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down there, and he learn it from another fellow. It is-a
most like Mexican, but not quite." Thea did not release
him, but pointed to the paper. There were three verses
of the song in all, and when Johnny had written them
down, he sat looking at them meditatively, his head on
one side. "I don' think for a high voice, SENORITA," he
objected with polite persistence. "How you accompany
with piano?"
"Oh, that will be easy enough."
"For you, may-bee!" Johnny smiled and drummed on
the table with the tips of his agile brown fingers. "You
know something? Listen, I tell you." He rose and sat
down on the table beside her, putting his foot on the chair.
He loved to talk at the hour of noon. "When you was a
little girl, no bigger than that, you come to my house one
day 'bout noon, like this, and I was in the door, playing
guitar. You was barehead, barefoot; you run away from
home. You stand there and make a frown at me an' listen.
By 'n by you say for me to sing. I sing some lil' ting, and
then I say for you to sing with me. You don' know no
words, of course, but you take the air and you sing it just-
a beauti-ful! I never see a child do that, outside Mexico.
You was, oh, I do' know--seven year, may-bee. By 'n
by the preacher come look for you and begin for scold. I
say, `Don' scold, Meester Kronborg. She come for hear
guitar. She gotta some music in her, that child. Where
she get?' Then he tell me 'bout your gran'papa play
oboe in the old country. I never forgetta that time."
Johnny chuckled softly.
Thea nodded. "I remember that day, too. I liked your
music better than the church music. When are you going
to have a dance over there, Johnny?"
Johnny tilted his head. "Well, Saturday night the
Spanish boys have a lil' party, some DANZA. You know
Miguel Ramas? He have some young cousins, two boys,
very nice-a, come from Torreon. They going to Salt Lake
for some job-a, and stay off with him two-three days, and
he mus' have a party. You like to come?"
That was how Thea came to go to the Mexican ball.
Mexican Town had been increased by half a dozen new
families during the last few years, and the Mexicans had
put up an adobe dance-hall, that looked exactly like one
of their own dwellings, except that it was a little longer,
and was so unpretentious that nobody in Moonstone knew
of its existence. The "Spanish boys" are reticent about
their own affairs. Ray Kennedy used to know about all
their little doings, but since his death there was no one
whom the Mexicans considered SIMPATICO.
On Saturday evening after supper Thea told her mother
that she was going over to Mrs. Tellamantez's to watch
the Mexicans dance for a while, and that Johnny would
bring her home.
Mrs. Kronborg smiled. She noticed that Thea had put
on a white dress and had done her hair up with unusual
care, and that she carried her best blue scarf. "Maybe
you'll take a turn yourself, eh? I wouldn't mind watching
them Mexicans. They're lovely dancers."
Thea made a feeble suggestion that her mother might
go with her, but Mrs. Kronborg was too wise for that. She
knew that Thea would have a better time if she went alone,
and she watched her daughter go out of the gate and down
the sidewalk that led to the depot.
Thea walked slowly. It was a soft, rosy evening. The
sand hills were lavender. The sun had gone down a glow-
ing copper disk, and the fleecy clouds in the east were a
burning rose-color, flecked with gold. Thea passed the
cottonwood grove and then the depot, where she left the
sidewalk and took the sandy path toward Mexican Town.
She could hear the scraping of violins being tuned, the
tinkle of mandolins, and the growl of a double bass. Where
had they got a double bass? She did not know there was
one in Moonstone. She found later that it was the pro-
perty of one of Ramas's young cousins, who was taking it
to Utah with him to cheer him at his "job-a."
The Mexicans never wait until it is dark to begin to
dance, and Thea had no difficulty in finding the new hall,
because every other house in the town was deserted. Even
the babies had gone to the ball; a neighbor was always
willing to hold the baby while the mother danced. Mrs.
Tellamantez came out to meet Thea and led her in. Johnny
bowed to her from the platform at the end of the room,
where he was playing the mandolin along with two fiddles
and the bass. The hall was a long low room, with white-
washed walls, a fairly tight plank floor, wooden benches
along the sides, and a few bracket lamps screwed to the
frame timbers. There must have been fifty people there,
counting the children. The Mexican dances were very
much family affairs. The fathers always danced again
and again with their little daughters, as well as with their
wives. One of the girls came up to greet Thea, her dark
cheeks glowing with pleasure and cordiality, and intro-
duced her brother, with whom she had just been dancing.
"You better take him every time he asks you," she whis-
pered. "He's the best dancer here, except Johnny."
Thea soon decided that the poorest dancer was herself.
Even Mrs. Tellamantez, who always held her shoulders
so stiffly, danced better than she did. The musicians did
not remain long at their post. When one of them felt like
dancing, he called some other boy to take his instrument,
put on his coat, and went down on the floor. Johnny, who
wore a blousy white silk shirt, did not even put on his coat.
The dances the railroad men gave in Firemen's Hall
were the only dances Thea had ever been allowed to go to,
and they were very different from this. The boys played
rough jokes and thought it smart to be clumsy and to run
into each other on the floor. For the square dances there
was always the bawling voice of the caller, who was also
the county auctioneer.
This Mexican dance was soft and quiet. There was no
calling, the conversation was very low, the rhythm of the
music was smooth and engaging, the men were graceful
and courteous. Some of them Thea had never before seen
out of their working clothes, smeared with grease from the
round-house or clay from the brickyard. Sometimes, when
the music happened to be a popular Mexican waltz song,
the dancers sang it softly as they moved. There were three
little girls under twelve, in their first communion dresses,
and one of them had an orange marigold in her black hair,
just over her ear. They danced with the men and with
each other. There was an atmosphere of ease and friendly
pleasure in the low, dimly lit room, and Thea could not
help wondering whether the Mexicans had no jealousies
or neighborly grudges as the people in Moonstone had.
There was no constraint of any kind there to-night, but a
kind of natural harmony about their movements, their
greetings, their low conversation, their smiles.
Ramas brought up his two young cousins, Silvo and
Felipe, and presented them. They were handsome, smil-
ing youths, of eighteen and twenty, with pale-gold skins,
smooth cheeks, aquiline features, and wavy black hair,
like Johnny's. They were dressed alike, in black velvet
jackets and soft silk shirts, with opal shirt-buttons and
flowing black ties looped through gold rings. They had
charming manners, and low, guitar-like voices. They
knew almost no English, but a Mexican boy can pay a
great many compliments with a very limited vocabulary.
The Ramas boys thought Thea dazzlingly beautiful. They
had never seen a Scandinavian girl before, and her hair
and fair skin bewitched them. "BLANCO Y ORO, SEMEJANTE LA
PASCUA!" (White and gold, like Easter!) they exclaimed
to each other. Silvo, the younger, declared that he
could never go on to Utah; that he and his double
bass had reached their ultimate destination. The elder
was more crafty; he asked Miguel Ramas whether there
would be "plenty more girls like that A Salt Lake, may-
bee?"
Silvo, overhearing, gave his brother a contemptuous
glance. "Plenty more A PARAISO may-bee!" he retorted.
When they were not dancing with her, their eyes followed
her, over the coiffures of their other partners. That was
not difficult; one blonde head moving among so many dark
ones.
Thea had not meant to dance much, but the Ramas
boys danced so well and were so handsome and adoring
that she yielded to their entreaties. When she sat out a
dance with them, they talked to her about their family
at home, and told her how their mother had once punned
upon their name. RAMA, in Spanish, meant a branch, they
explained. Once when they were little lads their mother
took them along when she went to help the women deco-
rate the church for Easter. Some one asked her whether
she had brought any flowers, and she replied that she had
brought her "ramas." This was evidently a cherished
family story.
When it was nearly midnight, Johnny announced that
every one was going to his house to have "some lil' ice-
cream and some lil' MUSICA." He began to put out the
lights and Mrs. Tellamantez led the way across the square
to her CASA. The Ramas brothers escorted Thea, and as
they stepped out of the door, Silvo exclaimed, "HACE
FRIO!" and threw his velvet coat about her shoulders.
Most of the company followed Mrs. Tellamantez, and
they sat about on the gravel in her little yard while she
and Johnny and Mrs. Miguel Ramas served the ice-cream.
Thea sat on Felipe's coat, since Silvo's was already about
her shoulders. The youths lay down on the shining gravel
beside her, one on her right and one on her left. Johnny
already called them "LOS ACOLITOS," the altar-boys. The
talk all about them was low, and indolent. One of the
girls was playing on Johnny's guitar, another was picking
lightly at a mandolin. The moonlight was so bright that
one could see every glance and smile, and the flash of
their teeth. The moonflowers over Mrs. Tellamantez's
door were wide open and of an unearthly white. The
moon itself looked like a great pale flower in the sky.
After all the ice-cream was gone, Johnny approached
Thea, his guitar under his arm, and the elder Ramas boy
politely gave up his place. Johnny sat down, took a long
breath, struck a fierce chord, and then hushed it with his
other hand. "Now we have some lil' SERENATA, eh...
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