Patrocina took to her bed
with neuralgia (or nostalgia); her little devil of a child
screamed the entire days and nights through, to the utter
discomfiture of the few other passengers. A young lieutenant and
his wife and an army surgeon, who had come from one of the posts
in the interior, were among the number, and they seemed to think
that I could help it (though they did not say so).
*Diminutive of Jesus, a very common name amongst the Mexicans.
Pronounced Hay-soo-se-ta.
Finally the doctor said that if I did not throw Jesusita
overboard, he would; why didn't I "wring the neck of its
worthless Mexican of a mother?" and so on, until I really grew
very nervous and unhappy, thinking what I should do after we got
on board the ocean steamer. I, a victim of seasickness, with this
unlucky woman and her child on my hands, in addition to my own!
No; I made up my mind to go back to Ehrenberg, but I said
nothing.
I did not dare to let Doctor Clark know of my decision, for I
knew he would try to dissuade me; but when we reached the mouth
of the river, and they began to transfer the passengers to the
ocean steamer which lay in the offing, I quietly sat down upon my
trunk and told them I was going back to Ehrenberg. Captain Mellon
grinned; the others were speechless; they tried persuasion, but
saw it was useless; and then they said good-bye to me, and our
stern-wheeler headed about and started for up river.
Ehrenberg had become truly my old man of the sea; I could not get
rid of it. There I must go, and there I must stay, until
circumstances and the Fates were more propitious for my
departure.
CHAPTER XIX
SUMMER AT EHRENBERG
The week we spent going up the Colorado in June was not as
uncomfortable as the time spent on the river in August of the
previous year. Everything is relative, I discovered, and I was
happy in going back to stay with the First Lieutenant of C
Company, and share his fortunes awhile longer.
Patrocina recovered, as soon as she found we were to return to
Ehrenberg. I wondered how anybody could be so homesick for such a
God-forsaken place. I asked her if she had ever seen a tree, or
green grass (for I could talk with her quite easily now). She
shook her mournful head. "But don't you want to see trees and
grass and flowers?"
Another sad shake of the head was the only reply.
Such people, such natures, and such lives, were incomprehensible
to me then. I could not look at things except from my own
standpoint.
She took her child upon her knee, and lighted a cigarette; I took
mine upon my knee, and gazed at the river banks:
