ot like it--there came a
period of serenity.

_III--The Triumph_

There came to the Maestro days of peace and joy. Isidro was coming to
school; Isidro was learning English. Isidro was steady, Isidro was
docile, Isidro was positively so angelic that there was something
uncanny about the situation. And with Isidro, other little savages were
being pruned into the school-going stage of civilization. Helped by the
police, they were pouring in from barrio and hacienda; the attendance
was going up by leaps and bounds, till at last a circulative report
showed that Balangilang had passed the odious Cabancalan with its less
strenuous school-man, and left it in the ruck by a full hundred. The
Maestro was triumphant; his chest had gained two inches in expansion.
When he met Isidro at recess, playing cibay, he murmured softly: "You
little devil; you were Attendance personified, and I've got you now." At
which Isidro, pausing in the act of throwing a shell with the top of his
head at another shell on the ground, looked up beneath long lashes in a
smile absolutely seraphic.

In the evening, the Maestro, his heart sweet with content, stood at the
window. These were moonlight nights; in the grassy lanes the young girls
played graceful Spanish games, winding like garlands to a gentle song;
from the shadows of the huts came the tinkle-tinkle of serenading
guitars and yearning notes of violins wailing despairing love. And
Isidro, seated on the bamboo ladder of his house, went through an
independent performance. He sang "Good-night, Ladies," the last song
given to the school, sang it in soft falsetto, with languorous drawls,
and never-ending organ points, over and over again, till it changed
character gradually, dropping into a wailing minor, an endless croon
full of obscure melancholy of a race that dies.

"Goo-oo-oo nigh-igh-igh loidies-ies-ies; goo-oo-oo nigh-igh-igh
loidies-ies-ies; goo-oo-oo-oo nigh-igh-igh loidies-ies-ies-ies," he
repeated and repeated, over and over again, till the Maestro's soul
tumbled down and down abysses of maudlin tenderness, and Isidro's chin
fell upon his chest in a last drawling, sleepy note. At which he shook
himself together and began the next exercise, a recitation, all of one
piece from first to last syllable, in one high, monotonous note, like a
mechanical doll saying "papa-mama."

"Oh-look-et-de-moon-she-ees-shinin-up-theyre-oh-mudder-she
look-like-a-lom-in-de-ayre-lost-night-she-was-smalleyre-