eachers from abroad have tried before now at Las Uvas to have
school begin on the first of September, but got nothing else to stir
in the heads of the little Castros, Garcias, and Romeros but feasts and
cock-fights until after the Sixteenth. Perhaps you need to be told that
this is the anniversary of the Republic, when liberty awoke and cried
in the provinces of Old Mexico. You are aroused at midnight to hear them
shouting in the streets, "Vive la Libertad!" answered from the houses
and the recesses of the vines, "Vive la Mexico!" At sunrise shots are
fired commemorating the tragedy of unhappy Maximilian, and then music,
the noblest of national hymns, as the great flag of Old Mexico floats up
the flag-pole in the bare little plaza of shabby Las Uvas. The sun
over Pine Mountain greets the eagle of Montezuma before it touches the
vineyards and the town, and the day begins with a great shout. By and
by there will be a reading of the Declaration of Independence and an
address punctured by vives; all the town in its best dress, and some
exhibits of horsemanship that make lathered bits and bloody spurs; also
a cock-fight.

By night there will be dancing, and such music! old Santos to play the
flute, a little lean man with a saintly countenance, young Garcia whose
guitar has a soul, and Carrasco with the violin. They sit on a high
platform above the dancers in the candle flare, backed by the red,
white, and green of Old Mexico, and play fervently such music as you
will not hear otherwhere.

At midnight the flag comes down. Count yourself at a loss if you are
not moved by that performance. Pine Mountain watches whitely overhead,
shepherd fires glow strongly on the glooming hills. The plaza, the bare
glistening pole, the dark folk, the bright dresses, are lit ruddily by
a bonfire. It leaps up to the eagle flag, dies down, the music begins
softly and aside. They play airs of old longing and exile; slowly out
of the dark the flag drops down, bellying and falling with the midnight
draught. Sometimes a hymn is sung, always there are tears. The flag
is down; Tony Sevadra has received it in his arms. The music strikes a
barbaric swelling tune, another flag begins a slow ascent,--it takes
a breath or two to realize that they are both, flag and tune, the Star
Spangled Banner,--a volley is fired, we are back, if you please, in
California of America. Every youth who has the blood of patriots in him
lays ahold on Tony Sevadra's flag, happ