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Updated: August 19, 2024
I can lie on the floor outside; but you?" "I will go to Ysidro's, and sleep with Juana," she replied. "For two nights, it is no matter; and it is such shame to have the Father sleep in the house of an American, when we have a good bed like this!" Seldom in his life had Alessandro experienced such a sense of gratification as he did when he led Father Gaspara into his and Ramona's bedroom.
Father Gaspara had gone with Ysidro to a lawyer in San Diego, and had shown to his lawyer Ysidro's paper, the old one from the Mexican Governor of California, establishing the pueblo of San Pasquale, and saying how many leagues of land the Indians were to have; but the lawyer had only laughed at Father Gaspara for believing that such a paper as that was good for anything.
Ysidro's home was in the centre of the village, on a slightly rising ground; it was a picturesque group of four small houses, three of tule reeds and one of adobe, the latter a comfortable little house of two rooms, with a floor and a shingled roof, both luxuries in San Pasquale.
When Alessandro saw them coming, he understood, and made haste to explain it to Ramona. While he was yet speaking, the procession arrived, and the aged woman in her strange litter was placed silently on the ground in front of Ramona, who was sitting under Ysidro's great fig-tree. Those who had borne her withdrew, and seated themselves a few paces off. Alessandro spoke first.
Still, for a few years we can perhaps stay there. There are nearly two hundred Indians in the valley; it is much better than Temecula, and Ysidro's people are much better off than ours were. They have splendid herds of cattle and horses, and large wheat-fields. Ysidro's house stands under a great fig-tree; they say it is the largest fig-tree in the country."
The tule house which stood nearest to the dove-cote was, by a lucky chance, now empty. Ysidro's brother Ramon, who had occupied it, having gone with his wife and baby to San Bernardino, for the winter, to work; this house Ysidro was but too happy to give to Alessandro till his own should be done. It was a tiny place, though it was really two houses joined together by a roofed passage-way.
One man had taken the whole of the village lands, and he had bought Ysidro's house because it was the best; and so they would not get anything. They were utterly disheartened, broken-spirited. In his sympathy for them, Felipe almost forgot his own distresses. "Where are you going?" he asked of several. "Who knows, Senor?" was their reply. "Where can we go? There is no place."
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