Her Name Was Angela,
And She Was Called Anjelita, The Affectionate Diminutive, But I Doubt
That Much Affection Was Ever Bestowed On Her.
To my small-boy's eyes she was a beautiful being with a cloud on her,
and I wished it
Had been in my power to say something to make her
laugh and forget, though but for a minute, the many cares and
anxieties which made her so unnaturally grave for a little girl.
Nothing proper to say ever came to me, and if it had come it would no
doubt have remained unspoken. Boys are always inarticulate where their
deepest feelings are concerned; however much they may desire it they
cannot express kind and sympathetic feelings. In a halting way they
may sometimes say a word of that nature to another boy, or pal, but
before a girl, however much she may move their compassion, they remain
dumb. I remember, when my age was about nine, the case of a quarrel
about some trivial matter I once had with my closest friend, a boy of
my own age who, with his people, used to come yearly on a month's
visit to us from Buenos Ayres. For three whole days we spoke not a
word and took no notice of each other, whereas before we had been
inseparable. Then he all at once came up to me and holding out his
hand said, "Let's be friends." I seized the proffered hand, and was
more grateful to him than I have ever felt towards any one since, just
because by approaching me first I was spared the agony of having to
say those three words to him. Now that boy - that is to say, the
material part of him - is but a handful of grey ashes, long, long ago
at rest; but I can believe that if the other still living part should
by chance be in this room now, peeping over my shoulder to see what I
am writing, he would burst into as hearty a laugh as a ghost is
capable of at this ancient memory, and say to himself that it took him
all his courage to speak those three simple words.
And so it came about that I said no gentle word to white-faced
Anjelita, and in due time she vanished out of my life with all that
queer tribe of hers, the bloody uncle included, to leave an enduring
image in my mind which has never quite lost a certain disturbing
effect.
CHAPTER X
OUR NEAREST ENGLISH NEIGHBOUR
Casa Antigua, our nearest English neighbour's house - Old Lombardy
poplars - Cardoon thistle or wild artichoke - Mr. Royd, an English
sheep-farmer - Making sheep's-milk cheeses under difficulties - Mr.
Royd's native wife - The negro servants - The two daughters: a striking
contrast - The white blue-eyed child and her dusky playmate - A happy
family - Our visits to Casa Antigua - Gorgeous dinners - Estanislao and
his love of wild life - The Royds' return visits - A homemade carriage -
The gaucho's primitive conveyance - The happy home broken up.
One of the most important estancias in our neighbourhood, at all
events to us, was called Casa Antigua, and that it was an ancient
dwelling-place in that district appeared likely enough, since the
trees were the largest and had an appearance of extreme age. It must,
however, be remembered that in speaking of ancient things on the
pampas we mean things a century or two old, not many hundreds or
thousands of years as in Europe. Three centuries in that part of South
America takes us back to prehistoric times. These Lombardy poplars,
planted in long rows, were the largest I had seen: they were very
tall; many of them appeared to be dying of old age, and all had
enormous rough-barked buttressed trunks. The other shade-trees were
also old and gnarled, some of them dying. The house itself did not
look ancient, and was built of unburnt bricks and thatched, and had a
broad corridor supported by wooden posts or pillars.
The Casa Antigua was situated about six miles from our house, but
looked no more than three on account of the great height of the trees,
which made it appear large and conspicuous on that wide level plain.
The land for miles round it was covered with a dense growth of cardoon
thistles. Now the cardoon is the European artichoke run wild and its
character somewhat altered in a different soil and climate. The large
deep-cut leaves are of a palish grey-green colour, the stalks covered
with a whitish-grey down, and the leaves and stems thickly set with
long yellow spines. It grows in thick bushes, and the bushes grow
close together to the exclusion of grasses and most other plant-life,
and produces purple blossoms big as a small boy's head, on stems four
or five feet high. The stalks, which are about as thick as a man's
wrist, were used when dead and dry as firewood; and this indeed was
the only fuel obtainable at that time in the country, except "cow
chips," from the grazing lands and "peat" from the sheepfold. At the
end of summer, in February, the firewood-gatherers would set to work
gathering the cardoon-stalks, their hands and arms protected with
sheep-skin gloves, and at that season our carters would bring in huge
loads, to be stacked up in piles high as a house for the year's use.
The land where the cardoon grows so abundantly is not good for sheep,
and at Casa Antigua all the land was of this character. The tenant was
an Englishman, a Mr. George Royd, and it was thought by his neighbours
that he had made a serious mistake which would perhaps lead to
disastrous consequences, when investing his capital in the expensive
fine-wool breeds to put them on such land. All this I heard years
afterwards. At that time I only knew that he was our nearest English
neighbour, and more to us on that account than any other.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 43 of 96
Words from 43909 to 44918
of 98444
