"You play for me, Jose, you alone, please," the girl asked. She knew how perfectly in tune and in time Jose's music was.
Steadily, but rather low at first, the boy began to play. Steadily and gracefully Inez danced forth, her silver bracelets tinkling upon her wrists. Her arms and body moved in perfect time. She was a picture of youth, beauty and grace.
Jose did not think about the people listening as he drew his bow back and forth. He thought only of making his music as true as possible for Inez,--Inez who had given him his dear dog-friend Carlos.
Antonio leaned against the stone wall of the barn, watching the face of his music-loving little brother. "I must try to let the lad have some music-training," he said to himself. He watched, too, the modest, graceful dancing of Inez; and he decided that however interesting far-away America had been, his own fatherland was a goodly country.
"With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Under the walls of Paradise." --_Thomas Buchanan Read._
THE father was better. He could move the weak hand and foot, although he was not yet able to use them. But he could sit all day in the arm-chair on the porch. From there he was able to direct the late autumn work. This was fortunate. Antonio had half forgotten what needed to be done, and Jose did not yet know much about it.
The mother's face had brightened. She did the work of the household and cared for Tareja with a thankful heart. Joanna and Malfada were again busy all day out of doors in the field with their brothers.
Now the winter's supply of gourds, left among the stubble of maize-stalks, had grown very large and yellow. There were two kinds of gourds,--one, smooth and round, the other, long and striped. These were gathered and lifted, some to the low roof of the barn, others to the top of the rocky ledge, where they would not have to stand in the wet after the autumn rains began. The melons, also, were gathered and stored in the same way. Upon these places, gourds and melons would keep sound until February. All through the winter the better ones would be valuable food for the family, while the coarser ones would be used for cattle and pig.
There was a good supply of cabbage in the garden for the winter's house-use and for feeding the live stock. Sown late in the summer, the cabbage had grown to four or five feet in height. Its lower leaves would be picked off, week after week, then the stalks cut down in the spring to make room for other crops.