It was certainly a pity that he had never penetrated far enough into the mysteries of religion. In that case he would now have entered the church and offered up two good fat candles, encased in colored paper, to the King of Heaven and implored Him earnestly to grant him his heart’s desire. It is much simpler to pray to the gods and goddesses for help than to labor to attain one’s desire, either by hard work or by an adroit and intelligent manipulation of the circumstances which promise its fulfillment. The things a man deeply desires rarely arise of themselves, and very seldom in the way he hopes of them. But things that are earnestly coveted do come closer and, once close, are more easily grasped and held on to than things that are only halfheartedly coveted or not coveted at all. That is only natural and not by any means hard to understand. Persons of little education and little intelligence have to pray before they can concentrate on what they wish. And therefore it is of no importance to what one prays, since it is not the prayer but the strength of one’s desire that brings the object of desire nearer.
Andrés was well aware from long experience that prayer would not cause a single hole in the road to vanish—unless he or his fellow workers filled the hole with stones and, even then, kept a sharp lookout to prevent the carreta from coming to grief. He knew that his patrón would not raise his wage by so much as half a real however long he might kneel to the Holy Virgin. He had to fight that out with the patrón for himself, whether outright or by guile. And if an ox fell over a precipice, the most earnest prayers would never pull it up again. It meant hours of backbreaking toil before the carreteros could hoist the animal onto the road again—with lassos and tree trunks after digging out steps and excavating a way for it.
Although the church called to him so persistently through its open doorway it never for a second entered his head to beseech the Holy Virgin for the companion he desired.
Andrés was irresolute what to do next. Squatting there in his Indian fashion, he remained motionless as before. Seen from a little distance he looked, in the shadow of the wall behind him, like a statue put there as an ornament of the house. He did not even turn his head. He could see all he wished of what went on in the square without as much as moving his eyes. It was only within that the presence of the girls had made him restless.
He could not squat there forever, but he did not know where to go. There was nothing more to be seen. The boys and girls danced on and on, but dancing is wearisome to lookers-on.
Yet he did not want to return to the camp. The prairie was now wrapped in darkness. The carreteros were asleep, or, if not asleep, drunk and bawling senselessly to no one in particular. Carretas, oxen, and carreteros could be seen every day, but a fair—when he could sit idly looking on without a care—was a rare event in his life. There was no knowing when he would next have the chance to partake in a fiesta like this. It might be a year. It might be two.
And thinking how it might be years before another fiesta came his way, how his work might always keep him from it, owing to the long trips he might be on, he at last made up his mind to have another look around, among the stands and booths and roulette tables. There was always something of interest to be seen. He considered going to a bar and having a small comiteco. Perhaps he might meet a girl who had no boy friend and was wandering about alone like himself. His blood warmed at the thought of meeting a girl, a girl, perhaps, like one of those three who had aroused this new and strange excitement in him. It was possible he might find a girl who would be willing to talk to him, to dance with him, to stroll about the fair with him, and perhaps walk out with him beyond the last houses over the little bridge and as far as the last farms, after which there was the open prairie.
He stretched his legs and felt for his tall bast hat, which had slipped from his head. He was about to get on his feet when he heard a sound like a suppressed sigh.
He looked to his right. He had not once looked in that direction in all the time he had been squatting there. Everything worth looking at had been to the front of him; there could have been nothing much to see at his right.
When he now looked more closely into the darkness he could see, hunched in a corner of the house, a small bundle which appeared to be human. It was tightly rolled up as though afraid of claiming too much space from the world and other people. Indeed, this bundle did not seem to believe it had any right to any room whatever, so closely was it huddled together.
The bundle did not stir. Neither head nor feet were visible. It was entirely enveloped in a jorongo of black wool with narrow gray stripes.
Andrés could not make out how this bundle had come there—so close that he could almost touch it by stretching out his hand. No doubt his thoughts had been far away and he had not noticed when and how it had crouched down near him. Perhaps it had been there before he himself had sat down. In any case he had had no idea it was there, and owing to the unexpectedness of it, it seemed to him that this bundle had fallen from heaven.
He edged a little nearer, and as he did so he thought the bundle huddled itself closer together. Again he heard a gentle sigh, like the indrawn breath of a long sob.
“What are you crying for, little girl?” he asked softly.
There was no reply.
It occurred to him that perhaps she did not understand Spanish. So next he asked in Tseltal: “Why are you sad, little girl?”
The bundle stirred and sat up.
“Have you no mother?” he asked.
“Muquenal,” the bundle said softly, and sighed again.
“In the cemetery, then,” Andrés replied. “And your father?” he asked.
“Mee muquenal, tat milvil, nebahachisch, mucal aquil namal,” said the bundle, meaning: “My mother in the cemetery, my father killed, I am an orphan now, my village is far from here.”
In these few words her whole history was told.
Andrés moved a little closer.
“Can I help you, little girl?”
She said nothing for a time. She had to think it out. Then she said: “Bocon—I will go now.”
“Where will you go, so late in the night? The wild dogs will bite you, and drunken men about on the roads will insult you.”
“I’m not afraid,” she answered to this. “I have sharp teeth and strong nails and I’ll find two big stones and take them with me.”
While she spoke she came further and further out of her jorongo. Her head was now free.
“How old are you?” he asked her.
“Jolajuneb—I am fifteen,” she replied.
“Anelvaneg—a runaway?” he asked.
“Yes, anesvil—I’ve run away from a finca,” she said.
Her hair was tangled, matted and long uncombed—dirty and, Andrés supposed, full of lice. Her face had not been washed for days. Her skin was a dark bronze. Her eyes were black like her straggly hair, and very large and bright.
“Have you nowhere to sleep?” he asked.
“I am going out onto the prairie,” she said.
He laughed at her, and when he saw that she answered with a hesitating smile he said: “I’ll take you with me to the carretas and I’ll fix you a warm soft bed in a carreta. Will you come?”
“You are good to me, Binash Yutsil—you fine boy,” she said simply. And with this the invitation was accepted.
“We’ll go first to the fountain,” he suggested.
“Why?”
This was polite and gallant, for he had meant that she needed washing. As it was now a question of both of them she did not mind being told that she needed a wash.
He pulled a small piece of soap out of his pocket and gave it to her. She washed at the outer edge of the fountain, where the water ran into troughs for the cattle that were brought there to be watered.
“Stay where you are,” he said and ran off. In a moment he was back with a wooden comb he had bought at a stall for five centavos.
“And now we’ll go and give your hair a good combing.”
He took her by the hand and they went back into the shadow of the house where they had first met. She began to give her hair a thorough combing. It took a long time. It was by nature thick hair and now it was a mop.
He watched and laughed and talked with her as though he had known her for years. It seemed to do her all the good in the world to have found someone to talk to freely, and she relied on him as she would on a brother.
The confidence she had in him filled him with tenderness. He felt his heart bathed in warm sunshine. Indeed, it ran all through his veins. The longing, which had made him sad because it had no object and was only longing for longing’s sake, was now released in a great and quiet joy. There was no name for it; for it was a joy that was new to him and was not connected with anything he had known before. He wished the night might never end and the girl talk on and on and never stop.
When she tossed back her hair to shake it clear and then lowered her head again and looked at him with a smile which showed the beauty of her white teeth, he felt a new world open. He felt boundlessly rich to have bought her a comb, and richer still to be able to offer her a carreta in the camp for her home.
At last she had finished with her hair. She shook it back from her face and turned to him with a smile. Then she pulled the loose hair from the teeth of the comb, tapped it against the wall, and gave it back to him.
“It is your comb,” he said, “a present from the fair.”
“But I’ve no pocket to keep it in,” she said, smiling. “Won’t you keep it in your pocket for me?”
He took it and put it in his pocket. “I’m very pleased to keep it for you. Now you’ll have to come to me when you want to comb your hair.”
“I’ll do that gladly,” she replied.
He stood up. “And now, vehel ta hacabaltic—we will go and have supper. Would you like to? Are you hungry?”
She threw back her head so as to look up at his face, for she was sitting on her heels.
“I have never been so hungry, Binash Yutsil. It’s two days since I ate.”
They went to the little Indian kitchen where Andrés had bought his enchiladas earlier in the evening.
“Now what will you have for your supper, tujom ants?” he asked her.
Her face went dark as he said this and she looked down in shame, for “tujom ants” means “beautiful lady,” and in the way he said it, and in his smile as he said it, there was not only admiration of her—but more. Then she raised her eyes and looked at him with a sidelong smile and half-shut eyes.
“Well?” he asked again. “What will the little girl have for supper?”
“Tibal,” she replied, “meat, real meat—I’m very hungry.”
He ordered the enchiladas. While they watched them being prepared she said: “But I am not a little girl, you know. I am big now. I have been a woman for over a year. You can take my word for that, Binash Yutsil huinic.” She laughed.
Andrés looked at her. She had taken off her jorongo—which is worn like a poncho and like it has a hole in the center for the head—and now stood before him in a mud-spattered shirt and skirt.
The skirt was of coarse black wool, gathered into a thick tuck at the waistline because, following the Indian custom, it had to be wide enough to serve when the wearer was with child. It was torn, and smeared with dried mud. The cotton shirt, once white, was gray with dust and ingrained with dirt. It was embroidered along the border in lines and stars of red wool.
She was barefoot. Her feet were very small, and the toes were spread out in their natural form. No shoe had ever hindered their growth. The dense mass of her hair, still matted in spite of the combing, hung down below her waist. She was small, and thin.
When the enchiladas were ready Andrés asked the girls for a little salt, which was given to him in a banana leaf. A small lemon was also added.
Then he said: “We’ll go over to the church steps to eat them and later come back and have a cup of coffee.”
“Hutsil,” she said laughing, “that will be fine.”
“Aren’t you going to eat too?” she asked when they sat down on the steps and he handed her the enchiladas.
“I’ve eaten already and I’m not hungry now,” he said.
“Then you must just take a bite of each of my enchiladas or I won’t enjoy them and they won’t do me any good,” she said, holding one to his mouth.
“What is your name, little girl?” he asked.
“I have no name. My mother and father never called me anything but huntic—child—and the mistress of the finca, when she summoned me, said anstil vinic—girl. José, the master’s son, always called me mejayel.”
“Why did he call you mejayel?” Andrés asked angrily. “What a horrible name for a little girl like you. What a swine he must be. Over there in that cantina every painted girl who serves the men with comiteco and sits on their knees and lets them handle her as they like for money—every one of those girls is a mejayel.”
She did not understand what he meant. It was as incomprehensible to her as the fable of original sin is to any normal person, but she realized that a strange and unknown world was opening before her. She could see no sense in what went on in that world. So, at the first glance at least, she believed there was no sense to be seen. But when she took another look at the cantina, and watched from where they sat what went on there, and tried to see what connection it had with what Andrés had told her, she began to understand by degrees. Indeed, she began to get it straight in her mind much more quickly than Andrés expected; for, after thinking over what she saw, she recognized that what went on in the cantina was the same thing she had seen on the finca. It was only that in that cantina next to the cathedral the dresses and lighting were different—that was all.
“José lied,” she said. “I know now what a mejayel is, and José lied. I am not a mejayel, but he wanted to make me one. I see it now, and it is why I ran away from the finca. I will tell you all about it, Binash Yutsil,” she said as she finished the last enchilada.
“First we’ll go and drink coffee. You must be thirsty,” Andrés suggested.
After the coffee they sat down again on the church steps. The eternal murmur of praying women came through the doorway and every now and again the monotonous chanting.
The shouts and cries of the merchants in the square died down. There were still plenty of people wandering to and fro, but no one was buying anything. Only at the gambling tables, at the shooting galleries, and at the lotería tables—there groups still collected either to play or look on.
Mexican lotería—unlike lotto or bingo or keno, whatever they choose to call it where you live—is played with picture cards rather than numbered ones. The lotería tables were the noisiest in the square as everyone scrambled to match and cover the picture squares of their cards, in the hope of planting beans on four squares in a row—in which case they won a bunch of paper flowers or a brandy glass or a comb.
You heard the cry of the man who turned up the cards: “El diablo!” And his assistant repeated: “El diablo!” “El globo!” ——“El globo!” … “El alacrán!”——“El alacrán!” … “La vaca!”——“La vaca!”—the devil, the globe, the scorpion, the cow they called out, among all the other species and objects portrayed on the cards. The callers liked to greet the names with spicy remarks which they thought witty.
Many of the merchants were now covering their stalls with tarpaulins; others packed their wares away in boxes or simply spread rush matting over them. When that was done they lay down on a mat in the stall or alongside it and went to sleep.
More and more of the lanterns and the lamps of oil-soaked cotton in tin cans were extinguished. The people who still wandered about among the stalls looked like ghostly shadows.
But near the fountain the dancing was kept up merrily.
The mournfully rising and falling flute notes of a marimba could be heard from a distant street. Sometimes it sounded like harps, sometimes like oboes of all sizes, sometimes like the singing of women’s contralto voices, sometimes like a soft peal of bells. Some citizen of the town was giving a private party in his house, or a lover serenading his mistress, or a family celebrating the saint’s day of one of its members.
“Would you like to dance for a bit?” asked Andrés.
“I’d like to, but I’m afraid,” said the girl.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, little girl,” he said, encouraging her. “There are no Ladinos dancing, but only Indians like you and me. Come along.”
They joined the dancers. No one paid any attention to them. He looked like the other young fellows and she, in her jorongo, like many another Indian girl who had come to the fiesta.
He gave her his colored handkerchief and they danced their Indian zapateado as happily and unconcernedly as the rest. They entirely forgot that they had met for the first time only two hours ago. And it did not worry them that neither knew the other’s name. It seemed to them that they had known each other ever since the world began.
It was very late. The musicians were weary. They had been playing day and night for three weeks, often right on until daybreak. They did not earn much; those who came to them to dance had little to spend. But they, Indians like the rest, seemed to find much of their reward in giving pleasure to others and enabling all who came along to forget their cares, if only for a few happy hours.
“Now we’ll have another drink of coffee, and a cake with it,” Andrés proposed when the girl gave him back his handkerchief.
“As you please, Binash Yutsil,” she said smiling. “Command and I obey.”
He guided her by the elbow to the kitchen of the old Indian woman, who was now squatting half asleep by her stove. This woman kept open day and night cooking for the hungry Indians who patronized her. She too, like most of the stallkeepers and the gambling-table people, had already attended the fiesta at Sapaluta. It was a question whether she ever lay down to sleep at all. No doubt she had the gift of sleeping while squatting beside her stove.
Her customers were never in a hurry; they never hustled her or made loud and angry complaints if their enchiladas were not ready quickly. And so she could have her forty winks while apparently seeing to her job. If there was no one waiting she pulled her rebozo over her head and was at once so fast asleep that she snored. But one of her daughters had only to say in a whisper: “Madrecita, dos con pollo, dos con res—two with chicken, two with beef, Mother dear,” and she was awake in an instant and automatically getting the enchiladas ready without ever once mixing up an order or the various salads and sauces.
Her first act on being waked from sleep was to blow up the fire. The first thing any Indian woman does when she wakes is to blow up the embers which smolder either on the open ground or in a clay hearth; it is the same with the Indian boys who are on the road.
The air was now pretty sharp, and the hot coffee and the bizcochos put new life into them.
“It is very late,” Andrés said tenderly. “How would you like to turn in and sleep? I’ll make you a fine warm bed in a carreta, where you can sleep as long as you like.”
“If that is your command I must obey,” she replied without thinking.
“Will you always obey me, little girl?” he asked softly.
“Always,” she said simply, “always, because you are good to me.”
They walked through the long silent streets. The further they left the plaza behind, the darker it became. The street lamps had been put out.
They often stumbled. The municipal authorities were accustomed to spending the money set apart for repairing the streets on other items of more personal interest to themselves, and therefore the streets away from the center of the town were in a deplorable condition. Rough stones, deep holes into which you sank nearly to your knees, ruts full of slimy refuse and noisome mud, puddles and quagmires from overflowing drains, tree trunks, planks, carreta poles, roof wreckage, and tumble-down walls—this was what met you at every step on the outskirts of the town. There were gaping holes in the footbridges; some had broken-down railings, others none at all. By day it was bad enough; by night you risked a broken leg or immersion in stinking pits every ten steps you took.
Andrés took some pine splinters from his pocket and lit them to throw light on the road. He had not yet managed to acquire a flashlight—one of the cherished ambitions of his life—nor could he see the remotest chance of his ever acquiring one.
But he, and the girl too, were used to these splinters of pine. They had had no other light in their homes. Every carreta, certainly, had an oil lantern, but these lanterns were of so little use in practice that the carreteros used pine splinters if they needed a really good light. This relieved their masters of the cost of supplying oil for the lanterns.
The town was very scattered, for every family had a house to itself and every house had a spacious patio. So it took a long time before the two reached the last houses. After this the road was safer, for the wide prairie stretched before them.
Andrés sat down on a bank.
“Let’s rest a bit,” he said, “and smoke a cigarette. What do you say?”
“Yes,” she said and sat down beside him.
He rolled cigarettes and gave her one. The deep night sky was dense above their heads, but it did not weigh down and oppress them. It was a wide flood of thick darkness, reposeful and comforting. The crickets, and whatever else lived and took joy in the grass, fiddled and whirred and fluted from the prairie. Now and then from the distance came the deep lowing of cattle or the mournful trumpeting of a mule. The stars twinkled and sparkled with the tropical brilliance of little suns. The bats flitted by them, returning and circling around them, now close, now far.
A few solitary lights glimmered from the town. Now and then belated fireworks sputtered over it, and here and there a rocket soared up to rouse San Caralampio once more. He surely did not wish to sleep on his birthday—that would not be right.
“Whenever I see the stars spread so far over the deep blackness of the sky—which all the same is so clear,” said the girl, “and sparkling as if they were trying to speak, I can’t help thinking of my dear mother. Perhaps she is living on one of those stars now. She loved the stars more than anything else in all nature. She could sit for hours at night watching the stars and rejoicing in them, with me on her lap or between her knees. One of those nights when the finquero had sent my father off for a few days driving cattle, my mother told me a story about the stars. I have never forgotten it. It is always in my heart. That is why I am never afraid at night, however black it is. I have never told the story to anyone, because it is sacred to me as the most beautiful and lovely thing my mother could have left me. But, Binash Yutsil, I will tell you the story. For you are good to me, good as only my mother was good, and no one else in the whole world, not even my father, was so good to me. He was always tired out with his work and always covered with cuts and bruises from his labors in the bush.”
After a long pause and while she leaned against him for shelter from the cool wind that had risen, he said softly and tenderly: “This story is the most beautiful present you could give me, and I will listen to it as well and closely as though your mother were telling it to me. I do believe indeed that she lives on one of the stars and looks down on you and protects you from all that could harm you.”
She nestled closer to him and he took her in his arms and wrapped her well in his serape.
In a voice almost as low as his she began her story:
“It is the story of the god who made the sun.
“The evil spirits who wanted to destroy mankind, because the good gods had made it, conquered the good gods and killed them all. That done they put out the sun with snow and ice and blizzards.
“And then began an endless night on the earth. Everything was covered with ice. Men froze to death. Scarcely any maize grew, and on this mankind existed in great wretchedness. Many, many people starved and died.
“No trees with sweet fruits grew any more. No flowers bloomed. No birds sang. Crickets and grasshoppers ceased to fiddle and flute. All the animals of the forests and prairies died, so that men could not hunt them any more for food for their wives and children or clothe them in warm skins.
“When man’s wretchedness got worse and worse, all the chiefs and kings of the Indian people summoned a great council to decide how a new sun could be made.
“The only light in the sky came from the bright stars. The bad gods had not been able to put them out. On the stars lived the spirits of departed men who had been able to defend themselves. Strength had been given them by the good gods because it was their task to keep the stars alight forever.
“The great council of kings lasted many weeks, but nobody knew of a way to make a new sun. Then the kings sent for a man of great wisdom, who was more than three hundred years old and had learned all the secrets of nature. And he said:
“ ‘There is certainly a way of making a new sun. A young man of strength and great courage must go to the stars. There he must beg the spirits of the departed to give him a little piece of each of the stars. He must fasten each piece to his shield and carry it with him higher and still higher, adding new pieces of stars, until he has reached the center of the vault of the sky. There, when all the little pieces are at last on his shield, his shield will turn into a large hot shining sun.
“ ‘I would gladly go and do it myself, but I am old and feeble. I cannot leap as I once did. So I cannot leap from star to star. Also, I am no longer strong and nimble enough to wield spear and shield and fight with the bad gods, who will try to prevent a new sun’s being made.’
“When the wise man had spoken, all the kings and chiefs and great warriors who sat in council leaped up and cried: ‘We are ready to go!’
“Whereupon the wise man said: ‘It is greatly to your honor that you wish to go. But only one can go, and this one must go alone with his shield, because only one sun may be made. Too many suns would burn up the earth.
“ ‘That one who goes must make the greatest sacrifice a man can make. He must leave his wife, his children, his father and his mother, his friends and his people. He can never again return to the earth. He must forever wander in the vault of the sky with his shield on his left arm; and he must hold himself forever in readiness to fight the bad gods, who will never rest until they have again put out the sun. He will see the earth and his people, but he will never return to them. He will be forever alone in space. Let each man ponder this before he volunteers.’
“When the kings heard this they were deeply dismayed. Not one of them wished to be parted forever from his wife and his children, from his friends and people. Each one of them preferred to die then and there and to rest in his own earth among his own people.
“So there was a long silence in the council. But then at last one of the youngest chieftains spoke:
“ ‘I wish to say something, O brave men. I am young and strong and handy with weapons. I have a young and beautiful wife whom I love more than myself. And I have a fine boy who is like my heart’s blood to me. And I have a good and dear mother whose defense and hope I am. And I have many beloved friends. And I love my people among whom I was born and of whom I am an inseparable part.
“ ‘But, more than my wife, more than my boy, more than my mother, my friends and my people, I love mankind. I cannot be content as long as I see mankind suffer. Men need a sun. Without a sun mankind must perish. I am ready to go and restore a sun to men whatever my lot and my fate may be.’
“It was Chicovaneg who said this.
“He took leave of his wife, his boy, his mother, his friends and his people. Following the counsel of the wise man, he went to arm himself.
“He made himself a strong shield of tiger skin and snake skin. He made himself a helmet of a mighty eagle. And he made himself strong shoes of the claws of a mighty tiger, which he slew in the jungle.
“Then he went out to seek the Plumed Serpent. He found it after a search of many years in a deep and dark cave. It was the symbol of the world. Therefore it was guarded by a sorcerer in the pay of the bad gods.
“Chicovaneg succeeded, by great cunning, in slaying the sorcerer. First he made him drunk with sweet maguey juice. Then, when the sorcerer lay drunk and all his forty eyes were shut, Chicovaneg crept up to him and killed him with his spear, which he had poisoned with a hundred poisons the wise man had told him of.
“Now he sang sweet songs and played soft melodies on his flute; whereupon the Plumed Serpent came out and followed him, obeying all his commands.
“After this Chicovaneg set out on his long journey, and after many years and many fights with bad gods he came to the end of the world. Here the stars were at their lowest above the earth. He easily leaped up to the lowest of them.
“He told the spirits of the departed who lived on this star, and whose faces were black because they were not of Indian blood, that men had no sun and that he had left his wife and his people to give a new sun to men. The spirits gladly gave him a small bit of their star to be of help to men. Chicovaneg fastened it to the center of his shield, where it began at once to shine with the beauty of a diamond.
“From now on he could see his way better in the darkness of night, owing to the light of this tiny star on his shield. He sprang from star to star, and everywhere he went, and whether the spirits were yellow, white, brown, or black of face, they willingly gave him a little bit of their stars.
“When he came to those who were of his own blood he was greeted with great joy. They were proud that it was one of their own people who was restoring the sun to mankind. They strengthened his weary body and sharpened his weapons.
“At every leap he made from one star to another the shield became brighter. And when at last his shield was so bright that it far outshone the largest of the stars, the bad gods took note of him. They saw that he was on the way to making a new sun for men and they began to fight him with great fury and to try to hinder him from going any farther. They made the earth quake so as to shake the stars and make him miss his jump to the next star. They knew very well that if he missed only one jump he would fall into the blackness of space whence he could never again emerge, because there the bad gods had all power in their hands.
“But Chicovaneg was clever. If a star was too small to be judged properly, he had the Plumed Serpent take a look at it first and it told him the size so that he would not jump short or overjump the mark. If the distance was too great to cover in one leap, he had the Plumed Serpent fly up first and let its tail hang down. Then he could easily make a jump, grab it by the tail, and crawl up the body of the Plumed Serpent.
“As he climbed higher in the vault of the sky and as his shield grew brighter and brighter, men on earth began at last to see him. They knew that he would now restore the sun, and they were merry and held many festivals.
“But they could see too what a hard time he had. When they saw the distance to the next star and knew that he might well jump short, they were filled with terror. And when they saw the bad gods fighting against him they fell into despair.
“The bad gods roused howling storms which deluged their huts and laid their fields waste. The bad gods flooded the earth and made the mountains spit fiery lava, so as to destroy mankind before the sun stood in the sky. And the bad gods flung burning stones down at Chicovaneg as he climbed up. They threw so many that thousands of these stones still fly about the sky at night.
“Nevertheless, Chicovaneg climbed higher and higher. Brighter and brighter grew his shield. Flowers began to grow and bloom on the earth. The birds came back and sang. Mangoes and papayas began to ripen on the trees, and bananas, tunas, and tomatoes were plentiful.
“And then at last when men looked up one day there stood the sun shining down from the vault of the sky right above their heads. And they held a great feast to honor Chicovaneg.
“But the bad gods never cease in their efforts. They veil the earth in black clouds until the people fear the sun will be put out again.
“But Chicovaneg, the brave, is on the watch. He stands behind his sun shield to protect men from the bad gods. And when the bad gods press him too hard he gets into a fury and flings blazing arrows above the earth so as to hunt out and hit the bad gods who are hiding in deep black clouds. Then he rattles on his shield, and the thunder of it shakes the air.
“And when at last he has chased away the bad gods he traces in the sky his many-colored bow to tell mankind that they need not be afraid: he will not give in and the sun will not again be put out and destroyed by the bad gods.”
The girl, nestling against Andrés all the time, had now brought her story to an end. She said no more.
After a while Andrés asked: “Did your mother also tell you who made the Huh—the moon?”
“Yes,” she said, “Chicovaneg’s son. When he grew up he wanted to go to see his father. He could not, however, find a plumed serpent, because his father had taken with him the only one there was, and when he had made the sun he told it to coil about the earth where the vault of the sky rested on the earth. There it lies keeping watch against the evil ones who are on the other side of the vault of the sky, trying to break through it so as to strengthen the power of the bad gods under the vault of the sky.
“But Chicovaneg is clever. He does not wholly trust the Plumed Serpent and is afraid it might sleep and fail in its watch. For this reason he climbs down every night to see if by any chance it is asleep.
“Since there is only one plumed serpent, Chicovaneg’s son had to seek some other creature by whose help he could climb up to the vault of the sky. He chose a rabbit because rabbits can jump well.
“He too, with the rabbit’s help, sprang from star to star. But the departed spirits could not spare him so much of their stars as they had his father. That would have made the stars too small. Therefore his shield is not so large and brilliant as his father’s.
“But so as to be near his father he follows him over the whole vault of the sky, and whenever he passes his father he gives him a greeting from his mother, who sleeps on a high mountain under a mantle of snow.
“The rabbit which the son took with him to help him leap from star to star you can see clearly on his shield.”
Andrés looked away over the prairie and up into the sky. He saw the young chieftain climbing up to the stars.
The poetry he was conscious of as the girl told him this story of her religion was not in the tale itself. He felt it far more from the simplicity of her way of telling it, from her gentle and quiet voice, and most of all from the feeling he had, while she told it, that she felt herself close to him and safe in his arms from every sorrow in the world. The knowledge that he might and could protect her, and that she put herself under his protection utterly and without thought or question, made him feel big and strong.
“She is like a helpless songbird fallen from the nest,” he said softly. She made no reply. She seemed to hear without quite realizing what he said, for she wriggled and nestled closer into his arms.
But when he looked up again to the starry roof above, the story immediately became real. At once he saw the young chieftain climbing up, saw him forsake his wife and his child, and saw a molten stone whirl from the hand of one of the bad gods in a flaming arc above his head.
He asked himself whether he would really like to be a god and to live in a glory of light. It might, indeed, be necessary to restore the sun to men when they had none and were in great want; and it was, indeed, a fine and glorious deed that the young chieftain had done. He deserved to be a god and to be honored by men. At the bottom of his heart Andrés was glad, nevertheless, that men now had the sun and that he could never be troubled by the pangs of conscience and valorous intent until compelled to do as that chieftain had done. He felt the warm pressure of the girl on his breast, and it made him wonder whether he would be capable of making the sacrifice that god had made of abandoning his wife and child and people forever. But, thinking and feeling as he did, he understood all the more how great and beautiful a deed that god had done, and what love of his fellow men it showed, to have sacrificed all that makes a man’s life worth living in order to be of help to men. And what made the deed all the greater and more worthy of admiration was that the god could never die, never sleep, and never forget; for ever and ever he had to think of the loves he had given up, and the pang of his loss could never cease. For though he knows that all whom he knew on earth have been dead for thousands of years, yet they live in his memory as vividly as on the day when he forsook them for the sake of mankind. It is only a very slight consolation to him that his son is near him and that he can embrace him on those days, few and far between, when for an hour the sun is darkened for men on earth. It was very natural, then, that Andrés should feel no ambition to become a god of his people; for when he considered and pondered the matter he came to the conclusion that the lot of a god is not an enviable one. The greatness and glory of the gods is dearly bought.
He wanted to ask something, but he saw that the girl was fast asleep. Taking her gently in his arms, he picked her up and carried her all the way to the camp where the carretas were.
The others were all asleep. Some seemed to have drunk to excess in their recent celebration of the fiesta in honor of San Caralampio. They groaned and grunted in their sleep and lay on the ground like logs.
He put the girl tenderly down. Then he prepared a comfortable bed for her in the carreta, and when he had got it ready to his satisfaction he lifted her carefully into the carreta and settled her down. She only sighed now and then—she was so utterly tired out.
Then he spread his petate on the ground under the carreta and lay down to sleep. His last waking thought was that never in his whole life had he fallen asleep with such joy and content and hope as on this night. With his last glimmer of consciousness before he fell asleep, he knew in his heart that the loveliest and sweetest days of his life had begun—days that would make him forget all the cares and troubles of his hard life.
His drowsy thoughts even got so far that he whispered: “To be a carretero is the finest life on earth.”