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, happiest if he can get a corner of
it. The music goes before, the folk fall in two and two, singing. They
sing everything, America, the Marseillaise, for the sake of the French
shepherds hereabout, the hymn of Cuba, and the Chilian national air to
comfort two families of that land. The flag goes to Do+-a Ina's, with the
candlesticks and the altar cloths, then Las Uvas eats tamales and dances
the sun up the slope of Pine Mountain.

You are not to suppose that they do not keep the Fourth, Washington's
Birthday, and Thanksgiving at the town of the grape vines. These make
excellent occasions for quitting work and dancing, but the Sixteenth is
the holiday of the heart. On Memorial Day the graves have garlands and
new pictures of the saints tacked to the headboards. There is great
virtue in an _Ave_ said in the Camp of the Saints. I like that name
which the Spanish speaking people give to the garden of the dead, _Campo
Santo_, as if it might be some bed of healing from which blind souls and
sinners rise up whole and praising God. Sometimes the speech of simple
folk hints at truth the understanding does not reach. I am persuaded
only a complex soul can get any good of a plain religion. Your
earth-born is a poet and a symbolist. We breed in an environment of
asphalt pavements a body of people whose creeds are chiefly restrictions
against other people's way of life, and have kitchens and latrines under
the same roof that houses their God. Such as these go to church to be
edified, but at Las Uvas they go for pure worship and to entreat their
God. The logical conclusion of the faith that every good gift cometh
from God is the open hand and the finer courtesy. The meal done without
buys a candle for the neighbor's dead child. You do foolishly to suppose
that the candle does no good.

At Las Uvas eve