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Horse-racing may now be said to have been fairly established in Spain in most of the great centres, and the Hippodrome in Madrid is little behind one of England's popular race-courses in its crowds, the brilliant dresses of the ladies, and the enthusiasm evoked; but whether it will ever supersede the really national fiesta is to be doubted.
Ever since the Fiesta, curiosity had prompted him to learn something concerning Chiquita's motive for dancing; and whenever the opportunity presented itself, he had shadowed her. His patience was soon rewarded by learning that she made frequent visits to the Indian pueblo, Onava, often riding there in the late evening under cover of the dusk.
Then, on her third saint day, the small girl donned her first fiesta costume, a miniature of the heirlooms which descend from mother to daughter, each generation striving to increase the magnificence of the costume just as it strove to add to the gold pieces in the chain which did triple duty as hoard, dowry and necklace.
Notices of the event had been published throughout the islands and the day on which it was to occur was proclaimed a fiesta. Thousands gathered around the place selected, and so evident was the sympathy of the helpless Filipinos for the man who was to die for their sake that Spain marshalled ten regiments of her soldiers about the spot. The populace must be intimidated.
It was the same locket that Maria Clara had worn during the fiesta in San Diego and which she had in a moment of compassion given to a leper. "I like the design," said Simoun. "How much do you want for it?" Cabesang Tales scratched his head in perplexity, then his ear, then looked at the women. "I've taken a fancy to this locket," Simoun went on. "Will you take a hundred, five hundred pesos?
Behind his fixed smile he was simultaneously longing to break into the musical fiesta, and envying the dentist's ability to get married without having to wait to grow up, and trying to follow what Mrs. Cowles was saying. She droned, while crocheting with high-minded industry a useless piano-scarf, "Do you still go hunting, Carl?" "Yessum. Quite a little rabbit-hunting. Oh, not very much."
But Momoy had attended the wedding, so his posthumous emotion can be appreciated: he had been near the kiosk. "That's what no one can explain," replied Chichoy. "Who would have any interest in breaking up the fiesta? There couldn't have been more than one, as the celebrated lawyer Señor Pasta who was there on a visit declared either an enemy of Don Timoteo's or a rival of Juanito's."
He it was who was going to be celebrated in the fiesta of Provençal literature, in which he always played the principal role; he was the prize bard, lecturer, or simple idol to whom other poets were dedicating their eulogies clerics given to rhyming, personifiers of religious images, silk-weavers who felt the vulgarity of their existence perturbed by the itchings of inspiration all the brotherhood of popular bards of the ingenuous and domestic brand who recalled the Meistersingers of the old German cities.
The fiesta was slipping out of the present into the past, where it would live still under the rose-lights of memory. There was a scurry of little feet in the rose-garden. A door slammed somewhere and hushed the sound of sobbing.
The shoestring gang have gathered in the information fr'm th' express agent that the auld cattle man owns a big Spanish grant down in the valley, and has $50,00 to his credit in certificates of deposit from the express company. 'Tis as good as gold." "Mike, have you ever seen him before?" "I never spile sport, me boy." It was the last day of the fiesta and the famous race was at hand.
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