Ramona | Page 8

the very time when he, half
asleep on the veranda, was, as he would have called it, putting two and
two together and convincing himself that old Juan was as smart as they
were, and not to be kept in the dark by all their reticence and
equivocation.
"Juan Can is growing very impatient about the sheep-shearing," said
the Senora. "I suppose you are still of the same mind about it, Felipe,--
that it is better to wait till Father Salvierderra comes? As the only
chance those Indians have of seeing him is here, it would seem a
Christian duty to so arrange it, if it be possible; but Juan is very restive.
He is getting old, and chafes a little, I fancy, under your control. He
cannot forget that you were a boy on his knee. Now I, for my part, am
like to forget that you were ever anything but a man for me to lean on."
Felipe turned his handsome face toward his mother with a beaming
smile of filial affection and gratified manly vanity. "Indeed, my mother,
if I can be sufficient for you to lean on, I will ask nothing more of the
saints;" and he took his mother's thin and wasted little hands, both at
once, in his own strong right hand, and carried them to his lips as a
lover might have done. "You will spoil me, mother," he said, "you
make me so proud."
"No, Felipe, it is I who am proud," promptly replied the mother; "and I
do not call it being proud, only grateful to God for having given me a
son wise enough to take his father's place, and guide and protect me
through the few remaining years I have to live. I shall die content,
seeing you at the head of the estate, and living as a Mexican gentleman
should; that is, so far as now remains possible in this unfortunate
country. But about the sheep-shearing, Felipe. Do you wish to have it
begun before the Father is here? Of course, Alessandro is all ready with
his band. It is but two days' journey for a messenger to bring him.

Father Salvierderra cannot be here before the 10th of the month. He
leaves Santa Barbara on the 1st, and he will walk all the way,-- a good
six days' journey, for he is old now and feeble; then he must stop in
Ventura for a Sunday, and a day at the Ortega's ranch, and at the
Lopez's,-- there, there is a christening. Yes, the 10th is the very earliest
that he can be here,-- near two weeks from now. So far as your getting
up is concerned, it might perhaps be next week. You will be nearly well
by that time."
"Yes, indeed," laughed Felipe, stretching himself out in the bed and
giving a kick to the bedclothes that made the high bedposts and the
fringed canopy roof shake and creak; "I am well now, if it were not for
this cursed weakness when I stand on my feet. I believe it would do me
good to get out of doors."
In truth, Felipe had been hankering for the sheep-shearing himself. It
was a brisk, busy, holiday sort of time to him, hard as he worked in it;
and two weeks looked long to wait.
"It is always thus after a fever," said his mother. "The weakness lasts
many weeks. I am not sure that you will be strong enough even in two
weeks to do the packing; but, as Juan Can said this morning, he stood at
the packing-bag when you were a boy, and there was no need of
waiting for you for that!"
"He said that, did he!" exclaimed Felipe, wrathfully. "The old man is
getting insolent. I'll tell him that nobody will pack the sacks but myself,
while I am master here; and I will have the sheep-shearing when I
please, and not before."
"I suppose it would not be wise to say that it is not to take place till the
Father comes, would it?" asked the Senora, hesitatingly, as if the thing
were evenly balanced in her mind. "The Father has not that hold on the
younger men he used to have, and I have thought that even in Juan
himself I have detected a remissness. The spirit of unbelief is spreading
in the country since the Americans are running up and down
everywhere seeking money, like dogs with their noses to the ground! It
might vex Juan if he knew that you were waiting only for the Father.

What do you think?"
"I think it is enough for him to know that the sheep-shearing waits for
my pleasure," answered Felipe, still wrathful, "and that is the end of it."
And so it was;