to carry on a quiet trade of their own, either 
 in the personal belongings of the prisoners or 
 in trifles made by them to be sold for food.
 
 LEY FUGA ill 
 
 Whether the money realized from these sales 
 found its way to the owners, Padre Francisco 
 much doubted. But at any rate, the traffic in 
 carved peach seeds, horse-hair brushes and the 
 like was brisk. 
 
 While Padre Francisco, who also learned 
 to make as well as to sell our wares, and I 
 were thus all eyes and ears in the market, Ra- 
 mon lounged, haughtily to be sure, about the 
 barracks. He was also so diligent in service 
 and withal so dashing a rider, that his Captain 
 was pleased to secure his admission into his 
 own exclusive Club. Here, as I have heard 
 Ramon tell it, his part was a very humble one, 
 consisting chiefly in furnishing a fourth in the 
 officers' stringed quartet. But in the intervals 
 of playing, he had opportunity of watching 
 closely the other members, among whom Lucio 
 Almonte and the jefe were loudest in talk. 
 This was no doubt due to the fact that wine 
 and beer were plentiful, and good fellowship a 
 political asset. 
 
 One night, doubly dark with terrific wind
 
 112 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 and rain, Ramon came to our rooms. As he 
 dropped his dripping cloak and sombrero on 
 the floor, and drew up his chair to the brazier, 
 I was startled by the pallor of his face. 
 
 'They are drunk over at the Club, and there- 
 fore I have news." He put his hands before 
 his eyes as if to blot out some intolerable pic- 
 ture. 
 
 "Speak," said the Padre sharply. 
 
 As for me, I laid my cheek against his hands. 
 "Tell me, brother, is it Felix?" 
 
 "No, not Felix; of him I know nothing." 
 He shuddered. "Almonte, that devil to- 
 night he boasted that Dona Marina was dead." 
 
 A groan broke from the Padre ; he made the 
 sign of the cross, and then I could see his lips 
 moving in prayer. 
 
 "Don Luis has been sent to San Juan de 
 Uloa," Ramon continued in a dry, lifeless 
 voice. "Better dead, too, I say!" 
 
 "And of Felix, nothing?" the Padre asked 
 at length: 
 
 "No ; I daresay Felix would not interest Al-
 
 LEY FUGA 113 
 
 monte except as a m'eans of extorting money 
 or worse. By his political ruse I believe 
 Don Luis was accused of being the author of 
 some kind of socialistic pronunciamiento 66 hos- 
 tile to the Government Almonte and the jefe 
 secured the entire estate by simple gift from 
 the new Government in reward for their zeal." 
 He paused. "The Senorita, I understood him, 
 died to-day. It may be ; if so, Felix may still 
 be alive. I waited until they were drunk, but 
 I heard nothing more. Ojald!" 6T he burst 
 forth in sudden fury, "that I had killed them 
 where they sat !" 
 
 "Patience, my son, patience. Felix's life, 
 not to mention ours which are dear to you, 
 hangs on your discretion. Wisdom beyond 
 your years has been given to you in this mat- 
 ter, and strength will be given likewise." He 
 laid his hand soothingly on the boy's shoulder, 
 racked with noiseless sobs. "I could wish the 
 Captain might help us in this dilemma," he 
 continued, when Ramon had regained his self- 
 control.
 
 114 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 "I also. He is a generous and noble man, 
 and a friend of Don Luis's as well. Nothing 
 would seem more natural than to ask him, and 
 I have found myself almost doing it a dozen 
 times. Nothing but your own advice to the 
 contrary, Father, has restrained me. But I 
 believe that you are right, that in these days 
 we can trust very few, and even when we do 
 trust them, have no right to endanger them in 
 the ruin which hangs over us." 
 
 In spite of my grief these words of Ramon's 
 made me very proud. By the same course of 
 reasoning he, who did not by birth belong to 
 my village, ntight have shirked the responsibil- 
 ity of helping us. That it did not occur to 
 him to do so, simply showed that he was Ra- 
 mon. My heart became lighter. Surely the 
 good God would crown such faithfulness with 
 success. Felix must be found! 
 
 But still the days went by, and there was 
 no sign. The heat of summer beat down on 
 the dusty market, and made our rooms an oven. 
 The Padre, who had not yet recovered from his
 
 LEY FUGA 115 
 
 wound, drooped visibly. But he never com- 
 plained; his anxiety seemed to be all for me. 
 
 "Pobrecito," he said to me many a time, 
 patting my cheeks, "is it not too hard for you? 
 Courage, we must know soon." 
 
 Had it not been for the showers which came, 
 often with great violence, to refresh the 
 parched city, it seems as though we should 
 have died. But after these downpours even 
 the foul-odored market bloomed into beauty, 
 and the cool winds healed us. 
 
 One noon-time, after one of these hard 
 showers, I went over to the fountain. There 
 were comparatively few idlers there yet, for 
 big drops still rained down from the over- 
 weighted trees. But among the little groups 
 was one of the prison guards with whom I had 
 become acquainted, making a practice of 
 buying his trinkets when they were not too 
 dear. 
 
 "Hola, there, boy," he bawled now. "I sup- 
 pose you do not want to buy a doll ?" He held 
 up by one leg a dilapidated, ragged object for
 
 ii6 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 me to see. My heart stood still; the doll was 
 the one Ramon had carved so long ago for 
 Felix, the little one's treasure, without which 
 he refused to go to sleep ! Alive or dead, this 
 soldier knew what had become of my dar- 
 ling. 
 
 "But perhaps you are too old," he continued, 
 mercifully misunderstanding my embarrass- 
 ment. At this sally the crowd laughed. 
 
 I sat down on the coping of the fountain to 
 steady myself. "Let me look at it," I said, and 
 so got the doll into my hands. "Bah! it is a 
 sorry enough looking thing, its clothes in rags, 
 its nose worn off (Oh, I knew why, with how 
 many low croonings, and sweet, sweet child 
 kisses.) Still, how much do you want?" 
 
 "A peso." The crowd laughed again. 
 
 I kept an eye on them to see how their tem- 
 per ran as I continued my barter. Some by- 
 stander, for sheer waggery, might defeat my 
 purpose. 
 
 "A peso'' I cried in feigned scorn. "And 
 pray how does it happen, Senor, that so val-
 
 LEY FUGA 117 
 
 uable an object falls into your hands? I did 
 not know that you made prisoners of girls !" 
 
 "Girls indeed! And he bargaining for a 
 doll himself. Why not a boy, my lad?" 
 
 "Oh, as to that, who wouldn't want so lovely 
 a thing?" I held up the doll for the crowd to 
 see, and got my laugh in turn. "But what- 
 sized lads, then, are you in the habit of keep- 
 ing? I shall begin to fear you, my friend." 
 
 The guard evidently thought that my chaf- 
 fing had gone too far. "Look you, for a peso 
 you may know, and not without," he said 
 sulkily. 
 
 I dropped my banter at once. "Bastante, 
 here are fifty centavos. And now," I linked 
 my arm in his, "tell me truly. Is he a little 
 boy? See, I had a brother once " I stopped 
 and looked at him. 
 
 A light of sympathy replaced the cunning 
 of his eyes. "Is he dead?" 
 
 I could not answer. 
 
 "So," he said gently, seeming to consider. 
 He looked around carefully and lowered his
 
 ii8 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 voice. "The little fellow in there is about the 
 height of my hand. God forgive me! he is 
 just the age of my Pepito, and hungry. I 
 thought to buy him bread !"
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 FELIX was found! 
 For just such an opportunity as this 
 the Padre had saved our centavos, day by day, 
 and Ramon had added to them. 
 
 "Come," said I. "My father," this being 
 the relationship the good Padre gave out as 
 existing between us, "has also a most tender 
 heart. Let us see what we can do together 
 for that poor child." 
 
 He followed me to the booth, which was de- 
 serted by customers both because of the recent 
 storm, and because of the daily siesta 69 hour. 
 
 "Father," said I, "see this doll I have bought. 
 It belongs to a little boy in the prison. This 
 man says he is hungry and sick." 
 
 Padre Francisco looked at me as he took the 
 doll in his hands, and I saw that he understood. 
 
 Then I left the two men together, and went 
 
 119
 
 120 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 to give Ramon the signal we had agreed upon, 
 sure that the Padre, in his infinite knowledge 
 of the human heart, could unlock those frown- 
 ing prison gates. By some means I knew, 
 when I next saw him, he would have Felix in 
 his arms. 
 
 For the last time I passed through the mar- 
 ket, doffing my hat to the salutations of the 
 sleepy-eyed women in the booths, whom I had 
 come to know so well, and out into the sun- 
 drenched streets. The clattering trams and 
 the engines that puffed and shifted importu- 
 nately about the station, were the only things 
 moving, it seemed, in all the city, besides my- 
 self. The long windows of the houses were 
 shuttered, and even the store fronts were put 
 up against the glare of light. I hurried 
 silently along in my sandals, past the Palacio 
 de Gobernacion the cathedral, across the 
 Paseo, 71 and on to the barracks. Ramon 
 would not be there until the bugles blew for the 
 parade at four. But in the stables was an- 
 other friend whom I was sure of finding, Ra-
 
 LEY FUGA 121 
 
 mon's coal-black horse, Mogul. Many a time 
 had I slipped into his stall, just as I was doing 
 to-day, with bits of sugar-cane tucked into my 
 hat or belt, to feel his soft nose hunt them and 
 see the pleasure he expressed so well with his 
 quick ears and liquid eyes. 
 
 But it was with a new feeling of proprietor- 
 ship that I stroked Mogul's silky neck and fed 
 him his sweets this day. As I whispered in 
 his ear, he too knew the difference; perhaps, 
 who knows, he understood that on him hung 
 the lives of those I loved most in the world, 
 Felix and the Padre and Ramon? 
 
 But I could not linger. With a final caress, 
 I took my blue cotton head-band and tied it to 
 Mogul's bridle that was hanging in the stall. 
 This was the signal we had agreed on, in case 
 Felix was found. As I knotted the cloth in 
 place, I thought it a fortunate omen that it was 
 of blue, the color of the Virgin. I prayed 
 silently, "Mary, Mother of God, save us !" Mo- 
 gul nosed my hand, and I was gone. 
 
 The plans we had perfected for our flight
 
 122 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 during our months of waiting were complete 
 in every detail. An unoccupied adobe hut on 
 the outskirts of the town, which Ramon had 
 rented long since, was my next destination. 
 Down the long streets, now beginning to be 
 shaded by the westering sun, I trudged. The 
 houses on either side opened their eyes, as it 
 were, in lifted shutters and unbarred gates, to 
 the cooler air, and the sleepers came to life. 
 As well hidden by the crowd as by the previous 
 solitude, I arrived at length at our hut. 
 
 For an instant, so great was my suspense, 
 I almost swooned. The shutters were fas- 
 tened; the door was locked; to all appearances 
 the house was still tenantless. Yet even as I 
 looked my heart leaped within me ; the dust on 
 the latch bore the imprint of a thumb. To my 
 whistle, the cry of the plover, so familiar about 
 our old home, the Padre opened the door. I 
 stumbled in and fell on my knees beside the 
 cot where my precious Felix lay. It was more 
 by touch than by sight that I found him, in 
 the dim light, and gathered him into my arms.
 
 LEY FUGA 123 
 
 The Padre had told him that I was coming; 
 in fact, he said afterwards it was only the 
 repetition of my name which had roused the 
 sick child from the torpor in which he found 
 him. Possibly the guard had drugged him to 
 prevent his crying out, though the Padre, who 
 kept his hand on Felix's slow, slow pulse, was 
 inclined to think that starvation was a suffi- 
 cient cause for his weakness. His only sign 
 of recognition was the utter content with which 
 his head turned and rested upon my breast. 
 The sweetness of that pressure, I shall never, 
 never forget. 
 
 It was well for me that I could not then see 
 what the next day's light revealed, the hollow 
 circles beneath the long lashes, and the little 
 hands, so transparent that the bones showed 
 through the flesh. Otherwise, I should not 
 have had the courage to let the Padre leave 
 me, as he did soon, to continue his journey on 
 foot; nor indeed, to undertake our own flight 
 that night. 
 
 "Remember," Padre Francisco whispered.
 
 124 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 "Give him a little of the white of egg and wine 
 in this cup every hour and a spoonful of medi- 
 cine every alternate hour until you start, and 
 do not lose courage. Ramon should be here 
 in four hours now, and you will find me 
 waiting for you at the Pass of the Holy 
 Cross." 
 
 A changed quality in the Padre's voice 
 caught my ear, long accustomed to the Indian 
 patois he had adopted to further our disguise. 
 As his outline showed in the open door, I 
 realized that he had changed his peasant dress 
 as well, and had resumed his cassock and cowl. 
 With the child in my arms, I knelt and kissed 
 the crucifix hanging from his girdle. 
 
 "O my father, bless us both," I implored, 
 "before you go." 
 
 He raised his hands and eyes in benediction, 
 and went out into the night. 
 
 Comforted by the Padre's familiar voice 
 and touch and by the blessing he had invoked, 
 I laid Felix, still sleeping, on the cot, and com- 
 pleted my own preparations for the journey.
 
 LEY FUGA 125 
 
 It touched me greatly to find that the child 
 had already been washed and dressed. The 
 candle, which with the darkness we had been 
 compelled to light, showed him, alas, how wan 
 and pale, in the little suit I had made and hid- 
 den for him there ! So thoughtfully the Padre 
 had done the office of a nurse, sparing me the 
 responsibility of disturbing my darling's rest 
 and the shock of finding how thin he had 
 grown. 
 
 As for myself, I had only to slip from my 
 white trousers and coat and resume my blouse 
 and skirt. Over my short hair I threw a 
 rebozo 72 in place of my steeple hat, tied up 
 the discarded garments with the bundle of nec- 
 essary articles we had hidden here from time 
 to time, and sat down beside the cot once more 
 to wait for Ramon. 
 
 As I waited, measuring the passing of time 
 by the burning of the candle, my mind busied 
 itself with conjectures about the outlaw life to 
 which we were committed through no crime 
 of ours, and the terrible dangers to which it
 
 126 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 exposed us. The Padre had decided that our 
 safest course lay to the southward, across the 
 lake, and up into the mountains beyond. 
 There, so steep were the barrancas, and so 
 poor and little traveled the trails, that even 
 the bandidos 73 had no fastnesses. It was a 
 country well known to him in his earlier mis- 
 sionary journeyings among the wild tribes of 
 Indians with whom he had lived before he 
 went to Cuba, or knew Dona Marina, or came 
 to the hacienda with her. In inaccessible 
 upland valleys around as yet uncoveted 
 springs, some Indians of our own race still 
 lingered. But for long leagues the mountains 
 were totally uninhabited save by the wild crea- 
 tures of the wilderness. The spot he had 
 chosen for our home, he described to Ramon 
 and me with great beauty of language, until 
 it seemed to us, by contrast with the squalid 
 lodgings in Lerma, as unreally lovely as a 
 dream. But now, with Felix at last beside me, 
 might not the dream come true ? 
 
 It did not occur to me to fear, except for
 
 LEY FUGA 127 
 
 Felix, so absolute was my faith in the Padre 
 and Ramon. As the night wore on, even this 
 anxiety relaxed with the stronger beating of 
 his heart, and the evident ease of his slumber. 
 About midnight, my ears, sharpened by the 
 constant dangers of the past six months, caught 
 the soft thud, thud of unshod hoofs on the 
 road from Lerma. I snuffed out my candle 
 and waited. Presently the hoof beats ceased; 
 there was a scuffling of light sand in the court- 
 yard, followed by Ramon's familiar tap on the 
 door. 
 
 He paused for nothing save a brief "Is all 
 well, hermanita?" 74 and .went out again to tie 
 the bundles of provisions to the saddle. Felix, 
 roused from his sleep by the disturbance, be- 
 gan to whimper. 
 
 In an instant Ramon was back. "Pobrecito, 
 pobrecito," he crooned. "There, there, do not 
 cry. See, it is I, your Ramon. I take you so, 
 in my arms, gently, gently. All night you 
 shall lie in them safe and warm. So, pobre- 
 cito, hush!"
 
 128 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 I meantime had finished the lading of the 
 saddle and locked the door of our refuge, 
 in which no trace of our occupancy was 
 left. Ramon, scarcely touching the stirrup, 
 sprang into the saddle. I mounted behind 
 him. 
 
 "Now, Mogul," said the master, "go." 
 
 The horse, which had stood with the still- 
 ness of a statue until he heard this word of 
 command, moved lightly and swiftly as a 
 shadow, out of the gate and along the starlit 
 road. So even was the motion that Felix, 
 lulled as if in a cradle, drifted again into 
 blessed sleep. 
 
 When we were entirely free of the city, and 
 out on the open plain, Ramon began to speak 
 softly. "See you now, Porfiria, why I took 
 such pains with the horse? In all the com- 
 mand, there is no pacer like him. And the 
 best of it is, no one knows that he can pace. 
 Even if I were followed to the hut which I 
 doubt our pursuers from there on will find 
 no trace of galloping hoofs."
 
 LEY FUGA 129 
 
 "But the dogs, my brother?" 
 
 Ramon suppressed something like a sob. 
 "It is for that, as you know, that we must leave 
 Mogul at the shore and trust ourselves to the 
 boat. I shall not be missed till morning. By 
 that time, God willing, he should be well back 
 toward Lerma, and we," he wet his finger and 
 held it up to discover the direction of the wind, 
 "already far out on the lake." 
 
 "The boat, you are sure it is safe, then?" 
 
 "Last week when I rode down to see it, yes. 
 I put into it then some tools I had not thought 
 to carry with me before. If it has been dis- 
 covered and stolen, we will still try with Mo- 
 gul." He leaned forward to whisper in the 
 horse's delicate ears. 
 
 Mogul's hoofs became even more noiseless, 
 as he listened. I doubt if he could have been 
 detected ten feet away by any save an Indian. 
 We, too, became silent. We were approach- 
 ing the foothills of the mountains that lay be- 
 tween us and the lake. In and out of the 
 shadows, now upward, now down the sides of
 
 130 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 bottomless barrancas, we wound till we neared 
 the break in the range known as the Pass of the 
 Holy Cross. There the Padre, who had by 
 that time eight hours the start of us, should be 
 waiting. From that point the mountains 
 dipped abruptly to the lake. 
 
 As we traveled thus the trail which the 
 Padre and I found so long, I wondered if even 
 yet his strength would suffice to make this 
 journey of ten leagues in one night. It was 
 with utter thankfulness, therefore, that we 
 came upon him, immovable and well-nigh 
 invisible in his dark habit, seated on the 
 pile of stones beneath the cross which marked 
 the last resting place of some traveler less for- 
 tunate than we. The cross above this spot, 
 mute witness where some foul murder had in 
 all probability been committed, gave to the Pass 
 its name. 
 
 Here I dismounted, and the weary Padre 
 took my seat. The trail now descended so 
 abruptly that my nimble feet were well able
 
 LEY FUGA 131 
 
 to keep pace with those of Mogul, as he picked 
 his way, with infinite care, down the steep 
 mountain side. Even so, Felix's sleep was 
 broken by the short, uneasy steps, and he be- 
 gan to moan. We made a little halt while the 
 Padre gave him a stimulating drink. Then I 
 wrapped my darling in the folds of my rebozo, 
 bound the ends over my shoulders, and carried 
 him thus on my back. 
 
 In this way the last league of our journey 
 was accomplished. The first gray of dawn 
 found us on the shore. There, in the bamboo 
 thicket where the Padre and I had left it, lay 
 our boat. We baled it out, placed on the bot- 
 tom dry petates and on them our provisions. 
 It only remained for Ramon to turn Mogul 
 loose before we embarked. 
 
 Despite the thanksgiving in all our hearts 
 for the rescue of Felix and the auspicious be- 
 ginning of our flight, Ramon felt sorrow as 
 well in parting from his beloved horse. To 
 reward with ingratitude the devotion of two
 
 132 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 years, during which Mogul had been his faith- 
 ful companion, seemed unbearable. Ramon 
 stood for a moment by his head, unbuckled his 
 bridle, and led him to the lake to drink. Then 
 from his pockets he drew a little hoard of 
 sugar cane stalks, and fed them to him bit by 
 bit. Last he ungirthed the saddle and threw 
 it, with the bridle, into the boat. Behind us 
 we must leave nothing, horse or trappings, by 
 which our flight might be traced. We were 
 fugitives from justice now; and the hard law 
 of the fugitive is that he who is caught may 
 be shot. 
 
 "Adios, my friend," I heard Ramon say. 
 His lips brushed the broad forehead between 
 those honest eyes. With a quick cut of the 
 fingers he sent the horse galloping up the 
 trail. 
 
 Long after our boat had caught the breeze, 
 and Felix was again rocked to sleep, I fancied 
 I heard that wild flight of Mogul's up the steep 
 mountain side. In Ramon's heart, how much
 
 LEY FUGA 133 
 
 louder it must have echoed ! Yet he said noth- 
 ing, only, when he dropped the saddle over- 
 board presently into the deep water, I saw two 
 tears fall also.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ALL day we held our course across the lake 
 toward the little harbor on the opposite 
 shore that the Padre had in mind. Often we 
 looked behind us for a pursuing sail, but there 
 was none. Though it was not probable, in the 
 uncertain policies of the hour, that we should 
 be followed, the Padre thought it wisest to risk 
 no delay. Toward evening the breeze died 
 down, and he and Ramon had several hours of 
 heavy sculling before we made port. In the 
 darkness we unloaded our scant possessions on 
 the shore. Then Ramon shoved off the boat 
 and scuttled it. It was impossible for us, ex- 
 hausted as we were, to go further that night. 
 Sheltering ourselves as best we could under 
 some spreading trees, we fell asleep, for what 
 might be the last time in our lives, to the music 
 of the lake. 
 
 Felix wakened me the next morning. 
 134
 
 LEY FUGA 135 
 
 "Mama, Mama," he was crying, "do not leave 
 me with Lola. Take me with you." His ter- 
 rified voice rose to a scream. 
 
 In an instant, my arms were around him. 
 Soothed by my kisses, he woke from his ter- 
 rible dream, and sobbed brokenly, with soft 
 brushings of my neck with his fingers, to as- 
 sure himself that I really held him as I said. 
 In all the months that followed, it was only by 
 such occasional outbreaks that we learned any- 
 thing of the cruelties he had undergone, or of 
 those who perpetrated them. We never ques- 
 tioned him, hoping that he might forget; and 
 in his waking moments, aside from the haunt- 
 ing fear that sometimes sat in his eyes, he gave 
 no clew. Better so. Of the living he could 
 tell us nothing; of the sufferings of the dead, 
 God rest her soul, it were well if he never had 
 to know. 
 
 Our journey from the shore to our final des- 
 tination, high up among the mountains, was 
 but a repetition, for a longer period, of inci- 
 dents similar to those I had undergone in my
 
 136 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 flight with the Padre to Lerma. Our speed 
 was impeded by the sick child, for whose food 
 Ramon and the Padre foraged as we went, and 
 by the weight of the burdens which we carried. 
 Sometimes our food consisted of a drink of 
 goat's milk, stolen from the charge of some un- 
 wary goatherd, or the more delicate milk of 
 the cocoa-nut, or the eggs of a nesting quail. 
 We traveled in the early morning and late 
 afternoon, resting through the heat of the day, 
 until we left behind us the tierra caliente 
 and entered the uplands of the tierra tem- 
 plada Here, mingled with the more tropical 
 foliage with which Ramon and I were familiar, 
 were to be found trees that were new to us, 
 the oak, the mountain ash, the juniper, and the 
 long-needled pine. Small game was abundant, 
 as were birds of many kinds. By setting traps 
 around the springs where we camped, we were 
 able to catch all that we needed. Still upward 
 we climbed; and now the nights became cold; 
 the cacti and mesquite of the arid lowlands no 
 longer appeared, but were replaced by meadows
 
 LEY FUGA 137 
 
 green with grass or bright with flowers and 
 set in noble groves. Water flowed abundantly 
 from snow-fed sources; yet the land was un- 
 inhabited. Infrequently we skirted Indian 
 hamlets, or saw some lone herder ; but we our- 
 selves went unseen. 
 
 At sunset one day we came at last to the 
 spot which Padre Francisco had selected for 
 our home. It was a cleft in the very top of a 
 lofty mountain range. To reach it, we had 
 passed the timber line on the cold northern 
 slopes, and traversed a ridge which was blue 
 with fringed gentians, and low-growing huc- 
 kleberries. From this growth the crown of 
 the mountain rose, a mass of precipitous rocks, 
 pierced by a narrow defile no wider than a 
 door. Even this opening would have been in- 
 conspicuous to one who did not know it. But 
 the Padre knew it well. With his machete he 
 cleared a passage way through a huge, en- 
 tangling vine. Along the edge of the tiny 
 brook, whose waters in long centuries had 
 worn this little gorge, we followed him.
 
 138 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 The Padre drew aside presently and held out 
 his arms. "Behold, my children, here is our 
 home; here is La Paz," T7 he said. 
 
 Peace indeed brooded over the little valley 
 that spread before us in the slanting beams of 
 the sunset. Open to the southward, and slop- 
 ing gently to the cliffs that formed a sheer de- 
 scent on that side, it seemed made to catch and 
 hold in its green bowl the warmth of summer 
 here on the very mountain tops. A shimmer 
 of dancing aspen leaves canopied the gray cliffs 
 to the north, wherever the slender trees could 
 lodge; grass and ferns carpeted the ground, 
 and spread upward in crannies and crevices 
 about the roots of the trees. Toward the west- 
 ern end, opposite the entrance, was the source 
 of the trickling brook, in a clear deep spring. 
 Around it grew a cluster of cottonwood trees. 
 The entire valley, I suppose, was not more than 
 one hectare 78 in area ; all its beauty was spread 
 before us at a glance. 
 
 Ramon was the first to voice the admiration
 
 LEY FUGA 139 
 
 of our hearts. "How beautiful!" he ex- 
 claimed, "and how safe!" 
 
 "Wait, there is more to see, and I must show 
 it to you while there is still light." The Padre 
 scanned the ground eagerly. "Strange that no 
 wild beasts seem ever to have made their lairs 
 here. See, here are only the tracks of harm- 
 less deer. It was so when I visited the valley 
 last. But I want to make doubly sure ere 
 night falls. Ramon, come with me." 
 
 He preceded Ramon for a few feet along 
 the northern wall of cliffs, stopped abruptly, 
 and began to tear away a mass of morning- 
 glory vines. Ramon, pistol in hand, watched 
 the work while Felix and I waited at the en- 
 trance. Soon the Padre called us, in a voice 
 that assured us that all was well. We ran to 
 the morning-glory vine, and stepped through 
 the opening we found there into a fairy world. 
 
 The grotto we entered was not large, but of 
 dazzling splendor, because of the crystals of 
 copper of which its walls and ceiling were
 
 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 made ; studded in places as if with gold, fretted 
 into azure fringes, or hung with draperies of 
 softest green, its beauty was almost super- 
 natural. The whole cave formed a shallow 
 room, from which two other apartments might 
 be said to open off, such was the effect given by 
 the curiously eroded pillars which divided the 
 space. All three rooms were roughly parallel 
 with the valley, and opened on it in irregular 
 perforations, hidden from the outside by vines. 
 In fact, the whole might be described as a vine- 
 hung portico. Of this place, so evidently suit- 
 able for our temporary home, the dear Padre, 
 in all his descriptions of the valley, had told us 
 nothing. 
 
 He and Ramon were in one of the inner 
 rooms when we broke in upon them. 
 
 "But, Father," I cried, unable to contain my 
 wonder, "why in your stories of our valley, did 
 you never mention this?" 
 
 The Padre laughed outright, and caught up 
 Felix to his shoulder, so that he might examine 
 a portion of the crystal arches with his hands.
 
 LEY FUGA 141 
 
 "Partly because I could not quite trust my 
 memory. It might be damp, it might be a 
 cave of tigres, it might have been defaced by 
 the Indians, who used to come and worship 
 here, quien sake?" 79 His words were spoken 
 with an exasperating drawl. "And partly, 
 without doubt, because I wished to give my 
 three dear children a most lovely surprise. 
 Tell me, are you not quite satisfied ?" 
 
 Satisfaction hardly expressed our feelings 
 as we sat around the campfire that night and 
 discussed the possibilities of our new home. 
 As a precaution against wild intruders, we had 
 barred the entrance to the valley with a breast- 
 work of hastily gathered stones. Against the 
 cold, we drew around our shoulders the heavy 
 sarapes we had brought with us. Long after 
 Felix fell asleep in the little petate hammock 
 we were in the habit of hanging for him each 
 night, we still talked, Ramon rising now and 
 then to throw fresh wood on the fire, and the 
 tiny glen lightening and darkening with the 
 leaping flames. Above us the stars passed so
 
 142 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 close that it seemed as if we could touch them 
 by reaching out our hands. In the great, un- 
 broken stillness to southward, the Southern 
 Cross kept watch. 
 
 The month that followed saw the comple- 
 tion of many of the plans we made that night ; 
 the uneven floor of the grottoes leveled with 
 hard-trodden earth; one of the apertures in 
 the middle room converted, by means of a rude 
 chimney, into a fireplace; bedsteads fashioned 
 of tree trunks and interlaced vines; and such 
 openings as we wanted to use only for win- 
 dows, built up to a good height with stones and 
 latticed with bamboo. Over the main en- 
 trance, Ramon also built an arbor to shade us 
 somewhat from the sun, and to its inner side 
 fitted a door made of saplings. Thus our 
 home became comfortable and secure. 
 
 Our furnishings were naturally meager, 
 consisting of the few petates, baskets and ollas 
 we had been able to carry on our backs, besides 
 the sarapes, which we also used as cloaks. 
 The main room, partitioned off by withes be-
 
 LEY FUGA 143 
 
 tween the pillars, was our living-room and 
 kitchen, and as the nights grew colder through 
 the autumn, we were glad indeed of its grate- 
 ful warmth. My chamber, which Felix 
 shared, opened nearest the fireplace; the third 
 was occupied by the Padre and Ramon. By 
 day the cool, green vines, garlanded each morn- 
 ing by flower-discs of blue, cast a pleasing 
 shadow over our glittering walls ; but by night, 
 the fire played on each crystal till the splendor 
 was well nigh blinding to our eyes. Many a 
 night, when we thought the fire was out, some 
 charred brand flaring into life waked us with 
 its reflected radiance. At length, despite the 
 protests of Felix, to whom our cave was by 
 turns a Moorish palace or the dwelling, as the 
 Padre said the Indians thought, of the God of 
 the Mountains, we daubed the chamber walls 
 with ashes and mud. 
 
 The entrance to our valley was now fitted 
 with a strong, wicket gate. Beyond this point 
 Felix never ventured, except with me, to pick 
 berries or to gather flowers. But as we de-
 
 144 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 pended almost entirely on hunting and trap- 
 ping for our meat, and on wild fruits, nuts and 
 herbs for our other food, it was necessary for 
 the Padre or Ramon to make frequent excur- 
 sions into the forest below. The rainy summer 
 was by this time past and was succeeded, day 
 after day, by clear and ever colder sunlight. 
 As autumn advanced, and the moisture in the 
 lower valleys lessened, we began to notice more 
 tracks of little creatures which came and went 
 through our barrier to reach the spring; rab- 
 bits, squirrels, chipmunks and sorillos, 80 and 
 among their imprints about the entrance the 
 larger ones of deer and antelope unable to get 
 in. These fearless beings we did not eat, 
 though sometimes we were tempted by hunger. 
 They became the playmates of little Felix. 
 Even the deer and the antelope grew so tame 
 that they ate out of his hand. Birds also came 
 to winter with us, and ate of the berries and 
 fruits we had spread out to dry for our own 
 use. But we begrudged them nothing. 
 
 The joy of the child in our society and that
 
 LEY FUGA 
 
 of his pets was only equaled by our joy in his 
 returning health. Each morning brought 
 fresher color to his cheeks, and clearer depths 
 to his gray eyes, that danced with laughter 
 also, like the sunlight in our spring. 
 
 In our hearts too, sadness and anxiety had 
 grown mellow. The turbulent world was far 
 away. Though our thoughts and prayers 
 went forth often in quest of Don Luis and the 
 scattered remnant of our Village of the Shield, 
 we rested gratefully in the happiness of our 
 little valley. Like the bleak mountains about 
 us, we hoarded our sunshine there.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 ONE night while we slept, came the first 
 frost of the year. It was also the first 
 frost that we, except Padre Francisco, had 
 ever seen. Felix, who never tired of watch- 
 ing the opening and closing of the blue Virgin's 
 Mantles that clambered over our windows, 
 noticed that the beautiful blossoms were dead. 
 The havoc wrought by this intruder, which no 
 wicket could keep out, was more apparent when 
 he and I went to get water at the spring. 
 Everywhere the tender stalks of herbs and 
 flowers had burst with the severity of the cold, 
 their lifeblood congealed in fantastic shapes 
 of ice. The ferns lay blackened; the aspens 
 and cottonwoods had turned to gold. The 
 spring itself was rimmed with delicate tracer- 
 ies such as I had never seen before. 
 
 Felix ran hither and thither, to keep warm 
 
 as well as to examine the wonders the night 
 
 146
 
 LEY FUGA 147 
 
 had wrought. He returned to the cave laden 
 with some fragile formations which looked like 
 flowers of ice. 
 
 I was already at the hearth, toasting the 
 cakes of pounded chestnuts which we ate in 
 place of tortillas now that our corn meal was 
 gone. He came and laid his strange blossoms 
 in my lap. 
 
 "See, 'Firia, what I have brought you. Do 
 you know what I think ?" he lowered his voice. 
 "You call it frost, but I almost saw God mak- 
 ing these, the way he made the cave. It is all 
 alike now, there and here." 
 
 "What is this I hear?" asked the Padre, 
 stepping from his room. 
 
 Felix stood very straight, and grave, and 
 wise. "I only said I thought God must be out 
 there, making another cave." His gaze re- 
 turned from the crystal ceiling, to which he 
 had raised it, to the ice-crystals he had laid 
 in my lap. "See, but 'Firia, where are 
 they?" he broke off in consternation. 
 
 The ice-crystals had melted by the fire, even
 
 148 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 as the lovely crystalline valley melted shortly 
 in the sun. 
 
 Felix pondered and the Padre kept silence. 
 Presently, "Padredto? 1 tell me, will He then 
 melt our cave?" 
 
 "No, my Felix, not to-day, nor to-morrow. 
 But come, and I will begin to tell you, little 
 son, how the great world is made." 
 
 That morning at the beginning of the cold, 
 as winter is called with us, began also Felix's 
 schooling. Nor were Ramon and I neglected 
 by the Padre, who in the long days as we 
 worked, or in the happy firelit evenings, 
 brought forth for us from his great learning, 
 treasures new and old. So, many a night, as I 
 sewed the rabbit skins that Ramon had tanned, 
 into a warm coat for Felix, or a cap for Ra- 
 mon, I listened to the story of the Cid and 
 Charlemagne. And when Ramon, making 
 shepherd's pipes, interrupted at intervals to 
 test their pitch, I heard in their mellow notes 
 the battle-bugles of Roland and Moctadir. 82 
 We learned also of the more modern world, of
 
 LEY FUGA 149 
 
 France, the Padre's boyhood home, of her 
 struggles for liberty when her plight was even 
 as ours, and of her heroic victories from the 
 time of Joan of Arc till now. Listening to 
 the Padre's impassioned patriotism, and watch- 
 ing his restless pacing, like a wild thing in a 
 cage, we understood how his heart burned in 
 sympathy for the miseries of our country, and 
 yearned to help in its deliverance. 
 
 Occasional snows followed the frost, deep 
 drifted in places on the mountain slopes, but 
 for the most part blown clear of our valley by 
 the high north winds, or melted by the sun. 
 The Padre taught Ramon how to make the 
 snowshoes he had seen used among the In- 
 dian tribes of the United States, far to the 
 north. On these they slid at will over the 
 slippery crust, hunting, trapping, fishing, some- 
 times venturing down to the borders of sum- 
 mer in valleys leagues below. These excur- 
 sions yielded a greater variety of game than we 
 were in the habit of killing in the immediate 
 vicinity of the valley. Venison, antelope,
 
 150 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 trout, even a stray iguana 83 and an occasional 
 raccoon they brought back to me to cook. 
 
 To Ramon and the Padre, these expeditions 
 partook sufficiently of adventure to make them 
 a relief from our circumscribed life. But to 
 me, left alone with Felix, the absence of our 
 protectors was a constant source of anxiety. 
 As the afternoon shadows lengthened, a dozen 
 times I went to the wicket, thinking that the 
 shaking of the wind was our returning Ra- 
 mon ; or I climbed the southward parapet and, 
 shading my eyes, peered into the dizzy depths 
 for black figures, like ants, crawling up against 
 the snow. 
 
 With what thankfulness I welcomed them 
 when they came, and how doubly sweet were 
 our evenings after the long day apart! One 
 such perfect evening I recall vividly. The 
 Padre sat on a sort of divan we had made 
 along one side of the fireplace, and I on a low 
 stool at his feet. Ramon lay on some deer- 
 skins before the fire, playing softly on his flute. 
 Felix I had put to bed hours before, but he
 
 LEY FUGA 151 
 
 heard the music and came pattering out, sleep- 
 ily holding up his face for a kiss. In one hand 
 he held the battered doll which Ramon had 
 made for him, and to which he had clung 
 through all our wanderings. Ramon, who 
 never could resist the boy, threw down his 
 flute to gather him in, close and warm, beside 
 the fire. 
 
 "I missed you," Felix announced. "Sancho 
 and I, we missed you much. What have you 
 done all day?" 
 
 "Walked many miles, little one, and brought 
 you, see !" He drew from a pouch at his belt 
 a wilted, fragrant saxifrage. 
 
 "But where did you find it?" asked Felix 
 after he had sniffed it delightedly, offered it 
 to the doll, and passed it on for me and the 
 Padre to enjoy. 
 
 "Not so far away; and if you are not too 
 sleepy, I will tell you a secret, and then you 
 may tell it, if you like, to Porfiria." 
 
 "And to Padre Francisco?" 
 
 "The Padre knows it already; we found it
 
 152 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 together where this flower grows. Listen." 
 Ramon began to whisper, the child's eyes 
 growing big and dark. 
 
 Presently he leaned over and put his soft 
 mouth to my ear. "Ramon says he found this 
 flower right here, in our own valley, this morn- 
 ing before he went away. He says the spring 
 has come!" 
 
 It was true; we could see the signs of 
 her welcome advent day by day in the swelling 
 buds of the trees, the pushing fronds of the 
 ferns, and the delicate fringes of greenery that 
 began to show in warm and sheltered crannies 
 everywhere. The birds knew of the glad 
 arrival, and came in great numbers to make 
 their homes among their kindred who had 
 wintered in the valley with us. The sweet 
 songs of wrens, which began to nest in the 
 walls of our small canyon, woke us before the 
 dawn; woodpeckers, with bright red crests, 
 tapped for insects up and down the trees ; king- 
 fishers darted down to snatch up the tiny 
 minnows that lived in our brook. Birds of
 
 LEY FUGA 153 
 
 more gorgeous plumage came on visits from 
 the tropics below. Sometimes a hawk or an 
 eagle, soaring overhead, created no small 
 excitement among these feathered guests of 
 ours. But except for such disturbances, they 
 lived in harmony with themselves and with us. 
 Felix added them all to his family of pets. I 
 have even seen him stroking the silken back of 
 a green warbler sitting on her eggs. 
 
 By now the primavera 84 and viburnum 
 were well budded, and leaves were pushing 
 from all the trees. But alas for birds and 
 flowers, we were yet to have one more taste of 
 winter ere summer really came. One noon, the 
 south wind veered to the north, driving with 
 it huge, moist clouds which enveloped the 
 mountain top so densely that we could scarcely 
 see our hands before our eyes. It became 
 bitterly cold. Presently the clouds precipi- 
 tated themselves in a fine, driving snow. To 
 increase our anxiety, Ramon had set forth in 
 the morning, and had not yet returned. The 
 birds, poor things, caught unaware, like our-
 
 154 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 selves, voiced their distress in blind flutterings 
 and piercing cries. Felix's doves took refuge 
 with us in the cave, and many of the other 
 birds followed them. Here and in the arbor, 
 where the snow did not fall, Felix scattered 
 crumbs, while the Padre went out from time 
 to time and brought in little numb bodies to be 
 warmed into life by the fire. My housekeep- 
 ing was in confusion, and my mind was on 
 Ramon. 
 
 It was useless, as the Padre said, to attempt 
 to find him in the snow and mist. Nor would 
 any sound we might make reach him through 
 the howling of the storm. Doubtless, the 
 Padre was right in thinking he had found 
 asylum far below out of its range, or sheltered 
 himself in some cave. For food he would not 
 lack, so long as he had his pistol and the bow 
 and arrows which he also carried with him. 
 But my eyes saw him falling headlong down 
 some unseen precipice or frozen, like the birds, 
 in the snow. 
 
 All night the storm continued. But toward
 
 LEY FUGA 155 
 
 morning the wind fell somewhat and the snow 
 ceased. I determined to try an expedient, 
 which I had thought of in the darkness, for 
 guiding Ramon home. The Padre, who had 
 gone out at intervals through the night, to see 
 that the mouth of the ravine was kept clear in 
 case Ramon by a miracle should be able to find 
 his way, was sleeping. Felix also slept. I 
 stole into the main room, and took down from 
 its peg on the wall a wind harp which Ramon 
 had just finished, intending to hang it on one 
 of the tall clamllina 85 trees, and thus fill our 
 valley with harmonies that would blend with 
 those of the birds. Fog, I knew from expe- 
 rience on the lake shore, was a good conductor 
 of sound, and I would hang the harp in the 
 vines of the defile, through which the wind 
 might sweep the sounds far down the 
 mountain sides. 
 
 I was preoccupied with my task, which 
 was not an easy one. Suddenly I was startled 
 by Felix's voice rising out of the mist behind 
 me.
 
 156 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 "Bad doggie," he was saying, "go away! 
 You have killed my birds. Go away!" 
 
 Dogs? Wolves. I ran blindly toward the 
 spot from which the sounds had come. Out 
 of the mist loomed two gaunt, gray bodies. 
 Almost within reach of their snarling jaws 
 stood Felix, regarding them with blazing eyes. 
 A pigeon, all dabbled with blood, was folded to 
 his breast. The wolves, held by his gaze, did 
 not move, even at my approach. Before I 
 could snatch the child away, I heard the 
 Padre's voice. 
 
 "CuidadoF 
 
 At the sharp warning, the wolves whirled 
 and vanished in the mist. When the fog 
 lifted, as by God's mercy it did with the sun, 
 we found no trace of them. But everywhere, 
 as the snow melted, we uncovered the feath- 
 ered forms of birds. All morning Felix 
 busied himself in the gathering of these. I 
 could but help him, distressed as he was by 
 grief. Like a bed of bright-hued orchids, the 
 tiny bodies lay heaped on the floor of the cave.
 
 LEY FUGA 157 
 
 But- the Padre, after he had satisfied himself 
 that no other wild beasts had slipped through 
 our wicket, went forth in search of Ramon. 
 
 The hours dragged heavily. Among his 
 little dead comrades Felix found one, a mock- 
 ing bird, which responded to the warmth of the 
 fire. But it did not take flight with the other 
 birds we had revived, seeming content to rest 
 in Felix's hollowed hands. 
 
 I examined it carefully and found the cause 
 of its inaction in a limp and broken wing. 
 
 "See, Felix," I said, "our little friend is 
 hurt, but if you will help me, I think we can 
 bind up the break. And, meantime, until it 
 is healed, we will get Ramon to make you a 
 cage for the caritito. 86 Then, some day, we 
 will set him free, and hear his most beautiful 
 song of thanks." 
 
 In truth, I was glad to prattle with the boy, 
 and to keep his mind and my own occupied 
 with cheerful thoughts. Together we fitted a 
 splint in place, and bound the wing firmly to 
 the poor bird's body.
 
 158 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 While we were thus occupied, the Padre 
 returned, bringing with him Ramon. But 
 such a Ramon, hollow-eyed, ragged, and 
 stained with blood! 
 
 I sprang from my seat and forced him gently 
 into it. Rabbit broth I had ready heating on 
 the fire, and water fresh drawn from the 
 spring. The Padre helped me to make him 
 comfortable, and soon he fell asleep, so 
 exhausted was he, in his chair. 
 
 I drew up my stool beside him, and took one 
 hand in mine. So, mutely, I could express the 
 gratitude of my heart at his return. Perhaps 
 he would feel it, even through his dreams. 
 
 "Tell me, Padre, is he much ill, think you?" 
 I whispered. 
 
 "No, little daughter ; I think not, though he 
 is too exhausted to be questioned much. I 
 found him, as I seemed to see him through the 
 storm, lying in the shelter of a cave in the 
 Barranca Azul. 87 At first, I thought he was 
 dead. But the aguardiente I carried with me 
 revived him. Thank God, the blood you see
 
 LEY FUGA 159 
 
 on his clothes is not his ! When he has rested, 
 he will tell us all his adventures. Meantime, 
 he must sleep." So saying, the Padre picked 
 Ramon up in his strong arms as easily as if he 
 had been Felix, and laid him on his bed. 
 
 That evening, the birds, which tender- 
 hearted Felix himself pressed upon me for his 
 dear Ramon, made a most delicious stew. By 
 the flare of the fire, reflected in a thousand 
 facets, we sat down to table, a reunited family. 
 The Padre's customary blessing took on a new 
 significance as we thought of the dangers 
 through which we had all so lately passed. 
 Death had been all around us, nay, had come 
 to our very door, yet we had been graciously 
 spared. 
 
 As we ate, Ramon recounted his hardships 
 in wandering through the storm. The mist 
 had come on him so suddenly that he had no 
 time to escape, and traveled perforce with 
 great caution. But he wisely headed down- 
 ward, instead of trying to return to us. Even 
 a league or two would thus bring him below
 
 160 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 the snow line, were he fortunate enough to find 
 the Barranca Azul. This gorge, opening from 
 our range, dipped swiftly, thousands of feet, 
 to the temperature of the tierra caliente in the 
 fertile valleys below. In the storm, he missed 
 his way, drew back from a precipice barely in 
 time and found himself in a cave, the same 
 near which the Padre later found him. 
 
 "El tigre was also there," Ramon continued, 
 "his eyes burning in the darkness. You may 
 well believe that I was frightened at seeing 
 him. But he made no move to attack me. 
 All the wild creatures were cowed by the great 
 storm, and in this same cave were already 
 huddled two deer. 
 
 "By this time, I was exhausted. The storm 
 had increased in fury, and I realized that I 
 stood in danger of freezing, in my thin clothes. 
 The presence of the deer reassured me. I 
 crept up close to my strange companions, and 
 I make no doubt they were in the end the 
 means of preserving my life with their 
 warmth."
 
 LEY FUGA 161 
 
 In the excitement of the story, we had all 
 forgotten Felix. Happening to glance at him, 
 Ramon saw that he was quivering with fright. 
 
 "Ay de mi," he cried, "what have we here? 
 This small man should have been asleep, he!" 
 
 "He he used to frighten me with tigers 
 in the prison at night " The child shud- 
 dered uncontrollably, his eyes turned inward 
 on sights that were not good to see. 
 
 Ramon, conscience-stricken at his careless- 
 ness, brought him to the fire. 
 
 "Pobrecito, I should have remembered that 
 a tiger is large, and a man-child, even so brave 
 a one as our Felix, very small. And now, 
 being small, I will sing to you. It is a song 
 my mother must have sung to me, I think, 
 when I was small like you. She held me so, 
 and rocked me so, and sang:" 
 
 Sleep, sleep, sleep, 
 
 Eyes like fluttering wings. 
 
 (Hushaby, little son.) 
 
 See, the mother bird brings 
 
 Food for the little one.
 
 l62 
 
 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 Sleep, sleep, sleep, 
 Eyes like breasts of twin doves. 
 (Hushaby, softly swung, 
 You, whom your mother loves 
 More than the doves their young.) 
 
 Sleep, sleep, sleep. 
 Homing your birds will nest 
 (Hushaby, never fear) 
 Each in the hollowed rest 
 Of your eyes, little dear.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 FOLLOWING the untimely blizzard, 
 spring came again, the fruit trees burst 
 once more into flower, the clavillinas tasseled, 
 and other birds took the places of those which 
 had been destroyed by the storm. Mists and 
 rains became frequent, and not only the valley, 
 but all the range about and below us, was green 
 with herbage and bright with glowing flowers. 
 There bloomed mariposa lilies, delicate as the 
 butterflies that sought their fragrance, colum- 
 bines, red and purple, spired like the cathedral 
 towers of Lerma, blue bells, which the fairies 
 love, and many more. All the air was 
 fragrant and sweet with song. 
 
 In La Paz also these flowers grew, mingled 
 with others which loved more the heat of the 
 sun. These flowers, planted so beautifully by 
 nature, we did not disturb. But a portion of 
 the greensward we plowed up for a garden, 
 
 163
 
 164 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 and planted with kernels of maize, beans, and 
 tomato seeds which we had saved for the pur- 
 pose. About the garden Ramon built a trim 
 fence of bamboo, to keep out the little four- 
 footed gardeners, with whom we did not wish 
 to share our precious greens. In addition 
 to these improvements, he made a rustic 
 mirador 88 on the outer ledge of the valley, 
 overlooking the wonderful panorama below, 
 and catching every breeze. Here he hung the 
 windharp, to play to us, day and night, and 
 here, when the weather was clear, we loved to 
 sit. Yet our cave, warm in winter, was cool 
 in summer, reaching as it did into the solid 
 rock, and shaded once more by the leaves of 
 the Virgin's Mantle against the afternoon sun. 
 Ramon fitted the arbor in front of the door 
 with seats, and, high up on the side, embowered 
 in vines, he built an airy cage for Pico de Oro, 89 
 the mocking bird. Such then, amid simple 
 joy and loveliness, was our home, La Paz. 
 
 By now Pico de Oro's wing was entirely 
 healed, and he could have flown away to join
 
 LEY FUGA 165 
 
 his brethren in their glad migration to the 
 north. But perhaps he had been left so hope- 
 lessly behind that he had no heart to follow 
 them. At any rate, he had become so tame 
 that when Felix opened his cage door, expect- 
 ing him to take flight, he fluttered only as far 
 as the child's shoulder, and lighted there. 
 Nor did he care for any other home except 
 his cage. By day he roamed and sang at will, 
 but night found him, head tucked in wing, on 
 his chosen perch. Who can say that he did 
 not realize our care for him, and feel his safety 
 from squirrels and other enemies when the 
 cage door was shut ? 
 
 We, too, like Pico de Oro, feeling our 
 security, began to venture more often from 
 La Paz, our cage. With luncheon in a basket, 
 fishing rod, bows and arrows, we went down 
 into the forests. There, reclining on pine 
 needles beside some rock-fretted stream, we 
 talked or listened to the Padre's wisdom, or 
 dreamed the hours away. But the long after- 
 noon light brought us homeward, to find our
 
 166 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 valley undisturbed, and filled with the cool 
 shimmer of the aspens, which looked and 
 sounded so like the ripple of our beloved lake. 
 
 To me, content in the society of those I 
 loved, watched over with increasing tender- 
 ness by my brother, and watching in turn the 
 unfolding of Felix's sweet nature, day by day, 
 our existence left nothing to be desired. Even 
 the Padre's teachings, which set windows, as 
 it were, in our minds, through which we looked 
 afar over the world, left in me only the sensa- 
 tions of aloofness I found in looking from our 
 mirador. There was the world, indeed, full 
 of deep barrancas, of wild beasts, of wilder, 
 wicked men, but here, serene, seeing only its 
 beauty, were we. Political factions, the rise 
 or fall of my country, the fate of Don Luis 
 even, what had I to do with these? Had not 
 God in his wisdom hidden me close to Him- 
 self above them, and made it a duty that here 
 I should remain? 
 
 Besides, I had much to occupy me, not only 
 in the housework, but in the drying of fruits
 
 LEY FUGA 167 
 
 once more and garden produce for the winter. 
 Our cotton clothing was also wearing out, and 
 I conceived the idea of weaving cloth with 
 which to replace it. The Padre, who knew 
 the crafts of the mountain Indians thoroughly, 
 from his many journeys among them, helped 
 me in this by preparing fibers of the primavera 
 and of the bark streamers of the cottonwood 
 for spinning. They were easily twisted with 
 a whorl. Ramon made me a frame for the 
 weaving, strung with the fibers, and fastened 
 to a post of the mirador. A bamboo needle 
 served as a shuttle, and my fingers as a comb. 
 The finished cloth was coarse and stiff but 
 wearable. For Felix's soft body, however, 
 I cut up my full skirts. 
 
 Ramon, though he busied himself with the 
 garden, with carving, and with the delicate 
 making of a violin, had a more active mind 
 than I. I could see that he grew restless, and 
 the Padre's face also became more thoughtful 
 with the approach of autumn. They talked 
 much together pacing back and forth under
 
 168 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 the trees or along the level edge of the cliffs. 
 As I watched them, looking up from my weav- 
 ing, I became aware suddenly that the top of 
 Ramon's head was on a level with the Padre's 
 ear. How tall he had grown without my 
 noticing it! My heart contracted. A year 
 had transformed him; the sinewy figure, 
 aquiline face, and straight carried head were 
 no longer those of a boy, but of a man. The 
 world upon which I looked out blurred before 
 my eyes. It lay, not far away, indeed, but 
 there where Ramon stood, almost within touch. 
 No wonder he was eager to push aside our 
 wicket gate and take his place in it ! 
 
 With the approach of harvest, Pico de Oro 
 too seemed to share our unrest and fared on 
 longer flights beyond La Paz. Felix voiced 
 the opinion that he was looking for his little 
 brothers, who would be coming southward 
 soon. Be that as it may, one evening he did 
 not return. Felix was sick with grief. That 
 night I took him into my own bed to comfort 
 him. But I slept too deeply, without ears.
 
 LEY FUGA 169 
 
 In the morning I woke to find my darling gone. 
 A hurried search showed that he was not in 
 the valley, and that the wicket was unhasped. 
 
 All day the Padre, Ramon and I searched, 
 each in a different direction. But the little 
 feet, shod in deerskin sandals, left no trace, 
 nor was there any undergrowth in the forests 
 on which shreds of his clothing might catch. 
 Occasionally through the day, I heard the faint 
 notes of Ramon's flute, with which he was in 
 the habit of calling Felix, or the shouts of the 
 Padre. But I listened in vain for any answer, 
 and continued on my way. Well on into the 
 evening, bright with moonlight, I sought him. 
 At length hunger and fatigue turned my steps 
 homeward. As I came out from the forest, 
 my heart leaped within me. From the top of 
 the mountain a pillar of smoke, shot with fire, 
 streamed heavenward. It was the signal we 
 had agreed on in case Felix was found. 
 
 I flew up the ridge to the gate. At another 
 time, I might have paused to wonder why it 
 was open. Now, I ran through unheeding, to
 
 170 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 come to a full stop before a sight which froze 
 my blood. 
 
 Were they men or devils, these painted, 
 feathered, half-naked creatures who trampled 
 our valley in a drunken, reeling dance, by the 
 light of our burning home ? And who was the 
 pivot of the wild orgy, standing garlanded 
 with flowers in the center? Could it be? it 
 was, Felix! His agonized eyes caught mine 
 on the instant. " 'Firia," he cried and started 
 to run to me. A blue-banded demon tripped 
 and held him. Others swarmed forward 
 angrily. But Ramon, unknown to me, had 
 entered the valley also. With a quick thrust, 
 he placed me behind him. 
 
 "Stand back," he shouted, aiming his pistol 
 at the leader. They cowered. "Bring me 
 the child, the child," he repeated pointing. 
 
 Either they could not or they would not 
 understand. Like bees, they clustered about 
 Felix, gesticulating and talking wildly in a 
 language we did not know. Undoubtedly 
 something terrible would have happened had
 
 LEY FUGA 171 
 
 not the Padre come just then, attracted by the 
 same signal we had seen so joyfully. At sight 
 of him, the demons became perfectly silent 
 and rigid. Suddenly, by one impulse, they 
 groveled on the ground. The Padre, taking- 
 no notice of them except to spurn them aside 
 with his feet, picked up the child and placed 
 him in my lap. 
 
 With folded arms he turned then and 
 regarded the prostrate figures. Presently he 
 spoke, in a voice of command. They re- 
 sponded by laying at his feet the strange herbs 
 by eating which they had transformed them- 
 selves from men for men they had been 
 into beasts. 
 
 The Padre spoke again; they attempted, 
 futilely, to put out the fire which was gutting 
 our little home. But they were too exhausted 
 with drugs and fasting; and the Padre, hud- 
 dling them into the ruined garden, addressed 
 himself to the task. Ramon and he worked 
 manfully, but even before they began to throw 
 on water the flames had licked the interior
 
 172 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 nearly bare. Our cave yawned a black and 
 smoking pit, our valley was devastated, and we 
 were once more homeless. From the debris, we 
 picked up enough scorched beans to satisfy 
 the sharpest pangs of hunger, and left La Paz, 
 never to return. 
 
 However, we did not go far. On the bank 
 of a stream in a gorge we knew well, we halted. 
 There the Padre, after satisfying himself that 
 Felix was unhurt, though terribly frightened, 
 went back to keep watch on the wretched 
 Indians above. These Indians, he explained 
 briefly, belonged to a tribe among whom he 
 had worked as a missionary. Their home was 
 in mountain fastnesses many leagues to the 
 south, but every year at the harvest time, it 
 had been their custom to pick by lot certain of 
 their men to make a pilgrimage to our moun- 
 tain top. There, in our cave, they believed, 
 lived the "Heart of the Mountains," to whom 
 they offered thanks for the harvest, and prayed 
 for rain. Sometimes, it was darkly whispered, 
 this offering used to take the form of human
 
 LEY FUGA 173 
 
 sacrifice. But Padre Francisco, during his 
 ministry, had persuaded them of the folly and 
 sin of all this observance, going with them 
 himself one year to the cave to celebrate the 
 sacrament there, and thus to purify it to the 
 service of God. From that time until the 
 present, the Padre believed, the cave had not 
 been visited. Still, he was well aware that 
 superstitions are long lived, and had counted 
 on this very fact and on the fear of the Moun- 
 tain God for leagues around to protect us in 
 our retreat. 
 
 After the Padre had left us, I picked the 
 last withered flowers from Felix's tufted hair, 
 shuddering to see them, and to think of the 
 horrible fate from which we had barely saved 
 him at the hands of those ignorant, frenzied 
 men. 
 
 "I was hunting Pico de Oro," Felix said, in 
 reply to our questions. "It did not seem far. 
 And I kept playing on the shepherd's pipe 
 Ramon made me. Pico de Oro always 
 answered that. But I could not find him, and
 
 174 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 I didn't know the way back. So, I went to 
 sleep. When I woke up, those those 
 creatures were all around me." 
 
 "Did they hurt you, darling?" I asked, 
 unable to forget the heavy fall one of the 
 painted devils had given him. 
 
 "I don't think so." He felt himself all over 
 gravely to make sure. "They were laughing 
 then, and heaped me with flowers, and made 
 me play for them on my pipes. But I was 
 frightened. When they carried me home, 
 even, I was frightened. And you were not 
 there." 
 
 "No, but we came, thank God " 
 
 Ramon, who had been stirring about, bring- 
 ing armfuls of soft needles for our beds, inter- 
 rupted. "Come, Felix, see the nice place 
 where you and Porfiria are to sleep." 
 
 In truth it was sweet and soft, with pine 
 branches above and pine needles below. 
 
 "But you," I said, "where will you sleep?" 
 
 "I shall not sleep to-night." 
 
 No coaxing could persuade him. Tired
 
 LEY FUGA 175 
 
 out, Felix and I dropped to sleep, safe in the 
 care of Ramon. 
 
 Quite late the next morning the Padre came, 
 and brought with him the chief of the Indian 
 village, who had been among the revelers of 
 the previous night. A very different man he 
 looked, with the paint washed off, his gray hair 
 combed, and a much ashamed expression on 
 his broad face. 
 
 "Ramon and Porfiria," the Padre said, "this 
 man is Tezpi, chief of the Tecos tribe, a tribe 
 of your own Tarascan blood. In other days 
 he was my very good friend. He says he 
 wishes to be so now." 
 
 "At your feet, Senor, Senorita," said the 
 Indian, sweeping off his hat with a gesture of 
 native grace. 
 
 "We are your servants," Ramon and I 
 responded in the greeting of our country. 
 But Felix regarded him without a sign. 
 
 "Tezpi has a remarkable proposal to make 
 us," the Padre continued. "I will give it to 
 you because his Spanish has become rusty with
 
 176 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 disuse. He asks us all to accompany him 
 to his village, and to live there with him." 
 
 Tezpi interrupted with deprecatory hands, 
 and a torrent of earnest words. 
 
 "He says he is unworthy, a pig of a man, and 
 that all his tribe are pigs," the Father trans- 
 lated literally. "But I think they are truly 
 sorry for their heathen backsliding." 
 
 Tears came to the old Indian's eyes. Slowly 
 he articulated his supplication : "Come, teach 
 us, make us good."
 
 PART III 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 "'VT'E shall have a song, as in the night . . . 
 
 * and gladness of heart as when one 
 goeth . . . into the mountains of the Lord." 
 
 Such was the text from which Padre Fran- 
 cisco preached his sermon the first Sunday 
 after our arrival in the hamlet of Huitzitzi- 
 lin. 90 To me, kneeling with Ramon and Felix 
 among the ragged Indians on the flags of the 
 dilapidated church, it seemed incredible that 
 he could feel the hope that the verse expressed. 
 As his voice flowed melodiously along in the 
 native speech, almost unintelligible to us, my 
 mind occupied itself with pictures of the 
 journey with Tezpi and his followers thirty 
 leagues through the mountains from La Paz. 
 Our way had led through forests more luxu- 
 riantly beautiful than those we had traversed 
 
 before, with every leaf and flower renewed by 
 
 179
 
 i8o THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 reason of the summer rains. Never had I 
 imagined a world so wholly lovely. Yet all 
 the beauty about us seemed marred by our 
 companions, dirty, hopeless-eyed, bearing the 
 stamp of moral and physical starvation. And 
 at the end of the journey, to what hovels had 
 we come, ruinous, vermin-infested, squalid! 
 Even in the church, I could hear the unseemly 
 noise of fighting dogs and squealing pigs. 
 
 Nevertheless, the kindness of heart of our 
 guide and of his people, who had come forth to 
 welcome us as if we were of a superior race, 
 and strewn our way with flowers, could not 
 fail to touch my heart. They seemed espe- 
 cially attracted to Felix, as if trying to make 
 up to him for the inhuman fright they had 
 caused him, and this thoughtfulness naturally 
 won me as nothing else could have done. As 
 I looked about the dim church, and saw one 
 face after another light up with the Padre's 
 words, hope began to enter my soul also. 
 Were they not my kindred, members even, as 
 the Padre had told me, of my own heroic,
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 181 
 
 scattered tribe ? What unmerited misfortune, 
 I wondered, had reduced them to their present 
 misery? 
 
 The location of Huitzitzilin was ideal, on 
 the edge of a forest glade of rich pasturage, 
 and shaded by palms, papayas, 9 * and other 
 tropical trees. The gentle slope in front of 
 the village was dotted with wild apricots, 
 oranges, peaches and cherries, self-sown in 
 lovely orchards, and was bounded by a wind- 
 ing stream. At some distance above the 
 village, bold crags jutted from among the 
 trees, through which the stream, so peaceful 
 in the meadow, fell in loud cascades. Houses 
 and fences were hung with scarlet trumpet 
 vines and yellow honeysuckle; as if nature 
 tried to blot out in fragrance and color man's 
 squalor and ugliness. 
 
 The Padre's first care, naturally, was that we 
 ourselves should be decently housed. Under 
 his and Ramon's directions a cottage was 
 soon built for us, more substantial than those 
 of the Village of the Shield, and with more
 
 182 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 rooms than most of those contained. Set 
 somewhat apart from the hamlet, and on 
 higher ground, it was fresh and clean. A 
 fence of braided straw, quickly covered with 
 vines, inclosed enough ground for a garden. 
 
 But our garden bore strange fruit that year. 
 The maize, which is the staple crop of all our 
 country, had not been raised in the village 
 fields for two years. After succeeding 
 seasons of dry rot and drouth, had come the 
 war. There was no longer left in the region a 
 kernel of seed corn to plant. At least, there 
 had not been until Tezpi's desperate expedition 
 to La Paz had yielded him our little crop. For 
 all their drunken thanksgiving to the Mountain 
 God, the Indians had guarded the bulk of this 
 treasure well, and brought home the yellow 
 ears, worth more to them than gold. The 
 Padre, in his unsown garden, prepared in his 
 own way for the planting of this corn. 
 
 Hither, through the winter, came, not only 
 the children, but the grown fathers and 
 mothers of the village, to the open-air classes
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 183 
 
 he taught. Cleanliness and patriotism were 
 the first lessons the children learned there. 
 Their elders learned also the simple laws of 
 health, and a Christianity that laid stress on 
 deeds, rather than on catechisms. 
 
 It did not take three months for a great 
 change to be effected in the village. One day 
 in the spring, after the fields had been plowed 
 and the precious corn planted in the earth, 
 Tezpi lingered to talk with the Padre. 
 
 "Little Father," he said, "we, your children, 
 have had it in our thoughts these two moons to 
 repair the church." His eyes traveled from 
 the Padre to the furrowed fields. "God, who 
 rewarded our evil with blessing on the moun- 
 tain yonder, we wish to honor Him." 
 
 "Bien, muy Uen," 92 cried Padre Francisco. 
 "It is what I have been waiting for you to do. 
 For, look you, Tezpi, the church is your church, 
 not my church. It will be what you your- 
 selves make it, in spirit as in form." 
 
 Tezpi went away, evidently pondering much. 
 I, too, pondered and began to understand the
 
 184 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 Padre's method. He created the desire for 
 good and inevitably the desire fulfilled itself. 
 As I looked back, I saw that he had done this 
 always, with us, as with these latest children 
 of his love. From church to school house, 
 from cleanliness to the building of an acequia 93 
 which carried water from the falls past the 
 door of every house, the progress of the com- 
 munity was steady. Yet the Padre's hand in 
 it was not apparent; he merely taught the 
 school day by day. 
 
 There were many maidens in the village, of 
 my age, and youths who began to look to 
 Ramon for leadership. Most of the men and 
 boys played the guitar, the violin or the flute, 
 for the love of music is universal among us. 
 These Ramon gathered together for regular 
 practice, until he had formed a band. Soon, 
 on moonlight nights in the little square facing 
 the church, long files of youths and maidens 
 walked decorously round and round to the 
 tune of the lilting melodies, while their elders 
 sat on benches beneath the lime trees watching,
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 185 
 
 listening, and enjoying their evening smoke. 
 On these occasions, I walked with Felix, and 
 what with sharing his childish delight, and 
 glancing now and then at Ramon, who seemed 
 to me to be unlocking music from my very soul, 
 I thought myself in heaven. 
 
 Nahua, Tezpi's oldest daughter, was of 
 about my age. A comely, neat-looking girl, 
 she was most in my company of all the village 
 maids. One day, she and Felix and I walked 
 in the meadows, and Felix made a chaplet of 
 flowers for each of us to wear. Coming home 
 we passed the little reservoir which now 
 formed the center of the village square. 
 
 Nahua stopped and called me over to the 
 edge. "Look," she said, "see what a pretty 
 picture we make !" 
 
 Quite startled by a thought which had never 
 occurred to me before, I peered into the water. 
 Two faces wreathed in flowers confronted me, 
 hers lighter than mine, her eyes like blue con- 
 volvuli, her hair reddened beneath its black 
 gloss by the sun. My brownness, so like that
 
 i86 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 of all my people, was commonplace beside her 
 unusual beauty. As if I had never seen her 
 before, as in truth I had not, I remained star- 
 ing at the contrast. Suddenly another face 
 appeared above ours, that of Ramon. He 
 dropped his arm lightly on my shoulder and 
 drew me away. 
 
 The spell was broken. I said goodnight to 
 Nahua and went home with him. But the 
 thought of beauty in any relation to me was 
 new and troubling. She was lovely, lovely as 
 the orchids that grew in the forest. And 
 Ramon's eyes had seemed to me to linger on 
 her at the pool. 
 
 "Ramon," I asked, "where, think you, does 
 Nahua get her fair beauty? It is not Indian, 
 it is not Spanish, it is," my mind sought for a 
 comparison, "like the whiteness of the ftori- 
 pundio." 94 
 
 "Tezpi told me the other day, " ah, he had 
 noticed, then "that it was from her mother, 
 who belonged to a hill tribe of fair men and 
 women like that. They have a legend among
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 187 
 
 them that this race came in ships from an 
 island empire overseas which was destroyed, 
 many ages ago, by a great flood." 
 
 "But that is not like our legends, nor like 
 the Bible," I objected. 
 
 "I know not," he said quietly. "To me all 
 legends have a similarity. The Tarascan ark, 
 in which all kinds of animals were saved, and 
 the humming-bird (for which this village is 
 named) which flew forth over the face of the 
 waters, are they not like the story of Noah 
 which the Padre tells us ? The ocean, he him- 
 self says, covered more of the earth's surface 
 in ages gone than it does now, and all of our 
 legends, that of the ark, and of Quetzalcoatl, 
 the great and good god of the Aztecs, 95 and 
 this of Nahua's people, point to a coming of 
 our races from other lands across the water, 
 who knows whence, or when?" 
 
 I relapsed into silence, feeling as if a mist, 
 like that which used to fall suddenly on our 
 mountain top, had enveloped me, and I were 
 lost in the dimness of antiquity. Out of it
 
 188 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 shone the face of Quetzalcoatl, the beneficent, 
 who had taught the ancient Aztecs long ago, 
 even as the Padre was teaching this poor rem- 
 nant of a tribe to-day, the ways of righteous- 
 ness. The ark of the Tarascans once more 
 rode the waste of waters, and far in the dis- 
 tance I descried the shadowy shores of that 
 mysterious island from which they, and we, 
 had come. Good indeed, and human was the 
 touch of Felix's warm fingers, which roused 
 me from my reverie. 
 
 But the thought of our relations to an even 
 greater world than the Padre had been able 
 to make me see a world in which we of 
 Indian blood seemed cut off mysteriously from 
 him, as from all the civilized races of the 
 present, haunted my mind. I recalled the 
 stories he had told me of noble ruins of temples 
 and cities which dot our land, made by 
 unknown hands and crumbled by time before 
 the advent of the Spaniards four hundred 
 years ago. To that unrecorded age belonged 
 our fables, and from the mighty race which
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 189 
 
 had built those massive monuments we, the 
 despoiled Indians, were descended. It gave 
 new significance to the bursting pride I had 
 always felt when my grandfather held Ramon 
 and me spellbound by the hero-tales of our own 
 tribe, and their deeds of valor in the cause of 
 liberty. We Tarascos were the last of all the 
 Indian nations to submit to the Spanish yoke; 
 scattered into the mountains and on the lake 
 shore, some of us had never submitted. Oh, 
 that we had the strength to enlarge our free- 
 dom until it should embrace all the oppressed 
 of our race ! 
 
 This line of reasoning brought me by a cir- 
 cuitous route to the question which I knew was 
 uppermost in the mind of Ramon : What had 
 been the course of the Revolution from which 
 we had fled, and what the fate of our friends 
 in it? Though he and the Padre had ques- 
 tioned Tezpi and his people closely, they had 
 been able to learn nothing from them. Nor 
 did they dare, in the precarious condition of 
 our fortunes, attempt to find out in any of the
 
 190 
 
 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 small hamlets we skirted on our journey. The 
 mountain tribes, shy even in so-called times of 
 peace, for when were the Indios ever left in 
 peace? were now doubly suspicious of 
 strangers. The fear of bandits and spies and 
 pressgangs kept them well away from contact 
 with any whom they did not know. 
 
 At last, however, a rumor in some under- 
 ground way reached the village, and Tezpi 
 came over one evening to acquaint the Padre 
 with it.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 FROM the kitchen, where I was grinding 
 the new and precious cornmeal for the 
 morning tortillas, I could distinguish only the 
 salutations that passed between the Padre, 
 Ramon and Tezpi as he came in at the gate. 
 The harsher voice of Tezpi continued, broken 
 by the slow-spoken words of the Padre, and 
 the eager interrogations of Ramon. Then fell 
 a long interval of silence, and there was 
 wafted to me the fragrance of tobacco. Evi- 
 dently Tezpi's communication was important, 
 and required thought. 
 
 Into this silence fell suddenly Felix's child- 
 ish treble. "Ramon, I am so sleepy ; have you 
 forgotten to put me to bed?" 
 
 I rose to get the boy, but had not reached the 
 door of the kitchen when I was arrested by the 
 minor chords of the lullaby which Ramon so 
 often sang to him. 
 
 191
 
 192 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 "Sleep, sleep, sleep," sang the voice, but it 
 was the cracked voice of Tezpi, and not that of 
 Ramon, 
 
 An exclamation interrupted the singer, 
 followed by excitement in which all three 
 seemed to be talking at once. Felix, for- 
 gotten, ran out to me. 
 
 "Little mother, come, Ramon is fighting 
 Tezpi, and the Padre, too. Come and stop 
 them." 
 
 But there was no fighting to be stopped when 
 I reached the garden. Instead, Ramon, weep- 
 ing, was locked in Tezpi's arms. The Padre 
 stood in an attitude of blessing above them. 
 He was praying. Confusedly I heard the 
 words, "This my son, which was lost, and is 
 found." 
 
 I stood looking for some minutes in aston- 
 ishment and mute dismay. No one of the 
 group, least of all my brother, noticed me. 
 Unreasoning, a fierce anger swept me. He 
 was my brother. Tezpi, Nahua, no one should 
 take him away from me. Yet if he wanted to
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 193 
 
 go? I stole noiselessly from the room, picked 
 up Felix, and ran out into the night. 
 
 Hours later, Ramon found me face down- 
 ward, sobbing, beside the cataract. 
 
 "Little sister ?" he said as his foot stumbled 
 against me in the dark. "Ah, I thought I 
 should find you here." He sat down beside 
 me, and tried to lift my head to his lap. 
 
 I resisted, refusing to be moved. 
 
 "But what is it? I have never seen you like 
 this, Porfiria!" 
 
 I made no sign; I could not. 
 
 He began again presently, in the even, sooth- 
 ing voice he used to quiet Felix. "Listen, a 
 great joy has come to me. You, with whom 
 I have shared so many sorrows, to whom else 
 should I turn to share this?" 
 
 "I was not asked to share it," I muttered. 
 
 Perhaps Ramon did not hear me. At any 
 rate, he began softly to stroke my hair and 
 continued : 
 
 "You were too little to remember the day 
 when your father brought me home. But I
 
 194 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 can never forget. There were five other chil- 
 dren, your brothers and sisters, and you, a 
 baby, in your mother's arms. The hut was 
 small and your father only a fisherman, and 
 poor, as all Indians seem to be. Yet your 
 mother's heart opened when she saw me, lying 
 half drowned and altogether wretched, in your 
 father's arms. She asked no questions, even, 
 but laid you down quickly, and caught me up 
 and warmed me on her heart." 
 
 I listened, but what had this to do with the 
 present? I reached over to tuck my rebozo 
 more carefully about little Felix, who had 
 fallen asleep beside me. 
 
 Ramon noticed the gesture. "Porfiria, even 
 as you care for Felix, I cared for you, when 
 you and I were left with the dear grandparents 
 after you were orphaned. Your people became 
 my people, until gradually I forgot that I had 
 ever had another home. Only the lullaby with 
 which my mother sang me to sleep remained of 
 all my memories, and that because I sang it 
 to you, night after night, beside the lake.
 
 MY MOTHER
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 195 
 
 To-night I heard that lullaby from other lips 
 for the first time since I was a baby." 
 
 He continued talking, but my mind was in a 
 whirl, and the words escaped me, even then. 
 In a flash, I saw the meaning of the scene in 
 the garden from which I had fled, and, not only 
 that, but of the heretofore unintelligible 
 jealousy in my heart. Tezpi was Ramon's 
 father and Nahua his sister. Who, then, was 
 I? 
 
 Had I been younger, I would have thrown 
 myself upon Ramon in a passion of grief, and 
 implored him to answer the question. As it 
 was, I gathered myself up in a silent, miserable 
 heap, and made an effort to listen once more. 
 
 "Dear Porfiria," he was saying, "I told you 
 that it was a great joy to me to have found my 
 kindred perhaps, had my mother lived, I 
 might have felt the tie more strongly. But 
 to-night, see, I have come from my father's 
 house to you. How shall I live without you, 
 or apart from you, or not plan for you, my 
 sister, my all ?"
 
 196 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 Strong emotion swept him, and I in my outer 
 darkness trembled in unison. How indeed 
 should we cease the comradeship of years, or 
 admit to a closer relation those who but yes- 
 terday had been as strangers? I could not 
 doubt his suffering. I saw that neither 
 Nahua's beauty, nor Tezpi's authority weighed 
 with Ramon against his attachment to me. 
 Brown, and plain, and destitute as I was, he 
 held me his sister, the child of his benefactors, 
 to whom he was bound by a thousand habitual 
 ties. 
 
 For a long time neither of us spoke, but my 
 hand sought his and he held it close. 
 
 "I am not unmindful of my duties to my 
 father and to my tribe," Ramon said, at length. 
 "Nor are they unreasonable, but simple and 
 humble, as you know. But I have belonged, 
 heart and soul, to the misfortunes of your 
 people. It was only to-night that Tezpi 
 brought news which, at last, gives me hope that 
 we may yet find Don Luis." 
 
 "News of Don Luis, Ramon?"
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 197 
 
 "Nay, not directly, but of the course of the 
 Revolution. Madero is dead, and a new dic- 
 tator rules in Mexico. The dungeons of San 
 Juan de Uloa have been opened, and the 
 prisoners released." 
 
 "Can it be true ?" I questioned, awestruck by 
 the immensity of the possibilities unfolded. 
 For three hundred years the gates of San Juan 
 de Uloa had closed on political suspects as 
 inexorably as those of death itself. By no 
 other avenue could release come to the unhappy 
 souls in it. 
 
 "The word was brought by a bandido from 
 these parts, who was set free at the time, Tezpi 
 said. To-morrow I shall see the man myself." 
 
 How long Ramon and I might have 
 remained talking in the darkness that drew us 
 so close, like the perplexities which surrounded 
 us, I do not know. It was not so much to 
 learn of Ramon's plans, which he himself had 
 not yet made. Unconsciously I clung to these, 
 which proved to be our last moments alone. 
 Even the thought of the Padre did not obtrude.
 
 198 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 As if in a dream, far off, I heard the uneasy 
 tumble of the cataract, like the clamor of the 
 outer world that called us. 
 
 But Felix, whose sleep was troubled, waked 
 and began to cry. He was cold and uncom- 
 fortable, and wanted to be put to bed. I 
 gathered him up and gave him to Ramon. 
 Hand in hand, we walked silently home. 
 
 The light which streamed from the cottage 
 showed that the Padre was still up. He met 
 us at the door with an anxious, thoughtful look, 
 But aside from giving us an especially loving 
 blessing, he said nothing, and I passed on at 
 once to my chamber. There, until the dawn 
 broke, I heard Ramon and the Padre talking. 
 At length the voices blurred and blended and 
 became those of the cataract, calling, calling, 
 calling my Ramon away. 
 
 When I woke, Ramon had gone. Incredible 
 as it seemed, it was true. He had gone to 
 Mexico, the Padre said, to find Don Luis. 
 The loneliness I felt was a physical sickness. 
 The Padre, even Felix, appeared unreal and
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 199 
 
 without reason. I had no ears for the Padre's 
 explanation that it was wiser so, and that 
 Ramon had thought to save me pain. I only 
 knew that I, who up till now had been Ramon's 
 comrade and the confidante of all our plans, 
 was suddenly shut out, not even asked to 
 pack his little bundle for the journey. 
 
 I went about the house. There, in his room, 
 was left the sash he ought to have worn; on 
 the loom was a cloak, finished except for the 
 border, which I had intended to have ready 
 for him to wear at the Feast of the Virgin of 
 Guadalupe ; 96 in the kitchen no breakfast had 
 been made ready, and no food touched. 
 
 All day, while the Padre was away at the 
 school, or caring for other community inter- 
 ests, my loneliness increased. Not till then 
 did I realize how much Ramon and I had been 
 together, in our care of each other and of Felix, 
 since our settling in the village. Sometimes 
 it had been only for a snatch of something to 
 eat, or to work in the garden or among the bee- 
 hives we once more kept, that he appeared, but
 
 200 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 sometimes for whole heavenly afternoons he, 
 Felix and I, sat under the trees by the cool 
 cataract while he played his flute, or carved 
 his wonderful violin. 
 
 It was there that we remembered together 
 the dangers and sorrows through which we 
 had passed, and spoke bravely of the future, 
 marveling what it might hold in store. What 
 had become of Lola, of Almonte, of Ramon's 
 master, and uppermost always in our thoughts, 
 of Don Luis? Some day, we knew, we must 
 go forth to find the answers. But the time of 
 our going we left to the Padre. That our 
 quest should involve separation, was, to me, a 
 new and terrible thought. 
 
 Even less than I had done before Ramon's 
 departure could I bring myself now to mingle 
 with the village girls. I answered when they 
 spoke to me, and went with them when I was 
 asked. But I did not seek them. That they 
 were Ramon's people, and entitled to my 
 interest, the Padre told me again and again. 
 It made no difference. And when Tezpi and
 
 TE2PI AND NAHUA
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 201 
 
 Nahua coaxed me out and talked to me of 
 Ramon, I answered them at random. 
 
 We had in reality only one interest in com- 
 mon, our concern that we had heard no word 
 either of Ramon or of the bandit it was his 
 intention to see when he left. This last, 
 though disquieting, was not unnatural. In 
 our troublous times, when all, the innocent 
 with the guilty, were hunted, wariness was 
 one's best defense. Acting on this theory, the 
 bandit had probably betaken himself to regions 
 even more remote than ours. 
 
 As the days dragged by, Felix became my 
 greatest comfort, as he had been at the 
 hacienda long before. His little fingers 
 probed my wounds so innocently, and healed 
 them by awakening the happy memories we 
 shared. He felt no aloofness toward any one ; 
 how should he whose heart was so full of love ? 
 But the village, while it adored him, regarded 
 him as of a different world. This was not 
 due to his parentage, for he was still supposed 
 to be my younger brother, but to the real
 
 202 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 nobility of his nature. How shall I describe 
 him? Whether it were his eyes, gray like 
 agates, yet deep as the rippled lake, his 
 gracious mouth, upcurved in laughter or 
 sweetly grave, his thoughtful forehead, his 
 perfect stature, or the spirit that informed all 
 with loveliness, I know not which were most 
 endearing, or most to be cherished. Could 
 Dona Marina, his mother, have seen him, I 
 think even her heart would have been satisfied. 
 To her and to the Madonna also I prayed for 
 guidance, as I taught him of the beautiful 
 mother who awaited him in heaven. But I 
 sorrowed that here on earth she might not 
 know his love.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 TEZPI, the chief or alcalde, of the Tecos 
 village, was also the wise man of the 
 tribe. This was in accordance with the 
 ancient custom of our people, whose king was 
 the high priest as well. Before the time of 
 the Conquistador es, before even the Aztecs 
 rose to power in the Valley of Mexico, the 
 Tarascos had governed thousands of leagues 
 of fertile land in the heart of our country. 
 Moctezuma never subdued them to become a 
 part of his empire, nor did the Spaniards ever 
 hold sway over us, though by treachery they 
 killed our king and stole our riches and our 
 lands. Indeed, had it not been for the influ- 
 ence of the Church, we should have had noth- 
 ing more to do with the enemies of our country. 
 Thus, at least, Tezpi and the Padre dis- 
 coursed on the history of our race in the cool 
 
 203
 
 204 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 of the evening, beneath the orange trees. A 
 certain Bishop Quiroga was sent by the Span- 
 ish king to govern us, after our confidence had 
 been so shamefully abused by his predecessors. 
 He, by means of kindness and justice, induced 
 our ancestors to leave the caves and crags 
 where they had taken refuge from the Span- 
 iards, and to return to their homes. Cities he 
 built and churches, and fostered the native in- 
 dustries, and taught by precept and example 
 the way of Christ. 
 
 Once more, then, the Tarascan men took up 
 the crafts for which they had long been fa- 
 mous, the cutting of stone and the working of 
 copper ; and once more their women wove blue 
 cotton stuffs, and lacquered gay dishes of 
 gourds. But the most notable of our arts fell 
 into disuse with the fall of our monarchy. The 
 beautiful embroideries of feather-work, of 
 which the robes of kings and courtiers had 
 been made, were needed no more. Yet the 
 Tarascan merchants, who in those older days 
 had set forth in great companies, and traded
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 205 
 
 as far as Guatemala on the south and the Rio 
 Grande on the north, still kept up the tradi- 
 tions of their guild. So lately as the Padre's 
 last visit to Huitzitzilin ten years before, they 
 had gone, in smaller bands to be sure, twice 
 a year over the mountains to Mexico City and 
 the coast of the Pacific to market their wares. 
 
 "How came it about, Tezpi," I heard the 
 Padre ask one evening, "that these caravans 
 were given up? Was it on account of the 
 war?" 
 
 "No, not in the first place/' Tezpi replied. 
 "Our misfortunes began with the mildew that 
 rotted our corn six years ago. That was fol- 
 lowed by a year of drouth, and then came the 
 war. You remember us as a thrifty tribe, 
 owning cattle and horses, and tilling many up- 
 land ranches, besides our village lands. Last 
 fall, when we went to the mountain," his eyes 
 sought the ground in momentary shame, "it 
 was to pray to the God for our very lives. We 
 had no longer horses, cattle, or corn, nor hope 
 left in our hearts."
 
 206 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 "Hope was what you most needed, Tezpi," 
 said the Padre, looking out over the fertile 
 glade where water brought from the cataract 
 rendered the disaster of another drouth im- 
 possible. "Here were you starving in the 
 midst of plenty. It is but another picture of 
 your unhappy country, so blessed by God with 
 all riches, and so accursed by man that you 
 have no longer the eyes to see, nor the will to 
 use, his gifts !" 
 
 That the soul and genius of our downtrod- 
 den race should not die, but live, revivifying 
 Mexico, I had long since learned was the pur- 
 pose of all Padre Francisco's endeavors. If 
 he could rouse to life a spirit of honor and in- 
 dependence, even in this small corner of our 
 country, he would be following in the foot- 
 steps of Hidalgo and Quiroga and undoing, to 
 the measure of his ability, the wrongs inflicted 
 by the tyranny of church and state. Thus it 
 came about that he seemed to take less inter- 
 est than formerly in the course of outward 
 events, and threw all his energy into the task
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 207 
 
 which he had set himself. Now that Ramon 
 was gone, there was more need of finding 
 wholesome employment for the young men of 
 the village, who missed his leadership. 
 
 The Padre therefore determined to revive 
 the dyeing industry for which the hamlet had 
 once been famous. Because of our own wars 
 and, as we had already learned in Lerma, of 
 the wars in Europe, the foreign-made chemical ' 
 dyes were no longer obtainable. This pre- 
 sented an unusually good opportunity for our 
 stuffs, could they be transported to market. 
 Fields were again planted with indigo, and 
 old men taught the younger ones their cultiva- 
 tion and the making of the dye. The revival 
 of the dyeing meant a corresponding stimulus 
 among the women in weaving. From forgot- 
 ten corners old patterns were brought out to 
 be copied. Cotton fields vied with indigo 
 fields in luxuriance. That winter almost the 
 entire yield of cotton was made up in blue and 
 white. There was cloth by the yard, coarse 
 for skirts, and finer for waists. But the pride
 
 208 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 of the village went into the making of rebozos, 
 with diapered borders, and curiously knotted 
 fringes. 
 
 We had sheep also in our district, and the 
 Padre saw to it that they had good pasturage 
 and water, to improve their coats. This wool, 
 when carded and spun, was also dyed and 
 woven into blankets and tilmas, as the short 
 cloaks of the men were called. 
 
 Every one, it seemed, who was not engaged 
 in these various processes, was busy manufac- 
 turing gicaras. 97 These were dishes, of vary- 
 ing sizes, made from calabash gourds. The 
 gourds, when dried, were lacquered in red and 
 inlaid in blue in designs of birds and flowers. 
 Very gay they were in appearance, and durable 
 also. All our table dishes, including ladles and 
 cups, were made of this ware. 
 
 Gradually, a sort of trade was built up be- 
 tween our village and other hamlets similarly 
 hidden among the mountains, the Padre usu- 
 ally accompanying the men chosen to market
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 209 
 
 our commodities. But as he went to and fro 
 with them, he came home with tales of misery 
 and hopelessness that wrung his heart. Ex- 
 cept for one or two villages where thrift and 
 sobriety ruled, all were in the condition of 
 shiftless starvation in which we had found 
 Huitzitzilin when we first came to it. But see- 
 ing the benefits of our industry, and hearing 
 the Padre or Tezpi in the market places exhort 
 to better living, made its impression. The vil- 
 lages began to send delegations to the Padre 
 imploring that he come and teach them in 
 turn. 
 
 Doubtless Padre Francisco would have ac- 
 ceded to some of these demands, had it not 
 been for Felix and me. Many a time I saw 
 him regard us with troubled eyes, his soul 
 yearning for the wider usefulness to which, 
 without thought of personal comfort or safety, 
 he longed to give himself. Yet Felix he held 
 as a dying charge from Dona Marina, his ben- 
 efactress, and me he ever regarded as the al-
 
 210 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 most miraculous preserver of his life. He 
 could not leave us, even with Tezpi, and go in 
 peace. 
 
 Therefore, with Tezpi's consent, he por- 
 tioned out among these communities, men of 
 our village, strong of character, to live there 
 with their families and, as he put it in his 
 special service when he sent them forth, "to be 
 a light in a dark place." To the communities 
 in need of it, were sent also quotas of seed 
 corn. Thus it came about that in a year's time, 
 our village developed a spiritual and material 
 leadership among the mountains, for several 
 leagues around. Gradually each village, fos- 
 tered in this way in its native resources, 
 whether the making of potteries, the tilling of 
 corn, or the raising of sheep, and quickened 
 in spirit, sought counsel not only from the 
 Padre, but from Tezpi as well. 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, that this 
 development was entirely tranquil, though 
 among the villagers themselves there were few 
 enmities. Whatever disputes arose, were set-
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 211 
 
 tied immediately the Padre appeared. All 
 loved him and looked up to him, understanding 
 to a greater or less degree that he loved them 
 enough to give his life, as he was doing, for 
 their betterment. "Greater love hath no man 
 than this," he preached. They looked at his 
 shining face, caught his inspiration, and fol- 
 lowed humbly where he led. 
 
 But the increasing turbulence of the times, 
 though we were neither prosperous nor numer- 
 ous enough to be drawn from our out-of-the- 
 way corner into any of the factions fighting 
 for power, was manifest in growing lawless- 
 ness throughout the mountains. In the quick 
 succession of governments in Mexico, and the 
 rise and fall of their adherents, our very inac- 
 cessibility invited refugees, even as it had in- 
 vited us. The bandit who had escaped from 
 San Juan de Uloa was but the first of numbers 
 seeking asylum. Sometimes they were only 
 the straggling remnants of a village looted, be- 
 cause it lay in the path of contending forces; 
 sometimes they were the looters themselves,
 
 212 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 recuperating on their way to richer prizes. At 
 other times the stranger in our midst proved 
 to be a deserting soldier, or a hunted political 
 chief. From all except those in distress, both 
 the hereditary instinct of the Indians and the 
 counsel of the Padre, held us aloof. Each vil- 
 lage posted sentries and sent the word of such 
 arrivals on from one to another, either by 
 couriers, or by signal fires. If the visitors 
 seemed likely to pass near any habitation, the 
 women and children were secreted and the 
 flocks driven to safe shelters. But the men, 
 for the Tarascos are as brave now as in the 
 days of our last Calzontzin remained to pro- 
 tect their property, if need be, with their 
 lives. 
 
 Undoubtedly this intrepidity saved us from 
 the attacks of our frequently unwelcome 
 guests. But the total absence of roads, and 
 the inaccessibility of our villages were our 
 chief protection. Thus we in Huitzitzilin had 
 seen only the bandit, of all those of whom we 
 had been warned.
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 213 
 
 The Padre, going from village to village, on 
 donkey-back or on foot, was naturally far more 
 exposed than we. Nor was there in those days 
 protection in the habit of priest or nun. Those 
 who were most ardent for liberty, were most 
 bitter against the Church for its abuses. I 
 was full of anxiety, therefore, on his account. 
 To add to my concern, he made light of the 
 danger, and even courted for himself the con- 
 tact he advised against for others, in the hope 
 of gleaning information of the outside world. 
 
 These chance encounters of his had been 
 fruitful of many startling disclosures, and, so 
 far, of no ill. The news of the fall of Presi- 
 dent Madero was followed by intelligence of 
 the fall of his successor. A certain Carranza, 
 a lawyer, the Padre learned, was now in power, 
 and most significant of the temper of his rule, 
 had abolished the office of jefe politico. I can 
 well remember the Padre's excitement when 
 he came home with this news. 
 
 "Porfiria," said he, "mark my words. No 
 more important event has happened in the his-
 
 214 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 tory of your country these thirty years. With 
 every upheaval we have had the same watch- 
 word: Land for the peones, but each time it 
 has proved a mirage above the limitless desert 
 of oppression and injustice. Here, by con- 
 trast, is a deed. What will it not mean to be 
 free of the espionage of an agent paid by and 
 responsible only to the oppressor? Justice is 
 beginning. Would to God that it might have 
 come earlier, to save us all." 
 
 He relapsed into silence, and I knew he was 
 thinking of Dona Marina and her terrible fate. 
 He had not forgotten: I began to see that, 
 for all his preoccupation which left me doubly 
 lonely, the misfortunes of the hacienda were 
 still the mainsprings of his activities. 
 
 That night his hand rested with added kind- 
 ness upon my head. "Courage, Porfiria; we 
 shall yet hear of Ramon and Don Luis. God 
 is working out his own plan for them and for 
 us." He stood for some minutes looking at 
 me and at little Felix, whom I had just tucked 
 into bed. Then, with a quick motion, he
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 
 
 215 
 
 brushed the hair from my forehead, and 
 stooped and kissed it. "Never think, child, 
 that I do not understand your heartache. I 
 also pray for Ramon."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 SOFTENED by Padre Francisco's sym- 
 pathy, I began to take a more normal and 
 human interest in our surroundings. It no 
 longer seemed unbearable to me to listen of an 
 evening in the plaza to the music which Felix 
 so loved. What if Ramon were not in his ac- 
 customed place ? The music, at least, was his ! 
 A message, almost, it seemed from him to me. 
 And when Nahua joined me, timidly at first, 
 and walked with us beneath the limes, I found 
 that the praise of Ramon sounded sweet to 
 me, even from her lips. After all, she was 
 only half-sister to Ramon, her mother belong- 
 ing to an entirely different tribe. Thus she 
 seemed, to my mind, to have a less direct claim 
 upon him. My love, almost against my will, 
 responded to hers, and again I went with her 
 to the woods and the fields. 
 
 But it was little five-year-old Felix who 
 216
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 217 
 
 brought my numb heart back to life. How 
 really lonely he was ! I did not realize it until 
 one day I heard him talking to some children 
 who lived at the lower end of the village. 
 They belonged to a shiftless group of families 
 that had not profited by Padre Francisco's 
 teaching nor the example of our neighbors. 
 Yet the children, who had nothing lovely at 
 home, had a love of beauty which brought them 
 often to our garden, with its wealth of blos- 
 soms and flitting humming-birds. There they 
 clustered about the gate, and with their wistful 
 glances, begged for flowers. 
 
 We had now come to Holy Week, and there 
 had been much talk of decorating the altars in 
 the church for the Easter services. Birds 
 were to be used likewise ; and Felix already had 
 a dozen cages of humming-birds, mocking 
 birds, song sparrows and thrushes which he 
 and I had snared. These were to be kept till 
 Easter morning, when they were all to be set 
 free among the flowers in the church. Every 
 one in the village, and in the villages round
 
 218 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 about, had been urged by the Padre to bring 
 an offering of birds or flowers. The service 
 was their service, and thus they could take part 
 in it. 
 
 But the poor "little shameless ones," as 
 Felix called our ragged children, what could 
 they bring? Some such thought must have 
 been in his mind on the Saturday of Glory 
 when I heard him, in his sweet voice, ask the 
 children in. There were perhaps a dozen of 
 them, as I could see from the porch where I 
 was setting the last stitches in the embroidery 
 of my holiday chemise. With childish dignity, 
 he showed them everything: the bees in their 
 neat hives beneath the myrtle trees; the birds 
 in cages hung among the cool, green orange 
 leaves; and the flowers, roses, violets, lilies, 
 Virgin's Mantles, and a score of others, which 
 made our little yard a paradise of scent and 
 color. For each child he picked a bouquet, 
 prattling the while of "the little San Fran- 
 cisco," who so loved the children, the birds, 
 and the flowers.
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 219 
 
 "And who is he ?" I heard one urchin ask. 
 
 Felix stopped in amazement. "Have you 
 never heard my Padre in the church?" His 
 glance went from one to another. 
 
 Most of the children shook their heads. 
 
 "But see then, that is why you are so poor 
 and so dirty. Come with me, and I will tell 
 you of him." 
 
 At that moment, a message was brought 
 from Nahua, asking me to help her in mak- 
 ing the church ready for the festival, and I 
 went. 
 
 When I returned, some two hours later, 
 Felix was not in the garden. Evidently the 
 children had coaxed him away. At last I 
 found him, beside the path the goatherds trav- 
 eled to the mountain pastures. He was seated 
 with his back to me, and in a circle about him 
 were not only the ragged children he had be- 
 friended, but perhaps a score more, drinking in 
 the story he was telling. So pretty a picture 
 as they made on the greensward in the flecked 
 light and shadow cast by a mighty oak tree,
 
 220 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 Felix expounding, and they listening, I have 
 never seen. 
 
 I stole up quietly behind him. He was still 
 talking of St. Francis of Assisi, the Padre's 
 patron saint, for I heard him say: "But he 
 said, Tittle brother bird, do not be frightened. 
 I will save you from the cruel boys.' ' 
 
 It seemed a pity to interrupt him. Yet I 
 could see that his cheeks were flushed, and 
 feared lest the unusual excitement make him ill. 
 So I spoke: 
 
 "Good morning, Don Felix, and do you not 
 think it is time you came home?" 
 
 He sprang to his feet, quite embarrassed, 
 both because he had run away, and because I 
 had come upon him there, before all his new 
 friends. "Oh, mother, little mother," he cried 
 for such he always called me "how long a 
 time you have been gone !" 
 
 After that day, Felix would never allow "his 
 children" to be called shameless. Nor, in fact, 
 did they deserve that title long. 
 
 On Easter Sunday, in the clean, flower-gar-
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 221 
 
 landed church, I looked about among the shin- 
 ing faces of the congregation who had come, 
 some of them, as far as ten leagues to be pres- 
 ent at the commemoration of the Rising of our 
 Lord. The contrast between them, bright- 
 eyed, neatly dressed, decorous, and the half- 
 clad, dirty villagers who had gathered in this 
 same church only a year and a half before to 
 hear the Padre's first sermon, was unbelievable. 
 And when the black curtain was drawn back 
 from the high altar, and the birds soared, sing- 
 ing, out of sight, I thought that the text of 
 his sermon on that day had come true. We 
 had a song in the night, and gladness of heart 
 in these, our mountains of the Lord. 
 
 But what, I considered disquietedly, had I 
 done to bring this change about ? What could 
 I do, now that I had become almost a woman, 
 in my fourteenth year? I longed to rise also, 
 from the place of sorrow I had made myself in 
 my grieving for Ramon. Here in this conse- 
 crated place of hope, I felt suddenly sure that he 
 would return. How should I retrieve my in-
 
 222 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 difference, and make myself worthy of him 
 when he came? 
 
 In a dark corner of the church, my eyes fell 
 upon Felix's dirty little comrades. Evidently 
 no mother's hand had washed their faces, nor 
 clothed them for the day. But each had made 
 pitiful efforts at improvement, and each wore 
 a wreath of flowers. Of their own accord, 
 they had come for the first time to church. A 
 lump rose in my throat. The Lord had an- 
 swered my prayer, I thought, and here was the 
 mission given to me. 
 
 That very afternoon, I began by visiting the 
 cheerless group of homes which was such a 
 blot on our village. Felix went with me, radi- 
 ant with delight at my plan. Together we 
 asked permission of the fathers and mothers 
 to take the children with us each fair day, up 
 by the cataract. Whether any would have re- 
 sponded to me, I know not, but in not one of 
 the four homes was there any who failed to be 
 won by Felix's plea, "Please let them come and 
 play with me."
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 223 
 
 Every morning until the rainy season in 
 June they came, twenty of them, in ages rang- 
 ing from four to eight, and I taught them. 
 Yet I doubt if they knew they were being 
 taught. One day was swimming day in a 
 quiet pool; another time we gathered wild 
 flowers and named them ; or again I told them, 
 stories. But the effect was magical. Though 
 years of neglect prevented their minds from 
 developing, as it did their little garden plots 
 from blooming with the luxuriance of ours, by 
 summer a beginning had been made. 
 
 Padre Francisco, all this time, was going 
 through a period of great disappointment in 
 the larger development of his villages. He 
 had hoped much from Carranza's rise to power. 
 But instead, he learned from this refugee or 
 that that the generals of his army had fallen 
 to disputing among themselves. In the very 
 month of Easter, the city of Lerma had been 
 carried by storm by one of these generals ; and 
 a little later Mexico City was taken by another, 
 a former bandit from the south. Anarchy
 
 224 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 ruled, he told me sadly, throughout the coun- 
 try. 
 
 This anarchy was manifested, as I have said, 
 in the increasing number of refugees among 
 our mountains. Watch fires and couriers 
 bringing warnings became more frequent and 
 we lived in a state of unrest, though as yet 
 neither we nor our property had suffered. But 
 the Padre, who had planned to resume the cus- 
 tom of taking merchandise to the City of Mex- 
 ico for sale, realized that this was impossible 
 at present. Even could our merchants get 
 through, the direst want prevailed there, in 
 the very center of all the revolutions. 
 
 Among ourselves, though, thanks to the 
 Padre's forethought, barter really increased 
 our prosperity to a pitch the mountain Indians 
 had never before enjoyed, there was disquiet 
 owing to this very fact. Ambition was 
 aroused, and now and again some of the 
 younger men broke away to join one faction 
 or the other in the civil war. In fact, mes- 
 sengers began to come to us from our neigh-
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 225 
 
 bors to the south, who were fighting under 
 Zapata, an outlawed Indian farmer. He it 
 was to whom the City of Mexico had recently 
 fallen. His forces were made up of mountain 
 Indians, like ourselves, who were fighting for 
 the lands from which they had been unlaw- 
 fully evicted. Their appeal, therefore, struck 
 a responsive chord in our hearts, and one to 
 which, but for the Padre, our villages would all 
 have responded to a man. 
 
 "But why ?" I often heard the Padre reason 
 with Tezpi or the other chiefs, who were 
 fired by the eloquence of the southerners and 
 longing to fight, "Why should you leave your 
 homes, and wives and children, and lay down 
 your lives? For what? Have you not here 
 your lands, and even a measure of security 
 such as exists perhaps nowhere else? For 
 whom will you give them up ? It is Carranza, 
 or Zapata, or Villa, stained with murders, who 
 will be your savior thus at the price of blood 
 and countless villainies ? Which of them, fair 
 in promise, will you trust?
 
 226 
 
 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 "My friends, look about you and be content. 
 Behold in me, if you will, one whom God hath 
 sent to lead you in peaceful ways to that same 
 end of which they speak. If we, in this cor- 
 ner of your country, can work out your in- 
 dependence and livelihood, by so much is the 
 general orderliness of the country effected. 
 Let us be exemplars, if we cannot yet be mes- 
 sengers, of peace."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 BUT the war to which we did not go, was 
 destined to come to us. It was in the 
 early part of June and the feast of Corpus 
 Christi was at hand. Either for this reason, 
 or because they had become accustomed to 
 alarms, the sentries grew lax. Without warn- 
 ing of any kind, a cavalcade of a hundred 
 horsemen came riding down the glen one day. 
 Almost before I was aware of their approach, 
 for the horses were unshod, they were full 
 upon me and my little band of children at the 
 cataract. 
 
 The children scattered, taking to the woods 
 like rabbits, or running toward the village as 
 fast as their legs would carry them. But I 
 had a hopeless feeling that flight was impos- 
 sible for me. Besides, by holding the band in 
 
 parley, I should gain time for the children to 
 
 227
 
 228 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 alarm the villagers below. Felix was with 
 me, and holding him tightly by the hand, I 
 awaited the nearer approach of the band. The 
 little barranca was so narrow that they came 
 on in single file, their leader at their head. Yet 
 even so they made a formidable appearance, 
 each trooper heavily armed with cartridge 
 belts, a musket slung on his back, and a re- 
 volver in his hand. As I watched, something 
 familiar in the gait of the leader's black horse 
 caught my eye. The toss of his head, the 
 quickly pointed ears, the daintily planted hoofs, 
 did I not know them all? Almost within 
 reach of my hand, the rider pulled up sharply. 
 At the same instant Mogul recognized me. 
 His glad whinny resounded above the roar of 
 the cataract, and he fretted frantically at the 
 bit. His master, utterly nonplussed by the 
 horse's behavior, so at variance with his usual 
 docility, and alive to the dangers of the 
 awakened echoes, raised his whip to strike. 
 Were Mogul to leap forward under that 
 impulse, Felix and I would be brushed over the
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 229 
 
 precipice into the foaming water far below. 
 I sprang to his head. The whip descended. 
 Mogul cowered, but his hoofs moved not an 
 inch. 
 
 From my position, almost beneath his quiv- 
 ering body, my eyes looked straight into those 
 of his rider. The heavy sombrero he wore no 
 longer hid his features from me. Ramon's 
 master, the music-maker of Lerma, looked 
 down at me. 
 
 "Sefior Perez!" I exclaimed. 
 
 He was even more astonished than I, for of 
 course he did not recognize me, whom he had 
 seen but once at the hacienda on the mem- 
 orable evening when I had brought out Ra- 
 mon's flutes at his request. 
 
 "I am Ramon's sister," I hurried on, "and 
 this " But I stopped just in time, before re- 
 vealing Felix's identity. How did I know 
 what party Sefior Perez might now belong to, 
 what were his intentions, or whether he still 
 entertained friendly feelings toward the boy 
 who had repaid his kindness by running away?
 
 230 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 "Ramon's sister here! And where is Ra- 
 mon ?" 
 
 I was greatly relieved to see the look of gen- 
 uine kindliness that came into his eyes. 
 
 "He is gone these six months in quest of Don 
 Luis." 
 
 "H'm the same quest which took him from 
 me, as I supposed. But he should have 
 trusted me, his ingratitude cut me to the 
 heart, for I was fond of the lad." 
 
 "But, Senor, it was to save you from dan- 
 ger. All this the Padre can explain to you 
 better than I." 
 
 "The Padre?" 
 
 "Padre Francisco, whom you doubtless re- 
 member; he who was the father of all the In- 
 dians at the Hacienda de los Pajaritos Santos. 
 He is now in the village down yonder." 
 
 Senor Perez deliberated in silence for a mo- 
 ment, then turned in his saddle and spoke rap- 
 idly to the man behind him. 
 
 Mogul meantime used his slackened rein to
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 231 
 
 feel me all over with his velvet nose. But if 
 he were disappointed at not finding any sugar 
 cane, he did not show it. His delight in me 
 seemed almost as human as mine in him. 
 
 "Look you, girl/' Senor Perez, concluding 
 his parley, gathered up the reins. "Go and 
 bring this Padre Francisco to me. We will 
 await you in the little glade which I see open- 
 ing out ahead." 
 
 I picked up Felix and ran, nor did I stop 
 until, breathless, I burst into the group of men 
 who had gathered about the church. Evi- 
 dently the children had spread the tidings of 
 threatened invasion. The men were armed 
 with machetes, bows and arrows, clubs, and 
 some few with pistols. Our guns were no 
 longer of any use, since no powder could be 
 obtained. These details I noted, in quick con- 
 trast with the well armed horsemen who were 
 waiting my return. 
 
 "The Padre, where is he?" I gasped. A 
 lane was opened for me directly to the church
 
 232 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 steps where he stood. It took only a few mo- 
 ments to acquaint him with what had hap- 
 pened. 
 
 He considered swiftly, his eyes on Felix. 
 "We will leave him here/' he said. "Felix, go 
 to Tezpi. Tezpi, hide this child and guard 
 him with your life. This may be my last 
 charge to you. Let it be your first concern." 
 From his breast he took a packet. "Keep this 
 also; it is his." 
 
 It was no time for farewells. With neither 
 backward look nor thought, I led the way to 
 the glen. 
 
 There we found the troopers had dis- 
 mounted. Some stood guard with the horses ; 
 others occupied the steep slopes from which 
 they commanded all approaches. The Padre 
 stepped forward fearlessly, and Sefior Perez, 
 doffing his hat, invited him to be seated on a 
 mossy bank which formed a natural seat. 
 
 As for me, who could be of no further use, 
 I fled from the curious glances of the soldiers, 
 back to Tezpi and Felix in the church.
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 233 
 
 It was perhaps an hour later that the Padre 
 returned, bringing with him the whole com- 
 pany. Two and two, with led horses they 
 walked, the Padre and Senor Perez at the head. 
 To Tezpi and the waiting Indians, this peace- 
 ful conclusion of the conference was not a sur- 
 prise. Scouts, noiseless and invisible to the 
 invaders, had already brought word of the ap- 
 proaching cavalcade. When the two bands of 
 men came within speaking distance, the Padre 
 stepped forth. In a few words he explained 
 to the villagers that Senor Perez, and all whom 
 he befriended, were his friends; that, driven 
 from Lerma by those who had captured the 
 city, they were on their way to join their loyal 
 comrades of the Carranza army, to which after 
 the fall of Madero so many of the more mod- 
 erate revolutionists had turned, in the City of 
 Mexico. 
 
 "But," he continued, "having heard from 
 me of the fall of that city also they ask per- 
 mission to tarry with us until better news shall 
 come. These, also, Capitan," he turned to the
 
 234 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 officer and indicated the Indians with a pro- 
 tecting gesture, "these also are my friends, and 
 this," beckoning Tezpi forward, "is the father 
 of Ramon. My friend, behold in Senor Perez 
 the benefactor of your son." 
 
 The rejoicing of the village in this announce- 
 ment of the double bond between them and 
 the strangers knew no bounds. Messengers 
 quickly recalled the women and children, and 
 others swift of foot ran with words of peace 
 to each village within our confederation. That 
 night a celebration rivaling that of the antici- 
 pated Corpus Christi took place in our midst. 
 We killed of our best, and a great feast was 
 held, followed by music and dancing till the 
 dawn. 
 
 In the succeeding weeks, Senor Perez's troop, 
 for our better protection and their greater com- 
 fort, was portioned out among the different 
 villages. The soldiers were glad to relieve our 
 men of sentry duty, and altogether by reason 
 of their fast horses and superior equipment for 
 fighting, gave us a real security such as we had
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 235 
 
 not before enjoyed. But Senor Perez himself 
 and a dozen of his men remained with us. 
 
 Naturally, the Padre and I were most anx- 
 ious for news from Lerma and the surround- 
 ing country. This, Senor Perez, who had Ra - 
 mon's room in our own house, was only too 
 willing to give. It seemed that he and his 
 company had been actually quartered at the 
 Hacienda de los Pajaritos Santos two months 
 before, scouting and awaiting the advance of 
 the enemy. The Casa Grande, though ruin- 
 ous, he told us, was still habitable, and the es- 
 tate producing in wild luxuriance. No one had 
 attempted to administer it since its confisca- 
 tion by the Madero government, acting through 
 the jefe politico in connection with the raid. 
 The peones, however, until this most recent 
 disturbance, had continued on in their various 
 villages, and tilled an increasing hectarage of 
 land for their own use. 
 
 The Village of the Shield also had been in- 
 habited, he thought by the remnant of the 
 tribe.
 
 236 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 "And what of the administrador?" the Padre 
 asked. "Did he then reap no profit from his 
 infamy?" 
 
 "Only for the period of his brief triumph 
 among us in Lerma," Sefior Perez answered. 
 "Had I known sooner of his evil character, his 
 fall would have been even more swift. But 
 after Madero's government went to pieces, he 
 vanished, leaving his friend the jefe to pay for 
 the misdemeanors of both. 
 
 "The jefe? He was sent to San Juan de 
 Uloa. What became of him after the open- 
 ing of the prison, I do not know, any more than 
 I know what became of our friend Don Luis 
 whom he, God reward him, had, as I now 
 know, sent to that vile hole." 
 
 "Did you know Lola?" I ventured to ask. 
 
 "Yes ; any that knew Almonte knew her also, 
 who presided at many of the drunken banquets 
 he gave. I thought I saw her the day I left 
 Lerma. She has become a soldadera* 9 fol- 
 lowing the army. It seemed to me I recog- 
 nized her among the other women riding on the
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 237 
 
 top of a slow-moving freight train which 
 brought the last reinforcements to the enemy, 
 before I succeeded in blowing up the bridge 
 across the river. The sight of her made me 
 think that Almonte could not be far off." 
 
 Sad though his news made us, for he told 
 also of the terrible devastation caused by the 
 most recent occupation of the city, of starva- 
 tion, pillage and murder through all the coun- 
 tryside, yet certainty of any kind was welcome 
 in place of conjecture. We grieved more that 
 he could bring us no word of Ramon or of 
 Don Luis than for any other cause. But, day 
 by day, as he unfolded the distressing condi- 
 tions which prevailed around us, we grew in- 
 creasingly thankful for the safe retreat a mer- 
 ciful Providence had provided for us. I know 
 not how it was with the Padre, but I grew 
 more anxious about the fate of our loved ones, 
 kept far from us, somewhere in the turmoil 
 of the war. 
 
 Senor Perez was not inactive in trying to 
 secure information as to the course of the revo-
 
 238 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 lution. From time to time his scouts brought 
 news that was more promising of settled gov- 
 ernment. At length word came that Mexico 
 City had passed again from the hands of 
 Zapata's Indians into those of Carranza. This 
 was the event for which Senor Perez had long 
 waited. Yet strangely enough, he seemed in 
 no great haste to depart. 
 
 His reluctance was the more irritating to 
 me, because he had spoken time and again not 
 only of his eagerness to fight once more for 
 the First Chief, as Carranza was called, but to 
 seek and find Don Luis and Ramon. I could 
 not understand an impatience that brooked de- 
 lay, until on the eve of his departure, I hap- 
 pened to see him with Nahua. Their attitude, 
 the pain on their faces, told its own story. 
 They loved each other, and they were saying 
 good-by. I stole away, my heart torn between 
 their happiness and their grief. 
 
 But Senor Perez was not the only one who 
 left his heart among us that summer. Fully 
 a third of his troopers, most of whom were,
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 
 
 239 
 
 like himself, half Indian and half Spanish, re- 
 mained behind, making their homes in our va- 
 rious villages with the maidens they had won. 
 Senor Perez himself had encouraged them in 
 doing this, seeing the farsightedness of the 
 Padre's policy of aloofness from the political 
 conflict, and lending thus the only help in his 
 power to protect us in our rights.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 MONTHS of blank uncertainty again 
 closed about us after el Capitdn Perez 
 and his troopers rode away. The Indians 
 from the south, defeated, no longer seemed 
 able to reach us, and from the north came no 
 more refugees. The Padre argued that this 
 inactivity within the mountains meant a more 
 settled state of government without. And, in 
 fact, the meager information which our scouts 
 picked up confirmed this conjecture. Lerma, 
 as well as Mexico City, they reported, was 
 now held by Carranza. Yet if all were peace- 
 ful once more, surely Senor Perez would be 
 the first to hasten to us with the glad news. 
 The truth was, fighting, desperate fighting, still 
 continued; but the scene of it had shifted to 
 other territories far removed from us. There 
 
 the decision as to who should rule over the 
 
 240
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 241 
 
 ruins of our land hung on the outcome of bat- 
 tles still unfought. 
 
 Undoubtedly the time passed heavily for 
 Nahua, deprived at its very dawning, of her 
 happiness. I could see how anxiety wore on 
 her fragile beauty, giving depth to her blue 
 eyes and maturity to her face. In a new- 
 found comradeship, for the most part un- 
 spoken, we worked together in church and vil- 
 lage or walked in the fields which held so many 
 memories for us both. But to her, inevitably, 
 each day brought its hope. Sefior Perez, 
 young, confident, and secure in the favor of his 
 chief, how should he not come riding once more 
 down the glen at the close of the war to claim 
 her and take her away with him to the gay 
 scenes he had pictured in Lerma and in the 
 City of Mexico? 
 
 I, on the other hand, in the calm of a hope 
 so long deferred that it bordered on despair, 
 felt in comparatively trivial ways, yet sharply, 
 the loss of el Capitdn. The music he drew 
 from Ramon's violin of an evening, the praise
 
 242 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 of Ramon's genius, even the inarticulate ca- 
 resses of Mogul, I had not realized till they 
 were gone what comfort I had derived from 
 them. Like reflections in a pool, stirred by a 
 passing breeze, they stirred in my heart the 
 image of Ramon. 
 
 It was fortunate for me at this time that 
 Felix required so much of my attention. His 
 mind was unusually active for his years, and 
 the Padre decided that he ought to have reg- 
 ular lessons. And though he could have given 
 this instruction himself far better than I, he 
 proposed that I should do it. I, divining why 
 he laid this task upon me, marveled at his wis- 
 dom and blessed him in my heart. 
 
 So it came about that Nahua, as was indeed 
 fitting, replaced me in many of the village 
 activities. The school which the Padre had 
 started, received fresh impetus from her and 
 from the young men of the Captain's troop, 
 more or less educated, who had cast in their lot 
 with us. In my care was left only the primary 
 class I had started with the children of Felix's
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 243 
 
 age. These, through the colder winter 
 months, I gathered about me in Ramon's empty 
 room. 
 
 The season of Easter, with its bustle of 
 preparation, was once more upon us. One 
 noon, at the close of school, I lingered behind 
 my little pupils, erasing the day's lessons from 
 the home-made blackboards which served us in 
 place of books. My back was turned to the 
 door, when I became aware that some one had 
 entered the room. Thinking it was the Padre, 
 who often stopped to look in upon me, I did 
 not even turn around. 
 
 Suddenly some one spoke my name : "Por- 
 firia, hermanita!" That voice? Those 
 words? Only one person in the world could 
 speak them. But I, who would have given my 
 life to hear them in the long, long months of 
 waiting, swooned away at the sound. 
 
 When I came to myself, it was to find the 
 Padre, as well as Ramon, bending over me. 
 To me it seemed like heaven. I put out my 
 hand timidly and touched Ramon's. The grip
 
 244 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 with which his closed over it reassured me. 
 But for my happiness, I could have cried out 
 with pain. 
 
 "Are you better?" he inquired anxiously. 
 "How stupid of me to have startled you so. 
 And yet," he ended happily, "how else should 
 I have come? I could not wait." 
 
 How could I help being better under that 
 best of physicians, joy itself? The Padre, his 
 eyes twinkling through tears, laughed with a 
 lightheartedness I had not heard since our old, 
 peaceful days at the hacienda. A shout from 
 the doorway told that Felix had recognized 
 the stranger who was causing such a commo- 
 tion. In another instant, he was riding wildly 
 around the room on Ramon's shoulder, and 
 having all he could do to keep his seat. 
 
 "But tell us," the Padre said when our de- 
 light had somewhat abated, and we were seated 
 at dinner on the porch, "how did you steal 
 such a march on us, and whence do you come ?" 
 
 "As to the first question, I came down the 
 glen. There was no one in sight, and ours be-
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 245 
 
 ing the first house, I naturally entered. And 
 as to the second, I rode from Lerma with a 
 party of horsemen who must be even yet wait- 
 ing my return up in the mountains. I charged 
 them on no account to approach the village till 
 I came back; for, to tell the truth, I had it in 
 mind to surprise you. After so long a wan- 
 dering, I could not forego that small reward. 
 They have enough to eat," he added, "and they 
 can wait." 
 
 "From Lerma, then, you " 
 
 "Yes, I have much to tell you." His face 
 became grave. He had aged, it seemed to me, 
 ten years. "Don Luis is there." 
 
 "Thank God !" ejaculated the Padre. 
 
 "Yes, I found him, but he is ill a broken 
 man. You remember, Father, the night I left 
 to find the bandidof That man," Ramon 
 shuddered, "proved to be the jefe politico of 
 Lerma, the same who betrayed our village, con- 
 nived at the murder of Dona Marina, and sent 
 Don Luis to what he thought was certain 
 death. He had been an outlaw in these moun-
 
 246 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 tains before Diaz bought him off with an office, 
 as his custom was. You have all heard of 
 Moldavo, the cutthroat who terrorized the 
 passes toward Mexico twenty years ago, per- 
 haps you knew, Padre, that the jefe was that 
 man. 
 
 "It must have been a bitter blow to him to 
 follow not only Don Luis, but such of his other 
 victims as still lived, to the dungeons of San 
 Juan. His chattering teeth and rolling eyes 
 as I questioned him about his fellow prisoners 
 attested his abhorrence of the place. Ca- 
 raniba! I had all I could do to keep my hands 
 from his lying throat and ending him then and 
 there ! 
 
 "But at least, I thought, I would first make 
 sure that he told the truth about Don Luis, 
 who, he said, was still alive at the opening of 
 the prison. I struck a bargain with the 
 wretch, to take me down to the coast by the 
 paths he knew. That was a loathsome com- 
 radeship in which my only security was my 
 right hand, and my nerve, not shaken as his was
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 247 
 
 by the horrors through which he had passed. 
 And in the end I learned little more of Don 
 Luis than he had told me, and was sold in 
 my turn by him to one of the pressgangs that 
 infested Mexico City. A blow on the head, 
 unconsciousness, and the next morning I was 
 a soldier on board an insurgent troop train 
 bound for the north. 
 
 "You can imagine my anguish, trapped into 
 fighting for a cause I did not understand and 
 had every reason, from my own personal ex- 
 perience, to loathe, and unable to continue the 
 search for my dear patron. But heaven gave 
 me one compensation; with my own hands, I 
 later sent the jefe to his last account. That 
 happened in Mexico City a year ago. He was 
 fighting for Zapata, I by that time for Car- 
 ranza. It did not matter so much to me that I 
 was taken prisoner by Zapata's victorious 
 army, so long as I had rid the world of him. 
 In truth, I found the southern Indians kindly 
 disposed, in great contrast to the ferocity of 
 the contending armies in the north. I was
 
 248 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 wounded and they cared for me, until the for- 
 tunes of war, favoring Carranza, swept them 
 out of the city. Me, with the other wounded, 
 they left behind. 
 
 "Had it not been for Sefior Perez's arrival 
 shortly after, I know not how it might have 
 fared with me. But he had me placed in a 
 hospital. And there it was, when my fever 
 abated, that I discovered Don Luis. 
 
 "There lay in a cot near mine an old man, 
 white haired and wasted by disease. As I be- 
 came partly conscious of my surroundings, I 
 was often annoyed by his ravings, which 
 merged from time to time into my own fevered 
 dreams. I grew better, but he continued in the 
 same unhappy state. One morning I found 
 myself listening to him intelligently. 'Marina, 
 my Marina,' he kept repeating; then wildly, 
 'Felix, where are you? O my son!' 
 
 "No wonder the sounds had blended with 
 my own anguish. I turned my head and saw 
 in that old, tossing form the ruin of what Don 
 Luis had been.
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 249 
 
 "What might have been a relapse from the 
 shock of this discovery, I think I prevented by 
 sheer force of will. I knew I must keep my 
 senses, and I did. When el Capitdn Perez 
 came at my summons, he was as thankful as I. 
 That same day, he had us both removed to a 
 quiet house, and from there, as soon as Don 
 Luis was able, we brought him to Lerma with 
 us." 
 
 Ramon paused, and for a space no one spoke. 
 The terrible story he had told was to us, to 
 whom he was so dear, the most realistic picture 
 we could have had of the brutal struggles from 
 which he had thus hardly escaped. Felix 
 crept close to me, and I to Ramon. Only by 
 such nearness could I endure the suspense, or 
 convince myself that he had escaped. 
 
 "But is Don Luis recovered?" questioned 
 the Padre. 
 
 "He has, in so far that his mind is now clear. 
 But his body is crushed with weakness, and his 
 heart, only little Felix here can heal that. 
 He is counting the minutes until we return."
 
 250 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 I can well remember I shall never forget 
 how Ramon's last words, so simple and alto- 
 gether to be expected, opened a gulf beneath 
 my feet. In my dreams of his homecoming, 
 my attitude had still been that of a child. I 
 had not reasoned that the event would destroy 
 once more the continuity of our lives, or break 
 up the circle which adversity had welded about 
 us. At a touch, disintegration threatened. 
 Ramon, the Padre, Felix, each had a destiny 
 apart from mine. I held Felix tightly, so 
 tightly that it hurt him. He and all my dear 
 ones, whose pleasure it had been mine to serve, 
 soon, I felt, they would slip away from me, 
 and need me no more. 
 
 But now, six months later, I can only pray 
 for forgiveness for the blind selfishness which, 
 even had my fears been realized, ought never 
 to have dimmed my happiness. As I look out 
 to-day from the balcony of the hacienda, the 
 hardy Virgin's Mantles which wreath its 
 crumbling pillars, frame once more the placid
 
 A SONG IN THE NIGHT 251 
 
 reaches of the lake. Down on the shore, the 
 Village of the Shield, but a tinier village than 
 I used to know, nestles in the shelter of the 
 fire-gutted Church. The Sefiorita's garden 
 stretches at my feet, a tangle of dry weeds; 
 and beyond the broken walls the Hacienda de 
 los Pajaritos Santos lies waste. Yet on the 
 instant, the long sala behind me reechoes with 
 laughter ; the bass voice of Don Luis, answered 
 by a child's clear treble. Evidently Felix has 
 been playing one of his merry pranks. 
 
 But I will not go in to join them just yet. 
 Coming down the road from Lerma I see the 
 cloud of dust for which I have been waiting 
 all the long afternoon. It is Mogul and a 
 troop of horsemen bringing Ramon from his 
 duties in the city, to spend the blessed Sabbath 
 with me. He will have news of his sister, 
 Nahua, now married to our new Governor, 
 Sefior Perez. Perhaps he will also carry a 
 letter from the Padre, who writes us often 
 from his parish among the Tecos Indians, 
 whom he felt he could not leave. Best of all,
 
 252 THE VILLAGE SHIELD 
 
 he brings me himself, for he has told me that 
 he belongs to me. 
 
 Whatever befall in our future, and the 
 political clouds lift only to gather more darkly 
 about us, my part in it is assured. It may be 
 we shall remain with Don Luis, who wishes 
 Ramon to help him in portioning out his vast 
 estate among the pitiful remnant of his In- 
 dians. It may be Sefior Perez is right in 
 thinking that Ramon's world will eventually 
 be that of music. Or his own inclination may 
 lead him back among his people, to take his 
 father's place. 
 
 But what if his destiny were even higher 
 than any of these? There lives an old saying 
 among my people, that the deliverer of Mexico 
 will arise from the Tarascan race. What if 
 my Ramon were he? Yet as I hope, I also 
 pray. May the good God shield him from the 
 fate of Hidalgo, and that of all men of blood, 
 and turn our Cry of Sorrow into a song of joy! 
 This at least I know: Wherever Ramon is, 
 I shall be also. That I have promised him.
 
 NOTES
 
 NOTES 
 
 No. i. Colima: A volcano in the State of Jalisco. It 
 is 12,278 feet high, and beautiful in outline. 
 
 No. 2. Milpa: A cornfield. 
 
 No. 3. Pescados blancos: White fish. 
 
 No. 4. Tortillas: Flat cakes, like pancakes, made of 
 corn meal. 
 
 No. 5. Mania: Literally, blanket, but used in Mexico 
 to designate the coarse white cotton from which 
 the trousers and coats of the peones are made. 
 
 No. 6. Petates: A petate is a mat woven, in most 
 cases, of palm leaf. 
 
 No. /. Skep: A conical hive of straw. 
 
 No. 8. Cacique: The Spanish form of the Indian 
 word for chief. 
 
 No. p. Pobrecita: A diminutive, meaning poor little 
 thing. 
 
 No. 10. Tarascos: The Indians called by the Span- 
 iards Tarascos, inhabited a large and flourishing 
 territory to the west of that governed by the 
 Aztecs, of whom they were independent allies. 
 
 No. ii. Casa Grande: Like the "Big House" of our 
 own Southern plantations ; the master's home. 
 
 No. 12. Tuna: The fruit of two kinds of cactus bears 
 this name; the more common, that of the round- 
 257
 
 258 NOTES 
 
 leaved nopal, the other (the variety here meant) 
 that of a branching or candelabra cactus. 
 
 No. 13. Peones: The common people, usually day 
 laborers, and hence, in many cases, serfs. 
 
 No. 14. Fiesta: A feast or festival; synonymous with 
 all holy days. 
 
 No. 15. Corpus Christi: In Mexico this was, before 
 the disestablishment of 1857, the most splendid 
 festival of the Roman Catholic Church; it occurs 
 on the Thursday after Trinity. 
 
 No. 16. Barrancas: A barranca is a deep gorge. 
 
 No. 77. Mescal: A very intoxicating liquor made of 
 the root of a species of agave. 
 
 No. 18. Tequila: Another liquor distilled from the 
 same plant. 
 
 No. /p. Aguardiente: A liquor derived from sugar 
 cane or grapes. 
 
 No. 20. Maguey: The noblest member of the agave 
 family is known with us as the "Century Plant." 
 
 No. 21. Hacienda: A large country estate. Some of 
 the haciendas of Mexico comprise as many square 
 miles as the State of Connecticut. 
 
 No. 22. Administrador : Manager. 
 
 No. 23. Moctezuma: Whom we call Montezuma, was 
 the last of the Aztec emperors. He was de- 
 throned by Cortes, and died in 1520. 
 
 No. 24. Ninita: Little girl. 
 
 No. 25. Porfiria: The heroine of our story was 
 named for the most famous of Mexico's presi- 
 dents, Porfirio Diaz.
 
 NOTES 259 
 
 No. 26. Ay de mi: Alas ! 
 
 No. 27. Sarape: The square blanket which serves as 
 cloak by day and cover by night to the Mexican 
 Indian. The handiwork of these blankets is often 
 very fine. 
 
 No. 28. El temblor: The earthquake. 
 
 No. 29. Vaquero: Herdsman ; cowboy. 
 
 No. 30. Peso: The Mexican dollar. 
 
 No. 31. Centavos: A centavo is the hundredth part 
 of a peso, corresponding to our cent. 
 
 No. 32. Pajaritos Santos: Blessed little birds. 
 
 No. 33. Hacendado: The owner, usually the heredi- 
 tary owner, like an English squire, of a landed es- 
 tate. 
 
 No. 34. Burros: Donkeys. 
 
 No. 35. Pantalones: The tight, often ornamented, 
 trousers of the gentleman, in contradistinction to 
 the loose cotton trousers of the peon. 
 
 No. 36. Caballero: Literally, a horseman, hence, a 
 gentleman. 
 
 No. 37. Sola: Drawing-room. 
 
 No. 38. For Dios: Expletives are much more 
 used in Spanish than in English: For God's 
 sake. 
 
 No. 3p. Vireyes: Viceroys. 
 
 No. 40. Pulque: A mildly intoxicating drink distilled 
 from the agave which grows on the table-lands. 
 Its use accounts for much of the degradation of 
 the Mexican peon in these regions. 
 
 No. 41. Conquistador: Conqueror. A term applied
 
 260 NOTES 
 
 invariably to Hernando Cortes. He and his army 
 were the conquistadores of Mexico. 
 
 No. 42. Que hombre: Literally, what a man! But 
 hombre is a term of inferiority. 
 
 No. 43. Cuidado: Take care! 
 
 No. 44. A boca llena: In the open. 
 
 No. 45. Mi amigo: My friend. 
 
 No. 46. Moso: A man-servant. 
 
 No. 47. Con permiso: With your permission. 
 
 No. 48. Jefe politico: Literally, a political chief, or 
 judge. Under the administration of President 
 Diaz, the jefe politico was appointed in each dis- 
 trict by the Federal Government as its representa- 
 tive, and was responsible directly to this Govern- 
 ment. In effect, the jefe was an autocratic spy. 
 
 No. 49. Caramba: Expletive: Go to! 
 
 No. 50. Mexican Land Law (in special relation to the 
 village shield) : Immediately after the conquest 
 of Mexico, the lands were portioned out, as was 
 natural, among the Spaniards. Certain Indian 
 tribes, however, who had aided the conquerors, 
 retained their lands ; others kept them by force 
 of arms. In the course of time, to protect the 
 rights of the Indians, the Kings of Spain made 
 notable enactments, forbidding serfdom, and con- 
 firming Indian communities in their right to a cer- 
 tain amount of land. Under these laws, each In- 
 dian commune held a portion of land called the 
 egido, or shield, extending in a circle 600 varas, 
 or 1800 feet from the village church, and in ad-
 
 NOTES 261 
 
 dition to this a square tract of 3600 feet base line. 
 All the villages which were formerly robbed of 
 their lands, had until recently at least, this pos- 
 session. After the establishment of the Repub- 
 lic, the Constitution of Benito Juarez, in 1857, 
 confirmed every holding of this kind. These lands 
 were recorded by the municipal authorities for 
 purposes of taxation, but not in any other way. 
 During the latter part of the administration of 
 President Diaz, many of these "village shields" 
 and similar grants comprising in some cases fertile 
 plains and valleys supporting a population of 
 20,000 souls, were seized by the Government, in 
 accordance with a law passed for the purpose, as 
 "unrecorded lands." 
 
 No. 51. Madre mia: My Mother; in this case, an in- 
 vocation to the Virgin. 
 
 No. 52. Bandits: The history of Mexico is a history 
 of notable bandits who, like Robin Hood, took toll 
 of all travelers and even attacked fortified places 
 for loot. 
 
 No. 53. Virgin's Mantles: Blue convolvuli. 
 
 No. 54. Varas: A vara is a yard. 
 
 No. 55. Jarros: A jarro is a jar with one handle. 
 
 No. 56. Machete: A heavy scimitar-shaped knife. 
 
 No. 57. Olla: A round earthen pot. 
 
 No. 58. Mesquite: A species of mimosa, common in 
 arid and semi-arid America. 
 
 No. 5p. Andale, muchacho: Hurry, boy! 
 
 No. 60. Zaguan: A courtyard gate.
 
 262 NOTES 
 
 No. 61. Patio: The open square, usually laid out as 
 a garden or gay with potted plants, about which 
 the typical Mexican house is built. 
 
 No. 62. Incommunicado: In solitary confinement. 
 
 No. 63. Los Estados Unidos de America: The United 
 States of America, in contradistinction to the 
 United States of Mexico. 
 
 No. 64. Portales: Arcades built over the sidewalks. 
 
 No. 65. Nieve: Literally, snow. The common name 
 for ices and ice cream. 
 
 No. 66. Pronunciamiento: Proclamation. 
 
 No. 67. Ojald: Would to God; God grant! 
 
 No. 68. Bastante: Enough. 
 
 No. dp. Siesta: The after-luncheon nap indulged in 
 in all hot countries. 
 
 No. 70. Palacio de Gobernacion: Palace of Govern- 
 ment ; State House. 
 
 No. 71. Paseo: The drive. 
 
 No. 72. Reboso: A shawl. 
 
 No. 73. Bandidos: Bandits. 
 
 No. 74. Hermanita: Little sister. 
 
 No. 75. Tierra caliente: Hot country; torrid zone. 
 In Mexico the climate varies sharply with the alti- 
 tude. 
 
 No. ^6. Tierra templada: Temperate country; tem- 
 perate zone. 
 
 No. 77. La Pas: Peace. 
 
 No. ^8. Hectare: Ten square meters. 
 
 No. 70. Quien sabe: Who knows? 
 
 No. 80. Zorillos: A zorillo is a skunk.
 
 NOTES 263 
 
 No. 81. Padrecito: Little father. 
 
 No. 82. Moctadir: The Moorish foe of the Spanish 
 hero, the Cid. 
 
 No. 83. Iguana: A large lizard. 
 
 No. 84. Primavera: A species of hibiscus flowering 
 very early in the spring. 
 
 No. 85. Clavillina: Cottonwood tree. 
 
 No. 86. Caritito: Little dear. 
 
 No. 87. Barranca Azul: Blue Gorge. 
 
 No. 88. Mirador: A pavilion. 
 
 No. 89. Pico de Oro: Beak of gold; Golden beak. 
 
 No. po. Huitsitzilin: Tarascan name for humming- 
 bird. 
 
 No. pi. Papayas: Pawpaws. 
 
 No. 92. Bien, muy bien: Good, very good. 
 
 No. pj. Acequia: An irrigating sluice. 
 
 No. 94. Floripundio: A tree with a large white flower 
 resembling a morning glory. 
 
 No. p5. Aztecs: An ancient people of Mexico who 
 founded the City of Mexico, and from it ruled a 
 vast empire. They were conquered by the Span- 
 iards under Cortes. 
 
 No. 96. Virgin of Guadalupe: The name under which 
 the Blessed Virgin Mary is worshiped by the In- 
 dians, to one of whom she is said to have shown 
 herself. Her most famous shrine is at Guadalupe. 
 
 No. 97. Gicaras: Bowls made of gourds. 
 
 No. 98. Calzontsin: The Spanish rendering of the 
 Indian name for the last Tarascan king. 
 
 No. pp. Soldadera: A woman who accompanies a
 
 264 
 
 NOTES 
 
 soldier as cook and general provider. All the 
 Mexican armies are accompanied by women and 
 often by children, the families of the soldiers. 
 No. 100. Ley Fuga: (See title of Book II.) The 
 law which held in case of offenders under sus- 
 picion or under arrest was that those who at- 
 tempted escape could be shot with impunity. In 
 the case of a criminal so disposed of, no investiga- 
 tion was ever made.
 
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