‘the boy never
Bellefonte, Pa,, January 3, 1930
THE MILL OF LIFE
Work while yet the daylight shines,
‘ Man of strength and will;
Never does the streamlet glide
' Useless by the mill.
Wait not till tomorrow’s sun
Beams upon the way.
‘All that thou canst call thy own
Lies in thy today.
Power, intellect, and health,
May not, cannot last;
“The mill will never grind
With the water that has passed.”
Oh, the wasted hours of life,
! That have drifted by!
Oh, the good we might have done,
. Lost without a sigh!
Love that we might once have saved
By a single word:
Thoughts conceived, but never penned,
Perishing unheard.
+ Take the proverb to thine heart,
Take! oh, hold it fast!—
. ““The mill will never grind
' With the water that has passed.”
The Easy Book
HALF-BREED
‘ He lay just outside the abode hut
wondering at life’s strangeness. His
mother, somewhere within, shufled
over the hard dirt floor humming in
soft, lisping Spanish the song of a
maiden and a tall horseman—and a
song of spring—and from his sha-
dowy corner the boy could see her
beating tortillas with fat brown
hands.
A dog close behind him, flea-rid-
den and mangy, raised an inquiring
ear toward a stream of youngsters
pouring by, intent on some noisy
game, ‘
‘One pointed in derision at the si-
lent boy. “Yah, redhead! = Yah,
‘longlegs! Yah!” * :
! ‘The shout was taken up by the
rest of that diminutive horde as
"they sweépt-: jeering and mocking
down the dusty village street. But
moved—only stared
with sleepy, half-veiled eyes out ov-
er the sun-baked desert.
‘Now even a casual glance would
have betrayed that on this boy had
been laid .a mark forever setting
him: part from’ the rest of the
swarthy urchins who infested the
Mexican quarter of Verde, For one
thing, the color of those sleepy eyes
was blue and about his dark fore-
head bristled a mat of sandy, red-
dish hair. Big-boned, too, loose-
jointed, with long, dangling legs.
No, he didn’t ‘belong to Verde—
not entirely. Yet in a sense he typi-
fied Verde, seeing that through his
very being ran a line of demarca-
tion not unlike the line that bisected
the little town of his birth. For you
may remember the international
boundary cuts through the south
end of Verde. Below lies Mexico !
with its desert, and beyond, the pur-
ple hills of Sonora—that little—
known country.
Below, too, lies Verde’s Mexican
quarter—a third of the town, but
living under the laws and traditions
of Mexico.
So you see, what with national
boundaries and racial boundaries
and the memories of old feuds, al-
most any thing is likely to happen
in Verde, Gringo and Mexican, old
world and new, high romnce and
grim reality—all these serve to
make up the little speck of life that
lies out there on the edge of the
desert and iscalled with somewhat
unconscious humor-—Verde.
The shadows had grown longer
~ when his mother stood in the door-
way. Her eyes still held a memory
of the tenderness and the soft
: dreaming of the youth that once
- had been hers,
But the slenderness ,
had gone out of her boy with the
, years.
“Eh, Dios!” she mocked him.
“Must you lie there ever idling away
the hours, Miguel mio? Daily you
grow more like that big slow father
of yours. Laugh and play, little son
of mine, and be as my people. Play
while you are young, for very soon
comes a time when you cando no
other thing than sit in the sunshine
and suck your gums and regret.”
HE fell to stroking the dog beside
im.
“They call me ‘El rojo, ” he mut-
tered resentfully. : !
His mother's white teeth gleamed
in’ swift laughter.” “Why not? Red-
head is not such a bad name. They
called your father that, chico mio.
But your father’s hair was like fire.”
Her deep, full bosom rose in a little
half sigh. “Ai, how strong he was,
chico, TI have seen him lift a ‘man
in’ either hand, holding them help-
less in the air. And that big round
neck of his and arms that could
crush a man or caress a woman.
“He didn’t stay long, but Dios,
he was a caballero. A big silent man
without the laughter and sunshine of
my people, And then he went away.
So be not too much like him, little
son, but run and play and be like
those other children, for they are
your people and mine.”
- And perhaps that was why even
in.those days, days when he was an
ungainly youth, the look. of half-
‘baffled perplexity and wonder-
ment first came to be part of him.
‘That attitude of alienation and soli-
tude of soul—it was to bear him
grim company throughout the
dtrange world of men, But all this
was before I knew him.
© His father I never saw. As Red
Mike the Americans had known
him during his brief stay in Verde,
where by brawn and brute force he
had lorded it over a section gang on
the Santa Fe. As Don Miguel they
remembered him in the Mexican
ouarter, translating the outlandish
Fnglish as nearly as might be. And
Miguel his mother had named the
sandy-haired, blue-eyed , boy—-the;
boy for whose sake she asked in
many prayers to Our Lady some-
thing of the ouick,laughteriand the
sunshine ;of, her.owm peonle,i adi |
Well, small wonder they could not
understand the silent, lanky voung-
ster. And no wonder the. ng:
|
|
‘| that
boy—the:!
‘and’ for some reason’ he thought 1
aspect of the world and the loneli-
ness of his soul became very real
portions of his solitary childhood.
He grew up as one apart, The
unbridgeable chasm of race stood
between him and his mother’s people
and, of course to the whites in Ver-
de he was just a “breed.” So about
the only friend of Miguel's childhood
was that mongrel dog.
But he far out-stripped the boys
of his age in height and breadth of
shoulder, and as the awkwardness of
youth of catlike grace became an un-
conscious possession. Miguel was in-
heriting from that red-haired father
a gift of strength that later was to
be his curse and for a time, his
salvation. .
Yes, and the very fact that the
girls of the quarter smiled in open
admiration on this slow-moving,
sleepy young giant only served to
fortify the barrier between him and
his mother’s people.
When Miguel began herding sheep
for me he must have been about
twenty—perhaps a little more. I
wasn’t eager to take the boy. The
padre of the Mexican chapel was the
cause of my considering him at all.
The old priest had stopped me
before the post office one morning.
“I have heard he is shiftless, ill-
tempered and discontented, Father,”
I reminded him. “You know those
qualities don’t make for success ev-
en in sheep-herding.”
“Perhaps that is why I am asking
you to give him a chance. That is
what life has not given him so far
—a. chance.” The little fellow fond-
led the black crucifix at his waist, “I
have known this boy since he came
into the world and I can say there
is within him both a beast and an
angel—and perhaps a poet. Who
shall tell which is destined to tri-
umph, my son, except. that God shall
call forth that portion which best
serves Him—and in His own good
time.”
‘Perhaps; but I don’t need all that
equipment for a sheep-herder.”
“He is neither of my people nor
of yours” the priest went on, “and
so he has been bruised and distrust-
ed of both. I should like to get him
out of Verde for a time, for here he
feels that every man’s hand is
against him—not without reason.
There are some life gives no real
chance and it would make me hap-
py to know that Miguel gets at least
a: trial” 5 gz
And as I still hesitated, he added,
“Do you remember a day out there
on the desert when you, my son,
were glad of a helping hand?”
~~ “I remember. Let Miguel come to
me tomorrow.” Tah Fo
That’s how I first saw him face
to face. He was good to look at,
slim and powerful like some pagan
god. standing at ease before me..in
the morning sunlight while at his’
heels a sheep dog looked up in ador-
'| ation.
Clearest of all I remember that
look of puzzled bewilderment and
questioning that by now had become
as much a part of the boy as the
sleepy blue eyes or the sandy hair,
Not a sullen look. Perplexity, I
suppose, is the nearest word, al-:
though that doesn’t quite touch it.’
The hurt perplexity of a pup that
Bas been kicked for no reason at
all, i
It didn’t take long to arrange
things. The padre had done most
of that, And with a slow “Muchas
gracious, senor,” he left me. i
So I became Miguel's employer
and as the sunny days passed, I be-
came, too, in a sense his friend. |
Sometimes I think the only friend |
his lonely life ever knew, For he
talked to me as to no one else ex- |
cept, of course, the padre. And by a
lucky accident I happened to be |
with him the day a rattler struck
him above the heel and by dint of
sucking the wound, cutting a neat
Maltese cross in him and rubbing on
pipe tobacco, I had the boy limping
around and out of pain within twen- !
ty-four hours.
Probably he would have recovered
sooner without all those - incanta-
tions; but’ he promptly conceived |
that I had placed him under an
eternal debt—which was just as well,
in view of what happened later.
Each week during the long sum-
mer that followed I made my rounds
of the camps and often beside Mi-
guel’s little herder’s fire we talked
together. Talked of sheep and life
and immortality, He knew little
English, so it is always in Spanish
I remember his slow halting
words and that phrase of his com-
monest of all, “A. strange world,
Senor.”
Strange, surely, for you see some-
where in the mind of Miguel had
come as a heritage of that Irish
father a passion for justice—an al-
most fanatical intolerance of oppres-
sion. . To Miguel the riddle of the
universe, its complexities—yes, even
its cruelties, seemed things to which
there should be satisfactory answers
i
|
might possess those answers, Tad
But life hag a way. of asking more
questions than life ever solves. And
looking back I can’t be sure that ex-
cept for a sincere gift of sympathy
I ever helped Miguel .in all his per-
plexed pilgrimage. :
“Something of a poet,” the old
padre had said. I remembered that.
For within the boy was a strong de-
sire for beauty, both in his life and
in the things about him. Comeliness
and symmetry—these things he
sought. And when in his dealings
with man he found discord and ug-
liness in their stead—well, that too
‘became part of the unsolved riddle
that life held for him. Also, as I
say, it taught him to strike back.
“Sometimes,” he said one even-
ing as he busied himself with coffee
and frijoles—"“sometimes I think a
place must be where men would not
car for this accident of birth. Is
there no such place—even beyond
the seas, Senor?”
I shook my head. “I have seen
many lands beyond the seas, Miguel,
and strange people, but never the
place you speak of. Some far-off
time maybe, a thousand years—"
“That will be late—for me. Too
late.” Swift anger seized him. “Not
one day of all my days have they
let me forget that T:am, mot as oth
ers: here. : The. Senores who: employ
riders and herders take the Mexi-
cano. not me, The young men who
dance on the plaza at flests ‘Difer-
‘hands before my face next morning.
‘cantina, it is not worth a peso. Sen-
‘or, in the
ente,’ they say and shrug—'he is dif-
ferent” And they walk away—to
laugh when my back is turned.
“I know I am not so quick as my
mother’s people. My thoughts are
different. My laughter comes slow-
er and they sneer, ‘Que va, he is
stupid, that big clumsy Miguel’
sometimes I think to go and find my
father’s people. Would that per-
haps be well, patron?”
“No, that would not be well. It
would bring sorrow only, For after
all you are of the desert and these
desert people. And it may be that
as the years pass, they will forget
the color of your hair and eyes and
the difference between you and
them.
“But the world outside. Miguel
is still harsher even to those who
are part of it. Stay here withthe
sheep and the peace that comes
from the desert, and some day they
will forget.”
Yes, perhaps that is what might
have happened. The years might
have worn away the sharp outlines
of his entangled birth; he might
even have come to take his useful
place there. All these things might
have come to pass.
Only Lolita chancd to rais her
eyes and smile...
You may remember
cantina on the Mexican side just
south of Verde, Thirsty Americans
stopping over for the day remember
it well. For Mendoza has the larg-
est bar in the border country—and
the best marimba band. But Men-
doza’s greatest claim to immorality,
in this world at least, will be based
on the fact that in his cantina Loli-
ta sang.
Now it would be as easy to de-
scribe Lolita as to describe a desert
sunset. They share the same radi-
ance, for which man has found no
words. But no one ever forgot her,
“A voice of God’s own angel”
Mendoza once said of her, “and the
temper of a panther.”
“And,” I added to myself, “twice
as dangerous.”
You know out here there are no
soft effects of color, no delicate
‘blending of pastels, no hazy outlines.
It’s vivid. A world of color and
Mendoza’s
. contrasts.
And of that world, Lolita was a
colorful part. Small and slender and
lithe, her little feet seemed fashion-
. ed to tread the pleasant ways of ro-
mance, .
Miguel was with me when I first
saw her. It happened to be his first
sight ‘of her, too, for all summer he
had been out on the range and that
night we had ridden in to get help-
ers for the season’s shearing.
Lolita was standing in the center
of the dark cantina, dazzling and
luminous in a circle of warm am-
ber light, She was strumming a
big guitar and over one shoulder a
Spanish shawl was caught, while the
other shoulder gleamed like ivory
and her hair was as velvet seen at
dusk:
The shadowy room was filled with
rapt, indistinct faces. And never
a sound, never the tinkle of a glass,
never the shuffle of a riding boot.
Lolita was singing her song of the
hammock,
“La sombra me da el monte,
Las brias me da el mar,
Que dulce as la vida...”
Yes, life must have been sweet to
Lolita in those days. Why not? She
possessed those things from which
all the sweetness of life is composed
—beauty and youth and the adora-
tion of her little world.
And then, as I say, she raised her
eyes and smiled at Miguel, and I
heard him whisper, “Madre de Dios.”
“Tengo mi hamaca tendida,” sang
the fresh youthful'voice, and she was
singing for Miguel now, as he stood
just outside the circle of light like
a bronze statue of some hero of oth-
er days. Her little teeth were very
white and her lips redder than the
rose of her voice and body Lolita
sang to Miguel and kindled a fire in
his sleepy eyes. :
I never got those helpers for the
shearing. But when I left the can-
tina Miguel and Lolita were talking
iin low tones at a little table and
once Icaught the deep resonance of
Miguel's voice—it had taken. on a!
new quality and all the world could
see that for both of them the world
now ceased to exist. Meanwhile
Mendoza cast many an anxious look
at those two love-transported chil-!
dren, ' :
The same Mendoza waved frantic
‘“ 'Sus Maria,” he wailed in his
shrill voice. “That red-haired spawn,
Miguel—he has stolen Lolita.”
“You mean Lolita’s gone?”
“Gone! Last night in the moon-
light he saddled two horses, my best
horses, that son of a gringo swine.
They have gone out into the desert,
nombre de Dios. And what happens
to me? Poor Dios, without Lolita my
e of all the saints,
what is to hold my patronage?”
“Softly, amigo.” I patted him on
the shoulder. “It comes to me that
those two young people there are
concerned with an old problem than
your patronage, As for the horses
I'll see they are returned.”
I think they were the happi-
est days of Miguel's life, those few
desert days and nights while like
godlings of a pagan world, those
two learned the wondér of each oth-
er's love, Alone out there—pbeyond
good and evil and the strange’ ways
of man.
Well, not to cll of us: is the gift
of even a few perfect, lovelit days.
Not to all of us do the gods hestow
the memory of having held in our
arms such beauty as Lolita’s, or
having been enveloped in the wild
splendor of her love. So not entire-
ly could I find it in my heart to
pity him, even in the light of what
followed, for Miguel had lived.
And three days later I stood in
the little chapel while the old padre
mumbled ancient Latin before those
two children of the sunlight, For
Lolita had insisted on the amenities
of the sacrament. Miguel had ghrig-
ged and obeyed. ba
Rather would I have stayed out
there,” he told me, nodding toward
the south, “but Lelita—it makes her
‘happier to know the church blesses
us, Myself, I owe no debt to eith-
er church or my mother’s Sw
Better to have stayéd there always.”
And again his eyes sought the
far-off purpling horizon.
So winter came, And the sum-
mits of the Spanish Peaks were hid-
den in snow clouds and through it
all Miguel and Lolita lived the
dreamlike days of great lovers in the
Mexican 6 quarter. And with them
came peace and utter happiness—
for a time. Presently the desert be-
gan to blossom and another spring
had come,
And since in Verde as elsewhere
even great lovers must cease from
caresses and think at times of the
need for food, Miguel sought again
his old job of herding my sheep.
“Lolita? I asked.
His eyes were somber, ‘Lolita
talks again of the cantina. It is
true she earns there five times as
much as I. And how can I say, ‘Do
not go? No, Lolita ¢sings in the
cantina if she chooses, and I must
earn pesos while summer lasts and
perhaps before another winter I
shall think of some way that Lolita
may be with me always,” He add-
ed regretfully, “It was out there in
the desert we were happy. Why
should we ever have come back?”
So once again the cantina wel-
comed its idol and once again
Miguel built his lonely little fires
at evening out with the flocks. But
he didn’t stay there. Not long.
‘For it was a night in early sum-
mer when a Mexican boy clatter-
ed up to my door. |
From his hurried, blundering
words I pieced together that Lolita |
had chosen a new protector—a |
young lieutenant of the rurales, All|
the quarter knew of it—nightly
those two came together to the |
cantina and made no secret of
their devotion. And the quarter |
smiled—how could big stupid Miguel |
hope to hold Lolita’s love! Then
someone — filled with Christian !
solicitude, I suppose—told Miguel. |
And Miguel had galloped in.
“Where is he now?”
“For the past hour, Senor, he
walked up and down through the |
quarter. He says no word, but we |
know for what he is seeking. And |
then as I left to come here, he
turned toward Mendoza's, Senor,
go to him and send him away.”
“What's all this to you?”
“Lolita’s lover, Senor,
brother and I am ofraid.’
Within five minutes I drew up
outside . Mendoza’s. As I jumped
from the car, I saw Miguel peering
in through a window. Then silent-
ly he pushed open the door. =
Beyond the menacing silhouette
in the doorway the cantina was a
flood of light and from out of the
blue haze of tobacco smoke stream-
ed that fresh, exultant voice of
Lolita’s. There she stood, red rose,
white teeth and velvet eyes, and
her long slender arms resting on the
shoulder of a young Mexican officer.
Behind the crowd the prodigious
Mendoza bulged,
;Once the soldier laid his
against the girl's bare
the touch, her
is my
cheek
arm and, at
voice thrilled. It
was the chorus of the hammock
song—the song that was once
Miguel's,
“Que dulce—" In a little gasp
of dismay the voice ceased, and
following her eyes, the eyes of every
man turned toward the door. De-
liberately Miguel In-
evitable as destiny.
The music had stopped and some-
where out of the silence a woman
laughed. Still no one moved and
now Miguel had come within arm’s
length of the two before the
soldier rose, one hand on the re-
volver ‘at his belt. Then Miguel
sprang like a great cat and his
hands pinoned both the man’s arms,
Powerless to move, I watched
his brown fingers spread slowly
and inexorably about the lieuten-
ant’s throat as a shudder ran
through the room. - Then a snap
and’ a sigh and Lolitas latest = con-
quest slipped to the floor,
Miguel never looked at Lolita
once, but made his way toward
the door. Still no man moved—
not a sound. Only a horseman gal-
loping south, fading into the
silence.
And Miguel was gone.
Of course the rurales became
active. They made daily little
sorties out onthe desert and back
into: the foothills, But nothing
really happened. - f
Then a week later a badly
frightened storekeeper reported
that Miguel had suddenly appeared
at his bedside sometimes after mid-
night and forced him to pack a
mule with provisions, Two days
later a Mexican dispatch carrier
was knocked unconscious and rob-
bed.
Perhaps Miguel —perhaps not.
All this marked the beginning of
an era of the intermittent hysteria
for the country about Verde. A
killer was abroad. At last Miguel's
hand had turned against the man-
kind that had harried him, despised
him ‘and now was driving arin |
a wild thing over the face of the]
desert,
And now as the months passed
rumor began te of an outlaw
band that had its hiding place out
in the desert under the leadership
of a big, silent, sandy-haired “man,
Their number increased and for :
approached.
‘a
year they took heavy toll of cattle
and saddle horses, Twice they
made open raids on the villages of
Sonora,
Legends grow fast in the south-
west country and before long Miguel
had become a kind of super devil
And often the padre, joining me
for coffee. and a cigaret, would ' sit
plunged in lo silence fingering
that black crucifix. gr
“Miguel's band,” he told me on
afternoon, with a tired sigh, “is
holding for ransom {two ranchers
of Sonora. It grows bolder and I
am fearful of the end. Life, Seror,
can seem very cruel unless we
keep faith always in the good God.
Miguel has lost faith, Pobrecito, I
pray daily he will depart from his
ways and repent and seek the peace
of God.” tadsesofl J +
“Father, is it not more likely he
will find God out there on the des-
ert than here where man laughed
at him and cursed” him and made
life a burden?” :
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(Continued on: page 7, Col. 3.)
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