Why--his brow was smoother than Riego remembered!--his eyes clearer!--Did one grow younger, happier, in America?
And now Riego's mother was calling his attention to the snow-white chickens which fluttered about them. There was a cow, too, Riego learned--a cow and a pony and pigs and pigeons--and _all theirs_!
Riego shouted for joy. But the next moment the joy died upon his lips, and he asked:
"The revolutionists, father? How long will they let us have these?"
"Riego," said his father, "there are no revolutionists in America. Here, if a man works, he receives a just reward, and he is allowed to keep in peace what he earns. Our only danger is from across the border."
Then Riego's mother told him that his father had a fine saddle-shop which the Americans never raided.
It was all very, very wonderful!--A man was paid well for working, and could keep in peace what he earned!--Was this what was meant by "_America_"?
Riego's father's saddle-shop was the front room of their little dwelling, and opened immediately upon a small street in the Mexican quarter of the village. It was a very interesting place, indeed, for the wide door and the hospitable bench just inside invited in many an entertaining visitor, besides the men who came to buy saddles or to have their harness repaired.
One of these visitors, Alonzo Lorente, was particularly interesting to Riego and his brother, though their father always became moodily quiet when the man came. Lorente was a big, dashing fellow, full of strange oaths and of dark insinuations. And somehow, whenever he entered, the air of the shop became electric with an indefinable excitement.
It did not take Riego long to see that, at such times, his father managed to keep him and Pascual so busy that they missed most of their hero's inspiriting talk. Riego was particularly unfortunate in this respect. He spent little of his time in the shop where his father and Pascual plied the saddler's trade, for it was his duty to help in the market-garden.
This deprivation of Lorente's society, however, had its compensations. It was Riego's especial work to peddle their vegetables at the khaki tents of the gringo soldiers a few miles away, and this was very entertaining and exciting in itself, for the soldiers were jolly and kind and said nice things to one.