Part 17

Sisa did not insist: she attached no importance to dreams.

"Mama," said Basilio after a moment of silence, "I'm not sleepy either. I had a project last evening. I don't want to be a sacristan."

"What?"

"Listen, mama. The son of Don Rafael came home from Spain to-day; he should be as kind as his father. Well, to-morrow I find Crispin, get my pay, and say I'm not going to be a sacristan. Then I'll go see Don Crisóstomo and ask him to make me a buffalo-keeper. Crispin could go on studying with old Tasio. Tasio's better than the curate thinks; I've often seen him praying in the church when no one else was there. What shall I lose in not being a sacristan? One earns little and loses it all in fines. I'll be a herdsman, mama, and take good care of the cows and carabaos, and make my master love me; then perhaps he'll let us have a cow to milk: Crispin loves milk. And I could fish in the rivers and go hunting when I get big. And by and by perhaps I could have a little land and sow sugar-cane. We could all live together, then. And old Tasio says Crispin is very bright. By and by we would send him to study at Manila, and I would work for him. Shall we, mama? He might be a doctor; what do you say?"

"What can I say, except that you are right," answered Sisa, kissing her son.

Basilio went on with his projects, talking with the confidence of a child. Sisa said yes to everything. But little by little sleep came back to the child's lids, and this time he did not cry in his dreams: that Ole-Luk-Oie, of whom Andersen tells us, unfurled over his head the umbrella with its lining of gay pictures. But the mother, past the age of careless slumbers, did not sleep.

XVI.

AT THE MANSE.

It was seven o'clock when Brother Salvi finished his last mass. He took off his priestly robes without a word to any one.

"Look out!" whispered the sacristans; "it is going to rain fines! And all for the fault of those children!"

The father came out of the sacristy and crossed to the manse. On the porch six or seven women sat waiting for him, and a man was walking to and fro. The woman rose, and one bent to kiss his hand, but the priest made such a gesture of impatience that she stopped short.

"He must have lost a real miser," she cried mockingly, when he had passed. "This is something unheard of: refuse his hand to the zealous Sister Rufa?"

"He was not in the confessional this morning," said a toothless old woman, Sister Sipa. "I wanted to confess, so as to get some indulgences."

"I have gained three plenary indulgences," said a young woman of pleasing face, "and applied them all to the soul of my husband."

"You have done wrong," said Sister Rufa, "one plenary is enough; you should not squander the holy indulgences. Do as I do."

"I said to myself, the more there are the better," replied young sister Juana, smiling; "but what do you do?"

Sister Rufa did not respond at once; she chewed her buyo, and scanned her audience attentively; at length she decided to speak.

"Well, this is what I do. Suppose I gain a year of indulgences; I say: Blessed Señor Saint Dominic, have the kindness to see if there is some one in purgatory who has need of precisely a year. Then I play heads or tails. If it falls heads, no; if tails, yes. If it falls heads, I keep the indulgence, and so I make groups of a hundred years, for which there is always use. It's a pity one can't loan indulgences at interest. But do as I do, it's the best plan."

At this point Sisa appeared. She said good morning to the women, and entered the manse.

"She's gone in, let us go too," said the sisters, and they followed her.

Sisa felt her heart beat violently. She did not know what to say to the curate in defence of her child. She had risen at daybreak, picked all the fine vegetables left in her garden, and arranged them in a basket with platane leaves and flowers, and had been to the river to get a fresh salad of pakô. Then, dressed in the best she had, the basket on her head, without waking her son, she had set out for the pueblo.

She went slowly through the manse, listening if by chance she might hear a well-known voice, fresh and childish. But she met no one, heard nothing, and went on to the kitchen.

The servants and sacristans received her coldly, scarcely answering her greetings.

"Where may I put these vegetables?" she asked, without showing offence.

"There--wherever you want to," replied the cook curtly.

Sisa, half-smiling, placed all in order on the table, and laid on top the flowers and the tender shoots of the pakô; then she asked a servant who seemed more friendly than the cook:

"Do you know if Crispin is in the sacristy?"

The servant looked at her in surprise.