The Aztec Treasure-House | Page 8

a
strong liking to him. I waited until he had played through the sabre
song again--to which, as it seemed to me, the ass listened with a
slightly critical yet pleased attention--and then I hailed him.
"The lazy Señor Americano is awake at last, Pablo," I called. "Come up
hither, and we will talk about the buying of thy rain-coat, and about the
buying of the Wise One's beans."
The boy jumped up as though a spring had been let loose beneath him,
and his shame and confusion were so great that I was sorry enough that
I had made my little joke upon him.
"It is all right, my child," I said, quickly, and with all the kindness that I
could put into my tones. "Thou wert talking to the Wise One, not to
me--and I have forgotten all that I heard. Thou art come from Fray

Antonio?"
"Yes, señor," he answered; and as he saw by my smiling that no harm
had been done, he also smiled; and so honest and kindly was the lad's
face that I liked him more and more.
"Patience for yet a little longer, Wise One," he said, turning to the ass,
who gravely wagged his ears in answer. And then the boy came up the
stair to the gallery, and so we went to my room that I might have talk
with him.
It was not much that Pablo had to tell about himself. He was a
Guadalajara lad, born in the Indian suburb of Mexicalcingo--as his
musical taste might have told me had I known more of Mexico--who
had drifted out into the world to seek his fortune. His capital was the
ass--so wise an ass that he had named him El Sabio. "He knows each
word that I speak to him, señor," said Pablo, earnestly. "And when he
hears, even a long way off, the music that I make upon the little
instrument, he know that it is from me that the music comes, and calls
to me. And he loves me, señor, as though he were my brother; and he
knows that with the same tenderness I also love him. It was the good
Padre who gave him to me. God rest and bless him always!" This pious
wish, I inferred, related not to the ass but to Fray Antonio.
"And how dost thou live, Pablo?" I asked.
"By bringing water from the Spring of the Holy Children, señor. It is
two leagues away, the Ojo de los Santos Niños, and El Sabio and I
make thither two journeys daily. We bring back each time four jars of
water, which we sell here in the city--for it is very good, sweet
water--at three tlacos the jar. You see, I make a great deal of money,
señor--three reales a day! If it were not for one single thing, I should
soon be rich."
That riches could be acquired rapidly on a basis of about twenty-seven
cents, in our currency, a day struck me as a novel notion. But I inquired,
gravely: "And this one thing that hinders thee from getting rich, Pablo,
what is it?"

"It is that I eat so much, señor," Pablo answered, ruefully. "Truly it
seems as though this belly of mine never could be filled. I try valiantly
to eat little and so to save my money; but my belly cries out for more
and yet more food--and so my money goes. Although I make so much,
I can scarcely save a medio in a whole week, when what El Sabio must
have and what I must have is paid for. And I am trying so hard to save
just now, for before the next rainy season comes I want to own a
rain-coat. But for a good one I must pay seven reales. The price is
vast."
"What is a rain-coat, Pablo?"
"The señor does not know? That is strange. It is a coat woven of palm
leaves, so that all over one it is as a thatch that the rain cannot come
through. What I was saying just now to El Sabio--" Pablo stopped
suddenly, and turned aside from me in a shamefaced way, as he
remembered what he also had said to El Sabio about my laziness.
"--Was that out of the wages I am to pay thee thou canst save enough
money to buy thy coat with," I said, quickly, wishing to rid him of his
confusion. And then we fell to talking of what these wages should be,
and of how he was to help me to gain a speaking knowledge of his
native tongue--for so far we had spoken Spanish together--and of what
in general would be his duties as my servant. That El Sabio could be
anything but a part of