The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria

The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria

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Charles A. Gunnison
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Title: The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria
Author: Charles A. Gunnison

Release Date: June 23, 2006 [eBook #18660]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE BEAUTIFUL EYES OF YSIDRIA

by
CHARLES A. GUNNISON.

Press of Commercial Publishing Co. 34 California St., S. F.

To----
Madame Emma Baudouin of Luebeck, this little story of Californian
life is given in token of her unmerited kindness to the writer, and in
admiration of one who makes the world happier by her every word and
act.
CHARLES A. GUNNISON, Xmas, 1894. In the Embarcadero, Palo Alto,
Santa Clara, California

The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria.

I.
Have you seen the magnificent slope of our beloved Tamalpais, as it
curves from the changing colour of the bay, till touching the fleecy fog
rolling in from the Pacific, it passes from day to rest? If you have not, I
hope you may, for the sooner you have this glorious picture on your
memory's walls, the brighter will be your future, and you will have a bit
of beauty which need not be forgotten even in heaven itself.
There is one who, though passing his life beneath its shadow, enjoying
the scented wind from its forests and the music of its birds and
waterfalls and sighing madroños, does not see it, yet calls it his God,
and believes it to be the Giver of all good, as we who have never seen
our God feel that One who bestows blessings so bountiful must be
beautiful beyond words.

Many walks, miles in extent, have my Quito and I taken. I say my
Quito, for he is my son, my only son; and beneath the thick shade of
laurels, beside the roadside troughs, we have rested and spoken, he to
me of the unheard, I to him of the unseen.
Come back with me to the days of my youth, those merry days of
California before the gold was about her dear form like prisoner's
chains; before the greed of the States and England had forced us into
the weary drudgery of the earth, and made us the slaves of misbegotten
progress.
We had our church then and dear old Padre Andreas at San Anselmo,
and, my dear friends from the States, we also had cockles from
Tomales, which were eaten with relish on the beach at Sausalito, just
where George the Greek's is now, though then there was only a little
hut kept by a man whom we called Victor--and we had feasts and fasts
so well arranged, that dyspepsia was unknown.
One day when I had been on a long tramp through the woods, gathering
mushrooms, I came home tired and hungry, and found our old
housekeeper, Catalina, smiling complacently, as she sat on the stepping
block by the kitchen door, rolling tamales for supper. "Oh! Master
Carlos," she cried, "we have had much to worry us to-day. Look at
those poor, little ducks all dead and the mother hen also."
"Who killed them, Catalina?" I asked in astonishment, as I saw my pet
brood of ducks and their over careful mother lying dead in the grass.
"I did," she replied, "and it was time that something was done. Madre
Moreno has been busy again. The cows gave bloody milk last Friday,
and to-day, while I was sorting some herbs, the hen and her brood
began to act mysteriously, to tumble about as Victor might, after too
much wine. All at once I saw the cause, Madre Moreno had bewitched
them, and in three minutes I had cut all their throats and have given the
wicked woman a lesson."
"Catalina! Catalina!" I cried, "how can you be so cruel and
superstitious?" Her face lighted up with supreme contempt for me, but

she said nothing more. On the ground about her were bits of leaves
which I recognized as nightshade and henbane, which could well
account for the actions of the late hen and ducklings.
"What are these?" I asked.
"Little Pablo brought them for dinner; he thought they were mustard,
but they were not, so I threw them away."
"Poor ducks and poor Catalina," was all that I could say, and went
laughing into the house, while she muttered to herself about the
ignorance of the new generation.
My home