The Pride of Palomar | Page 8

old boy is going to ramp up and down in front of those
chimes with a hammer and give me a concert. He'll bang out 'Adeste
Fideles' and 'Gloria in Excelsis.' That's a cinch, because he's a creature
of habit. Occasionally he plays 'Lead, Kindly Light' and 'Ave Maria'!"
Farrel paused, a faint smile of amusement fringing his handsome mouth.
He rolled and lighted a cigarette and continued:
"My father wrote me that old Brother Flavio, after a terrible battle with
his own conscience and at the risk of being hove out of the valley by
his indignant superior, Father Dominic, was practising 'Hail, The
Conquering Hero Comes!' against the day of my home-coming. I wrote
father to tell Brother Flavio to cut that out and substitute 'In the Good
Old Summertime' if he wanted to make a hit with me. Awfully good
old hunks, Brother Flavio! He knows I like those old chimes, and,
when I'm home, he most certainly bangs them so the melody will carry
clear up to the Palomar."
The captain was gazing with increasing amazement upon his former
first sergeant. After eighteen months, he had discovered a man he had
not known heretofore."
"And after the 'Angelus'--what?" he demanded.
Farrel's smug little smile of complacency had broadened.
"Well, sir, when Brother Flavio pegs out, I'll get up and run down to the
Mission, where Father Dominic, Father Andreas, Brother Flavio,
Brother Anthony, and Brother Benedict will all extend a welcome and
muss me up, and we'll all talk at once and get nowhere with the
conversation for the first five minutes. Brother Anthony is just a little

bit--ah--nutty, but harmless. He'll want to know how many men I've
killed, and I'll tell him two hundred and nineteen. He has a leaning
toward odd numbers, as tending more toward exactitude. Right away,
he'll go into the chapel and pray for their souls, and while he's at this
pious exercise, Father Dominic will dig up a bottle of old wine that's
too good for a nut like Brother Anthony, and we'll sit on a bench in the
mission garden in the shade of the largest bougainvillea in the world
and tuck away the wine. Between tucks, Father Dominic will inquire
casually into the state of my soul, and the information thus elicited will
scandalize the old saint. The only way I can square myself is to go into
the chapel with them and give thanks for my escape from the
Bolsheviki.
"By that time, it will be a quarter of seven and dark, so Father Dominic
will crank up a prehistoric little automobile my father gave him in order
that he might spread himself over San Marcos County on Sundays and
say two masses. I have a notion that the task of keeping that old car in
running order has upset Brother Anthony's mental balance. He used to
be a blacksmith's helper in El Toro in his youth, and therefore is
supposed to be a mechanic in his old age."
"Then the old padre drives you home, eh?" the captain suggested.
"He does. Providentially, it is now the cool of the evening. The San
Gregorio is warm enough, for all practical purposes, even on a day in
April, and, knowing this, I am grateful to myself for timing my arrival
after the heat of the day. Father Dominic is grateful also. The old man
wears thin sandals, and on hot days he suffers continuous martyrdom
from the heat of that little motor. He is always begging Satan to fly
away with that hot-foot accelerator.
"Well, arrived home, I greet my father alone in the patio. Father
Dominic, meanwhile, sits outside in his flivver and permits the motor
to roar, just to let my father know he's there, although not for money
enough to restore his mission would he butt in on us at that moment.
"Well, my father will not be able to hear a word I say until Padre
Dominic shuts off his motor; so my father will yell at him and ask him

what the devil he's doing out there and to come in, and be quick about it,
or he'll throw his share of the dinner to the hogs. We always dine at
seven; so we'll be in time for dinner. But before we go in to dinner, my
dad will ring the bell in the compound, and the help will report. Amid
loud cries of wonder and delight, I shall be welcomed by a mess of
mixed breeds of assorted sexes, and old Pablo, the majordomo, will be
ordered to pass out some wine to celebrate my arrival. It's against the
law to give wine to an Indian, but then, as my father always remarks on
such occasions: 'To hell with the law! They're my