FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143  
144   >>  
he thoroughbred creature who was one day to reward his labors and make him the happiest of mortals never entered the imagination of the good padres. He was twenty and the ranch was his when he met Delfina Carillo. Don Roberto Ortega had opportunely died before gambling away more than half of his estate, and his widow, who was delicate, left the ranch near Monterey, where they had lived for many years, and came to bake brown in the hot suns of the South. Her son, Don Enrique, came with her, and John saw him night and morning riding about the country at top speed, and sometimes clattering up to the corridor of the Mission and calling for a glass of wine. He was a magnificent caballero, slim and dark, with large melting eyes and long hair on a little head. He wore small-clothes of gayly colored silk, with much lace on his shirt and silver on his sombrero. His long yellow botas were laced with silver, and his saddle was so loaded with the same metal that only a Californian horse could have carried it. John turned up his nose at this gorgeous apparition, and likened him to a "play actor" and a circus rider; nevertheless, he was very curious to see something of the life of the Californian grandee, of which he had heard much and seen nothing, and when Padre Ortega, who was a cousin of the widow, told him that a large company was expected within a fortnight, and that he had asked permission to take his young friend to the ball with which the festivities would open, John began to indulge in the pleasurable anticipations of youth. But he did not occupy the interval with dreams alone. He went to San Francisco and bought himself a wardrobe suitable for polite society. It was an American outfit, not Californian, but had John possessed the wealth of the northern valleys he could not have been induced to put himself into silk and lace. The stage did not go to Santa Ursula, but a servant met him at a station twenty miles from home with a horse, and a cart for his trunk. He washed off the dust of three days' travel in a neighboring creek, then jumped on his big gray mare, and started at a mild gallop for his ranch. He felt like singing his contentment with the world, for the morning was radiant, he was on one of the finest horses of the country, and he was as light of heart as a boy should be who has received a hint from fortune that he is one of the favorites. He looked forward to the social ordeal without apprehension, for by thi
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143  
144   >>  



Top keywords:
Californian
 

morning

 

silver

 

country

 

Ortega

 
twenty
 
Francisco
 

bought

 
interval
 

looked


occupy

 

dreams

 
suitable
 

society

 
received
 

American

 
fortune
 
wardrobe
 

forward

 

polite


favorites

 

ordeal

 

permission

 

friend

 

fortnight

 

cousin

 

company

 

expected

 

festivities

 

apprehension


outfit

 
anticipations
 

indulge

 

pleasurable

 

social

 
wealth
 

neighboring

 
jumped
 

horses

 
travel

singing
 

radiant

 
contentment
 
gallop
 

finest

 

started

 
washed
 

induced

 
northern
 

valleys