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So rich an assortment of expletives, secular and religious, such individuality yet sympathy of comment, had not been called upon for duty since the seventh of July, a year before, when Commodore Sloat had run up the American flag on the Custom-house. Finally they paused to recover breath. Mariquita's young lungs being the first to refill, she demanded of Faquita:
Four of the Gringos are under her little slipper this year, and she turn over the face and roll in the dirt. But Don Ramon, so handsome, so rich surely she will marry him." Faquita shook her head slowly and wisely. "There come yesterday from the South a young lieutenant of America." She paused a moment, then proceeded leisurely, though less provokingly.
"The young Lieutenant is ill," blurted out one of the old women, then cowered until she almost fell into her tub. Faquita sprang forward and caught the girl in her arms. "Thou old fool!" she cried furiously. "Thou devil! Mayst thou find a tarantula in thy bed to-night. Mayst thou dream thou art roasting in hell." She carried La Tulita rapidly across the meadow.
"And then," continued Faquita, with a slight affectation of maiden bashfulness, in the closer-drawing circle of cigarettes, "and then they talked of other things and of themselves; and, of a verity, this gray-bearded Doctor will play the goat and utter gallant speeches, and speak of a lifelong devotion and of the time he should have a right to protect " "The right, girl! Didst thou say the right?
In addition, instead of the gunbelts which all the men wore as a matter of course, Faquita had tucked a pair of derringers in the front of her sash belt. Their small grips showed above the faded silk folds. "She goin’ with us?" the Kentuckian asked, as the girl kicked dust over the campfire and stowed the empty pot in the cart. "Ain’t that dangerous—for her?"
Him with a snootful an’ somebody yellin’ Reb and Yank. Some men can’t forgit an’ don’t seem to want to. Johnny sure takes it hard bein’ on th’ losin’ side—turned him dirt mean. Now, you kids, you stayin’ in town?" "Sí." Faquita nodded vigorously. "With Tía María." "Then you git there an’ stay clear of Johnny Shannon, sabe? No more trouble." "Sí, Señor Kells.
No, thou didst mistake. It was not THAT he meant?" "Thy life to a quarter peso that the little Faquita does not mistake," said the evident satirist of the household. "Trust to Gomez' muchacha to understand a proposal."
He was half dressed, thou seest, as if he had risen to go forth, and had been struck down so " "Hush! I tell thee he speaks," said Faquita. The sick man was faintly articulating through a few tiny bubbles that broke upon his rigid lips. "He dared me! He said I was old too old." "Who dared thee? Who said thou wast too old?" asked the eager Faquita, bending over him.
"But she have in his," said Mariquita, wisely. "No more talk!" cried Faquita, and once more silence came to her own. But fate was stronger than Faquita. An hour later a little girl came running down, calling to the old woman that her grandchild, the consolation of her age, had been taken ill.
"Ah, I thought I should hear there," said the girl, with a laugh. "Thank heaven for the wash-tub mail." Faquita nursed her through a long illness. She recovered both health and reason, and one day the old woman brought her word that the young Lieutenant was well again and that his illness had been brief and slight.
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