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Yonder lay the wooded peninsula, and there the white houses of Sils, and beyond was Sils Maria. The little church shone in the morning sunshine, and over towards the mountain were two cottages. Rico's heart began to beat wildly. Where was Stineli? A few steps farther, and the coach stood still in Sils. Stineli had suffered a great deal since her friend's disappearance.
What had poor Porto Rico done, that she should be fenced in from all the Old World by an elaborate and highly complicated system of duties upon imports, calculated to protect the myriad varying manufactures and maintain the high wages of this vast new continent, and as little adapted to Porto Rico's simple needs as is a Jorgensen repeater for the uses of a kitchen clock?
The funds of the churches were first requisitioned; then the judicial deposits, the property of people who had died in the Peninsula, and other unclaimed funds were attached; next, donations and private loans were solicited, and when all these expedients were exhausted, the final resort of bankrupt communities, paper money, was adopted . Then Puerto Rico's poverty became extreme.
If they called out after him, "Now it is Rico's turn to be thrashed," he stood perfectly still and did nothing; but he looked at them so strangely with his dark eyes, that no one meddled with him. In Stineli's company he was always contented.
She had no one with whom to share her pleasures since Rico's departure, even if she had a moment to herself. Her good grandmother had died the year before, and from that time forward the girl had no relaxation whatever; but from morning to evening there was nothing but incessant toil.
"There," he said, as he placed it on Rico's arm, "take the bow in your hand, so, my boy; and if you can play me c, d, e, f, I will give you a half-gulden." Rico had the fiddle really in his hand; his eyes sparkled with fire; c, d, e, f, he played the notes firmly and perfectly correctly. "You little rascal!" cried the astonished teacher, "where did you learn that? Who taught you?
"One only feels perfectly well with Stineli, and nowhere else," that cut his mother to the heart, and seemed like a reproach to her, as if she would not do something that might make him well again; but how could she possibly even think of it? She had heard herself Rico's answer to Silvio when he asked if he knew how to go to Stineli. It was, "No, I do not know the way; but I can easily find one."
Judging from the deep sigh that accompanied these words, the wish must have weighed heavily on Rico's heart. The sympathetic little Stineli began at once to contrive some means of helping him to get his wish. "We will buy one together, Rico," she said suddenly, full of delight at a happy thought that had entered her head. I have ever so many pieces of money, as many as twelve.
But we are here concerned with the jíbaro of European descent only, whose redemption from a degraded condition of existence it is to the country's interest should be specially attended to. Mr. Francisco del Valle Atilés, one of Puerto Rico's distinguished literary men, has left us a circumstantial description of the character and conditions of these rustics.
"That is nothing at all in comparison with Rico's wedding in the 'Golden Sun." The house in the garden never again lost its sunshine, and Stineli took good care "Our Father" was never forgotten again; and on every Sunday evening the grandmother's hymn was sung in the garden in full chorus.
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