V
Señor Fernandez was going by on his fine black horse, and when he heard the yells of the boys he rode up to the pasture to see what was going on. He was right beside the bars when the goat and Tonio came tearing through.
The goat jumped over the bars that the [p 78] boys had left down, but Tonio caught his foot and fell down, and the goat jerked the rope out of his hands and went careering off over the fields and was soon out of sight.
Tonio sat up all out of breath and looked at Señor Fernandez. Señor Fernandez looked at Tonio. Juan and Ignacio were nowhere to be seen. They were behind bushes in the goat-pasture, and they were both very badly scared.
“Well,” said Señor Fernandez at last, “what have you been doing?”
“Just playing bull-fight a little,” Tonio answered in a very small voice.
“Didn’t you know that was my goat?” said Señor Fernandez severely. “What business have you driving it mad like that? Get up.”
Tonio got up. He was stiff and sore all over. Moreover, his hands were all skinned inside, where the rope had pulled through.
“Were you alone?” asked Señor Fernandez.
“Not—very—” stammered Tonio.
[p 79]
“Where are the other boys?” demanded the Señor Fernandez.
“I d—don’t know,” gasped poor Tonio. “I—I don’t see them anywhere.” (Tonio was looking right up into the top of the cactus hedge when he said this, so I am quite sure he spoke the truth.)
“Humph,” grunted Señor Fernandez. “Go look for them.”
Tonio began to hunt around stones and bushes in the pasture with Señor Fernandez following right behind on his horse. It wasn’t long before he caught a glimpse of red. It was the pieces of the serape, which Ignacio had picked up. Tonio pointed it out, and Señor Fernandez galloped to it and brought out the two culprits. Then he marched the three boys back to the village in front of his horse, Tonio with his blistered hands and torn clothes, Juan with bumps that were already much swollen, and Ignacio wet as a drowned rat and carrying the rags of the serape.
[p 81]
When they got back to the river they
found Doña Teresa there washing out some clothes. When she saw them coming she stopped rubbing and looked at them. She was perfectly astonished. She supposed, of course, that Tonio was in school.
“Here, Doña Teresa, is a very bad boy,” Señor Fernandez said to her. “He has been chasing my goat all around the pasture and lassoing it, and he left the bars down and they are broken besides, and no one knows where the goat is by this time. I’ll leave him to you, but I want you to make a thorough job of It.”
He didn’t say just what she should make a thorough job of, but Tonio hadn’t the smallest doubt about what he meant. Doña Teresa seemed to understand too.
Señor Fernandez rode on and left Tonio with his mother while he took the other two boys to their homes. What happened there I do not know, but when she and Tonio were alone I do know that Doña Teresa said sternly, “Go bring me a strong switch from the willow tree,” and that Tonio thought, as [p 82] he went for it, that there were more willow trees in the world than were really needed.
And I know that when Doña Teresa had done “IT”—whatever it was that Señor Fernandez had asked her to do thoroughly—Tonio ffelt that it would be a very long time before he took any interest in either lizards or goats again.
That evening Pancho went out with Pinto and hunted up the goat and put him back in the pasture and brought home Tonio’s lasso, and when he hung it up on the nail he said to Tonio, “I think you’re too young to be trusted with a lasso. Let that alone for two weeks.”
That was the very worst of all. To be told that he was too young! Tonio went out and sat down under the fig tree and thought perhaps he’d better run away.
But pretty soon Tita came out and sat down beside him and told him she was sure he never meant any harm about the lizard, and his mother washed his skinned hands and put oil on then, and brought him some [p 83] molasses to eat on his tortillas just as if she still loved him in spite of everything.
So Tonio went to bed quite comforted, and that was the end of the day.
[11] Mah-ĕs´trō.
[12] Hwahn.
[13] Ig-nah´sĭ-ō.
[14] Mes´keet.
[p 84a]
V
JUDAS ISCARIOT DAY
